Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (65 page)

More folk were watching now, a ring of them forming around the battle. Faces turned towards him; arms pointed from the crowd. Swirls of movement in his peripheral vision pulled at his eye. He didn’t dare take his attention off the approaching yellow-sashes to look, so instead his imagination provided images of
barouks
swept back from the hilts of knives and hands swooping down to the ground for stones.

Khajal
.

If he was going to do anything, he had to do it quickly. As the citizens drew closer, they cut him off from the far corner of the square and the oil-merchant’s shop. Moustache’s four remaining warriors were advancing, too, their blades shining, but the nearer two were the greatest threat for now. He could not afford to let himself be distracted by what might come next.

With a snap of his wrist he flicked the blood from his blade before it trickled down to his hand and affected his grip. Scarlet drops spattered the ground like paint and behind him one of the nuns moaned, ‘Blessed Mother!’ in a gulping voice that sounded as if she was about to be sick.

‘Be ready to run, Sisters,’ Gair said, still not taking his eyes off the two men approaching.

Flexing his fingers on the
qatan
’s long hilt, he tried to remember everything N’ril had taught him. Though he’d spent the last decade with a sword in his hand, he was accustomed to a heavier weapon and a school of combat that bore more resemblance to hewing wood than to the supple-wristed, slash-and-gone desert style. It would take more than a couple of crowded hours in N’ril’s rooftop garden to make him as fluent as the men he faced.

Something struck him hard on the point of his left shoulder. He shied from the blow, and it took him a beat to recognise the object as a stone. In that moment’s distraction, the two yellow-sashed warriors darted in.

Gair gave Shahe his heels. She leapt forward and he swept his left arm up and across his body in a shield of the Song as if wrapping himself in a cloak, then pushed it out ahead of him. One of the Gimraelis ran into a wall of solid air and tumbled onto his backside right underneath the hooves of the charging
sulqa
. The other reeled sideways from the impact but recovered quickly, blade coming up to meet Gair’s. Steel shrieked on steel, then Shahe was through.

A twitch of the reins brought her around again, almost in her own length, her shoes slipping on the dusty cobbles. The man on the ground was no threat, curled in a foetal arc clutching at his belly, but the other fellow was circling to follow Shahe, his blade at the guard. Gair flexed his tingling hand and kept the mare moving. If he stood still, he and the nuns would die.

More stones flew and thudded off his shield. Shahe grunted and jinked sideways when one got through and hit her on her unprotected flank; another struck Gair’s back to one side of his spine and twisted him about, swearing in pain. Like the tide up the beach, the gathering crowd surged towards him.

Blow after blow jolted his shield. Stones, cudgels, he hadn’t time to see what they were. His attention was on the yellow-sashed swordsman doing his best to gut him. Burning pain and a tell-tale wetness on his side said his wound had burst at least one more stitch but he kept slashing and thrusting at anyone who came close enough.

Shahe began to plunge and kick, whinnying as more blows found her, too. Her steel-shod hooves exacted their own retribution but her unpredictable movements were as much hindrance as help to Gair as he fought. His Gimraeli opponent grinned, flicking out lunge after lunge. He knew where the advantage lay.

Desperation began to lick at the edges of Gair’s concentration. He’d lost sight of the nuns in the heaving crowd, and no matter how quickly he thrust, how light Shahe was on her feet, there were too many threats to track them all. Already his body ached with repeated impacts from stones and sticks, and cuts burned where his defence had been a shade too clumsy or too slow.

A raised hand appeared near him, grasping a long knife. He chopped down hard. As the man fell away clutching the gouting stump of his wrist, Gair urged Shahe into the space he’d created. Men ducked out of her path and she made a yard or two back towards the nuns. Another, heavier missile hammered into Gair’s shield at neck-height: a cobblestone, big as a loaf of bread. His weaving trembled and the Song buzzed angrily in his head.

This was beyond dangerous. If a stone that size hit Shahe it could break her leg and then they’d both be swallowed by the mob. He couldn’t shield her from all sides at once and still fight. Abandoning his shield, he wove the air into something else and flung his hands out from his sides.

