As if it feels the bitterness in her chest the wind harshens, howling with black fury, picking at the pennants, snapping them in two. The barrow-markers list, tearing the earth beneath. Astic’s army staggers towards the mountain. The spears fall through the wet and reddening sky.
Sandsinger grits her teeth, ignores the ache in her knee, her hip, the cuts peppering her forearms. The only way to go is forwards.
The shout that tears out of her lungs is something less than words, but her lads all know it. The swell call. That wild yawp as home comes into view.
They surge into the last of the barrows. That big phalanx of bastards sees them coming. Shit, there’s a lot of them.
As Sandsinger’s ragged little crew forms up, a group peels off, angling towards them, locking shields with a shout. She feels her guts turn to water.
And of course, as she’s shitting herself about the spears, she forgets to watch the storm.
She’s sent tumbling as the air tears next to her, another bolt of lightning shearing the arm from the lad on her left. He turns and stares in horror as his flesh catches light. She swings her club upside his head, tears in her eyes. The only mercy she can offer.
Above her, a second clash of thunder as magic roils through the clouds, burning the air, splitting the sound from her ears in punishing thunderclaps. Sandsinger distantly hopes their crow-witch is up to the task. She isn’t sure what crows can do against a storm like that, but there’s no time to wonder about that now. She tears her eyes from the shuddering sky as another spear buzzes past her ear, haft fishtailing madly. Adrenaline shoots up through her guts and she tries not to piss herself. That tattooed mob from Thell are impatient, a steel bloc of shield and spear creeping towards her, out from under the shadow of the mountain. Sandsinger heftsher club as they advance. There’s maybe some sixteen or twenty rolling in, their shields locked like fish scales. Crowkisser might have mentioned this. Or Slickwalker. Some scout he was. There’s spears poking out everywhere like tits on a hedgehog. Some kind of ungodly hum comes from behind the shields, as if they’re all chanting in unison. Fucking cannibals.
She’s not alone though. Glancing left and right along the flattening line of the barrows, she sees others have made it through. Not just her own folk, but all those brave buggers from the Rim. Dark skin, wiry beards and hard eyes. The sight gives her a bit of hope, though they’ve been cut thin by the approach, only a few dozen left all told. An army of strips.
To her left, she watches a bunch of lads rush forwards, shields out and clubs hurling. Trying to get around the sides of that big block. Stupid, stupid.
She shouts a warning, watches hopelessly as Thell’s formation shudders, the front rank dropping to their knees and raising shields, as those behind sprint up that tilted metal, arcing down onto the charging Astic lads.
Screams, the crush of bodies and spear-points driven down like the beaks of seabirds. Then the entire phalanx charges. Those overeager lads and lasses are crushed against shields from above and in front, as spears lick out with terrifying speed. It’s over in seconds. Twenty brave boys dead, and the rest crumble and run.
Sandsinger’s stomach turns, but she forces herself to run a weather eye over the rhythm of it all. It’s deadly, but the more she watches, the more she sees the flow of Thell’s formation pulling their soldiers forwards into the barrows. She glances at the woman next to her, raises an eyebrow. ‘We could string ’em like we practiced.’
The woman grins, spits out a loose tooth. ‘We could.’
Sandsinger taps her shoulder. ‘Signal the others. Tell them we’re raising ratlines.’
The woman nods, ducks behind a shield and pulls out a ship’s whistle. Three short blasts over the field, piercing as a fishwife’s call.
‘Sounds just enough like a retreat,’ Slickwalker had said with a smile, when they’d drilled it out a few days ago. ‘They don’t know us. They’ll expect us to run.’
As Sandsinger’s poor battered boys hear the signal they break and run. A beat later, the rest of Astic’s line follows, haring back to the barrows like they’re done with dying.
Sandsinger runs with them, the lightning at her back, muttering under her breath with every red-lit step. ‘Charge, you fuckers, charge.’
For the first time since the gods died, her prayers are answered. She hears the roar of Thell’s bloodletters rise behind her, oscillating up to an eagle’s shriek, the earth suddenly shaking with the thunder of their charging feet, loud enough that her old bellweather of a heart nearly stops in her chest.
Above the terror though, a glee she’s not felt in years. ‘Fell for it, you rock-sucking twits.’
She grabs the signaller’s wrist. ‘Ratlines up on three.’
Sandsinger can feel Thell’s soldiers behind her, harrying Astic’s front line back into the barrows. A quick glance over her shoulder and she can see their spear-points reaching out for her back. Nearly a full third of the force guarding the gate has pelted off after them, hungry for blood like a dog after a rat.
The signaller’s whistle goes up. Three short blasts.
They have about twenty feet on them, just enough.
All along the Astic line, fleet-footed fisherfolk dart back towards the barrow mounds, a couple of men and women from each cadre peeling off and spanning either side of the defiles that thread the cairns, trailing something thin in their hands as they slip low around splintered prayer-flags and outbuildings. Hands held high, steady, feet braced against the rock and earth.
The rest of Astic’s troops pelt down the cuts between barrows, Thell’s spear throwers a beat behind. As they reach the hump of the cairns, Sandsinger and the rest throw themselves to one side. Then the ratlines are raised.
An Astic ratline is a thin thing, boat-wire, clear as spider-silk, and stronger still. Each strand wound around ten others, thinas baby’s hair. Light enough to trick the eye. Strong enough to string sails against the storm.
Strung at head height, just enough to catch the front line of tattooed warriors across the throat, the chest. It doesn’t do much to them, but they stumble, skidding in the mud. The lads at their back can’t stop fast enough, ramming into them in a tangle of limbs and curses. The wire doesn’t give, of course. It’s held up to East Tide gales and West Tide whirlpools. So, as they struggle, that’s when the other ratline closes in at their backs, dragged forwards by another couple of crafty greycloaks, penning them in, pressing them together with the weight of their own bodies. All down the line, all those forays jammed into the low defiles between the barrows like crabs in a bucket.
Sandsinger watches, crouched in the mud, her nose half-submerged by the torn body of one of her lads. She can smell his blood mixed into melting frost water. These Thell boys are tough. As soon as they see they can’t go forwards or back, they start for the sides of the barrows. She remembers Slickwalker’s dark little smile, even as she rises. His whisper in her head. ‘After the ratlines, the nets.’
