by Adrian Selby
I asked Pavey about Lagrad but he knew nothing of it, I was worried about my sister of course. Closer I was getting to home now, even though we were after Mirisham, the more I realised I wanted to see her before I died. Pavey was good enough to give us some furs to help against the winds that blew us over the lake. I could do little oaring, a few strokes and I was struggling. Couldn’t put my face on it, I just laid in with a few crates while the others put to. Bense was made to do some of the oaring; Shale would have none of his cussing over his condition, telling him he was needed for what was coming.
For all that, it was a fine few days now I look back. Pavey and his kin were good men and we had a few brandies in the nights on the water and some songs that Bense surprisingly had a clear memory of, leading us through the Ballad of Ribby’s Cove and the countless verses of The Doom of Hedler. Pavey’s lot had songs where the tune was the same but the words were theirs, a common thing in the armies I took purses with.
Now we were coming to land at the northeast edge of the lake, a roar almost like battle itself grew as we approached. The Issanaians were not in control here, not enough of them, with the thousands coming out of Ahmstad and Vilmor. As we looked for somewhere to land that give us a chance of getting off the boat and north without a fuss, we saw more and more refugees seething over the slopes of the hills about the harbour. They made most of the noise; a starving misery and scattered violence breaking out throughout like some vast creature at war with itself. The younger men would be eager recruits for building the palisades and ditches that would give them some bread and pennies to help their kin as the Issanaians prepared, too feebly on account of what we heard, for the horde as it come south.
We were grateful for some rain as we drove the boat ashore, giving us a chance to put our hoods up without it looking fishy. We give our thanks and some coin for the trip and helped as best we could with the mob what descended looking for passage south, our colour and the red cloaks enough to bring a bit of fear and discourage those as might have tried to take their boat. It was a fierce profit and I hoped Pavey had the sense not to have come back here again when Caragula did send men south to secure the lake in the days after this story’s told.
“We needs horses,” said Shale as we pushed past the crowd.
“Do you know where we’re heading?” said Bense.
“Valdir does,” I said. “But we needs horses.”
We asked of some of the Issanaian conscripts where the Post House was and we got pointed to it. We had to shove our way through and at one point draw blades to part the mob that was about the square. The dead were everywhere, some wept for, others piled up for the wagons that soldiers wheeled through the streets. We pushed our way across the square to a guard of Reds about the gate of a fine big stone house set in a bit of garden. Must have belonged to someone important here years past.
“Valdir,” said Shale, “you trys yer story ’bout those brothers, how we needs horses fer the hides. The moment it’s goin’ flat jump in. Bense, Gant, you go straight for the horses an’ we’ll take our chances headin’ out from there.”
We walked up, five on the gate and I saw two more at the stable, one grooming a horse and the other watching us. Six horses. Our route out was obvious but crowded.
“Didn’t think we’d see any more come this way,” said the one guard stepping forward, grey and dour enough he was running the house or was otherwise too backward to get up the ranks. He, like the other four, wasn’t of a colour to suggest they’d been soldiers of much experience.
“Morning,” said Valdir, “one of you boys is Novik?”
“That’s me,” said the grey.
“Got a seal here from Rilbin, we’re to get the Abelmar brothers and a load of hides and horses to put them on. Did you get the bird?”
The grey looked back at his men, who were eyeing us.
He looked back at us.
“Who are you? You’re no Post I’ve seen running the Lake.”
“Lot of the colour for runners,” said one behind him, as tall as Harlain, though he was skinny like sugarcane, stooping a bit with it.
“I would like to spend some time sharing a cup or two with you brothers,” said Valdir, “but the boat that brought us in isn’t going to wait long with all these refugees.”
Novik broke the seal of the parchment and give it a read. He took his time. I give a casual look about but I knew which one of them I was going to kill, had the olive colouring of a Juan, hand on the pommel of a shortsword. I think they sensed something was amiss and the moments were building to it.
