Valour (31 page)

‘We studied and learned,’ Brina said. ‘There is value in reading, as I have always told you, though it took us years, decades, to discover even a small portion of what is
contained in this book.’

‘So how do I make mist rise from the ground?’ He liked the thought of that, remembering the escape from Dun Carreg – a thick mist enveloping them, hiding them from their
attackers.
That could be a handy trick to know
. He felt a glimmer of excitement.

‘In essence, the act of elemental control can be broken down to two parts,’ Heb said in his loremaster’s voice. ‘You have to believe it, and then you have to speak
it.’

‘So if I tell mist to rise from the ground, then it will? It cannot be that simple.’

‘Well, yes and no,’ Heb said with a faint smile. ‘Your words show you are defeated already – you do not believe it will happen. I do not mean that you think it might
happen, and so give it a try. You have to believe it, absolutely, as you believe a chair will support your weight before you sit upon it, or that an apple will fall to the ground when you drop
it.’

‘And there is common sense,’ Brina added.

‘Yes, you must be aware of your surroundings. For example, you could not command a mist to arise from a desert. Mist is moisture, water. In Dun Carreg Brina and I commanded the moisture in
the ground to rise up. If it had not been there to begin with, then nothing would have happened. You understand?’

‘Yes.’ Corban nodded. It did make sense to him.
This is becoming interesting
.

‘So, then, I have to believe whatever it is that I want to happen, and then I just speak it.’

‘Yes,’ Heb said.

‘Though it’s still not quite that simple,’ Brina said.

Of course it isn’t
.

‘You have to speak it in this language,’ Heb said, taking the book from Brina and opening it. It was full of runes, a script that Corban recognized from the inscription carved into
the archway of Stonegate, back in Dun Carreg.

‘Is that giantish?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Brina said.

‘It is much more than that,’ Heb said. ‘It is the first language. The tongue of angels, giants, men. It is the language of Elyon, the Maker.’

‘So I have to learn giantish.’ Inwardly, Corban groaned.

‘Yes,’ Brina said. She smiled.

There was a rustling in the undergrowth and Storm appeared. She nudged him, making him stagger, and then she growled, looking through the trees.

‘What is it?’ Corban said, then saw three figures appearing from the underbrush. He recognized Halion. Immediately Corban knew something was wrong – the figure in the middle
was being supported, half carried.

Marrock.

He was waxen pale, one arm hanging limp, blood dripping from it.

‘What happened?’ Corban called as he ran to them, to help carry the injured man into their camp.

‘Wounded during our raid,’ Halion breathed. ‘Think he was mauled by one of their hounds.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ Marrock said.

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Brina snapped. She sent Corban running for her pack as she examined Marrock’s arm.

‘Everyone be ready to ride,’ Camlin called out, marching through the camp. ‘We need t’move. Think we’ve been tracked.’

All the mounts were saddled and ready.

When Corban returned to Brina she was pouring water from a skin over the wound. Corban caught a sight of frayed flesh and white bone amidst the blood. Brina took her pack from Corban, rummaged
inside it a moment, then unstoppered a jug of something, muttered, ‘This is going to sting,’ and poured it over the wound. Marrock drew in a sharp breath and Brina bandaged his forearm,
placing leaves over the bite-marks.

A horn call rang out behind them, answered by the baying of hounds, much louder than Corban would have liked.

‘We must leave,’ Halion said.

‘Dath, string your bow and follow me,’ Camlin said, mounting a saddled horse. Dath looked about nervously, then followed the woodsman.

‘Can you ride?’ Brina asked Marrock, who was drenched in sweat. He nodded and was hastily assisted into a saddle, then they were all riding hard away from the sound of their
pursuers.

They rode through broken woodland all day, the land changing from meadows and wide valleys to rolling hills, the trees turning to pine as they rose steadily higher. In the distance, to the
north-west, Corban could see a dark smudge on the horizon: mountains. Corban kept checking over his shoulder, hoping for Dath and Camlin’s return.

