Bridge of Swords (18 page)

That the plan might not work was another fear. His father had ridiculed his ideas as a matter of course and although Jaken was Aroaril-knew-how-far away, his presence still lingered. If the villagers found they had put their faith in someone as useless as his father had claimed he was … fear made him quick to anger, while frustration left his temper short.

It was not helped by the villagers. The women had not been pleased to be told that all but a few must leave their children, the cooking and their homes to dig a ditch. And the men had been angry they could not tend to their livestock and fields while they either split logs or dug instead.

‘It is only for a few days,’ Huw tried to explain. ‘Each man can take a couple of turns of the hourglass each day to feed animals or water crops. But we need everyone to work on this. The faster it is done, the safer the village will be and the sooner we can get back to normal life.’

‘I thought the elf was going to protect us,’ Glyn summed up the protest. ‘Why do we have to dig holes and fell trees? Why can’t he just do it by magic?’

‘Because it doesn’t work like that! You have to do things for yourself. There is a reason humans can’t do magic …’ Huw tried to explain.

‘But he can just wave his hands and have it done …’

‘How do we learn how to protect ourselves then? It will all depend on the elf — and what if something happens to him, or the magic?’ Huw said reasonably. ‘Besides, magic does not work like that. Sendatsu explained it to us. It would take one Magic-weaver far longer to build a stockade around the village by magic than it would take the whole village to do it by hand …’

‘But it would be so much easier for us!’

‘How stupid are you?’ Sendatsu snarled, before Huw could say anything. ‘I thought you were smarter than the sheep you herd, but perhaps I was wrong.’

‘Listen here, you pointy-eared bastard …’ Glyn stormed forwards. He was nearly a head taller than Sendatsu and his arms and shoulders were corded with muscle after a life of working on the land.

But the elf was both stronger and quicker. His right hand was held out, fingers stiffened and pointing like a spear, and he drove that into Glyn’s stomach. As the man folded over he chopped down once with his left and Glyn toppled over, moaning.

‘Now, anyone else who is too stupid to understand why we
can’t use magic, step forwards and we can discuss it now. Or should I try to explain what I’m doing to the sheep and have them tell you?’

Everyone looked at him, looked at the groaning Glyn, rolling on the ground holding his stomach, and got back to work.

Huw and Rhiannon exchanged looks and gently eased Sendatsu away from where a group of women and children were digging feverishly under his angry gaze.

‘Sendatsu, we really appreciate what you are doing, but perhaps there is no need to be quite so harsh on the people,’ Huw suggested gently.

‘What do you mean?’ Sendatsu felt much better after hitting Glyn.

‘They are afraid. The attack has scared them. They are willing to listen, but they need to be led, not pushed,’ Rhiannon agreed.

‘But this is not like our agreement. We said it would only be a day or two — this is going to take a quarter-moon at least — and we agreed there was to be no more ridiculous talk of magic,’ Sendatsu snapped.

‘We are making great progress. It’s just they are frightened. They will follow you happily if they believe in where they are going but they will dig their heels in if they are unsure,’ Huw tried to explain.

Sendatsu grunted. ‘Well, they had better hurry up. We need to move on to the next village. Who knows when the Forlish will strike.’

He stamped away to yell at the men splitting logs. That was a much easier target for his frustration.

‘We need to stay close to him,’ Rhiannon stated. ‘I always thought the elves never got angry, never displayed emotion?’

‘This one does,’ Huw said. ‘I don’t think he is like those elves we sang about. He’s not the hero I expected.’

‘No, he is better!’ Rhiannon sighed, looking devotedly over at Sendatsu.

Huw held back angry words and instead shyly reached out and touched her arm. ‘Thank you for this. Sendatsu may be making
it happen but it is your idea. You were the one to suggest this and the one to persuade him to help.’

Rhiannon smiled back. ‘We are both making it happen. I am just pleased you still want to talk to me, after …’ She slowed to a halt and bit her lip, thinking again about how she had stopped Huw from leaving Cridianton.

