The Last Light of the Sun (39 page)

“Some
of them will be coming,” said Ceinion. “But we must reach the longships before they get them off from shore.”

“They’ve done that already. Jormsvik knows how to do these things. We’ll try to block their way home with the fleet in Drengest. I have six ships. I sent riders to them—they’ll be in the water before sundown. Fishing boats out, too, to watch for them. If we find this rescue party, the Erlings will be undermanned at sea. They have horses, which means the wide, slow boats, not the fighting ones. I mean to take them all, Ceinion.”

“If they go home, my lord,” Ceinion said quietly.

Aeldred threw him a glance.

“What is it I don’t know?” the king asked.

The cleric was about to tell him when the horns blew. Then the great grey dog, Alun’s dog, sounded his own warning, and ahead of them Ceinion saw the Erlings, with the river just beyond.

One of the outriders was galloping back; he reined hard beside them. “Forty or fifty, my lord! Mostly on foot.”

“We have them, then. Get the mounted ones first,” the king ordered. “No messages back.
Athelbert!”

“Going, my lord!” his son shouted over his shoulder, already moving, calling for archers as he went.

Ceinion watched the prince ride, readying his bow, easy in the saddle, his archers swift and smooth to respond to commands: precisely trained, his own contingent here. A very different man than his brother. The sons of Aeldred, he thought, might have divided their father’s nature between themselves. That could happen; he had seen it before. He also had a thought, as battle began, about the
way
Aeldred’s men were fighting today: from the saddle, with arrows as well as spears, which was
new, and immensely difficult. And even more difficult to counter, if they had mastered it. It looked very much as though Athelbert and his archers had done that.

His own people, Ceinion thought, had even more reason to try—to at least
try
—to come together now, and find some way to join the world beyond their hidden valleys. There might be a certain pride in being the last light of the god’s sun, where it set in the west, but there were dangers as well.

Such thoughts were for later. Right now he watched a good-sized party of Jormsvik mercenaries form another desperate circle as Athelbert’s archers and the others came up to them. The raiders had already crossed the river; bad for them. They couldn’t have retreated in any case, outnumbered and facing horsemen in hostile country.

They were brave men. No one on earth could deny or refute that. No swords or axes were thrown down, not even when the command to surrender was given by one of Athelbert’s thegns. Ceinion saw two Erling riders racing back west for the river: not cowards, messengers. Athelbert and five of his archers were pursuing them.

Arrows flew from moving horses—and missed. The Jormsvik raiders splashed into the river, which was deeper and wider here than by Esferth. They began fording it. Athelbert came up to the bank of the Thorne. Ceinion watched as the prince took steadier aim and fired. Twice.

He was too far to see what happened in the water, but a moment later Athelbert and his riders turned back. The prince lifted an arm to signal his father. Then he rode calmly to rejoin the
fyrd
surrounding the Erling force. Men had just died here, Ceinion knew, as they had this morning and in the night. What did you make of that? What words and reflections? It was the fate of men and women to die, often before what should have been
their time.
Should have been.
Too much presumption in the thought. All rested with Jad, but survivors carried memories.

He moved forward when the king did.

“Have care, my lord,” cried a red-haired thegn. “They haven’t yielded.”

“Shoot ten,” said Aeldred.

“My lord!”
Ceinion protested.

Ten men were shot where they stood, even as he spoke. Athelbert’s archers were really very good. You watched them and you learned something important about the prince, frivolous as he might seem when at play in a meadow.

“You said you want us to get to the ships,” the king said tersely, watching the deaths, not looking at him. “If they can send forty in a rescue party, they’ll have five, maybe six ships. Might even be seven, depending on how many horses. I’ll need my whole company. And good men will die in that fight, if we get to them in time. Don’t ask me to linger here, or be merciful. Not this day, cleric.”

Cleric.
No more than that. A king celebrated for courtesy, suing eloquently for Ceinion’s presence at his court. But there was a rage in Aeldred now, Ceinion saw, and the king was hard-pressed to contain it. In fact, he couldn’t; it was spilling over. Burgred of Denferth had been a friend from childhood. And beyond that truth, this was a large raid on the eve of the fair in Esferth—threatening to undermine the very idea of the fair. What merchants would come to these shores from abroad, or even overland from north or east, if they had cause to fear attacks from Vinmark?

