The Broken World, page 10
‘Dearie me, girl. Where’d you grow up? There’s more than grass in the plains.’ Mollum was a great bear of a woman, round and jolly with a forceful personality that made it easy to hide in her shadows. She was taking her family of young children to the city to stay with their grandparents, then she was going to head south to join her husband, stationed near Wrthol with the army. The King’s Festival was a good way to distract the youngsters from the upheaval of the move. She had unofficially adopted Errol – or the apprentice herbwoman Eleni as he had to remind himself several times a day – the day after he joined the makeshift convoy. It had been easier to fall into her orbit than make a fuss about trying to stay private.
‘It all seems so barren to me.’ Errol repeated a sentiment he had expressed many times before. ‘I’m used to trees and mountains. The sky’s so big here.’
‘Well, that’ll change soon enough. We’re almost at the city – not more than another day, I’d say. There’s streets there where the houses meet at the top and cut out the sky altogether.’
Errol tried to look suitably awestruck at this description, though he knew already how narrow the streets of Tynhelyg were.
‘And where will I find me my herbs there, if the sun never reaches the ground?’ He rolled his eyes, flicking his long hair over his shoulder as he had observed some of the girls do.
‘Ah me, Eleni. I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding what you want in the city. Truth be told, a pretty little thing like you might find much more besides. Just don’t sell yourself cheap, if you get my meaning.’
It was a favourite topic of Mollum’s, and Errol was happy to let her do the talking as his horse kept time with her lumbering wagon. The afternoon wore on to evening in much the same way as many before, and when the setting sun made travel along the road dangerous, the caravan simply pulled off on to the grass and made camp.
There was much excitement around the fires that night as everyone reckoned they would reach the city by the next afternoon. Friendships had been forged over the long march south and east, and sitting out on the edge of the camp Errol could hear the beginnings of a great party. Tomorrow everyone would part, going to houses of relatives or the large encampment that sprang up on the eastern plains every King’s Festival. Either way, the camaraderie of the journey would be over, so tonight was a chance to say farewell. The noise would only grow, and it was unlikely he would get any sleep.
The sky was clear, and a quarter-moon had risen, painting the rolling plains in eerie light, when Errol decided he might as well head off. He could get a good head start on the caravan and reach the city by mid-morning; he might even catch up with the circus before it found its spot and set up. Quietly he gathered his things and saddled his horse, making sure by touch that everything was properly attached. It was only as he was preparing to lead the gelding out on to the road that he sensed a presence behind him. Before he could turn, a fat fleshy hand clamped over his wrist.
‘Be careful, Eleni. The roads are not to be travelled lightly, not alone and at night by a young woman. Nor even a young man.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mollum.’ In his shock, Errol’s voice was lower than the breathless high whisper he had adopted for his disguise, his Cerdys accent gone.
‘It’s your hands, boy. They give the game away. Don’t worry, old Mollum won’t tell on you. If I thought you meant ill I’d not have let you ride with us to start with. I dare say you’ve good reason for the disguise – maybe your father didn’t want you to join the army. Reckon he’s got more sense than you there, but you’ll find out that lesson your own way.’ She let go of his wrist, then ran her hand through his hair. ‘Still, it’ll be a shame when they take the shears to you.’
In the pale moonlight it was difficult to be sure, but Errol thought he could see tears in her eyes. ‘You’ve been a good companion these last few days,’ he said. ‘I shan’t forget you. I hope you have good luck in your travels.’
Before he could say anything more, Errol found himself swept up in a great hug, crushing the wind out of him. Just as he thought he would surely pass out from lack of air, he was released. Mollum took a step back, then thrust a small parcel into his hands.
‘What’s this?’
‘A girl needs more than the one pair of breeks, and that blouse won’t wash clean any more. Go safely, Eleni.’ And before he could protest, she turned away, waddling back into the darkness.
