The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (55 page)

“Find a runner,” he said to an officer. “Send up to the camp and let the injured know that they are safe. Tell them the Wolf has come.”

The man nodded and went away. Arbak turned and looked once more over the wall. Out in the killing ground it was over. There were prisoners, but not many. That was not surprising. The Seth Yarra often fought to the last handful of men, only throwing down their arms when mere moments separated them from complete destruction.

Narak had left the battle. He was walking towards the wall. He stopped and wiped his blades clean on a dead man’s tunic, sheathing them behind his back in a smooth movement. Arbak wondered how he did that, both blades at the same time, behind his back where he couldn’t see them. Practice, he supposed; hundreds of years of practice. He glanced back towards the camp, but he couldn’t leave the wall now, not with the Wolf coming. He would be expected to wait. He’d been thinking about his bed, the chance to sleep without worry for the first time in weeks. The chance to get roaringly, irresponsibly drunk, and then to go back to Bas Erinor, back to the Seventh Friend with Bargil and Sheyani, blessing the miracle that they had all survived when so many had not.

There was a sound of fluttering beside him, and Arbak turned to see that Passerina had appeared on the wall. She ignored him, oblivious to everything but Narak, her eyes tracking him across the open ground, unblinking. Arbak studied her, seeing her for the first time as a person. She was a girl, he realised. No, that was wrong. She had
been
a girl when Pelion had done to her what he had done to all of them. Seventeen, perhaps eighteen years; smooth skin, pale and downy with an arch of freckles across her nose; a generous mouth, lips still with the fresh redness of youth and now slightly parted as she looked out over the wall. Her eyes were green, but it was the pale green of spring leaves, and her hair was red, abundant, and harshly tied back with simple twine. She stood with her neck craned slightly forwards, eager to see what she was seeing.

She was pretty. She was more than pretty.

Passerina became aware of his gaze and turned to him, her face hardening, taking on a little more of her actual age.

“Do not look to read me, Innkeeper,” she said, but there was a frown on her brow, as though she feared she had revealed something she would rather keep hidden, and she had, Arbak realised. It was in the way she looked at Narak. It was the same way he looked at Sheyani.

“Forgive me, Deus,” he said, quickly looking away; finding something else to hold his eyes. He found Narak.

Narak picked up the remains of a ladder as he approached the wall.  Six men, maybe seven, had carried that ladder out of the forest the day before. It was not a light thing, but Narak carried it as though it weighed no more than a spear. The men were cheering as he approached. All along the wall they were cheering and waving swords and bows in the air. They had reason to. Many were alive because of the attack by Narak’s force of Telans. The Wolf ignored them. He threw the broken ladder up against the wall, it was little more than a long pole with broken rungs hanging from it, and in a moment had climbed it and vaulted over the stone battlements to stand on the fighting platform just a few feet from Arbak.

He didn’t know what to expect, but Narak did not hesitate. He strode the few steps between them and threw his arms around Arbak as though he were a long lost brother. The force of his embrace was enough to drive the breath out of Arbak’s lungs.

“You did it,” he said.

It was not until this moment that Cain Arbak had felt the weight of the Wolf’s uncertainty. Narak had not expected him to hold the wall. It had all been just a desperate throw of the dice, a handful of soldiers and a regiment of poorly trained levy men against an army of ten thousand. Yet Arbak himself had never doubted that they would succeed until the disaster of the previous night. Why? Because defeat was unthinkable? He had been on the losing side before – more often than he cared to remember – but this time victory had seemed certain.

When Narak released him he sank to one knee, bowed his head.

“The glory belongs to these men, Deus,” he said. “They have matched the best of men in their deeds and in their spirit.”

“So it may seem to you, General,” Narak replied. “But an army draws its spirit from its commander, and these men have fought with legendary spirit.” He turned towards the men on the wall, raising his voice so that all could hear. “I am proud of each man here, of those that have died and those that yet live. I am proud that you bear my name, and I grant you all the right. You are the Wolves of Fal Verdan, and shall bear that name in honour for the rest of your lives.”

The men cheered. There’s nothing like a victorious army for cheering, Arbak reflected.

He could not help but notice a coolness between Narak and Passerina, quite in contrast to the eagerness he had seen just moments before. Now she stood back on her heels, her arms folded across her chest. They exchanged a look that he could not read. There was a whole story there somewhere, one that he did not know, and perhaps did not wish to know. The Wolf did not speak to her, but instead nodded, an acknowledgement of her help, and something else perhaps.

“Major Tragil?”

The Berashi stepped forwards at Narak’s calling. He bowed.

“Deus, I am Tragil,” he said.

“You have engineers?”

“Some. Some were lost.”

“How quickly can you fix the gate so that you can lift it?”

“A couple of days, Deus.”

“As quickly as you can, then, colonel. These men,” and here he gestured at the Telan force beyond the wall. “They need to come into Berash.” Arbak saw the worry on Tragil’s face and so did Narak. The Berashi was reluctant to open his gate again for Telans, and Arbak could understand that. “Your king has agreed to it,” Narak said. “They have given up their homes and land to fight on our side. Their families wait in the woods to come through and make a new life here with us until their homeland is swept of the enemy. It is the least that we can do.”

“Deus,” Arbak interrupted. “Who are they?”

