Shadow (Scavenger Trilogy Book 1)

by K. J. Parker

  He shouted, Yes; but the sky exploded into light, and he saw the heel of a boot come down and skin his cheek, shearing away the skin. The sky was bright and empty. Another boot crashed into the back of his head, and everything went away.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘For the very last time,’ said the body lying in the water, ‘go away. I won’t tell you again.’ ‘Oh sure,’ sneered the reflection. ‘Wasn’t it going to be the very last time the last time you tried to get rid of me? And the time before that?’

  He was in the air, feeling the crisp breeze in his wings and against the feathers of his belly. He was happy now that he’d rejoined his people, been allowed back into their mind, and would soon be flying home. Meanwhile, he spared a moment to look down at the body lying in the water (but it was still alive, so no joy) and its reflection, which was apparently talking to it.

  ‘I’m not going to listen to you any more,’ said the body to its reflection. ‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ said the reflection, scornfully. ‘Try and act like a grown-up.’

  ‘Anyway,’ the body went on, ‘fairly soon I’ll be rid of you once and for all. I’m going home.’

  ‘Home?’ The reflection laughed. ‘No such place.’

  ‘Yes there is. I’ve found my family and I’m going home over the sea, where you can’t follow me.’

  ‘Want to bet?’

  ‘You can’t follow me,’ the body repeated, ‘and even if you could, you’ll never find me there, not just one among so many. It’d be like trying to find a leaf in a forest.’

  ‘I’ll find you,’ said the reflection, ‘bet on it.’

  ‘You can try,’ replied the body. ‘I expect you will, it’s just the sort of nasty, obsessive behaviour I’ve come to expect from you. But you’ll fail.’

  Silence, just for a moment.

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ said the reflection. ‘Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. And anyway, it’s not what you really want.’

  ‘How the hell would you know?’

  ‘I know everything about you. I know everything from the moment you were born. Before that, even. Every single thing there is to know about you, I’ve got it in here. Safe, where you can’t lose it or get rid of it. It’s my duty,’ it added, ‘as your better half.’

  ‘You’ve never known me,’ said the body, furiously angry, ‘you don’t know the first thing about me. All you know about or care about is you. All these years you think you know me, but all you can see is your own smug grin in a mirror. You think I’m just a polished surface you can shine in. Well, that’s all over. I’m leaving. And without me—’ Great pleasure in the voice, suddenly. ‘Without me, you’ll be dead. You’ll just stop existing and fade away.’

  ‘You really believe that? God, you’re stupid.’

  ‘All right, we’ll see who’s left once I’ve gone, and taken the baby with me. Back home—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Back home, to his family, where he belongs.’

  When Poldarn woke up, he panicked: God help me, he thought, where am I, who am I, God damn it, I can’t even remember my own name . . .

  He lifted his head and looked round. He’d been lying in blood-soaked mud beside a river, and all around him lay the bodies of dead men; some dressed one way, some another. A crow glanced up from its meal and smirked at him, one professional acknowledging another.

  It’s all right, he told himself, as the mist cleared in his mind, you’re home. Very much home, you were born here (in that barn over there, in fact), and in a few minutes Copis will be along with the cart and you’ll be off about your missionary work; unless, of course, the world ended while you were asleep, and this is the brave new world—

  —Same as the old one, only more painful. The last time he’d been here, at this point of departure, he hadn’t had a pair of three-inch spikes stuck through his foot and his arm. This time the blood in the mud was his own, which at least afforded him a sense of belonging, almost equivalent to citizenship.

  Must’ve missed the major veins, he rationalised, or I’d be dead. Unless I am dead, and this is heaven; or unless I’m a god, in which case they could drain all the blood out of me to make sausages, and it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference.

  It would have been nice, he thought, if there’d been someone he could have asked; he was tired of having to rebuild the world from scratch practically every time he opened his eyes, it was a scandalous waste of mental energy that could have been used for more positive, constructive purposes.

