The Pilgrims

29

The light of afternoon was beginning to dim, but they were able, still, to keep an eye on the forest floor for more of the distinctive marks they’d seen by the hall. They had not yet found any. Loup led them, sometimes changing directions for no apparent reason, once even leading the group in a wide circle, and it seemed he’d done so on purpose. The others traded exasperated looks but didn’t question the magician.

The cult girl — Lalie, as they began to call her, despite her ignoring this at first — kept a sullen silence, but briefly inclined her head in thanks when Anfen passed her a strip of dried meat. She ate it ravenously. She warmed to no one, but Sharfy was the one to whom her looks were the most venomous. No one questioned her yet. Nor did Anfen decide — after some murmured debate with Loup — to keep her hands tied, not yet.

When we get near a town, perhaps, he thought. Inferno cultists were not permitted in most cities, Free or Aligned, which meant they were usually killed on sight. Lalie did not bear many of the tribal scars or tattoos of long-standing cultists, but nor did she yet seem willing to lie about her beliefs, or forsake them. The Mayors would hear her story, and they would resort to torture, if she kept it to herself. War was war; no one had to like it.

The doomed hall and its museum of death had done the expected bad things to Anfen’s mind. Only Sharfy’s face, Sharfy with whom he’d travelled most out of this group, was free of being split and cracked open in his eyes. Lalie and the Pilgrims he tried not to look at. Lalie especially was the stuff of nightmares, not helped, he guessed, by the dried blood that had caked her real face for so long. And these trees, these fucking trees, how he hated them, more than the old Pilgrim Case did, no matter who complained and who didn’t. When he came close to one he had a strong lust to hack into it with his blade. It didn’t matter that they’d come through the haunted part of the woods unscathed.

Anfen also knew Case was battling to keep pace with the group, and seemed on the brink of a one-man mutiny. It would be a challenge, when the peevish complaints ceased being quietly muttered and began being grumbled aloud, to keep from cuffing the old man’s head, or screaming at him, or more. He didn’t want things tense with both Pilgrims. But it was too late now — they would not avoid another night in these woods, and largely because of that one old man’s lagging legs.

‘We’ll be safe if we’re quiet,’ said Loup as they set up camp for the night on a rise in the ground, away from the mist. ‘Could be that the noise and whooping and hollering was what drew the beasties from the ground.’

‘Maybe so. Lalie, what time did they attack? During your ritual?’

She answered, to Anfen’s surprise. ‘After. Late.’

‘Go on,’ he said, deciding to press her. ‘You’ve been fed. Earn it.’

She shut her eyes and spoke hesitantly: ‘We had collapsed, spent, around the fire, when they came. They … they stood by our sleeping bodies, we didn’t know for how long. Hours or minutes. They were perfectly still, in our midst. Watching us. Someone woke and saw them. She screamed. We others woke and ran. They didn’t follow. They stayed still, perfectly still.’ She swallowed and her voice quavered. ‘We went to the hall. Barricaded it. They didn’t come, not for a while. Morning was not far. We began to wonder if … we had imagined them. Then, out the window. I was the one who saw it. Right outside, peering in. It moved strangely. We didn’t hear them come. It looked right at me.’ She was shivering.

‘What then, Lalie?’ said Anfen, but she fell quiet and he let her stay that way.

They had a small fire with carefully treated wood but after their broth was heated that was all, cold night or not. ‘And we’ll have two on watch, all night. Siel and Eric first. Case and myself second. Sharfy and Loup third.’ Eric’s possible link to Siel was one way to nip in the bud any potential mutiny …

Lalie tossed and turned, whimpering in her sleep. Loup crouched by her, laid a hand on her forehead and murmured a few words. She soon lay quiet. Whatever Loup had done caused a drop of blood to trickle from his ear. ‘Another thankless deed,’ he muttered, holding his head in pain. ‘But she needs it. Us too, with that moaning. Dreaming of beasties and blood. Silly girl.’

Who needs thanks and praise? They’re just accusations of what good you haven’t done, Anfen thought before drifting to oblivion, where colourless dreams awaited, the kind mercifully overlooked by his memory each morning.

Eric sat by the dead fire and Siel — to his surprise — sat behind him with her back pressed against his. The night woods were quiet around them, save the odd scuffling noise as a small creature lingered now and then at the edge of their camp, sniffing them out.

‘You aren’t a prince,’ said Siel after a few quiet minutes. ‘Or nobility.’

