David Gemmel: Midnight Falcon

Banouin did so, then climbed into the saddle and the two men rode out of the woods and down the slope to the old road.

The horses plodded on as the sun fell. It was colder now, the wind sharp. Banouin lifted his cloak from behind the saddle, untied the thongs and swung it round his shoulders. The sudden flaring of cloth alarmed the chestnut, who reared suddenly, dumping the young man from the saddle. He landed heavily. The gelding ran off to the south. Bane heeled his mount and raced after it. Banouin sat up. He felt sick and dizzy. Bane rode back leading the runaway.

The stars were bright now, a crescent moon shining in the sky. 'Are you hurt?' asked Bane.

'No. But you were wrong about me not knowing how to hate. I'm beginning to loathe that horse.'

Wearily Banouin stepped back into the saddle. Bane led them away from the road and down into a tree-lined hollow where they made camp. Bane lit a small fire, its light shielded by boulders. Then he moved away into the trees. When he returned he sat down beside Banouin. 'You can't see the fire from the road,' he said. 'We ought to be relatively safe here.'

Once again Banouin unpacked the utensils and the food. There was a stream close by and Banouin filled the pot, added oats and salt, and set it over the fire.

'Thank you for saving my life,' he said at last.

'That's what friends are for,' replied Bane brightly. They ate in silence, and Bane lay down, his head upon his saddle, his cloak as a blanket.

Banouin was not tired, and sat quietly by the fire, feeding it with dry sticks and watching the flames leap and dance. The incident with the robbers had left him both disappointed and dejected. It had shown how far he was from being a Rigante warrior. Not once had he even considered drawing the hunting knife at his belt. He had been paralysed with fear, and within moments of begging for his life.

He glanced down at the sleeping Bane. His arrival had surprised them, but it was his confidence that had cowed them. It seemed to Banouin that his friend had radiated power and purpose. You ought to be a leader of men, he thought, not a Wolfshead, living outside the law.

And yet, Banouin knew, Bane's whole life had been moving inexorably towards this point. Beneath the easy banter, behind the reckless smile, there was a bottomless well of bitterness and anger that drove him on, rebelling against authority, creating enemies who could so easily have been friends.

Was it merely the lack of a father, Banouin wondered, or would his friend have been just the same regardless? Who could tell?

Banouin's thoughts swung to Forvar, the boy who had tormented him for most of his life. He had not hated him. Forvar's father and two uncles had been killed in the Battle of Cogden Field – killed by soldiers of Stone. Banouin understood how the boy had come to despise Stone and everything connected with it. Forvar did not truly hate Banouin, but Banouin represented a focal point for his hatred. By hounding and torturing Banouin he was releasing his own pent-up pain and sense of loss.

Understanding, however, did not help. It did not ease the suffering. Banouin had tried talking to Forvar, but his mind was closed, his hatred overwhelming.

Two years ago it had come to a head. Banouin had been walking in the hills near the Wishing Tree woods when Forvar and a group of his friends had come walking back from the Riguan Falls, where they had been swimming. Seeing Banouin they had chased him, yelling and whooping. Banouin had fled back towards Three Streams, but he was not a fast runner and they overhauled him. They had beaten and kicked him. Then, as he lay semi-conscious on the ground, Forvar had drawn a knife. Banouin remembered the moment, and the sense of sick dread that had swept over him. He had looked into Forvar's tortured eyes and known, without any semblance of doubt, that the big youth was about to plunge the blade into his heart.

As the knife came up a shadow fell across Banouin. Something dark flashed across his vision and there was a sickening thud, followed by a loud crack. Banouin blinked. Bane was standing there, a long, heavy lump of wood in his hands. Forvar was on the ground, his neck twisted at a bizarre angle. With trembling limbs Banouin pushed himself to his knees. Forvar was dead, his friends standing by, shocked and frozen.

'You killed him!' whispered Huin, Forvar's younger brother.

Bane tossed the blood-smeared club to the ground and swung to Banouin, hauling him to his feet. 'How badly are you hurt?' he asked.

Banouin did not reply. He could not tear his eyes from the corpse.

There had been a full inquest, with a jury of nine, held under the direction of the Laird Braefar. Here it was decided that the death was caused by misadventure. Forvar had died as the result of his unwarranted attack on Banouin. Bane had not intended to kill him, but merely to stop him killing another boy.

The fire died away, and Banouin settled down to sleep.

He awoke with the dawn and nudged Bane, who merely grunted and turned over. Banouin shook his shoulder. Bane yawned and sat up. 'You sleep too deeply,' said Banouin.

'Aye, it has always been a problem to me. But I was having the most wonderful dream. There were these two sisters…'

'Please!' interrupted Banouin with mock severity. 'No sexual fantasies before breakfast.'

Bane chuckled, and walked to the stream, where he stripped off his pale green shirt and doused his head and chest with water. After they had breakfasted on dried fruit and meat they saddled their mounts and began to ride up out of the hollow. Bane was whistling a merry tune, and seemed in good spirits. He steered his horse away from the trail. Banouin called out to him. That looks a more difficult climb,' he said.

'I think it might be quicker,' said Bane.

'Well, you can go that way,' Banouin told him, and continued on the easier route. At the edge of the trees he drew rein, and gazed down, horror-struck. A man's body lay there, the throat cut, blood pooling on the earth. It was the black-bearded Karn. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at the morning sky.

Bane rode alongside his friend. 'He and two others came back in the night,' he said quietly.

'Two others?'

'Aye. They ran off. You were right, though. One-eye was not among them.'

'So you killed Black Beard, then came back to sleep?' stormed Banouin.

'I was tired. Don't you sleep when you're tired? What would you have had me do? Wake you when they were coming? For what purpose? I love you, my friend, but you are not a fighter. And there was no point in waking you after they'd gone.'

Banouin dragged his eyes from the corpse and heeled the chestnut up the slope and out on to the road.

Bane followed him. 'You want to hear my dream now?'

'No, I do not,' snapped Banouin. There is a man dead back there. Killed by you. And it means nothing to you, does it?'

'What should it mean? They came to kill us. Would you prefer it if we were dead?'

Banouin drew rein and took a deep breath, trying to ease the anger from his system. He looked at his friend, saw the genuine confusion in his eyes. 'Of course I am glad we are alive,' he said. 'It is not the fact that you killed him, Bane, but that it did not touch you. Perhaps he had a wife and children. Perhaps he once had the chance to be a good man. Perhaps he might have had that chance again. Now he never will. Carrion birds and foxes will feast on his flesh, and worms will devour the rest.'

Bane laughed. 'He was just a turd, floating on the stream of life. The land is better off without him.'

'In his case that may be true,' agreed Banouin. 'But what I fear is that you kill too swiftly. You like to kill. But how long before a good man falls beneath your blade, a kind man, a loving man?'

Bane shrugged. The only men who will die by my blade are those who choose to attack me. That is their choice, not mine. I knew that black-bearded whoreson would come back. So I rested a little, then went out to meet them.'