Revelyn: 1st Chronicles - When the last arrow falls (77 page)

‘Her last words were...
tell Rema I have always loved him.’
And the lovely woman wept.

The gathering was deeply moved by this.  Rema said nothing but felt a deep pain which he knew would not depart that night or for many nights to come, and as Clarynda collapsed against him, he held her close and grieved. No one spoke for a very long time for each entertained their own sad memory delivered by the passing of that day.

Finally Rema gathered himself and spoke once more.

 ‘We are soon faced with another day and the enemy is unmoved from where they stand. We cannot yield so we must fight on. I fear that we are now too few, but I have another plan and it must be carried out this night when the enemy least suspects.’

He looked across at Sylvion and their eyes met and locked. She saw in him at that moment a great bravery, for despite the loss of his dear friend Serenna, he knew what must come next.  And so did she, but with a terrible shiver Sylvion wondered if she were able to do what he was about to ask. Just that morning she had been barely restrained by Rema, wanting to enter the battle and see an end to the king and all he stood for. Now in the shadow of so much death, she did not know whether the great anger in her heart was yet still great enough.

‘It is time Sylvion.’ Rema said quietly but with great authority. He spoke directly to her but all listened with the greatest expectation. ‘You are the reason that we are here; but it is more than this. Revelyn must see you as queen and the evil ways defeated or else as El-Arathor has told us, the whole land will fall into a darkness from which it cannot escape. Your
Shadow Blade
must now be wielded. It is all we have left. If we fight again tomorrow as we have today, we will be overwhelmed.’

It was a sombre group that listened to Rema’s plan, and once more not a single voice was raised to object. It had to be done. In the end Sylvion stood and addressed the group.

‘My friends I carry great a grief this night for all, and for myself. I cannot say why I am here and why all this death and violence seems laid at my feet. I thank you all for what you have done so bravely this day. I have no words which can describe my admiration that you have undertaken such fearsome tasks. That you should do and see such terrible things as I have witnessed today is too much for me to bear, but I will do the best I can.’

She paused then and with tears upon her face she took a breath and calming herself with a desperate will to do so, spoke her final words.

‘And so I am now to become death to many.’

She withdrew her Shadow Blade and swept it twice back and forward before her. She gazed upon it as though none else were present and in the firelight it seemed to glow in anticipation of what was to come. All looked upon her then, this claimant to the throne and saw her desperate situation, but none there except Sylvion had seen the Blade at work save Reigin who had only gained the merest glimpse of its great power at the slaying of Sleeman.

They all wondered how such a thing could stand against the mighty force which still stood against them despite all that had been won that day.

‘I will go to see the
Equin
now.’

Sylvion suddenly replaced the Shadow Blade and without a look at any, departed. ‘I will return in a span Rema and will be ready to do as you have planned.’ Her words came coldly to them.

And then she was gone and all who remained made ready for what was to come.

Chapter 21

Commander Leander stood before the King and Zelfos and gave his report. The king’s pavilion was well lit, and from without it gave a glow which spoke of warmth, and yet within the atmosphere was cold and edged with fear. The King, Lord Petros sat upon his simple travelling throne, whilst Zelfos hovered round about seemingly unable to sit long in one place. Leander held a crumbled parchment on which he had made some scribbled notes. He was not one with skill in writing but his report could not be made more palatable by fancy words.

‘Our losses this day have been great,’ he said, as the other two listened in silence.

‘The charge of the great horses was, as you both saw unstoppable when first they came upon us. There was magic travelling with them. This sort of thing I cannot stand against and it was only luck that Underlourde Aaraghant found their weakness.’

‘Numbers Leander! Tell me how many we lost; I do not want excuses for what you can or cannot do.’ The King interrupted his commander for he hated the very mention of Aaraghant’s name. He had no affection for that odious pig of a man.

Leander felt a dull fury rise within him. He had taken about all he was willing to take from these selfish scheming men. He paused and let the two hang upon the silence.

