A Time of War. Katharine Kerr

      ‘Indeed.’ Meer’s voice was very thin but steady. ‘How many men?’

      ‘Oh, lots and lots. They’re all human beings. Off to the north there’s an overturned wagon. It be all broken, and there’s someone really tall lying by it.’

      ‘I hate to ask you this, lad, but can you bear to lead me there?’

      ‘I’ll try.’

      Fortunately they could skirt the edge of the battlefield rather than walk across it, but even so, Jahdo was caught by the horror and found himself staring at the corpses. He would never forget that sight, not as long as he lived, of bodies heaped and tumbled like firewood, broken, slashed, tangled, left there for wild things in a last gesture of contempt. Whenever the singers back in Cerr Cawnen had told lurid tales of battlefields, they’d always spoken of red blood and deathly silence. Here all the bodies lay grey and swollen, streaked with the black of dried blood or the dull maroon colour of torn flesh where the birds were feeding. The field itself pulsed with life and noise as ants swarmed, ravens screamed and chattered, broke to fly only to circle and settle again, while under it all sounded the vast drone of thousands of flies.

      ‘I think they were killed with swords. There lie hoof-prints all round, too, and a couple of dead horses, but only a couple. Oh wait, here’s an arrow, just lying here.’

      Although the shaft was broken, the point was mercifully clean. When Jahdo stooped down, he saw the tiny pawprints of foxes on the horribly moist ground – no doubt they crept up at night to share this banquet. He concentrated on the arrow, picked it up and ran his fingers down the wood.

      ‘I’ve never seen an arrow so long. When it were whole it must have been longer than my arm, and the feathers are from some kind of blue bird.’

      ‘None of my people would loft a thing like that.’ Meer was whispering. ‘Ah, evil evil evil come upon us!’

      Jahdo wanted to agree, but he didn’t dare risk speaking for fear he’d sob aloud. Between them and the wagon lay a scatter of corpses, as if they were a few sticks of wood tossed in the eddy of this river of death. A young man lay on his back, his head tilted at an unnatural angle, his eyes pools of slime in a bloated grey face. The body of a comrade lay slung over his legs. Nearby lay an arm, torn clear off and as grey as stone, with the bone exposed and picked clean all down the wrist. Flies crawled between the fingers.

      ‘Meer, watch out!’ Jahdo’s voice came out all strangled. ‘Step round to your right.’

      ‘Very well.’ Meer was tapping with his stick, but gingerly, afraid no doubt of what he might touch. ‘Lad, what are these dead men wearing?’

      ‘Some of them aren’t really dressed at all. The others have shirts with big sleeves and these leather vest things, and trousers that come all the way to their ankles, and there’s these thong things that tie them in.’

      Meer whimpered in a way that said he recognized this garb.

      They came at last to the overturned wagon and the enormous warrior stretched out beside it. At their approach a scatter of ravens shrieked and flew, but someone had dropped a cracked shield over the man’s face and folded his arms over his chest, too, with a cloak upon his hands, so that the birds had barely got a start on him. When Jahdo described these scant signs of respect, Meer made a long keening sound under his breath.

      ‘What does that shield look like?’

      ‘Well, it be wooden, and sort of egg-shaped, and white-washed. In the middle there does lie this circle of metal with funny designs on it, and down at the bottom someone’s scratched this little picture that I guess is supposed to be a dragon.’

      ‘A little more detail, if you please, about that metal plate.’

      ‘Well, the design runs in circles, and one’s like when you braid a horse’s tail, three strands, and then there’s one that’s like a lot of knots, like someone did tie all these sheep-shank knots in a long rope but then never did pull them tight.’

      Meer shrieked.

      ‘Slaver work, may the gods all help us! Can you bear to lift the shield, lad?’

      Gagging profoundly, Jahdo used the broken arrow to hook the shield rim and shove it to one side. At the motion it broke in half, the pieces sliding apart. All puffed with heat-rot a huge distorted face looked up with eyes glazed and milky. His mane of coarse black hair lay tangled and clotted with dried blood, which also streaked one tattooed cheek.

      ‘Meer, I be sorry. He be Gel da’Thae.’

      Meer tossed back his head and howled, a cry of such pulsating agony that all round the ravens flew, flapping indignantly in circles overhead as the bard shrieked again and again, clutching his staff in both hands and raising it high as if to lay his plaint before the very gods themselves. Thanks to Meer’s teaching of the lore, Jahdo knew that the charms and amulets braided into Thavrae’s hair were for his protection in the Deathworld and had to remain with him. The cluster of talismans on the thong round his neck, however, needed to go back to his kin. On the edge of vomiting Jahdo drew the knife his grandfather had given him, knelt down, and cut the thong while Meer’s rage and grief swirled round him like a storm. When Jahdo yanked the talismans free, the head flopped to one side. Retching and gagging, he stood up fast, shoving the charms into his pocket.

      ‘Meer, Meer!’ He grabbed the bard’s arm. ‘It’s needful for us to get out of here. We don’t know where the enemies are. What if they’re still close by?’

      Meer wailed once more, then let the sound die away with a rattle in his throat.

      ‘True spoken, lad. It behooves us to head west as fast as we can travel.’

      Leaning on his stick, Meer let Jahdo lead him away, but doubled with grief the bard moved slowly. Once they were back at their camp, Jahdo sat Meer down by the pack saddles, handed him one of the waterskins for a drink, then tore off the mask and threw it onto the ground. He rushed to the river, knelt, and plunged his head and shoulders into the water. Gasping and crying, he flailed round with his arms until his entire upper body was soaked and free of the smell. He sat back on his heels and wondered if he should vomit, but by then the gut horror had faded, leaving him with memories that nothing would ever purge.

      Meer began keening again, more softly, this time, but he was rocking back and forth, hands clasped round his drawn-up knees, rocking and moaning in a ghastly kind of music that had a certain beauty to it. Jahdo walked back and laid a hand on his shoulder.

      ‘Meer, can you travel? We’ve got to get moving, Meer. I be so scared.’

      The Gel da’Thae never heard him, merely keened and rocked, all knotted with grief. Jahdo grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

      ‘Meer, Meer! Listen to me, Meer!’

      ‘Go on without me, lad. Let my house die here. Thavrae was the last hope of our house, a warrior who might win the right to claim a daughter as his own and hand over our name to her like a treasure chest. No daughters has my mother birthed, and woe woe unto our clan and kin, that the gods would wipe our name from the face of the earth. Leave me, Jahdo, and let me die with the name of our house.’

      ‘I’m not going to do anything of the sort. If you stay I’ll stay with you, and then I’ll die, too, and here you did promise my mother that you’d look after me.’

      Meer whimpered and trembled.

      ‘Well, you did,’ Jahdo snapped. ‘You promised.’

      Meer fell silent for a long while, then all at once laughed, a hysterical sort of rumble.

      ‘Jahdo, lad, one day you’ll no doubt be a great man among your people, the Chief Speaker, I’d say, wielding power with words as your people do. Very well. Bring Baki over. I’ll saddle him up first. All day we shall travel, and in the night I’ll mourn.’

      Yet they made only a few pitiful miles that afternoon. Meer was exhausted with his mourning, Jahdo with the horror he’d seen and