Returner's Wealth

by Paul Stewart

  Twenty-Eight

  ‘Remind me what it is we’re looking out for,’ said Esau, the barrel-chested wyrmekith, scratching at the matted clump of blond beard at his chin.

  He was a huge man, with a head shaped like a block of stone; a square jaw, a flat forehead, and a nose that was also flat – a decade of brawling and brutal fist-fights had seen to that.

  ‘That would be the third time of reminding,’ Solomon Tallow laughed, his even teeth flashing white against the blue-black stubble of his jaw. ‘And I reckon three times is too much, even for a big dumb lug like you, Esau. Ain’t that right, Jesse?’

  Behind them, Jesse snorted with amusement. Further down the trail, the two women, Bethesda and Leah, who were striding alongside one another, exchanged glances.

  ‘Just tell me, Sol,’ Esau entreated.

  ‘Hell’s teeth, Esau,’ said Solomon, shaking his head, ‘I swear if your brawn took to matching your brains, you’d shrivel up before my very eyes. You big dumb lug.’

  Esau’s face creased up as though he was in pain. ‘You know I don’t appreciate that, Sol,’ he said. ‘I don’t appreciate you calling me a big dumb lug the whole time.’

  Bethesda caught him up, slipped her small hand into Esau’s great paw and squeezed it reassuringly. Beside the others she looked short and slight, her small heart-shaped face set beneath a tangle of stringy ash-brown hair. With her sharp nose, beady eyes and thin top lip which barely covered her prominent front teeth, she looked like an inquisitive rat.

  ‘The speckled stack,’ she whispered.

  ‘The speckled stack,’ Esau repeated. ‘I’m obliged to you, Bethesda.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Solomon nodded. ‘Say it again, now.’

  Esau shrugged.

  ‘Indulge me, Esau. Let me hear them words.’

  ‘The speckled stack,’ he mumbled.

  Solomon’s even white teeth flashed in a smile. ‘Let it sink in. You big dumb lug.’

  Jesse snorted again.

  ‘That boy reckoned the stack was four days away,’ said Solomon. ‘And if this rain – and your endless jawing – keep up, it’s gonna take us longer than that.’

  He turned away and set off along the trail, the hard soles of his boots setting up a thudding rhythm that the others were obliged to follow, consciously or no. There was a spring to his step despite the rucksack on his shoulders, which was heavy with provisions acquired at the scrimshaw den and the stout crossbow strapped to its side.

  Hurrying to catch up, Leah fell into step beside him. She slipped her arm through his, and looked up at him. She had almond-shaped eyes of lake green that looked deep enough to drown in, high jutting cheek-bones, flawless skin and full lips above a delicately tapered chin. Her brown sunflecked hair was swept back from her face. Solomon returned her gaze, an easy smile on his face, but the eyes beneath his heavy brows remained impassive.

  Behind them, taking care not to be observed, Jesse eyed Solomon’s girl and licked his lips.

  He was the tallest of the five wyrmekith, though his stooped shoulders and loping gait made him look shorter than he actually was. His hair was black and tied back with a thong, and his beard was greasy and flecked with bits of food. He had a hooked nose and hooded eyelids, and his top lip seemed permanently curled into a sceptical sneer. His cold grey eyes missed nothing.

  No one spoke as they tramped through the afternoon across the boulder-studded plateau. The sky was darkening and the rain getting up once more when words at last cut through the sound of thudding boots and creaking leather.

  ‘Happen we should find a place to rest up for the night.’

  It was Solomon. He’d been looking out for likely places of shelter for the previous hour, and now made towards a mess of tumbled slabs that looked like it might serve the purpose well.

  Esau set down his backpack, by far the biggest of the lot. Strapped to it was a variety of equipment: nets, coils of rope, serrated spear tips, heavy canteens and padded bedrolls. He selected a hatchet and two of the canteens, and went off in search of wood and water. Leah slipped her small compact rucksack from her shoulders and let it drop. The rock-spikes, rope-irons, twists of wire and scores of snaptrap springs hanging from it jangled as it hit the ground. Crouching down, she arranged the rocks at her feet into a circle. Esau returned with the wood and Leah soon had a fire blazing. Beside her, Bethesda unhooked the deep cooking pot from her belt and set it over the flames. She chopped and diced the dried meat and roots she’d removed from her own pack, threw them into the pot, and the smoky air was soon filled with the scent of cooking stew.

