Before They Are Hanged (52 page)

He grinned at her. “I’m going to tickle me some fish out of that pool.”

“With your hands? You got clever enough fingers for that?”

“I reckon you’d know.” She frowned at him but he only smiled the wider, skin creasing up round the corners of his eyes. “Watch and learn, woman.” And he paddled out, bent over, lips pressed tight together with concentration, feeling gently around in the water.

“What’s he up to?” Luthar dumped his pack down beside Ferro’s and wiped his glistening face with the back of his hand.

“Fool thinks he can catch a fish.”

“What, with his hands?”

“Watch and learn, boy,” muttered Ninefingers. “Aaaah…” His face broke out into a smile. “And here she is.” The muscles in his forearm shifted as he worked his fingers under the water. “Got it!” And he snatched his hand up in a shower of spray. Something flashed in the bright sun and he tossed it onto the bank beside them leaving a trail of dark wet spots on the dry stones. A fish, flipping and jumping.

“Hah hah!” cried Longfoot, stepping up beside them. “Tricking fish out of the pool, is he? A most impressive and remarkable skill. I once met a man of the Thousand Isles who was reckoned the greatest fisherman in the Circle of the World. I do declare, he could sit upon the bank and sing, and the fish would jump into his lap. They would indeed!” He frowned to find no one delighted by his tale, but now Bayaz was dragging himself over the lip, almost on hands and knees. His apprentice appeared behind him, face set hard.

The First of the Magi tottered down, leaning heavily on his staff, and fell back against a rock. “Perhaps… we should camp here.” He gasped for breath, sweat running down his gaunt face. “You would never guess I once ran through this pass. I made it in two days.” He let his staff drop from his trembling fingers and it clattered down amongst the dry grey driftwood near the water’s edge. “Long ago…”

“I’ve been thinking…” muttered Luthar.

Bayaz’ tired eyes swivelled sideways, as though even turning his head might prove too much of an effort. “Thinking
and
walking? Pray do not strain yourself, Captain Luthar.”

“Why the edge of the World?”

The Magus frowned. “Not for the exercise, I assure you. What we seek is there.”

“Yes, but why is it there?”

“Uh,” grunted Ferro in agreement. A good question.

Bayaz took a long breath and puffed out his cheeks. “Never any rest, eh? After the destruction of Aulcus, the fall of Glustrod, the three remaining sons of Euz met. Juvens, Bedesh, and Kanedias. They discussed what should be done… with the Seed.”

“Have that!” shouted Ninefingers, pulling another fish from the water and flinging it onto the stones beside the first. Bayaz watched it, expressionless, as it squirmed and flopped, mouth and gills gulping desperately at the suffocating air.

“Kanedias desired to study it. He claimed he could turn it to righteous purposes. Juvens feared the stone, but knew of no way to destroy it, so he gave it into his brother’s keeping. Over long years though, as the wounds of the Empire failed to heal, he came to regret his decision. He worried that Kanedias, hungry for power, might break the First Law as Glustrod had done. He demanded the stone be put beyond use. At first the Maker refused, and the trust between the brothers dwindled. I know this, for I was the one who carried the messages between them. Even then, I learned since, they were preparing the weapons that they would one day use against each other. Juvens begged, then pleaded, then threatened, and eventually Kanedias relented. So the three sons of Euz journeyed to Shabulyan.”

“No place more remote in the whole Circle of the World,” muttered Longfoot.

“That is why it was chosen. They gave up the Seed to the spirit of the island, to keep safe until the end of time.”

“They commanded the spirit never to release it,” murmured Quai.

“My apprentice shows his ignorance again,” returned Bayaz, glaring from under his bushy brows. “Not never, Master Quai. Juvens was wise enough to know that he could not guess all outcomes. He realised that a desperate time might come, in some future age, when the power of… this thing might be needed. So Bedesh commanded the spirit to release it only to a man who carried Juvens’ staff.”

Longfoot frowned. “Then where is it?”

Bayaz pointed to the length of wood he used for a stick, lying on the ground beside him, rough and unadorned. “That’s it?” muttered Luthar, sounding more than a little disappointed.

