The Still Small Voice Read online

Thick-skinned in the Marbled Chasm, slew those raiders to the last man and took not a single casualty in return.

  The emissaries returned in force, and Roul heard them all out, after which Joslin and Cateline learnt that events were moving apace. Aubry the Steadfast had been the Arlestene regent when Eudes still ruled. He was now allied with Fernan Snake-tongue, a turncoat in Piedra's ranks. Fernan thought the rebellion might yet stand a chance of doing his erstwhile king some real damage, were the rebels' numbers to increase.

  So it was that Aubry and Fernan offered men by the score to Roul the Black, and gratefully he accepted. Then did he sally forth at full strength, with Joslin and Cateline's little warband now a mighty fighting force. The three of them led the charge into the town of Boissy, not ten leagues from Piedra's victory at the mouth of the River of Stars. There the rebels seized the town in a rout, and slaughtered the conqueror's troops as they fled for their lives.

  From there did Roul take the rebellion from one victory to another, with more men and women flocking to his banner by the day. Cities fell like ninepins before he and Joslin and Cateline. Seeing his crown so tarnished, Piedra Cold-hearted at last deigned to take the field. Word reached the rebels that the conqueror was moving south from the City of Glass, gathering loyalists to him as he went.

  “Who will challenge Piedra,” Roul said, “should we fight him at last, and our men win through to his position?”

  “I thought you,” Joslin said. “Was I mistaken?”

  “The honour should not be mine,” Roul said, and his face grew sad. “Men call our host my army, my banner, but I did nothing to merit such unquestioning fealty. I long to return to the peace of my fields, the setting sun, and the lowing of my oxen. I sicken of this endless slaughter. I would relinquish my command in an instant, were there another man the host would accept as their leader.”

  Joslin was greatly troubled by this confession. He sought to reassure Roul the Black this was mere stage-fright at the realisation a momentous occasion was fast approaching – something all men and women might suffer from time to time.

  “Your place is here,” he said, “for who else could stir so many men to work miracles in battle? By the River of Stars was where I first saw your skill made plain. When the rebellion strayed from its course, I knew no other could set us back on track. Yours and yours alone is the responsibility of setting the kingdom to rights; to slay Piedra Cold-hearted, that all men may tend the land in peace.”

  “I was at peace before you sought me out!” Roul said. “I worked my farm and never worried. Piedra's rule was irksome, but he defeated Eudes in a fair fight. You saw no hero by the River of Stars, but rather a desperate man, who had resolved he would return to his family safe and sound no matter what. Not save his king.”

  He sighed.

  “Stories tell of men and women,” Roul said, “fated to do battle with some great evil, who do but put off the inevitable when they shirk their destiny – but believe me, these are pretty lies, nothing more. I am a man, not Piedra's doom made flesh. You could slay him. Cateline could slay him. So might anyone.”

  And Roul strode away to spend the night in his cups.

  “You had the right of it,” Cateline said to her husband. “He merely takes fright at the enormity of his task. Craft him a symbol of some kind, a weapon fit to take the conqueror's head, and this should set his mind at ease.”

  So it was that Joslin found a rebel who was well versed in the workings of the mystical energies men call bale-fire. At Joslin's direction, the sorcerer crafted a blade with which a warrior might presume to slay a king. Truly it was a magnificent weapon: a long, fell spike of shimmering silver with a heavy crescent at the very tip, much like the executioners carried among the southern blackamoors.

  Roul was well pleased, and accepted the sword. When the company asked what he would name it, he dubbed the blade the Still Small Voice.

  But before they might reach the conqueror's army, there were further obstacles to overcome.

  First did Piedra despatch his sworn commander Ruy Callous-deeds against them. Ruy led three thousand men onto the plains outside Raboudrisse, where nothing grew save unlovely, stunted trees, good for naught but a perch for the ravens that waited on the slaughter. Slaughter had they aplenty, as Roul the Black, Joslin the Fair, Cateline Riverwind and all their host crashed against Ruy's front lines with a sound like thunder.

  Yet as Roul led a charge against Ruy's mounted knights, his nerves failed him. The Still Small Voice hung loose in his grip, and he could not give voice to the orders the host expected. Seizing his chance, Ruy counter-attacked while his enemies drifted rudderless in the current of battle, and the rebel host suffered grievous losses.

