Nezak looked at him. Then he threw back his head and laughed. ‘And if I’m going to end my days in the middle of nowhere with no one left to sing my name, better it be in a mad charge for glory than a slow death of poison and disease, hunted and fearful.’
Jasaan seized his arm. ‘You’d make a fine Guardsman, rider.’ And which way would I rather go? Quickly sounds better than lingering, but as long as the lingering hasn’t come to an end, lingering is still alive. Best not to give himself the choice. He nodded and started off back down the path. They had to pick their way down the bluffs by the falls. There was a trail of sorts but you needed hands as well as both feet to follow it.
‘If we were on the other side of the river, we could have shot them. They couldn’t have done anything about it,’ said Nezak. It was the sort of thing you said when you knew you were about to get yourself killed doing something stupid.
‘Until we ran out of arrows.’ They were halfway down. Jasaan wondered how long it would be before someone noticed them. Two armoured men, scrambling among the rocks, in and out of cover, couldn’t be that hard to spot.
‘They’d have to swim across the water to reach us. We’d cut them down in the shallows.’
‘But they wouldn’t bother.’ Jasaan shook his head. Riders thought like that. Had to face each other in battle somehow. An Adamantine Man thought different. So what if a few men died in a rain of arrows? Adamantine Men did what needed to be done. Didn’t matter if none of them came back, and no one ever called them cowards. There was no such thing.
Except him.
He caught himself. Skjorl. He’d forgotten Skjorl. A man like Skjorl would make a difference here. For once he could actually do some good. ‘So where are you when we need you, eh?’
‘What was that?’
Jasaan shook his head. ‘Nothing. We’re on the right side of the river, rider. We’re on the side that matters.’ He jumped the last six feet down. His ankles gave a twinge and then he was at the bottom of the rocks at one end of the beach, all pain forgotten, with enemies ahead of him. The first outsiders were sitting on the riverbank, holding their heads in their hands only a hundred yards away. He started to run, slipping his sword out of its scabbard as he did, a small stabbing cutting weapon perfect for tight spaces. In an open place like the beach he might have chosen his axe, but Nezak had never fought beside an Adamantine Man. Sword was safer.
He ran faster. The first outsiders looked up. They stared, openmouthed and uncomprehending as he reached them and slashed one across the face, hacking his jaw off. A bad blow — he’d meant to open the man’s throat. He caught the next one as the outsider was starting to turn, caught him right across the top of the arm and down to the bone.
The third hurled himself out of the way. Jasaan missed him and kept running. He didn’t see if Nezak did any better. Didn’t matter. Keep going, that was the thing. Race through them like fire, slashing every one he passed. Didn’t dare stab at anyone in case his sword got stuck. The outsiders were mostly on the riverbank now, scattered, but the next group was the big one where the last canoe had beached. They’d seen him coming now. Blood ran down his sword, flecks of it spraying into the air. He felt it on his face, the iron of it in his mouth. There were a dozen men in front of him. They were staring and they didn’t know what to do. He screamed at them, a battle roar. Run away! Turn and run!
They had spears and sticks and rags. He had steel and dragon-scale. They broke and scattered and he howled with glee and chased after them. You have to hunt them! Cut them down! The more the better! Before they regroup and come back at you!
He caught one and brought his sword down, hacking into the man’s back, opening him from his shoulder to the base of his spine, not a killing blow but good enough. He’d bleed out, and even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be much use for anything.
Next!
They were faster than him though, once they really started to run. They didn’t have armour and they didn’t have swollen ankles, and most of them scattered into the forest. Jasaan didn’t follow into the gloom of the trees. That was their ground, not his.
A man lay on the bank in front of him, still. Drowned most likely. Jasaan ignored him. Charged on. Two more, still hauling themselves out of the river without the first idea what was going on. He slowed. He was running out of breath anyway. Shouldn’t have been, not an Adamantine Man, not so quickly, but that was what you got for gods knew how many days of traipsing through this cursed place with the shits, with its flies and its crawling things.
He splashed into the water and drove the sword into the first man’s belly. The outsider didn’t even see it coming. The second one tried to run, floundering in the shallows. Jasaan stumbled in the mud, hurled himself at the man and they went down together. Jasaan buried his sword in the man’s back.
‘Jasaan! Jasaan!’
He dragged himself back to his feet. Nezak was a little way behind. He was staggering. Something wasn’t right with him.
Flame! There was a man a few dozen yards behind Nezak with a bow, fumbling to string it. The drowned man he’d left for dead. Vishmir! He started to run again, back the way he’d come. Nezak was pointing into the forest. Between the trees Jasaan saw a group of men, running. Four of them, and they were looking at him. The tallest had a body slung over his shoulders. A woman. Not one of their own.
For a moment he didn’t know what to do. Nezak? The archer? The woman?
‘The alchemist!’ yelled Nezak. ‘The alchemist!’ He was still pointing.
‘Behind you!’ The archer had his bow strung now, had an arrow in his other hand too. Shit! They were all too far away and all Jasaan was doing was standing like a lemon tree, dithering. A true Adamantine Man would have gone straight for the alchemist. Let Nezak fall. One Guardsman against four outsiders. He could take those odds. The alchemist was why he was here. Nothing else mattered.
‘Move!’ The outsider with the bow was drawing it back. Jasaan bolted at Nezak, past him, pushing him sideways, then straight at the archer, screaming. He jinked sideways. The arrow flew past, missed him, and then he was on the man, chopping down with his sword, cutting the bow and the arm that held it and the man behind all at once. The outsider went down in a spray of red. Jasaan looked up into the trees. He couldn’t see the alchemist any more but she couldn’t have gone far. ‘Come on then!’
Nezak didn’t move. He was limping badly. ‘I can’t.’
‘Are you hurt?’ Jasaan stared, trying to see what was wrong with the rider, where he’d been cut. No blood, no wounds, nothing sticking out of him…
‘I tripped over a branch and twisted my ankle. Now for the love of Vishmir, get the alchemist!’
Downstream were seven or eight outsiders on the beach, bunched up, spears and bows out, moving cautiously closer. Back towards the rocks the beach was empty. ‘Can you move at all.’
Nezak limped towards him. A fast walk. Better than nothing.
‘Back to the path. As fast as you can. I’ll hold them here for a minute.’
‘The alchemist!’ Nezak shook his head.
‘We’ll catch her.’ No point giving the rider any chance to argue. Jasaan ran down the beach towards the advancing outsiders and then stopped, put away his sword, unslung Parris’ bow and nocked an arrow. He aimed carefully and fired as they scattered. The first arrow missed. He took another. A man went down screaming.
No, not a man, a woman. Jasaan froze. Men fought men, not women. That wasn’t right and made him think of Scarsdale, and by the time he shook himself out of it, the outsiders were in the forest and safe. He turned and ran back down the beach towards Nezak and the waterfall and the caves. There were outsiders between him and the falls now, close to the path up the cliffs, the ones he thought he’d chased off into the forest. No, it was worse than that. He could see the alchemist again, draped over a shoulder. These were the ones he’d chased off into the forest and those Nezak had pointed out.
He ran as fast as he could. Only Vishmir knew what would happen if they got the alchemist up to the Moonlight Garden. He was supposed to take her back to the Pinnacles, and that was that, but all of this was about something here.
There were outsiders on the beach behind him again now too, the ones he’d sent running, quickly back together, chasing after him. He thought about loosing another arrow or two into the ones ahead, but that risked hitting the alchemist. At least if they were bothering to carry her through the middle of a fight, that meant she was still alive. He caught up with Nezak. Half the outsiders barring the way to the falls turned to face them. The rest