Huw squeezed her hand. ‘Of course I still want to speak to you!’ His own guilt prevented him from saying more. ‘Besides, you are the one with the good ideas …’

Rhiannon squeezed back. ‘Thank you. And here is one more, although I don’t know how good it is. Perhaps we should get Sendatsu to help with the work, rather than just supervising? That way they can see him working with them — it will bring him closer to the people …’

‘Brilliant!’ Huw exclaimed. ‘We’d better hurry — before he fights someone else. One more thing, though — just be careful around him.’

‘What do you mean?’ she bristled.

‘He has a secret — something he carries around in his pouch. I think it might be magical or something …’

‘That is silly. We can trust him,’ Rhiannon insisted. ‘Come on!’

Huw said no more, except to add his voice to hers when she told Sendatsu her idea. Sendatsu was a little reluctant but gave in under gentle persuasion from Rhiannon.

‘It will make everything go faster,’ she said enticingly.

He could not argue against that. ‘But you can work too,’ he told Huw.

‘I don’t have the skills!’

‘Anyone can dig,’ Rhiannon pointed out.

So Huw found himself sucking in his stomach and stripped to the waist, digging the ditch. He had traditionally avoided much of the heavy work around the farm, shielded by his father — and of course the past few moons had seen him relax and indulge himself in the castle of King Ward. The wooden spade he was using was hardly the best tool for the job, but the soil was rich and soft, and it was easy enough to heave out of the ditch and
up onto the growing bank, which would become the first line of defence. As the bank grew, men came along and made a channel in the middle, readying it for the logs. It soon grew more difficult with every spadeful but he found the menial work strangely comforting. His grief at the loss of his father was still red-raw but the feeling of working to protect the village, as part of a community, seemed to help. Secretly, it also felt like a penance for his failure to return home quick enough. Either way, he almost rejoiced in what he was putting himself through.

Of course, his hands were soon blistering, while his back, legs and shoulders were burning from the unaccustomed effort. But the women and children around him were not complaining, nor were they slacking off. Huw could not stop, so he just wiped the sweat away from his face, gripped the rough handle of the spade and kept going.

He knew all the women by sight and name, and most of the children as well, and it was easy to talk to them about what they were doing, about how this would protect them.

‘So, did you really perform at the court of King Ward?’ a woman called.

‘That I did,’ Huw admitted, wiping away the sweat and glad of the chance for a momentary break. ‘I can show you the gold coin he gave me, stamped with his head, when he asked me to stay for a year.’

They absorbed that for a little while.

‘Will you give us a song then, to keep us going?’ another asked.

Huw shovelled out another spadeful.

‘Join in if you remember this one,’ he suggested, then began a traditional Velsh song about a farmer waiting for the spring rains.

His rich voice rolled down the trench, men, women and children pausing in their work to listen and turn and watch. After a few moments, several women began to join in, followed by the men. Huw increased his volume slightly, leading the tune, and finding himself smiling, just a little, as he did so.

Sendatsu watched the men working on the trees with grudging approval. They had sped up appreciably. He had already decided
the palisade did not need to be enormous. Ten feet, including the earth foundation they were digging out now, would be plenty. These raiders had no more equipment than their swords and horses, and their best weapon was the fear they spread. They did not have the time or the weapons to try to smash through a wall, even one as low as the palisade Sendatsu was planning. That meant trees could be split into quarters, then sawn down further, so they were only cutting down as many as they needed. He took his turn with the axe, shearing off the smaller branches, which were being collected for firewood by young boys — as well as Rhiannon — and also worked on the saw. He stripped his tunic off to keep it clean and caught sight of her staring at him. He hurriedly turned back to the saw, pretending he hadn’t noticed her, and tried to lose himself in the physical exertion. He had not used a saw before but refused to let any discomfort show. It was a habit he had learned — the hard way — from his father’s lessons.

Although he did not want to be distracted by feeling anything for these humans, it was hard not to have some kinship with the man on the other end of the saw as they sweated together. Sendatsu even found himself offering a nod of approval to the man, before moving back to the axe. He heard Huw singing and turned to watch for a moment, seeing the way the people seemed to move to the rhythm of the song, spades and picks rising and falling together. Rhiannon began singing as well, then the men joined in. Sendatsu looked at them, noticing how they took strength from the act of singing and working together. It was interesting to watch. He had seen the esemono at work before — and it had been nothing like this. The humans were working better than elves. When he had first read the other Sendatsu’s words he had thought nothing could be worse than elves becoming like humans. Now he was not so sure.

