The Bitterbynde Trilogy (182 page)

‘Itched and itches,' rejoined one, sagely.

‘And some say he did it to make her man sound de Coirnéad and waken Angavar King,' rejoined the good-wife. ‘
Hisself
was bored in his exile and craved comp'ny of da Fair and Royal kind.'

Ashalind could contain herself no longer. ‘Wicked is the Prince!' she exclaimed, outraged. ‘Wicked and hateful, to order such a terrible execution!'

With a clap all the candle flames went out. As the eyes of the mortal damsels readjusted, starlight revealed to the visitors all that remained in the room—some aged candle stubs and a few heaps of moldy straw strewn about the floor.

‘Well,' commented Caitri thoughtfully, ‘the Prince may not have
intended
for Nuckelavee to slay the Royal couple. He might have supposed that King James would blow the Coirnéad immediately, so that Angavar would have time to save their lives …'

‘Are you too under his spell?' cried Ashalind scornfully. Heedless of hobgoblins she flung open the door of the turret room and strode downstairs. Fortunately, the prowler was nowhere to be seen.

An uncanny wind swept through the fortress. The building, if such it was, trembled on its foundations. Thunder boomed from one quarter, then another. From the distance, a fanfare threaded, liquid notes strung on the starry airs of Evernight like chains of water.

Minor wights went shrieking through the halls of Annath Gothallamor.

‘What is happening?' Caitri wondered, clutching Ashalind's hand. The two friends stood within a remote and barren ventricle of the fortress, peering through a slot in the wall that faced west.

‘I do not know.'

Soon, they learned.

With a patter of small hooves, Tully came running in.

‘Where have you been?' they exclaimed.

‘Luikin' out for ye, lasses,' he panted, ‘gleaning tidings. Morragan returns from Arcdur. He approaches now.'

Ashalind's heartstrings twisted like snarled cordage. All at once she felt ill. Her fingers flew to touch her shorn scalp. A desire to hide came over her, absurd because there was nowhere to hide. Caitri's face greyed to the colour of wet chalk.

‘What shall we do?' she moaned.

‘What else
can
we do,' answered Ashalind, ‘but wait? Our fate is not in our hands, not yet.'

‘What do you mean?' Caitri plucked at her sleeve. But there was no time for explanations. The thunder roared again, closer, and mixed in it, the ringing of silver caparisons on Faêran horses whose hooves pounded against the great pressure patterns that were the roads of the sky. A magnificent host galloped out of the west; black-maned horses, dark-cloaked riders, flashing with metal and jewels like flocks of splendid birds. They barrelled in amongst the roofs of the fortress, which shook under the force of their landing as though it must surely topple. Shouts and cries of command pierced the thunder.

As the last outriders circled before landing, Tully said quietly, ‘Well noo. It seems the Fithiach is back.'

A thread of steel tautened across Annath Gothallamor.

Ashalind drew a heavy velvet cowl up over her cropped head. Its shadow draped across her face.

‘Mayhap he will not notice,' agonised Caitri, wringing her hands.

‘It will scarcely escape
his
eyes. No doubt he is already aware of my new mode. Squirm not! Do you consider him our tutor, to rap our knuckles for misbehaviour? As though there has been some wrong-doing? And if my hair is cut off, what is it to such as he?'

‘He will be angry. It is certain.'

‘My coiffure is my own business. A fig for the wrath of Morragan,' said Ashalind carelessly, but she trembled.

An odour of brine and rotting vegetation penetrated the dreary chamber. Two men appeared under an archway festooned with stone ivy. Around them, spriggans emerged from the shadows, their tails switching with vindictive impatience. The wights bowed peremptorily to the damsels, then twitched and jumped as though they had been stung. Obviously it sorely irked them to be forced to make obeisance to mortalkind.

‘You—come,' their driftwood voices creaked.

The two men stood rigid, still, impassive. Passing close to them as she and Caitri joined the spriggan sprawl, Ashalind noted they were the doomed mortal servants of the Each Uisge, bound in eternal, ageless servitude. Pallid as drowned flesh, blank of eye, they turned with precision to fall in behind the damsels and their unseelie entourage, completing the escort.

