The title ancestor startled Kyle. He remembered the words of the Silent People’s champions and their shamans: ‘Go to the great mountains to stand before our ancestors …’ He’d thought it referred to these people, these so-called Icebloods. But perhaps it had a more literal meaning: a real ancestor to stand before — the one and only true ancestor.
Jethiss, he noted, appeared troubled now, even disappointed. He frowned as if puzzled. ‘And that is all?’ he asked, his gaze searching.
‘Regarding the heights?’ Badlands answered. He shook his head. ‘No … there’s one more legend about the peaks.’ He looked to Fisher. ‘Ain’t you going to tell it?’
But the bard would not raise his eyes. ‘It’s just a child’s night-story,’ he murmured reluctantly. ‘Silly nonsense.’
Badlands snorted. ‘Well, you’ve sung of it often enough in the past.’ He turned to Jethiss, sipped his beer. ‘The legend claims there’s a reason the old name for this whole region is Assail.’ He raised a hand and pointed to the sky. ‘That they’re there sleeping hidden in caves at the peaks. The Forkrul Assail.’
Stalker grunted his agreement. ‘And it’s said they’ll grant the wish of anyone foolish enough to treat with them.’
‘This is all just fireside entertainment,’ Fisher interrupted. ‘Pure fiction.’
The Losts appeared bemused by the bard’s vehemence. ‘You’ve sung of it yourself,’ Badlands observed.
Jethiss leaned forward. ‘Why do you say foolish — foolish to treat with these Forkrul?’
Stalker answered, ‘Why, everyone knows about their ways. “Forkrulan justice” is a saying for any harsh, but just, judgement.’
‘I am unaware,’ Jethiss said, ‘as I have lost many of my memories.’
Badland’s tangled brows rose in understanding. ‘Ah! Well … there’s one old story from another land far to the south and west. Its name’s forgotten, but the story goes of two champion swordsmen from that land who had met and fought numerous times, to the satisfaction of neither. Finally, to settle the matter of who was the greater swordsman, they decided to request that the Forkrul adjudicate.’
The Losts shared savage grins. ‘And they did,’ they announced together. ‘They killed both of them!’ And the cousins roared with laughter and raised their tankards.
Kyle watched the bard shoot his companion, Jethiss, a sideways glance. The Andii appeared to be holding his features carefully neutral.
‘Then neither of them must have been any good,’ a new voice said from the dark and Kyle half jumped from his seat; but the Losts were not startled and waved the newcomer forward.
It was an old man — no, a middle-aged man who had endured a very hard life, Kyle thought. He was startlingly dark, of Quon Tali Dal Hon descent. His close-cut kinked hair was shot with grey. His features were drawn and thin, a rough landscape of wrinkles and scars; a man who had endured a harrowing time. He wore a suit of light leather armour that from its much-worn appearance probably served as under-padding for a heavier banded or mail coat.
Stalker made introductions: ‘Kyle, this is Cal-Brinn, Captain of the Crimson Guard Fourth Company. Cal-Brinn, Kyle, once one of the Guard with me ’n’ Badlands.’
Kyle stood and extended his arm. The captain took his forearm in a firm grip. His smile was small and tight, but appeared genuinely warm. ‘Welcome. So, you were in the Guard with the Losts here?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you helped rescue K’azz?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I am in your debt.’
‘Not at all! I just wanted to do the right thing.’
‘I believe that you did.’
‘What news, Cal?’ Stalker asked, easing back on to his bench.
‘I have a Blade watching the Bain border. They report activity. It looks like they are scouting routes east.’
Stalker nodded grimly. ‘Then they’re coming.’
‘You routed them once,’ Badlands observed.
Kyle spoke up: ‘I don’t think you will this time.’
All eyes turned to him. ‘Oh?’ Cal-Brinn enquired.
He eased back on the bench. ‘I was in Mantle not five days ago. They’re besieging it, and they’re no longer a ragtag mob of fortune-hunters, marauders and thieves. The core of an army has arrived and they’re knocking them into shape.’
‘Soldiery?’ Stalker asked. ‘From where?’
‘Lether, I believe.’
Cal-Brinn grunted. ‘Never faced them. What numbers?’
‘Of regulars? A few hundred, I’d estimate.’
Stalker frowned down into his beer. ‘So they have a spine now. That’s bad for us.’
Fisher faced Stalker directly. ‘Now you must see the foolishness of remaining here in the Greathall. They’ll just surround you, cut you off, and burn you down.’
Stalker’s long face hardened. ‘Been away too long already.’ His tone brooked no objection.
Fisher sent a despairing glance Cal-Brinn’s way.
The battered Dal Hon mercenary pursed his lips. ‘There’s always the chance of a small desperate group breaking free of any encirclement.’
Badlands had been drinking from his tankard and he slammed it down and wiped his mouth. ‘That’s us I’d say. Small and desperate.’
*
The hall possessed no outer defences and so they started digging a ditch and piling up the earth in a ring all along the inner slope. It wasn’t particularly deep, but it was something to stand behind. They set sharpened sticks, pointing outwards, along its top.
Stalker also set them to filling every vessel and container the hall possessed and scattering these about the inner walls. Of what animals the Losts had collected — a few cattle, sheep, and chickens — they drove off the cattle and slaughtered the rest. No one said it aloud, but the possibility of a lengthy siege wasn’t even considered.
At the end of the second day, Cal-Brinn’s pickets sent word that a large force had crossed the border, marching in column and heading straight for the Lost Greathall. They would arrive on the morrow.
That night they gorged themselves on a full sheep carcass Stalker had roasted over the hearth. The weather had remained cold and rainy through the days and Kyle sat close the fire, attempting to dry himself. He imagined he must have looked as dispirited as a wet dog, for Badlands cuffed his shoulder and said, laughingly, ‘Don’t worry yourself! You’ll probably kill so many of them they’ll run away!’ Then he called loudly: ‘Hey! Songster! Let’s have us a tune!’
Fisher, off in the darkness, stirred at that, nodding. ‘An appropriate request.’ He lifted up his box-like instrument and strummed, adjusting it and humming to himself. And then he sang as he slowly drew his fingertips across the strings.
A long silence followed the last muted tones from the instrument as they faded into the emptiness of the hall. The song was far too grim for Kyle — though certainly appropriate. He noted, blinking as he came out of its spell, that Fisher’s gaze, glittering in the flames, had held the face of Jethiss throughout, while the Andii had kept his night-black features as immobile as stone.