Last year, the Sossag had come and burned the settlement and killed most of the folk. The fort had held through the troubles and some families had survived, but only one family had returned. The goodwife came out of her little stockade to watch the first outriders negotiate the paths around the hole, and she’d sent her eldest boy to guide them. The captain spoke to the boy and gave him six golden ducats to guide the whole column, and it still took them almost the rest of the day to get all the wagons and the drove around it.
They camped in the clearing, and because they’d had a short day, the captain ordered Oak Pew to gather a work party and clear the burned steads. A hundred men and women made short work of it, stacking the un-ruined boards and heavy house timbers and building bonfires of the rest.
The goodwife curtsied her thanks. “It’s hard to look at,” she said. “We got away, but others didn’t. And with the-wreck-gone, mayhap other folk’ll settle back.”
“Do you have a man, Goodwife Gilson?” the captain asked. He was sitting on her firewood porch, drinking his own wine. He’d brought her some. She had twelve children, the oldest daughter old enough and more to be wed, and the youngest son barely out of diapers.
“He’s hunting,” she said. Only her eyes betrayed her worry. “He’ll be back. Winter was hard.” She eyed the six gold ducats-two years’ income. “I reckon you saved us.”
The captain waved off her thanks, and after hearing everything she knew about traffic on the road and creatures in the woods, he went back to his own pavilion. The quarter guard was forming, and there were six great bonfires burning, fed from the remnants of twenty houses and twenty firewood piles.
His brother was sharing his pavilion, and he was standing in front of it in conversation with Ser Danved, who was in full harness, leading the night watch. The captain came up and nodded, intent on his bed.
Gavin pointed out over the swamp. “This position is nigh impregnable from the north and east,” he said. Out in the swamp, faeries flitted and smaller night insects pulsed with colour. The swamp spread almost a mile north and south, which was why no one had driven a new road around it.
The sky in the west was still coloured rose, and silhouetted the stockade of the small fort behind them-currently sheltering the baggage and part of the quarter guard, on alert.
Gabriel looked around in the dusk light, as if seeing it for the first time.
Ser Danved, who always had a comment for every situation, laughed. “It’s fine if you don’t mind having both of your flanks in the air,” he said. Indeed, at their feet, a small stream-the captain had stepped over it on his way to his tent-ran down from the higher ridge into the swamp, and provided the only cover for the ridge’s northward face on its burbling way to the Albin, miles to the east. “Jesus saviour, this must be the only place in the world with a swamp halfway up a mountain.”
Bored and tired, the captain shrugged. “If I ever have to fight Morea, I’ll keep it in mind,” he said. He passed into his tent, and caught Danved and Gavin exchanging a look of amusement.
He ignored them, intent on bed.
They had two alarms in the night. Both found the captain fully armoured and ready, but there were no attacks and no engagements.
In the morning, the captain found a splay-footed track just south of the horse lines, and a heavy war arrow. He brought it to Cully, who eyed it and nodded.
“Canny said he hit something. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, it seems.” Canny was a barracks lawyer and a liar and scarcely the best archer, but the bloody fletches told their own story.
The captain tossed the arrow in the air and snapped his fingers. The arrow paused-and hung there. The captain passed his hand over the length of the broken arrow and the head flared green.
Slowly, as if a vat filling with water, something began to form in glittering green and gold, starting from the ground. Soldiers began to gather in the dawn, and there was muttering. The captain seldom used his hermetics in public.
Mag came and watched him work.
He was in deep concentration, so she
found him in his palace. As they had once been bonded-however briefly-she could enter his palace at will. He smiled to see her.
“A pretty working,” Mag said.
“Gelfred’s,” he said. “A sort of forensic spell. All the huntsmen have variants of it.”
She watched him as he manipulated his ops in four dimensions and cast, his use of power sparing and efficient.
The thing continued to fill with light.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” he said.
It had an elongated head and far too many teeth. The head seemed to speak more of fish than of animal-streamlined and armoured. The neck was draconian-long and flexible. The body seemed armoured in heavy shell, at odds with the elegant neck.
It crouched, ready to attack, back bent at an unnatural angle, at least to a man, with back-hinged arms and legs.
They both emerged from their palaces together to look at what he had wrought.
“What is that thing?” Ser Gavin asked. “I thought I’d seen-everything.”
Ser Gabriel shrugged. “I suspect that the Wild is much bigger than our notions of everything,” he said. “What is it? It’s the thing that came for our horses last night. Good shooting, Canny. Next time, kill it.”
He clapped his hands and the sparkling monster vanished and the arrow fell into his hands. He handed it to Wilful Murder. “Put that head on a shaft,” he said. “And keep it to hand.”
“An’ I know why,” Wilful said. He was pleased to have been picked-it showed.
The captain got on his riding horse, the last fires were put out, and the column began to ride. Wilful was one of the last men at the fires, and then he used the goodwife’s breakfast fire to get his resin soft. He didn’t leave the clearing until the sheep herd was moving, and he waved to Tom as he cantered past, leaving a mother and twelve scared-looking children alone with the Wild.
He handed the completed arrow to the captain, and Ser Gabriel took it, said a few terse words in Archaic, and handed it back to Wilful, who put it head up through his belt.
Six miles on, where the old West Road-really just a trail, and scarcely that-branched towards the tiny settlement at Wilmurt and the Great Rock Lake before plunging north into the High Adnacrags and eventually reaching Ticondaga, the scouts found a man, or the ruins of one. He’d been skinned and put on the trail, a stake through his rectum and emerging from his mouth. His arms and legs were gone.
Count Zac frowned. “I’ll have the poor bastard cut down and buried,” he said.
The captain shook his head. “Not until after the column rides past,” he said. “I want them all to see.”
Ser Michael caught his eye. “The hunter?” he asked quietly.
Ser Gabriel sighed. “Hell. I didn’t even think. Oh, the poor woman.”
Ser Michael nodded.
“I’ll go,” Father Arnaud said. He snapped his fingers and Lord Wimarc, who had joined them with word of the council at the Inn of Dorling, brought him his great helm.
The captain thought a moment. “Yes. Take Wilful. Get the body down and decently shrouded. Father, offer to take the family with you. Best take a wagon. Drat. This will cost me the day.”
“It might save your soul,” Father Arnaud said.
Their gazes crossed.
“I have to consider the greater good of the greater number,” the captain said calmly.
“Really?” asked Father Arnaud. “Am I addressing the Red Knight or the Duke of Thrake?”
The two men sat on their horses, eyes locked.
“Michael, can you think of a way I can tell the good father that he’s right and still appear all powerful?” He laughed. “Very well, Father. I am suitably chastened. War horse and helmet. Ser Michael, you have the command. If my memory serves there’s a wagon circle about half a league on, just after crossing good water. Give me one of the empty wagons and I’ll take Zac and half his lads.”