One of the most shameful things that went on was the way the worship of Aroaril was taken away from the other tribes of humans, the Velsh, Forlish and so forth. For many years they had worshipped the same God as we had — many of us had even shared a church. But, to those of my people who looked down on the humans, seeing them perform magic was, as I was later to learn, an ‘abomination’. It also ruined their stories of so-called elven superiority. How could you argue one group was better when they were both equal before the same God? They fought this two ways. Human priests and priestesses of Aroaril were killed, sometimes horribly — and elves always rushed in to explain to the rest of the village that this terrible tragedy was because humans were not meant to worship Aroaril. In fact, they claimed, Aroaril was offended by humans worshipping Him and, if they continued, even worse things would happen. Instead, humans could only pray to the sun — ceremonies at Midsummer and Midwinter were the best.

It was monstrous — but the tactics worked.

‘You have worked fairly quickly,’ Sendatsu said grudgingly, as they sat around the dining table that night. There was a mutton stew that had been cooked for the whole village and he was hungry enough to force it down. ‘I’d like things to be moving faster, of course.’

‘The music helped,’ Rhiannon added. It had really helped her. She had been caught up in her idea to help the people but, once she was out there, she had been beset with worries. She was Forlish, the attackers were Forlish — would the Velsh hate her? She had also been a little afraid of them. Her father had said they were all hairy barbarians with no culture. But while none had spoken to her at first, the singing had changed everything. They had heard her voice, sung along with her and the ice was broken. By the end of the day she was chatting with everyone, and some of the women had even offered to braid her hair. ‘It really inspired people. I loved hearing it as well,’ she told Huw.

Huw grinned as he cradled his spoon between blistered hands. ‘I’m glad. Luckily my voice was stronger than my back and arms — by the end of the day I was out on my feet. Even a spoonful of stew is almost too much for me to lift!’

Sendatsu chewed a mouthful down and pondered the way the two humans seemed to have recovered their spirits. Yesterday they had been in tears, barely able to function, but now they had a purpose and it had given them energy. Watching the whole village work together and take strength from each other had also been something of a revelation. He was sure the Elven Council would have been shocked to its core to witness it. He had walked around the village and been amazed by what he had found.

His little tour began at the far end of the village. There, downwind from everyone else — unless a rare southerly blew — the tanner was working away, scraping hair and fat and flesh off a hide stretched tight. Between the smell of his waste and the chicken dung he rubbed into the leather to make it tanned and smooth, he needed to be far away from everyone else.

Sendatsu had hurried away from there but stopped at the fields to watch the men work, which was a fascinating sight in itself. Sendatsu had never seen the rice paddies but had imagined they must be huge fields, as far as the eye could see. The humans did not farm like this. Instead, the village shared one huge area, dividing it up into strips for each family, each strip bounded by a slim grass section to allow access to all sides. Different crops
sat side by side and dozens of boys covered the long strips — weeding, watering, hoeing, planting — while the men worked on the palisade.

The women, when not digging or looking after the children or cooking, gathered nuts and berries, or made clothes. There were many vats of berries and plants bubbling away, making a smell nearly as bad as the tanner but also staining the woollen clothes they all wore. And all the females, right down to the little girls, spun wool wherever they went.

Everyone seemed to be working all the time, from dawn to dusk, and he found himself comparing that to life back in Dokuzen.

There the lower classes slaved just as hard, but the middle classes had a much easier life and the upper classes worked not at all. And things were only done on the orders of the Council. Here, people did what was needed, when it was needed, without thought of political advantage or whether it would demean their family or clan to do so. He had thought life in Dokuzen was perfect and, while it had many advantages over here, he had to admit there were still things the humans did better …

‘What are you thinking?’ Rhiannon asked.

‘Nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘Are you sure there is nothing I can use as a bath?’

‘There is only the stream,’ Huw pointed out.

Sendatsu grunted. Of all the material things of Dokuzen, clean clothes and a hot bath were the ones he longed for. Perhaps he could get the wall-builders to make something up for him …

‘Once the palisade goes up — what then?’ Huw asked, breaking Sendatsu’s train of thought.