“Hear me. I am Aeldred of the Anglcyn,” the king said, moving his bay horse forward. Two of the
fyrd
shifted to stay between him and the Erlings. Axes could be thrown. “Whichever man leads here, order your men to lay down their arms.”

Aeldred waited. Athelbert, Ceinion saw, was looking at his father, bow still to hand. No one moved in the Erling circle, or spoke. Swords and short axes remained levelled outwards. About thirty of them now. If they charged, they’d die; so would some of the Anglcyn.
The king is too close,
he thought.

Aeldred shifted his horse sideways, and even nearer. “Do it now, Erlings. Unless you wish ten more of you executed. The men you were sent to meet are dead behind us. All of them. If you fight you will be killed here without mercy. There are two hundred of us.”

“Better die sword in hand than cut down as cowards.” A very big man, yellow-bearded to the chest, stepped forward. “You give sworn oath to ransom if we yield ourselves?”

Aeldred opened his mouth. He was rigid again. The idea of a demand … He looked at his son.

“No, my lord!” Ceinion cried. “No! They
will
yield!”

Aeldred’s mouth snapped shut. His jaw was clenched, his gloved hands fists on his reins. Ceinion saw him close his eyes. After a long moment, the king loosened the fingers of one hand and made the sign of the sun disk. Ceinion drew a ragged breath. His palms were sweating.

“Drop all weapons and tell us where the ships are. You will not be killed.”

The yellow-bearded Erling stared at him. It was remarkable, Ceinion thought, the absence of fear in his eyes. “No. We yield ourselves to you, but cannot betray shipmates.”

Aeldred shrugged. “Athelbert,” he said, before Ceinion could speak.

The Erling leader died, falling backwards, three arrows in his chest, through the leather armour. A fourth went into his cheekbone, below the helmet, quivered there, where he lay in the grass.

“Who is it,” Aeldred said after a moment, “who will now speak for you? You have no more time. Weapons down, guides to the longships.”

“My lord,” Ceinion said again, desperately. “In the holy name of Jad and by all the blessed—”

Aeldred wheeled on him. “Heed your own words! Do you want these ships stopped before they go west and not east?
Do you?”

“In Jad’s name, we do!” came a third, urgent voice.

Ceinion looked over quickly. Alun ab Owyn was moving his horse towards them. “We do, my lord king! Kill them and ride! Surely you know where they might be! High cleric, you heard: Ivarr Ragnarson bought these men. They will be going for Brynnfell, not home! We can’t get back in time!”

He’d figured it out, after all.

It seemed he wasn’t too young. And he was right, of course, about the timing. Ships from Drengest, out to sea by sundown, ordered to block sea lanes east, would not catch up to trained Erling seamen by the time new orders reached them. Even if they followed them west—and Aeldred had no reason to give such a command—they’d be more than half a day behind, and they wouldn’t be as skilled on the water.

“Athelbert, please proceed, if you will be so good,” said the king of the Anglcyn. He might have been asking his elder son to comment, in his turn, on a liturgical passage being considered.

Ceinion, in great pain, watched ten more Erlings die. They’d refused to surrender, he told himself. Aeldred had given them that chance. The pain did not lessen. Even after the arrows flew, no one came forward from the now-shrunken circle to yield. Instead, the last twenty of them screamed together, terrifyingly, distilling childhood nightmares for Ceinion in that sound, as they cried the
names of their gods to the blue sky and the white clouds. They charged straight into the arrows and blades of two hundred mounted men.

Could childhood fears be expunged in this way, Ceinion wondered, remembering how many chapels and sanctuaries and good, holy men had burned amid those same cries to Ingavin and Thünir.

He watched the first Erlings fall, and then the last, swords and axes gripped, never betraying their fellows. They died in battle, weapons to hand, and so promised a place among eagles in halls of undying glory.

It appalled him, and he never forgot the unspeakable courage of it. Hating every one of those men, and what they made him think.

There was a silence, after, in the field. It all took remarkably little time.

“Very well. Let us go,” said the king, after a long moment. “We will leave instructions farther south for men to come gather their weapons and burn them here.”

