David Tallerman - Giant thief

Saltlick and I fell in on one flank, just in time.

"Friends," Estrada said, "I'm not here to comfort you."

That didn't strike me as a very promising beginning.

"I'm not here to tell you we're winning. I'm not here to tell you we're safe. We were defeated two days ago, in what may prove to be the decisive battle for the freedom of the Castoval. Moaradrid will soon find his way here, to our place of retreat. Therefore, we must abandon this as well.

"I don't want to offer you hope. It's dangerous to hope when we may all be dead soon, and our loved ones enslaved by a monster who despises everything we value. Because understand, if we can't find a way to drive out Moaradrid that's what will happen. He and his barbarians won't go away. They won't leave us alone. There'll be no good end to this — unless we make it for ourselves."

This was met with a vague murmur of agreement. As popular as the sentiment undoubtedly was, it was hard to take seriously when you looked around at the "we" in question.

At least Estrada had anticipated this. "We're too few now. We'd be outclassed and outnumbered, even against a fragment of Moaradrid's strength. So we run, without shame. We separate. We hide, if need be. If a final battle must come — as it must — we will choose the time. We'll choose the soil it's fought on. Because it's our soil, in our land.

"Until then, you have two missions. You must stay alive, and you must find others who'll fight for their home. We will go to every town and every village in the Castoval. We'll ask everyone we meet if they want to stay free, and what they'll risk for it. And they will join us. Because Castovalians have never worn a yoke, never called any man master, and they won't begin to now!"

A weary cheer arose this time.

I wanted to join in, but the noise stuck in my throat. I'd never been one for crowds, or noble causes for that matter. This one seemed more doomed than most. Could an army of well-intentioned peasants succeed where the combined garrisons of every town in the Castoval had failed? It seemed less than likely.

Estrada and Mounteban had been right about one thing. I'd only seen the war from my own small point of view. I certainly hadn't given much thought to what would happen if Moaradrid triumphed. The reality was like ice water splashed in my face. One phrase from Estrada's speech had lodged like a splinter in my mind: there will be no good end. That seemed undeniably true, for me at least.

I stood deep in thought as the assembly dissolved around me. I was vaguely conscious that Mounteban and Estrada were separating their shabby force into small bands, appointing leaders, setting destinations and meeting places. How many would simply go home? Was oppression by a foreign warlord truly worse than leaving your family to go hungry while you threw your life away in a hopeless battle?

I lost track of time. At one point, an old man dressed in a grubby, bloodstained poncho offered to clean and sew my wounds. I looked at him, confused, and then pointed to Saltlick. "It's him you want."

"You've been bleeding," he pointed out.

"He's been bleeding more."

The surgeon did as instructed, and I sank back into my fugue.

It was Estrada who eventually roused me. I realised that she was standing in front of me, that she was talking, and that she'd been doing both for some time. I tried to focus on what she was saying, and found it beyond me.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I haven't been paying the slightest attention."

She stopped, and looked at me with vague concern. "Are you ill?"

"I don't know. Possibly."

"You aren't badly hurt."

I thought about it. "No, I suppose not." Speaking to someone was helping to dispel the gloom that had fallen over me. Now I just felt phenomenally tired. "What were you saying?"

"I was asking for your help."

"Ah. You said you were going to do that."

Estrada nodded. "And you told me you'd probably say no."

"I did. So are you going to tell me what you have in store for us?"

"Not here. The fewer who know, the better. All I can say is that it will be over in a week, one way or another, and that I don't think any of it will work without you."

"I suppose it will be incredibly dangerous? Life-ordeath scrapes, chases, people firing arrows at me, that sort of thing?"

She sighed. "Like I said, I can't force you. Even if I could, frankly I'm too tired to try."

I gazed at her. Marina Estrada, one-time mayor of a backwater town, now the last surviving general of the Castoval. A worn out woman overdue a wash and some clean clothes, trying desperately to do the right thing while knowing how doomed it almost certainly was. I remembered the night I'd spent in Moaradrid's camp before the battle, the fear I'd seen in every eye, the hopelessness of men about to hurl themselves over the brink into darkness. I thought, finally, about what I'd overheard Moaradrid say only a few hours ago. It hadn't really penetrated at the time — how he planned to march on the capital, to overthrow the royal court.

Would he stop there? Even if he did, what would be left behind?

I forced myself to grin, though I'd never felt less like it in my life. "Why not," I said. "It's not as if I have anything better planned."

My newfound conviction might have lasted all morning if someone had found a way to keep me awake. Sleep deprivation will do strange things to you, and if inexplicable bravery isn't recognised amongst them then it should be.

Estrada wasn't to know my commitment was purely symptomatic, of course. There was a glint in her eye, as though she'd won some personal victory, as she told me, "We can't leave for a while yet. We need to pack what supplies we can and make sure everyone understands their part. Despite what I said, it will take Moaradrid a while to find a way through those caves without the lifting platforms. You two should try to catch some sleep."

That last sentence might as well have been some magical incantation. I just managed to get out, "That's a fine idea," before my chin was lolling on my chest, blackness deep and heavy as an ocean swelling over me.

I woke to a vague memory of oblivion so fathomless it seemed criminal to abandon it. I felt refreshed, even though I could tell from the angle of the shadows that no more than a couple of hours had passed. I'd slept standing up, just as Estrada had left me. Saltlick still slumbered, curled with his back against the cliff wall and snoring cacophonously.

I could see the preparations were drawing to a conclusion. A dozen carts had appeared from somewhere, and were dangerously overloaded with barrels and crates. Perhaps forty of the men, including Mounteban and his ruffians, were on horseback, with the others gathered on foot, smoking pipes or talking in low voices. A smaller minority, Estrada amongst them, were coordinating with loud cries and — when a box tipped or a cord snapped — even louder reprobation.

What had I got myself into? There was something utterly desperate about the scene. Even if they made it off the mountainside, that caravan of the weak and wounded stood about as much chance against Moaradrid as a horsefly against a stallion. In a certain light, it might have seemed heroic. Beneath a leaden sky, in the early hours of a rain-spattered morning, it looked pitiful and hopeless.

Any thought of noble self-sacrifice vanished in that instant, like a glass of wine poured into a mill pool. Moaradrid would win. He'd already won. Did I really want to ally myself with this last pathetic cyst of rebellion, which would undoubtedly be lanced at any minute? The only sensible move was to place as much distance between them and myself as I possibly could. Even Saltlick seemed a lightning rod for trouble. There was no doubt things were about to get bleaker for the Castoval, no doubt that under Moaradrid its days of carefree independence were over. Nevertheless, there would always be a corner where someone like me could pursue his occupations.