‘Guarded?’ Brasti spat in the snow. ‘No, the stables are practically surrounded. Morn’s got a dozen soldiers at every damned door.’
‘What now, then?’ Trin asked. Despite our imminent risk of discovery, she showed not the slightest concern. Doubtless part of that was because she’s absolutely insane, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she had her own plan, just in case I failed her. ‘One presumes we can’t walk all the way through the southern passes into Tristia?’
‘We could try a Blushing Bride,’ Kest suggested. ‘It’s worked for us before.’
I considered it, but quickly shook my head. ‘We’ve already blown up part of the armoury. Even if we could set one of the other buildings on fire, there are just too many soldiers here – they wouldn’t need to leave the stables unguarded to deal with it.’
‘The Sewer Rat?’ Brasti offered.
‘You want to dig a tunnel under the stables?’ I asked incredulously.
‘I thought that was a Burrowing Weasel.’
‘No,’ Kest said, ‘the Burrowing Weasel is when you bury yourself in a pit and wait for the pursuers to pass you by.’
‘Then why isn’t that one called a—?’
‘Shut up,’ I said absently, trying to run through possible options in my head. Even without the distraction of Kest and Brasti bickering, that didn’t take long.
Time was the problem: we couldn’t afford to hang about. If this were a city or even a castle, we’d likely be able to find somewhere to hide, perhaps even disguise ourselves, but anyone who saw us here would instantly know we weren’t Avarean. And since the only Tristians here were Greatcoats . . .
‘All Hail the King,’ I said suddenly.
Brasti’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Kest. ‘Is he talking about the one where—?’
Kest nodded.
‘Forget it,’ Brasti said. ‘There’s no way we can pull off an All Hail the King.’
‘It’s our only choice,’ I said. ‘Look, Morn must have had the other Greatcoats here for ages, and they’re not prisoners, which means they must have the run of the place. I’ll bet they take out horses all the time.’
All Hail the King isn’t one of the most devious tactics we’d ever come up with, but every once in a while it does actually work. And the rest of the time there’s usually enough confusion amongst the people you’re trying to deceive that at least you get a head-start running away.
‘The problem is,’ Brasti argued, ‘that we’re not Morn’s Greatcoats.’
‘The Avareans might not know that,’ Kest pointed out.
‘You think one Tristian looks like another to them?’ Trin asked with a light chuckle.
‘Well, they all look the same to me,’ Brasti said.
‘Perhaps, but from what I gleaned during my negotiations with the poor dear Warlord who died this morning, your former colleagues started arriving two years ago, so a great many of them are well-known to the Avareans by now.’
‘Which means some aren’t,’ I said, stepping carefully towards the end of the row of privies and staring at the nearest stables. If I just walked right up to them, not a care in the world, and pushed past them into the stables, would they buy it?
‘As much as I do love watching your little feats of daring,’ Trin said, ‘I’m afraid this one will end in tears.’
I hesitated, but as I couldn’t come up with another approach, I worked on convincing myself this one would work. Time, I reminded myself, is working against us. Then again, what wasn’t working against us?
A voice called out softly from behind us, ‘I’m afraid the bitch is right, Falcio.’
I spun around, but at first I couldn’t see anyone – until a woman stepped out from behind the privies, her long black leather coat etched with a ship on the right breast. Quillata, the King’s Sail. The Seventh Cantor of the Greatcoats and once one of my closest friends.
‘Hello, Quil,’ Brasti said, taking a step towards her and bringing his stolen sword into guard. ‘Goodbye, Quil.’
‘Please,’ she snorted, looking at his blade, ‘don’t embarrass yourself, Goodbow.’
‘You know, I might have to kill you with this stupid metal stick just to get people to stop mocking my fencing skills,’ he said.
Quillata ignored him. ‘The All Hail the King won’t work, Falcio. These people aren’t stupid. They don’t panic just because of a little noise and fire.’
