Shadow (Scavenger Trilogy Book 1)

by K. J. Parker

  ‘Care about you . . . !’

  ‘Of course. Else why do you keep looking for me when you think I’m not watching? And all these other people you’ve had in your mind, the ones you won’t admit to, even to yourself. It’s all just because, deep down, you’re trying to make me come back.’

  ‘The hell with you!’ screamed the human—

  —And, as Poldarn opened his eyes, he realised that he’d got it right the first time; he was the body lying in the river, and the crow up above him was just another crow. More to the point, he was looking square into the face of an extremely ugly old woman with one of those ground-down faces that could be anywhere between fifty and seventy, wearing a stiff black shawl like a crow’s hood. She was strong, too; she’d hauled him over on to his back and was tugging the sword out of his sash. When she realised he was awake, she let go of the scabbard and drew the blade, pushing down on his chest with her left hand, the thumb crushing his windpipe. He managed to reach up and get the palm of his left hand under her chin; she bit his thumb with sharp, jagged teeth and he let go quickly, but he’d done enough to make her ease off the pressure on his throat. She had the sword out of the scabbard now but she was holding it awkwardly, it was too long for a straightforward underarm stab; for a moment she wasn’t sure how to proceed, and the moment was long enough for Poldarn to shift hard to his left, tip her off balance and bring his right fist up hard against the side of her jaw. Something brittle gave way; she clucked with pain, dropped the sword and jumped up. Poldarn reached forward, but she kicked his hand hard and accurately, then stepped back a few paces and turned her back on him. Moaning at the pain in her jaw, she knelt down beside another body and started to search it, ignoring Poldarn as if he didn’t exist.

  He sat up, retrieved the sword and looked at the blood and toothmarks on his hand where he’d been bitten. There was no call for that, he thought, and if his head wasn’t hurting he’d go over there and tell her what he thought about it (she was tugging a dead man’s shirt off over his head as if she was skinning a rabbit). He pulled himself upright, swayed for a moment and flopped back on to his knees. Must stop getting bashed on the head, he thought; can’t be good for you.

  While he was catching his breath and building up his strength for another assault on standing up, he looked round again, searching this time not for similarities but differences. The first and most striking of these to engage his attention was the size and scope of the scrap pile. It was far bigger than anything he’d seen before, bigger than Eolla’s collection in the stores, bigger than the whole of the salvage market in Sansory. There were certainly hundreds of bodies, possibly a thousand or more (all those shirts, trousers, boots, belts, laces, buttons, knives, purses, satchels, coats, to say nothing of the weapons and armour; looked at with the right attitude, this was better than the first week of harvest), implying that this must have been a major battle, whether it was meant to be one or not. He remembered the voices he’d heard (assuming they hadn’t been a dream); something had gone wrong according to them, the battle shouldn’t have happened or shouldn’t have got out of hand to such an extent. He wondered where the armies were now, and why they’d had to rush off without stopping to bury their dead.

  He heard a shriek of fear and looked around. He saw his friend the old woman and another just like her; his one (he could tell her from the other by the asymmetrical set of her jaw) was kneeling behind a wounded man, holding his arms back, while the other one drew a knife from her belt. It was, of course, none of Poldarn’s business. But there was a stone of the right size and shape right next to his hand, and he was still annoyed about being bitten. He picked up the stone and threw it as hard as he could. In a sense he missed, since he’d been meaning to hit the woman with the knife somewhere on the arm or shoulder. Instead the stone hit her just above the ear, and she went down with a few frantic flaps of her baggy black wings and lay still. The other woman looked up, saw him and screamed something at him, then let go of the soldier’s arms, snatched up a bundle of shirts, boots, trousers and stockings so fat she could hardly get her arms around it, and hobbled off at a fair speed into the wood.

  Poldarn stood up, went over and turned the other woman’s body over with his toe. She was still breathing, just about, but there was blood pouring from her nose, mouth and ear. A humanitarian would probably put her out of her misery, but he wasn’t in the mood.

