by Nathan Hawke
‘Foxbeard! Nioingr!’ Beyard dismounted outside the cave. The rest of the Lhosir paused as Gallow backed away.
‘That’s three, Beyard,’ Gallow shouted back. ‘You have to fight me now.’
‘I know that, old friend. So let’s be at it.’ The Fateguard drew a long dark sword, too long to be either a Lhosir or a Marroc blade, and Gallow knew it at once. Solace. ‘First blood drawn, shall we have? Or to the death? Make it easy for yourself. Face me here and be done with it. Sixfingers will have to settle for gloating over your head and I’ll have no reason to go hunting for those who share your blood.’
Gallow almost threw the spear; but even if Beyard wasn’t quick enough to dodge, the point would never pass through all that iron. ‘Why don’t you call me by name, Beyard? Have you forgotten it? We’ll have our reckoning but I’ll be the one to choose the ground for it. That’s my right and it’ll not be here.’ He turned and bolted into the cave, following his memory of the twists and turns of the tunnel until it spilled him out into the great underground cathedral again. He had no light to see by but across the darkness torches burned, bobbing up and down, the Marroc finding their way to the other side. The closest were a full spear’s throw ahead of him. Maker-Devourer but the place was huge!
And dark, but he’d seen before that a ledge ran down from the balcony and that it was a twenty-foot drop to the floor below. And he’d seen where the Marroc bodies lay piled. He jumped into the blackness, landing on their frozen limbs and sliding down among them, then fumbled blindly towards the flickering of the torches, hands out in front of him feeling for the pillars and spires of stone, feet groping warily for pits and chasms. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, nothing but the distant torches, and he hadn’t gone far at all when the Marroc ahead started to climb some slope he couldn’t see while the Lhosir reached the balcony behind him. He didn’t see them but he heard, heard one of them pitch over the edge among the murdered Marroc and shout and curse his luck. The thought came to him then that a man could hide in this place. Simply slip to one side and let the Lhosir pass after the Marroc and none of them would ever know until they came out the other end. He could go back, take their horses and whatever else he fancied and vanish on his way to Middislet. Be there before Beyard could possibly catch him. He turned the thought over in his head without stopping, then tossed it aside. Oribas would probably tell him he should do it, and Arda surely would, but he’d given these Marroc his word. Besides, there was Beyard. He was Fateguard and not so easily fooled.
He felt the floor of the cathedral rise beneath his feet as he crept on. The Marroc lights were almost gone, all that was left of them a soft glow shining out of some passage high in the wall of the cave. The Lhosir behind him had torches of their own now. They were coming, jumping down from the balcony and running through the stone spires. They were gaining. With his own light to guide him, a man could run faster.
He slowed. Let Beyard keep his sword. Let the Lhosir and Marroc kill each other without him. Three years wasted. Three years and he hadn’t seen his sons, and even a Fateguard’s senses weren’t perfect, and he’d still get back to their horses before Beyard knew for sure what he’d done.
‘Gallow?’ A hiss came from one of the spires as he passed.
‘Oribas?’
An arm from the shadows grabbed his own, pulling him. ‘The others wouldn’t wait for you. I’m sorry.’
‘I told you to run!’ But now they could both stay! They could hide, the two of them, and yet he let the Aulian lead him on, not towards the fading orange glow further along the wall but in and out of spires of stone. There was some sort of path here, one that Gallow would never have found on his own in the dark. It twisted and turned and then they were at the brink of some depthless fissure, invisible in the blackness but Gallow could feel the space at his feet. Oribas led him on to where one of the stone columns had snapped and fallen. Tucked behind it was a narrow bridge, little more than a thick branch laid across the void. Oribas crawled across. ‘It was easier with a torch.’
It would be a fine place to hold, a little voice said – one man against many for a time. He might kill a good few before they took him down. Or he still might hide as he’d planned and let Beyard and his Lhosir pass. But Oribas was leading him on, hurrying him, no thought of anything except to follow the Marroc, and so Gallow followed too, and the moment when outcomes might have been different was gone. He knew what drove Oribas on. When Achista had looked at the Aulian with that one lingering glance, it had landed like a perfect snowflake, and Oribas had caught it, impossible to resist, and of everything that the world took and gave, here was a thing that Gallow’s heart understood without question.
