“Good idea. If you could—”
“I will give it to the woman.”
The spirit dug its hand into its stony stomach and Logen shuffled back warily. The fist emerged, and something was clutched inside, and he felt himself shiver as he saw it.
“Hold your hands out,” he muttered to Ferro.
Jezal gave an involuntary gasp and scrambled away as the thing dropped down into Ferro’s waiting palms, raising an arm to shield his face, his mouth hanging open with horror. Bayaz stared, eyes wide. Quai craned eagerly forward. Logen grimaced and rocked back. Longfoot scrambled almost all the way out of the hollow. For a long moment all six of them stared at the dark object in Ferro’s hands, no one moving, no one speaking, no sound except for the keening wind. There it was, before them. That thing which they had come so far, and braved so many dangers to find. That thing which Glustrod dug from the deep earth long years ago. That thing which had made a blasted ruin of the greatest city in the world.
The Seed. The Other Side, made flesh. The very stuff of magic.
Then Ferro slowly began to frown. “This is it?” she asked doubtfully. “This is the thing that will turn Shaffa to dust?”
It did, in fact, now that Jezal was overcoming the shock of its sudden appearance, look like nothing more than a stone. A chunk of unremarkable grey rock the size of a big fist. No sense of unearthly danger washed from it. No deadly power was evident. No withering rays or stabs of lightning shot forth. It did, in fact, look like nothing more than a stone.
Bayaz blinked. He shuffled closer, on his hands and knees. He peered down at the object in Ferro’s palms. He licked his lips, lifting his hand ever so slowly while Jezal watched, his heart pounding in his ears. Bayaz touched the rock with his little finger tip then jerked it instantly back. He did not suddenly wither and expire. He probed it once more with his finger. There was no thunderous detonation. He pressed his palm upon it. He closed his thick fingers round it. He lifted it up. And still, it looked like nothing more than a stone.
The First of the Magi stared down at the thing in his hand, his eyes growing wider and wider. “This is not it,” he whispered, his lip trembling. “This is just a stone!”
There was a stunned silence. Jezal stared at Logen, and the Northman gazed back, scarred face slack with confusion. Jezal stared at Longfoot, and the Navigator could only shrug his bony shoulders. Jezal stared at Ferro, and he watched her frown grow harder and harder. “Just a stone?” she muttered.
“Not it?” hissed Quai.
“Then…” The meaning of Bayaz’ words was only just starting to sink into Jezal’s mind. “I came all this way… for nothing?” A sudden gust blew up, snuffing out the miserable tongue of flame and blowing grit in his face.
“Perhaps there is some mistake,” ventured Longfoot. “Perhaps there is another spirit, perhaps there is another—”
“No mistake,” said Logen, firmly shaking his head.
“But…” Quai’s eyes were bulging from his ashen face. “But… how?”
Bayaz ignored him, muscles working on the side of his head.
“Kanedias. His hand is in this. He found some way to trick his brothers, and switch this lump of nothing for the Seed, and keep it for himself. Even in death, the Maker denies me!”
“Just a stone?” growled Ferro.
“I gave up my chance to fight for my country,” murmured Jezal, indignation starting to flicker up in his chest, “and I slogged hundreds of miles across the wasteland, and I was beaten, and broken, and left scarred… for nothing?”
“The Seed.” Quai’s pale lips were curling back from his teeth, his breath snorting fast through his nose. “Where is it? Where?”
“If I knew that,” barked his master, “do you suppose we would be sitting here on this forsaken island, bantering with spirits for a chunk of worthless rock?” And he lifted his arm and dashed the stone furiously onto the ground. It cracked open and split into fragments, and they bounced, and tumbled, and clattered down among a hundred others, a thousand others, a million others the same.
“It’s not here.” Logen shook his head sadly. “Say one thing for—”
“Just a stone?” snarled Ferro, her eyes swivelling from the fallen chunks of rock to Bayaz’ face. “You fucking old liar!” She sprang up, fists clenched tight by her sides. “You promised me vengeance!”
