Full Circle (29 page)

It was late afternoon when Bramble called a halt on behalf of the horses. They had reached a stopping place near a stream,
which was clearly used by Travellers. There was a pile of kindling next to the fire circle, and the ground had been flattened
by boots and bed rolls.

“We need to keep moving,” Acton said. “There is sunlight left.”

“You can’t just ride horses like you ride a boat,” Bramble replied, looking him right in the eye. “They need rest. And
we’re
still alive, remember. We need rest too.”

Acton nodded reluctantly but Bramble was irritated. She knew he had ridden horses — well, the sturdy ponies that passed for
horses in his day. He should have more sense. But he’d been buoyed up by the reception he’d received in each village, by the
excitement of a great enterprise, and he was impatient to continue.

When they dismounted, Bramble was piercingly reminded of her first riding days, learning on the roan, and how sore she had
been. In months of walking through the Forest with the hunter she had lost her riding muscles. Ash was in a better state,
but Baluch and Medric could barely walk.

They tethered the horses and Bramble recruited Medric to help groom and feed them while Ash and Baluch built the fire and
prepared the meal: cold beef and cheese, fresh bread, onions, raisins. Baluch used the opportunity to give Acton another language
lesson.

By the time they ate, it was growing dark and the fire was welcome.

“How about some music?” Bramble asked Baluch. He smiled at her and pulled a small pipe from his belt pouch.

“Play that one you made up for your father’s wedding,” Acton said.

Bramble sat up straight. “Eric got married again? Who to?”

“Ragni’s daughter, Sei,” Baluch replied. “She was a widow. Her husband was killed by the River Bluff People.”

Her face must have changed.

“What?” Ash asked.

“These two and their men killed every last man, woman, child and baby in that village,” she said bitterly.

“They chose to fight!” Baluch protested, but he looked pale, and he put down the pipe like an old, old man.

“I thought…” Acton said slowly, considering, “I thought they would go on to Swith’s Hall, to feast forever. I believed
that.”

Ash stared at him with contempt. “You were wrong,” he spat. “You just murdered them.”

“They killed one of my men,” Acton said.

“And that justified killing a whole village?” Ash said, his voice like a whip.

Acton flinched back from it. “No,” he said. “No. But it seemed to, at the time.”

Ash rounded on Baluch. “Why is there no song about River Bluff?”

Baluch looked at him, fighting for calm. “Because I was ashamed of it.” He paused. “Perhaps we should make one now.”

Acton looked down at his hands. “The beer was good. Put that in.” Ash made a wordless exclamation of disgust, but Acton put
up a hand in defence. “No, no, I meant that honestly. They were clever people. They built good houses, they made good beer,
they fought like wolverines, even the women and children.” His voice, even through its stone-on-stone harshness, was admiring.
“They were fine enemies.”

Ash stared at him with a kind of bewilderment, as you might stare at a slug that had perched on the top of your shoe in the
night. It was a stare that asked,
What are you?
Medric, too, was troubled, staring at Acton as though he wanted the legend to explain everything away, to make it all right
again.

“Times were different then,” Baluch said, and Medric’s face cleared a little. That was an excuse he could accept.

Bramble wasn’t minded to let Baluch off so easily, remembering the mixture of exhilaration and horror he had felt in that
battle. He had known they were doing wrong, even if Acton hadn’t.

“People were the same,” she said. “They grieved just as much when someone they loved was killed.”

Baluch looked at her, a thousand years of memory in his eyes. “That’s true,” he said. “Love doesn’t change.”

In the morning, Bramble was as stiff as any old grandam and every sinew protested each movement. She swore quietly to herself
and went off to piss away from the camp.

They breakfasted on the leftover bread and cheese and then caught and saddled the horses, which took longer than it should
have because the dappled geldings had chewed through their tethers and were two fields away, happily gorging on a haystack.

“We should avoid villages if we can,” Ash said, readying to mount. “We don’t have time to stop everywhere.”

To her surprise, Acton nodded. “Agreed. We stop only where we must,” he said, the sound of his voice sending the horses into
a panic. Bramble swore at him and he raised his hands placatingly at her, smiling.

