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Astonishingly the Fyrd pulled back, suspecting a bigger ambush. They stood half-smiling while they considered what to do with someone who was nowhere near their size or weight, who did not carry a stave, and who quite plainly had never fought anyone before in his life.

The younger Fyrd, thinking perhaps that charm would do better than threats, squatted down in front of Stort, smiling falsely, glanced at Katherine in a speculative way, and then looked past them both to Jack and said, ‘We only want to help the boy.’

But his knife glittered in the dark.

P
ike had reacted swiftly to Stort’s impulsive decision to intervene down below. The moment he realized what his protégé was up to, he alerted the others. Then, ordering Brief and the pedlar to stay where they were, he and the other stavermen followed Stort down the embankment as silently as they could.

The evident surprise among the Fyrd at Stort’s arrival told Pike that the newcomers had no idea any other hydden were present, and he wanted to retain this element of surprise as long as he could.

In the brief moments while the Fyrd considered how to deal with Master Stort, Pike was able to study them unseen.

Even though there were only three of them, they looked formidable; that much was certain. And, as was the custom of the Fyrd when on military duty, they were dressed in well-made black garb shot through with the clear synthetic thread that diffused their outlines and made their form indistinct.

It was instantly obvious to Pike which of them was the leader – he’d had to deal with his like many times back in Brum. Tall, aristocratic, self-confident, indifferent to those beneath him, contemptuous of ordinary civilians but far too young for such a role.

Unless
. . . Pike told himself,
this is a well-connected junior member of the Sinistral establishment on his way to Brum to take up an appointment which would give him the experience he needs to be pushed through the ranks very fast
.

Pike guessed that the present assignment was ordered by a more senior member of the Sinistral clan still, someone who had come to know of the boy’s movements.

Which said much for the Fyrd’s network of intelligence and their ability to get things organized on the ground. It also told Pike that this was a situation fraught with danger and implications that he and the others were not fully aware of.

The Fyrd officer’s number two was the usual sort, military through and through: well-set and orderly, with close-cut hair. The kind trained to take orders as well as give them, up to his level of competence. Such as had made the Fyrd the formidably successful occupying force it was.

The third had the broad good looks of someone from Eastern Europe, whence a large number of the reinforcements for the Fyrd and its administration came from, their home territory of the Rhinelands not supplying enough as their empire expanded. Many such had come to Brum, often to take up menial roles, to give support to the Sinistral’s army of occupation.

All in all the three Fyrd did not look too much of a challenge for Pike and his stavermen, but then they could not have expected opposition.

’Follow me straight in,’ Pike whispered to the others, glad that Brief and the pedlar had had the sense to stay out of sight. ‘Their leader is armed only with stave and crossbow, and that not primed, probably because he was not expecting any trouble. I’ll take the one to his left, you deal with the young one on the right who is kneeling before Stort with knife drawn. Then we’ll see what they have to say for themselves.’

Pike emerged with the others slowly from the shadows of the embankment, not wishing to seem too much of a threat and thus precipitate an attack.

He called out, ‘That boy’s under our protection.’

The young Fyrd stood up and backed off immediately.

His leader, as cool as Pike himself, half-smiled and said, ‘If that’s the case, you’re not doing such a good job. He appears to be as good as dead.’

It was not the best of moments for Bedwyn Stort to renew his intervention, but that’s what he did. Except for the appearance of Pike and the stavermen, things might have gone very badly for him, but the smiling young Fyrd acted coolly.

He restrained him with one hand but held out the knife with the other to show he meant business.

The tall Fyrd laughed aloud and drawled, ‘This little drama seems suddenly to have moved from laughable comedy to potential tragedy, so would you care to bring your dog to heel before my assistant Brunte kills him? He likes the taste of blood, so I would not advise provoking him unnecessarily.’

Pike looked at Brunte and had no doubt that, young though he was, he meant business.

‘Mister Stort . . .’ he growled warningly.

Bedwyn Stort had the sense to scramble away but, to his credit, only as far as the two children. For her part, Katherine stood stock-still, now in an apparent state of shock, while Jack lay unmoving on the ground, the burns to his back and right shoulder all too visible.

‘So,’ said the Fyrd, with a sardonic smile, ‘are there any more in your motley group we should be aware of?’

Pike hesitated, unsure whether to reveal the presence of Brief and the pedlar.

But the decision was made for him.

Brief himself appeared from the shadows of his own accord, tall and bold, his stave of office held proudly in his right hand.

‘Well, this gets more astonishing by the moment!’ said the Fyrd. ‘Our orders were simply to detain the boy, but now it seems that half of Brum is here in an attempt to do the same thing. You are none other than Brief, Master Scrivener of Brum, am I right?’

‘Yes,’ said Brief, taking his place next to Pike, who now realized that the pedlar, or whatever she was, was nowhere to be seen. Much good she was going to be to anyone in a crisis!

‘You realize, Master Brief, that your presence here is illegal?’ continued the Fyrd. ‘If you, of all people, had applied for permission to depart the environs of Brum, I would have known about it, so I guess you did not?’

‘You being who, sir?’ replied Brief with no sign of nervousness.

The Fyrd smiled grimly. ‘I am the newly appointed Quentor of Brum on my way to take up office. Apprehending this boy is but a small diversion.’ His eyes hardened. His voice too. ‘But you know what, Brief? I have been travelling for some days now and I am cold and tired and bored. This boy is of interest to us, but he cannot possibly be of interest to you. Therefore I am ordering you and your friends to return to Brum at once. Get there before me and your transgressions will go unnoticed. Get there afterwards and I regret that you will not go unpunished, and even your position will not protect you, Master Brief.’

