K Parker - Shadow

'Cric' Poldarn dipped his head. 'Thanks, I'll make a note of it. Is that far from here?'

'I don't know. I don't know where this is.'

'Neither do I,' Poldarn replied. 'Please bear in mind,' he added, pulling blood-matted hair out of the hole in his temple, 'you aren't the only one who's had a nasty bump on the head. Still, now at least I've got somewhere to head for. Any idea where I go from there?'

'Josequin,' Monach answered without thinking.

'Ah, got you. So Josequin's next, after Cric. I have an idea what I've got to do, you see, it's just the order I'm supposed to do it in that's a little vague.'

Monach felt as if he'd just done something seriously wrong, though he wasn't sure what it could be. 'Josequin was burned down,' he said, 'a week or so ago. Everybody was killed, there were no survivors. The god in the cart predicted it; that's why I was sent to find out-' He hesitated. The god was looking at him.

'News to me,' Poldarn said. 'If a city the size of Josequin was burned down, I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about it. But anyway, thank you. It's just as well someone's seen fit to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing, and where.'

Then Monach realised what he'd done wrong. Josequin hadn't been destroyed yet; the god in the cart hadn't yet been to Cric. 'Just a moment,' he said.

'Let's get this straight,' Poldarn went on, bending down and picking a sword up out of the mud. It was a backsabre, like the one Cronan found in the wood, or the ones hidden in the trunk in the Falx house. 'From here I go to Cric. In Cric I predict the fall of Josequin; then I go to Josequin. What happens after that?'

'No,' Monach said (and he remembered who he was, and that he had family in Josequin). 'It doesn't have to happen like that. If you don't go to Cric, maybe Josequin won't get burned down.'

Poldarn nodded. 'And we couldn't have that, could we? Thank you, you've been incredibly helpful. Someone like me needs someone like you to keep things on track. If ever I need another priest, I'll definitely bear you in mind.' He wiped the mud off the sabre and hung it from his belt by the pommel-hook. 'Where do I go after Josequin?' he asked. 'Let's see, Sansory would be the logical choice, it's nearer than Mael. Or better still, Deymeson, for a wide variety of excellent reasons. I assume you know, since you did all that background reading.'

The weight of what he'd done made Monach stagger, and his hand dropped instinctively to his sword hilt. 'You mustn't go to Josequin,' he said. 'Thousands of people live there.'

Poldarn was smiling. 'Not for much longer. You do know who I am, don't you? Or didn't the books mention it?'

Grip the mouth of the scabbard with the left hand and turn it ninety degrees to the left. Place the side of the left thumb against the hilt and press it gently forward to free the sword in the scabbard. Lay the back of the right hand on the grip. 'I can't let you go to Josequin,' Monach said. 'My family lives there.'

'You don't know who I am,' Poldarn said sadly. 'What a pity, I was hoping you could tell me. But everybody I meet who knows me seems to die. Mostly I kill them. You've no idea how frustrating that is; and I'm only doing my job. It's not as if I have any choice in the matter.' He took a step forward; the middle finger of his right hand touched the pommel-hook of the backsabre. 'I go where people ask for me,' he said. 'It's not as if I'm not invited. Now get out of my way.'

'No.'

Another step forward. One more after that would bring him inside Monach's circle, the distance around him that he could reach with his sword from the draw. He'd been trained for twenty years to draw and strike as soon as the enemy came into his circle, to the point where the action became automatic, involuntary. It wasn't as if he'd have any choice in the matter.

'You were the one who came looking for me,' Poldarn pointed out gently. 'You asked for me.'

Poldarn lifted his foot, crossed the circumference of the invisible circle. Flip the right hand over and take a firm hold on the grip. Draw; right hand and right foot together, step into the enemy's circle as you cut. A brother of the order who's been trained in the draw need fear nothing on earth, there's nothing, not even a god, he can't kill.

Poldarn stepped backwards and dropped the backsabre, as Monach flicked the blood off the blade; the dead god was still standing when the ricasso clicked back into the mouth of the scabbard. Then he slumped and fell, splashing Monach's face with mud. The crow spread its wings and flew slowly away, as somewhere behind him Father Tutor shook his head and sighed. 'You've got to stop doing things like that,' he said. 'You're becoming a liability to the order. I told you to find him, not-'

Monach opened his eyes; and the dream spread its wings and flapped away back into the darkness, carrying the memory of what he'd seen gripped in its beak. The old woman was standing over him, prodding him with her toe.

'Breakfast,' she said. 'Fried oatmeal and cheese. Two quarters.'

Monach nodded. He hated fried oatmeal. He was in Cric, so Josequin must have fallen in spite of him. He recalled that thought and wondered what the hell it meant.

Poldarn woke up out of a bad dream. There were crows in it, and a god who'd talked to him, and a lot of frightening stuff he was glad to see the back of. He opened his eyes and saw something familiar: the back wheel of a cart, turning steadily.

'You're awake, then,' muttered the carter. 'That's good. You know, for a top-of-the-line security guard, you spend a lot of time sleeping. Maybe the gods send you warnings in dreams.'

Poldarn sighed. It was a pity that the carter had taken against him so early, given that they were going to be spending the next four days together. The resentment was understandable, he supposed; he was being paid three times as much as the carter, and the carter was doing all the work (he'd offered to do a share of the driving, but the carter had just scowled suspiciously at him and not replied).

'I'm sorry,' he said mildly. 'It's very boring, sitting here with nothing to do. Sleeping helps pass the time.'

The carter flicked away a wasp with his left hand. 'You snore,' he said. 'And you talk in your sleep. Never knew anybody like it for rabbiting on. Crazy stuff, a lot of it.'

'Really?' Poldarn sat up a little. 'What sort of thing?'

'Don't ask me. I got better things to do than listen.'

Tactical error, Poldarn realised; by expressing an interest, he'd made the carter unwilling to tell him. Still, it wasn't too late to change tack.

'I don't believe you,' he said. 'I've never noticed that I talk in my sleep.'

'Well of course you haven't,' the carter said. 'Think about it.'

Poldarn shook his head. 'Somebody would have mentioned it by now,' he maintained. 'Especially if I really said lots of crazy stuff.'

'Oh, it was crazy all right,' the carter replied. 'Bloody weird, sometimes. All about wars and battles and dead bodies lying around the place; that's when you aren't talking to the gods. What you need is a double dose of rhubarb, clean you out a bit.'

'I thought you said you weren't listening.'

'I wasn't. But you talk so loud I couldn't help hearing bits of it. No choice of mine, I promise you.'

'Give me an example,' Poldarn said. 'Otherwise I'll know you're just bullshitting me.'

The carter laughed. 'You asked for it,' he said. 'What about just now, when you were jabbering away; first it was somebody called Ciartan, next it was General Cronan, then it was the bloody emperor, if you please-I got an idea that's probably treason, dreaming nutty dreams about the emperor-and then, like that wasn't bad enough, you started talking to the gods. "No, I won't do it," you were saying-yelling, more like it, I didn't know where to look. Kept on saying the same thing over and over again, "I won't do it, I won't do it." I'd have woken you up, only they say if you wake someone up when they're having nutty dreams, sometimes they stick like it. I'm telling you, it was better fun than the pantomime.'