At highsun they stopped briefly to rest their mounts, then set off again. The afternoon passed. As the sun dipped into the horizon they were strung in a line behind Halion, who was keeping the
horses cantering, making the most of the soft pine-needles that covered the ground, allowing a good speed.

We’ve made good time, covered a lot of ground. Surely we’ve widened the gap between us
, Corban thought. But where are Camlin and Dath?

Then Marrock fell from his saddle, sliding like a sack of grain onto the pine-covered ground.

As the sun rose, Maquin stared down into the streets of Dun Kellen. Bodies buzzing with flies littered the ground.

The night had been long and hard fought, Jael’s warband assaulting Dun Kellen’s walls with growing desperation. There had been a dozen moments when Maquin expected to hear horns call
the retreat to the keep, but somehow they still held the outer wall. Orgull had played no little part in that. Jael’s assaults had focused on the parts of the wall that had been rebuilt, a
patchwork of timber and stone. Wherever the fighting was fiercest Orgull was there, dealing death with his giant’s axe, and Maquin had been glad to follow, his hatred of Jael fuelling his
body well beyond its limits. As he snatched some rest now he felt muscles and tendons complaining, his shoulder throbbing, blood and sweat stinging his eyes.
Not dead yet
. His thoughts
drifted to Kastell and he felt his stomach knot, his eyes drifting to the streets, searching for Jael.

Warriors were busy at work amongst the streets, chopping timber from houses, constructing makeshift ladders and battering rams. More than one of those lay discarded at the fortress’ gates,
surrounded by corpses. Even as Maquin scoured the enemy lines a knot of men stepped forward, Jael emerging from amongst them. He stopped a distance from the gates, mindful of spear throws, and
cupped his hands to his mouth.

‘Is there any of a rank left to speak with me?’ he called.

Muttering swept the battlements and Gerda came forward, dressed now in an ill-fitting cuirass, a short sword in her hand. Maquin smiled. She had grown in his estimation during the night,
refusing to leave the wall, fierce in her exhortations to her warriors, terrifying in her cursing of Jael and his men. She had even charged forwards and swung blows at one point, when men had
threatened to breach the wall. Warriors flanked her now, holding their shields ready as she approached the wall, no doubt remembering Varick’s fate.

Maquin felt a presence at his shoulder – Tahir, moving up to view the street. He had a cut on his cheek, a gash in his chainmail, but he seemed free of serious injury. He smiled at Maquin.
‘Still standing, then.’

‘Just,’ Maquin said, looking back to Jael.

‘What do you want?’ Gerda shouted down.

‘Are you all that Dun Kellen has left?’ Jael said, laughing. ‘No lord, no battlechief, just a fat old woman?’

‘Who are you calling a woman?’ Gerda yelled back, her warriors laughing at that. ‘Not too old or too fat to teach you a few lessons in warfare, you snot-nosed brat.’

Even Maquin laughed at that. He saw Jael scowl as laughter rippled along the battlements, even some from behind Jael, within his own ranks.

‘If there is anyone up there with rank to treat with me, I will gladly do so,’ Jael yelled. ‘If there is only a woman left to lead you, then Dun Kellen has fallen far already.
Let me make this clear to any with intelligence enough to hear. Gerda and her son Haelan are the walking dead. This is only the van of my warband – more are coming. You cannot win, and I will
have their heads on spikes before the next moon rises. Hand Gerda and her brat over and I will let you live, even welcome you into my own warband. Fight on and I will kill every last one of you.
Not just you: your wives, your women, your children too. There will be no captives – no surrender.’

‘He talks a good talk,’ Orgull muttered, moving up beside Maquin and Tahir.

Maquin glanced along the battlements, saw fear amongst the warriors there.

‘Hard words break no bones, as my old mam used to say,’ Tahir shouted down.

‘Well said,’ Gerda laughed.

