Bridge of Swords (40 page)

After Sendatsu, she had not wanted to be involved with anyone. She never missed a chance to remind Sendatsu of what he had done, although he always refused to fight back. The sign of a guilty conscience, she told herself. But she could not help comparing Sendatsu with Huw. She had thought the elf was everything Huw was not — strong, powerful, confident, a warrior, as well as exotically good-looking.

But Huw had never lied to her.

And since he had come up with the idea of the Dragon Warriors, he had shown his strength, his courage and confidence. The way he dealt with the various village chiefs had been impressive. He used persuasion, conviction and inspiration to get them to come along with his dream of a free, united Vales. Watching the recruits sit around a fire, spellbound, as he told them of his dreams, watching village chiefs shake his hand and declare he was the man to lead Vales — it was stirring.

Yet he was still the gentle, kind Huw she had first grown to know in Cridianton. Singing and performing with him, she had
been able to put Sendatsu out of her mind. Once or twice she thought Huw might have tried to kiss her, indeed at one point their heads had almost been touching — but then he moved away.

She wondered if he was thinking of Sendatsu, and her reaction to the elf’s lies and betrayal. And she wondered if she might be better off making the first move. It was strange, as she had been sure she had wanted nothing more to do with men and their lies and their lust, but time softened that stance, slowly. And she could see the village women looking at Huw differently. When they rode in, their eyes always went to Sendatsu. But when they rode out, it was to Huw that they looked.

Not that Huw noticed. But perhaps, if she left it too long, he might …

For now it was safe enough but she resolved to keep an eye on the young bard.

With almost all of Gwent protected they headed north, into Powys, the part of Vales with the mines and the riches. Here they found the Forlish raiders again, looking for the gold that followed the precious metals being dug out of the ground. The big mining villages had been hit and hit again, usually when most of the men were underground. Here the people had become desperate. Miners did not want to leave homes and families unprotected, so production from the mines had dropped right away. People were scared and more than scared. Families were leaving, looking for somewhere safer, and the village chiefs were at their wits’ end.

When Huw arrived, riding at the head of more than a hundred men, he was the answer to their desperate prayers. At first, of course, he nearly caused a panic. Nobody recognised the dragon banner and the mere sight of so many armed men had women and children running, screaming. They were met with a grim-faced mob of miners, faces and hands streaked with dirt but the picks, axes and shovels in their hands were clean and well cared for. It took some quick talking — mainly to hear the Velsh accents — before they were accepted.

The presence of so many miners, as well as huge piles of spoil from the pits, made protecting these villages fast and easy.
Even though Forlish raiders could arrive at any day, between the dragons and miners, earthen walls were thrown up in a day, while in another day there were enough elven crossbows to leave it well protected. There were always men willing to join the Dragon Warriors rather than dig for a living, although Huw could promise them no money, just food and a great deal of pain at Sendatsu’s hands. The pits also used small horses, ponies really, to drag carts of soil and ore around and Huw used almost all of his remaining Forlish gold to buy the small, tough horses, as well as pay smiths to make hundreds of arrowheads.

They had quite a force now, an impressive sight, even if most of them were mounted on pit ponies rather than battle chargers, and there was not one of them over twenty summers.

But they believed. They believed in Huw when he told them about a free Vales, where all would help each other. They wept when he sang them the song he and Rhiannon had written for them and for Vales itself. Huw called it ‘Land of My Fathers’ and they clamoured to learn the words, the lilting Velsh voices joining together each night to shout them to the skies. They sang it when they rode into a new village, to announce their presence and prove they were Velsh.

They even sung it when they trained, although they only just had the breath for it. Sendatsu was ruthless with them, holding nothing back when it came to improving them.

‘Better take your punishment here, rather than when you meet the Forlish,’ he told them.

He did not know whether he was teaching them the right way to fight, for the Forlish did not battle man to man but stood shoulder to shoulder in the shield wall. But it was all he knew — for now, it would have to do. They were changing every day, getting stronger, faster, more skilful.

Sendatsu had had many sensei during his years of training, as well as his father’s methods, and he tried to take something from all of them. As for his father, Jaken’s way was his inspiration — to do exactly the opposite.

