by Angus Watson
She put the nasty man from her mind and stared out into the trees. The rain still came down harder than any rain she’d ever encountered but they were warm under their shelter and swiftly drying.
“Horrible weather,” she said.
“It’s not, it’s great weather,” said Gurd. “We’ve been leaving a trail like a herd of buffalo through fresh snow. This rain’ll wipe that all out. I’ve never seen rain like it. It must be Tor’s doing.”
“Do you think we’re still being followed?”
“With what Frossa said about the Calnian empress, and the Lakchans, too … what do you reckon, Wulf?”
“Chances are one or two of the Calnian army fled when they saw they were losing, and are on their way back to Calnia now. But by the time they get there and report that we’re alive, we’ll be long gone.”
“But won’t they follow us all the way to The Meadows?” asked Sassa.
“According to Erik there’s a big river ahead called the Water Mother. He says the Calnians won’t follow us over that.”
“Why not?”
“Everyone knows the Calnians don’t cross the Water Mother.”
“Do they?”
“So Erik says.”
“How far is it?”
“We should be there in a week.”
“I hope the Calnians don’t work out that the Lakchans let us go,” said Sassa.
“Why?” asked Gurd.
“Because they’ll kill them all.”
“Serve them right.”
“Gurd! They let us go.”
“They wanted to kill us.”
“No, they didn’t. It was the lives of a few strangers for the lives of all their friends and families. I’d have killed us if I were them. We were lucky that Erik came along when he did.”
“Erik the outlaw, who we should have killed.”
“You know that Erik was outlawed for leaving Hardwork, don’t you, Gurd?”
“So?”
“What have we done?”
“What do you mean?”
“Shag a stag, Gurd. We’ve left Hardwork. We’ve all done exactly the thing that you want to kill Erik for.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“It’s the law. He broke the law, the Hird are sworn to kill him.”
“But he’s an outlaw only in name, for doing what we did, too.”
“The law is the law.”
Fuck a duck, thought Sassa, it was like trying to reason with a particularly dumb rock.
“It’s all different now, Gurd,” said Wulf. “We are not going to kill him. He saved us and now he’s leading us.”
“He’s leading us? So he’s in charge?”
“He’s leading us geographically, in the sense that he’s showing us which paths to take. He’s a good man—decent, adaptable, intelligent, with an open mind. Capable of listening to reason. Capable of adapting his opinions to a new situation.”
“We should kill him. The law is the law,” Gurd snarled.
Wulf sighed.
Finnbogi the Boggy hugged his knees to his chest. Thyri and Garth were huddling in the middle of the shelter. Finnbogi was at the end, spray from the downpour soaking his left flank. He didn’t care.
“Here, move in closer,” said Gunnhild, shifting to the right.
“Hmmm,” said Finnbogi, but he shuffled in.
“Have you spoken to Erik yet?”
Finnbogi shook his head.
“You should. He’ll be pleased. And it’ll be good for you to have a dad. Stop you sulking about Thyri.”
Finnbogi pondered heading out into the rain and drowning himself in a puddle.
“Never overconsole nor overcongratulate yourself. Some are worse off, some better, always,” Gunnhild announced.
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed.
“Not many worse off than me,” said Finnbogi when the sky had shut up.
“You didn’t pay attention when Freydis and Ottar came to live with us, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know their story?”
“Their parents were killed or something?”
“Their parents were executed.”
“Wow. What happened?”
Gunnhild looked along the shelter. Freydis was at the other end, talking to Keef and Erik. Ottar was kneeling next to her, arm outstretched and watching raindrops splash off his hand.
“Holger the Dumpy and Aud the Manic were a strange couple. She was always angry or upset about something and she was difficult to talk to because she was always fixated on whatever was upsetting her or annoying her. If you tried to discuss, for example, the lack of animals around Hardwork, she’d simply carry on about whatever it was she was interested in.”
Can’t say I blame her, thought Finnbogi.
“Holger was a very nice guy, although possibly the dimmest person Hardwork every produced.”
“Dimmer than Bodil?”
“Don’t be cruel, Finnbogi. The strange thing about their relationship was that if you ever saw Holger on his own, he would do nothing but complain how awful Aud was. He’d seek you out for the sole purpose of badmouthing her. Yet they stayed together.”
“And Freydis and Ottar?”
“A story needs background, Finnbogi. So, Holger and Aud were a young couple, unmarried. They didn’t want a baby, but Aud fell pregnant.”
“So they married?”
“So Holger punched Aud repeatedly in the stomach to kill the unborn baby.”
“What?”
“There was plenty of food and firewood, so they couldn’t claim that it would have been difficult to look after a child, and if they really didn’t want it there were plenty of people—me and Poppo included—who would have taken it in. There was no excuse, but he was stupid and she was evil and stupid. So stupid were they, in fact, that they failed to kill the unborn child. But they did damage his mind.”
“Ottar!” Finnbogi felt tears pricking his eyes. “Why didn’t I know this?”
“Because up to now you haven’t been much interested in anything but yourself.”
That simply wasn’t true. He just hadn’t been interested in anything Gunnhild had to say.
