War of the Feathers Part 7

V

It was too warm for Evander, the searing aftershock of heat from the exertion of battle engulfing him.

“That’s a deep wound, I’d say,” Xiphos stated quietly, feline blood still glistening upon his armour.

They stood before the slain God-Head, a broken shadow of its former majesty, dead on its back. Its talons were curled around its chest, whilst its lower legs were splayed openly. Nothing more of terror and the demand for reverence glared from its dark eyes. It was as if they had been replaced with coals.

Quivers, and a bridle covered in reliefs were fastened to the animal, the former having scattered their contents like shattered twigs after a storm.

“It is,” Evander managed to say, his spirit was numb at the sight, though his mind was clear in its acceptance that he had helped to do this. He leaned over and picked up an intact arrow, the shaft inscribed in the Xellcarrian language, the pile obsidian. Not one the concussive types they had just suffered.

“No sodding eating on it either,” Xiphos continued. “Look at how lean those ribs are. I’d rather face down fifty thousand Men-at-Arms that have to fight one of these.”

“I knew we’d see them eventually,” Evander said, his eyes not leaving those of the animal’s. “I didn’t think it’d be at night.”

“Aye, well, if you send a hound into a boar cave, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t come back out,” Gaylord said, flat, unsympathetic.

He was right to some degree, Evander noted. It wouldn’t do to be showing remorse to the beast that ambushed the fort and helped to kill, directly and indirectly, many Maytoni.

“Good job,” he found himself saying, asserting his voice over the group gathered around the dead animal. He turned to the archers and nodded. Some nodded back, others raised their bows. The words he spoke were sincere he found to his surprise, as Evander thought back to the beak baring down on him. “The Xellcarrians maybe inflicting deep lacerations to our body, here in the fort, but we’ve been breaking their bones for the past two days!” Evander roared, wondering where the energy came from – a surge of pronounced extract, fleetingly bounding across the melancholy mire of his mind.

The crowd roared back, jubilant, with an energy to match, as if they were more than ready for the next fight. The feeling of absence checked his own victory thrust as Evander recalled losing Centuries Reach – shattered by a cave tiger. The parallel irked at him, burning up the strands of victory he had been able to muster to the surface. Here, lay slain a celestial to the Xellcarrian people, and gathered up and placed like firewood, where the remnants of Centuries Reach, a holy instrument, a divine gift from his Gods. Such a notion made Evander smirk, though without any real amusement. It assuaged the guilt of slaying a griffin somewhat, knowing he had paid a price for his part. Such a crime couldn’t go unpunished, and perhaps, he thought, his own Gods had been behind the loss of his beloved bow.

What would Ebrill say? He thought about going to see her again but decided not to. She would be far too busy, and he could hold back his misgivings and pain for now. Any building in close proximity to her tavern had now been utilised as medical quarters for the wounded, which only told Evander of how busy she was.

“Evey,” Bunny said, breaking his almost hypnotic stare at the slain celestial. Evander turned, the grime caked face of his friend looking a tad sombre. “A word.”

“Yes, of course.” Evander was happy to leave the sight behind. Before he left, he looked to Xiphos. “Commander, find the masons, and have them load this beast up and cart it to the south wall for safe keeping.” He tossed the arrow back into a scattered pile by the dead griffin.

Xiphos nodded, ready to delegate the order.

“And,” Evander began, louder this time so the whole group could hear him. “No one is to touch or take anything from the beast! If found to do so, you’ll have both wrists broken!”

To the far left of the northern fields, by the cliff’s edge, the hospitallers had been gathering the severed limbs for burning, stacking them firstly in neat rows to take stock of the injuries and losses and to recover any valuables such as rings to return to the wounded, or their next of kin. One archer had actually tried to reclaim his severed forearm and hand because he wanted to remove the parts of the skin that were tattooed. Though sluggishly weary in their movements, the decorum and reverence of the hospitallers still showed as each appendage was handled as if they were placing holy relics.

There was no pyre yet. Evander had called for the dousing of all but essential fires, and for all windows to be covered where light was needed. Whilst Maytoni soldiers would erect covers over their own campfires during the night, Evander didn’t want to take any risks. Only a few handheld torches aided the hospitallers in their work.

The Maytoni military did not have a medical corp. It was something Evander had never really thought about until now. There were medically trained personal of course, but nothing as substantial as a dedicated hospitaller unit. Rather large numbers of civilian hospitallers were attached to army groups – conscripted in a way, as a part of quasi-national service, all hospitallers had to complete a two to three years working alongside military units. The separation of medical and military had something to do with the extreme opposites of taking life and restoring it, Evander mused. And to make sure no one within the army could force any of the medical personal to ignore the wounded enemy, keeping hospitallers immune to the chain of command. They answered to themselves, much like the Pastorals.

As Evander and Bunny stepped into the morose air dominating this small part of the fort, a single archer was standing by the front row of limbs, in this case they were all legs – some severed beneath the knee, others at the hip, all trailing ragged streams of organic materials, shattered bones protruding through flesh and muscle. Evander forced himself not to mentally estimate how many body parts were present.

