For a moment Mikilov thought she might charge at him, for which both he and Scar were ready. But instead, the Grey Crow sheathed the dagger and offered Mikilov a rueful smile.
'The Wolfeater travels north,' she said at last, 'to the Blackstone. He goes against the laws of the Seven, and for that he is outcast. We have been sent to stop him, one way or another.'
'Why the Blackstone?'
The Basillian shrugged. 'Radok is dying and he wants to know why. He hopes the gods will tell him.'
This is the same story the Wanderer told, thought Mikilov, shaking his head at the madness of it all. It didn't help that Senya was even less likely to believe it from this source than she was from the old woman.
'The sickness must be in his mind then,' he told the girl. 'When you have seen as much death as we have, you should know better than to think the gods have any answers.'
The girl shrugged again. 'It matters not, he'll never make it. Either the sickness will kill him, or we will.'
'Is he alone?'
'No. There is a girl with him, a child. She's blind and she'll slow him down, but she means a lot to him.'
'And how many tracking them?'
'Nine.' The girl flicked a glance at the smouldering corpse in the fire and grimaced. 'Eight, now.'
That is true at least, thought Mikilov, who had counted as many when he and Senya watched them setting out from camp. What odds the rest of it is true?
Pretty good, given that both the Basillian and the Wanderer were spinning the same yarn. While Mikilov might have good cause to distrust the words of the former, he had no reason to doubt the latter.
'Go then,' said Mikilov. But the Basillian only gazed at him, startled. 'You kept your word. Now I keep mine. Go.' Still she didn't move, instead stealing a glance at Senya, who was watching the conversation with her arms folded across her chest, her face a picture of thunder. 'I'll deal with her. Go, before I change my mind.'
Still the Basillian stood her ground, this time glancing at the burning body. 'I promised Dakar I would cast his ashes to the Seven,' she said.
'Some promises are easier kept than others.' Mikilov sighed. 'But we'll keep the fire burning. You can cast the ashes on your way back through, or else I'm sure one of your Winds will take care of it.'
The girl hesitated for a moment… then gave a nod of her head. She backed away slowly, then turned on her heels and ran. She disappeared into the trees heading north.
'You let her go,' said Senya. She did little to hide her anger, a righteous fury simmering just below the surface. 'She'll tell them we're following. We've lost the edge of surprise. That's everything in the Great Hunt!'
The words hung in the air for a moment, dripping with scorn. Mikilov waited for the silence to grow, then said softly, 'Hatred is a powerful ally when you need to kill. For anything else, it's a weakness.'
'What does that mean?'
'You think they wouldn't have known we were coming if she never made it back to them? You think they're not watching like hawks for her return?'
'At least it would have been one less sword to face.'
'Aye true, but I gave her my word we'd let her live if she told us where Radok was, and my word is iron, even to one of them.'
Mikilov saw a little of the anger fade at that, replaced with hope. 'And what did she say?'
'That he's dying. He's out here, roaming the wilderness, because disease is rotting his core and he doesn't know why. He hopes his gods will have the answer, but all he'll find in the Whitelands is death. He has broken the laws of his own people and even they want him dead. The girl and her friends were given the task of tracking and killing him. And that's what they'll do, if the sickness doesn't kill him first.'
Senya shook her head. 'I don't believe her.'
'Elgamire said the same thing.'
'And I don't believe her!'
'Senya,' Mikilov said softly, 'there's a good chance we die out here. All to kill a man who'll be dead inside a week anyway. Why? Why throw away our lives when we could be back at home in warmth and comfort?'
Senya took an angry step towards Mikilov, grabbing his jacket and pulling him close. 'Why? Because I have his answer, Mikilov. When I drive my dagger into his heart, he'll know why he's dying. For Velimir. And for all the others like him.'
'You think Vel would want you dying for this? You think he was that small?'
'I'm not the one who's going to die. And I'm tired of having this argument. Go home, Mikilov. I know it was duty that dragged your arse out here, but you've done enough. Go home. I'm going on.'
