The morn­ing was not even half gone when Arno had his friend halt for the third time. He slipped down from the horse’s back and staggered a few steps away to vomit. He doubled up, hold­ing his aching guts as he did so, and then sud­denly fell for­ward on his face in the dirt. One of the other guards laughed aloud, but when Arno only rolled over, groan­ing, Bolt ordered Joff to see what ailed him. We all watched as Joff dis­moun­ted and took wa­ter to Arno. Arno could not take the proffered wa­ter bottle and when Joff put it to his mouth the wa­ter just ran over his chin. He turned his head aside from it slowly and closed his eyes. After a mo­ment, Joff looked up, her eyes wide with dis­be­lief.

  ‘He’s dead, sir.’ Joff’s voice went a bit shrill on the words.

  They scraped out a shal­low grave for him and heaped rocks over the top. Two more guards had vomited be­fore the burial was com­pleted. Bad wa­ter was the con­sensus, though I caught Bolt look­ing at me with nar­rowed eyes. They hadn’t bothered to take me off my horse. I hunched over my belly as if it pained me and kept my eyes down. It was no dif­fi­culty at all to look sick.

  Bolt got his men re­moun­ted and we pushed on. By noon it was ap­par­ent that no one was well. One boy was sway­ing in his saddle as we rode. Bolt hal­ted us for a brief rest but it turned into a longer one. No sooner would one man fin­ish retch­ing than an­other would be­gin. Bolt fi­nally ordered them tersely back to their saddles des­pite their groan­ing com­plaints. We went on but at a gentler pace. I could smell the sour reek of sweat and puke on the wo­man who led my mare.

  As we were go­ing up a gentle rise, Joff fell from her saddle into the dust. I gave my mare a sharp nudge with my heels, but she only sidled side­ways and put her ears back, too well-trained to gal­lop off with her reins dangling down from her bit. Bolt hal­ted his troop, and every man im­me­di­ately dis­moun­ted, some to puke, oth­ers to simply sink down in misery be­side the horses. ‘Make camp,’ Bolt ordered, des­pite the early hour. Then he walked aside a little way, to crouch and retch dryly for a time. Joff didn’t get up.

  It was Bolt who walked back to me and cut my wrists loose from my saddle pom­mel. He gave a tug at my chain and I all but fell down on top of him. I staggered away a few steps, then sank down, my hands over my belly. He came to hunker down be­side me. He grabbed the back of my neck, gripped it tightly. But I could feel his strength was not what it had been. ‘What do you think, Bas­tard?’ he asked me in a hoarse growl. He was very close to me and his breath and body stank of sick­ness. ‘Was it bad wa­ter? Or some­thing else?’

  I made gag­ging sounds and leaned to­ward him as if to puke. He moved wear­ily away from me. Only two of his guards had man­aged to un­saddle their mounts. The oth­ers were col­lapsed miser­ably in the dirt. Bolt moved among them, curs­ing them use­lessly but feel­ingly. One of the stronger guards fi­nally began to gather the mak­ings for a fire, while an­other crabbed down the line of horses, do­ing little more than un­cinch­ing saddles and drag­ging them from the horses’ backs. Bolt came to fasten the hobble chain between my ankles.

  Two more guards died that even­ing. Bolt him­self dragged their bod­ies to one side, but could not find the strength to do more than that. The fire they had man­aged to kindle died soon for lack of fuel. The open night on the flat land seemed darker than any­thing I had ever known and the dry cold a part of the dark­ness. I heard the groans of the men, and one bab­bling about his guts, his guts. I heard the rest­less shift­ing of the un­watered horses. I thought long­ingly of wa­ter and warmth. Odd pains bothered me. My wrists were chafed raw from the shackles. They hurt less than my shoulder, but in an ever-present way I could not ig­nore. I guessed the blade-bone in my shoulder was at least frac­tured.

  Bolt came stag­ger­ing over to where I lay at dawn. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks drawn with his misery. He fell to his knees be­side me and gripped my hair. I groaned. ‘Are you dy­ing, Bas­tard?’ he asked me hoarsely. I moaned again and tried feebly to pull free of him. It seemed to sat­isfy him. ‘Good. Good then. Some were say­ing it was the Wit ma­gic you’d put on us, Bas­tard. But I think bad wa­ter can kill a man, be he Wit­ted or hon­our­able. Still. Let’s be sure of it, this time.’

  It was my own knife that he drew out. As he dragged back on my hair to ex­pose my throat, I brought up my shackled hands to crash the chain against his face. At the same time I re­pelled at him with all the strength of Wit I could muster. He fell back from me. He crawled a few paces away, then fell on his side in the sand. I heard him breath­ing heav­ily. After a time, he stopped. I closed my eyes, listen­ing to that si­lence, feel­ing the ab­sence of his life like sun­light on my face.

