27

The monsters came when the light failed. Shadows swallowed the gorge and the silence thickened until the wind could barely stir it. Makin’s hand fell on my shoulder. I flinched, edging the fear with momentary hatred, for my own weakness, and for Makin for showing it to me.

“Up there.” He nodded to my left.

One of the cave mouths had lit from within, a single eye watching us through the falling night.

“That’s no fire,” I said. The light had nothing of warmth or flicker.

As we watched, the source of illumination moved, swinging harsh shadows out across the slopes.

“A lantern?” Fat Burlow stepped up beside me, puffing out his cheeks in consternation. The brothers gathered around us.

The strange lantern emerged onto the slope, and darkness erased the cave behind. It shone like a star, a cold light, reaching from the source in a thousand bright lines. A single figure cut a wedge of shadow into the illumination; the lantern bearer.

We watched the unhurried descent. The wind sought my flesh with icy fingers and tugged for attention at my cloak.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus.” Somewhere in the night old Gomsty muttered his Ave Marias.

A slow horror eased itself among us.

“Mother of God!” Makin spat the oath out as if to rid himself of the fear. We all felt it, crawling over the unseen rocks.

The brothers might have run, but where was there to go?

“Torches, damn you. Now!” I broke the paralysis, shocked that I’d stood hypnotized by the approach for so long.

“Now!” I drew my sword. They moved at that. Scurrying to the embers of the fire, stumbling over the rough ground.

“Nuban, Row, Burlow, see there’s nothing coming up along the river.” Even as I said it I knew we’d been flanked.

“There! There, behind that rise!” The Nuban motioned with his crossbow. He’d seen something, the Nuban wasn’t one to spook at nothing. We’d watched the pretty light and they’d flanked us. Simple as a market play of kiss-and-dip. Distract your mark with a pretty face, and come up from behind to rob him blind.

The torches flared, men ran to their weapons.

The light drew closer and we saw it for what it was, a child whose very skin bled radiance. She walked an even pace, every inch aglow, white like molten silver, making mere shadows of the rags she wore.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena!” Father Gomst’s voice rose, lifting the prayer like a shield.

“Hail Mary,” I echoed him. “Full of grace, indeed.”

The girl’s eyes burned silver and the ghosts of flames chased across her skin. There was a fragile beauty to her that took my breath.

A monster walked behind her. In any other circumstance it would have been him that drew the eye. The monster had been built in parody of a man, sharing Adam’s lines as a cow apes a horse. The light revealed the horror of his flesh, sparing no detail. The thing might have topped seven foot in height. It even had a few inches on Little Rikey.

Liar raised his bow, disgust on his pinched face. I took his arm as he sighted on the monster.

“No.” I wanted to hear them speak. Besides, it looked as if an arrow would just annoy our new friend.

Under a twisted red hide the monster’s chest looked like a hundred-gallon barrel. A set of ribs pierced the flesh, reaching for each other above his heart.

The girl’s light touched us with a cold kiss and I felt her in my mind. She spoke and her voice seemed to rise from the rocks. I heard her footsteps in the corridors of my memory.

There are places where children shouldn’t wander. I met the girl’s silver gaze, and for a moment shadows licked across her.

“Welcome to our camp,” I said.

I stepped forward to greet them, leaving the brothers and entering the brilliance of the child’s aura. The monster smiled at me, a wide smile showing teeth stolen from the wolf. He’d the eyes of a cat, slitted against the light and throwing it back.

I passed beauty by and stood before the beast. We had us a moment of judging. I ran an eye over the muscle heaped on his bones, crossed over with pulsing veins and hard ridges of scar tissue. I could have eaten dinner off one of his hands. He had three fingers and a thumb on each, thick as the girl’s arm. He could have taken my head in one hand and crushed it.

I snapped my neck forward, sudden-like, and jumped at him with a shout, thrusting my face at his. He flinched backward and stumbled on the loose rock. The laughter escaped me. I couldn’t stop it.

