Lessek's Key

THE BORDER GUARDS

‘You think it’s safe?’ Garec stuffed the last of his belongings into a saddlebag.

‘Of course,’ Mark said. ‘Steven said it was, and I don’t have any reason not to believe him – anyway, didn’t you hear it screeching all night? It didn’t sound especially healthy to me.’

Garec shivered. ‘The sounds of it dying – those coarse coughs, like barks, were so unnerving I could hardly sleep. Just when I thought it was dead and was finally going to lie still, it started up again.’

‘Steven said he did something so that the almor couldn’t escape, then it was just a matter of following it up into the hills,’ Mark said. ‘Even with the staff to keep him warm, it can’t have been much fun hiking back with no coat or sweater.’

Garec looked at Steven, asleep beside the fire in the great hall. When he came in earlier that morning, wet, cold and worn out, he’d just assured them they would be safe going down to the stables to check on the horses, then he curled up in the tapestry they’d been using as a rug in front of the fire and promptly passed out. Now, with both sorcerers sleeping off the rigours of the night’s work, Mark and Garec were left to make preparations for the journey south.

They probably wouldn’t travel far before stopping first, most likely in the village at the bottom of the valley, where there was at least one decent inn. Garec, folding blankets as tightly as he could, started to imagine a wooden table piled high with winter delicacies – gansel stew, thick sauces, fresh bread – followed by a long night’s sleep in a comfortable bed – until Mark interrupted, shattering his fantasy.

‘Do you want to take the rest of this down there, or will you wait for me?’

‘I’ll wait,’ Garec replied. ‘Together we can make it in one trip.’ He stood and stretched, reaching for the buttressed stone ceiling until he felt his muscles loosen. He had lost weight since leaving Estrad; he shuddered to think what his mother would say when she saw him. He hadn’t been especially large before setting out from the orchard that grey morning; but he imagined he now looked like one of Malagon’s wraiths. Garec promised his absent parent he would spend an entire Moon eating if he ever saw the end of this business and returned home.

Both Garec and Mark were looking forward to leaving the Larion stronghold; they had spent much of the past twenty days or more idling the time away while Steven and Gilmour worked. Garec noticed Gilmour never opened Lessek’s spell book, and though Steven flipped through the pages from time to time, it wasn’t that often, so it appeared that whatever magic the two men hoped to employ in their ultimate battle with Nerak, it would only come from the hickory staff, the Windscroll and Lessek’s key.

With little else to do, Garec and Mark had explored the Larion library, investigated all the decent vintages in the wine cellar – careful not to step in or near anything that might be damp – and had spent many avens perfecting a game Mark called Larion Golf, something he developed to take his mind off Rodler’s death. He couldn’t help feeling guilty, thinking the almor had been waiting for him specifically, but eventually he realised the demon wasn’t actually choosy: it wanted them all dead.

After a sleepless night agonising over his treatment of the smuggler, Mark took himself in hand. He called Garec over and spread a large piece of parchment out on the floor beside the fireplace. The parchment was covered with crosses, arrows and circles, and near the top were the words Larion Golf, The Front Nine, Par 27. He read it out for Garec, who couldn’t decipher the loops and whorls of the foreign script.

‘This, my friend, is how you and I are going to practise archery without boring ourselves to death,’ Mark said proudly.

‘What do those words mean?’ He ran a finger across the top of the folio.

‘Shoot straight and win drinks.’

‘My kind of game, then,’ Garec laughed. He studied the parchment, recognising it now as a crudely drawn map of the palace, from cellar to towers. ‘How do we play?’

Mark set up a course of nine holes of archery golf. Each had a tee, a series of wooden targets to hit from a particular spot at a particular angle, and a difficult, near-impossible final shot, through masonry cracks, lattice windows or stone crevices.

He’d worked out a tally system too: they teed off together, took three shots per hole, and counted once for every time a bowstring snapped. If their arrow reached each of the interim targets, and then embedded into the final target without bouncing off, deflecting, or missing entirely, it was scored par for that hole. Every time one of the competitors had to draw and fire again – either at an interim target or at the final mark – he had to add one shot to his final tally.

At the end of nine holes, the winner got to wait by the fire while the loser went, alone, into the wine cellar to fetch whatever vintage the winner requested. It was up to the winner to decide whether or not to share the wine, but every time Garec won – and of course he won every time – he graciously split the wine. In Garec’s opinion, Mark had earned the drinks simply for creating Larion Golf. Garec had never known how much fun shooting an old palace full of arrows could be.

Now he picked up Mark’s quiver and checked the contents. There were few arrows left with decent tips and many had damaged fletching. ‘We have to get you some new shafts and tips,’ he said. ‘And I need to teach you how to repair these.’

‘No laughing, Wonder Boy,’ Mark smiled. ‘Just because you’ve spent your whole life practising doesn’t mean you get to laugh at the beginner when he narrowly loses in heated competition.’

‘You never finished the course within six shots – and just look at these arrows! It looks like you clipped every stone in the place.’

‘I said, no laughing.’ Mark took one of the arrows and examined it; he grimaced when he saw how badly the tip had eroded.

‘I am joking,’ Garec said. ‘Most great archers need fifty Twinmoons to learn what you’ve learned in one; you’re an outstanding shot.’

‘But I’m not you.’

‘No one is me, Mark.’ Garec’s voice dropped. ‘I have-’

A special gift.’

‘If that’s what you want to call it, fine.’

‘I still don’t know how you do it.’ Mark said, ‘and the more I learn, the more in awe I am. Like those shots through the lattice window: they’re impossible. I didn’t make one. You never missed.’

‘I’m not just an archer,’ Garec said. ‘I’ve moved beyond that. My bow is more like a part of me – and you’ll be that good some day.’ He was confident Mark would become one of Eldarn’s great archers. ‘You have a natural affinity for it.’

‘For killing? I would never have thought that about myself.’

‘I meant for archery,’ Garec corrected. ‘Killing is something altogether different.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You will.’

Mark diverted to a safer topic. ‘So what do I need to fix these up?’

Garec laughed. ‘How about a whole new quiver full of decent shafts? These are all a mess. You won’t get one straight shot out of the bunch. It was a great game, though.’

‘That it was,’ Mark said. ‘Can we get fletching and tips in the village down here?’

‘Probably not,’ Garec said, ‘but I’m sure we can find someone with polished stones.’

‘Stone tips?’ Mark was unconvinced. ‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Oh, you’ll get used to them. I have a whole quiver full of stone tips, most of them polished myself – they can be deadly effective.’ He swallowed hard at his choice of words.

Mark didn’t comment, but as he tied down the last of Steven’s belongings with a half hitch and hefted both sacks over his shoulder, asked, ‘Ready?’

‘Yes. Should we see if Gilmour is awake?’

‘No,’ Mark shook his head; ‘let them sleep. Who knows what kind of night Gilmour had? They deserve an extra aven; we can get the horses ready and be on our way just after midday.’

‘After you,’ Garec said.

Outside a strong wind blew the dry snow into flurries. The day was slate-grey, the sun a white ball shrouded in layers of clouds, dimly visible, and the cold was intensified somehow by the lack of colour. Garec hesitated beneath the stone archway, where his feet were still dry. Several steps down, the ankle-deep snow – disturbed here and there by Steven’s boot prints – waited for them. He looked over at Mark, chuckled nervously, and stepped onto the stone walk.

‘Well, that was harder than I thought it would be.’

‘For me too,’ Mark said. ‘I’m glad we took the plunge together. Still alive?’

‘Still alive.’

The duo covered the distance to the top of the staircase quickly, as if hustling would keep the memory of the almor from detecting them outside the palace, then hurried down the steps, past the anomalous cottonwood-birch trees, to the narrow defile where the Larion Senators had kept their horses. A wooden stable, one box wide, but several hundred paces long, ran against the south wall of the gorge. The Larion Senators had been famous for their frugal lifestyle, but from the look of their stables, they had invested plenty of time, energy and resources in their horses.

