enemy wouldn’t help him get it. He’ll take his chances on a Great Spirit no one’s seen in a lifetime or so. If ever.’
Sharfy added so the dying man would hear, ‘A Great Spirit he hopes came to watch combat that lasted a few seconds. If you call
But the man lay in pain keeping his silence, and they gave up on him. The others drank what water was left on the cart. They bagged and pocketed the meat strips and biscuits. ‘Same as what I gave you in the tunnels,’ said Sharfy, tossing a leaf-wrapped piece to Eric. ‘Keep it for later.’ He went through the discarded weapons. ‘All standard issue junk,’ he said. ‘All shit. Not even city-made. Castle-made. Cheap and nasty.’
‘Halberds are city-made,’ said someone else. ‘They’re quality.’
‘Too heavy for us,’ said Sharfy, ‘we’re in a hurry now.’ He looked pointedly at Kiown then picked up two swords, held one in each hand. ‘All the same weight!’ He laughed. To Eric and Case, ‘Pick one out, you two. Get a scabbard for it too, dagger if you want. Take a bow if you can shoot. What the shit, steal their dicks if you see one you like.’ Sharfy laughed. He patted Eric on the back and whispered in his ear: ‘You want to be a hero, you’re going to see a lot of this. Heroes kill the bad people, they don’t sneak past them. How many men you killed?’
Eric swallowed. ‘Only seven.’
‘Must’ve done it pretty clean,’ said Sharfy, smiling. ‘You’re white as bone, seeing all this blood.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You sure? You look dizzy. How are your eyes? Fading in and out? Here, how many fingers am I holding up?’ In Sharfy’s hand were three fingers which had been cut off in the melee, perhaps from a stray swing while the Invia charged through the soldiers. He wiggled them in Eric’s face. Eric retched again and Sharfy brayed laughter like a barking hound.
Siel wiped the mule’s blood from her hands with a soldier’s tunic. She had not spared Eric a look since he’d fled up the path, but now she did, and it indicated nothing to him at all. Something had clearly changed but he didn’t know what it was.
Anfen took Case aside. ‘Friend, I think we should talk.’
Case sighed and pulled the necklace charm from his pocket, its beads clicking together. ‘I was getting to like having it, but I’ll part with it,’ he said, handing it over.
‘Something like this no one ever really owns,’ said Anfen, holding the necklace away from himself as though it were dangerous. ‘I may return it to you, once I know more about it. I may not. Loup!’
The magician jogged over to them, grinning. Loup wore no shirt, evidently proud of a torso still hard with gristly muscle, peppered with white hairs or not. Anfen handed him the charm. Loup’s eyebrows raised, and a toothless smile widened through his beard. ‘An oldie!’ he said, twisting it around his leathery fingers. ‘She’s an oldie, all right. Still got some kick in her, too! My word, she has got some kick.’
Case said, ‘Someone told me dragons touched it, or made it. That probably means more to you than it does to me.’
Loup nodded as though very impressed, and fingered its beads. ‘How long’ve I got her?’ he said to Anfen.
‘Learn what you can, sooner the better. But we must move.’
‘I’ll try. Oldie like this, won’t tell her secrets in a hurry! Need t’be coaxed, she will. Give her time, she’ll come good.’ He seemed to be muttering this to himself as he walked off, tenderly stroking the charm like an adored pet. ‘She’ll come mighty good, this one will, oh aye. Lots to tell, she has. Lots to tell.’
Not far from the scene of the Invia’s carnage, on a flat, smooth piece of stone on the cliff face, the word ‘Shadow’ had been written in letters that looked like they’d been burned on with great heat, like a brand across the skin of cattle. There the word waited patiently to be seen by the next passing patrol.
24
The day’s march was at a hard pace, first a tense stretch through the mountain pass, locked in on both sides by dark grey cliff faces sheer and lifeless. Once through they cut across hilly terrain, the country green and picturesque with no visible threat of danger, nor people in the scoured and abandoned villages. There was only a silence eerily complete but for the wind. Even the birds there just watched without a sound, seeming to wait for something, perhaps more remains to pick over.
Case had done his best not to complain at all this exertion, but he lagged at the back of the group until Anfen ordered the giant, Doon, to carry the old man on one shoulder. Loup, the folk magician, occupied the other shoulder. The giant frequently grunted in a way Loup understood to mean
Doon was part of the reason Anfen had apparently considered chancing their arm against thirty armed and armoured castle soldiers, before the Invia had cleaned up that mess for them. ‘Swords and arrows won’t bother Doon,’ Sharfy told Eric. ‘Not unless he gets caught in a whirlwind of em. I seen Doon take eight spears in the back before he even slowed down. Trampled down the men who threw em
Kiown sidled up to him and whispered: ‘You will soon be fluent in Sharfy. Translation: three spears, three men, wearing maybe hard leather or light chain mail. The horses got away just fine. I was there. Still, pretty impressive.’
Eric had tried walking with Siel, and talking with her, but she’d been too busy scouting the group’s right flank, with her bow at the ready, and he got the sense she was faintly annoyed by him being around. It was as though he’d said or done something to give away his lie: he was no prince, and perhaps now she knew …
He’d walked behind her, watching her hips sway beneath the tanned leather, but quickly felt like a stalker and made an effort to stay away. Always, though, he found his eyes returning to her, no matter what else was going on around them. He longed for another chance alone with her, to do more gently what he’d already done, to get up and put his clothes back on without a sense of guilt and shame.
As night approached the group went off road and split into two camps. Loup, Sharfy, Anfen, Eric and Case sat around a small fire. Outraged at his exclusion, Kiown sulked amongst the others some way further into the scrub, but Eric had seen the way Anfen tensed at the mere sound of Kiown’s voice, and was not surprised. Some of that group were already dozing on their unrolled mats, barely an hour after nightfall. Birds, silent in daylight, now cooed gently as though singing lullabies. Eric saw Kiown and Siel get under the same blanket, and it felt like the ground beneath him had opened up, swallowed him, and sent him plunging through some abyss with howling winds. He lay down on his unrolled mat and tried desperately to think of anything else, anything at all.
The rest of Eric and Case’s group relished their campfire as the night grew cold, using wood Loup had spent some time blessing. From a distance it had looked like he was simply talking to the wood and slapping it gently. The resulting fire’s light and smell would carry no more than a dozen metres, allowing them to camp close enough to the road to hear the boots of passing patrols. Anfen had not actually expected them to range this way, but one came not long after they’d camped, marching fast and in formation. ‘Half an hour longer on the roads and we’d have run right into them,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Eric’s luck is catching.’
‘They’ve heard what happened to their mates,’ said Sharfy.
Anfen nodded. ‘Question is whether they’re looking for us or the Invia. Who do they blame for that little party?’
‘Who would you rather they blamed?’ Eric asked.
Anfen’s smile was grim. ‘Not us. I don’t want to be feared by them. Doon’s people were feared by them. There aren’t many half-giants left. They’ll get us all in the end. Those low on the list have a chance to fit in a full lifetime, perhaps.’ He lay back by the fire and closed his eyes. ‘Though I somehow doubt they’re sending foot- soldiers after a creature that lives in the sky.’
They ate gathered herbs and stewed mule, which Loup blessed, making it taste like shreds of the finest juicy rump steak in a dozen subtle spices. When it was swallowed however the belly was not so easily fooled, and Eric felt queasy as soon as his plate was finished.
‘If they haven’t sent mages our way, they can’t be too worried about us,’ said Sharfy, whose face in the
