The Red Knight

In the rainy grey of not-quite-morning, he offered some very stale bread from his sack to Ota Qwan, who accepted it with gratitude, took a small bite, and handed the crust on. Men watched it eagerly, but no one protested when the bread ran out before the mouths did. Peter hadn’t even had a bite. He had expected it to be handed back. But he shrugged.

On his second night with the painted people he couldn’t sleep at all. It rained softly, and the sensation of wet flesh – paint, grit, and a man’s naked thigh against his own – made him get up shiver alone. Eventually he crept back into the pile of bodies, disgusted but almost frozen.

The next day was agony. The whole group moved faster, running the length of a grass meadow curiously criss-crossed by an arterial profusion of canals the width of a man’s outstretched arm. The painted people leaped them with ease, but Peter fell into several, and always received a hand out and a belly laugh for his troubles.

The painted people wore supple, thin leather shoes, often the same colour as their paint so that he hadn’t noticed them at first. His cheap slave shoes were falling to pieces, and the great meadow was littered with sharp sticks pointing up from the ground. He hurt his feet a dozen times, and again, he was helped along and laughed at.

He was limping badly, exhausted, utterly unaware of his surroundings, so when Ota Qwan stopped Peter all but walked over him.

Just the length of a horse in front of them stood a creature straight from nightmare – a beautiful monster as tall as a plough horse, and as heavy, with a crested head like a helmeted angel, a raptor’s beak and blank eyes grey, the colour of new-wrought iron. It had wings – small, but heart-breakingly beautiful.

Peter couldn’t even look at it, because for the third time in as many days he was terrified beyond his ability to think.

Ota Qwan put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Skadai raised a hand. ‘Lambo!’ he said.

The monster grunted, and raised a taloned claw-hand.

Peter had time to note that its left claw was wrapped in linen, the way an injured man’s hand would be wrapped in bandages.

Then the monster grunted again – if it spoke, the tones were too deep for Peter to understand – and then it was gone into the underbrush. Skadai turned and raised his bow. ‘Gots onah!’ he shouted.

There was an answering roar from all around them, and Peter was staggered to discover that there were dozens – perhaps hundreds – of painted warriors around him.

He grabbed at Ota Qwan. ‘What – what was that?’ he asked.

Ota Qwan gave him a wry smile. ‘That was what men call an adversarius,’ he said. ‘A warden of the Wild.’ He eyed Peter for a moment. ‘A daemon, little man. Still want to be one of us?’

Peter took a breath but it was hard. His throat was closed again.

Ota Qwan put an arm around his shoulder. ‘Tonight we’ll be in a regular camp. Maybe we can talk. You must have questions. I know a little.’ He shrugged. ‘I love living with the Sossag. I am one. I would never go back, not even to be a belted earl.’ The black painted man shrugged. ‘But it ain’t for everyone. And the Sossag are Free People. If you don’t want to continue with them, well, just walk away. The Wild might kill you, but the Sossag won’t.’

‘Free People?’ Peter asked. He’d heard it said before.

‘You have a lot to learn.’ Ota Qwan smacked his shoulder. ‘Move now. Talk later.’

Dormling – Hector Lachlan

Hector Lachlan walked into the courtyard of the great inn at Dormling like a prince coming into his kingdom, and men came out to stare, even applaud. The Keeper came in person, and shook his hand.

‘How many head?’ he asked.

Lachlan grinned. ‘Two thousand, six hundred and eleven,’ he said. ‘Mind you, master, that includes the goats, and I’m not so very fond of goats.’

The Keeper of Dormling – a title as noble and powerful as any in the south, for all it belonged to a big bald man in an apron – clapped Lachlan on the back. ‘We’ve expected you a ten-day. Your cousin’s here to join you. He says it’s bad to the south.’ He added, ‘We were afraid you might be broke, or dead.’

Lachlan accepted the cup of wine that the Keeper’s own daughter pressed into his hand. He raised it to her. ‘I drink to you, lass,’ he said.

She blushed.

Hector turned back to the Keeper. ‘The Hills are empty,’ he said, ‘which trouble in the south explains. How far south? Is it the king?’

The Keeper shook his head.

‘Your cousin told me that Albinkirk was afire,’ he said. ‘But come in and sit, and bring your men. The pens are ready, even for twenty-six hundred and eleven beasts. And I’m eager to buy – if I serve you a steak tonight, Hector Lachlan, you’ll have to sell me the cow first. I’m that short.’