They trekked onward, winding through coarse red rock and dense moss-green forest toward the pass. When Chel’s strength failed, Foss and Lemon propped him up and helped him on. When Tarfel collapsed, exhausted, Foss slung him over his shoulder like Chel’s supply sack and continued his climb. By the middle of the third day, Chel saw the brilliant snow-carpeted peaks looming above, cloaked in drifting wisps of cloud. The air around them was chill and thin and worries of a frozen death from exposure superseded fear of their unseen pursuers.
Rennic drove them on at a brutal pace, his belief unwavering that the aggressors who had torched the barge were mere hours behind them. Every cracked twig became an assassin’s approach, every distant howl the advance of a hunting dog. Eventually, Chel tired of the constant tension, fatigue numbing his panic away. He could only be on edge for so long, and if they were caught, well, he’d either survive or he wouldn’t. The most bothersome thing about dying, he’d decided, was that his family would never know that he had, let alone where.
They came to a halt in the lee of a sheer rock face, pitted and weathered by the ages. The escarpment continued a few hundred strides in each direction, and above it lay a snow-covered plateau. By the time Chel and Tarfel brought their aching forms level with the others, Rennic was already in conference with Foss, Loveless and the silent woman, Whisper. Various gestures were made toward the summit of the cliff, and nods exchanged.
‘Spider!’
The ever-snarling man strode over, leaving his vacant companion sitting with her back to a boulder. Spider himself looked none too pleased by their surroundings and climate. He was wearing sleeves for the first time since Chel had met him.
‘Up there. See it?’
He nodded. Rennic handed him a thick bundle of rope.
‘Then away you go.’
Spider bared his teeth, then threw the coiled rope over his shoulder. He took a step back from the rock face, surveying it for a moment, then sprang up and forward, arms extended. He caught on a prominent chunk of rock with both hands, his feet moving up the rock face alongside his body, then he swung over and up with one extended hand, lodging in some near-invisible hold. Another extension and draw, and he was ten feet above them. He moved with extraordinary speed and power, his movements precise, and made no show of exertion or discomfort on the frigid, brittle rock.
Loveless saw Chel’s gaze. ‘Told you, cub. It’s all in the names.’
***
‘What is this place?’ Chel surveyed the bare interior of the dwelling, running his good hand around his battered midriff after being hauled up on the rope. Behind him, Foss and Rennic were pulling up Tarfel while Lemon bellowed encouragement from below. Spider and the Fly were already in the next chamber, from the sound of things enjoying more of their seed pods. He had no idea where Whisper was.
‘Trapper’s hut, probably,’ Loveless said, stacking their supplies against the bare stone of the mountain that composed one wall. ‘This is a popular route. Good lookout spot, but not much for defence.’ She peered through a gap in the logs laid on the plateau side. ‘Keep the weather off, give you a good view for hunting downslope in the summer, but that’s about it.’
A shrieking mass of Tarfel was slung in from the cliff-side.
‘Bit big for a hut,’ Chel said, conscious of his proximity to Loveless. He tried not to look at her too much. He found himself all too readily mesmerized by her looks.
‘Maybe the local lord liked to bring a party up here, stick some bolts in passing wildlife from relative safety. Maybe the trapper had a good buyer for his pelts and a bit of coin to spend on his hide. I’m not here to explain the world to you, cub.’
‘But how did you know it was here?’
‘Easy to spot from below, but hard to get to; easy to get to from above, but hard to spot. Occasionally there’s an upside to having Rennic’s friend Spider along after all, it seems.’
Lemon, Rennic and Foss stomped in from outside, kicking snow from their boots. ‘Aye, right,’ said Lemon, rubbing her hands together, ‘let’s get a fucken fire on and warm this place up, eh?’
‘No fire.’ Rennic’s voice was hard, but his tone softened when Lemon threw up her hands in outrage. ‘You know what could be out there. We can’t take the chance. Let’s be grateful for shelter for a night, and the fact this place is stuffed with pelts. I’m sure they can spare a few for a band of needy travellers.’
Thick furs, grey and brown, were dug out and distributed. Watches were set, dressings changed. Chel and the prince were sent to the second room and buried under warm animal skin, where they slept like the dead.
***
Loveless leaned back against the barge’s rail, eyes closed, her face golden in the warm sun. He stepped closer, chest curdling with anticipation.
‘Who are you talking to?’
She smiled, eyes still closed. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
He took another step, and he could see beyond her, over the battlements. Beneath them, the lowport burned orange, great plumes of black smoke choking the sky.
She was next to him, close, too close.
‘I’m sorry, my boy,’ she said, and he felt his feet slipping on the rough stone. ‘It’s a shame, truly.’
‘Why?’ he said, as Heali towered over him, a long knife gleaming in his hand.
‘Who needs a one-armed Andriz?’
He couldn’t move, both arms strapped against his body. He was tipping backward, feet stuck, but Heali’s outstretched hand closed toward his face. Bright yellow flames rolled over the arm, and Heali’s body fluttered with glowing, smokeless fire.