Errol led his horse on to the road, bewildered and relieved in equal measure. He walked away from the camp and its multiple noisy fireplace congregations, out into the moonlit night. Once he had crested a low hill and dropped down into the next shallow valley, he mounted and let his horse pick its slow way along the road, ever closer to Tynhelyg and the perils it contained.
‘Is this it?’
‘Is this what, Your Majesty?’
‘The army of Abervenn? Is this the best you could muster?’
Beulah looked out over the men arrayed in something distantly related to lines across the large courtyard at the front of the castle. They were dressed in a hotchpotch of styles and colours, as if a dozen colour-blind seamstresses had been given a very rough sketch of what a soldier should wear. Some of the men had spears, some swords, but there seemed to have been no attempt to divide them according to their weaponry. And ranks had apparently been determined according to who had the shiniest and most ornate armour, no matter how archaic it looked. Cadoc was presumably general of this mob because he owned not only a shiny brass helm complete with red feathers, but also a complete set of armour for his horse. The poor animal snorted and puffed even standing still. Beulah was fairly certain it would be dead long before they reached Tochers.
‘This is the last levy, Your Majesty.’ Cadoc bowed in his saddle, and for a moment Beulah thought the weight of his ridiculous helm was going to tip him over on to the ground.
‘The last?’
‘We have already sent substantial forces to both Tochers and Dina, ma’am. These are the men who were left behind to bring in the harvest – a good one this year, as it happens. The grain stores are full to bursting.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. We’ll need all the food we can produce to feed the armies.’
‘Indeed, ma’am. They’re already consuming at a prodigious rate. Let us hope the campaign is short, or the city will surely starve.’
‘I think that highly unlikely, General. Abervenn is rich enough and fertile enough to feed itself and my army for many years.’ For a moment Beulah thought Cadoc was going to argue the point with her; certainly his thoughts betrayed a certain belligerence. But he managed to hold himself back, the discipline of his military training taking hold.
‘Perhaps you’d like to inspect the men,’ he said instead.
Beulah nodded, though she felt their time would be better spent in marching. Still they expected to be presented to their queen, and she owed at least that much to people who might soon die in her name. She nudged her horse towards the first rank of soldiers. They nervously watched her approach, a few retreating before being pushed back into line by those behind them. It was a rabble, a mixture of the old and the simple, which couldn’t be trusted to hold against an attack. She hoped by the Shepherd that the men already drafted were of a higher calibre.
‘They’re not the best of soldiers, are they, my lady?’ Clun, ever the master of understatement, rode alongside the queen, his black stallion dwarfing her own fine mare. Perhaps it was the great beast making the men nervous, and with good reason – it had already broken one stable hand’s arm and the leg of another.
‘Are you sure that horse is safe, my love?’ From where she was sitting, Beulah could look the beast straight in the eye.
‘He’s all right once you get to know him. He’s just not—’
Whatever it was Clun was going to say, Beulah never learned. At that moment the horse reared up, its nostrils flared and eyes wide. For an instant she thought she was going to be crushed, but somehow the creature swivelled on its back legs, lashing out with its front at the conscripts. Panicked men tried to escape, pushing back into the ranks behind, tripping over each other and reducing the troops to a tangle of old armour and pikes, flailing limbs and shouts of alarm. There was a high-pitched shriek, almost girlish, cut suddenly short. And then the great horse settled back down again, Clun still perched in the saddle. The whole incident had taken no more than a half-dozen heartbeats.
‘My lady, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over him.’ Clun backed the horse away from the mess of soldiers as they scrambled to their feet. The chaos spread away like a fan from a single point, and there lay one unmoving man. Beulah looked down at him, well aware that he was dead. No one could survive the hoof that had caved in the man’s face. But it was not his injury that held her attention, rather what he still held clutched tight in his hand.
‘What’s that he’s holding?’ Beulah pointed, loath to dismount from her own horse. Her ever more obvious pregnancy made it hard to get comfortable, and once she was, she hated to move any more than necessary. General Cadoc seemed less than keen to dismount either, probably because he would need a winch to get him back into the saddle, so Clun slid athletically off his horse, patting the beast on its neck as if it had not just killed a man with a single kick. The stallion followed him like an obedient dog as he walked over and stooped to inspect the damage. After a few moments he stood once more, handing a slim wooden tube to Beulah.
