by Angus Watson
“Yeah. See you later.”
“Yeah.”
Before the footsteps had fully faded, Lowa gripped the edge of the bridge and pulled herself up until her eyes were level with the walkway. A guard was standing on the outer wall, facing away from her. She twisted her head around. She couldn’t see anybody else. She pulled herself quietly onto the bridge and lay flat. No sound from the other end. She crawled on her elbows across the walkway of the middle wall and slithered over its edge into the second ditch.
And gasped in horror. She jammed her spikes in to stop herself sliding and stared down, eyes wide. What, for the love of Camulos, was this? All along the chasm between the inner and middle walls, dotted between the forest of stakes, were small fires. Chained between the fires, every ten paces or so, were hunting dogs. Above them, lining the top of the inner wall every five paces were guards, all looking out, spears in hand.
Lowa had never seen the like. What had happened? Were they expecting an attack? Were they expecting her? Spring had said Drustan had betrayed them, but Lowa had dismissed that as the ranting of an angry child. But he could have done, and he knew the plan. For this level of defence, they must have known that someone was going to attempt to break in and they must have given a massive fuck about it. And, typically evil, Zadar had kept security light on the outer wall and allowed her to get this far, purely for the joy of building her hopes then crushing them.
She’d never get past this lot. If she climbed more than a couple of paces down the wall, even in the shadow of the bridge, a dog would see her and she’d be target practice for slingers. If she tried to cross the bridge, half a hundred guards would spot her. But there was one way, if not into the fort, then very nearly into it. Maybe she could cross the ditch underneath the bridge, over the heads of the dogs, hanging from the walkway.
Lowa reached up, stuck her fingers through a gap between two planks and gripped. She lifted one foot, then the other, so all her weight was hanging from her fingers. It was sore but bearable. She reached for the next gap. It was narrower, but her fingers slotted through. After some experimentation she found that going backwards put less strain on her fingers. She turned, reached up and hung, legs dangling. She pulled out one hand and reached back … and realised the flaw in her plan. A few more planks along, and the guards on the inner wall would see her flailing legs.
Nothing, she thought, was ever easy. But maybe …
She flexed her arms, swung her legs up and jammed her toes into a gap between two planks, then hung for a moment in her upside-down crawl position. She felt ridiculous. Was she really going to do this?
She reached her left hand back past her head, felt for the next gap, poked her fingers through it and gripped. She lowered her right foot, scraped her toenail along the underside of the plank towards her until it found the next gap and slotted her toes into it. She moved her right hand to the next gap. Then the next foot. Not so tricky. She was a whole plank closer to Maidun’s interior. Now she only had to do that a hundred or so more times and she’d be across, with just the matter of fifty or so guards and the inner palisade to overcome.
A couple of times the gap wasn’t wide enough for her fingers, and she had to traverse two planks in one go. When her arms began to shake with the effort, she rested. While resting, she realised how much her feet hurt. Blood trickled from her toes to her shins. She hoped it wouldn’t drip. A dog barked. She hung still. Silence. She carried on, three paces, then a hanging rest, then three paces more. She turned her head when she thought it must have been nearly over. She was less than halfway. A ripple of fear shivered through her. Her shoulders were burning with effort. Her arms wouldn’t take much more. Her inner thighs were horribly tight and felt like they might cramp any moment.
Lowa closed her eyes again and pulled a hand out. Her arm shook as she moved it to the next gap. She tried to focus on the feel of the wood, the smell of the air, anything to take her mind off the pain in her legs and arms. This had been a very stupid idea. She almost laughed.
She stopped. She couldn’t go on. She hung, arms straight, legs as straight as they’d go. Her head twitched as her neck muscles jiggled involuntarily. She was totally fucked. She giggled quietly. Danu’s tits, what an idiot she was. Left hand out, she reached for the next gap, but her muscles failed and her whole arm danced in flapping spasm then fell, useless. She held on, one hand and two feet jammed between the planks, panting. Cramp zapped into the arch of her left foot. She splayed her toes to ease the contraction, but that meant more effort from her leg to keep the foot jammed into the gap. Pain shocked across her lower back. She gritted her teeth and tried to ignore her many agonies.
