by K. J. Parker
From time to time, when he thought nobody was watching him, Chanso looked back over his shoulder. But there was no sign of a horseman hurrying to catch them up. Had Conselh actually killed him? Verjan hadn’t been moving when they left him.
There were fish in the river. If you looked long enough you could see them, perfectly still with the current flowing all round them. Clar had heard somewhere that you could catch them with your bare hands if you were patient enough. It didn’t take long to find out that he wasn’t; but Folha managed to shoot one. The trick, he said, was to aim just behind the tail, to allow for the picture in your eye getting bent by the water. They cooked it over a dogwood spit and got half a mouthful each. It tasted of grit.
They slept in a dense clump of dogwood shoots, tall enough to hide the horses. Chanso woke up to find Folha sitting on a large stone on the bank, patiently stripping reeds with the head of an arrow. “I fancy these’ll shoot,” he explained. “Good enough for fish, anyhow.”
Nine of the twelve reeds he’d prepared broke on the bow. He missed with two, and pinned a small brown fish to the riverbed with the third. “I reckon the dogwood sticks would do better,” Trahidour said. “I heard that’s what they use for arrows in these parts.”
But Conselh wasn’t prepared to spend a morning making arrows. “Maybe this evening,” he said. “Right now, I want to get moving. We’ve still got a fair way to go.”
Still no sign of Verjan. The others reckoned he must’ve taken his own advice and headed for Choris. “If he was following us he’d have caught up to us by now, the way we’ve been dawdling,” Folha said.
“There’ll be ducks in these reeds, bet you anything you like,” Clar said, and Chanso was inclined to agree with him. “Conselh, what about it?”
“No nets,” Conselh called back without turning round.
The reeds filled a slow bend of the river, which they were skirting, since Conselh reckoned the lower ground might be soft. “Don’t need nets,” Trahidour said. “Wind’s downstream. If we light the reeds, they’ll all get up in a covey, we can brown it with stones. Bound to hit something, and we only need three or four. What about it, Conselh? Folha?”
Folha thought for a moment. “Best place would be there,” he said, pointing to a place where the river ran between a high bank and a clump of willows. “They’ll have to bunch up going through there: it might work. And they’re not our reeds and stones cost nothing. Why not?”
“Haven’t you boys figured yet, this isn’t a pleasure trip?” Conselh still hadn’t turned round. “Further downstream there’s a big wood, I saw it from that hill a way back. There’ll be deer in that, probably tame as dogs. Folha can shoot one this evening, when it’s getting dimpsy. If we fire those reeds, we’re telling everyone in these parts who can see exactly where we are.”
“You said the Ironshirts have given up by now,” Clar pointed out. “Look, there’s nobody here. You seen anyone? I haven’t.”
“All the more reason a cloud of smoke’s going to draw attention,” Conselh said calmly. “Forget it, Clar. You can go duck-hunting when we get home.”
Trahidour turned to Chanso. “What do you think?”
Chanso hesitated before answering. “I think Folha’s right, that high bank’s a great place to stand. Do we have to fire the reeds? Two of us could drive them, and then there’d be no smoke.”
Clar clapped his hands together. “I knew we brought him for a reason,” he said. “The boy is smart. You any good with a stone?”
Chanso shook his head.
“Fine. You and me’ll drive, the rest can throw. Conselh? What do you say?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Conselh stopped his horse. “Fine. But I’ll drive. That reed bed’s likely to be mighty soft, Clar, it’d gobble up a short-arse like you and we wouldn’t know you’d gone.”
Clar grinned, and Chanso guessed he preferred throwing stones to wading waist-deep in mud. For some reason. “You all right driving?” Conselh asked.
“Like I said, I’m a lousy thrower.”
“Fine. And you’re taller than these midgets.” He held Chanso’s horse as he dismounted. “Right, we’d better work a long way back, so as not to spook them. You three, get picking stones. And be ready. I don’t want you standing round yapping when the birds are in the air.”
Conselh led him a good half-mile; dead silence, since the wind was from them to the birds. On the way, they picked up a pair of hand-sized stones each, to bang together and make a racket when the time came. “You done this before?” Conselh whispered, as they approached the start of the reeds. Chanso nodded.
