Cold Redemption

by Nathan Hawke

  The Marroc slowed and stared at Gallow and his eyes widened. ‘You? Has Modris sent you to be my guardian?’

  Achista’s eyes flicked over to Oribas and lingered just a moment longer than they needed to. They moved back to Gallow. ‘Addic, what do we do with him?’

  The other Marroc, the one who’d come up behind Addic, snarled, ‘He’s a forkbeard!’

  ‘Jonnic, I wasn’t asking you!’

  Gallow didn’t move. ‘Among my people I’m a traitor with no name or honour. I will go. Let that be enough.’

  The Marroc Jonnic spat, shivering in his rags. ‘Addic, Cithjan sent us both up here to be killed in the caves where he thinks no one will know. I say we put the forkbeard there.’

  Addic was shivering too. No surprise, since the Marroc prisoners were wearing little more than shirts or tunics and half were barefoot in the snow. Gallow reached carefully back, never taking his eyes off the archer, and tossed him the furs from the dead soldier. ‘No point saving your life just to let Father Winter have you.’

  ‘No, Jonnic. Let him go.’

  ‘He’ll go and—’

  Addic put a hand on the other Marroc’s shoulder. ‘It doesn’t matter. A life for a life.’ He let go, picked up the furs and nodded to Gallow. ‘Debt paid, forkbeard. You can go.’

  The archer behind Achista growled and bared his teeth as he lowered his bow. Gallow ignored all four of them. He strode and then ran towards Oribas, loosening his furs as he went. ‘Aulian!’

  Oribas was shivering like a leaf in the wind. Gallow threw him his furs and the Aulian dived into them. Gallow grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘The Lhosir said they’d thrown you into the river! I saw your bag! How by the Maker-Devourer’s beard did you end up here?’

  Oribas’s teeth were chattering. ‘Well, they did throw me over the edge but not quite into the river. And after that, by way of the Marroc man whose life you saved and then a shadewalker and a devil in iron. Not to mention the coldest wind that has ever scoured this cursed earth. I tell you, Gallow, I might just be a simple man from the desert but I cannot see what woman in any land could be worth living in this when you could have the warmth of the sun on your skin.’ He looked up at the sky, his eyes poking out from Gallow’s furs. ‘Is that even the sun, or is it some feeble candle dropped by one of the gods as he passed in his chariot of clouds?’

  ‘Cheer up, desert man. How many times have you been thirsty in my land, eh?’

  ‘Do not speak too soon, Gallow – I might yet die of thirst because my jaw is frozen shut!’ Oribas stepped back from Gallow and punched him on the shoulder. ‘I thought you were dead, my friend.’ His smiled faded. ‘Like your friend in iron.’

  ‘They were going to hang me but they found out about the sword. They took me with them to look for it and I escaped. I’m sorry, Oribas. I thought you were dead, and so I led them to you. Did they find it?’ Oribas nodded. Not that it mattered to Gallow. Let Medrin have the Comforter.

  He looked down the valley. The two Lhosir riders who’d fled were long out of sight. It would take more than a full day for them to get back to Varyxhun but Witches’ Reach was closer. Behind him the Marroc were arguing among themselves. ‘We can’t stay here, Oribas.’

  Oribas snorted. ‘Gallow, I can’t even feel my feet. I need a warm fire and some boots. And some clothes. And possibly to live in a different country. One that doesn’t freeze my lungs with every breath.’

  The Marroc were moving into the shelter of the caves now. Two of them walked off towards the trees, carrying axes. While Gallow watched, Addic came over. He was shivering and his face was blue with cold. ‘I owed you my life, forkbeard, and now I’ve paid it back. I’d like to let you go, but . . .’ He shook his head. ‘You’re a forkbeard. The others are afraid you’ll lead your kin back here. We can’t leave before the morning – the cold will kill us. Jonnic and Krasic will be back with what we need by then, and you go your way while we go ours. No blood. Will you share our fire in peace, forkbeard? Do I have your word?’

  Gallow looked at Oribas. The Aulian was still weak from their crossing of the mountains, never mind everything since. He nodded. ‘You have my word, Marroc.’