I kept my own weapon light in my hand, measuring the distance between us. Quil was a ferocious fighter and I didn’t particularly want to test myself against her if I had any other choice. ‘Don’t suppose you have any suggestions?’
She looked at me for a long while, as if weighing her own options. ‘How about a Trusted Friend?’
There’s no tactic in the Greatcoats’ repertoire called a ‘Trusted Friend’.
‘Haven’t had one of those in a long time, Quil,’ I said.
‘Do you wonder why?’ The look she gave Trin suggested she was seriously considering murdering her on the spot. ‘Allying yourself with Patriana’s daughter? The King would be ashamed.’
‘He surely would be,’ I said evenly.
That set her off. ‘Don’t! Don’t you dare for even one second to play the martyr with me, val Mond! You’re not the one who had to watch Bellow get his legs sawed off by Viscount Croisard’s soldiers. You weren’t there when six of my own Greatcoats were hung by the neck, the knots left just loose enough to make them dangle for a good long time before they finally died. You weren’t—’ She held up a hand, as if stopping herself. ‘No. I won’t do this with you.’
I let my hand grip the hilt of my sword a little tighter. ‘Then what are you planning to do, Quil?’
She sighed. ‘I’m going to go and create a second distraction by telling the guards I’ve just spotted you going over the western wall.’ She pointed to a small building across the compound. ‘Get yourself over to that maintenance shed. There’s a ladder hanging on the outside; it’s long enough to get you over the wall. On the other side I’ve left three horses for you. You’ll have to double up on two of them, so you’ll need to swap riders regularly. That’s the best I could do.’
I felt something like relief seep into me, just for a moment. Sometimes you need to fool yourself that your world hasn’t actually been turned upside down just for the sake of getting air into your lungs. ‘Come with us,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘No, Falcio. You and I are done. The others are done with you as well. And you can stop calling yourself “First Cantor” from here on out.’
‘Why?’ I asked, straining to keep the pleading out of my voice, trying instead to focus on the sounds of men running through the compound, of the imminent threat, of the need to escape. ‘Just tell me why, Quil.’
‘Because Morn’s right, Falcio. If you’d just listen to his plan, take the time to hear about the numbers of lives that could be saved, you might finally let go of this insane obsession with the King’s last wishes and realise that this is the only way to save our country.’
‘Then why give us the horses?’ Kest asked. ‘Why not try to make us stay?’
She stood there a moment longer, the cold breeze lifting her dark hair. She looked sad, and tired. ‘Because even after all the stupid things the three of you have done these past years, I can’t stand to watch any more Greatcoats die.’
CHAPTER FORTY
The Lovelorn Sacrifice
The horses Quillata had left for us were heavy beasts, well-chosen for riding long distances in cold weather. They wouldn’t be very fast, but endurance would soon become more important than speed. I was pleased to see the saddlebags were well supplied too.
‘And here I forgot to bring her anything,’ Brasti said, examining the bow hung from a strap on his horse’s saddle before putting a foot into the stirrup.
‘Oh, I don’t think
that’s true,’ Trin said, reaching down a hand to help Filian mount up behind her. ‘Apparently you’ve brought her and the other Trattari quite a bit of misery.’
I took the reins of one of the shaggy creatures. ‘We’d better go. There’ll be plenty of time for you to mock us after we’ve saved your worthless life.’
We raced for the thick forest running between Avares and Tristia. Going east might have got us out of the country faster, but that would have meant taking the mountain passes again and I doubted anyone was going to let us use their platforms and pulleys to get down the sheer cliffs. Instead, we’d have to go the long way round, easing our way down to the border with Pertine, where we could finally leave this damned country where everything turned to ice in one way or another.
We rode hard and fast, the horses falling into a steady pace – though not one they particularly enjoyed. Despite the effort, mine was particularly responsive and well-behaved, which, oddly enough, made me miss Arsehole. I guess I’m just used to horses that don’t obey me. I hope you found that butterfly, you great big idiot.
