The Faithful and the Fallen: Ruin Part 80

She saw Dath hovering, looked at him enquiringly and he hurried over. He was wearing a new chainmail shirt, too.

'What is it?' she asked him.

'You know what I was talking to you about?'

'Aye.'

'Do you really think it'd be a good idea?'

'I do,' Coralen said, 'but it's not me you need to be talking to about it.'

'I know. I just wasn't sure, and you're, you know, pretty fierce. If you like the idea, then maybe . . .'

'Why don't you go and ask him?' Coralen said, spying Corban on the weapons court.

'Would you come with me?'

'Me? Why?'

'Because he takes your advice seriously. And you put him in a good mood.'

'Ach, you fool,' Coralen said, aiming a boot at Dath, feeling both angry and happy that he'd said that.

Do I?

'Please?'

Coralen sighed. 'Come on, then. Let's go and talk to him now.'

'Now?' Dath blinked.

'Aye. No time like the now if you want something done,' she said, and before Dath had a chance to object she was kicking her horse into a trot. She heard him running to keep up.

They pa.s.sed rows of straw targets. Cywen and the giantling Laith were standing before some, Cywen throwing knife after knife from the belts strapped diagonally across her chest, each one hitting the target flawlessly. Laith had a similar belt of leather across her torso, knives as big as daggers sheathed in it. As Coralen watched, Laith threw one of them. It slammed into the straw target and hurled it to the ground.

I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of those.

Further along, Wulf and a few score men hefting single-bladed axes were similarly practising.

His hands have healed well, Coralen noted as Wulf's axe thunked into the head of a straw man. She remembered Tukul and with a sigh determinedly banished those memories.

The future must fill my mind now, with what is to come.

There was a dense circle of people around the stone section of the weapons court, a fair number of giants dotted amongst them, all watching Balur and Corban. Coralen's eyes were drawn to Corban's arm-ring, the streaks of silver in it gleaming in the pale winter daylight.

A moon had pa.s.sed since that night in Dra.s.sil's feast-hall when they had sworn their oaths to Corban, and he to them. Things had felt different since then, there was a unity amongst their disparate groups that had not been there before, and the moon had pa.s.sed in a flurry of activity: forges fired, weapons and armour made, clearing more land beyond Dra.s.sil's walls, hunting, scouting, grinding of grain, shoring of walls, and then training and preparation for the battles to come. They were beginning to feel like a real warband, not just people hurled together by the whim of war.

'Never try and block a blow from a giant with strength alone,' Balur was saying in his rumbling deep ba.s.s of a voice. 'It will shatter your bones.'

I could've reasoned that out myself, Coralen snorted. Any weapons-master worth his pay teaches that you guide a weapon away, not meet its momentum head on. Unless the only other option is death.

To demonstrate the point, Balur hefted his freshly made wooden battle-axe. He swung it high and down at Corban's head in a whistling arc. Corban stepped to the right, swung his own practice blade and struck the axe haft a glancing blow, steering it to crunch into the frozen ground. As Balur was off-balance Corban slipped inside his guard and had his sword-tip at the giant's throat before Balur had managed to wrench his axe free of the ground.

Warriors around the court cheered and murmured.

'It would never be as simple as that,' Corban shouted. 'Balur held back he could have hit harder and faster. But the key point is still the same; it's all about timing. Speed, balance, reactions. Whatever your choice of weapon, the same result can be achieved sword, axe, spear, even a shield can be used to the same end.' He looked about the court and nodded. 'Come on, then,' he said, 'let's see you do it. And no broken bones, eh?'

Warriors paired up with giants and filled the courtyard.

Coralen took the opportunity and headed towards Corban. He heard the sound of hooves on stone and turned, smiling up at her as she slid from her saddle. Storm padded beside Corban and Coralen saw the swell of her belly. They'd guessed for a while now that she was in pup.

What are her cubs going to look like? Coralen couldn't help but feel excited about the prospect.

'Dath's got an idea he wanted to talk to you about,' Coralen said.

'What's that, then?' Corban asked.

'Something I've been thinking about for a while,' Dath said. 'It might sound mad to you, or wrong, or-'

'Just tell him,' Coralen said.

'It's about archers,' Dath said. 'About using them in battle.'

Corban frowned.

'See, I knew he wouldn't like it,' Dath said to Coralen.

'Just hear him out,' Coralen said to Corban, staring at him fiercely. She knew what it had cost Dath even to approach him about this.

