Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) (29 page)

Beccorban dropped the
hammer’s head from his shoulder and turned to watch the man as he walked his
horse towards the approaching knights. Riella came up alongside him and hung
her head. She had made far too many apologies to this man who had fought to
keep her safe. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He nodded. “Aye, me too,
lass, but, gods, that man is wild.” He shook his head and once more became the
warrior, cold and hard and wrought of tempered steel. “Stay here,” he said. And
loped off to join the blond man.

The sun was high in the
sky and the enemy had arrived.

But the Helhammer had
come to meet them.

The knights fanned out
into a line as Callistan trotted towards them, drawing their long blades and
closing the gaps between them so that he was presented with a wall of metal.
That showed discipline, and their armour suggested they were a professional
force. Verian conscripts wore armour that could only loosely be described as
uniform, but to compare those green boys in red with these was to compare night
to day. Callistan rolled his arm to loosen the muscles and guided Crucio with
his knees so that he would be facing them head on. The tall knights were still
a hundred paces or so off and he did not want to charge just yet. The only
thing more fearsome than a charging line of cavalrymen was one that walked into
battle. It spoke of confidence and an arrogance and led men’s minds down dark
paths. The faceless masks of these warriors suggested that they would not be
easily scared, and he was only one man, so he would have to use every trick he
could. He would make them fear him.

Something large moved by
his side and he wrenched the reins away in reflex. He looked down to see the
large slipskin with the hammer grinning up at him through a bloodied and
bruised face. “Didn’t want you having all the fun,” it said in a convincingly
human voice. Callistan frowned. He had seen that hammer before somewhere but
could not place it. It was just one more ghostly memory in the impenetrable fog
of his past. He shrugged and stared after the burly wielder. His jaw still
throbbed where the bigger man had caught him with a right hook. This slipskin
had chosen a host of considerable strength but that would not save him when the
time came. For now though, they were allies.

The tall knight with the
antlered helm held up a gauntleted hand with long, eerie fingers and the others
came to a stop. Callistan tapped Crucio in the ribs with his heels and the
horse gamely upped its pace so that Callistan had to stand up in his spurs to
avoid a bruised behind. It felt good to be in the saddle again with the smell
of horse and fresh grass around him. He held his falcata out to one side, low
and menacing and ready for the backhand cut that his arm ached to make. Eight
was a large number and each of them was encased in metal, while he wore only
cloth. It did not matter. He would kill today, as he had killed yesterday, and
he would keep on killing until they had all paid for what they had done to him.
He looked sidelong at the bearded giant beside him. He too would die, though
not before he had used that hammer.

The enemy were closer
now and Callistan could feel the adrenaline pulsing through him, begging him to
charge, begging him to draw blood. Not yet. The charge had to carry the
explosion of energy from Crucio’s legs all the way through to the swing of his
own arm so that the falcata could do what it had been designed to do and cut
through armour like it was clotted cream. He was close enough now to make out
the etchings on the armour of the tall warriors. It was in a strange flowing
script that he could not read, though it too tugged at his memory somehow;
familiar and yet alien at the same time, like a hand with too many fingers.

Each warrior was
staggeringly tall and so thin that they seemed fragile. Even though he was
mounted, the top of their heads would easily reach his. Their limbs were long
and birdlike yet their armour spoke of terrifying power, beaten as it was into
sharp angles and cruel points. Their helms were featureless walls of silvery
grey with a thin visor that hid their eyes, and each of them was totally
silent. Something in Callistan’s head told him that he should be afraid, that
others would be. These strange warriors were like nothing he had ever seen. But
he could not bring himself to feel fear. Instead he viewed them with a
calculated boredom. The joints were the weakness: with limbs that thin, the
falcata would make short work of them. The metal they wore looked light. With
enough force it would probably split like the skin of an apple. He rolled his
wrist so that the sun caught his blade, then kicked Crucio into the gallop,
leaving the large slipskin behind.

