SWNOVELS Iceblade: Chapter 21
VALARA DISCOVERED THE Shadowblade could not be trusted.
And paid for the mistake with her life.
The history of Maratic, from the Eldaran archives.
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I feel uneasy as I rejoin Marin and Brac. I feel sure Marin can sense the new surge of ice-fire running through me like cold lightning, but he decides to say nothing. We both concentrate on what has to be completed in the short time of darkness we have left. I guide them through the gap in the camp’s guard posts and point out the two tents used by the traitor generals. Luckily they are far enough apart that we should be able to finish this operation without alerting them to our presence. The entrance to the nearest tent is guarded by two Samarians. Marin reaches out in the darkness and whispers as he holds me back.
“Ariel, wait here.”
“Why? I’m smaller, quieter, and more deadly than either of you.”
“Keeping your own people alive is more complicated than killing them. Needs teamwork.”
I watch with the clarity of my night-vision as he and Brac stalk the two Samarian guards and then move in perfect synchronicity, covering their victims’ faces with one hand while applying the pressure point on the neck that Marin had used so effectively on me after the lion hunt.
The two guards are tied, gagged and out of sight a few silent moments later.
I feel the usual tug of longing at the easy rapport Marin and the others have in action together. If only there had been more time to train with them before the demands of this war took over. I suppose that hope is over now.
Marin and Brac disappear into the black shadows of the camp, following my directions to find the other traitor general. I pad silently through the darkness to the back of the unguarded tent and cut a long slit in the fabric.
As I step through into the dim interior, a wave of horror washes through me at the thought of murdering someone in his sleep. I run through every piece of reasoning I can summon, including all the deaths the traitor has colluded with, all the lives that will be lost if I fail…
And I almost walk into the back of him as he stands at the entrance, peering out and trying to see where his missing guards have gone.
I freeze, motionless, but can’t restrain the sharp intake of breath. He hears me and turns round. Maybe sleep had finally deserted him, maybe the shame of betraying his own men to their deaths has finally caught up with him, because he doesn’t seem particularly surprised when he turns around and sees me.
Murtal. His bulky shape is unmistakable from the day of the lion hunt, even in the strange grey world of my night-vision. My guess is confirmed by his whining voice.
“What is this?”
“Justice.”
I draw my blade across his throat before he can scream and lower him quietly to the floor as he falls. I wait for a nerve-wracking few moments to see if our quiet exchange has alerted anyone, but the shuffling of horses and background sounds of an army at night must have been enough to take the sharp edge off what has passed.
I throw a few blankets over the body and move outside to stalk the other Rapathian sentry-spies posted in the camp. Knowing exactly where they are makes all the difference in my task of killing them before they can raise the alarm. Looks like my directions for Marin and Brac made a difference as well, because they meet me at around the halfway point. Marin keeps his voice low and soft.
“We’re done. Ariel, wait here until I have taken over command, and then help Brac deal with the bodies.”
In a few minutes I hear his voice again, quiet and authoritative, as he finds his captains and uses his rank and letters of commission to establish a new chain of command. The camp sounds increase as the dull clank of mail and weapons heralds the movement of men heading out northwards along the riverside track in the first grey light of dawn.
Not for the first time, I’m somewhat awed by the way everyone seems to defer to the Eldrin and yet this elite force has been prepared to trust someone like me. A wave of sadness washes over me with the knowledge that this can’t last much longer.
Not now my past has returned to claim me.
Brac is listening intently to Marin’s orders. It seems he is waiting for confirmation that there is no holdup, because he suddenly grips my arm and pushes me back the way I came.
“Marin will march with them until Hagen’s avalanche blocks the track, t’ make sure the new chain of command is working. Meanwhile I need t’ get this traitor’s corpse out of sight. Where is it?”
I lead him back to the tent and point to the blanket-covered heap on the floor.
He picks it up and slings it over his shoulder. “Check it’s clear out there.”
I don’t ask him what he has done with his own victim or the dead Rapathian sentries as I step past him and look outside, waving him to stay back until the shadowy shapes around us have moved forward to join the march. I lead the way back to the shelter of the rock wall bounding the camp and Brac deposits his burden in a gap behind a large boulder. On top of another blanket-wrapped bundle. The four guards he and Marin had overpowered are waiting, bound and gagged. He glares at them as he cuts their bindings.
“You’re being let off lightly for not staying alert on lookout. Now you’re on support detail for the Eldrin until further orders.”
In spite of the tension I struggle not to laugh at the grateful mutterings of the unlucky conscripts. Now I know how Brac moved the other corpse so quickly. I hope that if these soldiers survive the coming battle, someone will eventually tell them the complicated details of what has just transpired.
