‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ Gannadius panted. ‘Wait for me, for pity’s sake.’
‘Oh, for-’ Theudas Junior reached out over Gannadius’ head to crush someone’s skull with the halberd. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d stayed at home.’
There were four soldiers left; they were hanging back (for some unaccountable reason). ‘Don’t just stand there,’ his nephew said irritably, ‘get going. I’ll hold them off.’
Yes, but go where? I’m lost. Gannadius dragged his heavy legs up out of the sticky mud and plunged forward, his head down. Behind him he could hear the crash of steel weapons. Absolutely no point escaping from the soldiers if all I’m going to do is drown in the swamp. He considered looking back, but decided not to; too depressing, probably. Not long afterwards he tripped over his feet and landed on his face in the mud. He stayed put, too exhausted even to try to stand up.
‘Uncle.’ Obviously that tone of voice ran in the family; he could remember his mother using it for the I-thought-I-told-you-to-pod-those-beans admonitory speeches. ‘Uncle, you aren’t helping. Get up, for gods’ sakes.’
‘I can’t. Stuck.’
‘All right.’ Gannadius felt a hand attach itself to his wrist; then some dangerously powerful force was trying to pull his arm off his body, and making a pretty good job of it. Fortunately, the mud gave way before his sinews and tendons did, and another hand jerked him up on to his feet. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Gannadius replied. ‘Sorry.’
‘Come on. Try to keep up.’
So much, Gannadius reflected bitterly, for blockade-running. So much for slipping unobtrusively through the line in the night and the fog, when they least expected it. Fine in theory, but the Imperial admiral’s not a complete fool. If he keeps his ships close in on dark, foggy nights, it’s for a reason, maybe something to do with the fact that anybody stupid enough to try to thread his way through the submerged rocks of the straits would be asking for trouble.
‘Are they still following us?’
‘No idea,’ the boy replied. ‘More fool them if they are. Watch your feet, it’s a bit sticky.’
And now here he was, a man of his age, scrambling about in a swamp in enemy territory, with half the provincial’s army after his blood. Anybody with half a brain would have stayed on the Island, if necessary got a job and settled down to wait until Shastel and the provincial office had resolved their differences and stopped playing soldiers all over the eastern seaboard.
‘We’ll stop here,’ Theudas Junior said, ‘give you a chance to catch your breath.’
‘Thank you,’ Gannadius replied, with feeling. ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’
‘How the hell would I know? I’ve never been here before in my life.’
Gannadius rested his back against the trunk of a tree and slid down on to his backside. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you seem to be quite at home doing this sort of thing.’
The boy shrugged. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I’m just making it up as I go along.’
‘Fine. And here I was, assuming this was all stuff you’d learned from Bardas Loredan.’
‘Not really.’ The boy smiled. ‘We did get in some bother with some soldiers once, but we just hid till they went away.’ He looked at the halberd in his hand, then put it down. ‘I don’t know, maybe I take after my father. You told me he’s a pirate.’
‘Was,’ Gannadius said, ‘not any more. He’s a respectable freighter captain now.’
‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ the boy replied. ‘Which reminds me. I don’t suppose Director Zeuxis is going to be all that thrilled when we tell her we sank one of her ships.’
Gannadius couldn’t help smiling, picturing the scene. ‘It wasn’t a very big one,’ he replied. ‘And besides, Athli’s got so many of the wretched things these days, I don’t suppose she’ll miss one. And it wasn’t us who ran the blasted thing on the rocks, it was that so-called captain of hers. I see us as very much the victims in all of this.’
The boy nodded, apparently reassured. ‘So,’ he said, ‘now what do we do?’
Gannadius frowned. ‘I thought you were the natural-born leader,’ he said.
‘Yes, but you’re the wizard. Conjure up a magic carpet and get us out of here.’
‘If only.’ Gannadius sighed. ‘Doesn’t work like that.’
‘Doesn’t work at all if you ask me.’
‘You’re entitled to your opinion,’ Gannadius said wearily. ‘But no, you’re quite right. I can’t conjure up magic carpets or flatten the enemy with a fireball or turn them all into newts. A great pity, but there it is.’
The boy shrugged. ‘All right then,’ he said, ‘we’ll walk. It can’t be that far to Ap’ Amodi.’
‘Actually,’ Gannadius said, ‘Ap’ Amodi’s in the other direction. I may not be a wizard, but I can read a map. Inasmuch as we’re headed anywhere, we’re heading straight for Ap’ Escatoy, and I respectfully suggest we don’t want to go there.’
‘Ap’ Escatoy,’ the boy repeated. ‘Isn’t that where-?’
‘Exactly. Like I said, not a place we really want to intrude on.’
The boy rubbed his chin with a muddy hand. ‘But what if Bardas really is there? He’ll look after us, I know he will. We’ll be all right.’
Gannadius sighed. ‘I wouldn’t bank on it if I were you. Even if we were able to get to him before we were captured, or if we were able to get a message to him, there’s no reason to believe he’d be able to do anything for us. There’s no reason to believe he’s an officer or anything.’
The boy gave him a rebellious stare. ‘Bardas wouldn’t let anything happen to us,’ he said. ‘Not if he knew we were in trouble.’
‘Maybe not. But there’s ever such a lot of ways we could die without his knowing a thing about it. I say we find a way of doubling back and heading up the coast, towards Ap’ Amodi. Not too far up, mind, or we’ll find ourselves in Perimadeia.’
The boy nodded. ‘And you know the way, do you?’
Gannadius shook his head. ‘I’ve got a vague mental picture of the map I looked at, and that’s it. Don’t ask me about distances, either. We could be a day away, or three weeks.’
‘Oh.’ The boy suddenly looked very young and frightened, something which Gannadius found extremely disconcerting. ‘And there’s nothing you can do? I mean, with your… powers?’
Gannadius smiled. ‘Nothing at all, sorry.’
‘Not much good for anything, are they?’
‘No, not really.’
The boy stood up. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘If they were following us, they’d have caught us by now. Which way? In general terms,’ he added.
Gannadius thought for a moment. ‘In general terms,’ he said, ‘I’d say north-east, which ought to be over there. Unless there’s a mountain or a river or something in the way. Cartography’s not exactly a precise science in Shastel.’
The boy studied the undergrowth for a moment, then took a mighty swing at the dense brambles with the halberd. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, as he jerked the snagged blade loose again. ‘Better make a start, I suppose.’ He swung again, then gave up. ‘Let’s go back the way we came, see if we can pick up that path we were following.’
‘All right,’ Gannadius said. ‘What if we run into more soldiers?’
‘Then we’re stuffed,’ the boy replied. ‘But there’s no earthly way we’re going to get through this. It’d take twenty men a week just to get as far as that tall tree over there.’
Gannadius sighed, and followed. Alexius, he thought, where the hell are you when I need you? Can’t you find me, tell me what to do? But of course, it didn’t work like that, as he knew perfectly well. He could speculate all he liked about why, three years earlier, he’d seen that short, rather ludicrous battle in the mud-patch in some sort of random, Principle-induced vision. The fact was that the Principle wasn’t a tool, something you could use. It was something that happened to you, like bad luck or rain. He trudged forward, fitting his feet into the boy’s deep footprints. Too old for this. And at this rate, unlikely to get any older.
‘The path should be here somewhere.’ The boy’s voice, bouncing him out of his enclosed train of thought. ‘We must have missed it.’
‘Quite likely,’ Gannadius replied miserably. ‘It’s getting too dark for this. I say we stop here and wait till morning.’