Chapter One Guthnyr #3
“His name is Ruhlin ehs Kestryg,” Guthnyr reminded her, an edge to his voice. “And he detested your bloody spectacles.”
Her tattooed brows creased. “Is not the battle you revel in a spectacle? Do you not seek glory in combat?”
“You call it glory. We call it renown. In Ascarlia, worth is not measured in mere silver, but in the tale you craft from your life. And honest battle should not be compared to the forced slaughter of slaves.”
“Honest battle?” Deyna let out a laugh and reached for the wineskin.
“Battle is but an outcome of war, and war is very much the province of lies. Before the Vortigurn dispatched his fleet against your people, his servants cast out a blizzard of dishonest bile to win the common Nihlvarians to his cause. They were being sent to reclaim their birthright, as ordained by the Altvar. The Ascarlians were no longer truly our cousins, but unworthy heirs of noble ancestry. They had degenerated into weakness and no longer engaged in war, so cowardly had they become. Some swallowed it whole, but I suspect most didn’t care.
In my experience, promise of loot and increased status is all it takes to compel fools to war.
Either that.” She paused, gaze shifting to the Morvek on the far side of the firepit. “Or the promise of revenge.”
“From what I gather, they have many a just score to settle.”
“We stole their lands, it’s true, and thick did the blood flow in the stealing, at least according to the few accounts that remain of those days.
But blood flows in all directions. Old tales speak of defenceless settlers slaughtered by Morvek who made no effort to even ask their origins.
Our people have never been particularly good at recording their own history, but from what I have been able to gather, our early years in this land were fraught with peril.
We might well have perished entirely but for the Vortigurn.
He united us, gave us purpose, turned us from Ascarls into Nihlvarians, the people born of wrath.
” Her words might have conveyed a sense of reverence if not for the bitterness Guthnyr detected in her tone.
No worship for the fabled Vortigurn here, he surmised.
He started to ask for more tales of Nihlvarian history, keen to discover how deep this enmity for her king went, but the words faded as he detected a fresh sound on the breeze.
It was faint, barely audible above the crackle of the firepit.
He thought it might be wind howling through the upper reaches of the mountains, but it was too persistent for that.
He saw Iyaka straightening, face drawn in concern.
“Those are Velkar’s wolves,” she called to Guthnyr.
“Why would she set them to howling?” he asked, rising from his seat. As he did so his ears detected another far more familiar sound, the hard thrum of many bowstrings loosing at once.
“Down!” he snapped, battle born instinct causing him to clamp a hand to Deyna’s shoulder and force her to the ground. Something cut the air a few inches above his head followed by a hard thunk, his eyes snapping to the sight of an arrow quivering in the log where Deyna had been sitting.
Shouts of pain and alarm filled the air as more arrows flew, Guthnyr seeing one body slumped in the firepit, a shaft jutting from its back. “Get clear of the firelight!” he cried, dragging Deyna to her feet and hauling her into the gloom. “To arms! We are attacked!”
More arrows flew as he took firm hold of Deyna’s wrist, running in a low crouch towards the hut where they stored firewood. “Your people are tenacious,” he told the Tuhlvyr in a fierce whisper, pushing her to the shadowed ground in the lee of the stone structure.
“They are,” Deyna agreed. “But would never find this place without help.”
Despite the gloom, he caught the hard, steady gleam of her eye, and the meaning it held.
We are betrayed. Understanding brought a rush of anger, one he welcomed for he would need it this night.
Sinking lower, he drew Kohrvayl from its sheath, shrugging off his cloak to wrap the blade lest it catch a wayward flicker of firelight.
Risking a glance in the direction of the firepit, he sighed in relief at seeing no sign of his comrades, but the shouts echoing from the surrounding darkness told a tale of discordant combat.
“Stay here,” he murmured to Deyna. “If I don’t return, make for the mine. The shaft on the left is the deepest. After that…” He shrugged. “I’ve every confidence you’ll make your own way, Tuhlvyr.”
“Your concern warms my heart,” she replied, the lack of fear in her voice provoking a discomfiting pang of admiration.
