Knives
Lionel lay on his horse’s neck, soaking up a bit of warmth while his back froze. Bloody country, the far mountain peaks gleamed in the still air, white and frigid. The argument as to whether this was the fabled snow had raged all day, and earlier hopes to ride that way dropped faster than the temperature. The horses suffered as well, not enjoying the constant slopes, the temperature and the poor grazing. Half the time the lancers spent on foot, as much to keep warm as to spare the horses.
Coming down the ridge, they entered a forest of pines, welcome relief from the relentless icy winds. Lionel sighed, wondering if he should send back some men for supplies and warm coats. Not even a sign of habitation. Jez and Matt started swearing up ahead, where all the front riders crawled on the ground. He toed his horse forward.
“What’s up?”
“Fucking stupid trees. These blasted needles everywhere, not a track to be found. They could scatter and we won’t know.” Jez scratched his head while Matt cast around in a circle, getting wider.
“Follow the path, put trackers down any other path that appears and we’ll patrol the edge of the forest when we find it.”
“This fucking thing probably stretches all the way to the edge of the world.”
“Jez, what do you make of this?” Matt called from the edge of the obvious trail.
The trackers converged on him, pointing to a tiny broken twig on a trunk, almost hidden in a mass of fresh needles.
“Old,” said Jez in frustration. “No fresh wood, could have been a year ago.”
“Don’t reckon, mate,” said another tracker feeling the break. “See the sharp edge? Old wood, broken last night or yesterday, I reckon. These pines are different from our trees, different colour.”
“Oh, you little beauty,” said Jez, breathing a sigh of relief. “She’s marking the trail. Come on lads, now we know what to look for.”
“Wouldn’t it be more obvious,” said Lionel, who couldn’t even see the break. “Surely she would want to make certain we didn’t miss it?”
“Yeah, and her bloody Spakka will help, won’t he? Don’t be dense.”
The trackers ranged ahead now, and one shouted from a couple of hundred paces up the trail. “Here’s another one. Hidden again.”
Progress slowed, but it was progress and they emerged from the forest in the late afternoon, having found the odd marker, some far apart. For the first time the trackers found tracks, and Matt reported to Lionel as he arrived.
“Lost about half of them, gone in the forest, but the princess is still here.”
“Can we find their trails?”
Matt scratched his beard, casting his eyes along the forest edge.
“Could be, but not worth it. Let’s find the princess and get somewhere warm, fast.”
“We have to think about the girls, can’t let Kingdom girls be taken like that. Jez! No, I don’t want to know what you think. Now, could it be that the princess is not with this group but spirited away and these signs are from somebody else?”
Jez turned away muttering about the girls, but Matt answered, almost succeeding in keeping a smirk from his face.
“Unlikely, boss. Always twigs, that a girl can break, never something too big. All at the right height, always where a branch has to be pushed out of the way so it isn’t noticeable. The break direction is important, and that is a Pathfinders trick.”
“Lionel, I spoke to one of the wagon drivers back at Sarl when we came through.” Robbie spoke, deep in thought. “He told me these people are always raiding across the frontier, stealing girls and sheep. Both sides do it.”
“Probably prefer the sheep, prettier,” said Jez, coming back into the conversation.
“So what?” Lionel managed to keep a straight face.
“So the girls may be used to it, and if we can find a village later, we can ask about the girls.”
“Oh, so you want us to walk into a village, have a drink in the pub and a sing-song with the local militia?”
“Locals are pretty spread out; unlikely they could get up a force enough to worry us.”
“Daylights wasting, let’s get after her.” Impatient, Jez rode off, down the trail.
Lionel hesitated. “Robbie, I need patrols out anyway. Four different patrols, one each way down the side of the forest, see what they find, and one each side of us, check out the country.”
Robbie nodded and dropped back, selecting troopers for the patrols.
*
Sitting with his back to a small fire, careful to retain his night vision, Lionel sipped a warming broth made by shaving dried meat into a mug. Movement at the edge of his vision indicated the last patrol’s return, and shortly a trooper with a shock of blonde hair and an open, guileless face sat down opposite, accepting a hot mug of tea from Jeremy.
