Tenth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
The hill, edge of Deep Forest, Wheat Lands
There was electricity in the air, an oppressive weight that hammered at his temples harder than the rain against his scalp and chainmail.
The small wood was alive with the sounds of fighting, the wildlife having fled or hunkered down in burrows and between roots until the madness passed them. There didn’t seem to be a line among the tangle of beech and ash and birch. It was just pockets of fighting, small groups of Wolves and Krikites against bands of Mireces.
They were badly outnumbered. Crys drew his sword; Ash’s axe was already in hand and he discarded the shield against a tree to pull his long knife. The soldier in Crys longed for shield and helmet; the Fox God yowled His amusement and pushed him into the melee, a fierce joy bubbling up as he matched strength and cunning and wits against a foe.
He skidded under a wild swing as a Raider saw him from the corner of his eye and flailed a spear at him. Crys came up inside his guard, punching his sword into the man’s belly even as he retracted the spear ready for another thrust. Sheer luck to make a kill against the longer weapon.
He wrenched it out of the dying man’s hands and sheathed his sword, spun towards the backs of the fifty or so enemies facing a mixed force of Krikites and Wolves. Ash was at his side, taking down the Mireces who slipped inside the spear’s reach, the two of them moving with one mind, one breath. Lethal. Beautiful.
The falling leaves and falling rain muffled the sounds of combat as they fought on, brief, vicious battles among the trees, random thuds and screams echoing from the trunks, impossible to determine direction.
Progress too was impossible, open ground big enough to make a stand non-existent, and enemies leapt from behind cover and forced him to change direction over and over until he didn’t know which way he was heading, the trees all beginning to look the same and every one harbouring danger. Claustrophobia began to eat at him almost as fast as fatigue.
Eventually they paused in the lee of two large trees, watching the flickers of movement in the gloom, Ash panting, sheathing his weapons to flex numb fingers. ‘Gods, how long have we been fighting down here?’ he gasped.
Crys shrugged, tired down to his bones. ‘It must be noon or past,’ he guessed. ‘Hard to tell under these clouds.’
‘Do you think we’ve made enough of a difference, given us a chance?’
‘Yes,’ Crys said, though he had no idea. He couldn’t bear to think about how many more Wolves might be lying dead, about how few of Ash’s people were left living. He’d need family … after. A sudden eruption of noise and clash of weapons off to their right, loud enough to be big. ‘Come on. We still need to find Dalli. I’m not losing another of Mace’s women.’ They exchanged a sad grin – if Tara had heard that, Crys would be wearing his own lungs as a hat.
It was a running battle, and it was the Mireces who had the upper hand, only a score or so Wolves backing, ducking, jumping sideways and behind trees, looking to make their final stand. Was this all there was? A score of Wolves from a once-proud people of thousands? It wasn’t a battle so much as a series of small, bloody melees as both sides slipped in mud, tripped over tree roots and scrabbled with their fingernails at the edges of death.
Crys charged the largest knot of Raiders, ramming into four facing off against two, backed against a fallen tree with nowhere to go. One of them was Dalli, her spear flashing faster than a kingfisher but she was hard-pressed, the shadow of death in her face as she thrust and dodged.
Crys leapt to her side with a wild yell and a swordsman faced off against him, cutting hard and low for his shin. Crys stepped back and off-line, sweeping the spear around. It jerked to a halt, fouled in the roots at his feet and Dalli leapt in front of him as he struggled to free it and the sword opened her up, hip to breastbone.
Ash howled and Crys drew his sword, thrust, missed, then parried and cut low, slicing below the chainmail shirt and into the lead thigh. The man fell back, blood spurting. Another took his place, pushing Crys back so he trod heavily on Dalli’s leg, his ankle twisting and dumping him next to her, legs splayed before him.
The blade took hair and the top layer of skin, scalping a trench in his crown that pissed crimson, hot blood and cold rain mingling to tinge his vision pink. He thrust upwards, the Mireces blocking and cutting back, Crys deflecting. Ash roared something and his hand axe sprouted from the man’s ribs, knocking him off balance and Crys thrust again, caught him in the mouth, sword tip driving up into his brain.
Ash ripped his axe free and engaged the next, and Crys spun to Dalli, ignoring the chaos. A head wound made her face into something from nightmare, sheeted in red, green eyes darkening with each passing moment. So much blood.
