The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) (15 page)

Chapter 10
: Counter-attack

Why is the night so quiet?
The afternoon breeze had brought in high, wispy clouds, but it had died and smoke rose straight up. The thin moon sank early and in the almost complete darkness, every creature seemed to try to be silent. Even the owls and crickets seemed hushed, afraid to make much noise. The people of Bilavod stepped carefully to avoid making noise and whispered to each other.

Mstys ordered groups of men, including all the youngsters that Javor had tried to train, to stand watch in shifts through the dark hours; Photius stayed with them through the night, never tiring. Thrice, they heard a wolf howling, and all the men stopped their furtive whispering and touched whatever they had for weapons. But nothing happened.

Javor could not sleep. Tired as he was through the night, he could not hold still and paced around the village, from the gate to the stockade on the opposite side. Men and boys woke up a young man who fell asleep with his chin resting on the top of the stockade. Once, he saw Lalya near her father’s hut.

Will this night never end? It has to be sunrise soon.
But the sun refused to cooperate. Photius found Javor drumming his fingers on the eastern side of the stockade, staring impatiently at the darkness as it greyed with infuriating slowness.

When the first orange light touched the clouds, Javor exhaled noisily through pursed lips. “Finally,” he muttered.

When the light was strong enough to see individual bushes scattered in the meadows outside the
holody
, one of the watchmen started to scream. On the grassy slope before the
holody
’s gate sat a severed human head. Its eyes were half-closed, its mouth gaping, the tongue protruding, its hair matted with dried blood.

The rising sun revealed the full horror on the slope. Twenty paces from the head was another, also grimacing in pain and horror, covered in its own blood.

Mstys took an axe and leather jerkin and ordered some of his men out of the gate. They were joined by Bohdan, the scarred man and some of the others from Kletka. Javor and Photius followed. As they neared the first head, the men of Kletka started to weep. “Miro! It’s Miro!” said one. The second head was a woman’s. “Oda!” cried another man.

They could see a long line of severed heads leading down a path in the forest, but Photius stopped them from going farther. “We’re getting too far from the safety of the
holody
already,” he said. “This is a trap. Don’t fall into it.”

It was too late. Yelling, the young troop that Javor had tried to train came pouring out of the gate, waving spears and swords over their heads. They charged down the path, following the trail of severed heads from Kletka.

“
See what you’ve done, Javor!” growled Photius. But Javor was already running after the boys, shouting “Wait! Stop!” It was futile.

He caught up with them when they had come a stop deep in the forest, unsure of where to go next. Javor could not see the
holody
. “You’re not ready!” Javor panted. But it was panic, not exertion, that made his heart pound. The amulet, on its chain under his tunic, chafed him.

“
We’re not afraid!” said Krasimir, lifting his notched sword. His pilfered helmet was too big for him and slipped over one eye. “You see what they’ve done, what they’re going to do to all of us if we don’t fight back!”

“
They’ll cut you to pieces!” said Javor, but by the time he finished that statement an arrow was protruding from Krasimir’s exposed eye and hooves were thundering around them. Javor just managed to draw his long sword and slash at a horse’s leg before he realized the little troop was surrounded. Singing, the raiders joyfully cut down the young men. Javor leaped forward to parry a sword as it swung toward Hach, but a spear went through the archer’s body from another direction. Javor killed the raider with his sword, whirled and cut down another who had dismounted, but it was useless. He was the only one fighting, and before he knew it he was surrounded by a ring of mounted spears and the dead bodies of the boys he had tried, and failed, to train.

The raiders were laughing now, talking in their strange language.
Are they arguing about which of them will gut me?
His left hand gripped the amulet through the tunic as one raider, evidently elected by his fellows for the honour, urged his horse a step closer.

Something flashed brighter than the sun. The horses reared and screamed, the men shouted and two fell off their mounts. Trees ignited all around them. Another flash, and two raiders were burning, running in circles and screaming.

“
Javor, here!” Javor darted toward Photius’ voice through an opening in the ring of horses where the two men had fallen. The raiders shouted and shot arrows, but they bounced off the trees. He found Photius with his staff glowing. “Get back to Bilavod, quickly!” he shouted, and they ran as fast as they could.

Behind them, hooves thundered again. Photius whirled and his staff flashed bright again, but he slumped, exhausted; the spells were sapping his strength. Javor grabbed his shoulder and propelled him through the trees until they reached the clearing and could see Bilavod’s holody. Mstys stood inside the barely open gate, waving the two closer. “Hurry, hurry!” he called, and slammed the gate shut just as the two jumped inside. They heard
thunk
!
thunk
! as arrows hit the logs.

“
Are you all that escaped?” Mstys asked, dismayed.

“
I’m afraid so,” Photius panted. “The young men—”

“
I’m sorry, Mstys,” said Javor. “I tried to stop them.” He felt tears on his face as he thought of the brave, stupid Krasimir and the doomed Hach.

Mstys didn’t say anything, but a woman stepped up behind him. “Murderer!” she screamed. “Butcher of children! Don’t think we don’t know what you’ve been up to!”

Javor shrunk back. “It was you who told them they knew how to fight!” the woman went on. “It was you who lied to them! It was you who led them to be slaughtered!”

