They came before dawn, the men from the ring-fort; their lights were like fireflies in the distance, darting and bobbing, harmless as insects. I was fortunate enough to have taken a watch upon the palisade, and I shouted an alarm as soon as the first distant spear point reflected its bearer’s torch, gleaming sharp and wicked. Fog lay on the ground like a heavy blanket, turning the trees into soft shadows and hiding the undergrowth. The path through the forest was a treacherous one, and more than one torch fell into the mist and went out.
Ansgard led them from the back of a black horse—Bran, wearing a different saddle and flicking his ears in agitation, coming out of the trees like a specter. The rest of the men were on foot.
My hand tightened around my harpoon. How dare this obsequious coward presume to ride my horse. Ansgard had never seen the steppe. He had never fought alongside the daughter of the stargazer to earn her respect, nor had he walked with Bran over the endless miles that had led us here. He had no right to lay a hand upon my horse, much less saddle him up to ride against me.
In truth, I had no one to blame but myself. Bran had been chosen for me because of his even temperament and willingness to follow instruction, even if his rider had never sat on a horse before. I had left him in the ring-fort when I climbed the wall to escape, and I had not yet returned for him.
If Ansgard wanted to bring my horse directly to me, then, I could only thank him—once I had taken Bran back.
Cullen was upon the battlements beside me, longbow in hand, almost as soon as I had shouted. It wasn’t his watch, but I had observed that he did not sleep well. I would see him wandering the encampment at least once no matter when I was awake.
“Archers!” he called. With one foot still on the spindly ladder, leaning precariously out into empty air, he bent his bow and strung it.
“Be careful,” I managed to warn him. “That’s my horse he’s riding.”
His first arrow struck the man beside Ansgard as he emerged from the trees. From my vantage point, I could not tell whether it pierced the man’s mail hauberk, but the force of it knocked him to the ground. The fog swallowed him, and he vanished from sight. More soldiers came forward to take his place.
Ansgard raised one gauntleted arm. “The forces of King Wulfric have been mustered against you, forest-dwellers,” he called out. “We have your fort surrounded. Surrender, and your homes will not be burned.”
Cullen’s face contorted into a snarl as he nocked another arrow. “He lies. Shoot them down before they come any closer.”
“My horse,” I protested.
The arrow flew from his bow. It struck Ansgard in his mailed shoulder, bursting three rings that fell, glittering, to the fog-covered ground. Ansgard reeled backward, and Bran staggered back to maintain his shifting weight in the saddle.
“I never miss,” Cullen said.
Ansgard clutched at the arrow’s shaft with his other hand. Beneath the long nose-guard descending from the iron cap of his helmet, his face was a mask of rage and pain. He steered Bran around with his knees, disappearing behind the treeline.
The war-band assembled upon the narrow battlements, and their arrows fell like rain upon the advancing line of Ansgard’s men. They tore through shields and mail alike, but the soldiers kept marching forward. The gaps between their shields tightened until no arrowhead could pass through. They had not expected a swift response from the defenders on the wall, but now they were ready, and they advanced as a single beast with hundreds of legs under its shielded shell.
I brought my harpoon to my shoulder and loosed over the sharpened tips of the palisade. With a flash of violet lightning and a sound like thunder, it lanced through the fog and struck at a shield. It tore through the hide covering, leaving a ragged gash, but the shaft tangled in the leather before the head could meet flesh. I recalled it to my hand.
It was the first time I had done so since leaving the ring-fort. I had chosen not to reclaim my harpoon in the grove, so as not to be seen as a threat. The men beside me spared half a second to stare, wide-eyed, as I caught the weapon in midair.
The smell of smoke and burning oil took our attention back to the ground beneath the battlements. The shield formation had reached our gate, and they had set the palisade ablaze.
I slung my harpoon over my shoulder and climbed onto the ladder, leaping down to the earth halfway down its rungs. Smoke replaced the morning fog, darkening the sky even as the sun crept above the trees. The ground was muddy, the wooden structures swollen with the ever-present damp, but still the fire spread, urged on with the application of more oil.
I turned to the gate. There was a terrible crash, and it bowed inward, the bar across it straining. Ansgard’s men had brought a ram, a felled tree, and they slammed it against the gate even as arrows rained down on them from above.
King Wulfric’s lands must have been vast, and his lords numerous and loyal, for so many men to have come to our gate. More of them fell, and still more came out of the woods to replace them. They had their own line of archers, now, and the body of one of the war-band fell beside me, an arrow in his brow.
If the gate came down, this tiny settlement would be overrun. I ran.