  ‘Made good progress today, I reckon,’ said Solomon an hour or so later. He spooned up a mouthful of stew from the cooking pot. ‘Might make it there in less time than we’d anticipated,’ he mumbled as he chewed.

  ‘Less time,’ Esau repeated, plunging the ladle down into the steaming pot.

  ‘Three days maybe,’ said Solomon. ‘Daresay we can manage it quicker than some greenhorn stripling.’

  Solomon was perched on a low boulder in front of the bubbling cooking pot, his legs splayed. Leah sat between them, her back against the rock. Esau and Bethesda were opposite them; Esau with his massive legs pulled up, hugging his knees with one arm, and Bethesda beside him, her legs folded beneath her. Jesse was standing back a ways, the flickering light from the fire playing on his mean features.

  ‘Though it ain’t going to be easy once we reach there,’ Solomon added. ‘The wyve is defended – I saw the scar the boy bore.’

  ‘Wyrmekin,’ Leah bristled, her green eyes flashing. ‘Vicious, unnatural wyrmehags … Ain’t no reasoning with them.’

  Solomon nodded. ‘Which is why we’re gonna have to employ all our skills of stealth and concealment,’ he said, looking around at his companions. ‘Like I say, it ain’t going to be easy.’

  ‘We’ll need to approach downwind and scent-masked,’ said Bethesda, wiping a splash of stew from her pointed chin.

  ‘And climb the stack under cover of darkness,’ said Leah. ‘Before dawn’s best, when the wyrme and its kin are off hunting for food …’

  ‘Snare-nets, harpoons,’ said Esau, looking up eagerly. ‘Rock-pins, deadbait, and skinning knives, good and sharp, just in case …’

  Jesse snorted. ‘They won’t save us if the wyrmekin catches us,’ he observed darkly. ‘Nothing will.’

  ‘If we do this right, we won’t be caught,’ said Solomon. ‘Trust me.’ He reached forward and ruffled Leah’s hair affectionately. ‘And just think of it. The wyve of a great whitewyrme! The wealth it’ll bring us!’ He turned to Jesse. ‘For such returner’s wealth, isn’t it worth risking everything?’

  Leah pressed back against Solomon’s fingers, almost purring with delight. Esau chuckled, spat a lump of gristle into the fire, which hissed and sputtered, and lay back on the rock. He laid his head down on a rounded rock, tipped his hat forward and placed both hands flat upon his belly. Bethesda curled up beside him, and he shifted one arm and wrapped it round her and squeezed.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jesse, his lidded eyes black and unreadable in the flickering firelight. ‘If you say so.’

  Twenty-Nine

  The kingirl sat motionless at the top of the speckled rockstack, silhouetted against the daybreak sky. The air was nightcrisp, but her body was warm from the fiery heat that billowed up from the smoking vent beside her. Her eyes, darkringed from lack of sleep, were fixed on the lightening sky ahead. The slender lance rested across her lap.

  Two days and two nights, and Aseel had still not returned. Two empty days. Two long sleepless nights …

  A scratching sound came from deep inside the rock. The wyrmeling was slowly waking from sleep. Soon it would emerge for its morning flight.

  The wyrmeling had grown fast during its fiery incubation, and soon would be too big to take refuge in the crevice at the top of the speckled s
tack. Then it would spread its wings and venture out into the vastness of the weald to join with its own kind …

  The girl scanned the horizon. Aseel, Aseel. Why had he not returned?

  A distant speck of movement, dark against the grey sky, set her heart pounding. But it was just a carrionwyrme. Its tattered wings fluttered as it scoured the rocky terrain beneath, then tilted back as it spiralled down for the dead creature it must have spotted.

  The girl sighed, then tensed, her body stonerigid. She tipped her head to one side and listened. Her eyes narrowed.

  She was not alone.

  Gripping the lance tightly, she rose to her feet in one graceful movement. The tip of the lance glinted as she turned slowly around, hips swivelling and eyes boring into the gloom. She raised her head and sniffed.