The thin, craggy passage ran back into the hills away from the university campus until it opened onto a hidden meadow in a shallow box-canyon. The two men secured saddlebags and packs, tied down blanket rolls and bridled their horses in preparation for what they assumed would be a brief, late-day trip down the draw and into the village.

Baggage stashed, they wandered along the enormous stables, hoping to find a bale of hay, maybe left by Rodler or other border runners, for the animals were also suffering from too little food and looked barely capable of carrying the packs, let alone riders too. In the picturesque meadow at the far end of the stables, Garec and Mark found the remains of a dilapidated fence and an old corral.

‘Would you look at that?’ Mark said. ‘They stabled the horses in that crevice and brought them out here for exercise and training.’

‘Ingenious,’ Garec agreed, ‘look at this place. It’s perfect for it.’ He peered back through the narrow gorge. ‘I wouldn’t want to have been a stable hand, though.’

‘No way,’ Mark agreed. ‘You’d walk ten miles a day just feeding and watering them.’

‘If that means a long distance, then I agree,’ Garec said. ‘You-’

The first arrow missed Garec, passing over his shoulder with an audible pffft! to bury itself in the flesh above Mark’s right knee.

Mark cursed in shock and fell, his hands wrapped around the colourful fletching; blood bloomed across his leg and seeped between his fingers. It was a deep wound.

Garec reacted in an instant, diving on his friend and shouting, ‘Don’t pull it out! You’ll make it worse!’ He dragged Mark towards a clump of aspen trees growing between a stand of rocks that had fallen from the gorge. He didn’t bother to look back; he knew where their assailants were, on the forested hillside to the east. The hunters had a clear shot at them until they reached the rocks. Blood oozed from Mark’s leg, leaving a dark crimson trail.

‘Come on,’ Garec said, his voice charged with fear, ‘we’re dead if we don’t get out of here.’

An arrow zinged past his head; another stabbed into the ground beside his hand. A third struck him in the calf, and he heard a fourth hit Mark with a dull thud. They had to keep moving. Ignoring the pain, Garec clawed and scraped his way through the snow to dive behind the rocks.

Mark continued screaming.

‘Let me see it,’ Garec shouted over him, ‘let me see where you’re hit.’

‘Just here,’ Mark groaned, ‘just in my knee.’

‘There was a second,’ he gasped, needing to catch his breath. It wouldn’t be long before whoever was firing at them came down to finish the job. ‘I heard it. The second one, where did it hit you?’

Mark pointed with a bloody finger, indicating Garec’s side. As if seeing another person’s body, he stared down at the second shaft, buried halfway into his hip. Garec had heard the thud, but he hadn’t felt anything.

‘Rutting whores,’ he cursed.

Mark pulled himself up behind the rock, his knee ignored for the moment. ‘How many are there?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t have time to look – if we’d stayed out there, it wouldn’t matter how many, we’d be dead.’

‘Good point,’ Mark said, drawing an arrow from his quiver. ‘Get ready,’ he directed, his hands trembling as he tried to fix it on the string.

Garec’s stomach turned; he made no move towards his bow.

Mark took aim along a Larion Golf-battered arrow and fired into the trees on the opposite side of the corral. The arrow flew up and away from his target. ‘Missed him,’ Mark growled, and fired again, this time at a shadow that passed beneath the outstretched limb of a clumsy oak tree. Again, the imperfect shaft flew high and wide. ‘Mother-!’ He turned on Garec, ignoring the blood-stained snow beneath his knee. ‘Give me some of your arrows; these are rubbish – I can’t even hit the bloody hillside.’ He checked his friend’s hip again. ‘Are you all right? Can you shoot?’

Garec groaned, stammered something, then fell silent.

‘Garec!’ Mark shouted, worried he might pass out. ‘Garec, I need you. We’re in a bad spot here, buddy. You’ve got to keep it together.’ Angrily he continued to draw and release, aiming at anything that moved. After a minute or two of wild shooting, he realised there was no return fire.

Crouched beside Garec, Mark put the bow down and waited.

A squad of Malakasian archers, border guards from the look of their uniforms, stepped from the trees on the opposite side of the meadow and began marching down, obviously a well-disciplined group. Garec peered over the rocks to count them: nine. He shook his head. He could have dropped all nine of them before they reached the near side of the corral. The errant shots had lulled them into thinking they were in little danger. Mark was skilled, but he had no experience in battle and his injuries and his excitement had caused the shafts to fly all over the place. The squad obviously assumed Mark was the only one capable of mounting any kind of defence.

Little did they realise that in two breaths they could all be dead – if Garec decided to stand and fight. Dropping his forehead to the cold stone, he closed his eyes. He wouldn’t do it.

‘We’re dead now,’ Mark whispered.

‘Throw out your bow,’ Garec said, ‘throw them both out. At least let them see we won’t be fighting back. They know they’ve hit us. Maybe they’ll take us prisoner.’

‘Terrific.’

‘It’s better than any alternative we have,’ he said. ‘Throw out the bows.’

Mark did, and Garec watched as the squad slowed. Several of the men nocked arrows, aiming at the rocks, taking no chances.

Garec shouted loudly, ‘We are injured and unarmed!’

A husky voice answered, ‘Stand up. Now.’

‘We have to,’ Garec said to Mark. ‘They’ll kill us if we don’t.’

‘Look at the way they move together,’ Mark said. ‘They’re well trained.’ He winced with the effort to get up. ‘We have to hope they’re well-trained soldiers and not well-trained killers.’

‘They’re soldiers,’ Garec said, ‘look at their uniforms. This far from Malakasia, and they’re that disciplined: these are proper soldiers, border guards, probably.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right.’ Mark leaned on the rock for support. He could feel his knee was badly injured. Garec put a supporting arm around his waist, in case one of the soldiers might mistake falling down as reaching for weapons.

‘And the other weapons,’ the voice came again. Garec couldn’t see who it was, but he was somewhere to their left.

Garec drew his hunting knife and tossed it out in front of the rocks. Mark did likewise.

‘Anything else?’

‘No,’ Garec shouted back.

‘Come out slowly and lie down, face-down, away from your weapons.’ The disciplined line advanced as one.

‘Let’s go,’ Garec said. ‘I don’t think they’re going to kill us.’

‘Because they would have already?’

‘Something like that. But look at that fellow on their left, the short one with the stomach. He’s the one in charge.’

‘So what? Fat people don’t kill indiscriminately?’

‘Look at his uniform. He’s not an officer. He’s a sergeant.’

Mark grimaced with pain. ‘I hate to belabour a point, Garec, but so what?’

Garec was sweating, despite the chill; he was losing too much blood. He looked forward to lying down in the snow, at least there he could rest for a moment and cool off. His heart was racing, he was breathing heavily and on the verge of losing consciousness.

He pulled himself around the rocks, motioning for Mark to do the same. ‘Look at his gloves,’ he said softly. ‘They aren’t standard issue. He’s in knitted mittens, and he’s not carrying a bow. Old, unarmed sergeants in knitted mittens don’t kill indiscriminately.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because he’s out here by himself, that’s how. He’s been around for a while, long enough to substitute standard-issue gloves with something one of his daughters made for him back home, probably because he was complaining about working in Gorsk. His squad is disciplined, and no one has fired a shot since we threw out the bows. Finally, where’s his lieutenant? Back in the barracks, nice and warm beside the fire, because he trusts this guy.’ Garec felt his head loll momentarily to one side; he shook it several times to clear his thoughts. ‘We’re not going to die, Mark, not here.’

‘That’s great news, thanks.’ His voice faded as he fell forward in the snow.

