Twenty days before the Black Mausoleum
There were easier ways down from the hills than following the Ghostwater and its haunted valley, but Skjorl didn’t break anything and neither did the alchemist, and after an hour they were down on the plains towards Farakkan. Easy walking except for the mud. No cover, but then there was no one to hide from. The people who lived here were long gone, eaten by dragons or fled. Snappers didn’t come down onto the plains — they’d always known better than to live out in the open. And dragons didn’t fly at night. Usually.
Even so, he kept them to the lowest ground, took what shelter he could behind the long streaks of broken wood and debris left behind by each annual flood of the Fury. Lines of stunted narrow trees marked what had once been fields, all overgrown now, filled with long grass and fast-growing thorn bushes. He picked his path carefully, watching the moon and the stars, always staying to the shadows where he could. They moved slowly but methodically towards the castle.
It was the alchemist who found the soldiers. Walked a dozen yards into the dark, took a piss that a deaf man could have heard a mile away and came back with a knife held to her throat and four men behind her. Four that Skjorl could see, at least.
The man with the knife said something. Skjorl blinked. The words made no sense, but his meaning was clear enough. This was the part where he and the shit-eater were supposed to surrender their swords so that the alchemist didn’t get her pretty throat cut.
Skjorl thought about that for a bit. The shit-eater didn’t have a sword to surrender. And as for his own, they’d prise Dragon-blooded out of his cold dead hands if they got her at all.
‘Given the choice of her or my steel, I’ll keep the steel, thanks,’ he said. ‘But I’ll let you see it.’ Too close for axe work, too dark, so he drew out his sword, let the moonlight glint off its edge. ‘There.’
The alchemist opened her mouth. The hand around her neck tightened and she closed it again. Skjorl waited for the fingers inside his head but they didn’t come. He grinned.
‘No orders, alchemist? Sure?’
The man with the knife said something else but Skjorl couldn’t make head or tail of it. ‘He says he’ll slit her throat,’ said another. The accent was thick, but Skjorl recognised it this time. An outsider from deep in the mountains.
‘Tell him I’ll thank him. Why don’t you tell me what a shit-eater like you is doing so far from home, or shall we just get on with it? Four of you is it, or are there more out there? Because four’s fine with me.’
‘You’re a rider.’ Lot of hatred in those words and no effort to hide it. The shit-eater doing the talking took a step forward. He drew out his own sword. It was long and curved, not a weapon Skjorl had seen before. ‘You got no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.’
He came at Skjorl in fast easy steps, quicker and with more skill than a shit-eater had any right to. Two quick thrusts, a slash, a feint and a killing cut to the head. Skjorl blocked it all easily. Turned the longer sword, stepped inside the man’s guard and ran him through. He looked down as the soldier grunted and fell. He’d expected armour. Wrinkled his nose and tried not to sound disappointed. ‘Not bad for a shit-eater. Not good enough for an Adamantine Man though.’
The man looked up at him. Black blood dribbled out of his mouth. ‘If that’s what you are, you should serve your mistress,’ he choked.
His eyes rolled and he fell back. Skjorl looked at the rest of them. ‘Next?’ he twirled his sword.
The one holding the alchemist dug the knife into her skin. A thin thread of blood oozed across the blade.
‘Told you that’s not going to-’ He didn’t get any further because something hit him around the back of the head. Not the alchemist from the inside, but something from the outside. He staggered and spun round, and there was the shit-eater, his shit-eater, the one he’d been carrying all night. The one he’d dropped into the mud and forgotten about as soon as the soldiers had appeared. Siff.
Hit him with the haft of his own axe.
His sword flew back to strike. Pure reflex. Spears of pain crashed into his head, pinging off the inside of his skull like arrows off a stone parapet. He caught the alchemist looking at him, not scared at all about the knife against her throat.
No!
He dropped to his knees. Let the sword go and clutched his head.
Could have finished the strike. Could have… if I wanted…
Too much. Too much to bear. His eyes closed. He tipped forward.