by Nathan Hawke
He picked himself up and busied himself among them – treating wounds was one of the first things he’d learned. There wasn’t much he could do for some and for others he lacked the medicines that might have saved them. But the cold of this place was his ally now. He pressed snow into wounds to staunch the blood and sent those Marroc who seemed to have nothing better to do into the tower to look for needles and thread and to get a fire going. The axe cuts were the easiest, ragged and bloody and horrible to look at but rarely deep. He set them aside to be stitched and cauterised. The men wounded by stabs from spears and swords were probably going to die but he did what he could for them. The Marroc watched with a mix of awe and horror when he packed wounds with snow then stitched them half closed but still open enough to drain. A few muttered under their breath about witchcraft, but they let him be. He was the Aulian wizard, after all, who’d laid a shadewalker to rest and opened the seal between the caves and the tower; and he was, they whispered to each other, sworn to serve the Huntress Achista who’d led them to victory at Jodderslet and now twice more. Oribas didn’t remember swearing anything to anyone but he wasn’t going to argue. Besides, if Achista had asked him there and then for an oath he might just have given it.
They let him work, and by the time he was finished with the easier wounds the sun had set and the Marroc had raised their banner from the top of the tower just as Achista said they would, had lit a great fire and were feasting on Lhosir food. Achista kept them busy carrying the bodies of their own dead away, deep into the woods where the Lhosir would never find them, and coming back with bundle after bundle of firewood. They’d have until the morning, she said, before the forkbeards knew what they’d done, and after that the gates would be closed and they’d hold the forkbeards at bay for as long as it took the Marroc to rise across the valley and throw them out.
That night she was alive with energy. She set watches and then picked two dozen men to creep down to the Varyxhun Road. They dragged out the bodies of the dead Lhosir, already stripped naked and scavenged for anything the Marroc could use. Oribas stayed in the tower so he didn’t see, but he heard in the morning that they’d beheaded every one of them, scattered the bodies along the trail that led from the Varyxhun Road up the mountainside to Witches’ Reach and left the heads piled on the Aulian Bridge. The Lhosir would know what they’d done. Everyone would know, and the edge of the Crackmarsh wasn’t far away, where the outlaw Valaric had his hideaway with five hundred Marroc soldiers, all of whom had taken a blood oath of vengeance against Medrin Sixfingers for what he’d done in Andhun.
Oribas was glad to have no part of such dealings – instead he took a torch down to the old Aulian tomb. Not that he thought there was anything left to fear if the Lhosir had lived here for so long, but he wanted to be sure and he was curious to know what was so terrible that the Aulians had built a tomb so far from their homes. There were histories of all sorts of creatures, sorcerers and monsters hunted down and sealed inside these tombs. He knew of at least a dozen but he’d never heard of anything so terrible that it had been carried across the mountains to be so far away from the empire.
He moved through the crates and sacks, searching for the old Aulian crypt that was surely there. He found it eventually, a narrow crawlway that he could only get through by lying down and wriggling forward, holding the torch right out in front of him. There were strange scorings in the stone, deep grooves with no particular pattern to them. The crawlway was unpleasantly tight, as if deliberately too narrow for a large man to escape. It went on for a few feet and then opened into a small round chamber. In the centre stood a flat stone block large enough for a man to lie flat on top. Rising out of the block were six iron rods as thick as his thumb. They were stained and brittle with rust and all of them had snapped, but the rods had clearly once reached from the slab to the ceiling. Broken pieces of them lay on the floor, and there were deep holes in the stone of the roof matching the stumps below. The floor was covered in a pale grit. Oribas touched a few grains of it to his tongue. Salt.
He crawled around the chamber and found something else: two pieces of iron armour, a chest plate and a back plate. Each had three holes punched through them, sized and spaced to match the iron rods. He tested them against the width of the crawlway. They wouldn’t fit, no matter which way round he tried them, but there were scratches on the inside of the chamber as though someone else had tried the same and had been much more persistent in their efforts.
He sat and stared for a while, wondering. It looked for all the world as though a suit of iron armour had once been pinned to the stone slab by six iron rods. An inscription even read the iron witch. What was it they’d had here?
