Erling stepped forward and waved his arms. “Make haste!” he shouted. “Brothers, move quickly! My lord, I pray you, beware! A small pack of the beasts are hiding in the forest the better to ambush you, to scare you off and make you think they’ve taken the dike. The rest have swung up along the dike toward the fens. We held them off, but we haven’t long before they attack again.”
The other Alban volunteers moved up alongside him, an easy target for arrows if the Alban host distrusted their tale. It took courage to place themselves so nakedly in the line of fire.
“Make haste!” they cried. “Make haste! We need reinforcements!” For an instant, for a year, for the space of ten breaths, Stronghand wondered if the Alban lord with his boar’s head helmet would take the bait.
Then First Son played his hand—axes and spears clattered against shields to create a host of noise rising out of the woodland. These Albans didn’t yet understand that the RockChildren attacked in silence.
The lord shouted a command; his banner dipped and rose to signal the advance, and the host broke forward at a run, making haste, and their tight formation came undone as one man outpaced another, as they raced for the safety of the ramparts.
Stronghand bared his teeth. Behind, he felt as much as heard the murmur of his army tightening their grips on their weapons.
When the first of the Albans came over the top, awkward as they climbed and winded and thinking that their brothers awaited them, they hadn’t a chance.
In the end, after the slaughter and with the sun sliding down beneath the western horizon, they took the boar’s head alive. He was a man of indeterminate years, lean, hard, and cunning by the look of him, not easy to subdue. He was too proud to curse at his fate and too clever to waste his breath begging for mercy or modesty when Stronghand’s soldiers stripped him. He wore luxurious garb under his chain mail, a padded tunic chased with gold thread, the gold armbands worn by Alban lords, a pair of gold necklaces, and silver rings and bracelets, a rich haul by any measure. In his time he had survived three wounds, long since healed, but on this day only his right hand was bleeding from a stroke that had knocked his gauntlet off. His shield was almost hacked in two, but it had fared better than the four young men who had died in a last attempt to break him out of the battle and escape toward the fens.
The Alban volunteers gathered to look him over. They had the look of starving dogs waiting to feed but held back by the chains of fear—because they feared this scarred and battle-hardened nobleman who stood stripped to his shift before them, barefoot, unarmed, and entirely at their mercy. Nonetheless Stronghand could smell their fear, a perfume as rank as old meat.
“The young should not die to save the old,” observed Ediki solemnly as he examined the four corpses sprawled at the foot of the noble lord.
“I am the queen’s uncle, called Eadig, Earl of the middle country and Lord of Wyscan,” said the noble to Stronghand, as if Ediki had not spoken. He took no notice of the former slaves. “What ransom will you take for me, raider? How may I ransom those of my soldiers who still live?”
Stronghand raised both hands, palms up, in a gesture he had seen used among humankind. “Your fate is not mine to judge. I have promised certain of my lords that they may enslave any man among the survivors.”
Eadig’s arrogant gaze skipped over the branded faces of Ediki and the others, ranged farther afield to encompass the Eika now looting the dead or settling down for the night’s bivouac within the safety of the palisaded manor. “You have lords among you? I thought you were like the wild dogs who hunt in packs and devour everything they meet.”
“Then you do not understand us. Yet what we are should not concern you. You have lords among your own kind, Eadig, for you were once one among them. Now, here are others. I name them for you, because you must know at whose hands you will suffer mercy, or justice. Here is Lord Ediki of Weorod—”
“Eadwulf is lord of Weorod!” cried the nobleman indignantly. “My cousin’s niece married him five years past!”
“Eadwulf is dead or soon will be. It is no concern of mine. This man standing here at my right hand is Lord Ediki of Weorod. Here is his kinsman, Lord Erling of—What lands do you claim?”
Erling laughed, reckless with triumph. “South of Hefenfelthe lies Briden Manor. My mother is buried there. It lies under the authority of Lady Ealhflaed.”
