The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (201 page)

And that was all?

Yes.
The brevity of my reply let him know I resented his prying. I wondered if Dutiful’s Skill-silence meant he approved or disapproved of Chade’s attitude. Then I told myself it didn’t matter. If the time came when it was truly up to me whether the dragon lived or died, then I would decide. Until then, I refused to torment myself with it, or to sever my friendship with either of them.

Peottre formed us up for the day’s journey. Today, we took our places right behind the Prince’s company. He warned us that the mellow wind now sweeping over the glacier ahead of us could make the surface unpredictable. We would follow the old established trail, looking for the poles and banners that marked it, but should remember that conditions changed and the trail was not absolutely trustworthy. Snow could blow across recent fissures, making it look like sound ground. He cautioned us again to be sure of our every step. Then, staves in hand, we moved out in a line. For the first part of the march, Thick and I kept up well enough. He coughed, but not as much as he had and he trudged along gamely. Peottre moved us more slowly today, plunging his stave ahead of us before every step he took. He was correct about the treacherous weather. Although the warmer breeze soon had us loosening our hoods and collars, it sculpted the damp snow into fantastic shapes. The bluish shadows cast by the icy forms imparted a dream-like quality to the frozen land we traversed.

Twice, Peottre turned us aside from his chosen path. The first time, he prodded the snow, only to have the crusty surface suddenly give way beneath the pressure. The top of the snow sagged, then collapsed and fell into a deep hollow before us. The winds had sculpted an airy bridge out of the frozen crystals, too fragile to bear any creature’s weight. He turned us and took us around the revealed chasm.

Our second detour came in the afternoon. By then, Thick had grown weary and discouraged. The damp snow clung heavily to our leggings and boots and before long the main party outdistanced us, until we followed in their trodden path. We had just crested a long, low ridge when we met them all coming back toward us. Peottre had found very soft snow, his stave sinking into it to the
depth of a short man, and had turned back, to seek a better route. It had been a weary climb, and Thick muttered curses as we turned and followed them back down into the trough of icy landscape.

The summer daylight bouncing off the blue and white snow dazzled our eyes. We squinted until the tears came and our brows ached with the tension. And still Peottre urged us onward.

We hiked far longer that second day, both in distance and time. The sun began its slow roll along the horizon, and still we pushed on. Thick and I followed at a substantial distance, and I soon began to wonder if Peottre would ever stop for the night. Twice Thick had stopped and refused to go on. He was tired, the damp snow was soaking through his boots and leggings, he was cold, he was hungry, and he was thirsty. He was a litany of my own complaints, and listening to him whine them only seemed to make them more unbearable. It was hard enough to talk myself into going on without prodding him along as well. His music today was a dull thudding of percussion against me, a steady and relentless rain of blows made of the crunch of our feet on the crusty snow and the keen sound of staves driving into crystalline snow.

If I walked in front of him, Thick lagged far behind, so I had to walk behind him, enduring his methodically slow poking of the snow in front of him. As the evening shadows lengthened, it became a tedious repetition of the day before. As I seethed along behind him, one slow step after another, the situation seemed to become more and more intolerable. My anger grew, slowly but steadily, like a fire methodically fed coal one lump at a time. When had I been thrust into this role? Why did I endure it? Why had Chade chosen me for this demeaning role? It had to be a punishment, a deliberate humiliation. I had been a warrior for the Farseers once. Now, in retaliation that I had taken my freedom, Chade humiliated me by making me nursemaid to a fat, smelly moron. I tried to recall all the logical reasons, to ask myself who else should be the watchdog for one so powerfully Skilled as Thick, and yet I could no longer convince myself of the necessity of my loathsome task. My thoughts spiralled down, down into an ever deeper chasm of frustration and anger and resentment. With an effort, I controlled myself. In a
sugary voice, I coaxed him along. ‘Please move along a bit faster, Thick. Look. They’ve begun to set up the camp. Don’t you want to get to the camp and get dry and warm?’

He turned his head to glare at me. ‘You say nice words. But I know what you are thinking at me. Like knives and rocks and big knobby sticks. Well, you made me come here. And if you try to hurt me, I’ll hurt you back even worse. Because I’m stronger than you. I’m stronger, and I don’t have to obey you.’

