And that was the merry band. His shoulders slumped. “How long until we get to the Edge of the World?” he asked Bayaz, without much hope.
“Some way yet,” growled the Magus through barely open teeth.
So Logen rode on, tired, and sore, and bored, and watched those few birds gliding slowly over the endless plain. Nice, big, fat birds. He licked his lips. “We could do with some meat,” he muttered. Hadn’t had fresh meat in a good long time now. Not since they left Calcis. Logen rubbed his stomach. The fatty softness from his time in the city was already tightening. “Nice bit of meat.”
Ferro frowned over at him, then up at the few birds circling above. She shrugged her bow off her shoulder.
“Hah!” chuckled Logen. “Good luck.” He watched her slide an arrow smoothly out from her quiver. Futile gesture. Even Harding Grim could never have made that shot, and he was the best man Logen had ever seen with a bow. He watched Ferro nock her shaft to the curved wood, back arched, yellow eyes fixed on the gliding shapes overhead.
“You’ll never bag one of those, not in a thousand years of trying.” She pulled back the string. “Waste of a shaft!” he shouted.
“You’ve got to be realistic about these things!” Probably the arrow would drop back down and stab him in the face. Or stick his horse through the neck, so it died and fell over and crushed him under it. A fitting end to this nightmare of a journey. A moment later one of the birds tumbled down into the grass, Ferro’s arrow stuck right through it.
“No,” he whispered, gawping open-mouthed at her as she bent the bow again. Another arrow sailed up into the grey sky. Another bird flopped to the earth, just beside the first. Logen stared at it, disbelieving. “No!”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen stranger things,” said Bayaz. “A man who talks to spirits, who travels with Magi, the most feared man in all the North?”
Logen pulled his horse up and slithered down from the saddle. He walked through the long grass, bent down on wobbly, aching legs and picked up one of the birds. The shaft had stuck it right through the centre of the breast. If Logen had stabbed it with the arrow at a distance of a foot, he could hardly have done it more neatly. “That’s wrong.”
Bayaz grinned down, hands crossed on the saddle before him. “In ancient days, before history, so the legends say, our world and the Other Side were joined. One world. Demons walked the land, free to do as they pleased. Chaos, beyond dreaming. They bred with humans, and their offspring were half breeds. Part man, part demon. Devil-bloods. Monsters. One among them took the name Euz. He delivered humanity from the tyranny of devils, and the fury of his battle with them shaped the land. He split the world above from the world below, and he sealed the gates between. To prevent such terror ever coming again, he pronounced the First Law. It is forbidden to touch the Other Side direct, or to speak with devils.”
Logen watched the others watch Ferro. Luthar and Quai, both frowning at this uncanny display of archery. She leaned right back in her saddle, bow string drawn as tight as it would go, glittering point of the next shaft held perfectly steady, still managing to nudge her mount this way and that with her heels. Logen could scarcely make a horse do what he wanted with the reins in his hands, but he failed to see what Bayaz’ crazy story had to do with it. “Devils and so on, the First Law.” Logen waved his hand. “So what?”
“From the start the First Law was filled with contradictions. All magic comes from the Other Side, falling upon the land as the light falls from the sun. Euz himself was part devil, and so were his sons—Juvens, Kanedias, Glustrod—and others beside. Their blood brought them gifts, and curses. Power, and long life, and strength or sight beyond the limits of simple men. Their blood passed on into their children, growing ever thinner, into their children’s children, and so on through the long centuries. The gifts skipped one generation, then another, then came but rarely. The devil-blood grew thin, and died out. It is rare indeed now, when our world and the world below have drifted so far apart, to see those gifts made flesh. We truly are privileged to witness it.”
Logen raised his eyebrows. “Her? Half devil?”
“Much less than half, my friend.” Bayaz chuckled. “Euz himself was half, and his power threw up the mountains and gouged out the seas. Half could strike a horror and a desire into your blood to stop your heart. Half could blind you to look upon. Not half. No more than a fraction. But in her, there is a trace of the Other Side.”
