The Quickening

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘I’ve learned some tricks from a new friend,’ Wyl replied. ‘I gather you want him left alive?’

  Lothryn nodded. ‘Leave him some water.’

  They did so and rode off immediately, Borc howling curses after their backs. Once out of sight of the guard, Lothryn stopped the group’s progress.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Wyl asked.

  ‘We must use what’s left of the dark to get as far as possible,’ Lothryn cautioned. ‘Once Borc set off after us, Dorl will not have wasted any time in running to the King. In any case, the guards have probably already woken and raised the alarm that you three have escaped. Cailech won’t wait — he’ll have sent a tracking party by now.’

  Elspyth felt a new fear. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘He’s saying we’ll have to escape the hard way, am I right?’ Gueryn croaked.

  Lothryn nodded, looking at Wyl.

  ‘So leave me!’ Gueryn ordered. ‘I will hamper progress.’

  ‘Stop!’ Wyl ordered. ‘There’ll be no talk of anyone left behind. Lothryn … tell me the worst.’

  ‘We’ll have to go over the mountains. The horses can only take us so far. It will be on foot for the most part. Very dangerous.’

  ‘Lookouts?’

  ‘No,’ he said sombrely, ‘they’re the easier of our problems. Our greatest threat is from the ekons.’

  ‘You mean they’re real?’ Elspyth said.

  Wyl had not heard of them. ‘Ekons … another tribe?’

  Lothryn gave a harsh laugh. ‘Another species. I hope you never have to see them, let alone fight them. Here,’ he said, lifting a bundle wrapped in sacking from beneath his pack. ‘You’ll be needing these.’

  Wyl heard the comforting clank of metal. ‘My weapons?’

  The barbarian nodded. ‘I took them from your room at the inn in Yentro. I had high hopes of keeping them, to be honest, but they’re somehow too elegant for the Mountain style of combat,’ Lothryn admitted.

  ‘Are the knives sharp?’ It was a strange question from Gueryn.

  ‘Very!’ Wyl assured him.

  ‘Good. Then you can release these stitches from my eyes.’

  His three companions looked between each other. It was no polite request from the old soldier.

  ‘Do it!’ he commanded with a strength Wyl remembered all too well.

  ‘I will,’ Elspyth offered. ‘I have a steady hand.’

  Wyl gingerly gave her one of the daggers.

  ‘I can’t see very well by moonlight,’ she admitted to her patient.

  ‘Well that makes two of us,’ he replied gruffly. ‘Do what you can.’

  Lying him on his back, she quietly thanked Shar for his full moon this night. It hurt Gueryn badly for the stitches were dried. She did her best to moisten and soften them with water but the delicate task was still seriously hampered by the conditions. Wevyr’s brilliantly fashioned blade was the only blessing. One touch and the black thread was cut through cleanly. Gradually, painfully, his swollen lids were released.

  ‘They’re not perfect,’ she admitted, looking at the stray threads still embedded in his lids.

  ‘It is to me. Thank you, my dear, and you are every bit as pretty as I imagined you might be with that lovely voice.’

  She smiled at his compliment. Gueryn now looked for the man who claimed to be his beloved Wyl Thirsk and saw only a tall stranger.

  ‘You’re not Wyl.’ Bitter disappointment gutted the older soldier.

  ‘Gueryn — there is much to say and yet no time.’

  Understanding dawned on Gueryn le Gant. ‘Save those words for another time. Thank you for helping me — I presume you are the Romen Koreldy whom Cailech was so interested in me identifying. If you hadn’t called out the Thirsk motto or pretended you were Wyl back in the dungeon, I might have just given up my fight against him, against the fever, against the pain.’ He found a shaky smile. ‘You know you look nothing like Wyl Thirsk and yet somehow you do remind me so strongly of him.’

  Wyl could only shake his head. He so badly wanted to confide in Gueryn and tell him everything about this bewildering life he now led but he knew that right now his old friend would not believe him. It would need careful telling and time.

  Gueryn’s gaze had already moved on to Lothryn. ‘Our eyes meet again,’ he said in his dry manner. ‘If I was strong enough I would offer to fight you.’

  The big man smiled, offered his hand to help Gueryn to his feet.

