Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (56 page)

One of the attack strategies Osric had foreseen
was that ropes might be used to lower men with ready crossbows. The position
invited it. A few dozen alder saplings would provide good anchors; Aedan
imagined them being inspected now. In his mind, he could see ten or twenty men
loading crossbows and tying onto the ends of ropes while their companions
anchored themselves to the saplings and prepared to lower their companions down
the short face.

It was the second shower of sand that Osric had
waited for, and now it came. All the way across the outer ledge, sand drizzled
and pebbles bounced. The sound was barely above the murmur of the stream, but
for men who knew what it signified, it was a clarion call. Aedan was finding it
difficult to breathe.

Osric made a downward motion with his arms. Two
men swatted the team of horses. The animals surged forward, drawing ropes that
led out the back of the cave. There was a deep crack that echoed from above, then
a heavy rumble filled the air and shook the ground.

Earlier, it had demanded the strength of several
horses to pull the colossal alder trunk into position, and much chopping to
clear it of branches so that it would roll.

And now it rolled.

The saplings that might have stopped its progress
had been partially cut so as to appear strong when tested, but not strong enough
to withstand such a force.

Warning shouts were followed by the cracking of many
small trees and the screams of men that grew and grew and suddenly burst on
their ears as bodies dropped past the opening and thudded into the rocky ledge.
A shower of debris was followed by a deep rush as the great trunk hurtled past
the defenders and crashed on the rocks, scattering everyone with a shower of
stones, chips of wood, and dust. A few more bodies came down with the log, but not
one of them moved.

Horses reared, and soldiers were forced to subdue
their steeds or be trampled. Osric gave a quiet order, and three men darted out
to collect weapons. As expected, there were many crossbows. Most were broken, but
half a dozen still worked – these were reloaded and placed ready.

Then all fell silent again.

Aedan estimated that between fifteen and
twenty-five men had fallen, leaving enough still to mount a strong attack. Dust
clouds drifted through the cave. There were some muffled coughs.

They waited.

As the air gradually cleared, Aedan studied the
shadows between boulders again.

Horses snorted.

He could hear Liru’s rapid and shallow breathing,
and then realised his was the same. He tried to force himself to take long,
deep breaths and relax his limbs, remembering all too well Dun’s warning about
rapid exhaustion. Yet, try as he might, it seemed impossible to calm himself.

Again he could see dozens of points of movement –
it was as if the boulders themselves were crawling. There was a sharp clicking
of pebbles to the left. He saw the movement. It was the ground behind the large
rock Osric had expected they would use. He had balanced a few stones so that
they would topple if the ground there was disturbed. Several similar traps had
been rigged further down and one of these now also spoke. The archers knew
where their targets would appear. They took aim.

Silence.

Aedan wanted to scream. He dreaded the charge, but
he could not endure much more of this waiting.

When it happened, there was no battle cry. Behind a
cloud of whistling arrows, shapes swarmed out from the two screens of rock and bounded
across the riverbed towards the cave. Aedan knew the entrance would be black to
the attackers, giving them nothing to aim at. It was no surprise then that only
one of their arrows found a shield, one a horse, and the rest clattered against
rock.

The Thirnish bows twanged and six Fenn attackers
collapsed. These Thirnish soldiers were not quick enough with the bow to nock
and aim again in the time remaining, but the half-dozen crossbows were raised
and fired, bringing down another four. Then the wave struck. The attackers were
big men who swung heavy maces and large swords with ease. A dozen of them
crashed into the defences.

Osric had instructed the soldiers to stab for the
eyes because men stumbling into darkness would not likely cover their faces and
would not see the points of spears or swords thrust from the shadows. It
worked. About half of the attackers went down without even striking their
opponents, but the remaining Fenn gained a foothold and began to lay about them
with devastating blows.

The Thirnish began to fall.

Aedan saw Osric throw his sword like a knife,
skewering a Fenn soldier who had knocked Senbert to his knees and was about to
bring a mace down on his head. The man crumpled with Osric’s sword through him
and Senbert sprang back to his feet.

