Giant thief

CHAPTER 11

Had there been anyone on that storm-lashed road to see us go by, we'd have made a strange and alarming spectacle.

First would have thundered past a convoy of riders and overloaded carts, all travelling far too fast for the drenched road, gear rattling, maybe a loosened barrel tumbling free. If lightning had chanced to flicker, they'd have seen the strain stamped on every face. They'd surely have gaped at the monster near the rear, struggling to keep pace, oblivious to the rain exploding from its back and head.

Then the last rider would have hurtled by. The noise — of clattering wheels, hooves, straining wood — would have faded.

Soon after, no more than a minute, the other horsemen would have appeared; looming out of the tempest, no attempt made to disguise weapons slung on backs and drumming against thighs. They'd have been travelling perilously fast too, and urging their mounts to even greater efforts — though without success. They'd have passed more quickly, like a moon-shadow. Not one would have so much as looked aside.

Moaradrid's men had been riding hard all day, and their horses were far from fresh. They simply weren't fast enough to overtake us. If they'd been closer at the start then it would have gone differently. But we'd lost more than half our following over the first two hours, as men peeled away at every junction, the wounded and old limping off towards farmhouses and hamlets. By the time they'd closed the gap, there was no one left on foot, and we were moving as fast as they were. All they could hope for was to wear us down.

And that was how it went for the longest time. They came closer, we pulled away, on and on through the dark and cold and endless rain.

Mounteban claimed that the force from Muena Palaiya had come after us and the rest had followed those who'd fled southward. No one apart from him found it important. In fact, Estrada would barely speak to him. Straight after the separation at the crossroads, they'd loudly fallen out. She'd asked why he was with us and not the other party as planned, and he'd grunted some excuse about choosing the wrong direction in the rain.

"Don't lie to me."

"Fine. I came to protect you."

"What makes you think I need protecting?"

"The fact that if you die, everything's lost."

"And them? What about them?"

That was the last she said to him, except for the occasional terse command. If not for that, even the decision to flee might have been open to question. Mounteban told her — soon after their argument, and possibly just to draw her out — that our pursuers were only a scouting party, no more than thirty men. If he was right, it meant we'd just about outnumber them in a fight.

"Of course most of our archers went the other way, so they'd have us there… but an ambush, perhaps…"

"We keep running," Estrada replied. And that was the end of that.

Those were the last words anyone spoke for hours. There was nothing to discuss. There was only the chase: its muted sounds, glimpses of shadowed forms behind us, and the ceaseless, hammering fear. They were gaining or we were, and each man could judge only for himself with a hundred half-snatched glances. With least to do, I kept a lookout more than anyone. I strained until my neck ached and my eyes burned. I couldn't see horses or men behind, only a single dark blot. I watched it grow larger, grow smaller — there was nothing else in the world.

Then suddenly it was gone. I didn't believe it. It seemed far more likely that the fault was with my vision. I strained until tiny lights seemed to pop and dance in the blackness. Still there was nothing, only empty road trailing into the rain-soaked night.

Someone called, "They've given up."

I kept staring. It was a trick, a trap. At any moment, that blot would reappear, maybe far closer.

Then we struck an incline that brought us higher than the road behind. At the same time, a little blurred moonlight fell in ribbons through the clouds. There they were. They'd fallen far behind; there could be no doubt of it.

Mounteban sent one of his bodyguards to investigate. He was a small, intensely quiet man that I'd barely noticed until then. There was something about him that made me want to avert my gaze — and now that I couldn't help but look, a quality to his movements that made the hairs on my neck stand up. He soon returned, and whispered to Mounteban, who related that their tracks made an about-turn and disappeared the way we'd come.

"It's far from good news," he added. "We've won a few hours' peace, that's all. The only reason they'd let us go is to report our position to Moaradrid, and to gather more men."

There followed a hasty meeting, to decide whether we'd chance making camp or try to continue. It was obvious from a glance around what the answer had to be. Everyone looked fit to drop, and a few were already nodding in their saddles. Estrada's decision, however, was to carry on until the next crossroads. There we'd separate our numbers again, and keep going for an hour more to give everyone time to spread out. That way, if an attack came in the night then at least some might escape.