To lie or not to lie … ‘No, I’m not. But I’m the next closest thing, an unpublished novelist. That’s a joke. How could you tell anyway?’

‘At the hilltop. You know of my talent?’

‘At the hilltop, I discovered your talent, yes.’

She laughed quietly, which was fine music to his ears. ‘I see things,’ she said. ‘Glimpse through windows into the past. I don’t like it. Here where bad things have happened, it’s awful. I walked into a room at our old house and one day saw a man strangling an old woman. That was the first time it happened. I was five. Sometimes I can block it out, sometimes I can’t. When they found I had talent, they tried to make me a mage in Happenstance. But my tutor was killed by bounty hunters. I’m not glad about that; she was nice. But I’m glad not to be a mage. Glimpses are bad enough.’

‘Happenstance … that’s what your magic’s called?’

‘It’s Wisdom’s school. Or it was, before they destroyed all the temples and burned the books.’

‘Wisdom — another Great Spirit?’

She sighed as if annoyed to be drawn onto an objectionable subject of discussion. ‘Yes, but it’s misleading. She doesn’t really have much to do with their spell craft, though they thought otherwise at first. She’s connected to the raw kind of magic they use, but not to the ways they use it. It’s complicated to explain.’ She waved a hand to brush the subject away. ‘Anyway. When we mated, I learned things about you. One is that you lied about yourself.’

Mated. That word seemed a fitting description of their encounter on the hilltop. He nodded. ‘Is that why you did it, to learn about me?’

‘The main reason. I also like it, sometimes.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Though it is different for me, I think, from how it is for most women.’

‘Did you learn also that I’m scared to death here? I was marched to your camp at knife-point, for fuck’s sake. I thought this group was likely to kill me, unless maybe they thought I was important.’

‘Yes, I knew that too. But you are important. You are a Pilgrim.’

‘What does that mean? What’s going to become of me?’

She paused so long before answering he wasn’t sure she’d heard him. ‘You’ll decide what becomes of you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I can’t see the future. Almost no one can, not clearly, or the magic schools would still be here and Vous would never have taken the castle. And I don’t know what it means that you’re a Pilgrim. Only that it’s important.’

‘Are you going to tell Anfen I lied?’

‘Not if you massage my shoulders.’ She wasn’t joking, he saw, as she planted herself in front of him and loosed the shirt about her neck.

He worked his thumbs into the knots and tension of her shoulders and neck. He took it no further, not here while they were on watch duty, though he itched to reach around and squeeze her to him, and had an odd feeling she would allow that much, at least.

‘I also know you have a weapon,’ she whispered. ‘I learned it at the hilltop and I think I’ve seen it. What is it?’

‘It’s called a gun.’ He took it out of its holster and showed her.

She held it. ‘But this is small. Is it powerful?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘How is it enchanted?’

‘It’s not. It shoots out a small piece of metal very, very fast. Much faster than your arrows. Don’t tell them about it please, not yet.’

‘If you carry it to protect us, I won’t.’

‘Of course I do. I have a feeling it would take care even of a war mage, if it had to.’

When his hands were too tired to go on kneading her shoulders, she turned to face him with her legs apart, reached into his pants, took hold of his penis with no ceremony at all and tugged it until he came, which didn’t take long. She did it with about as much passion as a farmer milking a cow. ‘You can perhaps relax a little, now,’ she said, ‘and think more of the dangers around us, less about me.’

He laughed. ‘It’s a deal.’

They said little more for the rest of the watch. He jumped every time something scuttled through undergrowth or flew with swooping wings from a high branch, but soon enough it was time to wake Case and Anfen, then, all too soon, time to rise and set out again.

As they put some distance behind them, the forest floor gave way like a balding scalp to the dark grey rock beneath. Ridges of it battled with the forest for turf. The place felt like distant, remote wilderness, the middle of nowhere; there was no sign of human habitation, no ruins or beaten paths.

Loup, who’d been in a foul mood all morning since they’d asked him to bless the biscuits they had for breakfast (he’d refused), finally perked up at the sight of rocky cliffs, and bounded towards them without a word, gesturing frantically for Eric to follow him.

Anfen, displeased, halted the rest of the company. ‘Loup! Don’t get my Pilgrim killed, and don’t be long.’

