“I could but I won’t. I am not mad. No one comes back from Devil’s Peak.”
“Razhak is there. He killed your brother. You said you wanted to revenge. You said you wanted Massimo dead.”
“And you will kill him?”
“If I have to and I suspect I might.”
“You don’t lack confidence do you, big man?”
“I do what I have to, like everybody else. Massimo wants me dead. His Wolves want me dead. Razhak is with him. Under the circumstances, someone is going to die and it’s not going to be me.”
“If you go to the tower you will die, Guardian,” said the wolf-man. “What’s left of Jaro’s army is camped in the valley and the Wolves guard Massimo. Not even your blade can kill all of them.”
“There’s more than one way to skin a wolf,” Kormak said. “I don’t plan on hacking my way in.”
“I said you were not entirely stupid,” said Petra. Her voice sounded so shaky Kormak knew she was still considering helping him. “You really mean to kill Massimo?”
“If I can.”
“If you do there will be no more Wolves.”
“Not unless Massimo’s apprentices have been taught his secrets.”
“Massimo has no apprentices,” said the wolf-man. “He guards his secrets from all.”
“Why is he helping Razhak?”
“I think Razhak has promised Massimo the secret of immortality. Does he really have it?”
“Only the Old Ones know that,” said Kormak. “And he is not a true Old One.”
The wolf looked curious. “I am sorry I don’t have the time to find out what you mean.” Blood was leaking from the corners of his mouth and from his nostrils now. His breathing was a hoarse rattle. There was a bubbling sound from inside his chest.
“You should just leave the bastard to be eaten by scavengers,” Petra said as she placed another rough stone on top of the shallow grave. “There’s no need to build the monster a monument.”
“He died as a man and he repented,” Kormak said.
“And you believed him?”
“I’ve seen others repent their wickedness. There’s hope for us all.”
“You seem to really need to believe that.” She grunted as she lifted another heavy stone. Kormak looked at her and watched until she had lowered it into place.
“You always watch, don’t you? You looked at me as if you were expecting me to try and brain you with that rock.”
“I am not entirely certain you were not considering it.”
“If you are going to kill Massimo I want you to live. He’s the bastard who deserves to die. That wolf would have eaten me as it raped me if you had not killed it. I owe you for that.”
“I can’t kill Massimo if I can’t find him.”
“All right, I’ll show you the way to Devil’s Peak.”
“Thank you.” She laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“You. I offer to show you the way to certain death and you thank me. You’re a strange man, Guardian.”
“I live in a strange world.”
“We all do.”
“I’ve seen more of it than most folk.” Kormak placed another rock on the cairn and watched her as she took her turn. This time she met his gaze and just kept laughing.
They left the main road and started up a mountain track. This was clearly a path and a well-used one but it was not anything like a highway.
“Used to be drovers and rustlers used these tracks,” Petra said. “The high valleys are full of treacherous, thieving moondogs.”
“So you’ve said,” Kormak said. “Many times.”
“If I am boring you, just say so,” said the girl.
“I have said so.”
“I didn’t say I would pay any attention,” she said.
“You talk because you’re scared, I understand that.” She looked insulted and she shut up for a few minutes as he suspected she would. He was enjoying the silence when she said. “You think you’re very clever, don’t you?”
“Do I?”
“You think you can make me shut up by implying I am a coward if I talk.”
“I can see you are too cunning for me.”
“No. I am not. You were right. I am scared. I’ve been scared for a very long time. Since the war started. Since before the war started, when you could see it coming and the preachers were whipping everybody up to hate and the moondogs were spitting on our shadows and throats were being slit in the night. I was scared when the traders started bringing stories of battles and even when the King’s armies won. We were scared they would increase out taxes, and then we learned Jaro wasn’t dead and the Wolves were still out there. It was almost a relief when Oakbridge was attacked. It was like the worst had come and there was nothing more to worry about, but there was, wasn’t there? There always is. There always will be.”
She looked like a pale and frightened child now, like she always had been although he had been too annoyed and distracted to see it. He did not know what to say, so he kept quiet. He did not look at her. He heard soft noises that sounded like sobbing. They went on for a long time and then she blew her nose. That went on for a long time too.
Eventually she said, “How do you get to be a Guardian?”
“You thinking of becoming one?”
“I might if I could.”
There was no way she could become one. She was too old. She was not a Sunlander. He shook his head as he raised that objection. He was not a Sunlander either but then the order had special reasons for making him one of their own. “You must be presented at Mount Aethelas,” he said. “And you must swear an oath by the Holy Sun.”
“That’s all?”
“There’s the learning and the training, that takes some time.”
“They teach you how to use the sword?”
“Yes. And to read and to write.”
“That sounds boring.”
“How else will you be able to read your instructions from the Grand Master or find out what you need to know about the Old Ones in the lorebooks.”
“I thought you memorised all that, the way bards learn their chants.”
“You memorise a lot but you can’t learn everything. There’s always something more to find out.”
“All right, I’ll give you that it’s useful but it’s still dull.”
“I thought so when they first started teaching me but I soon got interested.”
“You have a priestly look about you so I am not surprised.”
“Most people find me menacing.”
“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”
“In my experience it’s true.”
“I thought that when I first saw you. After I’ve talked to you, I am not sure. You do not seem like a mad-dog killer to me. If you had passed through our village dressed like a normal man I would never have guessed what you were.”
“You’re not exactly an expert on the subject.”
“You’re the one who asked for my help.”
“I have been reduced to such desperate straits. It is sad.”
“You killed that wolf-man back there, and you did not even look as if you were trying.”
“People who are good at things make them look easy, even if they are difficult.”
“Were you scared?”
“I did not have time to find out.”
“What?”
“It was all over so quickly.”
“Still, you must have worked out what to do; you must have thought about it.”
“No. It happened too fast for that. That’s why you train, so your body knows what to do automatically. You stop to think when you are fighting something like a wolf-man and you are dead.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She continued to look at him as if interested in learning some secrets he knew. Kormak wanted to tell her that there were no secrets, only hard work and luck and ruthless determination. He was not sure what good it would have done though so he kept quiet.
It was cold in the mountains but still warmer than Kormak would have expected for the time of year. Aquilea was a lot further coldward though so that might account for it. They said heat leeched away over the snowy edge of the world, the closer you got to it. It was certainly true it became warmer the further south you got.