Tenth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
The hill, edge of Deep Forest, Wheat Lands
Crys and Ash held the centre of the line with Colonel Thatcher as the Mireces toiled up the mud and slick grass of the hill towards them, Jarl on their left flank awaiting the advancing East Rank.
The distance had spoilt the archers’ aim to begin with, but now volleys darkened the already heavy air and thrummed downhill towards the advancing enemy huddled behind their locked shields. The Mireces prayed aloud, a cacophony of shouted entreaties and threats, curses and expletives spat from slavering mouths as the gods whipped them on, faster, gaining momentum, arrows glancing from their shields and soon too close for archers anyway. Colonel Thatcher pulled them back to the flanks.
Crys could feel the beat of blood all around him, hearts twinned with his, moving as one, a shoal of fish, a flock of birds, an army of the faithful with their god in their midst. On his order they locked their own shields and planted their feet, waiting for the Mireces to smash into them and try to force them on to the summit and level ground to even the odds.
Faster still and holding formation, divine madness sparking like steel on flint from one man to the next to the next, infected with battle lust, a flood rising until they were running, charging, screaming. And driving into the line.
The Mireces pushed, pressing them, harrying them, cracking shield rims down on to feet and up into faces, spears and swords poking through and over the wall and jabbing into Rilporian flesh.
‘Wedge,’ shouted a tall warrior in the front and the Mireces flowed into the new formation as if they’d practised a thousand times. The tip drove at Crys and his lips peeled back. He crouched slightly to accept the attack, shoulder into the back of his shield to brace and felt Ash lock into position by his side.
The lead warrior crashed into him, hooked Crys’s shield with his sword and curved the blade in around it. Crys batted it up with his, then chopped downwards into the warrior’s arm, but then the wedge’s momentum surged on and his foot skidded in the grass and it was step back or fall. He let them past.
Crys roared, the Fox God surging up inside him and bellowing His bloodlust, His battle joy, and Crys stiffened his legs and pushed inwards, straining, the men to either side doing the same.
Another Mireces yelled an order for the flanks to re-form into wedges of their own and now they had a three-pronged attack gnawing away at the Rilporian line.
‘Shoulders in,’ Crys screamed over the din, heard the order repeated and then they were shoving forwards and downwards, flattening the wedges, pushing the enemy back step by step and moving down the slope. It was slow, agonisingly so, with men on both sides slipping in the rain and blood, tripping on the fallen, gaps opening in line and wedge both for an enterprising killer to slip a blade into.
The day was growing darker, not brighter, though it wasn’t even noon. Rain fell in sheets until it was impossible to see the base of the hill or the western flank where the Krikites were, the Wolves in the smudge of trees towards the bottom.
They took a step forward, killing those in front of them. Step, kill. Step, kill. The Fox God bellowed His challenge. They stepped. And killed.
The Rilporians were holding, just, holes gouged in the front line by multiple wedges that were crushed only to re-form further along, like teeth tearing away chunks of flesh until their front was ragged and bleeding.
The Mireces had finally forced them up on to the flat ground at the top of the hill and there the fighting steadied, swirling madly back and forth with the eddies of war, where misfortune and bad luck were as deadly as spear or blade.
The topsoil was thin so there wasn’t much mud, but the scrubby grass was as slick as ice and every time a knot of Rankers went down, the Mireces surged and attempted to force them down the rearward slope. Not even the Fox God would be able to stop it if the Mireces got them on the run.
Crys slid from one almost-rout to the next, rallying the soldiers, killing or assisting in the kills of the fiercest Mireces, stiffening the line wherever it began to twist, encouraging exhausted, soaking, mud-streaked, blood-washed soldiers.
Ash at his left side, always, his hand axe darting like a silver fish even in the gloom, crusted with blood and bone, the cumbersome Rank-made shield floating on his arm as though it weighed nothing.
They rotated out of the front line as another Mireces wedge collapsed, moving three rows back to suck in air, shoulders and backs pounded in thanks, Crys’s arms touched with reverence.
The Fox God’s call – the triple falling notes of a trumpet repeated twice – that he’d set up with Mace drifted through the rain and jerked Crys around like a horse fighting the bit. ‘Someone needs me.’ He glanced at the line; they were holding well here, steady and disciplined. Jarl and Thatcher both had the enemy pegged back, at least for now. The trumpet sounded again. ‘Let’s go.’
They shouted encouragement and promised to be back soon, that they were doing great, got them on the run, and then headed across the top of the hill towards the command post.
