Before They Are Hanged (39 page)

“Why not him?” growled Ferro.

“He said that I could not be trusted. That my folly had caused the war.”

“All too true, surely?” muttered Quai.

“Perhaps, in part. But he made far worse accusations also. He and his cursed apprentice, Mamun. Lies,” he hissed at the fire. “All lies, and the rest of the Magi were not deceived. So Khalul left the order, and returned to the South, and sought for power elsewhere. And he found it. By doing as Glustrod had done, and damning himself. By breaking the Second Law, and eating the flesh of men. Only eleven of us went to fight Kanedias, and only nine of us returned.”

Bayaz took a long breath, and gave a long sigh. “So, Master Quai. There is the story of my mistakes, laid bare. You could say they were the cause of my master’s death, of the schism in the order of Magi. You could say that is why we are now heading westwards, into the ruins of the past. You could say that is why Captain Luthar has suffered a broken jaw.”

“The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present,” muttered Logen to himself.

“So they do,” said Bayaz, “so they do. And sour fruit indeed. Will you learn from my mistakes, Master Quai, as I have, and pay some attention to your master?”

“Of course,” said the apprentice, though Logen wondered if there was a hint of irony in his voice. “I will obey in all things.”

“You would be wise to. If I had obeyed Juvens, perhaps I would not have this.” Bayaz undid the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled his collar to one side. The firelight flickered on a faded scar, from the base of the old man’s neck down towards his shoulder. “The Maker himself gave it to me. Another inch and it would have been my death.” He rubbed sourly at it. “All those years ago, and it still aches, from time to time. The pain it has given me over the slow years… so you see, Master Luthar, although you bear a mark, it could be worse.”

Longfoot cleared his throat. “That is quite an injury, of course, but I believe I can do better.” He took hold of his dirty trouser leg and pulled it right up to his groin, turning his sinewy thigh towards the firelight. There was an ugly mass of puckered grey scar flesh almost all the way round his leg. Even Logen had to admit to being impressed.

“What the hell did that?” asked Luthar, looking slightly queasy.

Longfoot smiled. “Many years ago, when I was yet a young man, I was shipwrecked in a storm off the coast of Suljuk. Nine times, in all, God has seen fit to dump me into his cold ocean in bad weather. Luckily, I have always been truly blessed as a swimmer. Unluckily, on this occasion, some manner of great fish took me for its next meal.”

“A fish?” muttered Ferro.

“Indeed. A most huge and aggressive fish, with a jaw wide as a doorway and teeth like knives. Fortunately, a sharp blow on the nose,” and he chopped at the air with his hand, “caused it to release me, and a fortuitous current washed me up on shore. I was doubly blessed to find a sympathetic lady among the natives, who allowed me to recuperate in her abode, for the people of Suljuk are generally most suspicious of outsiders.” He sighed happily. “That is how I came to learn their language. A highly spiritual people. God has favoured me. Truly.” There was a silence.

“I bet you can do better.” Luthar was grinning across at Logen.

“I got bitten by a mean sheep once, but it didn’t leave much of a mark.”

“What about the finger?”

“This?” He stared at the familiar stub, waggling it back and forward. “What about it?”

“How did you lose it?”

Logen frowned. He wasn’t sure he liked the way this conversation was going. Hearing about Bayaz’ mistakes was one thing, but he wasn’t that keen to delve into his own. The dead knew, he’d made some bad ones. Still, they were all looking now. He had to say something. “I lost it in a battle. Outside a place called Carleon. I was young back then, and full of fire myself. It was my stupid fashion to go charging into the thick of the fighting. That time, when I came out, the finger was gone.”

“Heat of the moment, eh?” asked Bayaz.

“Something like that.” He frowned and rubbed gently at the stump. “Strange thing. For a long time after it was gone, I could still feel it, itching, right in the tip. Drove me mad. How can you scratch a finger that’s not there?”

“Did it hurt?” asked Luthar.

“Like a bastard, to begin with, but not half as much as some others I’ve had.”

“Like what?”

That needed some thinking about. Logen scratched at his face and turned over all the hours, and days, and weeks he’d spent injured, and bloody, and screaming. Limping around or trying to cut his meat with his hands all bandaged up. “I got a good sword cut across my face one time,” he said, feeling the notch Tul Duru had made in his ear, “bled like anything. Nearly got my eye poked out with an arrow,” rubbing at the crescent scar under his brow. “Took hours to dig out all the splinters. Then I had a bloody great rock dropped on me at the siege of Uffrith. First day, as well.” He rubbed the back of his head and felt the lumpy ridges, under his hair. “Broke my skull, and my shoulder too.”

