The air within the hut was warm and close, swirling with steam in the distant, flickering torchlight. Struggling to adjust his eyes and keep up with the others, Chel shouldered aside another thick hide hanging and stumbled into a wide, low space, warmer and brighter than the first, walled with earth-packed tree trunks. At the centre of the building lay a crackling fire-pit, the conical roof above it open to the slate-grey sky. Low tables ringed the fire, and one of them was well attended.
‘You’re late again, Lemon,’ Rennic called from the table. He held a clay cup in his hand and looked as cheerful as Chel had ever seen him. Foss, Whisper and Loveless sat around him. Their expressions blossomed with relief at the sight of the stragglers. ‘I’m going to have to dock your share at this rate. At least now we can start drinking properly.’
‘Stick it up your bollocks, boss,’ Lemon said with a delighted grin, striding over to the table. Tarfel bounded after her, beaming, while Chel dragged himself after them. Relief flooded him, but it didn’t wash away all of the unease. Anxiety lingered like a faithful hound.
He slumped down on the floor beside the others, feeling every jarring impact across his battered body. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said, the fire’s warmth prickling at his frozen fingers. ‘What are we doing here? What’s going on?’
Loveless cocked an eyebrow at him, then slid a clay cup across the table. ‘Shut up and have a drink, cub.’
‘What is it?’
‘Tea.’
Whatever was in the cup made his eyes water and tasted of burning.
‘That is not tea.’
‘They call it god-piss.’ She was smiling, and he smiled back.
‘That’s … a better name for it.’
He managed three more swallows before the warm floor claimed him, and he passed out beside the table on a pile of furs.
***
When he woke, the patch of sky above the fire-pit was black, but if anything the hall was warmer. Joints of meat sizzled on spits over the flames. Nanaki had joined them, sitting at the other tables around the fire, watching them with hard, indifferent eyes. Chel counted maybe a dozen of them, including the bone-woman who’d jabbed her spear at him. Not as many as he’d expected given the size and number of the huts. This couldn’t be all of them. The hall looked like it could seat three times that many and still offer generous elbow-room.
Tarfel lay at his back, snoring gently. Chel envied his peace.
‘Ah, our wolf-slayer is awake!’ Foss’s rich voice greeted him as he sat up with a wince. ‘Lemon claims you fashioned a siege engine from driftwood and crushed a dozen beasts.’
Chel looked at Lemon, who was sniggering behind her hand. Several empty clay cups lay on the table before them. ‘Something like that,’ he said, sliding off his boot to inspect the damage to his ankle. The wolf’s bite hadn’t broken the skin, but he had a sharp pattern of livid indentations as a reminder.
‘God’s balls, boy, but your feet reek.’ Rennic wasn’t looking at him, but the wave of his hand made his meaning clear. ‘Lemon, wash him up.’
Lemon made a ‘why me’ face but slid out from under the table and to her feet. ‘Come on, wee bear. There’s some hot water this way. Hottish, anyway.’
He took her extended hand and she pulled him upright. Despite, or perhaps because of, the nap, everything seemed to hurt more than before. His shoulder and cheek were in direct competition to throb the most. At his feet, Tarfel stirred and made to follow them. Rennic’s hand clamped around his shoulder, pinning him to the earth.
‘Not you, princeling. We need to keep you muddy, remember? The Nanaki have a ritual vendetta against the Horvaun, they will kill you on sight. We don’t want that, do we?’
Tarfel shook his head, watery eyes suddenly fearful, and settled back down against the furs. He was shivering, despite the fire’s warmth.
Lemon led Chel toward a wooden trench of water at the hall’s far wall, evidently the source of the steam that had permeated the atmosphere when they’d arrived. Murky lukewarm water lay within, large, fire-baked stones at its bottom. After days of little but half-melted snow as a cleanser, Chel wasn’t complaining.
‘See, they were coming back for us,’ Lemon said, unconcerned by his attention or lack thereof. ‘Nanaki found the others up at the pass, brought them downslope. Happens that friend Spider can pass a smattering of Nanaki lingo, managed to express to them that others in our party were left mountainward. They were on the way back up when we met them on our way down.’
