by Robin Hobb
But at last she reached the relative stability of the larger rocks where I stood. She clutched at me and I held her, feeling the trembling that rattled through her. After a long moment, I gripped her upper arms firmly and held her a little apart from me. ‘You have to go on, now. It’s not far. When you get there, stay there and keep the jeppas bunched together. Do you understand?’
She gave a quick nod and then took a deep breath. She stepped free of me and began cautiously to follow the trail the jeppas and I had left. I let her get a safe distance away before I took my first cautious steps toward the Fool.
The rocks shifted and grated more noticeably under my greater weight. I wondered if I would be wiser to walk higher or lower on the slope than she had. I thought of going back to the jeppas for a rope, but could think of nothing to secure it to. And all the while I kept moving forward, one cautious step at a time. The Fool himself did not move.
Rocks began to move around my feet, tapping against my ankles as they tumbled past me, slipping out from under my feet. I halted where I was, frozen by the gravel hurrying past me. I felt one of my feet start to slip, and before I could control myself, I plunged forward a step. The exodus of small rocks became swifter and more determined. I did not know what to do. I thought of flinging myself flat and spreading my weight, but decided swiftly it would only make it more easy for the tumbling rocks to carry me with them. Not one of the moving stones was bigger than my fist, but there were so many of them. I froze where I was and counted ten breaths before the rattlings settled again.
It took every scrap of courage I could muster to take the next step. I studied the ground for a time and selected a place that looked least unstable. I eased my weight to that foot and chose a place for my next step. By the time I reached the Fool’s prone body, my shirt was sweated to my back and my jaw ached from clenching it. I eased myself down beside him.
Starling had lifted the blanket’s corner to shelter his face, and he still lay covered like a dead man. I lifted it away, to look down at his closed eyes. He was a hue I had never seen before. The deathly white of his skin at Buckkeep had taken on a yellowish cast in the Mountains, but now he was a terrible dead colour. His lips were dry and chapped, his eyelashes crusted yellow. And he was still warm to the touch.
‘Fool?’ I asked him gently, but he made no response. I spoke on, hoping some part of him would hear me. ‘I’m going to have to lift you and carry you. The footing is bad, and if I slip, we’re going to fall all the way. So once I have you up in my arms, you must be very, very still. Do you understand?’
He took a slightly deeper breath. I took it for assent. I knelt downhill of him and worked my hands and arms under his body. As I straightened up, the arrow scar in my back screamed. I felt sweat pop out on my face. I knelt upright for a moment, the Fool in my arms, mastering my pain and gaining my balance. I shifted one leg to get my foot under me. I tried to stand up slowly, but as I did so rocks began cascading past me. I fought a terrible urge to clutch the Fool to me and run. The rattling and scattering of loose shale went on and on and on. When it finally ceased, I was trembling with the effort of standing perfectly still. I was ankle-deep in loose scree.
‘FitzChivalry?’
I turned my head slowly. Kettricken and Kettle had caught up. They were standing uphill of me, well off the patch of loosened stone. They both looked sickened at my predicament. Kettricken was the first to recover.
‘Kettle and I are going to cross above you. Stay where you are, and be as still as you can. Did Starling and the jeppas make it across?’ I managed a small nod. I had not the spit to speak.
‘I’ll get a rope and come back. I’ll be as quick as it is safe to be.’
Another nod from me. I had to twist my body to watch them, so I did not. Nor did I look down. The wind blew past me, the stone ticked under my feet, and I looked down into the Fool’s face. He did not weigh much, for a man grown. He had always been slight and bird-boned, relying on his tongue for defence rather than fist and muscle. But as I stood and held him, he grew weightier and weightier in my arms. The circle of pain in my back slowly expanded, and somehow managed to make my arms ache with it.
I felt him give a slight twitch in my arms. ‘Be still,’ I whispered.
He prised his eyes open and looked up at me. His tongue sought to moisten his lips. ‘What are we doing?’ he croaked.
‘We’re standing very still in the middle of an avalanche,’ I whispered back. My throat was so dry it was hard to talk.
‘I think I could stand,’ he offered weakly.
‘Don’t move!’ I ordered him.
He took a slightly deeper breath. ‘Why are you always near when I get into these sort of situations?’ he wondered hoarsely.
‘I could ask you the same,’ I retorted, unfairly.
‘Fitz?’
I twisted my screaming back to look up at Kettricken. She was silhouetted against the sky. She had a jeppa with her, the lead one. She had a coil of rope looped on one shoulder. The other end was fixed to the jeppa’s empty pack harness.
‘I’m going to throw the rope to you. Don’t try to catch it, let it go past you and then pick it up and wrap it around yourself. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
She could not have heard my answer, but she nodded back to me encouragingly. In a moment the rope came flopping and uncoiling past me. It unsettled a small amount of pebbles, but their scurrying motion was enough to make me sick. The length of the rope sprawled across the rock, less than an arm’s length from my foot. I looked down at it and tasted despair. I steeled my will.
‘Fool, can you hold onto me? I have to try to pick up the rope.’
