Deep Water (68 page)

The groom nodded and ran for the stables.

“There’s no guarantee that the wind wraiths won’t smell us out anyway,” Leof cautioned.

“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Thegan said. “Come, let’s eat and rest while we can.”

It was good advice, and Leof took it. He and the sergeants ate and lay on the inn benches, jackets under their heads for pillows.
Thegan lay more comfortably in the innkeeper’s bedroom. They were all experienced men, so they slept, waking quickly as Thegan’s
groom barged in through the inn doors.

“They’re almost here!” he called. “My lord! My lord! They’re coming!”

Leof sprang up and pulled his jacket on, feeling the familiar sense of tension and excitement he always felt before battle.
This time, there was no unease. These were no innocents, like the Lake People; this was a monster aided by monsters, and he
would hew the enchanter’s head off with great satisfaction, if Thegan didn’t get to him first.

Thegan appeared from the bedroom looking, as always, pristine. Leof retied the combination of leather thong and brown velvet
ribbon that kept his hair back and pulled his jacket into shape over his hips, then followed Thegan out into the dark. On
the eastern horizon, the sky was just beginning to gray.

The road leading to Bonhill curved around a series of hills, so that they could make out glimpses of movement and shadow,
and hear the sound of horses hooves and harnesses clinking. Wil and Gard were at the head of the column, with Alston behind
leading the first group.

“Privy break!” Alston called as they came to a halt two lengths away from the first village house, near an orchard. It was
a well-practiced routine. The men swung down from their horses and helped their pillion passengers, the pikemen, off. Then
three out of four riders handed their reins to the fourth and disappeared into the coppice, followed by their passengers.
When they emerged the fourth man went, too. Then they stood by their horses, waiting for orders. Leof could smell the piss
from the inn door, and the nervous sweat. Thegan always ordered a privy break before a battle; the men knew they would be
fighting soon.

While the men relieved themselves, Wil and Gard dismounted and came for orders.

“The enchanter is on the hill, over there,” Thegan said. “There’s no chance that we will completely surround him before he
hears us, but I want to get a small force up close and hidden before the main charge starts, so that if he sets a spell loose
we have a surprise up our sleeve.” They nodded, nervous as the men. Neither of them liked the idea of fighting an enchanter.

Leof put an arm around Wil’s shoulders, and shook him slightly. “I’ve seen him. He’s a scrawny bastard, and he doesn’t look
too brave to me. He’ll probably run when he sees us, and then we’ll have him!”

Thegan nodded approval at him. “Twenty pikemen, Leof, under your command. Take them to your observation post and keep them
there until you get my order. Use your own judgment if he sees us and starts to fight. I’ll give you a count of three hundred
to get into position before we move.”

Leof nodded. He went to Alston and relayed the order. Alston gathered the twenty men and gave them a brief speech about keeping
low and staying silent. He had chosen experienced men, not the oath men. Leof paused. He knew Alston liked to pray before
he went into battle, but this time he just motioned the men to start moving.

“No prayers?” Leof asked curiously.

“No need to ask for forgiveness from the one we are about to kill,” Alston said. “He has forfeited any rights to life or to
rebirth.” His voice was flat with a kind of hatred that Leof had never heard from him before. “This is a blasphemer of the
worst kind,” he added. “He will rot in the cold hell for eternity.”

The words sounded so unlike his normal sensible self that Leof was troubled. Could anyone forfeit their right to life or to
rebirth? That was one of those questions that had never worried him before he knew Sorn. Her belief had made an impression
on him without him realizing it, just as she had herself. He felt a quick, aching yearning for her; to be sitting calmly with
her, gazing quietly at her beauty. Although he knew that if he were there, there would be no quiet inside him, only raging
desire and desperation. He shook off the thought and concentrated on leading his men quietly through the convoluted path that
led to the willow coppice.

They only just made it within the count of three hundred. Once there, Leof led the men under the trailing curtain of willow
boughs, to the hard task of waiting. They heard nothing from the hill of bones except the wuthering of the wind, which might
have been wind wraiths or might have been merely air. From beneath the trailing willow branches they could judge the quiet
onset of day. The light grew brighter until they could see each other’s faces, then eyes. The men listened hard, pikes clutched
in sweaty hands.