Chel blinked. ‘And they’re friendly?’
She shrugged. ‘Looking traditional thus far, wee bear. Thus far.’
She helped him lever off his filthy clothes and shoulder-strapping, then waved away his feeble, one-armed washing attempts. She sponged his grimy torso and crusted wounds, holding his damaged arm gently out to the side. Chel was suddenly conscious of the intimacy of her actions, and the potential eyes of a dozen Nanaki and Rennic’s crew on them. Lemon seemed indifferent, and he tried to relax, stiffening only when her washcloth rode over his fresher traumas.
Lemon rinsed the cloth, then leaned in close to dab at the dried blood on his face. ‘When we saw the huts,’ she said, her tone conversational but voice low, ‘you got a look in your eye. Like a bunny looking to bolt. Put the wind right up me, you did, wee bear.’ Another rinse, another dab, her face inches from his own. ‘Mind conveying what got you so puffed?’
He said nothing, but she caught his glance. Spider sat at the table’s end, the far side from where Tarfel lay. For that at least, Chel was grateful. Spider looked cheerful and relaxed; Chel was not.
‘Aye, right, I see. Now what’s little old Spider done to you, wee bear?’
Chel averted his eyes, looking down at the pinking scar across his abdomen that Heali had left him. He pursed his lips, winced, then sighed. Lemon was the closest thing he had to a friend in his odd new life. But he had no way of knowing how deep her loyalties to the rest of the company ran.
‘That night in the trapper’s den,’ he said, his voice barely a murmur. ‘The night the Mawn … the Fly died.’ He concentrated on the earth by his feet, the patterns made by the splashes of grimy water. ‘We were out on the plateau, Prince Tarfel and me. Spider was going to take the prince away, leave the rest of you, claim the ransom for himself. The Fly was about to stab me when … when they shot her.’
He met Lemon’s gaze. Her eyes were pale, steady and serious. ‘He told me not to tell anyone. He said he’d kill me.’
She nodded, then made a show of stowing the cloth and cloaking him in a loose hide. ‘That was good advice, wee bear. I’d suggest you stick to it.’
He frowned, eyes questioning. ‘But—’
‘Listen, and close. You’re not dead yet, are you? Believe me, if the Spider chose to make you dead, you’d be dead, luck of the sand-flowers or no. At the moment, you’ve given him no reason to doubt you, eh? So keep it that way.’
‘But aren’t you—’
‘Hush it, bearling. No whispered chats, no sidelong looks, you understand. Give him nothing. From now on, you and friend Spider are, well, best of friends.’ She piled his clothes onto his extended arm. ‘Give him nothing. And maybe we’ll both still be breathing come the end of all things.’
With that, she strode away and back to the table. With the greatest effort, Chel wrenched his gaze away from the back of the shaven head that waited there.
***
A little later, cleaner but no less battered, Chel sat back down at the table with Rennic and the Black Hawk Company. He did not look at Spider. Whisper slid a wooden platter of food toward him, some of the roasted meat as well as what he guessed to be lake fish, some kind of root vegetable and local berries. He stared hard at the hunks of roasted meat, then shot Lemon a look.
Foss burst out laughing. ‘My friend, don’t tell me the orange one has filled your head with tales of Nanaki cannibalism?’
Chel said nothing, but his cheeks burned as the rest of the table joined in the laughter. From the number of empty cups and jugs, they’d enjoyed as much liquid refreshment as solid while he’d slept and washed. Even Whisper flashed him a grin, although she didn’t appear to be eating.
‘Shepherd’s piss-pot, boy, it’s goat,’ Rennic said, grabbing a chunk from the platter and taking a greasy bite. Still he didn’t look at him, and Chel wondered if he should take offence. His eyes flicked to Spider, then immediately away. Spider’s grin seemed no nastier than usual.
‘Don’t call me boy,’ he said, to himself if no one else, then helped himself to fish and vegetables.
