You Die When You Die

by Angus Watson

  That means Thyri and I will have to huddle closer, thought Finnbogi, feeling an immediate twitch lower down.

  “And keep an eye behind,” said Garth. “Wulf let the Scrayling woman live, so she will no doubt return to her tribe and tell them all about us.”

  “She will not, Garth. I trust her.”

  “Do you trust her child? Did he strike you as someone who’s good at keeping secrets? Or do you think he’s a child who’ll blab to everyone about anything unusual that he’s seen?”

  Garth’s point struck home. Finnbogi could see that Wulf hadn’t thought of it, and that he realised Garth was right.

  But did that mean they should have killed Potsi? Would he have killed the boy in exchange for all their lives? Well, thank Loakie he didn’t have to deal with a poser like that. What a bugger it must be to be a leader.

  Wulf shook his head. “We move on, a little faster than before.”

  “The woman is slowed by a child. The Lakchan village is five miles away. I could run now and silence them both.”

  “No.”

  Finnbogi looked from man to man. There was serious tension between them. He looked at Gunnhild to see what she thought. By the way she was focusing on making circles in the dirt with her toe and not meeting anyone’s eye, she agreed with Garth. Finnbogi, however, was on Wulf’s side because Garth was a bellend.

  “You and Gurd will be this afternoon’s advance guard, Garth,” said Wulf. “Stay hidden and use the duck call if you see Scraylings.”

  Gurd Girlchaser looked to Garth, as if to check it was okay with him, and Finnbogi hated them both a little more.

  “All right,” said Garth.

  “Good, now let’s hear both your duck noises so we know what to listen out for.”

  Garth smiled, nodded and quacked, then Gurd copied him.

  “Well done. Garth. Thyri and Finnbogi, you’ll be rearguard.”

  Finnbogi’s heart leapt. Had he heard that right?

  “Boggy’s not Hird,” spat Gurd.

  “He’s a fast runner, and there are too few of us to worry about who’s Hird and who isn’t.” Wulf turned to him and Thyri. “The two of you will watch our rear like hawks who’ve had stuff stolen recently and are determined to never let it happen again. When you come to a good vantage point, stop for a few minutes and watch for movement. Then run until you find the next vantage point. If you see anyone, Thyri will keep an eye on them while Finn runs to tell me.”

  Finnbogi nodded, stifling a grin of glee. Finn.

  “We’ll go now,” said Thyri.

  As Finnbogi turned to follow her, he saw Garth nod to Fisk the Fish. What was that about?

  “On shoulders, now,” said Rimilla. Her tired arms couldn’t hold the child clasped to her chest any longer.

  Potsi screamed and kicked as she lifted him off her hip and up to her shoulders.

  “Be a good boy and ooof!” His flailing foot whacked her in the mouth. She tasted blood, thrust the boy upwards, then down onto her shoulders. She gripped him by the ankles and set off at a jog. Potsi wailed with some great grief that only he understood. Rimilla tried to soothe him but every time she said anything he screamed all the more. Well, she said to herself, if the Hardworkers do change their minds and follow us, they’re not going to find it too tricky.

  And I might just leave Potsi here for them.

  She didn’t mean that, but her mouth hurt and she wished the little fucker would stop screaming.

  She’d been such a fool to tell them about the death command from Calnia. She’d been overwhelmed by their friendliness and how good they’d been with Potsi.

  Of course they had to kill her now, and Potsi.

  She wouldn’t tell her tribe about the Hardworkers, but Potsi was yet to be constrained by so dreary a concept as discretion. He would tell anyone who’d listen about his afternoon with the Mushroom Men.

  Luckily their leader, Wulf the Fat who wasn’t fat, hadn’t seemed to realise that, and neither had the handsome but nasty one, Garth. Thank Spider Mother they didn’t have children themselves or they would have known. But surely they’d work it out? The older woman, Gunnhild, would surely tell them. And as soon as that happened, surely they’d run back to silence them? It was, she hated to admit, what she would have done in their leader’s place. The safety of his people had to come before her and Potsi’s lives.

