Prince Thief

CHAPTER SEVEN

Any idea that I might be getting the safe or painless option lasted fully as long as it took Alvantes’s men to prepare the harness Saltlick would be wearing.

Its essential elements were gathered in a predawn raid on the beach by three of Navare’s men: the net, some straggling lengths of rope and a broad timber plank that had recently been part of our boat’s flank. The remaining components, mostly metal rings and leather straps, were pillaged from a pair of bags and a torn brigandine that had been rescued during our unexpected landing.

The end result, prepared hastily without proper tools or any great skill, was a pale imitation of the elaborate harnesses that Moaradrid’s army had saddled the giants with. Wearing it with clear discomfort, Saltlick looked dejected and somehow less giant than usual. I felt sorry for him — but his humiliation was hardly the worst of it. No, the worst part was that I’d be hanging off that junk pile while Saltlick attempted his death-defying climb.

“This is a terrible idea,” I pointed out, trying my best to make the observation sound constructive.

“It is,” agreed Estrada. “Absolutely. If you have any better suggestions, I’ll be glad to entertain them.”

“Well… I was thinking. On his back, Saltlick might make a serviceable raft.”

“And you might make serviceable ammunition for a catapult,” said Estrada, “but we haven’t a catapult, Easie, and we haven’t any more time to waste. If you’re going to do this then please, do it now, while there’s still a chance you’ll make it back in time to help us.”

I looked up at the rugged cliff side, and then over Estrada’s shoulder, through a gap in the boulders, to where the second boat waited on the water’s edge, black as a beetle in the scant light before sunrise. “All right,” I said, “I’m going. I just wanted to make my position clear. That way, when Saltlick falls off and we crush you all, you won’t waste your last breath blaming me.”

Estrada reached out suddenly, wrapped her hand around my forearm and pressed her wrist against my own, in something between a handshake and an embrace. “Tell yourself what you like, Easie. I know you can be brave when you need to be. I’m asking you to do this because I trust you to do it.”

For a moment, my heart swelled. Then I remembered who I was talking to. Speeches were Estrada’s weapon of choice, and self-delusion had also proved high on her list of talents. “Let’s hope you’re right,” I said, pulling my arm free, “because I don’t much like the idea of walking home.”

Of everything, it was the wind that bothered me the most.

I’d hardly noticed it on the beach, where the boulder wall had sheltered us; but halfway between ground and summit, hanging from a giant, it was harder to ignore. A gale howled and whistled over the cliff face, and the gully we were in seemed particularly to provoke it, as though the rock had crumbled in that particular place just to frustrate it. Currents whipped at the netting I clung to, made it quiver like unsettled water. Breezes plucked at my clothing — and if I hadn’t already felt like a target for those two crossbows I knew were somewhere below, their strings undoubtedly dry by now, then my cloak whirling behind me would surely have done it.

All told, however, wind-chilled, scared and uncomfortable though I was, it was safe to say that I had it easy. Saltlick was the one with the truly demanding part to play — and it was only a shame that my survival relied so completely on his.

If the sloping gully was shallower than the cliffs to either side, it was still a difficult ascent; difficult, that is, for an uninjured human. I knew Saltlick was agile. I knew he could climb, for I’d seen him do it. But though the surface was uneven, rare was the gap or ledge that was wide enough for a giant’s hands. In their absence, he was forced to rely on brute strength — and from the caution with which he moved, from the way he kept off his hurt leg, I could tell that was a commodity he had far less of than usual.

The last thing he needed was the weight of the harness, or the weight of me for that matter. I could tell he was suffering. And the more he suffered, the more he slowed; the slower he went, the harder it became. The pain coming off him was almost tangible, as though it were radiating through strained muscles, steaming from his pores.

I looked down. The world span, readjusted, and there was Estrada, small and far below. Of its own accord, a small part of my brain estimated the distance, what it would be like to plummet across it and what exactly landing would feel like. All of a sudden I found myself shaking so hard that I almost lost my grip, and I grasped the net frantically.

I had to do something. Saltlick was exhausted, he was hurt, and I knew with a cold certainty that he wasn’t going to make it. “Wait,” I said. “Just wait, Saltlick.”

He paused, hugged the cold stone. His breath was coming in ragged shudders. He’d never admit he was worn out; not because he was stubborn or arrogant, as a man might be, but because he was too damn decent to stop. He’d climb until he reached the top, or until he died trying — and if I’d had any doubts of the likelier outcome, those torn gasps of air were all the evidence I needed.