“I saw this fella when I left the tower,” Bunny explained. “Nothing we haven’t seen before, but that does not equate into knowing how to deal with it, does it?”

Tight darkness took a hold of Evander’s chest as he watched this archer counting each of the body parts, his hand swaying up and down before halting and starting over with a sharp sigh of frustration.

“Archer!” Evander called, pouring as much authority and confidence into his voice as he could muster. He approached the man, taking in his youthful features. Blood was strewn over his face and caked into his calloused hands. “Are you well?”

Without looking at Evander, the archer halted his work, shaking his arms and head frustratedly, incoherent babbling spilling from his mouth. He then started over, from the far left of the front row, counting along.

“Archer,” Evander said again, still strong in tone, but lower. “What’s your rank and name?” He stepped in closer, trying to distract him.

“Just, go away, I have to do this…” The archer stuttered, as if forming the words was a struggle. He shook his arms as if trying to shoo away Evander and started over.

“No, you don’t. We’re taking you to the tavern, you need rest, to speak to someone. You’ve been through too much,” Evander continued, reaching out to take the young man’s arms and halt this compulsive behaviour. He couldn’t be older than twenty-one.

“No!” The archer screamed, shoving Evander back – weakly, despite the fear and despair rife in his shriek. “I… Have to do this… We need to keep count, to find all the pieces, or they won’t have their bodies restored in Paradise,” he sobbed, racking in breaths as he tried counting along the row once more. His hand was swaying and bobbing as cried, tears pouring out of him.

For a moment Evander watched, stilling his spirit as the pain of the sight tried to wash over him. Bunny wasn’t wrong, in that they had seen such destructive compulsive behaviour before; actions needing to be carried out otherwise disaster would occur, manifested and amplified through extreme stress, possessing and warping the mind, convincing it with absolute certainty against reason. A whole other type of enemy to be fought.

Blunting his conscience for a moment, Evander struck the archer, knocking him unconscious, and watched as the man crumpled. Evander let himself feel the throbbing in his knuckles, the strain pressing into the top of his hand and writhing through his fingers.

“That absolutely wasn’t the right way to deal with this,” Evander said, sighing.

“We don’t have the training. This is a job for the Pastorals. What else was there?” Bunny replied. “If you were a hospitaller, you’d have restrained him and poured a sleep-tonic down his throat – this wasn’t too different… At least that’s what I’ll tell myself.”

“Let’s get him back to the tavern.” Evander leaned down, reminded of his back wounds as they poured searing heat across his back, and hefted the young man over his shoulder. “And Bunny? If Ebrill asks, he fainted from getting too worked up.”

VI

It wasn’t so much sleep, as it had been a fatigue induced passing out. On the one hand, Evander slept for few hours, without any restlessness, but awoke to a headache grating at his brain. His right knee was swollen and purple, but mercifully numb. And his nose was, without question, broken, as his two black eyes attested to.

Kellen worked at the wounds on his back; wounds Evander had completely forgotten about prior to taking his turn sleeping.

“If it hadn’t been for those planks and debris, that’s pussy cat’s paws would have run you through, and come out your chest,” Kellen said, standing over Evander as he sat on a stool practically doubled over, bare elbows on his knees.

The Summiteers were outside, in the dawn light, as it was best for Kellen to see what he was doing. Despite the cold, the scent of salt coming in from the sea bellow was comforting to Evander and concentrating on it helped to dull the copper scent of blood, and many other ripe smells swamping the fort.

“Would have pressed your lungs out through your ribs, too,” Kellen continued.

“Not the first time you’ve grateful for some hardwood,” Bunny sighed, taking a swig from his morning tea, too tired to laugh at his own poor joke. Bunny had a bloody laceration on his lower left check, which Evander was only noticing, running over the jaw line – a nasty sneering wound that went down to the bone.

“I bet sitting in that position brings back memories of your university days, eh?” Ignatius added.

At the south wall Ignatius had seen the least amount of fighting. Only the southeastern section of the wall, where it curved into the south wall saw a minor attempt at an assault. Most of Ignatius’ actions were in putting down the big cats herded his way by the shield bearers.

Juliet was standing, a steaming tankard of tea, something flowery, in hand. She had been more than apologetic about the destruction of the gate. Evander insisted it wasn’t her fault, and that the overhang of the wall and balustrade gave enough cover to the tigers which could not have been helped. Even the barricade built up in front of the portcullis had been shredded and crushed to something less than splinters, which given the giant rent torn through the portcullis itself was hardly a surprise.

“The wounds are superficial, hardly deep. I was worried about damage to the muscles and shoulder blades, but you’re grand.” With a hearty slap over the affected area, Kellen announced to Evander that he was finished. Evander gritted his teeth and tried to hold in a wheezy wail.

“In that case, why was I put to the bottom of the list?” Bunny asked, jovially. “Can hardly enjoy my tea with this gaping thing here.”

“Her name is Juliet,” Evander quipped quickly, with a hand gesture thrown his way from Juliet.

