Giant Thief (2 page)

  I was sat with Costas and the quiet one in the back of the cart, perched on crates that reeked of cabbage and dried fish past its prime. The road was poor and the cart's suspension was long gone, if it had ever had any, but it was marginally better than walking.

  "So what's this volunteer brigade then?" It seemed a more neutral topic of conversation. All three ignored me at first, so I added, "Better work than being a sword for hire, I imagine?"

  Armando sniggered from the driver's board.

  "You'll see."

  "It can't be that bad."

  "Can't it?"

  This was getting me nowhere, and I thought I knew the answer anyway. It was likely one of the reasons Moaradrid was down here in the Castoval, rather than up in the far north where he belonged. The plains beyond Pasaeda were a miserable place, neglected by the king because there was nothing there worth having. They were home to countless tribes, most nomadic, and traditionally they spent their time fighting between each other over women and horses, not necessarily in that order.

  Moaradrid had changed all that. In so doing, he had united a third of the tribes together within the space of a year. His initiative was simple: where others had been content to take a new wife and a good stallion from a defeated enemy, Moaradrid took their warlord's head and all of their fighting men.

  Making one last bid for a safe subject, I began, "I imagine there are plenty of opportunities here for a resourceful and hard-working sort like myself."

  "Maybe, if you survive the night." That was Costas.

  "Of course," I agreed cheerfully.

  "Which you won't. You don't get it, do you? You'll be lucky if they give you a weapon. The volunteers' job is to line up and throw themselves at the enemy until they're all dead or you are. If you're still useful after that then maybe they'll let you into the regulars. But odds are you'll be dead or worse."

  Though I was intrigued by the question of what might be worse than being dead, I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of asking. There was one question, however, that was burning in my mind. Until a couple of weeks ago, Moaradrid's campaign had been amusing tavern gossip. Then he'd changed direction. It made a certain sense; eventually he was going to come into contention with the king, however oblivious the old fool was, and it would take more than a horde of unruly plainsmen to profit from that encounter. What had me curious was what had happened next. Most of Moaradrid's force had camped here on the plain near Aspira Nero, while the warlord himself and a small retinue had journeyed on. They had avoided the hastily gathered southern defenders, and hardly a drop of blood had been shed on either side. Now here he was again. I'd watched them passing for a while before I'd decided to chance my hand with the baggage cart. Amongst the fighting men had been a succession of large covered wagons, their contents invisible.

  What was Moaradrid up to?

  Even if these three knew, which I doubted, I'd missed my chance to ask. We'd been trundling steadily toward the main camp for about an hour. The last daylight was gone, and the bulbous moon hung low in an overcast sky. I'd identified the camp by a few angular silhouettes near the river that must be tents, some widely spaced fires burning higher up the slope on our right, and by the stink, which had been building for the last few minutes. I couldn't make out any details, but that rank conference of scents gave me a fair idea of how many bodies were waiting for us ahead.

  I knew this region. It was at a point where the Casto Mara swung close to the eastern foothills, near the mouth of the valley. The only nearby town was Aspira Nero, which marked the boundary of the Castoval and the court-controlled Midlands, and was generally considered neutral territory. Here there were only small farms, with olive plantations higher up the slopes and rice grown on the riverbank. It would have been good land except for reliable yearly floods that turned it into a swamp. I wondered where all the locals had gone. Perhaps they were dead. Perhaps I'd been meeting them soon as fellow volunteers.

  At the edge of the camp – an arbitrary distinction given how unruly it was – we were stopped by a guard, a plainsman with his hair slung in a single braid over one shoulder.

  "Where are you headed?" he asked without interest.

  "These men," I said quickly, "are mercenaries of the cheaper sort. I am a volunteer, come to serve Moaradrid with my youthful vigour and courage."

  "But not with your sword?" he asked, looking at my empty belt.

  "It was stolen by bandits," I told him sadly. "I killed nearly a dozen, then thought it prudent to leave unarmed but intact. I'm sure someone will be good enough to loan me a new one."

  "I don't doubt it."