“The Other Side, eh?” Logen looked down at the dead bird in his hand. “So if I was to touch her, would I break the First Law?”
Bayaz chuckled. “Now that is a sharp question. You always surprise me, Master Ninefingers. I wonder what Euz would say to it?” The Magus pursed his lips. “I think I could find it in myself to forgive you. She however,” and Bayaz nodded his bald head at Ferro, “would most likely cut your hand off.”
Logen lay on his belly, peering through the tall grass into a gentle valley with a shallow brook in its bottom. There was a huddle of buildings on the side nearest them, or the shells of buildings. No roofs left, nothing but the tumbledown walls, mostly no more than waist high, the fallen stones from them scattered across the valley’s slopes, in amongst the waving grass. It could have been a scene out of the North. Lots of villages abandoned there, since the wars. People driven out, dragged out, burned out. Logen had watched it happen, often. He’d joined in more than once. He wasn’t proud of it, but he wasn’t proud of much from those times. Or any other, come to think of it.
“Not a lot left to live in,” whispered Luthar.
Ferro scowled at him. “Plenty left to hide behind.”
Evening was coming on, the sun had dropped low on the horizon and rilled the broken village up with shadows. There was no sign of anyone down there. No sounds beyond the giggling water, the slow wind slithering through the grass. No sign of anyone, but Ferro was right. No sign didn’t necessarily mean no danger.
“You had best go down there and take a look,” murmured Longfoot.
“I best?” Logen glanced sideways at him. “You’re staying here then, eh?”
“I have no talent for fights. You are well aware of that.”
“Huh,” muttered Logen. “No talent for the sorting of fights, plenty for the finding of ’em though.”
“Finding things is what I do. I’m here to Navigate.”
“Maybe you could find me a decent meal and a bed to sleep in,” snapped Luthar, in his whining Union accent.
Ferro sucked her teeth with disgust. “Someone’s got to go,” she growled, sliding over the lip of the slope on her belly. “I’ll take the left.”
No one else moved. “Us too,” Logen grunted at Luthar.
“Me?”
“Who else? Three’s a good number. Let’s go, and let’s keep it stealthy.”
Luthar peered through the grass into the valley, licked his lips, rubbed his palms together. Nervous, Logen could tell, nervous but proud at the same time, like an untried boy before a battle, trying to show he’s not scared by sticking his chin out. Logen wasn’t fooled. He’d seen it all a hundred times before.
“You planning to wait for the morning?” he grunted.
“Just keep your mind on your own shortcomings, Northman,” hissed Luthar as he started to wriggle forward down the slope. “You’ve enough of them!” The rowels of his big, shiny spurs rattled loud as he dragged himself over the edge, clumsy and unpractised, his arse sticking up in the air.
Logen grabbed hold of his coat before he got more than a stride. “You’re not leaving those on are you?”
“What?”
“Those fucking spurs! Stealthy I said! You might as well hang a bell off your cock!”
Luthar scowled as he sat up to pull them off.
“Stay down!” hissed Logen, pushing him back into the grass on his back. “You want to get us killed?”
“Get off me!”
Logen shoved him down again, then stabbed at him with his finger to make sure he got the point
. “I’m not dying over your fucking spurs and that’s a fact! If you can’t keep quiet you can stay here with the Navigator.” He glowered over at Longfoot. “Maybe you both can navigate your way into the village once we’ve made sure it’s safe.” He shook his head and crawled down the slope after Ferro.
She was already halfway to the brook, rolling and slithering over the crumbled walls, sneaking across the spaces in between them, keeping low, hand on the grip of her curved sword, quick and silent as the wind over the plain.
Impressive, no doubt, but Logen was nobody’s fool when it came to a spot of sneaking. He’d been known for it, when he was younger. Lost count of the number of Shanka, the number of men he’d come up behind. The first you’ll hear of the Bloody-Nine is the blood hissing out of your neck, that used to be the rumour. Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say that he’s stealthy.