An attacker saw Osric weaponless and turned on
him, swinging a heavy sword. Osric swatted the blade aside with the shield
strapped to his arm, stepped forward, and delivered a blow with his gauntleted
fist that did the work of a hammer. Before the man dropped, Osric grabbed him
by the throat and belt and hurled him into another two attackers, knocking them
both off their feet. Senbert’s blade finished them. Osric unhooked his giant mace
and smashed into the next enemy that caught his eye.

Two men fell on Merter and Tyne. Aedan was not
surprised to see Merter’s feral speed and skill – the attackers found
themselves with an uncaged animal at their throats – but it was Tyne who held
his attention. She fought as Liru had described – dancing, darting and slipping
through defences with movements so quick and elusive that her opponent may as
well have been duelling a shadow. Aedan had never seen anything like it in his
training, never imagined that such grace could be so deadly. He felt an
immediate respect for this tall woman.

“Aedan!” Liru screamed. “Your right!”

He spun around to see that one of the Fenn had
broken through and was striding towards him, snarling and lifting his mace.

Aedan faltered.

Without any warning, the memories took hold. The
image of his father bore down on him. Unreasoning rage and crushing violence.
Inescapable, unopposable. All fell silent but for a rising scream of dread.

His bladder emptied and his limbs collapsed,
dropping him and his sword to the ground. The whimper that escaped his throat
was a sickening admission of naked helplessness. It was the whimper of a child,
a voice of numb terror, of a spirit utterly crushed and taught to cower.

The mace reached the height of its swing and began
an arcing descent. A dim shape clouded his vision as Liru stepped in front of
him and took the blow on her shield. It lifted her off her feet and cast her
through the air. She struck the wall and slid to the floor where she remained
motionless.

The mace rose again. Aedan was frozen. He could
neither speak nor move. He saw a hand grasp the mace and another hand grip the Fenn’s
throat. It was Holt who had intervened, but it was clear that he had lost his
weapons.

The attacker twisted around and the two men
struggled back and forth until Holt lost his footing and went to ground under a
weight far greater than his own. He was outmatched. A big hand closed around
his throat. He struggled and kicked, his movements becoming weaker and slower.

Aedan knew his countryman was dying. He knew he had
to do something, but his body would not respond. His terror only mounted as Holt’s
life ebbed.

A soft tread drew his attention to the side as Tyne
rushed up and thrust the point of her sword through the assailant’s temple. Holt
drew a great breath of air and slowly crawled from under the body of his dead
enemy.

Tyne looked down at Aedan wordlessly. It was too
dark to read her expression but the detached posture spoke her disdain clearly
enough. She turned her back on him and went to Liru’s still form.

As quickly as it had begun, the clangour of battle
died out. The last attacker had fallen. Heavy breathing, the moans of the
wounded, and someone’s wet, foamy coughing replaced the screams and the crash
of metal.

The defenders set about gathering their wounded
and looking for survivors among the bodies. Only four of the Thirnish had been
lost and another three were wounded. The Fenn losses, however, were
considerable – forty-one were dead, most of them crushed by the alder trunk. Eight
were seriously, if not mortally, wounded.

After Merter had scouted the area and was certain
that the threat had passed, fires were lit and the injured properly tended. The
stench of battle was heavy in the cave, making it a grim camp, but Osric was
not prepared to expose the party to the arrows of possible stragglers.

Aedan recovered sufficiently to get to his feet.
Liru had not moved. Tyne and Fergal were crouched beside her. They did not look
at Aedan. He wanted to ask, he wanted to help, but the stickiness of his
trousers and the hot glow of his shame were enough to tell him that he did not
belong there. Tyne had seen him, he knew it, and she would not forget. He
looked up and caught Holt’s eye, but the man turned away.

Aedan’s face contorted in a spasm of
self-loathing. He recoiled from the light of the fires, and headed across the river
bed to where the water gurgled – clear, untarnished. He knew he was exposing
himself to a rogue archer. He didn’t care. An arrow now would be a mercy. He
walked downstream to where none from the cave would be able to see him. Here he
splashed into the brisk eddies of a small pool, lowered himself, and sat in the
clean water, fouling it.