Senya left the clearing, following the Basillian's tracks into the trees. Mikilov watched after her for a time, thoughts melancholy.
Elgamire's voice echoed into the silence, words from their last conversation. If you follow her into the Whitelands… the old woman had said, if you chase a dead man into that white abyss… one of you will die. And it won't be her.
Scar, sitting at Mikilov's feet and gazing after Senya, let out a soft whimper. Mikilov sighed. 'Fine, wolf. But if we die, it's on you.' He nodded after the woman. 'What are we waiting for then? After her!'
Chapter Twelve
Old Foes
The snow gave way beneath Radok's feet and he stumbled. It almost threw the girl from his back, but she clung on grimly, her bony arms tightening around his throat, cutting the air off. Radok scrambled around for a foothold, trying to lift the girl higher to ease the pressure on his throat. Bad enough he could barely breath from all the running, without her choking the life from him.
'Loosen up, girl!' He grabbed Nyana's arm and yanked it away from him. 'I'll be no use to anyone if you don't let me breathe!'
Finally realising what she was doing, Nyana let some of the tension ease from her body. Radok shifted her weight higher on his shoulders and the pressure on his throat disappeared.
He stood for a moment with his hands on his knees, sucking in great breaths of frigid air. His head began to clear, and Radok turned back the way they had come, eyes narrowing against the distance.
Behind them the plains of Basilla rolled away towards the distant horizon, where they were swallowed by the growing shadow of nightfall.
It was difficult to make out any details in the growing gloom beyond the shapes of tree clumps and rocky outcrops, steep hills and shallow rivers. But there they were, in the far distance: seven dots moving towards them, descending the steep incline in single file, each carrying a flaming torch.
'Still there?' asked Nyana.
'Still there. Stuck to our tail like fleas on a dog's arse.'
'What do we do?'
Radok turned north again, judging the road ahead. Not that there was a road this far north. Not one that wasn't buried by history, at least. Or snow. Or both.
They stood at the edge of their own steep descent - a downslope of trees that levelled off slightly some twenty feet below, only for the land to fall away completely at the edge of a cliff. In summer months Radok knew he would have heard the song of the Velga drifting loud and clear from far below, but for now he could barely hear a whisper of the white rapids. The river border between Basilla and the Whitelands had fallen silent beneath winter's touch.
Lost in his thoughts, Radok jumped as Nyana touched his arm. 'Can you smell that?' she asked.
He sniffed at the air. Between the snot flowing from his nose and the chill in every breath, it was too cold to smell anything. 'Smell what?'
'Smells like death,' the girl muttered.
Radok grunted. He could have told her that. Things were starting to look pretty grim. At their current pace, Radok figured the hunters would be on them within two hours. Long before the Blackstone was even in sight.
Not for the first time the thought struck him that it would be better to take his chances and stand his ground than to die the slow death. He would only need a narrow passage, a place where they had to come at him one at a time. Radok fancied his chances at that game, even with the lungrot turning his guts to blac
k tar. Sadly, he lacked the knowledge of the area to find such a place. The river waited below them, with a scattering of trees on either bank, but there was nowhere they couldn't flank him.
And there was the girl to think about too. It was one thing to throw your own life away, without knowing someone else's went along with it. Radok knew he was a dead man walking, but the girl's life was only just beginning. She deserved as much time as he could give her, and that meant doing everything they could to stay alive.
'We need to keep moving,' he said at last. He hooked his arms under the girl's legs and hoisted her up into a better position, higher up on his back. 'Hold on as tight as you can, Little Sparrow. You choke me if you need to. It's going to be a bumpy ride.'
Radok took a deep breath… then set off down the steep slope, half running, half sliding. He could have found an easier path given enough time, but time was everything just now, and straight ahead was always the quickest option. The girl laughed maniacally as they went, as though the air rushing past them was telling jokes that only she could hear.
