Prince Thief (18 page)

“He’ll be dead soon enough,” he pointed out, “and I will be too. At least now I can afford a proper pyre.”

I handed over an onyx, hardly thinking about how grossly I was overpaying or how little I had left; having squandered a fortune, what difference could one more coin make? The ass was vicious and curmudgeonly, but since it would be Malekrin he’d be carrying rather than me, that seemed both appropriate and fair.

Back at the Nine Lights, it was frustrating to realise that all drugging Malekrin had left me with was an unconscious barbarian prince to transport back to Altapasaeda. Had I been able to trust him to make the right decision on his own I’d have saved myself the effort of hauling him onto the protesting beast and tying him in place.

At least Marga, who seemed to have more or less accepted my story that all this strange behaviour was in some way serving the Altapasaedan City Guard, came out to help me. “Who is he anyway?” she asked, as I pulled the last knot tight. “He certainly has funny clothes on under that cloak. Not one of that fiend Moaradrid’s lot, is he?”

I was a little impressed that she’d even heard of Moaradrid all the way out there. “He’s his son, in fact. Malekrin, the bastard Prince of Shoan, one possibly true heir to the thrones of the Castoval and Ans Pasaeda.”

She glared at me. “All right,” she said, “You could have just told me it was none of my business.”

I gave her my most courteous bow. “Thank you, madam, for your kind hospitality, and for the excellent porridge. If I’m ever back this way, I’ll be sure to call again.”

“If you’re ever back this way,” Marga said, “you can sleep in the stables.” And before I could even consider a suitable retort, she’d marched back inside and slammed the door on me.

Malekrin woke some three hours later; perhaps three hours of being jolted on an uneven road while his extremities went steadily more numb had somehow accelerated the effect of Franco’s soporific. When he began to struggle and curse, I was glad I’d taken the time to tie his knots tightly.

“Calm down,” I told him. “I’ll let you up once you stop thrashing. The ropes are only to stop you falling off. After all, you did say you were willing to come with me, didn’t you?”

“I’ll cut out your eyes for this, Damasco,” he mumbled.

“No you won’t. But if you’re seriously considering it, perhaps I should leave you tied there a while longer.”

Malekrin went silent for a while. Finally he said, a fraction more calmly, “Will you untie me?”

I was tempted to ask for a
please
, but the faint note of humility in his voice would have to do. I dismounted, stopped the ass in its tracks and with one of my knives severed a couple of the ropes that held Malekrin in place. When I was confident he wasn’t about to tumble into the dirt, I cut another, so that he could sit up and massage his wrists; that done, I hacked away the cords holding his legs and ankles in place.

“Will you help me off?” he said. “I don’t think I can stand.”

I still wasn’t quite convinced he wouldn’t go for me at the first opportunity, but I lent him my shoulder, and with some difficulty Malekrin managed to half climb, half tumble down onto the road. I let him support himself against me for a minute, until he could stand alone.

“Do you have water?” he asked.

I’d picked up a skin of water, along with some food, before I left Midendo. I brought it over to him and he took a long swig, and then spat into the dust. “My mouth tastes like a dog threw up in it,” he explained.

“That will be the knockout draught,” I said. Then, feeling something more was called for, I added, “Look, Mal, perhaps I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. Before I drugged you, I mean.”

Malekrin shrugged, handed back the water skin. “I didn’t give you much reason to.”

“No,” I agreed. “Still...”

“I think I can ride now,” he said. “We should get moving.”

We rode in silence after that. I didn’t know what to make of Malekrin’s mood, which seemed for once more introspective than hostile; nor was I interested enough to pay him much attention. It was a drizzly day, with a bite of autumn cold in the air, and as good as my new clothes were, they didn’t quite keep me warm. Had the decrepit ass not been setting our pace then perhaps I could have ridden faster and warmed myself that way. As it was, trailing beside the miserable beast and its miserable rider only served to further spoil my humour.

I stopped around lunchtime and shared with Malekrin the food I’d bought: some stringy meat, corn bread and too-hard cheese. I sensed he’d have liked to refuse the meagre fare, but I could hear his stomach rumbling from where I was, and he was quick enough to wolf it down. Still, he said nothing beyond a curt thank you, and I felt no inclination to push for more.

When Altapasaeda came into view in the middle of the afternoon, it was exasperating to realise that my journey was still far from done. But I was certain the southern gates would be sealed and barricaded in case the King should move his attack, so rather than waste time in trying them I took the side road that wound off to the west, and Malekrin fell in behind me without comment or question.

I turned off again before I arrived back at the barracks, and we cut across to the half-derelict northern road, which threaded along the western flank of Altapasaeda. I thought about what might have been happening on the other side of those high walls while I’d been away, and the question was enough to make me wish I was heading anywhere but where I was.