‘Listen, when I’m called to battle the Blood Lady, you need to go wherever the fighting’s thickest and rally the troops. They might falter when I leave the field.’ He winced at the arrogance of it, but it needed to be said.
‘Bollocks,’ Ash gasped, affronted. ‘I go where you go. That’s the deal.’
‘Not this time, love—’
‘You’re going to need someone to watch your back. Me.’ Ash’s tone was implacable as he concentrated on his footing, the pair of them moving faster than was wise in the slippery grass.
‘This is beyond you, Ash. I’m sorry, there’s no other way I can say it. If you stand with me there, you’ll die before I do. And the Rank will need you.’
‘You’ll need me, and they don’t rally to me,’ Ash protested, a note of panic creeping into his voice. He dragged Crys to a halt. ‘They won’t fight harder for me; they won’t stiffen the line or step into a breach the way they do for you. I’ll be useless here. I’m useless without you.’
Crys found a heartfelt smile for him despite his dread at what was to come. ‘Useless without me? You survived thirty-eight years without me, you idiot.’
Ash didn’t smile. ‘That’s before you were my husband. Like it or not, it’s different now. Live together; die together.’ He reached out and wiped mud or blood or rain from Crys’s forehead.
‘No,’ he said, so fierce Ash almost took a step back. ‘No, we do not die together. You live. That’s the deal. You live, and because I know you live, I find the strength to do what needs to be done.’
Ash began to protest and Crys lunged forward, cutting off his words with a kiss that was full of panicked longing and strangled fear. ‘Live, Ash. Husband. Heart-bound. Please live.’ He held Ash’s head in his hands, brown curls plastered to his forehead beneath his helmet, water dripping down his face. ‘You have to,’ he added fiercely. ‘You have to give me the courage to do this, or we’re all lost. Every man, woman and babe in Rilpor, in all Gilgoras. My loss for their lives. Just one man. Just a man, Ash, against all humanity. That’s a price we can afford.’
‘Is it?’ Ash asked. ‘Doesn’t feel cheap from where I’m standing.’
‘Try standing here,’ Crys tried, but the joke fell flat and Ash choked back a sob, squeezed him in an embrace so tight Crys couldn’t draw a full breath.
‘You tell me I have to live, but you also tell me I have to rally the front line until the battle is won. I’m not sure it’s possible to do both.’
Crys licked his lips, Ash’s kiss and cold rain in his mouth. ‘You were born to do this, love. Hold them. And my heart is in your chest, remember. If you live, so does my heart.’
‘And when you die, so does mine,’ Ash countered, the words stealing Crys’s breath. ‘Now come on, let’s find out who needs you, because I’m not leaving your side.’ Crys knew he couldn’t argue, but he also knew Ash couldn’t come where he was going. There was time yet before that final goodbye, he knew that much. Though they were fighting for their lives, he’d make the most of it.
‘Tell me again why I married you?’ he complained with a shake of his head.
‘Devastating good looks and astonishing in bed,’ Ash said.
Crys laughed and hugged him again. ‘Damnit. Can’t even argue. Come on.’ The banter made it easier to ignore the pain in his stomach and the increasing pressure in the air, as though his skin was too tight, pressing in from all sides, shrinking. The slow-emerging presence of another god or gods. The Blood Lady was coming.
The Trickster squirmed in discomfort, adding to Crys’s dislocation from the real world.
‘About time,’ Mace grunted when they arrived at his command post, the highest point of the hill, with the royal standard hanging sodden from a pole above him. ‘Wolves are hard-pressed, calling for reinforcements. Mireces are trying to flank us through the trees and I can’t throw in the reserve this early. Lend them a hand.’
Another courier arrived, soaked and wild. ‘Field hospital’s under attack, sir. Fucking hundreds of them!’
‘Shit, there goes my reserve,’ Mace said with quiet vehemence. ‘You two, go. We’ll deal with the hospital.’
‘Understood.’ They set out again faster than before. The field hospital was out of sight of their position, so they peered over at the front line as they slid downhill towards the woods; it was twisted in places, pressing forwards and being pressed back in a sinuous curve like a snake. The Krikites’ line was fracturing into a melee on the downward slope as they crossed behind them, individual fights and small bands working together, gaps opening up. They could do with help too, but if the Wolves got cut off, there’d be a massacre.
Wolves, Krikites, the wounded. Everyone needs us, Foxy.
We do what we can.
Shit! Dom’s in the hospital.
We do what we can.
Swearing, Crys plunged into the trees, Ash by his side.