Dropping down beside him, Garec winced as he jerked the arrowhead in his side. The squad moved into position, surrounding them.

‘Lay down, son,’ the sergeant said, coming forward. He pulled off one of the knit mittens and tucked it beneath his arm for safe keeping, then reached up to remove a wool hat emblazoned with the crest of Prince Malagon’s Border Guard. ‘Where are the others, son? Still up at the palace?’

Garec tried to remember what Rodler had said when Mark first threatened to kill him. ‘We’re from Capehill,’ he said. ‘We do a bit of book business down there. That’s all. This old palace has a library, most of it rotten or torn up, but there are a few volumes here that bring a decent price at home.’

The sergeant nodded. He had arranged his thinning hair to cover as much of his pate as possible, but there wasn’t much left to cover the pale skin, dotted with liver spots. From the look of his paunch, he was a beer drinker. His yellowing teeth suggested a tobacco habit. Garec thought this man might be any of their grandfathers; what he was doing serving along the Gorskan border at his age was a mystery.

‘A book business, eh? Well, that’s illegal, but you know that. And what about the root?’

Garec shrugged, affecting a sheepish child caught with one hand in the pastry drawer. ‘We do a bit of a fennaroot business as well, yes sir.’

‘And you, Southie? You’re pretty far north, eh, Southie? Books and fennaroot pay your way, did they?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Mark was lying in the snow, his eyes closed, fading in and out of consciousness, ‘fat Irish flatfoot.’

‘What’s that then?’ The sergeant stepped over to him. ‘I didn’t hear you, but from your tone, Southie, I’d guess you just disparaged my parents, eh?’ He kicked Mark solidly in the ribs. ‘Eh, Southie?’

Mark groaned, and gurgled something unintelligible.

‘Raskin!’

‘Sergeant?’

‘This one needs surgery.’

A young soldier, lean and wiry, shouldered her bow and stepped forward. ‘Field surgery, Sergeant or tavern surgery?’

He pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and closed his eyes. ‘Rutting headaches, um, make it tavern surgery. We don’t have all day to play at party games out here.’

‘Right,’ The soldier, Raskin, motioned for two others to join her. ‘Mox, Denny, hold him down.’ One broad-shouldered young man lay across Mark’s upper body, pinning his arms to the ground; another gripped his lower legs in a powerful hug, bending his knee to expose the arrow for Raskin. She removed a scarf from her neck and tied it around Mark’s thigh, tightening it with a piece of whittled wood she took from her belt, then she gripped the arrow with one hand.

‘One surgical procedure, tavern method, ready to go, sir,’ she announced. ‘Hang on boys,’ she said, looking at the two soldiers holding Mark fast, and drew the arrow with a tremendous wrenching pull. Mark, who was not strong enough to resist, screamed long and shrilly, and then fell silent.

The sergeant gave the trio an approving grin. ‘Well done, Raskin. Now, bind that up, quickly, mind.’

‘Right away, Sergeant,’ the woman said, removing the makeshift tourniquet and exposing the wound. Someone handed her a wad of cloth dampened with water from a canteen and she cleaned it, pressing too far into the flesh for Garec’s comfort, then bound it snugly with a length of gauze someone else had ready.

‘Does he need querlis?’ Garec asked.

The woman glanced up at her sergeant, who nodded. ‘He might need it later,’ she said. ‘It’s bleeding now, but I’ll check it after the blood has clotted. If it looks like it could become infected, I’ll give him some then.’

‘Thanks,’ Garec’s vision blurred again and he flushed. His stomach knotted, but he managed to quell the rush of nausea by pressing his face into the snow to cool the rush of blood and quiet his raging system. He croaked, ‘If you don’t mind, I think I prefer field surgery to tavern surgery.’ The last thing he heard as he passed out was the sergeant bellowing a hearty laugh, a grandfather’s laugh; nothing dangerous in it. Garec felt confident as he drifted away that he and Mark would live.

He didn’t wake, nor did he feel any pain when Raskin extracted the arrows from his hip and leg.

‘So it’s just a minor change in plans, that’s all.’ Hannah dried her tears and laughed. ‘Look at me, will you? I’m a mess.’

Alen’s heart wrenched. He hadn’t mentioned the far portal, but he had told Hannah that Steven and Mark were on their way to Traver’s Notch and that it was just a matter of time – and a significant dose of good luck – before they were reunited and returned safely to Colorado. She had flung her arms around his neck and squeezed him harder than anyone had in nearly a thousand Twinmoons. When she finally released him, her face was already tearstained.

‘We can steal the far portal, right? It’s not too large? If it’s like the one in Steven and Mark’s house, it’s a rug. We can roll it up and carry it between us, that shouldn’t be a problem. We can take a ship to Orindale, and you can contact Gilmour again – if it isn’t too hard to do. Is it? I mean, it doesn’t hurt, does it?’

‘No, I just get a bit-’

‘Oh, good then, because if it was painful, we could find some other way to locate them, but if you contact Gilmour from Orindale, or maybe from the ship on the way over – ships are a nice place to sleep, what with all that rocking – and then we can find them, and we can go home. Oh, Alen, thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t tell you what this means.’ Hannah was almost incoherent, and the others left her to carry on until she was finished. She had come a long way, through many stressful and unfamiliar challenges, desperately praying someone would tell her that Steven Taylor was alive and that they could go home together. No one interrupted her as she veered wildly between laughter and tears until she stopped to catch her breath.

Calming finally, she said, ‘But we still have to go inside the palace to steal the portal. That’s still dangerous, and I don’t want to get my hopes too high, because that could still kill one or more, or damn – sorry – all of us. But I don’t want to think that way; I want to believe we can do it. We can get in the palace, can’t we? We can get inside and find the portal – I suppose we have to leave that to you, Alen – and then we can take it with us. If we get in, we can get out. And we can take the portal to Falkan with us, and Steven and Mark and I can go home.’

Then her eyes widened; she smiled as an idea took shape in her mind. ‘And you all can come with us. You should think about it, really, it’s wonderful there, especially in Colorado, there are so many places to visit, things to see and enjoy – and it’s so much safer than it is here. You could find happiness there. I know you could.’

Hoyt reached across the table and took her hand. He laughed and said, ‘Hannah, gods keep you this happy for ever, I mean it, but you are not going into that castle.’

‘Why not?’ Hannah asked. ‘We’ve come so far.’

‘That’s right,’ Hoyt made Alen’s argument for him, ‘and if we don’t need to send you home from the palace, there is no need for you to go inside.’

‘Well, how are we going to-?’

‘I’ll go get it.’

‘Not by yourself,’ she protested.

‘It’s what I do, Hannah. I am one of the best: I can get in there, grab the portal and be out before anyone knows I’m gone.’

‘I’ll need to be there too,’ Alen said.

‘Not without me,’ Churn signed.

‘No and no,’ Hoyt said to each of them. ‘There’s no need to risk everyone’s lives to retrieve this rug. Alone, I can be invisible. If we find a way inside, I can get in, get the portal, and get back out quickly. No one will even see me there. I’ll find Malagon’s chambers, wait for him to step out, even for a moment, and be inside without a sound.’

Alen shook his head. ‘The prince’s chambers will be sealed with a spell. You need me with you.’

Churn signed again, ‘Not without me.’

Finally, Hoyt stood, jouncing the table and nearly upsetting several tankards. ‘Fine, fine. You two can come along, but not Hannah. There’s no reason to endanger her.’

‘I agree,’ Alen said.

Churn nodded.

‘But you know what this means, both of you.’ Hoyt was visibly upset. ‘This changes the entire operation. What should have been one person going in quietly now becomes three, and that means we triple the possibility that we will end up fighting our way out – or worse.’