“Are you all right?” I asked him. “Can you hold on?”

Rather than answer, Saltlick nodded — and the netting danced beneath me.

“All right! Stop that. Can you move in any closer? Don’t nod. If you can do it, do it.”

Saltlick grunted, a low rumble. I took it for a no, until he began to shift. By degrees, he moved to splay his hands and feet, flattening against the stone.

I gritted my teeth, tried to push from my mind the image of the beach far below. I’d thought I could climb at least half the cliff face — well, this might not be the half I’d set my sights on, but here was my chance to prove it.

“Hold still,” I told Saltlick. “Whatever you do, hold still.”

I crept to the very edge of the net and — realising how I’d set Saltlick trembling, his fragile balance disturbed — hurled out a foot in panic. I scrabbled at stone, certain I could feel Saltlick’s grasp slipping, and dashed out my left hand for a lip of rock. With that hold, I abandoned the netting altogether, throwing my whole weight against the rock wall, hoping my tenuous grip would be enough.

Only when I was sure I wasn’t about to fall did I dare hiss through gritted teeth, “Are you all right, Saltlick?”

“Good,” Saltlick agreed.

“I’m going to climb past you,” I told him. “I’ll find you a path.”

Not waiting for an answer, I began to do as I’d said. I’d been right; it was far easier for me than for Saltlick. Whatever ancient catastrophe had carved this rut and deposited the boulders below, it had left a smashed and rugged surface in its wake. The hardest part was overtaking Saltlick; the worst moment the one when I realised that what I’d mistaken for a jut of stone was in fact his fingers. Saltlick being Saltlick, he didn’t even protest, merely clung on for the instant it took me to understand that stone didn’t squish that way under a boot heel.

“Argh… sorry! Damn it, hold on…”

I shifted my weight, hauled myself higher, narrowly avoided repeating my mistake by trying to use Saltlick’s head as a foot rest and finally reached a point where I knew I was clear of him. Already, my limbs were beginning to ache. I pushed the discomfort aside. Whatever pain I was in, Saltlick was hurting more. It was a mere matter of hours since he’d last saved my life; just this once, I had to at least try to return the favour.

So I climbed — and the climbing was hard enough. But all the while, a part of my thoughts were occupied in plotting Saltlick’s route, spying any ledge or fissure that would accommodate his fat fingers and bulbous feet, while I pointed them out in breathless gasps: “There… do you see? No, not that one, to your left. Got it? Now, your right foot… the hole. That’s it. All right, now the hand again…”

I’d never concentrated so hard. All sense of where I was or what I was doing soon vanished, reduced to simple mechanical processes: Move my hands and feet; move Saltlick’s hands and feet; hang on; put aside the pain. Thus it was that when the slope petered into a steep rut, and then a soily incline that I could ascend on hands and knees, it hardly occurred to me that the ordeal was almost done. Even as I hauled myself over a rim of matted grass and tangled roots, my mind was still feverishly questioning what would or wouldn’t support a giant foot.

It took Saltlick crawling up beside me and flopping into the long grass to make me realise we’d made it. I lay still, letting my fatigue subside, and my brain return to something like normal operation. Only when I had my breath back and thought I could view the landscape without measuring it for giant-sized handholds did I try to look around.

Upon our right, the cliff side continued in a series of abrupt rises that eventually dissolved into a mountain range. Or rather, the jutting corner of one — for, tilting my head, I could see the march of the peaks back towards the Castoval, and with less effort their encroachment inland, until the point where they became ghostly on the horizon, merging into distant, rolling hillside. If my geography was right then somewhere on the other side of those nearest mountains lay the Ans Pasaedan capital of Pasaeda.

Looking to my left, I saw that the mountain range, bleak though it was, might be as interesting as the view was about to get. In a sense this land was much like what I’d seen of Ans Pasaeda: tracts of grassy steppe reaching farther than my eye could measure. In Ans Pasaeda, however, there had been towns and cities, farmland, often a river in sight… whereas here in the far north there was nothing. If I stared I could make out faint undulations in the turf, the hint of shallow hillsides, and surely there must be water running somewhere, for the grass was vibrant enough.

For all that, the landscape was uncompromising in its emptiness. Where there were trees, they clung in knots, as though afraid of what might happen should they stray too far apart. Nowhere was anything that deserved the name of a forest, or even a wood; compared with the endless verdure of the lower Castoval, or even the sun-scorched reaches of the Hunch, it all seemed desperately barren. All I could hear was the occasional screech of hunting birds and the crash of the sea, as it beat and beat against the shore behind us. All I could smell was a faint hint of peat, sea salt, and the grass itself.