“Their commander is Lord Filamon, keeper of the northern marches of Telas. Two other lords have marched with him, Kebra and Lisanderan, who are loyal to him. The army is the Telan northern levy, what they call the army of the land, the Felyan. If they stay the other side of the wall they will be destroyed to a man by Seth Yarra and their southern allies, though I think the alliance will dissolve when the Telans discover what Seth Yarra has in mind for them.”

Tragil was not curious. “I will see to it at once,” he said, and left them.

Arbak was surprised that his question had been fully answered. It was unlike the Wolf to be so forthcoming. But then he had to admit that he didn’t know the wolf god that well – just a couple of meetings that had made him a cripple, a wealthy man, and now a general. Perhaps it would be better not to attempt to predict so unpredictable a creature.

He walked with Narak, climbing down the steep stair, feeling the eyes of all the men on the two of them. It could do no harm, the mercenary in him thought, that he was seen walking side by side with the Wolf, that he had been embraced by the god on the wall before his army. It was the sort of thing that people spoke of. They would believe the two of them were friends, when in reality he still doubted the bond between them, especially when the ache in his severed wrist kept him awake on cold nights.

“The King is coming,” Narak said. “King Raffin. He will join the army as it passes through Berash, and he wishes to speak with you, so you must wait here until the army comes.” He smiled. “I hope it not too great a burden.”

“It is an honour,” Arbak replied, but he knew that he was unconvincing.

“I confess that I have wronged you, Cain Arbak. I sent you to hold the wall in the hope that you would succeed, but I had no faith in you. You did better than I thought you would – as well as any general I could have chosen – and I am grateful for your success. Raffin, too is grateful, and you must permit the great to display their gratitude, but with all humility.” He laughed. “You must be grateful for our gratitude.”

“I shall do my best, Deus.”

Narak slapped him on the back. “Now you can forget all about it. You have earned a rest, and a celebration. There will be a lot of that in the next few weeks. You must learn to put up with it.”

It was true enough. In the following days a great deal of wine was drunk, and Arbak sank his share of it. He ate more that he needed and slept late. Now that Narak was here nobody looked to him for orders. He felt unnecessary, but he did not mind. It was pleasant to be just a man again, and he even managed to find some pleasure in his undeserved reputation as an astute warrior. He had become a respected man, a man who people looked to for answers and advice, a man that common men dipped their heads to as they passed. For Cain Arbak it was an uncomfortable thing. In his own eyes he was still one of them, one of the men who half bowed in his presence. He was still a sergeant.

In truth he drank too much, and when he rose each day he felt dried out, thick headed and faintly ill. He drank water and ate nothing but fruit until mid day when he would take a walk down to the wall. On the third day, a little later than promised, the great stone was harnessed to its counter weight again, and Tragil was able to raise the gate to let the Telans through.

Arbak happened to be there. It was certainly a spectacle. They were led through by their Lord, the one Narak had called Filamon. He was a big man, broad shouldered with a full, black beard. His armour was plate, much like a knight of Avilian or a soldier of the Dragon Guard, but he wore a typical Telan broad brimmed helmet, atypically decorated so that from the side it resembled a wolf’s head, with silver and gold inlaid into the steel and rubies the size of a man’s thumbnail for eyes. Over his armour he wore a heavy woollen cloak, such as a noble born man might wear in winter, dyed night black to match his beard. He was an impressive sight, and as he rode he looked about him as though keen to see what kind of men his new allies might be, such men as had held this gate against ten thousand for so long.

Arbak felt Filamon’s eyes linger on his own face for a moment, but no longer. He wore no markings to suggest his rank, and he supposed that he passed for just another soldier out of armour, bearing a sword.

The Telans trailed through the gate for an hour. First the cavalry, then archers, and after them the infantry, but it did not stop there. They had brought everything they could carry, and wagon after wagon rumbled under the wall, loaded with women, children and just about anything else that could be fitted into or tied to the sides of a four wheeled conveyance. Arbak even saw a wine press, bound down with a dozen stout ropes.

Telans and their wine, he thought.

“They’ve come to stay.”

He turned and saw Tragil standing next to him, watching the precession. The Berashi looked easy. He wasn’t worried any more about letting Telans through his gate, or not these ones, anyway.

“It looks that way,” he replied.

Tragil stood for a moment as if he had something more to say, but whatever it might have been remained unspoken. He smiled, laid a hand on Arbak’s shoulder for a moment, then turned and walked up the gorge towards the camp with slow weary steps.

The first part of the army arrived the next day.

Arbak learned the news when Sheyani woke him, gently shaking his shoulder until he opened gummy eyes, ran a dry tongue around his mouth and looked at her. She had done something to her eyes was his first thought. There was colour on her eyelids. Blue. He tried to smile, but thought better of it and reached for a jug of water that he kept beside his mattress.

“You must get up, Sheshay,” she said. “The King is coming.”

“Now?”

“Soldiers have come. They are Berashi and they say the king follows. He rides with the Dragon Guard.”

Arbak swallowed several mouthfuls of water and sat up. He felt a little nauseous, his mouth watered suddenly, and his brow prickled with cold sweat. He had drunk far too much the previous night. He closed his eyes for a moment. The world was not spinning, but something unpleasant was crouching in his gut, waiting to escape.