Ploster had positioned himself a little way out of camp and was sat on the grass with his legs crossed. Our sorcerer was as well-liked as anyone, but he didn’t always crave company in the way that the other men did. I dropped to the grass next to him and neither of us spoke for a few minutes.
“Anything coming?” I asked in the end.
“The night feels empty,” he replied. “But searching has never been my strong point.”
“I know, Jon, but I feel reassured that you’re looking.”
“I do not like what we found in Nightingale,” he said. “I have never come across such creatures before. They were tough and their magic was ancient. I don’t know if even the Flesh Shaper could bring back the dead so easily.”
“The Hangman used the term Northmen,” I said. “It comes as little surprise to discover that the Emperor knows more about this threat than we do.”
“These Northmen – they did not all have magic. The first one that we found dead in the street. I think that was the one that was raising the townsfolk. The others may have been warriors.”
“There was something else, wasn’t there?” I asked.
“Yes, Tyrus. There was something else in Nightingale, which brought with it the cold and the fog. I don’t know what it was, but I could feel it seeking.”
“Seeking you?” I asked.
“I don’t think it was looking for me. I don’t know what it was looking for.”
“If someone is looking for something and they don’t find it, they will normally start to look elsewhere,” I said.
“That is the worry,” he replied. “Nightingale was destroyed weeks ago. Why would they have remained there?”
I didn’t know the answer and the only reason I could think of wasn’t one I wanted to contemplate. “Who is to say they remained there? Perhaps the creatures which destroyed the town left it behind soon after they had killed everyone, and went elsewhere.”
“Where might they have gone?” he asked, knowing that I had no more idea than he did.
“East? West?” I replied. “Maybe even south, though I would have expected to have met them if they’d done so.”
“Unless they passed us in the dark, while we waited in our tents for daylight.”
“At least that would tell us something,” I said, with a degree of bitterness. “It would suggest that they aren’t able to find us either.”
“That might be the case,” he replied. “Or they might not be interested in us at all.”
“I’d give your right arm to know what exactly it is that they are interested in,” I told him.
He chuckled. “I’m sure we’ll find out in the coming days or weeks.”
I left him to his duties and returned to my tent. My mind was whirling with the possibilities and I found it difficult to achieve a state of tranquillity. Our visit to Nightingale had answered some questions, but raised many others. More and more, I found the frustration of not knowing something to be intolerable and I itched to find out what the Northmen’s purpose was in the Emperor’s lands. While I didn’t come to terms with my lack of knowledge, I did in the end manage to calm my spinning thoughts and settled myself for the remaining hour before dawn.
We continued at as great a pace as we had initially travelled north. Craddock took us on a new course, almost directly to the south. This would bypass Gold and allow us to intercept our lady as she travelled on her way to Blades. I assumed that the Saviour was still many days ahead of us and I had that peculiar feeling of wading through mud again. It was the same feeling that had beset me when we returned from Blades with Gagnol’s life vial. We had important news, but no way to impart it and on more than one occasion I found myself grinding my teeth at the need for us to reach our destination.
“How long till we pass Gold, Lieutenant Craddock?” I asked him at one point, knowing we were close, yet still feeling the urge to ask.
“We should pass it late tomorrow, Captain,” he said. “It’ll be quite a few miles off to our right.”
“Can we reach our lady before she gets to Blades?”
“Perhaps – if they dawdle. Otherwise, I think not. Is it important that we do so?”
“I do not know,” I said honestly. “I would prefer to be in a position where I can influence events, rather than here where I cannot.”
“If the Emperor gets a lot of men there first, we’re not going to make much difference, I’d say.”
I had no argument to give him over it. Later that night, we camped as we had done thousands upon thousands of times before. We rose with the light and continued towards Blades. The men felt my tension and I could feel it seeping into them as well. For the moment, I was content for it to happen, since it gave impetus and caused the miles to vanish behind us as if we rode horses instead of walking.
The following day was as clear as they all had been and colder than most. It was approaching mid-day when Lieutenant Craddock brought something to my attention. There was nothing wrong with my eyes, but his sight was sharp and he was perceptive with it.
“Look, Captain. Over there,” he said, pointing to the west. We were on the north side of a wide valley, flanked on either side by hills. A broad, shallow river flowed at the bottom, which I guessed to be the Fols, before it reached Gold. The valley afforded us an unprecedented vantage to both east and west and I wondered if it had been formed millennia ago by the movement of a vast glacier as it headed to the sea. If there had ever been ice here, it was now gone, but I could dimly make out a low-lying cloud where Craddock indicated I should look.
“Cloud?” I asked.
“Not cloud, Captain. Fog and great banks of it,” he replied. “It’s at Gold, or close to it. Should we head there?”
I swore, not really knowing what to do. “No Lieutenant,” I told him in the end. “We can’t fight every battle on the way. This is for our lady to decide now.”
It was at that moment that I was struck by a thought that I hadn’t considered up till that moment. I wondered if the Saviour wasn’t here to free the land from the Emperor and his nobles. Perhaps the real reason she had been born at this time and in this place, was there in the distance around the town of Gold. I didn’t want to think about it, but my brain wouldn’t let go of the idea; maybe the evils of the Emperor were nothing compared to what was coming from the unknown lands to the north.
I felt a deep shiver run through me and I saw Lieutenant Craddock look at me with concern.
“We need to move, Lieutenant. We need to reach Blades as soon as we can.”
We resumed, and this time I didn’t hold us back. Ignoring the weight of our armour and our swords, we ran for the south.
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
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Strength of Swords (First Cohort Book 2) Page 32