Fisher gave a nod. ‘That is so.’
Teal’s answering nod was curt. ‘Then in the name of King Luthal Canar of Goldland, I-’
Stalker burst out laughing: ‘King who of what?’
The marshal looked to the sky and tapped his fingers against his saddle. ‘King Luthal Canar — the new king of these lands. Which he has decided to name Goldland.’ He tilted his long thin hound’s head. ‘You don’t like it? We think it should attract settlers.’
Stalker thoughtfully rubbed a finger over his lean jaw as he regarded the mounted marshal. At last he opined, ‘I’d name it Pompous Ass Land, myself.’
The mocking smile fell from the marshal’s lips as his face paled. He gathered his reins. ‘Very well. None of you will see the dusk.’ He wheeled his mount about, bellowed, ‘Archers!’
Kyle ducked as a fusillade of arrows came whistling straight over the earthwork mound to slam into the Greathall log walls. Crouching, Stalker laughed. ‘That got his shirt in a twist!’ Kyle glimpsed Fisher dodging his way back to his place in the ring of defenders.
‘Keep your head down!’ one of the Avowed shouted.
‘Let them fire,’ another called. ‘We can use the arrows.’
Kyle kept one eye on the front ranks of swordsmen, searching for any motion that might reveal a charge. More arrows slashed the air above him. The banners of mist and vapours thinned as the sun rose, but the sky remained heavily overcast by a blanket of clouds that hung so steady and unmoving as to seem fixed about the mountains. Kyle shifted to lie with one shoulder in the cold damp earth. Even through the leather under-layers, the chain of his sleeve chilled his arm.
The Avowed on his right, he noted, in a long mail coat, gripping two longswords, was a wiry young-looking woman with short dark hair under an iron dome helmet. He shouted, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Leena,’ she answered. She did not ask his name; everyone here, he knew, called him the name that made him wince each time he heard it.
A loud deep horn sounded and an answering roar arose from the gathered ranks.
‘Here they come!’ Leena yelled.
Kyle straightened and readied the spear he’d collected for just this moment.
The ground seemed to drum as the solid mass of men came roaring and yelling. Most carried swords and medium-sized shields. Kyle scanned the ranks until he found the one who’d marked him; he bore a scruffy beard, his eyes wild with rage and terror as he drove himself to the task of risking his life.
Aye, my friend, Kyle answered to himself, like us all.
He met him with the spear in his gut as the fellow slashed his way through the maze of pits and sharpened sticks. The man collapsed round the weapon and Kyle cursed: it was caught fast. The fellow’s neighbour hacked the haft, snapping it. Kyle thrust it at him as he lunged but the broken end wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the man’s leather hauberk and merely winded him. Kyle drew the white blade as the man straightened and was pushed forward by those closing behind.
To his right, the Avowed mercenary, Leena, was clearing the mound in businesslike sweeps and thrusts, skilfully entrapping weapons between her crossed blades, counter-striking, and easily deflecting wild swings.
The Letherii soldier before Kyle now held the high ground and he closed, chopping downward from his advantage. Kyle stepped inside the blow to take off the man’s hand just above the wrist. The fellow gaped, astonished. Then, enraged, he shield-bashed Kyle, pushing him back even further.
‘Hold the wall, damn you!’ Leena snarled, sounding more anxious than angry.
The invaders did not press their advantage, however; these Letherii soldiers flinched and winced as forces behind them thrust and shouldered them aside. Kyle was amazed to find himself staring at the band of blue-cloaked Stormguard from the Lady’s Luck.
Their captain pointed and yelled, triumphant. ‘Found you again, Whiteblade! Some day one of us will take you!’
Kyle suddenly realized they’d wanted him dead all along. From the very moment they saw him. He now understood his mistake in his use of the weapon in his hand. Ruthlessness. Pure, bloody-minded callousness. He’d been too timid. To the Abyss with the limbs! Cripple and finish them!
He took the man’s spearhead off then swung low and severed his leg beneath the knee. He returned the swing to slice through four thrusting hafts, and the second rank fared no better as Kyle now understood that to properly exploit this vicious weapon he had to set aside normal swordplay.
He waded in, shield on his left, hacking through the spears, then forelimbs, taking any portion of anatomy within reach. Thighs, knees, it mattered not; the shock of the deep cuts slowed any opponent for the finishing return blow. He regained the earthworks, now a bloodied steaming heap of half-dismembered corpses.
Still the rear ranks pressed forward. Sick of shearing through thrusting spear hafts, he waded onward down the steep side into the flinching ranks. Shorn lengths of hafts flew until he was met with arms, then shoulders, and the thighs of braced legs.
The screams of the wounded now drowned out the clamour from any surrounding engagements. A hand yanked him backwards by his hauberk and he jumped to one side, swinging. Badlands’ raised forearm blocked his own just inside his grip on the white blade. The Lost’s eyes held his, close enough for the men’s steaming breath to meld into one. ‘That’s enough, lad,’ he warned, urging him back. ‘Leave some for the rest of us.’
Kyle spun to the ranks; only Letherii troopers remained, and these held off behind shields, swords raised. Their eyes, white all around, were filled with something Kyle had never before seen in any opponent: open dread. Badlands slowly walked him backwards.
‘Archers!’ came a familiar bellow.
‘Run for it!’ Badlands shouted and pelted up the mound.
Kyle had time for three panicked steps in the yielding mounded dirt and a leap before arrows whisked the air over his back and punched the heavy logs of the Greathall.
He lay panting in the muddy ground, his front wet with gore and pooled rainwater.
‘Up for another rush!’ Leena warned.
Groaning, he staggered to his feet and hefted his shield, which, from the weight of it, seemed to have been transformed into lead. Badlands padded off to continue his watch on the defence. All about the ring of mounded dirt the new ranks of attackers came storming up, shouting and slamming swords into shields. He waited, tensed, the white blade readied, but none appeared at his section of the perimeter. No cursing wild-eyed soldier came charging up the slope.
The Avowed on his left was a broad giant of a fellow who crashed his wide infantryman’s shield down on top of the smaller, lighter shields, bearing them low for thrusts over the metal rims or down on to heads and shoulders.
Leena, on his right, had her hands full taking on a mass of pressing infantry; he half lunged, meaning to lend her his aid, only to catch himself, realizing that he dared not leave this section open and undefended. In any case, he couldn’t have gotten close enough — he knew well enough not to crowd a swordsman who fought the two-swords style: she swung both full round for smashing, sweeping blows, never quite halting their blades’ figure-eight weaving over and under in an mesmerizing dance. Attackers who could have pressed round her flinched away when their paths took them too close to Kyle.
When the wave eased the Letherii infantrymen backed away, dragging their wounded with them. The Avowed swordswoman came to him. She was heaving in great panting breaths, almost dragging her weapons behind her. She thrust one blade into the soft earth to dab at a cut across her mouth, then leaned over to spit out a red bloody stream.
‘Looks like we’ll have to move you to a new spot,’ she croaked, her voice sand-hoarse.