Gods help her, that smile was enough to melt her clean through. He didn’t have to know that, though.

They bypassed five villages, but now, mid-afternoon, they faced a broad stream that seemed to have only one crossing — the
ford at a small town.

“We need food,” Bramble said to Ash. “Acton might as well give his speech while I buy it.”

Acton smiled at her and Ash nodded.

“I doubt they’ll let us through without questions, anyway,” he said.

“Medric,” Bramble said, “take the horses across the ford and wait for us on the other side.”

Medric looked long-suffering. He loved to stand next to Acton, proud as a boy with his first bow. Taking the horses across
the ford wasn’t his idea of glory. But they had taught him to obey orders at that mine of his, because he never complained.

This was clearly a village that had heard of the slaughter at Carlion. The windows were heavily shuttered, even though it
was the middle of the day, and there were no tools in sight.

A party of strangers riding in to any town was usually all it took to bring villagers out from their midday meal.

But Acton’s presence sent a couple of men running off, and women pulled their children behind closed doors and watched fearfully
through gaps in the shutters, leaving brooms and spindles littering the street. Only two men grabbed axes and stood their
ground.

They dismounted and Medric took the horses and began to lead them away. Acton raised his hands peacefully and nodded to Baluch
to start.

“Good people,” Baluch said sonorously. “Do not be afraid. This is no ghost come back from the dead to seek revenge. This is,”
he paused for effect, “Acton, returned to defeat the enchanter!”

There were exclamations from the villagers. Bramble could hear women talking to each other behind the shutters. She realised
that this was the first village which was too far from the Weeping Caverns to have heard the mountain burst asunder; she wondered
if they would find it as easy to convince the villagers that Acton was back. The legend of his return in times of danger had
always been strong in the west, where he had died, but not so much in the central and eastern parts of the Domains.

Then the men who had run off walked back into the village, followed by five of the warlord’s men, pushing Medric in front
of them. Three of them had strung bows and quivers on their backs. One of them, a blond sergeant, seemed young to have gained
that rank. A villager led their horses.

Dung and pissmire, Bramble thought. Trouble.

Baluch moved to address the sergeant. “Good day —”

“Enchanters! Shoot them!” the sergeant yelled, staring at Acton. He nocked an arrow as he spoke, and aimed straight at Ash.

Medric turned at the shout and saw him take aim. “Don’t!” he cried and cannoned into the man, sending him sprawling. The other
two archers hesitated, but aimed and fired at Acton.

The arrows stuck in him and stayed there, quivering. He looked down at them and Bramble saw that irrepressible sense of humour
rise up and take over. He put one finger on the end of an arrow and flicked it, making it twang, and grinned. She couldn’t
help but grin, too. The archers turned pale, nocked and aimed again.

“Not the ghost, you fools!” the sergeant said, scrambling up. “The enchanter!” He pointed at Ash, the only dark-haired man
in the group.

Ash grabbed a broom and held it like a singlestave, but Acton had already moved forward and had seized the man’s arm as he
reached for his bow. “Would the enchanter come with a single ghost?” he asked.

The dead-cold touch and terrible voice froze the sergeant in place and Acton took advantage of the moment to snatch the bows
from the other two archers. One of them ran, the other stayed stock-still, brittle with fear. The two men with swords weren’t
sure who to attack, so they faced down the only one with a weapon. Ash.

“I am Acton, come back from beyond death to defeat the enchanter.” Acton said the words in their own language and released
the man’s arm; he stood back, waiting.

“Oh, that’s likely, that is,” the sergeant said.

Bramble noticed his strong South Domain accent and knew they had to be near home. The warlord’s men of South Domain were both
badly trained and brutal. The sergeant stood firm, full of bravado and furious about being disarmed in front of his men. She
had seen this kind of thing too many times before, whenever someone in Wooding had dared to question anything a warlord’s
man did.

She stepped forward and laid a warning hand on Acton’s arm.

The sergeant drew his own sword and turned to Ash, ostentatiously ignoring Acton. “Enchanter!” he said. “Surrender to my lord’s
justice.”