“Here,” said Novik to the one that stooped, now stooping further to see the parchment, “fetch the brothers.” Novik give him a look, a squint of his eye that told me all that was needed; the parchment wasn’t up to the subterfuge.
“I’ll go with him,” said Bense. Shale was about to fuss over that but I stepped forward and gestured back to our right where the main bit of town was. “What are the Issanaians doing about the refugees?”
“Nothing to be done with this lot,” said Novik. “Rilbin was due here two days ago with news of what was to happen to the house here.” Novik I think was happy to play for time. I was hoping Bense was taking out that Red and returning.
Shale was distracted, keeping an eye for him. Valdir took out a pipe and was offering it to the Reds here, looking to settle the nerves all round and set us up fairer for a surprise. They moved forward for a pinch of bacca and a draw but it was becoming clear to all that it would only take a word or shout to start it, them waiting on Novik, us waiting on Bense.
I turned half away from them, to see where Shale was looking. He signed with his hand, against his belly where they couldn’t see. *Do we jump?*
*Yes. Count five when you see Bense*
As I looked back, Valdir dropped his pipe and drew his sword, stabbing it deep into the man he was stood next to. He yelled “Kigan!” and went for the stables. We drew our blades and closed on the Reds that were packing their pipes. I smacked the Juan’s sword out of his hand and ran him through. I brought my blade up as the Red with him thrust his at me, clipping it away. I stepped forward as it went past my side, kicked his leg and stabbed him as he fell off balance. I turned as I made for the stable, only then looking to see what kicked Valdir off and I caught a glimpse of Kigan and Bense and a couple of Reds running towards us, pushing and yelling at the crowds that had stopped moving as they saw our scuffle break out. Bense was Kigan’s man then and I cussed, burned with seeing it. Kigan drew out a blowpipe as he come towards us. He looked older than I recall of course, but lean, a savage intensity on him and he was brewed up, dropping those men in his way with his boots and fists a precise flurry.
Shale dug about in one of his pouches as we ran for the stable, Novik having given him little trouble. Valdir was untying reins. I stopped, pulled Juletta from my shoulder and put some arrows into Kigan’s crew, hoping to slow them down. Kigan dropped a shoulder as the first flew in, going past him. The second hit a Red, he was brewed up but not like Kigan, I ain’t ever seen the like for I wasn’t sure how my arrow missed him, like it passed through mist.
“Gant!” yelled Shale. He’d pulled horses out for us. I ran to him. Kigan shot a dart but it hit me wamba. Valdir tore out of the stables on his horse, turning tight past the wall and yelling at those in the street to move for their lives. Shale threw a sporebag at the ground in front of the remaining horses in the stable and he followed me out as we fled after Valdir, away from those running at us. We spurred the horses and we ploughed through those not able to get out of the way, the horses clearly of a temper to keep on even without reins. Not knowing if the horses were jumpers we stuck to the street and soon picked up to a gallop as fewer people about got in our way. Cobbles give way to a muddy track as we rode north.
“Fucking Bense!” shouted Valdir as we fell into a line across the track as it ran through the bald fields where wheat was recently harvested. “He was Kigan’s man all along.”
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��How? That’s what I can’t figure. Must’ve bin lyin’ to us,” I said, for it didn’t make sense to me after us getting him out of the jail. It made me think again about that moment I woke up after our escape at Cusston when he looked like he’d been off somewhere. I closed my eyes and it cost us all and I was sick about it. I’m still sick about it and I got no way right now to manage this feeling.
“Got to ’im before he was put in the jail I reckon,” said Shale, but he didn’t say it as though he was sure. “We got fuck all supplies an’ we’re goin’ to be tracked before day’s out.”
“How far to Mirisham’s town?” I said.
“About three days’ hard ride,” said Valdir, now shouting over the wind as we got up over a hill and were galloping across what was left of crops hereabouts. “Our best chance is to get into the mountains but I don’t know if there’s a way without we slow and sniff about. Look, if something happens and we don’t all make it, or we’re split, we’re looking for a crevice high in the side of a hill, leads in to a passage. Got to crawl in some spots, but goes up for a few hundred yards to a pass that you follow for a good couple of leagues. I made it good myself. Then you come to a door, no other way to it. Hands and knees all the way under Mirisham’s walls to a basement in an old building in his citadel.”
