Читать книгу Assassin’s Quest - Робин Хобб - Страница 13

What is the Wit? Some would say it is a perversion, a twisted indulgence of spirit by which men gain knowledge of the lives and tongues of the beasts, eventually to become little more than beasts themselves. My study of it and its practitioners has led me to a different conclusion, however. The Wit seems to be a form of mind linking, usually with a particular animal, which opens a way for the understanding of that animal’s thoughts and feelings. It does not, as some have claimed, give men the tongues of the birds and beasts. A Witted one does have an awareness of life all across its wide spectrum, including humans and even some of the mightier and more ancient of trees. But a Witted one cannot randomly engage a chance animal in ‘conversation’. He can sense an animal’s nearby presence, and perhaps know if the animal is wary or hostile or curious. But it does not give one command over the beasts of the land and the birds of the sky as some fanciful tales would have us believe. What the Wit may be is a man’s acceptance of the beast nature within himself, and hence an awareness of the element of humanity that every animal carries within it as well. The legendary loyalty that a bonded animal feels for his Witted one is not at all the same as what a loyal beast gives its master. Rather it is a reflection of the loyalty that the Witted one has pledged to his animal companion, like for like.

I did not sleep well, and it was not just that I was no longer accustomed to sleeping at night. What they had told me about Forged ones had put the wind up my back. The musicians all climbed up into the loft to sleep on the heaped straw there, but I found myself a corner where I could put my back to a wall and yet still have a clear view of the door. It felt strange to be inside a barn again at night. This was a good tight barn, built of river-rock and mortar and timber. The inn kept a cow and a handful of chickens in addition to their hire-horses and the beasts of their guests. The homely sounds and smells of the hay and animals put me sharply in mind of Burrich’s stables. I felt suddenly homesick for them as I never had for my own room up in the keep.

I wondered how Burrich was, and if he knew of Patience’s sacrifices. I thought of the love that had once been between them, and how it had foundered on Burrich’s sense of duty. Patience had gone on to marry my father, the very man to whom Burrich had pledged all that loyalty. Had he ever thought of going to her, attempting to reclaim her? No. I knew it instantly and without doubt. Chivalry’s ghost would stand forever between them. And now mine as well.

It was not a far jump from pondering this to thinking of Molly. She had made the same decision for us that Burrich had made for Patience and himself. Molly had told me that my obsessive loyalty to my king meant we could never belong to one another. So she had found someone she could care about as much as I cared for Verity. I hated everything about her decision except that it had saved her life. She had left me. She had not been at Buckkeep to share my fall and my disgrace.

I reached vaguely toward her with the Skill, then abruptly rebuked myself. Did I really want to see her as she probably was this night, sleeping in another man’s arms, his wife? I felt an almost physical pain in my chest at the thought. I did not have a right to spy on any happiness she had claimed for herself. Yet as I drowsed off, I thought of her, and longed hopelessly after what had been between us.

Some perverse fate brought me dreams of Burrich instead, a vivid dream that made no sense. I sat across from him. He was sitting at a table by a fire, mending harness as he often did of an evening. But a mug of tea had replaced his brandy cup, and the leather he worked at was a low soft shoe, much too small for him. He pushed the awl through the soft leather and it went through too easily, jabbing him in the hand. He swore at the blood, and then looked up abruptly, to awkwardly beg my pardon for using such language in my presence.

I woke up from the dream, disoriented and bemused. Burrich had often made shoes for me when I was small but I could not recall that he had ever apologized for swearing in my presence, though he had rapped me often enough when I was a boy if I had dared to use such language in his. Ridiculous. I pushed the dream aside, but sleep had fled with it.

Around me, when I quested out softly, were only the muzzy dreams of the sleeping animals. All were at peace save me. Thoughts of Chade came to niggle and worry at me. He was an old man in many ways. When King Shrewd had lived, he had seen to all Chade’s needs, so that his assassin might live in security. Chade had seldom ventured forth from his concealed room, save to do his ‘quiet work’. Now he was out on his own, doing El knew what, and with Regal’s troops in pursuit of him. I rubbed vainly at my aching forehead. Worrying was useless, but I could not seem to stop.

I heard four light foot scuffs, followed by a thud, as someone climbed down from the loft and skipped the last step on the ladder. Probably one of the women headed for the backhouse. But a moment later I heard Honey’s voice whisper, ‘Cob?’

‘What is it?’ I asked unwillingly.

She turned toward my voice, and I heard her approach in the darkness. My time with the wolf had sharpened my senses. Some little moonlight leaked in at a badly-shuttered window. I picked out her shape in the darkness. ‘Over here,’ I told her when she hesitated, and saw her startle at how close my voice was. She groped her way to my corner, and then hesitantly sat down in the straw beside me.

‘I daren’t go back to sleep,’ she explained. ‘Nightmares.’

‘I know how that is,’ I told her, surprised at how much sympathy I felt. ‘When, if you close your eyes, you tumble right back into them.’

‘Exactly,’ she said, and fell silent, waiting.

But I had nothing more to say, and so sat silent in the darkness.

‘What kind of nightmares do you have?’ she asked me quietly.

‘Bad ones,’ I said drily. I had no wish to summon them by speaking of them.

‘I dream Forged ones are chasing me, but my legs have turned to water and I cannot run. But I keep trying and trying as they come closer and closer.’

‘Uhm.’ I agreed. Better than dreaming of being beaten and beaten and beaten … I reined my mind away from that.

‘It’s a lonely thing, to wake up in the night and be afraid.’

I think she wants to mate with you. Will they accept you into their pack so easily?

‘What?’ I asked, startled, but it was the girl who replied, not Nighteyes.

‘I said, it’s lonely to awake at night and be afraid. One longs for a way to feel safe. Protected.’

‘I know of nothing that can stand between a person and the dreams that come at night,’ I said stiffly. Abruptly I wanted her to go away.

‘Sometimes a little gentleness can,’ she said softly. She reached over and patted my hand. Without intending to, I snatched it away.

‘Are you shy, prentice-boy?’ she asked coyly.

‘I lost someone I cared for,’ I said bluntly. ‘I’ve no heart to put another in her place.’

‘I see.’ She rose abruptly, shaking straw from her skirts. ‘Well. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She sounded insulted, not sorry.

She turned and groped her way back to the loft ladder. I knew I had offended her. I did not feel it was my fault. She went up the steps slowly, and I thought she expected me to call her back. I didn’t. I wished I had not come to town.

That makes two of us. The hunting is poor, this close to all these men. Will you be much longer?

I fear I must travel with them for a few days, at least as far as the next town.

You would not mate her, she is not pack. Why must you do these things?

I did not try to form it into words for him. All I could convey was a sense of duty, and he could not grasp how my loyalty to Verity bound me to help these travellers on the road. They were my people because they were my king’s. Even I found the connection so tenuous as to be ridiculous, but there it was. I would see them safely to the next town.

