She caught my look and stiffened. “I know pity,” she said. “And I want none of it.” She left me there amongst the stones, alone with the wind and snow and self-flagellation. Did I pity her, or pity my own weakness? I stayed there thinking until my face was numb and my body shivering. By the time I returned to the inn I found myself agreeing with Eva. Had it been me, I’d want nothing to do with pity. Now was a time for anger.
At my coterie’s table I flung my sodden coat down and bellowed for ale. “Right, you pack of mangy curs. Let’s chew on this business of war. How are we going to slaughter these heathen scum and head on home? The fouler the better – you won’t find me squeamish like those prissy wardens.”
Over the next few hours Diodorus and Nareene proved fertile ground for gruesomely effective ideas. I grinned at Jovian: we’d been wise to choose a killer for hire and an arsonist, and I was just the right sort of callous bastard to make full use of their macabre talents.
“Just tell me what you need to make this happen,” I said. “Those fuckers are going to burn.”
Chapter 9
Our small army was joined by a dozen hardy mountain ponies pulling carts loaded with weapons and supplies, and we set off up the slushy track leading into the mountainous Clanholds. My coterie marched alongside a small heavily-loaded cart pulled by a grizzled pony of more use for making leather and glue than for hard labour. It shied from every puddle and kept trying to bite me. Only me. Vaughn seemed besotted with the vile creature and it was passing strange to see the big angry brute fawning over the beast, so I happily left ‘Biter’ in Vaughn’s surprisingly gentle hands. It wasn’t like I hated horses, especially the smaller and less intimidating breeds, but they all seemed to hate me.
Fortunately for the war effort, a gaggle of merchants fleeing south from the Skallgrim advance had arrived in Barrow Hill with most of what we might need to wreak havoc: sealed buckets of quicklime, oil, sulphur, pitch, pine resin, and a plethora of other liquids and powders that Nareene immediately demanded I requisition. It was legal theft but my need was greater than theirs.
Diodorus had obtained certain dried plants and seeds from a creepy old herbalist in a shack outside of town that sent him into worrying paroxysms of joy. He had been flung into the deepest pit in the Black Garden for murdering dozens, and even the merest graze from one of his arrows had resulted in an excruciating death. Now he was being given free rein to utilise his unique talents, and in fact I was blatantly pushing him to murder and kill as many as possible. Good and evil were merely social constructs, and depended heavily on perspective.
Every night the advance scouts (I assumed, given that Eva was taking care of the logistics and, well, everything else) staked out where our tents were to be pitched and where the cook fires and latrines were to be set. At least somebody knew what they were doing. I’d never considered all the details of what was involved with an army on the march. Then disaster struck! I hadn’t thought of recruiting somebody that could cook. I was forced to do it myself and use my Gift to ‘borrow’ a pot and steal the secrets of campaign cooking from members of Eva’s main battle coterie – a force easily four times the size of the rest of ours, designed to take full advantage of a knight’s skills: Eva was pretty much invulnerable to normal weapons after all, unlike my squishy hide.
I did all the cooking myself because it was safer than accepting Diodorus’ offer to lend a hand. My new knowledge was not complimented by any acquired skills but at least the food turned out edible, if a little burnt.
A constant march through snow and across frozen ground created bone-deep exhaustion and aching muscles in my whole coterie, and invited scathing looks from the better-fed wardens who were stronger and more erect than my drooping penal force. At least I had magic to stiffen my resolve, and bad jokes to fall back on.
When we reached the foothills of the mountains we pitched camp and awaited the arrival of our Clansfolk guides. Only fools ventured into that natural maze of river valleys and mountain passes without a local to lead them, doubly so in winter. Centuries ago an entire army led by the Arcanum elder Rannikus had marched into those valleys, never to be heard from again. The frozen, rocky, barely fertile area had been more trouble than it was worth to the expanding Setharii Empire, especially when greater riches and exotic goods awaited them south across the Cyrulean Sea.
With nothing better to do, I called a conclave of magi. We had all been happy to avoid each other, but now that we were entering the Clanholds I couldn’t afford their blind arrogance getting them killed before we even faced the Skallgrim and their pet daemons.
It was a freezing night under a clear, star-speckled sky when the seven of us gathered in the command tent with furs and braziers to keep the chill outside. Joining Eva and Granville, who I already knew, and Cormac and Secca that I’d met, were a tall, dark and ugly aeromancer named Bryden and a greasy pyromancer named Vincent with a long nose and sneering, narrow face I immediately wanted to punch. Both were young magi with no House name. That made four of us born from the lower classes: lesser magi in the eyes of noble House-born like Granville, and without any of the political ramifications if we got butchered on this suicidal expedition. Which begged the question, since Granville hadn’t volunteered, who had he displeased to be stuck here with me? Not that the proud git would ever deign to tell.
“I don’t know how these things tend to go,” I said, “but let’s dispense with pointless pleasantries. We are heading into the Clanholds where your smooth words and political slitherings won’t be worth a rat’s arse.” That one was aimed squarely at Granville.
“I’ll begin by saying that the Clansfolk put great trust in their reputations and in their honesty, so unless you want your face smashed in I suggest you don’t outright call them liars. Even if it’s true. Especially if it’s true.”
I rubbed my hands and warmed them over a brazier. “The other thing you need to bear in mind is that they are highly religious, and not in the same loose, indifferent way as the Setharii.”
“That is true,” Comrac added. “Every holdfast from the oldest and grandest dun to the remotest farming croft boasts its own spirit of the hearth, and every clan also makes offerings to an ancestral guardian spirit. It would be considered a grave insult not to make a small offering if you are invited to enter their homes.”
Granville huffed. “I shall not worship any crude spirit. I am not a heathen.”
“You will pay your respects if you want out of the wind and snow,” I snapped. “But you are perfectly free to freeze your balls off.”
“The ancient spirits of the Clanholds are most unpleasant if offended,” Cormac replied. “In the old places of the world they are still strong forces.”
“This is not Setharis,” I said. “Spirits don’t wither and die here, devoured by–” I had my suspicions but didn’t want to voice them, “–the very air of our home. Spirits are plentiful hereabouts, some small and weak, and others vast and mighty. Some might even be considered gods.”
“Heresy,” Vincent hissed. “How can you compare them to Lady Night, the Lord of Bones or gilded, glorious Derrish?”
I shrugged. “At least they are still here.” The long-faced prick didn’t have an answer for that, and settled for clamping his jaw shut and grinding his teeth.
I couldn’t help but needle him some more. “You also missed out Shadea, the Iron Crone.”
“And let us not forget the Hooded God,” Granville said. His glare suggested that was not for my benefit, more that he disliked sloppy and incomplete answers.