Almost there!
He unbuckled his belt and threw it to the floor, sword and all, ready for the sump. With a bit of luck someone would trip over it. Syannis was right in front of him now, slowing him down. They reached the cave where Hain was waiting for them. Around the pit, Berren ran one way, Syannis the other. There must have been at least a dozen soldiers chasing him, but Berren felt like laughing again, because he knew they’d never catch him. He’d reach the sump and be in and they’d never-
Out of the darkness a figure stepped in front of him. Berren didn’t even have time to see who it was, but there was only one person it could be: Hain. They smashed into each other. Something hit Berren’s head. He stumbled a few steps, staggered into the low wall around the Pit, almost fell in, pushed himself away and then someone was on his back, bearing him down, pressing him into the ground with such force he could barely breathe. He thrashed and squirmed and watched, helpless, as Syannis reached the sump while more arms grabbed at his legs.
But the thief-taker didn’t dive into the water; he kept coming. The soldiers holding Berren down suddenly let go and scrabbled away, and then Syannis was among them, slashing and stabbing like a wild thing. They fell back from his assault and for a moment Berren was free. He didn’t pause. As soon as he was on his feet, he ran.
‘Go! Go!’
He didn’t have a sword any more, but even if he had there were too many guards. The last thing he saw before he hurled himself into the water was Syannis, backing after him, holding off half a dozen men, with more racing around the Pit to take him from behind.
The water was like ice. On the other side, he waited, dripping wet and freezing cold, but Syannis never came. Eventually, long after he knew there was no point in waiting any more, he left. The horses were exactly where Syannis had said they would be.
Hain. They’d all say it was Hain who’d betrayed Master Sy, who’d warned Meridian that the thief-taker was coming, the when and the how, but Berren wasn’t so sure. Just at the very end, he’d seen a face lying in the darkness. Hain’s dead eyes, open wide, staring at some unseen terror. And in that moment he thought he’d caught a smell of something that shouldn’t have been there. A whiff of rotting fish.
23
Berren galloped through the kingdom of Tethis. He stopped at a farm, helped himself to a barn for the night and was gone with the dawn. He rode through the countryside, skirted Galsmouth with its garrison of fifty king’s guard, crossed the river and entered Gorandale. For a few days he passed through rolling hills dotted with the occasional flock of sheep. He saw shepherds and a few quiet villages nestled in among the valleys, but little else. Syannis had left food with the horses. Hard bread, biscuits, dried meat and cheese. Enough to keep four men for two or three days; more than enough for Berren.
His head fluttered like a moth around Syannis’s flame. They’d walked straight into a trap. Syannis could have dived into the sump and saved himself, but he’d hadn’t and now he was probably dead. Berren had thoughts about selling the horses, about taking the money and finding a ship and never coming back. But for most of the time he thought about all the things that had happened since the day in Deephaven when they’d first met in a dingy alley that smelled of blood and piss, when Syannis had been nothing more than a thief-taker with three dead men scattered at his feet. He remembered how he’d wanted to be like that, to fight like that. He’d wanted it more than anything. He’d have given his soul.
Maybe he already had. The woman he’d murdered after the battle on the beach still haunted his dreams.
Would Tarn have come back for him? Or Talon? Yes. But he’d never have thought Syannis would, because the thief-taker saw the world in a different way, where men and friends were sacrificed for some greater end. With regret, yes, but without remorse. The thief-taker had taught him that too. He’d taught Berren everything; now, too late, Berren found that that wasn’t who he wanted to be.
All the things the thief-taker had done for him and all the things he’d taken away. Yet this time Syannis had come back.
He forded a river in the middle of nowhere. The road — not much more than a muddy line through the hills — wound back to the coast. He stayed for a night in a tiny town that smelled of fish and filled his belly with something that wasn’t dry bread. Three days later he was outside Forgenver. Talon had always been decent to him. Talon deserved to know about Syannis. Then maybe he’d look for that ship.
‘Hey! Berren!’ he hadn’t even reached the tents before Tarn was waving at him. The two of them embraced. ‘Glad to be back?’
‘Hard to answer, that.’
‘Talon said you were in Tethis. He looked none too happy. So how’s the enemy’s strength?’ He frowned. ‘You know we’re at war with Meridian now, right?’
‘Yeh, I worked that one out.’
‘I’ve heard he has the Mountain Panther and the Black Swords hired to his cause.’ Tarn laughed. ‘Throw in the king’s guard, that’s sixteen hundred men. So is it true? Is that what he’s got?’
‘Yeh. The Mountain Panther was in Tethis. The Black Swords shipped in the day we left.’
Tarn grinned and clapped Berren on the shoulder. ‘Talon says they spent a week up the coast near Taycelmouth hunting for us until they realised we’d slipped away and taken their lancers too. Path of the Sun! That’s too many to face in the field! And they have archers and heavy armour. I reckon Talon has to sit tight for the rest of the season then. Meridian will have to let at least one of them go, and by next year we could have a company of five hundred. That’s what I’d do. At least the walls around Tethis aren’t up to much.’
Berren snorted, thinking again of the vast half-hidden city walls of Deephaven. ‘That’s true enough.’ Then he looked out of the camp, over to the town of Forgenver which had no walls at all. ‘Better than here, though. An army coming at Tethis from the north by land would have to cross the gorge and the river. If you came by sea, you’d have to fight through the town.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘There are some big ships in Tethis harbour. I’d be more worried about them coming here.’
‘Don’t you worry, soldier.’ Tarn caught his eyes. ‘They come here, we’ll have a palisade wall up in no time and we’ll shred them. Talon’s promised us a hundred brand new crossbows.’ He led Berren towards a large hut in the centre of the camp, half made of wood, half pieces of scavenged canvas.
‘As long as they don’t come from the armoury in Tethis.’ Berren smirked. At least they’d done something useful.
‘What we need is a hostage. But if it comes to fighting, we’ll just have to rely on our swords as always. Talon’s in the. .’ He waved at the wood-and-canvas thing. ‘That.’
Berren watched Tarn turn and walk away. The priests in Deephaven had tried to teach him things about warfare. Strategies and numbers of soldiers and how so-and-so had held such-and-such a place against an army of ten thousand for weeks or days or however long it was. Probably with six blind swordsmen and a one-armed archer who fired arrows with his teeth. Berren didn’t remember too much of any of it, only that the heroically outnumbered defenders generally came to a bad end. But still. . They’d taught him about the civil war. How Khrozus Falandawn, with half Emperor Talsin’s strength, had seized Deephaven despite its walls and Varr despite its armies. He’d wrestled the empire away from Talsin, and how had he done it? He was good with cavalry, he was brutal and ruthless, but mostly what Berren remembered was that Khrozus had had sorcerers, that he’d used magic. He smiled. He could still see the other novices shrinking and shrivelling into their stools, almost not wanting to hear what was to come. The priest banging on about the dangers of sorcery, how it was the path to wickedness, while Berren had sat wide-eyed, listening with rapt attention. Khrozus had won his battles with sorcery. He’d cheated. ‘Hey, Tarn!’ he shouted with a laugh. ‘We need a wizard! Get us a wizard!’