‘Move!’ he shouted, not sure who at, trying to wrench his blade free of the earth. Jolly Yon rushed past, head of his axe dashed with red, teeth bared in a mad snarl. Craw followed, Whirrun behind him, face slack, eyes darting from one hut to another, sword still sheathed in one hand. Around the corner of a hovel and into a wide stretch of muck scattered with ground-up straw. Pigs were honking and squirming in a pen at one side. The hall with the carved uprights stood at the other, steps up to a wide doorway, only darkness inside.
A red-haired man pounded across the ground in front of them, a wood-axe in his fist. Wonderful calmly put an arrow through his cheek at six strides distant and he came up short, clapping a hand to his face, still stumbling towards her. She stepped to meet him with a fighting scream, swept her sword out and around and took his head right off. It spun into the air, showering blood, and dropped in the pigpen. Craw wondered for a moment if the poor bastard still knew what was going on.
Then he saw the heavy door of the hall being swung shut, a pale face at the edge. ‘Door!’ he bellowed and ran for it, pounding across squelching mud and up the wooden steps, making the boards rattle. He shoved one bloody, muddy boot in the gap just as the door was slammed and gave a howl, eyes bulging, pain lancing up his leg. ‘My foot! Fuck!’
There were a dozen Fox Clan or more crowded around the end of the yard now, growling and grunting louder and uglier than the hogs. They waved jagged swords, axes, rough clubs in their fists, a few with shields, too, one at the front with a rusted chain hauberk on, tattered at the hem, straggling hair tangled with rings of rough-forged silver.
‘Back.’ Whirrun stood tall in front of them, holding out his sword at long arm’s length, hilt up, like it was some magic charm to ward off evil. ‘Back, and you needn’t die today.’
The one in mail spat, then snarled at him in broken Northern. ‘Show us your iron, thief!’
‘Then I will. Look upon the Father of Swords, and look your last.’ And Whirrun drew it from the sheath.
Men might’ve had a hundred names for it – Dawn Razor, Grave-Maker, Blood Harvest, Highest and Lowest, Scac-ang-Gaioc in the valley tongue which means the Splitting of the World, and so on, and so on – but Craw had to admit it was a disappointing length of metal. There was no flame, no golden light, no distant trumpets or mirrored steel. Just the gentle scrape as long blade came free of stained leather, the flat grey of damp slate, no shine or ornament about it except for the gleam of something engraved down near the plain, dull crosspiece.
But Craw had other worries than that Whirrun’s sword weren’t worth all the songs. ‘Door!’ he squealed at Yon, scrabbling at the edge of it with his left hand, all tangled up with his shield, shoving his sword through the gap and waving it about to no effect. ‘My fucking foot!’
Yon roared as he pounded up the steps and rammed into the door with his shoulder. It gave all of a sudden, tearing from its hinges and crushing some fool underneath. Him and Craw burst stumbling into the room beyond, dim as twilight, hazy with scratchy-sweet smoke. A shape came at Craw and he whipped his shield up on an instinct, felt something thud into it, splinters flying in his face. He reeled off balance, crashed into something else, metal clattering, pottery shattering. Someone loomed up, a ghostly face, a necklace of rattling teeth. Craw lashed at him with his sword, and again, and again, and he went down, white-painted face spattered with red.
Craw coughed, retched, coughed, blinking into the reeking gloom, sword ready to swing. He heard Yon roaring, heard the thud of an axe in flesh and someone squeal. The smoke was clearing now, enough for Craw to get some sense of the hall. Coals glowed in a fire-pit, lighting a spider’s web of carved rafters in sooty red and orange, casting shifting shadows on each other, tricking his eyes. The place was hot as hell and smelled like hell besides. Old hangings around the walls, tattered canvas daubed with painted marks. A block of black stone at the far end, a rough statue standing over it, and at its feet the glint of gold. A cup, Craw thought. A goblet. He took a step towards it, trying to waft the murk away from his face with his shield.
‘Yon?’ he shouted.
‘Craw, where you at?’
Some strange kind of song was coming from somewhere, words Craw didn’t know but didn’t like the sound of. Not one bit. ‘Yon?’ And a figure sprang up suddenly from behind that block of stone. Craw’s eyes went wide and he almost fell in the fire-pit as he stumbled back.