Altvar curse this woman, he thought before stealing out into the dark.
Moving with sword still wrapped, he refused to allow his gaze to stray to the firepit, letting his ears guide him.
Soon the hard grunts and soft thuds of exchanged blows drew him to the sight of Behsla and Jolnyr, both fighting back to back as they sought to fend off a trio of assailants.
Jolnyr swung his half-carved staff with furious energy while Behsla delivered more measured slashes with a hunting knife.
By Guthnyr’s design, neither had tasted battle since that dread day upon the Styrnspeld Sea when the Nihlvarian’s captured the Sea Hawk.
Although they fought now with far more resolve than he expected, their shared expression of terror inflamed Guthnyr’s rage to fiercer heights.
Still, he didn’t allow himself to surrender to it until he had crept within sword length of the nearest attacker.
As he drew closer, he made out the man’s buckskin garb and the war club he wielded.
This is no Nihlvarian. Clearly, this betrayal ran deeper than he knew.
Casting the cloak away, Guthnyr slashed Kohrvayl’s edge across the warrior’s ankles, lunging for the Morvek on the right even before his stricken companion began to scream.
As he stabbed him through the throat, Guthnyr noted how this one’s face was marked differently from other Morvek he had seen.
It was painted in a complex mix of black and white, besmirched by red when Kohrvayl pierced his gullet and the spine beyond.
Drawing the blade clear and kicking the Morvek away, Guthnyr turned to face the third foe only to find him brought down by a stab of Behsla’s knife.
She and Jolnyr leaped on him as he fell, the boy’s staff pounding his head while Behsla delivered thrust after thrust at his belly until, letting out a gurgling sob, he lay still.
The creak of a straining bow stave snapped Guthnyr’s notice to the Morvek he had maimed.
The warrior lay on his back, face contorted in both pain and fury as he drew the string back, flint arrowhead quivering.
It was too close to dodge and an inch too far for Guthnyr to reach before the Morvek loosed.
A grunt of controlled aggression, accompanied by the flicker of slashing steel, and the Morvek archer’s neck opened in a red smile.
Straightening from the twitching body, Deyna grimaced and flicked blood from her knife.
Guthnyr recognised it as a kelvehr blade from Sygurn’s forge and wondered when she had contrived to steal it, not that he was about to complain.
“Enough!” he barked at Behsla and Jolnyr as they continued to abuse the third warrior’s corpse. “Stay close,” he instructed the three of them, twirling Kohrvayl to banish the worst of the gore and making for the loudest tumult. “We’ve still work to do this night.”
Thirty paces on, they discovered a thrashing knot of Morvek, Iyaka in the heart of the struggle, her spear whirling.
At first, Guthnyr couldn’t tell friend from foe but soon made out the monochrome paint adorning the faces of Iyaka’s opponents.
She was outnumbered, flanked by only three comrades and continually forced down the slope as their opponents used the advantage of higher ground.
The sight stoked Guthnyr’s rage to its highest pitch, quickening his stride as he charged for the attackers, their gazes drawn by his fierce roar of challenge.
Yet, before he could strike home, three large, silver-furred shapes leaped from the darkness to ravage the unnamed Morvek in a frenzy of snapping jaws and flensing teeth.
It was over in moments, a half-dozen foes brought down and slain, the survivors fleeing into the dark.
Guthnyr watched the three wolves pause to cast a short but voluminous howl into the sky before they loped in pursuit.
The screams that sounded soon after made it plain their prey hadn’t gotten far.
“Who are this lot?” Guthnyr demanded of Iyaka, slamming a boot into the chest of a fallen Morvek.
“Vulksa.” The answer came not from Iyaka’s lips but from another figure stumbling from the darkness.
Velkar tottered a few feet towards Guthnyr before collapsing to her knees.
Rushing to her side, he beheld the grey, hollowed visage of a woman pushed to the brink of endurance.
Still, her gaze held a mix of both grief and fury as it met his.
“The Telchak,” she said, her voice a sobbing murmur. “The Vortigurn has the Telchak. And that old Vulksa shit-eater killed my children!”