‘You were supposed to be lucky.’
The hand covered his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his face. Everything was black, and the flames burned cold, so cold. He tried to struggle, but he was bound tight, and crushed, he fell.
***
A freezing hand was clamped over his mouth, another pressed against his bandaged shoulder. Chel’s eyes snapped open to find the Fly’s wide black eyes looking back, her face bathed in the slats of silvery moonlight that penetrated the hut’s timber. Still sluggish and addled from his dream, he simply stared at her, immobile. She raised one finger to her lips and nodded to her right. There in the darkness, Spider crouched, his breath fogging in little clouds. He was not smiling.
Chel felt suddenly very cold.
The Fly clambered over with a light touch, to where Tarfel lay snoring beside him in a relative mountain of furs. Through bleary eyes he watched her wake the prince the same way she’d woken him, straddled with her cold, cold fingers over his mouth. Spider watched from the corner, silent and still.
Once both were awake and wrapped in covering furs against the frigid night, the Fly led them to the far corner of the hut, where the open doorway led to the crisp expanse of snowy plateau, gleaming silver and bright in moonlight, dotted with dark boulders. Spider followed behind them, his very presence an unspoken threat. Tarfel didn’t even try to speak.
‘Time to get you out of here, your highness,’ the Fly said to the prince, her voice low and rasping. Chel wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her speak before.
Tarfel looked baffled, bordering on panicked. ‘What? Now?’
‘You’re off to be ransomed.’
‘Oh. Jolly good, then. Ah, the others?’
‘We’re the advance party. They’ll catch up.’
Chel looked past them to the snow-draped plateau. It looked wide, open and freezing. ‘But—’
Spider put a hand on his arm, the grip too tight to be friendly. ‘Cram it, rat-bear. You’re not here to talk or think. Just do as you’re told like a good little servant.’
Three packs were already waiting by the door. This had been planned. Chel wondered if Spider and the Fly were supposed to be on watch, and whether the rest of Rennic’s band lay sleeping, oblivious, in the first chamber. He wondered what would happen when the hawk-faced man discovered them gone.
Spider and the Fly shouldered two of the packs, then levered the third onto the prince’s back. Chel looked around for his sack, but the Fly shook her head. ‘We’ll be moving fast. Now, outside.’
A moment later they stood a few paces beyond the door, in the shadow of a large boulder, shivering beneath their furs, their breath almost frozen in the air. The trapper’s hut was a rising bump in the snowscape behind them, nestled under several feet of snow; their exit was a dark rectangle in the pure white. The escarpment dropped away a few strides beyond them, a hard line in the silver moonlight.
‘Your pack is twisted. Here, let me give you a hand, highness,’ Spider said as he moved behind Tarfel, steering the muddled, compliant prince around so he faced the boulder and Spider could access the pack in question. Chel watched them from a few paces away, his good arm rubbing his body over the furs in a futile attempt to warm himself. The dream lingered like the cold in his bones.
He turned at the creak and crump of the snow crust beside him. The Fly was at his shoulder, her eyes on the glittering plateau and the creased upright terrain beyond it.
‘Where are we going?’ he said.
She didn’t respond. Instead, she turned to face him, stepping in close as she did so.
Close, too close.
Who needs a one-armed Andriz?
Without thinking, he shoved her away with his good hand. She stumbled backward, feet catching in the deep snow, the trapper’s skinning knife in her hand flashing bright in the moonlight and her pack flapping from her shoulder. She hit the snow with a whump and a muffled curse, a few paces out from the shadow of the boulder, a blot on the gleaming snow. Chel heard Spider grunt in surprise behind him, and he realized he was trapped between them, one-handed and unarmed. The Fly began to climb back to her feet.
Something whistled through the air, swishing through the night’s stillness. The Fly staggered and dropped back to her knees with a gasp. Another whistle followed, and something connected with the Fly’s hunched form with a fleshy thud. This time she cried out, a screech of shock and pain. The snow beside her splattered dark.
It’s Whisper, Chel thought, transfixed, his tongue electric in his mouth. She’s rescuing me, just like on the barge. Another arrow flashed past, out from the plateau’s far side. It glanced off the boulder beside him and slapped into the snow at his feet. Its shaft was pale, its fletching bright. These were not the same arrows as he’d seen on the barge. These were not Whisper’s arrows.
‘Inside!’ Spider grabbed his shoulder and dragged Chel and the prince back toward the hut. Spider hurled them inside then ducked under the door, slinging his pack into a corner and crouching beside them. ‘Not a word,’ he hissed. ‘Not a fucking word, or you’re cut in your sleep, fuck the ransom.’
Tarfel nodded, mute, while Chel lay flat on his back, staring out at the plateau. The Fly was a dark mound against the pure whiteness, a shadow flooding the snow around her, its white crust staining black.
