Orfantal looked upon those unknown faces. He counted eleven men and women, all well armed and bearing none of the ragtag equipment he would have expected among bandits. Nor did the strangers accost them, but Orfantal felt their sharp eyes gauging the caravan and its handful of guards. Beside him Gripp was silent, head lowered as if in deference.
A few, Orfantal saw as they plodded past, wore the colours of Urusander’s Legion, charcoal grey half-capes piped in gold, the high leather knee-guards that so faithfully copied Urusander’s own armour. He knew this from his grandfather’s kit, which he had examined countless times. Others seemed to be carrying the same gear, but rolled up and tied to the backs of their saddles.
‘Hunting bandits?’ Orfantal asked Gripp after the last rider had trotted past. ‘There were Legion—’
‘Quiet, boy!’ rasped Gripp, and Orfantal saw how pale the old man was, his mouth pinched, the lips dry. He was staring ahead to Haral, awaiting the command to resume. ‘Send us on, damn you!’ he said in a hiss.
Orfantal twisted on his saddle to look back at the strangers.
‘Turn round!’ Gripp snapped. ‘Now, let’s go. Ride on, boy, ride on. Eyes forward!’
‘What’s wrong?’
Ahead, Haral had swung his mount round, watching the wagons rock back on to the centre of the road.
Orfantal could see Gripp’s watery eyes fixed on Haral’s, as if seeking a sign.
It came when Haral frowned, and then straightened in his saddle. A moment later he half rose on the stirrups, confusion writ plain on his features.
‘That’s it, then,’ growled Gripp. He pulled his mount close alongside Orfantal’s. ‘Listen to me. They’re coming back.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because they shouldn’t be here, that’s why. At least three of them were from a disbanded unit.’
‘But—’
‘Ride ahead, Orfantal – and once you’re on the straight, kick that hag of yours into a gallop and don’t look back. No more questions!’ he added as horse hoofs sounded behind them, fast approaching. ‘Go, son, ride.’ And he slapped the hag’s rump, jolting the beast forward into a startled canter. The motion almost unseated Orfantal and he gripped hard the reins, which only slowed the beast.
‘Kick her on!’ Gripp shouted, and there was the sound of swords being drawn.
Punching the flanks with his heels, Orfantal pushed his mount back into a canter, and then a heavy gallop. Disorientated, he rocked in the saddle. He heard harsh shouts behind him. Someone screamed like a dying pig.
Mouth dry, heart hammering, he leaned forward. ‘Oh, run! Run, you, oh run …’
The horse thundered beneath him, but it seemed so slow, the beast labouring. The scene jolted up and down, side to side, and he thought of Gripp, and Haral and the others. He thought of that scream, and wondered from whose throat it had erupted. He thought of dying, cut down from behind. He could hear a horse running behind him, catching up impossibly quickly. A whimper escaped him and he felt hot urine in his crotch, seeping down the inside of his thighs.
He didn’t turn as the horse caught up, instead ducking down.
A moment later and the beast rushed past. Haral’s own horse, riderless, its flanks black with spilled blood and lumps of gore.
Orfantal looked back – but he was beyond the bend and not even the wagons were in view. He saw two riders emerge, reining in to watch him flee. A moment later they set off in pursuit.
The nag was labouring, breaths gusting harsh and loud. Haral’s horse was already twenty paces ahead. Desperate, Orfantal looked round. The sunken flats to either side formed a basin, but one edge was closer than the other – to his right – and he saw the fringe of an old stony shoreline, and then the ragged broken hillsides rearing up beyond. There were paths up there, places to hide.
Orfantal slowed his horse, and then pulled it down from the road. He glanced back to see the two riders drawing closer, their swords out.
The nag stumbled on the rocky slope, righted itself with a snort. Orfantal kicked it forward. The clay underhoof cracked and gave way, miring the horse in the thick mud hiding beneath the crust. The animal dragged itself clear, pushed on at Orfantal’s frantic urging. Lunging, pitching, the nag fought onward.