Loup held Eric’s arm and practically dragged him down a steep slope to the tallest part of a sheer wall of stone, out of sight of Anfen and the rest. The old magician held his palms to the flat wall, muttering, ‘Somewhere round here, bound to be one. Bound to be. This far from cities and the road, oh aye! No one to bother him out here, he’ll reckon he’s safe. There’ll be one: cranky, old and lazy.’

Part of the cliff face bulged outwards, and it was here that Loup stopped. ‘Here! Here’s one! Now let’s wake him up.’ He stood some way back from the bulge and threw small stones at it. ‘Back here, Eric. You won’t see him from right close. We got a stoneflesh golem here! Ho boy, this far north’s a rare treat. Didn’t think we’d actually find a live one!’

Only from back where Loup stood did Eric see the network of cracks and neat cleaves vaguely forming a squarish head. Two holes set wide apart made its eyes; its mouth was a jagged tilted slit above a bulging grey chin. If the rest of its body were below, it had merged with the cliff. ‘Wake up, you ugly fat thing!’ Loup called. ‘Got a job for you! Wake up! Eric, throw stones at him. Big ones.’

Eric picked up some loose rocks and underarmed them at the rock-man.

‘Hey now, don’t hit its face!’ said Loup. ‘Aim lower down. Slow to anger, these are. But make it too mad and we’ll have problems. Hey you! Wake up!’

There was a grinding sound. The mouth-line shifted sideways, grains of crushed stone falling like sand from either corner. ‘Good! It’s awake,’ said Loup. ‘Now. Here. Your scales. Where are they?’

Eric handed him all four. ‘What’ve you got in mind?’

‘You’ll see. This golem’s going to help us out.’

Anfen’s voice carried over to them: ‘Hurry up, you two.’

‘Almost done!’ Loup yelled back. ‘Eh, him and his rules. You, golem! I got a job for you. But I don’t think you’re strong enough for it.’ The mouth sawed sideways again, grinding more powdered rock. ‘Ohh he’s cranky now!’ whispered Loup. ‘You gotta insult em, make em want to prove emselves. You, golem! I got a job if you prove your strength! Which you won’t. Weakling! Weak as my mother’s pudding, rest her heart. Seen mud puddles stronger’n you. What reward d’you seek? Eh? Speak up!’

The jaw jerked around again with a spray of ground rock. Eric heard and understood: ‘Sleep,’ its voice like gravel scattering across the ground.

‘What’d he say?’ said Loup.

‘He said sleep.’

‘Aha! Wants to be left alone!’ To the golem, ‘Well, you can help us out first, then we’re gone. You don’t help us, we stay here all day, pestering you. Show us your palm, you fatso. Go on!’

A ripple of cracks wormed up the rock wall, outlining a slab of stone with a round fist at its end. The fist uncurled, the palm open, its fingers fat rectangles of stone. Loup ran forwards, placed Eric’s black scale on its palm, then said, ‘Go! Crush that up, you weakling! Show us what you’re made of.’

‘My scale!’

‘Oh aye, she’s a rare one,’ said Loup with a grin.

Eric darted to retrieve the scale but the golem made a fist. There was a loud cracking noise, then a sound like glass being slowly crunched by a boot. The golem’s eye holes peered out expressionlessly.

Loup pulled a soft leather pouch from his pocket and held it to collect the black powder running through the golem’s fingers. ‘Get it all,’ he said urgently. ‘There, a few grains dropped down. Get em! Quickly.’

The golem’s palm opened. Loup dusted the dark powder from it. ‘Sleep,’ the golem repeated. Its arm still stuck out from the cliff face.

‘It’ll stay like that till who knows how long,’ said Loup happily. ‘He’ll forget to put it back, you watch.’ To the golem, ‘Very strong, you are. I was wrong. All right, you go back to bed. Back to your dreaming about stones, stones, stones.’ To Eric, ‘That’s about the only way to crush up scales I know of. Oh aye, strong ones are those stonefleshes!’ Loup handed him the pouch. ‘Wait till we camp. Hopefully we get a day up our sleeve soon. That’d be best. Then we’ll see a thing or two with that crushed-up scale.’

‘Thanks, I guess.’

‘Spare me a pinch and it’s no bother, no bother at all.’

A very impatient-looking Anfen gestured for the company to get up. ‘After that little excursion, you owe me a tasty lunch, my friend,’ he said to Loup.

‘Ahh, I’ll bless your lunch.’ Loup flashed his gums. ‘Stoneflesh, over yonder! Small one, but he was strong as his big old cousins at World’s End. Oh, aye.’