  What was that? She stopped. Someone was sprinting through the woods behind them, gaining fast. Spider Mother’s venomous piss, she thought.

  She sped ahead until she found a suitable spot. Stepping off the path, careful not to leave a trail, she nipped between bushes and behind a tree. She slipped the boy off her shoulders and crouched low.

  She looked into his big eyes. “Now, Potsi, you must see how quiet you can be for Mummy. Don’t say anything, just nod if you understand?”

  He nodded.

  A moment later, she heard approaching footsteps. Whoever it was had slowed. She caught a glimpse of her pursuer through leaves. It was one of the Hardworkers, not one she’d spoken to, but the smaller of the two who’d been in cahoots with Garth.

  He had a spear.

  “Who dat?” asked Potsi, his voice loud and clear.

  She heard the Hardworker stop on the path. “Is that you, Potsi?” he asked.

  Potsi opened his mouth to answer. She flicked up a hand to stop him, but too quickly. Instead of gently closing his mouth, she cuffed him firmly on the chin.

  His eyes widened and stared at her with hurt and surprise. He’d never been hit by anyone before, let alone his mother. He sucked in a huge breath, preparing, Rimilla knew, for the sort of scream that stampeded buffalo. There was nothing she could do.

  He screamed, as loud as he could, for as long as he could.

  When he finally stopped and breathed in, she whispered “stay here,” stood and walked around the tree.

  The Hardworker was standing on the path, grinning. His hair was cut short on his little, round head. He was small compared to the rest of the Hardworker giants, about average height for one of her tribe’s men, and a head taller than her. His limbs were wiry and muscular and he was armed with a short, heavy spear with a wicked head made from the same strange material as the other Hardworkers’ weapons. She had a flint knife.

  “I’ll stay in the wilds,” she said, “for three days. You and your people will be well clear by the time I go back to the Lakchan village.”

  “Sorry, won’t do.”

  “Then I will come with you. I will cook and help. I am a good hunter.”

  “No.”

  “Then kill me, but take Potsi with you. Raise him as a son. Wherever you are going you will need young men to help build your new lives.”

  He shook his head. “I am thirty-five years old. For more than twenty of those years I have been learning how to fight with this.” He spun his spear in his palm. “Every day we train for hours. Yet, before you Scraylings attacked, I’d never fought anyone. We’d had fake fights with wooden weapons for hours on end, but, before you lot came to massacre all of us—women and children, too—none of us had ever killed anyone else. I still haven’t. I cannot tell you how much I am yearning to kill a Scrayling.”

  “I understand, I do. But we Lakchans weren’t the ones who attacked you. We’re a peaceful tribe.”

  “Scraylings are all the same.”

  “The Lakchans are as different from the Calnians as you are.”

  “Buffalo shit.”

  “You don’t need to believe me. Even if we were Calnians, you’ll find no satisfaction in killing a little boy.” Those last words caught in her throat. The idea of harm coming to Potsi was almost too much. “You’ll feel crushingly guilty. Our spirits will haunt you day and night for the rest of your life and you will never know happiness again. Take us with you, we will serve you, then let us go when we have gone far enough. Our tribe’s spirits and all the spirits of the forests, rivers, clouds and plains will smile on you for your noble, generous deed.”
r />   “I have never known happiness,” he smiled sadly. “And your spirits are nothing to me. Tor is more powerful than any of them. Tell them that when you see them.”

  He lowered his spear and came at her.

  She pulled her knife from its sheath.

  He looked at it and laughed.

  She lunged.

  He jabbed his spear into her thigh. She felt it pierce muscle, hit the bone and send a horrible expanding and contracting pain from foot to hip. She gasped.

  He pulled the spear clear and danced away, grinning.

  She looked down at her leg. Blood was pulsing. Wooziness swam up from the wound, up through her stomach and chest and into her head. She swayed.

  “Wah?” said Potsi, toddling from the undergrowth.

  “Go back into the trees!” she shouted.

  She’d never shouted at him before. First the blow to his face, now this. It was too much for his young mind. He stared at her with shocked surprise, sat down hard, gripped his feet, and sobbed, rocking back and forth as if the sorrow and unfairness of it all was weighing on his narrow shoulders.

