Sure enough, such were the former First Captain’s thoughts. Anfen had been set for a lifetime of war against them. He had not expected his side to win, but nor had he expected to see the war’s end while he still lived. In one night he’d learned the final surrender could be only months away. If the Mayors panicked, as they just might, surrender by tonight was not impossible …
But mostly, he pondered how the Wall might be destroyed as the landscape clip-clopped by and his body was tossed up and down in the saddle. The great dividing road brought him closer and closer but no ideas came. Few of the confiscated readings had mentioned the Wall. He knew only that it had existed longer than the cities had, longer than humans had. The Wall may have been made by the dragon-youth, or the great Dragon, or by some like force on its other side.
As Otherworld existed on one end of Levaal, it was held there was a world on the Wall’s other side. This was claimed by ancient scrolls and artefacts left by the dragon-youth to the first generation of people, along with several other parting gifts of knowledge, all long lost. If Tormentors came from that side, and they weren’t some secret creation of the castle’s, what other horrors would pour across if Anfen’s mission succeeded?
But no. He was well past asking whether or not he should.
They kept trading horses at stables along the way as they upped their pace and put days and leagues behind them. Anfen was merciless. They went past good inns, to Sharfy’s growing dismay; he was sick to death of the road and had promised himself a lengthy rest if he made it back alive from their mission in the north. If he broke ranks and stayed at an inn, he had no doubt Anfen would go on without him. Maybe I should let him, Sharfy thought more than once, before realising: I’m not really here to destroy the Wall. Of course not. Stupid! It can’t even be done. I’m here to look after him. He’s coming unstuck like we all thought he might, one day …
The wall itself could soon be seen, though that didn’t mean they were yet close to it. It stretched as high up as the very roof of the sky, the Wall at its upper parts sky-white so that it blended in and was practically invisible. Lower down, it was a dull glassy blue. On sight of it, the absolute insane futility of the mission struck Sharfy as plainly as could be, and he began to wonder about his friend in other ways. Half a dozen disquieting theories came to him: the charm said no such thing, he misheard; Anfen’s been mad the whole time, war can do that to a man; the old Otherworlder’s disappearance had been planned and staged; Anfen works for the enemy, his whole defection was faked; this is not really Anfen, it is some conjured illusion … and more, yet they pressed on, and the mad gleam in the boss’s eye never dimmed, nor did the intensity of his silence relent for a moment. Nor did he seem to tire, and only by practically shoving food at his face did Sharfy remind him to eat.
Hour by hour, day by day of the endless clip clop of hoofbeats on paved stone. The Wall drew closer. The great dividing road, old as the Wall and splitting the world’s vast, reaching east and west realms, carried them mile by mile straight to the middle of World’s End.
63
Case had decided his fate long before the opportunity arose to act on his wish. For the meantime, he rode the giant wolf, suddenly feeling light-spirited and free.
For Case, it was a matter of: how. A drink would be nice beforehand, one final toast to those good memories, Eric’s friendship being one of the latest. Shelly too, how she’d visited him almost every weekend of his sentence with those little surprise gifts. His brother Charles, before they’d parted lives with poisonous words. His old father he’d forgiven, he supposed, but never felt at peace with — no harm in a toast to the man’s name. Hell, his first pet dog was worth tipping a cup for. So was the day he was released from gaol, and went to the beach as he’d dreamed of doing, even though it was winter, and just lay in the sand fully clothed, not moving for hours and hours and hours, listening to the waves murmur freedom. That was a good day.
His knee sizzled with pain as the wolf bounded along, panting and stinking. Case felt a moment’s sympathy for the mage, and for everything else sentenced to physical existence. Out of the trees they came at last, and good riddance to each one of them. And soon the ground sloped upwards, mountains came into view, and the answer was obvious. Just as soon as they were high enough. Right about … now.
‘Say, feller. Far Gaze, isn’t it? They call me Sore Arse. Can we stop a bit? Could use a minute on my feet.’
The wolf was exhausted enough itself from loping uphill. It pulled off the path and found a spot in the shade, lying with its front paws crossed over one another. Far Gaze didn’t wish to change back to human form, it seemed. It watched Case with big brown eyes.
Case smiled to put it at ease and sat near the cliff’s edge, just thinking for a moment or two. So light of spirit he felt, so free. His body had taken much punishment with all this walking and travel — how nice to ease all that. He stood, stretched, and looked back at the wolf, which raised its head and watched him. Case thought it looked sad. He raised a hand to it in farewell. ‘I think you know, don’t you? Tell Eric to keep being one of the good guys. Tell him … shit, I dunno. Tell him I said cheers, and thanks for the scotch.’ Case limped towards the edge, performed a cross on his chest, spread his arms, whooped loudly and jumped.
The wolf sighed.
64
It had loomed upon them for nearly a week’s riding, and now they came to its base. Anfen stood staring at where the road led straight into it. The country to either side of them was flat and dirt brown, the ground dug and overturned too often over the centuries in search of precious scales for things to grow here now. The Wall loomed so sheer Sharfy almost felt it would topple forwards and crush them.
The stoneflesh giants had become visible a long way back, for they were enormous. Grey as basalt, squat legs and torsos, featureless open-mouthed faces: they could have been statues but for the occasional movement of their flat round heads, surveying the world before them. Their disproportionately long fingers wound like trunks curling into knots of huge misshaped fists. They waited like sentries all along the Wall east and west, enough might in these creatures alone to easily settle any dispute among men, should they ever be roused and united to some cause. But the giants did not tolerate each other any more than encroachment on their space by human beings. The giant to the east had turned its head slowly towards where Anfen and Sharfy sat in their saddles on the road. They must have made a curious sight for the ancient guardian; very few people came this close to them, aside from those busy in slave mines far to the east.
‘It can be done,’ Anfen muttered to himself. ‘They would not be here guarding it if it did not have some weakness. It can be done.’
Sharfy didn’t want to say it, but: ‘How exactly, boss?’
‘We’ll see. Five miles west.’
They rode without speaking. The moment was dawning on Anfen, Sharfy sensed, when he would realise it was all pointless, and that he should probably head to one of the cities and report to the first Mayors’ Command officer he found. No harm done, of course, apart from a stolen horse probably not even noticed in all the chaos. He’d be better off trying to convince the Mayors again to help him, if this was really likely to change things in the war. Accurate news wouldn’t have travelled south any faster than them … for all they knew, Elvury had been reclaimed by the Mayors. Sooner or later, it would occur to him. Sharfy sure hoped so. Those inns looked like they had comfortable beds, and who cared how good the ale was? It would be nectar fit for a lord after all this riding.