  Addic turned to Oribas. ‘Oribas of Aulia. We killed a shadewalker together. I won’t easily forget that. You too are welcome to join our fire.’ He looked back at Gallow. ‘And you, forkbeard. I’ll not call you an enemy but others might. I’d ask you leave your sword and axe aside.’ A frown crossed his face. ‘Why did you do it, forkbeard?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘On the road when the other forkbeards . . .’ He sighed and smiled. ‘On the road. Why didn’t you just let the Lhosir have me and walk on by?’

  Gallow frowned as though the answer was obvious. ‘Because when the strong do nothing, the wicked prevail.’

  Addic nodded. ‘Come on then. Even if they ride straight for Witches’ Reach, no one’s going to come looking for us until morning. We’ll be long gone before anyone gets this far up the road.’

  16

  FRAGGAS THE CARTER

  Fraggas didn’t stay with his cart to see what happened after the nioingr smashed his face. He counted himself lucky to be alive and ran, leaving it turned half across the track and four of his animals wandering free. A Lhosir warrior wasn’t supposed to run from anything but there were plenty enough Lhosir who did anyway, and even some who called themselves warriors. Maybe it was breathing all this Marroc air but, truth was, Fraggas had never been much of one for fighting.

  It didn’t help that he wasn’t even back at the Varyxhun Road before two of the soldiers who’d been his escort came riding past, both at a gallop like the Maker-Devourer was nipping at their arses. They didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down, and so he ran as fast as he could until he reached the road and then wondered which way to go. He had maybe three hours of sun left before it got dark, three hours to get himself to some shelter, and it suddenly dawned on him that he was a Lhosir, alone, unarmed and on foot in country filled with hostile Marroc. The Marroc farms along the road were friendly enough places to their own kind, always ready to offer up a piece of floor and share their fire, but not to a forkbeard, and Fraggas was used to arriving at them with armed men at his back. The soldiers who’d come with him had been jumpy as rabbits from the moment they’d left Varyxhun. He’d heard their talk. It was getting worse. Marroc bandits on the roads, shooting Lhosir with their hunting bows and then vanishing into the woods. If you came away from Varyxhun then you came in numbers, with mail, helm and shield and preferably a horse, and Fraggas had none of those things.

  He stood at the end of the track up to the Devil’s Caves, wondering which way to go. Back towards Varyxhun meant slipping into a farmer’s barn for the night and hoping not to be seen, but maybe there was some chance of meeting Lhosir coming the other way. Heading on towards the Aulian Bridge meant walking on after nightfall. He wouldn’t get to Witches’ Reach until long after dark but there was a garrison there, a few dozen men who kept watch on the bridge for Marroc robbers and highwaymen, and for the Vathen too. The soldiers on their horses would have gone that way. Maybe they’d send men back for him?

  So he hurried down the road towards Witches’ Reach, walking as briskly as he could. His furs would keep him warm enough in the day, but not once the night started to bite. He’d seen too many men out here lose their fingers and even their feet. Marroc mostly – maybe half the prisoners he’d carried to the Devil’s Caves were losing pieces to frost by the time he got them there – and he had no intention of following their example. Sign of the times it was, that Cithjan sent Marroc off to be killed in secret. They hadn’t had any of this last winter. It had been gibbets then, lining the road outside Varyxhun, but instead of breaking the Marroc it only seemed to make things worse. The valley men had never taken well to being ruled by a forkbeard and more and more Marroc kept coming over the bridge from other places, every man with an axe to grind, men who’d lost a friend or a son – and that was if
they didn’t go into the Crackmarsh to pledge themselves to Valaric the Mournful, although Fraggas quietly thought the Marroc of the Crackmarsh had their hand in the troubles of the valley too.

  Yes, Varyxhun had become a magnet for all the resentment of the Marroc. The whole valley simmered like an angry pot. When you travelled the road you saw these things. You saw who came and who went. You heard it in the taverns among the other carters, the snips of conversation from tables on the other side of the room, and you saw the glances and the murderous anger, more and more of it. He’d heard the soldiers talking. There were men dying on the road every other day. They were bewildered by the Marroc. Across the sea a man had something he wanted to say then he said it, and if that meant a fight then that’s what there was. He didn’t say it with an arrow shot from the shadows and then vanish into the mountains. More and more the older Lhosir were talking of home and going back to their farms. None of them much understood why Medrin Sixfingers wanted to be king over all the Marroc. Even Fraggas couldn’t see the point to it.

