The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (17 page)

In his mind he labelled his immediate opponents as Left, Middle and Right. He parried the cuts, deflected the thrusts, and waited. Picking his moment he stepped hard to the right, taking himself out of the reach of Left, parrying Middle and catching Right’s sword on his own blade, lifting it up. He disengaged from Middle and used that blade to attack Right, who was now undefended. He thrust into the man’s face, turned, and pushed himself back to the wall, parried, parried, cut.

Ten.

They were not going to get anywhere near him, blood silver or not. They were just too slow, and his position was too good. He tried the move again, going to the left this time, and again it worked and his blade took the leftmost cleanser in the throat.

Nine.

Just how slow witted were they? He tried again, this time to the right, but his target moved with him, disengaged and attacked again. So they did learn. Well, he could use that against them, too. He began a move to the right again, in exactly the same pattern, and Left followed him, coming into the gap, just a little less prepared than he should have been. Narak reversed his movement, barrelling into Left, knocking his sword to one side and wrapping his left arm around the man’s neck. He lifted and twisted, heard a satisfying crunch as the man’s neck broke, and threw his limp body at the others, knocking Middle down and forcing the others to step back. He pressed his advantage, stamping on Middle’s groin before driving his blade down into his neck. The remaining cleansers swarmed back and he allowed them the space, going back to his position by the wall.

Seven.

It would be more difficult now. They stood back from him, less eager to attack, and for a while it was almost sword tip to sword tip, the distances too great for anyone to inflict harm on anyone else, but if they sought to tire him they would be disappointed. He did not tire, could fight in this fashion for a day and a night. He wasn’t here to dance.

He began to move forwards and backwards. Pressing into Middle, driving him out from the wall, and then falling back to his safe position, forcing them to follow him. The movement gave him greater possibilities. He began to attack the blades to each side of him as he moved, forcing them wider, allowing Middle the slightest of openings. Middle was a cautious man, and held back the first time, hesitated at the second opportunity, but the third time he could not resist and came in with a quick thrust, placing himself effectively one on one with Narak.

He didn’t use the blade this time, but punched the hilt of his right hand sword into the man’s face, sending him backwards into the man behind him. They both fell to the ground, and the three to his left pulled back. Right stayed close, however, perhaps expecting him to step forwards again and attack Middle, but Narak now had unprecedented space, and attacked the close man, knocking Right’s sword away and putting a killing blow through his neck that pierced all the way through to the high collar of his armour.

Six, and one of those still alive was no real threat, his nose broken, blood in his eyes.

As yet no blade had touched him, and his confidence grew. He began to expand his style, showing off some of the more outrageous moves that he had practiced with Caster. He jumped, spun, kicked, punched. Everything became a weapon. He broke the neck of a man behind him with a prodigious blow from the pommel of his sword. He kicked the legs out from under another, disarmed a third, sending his blade clattering across the room. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

“Are you ready for me, Bel Arac?” he called out. He killed another man with a blow that found the gap between his armour and his helmet, a space no more than half an inch at best. Now there were four, and he could see the shadow in their eyes. They knew that they were dead men. They were tiring and he was not. He battered them, kicked them, knocked them over, almost playing with them now.

Then he stood back, made the gap between them an offering, a respite, and everything stopped. He looked at the four remaining men and gestured to them. Lay down your swords. Surrender. He saw two of the men exchange looks. A third, perhaps the oldest of the remaining four looked at him with hard eyes.

“We will not bow to you, demon,” he said. He spoke Afalel, heavily accented, but clear enough.

“I do not ask it,” Narak replied in the same tongue. “You are beaten. If you fight on you will die. I am offering you life.”

“At what price? You will take our souls.”

“One soul is enough for any man. I have no need of another. All I ask is that you lay down your blades.”

“Why?”

“I do not need to kill you. You do not need to die.”

“It is a trick.”

“It is not. I have no need of tricks.”

One of the other men interrupted, speaking to the one that had been speaking with Narak. His words were a question, but Narak did not know the language. A conversation began; an argument. He guessed it was between those who wished to live and fight another day, and those who desired to carry out their orders to the letter. He could imagine the words. Pragmatism versus honour: it was a debate as old as the art of war itself.

“You can trust what he says. His word is the only thing stronger than his blade.”

The voice came from the shattered doorway. It was the officer who had allowed him to pass into the keep, and there were others there; an audience. The officer spoke Afalel.

It was timely reinforcement for the pragmatic side of the debate. One of the Seth Yarra took matters into his own hands and cast his blade to the ground. The Afalel speaker threatened him, but was in turn seized by another, who shook him and shouted at him.