They follow obediently as Brac and I retrace our route along the perched trail, back to the narrowing of the gorge that marks the point of Hagen’s ambush. I’m still feeling anxious about the trail of dead guards I left behind.
“Brac? What about the Rapathian sentries I killed?”
“Marin sent some of ours t’ switch clothes with them so the enemy commanders assume they were Samarians executed for insubordination.” Brac stops and points ahead. “We wait here until Hagen gives us the signal to move.”
A team of the Jarl’s strongest men are stationed a dozen yards further on, their hands gripping long tree trunks levered behind a great stone slab perched directly above the lower trail. The planned avalanche will be devastating if a thing that size comes down.
The rhythmic beating of marching feet echoes from the track below. The Samarian army is already past the narrow ambush point and in the grey dawn light I can see Hagen standing a little apart from the strongmen with the levers, watching and waiting until the first half of the Rapathian force has followed them through. Then he raises his arm and the heavy tree trunks behind the poised stone slab are pulled back. Nothing seems to move for a few moments and then with a groan and a crash the slab falls onto the track below, the screams telling of limbs and bodies crushed under its weight.
More rocks are flung and pushed from above, forcing the survivors to try to retreat from the avalanche, shoving back at those behind and causing chaos. Before the dust has even settled, the Northlanders descend onto the pile of fractured rocks, moving and pushing them into place while others keep the Rapathians at bay with a hail of arrows. I move to help but Brac’s hand on my arm holds me back.
“Brac? What are they doing? Surely they can’t build a wall down there before they’re overrun?”
“No. Not possible to build an effective wall. They are just building flat ground at the top of t’ barricade for us to fight from. It’s a Northland skill I had only half-learned when I left.”
For the first time I feel in Brac a sense of loss for his homeland and its ways that I hadn’t noticed before, as he watches his countrymen moving stone and slab with uncanny skill.
Marin scrambles up from the trail below.
“Allantis and his archers will give the Samarians what cover they can.” He points behind him to the grey shapes of the archers perched in the rocks above the trapped Rapathians. “The new chain of command is working well and numbers are better matched now we have split the Rapathian force in two. My captains have a good chance of defeating those caught north of the avalanche.”
Brac’s mood is still heavy. “So long as they have the strength at the end of it for when they march back south and deal with the invaders still occupying Corinium.”
Marin claps Brac on the shoulder, determined as always to plant courage in the few of us left to defend the rock barrier.
“One thing at a time. We have to hold off the other half of the invaders right here before we can think about that.” He leads us down to the flat area hastily levelled across the top of the avalanche debris. It is wide enough for four of us to stand shoulder to shoulder while forcing the Rapathians to scramble over tumbled boulders in order to reach us.
The ten Eldrin who arrived yesterday are at our backs, attacking the rear of the Rapathian ranks that made it past the avalanche. Beyond our line the jagged heap of fallen rocks drops sheer into the river. It might be enough––if only there were not almost two thousand Rapathians still pushing up from the south, waiting to replace every one we cut down.
I stand between Brac and Nem, watching the heavily-armed soldiers re-forming their lines and advancing toward us. I scan the vast numbers of them and try to work out how long we will be able to keep fighting without being able to call on backup to give us a few moment’s rest.
Then they are at us and there’s no time to think. They can only approach four abreast and the tumbled boulders slow their attack but no matter how many we cut down, there are more behind, using the bodies to smooth their way as they trample corpses underfoot.
We are too close to the top end of the open meadow at the mouth of the gorge. It gives the enemy the opportunity to rest and re-form before coming at us again, and makes it more difficult for the Northland archers on the trail above to hold them back, even though they are extending their store of arrows by dropping rocks with equal deadly aim.
Nem is suddenly confronted with two enormous Rapathians and goes down to a savage blow to her head. I swing crysteel to sever ankle tendons of the nearest attacker and shove him over the edge into the river. I turn to face the other to find that Allantis has appeared as if from nowhere and already has his blade in the warrior’s throat.
He steps into Nem’s place as she scrambles to her feet.
“Nem, deal with the cut and take a rest. We’re out of arrows so we’ll support you here.”
Marin calls across from his place by the rock wall.
“Thanks Allantis. Just don’t break the line as you change over. Always give warning.”
I can see immediately what he means. Even a few moments’ break in the line could allow the Rapathians to drive a wedge into our space and we would lose our hold on the level platform. But holding the line is tiring and tedious. Several times I see openings in the formation below where I could cut in and drive a wedge of our own through the red and black ranks, but I grit my teeth in frustration and stick to my orders. There are too many of them and it would serve no purpose in the long run.
