“But I’m guessing they don’t,” said Nuddell. “If I were leading them — ”
The brawler fell about laughing. “You couldn’t lead a pig into a pie shop, and that’s a fact.”
“I’ll tell you what’s a fact,” Nuddell said heatedly.
“Save it for the enemy,” snapped Rix. “You,” he said to the brawler, “what’s your name?”
“Droag, Lord.”
“Why is your sword rusty, Droag?”
Droag shrugged. “Once I stick it through a couple of the enemy, no one will notice.”
“A man who’s too lazy to look after his weapons is a man I put in the front line. When he’s killed, I haven’t lost anyone who matters. Clean it. Now!”
Droag borrowed a sharpening stone and began to rasp the rust off the blade.
“I hope they’re not all like him,” Rix muttered.
“Garramide hasn’t been besieged in a thousand years, Deadhand,” Nuddell said quietly. “They’re just farm lads. They don’t know what war is.”
“But you do.”
“I’ve seen some raiding over the years. And a pitched battle or two; only short ones though.”
“Splendid. You’re promoted. Take charge here, Sergeant.”
CHAPTER 39
“Tali?” said Holm, shaking her. “It’s time to go.”
It took her a long time to rouse. Since he’d woken her pearl with the heatstone helmet she had spent twelve hours a day sleeping, and even when wide awake she found it difficult to rise from her bed.
“Go?” she said blankly. “Where?”
Holm was packing their gear as he spoke. “The wind turned southerly in the night and it’s drifted the iceberg ashore.”
She struggled to her feet and dressed in her outside gear. “To Hightspall?”
“Yes, but if it changes it could take us back out to sea. We’ve got to go now, and find a place to hide while it’s still dark. The land hereabouts is enemy-controlled territory and there’re bound to be guard posts everywhere.”
“But I’ve got magery now. Why do I have to hide?”
“That you ask the question shows how much you have to learn. The greater the art, the less you should use it. And never if there’s any other way of getting what you need.”
“Why not?” said Tali, struggling to come to terms with this. She’d spent so long trying to find her magery, and now she had, she wasn’t supposed to use it?
“It leaves traces, and the print of every magian’s gift is different. Yours is not subtle. If you use a lot of power, Lyf will know. Beware!”
They went out, taking their packs and the remaining food but leaving the heavy gear behind, since they would be travelling on foot once they reached shore. The overcast had lifted and there was a little light from the stars and a paring of moon.
Waves were lapping at the iceberg. Tali looked around and there was water as far as she could see. “Thought you said we’d run aground?”
“We have. But most of an iceberg lies beneath the water.”
Tali did a quick calculation. “So the water here could be a hundred feet deep. Or more. How do we get to shore?”
“One of my more remarkable creations,” Holm said smugly, and led her down to the lower end of the iceberg. “Made it while you were snoring the night away. It’s a bit rough, but it should do.”
He had used heatstones to carve a little oval dinghy out of a bulge in the side of the iceberg. He had done a remarkable job as he’d said, and Tali knew he was a master boat builder, but she eyed the craft uneasily.
“How far have we got to go to shore?”
“Quarter of a mile.”
“Are you sure an ice dinghy will last that long?”
“In water this cold, it should last a week,” he said cheerily, though she detected a faint tone of unease in his voice.
“What’s holding it in place?”
“This beam of ice.” He pointed below the water. “Once I carve it off, we’re away. Jump in.”
Not knowing how thick the bottom was, she climbed in carefully and crouched down, shivering. Holm took a blanket-wrapped heatstone from his pack and unwrapped it. After passing her the packs, he lowered the heatstone into the water, towards the beam.
“Ahh! That’s cold.”
He held it below the water for a minute or two then, with a little twitch, the ice dinghy came free and was bobbing on the water. He wrapped the heatstone and handed it to Tali.
“Put that somewhere safe. We’re bound to need it later on.”
As Tali took it, pain sheared through her head from the top of her skull to her jawbone. She set the heatstone down and held her head with both hands. Holm took up a paddle carved from ice and began to paddle the dinghy on one side, then the other.
It was miserably cold. The little ice boat rocked with every movement and, once they were out of the shelter of the iceberg, every wave slopped water over the bow. Tali had to bail constantly with Holm’s pot. In a minute, her hands were numb.
“Can you bail a bit faster?” said Holm. “It’s rising up my boots.”
Tali bailed more furiously. “It doesn’t seem to be making any difference. How far do we have to go now?”
“Not far.” He rowed faster.
“Some master craftsman you are. The boat must have sprung a leak.”
“The bottom is six inches think, and I checked everything carefully.”
“You must have missed a crack.”
“I don’t miss things like that; not when our lives depend on them. Just as a matter of interest,” he said in an overly casual voice, “where did you put the heatstone?”
“On the floor — ” She felt around for it and found the blanket it had been wrapped in, but the heatstone was gone and water was bubbling up from a slot in the bottom. She put her boot on it. “Ulp! Sorry. It gave me a dreadful headache and I wasn’t thinking straight. Must’ve knocked it out of the blanket with my foot.”
He shook his head. “For someone with a phobia about drowning, you’re awfully blase about ice-boat safety.”
He paddled furiously and drove the ice boat onto a mud bank, just in time.
“We’ll have to travel light, and fast,” said Holm. “The price on your head will be big enough to corrupt even the most decent of people.”
Tali jumped out and sank calf-deep in black, stinking ooze, almost as cold as the ice.
“Should have warned you,” chuckled Holm, passing Tali her pack. “Keep to the sandbanks.” He indicated the paler, wavy lines, just visible in the moonlight, stretching into the distance.
“How long ’til dawn?”
“Three hours. And it’ll take half that time to cross the former sea bed to reach dry land. Can you go any faster?”
Tali did her best, but the fitness she’d had as a slave had gone with the blood stolen from her.
“Take off your boots,” said Holm when they reached the sandbank. “Dry them inside, as best you can. Put on dry socks, otherwise you could get frostbite.”
She did so. Two cold and exhausting hours passed before they reached the edge of the old sea bed and began to climb a sandy incline dotted with tussocks of coarse grass.
There were dunes after that, a series rising progressively to a hundred feet. Spiky bushes with narrow grey leaves formed scattered clumps along the low points between the dunes, but the ridges and crests were sandy. Tali and Holm left perfect tracks there. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, though it had no colour yet.
“Got to get off the sand,” said Holm. “We’re making it easy for your enemies to find us.”
Tali tried to reassure herself. “They’re just tracks in the dunes. They could belong to anyone.”
“An old man and a small, exhausted woman,” said Holm, looking down at their tracks. His were broad but slow, hers small and dragging. “Coming from the sea. Any fool could read that.”
“Where are we going?”
“Right now? Somewhere wild and empty.”
“Is it far away?”
“A couple of days’ walk, according to my map.”
“I’m not sure how far I can walk in a day.”