I slept again that night, but not well. It was as if my words with Honey had opened the door to my nightmares. No sooner had I dipped down into sleep than I experienced a sense that I was being watched. I cowered low inside my cell, praying that I could not be seen, keeping as still as I possibly could. My own eyes were clenched tight shut, like a child who believes that if he cannot see, he cannot be seen. But the eyes that sought me had a gaze I could feel; I could sense Will looking for me as if I were hiding under a blanket and hands were patting at it. He was that close. The fear was so intense that it choked me. I could not breathe, I could not move. In a panic, I went out of myself, sideways, slipping into someone else’s fear, someone else’s nightmare.

I crouched behind a barrel of pickled fish in old man Hook’s store. Outside, the darkness was splintered by the rising flames and shrieks of the captured or dying. I knew I should get out. The Red Ship Raiders were certain to loot and torch the store. It was not a good place to hide. But there was no good place to hide, and I was only eleven, and my legs were shaking beneath me so that I doubted I could stand, let alone run. Somewhere out there was Master Hook. When the first cries arose, he had grabbed his old sword down and rushed out the door. ‘Watch the store, Chad!’ he had called after him, as if he were just going next door to hobnob with the baker. At first I had been happy to obey him. The uproar was far down the town, downhill by the bay, and the store seemed safe and strong around me.

But that had been an hour ago. Now the wind from the harbour carried the taint of smoke, and the night was no longer dark, but a terrible torch-lit twilight. The flames and the screams were coming closer. Master Hook had not come back.

Get out, I told the boy in whose body I hid. Get out, run away, run as far and as fast as you can. Save yourself. He did not hear me.

I crawled toward the door that still swung open and wide as Master Hook had left it. I peered out of it. A man ran past in the street and I cowered back. But he was probably a townsman, not a Raider, for he ran without looking back, with no other thought than to get as far away as he could. Mouth dry, I forced myself to my feet, clinging to the door jamb. I looked down on the town and harbour. Half the town was aflame. The mild summer night was choked with smoke and ash rising on the hot wind off the flames. Ships were burning in the harbour. In the light from the flames, I could see figures darting, fleeing and hiding from the Raiders who strode almost unchallenged through the town.

Someone came about the corner of the potter’s store at the end of the street. He was carrying a lantern and walking so casually I felt a sudden surge of relief. Surely if he could be so calm, then the tide of the battle must be turning. I half rose from my crouch, only to cringe back as he blithely swung the oil lantern against the wooden storefront. The splashing oil ignited as the lamp broke, and fire raced gaily up the tinder-dry wood. I shrank back from the light of the leaping flames. I knew with a sudden certainty that there was no safety to be gained by hiding, that my only hope was in fleeing, and that I should have done it as soon as the alarms sounded. The resolution gave me a small measure of courage, enough that I leaped to my feet and dashed out and around the corner of the store.

For an instant, I was aware of myself as Fitz. I do not think the boy could sense me. This was not my Skilling out but his reaching to me with some rudimentary Skill sense of his own. I could not control his body at all, but I was locked into his experience. I was riding this boy and hearing his thoughts and sharing his perceptions just as Verity had once ridden me. But I had no time to consider how I was doing it, nor why I had been so abruptly joined to this stranger. For as Chad darted into the safety of the shadows, he was snatched back suddenly by a rough hand on his collar. For a brief moment he was paralysed with fear, and we looked up into the bearded grinning face of the Raider who gripped us. Another Raider flanked him, sneering evilly. Chad went limp with terror in his grasp. He gazed up helplessly at the moving knife, at the wedge of shining light that slid down its blade as it came towards his face.

I shared, for an instant, the hot-cold pain of the knife across my throat, the anguished moment of recognition as my warm wet blood coursed down my chest that it was over, it was already too late, I was dead now. Then as Chad tumbled heedlessly from the Raider’s grasp into the dusty street, my consciousness came free of him. I hovered there, sensing for one awful moment the thoughts of the Raider. I heard the harshly guttural tones of his companion who nudged the dead boy with his booted foot, and knew that he rebuked the killer for wasting one who could have been Forged instead. The killer gave a snort of disdain, and replied something to the effect that he had been too young, not enough of a life behind him to be worth the Masters’ time. Knew too, with a queasy swirling of emotions, that the killer had desired two things: to be merciful to a lad, and to enjoy the pleasure of a personal kill.

I had looked into the heart of my enemy. I still could not comprehend him.

I drifted down the street behind them, bodiless and substanceless. I had felt an urgency the moment before. Now I could not recall it. Instead, I roiled like fog, witnessing the fall and the sacking of Grimsmire Town in Bearns Duchy. Time after time, I was drawn to one or another of the inhabitants, to witness a struggle, a death, a tiny victory of escape. Still I can close my eyes and know that night, recall a dozen horrendous moments in lives I briefly shared. I came finally to where one man stood, great sword in hand, before his blazing home. He held off three Raiders, while behind him his wife and daughter fought to lift a burning beam and free a trapped son, that they might all flee together. None of them would forsake the others, and yet I knew the man was weary, too weary and weakened by blood-loss to lift his sword, let alone wield it. I sensed, too, how the Raiders toyed with him, baiting him to exhaust himself, that they might take and Forge the whole family. I could feel the creeping chill of death seeping through the man. For an instant his head nodded toward his chest.

Suddenly the beleaguered man lifted his head. An oddly familiar light came into his eyes. He gripped the sword in both hands and with a roar suddenly sprang at his attackers. Two went down before his first onslaught, dying with amazement still printed plain on their features. The third met his sword blade to blade, but could not overmatch his fury. Blood dripped from the townsman’s elbow and sheened his chest, but his sword rang like bells against the Raider’s, battering down his guard and then suddenly dancing in, light as a feather, to trace a line of red across the Raider’s throat. As his assailant fell, the man turned and sprang swiftly to his wife’s side. He seized the burning beam, heedless of the flames, and lifted it off his son’s body. For one last time, his eyes met those of his wife. ‘Run!’ he told her. ‘Take the children and flee.’ Then he crumpled into the street. He was dead.

As the stony-faced woman seized her children’s hands and raced off with them, I felt a wraith rise from the body of the man who had died. It’s me, I thought to myself, and then knew it was not. It sensed me and turned, his face so like my own. Or it had been, when he had been my age. It jolted me to think this was how Verity still perceived himself.

You, here? He shook his head in rebuke. This is dangerous, boy. Even I am a fool to attempt this. And yet what else can we do, when they call us to them? He considered me, standing so mute before him. When did you gain the strength and talent to Skill-walk?

I made no reply. I had no answers, no thoughts of my own. I felt I was a wet sheet flapping in the night wind, no more substantial than a blowing leaf.

Fitz, this is a danger to both of us. Go back. Go back now.

