Shadow (Scavenger Trilogy Book 1)

by K. J. Parker

  Monach closed his eyes. Dying in a manner befitting a member of the order had been covered in some detail in eighth grade, and he’d come third out of twenty. The key to the approved technique was dignity, acceptance, faith in a higher purpose.

  Keeping his eyes closed, he visualised the course the knife and the hand holding it would have to take (assuming Feron Amathy was proposing to sever his jugular vein). He saw the left hand spreading to press down on his ear, to keep his head steady while the right hand cut; it was the obvious vulnerable moment, because it’s always a mistake to place your body into the enemy’s circle unless it’s led by your weapon. At the perfect moment he reached up with his right hand, caught hold of the other man’s left index finger, pressed it back sharply and broke it.

  Feron Amathy squealed, his instinct making him try to pull away. That was good. Monach increased his grip on the broken finger so that Feron Amathy, trying to yank his hand back, put most of his body weight into the area of maximum pain. Excellent: in tight corners, use pain to confuse the enemy, force him to overlook his advantage and his opportunity for a single finishing cut. In the meanwhile Monach had time to shift his position on the ground (not that he wanted to, but he supposed it had to be done), enough so that he could get his left hand round the other man’s right wrist and shake the knife out of it. At some point during this manoeuvre a spike of pain made him open his eyes and he found that he was looking directly at Feron Amathy’s face. He saw the fear and smiled, just as the knife hit the ground.

  He let go of the other man’s wrist and gathered up the knife. As anticipated, Feron Amathy pulled away with all his strength, freeing his broken finger and screaming as the pain lit up his whole body. Monach took advantage of having his right hand free again by slamming the heel of it up under the other man’s chin. Quite correctly, Feron Amathy slumped backwards, landing on his broken finger and howling.

  In Monach’s mind, the calm, contemptuous voice of Father Tutor told him to assess the situation objectively. For the moment he had a total ascendency, but it was a moot point whether it would last long enough for him to get in close and kill the enemy, especially given his own wretched condition. Any attempt at a finishing cut would only provoke a furious instinctive resistance, like the one he’d just put up, which could easily lead to disaster in spite of his superiority in technique and firm grasp of theory. If, on the other hand, he chose to get up and leave the tent, it was highly unlikely that Feron Amathy would try to pursue him personally. Instead he’d yell at the top of his voice for the guard, and by the time they arrived anybody who’d attained a pass in grade five, let alone a second-class distinction, ought to be among the shadows and halfway to making a perfect escape, regardless of any previous injuries.

  As always, Father Tutor was right, and the idea that here was a moment of destiny, when he had the crucial Feron Amathy at his mercy and could kill him easily, was just an illusion. Someone with less discipline, less training, less skill in the interpretation of theory might be fooled into thinking that this was a point at which the world would change for ever, but Monach knew better. Only a god could do something like that.

  An intriguing thought occurred to him. Not all that long ago he’d almost managed to convince himself that he was the god Poldarn. He’d talked himself out of it, reasonably enough, but somewhere in his mind there lingered just a smear of a suspicion. Now, if he really was a god, surely all he’d have to do was say the word, or just think it, and his injuries would miraculously heal. Gods, after all, can’t be injured; they can project an illusion of injury, possibly well enough to deceive themselves, but no actual harm could come to them. It was worth a try.

  He thought the command, and waited. For one very brief moment, he wasn’t sure; then the pain reasserted itself, and he knew. Another theory knocked on the head. Never mind.

  He made it to the tent flap before Feron Amathy started yelling for the guard. Any kind of movement was fairly close to being unbearable; walking should have been technically impossible, let alone running. Looked at from another angle, he had the time it would take for the guards to enter the tent and get their orders in which to get through the camp and into the village. He ran.

  At exactly what point the idea took shape in his mind he couldn’t say. It might even have been before he broke Feron Amathy’s finger; certainly it had very nearly evolved into its final form when he stuck his head out of the tent and looked for an escape route. Partly it was desperation – who else did he know in Cric, after all? Of course, there was no reason whatsoever to suppose that the old man who might just be General Allectus would be inclined to help him. But if his guess was right, the old man would have nothing to lose by harbouring a fugitive, since if he was caught and recognised by a soldier from the Amathy house he’d be killed immediately in any case. A lot would depend on whether General Allectus saw it that way, of course. Always assuming he really was General Allectus.

  It was a stupid idea; but it gave him something to focus on, a purpose. They’d taught him that long ago, at an age when other boys were still playing with wooden swords and fighting make-believe enemies: if you have to run, run towards something, not just away. The slightest trace of purpose will often keep back the smothering blanket of fear, which is nearly always a worse enemy than the source of danger itself, just as more people are killed by the smoke in a burning house than the actual fire.

  His sense of direction was hazy, but he had an idea that when he’d been brought in he’d made a note in his mind that the general’s tent was at right angles to the road through the camp, on the left-hand side. Find the road, turn left and keep going, parallel to it, picking a way through the rows of tents . . . He staggered as his knees and his breath collapsed simultaneously, but he managed to keep his balance by swaying wildly, like a drunken old man.