Foolishly, he had warned me: I threw up my Skill-walls. In the moment before Thick’s Skill-blast hit me, I became aware that all my animosity toward him had died, like a fire suddenly smothered under a wet blanket. His attack hit me, an iron hammer on an anvil of cheese. He had not touched me, and then I felt as if he had crushed my body in his grip. I staggered and then fell into the snow, feeling that the very blood must burst out through my skin, as Thick suddenly demanded, ‘Why are we mad? What are we doing?’

It was a child’s wail of dismay. He must have thrown up his walls against me, and experienced the same loss of anger that I had. He waddled through the snow toward where I had fallen as the long-threatened rain began to pelt us. I rolled away from his touch, knowing that he meant well, but fearful that if he touched me, my walls would fall before him. ‘I’m not hurt, Thick. Really, I’m not. I’m just a bit sick.’ And stunned. And rattled. And aching as if I’d been flung from a horse. I got my knees under me and lurched to my feet. ‘No, Thick, don’t touch me. But listen. Listen. Someone is trying to trick us. Someone is using our own magic to put bad thoughts in our heads. Someone we don’t know.’ I knew it with sudden certainty. Someone was employing the Skill against us.

‘Someone we don’t know,’ he said dully. Dimly, I was aware of Dutiful trying to Skill to me. Doubtless they had felt some shadow impact of Thick’s attack on me. I ventured to drop my walls for an instant, to Skill to them, Be
wary! Guard your thoughts!
And then I slammed my defences tight against the insidious fingering of Skill that had attempted to once again infiltrate my mind. I knew that I should try to strike back, or at least follow the Skill-thread back to them. It took every bit of courage I possessed to drop my walls.
I reached out wildly, Skilling in all directions to see who had been poisoning my mind against Thick.

I felt nothing and no one. Chade and Dutiful and Thick were there, walled against me. I thought of groping toward Nettle, and decided against it. My attackers might not know of her; I would not show her to them. I drew a shuddering breath, and then once more threw up my Skill-walls. I felt only marginally safer. We had an unknown enemy. I would not rest until I had uncovered all I could about them.

‘It’s the same ones that made my bad dreams, too,’ Thick announced decisively.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘I know. Yes. It’s them, the bad-dream makers.’ Thick nodded emphatically.

The rain was coming down steadily, shushing against the snow around us. I hoped the others had already put the tents up and that there would be some sort of dry shelter awaiting us when we arrived. All day long, the wet had crept up me from the damp snow. Now it drenched down on me, completing my misery. ‘Come on, Thick. Let’s get to the camp,’ I suggested, and we lurched forward through the snow that packed unevenly under our feet. ‘Keep your Skill-walls up,’ I cautioned him as we slogged along. ‘Someone was trying to make us think bad thoughts about each other. They don’t know that we are friends. They tried to make us hurt each other.’

Thick looked at me dolefully. ‘Sometimes we are friends. Sometimes we fight.’

It was true. Just as it was true that I did resent always being his caretaker. They had found my resentment and irritation with Thick and fed it, just as Verity used to seek for fear or arrogance in our enemies, and feed it until our foes made some deadly mistake. It had been a subtle and well-planned attack by someone who had touched my mind enough to sense the feelings I hid from all others. That was unnerving.

‘Sometimes we fight,’ I admitted to Thick. ‘But not to really hurt each other. We disagree. Friends often disagree. But we don’t try to hurt each other. Even when we’re angry with each other, we don’t try to hurt each other. Because we are friends.’

Thick gave a sudden, deep sigh. ‘I did try to hurt you. Back on the boat, I made you bump your head a lot. I’m sorry, now.’

It was the most sincere apology I’d ever received in my life. I had to reciprocate. ‘And I’m sorry that I had to make you come here, on a boat.’

‘I think I forgive you. But I’ll get angry with you again if you put me on a boat to go home.’

‘That’s fair,’ I said after a moment. I tried to keep the dread and discouragement from my voice.

Thick shocked me when he halted and suddenly took my hand. Even through my Skill-walls, I felt the steady warmth of his regard. ‘I always got angry at my Mum when she washed my ears,’ he told me. ‘But she knew I loved her. I love you, too, Tom. You gave me a whistle. And pink sugar cake. I’ll try not to be mean to you any more.’

