The Right Hand of God (39 page)

'It's only autumn!' Leith shouted, shrugging his shoulders in exasperation. 'How long can this last?'

Kurr shook his head in reply. Nothing was to be gained by pointing out Leith had chosen to ignore his advice. Farr did not hold back: 'We don't know the answer! We don't live here, remember?'

On and on the blizzard raged. Finally this arrow is of some practical use, Leith reflected as he rode on through the snow. He wouldn't freeze to death, he could use it to see a little further than others, he could light fires, and on a couple of occasions used it to melt away snowdrifts that blocked their path. But he couldn't be in every place, and the snow depth could now be measured in feet.

Suddenly the wind died, then burst forth with even greater power; and the snowfall tripled in intensity, hammering at them as though the white world was collapsing inwards. What had been annoying quickly became serious, even fatal. Within minutes the army was in total chaos. While some had the good sense to stay put, huddling together with anyone^ they found, others struck out along the road - or where they

imagined the road to be. Men cried out their confusion, their anger, their fear . . . and eventually their despair, in increasingly weak voices.

As night fell in Vulture's Craw, so did silence.

On her second day of freedom Stella risked venturing on to the road, driven there by hunger.

The Bhrudwan army had churned up the surface, but in the bootmarks and beside the cold fire-places she found frozen scraps of food. Carrot greens, bread crusts, chewed jerky ends.

An hour of scrabbling and the Falthan girl gathered enough to beat back her hunger. She ate on her feet, pressing on down the never-ending slope, following the broken ground back into the heart of Bhrudwo.

In the middle of the afternoon a cold rain began to fall, gradually turning to sleet, soaking the miserable girl to the skin. She could feel her raw limbs begin to cool, her muscles stiffen, in spite of the effort she exerted just to climb the road. She knew she should be afraid. Unless she turned and ran back to the Destroyer she would die, but she also knew beyond any shadow of doubt she would rather die out here, alone in the snows of a strange land, than ever see that hated litter again. Her death would be clean, a result of her own choice, given at the hands of a nature more merciful in its indifference than the cruel hands of evil men. Were she to return to the Bhrudwans her death would be inevitable, and could come in one of a number of awful ways, like the burning Duke of Roudhos, or the arrow-feathered men of the nameless village, or their handless children. She would walk on until she fell.

Shaking with the cold, she trudged over the shoulder of yet another ridge; and there, lying discarded in the middle of the road, was a soldier's pack, just like those the Bhrudwan soldiers carried. She scuttled towards it like a frantic spider, trying to get her knees to bend. It is real, it is real, she told herself, her mind as sluggish as her body as she forced her blue fingers to work at the buckles. Inside, filling most of the pack, she found a great black cloak with a red bib, fringed in red. An officer's cloak. Only officers' cloaks had the red fringe as well as the red bib. One of Roudhos's men, then. Perhaps he'd protested the treatment meted out to his lord. Happy with her reasoning, Stella shook the cloak out, then wrapped herself in its fur-lined length. What else? Stout boots. Too big, but they could be packed with fur from the cloak. Some food, and a flask of some foul-smelling liquor she tipped out on the spot.

Wira. Her brother. Both taken by the drink. She would not drink it, no matter how much it might warm her.

Slowly her mind focused. Now she had hope! Already she felt warmer. With the cloak, the boots and the food in this pack, surely she could make it back to the village. Then, some time in the future, spring perhaps, she could try the long paths back to Faltha and the people she loved.

Buoyed by these thoughts, Stella picked up the pack and eased it on to her shoulders, adjusting the straps with warming fingers. She did not for a moment wonder why, when all around was frozen and snow-shrouded, the pack was dry and uncovered.

Leith blundered on and on, unsure of his direction, completely alone in the heart of the blizzard. Sixty thousand soldiers lost, he kept saying to himself. Sixty thousand lost. He had been transported to some other valley where he was the only one alive, he and his feebly burning arrow. He was unhorsed and without hope, wandering the valley of the damned, reaping

the reward for his wilful decision that had cost so many lives, and would cost so many more.