Spider bounded for the first chamber, bellowing of ambush and attack, without a backward look. His erstwhile partner lay curled out on the plateau, her low, haunting moans the only thing Chel could hear. She sounded like a dying animal, keening and growling and gurgling. He watched, horrified, wondering all the while if he was responsible, if he should have done something different. But then, she had been about to stab him …
Another arrow flashed through the night, slamming into the Fly’s twitching form. She cried again, less in rage and more in pleading. The next arrow quivered as it drove into her side.
‘Stop! Leave her alone!’ He was at the door, screaming into the night. Only the biting chill at his cheeks told him he was crying. An answering arrow skimmed the boulder in a flash of sparks, then disappeared into the deep snow on the hut’s roof.
‘The fuck are you doing?’ Lemon was behind him, her arms around his shaking form, hauling him back from the doorway. ‘Don’t give them anything else to aim at, you bellend!’
She pulled him back into the hut and toward the first chamber. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Fly. She was crawling, arms outstretched, dragging herself back toward her pack and the boulder, the snow around her now a black mass. Another arrow hit her just before he was dragged out of sight, and he heard her cry.
‘Spiiii-deerrrr …’
The first chamber was chaotic but warmer, lit by a solitary candle in Foss’s bulky hand. Tarfel was already there, huddled against the wall, trying to cloak himself in a mountain of furs. The mercenaries were in varying states of readiness, from Spider and Foss, fully dressed, weapons in hand, to Rennic and Loveless, who were half-naked, rising from the same fur-bed in the opposite corner. Chel barely processed their shared bedding, but he felt something hot lurch in his chest. Nobody else seemed to notice or remark on it, and there were more pressing concerns.
Behind him, Lemon was buckling straps and rummaging in a bag of what sounded like iron bars. ‘Where’s Whisper?’ he said, his voice cracked.
‘Probably out scouting the path ahead. Usually is.’
‘Doesn’t she sleep?’
Lemon stopped, then withdrew a long, slim hammer with a hooked bill from her bag. ‘Her? Not often.’ She offered a mirthless grin. ‘Didn’t you hear? Sleep’s the curse of the young, wee bear.’
Rennic’s clothes and boots were on, his face dark and furious in the candlelight. He fixed Spider with a glare. ‘What do we know?’
Spider grimaced, his teeth long. ‘Fly’s down. Out on the plateau. Archers, short-bow. Half a dozen, top tier.’ He crunched his teeth together. ‘Sadistic fucks.’
Rennic and Foss exchanged glances. ‘Sounds like our Mawn friends from Sebemir. Hot fuck, they’re tenacious.’
A low, bestial howl split the night. Chel shivered, and Foss made the sign of the crook and muttered prayers. Rennic sucked air through his teeth and looked back to Spider. ‘Can we reach her?’
Every muscle in his body rigid, Spider shook his head.
‘What in nine hells was she doing that far out on the plateau?’
Spider’s gaze sought Chel, pinned him to the log wall.
‘Just taking a piss.’
The gaze dared him to disagree. Chel kept silent.
Rennic growled. ‘Grab gear. We probably have a moment or two before those pricks tire of their game and start thinking about burning us out. The snow won’t hold them long.’
Something hissed on the roof, and thick drops of water throbbed past the gaps in the log wall. ‘Fucken hells!’ Lemon shouted.
Loveless was by the entrance, urging them out. ‘Away we go, boys and girls, right now. Grab your packs and sacks, back down the rope before we’re roasted meat.’
Chel stumbled back into the second chamber, eyes fixed on his supply sack by his discarded fur pile. As his hand closed around it, his resolve failed, and he looked out through the doorway into the frigid night.
The Fly lay still, a dozen arrows jutting from her body like pins in a cushion, pale steam rising from the snow around her. He stared at her for too long, blinking freezing tears. She and Spider were going to kill him. The knife had been in her hand. He had only pushed her. But still it felt wrong. Still he felt culpable.
You were supposed to be lucky.
Another thump on the roof was followed by a familiar hiss. Chel shouldered the sack and fled from the room.
***
It happened fast. Rennic and Loveless went first, whizzing down the rope out of sight before Lemon grabbed the prince and wrapped herself around him and the rope. Then they too were gone, and Foss stooped to sling Chel over his shoulder before they made the drop. The night air bit again, the wind harsh along the escarpment’s sheer face, and as they descended Chel looked back and up at the hatch. Spider stood framed in it, his gaze fixed on Chel, eyes burning with hate and a long knife in his hand. For a moment Chel thought he might cut the rope while they were still on it, but instead he watched them all the way down. Then the rope dropped, and Spider, now lost in the darkness above, began to clamber down the rock face.
Whisper met them at the bottom. She and Rennic traded hand signals for low words in the moonlight, and she pointed out two bodies behind one of the scattered boulders along the trail, one stuck with the broken shaft of a dark arrow.
Chel flexed his toes in his freezing boots, willing the feeling back into them. He felt groggy and lightheaded, and overcome with melancholy. ‘What now?’ he said to Foss.
‘Now, my friend, we run.’