Gallow (40 page)

They heard the surf before either man saw it. The Moontongue crouched in the bows with a short pole, watching for rocks to fend away, but the oarsmen had steered true and the boat ground to a halt in a tiny cove of soft pale sand. No one said a word – there was no need. The sailors took to dragging the boat out of the water while the Moontongue and the second warrior strapped their shields to their backs and the poles too, their axes to their belts and walked slowly up the beach to the foot of the cliff and started to climb. It was slow laborious work in the dark on the black rain-slick stone. When they reached the top the Moontongue crouched down and waited, silent, listening to the rain. There was no cover here – nothing grew on these cold and windswept islands except long tough grass that clustered in hummocks and tufts. After a few long seconds, the Moontongue wiped the rain from his eyes.

‘Follow.’

He crept away, moving lightly through the wet grass but slow and careful. The moors up on the cliff here were riddled with cracks and crevices and holes beneath a thin skin of grass and earth; indeed, the very stone of the islands themselves was honeycombed with fractures, some of them too narrow for a man’s hand, others wide enough for a ship to sail right through. The Moontongue led the way, steady and methodical. After an hour, maybe a little less, they crested a low rise and there it was, another half mile in front of them on top of the cliffs where a part of them fell away and the island had its only harbour: The Temple of Fates. From this far away there wasn’t much to see except a few dim specks of light through the drizzle, but as they got closer, the lights became clearer, bonfires burning under sheltered tower-top roofs like beacons. The darkness was too thick to make out much more. When they reached the wall, they followed it around until the Moontongue abruptly stopped.

‘Here.’ There both took their shields off their backs and then the poles. Neither could really see what they were doing, but they’d practised it together with their eyes shut, night after night until they were perfect. The poles became a ladder. The Moontongue scaled it to the roof of the temple kitchen while the second warrior held it fast; then, once he was up, the second warrior climbed too and pulled the ladder onto the roof beside them. The Moontongue tied a thin piece of dark cord to the bottom step. He lowered the cord over the far edge beside a moss-stained pillar and then dropped to the ground with barely a sound. The second Lhosir followed. The ladder stayed where it was on the kitchen roof, but with the cord they’d easily pull it down.

They ran across the open yard. The doors to the Hall of Fates were closed but not locked and the Moontongue quickly eased one open and slipped inside. As he did, light spilled the other way from dozens of burning candles.

‘There.’ The Hall of Fates was shaped like an arrow, a wide triangular space pointing into the heart of the temple and a long narrow low passage that led from the main gates. It was, the Moontongue supposed, meant to be the arrow of time, of fate itself, claustrophobic and constricting at first until at last a man arrived at the wide open space of his destiny. The Moontongue had come in through the inner doors and thus emerged having already at his own destiny and heading backwards. He wondered for a moment if he should read any meaning into that. Then the other warrior pointed. High on the wall straight ahead hung what they’d come here to steal. The Crimson Shield of Modris the Protector. Legend said that whoever carried the Crimson Shield was invincible in battle, but the last person to carry it had been Prince Yarric, son and heir to King Tane of the Marroc. Prince Yarric lay dead now on some battlefield, surrounded by the crow-pecked corpses of his Marroc guard. The Moontongue’s own brother Corvin had killed him, Crimson Shield and all, which only showed what little use legends were. Afterwards the Fateguard had crossed the sea to claim it for their own. It was a unheard of that they should do such a thing.

There were so many reasons the Moontongue could give for being here to steal it back again, but none of them were true…

He shook his musings aside – losing himself in wondering wouldn’t do, not here. He walked briskly across the temple and took the shield down off the wall. It was heavy but not unwieldy. Then he hung his own shield in its place so no one could have any doubt who the thief had been. The second warrior picked up a stout iron-bound strongbox. In the candlelight he grinned. Farri Moontongue nodded back.

‘Moontongue.’ The whisper came from somewhere in the deep shadows down the passage to the temple’s front gate. Then suddenly the clank and grind of iron on iron.

‘Go!’ Farri Moontongue drew his axe and watched the shadows a moment longer while the second warrior turned and bolted back the way they’d come. The sounds of the iron devil from the shadows changed from slow strides to fast ones and then to a run, and there it was: a black shape, candlelight gleaming off the dark iron of its armour, faceless beneath its mask and crown. The Moontongue stood in its path with his axe and stolen shield ready. The ironskin had no shield of its own, nor, perhaps, had much need of one. It lashed out with its sword but the Moontongue caught the blow easily on the Crimson Shield and his axe was already swinging its reply. The first cut severed the iron devil’s hand and then the backswing buried its blade into the ironskin’s temple, so hard and vicious that the side of the iron mask split right open and the blade must have gone a full inch into the iron devil’s skull. It stuck there fast. For an instant they stood, the Moontongue tugging on his axe, the iron devil swaying and surely about to fall dead, except it didn’t; and when it didn’t then even Farri Moontongue, perhaps the most fearless and terrible Lhosir alive, let his axe go and turned and ran.

