by Nathan Hawke
He stopped and looked past them. The main street of Varyxhun ran straight as an arrow from the gates to the market square in the middle of the town. It was a river of half-frozen mud and slush, piles of dirty snow pushed up against the walls of the wooden houses that lined it. He’d come through here once long ago with the Screambreaker and his army, chasing after the fleeing Marroc king. They’d stopped for a while to throw a few spears and arrows at the walls of Varyxhun castle, perched up on the crags of the mountainside overlooking them, but not for long. Assaulting the castle was impossible. They’d already fought their way across the Aulian Bridge and then past the fortress of Witches’ Reach that defended the entrance to the valley. They’d been tired and battered and bloodied by the time they reached the city, and there had stood the castle as it did today, staring down at them from hundreds of feet of sheer rock, the single narrow road winding back and forth beneath a slaughter of walls, defended by gatehouse after gatehouse after gatehouse. They’d settled for helping themselves to the town, feasting on its food and its mead and its women. They hadn’t burned much, but then the Screambreaker had grown more thoughtful towards the end of his campaign. It was Tane he wanted, not the castle, and that meant making Varyxhun his home. They bled it dry but they hadn’t killed it, and then it turned out that Tane had slipped out right under their noses and died somewhere in the mountains, weeks earlier while he was looking to escape along the Aulian Way. The war was suddenly finished, and when the Screambreaker turned his eye to the castle once again, he’d found the gates hanging open, the huscarls who’d defended them dead by their own hands. And that had been enough. The Lhosir had quietly melted away. They’d gone to Andhun, the last Marroc stronghold, and after that most of them had gone home.
Now Lhosir in mail and helms walked through the mud of Varyxhun once more. Marroc hurried past them, eyes down. Gallow hadn’t been keeping track of the days, but Midwinter was surely close. In Middislet they’d celebrated for days, burning effigies of the Weeping God on Midwinter night and drinking mead until dawn to toast the birth of the sun and the first sunrise of the year, all of them roaring drunk. There were no hanging effigies of the Weeping God in Varyxhun though. Perhaps they had little to celebrate this midwinter.
Gallow wrapped himself in his furs, covering his face as best he could. The last time he’d been here had been in summer and these fringes of the town had been a sea of mud. The cold had changed that into hard frozen dirt covered in an inch of treacherous slime made of mud and animal dung and melted snow. At least the smell wasn’t as bad as he remembered. Along the street by the gates, hanged men dangled from gibbets, blackened and withered by time, skin pecked to shreds, twisting languorously back and forth in the wind. There were half a dozen of them, Medrin, or whoever ruled here in his name, always reminding the Marroc of their lords and of the price of dissent. There was a tavern by the gates. It had been the Horn of Plenty once, with some of the best Marroc ale in the valley, but it had changed its name now – to the King’s Hand, with a crude wooden six-fingered hand painted black hanging over the door. Whether the Marroc meant that as homage to their king or as mockery Gallow couldn’t guess. He looked further along the road towards the market square where traders and travellers congregated. If there was any word to be had of Nadric the smith or Fenaric the carter it would be there. But when he asked, the Marroc all saw his Lhosir face and shrugged or turned away. As far as he could tell, no one knew the names. If they did, they kept their knowledge to themselves.
He slept in a hen house and left Varyxhun the next morning, alone and on foot with nothing more than the clothes he wore – mail and a helm under thick furs. He stared up at Varyxhun castle, wondering if Oribas was there, if the Aulian was already dead or whether he was still alive and in a dungeon, waiting to hang. Stared and wondered what he could possibly do, alone against so many, then looked with his fingers for Arda’s locket around his neck and remembered again that it was gone. He bowed his head. No. There was nothing to be done. Alone he could make no difference.
I’m sorry. But I came here to go home, not to die.
He didn’t give much thought to where he’d sleep or what he’d eat. He’d come this far. Fate would provide, and if he had to chop wood every night for a barn to sleep in and a bowl of soup, that’s what he’d do. Middislet was maybe a dozen days away, fewer if he crossed the Crackmarsh. If Nadric had left Varyxhun then Arda would have gone with him and that’s where they’d be. After three years of trying to get home, a few more days didn’t seem like it should be too much bother, but he felt her closeness now, an urgency that grew quietly inside him. Every time he touched the place where her locket had once sat warm against his skin and found it missing, its absence felt like a fresh wound.
