by K. J. Parker
Feeling rather foolish, because at least three seconds had passed since the arrow had hit the tree, Poldarn threw himself to the ground and crawled on his knees and elbows for the cover of a holly bush. Silly, he thought, holly not arrow-proof; but he curled up tight in a ball and waited, and no more arrows came. Even so.
Then he heard something, quite close. Grunting, snuffling; a fat man with a bad cold running uphill with a heavy weight on his back. The absurdity of it made him want to burst out laughing, because unless this neck of the woods was swarming with people and he'd just been walking blithely past them for the last five hours, it stood to reason that the grunting, snuffling fat man had to be the secret archer. Well, fine; if Gain and Copis and the most powerful man in the world were to be believed (which was by no means certain), Poldarn was a graduate of the Deymeson academy of killing people, and more than a match for a runny-nosed pork chop, even one with a bow and arrows. The noise was getting closer, so all he needed to do was stay perfectly still, and then, when Fatso came waddling past him any second now, just stick out a leg, trip him up and bang his head against a tree until he came up with directions to the nearest inn. Piece of It must already have seen him, some time before he saw it; that was what cowering in the bushes would get you, if you were so dumb that you couldn't tell the difference between a human being and a fully grown wild boar. When he lifted his gaze-purely chance that he happened to be looking in that direction at precisely that moment (rather than half a second later, when it'd have been a quarter of a second too late)-he saw a massive grey wedge with two tiny red lights halfway up the taper, growing huger and huger. His legs figured out what the thing was before his brain did, because by the time the words wild boar had congealed in his mind, he was already on his feet and trying to push through a thick screen of holly leaves.
The pig squealed, a silly, high-pitched angry noise like a little girl whose brother was pulling her hair. There was a little blood, black and shiny, on its shoulder. The boar flattened the holly bush about a heartbeat after Poldarn got clear of it.
Then Poldarn hit a tree.
Bloody stupid thing to do, run flat out into a stupid great big oak tree. He scrambled back onto his feet just as the boar thrust its ridiculously thick neck out; one handspan-long tusk gashed the bark an inch below his outspread fingers as he ducked round the tree, hide-and-seek fashion. The pig blundered on, skidded to a halt in a spray of leaf mould, and swung round. (But aren't they supposed to carry on charging? Apparently not.) Superior intelligence, Poldarn thought, and superior biped mobility: I'll just dance round and round this handy tree until the bugger gets bored and goes away. Annoyingly, though, he discovered that when he'd run into the tree he'd bashed his kneecap, and it didn't seem to be working properly. So much for superior mobility; that just left intelligence. In which case (the pig lowered its head and shot itself towards him like a huge squat arrow), forget it He stumbled, tripped over backwards, and sat down, jarring his back painfully against the tree trunk. Good as dead, in that case, and the pig was very close. But right next to him was a fallen branch, and just by way of going through the motions he picked it up, jammed the butt end against the tree and pointed the other end at the pig's chest.
Superior intelligence after all; because the pig charged straight, just like an arrow, and by the time its chest met the branch it had picked up an extraordinary amount of speed. The branch was the nail, the boar's body the hammer and also the wood; the first eighteen inches of the branch crumpled up like dried ferns scrunched in a first, but the next foot burst through first skin, then muscle, until it jarred against bone, broke that, went in a bit further, found more, bone, and stopped. The branch bent like a bow, but the boar kept on coming, its broad wet nose no more than two feet from Poldarn's left hand where it gripped the branch: the bastard thing was coming up the branch at him, like someone climbing a rope, and the hell with the mess it was making of its own guts in the process-And then the pig must've impaled its own heart, because it stopped and squealed in utter frustration at the injustice of the world, and the light in its vicious little eyes went out, and time stopped.
Not dead yet, Poldarn thought; I'm still alive, that's so totally fucking wonderful-Also, he was forced to admit, bitterly unfair on the pig, who had every right to be pissed as hell, because it'd been a wild and unforgivable fluke, sheer luck. He breathed out what he'd been absolutely sure at the time was his last-ever breath, and savoured the taste of its replacement, the sweetest thing he'd had in his mouth at any time.
'Shit,' said a voice from the sky; not from the sky, from the tree above his head. A tree-god, swearing at him. He looked up. 'Shit,' the voice repeated, and he could identify astonishment, admiration and extreme annoyance, all balled up into one repeated word. Then something scrambled down the tree-trunk and landed flump! next to him.
