Gallow (33 page)

Medrin turned. He faced Valaric with the Crimson Shield held high. ‘A Marroc crippled me some fifteen years ago, Valaric of Witterslet. Men die from such wounds as I took that day, and so they should, for it left me as weak as a child and what place is there in this world for a weakling warrior? Yet I didn’t die. I fought for my life and I clawed it back again. I’ve taken this shield and I defeated an army that would have swept across your land. I will face you, Valaric of the Marroc, but only if you will face me as I am.’ His words changed for the duke, but his eyes stayed on Valaric. ‘Have your soldiers take this man and run a spear through his chest. Close the wound with hot pitch. Then we’ll duel. If he fights well, we’ll say no more of this. If he fights poorly, I’ll have one man in every twenty taken from your city and sent back across the sea to live as slaves.’

Valaric clenched his hand around his spear. ‘I came here to die so others might live,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll take your challenge, prince of oafs.’

He felt a movement in the Marroc behind him, and then a man come to stand at his side.

‘You try to take this man, Medrin, you come through me first.’

Gallow.

G
allow raised the Sword of the Weeping God high. He’d come to the square behind Andhun’s gates to see what Medrin would do. To stand against him, to fight and die if he had to. And seen that he wasn’t alone.

‘You’re neither shoeing my horse nor blading my scythe,’ muttered Valaric.

‘Settle that later?’

Valaric nodded. ‘It can wait.’

‘Horsan!’ Gallow called him out. Medrin’s sword-hand. ‘The servant of a man with no honour shares in his shame. The servant of a man with no courage shares in his cowardice. The servant of a man with no heart shares in his disgrace. You bring shame and dishonour to your kin. You’re a coward.’

Horsan pushed his way out from among the Lhosir, shaking his head, face set hard. ‘I’ll rip you apart,
nioingr.
’

Gallow ran at him. Horsan met him head on. The two crashed into each other and careened sideways. The lunge of Horsan’s spear pierced the air an inch from Gallow’s ear while Solace skittered off Horsan’s shield.

‘I knew your family from before I crossed the sea,’ said Gallow grimly. ‘Your father always thought you were carrying a bit too much fat on you. Lazy, he said.’

Horsan snarled. He circled more cautiously this time, crouched behind his shield, spear held in one fist over the top, point remorselessly aimed at Gallow’s eyes.

‘I was on the same battlefield as him when he died.’ Gallow circled the other way, careful not to get too close to Medrin’s Lhosir.

‘Spit him, Horsan!’ The Lhosir were cheering and jeering. Gallow glanced around the crowd. The Marroc hadn’t moved but there was a change to them. They were restless. One bent down. When he stood up again he was holding a stone.

‘I didn’t see him fall. Barely knew him. But we recited the names of the dead that day and everyone who fell was spoken out, their words and their deeds offered up to the Maker-Devourer. I’ve heard a thousand men spoken out like that, Horsan. Spoken out a good few myself. Last man I spoke for was Jyrdas One-Eye. How many men have you spoken out, Horsan? Any at all?’

No. He could see that. They probably hadn’t honoured the dead yet. Too busy with Andhun and whether the Vathen would return. Times like this the fallen just had to stay where they fell for a day or two before they could be properly burned and honoured, but it made the Lhosir uncomfortable to think about it, that was the thing. Made them wonder, for a moment, if they were right. What if they were all somehow struck down? What if the fallen were never spoken out? What if they were lost, abandoned, alone after all they’d done. Unthinkable. Horrible.

A grim smile set on Gallow’s face. ‘No matter. The Maker-Devourer himself will speak for the Screambreaker and those who stood with him, and there were men there for your father. Who’s going to speak for you, Horsan? When you stand beside the Maker-Devourer’s cauldron and he turns up his ear to listen, what’s he going to hear? Nothing.’

‘We spoke out the Screambreaker. Every one of us. The rest have to wait.’ Horsan’s mouth twitched; as it did, Gallow leaped. The red sword smashed down onto Horsan’s shield and split it in two. Horsan jabbed his spear at Gallow’s neck, but Gallow simply lifted his own shield and turned the spear over his head. He kicked at Horsan’s knees and staggered him. The air hissed as he lunged with Solace. The sword caught Horsan neatly between his hauberk and his helm, driving through the naked flesh of his throat. A great spurt of blood sprayed across the cobbles. Horsan opened his mouth to say something more but all that came out was a river of red. He fell to his knees and toppled over. Gallow turned to face the rest of them.