Back across the cavern the dancing lights of Beyard’s Lhosir were getting closer.
18
THE WIZARD OF THE MOUNTAINSIDE
Achista waited at the mouth of the passage. She had a bow. She could hold the forkbeards up and keep them at bay and maybe send one or two of them back to their uncaring god; and when she spoke her thinking aloud, she almost believed it, almost believed that she hadn’t stayed simply because of the Aulian wizard.
He killed a shadewalker. Addic spoke of it with awe and it was nothing short of magic. The Aulian had caught her staring at him too, and he’d smiled and she’d scowled and looked away, but she couldn’t pretend that her heart hadn’t been beating faster, nor now as she waited watching the torches of the Lhosir dip and bob their way across the floor of the cavern. Her own light was guiding them, but it was also guiding the Aulian and his forkbeard friend.
She hurried them past when they finally reached her, pressing her torch into their hands while she waited on, alone and in the dark. She had her bow trained on the spot where the forkbeards would cross the fissure. As they reached it she let fly, her aim guided by the flame of their brands. The first arrow must have missed but she heard the forkbeards call out. The second drew a yell of pain and the third a flurry of shouts and movement. Some of the forkbeards dropped their torches. She’d slowed them, daring them to come onward in the face of a Marroc with a bow, and that, for now, was enough. She turned and crept away, fingers and toes feeling along the tunnel. Around the first bend she saw a glow of orange light. She’d asked him not to, but the Aulian had been waiting for her.
‘It seemed only polite to return the favour.’ He smiled and her heart jumped. The forkbeard Gallow muttered something in his surly way and took off ahead, running over the stone with the torch held in front of him while she and Oribas followed, eyes down, careful not to look at the brightness of the flame but only at where each foot would fall; and after a time that felt like an age, with their torch burned almost down to a stub, the walls of the caves gleamed daylight white instead of fiery yellow and they were at the end, out among snow-covered crags and jagged lumps of black stone.
Below them the mountain sloped steeply down and disappeared over the edge of yet another ravine. The Marroc ahead had already cut a path across the pristine deep snow to where lumps of stone broke through the white once more. They’d gouged a great furrow, and now they were picking their way down among snow-drenched outcrops, descending with laborious care towards the edge of the precipice. Achista watched Oribas. She pointed and he nodded as he saw the bridge of three long ropes that spanned the ravine to another precarious path on the other side. As he started to follow she put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Tread lightly, Aulian. The snow here is unstable.’ She pointed to where a swathe had already come loose lower down the slope, sliding off the mountain to reveal ice and the rock beneath. Oribas took a step and almost fell as the snow swallowed him. He reached out to catch himself. His hand caught her arm and her hand caught his. She held it fast.
‘Thank you.’ He smiled again and she thought his smile might have been the kindest she’d ever seen. Simple and honest. None of the bitterness that festered among all the Marroc men she knew. ‘I’ve seen this in sand,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it makes a crust. If you disturb it, it
will give way beneath as you walk and the whole slope will slide.’ He looked down thoughtfully. ‘And in this case take you over the edge into that ravine. We should each follow the tracks of the others then.’ He put a hand on the forkbeard’s arm. ‘Let Achista go first, Gallow. You, my friend, are far less delicate. You’re more likely to upset the balance at work here.’
The forkbeard snorted. ‘A desert man lecturing a Lhosir of the Ice Wraiths and a Marroc of the Varyxhun valley on the dangers of sliding snow?’
He let her go first though, and the Aulian was right, even if he was from the desert. She followed the trail left by the other Marroc, cutting high across the snowfield instead of down and straight for the bridge. She reached the rocks without the snow shifting under her feet and looked back for the forkbeard and the Aulian. The forkbeard was following, but Oribas had scrambled higher up where the slope was steeper still and the snowfield ended and black gnarls of mountain jutted out from the white. As she watched, he began digging in the snow under the stones as if he was looking for something.
