David Gemmell - Wolf in Shadow

The people who travelled under his command were tough and hardy and Griffin, for all his outward gruffness, loved them all. They reflected all that was good in people, strength, courage, loyalty and a stubborn willingness to risk all they had on the dream of a better tomorrow.

Griffin sat back in the saddle and watched the Taybard wagon begin the long haul up the lava slope. The woman, Donna, intrigued him. Leather-tough and satin-soft, she was a beautiful contradiction. The wagon-master rarely involved himself in matters of the heart, but had Donna Taybard been available he would have broken his rule. The boy, Eric, was running alongside the oxen, urging them on with a switch stick. He was a quiet boy, but Griffin liked him; he was quick and bright and learned fast. The man was another matter. .

Griffin had always been a good judge of character, an attribute vital to a leader, yet he could make nothing of Jon Taybard. . except that he was riding under an assumed name. The relationship between Taybard and Eric was strained, the boy avoiding the man at all but meal-times. Still, Taybard was a good man with a horse and he never complained or shirked the tasks Griffin set him.

The Taybard wagon reached the top of the rise and was followed by the elderly scholar Peacock.

The man had no coordination and the wagon stopped half-way up the slope. Griffin cantered down and climbed up to the driving seat, allowing his horse to run free.

'Will you never learn, Ethan?' he said, taking reins and whip from the balding Peacock.

He cracked the thirty-foot whip above the ear of the leading ox and the animal lurched forward into the traces. Slowly the lumbering wagon moved up the hill.

'Are you sure you can't read, Con?' asked Peacock.

'Would I lie to you, scholar?'

'It is just that that fool Phelps can be tremendously annoying. I think he only reads sections that prove his case.'

'I have seen Taybard with a Bible — ask him,' said Griffin. The wagon moved on to the ridge and he stepped to the running board and whistled for his horse. The chestnut stallion came at once and Griffin climbed back into the saddle.

Maggie Ames' wagon was the next to be stopped on the slope, a rear wheel lodged against a lava rock. Griffin dismounted and manhandled it clear, to be rewarded with a dazzling smile. He tipped his hat and rode away. Maggie was a young widow, and that made her dangerous indeed.

Throughout the long hot afternoon, the wagon convoy moved on through the dusty ridge. The oxen were weary and Griffin rode ahead looking for a camp-site.

There was no water to be found and he ordered the wagons stopped on the high ground above the plain, in the lee of a soaring rock face. Griffin unsaddled the chestnut and rubbed him down, then filled his leather hat with water and allowed the horse to drink.

All around the camp people were looking to their animals, wiping the dust from the nostrils of their oxen and giving them precious water. Out here the animals were more than beasts of burden. They were life.

Griffin's driver, a taciturn oldster named Burke, had prepared a fire and was cooking a foul-smelling stew in a copper-bottomed pot. Griffin sat opposite the man. 'Another long day,' he remarked.

Burke grunted. 'Worse tomorrow.'

'I know.'

'You won't get much more out of these animals — they need a week at least and good grass.'

'You see any grass today, Jim?'

'I'm only saying what they need.'

'According to the map there should be good grass within the next three days,' said Griffin, removing his hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead.

'Which map is that?' asked Burke, smiling knowingly. 'Cardigan's. It seems about the best of them.'

'Yeah. Ain't he the one that saw the body-eaters at work? Didn't they roast his companions alive?'

'So he said, Jim. And keep your voice down,' Burke pointed to the fat figure of Aaron Phelps, the arcanist, who was making his way to the wagon of Ethan Peacock. 'He'd make a good lunch for them Brigands.'

'Cardigan came through here twenty years ago. There's no reason to believe the same Brigands are still in the area. Most war-makers are movers,' said Griffin.

'Expect you're right, Mr Griffin,' agreed Burke with a wicked grin. 'Still, I should send Phelps out as our advance scout. He'd feed an entire tribe.'

'I ought to send you, Jimmy — you'd put them off human flesh for life. You haven't bathed in the five years I've known you!'

'Water gives you wrinkles,' said Burke. 'I remember that from when I was a yongen. It shrivels you up.'

Griffin accepted the bowl of stew Burke passed him and tasted it. If anything it was more foul than its smell — but he ate it, following it with flat bread and salt.

'I do not know how you come up with such appalling meals,' said Griffin at last, pushing his plate away.

Burke grinned. 'Nothing to work with. Now, if you gave me Phelps. .'

Griffin shook his head and stood. He was a tall man, red-haired and looking older than his thirty-two years. His shoulders were broad and his belly pushed out over the top of his belt, despite Burke's culinary shortcomings.

He wandered along the wagon line chatting to the families as they gathered by their cook fires, and ignored the squabbling Phelps and Peacock. At the Taybard wagon he stopped.

'A word with you, Mr Taybard,' he said and Jon Shannow set aside his plate and rose smoothly, following Griffin out on to the trail ahead of the wagons. The wagon-master sat on a jutting rock and Shannow sat facing him. There could be difficult days ahead, Mr Taybard,' began Griffin, breaking a silence which had become uncomfortable.

'In what way?'

'Some years ago there was a murderous Brigand band in these parts. Now when we come down from these mountains we should find water and grass, and we will need to rest for at least a week.

During that time we could come under attack.'

'How may I help you?'

'You are not a farmer, Mr Taybard. I sense you are more of a hunter and I want you to scout for us — if you will?'

Shannow shrugged. 'Why not?'

Griffin nodded. The man had asked nothing of the Brigands, nor of their suspected armaments.

'You are a strange man, Mr Taybard.'

'My name is not Taybard; it is Shannow.'

'I have heard the name, Mr Shannow. But I shall call you Taybard as long as you ride with us.'

'As you please, Mr Griffin.'

'Why did you feel the need to tell me?'

'I do not like living a lie.'

'Most men find little difficulty in that respect,' said Griffin. 'But then you are not as most men. I heard of the work you did in Allion.'

'It came to nothing; the Brigands returned once I had gone.'

'That is hardly the point, Mr Shannow.'

'What is?'

'You can only show the way and it is for others to follow the path. In Allion they were stupid; when you have dusted a room, you do not throw away the broom.'

Shannow smiled and Griffin watched him relax. 'Are you a Bookman, Mr Griffin?'

The wagon-master returned the smile and shook his head. 'I tell people I cannot read, but yes, I have studied the Book and there is much sense in it. But I am not a believer, Mr Shannow, and I doubt that Jerusalem exists.'

'A man must look for something in life, even if it is only a non-existent city.'

'You should speak to Peacock,' said Griffin. 'He has a thousand scraps of Dark Age remnants.

And now that his eyes are fading, he needs help to study them.'

Griffin rose to leave, but Shannow stopped him. 'I want to thank you, Mr Griffin, for making me welcome.'

'It is nothing. I am not a weak man, Mr Shannow. Shadows do not frighten me, nor reputations such as yours. I will leave you with this thought, though: What point is there in seeking Jerusalem? You have a fine wife and a growing son who will need your talents at home, wherever home may lie.'