Heritage of Fire Read online

  Or perhaps not.

  Sankey arrived beside him again. This was the proper station for the line commander, here at the right end of the line. Here, where Gerd was.

  He shook the thought off. At almost the same moment, the two longships ranged up against the stone quay, the tide so high that their decks were almost level with it. They’d have had fenders down the sides. Gerd could hear the groan of them rubbing against the quay, but they were perfectly handled. Say what you like about the Kihree, they were seamen. Now they were leaping across with lines and hauling the ships tight in. A moment, no more, and armed men were spilling out on to the quay.

  It wasn’t quite silent, and they knew they had little time. Even Mannon and a murder would not be able to delay the Company for long. The quay was narrow. There was a certain amount of jostling and confusion, and no attempt to form up in ranks. It was a crowd, but it was a crowd with steel in its hands. They were already moving, the first of them surging in a body down to the base of the quay and beginning to move into the square beyond.

  Timing. If he waited too long, they would separate and it would be tedious and costly, having to hunt them down one by one. Man to man, they could match the Knights. What they could not match was the line, the hedge of spears, the machine that the Company became.

  He watched, and somehow he knew when the moment had come. A clot of them had formed at the base of the quay. He could almost see the gestures. Ragnar, take your men that way, Lohkil, you head for the goldsmith’s shop. It’s up that street...

  He nodded, and rose. Men thought that he’d had the order. They rose with him. The whole line rippled to its feet. It was only a clinking and a rustle, but it was loud in the still night. The spearheads jutted up, a serrated line as the Company showed its teeth.

  The raiders froze in place, searching for the noise. It had sounded slightly like a wave breaking, a sort of echo, maybe. They had flaring torches in their hands, and they could see nothing. Still their instinct was to close up together in the face of something they didn’t expect.

  Just right. Gerd nodded. Sankey put his whistle to his lips. He blew. Short-long. Short-long. Advance.

  The other corporals were shouting their orders, too. Present your spears, ho! No sense in silence now.

  His body was thinking for itself, leaving his mind to run on. Gerd stepped off on the correct foot, keeping his spacing. His spear swung down on command, coming level, the same as the others, an exactly aligned row of spearpoints. He was expecting the two other spear shafts that snapped down over his shoulders, left and right, their heads moving one and two paces precisely before him. He could approve of that, and also of the spacing of the ranks, and still think of other things. Dobson, his next-in-line, was keeping close order, just close enough to touch with the point of the left elbow, but not crowding in closer. Always difficult to do, because each man would be seeking the shelter of his right-hand neighbour’s shield.

  He could think thoughts like that, and still be watching the Kihree raiders and thinking about them. We don’t need to run, bar the last few steps. They haven’t worked it out yet.

  He was able to think about the value of surprise, and the value of being ready while the enemy was not. He was able to hear something within him approve. The squire, smiling and nodding. Thirty paces, and the Kihree saw them. Suddenly – it was almost comical – he could see their eyes flare, the whites showing as they opened them wide, the guilty stillness as they went rigid, like a gang of children caught stealing apples.

  Rigid. They were in a clump, a crowd, pressing in together. Those behind hadn’t seen anything yet, and they could not know. They’d be wondering what was wrong with them in front, what the noise was.

  Twenty paces. Gerd lengthened his stride, but he didn’t break into a jog. Lockstep was what did it, everyone moving as one, like ants, like a machine. Sankey was watching him, he saw out of the corner of his eye, the whistle at his lips, still blowing the long-short. It shrilled out, and now even the slowest of the raiders knew that something was very wrong. So, of course, those at the back tried to push forward, to see what it was, and they added to the crush at the base of the quay. No spacing there, no order at all. They had their weapons out, most of them, but no space to use them.

  Ten paces. The Kihree in front shrank back, even as more pushed in from the rear, and there was still no order, no-one in command. Just open eyes and gaping mouths, useless torches flaring in hands. Seeing that, Gerd nodded again. Sankey pulled in air, and the whistle screamed, one long continuous blast. Charge!

  The line shouted. Men do that, at such times. The spacing loosened a little, even in the short distance they had, but there was nothing to be done about that, and the weight of the charge was more important. Then the line hit, like a giant’s axe smashing a rotten timber, or like a butcher’s cleaver splitting a carcass.

  For the Kihree were meat. Only meat. Those in front – you could hardly call it a line – never struck a blow, and couldn’t even try. Surprise still held them rigid, and there was no space to raise a weapon. They could only goggle. Possibly they had only a moment to feel real terror, and agony. The spearpoints slid in, as softly insinuating as spring rain.

  Gerd felt the shock, saw his point disappear, and dropped his spear. In the front rank, it was useless now. The rear-rank men still had use for the reach, but for Gerd even the sword was too long now, crushed in against a bearded warrior as he was. He pulled Alissa’s dagger from where it hung at his right side, and used it, once, twice, stabbing upwards. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head, but he didn’t fall. It wasn’t because he wasn’t dead. There was no space.