They were halfway across when the horse sank down to its belly, lurching helplessly, head tossing, eyes rolling. Crying now, the tears half blinding him, Orfantal dragged himself free of the saddle. He looked back to see the two riders reined in at the roadside, watching his progress. In a flash he realized that neither dared venture on to the clay.
He worked his way clear of the sucking mud, rolled on to his side.
The nag had given up its struggle and looked across at him with dumb misery in its weeping eyes. He could see that it had sunk down now halfway up its shoulders at the front, and deeper still at the back. Its whole body trembled and flies swarmed its mud-spattered hide.
He crawled away, still weeping, his face smeared. He had killed his horse, his noble servant. He had betrayed the beast, as only a master could.
But I’m not the betrayer – it’s not supposed to be me. It was never supposed to be me!
His weight was as nothing on the hard-packed clay crust. He made his way across it towards the pebble-studded old bank. Reaching it he straightened and looked back.
The riders were leaving, heading back up the road – and from beyond the bend two columns of thick, black smoke lifted into the sky, and Orfantal knew that his companions were all dead. Haral, Gripp, all of them. A disbanded unit, fallen into banditry and murder – but no, even that did not make sense. Those skins on the wagons were valuable. Bandits would not set them alight.
His gaze fell back to the nag.
The back end of the animal was now beneath the mud, and he could see how it struggled to breathe.
Orfantal ventured back out on to the clay, retracing his route.
When he reached the nag only its head and neck were visible. The crying left him weak, but he managed to throw his arms around that neck, holding on tight. The hide was hot and slick, almost on fire with life, and he felt the nag’s cheek settle against the side of his head, and he wept so hard he felt as if he was emptying his own soul. His wails echoed back from the cliffs behind him.
The mud touched the underside of his left arm; he felt his elbow plunging into soft coolness. The neck muscles strained and the nag lifted its head, nostrils opened wide, air gusting out in a long stream. But it had no strength with which to draw a breath inside – the weight of the clay against its ribs was too vast. As the exhalation dwindled, he felt the nag shudder, and then begin to sag, the muscles relaxing and the head settling on the clay. The horse’s eyelids dipped down half over the lifeless eyes, and stayed there.
Orfantal dragged his arms from the mud. With the nag’s death, the anguish left him, and in its place was a vast hollow, a numbness that made him feel small.
Truth cared nothing for stories. The real world was indifferent to what people wanted to be, to how they wanted everything to turn out. Betrayers came from everywhere, including inside his own body, his own mind. He could trust no one, not even himself.
He faced the broken rocks and started crawling.
TEN
RISP WATCHED CAPTAIN Esthala throw on her cloak and tug her gauntlets from her swordbelt. There was the taste of iron in the air, a pungent aura of panic spreading through the hidden camp. The day was fast drawing to a close, shadows engulfing the spaces between the crags. Esthala’s husband, Silann, had dismounted to help down one of his wounded soldiers. Risp turned and studied the battered troop, seeing faces flushed and faces pale and taut with pain, seeing the blood splashed on most of the soldiers and the tenderness with which they pulled bodies down, and the way the horses stamped and tossed heads in the aftermath of battle. A moment later Esthala walked past her to accost her husband.
‘Have you lost your mind?’ she hissed, but not quietly enough to be missed by the nearby soldiers. ‘This was
not supposed to happen.’
He shot her a glare. ‘A caravan. We recognized one of the guards, and for damned certain he recognized us!’
‘What of it? A dozen old soldiers on the trail – that means nothing!’
‘A disbanded unit once more under arms, you mean. And to that old man it meant something. I think even the one commanding those guards had marked us as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But listen, Esthala, it’s been taken care of. No survivors barring a child who was quick to run off – and who’d listen to a child? The caravan was struck by bandits and that is all.’ His rush of words ended and he stood staring at his wife, his face smeared in dirty sweat.
‘A child escaped you? Go back and hunt him down!’
‘He’ll never survive the hills. No food, no water. The night will probably kill him – he looked no more than six years old. He rode out across a mudflat and lost his horse to it.’
‘Then he should be easy enough to find,’ said Esthala, crossing her arms.