“So they had little Ottar and actually they did try to look after him. All seemed fine, but after a few months he wasn’t developing like other babies and it was clear that there was something amiss with his mind. People wondered why and Holger, the idiot, told everyone what they’d done. Brodir sentenced them to death.”
“But Freydis …”
“Patience, Finnbogi. They fled. Brodir sent the Hird after them, but the fugitive couple left the ten-mile zone and so escaped.
“Three years later, Aud and Holger came back to Hardwork with two children: Ottar, who was a lovely little boy by then, albeit with a less developed mind, and a new baby.”
“Freydis.”
“Exactly. She was a year old and already showing signs of being precociously intelligent. Aud and Holger apologised to everyone and said they’d been young and stupid when they’d damaged the unborn Ottar. They’d had Freydis to prove that they could be capable parents.”
“But Brodir—”
“Executed them anyway. There were plenty who disagreed with him.”
“Including you?”
“No.”
“I thought Krist was a forgiving god? I thought that was his main thing? Surely if you follow Krist nobody can ever be punished for anything?”
“Some things cannot be forgiven. So. We already had you and plenty of space at the church, so we took on Ottar and Freydis.”
“And Ottar’s prophecies?”
“Started as soon as Freydis could speak and tell us what her older brother was saying. They didn’t happen very often, but every now and then Freydis would tell us he’d said something like ‘dead wolf tomorrow,’ and the next day we’d find a dead wolf behind the church. He’s never been wrong. That’s why I’m certain we have to reach The Meado
ws. It’s why we should have believed that the Scraylings would try to slaughter us all.”
“Wow. Poor kids.”
“Yes, Finnbogi, exactly. Next time you’re moping because your passing fancy has gone off with someone else, put Ottar and Freydis’s story in your pipe and smoke it.”
My passing fancy … she knew nothing about love.
“And here’s one more thing to make you feel better. If Thyri’s going to go for a wanker like Garth, she’s clearly not the sort of girl you want to be with.”
“I thought you liked Garth?”
“I don’t hate him. I don’t hate anybody, Krist tells me not to. Never pass judgement on your brethren, lest they judge you. Unless that brethren is Garth, for he may be called wanker.”
“What?”
“I made up the second half of that one.” Gunnhild smiled. In an instant, Finnbogi felt a good deal better about Thyri, and respected Gunnhild’s opinion much more than he had before.
Erik the Angry was having two conversations at the same time and thinking about something else. Keef the Berserker was asking about Erik’s war club—how did it compare to Hardwork weaponry, how would he use it in a fight against, for example, a long axe like Arse Splitter?
Freydis the Annoying was asking about Astrid. How was it that the bear followed him? Where was she now and was she out of the rain? How come she didn’t eat the racoons? He was enjoying both these chats, it was undeniably good to be with his own kind again, especially when he’d spent the last twenty years thinking that his own kind were evil shits and the ones he’d spoken to so far were not.
However, even as he spoke and listened, he was thinking about his son, the odd sulky one who’d helped half-heartedly with the construction of the shelter and was sitting at the other end of it apparently getting wet on purpose. What was Erik meant to do? He’d hardly had a friend for twenty years and now he had a son?
“Whoop!” Ottar suddenly shouted. He grabbed Freydis by the collar of her cotton dress. “In nair! In nair!” he wailed.
“Oh no,” said the girl.
“What is it, Freydis?” asked Wulf.
“The Calnians. They’re at Hardwork.”
“It in nair!”
“They know where we’ve gone and they’re following. Very fast.”
Wulf jumped up from his spot under the shelter and knelt in front of the boy.
“Is it another army?”
The boy shook and garbled.
“He says no,” said Freydis. “It’s their Hird. But they’re called something else. Wowsla?”
“Fuck,” said Wulf, standing.
“Wulf the Fat!”
“Sorry, Freydis, but I said ‘fuck’ because it’s appropriate in this situation. We have to go, now.”
“Carry on in the pissing rain, on his say-so?” said Garth Anvilchin, the biggest of the Hardworkers and, if Erik were to pass early judgement and use a Lakchan term, an overbearing cunt.
“When has Ottar been wrong?” asked Wulf.
“When he told us to cross the meadow and led us right into the Scrayling ambush.”
“The result of which was that we made peace with the Lakchans and met a guide who’s our best hope for escaping the Calnians.”
Garth’s mouth opened and closed, fish-style. Erik liked this Wulf fellow.
“Come on, Garth, let’s go,” said Wulf. “And the rest of you, too, come on. The rain has let off a little, I reckon the storm will pass soon.”
“Hey, Bodil, get in the stream,” said Bjarni Chickenhead.
“Oh, yes, sorry.”
Ottar the Moaner, a boy who’d spent an hour trying to escape his shadow the day before, understood the concept of walking in the stream and not treading on the banks. Bodil, it seemed, did not. Bjarni had been put in charge of making sure that she stayed in the stream, but, despite constant reminders, this was the fifth time she’d left a footprint on the bank and the fifth time he’d had to scoop freezing mud from the stream bed and cover her tracks, heavy drops from the trees above plopping unpleasantly onto the back of his neck as he did so.
