Gallow (47 page)

‘Get your friend Jonnic back here!’

‘Jonnic!’

The shadewalker turned. It walked quickly now, straight at Oribas, swinging its sword in its hand. Oribas laid another line of salt. ‘Can you make fire? Do you have what you need?’ He watched Addic fumble in his bag and then shake his head. The shadewalker stopped abruptly again a few feet from Oribas, held by the salt a second time. Its eyes were white and a blue like water from a glacier. Oribas hadn’t even known what a glacier was until Gallow had dragged him over the mountains, but he’d seen eyes like these before. Gallow had them. Ice-man eyes they called them in the desert, always had, even long ago, and now he wondered: where had these shadewalkers come from, these men who’d once guarded the old emperors of the world? Too tall and broad-shouldered to be Marroc, too pale-skinned to be Aulian. Or did the pale skin and those eyes simply come as a part of what made them?

They stared at one another. When Oribas walked toward the end of the arc of salt, the shadewalker moved with him. It kept moving, stepping gingerly along the line until it found its end and looked up. Its dead face didn’t change but perhaps its eyes gleamed a little brighter as it sensed its victory. It advanced quickly. Addic cried out, turned and ran while Oribas simply stepped over the line of salt to be on the other side. The shadewalker came at him, stopped abruptly at the salt and began to walk along the line again, looking for a way past. Oribas tracked the arc of salt he’d laid out, slowly and carefully, trying not to look at the shadewalker stalking the edge of his barrier. He moved from one end to the other and laid down another line. The shadewalker ignored him until it found a way through, but Oribas stepped calmly over the salt a second time and then stood and waited. The arc was three quarters of a circle now. ‘One more dance, restless one?’

As soon as the shadewalker started looking for a way past again, Oribas ran, dropping salt as he went. When he was done he stepped back and watched. For a time the shadewalker followed the line. After it had gone round the inside of the circle three times, it stopped and turned to stare at him.

Oribas bowed. ‘Can we both agree that you will wait here while I find my friends?’

B
eyard demanded Gallow’s oath not to run away and so Gallow gave it to him. Now he was in his mail and with his shield and helm, sitting on the back of a borrowed horse with the ironskin and a dozen Lhosir around him. Two were the men he’d faced on the Aulian Way – Arithas and Hrothin – and they stared at him with open hatred and spat at his feet and growled
nioingr
to his face. Gallow wondered at the return of his mail and his shield and helm, but those were in case of Marroc archers hiding in the woods. It seemed that among the villages in the high hills the Marroc were almost in open revolt.

‘We know about you,
nioingr
,’ snarled Hrothin.

‘That’s twice, Hrothin. Call me that a third time and you’ll have to give me a sword and let me kill you,’ said Gallow coldly. Beyard snarled and the two Lhosir backed away, their surly glances raking over him.

‘Those two will be your watchers.’ Beyard watched them go. ‘One of the men you killed was Hrothin’s brother. He has a blood feud with you now.’

‘You’re going to hang me, old friend. Hrothin will be disappointed.’

Beyard dangled Gallow’s locket in the air between them, the one with a snip of Arda’s hair inside. ‘A feud is settled between families, Gallow, not just the men who start it. I can give him yours if I choose.’ There was little of Beyard’s face to see through the iron mask and crown he wore. Certainly not his eyes. ‘They’re only Marroc.’

Gallow’s voice dropped. ‘The Beyard I once knew would never sully himself like that.’

‘But I am of the Fateguard now. I serve other ends.’ Was that a glimmer of resentment lingering in there for whatever the Eyes of Time did to make the servants of fate as they were? ‘I know you didn’t slay the Screambreaker, as so many say you did, but you still led Marroc men against their king, you struck Yurlak’s son and took his hand and now you’ve killed two of your kinsmen without cause. What would your old friend say to that, Gallow?’

‘He’d ask why I did each of those things and he’d listen as I told him. Perhaps he might even agree I was right.’

They spent three long days plodding up the Aulian Way through ice and trampled snow. The fourth took them up into the start of the mountain pass where Gallow had first met Addic. The snowfalls since had been light but it still took hours of searching to find where Gallow had killed Fahred, walking their horses slowly along the road, Hrothin and Arithas pointing to features of the landscape here and there –
No, it was further than this; I remember that stone on the way back; No, too far
– but it was the horse tracks that settled it, for the Lhosir had dismounted to fight and no one else had been foolhardy enough to take a horse up the narrow path of the pass in deep snow. They found the place where they’d run up the slope after the Marroc, the snow still pockmarked by their steps, and then the scar in the white where the Marroc had fallen and slid and almost gone over the edge. They found where Gallow had killed Hrothin’s brother and, as they burrowed into the snow, the stains of his blood.