“Very well, Lord Erling, you are now lord of Briden Manor. As for these others—”
But as he turned toward them to discover what claims the other men would make, Eadig stepped forward with the fearless manner of a man accustomed to ruling and to being obeyed. His tone was sour and scornful and he trembled, as tense as a dog straining against a leash.
“You have no authority to steal the inheritance of those who came legally into possession of these lands!”
“Have I not?” Stronghand asked curiously. “I have the right granted me by force of arms. Can you say otherwise?”
“It goes against nature for slaves to take the place of free men and claim to rule as masters over those who are rightfully lords by law and divine favor!”
Stronghand closed with him, unsheathing his claws a handbreadth from the earl’s face. Eadig’s expression changed utterly; his eyes flicked nervously to the corpses littering the ramparts and field and his nostrils flared in a pallid face, but he did not retreat.
“In truth, your objection puzzles me,” said Stronghand, turning his left hand the better to display his wicked claws. “You ruled over them. Fortune’s wheel turned, and now you have lost both law and divine favor. How does this go against nature? One day a wolf may flourish, hunting down the sheep, and the next he may be pinioned by the spears of the sheepherders.”
“Call me a slave, but I will still be earl of the middle country.”
Stronghand grinned, baring his teeth. “Erling, kneel.”
Erling did so, one knee in the dirt, face lifted obediently to look upon the one who ruled him.
“I name you earl of the middle country and lord of Wyscan.” Eadig sputtered, but Stronghand brushed his chin with the tip of his claws and the man fell silent.
“E—arl?” Erling stammered. “I never thought—a manor, my lord, but to be titled an earl—”
“I am in need of loyal men to rule, Erling. You are one of them. I consider it no easy task. I expect you to become a responsible steward of these lands. The riches of Alba are not to be squandered. There are other men who desire what you have now been given. Serve me well and you will prosper. Serve me ill, and you will die.”
“Y—yes, my lord.” The young man had gone so white that his slave brand burned red against the pallor of his skin. His companions stared at him, whispering among themselves and beginning to eye each other as if wondering who might gain the greatest prize from their generous benefactor.
“Not all of you will serve me well,” remarked Stronghand. “Such is the nature of humankind, I have observed. But I rule in this land, and those I have raised up I can bring down.”
“Only for as long as you live.” Eadig spat in Stronghand’s face. “You cannot defeat the queen and her council, nor can you pray for the gods’ favor.”
“Let me kill him for you!” cried Erling, leaping up.
Stronghand did not mind the spittle. It was as inconsequential as rain even though he knew that to humankind it was a mortal insult. “Lord Ediki, does this nameless slave serve us better alive or dead?”
Ediki considered the question with a serious frown, as it deserved. “Living, my lord, but crippled. If he is blind, then he can no longer lead slaves in revolt or bear arms against us.”
“Very well. See that his eyes are put out, Lord Erling. Best that he survive the operation. Lord Ediki, walk with me. We’ll need torches.”
Torches were brought. They climbed back up onto the ramparts, careful to step over the cooling bodies of the dead Alban soldiers. There were so many of them. Eadig’s screams cut through the air and for an instant Stronghand smel
led the sour stink of burning flesh, but he did not look back.
Two score of Eika soldiers carrying torches to light their way attended them as they walked. The smooth path that topped the rampart was divided here and there by a stockade or a jumble of branches piled up to make a barrier. In time, as the night crept on and the moon touched the zenith, they reached the northern end of the barrier. The moon’s light was so strong that he could survey the landscape, all pale silver and coarse shadows. To his left, mixed forest land swept away to the south and west, but northeast the land sank and leveled off into a sheet of pewter. What he smelled off the wasteland was indescribable—sweet, heady, with the barest sting of salt.
“The fens,” said Stronghand. “The queen waits for us out there.”
