Garzik caught the first renegade’s legs and dragged him outside, only to be directed down to the field near the jetty, where they were building a pyre to burn the bodies.
It seemed vaguely obscene to drag the man’s body over the rutted ground. Garzik tried not to look at his face.
‘Leave that one for the fire.’ Olbin gestured to the heap, where he had already thrown the body he’d carried.
No ceremony for the enemy.
Garzik straightened up. Everything ached.
‘Well, who would have thought?’ Olbin muttered.
Garzik turned to see what he meant. Trafyn was coming up from the shore dragging a body.
‘I killed him!’ the squire crowed. ‘Tell them. Tell them I killed him!’
Garzik felt a growing sense of dread as Trafyn pulled the small body closer. Strong-arm picked up the lad and threw him onto the pile.
No mistake. It was the boy Garzik had saved. The boy’s throat had been cut. Probably while he was unconscious.
‘Put up a fight, did he?’ Garzik asked, voice thick with fury.
‘Something fierce,’ Trafyn boasted.
Garzik punched him, smashing the squire’s nose.
Trafyn went down, holding his face.
As blood seeped between his fingers, Garzik advanced on him.
‘Hold up.’ Olbin grabbed his arm. ‘What’s going on?’
‘He punched me!’ Trafyn protested thickly in Merofynian. ‘Did you see that? He punched me!’
Olbin turned Garzik around. ‘What was that for?’
Tears of fury glazed his vision. Coward, sneak, braggart... words he didn’t know in the Utland tongue choked him.
‘Well?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Garzik countered.
Olbin glanced past him to Trafyn.
Who hastily backed up, scrambling to his feet. ‘Whatever he says, I didn’t do it. He’s just mad because I didn’t help set the ship alight.’
It was on the tip of Garzik’s tongue to reveal how the boy had died, but then he realised the Utlanders would probably have cut the lad’s throat anyway.
These weren’t his people. Not the Utlanders and certainly not Trafyn. He’d never felt more alone.
Garzik flung off Olbin’s restraining hand.
The big Utlander searched his face.
Garzik shook his head.
Olbin shrugged. ‘Go back, clean the hall of bodies.’ He gestured to Trafyn. ‘You too.’
Garzik stalked off, ignoring Trafyn, who wisely avoided him. He’d never trust the squire to protect his back.
Back in the long-hall he found everyone organised. The fury drained from him, leaving him even more exhausted than ever.
Somehow he kept going.
Garzik carried yet another body down to the funeral pyre and he was there beside Olbin when an eerie wailing made him jump.
‘They’re mourning the dead.’ The big Utlander turned slowly to face the rise to the long-hall.
Everyone looked up towards the hall as if they dreaded going up there. Of course they would. In a settlement this size, everyone knew everyone else. No one would be untouched by death.
‘Might as well face it,’ Olbin muttered and strode up the hill. ‘Come on.’
Garzik followed.
The bodies of the settlement’s dead were being laid out in a neat row in front of the long-hall. Of the beardless who’d been left behind to mend the cow byre, not one survived. Three women were dead. Two children.
So senseless.
It was the children that got to Garzik. He wanted to cry, but he felt nothing.
Just a horrible emptiness.
More and more people came out to see who had died. The wailing grew louder and louder as others added their voices to the ululating cries.
The combined grief of the settlement was a terrible thing. Out of respect, Garzik backed away to let them mourn their dead in peace.
Inside the hall, he found the injured all bandaged up by the fireplace. From the look of some, there could be more dead tomorrow. Danja was pale and tense and her breath came in shallow gasps.
He went over and knelt next to her. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’
Her one eye flickered open. For a heartbeat she didn’t recognise him, so deep had she sunk into the pain. Then she shook her head.
He backed off, feeling useless. He had only the most basic of healing training.
He noticed Rusan and Olbin deep in conversation with Iron-hair. Out of habit, he wandered over to listen in.
‘...Vultar. Heard he’d taken up the holdings on the Isle of Dead,’ Iron-hair was saying.
