Cold Redemption (12 page)

‘Oribas!’ The Aulian looked up as the wagon drove on. Another Lhosir rider came past, bringing up the rear. He stared at Gallow for a moment, eyes lingering on the furs obscuring
Gallow’s clean chin before shifting deeper into the trees and snow along the roadside. His head kept darting this way and that as though he was looking for something. Gallow ran after him,
caught up and trotted alongside him. ‘What chance for a brother from across the sea to take a ride on your wagon?’

‘You’re better off walking,’ snapped the soldier. ‘And if you have deeds yet undone, get off the road well before the sun sets.’

‘Why’s that then?’

The soldier looked at him as though he was mad. ‘New to the valley, brother? Marroc, that’s why.’ That was what he was looking for. Marroc with bows, hiding in the trees.

‘These prisoners – where are you taking them?’

‘If you don’t already know then it’s none of your business.’ The soldier stared hard at Gallow for a moment then curled his lip and went back to eyeing the trees. Gallow
let him go, but as the wagon and its riders pulled away, he picked up his pace and kept it in sight. Oribas! It was as though the Maker-Devourer had heard him weep and had given him a second
chance. No Lhosir could ignore a sign like that.

He tried to think. The Lhosir would want a place with stone walls and a good strong door. Witches’ Reach was the obvious, yet in the middle of the afternoon the wagon turned off the
Varyxhun Road and onto a track that was almost too narrow for it to pass, winding among the black bones of trees beside one of the thousand nameless freezing streams that ran off the mountains to
join the Isset. Out of sight of the road, it stopped. The three Lhosir riders clustered with the wagon driver around the cage. The driver opened it, poking the prisoners out into the snow while the
riders stayed mounted, eyes scanning the slopes for danger. They were nervous, all of them. The prisoners huddled together, backs against the wind until the riders waved their spears and herded
them further up the track. The driver stayed where he was. He unharnessed his animals, whacking them with a stick to get them to move. Gallow watched a while longer as the soldiers hurried the
shivering Marroc away up the track. The driver was turning his cart. Gallow racked his memory. There was nothing up here, nothing he could remember, only some caves, not even a village.

He stepped out of his hiding place and walked briskly along the track. The wagon driver was swearing at his animals so hard that he didn’t even look up until Gallow spoke. ‘Why not
turn the wagon round on the road?’

The driver jumped almost a foot up into the air. He had a knife in his hand in a flash. Then he looked Gallow up and down and saw he was Lhosir and relaxed a little. ‘Maker-Devourer! A
brother should know better than to creep up on a man!’ He frowned. ‘What’s a brother doing up here? This track doesn’t go anywhere.’ He didn’t put his knife
away.

Gallow shrugged. ‘Hard place to turn a wagon this size. Want some help?’

The Lhosir stared. Gallow’s furs were wrapped across his face, hiding his chin. Finally the driver put away his knife. ‘That would be much appreciated.’

‘But why not turn the wagon back on the road?’

The driver glanced up the track. The riders were almost out of sight. ‘Last time we did that, three of the sheep collapsed before we even got this far. It’s better if they can walk
at least to the caves. I mean it’s all the same in the end, but having to pick them up and drag them all that way . . .’ He shook his head as he finally got all but two of the oxen
separated from the wagon. ‘Let’s get this turned then. If you want to help, push on that side there.’

‘Where you taking them?’ Gallow asked, careful not to let his fur slip.

‘Devil’s Caves.’

Yes, that was the name, remembered from more than a decade past. ‘And what do all those filthy Marroc do up there that’s better than hanging from a gibbet?’

The driver laughed. ‘Well . . .’ He grinned and drew a thumb across his throat. ‘Same thing, really. Just without . . .’ He frowned, sudden caution in his eye as though
he’d seen a thundercloud slide cross Gallow’s face. ‘Name’s Fraggas. I don’t recognise you, brother, and I know most of our kin who travel these roads.’ His hand
was slipping to his knife again.

‘I think you’ve heard of me though.’ Gallow let the fur slide off his chin. ‘Gallow. Gallow Foxbeard.’

