Act of Will (19 page)

SCENE XXVI

The lighthouse

T
ake the horses and get over to Shelton,” shouted Lisha, “except Orgos. I’ll send cavalry. The barges will be in sight of the lighthouses any minute now, so move fast. If they are going to light the Shelton beacon, they’ll also have to keep the Seaholme lighthouse dark. Orgos and I will deal with that.”

I rode as fast as I could, but I couldn’t keep up with the others. By the time I reached the foot of the lighthouse they were waiting, holding the door slightly ajar. I dismounted shakily, and Garnet nodded silently towards six horses trimmed with crimson that were tethered in the dark by the tower.

There was a sudden flare and I looked up to see the beacon atop the lighthouse ablaze. Moments later the bright orange spot of light that flickered farther up the coast, the light that was to guide the barges into Seaholme, died.

There was only one door into the tower, and we had no idea if the raiders knew we were here. There was only one way up: the tight, dark, and easily defended spiral staircase. . . .

“I wish Orgos were with us,” Mithos murmured as he pushed the door open. “All right, let’s go. Quick and quiet. Hand-to-hand weapons only. I’ll lead, then Garnet. Then Will. Renthrette, cover the rear.”

At the top the fire roared, drowning out all other sound. I looked over Garnet’s shoulder into the tower and up the staircase. It was dark and narrow in there.

Mithos vaulted up the stairs and was quickly around the corner and out of sight, Garnet at his heels, his ax blade sparkling dully. Then I went. Then Renthrette. We were halfway up when I heard a door below us open, its shrunken timbers scraping on the stone floor. Renthrette glanced up at me and gestured to keep going. I pushed into Garnet and urged him up the spiral. There was a cough from below, and a snatch of conversation resounded up the pipelike stairwell. Two of them behind us. At least.

Renthrette slapped at my legs, pushing me higher and faster as the voices began to ascend. And then we came to a halt. Above me, Mithos readied himself, touched by the yellowish light of the beacon that fell down the first four or five steps. Garnet raised his shield and huddled closer to him, the muscles of his calves taut, his knees bent and ready to spring. Below, Renthrette took one more step up and then turned her back on me, her sword arm drawn back and ready.

The first soldiers rounded the corner below at about the same moment that Mithos leapt out of the top of the stairwell. I felt Garnet pause for a moment before he followed him out with a wordless cry of fury. Below, I saw a crimson-crested helm appear in the dark as Renthrette lunged. The tip of her sword glanced off the raider’s armor, and, as he hesitated, I dragged at her tunic from behind, pulling her upwards after me. If there were four of them on the top, then Mithos and Garnet would need all the help they could get. And anything was better than being trapped like a rat in the dark stairwell, enemies above and below.

I’d only gotten two steps higher when the soldier below recovered from his surprise and came after us, drawing his weapon. I took another step up and found my head in the open air, my ears suddenly filled with the roar of fire and the confusion of combat. I leapt up the last few stairs, my sword and shield extended in sudden terror. Maybe I should have stayed in the staircase after all.

One of the raiders lay crumpled by the wall, his cloak spilling out like blood. Garnet was hacking at one who was parrying with his scyax. Two others had pinned Mithos against the raging brazier. I moved towards one of them cautiously and he turned, heaving his huge axlike blade at me. I dived to the side and the weapon swung wildly, catching Mithos’s other adversary in the waist. The wounded man doubled up and Mithos sprang past him, seizing the scyax-wielder by the throat.

Garnet made a feint attack with his ax and then cut at his enemy’s shoulder, but the raider dodged and struck out with his scyax. It caught Garnet’s forearm and opened up a long gash that made him cry out and drop his ax. Renthrette, who was emerging from the stairwell backwards, wheeled and released a shout of anguish.

Her brother had raised his shield in front of him and was sheltering behind it, agony contorting his features. The raider cut at him again with the scyax, and Garnet, taking all the weight of the strike on his shield, shuddered and fell back towards the crackling brazier. I was with him in two strides. The raider sensed my approach and turned to face me.

I lunged, and, as he pulled his scyax across his chest, ready to swing, something Orgos had taught me kicked in. I dropped the tip of my blade under his parry and it connected. It was a weak strike, nothing like enough to pierce his breastplate, but as the sword kicked in my hand I lost my balance and fell forwards. Suddenly my face was inches from his helm and I could see blue eyes through the eye slits and a misty stone like an opal set into the bronze between them, glowing orange in the firelight.

I saw the panicked look in his eyes. He tried to wield the scyax against me, but it was too big and I was too close. I fell upon him and my sword point slid up his cuirass and found the soft flesh of his throat. My body weight carried me forwards. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d wanted to.

Then there was a scream, a long, slow cry that stopped abruptly. One of the raiders had fallen from the tower as he struggled with Mithos. Blood streaming from a broad slash in his cheek, Mithos ran for the stairs, where Renthrette was holding off the last two.

“The fire! Put the fire out!” he shouted.

Without another word he flung himself down the steps, sword aloft.

I tore two of the scarlet cloaks from the dead raiders, plunged them into a bucket of seawater by the brazier, and pulled Garnet to his feet. His arm was bleeding heavily but he said nothing as he seized the edge of the cloaks. We stretched them taut over the brazier as the flames jagged out from underneath. The heat was almost unbearable, but just before I released the steaming fabric, the light died and smoke began pouring out. It was done.

The last of the raiders fled, seized his horse, and galloped away before Renthrette or Mithos could give chase. I grasped the stone of the tower to hold myself up and inhaled the sea air deeply, staring out into the darkness until the shock and nausea subsided. I was covered in blood, but it wasn’t mine.