Is there truly a magic in the naming of a man’s name? So much of the old lore insists there is. I suddenly recalled who I was, and that I did not belong here. But I had no concept of how I had come here, let alone how to return to my body. I gazed at Verity helplessly, unable to even formulate a request for help.

He knew. He reached a ghostly hand toward me. I felt his push as if he had placed the heel of his hand on my forehead and given a gentle shove.

My head bounced off the wall of the barn, and I saw sudden sparks of light from the impact. I was sitting there, in the barn behind the Scales inn. About me was only peaceful darkness, sleeping beasts, tickling straw. Slowly I slid over onto my side as wave after wave of giddiness and nausea swept over me. The weakness that often possessed me after I had managed to use the Skill broke over me like a wave. I opened my mouth to call for help, but only a wordless caw escaped my lips. I closed my eyes and sank into oblivion.

I awoke before dawn. I crawled to my pack, pawed through it, and then managed to stagger to the back door of the inn, where I quite literally begged a mug of hot water from the cook there. She looked on in disbelief as I crumbled strips of elfbark into it.

‘’S not good for you, you know that,’ she warned me, and then watched in awe as I drank the scalding, bitter brew. ‘They give that to slaves, they do, down in Chalced. Mix it in their food and drink, to keep them on their feet. Makes them despair as much as it gives them staying power, or so I’ve heard. Saps their will to fight back.’

I scarcely heard her. I was waiting to feel the effect. I had harvested my bark from young trees and feared it would lack potency. It did. It was some time before I felt the steeling warmth spread through me, steadying my trembling hands and clearing my vision. I rose from my seat on the kitchen’s back steps, to thank the cook and give her back her mug.

‘It’s a bad habit to take up, a young man like you,’ she chided me, and went back to her cooking. I departed the inn to stroll the streets as dawn broke over the hills. For a time, I half expected to find burned storefronts and gutted cottages, and empty-eyed Forged ones roaming the streets. But the Skill nightmare was eroded by the summer morning and the river wind. By daylight, the shabbiness of the town was more apparent. It seemed to me there were more beggars than we had had in Buckkeep Town, but I did not know if that was normal for a river town. I considered briefly what had happened to me last night, then with a shudder I set it aside. I did not know how I had done it. Like as not, it would not happen to me again. It heartened me to know Verity was still alive, even as it chilled me to know how rashly still he expended his Skill-strength. I wondered where he was this morning, and if, like me, he faced the dawn with the bitterness of Elfbark all through his mouth. If only I had mastered the Skill, I would not have had to wonder. It was not a thought to cheer one.

When I returned to the inn, the minstrels were already up and inside the inn breakfasting on porridge. I joined them at table, and Josh bluntly told me he had feared I had left without them. Honey had no words at all for me, but several times I caught Piper looking at me appraisingly.

It was still early when we left the inn, and if we did not march like soldiers, Harper Josh still set a respectable pace for us. I had thought he would have to be led, but he made his walking staff his guide. Sometimes he did walk with a hand on Honey’s or Piper’s shoulder, but it seemed more companionship than necessity. Nor was our journey boring, for as we walked he lectured, mostly to Piper, on the history of this region, and surprised me with the depth of his knowledge. We stopped for a bit when the sun was high and they shared with me the simple food they had. I felt uncomfortable taking it, yet there was no way I could excuse myself to go hunt with the wolf. Once the town was well behind us, I had sensed Nighteyes shadowing us. It was comforting to have him near, but I wished it were just he and I travelling together. Several times that day we were passed by other travellers, on horses or mules. Through gaps in the trees we occasionally glimpsed boats beating their way upriver against the current. As the morning passed, well-guarded carts and wagons overtook us. Each time Josh called out to ask if we might ride on the wagons. Twice we were politely refused. The others answered not at all. They moved hurriedly, and one group had several surly-looking men in a common livery that I surmised were hired guards.

We walked the afternoon away to the reciting of ‘Crossfire’s Sacrifice’, the long poem about Queen Vision’s coterie and how they laid down their lives that she might win a crucial battle. I had heard it before, several times, in Buckkeep. But by the end of the day, I had heard it two score times, as Josh worked with infinite patience to be sure that Piper sang it perfectly. I was grateful for the endless recitations, for it prevented talk.

But despite our steady pace, the falling of evening still found us far short of the next river town. I saw them all become uneasy as the light began to fail. Finally, I took command of the situation and told them we must leave the road at the next stream we crossed, and find a place to settle for the evening. Honey and Piper fell back behind Josh and me, and I could hear them muttering worriedly to one another. I could not reassure them, as Nighteyes had me, that there was not even a sniff of another traveller about. Instead, at the next crossing I guided them upstream and found a sheltered bank beneath a cedar tree where we might rest for the night.

I left them on the pretence of relieving myself, to spend time with Nighteyes assuring him all was well. It was time well spent, for he had discovered a place where the swirling creek water undercut the bank. He watched me intently as I lay on my belly and eased my hands into the water, and then slowly through the curtain of weeds that overhung it. I got a fine fat fish on my first try. Several minutes later, another effort yielded me a smaller fish. When I gave up, it was almost full dark, but I had three fish to take back to camp, leaving two, against my better judgment, for Nighteyes.

Fishing and ear scratching. The two reasons men were given hands, he told me genially as he settled down with them. He had already gulped down the entrails from mine as fast as I had cleaned them.

Watch out for bones, I warned him yet again.

My mother raised me on a salmon run, he pointed out. Fish bones don’t bother me.

I left him shearing through the fish with obvious relish and returned to camp. The minstrels had a small fire burning. At the sound of my footsteps, all three leaped to their feet brandishing their walking staffs. ‘It’s me!’ I told them belatedly.

‘Thank Eda,’ Josh sighed as he sat down heavily, but Honey only glared at me.

‘You were gone a long time,’ Piper said by way of explanation. I held up the fish threaded through the gills onto a willow stick.

‘I found dinner,’ I told them. ‘Fish,’ I added, for Josh’s benefit.

‘Sounds wonderful,’ he said.

Honey took out waybread and a small sack of salt as I found a large flat stone and wedged it into the embers of the fire. I wrapped the fish in leaves and set them on the stone to bake. The smell of the cooking fish tantalized me even as I hoped it would not draw any Forged ones to our campfire.

I’m keeping watch still, Nighteyes reminded me, and I thanked him.

As I watched over the cooking fish, Piper muttered ‘Crossfire’s Sacrifice’ to herself at my elbow.

‘Hist the halt, and Cleave the blind,’ I corrected her distractedly as I tried to turn the fish over without breaking it.

‘I had it right!’ she contradicted me indignantly.

‘I’m afraid you did not, my lass. Cob is correct. Hist was the clubfoot and Cleave was blind from birth. Can you name the other five, Cob?’ He sounded just like Fedwren hearing a lesson.

