“And how do you suggest we cross the plain without being seen?” Gendred asked appraising the area around them.
At their backs, smoke rose skyward from cook fires and smithies of the village outside the fortress gates. The plain stretched on to farms on one side and to the seawall many leagues ahead-all of it would be patrolled.
“There’s a drainage ditch ahead. It will provide us cover,” Rudric said. “The sun will have dried it by this time of year.”
The Shaman nodded. “It is less than a league from here. We will stay close to the base of the wall until we reach the ditch. We cannot be seen or the alarm will be raised”
Gendred grunted and immediately started for the wall without waiting for the others. The Shaman fell in with him, robe fluttering and waving as he moved. Rudric prompted Khirro forward and they followed, though the pace Gendred set once again proved quicker than he could comfortably maintain. Even though Rudric could likely match the Shadowman’s speed, he stayed with Khirro, whose respect and like for the man increased. As they walked, the question which had occurred to him a few minutes earlier returned to Khirro: if the king’s body is gone, but we restore his spirit, what body will he have? He decided to keep it to himself for the moment.
They reached the foot of the wall and Khirro paused to take in its immensity. From its base, the wall seemed to go up forever, not stopping until it reached the Gods. It was obviously huge from inside, but buildings and stairways and towers divided its surface into smaller, less meaningful portions. Only from here could its size truly be appreciated.
“Keep moving.” Rudric’s words jarred him from his thoughts. “We’ve no time to lose.”
Khirro peered up the wall again and sighed. Soon it would be far behind and he’d likely never see it again. He hated the place, wanted only to be home every second he’d been behind the wall, but now wished he could stay.
He followed Rudric. Gendred and the Shaman had gotten farther ahead, sometimes appearing at the top of a hillock, then disappearing down the other side, swallowed by the barrows.
“How far is it, General?” Khirro asked after a while.
“Not far. Beyond the next barrow. And, given our circumstances, I think it best you call me Rudric.”
Khirro nodded, stifling a smile that one of the highest ranking men in the king’s army wanted him to call him by his first name. How different Rudric was from the Shadowman who accompanied them.
“How come Gendred dislikes me so much, Rudric?” Khirro asked trying out the name. It felt odd in his mouth, but its use made him happy, proud.
Rudric chuckled. “Gendred dislikes everyone. Don’t take it to heart, he’s harmless.” Khirro doubted that. “It took years before he and I-”
Something cut Rudric’s words short and stopped him mid-step. Khirro halted, too, and looked into the general’s intense face.
“What is it?”
Rudric put his finger to his lips, silencing Khirro, who heard nothing for long seconds except the sound of his own blood pulsing in his ears as he held his breath. Then, ahead of them from the other side of the last large barrow, came a yell. The sound of metal contacting metal followed quickly, then silence again, the sound cut off like a hand clamped over a mouth.
Rudric drew his sword and leaped forward. Left behind, Khirro drew the short sword Rudric had found him, the feel of it clumsy and uncomfortable in his hand. No sword ever sat comfortably in his grip, but this one was too light, its hilt smaller than what he used in practice. Khirro loped up the barrow feeling weighed down by his leather and light mail. Rudric quickly outdistanced him despite his much heavier plate, disappearing over the crest of a hill. Khirro reached the top seconds later and stopped to gaze incredulously at the sight at the foot of the hillock. The blood drained from his limbs.
At the bottom of the slope, on the edge of the drainage ditch, eight Kanosee soldiers engaged Gendred while two others lay dead at his feet. A few yards away, the Shaman struggled with a huge fighter garbed in black mail splashed with red paint. A shimmering cloud distorted the figures and enveloped the area around them. Sparks flew as Gendred parried blows and struck his own, but Khirro heard nothing of the battle. Meadow birds sang, grasshoppers chirruped, his leather armor creaked as he drew breath, but no sounds emanated from the fight. Rudric skidded to a halt short of the haze.
“Bale has cast a spell of silence,” he called over his shoulder. “There will be no aid from the fortress. Hurry.”
He sprang through the undulating gleam of the Shaman’s spell without slowing, and slammed into the undead soldier gripping the Shaman’s wrists. The three of them tumbled to the ground, but Rudric darted up in an instant and brought his heavy sword down across the creature’s neck. Its head rolled across a narrow band of grass and over the edge into the ditch beyond.
Khirro scudded down the hill. Behind the diaphanous curtain, he saw Rudric say something to the Shaman, then rush to Gendred’s aid. When Khirro reached the edge of the spell, he hesitated. Only five Kanosee soldiers remained.
They have things under control.
Haltingly, Khirro put his hand through the shimmering air, steeling himself for pain, but there was not so much as a tickle. He let out his breath and shivered. The Shaman’s hands danced and moved, readying a spell and he remembered how his pursuer had fallen dead in the courtyard.
I’ll wait for him to cast his spell. I’d only be in the way. Whatever spell he casts will end the fight.
A Kanosee soldier stumbled out of the fray and nearly tripped over one of his fallen comrades. He stopped, wiped blood from his face, then bent and plucked a bow from the dead soldier’s hand, an arrow from the quiver on his back, and faced the Shaman. Khirro called a warning but his words bounced back from the hazy invocation and died in the summer air as the enemy soldier sited the Shaman. The weapon in Khirro’s hand felt suddenly foreign, the weight of the short sword great. He looked toward the others.
What if the Kanosee prevail? The thought made him both fearful and morbidly hopeful. If they all die, there’s no reason for me to go to the haunted land.
He shook his head, dispelling the thought, and reached a hand through the glistening shell, staring at it as it penetrated. If nothing else, he owed the king his life.
Too late.
A flash of movement caught his eye. He looked up and saw the Shaman’s incantation die on his lips, his hands cease moving as he slumped forward, falling awkwardly around the arrow piercing his chest. Khirro gaped at the Shaman lying in a heap on the grass.
The Kanosee soldier nocked another arrow. Gendred saw him and shouted-Khirro saw his mouth move-but in the instant of distraction another Kanosee soldier’s sword glanced off Gendred’s parry, the edge finding a sliver of flesh between epaulet and helm. Blood squirted, but Gendred fought on, impaling the man. He wrenched his sword free of the enemy’s belly and lurched toward the bowman.
Three wobbling strides passed beneath his feet before one of the two Kanosee remaining in close combat cut him down. Gendred stumbled, sword falling from his hand, his balance holding for an instant before he pitched face first to the blood stained grass.
The archer loosed his arrow. It struck Rudric in the shoulder, piercing his plate mail and knocking him back a step. With a grimace of pain and effort, he chopped down the man who felled Gendred leaving one Kanosee soldier in close combat with him as the bowman drew another arrow.
Thoughts of home and safety fled Khirro’s mind. If Rudric died, he’d be left alone with the enemy and the Kanosee surely wouldn’t let him live. He burst through the spell’s shimmering veil, swapping gentle bird song, rustling grass and the sound of his pulse beating in his ears for the biting clang of steel on steel, the howl of a battle cry.