“We accept.” A bell tolled in his mind. “A sacrifice will be needed.”
“No,” whispered into cold air. He wanted it back. He wanted the warm wooded glade back. He is in the cold night outside of Harn.
Cool, vibrant life flowing into him. Not enough to hurt the tree, and only enough for what he wants. So different from taking life, the power is not raw, not furious and strong and red and stolen and hate filled. It is cooler, like dipping his hand into a pool of sweet water. He is not in control, the tree lets him take, but only what it wishes him to have, like draining sap through a wound in the bark. When it was judged he had enough, the tree healed itself and cut off the flow.
Enough. He stepped away, leaned his bow against the tree. He would not need it.
Ready for me, Sorha? he thought. No. I do not think you are. And was it his voice or the cowl’s that spoke? Was the vicious glee, the excitement, from him or it? He did not know.
The old anger, the fury at betrayal, the desire to hurt, welling up.
Had Sorha and her soldiers been less proud. Less arrogant in who and what they were then they would have thrown their spears, finished him as he ran up to Harn.
You are running.
But they were proud, and they were arrogant, and they thought themselves sheltered and invulnerable beneath the cloak of the dullers.
They were none of those things.
Much of a cowl’s power is through proximity. The nearer you are the more their power can affect you, but beyond a few, five, maybe six arm’s lengths away there is little most Rai can do. They are taught their skills in schools, of fire and water. They believe them fundamentally different, fire is heat, blood and anger, water is thought, spirit and reason.
It is all lies.
Water and fire, there is no difference, they are the same, simply different ways of expressing energy. It is energy that the Cowl-Rai controls. The Rai look upon the surface of a pool and see the reflection of their world in it, the Cowl-Rai dive below, and knows the pool is deeper and more complex than most will ever understand. In the clearing, when he killed the Rai, burned the cowl from Sorha. It was energy he used. Up close, such control was easy for him, the further away he was, the harder it became. He could not use a fine knife on an enemy across a field.
But he could throw a hammer.
Cahan broke from Woodedge, the energy lent to him by the tree throbbing beneath his skin.
You needed me.
The cowl within vibrating. The link to the armour he wore stronger than ever. As he ran it changed, spikes extruding at elbow, knee and wrist. The axes at his thighs grew wider blades from the hilts, and from the rear of the blades came curved, sharp hooks. The world around him aglow with energy, the deep and strange and infinitesimal net that Udinny called Ranya’s web. Within it Harn: a null, a place of darkness where he could not see, could not sense and could not know. The edge of the dullers’ influence was as plain to his cowlsight as the walls of Harn to his eyes.
He ran faster. And as he ran he gathered around him the power lent by the forest.
Not to be eked out this power.
Not to be expended little by little through battle as logic and tactics would dictate. When he reached the dullers it would no longer be of any use to him. He would simply be a man then.
So he took all of the power within, all that would not leave him a husk. Gathering it in the air before him. A huge, invisible hammer of energy, a ball of air as hard and as strong as any boulder. In the moment before he stepped across the dullers’ line he threw all he had against the gates of Harn. The roar of his voice drowned out by the crack of air, the shattering of the wooden gates into a million splinters, the screaming of soldiers pierced by flying wood.
He stepped from one world to another.
From being Cowl-Rai, to being a man.
His armour weighed upon him.
His eyesight blurred.
Nausea burned in his stomach.
His strength was measured in eighths, not days.
Still he ran.
Not stopping.
Pulling the axes from his armour. Screaming something unintelligible at the shocked faces staring at him.
“Bring him down!” Was it Sorha? Or was it some trooper or branch leader who shouted? He did not know. Did not have time to care. A figure came from the right, jabbing with a spear but it was ill-judged. He knocked it aside. Twin axes sweeping low, biting into the lower leg, jarring his arm as the soldier went down. From the other side two more coming, spears out. The one on the far left of the pair wounded, a spike of wood in their arm. They thrust their weapons at him and he knocked the wounded soldier’s spear away with his left axe. The spearman stumbled. Creating space between the two warriors. He moved in and brought his right axe down on the wounded soldier, between helmet and shoulder, cutting into the neck. A killing blow. Pulled the axe loose. Sweeping the weapon across in reverse. The spike piercing the neck of the other warrior.
A spear, well thrown, hit him in the chest. Bounced off his armour but the impact jarred him. He slipped in the mud. Down on one knee, an awkward position. A soldier came in at him, bringing a two-handed axe down in an overhead swing. Cahan threw himself to the ground. Rolling away. Coming up as the axe bit into the mud where he had been. His own axe coming down on the soldier’s wrist, cutting a hand away. They screamed out their agony.
Cahan up and moving again.
Running. The only way to survive.
Can you ever run fast enough?
No plan except to attract the soldiers to him. Fight long enough to give Venn and the villagers a chance to escape. Vague shadows in the edge of his vision. Act and react. Block and slash. The impact of weapons against his armour. The scream of pain as he hit back. Again and again until he brought his axes up.
Ready for the next opponent.
No one there.
Had he won?
Had he done it?
Was it over?
Ranya make it so. His breathing laboured, harsh in his throat. Hurting his lungs. His armour weighed hard on him, heavier with every step. Legs shaking.
“You are a fool,” the voice of the Rai, Sorha, “to come here like this.”
Of course he had not won.
Sorha stood at the other side of the village square, beyond the pyre and in front of the statue of Tarl-an-Gig. Sword in one hand, shield in the other. A wall of spears and shields in front of the Leoric’s house, stopping any chance of escape for those within.