The horse leapt under
him and the wind pulled his hair back from his face so that it streamed behind
him like a pennant. Crucio’s hooves were thunder on the grass and each step
tore a clod of dirt from the earth and flung it far away. He aimed for the
warrior with the antlered helm and noted that they still had shown no notice of
him.
They are far too confident
, he
thought, and he grinned, for he had found himself again, and for this moment at
least, he was at peace with himself.

As he closed on the lead
warrior, another stepped in front. Callistan jerked Crucio to one side, aiming
for the gap to the left of his new target so that his sword arm would be free
to strike. The tall warrior brought up his own massive sword to parry but it
was too late. Callistan slashed his falcata up from below in a vicious sweep
that should have taken the tall warrior’s head clean off. However, his sword,
honed to razor sharpness, glanced off of the metal helm with a ringing sound
and sent a jarring vibration up into his shoulder. It rocked him back in his
saddle and he nearly lost his seat. Crucio fared better, shouldering through
the line and running free on the other side.

Callistan pulled himself
upright again and shook his head. That blow should have cut through metal and
flesh and bone with ease. He wheeled Crucio around and headed back to the
fight, just in time to see the big slipskin in his bearskin cloak bear down on
the enemy line. The hammerman was at a full run with his weapon held high over
one shoulder, and Callistan thought that he had left himself too open. Indeed,
one of the armoured warriors must have thought so too, for he stepped from the
line with his sword held out straight like a spear. But the slipskin spun as
gracefully as a dancer, pivoting on his heel to bring the hammer around in a
flashing arc that drove the flat weight of the killing end straight into the
side of the armoured warrior’s head. A deafening clang rolled across the grass
and the freakishly tall soldier flew sideways, toppling the warrior next to
him.

It was more than
Callistan could have asked for, and he thundered down on the fallen like an
avenging god. He hung over the side of his saddle like a polo player and
gripped his falcata in two hands, holding on to the horse with the strength in
his thighs alone. As Crucio led him through the broken line he swung with all
of his might and was rewarded with the fleeting resistance of flesh as he
struck at the neck of one of the tall warriors. He had found the seam where the
helm reached the gorget and a large head flew through the wintery air to land
with a thud in the grass.

Callistan whooped with
the joy of it and whirled his mount around to face the line once more. Yet it
was a line no longer. Instead the big slipskin had wrought havoc with his
hammer and had turned all before him to a carnage of metal and flesh. Two of
the enemy were down, lying motionless on the grass. One was a body without a
head, another the victim of the hammer’s first strike, armour dented in places
that oozed black blood into the thirsty soil. To their credit, the others seemed
unaware of their losses. A quarter of their force had been killed in ten
seconds but the fight was still very much theirs to lose and several of them
began to lope towards him. Callistan knew he would struggle to mount a
successful charge again. He patted Crucio on the neck and the big warhorse
snorted with delight, breathing heavily and happily. He had played his part in
this battle and now Callistan wanted to join the fray on foot.

He leapt lightly from
Crucio’s back and swung his sword back and forth like a child beating at summer
grass with a long stick. The big slipskin was facing off against two tall
soldiers, and had Callistan not just seen him dispatch one so easily, it would
have seemed that he was unfairly matched. Callistan’s already wounded body
still ached with the bruises that giant in a man’s flesh had given him, and
though he was still set on killing his newfound ally, he felt a healthy respect
for the grizzled old bastard. The leader of the dark-armoured soldiers jabbed
pointed fingers at the bearded hammerman, sending a third at him. The tall
soldier sprang forward menacingly to join his fellows, sword held low across
his knees. Callistan watched him go and then turned to face the other three.
Two does and a stag, he thought. Easy.

The first stepped
forward while the other stayed back near the knight with the strange helm. He
was over seven feet tall and his body, encased in form-fitting armour, had all
the lithe and graceful lines of a young girl. Yet it was a dark beauty, laced
with a cruelty that spoke of blood and a hedonistic suffering. His sword was
long and thick and curved slightly like a sickle, and he held it loosely in one
gauntleted hand, his fingers sticking out over each other like reptilian teeth.
Callistan did not break his stride but strolled towards the demonic figure with
a spring in his step. He was smiling.

