Fallowblade by Cecilia Dart-Thornton Page A

day, that is a weakness we might exploit.’
    His father nodded approval at this suggestion before continuing, ‘There is more at risk here than heretofore guessed. Creatures of unseelie loathe humankind. Our destruction is their delight. If there is indeed a formidable eldritch menace surging southward, then it threatens the entire human population of Tir, not merely a single kingdom.’ Murmurs of concord greeted his words. ‘These reports must first be verified so that we can act wisely. Let fresh scouts be despatched!’
    The Battle of Eldroth Fields stormed on into the next day, and the day after. Overnight the conflict tended to ebb. This was not for reasons of courtesy, but because during the sunless hours, no matter how many bonfires were set aflame on the Fields, it was difficult to tell friend from foe. Warwick’s use of the fridean tunnels compensated, to a certain degree, for the fact that the Narngalish were vastly outnumbered. For a while it seemed that neither side was gaining the upper hand, and the northerners began to fan the flames of hope that they might hold out until Thorgild’s arrival. Their optimism took a beating, however, when on the morning of Juyn the sixth word came to the royal pavilion, relayed by carrier pigeon, semaphore and rider, confirming the dire accounts of the messengers from the north. It was, without doubt, a fact that unseelie hordes were pouring out of the Northern Ramparts and flooding down past Silverton into the Harrowgate Fells. Anyone who stood against them was destroyed. They were slaying all human beings in their path, and giving no quarter.
    Warwick convened an urgent conference. He and his sons gathered beneath the silken folds of the canopy in the council-of-state pavilion, with their senior advisors and those officers who could be spared from their stations in the battlefield. Most of the men were garbed in plate armour or chain mail, beneath murrey tabards embroidered with the emblem of an unsheathed broadsword. Weapons of Narngalish steel depended from their baldrics and belts. They were prepared to re-enter the fray at any moment, should they be called.
    ‘We find ourselves trapped between two adversaries,’ Warwick announced to the gathering, ‘one of whom evidently prosecutes wholesale genocide. Entire households are fleeing from their homes in the north of the realm, just as others are evacuating the villages further south. The dispossessed converge in the middle, assailed on every front.’
    Prince Walter muttered in his elder brother’s ear, ‘At this rate the entire population of Narngalis will end up in King’s Winterbourne.’ William nodded acknowledgement.
    Pausing briefly, his father surveyed the careworn visages of his audience. ‘Thus far,’ he went on, ‘the life of every man who has challenged these fell mountain-wights has been forfeit. Their uncanny mists accompany them, and out of that haze no living human being ever emerges. Dim fogs crawl across Silverton and the Harrowgate Fells, the lands taken by the gwyllion—if that is what species of wight they be.
    ‘Should these unseelie hordes be as numerous and as powerful as our patrols report, then it may be that even Thorgild’s reinforcements cannot save the day. I say again—it is not impossible that this new danger threatens all of humankind across the Four Kingdoms of Tir. We can only cling to the hope that we will find a way to stop them; that by engaging them in battle, somehow our troops can learn enough about these foes to discover their weaknesses. Combat, too, will delay the unseelie onslaught, giving us a little extra time to develop a strategy. The very least I can do is immediately despatch two regiments to the Harrowgate Fells. This will weaken our position here, but I cannot leave my northern lands undefended.’
    Nobody said aloud what all were thinking, Those regiments will march to certain death . Yet they could offer no alternative plan.
    One of the officers said,