  There was nothing to be seen. Or smelled. Or heard – yet the absence did nothing to ease her mind, for she could sense a presence; the silent presence of someone or something watching her …

  All at once a figure rose up from the edge of the rock on the west side of the stack. The blush of morning gleamed on a shaven scalp. White teeth grinned from blue-black jaws. The blade of the knife gripped in a powerful fist flashed.

  The kingirl sprang at the intruder, her lance lowered and aimed at his chest. The man did not flinch. There was a sudden whirring sound, head height and behind her, and the girl was enveloped in a wyrmenet, tight-meshed and rock-weighted. She fell heavily to the speckled ground, writhing and squirming in its grip.

  The man strode towards her, the knife still raised. His boots thudded against the rock.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he drawled, and rubbed a heavy hand over the fine dusting of black stubble on his scalp. ‘A wyrme­kin without her wyrme …’

  A woman with long hair and buck teeth appeared behind him, a second wyrmenet in her hands, followed by a hook-nosed man gripping a vicious-looking cleaver. He stepped forward and kicked the girl squarely in the ribs, before ripping the lance from her grasp and handing it to his shaven-headed companion. The kingirl looked up, her beautiful face impassive and mask-like through the checkered mesh of the wyrmenet.

  ‘Where’s her wyrme? Why isn’t she with her wyrme?’

  There were two more of them coming from the other side of the stack. A tall woman with sunflecked hair and green eyes, and a great hulk of a man with a newgrowth beard and a heavy cape, his slit eyes questioning. He strode towards the netted girl, fists clenched.

  ‘Easy there, Esau,’ said the shaven-headed man. ‘First things first.’ His face hardened as he flipped the lance round in his hands and pressed the sharp point hard against the centre of the girl’s chest. ‘Where’s the wyve?’

  She glared back at him. ‘Kill me,’ she breathed.

  The weak sun gleamed on tossed hair as the taller of the two woman tutted with her tongue and teeth, and turned away.

  The shaved skull loomed closer. Teeth flashed. ‘Where’s the wyve?’ he repeated, dark menace in his tone.

  ‘Kill me,’ the kingirl said again.

  Behind the man with the gleaming skull, the hook-nosed man raked his long hair and snorted. ‘We done this little routine already,’ he said gruffly. ‘We been lucky so far. Her wyrme ride’s not here, but I wouldn’t want to press that luck too much further.’

  ‘Kill me, kill me,’ the kingirl murmured softly, the words clicking at the back of her throat.

  ‘Not till we get to the bottom of this mystery,’ the shaven-headed man told her lightly. He leaned down on the lance, pressing hard into the soulskin, and the girl stifled a cry of pain. The white teeth clenched, and he spoke through them. ‘Where’s the goddamn wyve?’

  Suddenly her words came in a torrent. ‘Aseel will come. Soon he will come, with wrath and revenge, and he will cut you down and slaughter you all, and—’

  The hard crack to the side of her head silenced her. She flinched, then glared back defiantly as the hook-nosed man stepped forward, a strand of thick black hair dangling down over a heavy-lidded eye. A calloused thumb delicately stroked the blade of the cleaver.

  ‘You’re a pretty little thing,’ he began, ‘but I have a mind to change that, and grievously …’

  ‘There ain’t no wyve,’ the smaller women hissed from over by the smoking vent.

  The shaven-headed man looked across the stack. ‘No wyve?’

  The woman turned, and pushed back her straggle hair. She shook her head. ‘It’s hatched,’ she whispered, pointing into the crevice and placing a finger to her lips.

  The shaven-headed man nodded and whispered to his companion. ‘Keep her quiet.’

  ‘It would be my true pleasure,’ the hook-nosed man purred.

  He crouched down next to her, flicked back the strand of hair behind his ear, and his sneering mouth twisted into what passed for a smile. What teeth he had were large and yellow. He placed the cleaver aside, leaned forwards and clamped a hard bony hand across her mouth, then placed his other hand on top of that. He swung his knee over her body, straddling her, then with his shoulders bunched up at the side of his head, pushed down hard.

  Beneath him, the girl arched her neck back and tried desperately to see what was happening at the vent. The shaven-headed man was crouched down over it, wreathed in yellow smoke and gesturing to the other wyrmekith who had silently gathered round him, nets and ropes in their hands.

