Gallow (55 page)

‘What’s he doing?’

Gallow stared back in bewilderment. ‘Oribas!’ The shout was loud enough to shake the snow off the mountain, but if the Aulian heard then he gave no sign of it. Even when the forkbeard bellowed his name louder, all Oribas did was raise and shake his head and turn back to his foraging. He moved from stone to stone, pushing at each and excavating until at last he found one that pleased him. He crouched and began rummaging through the pouches on his belt. The forkbeard shook his head. ‘Go across! I’ll wait for him. Tell the rest of them to go. I’ll stay to cut the bridge.’

Achista tried not to look down at the tumble of boulders beneath her as she walked across the bridge, or at the sprinkling of snow that covered them. She could hear rushing water but she couldn’t see it, lost as it was under the ice. Two dozen steps, give or take, to cross the ravine, and for that time everything else fled her thoughts. Just slow steady breaths and slow steady steps, each foot sure on the rope, one after the next. When she reached the other side and looked back the Aulian was on his way down. The forkbeard was still waiting but the others were already off and away along the path that climbed up the other side along the next ridge, all except Addic with his knife. Oribas picked his way through the stones and crossed as she did, slowly and carefully, muttering to himself as he came. He was halfway when the iron devil and the first of the forkbeards finally emerged from the caves. Achista waved at Gallow: ‘Forkbeard! They’re here.’

Gallow waited for Oribas to reach her and then crossed with sure quick strides, growling forkbeard prayers and oaths. As soon as he was across, Addic began sawing at the ropes. The forkbeard’s eyes were wide as though he was about to go into battle and the bulk of him shook with each huge breath.

Oribas put a hand on Addic’s arm. ‘There’s no need for that.’ But Addic paid no attention and the forkbeard quickly set to helping too. Across the ravine the iron devil was following the path the Marroc had made. Oribas came to stand beside her. ‘Do you see the stone where I stopped? The one I marked with the snow in the sign of your god Modris?’

Achista stared. Yes, she saw it now, the sign. She hadn’t before.

‘Where I dug out the snow underneath, do you think you could hit it with an arrow?’

She nodded. On the far side of the ravine the other forkbeards were coming out of the cave now. They must have realised they had no chance of reaching the bridge in time but they came anyway, some of them ignoring the Marroc path and cutting down the slope as fast as they dared. Achista watched while Addic and Gallow hacked at the last rope. ‘Why?’

Oribas leaned and whispered in her ear. She almost jumped at how close he was. ‘Another little Aulian trick, that’s why.’

Addic let out a cry of triumph. The last rope snapped and whipped through the air as the end of the bridge fell. The forkbeards out on the snowfield stopped to watch but the iron devil kept on until he was standing on the far side, straight across from them. He saluted. ‘Why cut those ropes, old friend? We could have fought in the middle of that bridge. Swaying from side to side over a pitiless drop. They would have written a song to us for that, Foxbeard, whatever the ending.’

Gallow laughed back at him. ‘The ending would have been of two forkbeards plunging to their deaths as the Marroc cut the bridge and skipped away whooping in triumph. The Marroc would sing a song about that, right enough, but you’d not hear it across the sea.’

‘Your Marroc not as friendly as you thought?’

‘More friendly than my friends, old friend.’

Achista drew back her bow. The iron devil cocked his head at her. Oribas whispered in her ear. ‘Wait! Wait until they’re all close.’

The forkbeards were spreading across the slope now. They’d seen the place where the snow had sheared away and plunged over the edge and understood the danger now. Achista had to remind herself sometimes that the forkbeards came from a place of ice and cold too, that the Varyxhun valley was close to what they knew as home. It was easy to forget, but perhaps that was why so many of them came. She looked at the boulder Oribas had marked. ‘What do you mean to do? Knock it over and then hope he doesn’t see it before it bowls him into the ravine like an iron skittle?’

The Aulian smiled. ‘That would do, wouldn’t it? If you could get the iron-skinned one, that would be best. Although I admit I was hoping for somewhat more.’

‘But he’s not in its path.’

The iron devil drew his sword, the deep red sword that Addic and the Aulian had brought to the farmhouse. He pointed it at Gallow. ‘The Marroc tell me it’s cursed. I’m beginning to think they’re right. Maybe you should keep it, Foxbeard.’