Music reared up inside, wild as a torrent of white water. Wind slammed into the Gimraelis around him with the force of a sandstorm and tumbled them from their feet amidst billowing clouds of dust. A few strides ahead he saw the nuns, cowering with their arms above their heads as if for protection. Sticks and loosened cobblestones littered the ground around them, along with half a dozen dusty, dazed young men.

‘Sorcery!’ someone cried. ‘Devils’ work!’

Other voices took up the cry. Beyond the well, more faces appeared in the crowd as they turned to see what was happening, then started to advance towards the coughing Gimraelis on the ground. Saints. He’d bought the sisters even less time than he’d hoped he might.

Inside him, the Song responded to his anxiety and surged up against his will. Discordant yowls distorted the melodies but he shoved them down, wheeling Shahe in a tight circle and dropping the nuns’ shield. He had no time to worry about what that dissonance in the Song meant. There were only a few seconds in which to get out before the crowd closed in even thicker than before.

‘Run!’ he yelled. ‘Quickly, get across the square!’

Even as one weaving dissolved he gathered the Song into others. Whips of flame cracked across the faces of the crowd and halted their advance. With a fresh wall of air he swept aside the remaining Cultists in his immediate path, clearing the way for the sisters. They got to their feet slowly, stumbling and supporting each other, peering about through the dust.

‘This way!’ he roared at them. ‘Hurry!’

Galvanised by his voice, the nuns hiked up their skirts and ran. Heads down, looking neither right nor left, they pelted past him and through the gap in the crowd towards the outstretched arms of their sisters. Several folk made to follow but Gair cracked his fiery whip again, striking sparks from the stones at their feet.

‘Stay back!’

Each snap of the lash made the Song inside him howl. Little jolts and quivers skittered up his arm, setting his muscles twitching like serpents beneath his skin.

The Gimraelis he’d up-ended were picking themselves off the ground, sullen black stares on him as they dusted themselves off. Others who’d been less stunned or who were quicker to recover prowled back and forth just out of range, like wild dogs held at bay by a burning branch. Occasionally one would dart out as if to test how fast he could flick the lash, and how close.

He had to move, and now.

With a squeeze of his calves he urged Shahe into a fast walk. The young men fell back only as far as they felt they had to, flat-eyed, their lips curling. The nuns were about twenty yards ahead of him and through the thick of the crowd. In a few seconds they’d be safe. In a few more, with a little luck, so would he.

Someone growled behind him. Pain burst in his back like a punch to the kidneys: another stone, thrown from close range. Cursing, he swung Shahe to face the threat. The young men had closed in behind him and they had weapons in their hands.

He flung out his sword-arm, the bloody blade smoking with the power coursing through him.

‘Back!’ he snarled.

The nearest of the youths sneered, bouncing a rock in his hand, then cocked back his arm to throw. Gair seized more of the Song to shield against it and the buzzing dissonance sawed through his thoughts, shredding the weaving before it was formed. The fire-weaving he held ready twisted under his will, horribly alive and suddenly searingly hot.

He gasped and flung it away. Flames belched up from the cobbles ahead of him, scattering the crowd there and racing towards the palms around the well. Sparrows burst from the dry fronds, chattering in alarm. In seconds the trees were engulfed in flame.

But the burning sensation did not relent. It skittered wildly up the nerves of his arm and spread throughout his body, hotter than a fever. Muscles spasmed, bending his back like a bow. A white light of pain exploded inside his skull.

He didn’t hear the crowd close around him. He hardly felt the hands that grabbed the
sulqa
’s harness and tugged at his
barouk
, trying to drag him from the saddle. His mind was gripped by fiery talons, and all he felt was pain. Pain worse than he’d experienced in the chapel when he’d tried to Heal Resa, worse than anything he’d ever known before except the reiving.

Gair screamed.

Goddess have mercy, it hurts!