‘We don’t have a choice,’ Alen said. He had no intention of Hoyt or Churn going anywhere near the palace. ‘At the very least I have to go in; whether I can unlock all the doors Prince Malagon will have sealed, I don’t know, but I can, to some extent, mask my own movements. Hoyt, I don’t see any reason for you to come along – except that, like your burly companion, you seem determined to be there.’

‘I am going in,’ Churn signed.

Hoyt looked dejectedly down at his beer. ‘Fine. I hate this idea, but fine.’ He sulked another moment, then turned on Churn. ‘And you. What are you thinking? You want to die in there, is that it? He does. Did you know that?’ He gestured over at Alen. ‘He wants to face Prince Malagon and kill the prince and himself at the same time. Is that what you want?’

‘I am going in.’ He swallowed half his beer in one massive gulp.

‘I hate to interrupt, but what can I be doing while you three are in there stealing the portal?’ Hannah had no desire to enter Welstar Palace. Hoyt and Churn were thieves by profession; she had never stolen more than an extra carton of milk at school. She wasn’t skilled with a bow, a rapier or a short blade, and if she did go along, her safety would be an added burden on her friends.

‘I know it makes no sense for me to go inside with you,’ she went on, ‘so I won’t ask to come along, but there must be something I can do to make sure we get away safely.’

‘You can build three pyres,’ Hoyt said sarcastically. That’s right. We’re going in there to get this portal so you can go home. The rest of us have nothing to gain in there, and these two don’t plan on coming back out again.

‘You’ve known all along,’ Alen interrupted, glaring at the younger man, ‘that you do not have to accompany us on this journey. Hannah and Churn have business here in Malakasia. I have issues to address. You came for the trip, Hoyt. We are all glad you did, but you should feel no obligation to enter Welstar Palace, and certainly not on your own.’

Hoyt softened. ‘You’re right. Sorry, Hannah.’

‘I’ll go in,’ she said. ‘You’ve already done so much for me, and I’ll not ask you to risk your life again, especially for nothing but the chance to cheat death against tremendous odds. I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t want to go in, but I don’t think you want to, either.’

‘Don’t worry about it – what kind of freedom fighter would I be if I turned down a chance to deny Prince Malagon one of his favourite toys?’

‘And to answer your question, Hannah,’ Alen broke the momentary silence, ‘when we escape the palace, we will either make our way west into the mountains on horseback, or we will move downriver under cover of darkness; whichever we decide, our packs, supplies and horses, or our barge, raft, canoe, whatever it is we use, will need looking after, so you are the only person left to ensure our speedy departure.’

Hannah was pleased to have something to do; she was still a little embarrassed at Hoyt’s comment. She reminded herself Steven was alive and waiting for her in the east.

Hoyt rose. ‘I’m going to get a few things we need for the river trip.’

‘Nothing to eat?’ Churn asked.

‘I’m not hungry,’ he signed back.

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, you eat, you big bear. We need you strong tomorrow morning. We have vegetables to load, and we both know how grumpy you’ll be tonight if you don’t eat.’

‘You all right?’ Hannah asked.

‘I’m fine.’ He turned to leave.

‘Let him go,’ Alen whispered. ‘He has to make a decision; we need to give him some time.’

‘But he’s going into the palace for me,’ Hannah insisted. ‘I don’t want that on my shoulders for the rest of my life.’

‘Hannah, take it from an exceedingly old man; if it saves your life and allows you to return home with Steven Taylor and Mark Jenkins, then yes, of course you want it on your shoulders for the rest of your life. Don’t try to tell me otherwise, because I am too old for bravery, pride and sacrifice for one’s values, that’s all grettan shit, and I’m not interested in wallowing in it. Hoyt is not going into Welstar Palace for you, he’s going in for everyone: for Churn’s family, for my family, for all the miserable, oppressed people of Eldarn who never had a chance to enjoy freedom or prosperity in their lives, and especially for one very talented thief who would have been a wonderful, caring doctor had he been given a chance. This is all much bigger than you, Hannah. Hoyt knows it; he just needs a little time to realise it.’ And I will have done one final good deed for my friend. Then I will be able to go in. Alone.

When Garec woke it was nearly dark and he was sweating. It had been cold that morning, when he and Mark set out to load the horses; he remembered the wind swirling clouds of snow about the grounds and the wintry bite of the air. It wasn’t much warmer here. From the slate-grey colour of his surroundings, he guessed he and Mark were under cover of a Malakasian Army tent.

The woman had treated him with querlis; that’s why he was sweating, and why he had slept the day away. He lifted his head from the damp blankets, enough to see that he and Mark were on cots in an eight-person tent, similar to those Gilmour had pointed out from the ridge south of the border. It was a big square, easily as large as the front room in Garec’s parents’ house, but he and Mark were its only occupants. Near the back was a table piled with bags and bits and pieces, and a tripod brazier, which was currently unused.

Garec tried to assess the damage to his hip and lower leg. He felt relatively little pain, other than a dull throb pulsing in his side. Mostly, he felt numb. That’s the querlis, he thought. When it wears off you’re going to feel like someone has been shooting arrows into your backside. He was glad to have been unconscious when the soldiers removed the arrows. Although he had requested field surgery, Garec did not fool himself into thinking that he had been treated more gently than Mark. Tavern surgery, he thought. Remind me never to go to that tavern.

A strong breeze caused the tent flaps to flutter noisily. Outside, the snow looked less deep; maybe they’d been carried downhill from Sandcliff. Garec heard Mark stir from the other side of the shelter and whispered urgently, ‘Mark, wake up.’

Mark moaned and rolled onto his side, still asleep.

Garec listened for sounds of the soldiers outside. He thought he could make out two or three voices, but they were muffled by distance and wind; even straining, he was unable to eavesdrop on the conversation. ‘Mark,’ he said sharply, ‘Mark, wake up.’

Mark shifted again and opened his eyes. ‘Garec?’ He tried to lift his head, but was overcome by dizziness and fell back into the blankets.

‘I’m over here.’

‘Where are we?’

‘In a Malakasian tent; they were a border patrol. How’s your leg?’ Garec pushed himself up on his elbow.

‘I feel like I’ve been shot.’

Garec laughed and a blast of pain ran through his hip. ‘Me too.’

Without opening his eyes, Mark said, ‘Lovely place, this Gorsk. Remind me to look into the local timeshares; maybe we can go in on one together.’

Garec asked, ‘Can you walk?’

‘Walk?’ Mark was incredulous, ‘Garec, I don’t even know if I can sit up.’

‘That’s the querlis – it’s powerful, but you’ll heal very quickly. It does make you drowsy.’

‘Drowsy?’ Mark laughed again, a happy drunk. ‘I feel like I’ve been hit over the left-field wall. Sorry, it’s a baseball reference. You wouldn’t know.’

‘We’d say you’ve played the ball in a chainball tournament, about the same thing, I guess,’ Garec said. ‘Versen used to say that every time he drank Ronan wine.’

Mark forced himself to sit up. ‘So how do we get out of here?’

‘I don’t know,’ Garec answered. ‘There’s less snow here, so I guess we have to assume they brought us down the valley. It looks like it’s getting dark outside, but I don’t know how long we slept.’

‘So we don’t know how far we’ve travelled, and we won’t be moving very quickly with these injuries. If we can get to high ground, I’m sure we’ll be able to see enough to find Sandcliff, or at least the village below it.’

‘Can you climb?’

‘No,’ Mark was honest, ‘probably not, but together, we have two good legs. We might be able to drag ourselves up high enough to get our bearings.’

‘That’s not much of a plan.’

‘No. Where are our weapons?’

Garec looked around. ‘Not in here, as far as I can see.’

‘How about our cloaks?’

‘Mine’s here.’ Garec peered through the gathering darkness. ‘That might be your coat, bunched up beneath the foot of your cot.’

‘All right, so assuming, they don’t come in here and beat us to death, or torture us to give information we don’t have, we might be able to get past a guard late tonight.’

