Roger Taylor - Ibryen

As his eyes came properly into focus, his trembling began to ease. The light was the main army far below. For a moment he was tempted to run towards it and safety, but even as the impulse came to him, other considerations made themselves felt. He picked up a still-burning torch and looked around. Not only was there no sign of any triumphant army about him, such bodies as he could see were all either soldiers or Guards. He felt suddenly cold. Ibryen’s men had never charged! They had unleashed their arrow storm, thrown up a great shout and… Helsarn’s grip tightened about the torch in rage… fled into the darkness. Most of the damage he was standing in had been self-inflicted.

Almost immediately, a newer fear rose to displace the fading remains of the superstitious one that had just possessed him. It was no less awful. Whatever had happened here, it was a direct consequence of the disordered way the whole expedition had been mounted, but he would be blamed for it unless he could find a demonstrably plausible explanation.

A movement nearby startled him. Drawing his sword, he spun around. Holding both sword and torch in front of him he saw one of his Guards, arm raised to shade his eyes against the light. He was bloodstained and barely able to stand. The idea of deserting to avoid retribution had been forming in Helsarn’s mind, but the sight of the Guard brought another one.

‘Where’s your sword?’ he demanded.

The Guard looked at him vacantly

‘Where’s your sword, man?’ Helsarn shouted.

‘I… I think I dropped it,’ the man stammered.

Helsarn sheathed his own and, taking the man’s arm, shook him powerfully. ‘Find another, quickly. Get a torch and get everyone on their feet who can stand. Do you understand? We must re-form the line and get to the top of the slope.’

Then, in an act of genuine leadership, Helsarn was moving through the carnage, dragging to their feet all who were capable of standing, and filling the shocked and wounded with his determination. Vintre, also only bruised and winded, was retrieved from under the body of a large soldier behind whom he had sheltered when he heard the second arrow storm being released.

‘We withstood the enemy’s charge, counter-attacked and beat them back,’ Helsarn told him urgently. ‘We stopped at the top to regroup and to prevent the advancing army from being ambushed.’ The message was passed rapidly to the others – few were naive enough to question it. Most understood the Gevethen well enough to know that the choice facing them was that of being wounded heroes or executed cowards. The knowledge proved a better goad by far than any cursing, and Helsarn and Vintre soon found themselves herding their rump command up the slope like willing sheep.

On the way, Helsarn paused by a body to smear his sword and face with blood. As he did so he looked back down at the lights of the main army. Something was moving there but, not being able to make it out clearly, he turned and pressed on upwards.

The top was deserted as he had surmised. He had his ‘gallant survivors’ spread out a picket of torches then withdrew some way behind it. There could still be solitary archers out in the darkness and there was no point in taking unnecessary risks.

‘Swords drawn, eyes front,’ he ordered.

He and Vintre exchanged glances. The line of exhausted and wounded men looked good. That, and their story might do much more than save their necks.

Helsarn looked back but the lights of the army were no longer visible due to the curve of the slope. He wondered how far the panic had spread, and what appalling damage had been done by the mass flight down the rocks. What a mess. What had possessed the Gevethen to mount this insane expedition?

He glanced back again.

The primitive fear that had seized him when he first recovered, returned in full terrifying force. Shapeless, shifting, and blacker than the night itself, a huge shadow was moving towards him.

Helsarn’s shaking grip tightened about his sword as the apparition drew nearer, but his knees served him better – they began to buckle. Thus when the Gevethen and their myriad images appeared at the heart of the approaching shadow, he was already almost kneeling. He was also almost pathetically relieved to find himself facing a known fear rather than an unknown one. Even so, the sight before him was profoundly disorienting and it took him some time to realize what he was looking at. What he had perceived as a shadow was a huge canopy supported on long, black poles. These were being carried by servants who moved with the same silent and blank-eyed purpose as the mirror-bearers, though it was hard to distinguish them in the darkness. Other servants carried the edge of the canopy, like a grotesque bridal gown, where it drooped to the ground. In its shade within shade were the Gevethen and the mirror-bearers and yet more servants, these latter carrying lanterns, albeit they seemed to deepen the darkness rather than throw light. Also there was Jeyan, her face unreadable and her uniform mud and blood-spattered from the journey. Helsarn had a fleeting vision of countless bodies covering the lower part of the slope. The Gevethen and their entourage must have simply walked over them.

The canopy passed over Helsarn and Vintre like an ominous cloud and the atmosphere about them became like that of the Watching Chamber. Helsarn quickly gathered his wits.

‘Excellencies,’ he said urgently. ‘I must ask you to take care. There may well be archers nearby.’

‘We are protected,’ came the reply, voices colder than ever. ‘None may approach.’ A long line of Gevethen tapered into the distance, then became a circling crowd.

Helsarn prepared to account for what had happened, but the question that came was not what he had been expecting. ‘Is the traitor Ibryen found yet?’

‘No, Excellencies,’ Helsarn stammered. Then, such dependence had he placed in the tale he was to tell, that part of it blurted out anyway. ‘His men fled when we held their charge and counter-attacked, and we were too depleted to follow them.’

‘Advance!’

Helsarn and Vintre had almost to leap out of the way as the Gevethen suddenly moved forward. Helsarn had just enough time to shout a command to his makeshift line to open before the Gevethen walked over them also.

In the absence of any orders, he took up a position at the front of the canopy and to one side. As he did so, he saw for the first time the long ragged crowd of Guards and soldiers struggling up the slope.

Hynard paused and, screwing up his eyes, peered into the distance. It took him some time to make sense of what he was looking at, and when he did, he could scarcely believe it. He could not see the Gevethen themselves, shaded as they were by their dark canopy, but the torches of the following army were spreading out across the valley floor like a glowing river.

It was a severe shock. After the panic-stricken rout he had witnessed, he had not expected any pursuit for several hours, and then perhaps only by a small force.

What he was watching did not seem possible.

For a moment, he considered leaving a few men to mount a harassing action, but he knew it would be a pointless gesture against such a force. However this recovery had come about, all he could do was make the most of such time as he and his men had gained, and follow after Marris and the others. It wasn’t possible that this vast army could move across the ridges with such speed.

He was thus still quite optimistic as he pressed on back to the village.

The first blow to this optimism came with an unexpected challenge at the outer perimeter. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded of the woman occupying the post.