He would wait another half an aven: they were drinking and eating and would grow sleepy soon. A couple might even return to their encampment further east in the dunes; that would even the odds a little. It was a good two hundred paces to their tents: Garec was sure the pounding waves would mask any sound of trouble.
‘Go on,’ he encouraged, ‘go on back to camp. Get some sleep.’ He licked his lips, surprised at how dry they were in the mist, pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head, and settled in to wait.
Private Fallon trundled slowly up the beach, grabbed a chunk of driftwood from the dwindling stack thrown carelessly in a pile and turned back to join the others. He had been with this platoon for a Moon now and had hustled about his duties in hopes of earning the respect of his fellow soldiers. It had not worked. Instead, the sergeants simply had given him more to do, more menial tasks, more late-night duties, while the other soldiers had ridiculed him mercilessly. ‘Fallon, you rutting fool,’ they chided, ‘why such a hurry? Is there a war going on somewhere you’re missing?’ They had all laughed at his expense; when he had tried to join in, hoping his ability to laugh at himself might make them like him, they had bullied him mercilessly. Now here he was, posted two avens’ march from the closest action – not that that had been much, just a skirmish against a band of local ruffians. Prince Malagon’s Special Forces had taken care of that by themselves.
The officers told them little. Dig in. Stand your post. That was it. They had no idea what was happening. There were rumours of a huge Falkan and Ronan resistance force crossing the Black-stones in the east, but Private Fallon believed the Malakasian Army was stretched out around the city for no other reason than to feed Prince Malagon’s ego. He snorted: some prince! Travelling in that huge, cumbersome ship, the Prince Marek – and it was all black, black rigging, black sails, black flags. What message was he trying to send anyway? Was he planning to outlaw colours next? He never gave the troops anything, not even a wave: his own army and he never acknowledged them, never lowered the curtains of that black carriage for one moment to smile or salute. He just climbed in, all robes and secrets, ordered the driver east to that broken-down Falkan family palace and sequestered himself there with his generals and admirals.
Private Fallon spat in the sand and imagined the prince warm beside a fireplace, sipping vintage wine from a fine crystal glass while he was out here, the least popular soldier in the entire battalion, forced to haul firewood all night along a flank that couldn’t be reached by all the combined military forces ever assembled in the Eastlands.
Tonight he had cleaned the pots, cut stakes and polished the lieutenant’s boots. Now he was on firewood duty. He was sick of being the platoon’s lackey and he deliberately picked up just one log from the stack at his feet then sauntered back towards the pickets.
Sergeant Tereno called out, ‘Fallon, you dog-dumb mud-rutter!’ The others chuckled. ‘Don’t you dare come back down here with only one log, laddie, or I’ll beat your frame to grettan dung. Get back up there and haul an armload. We have to keep this thing burning until dawn.’
Fallon stopped and spat down the beach at his platoon mates, but Sergeant Tereno was unimpressed. ‘I’ll deal with your attitude problem when you get back, laddie. Now, at the double!’
Fallon turned on his heel and stomped quickly back up the beach, taking his frustration and fear out on the forgiving sand. ‘Mud-whoring rutters,’ he muttered, ‘this is it. They’re going to kill me.’ And for the ten thousandth time in the last thirty days he wished he were someplace else, someplace warm and dry.
He pulled a large log from the stack. ‘Fat, slovenly, drunken tyrant,’ he grumbled to himself as he bundled a collection of thinner branches and logs around the first and bent over to heft the entire load. ‘I ought to whip him hard across that puffy gut of his with one of these branches. That’d show him.’ Fallon knew he would keep his head down and his face expressionless in the vain hope of avoiding a terrific thrashing at the hands of Sergeant Tereno and his bullyboys. He sighed heavily.
Private Fallon had taken several steps before he noticed something odd – not a stupid joke, as he first thought, but something else. Something was wrong. Three of his platoon mates lay still, one with an arrow protruding from his chest. Two were kneeling, their foreheads resting on the sand as they groped awkwardly at the cruel shafts impaling their throats. Thick black blood ran down each to soak the dusty brown sand. Sergeant Tereno had an arrow through his abdomen. He looked up and saw Fallon, and reached for him imploringly as he gurgled a plea for help. Blood dripped from his wound. Fallon froze for a moment, then, still gripping the wood firmly against his chest, turned down the beach and waited to see or hear the forward ranks of an approaching Resistance army.
Materialising out of the gloom like a wraith, the killer slowly took shape. He came alone, cowled in black, on softly padding feet that left barely a trace, while the booming crash of the surf drowned out all sound, as if the land itself were muting the man’s advance. Fallon wondered whether the mysterious assassin were truly there: he could have sworn that he had seen the surf breaking white through the midnight folds of the bowman’s robe.
Private Fallon was still holding the driftwood when Garec clubbed him hard across the temple. His vision faded to black.
Garec kicked the driftwood aside and began dragging the fallen soldier’s body north towards Orindale.
When Private Fallon woke, it was still dark and he could feel sand moving beneath his body. Despite a ponderous headache and what felt like a splash of blood across his cheek, he didn’t think he was seriously injured. He had not been unconscious for very long. He struggled to catch a glimpse of his captor, then he remembered the mysterious bowman and he closed his eyes tightly, hoping against hope that it was his fellow soldiers who were dragging him, and they were heading back to camp. Then they stopped and Fallon was dropped onto the beach. His worst fears were realised: he was the archer’s prisoner.
A gloved hand closed over his mouth and a voice whispered harshly in his ear, ‘Where is Malagon?’
The hand relaxed slightly as Fallon choked back an incoherent sob.
The hand closed over his mouth again and the voice repeated, ‘Is he on board the ship? Where is Malagon?’
Answer the questions. Answer and live. Blinking to clear his vision, Fallon nodded clumsily.
The gloved hand pulled slowly away and Fallon swallowed hard before croaking out, ‘He is at the old palace. He made a big show of going there in his carriage and hasn’t come out since.’
‘Good.’ The voice was hollow. ‘What about the ship? Where is it moored?’
Fallon’s mind raced, searching for anything he could recall that would help save his life. His stomach turned and he felt his vision begin to fade again. He had never imagined fear like this.
‘The ship? Where is it?’ The bowman was unaffected by the Malakasian’s terror.
Fallon forced himself to focus. ‘Orindale. The wharf.’
‘The town wharf? Which one?’
‘Ah- ah… north. The north wharf, that’s it. About a thousand paces out. You can’t miss it, all black, big as a city.’ Fallon thought he detected the presence of other people coming up the beach behind them.
‘Very good.’ The gloved hand once again closed over his mouth and he felt the stranger’s knee lean heavily on his chest. ‘And now, my friend… I have to kill you.’