“I am
not
the enchanter,” Ash said. “We are not a threat to you. Call off your men.”

The sergeant swivelled and aimed a great blow at Acton’s shoulder. With no sword, no shield, he shifted back with a fighter’s
instinct and the sword sliced down on his upper arm.

Bramble felt the shock as it hit him. The arm fell cleanly off, the bows in his hand clattering to the ground. Acton just
stood, looking puzzled. Her heart stopped, and thudded, leapt and steadied as she realised that he was not really hurt.

The men with swords began to close in on Ash and the sergeant raised his sword again, this time to strike Bramble. She braced
herself so she could kick him in the groin and then hestitated, remembering the last time she had kicked a warlord’s man,
and killed him.

“No!” Medric yelled, and he flung himself at the sergeant, who jumped back and swung his sword around. Acton spun and shouldered
him aside, but although the blow went awry, it still landed, hitting Medric in the neck. Acton smashed his left hand down
on the sergeant’s arm and the sword went spinning. Bramble kicked him in the groin, then turned to Medric.

There was blood all over her. All over Acton, the sergeant, Medric himself. It spurted out as though glad to be free of his
body. She knelt next to him as he fell and he gasped for breath, reaching for her. She took his hand and held on tight, knowing
it would be only a matter of seconds. Acton would deal with the sergeant.

“Thank you,” she said to Medric, though her throat was so tight she could barely make the words.

His eyes were already unfocused. “The only warm thing,” Medric breathed, and then he stopped breathing.

She closed his eyes, laid his hand carefully down, and stood up with murder in her eyes, rage scorching her. All the times
that warlord’s men had ridden roughshod over the people of Wooding boiled up in her, all the times she’d bitten her tongue
or held back her blow because it would cause danger to her family, all the times she had watched and fumed and hated. She
would kill him, now, and die for it if she had to.

A lot had happened in those seconds.

Ash was standing over one swordsman, pressing the broom handle hard against his neck. Baluch had the other sword, but the
soldier who had held it was running away. Acton, his arm whole again, yanked the arrows out of his chest and drove them up
under the sergeant’s chin until the points drew blood. The two soldiers stood very still, watching.

Bramble hoped he’d simply push them through, and make the sergeant’s lifeblood spurt out as Medric’s had. Baluch tossed a
sword to Acton, who caught it one handed. He let the arrows fall to the ground and held the sword to the sergeant’s throat.

“You killed one of my men,” Acton said, low and furious. He looked up at the villagers, who were still watching, not sure
which side they should support. Then Acton said accusingly to the villagers, “And you let him.”

Neither the sergeant nor the villagers understood him, but the words were like ice down Bramble’s spine, an unwelcome echo
of the past. She took a step forward, the red rage draining out of her and leaving cold behind. “This is not River Bluff,”
she said, forcing the words out.

At the same moment, Ash said to Baluch, “This is not Hawksted.”

Both men flinched. Baluch lowered his sword. Acton paused for a moment, long enough for Bramble to wonder what she would do
— what she could do — if he chose to strike. Was she prepared to die to save the sergeant? To throw herself on Acton’s blade?
She didn’t think she was, but she wished she were. She wished, for the first time, that she didn’t hate warlord’s men so much.
Because then she could save Acton from another murder.

The sergeant was brave, she had to give him that. He stared ahead, unflinching, and his bladder hadn’t loosened with fear.

“He was doing his duty for his lord,” she said quietly. “Would you have believed it, if you were him? A ghost from a thousand
years ago, come back to save everyone?” She smiled at him wryly.

Acton’s sense of humour reared up, as she’d hoped, and his hand loosened on his hilt. He took a step back and let the sergeant
move away. “Aye, it’s hard to believe, right enough,” he said. He flicked a glance at Baluch, who came obediently to stand
next to him. “Tell this man that I am who I say I am, and he owes fealty to me before his fealty to any other lord, because
I am the Lord of War.”

Bramble watched it happen as Baluch spoke. The sergeant, who had been so hostile, so disbelieving, suddenly believed. Because
Acton had spared his life? Or because he had had more time to observe the ghost, and he saw now that he truly looked and behaved
like a Lord of War?