“Have we got the Pyromancer hiding amongst us?” I asked.
“I think you’re just losing your touch, Captain,” offered one of the men.
He was probably right. I was sure I could still get a fire going, but I hadn’t needed to practise my skills in a long time. Soon, the glowing embers became a cheery, dancing flame. There wasn’t much in the way of fuel around here, but the men foraged and shortly they had gathered enough to keep it burning. We sat with our backs to the rock and the flickering light cast shadows from our faces onto the stone. It was still cold, but comforting also. I was a few feet away from the others and spoke to Ploster for a time.
“The Gloom Bringer said that the Emperor is having problems,” I said. “It is a shame that she was not more forthcoming with the details, for I would dearly like to know.”
Ploster nodded. “I have also been plagued with curiosity. The Empire is vast, but I had always thought it to be stable. At least the lands away from here. I have not heard of any threats - indeed, I cannot imagine where they might come from.”
“And for the Gloom Bringer to mention it, there must be something of major importance. Any empire will suffer from constant, minor problems, internecine fighting and the like. This mention of problems makes me think that there’s more to it than just that.”
“I agree,” said Ploster. “Whilst I am happy to be away from Hardened, I do miss the flow of information.”
“We were only ever on the fringes of the politics,” I replied. “Yet even that was far too much for me. I think I would rather put up with the not knowing.”
“You’re probably right,” he agreed. “It’s easy enough to want the best of everything. Here, we have a use and a purpose. Something that is ours and ours alone.”
I liked Ploster. Even when he had a similar opinion as mine, he always seemed to express it in a more optimistic way. “That is a fine way to put it,” I said. “Ours and ours alone.”
“The Emperor’s distraction can only be a good thing for us,” he said. “I would rather he was looking elsewhere, than spending all of his resources planning how to deal with this recalcitrant area of his Empire.”
“He could still afford to send the Gloom Bringer. And the Pyromancer was in Gold,” I told him. “He wouldn’t usually send his Death Sorcerers if the need wasn’t great.”
“We could talk all night and our speculation would become nothing more solid through our efforts.”
“Definitely. It is no reason to stop the effort though.”
He smiled. It was a familiar situation for us to be in when we talked. The pleasure in the discussion was the equivalent of a journey and the conclusion was the destination. It was a rare thing for us to reach that destination when we conversed.
More days passed in the same way. We rose early, grumbling about the lack of shelter and wishing we still had our tents and ground sheets. We’d set off at pace, each of us feeling as refreshed as if we’d spent the night soundly asleep, when in fact we’d only been alone with our thoughts for the hours of darkness. The chill which I’d noticed the day after we’d left Blades persisted. These were temperate lands and though it wasn’t unknown for it to become bitter, there was something about this particular coldness that seemed out of place. It was a minor annoyance and nothing more. I couldn’t remember the time that one of us had succumbed to the effects of exposure.
At the mid-point of the sixth day, I saw something ahead which raised my spirits a little.
“It’s that old farmer’s house, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Looks like it, Captain,” said Weevil.
“That means we’re still on course. We’ve made a little bit better time than the way south as well.”
“We trust you not to get us lost,” said Chant. I’m sure they did, but I still wished I had Lieutenant Craddock’s eye for the land.
“Are we going to have some more mutton?” There was distinct hope in Weevil’s voice.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I told him. “I’ll try and keep the haggling down to a lean two hours this time.”
“We don’t want him ripping us off, though, do we, Captain?” asked Bolt, suddenly protective of our modest stash of coins.
I chuckled at his concern and we headed over to the stone cottage to speak to the curmudgeonly old man again, with me secretly eager to get the better of him in the matter of haggling for his livestock.
We soon realised that something was amiss. Most people can sense such things, but they are so infrequently in a position of danger that they never get to find out. We’d all developed a nose that could tell when something was wrong and fine-tuned the ability over our long lives, until it almost appeared as if we had a sixth sense.
I drew my sword, and the other men followed suit. We spread out in a semi-circle and approached the door of the hut. It was ajar and creaked slightly as a tiny breeze rocked it on its old hinges. I stepped towards it and prodded it open with the tip of my sword. It creaked more loudly as it swung back into the semi-darkness of the hut. There was a window around the other side of the dwelling, but it didn’t let enough light through for us to see clearly. We didn’t need to see - the smell told us that someone had died inside.
I made a gesture and Weevil burst through the doorway, followed by Beamer. Grids went in afterwards. There were some scraping noises, but nothing untoward. After a few moments, Weevil stuck his head back outside.
“There’s no one in here, Captain,” he said. “No one alive, at least. You’re not going to like what’s here.”
I went inside, leaving Bolt and Eyeball to stand watch. The old man hadn’t had much in the way of furniture, but what there was had been strewn around, some of it smashed. My eyes slowly adapted to the gloom and I saw the two shapes slumped in one corner. There was the faint buzzing of flies to tell my ears about the putrefaction that my nose was already aware of.
