‘There is a lesson there,’ said Yarvi, and Skara saw he gripped his staff so tight the tendons stood stark from the bloodless back of his hand. ‘Things do not always go the way we hope.’
‘A lesson you should have learned,’ snapped Mother Adwyn. ‘Not long ago, Grandmother Wexen gave you another chance, but you slapped her hand away.’ Skara bared her teeth at that. She remembered no chances, only the corpses on the floor of the Forest. Only Yaletoft burning on the black horizon. ‘You have nothing left to bargain with. You will all be led to Skekenhouse in chains to face the judgment of the One God.’
‘Judgment is coming!’ Skara remembered her grandfather toppling into the firepit. The blood pit-pattering from the point of Yilling’s sword. Her heart was beating so hard it almost strangled her voice. ‘But not from the One God. And not to us!’
The smiles of the Companions were fading, their hands straying towards their weapons. Bright Yilling tidied a strand of hair behind one ear. ‘She looks well but she talks too much.’ And he peered up towards the walls of the fortress, where the strange wailing was growing too loud to ignore.
Mother Adwyn was glaring at Yarvi. ‘You and Queen Laithlin stand accused of using elf-magic, and must answer for your crimes!’
‘Must I?’ Father Yarvi barked out a laugh. ‘Let me show you what elf-magic looks like.’
He jerked his staff up so it rested on his withered hand, the end pointed towards Bright Yilling’s chest.
The High King’s champion had an expression between puzzled and bored. He lifted his hand towards Yarvi, as though to brush aside this minister’s blather.
‘Greet your mistress!’ screamed Skara.
There was a sharp pop. Something flew from the top of Yarvi’s staff. Yilling’s fingers vanished and his face was spattered with blood.
He took a drunken step back, frowning down. He pawed at his chest with his ruined hand. Skara saw a little hole in his bright mail there. It was already turning dark with blood.
‘Uh,’ he grunted, brows high with surprise, and toppled backwards.
Someone said, ‘Gods.’
A sword hissed as it was drawn.
A shield-rim caught the sun and flashed in Skara’s eyes.
She was knocked sideways as Mother Scaer elbowed past her, shrugging her coat off one shoulder.
She heard wing beats as somewhere in the grass a bird took to the skies.
Vorenhold lifted his spear, bridge of his nose creasing with rage. ‘You treacherous—’
Mother Scaer stepped between Gorm and Soryorn as they raised their shields, the sinews in her tattooed arm flexing as she lifted the great elf-relic to her shoulder.
‘No!’ screamed Mother Adwyn.
Another Kind of Steel
Raith was throwing up his arm to block that gilded spear when the shield of the man who held it was ripped apart, the iron rim flopping. He was flung back as if by a giant’s hammer, his fine green-dyed cloak on fire and his broken spear tumbling away end over end.
Then came the thunder.
A noise like the Breaking of God, a rattling boom fast as a woodpecker strikes. Mother Scaer’s elf-weapon jerked in her grip like a thing alive, her whole body shaking with its mad fury, her scream turned to a jagged warble, shards of metal showering from its top and fire spitting from its mouth.
Before Raith’s smarting eyes Bright Yilling’s Companions, storied warriors every one, were in the space of a snatched breath all smashed like beetles on an anvil, mown down like corn before the scythe, blood and splinters and mail-rings showering and their bent and shattered weapons spinning and their ruined limbs flying one from another like straw in a mad gale.
Even as his jaw was dropping Raith heard more cracks behind them, fire stabbing from the walls of the fortress. He flinched at a flash in the High King’s lines, a monstrous blooming of fire, broken stakes and earth and armour and men and the parts of men thrown high into the air. The ground shook, Father Earth himself trembling at the power of the elves released.
His axe seemed a pointless little thing now and Raith let it fall, caught Skara’s arm and dragged her down behind his shield, Blue Jenner locking with him on one side and Rulf on the other to form a feeble little wall, huddling in terror while the ministers sent Death across the ruined fields before Bail’s Point.
There was a great thud as the weapon jolted in Skifr’s hands again, a trail of fog curving down through the air towards the High King’s lines. It touched the earth among some penned-up horses. Koll gasped as fire shot up in clawing fingers, clapped his hands over his ears at the shuddering boom.
Horses were flung into the air like the toys of a bad-tempered child, others reared on fire, or charged off, dragging burning wagons. Koll gave a kind of moan of horror and dismay. He hadn’t known what the elf-engines would do, but he hadn’t dared guess it might be this.