"
Obey your chieftain
."
I wanted to back away. I knew there was nothing behind me except a very long fall.
"Saltlick…"
One moment his hand hung at his side, the next it was around my throat. I hadn't even time for a last breath. My lungs heaved in my chest. Pinpricks of light exploded, a waterfall of sound cascaded through my ears. Through it, dimly, I heard Estrada's voice. "Saltlick, oh no, you don't have to, you don't have to listen to him, not after everything…"
The words continued. It was too much trouble separating them from the sluice of noise. Why listen when Saltlick wasn't? He'd been told to kill me. Killing me was what he was doing.
Only he wasn't. Not quite.
He was strong enough to crush my throat like a bundle of dry twigs. Yet I was alive. It hurt beyond imagination, but I was alive. Maybe Saltlick was having trouble after all – just as when he'd resisted me in Altapasaeda.
Except that in Altapasaeda, he'd given in.
Moaradrid's voice pushed through Estrada's pleading and the roaring surf. "Once that's done, you can round up your women and children."
The pressure relaxed, just fractionally.
"I was merciful before."
I sucked air into scorched lungs.
"Maybe your friends will be more committed with them in tow."
And suddenly, I was free. I lay still, panting like a sick dog. Saltlick was staring past me once again. There was an expression on his face I'd never seen before. It was like the look of someone waking from a deep sleep, but with something terrible behind it, something fierce and sad.
"Bad chief."
Moaradrid looked taken aback for the first time. "What does that matter?"
Saltlick's first stride carried him onto the rock bridge. "Bad order." He moved with the slow inevitability of an avalanche.
"It doesn't matter. I have your stupid stone!"
"Bad chief."
"
It doesn't matter
!"
But it did.
I couldn't guess at what was going through Moaradrid's mind. He looked more stunned than afraid. Saltlick reached out with one huge hand. Moaradrid stepped back, raising his arms to shield himself.
I wanted to cry out, "
He just wants the stone
!" The words fell in a gurgle from my crushed throat. Moaradrid drew back. Saltlick moved forward. It seemed very slow and precise, like a dance: Moaradrid back, Saltlick forward, Moaradrid back.
Until there was nothing left beneath him.
I saw him realise. I watched the knowledge light his face like a beacon fire. Saltlick saw too. He reached out. Moaradrid, even in the moment of falling, pulled away.
There was nowhere to go but down.
He didn't scream, exactly. But he did cry out. It was a guttural, animal noise, something wrenched from the darkness inside him.
It seemed to last for a very long time.
CHAPTER 24
"It wasn't your fault."
Saltlick didn't seem to hear me.
"You wanted to save him. In the end… well, I don't think a man like Moaradrid could understand that."
"Stone gone."
So that was what was bothering him? Not Moaradrid's plunge into the abyss but the loss of the chief-stone he'd taken with him. No, I'd heard how Saltlick had bellowed when he realised the warlord wouldn't let himself be saved. I recognised that tortured glint in his eye.
But now there was something else there as well, something I hadn't seen before. It was present too in the way he moved, and in a new set to his features. I couldn't begin to guess what was going through his mind.
I glanced nervously to the far side of the chasm, where a minute ago Moaradrid's men had been waiting, poised to intervene. They were gone. Apparently, avenging their master's death wasn't a higher priority than saving their own skins.
Would the rest of his army flee too, back into the distant North? We could only hope.
I turned my attention to Estrada and Alvantes. Alvantes's face was ashen and waxy, and his eyelids flickered constantly, as though even staying conscious was a struggle.
"We should get him inside," I said, "and see if we can tend that wound."
That brought Saltlick out of his stupor. "Help Alvantes," he rumbled.
He stomped over, and went to lift Alvantes from where he sat.
"Careful!" I squatted in front of them and asked Estrada, "Do you think he can walk?"
Alvantes glared at me. "I can walk."
