‘Where?’
‘If I knew that, I would not have to watch.’
‘We leave this bait soon?’
‘Soon.’
‘I hope it ain’t really a turd you got in mind,’ grunted Sweet, surely down to his last shirt now, ‘’cause I don’t fancy dropping my trousers here.’
‘Shut up,’ hissed Crying Rock, sticking her hand out hard behind her.
A shadow was shifting in the murk on the valley’s side, a figure hopping from one boulder to another. Hard to tell for the distance and the mist but it looked like a man, tall and heavy-built, dark-skinned, bald-headed, a staff carried loose in one hand.
‘Is he whistling?’ Shy muttered.
‘Shh,’ hissed Crying Rock.
The old man left his staff beside a flat rock at the water’s edge, shrugged off his robe and left it folded carefully on top, then did a little dance, spinning naked in and out of some broken pillars at the shoreline.
‘He don’t look all that fearsome,’ whispered Shy.
‘Oh, he is fearsome,’ said Crying Rock. ‘He is Waerdinur. My brother.’
Shy looked at her, pale as new milk, then back to the dark-skinned man, still whistling as he waded out into the pool. ‘Ain’t much resemblance.’
‘We came of different wombs.’
‘Good to know.’
‘What is?’
‘Had a feeling you might’ve hatched from an egg, you’re that painless.’
‘I have my pains,’ said Crying Rock. ‘But they must serve me, not the other way about.’ And she stuck the stained stem of her pipe between her jaws and chomped down hard on it.
‘What is Lamb doing?’ came Jubair’s voice.
Shy turned and stared. Lamb was scurrying through the boulders and down towards the water, already twenty strides away.
‘Oh, hell,’ muttered Sweet.
‘Shit!’ Shy forced her stiff knees into life and vaulted over the crumbling wall. Sweet made a grab at her but she slapped his hand off and threaded after Lamb, one eye on the old man still splashing happily below them, his whistling floating through the mist. She winced and skidded over the slick rocks, almost on all fours, ankles aching as her feet were jarred this way and that, burning to shout to Lamb but knowing she couldn’t make a peep.
He was too far ahead to catch, had made it all the way down to the water’s edge. She could only watch as he perched on that flat rock with the folded robe as a cushion, laid his drawn sword across one knee, took out his whetstone and licked it. She flinched as he set it to the blade and gave it a single grating stroke.
Shy caught the surprise in the tightening of Waerdinur’s shoulders, but he didn’t move right off. Only as the second stroke cut the silence did he slowly turn. A kind face, Shy would’ve said, but she’d seen kind-looking men do some damned mean things before.
‘Here is a surprise.’ Though he seemed more puzzled than shocked as his dark eyes shifted from Lamb to Shy and back again. ‘Where did you two come from?’
‘All the way from the Near Country,’ said Lamb.
‘The name means nothing to me.’ Waerdinur spoke common without much of an accent. More’n likely he spoke it better’n Shy did. ‘There is only here and not here. How did you get here?’
‘Rode some, walked the rest,’ grunted Lamb. ‘Or do you mean, how did we get here without you knowing?’ He gave his sword another shrieking stroke. ‘Maybe you ain’t as clever as you think you are.’
Waerdinur shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Only a fool supposes he knows everything.’
Lamb held up the sword, checked one side and the other, blade flashing. ‘I’ve got some friends waiting, down in Beacon.’
‘I had heard.’
‘They’re killers and thieves and men of no character. They’ve come for your gold.’
‘Who says we have any?’
‘A man named Cantliss.’
‘Ah.’ Waerdinur splashed water on his arms and carried on washing. ‘That is a man of no substance. A breeze would blow him away. You are not one such, though, I think.’ His eyes moved across to Shy, weighing her, no sign of fear at all. ‘Neither of you. I do not think you came for gold.’
‘We came for my brother and sister,’ grated Shy, voice harsh as the stone on the blade.
‘Ah.’ Waerdinur’s smile slowly faded as he considered her, then he hung his head, water trickling down his shaved scalp. ‘You are Shy. She said you would come and I did not believe her.’
‘Ro said?’ Her throat almost closing up around the words. ‘She’s alive?’
‘Healthy and flourishing, safe and valued. Her brother, too.’
Shy’s knees went for a moment and she had to lean on the rock beside Lamb.
‘You have come a long, hard way,’ said Waerdinur. ‘I congratulate you on your courage.’
‘We didn’t come for your fucking congratulations!’ she spat at him. ‘We came for the children!’
‘I know. But they are better off with us.’
‘You think I care a fuck?’ There was a look on Lamb’s face then, vicious as an old fighting dog, made Shy go cold all over. ‘This ain’t about them. You’ve stolen from me, fucker. From
Waerdinur narrowed his eyes. ‘You, she did not mention.’
‘I got one o’ those forgettable faces. Bring the children down to Beacon, you can forget it, too.’
‘I am sorry but I cannot. They are my children now. They are Dragon People, and I have sworn to protect this sacred ground and those upon it with my last blood and breath. Only death will stop me.’
‘He won’t stop me.’ Lamb gave his sword another grinding lick. ‘He’s had a thousand chances and never took a one.’
‘Do you think death fears you?’
‘Death loves me.’ Lamb smiled, black-eyed, wet-eyed, and the smile was worse even than the snarl had been. ‘All the work I done for him? The crowds I’ve sent his way? He knows he ain’t got no better friends.’
The leader of the Dragon People looked back sad and level. ‘If we must fight it would be… a shame.’
‘Lot o’ things are,’ said Lamb. ‘I gave up trying to change ’em a long time ago.’ He stood and slid his sword back into its sheath with a scraping whisper. ‘Three days to bring the children down to Beacon. Then I come back to your sacred ground.’ He curled his tongue and blew spit into the water. ‘And I’ll bring death with me.’ And he started picking his way back towards the ruins on the valley side.
Shy and Waerdinur looked at each other a moment longer. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘For what has happened, and for what must happen now.’
She turned and hurried to catch up to Lamb. What else could she do?
‘You didn’t mean that, did you?’ she hissed at his back, slipping and sliding on the broken rocks. ‘About the children? That this ain’t about them? That it’s about blood?’ She tripped and skinned her shin, cursed and stumbled on. ‘Tell me you didn’t mean that!’
‘He got my meaning,’ snapped Lamb over his shoulder. ‘Trust me.’
But there was the problem—Shy was finding that harder every day. ‘Weren’t you just saying that when you mean to kill a man, telling him so don’t help?’
Lamb shrugged. ‘There’s a time for breaking every rule.’
‘What the hell did you do?’ hissed Sweet when they clambered back into the ruin, scrubbing at his wet hair with his fingernails and no one else looking too happy about their unplanned expedition either.
‘I left him some bait he’ll have to take,’ said Lamb.
Shy glanced back through one of the cracks towards the water. Waerdinur was only now wading to the shore, scraping the wet from his body, putting on his robe, no rush. He picked up his staff, looked towards the ruins for a while, then turned and strode away through the rocks.
‘You have made things difficult.’ Crying Rock had already stowed her pipe and was tightening her straps for