“Please don’t do it again,” he said, straightening.
“What?”
“Step out of the stream.”
“Oh, yes, don’t worry, I won’t.”
Bjarni envied Bodil. She had no concept of … well, anything really, it seemed. The Calnian Owsla chasing them was the worst news they could have had. Why had they come to Hardwork? It was five days since most of Hardwork and all of the Calnian strike force had been killed. They shouldn’t have found out about it for a good few days more, let alone had time to get to Hardwork.
Perhaps Ottar was wrong and the Owsla weren’t on their trail. Or perhaps the Calnian Owsla had been in the area when they’d heard about the failed massacre. Both of those seemed unlikely. The most likely, but also the most outlandish, was that the Calnian Owsla had found out immediately that their army had been wiped out and somehow travelled sixty or seventy miles a day to Hardwork. If they really could travel that fast, it meant that the Owsla would catch up with their ragged little group by the end of the next day at the latest.
Bjarni knew all about the Owsla from the Goachica, who were in awe of them. Ten women chosen for their cruelty and beauty had been twisted by magic into the perfect fighters. They had no remorse, they loved killing and they had alchemy-given powers which made them very good at it. In a way, he wanted to see them, but it was in the same way that he sometimes wondered what it would be like to be eaten by a bear.
With any luck the rain and then the couple of miles of stream-walking should put them off the scent. But that would only get rid of their footprints. The best trackers would probably still be able to follow them, looking for broken twigs and bent leaves or whatever, and chances were the Calnians had the best trackers. Or maybe they could use alchemy and wouldn’t need trackers at all?
“Oh, Bodil!” She’d stepped out of the stream again. If she’d been any brighter, he’d have thought she was actually trying to show the Calnians where they’d gone.
Chapter 17
Dead Warlocks
In her private court atop the Mountain of the Sun, the Swan Empress Ayanna collapsed heavily onto cushions. She looked up at the giant golden swan of Innowak looking down at her. A piercing spasm pulsed excruciatingly across her bulging stomach. She stiffened and sat. The pain eased and she collapsed again, brow and back sweating.
Do you think, the empress thought to Innowak, that you could make this baby come out very, very soon?
Her discomfort was made all the worse by the terrible news. The only Calnian warlocks who were anything near as skilled in alchemy as the absent Yoki Choppa had both died. Vong Wapun’s heart had stopped in his sleep a day after Kawunger had been murdered in the market in a dispute over heartberries.
It was such bad luck for them to die at the same time, particularly with Yoki Choppa hundreds of miles away. Such bad luck that it simply couldn’t be a coincidence, but the head of her guard had insisted that there was nothing to link the two warlocks’ deaths, and that there was nothing suspicious about either of them. Vong Wapun had been in his sixties, so it wasn’t strange that his heart had stopped, and neither of the women who’d been sleeping with him had seen or heard anything amiss. Kawunger had a famously short temper and had started the argument over heartberries. The warlock had been in the wrong, had been first to draw a knife, then attacked so violently that the other man had had no choice but to defend himself with lethal force. It had been simple bad luck that the other man had been one of Calnia’s finest warriors outside the Owsla.
Ayanna was not convinced—the coincidence was too great—but there was nothing she could do.
She called for Chippaminka. The girl—a joyful, fresh, clever companion—had not been far from the empress’s side since the day that Chamberlain Hatho had been killed.
She skipped into the private court a few moments later.
“Yes, Swan Empress?”
; “In your travels with Yoki Choppa, did you come across any towns or cities with a surfeit of good warlocks?”
“You seek to replace Vong Wapun and Kawunger.”
“I do.”
“I saw nobody suitable within a thousand miles, but I could be your warlock until Yoki Choppa returns. I have talent and I’m trained in alchemy.”
“I thought you were brought up by traders on the Water Mother?”
“I was. But my father had the talent and he’d been taught divination and other skills, but after a few years serving as a warlock he’d decided to become a trader.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, he didn’t talk about it. I got the impression he’d fled from a difficult situation. I don’t know where he trained and practised, or who trained him, but he discovered that I had the talent, too, much more than he did, and he trained me.”
“Why did you not mention this before?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I see. Can you use hair to see a person’s location?” This was a difficult procedure, one that had been beyond both Vong Wapun and Kawunger.
“With ease, but I’ll need herbs and other equipment.”
“Will Vong Wapun’s alchemy bag and bowl do?”
“May I have Kawunger’s, too? If I combine them I might find what I need.”
A short while later, following a brief burning of herbs and hair in an alchemical bowl and consultation with a geographer, Chippaminka declared that the Owsla were in Goachica territory, twenty miles west of the main Goachica settlement, and travelling west at great speed. Ayanna guessed that they were chasing down survivors, which shouldn’t take them too long.
“You may all go,” she said. Her stomach was painful and she wanted to lie down.
“Would you like me to soothe you, Swan Empress?” asked Chippaminka. “With Innowak’s blessing, I can make a salve that will ease the pains?”
The empress looked at the cheerful girl. She wanted to be alone, but the idea of having her pains eased …
“Stay, make your salve.”