“What did you expect, Captain?” Bayaz grinned sideways at him. “Ten feet of polished gold, inlaid with runes of crystal, topped by a diamond the size of your head?” The Magus snorted. “Even I have never seen a gem
that
big. A simple stick was good enough for my master. He needed nothing more. A length of wood does not by itself make a man wise, or noble, or powerful, any more than a length of steel does. Power comes from the flesh, my boy, and from the heart, and from the head. From the head most of all.”

“I love this pool!” cackled Ninefingers, tossing another fish out onto the rocks.

“Juvens,” murmured Longfoot softly, “and his brothers, powerful beyond guessing, between men and gods. Even they feared this thing. They went to such pains to put it beyond use. Should we not fear it, as they did?”

Bayaz stared at Ferro, his eyes glittering, and she stared back. Beads of sweat stood from his wrinkled skin, darkened the hairs of his beard, but his face was flat as a closed door. “Weapons are dangerous, to those who do not understand them. With Ferro Maljinn’s bow I might shoot myself in the foot, if I did not know how to use it. With Captain Luthar’s steel I might cut my ally, had I not the skill. The greater the weapon, the greater the danger. I have the proper respect for this thing, believe me, but to fight our enemies we need a powerful weapon indeed.”

Ferro frowned. She was yet to be convinced that her enemies and his were quite the same, but she would let it sleep, for now. She had come too far, and got too close, not to see this business through. She glanced over at Ninefingers and caught him staring at her. His eyes flicked away, back to the water. She frowned deeper. He was always looking at her lately. Staring, and grinning, and making bad jokes. And now she found herself looking at him more often than there was any need for. Patterns of light flowed across his face, reflected from the rippling water. He looked up again, and their eyes met, and he grinned at her, just for an instant.

Ferro’s frown grew deeper yet. She pulled her knife out, snatched up one of the fish and took its head off, slit it open and flicked its slimy guts out, plopping down into the water next to Ninefingers’ leg. It had been a mistake to fuck him, of course, but things had not turned out so very badly after all.

“Hah!” Ninefingers sent up another glittering spray of water, then he stumbled, clutching at the air. “Ah!” The fish flapped from his hands, a streak of flipping brightness, and the Northman crashed into the water on his face. He came up spitting and shaking his head, hair plastered to his skull. “Bastard!”

“Every man has, somewhere in the world, an adversary cleverer than himself.” Bayaz stretched out his legs in front of him. “Could it be, Master Ninefingers, that you have finally found yours?”

Jezal woke with a start. It was the middle of the night. It took him a dizzy moment to remember where he was, for he had been dreaming of home, of the Agriont, of sunny days and barmy evenings. Of Ardee, or someone like her, smiling lop-sided at him in his cosy living room. Now the stars were scattered bright and stark across the black sky, and the chill, sharp air of the High Places nipped at Jezal’s lips, and his nostrils, and the tips of his ears.

He was back up in the Broken Mountains, half the width of the world from Adua, and he felt a pang of loss. At least his stomach was full. Fish and biscuit, the first proper meal he’d eaten since the horse ran out. There was still warmth from the fire on the side of his face and he turned towards it, grinning at the glowing embers and dragging his blankets up under his chin. Happiness was nothing more than a fresh fish and a fire still alight.

He frowned. The blankets beside him, where Logen had been sleeping, were moving around. At first he took it for the Northman turning in his sleep, but they carried on moving, and did not stop. A slow, regular shirting, accompanied, Jezal now realised, by a soft grunting sound. He had taken it at first for Bayaz’ snoring, but now he saw otherwise. Straining into the darkness he made out Ninefingers’ pale shoulder and arm, thick muscles straining. Under his arm, squeezing hard at his side, there was a dark-skinned hand.

Jezal’s mouth hung open. Logen and Ferro, and from the sound of it there could be no doubt that they were coupling!

What was more, not a stride from his head! He stared, watching the blankets bucking and shifting in the dim light from the fire. When had they… Why were they… How had they… It was a damned imposition is what it was! His old distaste for them flooded back in a moment and his scarred lip curled. A pair of savages, rutting in full view! He had half a mind to get up and kick them as you might kick a pair of dogs who had, to the general embarrassment of all, unexpectedly taken to each other at a garden party.

