K Parker - Shadow

'Ah.' Eyvind nodded. 'Aren't you the lucky one, then? What did you do to get them so annoyed at you?'

'I wish I knew,' Poldarn replied. 'They knew who I am, that's for sure, but I don't believe what they told me.'

'Really? What was that?'

Poldarn smiled. 'Oh, they said I was one of them, and I murdered a brother. And then they said I was the empire's most famous general. And then they said I had to go and murder the empire's most famous general, or they'd cut my throat.'

Eyvind gave him a startled look. 'Fine,' he said. 'They enjoy playing games, obviously. You know, I have a feeling you'll be better off with us.'

'Me too. But what makes you think I'm entitled?'

'You don't know, do you?' Eyvind grinned. He had straight, white teeth, unlike most people in Sansory. Of course, Poldarn had good teeth too. 'You talk our language; not only that, you talk with a strong South Island accent. Even if you were one of them who'd learned Western (and we've never heard of any of 'em who's lived long enough to do that), you couldn't do the woollyback voice, not unless you were born and bred within fifteen miles of Eddinsbrook.' He thumped Poldarn between the shoulder blades with the flat of his hand; deceptively strong. 'I don't know who you are now, friend, but I can tell you who you were once. And this lot know it as well as I do, or you'd be dead on your face right now.'

Poldarn let what he'd been told sink in for a moment. 'But they don't look anything like me,' he said.

'So what? We're all North Islanders. On South Island, they're all as ugly as you are; and on Unnskerry too, but they don't talk like that. More nasal, if you know what I mean, like they've always got a half a carrot shoved up their noses.'

Poldarn considered that. 'All right,' he said. 'But if I'm one of you, what the hell was I doing wandering around on a battlefield surrounded by dead people?'

'I've been thinking about that,' Eyvind replied. 'And there's at least one perfectly simple explanation. For years, you see, we've been planting a few of our people here, to spy out the land, let us know what to expect and where the good prospects are, keep us in touch with the traitors on their side who think they're on our side, if you can follow all that. My guess is that you're one of them. It all fits quite neatly,' he went on, pulling an earring out of a dead monk's ear like a man picking blackberries. 'If you think about it, one of us who's spent a year or so pretending to be one of them-well, he couldn't help getting just a bit confused, having to be two completely different people at the same time. Then, suppose he gets a bash on the head and can't remember for sure whether he's who he really is or who he's been pretending to be-well, you get the idea, I'm sure. And that's who I think you are.'

Abruptly they left the road and plunged into the wood. Poldarn found it very hard to keep up-where Eyvind and his people always seemed to find deer tracks and gaps in the brambles, he kept blundering into thorny tangles, tripping and staggering and ripping his hands and face against trailing fingers of briar. He had a feeling that he wasn't at home in woods.

'Of course,' Eyvind told him, when he said as much. 'No woods worth talking about on South Island.' He shook his head. 'I keep forgetting, you don't remember it at all.'

Poldarn decided to change the subject. 'So how did you find these people?' he asked. 'Last time I saw you, you were on your own on the other side of the Bohec.'

Eyvind nodded. 'That's right,' he said. 'But thankfully I got it in my head that I should keep going north; crossed the river and started walking in as straight a line as I could manage. Then one day I came over the top of a hill and there they were. It was enough to make a man religious, I'm telling you.' He shook his head again; it was a common enough gesture among these people. Poldarn had caught himself doing something similar once or twice. 'This lot's just one scouting party,' he went on. 'Apparently the army that's over here at the moment's the biggest expedition ever to leave the islands. Ever hear of a man called Feron Amathy?'

Poldarn nodded. 'All the time,' he said.

'And nothing good, I'll bet. Well, he's the brains behind all this, apparently. He's got some scheme or other for taking over the empire; we don't give a damn about that, goes without saying, but his plans fit in perfectly with ours, and he's given us all kinds of useful information, things our own spies would never have found out-sally-ports, blind spots, soft spots where you can dig under walls, you name it. He says he learned it all back when he was hired by most of these cities as a mercenary soldier, at one time or another. You can believe that or not, whichever way suits you best. Personally, I figure anybody who'd sell out his own people like that doesn't deserve to live.'

Poldarn didn't express an opinion. 'And where are you off to now?' he asked. 'Joining up with the rest of the army and going home?'

'Don't you believe it. We've hardly started yet. Talking of which, as far as I'm concerned you can hang on with us and we'll give you a ride home-back to the islands, I mean. Best offer you'll ever get.'

Poldarn thought for a moment before replying. 'I'd like that,' he said.

For men who didn't appear to be in a hurry, the raiders moved deceptively quickly. Poldarn soon came to understand how they achieved their effects of suddenly vanishing from one battlefield and miraculously appearing at the next. Magic had nothing to do with it; instead they used the terrain, following river valleys, crests and ridges to stay out of sight, and marching at top speed whenever they had no alternative but to cross open ground. They never seemed to get tired, either.

'After all that,' said one of them, coming back from a cautious glimpse over the top of a ridge, 'we're early.'

'Typical,' said another. 'They must've stopped for a rest, or picked a fight somewhere. That's the trouble with the Green River boys, they won't take these things seriously.'

Poldarn didn't need to look over the ridge to know where he was. On the other side of the hill was Deymeson, and the raiders were here to attack it. He hadn't needed to be told that, either.

'You're not going to be much use with nothing but sweat in the palm of your hand,' one of them said to him. 'Here, try this for size.' He reached over his shoulder and wriggled out of a strap, from which hung a cloth bundle about as long as Poldarn's arm. Under the cloth was a backsabre.

'Belonged to my cousin Bearci,' the man went on, 'but he didn't make it this far. I'll have it back when you've finished with it.'

It would have been rude to refuse outright, and he couldn't explain-I'd rather not, thanks; you see, as soon as I can get away from you people, I'm going to run to Deymeson as fast as I can go and warn them you 're coming. 'Thank you very much,' he said. 'I'll try and take good care of it.'

'Oh, it's nothing special, not old or anything. Fits you nicely, though.' He was looking at Poldarn's hands. 'Lucky to find one your weight.'

Poldarn realised that, without thinking, he'd been doing back flips, letting the sword flop backwards through his fingers and then bringing it back up again with a sharp snap of the wrist. He frowned and tried the other way, the widdershins flip (harder to control and flashier). He was very good at it, a fact that wasn't lost on the man who'd just lent him the sword.

'That's hours of practice, that is,' the man said. 'I couldn't do that, even when I was a kid.'

'Thank you,' Poldarn replied. 'Obviously there was a stage in my life when I had way too much time on my hands.'

The man wasn't quite sure what to make of that. 'My name's Sitrych,' he said. 'From Anniswood, in Blackdale. Do you know those parts at all?'