So this was the far north. Now I could see why Moaradrid had gone to so much trouble to leave. And small wonder no Ans Pasaedan king had ever made much effort to seize this inhospitable land; I was only surprised they’d never taken the time to wall it off.

I turned my attention back to Saltlick. He was sat on his backside, legs outstretched, hands perched on knees. His eyes were closed; his breath came in short tugs through half-closed lips. The bandage on his hurt leg was showing splotches of fresh blood, bright against the wormy grey of his skin.

“Can you stand?” I asked, doing my best to sound gentle.

As if the question had been a command, Saltlick struggled to his feet. He swayed for a moment and then, planting his feet firm as any tree roots, offered a vigorous nod.

I wasn’t fooled. Then again, I had no choice. I had to reach Kalyxis’s camp, had to bring back help for Estrada and the others — and Saltlick was my only transport.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked him. “You’ll have to go fast — as fast as you can.”

“Ready,” Saltlick agreed.

Of course, I hardly needed to tell him. In fact, I could see from the grim set of his jaw that he was already excavating whatever reserves of strength he had left; my contribution would more likely be to stop him running himself to death. If anyone was prevaricating, it was me. I wasn’t sure that I could bear to watch Saltlick cripple himself. I didn’t know if I could choose between that and dooming Estrada and the others. Those just weren’t the sorts of choices I was used to making.

“Ready,” Saltlick said again — and this time it was an order, however politely phrased.

“Fine,” I said. “Kneel down.”

I grasped the netting and hauled myself onto his back. As the harness creaked and groaned, I was reminded again of how feeble an imitation it was of the ones devised by Moaradrid’s troops. The best I could hope for would be to hang from Saltlick’s back, my head just above his shoulder to afford some view of what lay ahead.

I took a deep breath. The next few hours weren’t going to pleasant for either of us. I was about to say “let’s go,” but Saltlick didn’t give me the chance. With a muscle-wrenching jolt, we were off.

The countryside didn’t improve as the day wore on.

That was my impression, anyway, based on the sliver I could see of it: grass and more grass, the land still undulating faintly beneath an overcast sky, the sea still whipping itself into frenzy against the rocks to our left. Here at least there was a little variation, for the cliffs appeared to be petering out as we headed north, often broken by beaches like the one where we’d inadvertently landed. None of it, however, was the least bit engaging or distracting; and if I’d ever needed a distraction, it was then.

The harness Saltlick had worn when we’d escaped from Moaradrid had been bad enough. Compared with Navare’s makeshift alternative, it might have been a carriage lined with goose-down pillows. I was literally hanging from Saltlick’s back, held by nothing except my feeble grip, and flung against his shoulders by his every stride. Not trusting to my flagging strength, I’d wrapped my wrists inside the thick cord, so that even if I was fortunate enough to pass out I’d still remain hanging. But what aided my survival did nothing for my circulation, so that the prospect of tumbling from a fast-moving giant seemed more attractive with each passing minute.

All the while, Saltlick’s limp was worsening. As much as he tried to compensate, to carry his weight on the other leg, I could feel his mounting distress with every bound he took. He was keeping up a startling pace, but I couldn’t shake the doubt that he’d never do it again; that perhaps he might never even walk for the harm he was doing himself today.

But what could I do? He wouldn’t stop now, not even if I pleaded with him. My only option lay in not thinking about Saltlick, in concentrating as well as I could on our journey and its goal.

Yet only as the day ebbed towards evening did I think to consider the obvious. I didn’t know much about the far north or its denizens, but I’d heard they were nomads, living in tents and moving whenever the mood struck them, perhaps in forlorn hope of finding some part of their land that wasn’t drab and ugly. Probably the chance of our running into Kalyxis and her tribe was almost non-existent; likely the encampment I was seeking had long since been packed up and moved to some other equally dismal corner.

I should have known I didn’t need to worry. When had I ever had to look for trouble when trouble was so very good at finding me?

I’d demanded a break, supposedly to consider our route but in truth because I couldn’t bear another moment of being tenderised against Saltlick’s back. As I stood massaging bruised wrists and staring north along the diminished coast line, I thought I felt the barest tremor through my feet.

