Soen, who had leaned his elbows on the counter, flinched straight. ‘What?’
‘These two are in excellent standing.’
‘Let me see that.’ He reached for the scroll.
The clerk backed away, hugging the roll to his chest. ‘This is proprietary information, I’ll have you know! Try that again and you’ll be blacklisted.’
Soen turned on the two applicants, who stood shifting from foot to foot like eunuchs in a brothel. Gods. Guild rules are that I have to hire them now. Damn their stranglehold. He marched up to them, as close as their stink would allow. ‘Okay. Your references are in order. Fine.’ He held up a finger. ‘But before I see you tomorrow you’d better be cleaned up and fit for duty — or I’ll have some ex-Urdomen I know scrub you all over with rayskin brushes. How would you like that?’
The one who had given his name as Scorch raised a hand.
‘Yes? What?’
‘Ah … does this mean we’re hired, Captain, sir?’
‘Does this …’ Soen dragged a hand down his face, took a deep breath to calm himself. ‘Yes,’ he hissed, ‘you’re hired. Report to the Legate’s manor tomorrow.’ He eyed them up and down once more. ‘Mind you,’ and he raised a warning finger, ‘you two report to the servants’ gate — is that understood?’
Scorch nodded vigorously. ‘Oh yes, sir. Understood.’ He saluted multiple times.
Soen waved a dismissal and stalked off, muttering. Elder gods, look away! How standards have fallen from the old days. Damned embarrassing it is. Still, these two could free up a couple of good men I could use elsewhere …
Once the Captain was gone Leff cuffed Scorch. ‘There! Y’see? Wasn’t so hard, was it?’
‘I thought I said we should try here.’
Leff appeared not to have heard. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Where?’
Leff made a great show of looking to the sky. ‘Well, you heard the Captain! It’s as obvious as Moon’s Spawn in full-on daylight, o’ course.’
‘What is?’
‘Where we have t’go!’
‘An’ that’s …’
‘To the lake, man!’
Scorch’s permanent scowl of uncertainty deepened into stunned incomprehension. ‘The lake?’
Leff sighed his impatience. ‘Yes! Can’t you hear? The man told us to get cleaned up. So it’s a wash in the lake for us.’ He stomped out.
Scorch was slow to follow. He scratched the thick grime caking one cheek, muttering, bemused, ‘People do that? They wash? In the lake …?’
Yusek guided her two charges north up the slopes of the coastal Mengal range. She was aware that these peaks were also known as the Mountains of Rain and she mused, bitterly, that they were damned well living up to that title. This wide pass in particular led all the way to the coast. Her leathers were rotting off her; the skin of her toes was peeling off like bark; and she had a constant racking cough, spitting up great wads of thick green catarrh.
She took out her frustrations on the two Seguleh. Their silence and impenetrable calm only sharpened her tongue. Think they’re so damned superior. Nothing more than smug arseholes is what they are!
This day she was off ahead alone, if only to give herself a break from her constant snarling and sniping. She studied the lower slopes where the banners of sinking mist were burning away, leaving shallow rivulets and gullies that would eventually come together to form the headwaters of the Maiten River.
She glanced back and her shoulders fell as she saw that the two had stopped far back up the rocky path and were awaiting her return in their typical complete silence. Brainless idiots! Could at least give me a shout. Retracing her steps, she found them standing where a major fork led off into the higher slopes.
‘What, dammit?’ she demanded, rubbing the wet mist from her cheeks and shuddering with cold.
The one called Sall gestured up the other trail. ‘It occurs to us that you are leading far to the east when we wish to go north. This trail appears to lead north.’
Yusek gave a curt wave gesturing them on. ‘Well, go ahead, by the Queen’s tits! What do you need me for then? I’ll just go my own damned way, shall I?’
Deep within the shadows of his hood, Sall’s masked face revealed no emotion. It did look as if he frowned, though, as he squinted up the rocky trail. ‘This will not get us north?’
‘Look. You took me on to guide you, right? Well, that’s what I’m doing. Guiding. I don’t go telling you how to be all stiff as a board, okay? So don’t question my choices. It just so happens that we have to swing around easterly here for a few days to avoid the valleys just north of us.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why must we avoid the valleys to the north?’
Yusek snarled her annoyance, coughed, and spat. Throughout all this the third member of the party, Lo, remained his usual silent self. Only his hood shifted as he glanced behind from time to time, watching, always scanning about. ‘Listen,’ she began again after clearing her raw throat, ‘Dernan the Wolf controls these valleys. My old boss is a pup compared to him. He might squeeze a few coins where he can from travellers, but Dernan wipes out entire caravans. He even beat back soldiers from Kurl sent to smoke him out.’ She shook her head and hugged herself against the chill, shuddering. ‘No. We go round.’
Lo’s hood dipped then as he spoke close to Sall and the lad gave one quick nod. ‘Presumably this Dernan has shelter of some sort. A building or retreat. You are ill. In need of warmth, dry clothes. We will go north.’
Yusek gaped her disbelief. ‘What? Go north? Are you fucking stupid or something? Haven’t you listened to a word I said? Dernan will kill us for the gear on our backs. Or maybe just sell us as slaves down south.’ Panting, her chest aching, she glared from one to the other. Both remained unmoved, mute in the drifting rain like grey ghosts. Drops pattered on them and a hidden stream hissed down a nearby cliff. Fucking foreigners! Don’t know a damned thing! Gonna get me killed.
She cursed them, waved them to the Abyss, and turned away. ‘I’m not going-’ She froze as cold iron suddenly lay against her neck.
‘Do not worry, Yusek. You will not be harmed.’ The blade tapped her in a signal to turn round. She faced him. From behind the mask his mild brown eyes, though guarded, seemed to hold amusement. ‘You can hardly guide us if you are dead, yes?’
Two days later, deep within the thick woods of the valley, next to a small stream, Sall and Lo froze in their steps and Yusek’s heart sank. Gods spare us! She gripped her long-knife under her sodden cloak and crouched, seeking cover among the moss-grown wet boulders.
‘Don’t move!’ a harsh voice bellowed from the woods. ‘You’re covered and surrounded!’
Peering over a rock, she watched a number of men and women closing in among the trees. They wore battered mismatched armour like the tattered remnants of some defeated mercenary army. Two had beads upon her over the stocks of crossbows. An army! An entire fucking army!
The voice called out again: ‘Hands out! That’s right. Don’t move.’
She glanced back to see Lo and Sall standing motionless in their loose cloaks, hoods up, hands held out a slight distance from their sides. Men and women, crossbows raised, took up positions while others approached, swords drawn.
‘Hand over your weapons,’ the hidden voice ordered.
Sall and Lo remained immobile, hands at their sides.
‘Drop them, or we fill you full of quarrels. Now.’
The two shared a glance then reached under their cloaks to produce their swords, still sheathed, offering them one-handed. Yusek dropped her long-knife. A scraggy-bearded fellow came scrambling down to her.
Two of Dernan’s soldiers — and she was quite sure these must be they — warily approached Lo and Sall. A woman reached out a free hand to take Sall’s sword, her own blade held ready to stab. She wore torn hunting leathers and tall moccasins that came up to her knees. A great fat fellow in a banded hauberk too small for him came swaggering up to Lo and reached out to snatch his sword.