The Pilgrims

20

No smoke came from the campfires spread out on the lower platform, which was a quiet bustle of activity as people ate or tended to clothes hung on makeshift lines. Most wore leather, furs and skins, and there was no shortage of swords and knives lying about. The camp had clearly been here for some time.

Eric counted four women, six men, all of them giving the impression beds and hot baths would be quite welcome. One of the men was easily double a normal man’s size. His face tugged somehow at Eric’s memory: those big, dumb, startled eyes, the bald head … the door! This was the huge being he’d seen struggling to fit through, before Kiown’s boot was planted on his face to push him back.

The woman who’d fired an arrow at the train held a small razor and tended to the giant’s moustache, trimming off a little at the sides with a very careful hand. Eric’s eye lingered on her. Her skin was darker than that of anyone else he’d seen in this world. She had big almond eyes and jet black hair in two thick braids that hung down to her hips. She’d stepped from the set of a film about Native Americans, he was sure; even the tanned skins and tunic she wore would have seemed at home. She softly sang as she brushed little wisps of hair from the giant’s naked chest, and said, ‘All done!’

The giant peered at her, puffing air with his cheeks. When she saw Eric making his way down, she watched him intently and a change came to her face, no longer carefree and smiling; there was an intensity there now he could not interpret. If he had to guess, he’d say her look meant she wanted to kill him.

Eric spotted Sharfy and Kiown seated close to the path, embroiled in a heated argument with voices they strained to keep low. The others seemed to be listening with amusement they politely kept as hidden as possible. Kiown had a piece of dressing on his cheek and an impressive black eye. His face was totally rearranged by anger, leaving no trace at all of the practical joker he’d seemed at first, his voice an angry hiss: ‘And what of your part in it all? Was that disclosed? You scuttled over that dirt cart like lice on my balls. You stuffed your pockets.’

Sharfy sat back placidly, watching the veins bulge in Kiown’s neck, the flying spittle. ‘You finished yet?’ he said.

‘No! Traitorous shit! After I brought you the masks and all. You made it sound like I want us to get caught and killed.’

‘Guess I’m the one whose face he should’ve smashed. I done you wrong.’ Sharfy laughed his loud ugly laugh, then spat. Eric had seldom seen a meaner-looking face in his life than Sharfy’s gnarled, scarred and dented one. ‘Guess you won’t be leading any more missions any time soon,’ he said.

‘Aha! Now it comes out,’ Kiown said, looking triumphant and newly enraged all at once, the cone of red hair swaying wildly. He stood and walked away, his long lean body convulsing with anger, jerking him as if puppet strings pulled from above. Eric sat in his vacated place by the fire, glad of its warmth.

On the ground before Sharfy was a pile of that brackish dirt. Next to it were about a dozen flat, sparkling pieces that they’d dug out and rubbed clean. ‘You’re awake,’ said Sharfy. ‘Anfen doesn’t let me sleep that long. Not in Aligned country. You and your luck. Got that dirt I threw to you?’

Eric felt his pockets. ‘Yeah, but there’s not much.’

‘Your loss, your fault. You had a chance to grab plenty.’

Careful not to reveal the gun’s clips, Eric pulled out two handfuls of hard dirt from his pockets. Sharfy examined them. ‘Not much at all,’ he said. ‘Be lucky if there’s one or two scales here. Probably none. You’re crazy. Don’t get many chances at a dirt cart these days.’

Sharfy picked through the dirt pieces with his knife. Kiown, who’d angrily paced up the path, came back, unable to resist watching what Eric’s share would bring. Sharfy dug out what looked like sea shells buried in the dirt. ‘One, two … four, in this little clod? Ha! You and your luck.’ He spat on a rag and polished them one by one. Three of them gleamed brightly, two red, one blue, but one remained dull.

Kiown made a strangling noise. ‘He’s got a black scale!’

‘Nah, it’s just dirty,’ said Sharfy, rubbing it harder. The scale did not get any brighter. ‘Wait. It is black! Wish your luck’d start spreading around.’

Kiown made a noise like he was going to be sick. He looked at Eric in accusing disbelief. ‘You know how many black ones I’ve seen in my life? One! That one!’

Eric thought he was about to be struck by Kiown’s accusing, pointing arms. ‘It’s about the only thing in this world that I own,’ he said. ‘Does that make you feel any better? And can someone tell me what these are exactly?’

‘Scales,’ said Sharfy with a gleam in his eye. ‘Dragon scales.’

Eric looked closely at one of his other three. It gleamed a beautiful deep ruby red. ‘From the Dragon?’

‘No, from the mighty god-chicken, whose beak can peck at Time Itself,’ said Kiown in disgust. He stormed off, wringing his hands.

‘Ignore him,’ said Sharfy. ‘Lots of scales buried, over at World’s End, in the ground.’ He unfolded a small map, showing an oval shape, and pointed at a line running dead down the middle. ‘That’s World’s End. That line there’s the Wall, runs all across. Scales buried near it, mostly in the middle part, deep in the ground. Shallow ones all got dug out back when they started to use em for trading. Mad rush for scales. Now, only way they get new ones is in the mines, dirt from way down deep.’

‘Why so many, over in that spot?’

Sharfy waved away this clearly unworthy question, which Eric had learned meant he didn’t have the foggiest idea of its answer.

‘Professor Sharfy!’ Kiown called mockingly from up the pathway. ‘Say, Professor? Why are some men born short and ugly?’

‘How’s your eye, precious?’ Sharfy replied. ‘Aw, did you hurt yourself?’

‘Stop your squabbling,’ yelled an old shirtless man from one of the other fires. Apparently to himself, he said, ‘We been on this hilltop too long, like I told him. Past the point of being safe, by now. Is a tight squeeze now, oh aye.’

‘Ignore him too,’ Sharfy muttered.

‘What makes these things valuable?’ said Eric, putting the scales in his pockets.

‘Rare, pretty. Plus you can crush em up for visions. Not many people do that. Show you why.’ He took Eric’s black scale, laid it on the rocky floor, then tried to smash it with the handle of his knife, many times. The scale didn’t break or crack. The underside of Sharfy’s knife handle had some new slits cut into it. ‘See? Got magic in em. Hard to crush up — that’s why no one knows about the visions. Good thing, too. Visions sometimes show you too much.’

In that moment, Eric resolved to do a vision as a matter of priority. ‘So how would I crush it up, if I wanted to?’

‘Shh!’ Sharfy’s lopsided eyes bulged with alarm. ‘Against Anfen’s rules. He won’t have it, not while we’re on the road. But if you wanted to, that’s who you talk to.’ He pointed at the grisly old man, who now lay flat on his back, snoring.

‘What the hell is he supposed to be, anyway?’

‘Him? That’s Loup. He’s our magician.’

The magician in question farted loud enough to turn heads all across the platform his way.

‘Not quite Merlin,’ Eric murmured. ‘Not quite Gandalf. Live and learn, I guess.’

Anfen’s voice called from the upper platform. ‘Pack up camp. We ride soon.’