The ground was part snow, part ice, part scree, and it was all Radok could do to stay on his feet. He weaved from tree to tree, crashing into each trunk just in an effort to stop himself, before bouncing off for the next safe haven.
Rogue branches loomed at him from the growing darkness, but Radok stooped below them or swerved around them at the last second. A couple of times he was too slow and took a branch to the face, or ducked just enough so that Nyana took the brunt. Not that she complained. She just went on laughing, perhaps overcome with the thrill and exhilaration of it all. For a moment even Radok laughed, revelling in Nyana's joy.
That was when he fell. Not because of the snow or the uneven terrain, but because of the disease. First his lungs started to burn, then his chest began to ache, until finally his knees gave way beneath him and down he went. There was no outside force, this was just another sign of his body failing.
He lost Nyana in the fall. She went flying from his back, landed heavily, and started rolling down the slope, picking up speed as she went, snow and debris from the trees kicked up in her wake.
On his feet in an instant, Radok dived after the girl, his fingers closing on thin air, missing her ankle by a whisker. Still, he scrambled after her, throwing himself down the slope, clawing at the snow and pushing with his feet, flapping after her like a fish out of water.
By the time they reached the foot of the slope, there was no stopping them. The girl was the first over the edge, flying into the air and plummeting towards the river far below. With a bellow of rage, Radok followed after her, planting his feet at the edge of the cliff and launching himself into the air.
His instinct had taken over, as it always did when it mattered most, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. He watched his hand stretch out, reaching for the girl; watched it close around her belt, stopping her fall; he felt too his right hand reaching back behind him and grasping something solid - a tree root jutting from the cliff wall. And in that moment time returned to normal. Both of Radok's arms snapped tight, pulling him in opposite directions, and he slammed back against the cliff face, grunting at the impact.
He looked down at Nyana, saw that he'd caught her belt at the rear. She dangled limply below him, her arms and legs hanging uselessly. Thank the Seven she's blind, thought Radok, seeing the white expanse of the Velga some fifty feet below, part frozen, part moving.
'Are you ok?' he called to her.
She turned her head slightly towards the sound of his voice. Her face was pale, filled with fear, but there were no wounds that Radok could see. 'I'm not sure I like flying,' she declared, offering half a smile.
Radok chuckled, as much with relief as anything else. 'Nor me! Hold tight, Little Sparrow. I'll try to get us out of this mess.'
The tree root creaked as Radok turned his face upwards. It was thick and strong, snaking out of the brittle rock above before disappearing back in again. Stones around the edge of it crumbled away when Radok shifted his weight, but it felt strong enough to hold firm.
The cliff top was no more than two feet above them, but even that was too far to lift the girl. Radok searched for handholds in the rockface, but there was nothing to see in the growing dark and his hope slowly faded. 'Fuck…' he muttered.
'Looks like you could use a hand,' growled a deep voice, low and guttural, and with it a hand appeared from nowhere, dancing before Radok's face. It was no more than a skeleton of a hand really, stripped of skin and flesh and muscle, and it was posed in such a way as to receive another hand, as though to grip wrist to wrist. The yellowed bone had a shine to it, toughened by some secret varnish or oil, toughened to look as solid as rock, ready and willing to take Radok's weight.
Radok looked past the bony arm to the arm holding it, this one thick and clad in grey furs, and beyond that the face of the man owning both arms. Though he had expected it, the face that greeted Radok's gaze was most disturbing.
It looked every inch the face of a man. There were eye sockets, though the bright blue eyes sat deeper than they should have, as well as two nostrils and the line of a mouth, even stubble around the mouth and jawline. Yet it was featureless somehow, as though flattened down and stretched out over a skull too large to fit it, the flesh having the look of old leather. It was a mask, Radok knew, crafted from the face of a real man.
The Empty Face. He cursed inwardly. He should have listened to the girl. When she said she smelt death, this was what she meant…
'Take the hand, Grey Crow. I'll haul you up.' The man's voice was muffled by the mask, but his eyes glistened in the dark sockets.