“Why?” The girl looked puzzled. She tilted her head and the shadows ran.

“Because.” I gasped for my breath as the monster righted himself.

Why? For a moment I didn’t know.

“Because . . . because, fuck him. Because he’s such a big bastard.” I pushed the grin from my face. Because he had given me pause. Because he had made me feel small.

I looked down at her. “I’m bigger than you. Are you going to let that scare you?”

“I do fear you,” the girl said. “Not for your size, Jorg. For the threads that gather around you. For the lines that meet where I can’t see them. For the weight, and the knife-edge on which it sits.” She spoke in a sing-song, high and sweet.

“You make a fine oracle, girl,” I said. “You’ve got that mix of profound and empty just right.” I slammed my sword back into its sheath. “So, you’ve my name. Shall we share? Do the leucrota have names?”

“Jane,” she said. “And this is Gorgoth, a leader under the mountain.”

“Charmed.” I gave them a little bow. “Perhaps your friends could come out from behind the rocks, and that way my brothers won’t feel so tempted to shoot at shadows.”

Gorgoth set his cat’s eyes on me, a narrow and feral stare.

“Up!” His voice rolled out even deeper than I’d imagined, and I’d imagined it pretty deep.

Other monsters rose around our camp, some of them shockingly close. Had every gargoyle and grotesque torn free from the great cathedrals and gathered to form an army, the leucrota would be that army made flesh. No two stood alike. All had been sketched on the frame of a man, but with a poor hand. None were as huge and hale as Gorgoth. Most leaked from sores, sported withered limbs, or laboured beneath growths of wart and tumour heaped in foul confusion.

“Jesu, Gorgoth! Your friends make Little Rikey look almost handsome,” I said.

Makin came to join me, eyes screwed up against Jane’s light. He shaded his face with a hand and looked Gorgoth up and down.

“And this will be Sir Makin,” I said. “Knight of the court of King Olidan, terror of—”

“A man to trust.” Jane’s high voice cut across me. “If he gives you his word.”

She turned those silver orbs of hers on me and I felt my yesterdays crowding at my shoulder. “You want to go to the heart of the mountain,” she said.

“Yes.” I couldn’t deny that.

“You bring death, Prince of Ancrath,” she said.

Gorgoth growled at that. It sounded like rocks grinding together. The child put a glowing hand to his wrist. “Death if we agree, death if we resist.” She kept her eyes on me. “What have you to offer for passage?”

I had to admit she was good at her game. It wouldn’t go well for them if my plan worked, and it wouldn’t go well for them if they tried to stop us.

“I did bring a gift,” I said. “But if it proves not to your liking then I can make you some promises. I’ll have Sir Makin promise you too, and he’s a man of his word.” I smiled down at her. “When I saw this place on a map . . .” I paused and remembered the circumstances with a certain fondness.

“Sally . . .” the girl whispered, remembering the tavern with me.

That shocked me for a moment. I didn’t like the idea of this little girl in my head, opening doors, making childish judgment, shining her light in places that should be dark. Part of me wanted to cut her down, a large part of me.

I unclenched my jaw. “When I saw this gorge on my map, I thought to myself, ‘What a godforsaken spot.’ And that’s when it occurred to me what to bring for barter. I brought you God.” I turned and pointed to Father Gomst. “I’ve brought you salvation, the blessing of communion. I’ve brought you benediction, catechism . . . confession if you must. All the saving your ugly little souls can handle.”

Gomst let out a girlish scream and started to run. The Nuban caught a dark arm around his waist and hauled him up over one shoulder.

I expected Jane to answer, but Gorgoth made the deal.

“We will take the priest.” Something about his voice made my chest hurt. “We will guide you to the Great Stair. The necromancers will find you, though. You will not return.”

Some said that Red Kent had a black heart, and that might be true, but anyone who had seen him take out a six-strong foot patrol with hatchet and knife would tell you the man had an artist’s soul.