‘It had this inside.’ Clun opened his other hand to reveal a short feathered dart, its head coated in some dark sticky mess.
‘A blowpipe?’ Beulah turned the weapon over in her hand a few times, then handed it back to Clun. ‘Well, I don’t suppose we need to guess who its intended target was. Captain Celtin?’
The captain rode forward. ‘Your Majesty?’
‘This man. I want his entire family rounded up and executed. Also all the men standing immediately around him in the line; they must have seen what he intended to do.’
‘But Your Majesty!’ General Cadoc nudged his horse into the space between Beulah and the soldiers still trying to scramble to their feet.
‘This is an army, General. It needs discipline. As their commanding officer, the responsibility for that is yours.’
‘But is it necessary to mete out such harsh punishment? The man is dead – can we not leave it at that?’
Beulah stared at the general, scarcely believing her ears. He was an old man and fat with it. His face was beaded with sweat, sweltering underneath his absurd armour. He was, she realized, all she despised about the nobility who hung about the royal court: a useless fop of a man who rode to war as if it were some great game. No doubt he would find himself a safe place to stay in Tochers, well away from the actual fighting, and there he would remain until it was time to lead his surviving forces back home. And it had been he who had suggested she inspect the men, he who had led her along the line to the assassin.
With far more effort than it should have taken, she conjured a short blade of light. A flick of the wrist and she whipped it through the air. There was a moment’s pause, and then the general’s head tipped forward under the weight of his absurd helmet, falling to the ground with a clatter. His body slid backwards off his horse, crashing into the still-floundering soldiers and sending a fresh wave of panic through the men as they were splattered with blood.
‘Be still, all of you!’ Beulah spoke the words quietly, but pushed the command out with her mind, her thoughts clearer than they had been in months. The result was instantaneous. The panic ended, and all eyes turned to her. She had their full attention.
‘This is not some game, not some exercise in politics. I have no intention of going to the border and just rattling a sabre at Ballah and his armies. Four times now he has tried to have me killed, and four times he has failed. Know that if you plot against me or try to stop me, you will be crushed. But fight alongside me, take the war to the godless Llanwennogs, and you will be well rewarded. We march now to the border. And from there to Tynhelyg itself. Follow me, men of Abervenn!’
A great shout went up from the soldiers as Beulah pushed out a feeling of excitement and adventure. The men’s enthusiasm aroused, the army began its long slow march from the castle and out on to the road to Tochers. She let out a long sigh, releasing the tension she hadn’t realized had built up in her. The blade she had conjured still burned bright, and for a moment she couldn’t think how to douse it. Anger and shock had helped her conjure it; now she willed the power back into the lines. Sweat prickled her brow as it finally dissipated, and in her belly her unborn child gave an unwelcome kick.
Clun had remounted his horse and steered it alongside her once more. Her own mount was a fine specimen, taller than her beloved Pahthia by far, and yet it felt inadequate next to the stallion. She looked the beast in the eye again, feeling almost that it read her mind even as she tried to sense its own base thoughts. There was more intelligence there than she would have expected, and had not this horse saved her life?
‘You’ve not named him yet, my love.’ She reached out and patted the solid neck. As her fingers made contact a spark of the Grym passed between them, a last residue of her blade.
‘He was your gift to me, my lady. I thought that honour should be yours.’
Beulah smiled. Clun’s grasp of courtly manners and diplomacy was growing by the day.
‘Very well then,’ she said. ‘Today he has proved himself my protector. And so I shall name him Godric in honour of that role and in memory of your father.’
Clun’s face darkened, as it did whenever his family was mentioned. Then he reached forward, scratched between the horse’s ears and slapped it on the neck.
‘Godric. It’s a good name.’