He flowed up to the first wall, slid one leg over it, silent as a mouse. He lifted himself up, smooth as butter, keeping quiet, keeping low. His back foot caught on a set of loose stones, dragged them scraping with him. He grabbed at them, fumbled them, knocked over even more with his elbow and they clattered down loud around him. He stumbled onto his weak ankle, twisted it, squawked with pain, fell over and rolled through a patch of thistles.
“Shit,” he grunted, struggling up, one hand clutching at the hilt of his sword, all tangled up with his coat. Good thing he hadn’t had it out, or he could’ve stuck himself through with it.
Happened to a friend of his. So busy shouting that he tripped on a tree root and cut a big piece out of his head on his own axe. Back to the mud double time.
He crouched among the fallen stones, waiting for someone to jump him. No one came. Just the wind breathing through the gaps in the old walls, the water chuckling away in the brook. He crept along beside a heap of rough stones, through an old doorway, slithered over a slumping wall, limping and gasping on his bad foot, scarcely making any effort to stay quiet any longer. There was no one there. He’d known it as soon as he fell. No way they could have missed that sorry performance. The Dogman would most likely have been weeping right about now, had he been alive. He waved up at the ridge, and a moment later he saw Longfoot stand up and wave as well.
“No one here,” he muttered to himself.
“Just as well,” hissed Ferro’s voice, not more than a stride or two behind. “You got a new way of scouting, pink. Make so much noise that they come to you.”
“Out of practice,” grunted Logen. “Still, no harm done. No one here.”
“There was.” She was standing in the shell of one of the ruined buildings, frowning down at the ground. A burned patch in the grass, a few stones set around it. A campfire.
“No more ’n a day or two old,” muttered Logen, poking at the ashes with a finger.
Luthar walked up behind them. “No one here after all.” He had a smug, sucked-in look on his face, like he’d somehow been right about something all along. Logen didn’t see what.
“Lucky for you there isn’t, or we might be stitching you together right about now!”
“I’d be stitching the fucking pair of you!” hissed Ferro. “I ought to stitch your useless pink heads together! You’re both as worthless as a bag of sand in the desert! There’s tracks over there. Horses, more than one cart.”
“Merchants maybe?” asked Logen, hopefully. He and Ferro looked at each other for a moment. “Might be better if we stay off the track from now on.”
“Too slow.” Bayaz had made it down into the village now.
Quai and Longfoot weren’t far behind with the cart and the horses. “Far too slow. We stick to the track. We’ll see anyone coming in good time out here. Plenty of time.”
Luthar didn’t look convinced. “If we see them, they’ll see us. What then?”
“Then?” Bayaz raised an eyebrow. “Then we have the famous Captain Luthar to protect us.” He looked round at the ruined village. “Running water, and shelter, of a kind. Seems like a good place to camp.”
“Good enough,” muttered Logen, already rooting through the cart for logs to start a fire of their own. “I’m hungry. What happened to those birds?”
Logen sat, and watched the others eat over the rim of his pot.
Ferro squatted at the very edge of the shifting light from the campfire, hunched over, shadowy face almost stuck right into her bowl, staring around suspiciously and shoving food in with her fingers like she was worried it might be snatched away any moment. Luthar was less enthusiastic. He was nibbling daintily at a wing with his bared front teeth, as though touching it with his lips might poison him, discarded morsels lined up carefully along the side of his platter. Bayaz chewed away with some relish, his beard glistening with gravy. “It’s good,” he muttered around a mouthful. “You might want to consider cookery as a career, Master Ninefingers, if you should ever grow tired of…” he waved his spoon, “whatever it is you do.”
“Huh,” said Logen. In the North everyone took their turn at the fire, and it was reckoned an honour to do it. A good cook was almost as valued as a good fighter. Not here. These were a sorry crowd when it came to minding the pot. Bayaz could just about get his tea boiled, and that was as far as he went. Quai could get a biscuit out of the box on a good day. Logen doubted whether Luthar would even have known which way up the pot went. As for Ferro, she seemed to despise the whole notion of cooking. Logen reckoned she was used to eating her food raw. Perhaps while it was still alive.