Fraggas the carter had just enough time for his grin to turn sour at the edges before the end of Gallow’s staff hit him in the face and knocked him flat in the snow. ‘You kill them,
do you? Where no one sees. Is that it?’ He didn’t wait for whatever answer might bubble out of the carter’s shattered nose along with all the blood but helped himself instead to
the knife and the axe from Fraggas’s belt. Then he ran up the path, following the trail in the snow. If the caves were close he needed to catch the other Lhosir quickly, before they started
cutting throats. Somewhere a god was laughing at him. Fraggas had boots that looked fine and new and were just the right size, but Gallow had no time.

H
e ran hard, scrambling up past cascades and waterfalls until the track levelled again in a snowy ravine whose walls rose fast and grew quickly
steep. The Lhosir soldiers saw him just as he caught sight of the caves where they were heading. The Devil’s Caves, marked by piles of stones and bones. One of the riders turned and charged.
Gallow lifted his walking staff as though it was a javelot, hurled it and threw himself into the snow, rolling under the rider’s thrust. The staff caught the Lhosir in the face, knocking him
backwards. Gallow didn’t wait to see whether he fell. He ran on towards the other two who were already cutting down the scattering screaming Marroc. ‘Oribas!’ He could see the
Aulian. Three Marroc were already dead, sprawled crimson streaks across pristine white. The rest were floundering through the snow, running as best they could with their hands tied behind their
backs.

Oribas threw himself down beside one of the dead Marroc. The two remaining Lhosir riders split. One skewered the nearest Marroc while the other turned his spear at Gallow and charged. Gallow
twisted away from the thrust. He grabbed the shaft of the spear and levered the point down into the snow and the earth beneath until it jammed against something solid and wrenched out of the
rider’s hand. As he passed, Gallow snapped around and hurled the spear with every ounce of his strength into the man’s back. It caught the Lhosir between the shoulders. He arched and
fell off his horse, howling. Gallow ran at him before he could get up, but now the first rider was coming back, his face smeared with blood from Gallow’s staff and he still had his spear. The
second was getting to his feet, swearing a storm and trying to shake the spear loose from his back where it was caught in his furs. He held himself crookedly. The spear might not have pierced his
mail but it hadn’t been wasted.

‘
Nioingr!
’ The first Lhosir spurred his horse at Gallow. Gallow watched the tip of his spear, looking to see which way to dive, but at the last minute the Lhosir’s
eyes flicked away from him to something further up the valley and he veered away. The second Lhosir had dislodged the spear and now lurched at Gallow, axe in hand. He held his shield awkwardly, his
arm pressed in against his body as though he couldn’t lift it any further. His face was strained with pain. With a shield of his own, Gallow would have laughed at him. As it was, he backed
away.

The third rider hurtled past, cantering down the valley after the first. Something flickered through the air after them. He jerked in the saddle but kept riding.

‘Give me your name,’ hissed the Lhosir with the axe.

‘Gallow,’ said Gallow. ‘Truesword to some, Foxbeard to others.’

‘Truesword.’ The Lhosir nodded. ‘I heard the Screambreaker gave you that name. I was at Andhun when he fell. I saw you there. I know your deeds both of that day and the day
that followed. Not so true to our king, were you? Nothing but a Marroc-loving
nioingr
now. Pity. It would have been a fine thing to die by the hand of the old Truesword. Why did you do
it?’

Gallow backed further away. ‘Give me your name, brother of the sea. I’ll speak you out after I kill you.’ But The Lhosir didn’t get a chance. As he opened his mouth, an
arrow took him in the throat. Gallow threw himself flat and looked towards the mouth of the cave. Two men with bows were coming slowly towards him, arrows nocked, strings partly drawn. If he ran
they’d both get a shot before he could reach any cover. His mail and his furs would probably be enough to keep out an arrow, but then there was Oribas.

A third archer was moving among the Marroc prisoners, calling back the ones who were still running and cutting loose each man as they reached him. Gallow scrabbled up to the dying Lhosir. The
Lhosir’s mouth moved but the only sound to come out was a choking cough as blood poured out into the snow. Gallow pulled at the Lhosir’s shield. ‘Maker-Devourer, I don’t
know this man but he faced me in battle and he fought well and he did not run. There is bravery here. I offer him to you for your cauldron.’ He took the Lhosir’s hand and pressed the
dying fingers tightly around his sword. The soldier’s eyes held his.
Thank you
, they said, then rolled back and he was gone. Gallow gave the spirit a moment to separate from the
flesh, then took the man’s shield off his arm and the sword out of his hand and rose to a crouch to face the archers. They’d stopped, thirty paces short, arrows at the ready.

