‘Right. That’s fine, later. Just let me know.’
‘Garec?’
‘What?’ He took several steps towards the bow, then, not wanting to intrude, sat on his haunches and stared into the shadows. ‘What can I do?’
Mark whispered, but Garec heard the question with no difficulty. ‘Did it hurt?’
Recalling the fiery pain that had slithered and scratched its way across his side, gnawing through his flesh like a subterranean creature armed with spindles of needle teeth, Garec was forced to take a moment before answering. ‘Yes, it did. It was much worse than I would ever have imagined.’
‘I want you to teach me to shoot, Garec. I want to get good at it – maybe I’ll not ever be as good as you or Versen, but I want to hit what I choose. Maybe it won’t be in the heart every time, but as long as it hurts, I don’t mind.’ Mark made a shuffling sound, shifting his position and leaning forward in earnest. ‘Will you teach me to shoot?’
‘I don’t know if I can,’ the Ronan bowman said.
‘What do you mean?’ Mark was indignant. ‘You’re the best archer in Eldarn. You might be the best archer anywhere, my world included.’
‘I don’t know if I can pick it up again… if I can do it anymore.’
‘You can, Garec,’ Mark murmured. ‘I’m not asking you to kill anyone. I just want you to teach me how.’ There was a long pause and Mark added, ‘I will take care of the killing.’
‘I don’t know how to explain it, but once you do it, kill someone, they never leave you alone. Each of them – and I have killed many, Mark, I regret that I have – they never leave you.’ He struggled for the right words. ‘I think that’s why, when I finally took one, right in the ribs, it was a perfect shot. I should have died. If it hadn’t been for Steven, I would have died. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. Does that make sense? And with my second chance, I’m not going to be a killer. I can’t do it anymore.’
‘You’ve chosen a bad time to grow a conscience, Garec.’ Mark untangled the blankets and hauled himself to his feet. He looked dreadful. His sweater was stained a deeper red where his neck had bled, and he had a dirty piece of cloth pressed against the wound; a bloody circle marked the centre of the patch like the perfect-score zone on an archery target.
Mark grabbed Garec’s arm. ‘I am going to kill them, as many as we encounter, until one of them manages to kill me or until I go home to Colorado for ever,’ he said quietly, firmly. ‘Now, you don’t have to do anything, I am not demanding, but I am asking, as one who loved her, that you help me extract a bit of vengeance for her.’
‘You will regret it.’
‘I already regret it.’ With that Mark managed a smile, and Garec was truly afraid.
‘All right then. We’ll begin as soon as we put to shore. You can have my bow.’
‘I want to make my own.’
‘I’ll teach you how.’
Brexan Carderic clung to an oak log, her improvised life preserver, and allowed the tide to drag her north through the Ravenian Sea. She had taken to the water after coming upon Malakasian pickets around their watch-fires, burning vivid orange against the steel-grey of the gathering dawn. Turning back to keep from being seen, the former soldier had dragged the lump of wood into the water and began swimming with it, hoping to pick up some sort of current that would take her far enough to avoid detection from the beach.
The Twinmoon had passed, but Brexan, preoccupied with thoughts of Versen, the scarred Seron and the bloated merchant from Orindale, had no idea how long ago: though both moons still hung in the northern sky, they were obviously on their way south again. Now the twin orbs pulled the waters of the Ravenian Sea along fiercely enough that Brexan had to hold hard to the log. She stopped kicking, saving her strength for the long swim back to shore.
Once the pickets were far behind her, she steered the log towards the beach, watching as several large warehouses came into view. Feeling confident as the shoreline grew closer, Brexan let go of the log and began swimming towards a patch of swampy rushes bent with the morning tide. It was a mistake. She had underestimated both the distance, and the toll the cold water had taken on her. The log was already out of reach.
Brexan’s limbs felt heavy, useless; to counter the shivering she started treading water. ‘Stupid, stupid fool,’ she scolded herself, ‘you had to go and make this so much harder than it needed to be, didn’t you?’ She hadn’t eaten in days; only the sheer tenacity of her will had kept her moving so far. She hadn’t exactly determined to live yet, but there was Versen to be avenged. She had no idea how she would clothe and feed herself once she arrived in Orindale… maybe a little prostitution – though she would need to improve her appearance. She couldn’t see people paying good silver for an emaciated, sunken-eyed, starving deserter in rotting clothing and no shoes.
No, it would have to be theft: she would steal what she needed to get herself aright and after she had avenged Versen – killed, and killed again the fat businessman who had been the cause of her grief – she would try to find Versen’s group, Gilmour and Steven, Mark and the Ronan woman, Brynne. Joining their fight would bring her closer to Versen; that way she might find friendship, even if his death had denied her love.
But that was for the future: now, she needed to get to shore.
Brexan focused her fast-dwindling strength on moving east, towards the swampy area south of the wharf. She distracted herself from the encroaching cold by watching Orindale’s waterfront day begin. Military and merchant vessels moved through the harbour in an oddly regimented pattern; on the wooden wharf stevedores hauled nets and worked block-and-tackle cranes. Pilot boats bustled about, while sailing vessels and heavy barges moored up, reefed sheets and either took on or began unloading cargo.
As she drew slowly closer, she caught sight of a familiar vessel, anchored offshore: the schooner she and Versen had escaped from, the Falkan Dancer. With its sails neatly reefed, its rigging taut and its brass polished, the ship didn’t look like a death ship, a slaver, a traitor’s vessel. With sunshine on her spars and the vestiges of morning fog billowing across the waterline, the schooner seemed almost mystical, a vessel on which to escape with a lover for a Moon’s passage through the northern archipelago or a holiday cruise to Markon Isle, maybe.
But Brexan knew better, and warmth spread through her as she growled, ‘I am going to gut you, you rutter.’
The swim ashore suddenly felt manageable, but even so, it was a long time before she reached the protective cover of the rushes and collapsed in the foetid mud. Just a few paces up the eroded bank Brexan spotted what looked like a dry patch of ferns rimmed by a thick circlet of brambly ground cover, looking soft and safe: a place to rest for an eternity. But Brexan didn’t have the strength to heave even her tiny frame up the muddy slope; instead, she used the rushes to pull herself out of the water, peered around to be certain no one had seen her, and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.
She woke to feel the prickle of cedar twigs alongside her face; twitching her nose, Brexan recoiled at the smell and sat up with a start. The sun had dried the exposed layers of her clothing, but she was lying on wet homespun and several handfuls of marsh mud had turned her hair into a stinking clay sculpture. Brexan braced herself with one hand and winced.
‘Oh, pissing demons, that hurt,’ she swore as she found several cedar thorns lodged in her palm. She pulled them out, looked around, and realised to her surprise that she had somehow moved up the muddy slope and into the fern bed. ‘How did I get up here?’ She searched the forest, then looked down the short hill to the marshy area where she had come ashore.
‘I guess I must have-’ she started, then stopped. There was a rustling below; and she saw a shadow, furtive and quick, moving to the shelter of a nearby evergreen bush.
‘Who’s that?’ Brexan called as she sprang to her feet, trying not to groan as over-used muscles protested. She reached for the knife she had last used to kill the scarred Seron, but it wasn’t there. She looked about on the ground, but she couldn’t see it there either.