In the North, after a hard day on the trail, when the men gathered around the long fires to eat, there was a strict order to who sat where. The chief would go at the top, with his sons and the Named Men of the clan around him. Next came the Carls, in order of fame. Thralls were lucky to get their own small fires further out. Men would always have their place, and only change it when their chief offered, out of respect for some great service they’d done him, or for showing rare good bones in a fight. Sitting out of place could earn you a kicking, or a killing even. Where you sat round the fire was where you stood in life, more or less.
It was different out here on the plains, but Logen could still see a pattern in who sat where, and it was far from a happy one. He and Bayaz were close enough to the fire, but the others were further than comfort would have put them. Drawn close by the wind, and the cold, and the damp night, pushed further out by each other. He glanced over at Luthar, sneering down into his bowl as though it was full of piss. No respect. He glanced over at Ferro, staring yellow knives at him through narrowed eyes. No trust. He shook his head sadly. Without trust and respect the group would fall apart in a fight like walls without mortar.
Still, Logen had won over tougher audiences, in his time. Threetrees, Tul Duru, Black Dow, Harding Grim, he’d fought each one in single combat, and beaten them all. Spared each man’s life, and left him bound to follow. Each one had tried their best to kill him, and with good reasons too, but in the end Logen had earned their trust, and their respect, and their friendship even. Small gestures and a lot of time, that was how he’d done it. “Patience is the chief of virtues,” his father used to say, and “you won’t cross the mountains in a day.” Time might be against them, but there was nothing to be gained by rushing. You have to be realistic about these things.
Logen uncrossed his stiff legs, took hold of the water-skin and got up, walked slowly over to where Ferro was sitting. Her eyes followed him all the way across. She was a strange one, no doubt, and not just the looks of her, though the dead knew her looks were strange enough. She seemed hard and sharp and cold as a new sword, ruthless as any man that Logen could think of. You would have thought she wouldn’t throw a log to save a drowning man, but she’d done more than that to save him, and more than once. Out of all of them, she was the one he’d trust first, and furthest. So he squatted down and held the skin out to her, its bulbous shadow flickering and shifting on the rough wall behind her.
She frowned at it for a moment, then frowned up at Logen. Then she snatched it off him and bent
back over her pot, half turning her bony shoulders on him. Not a word of thanks, or a gesture even, but he didn’t mind. You won’t cross the mountains in a day, after all.
He dropped down again beside the fire, watched the flames dancing, casting shifting light across the grim faces of the group. “Anyone know any stories?” he asked, hopefully.
Quai sucked at his teeth. Luthar curled his lip at Logen across the fire. Ferro gave no sign that she had even heard. Hardly an encouraging start.
“Not any?” No reply. “Alright then, I know a song or two, if I can remember the words,” he cleared his throat.
“Very well!” cut in Bayaz. “If it will save us from a song, I know hundreds of stories. What did you have it in mind to hear about? A romance? A comedy? A tale of bravery against the odds?”
“This place,” cut in Luthar. “The Old Empire. If it was such a great nation, how did it come to this?” He jerked his head over at the crumbling walls, and what they all knew lay beyond. The miles and miles of nothing. “A wasteland.”
Bayaz sighed. “I could tell that tale, but we are lucky enough to have a native of the Old Empire with us on our little trip, and a keen student of history to boot. Master Quai?” The apprentice looked up lazily from the fire. “Would you care to enlighten us? How did the Empire, once the glittering centre of the world, come to this pass?”
“That story is long in the telling,” murmured the apprentice. “Shall I start from the beginning?”
“Where else should a man ever start?”
Quai shrugged his bony shoulders and began to speak. “Almighty Euz, vanquisher of demons, closer of gates, father of the World, had four sons, and to each he gave a gift. To his eldest, Juvens, he gave the talent of High Art, the skill to change the world with magic, tempered by knowledge. To his second son, Kanedias, went the gift of making, of shaping stone and metal to his own purposes. To his third son, Bedesh, Euz gave the skill of speaking with spirits, and of making them do his bidding.” Quai gave a wide yawn, smacked his lips and blinked at the fire. “So were born the three pure disciplines of magic”
Before They Are Hanged tfl-2 Page 12