Thinshanks has heard rumours from the other herders, the ones that don’t stick to a little clump of shonky houses, that take their flocks roving over the thin clay soil of the Barrowlands. The herders that sometimes let those flocks graze on the thick, green grass nearer Thell, lush as it is in those places where battles were fought, and where the dead push up the roots and shoots.
Thinshanks has been hearing rumours, and this is what he says through half a loaf of bread, the spatter of crumbs toasting in the fire as it stretches over the hearth.
‘There’s a drover told me they scooped the hill out like an egg. Sucked all the blood and spirits out of it. Sent in their witches to drain the whole thing, ’til it couldn’t support its own weight.’
Rustneck’s unconvinced, having seen her share of crumblingholes, but she’s enjoying the performance. She leans forwards and fills his cup. ‘Scooped it out?’
Shanks nods emphatically. ‘Like an egg, they said, all hollow, and the stone itself flaking away, crick crack.’ He sups meaningfully. ‘That was good masonry too. I laid some of the blocks myself. Frogbreath’s father did the slab stone but I did the littler bits, hammer and chisel, fiddly fiddly.’
Damp snorts. ‘Sounds like the usual clip-clop bollocks. Pass the nuts would you? My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’
Rust slides them over, palms a few for herself. Split and sat in the embers of the fire, they’ll make good eating when the night has wound on.
‘Something’s up though. Half the barrows I used to dip are sealed now. And professional like. Pulled the capstones down and piled on new earth.’ She shoots a look at Shanks.
‘Plus, they’re up on the hills. Which is what’s driven you down here so often, to nest in our armpits.’
Shanks laughs and calls to Tap for another round. Both barkeep and dog answer, the latter padding over to push its thick wiry skull against all these familiar hands. Damp pats its flank and pulls her hand away sticky. She sniffs it, licks it and looks at Tapshuck. ‘Dog’s bleeding Tap.’
Tap bends down to the beast, gentles its shoulders. The cuts aren’t obvious, beneath all that shag, but they’re there, a day or two old, maybe, scabbing and rusting down to black.
‘Where did you get these, lad?’ The dog doesn’t answer, more interested in the scraps of jerky that Shanks is waggling like sprats on a line.
Damp tuts, wipes off her hands and searches a little more carefully. There’s not just blood on the fur, but the stink of incense and other sour herbs.
‘Your dog’s been running where he shouldn’t, Tap. Put a stave behind the bar and leash him, I’ve told you often it.’
Tapshuck grumbles. ‘He likes his wandering.’
Damp looks up, furrows her thick brows. ‘That’s as may be, but it was me coaxed him from a pup and gave him to your lumpyarse. So you do as you’re told. This old fella’s been digging in graves marked by the Republic, sure as shit sticks.’
Rust spits into the fire, stretches, yawns. ‘Thell. The ways we talk about them, you’d think they were all wights.’ She massages her wrists, shoots a sympathetic look at the dog. ‘I’ve been in their barrows. They silt down to dust just like the rest of us.’
Damp grins. ‘Don’t talk like that, my lovely, you with that big ol’ vein pulsing in your throat there, they’ll come right down that chimney and drink you up.’
She elbows Shanks, cackling, but gets little back.
It’s plain Thinshanks is less convinced. His face is flicked with shadow as he gazes into the fire. ‘They say the port folk in Mither nail gannet skulls to the chimney breast, just in case. Stops souls slipping down. Maybe we should put up some wards. I’d fence the sheepfold, if I thought it would make a blind bit of difference.’
Damp snorts, takes a fresh drink, and looks him dead in the eye. ‘The only thing I want nailed to my breast is a strapping young man with an empty head, Shanks.’ She pats him on the shoulder, and he flinches.
‘We can’t go jumping at every shadow that rolls down from those blasted mountains.’
The door opens with a slam, and all three of them jump. A squall of rain chases in from outside, with a flash of moonlight, like the edge of a knife.
The man in the doorway has an axe, but he also has a pack, and a look about him that says he’s not in the mood for any more weather. His face bears a scrub of beard, and cheekbones that make Damp think she’s got her wish for a second.
He’s joined by another young lad who slips an arm around his waist, and she rinses the hope out of her head like swill-water.
The younger lad wipes plastered hair from his face, and says in a sweet burr of a voice, ‘Got room for two?’
Tapshuck looks at them both. The dog growls, and shows its last few teeth. The trio look too, mostly because they haven’t seen travellers since the apple moon turned.
Eventually, Damp comes to her senses, and pulls Shanks up the bench. ‘Make room.’
Rust stands, and gestures something that might be grand, might be courtly, if her shirt wasn’t still smudged with grave dust and toasted nuts. ‘Join us lads, it’s a bitter night.’
‘You drinking?’ Tap says, more of a statement than a question really. The bearded man nods, and slips him a couple of coins that brighten his lump of a face considerably.