‘I doubt it,’ Garec said. ‘If they don’t beat us or tie us up, they’ll have that woman-’

‘Raskin, he called her; did you see the way she pulled that arrow out of my knee? I’m going to need surgery.’

‘Field surgery?’

‘Real goddamned Rose-Medical-Center-in-Denver surgery!’

‘She’ll treat us again.’

‘What, with that queer stuff?’

‘Querlis, yes.’

‘Great,’ Mark sighed, ‘another beating with the pharmaceutical cudgel. We’ll never get out of here if she keeps us doped up on that.’

‘But it’s good for our injuries, the best thing we have in Eldarn,’ Garec insisted.

‘Can we get some in a village somewhere?’

‘It’s difficult to find, but any significant town will have querlis. Traver’s Notch has healers.’

‘Then I’m skipping my next dose,’ Mark said, shifting enough to get his feet onto the ground. He rested his face in his hands.

‘You’re not ready to travel, Mark.’

‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘but I will be if we can get clear of this camp. Have you been able to see outside?’

‘Just that it’s not as snowy.’

‘Let’s do that first.’ He braced himself on the cot and pushed up with his arms, trying to stand, but as he did so, the tent flaps opened and the woman came in. Mark allowed himself to fall back into the blankets. ‘Ah, Dr Mengele, lovely to see you,’ he said.

‘What are you doing up? You shouldn’t be putting weight on that leg.’ She moved to his bedside. ‘Here, let me see it.’

‘No way!’ Mark spat and swung for her, tumbling her into the wooden table at the back of the tent. The table collapsed over her, spilling packs, supplies, food and what looked like medical implements. Rolling to her feet, Raskin advanced with her own fists clenched. She stopped when she saw the tent flaps open.

‘Now that wasn’t very polite,’ said the sergeant, who had followed her in. He crossed quickly to Mark’s cot.

‘I don’t want her touching me again,’ Mark said angrily.

‘No, son, you don’t want me touching you.’ He slammed a fist down on Mark’s injured knee and Mark screamed, curled into a ball and rolled from his cot.

The sergeant stooped to help Mark back into bed. ‘I hated to do that, son, but I can’t have you striking my soldiers. Raskin is the best healer we have in the northern corps, and you’re lucky to have her looking after you.’ He covered Mark with a wool blanket, careful to tuck the edges beneath the young man’s writhing frame. Now, get control of yourself, because we have to talk.’

‘Leave him alone,’ Garec threatened from his cot.

‘Or you’ll do what? Shoot me with that fancy bow of yours?’ The sergeant turned to Garec. ‘I noticed you didn’t fire one shot this morning, not one. And that after we stuck two arrows in you. Then you throw out one of the nicest rosewood bows I have ever seen. So I figure you’re either a coward or a rich coward. Either way, you shut yourself up until I tell you to speak. I’m not interested in getting involved in a lot of bureaucratic nonsense. If you’re border runners, you’ll go to the lock-up and await your hanging. I don’t read, myself, but books are books; I don’t begrudge a man the chance to make a bit of silver. I don’t like fennaroot runners, and you two claim to be root runners as well as rare book dealers. But you’ve got no root on you, you’ve got no books on you, so what am I to do with you?

‘I tend to hang fennaroot runners, and though you didn’t have anything on you today, if I hang you, no one is going to care. Unless you had it stashed there at the university, you’re lying to me, because I know there is no place to sell fennaroot on that hillside – it’s not a popular spot, that hillside, doesn’t draw a lot of visitors, especially not in the winter.’ He looked over at Mark again.

‘I don’t believe you know a way into the palace, because I don’t know a way into the palace, and I’ve been up here since before both of you were even born. If you had any root on you, you’d be dead. If you had any books on you, we might negotiate for a small fee, and you’d be on your way. But you didn’t have any books, and you don’t have hardly any silver at all. So what do I do with you?’

‘I think-’ Garec interrupted.

‘Shut yourself up firm and quick, boy. I am not making a joke with you,’ the sergeant said firmly. ‘I will ruin your life right this moment if you don’t shut your lip right now.’

Garec complied without another word and the sergeant continued, ‘So, boys. There’ve been reports of some strange goings-on up at the palace: clouds that move against the winds, explosions, demon screams late at night. The villagers complain and our captain sends us up here to check on the place. Mind you, our lieutenant didn’t come along with the rest of us, because that would have meant getting up off his delicate little backside, and he doesn’t like to do that during this season. So we make the trip up and find you two, book dealers with no books, root runners with no root. I am a very reasonable man, me, and I didn’t kill you. I actually had my girl treat you with querlis, because I do not, not for one moment, believe anything you have told me.’ He spat onto the frozen ground by Mark’s head.

‘I am not famous for having border runners rush to tell me the truth, and normally I would just hang you boys and be done with this situation. But there are too many coincidences here. First, you aren’t who you say you are; I can see that. Second, you appear at the same time we get reports of odd – some might say magical – goings on up at the palace. And third, we find you two just at the moment our orders from Capehill fade to a trickle. You see, we here on the border receive our orders from a general in Capehill. He doesn’t come up this way too often, because it’s cold and grey and the wine doesn’t travel well out here in the territory. We have received no orders in the past Twinmoon except to come out here and check up on things. Now, rumour has it that Prince Malagon is dead – gone, killed, hiding out in a basement in Orindale, whatever – and I can assure you boys, I don’t care one rutting pinch if he’s on a dairy farm enjoying sexual relations with a heifer. But when I put all these pieces together at the same time, something tells me I need to keep you two alive long enough to satisfy my curiosity that these things are not somehow all related. What do you think?’

Raskin had begun changing the dressing on Garec’s injuries, peeling away the querlis leaves and replacing them with a fresh poultice. So much for escaping during the night. He nodded his thanks when she finished and watched as she moved warily to Mark’s cot.

‘If he so much as twitches, you leave his wound untended, you hear, girl? He can tie it up himself if he’s that tough.’ The sergeant stared down at Mark as he spoke.

‘So, boys, what do you think of my summary? Am I about right?’

Garec had been trying to work out their story. ‘You’re right about much of it, sir, although we truly don’t know anything about any screaming demon or magic clouds. We do know a way into the palace, and we do have a stash, root, a few books and a purse of silver we left inside. We were going to go back for it, after we made a run down into the village for some supplies.’

The sergeant grinned at him. ‘I’ll give you ten points for coming close to the truth, boy, but you missed it, didn’t you? Just by a bit, but you missed the truth.’ With that, he pressed the flat of his palm against Garec’s injured hip and began to lean forward. Pain flared up despite the fresh querlis and Garec groaned, fighting the urge to scream.

‘You want to try again, boy? You two weren’t going into that village for supplies. That village is a day-trip. You two were carrying everything you own, and if you were going in for supplies, you’d have taken more than the few copper Mareks you had on you. You were on your way out of those hills, right?’

‘Yes, yes, all right, all right,’ Garec spoke as quickly as he could between shallow breaths. His leg throbbed with every heartbeat, and his foot began to twitch involuntarily as his body fought the need to pass out. ‘You’re right. We were leaving.’

The sergeant withdrew his hand. Garec rolled onto his back, sweating.

‘We were leaving for a few days. We’d done the first part of our job. The books were there in the library and the root was hidden inside the palace scullery.’ Garec decided to try lying one more time, assuming that if the sergeant pressed against his hip again, he would be unconscious until morning, anyway. ‘Our job was to get the root across the border and to hide it at Sandcliff. Our partner is the one with the connection here in Gorsk. He sells the root, brings the silver back and we return three days later to carry both the coins and the books across the border into Capehill.’

‘Ah, a partner now? This is getting thick, isn’t it?’ The sergeant approached again. ‘And I am quite sure you will be happy to share your partner’s name, will you not?’