There were no bones. That bothered him. After the tomb was opened someone might have come in and taken the armour for its iron, but why take their bones? Another thing bothered him too: the breastplate looked familiar. It looked like the armour of the iron devil who’d taken the Edge of Sorrows from Brawlic’s farm. The Lhosir Fateguard.
He scraped around the edges of the stone slab for more inscriptions. Aulian priests liked to bind their prisoners with words and symbols as well as stone and metal and salt, but he found nothing, and that was strange too. There were places where inscriptions might have been, places where they ought to have been, but they looked as though they’d been scraped clean, the walls rubbed and scratched until no trace of words remained, only gouges in the stone.
He must have been there a long time but he didn’t really notice. He dug more fistfuls of salt out of the bag on his belt because it never hurt to sprinkle salt over a place like this. He spilled half of it over the pieces of armour and spread the rest over the slab. Nothing happened, which was something of a relief. Afterwards, when he’d crawled back out of the crypt, he felt a little foolish and in need of some rest.
On his way up the stairs he found Achista coming the other way. She looked surprised to see him.
‘I was looking for you,’ she said, but he knew she wasn’t. He smiled anyway.
‘You found me.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘I was looking at the tomb. Just curiosity.’
‘I wanted to thank you for what you did with the wounded men.’
Oribas wasn’t sure that all the Marroc felt the same, and they’d thank him even less when some of the wounds turned bad, when he started to drain fluids from the deeper ones, when the ones he’d known right from the start he’d never save began to die. That would be in the morning. Two of them, if he was right. He forced the smile back onto his face. ‘And what were you really doing coming down here, Achista? After something from the Lhosir stores?’ But the way her eyes suddenly wouldn’t meet his forced him to think elsewhere. ‘The seal?’
She nodded. ‘We should close it. What if the forkbeards find it when they come?’
‘If it’s closed then it can’t be opened again from this side. You’d trap us here. You know that, don’t you?’
She couldn’t look at him. He understood – this was what she and Addic had planned from the start. They’d hold for as long as it took. Either the Marroc of Varyxhun would rise or the Marroc of Witches’ Reach would die to the last man. There’d be no running away because there was nowhere to go. ‘Someone could always slip out and open the seal again from the outside. If the forkbeards hadn’t found the cave and it was time for us to go.’
‘Someone who understood how to make it work.’ She meant him.
‘Yes. I thought . . . I thought perhaps you could wait somewhere nearby. And watch for our signal to come.’ A signal that would never happen, or would be a column of flame as the tower burned with Achista and the last of the Marroc trapped inside, set on martyrdom. Oribas took her hands.
‘As you wish.’ He had to blink the tears from his eyes. ‘But not today, Achista. Not today. When the Lhosir find the cave then we’ll close the seal. But until then there’s no hurry, is there?’
Her eyes shone in the torchlight, brim-full with sadnes
s and joy. She leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘No, Aulian. I suppose a few more days can’t hurt.’
28
THE FORGE
Deep under Witches’ Reach Oribas poured his salt.
Far away in the icy north the Eyes of Time shrieked in white burning agony. In the Temple of Fates in Nardjas and in Sithhun at King Medrin’s side the iron-skinned men of the Fateguard staggered and howled. And in Middislet Gallow held his sword high, ready for the Edge of Sorrows to come down, but the blow never fell. Beyard clutched his head, fell to his knees and screamed at a pain he didn’t understand. The Edge of Sorrows slipped from limp iron fingers into the snow.
Tolvis pulled himself to his feet and lifted his sword but Gallow stilled him. He stooped and took the Edge of Sorrows. Beyard knelt, breathing hard. He slowly raised his head and looked up. Gallow held the point of the red sword to his face.
‘Go on,’ whispered Beyard. ‘Do it. I will not stop you.’
Loudmouth laughed. ‘Don’t you dare let him—’
Gallow cut him off. ‘Get Nadric and the children back inside! Keep them away and leave this to me.’ He tapped Beyard several times on the crown with the Edge of Sorrows and felt a tingle in his arm with each touch, a tiny shock with every tap. ‘In the forge, old friend. In the shadows and out of the snow. Get up.’
‘No!’ Loudmouth was clutching an axe now. For a moment Gallow almost turned the red sword on him. It would be easy. Simple. One cut, and didn’t he deserve it for what he’d done, stealing another man’s wife and sons?