“You’ll be lost if you march the army in there without a guide,” said Ediki. “Lost, and dead. Spirits live there, the souls of men who drowned.”
“You lived in this land as a boy.”
“So I did, but I’ve lost much of the lore I knew then. And the waters will have changed. The safe paths will have shifted.”
“The queen found her way to safety.”
“So she did, my lord. She keeps allies and slaves, just as you do. But I know those who may still help us. I have kinfolk who do not love the Alban queen. Give me time, and I will find them.”
“How much time? The longer she eludes me, the stronger she gets. You cannot remain Lord of Weorod if the queen of Alba regains what she has lost.”
Ediki grinned, easy to see in the moonlight. He had strong, straight teeth for a man of his years; he hadn’t lost even one, remarkable considering the many healed stripes Stronghand had seen on his back the day Ediki had joined up with his army.
“Before the moon is full again, my lord, I promise you, I will find you a guide into the fens. But the queen is powerful and her sorcerers are dangerous, as my kinfolk discovered to their sorrow back in the days when we were still free, and rulers of this country. Long ago.”
Stronghand glanced toward Tenth Son, standing close enough to hear every word. His littermate shook the standard, and the bones and beads rang, clacking together.
“I do not fear the tree sorcerers, nor should you. We are strong, we who were born in the north. Your kin will rule again in this land if they are among those who serve me well and faithfully. Show me how to find the queen. That is the first task I set you and your tribe.”
Ediki bowed his graying head as a sign of obedience and understanding, but he looked pensive and content. The days of traveling and fighting had not wearied him. “It is a small task compared to the years I struggled to hold my head high although I was a slave.”
Moonlight shivered on the waters. The beauty of the half-seen landscape and the quiet night washed over Stronghand as if on a rising tide, enveloping him. It was so still. The countryside was a mystery to him, a trackless wasteland of water and reeds that was, despite everything, a place of numinous wonder. Did the spirits of drowned men cause the waters to shine, or was that only a glamour of the moon? Lights flickered and sparked and died among the shadows, among the sedge beds and stands of reeds, each flare like a candle lit for a moment before being extinguished.
Like life, he thought. His own life would be a bright, brief flame that might split the darkness for as long as lightning kindled the heavens, but no more. Even the moon’s glow could only reach so far into the ceaseless tide of years.
“What are those lights?” he asked Ediki. “They burn for an instant and then they’re gone.”
The lord of Weorod smiled sadly, but his expression was clean and joyful as he gazed over the landscape of his childhood.
“Those are the souls of the men we killed today. They’re seeking the gateway that leads to the other side, to the land of the dead, where the meadow flowers bloom.”
2
EDIKI steered the canoe down a side channel into a labyrinth of sedge and reed. Islets like the rounded backs of whales humped up out of the shallow waters, covered with grass or low-lying brush willow, white with flowers. Through this maze they glided, Ediki kneeling at the stern of the canoe and his nephew Elafi at the stem.
They had found Elafi ten days after the assault on Grim’s Dike, and it had taken all of Ediki’s persuasive powers to convince the young man that he was who he said he was. In the end, Stronghand had agreed to come alone to meet the refugees in the marsh. It was the only way Elafi would agree to guide them into the marshland.
The sun was just coming up as the crescent moon set. The last stars faded as the sky slowly brightened, and the soft breath of a dawn breeze lifting off the waters whispered through the reeds like the murmuring of the drowned.
“We’re here, Uncle,” said Elafi, grinning back at Ediki. “You’re a little slow and sloppy, but you steer like a man who grew up in the fens.”
Here proved to be nothing more interesting than a broad hummock of sedge and reeds shouldering out of the waters, but Stronghand smelled that people camped here. The canoe slid up onto a muddy shore where the reeds had been cut back; otherwise it was impossible to see that the islet was inhabited.
“There she is,” said Elafi unnecessarily as a short, middle-aged woman pressed through the reeds and halted on the beach, mud squishing between her toes as she stared at them, face alight with joy.
