The Pilgrims

30

At last it seemed the march was over. Alone in a stony field before them was a large, one-storey wooden house with several barns behind it. In the yard, a well-muscled middle-aged man bent over the ground with a bucket in hand, digging roots from the ground. He saw them approach and stared as though at peculiar beasts; it was clear this many visitors was not a common thing. Then he recognised Anfen and raised an arm in greeting. ‘Faul! It’s safe. He’s back,’ the man called to the house.

Footsteps seemed to rattle the whole house and a huge voice boomed out the door. ‘WHO?’

‘Anfen. And friends. New friends.’

‘I DON’T THINK SO!’ the voice shot out. It was a woman’s. ‘TELL EM, NO FURTHER! ANFEN CAN COME. I’LL MEET THE REST OUT THERE.’

‘No need for me to tell them,’ said the man with a shrug. ‘They heard you.’

‘Wait here,’ Anfen said to Case, Eric and Lalie. ‘Don’t be alarmed. This is Faul. She’s a friend of ours but she doesn’t like strangers.’

Through the doorway — which, Eric just noticed, was a deal higher than normal — came a huge woman who had nonetheless to duck to get through it. She was larger, even, than Doon had been, round shoulders and arms straining at the plain farm dress she wore. Long straight hair hung to her shoulders, and a broad smile, full of blocky teeth, stretched across the ruddy slab of her face. Her big wooden clogs shook the house, its front steps buckling under her. She looked around at the rest of the company, a crazy gleam in her eyes. ‘I KNOW THESE. YOU LOT ARE FINE. IN YOU GO. PANTRY’S FULL. DIG IN. BUT CLEAN UP AFTER!’

Sharfy, Siel and Loup bowed low in thanks, then went inside, taking their boots off at the door. Faul stomped over to Eric and crouched low to stare into his face. He had never felt so vulnerable in all his life, but the feeling was surpassed a moment later when she reached under his arms and lifted him like a doll, holding him over her head as though measuring his weight before setting him down. She did the same to Case next. ‘YOUR HANDS SHAKE. WHY?’

‘Need a drink,’ he said tiredly, his tone suggesting that getting hauled off the ground by a half-giant was just another trial in a long, long day.

‘DRINK! WE’LL SEE. YOUR WEIGHT’S GOOD ENOUGH. NOTHING FUNNY GOING ON HERE. MAYBE LUT CAN FETCH YOU ONE, IF ANFEN WISHES. WE’LL SEE.’

When she got to Lalie and lifted her, the big, crazy smile changed, and her brow clouded. ‘AND WHAT’S THIS ONE? AHA, I THINK I KNOW. ANFEN! WHY DO YOU BRING SUCH AS THIS TO MY HOME?’ Lalie’s feet pedalled the air. ‘CAREFUL, GIRL. THE HARDER YOU KICK ME, THE FURTHER I THROW.’

‘She’s the last of her group,’ Anfen said quietly. ‘Something, perhaps whatever has been causing grief and death in the south, now lurks in the woods near your home. She alone saw it. That’s why I bring her.’

‘VERY WELL. SHE MAY NOT COME IN. SHE STAYS ON THE PORCH TONIGHT. TIED.’

Anfen sighed. ‘Faul, is that necessary?’

‘IT IS!’ she boomed. ‘NEVER ONE SUCH AS THIS SLEEPS UNDER MY ROOF. SOME NIGHTS, WHEN THE WIND CARRIES, WE HAVE HEARD SCREAMS OF PAIN FROM THE WOODS, EVEN FROM HERE.’ Faul had set Lalie down, but continued examining her. Lalie squirmed under her gaze. ‘WHERE’S MY NEPHEW? WHERE’S DOON?’

‘Marching south-west to the Godstears, with the others,’ said Anfen.

‘HE BEHAVED?’

‘He’s done himself honour. And you.’

‘THEN WHY DID YOU SPLIT WITH HIM?’

‘We have acquired another companion, uninvited,’ said Anfen. ‘She calls herself Stranger and seems to be a powerful mage. I wanted to be doubly sure she wasn’t following Kiown or a couple of the others.’

‘WHY WOULD SHE FOLLOW THEM?’

‘Past deeds of theirs give many reasons. I sent Doon to look after them.’

