Two of the pursuing soldiers had pulled up before the bridge, perhaps reluctant to cross the border, but the others were close behind him. If they were as good at throwing their swords as the boy at Fielding, Ambrose was a dead man. But no blade hit him, and he rode hard, shouting, “Help! Help!”
The Pitorian soldier was riding fast toward him now, close enough for Ambrose to see his purple hair, and as Ambrose’s horse finally staggered to a halt, the soldier asked, “Trouble, sir?”
“Just a little,” gasped Ambrose. “I bring news for King Arell, but my friends here don’t seem to want me to deliver it.”
Ambrose could hear the Brigantines riding up, and he turned his horse as one of the soldiers, a captain, shouted, “Sir Ambrose Norwend, you are to return with us. You’re wanted in Brigane.”
“I’m not returning with you anywhere.”
The captain rode forward, saying, “You’re a traitor. You’re coming with us.”
The purple-haired man rode slowly forward too. “If this man is a traitor, he’s a traitor to Brigant.” He stopped his horse and flicked his hand at the soldiers as if shooing off a child. “You’re on Pitorian soil. You have no authority here. If this man doesn’t wish to go with you, you can’t make him.” Then his face hardened. “So I suggest you piss off back to your side of the border.”
The two Brigantines stared at him, clearly itching to fight and weighing the odds: two against two, and Ambrose exhausted. But, just as their hands were creeping toward their swords, a shout came from the Pitorian fort and more soldiers began walking toward them.
The captain spat on the ground and said, “Fuck you. Fuck Pitoria.”
But he turned and rode slowly back over the bridge.
EDYON
DORNAN, PITORIA
EDYON WAS riding fast, but his mind was whirling faster. He had killed a sheriff’s man. Blood had spurted from the man’s neck, just as it had when he had killed the chicken for Madame Eruth, but to see spurt from another human being, to hear it splatter on the ground, to feel it splash on his face . . . Edyon was riding close behind Holywell with March to his side. He could hear the horses’ hooves and smell their sweat, and yet all he could see was the sheriff’s man lying on the ground. Dead.
I see death all around you now . . .
Edyon’s stomach heaved. He slowed his horse to a stop just as his stew-and-wine supper erupted from his mouth, down his leg, and onto the ground. He stared at it, waiting for more to come, and it did with another heave of his stomach. He spat. The taste of vomit filled his mouth, throat, and nose. The ground was shiny with his sick as it had been shiny with the sheriff’s man’s blood. Edyon shuddered, spat again, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
March and Holywell had pulled up and were watching him. Their faces said more than words could, and they certainly didn’t communicate sympathy. Holywell looked amused. March looked disgusted, but then his face changed, and Edyon thought perhaps he had been mistaken. March’s shoulder was covered in blood.
Edyon’s stomach twisted again and he leaned over and waited, but nothing more came up. The worst had passed, and he took a breath and sat up. Holywell and March were no longer looking at him. Holywell was inspecting March’s wound instead and talking to him in a language Edyon didn’t understand.
How had this happened? How was he fleeing into the night with these two men he didn’t even know? How was it that he was involved in a murder? All Edyon had been doing was trying to help March. When the sheriff’s man had attacked March with his spear, Edyon had lunged forward to stop him, but he was huge, bigger than Stone’s guards, and Edyon had expected to be flicked away like a fly . . . Instead, he had spun the sheriff’s man round easily and pushed him back into Holywell, who had raised his knife at the same time, catching the man in the neck.
Holywell had been quick. Had he meant to kill the man? It didn’t matter. Holywell might have been holding the blade, but Edyon had pushed the sheriff’s man onto it with his strange newfound strength. And he, Edyon, had been the one the sheriff’s man was trying to arrest. A man was dead and it was his fault.
I see death all around you now . . . And if he had been at a crossroads as Madame Eruth had foretold, there was no going back. He had thought his future lay in moving toward far lands and riches, but pain, suffering, and death seemed to be the truth of it after all.
Holywell produced some bandages from his pack and began binding March’s shoulder. March stared straight ahead, face pale, his jaw clenched.
“That’ll have to do for now,” Holywell said to March. He turned to Edyon, saying, “When you’re ready, Your Highness, we need to keep going.”
Edyon nodded, then muttered, “Yes. Of course. Is March . . . Will he be . . .”
“March is fine, Your Highness. A flesh wound. It looks worse than it is. Are you ready to go on?”
“Yes, but where are we going?”
“North. As far as we can, as fast as we can.”
“North? But Calidor is west of here.”
“It is, Your Highness, but first we need to get away from Dornan and any of the sheriff’s men who may be after us, and then we’ll find the best route to Calidor.”
“But can’t we do that by going west?”
“That would mean doubling back. Too late for that now.”
“They won’t be searching for us yet, surely?”
Holywell replied, “Perhaps not, but we can’t risk it. They may have caught the girl and wrung the truth from her already.”
Edyon hoped the girl had fled safely. She had had no part in the killing.
“Besides”—Holywell indicated a bandage round his own neck—“March and I are both already wounded. I don’t know how well we could protect Your Highness if we are caught. The more ground we cover now, the better.”
“He’s right,” March said. “We should go. Holywell will get us all to safety, Your Highness, but we need to keep moving.”
Edyon nodded. If March could ride with a wounded shoulder, then he wouldn’t be the one to slow them down. March, who had come to help him and been hurt and was now implicated in a murder too. It was all Edyon’s fault.
They set off again, and as Edyon rode he went over the way he’d grabbed the sheriff’s man and shoved him onto Holywell’s knife. The huge man had felt as easy to control as a child. It must have been panic, the fear and shock of seeing him stab March. But Edyon would give anything now to undo it. If only he hadn’t got involved. But then he’d have been arrested. If only he hadn’t been there with the girl. But she was chasing her smoke. If only he hadn’t stolen the smoke in the first place. If only, if only, if only . . . What a fool he was.
The sky was a pale gray-blue with dawn when Holywell finally stopped. They were in woodland, and all was quiet and still. Edyon didn’t feel tired though; he was strangely alert and strong. His body seemed to want to do more.
Holywell said, “We rest here for the morning. I’ll move the horses near the stream and have a check around. March, you stay here and guard His Highness.” Holywell took a small bundle from his pack and threw it down at March’s feet. “There’s bandages there and some bread and cheese. Leave some for me—food and bandages. And cover up that bottle. It’s like a beacon.”
Holywell led the horses away.
“How was Holywell hurt?” Edyon looked at March.
“We had a coming-together with Regan.”
“A coming-together?”
“Regan attacked us. He’s dead too.”
“Oh shits.”
Indeed, Madame Eruth’s foretelling was true. Death was all around him all right. And here was March, the handsome foreign man she’d promised. But what else had she said about him? Beware: he lies too . . .
“You said you had proof,” he blurted. “About being sent from the prince.”
March nodded and reached into his jacket, saying, “This is for you, from your father.”
It was a ring, glowing gold in the low morning light, an emerald sparkling from the head of an eagle. The craftsmanship was exceptional.