‘So that was the best of you, was it?’ yelled Valaric. ‘You’ve forgotten who you are. Go back where you came from, forkbeards. Go back across the sea and stay there!’

One or two Marroc among the crowd shouted as well. ‘Go home!’

‘So who fights for Medrin now?’ Gallow lowered Solace and pointed its bloody blade at the Lhosir one by one. They each met his eye but none of them moved.

Medrin’s lips pursed as though he tasted something sour. He cocked his head and turned to the Marroc duke. ‘You’re sheltering a
nioingr
and a traitor. Hang him.’

‘He’s from across the sea, my lord.’ The duke didn’t move. Neither did any of the Marroc soldiers. ‘My men can’t touch him. A Marroc who lifts a hand against a Lhosir shall have that hand cut off, as you have commanded.’

‘Gallow? He might have come from across the sea but he stayed and he took one of your women. He’s a Marroc now. Hang him.’

The duke still didn’t move.

‘Hang him, or I will hang you.’

‘No, my lord, I will not.’

Medrin took a spear from the Lhosir beside him, drove it into the duke’s belly and kicked him over. He looked around the crowd and at the Marroc soldiers. ‘So who else wants to be duke, then? I’ll give it to whichever one of you brings me the head of that man there.’ He pointed at Gallow.

None of the Marroc moved. Gallow felt the tension in the air, unbearable. They were on the brink of turning.

‘Marroc! Be free!’ Valaric hurled his spear at Medrin. The prince lifted the Crimson Shield, instinct saving him. Valaric’s spear struck the wood hard, but when Medrin lowered the shield, it wasn’t even scratched.

A Marroc raised his arm and threw a stone. Then another and another did the same. Medrin howled and the Lhosir burst out of their circle around him. Valaric and Gallow launched themselves forward. The Marroc soldiers lifted their shields and their spears to face the Lhosir, the men and women around the square throwing stones and whatever else they could find. The first Lhosir hit Valaric head on, shield on shield, spear points lunging. Everything narrowed to sharpened points of steel. And over it all he heard Medrin roaring, ‘Kill them all! Burn their city! Leave nothing standing but bare stone walls!’

L
hosir poured through the gates of Andhun. The Marroc who’d thrown stones lay dead now, broken dolls, limp and ragged, trampled underfoot when Medrin’s men let loose their charge. The rest had fled after the initial surge, and now Gallow and Valaric were side by side, pinned into an alley narrow enough for them to block with just the two of their shields, a dozen Lhosir pressing them.

‘What happened to . . .’ Valaric twisted as the Lhosir in front of him hooked his shield with an axe while the next one back jabbed with his spear. ‘ . . . going to Varyxhun?’ He ducked another swing. The man in front of him howled as Valaric stamped on his foot.

Gallow barely heard. He could see Arda’s face. She was smiling but she looked sad.
Pig-headed forkbeard.
In his hand Solace felt as light as a feather and the air hummed as the sword cut through it. In Marroc stories the red sword cut through shield and mail like an axe through cheese. The Lhosir still standing in front of him proved the lie of that, but it still moved with a life of its own, as though it was a part of him, and it had already split a couple of badly made shields. He lunged over a shield now, the sword biting at the neck of the Lhosir in front of him. It had a knack, it seemed, for finding the gaps in a man’s armour. The Lhosir lurched away and then came back at him, forced by the press of men behind.

‘You know what us forkbeards are like: can’t resist a good fight.’ Gallow stepped back. The Lhosir in front of him stumbled forward, lowered his shield for a moment to support himself and died as the red sword tore out his throat. ‘I came to tell you to run away.’ He lunged as the next Lhosir came, reached over the man’s shield and stabbed, slicing his cheek.

Valaric ducked and stabbed beneath the next man’s shield. He sheathed his own sword and snatched the dead man’s spear as he fell. ‘They’ll get behind us soon.’

The next Lhosir didn’t have a helm. Stupid, and Solace quickly split his skull. ‘Then this will become a very bloody alleyway.’