‘Stroke of luck this, right, aye?’ Lemon was saying at the table’s far end. ‘Finding a welcoming Nanaki sept still kicking around this close to winter. Not to mention one of then turning up my pack.’ She patted the returned bundle at her feet.
‘Maybe our bear cub is lucky after all,’ Loveless said. Her speech was slurring, her eyes glassy. ‘Good for bear. Good for us.’
‘Luck or otherwise,’ Rennic said, ‘we can be grateful. We can leave in the morning, get below the snow-line before we meet the others.’
‘Others?’ Chel still had a mouthful of fish. It tasted of nothing.
Rennic turned to him at last. His eyes burned beneath his dark brows, although his gaze was fractured, its focus diluted by booze. ‘We’re to meet reinforcements. Spider sent a runner ahead. We’ll be back on track in a few days.’
A couple of the Nanaki had struck up some music, one strumming a gut-strung instrument of some description, the other tubbing along on a trio of small hide drums. The Nanaki he saw struck Chel as wrong for a family group. Where were the children, or the old people? The youngest members of the sept looked a year or two older than him, the eldest probably the spear-toting woman who now lurked at the back of the hall, watching over them with her flinty glare. Chel suspected she was no older than Rennic. He knew little of Nanaki society, but this lot barely scratched two generations, and seemed too few in number to occupy the complex of huts.
Nodding along to their inexpert rendition, Chel gave a mental shrug. Perhaps they’d sent the young and the old below the snow-line already and were intending to follow once the lake froze. It seemed extreme, but people did extreme things for family, didn’t they?
‘I’m saying it don’t matter how fancy you are, how much gold you got, you can’t escape the Spider.’
Chel’s attention snapped back to the table. Spider had a finger like a knife-blade on the table, gaze intent. For a moment, Chel thought he meant him.
Foss shook his head, lips pursed. ‘What about lords in their castles?’
‘Piece of piss. Up the walls, in through the bedchamber window, gheeeeooooooik.’ Spider drew the finger across his corded throat.
‘Come on, friend. Guards, sheer walls, moats. You can’t lay siege on your own.’
‘Fucker’s got to come outside some time, right?’
Whisper made a series of gestures, and Spider nodded. ‘’Xactly. Bowshot from a rooftop, fuck, use a crossbow if you’re a worthless shit-heap like Lemon—’
‘Hoy, fuck off!’
‘—put some wood and steel in the fucker’s head.’
Foss shook his head again. ‘I’ve seen men travel the road, armoured caravan, bodyguards pressed so close they couldn’t tell one fart from another. You’d have to be hell of a shot to squeeze one through there on a windy day.’
Whisper twiddled her fingers, and Foss nodded. ‘Present company excepted, my friend.’
Spider’s grin was more snarl than smile. ‘Where there’s a will.’ The grin deepened. ‘Plague beggar.’
Lemon blinked. ‘You what?’
‘Find some dying plague fucker, not too far gone o’ course, but riddled with white pox or black. Promise his family coin on the event of his passing – shit, if the mark’s that heavy, there should be plenty to spare. Then, your man shuffles through the crowd, unarmed and non-threatening, like, then coughs his plague guts over the mark. Sure, the guards will get him, but you’ll get your mark. Takes patience, but the deed’s done.’
Foss wrinkled his nose in distaste. ‘You don’t strike me as the patient type, Spider.’
‘You’d be surprised by what type I am, fat boy.’
‘And what about,’ Rennic’s voice, heavy with alcohol, carried over the table, ‘if your target never leaves his citadel, uses loyal proxies for field-work, and has a network of spies and informers watching for any hint of plot against him? Not to mention a private army of fanatical foot soldiers, all in the service of our good Shepherd.’
Tarfel’s bloodied brow was creased. ‘You’re talking about Primarch Vassad?’
Rennic swung his glare at the prince. ‘Am I? You tell me, princeling.’
‘Easy,’ Spider said, voice raised and dark eyes fixed on Rennic. ‘Hunt and kill the proxies. Hunt and kill the figureheads. Stick to the shadows. Get something they want. Draw them out. And trust no one.’ He sat back. ‘Every fucker’s got to come out eventually. And when they do, the Spider is ready.’