The four of us stood together, wheezing, staring west, waiting. It was almost a minute before we saw the brightening spark of the Seaholme lighthouse flare up to guide the barges in.

SCENE XXVII

The Convoy

W
e moved off at first light, a column of dark wagons bristling with spears and escorted by sixty horsemen in royal blue cloaks and silver helms. We looked ready for anything and, suspecting that we weren’t, I hoped that appearances would do the trick. I didn’t know what Mithos had told the duke about how close his precious cargo had been to the bottom of the ocean thanks to a mere handful of the raiders. I had always known they could outnumber us, but I had presumed we could outthink them, like in the stories. I was pretty pleased with myself for figuring out the lighthouse ruse, but I also knew that if we hadn’t caught them off-guard in a space too small for them to swing those bloody ax things, the evening would have gone rather differently.

We sent some of the infantry to recover the corpses of the raiders so we could inspect them, but they couldn’t find them, or they lost them, or something.

“How is that possible?” I yelled at the young officer in charge of the detail. “They were at the lighthouse. Did you find the lighthouse?”

“They weren’t there,” he said. “Not when we got there. Somebody must have taken them.”

Great. I doubt we would have discovered anything from them, but it was disheartening to have missed the opportunity of learning
something
from our brush with death.

“I hear you did your part at the lighthouse,” said Orgos.

“I guess,” I said, uncertain whether I was proud of the fact or not. The whole thing had unnerved me rather.

“You guess what?” said Renthrette, appearing at my elbow.

“Nothing,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t pursue it.

“Sounds like Will was quite the warrior,” said Orgos.

Her slim mouth frowned.

“I didn’t see,” she said flatly. “I think he helped.”

Orgos shrugged uncertainly and carried on what he was doing. That was it: Will the conquering hero risking his life for his comrades, for her miserable brother, no less, wading courageously into the fray, saving the day with his finely honed skills, and all she could come up with was an “I think he helped.” Great.

Lisha and Garnet supervised the loading of the wagons and I wandered the streets, ready to relay messages from our stationed guards. That was the official story, anyway. In fact, I was sick of hanging around the harbor and being asked for advice by adolescent infantrymen who couldn’t figure out a way to get a barrowload of coal into the back of a wagon without tipping it all over the dockside. So I excused myself, grabbed a few bottles of beer, and tried to impress some local women with tales of my heroic exploits. Another failure.

I slept for the first ten miles or so, slouched over the tailgate of the third wagon with my crossbow beside me. When I woke there was a thin sea mist rolling about us, so that the horses and wagons a few yards away were pale and indistinct. Lisha ordered that we close up, and soon the horses behind us had their noses to our wheels. I patted them awkwardly and offered them apples on the end of my short-sword.

Duke Raymon had gone on ahead, casting politic smiles of confidence and, more significantly, pouches of silver in his wake: ten silver pieces for each of the party “for expenses.” All things considered, I supposed, I wasn’t doing too badly: unless, of course, the raiders tried smashing our convoy and its poxy escort of schoolboy soldiers. Then I would be doing very badly indeed.

Garnet was riding alongside a handsome young cavalry officer with blond hair trailing from beneath his helmet. I couldn’t catch what they were saying, but they seemed to have connected somehow. Once, the officer threw back his head and laughed loudly, flourishing his lance in a strong right hand. Garnet nodded enthusiastically and showed off his ax. They wanted something to happen: could hardly wait. Even their horses seemed to be tapping out dance steps on the road, as if eager to gallop away from the wagons and into the fray.

Close by, a pair of the officer’s men (they couldn’t have been more than my age) swapped nervous smiles and lies about past experience, glancing around the countryside with studied carelessness. I was still watching them when the cry went up from the back of the column, “Raiders! Raiders to the rear!”

Instant confusion. All around me the faces of the escort soldiers were torn with panic. Their horses snorted and kicked their front hooves. At least one soldier was unseated and thrown to the road, his mount bolting off into the mist. Mithos passed me, spurring his horse to the rear of the column and shouting, “How many of them are there? Where’s the infantry commander?”

The wagons collided as some increased their speed and some stopped outright. The horses caught between them neighed and stamped furiously. I scrambled out and up to the roof where two young infantrymen were shouting at each other.

“Douse the coal,” I said, starting to tip one of the huge water barrels. “Soak it.”

They did so in stunned silence and then stood there, waiting for me to tell them all was well, or what to do to make it so. I primed my crossbow and looked out over the backwards snake of the misty wagons. They were all still now, and clogging the roadway so that the cavalry were spilling out at random and gathering in aimless huddles around the tail of the convoy. The fog was still too thick to see properly, but I could hear the officers shouting for word of the attackers. God willing, it was a false alarm.

Mithos and Lisha had dismounted and were urging the infantry into a protective line against the wagons, the heads of their long spears extended to keep the invisible horsemen at bay. But the cavalry had no idea what they were doing, and as their commanders yelled, the force split, some inside the defensive spear wall and some out. I saw Garnet charging amongst them, trying to draw them together, his ax and shield raised. At his elbow rode the blond officer, cloak flying out behind him as he spurred his horse towards the rear. He had drawn his saber and held it aloft in a clean, white-gauntleted hand, so that it flashed in the soft morning light. He looked at me, or rather at something in my direction, and I saw his earnest, commanding features. Garnet joined him, his face lost in the shadow of his horned helm, and they cantered out of sight.

There was a moment of stillness. Then it started.