She couldn’t hold on. She was going to fall and land on a stake or a dog.
She pictured Aithne, looking at her, blood gushing from the gash in her neck. She pictured Zadar and Felix. She pictured Dug. She took a deep breath and heaved at her dangling arm. Slowly it rose. The strain was enormous. The tendons in her neck felt like they were about to snap. Tears rolled down her cheeks, dropping no doubt onto the dogs below.
Fuck. The. DOGS! she thought and with that last word jammed her fingers into the gap above. She toiled past the next plank, then the next.
She felt the footsteps on the bridge before she heard them. Surely they’d see her white digits poking up? She held her breath as they approached, then almost screamed when the walker kicked her big toe. Her foot slipped out of the gap. The walker stumbled … then carried on. Her left leg was dangling. She strained to lift it, but to no avail. She pictured Aithne. Still no good. She simply did not have the strength to raise her foot back to the underside of the bridge.
She looked around. Nearly there! She let both legs swing down, clenched her teeth and made a final effort hand over hand.
And she was there, past the prints where the support beams met the bridge. All she had to do was swing onto one and she could rest, thank Kornonos. She swung to her left, aimed her feet, missed and fell.
Chapter 15
Ragnall sat in the corner of the tavern outdoor corral. He was sure Spring hadn’t seen him.
For as long as he’d been at the inn the girl had been driving the conversation that had the punters rapt. All the men and women there – gnarl-faced toughs who each looked like they could have beaten twenty Ragnalls in a fight, weasel-eyed shifters who might sell their children for whore money, morose mopers who looked like they’d failed in life and blamed everybody else for it – all had broken off their conversations to listen to little Spring. They sat, many with mouths moronically open, entranced by her sing-song proclamations.
It was something about Zadar and Romans, and how a real ruler would topple the former and defeat the latter. Ragnall would have marvelled more about how she’d gone from runaway child to some sort of super bard had he not been so consumed by his own misery. He’d heard that it was harder to dump somebody than be dumped. What an absolute crock of crap that was.
He felt angry, sad and, worst of all, worthless. She didn’t want him so, one had to conclude, he didn’t offer enough. Extrapolating the point, because her means of measurement had to be comparative, there must be men who offered more. Who were better than him. She wanted someone better than him and she was glad to be rid of him. Ragnall was not good enough for her. So he was worthless. When he remembered how she’d looked at him above the whorepits, pity on her face but a smile of relief in her eyes, it made him want to weep.
He pictured Anwen’s loving look, grateful and joyful on the beach where he’d proposed marriage. He groaned with guilt. Anwen wanted him. He was enough for her. Could he forget Lowa, find Anwen and start again where he’d left off?
He decided to find somewhere to sleep. Perhaps things would be clearer in the morning. He stood, glancing over at Spring.
“A wise man called Dug told me,” she said to her audience, “that an evil king tells his people that his evil deeds are for their own good. And they’ll lie to themselves that he’s right because that’s the e
asiest thing to do. But soon the evil king will run out of enemies, and the people who helped him will become his victims. Then they’ll regret it, but it’s too late!”
Ragnall walked away.
Chapter 16
Lowa’s feet hit the slope of the wall. She grabbed the support beam and wrapped her arms around it and managed to scrabble onto it. She gripped the beam. Her body was ruined. She would never, she decided, lift her shoulders or arms again. She’d just lie here until she died. Maybe she was dead already. She didn’t mind at all if she was. As long as she didn’t have to move.
Slowly she recovered. The dogs had stopped barking and she hadn’t been discovered. Her impossible mission to kill Zadar, which was bound to fail at some point, hadn’t failed yet. But she still had the final, inner palisade to negotiate. She raised her head. Down below, the dogs and the fires were undisturbed. She was convinced briefly that a dog was staring at her, but it turned away. Above her, where the bridge met the wall, there was scoop in the chalk – a mini cave. She climbed up into it. It was more than big enough to hide her, narrow and deep enough that she wouldn’t be seen. She lay down and fell asleep.
