‘Looks like they did,’ grunted Raith. ‘They guessed too few.’
Up on the walls mocking laughs became grim smiles, then even grimmer frowns as that mighty snake of men split, flowed about the fortress like flooding water about an island, and the warriors of the Lowlands, and Inglefold, and Yutmark encircled Bail’s Point from the cliffs in the east to the cliffs in the west.
No need for shows of defiance on their side. Their numbers spoke in thunder.
‘Mother War spreads her wings over Bail’s Point,’ murmured Owd.
A fleet of wagons came now, groaning with forage, and after them an endless crowd of families and thralls, servants and merchants, priests and profiteers, diggers and drovers with a lowing and bleating herd of sheep and cows that put any market Raith had ever seen to shame.
‘A whole city on the move,’ he muttered.
Darkness was closing in and the rearguard were only just arriving in a river of twinkling torches. Wild-looking men, their bone standards lit by flame, their bare chests marked with scars and smeared with war-paint.
‘Shends,’ said Raith.
‘Aren’t they sworn enemies of the High King?’ asked Skara, her voice more shrill than usual.
Mother Owd’s mouth was a hard line. ‘Grandmother Wexen must have prevailed upon them to be our enemies instead.’
‘I hear they eat their captives alive,’ someone muttered.
Blue Jenner gave the man a glare. ‘Best not get captured.’
Raith worked his sweaty palm around the handle of his shield and glanced towards the harbour, where plenty of ships were still gathered behind the safety of the chains to carry the thousand defenders away …
He bit his tongue until he tasted blood and forced his eyes back to the host gathering outside their walls. He’d never felt scared of a fight before. Maybe it was that the odds had always been stacked on his side. Or maybe it was that he’d lost his place, and his family, and any hope of getting them back.
They say it’s men with nothing to lose you should fear. But it’s them who fear most.
‘There,’ said Skara, pointing out at the High King’s ranks.
Someone was walking towards the fortress. Swaggering the way you might to a friend’s hall rather than an enemy’s stronghold. A warrior in bright mail that caught the light of the burning ship and seemed to burn itself. A warrior with long hair breeze-stirred and an oddly soft, young, handsome face, who carried no shield and propped his left hand loose on his sword’s hilt.
‘Bright Yilling,’ growled Jenner, baring all the teeth he still had.
Yilling stopped well within bowshot, grinning up towards the crowded battlements, and called out high and clear. ‘I don’t suppose King Uthil’s up there?’
It was some comfort to hear Uthil’s voice just as harsh and careless whether he faced one enemy or ten thousand. ‘Are you this man they call Bright Yilling?’
Yilling gave an extravagant shrug. ‘Someone has to be.’
‘The one who killed fifty men in the battle at Fornholt?’ called Gorm, from the roof of Gudrun’s tower.
‘Couldn’t say. I was killing, not counting.’
‘The one who cut the prow-beast from Prince Conmer’s ship with a single blow?’ asked Uthil.
‘It’s all in the wrist,’ said Yilling.
‘The one who murdered King Fynn and his defenceless minister?’ barked Skara.
Yilling kept smiling. ‘Aye, that one. And you should have seen what I did to my dinner just now.’ He happily patted his belly. ‘There was a slaughter!’
‘You are smaller than I expected,’ said Gorm.
‘And you are larger than I dared hope.’ Yilling wound a strand of his long hair around one finger. ‘Big men make a fine loud crash when I knock them down. I am dismayed to find the Iron King and the Breaker of Swords penned up like hogs in a sty. I felt sure you would be keen to test your sword-work against mine, steel to steel.’
‘Patience, patience.’ Gorm leaned on the battlements, his hands dangling. ‘Perhaps when we are better acquainted I can kill you.’
Uthil gave a stiff nod. ‘A good enmity, like a good friendship, takes time to mature. One does not start at the end of a story.’
Yilling smirked the wider. ‘Then I will bide my time and earnestly hope to kill you both in due course. It would be a shame to deny the skalds as fine a song as that would make.’
Gorm sighed. ‘The skalds will find something to sing about, either way.’
‘Where is Thorn Bathu?’ asked Yilling, glancing about as though she might be hiding in the ditch. ‘I’ve killed some women but never one of her fame.’
‘No doubt she will introduce herself presently,’ said Uthil.
‘No doubt. It is the fate of every strong warrior to one day cross the path of a stronger. That is our great blessing and our great curse.’
Uthil nodded again. ‘Death waits for us all.’