‘I think I can stand,’ he offered again.
‘You may have to,’ I admitted unwillingly. ‘Be ready for anything. But whatever else, hold onto me.’
‘Only if you promise to hold onto the rope.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ I promised grimly.
My brother, they have stopped where we camped last night. Of the six men –
Not now, Nighteyes!
Three have gone down as you did, and three remain with the horses.
Not now!
The Fool shifted his arms to get an awkward hold on my shoulders. The damnable blankets that had swathed him were everywhere I didn’t want them to be. I clutched at the Fool with my left arm and got my right hand and arm somewhat clear even though my arm was still under him. I fought a ridiculous impulse to laugh. It was all so stupidly awkward and dangerous. Of all the ways I had thought I might die, this one had never occurred to me. I met the Fool’s eyes and saw the same panicky laughter in them. ‘Ready,’ I told him, and crouched toward the rope. Every taut muscle in my body screeched and cramped.
My fingers failed to touch the rope by a handsbreadth. I glanced up to where Kettricken and the jeppa were anxiously poised. It came to me that I had no idea what was supposed to happen once I had the rope. But my muscles were already extended too far to stop and ask questions. I forced my hand to the rope, even as I felt my right foot sliding out from under me.
Everything happened simultaneously. The Fool’s grip on me tightened convulsively as the whole hillside beneath us seemed to break into motion. I grasped the rope but was still sliding downhill. Just before it tightened I managed to flip one wrap around my wrist. Above us and to the east of us, Kettricken led the sure-footed jeppa on. I saw the animal stagger as it took part of our weight. It dug in its feet and kept moving across the slide zone. The rope tightened, biting into my wrist and hand. I held on.
I don’t know how I scrabbled my feet under me, but I d
id, and made a semblance of walking as the hill kept rattling away beneath me. I found myself swinging like a slow pendulum with the taut rope providing me just enough resistance to keep me atop the rattling stone sliding downhill past me. Suddenly I felt firmer footing. My boots were full of tiny pebbles, but I ignored them as I kept my grip on the rope and moved steadily across the slide area. By now we were far downhill of the original path I had chosen. I refused to look down and see how close we were to the edge. I concentrated on keeping my awkward grip on the Fool and the rope and keeping my feet moving.
Abruptly, we were out of danger. I found myself in an area of bigger rocks, free of the loose scree that had nearly ended our lives. Above us, Kettricken kept moving steadily and so did we, and then we were climbing down onto the blessedly level road bed. In a few more minutes we were all on flat snowy ground. I dropped the rope and slowly sagged down with the Fool. I closed my eyes.
‘Here. Drink some water.’ It was Kettle’s voice, and she was offering me a waterskin as Kettricken and Starling pried the Fool out of my arms. I drank some water and shook for a short while. Every part of me hurt as if bruised. As I sat recovering, something pushed into the front of my mind. I suddenly staggered to my feet.
‘Six of them, and three have gone down as I did, he said.’
All eyes turned to me at my blurted words. Kettle was getting water down the Fool, but he did not look much better. Her mouth was pursed with worry and displeasure. I knew what she feared. But the fear the wolf had given me was more compelling.
‘What did you say?’ Kettricken asked me gently, and I realized they thought my mind was wandering again.
‘Nighteyes has been following them. Six men on horses, one pack animal. They stopped at our old campsite. And he said that three of them went down as I did.’
‘Meaning to the city?’ Kettricken asked slowly.
To the city, Nighteyes echoed. It chilled me to see Kettricken nod as if to herself.
‘How can that be?’ Starling asked softly. ‘Kettle told us the signpost only worked for you because you had had Skill-training. It didn’t affect any of the rest of us.’
‘They must be Skilled ones,’ Kettle said softly and looked at me questioningly.
There was only one answer. ‘Regal’s coterie,’ I said and shuddered. The sickness of dread rose in me. They were so horribly close, and they knew how to hurt me so badly. An overwhelming fear of pain flooded my mind. I fought panic.
Kettricken patted my arm awkwardly. ‘Fitz. They’ll not get past that slide easily. With my bow, I can pick them off as they cross.’ Kettricken offered these words. There was irony in my queen offering to protect the royal assassin. Somehow it steadied me, even as I knew her bow was no protection from the coterie.
‘They don’t need to come here to attack me. Or Verity.’ I took a deep breath, and suddenly heard an additional fact in my words. ‘They don’t need to physically follow us here to attack us. So why have they come all this way?’
The Fool leaned up on an elbow. He rubbed at his pasty face. ‘Maybe they don’t come here to pursue you at all,’ he suggested slowly. ‘Maybe they want something else.’
‘What?’ I demanded.
‘What did Verity come here for?’ he demanded. His voice was weak but he seemed to be thinking very carefully.
‘The aid of the Elderlings? Regal never believed in them. He saw it only as a way to get Verity out of his path.’