Then it happens. A shift in the tactic of doggedly forcing forward and the enemy formations pull aside to let through a powerful, heavily built Rapathian general.
Akadian. Before I even see his face I know it has to be him, just from hearing his voice. True to habit, he holds back far enough to avoid a fight, yet manages give the impression that he is in charge. He screams at his men, urging them to attack.
And then he sees me. The look of shocked recognition that flashes across his features tells me exactly what he is thinking.
He stops, dead still in the midst of all the yelling and crashing of steel and stares at me for one long, terrible moment. He has never seen me before so I know it is Alina he thinks he is looking at, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Samarian defenders. Then his face changes in the instant he figures that I am not her––but my presence here makes it clear there is something she hasn’t been telling him.
I catch the look of betrayed fury in his eyes before he turns and strides away from the battle. I know exactly where he is going and what he will do when he gets there. My sister’s death will be long and slow, ensuring that every secret and piece of information she has delivered to Maratic will be forced out of her before the end.
The panic that runs through me is like ice and fire twisting together, as overwhelming as my first encounter with the Blade. I can’t let this happen. I have to protect her. I have to kill Akadian before he reaches his horse, no doubt still being fed and watered in the open meadow beyond the gorge. And he’s moving fast, as the Rapathian soldiers hastily shuffle aside to let him pass. I don’t stop to think further as I leap down the jagged rocks, cutting down enemy fighters as I go. I can dimly hear Marin shouting something behind me but all my focus is on Akadian’s retreating back.
The armed ranks of Rapathians don’t offer me the courtesy of moving aside as they did with my quarry and I’m not catching up with him fast enough. I force every drop of power into my fingertips as I hurl one of my knives into the weak spot in the heavy plate at his shoulder. He turns to face me with a snarl of pain and anger that gives me just that extra breath of time to close the distance between us.
The biggest risk is that Akadian will back off the way he usually does and leave me to fight my way through more of his warriors. Just in time, I remember his technique for moving in for the kill as soon as he thinks he has a mortally wounded adversary to torment at leisure.
So I give him one. There is plenty of blood on my right arm from a cut I had hardly noticed as I forced my way in pursuit of him. I drop my shoulder as if I have no strength on that side of my body, dragging my feet and moving slowly and unsteadily. The flash of greedy anticipation in his eyes is unmistakable––no doubt mixed with a furious urge for revenge by proxy for Alina’s betrayal. He waves back the encroaching warriors and steps forward, lunging his heavy sword at my left arm. As usual, he doesn’t want a clean kill, just an experiment in making it slow and painful.
It feels odd, dodging the blow while trying to maintain the deception of my half-crippled way of moving. I need to get this done fast, and then get back to my place in the line. That means drawing him in even closer. I pretend to stumble, dropping to one knee, watching the cruel lust that governs his technique to give me a clue as to where his next blow will fall. The only thing I know for sure is that its intent will be to deliver pain but not death. Not yet.
He goes for my left shoulder this time. I use the parry to push myself to the side and let the stab hit the rock face behind me, while in the same movement I thrust my right blade forward and feel the point of crysteel run through eye socket, deep into blood and brain. I have to move fast, twisting sideways to pull free before his weight lands on top of me.
I look back to the rock barrier as the red fire of panic and rage in my head starts to clear. Steen is trying to close the gap in the defensive line where I left Brac and Allantis undefended on the flank. They are both fighting desperately to hold back the Rapathians driving a wedge of powerful bodies forward into the opening. I stare at the unfolding events in horror as the detail of what has happened etches itself on my mind.
I have been too slow getting back to them.
Even as I start to run back towards them I see Brac go down, his face and neck blossoming red with fresh blood. Allantis leaps across the rocky ledge and stands over him, thrusting both blades in unison at two bulky Rapathians, but it is not enough. Before he has time to withdraw either blade, another heavily armed figure leaps into the space beside him and swings his sword. Allantis staggers back, blood spurting from a great slash from neck to sternum, the enemy trampling over him even as he falls.
Marin forces his way into the space that has opened in the line, trying to hold back the advancing tide of Rapathians as I struggle to reach him. No matter how many of them I cut down, there is always someone stepping in to take their place and I can’t get past the foot of the avalanche barrier. It is only a matter of time, and in spite of my adept strength, I am tiring.
I hear a fierce yell as Hagen leaps down from one of the hidden trails, forcing his way towards the gap that Marin is trying to close. My vision suddenly blurs as a crashing blow from the side forces me to my knees even as I raise my arm to parry the slash that would have taken my head off.
There is no longer any choice to make. I know he will hear me even though my voice is no more than a whisper.
“Shadow. Come. I accept your terms.”