He stumbled to his feet, and would have fallen as quickly if Estrada hadn't slipped her shoulder beneath his outstretched arm. Alvantes grunted with pain and resignation, and sagged against her. I moved quickly to support him on the other side.
In that manner we reeled along behind Saltlick, who'd gone ahead to call for the gate to be reopened. Fortunately, a number of the giantesses had followed behind us, and had been waiting in a crowd on the far side of the palisade. There followed a brief discussion, with Saltlick translating and much gesturing on all parts, as to the best way of getting Alvantes somewhere where his injuries could be treated. In the end, Estrada and I donated our cloaks to form a makeshift stretcher, which four giantesses took up. All together, we trudged down the bank and through the tree line.
A minute later, the giantesses indicated that we should separate, pointing Estrada and I to one of the banner-walled "rooms" while the rest trudged on with Alvantes.
"Hey," I cried, suddenly alarmed. Did they know what they were doing? What if giant anatomy was radically different from ours?
They only clucked at me and kept going.
"Heal well." Saltlick spoke with such certainty that I couldn't doubt him. Without Alvantes to worry about, my thoughts turned to myself. I couldn't quite persuade my mind or body to believe it was all over. My legs ached with the need to keep moving, as though they'd forgotten how to be still. My mind was in turmoil, images and sensations popping like sparks behind my eyes. I felt violently tired and fiercely awake. I flopped onto the grass and lay back, propped with my arms behind me.
"We won."
The words sounded hollow. Moaradrid was dead, a sorry and stupid death. His armies still squatted throughout the land. The giant-stone was lost, the giants split over the length of the Castoval.
Still. We
had
won. I tried hard to feel glad of the fact.
Saltlick sat beside me. One glance told me he was going through much the same internal struggles as I was. That change I'd noticed before remained, though, and I thought I recognised it now. If he was distraught, he nevertheless seemed stronger than before, more sure of himself. Perhaps his ever-sobrief spell as chieftain had given him a little self-insight; perhaps he approved of what he'd discovered.
Saltlick's mother had stayed behind with a couple of the other giantesses. They busied about, bringing first buckets of water and then fresh fruit and vegetables from the wilderness nearby. I was glad of the water, but the thought of food turned my stomach – until I tried some.
Everything was delicious beyond my wildest imagining. I knew I hadn't eaten in well over a day, and that probably accounted for why it was so good now, but all I really cared about was the pleasure of cramming food into my gullet. I ate until I couldn't manage any more. Then I lay back and closed my eyes. A giantess draped a blanket over me, and raised my head to tuck beneath it something soft and yielding.
I smiled, too drained to express my gratitude in any other way, and hoped they'd understand.
It was still light when I woke. I looked around, to discover that Estrada was kneeling beside me. Behind her, the giantesses had lowered the banners almost to the ground, creating a little privacy more suited to our scale.
"Good afternoon," I said.
"Actually it's early morning. You slept all day and night."
"Did I? I feel like I could do with a few more hours."
"Well, the giants say you can stay as long as you like. But Alvantes and I are starting back in a few minutes. I came to ask if you wanted to join us, or to say goodbye if you didn't."
"What about Saltlick?"
"He's said he wants to talk to us all."
I threw off my blanket. "If Saltlick has a speech planned I want to be there for it. At the very least it should be a masterpiece of brevity."
Estrada smiled. "He's been acting strangely. Well, not strange exactly…"
"Determined?"
"Yes. That's it."
"I noticed that." I climbed to my feet, and stretched until I felt as though my joints would pop. "He would have been a good chief, wouldn't he? I was so convinced he was just an oversized dolt."
"You know what I liked most about being mayor?" asked Estrada, drawing a flap in the wall-banner aside. "The way that when it came to it – when what needed doing seemed too hard, when I thought I was asking far too much of them – people always surprised me."
I nodded. "I can see how that might appeal."
Estrada motioned through the gap. "Shall we see what he has to say?"