Bunny got up off of the bench outside of a smaller tavern and moved to Kellen’s surgical stool.

“You could amputate the jaw,” Fiadh put in.

“Gods, Bunny, what happened over there?” Kellen continued, looking into the gash, with numerous angry shades of red and pink glaring back out of it.

“Did you not see the wall clambering lions? I was shooting directly down, knocking off a never-ending stampede of the furry things,” Bunny replied, finishing his tea, and setting the mug at the base of the stool. “When this is done, I’m have every species of cat in Maytoni catapulted over the border. I think I’m developing a phobia. What were they anyhow? Evey you must know the species?”

Evander smirked, flexing his right arm at the shoulder. The cool sea air was a balm to his skin, and the salt in the air tingled sharply along the trio of claw wounds across his upper back. “Noble lions, because both males and females have manes – the females are the ones with a crest of hair running down their head, back to their shoulders.”

“At a guess, I’d say they’re nocturnal hunters – proper prowlers,” Bunny continued.

“This will hurt,” Kellen said, picking up a cup.

“Try not to enjoy yourself,” Bunny said through a clenched jaw.

“Evey did,” Kellen replied, grinning. Evander returned a sly wink.

Kellen poured the colourless liquid from the metal mug over Bunny’s raw jaw wound, and the man roared like a child stung by something sinister.

“Gods Evey, you enjoy this sort of thing?” He stammered through gasps of agony.

Evander retained an abnormally high threshold for pain, and in his early days of Summiteer selection was renowned for ‘walking off’ sprains, staves, lacerations, and concussions. Medical personal would frequently rebuke him for forgetting about injuries or leaving wounds for too long and risking infection. When asked about this by his peers, Evander said, “Pain is a good way of determining progress. The more it hurts, the better I’m doing.”

“Right, that’ll kill any infection and numb the jaw line,” Kellen explained, deftly running thread through the eye of a needle, and tying it up. “How big of a scar do you want?”

VII

They should have been inside the fort at this rate, spoke the intrusive thought in General Aedion’s mind. He had not slept much, too anxious to hear the results of the nightly raid.

Then, still within the confines of the night, only two of their three God-Heads had returned, and only one of their battle cats. It was not enough that the raid could have potentially decimated the Maytoni garrison. They could have wiped out the garrison entirely, every soldier, every civilian aiding them, and it would never be enough to rebalance the loss of a God-Head.

That part of the general’s spirit filled with holy fervour, was rapidly being drowned by despair as he, General Aedion had given the order that sent one of their most divine, godly, celestials to its death. He may have assumed that the Gods would inflict some form of punishment upon him, only now he had come to realise that They had not followed him and his army out of Xellcarr onto this accursed peninsula. He should have known this after the night raid that saw the complete destruction of their siege equipment. It had been an omen he was too proud to discern.

After the poaching of the celestial, by this Maytoni prince, did anyone think to ask the Gods what they thought?

No.

Instead, action was taken with blind arrogance, as if the Regents knew the wills of their Gods as well as their own.

Only five thousand Maytoni soldiers, and yet they had decimated the Men-at-Arms, leaving little under a few thousand alive, obliterated all but one of the battle cats, and somehow, in the deadest of darkest night, slew a God-Head.

Aedion was now emphatic in his conviction that they were never supposed to come here. He had written down withdrawal orders and set them next to another parchment upon which he had stated a full confession of his ignorance and responsibility in this disaster.

Now he knelt in the pen of his beloved baron leopard. Within Aedion’s hand was his ceremonial dagger, a curved weapon wrought with steel and gold and gemstones from the sacred mining city of Zaggol. Sacred, revered, holy ground, given to his people millennia ago, when starved of resources to build and trade with. The atlas griffins that had inhabited the mountain region released their grip upon it and took flight to establish their colony elsewhere. It was a miracle, and so the Xellcarrians poured into the mountain and from its colossal body built their kingdom.

Only the highest ranking within the Xellcarrian military boasted such finely crafted weapons built with the resources from this mining city.

Watery steel with a sheen of cold blue made up the blade, set into a hilt of rubies and gold framework, forged into a grip made from his baron leopard’s great, great grandfather bones. Aedion could see his drawn, colourless eyes and wretched face, worn and beaten to a shallow mask, reflected in the bright steel, marking a mocking contrast to the pristine, reverential weapon.

This would do to take his own life in ritual suicide. The weapon that marked his status within the military, now an item he was unworthy to hold. He would cut his own throat, and let Lonan lap up his blood, even feast upon his remains if that is what the beast wished.

Aedion thought about his children, fully grown and with families of their own. Of his eldest son who would inherit his rank, Lonan, his bows, armour, and other weapons – even the dagger. This was a cured legacy for the man to bare, and Aedion said a silent prayer that his spiritual failures stayed with him, that the Gods would show mercy to his family by keeping the taint of his transgressions from spreading to them.

With a deep breath, the general brought the dagger up and caught a glance from Lonan. The cat looked upon him with the same flat, unimpressed stare that could be said to be typical of all cats.