“Nasty,” said Bayaz.

“My own fault. That’s what you get when you try and tear a city wall down with your bare hands.” Luthar stared at him, and he shrugged. “Didn’t work. Like I said, I was hot-headed in my youth.”

“I’m only surprised you didn’t try and chew through it.”

“Most likely that would’ve been my next move. Just as well they dropped a rock on me. At least I’ve still got my teeth. Spent two months squealing on my back while they laid siege to the city. I only just healed in time for the fight with Threetrees, when I got the whole lot broken again, and more besides.” Logen winced at the memory, curling up the fingers of his right hand and straightening them out, remembering the pain of it, all smashed up. “Now that really did hurt. Not as much as this, though,” and he dug his hand under his belt and pulled his shirt up. They all peered across the fire to see what he was pointing at. A small scar, really, just under his bottom rib, in the hollow beside his stomach.

“Doesn’t look like much,” said Luthar.

Logen shuffled round to show them his back. “There’s the rest of it,” he said, jerking his thumb at what he knew was a much bigger mark beside his backbone. There was a long silence while they took that in.

“Right through?” murmured Longfoot.

“Right through, with a spear. In a duel, with a man called Harding Grim. Damn lucky to live, and that’s a fact.”

“If it was in a duel,” murmured Bayaz, “how did you come out alive?”

Logen licked his lips. His mouth tasted bitter. “I beat him.”

“With a spear through you?”

“I didn’t know about it until afterwards.”

Longfoot and Luthar frowned at each other. “That would seem a difficult detail to overlook,” said the Navigator.

“You’d think so.” Logen hesitated, trying to think of a good way to put it, but there was no good way. “There are times… well… I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

A long pause. “How do you mean?” asked Bayaz, and Logen winced. All the fragile trust he’d built over the last few weeks was in danger of crumbling round his ears, but he didn’t see any choice. He’d never been much of a liar.

“When I was fourteen, I think, I argued with a friend. Can’t even remember what about. I remember being angry. I remember he hit me. Then I was looking at my hands.” And he looked down at them now, pale in the darkness. “I’d strangled him. Good and dead. I didn’t remember doing it, but there was only me there, and I had his blood under my nails. I dragged him up some rocks, and I threw him off onto his head, and I said he fell out of a tree and died, and everyone believed me. His mother cried, and so on, but what could I do? That was the first time it happened.”

Logen felt the eyes of the group all fixed on him. “Few years later I nearly killed my father. Stabbed him while we were eating. Don’t know why. Don’t know why at all. He healed, luckily.”

He felt Longfoot easing nervously away, and he hardly blamed him. “That was when the Shanka started coming more often. So my father sent me south, over the mountains, to look for help. So I found Bethod, and he offered me help if I’d fight for him. I was happy to do it, fool that I was, but the fighting went on, and on. The things I did in those wars… the things they told me I did.” He took a long breath. “Well. I’d killed friends. You should have seen what I did to enemies. To begin with I enjoyed it. I loved to sit at the top of the fire, to look at men and see their fear, to have no man dare to meet my eye, but it got worse. And worse. There came one winter that I didn’t know who I was, or what I was doing most of the time. Sometimes I’d see it happening, but I couldn’t change it. No one knew who I’d kill next. They were all shitting themselves, even Bethod, and no one more scared of me than I was.”

They all sat for a while in gaping silence. The ruined building had been seeming like some kind of comfort after all that dead and empty space on the plain, but it didn’t any more. The empty windows yawned like wounds. The empty doorways gaped like graves. The silence dragged on, and on, and then Longfoot cleared his throat. “So, for the sake of argument, do you think it’s possible that, perhaps without intending to, you might kill one of us?”

“It’s more likely I’d kill all of you than one.”

Bayaz was frowning. “Forgive me if I feel less than entirely reassured.”

“I wish at least that you had mentioned this earlier!” snapped Longfoot. “It is the type of information a travelling companion should share! I hardly think that—”

“Leave him be,” growled Ferro.

“But we need to know—”

“Shut your mouth, stargazing fool. You’re all a long way from perfect.” She scowled over at Longfoot. “Some of you make a lot of words and are nowhere near when the trouble starts.” She frowned at Luthar. “Some of you are a lot less use than you think you are.” She glared at Bayaz. “And some of you keep a lot of secrets, then fall asleep at bad times and leave the rest of us stranded in the middle of nowhere. So he’s a killer. So fucking what? Suited you well enough when the killing needed doing.”

“I only wanted to—”

“Shut your mouth, I said. “Longfoot blinked for a moment, then did as he was told.

