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“You ink-blooded Gallardian bitch,” I said to the book, for I knew it then to be a woman. Not that women were more or less like to be evil than a man but because it had roundly outsmarted me, and that, I have found, is something women have excelled at for my whole karking life.

7The Book of the Full Shadow

Once we got ourselves out of the crevasse, a choice between three equally ugly paths confronted us. Did we continue forward into these deadly mountains, which we weren’t a quarter of the way through yet, and which had been named the Thralls because rumor had it that anyone who survived their embrace and made it into the Giantlands beyond would be promptly enslaved? That had been the plan to start with, the giants presumably being easier to avoid in the wilderness than the Takers Guild in town and city. Now, however, I wondered in what state we’d arrive in the Giantlands, if arrive we did at all.

The Thralls were straight killing us.

One had only to look at Galva to know it.

Her normally olive complexion had gone pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She wasn’t made for freezing cold—her people tanned themselves to leather under the warm sun of Ispanthia, the poor ones thrashing olives off the tree, the rich drinking black wine in gardens and hunting gazelle with springwood crossbows. If we could keep her fed and warm, she’d likely push through it, strong as she was; but I didn’t know how that was going to happen if we forged on, our provisions having tumbled down a deep, deep hole.

Two other choices remained.

We could double back all the way to Oustrim, where we’d left Galva’s Queen Mireya, and my Norrigal, who had bid us cross these mountains to stay out of the Guild’s clutching hand; if we did that, our best chance would be to head south for the Odd Cities in Istrea, independent cities with their own criminal families and still not wholly owned by the Takers. This would mean crossing several nations, taking our chances dodging the Guild until we arrived there, and having to contend with the Smiling Sickness once in Istrea—a nasty business that, carried by biting flies.

And only past all these perils could I mine the Book of the Full Shadow for secrets that might ruin the Takers. I didn’t like our chances. Not back in Manreach, and me wanted for the death of an assassin whom I was supposed to help murder a queen.

The Full Shadow of Oustrim—whose book this had been—might be dead; but there were more left yet. One for each nation, ruling like a shadow king or queen.

Our third possible path was a sort of compromise. A middle path, if you will.

And that’s the one we chose.

We headed back for the Wostran brigands’ lair, there to reprovision and rest until we were strong enough to try again. Or, failing that, to spend the winter working on the book, hoping the Guild’s arm was shorter than I feared. That last bit seemed optimistic, though. I felt in my guts that if I didn’t put the whole of the Thralls between that book and its masters, it would deliver us into their grasp.

I’ll spare you the details of the two hard days of trudging we endured, except to say that Galva developed a cough that grew deeper each day, and that by the second evening, she had a bright and proper fever. I know, don’t I, because I slept close with her in an inadequate snow shelter, feeling her heat like a banked fire behind me, hearing the growling in her lungs. It would be just like the bastard gods who tormented us to kill a warrior of Galva’s rare gifts with snot and fever.

By the time we made the lair again, the weather had cleared some, but she was hardly walking.

I prowled the whole place to make sure we were indeed alone, then brought her in, propped her up on furs, built a fire, and melted some snow to try to improvise a soup from the brigands’ food stores. At least the brigands had a fair bag of salt, and the bones of some bovine. That, with a few skinny, dried-up onions, served well enough.

“Thank you, thief,” she said, embarrassed, I think, to need help, but too courteous not to acknowledge it.

“It’s no worry,” I said. “You can pay me back by not dying.”

She laughed a weak laugh that turned into coughs like low, distant thunder.

“I make you no promises,” she said.

And then her eyes got heavy, and she slept.

I know I promised a story about the Giantlands, and that’s still to come, but after we entered that lair a second time, I saw we weren’t getting out soon.

The Spanth got worse.

Through the first day or two of Galva’s illness, I still had notions about hurrying us through those deadly mountains before the gloaming season ended and true winter came to smother us. I’d never seen her slowed down by anything but a poisoner’s art, so it took me a while to realize she wasn’t just going to shake this off in a day or two and be ready to tackle the Thralls. That thin, cold air was hard going on the flat, let alone on the climb. Not to mention the karking owl-monsters roaming in packs, and the gods knew what other beasties we’d not yet met. I had told her not to expire yet, but by the time we sheltered, her fever got hotter and her sleeps got longer, and I was thinking we both looked like to die.

We had enough food to get us by, maybe even all winter, but without her sword, I didn’t like my chances to defend even this high, hard place with only a bow, a couple of knives, and a handful of cantrips. Oh, I could make a geezer get drowsy or sneeze, but I wouldn’t be thrashing anybody with a flying staff or drawing wights out of the stone walls to fight on my orders. Spells like that were the province of proper magickers like Deadlegs, or Fulvir, or even my moon-wife, Norrigal. Who was somehow also Deadlegs. I couldn’t think about that too long, though, or I’d get a headache. Point was, I could really have used my witchlet now. I had strong cunning for neither killing nor healing, and I’d be needing both if ever I meant to see home again.

“What are you … babbling about?” Galva said, with not enough breath to wobble a candle flame.

“Was I talking?”

Her lips moved, but then she just nodded and slept again.

That was the first sign of being a nutter, wasn’t it? Talking to yourself without knowing it?

“Stop that shyte,” I told myself, then realized I was doing it again and said, “Fuck!”