Chapter 17
A huge dead dog had come to talk to Zadar. Even with its legs folded under it, it was the biggest dog Elliax had ever seen, big as a cow, and indeed others might have thought it was a cow, but he’d spotted its pert little ears and furry dog’s pelt. No dead animal was going pretend to be a cow and fool Elliax! He giggled quietly.
The beast was prostrate in the open-air court, facing the king. Zadar was on his throne, Felix next to him as usual, the old man who’d turned up a couple of days before sitting on Zadar’s other side, holding his bandaged staff. Elliax was famished. He knew Felix would soon offer him more “special meat” and he knew he’d say yes. Maybe it was the dead dog making him hungry. He liked a bit of dog. Although, now he thought about it, at least half the pleasure of eating dog meat back in Barton had been eating it in front of whoever’s dog it had been.
The big hero with the limp bent over the dog, poking at it. Carden Nancarrow was his name – the man’s, not the dog’s. Elliax was trying to memorise the names of everyone important for when the test was over and Zadar made him quartermaster. People liked it when you remembered their names. It looked like this new old man, the one sitting by Zadar, was going to be important. He’d have to learn his name too.
Carden stood, pushed back his long dark hair and eyed his king darkly from under his overhanging brow. Here, thought Elliax, was a powerful man – physical strength-wise. Perhaps Elliax might be allowed him as part of his quartermaster’s bodyguard? It would be some compensation for suffering this hideous test. He missed his guards from Barton. Although they’d been bugger-all use when he’d needed them most, come to think of it.
“The dog was killed by strikes with a thin knife – most likely two thin knives – to either side of its head,” said Carden.
“Or iron climbing spikes?” said Felix.
“Possibly,” said Carden.
“The dog was found between the gate and the nearest northern bridge, in the outer ditch?”
“Correct.”
“So she came,” said Zadar. “Where is she now? Drustan?”
Drustan. That was his name.
Drustan paused for a long time before saying, “The ditch has been searched?”
Zadar looked at Carden.
“Thoroughly,” said the Warrior.
“Hmmm,” the old man continued. “What will you do with her if you find her?”
“The arena,” said Felix.
Drustan nodded as if that made good sense, then spoke slowly, as if taking care to get each phrase just right. “She scaled the first wall successfully. She killed the dog at the bottom of the first ditch. She climbed the second wall, came over the palisade. She saw the inner ditch’s guard and realised she could get no further. There she had three choices. To hide and wait, to return to Maidun Camp to plan an alternative approach, or to abandon her scheme and flee. Which did she do? That is the question.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Yes. We’d managed that much.”
Elliax rather agreed with Felix. This Drustan fellow had taken a long time saying what they all already knew. He wouldn’t be around for long if he carried on like that.
Zadar looked at Carden. “Go. Take the Fifty into the camp and search for her. Torture people if you need to.”
“I won’t need to torture anyone,” said Carden, not quite managing to meet Zadar’s gaze.
It was possible that something flashed in Zadar’s eyes, but his big sulking fish expression didn’t change. Felix, however, leaped out of his chair like a wasp-stung weasel. “You will do what Zadar tells you! Go to the camp. Find Lowa Flynn, Dug Sealskinner and the child Spring! Now!”
“Sure.” The Warrior was unimpressed by Felix’s rage.
“The child is nine years old, pretty, with long mousy hair. Dug is around forty, big and northern. You will find them.”
“Got it.” Carden turned to go.
“A moment. As I was about to say, I know where she is,” said Drustan.
“Yes?” Felix looked at him as if daring him to lie. Zadar lifted an eyebrow.
“I’d like Carden to show me where the dog was found.”
“What could you possibly see that a search team hasn’t?” Felix’s forehead wrinkled above his unimpressed sneer.
