The Pilgrims

down. There was one choked snorting breath, then it looked like he was sleeping.

Anfen felt Siel’s hand gently shaking him. An instinct on the road in bad country was to be instantly alert upon waking, sword to hand and drawn to swing in a heartbeat. But her touch, somehow, always felt like a friendly hand. He had never lain with her and would not. Nor did he think the offer was there; she knew she’d learn things about him that would make it hard to follow him, or respect him. Still, he was no stranger to the sight of her naked body, thanks to their hurried bathing in streams, and he longed for it the way he longed for meals or hot baths not available on the road. ‘Nothing?’ he said.

‘Nightmare’s out,’ she whispered.

‘Do you believe he’s poor luck?’ said Anfen, stretching.

‘If so, he’s a few days late, for us,’ she said, slipping onto his mat so his warmth wasn’t wasted. She was asleep very quickly.

Have we been unlucky? he thought. I doubt it. We’ve been very lucky despite ourselves. He went to the cave’s mouth. Lalie slept curled in a ball. That girl looked so young and innocent when she slept … how her parents’ hearts would have broken, if they knew where she’d ended up. Loup, who could cure others’ snoring but who usually snored himself, was silent tonight, a small blessing. The breathing of deep sleepers, like lapping waves of air, made the cavern seem a peaceful cove, safe and sure: a most wonderful illusion.

Anfen leaned on the wall out front, a hand on his sword hilt. It was an old habit and a silly one, for he’d taken watch more times than he could count on these missions and only twice needed to draw a blade. Sharfy’s watch traditionally brought trouble, something they joked about.

Ah yes, there was old Nightmare, off east, not far from Hane if he judged right. It had been a while since he’d seen that Great Spirit. He remembered when a low-ranked trooper, dared by friends, was lashed for firing up an arrow at Nightmare. The arrow of course hadn’t even gone close, nor had Nightmare seemed to notice, though the story grew, as stories did on the road: Nightmare had turned his head their way, some claimed. Then his eyes had sparkled with malice. By the end of their march, some swore, and seemed to actually believe, they’d heard the Great Spirit speak.

Anfen smiled at the memory, though it was tinged with pain as well, for he knew many of those with whom he’d served, and had called friends, still served. Good men, still good men; that was the shame of it. Friends no longer. How our rulers betray us, and herd us like malicious shepherds. Is it the same in Otherworld? I must ask Eric, if we meet again.

Nightmare was still at the moment, an arm reaching down … an arm reaching down! Anfen watched with renewed interest. They’d never have tried to claim this, that old patrol, he thought. What did this mean? He tried recalling what he’d read in the scrolls and books he’d saved from burning, but little had been written in them of Nightmare; only the necromancers and ghoulish men of his cult could explain this.

So intently was Anfen watching the ghostly shimmering image, as Nightmare withdrew his arm and again began to drift, that he didn’t notice the woman in her green dress standing some way down from the cave, watching him. A small amount of light radiated about her, making her stand out in the gloom. When his eye did find her, it was with a shock that sent chills through him. A moment later, she was gone. That was real, he thought. She’s here.

Later, he would wonder: what was it that had made him draw his weapon and step out into the night without alerting the others? What instinct, what suicidal impulse — yes, he had them — what vain desire to be the band’s hero? After berating the rest of them for their lack of sense, after reminding himself over and over of the importance of getting back to the Council of Free Cities with his news, why did he now unsheathe his weapon and walk out towards the place he’d seen her?

At that moment, though, he did not reflect on any of this. His actions felt natural, logical. He felt only the blade’s grip in his hand and the calmness of his pulse, where years past had seen him intoxicated on far lesser danger than this. His pulse had been just as calm walking down Faul’s front steps to face the Invia, all four eager to kill him.

The forest was made for hunting, the trees nicely spaced, the footing sure. She hid. His ears were keen, and they picked up little cracks and rustles in the growth. The army-issue blade was a poor one, but right now in his hand it was ready to deal her death, if she got near enough and made him do it.

‘You may trust me,’ her voice. A pleasant voice, reasonable. Trust you. Far Gaze did not.

She was there, near him, close. Too close. Did she not see his weapon drawn? Backhand, his wrist held straight, the sword lashed through the air and caught her midsection lightly. He was fast, his eye good, body poised a moment later for advance and another cut, feet moving with a dancer’s speed, all instinct. Others had had to practise for years for these movements which had come to him naturally and so impressed his tutors. They had joked he must have been born with a sword in hand and cut the umbilical cord himself.

A sound passed her lips like a sigh through teeth. She leaped backwards, falling a step or two, then was gone from sight. ‘You may trust me,’ she said, a little strain to her voice now.

He could not quite locate her through her voice, but she wasn’t far. Keep her talking. ‘Did I wound you?’

‘Scratched. My dress torn. There was dead stone on that blade, was there not?’

‘Yes.’

‘It must be why I misjudged my distance from you and came too close.’ Her voice seemed now to come from several sides at once.

‘Why are you here?’ he said.

‘There are things to show you.’

Anfen went carefully towards a thick tree trunk, pressing his back into it. ‘There are things to tell me too.’

‘Time’s pressing. Ask, quickly.’ Her voice was just ahead of him now.

‘How are you here and casting while my mage rests nearby? He should sense you.’

‘He is indisposed.’ The knuckles gripping Anfen’s sword tightened. She said, ‘I have done nothing to him. He is off on a vision.’

Fool!

She said, ‘Don’t be angered. He is seeking the Pilgrims, to help them.’

‘And where are they?’

‘I don’t know. May I show myself?’ She did so, a patch of shimmering green directly before him, a comfortable distance from the range of his sword. There was a neatly sliced line of fabric above her belly, two hand-lengths long. Her hand ran along the cut lightly. He found the sight of her long finger soothing to watch, the way it traced across the dress’s slit. He made himself look away from it. He said, ‘Do you wish to travel with us? Is that why you stalk my company?’

‘I am more useful to you coming and going as I please. You aren’t aware of the many ill things I have steered away from your path.’

Anfen’s own thoughts echoed: Have we been unlucky? I doubt it. We’ve been lucky … ‘Where’s Far Gaze?’ he said.

‘The wolf? He fled. I did not hurt him, though I could have — I am greater than he.’ Anfen heard with perfect clarity what she didn’t say: I could hurt you, too. ‘He too seeks the Pilgrims, I believe, and means to bring them back. I wish he would believe that we are of the same purpose.’

‘That remains to be proven. I know only that a trusted friend has treated you as his enemy, that you have stalked my company, and that the last time I saw you, trouble befell us.’

‘I had hoped to prove myself that morning when the Invia came,’ she said, face sad. ‘There was not much time for me to do it. Arrows were fired, your trusted friend leaped for my throat. And you yourself are fast with a sword, Anfen. I’d not have liked to be an inch closer to you, just now.’

He looked her in the eye. ‘I’m not sorry. You’ve been like a distant shadow. Your magic is powerful — my mage hardly believes what he’s seen and heard. And you cast spells right on the castle lawns when all free mages have long been killed on sight. You are either in league with them, or you have abilities of a kind as yet unknown, even to those of us familiar with the old schools and their devices. Explain yourself.’

‘You’re right. It’s best to show you. You will see what I am. It requires us to walk a short way. There is an underground tunnel, not far. There are castle soldiers down there, but they won’t trouble us.’