Soul Bonds Book 1 Circles of Light series (18 page)

Mim laughed and pushed Ashta gently. ‘Go on! This one knows you want to go too!’ Ashta needed no more encouragement – she was rapidly up and after Farn and Jeela.

‘Can you hear him yet, Mim?’ Tika asked quietly.

‘No, but you know this person only clearly hears Ashta well.’ He looked at her. ‘Have you any idea who it could be?’

‘I really don’t. He said Fenj knew him that was all.’

‘We will soon know. Why do we not climb up there and watch for him?’ He pointed to the ridge above the caves.

‘Race you,’ she grinned suddenly, starting to scramble over the boulders. It was higher than it looked but they reached the ridge easily enough. They brushed the thin snow off a rock and sat watching the southern sky. The wind was strong and cold now they were on the exposed ridge. Its icy fingers probed round their ears, down their necks and tried to push through their shirts.

Gan suddenly realised Tika and Mim were missing.

‘Up there.’ Khosa remarked, flicking a glance up the rock face. Gan was aware of Kija’s sympathy for his having to deal with difficult children as he glared upwards.

‘Will you please get down here. Now. We cannot be sure this Dragon is not following to do harm to you.’ As Tika and Mim continued to sit, staring down at him, he folded his arms. ‘I said, “down here”, and “now” ’. They looked at each other then began to slide down from the ridge.

‘His voice is quiet, but this person thinks Gan is angry perhaps.’

‘I don’t see why he should be. We would see a Dragon long before it got here, and we can use the Power, and Kija and Fenj are right there. I do wish he could stop treating us like infants.’

As they arrived in front of Gan, the three young Dragons returned. Tika felt the laughter building in Mim as he watched Farn approach. She risked a quick glance from beneath her lashes at Gan’s thunderous face, then slipped her arm round Farn’s neck. His sapphire eyes whirred with concern. ‘There is trouble Tika?’

‘No Farn,’ she managed to say. ‘Everything is fine.’

‘Is this Gan angered?’

Gan made a great effort to change his scowl to a near smile; the result was a grimace of pain. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I am not angered Farn. A trifle – edgy – shall we say?’

At that moment, perhaps fortuitously, Jeela said: ‘He is near!’

Gan ordered everyone to move closer to the caves, where they stood scanning the sky to the south.

‘There!’ cried Farn.

‘You see him?’ asked Kija.

‘Of course.’

Slowly, minute by minute, the tiny dot grew larger, until even old Lorak could see the Dragon shape speeding towards them. Tika and Mim both felt shock ripple through Fenj’s mind. Mim caught Tika’s hand as Fenj suddenly moved forward, away from the sheltering rock wall. He reared upright, his wings outstretched as his great bass call roared towards the approaching Dragon. As an equally deep call was returned, Kija said to the company, amazement plain in her tone: ‘It is Brin! First born of Fenj and Skay’s first brood!’

As Fenj’s son circled to land in a swooping glide, Soran’s scouts were informing him of signs of Shardi not far ahead. He ordered the Guards to be even more alert and to keep a tight formation. To his left, the land sloped away fairly gently and about three leagues ahead, sunlight flashed on the river Skar. To his right, the ground rose steeply, littered with great boulders, for a league or more, to the feet of the towering escarpments of the northern High Lands.

The Shardi were probably watching, waiting for nightfall, when the Guards would make camp. In the late afternoon, Soran rode ahead with Trem and one of the scouts. ‘There, Sir.’ Soran looked where the scout was pointing. He wheeled the fengar to the right. There was a clear area for several man lengths, then an uneven line of boulders half-circling towards the sheer rock behind. The cliff angled outwards far enough to give some protection to Soran’s force from attack from above. At Soran’s nod, Trem rode back to signal the men to follow.

Well trained as they were, the Guards unsaddled the fengars, rubbed them down, and then replaced the saddles to be ready for action. The spare fengars were securely tied, well apart, at the back of the overhang. Should there be a Shardi attack tonight, the fengars would fight each other if they could not reach an enemy. Soran ordered fires to be lit, both to allow the cooks to prepare hot food for the men and to use to light torches should the need arise. About the only thing known of the Shardi, apart from their ferocity, was the fact that fire terrified them.

Shardi were usually seen in groups of ten or twelve. Their size, speed, and blood chilling screams made them appear far more numerous to the few who survived an attack. Gan and Soran had worked the Guards on various tactics to try to deal with the Shardi but had had no opportunity to put these tactics to the test. It had been difficult getting the Guards to understand the fear and panic they would likely feel during a Shardi onslaught.