I had burned my finger on a coal and I stuck it in my mouth before answering. ‘Burnt Crossfire led, and those around – were like him, not of body sound, but strong of heart. And true of soul. And herein let me count their roll – for you. ’Twas Hist the halt, and Cleave the blind, and Kevin of the wandering mind, hare-lipped Joiner, Sever was deaf, and Porter, who the foe men left – for dead, without his hands or eyes. And if you think you would despise such ones as these, then let me say …’

‘Whoa!’ Josh exclaimed with pleasure, and then asked, ‘Had you bard’s training, Cob, when you were small? You’ve caught the phrasing as well as the words. Though you make your pauses a bit too plain.’

‘I? No. I’ve always had a quick memory, though.’ It was hard not to smile at his praise of me, even though Honey sneered and shook her head at it.

‘Could you recite the whole thing, do you think?’ Josh asked challengingly.

‘Perhaps,’ I hedged. I knew I could. Both Burrich and Chade had drilled my memory skills often. And I’d heard it so often today I could not drive it from my head.

‘Try it then. But not spoken. Sing it.’

‘I have no voice for singing.’

‘If you can speak, you can sing. Try it. Indulge an old man.’

Perhaps obeying old men was simply too deep a habit with me for me to defy it. Perhaps it was the look on Honey’s face that told me plainly she doubted I could do it.

I cleared my throat and began it, singing softly until he gestured at me to raise my voice. He nodded his head as I worked my way through it, wincing now and then when I soured a note. I was about halfway through when Honey observed drily, ‘The fish is burning.’

I dropped the song and sprang to poke stone and wrapped fish from the fire. The tails were scorched, but the rest was fine, steaming and firm. We portioned it out and I ate too rapidly. Twice as much would not have filled me, and yet I must be content with what I had. The waybread tasted surprisingly good with the fish, and afterwards Piper made a kettle of tea for us. We settled on our blankets about the fire.

‘Cob, do you do well as a scribe?’ Josh suddenly asked me.

I made a deprecating sound. ‘Not as well as I’d like. But I get by.’

‘Not as well as he’d like,’ Honey muttered to Piper in mocking imitation.

Harper Josh ignored her. ‘You’re old for it, but you could be taught to sing. Your voice is not so bad; you sing like a boy, not knowing you’ve a man’s depth of voice and lungs to call on now. Your memory is excellent. Do you play any instruments?’

‘The sea-pipes. But not well.’

‘I could teach you to play them well. If you took up with us …’

‘Father! We scarcely know him!’ Honey objected.

‘I could have said the same to you when you left the loft last night,’ he observed to her mildly.

‘Father, all we did was talk.’ She flashed a look at me, as if I had betrayed her. My tongue had turned to leather in my mouth.

‘I know,’ Josh agreed. ‘Blindness seems to have sharpened my hearing. But if you have judged him someone safe to talk to, alone, at night, then perhaps I have judged him someone safe to offer our company to as well. What say you, Cob?’

I shook my head slowly, then, ‘No,’ I said aloud. ‘Thank you all the same. I appreciate what you are offering, and to a stranger. I will travel with you as far as the next town, and I wish you well in finding other companions to travel with you from there. But … I have no real wish for …’

‘You lost someone dear to you. I understand that. But total solitude is not good for any man,’ Josh said quietly.

‘Who did you lose?’ Piper asked in her open way.

I tried to think how to explain without leaving myself open for more questions. ‘My grandfather,’ I said at last. ‘And my wife.’ Saying those words was like tearing a wound open.

‘What happened?’ Piper asked.

‘My grandfather died. My wife left me.’ I spoke shortly, wishing they’d let it be.

‘The old die in their time,’ Josh began gently, but Honey cut in brusquely with, ‘That was the love you lost? What can you owe to a woman who left you? Unless you gave her cause to leave you?’

‘It was more that I did not give her cause to stay,’ I admitted unwillingly. Then, ‘Please,’ I said bluntly. ‘I do not wish to speak of these things. At all. I will see you to the next town, but then my way is my own.’

‘Well. That’s clearly spoken,’ Josh said regretfully. Something in his tone made me feel I had been rude, but there were no words I wished to call back.

There was little talk the rest of that evening, for which I was grateful. Piper offered to take first watch and Honey second. I did not object, as I knew Nighteyes would prowl all about us this night. Little got past that one. I slept better out in the open air, and came awake quickly when Honey stooped over me to shake me. I sat up, stretched, then nodded to her that I was awake and she could get more sleep. I got up and poked at the fire, then took a seat by it. Honey came to sit beside me.

‘You don’t like me, do you?’ she asked quietly. Her tone was gentle.

‘I don’t know you,’ I said as tactfully as I could.

‘Um. And you don’t wish to,’ she observed. She looked at me levelly. ‘But I’ve wanted to know you since I saw you blush in the inn. Nothing challenges my curiosity quite as much as a man who blushes. I’ve known few men who turn scarlet like that, simply because they’re caught looking at a woman.’ Her voice went low and throaty, as she leaned forward confidentially. ‘I would love to know what you were thinking that brought the blood to your face like that.’

‘Only that I had been rude to stare,’ I told her honestly.

She smiled at me. ‘That was not what I was thinking as I was looking back at you.’ She moistened her mouth and hitched closer.

I suddenly missed Molly so acutely it was painful. ‘I have no heart for this game,’ I told Honey plainly. I rose. ‘I think I shall get a bit more wood for the fire.’

‘I think I know why your wife left you,’ Honey said nastily. ‘No heart, you say? I think your problem was a bit lower.’ She rose and went back to her blankets. All I felt was relief that she had given up on me. I kept my word and went to gather more dry wood.

The first thing I asked Josh the next morning when he arose was, ‘How far is it to the next town?’

‘If we keep the same pace we struck yesterday, we should be there by tomorrow noon,’ he told me.

I turned aside from the disappointment in his voice. As we shouldered our packs and set off, I reflected bitterly that I had walked away from people I had known and cared about to avoid the very situation I was now in with comparative strangers. I wondered if there were any way to live amongst other people and refuse to be harnessed by their expectations and dependencies.

The day was warm, but not unpleasantly so. If I had been alone, I would have found it pleasant hiking along the road. In the woods to one side of us, birds called to one another. To the other side of the road, we could see the river through the scanty trees, with occasional barges moving downstream, or oared vessels moving slowly against the current. We spoke little, and after a time, Josh put Piper back to reciting ‘Crossfire’s Sacrifice’. When she stumbled, I kept silent.

My thoughts drifted. Everything had been so much easier when I had not had to worry about my next meal or a clean shirt. I had thought myself so clever in dealing with people, so skilled at my profession. But I had had Chade to plot with, and time to prepare what I would say and do. I did not do so well when my resources were limited to my own wits and what I could carry on my back. Stripped of everything I had once unthinkingly relied on, it was not just my courage I had come to doubt. I questioned all my abilities now. Assassin, King’s Man, warrior, man … was I any of them any more? I tried to recall the brash youngster who had pulled an oar on Verity’s warship Rurisk, who had flung himself unthinkingly into battle wielding an axe. I could not grasp he had been me.