“Good boy,” Conselh said. “Reckon it’s shallow enough to wade here. You stay this side: come on when you hear me.”
As Chanso stooped to take off his boots, Conselh disappeared into the reeds. Not long after, Chanso heard him hollering and clashing stones. He scrambled down into the water, and the mud gushed up round his ankles. He wasn’t sure he liked that, so he waded across until he hit the riverbed itself. The water was up around his knees and the stones were treacherously smooth and slippery, but at least it was firm. He yelled—he’d dropped the stones wobbling through the mud—and took a long, tentative stride forward.
Clar had been right about the ducks. There were about three dozen, sitting in the middle of the river. He advanced on them but they didn’t seem too bothered, so he carefully stooped and picked out a large stone, which he hurled into the middle of the group. That, apparently, was a different matter entirely. The ducks got up in an explosion of wings and spray; low and straight as an arrow downstream, right through the trap. As they flew between the high bank and the rocks they were barely a wingspan apart; and, sure enough, Chanso saw one fold in the air, then another two, then one more. He whooped with joy and splashed ahead, only to lose his footing and go down sideways. The water closed over his head, but he found his feet without too much trouble and stood up again, water streaming out of his hair and down his nose. Victory, he thought.
He trudged and splashed his way back to the bank, not fussed about slipping since he was drenched already. He wiped the mud off his legs the best he could with a handful of short reed, then crammed them back in his boots. Four birds he’d definitely seen go down, could well be others; judging by the way they’d flown, they were lazy and fat, good eating. He ran back to join the others, and saw four ducks spread out on the grass, and Folha gutting a fifth with the head of an arrow.
“Folha got three,” Trahidour called out to him, “Clar and me got one each. Couldn’t miss, hardly. Where’s Conselh?”
Chanso looked back. “He went the other side of the river,” he said. “Maybe he’s gone on up a way.”
Trahidour shrugged, broke a thorn off a bush and picked up a duck. Chanso sat down beside him and took out his pocket knife.
“Went in, I see,” Folha said.
Chanso grinned. “Slipped on the stones.”
“They can be the devil. Didn’t know you got a knife.”
“Forgot I had it.”
“That’ll come in handy,” said Clar. “Not much you can do without a knife, and Conselh made us leave ours home.”
Awkward silence; then Trahidour said, “Where’s he got to, anyhow?”
Folha and Clar looked at each other. Then Folha put down his half-dressed duck. “Guess I’d better go look for him.”
“I’ll go,” Chanso said. “I’m wet already.”
He walked back along the edge of the reeds until he saw the trampled place where he’d come out. “Conselh?” he called out. Strange. He knew sound carried well here. He called again, then shed his boots and waded back into the mud, looking for the reeds Conselh had trampled on his way across.
The trail was easy to follow and he found him about twenty yards downstream, face down in the mud, the back of his head stove in. The hair was black with blood and mud; a bloody stone lay next to him. There were no footprints, so Verjan must have thrown it from the riverbank, probably hiding behind the clump o
f briars ten yards away. Good throw; amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it.
After a short discussion they agreed there was no point fishing him out; they had no tools to bury him with, and come the spate the river would wash up silt and do it for them. Nor was there anything to be gained chasing after Verjan. If he was a danger to them, he’d come to them and they’d deal with him; if not, let him go. “What he’s done is punishment enough,” Folha said, and there was no arguing with that.
“Beats me how he followed us and we didn’t see him,” Clar said, for the third time. “He must’ve been riding, couldn’t keep pace with us on foot. I figure he must’ve gone out wide, over the skyline, then headed back in from time to time to see where we’d got to. Then, when he saw we’d stopped, he figured what we were about and saw his chance.” He shivered; he’d been the one who suggested the duck hunt in the first place. And Conselh had taken his place in the driving squad, making himself exposed and vulnerable. “If he comes back, I’ll see to him, you bet.”
“He won’t be back,” Folha replied. “He had no quarrel with us. He’ll be well on his way to Choris by now. Got to prove he was right, see.”
They’d stopped for the night on the edge of the big wood Conselh had spotted earlier; they felt they had to, somehow, since he’d ordered it. Chanso had found a hand-sized piece of dry, sound beechwood; he sat by the fire whittling: something to give his attention to so he didn’t have to look at their faces.