He avoided the Lhosir he saw on the road. The Marroc in turn steered away from him as soon as they saw his face and his eyes and knew what he was. He spent the first night in a barn and chopped wood even though the Marroc farmer was clearly terrified and desperate for this strange beardless forkbeard to go away. While he had an axe to borrow, he cut himself a staff for walking. A new pair of boots would have been nice. The old ones had seen him across the Aulian Way and the desert before. They leaked and had holes in their soles and his feet were wet and freezing.
Every time he stopped, he looked back, thought of Oribas and almost turned around, then thought of Arda and made himself go on. It felt wrong though. Weak. When one day he stood before the Maker-Devourer’s cauldron and faced the challenge Did you live your life well? what could he say? Yes, I did, except for the day when I turned my back on a friend.
But I have a wife who needs a husband. Children who need a father. And one man against a castle? Even the Screambreaker didn’t try it and he had a whole army. Yet it still seemed wrong to simply leave. It was enough to make any man weep, a choice like that, but he knew he’d chosen what a Marroc would choose, not a Lhosir. He’d lessened himself.
On the third morning out of Varyxhun a pair of Lhosir warriors on horseback trotted by. They shouted as they came, warning him off the road, and a few minutes later he saw why. A heavy wagon appeared, a great creaking wooden cage of a thing pulled by six plodding oxen. Another Lhosir sat at the front, shouting and cursing at the beasts. In the back a dozen men were penned in the cage. Gallow stood off the road to watch them pass. The captives were mostly Marroc, shivering and freezing in nothing but rags despite the biting wind and huddled all together, but in their midst he saw another face, darker than the rest. Unmistakable. An Aulian.
‘Oribas!’ The Aulian looked up as the wagon drove on. Another Lhosir rider came past, bringing up the rear. He stared at Gallow for a moment, eyes lingering on the furs obscuring Gallow’s clean chin before shifting deeper into the trees and snow along the roadside. His head kept darting this way and that as though he was looking for something. Gallow ran after him, caught up and trotted alongside him. ‘What chance for a brother from across the sea to take a ride on your wagon?’
‘You’re better off walking,’ snapped the soldier. ‘And if you have deeds yet undone, get off the road well before the sun sets.’
‘Why’s that then?’
The soldier looked at him as though he was mad. ‘New to the valley, brother? Marroc, that’s why.’ That was what he was looking for. Marroc with bows, hiding in the trees.
‘These prisoners – where are you taking them?’
‘If you don’t already know then it’s none of your business.’ The soldier stared hard at Gallow for a moment then curled his lip and went back to eyeing the trees. Gallow let him go, but as the wagon and its riders pulled away, he picked up his pace and kept it in sight. Oribas! It was as though the Maker-Devourer had heard him weep and had given him a second chance. No Lhosir could ignore a sign like that.
He tried to think. The Lhosir would want a place with stone walls and a good strong door. Witches’ Reach was the obvious, yet in the middle of the afternoon the wagon turned off the Varyxhun Road and onto a track that
was almost too narrow for it to pass, winding among the black bones of trees beside one of the thousand nameless freezing streams that ran off the mountains to join the Isset. Out of sight of the road, it stopped. The three Lhosir riders clustered with the wagon driver around the cage. The driver opened it, poking the prisoners out into the snow while the riders stayed mounted, eyes scanning the slopes for danger. They were nervous, all of them. The prisoners huddled together, backs against the wind until the riders waved their spears and herded them further up the track. The driver stayed where he was. He unharnessed his animals, whacking them with a stick to get them to move. Gallow watched a while longer as the soldiers hurried the shivering Marroc away up the track. The driver was turning his cart. Gallow racked his memory. There was nothing up here, nothing he could remember, only some caves, not even a village.