  That was a thought. He tried to picture them in his mind, vague figures he’d seen in every town and city he’d been to; the mind filtered them out after a while, since they were of no possible importance and an eyesore into the bargain. He analysed their way of moving – unselfconscious, confident in a twisted sort of a way, since men with neither past nor future are rarely afraid of anything. He remembered one or two who were familiar sights from the lower town in Deymeson. Cripples, both of them; one, now he came to think of it, must have broken both legs at some point and had them heal without being set; the other had wrecked his back, or been born like it, so that he always walked along with his nose right down by his feet, the knuckles of his fingers dragging along the ground. As he adjusted his stance and posture to copy them, it occurred to him that they must spend their entire lives in something like the pain he felt now, and for a moment he was filled with admiration for their courage and endurance (because he would either die or escape, be rescued and healed; they would be here for ever, in the confined area of pain, the circle).

  Whatever else he wasn’t, Monach was a fine actor. The guards passed him three times: once, at the run, going towards the town; once, at the double, coming back; the last time, walking dejectedly, going out again. The third time he called out to them, a vague loud noise that was composed half out of words and the rest of mere roaring. They swung out a few yards further into the road to avoid him.

  Cric village was deserted. Of course, it always would be at this time of night, since hard-working farmers rise and go to bed with the sun. Nobody here wasted good tallow by burning a lamp or a candle. There was just enough starlight to mark the difference between emptiness and the shadows of buildings. As he trudged and swayed and staggered, Monach found that although he felt the pain with each step, it wasn’t actually troubling him – because it wasn’t his, it belonged to the persona of the old drunk, a character he’d dragged into the world to carry his sufferings for him like a porter. Instead he used each ache and wrench and spike of pain as a foundation for his performance – the more it hurts, the less you feel it; that still made no more sense than it had twenty years ago, but the order had been of the o
pinion that learning it by heart would make him a better monk, more able to make the draw and understand the nature of the gods.

  He hadn’t been counting doors and there weren’t any visual landmarks to guide him, but he knew which house belonged to the man he was looking for, because his instinct and intuition told him which one it was, and he believed in them as a true monk should. He felt for the latch and lifted it. It wasn’t locked or bolted; Cric wasn’t that sort of place.

  ‘Hello?’ He stepped inside, resisting the temptation to stand up straight in spite of the pain in his back and shoulders. Stay in persona until the very last moment, just in case. ‘Hello,’ he repeated, ‘is anybody there?’

  ‘All right, I can hear you,’ replied a voice in the darkness. ‘There’s no need to shout.’

  It was a voice he thought he recognised, at any rate. He tried to remember the name the old man had been using the last time he was here. Jolect; Jolect something or something Jolect, and he’d claimed to be a plain, ordinary retired soldier.

  ‘Sergeant Jolect?’ he said. ‘Am I in the right house?’

  The voice chuckled. ‘What if I told you that you weren’t?’

  ‘That would depend,’ Monach croaked as a surge of pain too broad and grand for him to ignore swept up from his knees to his chin.

  ‘Depend on what?’

  ‘On whether you’re telling the truth.’

  The voice chuckled again, this time with a little more colour. ‘Yes, I’m called Jolect,’ it said. ‘But I was never a sergeant.’

  ‘Would it be all right,’ Monach asked, very quietly, ‘if I sat down on your floor? Just for a moment or so.’ Before the old man could answer, Monach pressed his back against the wall and slid down to the floor. It took him a great deal of effort not to yell and scream.

  ‘By all means,’ the old man said. ‘I won’t press you for your name,’ he went on, ‘but as and when you feel like mentioning it—’

  ‘Vesser,’ Monach said. ‘Vesser Oldun. I—’ He coughed, and took advantage of the pause to think. ‘I was on the road, on my way home – I’m a trader, you see, I deal in small household stuff, buckles and pins and brooches and buttons, that sort of thing – and I was just a mile or so north-west of here, shortly before sunset, when some men on horses overtook me and – well, you can probably guess the rest. I lay there for a while until I felt strong enough to move, and made my way into town. Is there an inn here?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, that’s a nuisance. I’m sorry,’ Monach added, trying to ignore the pain in his jaw that came from so much talking, ‘you must be wondering why I came bursting in here like that. The truth is, I was looking for an inn, as I said just now, and then all of a sudden I started feeling so weak and faint I simply couldn’t stand up any more. So I pushed on the first door I came to, and it turned out to be yours. I’m terribly sorry if I’m causing you a lot of trouble or anything. ’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ the voice replied. ‘Well, well, that is a surprise. I don’t think anybody’s been robbed in these parts for forty years, or at least that’s what my neighbours have told me. Of course, I was away for a great many years and only came back here – what, a dozen years ago? Less than that, probably, I can’t remember. Anyway, I can’t vouch for it personally, for the reasons I just gave, but I’m fairly sure what they told me about the lack of robberies is more or less true. So, if someone’s just set up in that line of work nearby, we’ll have to do something about it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Monach said, struggling a little. ‘Yes, you really should.’ He could feel himself sliding into sleep, there was a dream already open and waiting for him to fall into it. ‘Well, if there’s no inn . . .’