  He never would either, because as he was wondering that, a cart came struggling through the muddy snow the other way, a creaking farm cart with three Marroc men sitting on the back who saw a forkbeard walking in a hurry on his own and saw too that the road was empty. As Fraggas passed them, they jumped off and pulled him down and gave him the good stabbing they thought every forkbeard deserved. They took his furs and helped themselves to his unexpectedly nice boots and rolled him into the snow at the side of the road and drove on, pleased at what they’d done.

  Later, the same farmers passed the track up to the Devil’s Caves without much interest, although everyone from these parts knew what the forkbeards did up there. They stopped at another farm as twilight fell and exchanged greetings with the men who lived there. They all knew each other, at least a little, and as a payment for their food and shelter they gave the furs they’d taken from Fraggas. Good warm forkbeard furs, if a little bloody, but blood could be brushed out once it was dry. Their hosts wanted the boots too but the farmer’s son who’d put them on was less than keen because they were good and warm, and so he kept them and left not long after the sun rose.

  The same boots meant they were dead an hour later, skewered by twenty Lhosir horsemen coming the other way and led by the iron devil of the castle. Fate had it that one of Beyard’s forkbeards knew Fraggas well enough to know his fancy boots. As the last Marroc slowly died, Beyard leaned over him and asked him where he’d found them, and then thought it strange that a carter who was supposed to be on his way back from the Devil’s Caves should have been alone on the Varyxhun Road, on foot and hurrying to the Aulian Bridge instead of on his cart back to Varyxhun with his escort of soldiers riding beside him. He thought about this and then changed his plan and followed the track towards the caves. He had the red sword, Solace, the Comforter, hanging at his hip, and wondered if he might soon be using it.

  17

  SPIRES OF STONE

  The Marroc looked at Gallow with grim dislike. He couldn’t blame them. Many of their kin had died on the end of his spear and he saw in their eyes how these ones hated him for that. But he told them about the wars when they asked and he spared nothing, and then he talked of the coming of the Vathen and how he’d tried to save Andhun from Medrin Twelvefingers, how he’d fought him in the Marroc duke’s own rooms and cut off his hand and made him into Medrin Sixfingers instead, and how afterwards he’d fled the city before the Vathan horde. Their faces changed at that. Gallow the Foxbeard, the nioingr, hated among the forkbeards, hunted for years. Several of them had heard of him, but nothing good. The forkbeards had turned Varyxhun on its head searching for him. They knew his family was somewhere hereabouts but they didn’t know names and so they’d asked and searched and they hadn’t much liked it when they hadn’t found what they were looking for.

  Gallow lapsed into silence as he listened to the Marroc talk. Beyard. The Fateguard had the snip of Arda’s hair he’d carried all this time. He had her scent. The Edge of Sorrows alone wouldn’t be enough for Medrin. He had to get to her first, before Sixfingers. Before Beyard, if he could.

  He left the Marroc to their fire and wandered further into the caves, carrying a brand with him to light the way. The back of the cave, wide and flat-bottomed as though it had once been a river, rose into the mountainside. It wound steadily upwards for several minutes, a good wide passage, and then led him to a stone balcony over a vast amphitheatre, too large for the light of his brand to even touch the other side. Shadowy columns rose from the floor to the roof. Dim spikes of rock grew upward, and when he followed them he saw that more hung like icicles, dripping out of the darkness above, hundreds of them. When he held up his brand and peered across he still couldn’t make out the other side but his flame flickered. He felt cold fresh air, just a wisp of it blowing over his face.

  Then he looked down. A few feet below him lay a mound of bodies. He’d seen piles like this after battles when the dead were heaped together to be burned. There must have been a hundred of them. They hadn’t rotted and there was no smell. They were frozen.

  He went back, and there must have been something about the look on his face because the Marroc stopped their chattering and stared, and then Achista snatched a brand of her own and ran back to see, and Oribas and Addic too. Gallow kept his silence.

  ‘Bastards.’ Achista’s face was pinched when she came back.

  Addic looked at Gallow and shook his head. ‘It was your kind that did this,’ he said. ‘Remember that.’

  ‘Surely they were guilty of some crime?’ said Oribas.