‘How do you mean?’ Sendatsu swallowed the mutton and scooped up another spoonful. His hunger had overcome his distaste for animal flesh. It was livened with salt and mint and quite tasty, although he longed for some greenery and especially some rice.

‘Well, it will make them stop and think. But if they attack anyway, how do we stop them?’

Sendatsu sighed. ‘You need weapons. And we do not have the time to teach these people …’

‘Not to use a sword or a bow. But there must be other weapons, easy to use and able to drive back these raiders,’ Rhiannon suggested.

Sendatsu was about to tell them there was nothing, but the expectant expression on Rhiannon’s face stopped him. He thought hard, and was pleasantly surprised to come up with an idea.

‘There is one thing — have you heard of a crossbow?’

‘Of course. But they are too expensive — there is no way we could get enough, even if the Forlish would sell them to us,’ Huw grunted. ‘And they take so long to reload that even a dozen of them would not be enough …’

‘Yes, but there is a different type of crossbow. The problem is, I only saw it a few times, in the tombs of my forefathers, where rest many things that we brought with us when we left the dragons and sailed to this continent …’

‘Do dragons still live at Dokuzen?’ Rhiannon interrupted excitedly.

‘My people once served the dragons. Centuries ago. But none have been seen in Dokuzen.’ Sendatsu shrugged.

‘How I would love to see one,’ Rhiannon sighed. ‘I used to dream of dragons when I was a girl. They would take me for a flight and tell me I could do magic …’

‘The new crossbow?’ Huw interrupted.

‘It is a repeating crossbow. Instead of needing to be wound up after every shot, it can loose a dozen bolts rapidly, one after another. The drawback is range — it has little power and would be useless beyond about twenty yards. But if you were able to make enough of them, they would give you a chance to turn back the raiders.’ Sendatsu smiled at Rhiannon. ‘Sadly, I doubt you have the ability to build such a thing.’

‘Nonsense!’ Huw said. ‘We have many men who are brilliant with their hands. Give us the design and we shall build it.’

Sendatsu paused. This was the flaw. He had only seen the thing a few times and, while he had been fascinated with it as a boy,
he had no idea how it would work. But he had no intention of admitting that. Instead he would draw it from memory and then blame it on the incompetence of the craftsmen if it did not work. After all, how could they possibly replicate something of the elves? That way it could not be his fault.

‘Get me some paper and ink, and I shall sketch it out,’ he declared.

Although Rhiannon watched, entranced, he was horribly aware a memory was a difficult thing to get down on paper — or scraped, chalked lambskin. He remembered it looked roughly like a normal crossbow, but built in two parts. The top half could be moved backwards and forwards by a wooden lever, with the backward motion cocking the weapon, as well as dropping a new bolt into the firing slit from a box at the top. Then the forward motion propelled the bolt out. He drew confidently enough, although how anyone was going to make his drawings a reality he had no idea. But he showed no sign as he handed them over to Rhiannon and Huw.

‘Give that to your best men and see what they can do. But don’t let them waste too much time on it. After all, the design is elven, so it is far beyond what they are used to,’ he suggested, which he thought would help disguise any flaws in his drawings and things he might have forgotten.

‘We might surprise you yet,’ Huw said stoutly. He needed the elf if he was going to avenge his father’s death and stop the Forlish — but he did not have to like him. The fact Rhiannon was both entranced by the thought of seeing Dokuzen and by Sendatsu himself had hardly anything to do with it.

Asami welcomed her parents into her main reception room with a fixed smile, ensured they had both tea and food, then sat carefully, wondering what their purpose was. Of course she could not come out and say such a thing. She had to make polite conversation and wait for them to come to the point. Given her father was known as Jaken’s right hand, she had no doubt he was here on the orders of their clan leader.

‘I was at the marketplace yesterday and I have never heard the like,’ her mother said. ‘Rumours and gossip fly around like birds at sunset. Sendatsu’s actions have created more of a stir than anything I have ever seen or heard before.’

