Just tell them. Tell them that black market gold is more valuable than the lives of a few strangers.

“Please, Sláine,” Sir Bearach said. “Feel free to make as many accusations as you want once you take the time to read a book or two.” He turned to the others and raised his hands in submission.

“Beadhbhs are birds,” he began. “They do not fly. They hunt Humans and other large mammals, true, but they are still birds. Like other birds, they lack the sense of smell mammalian hunters are famous for, relying on other senses to track their prey. As sure as the poison that fills this valley, I am not the one who brought these beasts upon us.” He turned his attention to Sláine. “It’s simply a matter of magnitude, my lady. With so many packs of beadhbhs pouring through these lands, it’s a wonder we haven’t been spotted sooner.”

The healer rolled her eyes but didn’t press the matter further. Sir Bearach retrieved his loot and strutted past her, whistling softly into the night. Sláine sighed and beckoned the others to follow the merry knight deeper into the hills.

***

The route through the rocks proved difficult to navigate, especially in the darkness. For the most part they walked, but often they had to stop and climb over piles of rockfall and steep slopes. As they left the valley behind, Farris glanced back every now and then, checking if the beadhbhs were following.

“They’ll find their way up eventually,” said Sir Bearach, sensing Farris’s anxiety. He pointed towards the forest below. The cliff was less steep there, with a slope low and gentle enough to walk through. The knight shook his head. “If one of them picks their way through here, the rest will surely come. They’ll follow us out of the Glenn into the Clifflands if they have to.”

“So, what do you propose we do?” asked Farris.

“We keep going, of course. No need to worry the others.”

Farris nodded, then noticed something about the man’s armour. The steel appeared to be white, but where the paint had been chipped and scratched, a faded blue tint shone out.

“Your breastplate, it’s Simian-made, no?”

The knight smiled. “Aye, the Church prefers we stay away from the Simian smiths, but I have yet to find castle-forged steel of better quality.” He tapped his shoulder with a heavy fist. “And besides, only the Simians of Penance have truly mastered the art of break mechanics.”

“Break mechanics?” It was a long time since Farris had been inside a Simian smithy.

Sir Bearach raised his arm, revealing a thin, wiry cord dangling under his shoulder. “Geomancers defeated the Simian soldiers by crushing them in their own armour. If I’m assaulted by a mage now, all I need to do is pull here and my whole suit will collapse to the ground.”

“Clever,” said Farris. “It’s a shame we didn’t think of that before Móráin’s Conquest.”

The knight shrugged. “Well, the Simians never had a need for it until we came.”

Each of the rock faces looked the same, and Farris found himself wondering over and over if they were even heading in the right direction. Twice they met with dead ends and were forced to trace back on their steps. They tried to keep the river on one side as Sir Bearach had suggested, but with the winding path bringing them deeper into the mountains, the valley was often completely obscured from view. Not to mention the darkness that seemed to fall heavier as the hours drifted by.

When they reached the third dead end, Fionn groaned with frustration.

“I’m so tired,” he said. “We’ll never find a way out.”

Farris was hoping that Sir Bearach would have something smart to say, but the knight held his own tongue. Nobody spoke, as though they all secretly agreed with the Pyromancer.

The night was filled with a calm stillness, despite how deep into the wilderness they had travelled. The nocturnal clamour of a typical countryside was replaced with a deadly, harrowing silence. Only those that feasted on meat lived in the Glenn, and they made little noise in nightfall.

But there was one sound. A single, smooth trickle of water, echoing all around despite there being no river in sight.

“Do you hear that?” said Farris, raising a hand to alert the others.

“Caves,” whispered Sir Bearach. “The stone in this region is weak, and rivers have burrowed deep beneath the mountains, forging their own routes under the ground. These river-caves run all over the Clifflands”—he threw a smile towards Sláine— “and we seem to be standing over one.”

The two Humans seemed to share a moment of mutual understanding, but Farris was still as lost as they had been all night.

