The Long War 02 - The Dark Blood (42 page)

‘We will endure,’ said Vithar Xaris for the seventy-fifth time since the sun had disappeared over the horizon. ‘Your desire to rush our passage south will not change the inevitable.’ The Dokkalfar gave Utha the Ghost an exaggerated tilt of the head, and Randall saw his master resist the urge to do something violent.

‘You do understand that we’re being chased, yes?’ asked the cleric, biting his lip in frustration. ‘It is a concept that you can accept?’

The Vithar turned his head slowly, but did not make any other movement. His eyes were still and his mouth expressionless. ‘I understand more than you can ever know, Utha the Shadow,’ replied the forest-dweller.

‘Perhaps we should leave it before you manage actually to say something useful,’ Randall interjected, pulling Utha away from the conversation and directing a barbed grimace at the obtuse shaman.

The addition of twenty Dokkalfar to their travelling party had not made the journey any easier and Xaris’s insistence that they take their time in reaching the Fell had not improved the Black cleric’s temper.

They had sighted the edges of the forest several days ago, but the Fell was still distant. They would likely reach some outlying woods in the morning and find themselves safe inside the Dokkalfar settlement within the next few days.

Since leaving Cozz, they had been pursued by a group of Karesian hounds and Pevain’s bastards, and it was only the need to stay ahead of their pursuers that had made the Dokkalfar hurry at all.

‘They’re less than a day behind,’ said Utha, as the two of them moved away from the fire to join Tyr Vasir.

‘So we’ll have to turn and fight at some point tomorrow,’ replied Randall. ‘I think there’s some of Vasir’s stew left.’ The squire gestured to a small cook-fire and a simmering cauldron.

The Dokkalfar were curt and unemotional. Randall found them difficult companions and his attempts at bonding had been consistently rebuffed. Vasir had not changed, however, and the forest-dweller still preferred the company of the two men in the group rather than his own kind.

‘He’s a Vithar,’ said Vasir as Utha and Randall sat by the cooking pot. ‘He isn’t used to talking to men... most Tyr find them tiresome as well.’ He continued to stir the pot and a pleasant smell drifted from the fireplace.

‘If I hear
we will endure
once more, I’ll go back to my old career as a crusader,’ said Utha, clenching and unclenching his fists.

‘Please don’t say such things,’ snapped the Tyr, involuntarily tilting his head in a distinctive Dokkalfar gesture. ‘Vithar Xaris is two hundred years old. I’m sure you can forgive him a little vagueness when dealing with the short-lived.’

Utha and his squire exchanged a questioning look.

Randall said, ‘You’d think he’d have learned to cook in two hundred years, rather than expect you to do it every night.’

Vasir clearly didn’t understand why this was a problem. ‘He is a Vithar,’ he said, as if that explained everything.

Randall had slowly begun to understand the strange divisions of the Dokkalfar. A Tyr was something akin to a warrior, but the forest-dweller’s definition of the word was complicated. A Vithar was the closest thing they had to clerics or priests, but their authority was minimal and, according to Vasir, they functioned mostly as advisers. Randall had heard of other divisions among the forest-dwellers, but they were not comfortable discussing them.

They sat in silence for a moment, with Vasir stirring the rabbit and Gorlan stew, Utha shaking his head and trying to calm down, and Randall wondering how long he had to live. Whatever else happened and wherever they ended up, the young squire had made a number of decisions over the last few months. He knew that he was bound to Utha, likely until his death, and he knew that facing the world with kindness and good intentions might be foolish, but it was all he had left.

He was no longer a young man, experiencing the world through a veneer of naive optimism, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to be as cynical and jaded as his master. He smiled, realizing that his function was mostly to provide an optimistic counterpoint to Brother Utha the Ghost.

‘They’ll hit us before we reach the trees,’ said Utha, after Vasir had given him a bowl of stew. ‘And I expect we’ll be dead shortly afterwards.’

‘How likely are your people to emerge from the Fell and rescue us?’ asked Randall, smiling at Vasir.

The Dokkalfar did not understand the humour. ‘I consider that unlikely, Randall of Darkwald, but a black hawk has been following us for two days.’

Utha wasn’t paying much attention and he reclined on his bedroll, gazing off across the southern plains, towards the relative safety of the Fell.