  He shifted a little, wondering how he was going to get the caltrops out without making everything worse. It was a highly intriguing combination – left foot and right arm – likely to present a worthwhile challenge to even the most ingenious (as if he’d gone up a grade since last time, and had been set a fittingly ingenious puzzle as a reward).

  Come on, Copis, you’re late. No, she wouldn’t be along this time. He remembered about her now; he’d dragged her out of the store room at Deymeson, splashed water from the stable trough on her face until she’d woken up; before that he’d found a horse nobody seemed to want and he shunted her up on to it; she was still dizzy and confused, unable to talk because of her smashed jaw; he’d put the reins in her hand and led the horse by the bridle out of the abbey gate, given it a hard slap to make it walk on. She hadn’t looked back at him as the horse carried her away down the hill. He’d made sure there was some food in the saddlebags, and six gross-quarters he’d found in a dead monk’s sleeve. Then he’d gone back inside, before he was missed, and helped out with the looting and burning.

  And now here he was, and she wouldn’t be coming to rescue him from the field of battle; there was no guarantee that she was even still alive, and if she was, the only reason she’d come looking for him would be to kill him (and he could do without that kind of rescue, even now). He tried to think practically, one stage at a time. First grade: get the caltrops out. Second grade: crawl off the battlefield and find some cover. Third grade: find some food and something to drink. Fourth grade: don’t bother your head with fourth grade until you’ve passed first, second and third.

  He tried five or six times, but he couldn’t reach the caltrop in his foot, and that was the one that mattered, because he couldn’t crawl away from there until he’d got rid of it. The one in his arm was far less important; once he was off the field and inside the barn over there, he could attend to it at his leisure, if only he could find some way of getting this other one out of his foot . . . He considered trying to kick one of the other spikes into the ground, anchoring the caltrop firmly enough so that he’d be able to draw his foot clear (like a man drawing a sword from a scabbard, given that he would be the scabbard). The pain caused by one gentle, tentative attempt was enough to convince him to forget about that idea. He let go, sinking back into the mud.

  What had happened, he wondered, in the battle? Who’d won? When he left it, the raiders (his side?) appeared to be losing or about to lose, but they were the raiders, the invincible, nearly supernatural enemy he’d heard so much about; it was almost impossible to believe that they’d choose this one occasion to go against the grain and fail for the very first time. Besides, he’d only seen one small part of the battle, and his impressions could therefore have been entirely misleading. In any event, the battle was over, or it had moved a long way away. Perhaps each side had wiped out the other, down to the very last man, leaving him as the sole survivor.

  If that was the case, he didn’t want to know.

  Didn’t matter in any event. The battle, the war didn’t mean anything to him, and he belonged to neither side, or both. True, he had a strong intuitive feeling that the raiders were his people, but it wasn’t very long at all since he’d had exactly the same feeling about the sword-monks. They couldn’t both be his people, since the raiders had hated the order so much they’d frittered away time and energy wiping them out; how could there be an
y common ground between two such deadly enemies?

  Since he couldn’t see anything but mud, he closed his eyes for a while and tried not to think about the pain (which only made it worse; he could feel every nerve in his body each time his heart beat). It was some time before he realised there was someone else moving about.

  He kept perfectly still. Helpless as he was, there was nothing he could do to save himself if whoever it was turned out to be the enemy, or even just some scavenger from a nearby farm, picking through the dead for scrap. On the other hand, if it was a friend and he kept still and quiet, he could escape notice and miss out on his only hope of being rescued. He thought about that; if nobody rescued him, he was probably going to die here, and it would take a long time and be unpleasant. Since the worst that could happen was going to happen anyway, why the hell bother with caution?

  He tried to sit up, but it hurt so badly that he cried out at the pain. That, however, was all that was needed; a moment later he found himself staring at the toes of a boot.

  ‘Is that you?’ someone asked.

