Crack. Jolly Yon’s axe split the animal skull in half and chopped into the face underneath it. Blood sprayed, hissed in the coals of the fire-pit. Craw felt spots on his face, blinked and shook his head, loosed all of a sudden from the freezing grip of fear. The priest lurched sideways, song turned to a guttering gurgle, mask split in half and blood squirting from under it. Craw snarled as he swung his sword, chopped into the sorcerer’s chest and knocked him over on his back. The thing bounced from his hand and spun away across the rough plank floor, the blinding light faded to the faintest glimmer.
‘Fucking sorcerers,’ snarled Yon, curling his tongue and blowing spit onto the corpse. ‘Why do they bother? How long does it take to learn all that jabber and it never does you half the good a decent knife …’ He frowned. ‘Uh-oh.’
The priest had fallen in the fire-pit, scattering glowing coals across the floor. A couple had skittered as far as the ragged hem of one of the hangings.
‘Shit.’ Craw took a step on shaky legs to kick it away. Before he got there, flame sputtered around the old cloth. ‘Shit.’ He tried to stamp it out, but his head was still a touch spinny and he only got embers scattered against his trouser leg, had to hop around, slapping them off. The flames spread, licking up faster’n the plague. Too much flame to put out, spurting higher than a man. ‘Shit!’ Craw stumbled back, feeling the heat on his face, red shadows dancing among the rafters. ‘Get the thing and let’s go!’
Yon was already fumbling with the straps on his leather pack. ‘Right y’are, Chief, right y’are! Backup plan!’
Craw left him and hurried to the doorway, not sure who’d be alive still on the other side. He burst out into the day, light stabbing at his eyes after the gloom.
Wonderful was standing there, mouth hanging wide open. She’d an arrow nocked to her half-drawn bow, but it was pointed at the ground, hands slack. Craw couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her surprised.
‘What is it?’ he snapped, getting his sword tangled up on the doorframe then snarling as he wrenched it free. ‘You hurt?’ He squinted into the sun, shading his eyes with his shield. ‘What’s the …’ And he stopped on the steps and stared. ‘By the dead.’
Whirrun had hardly moved, the Father of Swords still gripped in his fist, long, dull blade pointing to the ground. Only now he was spotted and spattered head to toe in blood, and the twisted and hacked, split and ruined corpses of the dozen Fox Clan who’d faced him were scattered around his boots in a wide half-circle, a few bits that used to be attached to them scattered wider still.
‘He killed the whole lot.’ Brack’s face was all crinkled up with confusion. ‘Just like that. I never even lifted my hammer.’
‘Damndest thing,’ muttered Wonderful. ‘Damndest thing.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Can I smell smoke?’
Yon burst from the hall, stumbled into Craw’s back and nearly sent the pair of them tumbling down the steps. ‘Did you get the thing?’ snapped Craw.
‘I think I …’ Yon blinked at Whirrun, standing tall in his circle of slaughter. ‘By the dead, though.’
Whirrun started to back towards them, twisted himself sideways as an arrow looped over and stuck wobbling into the side of the hall. He waved his free hand. ‘Maybe we better-’
‘Run!’ roared Craw. Perhaps a good leader should wait until everyone else gets clear. First man to arrive in a fight and the last to leave. That was how Threetrees used to do it. But Craw weren’t Threetrees, it hardly needed to be said, and he was off like a rabbit with its tail on fire. Leading by example, he’d have called it. He heard bowstrings behind him. An arrow zipped past, just wide of his flailing arm, stuck wobbling into one of the hovels. Then another. His squashed foot was aching like fury but he limped on, waving his shield-arm. Pounding towards the jerking, wobbling archway with the animal’s skull above it. ‘Go! Go!’
Wonderful tore past, feet flying, flicking mud in Craw’s face. He saw Scorry flit between two huts up ahead, then swift as a lizard around one of the gateposts and out of the village. He hurled himself after, under the arch of branches. Jumped down the bank, caught his hurt foot, body jolting, teeth snapping together and catching his tongue. He took one more wobbling step then went flying, crashed into the boggy bracken, rolled over his shield with just enough thought left to keep his sword from cutting his own nose off. He struggled to his feet, laboured on up the slope, legs burning, lungs burning, through the trees, trousers soaked to the knee with marsh-water. He could hear Brack lumbering along at his shoulder, grunting with the effort, and behind him Yon’s growl, ‘Bloody … shit … bloody … running … bloody … shit …’
He tore through the brush and wobbled into the clearing where they’d made their plans. Plans that hadn’t flown too smoothly, as it went. Raubin was standing by the gear. Wonderful near him with her hands on her hips. Never was kneeling on the far side of the clearing, arrow nocked to his bow. He grinned as he saw Craw. ‘You made it, then, Chief?’
‘Shit.’ Craw stood bent over, head spinning, dragging in air. ‘Shit.’ He straightened, staring at the sky, face on fire, not able to think of another word, and without the breath to say one if he could have.
Brack looked even more shot than Craw, if it was possible, crouched over, hands on knees and knees wobbling, big chest heaving, big face red as a slapped arse around his tattoos. Yon tottered up and leaned against a tree, cheeks puffed out, skin shining with sweat.
Wonderful was hardly out of breath. ‘By the dead, the state o’ you fat old men.’ She slapped Never on the arm. ‘That was some nice work down there at the village. Thought they’d catch you and skin you sure.’
‘You hoped, you mean,’ said Never, ‘but you should’ve known better. I’m the best damn runner-away in the North.’
‘That is a fact.’
‘Where’s Scorry?’ gasped Craw, enough breath in him now to worry.
Never jerked his thumb. ‘Circled around to check no one’s coming for us.’
Whirrun ambled back into the clearing, hood drawn up again and the Father of Swords sheathed across his shoulders like a milkmaid’s yoke, one hand on the grip, the other dangling over the blade.
‘I take it they’re not following?’ asked Wonderful, one eyebrow raised.
Whirrun shook his head. ‘Nope.’
‘Can’t say I blame the poor bastards. I take back what I said about you taking yourself too serious. You’re one serious fucker with that sword.’
‘You get the thing?’ asked Raubin, face all pale with worry.
‘That’s right, Raubin, we saved your skin.’ Craw wiped his mouth, blood on the back of his hand from his bitten tongue. They’d done it, and his sense of humour was starting to leak back in. ‘Hah. Could you imagine if we’d left the bastard thing behind?’
‘Never fear,’ said Yon, flipping open his pack. ‘Jolly Yon Cumber, once more the fucking hero.’ And he delved his hand inside and pulled it out.
Craw blinked. Then he frowned. Then he stared. Gold glinted in the fading light and he felt his heart sink lower than it had all day. ‘That ain’t fucking it, Yon!’
‘It’s not?’
‘That’s a cup! It was the thing we wanted!’ He stuck his sword point-down in the ground and waved one hand about. ‘The bloody thing with the kind of bloody light about it!’
Yon stared back at him. ‘No one told me it had a bloody light!’
There was silence for a moment then, while they all thought about it. No sound but the wind rustling the old leaves, making the black branches creak. Then Whirrun tipped his head back and roared with laughter. A couple of crows took off startled from a branch, it was that loud, flapping up sluggish into the grey sky.
‘Why the hell are you laughing?’ snapped Wonderful.
Inside his hood, Whirrun’s twisted face was glistening with happy tears. ‘I told you I’d laugh when I heard something funny!’ And he was off again, spine arching like a full-drawn bow, whole body shaking.