Since Garzik had heard this place mentioned in song, he’d thought it was an allegorical name for the afterlife.
‘I didn’t believe it,’ Iron-hair admitted. ‘But he boasted of it. Nothing is sacred to him.’
‘Sarijana... was she...?’ Olbin began and could not go on.
‘Her. All of them. Even me.’ She touched her mouth where her lip had been split open. ‘Just as well you didn’t go after the others and the manticores. Vultar planned to set to sail tomorrow with all our young women.’
‘It was Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow who made me come back early,’ Olbin admitted. Garzik noticed Rusan go very still at the mention of the oracles. ‘They said I was meant to save our people and –’
‘Has anyone checked on them?’ Rusan interrupted. ‘Did Vultar ask after the oracles?
‘No. Not a word,’ Iron-hair said.
‘He should have.’ Rusan looked worried. ‘The twins and their mother are known throughout the Utlands. Everyone wishes they had oracles like ours.’
Olbin turned. ‘You think –’
‘Go check on them,’ Iron-hair urged. ‘Go quickly.’
Garzik grabbed a lantern.
As Rusan and Olbin went to leave, Iron-hair beckoned them back. ‘Don’t mention this to anyone. They have enough to worry about.’
They nodded then turned to find Garzik waiting with a lantern. They acknowledged him with a nod.
The three of them left the long-hall in grim silence. Outside, Rusan fitted the lantern to a pole so Garzik could hold it high to light their way.
No one spoke as they retraced their steps. This was where they’d hid to plan the burning of the ship. This was where they’d found Trafyn hiding. Where had he got to? Doing as little work as possible, no doubt.
This was where they’d passed the empty cow byre.
Rusan cursed as the oracles’ cottage became visible in the circle of lantern light. The door swung off the hinge.
‘They might still...’ Olbin began then broke off as, with another step, something pale appeared just inside the cottage.
Rusan ran a few steps ahead and darted inside, stepping over the body of the twins’ mother. The back of her head had been stove in. Most of her white hair was dark with blood. Those odd pink eyes remained open. Glazed.
Both Rusan and Olbin fell to their knees next to her.
Garzik raised the lantern to check the one-room cottage. It had been stripped of all valuables, and there was no sign of the fused-twins. ‘They’re gone.’
‘Of course. They were the real prize.’ Rusan nodded to himself. ‘Now Vultar has the greatest oracles in all of the Utland Isles, he’ll –’ Rusan broke off suddenly, horrified. ‘Were they on the ship you burned?’
Garzik took a step back, heart racing with horror. ‘I don’t know. I –’
‘Think. Did you see –’
‘I didn’t see them.’ The hold had been half full. He’d chosen that ship because... ‘There were men on the other ship, in the hold with a lantern. I guess they were guarding the oracles.’
‘If only we’d known!’ Olbin sprang to his feet and slammed his fist into the wall, leaving a bloody graze on the lime-washed stone. He prowled like a caged beast.
‘I should’ve thought of it.’ Rusan sank his head into his hands. ‘I should’ve –’
‘You can’t think of everything,’ Garzik told him. ‘You did all you could with the information you had. You chased off Vultar and –’
‘But I lost the oracles. I’ve failed my people.’
‘No, Vultar has to answer for this.’ Garzik stepped in front of Rusan and held his eyes. ‘There were factors beyond your control. You did the best you could with what you had at your disposal –’
He broke off as sudden conviction filled him.
A wave of relief rolled through him and he closed his eyes as he realised he’d done the best he could, when Byren sent him to light the warning beacon. Despite this, he’d failed. Who knows if it would have made a difference? Someone had betrayed Rolenhold castle from within. Mitrovan had tried to tell him, but he’d refused to hear it. He’d been too consumed with grief and self doubt. Now...
Garzik opened his eyes to discover both Rusan and Olbin watching him.
‘What is it...’ Rusan said. ‘What’s your name?’