Eventually, Gan had enlisted the aid of some of the Seniors of Gaharn who had used Power to suddenly fill the Guards’ minds with terror. Only when the men had been regrouped and calmed, had they fully realised what they might be called upon to face. Again and again, Gan and his officers made the Guards learn to control at least some of their panic, and maintain their positions, rather than flee in all directions. Gan hoped this unorthodox training might prove of some value, but, as yet, the Guards were untried.

Soran instructed his officers to keep moving amongst the groups of Guards tonight. By the unusually subdued atmosphere in the camp, Soran knew they were apprehensive about what the rapidly descending darkness might hide. As Gan had told Farn, fear made men cautious. But too much fear led too easily to panic, and that Soran had to keep at bay at all costs.

Chapter Eighteen

Fenj had been overwhelmed by the arrival of his first born son. Brin was a wanderer since soon after his hatching. Always curious to know what lay beyond those peaks, where that river might lead. Cycle after Cycle of Seasons passed, and still Brin never seemed to develop the steadiness expected in a mature Dragon of the Treasury.

His wanderings took him further, he was gone for longer at a time. Fenj had not heard word of him for several human generations and had resigned himself to never setting eyes on this son again. And yet, here he was. As massive as Fenj, his crimson scales shimmering in the sun, his eyes blazing still with dreams of adventure. Kija looked at him, then at Farn, and she sighed. A watch would need to be kept on the pair of them, despite the great difference in their ages.

Brin explained he had been “far away south”, but as he journeyed back towards the Ancient Mountains, he had begun to hear rumours of strange events. ‘I heard that hatchlings had bonded with two-legs.’ He looked at Farn and Ashta with great interest. ‘Then I heard of Nula.’ Fenj and Kija hissed, and Brin amended quickly: ‘I heard the Forsaken was attacking farms and herders’ camps. I was near enough to her at one time to hear her thoughts.’ He looked around at his audience. ‘She is mad. She killed and ate the two of the Kin who served her. She mutters to herself, over and over, most makes no sense. She is mad,’ he repeated.

‘None of this explains why you decided to come after us,’ Kija snapped. ‘And we would prefer a sensible answer, Brin – no nonsense about adventures.’ She glared at him, her eyes frosted gold. ‘I could always fly faster than you when we were hatchlings together, and I daresay I could still deal with your silliness.’

Brin’s laughter rumbled through their minds. ‘Oh I remember Kija! I’ll behave myself!’ He grew serious. ‘I have journeyed far through all these many Cycles. I have seen many things I had never heard tell of, and I think you have not either. I have even travelled far to the north.’ He let that information sink into their minds. ‘Yes,’ he continued, looking to his father, ‘Dragon Kin live still in the north.’

Fenj became greatly agitated. ‘They cannot.’ His eyes were slate grey now. ‘The cold and the Shardi make it impossible for us.’ He explained to the two-legs: ‘Long, long in the past, it was less cold, so the Kin did dwell further north. But since my mother’s mother’s time, none have done so.’ He raised himself above Brin. ‘The Kin can NOT live there.’

‘But they do,’ Brin replied calmly. ‘They have changed themselves a little to help them master the cold, and they share their lives with a race of two-legs.’

Kija, Fenj and Gan were listening closely now. None of them knew of any race of two legs in the north, only the Guardian’s servants and a few renegades and runaways. Except Shardi. As that idea dawned, Brin rattled his wings. ‘No, no. Small, very small. They live inside the mountains mostly.’

‘And you have met these northern Dragons and the two-leg race?’

‘Yes.’ Brin swung his head from side to side. ‘I, erm, went a little further north than I had intended and had to shelter in an ice cave from a great storm. I was greatly weary and I slept. When I woke, the cave was blocked to an extent I could not break through, even using fire.’ The company was leaning closer so as not to miss a single word. ‘The back of the cave suddenly grew a hole, and there was a two legs and a Snow Dragon.’

‘So there are tunnels in the northern-most ranges?’ Gan asked. ‘Which would perhaps allow us to approach closer to the Guardian’s Realm without exposure to the cold and storms?’

‘Well, it was quite a while ago,’ Brin explained, ‘and I was not with them very long. I had no reason to ask where their tunnels led.’

‘You have given us much to think of, Brin.’ Gan looked skyward, somewhat surprised by how much time had been spent listening to Fenj’s son. ‘I think we may as well stay here, and make an early start tomorrow.’ He turned suddenly, staring at Tika and Jeela. ‘You hear that?’