A laugh bitter as gall escaped him. Had he not also
fouled the battle, just by standing among his companions, those who had relied
on him? Liru lay dying or crippled because of him. He had watched, unmoving,
just watched, while Holt had almost died in front of him. He would never forget
the look of those eyes turned towards him in frantic appeal. Holt’s dagger had
been in Aedan’s belt, and there it had remained.

Even now, the strength in his arms was barely
enough to raise his hand, but earlier it had been as if his arms were not his,
as if they were the dead limbs of a corpse. He could still see them as they had
flopped on the ground, useless. And the paralysis had only fed his terror.

He looked down the valley, tracing the waters that
fled the scene.

Should he do the same?

What hope had he of being a marshal? Whatever
courage and strength he possessed were treacherous. Maybe a prince’s treachery
was what he deserved.

He grew cold, and stood, water pouring off him.
Then he cursed himself for the thought. How could he think of his own comfort
after what he had done to his friends?

He did not dry himself by the fire when he
returned. Osric came to check on him, asking if he had any wounds. The
bitterness of Aedan’s thoughts leaked poison into the tone of his answers. He
hated himself the more when Osric left looking confused and snubbed.

Aedan remained in a dark corner, shivering and
hoping that Liru would not die in the night.

A little before first light, Merter and a few
soldiers crept from the cave and scouted until they were sure none of the Fenn
remained. Osric relocated them to a broad valley. Here, the injured rested for
three days while the dead were buried. The Fenn were too many to be buried, so
they were heaped onto a pyre near the cave and burned, the flames giving off
black smoke and a thick stench.

Aedan watched it all with only the dullest
interest.

Liru woke but she was in great pain. Twice, Aedan
tried to speak to her, but her answers were curt. As much as he wanted to
apologise, he could not bring himself to drop his shield in the face of bared
teeth and baleful eyes. Instead he talked around the thing he needed to say,
asking about her injuries and commenting on the proposed plans – plans in which
he no longer had any interest.

If Tyne had given space, he might have been able
to unload the thoughts that ate him like acid. But she hovered and glared as if
he were contaminating her patient. After a few moments she would chase him off,
saying that he was disturbing Liru’s recovery.

Liru never asked him to stay.

Aedan felt eyes on him as he moved through the
camp, and often heard laughter in his wake. No mention of his embarrassment was
made in his presence, but he almost wished that it would be, just to have it
out and over with. Instead, the words and the looks buzzed and darted around
him like a cloud of midges.

Holt now shunned him. Aedan was not surprised.
After some contemplation, he decided to return Holt’s dagger, and did so with a
shamefaced apology. The man snatched the dagger and walked away while Aedan was
still speaking. Hanging there in mid-sentence, the anger and embarrassment that
rose almost forced tears from his eyes. He needed to get away.

Without letting anyone know, he headed out, aiming
vaguely for a hilltop a few miles distant. A blanket of moth-eaten cloud
scudded beneath the sun, and branches pitched in the disturbed air. He walked in
distracted loops, taking a long time to reach the place. After fighting through
the last of the undergrowth and climbing the rocky brow, he discovered it much
to his liking – isolated and bare.

He had asked himself too many questions over the
past days, and found no answers. So now he sat and watched the land below while
a cold, snow-born wind tumbled down from the heights, buffeted past him and
raked through the stands of trees and grassy planes, making them ripple like
the coat of some great beast. It could not improve his mood, but for a time it
helped him forget, and feel nothing.

The sound of breaking sticks and heavy breathing
drew his attention to the slope he had recently climbed. His curiosity gave way
to annoyance when he saw Fergal’s broad form lumbering upwards. Aedan hoped
intensely that the final scramble would be too much, but the oversized cleaner
was as determined as he was unwanted. Without invitation the man dropped
himself down on the rock. Here he panted and blew with a grimace that revealed
just how much the ascent had hurt.

When he could talk, he chose not to and, instead,
dug through a pouch and found a letter which he began to read silently. Aedan
wondered what kind of man would choose to invade another person’s privacy in
order to exercise his own.