After a minute or so, Aedion realised he was smiling.

He put the dagger down as a thought wove through his mind, whole and clear. It was not up to him to decide what punishment he should enact upon himself. That was a decision to be made by the Gods. Like marching into this peninsula, he was making the same heretical mistake of deciding on behalf of the Gods.

Ruffling the thick fur around Lonan’s chin, Aedion rose and decided he would give the order for the army to withdraw in person and return to Xellcarr to declare this endeavour as an act of heresy before the Regents.

VIII

General Dedrick sat behind the wooden desk, two regular soldiers flanking him. They stood at attention, expertly still like display pieces. They were the cleanest soldiers Evander had seen since the beginning of the battle – not including Dedrick – no doubt having been ordered by the general to ensure a pristine demeanour.

“Bodyguards?” Evander said with irony as he sat down. He was wearing only a purple silk shirt, with slate-grey leather breeches. He had switched over to a back-quiver, tightening the straps to keep the binding bandages tight against his wounds and the stitches tight. Evander wasn’t keen on back-quivers, unless he was sticking with one type of arrow, as he couldn’t see what he was drawing. The quiver however was a prize, a trophy of sorts, he had won during the Rains Open Championship in a shoot off against a Vheruni competitor – no easy feat. It was a brown-grey tree-trunk colour, with an emerald wyvern swirling around it to the rim, where its head sat with bright orange eyes. He kept the standard armour piercing arrows packed into it, indigo arch griffin feathers blooming from the leather rim. Strapped to his right shin was a small brown leather pocket-quiver, dull by comparison, upon which was the embossed image of a kangaroo, holding a dozen arrows in two compact rows of six. Half of these were drunkards, and the other half were titan’s fingers.

Nonchalantly, Evander set Sand Shade, a short curved bow and the replacement for Centuries Reach, on the general’s desk; a simple, passive aggressive act of defiance. Dedrick sneered disgustedly at the bow, as if Evander had come in a urinated upon the desk.

“There was a battle in the early hours. I hope it didn’t disturb your sleep,” Evander went on, far too tired to even try and wrap the statement up in feigned sincerity.

“A battle…” Dedrick snorted. “They threw their pets at us – that’s not a battle.”

A bitter, searing, barb rose in Evander, however he tensed himself, controlled his breathing, and took a firm, stinging hold of the acidic feeling. “Tell that to those who fell to these pets… Either way, since arrive we have one thousand, four hundred and thirty-three casualties, who are toasting us in Paradise, and the five hundred and eighty-one casualties in agony under the care of the hospitallers.” He stated the numbers cooly, matter-of-factly, though under it all was the tension of a fully drawn war bow.

“Against the Xellcarrian dead,” Dedrick replied, a look of smugness filtering across his ugly face – an ugliness which was now greatly offending Evander. “That’s almost on twelve to one.”

“It’s obscene!” Evander snarled, smashing a fist on the hardwood desk. “It makes me sick. Why are you so happy about this?”

“Because they are our enemy, sergeant! Because they want to capture Maytoni land! Because they want one of our own dead!” Dedrick roared back. By comparison Evander felt his own voice was weak and impotent from poor sleep, and frequent shouting during battle.

“And what about the Maytoni lives? The Xellcarrians were asking for one man, one man who committed a crime, a crime he knew the punishment for, but did it anyway! That’s one thousand, four hundred and thirty-three to one, Dedrick!”

“I won’t have any more slanderous talk of Prince Sharrow!” Dedrick roared, rising from his chair. “I’m fed up hearing this treasonous speal. When we’re done here, sergeant, I will have you court marshalled for it! You and those gutter-scum soldiers of yours! You’re a disgrace to Maytoni!”

Evander shot up, so suddenly that both the soldiers flanking Dedrick pulled their swords from their scabbards. He snatched up Sand Shade and pointed the upper limb tip directly at Dedrick’s face.

“Put us with our backs to a wall, general. I dare you,” he said with a venomous hiss to each word. Evander’s first instinct had been to snatch up his dagger, cut the general’s throat and put down his bodyguards. What stopped him was that he no longer had it.

IX

“General, are you well?” Bronagh said, folding her arms over her polished armour. “This morning you were content to capture the fort, and hold this segment of peninsula – which we could do with ease, given how many crossbowers and archers we still have…”

“I don’t care about the defensive advantages we might have,” Aedion interrupted brusquely, still only wearing his plain leather under armour, resembling a lost, wandering elder more than a respected general. “You heard me clearly, general. We are withdrawing from the peninsula, taking this misguided crusade back home whilst we still have lives to spare.”

“That is heresy, general!” Cillian seethed, eyes wide in shock. “Tell me I have misunderstood you, sir?”

The trio where within Aedion’s command tent, the commander of the army the only one present, not in full armour – as he had packed it away already.

“Misunderstanding is what has brought us here, Cillian. It is why over seventeen thousand Xellcarrians lay dead before that fort, with the hundreds of battle cats we fielded.” Aedion took a breath. “It is why a God-Head has fallen.”