He stepped out of his hiding place and walked briskly along the track. The wagon driver was swearing at his animals so hard that he didn’t even look up until Gallow spoke. ‘Why not turn the wagon round on the road?’
The driver jumped almost a foot up into the air. He had a knife in his hand in a flash. Then he looked Gallow up and down and saw he was Lhosir and relaxed a little. ‘Maker-Devourer! A brother should know better than to creep up on a man!’ He frowned. ‘What’s a brother doing up here? This track doesn’t go anywhere.’ He didn’t put his knife away.
Gallow shrugged. ‘Hard place to turn a wagon this size. Want some help?’
The Lhosir stared. Gallow’s furs were wrapped across his face, hiding his chin. Finally the driver put away his knife. ‘That would be much appreciated.’
‘But why not turn the wagon back on the road?’
The driver glanced up the track. The riders were almost out of sight. ‘Last time we did that, three of the sheep collapsed before we even got this far. It’s better if they can walk at least to the caves. I mean it’s all the same in the end, but having to pick them up and drag them all that way . . .’ He shook his head as he finally got all but two of the oxen separated from the wagon. ‘Let’s get this turned then. If you want to help, push on that side there.’
‘Where you taking them?’ Gallow asked, careful not to let his fur slip.
‘Devil’s Caves.’
Yes, that was the name, remembered from more than a decade past. ‘And what do all those filthy Marroc do up there that’s better than hanging from a gibbet?’
The driver laughed. ‘Well . . .’ He grinned and drew a thumb across his throat. ‘Same thing, really. Just without . . .’ He frowned, sudden caution in his eye as though he’d seen a thundercloud slide cross Gallow’s face. ‘Name’s Fraggas. I don’t recognise you, brother, and I know most of our kin who travel these roads.’ His hand was slipping to his knife again.
‘I think you’ve heard of me though.’ Gallow let the fur slide off his chin. ‘Gallow. Gallow Foxbeard.’
Fraggas the carter had just enough time for his grin to turn sour at the edges before the end of Gallow’s staff hit him in the face and knocked him flat in the snow. ‘You kill them, do you? Where no one sees. Is that it?’ He didn’t wait for whatever answer might bubble out of the carter’s shattered nose along with all the blood but helped himself instead to the knife and the axe from Fraggas’s belt. Then he ran up the path, following the trail in the snow. If the caves were close he needed to catch the other Lhosir quickly, before they started cutting throats. Somewhere a god was laughing at him. Fraggas had boots that looked fine and new and were just the right size, but Gallow had no time.
15
THE ICE CAGE
He ran hard, scrambling up past cascades and waterfalls until the track levelled again in a snowy ravine whose walls rose fast and grew quickly steep. The Lhosir soldiers saw him just as he caught sight of the caves where they were heading. The Devil’s Caves, marked by piles of stones and bones. One of the riders turned and charged. Gallow lifted his walking staff as though it was a javelot, hurled it and threw himself into the snow, rolling under the rider’s thrust. The staff caught the Lhosir in the face, knocking him backwards. Gallow didn’t wait to see whether he fell. He ran on towards the other two who were already cutting down the scattering screaming Marroc. ‘Oribas!’ He could see the Aulian. Three Marroc were already dead, sprawled crimson streaks across pristine white. The rest were floundering through the snow, running as best they could with their hands tied behind their backs.
Oribas threw himself down beside one of the dead Marroc. The two remaining Lhosir riders split. One skewered the nearest Marroc while the other turned his spear at Gallow and charged. Gallow twisted away from the thrust. He grabbed the shaft of the spear and levered the point down into the snow and the earth beneath until it jammed against something solid and wrenched out of the rider’s hand. As he passed, Gallow snapped around and hurled the spear with every ounce of his strength into the man’s back. It caught the Lhosir between the shoulders. He arched and fell off his horse, howling. Gallow ran at him before he could get up, but now the first rider was coming back, his face smeared with blood from Gallow’s staff and he still had his spear. The second was getting to his feet, swearing a storm and trying to shake the spear loose from his back where it was caught in his furs. He held himself crookedly. The spear might not have pierced his mail but it hadn’t been wasted.