  ‘Thank you,’ someone said. Poldarn looked behind; he’d forgotten the soldier whose throat they’d been about to cut. Strictly speaking, of course, Poldarn had just saved his life.

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘It was instinct more than anything. Maybe I grew up on a farm.’

  The other man didn’t know what to make of that but laughed anyway. ‘I don’t know how they can do that,’ he said. ‘That’s really terrible.’ He stopped, and looked down. Poldarn noticed for the first time that his legs didn’t look right. ‘Horses,’ the man said. ‘The last thing I remember was falling off mine. I guess I’m lucky they only trampled my legs.’

  Poldarn frowned. There was no reason why he should help; equally, no reason why he shouldn’t. Instinctively he felt for the letter, then remembered that he’d already delivered it. In that case, his time was his own. He went across and knelt beside the man.

  ‘This is going to sound strange,’ he said, ‘but if you want me to help you, listen carefully and don’t interrupt. I got bashed on the head a while back and lost my memory, and it hasn’t come back yet. This means I don’t know who you are, or what this battle was about, or whether you’re the good guys or the bad guys. Understood?’

  The man looked at him, and he could see him take the decision not to say anything, just nod.

  ‘Splendid. Now,’ he went on, ‘it follows that I don’t know who you belong to, or where I should return you to. You’re going to have to tell me. It’d be really helpful if you can give me a straightforward answer.’

  The man grinned. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘My name is Muno Silsny, I’m a junior captain in the seventh light cavalry division under Major-General Actis. If I’m right in thinking we won the battle, you’ll find our camp on the other side of the river, somewhere between here and Sansory; quite close, I’d imagine, probably only a mile or so. Might as well be on the moon, of course, for a man with two broken legs, so if you don’t help me I’ll almost certainly die. Not that I’m trying to put pressure on you or anything.’

  Poldarn nodded. ‘That’s lucky for you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to Sansory. If I take you back to your people, will they trade you for a horse?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘That’s all right, then. Of course,’ Poldarn went on, ‘if my cart’s still there I won’t need one. But I have a feeling it probably isn’t. Stay there, I won’t be long.’

  As he walked away, the man yelled out something like, ‘Where are you going? Come back!’ but he couldn’t be bothered to reply. He retraced his steps as far as he could remember them back into the wood; there was the tree; some more dead bodies (stripped to the skin, of course); there was the road. No cart. No surprise there.

  ‘No cart,’ he told the wounded man a little later. On his way to and from the wood he’d seen at least a dozen other living men, cut up and broken in various ways, but he had to draw the line somewhere. ‘Bloody nuisance. How am I supposed to get you across the river and down to your camp without a cart?’

  The man looked worried. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Damn.’ Poldarn sighed. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Just as well for you I’m at a loose end right now.’

  Poldarn was impressed with how strong he turned out to be. The soldier wasn’t a big man, but he wasn’t a feather-weight either, yet after the initial strain and effort of getting him over his shoulder Poldarn found he could carry him without actually killing himself. The soldier did his best not to be any trouble; although the manhandling it took to lift and sling him must have been agonising for someone with two broken legs, he hardly made any
noise about it.

  The other side of the river turned out to be as far as he could go. ‘Sorry,’ he panted, ‘but I’ve got to stop here.’ Being put down probably hurt as much or more than being picked up, but that wasn’t Poldarn’s problem, and the soldier coped with it well enough. ‘You all right?’ Poldarn asked, as soon as he had some breath spare for talking. The man nodded, eyes closed, lips squeezed together. A liar, but all in a good cause.

  ‘So your lot are presumably some sort of government army,’ he went on, when the soldier had opened his eyes. ‘What about the enemy?’

  Captain Muno pulled a face. ‘Also some sort of government army,’ he replied. ‘At least, about two-thirds of them were. The other third were a detachment from one of the free companies, the Amathy house. Have you heard of a man called Tazencius?’

  Poldarn nodded. ‘Prefect of Mael Bohec,’ he replied. ‘Caught out doing something illegal and arrested, so I’d heard.’