‘Yes!’ Tika was pale. ‘Shardi are attacking your Guards!’

‘We cannot reach them in time to help, we have allowed them to get too far ahead,’ Jeela added. Both she and Tika, and then Farn, gasped.

‘Trem is injured, he –’, and Tika crumpled at Gan’s feet.

The Shardi did not merely seem more numerous as they attacked the Guards, they were. Soran guessed, in the first charge the Shardi made from the sides of the overhanging cliff, that there were at least fifty. The sentries yelled, in the same instant the Shardi rose, screaming from the rock cover. The men and officers, including Soran, froze for seconds that felt eternal.

Then the mounted Guards swung into their saddles, fengars already shrieking defiance back at the Shardi. The foot Guards formed into their groups, between which the scarcely controllable fengars charged. Men ran to light torches and distributed them through the company. Swords were already in action, it was too late to use crossbows. The rank smell of the Shardi was a weapon in itself; men gagged as the stench rolled over them in advance of the hairy bodies.

The Shardi were a quarter as tall again as the humans, some even taller. Their stooped shoulders and ungainliness belied the extreme speed with which they could move. Soran had no time to see how his groups held, as a Shardi burst from the crowd, rushing straight towards him. Its hands, with their long curved claws, reached for him. He choked as the foetid breath from its screaming mouth engulfed him and he fell back a pace, panic boiling through him. He caught desperately at that panic, even as he raised his sword to force away one of the outstretched arms.

Yellow eyes glared at him as he thrust forward sharply and then danced back out of reach. The Shardi looked down at itself. Blood was soaking through the white hair of its belly. It snarled, baring discoloured, but by no means blunt, fangs at Soran, and surged forward again. Claws ripped along Soran’s forearm but he scarcely noticed. His sword was deep in the Shardi’s chest, too deep. He drew his dagger with his left hand, still gripping the sword hilt despite being unable to pull it free of the Shardi’s body.

The Shardi’s eyes were glazing but it still pressed towards him. Soran backed, the Shardi staggering after, in a macabre dance, until they were in a melee of fighting men and Shardisi. Human shouts and yells mingled with the fengars’ shrieks and the Shardisi screams – a deafening, mind numbing cacophony.

At last, the Shardi Soran had impaled stumbled to its knees and he was able to wrench free his sword, his foot on the Shardi’s face to gain leverage. For a moment, Soran looked at the blank eyes, the realisation that he had actually destroyed one of them filling him with elation. As he looked around to see how the Guards were faring, he saw the Shardi were withdrawing. Guards began to chase the shaggy retreating backs until Soran roared for them to halt. He ordered them to regroup, tally the dead and injured, check their weapons and stand ready.

He was amazed to see fifteen dirty white shapes sprawled motionless, several of them charred where burning torches had been thrust at them. Fifteen Shardi dead! But as his eyes encountered the growing line of Guards’ bodies being laid gently together, he saw what fifteen dead Shardi had cost his band of Guards. Four of his ten officers were among the dead, three more were injured, one of those severely. Trem was one of the injured, unconscious but with no obvious mortal wound.

No fengars were dead, although a dozen were crippled, the muscles of their backs and rear legs torn by swiping Shardi claws. They were all still at a high pitch of battle rage and their handlers and riders needed all their strength to calm them. Soran felt as if his legs were suddenly made of water in the reaction to this first taste of murderous battle, but he forced them to obey him, moving from group to group of Guards.

He praised them all on standing firm, one man raising a slight laugh when he told Soran: ‘Warn’t so awful as what them Seniors put in our ‘eads, Sir!’ Soran joined the laughter, resting a hand lightly on the man’s shoulder. ‘I think I am inclined to agree with you, Kran!’ As Soran took the proffered mug of steaming tea from his officer, Baras, the screaming began again from beyond the boulders. Soran dropped the mug and hurried to the front groups.

Four more times in that long night, the Guards faced Shardi attacks. As the Shardi fled for the fifth time, Soran saw that the sky was faintly streaking with dawn. Most of his surviving Guards sank exhausted to the ground wherever they stood; a very few men still on their feet offered assistance to fallen comrades. Soran lent on his sword, his head bowed for a moment. ‘By the stars, no more,’ he prayed fervently.

As he raised his head and straightened his aching back, a hand touched his sleeve. ‘You must get your wounds attended to, Sir.’ He glanced round, seeing with relief, Trem, standing beside him. Trem was very pale, a purpling lump showing under the hair on his forehead, but he was alive, thank the stars.