I was about to dismiss it as imagination when the riders appeared — came out of nowhere. One moment there was nothing but the barren wilds, their rich green drained almost to blue by the daylight’s fading. The next, there were a dozen riders thundering towards us — and as I turned, thinking vaguely of escape, another ten behind us, arriving impossibly from the direction we’d just come.

With the cliff at our backs, there was nowhere to go; nothing to do but wait. They surrounded us in a half-circle, gliding into place without a word. The party that had arrived behind us carried the delicate bows of horse archers — not loaded as yet, but I had no doubt that they could arm and fire in half the time it would take me or Saltlick to reach them. The others kept their free hands loose at their sides, close to the hilts of narrow scimitars in fur-trimmed sheathes.

Even if our location weren’t a sure giveaway, I’d have recognised them easily as northerners. Their skin was a good shade darker than my own olive brown, and deeply marked by a life in the open. Their hair was braided and bound with wire. Nowhere could I see a scrap of material that hadn’t begun as a living thing; they wore leather and fur aplenty, but not so much as a ring of metal or a neckerchief of cloth.

They didn’t seem nervous at the sight of Saltlick. In fact, their expressions gave nothing away at all. I waited a few seconds in the hope that one of them would say something, if only to give some indication of whether they’d come to greet or murder us. Then I raised a palm in tentative greeting, flinched as twenty hands clenched on bows and sword hilts.

“Ah… good evening,” I said. “We’re looking for a lady by the name of Kalyxis. I don’t suppose you’d be kind enough to point us in her direction?”

As it turned out, they would.

For once something had gone right for me — if being captured by barbarians and escorted under armed guard could possibly be considered right. Since it got us where we were going, I was willing to give this latest twist of fortune the benefit of the doubt.

One moment there was nothing but empty prairie, the next we were cresting what appeared to be the shallowest of rises and abruptly there was a whole town spread beneath us, its low structures altogether hidden by the wide basin it occupied. The town extended all the way to the shore, and most unexpected were the two long jetties protruding there and the fleet of boats clustered round them. I’d never even suspected that the northerners might have boats; I’d always imagined saddling horses to be the length and breadth of their technology.

Only as we descended did I begin to realise that large though the town was, it was by no means permanent. There were carts and horses everywhere, along with a few burly oxen. I saw that what I’d taken for buildings were in fact large, circular tents patched from dyed and painted skins, though they looked as solid as if they’d been built from wood and stone. It occurred to me that this whole place must be portable, just as I’d expected; I’d been right in principle, but completely failed to grasp the scale.

Then again, how did that explain the harbour, and the boats moored there? Those could hardly be taken apart and hauled away. No, this was something more than a temporary dwelling, a brief pause in a life of nomadism.

Worries for another time — for it was apparent that we’d reached our destination. Having marched us through the unpaved streets, our escort had come to a halt before a tent considerably grander than those about it. In front was a low plinth, and on that sat a dozen chairs. All but the centre two seated men of various advanced ages; the middle pair, however, raised somewhat above the others, were occupied by a strikingly tall woman with chalk-white hair and a skinny youth who didn’t even look up at our approach.

Still some distance away, our escort dismounted and approached on foot. They stopped when they’d halved the remaining distance, and each man dropped abruptly to one knee. “Strangers,” one said. “Found approaching from the south. They asked for you by name, lady.”

That settled any doubts: the woman was Kalyxis, mother to Moaradrid and former paramour of King Panchessa. For all that her hair was so starkly white, her skin showed no lines, and her face still possessed a stern elegance that might in flattering light be taken for beauty. It was certainly hard to credit that she was old enough to be anyone’s grandmother.

At that thought, I spared a glance for the sour-looking youth beside her, who sat with his shoulders hunched, gaze fixed on one unexceptional patch of dirt. He looked to me like a northern variation on the template of anonymous street ruffian, with nothing distinguishing in his morosely set features. Yet he was dressed almost as finely as Kalyxis herself, in a cloak of rich, dark leather hemmed with black fur and studded with beads of silver. I could only assume that here was the notorious Bastard Prince — and that the epithet had been chosen as much for his temperament as his parentage.

Kalyxis watched me for long moments, with the sort of interest a hunting bird would pay some speck on the horizon that might or might not be prey. When she spoke, her tone was imperious, and almost devoid of any northern accent. “Who are you and what are you doing in Shoan?”

“My name’s Easie Damasco, the giant there is Saltlick and… wait… this is Shoan?”