“This isn’t the first time in our history that a God-Head has been killed in battle,” Bronagh jumped in, arms wide, eyes wider. “You can’t let the guilt of that poison your thoughts.”

“It was as dark a night as I ever saw, and somehow the Maytoni managed to slay one of our God-Heads. That’s more than unacceptable given the advantages we held, general. We no longer hold the favour of the Gods, we haven’t since we arrived here, and have only been making things worse for ourselves and for Xellcarr… I should have seen it sooner. I am sorry that you both suffered because of my arrogance.” He looked down at the carpet, to the dirt trailed in over the past days, miring the colour and texture.

“Sorry? For what? Carrying out the will of the Gods!”

“For not listening to what They would have had us do!” Aedion snapped back. “Were we given any divine sanction? Did the Regents claim any visions; wisdom delivered into their souls directing us to war? Or did we just decide that this was the course of action necessary.”

“Because it is!” Cillian snapped, what little he held in military bearing beginning to unravel. “The Maytoni slighted us in the worst of affronts. Then they failed to hand over their prince, and worse disputed his crimes! What was left to do?”

“To commune with our Gods, Cillian. To seek their guidance and not just assume that this was the correct course of action because we wanted it to be, and because we wanted blood.”

The knight threw his arms up and turned his back to the general. “A slain God-Head and your faith is struck down. Struck down by a Maytoni arrow.” He turned back to the general and jabbed a finger towards him. “You’re faith and resolve are the only failings here, sir.” His tone dropped towards the end of the statement, almost forlornly.

Aedion marched up to the young, brash champion. Though Cillian was a few inches taller, and broader, the general was sure he would relent and do as he was ordered. But, before he had the chance to speak, a sudden crack spilled burning embers across the back of his skull, plunging Aedion into darkness.

X

Beneath the cliffs of the lighthouse thick white wave broke into countless tendrils, each soaring high and trying hopelessly to reach the base of the structure. Though far off, though the roars reached the cliff top with ease. Dull, pale, and lifeless colours had fallen over the Poet’s Sea, so much so Evander doubted that it would reflect anything looking into its surface.

He stood in the back of the lighthouse, within its spacious ground floor, by a large surveying window open to the Poet’s Sea. The soft roar of the waves was a balm to his throbbing head, even his spirit; the rolling rush into a crescendo, followed by the sudden drop.

“Why is it called the Poet’s Sea?” Fiadh spoke, leaning by the right edge of the large viewing window. Blood still caked her dark, silky hair, in swaths. Though she had found a basin to clean her face.

Evander was about to make a remark about how she must not have paid attention in school, however managed to call a halt to it as he recalled that Fiadh was an Arid Rat – not a derogatory term in the slightest, as rats were to the Maytoni were seen as animals with remarkable resilience and beloved for their resistance to the many venomous species of snake throughout the country.

He looked to the younger Summiteer and replied, “Well, The Poet wanted to propose to Lady Divinity and sought permission from the Gods to build a grand vista with which to do so.”

“The Poet and Lady Divinity? As in the Divined?”

“Indeed.”

“All these years and it never occurred to me that the Poet’s Sea would be named after The Poet. I suppose it didn’t because everyone calls it the Poet’s Sea, rather than just us.”

They were silent for a moment.

“What did she say?” Fiadh continued.

“No thank you.”

“Ha!” Fiadh squeaked in delighted laughter. The way in which she covered her face as she laughed reminded Evander all too much of the Summiteer’s youth, as she sought to hide her embarrassment like a teenager might.

With them were the stored items from the Xellcarrian dead, anything that had been perceived to hold sentimental value, in order to keep it away from souvenir hunters, ensuring it would eventually be returned to the correct relatives or authorities. Fiadh picked up a short, curved bow. A twinge couldn’t help but poke through Evander’s chest at the sight of it, as he knew to whom this particular bow had belonged.

“They managed to merge cherry-root with slate-pine,” Fiadh gasped looking over the bow in brightening fascination. “I’ve been trying to do that for years now. When this is over, I’m going to Xellcarr to find out how it’s done.”

“You could be waiting a while, I fear,” Evander replied, looking over the intricate weave of the woods, how they had been knotted and adhered to one and other in a wonderfully plaited design. It almost went against the known techniques for building this style of bow, yet in the hands of a talented bowyer the soft and hard woods could be woven precisely to ensure that they work with one and other in the conventional sense. It made the rich wooden colours of his own Sand Shade fade into blandness by comparison.

“I’m not so sure,” Fiadh replied, setting the bow gently, reverently, back against the wall. “I believe the Church will be the ones to solve this crisis.”

Evander only raised his brows in response, and an indication for Fiadh to continue.

“We’re not a war-fighting nation and never wanted to be. It’s easy for people like us to only see a violence-lead solution because we’re the ugly necessity required to keep Maytoni safe, a response to others’ evils. We were created to mitigate the violence during the days of exodus by selectively assassinating high ranking persons or raiding enemy camps to destroy food stocks and such.”