‘Well Commander?’ Zelfos demanded impatiently. Leander continued.

‘We lost three hundred dead to the horses and twice that number wounded. That was in the first charge. The second time they came upon us we slew them all, almost; thanks to Aaraghant’s silver arrows.’ The giant soldier enjoyed the dark reaction which the mention of that name brought upon his King for he had purposely mentioned it. He paused, and then went on. ‘We lost another hundred dead and about the same were wounded. I am told a handful made it back to
Fellonshead
.’

Leander looked at his rough notes.

‘The horsemen suffered most. We sent out a thousand men and lost almost half, not quite six hundred returned. They fought bravely but their enemy were
Wolvers
all. I am surprised that any survived for they rode on huge devil cats, something like the sabcrecat, but much larger and far more fierce.  I do not think these men will have the heart to ride against them again.’

‘They will ride against whosoever we send them.’ hissed Zelfos. Leander turned with an exaggerated slowness to the bald sorcerer.

‘In the end Zelfos,’ he said in a dark anger, ‘fear will only make a man do so much. Do they fear you, or fear the enemy more? You cannot think to so control others by merely giving orders which are death to those who must obey them.’ He turned back to the king leaving Zelfos smouldering at his temerity.

‘As serious as these losses are, they are matched by the destruction of our water and provisions. I have sent for replenishment but it will not arrive till at least midmorn tomorrow. The men on the front line are suffering greatly from thirst. The wounded cannot be properly tended. Our army will not fight well on empty stomachs and without water we cannot fight at all beyond another day.’

This pronouncement was not well received by either the King or Zelfos.

‘They are soldiers Leander surely a little fasting and some small thirst should not deter them in their line of duty? Lord Petros sniffed in disdain. Zelfos too just shook his head as though betrayed by the weakness of others.

Leander felt his fury boil over. He grabbed a half full jug of wine which they had all been enjoying, and dashed it to the floor. The king and Zelfos were stunned at such impudence, but Leander roared at them both.

‘Do not let any of us here take a single further bite of food or drink until we are replenished, and until the men out there,’ and here he indicated with a mighty swipe of an enormous gloved hand to where the army was encamped, ‘have drunk their fill.’

The king’s steward hastily left the pavilion and the guards outside trembled in fear at what such an outburst might mean. They heard every word.

Inside the three men stared at each other. Suddenly, Leander continued his report with such calmness that the other two were completely taken by surprise.

‘Two others matters. A
gatherer
has returned and reports that their numbers are not so great as we first thought. The fires which burn across the fields and in the forest give warmth to few, for they are a clever ruse to trick us into thinking they have a great force still ready to do battle. It seems they have no more than several hundred at the most; perhaps less.’

At this both the King and Zelfos smiled at each other for this was good news indeed.

  ‘And one further thing,’ Leander continued brusquely, ‘I have been informed that the one whom we seek to destroy, this Sylvion Greyfeld who now openly claims the throne in your stead desire; she made sure that our injured men upon the field were cared for and she led them back to our front lines and set them free. The men throughout the camp are talking of her mercy.’

These words had a great affect upon Zelfos, who screamed in an agony of disbelief.

‘What! She showed mercy. At war one kills. No one wastes time on looking to the needs of their enemy...’ His voice faltered then and he stopped as though he had revealed too much of something deeper in himself. In truth this news hurt him most, for privately he celebrated all the death and maiming which had passed that day. The hearts of men had been focused on hate and evil; this was what he desired the most. This was what he needed if his great strategy were to succeed. But to hear of mercy, of one doing good to another when there was no reason, undid all that he had planned. His heart thumped against his chest and he felt a mighty nausea sweep over him. In desperation he tried to hold himself together, but that one word, mercy, had hurt him grievously. Zelfos collapsed upon a couch and signalled to the steward for a drink, only to find that he had disappeared and Leander’s words of denial still rang in his ears. In a sulk he turned away and rocked himself slightly as if it were a comfort.