I’d heard the name in reference to Moaradrid — “Moaradrid of Shoan” — and assumed it must be his home town. I’d imagined a few filthy tents and half a dozen horses, in so much as I’d considered it at all. Moaradrid had been impressive enough, it was true, but I’d taken that as a rarity achieved only by dint of much effort and pillaging. Yet what I was seeing here wasn’t so far from my idea of civilisation; rough and ready, no doubt, erring towards the savage in its decor, but for all that not so basically different from the average Castovalian town.

Kalyxis extended an arm in a sweeping gesture, fingers caressing the distant landscape as though it were the hide of some great and half-tamed beast. “All this… all of this is Shoan. The free lands of the north.”

In fairness, I thought, you could hardly expect anyone to pay for them — and the thought made it dangerously close to my tongue. Instead, I said, “You’ll have to excuse my ignorance. I don’t get up this way very often. Or, now that I think about it, ever.”

“Which, I believe,” said Kalyxis, “brings us back to my question. Though with time and much of my patience wasted.”

“Ah.” I struggled to marshal my thoughts into something like working order. “Well, you got our message, of course? I mean Castilio Mounteban’s message.”

Kalyxis’s eyes narrowed. “That? An obvious trick… though the messenger would not be persuaded to admit as much.” Her gaze unfocused for the smallest moment, and I tried not to wonder what qualified for persuasion here in Shoan. “Even if it weren’t,” she continued, “it’s hard to credit that this Mounteban would send two such as you: a skinny wretch and a monster. More likely you’re spies, or else a pair of swindlers. We will need time to deliberate.”

Biting my tongue once more, this time against the urge to point out that at least one of us wasn’t a swindler, I said, “Well, there’s the thing. We could really do with your help sooner rather than later. At this very moment, King Panchessa is marching his armies on the Castoval. As it happens, though, that’s actually our least urgent worry right now. The reason we’re a few envoys short of a delegation is that we were shipwrecked further down the coast… and the rest of our party are in trouble with some very dangerous people… so, what I was hoping, is-”

“Chain them up,” said Kalyxis, to no one in particular. “We will consider.”

I wondered if I dared argue — and, given what was at stake, if I dared not to. Yet just as I’d decided that, for once, nothing I said could make matters significantly worse, I realised Kalyxis’s gaze had left me and fixed on Saltlick.

“First,” she said, “tell me, what is that?”

I assumed at first that she meant Saltlick, and it took me a moment to realise she was pointing not at him but at the crown around his neck. I’d grown so used to seeing it there, to its fresh function as the giant badge of leadership, that I hardly noticed it anymore. Now, however, with Kalyxis’s finger beginning a line that ended in that circle of glittering metal, I found my blood had suddenly turned cold.

“That…?”

I could lie. I was good at lying.

Only, nothing would come. A dozen untruths flitted through my mind, each more absurd than the last. But there was no getting past the fact that she was pointing at a crown, and there were only two crowns of note that I knew of. Since this wasn’t Panchessa’s, it stood to obvious reason that it was the crown of the princedom of Altapasaeda.

Perhaps it was fortunate that Kalyxis’s patience ran out then — though it hardly felt it. “The crown of Altapasaeda,” she said. “If nothing else, this Castilio Mounteban keeps his promises.”

I froze.

How could Mounteban have promised her the crown? He couldn’t have known where it was, not when he’d written all those days ago. Maybe he’d meant it metaphorically, then, or else intended some scam, for if he believed the true crown lost it would have been easy enough to craft a fake. What better present to offer a woman with delusions of royalty?

Then, of course, Mounteban had seen the opportunity to deliver the real crown into Kalyxis’s hands — and he’d manoeuvred us accordingly. I’d been played; betrayed yet again by Castilio Mounteban. Even two countries away, he was still pulling my strings.

“The thing is…” I started, for no other reason than that my mouth felt like it should be doing something.

Kalyxis, ignoring me, merely pointed.

One of her men moved forward. “On your knees,” he told Saltlick.

Saltlick looked at me questioningly. I gave him the slightest nod; we had nothing to bargain with, nothing to offer or threaten. He crumpled to his haunches and bent forward. The Shoanan didn’t even have the decency to appear nervous as he reached, cut the crown loose with a swift stroke and caught it in his free hand. Without once glancing up, he crossed to Kalyxis and held it to her.

Kalyxis took the crown, turned it thoughtfully in her hands. When she looked up, her eyes on me were merciless as any hawk’s; if there’d ever been any doubt as to whether I was prey, it had vanished.

“Good,” she said, “now chain those two up. We’ve much to think upon this night.”