“He was a knight. One who spoke out against Lord Kastor, and the alliance he made with the sunlord. Sir Bernie said that he escaped, from the port at Kolash, after we’d won the city. There was a lot of trouble, after what happened with Sir Alistair. Lord Kastor killed him, for mutiny, and after that Sir Alistair’s men tried to leave, but were caught and killed at the docks. But Sir Clive…he got away, I heard. Him and seventy men.”

“Well…they didn’t get far,” Leshie said, deadpan. “We passed Kolash only days ago.”

But he clearly made it through the Solapian Channel, Saska thought. That meant he must have avoided the attention of the krelia, only to then come upon a kraken instead, if what Sir Ralston said was true. That was like avoiding dying in a blazing fire, only to suffocate from ash fumes anyway. Poor men. To get away from that bastard Kastor only to die screaming at sea…

“Do you think anyone survived?” Del asked. “They might have swum to shore and climbed the cliff.”

Sir Ralston nodded at the possibility. “I will ask the innkeeper if he has heard anything.” He turned to leave the cliffside, marching away. There seemed no further reason for them to remain there, staring at the wreck, and the sun was growing fierce, so the three of them returned to the shade of the trees.

As soon as they arrived they were joined by the master archer, Kaa Sokari, who paced right up to Del with a look of hard disapproval cast onto his leathery face. “How does the spider catch the fly?” he asked. “How does the eagle snare the vole?”

Del looked stumped. “I…” He managed nothing more than a croak, then turned to look at Saska.

“No, do not look at her. You must learn to think for yourself. You must learn not to rely on others. Look at me.”

Del looked back into Kaa Sokari’s stern eyes.

“I ask again. How does the spider catch the fly? How does the eagle snare the vole?”

Del swallowed, trying hard not to look away from him. “They…they’re born to…to…” His eyes flickered to the side, then back again.

Kaa Sokari leaned in. “Yes?”

“They’re born to…to do it. To catch their prey. It’s instinct.”

“Yes. Instinct. It is something written into them, to catch these creatures on which they prey. Yet instinct is not everything. They still will fail, and try again, and fail and try and fail and try until this instinct of theirs is honed and mastered to an art. Sometimes the fly will wriggle free of the web. Sometimes the eagle will mistime its plunge and give the vole a chance to escape. But they do not stop, they do not give up. They try again, and again, and again, because they must. If they do not they will die, they will starve, and this is how you must think.” He lifted his chin, peering down with those keen eyes of his eyes. “Where is your bow?”

“I left it…” Del pointed. “It’s with my horse.”

“Your horse should have a name by now,” Sokari said. “You will name him by the end of this day. Yes?”

“Yes...”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes…Master.’

Kaa Sokari gave a nod. “Better. Now go, and fetch your bow. You must take these chances to train, every chance possible, to hone this instinct of yours into something worthwhile, and not be drawn to idle interest.” He peered over to the cliffs, the seas beyond a hard flat blue, calm after the passing of the storm. “What were you doing out there?”

“A ship…there was a shipwreck…out on the rocks…”

“A shipwreck? And this is important to you, looking at a shipwreck? More important than your training?”

The apple in Del’s neck went up and down. “I don’t…no, I just…I wanted to see it. That’s all. I didn’t think…”

“Didn’t think what?”

“That we’d stop…for this long. I thought it would be quicker. I didn’t think there’d be time to…to train.”

“There is always time to train. A minute here, another minute there. They all add up.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you want to become a master archer or not?”

“I…I…”

“I is not an answer. The answer is yes, or it is no, in which case I will wipe my hands of you and be done. But if yes, you must commit. So I ask you again, do you want to become a master archer?”

Del swallowed. “Y-yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Master Sokari.”

“Then what are you still doing here? Fetch your bow. There is no time to waste.”

Del bowed to him in an awkward way and scampered off, bits of armour clanking.

Saska looked at Kaa Sokari. “You could go a little easier on him, Kaa.”

“Easier?” The man seemed affronted by the word. “No, Sereneness. You asked that I make him into a master bowman. This is a hard task that requires a hard road and a hard master. There is no other way.”

I never asked that, Saska thought. She’d expected the old bowmaster to give Del a few pointers, take him aside for the occasional lesson to improve his skills. This was much more than she’d expected. I’ve unleashed a monster, she reflected. As if there weren’t enough of those in this world. “Well…if you insist. Who am I to question your methods?”

“No one, my lady. Harsh as that may sound, in this particular field, you are no one to question me. Now, if you’ll excuse me. We have little time before we leave, and this idle interest in shipwrecks has not helped. Your brother must become single-minded if he is to improve, Sereneness. No more coddling of him. You have a part to play in this too.”

Saska took umbrage with that. “I’m not coddling him. Protecting him, maybe, but not coddling him.”

“Call it what you wish. It will not serve for the boy to go crying to you when I push him too hard. For you to pat his back and say ‘there, there’. This is a hard world, getting harder. There can be no space for softness.” The master archer did not care to continue the debate or hear Saska’s response. He sketched a bow and then turned on his heels, marching away as quickly as he’d arrived.

Leshie gave a laugh as he departed. “He’s a bundle of fun, isn’t he? And I thought Lady Marian was tough on us.”

“Maybe it’s what he needs,” Saska said. She looked over. “I don’t coddle him too much, do I?”

Leshie shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen. You’re just being an older sister to him, Sask. And anyway, I don’t think you’re the type to coddle someone. You can be pretty hard too, you know.”

I’ve lived a hard life, she thought. She decided not to say that, spotting Rolly as he came back over, swatting at the flies and mosquitoes as he went. They were plentiful here, and seemed to enjoy Sir Ralston’s blood more than most. “Because he’s so sweet,” the Butcher had said. That got a good laugh from the sellswords.

“The innkeeper says he saw nothing,” the giant reported. “But the cliffs are shallower further up the coast, and there is a way to climb out there. If Sir Clive or anyone survived, he says they would have gone that way.”

“And what happens if we find them?” Leshie asked. “Are you to chop their heads off like you did with Sir Gavin and those others, Coldheart?”

The Wall did not enjoy the remark. “Those men asked for the blade.”

“Sir Clive Fanning is not our enemy, Leshie,” Saska told her. “You heard what Del said. If we were to find him or any of his men, they can join us. We’ll take them home.”

“Oh really? And you’d be happy to share with them who you are, will you? Soon enough everyone will know, and then what? You’ll have a demon demigod breathing down your neck.”

The Whaleheart nodded. There was no one more staunch in wanting Saska to keep her secret, no one more disgruntled at the fact that the sellswords all seemed to know, and no doubt half of the men under Tantario’s charge as well. Trustworthy though they might be, it only took one embittered man to go blabbing the truth, or be taken and have it tortured out of them. “It would be better if we did not find anyone,” the Wall said. He looked over at the Surgeon, sitting on a log sharpening one of his scalpels, the Tigress standing at his shoulder, eyes slitted, ever watchful. “There has been enough killing over your identity already.”

Saska didn’t disagree with a word of that. But all the same… “That was different,” she felt compelled to say. “The Surgeon only killed those who would have used the secret for profit. And sometimes he didn’t kill them at all. He only took out their tongues or threatened their families.”