“Tellin’ us where the crevice is might help, Valdir?” said Shale.
“There’s some heavy wooded slopes rise above the remains of a statue, last I saw it, a statue of Sillindar and some children playing at his feet. Statue’s in open fields, hard to miss, especially if you got some leaf. You look directly west from it for the rise you head up to find the crevice.”
I had the sweats, my belly was flared up again and nagging at me. I had a bad thirst on and wanted some betony mix. Each thump of the hooves sent a spike through me and I put up with it for a few hours before I pulled up gasping for my breath.
“I’m sorry, boys, it’s hurting bad. I’m going to be a burden.”
We had stopped in a dell. Shale got Valdir to mash me up some fruit with water from a stream nearby and he went to see if anyone was about the plain behind us. He thought he saw someone far off but they got out of sight.
“I in’t running no more, boys,” I said, “something feels wrong in me, not really taking on much food, the last few brews have done me.”
I was hoping they’d leave me hid away and just get on and warn Miri. There was a lot of cussing and shouting about it. Valdir stayed out of it, for the most part. Saw the sense in what I was arguing but Shale was as likely to be persuaded as the tide.
“We should make a stand,” he said. “I can’t see as how we can escape ’em if their trackin’s worth anything. We should be lookin’ fer some ground that’ll give us a shot at puttin’ an end to it. Sick o’ fuckin’ running.”
“I think we can push on, Shale,” said Valdir. “We’re close enough with a hard ride on these Post ganneys, we might yet make the crevice and by the secret way into Miri’s.”
“You won’t go faster than the pigeons or crows or whatever they uses round here, Valdir,” I said. “Word’ll get there before we do; bribes, lies, we’ll have a bounty on us doubled over with what Shale an’ me’s got from the vineyard, never mind these stables we become fond of raiding.”
“I says we push these horses hard then leave ’em if there’s a spot near, a hill wi’ good cover. We traps it up and makes a stand,” said Shale.
“We can, you and me,” I said. “Plain you in’t for leaving me an’ getting the job done, but Valdir should go, he can ride, we can slow them down an’ let him get there. Shale, I don’t think I’m goin’ to make it.”
He give me a slap then and he put his arms round me and called Valdir over too.
“I in’t leavin’ you, Gant, nor Valdir. It’s just pain, an’ we got betony for that.”
Valdir too put his arms about our shoulders. “Gant, you boys saved my life, that of my wife too, I don’t doubt it, and that’s enough for me. This isn’t a purse. I can dig us some ankle breakers and use a sword. On a proper brew I might even kill someone before theys kill me.” He give a smile, which was infectious. I was fierce glad he was with us.
“If you aren’t going to leave Gant, then I’ll go with the plan that we make a stand. Miri can look out for himself. I’d rather die with you than die with him.”
A slug of brandy, and me with a dose of betony, sealed it and we pushed on.
Shale got his eyes juiced and as we neared dark we hit a big river coming down west out of the mountains. It offered the chance for us to slow them tracking us if we could get the horses upstream in the river. Hereabouts the long toes of the mountains might give us somewhere to hide or ambush. As we got the horses into the water and went upstream we were heading into a steepening valley, wooded and strewn with boulders and stones and the like. After a few hundred yards the channel was sheer rock on either side, the river dropping from sixty or more yards above.
“Valdir,” I said, “lead the horses back to the mouth of the valley and let them go, drive them north if you can. Shale and I’ll get the lay of this place and where’d be good to position ourselves. I think this might do for us making a stand.”
Recon was hard in the dark but it seemed the north bank of the river was the better, being narrower and giving the advantage of less cover on the banks for any that would be trying to approach from the other side of it.