Loveless was leaning on one hand, eyes half-closed. ‘You do think a lot of yourself, don’t you, Spider?’
‘I’ve brought down fucking kingdoms, me,’ Spider hissed, nostrils flared. ‘You fuckers have no idea who I am. Especially you, Beaky.’ He pushed himself to his feet and strode away.
Loveless chuckled. ‘Now that’s true enough. That terrible prick could be anyone. If that’s all the talking done …’ She moved to stand, one hand on the table to steady herself. ‘It’s time to move on to the entertainment.’
She turned to the two Nanaki working at the instruments, offering a dazzling smile. ‘Boys, got any dancing music?’ They stopped playing and gave her a blank look, unsure but eager. Chel felt his jaw clench when he saw how they looked at her, perhaps seeing his own desires made flesh. She sighed at their incomprehension and turned back to the table.
‘Which of you hapless bastards fancies banging out a tune? I need to dance.’
Foss put up his hands in apology, and Whisper shook her head with a smile. Rennic didn’t even acknowledge the question. ‘More of a percussive specialist, me,’ Lemon said. ‘Not one for plucking.’
Loveless twisted her mouth in mock-disappointment. ‘And I could really use a good plucker.’
Chel clenched his jaw, feeling hot under his damp clothes. Even with two good arms he’d have had nothing musical to offer.
Tarfel coughed, a small sound among the hubbub. ‘I can play,’ he said.
They turned to him, Loveless tilting her head to one side, lips parted in excitement. ‘That right, princeling? You can be my plucker?’
Tarfel peered past her, ignoring the pendulous innuendo, to look at the gut-strung flat-box across the Nanaki’s knees. ‘I could have a go. I’ve had a bit of training.’
‘He’s hattended the Hacademy!’ Lemon called, then belched. ‘Pardon.’
Loveless marched to the prince, hauled him upright, then led him across the hall to the musicians. Despite her evident inebriation, she moved with confidence, without lurch or stagger. She pointed at the string-player, then jerked her thumb aside. ‘Move it, handsome.’
Baffled but keen to please, the Nanaki stood and proffered the instrument to Loveless. She stepped aside, and Tarfel emerged from her shadow to take the Nanaki’s place. He sat down cross-legged, settling the instrument across his knees, then ran his finger over the strings. The hall fell silent, as all eyes, Nanaki and other, turned to see what the hooded, blood- and dirt-covered stranger would do.
The exception was Spider, who stood in one corner, bare-armed with his back to the rest of the room, in low conversation with two of the younger Nanaki women. When one turned to see what had drawn her companions’ attention, Spider reached out a hand to her chin and turned her head back toward him. His touch was gentle, but the message was as clear as it was menacing. Chel broke his gaze away before Spider saw him. Lemon’s words loomed large in his mind.
Tarfel struck up, his first tentative plucks becoming a rudimentary melody. It wasn’t one Chel recognized, although its basic tune sounded like a child’s song, or perhaps the under-theme of a church rondel. The prince hit a fair few duff notes as he began, learning the instrument’s tone as he went, matching his expectations to its sound, and without any clear moment of change, he began playing with two hands, plucking with one and strumming with the other. The music changed with his playing, acquiring a texture and pace, its initial melody now sure and strong, played with urgency and variation.
‘I’ll be a feathered shitehawk,’ Lemon said. ‘Yon princey’s a minstrel!’
Rennic glowered. ‘I hate fucking minstrels.’
‘Then you should probably take a break from it,’ Lemon said, then fell sideways in giggles.
Rennic spat on the earth and stood. ‘I’m going for a piss.’
Loveless was grinning, swaying in time to the tempo. ‘Now this is more like it! Whisp, old girl, take those drums off this young man so I can dance with him!’ She twirled her hands, beckoning to the two former musicians.
