grey skies. There were fewer people on the road now. Those who did share it with them were mostly the slow ones: whole families, the sick and the aged.
There was a young girl, no more than eight or nine years old, sitting on the grass, holding a wailing baby in her arms. She watched them pass by. Tears had run streaks down through the dirt on her cheeks, but now she was silent; just watching, in defeated resignation. Taim reined in his horse and stared down at the girl. She looked back at him, without fear or hope, without any sign of emotion.
“Come,” he called down to her, bending down and holding out a hand.
She shuffled backwards across the grass. The baby was screaming, a sound of such undiluted distress that it cut Taim to the quick.
“We can carry you, if you’re too tired to walk,” he said.
The little girl shook her head and hugged the babe tighter against her chest.
“You shouldn’t stay here.” Taim’s men had passed him by now, riding on. “It might not be safe.”
“I’m waiting,” she said, so soft and shy that he barely caught it.
“Who for?” he asked. But she did not reply. She would not look at him any more. Taim left her, not knowing what else to do. Thinking of Jaen, and of Maira their daughter.
The river grew more turbulent. The rich pastures bordering it gave way to sparser, poorer grasslands and stretches of bare rock. The hills bulged up ever higher, and colder air blew around their haunches.
In the afternoon, the silhouettes of riders appeared above and behind Taim’s band. They kept pace for a time, paralleling the course of the road. A group of villagers trudging along a little way ahead saw them too, and began to run.
“Haig or Black Road?” one of the warriors near Taim wondered.
“I don’t know. Black Road, if I had to guess.”
The distant figures fell away beneath the ridgeline after a while. Taim picked up his pace. He looked back down the road. It wound its way off towards the coastal plain. There was bad weather out there, coming in from the sea: fat clouds and a wall of rain or sleet that hung like a curtain from the sky. All down the road’s winding path people were scattered, crawling their way up the valley. It could not be long, Taim knew, before the wolves of the Black Road descended upon this straggling flock.
At the place where the road to Ive forked off southwards, the Kyre was narrow, funnelled between two rock buttresses. A single-arched stone bridge spanned the channel. On the north side of the river, the hillside was steep and bleak. The road to Highfast was cut into its face. Taim looked that way for a while, thinking of Orisian, but turned his men south and led them clattering across the bridge.
There was a little village there, at the south end of the bridge, perched above the river on a huge flat platform of bare ground: squat stone huts, some roofed with turf, some with slate. There was a miserable-looking inn, a blacksmith, and some stables and sheds. And scores of people, perhaps hundreds. They were crowded around every building, sheltering against the walls. Many were curled up, with cloaks or blankets pulled over their heads — sleeping or sick. Families were clustered around tiny fires they had made from whatever meagre pile of wood they could assemble. Some Haig warriors were handing out flatbreads from a barrow, beating back those who tried to grab an extra portion.
“Find some feed and water for the horses,” Taim instructed.
He went in search of anyone of authority, anyone who could tell him something of how things stood. He found no one. A listless despair had settled over the village, brought perhaps by the hundreds who had already fled this way. The warriors here were without captains; half of the place’s original inhabitants had already left, making for Ive. It was obvious that many of those now encamped here would not be going further soon, if ever. Few had set out upon their journey with adequate preparation, and all had been on the move for too long without rest. The sky was already darkening towards dusk, and foul weather gathering further down the valley, threatening to come surging up towards the Karkyre Peaks.
“Black Road!”
The shout sped through the village, taken up by one voice after another. Taim ran back to the bridge. Riders were on the road across the valley, still some way further downriver but moving fast. Ahead of them a few desperate figures were running, striving to reach the bridge before they were cut down. Taim could see some of them flinging aside their belongings. They had no chance, though. He saw first one, then two, caught and killed by their pursuers.
“Block the bridge,” Taim shouted at the nearest of his men as he ran for his horse. “A shield line across this end.”
He slapped a Haig warrior on the shoulder as he sprinted by, shouting, “Get your men together. If we don’t hold the bridge, we’re all done.”
He did not wait to see if the man did as he was told. People — those who could — were already running, gathering their families, rushing for the road south. Taim could hear children crying. He leaped up into the saddle. Ten or twelve of his horsemen were at his side. Most of the rest were on foot, arraying themselves across the roadway, blocking off the near end of the bridge. They squatted down behind their round shields. Few had the spears that were needed to meet a charge.
A young man came staggering across the bridge. The wall of shields parted to let him through. He was the last. The Black Road riders were close. Taim could see the dull texture of their mail shirts as they pounded up. He could hear the snorting breath of the lead horse as it swung towards the bridge.
A knot of Haig spearmen appeared at his side. He looked down at them and saw their fear.
“Wait here with me,” he muttered. “There’s been enough running for now, don’t you think? These are people of the True Bloods we’re fighting for. They’ll die if the Black Road crosses this bridge, so fight well.”
The first horseman came across the bridge at the gallop. The valley rang to the sound of hoof on stone, every rock face reflecting the sound. There were flecks of foam at the mouth of his great bay horse. He crashed down upon the shield line at full pace, as if he had not even seen it. Horse and rider went plunging through, both tumbling, and took three or four men with them. More came close behind, and they hesitated no more than the first had. They fell like hammer blows on kindling, ploughing through the thin Lannis ranks. Horses went down. Men were crushed, and knocked flying.
Taim turned to the little wedge of Haig men drawn up beside him. There was no sense in waiting. There was to be no subtlety to this; it would be won and lost quickly, in the first savage moments when men must choose between courage and fear.
“Go,” Taim shouted at the Haig men. For an instant, he was not sure they would do as he commanded. But then they were running, and crying out, and driving their way to the heart of the fight.
“Us too,” Taim called to his companions, and they charged in.
The battleground was constricted, the slaughter compressed into the small open space where the bridge disgorged the road between huts. Taim’s horse stamped on someone as it lunged forwards. It barged through and took him up against a woman who was laying about her from horseback with a long thin-bladed sword. She cut at Taim’s arm. He blocked the blow and swung for her flank. Her horse lurched sideways and carried her out of his reach. A spear stabbed into her stomach from below, and he turned away, seeking another opponent. More warriors were still coming across the bridge. Taim saw one of his men battered to the ground and trampled. A horse reared beside him, and twisted and crashed down on its side. He urged his own mount on, closer and closer to the bridge. He killed one man, and another.
He glimpsed villagers rushing up to the edge of the fray, falling on injured or unwary Black Roaders, clubbing them and jabbing at them with knives. He hacked and slashed until his arm ached. And, quite suddenly, it was done, and the enemy were all dead or downed, and the bridge still belonged to Taim and his men.
Sleet was falling, and the day’s light was almost done. Taim could hear people cheering. He sat on his horse at the mouth of the bridge and stared off down the valley. There were other companies of warriors on the road, out there in the gloom, drawing closer.
He sheathed his sword and turned back towards the village. One of the Haig warriors grinned up at him.
“It’s not done yet,” Taim said wearily before the man could speak. “Is there a ford across the river anywhere near here? Another bridge?”
The spearman shook his head, his brief joy dispelled by Taim’s grave expression.
“Get whatever you can find out of the houses, then,” Taim said. “Benches, tables. Anything. We need to put a wall across the bridge.”
