Below the gates a blanket of green patched with yellow and
brown spilled down the mountainside, fed presumably by whatever underground
waterway fed the town well. A herd of wooly mountain goats grazed amongst the
scrubby plants, neither penned in nor apparently disturbed by the village
above. Only one road ran into the village, switchbacking past the green up to
the gate.
The Ultor considered the reception he’d enjoyed from the first Govanite he’d met, and decided to skip the front entrance. He found a
boulder near the rim on the downslope side, lay down on his belly in its shadow
and set about waiting for dark.
He sharpened his sword while he waited, and watched the
village below. From this vantage point he could see that there was actually one
wooden building in the village, large but ill-constructed, and set right on the
village common. Not all the villagers were unarmed, either: at least four men
wore swords, one of whom guarded the gate and another of whom guarded the wood
house. The others patrolled the village, watching the villagers as they worked
at their tasks. Four wasn’t impossible, but there would certainly be more in
the mine.
For that was the secret to this strange village set on stone
in the middle of the wild: a large cave entrance in the back of the village
which ingested men and egested men toting rocks. He couldn’t tell much about
the rocks from this distance, but from the Govanite’s contempt for the gold
coins the Ultor had offered him, he had a pretty good guess what they were.
They seemed to be pulling a fair amount out of the ground, but the village
looked dirt-poor—the people were skinny, the cats were skinny, and everything
that wasn’t rock looked worn through twice. Even some of the rock looked
exhausted. Of course, the Ultor couldn’t help but notice that all the ore
coming out of that mine was going to one place: the wood house.
He took another swig of the fermented goat milk (every time
he drank he thought it couldn’t possibly be as vile as he remembered—and then
it was worse) and debated: to rob the wood house or not to rob the wood house?
It would be the best guarded house in the village, but also the best
provisioned, and it was the only one with ponies outside. He also found himself
nursing a growing dislike for its master. There was no denying, though, that
he’d lost strength coming over the mountains, and speed. If he tried one of the
stone hovels instead he might be able to simply buy food and water. Water
sounded especially good at the moment.
Near dusk two swordsmen left the village and headed in
opposite directions, one north and one south, in the general direction of where
the Ultor had killed the first Govanite. Half an hour later a man returned from
the north … but no one from the south. The Ultor wondered how long it would
take the southern scout to either find the body or give up looking for him and
return to sound the alarm. He cursed the achingly slow sunset here on the western
side of the mountain—but he didn’t dare move until full dark. So he waited.
The sun eased lower and lower in the sky. The Ultor finished
the last of the milk with a grimace. The sentinel at the gate scanned the
southern horizon. No one came.
The sun vanished, leaving behind a pink and blue glow. Another
swordsman joined the gate sentinel and conferred with him. The second man
joined him scanning the southern horizon. The Ultor envied them their heavy,
warm goat-hair tunics as he shivered in the dark. No one came.
The glow receded and the whole world lost its color in that
last spectral light of the dying day. The Ultor stretched and flexed in his
hiding place to get his blood flow back up. The second man at the gate went to
the wood house and conferred with the guard there. Still no one came.
At last: dark. True dark. A lantern lit the gate and another
the inside of the wood house, but it didn’t look as if the rest of the homes
had fuel to spare. Straining his ears to catch any sounds of alarm, the Ultor
eased from hiding place and crept to the edge of the cliff. It was nearly
thirty feet down a slope that barely deserved the name, but it wasn’t sheer, he
could see handholds enough on the way down. He peeled off his gloves and his
thick-soled boots and stowed them in his pack. It was hard to be sure in the
dark, but by feel he had frostbite on at least a couple of toes on each foot. One
of them was already missing a toenail, which would hurt like hell if he ever
got feeling back in that toe. Still, he had one or two toes per foot that could
still tell rock from air, which was all he needed.
Movement at the wood house: men were gathering, passing out
torches. The Ultor smiled; the more swordsmen who emptied out of the village
and spent what would hopefully be hours searching the night-blacked
mountainside, the better. The night was only getting colder, though, and he couldn’t
wait any longer to start his descent. He swung a leg over the side of the
cliff—
Yelling, maybe a hundred feet away. The Ultor scrambled back
to his hiding place.
He peered around the boulder, and his heart sank. It was the
southern scout, sure enough, and that enormous bulk over his shoulder could
only be one thing: the dead Govanite. He’d found him. The armed men ran out to
meet him and take his load, and they all shouted to one another in a language
the Ultor couldn’t make out.
He made a decision: he couldn’t flee—he’d never make it
through the rest of the mountains alive without provisions—and he’d never get a
better distraction. He hustled over to the edge of the cliff, swung down over
the side and started climbing down into the village.
He found a foothold with his toes, and then another. He felt
around and found a fingerhold, and let go the cliff top. Each time he felt for
a new hold his digits seemed a little number. The chatter of the swordsmen grew
closer as they entered the village behind him. He didn’t turn to look. He kept
feeling his way down, toehold, handhold, toehold, handhold. He checked, and the
bottom didn’t seem nearly as much closer as the top seemed further. The chatter
went on, and sounded for all the world like it was right behind him. But no one
cried out. No one had seen him yet. So he kept descending.
He wondered why no one was crying. He could hear plenty of
angry shouting in whatever guttural language the Govanites spoke, but none of
the anguished wailing he remembered from every time he’d seen a fallen hero
returned home. Maybe they were a stoic people. Maybe the dead man left no one
behind.
His foot slipped off a hold. He dropped and the full weight
of his body yanked down on his fingers—but he kept his hold. Exhaling, he found
the foothold again and reminded himself to concentrate on the task at hand.
Slowly, rock to rock, he inched down the cliff. Twenty feet
to go. Fifteen. His arms and legs trembled with the effort of clinging to the
rock. They’d stopped talking, and he paused a moment to look over his shoulder.
He didn’t see any of them. Maybe they’d left to search the mountain for the
killer. Or maybe they were gathering silently below him right now. But he had
to climb down either way. Ten feet. If he could see the ground beneath him he
would let go and drop, but the night hid whatever sharp rocks might lay waiting
below. Eight feet. He reached out for another toehold and realized he couldn’t
feel a single inch of his foot. An eight-foot drop into the dark. It would have
to do. He carefully let go with one hand and wrapped it around his sword hilt.
He’d seen a man fall off a castle wall once and impale himself on his own
sword, hilt first. He took a deep breath, and said a little prayer—and fell.
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