‘Read all you like, Fantus,’ Nerak said. ‘It will be more than your ribs I break next time, my old friend.’ As he pushed a wad of Confederate Son into his mouth, he came alongside the white Ford. He slowed to match the woman’s speed, and waved until she turned to look at him, then offered her a broad, tobacco-stained grin. She tried to let him overtake, but Nerak kept pace with her, slowing as she slowed and speeding up as necessary, looking at her constantly through the window.
When she tried to turn onto the exit ramp for Silverthorn, Nerak took over, laughing as she struggled to turn the frozen steering wheel. He pressed his foot to the floor, revving the pick-up’s engine, and this time the white Ford kept pace with him.
He drove faster and faster, until the pick-up’s engine was screeching in protest, topping a hundred miles per hour, the dark prince gestured at the dashboard and the speedometer began climbing again: one hundred and five, one hundred and fifteen, one hundred and eighteen miles per hour – and still the woman in the white Ford kept pace. She was screaming now, and beating at her window, pleading with – God? – someone, anyway, in amusingly inaudible cries, for her shouts were drowned by the din of the two engines. He shattered both windows, his and hers, with a glance, all the better to hear her beg for her life.
‘I’ll think of you later as I play with it in the bathroom!’ he shouted. ‘And I thank you for the advice – I hadn’t realised playing with it in the middle of the road was so inappropriate. I really do owe you my thanks.’ He laughed, spraying tobacco-juice everywhere. Some dripped into the sore on the back of the postal worker’s hand.
The woman screamed for him to stop, to slow down and to let her go.
Nerak turned his attention to the highway ahead. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘here’s just the thing.’ A logging truck, fully loaded with stripped pine trunks, was in the path of the speeding Ford as it inched up a short incline. Nerak turned to watch the woman again as her earrings caught the sunlight. At the last moment, her hands bloody and torn from ripping away the broken glass from the window, she tried to climb out of her car, but half out, she seemed to change her mind. Her blouse was ripped and she was bleeding from dozens of cuts. With the car bearing down on the trailer at over a hundred and twenty miles per hour, she made a final attempt to escape It was too late.
Nerak thought her the most beautifully wretched woman he had seen in several hundred Twinmoons.
‘You ought to be more polite, my dear,’ the dark prince shouted as he allowed his pick-up to break away and watched the Ford disappear beneath the back of the logging truck with a resounding crash of tearing metal and shattering glass.
The woman with the silly hairstyle and the silver earrings, trapped halfway out of the window, had been cut neatly in half. Now the upper part of her torso bounced along the highway until it came to rest in a snowbank. What was left of her car was dragged behind the truck for a while, then slid off the road into a snowy ditch as logs tumbled and rolled from the overturned trailer. Traffic screeched to a stop, and a few Samaritans hustled up the shoulder on foot.
Amusing himself with the irritating woman’s murder had made Nerak miss the exits for Silverthorn and Breckenridge. He slowed down and, ignoring the cars in both directions blasting their horns as they stomped on their brakes to avoid hitting him, made a U-turn into the eastbound lane.
‘Silverthorn,’ he said firmly. ‘She’s in Silverthorn.’
It was dark when Garec and Mark returned from the meadow, lugging a deer’s hind quarter and several bloody chunks of flesh, more than enough meat to sustain the four men for several nights. As sorry as Garec was to leave the bulk of the deer’s body abandoned in the meadow, they would reach Traver’s Notch before they would need to replenish their stores again. He doubted the deer’s carcase would last the night; there was no shortage of local predators to make use of it.
Steven rose when he saw the others come into the firelight. ‘All right, Garec! I’m glad to see you’re back to normal – good for you!’
‘Much as I appreciate the sentiment, Steven,’ Garec said, ‘tonight’s credit goes to Mark.’
No!’ Steven looked as his friend in astonishment. ‘You did this?’
Mark nodded.
‘You? Mister-Greenpeace-Loving-Earth-First-Soya-Milk-Bleeding-Libe ral-Anti-NRA-Gun-Control-Advocate-High-School-Teacher? You shot Bambi with a bow?’
‘Bambi’s mother, actually,’ Mark smiled. ‘Bambi was a buck.’
‘A buck? You mean a little boy deer? You’re from New York, Mark – since when do New Yorkers shoot Bambi’s mother with a bow?’
‘One shot,’ Garec said, ‘through the lung. It wasn’t pretty and we had to track her for a stretch through those trees and then out into the plain, but she finally fell. It’s sad that she suffered a bit.’
‘Through the lung,’ Mark repeated. ‘I missed the heart. It was grim. I’ll have to be more careful next time.’
‘How about next time, we go into some town and buy a few grettan burgers?’ Steven said. ‘Really. On me. I’ve got several hundred thousand left in silver. I’ll spring for pickles, onions, the works.’
Mark turned to Garec. ‘Will the hide make it to the next town without rotting?’
Steven hadn’t seen the length of rolled deerskin draped over Mark’s shoulder. ‘The hide? And what are we going to do with that, Uncas? Are you making a pair of trews? Planning to sing with the Doors this summer?’
‘It’s for my bow,’ Mark said, waiting for Garec’s answer.
‘It should be fine,’ Garec said. ‘We’ve scraped it fairly clean and we’ll salt and soak it tomorrow – even if it’s not dry by the time we have to ride again, it will keep until we can stretch and tan it properly.’
‘Great,’ Steven said, ‘well, keep me in mind for a nice football. Christmas is coming and I’ve got lovely woollen sweaters planned for you two. Of course, I’ll just need to borrow your bow the next time we come across a herd of sheep, Garec.’
‘Use the staff,’ Garec joked. ‘It’ll be easier – and far less messy.’
‘This will slow us down a bit tonight,’ Gilmour said, interrupting the banter, but it’s all right. Let’s get it cooked and eaten, and let’s get the rest wrapped up and ready to ride.’ He moved off to continue packing.
‘What’s with him?’ Mark asked.
Steven lowered his voice. ‘He’s not sure he’s up to the task ahead. You’ve seen how fast we’re travelling every night. He’s moving towards a conflict that may kill us all – him too.’
‘It’s worse than that,’ Garec whispered as well. ‘If he can’t use the key, or the scroll, it won’t be much of a conflict at all.’
‘You’re right, Garec,’ Mark said. ‘We may get crushed before we have a chance to get in the game.’
‘I wish he was more confident,’ Steven said. ‘I mean, what choice does he have now? Hell, we’re going to be there in a couple of days.’
‘One hundred and thirty-five years of preparation and hiding? I’d be nervous, too,’ Mark said.
‘Yes, but this is something more. He is questioning things he put in motion, that got us started along this path from the beginning. Remember when we came down from Seer’s Peak? He was excited about the Windscrolls because Lessek told him Nerak’s weakness lies elsewhere. He was relieved that we hadn’t made the mistake of charging into Welstar Palace and getting ourselves killed.’
‘Right,’ Garec said, ‘hearing from Lessek was lucky. So we turned to Sandcliff and the scroll library. What’s your point?’
‘I got the sense from him tonight that even this plan to get the key and the scroll might not be the right one.’
‘But we’ve known that all along,’ Mark said. ‘Everyone knew we were essentially flying blind.’