“Any sign, Danny?”
Danny scratched his chest, a puzzled expression on his face.
“We found a trail out of the forest, one set of tracks. Followed them down into a vale, pretty little thing with a stream and bloody sheep everywhere. Big things with horns and black faces. There was a shack in the middle, by the stream, with a pony grazing in a meadow nearby. As we rode up, this man came out, no weapons. He was bringing turf into the house for some reason. He stopped still at the sight of us, lances levelled at him.” Danny sighed and sipped his tea, making a face.
“Asked if he spoke Harrhein, and he nodded. Told him he was a fucking slaver and we were going to hang him, we’d trailed him all the way from Hardenwall. He went white, backed up a step and this girl ran out of the hut and stood in front of him.”
Danny paused, shaking his head.
“Told me to fuck off, she did. Said they were going to be married, and I was a bloody foreigner who didn’t understand anything. This was the way they did it on the frontier. He was a good man and he would fight for the king if asked.”
“This is a fool’s quest. We might as well pack up and go home if they are all busy shagging them already.” Jeremy poked at the fire, watching a dried fungus burn, in the forlorn hope in might be hallucinogenic.
“We still need to find the princess. King won’t be too happy if we lose her. Anything else, Danny?”
“This Spakka has the princess. He don’t speak with them much. Hasn’t hurt her, busy teaching her Spakka. He was happy to tell me what he knew, which wasn’t much. All the Uightlanders are heading for their own steadings, and the Spakka has nowhere to go. There’s Uightlanders heading home all over the hills, it seems. They reckon they were saving people from the Spakka while pretending to fight with them.”
“Yeah, right,” said Jeremy. “Any opportunity to fight, that lot.”
“The girl told me not to worry about the women. But she worries about the princess. They don’t trust the Spakka.”
Danny finished his tea and headed back to his camp-site. They could hear him arguing with Robbie that he shouldn’t stand a watch after the patrol.
*
By the third morning, Asmara reckoned she could do anything on the plodding pony. She could stand up and exercise on his broad rump while he kept going, not in the slightest bit bothered. Eydis didn’t like it, though, so she persisted, especially if he fell into a doze. This time he pulled her back down, turned the pony off the trail and set him at a steep hill, leaving the others to continue along the trail.
Asmara wondered if they were heading off alone already, but kept quiet having learnt the futility of questions. Twenty minutes stiff climbing caused the pony to snort in protest as he scaled the last few feet to the top of the hill, where Eydis unsaddled him in a small hollow. He rolled a few times before setting to the serious task of demolishing the lush grass, unusual here in the north.
Eydis found himself a seat half in a bush and sat down, motioning Asmara to join him. She noticed the food bag in his hand, so complied. In front of them lay a magnificent vista, stretching right down to the sea, while off to their left lay a small village into which the others entered as she watched. More mountains lay behind them, while to the right the morning’s path stood out clear and plain, the grasses knocked forward to mark where they rode.
Asmara ignored the beauty of the scene in front of her, with mauves and purples rippling over treeless hills as the heather danced to the wind. She concentrated on their back trail, wondering who followed. She hoped the lancers passed the word to the Pathfinders and looked to the sides of the trail, expecting to see shadows flitting through the trees. She didn’t think the lancers, southerners unused to the north, cold or pine trees, would manage to follow the trail this far.
“Two hours,” said Eydis, breaking the silence. “We wait two hours, before going down to the village. Tonight you sleep in a bed, in the inn.”
“You have money?”
He nodded, eyes on the back trail.
“Where did you get that from? Looting the farms of my people?”
“Why hurt the farmers? When we take over the land, we need them to raise food for us. No, from the oppressors.”
“Oppressors?” Asmara tripped over the difficult word; she thought she understood and wondered who oppressed the people of the north.
“Long clothes like women, fat, big empty houses. Tall house with bell.”
“Ah, the church! Why do you call them oppressors?”
“Always they are with the farmers, never do any work, but the farmers must give them food and money. They do not respect the Great Gods of Valhalla.”
“They worship a different god. Have you spoken to them about their god?”
