‘I think I can do better,’ the sorcerer replied. ‘There’s a bit of a breeze up here now; if the bracken’s already swaying a fair bit and the wind’s good and loud, any blundering about you all do shouldn’t be noticed. All it needs is a little push.’
‘A push?’
But Wodeman did not explain. With a wink and a grin as if to say Just leave it to me, he leapt away back up the slope and once again melted from sight.
Nibulus turned back to his men. ‘Whatever he’s doing,’ he said hurriedly, ‘we can’t hang about. Appa, you stay here with the horse. The rest of us—’
‘If you need someone to hold the horse out of sight,’ Kuthy cut in, ‘I can do that.’
‘Appa can do that!’ Nibulus corrected him, thrusting his face into Kuthy’s.
‘Absolutely,’ Bolldhe agreed, staring at Kuthy through narrowed eyes. ‘Your skills will be more useful with us, hero.’
Bolldhe had made up his mind that he really did not like Kuthy Tivor one little bit. Ever since they had met, the man had not been able to take his greedy, thievish eyes off Zhang.
And, as Paulus took a certain pleasure in pointing out, ‘Appa’s as slow, puny and scrawny as an old de-shelled tortoise left out in the sun to dry.’
‘I am as Cuna made me,’ Appa responded defensively, visibly wounded by this remark, though he did admit rather sadly that he would only be a burden out there.
‘Suit yourselves,’ Kuthy replied with a shrug. ‘Both of us can hold the horse, then. I have absolutely no intention of risking my skin for somebody else’s sword, no matter how you lot voted. I told you before, my only commitment is guiding you through these lands.’
He looked around at them, and from their faces it was clear their feelings ranged from disenchanted to absolutely sickened. It was not just disappointment in the man himself, but also in the legend. Nibulus in particular – ever the competitive one – was hoping to witness some of the Tivor’s much-vaunted expertise with the sword, and see if he really was as good as he was reputed to be. Besides, to fight alongside a legend such as this was ever the dream of warriors.
But there was not a thing they could do about it. Not a thing.
‘Besides,’ Kuthy went on, ‘by rights you shouldn’t have escaped those maniacs last time. We’ve already pushed Chance’s goodwill to breaking point. It’d be churlish to ask any more of her.’
‘Thank Pel’ we’ll be leaving you soon,’ Nibulus muttered, ‘you little git.’
‘I can follow you to the top of the ridge,’ Kuthy offered helpfully. ‘My bow is quicker than any of their missiles.’
‘This will make a great song for the bards,’ Finwald said. ‘“The Lay of Brave, Brave Tivor”.’
But Kuthy just smiled and took his bow from his back. ‘I wouldn’t believe everything you hear in the stories,’ he said. ‘Bards don’t get paid for singing about cowards.’
Without another word, the five raiders loped off up the hill to rejoin Wodeman. They found him just below the crest of the ridge. There he knelt on one knee, eyes clamped shut and deep striae lining his leathery brow. He was squeezing one of his runes tightly between finger and thumb. It was almost certainly the elemental rune of Air, but this was difficult to see as there was blood on it. Wodeman’s blood. As usual.
Bolldhe could not help but wonder at the Torca, a people so close to nature yet so ready to spill the contents of their own bodies; in his experience, one of the preoccupations of nature was to keep one’s blood inside one’s veins.
Whether Wodeman’s ‘little push’ was working, Bolldhe did not know, but up here the wind was undeniably stronger. It did not come from any particular direction, rather it flew about in fitful gusts, spiralled through the tall grasses and whistled shrilly like an unquiet elemental spirit. Wodeman’s red curls flew up to dance to the music of the air, and his wolfskin cloak bristled.
Nibulus and Paulus pricked up their ears at the familiar sound, hesitant for a moment. They had heard the same back in the Blue Mountains when Wodeman had conjured his Air Elemental against the Leucrota and its company. But now it was rather different; last time they had heard exultant shrieks of uncontrolled elemental frenzy, but this time the sound was remote and troubled, as if it were being summoned to this alien land contrary to its will. There was chaos in that wind, yet it wavered, unsure as to whither it should go.
Disquiet in their souls, the company flattened themselves on their fronts and crawled up to the very top of the ridge. There at last, they peered down at the land below.
