I hate man-catchers. Actually, I’m fairly sure everyone hates man-catchers: eight-foot-long poles with spiked two-pronged heads that close around your neck; they’re painful, and make it incredibly easy for your opponent to keep control of you. Slavers are very fond of man-catchers, though they’re much less common in Tristia; say what you want about my country – for it is corrupt, venal and generally despicable – but at least we don’t have slavery. I stared into the endless barren terrain ahead of us. If what the boy said was true, then the Magdan had fully prepared for our possible escape. Which means he really is better at this than I am.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Brasti said. ‘Why in the name of Saint Dreck-who-pissed-in-the-snow should we believe some bloody Avarean?’
Kest took another step closer, peering at the young man. ‘Falcio, I know who he is. This is—’
‘Gwyn, isn’t it?’ I asked, recognising him myself now. ‘You were lying feverish in a cot, covered in sweat-soaked blankets and near death back in Den Chapier. You appear to have recovered rather swiftly.’
He shrugged as though it were nothing of note, although now that I was really looking at the young man, I could see how pale his skin was, and how gaunt his features. ‘Fever broke five days ago.’
‘How did you get here so quickly?’ Kest asked, echoing my own concern. ‘Five days isn’t long enough to make the trip on foot and the mountain passes are too rough for horses.’
‘Not for a braijaeger.’ Gwyn gave a short, sharp whistle and a moment later a copper-coloured blur burst out from the forest. Before I could get out of the way, the blur had leaped towards me then abruptly stopped, nose-to-nose with me.
It licked my face.
‘Arsehole?’
Gwyn frowned, apparently thinking I was referring to him. ‘I did not mean to steal him, but I needed to get here quickly, before—’
‘He’s not calling you arsehole,’ Brasti explained. ‘It’s the horse’s name.’
The young Rangieri stared at me, wide-eyed and a little offended. ‘You named a braijaeger “Arsehole”?’
‘We call them Tivanieze,’ I replied, a little defensively. ‘But yes.’ I patted Arsehole’s neck and told him, ‘And you and I are going to have a conversation about how you never listen to me but seem perfectly content to follow the commands of a possible Avarean assassin.’
The horse nuzzled me in reply.
‘If we could get off the subject of horses,’ Brasti said, still eyeing Gwyn warily, ‘are we really supposed to believe you jumped off of your deathbed to come all the way here to warn us about Morn’s trap just to piss him off? Weren’t you content with killing his old Rangieri mentor?’
A leather sling suddenly appeared in Gwyn’s other hand and I found myself reflexively raising my arms to protect my face. Slings are funny things: you wouldn’t think a child’s toy would be especially dangerous in actual combat, but you’ll change your mind the first time you see a one-inch rock bury itself in a man’s skull.
‘Yimris was my teacher, my . . .’ Gwyn struggled to find the right word. ‘My zedagnir.’
‘“Dagnir” is the Avarean word for father,’ Kest explained, ‘so I would guess that “zedagnir” must mean foster-father.’
‘The one you call Morn,’ the boy growled, ‘the traitor – he betrayed Yimris, stabbed him, left him for dead.’
Trin came up close to me, which always feels like someone dropping a dozen spiders down the back of your neck. ‘This boy speaks rather good Tristian for a mountain man, Falcio. This could easily be a trick.’
‘Yimris teached me . . .’ Gwyn paused then corrected himself. ‘Yimris taught me.’
All right, so, either this young Avarean was sincere and we had to change course, or this was all some elaborate deception that would result with me right back in that damned cell in the -Magdan’s compound, only this time with even more bruises. I watched Gwyn carefully, searching for some sign of deceit or ill-will. He cut an odd figure, standing there before me in the snow: a slight young man, not as tall as most of the Avareans I’d met, and much leaner of build. I doubted he was more than eighteen years old, though he carried himself with a kind of ease and confidence you rarely find in anyone other than Kest. The coat he wore . . . it was very much like the one depicted in the only book I’d ever read that mentioned the Rangieri. Moreover, it was clearly fitted to him, so either he was a proper Rangieri – the first I’d ever met – or he’d cleverly found one who had the exact same build and killed him for it.
Hells. For all my staring, the only thing I could say for sure about Gwyn was that he genuinely despised Morn – which was as good a reason as any for trusting someone. ‘All right,’ I said finally. ‘We can’t go forward along this track and we can’t turn back. Any suggestions?’
Brasti shaded his eyes and peered ahead of us. ‘I think that set of hills off in the distance might be the start of the Degueren Steppes.’
‘Yes. Here they are called the Svaerdan,’ Gwyn said, ‘but it is the same thing. You must make for them quickly and quietly, then head east back through the passes to your own country.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘then let’s get—’
‘It won’t work,’ Kest said. I turned to see what he meant and found him staring back the way we’d come. He was making that face of his – the one that means he’s working out things in his head that would take me a week to figure out. ‘We’re never going make it.’
I followed his gaze, half-expecting to see Morn with a hundred soldiers at his back coming over the ridge. ‘They can’t be that close already, can they?’
Brasti dismounted. Motioning for us to be silent, he ran a few feet back and listened. ‘Nothing yet,’ he announced after a minute. ‘This area is pretty barren. If they were within half a mile of us I’d hear it.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kest said, and gestured to one of the horses. ‘We’ve been pushing our mounts faster than they’re bred to travel. They’re already tired. If Morn is smart – and it’s fair to say that he’s proven that he is – he’ll have doubled up on horses: they’ll be able to move twice as fast as us, and we’re only going to get slower.’
‘How long till we reach the Degueren Steppes?’ I asked Gwyn.
He didn’t answer at first, but instead walked up and examined my horse, placing his hand on the beast’s side. ‘Their coats are wet from riding too fast. You must walk them a while, then ride, then walk again. Three hours, I think.’
‘Too long,’ Kest said, locking eyes with me. ‘I’m telling you, Falcio, I’ve worked this through: there are simply too many of them coming for us.’
‘Then we split up, take different routes and—’
‘There are no other paths,’ Gwyn interrupted. ‘Not until you reach the Svaerdan.’
I was really starting to dislike this damnable country. I reached for the sword strapped to my saddlebag. ‘Well, if we can’t run, then I guess we’ll have to fight.’
Kest grabbed my wrist. ‘I’m telling you, this won’t work. They won’t be coming after us with just a few soldiers, Falcio: they want Trin far too badly. We’re on cold, rocky terrain here, which gives the Avareans the advantage. None of our usual tactics are going to do us any good. This is going to come down to a pure numbers game, and we’re going to fail.’
‘I will stay behind,’ Gwyn said, coming closer, his voice full of righteous anger. ‘I will kill the Magdan for what he did to my teacher. That will give you the time you need to—’