‘HE WILL. AND YOUR STRANGER WILL BE BRAVE TO STEP ONTO MY LAND, MAGE OR NO. FAR GAZE WILL SENSE HER, IF SHE IS GREAT. HE IS OUT THERE, SEEKING YOU. HE CAME HERE IN WOLF-FORM.’

‘Far Gaze?’ said Anfen, startled. ‘Why?’

‘HE ASKED OF YOU. THE MAYORS SENT HIM. IT IS ALL I KNOW.’ Faul strode up, towering over him as though she meant him harm; she could hardly look otherwise. ‘AND YOU, ANFEN. YOU SHOULD NOT LEAVE HERE FOR SOME WHILE. PATROLS SEEK YOU ON EVERY ROAD. TRADE WAGONS ARE SEARCHED. FAR GAZE SAYS CRIERS CALL FOR YOUR HEAD IN ALIGNED CITIES, AND SECRET BOUNTIES ARE BEING PLACED IN FREE ONES. WAR MAGES FLEW BY HERE. THEIR SHRIEKING SCARED THE BIRDS.’

Anfen’s face was grim. ‘When?’

‘TWO NIGHTS PAST. THINGS STIR, RATTLE AND BOIL.’

The interrogation seemed to be over. Faul stomped back up the steps, gesturing for them to follow.

At long last, Case got his drink. It improved his shakes, but not his mood. Faul’s husband, Lut — who was hale and hearty enough himself, when his wife wasn’t close by to make him seem a midget — poured what smelled like petroleum into a clay goblet with a shake of the head which said he’d seen alcoholism before and didn’t much like it. Case, for his part, had seen that disapproving look before, and he had learned not to give a flying fuck about it.

Lut fetched the rest of them plates of cold sliced meat and cheese. He refused Sharfy’s offer of a red scale in payment, which Sharfy had counted on before offering the scale (which he pocketed again with some relief). The band laid their mats down across the splintery floor of a huge living room full of caged birds. Every so often Faul stopped to talk to the pets in her booming voice, as though no one else were able to overhear — often as not, talk about her guests. The birds learned that Anfen ‘looked a little older and didn’t walk so smooth now’, that Sharfy ‘needed a few scars on the other side to even up that face of his, for all the good that would do’, and that the cult girl wasn’t to be trusted and should count herself lucky to get a porch, for Faul had a mind to break her legs like twigs.

‘AND I STILL MIGHT. DEAD GODS, MY PRETTY. WHAT ROT! LET EM BE IF THEY’RE SLEEPING, SPECIALLY TROUBLEMAKERS LIKE INFERNO. THINK PEOPLE KNOW BETTER THAN THE ONES THAT PUT HIM TO SLEEP? AND THE KILLING AND TORTURE AND ALL. SHAME ON HER. AS FOR THOSE OTHER TWO, THE YOUNG AND THE OLD, DON’T LIKE EM, DON’T HATE EM. WE’LL SEE, WON’T WE? WE’LL BLOODY WELL SEE.’

The bird angrily screeched its opinion right back.

There were large spaces beneath false floors in nearly every room for Faul to hide in, should a patrol pass through, as they occasionally did. The patrols, Eric thought, would have to be numbskulls not to guess by the huge doorways alone that a giant dwelled here. Perhaps it bought Lut time to bargain for bribes.

‘Faul shouldn’t live here,’ said Sharfy. ‘It’s too close to them.’

Anfen shrugged. He lay back on his cushions, legs crossed over one another, eyes closed. For the first time he seemed somewhat relieved of his cares, and closer to the young man his years claimed he was. The charm necklace lay across his chest, and he played with it absently. ‘Tell her that,’ he said. ‘What was the old saying? If you can change a giant’s mind, you can probably beat it in a wrestle too. But since she’s here it’s a roof and a plate.’

Loup threw himself on a mat and didn’t wake up again for the rest of the day, despite the screeching of caged birds and Faul’s thunderous passage through the house. Just as Eric lay back in his cushions, and discovered they were indeed the most marvellous invention ever made, a boot poked him gently in the ribs. Sharfy stood over him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he said with a grin.