She led the way, and a minute later we were once more within view of the gate. There were giants everywhere, in a loose crowd up the embankment. At the base of the slope, keeping well apart from the press, stood Alvantes. His foreshortened arm was strapped with bandages of coarse, green-tinged fabric, and he was supporting himself against a crutch tucked beneath the other shoulder. His face had been carefully cleaned, revealing countless small abrasions over a background of blackening bruises. For all that, he looked far better than when I'd seen him last.
He tilted his head in acknowledgement as we drew close. "They're arguing about something," he said, "but I'll be damned if I can tell what."
Saltlick was standing at the cusp of the bank with a dozen giantesses close around him, amongst them his mother. They were all speaking together, though it was clear that Saltlick was directing the conversation. That was new in itself. As Alvantes had pointed out, there was a definite sense of discord in the air, and Saltlick's mother seemed particularly agitated.
"Is everything all right?" Estrada asked.
Saltlick nodded. "Told them, tell you. Go find brothers. Bring home. No more fight."
His mother moved nearer and clutched his arm imploringly.
Not looking quite at her or away, he added, "Mother sad. Son come, son go. But must do."
"What about the chief-stone? Do you think they'll follow you back here without it?"
Saltlick's expression told me she'd struck a nerve. "Have to," he said flatly. "Only way."
Poor Saltlick. He'd come home only to leave again almost straight away. Well, at least he
had
come home. Anyway, I'd made up my own mind. "I'm coming with you. I mean, maybe not to rescue your friends, but some of the way anyway."
And so we said our goodbyes. What for Estrada, Alvantes and I was merely awkward, given the lack of any shared language, was clearly heartrending for Saltlick. I only really understood then that the giantesses had thought their kidnapped men-folk dead, and what a miracle it had been when he returned. His mother wept floods of tears, as did many of the others. There was much embracing and reassurances back and forth. Saltlick stood like a monolith amidst all that wild and giant-sized emotion: I knew he was trying to reassure them, though I couldn't understand the words. In the end, he gave his mother a last hug and walked to join us where we were waiting just outside the gate.
"Ready?" Estrada asked.
"Ready," he agreed.
It was much easier going down than it had been coming up.
We took our time though, however much Saltlick must have wanted to hurry, and took frequent breaks for Alvantes to rest. Late in the afternoon we reached the crevasse that marked a rough halfway point to the valley floor. I whooped with joy to see our horses still there – I'd had dreadful visions of them plunging off the cliff side.
I was hurt, though, that Killer seemed more pleased to see Alvantes than me. He whinnied dementedly until Saltlick produced a small bale of dry grass from one of the parcels he'd carried with him and split it between the two of them. At that, all thoughts of reunion were forgotten. Once they'd eaten, we watered them from our flasks and brushed them down as well as we could.
It was almost dark by then, and we had no choice but to make camp. I lay awake for a long time, despite my tiredness, staring up between the lips of rock at the sliver of sky above and at the myriad stars that glimmered there. I felt smaller than I ever had in my life, and the world seemed bewilderingly huge – larger than just the Castoval, or even the kingdom.
I thought about what I'd told Estrada in the caves behind Muena Palaiya: "I'm a large part of a picture only slightly bigger than I am." Had it really only been a few days ago? It seemed as though a lifetime separated me from the Easie Damasco who'd so casually said those words. I listened to Saltlick and Killer battling to out-snore each other. I drifted to sleep with the mingled scent of giant and horse in my nostrils, and didn't resent it one bit.
We woke before dawn, cold and stiff, and were glad to make an early start. We travelled in convoy, Saltlick first, then Alvantes, myself, and Estrada. Alvantes bore his injury stoically, though more than once I noticed him try to do something that required two hands and flinch with realisation.
Since he had to rely on his crutch on the loose ground, he grudgingly allowed me to lead Killer. I tried to reassure the horse with more realistic promises this time: "If your master there lets me, I'm going to take you to an inn and feed you like a king, you mad old mule."