  He waved over a colleague, who was lounging nearby against a post.

  "Take him to the disposables," he ordered, pointing at me.

  The soldier grunted, and motioned for me to climb down. The officer said something to Armando as I did so, and the moment my heels struck the ground the cart lurched forward.

  "Good luck, volunteer," called Costas. He spat after me, missing by an arm's length.

  "May your aim be as precise when your life depends on it," I shouted back.

  My escort glared at me, and fingered the handle of his sword where it hung from his cloth belt. The sash was a reddish-purple, like a fresh bruise: the colour of Moaradrid. That meant he was a regular. I decided it might be better not to annoy him further.

  "Shall we go?" I suggested.

  He grunted again, and set off into the camp. I fell in behind.

  Moaradrid's campsite was, frankly, a shambles. I got the impression that the vast majority of his troops had spent the last few nights in the open, with only the officers and veterans housed in the tents and commandeered farm buildings down by the water's edge. The fact that they hadn't bothered to make more permanent arrangements suggested they didn't intend to stay much longer. That in turn meant a battle was probably imminent. I knew our army was located nearby to the north. Now that Moaradrid was back from his mysterious journey, it seemed inevitable that the long-brewing conflict would come to a head.

  Of course, it wasn't really "our" army – or at least, not mine. I was now the enemy, strictly speaking. It was a depressing thought, on many levels.

  To cheer myself, I drew from the folds of my cloak the stash of food I'd taken from the cart: a hunk of bread, a quarter of wilted cabbage, and some foulsmelling fish. The bread seemed least unappetising, so I tore a lump and chewed ruminatively. I broke it in half when my escort stopped to glare at me and offered him the remainder.

  "Stolen?" he asked.

  "Not from here," I said, fairly truthfully. In fact, I'd acquired it just before the officer stopped us at the camp border.

  "I'll have some fish as well then," he told me, so I halved that too.

  After he'd eaten his share and kept it down, I followed his example. It was surprisingly good – though since I was starving, my own boots would have probably tasted delectable right then. The soldier finished his bread as well, then took a swig from a water skin and handed it to me. It turned out to contain wine. Though objectively I knew it was vinegary and heavily diluted, it too seemed delicious. I grinned at him gratefully, but he only grabbed the skin back and kept walking.

  We'd been heading upwards all the while. I couldn't tell much beyond that. While the moon was almost full, it was cloudy, with a storm brewing over the eastern hills. The only real light was from campfires, and there weren't many of those, maybe due to the scarcity of wood this close to the river but perhaps also because Moaradrid didn't want to betray his numbers. My escort seemed to know where he was going, which implied that there was some order to the gaggles of men and bright spots of firelight. That didn't help me much. If I was going to escape before the battle, as I was determined I would, I'd need a better idea of where I was.

  We came to a halt. There was a pitifully small fire, close to a stunted olive tree and what appeared to be a large upright rock like an obelisk. There were figures around the fire, though I couldn't judge how many. I could only count the innermost few and those were evidently a favoured minority. My escort glanced around. His night vision was better than mine, because he focused on one black shape no different from any other and called, "Lugos, how are your numbers?"

  A stocky man loomed out of the darkness. "I've lost two to sickness, and one in a knife fight." His voice was coarse yet high-pitched, and the flickering orange glow upon only half his face served to emphasise his ugliness. "Why, have you brought me a new body?"

  "I have if you want him. He's skinny and a thief. That hardly matters for what you want, eh?"

  The man named Lugos turned to me. "Not at all," he said. "Skinny thieves die just as well as other men."

  "My name is Easie Damasco," I said, "and stealing once to fend off starvation doesn't make me a thief."

  "Who cares? Sure, I'll take him off your hands," he said, and my escort nodded and turned back the way we'd come. Then, to me, he continued, "Damasco is it? There's a few rules you'll need to know. Do what I tell you. Don't argue. When it comes to it, don't run away. And don't mess with Leon and Saltlick."

  "I think I can remember all that. Who are Leon and Saltlick?"

