Just from the slow intake of breath at his side, Brennan could tell that Kerig did not like that. He did not much like it himself. The Free had the best warriors that years of experience and the greatest ferocity of will could shape, but they had some of the most powerful Clevers in the known world too. Without them, a truly potent weapon was being left in its scabbard.
The Orphanidon reached to his belt and unhooked an object Brennan had not noticed there before. A delicate horn of silver and ivory and ebony, as beautiful a thing as he had ever seen in the hands of a fighting man. The Orphanidon tipped his head back a touch, set the horn to his lips and blew.
The note was pure and clean. A high, wavering rise and fall which echoed from the slopes and flew like the fastest of birds across the wide lands. It was taken up and repeated after a few moments by the solitary figure out on the ridge. And then, faintly, from far beyond that. The Free listened as the cry of the horn was carried off into the distance by one silvery voice after another.
Beautiful a sound as it was, it felt very much like ill tidings to Brennan.
The Orphanidon there among them set his instrument back on his waist. He regarded Yulan impassively.
‘I have called my company. After one setting of the sun and one rising, there will be two hundred Orphanidons across your path, man of the Free. There will be no talking then.’
‘I understand,’ Yulan said quietly. ‘What I have not done in one sunset and one rise, I will leave undone.’
The Orphanidon nodded his head just once. He hauled on his horse’s reins and moved away, brushing close by Yulan as he went. The Free silently watched him ride back up towards his fellow on the ridge.
‘This is going to be interesting,’ Hamdan said after a while, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘Hope we’ve got enough arrows.’
VII
As the Free busied themselves packing up their simple little camp, Brennan noticed a belated reappearance. Surmun came stumbling up, the case which held the contract scroll securely at his belt, his clothes speckled with dust and dirt. He had been lying somewhere. Not just staying out of the way then. Hiding.
He had a slightly sheepish look about him, but mostly he was trying-and failing-to conceal a tremble of relief. Hope, perhaps. The contract-holder approached Yulan almost eagerly.
‘Is it done?’ he asked. By which he meant, of course, that he wanted to go home.
Yulan laid one hand on his shoulder and brushed some of the dry earth from the man’s breast with the other.
‘You know, contract-holder, when the Free make an agreement, they drain the cup of that agreement to its very dregs. We do as we have pledged and been paid to do. So no, it’s not over.’
Surmun’s face fell.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ Yulan said. ‘Making bones of men who steal children from their beds and carry them off to slavery in some foreign lands… that I would do without payment. We’ve fought and slain many who deserved our wrath and our contempt less.
‘So this ends in only two ways, good Surmun: either with freed slaves and birds plucking the eyes from dead slavers, or with a whole army of Orphanidons barring our way and turning us back. I’d suggest you forget your worries and put your heart into wishing for the first of those endings. Because we’re going to be riding fast for one or other of them now.’
Surmun hung his head. Yulan was already turning away, walking towards his own bedroll. He beckoned Brennan as he went. It was something Brennan had been half expecting. Half dreading, more honestly. Lorin and Yulan had been deep in conversation for a time after the Orphanidon had departed. Brennan had not needed to hear what they had said to sense the darkening of moods which were not exactly bright in the first place.
‘I hear you lost your woman,’ Yulan said as Brennan fell into step at his side. ‘That’d be twice now she’s got the better of the Free. You mean to award yourself some of the fault for this new souring of our day?’
‘I do,’ Brennan said quietly.
‘Good. Seems you earned it this time around.’
Yulan was angry. Brennan could tell that, even though it was a quiet, controlled kind of anger. And Yulan’s anger was not a thing he would ever have wished to merit. Today, for the very first time since he had joined the Free, Brennan felt like a failure. That feeling writhed in him and would not lie still.
‘Turn your head,’ Yulan commanded. ‘Let me see that wound.’
Brennan leaned his head slightly to one side, and turned and lifted it so that Yulan could touch his fingers to the still-bloodied skin. Like a child coming marked from play being inspected by his mother.
‘It hurt?’ Yulan asked. ‘Does it spin or tremble in there?’
‘No. I mean, it hurts, but nothing more.’
‘Very well.’
Yulan lowered his hand.
‘You and your two fool-friends are going to redeem yourselves,’ he said. ‘The three of you go after your runaway. We’ve got no time left to play with, now that the Emperor’s lions are closing in, so you go this very moment. I don’t much want to see any of your faces again without hers alongside.’
‘Yes,’ Brennan nodded.
‘And don’t you let any harm come to her,’ snapped Yulan. ‘Whether she’s running to her family or just out into the waste, she’s still one of those we’re here to save. Whatever she’s done, she’s not done it of her own free choice. You remember that. No matter what happens, you keep her alive. But you make sure she doesn’t reach those slavers and their tyrant either. I’ll not have her warning him where we are and how many.’
Lorin and Manadar were more subdued than usual as the three of them rode on Marweh’s trail. Lorin was concentrating intently, leaning down from his saddle often to check footprints or sign. That did not entirely explain the mood though.
The two of them blamed him for this latest setback, Brennan understood. Reasonably enough. The waterskins-that had been less uniquely and obviously his fault alone. Mostly his, he was still inclined to think. The point was at least open to debate. This… this was all his own.
Neither one of them would hold it against him for long. He knew them well enough to be sure of that. It too would become fodder for mockery and good-humoured baiting in time. Tomorrow will mend it, as his mother used to say about so many passing ills. A finger broken clambering over slippery rocks in the stream: tomorrow will mend it. A heart broken by a girl in the next village over: tomorrow will mend it. Brothers warring over some small slight: tomorrow will mend it.
Still, today was going to be a long and probably miserable day. Perhaps more than a day. As Brennan watched the ground slowly passing beneath his horse’s hoofs, he wondered if he had not acquired a tyrant of his own. Perched at the back of his mind like a curled, bleak-hearted snake. Doubt.
He had thought he belonged in the Free. He had thought he was, or could become, worthy of riding beneath that banner. Now he was not so casually certain. In the life of the sword, mistakes killed people. Failings cost blood. Brennan had no wish to be the one people spoke of when they tried to teach that lesson to others.
‘I don’t think she knows where she’s going,’ Lorin said from up ahead.
He had drawn his horse to a halt. He was pointing out, away from the ridge and the long, low furrow of faintly moist ground they had kept to thus far. Into the emptiness.
Brennan pushed the hair back from his brow. His hand came away wet with sweat.
‘Almost like she’s just wandering,’ Lorin said.
‘If that’s what she’s doing, she’s doing it fast,’ Manadar pointed out. ‘Day’s almost half gone and we’ve not caught her yet.’
‘She’s walking quickly,’ Lorin confirmed. ‘Trotting now and again, for a little while.’
‘Sounds like there’s somewhere she wants to be,’ Brennan suggested.