They were three days below the snow-line, tracking the path of a white-frothing river, when they saw the riders coming the other way. Four figures on horseback, another on foot, leading a train of well-laden ponies, picking their way up the hard-packed slope. Whisper signalled and the crew spread across the gritty landscape, ducking behind bleached crags and boulders. Foss and Lemon took their customary positions around Chel and the sullen prince, pushed below an outcrop toward the back of the group.
There they lay in tense and uncomfortable silence, listening for the echoing crunch of hooves on loosened stone, hearing only the whine of the wind through the narrow valley, the rolling whisper of the scrubby trees. From his vantage, pressed against the dusty ground, Chel could see Rennic in one direction, crouched and ready at the trail’s edge, his thick black hair tied back from his eyes; in the other direction lay Loveless, her sword still sheathed but her fingers flexing on its fine hilt.
The sounds of horse were ever louder. The riders were nearly on them.
‘River of shit, you call this an ambush?’
The voice came from behind them. Chel spun over, feeling the dull protest of his still-weak shoulder, to see a tall, muscular figure standing upslope, silhouetted by the dim midday sun. He struck a casual pose, a long, bladed spear resting across his shoulders, his arms dangling over its shaft.
‘How the fucken—’ Lemon was scrabbling to her feet, grabbing for handfuls of ironmongery, as Foss rose beside her like a wave. The new man took two lithe steps down the slope, swivelling and bumping the butt of his spear into Lemon’s chest as she tried to stand. She thumped back down against the rock, almost crushing Tarfel.
‘Arsehole!’
‘Simmer down, orange midget.’
Foss took a step toward him, his arms spread wide, and the man ducked and reversed his spear, sweeping the blade around in a wide arc that stopped an inch from Foss’s bearded chin. ‘Same for you, man-mountain, unless you’d rather end the day a foot shorter.’
Foss remained immobile, neither advancing nor flinching, but the wide whites of his eyes told their own story. Chel pushed himself up on his elbows, squinting against the sun’s hazy glare.
‘That’s enough, Dalim.’
The woman’s voice carried up from the trail, and Chel poked his head over the outcrop to see that the horses had reached them. One of the four was riderless, presumably that of the man above them. The lead rider, the speaker, was a grave-faced woman close to Rennic’s age, great streaks of white braided into her thick, dark hair. Mail glinted beneath her riding leathers, and a curved sword was strapped at her saddle. ‘You’ve made your point.’
Dalim waited a moment longer, then swung the spear around. He twirled it around his arm then across his back, before grounding it at his feet with a flourish.
‘Prick,’ Lemon said, rising to her feet with a short axe in her hand.
‘Stand down, Lemon.’ It was Rennic, who had emerged from his position and was approaching the riders with no great concern. Spider was two steps ahead of him.
Dalim smirked as he made his unhurried way back toward the horses. ‘Lemon? What a perfect name for something sour and pissy.’
‘I will eat your fucken guts, pal!’
‘Lemon!’
Dalim was already past them, striding easily toward where Rennic and Spider were converging on the lead rider. He was lean and handsome, his dark hair short and braided tight. He spread his arms wide as he approached, spear gleaming in the dull light. ‘The Spider of Karvik, and … is that … Gar Rennic, as I live and breathe! Spear of the South! The Eastern Eagle! I thought you’d be off waging some doomed rebellion down in the plague-lands.’
‘And I thought you’d be face-down in a ditch somewhere, Dalim, fucked inside-out by passing boar. Life is full of disappointments.’
Dalim’s smirk faltered a little at that, then recovered when he saw Loveless emerging from the rocks on the far side. ‘And what is this gorgeous creature that dazzles my humble eyes? My darling, you must crave the company of a real man, after your travels with this bunch of festering shit-balls.’
She didn’t even look at him as she walked past. ‘Piss off, Dalim. You stink like a hen-house rapist.’
His mouth pressed tight, muscles pulsing at the corners of his square jaw. He looked about to respond when the lead rider spoke.
‘This is not what was agreed. Your messages have been nonsensical, but we expected you in Kurtemir.’ Her voice was calm, serious, her face grave. ‘I am pleased we have located you, but you must understand our confusion. You may deliver your full report once we are off this slope, but I expect some manner of explanation.’
She was addressing Spider and Rennic both, but Spider stepped to one side. ‘Old Beaky can fill you in, Palo.’
Rennic was leaning on his splintered staff. ‘We have something for you, Palo. The messages didn’t lie.’
‘Enough to warrant the dereliction of your contract?’
‘You can judge that for yourself. Princeling, get over here!’
Tarfel appeared, half dragged into view by Foss. He looked sullen, petulant, and was still not speaking to Chel after the horrors of the Nanaki outcasts.
‘Shepherd’s shit-stack,’ Dalim said, eyes wide. ‘Is that one of Lubel’s spawn?’
Palo, the lead rider, stared hard at Tarfel. ‘Young man, what is your name?’