Shahe’s shrill whinny of distress drove into his ears like an auger. Rearing in panic, she pitched him to the ground. The impact knocked the breath from him, turned the scream into a groan. Other screams scraped at his ears, mixed with the crackle of fire. Inside him, the Song roared with a fierce and terrible heat.

Fresh flames scorched along his spine, down his legs. His hands contorted into claws and the
qatan
fell into the dust. Plunging hooves crashed around him, detonating explosions of pain in his skull as he burned and burned and burned.

Wait for me, Aysha. I’m coming
.

EPILOGUE

Eirdubh was the first, as he had promised. The sinewy chief of the Amhain knelt in the melting snow and wrapped his right hand around the shaft of the white-corded spear. With his left he offered up his own clan spear in pledge of fealty. Drwyn smiled and inclined his head. Reaching out, he grasped the Stone Crow’s spear to close the circle. It was begun.

Standing at Drwyn’s side, Ytha watched the other chiefs come one by one to make their pledges. With every bowed head and gruff-voiced vow, the surging bubble of excitement in her breast grew. Stone Crow. Silverthorn. White Lake. Clan by clan, six, seven of them. Yes. This would be a mighty war band, perhaps mightier than the one Gwlach had raised and squandered, but this time they would not fail. This time they would hold a blade to the iron men’s throats. They would cast the Emperor from his usurped throne and drive his men from their lands!

Patience
, she reminded herself,
patience
. It was too soon to be thinking of glory. That was how Gwlach had failed: he’d had his eyes fixed too far ahead and failed to see it when his plans crumbled right in front of his feet. Not her. She had laid better plans, stronger plans, and she had made a stronger chief. A Chief of Chiefs.

Broad-backed and upright, as a warrior should be, Drwyn wore a new shirt and trews, his plaid fastened about his shoulders with a jewelled pin. His hair and beard carefully combed, his bearing was as magisterial as Drw’s had ever been. Kingly, even, and the other chiefs could see it. It reflected in their eyes.

They see what in their heart of hearts they have always wanted to see. Ruler, father, protector. Someone to lead them home
.

And I have given him to them
.

Knowing that, she struggled to keep the grin from her lips and remain as impassive as a Speaker should be. Her cheeks ached with the effort.

Eight clans now. Nine. The tenth to come forward, the hawk-faced, white-blond Conor Two Bears, did not kneel. He met Drwyn’s gaze full on, with not an ounce of softness in his eyes.

‘If I give you my war band, Drwyn, will you use them wisely?’ he said. ‘I will not see my clan go the way of the Black Water.’

To Ytha’s surprise, Drwyn did not falter. ‘We lost too many men to Gwlach’s foolishness.’ He offered his spear, white cords swinging in the restless wind. ‘I am not Gwlach.’

‘I pray not.’ Dropping to one knee in the snow, Conor grasped the whitewood spear and held up his own. ‘Do not disappoint me, or I will swear blood feud on the Crainnh until the last Eagle falls.’

Oh you will, will you?
Ytha frowned. Though he had seen the Hounds, Conor was if anything less convinced now than he had been at the Gathering. The Eagle Clan held lands adjoining those of the Feathain near the coast. Over the years they’d mingled their blood with the whalers and seal-drivers of the White Sea and inherited some of their outlandish notions along with their pale hair. Living in longhouses with soft beds and warm fires, halfway to forgetting they were horse-lords. Her knuckles whitened on her staff. They might have to be reminded.

But before she could speak, Drwyn closed his fist around the feather-decked spear of the Eagle Clan and repeated, ‘I am not Gwlach.’

Teeth bared, Conor nodded. ‘I am relieved to hear it, my chief.’

Ten clans, then, but she would have to watch Two Bears to be sure his allegiance held. Binding his Speaker to her with the others would help, but still. It would only take one clan to fall away for others to follow.

But ten clans became twelve, thirteen, then Conor’s brother-in-looks Aarik of the Feathain stepped up to make his pledge and she held her breath. When he’d made his vow she released it and cursed herself for doubting. This was her plan. It would not fail.