“Who listens to them? Always they wail and scream, cry and hit the ground. Not men, too much noise, no action.”
“Maybe they are upset that you are looting their churches…”
Eydis grinned. “Always they try something different to hide their wealth. Always we find it. Sometimes we must play with their leader.”
Asmara did not appreciate the church, as it sided with the barons and dukes trying to curb the royal power, but she felt sorry for these poor priests at the front line of Spakka incursions. Still, she mused, the simple answer would be not to take all the money off the farmers.
*
“He’ll lay for us today,” said Jeremy, reining his horse in so he rode level with Lionel. “Time to get off the path. Think of it as if we are tracking elves.”
“You think he is that smart? He’s a sailor.”
“Why take the risk? The country is opening up. You heard the patrol reports. We get high and we can follow them from above, out of sight.”
“All of us, you think? Not leave some on the trail in case we miss them?”
“We can always come back. But if he lays for us and sees us, he’s gone and we have another week chasing him. We go round and get ahead of him, he won’t suspect a thing.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Take a patrol and find the way. We’ll follow along.”
*
Leaving the patrol in the gulley with Matt holding his horse, Jeremy climbed the scree to the notch where he could worm his way to the front of the hill without sky-lining himself. He could imagine how the Spakka would react to a flicker of movement against the sky.
For a moment he admired the view, before searching the landscape. He split the country into bands and swept each band from right to left before moving to the next. In the second band, left of centre, something moved as he scanned and he concentrated for a moment. A horse, no a pony, sprang into focus, feeding in a hollow near the top of a hill. Strange place for a horse, he thought, and studied the hilltop with extra care.
Something out of place on the hilltop. He narrowed down his search area and identified each bush before deeper shadows sharpened his attention further, and the two figures appeared.
Careful not to look directly at them, in case the attention alerted the sixth sense of the Spakka, Jeremy considered the myriad of paths from the hilltop, discovering the village in the process, nestled in the valley to the north and left of the hill. Worming his way back to the top of the scree, he waved to the patrol and held up two fingers. Matt and Geoff scrambled up beside him.
“Ease forward through the rocks and get into position. You’ll see a hill just to the left with a horse near the top. They’re on top of that hill, two of them, the Spakka and the princess, watching their back trail. There’s a village further off where the rest are probably getting pissed. I’m going to make a model, you stay here and watch. Don’t concentrate on them. Be ready to check my model later, so learn the terrain. If they move out, Matt comes down to tell us while Geoff, you stay here till you are certain where they are going, then come down.”
Both nodded and he slid down the scree, confident they were too far away for the odd falling stone to reach Spakka ears. He sent a rider for Lionel and set to work in some loose earth to recreate the landscape on the other side, using stones for hills, earth to create slopes and moss for woods.
Lionel arrived as he started a brew made by the rest of the patrol, who made a cook fire as soon as they stopped. Three slept while one kept watch from further up the track. Jeremy adjusted some wood before picking up a stick and explaining the map to Lionel.
“Spakka and the princess are here, on this hill, watching their back trail. If we hit them now, they have fifty fucking trails to escape, we can’t block them all.” He drank some tea while Lionel considered the model. “They will spend the night in the village, here, once they are sure they are not followed. Probably late this afternoon they will go down, arrive just before sundown. In the morning, they will be up before dawn and head off north, along the main trail over here.”
“Why that trail?”
“You can see it; now they think we are lost in the forest they can cut back to the main route north. Away from justice, from us, and maybe he can get a boat up there. I hear there are more tribes along the coast, fisher folk, they’ll have boats and you can bet that is what he is after.”
Lionel nodded as Jeremy drank more tea. Henry slipped a mug into Lionel’s hands.
“We need to be in position here before dawn, plenty of short grass we can ride over, fast. Doesn’t matter which route they take; we’ll have them covered. Pickets here and here to let us know when they ride out. Leave the patrol here to confirm they go to the village, and then they can overnight here where they can act as backstop in the morning if needed. What do you think?”
“What is this grass you’ve put on these hills? Wouldn’t they be better for the ambush?”