“It’s just a shame it didn’t work this time,” Evander mused, thinking back to their raid a couple of nights ago.

“Our true strength lies in diplomacy. The Pastorals will find a balm for the Xellcarrian rage, and work something out in the end.”

On the surface Evander could see how easily the young woman’s words could be scoffed at, yet he had been around long enough to see the discernment and understanding of their country’s history and culture within them. He wasn’t sure he could agree, but hoped Fiadh was right.

Next to him was a large chalk board. Upon it, listed by pilgrims and visitors, were the many animal species that had been spotted when looking out into the Poet’s Sea; terns, herring gulls, basking sharks, shimmer sharks, wake griffins, fisherman’s hydra, and such. Next to the names were tally marks.

“Orcas and even dolphins,” Evander said softly, reading over the complete list.

Taking a piece of chalk, he then scored the names of the Xellcarrian battle cats on the board. Next to ‘Cave Tigers’ he made three marks. For the others he only frowned, then looked to Fiadh.

“I don’t suppose you know how many noble and slate lions were sent against us?”

“Many,” she replied with a smirk.

Evander nodded, and next to the names wrote ‘Many’. And before he put the board back down, Evander added Xellcaeri griffin and marked a tally next to it.

“I saw the beast that was put…” Faidh’s voice came to a halt, as she thought of a better means to say what she wanted to say.

“Down,” Evander finished for her.

“Well, slain. How did commander Gaylord manage to hit its rider in the night sky?”

It had been some feat, Evander thought. Rockbark was a mysterious beast onto itself, and what it could do for an archer Evander could hardly guess at.

“Evey,” Ignatius’ voice came out of a side passage, his presence preceded by a flickering torch. “I’ve been going through the chambers in the basement down here,” he said, pulling cobwebs from his person.

“Looking for an escape tunnel?” Fiadh quipped.

“Looking for anything useful,” he replied. “Come and see this.”

Curiously, Evander and Fiadh followed Ignatius into the narrow, dank passageway. Ancient steps, as old as the lighthouse, led down, deep into the peninsula itself. No two steps felt the same under Evander’s feet, two centuries worth of time having eroded their solidity.

Suddenly it was far too cold, an unkind reverse for how Evander had been feeling, and each breath the trio took was accompanied by faint steam. The tunnel broke into a larger chamber, strewn with old, mouldy wooden tables and chairs, none of which looked as if they could take the weight of a domestic cat. Though the title of chamber was an embellishment, Evander thought. This was a cave really.

Several other rooms for storage had been worked into the walls, rust mired doors held by rust encrusted hinges sitting ajar. Ignatius led them into one room to the left, his torch pushing the darkness away in amber tides, rolling and wavering.

“It’s surprisingly dry this far down,” Faidh added with a shiver.

“Can’t imagine you’ve been so cold,” Ignatius replied, looking ahead for what he had found. “But dry is right. Here…” He pulled aside a rough woodworm-eaten sheet of wood, large enough to cover another portal. Parts of the hinges fell away from it, clattering loudly to the rock floor.

It was another, much smaller storage chamber, barely large enough to fit the three of them, and even then, Ignatius had to stoop. Where he stood, his torch washing flittering orange waves over the chamber, a single barrel sat.

“If that’s fermented shark, Ignatius, and this is some prank, I will kill you,” Evander said, stooping down by the entrance way to get a look.

“Can I have his rank?” Fiadh added.

“Absolutely.”

“It would explain why it’s buried so deep – and if it was you know Juliet would have had it already,” Ignatius replied. “But no. This, though not as potent, is a barrel of black powder.” The item itself was only four feet tall and a couple of feet in diameter. Grain strewn in grime and trails of web told of its age, at least a quarter of a century.

“Well, perhaps you would give me the torch then,” was the only thing Evander could think to say.

Ignatius paused for a moment, then caught on and passed the torch to Evander, who passed it back to Faidh. The younger Summiteer held the light high so as they could see the barrel.

“It’s likely something forgotten about, from the days when we’d store contraband taken from pirates – before selling it to Mundhonnel.”

Holding to the bow with divine reverence, Maytoni never had much use for the brutal and untameable powder.

“Not a lot we can do with it,” Faidh said from behind Evander. “I suppose we could fashion concussion piles for our arrows.”

Evander thought for a moment, leaning against the icy, jagged rock, then spoke. “I think I know what we can do with this.”

XI

It was still early, with cool air caught in the pocket of the fort, yet to be pushed away by the rising sun in the east.

A diverse symphony of cries from numerous crow species overhead became the dominating tumult of the morning, their glossy darkness contrasting against the glowing white of the gulls. To the north of the fort, the open grass land was rife with the shadowy birds waddling and hopping between the mounds of dead cats, if not sitting upon them, breaking through the fur and flesh with their hard beaks to get at the meat beneath.