Leof alone peered out, trying to make out any movement from the hill. He fancied he could hear the soft noises of Thegan’s
approach, but he knew how easily imagination magnified every sound before a battle. Thegan would not have had time to get
everyone into position yet.

Then, as the highest leaves of the willow trees were lit into bright yellow green, they heard the wind wraiths crying, “Ware!
Ware! Master, beware of men with iron!”

Leof looked out to see Thegan still some way away, and the enchanter springing up from sleep. Frantically, he grabbed the
bags of bones and poured them out in a circle around him. Leof realized it was the first step in making a spell, and he charged
out of the screen of leaves, yelling, “For Thegan!”

“Thegan! Thegan!” his men shouted. The enchanter faltered as he saw them, then he grabbed his knife and gabbled some words,
holding the knife over his palm.

Leof ran up the slope at full pelt, but he was too late. The enchanter drew the knife down as Leof grabbed for it, scattering
blood over the bones around him. He spun around, showering as many bones as he could before Leof grabbed him and pressed his
hand against his own jacket to stop the bleeding. But it was too late. Around them, a circle of ghosts was forming. The first
one, a short man with hair in beaded plaits, was the leader. The ghost aimed a sword at Leof’s head. Leof let go of the enchanter
and brought up his own sword in defense. He was stunned by the strength of the blow. For the first time, he understood to
his marrow how dangerous the ghosts were.

The enchanter was backing away, terrified, protected by a phalanx of ghosts. The ground shook as Thegan’s men charged the
hill, horns blowing the attack. Leof’s men had reached the hill just as the ghosts appeared and were now engaging them as
they had been taught.

“Aim for the arms!” he heard Alston shout, and the men shouted acknowledgment.

Leof was fighting bitterly. The ghost wasn’t a warrior, that was clear, but it didn’t have to be when it didn’t have to guard
against death. It attacked furiously but without trying to defend, so that for a moment Leof had to put all his energies into
protecting himself. The strangest thing was that the ghost was not breathing. Leof had often fought at close quarters, and
he knew the interplay of gasp and breath and grunt as each man gave or took blows. This time only he breathed and gasped;
it was disconcerting; strangely impersonal. Yet the hatred in the ghost’s eyes was very personal. After a flurry of blows
he maneuvered the ghost around until he could take the blow he wanted. As he raised his sword for the cut, he was aware of
Thegan’s horse arriving, of the riders bringing axes down on ghost after ghost, targeting the shoulders and arms and legs,
as they had been instructed.

He grinned and brought his sword down on the shoulder of the ghost’s sword arm. He had done this before, to one of the Ice
King’s men. He knew how much effort was needed to actually cut someone’s arm off. But he did it. The ghost’s arm fell to the
ground. Astonished, the ghost looked down at it and Leof used the moment to bring his sword around and up for a backstroke
that cut off its head. The head tumbled to the ground.

The ghost itself did not fall. The body swayed and then, sickeningly, the head and arm disappeared from the ground, and reappeared
on the ghost’s body. Complete with sword in hand. Leof stood watching in shock, his mind racing, his hands trembling. He and
his men were all going to die. The Domains were going to die. There was no way to fight this — none at all.

The ghost twisted its head slightly, as if testing the surety of its neck, then looked down at its sword hand. It looked slowly
up at Leof and smiled mockingly, then raised its sword again and struck. Leof blocked it but it drove him to his knees.

“Regroup!” Thegan shouted. “Withdraw!” He spurred his horse closer to the hill and reached down to hoist Leof up behind him
just in time to avoid the ghost’s killing blow. Thegan wheeled the horse and hacked with his own sword at a group of ghosts,
giving his men time to get away. Leof spun from side to side, guarding their backs.

All around them, men were screaming and running as they realized that the ghosts were not being harmed by even their worst
strokes. The horns sounded the retreat, a pattern of notes Leof had only ever heard in training. Thegan had never retreated
before.

