CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

VERADIS

Veradis walked along the line of his men, straightening a shield here, testing a grip there, pushing to ensure that the warrior was balanced, feet set right, shoulder into his shield. They stood before him, a hundred and forty men, twenty men wide, seven rows deep, shields raised, interlocked.

Better. This is better. The shields were solid, overlapped correctly, the flanks protected, and the manoeuvre had been carried out in a matter of seconds. Moving in formation was getting better, or at least the wall was not falling apart once the men began to march. And the best part of all was that they now believed. Before the battle against Gundul’s warband those under Veradis’ authority had been unsure of the shield wall’s capabilities, and worse, considered it unworthy of a warrior.

Staying alive while your enemy dies is a great convincer.

They had seen first-hand the value and power of the shield wall, seen Gundul’s ranks throw themselves against it and die.

But they are not my Draig’s Teeth. Veterans of scores of battles, drilled in marching, rotating, protecting flank and rear, the array of horn blasts that I’d developed to maintain communication on the battlefield. How can these men take them on?

Looking at them ranged in front of him, the answer was obvious.

If they do, they’ll die.

If he were honest with himself, the thought of lining up on a battlefield against the Draig’s Teeth made him feel sick to his stomach. How could he fight, kill, men he had trained, led, respected and fought alongside.

Save that for another day. One day at a time. Train. Prepare.

He yelled out an order, the wall breaking up, men setting down shields and pairing up for individual sparring.

“You work your men hard,” a voice called out to him and he turned to see Javed, the leader of the Freedmen, as they’d become known, who had been liberated from Lykos’ slave galleys, walking towards him.

“No more than others,” Veradis said to Javed, nodding to the Jehar warriors, whom he could see gathered under the trees, going through the forms of their sword dance. Elsewhere giants were sparring with the men of Isiltir, most of them warriors in cloaks of red and wielding sword and spear, but also others wrapped in thick furs and brandishing single-bladed axes. Veradis had learned that these were the survivors of a hold in the north, led by a warrior named Wulf. A serious man; Veradis liked him.

“Looks like a lot of heavy lifting to me,” Javed said, still grinning.

“Not for you, then?” Veradis asked.

“I’ve done a lifetime of training in the pits,” Javed said.

“Some of your kind still train,” Veradis said, pointing to Maquin, who had just returned from a dawn run and was now sparring against half a dozen of the men whom he had been given authority over in Ripa’s warband.

“The Old Wolf,” Javed said, “he’s a kind unto his own.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s doing him any harm. For me, training keeps me sharp,” Veradis said, “not just my body, but my mind.”

“I believe in training,” Javed said, “but I’d rather do it against a foe that bleeds and dies. That’s why I volunteer to join whatever team is raiding against our enemy. Every single day.” His grin was gone now, fierce hatred burning in his eyes.

“Of one thing I am sure, and one thing alone,” Veradis said. “Battle is coming, and we will either be ready, or we will be dead.”

“You’re a very serious fellow, are you not,” Javed said, his smile returning as he wandered away. “But don’t worry about me, it won’t be me that’s doing the dying.”

Veradis found a trio of men to train with. Afterwards, sweating and weary, he made his way to a stream and washed down. For a moment he just sat resting against a tree.

He looked about and saw the bustle of normal camp life: foraging, collecting firewood, food and water, organizing meals, repairing garments and weapons. He saw Brina hurrying past, snapping orders to a dozen men, a giant following her. Elsewhere a row of figures were loosing arrows, a percussion of thuds as they hit their targets; a woman walked along their line checking them. Teca, her name was, a villager from the north of Narvon.

Woodsmen, hunters, brigands, warriors, giants—what a disparate band!

He blew out a long breath.

But do we actually have any hope of winning? We are outnumbered, out-positioned and not as experienced in battle. Calidus has played us all well. Prepared well for this war.

We cannot win.

We need more men. More women. More giants. More fighters.

I hope this Corban comes back to us at the head of a vast warband. That would be something.

He sighed.

“Am I intruding?” a voice said. Fidele was standing a dozen paces away.

“Of course not, my lady,” he said, making to rise.

“No, please don’t,” she said, stepping over and sitting beside him. A handful of her guards stood back, alert and watching.

She was dressed like a woodsman, in woollen breeches and shirt, a stout leather vest. And she had knives on her belt. Two that Veradis could see, and a hilt poking out from her boot.

She saw his gaze and laughed, genuine and warm.

“You pick up the strangest habits when fleeing the Vin Thalun,” she said with a shrug. “And I’ve had a good teacher.” She glanced through the trees at Maquin, smiling at the sight of him. “Strange times we live in,” she added.

“I’m no one to judge, my lady. And if I may say, you seem happy.”

“You may,” she said with a dip of her head, “and I am.” She looked back to Maquin, watching him sway and duck, moving around his sparring assailants like forest mist, never being touched.

“And what the future holds, who knows?” she said quietly, then looked back at Veradis. “We know only that we are alive, now.”

“Indeed,” Veradis agreed. She had changed so much since he had first met her. A king’s wife. The mother of his Prince, she had seemed born for that role, that high position beside Aquilus. Yet, now in the wilds of Forn Forest, she seemed more comfortable, more at ease than he had ever seen her before.

“I want to see my son,” Fidele said into the silence.

I want that, too. To speak to him, just to talk, me and him, as we used to. Without Calidus, or the Kadoshim hovering nearby.

“Why?”

