David Tallerman - Prince Thief

“Saltlick, I haven’t forgotten what you told me,” I said. “But I needed you to know Altapasaeda was safe. And there was something else I wanted to say too… I wanted to tell you that you were right. Your people will never have peace so long as they’re around my people. We don’t seem to be good for much except fighting, do we? Just because we avoided it this time, doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, sooner or later.”

I tried to gather my thoughts. It had all seemed so obvious on the way there, so simple.

“The thing is, though, I’m not sure you can just go back to hiding from the world. You’re not a myth anymore, not legendary beings that someone’s great-grandfather saw once after too much wine. Everyone knows you’re out here. Everyone knows you’re real.”

Here was the most crucial part. Yet now that Saltlick’s features had settled into their usual, impenetrable pattern, I wasn’t even certain he was following what I said.

“So going home, keeping away from people, getting back to how things were before Moaradrid came along… those are all fine ideas. But here’s the thing: sooner or later there’ll be another Moaradrid.”

Saltlick nodded pensively. So he was following; and only then did it occur to me that I was telling him nothing he didn’t already know. Of course he had tormented himself with the possibility of another warlord arriving at the giant gates; of course he understood that the sight of colossi tearing apart walls and wielding prodigious weapons was a memory that wouldn’t soon fade. He was a good chief, and a good chief was bound to recognise such threats.

So did that mean I was about to waste my breath on a proposal he’d already discounted? For a moment, all of the pain and fear of the last days threatened to swamp my thoughts like floodwater; better to say a quick goodbye and leave, I knew, than to pour my heart out and still find myself friendless and alone.

Only, I wasn’t there for myself — or not just. I wasn’t there because I needed Saltlick, but because I’d finally come to realise he might just need me.

For what use was a good chief without good friends to advise him?

“Saltlick,” I said, “what I’m trying to say is, if you cut off anyone who wants to help you, who’ll be there to stop the ones who’d hurt you? You can turn your back on our world, but you can’t make it turn its back on you. So what you giants need… I mean, what I think you need… is an ambassador.”

“Ambassador?” asked Saltlick, chewing over the strange word as if it were a particularly stodgy morsel.

“It means, someone who understands the world outside of their own. Someone who knows people… people in the right sorts of places. Someone who could visit every once in a while, to Altapasaeda, maybe even as far as Muena Palaiya, every year, every six months even, and catch up with the news, perhaps share a meal with somebody who’d… well, you know…” I gulped. “What I mean is, a friend who would miss him if they were never to see him again.”

Saltlick took a long moment to mull that over, his features working unconsciously with the effort. Then his cavernous mouth broke into the widest smile I’d yet seen there, a grin so cheerful and unrestrained that I could hardly believe it hadn’t cleaved his head in two.

“Ambassador,” he bellowed, loud enough that I thought my eardrums would explode.

Sat upon the roadside, I watched the end of the giant column disappear over the next hill. Idly, I imagined them arriving at their high, hidden mountain enclave with Saltlick at their head: a leader bringing his people home, just as he’d sworn he would.

We hadn’t set a time for his visit, merely said a hurried farewell. Even I could see that Saltlick would have his hands full for a while. Still, I was confident that he would keep his word. I’d go to Muena Palaiya, see what I could make of this new life that had somehow fallen into my lap — and one day there would come a knock like thunder at the town gates and I’d know my friend had returned. It was a good enough thought that I could live with a little uncertainty.

Soon I’d have to go back to Altapasaeda. Soon, but not just yet. The sun was still shining. The breeze was still cooling. The grass was soft beneath my rump. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt no need to think; not about Moaradrid or the giant stone, not about Panchessa or Mounteban or my many, many brushes with death.

The past was the past, and somehow I’d survived it. The future was the future, and it would surely take care of itself.

I looked over to my horse, where she was cropping a late dinner from the verge nearby, paying me no attention whatsoever.

“You know,” I told her, “all things considered, this could probably have worked out a lot worse.”