David Gemmell – Rigante 3 – Ravenheart

‘Yes, Grymauch,’ Kaelin lied, unable to comprehend how killing a worm like Shaddler could be considered wrong.

They walked on, pushing up a long rise until they crested a hill and gazed down on the town of Moon Lake. Along the shores were the fat-bellied fishing boats and the tall net huts, while the town itself was draped like a necklace around a steep hill upon which stood a circular keep. The hill was deeply terraced and Kaelin could see a broken line of crumbling ramparts.

‘It doesn’t look like timber,’ he said, staring hard at the white-walled keep.

‘Looks can be deceiving. The keep was crafted from timber, then covered in plaster and faced with pebblestone. When it was first built the rampart walls would have extended around the town, as protection. Back then the Varlish who constructed it were on hostile soil. Clansmen would attack them at regular intervals. Back around five hundred years ago a Pannone uprising saw every Varlish male within the castle and its baileys put to the sword.’

‘Did they build a new castle?’

‘What do you mean, a new castle?’

‘After the Pannone destroyed it.’

‘Ah, I see. No, Kaelin, they didn’t. They didn’t have to. The Pannone killed all the men then went away. They left the castle standing. The Varlish just reoccupied it, then, using it as a base, brought up an army. It was led by the Knights of the Sacrifice and they all but annihilated the clan.’

‘They were powerful then, these knights?’

‘Aye, they were. Still are. They become squires when they are your age, almost fifteen. Then they spend five years training with sword, mace, pistol and musket. At least half of them fail the stringent tests conducted every year. I was told that of a hundred men seeking to become knights, only fifteen receive the white cloak. Tough men. A long time ago a hundred knights bested a thousand rebels. There is no give in them. Aye, and no mercy either.’

‘The Pannone should have burned the castle,’ said Kaelin.

‘Aye, they should. That, however, is the downfall of the Keltoi peoples. We win great battles and lose all wars.’

‘Why should that be?’

Jaim shrugged. ‘We were never besotted with the idea of conquering lands. If an enemy comes we fight and defeat him. Then we go home. If the enemy keeps coming then eventually he is going to win. The only way to thoroughly destroy your enemy is to follow the example of the knights. Go to his home and burn it. Kill him, kill his wife, kill his bairns. Those you allow to survive you enslave, and you hold them in thrall with harsh laws. When they transgress you flog, burn or hang them. We just never developed a taste for that kind of butchery.’

‘But Bane fought against Stone and captured it,’ argued Kaelin. ‘He took his army across the sea and all the way to the heart of the empire.’

‘Yes, he did. Then he brought the army home again. He sacked Stone, but he did not destroy it. He was a great warrior king. No doubt of it. Yet within twenty years of his death the armies of Stone had conquered all the southlands. Within fifty they had hill forts at the Rigante borders.’

The two travellers moved on down the hill towards Moon Lake. As they came closer Kaelin caught the smell of fish in the air, thick and acrid. ‘It stinks,’ he said.

‘You’ll adjust to it faster when you have some fish inside you,’ said Jaim. ‘There’s a market close to the shoreline, and within it a food hall. I’ve eaten there a few times. They know me.’

‘If they know you will they still serve you?’ asked Kaelin with a grin.

‘They’ll serve anyone with a copper coin in his pocket, you cheeky rascal.’

Their good humour faded as they entered the town and saw the four-rope gibbet in the square. A ten-man squad of beetlebacks was guarding the structure. Four bodies dangled from the gibbet. Kaelin saw that there were two men, a woman and a youth of around his own age hanging there. The oldest of the men had suffered the agony of having his eyes burned out and his hands cut off.