I couldn’t tell Shale at the time of course, but I was afraid for us, for me not being able to acquit myself well as a soldier, for we both believed they’d sniff out we were in this valley. Sure we’d put a few traps about but really it was about the brew and the bows.
“How’s it lookin’, Gant?” he said, meaning my wound.
I shrugged. The cotton he put on it was damp, it was going bad and the skin were dead round the edges, like cheese but stinking worse. The bark wasn’t taking.
“We should’ve got more maggots on it. Cutting it might help but sewin’s another matter. Need a bench, proper drudha. Yer goin’ ta make it home, Gant, trust me, I’ll spread Kigan over this valley when I’m done.”
“I in’t going to be much use digging breakers or setting thorns up. Did you see him? Kigan?” I asked.
“Yes, din’t look as old as we do. Had a fierce look on ’im. I ’spect he’s got some fierce plant too. We got to expect he knows what we’re on given he cooked it up himself back those years, an’ he knows our methods, well, some of ’em.”
I sank back on the grass for a bit, the soft and even noise of the waterfall closing my eyes. Something of that sound reminded me of Milu singing for a boy what were burned all over and dying, back in a raid we did for a purse I don’t remember the story of. It wasn’t a burning that was called for, more an accident during that raid. Harlain it was that pulled him out of his hovel, smoke coming off his skin what were black and red like lava, screaming and shivering for he couldn’t move himself but it must have caused him agony. His mother overcome her fear of rape and sits with him, probably wishing she could die with him.
Milu comes over and he gets a slug of his mix and gets his cloak to put on the boy, then he starts with the breathing and the horse singing, but just the one note it seemed, though he made it like it was a harmony. The boy was stilled by it as the sound shook through all our bones, filling the ground about us. The note of it seemed to get richer and lighter, your ear thinking it changed but you couldn’t tell when or how. He kept it going till the boy was dead, who was still all the while, taken out of his suffering.
“Gant!”
I come to. It was night now, Shale must have kept watch and I’d been out for a few hours. I heard the footsteps and it was a few men.
“Shale! Gant!” hissed Valdir. “I got some men with me that know you.”
We stayed silent of course. Then another voice, less wore out, carrying a bit in the night.
“We’re Araliah’s men. Achi at your service once more.”
We stood and stepped forward t
o the figures, four in all with Valdir, moonlight picking out little of them beyond the waxed packs and helms. Soon as I saw one was much bigger I knew it was Stimmy.
“Achi?” said Shale, moving close to him, turning him to the moon to better see him.
“The same.” Shale locked arms with him and the others, telling them how welcome they were. He looked back at me and nodded, the edge of a smile there. Their arrival was a fierce lift and I looked up a moment to send over the winds my thanks to Araliah. She give us respect then and hope now. I walked over and locked arms too.
“She sent us after you,” continued Achi, “some days behind and you weren’t easy to track. Found his family,” he said, pointing to Valdir, “sister, wouldn’t say a word but his mother let it slip. Then at the harbour we asks about and the boy that didn’t want to be called his son sold you out, told us that sailors had dropped you up at Rillion’s Chase and so it was.” He turned to his crew. “This here’s Stimmy and Hau that you met already, and Roin, your cooker for what’s to come.” They were all about thirty summers, Hau almost the opposite of Stimmy, skinny Virates lad, though he had a pack twice the size of Stimmy’s. Roin was chewing bacca, peaceful eyes though that would be otherwise misleading, head shaved to a stripe as I’d seen a lot on the boys out of the Red Hills. He had the drudha’s belts.
“Who’s after you, because there’s a big crew following behind us and I’m worried that if they saw us, shifty as we were, they’ll know you got company?” he said.
“Kailen give us a letter tellin’ us we were bein’ killed off, the Twenty that is,” I said. “It was only findin’ Valdir that we guessed that it was one of our own, Kigan.”
“Kailen’s drudha?” said Hau. He whistled and shook his head. Achi give a glance up at the sky then, I think also unable to believe our bad luck.