Occasionally he would stumble over a solid lump, each time to discover the body of a warrior, frozen to death. The first time he tried to thaw the man out with his arrow, but merely made a steaming, sodden mess which caused him to retch until he threw up. Most High! Most High!

Where are you! How could you let this happen?

At one point the darkness lifted, signifying morning, Leith supposed, though he could barely raise any interest in the fact he had walked all night. A little while later he nearly fell into the Aleinus River, a smoking sliver of grey foam racing past him from right to left - east to west, he remembered, visualising the map - like a runnel of molten metal in a giant's forge. East to west. He had been walking downriver. Was that the right way? Had his army continued upriver to their soft white graves?

Later in the morning, after burning his way through a snowdrift, he met his first living man.

He was a soldier of Instruere, blue with cold, and he had his arm under the shoulder of a dead man, trying to drag him along the road to safety. Leith tried to persuade him to put the body down, but he would not: eventually, after an hour of arguing, Leith took the corpse's other arm and together the three of them made their way westwards.

Around a bluff they struggled; and, as though they had crossed an invisible boundary drawn by some cruel weather god, the snow stopped. Ahead of them lay a wide grey smudge on the snowy river flat. As they drew closer, Leith could see movement along the length of the smudge, which eventually resolved itself into a huge gathering of people. His army. Or the remnant, at least.

As heads looked up, and the cry went out at the sight of

his Arrow, Leith collapsed to the ground in tears. Strong hands took hold of him, bearing him aloft like some kind of trophy, carrying him gently to the tents and the fires, but Leith was barely aware of them. He scarcely saw the kindly but worried faces bend over his prone form; his mother and father, his villager friends, others of his Company, and his brother.

The Arrow-bearer was safe, it was announced, and the remnants of the mighty Army of Faltha rejoiced. If a few fools cursed his name privately, none said a word against him in public; for who among them, however blessed with supernatural power, could fight against the heart of a storm such as that? The fact he survived, some argued, was proof enough he remained the Most High's anointed Right Hand. Many soldiers talked about how they had seen the light of the Arrow in the midst of the blizzard, shining like a beacon, directing them westwards out of the storm's grim jaws. No, he was their saviour; he had led them to safety.

As Leith lay in a swoon, the Company listened stolidly to the recitation of their losses.

Perhaps ten thousand men unaccounted for - ten thousand! Some of these men would surely have survived, in the opinion of experienced campaigners. March in the winter, they said, and this was the inevitable result. Perhaps, the optimistic among them said, a number had made it through to the far side of the storm and would continue to Kaskyne or some other place of safety, but the members of the Company had all seen enough dead bodies on their struggle through the blizzard to doubt that argument. Then there had been the disaster of the avalanche: just before the last bluff, only yards from safety, a wall of snow had come roaring down the mountain, obliterating many of the wagons and taking hundreds of people to their deaths. Sjenda had been lost, as had many of the men from Deruys who tended the wagons, swept right across the valley and into the river.

Worse, in the opinion of the strategists, the army would lose a week, maybe more. It would clearly take time for the army to recover, they advised the Company. To press on now would risk further deaths from exhaustion. Some of the soldiers would disguise the degree of their hurt, or simply would not realise how badly they were affected until exposed once again to the rigours of the path. Then there was their morale to think about. Perhaps it would be best to take a few days to recover, some said, but the strategists were divided on this.

'Get them back on the road as soon as possible,' said Jethart of Inch Chanter. 'Don't give them time to think about their hurts, or you'll not be able to contain the numbers who want to desert.'

Some of the younger generals accused the old man of having no compassion, but others read him better, realising he wanted the maximum number of soldiers to survive in good enough condition to fight. He argued for his position in a firm voice, and gradually his logic won the day.

Leith awoke to muttering. A voice droned on in the distance, but around him a few voices discussed their situation.

'Any campaign such as this is bound to suffer losses.'

Losses?

'The Sna Vazthan army lost more than ten thousand men on the march home from reducing Haurn.'