‘May we all be
sained
,' muttered Caitri in tones of dread, snatching a glance at the identical Maghrain brothers who strode silently, their sea-blue Ertish eyes fixed on some point in eternity. Caitri's hand fluttered to her neck, where a tilhal would have hung, had the charm not been torn off during the wild flight with the Hunt. Ashalind pulled the velvet cowl a little closer around her face and the spriggans jabbered peevishly amongst themselves. She longed to ask them for some tidings of battle, but their malign and sidelong glares deterred conversation.

Through the spacious halls of the fortress they hastened—halls wide and high as clearings in an ancient forest, which diminished those who passed through their mighty interior spaces, making of them mere beetles crawling across the floor. Fifty feet above, in the intricate beamwork of the ceilings, grotesque or beauteous faces peered down, smiling serenely or scowling. Tongues protruded obscenely, cheeks bulged like iris corms. Most of these effigies were fashioned from wood or stone. Others were not.

‘Do you mark something?' Ashalind asked Caitri from the corner of her mouth.

‘No. What?'

‘The sounds of mining in the walls. They have ceased.'

Caitri listened past the rusted-hinge phonetics of the spriggans.

‘So they are!' She shuddered. ‘Even dunters dare not arouse his ire.'

Ashalind glanced back over her shoulder.

‘Iainh!' she called. ‘Caelinh!'

The men of the Isles made no response. Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelid did they indicate whether they had heard their names uttered.

‘Sons of the Maghrain!' Ashalind called. The spriggans now hopped as though they danced on a red-hot griddle. Their tails spun madly, their squinting eyes flashed.

‘No talking!' they screeched. ‘Be silent!'

Their slanting slits of eyes glinted with malice. The prisoners did not speak again to the human slaves of the Each Uisge.

On they wended, ascending many vast and tortuous stairs, across a pillared courtyard of green marble where sunken pools brimmed with languid reflections. Leafy vines twined about the pillars; from them, flowers budded, sprinkling pink petals on the water. Here was a window—which was not a window at all, but an interval between the crook of two branches, framed by a collage of leaves. A glimmer there caught Ashalind's eye, and breaking away from their escort, she climbed into an embrasure, a bower of foliage. Peering through the trelliswork of the tree boughs she saw across a great distance, as though the clear air of Darke magnified her perception, mysteriously allowing vision far beyond the borders of Evernight to the west of Namarre.

In the gloom of
uhta
two armies, ranged rank on rank, faced each other across a strip of heathland severed by a stream which gleamed like a metallised ribbon. On the Namarran side, a few clumps of pine trees pointed up into the pre-dawn sky, like spindles from thorny undergrowth. The sparsely wooded land swept up to a ridge, whereon stood the ruins of a stone castle. Western Namarre lay breathless, silent, brittle as dark crystal; a lacuna of uncanny stillness.

At an appointed moment, a roar erupted from the throats of thousands of Imperial troops. A tremendous barrage opened from the Imperial side, with a deluge of arrows and the thunderous explosion of burning projectiles from Windship-borne catapults. Instantly, the Namarran lines across the intervening space of No Mortals' Land broke into one long seething flame of white-hot bursting naphtha. Hurled by Imperial catapults, blazing missiles as large as barrels of cider, with tails of fire as long as lances, thudded into the ground like volcanoes. The soil came down like a hailstorm for minutes afterwards.

Under cover of this fire, Imperial troops threaded their way in single files through the tangle of undergrowth to the centre of No Mortals' Land, with arrows tearing overhead on their way to the Namarran lines. There they paused, awaiting signals from platoons supporting on either flank. The barrage from the Royal Archers and armed Windships was already creeping forward, and, fearing to wait longer, the Imperial troops began to advance. Soon they came up to the curtain of missiles which had reached the Namarran front line and their rate of advance from then on was simply regulated by the speed of the barrage. They crossed the enemy front line without stopping. Such rebels as survived had fled to the shelter of the pines, from which they emerged later to surrender in small groups. Some of the legionaries ran into their own barrage and fell, wounded.

‘Come away!' hissed the spriggans at Ashalind's side. They tugged at her elbows. ‘Hasten!'

She ignored them, intent on the unfolding scene.

Following the barrage closely, the Imperial troops crossed through a denser belt of pines. Some twenty yards behind this belt ran a ditch, occupied by a number of the enemy who fled at the sight of the Imperial forces. They were all shot down.