‘My people call this relaxing,’ said Eric. ‘It’s our custom, after a forced pace march through death and danger and corpses. And frankly, if I don’t get an hour or two of rest, I will lose what’s left of my bearings and probably have some kind of breakdown.’

‘No you don’t. No rest for heroes. You want to be one, I’ll make you one. But you’ll have to work.’

‘Later. Please.’

Sharfy dropped an army-issue sword handle-first on the floor beside him. ‘Out into the yard and I’ll show you how to use it.’

‘If you try and get me up from this mattress, I’ll prove just how well I can use the damn thing, believe me.’

Siel, he noticed, was watching him. With the heaviest of sighs, he picked up the sword and followed Sharfy outside.

The backyard was hard stony turf with patches of reddish soil, which Lut and Faul had somehow convinced to tolerate small fields of vegetables bordered in by logs, some way away from the house. Barns and sheds poured into the air smells and sounds of livestock, though what in God’s name they grazed on Eric couldn’t imagine. The line of the woods stretched along the horizon to their right. Mountains stood blue against the other horizon’s white sky, behind long stretches of what seemed rubble fields, dotted here and there with trees.

Sharfy jumped down the steps, winced at what it did to his knees, then picked up a handful of pebbles. ‘Drop the sword,’ he said.

‘Forgive me, I thought I got up from the cushions to learn how to use a freaking sword.’ He let it clatter to the ground.

‘Yep. This is about footwork. And enough with the whining. That won’t impress her.’ Sharfy laughed at the blush rising to his cheeks. ‘Yes, I know you’re in love. More dangerous than combat, that is. Here. Catch these stones with your right hand. Lunge forwards to catch them, if I throw in front of you. Step this way if I throw left, or this way right.’ Sharfy demonstrated what looked like the steps of a dance, then threw the first pebble, which bounced off Eric’s knuckle. A second pebble whizzed straight into his forehead. ‘That’s what happens when you miss.’

‘This is going to be a long day, isn’t it?’ said Eric, rubbing what felt like a bee-sting between his eyes.

‘That’s up to you. Catch! Good. Catch! Better …’

‘Least you know how to hold a blade now,’ said Sharfy at nightfall as they headed back to the verandah, sweaty and tired. ‘Holding the sword right might be enough to make someone think they’re in for a fight, maybe enough to stop em starting one.’

‘That’s not a ringing endorsement of my potential, is it?’

Sharfy shrugged in reply.

‘I’ll make the front rank one day, you wait,’ said Eric, strangely buoyed as they sat on the back steps and surveyed the darkening horizon.

Sharfy laughed his unpleasant laugh. ‘First lesson, you did all right,’ he said. ‘Your eye’s fine, seen worse make it to military grade. We’ll work on your defence. Stay alive as long as you can, Anfen or me will kill whoever’s attacking you.’

‘Cutting the enemy’s head off seems a pretty good defence.’

Sharfy nodded. ‘Maybe so. Getting yours cut off’s a pretty poor one. Hey, before. When Loup took you to the cliffs. What’d he do?’

‘Not much, just crushed my most valuable possession into powder.’

‘Which one? Not the black?’

‘The black.’

Sharfy looked stricken. ‘I’ll kill him! Why’d you let him? Don’t worry. Your other scales, all valuable. Worth a bag of gold each, two bags for the blue. Did he keep the powder or give it to you?’

‘It’s right here.’ Eric held up the pouch. When Sharfy looked at it, a change came over him: his dents and scars had made him seem a hardened old warrior, but now he had the desperate leer of an addict. He looked around conspiratorially, leaned close, voice lowered. ‘Might as well do a vision, if it’s already crushed. If you can spare a pinch, I’ll owe you.’

Eric experimentally moved the pouch left, then right. Sharfy’s eyes followed its every movement till he put it away. ‘Just why have you lowered your voice there, Sharfy?’

Sharfy blinked and returned to normal. ‘Anfen and his rules. He’s not keen on scale visions. But listen. You know how I was saying Loup’s a bit of a mongrel, in what magic he knows? If he has a speciality, it’s visions and other Dreamcraft. Our secret though, just the three of us. And I can see by the look in your eye you’re keener than I am. Don’t deny it.’

‘I doubt you can see that in my eye, my friend.’ But it was true enough.