‘Have the Healers see to the men first Trem, I only have scratches.’

‘No Sir, this sleeve says there are more than scratches here.’ Trem pulled gently at Soran’s sleeve and he saw with considerable surprise, the sleeve was quite sodden with blood. Stunned with weariness, he found himself being led back into the overhanging shelter of the cliff.

‘And you Trem?’ he asked. ‘When did you awake? Are you all right?’

Trem managed a smile. ‘I have a headache worse than any hangover, Sir,’ he said. ‘But I was able to use my sword in the last two Shardi attacks.’

Soran gestured at the sky. ‘Day is coming and Shardi prefer the darkness.’ He sank onto a cloth stool where the Healers were working on wounded Guardsmen. Trem squatted beside him.

‘I thought they only attacked in small numbers – but there were fifty, if not more, in that first charge Sir. Maybe these Shardi will not keep to their preference for only fighting at night, either?’

Soran stared at him, appalled. ‘I pray you are wrong Trem.’ He groaned. ‘But get the fittest men prepared and on watch immediately.’

The dawn gradually lightened the sky, making the scene of the fighting clearer, but much worse. There was a total of twenty-three Shardi bodies, but more than a hundred dead Guards, and twice that number of injured. The Healers had given Soran a bitter drink that numbed his whole body as they dug deep into the great gouges on his arm. He had not realised he had been similarly clawed across his back, until the Healers began cleaning and stitching there as well.

Now he went to each of his injured men, speaking to those who were conscious, murmuring a prayer for those the Healers shook their heads over. Then he went to the silent, still rows of his dead. Salak, his most junior officer, was listing the names of these dead as Soran approached. He looked up at his commander, tears gleaming on his cheeks in the fingertips of sunrise light. ‘Sorry, Sir,’ he stammered, coming to attention and rubbing his sleeve across his eyes.

‘No, Salak, you do well to grieve for these brave men.’ Soran looked squarely at his junior officer. ‘Even I, your commander, have never seen so many dead from one night’s fighting. There is no shame, Salak, in weeping for these comrades, no shame.’ Soran swayed as he finished speaking, and as Salak reached out to him in alarm, Trem appeared at his side.

Trem helped Soran back to where the Healers worked. There, he sat him down on a stool again. A moment later, Trem had Soran’s bed roll spread for him and eased him on to it. ‘No.’ Soran’s voice was the faintest whisper. ‘I must speak to the men, praise them. I will rest later.’ He made a feeble attempt to rise.

‘No, Sir, I will speak to the men. You must sleep.

‘Maybe an hour Trem. Just an hour, then waken me.’ Trem did not bother to answer. Soran was asleep already.

There were no more attacks as the daylight grew. Trem assembled the uninjured Guards and praised their valour. He ordered that they should ready their weapons, then get hot food inside them. And double watches were to be maintained around the camp. He detailed a rota for all the men to take a turn preparing burial places for the dead.

A Healer stopped him as he passed, handing him a drink. ‘Your head pains you badly still Trem. This will help.’ Trem looked at the dark thick liquid dubiously.

‘I would gladly take a potion to ease this headache, but I will take nothing that makes me drowsy.’

‘This will not, I swear by the stars.’ Trem drank it, grimacing at its unpleasant taste, and returned the cup to the Healer.

‘Is Lord Soran still sleeping?’ he asked.

The Healer nodded. ‘He has some fever but we will give him a herbal tea when he wakes. Sleep is the best medicine for most of the wounded, him included. Did you see him Trem? The whole night through, whenever we looked out at the fighting, Lord Soran seemed everywhere at once.’ The Healer’s voice dropped further. ‘He killed a Shardi alone, you know.’

‘How could I know?’ Trem retorted. ‘The flat of someone’s sword hit my head in the first minutes of the first attack!’

‘Thank the stars Trem, it was the flat of the sword!’ The Healer smiled. ‘Why do you not sit beside Lord Soran? If you too sleep, it will do you no harm.’

Trem had opened his mouth to reply when his eyes went blank. The Healer was at first alarmed then quickly realised someone was far speaking the officer.

Trem did not recognise the female voice calling his name. When she knew she had his attention, she told him she was called Jeela, sister to Farn. His mind wobbled slightly as he realised a Dragon was bespeaking him. He had thought that only the People could mind speak widely, with only an occasional human, such as himself, being able to communicate with the People. It had never occurred to him that other races had the ability. Jeela was asking him urgently what had befallen the Guards, and was he badly hurt?