Silann was scowling. ‘I’m not in the habit of killing children.’
‘I will lead a troop if you deem it necessary,’ said Risp, drawing them both around. Fed up with this unprofessional display, where whatever marital problems they possessed continually overwhelmed all propriety, she continued in a reasonable tone, ‘Silann’s unit is all chewed up. They’re tired and they have friends to bury.’
‘And what think you Hunn Raal will say to this?’ Esthala demanded. ‘We’re not yet ready for open bloodshed. You said so yourself.’
Risp shrugged. ‘My cousin understands the risks. You have plenty of country to cross, and thinking you can do it unseen is unrealistic. I agree with Silann that we need not worry about some hysterical, shocked child, but if you wish it, captain, I will find that child and we can put this matter to rest. Silann,’ she added, one brow lifting, ‘it seems your soldiers are out of shape. A few caravan guards mauled you badly.’
‘Veterans among those guards, Risp. And the old man was Gripp.’
‘Gripp Galas?’
‘The same. He killed the first two who came at him.’
‘How did he fall?’
‘A spear to the back.’
‘Who fired the wagons?’ Esthala demanded.
Silann turned away. ‘That was a mistake.’
Risp said nothing. The venom between husband and wife was growing ever more vicious. There was a son who had left the family, Risp recalled, taking the priestly orders and so disappointing his ambitious parents. No doubt they each blamed the other, but it was likely not the least of their mutual irritations. Glancing away, she could see the pillars of black smoke in the distance to the south, rising above the rough rocks. ‘Is Hish Tulla in residence at her keep? Does anyone know?’
‘No,’ replied Esthala in a tone that could dull knife blades. ‘She is still in Kharkanas.’
‘So it’s not likely they’ll investigate. As I recall, that old castellan of hers has no imagination and isn’t one to abandon the keep on account of a little smoke. If he sends anyone, it’ll be tomorrow and you’ll be long gone from these hills. I’ll catch you up on the north road.’
‘Take six of your own,’ Esthala told her. ‘If you come upon anyone from Tulla Keep, offer to ride with them if any searching takes place, and do not take no for an answer. I doubt they will look beyond the scene of the fight itself. The burnt loot is a problem – that’s a hoard of wealth gone up in smoke, after all.’ She fixed her husband with another iron glare. ‘See to your soldiers, husband.’
Risp gestured to her sergeant who stood a few paces away. ‘Ready the horses. Choose five with tracking skills and good eyes.’
‘Yes sir,’ the man replied.
She watched the old veteran walk back to her unit’s camp. Hunn Raal had awarded her the rank of lieutenant and she was well pleased with it. Not her fault the best of the war was over by the time she reached an age suitable to soldiering. It was satisfying giving orders and seeing them followed without question, and this was just the beginning. Soon, they would all stand in the Grand Hall of the Citadel, eyes level with those of the highborn. She and her sisters were destined for the personal staff under Osserc, once he took command of the Legion. And it was clear that, even though Esthala technically outranked her, the real power here was with Risp, as she had just shown. She counted it among her own virtues that she could distil pleasure from the most extreme fiascos and disasters, and this mess was surely both.
Gripp Galas. That was unfortunate. Once footman to Anomander himself and proven in the wars. Anomander should never have let the fool retire.
Frowning, she watched two soldiers of Silann’s troop stagger off with a body between them. They had to hold it carefully balanced as the man had been disembowelled by a single sword cut. Gripp was said to have a temper in a fight. She wagered that was his work. That man had died in pain. She walked over to Esthala.
‘Captain, I am wondering about something.’
Distracted and perhaps, now that she’d cooled down, also embarrassed, Esthala shrugged. ‘Go on.’
‘I am wondering what in the name of the Abyss was Gripp Galas doing with that traders’ caravan.’
Esthala faced her husband again. ‘Silann! Tell me, did you examine Gripp’s body? His gear?’
The man looked over and shook his head. ‘The spear point in the back took him off his horse. His corpse rolled into a damned crevasse, fell right out of sight.’
Esthala stepped towards him. ‘Didn’t you go down after him? To make certain that he was dead?’