I couldn't fault her logic. Still, the rest of the journey was torture. Everyone's nerves were frayed past tolerance by the day's events. We were soaked to the skin, so that the noise of teeth chattering seemed to drown out even the clack of hooves. I was one of the better off, having slept and eaten at least. Yet even I wanted nothing more than to tumble into the dirt, where a cartwheel running over my head might put an end to my misery. Estrada's face was a mask, white as bone. I couldn't imagine what was keeping her going.

When we eventually reached the crossroads, a gallows stood waiting for us, outlined skeletally against the sky. Though it probably hadn't been used in years, it reminded me of that noose around my neck outside Moaradrid's camp, of kicking frantically to find purchase on thin air. The men seemed wraithlike as they slunk away, lit by the barest sliver of a moon. Their horses and cartwheels, which had made such a racket before, were muffled almost to silence now.

It crossed my mind that they hadn't survived the battle after all — that I'd been travelling in the company of phantoms too stubborn to accept their fate. Even if it weren't literally true, it summed up Estrada's resistance as well as anything. Sitting perfectly still beside me, her hair fluttering from gaunt features, she could easily have been some ghostly harridan risen to gather us up.

Another thought made me shudder: had I really been rescued from that hanging tree? Or was this all some absurd final torment?

I felt saner once we'd put the crossroads behind us, though the close-packed woodland to either side, with its abrupt nocturnal noises, was hardly more comforting. With nothing to see except huddled trees I found it difficult to keep track of whether I was asleep or awake. If we jolted through a particularly deep rut I'd start as though waking from a nightmare, only to discover everything exactly as I remembered it.

I didn't even notice when we finally did stop, until Estrada said, "This should be far enough."

Her voice was barely a croak. I doubted she could have gone further, whether it was enough or not.

There was a clearing to our left, down a shallow verge. We managed to lead the horses there, though they protested bitterly. The wagon, drawn level against the tree line, would be well hidden until sunrise. We unshackled the cart and led the horses beneath the canopy, where they set wearily to munching the short grass.

There was no possibility of lighting a fire. There were no dry clothes to replace our wet ones. There'd have been no point, anyway, for though the rain had stopped the ground was saturated. All Estrada could offer were a few threadbare blankets. No one had the energy to eat — no one except Saltlick, who immediately began stripping fistfuls of leaves. I lay shivering for a long time, drifting in and out of fitful sleep that was punctuated by his steady chomp-chomp, close yet distant-seeming, like the grind of a colossal sea on granite shoals.

I woke, with a terrible thudding in my head, to darkness. There was no noise, not even the shriek of night birds or click of crickets. As my eyes began to adjust, I thought I could make out the palest glimmer of dawn beyond the wooded canopy. Every muscle in my body ached, and my nose was dribbling with cold.

The only thing in my line of sight was Saltlick's back. Someone had thrown the awning from the cart over him, though it only covered as far as his stomach. There was nothing in the scene that made me want to stay conscious. I scrunched my eyes shut, in the vague hope of finding sleep once more.

Something tapped my shoulder — exactly the sensation, I realised, which had woken me in the first place. I rolled over, and found myself staring into Mounteban's dirt-streaked features. His one good eye narrowed. He placed a warning finger to his lips.

I sat carefully, partly to avoid making noise and partly to ease my thudding head. There was just enough light for me to see that everyone but myself and Saltlick were already awake, and crouched together in the centre of the clearing. No, not everyone. The silent man who'd made me so uneasy yesterday was absent.

Once he was sure of my attention, Mounteban pointed towards the road. I could see Estrada in the corner of my vision, attempting to wake Saltlick with minimal success.

I mouthed to Mounteban, "what?" and then, "soldiers?"

He nodded.

His scout materialised at that moment from behind the bole of a nearby birch, hardly two paces from us. He gestured towards the road as Mounteban had, and then swept his hand westward.

"Gone?" Mounteban whispered, and the silent man dipped his head.

Estrada, having succeeded in rousing Saltlick, crept towards us. "There'll be more. We can't use the highways."

"I can guide you cross-country," said Mounteban. There was a hint of triumph in his voice.

"There's no time."

"We're about a day from the river. We might be able to find a boat."

"Then what?"

"Then… I don't know, perhaps we could ask its owner if they'd consider selling. What did you think I meant? If you find my past so unsavoury, Marina, perhaps you shouldn't have recruited me in the first place." Mounteban's voice rose, until by the end he was almost shouting. He glared around red-faced, caught between shame and anger. The silence seemed tangible as he and Estrada glared across the clearing at each other.

