‘The others?’ he asked. Jerek nodded over his shoulder in reply, and Kayne turned gingerly to survey their surroundings.
They stood on a mushy grass slope overlooking the coastline hundreds of yards distant. A little further down, Vicard lay motionless on the edge of a wide shingle beach covered in pools of saltwater. Sasha was kneeling over him. He couldn’t tell if the alchemist was alive or dead.
The wreckage of their boat littered the hill around them. The upturned hull rested a mere dozen yards away, its keel broken and sagging in the middle.
‘Isaac?’ he asked, fearing the worst. Jerek said nothing, simply shook his head and spat. Kayne sighed and began to make his unsteady way down the slope towards the other survivors. ‘Evil luck to lose one of the group so early on this expedition,’ he said. ‘Don’t bode well. The Halfmage ain’t going to be best pleased-’
‘Bastard’s over there,’ Jerek interrupted. He pointed down the coastline to a rocky outcrop that marked the beginning of a promontory in the distance. Kayne could just make out a figure sat perched over the edge.
‘Is he… fishing?’ he wondered aloud. The blurred shape seemed to notice him staring and waved an arm in greeting. ‘I’ll be damned. He’s tougher than he looks.’ Or maybe I’m just old and brittle.
The two Highlanders climbed down the sodden hill until they reached the girl and the figure at her feet. The alchemist was still breathing. He was also making pitiful whimpering sounds, much to the disgust of the Wolf.
‘How’s he doing?’ Kayne asked. Sasha had a nasty cut on her forehead, but aside from that she didn’t seem too much the worse for wear.
‘Bruised ribs,’ she replied. ‘Twisted ankle. One of his shoulders popped out of its socket but Isaac managed to tease it back into place. I didn’t know he was a physician.’
‘And an angler,’ the old barbarian replied. He was beginning to understand why the Halfmage kept the man around.
Sasha held a strip of wet cloth and was wiping at Vicard’s brow. He made a soft moaning sound and reached weakly for her hands, taking them into his own and holding onto them as if for dear life. Jerek shot him a baleful glare. Even Sasha pursed her lips in distaste.
‘Wolf, go fetch our talented friend,’ Kayne said, thinking it best to give Jerek something to do before he ended up throttling the alchemist where he lay. His friend grunted his assent and stalked off towards the distant crag.
Kayne glanced up at the sky. How long had it been since they’d washed up on the pebbly coast? He reckoned two, maybe three hours. The sun still rode low in the scattering clouds, bleeding golden light into the newborn day and reflecting serenely in the now-calm water of Deadman’s Channel. All in all, the morning was shaping up to be a glorious one. It reminded him of another morning, many months past. That had turned out to be the darkest of days.
‘Do you still have Magebane?’ The girl’s question brought him back to the present. He felt around at his belt.
‘Aye, it’s right here. That wave knocked us a few miles off track. I figure we head north and east until we see the Tombstone.’
Vicard whimpered again. Sasha looked down at him doubtfully. ‘He’s going to struggle on one leg. We can’t leave him here.’
The alchemist pushed himself up so that he rested on his right elbow, moaning all the while with the effort. ‘My bag,’ he panted. ‘Where is it?’
Sasha walked over to where Vicard’s pack rested next to the handful of possessions that had survived the wreck. ‘You’re lucky,’ she said. ‘I’ve already checked inside. Most of it is intact.’ She brought the pack over to the alchemist and dropped it down beside him. He rifled through it with his good arm, becoming increasingly frantic as he failed to locate what he was looking for. Pouches and strange containers were cast aside as his hand probed deeper. A sheen of sweat appeared on his face. Sasha watched him anxiously.
Eventually Vicard found what he’d been searching for. With a delighted yelp, he tugged a small brown leather pouch from the bottom of the pack. The alchemist fumbled with the cord for a moment, then lifted the pouch to his face and buried his nose inside, snorting deeply. When he finally removed it from the pouch it was covered in a white powdery substance. He sighed in satisfaction and grinned stupidly.
Brodar Kayne observed the scene with a deep frown on his lined face. He’d seen Highlanders become hopelessly addicted to jhaeld, the fireplant found in the most desolate reaches of the mountains. The powdered resin of that rare plant could cause a man’s blood to feel as though it were on fire, inciting his passions and lending him the courage to smite his enemies as if he were the Reaver, the Lord of Death himself. Such men inevitably died young, attempting feats beyond their true prowess. Overconfidence could get a man killed.
The powder Vicard was snorting was white rather than the rustred of the jhaeld, but the ecstasy on his face was the same, and unmistakable. Kayne cleared his throat. ‘I reckon that’s enough of that for the moment. Can you stand?’
Vicard carefully replaced the pouch in his pack and retied the straps. With another unctuous smile, he stuck his uninjured arm out towards Sasha. ‘Pull me up,’ he ordered. She gave him a dirty look but complied, heaving him to his feet. He hopped around for a bit before risking some weight on his dodgy ankle. It seemed to hold.
‘Don’t look like too much damage has been done,’ said Kayne. ‘But you might want to wipe that smirk off your face. The Wolf’s returning and you don’t want to get his dander up unnecessarily.’
From the looks of it, though, Jerek’s dander was already at neck height and rising. Isaac followed behind him, a faint smile on his insipid face. A rod was hung over his back and in his arms he carried a net teeming with fish. A few still twitched every so often.
‘I caught us some fish,’ he said, stating the obvious. ‘Most of our provisions were lost in the wreck. I thought you might be hungry. No, don’t look at me like that. Of course I don’t expect you to eat it raw! I found some kindling untouched by the wave, and there’s plenty of flint on this beach. We’ll set forth on full bellies. Correct nutrition is essential to any endeavour, as so adroitly articulated in Gnoster’s Food for the Soul.’
Kayne looked at his companions. ‘I don’t know about you, but I won’t pass up the opportunity to get some grub down me. We have a dozen miles to cover before midday. Get your hand out of that pack,’ he added, noticing that Vicard was once again rummaging around for his mystery pouch.
‘The pain!’ the alchemist protested. ‘It’s unbearable! Just one more sniff and I’ll be able to walk on my own. I wouldn’t want to slow you down…’ Kayne fixed him with his best icy glare and the man hesitated and finally withdrew his empty hand. ‘Fine!’ he said petulantly. ‘I’ll need someone to lean on.’
‘I ain’t touching the faggot,’ Jerek growled.
Kayne rubbed at his temples with callused thumbs. ‘Throw an arm around me,’ he said. ‘I’ve travelled with worse baggage.’ Vicard looked at Sasha with a hopeful expression, but she was having none of it.
‘Fine,’ he said sullenly.
They’d been walking for a little over an hour. The sun had cast off its wispy shackles and was well on its way to fulfilling its earlier promise. Brodar Kayne wiped sweat from his brow and tried to ignore the incessant sniffling from the man limping alongside him. He could just about see Jerek in the distance, stalking along by himself. The group had become strung out, with Isaac ambling happily along some way behind Jerek and the girl following a similar distance behind the manservant. Kayne and Vicard brought up the rear.
Hardly the merriest of companions. He glanced at the alchemist beside him. Vicard had been eager to engage him in conversation at first, babbling about all manner of topics until it became clear Kayne wasn’t interested in talk. Now he dragged himself along in miserable silence, his good arm thrown around the Highlander’s neck and the other held uselessly at his side. Snot dribbled from his nose and hung in slimy threads from his chin. The barbarian was beginning to regret offering the man a shoulder to lean on.