08 A Little Hatred: Book One (The Age of Madness)

‘You cannot force the Long Eye open,’ murmured Isern. ‘But when it opens by itself, it’s a fool who doesn’t see.’ She turned and limped quick across the rubble-strewn yard of the fortress, making men grumble as she shouldered past. ‘Black Calder’s always had a bad habit of turning up where he shouldn’t.’

‘So what’re you doing?’

‘Warning your father.’

‘You sure?’ muttered Rikke as she followed Isern up the crumbling steps, still glimpsing those men out of the corner of her eye. An army of ’em now. ‘I mean, what if they’re going to turn up next week? Or next month? What if they turned up years ago!’

‘Then we’ll look like a right pair o’ fools.’ Isern grinned at her as she limped up onto the roof of the tower. ‘But at least we won’t be two corpses in a big heap of corpses. Dogman!’

‘Isern-i-Phail,’ muttered Rikke’s father with a sideways glance. ‘Make it good, I’ve got a battle to—’

‘Black Calder’s in those woods.’ She nodded off to the North. ‘Planning to sneak men around you, I reckon.’

‘You seen ’em?’

‘I must confess, I did not. But your daughter did.’ She slapped a heavy hand down on Rikke’s shoulder. ‘The moon has smiled upon us all and blessed her with the rare gift o’ the Long Eye. We should make ready for blood.’

‘You’re not joking.’ Rikke’s father pointed in the opposite direction. ‘Stour Nightfall might be coming down that road any bloody minute and Lady Brock’s counting on us to be one-half of a trap for him! We don’t arrive, the whole plan’s in the shit.’

Isern grinned like this was all quite the lark. ‘Not half as deep as if Black Calder sidles up our arses while we’re facing t’other way, though, d’you see?’

Rikke’s father pressed at his temples. ‘By the dead. I can’t turn around just on your say-so, Rikke. I can’t.’

‘I know,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders high as they’d go. ‘I wouldn’t.’

‘You seen ’em, though?’ croaked Shivers.

Rikke glanced sideways and there they still were, a great long line just in front of the trees, hundreds of Carls, their shields bright blobs of colour, gathered around Black Calder’s standard. ‘I see ’em now. The one at the front’s smiling right at me.’

‘Describe him.’

‘A long, lean, pale bastard with an axe and a sword, sort of hunched over, all elbows. Ugh.’ And she had to bend over herself, hands on her knees, head spinning.

‘Sounds a lot like the Nail,’ said Shivers, frowning down towards the woods. ‘If Black Calder sent a man around the back, the Nail’s the sort o’ man he’d send.’

Rikke’s father gave a low grunt. ‘Maybe.’

‘Give me a few Carls,’ said Shivers. ‘I’ll have a root around those woods. I find nothing, nothing lost.’

Rikke’s father looked from Shivers, to Isern, to Rikke, and back. ‘Root around, then, but quick. If we’re called for, we can’t wait.’

Shivers nodded and slipped down the crumbling steps. The sun was getting higher, and down in the valley on the brown strip of the road, men were moving. A few, and coming carefully. ‘Oh, by the dead.’ Rikke covered her eye with her hand, felt it still throbbing hot against her palm. ‘Tell me you see them?’

‘Oh, aye. Stour Nightfall’s scouts, I reckon.’ And Isern spat. ‘’Course I see them.’

Muddy grey dawn had become muddy grey morning by the time Leo rode up through the red bracken on the hillside. The men of Angland sat in massed ranks where they were hidden from the valley, armed and ready. Some stood to salute, a few held up their swords. Others called out, ‘The Young Lion!’ against their orders to stay quiet. Seemed the soldiers approved of him a lot more than his mother did.

She was kneeling in the bracken just beyond the summit, an eyeglass trained on the valley, a whispering group of scouts and officers around her.

She shook her head as he crept over, keeping low. ‘I thought I gave Antaup orders that you shouldn’t come up here?’

‘Yes, and I came anyway …’ He trailed off. There were men in the valley. Mounted men, spread out, watching their little show of incompetence down at the bridge. Northmen, without a doubt. ‘Nightfall’s scouts?’ he asked in an eager whisper.

She handed him her eyeglass. ‘And his main body is following close behind. Head of the column is there at the farm.’

Leo trained the glass on a few pale farm buildings higher up the valley. Metal gleamed on the brown strip of road. Mail and spear points. A column of armed men, moving towards the bridge. Carls, from the little spots of bright colour which must be their shields. Like seeing one ant in the grass and suddenly seeing dozens, Leo became aware of another column, and another.

‘Bloody hell,’ he squawked, excitement surging up his throat and nearly choking him. ‘They’re taking the bait!’

He squinted harder. There was something waving beside the farm. A tall grey flag, and though he couldn’t be sure at this distance, he’d a feeling there was a black wolf on it.

‘Nightfall’s standard,’ he whispered.

‘Yes.’ His mother pulled her eyeglass from his limp grip and set it to her own eye again. ‘And this time, I’ve no doubt, the Great Wolf is here in person.’