Gallow (45 page)

Oribas licked his lips. ‘I’ll tell you of the Gallow I knew. Decide for yourself if he’s the same Gallow Foxbeard of whom you speak, for I cannot say, and he never called his sword by any name that I recall. I come from a desert at the far edge of what was once the Aulian Empire—’

‘You speak our tongue,’ interrupted the thin-faced one.

‘Where I came from I was a scholar. I learned many tongues. Many years ago a monster came to my town. It wore the guise of a man, though it was not, and we didn’t know it for what it was, not for many weeks. It brought ruin and murder and much worse. You speak of the ghosts of the old empire, of the shadewalkers. This creature was a thousand times more terrible. Rakshasa, it was once named. When finally it was revealed, it left us all but destroyed. I followed its trail but I could never find it, nor find a way to destroy it. In my despair I prayed to the old gods in a place we call the Arroch Ilm Daddaq, the Tainted Well. They sent me a vision and I followed that vision to the shores at the end of the world, and there I found Gallow, washed up from some shipwreck with others of his crew. He told me he had come from a place the Aulians knew long ago as the Glass Isles, to which the gods sailed after Mouth Catht split asunder. I understood: now the gods had sent him back to me. They had listened to my prayer after all and here was their answer. Together we hunted the Rakshasa that destroyed my town. We hunted it for many months and in the end we found it and put an end to it. All these things you speak of?’ He shrugged. ‘The gods sent Gallow to me. All he ever asked of his fate was to be allowed to return to his home across these mountains. He told me he was once the Gallow Truesword who fought beside the Screambreaker, but that that man was long gone.’

‘What about the sword, Aulian?’

‘I have a name, Marroc. I am called Oribas.’

Addic nodded. ‘And I’m Addic. My surly friend here is Brawlic and this is his farm. His wife Kortha has cooked the food you’ve eaten and my sister Achista has fed it to you. My other friend here is Second Jonnic.’ He laughed. ‘The last of six brothers, Second, and his poor father ran out of names. There are some who call him Vengeful Jonnic instead, though, and with good reason.’

Second Jonnic watched Oribas coldly. ‘My brother who shared my name was killed by the forkbeards in Andhun.’ He turned to Addic. ‘He’s only telling us half the truth. He knows more and I’ll have it out of him.’

Addic raised a hand. ‘Brawlic has given him food and shelter and the forkbeards would have thrown me into the Isset were it not for this man and his friend. He’s no enemy.’

Oribas looked from one to the other. ‘I thank you for your kindnesses. If there is a way to repay you, I will do what I can.’

Jonnic spat. ‘If the forkbeards get hold of him, they’ll find out about all of us now.’

‘I’ve no wish to be a part of any of your troubles.’ Oribas kept his voice calm and quiet. ‘If you could tell me where the Lhosir will take Gallow . . .’

‘Your friend is certainly dead. And once they know who he is, the forkbeards will be back, looking for this sword.’

Addic shook his head. ‘If they killed him then how will they know his name? And if they don’t know his name, how will they know there’s a sword to find?’ He grinned.

Jonnic ground his teeth. ‘All the more reason this one can’t stay where the forkbeards might find him. We know perfectly well what the best thing would be.’

‘I do, but he’s clearly not fit to cross the pass again, not in this state.’ Addic’s eyes narrowed on Oribas. ‘You hunted a monster worse than a shadewalker? And defeated it? How?’

Oribas struggled to his feet. His legs felt as though they were made of wool. For a moment his head spun. He looked around the room, searching for the woman Achista, Addic’s sister, but she wasn’t there. Then he searched for his satchel for a while before he remembered where it was – hanging from the dead stump of a tree dangling over the Isset. The thought of trying to get it back made him shudder. He fiddled at the pouches on his belt instead while the Marroc watched him suspiciously. ‘The ruins of old Aulia were beset by shadewalkers after the empire fell. There were those who took it upon themselves to hunt them. Shadow-stalkers and sword-dancers. I am neither of those things but I have seen them work.’ He walked stiffly to the fire and threw a pinch of powder from one of his pouches into the flames. The fire flared, leaping out of the hearth and high towards the roof for a moment. The Marroc gasped and recoiled. ‘Creatures like those have their weaknesses. Salt. Iron. Pure ice-cold water. And fire.’

‘He’s a witch,’ hissed Brawlic. ‘Get him out of my house!’