“Because he is not evil.”

“He is not,” Veradis agreed.

“And because he has been fooled—”

Veradis shook his head regretfully. “Maybe once, but he is fooled no longer. He knew exactly what was happening when I spoke to him in Brikan. You must trust me on this; I have been over it a thousand times in my head.”

“He has been manipulated, then: forced onto a path that he now feels he cannot escape from. He is proud, would find it difficult to admit to such a mistake, but he can still choose…”

“He has chosen,” Veradis said angrily, the betrayal by his friend still a raw wound. “He asked me to make the same choice and made it sound so logical, so natural.” Veradis sighed angrily, remembering Nathair’s argument to him in the tower room at Brikan, how history was written by the victors, that it was all a lie. That Elyon and Asroth, Kadoshim and Ben-Elim were just sides, warring realms or factions, like Ardan and Cambren. He had made it sound so reasonable.

I’ve thought many times on what Fidele is saying. I want it to be true. To believe that Nathair would return to the right path, if only he had the right opportunity.

But would he?

“It is all just talk, anyway,” Veradis said. “Nathair is in Drassil with five thousand swords about him. Not just eagle-guard, but Vin Thalun and Kadoshim. And Calidus. It is impossible—”

“Perhaps,” Fidele said.

“Why are you telling me this, my lady?”

“Because only you can understand how I feel. He is like a brother to you. I know what you say is truth and sense, but if a way did present itself, for me to speak with Nathair.” She stopped then, looked him in the eyes, and he saw a well of pain looking back at him. She reached out and squeezed his wrist.

“Would you help me? If…”

He just stared, not knowing what to say.

Nathair slew his own father. Would she still believe in him, knowing that? And yet, there was good in him, once, I know it.

“I—”

Footsteps sounded and Maquin appeared from amongst the trees, sweating and smiling.

“Found you,” he said, reaching out and trailing his fingers across Fidele’s shoulder as he made his way to the stream, discarded his clothes and jumped in. The water that splashed Veradis and Fidele was icy-cold, making them both gasp.

“Think on it,” she said, giving his wrist one last squeeze.

“So that’s Drassil,” Veradis said.

He’d joined a scouting party led by Tahir, along with Maquin, Alcyon and Tain. They were all in a row, lying on their bellies, peering out from the undergrowth at the open plain ringing the fortress, the walls and gates rising tall and forbidding, beyond them towers and the tree mingling in a twisted snarl.

It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

It was still early in the day, the sun beyond the trees had a long way to climb before highsun.

“Did you help build that?” Tain whispered to Alcyon.

“No, my son,” Alcyon chuckled, “I was not born until a thousand years after those walls were raised.”

They fell silent as figures appeared on the wall, above Drassil’s wide gates. A voice rang out across the plain, challenging Corban to come and save his people.

Veradis felt the blood freeze in his veins, then melt, become a molten torrent of rage.

“Calidus,” he said. Beside him he felt Alcyon tense, and saw his son Tain look away.

Piercing screams suddenly drifted across the plain.

“What is going on?” Veradis asked.

“Prisoner being sacrificed,” Tahir said grimly. “It is the same, each day. Calidus challenges Corban. When he does not come, someone dies. Corban would fight him, if he were here.”

“Calidus is hard to kill,” Veradis said, and Alcyon grunted.

“So was Sumur, and yet Corban took his head, out there, in front of two warbands. It was quite the sight.”

Veradis felt his respect for Corban grow by a considerable leap.

The screams grew harder to bear, rising in pitch, a terror and agony contained within them that made Veradis wish it would stop. He thought of Cywen, his hope that she’d somehow survived Nathair’s attack on Drassil. Now he was filled with concern that her voice was the one that was screaming.

How can Nathair bear this? Stand by and do nothing?

“Calidus has prisoners, then. Survivors from the battle.”

“Aye. He executes one each day,” Tahir told him.

“He must have a considerable supply.”

“He does. On the first day after the battle he set one free, a Jehar named Ilta. She said there were hundreds captive.”

Hundreds.

“We must get them out,” Veradis said.

“I’d love to,” Tahir muttered, “it’s the how that I’ve had a problem with.”

“Well, let’s think on it. Two heads are better than one.”

“That’s what my old mam used to say.”

They began to crawl back from the treeline when the gates of Drassil creaked and opened. Out from their shadowed arch lumbered a monstrous shape, wide and squat, bowed legs and claws like curved daggers, a head broad and reptilian. Upon its back sat a man, tall and proud, black hair, a polished cuirass of black leather, upon it a white eagle, his sable cloak fluttering in a breeze.

“Nathair,” Veradis whispered, all of them frozen in the act of retreating back into the forest.

His draig walked out onto the plain, head casting from side to side, long tail in constant motion, and behind it marched a warband; line upon line of long shields and silver helms. They turned south with immaculate precision, following Nathair and his draig.

Nathair’s Draig’s Teeth. My men.

“They all look like you,” Tahir commented to Veradis, looking at his cuirass emblazoned with a white eagle. The warband of Ripa were clothed in the silver and black of Tenebral, but they wore the tower of Ripa on their chest, not the eagle.

“Not so long ago I led them. They were my men,” Veradis said.

“Sure you know what side you’re on?” Tahir asked.

He’s an honest one. Speaks his mind.

“Oh aye,” said Veradis bleakly. “They fight for Asroth, even if many of them do not realize it. I’ll never walk that path, not for oath, love nor friendship.”