With a smile and a roll of her eyes, Whisper stood on lean legs and picked her way over to the drummer. He handed over the little drums without protest, anxious to join his fellow as he approached Loveless for the dance, and a moment later Whisper was seated beside the prince, slapping at the drums in supporting beat, enriching here and there with a flourish of fingers.
Loveless danced with her eyes closed. Chel watched, fascinated and ashamed, absorbed in the poise of her movements, even after three flagons of Nanaki god-piss. The two young Nanaki, lean and muscled and overpoweringly masculine, moved in close to her, attempting to match or mirror her movements. Their competition was obvious, and Chel hated them. Loveless, on the other hand, half opened her eyes, smiling at each in turn. She never once missed a step, even as Tarfel and Whisper upped the tempo.
Lemon poured more spirit into their cups, although Foss shook his head. Several brimming jugs remained. ‘Grandfather’s withered ball-sack, that girl would fuck a fencepost if you drew a cock on it.’
Chel’s voice was louder than he’d intended. ‘You think?’
Lemon paused, placing the jug back down on the table with the over-precision of the steaming drunk.
‘Am I right in thinking,’ she said, ‘that you’re after a tumble, wee bear?’
Chel said nothing. His mouth no longer worked. He could feel blood pounding against the new skin of his lip.
Lemon leaned forward, pushing her face close to his. ‘Weeell, I’m game if you are. Shall we go? Reckon most of the outer huts are empty, if a little chilly on the arse.’
He stared at her, sweat at his back, panic churning his innards. He stared at her square, freckled face, her squarish, upturned nose, her wide, round, blue-green eyes, her pursed, cheeky lips. He’d never really thought of her in terms of attraction, but when he took a moment to—
She burst out laughing. ‘Aye, right, thought not!’ She chuckled to herself, then her expression softened as she looked back to where Loveless danced, swarmed by the Nanaki men. ‘Don’t fret, wee bear, you’d not be the first to be drawn, like … like …’
‘Moths to flame,’ Foss said from across the table, his tone sombre.
‘Flies to shite, more like. Anyroad, you should count yourself lucky – you’re not really her cut of cloth.’
Chel bristled. ‘And what’s that?’
‘Aye, you know. Young, dumb, full of c—’
Foss cleared his throat.
‘Pretty,’ Lemon finished, eyes glassy. ‘Still, take heart. Two out of three ain’t bad.’
Chel frowned. ‘Are you saying I’m stupid? Or that I’m ugly?’
Lemon and Foss merely grinned at each other.
‘Sod off, the pair of you.’ He forced himself to his feet with his good hand. His legs had begun to ache more than ever in his brief rest. ‘I’m going for a piss, too.’
‘Don’t piss on the boss,’ Lemon said as he turned to stagger away.
‘Or crush any wolves,’ Foss said. Chel waved a hand at them in irritation.
‘Hey, bear, seriously,’ Lemon said, the mockery dropped from her tone, and he turned back toward them, feeling every thump of his pulse around his battered body.
‘What?’
‘She’d break you in half.’
‘Oh, shut up, Lemon.’
‘No!’
He limped away, feeling a strange mixture of embarrassment and pride. For the first time in months, maybe longer, he felt like he had friends.
***
As Chel hobbled around the dance floor’s edge, Tarfel finished the piece with a flourish, then looked up from his cowl with a breathless grin. Beside him, Whisper gave the prince’s playing an approving nod. Chel diverted, limping over to them.
‘You know, Chel,’ the prince said, wiping the sweat that beaded on his bloodied brow with the back of one hand, ‘it’s really quite a sophisticated instrument, all things considered. You know, for savages.’
His forehead was streaked copper in the firelight, his pale skin showing through muddy. With an apologetic grimace, Chel reached out and tweaked the prince’s cowl forward. ‘Best be careful, highness. Vendettas and all that.’
Tarfel blinked, then nodded. He’d evidently enjoyed some of the Nanaki spirit too. ‘Right you are, Chel, right you are.’
‘You play very well, highness.’