Then Sláine the White spoke. “Everyone stand back. I’m going to try and open up a way down.”

She walked in a circle along the path, her arms held out to either side. She’s a Geomancer too, Farris realised. Sláine continued to walk slowly about the clearing, as if following a track long lost. Eventually she stopped, waving her arms to catch the attention of the group.

“The ground is weak here!” she called. She crouched and pressed her hands against the stone.

The rocks rumbled softly below Farris’s feet. Sláine stood and raised both arms over her head, and the tremor suddenly amplified in magnitude, as if the mountain itself was shaking. She stepped back, and the floor fell away, revealing a huge, gaping hole. The crashing of the rocks resounded all around. A tiny, rising anxiety fluttered in Farris’s stomach.

The healer stood at the other side of the pit, smiling and beckoning the others to follow, but he saw something shift amongst the rocks behind her.

Sir Bearach laughed with delight as he stepped forwards, but the joy drained from his face as his eyes were drawn to the slow, lumbering movement. He let out a roar before Farris saw that those rocks were not rocks, but the limbs of a massive, grey mountain troll.

“Down!” the knight yelled and threw himself into the pit. The others followed, as did Sláine, without turning to see the brute. The troll glared down at Farris with huge, bulging, bloodshot eyes, peering out behind a shapeless, bulbous nose. It stood thirty feet tall, on two thick legs like stone columns.

Panic washed over his body as the troll beat its chest with fists like boulders, knuckles scratched and scarred.

As soon as his wits returned, Farris darted towards the edge of the pit and jumped down after his companions.

He landed with a splash in a shallow stream. Moonlight from above poured down onto the water, glimmering like liquid steel below his feet. The others were already running deeper into the caves, led by a flame in Fionn’s hands.

Farris followed, praying that the beast would not follow them into the pit. However, a sudden loud thud from behind reaffirmed Farris’s old convictions that Gods did not exist. He scampered off into the tunnel, following Fionn’s glimmering magelight in the distance.

This is your territory now, Garth. If only he had paid more attention to his little brother’s sketches. If only he had listened to his lectures about the caverns of the Glenn.

If only I listened when he told me to stay away from the thrice-damned Silverback and his rebellion.

The cave floor shook as the troll followed behind them, its steps slow and lumbering. The others ahead stopped, and when Farris caught up, he knew that they were doomed, caught between death and a dead end.

“We’re trapped!” cried the mechanic. He rubbed the damp walls with his hands, as if feeling for a way out.

Sir Bearach drew his sword. “Then we’ll fight. If I am to die, I’ll be armed and fighting.”

“Wait!” commanded Sláine. She pressed her hand against the wall. “I can forge a way through. Stand back!”

The stone was already crumbling before they stepped away. Farris heard a deep snort, and he glanced back to see the mountain troll plodding towards them, its hungry eyes leering through the dark.

A fresh sea breeze washed over Farris’s back as the wall fell away.

When he turned and saw the rolling green hills of the Clifflands spreading out into the distance, the weight of the last few day’s trials seemed to lift free from his shoulders. He wasn’t going to die in the depths of the Glenn. He wasn’t going to fail in his mission to warn the Simian people of the king’s plans. Farris Silvertongue—known to many as Farris the Turncloak, to others as Farris the Swift, and to some as Chester the Lucky—was going to live.

“Run!” cried Sláine, beckoning the others out into the freedom of the fields.

“Don’t stop!” roared Sir Bearach as he went, the earth shaking with each thundering step of the troll. “It’ll be morning soon! We just need to keep going until the sunrise!”

Of course. The morning mist was forming along the ground. The earth was different now. The rocky terrain of the Glenn had been replaced with the sandy, tilled soil of the Clifflands. Stout, stone walls surrounded the fields. From the even troughs running beneath his feet, Farris realised they were on a farm.

Terror began to rise in his chest. In the distance, he saw the blurred silhouette of wattle-and-daub buildings. A town. We’ve brought a damned mountain troll to a village.

It seemed as if Sir Bearach had noticed too.