For once, it was she who backed down. "You're right," she said. "We should get going."

We spent the next few minutes unloading supplies from the cart and distributing them amongst packs and the saddlebags of the two horses. It was cellarlike in the gloom beneath the trees, the trunks resembling columns and the foliage a dripping ceiling that creaked with subterranean stresses. A mouldy odour rising from the damp peat floor only worsened the effect. As we flitted from one arch to another, glancing furtively towards the road, the tension seemed to rise like stagnant water, until it felt as though one snapped twig would bring catastrophe upon us.

Things improved once we got moving. We ate on the march, and if the food was barely edible then the effort of eating was at least a distraction. Light was breaking in the east by the time I'd choked down my last mouthful, and walking had gone some way to warming me and drying my clothes.

We made an odd parade. Saltlick hung at the back, where he trudged along stolidly, focusing all his effort into moving with a minimum of noise. Estrada, who'd begun at the front with Mounteban, fell back after an hour to join him.

I did my best to maintain an equal distance between them and Mounteban's ruffians, the only remainder of our original entourage. I'd been trying to ignore them, but I couldn't help paying furtive attention now that we were intimate associates.

It was partly that I'd belatedly recognised one of them: the bull-shaped character towards the back was the Northerner who'd been on the door at the Red-Eyed Dog. However, I'd also been giving some thought to the question of Mounteban's disconcerting scout. That might be his current trade, but it hadn't always been. He was too small, too lightly built, and his skin wasn't the leathered bronze it would be from a lifetime in the open.

I could think of only one other vocation that required his peculiar skill set, and it was one even career criminals got nervous around. Before Mounteban had supposedly gone straight, I'd occasionally heard his name linked — in the most privately whispered conversations only — with that of a man named Synza. He'd been discreetly referred to as Mounteban's problem-solver; but always with the implication that the absolute last thing you wanted was to find yourself the problem in question.

I had a horrible feeling Synza and I were now travelling companions.

Yesterday afternoon we'd left behind the terraces that joined the Hunch and Muena Palaiya to the valley floor. During the night, we'd penetrated the wooded region that continued to the riverbank, and which would eventually congeal into the forest of Paen Acha to the south. The whole region was pocked with farms and villages, even a couple of small towns, and tracks and roads laced it in every direction. For all that, it was scarcely populated, and it wasn't too hard to travel unnoticed, especially when most of our party had a proven record in that department.

Mounteban certainly knew the region well, no doubt from his days of shifting contraband between Muena Palaiya and the river. We followed a succession of paths for most of the morning, travelling through scrubby woodland or occasional meadows of high grass littered with bobbing thistles and bright splotches of wildflower. The sun was cool and watery, the sky still partly overcast. At least the rain held off, and the exertion of walking kept my temperature comfortable. There seemed little point in rationing my supplies, so I continued to eat as I walked, and sipped from one of my flasks.

It seemed we must have walked across half the valley by lunchtime, and I groaned when Mounteban called a halt to tell us, "We're a third of the way to the river."

My calves were aching fiercely by then, and the pain was beginning to creep up through my thighs and into my spine. I was pleased when he added, "Does anyone need to stop?"

Just as I was about to answer, Estrada said, "We're fine, Castilio."

I glared at her.

"Good. If we can keep this pace up into the night, we should have time to camp for a few hours. They'll have discovered the cart and horses by now. Even if they find our trail, though, they don't know the valley like I do."

I'd forgotten our abandoned cart. In fact, the whole notion of pursuit had receded to a vague wariness in the back of my mind, a sense that roads and inhabited areas were things best avoided. I suddenly felt less inclined to rest, for all my aches and pains.

As the sun rolled past the meridian and the afternoon wore on, there came other, more sinister reminders of Moaradrid's presence. First was a column of coal-black smoke rising up to our left, a few miles distant, though close enough that I could smell the pungency of burnt wood mixed with other less obvious odours. It might have been perfectly innocent. Certainly, Mounteban paid it little attention, except perhaps to hurry our pace a little. Yet I couldn't help thinking of the destruction of Reb Panza. Our pursuers wouldn't hesitate to burn a few villagers out of their homes if they imagined one of them might know where we were. Whatever the truth, the sight made me shiver.

