Once back with the men, the Thegn gave whispered orders. Swords were drawn and shields were readied. It was only at this moment that the boy realised he had no weapon. He asked for something–a dagger perhaps–but the Thegn rested a not unkind grip on his shoulder, and said, “Give yourself a few years yet. Not today, lad. Not here. Keep to the back. And take to tail if the fight goes badly. If this goes against us, I ask that you repay any debt by taking news to Prince Morholt. Tell him we died in his service. Warn him too. If it comes to that.”
He looked down, and felt more than a little ashamed. He wished he were older. Stronger. But, he had nothing to say except, “Of course. Yes.”
A bristly smile. “Good lad.”
Soon the men were lining up. In the grey, brown and black of their inside-out tabards they looked like beggars. Or dead men in burying shrouds.
“Ready?” asked the master-at-arms, his voice thin and snaking in the darkness.
There were nods and grunts, grumbles, huffs and a few blustery laughs.
All soft. All quiet.
They attacked. It was sudden and violent. The boy had never seen fighting in a mass like this. There had been the odd brawl back in his home village. Certainly, he knew–in a sort of half-understood way–that a fight with swords would be bloody. Yet what he expected, and what he saw, were oceans apart in their violence.
He learned things he later wished he didn’t know.
A sword could tear a person’s face off. An axe could take out the whole front part of a skull. If a person’s guts are opened, they stink like a cesspool, and it doesn’t kill a man. He’ll lie there for quite some minutes, trying to hold his innards in his belly, failing, failing, before the slipperiness of red fingers and death ends it for him. It turns out that a man can take an arrow right into the throat, and yet still be walking about, screaming.
As soon as the battle cries and the slamming of metal-against-metal arose, the soldiers who had been waiting around inside the inn also came running. There was a terrible mass of people on both sides. The eyeless archers and spellswords exacted a heavy toll. There was wizard’s fire upon the air, swords crackling with weird darkness, and arrows that shot as true as any goddess-sent flaught of lightning. But Athairdrost’s men were outnumbered five to one, and the numbers soon counted for more than magic. By the time the last clashing steel and cries faded, the boy was trembling from head to foot. He felt ready to retch up everything he’d ever eaten.
He had to walk around muck-holes of blood to get to the door of the inn. Fat, black droning flies were already arriving. They buzzed and landed on red-raw faces, dipping their hungry tongues into torn flesh. The boy made the mistake of looking down at one of the fallen eyeless archers as he passed. He saw on the man’s face a twisted sort of painfulness that was puckered all around the sewn-shut eyes. The boy paused. He could hear himself breathing. The archer had died badly. The welling of dark, sticky red wetness down the man’s throat and chest made a vicious crimson.
The boy hurried up the steps.
Most of the men had gone into the inn before him. Only a few remained outside, standing guard or idly rifling the bodies.
Inside the inn, the Thegn and the bulk of his surviving soldiers were already discussing what to do next. They spoke quickly, in cold, short stabs of words. It turned out that among the dead was the thin and sharp-eyed lieutenant. Only now did the boy learn the man’s name, Skinny Ghaun. The name seemed too joking, too light for the moment, but the soldiers muttered it solemnly all the same as they spoke about his death in the fight.
It was soon apparent that Athairdrost’s fighters had completely emptied themselves out onto the street to meet the attack. There were no patrons in the taproom either. They must have been chased away earlier.
A careful look into the stables revealed a space that was empty except for the unconscious shapes of the boy’s friends. Caewen and Fleat were still slumped–just barely showing signs of breathing. Meanwhile, Dapplegrim was actually making a weird snoring sound under the silvery net of flowers.
“What’s wrong with him?” the boy asked. He turned to the nearest of the soldiers. “The big… um… horse. Why’s he asleep like that?”
The soldier nodded at Dapplegrim and said, “Glaemer-bane flowers. Puts unnatural things to sleep. That horse isn’t made of mortal flesh and blood, or I’m a goat’s nephew.” He frowned. “Just look at the thing. Look at it”
“Not sure we should wake it,” added another solider.
“Aye. Might decide to eat all our livers. Might think we’re to blame for capturing him in the first place.”
The boy shook his head. “No. He won’t.”
“And how would you know that?” said the rough voice of the Thegn. “If you are not closely familiar with these assassins?”
He turned to see the Thegn coming up behind him, his face a mask of keen attention.
“Ingoldsthere told me,” he tried. “The seer. Who wrote the letter.”
The Thegn just looked at him.
“I’m, that is, I may be familiar with Dappl– I mean, the creature from, um–“
“You’re a terrible liar boy.”
Moliagul crouched down and looked him in the eyes. He spoke quietly enough that his men wouldn’t have been able to catch the whole of what he said. “I prefer truth, even if that truth may not be what I want to hear.”
The boy nodded. “I am a part of this group.”
“And you intend to kill Athairdrost?”
At that the boy wetted his lips. That wasn’t actually the plan, as far as he understood it. It wasn’t not the plan either. After considering for a time, he said, “If we need to. Athairdrost has an ancient magical thingummy that Caewen,” he paused. “Caewen is the young lady. Caewen thinks it’s dangerous to leave the… um…”
“Thingummy?” said Moliagul.
“The thingummy. Yes. She doesn’t want it in his possession. She doesn’t want him to have it, or The Winter King or anyone else for that matter. I don’t rightly understand, but it’s dangerous. Dangerous for the whole world and everyone in it.”
He frowned. “But it would be oh so very fine if this young lady were to have it all for herself? That’s all for the good, I suppose?”
The boy found himself nodding, subtly. “I believe so, sir. I’ve travelled with these folks for a good many days and nights now. I’ve never seen anything of them but good intents. Towards me. Towards others. Caewen doesn’t have any grudge against night-folk. She doesn’t have any grudges at all, far as I can tell. She just doesn’t want anyone who’s evil-minded to be the master of a great power. That’s the start and end of it, for her.”
“Finally,” said Moliagul with a murmur of a smile on his bearded face. “A little bit of truth.”