'Bastard,' it said.
Poldarn took a moment to notice that the ground he was sitting on was swamped in pig's blood. Then he looked up. Staring down at him was a round face, a long way off the ground; bright grey eyes, a little snub nose, grey hair and a huge shaggy grey moustache.
'What?' Poldarn said. In his right hand the man was holding a spear, blade as broad as the head of a shovel. But I haven't got a sword right now, and besides, I can't be bothered any more 'Bloody amazing,' the man said. 'Never seen the like in all my born days.' He seemed to remember something, and his huge eyes narrowed into a scowl. 'Who the hell are you, anyhow? Have you got any idea how long I've been after that fucking pig?'
Poldarn looked at him. 'No,' he said.
'All my bloody life,' the man yelled suddenly. 'That's how long, ever since I was a kid. Thirty years it took me, to find a trophy boar good as this one. And you just jump up out of nowhere and down the fucking thing with a bit of old stick-' Quite suddenly, the man seemed to notice the burn scars that covered Poldarn's face. He opened his eyes wide, took a step back, then (with a visible effort; even so, Poldarn was impressed) dismissed them as irrelevant.
Poldarn couldn't help grinning, because it was so delightfully funny. 'You're a hunter,' he said, as if he was accusing the grey-haired man of being a unicorn.
'Well, of course I am,' the man said. 'You think I sit up trees in the middle of the woods in rainy season to cure my piles? What did you think I was, a flower fairy?'
Poldarn burst out laughing. 'So it was you,' he said. 'You shot that arrow.'
'Me? No, definitely not.' Now the hunter was offended, on top of everything else. 'You take me for some kind of bloody hooligan? Besides, I haven't got a bow. I was sitting up waiting-and then you come along, from the southeast…' He made it sound like some particularly pernicious heresy. 'What're you grinning at, anyhow?' he added angrily.
'Sorry,' Poldarn said. 'It's just that I haven't got a clue what you're talking about.'
The man scowled horribly at him, then began to laugh too. 'I do apologise,' he said, sticking out a hand-it took Poldarn a second or so to realise that the hunter was offering to help him up off the ground. He noticed that the man was left-handed. 'It's just, I was all keyed up waiting for the pig, and then you happened. Weirder than a barrelful of ferrets,' he added. 'Never seen anything like it. That was amazing, felling a pig that size practically with your bare hands.'
'Sorry,' Poldarn said. 'I didn't realise it was a private pig.'
The man laughed at that. 'Not your fault,' he said. 'Bugger was going to kill you, you did bloody well. Pig that size, it'd have ripped you open like a letter. No, what fazed me was, I was expecting it to come from the north-west, I was actually facing the other way; first I knew about it was you hitting the tree-and by the time I'd wriggled my bum round on the branch, I was thinking, what the hell was that, a deer maybe, and there you were, and the pig was running up your bit of stick like a fucking squirrel. Talk about nerves of steel, you must piss ice.'
Poldarn wasn't quite sure he followed that, but he reckoned he'd got the general idea. 'Well,' he said, 'I didn't do it on purpose. The
fact is, I'm completely lost; and then the arrow-'
'Gare Brasson,' the man growled; Poldarn guessed it was a name rather than abstruse swearing. 'Careless bloody idiot, I'll kick his spine out his ear for that, shooting where he can't see. He might've shot you,' he added, red-faced with rage. 'I'm most terribly sorry about that,' he went on, 'only really, you shouldn't be here. You see, it's not actually very clever, wandering about in the middle of a boar hunt. Well,' he added, with a grin, 'I guess you've figured that out for yourself.'
'Yes,' Poldarn said. 'But I didn't know that that was what I was doing. Like I said, I'm lost.'
The hunter thought for a moment. 'Well,' he said, smiling brilliantly, 'no harm done. And it looks like we're done here for today, so we might as well pack it in and go home. Where was it you said you wanted to go to? My name's Ciana Jetat, by the way.'
'Pleased to meet you,' Poldarn replied. He realised he was shivering, and the knees and seat of his trousers were soaked in blood. 'Would it be all right if-?'