  "Here, I'll introduce you, and you'll know who to keep away from."

  He led me around the campfire. One or two men cried out as we trampled blindly on their extremities, then shut up quickly when they recognised Lugos. We stopped near to the large rock I'd noticed before. There was a lean figure sat at its base, and he looked up as we drew close. He seemed surprisingly young to have been singled out for whatever special authority he had.

  "This is Leon," Lugos said, and Leon waved a skinny hand at me. "And that," he went on, pointing to the black mass the boy was resting against, "is Saltlick."

  "What? Behind that rock?"

  Leon chuckled, and Lugos barked out a laugh. I wondered what could be so funny – until the rock moved. The clouds flurried away from the moon for an instant, and I saw a monstrous hand, each finger as long as my head. I leaped backward, and Lugos gripped my arm and held it tight.

  "Careful," he said. "Or Saltlick might just decide you're food."

 
 
 

The night wore on. I tried hard not to think about what was coming when it ended.

  A pack of cards materialised from somewhere, and one of my shadowy companions suggested a few rounds of Lost Chicken. In an hour, I managed to turn my quarter of cabbage into a hunk of unidentifiable meat, a few coppers, two more loaves of bread, and a small, cheaply crafted knife. Normally I'd have found such success cheering, but my thoughts kept getting in the way, however much I tried to avoid them.

  I'd reached the conclusion that escape was possible but unlikely. Moaradrid wasn't an idiot. Realising that most of his troops would rather be somewhere else, he had sentries patrolling all around the camp borders. I'd heard them whistling to each other in bad imitation of various night birds. There would be plenty of guards within the encampment as well. The risk of fleeing, in my state of borderline exhaustion, far exceeded the hope of success. I was stuck there. I would likely get my first taste of war before the sun came up.

  And that wasn't even the worst of it.

  I had no doubt, after what I'd seen, that I'd be on the winning side. I would normally have taken some consolation from that, but just then it was difficult to do so. While I had no love of its authorities, who insisted on putting my name on "wanted" lists and generally trying to catch and jail me, the Castoval was my home and I was fond of it. I didn't want to see it crushed under the heel of a tyrant. I didn't want to see it overrun by monsters.

  Yet that was apparently to be its fate. Moaradrid had found himself a weapon that the Castovalians couldn't defend against.

  Later, when the sky had lightened to a drab charcoal grey, Lugos stoked the fire and heated some soup, which was doled out in dirty wooden bowls. In a rare act of charity, or more likely defeatism, I shared my bread and meat amongst my closest companions. I received a little weary gratitude in return. Most of them spoke with such wild accents or thick dialects that they might as well have been talking another language for all I understood. We were a group of strangers gathered from the length and breadth of the land, and all we had in common was our future, which was likely to be short. No wonder the atmosphere was grim.

  The soup – mostly water and rice, with a few chunks of turnip and scraps of goat meat floating on the surface – was warming, at least, and my appetite made it seem better than it was. That, together with my acquisitions from cards, left me feeling full for the first time in longer than I could remember. I wouldn't die hungry, at any rate.

  We'd barely finished eating when Lugos, now dressed in a hauberk and tattered leather helmet, stepped up close to the fire and shouted, "Listen up, fifth volunteers."

  I assumed that was us.

  "We'll be going into battle soon. It won't be fun, but if you do your best you might just survive. Don't try to run. There'll be archers on hand and they'll make sure you don't get far. Most importantly, keep away from the giant. He answers to three people only: Moaradrid, Leon, and myself. Anyone else he's likely to step on. That's all. Fight like the bastards you are."

  It wasn't the most motivating speech I'd ever heard. It did, however, make me wonder again about the hulking thing they called Saltlick. We Castovalians knew in theory that the giants existed, somewhere high in the southern mountains, but they'd always minded their own business and we'd been more than happy to leave them to it. The arrangement had stood for generations – we didn't bother them, they didn't bother us – until their existence had become little more than legend. What could have drawn them down into the Castoval? What threat or promise could Moaradrid have used to bind them to his cause?