At first he praised the recruits grudgingly but when some of them began to hold their own against him, force him to fully exert himself to beat them, the praise came naturally.

Initially he tried to stay apart from them. After all, soon he would be returning to Dokuzen. But, even in Powys, the same old stories about the elves had been spread far and wide and the answers he sought were as elusive as ever.

It was doubly frustrating. At every mining village, or farming village or fishing village they stopped at, there were elven buildings. Most were beautiful, some were wrecks and some had been crudely rebuilt, but all were poignant reminders of home. Or was it still home? With each passing day, Dokuzen seemed further away, both literally and figuratively. Try as he might, he could not stop himself from becoming involved with the Velsh struggle.

He missed his children, an ache so deep it physically hurt, but now he was imagining a different way to get them back. More and more, the temptation was there to take them, get Asami and leave behind Dokuzen, live out here. The days were passing swiftly and Huw’s plan was coming to fruition — there was a real chance of making a whole country out of Vales. If that happened, then they could search for magical humans much more easily.

But, if Huw was planning to trick him once more, he had a new plan. At the next full moon he would talk to Asami, get her help to get his children and bring them all out of Dokuzen. His young dragons might not be as good as the elves just yet but, with more training, they would be the match of a Council Guard. If he could but march into Jaken’s villa with a score of them at his back, then he would hold his children in his arms once more … it was a thought to give him hope, at least. No matter what, there would be an end to his torment out here.

The recruits fell asleep each day, completely exhausted by the endless marching and training. At first the only ones awake barely an hour after dusk were usually Sendatsu, Huw and Rhiannon. Sendatsu left the other two to talk and instead wrapped himself in a blanket and dreamed of his children.

But the recruits thrived under his training and soon he sat with the best of them, talking about many things. He liked their company, which was something he had never imagined — although it had the bonus of not having Rhiannon make endless sharp comments about him.

The tombs of their forefathers were nestled beside a stream that fed the lake at Dokuzen’s heart and supplied water for much of the city. So making their way out to the tombs was easy enough. But, as they saw instantly, getting inside was going to be difficult.

Torches burned at every corner of the building, while a squad of guards patrolled, or sat in the shadows of the ornate front entrance.

‘It looks like Jaken has left plenty of guards here still, despite the festival — almost as if he knew someone might be coming,’ Asami said, looking hard at Gaibun.

His face was partly obscured but it did not seem to change.

‘It was an obvious precaution. I am sure he knows much of what the Magic-weavers plan,’ he said coolly. ‘Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?’

‘What choice do we have, if we want to get Sendatsu back?’

‘Well, are you doing it for the right reasons?’

‘What do you mean? If you are not here to help me, then you can go any time …’

‘That’s not what I said,’ he interrupted. ‘But are you trying to get Sendatsu back to help him or to salve the guilt you are feeling for helping Sumiko send him away? I will help you either way but you should be certain in your own mind which it is.’

‘It is to help him,’ she said immediately.

Gaibun smiled. ‘Well then, we only have the guards to worry about.’

Asami ground her teeth in frustration. ‘Sumiko knew guards would not stop me, where they would give any other Magic-weaver pause,’ she spat.

‘Then we shall just have to get in there without being seen,’ Gaibun said lightly.

Asami studied the area carefully. Once this had been beautiful gardens but they had been allowed to grow out of control over the past century. Now, however, someone had cut most of them down, clearing an open space for twenty paces in any direction around the building. But they had forgotten about the branches of the closest trees, which stretched almost to the roof.

‘I’ll need you to cause a diversion at the front, lead as many of them away as you can and keep them looking in that direction while I go in from the back.’

‘They will expect something like that,’ Gaibun warned.

‘Not like this, they won’t,’ Asami promised.

Sendatsu’s dragons had their first real test outside the large mining village of Merthyr. This village was set up high, giving it a perfect view of the surrounding countryside. They had only arrived the night before and work had barely begun on defences, let alone building enough crossbows for the villagers. But the lookouts they posted had seen a band of Forlish approaching.

‘There’re nearly forty of them,’ Sendatsu reported. ‘They will be here by noon — not enough time for us to make crossbows, let alone a wall.’