The bar across the gate pricked my palms with splinters as I pressed my hands against it. The ram struck again, and the whole wall heaved into my body. My feet dug furrows in the soft earth. Three more of the warband came down to join me, their bodies pressed against the buckling wood, but it was no use. The gate was coming down.
I grabbed the shoulders of the two nearest me, a man and a woman whose names I had forgotten in the clamor, and pulled them back. “Get out of the way!” I shouted.
The gate split apart, its timbers clattering to the ground. Smoke poured in the open doorway. I brought my harpoon to bear, covering my face with my free hand, but my eyes ran with tears as burning ash stung me like a horde of flies.
I blinked them away. The silhouettes of men carrying spears and shields emerged from the smoke. Somewhere, a ceramic jar shattered, and the odor of burning oil grew stronger.
The first man to reach me swung with his shield, trying to bat my harpoon away. I stepped back, striking forward, and caught the wooden rim of his shield with one dragon-claw barb. I tore the shield from his hands and struck him across the chest with the weapon’s shaft. He crumpled, gasping for air.
Out of the haze of fog and smoke came the sound of hooves against the muddy ground and the shape of Ansgard, the arrow still protruding from his shoulder, still sitting on my horse. He kicked at Bran’s sides, but Bran shied away. Even he was frightened of the fire.
The man at my feet groaned in pain and clawed at the earth, but he stayed where he was. I ignored him. “Ansgard!” I called out. “Give me back my horse!”
He slid from the saddle, pain etched across his face. Blood stained his mail, and his left arm was tucked against his side, stiff and useless. He drew his sword with his right hand, leveling it at me, and placed himself between Bran and me.
I struck first, my harpoon darting toward his unshielded left side. He twisted away, the wide blade of his sword seeking my eyes, slicing a gash through the smoke.
My boots slid in the mud as I stepped back and ducked my head under the arc of his slash. More of Ansgard’s men formed up behind him, blocking Bran from view, and others marched past me through the open gate. Foolish as I was, I could see no one but Ansgard.
I knocked his next blow away with the shaft of my harpoon and swung the head toward his throat. I missed his flesh, but I caught the arrow stuck in his shoulder. More blood welled up from the wound. He cried out in pain and staggered backward, his knees buckling.
With my harpoon raised to deflect his blade, I charged at him, my shoulder meeting his abdomen and folding him in half. The wind fled from his lungs with a grunt. He dropped to the mud.
I drove the harpoon into his chest, breaking mail rings and biting into flesh. Ansgard gasped once, his lungs filling with blood, and then was still.
His men closed in around me, shields raised.
I raised my harpoon. I wished for a shield of my own, but Ansgard had dropped his when he was shot, and no others lay within reach.
The eyes of the shield line opened wide under their helmets. A terrible crash shook the forest from behind me. The fort itself had finally caught, and it too was falling. I could not reach the warband—another detachment of soldiers approached the crumbling palisade, cutting me off from all my allies.
I ran from Ansgard’s men and caught Bran at the end of their line. He shied away from me, turning his head to examine me with one eye. Only then did he let me take his reins in hand and climb, clumsy as ever, into the saddle.
More shadowy figures poured from the gaps in the palisade wall, bent under the burdens of their children and belongings. They fled into the forest, pursued by men in chainmail.
“Men of King Wulfric!” I shouted, my voice hoarse from breathing smoke. “I’ve slain your captain. Come, avenge him!”
With the army at our heels, I steered Bran into the forest. We darted between hazy beams of sunlight and the blackened trunks of trees, quick enough to stay out of reach of their spears but slow enough that they wouldn’t give up pursuit and turn their attention to the fleeing folk of the fort.
It was all I could think to do.
I found the camp of the forest folk at nightfall. They lit no fires, but enough daylight remained that I could make out a few temporary shelters and, a stone’s throw away, the hunched shapes of the standing stones.
Many had escaped. Many others had not.
I left Bran at the edge of the encampment and entered the ring of stones on foot. It was there I found Cullen, standing before the silver tree. Dried blood clung to his face and his hands, and a great violet bruise crept up his neck from the collar of his leather jerkin.
“Give me the knife,” he begged the god of the grove. “Do you want to see your people suffer and die? There are so few of us left.”
No answer came. He bowed his head, covering his face with his hands.
I had no words of comfort for him. He looked up at my approach, and he allowed me to place a hand on his shoulder.
We were silent for a long while. The god was more so.
Back to Interlude Five: A Place Between
Forward to Chapter LIX: The Edge of the Forest
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not very satisfied with this arc, so it’ll be one of the first ones I’ll tackle when I’m editing. In the meantime, though, thanks for reading!
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