Full Circle (28 page)

The moment, the heartbeat, seemed to stretch forever, as though he were poised at the crest of a wave that would never break.
Loyalty was the officer’s creed, central to the warlord system, the heart of their beliefs, the core of their lives. Loyalty
and obedience. He owed Thegan his life. Thegan had saved him at Bonhill at the risk of his own life. He had commanded him
in so many battles, and Leof had followed blindly, sure that whatever his lord said would be right, and it had
proved
right, time and again. What if he was right now? From the corner of his eye, he spotted Sorn, hurrying towards the gate,
followed by Faina, and that meant he had no more time to think, because Sorn would do anything, would throw herself under
the knife, to save this innocent, and he couldn’t let her.

“My lord!” he said, moving forward, putting his hand on Thegan’s arm. “No, my lord!”

“Take him and chain him,” Thegan said calmly to Hodge, as though Leof were merely another law-breaker brought before the warlord’s
justice. The blue eyes were as cold as hell. As though Leof’s years of loyalty and comradeship meant nothing to Thegan — had
never meant anything. He had been a tool, like all the others.

“He is no officer of mine,” Thegan said. “Cut his hair off.”

Leof grabbed at the knife at the girl’s throat, trying to twist it from Thegan’s grasp, but Wil and Gard and Hodge were on
him and dragging him away, hands grabbing his arms, his legs, picking him up bodily, one limb each, in that lift that is the
hardest to break free from. He had nothing to push against. He kicked, tried to wrench his way loose, but three to one was
too much.

As they dragged him back he heard the girl pleading, and saw Alston, white-faced, take a step towards Thegan.

“Did you think I would not do it?” Thegan shouted at the enchanter. The girl screamed and the scream was cut off in the gurgle
of a cut windpipe, a sound they all knew too well from the battlefield, and it was too late.

Leof stopped struggling. They lowered his legs to the ground and he stood, shaking, hung between Wil and Gard, who were shaking
too. Wil, apology mixed with determination on his face, drew his belt knife and sawed off Leof’s ponytail, and threw the bright
hair on the ground, where the wind lifted a few strands of it into the air, whirling it around. Leof watched it, feeling oddly
calm. There was his old life, he thought. Maybe some birds would use it to line their nests.

Sorn no longer hurried. She stood in the middle of the yard, Faina clutching her arm, tears on her cheeks and staining the
front of her plain grey gown. She stared at Leof and took a deep breath, wiping emotion from her face.

“We have to chain you,” Wil said. Leof nodded and they trudged towards the whipping post beside the barn, past the Travellers
standing in the doorway, looking between Horst and his men, who stood with bows strung and arrows nocked.

Flax glared at them, fury flushing his cheeks, and Oak, the mason, stood at his side with shoulders hunched and heavy. The
red-headed councillor wept silently, and Reed’s face was turned away, covered by his hand. Vi simply stared at him.

“Don’t blame him,” Wil said, nodding at Leof. “He tried to stop it.”

Leof wondered why he said it. It was an acknowledgement, of a kind, that what had happened to the girl was wrong, but it was
worthless, because Wil had done nothing.

“What will happen to you?” Vi asked him.

Leof shrugged. “The noose or the pressing box.” He didn’t much care. He’d spent his life under Thegan’s command, keeping their
Domain safe from attack, and now it seemed that all he had done was help evil rule.

“Hope you make it that far,” Vi replied. “That enchanter, he won’t respect hostages. We’ll all be dead, come sunset.”

She was probably right.

They chained his hands and looped the chains through the high hook above the whipping post, dragging his arms up painfully.
He could hear in the distance the unmistakable sounds of battle starting.

Sorn stared at him, her face expressionless but her hands clenched at her sides. He turned his head deliberately away from
her towards the Travellers in the barn, and then back again. He had tried to save the girl, and failed. But there were still
one hundred and thirty-five more souls to be saved.

Sorn nodded. Her hand on Faina’s arm, she walked around the side of the barn. There was a back door, a back gate. If she could
get the guard away…
Run
, he thought.
Save yourself as well as them
.

A scuffle at the barn door brought his attention back. Flax and Oak were trying to push out, shoving against the soldiers,
who pushed them back.