‘Then we must ride out and meet them,’ Huw said calmly. ‘After all, we outnumber them more than three to one.’

‘What? These boys aren’t ready to take on that number of Forlish!’ Sendatsu growled. ‘We could lose half of them.’

‘Then you tell me a way to defeat those Forlish without seeing fighting inside the village,’ Huw demanded.

‘Huw, we’re not ready yet — I don’t want to lose these boys,’ Sendatsu pleaded.

Huw smiled, a little. ‘What’s this? Not only did you tell me we can’t save everyone, but then you were walking around, praying to find Forlish to kill in your lust for revenge, after Rheged. Now you tell me you don’t want to fight or risk anyone!’

Sendatsu was about to argue, then realised the truth. ‘I don’t want to see them die,’ he admitted. ‘I would rather they stay alive than see the Forlish punished.’

‘Then find a way to win,’ Huw said forcefully.

Sendatsu sighed and looked at the huge piles of spoil that marked the way into the village.

‘All right,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Good. I’ll go and talk to the headman, make sure he knows what we are about to do — and that he needs to be grateful,’ Huw said grimly.

Asami half wondered if Gaibun was really going to help her — or betray her. It was one of the reasons she had sent him away to make the first move on the tombs. She waited, trying to keep the nerves at bay, eyes struggling to pierce the darkness and see Gaibun in action. She told herself there was nothing to worry about. They may not have a marriage of love but they were still close. He was a man of honour, he had always been so. It had cost him, several times, in competitions against Sendatsu — just as it had cost his father against Jaken.

Still, as time dragged on and nothing happened, it became harder to convince herself. Just when she feared he was not going to act, the two torches at the front of the building were snuffed out by a sudden wind. Asami felt the breath of the magic and nodded approvingly.

The guards reacted instantly, some rushing to relight the torches, the others clustering together to watch the shadows, swords in hand.

As the torches spluttered back to life, a stone flew out of the night and struck one guard on the temple. Before the elf had even hit the ground, Asami — and the guards — saw a shape at the edge of the trees in the torchlight.

‘After him!’ someone ordered.

Four guards raced out into the night as the figure vanished once more. But that still left five elves out the front of the only entrance to the building.

Still, that was half of them gone, she reflected. Instantly she turned towards the back and reached out into the magic, bringing the trees alive.

The guards shouted as tree limbs suddenly sprouted longer, reached the roof and began to rip the tiles away, opening it up to the night sky.

‘Stop them!’

Three of the guards raced around the back, where they began fighting the trees not with their swords but with magic. Asami could feel their attempts to drive her back and ruthlessly pressed forwards, overwhelming their limited magic abilities with her superior strength.

‘Help!’ one cried as they were driven to their knees.

The remaining two bent their concentration to the task of helping their comrades — and instantly Asami stopped the flow of magic, instead racing across the open ground. Distracted by the effort of using magic, their whole bodies directed towards the trees at the rear, they did not react quickly. Asami jumped high and took one out with a kick, then landed and struck the second across the back of the neck with the rigid edge of her hand. They fell, while the three at the back were already sprawled on the ground, stunned by her magical assault. She reached into the magic and forced open the chains on the door then, with a quick glance around her, stepped into the tombs.

Captain Leofric watched the village cautiously. He had been in Vales for the past month now, and what had at first seemed like a ridiculously easy task had been growing progressively harder. The Velsh villages had been easy to raid. A quick charge inside, fire a couple of houses, kill anyone who tried to stop them and grab food, valuables and women. It had been almost too easy. The Velsh had no weapons, no organisation and no defences. But then he had begun to come across villages fortified by walls. To a man used to smashing through the stone walls of Balian towns, the earthen or wooden walls looked small and flimsy. But he quickly learned he had neither the equipment nor the numbers to get through even these pitiful defences. Far from being slumbering sheep, these Velsh villages had teeth. They always had guards on and big dogs who barked warnings. Any attacks
were met with a stinging hail of small crossbow bolts. These may not be big enough to punch through shields but were deadly to his unarmoured men. One might not kill you, but they came in swarms. After losing six men in one attack, he learned to steer clear of these villages and strike only at the undefended ones.