Drustan looked at Zadar. The king nodded. Felix shrugged. “All right. Carden, take the druid to the wall and show him where the dog was found. When he doesn’t find her, search the camp.”
Drustan strode out with Carden limping behind. Elliax wondered if Drustan even needed that staff. Zadar and Felix remained, quietly talking to each other.
Elliax could hear Zadar’s low voice but not what he was saying. He heard Felix’s reply though: “I’m sorry, finding people is not my … speciality. I tried with a full sacrifice and got nothing. It’s almost as if something is stopping me, or shielding her, although that would be impossible. But having failed once with a full sacrifice, I don’t think it would be wise to try again.”
Zadar spoke, again inaudibly. Felix listened, then nodded, stood and came over to Elliax.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Good. Can you hear that?”
Elliax listened. He heard a yelp from one of the huts behind where he was chained. He swivelled around. There was another yelp. It came from the third hut along, he thought.
“I can hear a woman.”
“Yes. Do you know who she is?” Felix’s eye widened.
“No.” He did know.
“She’s your wife. We brought her here while you were sleeping.”
He looked at his feet.
“Are you still hungry?”
He nodded.
“Good,” Felix said soothingly.
Chapter 18
She woke at dawn in her tiny cave at the end of the bridge. She felt like a lump of meat that a blind but mighty blacksmith had mistaken for an iron ingot. She peeled and ate the two boiled eggs she’d brought, then found that her water skin had split. Very soon she was so thirsty it hurt. She found a flint nodule and sucked it. That helped, but she didn’t know how she was going to make it to sunset. Danu curse summer’s long days, she thought.
She listened to the sounds of business as usual in the camp and castle. She could hear the clang of iron on iron from workshops, the odd whinny of a horse and, from closer by, the movements of the wall guards, one of whom had a death-heralding cough. The smell of frying pork wafted into her hiding niche, making her stomach rumble so much she thought someone above must surely hear it.
It reminded her of being ill as a girl, lying on her parents’ bed in their hut, hot and thirsty, troubled by muffled everyday village noises from outside. How could things carry on with such insulting normality without her, she’d wondered. Now she wondered if this was how things sounded from the Otherworld – familiar
but muted and intangible? She was likely to find out soon enough. She remembered that she wasn’t meant to believe in an Otherworld. Was being near death persuading her that there might be one?
The guards above changed. The new lot spotted the dead dog. It started calmly enough with people calling to each other about some stupid dog asleep in an inconvenient place. Swiftly though they realised it had been killed – “Murdered!” shouted one hysterical fool. There was a flurry of commotion.
A short while later, she heard Carden’s voice on the bridge. Her mind was flung back to being held by him while her friends and her sister were killed in front of her. The urge to emerge from her hiding place and stick him with her climbing spikes was strong. But she held back, and even smiled a little when she realised from his irregular tread that he was walking with a serious limp.
She heard Carden say her name and knew for certain that they were looking for her specifically, and that she had been betrayed. Could it have been Drustan? She’d been pretty free with her conversation on Mearhold, discussing her plans with several people she had no reason to trust. Any of them could have shouted to Zadar that she was at Mearhold and reported her plans. It wasn’t necessarily Drustan. Next time I plot to kill a king, she thought, I’ll share the details only with people I’ve known for longer than a day.
Carden directed a search, during which Lowa found a worm and ate it. She needed the moisture and she’d need energy later. The hunt continued and she heard dogs barking along the ditch below her. It was slightly satisfying that all this effort was for her. She didn’t expect to be found. Her little niche was invisible from any distance and deep enough for the soil to mask her smell. The search dwindled away, everyday sounds returned and she lay and waited, planning her route that night.
Zadar would know that she’d tried to break in. How would he react? Surely he’d think she’d given up on seeing the second ditch and buggered off? Surely the security would be laxer that evening, and she’d be able to nip over the palisade? She had nothing to do but wait and see. She looked around for another worm, as much for something else to think about as for sustenance. The previous worm had been the first one she’d ever eaten. It hadn’t been awful, but she couldn’t see why badgers went quite so nuts for them.