“He was my mother’s brother’s eldest son,” Folha told him. “We’re all cousins, one way or the other. Clar there’s his nephew.”
The shape of the wood told him it should be a bear; a big black bear, standing upright. “Two of my cousins were in our squadron,” he said, “and four of my friends I grew up with. I don’t suppose they made it. I hadn’t thought about that, till now.”
“You don’t know,” Trahidour said. “I don’t suppose we were the only ones made it out; the Ironshirts can’t have got them all. Maybe they’ll be there waiting for you when you get home.”
Chanso shook his head. “I’m all that’s left,” he said. “Which is stupid, because they were all better than me, smarter, all that. Makes you wonder—” Who decides these things, he didn’t say, because whoever it is had a strange way of going about it. Unless He wanted the good ones, and left the rubbish behind. That he could understand.
“So,” Clar said. “Do we keep on going?”
Folha threw a handful of sticks on the fire. “Or what? Don’t see there’s any choice. Stay here? No, we’re going home. That’s what he decided. And I figure they’ll need us, if we can get there. It’s going to be hard going back home, with so many of us—” He shook his head. “I know, you figure, when folks go off to the war, some of them won’t be coming back. But all of us—”
“I reckon that’s what happened here,” Clar said quietly. “I mean, it’s not natural, how empty it all is. Someone ran sheep here not long ago, but I don’t see anybody. I reckon they all went to the war, and nobody came back.” He lifted his head. “Say, do you suppose, if it goes on much longer, there’ll be anybody left at all?”
Folha sat up straight. “Means there’ll be plenty of grazing and flocks for them that make it back,” he said. “Sounds harsh, that’s true, but let’s face it, if we get back we won’t be poor. Just means we’ll have to work damn hard, that’s all, just us to do everything.” He yawned. “All the more reason for going on,” he said. “Look at it this way, boys: we’re a valuable commodity. So let’s all take care and try not to do anything really stupid.”
Chanso finished the carving the next evening, just as it got too dark to see. It wasn’t bad. He threw it in the river; for Conselh, he thought.
In the morning, just after sunrise, Folha shot a deer. They dressed it out and slung it over the spare horse. “That’ll keep us going for a bit and we won’t have to keep stopping,” Folha said.
“Do you think this river goes all the way to the sea?” Clar asked.
“That’s what rivers do,” Folha replied gravely. “At least, I’m hoping.”
Trahidour shook his head. “I’m pretty sure the country changes,” he said. “It’s all farmland and fields nearer the coast. We saw it from the ship, remember.”
“One tiny bit of it,” Clar pointed out. “Could be it’s like this all the way; we just don’t know. Anyhow, I hope it stays like this, it’s not so bad.”
“Does anyone know what language they speak?” Chanso asked.
It was soon clear that nobody had thought about that. “It’s a good point,” Clar said. “I’m betting they talk Ironshirt. Anyway, it won’t be anything we can understand. Going to make it hard for us to get a boat ride home.”
“We’ll make for a big city,” Folha said: “some place they’re used to strangers. My uncle used to go with the trade caravans; they were always doing deals with people they couldn’t talk to. You wave your hands and make faces. Usually works, in the end.”
“I knew a man who went to Blemya,” Trahidour said. “Big cities, thousands of people crammed into tiny spaces lined with bricks. He said the smell took your head off.” He looked at Chanso. “You ever been to a city?”
“Me? God, no. We’re all grasslanders where I come from.”
“Same here,” Folha said. “Conselh was on about going to Blemya, when they had the trouble with the bad people: figured they’d be paying good wages. But all that fell through, of course. Probably just as well,” he added. “Those Blemyans didn’t have a clue about the bad people; it was only the Belots who could handle them.”
Chanso asked, “Is it true the king of Blemya’s a woman?”
“Queen,” Folha said gravely. “Young girl your age, so they say.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Never been there, so I wouldn’t know. One thing I’ve learned on this trip, different people do things different ways, but the mistakes are always the same. I reckon a woman can make a fuck-up of ruling people just as well as a man can. Or a kid, come to that.”
“They say,” Clar said, “one of the emperors appointed his dog chief magistrate.”
Folha nodded. “I had a dog like that once,” he said.