Garzik hesitated. He wanted to tell them his real name, but he was going to escape first chance he had. ‘It’s Wynn, short for Wyvern.’
‘Wynn. Smart, quick on your feet like a wyvern.’ Olbin grinned. ‘Suits you.’
Garzik looked down, torn. He didn’t want to lie to them.
‘What’s wrong?’ Rusan asked.
Garzik recollected his point. ‘Don’t waste time and energy blaming yourself.’ And he said this to himself as much as to them. ‘Think about what must be done next.’
‘Next?’ Rusan rocked back onto his heels and sprang to his feet. ‘Next we take her back to our people to mourn.’
Rusan took the head, Olbin the legs. Garzik held the lantern. They travelled slowly, solemnly in a pool of lantern light.
Even before they reached the long-hall, children came running. Their cries of horror brought the adults, and soon they were surrounded by a crowd of worried Utlanders. They whispered and looked on anxiously.
Rusan and Olbin laid her reverently with the rest of the dead, then stepped back. As the others closed in on the dead mother of the oracles, Iron-hair beckoned Rusan and Olbin. Garzik followed them in.
Iron-hair led them over to the head of the long-table. Someone went past with a big pot of potato and onion soup. Garzik’s stomach contracted painfully. How could he be hungry?
Bowls, day-old bread, hot soup. He made for the table. Stepped over the nearest long stool and sat down. When the old woman with the soup ladle came along, he held out a bowl.
She objected. ‘Belongs-to-no-one has no place at our table.’ Raising the ladle, she went to clip him over the head.
Olbin was already on his feet. In two strides he caught her hand before she could complete the strike. ‘Here, none of that.’
‘Serve him.’ Rusan raised his voice, not moving from his place beside Iron-hair. ‘The belongs-to-no-one earned a place at the table tonight. He set fire to Vultar’s ship. More than that, he suggested the diversion.’
Rusan met Garzik’s eyes and held them, and Garzik recalled Captain Blackwing saying a true leader didn’t feel threatened by initiative in others. All those at the table turned to look at him.
‘No longer is he a belongs-to-no-one,’ Rusan stated, as if this was a ritual. ‘I say he belongs-to-us on my ship.’ And he looked to Iron-hair expectantly.
She studied Garzik, a smile in her eyes. It warmed him. ‘I say he belongs-to-us on our island.’
And just like that he was no longer a slave. He was an Utlander.
Olbin pulled him to his feet and hugged him so hard he saw stars and almost stumbled when he was released.
‘Wine for the ceremony,’ Olbin said. ‘Wine for Wynn.’
‘No ceremony tonight,’ Iron-hair said. ‘Not when our people lie dead outside. Later.’
‘Later,’ Olbin told him and clamped one large hand on his shoulder. He pushed Garzik down into the chair and gestured to the old woman. ‘Serve him.’
As she ladled out some soup the conversation resumed. They spoke of what they’d lost, how many warriors they could muster, Vultar’s numbers, the Isle of Dead and the danger of going there.
Rusan shook his head. ‘It’s been empty for generations –’
‘Vultar lives there now,’ Olbin countered. ‘How –’
‘Because he’s a renegade,’ Iron-hair insisted. ‘He’s lost all honour.’
‘I still think we should follow him,’ Olbin said. ‘Attack. Wipe them out. We’d be doing all the Utland Isles a favour. There’s only one shipload of them now –’
‘Vultar boasted he had four other ships. Claimed the renegades of the sea are flocking to serve him. He could be lying, but...’ Iron-hair shook her head. ‘We don’t make a move against him until all the captains come back.’
That made sense and Garzik finished his soup.
With food in his stomach there was no denying sleep. He curled up near the wall. His usual place was taken by the injured. Even so, Cheeky-puss found him.
She offered him one of last year’s apples.
He looked up at her and slowly accepted it. She sat down next to him, and bit into her own apple.
The apple was floury and old, but he appreciated the sentiment. ‘The beardless paid the highest price tonight. Still going to join them?’