dust, until only the clanging cacophony of fighting reached them.
She caught the flash of white shields on the left, black shields on the right, but then even those were gone. On the slope below and to her right, she could see Captain Ivis, still mounted and flanked by poles bearing signal flags — but those flags had not changed since the charge first began. She saw the same flags on angled spires set above the gate towers. There was no evidence of panic, and the signallers stood motionless at their stations.
Is this really how it is?
The wedge formation of the heavy cavalry, so inviting to the lighter mounted Borderswords, had suddenly ceased to exist, and before they could react to the lightning transformation before them, the two lines of horse- soldiers collided.
Directly in front of Rint was a Houseblade sheathed in leather plates covering chain, his visor lowered and so made into something faceless. He saw the man’s lance slide up to plunge through the neck of Rint’s horse, and as the Houseblade released his grip on the weapon he flung up his shield to take Rint’s stabbing sword. The weapon clanged against copper riveted to wood beneath the black felt, rebounded high. His horse staggered beneath him and then pitched on to one shoulder.
Rint sought to pull free, but the animal rolled on to his right leg. Wrenching agony announced the tearing loose of his thigh bone from his hip socket. The scream that broke from him tore his throat.
The Houseblade had ridden past, but another came up behind him, a woman from the long hair spilling out from under the rim of her helm. Her lance drove down, punched into Rint just under his left collar bone. The heavy iron blade snapped the bone, its point pushing through to crunch into and then scrape along the underside of his shoulder blade. She tore it free as she rode past.
Rint sought to lift his sword to swing at the horse’s legs.
Instead, a hoof lashed down, landing on his throat. There was an instant of impossible weight, and then it lifted clear, snapping against his jaw as it went.
He stared into the dust-filled sky overhead. Somehow, air slipped through the wreckage of his throat and filled his lungs. The pulse in the side of his neck throbbed like a fist under the skin.
That was quick.
Dying was within reach, but something held him back. He struggled to order his thoughts, struggled to understand what was keeping him here, lying on the ground in his own blood. He had never felt so cold, so heavy and so weak.
He tried to turn his head, to look for his sister, but nothing worked. He realized then that he could not feel his body, beyond that immense weight pressing down upon him. The sounds of fighting were falling away, or perhaps his hearing was failing.
We are defeated. As easily as that, the Borderswords are no more. I want to die now. I want to go away.
He squinted into the sky, and now at last saw the tree — where it had come from, how he could have missed it here on this field, were questions he could not answer, but he saw the summer wind in the branches, rushing through the dusty green leaves. And high on one branch sat his sister, young and fierce, not wanting to come down.
He would have to go up and get her, again. It was always the way and it infuriated him. But he would not show that, since he could hear people laughing, offering up suggestions.
Rint stood and began climbing. It was easy. It had always been easy, since this tree was made for climbing. He coughed in the dust, wiped again and again at his eyes, and his chest hurt as it fought for every breath. No matter. She was drawing nearer.
At last he came up beside her, and edged out along the branch. But when he looked over, to berate her for making him have to come up and get her, he saw that Feren had vanished, and in her place sat Olar Ethil.
The witch was horribly burned, her skin peeling off to reveal blistered red meat. She crouched hunched over, rocking, and the eyes she turned upon him glittered as if they still held the flames that had done this to her.
She held out to him her blackened hand. ‘Fear not,’ she said in a broken voice. ‘It is time. I vowed to greet you on this day, Rint, and I always keep my vows.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go home. Supper’s ready.’
‘Rint of the Borderswords, Tiste-child of Night, I forgive you for what you did to me.’
He found that he was crying.
Her hand hovered, beckoning. ‘It is not hard, when you understand things, this forgiveness. The word itself blesses both sides. Come to me, then.’
‘Where is Feren?’
‘Not far.’
‘Where is her daughter?’
‘Not far.’
‘I want to go to them.’
‘Rint, it’s a big tree.’
He took that hand, felt it crumble to ash in his grip, but whatever remained was strong enough to hold on to.
I won’t fall. It’s all right then.
I won’t fall ever again.
The sounds of battle diminished slightly, and there was boiling motion coming through the dust. Sandalath saw scores of white shields appear on one side, and then black shields on the other flank, all drawing closer, and moments later those shields numbered in the hundreds. ‘Oh!’ cried Sandalath. ‘Is it over?’
‘Can’t say, hostage,’ Venth admitted. ‘Seemed awfully quick.’ He wiped again at his eyes.
‘Venth, I am sorry for the horses out there, on both sides.’
‘As am I, hostage. Abyss knows, they deserve better.’
Now the flags were being changed, as the Houseblades withdrew at a slow canter. She saw some reeling in their saddles, and a few riderless horses accompanied them. The troops began re-forming, wheeling round to present an even line, while a few rode on, back towards the keep — the wounded men and women who could fight no more on this day.
The wind was lifting the dust up and past the field of battle, and she saw now the hundreds of fallen strewn all the way back to the distant stone wall. Those shapes formed humps, some seething with wounded soldiers and wounded beasts, but even between the humps no ground was clear. Sudden nausea took Sandalath and she reached out to a merlon to steady herself.
‘Abyss take us,’ Venth muttered. ‘That was brutal. See, they chased off even the skirmishers. If not for that wall, none of them would have escaped.’
Perhaps three hundred or so riders had retreated past the wall and now milled on the nearest field of stubble. Sandalath shook her head. ‘Where are the rest of them?’ she asked.
‘Dead and dying, hostage.’
‘But… almost no time has passed!’
‘Longer than you might think,’ he said. ‘But less than you’d think reasonable, I’ll admit.’
‘Is it over?’
‘I think it might be. They’ve not enough to mount a second attack. I see but a score or so fallen Houseblades on that field.’ He pointed to the new flags. ‘The captain is recalling them all, and that higher flag is announcing a yielding of the field itself, meaning both sides can head out to recover the wounded.’
‘Won’t they fight each other all over again?’
‘Hostage, everyone who leaves a battlefield enters a land of bogs, a swamp that sinks them to their knees. They’ve not the will to fight on, nor the strength neither. In exhaustion and silence, they will scour the bodies of their fallen comrades, looking for friends and kin. I will wager the captain offers his healers and cutters as soon as our own are taken care of… perhaps tomorrow.’
‘And will the Borderswords accept them?’
He shrugged. ‘I cannot say, since we know not their grievance with us.’
She studied the field, and the few figures now staggering among the dead. ‘It seems such a waste, horse