He had paid little attention to this servant or
whatever he was, and looked across at him now. At first Aedan had thought him
relatively young, but the way he behaved around men of rank had made him seem
very old. It wasn’t a question of respect given or returned as much as a steady
patience, the kind of patience that suggests a greater knowledge of others than
they have of themselves, that suggests great experience, great age. But there
was something about the way he stretched his arms and grinned at the sunrise or
watched with amusement when one of the soldiers was about to put his lips to an
overheated tin mug – these and many other almost childlike ways made him seem
very young. Part of the difficulty in fixing an age was his hiddenness. He had
the appearance of being overgrown in all ways – great falls of charcoal hair
lay in thick mats reaching down to his shoulders; his eyes were mostly shadowed
under wild hedges of thorny eyebrows; and when he spoke, Aedan remembered, it
was only a disturbance somewhere deep within that dark beard that revealed the
presence of a mouth. But there was no disturbance now. The silence appeared not
to bother this large hairy man in the least.

Aedan, however, was growing uncomfortable and was
about to move off when Fergal coughed.

“This is the bit,” he said, “listen to this:
‘Never have I known such courage or resourcefulness under the most trying
circumstances. If you were to take that one heart and divide it among a dozen
men, they would be a dozen to be reckoned with.”

“Are you trying to mock me?” Aedan cried,
standing.

Fergal returned the letter to the pouch. “The letter
was written by my brother,” he said. “He was describing a boy who for the love
of his young friend, leapt down a gorge two hundred feet deep in a final
desperate attempt to save her. I would not have believed such a tale from any
other source. My brother saw it with his own eyes and even made a part of the
jump himself.”

Aedan was unable to speak, so violent were the
emotions boiling within his chest, so Fergal continued.

“My brother is Nulty, and he tells me that he knew
you well. Do you remember him?”

Aedan nodded.

“And do you remember the day of which he wrote?”

Aedan nodded again.

“Then sit, please. I would speak with you.” He
waited until Aedan had settled down again and recovered. “Nulty also wrote of
what he termed a dread association. He made enquiries after your departure and
what he learned convinced him that your father had been beating you and your
mother. The thing that gave birth to his suspicions was the way you responded
when a nobleman, Dresbourn, prepared to thrash you.”

Aedan was silent. He wished he did not have to see
it all again in such detail. He remembered the gasps as people covered their
mouths, staring in morbid fascination at his disgrace. Some had shaken their
heads. Some had even laughed. None had understood.

“Why can I stand up to anyone in training?” he
blurted. “Why could I fight that gang at the fair but I can’t hold my ground
when someone reminds me of how my father used to charge at me?”

“Perhaps because when those patterns were formed,
your only possible defence was to cower. That part of your mind has locked onto
the idea that there is no other way to survive the ordeal.”

The explanation made sense to Aedan, but it
brought no consolation. “Even if I understand it, what use am I to anyone like
this?”

“Use is a poor word, a small word. You are of
great
worth
to many just as you are. But that is not to say you should
expect to remain with this wound.”

“But how can I get rid of something that’s buried
where I can’t find it?”

Fergal was silent and turned his gaze to the sky.
Birds chattered, grassy swathes whispered to each other, clouds drifted, but Fergal
remained still. Aedan was beginning to suspect that this was no mere
dreaminess, no lost internal meandering. Those twinkling eyes were far too
sharp. This man had something in common with those that burst into song at the
dinner table or ask ludicrously personal questions in public – people’s
expectation of him seemed to have little influence on his behaviour. His quirk,
however, was neither loud nor indiscrete. He simply felt no discomfort about
bringing a conversation to a juddering halt while he had a deep and careful
think.

Aedan decided to wait him out, and wait he did. It
was a long time before Fergal spoke again.

“Many have overcome their fears,” he said “– of
battle, of heights, of loss, of society even. But it was often possible for
them to grow by degrees. In your case, the onset of this fear is total.
Repeating the experience seems likely to repeat the result every time, unless
something deep in your thoughts could be mended. I don’t have a clear solution
for you, but I will certainly help you look for one.”

