Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) (25 page)

“Strength, lad. Use your
strength,” said an accented voice. It was Faro, the merchant. Loster’s headache
seemed to fade at the contact and he tried to stand up straight, but then they
entered the tunnel beneath the gate and all Loster could see was a black maw
with two phantom eyes of blood red hovering above.

He screamed.

“Stop squirming. They’re
coming.”

Riella winced as
Beccorban dug an elbow into her ribs. It was dark but she could see most of the
courtyard. Beccorban had chosen their hiding place well. To the left was the
gatehouse guarding the Long Bridge. To the right was the tunnel that led to the
Wandering Gate. The clacking sound had stopped for the moment, but it could not
be long before it started again and the nightmarishly tall soldiers they had
seen stalking along the coast road came into view.

The wind howled and
brought the distant screams with it.
What
are they doing to them?
She thought again of the prisoners they had seen
and the runners — how easily they had been caught and dispatched. A harsh
staccato echoed off the walls around them and she closed her eyes.

Beccorban swore.
“What…?”

Riella opened her eyes
again and frowned. From the gatehouse of the Long Bridge stepped a huge
warrior. He was well over eight feet tall and clad from head to toe in dark
grey plate armour, carved with strange runes. His hands were encased in
gauntlets that turned his fingers into sharp spider’s legs, and at every point
where it would not hinder movement the armourer had added spikes and cruel
edges to the metal. His helmet was a silvery wall of smooth, unlined metal,
split by a thin visor. But most curious of all was the crown of his helm. It
grew with metal protrusions that twisted and curled in on each other, sprouting
from his head like antlers.

“The beast rider,” said
Beccorban in a low whisper. Riella nodded and then winced as her movement made
the wooden wagon bed creak. “Don’t tense up,” said Beccorban. “You’ll only end
up moving more. Relax. Let yourself go limp.” Riella did as she was told,
though it was against all her instincts — every muscle in her body wanted
to run, to escape from the metal monster that dominated the courtyard.

Two smaller soldiers
without the metal antlers stepped from the darkness behind Antler Helm. They
were followed by a man. The man was not overly tall, nor was his face covered.
He looked in all ways normal: a finely dressed noble one would expect to see in
Temple’s citadel, or indeed, here in Kressel. Riella felt her stomach clench as
the clacking began again, and before long a column of grey-armoured giants came
through the tunnel. There were eight of them, with around thirty or so human
prisoners in amongst them. Several, Riella noted, were children. The prisoners
were marched to a stop in front of Antler Helm, though he did not deign to
notice them. Instead the finely dressed human stepped forward and spread his
hands, beaming a bright smile.

“Welcome, friends. You
have made it here at last, though I am afraid we have started without you.” He
walked forward and the tall soldiers parted for him, allowing him to saunter up
and down along the huddled mass of miserable prisoners. He reached out and
tenderly brushed a lock of hair from a middle-aged woman’s face. “You must be
tired. Fear not. Soon you will rest.”

A low, melodious voice
boomed across the courtyard and Riella jumped. Beccorban gripped her arm and
squeezed gently. The voice belonged to Antler Helm, who said something to his
human envoy. The well-dressed man nodded and set about splitting the prisoners
up into groups: women, children, and men, of which there were only a handful.

One of the women tried
to break free and run back to the men. Antler Helm barked a command and a tall
henchmen caught her in a few strides. He lifted her as easily as a child lifts
a doll and carried her back to stand in front of his commander. The soldier
held her by the shoulders, his long barbed fingers digging into her flesh and
cutting through the thick woollen shift she wore.

Antler Helm stepped
forward and the woman screamed, shrill and piercing, drowning out all the other
noises in the courtyard. He waved the knight holding her away. The tall warrior
stepped back, blocking Riella’s view — she was secretly glad she could
not see. The woman’s scream was cut short and then there was a clicking sound
and a sharp crack like a whip. Something heavy fell to the floor and Riella
risked the noise to clap a hand over her mouth. Beccorban squeezed her hand
again but she felt the muscles all along his body tense, as eager to slip the
leash of his will as dogs at the hunt.

Antler Helm stepped
back, and she could see that he was holding something. It was the woman’s head.

Loster was floating in a
sea of pain. Every slight movement splashed hot agony up the inside of his
skull and he felt like he was about to throw up. When the woman tried to break
free, he barely noticed. He listened to the sound of her execution and felt
rather than heard the panic grow amongst the prisoners. Someone shoved him and
he fell but he did not have the strength to put his hands up. He hit the muddy
ground face first and wanted for all the world to close his eyes and sleep. His
vision was a blur but he could see a startlingly tall silhouette holding
something aloft that dripped with black liquid.

The screams he had heard
for hours suddenly sounded very close and he felt the point of whatever sharp
thing was trapped in his head pierce a membrane. Light exploded behind his eyes
and he tried to cry out but no sound came, just hot air that tore silently past
his lips and dampened the already wet mud in front of him until it swirled
around and formed a voice. It was a familiar voice yet one he had not heard for
years. It began as an itching at the base of his skull, spreading as a warmth
up over his head, like warm hands on his brain. It made him shiver in the
manner of somebody stepping into a hot bath, and then it spoke.

“
Foolish boy-child,
” it said. “
You
are weak. Pitiful and weak. You should have died in the mountain, not I.
”

“Barde?” he said aloud
and opened his eyes.

All was moving in slow
motion. The prisoners were jostling and pushing each other; Selene was
shouting, crying out at him, but he could not hear what she was saying. He sat
up and saw one of the tall soldiers bearing down on him, coming to pick him up
and carry him before the knight with the strange, spiked helm. He shook his
head to clear it but then the voice spoke again.