“Shit,” whispered a voice. Jezal froze, wondering if one of them had seen him.

“Hold on.” There was a brief pause.

“Ah… ah, that’s it.” The repetitive movement started up again, the blankets flapping back and forward, slowly to begin with, then faster. How could they possibly have expected him to sleep through this? He scowled and rolled away, pulling his own covers over his head, and lay there in the darkness, listening to Ninefingers’ throaty grunting and Ferro’s urgent hissing growing steadily louder. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt a sting of tears underneath his lids.

Damn it but he was lonely.

Coming Over

The road curved down from the west, down the bare white valley between two long ridges, all covered in dark pines. It met the river at the ford, the Whiteflow running high with meltwater, fast flowing over the rocks and full of spit and froth—earning its name alright.

“So that’s it then,” muttered Tul, lying on his belly and peering through the bushes.

“I reckon,” said Dogman, “less there’s another giant fortress anywhere on the river.”

From up here on the ridge the Dogman could see its shape clear, towering great walls of sheer dark stones, perfectly six sided, twelve strides high at the least, a massive round tower at each corner, the grey slate roofs of buildings round a courtyard in the midst. Just outside that there was a smaller wall, six sides again, half as high but still high enough, studded with a dozen smaller towers. One side backed to the river, the other five had a wide moat dug round them, so the whole thing was made an island of sharp stone. One bridge out to it, and one bridge only, stretching to a gatehouse the size of a hill.

“Shit on that,” said Dow. “You ever seen walls the like of those? How the hell did Bethod get in there?”

Dogman shook his head. “Don’t hardly matter how. He won’t fit his whole army in it.”

“He won’t want to,” said Threetrees. “Not Bethod. That’s not his way. He’d rather be outside, where he can move, waiting for his chance to catch ’em off guard.”

“Uh,” grunted Grim, nodding.

“Fucking Union!” cursed Dow. “They’re never on guard! All that time we followed Bethod up from the south and they bloody let him past without a fight! Now he’s all walled up here, close to food and water, nice and happy, waiting for us!”

Threetrees clicked his tongue. “No point crying ’bout it now, is there? Bethod got round you once or twice before, as I recall.”

“Huh. Bastard’s got one hell of a knack for turning up where he ain’t wanted.”

Dogman looked down at the fortress, and the river behind, and the long valley, and the high ground on the other side, covered with trees. “He’ll have men up on the ridge opposite, and down there in those woods round the moat too, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Well you got it all figured, don’t you?” said Dow, looking sideways. “There’s just one thing we still need to know. She suck your cock yet?”

“What?” said the Dogman, caught not knowing what to say. Tul spluttered with laughter. Threetrees started chuckling to himself. Even Grim made a kind of sound, like breath, but louder.

“Simple question ain’t it?” asked Dow. “Has she, or has she not, sucked it?”

Dogman frowned and hunched his shoulders. “Shit on that.”

Tul could barely hold his giggling back. “She did what to it? She shit on it? You was right, Dow, they don’t do it the same down there in the Union!” Now they were all laughing, apart from the Dogman of course.

“Piss on the lot o’ you,” he grunted. “Maybe you should suck each other’s. At least it might shut you up.”

Dow slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t think so. You know how Tul is for talking with his mouth full!” Tul clamped his hand over his face and blew snot out of his nose, he was laughing so hard. Dogman gave him a look but that was like hoping a look would stop a rock falling. It didn’t.

“Alright now, best be quiet,” muttered Threetrees, but still grinning. “Someone better take a closer look. See if we can work out where Bethod’s boys are all at before the Union come fumbling up that road like a pack o’ fools.”

Dogman felt his heart sinking. “One of us better? Which of you bastards is it going to be then?”

Black Dow grinned as he slapped him on the shoulder. “I reckon whoever got to stick his twig in the fire last night should be the one to face the cold this morning, eh, lads?”

Dogman crept down through the trees, bow in one hand with a shaft nocked to it but the string not pulled back, for fear of letting it go by accident and shooting himself in the leg or some foolishness. He’d seen that happen before, and he’d no wish to be hopping back to the camp, trying to explain to the others how he got one of his own arrows through his foot. He’d never hear the end of it.

