same flesh? A lesson she should’ve remembered from her own time as a fearsome bandit—between the horrible and pitiful there’s never much of a divide, and most of that is in how you look at it.
If anything, it was the old men on her side of the fire that scared her more now—deep-lined faces made devilish strangers by the shifting flames, eyes gleaming in chill-shadowed sockets, the head of the bolt in Savian’s loaded flatbow coldly glistening, Lamb’s face bent and twisted like a weather-worn tree, etched with old scars, no clue to his thoughts, not even to her who’d known him all these years. Especially not to her, maybe.
Sweet bowed his head and said a few words in the Ghosts’ tongue, making big gestures with his arms. Sangeed said a few back, slow and grinding, coughed, and managed a few more.
‘Just exchanging pleasantries,’ Sweet explained.
‘Ain’t nothing pleasant about this,’ snapped Shy. ‘Let’s get done and get back.’
‘We can talk in your words,’ said one of the Ghosts in a strange sort of common like he had a mouthful of gravel. He was a young one, sitting closest to Sangeed and frowning across the fire. His son, maybe. ‘My name is Locway.’
‘All right.’ Sweet cleared his throat. ‘Here’s a right fucking fuck up, then, ain’t it, Locway? There was no call for no one to die here. Now look. Corpses on both sides just to get to where we could’ve started if you’d just said how do.’
‘Every man takes his life in his hands who trespasses upon our lands,’ said Locway. Looked like he took himself mighty seriously, which was quite the achievement for someone wearing a ripped-up pair of old Union cavalry trousers with a beaver pelt over the crotch.
Sweet snorted. ‘I was ranging these plains long before you was sucking tit, lad. And now you’re going to tell me where I can ride?’ He curled his tongue and spat into the fire.
‘Who gives a shit who rides where?’ snapped Shy. ‘Ain’t like it’s land any sane man would want.’
The young Ghost frowned at her. ‘She has a sour tongue.’
‘Fuck yourself.’
‘Enough,’ growled Savian. ‘If we’re going to deal, let’s deal and go.’
Locway gave Shy a hard look, then leaned to speak to Sangeed, and the so-called Emperor of the Plains mulled his words over for a moment, then croaked a few of his own.
‘Five thousands of your silver marks,’ said Locway, ‘and twenty of cattle, and twenty of horses, and you leave with your ears. That is the word of dread Sangeed.’ And the old Ghost lifted his chin and grunted.
‘You can have two thousand,’ said Shy.
‘Three thousand, then, and the animals.’ His haggling was almost as piss-weak as his clothes.
‘My people agreed to two. That’s what you’re getting. Far as cattle go, you can have the dozen you were fool enough to make meat of with your arrows, that’s all. The horses, no.’
‘Then perhaps we will come and take them,’ said Locway.
‘You can come and fucking try.’
His face twisted and he opened his mouth to speak but Sangeed touched his shoulder and mumbled a few words, looking all the time at Sweet. The old scout nodded to him, and the young Ghost sourly worked his mouth. ‘Great Sangeed accepts your offering.’
Sweet rubbed his hands on his crossed legs and smiled. ‘All right, then. Good.’
‘Uh.’ Sangeed broke out in a lopsided grin.
‘We are agreed,’ said Locway, no smile of his own.
‘All right,’ said Shy, though she took no pleasure in it. She was worn down to a nub, just wanted to sleep. The Ghosts stirred, relaxing a little, the one with the rotten tooth grinning wider’n ever.
Lamb slowly stood, the sunset at his back, a towering piece of black with the sky all bloodstained about him.
‘I’ve a better offer,’ he said.
Sparks whirled about his flicking heels as he jumped the fire. There was a flash of orange steel and Sangeed clutched his neck, toppling backwards. Savian’s bowstring went and the Ghost with the kettle fell, bolt through his mouth. Another leaped up but Lamb buried his knife in the top of his head with a crack like a log splitting.
Locway scrambled to his feet just as Shy was doing the same, but Savian dived and caught him around the neck, rolling over onto his back and bringing the Ghost with him, thrashing and twitching, a hatchet in his hand but pinned helpless, snarling at the sky.
‘What you doing?’ called Sweet, but there wasn’t much doubt by then. Lamb was holding up the last of the Ghosts with one fist and punching him with the other, knocking out the last couple of teeth, punching him so fast Shy could hardly tell how many times, whipping sound of his arm inside his sleeve and his big fist crunching, crunching and the black outline of the Ghost’s face losing all shape, and Lamb tossed his body fizzling in the fire.
Sweet took a step back from the shower of sparks. ‘Fuck!’ His hands tangled in his grey hair like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Shy could hardly believe it either, cold all over and sitting frozen, each breath whooping a little in her throat, Locway snarling and struggling still but caught tight in Savian’s grip as a fly in honey.
Sangeed tottered up, one hand clutching at his chopped-open throat, clawing fingers shining with blood. He had a knife but Lamb stood waiting for it, and caught his wrist as though it was a thing ordained, and twisted it, and forced Sangeed down on his knees, drooling blood into the grass. Lamb planted one boot in the old Ghost’s armpit and drew his sword with a faint ringing of steel, paused a moment to stretch his neck one way and the other, then lifted the blade and brought it down with a thud. Then another. Then another, and Lamb let go of Sangeed’s limp arm, reached down and took his head by the hair, a misshapen thing now, split open down one cheek where one of Lamb’s blows had gone wide of the mark.
‘This is for you,’ he said, and tossed it in the young Ghost’s lap.
Locway stared at it, chest heaving against Savian’s arm, a strip of tattoo showing below the old man’s rucked-up sleeve. The Ghost’s eyes moved from the head to Lamb’s face, and he bared his teeth and hissed out, ‘We will be coming for you! Before dawn, in the darkness, we will be coming for you!’
‘No.’ Lamb smiled, his teeth and his eyes and the blood streaked down his face all shining with the firelight. ‘Before dawn…’ He squatted in front of Locway, still held helpless. ‘In the darkness…’ He gently stroked the Ghost’s face, the three fingers of his left hand leaving three black smears down pale cheek. ‘I’ll be coming for you.’
They heard sounds, out there in the night. Talking at first, muffled by the wind. People demanded to know what was being said and others hissed at them to be still. Then Temple heard a cry and clutched at Corlin’s shoulder. She brushed him off.
‘What’s happening?’ demanded Lestek.
‘How can we know?’ snapped Majud back.
They saw shadows shifting around the fire and a kind of gasp went through the Fellowship.
‘It’s a trap!’ shouted Lady Ingelstad, and one of the Suljuks started yammering in words not even Temple could make sense of. A spark of panic, and there was a general shrinking back in which Temple was ashamed to say he took a willing part.
‘They should never have gone out there!’ croaked Hedges, as though he had been against it from the start.
‘Everyone be calm.’ Corlin’s voice was hard and level and did no shrinking whatsoever.
‘There’s someone coming!’ Majud pointed out into the darkness. Another spark of panic, another shrinking back in which, again, Temple was a leading participant.
‘No one shoot!’ Sweet’s gravel bass echoed from the darkness. ‘That’s all I need to crown my fucking day!’ And the old scout stepped into the torchlight, hands up, Shy behind him.
The Fellowship breathed a collective sigh of relief, in which Temple was among the loudest, and rolled away two barrels to let the negotiators into their makeshift fort.
‘What happened?’
‘Did they talk?’
‘Are we safe?’
Sweet just stood there, hands on hips, slowly shaking his head. Shy frowned off at nothing. Savian came behind, narrowed eyes giving away as little as ever.
‘Well?’ asked Majud. ‘Do we have a deal?’