Too much blood.
Her lips were blue. ‘Fox God,’ she managed. ‘Or is it Crys Bowman these days? Now you’re married an’ all.’
‘For you, right now, it’s Fox God,’ Crys said, ‘and be bloody grateful it is.’ He prised her hand away and blood pulsed free, faster and darker than it had any right to be. Dalli shrieked.
‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Dalli, you beautiful little bitch, just hold on.’ He pressed his hand into the rip in her flesh, so deep he could practically feel the silken smoothness of her liver pushing back. The silver light flared, bright and brighter still until the trees and Ash and the corpses were all limned in it and he had to squint. The flesh had barely begun to knit before it faded.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No, no! Foxy?’ There was nothing and Dalli was unconscious, still bleeding. He pressed on the wound again.
It’s time.
Crys had wanted a way to prevent Ash following him to his final battle, but this wasn’t it. Not Dalli. And yet if he didn’t, she’d die.
‘Ash love, you’ve got to get her to the hospital. I can’t do any more for her.’ Ash backed up to him so he could glance at Dalli, then back into the trees again. Crys used the tree the haul to himself upright. ‘It’s time,’ he added, echoing the Fox God’s words.
This is where we say goodbye, he wanted to say, but didn’t dare. If he said that, Ash would protest, and the core of Crys that wanted so much to live would rebel, and he’d never find the strength in his drained limbs to walk away.
‘What about here? They called for you, Crys. They need you.’
‘The woods are lost,’ he said. ‘Get your people moving uphill and get Dalli to Hallos.’
They were alone but for her unconscious form and the dead. There was still fighting among the trees, out of sight but not earshot. They didn’t have long. Ash put his axe down head first, the haft leaning against his leg so he could snatch it up in an instant. ‘This is really it?’ he asked, a crack like a shiver in his voice.
Crys swallowed hard. ‘This is it.’ He could almost see the words dancing on the tip of Ash’s tongue: Don’t go, don’t leave me, let me fight for you, love me.
Love me.
‘I love you,’ Crys said. ‘I will always love you. In this world, in the Light, for always. Tell me you know that.’
‘I know that,’ Ash whispered, his voice hoarse as the croak of a dying raven. ‘Can I say I don’t want you to go?’ Crys took a step forward and collided with him, the embrace more the mutual clinging of drowning men than a declaration of love. ‘Can I say I hate the Fox God?’ he breathed.
Crys snorted, the sound halfway to being a sob. ‘Right now, you and me both,’ he whispered, ‘though we’re both lying. That Trickster’s a charismatic bastard. Turns out He can get people to do all sorts against their better judgement.’ He pressed a hot kiss to Ash’s ear and pulled away a little. ‘Don’t forget me,’ he begged.
‘Never,’ Ash protested.
‘No, Ash. Don’t forget me. Me, Crys Tailorson. Soldier, officer, gambler. Your husband. Don’t forget me.’
‘I won’t,’ Ash said. ‘I couldn’t.’ His smile was ghastly, a slash of pain in his face. ‘Go and save the world then, you bastard. You beautiful, stupid, heroic bastard. Go on, make us all eternally grateful to your skinny arse. Send that bitch back to the Afterworld and lock the gate after Her.’
‘That’s the plan,’ Crys said and he stepped away, breaking the embrace, breaking both their hearts.
They watched each other, neither willing to move first, and then Dalli’s breath stuttered in her chest and they looked down, severing the last link. Ash holstered his axe and then crouched and gathered her into his arms, and by the time he’d stood, Crys had backed away five paces, enough to break the intangible link that drew them together like a lodestone to the north. It was a gulf he’d never cross again. It was the entire width of the world, and yet he was there, right there. Close enough to taste and as far away as the sun.
‘Dancer’s grace,’ he choked.
Ash whooped in a breath, fingers white on Dalli’s shoulder and leg as he clutched her. ‘Dancer’s grace,’ he said.
Crys jerked his chin. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Let me watch you go.’
Lips pressed together against any final words, any last protestations, Ash backed three steps, turned on his heel, and walked away between the trees. Head down, shoulders hunched.
Crys choked again, fists clenched by his sides as he swallowed down the scream building inside him. Sucking in a great breath until his ribs creaked and holding it, he turned east and began to walk out of the trees.
He left his sword behind. He left it all behind. He walked to his final battle, stripping his armour as he went.