‘Well, unless the hawk has a lot of tough friends, I’d say speed is still our best weapon,’ said Randall, hoping they could rouse the other Dokkalfar after only a few hours’ rest.

They had been travelling on two hours’ sleep for almost a week and, each time Vithar Xaris was asked to rouse from his slumber, he’d replied that he
wasn’t asleep, but needed further rest
. Whatever the forest-dwellers did instead of sleep was a mystery to Randall, but he sensed that something akin to meditation took place when they stopped at the end of the day.

‘The hawk watches us... we are not alone.’ Vasir looked skywards and tried his best to mimic a human smile.

‘I’m glad,’ was the dry response from Randall.

Utha lay down flat and rested his head on his arms. The sun was now completely gone and they were well hidden as dark shapes amongst dark shapes, adding an additional texture to the landscape, but not standing out should anyone be watching.

Randall had ceased to feel tired and was functioning on a strangely alert kind of exhaustion that had developed since they’d left Cozz. He’d not complained or pushed for more sleep, but had simply become the rational centre of their bizarre travelling company. He’d helped the Dokkalfar grow accustomed to the scimitars they had acquired, and repeatedly reassured them that they were free now and relatively safe. He didn’t know if they appreciated it, or even if they understood. If it were not for the bizarre reverence in which they held Utha the Ghost, the Dokkalfar would probably have proved even more reluctant to travel south. Randall didn’t really know what an
old blood of the Shadow Giants
was, but apparently it was quite important to the forest-dwellers. He’d heard them talk about
the one we loved
in wistful terms, and had seen them look at Utha as if he were more than a man.

‘Randall,’ said the Black cleric, who wasn’t yet fully asleep, ‘tomorrow, you are allowed to kill anyone who draws a weapon on you. Understood?’

The squire smiled with gallows humour. ‘But Vasir says that there is a hawk following us... we’ll be fine.’

The two men laughed and for a moment things were good. Randall hoped he could stay alive and keep his master alive, too, to see what else fate had in store for them.

As Utha drifted off to sleep, Randall turned to Vasir and smiled. ‘I appreciate your staying with us,’ he said to their strange companion.

The Dokkalfar sat upright and met Randall’s smile. ‘I am not overly enamoured with the Fell Walkers, the Dokkalfar of the southern woods.’

Randall frowned. ‘Where are you from?’ It was strange to realize that he had never asked Vasir anything about himself.

The forest-dweller attempted a smile. ‘I was sired beyond the Lands of Silence, near the Drow Deeps.’

‘I’ve not heard of either of those places,’ said Randall. ‘I assume there aren’t many men there?’

‘None, as far as I know. I came from a clan of camel herders. It was a simple life, but my path lay elsewhere and I travelled north to Narland. I was captured by Purple clerics in Lob’s Wood... they were the first men I’d ever seen.’

‘Not the ideal introduction to our race, I suppose,’ replied Randall, settling down on his bedroll. ‘Though I once knew a Purple cleric whom I quite liked.’

‘Utha and yourself are far better company. You have balanced out my opinion of men somewhat.’ Vasir was beginning to express himself better now when talking to the young squire, but Randall still couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. Either way, the comment made him laugh.

‘I should sleep... if I don’t wake before my master he’ll likely chide me for being lazy,’ said Randall, feeling surprisingly peaceful, considering the circumstances.

‘Sleep well, Randall of Darkwald,’ responded the Dokkalfar.

‘I’m sure I’ll sleep, my friend, but I doubt I’ll sleep well,’ said Randall.

* * *

The morning light obscured the vista ahead of him, but Randall was sure that he could see the Fell burning in the distance. The Dokkalfar did not react to the sight of their forest on fire, but simply stood on the grassy rise and turned their expressionless faces towards the south.

It was hard to see exactly what was occurring on the southern plains, but the masses of faceless soldiers ranged within a mile of the Fell made him think that someone had declared war on the trees of the Dokkalfar woods. They were armoured in black plate which glinted in the morning sun.

‘Hounds,’ said Utha, as their small company skulked on the edge of a rise, within sight of the tree line, ‘a shit-stack of them.’