At noon Honey distributed the last of their waybread. It was not much. The women walked ahead of us, talking quietly to one another as they munched the dry bread and sipped from their waterskins. I ventured to suggest to Josh that we might camp earlier tonight, to give me a chance to do a bit of hunting or fishing.

‘It would mean we would not get to the next town by noon tomorrow,’ he pointed out gravely.

‘Tomorrow evening would be soon enough,’ I assured him quietly. He turned his head toward me, perhaps to hear me better, but his hazed-over eyes seemed to look inside me. It was hard to bear the appeal I saw there, but I made no reply to it.

When the day finally began to cool, I began to look for likely stopping places. Nighteyes had ranged ahead of us to scout when I sensed a sudden prickling of his hackles. There are men here, smelling of carrion and their own filth. I can smell them, I can see them, but I cannot sense them otherwise. The distress he always felt in the presence of Forged ones drifted back to me. I shared it. I knew they had once been human, and shared that Wit spark that every living creature does. To me, it was passing strange to see them move and speak when I could not sense they were alive. To Nighteyes, it was as if stones walked and ate.

How many? Old, young?

More than us, and bigger than you. A wolf’s perception of odds. They hunt the road, just around the bend from you.

‘Let’s stop here,’ I suggested suddenly. Three heads swivelled to regard me in puzzlement.

Too late. They’ve scented you, they are coming.

No time to dissemble, no time to come up with a likely lie.

‘There are Forged ones ahead. More than two of them. They’ve been watching the road, and they’re headed toward us now.’ Strategy? ‘Get ready,’ I told them.

‘How do you know this?’ Honey challenged me.

‘Let’s run!’ suggested Piper. She didn’t care how I knew. The wideness of her eyes told me how much she had feared this.

‘No. They’ll overtake us, and we’ll be winded when they do. And even if we did outrun them, we’d still have to get past them tomorrow.’ I dropped my bundle to the road, kicked it clear of me. Nothing in it was worth my life. If we won, I’d be able to pick it up again. If we didn’t, I wouldn’t care. But Honey and Piper and Josh were musicians. Their instruments were in their bundles. None of them moved to free themselves from their burdens. I didn’t waste my breath suggesting they do so. Almost instinctively, Piper and Honey moved to flank the old man. They gripped their walking sticks too tightly. Mine settled in my hands and I held it balanced and at the ready, waiting. For an instant I stopped thinking entirely. My hands seemed to know what to do of their own accord.

‘Cob, take care of Honey and Piper. Don’t worry about me, just don’t let them get hurt,’ Josh ordered me tersely.

His words broke through to me, and suddenly terror flooded me. My body lost its easy ready stance, and all I could think of was the pain defeat would bring me. I felt sick and shaky and wanted more than anything to simply turn and run, with no thought for the minstrels. Wait, wait, I wanted to cry to the day. I am not ready for this, I do not know if I will fight or run or simply faint where I stand. But time knows no mercy. They come through the brush, Nighteyes told me. Two come swiftly and one lags behind. I think he shall be mine.

Be careful, I warned him. I heard them crackling through the brush and scented the foulness of them. A moment later, Piper cried out as she spotted them, and then they rushed out of the trees at us. If my strategy was stand and fight, theirs was simply run up and attack. They were both larger than I was, and seemed to have no doubts at all. Their clothing was filthy but mostly intact. I did not think they had been Forged long. Both carried clubs. I had little time to comprehend more than that.

Forging did not make folk stupid, nor slow. They could no longer sense or feel emotions from others, nor, it seemed, recall what those emotions might make an enemy do. That often made their actions almost incomprehensible. It did not make them any less intelligent than they had been when whole, or any less skilled with their weapons. They did, however, act with an immediacy in satisfying their wants that was wholly animal. The horse they stole one day they might eat the next, simply because hunger was a more immediate want than the convenience of riding. Nor did they co-operate in a battle. Within their own groups, there was no loyalty. They were as likely to turn on one another to gain plunder as to attack a common enemy. They would travel together, and attack together, but not as a concerted effort. Yet they remained brutally cunning, remorselessly clever in their efforts to get what they desired.

I knew all this. So I was not surprised when both of them tried to get past me to attack the smaller folk first. What surprised me was the cowardly relief I felt. It paralysed me like one of my dreams, and I let them rush past me.

Honey and Piper fought like angry and frightened minstrels with sticks. There was no skill, no training there, not even the experience to fight as a team and thus avoid clubbing each other or Josh in the process. They had been schooled to music, not battle. Josh was paralysed in the middle, gripping his staff, but unable to strike out without risking injury to Honey or Piper. Rage contorted his face.

I could have run then. I could have snatched up my bundle and fled down the road and never looked back. The Forged ones would not have chased me; they were content with whatever prey was easiest. But I did not. Some tatter of courage or pride survived in me still. I attacked the smaller of the two men, even though he seemed more skilled with his cudgel. I left Honey and Piper to whack away at the larger man, and forced the other to engage with me. My first blow caught him low on the legs. I sought to cripple him, or at least knock him down. He did roar out with pain as he turned to attack me, but seemed to move no slower for it.

It was another thing I had noticed about Forged ones: pain seemed to affect them less. I knew that when I had been so badly beaten, a great part of what unmanned me was distress at the destruction of my body. It was odd to realize I had an emotional attachment to my own flesh. My deep desire to keep it functioning well surpassed simple avoidance of pain. A man takes pride in his body. When it is damaged, it is more than a physical thing. Regal had known that. He had known that every blow his guardsmen dealt me inflicted a fear with its bruise. Would he send me back to what I had been, a sickly creature who trembled after exertion, and feared the seizures that stole both body and mind from him? That fear had crippled me as much as their blows. Forged ones seemed not to have that fear; perhaps when they lost their attachment to everything else, they lost all affection for their own bodies.

My opponent spun about and dealt me a blow with his cudgel that sent a shock up to my shoulders as I caught it on my staff. Small pain, my body whispered to me of the jolt, and listened for more. He struck at me again, and again I caught it. Once I had engaged him, there was no safe way to turn and flee. He used his cudgel well: probably a warrior once, and one trained with an axe. I recognized the moves and blocked, or caught, or deflected each one. I feared him too much to attack him, feared the surprise blow that might streak past my staff if I did not constantly guard myself. I gave ground so readily that he glanced back over his shoulder, perhaps thinking he could just turn away from me and go after the women. I managed a timid reply to one of his blows; he barely flinched. He did not weary, nor did he give me space to take advantage of my longer weapon. Unlike me, he was not distracted by the shouts of the minstrels as they strove to defend themselves. Back up in the trees, I could hear muffled curses and faint growls. Nighteyes had stalked the third man, and had rushed in to attempt to hamstring him. He had failed, but now he circled him, keeping well out of range of the sword he carried.