  After a time, when the day was stronger, I forced my­self to open my eye. It was harder to crawl over to Bolt’s body. All my aches had stiffened and com­bined to one pain that shrieked whenever I moved. I went over his body care­fully. I found Burrich’s ear­ring in his pouch. Odd to think that I stopped right then and put it back in my ear lest I lose it. My pois­ons were there as well. What wasn’t in his pouch was the key to my shackles. I star­ted to sort my pos­ses­sions out from his, but the sun was pound­ing spikes into the back of my head. I simply put his pouch at my belt. Whatever he’d had in there was mine now. Once you’ve poisoned a man, I re­flec­ted, you might as well rob him as well. Hon­our no longer seemed to have much to do with my life.

  Who­ever had shackled me prob­ably car­ried the key, I sur­mised. I crawled to the next body, but found noth­ing in his pouch save some Smoke herbs. I sat up, and be­came aware of fal­ter­ing foot­steps crunch­ing over the dry earth to­ward me. I lif­ted my eyes, squin­ted against the sun­light. The boy came slowly to­ward me, his steps waver­ing. In one hand he had a wa­ter­skin. In the other he held the key where I might see it.

  A dozen steps away from me, he hal­ted. ‘Your life for mine,’ he croaked. He was sway­ing where he stood. I made no re­sponse. He tried again. ‘Wa­ter and the key to your bonds. Any horse you want to take. I won’t fight you. Only lift your Wit-curse off me.’

  He looked so young and pi­ti­ful stand­ing there.

  ‘Please,’ he begged me ab­ruptly.

  I found my­self shak­ing my head slowly. ‘It was poison,’ I told him. ‘There’s noth­ing I can do for you.’

  He stared at me, bit­terly, in­cred­u­lous. ‘Then I have to die? Today?’ His words came out as a dry whis­per. His dark eyes locked to mine. I found my­self nod­ding.

  ‘Damn you!’ He shrieked the words, burn­ing whatever life strength he had left. ‘Then you die, too. You die right here!’ He flung the key from us as far as he could, then staggered off in a feeble run, squawk­ing and flail­ing at the horses.

  The beasts had stood all night un­pick­eted, had even waited all morn­ing hop­ing for grain and wa­ter. They were well-trained an­im­als. But the smell of sick­ness and death and this boy’s in­com­pre­hens­ible be­ha­viour were too much for them. When he screamed sud­denly and then fell face down al­most among them, a big grey geld­ing threw up his head, snort­ing. I sent calm­ing thoughts to­ward him, but he had thoughts of his own. He pranced nervously away, then sud­denly de­cided this was a good de­cision and broke into a canter. The other horses fol­lowed his lead. Their hooves were not a thun­der­ing on the plain; rather they were the di­min­ish­ing pat­ter of a rain­storm as it van­ishes, tak­ing all hope of life with it.

  The boy did not move again, but it was a time be­fore he died. I had to listen to his soft weep­ing as I searched for the key. I wanted des­per­ately to go look for wa­ter­skins in­stead, but I feared that if I turned away from the area where he had thrown it, I would never be able to de­cide which un­re­mark­able stretch of sand held my sal­va­tion. So I crawled over it on my hands and knees, man­acles cut­ting and chaf­ing at my wrists and ankles, as I peered at the ground with my one good eye. Even after the sound of his weep­ing be­came too soft to hear, even after he died, I heard it still in­side my mind. Some­times I still can. An­other young life ended sense­lessly, to no profit, as a res­ult of Regal’s ven­detta with me. Or per­haps be­cause of mine with him.

  I did even­tu­ally find the key, just as I was cer­tain that the set­ting sun would hide it forever. It was crudely made and turned very stiffly in the locks, but it worked. I opened the shackles, pry­ing them out of my puffy flesh. The one on my left ankle had been so tight that my foot was cold and near numb. After a few minutes, pain flooded back into my foot with life. I didn’t pay much at­ten­tion. I was too busy seek­ing for wa­ter.

  Most of the guards had drained their wa­ter­skins just as my poison had drained all flu­ids from their guts. The one the boy had shown me held only a few mouth­fuls. I drank them very slowly, hold­ing the wa­ter in my mouth for a long time be­fore swal­low­ing it. In Bolt’s saddle-bags I found a flask of brandy. I al­lowed my­self one small mouth­ful of it, then capped it and set it aside. It was not much more than a day’s walk back to the wa­ter­hole. I could make it. I’d have to.