“Abandon it!” Thegan yelled to the remaining men. “Barricade yourselves in the houses.” He pulled his horse away.

A few of the men were down, lying dead or dying, and as the horns rang out the wind wraiths appeared as though summoned by
them. They descended toward the battlefield with shrieks of joy, like enormous ravens. The ghosts stopped still to watch them,
their faces distorted by fear.

“Feed us!” the wraiths shouted. Thegan checked his horse as the wraiths hovered over the enchanter, safe in his circle of
ghosts.

“You may feed,” the enchanter cried and the wraiths dived on the dying. The men screamed, long bubbling screams that made
Leof’s gorge rise. The ghosts backed away, except for those around the enchanter, and then turned and ran, streaming down
the hill, heading for the village and beyond. Leof blanched at the likely outcome; he hoped the inn had stout doors and a
good strong bar. If the past pattern stayed true, they had all day before them. Sunset seemed a very long way away.

The ghost Leof had fought stood beside the enchanter now, and it raised its sword and shook it threateningly, grinning with
satisfied malice.

“Archers!” Thegan shouted. A rain of arrows left the trees, where archers had been concealed, all aimed at the enchanter,
who was just within bowshot. But as the shafts hissed through the air they were overtaken by the wind wraiths, who snatched
them up in mid-flight and cast them down to the ground, shrieking with glee.

Thegan tensed and leaned forward, staring at the enchanter, clearly considering whether he could reach him and drag him out,
or perhaps rescue some of the men.

“Don’t do it, my lord,” Leof said. He put a hand on Thegan’s rein, and dragged his horse’s head around, heading him back to
Sendat. “It’s useless. No army alive could stand against them.”

F
URSEY LED THEM
. He needed no lantern, finding his way with uncanny ease up and down and up again, past walls through which they could hear
the rushing of water. The sound reminded Bramble too vividly of the many times water had seemed to sweep her out of Acton’s
life and back into it again. It was only an hour or so since she had seen him, vividly alive. She smiled despite herself as
she remembered that sideways smile, the promise and admiration it had held, the energy of every movement he made. She was
going to miss that energy.

In the darkness it was easier, somehow, to think about all the people she had come to know through Baluch’s eyes, and Ragni’s,
and Piper’s — all dead and gone. She remembered her mother telling her about a man whose whole family had been killed in a
fire. “Never really got over being left alive,” she had said. “Hung himself on the first anniversary.” At the time, she hadn’t
understood how anyone could regret being alive. She didn’t, she
didn’t
regret it. Maryrose had told her to live, and she would live, as long as she had to. But she understood, for the first time,
how lonely that man must have been, when everyone he loved was gone and he was left to carry on. She thought that, after all
this was over, she would find her parents and maybe stay with them for a while.

After that she would find a song-maker, and tell him or her the truth about Acton and the past, and set the record straight.
Damn Asgarn’s name for eternity. The thought made her slightly more cheerful.

Then Fursey turned a corner and suddenly she was in a passage she recognized, one Dotta had led her down. Her heart beat faster.
Not far now. She recited the turns in her head as Fursey took them — yes, he did know the way. Finally, they made the turn
into the cave, and Medric raised his lantern high, looking at the walls in amazement. The painted animals seemed to leap and
buck, as though they were still alive. Fursey stood for a moment with bowed head, as if praying.

The lantern candle was almost burnt out. Medric took another from his pocket and replaced it. The new candle burned with a
whiter light, allowing Bramble to examine the corners of the cave. She searched thoroughly, but there were no bones, not even
animal bones. In the furthest corner, however, was a shaft, and the smell from it was dry. No murmur of waters, no sense of
damp. If the bones were in there, they might be retrievable.

“The bones must be down there,” she said. “We’ll have to bring tackle and try to fish them out.”

“No.” Fursey’s voice was adamant. “That is a place sacred to the stone-eaters. We can’t go there. We can’t
fish
there.”

“We need the bones,” Bramble said, equally adamant. They stood, glaring at each other.

Medric cleared his throat. “Um… can we ask the delvers?”

“No one can summon them!” Fursey said indignantly.