I smirked.
She pinched the skin on the back of my hand between two steel-clad fingers. “Can you feel that?”
“Ow! Yes!” I was so deep inside this body it felt every bit as painful as if it were my own.
She looked shrewdly pleased. “Good… good.” “Ah. I will play the part.” “I thought you might.” She looked me up and down, noting dirty furs and rusted mail. “For the sake of the gods, go find a helmet or…” she shook her head like I was an imbecile.
I took her advice and using my particular skills of persuasion, acquired a spare pothelm and arming cap from a quartermaster only too happy to please, donned the cap and then stuffed the slightly overlarge helm on top. I didn’t much like my vision being restricted to slits and holes in a faceplate but it wasn’t as bad as I’d been led to believe.
With the foreplay over with, Eva proceeded onto the main event – war. Bryden, fifteen wardens and twenty Clansfolk headed towards a small goat track climbing up towards the hills on the east side of the valley. Sadly Cormac and his lovely lush beard went with them. I grimaced and bit my own… his… no, this body’s cheek. This was all wrong. I didn’t. Like. Beards. Like. That.
Eva, Granville, myself, the other fifteen wardens and thirty angry Clansfolk headed up a steep and slippery escarpment leading to the west side of the rise above our camp. The assembled warriors kept glancing at me curiously, until I realised that none of them currently wore their helms. After all, we were not in combat or anywhere near the enemy… I flushed and removed it for now, tying it to my belt with a leather thong. Much better.
For a day and night the Clansfolk led us along their secret paths either side of the valley – time was far more important than sleep or safety. It was a gruelling and dangerous hike navigating narrow moonlit ridges across rocky crags by the meagre light of shuttered lanterns. Two of our men slipped down scree slopes and broke their legs. We had no time to spare and were forced to leave them behind to crawl back to camp on their own. My borrowed body grew weary and slow with shocking swiftness – this crushing tiredness was what it was to be a mundane human. Eva and Granville powered on until dawn as the rest of us flagged. How did normal people cope with this fatigue on a daily basis? I dared not try to work my small talent with body magic on this borrowed flesh – or even if that was possible. I didn’t yet know it well enough to try to tinker with it, and it was far, far less resilient than my own Gifted form. Exploding it might prove bad for morale.
As we drew closer to the advancing enemy snaking through the valley we shed men at key narrow points suitable for ambushes. They began to work on the boulders, digging their bases free from earth and stone ready to be shoved down to crash on any people and daemons passing below, and with any luck start a small avalanche to block the pass for a time until they dug it free.
Just before dawn we took position at the narrowest point between Dun Bhailiol and Kil Noth. We secured armour, pulled on helms and gauntlets, readied weapons and waited beneath a jagged ridge for the enemy to march right into our trap. Eva kept watch on the skies for daemons, a heavy war bow ready in her hands. One eye or not, she was still the best shot we had.
I nodded to a scarred woman next to me dressed in Dun Clachan plaids. She grinned back, feral and furious. “I’ll take six heads afore we send them scurrying back to their ratholes. What about you, big man?”
I thought about it. “Couple hundred I reckon.”
Her grin widened and she clapped me on the back. “That’s the spirit! Good to have a goal right enough.”
I was being deadly serious.
A light blinked on and off from the other side of the valley. Eva signalled back, flicking her lantern shutters open and closed in a pre-arranged sequence. We were ready to strike from both sides of the valley. Granville rolled up the sleeves of his fine robe and placed his hands on the stone to allow his magic to gain a better feel of it. He smiled and I knew we were ready to wreak havoc.
Chapter 19
From our safe vantage point, we watched the Skallgrim scouts moving through the narrowest point of the entire valley – a mere ten paces wide and fifty long – their keen eyes scouring the way ahead through a thin morning mist that coiled around them like a living thing. They paused to listen at every scuff of foot on stone, bird cry and crack of ice and rock, as if they too had heard chilling tales of entire armies disappearing into the misty depths of the Clanholds. Although knowing what I did about the Scarrabus they undoubtedly feared failing their masters more than fighting us. It would be wise to learn exactly what they knew and it occurred to me that I should probably see about capturing one alive without burning out their mind and memory.
“Knowledge is power,” Eva whispered to me with eerie synchronicity. “And knowledge of terrain has won many a battle against superior forces.”
She glanced to Granville, his eyes closed and fingers sunk deep into solid rock. “We have knowledge, terrain, and magic all on our side. This will be a slaughter.” She waited until the Skallgrim scouts had passed and the armoured vanguard were halfway through before flashing another signal towards the far side of the valley.
Down on the valley floor one of the Skallgrim noticed the blinking light and pointed up, but it was far too late to do anything about what was coming.
Never fight a geomancer in the mountains, and always, always flee from two. The ground thumped like a giant had punched it, and I watched in awe as Granville, and Cormac over on the far side of the valley, caused the entire rock face on either side to shatter and slide down in an inexorable mass towards the Skallgrim advance. The enemy found themselves trapped between two oncoming waves of rumbling rock, ice and snow. Their terror was a sharp knife twisting in my gut as they fought and climbed over each other in desperation to escape forward or back. Only a few made it out before the avalanches hit, their relief a fluttering thing with heavy wings of guilt.
It crashed down on the heads of the enemy, killing the lucky ones outright. Others were buried alive, broken and bleeding and gasping for breath as rock squeezed hard on cracked ribs. I shuddered and looked away, remembering my own entombment beneath the earth only too well. Unlike me, I doubted anybody would spend the time to dig them out – they would probably perish of thirst or frostbite after a long and drawn-out ordeal. It was a horrific way to die.
Back in the city I used to think that water and fire were the two deadliest elemental affinities a Gift could boast, one swift and deadly, the other capable of massive destruction and fear. I was now reassessing that opinion.
Eva shoved me back from the icy ridge. Fire bloomed across rock with an angry hiss. “Halrúna,” Eva stated. “Two-no, three, coming up to examine the rockfall.”
My breath rasped loud inside the helmet. I grinned and patted my axe. She shook her head. “Not here, not now. We are to delay them and bleed them dry from many cuts. A pitched battle would be…” She trailed off, then cursed. “Bloody idiots!”
Clansfolk were descending the opposite side of the valley, nimble as mountain goats, while others perched on the very edge and began loosing arrows and screaming about revenge for Dun Bhailiol. The Skallgrim that had made it through before we blocked the pass bunched together and linked shields, arrows tinging off helms, only a few finding flesh.
Before Eva could stop them the Clansfolk on our side leapt to their feet and charged, not willing to be shown up as cowards by their kin.
“At the craven blood-drinkers!” the woman next to me cried as she launched herself down the slope, sailing downwards on a wave of snow and loose rock. Glory called to them and they answered eagerly.