Achista picked her way down to the edge of the ravine. When she reached the bridge Oribas was still up there and now Addic was already on the other side, shouting at them to get across before he cut the ropes. She waited for the forkbeard to catch up.
‘What’s he doing?’
Gallow stared back in bewilderment. ‘Oribas!’ The shout was loud enough to shake the snow off the mountain, but if the Aulian heard then he gave no sign of it. Even when the forkbeard bellowed his name louder, all Oribas did was raise and shake his head and turn back to his foraging. He moved from stone to stone, pushing at each and excavating until at last he found one that pleased him. He crouched and began rummaging through the pouches on his belt. The forkbeard shook his head. ‘Go across! I’ll wait for him. Tell the rest of them to go. I’ll stay to cut the bridge.’
Achista tried not to look down at the tumble of boulders beneath her as she walked across the bridge, or at the sprinkling of snow that covered them. She could hear rushing water but she couldn’t see it, lost as it was under the ice. Two dozen steps, give or take, to cross the ravine, and for that time everything else fled her thoughts. Just slow steady breaths and slow steady steps, each foot sure on the rope, one after the next. When she reached the other side and looked back the Aulian was on his way down. The forkbeard was still waiting but the others were already off and away along the path that climbed up the other side along the next ridge, all except Addic with his knife. Oribas picked his way through the stones and crossed as she did, slowly and carefully, muttering to himself as he came. He was halfway when the iron devil and the first of the forkbeards finally emerged from the caves. Achista waved at Gallow: ‘Forkbeard! They’re here.’
Gallow waited for Oribas to reach her and then crossed with sure quick strides, growling forkbeard prayers and oaths. As soon as he was across, Addic began sawing at the ropes. The forkbeard’s eyes were wide as though he was about to go into battle and the bulk of him shook with each huge breath.
Oribas put a hand on Addic’s arm. ‘There’s no need for that.’ But Addic paid no attention and the forkbeard quickly set to helping too. Across the ravine the iron devil was following the path the Marroc had made. Oribas came to stand beside her. ‘Do you see the stone where I stopped? The one I marked with the snow in the sign of your god Modris?’
Achista stared. Yes, she saw it now, the sign. She hadn’t before.
‘Where I dug out the snow underneath, do you think you could hit it with an arrow?’
She nodded. On the far side of the ravine the other forkbeards were coming out of the cave now. They must have realised they had no chance of reaching the bridge in time but they came anyway, some of them ignoring the Marroc path and cutting down the slope as fast as they dared. Achista watched while Addic and Gallow hacked at the last rope. ‘Why?’
Oribas leaned and whispered in her ear. She almost jumped at how close he was. ‘Another little Aulian trick, that’s why.’
Addic let out a cry of triumph. The last rope snapped and whipped through the air as the end of the bridge fell. The forkbeards out on the snowfield stopped to watch but the iron devil kept on until he was standing on the far side, straight across from them. He saluted. ‘Why cut those ropes, old friend? We could have fought in the middle of that bridge. Swaying from side to side over a pitiless drop. They would have written a song to us for that, Foxbeard, whatever the ending.’
Gallow laughed back at him. ‘The ending would have been of two forkbeards plunging to their deaths as the Marroc cut the bridge and skipped away whooping in triumph. The Marroc would sing a song about that, right enough, but you’d not hear it across the sea.’
‘Your Marroc not as friendly as you thought?’
‘More friendly than my friends, old friend.’
Achista drew back her bow. The iron devil cocked his head at her. Oribas whispered in her ear. ‘Wait! Wait until they’re all close.’
The forkbeards were spreading across the slope now. They’d seen the place where the snow had sheared away and plunged over the edge and understood the danger now. Achista had to remind herself sometimes that the forkbeards came from a place of ice and cold too, that the Varyxhun valley was close to what they knew as home. It was easy to forget, but perhaps that was why so many of them came. She looked at the boulder Oribas had marked. ‘What do you mean to do? Knock it over and then hope he doesn’t see it before it bowls him into the ravine like an iron skittle?’