He wore a tattered red robe, long, sinewy arms sticking from it, spread wide, smeared with paint and beaded up with sweat, the skull of some animal drawn down over his face, black horns curling from it so he looked in the shifting light like a devil bursting straight up from hell. Craw knew it was a mask, but looming up like that out of the smoke, strange song echoing from that skull, he felt suddenly rooted to the spot with fear. So much he couldn’t even lift his sword. Just stood there trembling, every muscle turned to water. He’d never been a hero, that was true, but he’d never felt fear like this. Not even at Ineward when he’d seen the Bloody-Nine coming for him, snarling madman’s face all dashed with other men’s blood. He stood helpless.
‘Fuh … fuh … fuh …’
The priest came forward, lifting one long arm. He had a thing gripped in painted fingers. A twisted piece of wood, the faintest pale glow about it.
The thing. The thing they’d come for.
Light flared from it brighter and brighter, so bright it burned its twisted shape fizzing into Craw’s eyes, the sound of the song filling his ears until he couldn’t hear anything else, couldn’t think anything else, couldn’t see nothing but that thing, searing bright as the sun, stealing his breath, crushing his will, stopping his breath, cutting his—
Crack. Jolly Yon’s axe split the animal skull in half and chopped into the face underneath it. Blood sprayed, hissed in the coals of the fire-pit. Craw felt spots on his face, blinked and shook his head, loosed all of a sudden from the freezing grip of fear. The priest lurched sideways, song turned to a guttering gurgle, mask split in half and blood squirting from under it. Craw snarled as he swung his sword, chopped into the sorcerer’s chest and knocked him over on his back. The thing bounced from his hand and spun away across the rough plank floor, the blinding light faded to the faintest glimmer.
‘Fucking sorcerers,’ snarled Yon, curling his tongue and blowing spit onto the corpse. ‘Why do they bother? How long does it take to learn all that jabber and it never does you half the good a decent knife …’ He frowned. ‘Uh-oh.’
The priest had fallen in the fire-pit, scattering glowing coals across the floor. A couple had skittered as far as the ragged hem of one of the hangings.
‘Shit.’ Craw took a step on shaky legs to kick it away. Before he got there, flame sputtered around the old cloth. ‘Shit.’ He tried to stamp it out, but his head was still a touch spinny and he only got embers scattered against his trouser leg, had to hop around, slapping them off. The flames spread, licking up faster’n the plague. Too much flame to put out, spurting higher than a man. ‘Shit!’ Craw stumbled back, feeling the heat on his face, red shadows dancing among the rafters. ‘Get the thing and let’s go!’
Yon was already fumbling with the straps on his leather pack. ‘Right y’are, Chief, right y’are! Backup plan!’
Craw left him and hurried to the doorway, not sure who’d be alive still on the other side. He burst out into the day, light stabbing at his eyes after the gloom.
Wonderful was standing there, mouth hanging wide open. She’d an arrow nocked to her half-drawn bow, but it was pointed at the ground, hands slack. Craw couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her surprised.
‘What is it?’ he snapped, getting his sword tangled up on the doorframe then snarling as he wrenched it free. ‘You hurt?’ He squinted into the sun, shading his eyes with his shield. ‘What’s the …’ And he stopped on the steps and stared. ‘By the dead.’
Whirrun had hardly mov
ed, the Father of Swords still gripped in his fist, long, dull blade pointing to the ground. Only now he was spotted and spattered head to toe in blood, and the twisted and hacked, split and ruined corpses of the dozen Fox Clan who’d faced him were scattered around his boots in a wide half-circle, a few bits that used to be attached to them scattered wider still.
‘He killed the whole lot.’ Brack’s face was all crinkled up with confusion. ‘Just like that. I never even lifted my hammer.’
‘Damndest thing,’ muttered Wonderful. ‘Damndest thing.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Can I smell smoke?’
Yon burst from the hall, stumbled into Craw’s back and nearly sent the pair of them tumbling down the steps. ‘Did you get the thing?’ snapped Craw.
‘I think I …’ Yon blinked at Whirrun, standing tall in his circle of slaughter. ‘By the dead, though.’