“
You let Aifayne die and now you’re going to be a plaything for these
demons. It’s all you could ever hope to be.
”

 
“No,” he shook his head again and pressed
the flat of his palm against his forehead. The pain was gone but now it felt as
if his brain had been taken out and the bloody cavity stuffed with sheep’s
wool. There was movement out of the corner of his eye. The merchant’s girl,
Mirril, broke from her group and ran towards her father. She was crying and the
approaching soldier hesitated, unsure of who to grab first. Loster blinked.
This was the first time he had seen any uncertainty from the tall soldiers.

“
Help her,
” said Barde’s voice. “
Help
her like you couldn’t help Aifayne. Coward. If she dies it’s your fault.
”

Loster stood quickly.
Fear was working its dark magic on his limbs but there was something else
fighting it. He let out a bellow of rage and ran forward, charging his shoulder
into the midriff of the tall soldier. He bounced off and fell heavily in the
mud, but he had caught the soldier off balance. The metal warrior fell with a
crash, letting out a low noise of pain as he landed.

The prisoners fell
silent for a moment as they took in what they had seen, then all was chaos.
Selene darted forward and picked Loster up, spinning him to face the long dark
tunnel they had entered by. The soldiers drew long and thick-bladed swords and
waded in amongst those prisoners too dumbstruck to move. The well-dressed man
raised his hands and his voice, crying out for calm, but it was no use.

The tall knight with the
spiked helm shrieked with anger but he was answered by an equally terrible
scream. Loster spun on his heel to see a giant of a man clad in a black
bearskin appear from nowhere. In his hands was a long warhammer and he leapt in
amongst the soldiers, swinging his weapon with incredible strength. Behind him
came a young woman dressed like a man. She had a long knife in her hands but
veered away from the fighting to gather up Mirril and flee towards the
entrance.

“Go! Go with her!”
screamed Selene, drawing her own knife and joining the giant hammerman in the
fray. Loster turned and ran towards the newcomer and Mirril. Throwing one last
look over his shoulder, he saw that four of the tall soldiers were down, their
helms smashed in. Some of the prisoners fought with their bare hands, clawing
at metal visors and trying to pull the remaining knights down to a level where
they could dispatch them. Others were running at full pelt, aiming to make it
to the tunnel before they were caught again. Selene came with them. Her small
blade could do little against armour. “Let’s go.” She grabbed Loster’s arm but
he tugged her away. The hammerman was still fighting. They couldn’t just leave
him.

The bearskin-clad
warrior had caught the tall soldiers by surprise but he could not beat them
all. He seemed to realise this at the same time as Loster; downing one last foe
with a well placed uppercut swing, he ducked beneath a slashing blade and began
to run towards their small group, leaving the other prisoners to their fate.

“Run, lad! Through the
tunnel!” he cried.

“Beccorban! Quickly!”
The young woman called out for the big warrior to join her and he bent his head
to his chest and upped his pace.

Loster needed no further
urging and allowed Selene to tug him into the darkness, but all of a sudden she
stopped and stood stock-still. She watched as the man called Beccorban sped
past her.

“Come on, Selene!” cried
Loster. “What are you waiting for?!”

She snapped out of her
reverie and ran with him. She stumbled, and at first Loster thought she had
tripped, but then she fell to her knees and he saw a small but wicked looking
bolt jutting from the small of her back. Beccorban appeared alongside him and
hauled her to her feet. She gave a little cry of pain and Beccorban
unceremoniously draped her arm around Loster’s shoulders. “Good lad, help her
walk.” And then he was gone, through the tunnel and out on to the open plain
before the fortress. Loster and Selene staggered after him. As they emerged
into the open, Beccorban was waiting for them, standing with several others by
the vast rectangle of broken wood that had been the gate. Loster wondered if he
should help them but he could not drop Selene. He ignored the mocking voice in
his head.

Beccorban squatted and
put one enormous shoulder against the wood. He gave a great heave and the
others joined him. There was a groaning creak and Loster was not sure whether
it was the wood or the bending of old bones. At last, the broken gate began to
shift, and the whole thing came crashing down to block the tunnel.

“That should hold them,”
breathed the old warrior. He jogged over to Riella and the girl. Loster and
Selene followed.

“Where is Papa?” Mirril
was crying but they had no time for her grief.

Loster looked
questioningly at Selene. She still had that faraway look in her eyes but
managed to whisper, “He fell.” Loster noted that her attention was fixed on
Beccorban.

If Faro was not with
them then he was indeed dead. They could not go back and make sure for it would
not take long for their pursuit to rally.

“What do we do?” said
the young woman, stroking the girl’s hair.

“We could head west to
Ruum,” said Beccorban. “It’s not far.”

Loster waited for Selene
to say something but she was silent and pale, still staring at the hammerman as
though he were a demon himself. “We can’t go there,” he said. “They have
already taken Ruum.”

Beccorban grunted. “That
is bad news, indeed. North, then. We might be able to find a stream and get to
the Watch. Otherwise it’s the Fens, and I don’t much fancy being chased through
marshland. Come, we haven’t much time.”

Beccorban swung his
hammer up and under his cloak to some unseen sheath and picked up Mirril in one
huge arm. Selene opened her mouth and Loster thought she was about to speak,
but she went limp instead and crumpled to the ground. Though she was a slight
creature, she was heavier than she looked, and Loster awkwardly tried to save
her from falling on the bolt that pierced her. Strong hands gripped her
shoulders and she suddenly became very light. Together Beccorban and Loster
laid her down on the grass, making sure to keep her upper body raised so as not
to drive the bolt deeper.

Blood oozed from the
corner of her mouth, and when she coughed, there was pink foam on her lips.

“Looks like you get away
in the end, boy,” she said, trying to smile.

Loster nodded, unsure of
what to say. A meaty hand clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you alone,
lad.”