“Sorry, that is this bloody heather. Have you seen how deep it is? Horses don’t like it; we can’t move fast through it. We need to cut them off from the heather, they could get lost in that. So I want a spot where they can’t get into it. We can surround him here.”
“He’ll kill the princess.”
“He’ll try, and he’ll threaten, but I have an answer for that too. Need to check the ambush site this afternoon.”
“They’ll see you.”
Jeremy shrugged. “It’s a long way, and by the time we get there, I expect they will be off the hill and on the way to the village. Worth the risk. I’ll go on foot with a few others, Matt, Andy and Geoff.”
Lionel considered the problem and kept quiet while he sipped his tea.
“Matt and Geoff on stag up the hill? Fine, Henry, Robbo, go take their places. You’ll be staying behind to make sure they leave and to man the backstop tomorrow. You’ll have eight more people, I’ll put Robbie in charge and brief him. No, you do what he tells you, Henry, I don’t care what he did to you. Get up the hill. James, what are you doing here? Thought you stayed with Ade?”
“This looked more fun.”
“Hope you enjoyed the cold. Well, go back and get the rest of the troops, guide them along here. We’ll be heading up the trail there and there will be a guide at the top to show them where to go.”
Lionel didn’t believe in hiding strategy from the troops, the more who knew what was going on, the better. Matt and Geoff arrived, where Jeremy made them check the model to see if there were any changes. Matt moved a few things around, nothing in the ambush location, Lionel noted.
“Fine, off you guys go, all of you. I’ll stay here and act as guide to the troops on arrival. We’ll follow this trail round the mountain. Use cairns at any forks to tell us which way to go and leave a guide when you need to. Do you need more troops? Should have a double patrol, really, if you are going to find us a night camp and check out the ambush.”
“Yeah, but I am not waiting for them. Send them on ahead.”
“Fine. I’ll send Harry with his boys.”
The patrol moved out, and Lionel decided he had time to see the land himself. He ignored his horse, which huffed at him to make sure he knew the lack of grazing, and scrambled up the scree. Geoff blowing into his hands brought his attention to the cold, smarting as the wind whipped past his ears. A spectacular view greeted him and he spent a few moments enjoying it, watching the flight of some peculiar birds that looked and flew like crows but had grey bodies and black wings. He made out the key features from the map, the heather everywhere and a lack of trees on the hills. Even in the ambush ground, heather grew in profusion, clumps along the path stretching in swathes across the green.
Henry nudged him, pointing back down the track and he saw the first of the troop arriving, so he left the vista and dropped back down to meet them.
*
Her Spakka becoming fluent, Asmara bitched at Eydis. She wanted her own horse, fed up with riding on the back. Five Uightlanders and their women accompanied them, each girl on her own horse exacerbating her annoyance, although these horses neighed complaints at the weight of stores they carried, gifts for the girls to set up homes. Rosie and her husband stayed in the village, taking a different path to her new home.
“Asmara horse. Want Asmara horse, need Asmara horse.” She climbed onto her feet and moved round him, to sit on the horse’s neck facing backwards to glare at Eydis.
He rubbed his inner thigh where a deliberate heel pinched the delicate flesh in passing. His head ached from too much ale, a satisfying brew redolent with bitter hops and a thick malt taste. His resistance sat at a low ebb, his desire to live evaporating with every word she mangled. The previous night, full of ale and emotion, he had walked out several hundred paces from the village and stood on a low hillock, to sing the farewell paean to his training and battle partner of the last ten years, Hrokr, lanced in the line.
Eydis had grasped for meaning, for a message, staring at the stars, and felt guilt overwhelm him as the tears fell where nobody, especially not this witchery child, could see him. She was the last bit of value from this catastrophe; he meant to see her back to Spakka and assuage his blame. Now she wanted her own damn horse.
“No, you would bugger off back to Harrhein.” He closed his eyes, not wanting to see her face with the green eyes growing bigger and probably lined with tears, false tears.
“What mean ‘bugger off’?”
He cursed under his breath. “It’s just a general word for moving,” he lied. “We don’t need a horse because nobody thought you important enough to give any gifts.”