  Pressure at Gerd’s back. The rear ranks had closed up and were pushing with their shields. Gerd shoved, too. Now the pressure in front was loosening at last. The Kihree had finally understood enough to break. Those that could, turned and ran for their ships. The crush started to unravel from the rear. The corpse that had been gaping in Gerd’s face slid quietly down and was stepped over. Another the same. Another.

  Here was the brink of the harbour wall. “Break off,” grunted Gerd to Sankey, and the whistle shrilled again. “Get Darley’s squad to pursue. The quay’s only four files wide. Follow up. They haven’t turned those ships yet.”

  Sankey nodded, stepped around behind, and ran for the centre. Gerd had halted before the whistle sounded, and the squad aligned on him, the corner-man, just as they’d been drilled to do. Three or four men from the next squad were actually pushed over the brink, and fell into the surging water beside the quay. It was only waist-deep there, though. Men reached spear-shafts down for them to grab. There were Kihree in the water, too, but the living ones were only trying to get away.

  Gerd broke his drill and looked to his left. You were supposed only to stare straight ahead. But he wasn’t the only one doing that. Darley’s squad had halved its files and doubled its ranks, and was pushing, four abreast, on to the quay. Kihree were leaping into the water. But there was only the sea behind them, and in front only the implacable ranks of the Company.

  The first of the raiders were poling their ships off now, but it was all confusion, everyone shouting contrary orders. The leaders, thought Gerd, would all have been in front, and were dead. The tide was at the slack, but the breeze was still on-shore, pushing the ships against the harbour wall. Men surged up the ships' sides from the water, but they had dropped their weapons.

  Some stood and fought, but they were very few now. One had gone berserk, the Kihree battle-trance on him, foaming at the mouth and howling nonsense. He ran, a sword in each hand, at the grim column of the Company, and he cut one man down. Cut him down, the swords playing in flickering half-seen gleams around his head, but by that time there were three spears in him. He was still roaring, still foaming, still whirling his blades, as he was shoved off the quay. He sank, and a darker stain spread on the dark water as he disappeared.

  The rest were trying to turn their ships. Oars were working at the water, but there was
nothing concerted. The ship on the nearer side to Gerd swung her bows out, but those aboard were pulling in all directions, each man as it seemed best to him, and an unlucky combination of wind and wave took her stern and smacked it against the stones of the quay with a splintering of wood. She began to take water. A moan of despair went up, audible even above the clamour.

  They were surrendering now, throwing down their weapons and calling for quarter. Gerd twitched his head in meaning sort of way, and Sankey turned the section into column, to follow the others out on to the quay.

  “This is where we need archers,” Sankey remarked, and Gerd nodded, though his mind was running in a dozen directions. Into it came a sudden vivid image of Alissa staring down the shaft of that odd bow.

  But there was no need, after all. Two ships’ crews, twenty oars a side. Just shy of a hundred Kihree in all had come ashore. No more than a dozen or so still survived uncaptured, to pole the remaining ship off.

  They managed to turn her, and they shipped oars, but the breeze was still against them and the tide had only just started to turn. She moved, but slowly, sluggishly, ten oars trying to do the work of forty. Tugging frantically, they turned her head for sea. A rain of flung spears fell around them, but the long weapons were clumsy and ill-balanced for throwing. Some of the knights carried belt-knives or hatchets; these were no better. Yes. Archers. Perhaps using Alissa's weapon.

  Struggling, the Kihree got her away from the quay. It would be a long pull against the wind before they could make enough of an offing to set up the mast, but they could get away. They heaved, faces distorted with the strain, dragging their blades through the dark water. Ten minutes’ frantic effort and they were out in the bay, and the Company could only stare after them.

  Gerd watched them, mouth a grim line. Ten Kihree getting away. Another ten blood-feuds. Even now, they’d be telling each other that they’d be back.

  “And this is where we need ships of our own,” he said, and Sankey nodded.

  Summer nights were short. Midnight was long past. Gerd’s watch would have been relieved an hour before, and the peak of the tide and dawn came close together. Dawn would be soon, thought Gerd, looking at the stars and the state of the tide. The tide was ebbing now, stronger and stronger, carrying the Kihree ship away, and they could only stare after it. Gerd looked to the east, and yes, the horizon was lightening. The sun would be up in half an hour. As he looked away, something caught his eye. His head whipped around again.

  He peered, and his mouth opened. There was a speck, flying in the first moment of dawn. He had seen such a speck before. It glittered in the strengthening light, and it spread and shrunk, spread and shrunk, in time to the sweep of immense wings.

  His mouth opened. Staring, he knew he looked like the Kihree at the moment when they recognised the spears bearing down on them, and yet he could only stare rigidly.

  His legs stopped working. He froze in place. He was the corner man in the line. Only Sankey was behind him, and Sankey cannoned into him, looked up, saw the line of Gerd’s eyes and whipped around to follow them. He squinted, stared, and muttered a pungent single word. Then he pulled air into his lungs and blew.

  Long. Short-short-short-long. Again. Again. Halt. Action right. Action right.