Bayaz rounded on her, his face twisted with rage. “You think I have no greater worries than your vengeance?” he roared, flecks of spit flying from his lips and out into the rushing gale. “Or your disappointment?” he screamed in Quai’s face, veins bulging in his neck. “Or your fucking looks?” Jezal swallowed and faded back into the hollow, trying to seem as small as he possibly could, his own anger extinguished by Bayaz’ towering rage as sharply as the meagre fire had been by the blasting wind a moment before. “Tricked!” snarled the First of the Magi, his hands opening and closing with aimless fury. “With what now will I fight Khalul?”
Jezal winced and cowered, sure at any moment that one of the party would be ripped apart, or be flung through the air and dashed on the rocks, or would burst into brilliant flames, quite possibly him. Brother Longfoot chose a poor moment to try and calm matters. “We should not be downhearted, my comrades! The journey is its own reward—”
“Say that once more, you shaven dolt!” hissed Bayaz. “Only once more, and I’ll make ashes of you!” The Navigator shrank trembling away, and the Magus snatched up his staff and stalked off, down from the hollow towards the beach, his coat flailing around him in the bitter wind. So terrible had his fury been that, for a brief moment, the idea of staying on the island seemed preferable to getting back into a boat with him.
It was with that ill-tempered outburst, Jezal supposed, that their quest was declared an utter failure.
“Well then,” murmured Logen, after they had all sat in the wind for a while longer. “I reckon that’s it.” He snapped the lid of the Maker’s empty box shut. “No point crying about it. You have to be—”
“Shut your fucking mouth, fool!” snarled Ferro at him. “Don’t tell me what I have to be!” And she strode out of the hollow and down towards the hissing sea.
Logen winced as he pushed the box back into his pack, sighed as he swung it up onto his shoulder. “Realistic,” he muttered, then set off after her. Longfoot and Quai came next, all sullen anger and silent disappointment. Jezal came up the rear, stepping from one jagged stone to another, eyes nearly shut against the wind, turning the whole business over in his mind. The mood might have been deathly sombre, but as he picked his way back towards the boat, he found to his surprise that he was almost unable to keep the smile from his face. After all, success or failure in this mad venture had never really meant anything to him. All that mattered was that he was on his way home.
The water slapped against the prow, throwing up cold white spray. The sailcloth bulged and snapped, the beams and the ropes creaked. The wind whipped at Ferro’s face but she narrowed her eyes and ignored it. Bayaz had gone below decks in a fury and one by one the others had followed him out of the cold. Only she and Ninefingers stayed there, looking down at the sea.
“What will you do now?” he asked her.
“Go wherever I can kill the Gurkish.” She snapped it without thinking. “I will find other weapons and fight them wherever I can.” She hardly even knew if it was true. It was hard to feel the hatred as she had done. It no longer seemed so important a matter if the Gurkish were left to their business, and she to hers, but her doubts and her disappointment only made her bark it the more fiercely. “Nothing has changed. I still need vengeance.”
Silence.
She glanced sideways, and she saw Ninefingers frowning down at the pale foam on the dark water, as if her answer had not been the one he had been hoping for. It would have been easy to change it. “I’ll go where you go,” she could have said, and who would have been worse off? No one. Certainly not her. But Ferro did not have it in her to put herself in his power
like that. Now it came to the test there was an invisible wall between them. One that there was no crossing.
There always had been.
All she could say was, “You?” He seemed to think about it a while, angry-looking, chewing at his lip. “I should go back to the North.” He said it unhappily, without even looking at her. “There’s work there I should never have left. Dark work, that needs doing. That’s where I’ll go, I reckon. Back to the North, and settle me some scores.”
She frowned. Scores? Who was it told her you had to have more than vengeance. Now scores was all he wanted? Lying bastard. “Scores,” she hissed. “Good.”
And the word was sour as sand on her tongue.
He looked her in the eye for a long moment. He opened his mouth, as if he was about to speak, and he stayed there, his lips formed into a word, one hand part-way lifted towards her.
Then he seemed suddenly to slump, and he set his jaw, and he turned his shoulder to her and leaned back on the rail. “Good.”
And that easily it was all done between them.