Sloping down to the rocky hillock, the hillside was, as Wodeman had reported, a thick carpet of bracken. The bright green fronds were whipping this way and that, and swallows darted and swooped in exuberance.
And lurking at the shadowed base of the knoll were the thieves.
By the look of it, and much to the dismay of the Aescals, few if any had perished at the hands (or rather feet) of the Giant. Twelve of them could now be seen moving around their messy camp. The hulking figure of Meat Cleaver was easiest to recognize, but so too could be discerned the shock of acid-green hair belonging to Hlessi and the brightly coloured silks of Raedgifu. Four diminutive figures sat off to one side, still eating by the looks of it. And halfway up the slope, only fifty or so yards away from Bolldhe and the others, was a lone sentry. It was Eggledawc Clagfast, the former Peladane with the huge, double-pointed war-hammer. He was still chewing upon the last of his food, and was facing vaguely southwards, away from them.
‘We’ll pull him down first,’ Nibulus whispered, readying himself.
‘Might be better as a hostage,’ Paulus suggested, with uncharacteristic humanity. ‘Yes, we can always torture him to death when we’ve got what we want.’
‘Bolldhe,’ the Peladane hissed, ‘think you can do it? As soon as you take him, that can be the signal for the rest of us—’
‘We’re almost here!’ a sudden voice interrupted. They turned to see Kuthy staring off up to the north somewhere.
‘What?’
‘The tunnel entrance – the way out of Eotunlandt. It’s just over there, see? I recognize the shape of the valley. Just over there, no doubt about it.’
‘Are you sure?’ Nibulus asked uncertainly. He was trembling with adrenalin and did not like being sidetracked like this.
‘About a mile or two that way, honest. I’d never forget a valley that distinctive. I’m just surprised we came out of the woods as far north as this. Last time I came from another direction.’
Bolldhe gritted his chattering teeth. ‘Yes, you’re full of surprises, aren’t you? You sure this isn’t another way of avoiding the fight?’
‘I already am avoiding it, dear boy,’ Kuthy replied. ‘Remember?’
Nibulus crawled over to Kuthy. With his face just inches from the adventurer’s, he stared hard into his eyes. ‘Tell me honestly, Kuthy, are you telling the truth this time? No more of your bullshite, mind. I’ll know if you’re lying. And if you are, I will kill you.’
Those cold blue eyes, hard as Tengriite, pale as a timber wolf’s, met the honest brown eyes of the Peladane and held them. Then he grinned, unable to keep a straight face. ‘You can trust old Mr Tivor, even if he is a little git.’
Nibulus’s eyes narrowed, then he shrugged. ‘In that case, there’s no longer any doubt that the Tyvenborgers are indeed heading the same way as we are. Only two portals leading into or out of Eotunlandt, right?’
‘That’s what the inscriptions said,’ confirmed Kuthy.
‘Bugger!’ Nibulus swore. ‘What is the probability of two separate groups of travellers both journeying through this hidden land at exactly the same time?’
‘Perhaps not such a coincidence at all,’ Finwald broke in. ‘Now that I come to think of it, one or two of those Tyvenborgers looked somewhat familiar. Perhaps they were present at the Moot. Perhaps then they’re heading for the same destination as we are . . .’
‘If they are heading for Melhus,’ Nibulus said carefully and deliber
ately, ‘then this changes everything. They have already made us their enemies; but now they are a real threat. We must eliminate them, kill them all. Dismember their foul carcasses and burn the remains, then sow the blood-soaked ground with salt.’
The others looked in puzzlement at their leader.
‘It’s the only way to be sure,’ he said by way of explanation.
Despite the wind it was uncomfortably warm, and none of them could hear anything except his own heartbeat.
‘Well,’ Bolldhe muttered, ‘this really is getting serious.’ Nobody disagreed.
‘Bolldhe,’ Nibulus instructed, ‘better stick to your job. Pull that sentry down, but try not to alert the rest of them. Then kill him quick. If he’s allowed to cry out or struggle, the game’s up and we have to immediately attack. If you do your job properly, that’ll give us more time to get a bit closer. In any case, when you’ve done that, we four – me, Paulus, Wodeman and yourself – must despatch the enemy as quickly as possible. Kuthy, I want you to rain down arrows on the ones further away. And Finwald . . . do some of your fire-tricks, anything that will kill them or drive them away. As I said earlier, they’re cowards, and even if we only kill half their number, the survivors won’t bother us again. I promise you. ’
‘You really think my sword is that important?’ Bolldhe asked, not feeling good about this at all. ‘Is it really worth fourteen lives?’
