The Crimson Shield (30 page)

Still, twenty thousand men should have been enough. The bashars of the Weeping Giant had conducted themselves well, sending each of the clans into battle one after the other and withdrawing each
one before they turned to rout. Wearing the supposedly invincible forkbeards down, because no one, in the end, was truly unbeatable. The horsemasters were wary this time too, racing their men in to
hurl their javelots and racing out again before the Marroc archers could wreak the havoc they had before. The forkbeards had chosen their field well, pitched between a steep gully lined with stakes
and a light wood. From his hill Gulsukh hadn’t been able to see what had happened to the horsemasters and their efforts to flank the Lhosir line and take it from behind, but they’d
clearly failed.

The Weeping Giant had fallen, but even then the day hadn’t been lost. The enraged Vathen fell on the forkbeards, heedless of their bashars. They pushed and pushed them back, slowly
breaking them down until finally,
finally
, they broke the Lhosir line. Gulsukh had to admire whoever had held the top of that hill for the forkbeards. However many men he had there,
he’d waited and he’d waited. A lesser mind might have thrown them into the fight sooner, but no, this one waited until the very last possible moment, for when the battle hung in the
balance and the Vathen had taken beating after beating and yet found themselves on the point of victory, and
then
he threw them in, snatching it away again. Five hundred men, give or take,
while the Vathen were still thousands upon thousands, but in that one moment he broke their spirit. The Vathan soldiers crumbled, their bashars failed, they broke and they ran, and the Lhosir cut
them down. The best that could be said for what happened next was that the forkbeards themselves were too bloodied and spent to turn the rout into a proper slaughter.

He raised an eyebrow to Moonjal Bashar. ‘My advice would be to have the horsemasters supply cover to our retreat.’ Not that anyone listened to him any more. An ardshan in disgrace.
Disobedient to the Weeping Giant, and then he’d gone and lost as well.

‘I’ll send a messenger.’

‘Will you? I’m not sure who you’re going to send it to.’ He watched Moonjal send a runner anyway.

‘You don’t seem disturbed, Ardshan. Is there some finer point I’m missing?’

‘Not really. The setting sun means the forkbeards won’t be able to make the most of what they’ve done to us. Other than that, no.’ There was a little consolation to be
taken there, but the smile on his face that he couldn’t quite hide was because the Weeping Giant was dead. The Sword Brothers would be in disarray and a good few of those dead too. They
needed an ardshan again. There was still a horde here, if he could keep it together.

‘Should we join the retreat, Ardshan?’

Gulsukh shook his head. ‘Let the Sword Brothers deal with it. Let them be seen and let them take the blame. Let them cherish their defeat. An ardshan knows that defeat comes as well as
victory. Time they learned it too. We’ll find them later. I want to see our prisoner.’ He turned his horse and rode down the back of the hill and left the fleeing Vathan army that was
no longer his to whatever fate the Lhosir would find for it. He rode to his own camp in the woods, away from the main Vathan force and the onrushing forkbeards. He had a few score men now, no more.
Kinsmen mostly, who still took his orders over anyone else’s. The last vestiges of his old clan, before the Sword Brothers had swept through the steppes. A meagre handful, but among the
Vathen the right man with the right words could make a handful into a horde with a snap of his fingers.

The forkbeard was waiting for him inside his tent, still bloody from the beating he’d taken the night before. Gulsukh’s men had found this one on his own, creeping about down by the
sea. He was bound so tightly that his hands had gone blue. Gulsukh cut him loose. He sat down beside the Lhosir and offered him a cup of Aulian wine. The Lhosir batted it away.

‘When my men found you, they swear to me that someone had done this to you already. They tell me they were gentle and that you didn’t put up much resistance for a forkbeard. So what
were you doing down by the sea at the dead of night? Did you come on that ship out of Andhun? The one drawn up and abandoned on the shore?’

The Lhosir shrugged but the pinch of his lips gave him away.

‘After you beat me the first time, I haven’t had much else to do except stay out here watching who comes and who goes. Your prince has taken the Crimson Shield of the Marroc and that
ship on the beach is his. So why weren’t you with him?’