Up the slopes of the ridge yellow naphtha fires flared like unnatural flowers, stinking of brimstone, gushing oily black smoke. They burned fiercely, yet without spreading out of control in the rain-soaked vegetation. Throughout the area behind the Imperial line there was keen elation at the news that the whole attack was going successfully. The reserve battalions, taking up position on the slope of a hill, looked out upon the ridge opposite and on the whole scene: the Windships flying and fighting against a dawn sky striped with carnation and topaz, the naphtha missiles punching black smoke plumes from the ruins on the summit, the troops for the later attack lining up under the coloured flags of their battalions, chariots marshalling in the shadowy meadows, companies of cavalry moving up through the heath with a jingle of metal plate, and the reserve archers swiftly stringing their crossbows.

The first objective having been taken, an infantry brigade continued its attack up the southern shoulder of the ridge, west of the stream, with the King-Emperor's Battalion still advancing immediately east of the water. Meanwhile, a company of knights pushed forward along the top of a low rise west of the stream. By their watchfulness, it appeared they expected strong opposition at the ruins of the old castle in the Namarran second line. This ruin, a few low piles of stones overgrown with brambles, sheltered many barbarian warriors. It lay immediately behind a wide ditch, screened by a narrow hedge.

The spriggans began to pinch Ashalind's arms. Impatiently she pushed them off.

‘Budge now!' they creaked. ‘Too long at the window she has spent.'

‘I shall come soon! Soon!' said Ashalind, unable to wrench her gaze from the battlescape.

By now, dust and smoke from burning projectiles were making it impossible to see for any distance. Unable to take their bearings from landmarks, the chivalry pressed on, following the rising ground, keeping as close to the barrage as possible so as to be able to make the best use of their striking force whenever opposition was encountered. These tactics proved effective. On several occasions, at the instant the barrage lifted, the Empire's troops rushed to attack, causing the enemy to scatter in panic. Some hand-to-hand combat took place, the combatants hewing at each other with sword and axe, but generally the opposition was feeble.

By now the spriggan escorts were dancing up and down in a fury of panic, trying to stamp on Ashalind's toes. With no compunction she kicked out at them.

‘Hurry! Hurry!' they squawked. ‘Must answer the Summons or master will be angry!'

‘One moment—just one moment more,' she cried.

The Royal Company of Archers with infantry, assailing the defences immediately north of the ruins, had been met by the discharge of two rapid-fire mangonels emplaced on the top of a stone buttress. This forced the troops in that area to ground, and the check seemed likely to become dangerous. For a few moments they watched the barrage of projectiles play on the place, and as it lifted and the enemy arrows commenced to whine, they charged. One of the Royal Archers, an outstanding markswoman, slew three of the shotmen attending the mangonels with swift arrows from her longbow. The rest fled. Assured of the idleness of the war-engines, the captain rushed forward with a lieutenant and the men nearest them. The moment they surged past the crumbling walls, panic seized the Namarran defenders. In a solid line, they abandoned their weapons and fled, many of them shot through by arrows as they ran, others being killed as they ran into the continuing catapult barrage.

The fight was over in a very short time, and two catapults captured. The Royal Archers stood among the ruins along the horizon and shot the rebels down, doing great execution and taking vengeance for crimes by land and sea.

The Severnesse Eighth and the King-Emperor's Battalion bivouacked at their final objective, one hundred yards beyond the alignment of the old castle. Reserve divisions were brought up and it could be clearly perceived that it would not be long before the entire ridge was securely held, all objectives taken.

The Legions of Erith were advancing towards the High Plain. Morragan's raiders and brigands fell back before them, retreating without putting up much resistance. Of unseelie wights, oddly there was no sign.

Ashalind drew away from the window.

‘Master will be wrathful! Depart instantly!' creaked the spriggans angrily, hefting their pikes in their grimy paws. Leaves fell into place, obscuring the view.

She whispered to Caitri, ‘The Imperial troops have the advantage!'

As they left the embrasure, Ashalind looked back at the leaf curtain. Had it been but fancy? It seemed there had been a certain flash of gold upon the small finger of a hand, the ungauntleted hand of the Imperial Army's Supreme Commander …