“Manda!” Ediki clambered from the boat, but in his haste the boat tipped and sloshed, and he splashed up to the woman, laughing, and she grabbed him and hugged him fiercely as she wept.
“Brother. Brother. I thought you were lost to us.”
Elafi gestured to Stronghand to climb out of the canoe; together, they pulled the boat up onto the shore and stowed it where it could not be seen. There were a half dozen crude boats hidden among the reeds. He took his standard and his spear and followed the young man up to the camp where Ediki was now greeting every person from the eldest to the youngest.
This was a camp of fugitives, about a score, half of them children. The sturdiest shelter consisted of a lean-to built of sticks covered by a roof woven of reeds, their clothing was little more than grass skirts and cloaks, cunningly braided together, and they had only one cooking pot among them as well as baskets and sharpened sticks fashioned into spears or fishing forks. Yet there was plenty of food: plucked ducks and coots, skinned voles and hares, gutted perch, roach, and pickerel as well as a bounty of slippery eels, and blossoms and young leaves from the spring flowering.
A lad approached them, bearing a bronze cup.
“Will you drink, Honored One?” he asked boldly.
Stronghand regarded the cup gravely. The liquid steaming within did not smell at all appetizing. Ediki hurried back with his sister beside him.
“My kinfolk offer you guest rights,” he said. “I pray you, my lord. Drink.”
He let his grin flash, knowing that they tested him. He took the cup from the youth and raised it.
“I come alone to offer an alliance to you,” he said, and drank half. The brew went down easier than he had imagined, laced with an aftertaste that puckered his tongue so sharply he almost laughed in surprise. Instead, he held out what was left.
Ediki’s sister stepped forward. “I am Manda, grandmother of this clan. I give you welcome. I dreamed of you, dragon-man.”
She was not lean and muscled like a warrior; she was stocky, even plump, despite the obvious hardships she and her clan had suffered, and she had the same coarse black hair—cut short—as Ediki had, although hers had less gray in it. She looked like an ordinary woman in all ways, if one only looked on the surface. But in her stance he saw authority and in the way the others deferred to her, holding back until she had spoken, he saw leadership. She was a honed spear forged in a time of trouble. She had weight, and heft, and her surety was like the sharpened edge of a killing blade.
“I have dreams,” she continued, by way of explanation. “I dreamed a man was coming who wasn’t a man, and he sailed in on a ship that wasn’t a ship but a dragon born of wood. The god
dess told me that this man who wasn’t a man would bring my brother back to me, although he was lost to us long years ago. The goddess told me that I might offer him the cup held between allies.” She took the bronze cup from him and drank the rest, wincing at its bite, almost grinning, as he had.
She whistled between strong teeth. The waiting boy took the cup from her and retreated, leaving her to speak with Stronghand alone. Even Ediki walked back into the clutter of the camp. Several of his kinfolk clung to him, still amazed by his existence, but no one spoke; they only watched as the negotiations began.
“What do you want, stranger?”
“I want your help to track down the queen of Alba and kill her, and to destroy the power of her tree sorcerers. When that is done, I will rule Alba and reward those who aided me.”
The sun rose. Light shone on the waters. A flight of geese flew low overhead, honking so loudly that Manda waited until they had passed before she resumed speaking.
“Their power you can never destroy. Their magic is very strong. It defeated us, my people’s claims to this land long ago, my clan and I not so many moons ago. The queen and her army drove us off the holy island where we have lived as caretakers back into the dawn of time. My mam was caretaker there. The right to the land and honor of the guardianship came from her mam before her and hers before her, back into oldest times. There’s enough land to grow a small crop of grain and keep a big flock of sheep and a gaggle of geese. That’s all gone. You see how they drove us off.”
She indicated the makeshift camp, the crude shelters, the open campfires, the ragged children. They had not escaped with much. But they did not seem hungry and desperate.