They were still distant and he was confident they would not be seen by the armies of Karesia, though to see so many foreign troops in Tor Funweir was strange. The force that had marched on Cozz was a fraction of the army camped, in black spots, on the southern horizon, and the catapults had been used to launch flaming boulders into the Fell rather than to batter down walls. The outer trees were spreading a steady lick of flame amongst the giant oaks that marked the western border of the forest. Many small copses could be seen dotting the landscape, but they were not targeted by the hounds and instead provided their army with cover. Randall could not make out any defenders or Dokkalfar prepared to fight for their trees.

‘Why are they attacking the forest?’ he asked, taken aback by the sprawling multitudes of men, arrayed across the plains of Weir.

‘Maybe they don’t like trees,’ responded Utha, letting his pale eyes play over the spectacle ahead of them. ‘Or maybe they don’t like the forest-dwellers.’

They had been told that the Dokkalfar turned into darkwood trees when they died, and they had seen the hounds transporting caged forest-dwellers with them. However, the squire had not imagined that they would attack a forest the size of the Fell in order to procure captives. He didn’t know how many Dokkalfar lived in the woods, but the thought of so many more darkwood trees sent a shiver down his spine.

Their non-human companions were arrayed behind them, hidden behind a natural incline of the otherwise flat plain. If they felt anything at the sight of the burning trees, they didn’t show it, and their grey faces and black eyes remained as expressionless as ever.

To make matters worse, Tyr Vasir had indicated that their pursuers were fast approaching. With nowhere to hide, they were caught between two different ways to die. Pevain and his men would catch up with them before they reached the trees. Luckily, they were far enough from the hounds that the sound of the impending combat would not be heard. It was a small mercy – in fact, it was barely a mercy at all – but fighting fifty men would be easier than fighting ten thousand.

‘The Fell isn’t helpless,’ said Utha, assessing their situation. ‘The deep wood is not a castle or a city... it’s not Cozz... but they won’t hold out forever, especially with this
we will endure
horse-shit.’

The black hawk flew overhead and all the Dokkalfar looked skywards. Tyr Vasir joined them at the front. ‘We are not alone,’ he said.

‘Shut up about the hawk,’ said Randall. He turned to Utha. ‘So, do we stand here or try to fight Pevain in the woods?’

‘We can’t get to the woods, and those copses of trees are not decent cover,’ replied Utha, as a loud cry sounded from above them.

‘They are coming,’ said Vasir, as the sound of approaching men drifted across the plain.

‘How are your lot getting on with those scimitars?’ Utha asked Vasir.

‘They’re heavier than leaf-blades and not as well made, but they’ll do.’ He still had his two short blades, but the others wielded weapons taken from the hounds. They were twenty-three men and forest-dwellers, and Randall was far from convinced that they could stand for long against fifty warriors.

‘I bet I die before you, lad,’ said Utha, directing a wry smile at his squire, ‘and, if I tell you to run... you run.’

Randall returned the smile and drew the sword of Great Claw. His hand did not shake and he was as focused as he’d been for months. He was tired, alert, and determined to stay alive for as long as possible. His arms were taut and he felt stronger than he had ever been. Randall had even begun to think of himself as an average swordsman, rather than a boy with a blade he barely knew how to swing.

‘You lot,’ Utha shouted at Vithar Xaris and the Dokkalfar. ‘Is it too much to ask for you to get on the other side of this rise and draw your weapons?’ He spoke with sarcasm but the assembled forest-dwellers merely stood, looking apathetically at the Black cleric.

‘Vasir, get them to move,’ Randall said quietly to the Tyr warrior.

It was slow, but within five minutes the sound of approaching men had grown louder and the Dokkalfar had assembled behind the grassy rise. They were crouched and were not obviously visible. Utha, Randall and Vasir stood in the path of the approaching mercenaries and hounds, silhouetted against the morning sun, their weapons ready. Randall gripped his old longsword, Utha wielded a sword and a mace, and Vasir held his two leaf-blades low and ready.

‘Neither of you fight Pevain,’ said Utha in a low growl, ‘he’s mine.’

‘Can I kill one of those blonde twins?’ asked Randall, and his master directed a puzzled look at him.

‘I see a man before me, my squire,’ the Black cleric said, with just a hint of pride in his voice. ‘And you can kill any man that draws a weapon on you... just not Pevain.’

The black hawk circled overhead and Vasir followed its trajectory north, towards the approaching men. There was no one on horseback, which was probably why they had struggled to catch up, but they could make out Pevain himself and half a dozen others. Karesian hounds were on each side of the advancing group, and they could hear battle cries from the centre.