  —Which was a very good question, given his circumstances. But the voice was, once again, familiar.

  ‘Eyvind?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I thought it was.’ The voice was much closer; whoever it was, he was kneeling down. ‘God almighty, look what happened to you. Here, hold still. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, but I expect we’ll soon find out.’

  It was annoying and illogical that he’d hardly felt the caltrop spike go in, but the pain as it left his foot was almost enough to stop his heart. ‘Damn,’ said the voice he believed was Eyvind, ‘it’s started bleeding. I don’t know; do I leave the other one where it is, or do I pull it out? Well?’

  He realised that the voice had asked him for a decision, a choice between options. That hardly seemed fair, to his way of thinking. ‘Haven’t a clue,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling that if you make the wrong decision I’ll probably die, but that’s about as helpful as I can be. Sorry.’

  There was definitely an edge to the voice as it replied, ‘All I wanted was a straight answer to a civil question. Damn it, I suppose I’d better leave it in there for now. Seems to me that if you’ve lived this long with it in, a few more minutes won’t kill you. We’ll see.’

  He thought about the implications of that. ‘Who won the battle?’ he asked.

  ‘Quiet a moment, I’m going to try and get you up on your feet.’

  He saw two hands passing in front of his face, then he felt them each gathering a fistful of his shirt and he was lifted up off the ground like a sack. Eyvind was apparently stronger than he’d looked.

  The pain as he tried to put weight on his pierced foot was enough to make him squeal, but a hand grabbed his left arm and draped it round a pair of broad, thin shoulders, and he was able to lift his foot off the ground and still stay upright. He opened his eyes, which he’d instinctively closed when the pain started.

  ‘Right,’ Eyvind said, ‘that was probably the difficult part, we’ll see. Gently now, there’s no need to rush.’

  Behind the barn was a cart. Needless to say, a crow was perching on the box; he was sure that given time he’d be able to remember its name. It flew away as they approached, ploughing a weary line across the broad sky.

  ‘They did,’ Eyvind said, dumping him down on the box and scrambling up beside him. ‘It was a massacre.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  Eyvind picked up the reins. ‘We don’t even know how many of us made it,’ he went on, urging the horses into a brisk walk. ‘We haven’t had time for a head count. Best guess at the moment is that half of us got killed. It was a nightmare.’

  He nodded. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They decoyed us into the trap, basically,’ Eyvind said with a sigh that was more disgust and disappointment than anything else. ‘We were suckered in; those bloody spike things were what did it. After they’d got us bottled up, they pushed us back to the river, at the deepest point, needless to say, where we couldn’t get across. That was a mistake on their part,’ he went on, ‘because we managed to pull ourselves together, counterattack. We were so badly outnumbered by that stage that it should’ve gone the other way, but they lost their nerve when we started cutting them about; we punched a hole right through their centre and started to pull out, which was when the horsemen started carving us up; we lost it and started running, and of course that was the worst thing we could’ve done. End result was, by the time they realised they’d gone too far and called off the pursuit, we were scattered all over the place in fives and tens or just one man out on his own, no chance of regrouping or anything like that. They gave it up and went back towards the big town; we’ve been blundering about trying to find each other ever since. The idea is to get back in some sort of order and follow a straight line back to the ships, assuming they’re still there.’ He scowled ferociously; his expression was almost comic. ‘Since our so-called best friend knows where the ships are, that’s by no means guaranteed. All we can hope for is that he wants us to get away, since he won’t want it coming out that it was him who set all this up in the first place.’

  Poldarn nodded again. ‘You mean the Amathy house,’ he said. ‘They changed sides, didn’t they?’

  ‘Is that what they’re called? I can’t seem to remember these foreign names. Yes, that’s exactly what they did. Of course, it’s our own damn silly fault for being so trusting. I’ve said it before, these people aren’t like us, you can’t believe a single word they say.’