Addic put a hand on the farmer’s arm. ‘He’s not a witch. Are you, Aulian?’

‘I’m a scholar. In my hunt for the monster that destroyed my home, I studied such things. I don’t begin to understand the magic that brought them to be, but I understand how they may be sent back where they belong.’

Addic pulled Jonnic aside. The two whispered to one another while Brawlic stared with open hostility at Oribas. Whatever decision the other Marroc reached, Jonnic didn’t like it. Addic held up his hands. ‘Shadewalkers cross the mountains now and then. When they come, all we can do is step out of their path. Even the forkbeards fear them. Can you defeat one?’

Oribas shook his head. ‘Not alone, for I’m no warrior. But I can show you how.’

Addic started to laugh. ‘You see, Jonnic. And imagine what the people of Varyxhun and beyond will say when a Marroc comes among them carrying the sword Solace and slays a shadewalker.
That’s
how we’ll have our uprising.’

Jonnic snorted. ‘I say we take it to Valaric the Mournful in the Crackmarsh. Or across it and back to the Vathen. Let
them
fight the forkbeards.’ He stared at Oribas. ‘You came over the mountains. Across the Aulian Way after the first winter snows. Why?’

Oribas shrugged. ‘It was Gallow.’ He smiled faintly. ‘He wanted to go home.’

I
n the gloom under Varyxhun, in Gallow’s cramped and dank stone cell, Beyard picked up the empty cess bucket. He turned it upside down and sat on it. Gallow squatted in a corner, watching.

‘Seventeen winters,’ said the ironskin. ‘Eighteen soon.’ His voice was like grating metal, not the voice that Gallow remembered, and his face was pale and hollow, his eyes rimmed red and steeped in shadows. But he was still unmistakably Beyard. ‘I heard about you, but not for a long time. No one knew who you were until you stole King Medrin’s sword.’

‘It was never his sword,’ whispered Gallow.

Beyard’s lips drew back. His teeth were a perfect white. He made a noise that might have been a laugh but that came out more like a wet cough. ‘We both have our reasons not to like our king. I never gave away your names, either of you. Look at me now, Gallow. My reward is a skin of iron punishment to atone. For what? For being the only one with the courage to stay and stand fast when we all three broke the old laws? Why did you come back?’

‘I never meant to leave.’ They stared at each other in silence. Gallow took in the man who’d once been his friend, back when they were both filled with boyish bravado. The armour of the Fateguard, the iron strips and plates, covered him from head to toe. The Fateguard were the holy fists who guarded the Temple of Fates and enforced the will of the Eyes of Time, both cursed and blessed. They were rarely seen outside a temple and Gallow had never heard of one taking off his mask. More often than not they were the worst
nioingr
who would never have any other chance to atone, but that wasn’t Beyard. Beyard had never been a coward. ‘Are you my executioner?’

That wet coughing sound again. Beyard shook his head. ‘Not I. But there will be one, have no doubt. Who will you have to speak you out when you hang?’

‘I doubt there’s a single Lhosir who’d do that now.’

‘Then I will do it.’ Beyard shifted. Metal ground on metal.

‘What happened to you?’

The iron man looked down at himself. ‘To me? See it for yourself. After you ran—’

Gallow bared his teeth. ‘I did not
run
, Beyard! I would have stood beside you. Willingly. Do you not remember how it was?’

For a moment a light flashed in the Fateguard’s bloody eyes. ‘I remember, Gallow. We each paid our own price for our foolishness. I saw Medrin cross the sea; but fate found him out and I saw him back again with a wound that should have killed him, that left him crippled and for many years but half a man. I saw him rise each day with barely the strength to walk. I saw him fight for every scrap of strength. He came to the temple daily for a time. Suddenly a very pious man when it looked like he might never again lift a sword. Sometimes I wonder how loud he screamed when you crippled him for a second time. Medrin Sixfingers. Perhaps his punishment is finished now. But you? I never told them your name, just as I never told them his. The Eyes of Time searched for you and found nothing. And when neither of you found the courage to step forward, the punishment fell on me alone. I was made as you see me because I wouldn’t betray your names. And because of what we’d done.’

‘We did
nothing
!’

‘But we had intent. We should not have been where they found us.’

Gallow looked away. ‘I shouldn’t have let you face them alone.’