‘Nioingr!’ The first Lhosir spurred his horse at Gallow. Gallow watched the tip of his spear, looking to see which way to dive, but at the last minute the Lhosir’s eyes flicked away from him to something further up the valley and he veered away. The second Lhosir had dislodged the spear and now lurched at Gallow, axe in hand. He held his shield awkwardly, his arm pressed in against his body as though he couldn’t lift it any further. His face was strained with pain. With a shield of his own, Gallow would have laughed at him. As it was, he backed away.
The third rider hurtled past, cantering down the valley after the first. Something flickered through the air after them. He jerked in the saddle but kept riding.
‘Give me your name,’ hissed the Lhosir with the axe.
‘Gallow,’ said Gallow. ‘Truesword to some, Foxbeard to others.’
‘Truesword.’ The Lhosir nodded. ‘I heard the Screambreaker gave you that name. I was at Andhun when he fell. I saw you there. I know your deeds both of that day and the day that followed. Not so true to our king, were you? Nothing but a Marroc-loving nioingr now. Pity. It would have been a fine thing to die by the hand of the old Truesword. Why did you do it?’
Gallow backed further away. ‘Give me your name, brother of the sea. I’ll speak you out after I kill you.’ But The Lhosir didn’t get a chance. As he opened his mouth, an arrow took him in the throat. Gallow threw himself flat and looked towards the mouth of the cave. Two men with bows were coming slowly towards him, arrows nocked, strings partly drawn. If he ran they’d both get a shot before he could reach any cover. His mail and his furs would probably be enough to keep out an arrow, but then there was Oribas.
A third archer was moving among the Marroc prisoners, calling back the ones who were still running and cutting loose each man as they reached him. Gallow scrabbled up to the dying Lhosir. The Lhosir’s mouth moved but the only sound to come out was a choking cough as blood poured out into the snow. Gallow pulled at the Lhosir’s shield. ‘Maker-Devourer, I don’t know this man but he faced me in battle and he fought well and he did not run. There is bravery here. I offer him to you for your cauldron.’ He took the Lhosir’s hand and pressed the dying fingers tightly around his sword. The soldier’s eyes held his. Thank you, they said, then rolled back and he was gone. Gallow gave the spirit a moment to separate from the flesh, then took the man’s shield off his arm and the sword out of his hand and rose to a crouch to face the archers. They’d stopped, thirty paces short, arrows at the ready.
‘I don’t care who you are,’ he said. Behind the shield all they could see of him was his face. ‘The Aulian prisoner is my friend and I’ll take him. The rest is none of my business.’
‘I was speaking him out, Achista. It’s our custom. He was brave. He didn’t run.’
‘But you should. If you had any sense.’
The other Marroc swore. ‘He knows your name?’
Achista laughed. ‘This is the one who helped me escape the iron devil. The Foxbeard.’
Gallow turned back to the dead Lhosir and unbuckled the man’s belt. He eased it out then rose and slipped it on under his furs. Next he started on the boots. They weren’t as nice as the wagon driver’s but they looked good enough and were certainly better than his own. ‘I don’t have any business with you, Marroc. I came for the Aulian and now we’ll leave with no blood spilt between us. You can have this one’s mail and his helm. I’ll have his furs.’ Oribas would need them. The Aulian hadn’t even seen what snow was until they’d reached the edge of the mountains. ‘You won’t see us in Varyxhun again.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said the other archer.
Gallow finished stripping the boots off the dead man. They were tight but they’d do. He slipped the shield back onto his arm and picked the sword out of the snow and turned back to face the Marroc with their bows. ‘If you were going to shoot me then you should have done it when I had my back to you. I have mail under these furs. Your aim had best be sharp, because if you don’t take me down with the first arrow then you’ll not get another.’
‘Achista!’
One of the prisoners was running towards her, another trotting less happily in his wake. Achista turned and her voice changed, suddenly filled with delight. ‘Addic! You’re alive! Thank Diaran! You stupid clod! And Jonnic! How did you let them catch you?’ Gallow squinted at them. The first was the Marroc from the Aulian Way.