Garec prayed the sergeant really had been a border guard as long as he claimed. ‘Rodler Varn of Capehill,’ he said. ‘I’m Garec Haile; I come from Randel, down in Rona, but I live in Capehill now. That’s Mark Jenkins. He’s from the South Coast, obviously, but he lives in Capehill too, at least for the autumn harvest and our winter runs across the border. We get into the palace through a drainage track that runs from the scullery to the gardens. It was a fluke; our partner found it one morning running from a squad of your guards.’

‘Rodler Varn?’ The sergeant glanced at Raskin, who tried to hide her excitement. ‘That name might be familiar… Rodler Varn. Hmmm.’ Garec could see the Malakasian was prevaricating; it was quite clear that young Rodler had been eluding them for some time; he was probably quite a thorn in their sides. ‘And you say he’ll be stopping by the palace in the next three days?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘Don’t play games with me, boy. What you say in the next two breaths may save your life – your Southie friend’s life, too.’

Garec felt a rush of adrenalin; the wind had changed in their favour. Now was his chance to misdirect the greedy border guards. ‘We can take you back. We can get you inside – though not many can fit through the opening. You won’t be able to, and the others we saw this morning, they won’t fit either.’

‘Mox and Denny,’ Mark said quietly.

‘Good memory, boy,’ the sergeant said with a laugh. ‘You were paying attention this morning.’

‘One tends to remember the names of people who have been so helpful.’ He shot Raskin a grim look.

‘Right. Denny and Mox. They won’t be able to fit, but she will.’ Garec indicated Raskin. ‘We could get her inside.’

‘And she could open the doors for the rest of us?’

‘I don’t know,’ Garec answered. ‘We’ve never tried to open them. We figured if anyone – you in particular – was monitoring the palace, you’d know if the main gate had been breached.’

‘Wise of you, young man, very wise.’ He turned to Raskin. ‘You’ll go inside with them.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Rutters, yes, Sergeant,’ Raskin said

‘Good, good. We’ll ride up that way in the morning. Trust me, boy, if you have someone waiting in that scullery for my soldiers, they’ll be dead. You, too.’

He turned back to Raskin and said, ‘Send Mox and Denny back with two of the others to watch the place. I don’t want young Rodler Varn of Capehill coming and going before we can snare him. Have them go up the draw south of here. It’s faster.’

Raskin looked concerned. Are you sure? The regular path up there is-’

‘It’s cold enough. No one has seen or heard one of them creatures in the last Moon. With this snow, they’ll all be down on the plain hunting livestock. It’ll be all right.’

The sergeant pulled his hat down over his ears and tugged the knitted mittens back on his hands. ‘If we do capture your partner, boys, you’ll have the fun of a tag hanging down in the village.’

Neither Mark nor Garec replied; they hadn’t been invited to speak. Garec was feeling drowsy as the querlis began to take effect, but before allowing himself to fall asleep, he made eye contact with Mark. They had learned something useful: none of the ranking officers were alarmed about the strange happenings at the old Larion keep; they hadn’t even bothered to send out a full platoon. That was good news for the partisans: they had infiltrated Gorsk and engaged in a noisy battle with Prince Malagon’s minions without alerting the entire army.

The challenge now was not just to escape, but to make sure no one managed to spread the word that a company of partisans had breached the walls at Sandcliff.

Garec’s vision began to blur and he slipped smoothly into the darkness. His last thought was that Mark had been right: Nerak hadn’t sent anyone to Sandcliff, because he thought the almor and the acid clouds would kill them off; he hadn’t even alerted his own border patrols. Garec hoped to make it a mistake the fallen Larion sorcerer would regret.

At midmorning the following day they came upon what remained of Mox and Denny and the two soldiers dispatched to assist them at Sandcliff. Mark and Garec were riding one behind the other on a large roan which was quite comfortable carrying both men as long as it didn’t involve galloping. They were still groggy with the lingering effects of querlis, and in pain, even though the poultices had reduced the swelling and speeded the healing process. Raskin had visited several times during the night to make sure they were drinking enough water and, in the aven just before dawn, to change their dressings for the ride back to the palace. Garec didn’t believe they would have received such attention had Rodler’s name not been mentioned; he suspected transporting a few bandoliers of fennaroot was the least of the young man’s crimes north of the Gorskan border.

They had been riding for nearly an aven, the roan’s reins securely attached to Raskin’s pommel, when they heard the sergeant cry out. A flurry of activity as soldiers dismounted and ran forward preceded screams of horror. One of the guards leant over and vomited repeatedly in the snow.

Raskin remained in the saddle, her sword drawn. Neither Mark nor Garec made any move, both watching their guard carefully: it was obvious something nasty had happened to her colleagues.

Garec wanted to sympathise, for Raskin had been good to them. He had lost Mika and Jerond, Versen and Sallax – he knew what was going through Raskin’s mind as she listened to her fellow soldiers crying out to the gods of the Northern Forest. He set his jaw, determined not to feel sorry for the border guard: she, like the rest of them, was Nerak’s servant, and thus his enemy.

He gave her credit for being a steadfast soldier; maybe if she’d grown up in Estrad she might now be fighting for the Resistance.

‘It was grettans,’ Garec said.

‘Shut yourself up,’ Raskin scowled. She sat straighter, trying in vain to see what was happening ahead. After a bit, she said, ‘What makes you think it was grettans?’

‘Look at where we are,’ Garec said. ‘This is a game trail, running from the pond we passed near your encampment. Every animal in this forest probably comes down here for water and I imagine grettans hunt back and forth across the trail, waiting for the opportunity to attack downhill. They would be deadly fast downhill.’

The soldier, despite her discipline, began to shake. ‘Oh, gods, Denny-’ she whispered to herself. ‘Poor Mox-’

‘Go and see for yourself, Raskin,’ Mark said in a kindly tone. ‘We aren’t going anywhere – neither of us could even get off this horse without help, and it would be suicide for us to try and outrun you with two of us in the saddle. We’ll be here when you get back.’

Raskin pulled herself together and put her shoulders back. ‘I’m fine. Sergeant Greson will get everything in order.’

‘Raskin,’ Garec hoped using her name would soften her, ‘those were your friends. Mark and I would be crushed if we knew four of our friends were lying mutil- well, you know, just up the path. Go ahead. We will be here when you get back.’

‘He’s right,’ Mark said. ‘You know we can’t ride far.’

‘Or take us with you if you must,’ Garec went on, ignoring Mark’s hard poke in the ribs. ‘You can’t get up there with both horses; so dismount and lead ours along.’

Her eyes grew distant for a moment. ‘Maybe that will be all right – it’s not like I’m leaving you alone.’

‘We’ve both lost friends, Raskin,’ Garec said soothingly. ‘We know how difficult it is.’

‘All right,’ she said, ‘but any move and I swear I’ll run you both through.’ She untied their reins from her pommel and slid from the saddle, never taking her eyes off the two prisoners. Walking backwards through the snow, she led the big roan by the bridle. After a few paces, and nothing untoward from Garec or Mark, she relented and turned her attention to the trail ahead.

As soon as she did, Mark whispered, ‘Are you insane? She was going to leave us.’

‘I wanted to get up the ridge,’ Garec said. ‘Being down there does us no good – we could run headlong into another patrol without seeing a thing.’

‘Can you ride?’

‘It’s going to hurt. You?’

‘Same, I’m afraid.’

‘Our bows and quivers are tied to the back of the sergeant’s saddle. If they stayed in line, his horse will be second from the front, the dapple-grey mare with the braid in her mane.’

‘You get us close enough and I’ll get the bows.’

‘Can you turn and fire?’

‘Like a Parthian.’

‘Does that mean yes?’

‘It’s going to hurt.’