Tarfel stared at the ground, pouting. After weeks on the road, he’d changed from the doughy, pale thing that Chel had first seen at Denirnas. His paunch had gone, devoured by hard rations and daily exertion, and exposure to the sun had darkened his pasty skin and lightened his hair. He was still a slumped, stunted thing, but it was no longer so impossible to believe that he could be related to the dashing, handsome, damaged Prince Mendel. Still, since Chel had refused his command to escape, he had retreated to a permanent sulk for the duration of their descent.
‘Tell her your name, princeling.’
‘Tarfel.’
‘Your full fucking name, or so help me I will slap a chin onto you.’
‘Tarfel Merimonsun! Tarfel Merimonsun, called Tarfel the Young, Prince of Vistirlar, third heir to Great King Lubel the First, himself called Lubel the Joiner, son of Akko the F—’
‘Thank you, your highness, that is enough.’ Palo gazed down at Tarfel from her mount with eyes that were neither warm nor unkind. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Ayla Palo.’
‘Never heard of you,’ Tarfel muttered toward the rocky ground.
Rennic’s hand went back, but Palo stilled him with a gesture. ‘I look forward to conversing with you further on our return. For now, we should be away and off this mountainside before we encounter anything untoward.’
Dalim whistled, appraising Tarfel. ‘Expected the runt to be fatter.’
‘Shepherd’s crotch, Dalim,’ Loveless called, ‘he’s not one of your cock-piglets.’
‘Palo, wait,’ Rennic said. He was staring at the horseless member of the new arrivals, a slender type in travelling furs, half-obscured by Palo’s horse. ‘Is that our runner?’
Palo nodded. The figure took a step forward, revealing a clean-cheeked Nanaki, barely more than a youth: the runner that Spider had dispatched before affairs at the lake had escalated. Chel blinked. Until that point, he’d given no thought to how the riders had found them.
‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Surprised he went ahead at all. Given, you know …’
Beside him, Lemon shrugged. ‘Mayhap friend Spider is more persuasive than we credit.’
Rennic looked to Palo for assent, then approached the boy. ‘Do you understand me?’
The Nanaki returned a slow nod, his face pinched in effort. Rennic puffed air from his nose. ‘You beat my best guess by half a day.’ Rennic reached out and spilled a jangle of small coins into the delighted Nanaki’s cupped hands. ‘Now here’s where we part ways. You’ll want to get back to your people.’
Chel frowned. It seemed hardly fair to send the boy back into the mountains when Rennic knew full well the rest of his sept were burned to ash. He looked to Lemon, but she’d turned her head away. Foss had found a patch of loose grey dirt that warranted close inspection. A cold feeling began to grow in Chel’s gut.
Rennic clapped the youth across the shoulders, steering him up the trail and away from the horses. ‘Your god go with you,’ he said.
The arm around the Nanaki’s shoulders swivelled and clamped over his mouth, and as the boy’s eyes went wide two quick cuts at his neck opened his arteries. Rennic held him tight as he thrashed and kicked, his movements spasmodic and desperate. His eyes flicked and darted, unable to see what had happened even as hot life drained from him. At last, his frantic gaze fixed on Chel, locking him with a silent plea. Chel could not break away, feeling every thudding heartbeat against his ears with conspirator’s guilt. It took him a good few breaths to realize that the boy’s eyes were glassy, his movements stilled.
It was not the first time Chel had seen someone die, but it was the first time he’d stared into their eyes as they did so. The cold in his gut had become a leaden nausea, a thick, heavy thing that blistered like a bog, sending tendrils of bile up the back of his throat, teasing him to gag. Sweat coated his skin.
‘Aye, fuck, man,’ Lemon said.
‘What the fuck did he do that for?’ Chel’s throat was thick, his voice cracked.
Foss stirred. ‘You know the tale of Murendi the Righteous?’
Chel nodded, his mouth tight. ‘Yeah, survived the murder of her clan by bandits, grew up, trained in the desert, took her revenge years later …’
The big man nodded. His deep eyes were sad. ‘Can’t risk another Murendi.’
‘But we’re not bandits!’
Foss sighed, his hands instinctively making the sign of the crook. ‘I’m sure that would depend on who you ask.’
Rennic released the boy, and his lifeless body slumped to the rocky ground and rolled off the trail. Rennic wiped his knife and turned to walk away. Spider knelt over the corpse for a moment, then stood with a jingle as he pocketed the coins.
Rennic turned back. ‘The fuck are you doing, animal?’
‘Get fucked, Beaky. Weren’t me who dumped coin on him then opened him to the winds.’
Chel wiped the clammy sheen from his brow with his weak hand. ‘We should bury him.’ His voice was trembling at the edges, but he hoped it wasn’t enough to show. ‘We can’t leave him out like this.’
Lemon cleared her throat. ‘Aye, right, but generally, like, the hunting types are more into burning than burying. Less for the animals to dig up, see?’
‘Then we should burn him.’
Rennic looked up the slope. He looked haggard and bloody, but the ferocity of his gaze was undimmed. ‘You want to build this whelp a pyre, sand-crab, you go right ahead. But you might remember that had things been different, he would have delighted in our slaughter on that mountaintop and would no doubt have feasted on our sweets with the rest of his happy sept.’ He spat off to one side. ‘I’ll not apologize to the likes of you for doing what must be done, when no one else has the stomach for it. So think on that while you gather your pyre-wood, one-armed and whimpering, mourning the loss of a cannibal pirate who has probably gnawed on the bones of more children than you’ve seen summers.’