‘He left a blood trail thick with gore – and that crevasse was bottomless.’
‘Gore?’ Risp asked. ‘Whose gore? He was stabbed in the back. Silann,’ she continued, struggling to control her panic, ‘bring us the soldier who stabbed Gripp. I want to see the spear point. I want to hear how the blow felt – was Gripp wearing armour? Was Gripp wearing leather, as befits a caravan guard, or chain, as befits a covert agent?’
The blood had left Silann’s face. ‘That man died to the leader of the caravan guards – who was clearly another veteran.’
‘The gutted one or the one with no throat left? That one? Have you his weapon?’
A few moments later one of Silann’s soldiers collected up and delivered the dead man’s spear; as Risp reached for the weapon, Esthala stepped close and took it instead. Ignoring Risp’s scowl, the captain studied the iron point. ‘Might have struck chain – I see the bite of snapped links. The tip’s bloody, so it went through … about three fingers’ worth. If it severed the spine then Gripp’s dead or paralysed. Anywhere else and he’s wounded but not fatally so.’
‘He fell down a damned crevasse!’ Silann shouted.
‘Fell or rolled down it?’ Esthala demanded. ‘Did you see it happen?’
Swearing under her breath, Risp made her way back to her troop. ‘Muster out six more, sergeant! This hunt has turned serious.’
* * *
The sun was low in the western sky when Sukul Ankhadu summoned Rancept to the top floor of the High Tower. Upon the castellan’s wheezing arrival, she gestured to the large window. ‘I trust you have been made aware of smoke to the east.’
Rancept, it was said, was the offspring of a drunken woman and a sadly sober boar. Such observations were rarely made to his face, of course, because Rancept had his father’s temper, and enough brawn to make a bear cower. The castellan’s face looked familiar with tavern floors, his nose broken and mashed by countless brawls in his youth, unfortunately pushed back to give it the appearance of a pig’s snout. His teeth were uneven and stained and ragged from years of mouth-breathing. He was rumoured to be a thousand years old and as bone-weary as a man twice his age.
At her query he squinted at the window.
‘You’ll have to step closer to see it from here,’ said Sukul.
He made no move. ‘Mistress wants us stayin’ put, milady. Says there’s trouble on the way.’
‘Closer than we thi
nk, yes? That smoke smells to me of burning hides.’
‘Does it now, milady?’
‘You will have to take my word on that, castellan.’
He grunted, still squinting at the window. ‘Suppose I will at that.’
‘There was a highborn riding with those wagons. A boy of five or six years of age. On his way to the Wise City. To the Citadel, in fact. A child of the Korlas family.’
Rancept pawed at the silver stubble on his jaw. ‘Korlas? Good soldier. Always sad. Heard he killed himself.’
‘Officially died in his sleep or something like that.’
‘Festered wound I think it was, milady.’
‘You’re trying my patience, castellan.’
His squint narrowed until his eyes were thin slits. ‘I do that, yes.’
‘I want us to ride out – tonight – and catch up to that caravan. If there are bandits that close to us, we need to know.’
‘Not bandits, milady.’
‘I know that, you oaf! So who attacked them and are we under threat?’
He grunted a second time. ‘Safe enough up here.’
‘I insist we ride out! I want fifteen Houseblades, and a fist of tracking dogs!’
‘You’ll get one Houseblade, milady, and Ribs.’
‘Ribs? That dog is constantly surprised by the smell of its own butt! And one Houseblade isn’t enough – you are supposed to accord me proper protection.’
‘And I will, milady,’ and he now turned to her, showing his teeth. ‘That one will be me.’
‘Castellan, forgive me, but walking up the stairs to get here nearly burst your heart.’
‘Hardly, milady. My heart’s just fine and so is the rest of me, barring this nose you keep trying to not look at.’
‘Abyss below. Then it shall be you and me, castellan.’
‘And Ribs, milady.’
‘Find yourself a horse—’
‘On foot,’ he said. ‘It’s quieter.’
‘But look at me – I’m all dressed to ride!’
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