The Lhosir spat at him. Gulsukh poured another cup of wine, for himself this time, and supped it. ‘In the old Aulian Empire it was understood that men might divulge their secrets and
retain their honour after they were taken. Any prisoner was permitted to remain silent for one day and one night. When that time was done, it was assumed that a torturer of any skill would have
reduced him to the point of revealing whatever he knew. So instead of the torturer, there was only ever the
idea
of a torturer, and of the pain and everything else that comes with such
people. At the end of one day and one night, a man like me would come to a man like you. I would offer you a fine wine and a pleasant meal and we would discuss matters. It was understood to be
honourable, then, for the captive to reveal everything he knew, and in return he was spared any unkindness. That’s not to say that he would keep his life, but often that was the case; and
even when it wasn’t, death would be swift and clean and proud. I think you’d understand
that
, at least.’ He poured a second cup of wine for the Lhosir. ‘That was
the Aulian way, but the Aulians are gone now. I simply stake my enemies to the ground, cut strips of skin from their flesh and sprinkle them with salt until they tell me what I want and then let
the ants eat them. I don’t know how it is among you forkbeards, but I’ve seen the men your prince hung up from his poles after you beat us. They were my men. I knew them. Their
families. Their wives, their sons, their brothers. I was the one who led them to defeat. It doesn’t make me think well of you, what your prince did to them.’ He offered the cup of wine.
‘I fought for your king once, so I know you well enough to suppose you’ll opt for pain and heroic resistance, but I’ll offer you the Aulian way anyway in case you’d prefer
it.’ Gulsukh moved in closer to the Lhosir. ‘I won’t tell if you won’t. What do you say, forkbeard?’

‘I say you talk too much.’ The Lhosir slapped the cup across the tent.

Gulsukh nodded. ‘I do. Perhaps that’s why I prefer the Aulian way to this.’ He rose and whistled for his torturer, the best he had among the men left to him. When the torturer
had dragged the Lhosir away, he called in Moonjal. There was no reason why a father and son shouldn’t share what was left of what was a rather fine old Aulian vintage.

Moonjal Bashar bowed low as he came in. Gulsukh picked up the cup that the forkbeard had refused and refilled it. ‘Did he say what he was doing?’ asked his son.

Gulsukh shook his head but smiled as he did. ‘He thought not. He was very brave. But let us suppose that Twelvefingers left his ship where he did because he was unable to enter Andhun. Why
would that be?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘How far away are the nearest bashars of the Weeping Giant?’

‘A few miles, no more.’

‘What would
you
do, Moonjal?’

Moonjal Bashar stiffened. ‘The Lhosir have beaten us soundly but are unable to press their advantage. Many of our clans remain strong. I would rally the bashars and attack again at dawn,
pressing them as hard as possible and keeping them away from the city if I could. They committed all of their men while half of ours barely fought at all. They will be tired. I would continue as we
planned and wear them down.’

‘Exactly right. Exactly what I’d have done if we hadn’t found this Lhosir on the beach.’

‘But will the forkbeards not withdraw behind their walls?’

Gulsukh smiled. ‘What if they can’t, Moonjal?’ He laughed. ‘We shall see to it that the forkbeard scouts find camps abandoned in the night. That they see us scattering
and fleeing along the coast road and into the hills. We watch them and we watch Andhun and we see what will happen; and we keep all our riders close, each with a fresh fast horse to hand.’
Gulsukh leaned forward. ‘I also mean to send a young bashar out into the night with a few good men at his side to go looking for the forkbeards. In case they need some encouragement to see us
running away.’

H
orsan and his men chased the bastard
nioingr
Gallow Foxbeard right across the battlefield, hurdling the bodies of a thousand broken men,
into the trees where the shadows were black and welcoming, and in the dark they lost him. Horsan supposed he must have slipped away out the other side. The Marroc were good at running. It only went
to show that Medrin was right: a Lhosir didn’t run and a Lhosir didn’t hide. A Lhosir stood, one against one or one against a hundred. Maybe a Lhosir died, but so what?

Now they’d lost him they’d have to go back to Medrin and tell them that both the
nioingr
and the Vathan sword had slipped away in the twilight, and Medrin would have a belly
full of rage when he heard and Horsan didn’t want to be the one who had to tell him.