  It was Cateline who threw herself and her company of archers into the fray, and gave Roul safe passage away from the worst of the fighting. Presently the rebels regrouped, and drove Ruy Callous-deeds from the field, yet every survivor knew they had but narrowly avoided defeat.

  A black mood hung over the encampment when the rebels returned to lick their wounds.

  “I did but tell you such a thing might happen,” Roul said to Joslin. “No cunning sorceries can balance out the folly in placing all your hopes on one man's shoulders – a man who would gladly shrug them off again, would you only give him your blessing. You work this thoughtless magic a second time at your peril.”

  And he strode away to spend the night in his cups.

  “The sorceries were not strong enough,” Cateline said. “Redouble the enchantment, that Roul might ride into battle and feel the adoration of his company every step of the way. Strengthen his sword arm, and let him sing of the end of every last one of Piedra's soldiers.”

  So it was that Joslin returned to the forge with the sorcerer, and together the two of them poured bale-fire into the blade until it glittered like a star. Once more Roul took up the Still Small Voice and prepared to lead the rebel host into battle.

  Next did Piedra despatch his sworn commander Miró Long-armed, who chose to block the rebel host's path with six thousand men along the narrows at Garouille. There in ages past stood a hermitage atop the gorge, where a silent order of the priesthood cared for the hopelessly insane. Though the hermitage had been naught but a ruin for time out of mind, madness returned that day, as Cateline Riverwind and her archers scaled the heights that they might fire upon the valley floor.

  The sky turned black with arrows, and countless numbers of Miró's men were slain.

  Yet Miró Long-armed was not a fool, and he had kept a part of his army in reserve for just such a dire occasion as this. Speedily did he bid them scale the heights in turn to take Cateline and her archers unawares. Roul the Black was to espy any such stratagems on Miró's part, yet suddenly he found himself in the thickest of the fighting, beset by enemies who tested him sorely, and he saw nothing of Miró's reserve as they quit the field.

  So it was that Cateline was assaulted by a company of twice her strength or more, and could no longer fire upon Miró Long-armed and his army. Joslin the Fair saw this from afar, and his heart grew cold with fear. Screaming with rage he led a charge straight into Miró's lines, threw back the enemy and drove them from the field. But it was a victory hard won, and it came at far steeper a price than the rebel host had bargained for.

  Upon the heights they found Cateline Riverwind, and in truth she was victorious, for every one of Miró's reserve lay dead. Yet all but a handful of her archers had perished, while Cateline herself lay terribly wounded, and Joslin knew when he looked upon his wife that she would not live to see the morrow.

  Grieving he bore her back to the encampment.

  “This I did,” said Roul the Black. “Again I grew afraid, and could not conduct myself as a leader ought. As Miró's men pressed about me I thought of nothing but saving my own skin. And now poor Cateline sleeps, likely never to wake again.”

  “It was but a moment's lapse in judgement,” Joslin said. “And Cateline knew such is a soldier's lot. We won the day, all
the same. To the host, you were a hero still.”

  “If I was ever a hero,” Roul said, “I was, and am no longer. I am tired, and weary, and losing a friend grieves me. I do not want to fight, and that is the truth of it, plain and simple. There is no cutting rejoinder you could muster that might have me change my mind. First I told you this, and a warning followed. I told you again; tragedy. Will disaster be next, should you deny me a third time?”

  And hearing this Joslin was afraid. He came to Catelin's sickbed, and took her hand.

  “What must I do?” he asked his wife as she lay dying. “Mayhap Roul is not the hero I imagined, yet the host will never warm to a new leader, not with Piedra's army just over the horizon.”

  Though he expected no reply, Cateline opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. Smiling sadly, she beckoned to him as though she wished to speak. In a faint whisper did she answer her husband's plea, then after one last kiss for the man she loved more than any other, Cateline Riverwind passed away.

  Joslin told the chirurgeons of their sad loss then, with tears in his eyes, he hastened to the forge with the sorcerer. The other man listened gravely to Joslin's instructions, and solemnly he nodded.

  “You are mad,” said Roul the Black. “After all I confided in you, again you taunt me