took a mouthful of water, swished it around his mouth.
Eventually, as the evening gathered, the two — twins, a young man and a young woman — came to stand before Rillish. He roused himself to stand as well, bowed an acknowledgment that the two waved aside.
‘We owe you more than we can repay, Lieutenant,’ the boy said.
‘Just doing my duty.’
‘In truth?’ the girl said sharply, her eyes dark and glittering like a crow's own.
‘My duty to the Empire.’
The two shared a glance, an unspoken communication. ‘Our thanks in any case,’ the boy said, and he turned to go. ‘We will escort you to the Golden Hills.’
Rillish almost spoke a reflexive,
Kyle awoke to a light kick of his heel. Keeping himself still he glanced over to see Stalker silently wave him up. Awkward, he pushed himself up by his off-hand, his right wrapped tight in a sling. The night was bright, the mottled moon low and glowing. Unaccountably, Kyle thought of ancient legends from the youth of his people when multiple moons of many sizes and hues painted the nights in multicoloured shadow. Even this one had been discoloured as of late. And the nights have been lit by far more falling stars than when he was a child. He glanced to the glittering arc of stars demarking Father's Cast where his people's Skyfather first tossed the handful of bright dirt that would be Creation. As glowing and dense as ever despite his fears.
Stalker brought his head close. ‘We have a problem.’ In answer to Kyle's querying look he motioned to Coots waiting at the dark tree-edge.
As Kyle approached, Coots adjusted his armoured hauberk of iron rings sewn to leather and checked his sheathed long-knives. His mouth was his habitual sour grimace behind his thickening moustache and beard. ‘We've spotted the boat's owner. He's a Togg-damned giant of a fellow. Bigger than any I ever heard of. Bigger'n any Thelomen.’
A shiver of dread ran through Kyle; giants, Jhogen, were creatures from the nightmares of his people. ‘A Jhogen?’
‘What's that? Jhogen?’ Comprehension dawned on Coots with a quiet humourless smile. ‘No. Not one of them.’
‘I heard talk in the Guard about giants who live in Stratem. In the East. Toblakai.’
Coots grunted. ‘No, not like them.’
‘The bigger they are, the slower,’ Stalker said, urging them on.
‘That from personal experience, there, Stalk?’ asked Coots, arching a brow. Stalker signed for silence. Making his way through the woods, Kyle wanted to ask Coots more of this giant but the time for that had passed. They moved silent through the trees, reached tended fields cut from the forest edge that led down to a loosely scattered collection of huts and pens that in turn straggled down to a strand of black rock and the grey choppy waters of the White Sea beyond. A biting landward wind stole through Kyle's armour, quilted padding and linen shirts. He pulled his cloak tighter. The gusts seemed to carry the sharpness of the ice that had given birth to it somewhere far out past the western horizon.
Hunched, Coots jogged down between the open ground of the fields. Kyle scanned the scattered huts; not one fire or lamp showed, though white tendrils climbed from some roof smoke-holes. Stalker followed, Kyle brought up the rear. Amid the huts Badlands emerged from behind a stick-pen holding goats. The four of them jogged down to the dark strand where the boat rested slightly aslant, bright against the black water-worn gravel, its single mast tall and gracefully slim.
Badlands pressed a shoulder to the raised stern, feet scraping amid the rocks. He pushed again, gasping. ‘Lad take it! Here's a complication.’
‘Keep watch,’ Stalker told Kyle. The three bent their shoulders to the boat. They strained, breathing in sharp gasps. Their sandalled feet dug into the gravel. Keening loudly, the boat scraped forward a hand's breadth on its log bedding.
Glancing away from their efforts, Kyle was shocked to see two men already approaching. One stunned him by his size, nearly twice the height of a normal man, carrying a spear fully half again as tall as him. The man at the side of this giant of a being, Jhogen or not, was somehow not in the least diminished. Dark, muscular, he moved with an easy grace that captured Kyle's attention. ‘Here they come,’ he murmured, aside. The three cousins straightened from their efforts. The boat had moved a bare arm's span.
As the two closed, Kyle found that he did not feel fear so much as an unaccountable chagrin and embarrassment — as if he were a common thief caught in the act — which, he reflected, was pretty much the truth of it. ‘You surprise me,’ the man said in Talian, motioning to the boat. ‘I didn't think anyone but my friend here could move it.’
‘Yeah, well, we're just full of surprises,’ Stalker ground out, a hand close to his sword.
The man's bright gaze moved to Kyle. ‘Young for the Crimson Guard, aren't you?’
Kyle glanced down; he still wore his sigil. ‘We quit.’
One dark brow rose. ‘Really? I did not think that possible.’
Through this exchange the giant stood straight, arms crossed, though a smile played at his mouth. His startling golden eyes held something like wonder as his gaze roved about them.
‘We need your boat,’ Stalker said.
‘If the Guard is after you, no wonder,’ the man observed dryly.
‘How much do you want for it?’ Kyle asked, surprising himself.
‘It's not for sale.’ The man's eyes were flat though his mouth quirked up in a half-smile. ‘But it is for hire.’
Stalker grunted something that sounded like a long curse of all the meddling Gods.
‘Where are you headed?’ the giant fellow asked in flowing musical Talian. His voice was taut, expectant, almost febrile in its intensity. It was a question Kyle had been giving much thought of late. Where could he possibly head in all the open world? Back to home, Bael lands? Or off to a new land, this Genabackis of which he heard so much among the Guard? But in the end he did not need to wonder; one place, one name, haunted him since overheard accidentally while he hid in the woods. A locale, and a possible mission as well. He addressed the two, ‘Have either of you heard of the “Dolmans”?’
Their reaction startled Kyle. To the man the name clearly meant nothing; his gaze remained flat, though it shifted to his companion. The giant flinched as if gut-punched. A shiver took him like the swaying of a tree trunk and he expended a hissed breath in a long murmuring supplication. ‘Yes,’ he managed, his voice thick with emotion. ‘I know it well. The Dolmans of Tien. It is of my homeland, Jacuruku.’
‘What fee, then, to take us there?’ asked Stalker, his gaze narrow on Kyle.
The man had already half-turned away. He said over his shoulder, ‘You've just paid it. We'll get our supplies then we will leave immediately.’
Though clearly unhappy, Stalker nodded. ‘What's your name?’
‘Traveller. This is Ereko.’
Stalker gave their names. Ereko inclined his head in greetings. ‘Well met, comrades,’ he said grinning now, having regained his composure. ‘We sail shortly into the maw of the Ice Dancer. It is a sea I know well, and judging from this frigid wind, it is readying itself for us.’ The two walked back up the strand.
While Stalker eyed Kyle, Badlands let out a long thankful breath. ‘Payment might still have to be made…’
‘Don't know if I'm looking forward to that scrap,’ said Coots.
Stalker refused to release Kyle. The Dolmans… that the place Skinner mentioned?’
‘Yes.’
‘And his contact. It was in Jacuruku, wasn't it?’
‘Yes.’