Tarfel bit at his lip. ‘It was one of my mother’s great passions. She used to play all the time in her tower, or so I’m told. She died birthing me – did you know that, Chel? I suppose most people do. Not many musicians in the family though, on Father’s side at least. Mendel played a bit here and there, but since Corvel … Well, I’ve not seen him pick up an instrument. We used to be so close, you know, the two of us, Mendel and me. Corvel was always off learning, training in matters of state. No time to play with little brothers, quite understandable of course. But Mendel, he had time, we did everything together …’
Tarfel tailed off, his eyes suddenly tearful. Chel stood awkwardly before him, his need to urinate increasingly urgent, unable to interrupt the emotional prince, watching with a mixture of genuine sympathy and extreme discomfort. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we, Chel? You’re my sworn man, I shouldn’t be addressing you by your family name all the time. You may not have a title, but you need a better address.’
‘Er, Vedren, highness?’
‘Vedren? Vedren … Vedren it is. Thank you, Vedren.’
‘Thank you, highness.’
A hand on Chel’s good shoulder shoved him sideways, and Loveless’s face jutted past him. ‘Hoy, golden boy! Less yap, more slap, yes?’ She was sheened in sweat, the blue crest of hair plastered to one side of her head, and her eyes had the faraway look of a poppy-fiend. Chel shivered at her proximity.
Alarmed, Tarfel nodded, then set his hands back on the gut strings and began to play. ‘Faster!’ Loveless cried, and as Whisper joined his accelerating melody with a syncopated beat, Loveless gave a roar of approval and slapped Chel across the buttocks, then slid back to her waiting dance partners, eager to resume their barely disguised mating ritual.
Dazed, Chel watched her go. His eye caught Foss and Lemon sitting at their table beyond the improvised dance floor, grins wider than ever. Foss raised his cup and winked.
***
Chel was reaching for the hide when it swung aside and Rennic ducked back into the hall. He noticed Chel and his outstretched hand and grunted, letting the hide fall closed behind him. Chel stood, uncertain, throat dry and conscious of his overfull bladder.
‘Lemon,’ Rennic said, then paused. His voice was rough as shale. ‘Lemon says you kept them alive out there.’
Chel said nothing.
Rennic sniffed. ‘Keep it up. Better you don’t make a fool of me.’ He moved to push past.
‘Wait,’ Chel said, almost putting his hand on the bigger man before reconsidering. Rennic’s stare was colder than the lake ice. ‘Why did you bring me, when you took the prince? Why am I here?’
Rennic was silent for a moment, rocking on his heels. It occurred to Chel that there was a good chance he was utterly drunk. At length he put his hand on Chel’s good shoulder and leaned in. He smelled of sweat, leather and raw booze.
‘What you’re looking for,’ he rasped, ‘is out there.’ He pointed through the hide. Chel followed his gesture, frowning with concentration. ‘Follow the tracks to the line of trees, you’ll know it by the smell.’ He barked a laugh and clapped Chel on the wrong shoulder. ‘Go write your name in the snow, boy.’
Then he was past, thumping across the earthen floor toward the others. Chel winced and rubbed his throbbing shoulder, then shoved his way through the hide.
The darkness beyond was familiar if momentarily drowning. Chel stood, breathing hard in the sudden cold, waiting to see the vapour form before his eyes. One hand on the coarse timber wall, he made his unsteady way toward the glimmering patch of moonlight at the end of the passage. As he neared it, voices reached him, so close he nearly gasped.
It took him a moment to parse what he heard, unsure of the language or speakers. A man’s voice, low, indistinct, its tone merry if insistent. A woman’s tinkling laugh, then a word spoken slowly, its enunciation heavy, unfamiliar, foreign.
‘Smoi-daa?’
The man’s voice again, the word repeated in low tones.
‘Spoi-daa?’
Spider. Chel gritted his teeth. ‘Shit.’ He began to back away, back down the passageway. There was another door on the other side. The voices followed him as he went, each of his halting steps as delicate and muffled as he could make it.
‘Fur-loi? Somo Fur-loi?’
Chel heard it then, Spider’s throaty chuckle, his voice clear in the bitter night. ‘Yes, darlin’. You can be my Fly.’
Chel limped faster.