Engir interrupted. ‘He killed your friend’s parents and was quite prepared to take you as his woman by force…’
‘I know that,’ Marna snapped, rounding on him viciously. ‘I didn’t say it wouldn’t be the best thing for us all if he were dead, or even that I’d be particularly unhappy about it. But I couldn’t do it. Least of all, posing as his… lover.’ She waved her hand towards Aaren and Yehna as she turned away from him. ‘They understand,’ she said, adding under her breath, ‘You stupid man!’
There was a long silence, during which only Levrik seemed to be watching the distant riders. His three companions sat in silent preoccupation.
As the heat of her unexpected confrontation faded, other thoughts came to Marna. ‘Is there nothing else that can be done?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘Four of you can’t do anything against him. He’s got men, his own powers – and perhaps this creature.’
Engir shook his head. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘You said it yourself in all innocence. There isn’t time. We’re too far from any kind of help, and this place is like a festering boil. If we don’t lance it, and fast, what you’ve seen so far will seem like a pleasant dream compared to what will happen next.’
‘You seem very sure about it,’ Marna retorted.
Engir looked at her. ‘I’m afraid I am,’ he said. ‘Abso-lutely sure.’
Marna turned to the others. ‘But you’ll be killed if you try to attack him,’ she protested, her voice a mixture of exasperation and distress.
‘We’re soldiers, that’s always a risk,’ Engir replied.
‘But…’
‘No buts,’ Engir said, before Marna could continue. ‘It’s the way it is. We none of us wanted to walk into this, I can assure you. But we’re trapped here now, just like everyone in your village.’
‘You sneaked in, you can sneak out,’ Marna said. ‘Surely the king has some semblance of an army. What about people in nearby towns and villages, can’t they…?’
Engir took her arm. His grip was gentle, but there was a hint of impatience in his voice. ‘Once more, I’ll tell you, Marna. Grasp it, whether you like it or not, and don’t cloud your mind with ifs and buts – it’ll kill you. Nilsson’s men are our countrymen. They’re trained in many of our ways. They’re battle-hardened, disciplined after a fashion, far from badly led, and murderers to a man. Even without Rannick and his burgeoning skills, your king and what passes for his army would be hard pressed to stand against them, and any civilian militia would be massacred out of hand. You’re quite right, we can sneak out and try to find help. But this place and this time will haunt us always. By the time we could muster any real help, this land would be long fallen, and the cost in human life and suffering in facing the forces that’d be in play by then, are truly beyond your imagining. We none of us want to be here. We’ve all got firesides we’d rather be sitting by. But we are here, we know what we know, and we are what we are. Getting killed is a risk in our profession, a calculated risk, not a certainty, and you can rest assured that whatever we do it’ll be with a view to being able to ride away from this place successful and intact.’
Engir’s words dropped into Marna’s tumbling thoughts like shards of ice. Her doubts and fears tossed to and fro, but beat themselves to nothing against both his reasoning and his resolution. She looked at the others, but saw that they were only waiting for her to understand. Until she did, she realized, she was a burden; just another risk to them.
She put her hand to her head. How long ago was it since she had stood by her father as he stripped the willow poles last night? Ten years? Twenty? A lifetime? Her eyes suddenly filled with tears of rage at the rape of her life. She swore violently, and dashed the tears away angrily with her hand. ‘I’m not a soldier,’ she said, sobbing and hoarse. ‘I can’t fight.’ She shot a savage look at Aaren. ‘For all I killed someone. But it’s my valley, my village; my country, I suppose; and certainly my friends. Just tell me what to do to help.’
Nilsson quailed inwardly. Rannick must surely return soon. And when he did…? He breathed slowly and deeply to ease the griping in his stomach. Once again, he wished that damned girl into every hall of hell. Talk about an empire lost for want of a nail!
He brought his fist down on the table, then stood up and arched his back in an attempt to ease his discom-fort. Not for the first time his ambitions – not to mention his life – were balanced on an unsteady and precarious edge, and there was nothing he could do but watch and wait and hope that he could ride out the avalanche that must inevitably be coming. His thoughts oscillated between a profound wish for a quiet, simple existence somewhere far away from all this turbulence, and a driving desire for the kind of life that only Rannick’s power, coupled to his own military skill, could give. Invariably, he kept returning to his oft reached conclusion that only the latter could now give him the former. It did nothing however, to stop his thoughts from setting off on the entire cycle again.
He swore at the recurrent vision of Marna. That surly bitch! There’d been not a sign of her after she’d reached those rocks. Even Storran and Yeorson had shaken their heads, though he could tell they’d been unhappy about the tracks in some way. But he’d had no time for niceties, they’d had to press on, search as far as they could as quickly as they could.
In the end he had had to give up. She could be any-where up there. She probably knew the area as well as she knew her own miserable little cottage, for all these villagers affected never to travel so far downland, or whatever it was they called it. He sneered to himself at the ludicrously restricted vision of these pathetic little people.
Not that those who were being drawn to join his growing army were much better, he reflected, as he thought again about the two bodies they had found. Imbeciles! Killing one another. Ye gods, the materials he had to work with! They were never going to be more than arrow fodder, but on the whole they would be of greater value if they waited for their opponents to kill them rather than doing it themselves.
He shook the thoughts from his head. They were an irrelevant distraction. He must, above all, concentrate on composing himself to face his Lord when he returned. And where the devil was he anyway? It had been hours since sundown. Hours since the time appointed for the bringing of this girl to him. Nilsson sat down again, as other thoughts returned to plague him. Had Rannick had an accident? Had he fled for some reason?
He scowled. He could not envisage either possibility, not with Rannick’s power growing as it was, and with their plans moving forward so well. Besides, he had read his Lord well enough to know that he had been hot for this girl when he had ridden out of the castle earlier that day.
A clamorous banging brought him to his feet again with a heart-stopping jerk. ‘What?’ he bellowed furiously, as he tore the door open.
‘The Lord, Captain,’ stammered a figure, stepping back hastily from this blast. ‘He’s returning.’
Nilsson sent the man reeling against the opposite wall of the passage as he stormed past him. Whatever was going to happen, his every instinct told him that it was better that he go out to meet it. As he strode along passageways and clattered down stairs, his mind became completely clear. Now, he must respond heartbeat by heartbeat to events as they unfolded. If anyone could survive the coming storm, it was he, but he must not burden his thinking with a teetering pile of possibilities.