I walked over to the two bodies. There was blood – copious amounts of it, but now dried and crusted on the walls and floor. I nudged one of the bodies with my foot and a cloud of flies took to the air. It was one of the old man’s sons. He’d been murdered, but his wounds were far greater than what would have been needed to simply kill him. He’d been completely shredded and thick ribbons of skin hung from his back and his legs, though his face was curiously untouched. His head was positioned to one side and his lifeless eyes looked at my feet.
I couldn’t easily tell who the other body belonged to, since it was facing the wall. I stepped carefully over it and saw that it was the old farmer. I’d liked the old fellow and I’d liked his sons. They’d have probably never left this farm, but I remembered that they’d had dreams of doing something more. Now we’d found two of them dead, and though I knew we weren’t guilty of the crime, I was certain that it was we who had brought this upon them.
I left the cottage, bringing the men with me. They watched me for a moment as I thought about what we’d found.
“What is it, Captain?” asked Eyeball, curious to know what was inside.
“Leerfar,” I said. “She’s been here.”
15
At the mention of Leerfar’s name, I saw hands tighten on sword hilts and the eyes of the men looked around as if there was a chance they would spot our hated foe.
“Is she here, Captain?” asked Bolt.
“The deaths of these farmers happened some time ago,” I said. “If I were a betting man I would say that it happened not long after we left the place on our way south.”
“So she was following us?”
“I’d say so. All that effort to stay away from the road and it looks as if she found us anyway.” I fixed my gaze on Eyeball. “You can do similar stuff to Leerfar, can’t you?” I asked him.
“I don’t know, Captain,” he replied. “Sort of, I suppose. I just do what I do and people don’t easily see me. I remember what you said she’d done to Twist and that means she’s a lot better at it than I am.”
“You can track people though, can�
��t you?” I asked, cursing that I’d not thought to question him about it sooner. I’d told myself that we’d be fine just by putting as much distance as possible between ourselves and the road which carried her fleeing army.
“I can’t always track people,” said Eyeball. “Sometimes I get this feeling that a person might be in one place rather than another. It usually works, but not always. And I can’t follow someone who’s miles away – I won’t get any sense about where they are. Nothing comes to me.”
It sounded like Leerfar was more persistent than I’d hoped she would be. I knew of her from our time in service to the Duke, but I had never sought her company, nor made any effort to speak to her. I doubted she would have spared me any time, even if I’d wanted to try. One thing was certain: she was a lot more accomplished at doing what she did than any single man from the First Cohort. I couldn’t blame Eyeball for not realising that she might have ways of finding us. There was still a question left unanswered.
“Is she still following us?” I asked out loud, not looking for an answer.
She could have trailed us all the way to Blades with the intention of striking when the chance presented itself. Except we’d travelled too fast and guarded ourselves too well for the one-handed Leerfar to risk striking us.
“I think we have to assume that she might still be following us, Captain,” said Ploster. “When we reached Blades, the Duke must have told her to keep her distance while he waited for the Emperor’s word on what to do with us.”
“If she has been keeping an eye on us, there were plenty of chances to attack when we were running out of Blades. Why did she not do so?”
Ploster shrugged. “I don’t know, but it won’t do us any harm to keep on guard. We’re only eight now, instead of twenty-one. I wouldn’t like to face her, even though she’s missing a hand.”
“She might want her pretty dagger back, Captain,” said Chant.
“That’s my dagger now, Chant. I won’t give it up willingly and it’s already kept us alive by killing the Gloom Bringer with the guidance of Eyeball’s arm.”
I led us away from the farm, with more than a touch of sorrow at the old man’s death. We hadn’t been able to find the second of his two sons. I doubted that Leerfar would have spent the time to hide or bury him, leading me to the probably futile hope that the man had escaped. I knew she often killed for the pleasure of doing so and if she’d not been pursuing us would have likely taken great joy from hunting down any escapees. Another mystery that I doubted I’d ever see an answer to.
“A shame about those sheep,” I heard Beamer say to another of our number.
“Just left to run around, waiting for the next hungry man to happen by.”
They knew we couldn’t have spared the time to butcher and cook a sheep. They’d all been half a mile away on a hillside, roaming freely. Sheep are stupid beasts, but they seem to know when someone’s about to slaughter them and they have a surprising turn of speed when they wish to avoid the cook pot. I couldn’t stomach the thought of Leerfar watching us from a hidden vantage, while we trod through sheep dung in an attempt to kill our supper.
From that point on, there were no fires in our camp. From what I could gather, Leerfar didn’t rely on sight alone in order to track her prey, but it seemed needlessly incautious to give away our exact position when we didn’t need the warmth and had no meat to cook.
During the days, we attempted to increase our pace. I knew that Leerfar was fast, but I wasn’t sure how much difficulty she would have keeping up with us. I had to assume that she was always somewhere close, waiting for her chance. At night, we didn’t bother with the pretence of sleeping and we sat in a close group, with our swords close to hand. I didn’t bother to set any watchmen further out – they’d make easy pickings if Leerfar wished to whittle away at our numbers.