  Men heard. Heads began to turn. Someone pointed. Sankey’s whistle continued to blow, piercing, shrill. Townsfolk who had begun to open shutters and to stare open-mouthed at the corpse-littered square turned to see, if they could, and if they could not, began to shout questions from window to window.

  “Form! Three ranks!” Sankey’s bellow rose above it all. “Face right. We can at least keep it off. It has to get close to flame.” Men began to shuffle into line again, and the corporals began to shove stragglers and to shout commands, the short precise battle-words that all of them knew. In response, the shields snapped into place, each man covering his neighbour, and the spears lifted into line. Even a dragon can be pierced by a hundred spears.

  The wings swept it closer, closer. Now they could see, in the brightening sunlight, the rows of shining scales, each one the size of a shield, and the long, curving, graceful neck. The wings filled like vast sails embroidered with threads of gold and silver and crimson, and the narrow body was serpent-like.

  Gerd watched it, even as his body stepped into line and found its place, handling spear and shield with practiced precision. He had seen dragons flying before. It did not change the awe of it.

  It banked on the morning breeze. Perhaps it might have fallen on the town, but there were armed men there, and the castle had engines on its walls that could have pierced even its scales. It curved away, sloping down against the breeze and building its speed. Lower, lower it came, until it was no higher than a tall ship’s mast, and it used the lift off the ocean as an albatross does. It swooped, and Gerd’s mouth opened. Suddenly he knew what it would do.

  Close over the Kihree ship it flew. Its jaws opened and smoky flame rolled out in a cloud. It passed above the ship from bow to stern, and where its fire played, tarred ropes and waxed canvas and dry wood blazed. Once only it passed, and the ship was a seething mass of flames rolling on the water.

  Then its enormous wings beat, it turned into the wind again, and a cry like tearing metal came to them as they stood at the harbourside. It lifted higher into the dawn air, higher, higher, reaching for the sprinkle of fair-weather clouds marching up from the east with the sun. Behind it, far below on the sea, the Khiree ship burned, but the dragon did no more. It climbed to an immense height, become a sparkling mote in the high air again, and was lost in the west, among the last of the fading stars.

  15

  They took their prisoners. Three men swam ashore from the burned ship. They had dived overboard before the dragon passed. There were thirty-three others taken alive, mostly wounded. They would face the Council’s justice. Any that the Council thought were captains or masters or nobles would hang. The rest would be sold.

  The Captain of the Company of the Western Knights was a member of that Council, and would be one of their judges. Only there was no Captain any more.

  No Captain. Mannon was gone.

  The Company trudged back to their castle shortly before noon, the files silent. Most of the Kihree were buried already - sixty-four of them. It was a slaughter that would have women wailing in every village from Ilnish to Cape Far. Maybe it would spark more raids in revenge.

  Or maybe not. Half of them had been wearing trinkets, spoil, from ships they had taken. There was a bolt of creamy-white Erisen silk on the ship that had sunk by the quay, with a trader’s mark on its cover, and its consignment note to a household in Lameth. It had been for a wedding-dress. These were pirates, no more.

  And Mannon was gone. There had been a gate guard, but the guard had no orders to hold him. Not that anyone could give an order like that anyway. Mannon had staggered out of the gatehouse, had his horse readied, and then left the castle, reeling in the saddle, his beard stiff with blood. It had still been dark then. He’d had every good reason to go – the gate guard and the ten men left on the walls could hear the clash of arms, down at the harbour – and there was no reason to stop him. The Captain had ordered the gate guard to stay at its post. He had set off down the road. That was all the guard knew.

  He must have cut east as soon as he was out of sight. Nobody had seen or heard a horse on the road. It was two days before the news came of where he’d gone. It had been to the little village of Subbay, on the island’s opposite side. There he had paid a fisherman to take him out to the first mainland trader to show a sail – Subbay, on the south point, was a point of departure for those heading for Narboine from the south, being on the same sun-height, almost. He had paid in good silver, leaving his horse, but carrying a heavy little bag.

  And he would have letters to goldsmiths in the cities as well, thought Gerd. By now he was far, far away. If Gerd were Mannon, he’d keep going, too. Head further south, for Tamar, or even further. Somewhere outlandish. Somewhere far
away, where the Western Knights and the Guild were no more than names.

  And even then, you’d spend most of the rest of your life starting awake at random noises in the night, and staring into the face of every stranger, wondering if this was the avenger.

  There had to be a Captain. When they held the Meeting on midsummer day, that was the main item of business to be discussed. Gerd didn’t attend.

  Because by that time, he had bought himself out. He paid the full price in silver, insisting on it, and handed his kit in. Sankey had then insisted on paying him his share of the prize-money, battle-pay and ransoms the Company had won. It came to somewhat more, slaves being expensive, and the surviving longship had been carrying plenty of plunder that could be salvaged. The ship itself was prize, too.

  Sankey came in as he was packing the last of his gear. Gerd tightened the straps and swung his pack on his back. It was light. Again he owned only the clothes he stood up in, a sword and a purse. And Alissa’s knife.

  Sankey took off his helmet and seated himself on the footlocker opposite, twiddling the headpiece between his knees. He spoke without looking up.