by John Gwynne
As I have been.
But I was betrayed. It all changed with the letter from Nathair, his orders for me to step down as regent of Tenebral and hand over the stewardship of the realm to Lykos. Why did he do that? How could Nathair side with Lykos? I fear for him. Have they bewitched him too? Or is he just misled, deceived? With an effort she focused on Maquin, wrenching her thoughts away from their dark spiral, forcing herself to watch Maquin’s hands as he prepared the meat for their evening meal.
They had stopped a little earlier than usual, the sun still a handspan above the horizon as Maquin had set snares around a network of burrows that he had spied. She’d watched with fascination as he’d cut, looped and tied twine to overhanging branches, bending and pegging them to the earth, and then settled beneath a densely leaved oak a score of paces away. It had been dark when she finally heard the snap and creak of the snare tripping. Maquin had grinned at her, a rare thing, transforming his dour expression.
‘Hot meat for our supper,’ he’d said.
She couldn’t express how happy she was about that. It had been raining all day, a soft drizzle that had soaked her through long before highsun. Maquin’s hard pace had allowed no time for rest, keeping her breathless and exhausted as usual. She was glad to stop before the darkness settled about them.
‘Is a fire safe?’ she asked as Maquin searched for kindling that wasn’t soaked through, cutting away at a rotted branch to reach the dry wood within.
‘So much cloud, and it’s so low, smoke shouldn’t give us away, and we’ve gone a ten-night since we last saw any Vin Thalun. I can bank and hide the fire, keep the flames low and covered. Reckon it’s worth the risk, eh? Feels like my bones are damp.’
I’m glad to hear him say that. He seems inhuman, all of him distilled down to strength and will. Maquin skewered the quartered meat of the rabbit and set it on a spit above the small fire.
They were a ten-night into the heartland of Tenebral, keeping as much as possible to the dense woodlands that carpeted the undulating landscape.
After that night in the woods when Maquin had slain the Vin Thalun – with some help from me – they had set out east. Fidele had still not recovered from that night – she had killed a man. She’d put her spear through his throat, and had had nightmares about it ever since. Idiot woman. He was my enemy, would have killed Maquin and then me.
‘Teach me how to do that,’ she asked abruptly, nodding at the rabbit.
‘Don’t think it’s something for a fine lady’s hands,’ Maquin said.
‘Well, it should be,’ Fidele snapped. ‘What use am I, otherwise? I am like an infant, unable to fend for myself.’
Maquin shrugged. ‘We all learn what we need to,’ he said. ‘People like you learn how to govern, give orders. People like me, to do what we’re told. To learn something useful.’
‘And what is your useful trade, then?’ Fidele asked him.
‘Death. I deal in death.’
His gaze dropped to his hands, and her eyes followed. They were surprisingly fine and long-fingered, like a musician’s hands at court, though as he turned them she saw thick calluses on his fingers and palms, the whorls of his skin marked by earth or blood.
‘I’ll teach you to catch a rabbit, prepare it for cooking, make a fire, if you’d like. Though there may not be another opportunity before we reach Ripa.’
If we reach Ripa.
The injured warrior of Tenebral, Drusus, had died the same night, but not before he’d told them that Peritus had set a rendezvous point with every member of his small rebellion. Ripa, fortress of Lamar. That had made sense to Fidele, as Lamar and his eldest son Krelis had always borne an ill-concealed hatred for the Vin Thalun. If anyone would declare openly against the Vin Thalun it would be Lamar of Ripa.
Maquin passed her a piece of the quartered rabbit and she bit into it, burning her lips but not caring, it tasted so delicious. She realized Maquin was watching her and she wiped her mouth.
‘Sorry, not very ladylike.’
‘Don’t mind me,’ Maquin said. ‘It all goes down the same.’
‘Tell me, Maquin. How did a man of Isiltir end up here?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Maquin grunted.
‘And we have many dark nights ahead of us. You don’t have to finish it all tonight.’
He stared silently at the fire a while, as if trying to remember.