  “Run, Potsi, run!” she shouted. He wailed all the more then choked on snot. She knew that once he was like this it would take an age of comforting before he would relax.

  “On the bright side, you’ll be free of that wailing brat,” said the Hardworker, lifting his spear.

  “What was that?” asked Finnbogi.

  “Shhhh.” Thyri held a finger to her lips. Finnbogi held his breath. They heard nothing else. “I think it was Potsi screaming. Run and tell Wulf. I’ll go and see what’s happening.”

  Finnbogi opened his mouth to tell her to be careful, but she was already gone.

  Chapter 9

  A Misplaced Sense of Superiority

  The rebellious Morningstar and Caliska Coyote sat next to Malilla Leaper’s armless corpse. Morningstar’s eyes were closed, unable to face the light after the blow to the head that Sofi had felled her with. Caliska Coyote was looking at her own feet and scowling.

  The most badly injured in the assassination attempt, Malilla Leaper aside, was Luby Zephyr. She was asleep after Sadzi Wolf had knocked her out with a hefty dose of herbs and stitched her head wound with deer-gut sutures. Sadzi had said that she would probably live, but that she wouldn’t walk for a few days and shouldn’t run for a few weeks.

  The punishment for the leader of the mutiny was simple. Already Yoki Choppa was roasting one of her arms and the aroma of burning flesh was mixing with the woody morning air. They would all eat a little to kill her spirit and ensure that Malilla Leaper would never live again. It was the harshest penalty possible. Sofi Tornado had not wavered for a moment from ordering it.

  Punishments for the other two were trickier. Malilla had headed the rebellion, it wouldn’t have happened without her, but her followers were far from blameless. Theoretically Sofi should kill them slowly to dissuade further insurrection. However, cruelty was only one way to assure loyalty. Clemency could also be effective, and, perhaps more importantly, she didn’t want to lose more Owsla. Kill these two and she’d be down from ten to five for the mission to the north, since she’d have to leave someone behind to tend to Luby Zephyr.

  “Caliska Coyote,” she declared. “You followed Malilla Leaper because you think that your fighting skills make you more important than the rest of the Calnians, so you should have more power and wealth. You will learn humility and dilute your arrogance through healing Luby. You will stay here with her. You will build a shelter and tend to her every need, following Sadzi’s instructions. When she is well enough to return to Calnia, you will escort her home. When I see her again I will ask her if you have treated her well. If you have, you will rejoin the Owsla and we will never mention the events of last night. If you have not, or if I do not see her again, I will kill you and eat you. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Morningstar, you followed Malilla for the same reason—a misplaced sense of superiority. Yours is more understandable, you being Zaltan’s daughter. That does not make it excusable. However, your father founded the Owsla and for his sake I’ll give you another chance. But, if I even suspect you of further insurrection, I will torture you, kill you and eat you. Is that clear?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “You will be if you try anything like it again.”

  “I won’t.”

  Sofi Tornado nodded. “Good. Sadzi, instruct Caliska. The rest of you prepare to leave.”

  They packed up. Sofi watched as Yoki Choppa prepared two different mixes in his alchemical bowl and handed them to Caliska Coyote, instructing her to eat a small amount of one of them every day and to feed the other to Luby Zephyr.

  Chapter 10

  Sax and Shield vs Spear

  Rimilla took a step on her stabbed leg. The pain made her feel faint and terrified her. She had to beat this man or he would kill Potsi. But what hope did she have? She cursed herself for warning the Mushroom Men. Her blind stupidity had killed her lovely son.

  The round-headed Mushroom Man spun his short spear on his palm. “I’m going to take some time on you and the brat, enjoy my first kills.”

  He took a pace towards her.

  “Oh yes, almost forgot—do tell your gods that Fisk the Fish sent you.”

  “Please let my—” she fell to her knees.

  “What are you doing?” The Hardworker’s face crinkled in confusion. He was not a bright man. Was it possible that her brains might yet beat his strength?

  “I feel …” she rolled her eyes up into her head, fell onto her side and lay still.