Ferro scowled as she turned away. She curled up her fists and felt her nails digging into her palms, furious hard. She cursed to herself, and bitterly. Why could she not have said different words? Some breath, and a shape of the mouth, and everything is changed. It would have been easy.
Except that Ferro did not have it in her, and she knew she never would have. The Gurkish had killed that part of her, far away, and long ago, and left her dead inside. She had been a fool to hope, and in her bones she had known it all along. Hope is for the weak.
Back to the Mud
Dogman and Dow, Tul and Grim, West and Pike. Six of them, stood in a circle and looking down at two piles of cold earth. Below in the valley, the Union were busy burying their own dead, Dogman had seen it. Hundreds of ’em, in pits for a dozen each. It was a bad day for men, all in all, and a good one for the ground. Always the way, after a battle. Only the ground wins.
Shivers and his Carls were just through the trees, heads bowed, burying their own. Twelve in the earth already, three more wounded bad enough they’d most likely follow before the week was out, and another that’d lost his hand—might live, might not, depending on his luck. Luck hadn’t been good lately. Near half their number dead in one day’s work. Brave of ’em to stick after that. Dogman could hear their words. Sad words and proud, for the fallen. How they’d been good men, how they’d fought well, how bad they’d be missed and all the rest. Always the way, after a battle. Words for the dead.
Dogman swallowed and looked back to the fresh turned dirt at his feet. Tough work digging, in the cold, ground frozen hard. Still, you’re better off digging than getting buried, Logen would’ve said, and the Dogman reckoned that was right enough. Two people he’d just finished burying, and two parts of himself along with ’em. Cathil deep down under the piled-up dirt, stretched out white and cold and would never be warm again. Threetrees not far from her, his broken shield across his knees and his sword in his fist. Two sets of hopes Dogman had put in the mud—some hopes for the future, and some hopes from the past. All done now, and would never come to nothing, and they left an aching hole in him. Always the way, after a battle. Hopes in the mud.
“Buried where they died,” said Tul softly. “That’s fitting. That’s good.”
“Good?” barked Dow, glaring over at West. “Good, is it? Safest place in the whole battle? Safest place, did you tell ’em?” West swallowed and looked down, guilty seeming.
“Alright, Dow,” said Tul. “You know better than to blame him for this, or anyone else. It’s a battle. Folk die. Threetrees knew that well enough, none better.”
“We could’ve been somewhere else,” growled Dow.
“We could’ve been,” said Dogman, “but we weren’t, and there it is. No changing it, is there? Threetrees is dead, and the girl’s dead, and that’s hard enough for everyone. Don’t need you adding to the burden.”
Dow’s fists bunched up and he took a deep breath in like he was about to shout something. Then he let it out, and his shoulders sagged, and his head fell. “You’re right. Nothing to be done, now.”
Dogman reached out and touched Pike on his arm. “You want to say something for her?” The burned man looked at him, then shook his head. He wasn’t much for speaking, the Dogman reckoned, and he hardly blamed him. Didn’t look like West was about to say nothing either, so Dogman cleared his throat, wincing at the pain across his ribs, and tried it himself. Someone had to.
“This girl we buried here, Cathil was her name. Can’t say I knew her too long, or nothing, but what I knew I liked… for what that’s worth. Not much I reckon. Not much. But she had some bones to her, I guess we all saw that on the way north. Took the cold and the hunger and the rest and never grumbled. Wish I’d known her better. Hoped to, but, well, don’t often get what you hope for. She weren’t one of us, really, but she died with us, so I reckon we’re proud to have her in the ground with ours.”
“Aye,” said Dow. “Proud to have her.”
“That’s right,” said Tul. “Ground takes everyone the same.”
Dogman nodded, took a long ragged breath and blew it out. “Anyone want to speak for Threetrees?”
Dow flinched and looked down at his boots, shifting ’em in the dirt. Tul blinked up at the sky, looking like he had a bit of damp in his eye. Dogman himself was only a stride away from weeping as it was. If he had to speak another word he knew he’d set to bawling like a child. Threetrees would have known what to say, but there was the trouble, he was gone. Seemed like no one had any words. Then Grim took a step forward.