He knelt and peered through the trees, looked down at the ground—bare brown earth, and patches of white snow, and piles of wet pine needles, and… he stopped breathing. There was a footprint near him. Half in mud and half in snow. The snow was melting and falling, melting and falling off and on. A print wouldn’t have lasted long today. That meant it was made recent. The Dogman sniffed the air. Not much to smell, but it was harder to smell anything in the cold—nose all pink and numb and full of cold snot. He crept the way the footprint was pointing, looking all round. He saw another, and another. Someone had come this way, no doubt, and not long ago.

“You’re the Dogman, ain’t you.”

He froze, heart thumping like big boots upstairs all of a sudden. He turned round, to look where the voice came from. There was a man sitting on a fallen tree ten strides away, lying back against a thick branch, hands clasped behind his head, stretched out like he was near asleep. He had long black hair hanging in his face, but one eye peered out at the Dogman, watchful. He sat forward, slowly.

“Now I’ll leave these here,” he said, pointing at a heavy axe half-buried in the rotten trunk, and a round shield leaning near it. “So you know I’m looking to talk, and I’ll come on over. How’s that sound to you?”

Dogman raised his bow and drew the string back. “Come on over if you must, but if you try more ’n talk I’ll put an arrow through your neck.”

“Fair enough.” Long Hair rocked himself forward and slithered off the trunk, leaving his weapons behind, and came on through the trees. He walked with his head stooped over but he was a tall bastard still, holding his hands up in the air, palms out. All peaceful looking, no doubt, but the Dogman wasn’t taking no chances. Peaceful-looking and peaceful are two different things.

“Might I say,” said the man as he came closer, “in the interests of working up some trust between us, that you never saw me. If I’d had a bow I could’ve shot you where you stood.” It was a fair point, but the Dogman didn’t like it any.

“You got a bow?”

“No I don’t, as it goes.”

“There’s your mistake, then,” he snapped. “You can stop there.”

“I believe I will,” he said, standing a few strides distant.

“So I’m the Dogman, and you know it. Who might you be?”

“You remember Rattleneck, aye?”

“Of course, but you ain’t him.”

“No. I’m his son.”

Dogman frowned, and drew his bowstring back a touch tighter. “You’d best make your next answer a damn good one. Ninefingers killed Rattleneck’s son.”

“That’s true. I’m his other son.”

“But he was hardly more ’n a boy…” Dogman paused, counting the winters in his head. “Shit. It’s that long ago?”

“That long ago.”

“You’ve grown some.”

“That’s what boys do.”

“You got a name now?”

“Shivers, they call me.”

“How come?”

He grinned. “Because my enemies shiver with fear when they face me.”

“That so?”

“Not entirely.” He sighed. “Might as well know now. First time I went out raiding, I got drunk and fell in the river having a piss. Current sucked my trousers off and dumped me half a mile downstream. I got back to the camp shivering worse than anyone had ever seen, fruits sucked right up into my belly and everything.” He scratched at his face. “Bloody embarrassment all round. Made up for it in the fighting, though.”

“Really?”

“I got some blood on my fingers, over the years. Not compared to you, I daresay, but enough for men to follow me.”

“That so? How many?”

“Two score Carls, or thereabouts. They’re not far away, but don’t get nervous. Some o’ my father’s people, from way back, and a few newer. Good hands, each man.”

“Well, that’s nice for you, to have a little crew. Been fighting for Bethod, have you?”

“Man needs some kind o’ work. Don’t mean we wouldn’t take better. Can I put my hands down yet?”

“No, I like ’em there. What you doing out here in the woods alone, anyhow?”

Shivers pursed his lips, thoughtful. “Don’t take me for a madman, but I heard a rumour you got Rudd Threetrees over here.”

“That’s a fact.”

“Is it now?”

“And Tul Duru Thunderhead, and Harding Grim, and Black Dow an’ all.”

Shivers raised his brows, leaned back against a tree, hands still up, while Dogman watched him careful. “Well that’s some weighty company you got there, alright. There’s twice the blood on you five than on my two score. Those are some names and no mistake. The sort of names men might want to follow.”

“You looking to follow?”

“Might be that I am.”

“And your Carls too?”

“Them too.”