  “Mummy!” She watched through narrowed eyes as Potsi recovered from his wailing fit in an instant, clambered onto his feet and tottered over to her. Go away go away go away, she tried to tell him without speaking. His little hand gripped her hair and pulled. “Mummy!”

  “Get back, you little shit!” Fisk the Fish ran at her son and kicked him in the chest. Potsi flew and thwumped against a tree trunk.

  Rimilla roared and stabbed her knife into the Mushroom Man’s leg.

  It was Fisk’s turn to scream. She tried to keep hold of her knife but it was lodged in the bone and yanked from her grip as he staggered away.

  Potsi sat where he’d landed, wailing. By the amount of noise he was managing to make, he couldn’t be too badly hurt. But, now that she’d seem him kick the boy as hard as he could, for the first time she really believed that this evil man might be capable of killing a child a long way from his Spider Mother day.

  Their attacker placed his spear on the leafy ground and used both hands to pull the knife from his leg.

  He tossed the weapon away, wiped tears and mucus from his face, and smiled. “Thank you. Now I’m really going to enjoy killing you. And I had been thinking about sparing the boy. Now I’m going to kill him all the more slowly. In fact, I’ll do him first so you can watch.”

  Rimilla scrabbled back on her hands, searching for a branch, a rock, anything. She found leaves and twigs.

  The Mushroom Man walked towards her son. She tried to get up but her leg buckled.

  He grabbed Potsi by the hair. Rimilla screamed.

  “That’s enough, Fisk,” said a woman’s voice.

  It was the stout young female, the darker skinned one who looked more Lakchan than Mushroom Man. She was vital and fit, and her felt hat made her look like a warrior. Rimilla felt a rush of hope.

  “Piss off, Thyri,” said Fisk.

  “Wulf told us to leave them.”

  “Wulf’s a fool. If she gets back to the Lakchan village with little blabbermouth here, we’re all dead before sunset.”

  “Walk away, or I will kill you.” Thyri pulled a blade from her scabbard. It was beautiful—a long, slim knife made from the same material as Fisk’s spear’s head—but it was a delicate little weapon compared to the hefty spear.

  “A sax is no match for a spear, and you are no match for me.”

  The young woman pulled her shield f
rom her back. It had a picture of a tree on it.

  “Sax and shield beats spear every time.”

  “It depends who’s holding them.” Fisk charged. She batted his spear aside with her shield and slashed her blade across his face. Rimilla felt a surge of hope.

  He reeled away, clutching his opened cheek. He snarled and came back at her, swinging the spear wildly but powerfully. Thyri ducked and sliced her blade into his torso. Fisk ignored the wound and swung an overhead blow at the girl’s head.

  She leapt back, landed, slipped on a blood-slicked rock, fell and cracked her head against another rock. She lifted her head, eyes spinning. Her padded hat had been some protection, but not enough. Her irises disappeared into her skull and she sank back.

  “Ha!” cried Fisk. He stood over the unconscious woman and raised his spear two-handed over her chest for the killing thrust.

  Finnbogi soon left Wulf, Sassa and Bjarni behind, sprinting back the way he’d come. The gratification of proving how much faster he was than the others almost outweighed his concern for Thyri.

  He reached the clearing where they’d had lunch and played with Potsi. There was an opening into the woods on the southern edge, which had to be the path that Rimilla had taken back to the Lakchan village.

  He ran into the opening and sprinted downhill, deeper into the woods, leaping roots and rocks. He was cursing himself for going to get the others. He should never have let Thyri go on her own. He could have had an adventure with her.

  He skidded to a halt when he came to a leafy glade splashed all around with gore and parts of person. In the middle of the path was a head attached to an arm. Was it Thyri? It looked more like Fisk’s little round head and there was no felt helmet. He rolled it over with his foot. It was Fisk, or at least part of him, white with blood loss, mouth open in a scream.

  “For the love of—”

  He spotted Thyri, propped up against a trunk, out cold.

  “Thyri!” He ran over and knelt down.

  She opened her eyes.

  “Finnbogi …” She pushed him away and leapt to her feet. “Where are Rimilla and Potsi?”