Corban looked a little abashed and nodded.

Dath hurriedly continued, 'I know that the bow is not considered a weapon of war, that it is a huntsman's tool. And that the old way talks of honour in combat, of one warrior testing his skill against another.'

'Aye, that is how it has always been.'

'Well, I think times are changing,' Dath said.

Corban frowned again.

'Look at them,' Dath said hurriedly, before Corban had a chance to say anything. He pointed at Wulf and his men practising their axe-throwing. More than just the warriors of Gramm's hold were there Coralen saw Gar and a handful of other Jehar, as well as some of Javed's pit-fighters.

'Have you tried throwing an axe and making its blade hit the target first?' Corban asked.

'I have,' Dath said. 'It's not as easy as it looks.'

'No, it is not,' Corban smiled. 'There is great skill in throwing an axe.'

'Aye, there is,' Dath agreed. 'But tell me, is there more skill involved in a well-thrown axe or a well-cast spear than there is in a well-aimed arrow?'

'No, I suppose not,' Corban murmured.

'Wulf and his warriors they use their axes in battle, sometimes a whole line of them, Wulf has told me. If there were enough of them it would be devastating against an enemy charge.'

'Aye, it would. Apparently a similar thing brought down a bear at Gramm's hold,' Corban said.

'Exactly!' Dath was becoming animated now. 'I often think of Camlin,' he continued. 'Remember how he organized our ambushes always me and him shooting first, thinning the numbers, making our enemy scared, making them rush. Well, imagine ten archers doing the same, or a score, two score, three score. Chances are we're going to be heavily outnumbered in any battle we fight against this Black Sun Brina said so herself so why don't we do something to even the odds a little?'

A silence settled between them, Corban looking thoughtfully at Wulf and his axe-throwers, Dath shuffling his feet.

A sound drew all of their attention, a loud thud that Coralen felt through her boots.

Balur had buried his practice axe in the ground again, this time against Haelan's shieldman, Tahir. As Balur tugged on his axe Tahir spun around the giant, slashing his practice blade at the back of the giant's leg, sending him toppling to one knee. Another spin and the edge of Tahir's sword was rested against Balur's neck.

'Balur, I think you've just lost your head,' a giant shouted, laughing.

Balur stood and scowled at the young warrior.

'You've done that before,' Balur said.

'Aye, that I have,' Tahir said. 'I served with the Gadrai of Isiltir. Giantkillers, we were no offence intended fighting the Hunen out of Haldis.'

'None taken, little man,' Balur said. 'I hate the Hunen.'

There was more laughter at that, both men and giants.

'What do you think about Dath's idea then, Cora?' Corban asked.

'I think it makes a lot of sense,' Coralen said. 'And it could mean the difference between winning and losing.'

'All right then,' Corban said, turning back to Dath. 'See how many would like to join you I'll not be telling anyone to do it, but if they're willing . . .'

'You won't regret it.' Dath grinned, clapping Corban on the arm.

Coralen rode out of the west gate with Enkara, Teca and Yalric of Gramm's hold. Gar was halfway up a ladder that leaned against the stone arch of the huge gates, Balur and a handful of giants with him. They were setting the skulls of the Kadoshim they had slain into the stone of the archway. Gar had said it would send a fine message to the Kadoshim when they arrived here.

Coralen grinned at the thought of it.

The group headed north, skirting Dra.s.sil's outer wall. The area around Dra.s.sil was alive with activity, the hundred or so paces of land that had been already cleared doubled in a moon by close to a thousand willing hands. Trees were being cut down, branches lopped off and the timber dragged inside the walls of Dra.s.sil, the ground around the felled trees cleared of underbrush to create an open s.p.a.ce around the entirety of the fortress. It was back-breaking work, as Coralen had learned first-hand.

I'd rather be out scouting than chopping up trees and doing battle with thorns as long as my fist.

They left the walls of the fortress behind them, following the broken remains of an ancient road, mostly reclaimed by the forest now, riding up a gentle incline that slowly steepened, trees felled as far as a high ridge. When they crested it, Coralen looked back.

The great tree of Dra.s.sil rose like an organic tower in the midst of the fortress, branches fanning out and framing everything. The sky was a pale glow far above, visible through leafless branches that scratched together in a strong wind. For a moment Coralen thought she saw a lone figure on the fortress walls staring back at her, then it was gone and she was kicking her mount over the crest, down the hill into a wall of trees, Enkara and Teca following.