“Rudd Threetrees,” he said, looking round at ’em one by one. “Rock of Uffrith, they called him. No bigger name in all the North. Great fighter. Great leader. Great friend. Lifetime o’ battles. Stood face to face with the Bloody-Nine, then shoulder to shoulder with him. Never took an easy path, if he thought it was the wrong one. Never stepped back from a fight, if he thought it had to be done. I stood with him, walked with him, fought with him, ten years, all over the North.” His face broke out in a smile. “I’ve no complaints.”
“Good words, Grim,” said Dow, looking down at the cold earth. “Good words.”
“There’ll be no more like Threetrees,” muttered Tul, wiping his eye like he’d got something in it.
“Aye,” said the Dogman. That was all he could manage.
West turned and trudged off through the trees, his shoulders hunched up, not a word said. Dogman could see the muscles clenching in the side of his head. Blaming himself, most likely. Men liked to do that a lot when folk died, in the Dogman’s experience, and West seemed the type for it. Pike followed him, and the two of them passed Shivers, coming up the other way.
He stopped beside the graves, frowning down, hair hanging round his face, then he looked up at them. “Don’t mean no disrespect. None at all. But we need a new chief.”
“The earth’s only just turned on him,” hissed Dow, giving him the eye.
Shivers held up his hands. “Best time to discuss it, then, I reckon. So there’s no confusion. My boys are jumpy, being honest. They’ve lost friends, and they’ve lost Threetrees, and they need someone to look to, that’s a fact. Who’s it going to be?”
Dogman rubbed his face. He hadn’t even thought about it yet, and now that he did he didn’t know what to think. Tul Duru Thunderhead and Black Dow were two big, hard names, both led men before, and well. Dogman looked at them, standing there, frowning at each other. “I don’t care which o’ you it is,” he said. “I’ll follow either one. But it’s clear as clear, it has to be one of you two.”
Tul glared down at Dow, and Dow glowered back up at him. “I can’t follow him,” rumbled Tul, “and he won’t follow me.”
“That’s a fact,” hissed Dow. “We talked it out already. Never work.”
Tul shook his head. “That’s why it can’t be either one of us.”
“No,” said Dow. “It can’t be one of us.” He sucked at
his teeth, snorted some snot into his face and spat it out onto the dirt. “That’s why it has to be you, Dogman.”
“That’s why what now?” said Dogman, his eyes wide open and staring.
Tul nodded. “You’re the chief. We’ve all agreed it.”
“Uh,” said Grim, not even looking up.
“Ninefingers gone,” said Dow, “and Threetrees gone, and that leaves you.”
Dogman winced. He was waiting for Shivers to say, “You what? Him? Chief?” He was waiting for them all to start laughing, and tell him it was a joke. Black Dow, and Tul Duru Thunderhead, and Harding Grim, not to mention two dozen Carls besides, all taking his say-so. Stupidest idea he ever heard. But Shivers didn’t laugh.
“That’s a good choice, I reckon. Speaking for my lads, that’s what I was going to suggest. I’ll let ’em know.” And he turned and made off through the trees, with the Dogman gawping after him.
“But what about them others?” he hissed once Shivers was well out of hearing, wincing at a stab of pain in his ribs. “There’s twenty fucking Carls down there, and jumpy! They need a name to follow!”
“You got the name,” said Tul. “You came across the mountains with Ninefingers, fought all those years with Bethod. There ain’t no bigger names than yours left standing. You seen more battles than any of us.”
“Seen ’em, maybe—”
“You’re the one,” said Dow, “and that’s all. So you ain’t the hardest killer since Skarling, so what? Your hands are bloody enough for me to follow, and there’s no better scout alive. You know how to lead. You’ve seen the best at it. Ninefingers, and Bethod, and Threetrees, you’ve watched ’em all, close as can be.”
“But I can’t… I mean… I couldn’t make no one charge, not the way Threetrees did—”
“No one could,” said Tul, nodding down at the earth. “But Threetrees ain’t an option no more, sorry to say. You’re the chief, now, and we’ll stand behind you. Any man don’t care to do as you tell ’em can speak to us.”
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