Leave me be! Vaelin spat back. I do what I must. There is no choice in this. I cannot break a contract with the King.
His hands shook as he notched the arrow to the string, his heart a booming drum in his chest. Enough! He flexed his hands, forcing the tremor away. I do what I must. I’ve killed before. What is one more death?
From behind him came a faint clash of metal on metal followed by the snap of bowstrings and a sudden clamour of alarmed voices. The sounds of battle were soon echoing across the clearing and Vaelin saw Al Hestian’s command emerge from the trees and begin their charge. The young noble was easy to pick out, leading his men by a good few strides, longsword held high, his cloak trailing. Vaelin could hear his calls to the men, urging them forward. He was strangely gratified to see the whole company had followed Al Hestian, having expected many to flee.
He dragged in a deep draught of air, the chill burning his lungs, and raised his bow, drawing he string back to his lips, the raven's feathers in the shaft caressing his check, the bead centred on Al Hestian’s rapidly approaching form. Murder is easy, he realised, the string slipping over his fingers. Like snuffing out a candle.
Something growled in the darkness. Something shifted its weight and scraped at the snow. Something made the hairs on the back of his head prickle.
The familiar sense of wrongness built within him like a fire, the tremor returning to his hands as he lowered the bow and turned.
The wolf’s teeth were bared in a snarl, its eyes bright in the gloom, raised hackles like spikes of silver. As their eyes met its growl subsided and it raised itself from the aggressive crouch it had assumed, regarding him with the same silent intensity he remembered from the Test of the Run all those years ago.
The moment seemed to stretch, Vaelin captured by the animal’s gaze, unable to move, a thought singing in his mind: What am I doing? I am no murderer!
The wolf blinked and turned, sprinting away across the snow, a blur of silver and frost, gone in a heartbeat.
The approaching shouts of Al Hestian’s charging men brought him back to his senses, turning to see they were almost at the rocks. Less than twenty feet away a figure rose, garbed in sable, a drawn long bow aiming a shaft straight at Al Hestian’s chest. Vaelin’s arrow took the archer in the belly. He was on him in seconds, his long-bladed dagger stabbing down to make sure of the kill.
“ My thanks, brother!” Al Hestian called, leaping past to charge on to the camp. Vaelin surged after him, tossing his bow aside and drawing his sword.
The camp was a chaos of death and flame. The Cumbraelins could equal the Order’s bow skills but at close quarters they were hopelessly outmatched, bodies littered the snow amidst burning tents. A wounded Cumbraelin stumbled out of the smoke, a bloodied arm hanging useless at his side, his good limb swinging a hatchet wildly Al Hestian. The noble easily side-stepped the blow and hacked the man down with his longsword. Another came at Vaelin, eyes wide with panic and fear, jabbing a long-bladed boar spear at his chest. Vaelin ducked under the weapon, grasping the haft below the blade and pulling its owner onto his sword. One of Al Hestian’s soldiers charged forward and rammed his sword into the Cumbraelin’s chest, his scream of exultant fury merging with the shouts of the other men as they followed Al Hestian onwards, killing all they could find.
Vaelin saw Al Hestian charge off into the smoke and followed, seeing him cut down two men in quick succession. A third leapt onto his back, wrapping his legs around the noble’s chest, dagger raised high. Vaelin’s throwing knife took the Cumbraelin in the back, Al Hestian shrugging him off as he convulsed in pain, the longsword slashing down to cleave his chest. He raised his sword in a silent gesture of thanks and ran on.
The bloodshed became frenzied as the company killed their way through the camp, hacking down the few Cumbraelins still able to offer resistance or knifing those found lying wounded. Vaelin ran past a series of nightmarish tableaux; a soldier raising the severed head of a Cumbraelin to let the blood bathe his face, three men taking turns to slash at a man writhing on the ground, men laughing at a Cumbraelin as he tried to stuff his guts back into the hole in his belly. He had seen men drunk before but never on blood. After months of fear and misery Al Hestian’s soldiers were taking full measure of retribution from their tormentors.
He caught up with Al Hestian, finding the noble standing uncertainly over the kneeling figure of a young Cumbraelin, a boy of no more than fifteen years. His eyes were closed, his lips moving in a murmured prayer. His weapons lay at his side and his hands were clasped in front of his chest.
Vaelin paused, catching his breath and wiping blood from his sword. From the direction of the river he could hear the clamour of weapons and shouts of combat as his brothers finished the last of Black Arrow’s men. Dawn was rising fast now, revealing the horrid spectacle of the camp. Bodies lay all around, some still twitching or writhing in pain, streaks of blood discolouring the snow between the blazing tents. Al Hestian’s men wandered through the destruction, looting the dead and finishing off the wounded.
“ What should we do with him?” Al Hestian said. He face was streaked with sweat and ash, his expression grim. The bloodlust evident in his men has not reached him, he did not relish the killing. Vaelin was very glad he had abandoned his bargain with the king.
He will be angry, his watcher told him.
I’ll answer to the King, he replied. He can have my life if he wants it. At least I won’t die a murderer.
Vaelin glanced at the boy. He seemed oblivious to their words or the sounds of death around him, intent on his prayer. He spoke a language Vaelin didn’t know, the prayer flowing from his lips in a soft, almost melodious tone. Was he asking his god to accept his soul or deliver him from impending death?
“ It seems we have our first prisoner, my lord.” He nudged the boy with his boot. “Stand up! And stop yammering.”
The boy ignored him. His expression unchanged as he continued to pray.
“ I said get up!” Vaelin reached down to grab the boy’s pelt. There was a rush on air on his neck as something flicked past his ear following by the hard smack of an arrow finding flesh. He looked up to see Al Hestian staring at the black shaft buried in his shoulder, his eyebrows raised in a faint expression of surprise. “Faith,” he breathed and collapsed heavily to the snow. His limbs already twitching as the poison mingled with his blood.
Vaelin whirled, catching a blur of powdered snow in a nearby cluster of trees. Rage filled him then, sprinting in pursuit of the archer with red mist clouding his vision. “You there!” he called to a group of soldiers. “See to his Lordship, he needs a healer!”
He ran full pelt into the trees, all senses alive to the song of the forest, searching, hunting. There was a faint crunch of snow off to the left and he sprinted after it, his nostrils finding the scent of fear-born sweat. He had never been so alive to the song of the forest before, never so possessed by the desire to kill. His mouth was flooded with drool and his mind devoid of all thought but the need for blood. How long he hunted would always be lost to him, it was a dream of blurred trees and half-remembered scents as his quarry led him deeper into the forest. He ran tirelessly, immune to any strain. He knew only the hunt and the prey.
The song of the forest changed as he entered a small clearing. The birdsong greeting the dawn was muted here, stilled by an unwelcome presence. He stopped, fighting to control his heaving chest, searching with all his senses, straining for the faintest sign. The clearing was well lit by the rising sun, the sunlight playing over an oddly shaped stone in its centre. Something about the stone drew his attention, lessening his concentration on the forest’s song. It stood about four feet in height with a narrow base rising to a wide flat top in a roughly mushroomed shape, part overgrown with creepers. Looking closer he realised it was not a natural feature at all but fashioned, chiselled from one of the many granite boulders that littered the Martishe.