Kest concurred. ‘They do appear to be almost as fond of singing as they are of killing.’
‘Oh, hells,’ I swore. ‘I almost forgot. On the off-chance we don’t die up here, Nehra wanted us to try and learn the tunes to their warsongs. I don’t suppose you could . . .’ A glance at Kest’s face told me he already had been memorising the songs. ‘She had Rhyleis ask you, too?’
‘No.’
‘Then why—?’
He shrugged. ‘Force of habit.’
Reyek gave me an extra-hard prod in the back. ‘I speak you language good,’ he reminded me.
‘I don’t suppose they plan to have us duel?’ Kest wondered aloud. His tone was wistful, and not just because it had been days since the last time we’d nearly been killed, but because the warriors of Avares, with their obsessive need to prove their pre-eminence, might just be stupid enough to give us back our weapons, let us kill off a few of their best warriors and then release us after we’d embarrassed their people enough.
We all get a little unrealistically optimistic sometimes.
‘There’s a chance we can fight our way out,’ Kest added.
‘Really? How in the world would that work?’
He looked briefly at the men with the spears. ‘I take one of the spears and kill two men. The others will converge on me, which will give you time to get over there.’ I followed his gaze to where a number of swords were sitting on a small bench. ‘The other men will chase you, but if you can take down the first few quickly enough, then I might be able to evade the ones trying to kill me in time to grab that fire bucket and throw the embers up through that window. I can see cloth there. If it catches fire then—’
‘What are the odds of any of this happening before we’re killed?’
He did that counting in his head thing. When he was done he admitted, ‘Not good.’
Reyek put a big hand on my shoulder and pointed past me at a warrior walking into the training square. He wore brown and black furs and stood well over six and a half feet tall. He was bigger than Reyek, bigger than the spearmen behind us – hells, he was pretty much bigger even than bloody Shuran had been. The double-sided axe he bore would have sheared through a tree trunk with ease.
‘You stand here,’ Reyek said. ‘Watch. Not move. Watch the Magdan kill.’
‘Who’s the Magdan going to fight?’ Brasti asked.
Reyek shook his head. ‘Not say fight. I speak you language. Kill is kill, is not fight.’
So, an execution then, not a duel at all. So much for Avarean honour.
A second man entered the training square from the opposite side, his appearance obscured by one of the braziers billowing flame and smoke onto the field. He was tall, but slim for an Avarean, and shirtless. Four warriors with spears followed behind him, no doubt ready to stop him trying to escape his inevitable death.
‘Why is the Magdan doing this? What crime has this man -committed?’
Reyek looked thoughtful for a moment then said, ‘Kriukath.’ He repeated it several times as if waiting for the word to translate itself.
‘Kriukath,’ Kest repeated. ‘I think it might mean . . . craven? -Cowardice?’
Reyek nodded, but then tilted his head and frowned as if the word wasn’t quite right. His tongue worked its way awkwardly inside his mouth and finally he said, ‘En-sab-ard-ena-shun.’
‘Ensue what?’ Brasti said.
‘I think he means “insubordination”,’ Kest replied.
Reyek grinned. ‘En-sab-ard-ena-shun, yes. I speak you language good.’
I looked up at Reyek. ‘Seriously? You speak all of ten words in our tongue and one of them is insubordination?’
The big man nodded. ‘I speak you language good.’
‘Not that good,’ Brasti said, peering towards the square, ‘because I don’t think insubordination is what he meant.’
The two fighters approached each other and only then could I make out the blond hair and beard on the unarmed shirtless man walking to his death.
It was Morn.
*
The big brute calling himself the Magdan gave a roar and Morn skipped back a step and crouched low to keep out of the way of that heavy doubled-bladed axe. His opponent laughed and gazed out at the crowds of warriors lining the square as if waiting for them to cheer him on. A few did, but the rest stood in solemn silence. Perhaps they were wondering how mighty a Warlord could truly be if he had to find his amusement in the slaughter of an unarmed man. Morn stayed on the balls of his feet, knees bent, ready to move quickly once his enemy started his attack.
The Magdan shouted something at the crowd, the guttural words sounding as much like growls as words to my ignorant ears. ‘Something about keeping their traditions alive,’ Kest said. ‘And I think . . .’
‘Let me guess,’ Brasti said, ‘a lot of stuff about breaking backs and crushing spleens and various stomping-on of limbs?’
‘That’s not . . . actually, some of that’s pretty close.’
‘Focus,’ I told them. ‘We need to find a way to get Morn out of this mess before it’s too late.’
Damn you, Morn. The reason I’d ordered you to fake an injury was so you could help us escape when we inevitably got captured, not the other way around. But after months of searching for my fellow Greatcoats, I was damned if I’d let the first one to turn up at Aramor end up dead in this frozen hellhole.
I followed Kest’s eyes as he scanned the crowd, the square, the buildings in the compound. He kept returning to the dozens of Avarean warriors all around us. ‘There’s nothing we can do for him, Falcio.’
‘You always—’
‘It’s not just a matter of being outnumbered,’ he said, cutting me off. ‘The terrain doesn’t favour us. There’s nowhere to run and nothing to use as a distraction that won’t get us killed quicker than Morn.’
‘You could give a speech,’ Brasti said. ‘Oh, but you don’t speak Avarean.’
‘Really not helpful,’ I said, and turned my thoughts to what we carried in our coats. I had amberlight, which could spark a decent fire, but wouldn’t do much good in this cold. The bracers in my breast pocket were half-full of the lightweight throwing knives I preferred, but I doubted they’d penetrate the fur of our enemies’ cloaks, never mind the thicker leather armour underneath. There were climbing spikes, sharpened caltrops, yellow-fen oil to darken skin for night work, green periden powder to blind an enemy – all good things to get out of a jam, but nothing that was going to get through so many enemies in time to help Morn.
‘You watch,’ Reyek said to me, grabbing my head and turning it back towards the square. The Magdan had finished his little speech about devouring his opponent’s entrails and now the real fight was about to begin.
Brasti scowled at Reyek. ‘So much for Avarean courage.’