They headed north the whole day, going slowly, stopping often to make notes on parchment. They were trying to map the outlying area of Dra.s.sil, concentrating on the swathes of land that spread between each of the six great tunnels. Coralen had put people in place in the tunnels, so that each had a small team manning the exit points along the way, horses changed every day so that if the approaching enemy was sighted word would reach Dra.s.sil on swift hooves. Their biggest threat came from the stretches of land between the tunnels, widening with every league that the tunnels bored beneath the forest. She only had so many scouts and couldn't watch everywhere.

It took them six days to travel twenty leagues, zigzagging through the forest whilst they filled reams of parchment, using the remnants of the old road as a marker, although that was faint enough, a raised embankment here, a crumbled flagstone there. Twice they found waypoints on the tunnels fanning out from Dra.s.sil and spent those nights in the tunnel with the teams posted there. It was dark, musty and dank, but far safer than sleeping above ground in Forn. One night the ground trembled above them as something huge pa.s.sed through the forest.

On the nights where they had no choice but to sleep above ground they made no fire it attracted moths the size of Yalric's shield, and a host of far more unpleasant creatures that watched them from the edge of the firelight's reach, their presence betrayed only by the reflection of eyes.

On the eighth day out they were riding through an area dominated by wide-s.p.a.ced golden-wood; it was like an ocean of orange bark and red leaves. The trees were as straight as spears, with few low branches amongst them, and the ground was spongy with leaves, making the riding easier than it had been for days.

Coralen winced as a strange smell drifted through the forest, pungent and acidic. She looked at the others and they were all pulling similar faces.

'Do you recognize that?' Coralen asked Yalric hailing from Gramm's hold he was the only one of them that had any experience of Forn.

'No,' he said, shaking his head. 'But I have never travelled deep into Forn. Strange things live beyond its fringes.'

As you've told me before. Yalric was deeply superst.i.tious and always making the ward against evil, but Coralen had come to find him an intuitive tracker and as brave as Storm when he could see that he was fighting flesh and blood and not a demon from the Otherworld.

Wait until he meets the Kadoshim.

The smell became progressively worse. Coralen's horse started shying, the mare's ears flattening to her head.

'Perhaps we should stop, go back,' Yalric muttered, wrestling with his reins and snapping a command at his horse. 'Whatever is making that smell, it's nothing good.'

Coralen frowned at him. We need to know what's causing them to behave like this.

In the end Coralen slid from her saddle, the others doing the same. Teca stayed with the horses and Coralen led Enkara and Yalric on. The smell was so intense now that she was fighting the urge to gag.

About fifty paces ahead something appeared on the ground a series of mounds, more of them coming into focus, Coralen counting thirty or forty as they drew closer. She paused before the first one, a mound about chest high. It was steaming a few of them were, others were hard-crusted and frozen with the cold. The stench was overwhelming, crawling up her nostrils, coating the back of her throat. Coralen prodded the mound in front of her. Beetles seethed out from it, covered in viscous slime.

It's dung.

Something was poking out of it. Not seeming able to stop herself, Coralen grabbed it and pulled; a k.n.o.bbly bone emerged from the pile of steaming dung.

This is not good.

Just beyond the dung piles there was a dip in the land, invisible until you were this close. Coralen crept to its edge and peered down a long, gentle slope. At its base there was a hillock, its peak not quite as high as the ground Coralen was standing upon, made of craggy black rock coated with thin soil and patches of gra.s.s. Caves dotted it, eight, ten, more than Coralen could see, dark openings that bored into the black rock.

Enkara touched her shoulder and indicated that they should leave.

Coralen nodded and started to inch backwards when in the darkness of one of the caves something moved. A hulking shadow emerged, lizard-like but huge, its squat body low to the ground, legs splayed and ending in clawed feet, a long thick-muscled neck with a broad, flat muzzled head and sharp fangs.

A draig.

The three of them stood frozen a moment, desperate to move, too scared to make a sound.

The draig raised its head, a long tongue flickering from its jaws, tasting the air. Abruptly it went still, completely motionless, then its head snapped up and it stared straight at them.

It roared.

Like a release from a spell the three of them were sprinting back towards the horses.

Coralen skirted a tree and saw Teca a hundred paces away.

She glanced over her shoulder, saw the draig explode over the slope, all fangs, muscle and jaws kicking up earth as its claws raked the ground.