Malice

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CAMLIN

Camlin’s feet ached. He had been walking all day, trying to force a way through this cursed forest. Blood trickled in thin lines down his arms and cheeks where thorns had snagged at him, the cuts stinging as sweat mingled with them.

It was Braith, Lord of the Darkwood that had put him in charge of this crew. Braith, Lord of the Darkwood. Lord of a rabble of cut-throats, more like. Still, Camlin had been happy enough about his promotion, back in the Darkwood. Fourteen men had followed him into Ardan, into the Baglun Forest; only nine walked behind him now. They were entering a dense part of the forest, as thick with thorns and foliage as any he had ever seen. He did not like the Baglun. Although the Darkwood was so much bigger, it had been his home for more years than he could count. He was the wrong side of thirty, and more than half of those years had been spent living in woodland, but a sense of unease had been growing in him ever since he had arrived here. He sighed. They had left the Darkwood and Braith full of pride and excitement: the first chosen to found a new lair deep in the heart of Ardan. How had they come to this? And so quickly: discovered and hunted by a warband, and worse, one led by Pendathran, who bore a personal grudge against Braith and all who rode with him.

Still, they must have lost them now, or at least put more distance between them. They had entered a part of the forest so dense it could only be travelled through on foot, and that with great difficulty, and the warband hunting them had been mounted.

Camlin and his crew trudged on in silence, the only sound their laboured breathing, the occasional snap of a twig or the flick of a branch. In time Camlin heard the sound of running water. The ground began to slope downward, became spongier under foot, and suddenly they walked into a shadowy dell, the trees and foliage opening a little around them. At its far edge was a sharp drop to a stream. It was almost dark now.

‘We’ll stop here for the night,’ he declared. His crew unslung their packs and began making camp. Camlin drank deeply from his water skin and pulled his boots off.

‘Hey, Cam,’ called Goran, a bull of a man that had been with Braith almost as long as he had, ‘put your boots back on. Your stinking feet are making my guts churn.’ Laughter rippled. Camlin forced himself to smile good-naturedly. A few nights back he’d come close to putting a knife in Goran’s gut, should have. He hadn’t done it, had allowed Goran to break his order and done nothing about it. Now, the lads were low, on edge and, worse, unsure of him. He could feel it unspoken between them — mutiny. Gutting Goran now would most likely tip them over that edge.

‘At least I can wash my feet,’ he said. ‘Besides, they cover the stench of your breath. What did you break your fast with? Dung?’

More laughter.

Goran scowled at him, then winced as his skin creased an angry-looking cut running from his left eye down to his lip.

They ate a poor meal as Camlin would allow no fire, but they all knew the sense of it. Then Camlin sent a couple of the lads back up the path to watch their backs.

‘Covered a lot of ground today,’ he grunted. ‘Don’t think Brenin’s lot’d leave their horses, march in here after us. And even if they did, they’d do it a lot slower than us.’

‘An’ louder. We’d hear ’em coming half a league away,’ threw in Goran.

Camlin tried to grin, to look confident for the lads, but he was not so easily cheered. All in their small band were woodsmen, had spent years living in the Darkwood. That was one of the reasons why they had been chosen for this task. And he was not the only one in the small circle that did not smile. He knew some must blame him for the situation they were in. Things had started well enough. They’d burned out a dozen holds and reached the Baglun Forest without any problems, then he’d made contact with Braith’s man from Dun Carreg and been given his first job. Personally, he thought the hold had been too close to the fortress for the first strike — but the contact had insisted, and he knew the idea was to stir things up with Brenin quickly, lure him out of his stone walls. Why, he didn’t know, but over the years he’d become used to following orders and keeping his head down, so he’d just shrugged and got on with it.

That was when things had started to go wrong. He’d climbed the hold’s wall, opened the gates for the lads and put a sword in the belly of the first man to hear them. A couple more had put up a fight, but two against fifteen was never good odds. They’d rounded up the women and a young lad, but Goran had knocked the lad around and, the next thing, one of the women had a knife out, had cut Goran from eye to mouth. ’Course Goran hadn’t taken that well, all hell had broken loose, and before Camlin could do anything about it the two women and the lad were dead. He’d not been happy about that. The whole crew knew he wouldn’t have the killing of women and bairns. Not that he had the morals of the sainted Ben-Elim, far from it: he’d lied, cheated and murdered as much as any lawless man, but he drew the line at women and bairns. He had his reasons. It had never been a problem before, in many ways it had been better. Braith wanted word to spread of who was doing the burning and killing, and survivors told a better tale than the dead.

He’d wanted so badly to kill Goran for that, had felt the blood-rush, even had his knife out before he’d realized what he was doing. Maybe he should have killed him. Braith had warned him not to give an order he wasn’t prepared to gut a man for. He sighed; no point worrying about should haves. He’d hoped that’d be the end of the bad luck, but it was only the beginning. A couple of nights later he’d lost a man on watch to one of the Baglun’s bogs, and the next day lost four men to wolven. And then they’d heard about Pendathran’s warband hunting them, so had fled deeper into this cursed forest.

And now here they were, sitting on a cold, hard shelf of rock, no fire, an angry warband close behind.

‘So, what next, chief?’ Goran asked him, a sour twist to his mouth.

‘We lie low. Either they will miss us or they won’t.’ Camlin picked at a blister on his foot. ‘If the worst does happen, then we’ll break east, head for the marshes. They’d never find us in there.’ He looked around at the dark expressions.