‘Perhaps. But he knew the tale he spread of Verity’s death was a fabrication of his own. You yourself say that his coterie waited and spied upon you. In what hopes, if not to discover Verity’s whereabouts? By now, he must wonder as much as the Queen does, why Verity has not returned. And Regal must wonder, what errand was so important that the Bastard turned aside from killing him to set forth on it. Look behind you, Fitz. You have left a trail of blood and mayhem. Regal must wonder where it all leads.’
‘Why would they go down into the city?’ I asked, and then a worse question, ‘How did they know how to go down into the city? I blundered into it, but how did they know?’
‘Perhaps they are far stronger than you in the Skill. Perhaps the guidepost spoke to them, or perhaps they came here already knowing much more than you did.’ Kettle spoke carefully, but there was no ‘perhaps’ in her voice.
It was all suddenly clear to me. ‘I don’t know why they are here. But I know I am going to kill them before they can get to Verity, or trouble me any further.’ I heaved myself to my feet.
Starling sat staring at me. I think she realized at that moment exactly what I was. Not some romanticized princeling in exile who would eventually do some heroic task, but a killer. And not even a very competent one.
‘Rest a bit first,’ Kettricken advised me. Her voice was steady and accepting.
I shook my head. ‘I wish I could. But the opportunity they’ve given me is now. I don’t know how long they’ll be in the city. I hope they’ll spend some time there. I’m not going down to meet them, you see. I’m no match for them in the Skill. I can’t fight their minds. But I can kill their bodies. If they’ve left their horses, guards and supplies behind them, I can take those things from them. Then when they come back, they’ll be trapped. No food, no shelter. No game to hunt around here, even if they remembered how to hunt. I won’t get a chance as good as this again.’
Kettricken was nodding reluctantly. Starling looked ill. The Fool had sagged back into his bedding. ‘I should be going with you,’ he said quietly.
I looked at him and tried to keep amusement out of my voice. ‘You?’
‘I’ve just a feeling … that I should go with you. That you should not go alone.’
‘I won’t be alone. Nighteyes is waiting for me.’ I quested out briefly and found my comrade. He was crouched on his belly in the snow, downtrail of the guards and horses. They had built a small fire and were cooking food over it. It was making the wolf hungry.
Shall we have horse tonight?
We shall see, I told him. I turned to Kettricken. ‘May I take your bow?’
She handed it over reluctantly. ‘Can you shoot it?’ she asked.
It was a very fine weapon. ‘Not well, but well enough. They’ve no cover worth mentioning, and they aren’t expecting an attack. If I’m lucky, I can kill one before they know I’m even around.’
‘You’ll shoot one without even issuing a challenge?’ Starling asked faintly.
I looked into the sudden disillusionment in her eyes. I closed my eyes and focused on my task instead. Nighteyes?
Shall I drive the horses over the cliff, or just down the trail? They’ve already scented me and are getting anxious. But the men pay no attention.
I’d like the supplies they are carrying, if it can be managed. Why did killing a horse bother me more than killing a man?
We’ll see, Nighteyes replied judiciously. Meat is meat, he added.
I slung Kettricken’s quiver over my back. The wind was kicking up again, promising more snow. The thought of crossing the slide area again turned my bowels to water. ‘There is no choice,’ I reminded myself. I looked up to see Starling turning away from me. She had evidently taken my remark as her reply. Well, it would serve there as well. ‘If I fail, they will come after you,’ I said carefully. ‘You should get as far from here as you can; travel until you can’t see any more. If all goes well, we’ll catch up with you soon enough.’ I crouched down beside the Fool. ‘Can you walk at all?’ I asked him.
‘For a way,’ he said dully.
‘If I must, I can carry him.’ Kettricken spoke with quiet certainty. I
looked at the tall woman and believed her. I gave a short nod of my head.
‘Wish me luck,’ I told them, and turned back to the slide zone.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Kettle announced abruptly. She stood up from retying her boots. ‘Give me the bow. And follow where I walk.’
I was speechless for a moment. ‘Why?’ I demanded at last.
‘Because I know what I’m doing crossing that rock. And I’m more than “good enough” with a bow. I’ll wager I can drop two of them before they know we’re there.’
‘But –’
‘She is very good on the slide,’ Kettricken observed calmly. ‘Starling, take the jeppas. I’ll bring the Fool.’ She gave us an unreadable look. ‘Catch up as soon as you can.’
I recalled that I’d tried to leave Kettle behind once before. If she was going with me, I wanted her to be with me, not coming up behind me when I didn’t expect it. I glared at her, but nodded.
‘The bow,’ she reminded me.
‘Can you really shoot well?’ I asked her as I grudgingly surrendered it.
A funny smile twisted her face. She looked down at her crooked fingers. ‘I would not tell you I could do a thing if I could not. Some of my old skills are still mine,’ she said quietly.
We set out to clamber back up onto the tumbled rock. Kettle went first, her probing staff in hand, and I came behind her, one staff length back as she had bid me. She didn’t say a word to me as she glanced back and forth between the ground at her feet and where she wished to take us. I could not discern what it was that decided her path, but the loose stone and crystalline snow remained quiet under her short steps. She made it look easy enough that I began to feel foolish.