It was there upon him once more, that feeling he had known only once before. When he had fought against the Roman cavalry, against Lucius. Not that familiar fear that all know before battle, that comes as strong and passes as swift as a thunderstorm on the plain, but the hollow madness that struck him to stillness and cowardice. He took up the reins with an unfeeling hand, his horse stirring beneath him as it felt his urge to run.
And it was then that the other warband came to the ford.
He heard them before he saw them – the crunch of a branch underneath heavy hooves, the clatter and rattle of arms. Men and horses trying to move softly, but there were many of them, and in the still of the night they could not hide themselves. In the darkness, as the undergrowth shifted and tore forward, it almost seemed that the forest was advancing towards them.
Kai’s eyes played the trickster as he tried to count them – one rider suddenly parted and split into two, or a trio of horse were revealed as the shadow of one. He heard the soft inhale beside him and looked to his companions, their eyes shining in the darkness as they silently asked for a command that he knew he could not give.
The soft splash of water, for they were fording the river – an advance guard that might have been a dozen riders on horseback. Shadows in the darkness, no way to see what arms they carried or what banners they rode under, and still Kai could not speak, could not move.
The moonlight broke through, and shone upon the rider in the lead. And from his side, Kai heard one horse try to call to another. It was Saratos’s horse, giving a snorted greeting that echoed out above the chatter of the stream, and one of the horses across the water called back.
A stillness, then, just for a moment. As though the whole world held its breath. And Kai called to his riders, and he called for them to charge.
No time to run, for they would be scattered and lost, hunted and cut down. The only hope the darkness that might turn his six men into sixty, or a hundred, for the half-moon was at their back, the shadows dancing and lengthening about them.
He put his nose to the horse’s mane, the branches cutting at his face like sword blades. He had to trust to his horse to find its way through, and at every fall of its feet he expected to feel the world lurch and turn about him, to taste earth and blood in his mouth and be buried beneath his mount. For already, close by, there was the high-pitched scream of a downed horse.
He could feel the earth through the pace of the horse, and it changed beneath them, soft and heavy as they charged onto the bank. And there was a shape before him, the shadow of man on horseback looming large and lifting a spear. But that other man had misjudged in the darkness, and Kai’s lance was in him with the sharp snap of blade and bone. The shadow screamed and twisted away, and Kai lurched in the saddle, his horse scrabbling and kicking the soft earth at the edge of the bank. He could feel the cool air rising from the river, see the moonlight silvering the spray from man and horse fighting through the water. And about him, he could hear men gathering to kill him.
He fought like a blind man, more through sound and feel than sight. The rank stink of a frightened horse close by, and he turned in the saddle and swung his broken spear like a sword, backhand across the nose of the horse, and it reared and dumped its rider in the water. He felt a pair of hands close about his wrist, trying to prise the weapon from his grip. But the fingers were gone a moment later, and all about him he could hear the war cries of his own riders. Erakas the closest, the rest nearby, and he could hear them all calling his name.
The water was alive with horses; the other side of the river swarmed with shadows of others pressing forward, but Kai’s riders held the bank – he had five beats of the heart, perhaps, before those panicking men realised how few faced them.
‘With me! With me!’ he called, pulling his sword and rapping it against his armour, as they formed a ragged line at the edge of the water, formed as though for another charge, and he could see. The whistle of arrows then, but shot blind and fast, rattling from the trees, none falling amongst his riders.
‘Back now!’
Back through the labyrinth of the trees, his head wrenched as a branch struck him, his weight tipping back and hands grasping at the air. But his horse felt it, slowed for a moment, and Kai found his balance again.
On the ground, he could see a rider who had fallen – Goar, pushing the writhing horse off himself, reaching up a hand like a drowning man. And behind, he could hear the sound of cavalry crossing the river, so many that it was as though the river had come alive behind them.
And so Kai put his heels to his horse, the cry of the fallen rider sounding in his ears as he moved through the trees, his horse gasping and sweating beneath him, cutting to the north and the west, the blood pounding in his ears, until at last the horse could go no further and he knew that it must rest or die.
Kai swung down from the saddle to ease the weight, cradled the horse’s head against his own and whispered the words of gratitude that every rider owes his mount. He breathed and breathed until his lungs were cool and the roar in his ears fell silent.
He listened to the sounds, and heard nothing at all. He looked about the woods, and no shadows moved. He was alone.
21
At the edge of the woods, a single rider waited beside her horse. The horse was still and calm, for when he found himself out of battle unbloodied, the fury and fear passed as quickly as water flowing from a shattered cup. The rider moved her hands restlessly over the horse, circling the neck and the mane, and every so often she looked towards the weapon that lay on the ground beside her. For the tip of the spear shone when the light of the moon fell upon it, bright and undimmed by blood.
They were deep into the night now, the memory of the battle fading already, quick and sharp as a nightmare receding. Still the quickened heart, the stink of fear sweat upon the skin. Once more that maddening fear of waiting – not the fear of lying in an ambush, but of waiting for friends who would not come.
Once she made as if to rise back into the saddle, to set her path to the west to find the warband, or perhaps to go back into the woods in search of the others, for even that seemed better than to stay alone in that place any longer. But her trembling hands went still on the saddle, and she returned to her waiting.
In time, there was sound from the forest. The soft parting of leaves, the turn of mulch beneath a hoof. A shadow breaking from the tree line.
She was in the saddle in a moment – the spear forgotten on the ground in her haste, but too late now to pick it up. Her horse called its greeting, but that held no meaning now, not after what had happened at the ford. She waited until she heard a voice call out.
‘Though our lives be short…’
Tamura shivered with relief, and finished the old proverb: ‘…let our fame be great.’
‘A good thing we both remember our stories,’ Kai said, as he rode next to her. ‘I am glad you made it away safe. The others?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘No sign of them yet.’
He dismounted, pulled a glove from his hand and ran it across the body of his horse, feeling for the hot blood of a wound. For the horses often bore their wounds more bravely than men, giving no sign of complaint and going to death silently. He found grazes here and there, places where the hair had been rubbed down to stubble by the scraping of armour against the skin, but no more than that.
‘I did not charge with you,’ Tamura said.
Kai lifted his head and looked towards her, but found her staring at the ground, wide-eyed, and she would not meet his gaze.
‘I am sorry,’ she continued. ‘I wanted to. But was afraid.’