Beyard rattled and shook with grinding laughter. ‘Then we would
both
be men of iron. What difference would it have made? Besides, fate has its ways. Fate found Medrin without my help. The Crimson Shield was at the bottom of the sea with the Moontongue by then and its other thieves long forgotten. What did fate find for you, Gallow the smith’s son?’

‘I crossed the sea,’ said Gallow. ‘I fought with the Screambreaker and after a time he named me Truesword. When it was done and Yurlak looked as though he was going to die and Medrin would take his crown, I stayed behind. I meant to cross the mountains into Aulia to be as far away as I could be but I never even reached Varyxhun. Before I knew what had happened, another eight years passed and I was a husband with a Marroc wife and a father with two sons and a daughter.’

‘Truesword. I heard that name but you’re Foxbeard now. I know about the Vathen and how you fought them and how you found the Screambreaker half dead and carried him back to Andhun, how you sailed with Medrin to reclaim the Crimson Shield and how you and the Screambreaker stood side by side in his last battle against the Vathen. They say you killed him there and took Solace, the red sword of the Vathen, from his hand as he fell.’

‘I took his sword when he fell but I didn’t kill him.’

‘No.’ A baleful look settled on Beyard’s face. ‘You turned on your own kind and cut off Medrin’s hand as the Vathen swept through Andhun. I know you threw yourself into the sea and I know it was the Screambreaker himself who hauled you out of it, so I know you didn’t kill him and I know the the Vathen didn’t either.’ Another wet hack of a laugh and Beyard cocked his head. ‘You were meant to come to us, Gallow. You were owed to us, you and Medrin both. Fate granted the Screambreaker a year and a day beyond what should have been his death to bring you back to us. He’d earned it. He dragged you from the sea when you should have drowned and told you your fate, yet you refused it.’

Gallow shook his head. ‘I remember his words, old friend: “It’s the nature of men like us to fight our fates.”’

A coldness filled Beyard’s eyes. ‘I’m not your friend, Gallow. Not any more and not for many years. And you are Lhosir. You should know better than to turn against your fate.’

‘I wanted to go home, Beyard.’ Gallow’s shoulders sagged. ‘To see my sons. To be with my wife. To make more. To work the fields and the forge. Simple honest things, building a home. That’s all.’

‘But it was not your fate, Gallow.’

‘No.’ This time Gallow spat out a bitter laugh. ‘The Marroc fled Andhun in a hundred ships. It was a calm day, clear, a balmy sea. And then in the night a storm came and scattered us and when the sun rose we were alone and lost, and ever since, with every step I’ve taken towards my home, fate has carried me ten away. Three years, Beyard. Three years and I’ve crossed half the world.’ He looked around the cell, overwhelmed by despair. ‘And here I am. Three years. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. Or my children, and if they are then they must certainly think I’m dead. She probably has another man. I suppose I hope for her that it’s so. And now I’ll never know, will I?’ He looked up and touched his shirt. Beneath it, against his skin, an old locket hung on a worn chain. A little piece of Arda he’d taken with him into battle when the Vathen had come. The one thing over all that time he’d never lost. That, his shield and the cursed red sword.

‘You should know better than to fight fate.’

‘Medrin is king now, is he?’

‘Yes. King Medrin One-Hand. Medrin Sixfingers. Medrin Ironhand, or Silverhand if you prefer. Yurlak scoured the world before he died for any who could make his son whole again. An Aulian came, a dark one, but it was the Eyes of Time who gave Medrin the hand he has now, one of iron and silver. A poor substitute for flesh and bone. Yurlak lived long enough to see it and then he died.’ Another wet laugh. ‘Yurlak scoured the world for you as well, Gallow Foxbeard. I swear it was his fury that kept him alive so long. But Ironhand? He means to cross the mountains and rebuild Aulia itself. He sees himself an emperor.’ Beyard shook his head, a savage snarl on his face. ‘Medrin, eh? Fool he is, but he’s not the man either of us knew. He’s a leader as his father was before him. A king with an iron hand.’ Beyard rose. He picked up his mask and crown. ‘I’m glad, Gallow, to have set my eyes on you one more time. I’ll not tell Cithjan who you are. He’d send you to Medrin in chains and Medrin would bring down every world of pain that he knows upon you. He’d find this wife and these sons of yours and make blood ravens of them while you watch. So no, I’ll not tell Cithjan. You were a better man than that. You will be Gellef Sheepstealer and you will merely hang for the two men you killed.’