‘Yes!’ Finwald hissed.
‘No,’ Nibulus declared, ‘I don’t. I’m not talking about some enchanted ironmongery here – I’m talking about our survival. If Finwald’s right, and they’re on their way to Vaagenfjord Maw, we will meet again. And next time they might be in our current position. This might be our best chance.’
A voice growled behind them: ‘Then we’d better go right now.’ It was Wodeman. He had finished his evocation of the spirits of the air and had come to join them. The fire that they had seen in his eyes over a week ago – on his return from his lone wanderings – was back now, and fiercer than ever. ‘I don’t know how long the elementals will help us. They’re ever fickle, and this land is not to their liking at all. Can you not hear them bickering?’
Thus did Bolldhe find himself once again in a position over which he had no control. He was used to being master of his own destiny, but ever since meeting Appa back in Nordwas, he had been thrown into one bad situation after another. Up here in the Far North, the concept of Fate infused everything. The gods laughed at puny mortals who believed that they were in control of their own lives. He could hear their shrieks of mirth in the chaotic wind around them.
Now here he was, belly almost to the ground, inching his way through the bracken towards a man he had been ordered to kill. It was all wrong, of course. He no more believed in that flamberge than Nibulus did. Yet it was Bolldhe’s own vote which had got him into this whole mess.
The sweat from his palm had already soaked into the elk-hidebound hilt of the dirk he gripped so clumsily. The blade felt so heavy at this moment in time; heavy, brutish and repugnant. Far heavier, in fact, than his old broadaxe had ever felt. Could he really ram that thick length of cold, hard metal into the soft, pumping flesh of the Tyvenborger’s neck? Could he kill this human being who had, like Bolldhe himself, turned aside from the path of the War God? This man who was in all probability no worse than a thief? Yet the half-second of savagery it would take to commit the deed would transform Bolldhe irrevocably into both thief and murderer.
As each frond of bracken parted before him, as each crunch of vegetation beneath knee or forearm brought Bolldhe closer to poor, heedless Eggledawc Clagfast, the certainty and immutability of Bolldhe’s imminent transformation summoned ever more bile to his throat. It was simply murder.
The air was becoming warmer and stickier by the minute, and there was a pulsing charge of electricity in it that tingled through Bolldhe’s teeth. He paused for a moment and squinted through the swaying green leaves at the back of Eggledawc’s head, now only yards away. So much like Appa’s neck, he reflected. He almost wished the man would turn around and spot him.
Do I really want to be a murderer for the rest of my life? Bolldhe speculated. He thought forward to imagine what that would be like, but he could not; there was a black barrier before him. He thought back to what his life had been like previously, and that was not much better. Oh, he had killed men before, he was almost sure of that. But then it had been different. He had fought many times over the past few years, but it had always been in self-defence. And in all cases he had been spared the certainty of knowing if his opponents had subsequently died. His method was simple: hack, slash and put the boot in, then leg it as fast as possible. Never go back to check whether they survived. Too dangerous, and if they were dead, that was their fault for attacking him in the first place. Bolldhe himself never provoked fights.
But going back further in his memory, had he ever started hostilities? As aide to that mercenary guarding the caravan heading to the Crimson Sea, when Bolldhe was just fourteen, he had sometimes been called upon to help repel attacks by brigands. He had stabbed his weapons out of the windows of the wagons into anything that moved, and often his blade had come back stained red. Had he ever killed, though? He had fired off arrow after arrow into the night, but always at distant, half-seen, enemies. Again, had he killed?
He stretched his mind back even further, deeper into his past. And suddenly it became very humid indeed, and the electricity in the air made his head spin sickeningly with vertigo. There was a black barrier in his past, too; something in his own mind that was too strong even for him to reach through. What in the name of Pel-Adan . . . ?
An engram. A memory too dark and too terrible to behold. Turn back! Look away! Madness and blood, designed and directed by . . .
Bolldhe was eight years old.
Child. Beast.
Terror and fury as primal as it gets. Unfettered by adult mind-blocks. Limitless. Bottomless.