Whilst Evander preferred a longbow for more long ranged shooting, he had decided to utilise the thumb-draw technique with his shorter curved bow, Sand Shade. Evander had named it after the kangaroos that inhabited the arid lands of Maytoni, from whom some of the bow’s materials were crafted, such as the glue needed and the string.

A singular aspect of it, was that both woods, Oakthei yew and Maytoni bamboo, were soft woods. However, Maytoni bamboo – if it was indeed bamboo – would relentlessly, even jealously it was said, constrict any other woods it was melded with. This warped the supposed bamboo into a harder wood.

“Rusenatheans leave their dead out for a full day, to let the crows eat them,” Evander sighed, leaning against a balustrade. Juliet was next to him, sitting, sharpening her dagger, legs stretched out.

“You’re not suggesting we do that to you?” She stopped scraping the blade along the whetstone and looked up at him. Evander continued to stare out over the scene. Hardly a patch of grass or dirt could be discerned.

“Well, if I fall, don’t be in a rush to get to me,” he replied with a tired smirk. “But that’s what my oldest known ancestors did and still do.” He looked to Juliet who stared back, her silence asking for justification. “For the Rusenatheans it is about thanking the gods for a good death. And the more the crows eat, the more favoured it is believed the fallen is in the eyes of the gods.”

“So, the fallen get a better seat in the afterworld,” Juliet added. “No equality in their idea of Paradise.”

A single rook, wrapped in glossy indigo with tinges of green running along its folded wings, and a mantle of faint violet came hopping along the wall toward the pair. In its beak was a long, thick quilled, black feather.

“Well, good morning,” Evander said, watching the bird come closer. It moved its head about, a single black eye greeting him before it hopped down from the balustrade to the lower wall section Evander was leaning on. It placed the large feather in front of Evander, bobbing its head and looking eagerly at him. “I remember you.” Evander pulled a few nuts from a pouch on his belt and held his hand out. “Here you, go.” The bird pecked at the offerings and tossed them back, down its vast, curved beak. Then, with a gentle caw, it turned and flew off, leaving the feather behind. Evander picked it up, looking over the sheen rolling along the barbs, and the bright contrast of the white quill. A magnificent product of the natural world, and of the Gods’ design. Glorious in its minimalism.

“That won’t be one of its own. You know that bird is just clipping feathers from its mates because you’ll give it food,” Juliet chuckled.

“Gifts from the Gods,” he said aloud. “You’ve got charge of the north wall. Until I get back.”

“You did have a lot of tea, didn’t you,” Juliet added as Evander left for the far steps.

Evander took the nearest steps down, a few soldiers stopping for him as if he was an officer. He walked past the lines of archers in the north field, exchanging greetings with the line sergeants and officers. Every face was a bleary, beaten shade of what it had once been, but any conversation he overheard was rife with humour and jovial cadences. Nobody was wearing clean clothing anymore, and the Maytoni colours of their uniforms were kept a secret behind the caked mud, blood, and even waste.

“What a romantic notion army life is,” he said to himself as he waded through the ripe smells, unable to visually distinguish turned up mud from excrement.

Campfires lined the rear of the open north field, for the nearly the whole two-hundred-and-fifty-yard stretch, with cats on spits, creating what seemed like a perpetual buffet. This made Evander smile and kept his spirit high. A constant supply of thick, bloody steaks was no doubt holding the line in terms of morale. And the army deserved to eat well.

Evander was proud of the soldiers’ resilience, and their tenacity. He rarely operated with regular forces, and never with any unit of this size. In his own short time in the military, he had been stationed in the Swamplands, exchanging arrows with bandits, and chasing raiders over mangroves and cloying mud. For the most part Evander had been a forester archer, specialising in wooded, and jungle fighting, and any combat unit he had been a part of never reached the numbers seen in the line archers.

As he returned to their little cellar, Kellen was sitting up against a wall, eyes closed. “Evey, how goes it? Have the Xellcarrians sodded off yet?” There was a sharp grin revealing dense fangs.

“Aye. They even left a note of apology and have invited us to their capital for a piss up,” he replied walking by, over to his large pack. He unwrapped the threads and pulled out several sheathed bows and set them to the side. “I’m done talking to Dedrick.”

“I was done talking to him on the ride up here,” Kellen replied, eyes still closed. “It’s a rookie mistake speaking to higher ups.”

“Do one,” Evander joked. “We can’t discuss anything without coming back to the so-called prince, and he won’t be convinced otherwise on Sharrow. We’re going in circles with him. Best to just stop dealing with him altogether.” Evander paused and knew Kellen was waiting for him to continue. “I almost did it.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“Because I lost my dagger.”

“Ha. You clout. That was a damned good dagger too. Dedrick is dangerous, not nearly as smart as he believes he is. He’s more likely to slip up and incriminate himself. If he doesn’t give us further reason to assassinate him, Summiteer command will see to his dismissal – in which case he’ll likely wish he had died fighting up here.”

Despite there only being two years between them, Kellen held the same wisdom and experience Evander expected from Summiteers twenty years his senior – at least.