Whirrun started to back towards them, twisted himself sideways as an arrow looped over and stuck wobbling into the side of the hall. He waved his free hand. ‘Maybe we better—’
‘Run!’ roared Craw. Perhaps a good leader should wait until everyone else gets clear. First man to arrive in a fight and the last to leave. That was how Threetrees used to do it. But Craw weren’t Threetrees, it hardly needed to be said, and he was off like a rabbit with its tail on fire. Leading by example, he’d have called it. He heard bowstrings behind him. An arrow zipped past, just wide of his flailing arm, stuck wobbling into one of the hovels. Then another. His squashed foot was aching like fury but he limped on, waving his shield-arm. Pounding towards the jerking, wobbling archway with the animal’s skull above it. ‘Go! Go!’
Wonderful tore past, feet flying, flicking mud in Craw’s face. He saw Scorry flit between two huts up ahead, then swift as a lizard around one of the gateposts and out of the village. He hurled himself after, under the arch of branches. Jumped down the bank, caught his hurt foot, body jolting, teeth snapping together and catching his tongue. He took one more wobbling step then went flying, crashed into the boggy bracken, rolled over his shield with just enough thought left to keep his sword from cutting his own nose off. He struggled to his feet, laboured on up the slope, legs burning, lungs burning, through the trees, trousers soaked to the knee with marsh-water. He could hear Brack lumbering along at his shoulder, grunting with the effort, and behind him Yon’s growl, ‘Bloody … shit … bloody … running … bloody … shit …’
He tore through the brush and wobbled into the clearing where they’d made their plans. Plans that hadn’t flown too smoothly, as it went. Raubin was standing by the gear. Wonderful near him with her hands on her hips. Never was kneeling on the far side of the clearing, arrow nocked to his bow. He grinned as he saw Craw. ‘You made it, then, Chief?’
‘Shit.’ Craw stood bent over, head spinning, dragging in air. ‘Shit.’ He straightened, staring at the sky, face on fire, not able to think of another word, and without the breath to say one if he could have.
Brack looked even more shot than Craw, if it was possible, crouched over, hands on knees and knees wobbling, big chest heaving, big face red as a slapped arse around his tattoos. Yon tottered up and leaned against a tree, cheeks puffed out, skin shining with sweat.
Wonderful was hardly out of breath. ‘By the dead, the state o’ you fat old men.’ She slapped Never on the arm. ‘That was some nice work down there at the village. Thought they’d catch you and skin you sure.’
‘You hoped, you mean,’ said Never, ‘but you should’ve known better. I’m the best damn runner-away in the North.’
‘That is a fact.’
‘Where’s Scorry?’ gasped Craw, enough breath in him now to worry.
Never jerked his thumb. ‘Circled around to check no one’s coming for us.’
Whirrun ambled back into the clearing, hood drawn up again and the Father of Swords sheathed across his shoulders like a milkmaid’s yoke, one hand on the grip, the other dangling over the blade.
‘I take it they’re not following?’ asked Wonderful, one eyebrow raised.
Whirrun shook his head. ‘Nope.’
‘Can’t say I blame the poor bastards. I take back what I said about you taking yourself too serious. You’re one serious fucker with that sword.’
‘You get the thing?’ asked Raubin, face all pale with worry.
‘That’s right, Raubin, we saved your skin.’ Craw wiped his mouth, blood on the back of his hand from his bitten tongue. They’d done it, and his sense of humour was starting to leak back in. ‘Hah. Could you imagine if we’d left the bastard thing behind?’
‘Never fear,’ said Yon, flipping open his pack. ‘Jolly Yon Cumber, once more the fucking hero.’ And he delved his hand inside and pulled it out.
Craw blinked. Then he frowned. Then he stared. Gold glinted in the fading light and he felt his heart sink lower than it had all day. ‘That ain’t fucking it, Yon!’
‘It’s not?’
‘That’s a cup! It was the thing we wanted!’ He stuck his sword point-down in the ground and waved one hand about. ‘The bloody thing with the kind of bloody light about it!’
Yon stared back at him. ‘No one told me it had a bloody light!’
