Brian Ruckley - Fall of Thanes

“The day’s hardly begun, and already it’s decided to be a bad one,” Taim said. “Our troubles breed faster than mice.”

Torcaill stood looking up and down the street, his gaze drifting over the dead and the dazed. “I count eight Haig dead. Two short. They must have broken out. This’ll foster no friendship for us if word reaches Aewult,” he said.

“Soon we’ll have nothing but enemies left,” murmured Orisian.

Kanin oc Horin-Gyre ran. The snow was thick on the ground here on the western fringe of the Karkyre Peaks, but still he ran, and took a bitter pleasure in the burning of his lungs and the aching of his legs. He pounded through the drifts, not caring whether his warriors kept pace with him, barely even remembering that they were there behind him somewhere. Past and future were gone from his mind, and only this momentary present existed for him; only the straining of his muscles, the heaving of his chest. And that small group of fleeing figures just ahead: the men he meant to kill.

One of them glanced back and staggered to a halt, shouting something Kanin could not make out. Several of the men kept running, but as many stopped and turned. It must mean, of course, that Kanin had left his Shield behind. These Kilkry peasants thought they had him outnumbered. Outmatched. He rushed on. They did not know him; did not know what cold passion burned in him. They could not see the embracing shadow of death that he felt all about him now, in his every waking moment.

He brushed aside a spearpoint with the face of his shield, slashed an arm with his sword. Snow sprayed up. Shouts crowded the still air. It was only noise, without meaning, to Kanin. Figures closed upon him. He did not see faces, only bodies to be cut at, dark forms to be broken. A second went down beneath his blade. A spear thrust glanced harmlessly off his mailed shoulder. His opponents seemed slow and clumsy to him. He, by contrast, rode a cresting wave of death-hunger. It sped his limbs, sharpened his eyes and mind. It made sense of the senseless world for him.

A man whose brown hair was speckled with the silver of age came towards him, gesturing ineffectually with an old sword. Kanin could see that the blade was notched and had no edge. He ran to greet it, unhindered by the snow that tugged at his ankles. He killed the man, and then another, and rejoiced in the shedding of their blood. And soon there were only bodies about him, and he could hear his warriors coming up behind him.

Kanin stood still and straight for a few moments, panting out great gouts of misting breath. Sword and shield hung slack on either side of him.

“Half a dozen must have escaped us, sire,” Igris said.

“So?” Kanin growled. “Send someone after them, if you wish. I’m done with it.”

“These’ll not be hunting any more of our scouts, at least,” Igris said, surveying the corpses laid out around his master.

“They’re nothing,” grunted Kanin, sheathing his sword. “Look at them. Farmers. Old warriors, perhaps, who’ve not lifted a blade for years. There’s none left north of Kilvale that are worth fighting.”

“Except those shut up in Kolkyre with their Thane,” the shieldman suggested.

Kanin shook his head, not in denial but frustration. He strode away, back down the trail of trampled snow the pursuit had created. Whatever warriors Roaric oc Kilkry-Haig had at his side behind Kolkyre’s walls were beyond reach. They could not venture out without risking destruction, but nor were the investing forces of the Black Road strong enough to storm the place. Not without a firm guiding hand to muster them all together and drive them into an assault, at least, and it seemed there was no such hand at work any more. Things had passed far beyond that. Forces more ferocious and unthinking held sway.

Kanin slipped and slithered down the rocky slope they had ascended to outflank the Kilkry bandits. He went recklessly, letting his feet stutter over slick stones, taking a slide of loose snow and pebbles with him. He hit the ground at the foot of the incline hard, punching his knees up into his chest. The cold-looking men who had been left to guard the horses watched in silence. Kanin ignored them and went straight to his mount. He hung his shield from the saddle and brushed dirt and grit from his elbows.

The urgency of the chase and the slaughter was leaving him, retreating like a slack tide. It left the familiar hollowness behind. Only violence seemed to fill him now; without it he had only an empty kind of longing. So it had been since his sister’s death. So, he knew, it would remain until Aeglyss was dead too.

There were a dozen or more tents around the huge farmhouse Kanin had slept in for the last couple of nights. Horin warriors were scattered amongst them, tending fires, clearing snow, sharpening blades. Three were deep in discussion with a band of Tarbains who had come up to the edge of the camp; negotiating, Kanin guessed, a trade of booty or food. Kilkry lands were thick with such roving companies of looters and raiders and scavengers. The army of the Black Road had once, briefly, been mighty and vast. Triumphant. That had changed since their crushing defeat of the Haig forces outside Kolkyre. Great fragments of the army had splintered off, becoming a thousand ravening wolf packs, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, seething back and forth across the land, almost delirious in their desire for blood.

He reined his horse in outside the stables and left it to a stable boy to feed and water the animal. It was the third mount Kanin had had since marching out from Castle Hakkan in the far north all those months ago. The first, he had felt some affection for, but it, and the second, had been killed beneath him. This one would no doubt suffer the same fate soon. He felt nothing for it.

Icicles bearded the eaves of the farmhouse. Kanin heard laughter from within: a brief outburst in response to some jest or mishap. It was like hearing a language he did not know. Beyond the building, a column of men and women trudged through the shallow snow. They were folk of the Kilkry Blood, pressed into service as pack animals by their captors. Each carried a deep, wide-mouthed basket strapped to his or her back. They bore firewood and grain down towards the sprawling Black Road camps on the plain around Kolkyre.

Their escort looked to be mostly Wyn-Gyre warriors, but there were several overseers who carried no weapons at all save stubby whips. One of these men was standing off to the side of the column, flailing away at some fallen victim. Kanin paused to watch. The whip cracked back and forth. None of the other guards so much as glanced at the scene. Many of the passing prisoners did, but their burdens were heavy and they could spare no more than a moment’s attention for fear of losing their footing on the path of hard-packed snow. No matter their age, Kanin thought, they all looked old: bent and ragged and gaunt. The badge of defeat.

He found himself becoming irritated. The blows from the whip were having no effect on the prostrate form at the overseer’s feet, yet the man went on and on, his exertions becoming wilder and more frenzied with every stroke. The futility of it angered Kanin.

He walked closer, approaching from the side to avoid the flailing whip. The man curled in the snow was folded down into a small, pathetic bundle like discarded sacking; unmoving beneath the increasingly savage blows. Kanin did not need to see his face to know that a whipping was not going to bring him back to his feet.

“Enough,” shouted Kanin. “He’s dead. You’re wasting time.”

The overseer ignored him. He lashed the corpse again, and then again, each strike accompanied by a grunting snarl that took to the air in a cloud of mist. As the man drew back his arm once more, the whip curling around and out behind him, Kanin stepped forwards and seized his wrist.