“You called it Bright-Shock,” said Garrett. “Now it is Heofonfyr.”
“It is your weapon?” asked Roper, switching to Saxon.
“Yes.”
“I hope we meet at Harstathur,” he said.
Garrett laughed. “Me too.” He rammed his helmet back on his head, gave a mocking bow with a flourish of his hand and turned away, spurring his horse out through the Great Gate. His retinue followed.
“That was bait, my lord,” said Gray at once. “That man, his weapon, his armour. They were all to entice you to Harstathur.”
“Why wouldn’t we go?” Roper asked distractedly. His mind was grasping after that armour. It was so familiar.
“Because that’s what Bellamus has asked us to do?” suggested Gray.
“Bugger that,” said Tekoa. “If he wants to meet us at Harstathur, let him. We’ll carve him and his hermit crabs apart.”
Roper looked sharply at Tekoa. “The armour!” he blurted.
“Anakim bone-plates,” said Gray grimly. “Extracted from our dead.”
That shocked Roper. It made a grim sort of sense: the bone-plates were lighter and harder than steel and would have a ghoulish impact on the Anakim they faced. But somehow it seemed beyond the pale. To wear the bones of dead, honourable legionaries as armour! That was bitter.
“I agree with Tekoa,” said Roper, vengefully. “Bugger that. We’re going to Harstathur.”
The legions would leave the next day. They had a destination, they had an enemy and Bellamus seemed interested in little other than their destruction, so Roper gave the warriors a final night to prepare themselves and say goodbye to their homes and families.
The fortress went deathly still the day before a march-out. Weighing heavily on the minds of all was the knowledge that, win or lose, not everyone would come back through the Great Gate. Some of the wives now preparing their husbands’ equipment would hear a knock at the door in the coming weeks. A messenger, telling them that their husband, the father of their children, had given his life in service of the country. Just as the men were expected to accept their fate with an unwavering heart, so their wives must take the news like a subject of the Black Kingdom. “Were we victorious?” was the accepted response. And if the answer was “yes,” as it so often was, then the woman might respond: “Then I am glad,” or perhaps, if her resolve was close to failing, “Good.”
Then the door would slam shut.
Keturah assembled Roper’s equipment, just as thousands of other wives were putting together their husbands’ arms and armour. She laid it out on one of the deerskins on the floor: first, Cold-Edge. It seemed that she had known where it was all along. Next to that, a long dagger that Roper could use if he lost his battle-sword. Then a task-knife, single-edged for cutting food, cloth, wood. His axe; a saw blade; an entrenching-tool; the oxhide medical roll; two water-skins. His steel cuirass, the patch he had sustained in the battle on the flood plains visible as a faint outline, was laid out next to these. It gleamed. Roper took care of his own equipment, but Keturah had dismissed his efforts and polished the steel herself with fine sand until it shone, then sealed it with oil. Next to the cuirass: a padded leather sark with a chain-mail skirt attached, that he would wear beneath the steel. Then his gauntlets and the leather gloves he wore beneath them. His oxhide boots with steel strips inlaid in the shin and calf; a felt cap to be worn beneath his helmet, with a slit at the back so that it fitted around his high ponytail. Finally, the Unthank-silver helmet that had belonged to Kynortas, the axe-shaped blade at its front so sharp that the eye shrank from it.
Most wives added several small tokens that were not required for the march or the battle line and Keturah would not be outdone. She had included a bundle, wrapped in comfrey leaves, of dried fruits threaded onto a string and dried fungi too, which could be added to stews for flavour. In a separate package she had pressed strips of dried elk and boar, seasoned to make the mouth water. On top of the packages of food was a small silver mail snake on a chain. Catastrophe: the serpent that would end the world.
When Roper entered his quarters and saw his equipment laid out so tenderly for him, with the keepsake and the packages of food, he stopped suddenly. Keturah was sitting on their bed, trying to weave with her numbed fingers. “Your equipment is ready, Husband,” she said, glancing up at him.
“Thank you,” said Roper, quietly. This did not feel like the last time he had gone to war. Then, his situation had been so desperate that it had seemed an escape from the torment of the Hindrunn. To die trying to undo the retreat that had been his first command would not have been a bad outcome.
This was different. Now, he had something to lose. He was partaking in the customs that warriors of his land had observed for thousands of years. He was connected to that history: through his ancient sword, his father’s helmet, the honour of the legionaries under his command and now this farewell from his wife. Pride threatened to overwhelm Roper, that he could be so much a part of the mighty warrior tradition of the Black Kingdom. He was also beginning to feel fear. He might never come back here, to this room and to this woman.
“What?” said Keturah. Roper shook his head; she knew exactly what. She smirked. “I hear Bellamus sent a big message.”
“Certainly a big messenger.”
“Garrett Eoten-Draefend,” she probed him. “Garrett the Giant-Hunter.”
Roper did not care about his name. “He has Bright- Shock.”
“May it bring the same kind of luck to him that it brought to your father.”
“Bad luck didn’t kill Kynortas. Men die on the battlefield.” Roper shrugged. “And I shall make sure that Garrett is among