  ‘The crime of being a Marroc!’ snapped Addic.

  ‘No, no!’ Oribas raised his hands and shook his head the way he always did when he was about to explain to someone why they were wrong using arguments forged from unshakeable calm and rational logic, and which more often than not ended with him being dumped on his backside.

  ‘Yes.’ Gallow stopped him with a glance. There was no place here for a scholar’s debate. ‘Even Medrin never killed without a reason, but whatever that reason was makes no difference. When a man is put to death then his passing should be seen. It should be heard. Men might speak against him and others might speak for him. No matter the guilt, a death should carry a weight. A significance. My brothers of the sea would never treat one of their own like this, not even one they splayed apart and hung as the bloody raven of a nioingr. What they’ve done here is for animals, Oribas, not for men.’ He glowered at the fire. ‘Medrin. It wasn’t like this before Medrin.’

  No one spoke. Gradually the Marroc settled to sleep, but as Gallow closed his eyes, Achista crouched beside him. She hissed in his ear, ‘It wasn’t King Sixfingers, forkbeard. It was your precious Widowmaker. He was the one who started this.’

  At dawn they rekindled the fire at the mouth of the cave and sat around it in glum silence, waiting for Jonnic and Krasic to come back with furs and boots and food for all of them. When two men leading a donkey came through the snow at the end of the ravine, the Marroc cried out and waved their hands. Two of the prisoners even ran out into the snow. Addic stood and stared and frowned. Achista too. The hairs on Gallow’s neck prickled.

  The first Marroc reached the newcomers and the men leading the donkey drew swords from under the furs and ran them through. Shields followed and then they charged. Addic snarled and took up the axe from the Lhosir Gallow had killed the day before. Achista strung her bow.

  ‘Wait!’ Gallow gripped his sword. ‘There are more of them. There must be.’ And a moment later they saw he was right. More Lhosir on horseback came over the rise, riding fast towards the caves, squashing into the mouth of the ravine. There must have been a score of them, more perhaps, all armed, and lumbering at the back on a great black horse came a man in iron. Beyard. And though for the Marroc to stand and fight was sure death, the sight gave Gallow a strange surge of hope, for if Beyard was here then he wasn’t somewhere else and he hadn’t gone hunting for Arda, not yet, and th
ere was a chance to stop him or for Gallow to die and make his hunting pointless.

  Achista let fly an arrow. It struck one of the Lhosir shields. Addic clenched his fists. ‘I won’t lie down and die! Every one of them we kill is a victory.’

  He looked ready to charge out into the snow in his rags but Achista stilled him. ‘There’s a way through the caves, Addi.’ Addic turned and stared at her as Gallow thought of the wisp of wind he’d felt back where the bodies of the murdered Marroc lay. ‘Krasic led us though. That’s how we were waiting for the forkbeards inside.’

  ‘They’ll follow us.’

  There wasn’t much to be done about that, but at least through the caves the Lhosir would be on foot and not on horseback. ‘You lead,’ said Gallow. ‘I’ll hold the rear.’

  ‘You?’ Jonnic snarled. ‘And how do we know you won’t turn your coat to save your skin?’

  Gallow bared his teeth. ‘Because I took King Medrin’s hand off his arm, Marroc. What forgiveness do you imagine there could be for that? Besides, if I mean to turn against you, would you rather have me in your midst?’ He pushed Oribas deeper into the cave. The Lhosir at the front were getting close and the Marroc were taking too long to get going. ‘Go, Aulian. Get away.’ He pushed Achista too. ‘Dither and they’ll be on us.’

  He drew his sword and wished he had a spear, but at least he had a shield again and the Lhosir were in their winter furs, which would make them slow and clumsy. The Marroc ran into the depths of the caves, grabbing burning sticks from the fire to light their way. Gallow stamped out what they left – no reason for the Lhosir to see where they were going. And then the first two were at the mouth of the cave with the others on their horses only a moment behind. Gallow kicked the embers into their faces and ran at them. He brought his sword down on one man’s helm, dazing him, and barged the other with his shield, staggering him so he tripped and fell and dropped his spear. Beyard and the rest of the Lhosir were almost on him now. No time to finish either of these then, but he took the dropped spear. If the caves grew narrow then a spear might serve better than a sword.