‘Hold them for a moment.’ Valaric lunged and then leaped back and ran down the alley, leaving Gallow facing two at once. They pressed in on him hard then, swords stabbing around his shield while the men behind lunged with spears. A Lhosir learned to fight as soon as he was old enough to stand and hold a weapon. They learned to guard one another, how one man could hook away a shield and make an opening for another to lunge at unguarded skin, sometimes the man beside them with a sword or an axe, but more often the man pressed up close behind with a short spear. They learned how three or four together, if they worked as one, could kill almost any number of enemies until they tired, and now they turned that knowledge against Gallow. His own childhood had been the same: after the hook came the lunge, after the jab the thrust and then the swing. He knew where the spear thrusts and sword cuts would come, had honed all these in five years of war with the Marroc, but against four Lhosir, even ones who’d never faced a real enemy before the Vathen, he could barely keep them at bay. He retreated back down the alley, one step at a time, one lunge after another.

‘Valaric!’

No answer and he couldn’t look back. Didn’t dare.

‘Valaric?’ A spear point sliced the skin of his neck. ‘Valaric!’

Then he heard a roar behind him. For a moment the Lhosir faltered and then Valaric barged into the back of Gallow and splashes of something hot spattered his arms. ‘You bastards like what comes out of the Grey Man’s kitchens so much?’ yelled Valaric ‘Have some!’ He hurled a cauldron past Gallow’s head. The Lhosir bellowed and recoiled and the air filled with steam and the smell of boiled cabbage. For a moment Gallow was free.

‘Run!’ Valaric pulled his arm. Gallow bolted down the alley on Valaric’s heels as he raced for an open door. Valaric’s spear was propped beside it; Valaric snatched it up, turned and hurled it. The first Lhosir dived sideways and the spear hit the one behind him, clattering off the side of the man’s helm, the shaft spinning through the air. The last two Lhosir batted it aside but by then Gallow was through the door and Valaric was closing it behind them.

‘The table!’ Valaric rammed his shoulder to the door. They were in a kitchen. Gallow dragged the table from the middle of the room. The door shuddered as the first Lhosir outside kicked at it. Valaric let them force it open a hand’s width and then stabbed his sword through the gap. The Lhosir backed away a moment, long enough for the two of them to push the table against the door and wedge it against a wall. ‘Come on!’ Valaric ran for a different door.

‘What were you doing out there?’ They ran out into an empty tavern hall.

‘What do you mean?’ Valaric stopped and shouted, ‘Hoy! Any Marroc still here hiding away! Now’s the time, lads! The forkbeards are here and they’re burning our homes. Take up your arms!’ The tavern remained empty and still. Valaric shrugged and ran to the far door. ‘Good enough. The docks, Gallow. That’s where we’ll be. That’s where we make our stand. We knew this was coming. We’re as ready as we could ever be.’ He pushed open the door and ran almost straight into another band of Lhosir.

‘Maker-Devourer!’ roared Gallow, raising his shield. The Lhosir ran at them, but as Valaric and Gallow turned their backs and fled, the Lhosir stopped, laughed and turned into the Grey Man instead.

‘They’ll regret that later when we rip their drunken bellies open,’ snarled Valaric.

‘What were you doing at the gates? Did you think Medrin was going to fight you?’

‘No.’ Valaric darted into an alley that ran steep down the hill towards the Isset, so narrow they had to squeeze along it with their armour and their shields scraping the walls. The buildings either side blotted out the sun, casting them into gloomy shadow.

‘Well? Then what?’

‘I thought I was going to die.’ Valaric’s words came out through clenched teeth. ‘If your prince was the sort of man to stand up and fight for himself when another man called him out . . . But he isn’t and he never was, and I knew that. I went there to give myself up to him. Take as many of you with me as I could but let him have the nasty Marroc who’d stood up to him on the beach. You were right, what you said there. I thought if he had me then he might not burn the whole city. So much for that.’ The alley opened into another street. It was empty: no Marroc, no Lhosir. Shouting came from further down the hill, the sounds of men fighting. The tang of smoke tainted the air.

‘I fought the Vathen at the Screambreaker’s side. I saw him fight their champion. I saw him take the Sword of the Weeping God.’ He held the blade up so Valaric could see it clearly. ‘I was beside him when the Vathen broke our line and he fell. Medrin let it happen. He turned the tide of the battle with his men but he waited for the Screambreaker to fall before he did.’