  ‘Mighty pretty,’ the hook-nosed man whispered into the girl’s ear. ‘Happen I might keep you just for myself.’

  The girl twisted back. Her eyes were fired with fury. With one hand still gripping her mouth, the man was pawing at her with the other.

  ‘Just for myself,’ he repeated.

  He leaned back and pulled a filthy rag from a pocket in his jacket. He thrust it through a hole in the net. Beneath his hand, he could feel her mouth clamp shut, and he gripped her nose and held it tight until she snatched a breath, when he pushed the rag inside her mouth and pressed his hand back down over it. His fingertips gripped vicious hard at her jaws and cheekbones.

  Fury turned to fear in the girl’s eyes.

  He leaned back a second time and reached for the edge of the net. He pulled it up over her legs, her belly and breasts. He flicked it back over her head, clamping her arms to her sides with his folded legs. His head came down towards her.

  He stank, this kith. He stank of wyrmeflesh and wyrmeblood. Wyrmebone. Wyrmeheart … And her body juddered as she heaved, the rag in her mouth stifling her protests.

  She broke free of the fingertips for a moment. Her body flexed and her head thrashed from side to side. The man grinned, his top lip twisted on one side into a gleeful sneer.

  ‘You keep writhing like that,’ he whispered, pressing his hooknose close to her face, his dark eyes intense behind their fleshy lids, ‘and my cleaver might have to teach you the error of such action.’

  She fell still. He pressed his hand back over her mouth, shoving the rag in deeper.

  The kingirl braced her neck and her eyes swivelled back in her head as far as they would go. The wyrmekith were poised round the crevice, stonestill and ready to strike.

  The wyrmeling’s head appeared out of the narrow crack in the rock. Its yellow eyes blinked twice. It scrabbled out onto the flat speckled rock, paused, and its wings ruffled and started to unfurl.

  The nets came down.

  The wyrmeling squawked with alarm and tried to flap, but its wings became entangled in the thick mesh. Quickly and expertly, the wyrmekith set to work. Ropes looped the netted body. One was pulled tight, trapping its wings to its back; the other brought its legs together till they could no longer move. A sack descended over it, and the wyrmeling was in darkness and swinging upside down.

  The kingirl let out a muffled groan and her body went limp. The man looked back down at her. He reached to his side, grabbed one of her arms by the wrist, dragged it across her bod
y and gripped the other wrist, then with both of them clamped in one hand, drew her arms back and pressed them down hard against the rock above her head. The soulskin stretched as her body tensed. With his free hand, he traced a filthy taloned finger slowly down her cheek.

  ‘C’mon, Jesse,’ said the shaven-headed man. ‘Finish her off before her wyrme shows up.’

  The hook-nosed man turned momentarily as he reached for the cleaver at his side. It was enough. The kingirl wrenched a hand free and slashed at his face, her nails slicing the skin at his forehead, across his eyeball and down his cheek.

  The man hollered, and his hands shot to his face. Blood dripped through the fingers.

  The kin brought a knee up hard between his legs, and squirmed out from under him. His fingers grazed the back of her leg as she scrambled to her feet and ran.

  ‘I’ll get you, wyrmehag!’

  They were the last words she heard as she reached the edge of the speckled stack and dropped down into the empty void below.

  Thirty

  They set off at first light. The wind howled like a plains wolf, chivvying the clouds across the sky in scudding flocks and chilling Micah to the bone.

  ‘Happen there’s time for one more foray before the first snows,’ Eli said as he set a steady, even pace. ‘And what you told me last night set a notion in my head from which we may profit.’

  Micah was intrigued, but when he asked what Eli’s idea was, all the cragclimber would say was, ‘Wait and see.’

  After a hard day’s tramp and a long cold night spent shivering half awake, half asleep beneath the starfleck black, a shallow ravine they’d been taking opened up to sprawling saltscree slopes, the white rocks fuzzed with green buckwheat.

  ‘Two weeks hence,’ Eli said, ‘none of this will be here no more. It’ll die back as the frosts set in. But for now …’ He broke off a seedhead and chewed it. ‘Sweetest thing y’ever tasted,’ he said. ‘And distills down to a mighty powerful brew.’