  I robbed the dead for what I needed. I went through the saddle­bags and bundles on the heaped saddles. When I was fin­ished, I wore a blue shirt that fit me in the shoulders, though it hung al­most to my knees. I had dried meat and grain, len­tils and peas, my old sword that I de­cided fit me best, Bolt’s knife, a look­ing-glass, a small kettle, a mug and a spoon. I spread out a sturdy blanket and put these things on it. To them I ad­ded a change of cloth­ing that was too large for me, but would be bet­ter than noth­ing. Bolt’s cloak would be long on me, but it was the best made, so I took it. One of the men had car­ried some linen for bandaging and some salves. I took these, an empty wa­ter­skin and Bolt’s flask of brandy.

  I could have gone over the bod­ies for money and jew­ellery. I could have burdened my­self with a dozen other per­haps-use­ful pos­ses­sions. I found I wanted only to re­place what I’d had, and to be away from the smell of the bloat­ing bod­ies. I made the bundle as small and tight as I could, cinch­ing it with leather straps from the horses’ har­ness. When I lif­ted it to my good shoulder, it still felt much too heavy.

  My brother?

  The query seemed tent­at­ive, faint with more than dis­tance. With dis­use. As if a man spoke in a lan­guage he had not used in many years.

  I live, Nighteyes. Stay with your pack, and live also.

  Do you not need me? I felt his twinge of con­sci­ence as he asked this.

  I al­ways need you. I need to know you are alive and free.

  I sensed his faint as­sent, but little more than that. After a time I wondered if I had not ima­gined his touch against my mind. But I felt oddly strengthened as I walked away from the bod­ies into the deep­en­ing night.

  THIR­TEEN

  Blue Lake

  Blue Lake is the ter­minus of the Cold River. It is also the name of the largest town on its shores. Early in King Shrewd’s reign, the coun­try sur­round­ing the north­east side of the lake was renowned for its grain­fields and orch­ards. A grape pe­cu­liar to its soil pro­duced a wine with a bou­quet no other could rival. Blue Lake wine was known not just through­out the Six Duch­ies, but was ex­por­ted by the cara­van load as far as Bing­town. Then came the long droughts and the light­ning fires that fol­lowed them. The farm­ers and vintners of the area never re­covered. Blue Lake sub­se­quently began to rely more heav­ily on trade. The present-day town of Blue Lake is a trade town, where the cara­vans from Far­row and the Chalced States meet to barter for the goods of the Moun­tain folk. In sum­mers, huge barges nav­ig­ate the pla­cid wa­ters of the lake, but in winter the storms that sweep down from the moun­tains drive the barge folk from the lake and put an end to trade on the wa­ter.

  The night sky was clear with an im­mense or­ange moon hanging low. The stars were true and I fol­lowed their guid­ance, spar­ing a few mo­ments for weary won­der­ment that these were the same stars that had once shone down on me as I made my way home to Buck­keep. Now they guided me back to the Moun­tains.

  I walked the night away. Not swiftly, and not stead­ily, but I knew that the sooner I got to wa­ter, the sooner I could ease my pains. The longer I went without wa­ter, the weaker I would be­come. As I walked, I moistened one of the linen band­ages with Bolt’s brandy, and dabbed at my face. I had looked at the dam­age briefly in the look­ing-glass. There was no mis­tak­ing that I had lost an­other fight. Most of it was bruis­ing and minor cuts. I ex­pec­ted no new scars. The brandy stung on the nu­mer­ous ab­ra­sions, but the mois­ture eased some of the scab­bing so that I could open my mouth with min­imal pain. I was hungry, but feared the salty dried meat would only ac­cen­tu­ate my thirst.

  I watched the sun come up over the great Far­row plain in a mar­vel­lous ar­ray of col­ours. The chill of the night eased and I loosened Bolt’s cloak. I kept walk­ing. With the in­creas­ing light, I scanned the ground hope­fully. Per­haps some of the horses had headed back to the wa­ter­hole. But I saw no fresh tracks, only the crumble-edged hoof­prints we had made yes­ter­day, already be­ing de­voured by the wind.

  The day was still young when I reached the wa­ter-place. I ap­proached it cau­tiously, but my nose and my eyes told me it was blessedly deser­ted. I knew I could not de­pend on my luck that it would be that way long. It was a reg­u­lar stop­ping place for cara­vans. My first act was to drink my fill. Then there was a cer­tain lux­ury to build­ing my own small fire, heat­ing a kettle of wa­ter and adding len­tils, beans, grain and dried meat to it. I set it on a stone close to the fire to sim­mer while I stripped and washed in the wa­ter­hole. It was shal­low at one end, and the sun had al­most warmed it. The flat blade of my left shoulder was still quite pain­ful to touch or move, as were the chafed places on my wrists and ankles, the knot on the back of my head, my face in gen­eral … I left off cata­loguing my pain for my­self. I wasn’t go­ing to die from any of it. What more than that mattered?