The Fyrd readied their weapons, as did Pike and the stavermen.

‘The boy is a human and there should be no contact between hydden and human,’ said Brief. ‘That is the law! As for your purpose – quite plainly it is not to apprehend but to murder.’

The Fyrd’s eyes grew cold.

‘You do not know what Fyrd I am. My name is Lavin Sinistral . . . and I will have my way over this boy and you will retreat!’

At the mention of the name Sinistral a chill hush fell across them all. They knew at once that they were dealing with a situation as difficult as it was dangerous. This new Quentor was young, but if he was a Sinistral it meant his post was merely a training ground. Arguing with such a one had consequences, defying him was as good as death, young though he was. The Sinistral watched over their own.

But Brief stood firm, while Pike looked yet more threatening. Neither was intimidated. If a member of the Sinistral family had been sent in person to deal with the boy then Stort’s premonitions of his importance were correct.

A shadow crossed over the Quentor’s face, and Pike realized too late that he had misjudged the situation entirely. It seemed a new breed of Fyrd was on its way to Brum, one that was more resolute than ever before.

‘Goodbye, Master Brief,’ said Lavin Sinistral calmly, without a hint of what was coming. ‘It was interesting but hardly a pleasure to meet you. The times are changing, and you and your kind are now the past.’

With that, and before Pike or the other stavermen could respond, he primed his crossbow, raised it and pulled the trigger in a swift double action which released two bolts straight at Brief’s heart from point-blank range.

Master Brief was as good as dead.

Yet it didn’t happen.

There came a sudden icy mist to the air and everything slowed down – the metal bolts from the Quentor’s crossbow, which started so fast, lost speed until the rotation of their lethal heads was plainly visible.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the mist was gone and what had taken its place was the flank of a white horse sliding between the Fyrd and Brief, the bolts from the crossbow shattering into a thousand shards of light as they hit the great steed, twisting and turning and spiralling away in all directions, their sound like the tinkling of glass shaken in a void of time.

The White Horse reared. Its rider was a woman, ancient in one aspect, youthful in another, and hanging from her neck was a disc of gold.
The Peace-Weaver
they told themselves in awe and wonder, for well known as she was in legend and song, in woven tapestry and painted image, it was given to few ever to see her. Even Brief, who knew Imbolc of old, felt the same wonder and surprise.

The White Horse turned away, its rider with it, her hair streaming, her robes shimmering with light and a spectrum of colour flowing behind her. This fell to earth as a sudden chilling torrent of hail, the like of which they had never seen before – huge lumps and shards of ice filled with a strange light which faded where it fell.

In that endless-seeming moment each side retreated from further conflict, the Fyrd fleeing into the darkness of the distant fields, unwilling to risk their lives against adversaries with such an ally as the Peace-Weaver herself. Then she was gone over their heads as an arc of light that got ever thinner, reaching away through the storm of wind and rain, through the clouds beyond and right over the moon.

In the stillness that followed, with the danger of the Fyrd now gone, Pike, Brief and the others moved nearer to Katherine and Jack.

‘Why has he retreated?’ Pike murmured to Brief.

‘Because he found something far more important here tonight than a mere boy,’ said Brief soberly. ‘He has had confirmation that both these children are protected by the Peace-Weaver herself, and therefore more valuable alive. But be certain of this, Pike, that Quentor will be back one day to claim them if he can. He is a pure-blood Sinistral and they never give up.’

B
ut a force was present that night of which even the wise Brief and the other hydden were not aware, or the Fyrd leader either. For what stalked among them, as vast and magnificent in its own dark way as any White Horse or Peace-Weaver or mortal purity of soul, was mortal ambition, driver of destiny and turner of souls to right and to wrong, to good and to bad.

It was there among them and it wore a smiling face.

Like a seed waiting for the nurturing of clear water and warm sun, ambition needs only opportunity to step forward and grasp the moment. It sniffs out opportunity as crows do carrion, and such was the impulse that now flowed through the blood and sinews of the Fyrd leader’s young assistant, Igor Brunte.

He was not actually a Fyrd by birth, but by creation. He was – as he looked – Polish or, as the Fyrd liked to call his kind, a Polack. When the Fyrd took dominance over the hydden of Warsaw, he himself was only five, just old enough never to forget or forgive what happened to the city of his birth.

His father had been killed outright, his mother and elder sister ravished, his older brothers burnt alive along with other children. It was a fate that Brunte himself would have suffered had not one of these siblings pushed him forcibly through a metal grille nobody else was small enough to fit through before the fire reached them.

His elder brother had said just three words to him, which he never forgot and which he ever after would act upon:
Survive, remember, avenge.

Brunte learned the arts of survival through his years of a brutal itinerant childhood that took him all across Europe and eventually to the very heartland of the Fyrd along the Rhine.

There he could study his enemy at close hand, by joining their army, fighting their wars, and studying their ways.

Remember his instructions? He could never forget nor forgive.

Avenge? He did so whenever he could, in small ways and large, but from simply wanting to cause trouble and hurt to a few, he now felt a need to kill them all, especially the Sinistral – every last one, wherever they lived, whatever their rank.

Even those in Brum, connected with the German branch so loosely that there was doubt of there being any real blood connection at all, he had plans to eliminate

That night these youthful but long-held intentions found new fuel. Brunte had also spied the vast, shining light of the White Horse and its rider, and in that brief moment he saw an opportunity so great that his life was changed for ever. He had spotted what the Quentor-elect had seen, and Brief and Pike as well: the pendant disc that hung from the Peace-Weaver’s neck. Its gems had all gone. He knew the legends as others did, and the prophecies too.