But that was the sword up to its old tricks and Gallow was wise to them. ‘He was a friend for far longer than you were, Loudmouth. Just keep away. And you, old friend, take off that crown and that mask. I’d see your face one last time to remember you as we both once were. Young and stupid.’
Beyard lifted the iron helm from his shoulders. He stared at Gallow with pale dead eyes. ‘How did you do it, Truesword?’
‘Fate.’ Gallow shrugged. Even with the mask gone he couldn’t read Beyard’s face. Sadness. Nothing more. Flakes of snow drifted down between them. Where they landed on Beyard’s hair, Gallow saw, they didn’t melt.
‘Do it here, Gallow. Under the sky.’
Gallow hesitated. As he shifted, the candlelight from the house caught Beyard’s face again. He looked as pale as a dead man.
‘I swore I would not forget, old friend. I did not. I am Fateguard now but I gave no one your name then and nor have I now. Sixfingers will look for the sword but not for Gallow Foxbeard, nor for his wife and sons, not from me.’ For a moment Beyard smiled. ‘Piss-poor gang of thieves we turned out to be.’
‘Piss-poor.’
‘You saw the shield in the end. As did I, in time. Hardly worth it, was it?’
‘It wasn’t seeing it that mattered. It was the getting that close.’
Beyard rasped, or maybe laughed. He nodded. ‘Yes.’ Gallow tried to lift the red sword to finish it but his hand wouldn’t move.
Arda strode out of the house in her winter furs and her boots. She hit Beyard in the face with a pan and he sprawled back into the snow. ‘Three years, you pig!’ she snapped, turning to Gallow. ‘Three years and then you come back and you bring this with you!’ She stamped on Beyard’s iron-skinned fingers. ‘Trees think better than you do! Now either finish this pasty-faced forkbeard or give me that sword so I can do it.’ She snorted. ‘Or you can give it to Loudmouth, not that he’d be any better.’
Gallow didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The first time he’d heard her voice in three years and it was exactly how he remembered it. He shook his head at Beyard. ‘Sorry, old friend.’
‘So am I.’ Beyard rolled in the snow and kicked Arda’s feet from under her. He caught her as she fell, staggered up and away from Gallow, and Gallow didn’t dare strike because now Beyard had Arda held between them, one iron-gloved hand wrapped around her throat. ‘Stay where you are, Truesword or I will break her neck.’ Arda hammered furiously at Beyard but he was a man cased in iron. Her fists and feet rattled against him and did nothing. Beyard’s fingers squeezed. ‘Put the sword down in the snow. The others can still go.’ His fingers tightened. ‘You can’t win, Truesword. There are men coming. Around the Crackmarsh instead of through it but they’ll be here by the morning. Fight me and she dies. If somehow you win you’ll still have twenty men hunting you by sunset.’
Gallow took a step away. ‘Then I’ll run, and you’ll get neither me nor the sword and you can kill her if you wish. Just another Marroc, after all.’
Arda stopped struggling and stared. Beyard shook his head. ‘No, Truesword. That’s not who you are.’
‘She’s taken another man.’
‘You were dead!’ snapped Arda.
Gallow ignored her. Beyard was still shaking his head. He was smiling. ‘That’s still not who you are, Truesword.’ He squeezed tighter, so tight that Arda couldn’t breathe. He was strangling her, his eyes fixed on Gallow. ‘Her corpse will be my shield if you fight me, Truesword.’
‘Gallow!’ Loudmouth. ‘Ironskin, if you hurt her, I will cut you to pieces and feed them to pigs. I will piss on your corpse.’
‘Wait!’ Gallow let Solace fall by his side. ‘Beyard, this is not who you are either. Let her go.’
The iron man’s fingers loosened. ‘You for her, Gallow?’
Arda pulled herself out of Beyard’s grip. She hissed at Gallow, ‘Just run when you have the chance, you stupid forkbeard.’
Beyard laughed. ‘I can see why you chose her, Gallow. I’ll keep her safe.’ He caught Arda’s hand before she could get away. ‘You and Solace for all the other Marroc here. Her to keep you to your word.’ He dragged Arda slowly back into the darkness of the forge. Gallow stared after her, eyes full of sorrow while her own thoughts were kept so tightly pressed inside that she was the same mystery to him as she’d been from the moment he’d met her. ‘I will be here, waiting for you, old friend.’