The Aulian smiled. ‘That would do, wouldn’t it? If you could get the iron-skinned one, that would be best. Although I admit I was hoping for somewhat more.’
‘But he’s not in its path.’
The iron devil drew his sword, the deep red sword that Addic and the Aulian had brought to the farmhouse. He pointed it at Gallow. ‘The Marroc tell me it’s cursed. I’m beginning to think they’re right. Maybe you should keep it, Foxbeard.’
Gallow called back across the ravine, ‘The Marroc are right, old friend. If Medrin wants it so badly, let him have it. No good comes of the red blade.’
‘Now would be perfect,’ murmured Oribas.
Achista took aim and let her arrow fly. The forkbeards out in the snow all cringed behind their shields. The arrow hit the underside of Oribas’s boulder but nothing happened. The forkbeards turned to look. One or two started to laugh, but not the iron devil. His head whipped round. He looked up, looked across at the forkbeards all out in the open and roared, ‘Get back!’
‘Again.’
She loosed a second arrow. This time there was a flash of light and a whoosh of flame and a loud crack where the arrow struck something Oribas had left behind. A stone the size of a small child tipped and slid and then tumbled, bringing a few others with it, rolling towards the forkbeards out in the open snow. They scattered, scrambling out of the way of the falling boulder, all except the iron devil who stayed absolutely still. Snow tumbled around the boulder’s wake. Achista caught a glimpse of something very smug in the Aulian’s face and then half of the slope across the ravine began to slip at once. The forkbeards wailed and screamed and down they went, caught in the sliding snow. The ones still close to the mouth of the Devil’s Caves and outside the reach of the avalanche watched in helpless horror. For the others there was no hope, nothing anyone could do as a great cloud of powdery snow crashed over the edge of the ravine, enveloping everything in its path, rumbling and roaring, filled with cries that quickly faded as half the forkbeards were swept over the edge. Achista watched the iron devil stagger and fall and then he too was lost in the plume – a moment later a wall of fine ice and snow swept over her, stinging her face, buffeting her hard enough that she stumbled and fell onto her backside. As the cloud slowly sank into the ravine, she picked herself up. The forkbeards left by the cave mouth hurled dire curses. Two lucky ones lay in the jumble of broken snow at the edge of the slide, struggling to their feet, but the iron devil was gone and half a dozen others who’d been closest t
o him. Vanished. She looked into the ravine but all she could see was a cloud of settling snow. There were no cries or wails or screams. The forkbeards were dead and Oribas was smiling. She couldn’t help but take a step away from him. Witchery. There wasn’t anything else it could have been.
His smile faded. He frowned and peered into the ravine as though looking for something. Over on the other side of the slope one of the forkbeards was stringing a bow. A thing she could understand. She took aim at him before he could nock an arrow: he saw her and hid behind his shield; Achista shot her own arrow into it to make her point and grabbed Oribas by his arm. ‘Come on!’
Gallow was shaking his head. He wasn’t smiling at all, although he didn’t seem surprised by what Oribas had done. ‘The ironskin was my friend once,’ he said. ‘We were almost brothers.’
Achista pulled at Oribas. ‘You had an iron devil for a friend, forkbeard? Well, now he’s gone, and good riddance!’ She ran after Addic and the other Marroc, dragging Oribas in her wake. The forkbeard with the bow was stringing it again so she stopped and took another shot at him and then at a couple of the others, sending them cowering behind their shields once more.
‘Gallow, the ironskin stopped being your friend when they put the mask and crown on him,’ said Oribas.
‘And what would you know of the Fateguard, Oribas? They never crossed the mountains. What does an Aulian know of those who serve the Eyes of Time?’
‘Little enough, my friend.’ Oribas shrugged and shook his head and Achista saw the look in his eye. He knew something more, something painful, a burden he was keeping to himself.