‘We’ll deal with that later. If they’re scattered all over this clearing, we’ll have one chance to break away. The ever-charming Sergeant Greson won’t lose control of this group for very long. If they’re on their knees or huddled together, that’ll be our only chance.’

‘I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts their discipline returns as soon as they see us.’

‘Right. So you’ll have to be quick.’

As they neared the clearing, Garec numbered off the remaining soldiers: two were bent over a fallen tree. The sergeant was pushing his way through deeper snow off to one side of the trail, pushing back branches and peering into scrubby patches of brush. At first, Garec couldn’t work out what he was doing, then he realised he was collecting the pieces of his men left by the grettan pack. The sergeant was muttering inaudibly to himself: the worst thing that could ever happen had come to pass that morning: he had lost half his squad, young people he had taught, disciplined, and most certainly loved.

Finally Mark spotted the fourth, a middle-aged man of perhaps three hundred Twinmoons who knelt in the snow clutching an unidentifiable limb resting across his lap.

A squad this tight-knit was closer than family, and with four men lost, and so gruesomely, the Malakasians had forgotten – just for the moment – that they were soldiers, with prisoners. If they were to escape, Mark and Garec had one brief window of opportunity.

Raskin’s boots crunched through the snow as she approached the scene. Shaking noticeably, she brought her hands to her face, still holding the roan’s bridle, and covered her eyes. Mark hadn’t known the dead men; he’d used a whole quiver of arrows trying to kill them… but he winced when he saw the carnage left by the grettan pack.

The trail was awash with blood, staining the trampled snow, pooling in beastly footprints, coating trees and bushes – drops had even frozen into jewel-like icicles. And strewn about were sundry pieces of men and horse and bits of accoutrements: a hunk of shoulder, arm partly attached, still sporting epaulettes and the insignia of the Malakasian border guard; half a hand adorned by a flattened ring with huge tooth marks in the metal; a horse’s head, intact save for a torn ear, rearing up out of the ground, the bridle bit gripped between bloody teeth: a war horse even in death.

They understood now why supposedly hardened soldiers were shaking and throwing up like novices.

‘Dear Mother of Christ,’ Mark whispered in English.

Garec didn’t need a translation. ‘Rutting dogs, what these people must have gone through-’

‘Either way,’ Mark caught hold of himself, ‘we need to mourn them later. Right now you have to get me close to that grey mare.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Garec said confidently, ‘we’ll be long gone before any of them, least of all our dear Sergeant Greson, has any idea we’ve run.’ The guards would certainly give chase, but he was gambling on their current confusion, coupled with their state of mind, to provide a significant head-start. He hoped Mark would give good enough account of himself with the bow – at the risk of incurring yet more deaths – to turn their pursuers back.

He surreptitiously checked the trail ahead: the path itself was clear of major obstacles, and they wouldn’t have far to go before they were under cover of the forest. As long as he could guide the roan by the mane initially, they’d be all right; he didn’t want to reach for the reins until they were out of sight. He peered down at the tracks and froze.

‘Oh, Versen,’ Garec whispered.

‘What?’

‘I wish Versen were here.’

‘Me too,’ Mark said. ‘He’s a much better shot than I am.’

‘No,’ Garec gestured into the clearing, ‘that’s not what I meant. Look at those tracks.’

‘Well, of course there are tracks,’ Mark said dismissively. ‘There was an ungodly fight – by my count it was grettans four, Malakasians zero.’

‘The grettans would have been hunting this valley; they would have gone downhill for water overnight.’

‘Good. I’m glad they’re behind us. What’s your point?’

‘They’re not.’ Garec peered into the trees. ‘That’s my point. They didn’t move downhill.’

‘What?’ Mark’s voice rose. ‘Are you saying they’re still hunting?’

‘Ssssh, don’t attract attention. They’re still up here, somewhere.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Mark whispered. ‘All right. All right. Breathe. We still have to get the bows.’

‘Yes,’ Garec said, ‘get ready.’

Behind them, one of the horses whinnied; their roan nickered in response, shaking its mane irritably in Garec’s face. ‘Easy, easy,’ Garec said in a normal tone, smiling down at Raskin when she looked back at them.

‘They’re nervous,’ she said.

‘They’re spooked by the smell of blood, and the lingering scent of the grettans,’ Garec whispered, in mock deference to the soldiers’ suffering. ‘But they’re war horses. They’ll be all right.’

The roan’s ears pricked back and Garec closed his eyes, listening as closely as he could to the sounds of the forest: the background rustle of the light wind through the leafless branches. Somewhere off to his left he could hear a small animal moving, a squirrel or a rabbit, maybe.

There it was: a rumble, like that of a wooden cart over a log bridge. Garec tensed.

‘What is it?’ Mark whispered, afraid for his friend’s answer.

‘They’re here.’ Garec nodded off to his left. ‘West of us, maybe a hundred paces.’

Behind them, one of the horses cried out, a terrified whinny, and bolted. Another followed.

‘This is it,’ Garec said, and then cried loudly, ‘Grettans!’ He manoeuvred their horse next to the dapple-grey and pulled the reins from Raskin’s loose grip. The young woman wheeled on them, terror in her eyes. Her sword was hanging limply at her side.

Mark needed a moment to wrestle with the knots securing their weapons; he nudged Garec to keep her attention focused away from his hands.

‘They’re over there,’ Garec said, pointing into the forest. ‘Raskin, move! Get your horse before it bolts – take it by the reins, don’t try to get in the saddle. They’re too skittish now.’

Raskin stared dumbly at him, shaking visibly.

‘Get your horse, now!’ Garec’s cry slapped her back to reality and she hurried back along the path, not even looking at them.

‘Sergeant,’ she screamed, ‘they’re coming! We’re got to get out of here!’

To Mark, Garec said, ‘You have about half a breath to get those untied, my friend, because things are about to get very bad around here.’

‘Got ’em,’ Mark shouted, ‘go!’

Garec jabbed his heels hard into the roan’s side, kicking it into a gallop, ignoring Sergeant Greson, who was reaching out a mittened hand to grab their reins. Mark reached over and slugged the man, tumbling him into the horse’s severed head. ‘Grettans are coming,’ he shouted at the soldiers, ‘and if you don’t move, you’ll be as dead as them!’

‘Come on,’ Garec urged their horse, ‘come on. You can do it – let’s go, Roan, let’s go!’ Awkwardly at first, and then gradually faster as the big horse eased into its stride, they climbed the slope at a run.

You’ll kill him if you keep up this pace,’ Mark said.

‘Just a bit further,’ Garec replied, ‘we have to make the ridge before we can ease off. Anyone behind?’

‘Nothing yet,’ Mark said.

As if in response, a horse screamed and the unmistakable sounds of a grettan attack reached them through the trees. Both men shuddered as they visualised the beasts falling on the small party. Human cries came now, a shrill call for help that was cut off so suddenly their minds were filled with images of throats being torn out mid-plea.

‘Maybe Raskin will escape,’ Mark said quietly, knowing it was a forlorn hope.

The horse missed its footing for a moment, jouncing its riders badly, reminding them both that they had been shot the previous day.

‘Sonofabitch,’ Mark shouted, ‘watch the road, will you?’

‘Sorry,’ Garec said, ‘I have to get the reins. We won’t make it far steering with a handful of hair.’

‘Well, slow down and grab them,’ Mark said. ‘We can spare a moment.’ He grimaced and muttered to himself, ‘I do hate riding these things.’

Garec eased the roan to a trot while he leaned forward and slipped the reins effortlessly over the horse’s head. Garec grinned. ‘Easy,’ he announced.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Mark groaned, ‘just watch the potholes.’

Garec heard a rumble, an echo of the growl he had caught back in the clearing. This was not the scream of a grettan attacking, this was a grettan stalking. It was coming for them.

