'That's new since I was here last,' said Phyphor. 'It would have told Heenmor the southern fire trench was burning again. The day we reached the border, he must have known it.'
'What are you talking about?' asked Garash, from his blindness.
'Nothing that need concern you,' said Phyphor. Garash yelped.
'That's a chair,' said Phyphor. 'There's a couch to your left.'
Garash groped his way to the couch, then lay down. With a grinding-grating, the stone conformed, at least approximately, to the curves of his body. Phyphor frowned at the ugly noise: it suggested that time's decay was telling even on the tower of Arl. Garash, lying back, went limp, as if unconscious.
'What if his sight doesn't come back?' murmured Miphon.
'There's a drop-shaft on every level of this tower,' said Phyphor. 'They have their uses.' Miphon hoped he was only joking.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Name: Durnwold (brother of Valarkin). Birthplace: Little Hunger Farm, Estar. Occupation: soldier.
Description: a strong, swarthy young man who looks rather stupid but actually has all his wits about him.
Career: since leaving his father's house, has served Prince Comedo. Has trained with the sword under the tutelage of Morgan Hearst, warrior of Rovac.
Footling – knocked from his horse by a branch – fell with a cry. His horse, dismounted, stopped. But the chase went on.
Durnwold urged his horse: 'Ya! Ya!'
Hearst rode silent and intent, bent low beneath the whipping branches. The trail swung into undergrowth too thick to ride through. Durnwold and Hearst swung down from their horses. Bent low beneath branch and bough, they ran with swords drawn.
One of their quarry turned at bay. Durnwold was at him first. Sword clashed with sword as Hearst slipped past to follow the trail. Durnwold, on his lonesome, fought the Collosnon soldier.
The earth was damp. Their boots slipped and stumbled. Their mouths were open: breathing harsh. In the dim underbranch light they thrust and countered. Fear for fear they matched each other. The Collosnon soldier dared a cut which Durnwold only half-turned. The blade ripped his flank. It hurt! He parried another blow then hacked for the head.
Metal bit metal. The Collosnon sword shattered. The soldier looked at it – shocked, astonished. Durnwold's blade bit to the bridge of his nose. Durnwold sliced, thrust, hacked, chopped, grunting, sweating, swearing, butchering his enemy to a bloody mess of gore and bone. Then dropped his sword and staggered to the support of a tree, where he rested, clutching his wounded side, panting, gasping.
It was a while before he realised he was only lightly wounded, and not likely to die yet.
Meanwhile Hearst, now far out of sight, ran on along an easy trail of broken twigs, footprints, torn branches, and, once, a vivid red wound where a boot had ripped the skin from an exposed tree root. He saw marks where his exhausted quarry had slipped and fallen. Bursting into a clearing, Hearst saw his quarry: sprawled full length with an arrow in his chest. Hearst saw the archer: a dark-haired weatherbeaten man of middle years, and behind him… what? It fled, leaving him with a vague impression of large eyes and fox fur.
'Who are you?' demanded Hearst, speaking Estral.
'Blackwood,' said the archer.
'And what was that thing that ran away?'
'A fodden.'
'What's that? Paw and claw? Or thumb and fist?'
'Thumb and fist,' said Blackwood. 'But it lives like paw and claw. It finds game for me.'
Blackwood spoke the language of Estar well enough to assure Hearst that he was a native of the land. Hearst switched to the Trading Tongue, in which he was more fluent.
'Do you claim the head?' said Hearst.
'The head? Mister, I'm not that hungry.'
'The prince will want to see it,' said Hearst, chopping down on the corpse with his sword.
He gave a quick look round, sheathed his blade, then set off at a jog, holding the head by a fistful of hair. He did not look back.
Blackwood wondered about that warrior who had demanded his name before leaving without giving his own, who had cropped grey hair, cold eyes, and a brutal way with human flesh. He hoped they would not meet again.
The dead Collosnon soldier had discarded his sword, helmet and cuirass to be able to run faster, but the spider amulet at his throat told the world which master he served. Sighting that amulet, Blackwood had shot without hesitation. The arrow had caught the soldier just to the left of the breastbone; he had spun round and fallen dead.
The fodden crept out of the undergrowth and began to lick the blood. Blackwood nudged it aside with his boot.
'No,' he said.
'Why riot?' said the fodden, lisping, hissing, spluttering. Practice let Blackwood understand its distorted speech easily.
'It's not for eating.'
'Blood is blood. It was a bad man. It's sorry now, isn't it?'
'It's still not for eating,' said Blackwood.
The fodden swiped at the corpse with one fox-fur hand. Blackwood kicked it away. Hissing, the fodden shrank back into the trees. Blackwood knelt by the headless body and cut out his arrow, which had the barbed broadhead he favoured for hunting; its three flight-feathers were yellow for easy retrieval.
'Murmer,' said Blackwood. 'Come on.'
The fodden lingered, hunched in shadows.
'Come on!'
The fodden followed reluctantly. It was short, bandylegged and covered in red fox fur but for its bald-bone head. Its eyes were green slits; its teeth suggested it was a carnivore with a vicious bite. Breeding colonies of foddens lived only in the Penvash Peninsular; this one was old, and young male foddens would have killed it if it had not left. It was always moody and foul-tempered for weeks after waking from hibernation, and liable to do ugly and spiteful things; this far into spring it should have got past that stage, but there was no sign of its temper improving.
Blackwood followed the track of smashed vegetation and leaking blood. He went slowly, not wanting to overtake the warrior. The fodden followed at a distance.
Blackwood was burdened with a roll of waterproof canvas as an emergency weather shelter; a quiver of arrows; a composite bow of wood, sinew and horn; a small food pouch; and, strapped to his belt, a case of black leather holding his hunting trousse: a large chopper, a small chopper, a saw, an awl, a knife and a sharpening stone. Many animals had been dismembered by that useful collection.
He discovered a second headless body, badly hacked about. A shattered sword-stump lay nearby. Obviously there had been a fight: the soft ground was scuffed and gouged where the combatants had braced and slipped.
'Another,' said Murmer.
'Yes,' said Blackwood. 'Don't touch!'
'So starve me then,' said Murmer, idling past, tongue touching greedy lips.
The dead did not shock Blackwood; he was familiar enough with mutilated bodies. He had not wept for the dead since the time when he had held in his arms the last of his stillborn children. At tax time, which began on the full of the Harvest Moon, Comedo's soldiers would hunt down defaulters and slaughter them. Blackwood had seen it. He knew all about the bloat and stink of corpses, the disintegration of the human face, the collapse of the body to scum and bones.
'Heel!' said Blackwood, as Murmer lagged behind.
Blackwood expected the hunters, who had betrayed themselves to him earlier by sounding horns when a kill had been made, would be gone by the time he reached the forest edge – but they were still there. He should have guessed: he had heard sounds of fighting when they had been ambushed, and should have known they would be delayed.
Crouching in the forest, he watched. Some of the men sat on horses chatting to each other; some were still searching corpses for anything worth taking. Two were exercised in keeping the dogs from tearing at the bodies of dead men and two dead horses.