  Wyl was anxious at how weak Gueryn really was. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’ll take our chances over the mountains, then.’

  Lothryn nodded. ‘He will not expect it. He will follow the most logical trail, anticipating we will go for speed.’

  Elspyth groaned. ‘He’ll just send out two sets of trackers, surely?’

  Lothryn flicked a glance towards Wyl. Elspyth was right but he did not want to dishearten them any further. Their chance of escape via the more treacherous and mountainous route was slim at best against Cailech’s men and the ekons but it was infinitely better than the more straightforward route winding down the Razors.

  ‘Cailech will not send two sets of trackers if he’s following four horses on one clear track,’ Gueryn said firmly, trying hard not to cough or reveal how badly he sickened.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Wyl said.

  ‘Koreldy, your chances, I am gathering, are lessening by the moment. If we give them a clear set of tracks and no reason to question it, they will follow that trail blindly, no jest intended.’

  ‘No!’ Wyl said, suddenly understanding where this was headed.

  ‘Yes!’ Gueryn replied just as adamantly. ‘You three go off on foot across the mountains. They will not suspect it if you cover your early tracks well. I will take the horses and lead them down and away from you. You will win a day, perhaps even two if you move quickly and you’ll move faster without me.’

  ‘Gueryn, I can’t permit this,’ Wyl said.

  ‘Why? I am not answerable to you, Grenadyne. We have no loyalties to each other but I can do this for you because I want to. Get yourselves to safety and warn the Legion of Cailech’s threat to spare no prisoners. The Legion must not be sent in recklessly — perhaps you can persuade Celimus to do that much.’

  There was so much to say; so much to tell him. Wyl felt the bleakness grab him again. ‘You will die! It will be for nought.’

  Gueryn smiled in a way which reminded Wyl of all the reasons he loved this man. ‘I’d far rather die outwitting these bastards — forgive me, Lothryn — than be roasted over their coals. I’ll make them kill me, son, and I’ll die laughing in their faces. Please, go. Let me do this for you as my thanks for getting me out of that dungeon.’

  Lothryn felt for Koreldy’s pain. ‘It’s a good plan, Romen.’

  Wyl looked back towards his old friend and mentor, fighting back the emotion, demanding that the tears he felt welling did not show themselves for he could not explain them anyway. He nodded. ‘So be it.’

  Gueryn held out his hand to Wyl. ‘I will take the horses as far as my ailing body can get them and still further. You obviously knew someone very special to me called Wyl Thirsk. Looking forward to hearing his story and how he fares will encourage me to live. Perhaps we might meet again, Koreldy … if not in this life, then the next.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  GUERYN LEFT HIS COMPANIONS, trailing their horses behind him. Wyl’s last view of him was seeing his friend take a sip from the small bottle he had pressed into the old soldier’s hand. Gueryn had taken it gratefully to numb the pain and win him a little strength. No one admitted that the fever would most likely kill him before those giving chase could, but they all thought it.

  Wyl, however, preferred not to dwell on this. Instead he emptied his mind and walked in a grim silence, bringing up the rear behind Lothryn and Elspyth. Each of them deliberately stepped in the next one’s footsteps and Wyl brushed a fir branch in their wake to disguise any tracks as best he could. He ignored the pain in his
rib and the whip of the wind which was picking up. He focused only on counting his steps, putting as many between him and Cailech’s fortress as possible.

  As the first light of the spring dawn glowed gently, Lothryn halted.

  ‘We should rest for a couple of hours. There is a cave not far from here where we can lie down for a short while.’

  ‘Can we risk it?’ Wyl wondered aloud.

  ‘We must if we are going to conserve energy for the thinner air and harder terrain. This is nothing.’

  ‘Really easy,’ Elspyth said in a tone which belied the words.

  They undid the packs and found some dried food Lothryn had the foresight to include. None were hungry but the Mountain man insisted.

  ‘Forget hunger. Your body needs the sustenance even if your head tells you otherwise. Force it down,’ he said to them and they did, chewing on dried meat, dried fruit and a small knuckle of bread each.

  They drank thirstily, knowing there was plenty of fresh water along the way to replenish what they used.

  ‘So rest. Two hours only,’ Lothryn cautioned.