'Wash and a change of clothes? Of course,' Ciana Jetat replied. 'And if you're not in too much of a rush, perhaps you'd care to stay for dinner. We're only a mile or so over the way. Done your ankle?'
'Knee, actually.' Poldarn realised he was leaning against the tree, one foot off the ground. 'I think so,' he said. 'It's not serious, I don't think, but-'
'Amil will be here with the horses directly,' Ciana Jetat said. 'If you don't mind riding on the game cart.' Poldarn assured him that that would be fine. 'Splendid, then,' Ciana said. 'Didn't catch your name, sorry.'
'Poldarn,' Poldarn said.
'Really?' Ciana laughed. 'There's a coincidence.' Then he turned his head away, listened for a moment, stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled so loud that it hurt. 'Amil and the cart,' he explained. 'Can you put your weight on your knee as far as the track?'
'What track?' Poldarn replied. Ciana took that for a joke, and laughed. The track, as it turned out, was no more than forty yards away, and wide enough for two carts to pass each other without scraping wheels. He'd probably been walking parallel to it for hours, and had never realised that it was there.
'We're just camping out in the lodge,' Ciana said apologetically, 'roughing it. We're only stopping there the one night, so there didn't seem to be any point tarting the place up or dragging the household staff out here in the middle of nowhere. Still, if you don't mind basic camp-fire hospitality-'
Poldarn smiled; he knew what that meant, of course. When a rich sportsman talks about roughing it, he means honey-roast peacock in creamed artichoke sauce served on the ancestral silver in the Great Hall, by the light of a thousand scented candles. 'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'Really, it's very kind of you to share with me, especially after I mucked up your hunt.'
'Oh, well.' Ciana shrugged, like a man slipping off a very heavy fur cloak, then picked up his hunting bag, which he'd put down for a moment, and slung it over his right shoulder, using his left hand. Poldarn noticed that he hardly used his right hand for anything; the fingers were bent inwards, like a crow's foot, presumably because of some accident. 'It's not every day you come across a three-hundred-pounder with nine-ounce ivories and all his rights, but what the hell. After all,' he added, rather gloomily, 'it's only sport. Talking of which, I suppose, properly speaking, the tusks belong to you. I'll have Cano cut them out for you.'
'No, really,' Poldarn said quickly. 'You keep them. I think I saw quite enough of them when I was back under that tree.'
'You sure?' Ciana brightened up almost instantaneously. 'Well, that's very generous of you, very kind indeed.' He thought for a moment. 'You're absolutely sure? I mean-'
'Really,' Poldarn said.
Ciana's lodge proved to be a lopsided pole-and-brush lean-to tucked under the lee of a small hill. The fire smoked, the food had been better at the colliers' camp, and the beer was only marginally less disgusting. Ciana and his people (there were about thirty of them, packed into a hut that would just about have housed a dozen dwarves) seemed to think it was all a great treat and tremendous fun.
'I mean,' Ciana explained, as another jug of revolting beer appeared out of nowhere, 'this is what it's all about-I mean, life. Real life. Bugger being cooped up in a poxy little counting house or joggling up and down in a cart till your pee froths or chucking your guts up over the rail of some horrible little ship. The hunt, the campfire, eating what you kill, a few good friends under the open sky. That's what it's supposed to be like, you know? That's what we were put on this earth to do.'
'Absolutely,' Poldarn replied, managing to give the impression that his beer-horn was still mostly full, and therefore not in need of a top-up. 'I feel sorry for those other poor devils,' he added cautiously.
'Damn straight.' Ciana carefully wiped ash off his chunk of burnt ham, and tore half of it off with his teeth, like a dog. 'There's times when I'm stuck in bloody Torcea, at some bloody stupid Guild meeting or whatever, I think I'll go crazy if I don't get out, breathe some fresh air, feel some space around me.' He sighed. 'Got to head back there tomorrow, worse bloody luck. Got fifty thousand jars of salt fish and nineteen thousand gallons of walnut oil due in from Thurm the first of the month, wouldn't do at all if I'm not there to check the bills personally. Not saying the clerks couldn't handle it, actually they're a great bunch of lads, but really, you can't delegate stuff like that, the really important things, you wouldn't last a week. Still, we've had a good break, bloody good time all round, apart from not getting the big pig, of course. But otherwise-' He fell silent and stared into the fire, as if there might be prize boar lying hidden among the clinker.