By the time the western gate came into view, my worry had passed its peak and turned into a kind of numbed acceptance. A glance at Malekrin’s pinched, vacant face made me wonder if he wasn’t bearing his fate in similar fashion. Then again, maybe he was simply bored senseless from riding all day on the back of a slowly expiring ass.

I dismounted, looked up at the battlements. There was no one visible. I hammered on the gate and shouted, “Open up, it’s Easie Damasco.” Then, because that sounded less impressive than I’d hoped, I added, “I’m here with Prince Malekrin of Shoan.”

I’d anticipated an interrogation, or perhaps nothing at all. For all I knew, the city had fallen and there was no one on the other side to care. But a mere few seconds had passed before the gate eased open. I recognised the guard on the other side from when I’d left that way. “Mounteban’s expecting you,” was all he said.

Expecting? A touch disappointed that I wouldn’t be surprising anyone with my improbable success, I hauled myself back into the saddle and rode through the gap. I’d imagined the guard might accompany us, if our presence was so very important to Mounteban; however, he and his companion only ignored us in favour of forcing the gate shut in our wake.

I led the way up one street and then another, and five full minutes had passed before Malekrin said to me, “What now? Do you hand me over to this Mounteban? Do we find my grandmother, so I can explain I won’t be going with her?”

I’d been asking myself a similar question – and I’d quickly realised that for me there was only one answer. Right then, for all I cared, Mounteban, Kalyxis and the whole damned city could go hang. “You can come along or not,” I told Malekrin, “but before we do anything, I’m finding out if my friend’s alive.”

The hospital was noticeably fuller than when I’d last seen it.

Straw cots had been dragged in to fill the gaps between the existing beds, and all of those were occupied as well, so that the surgeons and priests had to tread carefully around and over the bodies of the wounded just to navigate the room. Their own numbers, however, hadn’t increased; perhaps there were even fewer tending to the fallen than on my previous visit. I supposed that the influx of wounded hadn’t been organised to take their endurance into account; certainly every one of those that remained looked ready to drop.

The air was noisome, a bitter-sweet odour of rot and sickness struggling to get out from beneath cloying layers of incense. A chorus of groans and sighs and the occasional, muted scream was undercut by the whine of the wind from outside, as it whipped the torch flames hovering around the walls. I hurried to push shut the door, and as I did so noticed the expression on Malekrin’s face, the mingling of pity and disgust.

“So many?” he asked.

“Are you joking, boy?” grunted a red-robed surgeon as he brushed past. “They’ve filled two more warehouses since this one.”

Looking round for Saltlick, I realised how much more varied the constituency of the injured had grown. Most, of course, were from Mounteban’s improvised army, suspicious-eyed faces of hardened criminals beside professional soldiers staring stoically at the rafters, not to mention the occasional darker-skinned visage of a Shoanan far from his home. More surprising were the many in civilian garb, looking bewildered to have found themselves in such company; and most unexpected were the small group in what I recognised as Ans Pasaedan uniforms. These last were gathered in one corner, watched over by a couple of city guardsmen – though from what I could see of their wounds, the precaution was unlikely to prove necessary.

Finally I picked out Saltlick’s bulk in the gloom. I hurried towards him whilst taking care not to accidentally plant my boot in a crumpled rib cage or stomp upon a shattered arm. The air was close and smoky, and it was only as I drew near that I realised he was sitting up. I couldn’t resist the rush of hope that poured like bile up from my stomach into my throat – but it only took me a moment to understand that sitting was far from healed. Saltlick had been propped against the wall, his back supported by packed bundles of straw; however he was still bandaged from head to toe, his uncovered skin still latticed with cuts and gashes.

If my brief hope had been unjustified, though, perhaps so was the despair that had followed it. For the bandages were clean and mostly white, rather than reddened with seeping blood, just as most of his visible injuries were less shockingly raw than when I’d last seen him. Saltlick was alive, he was healing, and together that was more than I’d dared expect.

One other thing, too, went some way to assuaging my fears: Saltlick’s eyes were open, and though his lids were heavy and drooping, he was looking at me. I bent down, bringing my head as close to his as I could manage. He smelled of straw and stale sweat, and very strongly of dried blood, a metal tang that I could taste on the roof of my mouth. “Saltlick? Can you hear me?”

After a pause so long that I’d all but given up on an answer, he nodded his head, just slightly.

“Stay still,” I said. “It’s all right. I just wanted to be sure you were really awake.”

Saltlick tried to move his head once more, and this time I realised he meant to shake it.

“What? You’re
not
awake?”

He made a noise, low in his throat. I felt sure it was meant to be a word, though whether in my own tongue or giantish, or nothing but nonsense, I couldn’t tell.

“Stop it!” I said. “Saltlick, you’re supposed to be resting.”

Again he shook his head, and the effort made the ropes of muscle in his neck twitch and jump.