  Captain Muno nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, he didn’t stay arrested; some bunch of thugs rescued him and turned him loose, and he made straight for his old friend and business partner, Feron Amathy. Well, at least that’s out in the open now. We’ve been suspecting something like that for over a year now and nobody’d listen.’ Captain Muno paused and looked up. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Feron Amathy; heard of him?’

  ‘I think so,’ Poldarn replied. ‘Basically an opportunist; doesn’t mind changing sides. Is that the one you mean?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Captain Muno replied. ‘Yes, a couple of times he helped out General Cronan; yes, on those occasions he was pretty useful – well, more than useful, he saved the day, saved the empire, however you want to put it. But he’s still a treacherous bastard, and it’s almost certain he’s been sending his men out burning villages and massacring innocent people and pretending it was the raiders; there’s evidence to suggest he had something to do with what happened to Josequin, though it’s not clear whether it was his people alone or whether he was actually in league with the raiders – can you imagine that, actually helping those people? Or don’t you know what I’m talking about?’

  ‘I know who you mean,’ Poldarn replied. ‘So, the army you were fighting against . . .’

  Captain Muno breathed in deeply, then out again. ‘Tazencius showed up out of nowhere a couple of days ago just north of Liancor with about fifteen hundred Amathy house pikemen. We just happened to be at Laise Bohec, a day to the east of here, about to go off on exercises, so we were told to drop everything, get after him and bring him in. Four thousand of us; we reckoned it’d be a piece of cake. What we didn’t know was that Tazencius had sorted something out with the prefect of Liancor and borrowed the garrison, three thousand men. It was a bit of a shock, coming over the crest of that hill there and seeing them all lined up and waiting for us.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Poldarn said, inaccurately.

  The captain sighed. ‘Tazencius must’ve thought he had a chance of talking Actis into joining him, because although he had the better position and could’ve secured the ford before we could get to it, he just stood there and did nothing; and we stood here and did nothing back, because of course rules of engagement say we can’t attack our own people first, they’ve got to start it before we can fight them. Meanwhile, Tazencius sends a messenger – we’re standing about wondering what’s going on, there’s a conference or peace talks or whatever up there on the road between Actis and this messenger, and then suddenly, with no warning, some bloody fool thinks it’d be a good idea to seize the ford. To be honest with you, I don’t know if it was us or them, because I wasn’t watching; fact is, I was away in the bushes having a crap before the battle, it’s a personal ritual of mine. Next thing, of course, everybody’s scrambling down to the ford, no plan or order of battle, nothing like that, just a horrible mess and everybody piling in the river and getting trodden under or washed away. Really stupid, the whole thing. I mean, you could just about imagine the Amathy house doing something like that, but our people? We ought to’ve known better. I’m ashamed, I really am.’

  Poldarn pulled a sympathetic face, though he had no idea whether the criticisms were reasonable or not. ‘I saw the big shoving-match in the river,’ he said, ‘but I got distracted before the end, and when I – well, the next time I looked, it was all over. What happened in the end?’

  ‘We did,’ Captain Muno replied with a grin, and Poldarn realised he was much younger than he’d at first assumed; it was the pain and fear in Muno’s eyes that had given him the impression he was dealing with a man of his own age. ‘The cavalry, as always. The scouts found another ford just a mile upstream – took them bloody long enough, we’d been bashing away at each other for three hours in that damned river – so Actis called us out; we’d been fighting dismounted, would you believe, because he didn’t have any light infantry and the heavies were falling over and drowning because they couldn’t swim in all that ironmongery. Anyway, we were pulled out of the river, given our horses back, thank you so much, and told to get across the other ford as quick as we could, get behind the enemy and – well, do our job, that’s what cavalry’s supposed to be for. And we did.’ A frown crossed his face, unwelcome but insistent. ‘Nasty fight that was; not for us, for them, but it was pretty grim stuff up the front end. I was in the middle, of course, nothing to do once the charge had gone in; then we must’ve smashed through because we started moving up at the double, and that was when some bastard threw something at me and I fell off my horse, and that was that.’ He sighed. ‘We definitely won, though,’ he said, ‘because when I came round I could see where we’d been. Piles and heaps of them, maybe one or two or us – and me, of course. Just my luck, spoiling the squadron average and kill-to-loss ratio. We were at the top of the second division in the cavalry league before today, but I expect we’ve dropped a place now.’