‘I don’t care who you are,’ he said. Behind the shield all they could see of him was his face. ‘The Aulian prisoner is my friend and I’ll take him. The rest is none
of my business.’

One of the archers lowered her bow, but it was only when she spoke that Gallow recognised her. Achista! He knew her voice. ‘What were you doing to that forkbeard?’

‘I was speaking him out, Achista. It’s our custom. He was brave. He didn’t run.’

‘But you should. If you had any sense.’

The other Marroc swore. ‘He knows your
name
?’

Achista laughed. ‘This is the one who helped me escape the iron devil. The Foxbeard.’

Gallow turned back to the dead Lhosir and unbuckled the man’s belt. He eased it out then rose and slipped it on under his furs. Next he started on the boots. They weren’t as nice as
the wagon driver’s but they looked good enough and were certainly better than his own. ‘I don’t have any business with you, Marroc. I came for the Aulian and now we’ll leave
with no blood spilt between us. You can have this one’s mail and his helm. I’ll have his furs.’ Oribas would need them. The Aulian hadn’t even seen what snow was until
they’d reached the edge of the mountains. ‘You won’t see us in Varyxhun again.’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said the other archer.

Gallow finished stripping the boots off the dead man. They were tight but they’d do. He slipped the shield back onto his arm and picked the sword out of the snow and turned back to face
the Marroc with their bows. ‘If you were going to shoot me then you should have done it when I had my back to you. I have mail under these furs. Your aim had best be sharp, because if you
don’t take me down with the first arrow then you’ll not get another.’

‘Achista!’

One of the prisoners was running towards her, another trotting less happily in his wake. Achista turned and her voice changed, suddenly filled with delight. ‘Addic! You’re alive!
Thank Diaran! You stupid clod! And Jonnic! How did you let them catch you?’ Gallow squinted at them. The first was the Marroc from the Aulian Way.

The Marroc slowed and stared at Gallow and his eyes widened. ‘You? Has Modris sent you to be my guardian?’

Achista’s eyes flicked over to Oribas and lingered just a moment longer than they needed to. They moved back to Gallow. ‘Addic, what do we do with him?’

The other Marroc, the one who’d come up behind Addic, snarled, ‘He’s a forkbeard!’

‘Jonnic, I wasn’t asking you!’

Gallow didn’t move. ‘Among my people I’m a traitor with no name or honour. I will go. Let that be enough.’

The Marroc Jonnic spat, shivering in his rags. ‘Addic, Cithjan sent us both up here to be killed in the caves where he thinks no one will know. I say we put the forkbeard there.’

Addic was shivering too. No surprise, since the Marroc prisoners were wearing little more than shirts or tunics and half were barefoot in the snow. Gallow reached carefully back, never taking
his eyes off the archer, and tossed him the furs from the dead soldier. ‘No point saving your life just to let Father Winter have you.’

‘No, Jonnic. Let him go.’

‘He’ll go and—’

Addic put a hand on the other Marroc’s shoulder. ‘It doesn’t matter. A life for a life.’ He let go, picked up the furs and nodded to Gallow. ‘Debt paid, forkbeard.
You can go.’

The archer behind Achista growled and bared his teeth as he lowered his bow. Gallow ignored all four of them. He strode and then ran towards Oribas, loosening his furs as he went.
‘Aulian!’

Oribas was shivering like a leaf in the wind. Gallow threw him his furs and the Aulian dived into them. Gallow grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘The Lhosir said they’d
thrown you into the river! I saw your bag! How by the Maker-Devourer’s beard did you end up here?’

Oribas’s teeth were chattering. ‘Well, they did throw me over the edge but not quite into the river. And after that, by way of the Marroc man whose life you saved and then a
shadewalker and a devil in iron. Not to mention the coldest wind that has ever scoured this cursed earth. I tell you, Gallow, I might just be a simple man from the desert but I cannot see what
woman in any land could be worth living in this when you could have the warmth of the sun on your skin.’ He looked up at the sky, his eyes poking out from Gallow’s furs.
‘
Is
that even the sun, or is it some feeble candle dropped by one of the gods as he passed in his chariot of clouds?’