‘I was shieldman to Kastell ben Aenor. His cousin, Jael, killed him in the tombs beneath Haldis. He killed Romar, King of Isiltir as well, though he didn’t hold the blade.’ He spoke to the fire, not taking his eyes from the flicker of the flames. ‘I fought against Jael in Isiltir. Lykos came with his Vin Thalun and turned the battle.’ He paused, as if remembering. A hand lifted to his ear, which Fidele noticed was only a stump. ‘I was captured. Lykos took me as part of his spoils, put me on an oar-bench, gave me this.’ Maquin touched the scar on his back, where Lykos had branded him.
He speaks as if it didn’t happen to him, as if he is recounting someone else’s tale.
‘He threw me in the pit, told me that if I lived long enough he’d set me free, that I could seek my vengeance on Jael.’
‘Is that what you want?’
He looked up at her now, his eyes dark pools, a glint of firelight a spark in their depths.
‘Aye, with all that I am.’
Fidele resisted the urge to recoil at the hatred she heard in his voice. It emanated from him, throbbing like the pulse of a wound. He had spoken of Lykos, and at that name she had felt her own anger stir and bubble.
‘I feel the same about Lykos,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I hate him. I am scared of him too. If he lives I would wish to spend my life hunting him until he were dead. But another voice within me says that I would run, as far and as fast as I could to escape him. To the very edges of the world.’ She ground her teeth, fear, anger, shame, all swirling through her.
‘He’s high on my list of people to see dead, I’ll not deny,’ Maquin said. ‘If he’s not already dead. I saw you put that knife into him; it went deep. Wouldn’t be surprised if you killed him.’
‘Aye, maybe. And then again, he may still live.’
Maquin shrugged. ‘Can’t change that. Yet.’
‘No, but it doesn’t stop me being scared. Don’t you feel fear?’
‘Fear? I left that in the pit. I have nothing left to lose, nothing to fear for. I have lost everything – my kin, Kastell, my sword-brothers. My pride. In the pit I lost my honour and humanity. All that’s left is revenge.’
‘Then why are you here?’
He shrugged again. ‘I made you a promise.’
‘You were going to break your promise, though. You left me. You walked away.’
He stared at her. Why did I say that? ‘I did. I won’t do that again. Not until you’re safe.’ The effect of those words was comforting, seeping through her like hot soup on a cold day.
‘I didn’t blame you for leaving. Or judge you.’ ‘I judged me. That was enough.’
Fidele woke to a touch, Maquin’s hand on her shoulder. She half rose, then paused as she saw his face.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said.
‘Listen.’
She did.
‘What is that?’
‘Hounds,’ Maquin said. ‘We have to go. Now.’
She leaped to her feet and in moments they were hurrying through the undergrowth.
Fidele hoped that Maquin was mistaken, or that the hounds were just a coincidence, out on a hunt with a local woodsman. But all morning the sounds trailed them, becoming clearer, an excited baying. The land around them changed, the woodland growing denser, the ground rising into a steady incline. The scent of pine grew around them as they climbed higher, the woodland opening up, pine needles dense and spongy underfoot. The baying behind them was louder now, and Fidele had started looking over her shoulder, fearing to see hounds and men behind her.
‘They are a league or so behind us,’ Maquin said.
‘They sound . . . so close,’ Fidele gasped.
‘Sound carries in this woodland,’ Maquin grunted. ‘But they were double that distance away at daybreak.’
What are we going to do? She was walking with a spear in her hand, the same one that she had used to kill the Vin Thalun. Now, though, she was using it as a crutch to keep herself upright. Her grip on its shaft tightened. Sweat ran down her face, dripping into her eyes, stinging, her lungs heaving, the aching in her legs a constant companion. They were following a fox trail. Animals know the way through the forest better than I do, Maquin had said to her. Better to trust them than try cutting a new way through the undergrowth. Blessedly, the ground levelled beneath them, to one side a cliff rising steep and sheer, pines crowding close on the other. A new sound made itself known, growing with each step. Running water.