In a few moments the argument was won. The other swords were thrown down.

“We will submit,” the older man said reluctantly. “And when this place is taken we will fight again.”

“That is your choice,” Narak said. “But remember to whom you owe your life.”

“We owe our lives to Seth Yarra,” the man declared.

Narak shook his head. He spoke to the officer. “Take these four. Keep them locked below.”

He looked for Bel Arac, but the Marquis was no longer in the great chair. He was nowhere to be seen. Reason said that he could not have passed through the main entrance to the chamber. Others would have seen, and he would have passed close enough for Narak to notice him. He ran the length of the hall and through the door behind the great chair into the private chambers.

He was in a lavishly furnished room. There was no sign of the Marquis, but three doors, all closed, promised more. He kicked one open and found a bed chamber. It, too, was empty. He returned to the first room and tried the second door. A study. Papers lay scattered about, and he made a note to come back later. There might be some interesting correspondence here.

The third door was also a dead end and an empty room. He had seen no other doors.

Back in the main hall he found the officer still there, and a few of the others. The prisoners were gone.

“The Marquis, did you see him come by you?”

“No, Deus.”

What then? Some form of magic? A concealment? Perhaps something simpler. He went back to the private rooms and stood in the middle of the first chamber. He could not become the wolf while wearing armour, even though the wolf would scent the traitor’s route in a moment. It would take too long, and there was another way.

He allowed the veil to fall, taking on his full aspect as a god, the wolf and the man combined. Power flowed through him, a sun shone within his chest, flooding him with warmth. His eyes became sharper, his hearing more sensitive, and more importantly, he could smell like a wolf.

He dropped to his knees and closed his eyes, casting for the trail. It was not hard to find, and he scrambled across the floor in an undignified half crawl that took him through the door of the bed chamber and up to the wall next to the bed. Here the trail ended.

He rapped on the panel next to the bed. It replied with a hollow sound. He had no time to look for a mechanism. It would be artfully hidden somewhere on the bed, and could take hours to locate. He kicked the panel several times until it was nothing but matchwood, and revealed a dark opening about four feet high and two wide. He looked inside and saw that it gave onto a corridor, and then steps leading down. It was all in darkness, but with wolf eyes there was enough light to see his way. He squeezed through the broken panel and hurried down the stairs. They wound downwards to what he guessed was level with the ground, and then became another corridor. He could see light, and ran forwards.

He emerged into the dim light of the stables, behind a stack of hay bales. The door, which closely resembled other parts of the stable walls, had been left open. He assumed the veil again, hiding his god aspect and walked swiftly into the stable yard. A groom was standing with a stable boy looking the other way.

“In a hurry was he?”

They jumped, startled by his sudden appearance.

“Deus.” They chorused his title, knelt.

“The Marquis?”

“Gone, Deus,” the groom replied. “Just moments ago. He took the swiftest horse.”

Narak could still hear the hooves clattering on cobbles as the Marquis rode out through the gate in the curtain wall. If he ran, if he ran really fast, he would get to the gate while the traitor was still in range of a thrown knife. He could throw a knife with great accuracy over a considerable distance.

But Narak did not run. He stood and listened as the clattering hooves bore the Marquis along the street that led to the city gates. Bel Arac was a man alone now, and vengeance would be well served by waiting.

Where would he go? Narak guessed south, south to the border and the force he expected to find there. They were close, and the Marquis could not yet have heard that they had been wiped out by Prince Havil. What then would he do when he discovered there was no safe haven to the south?

Bel Arac would head for the nearest large force of Seth Yarra, he guessed. Now that would be an interesting direction to discover.

He felt the wolves in the hills outside the city, felt them become aware of him.

Follow this one.

He gave them the scent.

Follow and do not be seen. Follow no-pack, disperse. Be alone, each of you.

Now he had to wait, and there was Havil in Tor Silas, and Quinnial in Bas Erinor.

He chose Havil.

He enjoyed Havil. Of all the princes, kings, lords and dukes he had met in the last month Havil reminded him most of the great warriors of the old alliance that had thrown back Seth Yarra. Havil was strong, honest, and his motives were simple. The people of Berash saw it to, and they loved their prince.

He was welcomed in Tor Silas as Havil’s friend and ally. The guards were cheerful, and less in awe of him than he expected. They were treating him, he realised, as they treated their prince. They were also celebrating a victory. Havil had taken an army into the field and returned victorious. They did not yet know their enemy, but it was clear that the chance of war with Avilian was much reduced, and most were pleased by that.