“You lock in room, stop Asmara bugger off. Nobody see, nobody give. If see, give lots. Poor Asmara. Cruel, nasty Eydis. Eydis drink ale. Head hurt?” She altered the pitch of her voice as she spoke, going up the scale till it cut through his head with the pain of a glass cut.
“Quiet, too early to talk.” The dawn lit up the hills, deer in the distance, while the valley and the village way behind still sat in shadow. Eydis swung hard at her head and she dodged by falling off the horse, to rebound off the ground onto the back of the horse, using his arm as a lever.
He sighed as they crested the low hill, moving down into a low meadow dotted with sheep and heather, wondering how to shut her up. Something moved in the shadows of the forest ahead, his gut clenching as he jerked the horse to a halt, the Uightlanders around him doing the same.
Lancers, those damn murderous lancers, a mass of them coming up the trail. Movement to the sides, and lines of riders rode out at great speed across the turf, sheep fleeing in panic, to cut off escape to the right or left. Turning in the saddle, preparing to turn the horse, he realised return to the village and allies could not happen as a dozen riders came over the brow of the hill behind them. Where had they hidden? Didn’t matter now, must have been a copse he did not notice.
The Uightlanders cried out in fear and panic, the girls crying, and a wash of fatalism swept through him. Time to die, to join Hrokr and the others. He reached behind him, seeking his helm, the first words of the battle-song trickling from his lips. He would charge the men in front, roll off his horse at the last moment and be amongst them. A realist, he doubted this would work, given the speed of the lance movement, but Odin and Thor would welcome him.
Why so many chasing him? Of course, the girl. The girl! Maybe a way out. He couldn’t find his helm, and instead reached for her.
“Where is my helm? Come, sit in front and help me negotiate.”
Heather on either side rippled and men leapt into the road from the waist high plants, causing the Uightlanders to throw weapons to the ground. Excruciating pain radiated from his head as Asmara gave him his helm, upside down, hard and fast into the crown of his head and intended to knock him out. He swayed in the saddle, holding the reins in one hand and swiping at her with the other. She leapt to the ground, shouting as she did so.
“Don’t kill him! I want him alive.”
Fury washed through him. Alive? Did she not understand his honour? He must die, and now he would take her with him. He whipped out his axe from its saddle holder and turned towards her, the horse rearing.
“Eydis! Stop, is over. Give me fealty, you live. One year, is all. I send home to wife after.” She stood beside the road, unafraid, pleading with him but the red mist descended. He raised his axe and agony blossomed in his hand, the axe falling to the ground. A tall boy stood in front of the princess, arm raised holding another knife ready to throw and he knew why his hand hurt.
He fell from the saddle, rolling across the ground and grabbed the axe with his left hand, almost as lethal, trying not to see his right flopping as he moved, a wide blade right through the tendons, agony slowing his movement. He stood with fluid grace and advanced on the boy, axe ready to deflect the thrown knife, ignoring the other men as his vision narrowed.
The knife flew at his thigh and he followed it as time stood still, caught it on the axe head, deflecting it to the left and a fearsome grin of triumph spread across his face to let the boy know he was dead, about to be split in half. The boy’s hand finished another movement as he brought his attention back to his victim and something struck him in the throat, no pain with the adrenaline but he couldn’t breathe, nor were his limbs working. Another knife, the boy had thrown another, he was fast, too fast, with too many knives.
He lay on his back, gurgling as blood filled his throat and trickled into his lungs. He could hear the princess, her voice small and far away, a silver bell tolling through the darkness falling on him, the light of Valhalla calling him to the clouds.
“Jeremy, I said to keep him alive! Didn’t you hear me? Why did you do that?”
“Nothing was stopping this one, Princess. Besides, my first knife did for his hand. He wouldn’t want to live with one hand, not this one. Proud.”
Eydis couldn’t speak, but he wanted to thank the boy, his rescuer. He gurgled loudly, tried to roll over, and raised his left hand, forcing the thumb up as he stared at the boy, appearing in the circle of light, surrounded by dark, going in and out of focus.
Then the pain hit, his back arched, he kicked the dirt and died, thankful for the knife saving his honour from screams.