I do not know that I can get past his blade, brother. But I think I can delay him here. He dares not turn his back on me to come down and attack you.

Be careful! It was all I had time to say to him, for the man with the club demanded every bit of my attention. Blow after blow he rained on me, and I soon realized he had stepped up his efforts, putting more force into his blows. He no longer felt he had to guard against a possible attack from me; he put all his strength into battering down my defence. Every jolt I caught squarely with my staff sent an echoing shock up to my shoulders. The impacts awakened old pains, jouncing healed injuries I had almost forgotten. My endurance as a fighter was not what it had been. Hunting and walking did not toughen a body and build muscle the way pulling an oar all day had. A flood of doubt undercut my concentration. I suspected I was overmatched, and so feared the pain to come that I could not plot how to avoid it. Desperation to avoid injury is not the same as determination to win. I kept trying to work away from him, to gain space for my staff, but he pressed me relentlessly.

I caught a glimpse of the minstrels. Josh stood squarely in the middle of the road, staff ready, but the battle had moved away from him. Honey was limping backwards as the man pursued her. She was trying to ward off blows from the man’s club while Piper followed, ineffectually thwacking him across the shoulders with her slender staff. He simply hunched to her blows and remained intent on the injured Honey. It woke something in me. ‘Piper, take his legs out!’ I yelled to her, and then put my attention to my own problems as a cudgel grazed my shoulder. I dealt back a couple of quick blows that lacked force and leaped away from him.

A sword sliced my shoulder and skimmed along my rib-cage.

I cried out in astonishment and nearly dropped my staff before I realized the injury wasn’t mine. I felt as much as heard Nighteyes’ surprised yelp of pain. And then the impact of a boot to my head.

Dazed, cornered. Help me!

There were other memories, deeper memories, buried beneath my recall of the beatings Regal’s guards had inflicted on me. Years before then, I had felt the slash of a knife and the impact of a boot. But not on my own flesh. A terrier I had bonded with, Smithy, not even full grown, had fought in the dark against one who had attacked Burrich in my absence. Fought, and died later of his injuries, before I could even reach his side again. I discovered abruptly there was a threat more potent than my own death.

Fear for myself crumpled away before my terror of losing Nighteyes. I did what I knew I had to do. I shifted my stance, stepped in and accepted the blow on my shoulder to bring me in range. The shock of it jolted down my arm and for an instant I couldn’t feel anything in that hand. I trusted it was still there. I had shortened my grip on my staff, and I brought that end up sharply, catching his chin. Nothing had prepared him for my abrupt change in tactics. His chin flew up, baring his throat, and I jabbed my staff sharply against the hollow at the base of his throat. I felt the small bones there give way. He gasped out blood in a sudden exhalation of pain and I danced back, shifted my grip, and brought the other end around to impact his skull. He went down, and I turned and raced up into the woods.

Snarls and grunts of effort led me to them. Nighteyes had been brought to bay, his left forepaw curled up to his chest. Blood slicked his left shoulder, and beaded like red jewels on the guardhairs all along his left side. He had backed deeply into a dense thicket of tangled blackberry canes. The savage thorns and snagging runners that he had sought as shelter now fenced him round and blocked his escape. He had pressed into them as deeply as he could to avoid the slashes of the sword, and I could feel the damage to his feet. The thorns that jabbed into Nighteyes likewise kept his attacker at a distance, and the yielding canes absorbed many of the sword’s blows as the man strove to hack through them and get at the wolf.

At the sight of me Nighteyes gathered his courage and rounded suddenly to face his attacker with a savage outburst of snarls. The Forged one drew back his sword for a thrust that would impale my wolf. There was no point on the end of my staff, but with a wordless cry of fury I drove it into the man’s back so brutally that it punched through flesh and into his lungs. He roared out a spattering of red drops and rage. He tried to turn to confront me, but I still had hold of my staff. I threw my weight against it, forcing him staggering into the blackberry tangle. His outstretched hands found nothing to catch him save tearing brambles. I pinned him into the yielding blackberry canes with my full weight on the staff and Nighteyes, emboldened, sprang onto his back. The wolf’s jaws closed on the back of the man’s thick neck and worried at him until blood spattered both of us. The Forged one’s strangling cries gradually diminished to passive gurglings.

I had completely forgotten about the minstrels until a deep cry of anguish recalled them to me. Stooping, I seized the sword the Forged one had dropped and ran back to the road, leaving Nighteyes to flop down exhausted and begin licking at his shoulder. As I burst out of the woods, a horrifying sight met my eyes. The Forged one had flung himself upon a struggling Honey and was tearing at her clothes. Piper knelt in the road dust, clutching at her arm and shrieking wordlessly. A dishevelled and dusty Josh had climbed to his feet and, staffless, was groping toward Piper’s cries.

In a moment I was in their midst. I kicked the man to lift him off Honey, then plunged the sword into him in a downward two-handed thrust. He struggled wildly, kicking and clutching at me, but I leaned on the blade, forcing it down into his chest. As he fought against the metal that pinned him, he tore the wound wider. His mouth cursed me with wordless cries and then panting gasps that flung droplets of blood with the sounds. His hands seized my right calf and tried to jerk my leg from under me. I simply put more weight on the blade. I longed to pull the sword out and kill him quickly, but he was so strong I did not dare release him. Honey ended him finally, bringing the end of her staff down in a smashing drive to the centre of his face. The man’s sudden stillness was as much a mercy to me as to him. I found the strength to pull the sword out of him, then staggered backwards to sit down suddenly in the road.

My vision dimmed and cleared and dimmed again. Piper’s screams of pain might have been the distant crying of seabirds. Suddenly there was too much of everything and I was everywhere. Up in the woods, I licked at my shoulder, a laying aside of dense fur with my tongue, a careful probing of the slash as I coated it with saliva. And yet I sat in the sun on the road, smelling dust and blood and excrement as the slain man’s bowels loosened. I felt every blow I had taken and dealt, the exertion as well as the jolting damage from the club’s impact. The savage way I had killed suddenly had a different connotation to me. I knew what it was to feel the kind of pain that I had inflicted. I knew what they had felt, down and struggling without hope, with death as their only escape from more pain. My mind vibrated between the extremes of killer and victim. I was both.

And alone. More alone than I had ever been. Always before, at a time like this, there had been someone for me. Shipmates at the end of a battle, or Burrich coming to patch me up and drag me home, and a home waiting for me, with Patience to come and fuss over me, or Chade and Verity to remonstrate with me to be more careful of myself. Molly arriving with the quiet and the darkness to touch me softly. This time the battle was over, and I was alive, but no one save the wolf cared. I loved him, but suddenly I knew that I longed for a human touch as well. The separation from those who had cared about me was more than I could bear. Had I been truly a wolf, I would have lifted my nose to the sky and howled. As it was, I reached out, in a way I cannot describe. Not the Wit, not the Skill, but some unholy blending of the two, a terrible questing for someone, anywhere, who might care to know I was alive.

