“Or lunch, when they’re all eating?” Holywell added.
Edyon nodded. “That’s a good point.” And March wasn’t sure who was being more sarcastic.
“So?” March asked. “Which will it be?”
“The time is right,” Holywell said, looking at March. “But it’s your turn. Take the horses to the stables first, get them fed, and see if you can buy another one to carry provisions. We need food to last a week; that should get us to Rossarb. And find out anything else you can.”
“But why me?” March complained. “My Pitorian is the worst. I’m clearly not from around here.”
Holywell’s eyes flicked from Edyon to March. “If we see you’re in trouble, we’ll come and get you out of it.”
March knew Holywell would, but still it seemed the wrong plan.
“Unless you’ve got another idea?” Holywell added.
“You or Edyon could do it better.”
Holywell nodded. “I could do it better, but could you rescue me better?”
“So you think I’ll need rescuing?”
Holywell sighed. “No, March. I think Edyon will be too southern for these folks, but I have a feeling they’ll take to you. You’re a man from the mountains, like them.”
March swore in Abask.
“Excellent. I’m glad we’re in agreement.” Holywell smiled mirthlessly and turned away.
March’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. Ever since the inn, Holywell had been behaving oddly. He seemed to have lost patience with Edyon and was shorter with him now, less courteous and deferential. And he seemed irritated by March as well, since the night with the midges when March and Edyon had shared the smoke.
Now March felt as if there was another reason why he was being sent into the village. It was almost as if Holywell didn’t want to leave him and Edyon alone together, which was ridiculous. He was perfectly capable of looking after the prince and keeping up their deception. If anyone was risking that, it was Holywell by not hiding his feelings better. He was sure Edyon had noticed the change in his demeanor too but not said anything. How long until he did?
Nevertheless, March left them both under the trees and led the horses down to the village. Pravont was the biggest settlement they’d seen since Dornan, but it was still a village, not quite a town. A woman stared at him as he approached. He nodded once as a greeting and she returned a similar nod and then turned away.
“Wait, please!” said March in his best Pitorian. “Where are the stables?”
The woman looked at him and said, “Eh?”
“The stables?”
The woman shook her head. March wasn’t sure if she couldn’t understand his accent or was just being difficult. He indicated the horses and said “stable” louder. The woman nodded and pointed to her left.
March led the horses down the lane the woman had indicated. He passed a few more people, and there was a bit more nodding, but no one spoke.
He followed the trail of hay and smell of manure to the stables, which were large and not just for horses. In fact, there were a few horses, a few more cows, and a lot of goats. A woman was sweeping. She didn’t stop as March approached.
“Good day. My horses need food and water.”
The woman looked up, saying, “What?”
March repeated his request, pointing at the horses. What did she think he’d want!
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Abask.”
“Never heard of it. They all got eyes like that there?”
March couldn’t be bothered. He said, “No, everyone else’s are shit brown.”
The woman smiled. “You can leave your horses.”
“Thank you. I’ll come back for them later.”
“Horses ain’t no good on the plateau. It’s too cold and too steep.”
“Thanks for the advice, but I’m not going up to the plateau.”
“No? You have another reason for being here?”
March shrugged but then smiled. Holywell was right. These people did remind him of home.
“In Abask we ride horses in the mountains. Even in winter they cope.”
“This isn’t Abask. Though I admit most of the men here have shit-brown eyes, and shit for brains too. Anyway, you’ll need a mountain pony to carry your provisions. And you go on foot.”
The woman told him where to buy provisions and that she had a pony he could buy for five kroners, less a kroner for each of his horses. March knew that their horses were worth more and suspected the pony was worth far less, but he wasn’t in a position to argue. Besides, he liked the woman. And it was Holywell’s money.
At the trading post he bought food and blankets, a thick coat, a jacket, a woolen shirt, and some trousers. It was good to have clean clothes. But Holywell and Edyon also needed clothes. He added two more of everything to the pile. The man who made out his bill didn’t comment, at least not about that. He said, “You’ll be needing harpoons?”
“Harpoons?” March didn’t understand the word.
“You’re going over the river?”
March hesitated. Holywell had given Edyon lots of grief for saying where they were going, but it seemed fairly obvious. He didn’t have time for a reply anyway.
“Across the river’s demon territory. You’ll be needing harpoons.”
March shrugged. “Sure. Three harpoons.”
The man nodded and went through a door behind the counter and returned with three long wooden harpoons with barbed metal tips. On seeing what they were, March said, “I’m not going hunting.”
The man laughed. “No, but the demons will be hunting you.”
“Oh, right. Is three enough?”
“If it’s not, you’ll be dead anyway.”
March looked around the store. It was small but well stocked. “Do many people go up to the Northern Plateau from here?”
The man shook his head meaningfully. “No one ever does. Not as far as I know.”
March smiled.
He headed back to the stables and on the way stopped at a small inn. Inside was one room with tables and a bar, which was so small that the man behind it filled it. He asked, “Beer?”
