The fierce charge slammed into the wall of flesh, leather, wood and iron. The sound was a meaty crunch beneath snapping spear shafts. Lunging close, tulwar lashing down, Maral Eb saw a dark-skinned face before him, saw the frozen mask of the fool’s failed courage, and he laughed as he swung his weapon-
The iron blade struck dead centre on the peaked helm.
Sword, helm and head exploded. Maral Eb staggered as his sword-arm jumped out to the side, impossibly light. His eyes fixed on the stump of his wrist, from which frozen pellets of his blood sprayed like seeds. Something struck his shoulder, careened off, and then two commingled bodies fell on to the ground-the impact had driven them together and Maral Eb stared, uncomprehending, at their fused flesh, the exposed roots of blood and muscle beneath split skin.
He could hear dread groaning on all sides, pierced by brief shrieks.
On his knees, the Warleader sought to rise, but the armoured caps of his greaves were frozen to the ground. Leather buckles broke like twigs. He lifted his head-a reddish mist had swallowed the world. What was this? Sorcery? Some poisonous vapour to steal all their strength?
Spirits, no-the mist is blood-blood from burst bodies, ruptured eyeballs-
He understood. The stump of his wrist, the complete absence of pain-even the breaths he dragged into his lungs-the cold, the darkness-
He had been thrown to the ground. A horse, one foreleg stamping down, the bones shearing just above the fetlock, twin spikes of jagged bone plunging through his hauberk, his chest, and pinning him to the earth. Screaming, the huge beast fell on to its side, flinging the lifeless hulk of its rider from the saddle, the man’s body breaking like crockery.
The scything foreleg tossed Sagal a few paces away, and he landed again, feeling his hip crumple as if it were no more than a reed basket. Blinking, he watched the cold burn the hide from the thrashing, blinded beast. He found its confusion amusing at first, but then sadness overwhelmed him-not for the hapless animal-he’d never much liked horses-but for everyone on this hillside. Cheated of this battle, of the glory of a rightful victory, the honour of a noble defeat.
The gods were cruel. But then, he’d always known that.
He settled his head back, stared up at the red-stained darkness. A pressure was descending. He could feel it on his chest, in his skull. The Reaper stood above him, one heel pressing down. Sagal grunted as his ribs snapped, the collapse jerking his limbs.
The slingstone caught the hare and spun it round in the air. My heart was in my throat as I ran, light as a whisper, to the grasses where it had fallen. And I stood, looking down on the creature, its panting chest, the tiny droplets of blood spotting its nose. Its spine had broken and the long back legs were perfectly still. But the front paws, they twitched.
My first kill.
I stood, a giant, a god, watching as the life left the hare. Watching, as the depths in the eyes cleared, revealing themselves to be shallow things.
My mother, walking up, her face showing none of the joy she should have shown, none of the pride. I told her about the shallowness that I had seen.
She said, ‘It is easy to believe the well of life is bottomless, and that none but the spirits can see through to the far end of the eyes. To the end that is the soul. Yet we spend all our lives trying to peer through. But we soon discover that when the soul flees the flesh, it takes the depth with it. In that creature, Sagal, you have simply seen the truth. And you will see it again and again. In every beast you slay. In the eyes of every enemy you cut down.’
She’d been poor with words, her voice ever flat and cruel. Poor with most things, in fact, as if everything worth anything in the world wasn’t worth talking about. He’d even forgotten she’d spoken that day, or that she’d been his teacher in the ways of the hunt.
He realized that he still didn’t understand her.
No matter. The shallowness was coming up to meet him.
Sceptre Irkullas crawled, dragging one leg, from the carcass of his horse. He could bear its shrieks no longer, and so he had opened its throat with his knife. Of course, he should have done that after dismounting, instead of simply leaning over his saddle, but his mind had become fogged, sluggish and stupid.
And now he crawled, with the splintered stub of a thigh bone jutting from the leather of his trouser leg. Painless, at least. ‘Brush lips with your blessings’, as the saying went. I used to hate sayings. No, I still do, especially when you find how well they fit the occasion.
But that just reminds us that it’s an old track we’re walking. And all the newness is just our own personal banner of ignorance. Watch us wave it high as if it glitters with profound revelation. Ha.