Logen stared across the fire at Ferro. The very last place he’d ever have hoped to get a good word. Out of all of them, only she’d seen it happen. Only she knew what he really meant. And still she’d spoken up for him. She saw him looking, and she scowled and shrank back into her corner, but that didn’t change anything. He felt himself smile.

“What about you, then?” Bayaz was looking at Ferro as well, touching one finger to his lip as though thinking.

“What about me?”

“You say you don’t like secrets. We have all spoken of our scars. I bored the group with my old stories, and the Bloody-Nine thrilled us with his.” The Magus tapped his bony face, full of hard shadows from the fire. “How did you get yours?”

A pause. “I bet you made whoever gave you that suffer, eh?” said Luthar, a trace of laughter in his voice.

Longfoot started to chuckle. “Oh indeed! I daresay he came to a sharp end! I dread to think of the—”

“I did it,” said Ferro.

Such laughter as there was sputtered and died, the smiles faded as they took that in. “Eh?” said Logen.

“What, pink, you fucking deaf? I did it to myself.”

“Why?”

“Hah!” she barked, glaring at him across the fire. “You don’t know what it is, to be owned! When I was twelve years old I was sold to a man called Susman.” And she spat on the ground and snarled something in her own tongue. Logen didn’t reckon it was a compliment. “He owned a place where girls were trained, then sold on at a profit.”

“Trained to do what?” asked Luthar.

“What do you think, fool? To fuck.”

“Ah,” he squeaked, swallowing and looking at the ground again.

“Two years I was there. Two years, before I stole a knife. I did not know then, how to kill. So I hurt my owner the best way I could. I cut myself, right to the bone. By the time they got the blade away from me I had cut my price down to a quarter.” She grinned fiercely at the fire as if it had been her proudest day. “You should have heard him squeal, the bastard!”

Logen stared. Longfoot gaped. Even the First of the Magi looked shocked. “You scarred yourself?”

“What of it?” Silence again. The wind blew up and swirled around inside the ruin, hissing in the chinks between the stones and making the flames flicker and dance. No one had much left to say after that.

Furious

The snow drifted down, white specks swirling in the empty air beyond the cliffs edge, turning the green pines, the black rocks, the brown river below into grey ghosts.

West could hardly believe that as a child he had looked forward to the coming of snow every year. That he had been delighted to wake up and see the world coated in white. That it could have held a mystery, and a wonder, and a joy. Now the sight of the flakes settling on Cathil’s hair, on Ladisla’s coat, on West’s own filthy trouser leg, filled him with horror. More gripping cold, more chafing wet, more crushing effort to move. He rubbed his pale hands together, sniffed and frowned up at the sky, willing himself not to slide into misery.

“Have to make the best of things,” he whispered, the words croaking in his raw throat and smoking thick in the cold. “Have to.” He thought of warm summer in the Agriont. Blossom blowing from the trees in the squares. Birds twittering on the shoulders of smiling statues. Sunlight pouring through leafy branches in the park. It did not help. He sniffed back runny snot, tried yet again to worm his hands up into his uniform sleeves, but they were never quite long enough. He gripped the frayed hems with his pale fingers. Would he ever be warm again?

He felt Pike’s hand on his shoulder. “Something’s up,” murmured the convict. He pointed at the Northmen, squatting in a group, muttering urgently to each other.

West stared wearily over at them. He had only just got nearly comfortable and it was difficult to take an interest in anything beyond his own pain. He slowly unfolded his aching legs, heard his cold knees click as he got up, shook himself, tried to slap the tiredness out of his body. He started shuffling towards the Northmen, bent over like an old man, arms wrapped round himself for warmth. Before he got there the meeting had already broken up. Another decision made without any need for his opinion.

Threetrees strode towards him, utterly unaffected by the falling snow. “The Dogman’s spotted some of Bethod’s scouts,” he grunted, pointing through the trees. “Just down the rise there, right in by the stream, near those falls. Lucky he caught them. They could just as easily have caught us, and we’d most likely all be dead by now.”

“How many?”

“A dozen, he thinks. Getting round ’em could be risky.”

West frowned, rocking his weight from one foot back to the other, trying to keep the blood moving. “Surely fighting them would be riskier still?”

“Maybe, maybe not. If we can get the jump on ’em, our chances ain’t bad. They’ve got food, weapons,” he looked West up and down, “and clothes. All kinds o’ gear that we could use. We’re just past the knuckle o’ winter now. We keep heading north, it ain’t going to get any warmer. It’s decided. We’re fighting. A dozen’s long odds, so we’ll need every man. Your mate Pike there looks like he can swing an axe without worrying too much on the results. You’d best get him ready an’ all.” He nodded at Ladisla, hunched up on the ground. “The girl should stay out but—”

“Not the Prince. It’s too dangerous.”

