“Once we’re out, we attack them from the back.” I resolutely ignored my own misgivings.
“No more time to worry about it.”
’Gren leapt for the door as someone lifted the latch on the other side. He ripped it open and the Elietimm soldier fell into the wash house, taken unawares. He took that surprise to whatever afterlife awaited him as ’Gren struck his head clean off before darting out of the reach of the second man’s naked blade.
“Go!” Sorgrad stood between me and the Elietimm forcing their way into the cramped building, bent on ugly slaughter. I used a pail as a step and, tossing the loosened frame aside, I went through the window feet first. ’Gren dived after me to roll on the bruising ground with all the skill of a fairground tumbler. He was on his feet, blades bright in the morning sun before Olret’s men realised what was happening.
Most were already inside the wash house. Three were left outside to gawp at our sudden arrival. Two went for ’Gren and the last ran at me. I wasn’t about to start swordplay with someone half a head taller so I ducked down and caught up a loose stone the size of my fist. Catching him full in the cheek wasn’t as good as a strike to the temple but it sent him staggering back. He fell hard on his arse so I could shove my sword under his jaw to leave him twitching on the dusty ground. I don’t kill with ’Gren’s insouciance but if someone tries to kill me, I’ll answer to Saedrin for his death when my times comes. It was only then I realised I’d taken the insane risk of using the ancient Kel Ar’Ayen blade I carried.
With deft footwork and vicious swordplay, ’Gren added the other two to a tally that’ll keep the elder god busy and everyone else waiting in line. Hearing their cries, one came back out of the door and I retreated rapidly, shoving the sword into my belt and reaching into my pouch for darts.
But he wasn’t interested in fighting, running so fast even ’Gren couldn’t catch him before he jumped the boundary wall and fled.
Curiosity warred with caution and I risked going a little closer. Two Elietimm in the doorway had their backs to me and whoever they were fighting had to be one of my friends so I darted in to hamstring the closest with my longest dagger. He fell, to be killed by Sorgrad and I caught a glimpse of Ryshad struggling with someone further in.
A scream of agony shocked us all to stillness but me and Sorgrad recovered first. As I slashed at the other man’s knees from behind, Sorgrad caught the enemy under the breastbone. The man died, vain pleading silenced by a gush of blood. Sorgrad tried to throw the body back off his blade. I stepped forward to help, holding the corpse down with one boot and saw Ryshad hacking at two men unaccountably tangled in choking coils of sodden cloth.
“Shiv got the laundry on our side,” grinned Sorgrad over the corpse between us.
Shiv was standing on the rim of the pool, a narrow column of scalding steam untroubled by the cold air from the open door and coiling down and around a man whose face was pale, pulpy and undeniably dead. I spoke without thinking. “You cooked him like a pudding.”
“Pretty much.” The mage sighed. “And I really am all but spent.”
Ryshad kicked the swathed bodies at his feet to make sure they were good and dead. Blood oozed from rents in the blankets and flowed across the floor to join water and lye seeping down the drain. “Let’s get out of here.”
He and Sorgrad were first out of the door, me following with an arm ready in case Shiv needed support. ’Gren was in the centre of the yard, proud and belligerent as a cockerel ready to leave all comers bleeding in the dust.
“Let me repay your hospitality,” he taunted the unseen inhabitants of the steading. “My mother throws better bread than your women make to the dogs!”
“We’re leaving,” Sorgrad warned him as we passed. ’Gren took a moment to piss copiously on the ground and then ran to catch up.
Ryshad fell back to let the two of them go on ahead. “Shiv?”
“I’ll be all right,” said the wizard tightly. “I just need some rest and to work out why my magic’s not reaching as it should.” He sounded quite as annoyed as weary.
“Rest may solve it. How often does a mage do half what you’ve done these past few days?” Still, I was starting to share his concern that something, somewhere must be very wrong if we couldn’t contact any other mage.
We passed the boundary wall, Ryshad checking all the while to be sure we weren’t pursued. “We’ll find somewhere to hide up and work out our next move,” he said decisively. “And we don’t want to be disturbed. Livak, can you work that aetheric charm against being tracked?”
I did my best to sing the jaunty tune as we ran, hoping the Artifice was proof against my ragged breath and the jolting of the uneven, stony ground.
Suthyfer, Fellaemion’s Landing,
11th of For-Summer
You’re building pyres already?” Temar felt distantly proud that he could keep his voice level.
“No reason to delay.” Halice sounded weary.
“I’d forgotten what it was like.” Temar didn’t mind Halice hearing his shame. “I fought with the cohorts for a year and a half but we were never involved in clearing the carrion, not esquires from the noblest Houses. We were all honour and valour and rushing to leave the battlefield as soon as our commanders gave us leave. It’s the comrades you remember, the fooling in the camps, the celebrations and the grateful whores. Not the death.”
“You’re a commander this time,” said Halice without censure. “Now you know why wiser men than us call a battle won the closest evil to a battle lost.”
The two of them watched shrouded bodies being respectfully laid in a line along the crest of the rising land. The only sound was from the pry bars and axes breaking up what remained of the hulks of the Tang and Den Harkeil’s ill-fated ship.
“Did Peyt live?” Temar asked after a while.
Halice shook her head. “Not beyond midnight.”
A sullen line of those pirates who’d escaped summary slaughter carried the salvaged wood up to the burning ground.
“They should burn cleanly enough,” Temar remarked when the burden of silence weighed too heavily for him to bear. He plucked unaware at the edge of the bandage dressing the wound on his arm.
“I reckon so.” Halice watched other captives sewing sailcloth winding sheets around the dead to be honoured with cleansing fire. Minare and his troop stalked among them, cudgels ready to chastise any who failed to show respect to the fallen. “Though a little magecraft couldn’t hurt. Has Allin recovered at all?”
“Not as yet.” Temar couldn’t say that in an even tone and didn’t even try.
“We’ll have to keep the burning hot enough without her then.” Halice pointed at the pyres being built with sombre efficiency by a bloodstained gang of mercenaries. “Deg knows how to catch the wind to best advantage.”
“What do we put the ashes in?” asked Temar with sudden consternation.
“We’d better talk to Rosarn. She’s inventorying the salvage,” Halice replied. “There must be pickle jars, butter crocks, wide-necked carafes, that kind of thing.”
“You’d send someone’s son home in a pickle jar?” Temar was appalled, both at the notion and the realisation he had nothing better to suggest.
“I’ve sent people home as no more than a few charred bones in a twist of greased sacking before now.” Halice turned her gaze from the measured destruction of the beached ships and Temar saw tears in her eyes. “I always told myself it was better their family know what had happened than be left with hope and fear from season to season.”
“I’m sorry.” Temar couldn’t think what else to say.
Halice smiled without humour, her sorrow retreating. “I wasn’t sorry to think I’d left all that behind. Me and Deg and all the rest of us who opted to stay in Kellarin.”
“Will you still be staying?” Temar wondered aloud.
“Oh yes,” Halice assured him. “We’ve shed too much blood to give up on you now.”