Poldarn didn't look at him. 'You're heading for Torcea, then,' he said.
'Miserable bloody place,' Ciana said. 'But yes, that's right.'
'Do you think you could give me a lift there?'
If Ciana hesitated for a moment, it was probably only the thought of being responsible for a fellow human being ending up in the unspeakably horrible city. 'Sure,' he said. 'What'd you want to go there for?'
'Oh, just a spot of business,' Poldarn answered, as lightly as he could. 'Thing is,' he went on, 'I'm in rather a hurry; but getting lost in the forest has set me back a day, and I'm pretty sure that by the time I get to the coast, I'll have missed the boat I was supposed to be on.' His hand was in his pocket; he fingered Mino Silsny's valuable ring. 'I'll gladly pay you, of course, whatever it costs-'
Ciana waved the offer away as if it was a moth he was trying to swat. 'Wouldn't hear of it,' he replied, 'don't be daft. We've got our own ship sat there waiting for us at Far Beacon, loads of spare room, no bother at all. Glad of the company,' he added, as someone behind him jostled his arm, making him spill beer all over his own feet.
'Thank you,' Poldarn said, hoping that it was a big boat.
Chapter Fifteen
It was a reasonably big boat; but since it had to hold the entire hunting party, their weapons, equipment, camping-out gear, leftover beer, trophies (several sacks full of deer skulls, boar skulls, hares' feet, foxtails, wolf pelts, and bits and pieces of various animals that Poldarn couldn't identify and didn't really want to), as well as Ciana himself, it could have been twice the size and still uncomfortable. It sat alarmingly low in the water, and since the jolly huntsmen were also the crew, Poldarn had severe misgivings about the whole enterprise. On the other hand, it was a free ride to Torcea, always assuming that they didn't sink halfway across the bay.
They didn't. The storm that had been threatening to burst ever since they'd embarked managed to wait until they were unloading at Torcea dock before letting rip. Consequently, Poldarn's first impression of the big city was a stinging curtain of rain that cut visibility down to less than fifteen yards, with a backdrop of forked lightning.
'Looks like we brought the weather with us,' Ciana said, yelling to make himself heard over the drumming of the rain. He was soaked to the skin, his grey hair plastered down over his forehead, even his vast moustache limp and soggy, but the cold and t
he wet didn't seem capable of damping down his infuriating good humour. 'It's not usually like this until mid-autumn, but obviously the wet season's set in early. No bad thing, it washes the stink off the streets.'
Poldarn tried to say goodbye as soon as they'd finished hauling the gear across to Ciana's warehouse, but the hunter wasn't so easily shaken off. 'Don't be silly,' he roared, when Poldarn suggested looking for an inn for the night. 'You won't find anywhere round here at this time of year-you'll end up dossing down under the viaduct arches. You come on home with me, I'll show you my trophy collection.'
The hammering of raindrops on the warehouse roof drowned out Poldarn's response, which was probably just as well. He had no money, no clothes other than those he stood up in, and his left boot had sprung a leak. Also, he had no idea where to go, or how to set about accomplishing what he'd come here to do. 'Thanks,' he replied, 'that's really very kind of you.'
Ciana's house was slightly smaller than Falcata, but not by much. Once they'd passed under the gate in the outer wall (twenty feet high and six feet thick at the base) they crossed a courtyard big enough to corral a couple of hundred head of cattle, passing a small town of outbuildings, sheds and storehouses, until they reached another gate in another vast defensive wall, which Ciana opened with a small silver key.
'I'm home,' he bawled, as he led the way into a lobby that reminded Poldarn of a fairy story he must've heard when he was young, about the prince who climbed up the magic pepper-vine to the giant's castle. A giant would've been perfectly comfortable in Ciana's house, provided that he had plenty of furniture to fill up the open spaces.
Doors flew open, and men and women streamed out and started grabbing luggage, bustling it away out of sight, all with the same horrible cheerfulness that Poldarn had got so tired of over the last two days on the boat. In the time it took them to walk from the front entrance to the next set of doors, Poldarn and Ciana were stripped of their wet clothes, towelled dry, and dressed in long, warm wool gowns that made a soft huffing noise as they dragged over the shiny marble floor; while behind them, three tall, gaunt men with mops wiped away their wet, muddy footprints.