Thell. Even here beneath the earth, Thell.
Beyond even this, another shield split top to toe. Ragged brutal marks across its surface, a withered hand still in the grip. Its owner further up the passage, lips peeled back in death. After these bodies, another low chamber, strung with roots, its alcoves empty save for a few offerings of long-dried flowers, and scattered coins. Not quite the treasures of legend, but at the far entrance he finds a ring of skeletons, fallen one against the other in a jagged circle.
Much more interesting.
The air thick with the burnt-sugar stink of magic. He feels it tugging at him, wraps the shadow tighter against his shoulders in response, unhitching the gun and letting it uncoil. Better than a knightly sword, by far. His feet take him around the chamber’s periphery, past deep gouges, a shattered plinth, echoes of some terrible confrontation.
In the centre, beneath the apex of the barrow, stands a small cairn, its top sheared off, the edges melted near to glass.
Curiosity overcomes common sense. He lets his feet cross the space, feels the stones squat in front of him. The plinth is bare, save for a few shards of what might be scorched bone and a little powder that glimmers in the light. Something hypnotic in the debris, like staring into a wasp hive and watching the slow, black dance.
Like hearing a song behind a closed door. Like listening to rock shift in the dead of night.
Something not calling, but pulling.
Gingerly, Slickwalker lays a gloved hand on the smooth edges of the cut shrine. His breath hangs tight under his ribs.
Nothing.
He lets out a laugh that sounds ridiculous down here. Another one follows as he realises that he’s almost disappointed not to be struck down, or dumb or blind.
So much for ancient magics. His brow blossoms with cold sweat, all that adrenaline with nowhere to go. A waste of time.
As he turns to leave, his eye hangs on the circle of bones, on those dead men.
Something has settled within the hollow of their fallen limbs – scraps, shreds of fabric, red, yellow, red again. Without thinking, he bends low, takes one and braids it around his wrist, tying it off as he winds his way out from the throat of the barrow, his mind dancing with wizards and warriors, the rat-drum of his heart slowing, steadying.
Eventually the tunnels open up beneath the moon. He shivers at the cold, pulls the shadow to him, and flows back across the hills to the staggered glow of the army’s campfires. He slips innext to Crowkisser, takes off gloves and gun, runs a hand over her jaw.
‘I missed you,’ she says. And he sleeps. Twined with nothing more than a wisp of yellow and red, and a fading memory of the crawling dark.
When the mornings come, they come cold. Crowkisser stretches next to him, grumbling quietly. He kisses her neck, her forehead, smooths tangles from her hair.
‘Nearly there,’ she says, and smiles. He watches that smile. No longer new, fresh out of Astic, there’s something more in it now; a confidence, a certainty he hasn’t seen before. It warms his heart. He helps make breakfast, helps make plans.
She speaks again that morning, her eyes bright. Her army listen diligently, shush fractious chatter and nod among themselves. They return to their tents and emerge with blades sharpened, straps tightened. Their pace increases with each passing day.
Each morning Slickwalker takes himself higher, flowing ahead of their tired grey bodies to take the lay of the land. Each morning, he lets the gun unfurl and feed, sees the sky through his own scoured bone, and pulls himself back together with shadow. He returns to the column on tired feet and directs them to water, to game. Later, he sits with Crowkisser by a clear lake as she asks questions. The answers come hard and cold – he watches her eyes kiss the back of her skull as she finds paths further ahead than he can ever hope to look. Stones and sticks falling into clear water, joined now by barrow teeth – a little local twist to the prophecies she tosses in the mud. They are only a week away now, and they need to know how the mountain prepares.
He watches Thell from high places, traces the scars of old ice over its gates. There are plenty of vantage points here, ledges thick with old nests that were home to eagles once. Scavengers now, burrowing amid shell and twig.
It’s a bright day, and their soldiers are lined up against the edges of the morning, Kinghammer amid them. Slickwalker lets the gun lick his outline for a while, wondering if it’s worth the shot. He’s distracted before the temptation to pull the trigger gets toomuch. Below his perch, a familiar pair move across the open ground like invalids. Shipwright and Shroudweaver, one leaning against the other. He’s surprised they’ve made it, saddened. It would have been better for everyone if they’d died on the road. He lets the gun feel them, mark their muscles. It shivers under his fingers, hungry and impatient.
He shifts his grip, watches carefully as Thell’s old emissary comes to meet them, stooped under a cloak of ragged ribbon. Skinpainter. Red and yellow and red again. Slickwalker glances down at the barrow-scraps on his wrist and smiles. Interesting. That mystery makes a little more sense now.
The trio below meet with the sun still high in the sky and embrace. Some cheap theatre goes on. A lot of vague, empty gestures. The people of Thell eat it up, their cheers falling down the side of the mountain.
He watches a little longer, picks at some lichen. Eventually, they retreat inside the gates. The soldiers filter off the battlements. The bear of Thell relaxes, briefly, and sheathes its claws.
Slickwalker follows them in, flowing down the mountainside, where the runs of natural shadow caused by the rock are deep and cool, pulling him smoothly over the sheer surface of the Stump. The barest sensation of limbs as he moves. This is nothing like the descents he used to undertake as a child in the high, broad trees of the south, all burning limbs and thundering heart. To move with the shadow is to fall like thick rain, to drift like blown sleet. Only the briefest of adjustments is needed to swing his form towards his target.
Those old ice cracks, the deep cuts of glaciers positioned so conveniently either side of the Stump’s main gate.
Slickwalker takes a minute to catch his breath. The movement may be different, but the exhilaration is the same, the elation of high places and the adrenaline taste of the ground hundreds of feet below. He tries to focus, forcing himself to breathe slowly, precisely, in and out. He lets the shadow slide off him just enough that he can feel his body, the rasp of air in his lungs, the soft burn in his muscles.
Once he’s calm, he turns to study those deep grooves. They are almost perfect for his purpose, but perhaps a little sheer to take the shivers securely. Glancing to make sure the battlements are bare, he presses the gun squat against the rock on the left side. It uncoils just barely, pulsing like a lizard’s stomach.
The report is muffled, the cat’s yowl of the gun driven down into the stone, but the stench of it is the same – acrid, rotten lemon. The rock beneath its muzzle hollowed out and scoured. The gun squirms fitfully. It misses the taste of flesh.