My visit wasn’t going at all how I’d intended. Desperate to make him stay still, I shifted even closer, so that my head was tilted alongside his. “What is it?” I asked. “What are you trying to tell me?”

I felt his warm breath on my ear. Then he made another sound I couldn’t understand. Perhaps he was just groaning; perhaps these noises were only broken-off fragments of whatever pains he was enduring. Then, just as I thought he must be delirious, I recognised the next whisper for a word – and the next, and the next. Three words: words I’d heard him say often enough, three words, indeed, that had made up the first full sentence he’d ever spoken to me.

No. More. Fight.

I knew he wasn’t talking about himself; not even Mounteban would try and cajole him into violence in his current state. No, this time, I understood without doubt, Saltlick was asking for something far more than his own welfare.

“Saltlick, that’s...” I was about to say,
too much responsibility
. I was about to explain that I was just one lowly, more or less former thief, that no one listened to me at the best of times and these were far from those, that there was probably no one in Altapasaeda less capable of influencing the giants’ destiny than me. But before one more word could issue from my lips, I was brought up short by a hand upon my shoulder. Imagining that one of one of the wounded had risen from their deathbed to hiss some final vision in my ear, I choked off a scream and did my best not to tumble onto Saltlick.

“Calm down, Damasco! It’s only me.”

I span round, still not quite convinced that I wouldn’t find myself face to face with some ghastly apparition. “Estrada? What are you doing here?”

Despite the faint amusement in her eyes, Estrada looked gaunt and weary; an expression not unlike those of the bustling surgeons and priests. “The guards on the western gate sent word that you’d entered the city,” she said. “Mounteban is fuming, and Kalyxis is already claiming this was all some plot on his behalf. I told them I’d find you and bring you in.”

“Oh,” I said. The news was neither interesting nor surprising; probably it was only through the gate guards’ negligence that Malekrin and I had stayed free for so long.

“I thought I might find you here,” Estrada went on. “Anyway, it’s been a few hours since I checked in on Saltlick.”

Irritable for being treated like a downed hare to be dragged back and dumped at Mounteban’s feet, I almost made some sharp reply. But even I could see that there was no way the desperately busy attendants had expended so much effort on Saltlick. It was surely Estrada I had to thank for the fact that he was alive and recuperating, and perhaps my anger was better saved for someone who deserved it.

“Fine,” I said, “I’d hate for poor Mounteban to be worrying.”

The crack of a sharp throat-clearing drew my attention, as it did Estrada’s. Malekrin was observing us both with what I’d come to think of as his characteristic scowl. “Am I likely to be included in this conversation?” he asked, with what he probably intended as dignity.

“Prince Malekrin,” said Estrada, “it’s good to see you again. I hope you’ve found the Castoval to your liking?”

“The wilds of the Castoval are a hideous place compared to the flowing plains of Shoan,” Malekrin said, “and their people uncouth and ignorant. I’d thought nothing could be worse until I came to this ugly, reeking city.”

“You may find it grows on you,” replied Estrada, her smile forced. “And I apologise if I excluded you. Was I wrong to assume you’re here to reunite with your grandmother?”

“You were very wrong,” said Malekrin. “I won’t go anywhere with her. What I’m here to do, if you’ll let me, is to help negotiate a peace.” Malekrin glanced around the dark room then, and his eyes narrowed. “I think it would be a good alternative to this, don’t you?”

“There’s nothing I’d rather see you do than help stop this needless war,” said Estrada, looking impressed almost despite herself. “And I promise you won’t be made to do anything you don’t want to.”

Ah, Estrada, never one to shy away from a promise she had no means of keeping. Still, her earnestness seemed to satisfy Malekrin, and I was grateful for that – for just then I was finding his nobility almost as insufferable as his sulking.

“We should go now,” Estrada added, speaking to me once more. “Delaying will only make a bad situation worse.”

It struck me that I was more than ready to leave the grim confines of the hospital, even if it meant facing Mounteban and Kalyxis again. I glanced at Saltlick, thinking of our interrupted reunion for the first time since Estrada had arrived. His eyes were still open, and he was watching us. No, he was watching
me
– and while it was impossible to read anything from those glazed orbs, I couldn’t but feel a sense of reproach. He’d asked for my help and I’d given him no assurance in return. After everything he’d done for me, all the times he’d saved my life, I hadn’t even promised to try and help his people.

Yet what could I do? What promise could I make that wouldn’t be empty? I had little enough idea how I was going to save myself, let alone an entire populace of giants trapped in a war-ravaged city. No, to say nothing would be less cruel in the long term than a comforting lie.

I tore my eyes from Saltlick’s, with a feeling equal parts guilt and relief. “Let’s go,” I said, striving to keep both emotions from my voice. “If we hurry, the two of you might have this war settled before dinner.”