There was silence for a moment then, while they all thought about it. No sound but the wind rustling the old leaves, making the black branches creak. Then Whirrun tipped his head back and roared with laughter. A couple of crows took off startled from a branch, it was that loud, flapping up sluggish into the grey sky.
‘Why the hell are you laughing?’ snapped Wonderful.
Inside his hood, Whirrun’s twisted face was glistening with happy tears. ‘I told you I’d laugh when I heard something funny!’ And he was off again, spine arching like a full-drawn bow, whole body shaking.
‘You’ll have to go back,’ said Raubin.
‘Back?’ muttered Wonderful, her dirt-streaked face a picture of disbelief. ‘Back, you mad fucker?’
‘You know the hall caught fire, don’t you?’ snapped Brack, one big, trembling arm pointed down towards the thickening column of smoke wafting up from the village.
‘It what?’ asked Raubin as Whirrun blasted a fresh shriek at the sky, hacking, gurgling, only just keeping on his feet.
‘Oh, aye, burned down, more’n likely with the damn thing in it.’
‘Well … I don’t know … you’ll just have to pick through the ashes!’
‘How about we pick through your fucking ashes?’ snarled Yon, throwing the cup down on the ground.
Craw gave a long sigh, rubbed at his eyes, then winced down towards that shit-hole of a village. Behind him, Whirrun’s laughter sawed throaty at the dusk. ‘Always,’ he muttered, under his breath. ‘Why do I always get stuck with the fool jobs?’
The Near Country,
Summer 575
‘Maybe we should skip town.’ said Javre.
‘Oh no, no, no, not this time,’ Shev snapped back at her. ‘You can’t just career through life leaving the wreckage of your mistakes behind you.’
A silence as they hurried on through the shadows, Shev having to half-jog to keep up as Javre ploughed ahead with immense strides, brow furrowed in thought.
‘What is it that we have been doing this past year, then?’
‘Well … we’ve …’ Shev thought about it. ‘That’s just my point! We can’t keep doing it.’
‘I see. So we give Tumnor his jewel, we collect the promised money, we pay our gambling debts—’
‘Your gambling debts.’
‘Then what? We put down roots here?’ Javre raised one red brow at the crumbling buildings, the rubbish-strewn street, a fish-stinking beggar hacking out diseased coughs in a doorway.
‘Well, no. We move on.’
‘And what we left behind us tonight?’ Javre jerked her head the way they’d come. ‘Would you call that wreckage?’
‘I would call that
…’ Shev wondered how much this particular truth would stretch before it tore to bits. ‘A series of mishaps.’
‘It looked like wreckage to me. Once the front of the mansion collapsed, you would have to call that wreckage, no?’
Shev glanced quickly over her shoulder yet again to make sure no one was following. ‘I suppose an uncharitable speaker could describe it so.’
‘Then explain to me, if you would, Shevedieh, how your way differs from mine, except that we leave town with less money?’
‘We leave with less enemies as well! I tire of leaving a new score in every shit-hole we pass through like a rabbit leaves droppings! Sooner or later I might need a good shit-hole to pass through again. All the damn enemies. I wake up sweating, you know, in the night!’
‘That is all that spicy food,’ said Javre. ‘I do not know how often I have warned you about your diet. And enemies are a good thing. Enemies show you make … an impression.’
‘Oh, you make an impression, all right, that I would never deny. You made a hell of an impression on those boys tonight.’
Javre grinned a mass of white teeth as she punched one scabbed fist into one calloused palm with a smack like a door slamming. ‘I certainly did.’
‘But I’m a thief, Javre, not … whatever you are. I’m supposed to keep a low profile.’
‘Ah!’ Javre raised that same red brow again as she glanced sideways. ‘Hence all the black.’
‘And it does look rather well on me, I think you’d have to agree.’
‘You certainly are a shadowy and seductive corruptor of innocent maidenhood!’ Javre playfully jogged Shev in the ribs with an elbow and nearly sent her careering into the nearest wall, then caught her by the hand and dragged her into a crushing embrace, her cheek squashed into Javre’s armpit. ‘We shall do it your way, then, Shevedieh, my friend! Straight and true and morally upright, just as a thief should be! We shall pay your debts, then get drunk and find some men.’
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