  The voice laughed. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to stay here for the night, or as long as you want to. In the morning, though, when the boy comes with my breakfast, I’ll send him for one of my neighbours. She’s very good with broken bones and medicines.’

  Monach managed to thank him before his mind tripped and went sprawling into the dream—

  Monach opened his eyes, and saw bright daylight. Instinctively he looked up, and saw a blue sky with a few smudges of high white cloud. The position of the sun told him it was mid-morning. It was very quiet, but he could sense that he wasn’t alone. Something was about to happen.

  He looked over his shoulder, and saw an army. They were drawn up in line of battle, and their formations stretched away on either side as far as he could see, thousands of men, standing at parade ease, all staring straight ahead. He turned back and tried to make out what it was that they all found so fascinating.

  He couldn’t see it. He and the army were just below the crest of a hogsback ridge, looking down a fairly gentle, even slope of what looked to him like average-to-good sheep grazing towards a quite substantial wood at the foot of a steep hill. There were no houses, barns, linhays or other buildings in sight, no walls or hedges or livestock. As views went it was pleasant enough, but rather dull.

  I wonder who I am, he thought, but didn’t allow himself to dwell on the point. He was sure he’d find out soon enough, and besides, it was only a dream.

  ‘There, look,’ somebody said, a few yards away on his right. He looked at the man who’d just spoken; his arm was outstretched and he was pointing. ‘Just coming round the edge of the wood, look,’ the man went on. Monach followed the line of his finger, but couldn’t see anything. ‘Can you see it, General?’ the man went on, and Monach perceived that the words had been addressed to him. ‘Outriders, probably,’ the man went on, ‘or mounted pioneers. Do you want me to send out a cavalry squad, see if we can cut them off?’

  Damn, he’s asking me a question, Monach thought, slightly flustered. If this dream is something that really happened, what if I give the wrong order, and we lose the battle? Or win the battle, for that matter, when we should’ve lost it? Would that mean I’d be trapped in this dream and unable to get back out again?

  ‘It’s funny you should say that.’ Monach looked round; standing right next to him on his left was the old man from Cric, the one who might once have been General Allectus, the one on whose floor Monach’s body was sleeping.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Monach said.

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ the old man said. ‘And I shouldn’t have startled you like that. No, it’s all right. No matter what orders you give them, I’ll still lose the battle, history will take its course. Those men there—’ he gestured to his left with the back of his hand, ‘the Amathy house,’ he went on, ‘they’ll change sides as soon as things start to go wrong for me, and that’ll be that. But we’re drifting away from the point, I apologise. I just wanted to set your mind at rest, so you can enjoy the dream without fretting about getting home again afterwards. ’

  ‘Thank you,’ Monach felt obliged to say.

  ‘My pleasure. Now, what was I about to tell you? Oh yes.’ The old man wiped a strand of fine white hair out of his eyes; the wind was getting up, and here on the slope they were in a position to catch the worst of it. ‘This idea of yours about getting trapped in a dream.’

  ‘What? Oh, right, I see.’

  ‘It’s not a new thought,’ the old man went on. ‘In fact, in some versions of the Poldarn myth, that’s what happens to him; he falls asleep under a lime tree on Deymeson Hill and in his dream he suddenly finds himself sitting on the box of a cart, dragging across the moors to a place called Cric. But he doesn’t remember who he is or where he came from, or anything like that, let alone the fact that he’s a god, not a mortal.’ The old man laughed; he seemed to be in rare high spirits. Of course, he was younger than Monach remembered him. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘what my men – sorry, your men – are looking out for is the first sign of General Cronan’s army, which is due to come out from behind that wood any moment now. When it does, you’ll give the order to stay put and receive them here. It’s a very sensible order, and even now I can’t help wondering what’d have happened if
they’d obeyed it.’ He sighed, and suddenly he was an old man again, though only for a moment. ‘They don’t, of course,’ he went on. ‘They let Cronan’s men get halfway up this slope, and suddenly take it into their minds to charge. That works very well to begin with, until Cronan springs his trap and two thousand heavy cavalry come out of the wood, race up the hill on the flanks and cut us in half. The lower half keeps on pushing forward, bursts through the line and carries on down the slope and into that wood. They don’t come out again, ever. The top half – well, Feron Amathy changes sides, and the rest of them pull back in good order to the top of the ridge and withdraw from the field. I- – you – we stay here, trying to rally enough men for a stand; the enemy cavalry catch sight of us and at the last minute we break and run away – you and me with them, of course, which is why I’m alive and trapped here. If for some reason you decide to stay, please try not to win the battle. As I told you a moment ago, winning’d be the easy option. And it wouldn’t matter, even if you did win. You’d still lose, but it’d all take longer and the casualties would be higher. Ah,’ the old man said sharply, ‘they’re here, and about time too.’