The simple words caught me off-guard. He stood, lips and tongue pushed out, his round little eyes peering at me from under his knit cap. He was a toadish little man, and his nose was running. It had been a long time since I’d been offered love on such a simple and honest basis. Strangely enough, it woke the wolf in me. I could almost see the slow, accepting wag of Nighteyes’ tail. We were pack. ‘I love you, too, Thick. Come on. Let’s get out of the wet.’

The rain turned colder and was sleet by the time we staggered into camp. Chade came to meet us. As soon as he was within earshot of a whisper, I warned him, ‘Keep your walls up. Someone tried to fog us with Skill, much as Verity used the Skill to confuse and confound our enemy during the time of the Red Ship War. It … they sought to turn Thick and me against each other. And very nearly succeeded.’

‘Who is behind it?’ Chade demanded, as if he thought I would actually know.

‘The bad-dream people,’ Thick told him earnestly. I shrugged at Chade’s scowl. It was as good an answer as any that I had.

Camp that night was a miserable place. Everything was either wet or damp. The tiny fires we could have allowed ourselves from our precious fuel wouldn’t burn. Peottre once more set boundaries for our camp and then risked himself to reconnoitre tomorrow’s
route for us. A dim glow, as from a single candle, came from the Narcheska’s tent. The Fool’s was a gorgeous, beckoning blossom in the night, and I longed simply to go there, but Chade had demanded my presence and I recognized the need for my full report to him.

The Prince’s tent was made smaller by the spread of wet clothing. No one even pretended it would dry by morning. Chade and the Prince had already changed into fresh clothing. A fat candle in a metal cup tried sadly to heat a small kettle of snow-water. I took Thick’s coat and boots outside to shake the wet clumps of snow from them while he put on a long wool shirt and dry socks. Somehow, stepping outside again made the bite of the wet wind worse. I took Thick’s garments back into the tent and found drying space for them on the floor. Tomorrow would be a miserable hike when we had to re-don our damp garments. Well, there was no help for it, I thought bitterly. Still, ‘This is not like any quest to slay a monstrous beast for a fair damsel that I’ve ever heard a minstrel sing,’ I observed sourly as I re-entered the tent.

‘No,’ Thick agreed sadly. ‘There should be swords and blood. Not stupid wet snow.’

‘I don’t think you’d like swords and blood any better than the wet snow, Thick,’ the Prince observed glumly, but at the moment I tended to agree with Thick. One savage battle already seemed preferable to this endless slogging. With my luck, I’d probably get both before the end.

‘We have an enemy,’ I announced to them. ‘One that knows how to use the Skill against us.’

‘So you said,’ Chade observed. ‘But Dutiful and I have conferred and we’ve felt nothing of that.’ He poured the lukewarm water over tea-herbs, scowling sceptically as he did so.

That confounded me for a moment. I had expected that if anyone chose to attack us, they would make an attempt against the whole coterie. I said as much and then added, ‘Why would they target only Thick and me? We appear to be amongst the lowliest of your servants.’

‘Anyone aware of the Skill must be aware that Thick is not what he seems to be, nor you. Perhaps they realized Thick’s
strength and sought to get rid of it by having you two destroy each other.’

‘But why not strike immediately against the Prince and his trusted advisor? Why not turn you against each other, and sow discord at the top of the command rather than work from the bottom up?’

‘It would be nice to know that,’ Chade conceded after a moment’s pondering. ‘But we don’t. Indeed, all we have is that you and Thick felt you were under attack. The Prince and I felt nothing, until you two turned on one another.’

‘That was rather impressive,’ Dutiful added, rubbing his temples wearily. He suddenly gave a huge yawn. ‘I wish this was over and done with,’ he said softly. ‘I’m tired, I’m cold, and I have no real heart for the task I must do.’

‘That could be a Skill-influence, subtly applied to you,’ I warned him. ‘Your father used the Skill that way, to confound the steersmen of the Red Ships and send them onto the rocks.’

The Prince shook his head. ‘My walls are up and tight. No, this comes from within me.’ He watched Chade pour some yellowish tea from the pot, scowl, and return it to steep some more.

‘It’s not a Skill-influence,’ Chade concurred bitterly. ‘It’s the damn Fool, talking to the Wit-coterie and the Hetgurd folk, stirring up sympathy for the dragon and preying on the Hetgurd superstitions. Hold to your resolve, my prince. Remember, you gave the Narcheska your word that you would lay the dragon’s head on her mother’s hearth for her.’