It was tempting, the Dogman had to admit. Two score Carls, and they’d know where Bethod was at, maybe something of what he’d got planned. That’d save him some skulking around in the cold woods, and he was getting good and tired of wet trees. But he was a long way off trusting this tall bastard yet. He’d take him back to the camp, and Threetrees could weigh up what to do.

“Alright,” he said, “we’ll see. Why don’t you step off up the hill there, and I’ll follow on a few paces behind.”

“Alright,” said Shivers, turning and trudging up the slope, hands still up in the air, “but watch what you do with that shaft, eh? I don’t want to get stuck for you not looking where you’re stepping.”

“Don’t worry about me, big lad, the Dogman don’t miss no—gah!”

His foot caught on a root and he lurched a step and fumbled his string. The arrow shot past Shivers’ head and thudded wobbling into a tree just beyond. Dogman ended up on his knees in the dirt, looking up at him looming over, clutching an empty bow in one hand. “Piss,” he muttered. If the man had wanted to, Dogman had no doubt he could have swung one of those big fists down and knocked his head off.

“Lucky you missed me,” said Shivers. “Can I put my hands down now?”

Dow started as soon as they walked into the camp, of course. “Who the hell’s this bastard?” he snarled, striding straight up to Shivers and staring him out, bristling up to him with his axe clutched in his hand. It might have looked a touch comical, Dow being half a head shorter, but Shivers didn’t seem much amused. Nor should he have.

“He’s—” the Dogman started, but he didn’t get any further.

“He’s a tall bastard, eh? I ain’t talking up to a bastard like him! Sit down, big lad!” and he threw his arm out and shoved Shivers over on his arse.

The Dogman thought he took it well, considering. He grunted when he hit the dirt, of course, then he blinked, then he propped himself on his elbows, grinning up at them. “I reckon I’ll just stay down here. Don’t hold it against me though, eh? I didn’t choose to be tall, any more than you chose to be an arsehole.”

Dogman winced at that, expecting Shivers to get a boot in the fruits for his trouble, but Dow started to grin instead. “Chose to be an arsehole, I like that. I like him. Who is he?”

“His name’s Shivers,” said the Dogman. “He’s Rattleneck’s son.”

Dow frowned. “But didn’t Ninefingers—”

“His other son.”

“But he’d be no more ’n a—”

“Work it out.”

Dow frowned, then shook his head. “Shit. That long, eh?”

“He looks like Rattleneck,” came Tul’s voice, his shadow falling across them.

“Bloody hell!” said Shivers. “I thought you didn’t like tall folk? It’s two of you standing on top of each other ain’t it?”

“Just the one.” Tul reached down and pulled him up by one arm like he was a child fell over. “Sorry ’bout that greeting, friend. Those visitors we get we usually end up killing.”

“I’ll hope to be the exception,” said Shivers, still gawping up at the Thunderhead. “So that must be Harding Grim.”

“Uh,” said Grim, scarcely looking up from checking his shafts.

“And you’re Threetrees?”

“That I am,” said the old boy, hands on his hips.

“Well,” muttered Shivers, rubbing at the back of his head. “I feel like I’m in deep water now, and no mistake. Deep water. Tul Duru, and Black Dow, and… bloody hell. You’re Threetrees, eh?”

“I’m him.”

“Well then. Shit. My father always said you was the best man left in all the North. That if he ever had to pick a man to follow, you’d be the one. “Til you lost to the Bloody-Nine, o’ course, but some things you can’t help. Rudd Threetrees, right before me now…”

“Why’ve you come here, boy?”

Shivers seemed to have run out of words, so the Dogman spoke for him. “He says he’s got two score Carls following him, and they all want to come over.”

Threetrees looked Shivers in the eye for a while. “Is that a fact?”

Shivers nodded. “You knew my father. He thought the way you did, and I’m cut from his cloth. Serving Bethod sticks in my neck.”

“Might be I think a man should pick his chief and stick to him.”

“I always thought so,” said Shivers, “but that blade cuts both ways, no? A chief should look out for his people too, shouldn’t he?” Dogman nodded to himself. A fair point to his mind. “Bethod don’t care a shit for none of us no more, if he ever did. He don’t listen to no one now but that witch of his.”