West waved him down. “I got here this morning, and would have come to you at once apart from a crucial meeting with a bath and a razor, and then one with Marshal Burr. I was with Ladisla, at the battle, and I got here by walking across country, with the help of five Northmen, a girl, and a man with no face.” He took the glass and gulped down the contents in one go, winced and sucked his teeth as the spirit burned its way down into his stomach, already starting to feel glad that he decided to come in. “Don’t be shy,” he said as he held the empty glass out.
“Walking across country,” whispered Brint, shaking his head as he poured, “with five Northmen. A girl, you say?”
“That’s right.” West frowned, wondering what Cathil was doing right now. Wondering whether she needed help… foolishness, she could look after herself. “You made it with my letter, then, Lieutenant?” he asked Jalenhorm.
“Some cold and nervous nights on the road,” grinned the big man, “but I did.”
“Except that it’s Captain now,” said Kaspa, sitting back on his stool.
“Is it indeed?”
Jalenhorm shrugged modestly. “Thanks to you, really. The Lord Marshal put me on his staff when I got back.”
“Though Captain Jalenhorm still finds time to spend with us little people, bless him.” Brint licked his fingertips and started dealing four hands.
“I’ve no stake, I’m afraid,” muttered West.
Kaspa grinned. “Don’t worry, Colonel, we don’t play for money any more. Without Luthar to make poor men of us all, it hardly seemed worth it.”
“He never turned up?”
“They just came and pulled him off the boat. Hoff sent for him. We’ve heard nothing since.”
“Friends in high places,” said Brint sourly. “Probably swanning about in Adua on some easy detail, making free with the women while the rest of us are freezing our arses off.”
“Though let’s be honest,” threw in Jalenhorm, “he made free enough with the women even when we were there.”
West frowned. That was all too unfortunately true.
Kaspa scraped his hand up off the table. “So anyway, we’re just playing for honour.”
“Though you’ll not find much of that here,” quipped Brint. The other two burst out laughing and Kaspa dribbled booze into his beard. West raised his eyebrows. Clearly they were drunk, and the sooner he joined them the better. He swilled down the next glass and reached for the bottle.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” Jalenhorm was saying, sorting his cards with fumbling fingers, “I’m glad as all hell that I won’t have to tell your sister anything for you. I’ve scarcely slept in weeks for thinking through how I’d go about it, and I still haven’t got a thought in my head.”
“You’ve never yet had a thought in your head,” said Brint, and the other two chortled away again. Even West managed a smile this time, but it didn’t last long.
“How was the battle?” asked Jalenhorm.
West stared at his glass for a long moment. “It was bad. The Northmen set a trap for Ladisla and he fell right into it, squandered his cavalry. Then a mist came up, all of a sudden, and you couldn’t see the hand before your face. Their horse were on us before we knew what was happening. I took a knock on the head, I think. Next I remember I was in the mud on my back and there was a Northman bearing down on me. With this.” He slid the heavy sword out of his belt and laid it down on the table.
The three officers stared at it, spellbound. “Bloody hell,” muttered Kaspa.
Brint’s eyes were wide. “How did you get the better of him?”
“I didn’t. This girl I was telling you about…”
“Yes?”
“She smashed his brains out with a hammer. Saved my life.”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Kaspa.
“Phew,” Brint sat back heavily in his chair. “Sounds like quite a woman!”
West was frowning, staring down at the glass in his hand. “You could say that.” He remembered the feeling of Cathil sleeping beside him, her breath against his cheek. Quite a woman. “You really could say that.” He drained his glass and stood up, stuck the Northman’s sword back through his belt.
“You’re going?” asked Brint.
“There’s something I need to take care of.”
Jalenhorm stood up with him. “I should thank you, Colonel. For sending me off with the letter. It sounds like you were right. There was nothing I could have done.”
“No.” West took a deep breath, and blew it out. “There was nothing anyone could have done.”
The night was still, and crisp, and cold, and West’s boots slipped and squelched in the half-frozen mud. Fires burned here and there and men clustered round them in the darkness, swaddled in all the clothes they possessed, breath smoking, pinched faces lit in flickering yellow. One fire burned brighter than the others, up on a slope above the camp, and West made for that now, feet weaving from the drink. He saw two dark figures sitting near it, taking shape as he came closer.
Black Dow was having a pipe, chagga smoke curling out from his fierce grin, an open bottle wedged between his crossed legs, several empty ones scattered in the snow nearby. Somewhere away to the right, off in the darkness, West could hear someone singing in Northern. A huge, deep voice, and singing very badly. “He cut him to the boooones. No. To the boooones. To the… wait on.”
“You alright?” asked West, holding his gloved hands out to the crackling flames.
Threetrees grinned happily up at him, wobbling slightly back and forward. West wondered if it was the first time he had seen the old warrior smile. He jerked a thumb down the hill. “Tul’s having a piss. And singing. I’m drunk as fucking shit.” He fell slowly backwards and crunched down into the snow, arms and legs spread out wide. “And I been smoking. I’m soaked. I’m wet as the fucking Crinna. Where are we, Dow?”
Dow squinted across the fire, mouth wide open, like he was looking at something far away. “Middle o’ fucking nowhere,” he said, waving the pipe around. He started cackling, grabbed hold of Threetrees’ boot and shook it. “Where else would we be? You want this, Furious?” He thrust the pipe up at West.
“Alright.” He sucked on the stem, felt the smoke biting in his lungs. He coughed brown steam out into the frosty air, and sucked again.
“Give me that,” said Threetrees, sitting up and snatching the pipe off him.
Tul’s great rumbling voice came floating up out of the darkness, horribly out of tune. “He swung his axe like… what is it? He swung his axe like… shit. No. Hold on…”
“Do you know where Cathil is?” asked West.
Dow leered up at him. “Oh, she’s around.” He waved his hand toward a cluster of tents higher up the slope. “Up that way, I reckon.”
“Around,” echoed Threetrees, chuckling softly. “Around.”
“He was… the Bloody… Niiiiine!” came gurgling from the trees.
West followed footprints off up the slope, towards the tents. The smoke was already having an effect on him. His head felt light, his feet moved easily. His nose didn’t feel cold any more, just pleasantly tingling. He heard a woman’s voice, laughing softly. He grinned, took a few more crunching steps through the snow towards the tents. Warm light spilled out from one, through a narrow gap in the cloth. The laughter grew louder.
“Uh… uh… uh…”
West frowned. That didn’t sound like laughter. He came closer, doing his best to be quiet. Another sound wandered into his fuzzy mind. An intermittent growling, like some kind of animal. He edged closer still, bending down to peer through the gap, hardly daring even to breathe.
“Uh… uh… uh…”
He saw a woman’s bare back, squirming up and down. A thin back, he could see the sinews bunching as she moved, the knobbles of her backbone shifting under her skin. Closer still, and he could see her hair, shaggy brown and messy. Cathil. A pair of sinewy legs stuck out from under her towards West, one foot almost close enough for him to touch, its thick toes wriggling.