Threetrees narrowed his eyes. “You’re damn right it’s dangerous. That’s why every man should share the risk.”

West leaned in close, doing his best to sound persuasive with his cracked lips as tough and thick as a pair of overcooked sausages. “He’d only make the risk greater for everyone. We both know it.” The Prince peered back at them suspiciously, trying to guess what they were talking about. “He’d be about as much use in a fight as a sack over your head.”

The old Northman snorted. “Most likely you’re right there.” He took a deep breath and frowned, taking some time to think about it. “Alright. It ain’t usual, but alright. He stays, him and the girl. The rest of us fight, and that means you too.”

West nodded. Each man has to do his part, how ever little he might relish the prospect. “Fair enough. The rest of us fight.” And he stumbled back over to tell the others.

Back home in the bright gardens of the Agriont, Crown Prince Ladisla would never have been recognised. The dandies, the courtiers, the hangers-on who usually clung to his every word would most likely have stepped over him, holding their noses. The coat West had given him was coming apart at the seams, worn through at the elbows, crusted with mud. Beneath it, his spotless white uniform had gradually darkened to the colour of filth. A few tatters of gold braid still hung from it, like a glorious bouquet of flowers rotted down to the greasy stalks. His hair was a tangled thatch, he had developed a patchy growth of ginger beard, and a rash of hair between his brows implied that in happier days he had spent a great deal of time plucking them. The only man within a hundred miles in a sorrier condition was probably West himself.

“What’s to do?” mumbled the Prince as West dropped down beside him.

“There are some of Bethod’s scouts down near the river, your Highness. We have to fight.”

The Prince nodded. “I will need a weapon of some—”

“I must ask you to stay behind.”

“Colonel West, I feel that I should be—”

“You would be a great asset, your Highness, but I am afraid it is quite out of the question. You are the heir to the throne. We cannot afford to put you in harm’s way.”

Ladisla did his best to look disappointed, but West could almost taste his relief. “Very well, if you’re sure.”

“Absolutely.” West looked at Cathil. “The two of you should stay here. We’ll be back soon. With luck.” He almost winced at the last part. Luck had been decidedly thin on the ground lately. “Keep out of sight, and keep quiet.”

She grinned back at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”

Ladisla glowered sideways, fists clenched with impotent anger. It seemed he was getting no better at dealing with her constant jibes. No doubt being flattered and obeyed your entire life was poor preparation for being made a fool of in awful conditions. West wondered for a moment if he was making a mistake leaving them alone, but it was hardly as though he had any choice. They were well out of the way up here. They should be safe. A lot safer than him, anyway.

They squatted down on their haunches. A ring of scarred and dirty faces, hard expressions, ragged hair. Threetrees, his craggy features creased with deep lines. Black Dow with his missing ear and his savage grin. Tul Duru, his heavy brows drawn in. Grim, looking as careless as a stone. The Dogman, bright eyes narrowed, breath steaming from his sharp nose. Pike, with a deep frown across those few parts of his burned face that were capable of movement. Six of the hardest-looking men in the world, and West.

He swallowed. Every man has to do his part.

Threetrees was scratching a crude map in the hard soil with a stick. “Alright, lads, they’re tucked in down here near the river, a dozen, maybe more. Here’s how we’ll get it done. Grim, up on the left, Dogman on the right, usual drill.”

“Done, chief,” said the Dogman. Grim nodded.

“Me, Tul, and Pike’ll come at ’em from this side, hand to hand. Hope to surprise ’em. Don’t shoot any of us, eh, lads?”

The Dogman grinned. “If you keep well clear of the arrows, you’ll be fine.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Dow and West, you’ll get across the river and wait by the falls there. Come up behind them.” The stick scratched a hard groove into the earth, and West felt the lump of worry swelling in his throat. “Noise of the water should keep you out of notice. Go when you see me chuck a stone over into the pool, you hear me? The stone coming over. That’s the signal.”

“Course it is, chief,” grunted Dow.

West suddenly realised that Threetrees was glaring right at him. “You hearing this, boy?”

“Er, yes, of course,” he muttered, tongue clumsy with cold and growing fear. “When the stone comes over, we go… chief.”

“Alright. And the lot of you keep your eyes open. There could be others near. Bethod’s got scouts all over the country. Anyone still guessing at what to do?” They all shook their heads. “Good. Then don’t go blaming me if you get yourself killed.”