  Wyl turned his back as Elspyth shamelessly curled up in Lothryn’s arms. She felt safe in his embrace, but she also knew she somehow belonged there. Sleep claimed all of them almost instantly.

  He dreamed. It was a familiar chamber; the smell of sweat and fear, of faeces and urine … and curiously the smell of desire. Wyl was himself again; red-headed, young and frightened as they hoisted Myrren up in the hideous contraption known as the strappado. He heard the pop of her shoulder sockets as they yielded their oh so fragile hold on her arms but she did not scream. She did not even groan — not even when her elbows dislocated. The audience made all the noise as they shuddered and cringed, imagining her pain even if she would not share it.

  She was naked, of course. Necessary to please the all-male chamber, he reckoned. He could see the gleam in their eyes but she did not seem to care. Myrren looked at no one but Wyl. For the most part of her traumatic time under torture she kept her eyes firmly closed but when, now and then, they flickered open for just a moment, her faraway gaze rested only on his. He had not noticed previously how her lips kept moving in a constant stream of silent words. Words presumably only she knew. Witch words he suddenly realised with new clarity in this dreamlike state.

  Wyl heard the terrible command ‘Drop!’ uttered by Lymbert and then, as if she were falling a hundred times slower than in reality, he witnessed Myrren descending. And he grimaced again in his dream, for he knew what was coming, knew they would hurt her terribly. Suddenly she lurched to a sickening halt mid-air and her lips pulled back in her excruciating agony as the limbs, muscles and tendons tore and wrenched.

  It was then that a new dimension invaded the dream. The torture chamber seemed to still. Myrren’s bloodshot eyes flew open and she spoke to him alone.

  ‘Find my father!’ she commanded.

  Wyl woke, trembling in Romen Koreldy’s body.

  They had slept for less than two hours but it was enough. Again Lothryn paused long enough to make them eat a little cheese and more nuts washed down with a skin of water. Carefully covering up any clues to their visit, they pressed on. Elspyth openly held Lothryn’s hand now — that was probably the reason for her higher spirits — not that it interested Wyl much beyond acknowledgement. His thoughts were with Gueryn and whether they really would see each other again.

  Gueryn pressed doggedly on. It was warmer in these lower reaches but his fever had gained its foothold and would now run rampant through his shivering, aching body. He swigged again from the bottle, knowing it would not alleviate the effects of the fever. He cared not. His single notion was to stay upright and keep the horses moving forward. Every yard gained was another minute of life for his friends whom he hoped were far away now. And anyway, any moment he expected an arrow through his throat. He was surprised he had made it this far.

  To take his mind off death he considered Koreldy.

  A strange one he was. Why did the Grenadyne look at him with so much compassion? No, not compassion. That was too mild a word. It was love. Koreldy was connected to him in some very special way and yet Gueryn could not figure it. And the man’s pretence at being Wyl was clever; he would give him that much.

  Koreldy had saved him the indignity of being eaten by Cailech. Just thinking about it brought bile to his throat. What an end. Now, because of Romen and the courageous Lothryn, he would at least die honourably, outwitting the enemy, and perhaps when all hope was lost he would turn and fight, dying bravely as any soldier of the Legion should. The Grenadyne had told him nothing, not that he had had much chance to say more than he did, Gueryn admitted. There was obviously much on the man’s mind and plenty he wanted to say — Gueryn could see it in the sad grey eyes. How could that be?

  And then it hit him. Was Wyl dead? Is that what it was? He was misreading Koreldy’s compassion; the man was simply reluctant to pass on news which he knew would bring Gueryn such grief it might encourage him to give up his tenuous hold on life.

  Wyl dead? No!

  Gueryn slumped in the saddle. What else could it be? If Celimus was prepared to organise his death then his real target had to be Wyl. Gueryn was not important enough to warrant such attention. His clouded mind began to clear and anger began to gather. The new King of Morgravia, when still a Prince, had deliberately separated him from Wyl and then set about destroying both their lives.