Flax turned to the Travellers clustered close to the door, but hanging back. “Are you going to wait here to be slaughtered
by the warlord?” he demanded. “If we wait, it will be too late.”

The boy was right. “Do it!” Leof called.

Horst whipped around, his face contorted with anger. “That’s treason!” he yelled, and he brought his bow up to aim at Leof.
His arm drew back, and Leof braced. Better Horst’s arrow than the pressing box.

The soldiers at the door had turned at Horst’s shout. Flax slid past them, jumped Horst from behind, dragging him down. Oak
acted at the same moment, thumping the next archer on the side of the head, and the barn erupted as Travellers came flooding
out, barrelling towards the soldiers.

Reed snatched the knife from Horst’s boot and went for one of the archers, but he was too slow — an arrow took him in the
chest and he fell soundlessly, still clutching the knife.

Horst twisted beneath Flax, bringing his arms up to break free, but the boy was stronger than he looked and held on grimly,
bashing Horst’s head against the ground. Young Scarf lunged at Flax from behind and plunged a knife into the boy’s side. Flax
arched backwards, astonishment on his face. Horst sprang to his feet and drew his sword, slicing towards the nearest Traveller.

Leof lost sight of them as the Travellers spilled out into the yard, the alarm bell ringing.

Thegan strode back from the gate, directing archers on the walls with hand signals.

“Kill them all!” he shouted and turned back to the wall defence.

Arrows rained down. Leof was protected by the whipping post at his back and the barn wall next to him, but the Travellers
were too slow to take cover. They fell, one by one: the red-headed councillor went first, shouting defiance. She fell on top
of Flax’s body. His head faced Leof, his eyes wide and blank. There was a trickle of blood drying at one nostril.

Vi and Oak had been pushed back towards the barn by the fighting. They both ducked in behind the door, marshalling the few
who had escaped the arrows towards the back where, surely, Sorn was waiting.

Run, Leof thought towards her.
Run
.

But of course she came back for him. Striding through the barn, she carried the pole that could unhook his chains from the
whipping post.

“Don’t let them see you help me!” he yelled, but she ignored him, moving even faster towards him.

Then the wind wraiths came, shrieking hunger and delight, and the walls began to spill ghosts from three sides. Her steps
faltered, then steadied, and she came on.

“Run!
Please
, Sorn!”

Ghosts streamed over the walls, but she didn’t seem to care. She was braver than anyone. Braver than he was, for sure and
certain. Brave to the core.

Then Thegan came from the gate, running hard, followed by Wil and Alston and Hodge, and swept her up in one arm, sword in
the other. He dragged her to the back door of the barn, but she managed to throw the pole to Leof, for what good it would
do, before she was gone.

Thegan didn’t even look at him.

The archers were scrambling from the walls, soldiers with boar spears massing to form a line to cover their retreat. The ghosts
simply walked up the spear, ignoring the shaft through their bodies, as a boar will run up it, until they reached the end.
Thegan’s men had thought of this, and had set the crossbar much further back than normal, allowing for their reach with a
sword, so the line was holding.

Then, from behind, Oak came lumbering, swinging a halberd, chopping at the spearsmen and shouting.

Once the line was broken it was outright massacre. Affo was there, wielding an axe as tall as himself, buying time by hacking
at the ghosts’ arms and legs. It took a moment or two for each one to reform, the delay too short for them to gain any real
advantage.

Oak was not the only Traveller fighting alongside the dead army. Living flesh was grabbing swords and bows and axes from the
withdrawing soldiers and wielding them inexpertly.

“Retreat!” Leof shouted at the soldiers. “Get yourselves away!”

It brought the wind wraiths’ attention.

They descended, screaming, from the wall heights, talons reaching out. Leof braced himself and stood tall, taking hold of
the chains with both hands.

As the first wraith came at him, he took all his weight on the chains and swung his legs up high in the strongest kick he
could manage. It took the wraith in the chest and it fell backwards with a squawk, although Leof could feel a sharp sting
from where a talon had cut his leg.

They regrouped and began circling him, just above head-height.

“Master, master!” they called. “Come and feed us the pretty one!”