“This is no good, Captain,” said Beamer one evening. “It doesn’t sit easily with me, doing all this running.”
“Think of it this way,” I told him. “If there was no Leerfar, we’d still be going at the same pace. Why don’t you tell yourself that we’re only going so quickly because we can’t risk losing this vial?” I fixed him with a grim stare. “And believe me when I tell you that if we didn’t have this vial, we’d have waited back in that farmer’s hut until Leerfar ran out of patience and then we’d have cut her to pieces and left her to rot alongside the old man and his son.”
“Yes, Captain,” said Beamer, realising he’d overstepped the mark. “I know that none of us are scared of her, but we all like to face our enemy.”
“She’s marked by the First Cohort now,” I replied. “Wherever she goes, she’d better hope that we don’t get wind of it. I’m going to ensure she finds out what happens to our enemies, however long it takes. She might not die of old age, but neither will we. There’s a long time of running ahead for her, once we get back to the rest of our men.”
Nothing else was said about Leerfar for that night. We closed in upon ourselves, each staring into the impenetrable blackness of the night, with only a sprinkling of tiny white motes above. If Leerfar had been watching, we’d have appeared to be little more than statues, so few were our movements. I was always comfortable in my own company and I found myself relaxing as my mind drifted along its own paths. I should have been fraught with worry about the future, but I wasn’t really a worrier when it came down to it. Night time was my own time, and I was content.
The routine was more or less the same over the subsequent days and I was pleased with our progress. I was reminded how featureless the countryside was here. I wouldn’t have quite called it monotonous, but the hills and valleys seemed to be never ending. The coldness remained, which I put it down to the clearness of the skies overhead. I preferred cold to rain and wind.
On the seventeenth day, we reached the large village where we had killed the justiciars on our way to the south. We’d evidently varied a little from our previous course, because we saw the place a mile or so to our west. I was eager to continue, but even more keen to see what we could purchase to improve our morale for the final steps towards Gold. Also, I was sure we were all interested to find out what had happened to the people here since we’d left. We felt as if we had a small stake in their well-being.
As we’d done the last time, I sent Eyeball in first, so that he could scout for any obvious hazards that would make it too risky for us to approach. He returned not long after he’d left and his report gave me no cause for concern.
“Looks fine to me, Captain,” he said. “Normal.”
We walked down the hillside. Here and there I saw men and women at work in the surrounding fields. They raised their heads to look at us and I noticed with approval that they carried weapons. It would have been nice to think that they’d never need to use them, but the Empire wasn’t like that. The fact that they possessed swords and spears, and showed a willingness defend themselves, was a good sign for their future prosperity.
We entered the collection of buildings, passing swiftly through until we reached the main street. There were a few shops and I bade the men wait as I entered the closest one. After five minutes, I emerged with my arms full of bundled tents and packs to carry them in. I returned to the shop and came out again with ground blankets, made of thick, heavy material. They wouldn’t be any more comfortable to lie on than the ground itself, but they would keep out the water.
“You’re all heart, Captain,” said Weevil, slinging his own pack over his back. The other men did the same, leaving me to collect the final bundle.
“Got us anything to eat in there?” asked Beamer, squinting around as if he were looking for some food.
“Come on, you cheeky bastard. I’ll get you something to eat.” I told him.
There was a single shop that sold bread. The proprietor also showed himself to be a wily businessman, since he stocked freshly-butchered and cooked meats. I didn’t carry many coins, but they were all of a high denomination. I traded one in exchange for many of his pro
ducts, but not before he’d gone through the motions of holding the coin up to the light and biting one corner of it in order to assure himself that it contained the expected ratio of gold. I didn’t blame him for his suspicion and in a way I was grateful that the Emperor’s currency was accepted here. I’d been to even smaller places where it wasn’t worth their while to trade their goods for money and they’d only swap their food for other items of practical value.
“I could murder a cold mug of ale,” said Chant, testing his luck after I’d purchased the food.
“You’ll need to wait till we get back to Gold,” I said. “Or wherever it is that we end up.”
There were some mock complaints – quite a few in number - but we’d got what we’d come for. I didn’t begrudge them a drink, but I knew that one drink would become two and after that there’d be a third. Then, the cares of the world would have vanished and we’d find ourselves reluctant to move from our seats. I had to admit I’d have liked few things better than to spend several hours getting drunk, but there were far more important things to deal with first.
We left the village and no one was stupid enough to continue with their grumblings for ale. They knew when the joke had ended and besides, they had something else to occupy them now. As they walked, they tore hunks from the fresh loaves of bread I’d bought - loaves which retained a residual warmth from the oven they’d not long left. There was roast chicken, too, and I couldn’t help but watch as Bolt pulled the middle from his loaf and stuffed it with lumps of meat, making himself a huge sandwich, which he bit into with relish. He’d broken his left arm in our fight with the Duke but we’d managed to pull it straight for him and it seemed to have healed enough for him to use it almost normally.
Strength of Swords (First Cohort Book 2) Page 18