In the house Loudmouth and Nadric were packing bags. Loudmouth gripped Gallow’s shoulder. ‘Nadric can take the children to the Crackmarsh as soon as it’s light. Between us we’ll kill the Fateguard. We’ll wait here, and if he’s not lying and more brothers of the sea come tomorrow, we’ll fight them too. The two of us.’
Gallow shook his head. ‘Beyard’s not a liar. Take them now.’
‘It’s freezing cold and dark as soot!’
‘By sunrise you’ll reach the Crackmarsh. They’ll be safe there.’
Tolvis shook his head. ‘Feya’s too little. She’ll freeze. And Nadric’s too old to—’
‘Carry her.’
‘But I’m not—’
Gallow had Loudmouth by his shirt, pulling him up close and almost lifting him off the ground. ‘You want to stay here at my side and fight Beyard? I’ve seen you fight him once already. In the morning Medrin’s men will come. My family will be long gone. You will see to that. What’s between me and Beyard is none of your trouble. Get them ready. When you’re gone, Beyard and I will settle this between us. I’ll follow when it’s done or else I’ll be dead.’
‘It should be me,’ gasped Tolvis.
‘But it’s not you he wants, Loudmouth.’ He let go. ‘You cared for my family when you thought I was dead. Care for them now.’ He turned and walked back outside, not wanting to meet the stares of his children. They hadn’t seen him for years. What good did it do for them to see him now?
Back in the forge Beyard had Arda sat on the floor, tied and with a sack thrown over her head. He squatted beside her, still and silent, and for a long time Gallow stood there too, watching them both, remembering the days before he’d crossed the sea, and afterwards, roaming the Marroc lands with the Screambreaker’s band, fighting, burning, killing, every unkindness that came with war.
‘Did you miss it, Beyard? Not crossing the sea and going to war with the rest?’
Beyard took so long to answer that Gallow wondered if the Fateguard was asleep, but eventually he stirred
and turned his head. ‘No. And that seems strange even to me. Those of us chosen by the Eyes of Time, we serve . . .’ He seemed to struggle. ‘We serve a different purpose now.’
‘You serve Medrin.’
‘That is a passing thing.’
They stood and watched without words. From the house Loudmouth’s angry shouts crept out through the falling snow. Arda bawled insults at Beyard and Gallow alike from under the sack and told Gallow how much he was a fool and how much she hated him and how much Tolvis was a better man until Beyard gently laid an iron hand on her and told her she could say what she liked, there was nothing that would drive Gallow away because he wasn’t here for her. He spoke quietly, telling her how Gallow had been brought to him in Varyxhun and what had passed between them, and the locket Gallow carried and how he’d used it to find her. When he was done she still swore and told Gallow he was useless, but her words had an edge to them, a touch of despair, and when she stopped, Gallow saw that she was shaking. Sobbing.
They heard Tolvis and Nadric and the children leave. For a time after that Gallow stared at the roof of Nadric’s forge, listening to the darkness. Beyard remained silent. He didn’t move, didn’t creak or shift, and Gallow couldn’t even hear him breathe, until suddenly he twisted and his arm flashed out. He threw one of Nadric’s hammers so fast and so out of the blue that Gallow didn’t even move. It hit him in the head, and the next thing he knew he was lying on his back in the snow outside the forge and Beyard was standing over him. The iron man was holding the red sword again, and there was a black horse in the forge yard with Arda struggling and yelling blue murder slung across its back.
A cold hand of iron touched his shoulder. ‘It is true, Truesword. We do not sleep.’ Beyard stood up and backed away. ‘Get up.’ As Gallow sat up, Beyard tossed him his helm, scored now by Nadric’s hammer, and climbed onto the back of his horse. ‘For a time there I thought I’d killed you. You were out like the dead.’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps that would have been better. Damn you, Truesword. I’ll give you a day. I won’t hurt her. I swear that by the Eyes of Time. But I’ll keep her so I know you’ll come. I’ll let Medrin have his sword, but we’re not done, you and I. Find me when you’re ready.’