March sat down. “And food.”
“There’s soup and there might be a pie ready, if you’re lucky. If you order both, you’ll save six kopeks.”
“Both then.”
The man stuck his head through the door and said something that sounded like it could be his order.
March sipped his beer and soon got his soup. “Is there bread?”
The man shook his head. “Polecake is three kopeks.”
“Fine.” March had no idea what polecake was and he was surprised to see the man reach up and pull a black disk from a pole that hung above the bar. He threw it over to March, who caught it. It was like a hard, thick biscuit.
“Break it onto the soup,” the barman said.
March did as instructed. The polecake was dry but absorbed the soup and added flavor. “Good,” he said.
The man watched him eat, then took the bowl and brought him a huge chicken pie and asked where he was from, to which March replied, “Abask.” The barman had never heard of it, so he told March about his knees. His knees ached. Then the barman told March that the man in the trading post would rip him off, and March nodded and said, “And the woman at the stables.”
March paid and remembered he was supposed to ask about the sheriff’s men. It was hardly subtle, but he felt increasingly confident that the people of Pravont knew how to be discreet.
The barman nodded. “Sheriff’s men were here a few days ago. They wanted us to set up a roadblock on the bridge over the river. We told them where they could put their roadblock, and it wasn’t on the bridge.”
March laughed and thanked the man, and a short time later he was leading h
is mountain pony out of Pravont and back to where Holywell and Edyon were waiting.
“That horse has shrunk,” said Holywell. “And where are the others?”
“Too steep and cold for horses where we’re going,” replied March, bristling slightly.
Holywell grunted and started checking the provisions strapped to the pony.
Edyon smiled and said, “Your new outfit suits you, March.”
March tugged at his jacket awkwardly. Edyon paid him compliments all the time, and even though it made March feel self-conscious, he realized he didn’t want him to stop. He said, “I’ve got new clothes for us all.”
As Edyon put on his warm jacket, he asked, “What are the clothes like in Calidor?”
“Um, similar. But different.”
Edyon laughed. “Not the most helpful description. But maybe you can tell me about more important things. You know my father. Can you tell me about him, his friends, his court? What should I expect?”
March knew Edyon would be hopeless in the prince’s court. He was too unguarded, showed his feelings too quickly and too easily. But then Edyon wasn’t going to court. He was going to a dungeon in Brigant. Possibly he’d be tortured. Probably. He’d certainly never see Calidor or his father. Nor his mother either. March imagined her waiting for a letter from her son that would never arrive.
March forced a smile onto his face. “Of course, Your Highness. Let me tell you about your father . . .”
TASH
PRAVONT, PITORIA
TASH ORDERED the polecake and soup, and the pie and a large beer for Gravell. Then Gravell added another pie for himself.
“Best food in the world here,” Gravell said, as happy as Tash had seen him in weeks. “We’ll get our smoke back and hunt a few more demons while we’re at it.”
“Have you told Flint that you’ll have to pay him later?”
They’d used the last of the money the day before and hadn’t eaten since.
Gravell sighed. “Money, money, money. That’s all you talk about.”
“It’s not money that I’m talking about but the lack of it.”
“And whose fault is it that we have no money?”
Tash wasn’t sure it was totally her fault that the demon smoke had been stolen, and she had done her best to get it back, but she didn’t want to argue about that again. It didn’t solve the basic problem of having no money anyway.
Flint brought the food over and stood by the table as Tash broke her polecake over the dish and stirred it into her soup.
“How’s it going, Gravell?”
“Ups and downs, but it’s good to be here, Flint,” Gravell said. “Good to get some decent food.”
“Where’ve you come from just now then?”
“Dornan. Full of fucking thieves.”
“Ay, that’s true. You had a problem, huh?”
“Someone stole my goods. We think he—they—might have come north. Come through Pravont as it happens.”
“Stole your stuff? Bastards.”
“That is exactly the right word, Flint. Exactly the right word.”
Tash pulled out a poster of Edyon that she’d taken from one of the roadblocks. She handed it to Flint, saying, “This is one of them.”
Flint shook his head. “Murdered one of the red tops, eh? Well, I’ve not seen him here.”
“He’s with two other men: one young, the other your age. They’re foreign.”
Flint dragged over a stool and sat, his voice low. “There was a young fella came in two days ago. Spoke Pitorian but so bad I could hardly follow him. He had the strangest accent. And weird eyes. Foreign for sure. But he was alone.”
Flint dropped his voice even lower and continued, “Then two other men came through yesterday. Red tops. From Dornan, they said, but I know southerners when I see them. They headed over the bridge, I hear. Hope the demons get them.” Flint turned and spat on the floor. “Scarlet-haired bastards.”
“They’re following the youngster?” Gravell asked.
“That’s my guess.” Flint stood. “They stayed the night and left at dawn with an early breakfast they insisted I make ’em. That was this morning. You’ll track ’em easy enough. Stomping around like all bloody southerners do.”