He had barely made it past the shattered gate. Six lay dead around him, soon to be seven unless the axeman was treated for his missing hand quickly. Five more lay about the gate, pierced by splinters.
“I am not finished yet, Rai,” he shouted back. He needed to bring the spear line forward. “What are you waiting for?” He held his axes out. “I am here! Do you want me or not?”
“Oh, we do, Clanless, we do want you.” She spun her sword in her hand. “Me most of all.” She walked forward. “Do you think you can best me without your cowl?”
“Come and find out,” he shouted back, though he knew it unlikely. She was a warrior, her whole life given over to martial skills. He had spent at least half of his running from them. He may have looked impressive, even felt it while he cut down those first soldiers, but his wind was already gone. Without the cowl he was weak. His breathing coming like bellows, his muscles aching. But if he could get her and her troops away from the Leoric’s longhouse maybe the villagers could escape. Maybe Venn could get away, and Udinny, and Furin and her boy, Issofur, and the girl with the grass doll.
His life would be worth something then.
“Come and find out indeed.” Sorha walked forward, spinning her sword again. As she got closer he could see it was blackwood, with an inlaid hilt. An expensive weapon, the sort given to a skilled warrior. Her armour was inlaid with many woods, abstract patterns, whorls and spirals. Cahan tensed his muscles, altered his grip on the hafts of his axes. Felt sweat within his gauntlets. Usually the cowl would absorb it, a reminder he did not need of his weakness. “It is a long time since you have fought, Cahan Du-Nahere,” she said. “I could tell by watching you. You were probably a good warrior once. Not great, but good.” She smiled, stepped nearer. “But I? I am a great warrior.” She lunged, the sword coming at his midriff. He jumped back, avoiding the point even though it could not have cut through his armour.
She knew it.
Only testing him.
“Good reactions,” she said, and began to walk around him. “But you will slow as you tire.” A smile, another lunge, this one he tried to bat away with an axe but she pulled the strike so he swiped at nothing. Continued circling. Continued smiling. “Maybe you were something worthwhile, when you were younger.” He turned to keep her in sight. Had to finish her quickly. Now. A warrior like her would have ample strength to draw on. “I’m not going to kill you, Cahan Du-Nahere,” she said, her words for him only, “you have ruined me, made me nothing.” She spun the sword again. “I will watch you burn.” She came in again, this time leading with her shield, jabbing with the sword from behind it. He swept a thrust away, brought his axe down. She caught it on her shield and his blow bounced off. She moved in close. Used the shield to shove him backwards. As he staggered she thrust with the sword. A strike to his chest. Jarring him through the armour.
She backed away. Lifted her visor and smiled at him. Behind her, the troops coming forward to watch. Behind them, at the door to the Leoric’s house, he saw a face appear. Venn. Trapped.
“Could have opened your groin,” said Sorha, “could have gone for the neck.” Smiling as she circled. Pulled the visor back down. “But I will watch you burn.” She moved in close again, bringing the sword up as if to swing it. He moved into a defensive position, ready to catch the blade with the hooks of his axes. At the last moment she changed her attack. Stepped left of him, dummied a thrust with the shield. When he moved to answer it she brought round her sword. The flat of the blade crashed against the side of his helmet, making his ears ring and the world swim. “This is not even a challenge,” she said. She dummied another thrust, and she did it again and again and again. Wearing away his strength, tiring him out. Belittling him, and always coming back to that one phrase. “I will watch you burn.”
When he was done, when he could barely keep his axes up, she stepped back. Lifted her visor.
“What do you have left, old man?” she said. “Nothing, you have nothing. You are nothing.” She backed away. “Nothing!” she shouted. Then looked over at her troops. “Beat him until he cannot move,” she said, “break his legs so he cannot run. He only need live until the morning, then we will burn him and take his shrivelled head to the High Leoric.”
The troops came forward, their spears reversed to use as clubs. He tried to fight, but Sorha had drained him of his strength.
They beat him mercilessly, until he could barely move, and all the time one word going through his head. “Failure.” They forced him to kneel in the mud. Held him when Sorha came forward again. The world wavered, it was all he could do to hang onto consciousness.
“No one escaped.” She leaned in close, so she could whisper to him. “You took from me, and I will take from you. I will kill each villager in front of you, but first I will cut out your tongue, so you cannot cry out or beg their forgiveness.” She straightened, stepped back. Looked down upon him then took a knife from her belt. “If you have any last words. Then say them now.” She spat on the floor. “Who do you think you are, to go against the Rai?”
What was he?
Those words bounced around his tired mind. A joke. That was what he was. A fool who would die here, in the armour he had buried as belonging to a dead man. After using the power he had sworn never to use. After putting himself in a position where the lives of others depended on him.
“I can sense death, Cahan Du-Nahere,” the reborn woman had said, “and it is coming to you. Deny your nature all you wish, it is still coming. Death cannot be stopped.”
He had thought he was ready to die. Maybe if he had saved the villagers he would have been. But he had not. He had thought to sacrifice himself here, and in the final moments he regretted it. To die for nothing. To have accomplished nothing but to bring death to others, those few he had found himself caring about in a life lived with so little to care for. What a fool.
“Any last words?” said Sorha.
He did not want to die.
He did not want the villagers to die.
He looked up at the Rai.
“Nahac,” he said, his dead sister’s name unfamiliar on his lips. “I call on you.” And as if in an echo, he heard a voice answer.
“Call my name and we will come.”