  The sun dried me while I shivered. I sloshed out my clothes and spread them on some brush. While the sun dried them, I wrapped my­self in Bolt’s cloak, drank brandy and stirred my soup. I had to add more wa­ter, and it seemed to take years for the dried beans and len­tils to soften. I sat by my fire, oc­ca­sion­ally adding some more branches or dried dung to it. After a time, I opened my eyes again and tried to de­cide if I were drunk, beaten or in­cred­ibly weary. I de­cided that was as prof­it­able as cata­loguing my pain. I ate the soup as it was, with the beans still a bit hard. I had more of the brandy with it. There wasn’t much left. It was dif­fi­cult to per­suade my­self to do it, but I cleaned the kettle and warmed more wa­ter. I cleaned the worst of my cuts, treated them with the salve, wrapped the ones that could be band­aged. One ankle looked nasty; I could not af­ford for it to be­come in­fec­ted. I lif­ted my eyes to find the day­light fad­ing. It seemed to have gone swiftly. With the last of my en­ergy, I put out my fire, bundled up all my pos­ses­sions, and moved away from the wa­ter­hole. I needed to sleep and I would not risk be­ing dis­covered by other trav­el­lers. I found a small de­pres­sion that was slightly sheltered from the wind by some tarry-smelling brush. I spread out the blanket, covered my­self with Bolt’s cloak and sank down into sleep.

  I know that for a time I slept dream­lessly. Then I had one of those con­fus­ing dreams in which someone called my name, but I could not find who. A wind was blow­ing and it was rainy. I hated the sound of the blow­ing wind, so lonely. Then the door opened and Burrich stood in it. He was drunk. I felt both ir­rit­ated and re­lieved. I had been wait­ing for him to come home since yes­ter­day, and now he was here, he was drunk. How dared he be so?

  A shiv­er­ing ran over me, an al­most awaken­ing. And I knew that these were Molly’s thoughts, it was Molly I was Skill-dream­ing. I should not, I knew I should not, but in that edge­less dream state, I had not the will to res­ist. Molly stood up care­fully. Our daugh­ter was sleep­ing in her arms. I caught a glimpse of a small face, pink and plump, not the wrinkled red face of the new­born I’d seen be­fore. To have already changed so much! Si­lently, Molly car­ried her to the bed and placed her gently on it. She turned up a corner of the blanket to keep the baby warm. Without turn­ing around, she said in a low tight voice, ‘I was wor­ried. You said you’d be back yes­ter­day.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I should have been, but …’ Burrich’s voice was hoarse. There was no spirit in it.

  ‘But you stayed in town and got drunk,’ Molly filled in coldly.

  ‘I … yes. I got drunk.’ He shut the door and came into the room. He moved to the fire to warm his red hands be­fore it. His cloak was drip­ping and so was his hair, as if he had not bothered to pull the hood up as he walked home. He set a carry-sack down by the door. He took the soaked cloak off and sat down stiffly in the chair by the hearth. He leaned for­ward to rub his bad knee.

  ‘Don’t come in here when you’re drunk,’ Molly told him flatly.

  ‘I don’t. I’m not drunk. I know that’s how you feel. I was drunk yes­ter­day. I had a bit, earlier today, but I’m not drunk. Not now. Now I’m just … tired. Very tired.’ He leaned for­ward and put his head in his hands.

  ‘You can’t even sit up straight.’ I could hear the an­ger rising in Molly’s voice. ‘You don’t even know when you’re drunk.’

  Burrich looked up at her wear­ily. ‘Per­haps you’re right,’ he con­ceded, shock­ing me. He sighed. ‘I’ll go,’ he told her. He rose, win­cing as he put weight on his leg, and Molly felt a pang of guilt. He was still cold, and the shed where he slept at night was draughty and damp. But he’d brought it on him­self. He knew how she felt about drunk­ards. Let a man have a drink or two, that was fine, she had a cup her­self now and then, but to come stag­ger­ing home like this and try to tell her …

  ‘Can I see the baby for a mo­ment?’ Burrich asked softly. He had paused at the door. I saw some­thing in his eyes, some­thing Molly did not know him well enough to re­cog­nize, and it cut me to the bone. He grieved.