He twitched his reins, turned his horse. Alun ab Owyn, Ceinion saw, was already ahead of them all, desperately impatient. The grey dog was beside him.

“My lord!” said the red-haired thegn. “Look there.”

He was pointing back south and east, to where oaks between them and the sea were broken by a valley. Ceinion turned, with Aeldred.

“Oh, my,” said Prince Athelbert.

A group of men, eight or ten of them, some mounted, some on foot, with other horses pulling a cart, were coming towards them, waving and calling, voices carrying faintly in the summer air, and then more clearly as they neared.

No one moved. The small party approached. It took some time. Their leader was riding in the cart; he appeared to have a wound, was holding his side. He was
also the one most vigorously shouting, gesticulating with his free hand, visibly agitated.

Visibly from the south, as well, Ceinion saw. And speaking a foreign tongue.

“Jad’s holy light,” said King Aeldred, softly. “They are Asharite. From Al-Rassan. What is he saying? Someone?”

Ceinion knew fragments of Esperañan, not Asharite. He tried it. Called a greeting.

Without missing a beat in his tirade, the merchant in the cart switched languages. The king turned to Ceinion, expectantly. Forty dead men lay on the grass around them. Two of Athelbert’s men had dismounted, were efficiently collecting arrows.

“He is outraged, my lord, and unhappy. They declare themselves to have been assaulted, injured, and robbed on their way to Esferth Fair. By one man, if I understand properly. An Erling. He took a horse. A good horse, I gather. Meant for you, in Esferth. They are … they are displeased with the protection being offered to visitors.”

Aeldred looked from the cleric to the man in the cart. His eyes had widened.

“Ibn Bakir?” he said, looking at the merchant. “My stud horse? My manuscripts?”

Ceinion translated as best he could. Then, somewhat belatedly, told the visitors who the man on the bay horse was.

The Asharite merchant straightened, too quickly. The cart was a precarious place to stand. He bowed, almost fell. One of his fellows steadied him. The merchant had a wound in his right side; blood welled through what appeared to be green silk. He had a dark bruise on the side of his head. He nodded energetically, however. Turned, reached down, still being steadied, and pulled some parchment scrolls from a trunk behind him. He waved them in the air, the way he’d waved his
hand before, calling for aid. Someone laughed, then controlled himself.

“Ask him,” said Alun ab Owyn, his voice strained, “if the Erling was unusual in his appearance.” They hadn’t heard him come back.

The king glanced over at Alun. Ceinion asked the question. He didn’t know the word for “unusual” but managed “strange.” The merchant’s effusive manner grew calmer. With the overexcited manner fading, he seemed more impressive, notwithstanding the fluttering green garment. This was a man who had, after all, travelled a long way. He answered gravely, standing on his cart.

Ceinion heard him; felt a wind in his soul.

“He says the Erling was white as a dead spirit, his face, his hair. Not natural. He surprised them rushing out from the trees, took only the horse.”

“Ragnarson,” said Alun, unnecessarily. He was looking at Aeldred. “My lord king, we must ride. We can beat him there—they lied to you this morning, back in the meadow. He
wasn’t
with their messengers to the ships. He’s just ahead of us!”

“I believe,” said the king of the Anglcyn, “that this is so. I agree with you. We should ride.”

Five men were detailed to escort the merchants to Esferth and lodge them with honour. The rest of the
fyrd
turned west and south. They paused only to fill their flasks and let the horses drink. It was Alun ab Owyn who led them splashing into the River Thorne and across, and it was Alun who set the pace after, alongside the woods, until some of those who actually knew where they were going caught up with him.

The king, his bay horse galloping beside Ceinion’s, asked only one question on the long ride that followed.

“Ragnarson is the man who led the raid last spring? Brynnfell? When the Cadyri prince was killed?”

Ceinion nodded. There was nothing more to say and a great need for speed.

They never caught up with him, never saw more than the sign of tracks ahead, alone at first, then merging with those of another horse—following it, not side by side. The tracks ran back south-east a little as the river curved between ridges of hills. Both sets, cutting at precisely the place where the Anglcyn outsiders had thought they might. They followed, galloping, between stream and forest, and they came at length to a sheltered strand of stones, and the sea.