Black smoke rose into the morning sky, carrying a taint of destruction and death. Yet another town burned as Melyn led his army closer to Tynhelyg. They had sacked it, taking all they needed to replenish their supplies and replacing their wounded horses, leaving little behind for the women and children to live on. Winter would cull many more than had died under blades of light.
Progress was painfully slow. They could ride straight through the villages, confident they posed little threat, but the larger towns were another matter, especially old fortified settlements like Gremmil. These places had sent many men to the southern borders but retained some trained soldiers, and their lords were sufficiently well versed in warfare that to ignore them would invite problems later on. Either they would band together and form a sizeable force to oppose him at Tynhelyg, or they would cut off his escape route, should he need one.
And so every one had to be sacked, which took time and occasionally cost men. Meanwhile the King’s Festival was drawing ever closer, the capital reaching its point of maximum chaos and instability, and still Melyn was far from his goal.
‘We need to move faster, and we need to move unseen,’ he said to Osgal as they cantered along the road. The army was not hiding itself now, though Melyn no longer wanted news of his approach to precede him. It was hard even for his most skilled warriors to remain invisible while moving at such speed, and the effort left them exhausted at the end of each long day.
‘I’ve scouts out ahead, sir. We’ll know about any towns or villages long before we’re seen.’
‘Yes, yes. But we still have to stop at each one in turn, and that’s taking too long. At this rate, by the time we reach Tynhelyg the fair will be over and Ballah will be holed up in his palace again.’
‘Your Grace, might I make a suggestion?’
Melyn looked down to where Frecknock ran alongside his horse. She moved with flowing grace, covering the ground easily and with no sign of exertion. She had changed a great deal from the pathetic creature he had spared back in the dragon village. Where she had been small and weedy, now she was lithe and well muscled from months of walking and running. Melyn shook his head, thinking he was seeing her with his aethereal vision, surprised to find himself admiring her beauty where before he would have felt only hatred. Without saying anything, he nodded for her to go on.
‘There are spells which can shorten the distance, or spells that can make us travel at great speed, even though we barely walk. Either could get you where you want to be in time.’
‘And you know how to perform this magic, I take it.’
‘No, Your Grace. I don’t think even Sir Frynwy knew how, and he was the most skilled mage I knew.’
Melyn’s anger rose at the mention of the old dragon. ‘Then what use is it telling me of such spells? Or are you so tired of your life you think to provoke me?’
‘Nothing could be further from my mind, sir. I don’t know how to do this magic, but I know of it. And you carry the secret of it with you.’
‘I do?’
‘The book, sir. The Llyfr Draconius. You’ll find what you need in there, if you know how to look.’
‘But I thought you said the book was dangerous.’
‘Oh it is, Your Grace. Very much so. But together we might divine its secrets.’
‘Together?’ Melyn wondered at the temerity of the creature. She had to know he would not let her anywhere near the book; it contained secrets that might help her escape or inflict damage on him and his warrior priests. And yet his god had told him to use the dragon’s magic if it helped. It was after all just the Shepherd’s own magic stolen.
He had no time to think on it further, as a scout came galloping towards them with news of another town not far beyond the next rise. The routine was well established now, and the warrior priests soon resumed their magical camouflage. Melyn watched them with his newly sharpened aethereal vision as they surrounded the small town and set about ridding it of soldiers and all men of fighting age.
Even though it was little more than a large village, the sky had darkened towards evening by the time the grim work was done. The inquisitor was pleased to see there had been no losses on his side, not even a horse injured. He wanted to press on, force the pace faster towards their goal, but he knew it would be unwise to push his men too hard. He ordered them to make camp outside the town, riding through to review the carnage. It didn’t sicken him; these were people who had forsaken the Shepherd, after all. In better times he might have made the effort to convert them, but this was war. Any whose souls were pure would be welcomed into the safe pastures, and those who weren’t could burn with the Wolf in his den. And yet he did not view the dead bodies piled high awaiting the pyre with the same satisfaction as once he had.