And then something
happened that he did not expect. The tall warrior reached up with those sharp,
tapered fingers and lifted his helm from his head, and the smile froze on
Callistan’s face. He struggled to maintain his expression but he could see from
the gleam in his enemy’s pale red, goat-like eyes that the theatre had achieved
its desired effect. The demon’s face was long and narrow and a pale blue in
colour but otherwise human in appearance — though weirdly distorted and
stretched. Its mouth was a cruel gash rimmed in blood-red lips, and as it
grinned at him he could see teeth that had been filed down to wicked points.
Its hair was long and lustrously black, tied in a ponytail that at once
betrayed vanity and practicality. But most curious of all were the creature’s
ears, for they were pointed like something from a children’s story.

It spoke next and its
tone was deep and guttural. The words it formed were completely unintelligible
but its language was mellifluous and strangely seductive. Callistan found
himself listening too intently. He shook his head and gripped his falcata until
the skin pulled white across his knuckles.
What
are these creatures?

Still talking, the tall,
pointy-eared warrior swung his sword in a casual backhand that should have cut
Callistan in half. Instead the horseman sidestepped smoothly and the blade
whirred past him. Callistan swept his sword out at waist height with two hands,
using the twist of his hips to give the blade the killing force it needed. His
opponent skipped backwards on nimble feet, then that great sword came down
again, a dark blur against the grey sky. Callistan rolled aside so that his
enemy’s weapon buried itself in the turf with such force that he half expected
the ground to shriek in pain. The tall enemy spat hatred at him and its eyes
gleamed with fire. It leapt over the blade it had embedded in the earth and, as
it landed, wrenched it free to whirl the length of metal at Callistan’s head.
Callistan fell backwards and tumbled on a loose rock, but rose again with
speed, stepping backwards to keep his distance from that long, sharp reach.

The creature was too
fast and it knew it. Though clearly not a man, it was not difficult to read the
triumph on its face, and Callistan had the terrible feeling that he was being
toyed with. He could only thank the gods that two of his opponents were holding
back. He ached to see how the big slipskin was faring against three at the same
time but knew that if he took his eyes away from his opponent for even a second
he would feel the bite of cold steel. For the first time Callistan wondered if
he had just got himself killed.

He could see Crucio
waiting in the background with his ears pressed flat to his skull, and some way
behind the small figures of the other slipskins on top of the ridge. The tall
knight came on again with huge strides that ate the distance, and Callistan
scrambled backwards. He needed to find a weakness in that wall of metal. The
knight was armoured from head to toe and he did not have the speed nor the
reach to find the chinks between the plate as easily as he had from horseback.
In truth he had not imagined these soaring warriors to be so fast on their
feet, and now he was beaten.

He stared into the pale
red eyes of his enemy and saw his own death there, and suddenly he felt the
beginnings of an incalculable rage. He had attacked the slipskins because they
were trespassing. True, he had sworn to himself to rid Daegermund — if
not the world — of those foul skin-stealers, but he would not have
attacked so suddenly and without thought had they not come so near Mela’s
grave. The big one had knelt to touch her doll and a curtain of red mist had
closed over his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was stepping from the clearing
into a fight with something that outmatched him physically. Yet now he had done
it again, this time through nothing more than sheer arrogance.

The unfairness of it all
lit along his spine like oiled paper and then exploded at once into his skull
in a jet of white hot fury. He let out a bestial scream and did what the tall
enemy in the dark armour could never have expected.

He charged.

He charged with his
sword held out to the side, and the tall, pointy-eared demon with the red eyes
froze in its tracks. Its savage grin became a rictus of confusion as Callistan
closed the last few paces and batted aside the proffered blade as though it
were a windblown weed. The knight tried to scurry backwards but it was too late.
Callistan was inside its reach and he placed the heel of his hand on the pommel
of his falcata and used it as it was never designed to be used, driving it like
a spear into the centre of his target’s breastplate. For all the strength of
that strange, thin metal, it could do little else but split and puncture as the
steely extension of Callistan’s wrath drove through without slowing to erupt
from the other side of that strange, thin body, glistening with black blood
caught in the weak light of early day.