The Surgeon’s lips twisted into a cold smile. “You would stand no chance against her.”
The Butcher scowled. “Let us put it to the test, then. A duel. First blood.” He drew six inches of misting steel.
“A contest?” Leshie piped in, big-eyed, enthused by the prospect. “Maybe we could all be involved? Like a tournament, to see who’s the best. We could call it the Song of the Sellswords or something.”
The Baker gave that a bark of laughter. “Would the Whaleheart be allowed to join in?”
“No,” Leshie said, at once. “No, that would just ruin it. And he’d be all doom and gloom about it too. You know how he is. He’s grumpy about everything.”
“It is because his manhood is small,” the Baker said, nodding as though he knew. “The giant is not in proportion. It makes him angry.”
“Why?” Leshie asked. “He doesn’t use it anyway.”
There was more laughter at that, though Saska didn’t care for it. Rolly was her protector and her guardian and she would not have him mocked like this. “No contest. No tournament. No fighting,” she said. The Surgeon had spoken of the fragile ego of the sellsword, the thin skin that caused him to need to prove himself at every turn, and he’d been right, by the Butcher’s reaction. Saska was not going to indulge it. “This council is adjourned.”
The captains bowed and shrugged and moved off, the Butcher still grumbling complaints to his brother as they returned to Merinius and their own men. The Surgeon walked back to the Tigress, who had been watching them all along in that way men found disquieting. She might even have been listening, so far as Saska knew. I may have to warn the Butcher and the Baker to be careful. It would not serve to find the Tigress supping on the brothers’ blood one night.
Gutter and Gore were there as well, sitting on the same log as their captain had been on, crouching forward and looking at the ground, pointing and muttering at one another, occasionally smiling or laughing. “They’re racing bugs,” Leshie told her. “They’re as brainless as they are beautiful, those two.”
Saska looked around. “I don’t see Scalpel and Savage.”
“Gone off to root,” Leshie said. “They’re always at it.”
“Go find them, bring them back. We need to get going. Kaa Sokari too.”
“Why me? Kaa will only shout at me for interrupting Squire’s training.”
“I’m sure you can handle it.”
Saska stepped away before Leshie could complain, moving back toward the edge of the grove where it met the Capital Road. The horses and camels were here, and the few sunwolves and starcats of the company too, lounging around in the shade, panting and grooming. She saw Joy among them, off to one side, and went over to scratch under her chin. No blood, she saw. Joy often went off hunting during these breaks, prowling away into the plains in search of food, occasionally returning with a carcass in her jaws and a muzzle all soaked in blood. Not this morning, though. She tended to have better luck at night, when her black coat made stalking easier.
“Ready to go?” she said to the starcat.
Joy’s answer was to stand to her feet, reaching her fore paws forward in a great long stretch, back bending like a bow.
Saska smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
The calls were soon ringing out for the men to muster, their waterskins filled, provisions replenished by whatever the innkeep could spare. Savage came skulking through from behind some rocks, a murderous look in her eye, her husband Scalpel fixing his swordbelt as he walked behind her, looking amused. Del and Kaa Sokari returned as well, though from another direction, Leshie shaking her head as she followed.
She walked up to Saska. “He shouted at me, like I said he would. Gave me a proper earful. And that sellsword too, that Savage bitch. She said she’d take my eyes out if she ever caught me watching her and her husband go at it again. Called me a ‘red-headed pervert’ and worse. Can you believe it?”
Yes, Saska thought. Leshie might look innocent as a maid, but her mind was full of filth. “You shouldn’t be watching them, Leshie. I only asked you to fetch them back. Not stand and ogle. Who does that?”
“I…I didn’t watch!” Leshie exclaimed. “Gods, them? If I was going to watch a pair do that, it wouldn’t be them, Saska.” She looked visibly repulsed. “You must be joking.”
Saska was joking, of course. Though it was fun watching the girl squirm, so she decided not to say it.
The procession was soon on the road again, hooves clopping and claws scratching along the dusty cobbles beneath the blaze of the midday sun. They had ridden many miles that day already, rising as they liked to do before dawn, to steal a march on the day in the cooler conditions. Some of the men urged that they remain in the shade through the heat of the day, but that was not time Saska wanted to waste. Instead they would take it slow, taking breaks in the shade where they could, stopping at every available water source to cool their necks and faces and have a drink.
Sir Ralston came to ride beside her on his enormous warhorse, christened Bedrock by Leshie, for bearing the Wall atop it. One of the Red Blade’s more witty nicknames. “So, what have you decided?” the giant asked her.
“I haven’t. Not yet.”
“Shall I make the decision for you?”
If only, Saska thought. But she had wanted to have agency, wanted to be a leader, so no, she had to make these decisions herself. “No,” she said. “How long until we reach the turn-off to the Matian Way?”
“Ten miles.”
“Then I have ten miles to think.”
They kept an eye down the cliffs as they went, Leshie regularly riding off on her rouncey to see if there were any signs of Sir Clive Fanning and his men. Her reports were all the same. Nothing. No bodies, no torn bits of clothing or discarded armour, no steel in the sand or bloodstains on the rocks. When the cliffs shallowed, Saska even let Leshie climb down the trail the innkeep had mentioned, to have a better look. Merinius went with her, and the Butcher as well, but they only came back saying the same thing. No signs of a camp. No old fires. Nothing to suggest anyone had passed that way.
It’s all for the best, Saska reflected. With all this talk about containing her secret, gathering waifs and strays along the way would be best avoided. It was one less thing to worry about.
And maybe that was the point. I need less to think about, and worry about, not more. The shortcut across the Matian Way would save them days, as much as a week, and perhaps the lives of some of her men as well. I cannot save everyone, she told herself. Every day hundreds, even thousands were dying, here in the south and across the north as well, and ridding one town of one crazed, monster-communing madman would not help her in her quest. If she did that, she’d only find herself having to stop at every beleaguered settlement, every town and village and city under siege, serving justice along the way. For every battle she embroiled herself in, she would lose another of her men, and by the time she reached the north, she might have no one left.
No, that would not serve. I must keep my focus, keep things simple, as Rolly says. She hated it, but it was the sensible choice. “Your brother must become single-minded,” Kaa Sokari had said of Del. I would be wise to do the same, she thought.
So when the Whaleheart next rode up to her and asked which way they would go, she gave him a definite answer, the answer the giant sought.
“We’ll take the Matian Way.”
17
“Gruloks,” he said.
