‘Not that one.’ Lamb pointed at a great pottery mug, old-fashioned and dusty on a high shelf. ‘I like something I can feel the heft on.’
‘We talking about cups or women now?’ asked the Keep as he stretched up to fetch it.
‘Why not both?’ Lamb was grinning. How could he smile, now? Shy’s eyes flickered to the three men down the other end of the counter, bent quiet over their drinks.
‘Where you in from?’ asked the Keep.
‘East.’ Lamb shrugged his sodden coat off. ‘North and east, near Squaredeal.’
One of the three men, the one with the red hair, looked over at Lamb, and sniffed, and looked away.
‘That’s a distance. Might be a hundred mile.’
‘Might be more, the route I’ve took, and on a bloody ox-cart, too. My old arse is ground to sausage- meat.’
‘Well, if you’re thinking of heading further west I’d think again. Lots of folks going that way, gold-hungry. I hear they’ve got the Ghosts all stirred up.’
‘That a fact?’
‘A certainty, friend,’ threw out the man in the fur coat, sticking his head up like a tortoise from its shell. He’d about the deepest, most gravel-throated voice Shy ever heard, and she’d given ear to some worn-down tones in her time. ‘They’s stirred up all across the Far Country like you trod on an ant’s nest. Riled up and banded up and out looking for ears, just like the old days. I heard Sangeed’s even got his sword drawed again.’
‘Sangeed?’ The Keep wriggled his head around like his collar was too tight.
‘The Emperor of the Plains his self.’ Shy got the sense the old bastard was quite enjoying his scaremongering. ‘His Ghosts massacred a whole fellowship o’ prospectors out on the dusty not two weeks ago. Thirty men, maybe. Took their ears and their noses and I shouldn’t wonder got their cocks besides.’
‘What the hell do they
‘If you’re fixed on going west I’d take plenty of company, and make sure that company has a little good humour and a lot o’ good steel, so I would.’ And the old-timer sank back into his fur coat.
‘Good advice.’ Lamb lifted that big mug and took a slow swallow. Shy swallowed with him, suddenly desperate for a beer of her own. Hell, but she wanted to get out of there. Get out or get on with it. But somehow Lamb was just as patient now as when he did the ploughing. ‘I ain’t sure yet exactly where I’m headed, though.’
‘What brought you this far?’ asked the Keep.
Lamb had started rolling up his damp shirtsleeves, thick muscles in his grey-haired forearms squirming. ‘Followed some men out here.’
Red Hair looked over again, a flurry of twitches slinking through his shoulder and up his face, and this time he kept looking. Shy let the knife slide from her sleeve, out of sight behind her arm, fingers hot and tacky round the grip.
‘Why’d you do that?’ asked the Keep.
‘They burned my farm. Stole my children. Hanged my friend.’ Lamb spoke like it wasn’t much to comment on, then raised his mug.
The place had fallen so silent of a sudden you could hear him swallow. One of the traders had turned to look over, brow all crinkled up with worry. Tall Hat reached for his cup and Shy saw the tendons start from the back of his hand, he was gripping on so tight. Leef picked out that moment to ease through the door and hover on the threshold, wet and pale and not knowing what to do with himself. But everyone was too fixed on Lamb to pay him any mind.
‘Bad men, these, with no scruple,’ he went on. ‘They been stealing children all across the Near Country and leaving folk hanging in their wake. Might be a dozen I’ve buried the last few days.’
‘How many of the bastards?’
‘About twenty.’
‘Do we need to get a band up and seek ’em out?’ Though the Keep looked like he’d far rather stay and wipe his cups some more, and who could blame him?
Lamb shook his head. ‘No point. They’ll be long gone.’
‘Right. Well. Reckon justice’ll be catching up with ’em, sooner or later. Justice is always following, they say.’
‘Justice can have what’s left when I’m done.’ Lamb finally had his sleeves rolled how he wanted and turned sideways, leaning easy against the counter, looking straight at those three men at its far end. Shy hadn’t known what to expect, but not this, not Lamb just grinning and chatting like he’d never known a worry. ‘When I said they’ve gone that ain’t quite all the truth. Three broke off from the rest.’
‘That a fact?’ Tall Hat spoke up, snatching the conversation from the Keep like a thief snatching a purse.
Lamb caught his eye and held it. ‘A certainty.’
‘Three men, you say?’ Handsome’s fussing hand crept round his belt towards his axe. The mood of the place had shifted fast, the weight of coming violence hanging heavy as a storm cloud in that little room.
‘Now look,’ said the Keep, ‘I don’t want no trouble in my—’
‘I didn’t want no trouble,’ said Lamb. ‘It blew in anyway. Trouble’s got a habit that way.’ He pushed his wet hair out of his face, and his eyes were wide open and bright, bright, mouth open too, breathing fast, and he was smiling. Not like a man working his way up to a hard task. Like a man enjoying getting to a pleasant one, taking his time about it like you might over a fine meal, and of a sudden Shy saw all those scars anew, and felt this coldness creeping up her arms and down her back and every hair on her standing.
‘I tracked those three,’ said Lamb. ‘Picked up their trail and two days I’ve followed it.’
Another breathless pause, and the Keep took a step back, cup and cloth still limp in his hands, the ghost of a smile still clinging to his face but the rest all doubt. The three had turned to face Lamb, spreading out a little, backs to Shy, and she found herself easing forwards like she was wading through honey, out of the shadows towards them, tingling fingers shifting around the knife’s handle. Every moment was a drawn-out age, breath scratching, catching in every throat.
‘Where’d the trail lead?’ asked Tall Hat, voice cracking at the end and tailing off.
Lamb’s smile spread wider. The smile of a man got exactly what he wanted on his birthday. ‘The ends o’ your fucking legs.’
Tall Hat twitched his coat back, cloth flapping as he went for his sword.
Lamb flung the big mug at him underhand. It bounced off his head and sent him tumbling in a shower of beer.
A chair screeched as the farmer tried to stumble up and ended tripping over it.
The red-haired lad took a step back, making room or just from shock and Shy slipped her knife around his neck and pressed the flat into it, folding him tight with the other arm.
Someone shouted.
Lamb crossed the room in one spring. He caught Handsome’s wrist just as he pulled his axe free, wrenched it up and with the other hand snatched the knife from his fancy belt and rammed it in his groin, dragging up the blade, ripping him wide open, blood spraying the pair of them. He gave a gurgling scream appalling loud in that narrow space and dropped to his knees, eyes goggling as he tried to hold his guts in. Lamb smashed him across the back of the head with the pommel of the knife, cut his scream off and laid him out flat.
One of the trader women jumped up, hands over her mouth.
The red-haired one Shy had a hold of squirmed and she squeezed him tighter and whispered, ‘Shush,’ grinding the point of her knife into his neck.
Tall Hat floundered up, hat forgotten, blood streaming from the gash the mug had made across his forehead. Lamb caught him around the neck, lifting him easily as if he was made of rags, and smashed his face into the counter, again with a crunch like a breaking pot, again head flopping like a doll’s, and blood spotted the Keep’s apron, and the wall behind him, and the ceiling, too. Lamb lifted the knife high, flash of his face still stretched wide in that crazy grin, then the blade was a metal blur, through the man’s back and with an almighty crack left a split down the length of the bar, splinters flying. Lamb left him nailed there, knees just clear of the floor and his boots scraping at the boards, blood tip-tapping around them like a spilled drink.