“
No, I was trying—”

There was no time to argue; burning arrows fell inside the stockade and villagers ran to put out the flames. A few archers shot through the loopholes that Photius had ordered made, while women brought Photius his powders and tools.

The rain of arrows stopped. Mstys peered through a loophole. “They’ve surrounded us, but they’re not doing anything. They’re waiting for something.”

Photius worked feverishly, measuring out powders and treating arrows, doling them out as he could to the archers. “Don’t shoot anything until I tell you to,” he said. Javor helped as much as he could. The villagers rushed to reinforce the walls and pile logs and other odd items against the gate, but Javor knew it was useless.
They need to be doing something
. Somewhere, the mothers of the dead young fighters in the forest cried.

A tense calm gradually filled the
holody
. No one spoke. They stood, peering through loopholes and watch-holes, or tended fires or held unlit torches ready.

Outside, the raiders slowly circled the
holody
, silent and terrifying, just beyond bow range. The morning wore on, growing hotter, but still they did nothing. “They’re waiting for reinforcements,” said Mstys. He was soon proved right. By midmorning, thirty more riders joined the twenty that had ambushed Javor and the young men. They spread around the stockade evenly and, when they were all in place, raised their bows and shot volley after volley of fire-arrows into the
holody
.

The villagers did not panic. Mstys had ordered that thatch be taken off the roofs of the buildings and thrown outside the walls. The arrows did little damage as the villagers quickly and efficiently poured sand on the flames or stamped them out.

The raiders broke off their fusillade. Mstys took the chance to put his head above the wall. “What do you want?” he yelled, but received only jeers in reply.

Javor looked through a loophole to see a group of riders raise their swords and charge. There was a loud crash at the gates, and the whole stockade moved, but held.

“
They have a battering ram!” shouted Mstys. Archers jumped to loopholes on the sides of the gates where they could shoot at anyone attacking there and began to fire Photius’ burning arrows. They hit their targets, but the raiders had learned since the night before and immediately dropped and rolled on the ground. Several were hurt badly enough to withdraw, but Javor knew they couldn’t drive them all off that way.

The battering ram was a big log carried between two horses; its crew backed the animals up, then slapped their hindquarters to send them charging at the gate again. “Kill the horses!” Javor shouted. Reluctantly, an archer shot at the horse, setting it afire. It tried to run, but fell on the other horse, setting it and the log ablaze as well. Javor felt sick at the pitiful sight of the dying horse.

Then the riders charged from all directions at once, standing on their saddles to vault the stockade. One landed behind Javor, whose sword seemed to find its own way to the raider’s head, biting through the mail and killing him on the spot. Javor wrenched the sword free of the falling body and ran toward another attacker. His sword led the way, piercing the man’s chest.

But there were too many of them. They killed villagers indiscriminately. Spears and swords bloodied tunics and skirts. Mstys wielded a scythe, cutting down the raiders until a blow to his head knocked him down. Photius had his sword out and Javor saw him dispatch two raiders before another blocked his view.

Javor swung his sword, but the raider was quick and skilled and engaged him in a terrifying bout. Time after time, Javor barely dodged swipes of the curved blade. He couldn’t connect and was conscious of his own lack of skill and experience.

The other man knew he had the advantage. He hit Javor on the arm, then on the head with the flat of his blade. He drew no blood, but the pain slowed Javor down. He swung his blade again and missed again. His opponent seemed to go for his chest, but suddenly swiped savagely at Javor’s legs, tripping him. Javor went down hard. The amulet fell out of his jerkin then, but its chain was still on his neck, and Javor grabbed it unconsciously. The curved sword struck his back, ringing on the armour, but it didn’t penetrate.

Javor rolled on top of his sword. He tried to get out his dagger, but the raider brought his down on Javor’s chest. The blow winded Javor, but the armour held, ringing.

He sat up and leaped forward at his opponent’s legs, bringing the man down, and drove his dagger into the man’s face and up into his brain. The raider spasmed, then slumped, dead.

Another blow took off his helmet and blinded Javor. He scrambled to his feet, clutching at his amulet. A huge raider, almost a head taller than him, swung a huge sword at his neck, aiming to take his head off, but missed; Javor felt the wind as the blade swept past his face. He lunged forward, using the dagger-to-the-brain strategy again, and it worked again. He picked his broadsword off the ground and ran to a knot of villagers who were trying to fend off ten or more raiders. From the corner of his eye, he saw yet more climbing the walls.
It’s hopeless
.

Javor reached the knot of fighters and ran his sword into one’s back, pulled it out and slashed at another raider who was about to decapitate Slawko, the refugee from Kletka. Allia was behind him, brandishing a small knife used for filleting fish. She looked terrified and grateful at the same time, but then Javor jumped past her and killed another raider coming up from behind.
It’s no good. There are too many of them
.

Photius and Mstys were beside him, then, and pulled them toward one of the buildings where a group of people from Bilavod and Kletka had grouped to make a stand. They had bows, long knives, a scythe, axes and a few captured swords. They stood against the low wooden wall of a store-house, facing ten armoured raiders. Most of them were wounded; Mstys was bleeding from his face, another man—
Lesek
?— from the leg.