Gallow watched. There were other tracks here. Someone had come back after the fight. Hard to say whether it was one man or two, certainly not more, but the way the snow had been scattered about made it clear they’d been looking for something. The Lhosir poked about until Beyard pushed them all away.

‘Back! Before you make it worse!’ He turned to Gallow, face hidden behind his mask. ‘Are you lying, Foxbeard? Was the sword never here?’ But he knew better. Arithas and Hrothin hadn’t paid it much thought at the time but they’d noticed the blade he’d drawn was longer than they were used to and remembered it falling into the snow. They’d been there and they’d seen it, even if they hadn’t known the Edge of Sorrows for what it was.

The Lhosir untied him from his saddle and pulled him down and Gallow walked up the road, tracing the fight in his head. Arithas and Hrothin had beaten him down where Beyard was sniffing at the snow. One Lhosir had come further past, a few yards on to where Oribas had been. The snow there was churned and trampled, most of it pushed over the edge. A struggle, perhaps. The Marroc they’d saved must have run but Gallow couldn’t see any other prints. He’d run through his old tracks then, which made sense because he’d have been quicker that way too.

Gallow looked over the edge. Trails of snow lay in broken lumps down the side of the ravine, but when he looked up the snow was pristine. It had fallen from the road then. Someone had gone over. Oribas, as Beyard had said; and then he saw the Aulian’s satchel still hanging from the dead branch of a broken tree, a dozen feet below him.

When he turned, Arithas and Hrothin were right behind him. He looked them up and down. ‘Which one of you threw him over?’

Arithas sneered. ‘He didn’t even—’

Beyard had tied Gallow’s hands in front of him so he could knot them to his saddle. Gallow grabbed two fistfuls of Arithas’s furs and dropped to his knees. He drove his head into the Lhosir’s groin and pulled, hard. Arithas doubled up and pitched forward onto Gallow’s back. Gallow straightened, pulled him off his feet and let go. By the time Arithas even knew what was happening, he was over the edge. He shrieked once and then Gallow heard the crack of him hitting a boulder and the rattle of falling stones over the echoing hiss of the Isset below.

Hrothin grabbed him. ‘And over you go too,
nioingr
!’

Gallow’s fingers closed on Hrothin. ‘Third time. Shall we go together then, brother?’ he hissed. They were face to face, nose to nose.

‘Hrothin!’

Beyard was too far away, though, and Hrothin’s blood was up. ‘Filthy
nioingr
!’

‘Fourth time.’ Gallow spat in his face. ‘You have to stand by those words with steel now.’

‘I have to stand by nothing for you, Marroc!’

‘Hrothin!’ This time Beyard’s shout was so loud and deep that it seemed to rumble through the ground itself and at the same time shake the air. Beyard was stamping through the snow towards them.

‘You must get cold out here under all that iron,’ Gallow said.

‘Where’s Arithas?’

Hrothin snarled. ‘The
nioingr
threw him over the edge.’

The iron mask turned to Gallow. Beyard’s voice shook with cold fury. ‘You’ll hang for what you are, Gallow. A
nioingr
. No one will speak you out. No one will say your name. You’ll be spat upon and dogs will eat the scraps of you and you’ll be forgotten. You’ll not cheat that fate. I’d thought you a better man, but Ironhand was right to name you Foxbeard. Leave him, Hrothin. Arithas was an idiot.’ He pushed the two Lhosir apart and then punched Gallow in the face, the iron gauntlet smashing his nose and jarring loose a tooth. Gallow hardly saw it coming. He staggered back. As he did, Beyard stooped and snatched one foot from under him, tipping him over onto the road. The Fateguard dragged him by his foot through the snow and dumped him by the other Lhosir riders.

‘Two men came here after the fight. They’ve already taken what we’re looking for. They walked down the road and now we’ve trampled their tracks. One of them was hurt. He was leaning on the other.’ He drove a boot into Gallow’s ribs. ‘Put this one back on his horse and tie him to it. We’re hunting for Marroc now. If he gives any more trouble, cut off a foot. Or a hand. Yes, a hand. The king would like that.’

