glared. He dropped his broken spear, lifted an axe from his belt and lowered his shield. ‘I know you, Gallow Foxbeard, and I’ll unsay nothing. You took thesword you hold from the dead hands of the Screambreaker on the battlefield outside Andhun and you cut off the hand of our king with it, and instead of facing your fate you fled in fear. No, Foxbeard, I will eat nothing. Nioingr .’
Marroc were gathering around Sarvic now. Not the Crackmarsh men, who’d already pressed on deeper into the castle’s labyrinth, but the Varyxhun mob that followed. They had an evil about them, a hunger for vengeance. Before Sarvic could see it coming, one seized the spear in his hand and jerked it down, too quick for him to stop. The spear sliced into the old forkbeard’s throat. He gasped. When Sarvic snatched back his spear the Marroc let go but it made no difference. The forkbeard’s blood sprayed into his face as he gurgled a curse and grabbed at Sarvic’s leg, and then he was still.
The Marroc who’d done it laughed. ‘Filthy goatbeard.’
Sarvic turned on him and then changed his mind and backed away. He’d barely taken a step when the rest of the mob fell on the dead forkbeard. Knives and clubs rose and fell as they beat and hacked him to pieces. Sarvic watched to see if he felt anything but he didn’t. No pride, no shame, no joy, no regret. Nothing. The forkbeards were all going to die anyway, and when he looked at the angry men around him, come with cudgels and murder and hate to revenge themselves for everything that had been done to them, how was he any different?
Gallow had the other forkbeard pinned to the wall now. Garran Fleetfoot swung his axe. Gallow caught it on his shield and pushed and twisted it away. For a moment the old man was exposed, his shield useless and on the wrong side. The red sword lunged and drove into his ribs, cracking a fistful of them. The forkbeard gasped and staggered but his mail was good enough to keep the red steel out of his skin. Sarvic smiled to himself. He’d remember that. He’d have that mail.
The old man wheezed. He pointed at the mob ripping the other forkbeard to pieces. ‘See what they are, nioingr ? We’re better than them!’
He dropped his shield, switched his axe to his other hand and lifted it high, wide open, as good as asking Gallow to finish him, and Gallow obliged him. The red sword flashed, blood sprayed across the Aulian walls and Sarvic watched the forkbeard fall. Gallow stood over him. ‘You fought well, old man. Like Beyard. He never stepped aside from the path. It’s the path itself that strayed. It’s Medrin.’
The look on Gallow’s face was like he’d killed his own brother; and then it changed to something dark and harsh – so dark that when he turned and strode away Sarvic forgot about the dead man’s mail and followed. He’d seen that same look before, that morning after Witches’ Reach.
3
ONCE A FORKBEARD
G allow turned away from the Hall of Thrones and left the Marroc to their looting. Servants would be hauled out of their hiding places. If they were lucky they’d get away with being beaten bloody, but he’d been among a victorious army after enough battles to know what happened next. Nothing that a decent man would care to remember, and it would be like that here too. Worse.
He hesitated a moment then shook his head and moved on. Not his business. Let the Marroc sort out their vengeance without him. He’d come across the mountains to be with his family, that was all, and now he’d come here to this castle for his last real friend, the Aulian, and if Oribas was alive and safe then only one other thing mattered and it wasn’t in Varyxhun. So he chose not to look at what was happening around him and pushed his way past the Marroc still surging into the hall. They were throwing down the braziers now and tearing the hangings off the walls, hangings that had been there long before any Lhosir had come to the valley. Their own treasures,