The enchanter appeared in the yard, flushed and triumphant. He carried no weapon, but the ghost with beaded hair followed
him, hefting an axe. Leof recognised the weapon and turned away. Affo’s. The wind wraiths made another darting sortie towards
him, and he swung from side to side, kicking them off.

The enchanter nodded to the ghost. “Kill him, Owl.
Disgara
.”

Owl raised the axe.

“No!” It was Oak, running heavily out of the fray. “He tried to stop Thegan.”

They stared at him for a moment, Owl slightly lowering the axe but clearly not understanding anything but Oak’s tone. He didn’t
look like he enjoyed being stopped. He looked enquiringly at Saker, hefting the axe again.

“He’s one of them,” the enchanter said. “An officer.” He nodded to Owl to strike, and Owl raised the axe high with satisfaction.

At that moment the wraiths plunged towards Leof again, shrieking. He had to lift his legs above his waist to kick them off,
the Lake’s amulet falling from his pocket to the ground.

Owl let the axe drop. He knelt, cautiously, by the amulet, and looked closely at it. Then he stood up and looked at Leof,
suspiciously. He mimed dipping his fingers into water and drawing a circle on the back of his hand, then with his eyes, put
the question to Leof.

Leof remembered seeing Eel make the same sign with his cup of Lake water. A sign of respect for the Lake, he had thought at
the time. Leof nodded to Owl. Oh yes, he respected the Lake.

Owl stood for a moment.

The enchanter laid a firm hand on Owl’s arm. “
Disgara!”

Owl shook his head, but Leof wasn’t sure if it was in disagreement or in puzzlement. He stepped forward and tried to use the
axe to unhook Leof’s chains from the top of the whipping post, but he was too short. He looked at Oak and gestured for him
to help, and Oak reached up with the halberd and let them loose.

The relief on Leof’s shoulders was immense, though he hadn’t been aware of any pain up until then. He shrugged movement back
into his shoulders and bent down slowly to pick up the woven circle of reeds. The wind wraiths had moved on to easier prey;
he could hear the screams. He looked up and shock kicked him in the gut — the wraiths carried Faina. She was bleeding from
a hundred wounds and as he watched she stopped screaming and her head dropped back, eyes closed. Then, from below, an arrow
took her in the chest; Leof knew from the fletching it was Horst’s arrow. He had saved Faina’s spirit, at least.

Leof looked around wildly — did they have Sorn? Faina never left Sorn. He would drag this enchanter’s heart from his body
if Sorn had been taken by those monsters.

But there was only Faina.

“Your lord has run away, with his lady and his men,” the enchanter taunted him. Leof relaxed. Smiled. Sorn safe.

The enchanter stared at him and Leof stared back. Not a strong face, he thought, a nothing face, an ordinary face on an ordinary
body. He wished he had killed this man when he’d had the chance, at Bonhill.

“Owl refuses to kill you,” the enchanter said. “Why?”

Was it more dangerous to tell him or not to tell him? Leof’s inclinations ran to the truth. “Because the amulet was given
to me by the Lake,” he explained. “To keep me safe.”

The enchanter frowned. “The Lake? What does she have to do with this?”

So, Leof thought. Thegan was wrong. The wave that defeated them outside Baluchston was conjured by the Lake, not this murderer.
He kept his face blank.

“Let him go, then, Owl.
Vara, vara
.” The enchanter pointed to the gate and Owl nodded.

Owl kept a tight hold of his arm until they breasted the gate, then he reached out and gently touched the amulet in Leof’s
hand. It was a gentle gesture.

Leof looked at him, surprised, and saw tears in his eyes. Then the dead man looked towards the town and his eyes grew fierce.
He hefted the axe and gestured for Leof to go.

Leof ran down the hill, shouting, “Ware! Ware! Run! They have axes! They’re coming!” expecting any moment to feel an arrow
or a spear in his back.

T
hey visited
three villages on their way, stirring the young men into dreams of glory and ensuring that Travellers were included in any
defence. They learnt to leave Medric on the outskirts with the horses, because the animals — all animals — went crazy at the
sound of Acton’s voice booming out across the village green.

Ash spread his own news more quietly, Bramble at his side. The Travellers of each village, reassured by the promise that the
world was changing, cooperated with their neighbours and began to forge a new kind of alliance.