The second Lhosir already had the ladder down and was halfway up it as the Moontongue came racing out. The iron devil came after them, Farri’s axe still sticking from the side of its head. As the Moontongue reached the bottom of the ladder and started to climb, human shouts began from among the dormitories. As he pulled the ladder up behind him, he caught glimpses of two more iron devils glinting in the darkness, running after them. Well they could run, those ironskins, but they couldn’t climb.

The two Lhosir dropped down the other side of the kitchens and the darkness quickly swallowed them. By the time the first of the Fateguard reached their abandoned ladder, the Moontongue was long gone. The Fateguard stooped to the ladder and picked it up and sniffed it and set off towards the cliff, stopping now and then to crawl in the grass and sniff at the dirt, but the Moontongue never saw how close his pursuers came, for by the time the first of the Fateguard reached the cliff’s top, the Lhosir were already pushing their boat back out into the waves; and by the time the first glimmers of feeble dawn broke through the dull stifling carpet of cloud, Farri Moontongue and his ship were nowhere to be found.

VALARIC THE WOLF

NATHAN HAWKE

Falgir Longarm raised a hand and stopped walking. Behind him thirty Lhosir warriors grumbled to a halt and stood around, groaning and stretching their legs. They were, as far as Falgir could tell, in the middle of nowhere with nothing but this stupid old road stretching ahead of them – probably all the way to the end of the world if anyone could be bothered with walking far enough to find out – and only ever deep dark forest on either side. Hardly anyone lived out here south and east of Tarkhun and frankly Falgir could see why. The trees didn’t want to be disturbed. They resented him for even being there. They were even trying to take the road back, though the Marroc still used it enough to keep it passable.

‘Tane took a thousand men into the Shadowwood. If the Marroc are to be believed, the road leads through the forest to the mountains and a hidden valley with an old fortress and a route across the Isset. Go ahead and see how the land lies.’ The Screambreaker’s orders. Falgir had been half drunk at the time and it was pretty clear the Screambreaker was punishing him for what he and his men had done outside Tarkhun and in that Marroc hamlet whose name he couldn’t even remember any more. It hadn’t seemed fair then and it didn’t seem fair now. His men had fought hard and were hungry for the spoils of war and so was he and so he’d let them all have what they wanted. Why not? What was the point of all the fighting if not for the plunder that came after?

Why not? Because now here he was, that’s why. He let out a long heavy breath and glared at the trees. They’d been walking all day, they were tired and surly and hungry and whether the Screambreaker liked it or not, Falgir had had enough for one day. They’d make their camp here and speed be damned. At least it was warm. Be even warmer if the trees ever deigned to let the sun touch the ground.

Behind him several of the others had thrown off their helms and dropped their shields and were sitting on edge of the road, sucking at skins of water from the Isset. Falgir dropped his own shield and was about to do the same when Hardis Hardhand suddenly pitched over and fell flat on his back. Falgir stared, bemused, and the forest was so quiet and still that it took him a couple of seconds to see the arrow sticking out of Hardhand’s eye, and in that time Henris Redface toppled over with another arrow in the back of his neck; then a moment later Erki Blackfinger was staggering about with one sticking out of his throat and Jassi Dogface was bellowing and hopping from one foot to the other with a shaft right through his hand. Something hit Falgir in the ribs hard enough to make him stagger and double over but not hard enough to punch through his mail. He snatched up his shield and dropped to a crouch. ‘Arrows! Marroc!’ Not that any of the rest of them needed telling by now – they all had eyes as good as his, after all. For a few seconds everyone was moving and shouting at each other and then they were all crouched in a circle, shields locked together, eyes peering over the rims with their helms firmly back over their heads.

The arrows stopped. The forest returned to its silence as though nothing had happened. He had four men down dead on the ground – he hadn’t even seen what happened to Yurk Flamebeard but he wasn’t moving – and Dogface with his hand and Jeski One-Thumb was limping about with an arrow in his thigh just above the knee. He stared at the darkness between the trees. The arrows had come from the north side of the road, a little to the east. ‘Longshanks, bring yours with me. Silverborn, start back. I think we’ve found enough.’ He waited a little longer, a few hundred heartbeats now since the first arrows flew. When no more came he took Longshanks and his brothers and cousins off into the woods. They crept carefully in a line, shields up high. The Marroc had to be out there. He’d find their spoor or else spook them into running so he could chase them.

Two hours later they hadn’t found a thing. They must have been almost a mile into the trees when they heard a scream and then a shouting in the distance behind them. He led his men running back but they were far too late and by the time he got to the road the Marroc had vanished again. Silverborn and the rest of the men he’d left behind were scattered around and every single one of them was dead, some of them hacked up so bad that he couldn’t even tell how they’d died. Or rather, which wound had killed them. They looked as though they’d been savaged by a pack of bears.

He stared up at the sky. They had another two or three hours before the sun set and then maybe another half an hour of twilight if they were lucky before it got so dark that none of them would be able to see their own hands in front of their faces underneath these trees. Then he took a long hard look at the bodies.

‘Back to Tarkhun,’ he said sharply. ‘Now.’ He set off at a brisk walk. Wasn’t right, leaving the dead out in the open like this, not speaking them out to honour the deeds they’d be remembered for. Wasn’t right and his men felt it, but staying here and building a pyre would take up the rest of the day and then they’d be stuck out here through the night and…