  The more he chewed at it, the more it made sense. How would Celimus have contrived Wyl’s end? It could not have been achieved on Morgravian soil — too much loyalty from the Legion. An uprising would erupt if the army even caught a whiff of such heinous betrayal. But Celimus was too clever for that. So he would have organised for Wyl to be beyond the realm’s borders and he would have commissioned outsiders — foreigners, no doubt — to do his dirty work. Mercenaries were easy enough to hire for the right amount of gold.

  Mercenaries! Gueryn’s grip on the reins slackened. Had not Elspyth called Koreldy a mercenary during the confrontation with Cailech? Yes! Gueryn ran back over the scene in his mind. Elspyth had said something along the lines of refusing to humble the mercenary further. Romen Koreldy, who clearly knew Wyl enough to call out the Thirsk battle cry, was a mercenary. Gueryn was aware that he was making huge leaps and possibly landing in the wrong spot but the temptation to believe that Romen held critical information on Wyl was too strong. He must stay alive. He must know what has happened to his precious boy … and what about Ylena? Beautiful girl; she too would be in danger, although he hoped Alyd had the wits to get her away from Stoneheart at least. Yes, her husband was sensible and capable; his wits his best asset. He would not risk her life being threatened.

  As his feverish mind raced, the arrow he had dreaded finally came thumping into his back and knocked him with ease off his horse. Gueryn dropped like a stone, his head hitting the frosty mountain ground hard enough to send all notions of Wyl into darkness.

  Wyl was leading — no need to brush their tracks now — as they ascended a challenging climb and so the others all but stumbled into his back when he suddenly stopped walking.

  ‘Romen, what’s wrong?’ Lothryn asked.

  Wyl was listening. Not to an outside sound but to an inside voice. Something called to him. But it was gone as suddenly as it came, replaced by a wave of sadness he could not explain.

  ‘Gueryn’s dead,’ he said in a flat voice, believing it.

  Elspyth took his hand. ‘You can’t know this.’

  Lothryn tried to echo her reassurance. ‘His chances were grim, I’ll grant you. But he had a good lead on them.’

  Wyl looked at his friends, Romen’s eyes darkening. ‘You are not me, you cannot know what I feel … you don’t even know who I am!’

  He read their sideways glances as a suggestion that they leave him alone. He knew he made no sense.

  ‘I’ll lead,’ Lothryn said, pushing past.

  ‘They’re coming now,’ Wyl warned and fell silent, foll
owing once again in the other man’s footsteps, deeper into the forbidding Razors.

  ‘If he’s dead, I’ll have you strung up by your balls, man!’ Cailech boomed, pointing at the archer. He leapt from his horse. ‘Check him!’ he called to the man nearest to the felled soldier.

  They waited, the archer holding his breath.

  ‘He’s alive, my lord. Just.’

  ‘Get him back to the fortress. Bring in the herbalists and find Rashlyn for me. Now!’

  Men rushed off in all directions. Gueryn was wrapped in blankets; they were careful not to disturb the ugly arrow which protruded from the lower part of his shoulder. He was laid across a horse and immediately led back the way he had fought so hard to escape. The man leading him swallowed hard, casting a silent prayer to Haldor to help him get this prisoner back to the fortress alive and into the hands of the herbalists for he did not doubt the King would carry out his threat if this man lost his life in his care.

  Cailech turned to one of his trusted; it pained him more deeply than he cared to admit right now that it was not Lothryn.

  ‘So they tricked us. Where would they go?’

  The man was not used to being asked for his opinion. He was loyal to Cailech and a faithful member of the tribe but he would prefer it was calm Lothryn under the King’s scrutiny. Lothryn knew how to handle the King and his moods. He himself was a follower … a doer, not a decision-maker. The King’s green eyes continued to regard him and he cleared his throat.

  ‘My lord King, if Lothryn is with them —’

  ‘He is with them! Traitor!’ the King raged.

  The man tried again. ‘That being the case, my lord, I would suggest he might take them via the higher pass.’

  ‘Why not the Dog Leg?’

  He did not mean to shrug at his King and was grateful Cailech had not noticed. ‘Lothryn knows the mountains like no other, my lord. If I was him, I’d take the most treacherous route because it might give me a better chance. He knows Haldor’s Pass.’

  After several moments of consideration, in which everyone else held their breath yet again, Cailech nodded. ‘I agree with you, Myrt. It is wise counsel.’