If the second incident a couple of hours later was almost as ambiguous, it at least succeeded in getting Mounteban's attention. We were following a trail along the ridge of a hill, with a dense line of pines upon the crest and stunted aspens piercing the shale of the bank descending on our right, when a noise froze us all in place: the harsh staccato of dogs barking.

Mounteban took one brief glance over his shoulder, as though expecting to see hounds barrelling towards us. Then he cried, "Run!"

He was the first to take his own advice. The rest of us followed close behind. There was something insistent in the noise, as though the beasts were actually trying to draw our attention. I was surprised by how easily running came to my racked muscles — a minute before the idea would have seemed preposterous. Every bark seemed to quicken my feet a little more.

A minute later, and my panic was starting to subside. My sprint had turned into a clumsy stagger. Pain had returned with excruciating force, and every lungful of air seemed to have been drawn over hot coals. It was hopeless trying to work out whether the dogs were getting nearer. Though their frantic barking hadn't paused, it was the only sign of them we'd had.

I'd thought we were fleeing aimlessly, but I realised Mounteban had had an object in mind after all. A rocky indent split the bank, close ahead between the trees. When I reached the edge, I saw a wide stream gurgling through the gap, and meandering on down the hillside. Mounteban and his men were already wading, the clear water lapping as high as their knees. I plunged in, biting off a yelp at the cold.

Five minutes later, Mounteban signalled us to stop. He led us within the shade of a weeping willow, hanging dense enough to form a pavilion half way across the gully. It was cramped with us all in there, especially given Saltlick's considerable presence, but I was so glad to have stopped that I hardly cared.

Mounteban took a moment to recover his breath, and said, "I think we're safe."

"Are they after us?"

He shook his head. It wasn't clear whether he meant they weren't or that he didn't know. "We'll keep to the stream for a while, just in case. It would take a good tracker to stay on us."

Whatever the truth, we never saw any sign of the dogs, though we could hear them for an hour afterwards, their clamour growing fainter until it sounded like the stir of distant thunder. No one suggested going back for our two packhorses, abandoned on the brow of the hill with two thirds of our supplies. We went more furtively after that, as though we all suspected deep down that we'd been saved by luck more than judgement.

That caution probably saved our lives when we had our first real run-in with Moaradrid's patrols. It was just after dusk, and we were pursuing a narrow trail through dense forest when Mounteban threw a hand up, our prearranged signal. We all ducked into the brush. Fortunately, the rhododendrons rising to either side were bulky and overgrown enough to hide even Saltlick. The briefest inspection would have identified bare toes amongst the roots, and the tip of a giant elbow jutting out. Moaradrid's men didn't make one; nor did they try to disguise their own presence. They talked in low mutters, and their chainmail jangled dully with each step. I counted six pairs of feet go past.

We waited until the evening air was absolutely still again before daring to crawl out. I actually felt relieved to have encountered the enemy, especially after the scare with the hounds. It had been all too easy to imagine Moaradrid's army as some implacable entity contracting around us like a fist. To know they were human, and fallible, was oddly reassuring.

Still, we knew now without doubt that they were hunting us, and that they were close. We travelled in absolute silence after that, taking only the narrowest, most obscure pathways or scrambling through the brush. Our already sluggish progress slowed to a crawl. The night wore on, an endless progression of damp foliage, lashing thorns, and unexpected pitfalls. I didn't dare pause for fear of being left behind. I didn't dare eat, lest even that small sound should bring Moaradrid's hordes down on us.

When Mounteban called a halt at last, it was in a deep recess between two hills, with tangles of bramble and whitethorn closing every direction to all but the most intrepid explorer. We'd spent a miserable ten minutes crawling through the perimeter, and I'd assumed he'd picked the route through stupidity or sadism. Once inside, I realised how well the place was sheltered, from both observers and the elements. It was as safe and comfortable a spot as we could have hoped to find.

Mounteban insisted on posting a watch, however, and declared that he'd take first shift. "Will you join me?" he asked Estrada. "We should discuss our plans for tomorrow."

"Of course," she murmured, and trudged after him into the shadows.

I was glad to see them go. I couldn't have cared less about the tomorrow. I flung myself to the ground, pausing just long enough to drag my cloak around me before my eyes slammed shut. I could hear the others following my example to either side. Saltlick struck the ground like a felled oak. A minute later and their snores were drowning out the faint background hiss of wind through leaves. I lay listening, filled with the strange sensation that my body was still moving even as I lay on the ground.