‘We’ve been in tight spots before and come through. This’ll be no different.’

‘That was with Braith as chief,’ he heard Goran whisper.

Camlin stared at the big woodsman, fingers twitching for his knife. Half the warriors of Ardan wouldn’t be hunting us if you hadn’t started killing children. The boy’s face appeared in his mind, screaming over the corpse of a woman — his sister, his mam? It reminded him of another child, crying over another woman. He blinked. More than twenty years, yet still he could remember his brother Col and his mam as if it were yesterday.

It was the year after the wasting disease had taken his da. He had been fifteen summers old, and was repairing one of the walls on their farm, piling stone upon stone. Then he had heard his mam scream, high and shrill.

He had run, seeing smoke bloom around their hold, crept to the edge of their barn, peering around to see his mam lying still on the hard-packed ground before his home. A blond-haired warrior sitting on a roan stallion towered over her body, other riders holding spears or drawn swords milling about the yard. Then Col had burst into the yard, his older brother by two years, waving a spear. The raiders had spurred their mounts at Col and cut him down.

Camlin had been too scared to move, huddled shaking while the raiders emptied their house and barn of everything of value and rode back to the Darkwood in a cloud of dust.

Eventually he crept out into the yard, knelt beside his mam and brother and shed uncounted tears. A terrible rage consumed him, fed brighter by his shame at hiding. He fetched a pony from the pasture and rode after the raiders.

He was not a warrior, not being of age yet, but his da had taught him much about the ways of wood and earth. It had taken him half a day to catch up with the raiders, who were riding carelessly through the Darkwood. He followed them two more days, out of the Darkwood and into Ardan, saw his mam and brother’s killers pass through the gates of Badun.

After that he had made his way back to his burned-out home, then taken his news to the lord of the nearest village, but the man had not been interested. Camlin was not of age to hold a spear or come from a family of high blood. The next day warriors had ridden from the village to see if there was anything left worth taking from his home. When Camlin had shouted at them and cursed them as cowards they had laughed, then chased him. He fled into the Darkwood, wandering there days until he was found by the brigands that lived there.

They took Camlin in, taught him the way of the wood, and slowly but surely he had risen through their ranks.

And so here he was. He snorted. Done well for myself.

He awoke with a start, had to blink repeatedly to remove the picture of his mam’s dead eyes from his mind.

Dawn’s shadow-light was seeping into the forest. He leaned up on one elbow, rubbed his eyes, saw movement in the shadows. He squinted and stared. Something glinted.

‘Awake!’ cried Camlin, his voice hoarse with sleep. He leaped to his feet, dragging his sword from its scabbard.

The forest came to life around him. He kicked Goran to speed him to his feet, heard footfalls to his left. Stepping backwards, he wobbled on the edge of the rock face, saw a blade pass through the space that his head had just occupied. He rammed his sword into the chest of an onrushing warrior, pulling it free with a spray of blood, stepped over a body slumped at Goran’s feet.

There were enemies everywhere, all a chaos of tangled limbs, battle-cries and screams. Couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if his lads were doing badly. Another warrior lunged at him and he blocked the sword blow, punched the man in the mouth, sending him tripping over a corpse.

Suddenly a high keening filled the air, more warriors rushing out of the mist, bare iron in their fists.

‘Time to leave,’ Camlin grunted to Goran, who was fighting beside him. Camlin ran for the edge of the rock face, leaping off the ledge. With a splash he fell into the stream and dropped to his knees, gashing them on slick stones in the stream bed. No time for pain, he told himself, lurching forwards into the stream’s shallows. Behind him he heard another splash and hoped it was Goran.

He followed the stream’s edge for a long time, until he could not force his legs to pump forwards any longer. He heard splashing, growing louder. He gripped his sword hilt, then the hulking figure of Goran came into view.

The two men set off quickly, shadowing the stream, the forest growing lighter around them. Before long the foliage began to thin. ‘What are we going to do?’ Goran whispered as they approached the fringes of the forest. An open plain lay before them, with occasional stands of trees breaking up the horizon.

‘Follow this stream all the way to the marshes is my bet,’ said Camlin. ‘If they tracked us this far they’re not going to just let us get away now. The only place we can hope to lose them is the marshes.’

‘If we get there.’

‘Aye, if we get there. But that’s not going to happen standing here. Come on.’

They checked the plain once more and then burst from the forest, running for a stand of alders in the distance. When they were halfway to the trees, Camlin heard rumbling somewhere behind. Three warriors were riding towards them. The trees ahead were too far. He glanced at Goran and they both nodded. Stopping, they drew their swords and spun to face the approaching warriors. The middle horseman dismounted, his nose swollen and red, looking as if it had recently been broken.

‘You are safe,’ the man said. ‘Quickly now, let’s get out of the open. We will take you to safety.’

Camlin’s shoulders slumped as he sheathed his sword, relief flooding him. Goran did the same. The other two riders slid to the ground. Then suddenly branches crashed from the forest. Camlin and Goran turned to see men pour from the trees. He heard the whisper of a blade being drawn behind him — surely Goran preparing for a last stand. Then his comrade crashed lifeless to the grass beside him.

‘Don’t kill them,’ a voice cried faintly from the warriors running out of the forest. As he began to turn, a searing pain lanced into his side. His legs were suddenly weak, his vision blurring as he slumped to the ground.