Aedan sighed. “I’m not sure I want to face the others
again,” he said. “They think me a coward, maybe even a traitor.”

“If I were you, I’d not be too concerned with the
opinions of soldiers who might have been our murderers. And I have spoken to
the others. Osric is not disappointed in you. He is no less your friend now
than before, though
you
might try to be a little less withdrawn. His
confidence often deserts him in the area of relationships. If you don’t make an
effort to accept his bumbling attempts at kindness you will both end up feeling
you are not good enough for the other. I’ll not stand by such idiocy. Your
bitterness will not aid you, and it will end up punishing those who care about
you.”

Aedan blushed. This cleaner was certainly
perceptive.

“What about Liru?” he said. “She and Tyne hate
me.”

“I spoke with them too. Tyne’s anger is understandable,
though it is short-sighted in her – she knows how you and your friends once
intervened on Liru’s behalf. Liru’s anger is emotional. She feels abandoned. It
is because of how much she had depended on you that she now feels as she does.”

Aedan was surprised at that and felt a slight
warmth. “Will I be able to win her trust again?” he asked.

Fergal chuckled. “If you are asking a man to
predict the current of a woman’s emotions, you are asking in vain. But I will
say that you should try.”

“Tyne won’t even let me talk to Liru now.”

“When were
you
ever kept where others
placed you? From your first night at the academy you’ve been leaving footprints
where they do not belong.”

Aedan stared at him. “How do you know about that?”
Then he remembered the size of the man they had disturbed and the mass of hair.
Recognition lit his eyes.

“Remember now?” Fergal said.

“That was you?”

“It was.”

“Oh. Kian noticed that you had ink dripping from
your hand. Did we make you spill something?”

“And ruin a manuscript I’d been working on since
morning.”

“Oops – sorry. Did you tell anyone?”

“No. Neither did I tell anyone about the time you
broke into the chancellor’s office and used a three-century-old marble bust to
open the door.”

“How did you know that?”

“I know now.”

Aedan ground his teeth, squirming with embarrassment
at being found out so easily. “Are you going to put me in the rat cells or
prison?”

“I never liked that particular bust. The sculptor
must have made his impression from a death mask because it gave all of us the
jitters. Unfortunately nobody had the authority to remove such an important
likeness of a former chancellor. Your little adventure, it turns out, had a
happy result, but you will understand if you are not thanked for your efforts.”

Aedan managed a smile.

“No Aedan. I have no intention to see you incarcerated.
In spite of this dread association with your father, you are still the most
courageous and resourceful apprentice the academy has seen – if you are
prepared to accept a cleaner’s opinion.”

It was the most encouraging thing he had been told
in years, but in what Fergal had just said, there was a thorn. His
apprenticeship, his training, his prince …

“You are quiet,” said Fergal. “Are you perhaps
wondering about the sense in returning to – shall we say – a precarious
loyalty?”

“Yes,” Aedan admitted. “But that brings up
something I need to ask. If you knew about the conspiracy against us, why
didn’t you help slow the party down?”

“We had plans, but you and Liru moved before us.
The poisoned broth was an excellent idea though.”

“So you know,” pursued Aedan, “that your master
has been sent here to die, perhaps you too?”

“We suspected it, but your overhearing that
conversation between our prince and the first councillor was very useful.”

“Did Osric tell you it was me?”

“No.”

“Then how did you … Oh, you didn’t know, did you?”

“Again, I know now. But I had little doubt – who
else would have been down there?”

“Fine. Guilty. But let’s get back to the question
of home. What happens after the quest? Can we go back, and if we do, for what purpose?”

Fergal thought long about this. “Going back will
not be without peril. I’ll not pretend to you that ensuring our safety will be
a simple matter, but perhaps we shall think of something. As to purpose, well,
we have a long journey ahead and much time to consider that from many angles.”

“Maybe some unpleasant angles too,” said Aedan. “There
is a good chance we’ll get to do a lot of our travelling in the bellies of
wolves or some other sharp-toothed creatures. Panther almost got my mother last
time. And even if we make it past them, there’s the fortress itself. You know
what happened to us when we entered?