‘How many of you?’ Bleda asked.
‘A thousand, roughly. Half of that White-Wings. Our plan was to meet with a force of the Bright Star, marching east from their fortress of Dun Seren, and assault the Kadoshim’s new lair together. We marched north-east, made slow progress the further we travelled. Forn can be a dark and dangerous place, well suited to the hiding of demons, which is why we have spent a hundred years building roads and thinning the trees. But this part of Forn, well, we hadn’t given it our attention at that time, so the trees were ancient, their canopy a lattice of limbs wide as my leg, and the paths thick with thorn and vine. And rivers were many, draining from Forn into the Grinding Sea. It was hard going. Until we came to a well-trod path – a road almost, the ground cleared and levelled, wide enough to march upon. We thought it the Kadoshim’s, cleared by them as they carried materials for the building of their lair. The Ben-Elim could not scout well, hindered by the dense canopy, but what they saw they deemed safe. We guessed the Kadoshim believed themselves secure that far north, hidden by the warp and weft of Forn.’
His mouth twisted in a snarl.
‘We guessed wrong. It was a salmon trap.’
‘A what?’ Bleda and Jin asked together.
‘When you fish for salmon, the easiest way to catch them is you build an easier path for them to follow, steering them into safe waters, or so they think. But it leads to nowhere, and when they are piled up in their road to nowhere like cattle in a pen . . .’ He snapped his fingers, a loud crack when it is made by giant fingers.
‘We were late to our meeting point, you understand. Which saved us, I don’t doubt. We heard the screams, the sound of battle, ringing out through the forest. I ran, because I knew it was the Order, and had both kin and friends amongst them. Balur ran with me, all the giants did, but the Ben-Elim and White-Wings, they were more cautious, fearing an ambush. Sensible, as that’s what happened, but sometimes you just listen to your heart. The Ben-Elim were none too happy about that, I heard afterwards.’
‘Did the Ben-Elim punish you for your disobedience?’ Bleda asked, knowing that Israfil came down like a hammer on the smallest transgressions at Drassil. Part of the Way of Elyon, as were all the imposed rules of the Ben-Elim.
‘Disobedience?’ Alcyon frowned.
‘The Ben-Elim are your masters, and you ran off and abandoned them, disobeyed their order to stay with them.’
‘The Ben-Elim are not master to us giants.’ Alcyon scowled. ‘We are allies. Drassil is our home, built by giants. We agreed for the Ben-Elim to reside here. They are our guests.’
‘Seems they are the ones giving all of the orders,’ Jin said.
‘Aye, well, the Ben-Elim like their rules. Ethlinn is a diplomatic woman and so would not speak openly against them, unless she deemed it vital; but we will not be ruled.’
That’s interesting. I thought the giants were another conquered people, like my Clan.
‘So, the battle,’ Jin said. ‘You ran off and left the Ben-Elim behind . . .’
‘Aye. It was part of the Kadoshim plan, it became clear after the battle, to separate us. The Ben-Elim and White-Wings were attacked separately.’
He sighed, lost in thought again.
‘The Order were overrun when we arrived, their backs to a river and waterfall, beset on all other sides by the Kadoshim and their fanatics. From the trees above, from out of the undergrowth, the very air seemed to seethe with them. I saw many comrades already fallen, friends who had fought and survived the darkness that was the Battle of Drassil. My son still stood, thank Elyon above.’
‘What about Varan?’ Bleda asked. ‘Was he with you? Marching from Drassil?’
‘Varan? No. He had joined the Order of the Bright Star many years before. We all fight the Kadoshim, just choose who we stand beside when we do it, that’s all. Varan was standing with his brother, Gunil. Much younger than Varan, he was, born after the Ben-Elim came, little more than a giantling, really. But he was fierce, a great warrior. The two of them were standing waist-deep in the river, the waterfall roaring at their backs, Kadoshim slain in a heap about them. I ran to them, but it was chaos. Battle always is, once you’re in it, and if anyone tells you different they’re a liar. It’s no clinical act of strategy, then, though that helps to begin with. But when it comes down to it, it’s blood, steel and muck, stench and guts and screaming loud enough to burst your head, fear and rage and everything else in between, and you keep swinging your blade at the foe in front of you until your arms are numb and there are no more left, or you die.
‘I lost sight of Varan, tried to fight my way to him, though moving in one direction in a battle is a hard enough task. The Ben-Elim finally arrived, the White-Wings with them, bloodied by another ambush that had been held in reserve for them. By then the Kadoshim knew they were finished and melted away, back into the forest. By then no one was standing in the river, let alone fighting in it. I waded in, the water thick with bodies and blood, and found Varan, floating face-down. Fallen with a host of wounds.’
Alcyon hung his head, and Bleda was shocked to see a tear rolling down the giant’s cheek. Jin was staring at him with a look of disgust.
He would be cast out of the Sirak for such a display of weakness; his emotions his master.
‘His brother?’ Bleda asked, wanting to end this display. It made him feel uncomfortable.
‘He fell over the waterfall, I was told,’ Alcyon said. ‘A long drop, and then the Grinding Sea.’ He sniffed and wiped his face. ‘So that was Varan’s Fall, and a dark day it was, too.’
‘What about the Kadoshim’s lair?’ Jin asked. ‘What happened when you got there?
‘We never found it. Perhaps it was all a fiction, the intelligence we received false, all of it to lure us to that ambush. If we had entered into that killing ground together, it would have been much worse.’
Alcyon looked at them both.
‘So. Analyse,’ he said to them. ‘Why did we lose? Or at least, why did we not win?’
‘Overconfidence,’ Bleda said.
‘That’s right. Good,’ Alcyon said. ‘Many battles and skirmishes have been fought with the Kadoshim since the Battle of Drassil, scores, and we had never lost a one. Varan’s Fall was no crushing defeat, mind; but it was a defeat nonetheless. What else?’
‘Planning, scouting, knowing the ground,’ Jin said. ‘Jibril says they are key steps to victory.’