  Poldarn waggled his shoulders in a show of sympathy. ‘Next stage,’ he said. ‘Sorry about all this stopping and starting, but it’s the best I can do.’

  It took a long time to cover a mile, but there was a steep slope to climb, and the wet ground was slippery, doubling the effort involved. By the time he reached the camp, which was more or less where Muno had said it would be, he was exhausted. Certainly, not in the mood for any aggravation from the sentries.

  ‘Halt,’ shouted a man with a spear, jumping out from behind a tree. ‘Who goes there? Stand and identify yourself,’ he added, levelling the spear an inch from Poldarn’s throat.

  ‘Piss off,’ Poldarn replied, taking a step sideways to avoid the spear and carrying on without stopping. The guard did a double-take and came scampering after him.

  ‘You! Didn’t you hear me? I said—’

  ‘I heard you,’ Poldarn said wearily. ‘Look, I’ve got one of your men here; two broken legs and God knows what else. You want him or not?’

  The guard clearly hadn’t been briefed on a situation like this. ‘All right,’ he said, in a tragic voice, ‘but I’ll have to clear it with the duty officer first. You just wait there—’

  ‘No chance,’ Poldarn snapped. ‘What do you think this is, a sack of lambs’ wool? Either you take him or get out of my way and tell me where you stack the wounded.’

  The guard looked utterly miserable. ‘Oh for God’s – straight down between the rows of tents, third left, second right, look for a big green awning, that’s the mess tent. Behind that on your left . . .’

  ‘Stuff it,’ Poldarn interrupted. ‘You show me the way.’

  ‘But I can’t leave my post.’

  ‘Shut up and do as you’re told.’

  So the sentry led the way; and whenever he tried to grab hold of someone to take over as guide, either they outranked him and told him off or dodged out of the way before he could open his mouth. All this time, of course, Poldarn’s legs weren’t getting any stronger and Muno carried on weighing a lot.

  ‘There,’ the sentry said, pointing at a green tent in the middle of a bloc
k. ‘That one.’ Then he spun round and scampered off the way they’d just come without looking back.

  The surgeon was just finishing up an amputation when Poldarn came in; he was standing beside the table with a leg in one hand and a thick pad of bloodstained wool in the other. ‘Who are you?’ he asked as the orderlies removed the previous patient and slotted him in beside the others on the floor.

  ‘Nobody you know,’ Poldarn said. He bent down and tried to shrug Muno off on to the table without jarring or dropping him. Fortunately he’d passed out some time ago.

  The surgeon glared at him. ‘Can’t you see there’s a line?’ he grumbled, indicating the row of damaged people Poldarn had just walked past.

  ‘None of my business,’ he replied. ‘I said I’d get him here, and I have. In return, he said you’d give me a horse.’

  The surgeon laughed. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but you’ve been had. No chance of that, sorry. If we were back in barracks, just possibly. Right now, forget it.’ He grinned, showing about four teeth. ‘Now if you wanted to trade the other way round, you could take your pick.’

  That annoyed Poldarn, but he was so delighted and relieved to have got rid of Muno’s weight that he couldn’t be bothered to argue. ‘The hell with you, then,’ he said, dragged himself out of the tent and flopped down on a short barrel that stood next to the flap.

  For quite some time he didn’t think about anything except how tired he was. Then he allowed himself to fret about getting home. Damned if he was going to walk. If they wouldn’t give him a horse (his own stupid fault for being so trusting), he’d have to buy one or steal one – neither option appealed to him much – or else kid somebody into giving him a ride back to or in the direction of Sansory. That didn’t seem likely to happen either.

  ‘Excuse me.’ He looked up, and saw a very young soldier in a very big, shiny helmet looking down at him. ‘Excuse me,’ the young man repeated, ‘but did you just bring in a wounded soldier? ’