I began to realise, to my horror, that I wasn't falling asleep. I was beyond exhaustion, yet the dim flicker of my consciousness was refusing to go out. The more I thought about it, the worse it grew. I became suddenly aware of the chill, of the moonlight pressing against my eyelids, of a dozen tiny irritations prodding me towards wakefulness.

I opened my eyes and sat up. I remembered that Mounteban and Estrada were still awake too, talking somewhere off in the blackness. Five minutes of their company would surely lull me to sleep. They might not appreciate my intruding, but tact was the farthest thing from my mind.

There remained the difficulty of finding them. It was impossible to see anything in the shade of the hollow beyond the prone outlines around me and a vague suggestion of deeper dark that must have been bushes. The last thing I wanted was to trip over one of Mounteban's crew and have my sleeplessness cured by a knife in the belly. I settled for crawling forward on hands and knees, using the line of the foliage as a guide. It was a lot of trouble to go to for a little tedious company, but I was so wide awake by then that rest seemed a hopeless impossibility. If conversation stood a chance of curing my insomnia then it was worth damp knees.

I thought after a minute that I could make out hushed voices somewhere nearby. I crept forward and recognised Mounteban's gruff tone, too quiet for me to separate words. I tried to orientate myself by it, and kept moving. There followed a period of quiet. It went on for so long that I began to worry I'd passed them altogether.

Then close by, Estrada spoke. "I never meant that."

"Oh?"

"I didn't. I did what was needed."

"What was needed?"

There was an edge to both their voices. I decided against announcing my presence. I kept still and concentrated on listening instead.

"Castilio, I truly never meant to mislead you."

"All those visits… did everyone in Muena Palaiya receive so much attention? I couldn't understand, at first. Why a woman like you would spend so much time trying to recruit a scoundrel like me."

"We needed your help." Estrada sounded almost tearful. "There's no point discussing this any further. I'm going to sleep. I hope you'll put it out of your mind."

I heard the rustle of her cloak as she stood. Then came another sound, of sudden movement, and she cried out. Her voice was abruptly stifled. There was a loud thump, a body or bodies falling upon the turf, and a series of stifled impacts, with the constant background of Estrada's muted cries.

Mounteban grunted in pain, and she sobbed, "Stop!"

I was on my feet before I knew what I was doing.

"Get off her!"

Silence descended. I realised I had no idea where I was in relation to them. Moments slid by. The dark clotted, the stillness thickened around me.

" Or what?"

I turned to where I thought Mounteban's voice had come from.

"What will you do, you little piss-ant pickpocket?"

A good question. The obvious answer was that I'd briefly divert him with the chore of beating my head into a mush before I let him get back to his business. Why hadn't I kept my nose out? I didn't stand a chance alone against Mounteban.

Except that I wasn't alone.

"What will I do?" I said, with more courage than I felt. "Well, I'll call Saltlick. And I'll tell him what you had planned for his friend. How about that, Mounteban? I doubt he'll take it too well."

"He wouldn't hear you."

"Perhaps you're right. Shall we try?"

I heard the tiniest splash as Mounteban spat into the short grass. "The three of you deserve each other." A moment later, his footsteps were receding into the darkness.

When I was certain he'd left, I said quietly, "Are you all right?"

"No Easie, I'm not all right."

"It's a good job I arrived when I did."

"He wouldn't have done anything." Estrada actually sounded angry with me. Then her voice broke, and she began to cry softly.

I vaguely wanted to say something sensitive, or something that would at least quieten her, but I'd exhausted my supply of sensitivity. Instead, I sat down. With my head that much nearer to the ground, I realised the shock of almost being pummelled had extinguished whatever faint spark had been keeping me conscious. I barely had time to tumble backwards and haul my cloak up over me.

All I could hear as sleep wrapped around me was the lullaby of Estrada's gentle sobbing.

• • • •

I woke to pale sunlight and Estrada furiously shaking my shoulders. I blinked at her, grunted something that was meant to be, "Leave me alone you insane woman," and rolled away.

Then I realised what had been strange about the scene. The sun had been far too high and bright for dawn. I opened my eyes again, reluctantly, to find myself gazing once more into Estrada's panicked face.

"What's going on?"

"They're gone."

"What? Who's gone?"

"Mounteban. His men. They've left us. They're all gone, Damasco."