“Thanks, Flint,” Gravell said. “I owe you. And . . . I’ll have to owe you for the food too.”
Flint put his hand on Gravell’s shoulder. “Not a problem, my friend. You can have a room too if you want. Pay me next time. I know you’re good for it.”
Tash looked out of the window. It would be dark soon. Flint was right that it was too late to set off now, but she knew Gravell would be moving at full speed at dawn.
* * *
The day was clear and bright, and the tracks were easy enough to follow. After his cheerfulness the day before, Gravell was in a serious mood. It was clear that the sheriff’s men were following the tracks of what looked like two or three people and a pony. Tash was uneasy: hunting demons was one thing, chasing down Edyon and Holywell was another, but following the sheriff’s men into forbidden territory didn’t feel right.
“What do we do if we catch them up?” she asked. “The sheriff’s men, I mean.”
“What do you mean, if?”
“When, then?”
“Then we go past them, without them noticing, which’ll be a doddle as they’re southerners and not familiar with this territory, and then we’ll catch up with Edyon and his friends.”
“And what if the sheriff’s men catch up with Edyon first? I mean, I know they’re southerners and stupid and all that, but they have got a head start.”
“Edyon and his friends have already done for one sheriff’s man; I doubt they’ll worry about doing for a couple more. With any luck, the red tops will take at least one of them out, so the survivors will be easier pickings. And if the sheriff’s men kill them . . . well, at least I’ll get to spit on Edyon’s grave.”
EDYON
NORTHERN PLATEAU, PITORIA
“I’D LIKE to see a demon,” Holywell said.
Edyon didn’t want to see a demon. He wanted to see a building, a warm fire, a blanket, and a soft bed. Or he’d like to see the sun and, most importantly, feel its warmth. They were marching on fast, and he was struggling to keep up. He was tired, cold, and hungry, but mostly he was cold. He was glad of the fur-lined jacket March had bought, and the woolen shirt and the hat, but Edyon wished he had bought thick socks too. His feet hadn’t been warm for two days. At night he warmed them by the fire and hugged the bottle of demon smoke for further warmth. He would have liked to have hugged March instead—he was sure they could find ways to keep each other warm—but his handsome man had gone cold in a different way, keeping his distance and glancing at Holywell whenever Edyon found an excuse to touch him.
“What do they look like, Your Highness? Do you know?”
Edyon shrugged. “There are lots of stories. Some say they’re like humans, only bigger and faster. And redder.”
“Redder?”
“They’re supposed to be the color of the smoke.”
“Your smoke’s purple.”
“Yes, so perhaps this smoke came from a purple demon.”
Perhaps, Edyon mused, that was why this smoke was different, why it had this strange power to heal.
“Purple or red, they don’t sound that dangerous,” said Holywell.
“Oh,” Edyon added, “and they have sharp teeth and a strong dislike of human company.”
Holywell laughed. “Sounds like a man I used to work for.”
“You’re in a good mood, Holywell,” Edyon said.
“We’re making good speed now, Your Highness. In less than a week we’ll be at the coast.”
It had taken them a day to climb the steep slope to the plateau, but Holywell was right: the going was relatively easy now. The land was
strangely, emptily beautiful. There were lots of trees but not much else, no people and no sign of demons, though Edyon didn’t know if demons left signs. There were plentiful animal tracks—deer and rabbits and wild boar—but really the only outstanding feature of the place was that it was cold. It was the beginning of summer and yet it was colder than winter in southern Pitoria.
“So why is it that no one comes here, Your Highness?” Holywell asked.
“Too bloody cold,” March interjected.
Edyon glanced over at March, who’d hardly spoken since breakfast. He was wrapped up so tightly that Edyon couldn’t see his face.
Edyon said, “I imagine the cold does help keep people away, but it’s forbidden because of its history. It used to be a place where people came to hunt, then gold was found in one of the rivers about a hundred years ago. They say all you had to do was paddle around and pick up gold nuggets with your toes.”
“If they weren’t frozen off first,” Holywell said.
“Or if the demons didn’t get you,” Edyon replied. “They were said to protect the land; that’s one of the old myths about them. Anyway, the story goes that they killed some miners and so demon hunters were employed to protect them. The demon hunters killed the demons, and that’s when they discovered the smoke and started selling it to the towns farther south. Some people made a lot of money, but eventually the gold began to run out, and soon there were rival groups fighting over the good mines that were left. So the king sent his son, Prince Verent—he’d be the grandfather of the present king—up here to investigate the problems.
“But they say Prince Verent fell under the spell of the demon smoke. He was obsessed with it. Instead of using his men to sort out the fighting, he rode north, hunting demons and killing them for their smoke. He went farther and farther and refused to turn back. Eventually he disappeared into the snowy wastes. Some say he’s still going north. After that, King Randall, Verent’s father, decreed that no one should go onto the Northern Plateau, and possessing demon smoke became a crime in Pitoria. The law hasn’t changed since.”