Gallow called back across the ravine, ‘The Marroc are right, old friend. If Medrin wants it so badly, let him have it. No good comes of the red blade.’

‘Now would be perfect,’ murmured Oribas.

Achista took aim and let her arrow fly. The forkbeards out in the snow all cringed behind their shields. The arrow hit the underside of Oribas’s boulder but nothing happened. The forkbeards turned to look. One or two started to laugh, but not the iron devil. His head whipped round. He looked up, looked across at the forkbeards all out in the open and roared, ‘
Get back!
’

‘Again.’

She loosed a second arrow. This time there was a flash of light and a whoosh of flame and a loud crack where the arrow struck something Oribas had left behind. A stone the size of a small child tipped and slid and then tumbled, bringing a few others with it, rolling towards the forkbeards out in the open snow. They scattered, scrambling out of the way of the falling boulder, all except the iron devil who stayed absolutely still. Snow tumbled around the boulder’s wake. Achista caught a glimpse of something very smug in the Aulian’s face and then half of the slope across the ravine began to slip at once. The forkbeards wailed and screamed and down they went, caught in the sliding snow. The ones still close to the mouth of the Devil’s Caves and outside the reach of the avalanche watched in helpless horror. For the others there was no hope, nothing anyone could do as a great cloud of powdery snow crashed over the edge of the ravine, enveloping everything in its path, rumbling and roaring, filled with cries that quickly faded as half the forkbeards were swept over the edge. Achista watched the iron devil stagger and fall and then he too was lost in the plume – a moment later a wall of fine ice and snow swept over her, stinging her face, buffeting her hard enough that she stumbled and fell onto her backside. As the cloud slowly sank into the ravine, she picked herself up. The forkbeards left by the cave mouth hurled dire curses. Two lucky ones lay in the jumble of broken snow at the edge of the slide, struggling to their feet, but the iron devil was gone and half a dozen others who’d been closest to him. Vanished. She looked into the ravine but all she could see was a cloud of settling snow. There were no cries or wails or screams. The forkbeards were dead and Oribas was smiling. She couldn’t help but take a step away from him. Witchery. There wasn’t anything else it could have been.

His smile faded. He frowned and peered into the ravine as though looking for something. Over on the other side of the slope one of the forkbeards was stringing a bow. A thing she could understand. She took aim at him before he could nock an arrow: he saw her and hid behind his shield; Achista shot her own arrow into it to make her point and grabbed Oribas by his arm. ‘Come on!’

Gallow was shaking his head. He wasn’t smiling at all, although he didn’t seem surprised by what Oribas had done. ‘The ironskin was my friend once,’ he said. ‘We were almost brothers.’

Achista pulled at Oribas. ‘You had an iron devil for a friend, forkbeard? Well, now he’s gone, and good riddance!’ She ran after Addic and the other Marroc, dragging Oribas in her wake. The forkbeard with the bow was stringing it again so she stopped and took another shot at him and then at a couple of the others, sending them cowering behind their shields once more.

‘Gallow, the ironskin stopped being your friend when they put the mask and crown on him,’ said Oribas.

‘And what would you know of the Fateguard, Oribas? They never crossed the mountains. What does an Aulian know of those who serve the Eyes of Time?’

‘Little enough, my friend.’ Oribas shrugged and shook his head and Achista saw the look in his eye. He knew something more, something painful, a burden he was keeping to himself.

‘You never killed a man, Oribas.’ The forkbeard looked grim. ‘In the year we hunted your Rakshasa, you never once even lifted your hand to hurt another. There were times when you could have, times when perhaps you should have, but you never did, not once. The chase was ended, the bridge cut and gone. Why, Oribas? Why do that? Was there truly a need?’

The Aulian looked sombre as they trotted along the path in the snow in the wake of the others. His eyes didn’t flicker and his face gave nothing away but Achista slowly realised that she knew the answer.

He’d done it for her.