Maquin pulled up in front of her and grabbed her about the waist as she stumbled past him, her legs not instantly obeying the order to stop. She was glad he did.
A ravine opened up in front of her, a river roaring through it some distance below. She fell to her knees, sucking in great lungfuls of air.
‘What are we going to do,’ she asked.
‘Well. If the dogs weren’t onto us I’d say we climb down this ravine and swim for a bit. Come out a few leagues downriver. It would take a huntsman a ten-night to pick up our trail again, if ever they could find it.’
‘Let’s do that, then.’
‘No point. They’ll know we’ve used the river, and with those hounds they’ll pick up our scent and trail again within a day; we’ll be back to square one.’
Hunted again. Death breathing down our necks, again.
‘I am sorry to bring this upon you.’
‘Well, I’ll not deny, you’re proving to be a great deal of trouble.’
‘So what do we do?’ Fidele felt that old companion squirming in her belly. Fear. I cannot be caught. I cannot go back to Lykos.
Maquin reached inside his bag and pulled out the ball of twine he’d taken from the woodcutters’ hut.
‘Got to kill those hounds.’
Fidele crouched behind a tree, peering back down the track in the twilight.
The sun was setting behind the treetop canopy, its last rays dappling the ground pink and orange. Fidele thought she saw movement.
Please Elyon, let it be Maquin.
He had set out his plan to her – if it could be called that – and left her soon after. Fear had been steadily filling her since then, like the drip of ice melting into a bucket.
No. I will not die scared. Or live scared any longer. Maquin is right. There is nothing I can do other than face it. She gripped her spear tightly.
A figure emerged out of the gloom: Maquin sprinting towards her and skidding to the ground beside her.
‘Well, I think I got their attention,’ he said through ragged breaths.
Men were visible on the path now, the first one straining to control three hounds, all barking frantically and straining on their leashes.
‘Didn’t think there’d be three,’ Maquin muttered, pulling one of the many knives he carried. ‘Woodsmen usually hunt with two.’
He stood and let their pursuers see him.
The first man let the dogs go, all three of them bursting along the path towards Maquin. They were big grey-coated hounds with broad heads and wide muzzles, the type she’d seen bring down boars when accompanying Aquilus on hunts. Their bared teeth glinted in the twilight.
We’re dead.
One pulled ahead of the others, tongue lolling, so close that Fidele could see the muscles of his chest and shoulders bunching and flowing with each ground-eating stride. He stumbled on something across his path and suddenly the undergrowth was in motion, a long branch whipping out of nowhere, sharp spikes slamming into the hound’s flank, impaling it a dozen times. It howled, squirmed, the howls slipping to a whine, then it slumped, blood dripping from its mouth.
The other two hounds paid it no attention, surging past.
‘Remember, do what I told you,’ Maquin hissed as he spread his feet, crouching, drawing another knife. Fidele shifted the weight of her spear, eyes focused on the nearest hound. It was thirty paces away now. A heartbeat, and it was twenty. She shuffled involuntarily backwards, heard the roar of the river behind her, set her feet.
The hound jolted to a stop, one leg wrenched into the air, its body swinging around, dragging on the branch that it was now snared to. Fidele held her breath but the snare and branch held. The other hound powered past it and leapt at Maquin. As she rushed forward, she glimpsed Maquin tumbling away, the hound slamming into him.
Finish your task, she screamed at herself as she ran forwards and plunged her spear into the snared hound’s chest. Dimly she remembered Maquin telling her to stab it in the belly, that it would be softer there, at the same time feeling the spear head slide on bone. She put all her weight onto the shaft and pushed, felt the spear slip past ribs, deeper, into something softer, the hound whining, snapping and writhing. It shuddered and then collapsed.
She pulled on her spear but it was stuck; she tugged more frantically, then heard the shouts of men running towards them down the track. A hundred paces, closing quickly. She left her spear in the dead hound and turned.