‘Gods of the Northern Forest,’ Garec said. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Shit, Garec. Is there another?’

‘At least one.’

‘Get us out of here, quick!’

‘We can’t outrun them, believe me. I’ve tried – and on my Renna, who’s twice as fast as this old carthorse.’

‘What do you propose we do?’

‘Get ready to shoot. Draw several arrows, tuck them in my belt. Put four or five in there, no more. If you can’t stop them with those, we’ll be dead anyway.’ The growl came again, closer this time but still off to the west. ‘Hurry!’

They had covered another hundred paces before Mark caught sight of the creature, coming at them through the trees, its great hindquarters propelling it forward at high speed.

Mark’s stomach felt as though it had been filled with concrete; his arms went numb with fear. Coming towards them was something out of a nightmare, a beast unlike anything he had ever seen. He had only glimpsed the grettan Nerak had sent against them in the Blackstone forest, but that animal had been fleeing into the trees, one leg severed, shrieking in pain. This grettan was in rude good health, and coming for them full pelt, crashing through the undergrowth as if there was nothing there. It had small black eyes, set wide apart over a short snout and a snarling mouth of spiked canines. Its fur was dense and black, covering the corded muscles propelling the beast towards them.

It was coming too fast; he wouldn’t get a shot off, there was no way – and even if he did, it would be a token gesture, nothing good enough to stop or even slow the grettan. Garec’s voice woke him from his stupor.

‘Shoot the rutter!’ he screamed, ‘can’t you see it?’ Garec was fighting to keep the horse under control as the scent and sounds of charging grettan drove it wild.

Mark’s hand shook as he tried to nock an arrow but it finally gripped and he drew, took aim and felt the shaft slip off the bowstring. ‘Hell,’ he barked, lowering the bow and starting again, ‘I can’t ride a horse! I can’t shoot a bow! Sonofabitch!’

Garec shouted back at him, ‘Breathe. Take your time. Aim, breathe and release. You’ve practised, Mark, now make the shot.’ Garec soothed the horse, urging the animal on. ‘Make it count, Mark. You won’t have many chances.’

The grettan broke from the trees some hundred paces behind them, turned up the hillside and began closing the gap. Mark turned as far as he could in the saddle, ignoring the pain as the hole in his knee broke open and began bleeding again. Watching the monster come up behind them was like watching a train coming down the track: he needed a rifle, a hand grenade, an RPG to stop this thing, not an arrow.

‘This isn’t going to work, Garec,’ he said despairingly.

‘Just breathe, aim and fire. You can do it.’

Mark wished he was back in Idaho Springs teaching history, telling his students about the Parthian shot: the great bowmen were famous for the feat of turning in their saddles while retreating and shooting surprisingly accurate parting shots at their enemies. Instead, here he was in a fantasy land, about to try the same trick himself. He drew a deep breath and, timing his shot to the creature’s rhythmic stride, released the arrow.

The shaft took the snarling monster in the right shoulder, sinking deep into the muscle and slowing the grettan for a moment as it reared back and howled into the treetops. But the injury stopped it for only a moment, long enough for the roan to make up fifteen or twenty paces, then it was after them again.

Emboldened by his success, Mark drew and fired a second time, screaming obscenities at the beast. This arrow tore through the thin flesh between the grettan’s eyes and flopped up and down in time to its leaps, a grisly metronome. Mark shouted a victory cry, but it choked in his throat when he realised the direct hit had done nothing to slow the creature down.

His hands trembling again, he struggled to prepare his third shaft, aiming and releasing a scant moment before the grettan, its face stained with blood, leaped onto the roan’s hindquarters, spilling him and Garec into the snow.

Mark rolled head over heels, crashing through the rotten wood of a fallen tree trunk. His injured knee was bleeding badly now as he slipped and slid down the hillside, bouncing off trees and through brambles before coming to rest against a rock protruding out of the frozen ground. From above, he heard the roan wail several times like a frightened child and then fall silent. The horse was dead.

Trying to regain his composure, Mark cleared the snow from his face. His knee was a mess; the bandages Raskin had applied that morning had disappeared during his precipitous descent. He had a sharp pain in his shoulder, the damaged knee was throbbing badly and there was a steady, dull pain in his lower back, but he felt as if he could manage to walk. He could hear the grettan, snarling and tearing at the carcase of the horse, and he looked around for a tree he might climb to elude the creature long enough for it to lose interest or wander away. The nearest looked to be fifteen yards or so up the hillside, one he had slammed into moments earlier.

He searched around for Garec, but there was no sign of him. He shook himself and began trudging back up the slope, calling out, ‘Garec!’ – and immediately realising how stupid he’d been. Instead of Garec’s voice, Mark heard the snarling and growling come to an abrupt halt; a palpable stillness fell over the forested hillside.

Mark took another few steps, just far enough to see that instead of feeding on the horse’s carcase, the grettan had lifted its head and was staring down at him.

‘Ah, hell,’ Mark groaned, unsure whether to run, freeze or pray for a massive heart attack. He measured the distance to the nearest branches. ‘There’s no way.’ He glanced around, hoping someone had passed through the forest earlier that morning and accidentally forgotten their machine-gun. Apart from a stocky length of rotten oak, there was nothing. He bent down to pick up the stick, hoping that, like Steven, he might choose the one branch in the entire forest imbued with enough mystical energy to blast this grettan into pixie dust, but the branch just crumbled in his hand.

The grettan moved down the hill, like a jungle cat stalking its prey. Mark thought for a second about running, but he didn’t much fancy the idea of being hamstrung, so instead, he froze.

His legs buried calf-deep in the snow, Mark Jenkins stood his ground, trembling, and waiting for the monster – that’s what the grettan was, a monster from a child’s nightmare – to pounce on him and tear out his throat. He waited for his life to flash before his eyes, but nothing happened; all he could think about was when the creature would leap, and how quickly it would tear him apart. He started to cry. This was not how he had ever imagined he would die.

‘Come on, then,’ he sobbed. ‘Come and get me.’

The grettan moved down the hill, low to the ground, sliding like mercury between the rocks and trees, the consummate hunter.

‘I’m right here!’ Mark looked for a stick, a rock, anything he might use to land one decent blow. Maybe he could blind the creature, or crack its skull… but there was nothing nearby but snow and the rotten branch lying in a crumble beside his feet.

Mark decided to go out in a flurry of noise and anger, to leave Eldarn a raving wild man. He started bellowing, whatever came into his mind, his last testament a loose collection of words and phrases, the stream-of-consciousness farewell of a condemned man.

Pffft! The arrow took the grettan in the throat. Pffft! Another sank deep, inches from the first, until only the fletching protruded. The grettan shrieked, rose up on its hind legs and growled. Pffft! Thud! Another hit. Pffft! Thud! Yet another, and this one was a miracle shot, into the soft flesh behind the animal’s ear and below the curve of its skull; there weren’t a handful of people in the world, any world, Eldarn included, who could have made that shot.

Garec kept the arrows coming, but they were unnecessary, for the miracle shot had finished the grettan. Only adrenalin kept it coming at Mark, dragging its injured legs, screaming at each new arrow that pierced its hide, determined to kill, even in its final moments. Finally, just a few paces away, the creature slumped to the ground and lay still, growling a warning as its life drained away.

Mark wisely gave the dying grettan a wide berth as he climbed back up the hill to join Garec, who was standing by the ravaged carcase of the roan horse, his rosewood longbow still drawn.

‘Here,’ Garec handed him the bow. ‘You finish it.’

Mark shook his head. ‘No. It’ll be dead in a moment anyway.’

‘You don’t want a shot?’

‘No.’

Garec understood; shouldering his bow, he offered a hand to Mark and laughed. ‘What did you say earlier? We have two good legs between us?’

‘Something like that.’ Mark took his arm. Together they pulled themselves up the hillside.