A
ddic sat beside a fire, warming his naked feet. It had taken the rest of the morning for them to reach Jodderslet, the nearest hamlet amid the isolated valleys nestled in the mountains around Varyxhun. He looked at the sky, hoping for clouds that might bring snow to cover their tracks, but the air was clear and the sun was bright and warm. The Aulian might have swept half a dozen of the forkbeards into the ravine but that still left near a dozen of them on the other side of the bridge. They’d find a way across. Half the little hamlets and farmsteads in the high valleys had never even seen a forkbeard before and it would surprise him if there was a single forkbeard who’d ever heard of Jodderslet, but that would change now. The forkbeards would follow. Forkbeards always did.

The other Marroc former prisoners were huddled around him, rubbing their icy skin, trying to get warm. They were hardly fighters. The farmers of Jodderslet milled around, bemused as much as anything else by the sudden arrival of so many strangers.
They
were hardly fighters either and they stared in bewilderment at Oribas. None of them had ever heard of Aulia, never mind seen a man from over the mountains. Half thought he was some sort of monster and made the sign of Modris every time they saw him. But they’d heard of forkbeards, and when Addic said that a band of them would be coming, they were none too happy. They collected whatever might pass for weapons: axes, a few forks, a spear or two and a couple of hunting bows, if you included Achista’s. Addic looked around. Not a piece of armour among them. Not a single shield, not one helm, except on the forkbeard Gallow. Between the farmers and the prisoners there were two or three Marroc for every forkbeard they’d left on the mountainside but the forkbeards were soldiers, armed and armoured, while most of these Marroc were ordinary men who’d never fought with anything more than their fists.

‘Maybe they won’t come,’ said one of the farmers, but Addic knew better. When did the forkbeards ever not give chase when a Marroc ran?

He left the farmers and the other Marroc to pick their weapons. Addic supposed they could keep running instead of fighting, but he and the others from the caves had no boots, only rags for clothes and there was nothing but snow out here. They were half frozen and exhausted already. Better to try and take a forkbeard or two with them. He crossed the barn to Gallow. ‘And what about you? Will you fight your kinsmen a second time?’

‘It’s not my fight.’ Gallow’s face was pinched and bitter. He stood by the door to the barn, staring out into the snow, oblivious to the bustle behind him.

‘No.’ Addic turned away and then stopped. ‘But it wasn’t your fight back when you stopped me going over the edge of the Varyxhun Road and into the Isset either. You’d make a difference here.’

‘By killing more men who were once my friends?’

‘By saving those who might become new ones.’

Gallow stared at him with those ice-blue eyes that jabbed like spears. ‘None of you will ever call me friend, Marroc, no matter what I do. There was only ever one of you who looked past where my forked beard should be. It’s time I went to find her.’

Addic shook his head. ‘When the strong do nothing, the wicked prevail. Your words, forkbeard, not mine.’ He left Gallow to his gloom and sought out his sister instead, sitting in a corner of the barn with Oribas. The Aulian was drawing in the dirt with a stick and it took a moment for Addic to understand: he was drawing Jodderslet, a map of it. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m no warrior,’ he said, ‘but I studied all the great generals of the early empire – Kunessin, Loredan, Cronan and Allectus. I can’t say it much interested me but we were obliged to study the history of war as much as we were obliged to study poetry and alchemy.’ He poked at the dirt with his stick. ‘The enemy will follow our trail. They’ll emerge from the trees on the slopes above us. They’ll have to cross this open space to reach us. The snow will slow them down. They’ll be exposed.’

‘And will you bring the mountain down on them again?’ asked Addic sourly. The Aulian shook his head. Achista shot her brother a sharp look.

‘No. But General Tullinus lost a thousand men crossing a swamp against savages armed with little more than knives and bows. While they’re in the open . . .’

‘We have two bows; the forkbeards will advance behind their shields and we have no time to dig pits or built barricades.’ Addic turned away and left them to it and went back to look for Gallow, to ask the forkbeard to at least leave them his sword, but the big man was gone and Addic couldn’t find him. After that there didn’t seem much to do except sharpen his axe, wait for the forkbeards and warm himself by a fire. Might as well be comfortable before he went out into the snow to die.

Achista watched him. Her brother, whom she loved more than any other man. He thought that by staying here they were all going to die, and he was probably right. She touched Oribas on the back of his hand. ‘You should go with your forkbeard friend,’ she said, ‘before he leaves without you.’