‘What do they get?’ he asked. ‘A parcel o’ stories to nod their heads to. What do I got? Naught to retire on, that’s sure. Just a worn-out saddle and a sack full of other men’s lies to carry.’
‘Uh,’ said Crying Rock, like that was just the way of things.
‘Ain’t fair. Just ain’t fair.’
‘Why would it be fair?’
He grunted his agreement to that. He wasn’t getting old no more. He was old. His legs ached when he woke and his chest ached when he lay down and the cold got in him deep and he looked at the days behind and saw how heavily they outnumbered those ahead. He’d set to wondering how many more nights he could sleep under the pitiless sky, yet still men looked at him awestruck like he was great Juvens, and if they landed in a real fix he’d sing a storm to sleep or shoot down Ghosts with lightning from his arse. He had no lightning, not he, and sometimes after he’d talked to Majud and played that role of knows-it-all-and-never-shirks better than Iosiv Lestek himself could have managed, he’d mount his horse and his hands would be all atremble and his eye dim and he’d say to Crying Rock, ‘I’ve lost my nerve,’ and she’d just nod like that was the way of things.
‘I was something once, wasn’t I?’ he muttered.
‘You’re still something,’ said Crying Rock.
‘What, though?’
The rider reined in a few strides distant, frowning at Sweet, and at Crying Rock, and at the ruins they were waiting in, suspicious as a spooked stag. After a moment he swung a leg over and slid down.
‘Dab Sweet,’ said the Ghost.
‘Locway,’ said Sweet. It’d have to be him. He was one of the new type, sulky-like, just saw the bad in everything. ‘Why ain’t Sangeed here?’
‘You can speak to me.’
‘I can, but why should I?’
Locway bristled up, all chafe and pout like the young ones always were. Most likely Sweet had been no different in his youth. Most likely he’d been worse, but damn if all the posturing didn’t make him tired these days. He waved the Ghost down. ‘All right, all right, we’ll talk.’ He took a breath, that sour feeling getting no sweeter. He’d been planning this a long time, argued every side of it and picked his path, but taking the last step was still proving an effort.
‘Talk, then,’ said Locway.
‘I’m bringing a Fellowship, might be a day’s quick ride south of us. They’ve got money.’
‘Then we will take it,’ said Locway.
‘You’ll do as you’re fucking told is what you’ll do,’ snapped Sweet. ‘Tell Sangeed to be at the place we agreed on. They’re jumpy as all hell as it is. Just show yourselves in fighting style, do some riding round, shout a lot and shoot an arrow or two and they’ll be keen to pay you off. Keep things easy, you understand?’
‘I understand,’ said Locway, but Sweet had his doubts that he knew what easy looked like.
He went close to the Ghost, their faces level since he was fortunately standing upslope, and put his thumbs in his sword-belt and jutted his jaw out. ‘No killing, you hear? Nice and simple and everyone gets paid. Half for you, half for me. You tell Sangeed that.’
‘I will,’ said Locway, staring back, challenging him. Sweet had a sore temptation to stab him and damn the whole business. But better sense prevailed. ‘What do you say to this?’ Locway called to Crying Rock.
She looked down at him, hair shifting with the breeze, and kept swinging that loose leg. Just as if he hadn’t spoke at all. Sweet had himself a bit of a chuckle.
‘Are you laughing at me, little man?’ snapped Locway.
‘I’m laughing and you’re here,’ said Sweet. ‘Draw your own fucking conclusions. Now off and tell Sangeed what I said.’
He frowned after Locway for a long time, watching him and his horse dwindle to a black spot in the sunset and thinking how this particular episode weren’t likely to show up in the legend of Dab Sweet. That sour feeling was worse’n ever. But what could he do? Couldn’t be guiding Fellowships for ever, could he?
‘Got to have something to retire on,’ he muttered. ‘Ain’t too greedy a dream, is it?’
He squinted up at Crying Rock, binding her hair back into that twisted flag again. Most men would’ve seen nothing, maybe. But he who’d known her so many years caught the disappointment in her face. Or maybe just his own, reflected back like in a still pool.
‘I never been no fucking hero,’ he snapped. ‘Whatever they say.’
She just nodded, like that was the way of things.
The Folk were camped among the ruins, Sangeed’s tall dwelling built in the angle of the fallen arm of a great statue. No one knew now who the statue had been. An old God, died and fallen away into the past, and it seemed to Locway that the Folk would soon join him.
The camp was quiet and the dwellings few, the young men ranging far to hunt. On the racks only lean shreds of meat drying. The shuttles of the blanket weavers clacked and rattled, chopping the time up into ugly moments. Brought to this, they who had ruled the plains. Weaving for a pittance, and stealing money so they could buy from their destroyers the things that should have been theirs already.
The black spots had come in the winter and carried away half the children, moaning and sweating. They had burned their dwellings and drawn the sacred circles in the earth and said the proper words but it made no difference. The world was changing, and the old rituals held no power. The children had still died, the women had still dug, the men had still wept, and Locway had wept most bitterly of all.
Sangeed had put his hand upon his shoulder and said, ‘I fear not for myself. I had my time. I fear for you and the young ones, who must walk after me, and will see the end of things.’ Locway feared, too. Sometimes he felt that all his life was fear. What way was that for a warrior?
He left his horse and picked his way through the camp. Sangeed was brought from his lodge, his arms across the shoulders of his two strong daughters. His spirit was being taken piece by piece. Each morning there was less of him, that mighty frame before which the world had trembled withered to a shell.
‘What did Sweet say?’ he whispered.
‘That a Fellowship is coming, and will pay. I do not trust him.’
‘He has been a friend to the Folk.’ One of Sangeed’s daughters wiped the spit from the corner of his slack mouth. ‘We will meet him.’ And already he was starting to sleep.
‘We will meet him,’ said Locway, but he feared what might happen.
He feared for his baby son, who only three nights before had given his first laugh and so become one of the Folk. It should have been a moment for rejoicing, but Locway had only fear in him. What world was this to be born into? In his youth the Folk’s flocks and herds had been strong and numerous, and now they were stolen by the newcomers, and the good grazing cropped away by the passing Fellowships, and the beasts hunted to nothing, and the Folk scattered and taken to shameful ways. Before, the future had always looked like the past. Now he knew the past was a better place, and the future full of fear and death.
But the Folk would not fade without a fight. And so Locway sat beside his wife and son as the stars were opened, and dreamed of a better tomorrow he knew would never come.
The Wrath of God
‘Don’t much care for the look o’ that cloud!’ called Leef, pushing hair out of his face that the wind straight away snatched back into it.