Almost, I felt something. Did Burrich, perhaps, somewhere lift up his head and look about the field he worked in, did he for an instant smell blood and dust instead of the rich earth he turned up to harvest the root crops? Did Molly straighten up from her laundering and set her hands to her aching back and look about, wondering at a sudden pang of desolation? Did I tug at Verity’s weary consciousness, distract Patience for a moment or two from sorting her herbs on the drying trays, set Chade to frowning as he set a scroll aside? Like a moth battering against a window, I rattled myself against their consciousnesses. I longed to feel the affection I had taken for granted. Almost, I thought, I reached them, only to fall back exhausted into myself, sitting alone in the dust of the road, with the blood of three men spattered on me.

She kicked dirt on me.

I lifted my eyes. At first Honey was a dark silhouette against the westering sun. Then I blinked and saw the look of disgust and fury on her face. Her clothes were torn, her hair draggled about her face. ‘You ran away!’ she accused me. I felt how much she despised my cowardice. ‘You ran away, and left him to break Piper’s arm and club my father down and try to rape me. What kind of a man are you? What kind of a man can do a thing like that?’

There were a thousand answers to that, and none. The emptiness inside me assured me that nothing would be solved by speaking to her. Instead I pushed myself to my feet. She stared after me as I walked back down the road to where I had dropped my pack. It seemed like hours since I had kicked it clear of my feet. I picked it up and carried it back to where Josh sat in the dust beside Piper and tried to comfort her. Pragmatic Honey had opened their packs. Josh’s harp was a tangle of wood bits and string. Piper would play no pipes until her arm healed weeks from now. It was as it was, and I did what I could do about it.

And that was nothing, save build a fire by the side of the road, and fetch water from the river and set it to boiling. I sorted out the herbs that would calm Piper and soften the pain of her arm. I found dry straight sticks and shaved them flat for splinting. And up on the hillside in the woods behind me? It hurts, my brother, but it did not go deep. Still, it pulls open when I try to walk. And thorns, I am thick with thorns like flies on carrion.

I shall come to you now and pick out every one.

No. I can take care of this myself. See to those others. He paused. My brother. We should have run away.

Why was it so hard to go to Honey and ask quietly if she had cloth we could tear to bind the splinting to Piper’s arm? She did not deign to reply to me, but blind Josh mutely handed me the soft fabric that had once wrapped his harp. Honey despised me, Josh seemed numbed with shock, and Piper was so lost in her own pain she scarcely noticed me. But somehow I got them to move over beside the fire. I walked Piper over there, my arm around her and my free hand supporting her injured arm. I got her seated, and then gave her first the tea I had brewed. I spoke more to Harper Josh than to her when I said, ‘I can draw the bone straight, and splint it. I’ve had to do as much before for men hurt in battle. But I do not claim to be a healer. When we get to the next town, it may have to be set again.’

He nodded slowly. We both knew there was no real alternative. So he knelt behind Piper and held her by the shoulders, and Honey gripped her upper arm firmly. I set my teeth against the pain she felt and firmly drew her forearm straight. She screamed, of course, for no mere tea could deaden that sort of pain completely. But she also forced herself not to struggle. Tears coursed down her cheeks and her breath came raggedly as I splinted and bound her arm. I showed her how to carry it partially inside her vest to support the weight and steady it against movement. Then I gave her another mug of the tea and turned to Josh.

He had taken a blow to the head, and it had dazed him for a moment, but not knocked him out. There was swelling, and he winced at my touch, but the flesh had not split. I washed it with cool water, and told him the tea might ease him as well. He thanked me, and somehow I felt shamed by it. Then I looked up to where Honey watched me with cat’s eyes across the small fire.

‘Were you hurt?’ I asked her quietly.

‘There’s a knot on my shin the size of a plum where he hit me. And he left claw marks down my neck and breasts trying to get at me. But I can care for my hurts myself, thank you all the same … Cob. Small thanks to you I am alive at all.’

‘Honey.’ Josh spoke in a dangerously low voice. There was as much weariness in it as anger.

‘He ran away, Father. He felled his man and then he turned and ran. If he had helped us then, none of this would have happened. Not Piper’s broken arm, nor your smashed harp. He ran away.’

‘But he came back. Let us not imagine what would have happened if he had not. Perhaps we took some injuries, but you can still thank him that you are alive.’

‘I thank him for nothing,’ she said bitterly. ‘One moment of courage, and he could have saved our livelihood. What have we now? A harper with no harp, and a piper who cannot lift her arm to hold her instrument.’

I rose and walked away from them. I was suddenly too weary to hear her out, and much too discouraged to explain myself at all. Instead I dragged the two bodies from the road, and pulled them onto the sward on the river side. In the failing light, I re-entered the woods, and sought out Nighteyes. He had already cared for his own injuries better than I could. I dragged my fingers through his coat, dusting thorns and bits of blackberry tangle from it. For a short time I sat next to him. He lay down and put his head on my knee and I scratched his ears. It was all the communication we needed. Then I got up, found the third body, gripped him by the shoulders, and dragged him down out of the woods to join the other two. Without compunction, I went through their pockets and pouches. Two of them yielded but a handful of small coins, but the one with the sword had had twelve silver bits in his pouch. I took his pouch and added the other coins to it. I also took his battered sword belt and sheath, and picked up the sword from the road. Then I busied myself until the darkness was complete in picking up river stones and piling them around and finally on top of the bodies. When I had finished, I went down to the river’s edge and laved my hands and arms and splashed water up onto my face. I took off my shirt and rinsed the blood from it, then put it back on cold and wet. For a moment it felt good on my bruises; then my muscles began to stiffen with the chill of it.

I went back to the small fire that now lit the faces of the folk around it. When I got there, I reached for Josh’s hand, and then set the pouch into it. ‘Perhaps it will be enough to help you along until you can replace your harp,’ I told him.

‘Dead men’s money to ease your conscience?’ Honey sneered.

The frayed ends of my temper parted. ‘Pretend they survived, for by Buck law they would have had to pay you restitution at least,’ I suggested. ‘And if that still does not please you, throw the coins in the river for all I care.’ I ignored her much more thoroughly than she had me. Despite my aches and twinges, I unbundled the sword belt. Nighteyes had been right: the swordsman had been a lot bigger than me. I set the leather against a piece of wood and bored a new hole into the strap with my knife. That done, I stood, and fastened it about me. There was comfort in the weight of a sword at my side again. I drew the blade and examined it by the firelight. It was not exceptional, but it was functional and sturdy.

