Chris Northern - The Last King's Amulet

We sat in the dark, not wanting to attract attention with a fire, and ate cold meat. The nights were cool but not seriously cold. I didn't mind that. Wrapped in my cloak I was warm enough, covered in dew at dawn but soon dried by the sun and breeze as we moved. I didn't want the meat but forced it down.

“How much do you know about the Eyrie? Tell me everything.”

I did. Slowly. The Eyrie was a fortress atop a flat topped hill that might have been natural or not. The walls were twenty five feet and it was the stronghold of the Alendi tribe, big enough for all of them in times of severe threat. The people and livestock both. It was as big as a city but usually nearly empty, the province of the Erdrun clan, the clan with the distinction of having the most kings in Alendi history. A king was a temporary thing, a warlord under whom the tribe united for war and then he stepped down when the war was done. Less than a thousand men, women and children made the Eyrie their permanent home, maintaining it in case of need, making weapons and missiles and stockpiling them there. A great pasture spread from the walls to the center of the Eyrie, and there there was a keep inside a moat. That is where our man would be, if he was anywhere. It had, after all, been some time since I had word he was there.

I wanted to sleep, but he kept me talking long into the night, asking questions, seeking details. Yes, they made weapons; there were forges and blacksmiths. The tribe was wealthy from selling what they considered to be surplus weapons. Good steel but not as good as we made, clearly.

“I need shleep,” I couldn't help slurring.

“So sleep.”

You think you are never going to have to kill when you are tired and drunk?

The words haunted me as I swung wildly, barely able to keep my feet. I'd put my back to a tree to help. Three spears kept probing and seeking a way to my body and I kept them at bay, mostly, taking a shallow wound here and there, arms and legs dripping and stinging. I was vaguely aware of what was happening behind them but they were not. If they had been they would have been running and not trying to get their spears into me. Sapphire had been killing while I had been surviving. The middle of the three collapsed without a sound, his spine severed at the neck; he pitched forward into me, incidentally shielding me from a spear thrust his body turned aside. The one to my left flew back, a spry of blood from his face telling all anyone should want to know about his story. The third had spun and backed a pace. Sapphire, standing exactly in front of me, blade extended in front of him, moved forward a pace, and the barbarian turned and ran. Sapphire threw his sword and reached out for mine, which I surrendered, turning my head and struggling to focus on the Alendi as he staggered back to his feet, his back laid open from shoulder to hip and the sword nowhere in sight. Sapphire went after him and I staggered away from the tree, looking around drunkenly. I counted. Seven, making… I thought about it. Ten. That was right. “Damn, you're good,” I mumbled.

He passed me back my sword without comment and I sheathed it on the third attempt.

“I think the dogs would be better,” I heard him mutter as he went after our horses.

Well I didn't. I'd seen them. Great big slavering monstrosities as big as any dog I could imagine and not the thin lanky type of dog either. I imagined ten of them breaking through the undergrowth and heading our way. Ha! See how well you do against them, tough guy! Bastard. “Sorry.” I didn't think I had been speaking loud enough for him to hear. I shook my head. Damn, I was drunk.

I'd fallen off my horse avoiding the first spear thrust as they burst through the undergrowth. They'd been laying in ambush, like they knew we were coming. I swear Sapphire killed the first one as though he'd been laying in ambush for them. Wasn't sure. Too busy falling off my horse. He'd come back for me though. “Good man, Shapphi,” I muttered to myself as I staggered away from the tree.

“Can you get on?”

He was there with the horses. I shrugged. “No idea. Let's see.”

The drubbing he gave me that night made the other pale into insignificance. I think he may have knocked me out, but I'll never be sure.

“I think we are in trouble.”

Sapphire looked at me, then back to the Eyrie. The Eyrie was a stronghold built to be big enough to house the whole Alendi people, and it looked as though they were all there. Smoke hung over it like a cloud, slowly drifting overhead. We'd seen it at dawn, high and slowly dissipating, and followed it all the way here. Twice we had come across groups of barbarians crumpled in heaps, a day or two old. We'd passed the first without comment.

“Looks like the alliance is breaking up,” Sapphire had said after we had skirted the results of a second skirmish.

“They must be losing,” I said. Not that I had ever had any doubt that they would. It was always a matter of when, not if. Even if all the barbarians as far as the kingdom of Rancik in the west and Fortherria in the east rose against us, I would still place a good wager on the outcome. “Turning against each other.”

“Or whatever held them together is gone,”

“Kukran Epthel,” I said.

“It doesn't make a difference to us, not right now.”

“True. I need to get in there and get him out,” I didn't need to say who he was.

“You are not going in.”

“What?”

He dismounted and I slithered down to join him, meeting him at the horses' heads. “Of course I'm going in.”

“The booze has addled your brain, Sumto.” He reached up and tapped my forehead. “How are you planning to hide that? Headscarf?”

Damn. I hadn't given it a moment's thought. Most of the time I don't even remember it's there. I thought about it now. Men don't wear headgear. Not in the north. Not ever. “Bandage.”

He just stared at me.

“You didn't want me to think of that did you?” I accused him.

“No.”

“You think I'm a liability.”

“You are a liability. Stay here. Wait for me.”

“No.”

“Then if there's any fighting, for gods' sake stay out of the way.”

He mounted up and rode on. A little subdued I followed him.

The gate to the Eyrie was reached by a long, uphill, switchback road, banked and walled on both sides. The guards on the walls could face into the road and out to any enemy that might threaten it. Either side of the gate two fat towers provided an escape route for those stuck on the long walls should they fall. Each and every soldier on the walls, and they were a mile or more long so there were many, had a bow and I knew from my readings that they had stored a couple of thousand arrows for every bow. Doubtless there were some crossbows as well, though good spring steel is something we make in the city and sell at a price.

We looked like them. Pale hair and pale eyes. We wore their clothes. But just because they are barbarians doesn't make them fools. The gates were opened but we were stopped, along with a steady stream of Alendi making for the Eyrie, men women and children and all they could carry or drag with them.

“What clan?” A guard called to us at the gate.

“Liani,” Sapphire told him so fast he sounded defensive. I guessed he made answer before I could.

“All two of you, eh?” The guard laughed.

I scowled. “Two of us are worth twenty of you, scumbag,” I told him with some authority.

He laughed. “Get on, you're holding everyone else up,” he waved us through and we went.

Inside the gate a vast pasture spread for what seemed like forever. The far wall was invisible. The pasture was filled with cattle, thousands of them. Fences were still being made, hundreds of miles of fences, to make enclosures of varying size depending on the size of the tribe, the size of the herd. Makeshift villages of tents were packed tight everywhere else, they seemed small but there were thousands of people on the move. A city of tent villages spreading out as far as we could see. There were enclosures of horses but far fewer of them. Only the chieftains and their families could traditionally enjoy the luxury of riding. We rode and were conspicuous because of it. We had hardly gone a few dozen yards before we were offered a price for them, drays though they were. We declined and rode on, heading for the center of things, the great stone stronghold that sat in the middle of what I suddenly thought of as a spider's web. It wasn't a comforting thought.