Havil came to meet him. That was the gesture of a friend. The big man was clearly still dusty from the road, and should have been bathing by the look and smell of him, but he strode down the stairs with a broad smile of his face and clenched his fist by way of a salute.

“Victory, Deus!” he cried. Narak could not prevent the smile that came to his own lips.

“It lightens my heart to hear you say it, Lord Prince,” he replied. “It went as you planned?”

Havil did not bow, did not fawn upon him as others did, but there was no disrespect there, and Narak was glad of it. The prince was full of news and bursting to share it. They climbed the stairs to the King’s private apartments side by side.

“I could not have wished for a better outcome. The surprise was complete, and most of their archers were down in the first two volleys. They were a hard lot, though. Fought well. I took few prisoners and lost a score of men.”

“Have you determined who they are?”

“I have not. The prisoners will not speak, or perhaps they cannot. They do not seem to understand what we say to them. They are willing enough to take food and water, but have to be shown it, and will not take the meaning when we tell them things they willingly do when we mime to them. I can make no sense of it when they speak among themselves.”

“Not a word, eh?”

“Worse than that. One of the prisoners bit out his own tongue and bled to death. He was already wounded and had suffered from loss of blood. Nothing we did could save him.”

“It is to your credit that you tried. Do any of your men speak Afalel?”

“Afalel? That is what they gab in Afael, is it not?”

“It is.”

“I do not know. I will have someone found. Do you think they are Afaeli?”

“I think a few of them might know the tongue, but I doubt they are Afaeli. I have captured a few strangers of my own in the last few days, and some of them spoke it, but with a strange accent.”

“Did they confess their origin, then?”

“They did not. I think I know it, but forgive me for playing coy, lord prince. I would wish to speak with the prisoners when I have paid my respects to the king.”

“Two with one blow, then. He is with the captured men.”

They changed course and headed for the castle’s copious dungeons. They were a remnant of an age when the king of Berash was not a kind man, and that unkindness had passed down a black line of kings with a fondness for the suffering of others. The darkness was long dead in the line of Berash, however, and it had been a well governed state since long before the Great War.

So it was that Havil led Narak into a complex of dark and unpleasant corridors that wove past empty rooms and open doors, the shame of which had long since perished. They came to a better lit section where they found guards, the king, and a clutch of prisoners.

There were seven in all. They were currently being questioned by the king, but to little effect. His questions were met with a surly silence.

The prisoners were arrayed in a dispirited group, eyes cast down, several of them still stained in the blood of their fallen comrades, and the majority wounded in some minor way, and the wounds not treated with more than a dirty bandage.

The king broke off his questioning when he saw Havil and Narak.

“Deus, as you see we have had some success, but I cannot get a thing from these men. They are not Avilian, or at least not born there. They do not speak a word of it.”

“Will you permit me to question them?”

“As you wish.” The king’s acquiescence was not without reservation, but Narak did not fret if the king felt his authority usurped. He wanted a quick resolution.

Narak moved into the circle of light where the prisoners could see him. He had left the armour back at Wolfguard and now appeared in good boots, breeches, a heavy white cotton tunic, and the ever present swords strapped across his back. He studied them for a moment, and one of two of them looked up to see the cause of the break in the king’s harangue and saw him. He spoke in Afalel.

“Hear me now, soldiers of Seth Yarra,” he said.

Two heads jerked upwards. He had hoped for one, but this was better. He guessed that Afalel was the only language that they had of the tongues of Terras, and that many had learned it before this incursion had begun.

“I am your judge,” he said to them. “I will judge you as I judged your forefathers before you. I am Narak the Wolf, victor of Afael, the one that you fear most, next to your own defeated god.”

The two prisoners who understood him stared, and the others looked from Narak to them and back again. One of them asked a question in a language Narak did not know, and got no answer.

“You are a man,” one of them said. He spoke Afalel with an even thicker accent than the cleanser he had captured in Bel Arac.

“What is your name, soldier?”

“I am Jod, son of Lim,” the soldier replied. He was a thick set creature with dark hair and eyes, features common to most Seth Yarra. His eyes were deep set, and his unshaven face was so abundantly hairy that he reminded Narak of a bear. His cheek had been cut in the battle, and the side of his head was bruised purple. Taken while he was unconscious, Narak guessed.

“Jod son of Lim, if I seem to be a man it is because I choose to appear that way.”

“Your mouth is tainted,” the prisoner said. It took a moment for Narak to understand. The man was accusing him of lying. He smiled.

