But Gyernath had survived, the remnants of the Wesmen force scattering back towards Blackthorne. The attack had been expected, some of Blackthorne’s people had brought warning, and the days of preparation they had been granted had proved the difference.

For eight days, Gyernath had repulsed the waves of Wesmen from both land and sea, eventually breaking the Wesmen spirit as parts of the old port burned and their mage strength dwindled. They had not had to suffer the Shamen’s white or black fires like Julatsa but their toll had been heavy nonetheless.

Gyernath’s army had lost half of its military and reservist strength to death or injury. Barely a man walked without bearing some sort of wound. And the mages, ruthlessly targeted wherever the Wesmen pierced the line, now numbered less than one hundred.

For Blackthorne, though the salvation of the port was magnificent, it meant he could not hope to take the strength he wanted to attempt the reclamation of his town.

‘On the other hand, Blackthorne will be emptier of Wesmen than we expected,’ said Gresse, standing at the Baron’s shoulder, a dull ache and occasional fuzzy vision all that remained of his heavy concussion.

‘That rather depends on how many of this Wesmen force came from Blackthorne and how many directly across the Bay,’ said Blackthorne.

‘Always the pessimist,’ said Gresse.

‘It’s easy to be pessimistic,’ replied Blackthorne. ‘Just look at the mess they’ve made of this beautiful port.’

The two men straightened and looked down the hill towards the Southern Ocean. The whole port was laid out before them in the mid-afternoon light. Smoke from a dozen extinguished fires spiralled slowly into the sky. The main street, at the top of which they stood, now led through a scene of devastation. Much of the fighting had been concentrated on its sloped cobbles and all the buildings; inns, houses, bakers’, armourers’, shipwright offices and the premises of a dozen other trades lay in ruins.

To the left and right, the path of the street-to-street, house-to-house fighting was drawn in blood and ash. Funeral pyres were alight everywhere they looked and it was not until the eye travelled down towards the dockside piles, cranes, jetties and warehouses, that the port regained some semblance of its recognised shape. Out in the harbour, the masts of three or four tall ships jutted from the low tide water but the Gyernath blockade had frustrated every attempt of the Wesmen, not natural sailors, to break through.

But the eight days of fighting had left thousands homeless and as many orphaned or widowed. The army and city guard, those who could still walk, threw the remainder of their energies into salvaging what they could from the wreckage of the port and making as much of it as habitable as possible. All too often since Blackthorne and Gresse had arrived though, it was the sound of the unsafe timbers being dragged to the ground that drowned out the sound of new timbers being nailed over cracks in roofs and walls. Gyernath’s glory was gone.

A man was striding up the slope of Drovers’ Way, the main street, towards them. He was tall, middle-aged and dressed in robes of state. The mayor’s emblem hung around his neck and he was clutching a roll of parchment.

‘I’d say welcome, Blackthorne, but there’s precious little of my town left for that,’ he said. Blackthorne shook the man’s hand.

‘But more than I can currently offer you at my own,’ replied the Baron. ‘Mayor Scalier, may I introduce my friend, Baron Gresse.’ The two men shook.

‘I have heard of your efforts,’ said Scalier. ‘It is rare to find a man of your honour wearing Baronial colours these days. Present company excepted, naturally.’

‘Rarer still to find a victorious Eastern Balaian. I congratulate you on your triumph.’

Scalier’s smile faded a little and his long lined face took on a sadder aspect below the wisps of grey hair that blew about his head.

‘If it can be described as such. We cannot sustain another such attack; we will be driven into the sea. And as I look down on the ruins, I wonder whether that might not be a blessing.’

‘I understand your feelings, Scalier, as perhaps no one else can. But you know that my request for soldiers and mages is aimed at finishing the threat of such an attack.’ Blackthorne rubbed at his beard. ‘I presume that parchment is your decision.’

‘Yes. I am sorry it has taken this long to deliver our answer; your messenger was most insistent about its urgency, but you can see we have had one or two other matters to attend to.’ He handed over the parchment which Blackthorne unrolled quickly, his heart beating proud in his chest as he scanned the numbers it contained. His face cracked into a huge but short-lived smile.

‘You cannot afford this many men and mages. You have to maintain some defence.’ He passed the parchment to Gresse whose breath hissed in through his teeth. Scalier clapped his hands together.

‘What for? Just look around you. The Wesmen must be stopped and you can stop them if you take the rest of Gyernath’s army and its mages with you. We will position scouts and beacon fires on every route from the port. Should the Wesmen attack us again, we will have advance warning and evacuate to sea. You will command the forces of Gyernath and may the Gods bless you in your fight.’

Blackthorne grabbed Scalier and hugged him, slapping his back until the older man coughed.

‘What you have done gives Balaia a chance,’ he said. ‘Once Blackthorne is retaken and the camps either side of the Bay of Gyernath are destroyed, we will march back north and fight at Understone. And this time, we will have victory as a true goal. Then,’ he turned to Gresse. ‘Then will come the reckoning.’

‘How soon can these men be ready?’ asked Gresse.

‘It will take a while to provision the ships and I should think the same time for you to formulate your plans with my Captains, not to mention allowing time for rest. There is a tide that will stream out in the early hours in two days’ time. You should be on it.’ Blackthorne nodded.

‘Come, let us find an inn that is standing and drink to Gyernath and the whole of Balaia.’ He led the way down Drovers’ Way, his head high, his mood ecstatic. There would be a victory at Blackthorne. His men, together with eight thousand from Gyernath, would sweep the Wesmen back across the Bay and into their homelands to lick their wounds. He hoped enough lived to curse their folly and to resolve never to challenge Baron Blackthorne again.

Chapter 18

Thraun felt it first, though Hirad didn’t know it until later. Denser was still in Communion, face drawn into a deep frown, lips moving soundlessly, Erienne stroking his hair.

To the rest of The Raven, nothing was out of the ordinary, but the wolf picked up his head and made a soft noise in his throat which became a whine. He shook his powerful muzzle and stood up, sniffing the air, hackles rising, a slight quiver apparent in his forelegs.

He backed away from the stove, ignoring Will’s calming hand and voice, looking left across the river and right into the brush that secluded them from unwelcome eyes. The whine continued from deep in the centre of his forehead then shut off abruptly. He locked eyes with Hirad and the barbarian would have laughed, swearing the wolf was actually frowning in worry, had not the pain seared into his skull.

He cried out, clutching his head in both hands, making to rise but falling back, first to his haunches, then flat prone his legs thrashing, facial muscles horribly twisting his expression. Dimly, he heard Ilkar’s voice and felt other hands grabbing at him, trying to still his body as it heaved and tremored.

It was like nothing he had ever experienced. As if his brain was being squashed against the inside of his head by spiked mallets while, at the same time, squeezed to the size of an apple by a monstrous hand. He saw flashes of red and gold light before his eyes though the rest of the world was dark, and in his ears the sound of a thousand pairs of wings beat on his eardrums. His nose, he thought in a queer moment of total clarity, was bleeding.