Halfway back through the trees, Durlak pointed and yelled and started to run. ‘He’s there! I see him!’ A shape broke cover right where Horsan was looking and bolted through the
bracken. The woods were full of shadows and not much else, but it wasn’t the Foxbeard. Horsan wasn’t sure he remembered Gallow having a helm, but it certainly hadn’t had a Vathan
plume on the top.

‘Wait!’ But Durlak was jumping and shouting and whoever had been hiding in the woods was running and plain for all to see. They chased the darting shape right through the wood and
out the other end. The sky was a dim grey now, streaked with a long bruise of purple over the horizon, the last dying light of day. Enough to show Horsan that he was right.

‘It’s a Vathan!’ And now they really had missed the Foxbeard and he’d be halfway to Andhun. Horsan pulled up. ‘Leave him! It’s the
nioingr
we’re after.’

The others ignored him and ran on and after a moment Horsan followed too, because what else was there to do except go back to Medrin with their heads hanging to tell him they’d failed? And
maybe Gallow hadn’t gone to Andhun and his precious Marroc but had taken the sword back to the Vathen instead. It was a
nioingr
sort of thing to do. Maybe these Vathen would lead him
right where he wanted to go.

For all his running and darting through shadows, the Vathan never quite managed to get away. It seemed . . .
odd
. . . and for a moment Horsan was almost inclined to stop and let him
go.

‘Forkbeards! Forkbeards!’ the Vathan cried out to the night, sharp with fear. ‘Hundreds of them! Run!’

Hundreds?
Horsan laughed and forgot about stopping and ambushes and caution.
Hundreds? There’s a dozen of us, you fool!

But the Vathan kept shouting and running, and now Horsan could see fires in the woods ahead, quickly being stamped out, sparks shooting into the air like Aulian rockets. Shapes and shadows of
more men moved ahead of them, and once more the cries went up:
Forkbeards! Flee!

Gallow crouched in the dark beside the road. The moon was up and the gates of Andhun lay in sight. A handful of Lhosir stood clustered around a small fire, far enough away to
be out of range of any arrows. Medrin’s men. Watchers. Watching for
him
perhaps, and Andhun’s gates were firmly closed. No fires burned up on the walls, no stars of torches
moved back and forth. And even if he found a Marroc and called out, why would they let him in?

I have Solace. I have the holy sword of the Vathen, the Sword of the Weeping God.
But the Marroc god was Modris, and Modris and the Weeping God fought their eternal battle, the
Protector and the Peacebringer, the Crimson Shield and Solace. They’d never allow the red sword through their gates. More likely they’d kill the man who carried it and hurl it from
their cliffs far out to sea. It was cursed. He could feel it. There was a burden that came with bearing such a sword.

Arda!
He touched the locket, but he knew what Arda’s words would be. He could hear them, clear as a bell.
Sell it, you oaf! Sell it and come home. Must be worth a fortune and
more than we’ve any need for. So get what you can and think of your sons. Or throw it into the sea if you must, but whatever you do, don’t you be sneaking around the bottom of the
cliffs, finding your way past those walls! Just don’t!

Just don’t! In the darkness Gallow laughed. That was how she did it. She went by what she knew of him, guessed what he was most likely to do and then told him to do something else. The
opposite if she could find one, just so she could shake her head and wag her finger and tell him how wrong he was. It was never about what she wanted, it was about being able to scold him
afterwards. Eight years of being married to the woman and he’d never seen through her until now, carrying a cursed sword and trapped between the Marroc on one side and Medrin on the other,
probably with some Vathen still around for good measure and all of them wanting to kill him; and now he had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stop himself laughing aloud. He could see her, eyes
rolling, shaking her head in disbelief.
And there you go, keeping on wondering why it is you can’t leave me be, you great lump of wood. Now get yourself home. You can give Nadric a good
shouting at for being such a thistlefinger if you need something to look forward to.

He didn’t, but there was something else to done before he could leave. ‘I have to get into Andhun. I have to warn them. Medrin will slaughter them.’

Naturally I disagree, but I suppose you do.
If she’d been there he would have kissed her, and if she’d shaken her head and told him that no, really, he
did
have to
go with her instead, he would have gone.