‘Where did you get that?’ Piper asked. Her voice was a bit wavery.

‘Took it off the third man, up in the woods,’ I said shortly. I resheathed it.

‘What is it?’ Harper Josh asked.

‘A sword,’ Piper said.

Josh turned his hazy eyes to me. ‘There was a third man up in the woods with a sword?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you took it away from him and killed him?’

‘Yes.’

He snorted softly and shook his head at himself. ‘When we shook hands, I knew well it was no scriber’s hand I gripped. A pen does not leave calluses such as you bear, nor does it muscle a forearm that way. You see, Honey, he did not run away. He but went to …’

‘If he had killed the man attacking us first, it would have been wiser,’ she insisted stubbornly.

I undid my bundle and shook out my blanket. I lay down on it. I was hungry, but there was nothing to be done about that. I could do something about how tired I was.

‘Are you going to sleep?’ Piper asked. Her face reflected as much alarm as she could muster in her drugged state.

‘Yes.’

‘What if more Forged ones come?’ she demanded.

‘Then Honey can kill them in whatever order she deems wise,’ I suggested sourly. I shifted on my blanket until my sword was clear and handy, and closed my eyes. I heard Honey rise slowly and begin to put out bedding for the rest of them.

‘Cob?’ Josh asked softly. ‘Did you take any coin for yourself?’

‘I do not expect to have need of coin again,’ I told him as quietly. I did not explain that I no longer planned to have much to do with humans. I never wanted to explain myself again to anyone. I did not care if they understood me or not.

I closed my eyes and groped out, to touch briefly with Nighteyes. Like me, he was hungry but had chosen to rest instead. By tomorrow evening, I shall be free to hunt with you again, I promised him. He sighed in satisfaction. He was not that far away. My fire was a spark through the trees below him. He rested his muzzle on his forepaws.

I was wearier than I had realized. My thoughts drifted, blurred. I let it all go and floated free, away from the pains that niggled at my body. Molly, I thought wistfully. Molly. But I did not find her. Somewhere Burrich slept on a pallet made up before a hearth. I saw him, and it felt almost as if I Skilled him but I could not hold the vision. The firelight illuminated the planes of his face; he was thinner, and burnt dark with hours of field work. I spun slowly away from him. The Skill lapped against me, but I could find no control of it.

When my dreams brushed up against Patience, I was shocked to find her in a private chamber with Lord Bright. He looked like a cornered animal. A young woman in a lovely gown was evidently as startled as he to have Patience intrude on them. She was armed with a map, and she was speaking as she pushed aside a tray of dainties and wine to unfurl it on the table. ‘I have found you neither stupid nor craven, Lord Bright. So I must assume you are ignorant. I intend that your education shall no longer be neglected. As this map by the late Prince Verity will prove to you, if you do not take action soon, all the coast of Buck will be at the mercy of the Red Ships. And they have no mercy.’ She lifted those piercing hazel eyes and stared at him as she had so often stared at me when she expected to be obeyed. I almost pitied him. I lost my feeble grip on the scene. Like a leaf borne by wind, I swirled away from them.

I did not know if I next went higher or deeper, only that I felt all that bound me to my body was a tenuous thread. I turned and spun in a current that tugged at me, encouraging me to let go. Somewhere a wolf whined in anxiety. Ghostly fingers plucked at me as if seeking my attention.

Fitz. Be careful. Get back.

Verity. But his Skilling had no more force than a puff of wind, despite the effort I knew it cost him. Something was between us, a cold fog, yielding yet resisting, entangling like brambles. I tried to care, tried to find enough fear to send me fleeing back to my body. But it was like being trapped inside a dream and trying to awaken. I could not find a way to struggle out of it. I could not find the will to try.

A whiff of dog-magic stench in the air, and look what I find. Will hooked into me like cat claws, drew me tight against him. Hello, Bastard. His deep satisfaction reawakened every nuance of my fear. I could feel his cynical smile. Neither of them dead, not the Bastard with his perverted magic nor Verity the pretender. Tsk, tsk. Regal will be chagrined to find he was not as successful as he had thought. This time, though, I shall make sure of things for him. My way. I felt an insidious probing of my defences, more intimate than a kiss. As if he kneaded a whore’s flesh, he felt me over for weaknesses. I dangled like a rabbit in his grasp, waiting only for the twist and jerk that would end my life. I felt how he had grown in strength and cunning.

Verity, I whimpered, but my king could neither hear nor respond.

He weighed me in his grip. What use to you this strength you have never learned to master? None at all. But to me, ah, to me it shall give wings and claws. You shall make me strong enough to seek out Verity no matter how he may hide himself.

Suddenly I was leaking strength like a punctured waterskin. I had no idea how he had penetrated my defences, and knew of no way to ward him off. He clutched my mind greedily to his and leeched at me. This was how Justin and Serene had killed King Shrewd. He had gone swiftly, like a bubble popping. I could find neither will nor strength to struggle as Will forced down all walls between us. His foreign thoughts were a pressure inside my mind as he scrabbled at my secrets, all the while drawing off my substance.

But within me, a wolf was waiting for him. My brother! Nighteyes declared, and launched at him, tooth and nail. Somewhere in the vast distance, Will shrieked in horror and dismay. However strong he might be in the Skill, he had no knowledge at all of the Wit. He was as powerless before Nighteyes’ attack as I had been before his. Once, when Justin had Skill-attacked me, Nighteyes had responded. I had watched as Justin had gone down just as if he were being physically savaged by a wolf. He had lost all concentration and control over his Skill and I had been able to break free of him. I could not see what was happening to Will, but I sensed Nighteyes’ snapping jaws. I was buffeted by the strength of Will’s horror. He fled, breaking the Skill-link between us so suddenly that for a moment I was unsure of my identity. Then I was back, wide awake, inside my own body.

I sat up on my blanket, sweat streaming down my back, and slammed up every wall about myself that I could remember how to erect.

‘Cob?’ Josh asked in some alarm, and I saw him sit up sleepily. Honey was staring at me from her own blanket where she sat keeping watch. I choked back a panting sob.

‘A nightmare,’ I managed huskily. ‘Just a nightmare.’ I staggered to my feet, horrified at how weakened I was. The world spun around me. I could barely stand. Fear of my own weakness spurred me. I caught up my small kettle, and carried it off with me as I headed for the river. Elfbark tea, I promised myself, and hoped it would be potent enough. I veered wide of the heaped stones that covered the Forged ones’ bodies. Before I reached the bank of the river, Nighteyes was beside me, hitching along on three legs. I dropped my kettle and sank down beside him. I threw my arms around him, mindful of the slash on his shoulder, and buried my face in his ruff.

I was so scared. I nearly died.

I understand now why we must kill them all, he said calmly. If we do not, they will never let us be. We must hunt them down to their own lair and kill them all.

It was the only comfort he could offer me.