‘Well, you can hardly blame them. Nobody has used swords and magic on Council Guards before. Why, it must be fifty years since someone even dared to fight them,’ her father added.

‘I look at that and thank Aroaril you never married him,’ her mother sniffed. ‘I mean, first there was the business with his wife and children — and now this!’

‘Not to mention the way he has lived his life for the past few years. He has a position almost every other elf in Dokuzen would give their right arm for — and he did nothing with it! Everyone expected Jaken’s son to be a leader in our society. Instead he sat at home and played with the children,’ her father sniffed.

Asami bit her tongue, for she had heard it all before — many times. In the past, when they thought she might marry the clan leader’s son, they could not praise him enough. As soon as Jaken had blocked their union, their opinion changed overnight.

Her mind flashed back to those days and when she had first met Sendatsu, at his fifth birthday party. Her parents had ordered her to be nice to Jaken’s son, for he would be clan leader one day, and she had been determined not to have anything to do with him. Rather than talk with him, she would sit in the corner and say nothing. Young elves were running around wildly, wrestling with each other and shouting. She had found a peaceful corner of the garden, only for a boy to come and sit next to her. They had watched the others for a while, then begun to talk. He showed her some of the nearby flowers and where to get a plate of food.

‘I am so glad you were here,’ Asami had confessed as they ate their treats together. ‘I thought this was going to be a nightmare. I thought all of Sendatsu’s friends would be like that,’ and she gestured to where a handful of boys were running into each other with bloodcurdling shouts. ‘He’s probably the one with the loudest voice!’

‘I thought the same thing,’ her new friend confessed.

They chuckled at the way the others were behaving and then shared the last honey cake together.

Asami had sat there in warm silence for a few moments more, then a tall, beautiful woman strode into the garden.

‘Sendatsu! The Elder Elf is here! You must come and greet him now!’ she ordered, her voice cutting through the boisterous noise.

Asami looked around, waiting to see which of the buffoons answered the call. Then her new friend sighed and stood.

‘I have to do what Mother wants, or Father will be furious,’ he said. ‘Do you want to come and meet the Elder Elf too?’

He held out his hand. Shock and embarrassment made Asami hesitate for just a moment, then she took it. She had never wanted to let go since. But, of course, life was never that easy. Her father was still talking and she forced herself to listen. ‘I do hope you plan to have nothing more to do with him. After all, what was it all about? Some ridiculous claim that the elves may not be born with magic and the barrier is fading!’

‘But the barrier is dying, otherwise I would not have been able to send Sendatsu through it.’

‘Well, you can repair it then,’ her mother said fondly. ‘Just look at you — you are proof of the power of the magic within the elven people …’

That was too much for Asami. ‘How many people do you know who use magic in their everyday lives?’ she snapped.

‘Well, you can hardly blame them. It is hard work and tiring. Doing something yourself, or having a servant do it for you, is far easier,’ her mother pointed out.

‘But if magic is our gift, if it is as natural to an elf as breathing, why do you not use it?’ she demanded.

‘Do not use that tone of voice on me,’ her father warned.

‘We know what you are saying, dear,’ her mother said defensively. ‘And you are right. Too many people pass their Test and then set it aside. But you have to understand, when you work for a living, when you have children to feed and look after, you do not have the time to devote to study. And when you are already tired, you do not have the energy to use on magic …’

‘Excuses. The truth is, fewer and fewer of us have true magic power, other than the ability to perform a few tricks,’ Asami interrupted.

‘This conversation is ridiculous. And we shall talk of it no more,’ her father snapped.

Asami bowed her head. Her frustration was a hard thing to control. She loved her parents but she wanted a different path for herself. Blindly obeying what her clan leader and the Council told her to do just felt wrong. And once she’d seen what her clan leader and sensei were really like, and realised they did not deserve her full respect, it was hard to keep her tongue still.

‘How is Gaibun?’ her mother asked. ‘Are there grandchildren on the way?’

‘Not just yet. I need to concentrate on my studies with sensei Sumiko,’ Asami said carefully, preparing for another conversation on another familiar topic. The Festival of Summer was less than a moon away. More importantly, in a couple of days’ time she could reopen the gateway and see if Sendatsu was there. Until then, she just had to bite her tongue.