His eyes snapped open, baby-blue and cold as a reptile’s. Glared with hatred through the grass. Grass that soughed with the song of the waves. Saw Eggledawc. Foe! Forsaker of the One True God! He must stab, rip flesh, eviscerate, bathe in hot blood!
He gripped his wonderful new dirk, felt for a second the orgiastic intoxication of carnage fill his brain. Then he pounced . . .
Dolen Catscaul was not happy. She sat upon a large rock at the base of the knoll, somewhat apart from her new ‘cohorts’, and was idly scraping the dirt from under her fingernails with the tip of her misericord. Hardly a fitting use for such an ancient and magical knife, she knew, but it seemed to sum up her life at the moment. As the only Dhracus in the party, she was experiencing the full gamut of prejudice and mistrust that was the inevitable lot of one such as her.
Is it my skin? she wondered, and splayed her twelve long fingers to regard their immaculate whiteness. It was no great secret that the other females in the party begrudged her this, but Dolen could not begin to understand why. Take the leader’s sister, Aelldryc, for example; Dolen greatly admired that freckled beetroot complexion of hers. The reward for a healthy outdoor life, in her opinion. And as for the mottled greyness of Flekki’s face, to Dolen, it was as the sheen of a fair silver birch in the crepuscular moonlight. Admiration was fitting, not envy.
The very concept of jealousy was ludicrous to the Dhracus. They did not complain about, nor even concern themselves with such trivial, superficial irrelevancies. But those others were not Dhracus, and they appeared to embrace an inexhaustible supply of the most ridiculous and illogical sensibilities, half-truths and pseudo-values. It was as though they needed such things to distract them from the real things in life. Why could they not simply focus on what mattered?
How they ever managed to invent the wheel, I’ll never know, she thought. They seemed too busy obsessing over the size of various parts of their body, especially the females, or picking lice out of each other’s hair, to ever get important things done.
Or maybe they just don’t like
my forked tongue?
‘No,’ she said softly to herself, with the ghost of a smile on her silver-grey lips. ‘Eggledawc doesn’t seem to mind that one bit . . .’
Eggledawc Clagfast. The mere thought of the name warmed her heart and exorcised her current gloomy preoccupations. Those five syllables, from the initial sweet and playful opening vowel, through the luxuriant dark ‘l’ consonant clusters, to the final whispered promises of the closing sibilance, encapsulated all that she so loved about humans: the passion and tragedy of their poetic lays, the haunting beauty of their music that could slay the soul or raise the dead, and their sense of humour that was as uproarious as it was inexplicable.
She was glad that she had met Eggledawc. He was different from the others. Never made any demands. Never grew angry. And like her, he was a free spirit. When she had first met him in the dark of a forest glade in Hrefna, neither had been afraid though they had both had good cause to be, for sure. For both of them, it had been the first time either had seen one of the other’s race. It was the firelight, she believed; in its sanguine illumination, the skin of both human and Dhracus had glowed the same colour. And over the following few weeks, both had delighted in their similarities as well as their differences. It had been a time of joy, new feelings and sharing; especially for her, so blessedly gifted with the empathy of her race.
Where is he anyway? She looked up from her nail-picking, tilted back the peak of her cap, and scanned the surrounding area with keen eyes. Almost instantly she located him, still standing guard up the slope. It was getting rather windy, she noticed also; the bracken was whipping this way and that most oddly, and her swain’s hair was flying up around his head in a chaotic jig. But in spite of the wind up there, down here it was becoming uncomfortably hot. She had not felt like this since the Giant had materialized – Sluagh’s Devils, that had been terrifying! – and the air felt charged with the presage of blood . . .
She turned back to her thoughts. Ah, these Tyvenborgers! Why did she ever let Eggledawc talk her into joining them? It was not even as if he himself was a thief by nature. But then, there was not much difference between the terms ‘outcast’ and ‘outlaw’ in most people’s minds. And to lump all the denizens of the Thieves’ Mountain into one word, that was just as nonsensical as categorizing the pygmy shrew and the baluchitherium as just ‘animal’. In this band of fourteen alone could be seen the entire spectrum of people, from the maggoty Oswiu Garoticca to superior beings such as herself and Eggledawc . . . and perhaps Eorcenwold. Dolen liked Eorcenwold.
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