Decebalus saw them, too, and pulled his horse alongside Church’s. ‘They are fresher than us, their mounts stronger,’ he yelled. ‘I will fall back to hold them off.’
‘No,’ Church said. ‘You know this world better than I do. You’ll be needed to protect the others. I’ll try to find some way to delay our pursuers and meet you at the inn.’
Decebalus nodded, paused in thought, and then clapped Church on the shoulder in a gesture that meant more than words. He urged his horse on to join Lucia and Aula while Church dropped back.
Church finally found his place where the track passed between two steep banks and a rocky outcropping overhung the route. Leaving his horse, Church scrambled up the slippery bank as the noise of the four pursuers grew louder. Jamming his sword under the edge of a boulder, he drove down upon it. At first it didn’t move, but then the stone began to heave out of the turf. As the hoof-beats began to echo off the opposing banks, he made one final effort and the boulder crashed down onto the track, taking with it a landslip of soil and smaller stones.
Church threw himself down the bank and sprinted to his waiting horse. He was almost upon it when he was hit by a force from behind. Seeing stars, he sprawled across the mud and puddles.
When his vision cleared, a man stood over him, but it was neither Tannis, nor Owein. His hair was long and dark brown, plastered to his head by the rain, his chin bearded. The blackest eyes Church had ever seen stared out of a face like granite. The man was naked to the waist, his muscled torso covered with an array of strikingly vivid tattoos. Also striking was his left hand, which was an ornate mechanical claw that appeared to be made of silver. In his right hand he held a sword much like Church’s, but the fire that crackled along the length of the blade was a desolate black.
‘Hello, mate,’ he said in an emotionless South London accent. ‘It’s taken a few years to track you down, but I always knew we’d hook up sooner or later.’
Blankly staring, Church tried to draw on the distant echoes that rang in the gulf where his memory should be.
‘Don’t remember me? I’m hurt. The name’s Veitch. Ryan Veitch.’
Veitch stepped forward and swung his sword. The last thing Church saw was Veitch’s face, filled with venom.
12
Church woke to the creak of wood, the rhythmic splash of water and the tang of salt in the air. His head still rang from where it had taken the flat of Veitch’s blade. He was in the dark, damp confines of a ship’s hold, surrounded by amphorae, and the swelling motion of the boat told him he was at sea. Manacles had chafed his wrists raw. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but his throat was arid and his muscles ached from where his arms had been fastened behind him.
The first coherent thought that sprang to Church’s mind was Veitch. Was he the one who had killed Etain and the others, and had scrawled ‘SCUM’ on the wall? He clearly knew Church. But the weight of his hatred was shocking. What could possibly have happened between them?
After half an hour, an olive-skinned man with wild black hair brought a bowl of oats and honey which he fed to Church roughly. Church tried to engage his jailer in conversation, but the man ignored him, and wouldn’t meet Church’s eyes.
Sometime later, when the gloom had deepened, Veitch came to visit. He entered like a ghost; Church didn’t hear a thing and only noticed accidentally that Veitch was watching him, his hallucinogenic tattoos glowing in the shadows.
‘Come to taunt or torture?’ Church said.
‘Either would work for me.’ He crossed the space between them with the restrained grace and power of a jungle beast. His sword was sheathed, but Church could still sense it; his stomach churned and his teeth went on edge the closer it came to him.
Veitch leaned on the bulkhead a few feet away, tugging gently on his beard as he eyed Church coldly. Something crackled between them — a weight of history, a connection, rich and deep and complex, but Church had no context in which to place it.
‘You’re a tough bastard to catch, I’ll give you that,’ Veitch said.
‘You killed Etain and the others in Carn Euny.’
‘Yeah, I did. How’s that working out for you? It was, what do you call it?’ He sifted his words carefully. ‘A gesture. A message, from me to you. A million and one things wrapped up in one little picture. Did you get what I was trying to say?’
‘How could you do that? They hadn’t done anything to you.’ Church tried to keep his rage under control.
‘I wanted it lying on your conscience for all time. Because they wouldn’t have died if it hadn’t been for you. A lot of people are going to die because of you. And you … now I’ve got you, you’re going to die, too.’
‘What’s this all about?’
‘Yeah, they told me they’d managed to get part of your memory. Shame. It’d screw you up even more if you really knew why I was doing this. You want the short answer? Revenge.’
‘What for?’
‘Killing me.’
Church scanned Veitch’s face to see if the tattooed man was joking, but his eyes gave nothing away. ‘Doesn’t look as if it’s done you much harm.’
‘Life’s a bitch and then you die. Except death’s a bitch too and you keep coming back. An endless cycle of bleedin’ misery.’ He paused thoughtfully, then shrugged. ‘Let’s just say I got myself an upgrade from the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.’
‘You’ve proved you’ve got a smart mouth and you’re good at sneering. Now how about giving me something I can work with?’
‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’ Veitch pulled up the jailer’s stool and sat eye to eye with Church. ‘You and me used to be mates, back in the days yet to come, when they’ve invented TV and fucking deodorant. You were the brains and I was the brawn, and one couldn’t get along without the other.’
‘You were a Brother of Dragons.’
‘See, there you go. Like mustard.’ Veitch’s gaze was drawn to a tattoo of a spider on his forearm. Church could see other illustrations that had an eerie resonance — a dragon; a pentacle, the five points tipped in red; a flaming sword.
‘The five of us … the best group there’d been in all history,’ Veitch continued. ‘The last best hope of the human race. The gods came back to take our world and we fought them off, and all the stinking beasts that came with them. We lost a lot — ’ he held up his mechanical silver hand and examined it in the half-light ‘but we won the battle, and that’s what counts, right? Only it turns out there was a bigger threat hiding behind the one we saw off. It was supposed to be down to us again-’
‘Except you went over to the other side.’
Veitch laughed coldly. ‘Blimey, they did scoop out your brains, didn’t they? I went bad? Mate, you turned on me when we were doing our victory dance and you gutted me like a carp … and sent the world to hell in a handcart at the same time.’
‘Now I know you’re screwing with me. Why would I do that?’
Veitch’s smile faded. ‘Over a woman. She loved me. You wanted her. So you got me out of the way once all the heavy lifting was done.’
‘Ruth,’ Church said.
‘Ruth Gallagher. The Uber-witch, that’s what that bitch Laura always called her. She was beautiful. Smart. Sexy. And she wanted me. Ryan bleedin’ Veitch, no-hoper and part-time villain from South London. The best thing that ever happened to me, she was. And you couldn’t deal with the fact that she chose me over you. So you stuck me with that fancy magic sword of yours. And you wonder why I’ve got a bit of a grudge?’
Church was stunned. Veitch could have been lying, but he didn’t look as if he was.
‘But, here’s the … irony. That’s a good word, isn’t it? Irony. You’d done your treacherous business, got the woman of your dreams, and then Existence went and booted you back to the dawn of bleedin’ time. You got your punishment, served your “time”.’ He laughed bitterly once more. ‘Now it’s up to me to make sure there’s no pot of gold waiting for you at the end.’