Leander and the king were amazed at such a transformation in the usually abrasive and powerful man.

‘We have had a long day with many surprises,’ the king spoke with some wisdom at last. ‘Let us not fall out, for perhaps we need each other more than we have admitted to this point.’ Leander sensed then a change in his king for the better; but for Zelfos he found only contempt in his heart.

He was about to speak once more, when suddenly a huge and deafening crack of lightning split the sky and all about within the camp, and glowing through the king’s pavilion  from without, was a most eerie bluish light.

Zelfos screamed again and then hissed in evil fear.

‘It is here. The
Shadow Blade
has come against us.’ And the bald man now greatly diminished in the eyes of the other two, shook most violently for a moment.

And then they made haste out into a cold blue world and faced the new doom that had come against them.

*

Rema chose twelve men. All
Edenwhood,
uninjured and the freshest of those who had volunteered to go with him. Anderlorn and Cordia were there, but he refused Rhynos on account of his head wound. Reigin had insisted on standing with Sylvion, and Rema gratefully accepted his offer, for he worried now whether she was still able to wield her blade at all, for she had seen so much ugly death that day he knew her will had been greatly weakened.

They carried nothing but their swords and a light shield. He carried two quivers, one full of feathered arrows which were plentiful enough upon the ground, and also his own strange and longer ones which he was still reluctant to use despite the increasingly desperate position they were facing.

In silence they crept out of Fellonshead and made their way in dark shadows toward the enemy which rested fitfully and licked its wounds much less than two leagues further west and south. Rema had laid out his plan and all rested upon Sylvion and her
Shadow Blade
. He had questioned her at length about its working and shaped his plan accordingly; but until it came to pass none knew what might be the end of it.

They halted a hundred paces from the resting lancers. Rema heard the conversations of fearful men mixed with arrogant oaths and a little drunkenness, for soldiers always find some means to bring drink to bolster fears and forget what they must face. He sensed that they were unhappy men who did not understand against what they fought. Many whispers of the mighty horses came, entwined with complaints of great thirst and hunger. He realised with sadness that these were just ordinary men who were about to die because evil forces had hold of those who held the power in their simple lives.

They lined up facing the enemy, just a dozen dark shadows in the night, for the moon had not yet risen, and only stars showed the way about. Their enemy sat by small fires and tents and could see no further than a few paces beyond where they crouched and waited anxiously for the night to pass.

‘Good luck my friends,’ Rema whispered to those on either side of him, ‘and do not spare the blade despite what comes your way. And do not turn and face the light or else you will be beyond help.’

They drew their swords and Rema notched an arrow. They waited, for now it all depended upon Sylvion who stood alone a dozen paces behind them. Reigin was behind as well but he too stood in front of Sylvion for he must not see the light upon the blade. A chill breeze swept down from the heights of the
Vaudim
and for a moment it seemed that not one upon that sad and bloody field took breath.

Sylvion held the
Shadow Blade
aloft and cried silently into the night. She dreaded what was to come and yet could see no other way. The weapon had turned her soft heart cold and she knew that in the end it would change her for the worst, for it fed upon her hate and anger and embraced her deepest cruel desire for revenge on all who had done her harm. She thought of her dear kindma slain by Sleeman’s sword and Bach’s humiliation of her. Her beloved land of Revelyn under thrall to an evil mad despot, and at his side the worst of all, the sorcerer Zelfos whom she had learned was now a harbinger of even worse to come. These thoughts came from a deep well of bitterness within and just as Rema was about to call back and ask what held her back, the light poured forth like nothing she could have imagined.

A great and deafening crack of white and blue-tinged lightning leapt clear up to the heavens. It danced and crackled from the blade and illumined the plains for leagues around, but the core of it was purist white, and once the eye beheld it, then it captured the mind and slowed the wit so that all so caught up were completely mesmerised for a hundred paces out and even beyond that all were held in thrall to some degree.