Two hours into our journey, I began to believe we might have managed the impossible and escaped – until my horse reared up suddenly, tipping me unceremoniously into the snow as a figure appeared from the trees in front of us.
‘I’ve got the son of a bitch,’ Brasti said from behind me, his words accompanied by the creak of a bow.
Kest had already dismounted far more gracefully than I had and I could see him approaching from the corner of my eye.
The figure before us shook off his covering of snow, revealing a long coat made from heavy wool, trimmed in fur as white as the landscape all around us. A hunting knife, the blade a good ten inches long, gleamed in his hand. ‘It is a trap,’ he said in a thick Avarean accent.
‘Yes, we know it’s a trap,’ Brasti observed. ‘That’s why I’m about to shoot you.’
‘It is a trap,’ our apparent ambusher repeated, as if he weren’t sure we’d understood him the first time. He pointed in the direction we were headed. ‘Ten miles ahead, they have a camp. They wait for you.’
‘Who waits for us?’ I asked.
Anger stirred on the young man’s features. ‘The traitor’s soldiers – twenty, perhaps a few more. They have nets and danfangsten – you would call them . . . man-catchers.’
I hate man-catchers. Actually, I’m fairly sure everyone hates man-catchers: eight-foot-long poles with spiked two-pronged heads that close around your neck; they’re painful, and make it incredibly easy for your opponent to keep control of you. Slavers are very fond of man-catchers, though they’re much less common in Tristia; say what you want about my country – for it is corrupt, venal and generally despicable – but at least we don’t have slavery. I stared into the endless barren terrain ahead of us. If what the boy said was true, then the Magdan had fully prepared for our possible escape. Which means he really is better at this than I am.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Brasti said. ‘Why in the name of Saint Dreck-who-pissed-in-the-snow should we believe some bloody Avarean?’
Kest took another step closer, peering at the young man. ‘Falcio, I know who he is. This is—’
‘Gwyn, isn’t it?’ I asked, recognising him myself now. ‘You were lying feverish in a cot, covered in sweat-soaked blankets and near death back in Den Chapier. You appear to have recovered rather swiftly.’
He shrugged as though it were nothing of note, although now that I was really looking at the young man, I could see how pale his skin was, and how gaunt his features. ‘Fever broke five days ago.’
‘How did you get here so quickly?’ Kest asked, echoing my own concern. ‘Five days isn’t long enough to make the trip on foot and the mountain passes are too rough for horses.’
‘Not for a braijaeger.’ Gwyn gave a short, sharp whistle and a moment later a copper-coloured blur burst out from the forest. Before I could get out of the way, the blur had leaped towards me then abruptly stopped, nose-to-nose with me.
It licked my face.
‘Arsehole?’
Gwyn frowned, apparently thinking I was referring to him. ‘I did not mean to steal him, but I needed to get here quickly, before—’
‘He’s not calling you arsehole,’ Brasti explained. ‘It’s the horse’s name.’
The young Rangieri stared at me, wide-eyed and a little offended. ‘You named a braijaeger “Arsehole”?’
‘We call them Tivanieze,’ I replied, a little defensively. ‘But yes.’ I patted Arsehole’s neck and told him, ‘And you and I are going to have a conversation about how you never listen to me but seem perfectly content to follow the commands of a possible Avarean assassin.’
The horse nuzzled me in reply.
‘If we could get off the subject of horses,’ Brasti said, still eyeing Gwyn warily, ‘are we really supposed to believe you jumped off of your deathbed to come all the way here to warn us about Morn’s trap just to piss him off? Weren’t you content with killing his old Rangieri mentor?’
A leather sling suddenly appeared in Gwyn’s other hand and I found myself reflexively raising my arms to protect my face. Slings are funny things: you wouldn’t think a child’s toy would be especially dangerous in actual combat, but you’ll change your mind the first time you see a one-inch rock bury itself in a man’s skull.