From his pack Evander pulled a family heirloom; little over a foot long, steel reinforced with rare metals from Mudhonnel mines, with a brass guard and hilt. His great grandfather had been a Summiteer, and the dagger had belonged to him. Of course, as much as his great grandfather had been revered as a hero during the Clan Rising in eastern Mundhonnel, Evander knew the man had been a monster in his personal life, terrorising his children. A complicated man. Fought valiantly, loved the soldiers under his command, and adored his horse. Somewhere, something had changed, born from the violence and stresses of combat perhaps.

Evander had never wanted to adopt the heirloom for use, but after his parents gave it to him, he could hardly have refused it. Yet in some way, it did allow Evander to focus on the more positive aspects of his great grandfather, and though he had been a terror, he too had saved Maytoni from terror.

“Two more days,” Evander sighed.

“At least.”

“You know, a thought came to me. If I could, I’d pull all of us out of here and destroy the walls.” He turned again to look at Kellen, whose own eyebrows had risen at the idea. “The Xellcarrians can’t hold the peninsula, so they want this corner to tie up army resources and stretch our border units to make land invasion easier. But they don’t need the lighthouse, or buildings. They need the walls, a fort which this, over time, has accidently become. We could destroy the walls, and withdraw, through the woods, beyond the lakes to the first hamlets, by which time the south army group will have made it through High-Crater Bay, and at least as far as Blair Tower, right? So, the Xellcarrians can’t chase us because they’d be charging in a far superior fighting force. They’d have to leave, and quickly before the northern border group reaches the causeway and they become trapped.”

“But how do you propose we knock down the walls? I was in the cellars under the lighthouse, and didn’t see the Seer’s Harp, or even any black powder.”

“Well, we did find a barrel, lost to logistical incompetence. But we sell all the stuff we confiscate to Mundhonnel anyway, not to mention have been storing it elsewhere for decades now. It was just a thought.”

“And not a bad one, Evey.”

Evander looked back to his pack, and from it pulled a pouch filled with lengthy crow feathers, ranging from black, through indigo and navy, into violet and purple. However, there were many others from more colourful species of crows, all across The Sigel, and even a few delivered to him during his brief time in Bravenasil, in The Mane after leaving behind The Phoenix Archer. Wherever Evander went, whatever action he was involved in, a crow or sometimes more than one, always gifted him feathers – fletch quality wing feathers. He added the gifted the feather to the others, and briefly wondered, once more, what it was all about.

XII

Mania was Bronagh’s diagnosis, though it was hardly consistent with what she knew of Aedion’s personality, and never in the years she had known him, had he ever exhibited any symptoms of a failing mind. Either way she put the thought out of her own mind and focused on what was to come.

The army force was under her command now. Was she ready? She asked herself numerous times. This was the very apotheosis to which she had been journeying. Perhaps sitting in Aedion’s shadow for so long had made her too comfortable with the position limited responsibility she had previously held.

To assuage the sight of Aedion restrained and kept unconscious via medicinal means, news had reached Bronagh that the north portcullis had been stripped of its barricade, most of it having been reduced to ash and flaking wood from the conflagration. The steel of that portcullis would be weak, its integrity to stripped by the heat and flames. That would be her target, as it would sheer open like a belly to a sharp blade once they hit it with a ram.

What remained of the army had been gathered before her, knights and the handful of Men-at-Arms. Such a sight boosted her confidence, even though the army, her army, was under half of its strength. It didn’t matter. The knights on display were worth three or four of any Xellcarrian regular, fitted into armour smithed from far superior steel and metals taken from the holiest of mines throughout the country.

Approximately thirteen thousand knights and regulars stood before her, all to be sainted for their courage and actions. Whether they fell today or not, they would be remembered as heroes in a divine conquest. So confident was Bronagh that she had ordered the serfs to begin breaking down the camp, so they could move everything into or around the fort once it had been seized.

“Xellcarrians, tribes of the revered creations of our world!” She called out, surprised at the reach she could manage with her own voice. “I regret to inform you, that General Aedion Teague has fallen ill!” The army before her continued to stand in silence. “This is not to be seen as a setback, as we all know that weariness and exhaustion come as a result of hard work. And General Teague has excelled himself in his strategic thinking and actions, not just here but through a glorious life in service to Xellcarr and our Gods. Remember, how he mustered our army so rapidly and lead us into Maytoni, and how he has been wearing down the Maytoni defenders within the lighthouse fort. They stand, wretchedly tired, in their own excrement and piss, spirits sapped by the fury and terror or our battle cats, their fingers striped to the bone through constantly plucking the strings of their bows, trembling at the thought of another attack. Only the fear they hold of their proud, stubborn Summiteer masters keeps them there. And today, we will show them that it was us who they should have feared more!”

Hisses and roars took to the air from the mustered army, and armoured feet stomped furrows into the thin soil. As if in response, the dying pine trees to the west swayed forlornly in the wind. Tumultuous growls and yowls tore from the maws of the mounts held by the Bow-Knights, their battle cats high on the scent of blood which had been working its way through the camp like a ghastly spectre.

Views: 16