horses didn’t want to walk straight into it, and they would veer off every time they could. The snow came shortly after midday, first a light feathering of big, slow flakes, then flurrying and blowing into our faces until we could see nothing of the road, barely anything of our horses’ heads. The beetle was leashed to Roven’s horse, and a dozen times I thought of trying to cut the traces, to lead the thing off into the snow. It was going slower than ever in the colder weather, though, and I was too worried about getting lost myself. I could freeze to death as easily as the next man, and the Wasps were better equipped to get a fire going.
We stopped before nightfall, because Merric had found a wooded hollow that would keep the fire’s heat in. The wind was really up, then, and when it hit the trees it made all kinds of sounds: my cue again. When we were all sitting round the best fire Merric could make, I jumped up all of a sudden, meaning they did too, swords out and palms already extended.
‘Did you hear that?’ I called over the wind.
‘What?’ Roven snarled at me.
‘Voices!’
His look was all belligerence on the surface, but that surface was thin ice. ‘Whose?’
‘They were calling my name!’ I insisted.
‘You’re Dragonfly?’ Roven demanded. I just shook my head dumbly. He tried out a disgusted expression, but I could tell they were all listening now, as we sat down again. The problem was, once you’ve said a thing like that, well, the wind makes all kinds of noises, out there in the wilds. I just hunched closer to the fire and told myself in no uncertain terms that
Then it was Roven’s turn to jump up, sword out, and so we repeated the whole pantomime. This time, when he insisted he’d seen a shape out there, everyone was supposed to believe him.
‘Bandits,’ he snapped out. ‘Got to be. They’ve seen the fire.’ Nobody objected to this, although I think you’d have had to be within burning distance to notice it. ‘Merric, go scout. You find anyone, kill them.’
Merric didn’t look happy about that, but Roven was a sergeant, and he was just a soldier, and they hammer that into the Wasp army with big lead hammers. This, too, was in the plan, but it was that part of the plan we hadn’t really talked much about.
Merric bundled himself up in a cloak, a grey-white garment that would hide him nicely in this weather. He had his shortsword drawn and ready by his side, but he led with his offhand, palm-out. Crouching low to the ground he went, with just one backward glance at Roven.
He didn’t come back. By the time that became clear, the night was well and truly upon us and nobody was going off to search for him. The three of us, Wasp, Fly and Spider, just looked at each other mutely over the fire and listen to the storm call off its roster.
Merric was still absent the next morning when we set off, trailing two horses now, and with the snow much decreased. We caught up with the man soon enough, though. He was waiting for us, in a way.
It was a long time before Roven spoke, once we saw that. I don’t know how long he’d known Merric, or what he felt about him, but he took a good, long look at what had been laid out for us. It made me wish for more snow.
He was strung between two trees, held there by some tying of the whip-like branches themselves, arms and legs spread out at unnatural angles. The pieces of his armour, the plates of the Light Airborne, were hanging off, scratched and dented. He had been quite hollowed out. You could see his spine through his belly. His eyes were gone too, and his tongue. His head was back, his mouth was open, and you could almost hear the scream in your mind. It was a real professional job. The Wasps themselves seldom put that much effort into stringing up a corpse. For them it’s just a couple of crossed pikes and leave them to sag, most of the time.
Skessi was swearing under his breath now, almost constantly. ‘On,’ Roven said at last, and kicked at his horse, even though it needed no real encouragement. I followed right along, feeling those absent eyes watch me go. This was still the plan, but the details had turned my stomach. I knew the reasoning, but still there’s such a thing as going too far. Of course, Merric would have been dead before all that window-dressing happened, but even so. .
We made better time that day, although the ruin was still visible on the horizon when we stopped to camp. The wind was picking up again, and I tried to block my ears. ‘Avaris, run!’ it called, but the wind will say all sorts of things if you let it. After dark the snow crept back too, shrouding the world beyond the firelight in a blur of gusting white, not as fierce as yesterday but it cut us off from the world, severed us from it totally. As the wind formed words, so the snow was apt to make shapes, and it wasn’t long before I stopped looking.
Skessi was near breaking. He’d been high-strung even before we found Merric, and around the fire that night he ran totally out of brave.
‘I want my share!’ he burst out.
Roven gave him a long, level look. ‘What’s that?’
‘Give me my share of the loot, now,’ Skessi insisted. ‘I’m not crawling along here like this. Give me mine, and I’m out of here.’
‘You’ll keep pace, soldier,’ Sergeant Roven told him.
Skessi was shaking his head very fast. ‘Oh no,’ he got out, ‘not a hope. You’re going to die. They’re going to catch you. Not me. I’m fast. Give me my share.’
‘A whole third of what we’ve got?’ said Roven, grinning. ‘Little man, that’d weigh more than you do.’
‘Give me what I can carry. Keep the rest.’
‘How generous.’ Roven stood, still trying for casual, but Skessi skipped back a few steps and abruptly his sword was out.
‘You cross me, Roven, I’ll tell! I’ll tell your lieutenant about what you’ve been up to. I’ll tell them you killed Merric.’ The Fly was in the air now, wings a-blur, and I heard the wind call, ‘Skessi! Skessi!’
Roven shot, but Skessi was faster, the bolt of fire streaking past him. The Fly launched himself for the campsite’s edge, towards the dark where Roven would not be able to track him, but he tumbled from the air even as he did so, ending up a crumpled heap at the edge of the firelight.
Roven, for whom the edge of the firelight was a good deal closer, lit his lantern with patient care. When he stood he had a hand facing me. I spread my own, showing that I had nothing. He jerked his head the way Skessi had gone.
The arrow that had transfixed the Fly was dead white, both the shaft and the fletchings that were made from shimmering moth scales. I knew where I’d seen arrows just like that not so long ago. So did Roven.
‘I get it.’ He’d grabbed me before I could step back, snagged a hand about my collar and hauled me close. His face was uglier than ever up close, and his breath stank. ‘I get it,’ he repeated, shaking me for emphasis. ‘Your mate, the turncoat ’Wealer.’
I shook my head, but he was shaking it for me pretty hard, anyway, so he probably didn’t notice. ‘I don’t know how he killed Merric,’ Roven growled, ‘but he surely won’t get me,
And stopped. He made a sound then that I had never heard from a Wasp: a little, broken sound deep in his throat.
He turned from me and ran for the animals, stumbling and almost falling into the fire. He got to the beetle even as I struggled to my feet. He was wrenching at the big creature, but it dug all six legs in and would not move. I could just hear Roven’s voice shrieking at it, see his mouth opening and closing. At last he just tugged at the sacks. One of them tore open, spilling the wealth of ages over the trampled ground of the campsite. The other came away whole and he shouldered it with a supreme effort and was gone soon, obliterated by the snow, lurching away under his priceless burden.
I crawled back to the campsite, for the fire’s warmth more than anything else. Even before I got there I heard him scream. And scream. It went on for some short while. I just took the time to gather my wits. The plan seemed to be going ahead full tilt, but in ways I hadn’t really imagined.
When I looked up, he was there: Galtre Fael in a cloak of blown snow, right across the fire from me. I nodded wearily and reached to start gathering up the spilt loot.
‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Avaris, listen to me. Do not touch the treasure, not even one piece of it. Just go, Avaris, go. Please listen to me.’