‘Yimris was my teacher, my . . .’ Gwyn struggled to find the right word. ‘My zedagnir.’
‘“Dagnir” is the Avarean word for father,’ Kest explained, ‘so I would guess that “zedagnir” must mean foster-father.’
‘The one you call Morn,’ the boy growled, ‘the traitor – he betrayed Yimris, stabbed him, left him for dead.’
Trin came up close to me, which always feels like someone dropping a dozen spiders down the back of your neck. ‘This boy speaks rather good Tristian for a mountain man, Falcio. This could easily be a trick.’
‘Yimris teached me . . .’ Gwyn paused then corrected himself. ‘Yimris taught me.’
All right, so, either this young Avarean was sincere and we had to change course, or this was all some elaborate deception that would result with me right back in that damned cell in the Magdan’s compound, only this time with even more bruises. I watched Gwyn carefully, searching for some sign of deceit or ill-will. He cut an odd figure, standing there before me in the snow: a slight young man, not as tall as most of the Avareans I’d met, and much leaner of build. I doubted he was more than eighteen years old, though he carried himself with a kind of ease and confidence you rarely find in anyone other than Kest. The coat he wore . . . it was very much like the one depicted in the only book I’d ever read that mentioned the Rangieri. Moreover, it was clearly fitted to him, so either he was a proper Rangieri – the first I’d ever met – or he’d cleverly found one who had the exact same build and killed him for it.
Hells. For all my staring, the only thing I could say for sure about Gwyn was that he genuinely despised Morn – which was as good a reason as any for trusting someone. ‘All right,’ I said finally. ‘We can’t go forward along this track and we can’t turn back. Any suggestions?’
Brasti shaded his eyes and peered ahead of us. ‘I think that set of hills off in the distance might be the start of the Degueren Steppes.’
‘Yes. Here they are called the Svaerdan,’ Gwyn said, ‘but it is the same thing. You must make for them quickly and quietly, then head east back through the passes to your own country.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘then let’s get—’
‘It won’t work,’ Kest said. I turned to see what he meant and found him staring back the way we’d come. He was making that face of his – the one that means he’s working out things in his head that would take me a week to figure out. ‘We’re never going make it.’
I followed his gaze, half-expecting to see Morn with a hundred soldiers at his back coming over the ridge. ‘They can’t
be that close already, can they?’
Brasti dismounted. Motioning for us to be silent, he ran a few feet back and listened. ‘Nothing yet,’ he announced after a minute. ‘This area is pretty barren. If they were within half a mile of us I’d hear it.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kest said, and gestured to one of the horses. ‘We’ve been pushing our mounts faster than they’re bred to travel. They’re already tired. If Morn is smart – and it’s fair to say that he’s proven that he is – he’ll have doubled up on horses: they’ll be able to move twice as fast as us, and we’re only going to get slower.’
‘How long till we reach the Degueren Steppes?’ I asked Gwyn.
He didn’t answer at first, but instead walked up and examined my horse, placing his hand on the beast’s side. ‘Their coats are wet from riding too fast. You must walk them a while, then ride, then walk again. Three hours, I think.’
‘Too long,’ Kest said, locking eyes with me. ‘I’m telling you, Falcio, I’ve worked this through: there are simply too many of them coming for us.’
‘Then we split up, take different routes and—’
‘There are no other paths,’ Gwyn interrupted. ‘Not until you reach the Svaerdan.’
I was really starting to dislike this damnable country. I reached for the sword strapped to my saddlebag. ‘Well, if we can’t run, then I guess we’ll have to fight.’
Kest grabbed my wrist. ‘I’m telling you, this won’t work. They won’t be coming after us with just a few soldiers, Falcio: they want Trin far too badly. We’re on cold, rocky terrain here, which gives the Avareans the advantage. None of our usual tactics are going to do us any good. This is going to come down to a pure numbers game, and we’re going to fail.’
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