Ten thousand men!

At least the losian army survived relatively unscathed. They had those big cow-things—'

Aurochs!

'—to protect them from the worst of the snow. Anyway, they hail from parts like this; used to it, no doubt.'

What have I done?

'We still have the Arrow-bearer. He'll protect us. Did you hear about the prophecy carved on the ceiling of Fealty Castle? We just have to keep him alive - oh, he's awake! Everyone, the Arrow-bearer is awake!'

At the end of a terrible week, Stella finally came to the outskirts of the village she sought. She had been in no danger of losing her way, as the Bhrudwan army had left a trail wide enough for a child to follow, and they had been careless enough to discard many treasures in their haste westwards. She had not wanted for food, and her fur greatcloak kept her warm.

Yesterday she found a flint, and spent an enjoyable night by the fire: if it were not for the unfamiliar night-sounds around her little camp, and a dreadful feeling of loneliness, she could almost have convinced herself she was back on the Westway with her friends.

The boards were still there, upon which the men of the village had been nailed, but their dreadful human adornments had been removed, by wild animals, no doubt. A few half-eaten carcasses lay in the snow, some smaller than others, and Stella chose not to examine them too closely. She would have to be careful. If bears or wolves regarded this area as an easy source of food, she might be in danger.

Down a gentle slope she went, eyes wide open, looking for any sign of life. She glanced to her right, where the trees hid what had become of the women . . . she would not go there, even if someone was still alive. Past the first ragged hut, little more than a charred ruin, door swinging slowly in

the breeze. The sudden barking of dogs rent the air. Stella started, shrinking into the shadows of the hut, as three thin curs bounded past, the first with something in its jaws, the other two dogs chasing it as though in pursuit of treasure. Their snapping and snarling continued for some time. She waited until they had gone, then continued her progress through the village.

There! Off to the left! A hut that was more or less whole, with smoke issuing from the chimney. Oh, Most High, someone was alive! Breaking into a run, Stella made for the hut. As she reached out for the door latch, it occurred to her she had not been careful enough, she had not thought things through, the people inside the hut might not be pleased to see her.

But she couldn't stop herself; the need for human contact, to sustain her hope, was too great.

She grasped the handle, threw open the door, stepped into the hut, saw the blue fire set in the grate . . . saw the four white-robed eunuchs. . . saw the Man in the grey robe stand and turn to her . . . heard his words of welcome, and was engulfed in his wild laughter ...

She stuffed her fist into her mouth but screamed nonetheless, horror beyond horror, as the Destroyer took her by the arm and led her to a chair by the fire.

'Did you think you had escaped us, pretty one?' he asked her, leaning over her like a vulture, his grip painful on her arm. 'That all you needed to do was run and you would be free?'

Her chest was a fire of pain, despair a flame that threatened to consume her. Surely her heart no longer beat within her chest. She wanted to howl and howl.

'Who watched over you every night to ensure you survived? Who left the pack in your path so that you could make it

this far? Who waited patiently in this hut, longing to see the look on your face when you realised what has happened to you?'

Stella could do nothing but moan. His harsh, angular face hovered over hers, blurred by her tears.

'You are mine, now and forever. I declare it, and thus it is so. You are marked, having been drawn through the blue fire. I can track you wherever you go. I know you, Stella. I know your fears, I put them there. We will be married, you and I, a symbol of a world united under my hand. You will rule over Faltha, I prophesy it, so know it for truth. You will be the Falthan queen, dark and terrible, and will reign over a thousand years of torment!'

His words echoed in her head, sealing themselves to her as though a second skin, and she shuddered at their touch.

The Destroyer turned his raging eyes away from her, and she collapsed as though boneless.

Dimly she heard the black-robed fiend issue orders to his eunuchs; faintly she felt their loathsome touch as they lifted her up, took her outside and bound her behind the saddle of a horse.

The last thing she heard before she passed out was the Destroyer. 'Hurry, now. My pleasure has cost my army a week's marching. A small price, and one we can easily afford, but we cannot allow the Falthans any real hope.'