‘I’ll break bones soon enough,’ Jael said, then turned, raising his arm as he did so. Warriors swept forwards from the shadows and ran towards the fortress’ wall. At a
horn blast they stopped and hurled a mass of spears, Maquin and his comrades ducking low. A man close to Tahir moved too slowly and a spear buried itself in his chest, hurling him back over the
battlements’ edge. Maquin peered over the wall into the street, saw more of Jael’s warriors hurrying from the town’s side streets carrying ladders, others holding shields high
over men that dragged a thick battering ram between them.

Warning shouts ran amongst the defenders; spears and rocks were hurled onto those below. A ladder slammed into place close to Maquin. He leaned out and stabbed down at a man climbing; his
sword-tip glanced off an iron helm, burying itself in the man’s shoulder. The man screamed and fell backwards, replaced by another who swung at Maquin’s exposed arm. Orgull dragged
Maquin back, then swung his axe at the enemy as he appeared at the top of the wall. In a spray of blood his head spun through the air, Orgull using his axe to push the ladder away, the headless
corpse still draped over the top rung. The ladder wobbled in space, then crashed back to the street below, men screaming as they fell or were crushed.

More ladders appeared along the battlements and Maquin lost himself in the fight. A booming thud marked time to their violence as the ram crashed ceaselessly against the gates, fading to a blur
in Maquin’s mind as he slashed and stabbed and snarled at the legion of faces that appeared before him. Always Orgull and Tahir were close by, his Gadrai sword-brothers, beating back the tide
wherever they stood. When Maquin paused, his limbs heavy and weak, his lungs burning, he saw Gerda standing on the wall above the gates, yelling defiance, encouraging her warriors, even lifting
rocks and heaving them over the battlements at Jael’s men below. As Maquin watched, jars of liquid – oil, he guessed – were thrown from above the gates, burning torches cast after
them. There was the sound of flames igniting, then a terrible screaming. Maquin leaned over the wall and saw the ram and those holding it ablaze, some running yelling through the street, many
rolling on the ground. The smell of charred meat hit his throat and he ducked back behind the wall.

Children moved along the top of the wall, taking skins of water to the defenders. Maquin beckoned one over and gulped from the skin. A shadow fell over them as Orgull reached for the water. The
young lad’s eyes wide as he stared at Orgull’s axe dripping with blood and gore.

‘Thirsty work,’ Orgull muttered between gulps.

The battle lulled again and Gerda walked along the walls. She reached them and paused. ‘You know Jael well?’ she asked Maquin.

‘He was cousin to my lord.’ He shrugged. ‘We lived in Mikil together, but Jael and Kastell, my lord, they were never friends.’

‘His claim that more men are coming – do you think he tells the truth?’

‘He is a snake, would lie to his own mother. He betrayed his uncle and murdered his cousin in the caverns below Haldis. I would not trust anything he says. Most likely he was trying to
spread fear amongst your men, hoping one would take your head and accomplish his goal for him. And he must know that you have many more men mustering in your outlying lands. He will be scared,
knowing that time is against him.’

‘That is what I thought, too,’ Gerda said. She raised her voice. ‘Jael is a liar, he has no more men coming to aid him. We must just resist, hold them off until our banner-men
from the outlying holds arrive.’ A ragged cheer rippled along the battlements and Gerda strode away.

Someone shouted a warning as ladders slammed against the wall.

‘Back to it,’ Orgull said, patting his axe.

They fought on, time losing all meaning to Maquin. Again and again Jael’s men assaulted the wall, and every time they were thrown back. As the sun dipped into the horizon, reflecting blood
red against low clouds, a cry went up and Jael’s men finally broke onto the battlements, first one man gaining a foothold, then another, then a handful.

Maquin was fighting over the gates, guarding Orgull’s flank as the big man swung his axe into a warrior who had just leaped from a ladder-top onto the wall. The man was off balance and
Orgull’s axe smashed into his chest, cutting through chainmail, leather, flesh and bone in an explosion of gore. Maquin heard a change in the battlecries behind him, turned and saw
Jael’s men forcing their way onto the wall. Without thinking, he ran at them, shouting to Orgull and Tahir but unaware if they heard him or not.