Radok looked at the hand holding to the tree root, his knuckles white with tension, his arm aching from the strain. Then he turned and looked down at his other hand, holding grimly to Nyana's belt, the girl swinging limply below him, and far below her the dark waters of the Velga.
Radok had to chuckle. They really were cruel bastards, the Seven. Fall and die, they'd said, or put your lives in the hands of the cannibals. For Radok, that was no choice at all. While the fall meant certain death, at least the Empty Face offered a chance at life… and a chance was all the Wolfeater ever needed.
'You take the girl first,' he called up. 'And if you harm a hair on her head, I'll kill every last one of you.'
Muffled laughter drifted from behind the mask. 'You're not really in a position to threaten, Wolfeater. But fret not. The girl is safe with us.'
With a groan of effort, Radok lifted the girl high, so that she could reach out and grab the stripped limb. 'Take the hand, Little Sparrow. And hold tight!'
Latching onto the skeleton's arm, Nyana hugged tightly to it. 'Alright,' Radok said softly, 'I'm going to let go now and they'll pull you up. I'll be right behind you, don't let go.'
And he let her go. She sagged a few inches, and the Empty Face grunted as he took the weight, but both of them held tightly, and slowly the girl was pulled up. She disappeared over the cliff edge, back to the safety of solid ground, and for a terrible moment Radok thought that was the last he would ever see of her.
But then the Empty Face reappeared and Radok breathed a sigh of relief. The man's head tilted slightly, like that of a curious dog, before he offered the hand of bones once more. Radok grasped it by the wrist, and the Empty Face hauled him up.
By the time they dragged him back onto solid ground, away from the cliff edge, Radok was exhausted. Every muscle in his body ached, from his arms up to his shoulders, across his chest and around his back, and even down into his legs from all the running. And none of that said anything about the disease tearing at his innards. He took a moment, just sprawled in the snow and the dirt, to gather himself. He would have stayed there all day if he could, for eternity perhaps, but he felt eyes watching him. Lots of eyes.
Radok struggled to his knees and looked around. The Empty Face with the skeleton hand stood over him, head still cocked like a dog. He was dressed in heavy furs - bear, it looked like - and daubed in bon
e trinkets. He wore a necklace of small, sharp bones, bracelets of rune engraved teeth, and there was even a skull hanging from his sword belt, the weapon in the scabbard bearing its own bone-handle.
A dozen men were gathered in a tight semi-circle around them, each wearing the same kind of mask as the man with the skeleton hand. Those leathery faces were just as lifeless, just as empty as the first, yet some also bore the scars of old wounds, were striped red with war paint, or else still carried the beards of the men they were taken from. They were ghosts of those killed by the Empty Face; Radok may even have known some of them, back in a different life.
Nyana was standing front and centre of this crowd, her unseeing eyes full of concern. One of the Empty Faces stood behind her, hands resting on her shoulders.
'You alright, Little Sparrow?' asked Radok.
He saw relief flood her face. 'Aye,' she said back, 'no harm.'
'What about you, Wolfeater?' asked skeleton hand. 'Even with that black skin of yours, you look pale as snow. Not long now before the lungrot takes you.'
'What would you know of it?'
The Empty Face grinned. Not that Radok could see it through the mask, it was more of a feeling than anything. 'I know I wouldn't eat you! Come, there is much we need to discuss… and your friends are getting mighty close.'
✽✽✽
The Empty Faces led them down a narrow ledge of rock that wound its way naturally from the clifftop down to the banks of the Velga. They moved in single file, Radok centre of the line, Nyana up on his back again. The Empty Face had offered to carry her, but neither Radok nor the girl wanted that. There was only so far you could trust a cannibal.
Once they reached the riverbank, they walked half a mile west along the river's course, retracing the tracks the cannibals had left earlier. Eventually the path led them to the water's edge. Even the swift moving Velga was largely frozen by the harsh winter. Ice floated on the surface, with only a few pockets of open water visible on the half-mile expanse of the river.
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