They came to a cabin, so well hidden among the willow brakes that they didn’t realise it was there until they passed it. The windows were shuttered and the door had been boarded up. “Maybe they left something inside,” Trahidour said.
They agreed it was worth a look. They stove in the door with the biggest rock that Folha and Clar could lift out of the riverbed. Inside, they found four blankets, two changes of clothes for a man significantly taller than any of them, a shovel, a pick, a sledgehammer, a knife, a side axe, a heavy-duty clay bottle (empty; faint lingering smell of beer) and a bucket of nails. Folha figured that the shed must’ve been there for men who worked on the river, maintaining the fords, that sort of thing. It hadn’t been used for a long time. Come to that, they hadn’t seen a ford yet.
“Never mind,” Folha said. “We’ll sling it all on the spare horse. Who knows what might come in handy? Here, Clar, you could stand on my shoulders and we could wear the coat.”
“A blanket each,” Trahidour said. “Now there’s luxury.”
That evening they saw two riders, a man and a woman. Not for long; the riders must have seen them, because they turned round and went back the way they had come, at speed. Chanso didn’t like the look of that, but Folha said he wasn’t worried. “Maybe she wasn’t his wife,” he said. “I’d clear out, if someone saw me. They were a long way off, they couldn’t see who we were, so I don’t suppose they were scouts for the Ironshirts. Could be they’re just wary of strangers. In which case, they’ll be as keen to stay clear of us as we are of them.”
But he wouldn’t let Clar light a fire, and Chanso noticed him sitting up late into the night, keeping watch, as Conselh had done. He had the bow and arrows with him, and the bow was strung.
Folha must have fallen asleep sometime between m
idnight and dawn, because they came with the first light of the rising sun, and nobody heard them until it was too late.
Chanso was jerked awake by a shout. He sat up, and a foot hit him in the face, accidentally or deliberately; there was a scuffle: three men were pulling a fourth to the ground, Chanso couldn’t see who it was. Then he heard the solid, chunky noise of something hard hitting bone, and more shouting in a language he didn’t understand. He jumped up, and something hit him in the small of the back; he spun round, and a man hit him on the forehead with a long stick. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him down, but his ears rang and his vision blurred for a moment, and the pain made everything else irrelevant. Then the stick caught him under the ribs. He staggered backwards and sat down hard, unable to breathe. He realised he was waiting for the third blow, but it didn’t come.
And they kept on shouting, whoever they were; angry, urgent, insistent; they were furious about something, but the words made no sense. A man came up to him, stopped a few inches from him; he was big, huge, with a broad, flat face and a black beard, and he was holding an axe in one hand and a knife in the other. He yelled; Chanso realised he was yelling at him, demanding the answer to a question, very angry because he wasn’t getting an answer. “I don’t understand,” Chanso said, and that got him the poll of the axe on his collarbone. He screamed and the man kicked his head.
Two men were holding Folha’s arms. The man who’d just kicked Chanso went over to Folha in two giant strides and put the blade of his knife under his chin. Then he looked round—at Chanso, and Clar and Trahidour, who were lying on the ground with men standing over them—and started shouting again; a question, definitely that, but still completely incomprehensible. He waited, then shouted it again, only louder. Trahidour said, “We can’t understand you,” in a faint, weak voice. Somebody kicked him. The man with the knife bellowed out his question a third time. Then he said three words, evenly spaced with gaps, like a man counting. Then he cut Folha’s throat.
The men who’d been holding Folha came forward and pulled Clar to his feet. The shouting man rested the knife on his throat and asked the same meaningless question. Then the count—something, then Chanso thought the second syllable might have been dui, then the third word, and then he cut Clar’s throat, too. Trahidour tried to jump up, he was yelling now; one of the men kicked him, probably missed, because the kick landed on the ball of his shoulder, and Trahidour ignored it; “We don’t know your language, you stupid fucking—” A man behind him hit the back of his head with an axe handle and he dropped flat on his face. They hauled him up and put the knife to his throat. The man with the knife turned and looked straight at Chanso. This time he spoke rather than shouted, in the voice you use when your anger is beyond mere yelling. He repeated the question, slowly and clearly. He repeated it again. He began the count; ang, dui. “Please,” Chanso shouted, “we can’t understand.” Tin, said the man with the beard, and killed Trahidour.