Maquin lay beneath a pile of fur, the last hound slumped on him.
He’s dead. Fidele rushed to him, feeling as if her heart was lurching in her chest, and heaved the dog away. Maquin groaned and she felt a tide of relief wash her.
‘Thought I was dead,’ he blinked.
‘So did I,’ Fidele breathed as she helped him stand. ‘What now?’
‘Didn’t think we’d get this far.’ He glanced down the trail at the onrushing warriors, then over his shoulder at the river.
‘Time to get wet,’ he said. He gripped her hand in his and together they ran at the ravine’s edge, leapt into the air and plummeted towards the river below.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LYKOS
Lykos wandered in a world of grey. Grey plains undulating into the distance, a charcoal river curling through it like some fluid serpent. Grey trees, branches swaying, slate-grey clouds boiling above him. In the distance he saw a structure, arching out of the land.
A bridge?
On its far side was a wall, stretching into the sky, merging with the clouds. Or was it a wall . . . ?
He squinted, saw that there was movement within it, a billowing, like sails in a fickle wind.
It is not a wall. It is mist. A fog bank.
He saw a rock and sat to assess the situation.
Pain spiked, in his face and back. He put his hand to the greater pain, his back, and his fingers came away red. Blood red.
‘How did that happen?’
He felt a flicker of worry, but almost as soon as it had come it was gone. It was hard to care in this world leached of all colour. Of all life.
He looked about again, knew where he was.
The Otherworld. He had been here before, since he had made his pact with Asroth, summoned here on rare occasions by Calidus for some clandestine communication or other. But this time it felt different. Time was different here, hard to measure, but he knew somehow that he’d been here . . . a while? How long?
‘Long enough. Longer than ever before.’
Is this death?
‘No,’ a voice said beside him, startling him. ‘But near enough.’
It was Calidus, sitting upon a boulder. He looked younger, his white hair softer, less brittle, the creases in his face lines instead of grooves. He wore a coat of chainmail, dark leathery wings folded behind him. A smile spread across his face.
‘You look pleased with yourself,’ Lykos commented.
‘I am. Things are going well.’
‘So why am I here?’ Lykos asked him.
Calidus’ smile disappeared. ‘I have not summoned you this time. You found your own way here. You are dying.’
‘Oh.’ I guessed as much. I should fe
el scared, but I don’t.
‘And that, over there?’ He pointed to the bridge and the wall of mist.
‘The bridge of swords, and what comes next,’ Calidus told him.
‘What does come next?’
‘Death. Whatever that is.’
Lykos felt indifferent to it. Not even any hint of curiosity.
‘I don’t want you to die,’ Calidus said. ‘I need you to live.’
Lykos shrugged again.
‘Here,’ Calidus said and passed him an apple. Lykos took it in both hands, ran his fingers over the featureless skin. A grey apple. Not very appealing.
‘Would you walk away from it all, then?’ Calidus asked him.
‘From what?’
‘Your life.’
Lykos thought about that, maybe for a few heartbeats, maybe for a moon, he could not tell. Eventually he shook his head. ‘I can hardly remember it.’
‘Your heart’s desire was to unite the Three Islands. To become Lord of the Vin Thalun.’
‘The Three Islands?’
‘Aye. Your father was a Vin Thalun corsair, and Lord of the Island of Panos. You inherited that island, though you had to fight for it.’
A dim memory stirred. The corpse of his father lying upon a bower of thorns. Flames. Blood in the firelight.
‘I did.’
‘You made a pact with Asroth. He helped you win the Three Islands. You united them, forged a nation out of the Vin Thalun and became their king.’
Lykos felt a flicker of emotion, an echo of the joy that had consumed him as he had sat before the defeated captains of Nerin and Pelset and heard their oaths of fealty.
‘Take a bite of your apple.’
Lykos lifted it to his lips and saw there was a pink flush to its skin, faded and pastel, but there now, stark against the grey of this world. He took a small bite, tasted . . . something. Faint, bland.