Gaston shrugged. ‘I have heard this,’ he admitted. ‘I thought it might be . . . an excuse . . .’ He stammered to silence in the face of the massed disapproval of a dozen scarred knights.
Ser Alcaeus shook his head. ‘You need us,’ he said quietly.
Gaston was trying to imagine how he might convince his cousin while he rode up the column.
North of Lissen Carak
They came, each with his own tail of followers, because that was the way of the Wild.
The man known as Jack, the leader of the Jacks, came from the west. His face was masked in ruddy leather, and he wore the same dirty off-white wool jupon and hose of his band. He wore no badge of rank, and carried no obvious symbol of it – no fancy sword, no magnificent bow. He was neither short nor tall, and a greying beard came out from under his mask to proclaim his age. With him were a dozen men with long yew bows, sheaves of arrows, long swords and bucklers.
Thurkan came from the south, where he had run the woods with his qwethnethog daemon kin, watching the Royal Army coming up the Albin River. A fifty-mile run through the woods had not winded him. The wave of fear that he projected made the hardened Jacks fold their arms; even Thorn felt his power. With him were just two of his mighty people – his brother Korghan, and his sister Mogan. Each was the size of war horse with jaggedly pointed beaks, inlaid brow ridges, beautiful eyes and long, heavy, muscular legs, long arms tipped with bone scythes, and elegant, scaled tails. With them came the greatest of the living abnethog wyverns in the north woods; Sylch. His people had borne the greatest losses, and his anger was betrayed in bright red spots that moved like flickering fire on the surface of his smooth grey skin.
From the east came a party of painted men; Akra Crom of the Abenacki led them. They had harried the suburbs of Albinkirk, taken a hundred prisoners, and were now ready to go home. Such was the way of the Outwallers – to raid and to slip away. Akra Crom was as old as a man could be and still lead Outwaller warriors – his skin betrayed his age. He was hairless, painted a metallic grey that gleamed like silver in the light. He was the rarest of Outwallers – a possessor of power. A shaman, warrior, and a great song-maker among his people, the old man was a living legend.
Exrech was the chief paramount of the gwyllch that men called bogglins. His thorax gleamed white, and his arms and legs were a perfectly contrasting ebony black, as was his head. He was as tall as a man and power flickered around his mandibles, far more pronounced than a lower-caste gwyllch; his natural armour was better, and his chain mail, carefully crafted in the far East and taken in war, had been riveted carefully to his carapace to join the living armour. He carried a pair of man-made great swords in his two large hands and wore a horn at his waist.
Thorn was pleased they had come, and he offered wine and honey.
‘We have taken heavy losses, and suffered costly victories and humiliating defeats,’ Thorn began. He left it there – the fact of defeat.
‘The Sossag have won a great victory in the east,’ said the painted man. The other warriors with him grunted their approval.
‘They have, at great cost,’ Thorn nodded. Overhead, the stars were rising – a spectacular display of light in the blue-black sky of late evening. But their meeting was not illuminated by fire. Few creatures of the Wild loved fire.
Thorn pointed at the heavens. ‘The Sossag and the Abenacki are not as numerous as the stars,’ he said. ‘And many Sossag fell at the Crossings of the Otter.’
Exrech’s jaws opened and closed with a firm click indicating waste of valuable warrior stock; not easily replaced; no clearly defined target. Strong disapproval.
Akra Crom shrugged. When you rule the Outwallers, you may choose their wars.
The black and white gwyllch lord gave an acrid spray of anger. In deep woods, all soft-skins alike to we.
Thorn grunted and both lords settled down.
Thurkan spoke, his daemon voice high and badly pitched – a shock from such a large and beautiful creature. ‘I blame you, Thorn.’
Thorn had not expected a direct challenge and began to gather power.
Thurkan reached out a long forearm and pointed. ‘We each act under your order – but we do not mesh. We are not together. No gwyllch stand with the Sossag. No gwyllch climb with the Abnethog when we fly against the Rock. Abnethog and qwethnethog and gwyllch fight the same foe in the same woods, but no creature goes to the support of the other. The hastenoch died with gwyllch a few hands away.’
Thorn considered this – full of power, ready for the challenge that criticism usually led to, he was not at his most rational.
‘You have armed yourself against me,’ whined the great daemon. At least, his every utterance sounded like a whine. ‘Yet I challenge you not, Once Was Man.’
Thorn let some of the power he had gathered dissipate.
Faeries had been attracted, as they always were by raw power, their slim and elegant shapes flitting suddenly through the air where his release of power glowed a virulent green.
Mogan plucked one from the air and ate it, and the faeries’ death-curse filled the night as the little thing vanished down her gullet.
Exrech nodded. Strong one. Well taken.
Jack of Jacks shuddered. To most men, the killing of a faery was sacrilege. He spat. ‘Thorn, we are here for one reason only. You promised us you’d defeat the aristocrats. For that, we have gathered every bow from every farm. Our people suffer under our lords’ hammers this summer so that we can defeat them. And yet, the king’s army comes closer and closer.’ Jack scowled. ‘When will we fight?’
‘You are a deadly secret, Jack of Jacks.’ Thorn nodded. ‘Your long shafts will be the death of many a belted knight, and your men – you said yourself they must stay hidden. They will emerge from decades in the shadows at the right moment, when we play for everything. I will face the king and his army on ground of my choosing. You will be there.’
He turned to the qwethnethogs. ‘I am guilty of sending each of you to fight your own foes in your own way. This still seems wise to me. Between gwyllch and Outwaller there is no friendship. The Jacks have no love for any creature of the Wild. Every beast in the woods fears the qwethnethog and the abnethog.’ He ate a dollop of honeycomb. ‘We should have triumphed by now, and I feel the strong hand of fate on the rim of our shield. I command that you all take more care.’ He’d lowered his voice and imbued it with power from the air around him and the store he held for emergencies, and even so the daemons challenged him.
‘Obey me, now. We will not fight the king at Albinkirk. We let our early victory spread us too far, dissipate our strength. Let Thurkan watch the king and eat his horses. No more. Let Exrech withdraw from Albinkirk. Offer no battle. Let the Sossag and the Abenacki fall back to their camps here. Let the Jacks sharpen their bodkins. Our day approaches, and the king will never reach Lissen Carak.’
Thurkan nodded. ‘This is more to my liking,’ he hissed. ‘One mighty fight, and a rending of flesh.’
Thorn forced a piece of a smile – it seemed to crack the flesh around his mouth – and all but the daemons quailed. ‘We will scarcely need to fight,’ he said. ‘But when they have fought among themselves, you may rend their flesh to your heart’s content.
Thurkan nodded. ‘Such is always your way, Thorn. But when it comes to teeth and spears I do not like having the Cohocton at my back.’
Thorn hated being questioned, and his anger rose. ‘You fear defeat before a single spear is cast?’
The great daemon stood his ground. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have seen many defeats, and many empty victories; my hide bears the scars, and my nest is empty where it should be full. Both of my cousins have died in the last moon – one on the spear of the dark sun, and one with his soul ripped from him by their cruel sorceries.’ He looked around. ‘Who will come to my aid? You expect treason – and I agree that humans are born to betray each other. But many will fight, and fight bitterly. This is their way! So I say – who will come to my aid?’