Spider nodded with a sneer. The two of them returned to the horses and Palo, who had remained stone-faced throughout.
‘Who is that?’ she said as they approached.
‘New boy,’ Rennic said before Spider could speak, and Chel felt vaguely warm.
‘Andriz, eh? Hot shit, how’d you wind up with this misty shower of piss?’ Dalim had come bounding back up the slope, even as the others were descending. ‘Nothing good will come of travelling with these cast-iron pissants, luck of the sand-flowers be damned. They don’t call me Dalim the Perspicacious for nothing.’
Loveless looked back over her shoulder. ‘No, they call you Dalim the Slug-Tugger.’
Dalim flashed back a mirthless smile. ‘She wants me, that one,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I won’t let her get a sniff, that’s why she’s such a dick about everything.’
Chel nodded, face impassive. ‘Uh-huh.’
‘What’s your name, sand-flower?’
‘Chel.’
‘And how do you come to be travelling with this reeking failure collective, Chel the Andriz?’
Chel looked around. His prayer over the boy’s body complete, Foss had joined Lemon and the others, steering Tarfel as he went, and Chel found himself alone with Dalim on the slope. Loveless tossed a glance back at them and waved an arm.
‘Get a move on, cub!’
Chel offered Dalim a gesture of apology and started to pick his way down the trail.
‘Just lucky, I suppose.’
***
Tarfel stood before Palo, squinting up at her with Loveless at his back. The rider looked down on him with steady eyes, then swept one leg over her saddle and slid to the ground, keeping the reins in her hand. These she offered to Tarfel.
‘Your highness.’
‘Thank you, but I prefer to walk.’
Palo’s eyebrows rose a fraction, the closest thing to a reaction Chel had seen in the time he’d been aware of her. Irked at the prince’s peevishness and still giddy from Rennic’s inclusive dismissal, he called out, ‘He doesn’t even know how to ride!’
At the heart of a circle of vocal expressions of amused, derisive astonishment, Tarfel turned back to Chel. His shattered look of betrayal stilled any residual excitement Chel felt, the warm feeling expunged and supplanted by the cold of misjudgement.
‘As his highness wishes,’ Palo said, and slung herself back onto the horse. The general mirth fell away beneath the sweep of her humourless stare. ‘We should be on our way.’
They trudged away down the trail as a column, while high above, circling buzzards gathered against silver-veined clouds.
***
‘Would you rather be a tarantula, or a hairless cat?’
Lemon had returned to one of her old favourites as she and Foss marched alongside the pack ponies. Chel walked in their footsteps, listening but holding his peace. Tarfel was ahead of them, almost striding, keeping pace between the lead riders and Rennic and Spider, who seemed in competition to establish ownership over the prince.
‘What’s a tarantula?’
‘Great big fucken spider, hairier than your mam’s arsehole.’
‘Please, Lemon.’
‘Go on, choose!’
‘The cat, then. Spiders are disgusting creatures—’ All three of them flicked their glances to their eponymous colleague, who remained out of earshot. ‘—with disgusting habits. Even a hairless cat has poise.’
‘Aye, right, and you’re all about poise, big man. Your turn.’
‘Hmm. Would you rather be … a king, or a warlord?’
‘What kind of warlord?’
‘One of the Horvaun. You know: dreadstone fortress, reaver army, swathes of blood tithes, temples to demon gods.’
‘Piece of piss, man. Warlord every time. I bet they have some mega-feasts.’
‘But you’d be illegitimate in God’s eyes. You’d have no support from the Church, no Shepherd’s grace.’
‘Hells, man, when were those last the same thing?’
They fell quiet, and Chel heard snatches of the conversation at the head of the column. ‘… has made the most of events in the north, after Omundi’s fall,’ Palo was saying. ‘A royal decree, issued, of course, with the blessing of the Holy Church.’
‘A royal decree? From Lubel?’
‘In name only, as ever. Lubel lies yet inert, and the oaf Mendel delights in his instruction by Primarch Vassad’s pet prelate.’ Chel thought once more of his sister, prayed she had somehow escaped da Loran’s attention. ‘The decree demands new levies, a banding together to repel the foreign invaders. Even the Free Companies must contribute.’
‘They mean to march on the Norts?’ Rennic sounded sceptical.
‘It is doubtful; their blockade seems, on the face of it, genuine. But the structures are in place for a massing of forces. The workshops and forges in Roniaman are frenzied. Black Rock teems. Come the thaw, the kingdom will be on a war footing once again.’
‘He’ll never keep the Names together. It will dissolve. Too many agendas.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘So we can look forward to another two decades of spite-fighting, or Vassad rolls a giant force over the Territories and the last of the free cities then finally crowns himself? Is there a third option?’
Palo’s voice was quiet but clear.
‘We perform our duty.’
Chel’s skin prickled at her words.