Threetrees stood up and the others followed him. They made their last few preparations, loosening blades in sheaths, pulling at bowstrings, tightening buckles. There wasn’t much for West to prepare. A heavy, stolen sword pushed through a weathered belt, and that was it. He felt an utter fool in amongst this company. He wondered how many people they had killed between them. He would not have been surprised if it had been a whole town full, with enough left over for an outlying village or two. Even Pike looked more than ready to commit careless murder. West had to remind himself that he had not the slightest idea why the man had been convicted to a penal colony in the first place. Looking at him now, running a thoughtful thumb down the edge of his heavy axe, eyes hard in that dead, burned face, it was not difficult to imagine.

West stared at his hands. They were trembling, and not just from the cold. He grabbed one with the other and squeezed them tight. He looked up to see the Dogman grinning at him. “Got to have fear to have courage,” he said, then turned and followed Threetrees and the others into the trees.

Black Dow’s harsh voice hacked at West from behind. “You’re with me, killer. Try and keep up.” He spat on the frozen ground then turned and set off towards the river. West took one last look back towards the others. Cathil nodded to him, once, and he nodded back, then he turned and followed Dow, ducking through the trees in silence, all coated with glittering, dripping ice, while the hissing of the waterfall grew louder and louder in his ears.

Threetrees’ plan was starting to seem rather short on details. “Once we get across the stream, and we get the signal, what do we do?”

“Kill,” grunted Dow over his shoulder.

That answer, useless though it was, sent a sudden stab of panic through West’s guts. “Should I go left or right?”

“Whichever you like, long as you stay out of my way.”

“Where will you be going?”

“Wherever the killing is.”

West wished he had never spoken as he stepped gingerly out onto the bank. He could see the falls just upstream, a wall of dark rock and rushing white water between the black tree trunks, throwing freezing mist and noise into the air.

The river here was no more than four strides across but the water flooded past, quick and dark, frothing round the wet stones at its edges. Dow held his sword and axe up high, waded out steadily, up to his waist in the middle, then crept up onto the far bank, pressing himself dripping against the rocks. He looked round, frowned to see West so far behind, jerked his hand angrily for him to follow.

West fumbled out his own sword and lifted it up, held a deep breath and stepped into the stream. The water flooded into his boot and round his calf. It felt as if his leg had been suddenly clamped in ice. He took a step forward and his other leg vanished up to the thigh. His eyes bulged, his breath came in snorts, but there could be no turning back. He took one more step. His boot slipped on the mossy stones on the bed of the stream and he slid helplessly in up to his armpits. He would have screamed if the freezing water had not hammered the air out of his lungs. He floundered forward, half-stumbling, half-swimming, teeth gritted with panic, sloshed up onto the far bank, breath hissing in shallow, desperate gasps. He staggered up and leaned against the stones behind Dow, his skin numb and prickling.

The Northman smirked at him. “You look cold, boy.”

“I’m fine,” spluttered West through chattering teeth. He had never been so cold in his life. “I’ll do my puh… puh… part.”

“You’ll do your what? I’ll not have you fighting cold boy, you’ll get us both killed.”

“Don’t worry about—” Dow’s open hand slapped him hard across the face. The shock of it was almost worse than the pain. West gawped, dropping his blade in the mud, one hand jerking up instinctively to his stinging cheek. “What the—”

“Use it!” hissed the Northman at him. “It belongs to you!”

West was just opening his mouth when Dow’s other hand smacked into it and sent him staggering against the rocks, blood dribbling from his lip and onto the wet earth, his head singing.

“It’s yours. Own it!”

“You fucking…” The rest was nothing more than a mindless growl as West’s hands closed round Dow’s neck, squeezing, clawing, snarling like an animal, teeth bared and mindless. The blood surged round his body, the hunger, and the pain, and the frustration of the endless freezing march spilling out of him all at once.

But Black Dow was twice as strong as West, however angry he was. “Use it!” he growled as he peeled West’s hands away and crushed him back against the rocks. “You hot yet?”

Something flashed overhead and splashed into the water beside them. Dow gave him a parting shove then sprang away, charging up the bank with a roar. West struggled after him, clawing the heavy sword up out of the mud and lifting it high, the blood pulsing in his head, howling meaningless sounds at the top of his lungs.

The muddy ground sped by underneath him. He crashed through bushes and rotten wood into the open. He saw Dow hack a gawping Northman down with his axe. Dark blood leapt into the air, black spots against the tangle of branches and white sky. Trees and rocks and shaggy men jolted and wobbled, his own breath roaring in his ears like a storm. Someone loomed up and he swung the sword at them, felt it bite. Blood spattered into West’s face and he reeled, and spat, and blinked, slid onto his side and scrambled up. His head was full of wailing and crying, clashing metal and cracking bone.