Gallow spat blood into the snow. ‘I gave no oath about not killing your men, my friend. And that one murdered Oribas.’ But quietly he wondered. Two men walked away? One of them was surely the Marroc. But the other?

O
ribas took his time leaving the wood, partly to give his heart a chance to stop beating so fast, and in part because he managed to get lost on the way out and wander through a lot more trees than he had on the way in. The Marroc were waiting in the middle of the field, sitting on their mules, watching like a pair of scared starlings ready to take flight the moment anything came out. They looked at Oribas in amazement.

‘I have it trapped,’ he said as he reached them. ‘I’ll need your help to kill it. Fire and cold iron. I’ll need your sword.’ When neither of them moved he poked Addic in the leg. ‘Well? Shall we put a shadewalker to rest or shall we wait for the next rain or snow to take away my salt and let it go?’

Addic dismounted. Jonnic stayed where he was at first, but when Oribas reached the edge of the trees, he got down and followed. They let Oribas lead the way this time and he heard them whispering, cautiously but not cautiously enough, in the stillness under the trees.
What if he’s leading us to it? But that’s exactly what he’s doing! But what if it’s a trap? Have you lost your head? I mean he’s an Aulian too: what if he’s in league with the shadewalkers? Idiot
. At least there was no talk of throwing him into a ravine this time.

The shadewalker was where Oribas had left it, standing as still as a statue as though it had grasped the futility of trying to break the circle of salt and was simply waiting for it to go away. Addic and Jonnic crowded behind Oribas, who still wondered at their fear: if his circle of salt had failed then the shadewalker wouldn’t be here. The hard part came when one of them had to step inside to finish it.

‘Now what?’ asked Addic.

‘Light a torch.’

Jonnic fumbled with a tinderbox, dropped it, picked it up, struck a few sparks and burned his hand. He couldn’t take his eyes off the shadewalker.

‘Give it to me.’ Oribas reached out but Jonnic jumped away as though the Aulian was a snake. Eventually the Marroc got a flame going and lit a brand. Oribas took careful steps closer, looking for the line of the salt. Salt and snow. Belatedly he realised how lucky they were that the trees here were dense enough to keep most of the snow off the forest floor. Out in the fields under their blankets of white his circle of salt would never have worked.

The shadewalker stepped back as though daring him to cross. It was watching him. Oribas took a fistful each of saltpetre and powdered metal from his pouch and crossed the line. The shadewalker sprang at him at once but Oribas was ready. He threw the powders in its face and stepped smartly back, stumbling a little as its sword swung past him. ‘Now burn it!’

Jonnic stood frozen. Addic snatched the torch and threw it, straight and true. It hit the shadewalker in the chest and a whoosh of flame shot up. It dropped its sword and staggered, stumbling this way and that, trying to get away from the fire. Oribas picked up a lump of snow and hurled it. ‘Cold pure water.’ The flames were dying already, the metal and the saltpetre enough to scorch it but never enough to set it alight. He’d heard of some people using oil to burn the creatures, and Gallow said the Marroc of Andhun made an oil from fish which ran like warm honey and burned as easily as dried grass, but so far he hadn’t seen a drop of it among the Marroc of the mountains.

Addic gave him a bemused look and then he and Jonnic began to pelt the shadewalker with snow. Oribas filled his hands with salt again. As the shadewalker reeled he stepped back into the circle and threw both handfuls. The shadewalker hissed and crackled, its skin blackening. A terrible smell knotted Oribas’s stomach. The creature’s struggles stopped. It fell to its knees and pitched forward and lay still on its soft bed of fallen needles and sparse trampled snow. The Marroc stared at it.

‘Is it dead?’

‘It was already dead,’ said Oribas. ‘That wasn’t as much flame or salt as there should have been. It must have been weak already. It’ll be still for a while now. An iron sword through the heart will end it for ever.’

Neither Marroc moved. Oribas rolled his eyes. He crossed the line of salt and knelt beside the prone shadewalker and started pulling at its mail. The Marroc just stared and backed away, and it was hard work doing it on his own because the shadewalker was big and heavy and stank enough to make him gag, and there was always the nagging worry that maybe his books were wrong and everything he’d heard wasn’t quite as he remembered it and the shadewalker wasn’t in a torpor that would last for hours, and what, exactly, was he going to do if it started moving again before he was finished?