  Poldarn thought about the monks of Deymeson, and Copis. ‘Are we any better?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Eyvind replied. ‘We don’t even lie to our enemies. Not that we ever need to, of course; if you don’t talk to them, you can’t lie to them. Saves a lot of trouble in the long run.’

  ‘I suppose it would,’ Poldarn said. ‘Where are we headed?’

  ‘Over there.’ Eyvind indicated the direction with a vague dip of his head. ‘There’s a little combe, well hidden, you wouldn’t know it was there unless you were looking for it. Mercifully we happened to find it on our way up here, and after they’d stopped chasing us we all had the wit to head for it. The general idea is to hang about there till it gets dark and then sneak back up the way we came, past that religious place we took out, and find the north-west road in the morning. If we keep going after that, we ought to have a clear run to the coast, provided they don’t figure out what we’re up to and cut us off. But I doubt they will, they aren’t organised enough. Probably be back to fighting among themselves in a day or so,’ he added contemptuously. ‘They always seem to be doing that, and what it is they’re actually fighting over, God only knows. I don’t suppose they do.’

  Poldarn shook his head. ‘It’s complicated, certainly,’ he said. ‘While I think of it, I never did get to ask you what happened to you after that first time we met—’

  Eyvind laughed. ‘Amazing stroke of luck,’ he said. ‘The day after we ran into each other I walked straight into a scouting party – they’d have killed me, only I recognised one of them from back home and yelled out his name. It’s like some providence is looking out for me,’ he went on. ‘And the same with you, I reckon; if I hadn’t happened to see you there when we attacked that column of horsemen you were with – well, you’d be feeding the crows right now, no question about that. And again just now; pure luck I found that cart, just standing there empty on the road with the horses still between the shafts. And I didn’t set out to look for survivors, I just happened to look in your direction and there you were, so I went to see if you were still breathing. No idea why I did it, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I reckon you’ve got someone up there looking out for you, in which case I’m going to stick close to you, hope some of it rubs off on me. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Stay close to a lucky man.’

  ‘That makes sense, I suppose,’ Poldarn replied. He hadn’t thought of himself as unusually lucky before, but he could see Eyvind�
��s point. And there are several different kinds of luck, some more desirable than others. He thought for a moment, then asked, ‘When you get back to the ships, can I come with you?’

  Eyvind gave him a curious look, then laughed. ‘What a strange question,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course you’re coming with us, you’re one of us. All right, so you may have lost your memory; doesn’t alter the fact that you’re clearly one of our own. We wouldn’t dream of abandoning you here.’

  Poldarn nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘So what’ll I do when I get to your country? Our country,’ he amended.

  Eyvind shrugged. ‘My guess is, either you’ll remember who you are and where you live, or somebody’ll recognise you soon enough. Failing that, you’ll come and stay at our place for as long as you like. Trust me, as soon as you’re home in the islands, it’ll all come flooding back. I mean, think about it. The only reason why you’d lose your memory for so long is because you’re in the middle of this totally foreign, alien country, among all these people who’re nothing at all like us, so naturally nothing’s familiar, there’s nothing to jog your memory, break the ice. I can see that clearly enough after being lost and alone in this country myself; I tell you, there were times when I reckoned I was having trouble remembering who I was and where I came from; when I closed my eyes and tried to think of home there was just this vague blurry picture, like seeing it all through autumn fog. Bloody disconcerting that was, I can tell you, scared the life out of me. What it’s been like for you, after several months of it – makes my blood run cold thinking about it.’

  It wasn’t far to the combe Eyvind had been talking about, and he’d been right; it was so well hidden that they were rolling down the sheep track into it almost before he realised it was there. It was much larger than he’d imagined, and nearly full of people, most of them lying or sitting on the ground, talking to their neighbours or dozing or playing dice or knucklebones, as if they were at some kind of festival or outing. He wondered what it would take to make these people act miserable—