“The twelve that you sent to Bel Arac believed me.”

Jod was visible taken aback by that. He squinted at Narak, and the other Afalel speaker said something to him. He replied, then turned back to Narak.

“How do you know of this?” he asked. Jod had little idea of subtlety, it seemed. He was not up to playing games around the truth.

“I killed eight of them. The others yielded.” He turned to Havil and Raffin and spoke in Berashi. “I discovered that the Marquis of Bel Arac was the traitor, lord king. He was guarded by twelve knights. He escaped, or thinks he did, but he will serve my purpose yet. He is followed.”

“What do you hope he will reveal?” Raffin asked.

“He comes towards the border to join this band, but they are destroyed. Once he learns this he will go elsewhere. It is that elsewhere that I wish to know. Another force of Seth Yarra, perhaps.”

“Seth Yarra? You have confirmed this?” Raffin looked worried, as well he might. To replace the prospect of war with Avilian with a conflict against an even greater foe was no relief at all.

“I have confirmed it, lord king. These men are Seth Yarra. The knights at Bel Arac were Seth Yarra – the priests they call cleansers – but as yet there is no indication of a large force. If there is an army to oppose, it remains concealed.”

Narak turned back to the prisoners. Jod and the other Afalel speaker were watching him carefully, but he did not think they understood what he said to Raffin. Perhaps they had heard him say the words Seth Yarra. That alone would tell them nothing.

“Your words are taint,” Jod said again.

Narak ignored him. “What is your rank?” he asked.

The man was guarded, but the guards were relaxed and the prisoners were not bound. Jod chose this moment to attack Narak, throwing himself forwards with teeth bared and fists clenched, uttering a sound remarkably like a wolf’s snarl. Narak avoided him easily, stepping to one side and planting a firm blow in the man’s gut. Jod collapsed at his feet, completely winded, and struggled to claw his way upright. The guards grabbed him roughly, embarrassed by their lapse.

“Well, that was pointless,” Narak said. “Put him in a cell on his own, far enough from here that he cannot hear what passes.”

Jod was dragged out of the circle of light and the other prisoners looked at Narak.

“What will you do with him?” It was the other Afalel speaker who asked.

“Not much. He will not be harmed,” Narak replied. “What is your name?”

“I am Marik son of Aseth.”

“You speak Afalel more ably than Jod. Your accent is better. Are you his commander?”

Marik smiled. It was the first time he had seen a Seth Yarra smile, and it made him look more like a man. He had come to think of them as automata, he realised, men who followed single tracks from which they could not deviate.

“No,” Marik said. “I am Arish, he is Shenda. That means that he is senior in rank to me.”

The terms were unfamiliar, but Marik seemed quite willing to talk. He lacked the varnish of hatred that so characterised Jod.

“Arish?”

“I am second in a squad of twenty men. Shenda is first in such a squad, but we are of different squads.” A shadow crossed the man’s eyes. He was remembering his squad, perhaps, and his commander. All dead. Narak felt sympathy, but it did not trouble him much. It was that nature of war that men died, and it was not a war that any of the kingdoms had started. These men had come to destroy all that he held dear. On the other hand he did not hold the motive against any individual. They were men doing what they were told to do, perhaps even what they believed was right. That, too, was the nature of war.

“And yet you are a more educated man,” he said.

Marik looked surprised. “How do you know this?”

“The way you speak. The way you look. You were intended for something other than a common soldier.”

“Yes,” Marik acknowledged. “The priesthood.”

“A master of the rule, then, not a cleanser.”

“You are astute,” Marik said. “I studied the rule for many years, but in the end I was not suited to that service.” He paused. Narak waited. “Are you really Fenris Godkiller?”

“It is what your people call me. I am Wolf Narak.”

“You should forgive Jod. He cannot help himself. There is a bounty of promise on your head, and to the very faithful it cannot be resisted.”

“What is a bounty of promise?”

“The one that slays you is raised up to sit by Seth Yarra himself. One who dies in the attempt is assured of good standing in the halls of the dead.”

Narak looked at the man, but could see no trace of irony or humour on his face. Marik, and by implication Jod, believed that they would go elsewhere when they died, to another world. It was a belief that he had encountered before. Some of the peoples of the Green Isles believed it, and the people of the old north had held the same credo. Narak believed otherwise. The dead were dead. The living were temporarily more fortunate.

“Where is your army?” he asked.

Marik looked at him for moment, perhaps startled by the abrupt question, although he must have expected it sooner or later.

“I do not know,” he said.