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Forgive me father,’ Shaw mumbled. His head lolled like a noose that wound around his neck, eyelids half sunken. ‘But he deserved it.’
He swayed in his walk. Everyone in the small company that set out from Castle Lock gave him brief glances, waiting for him to fall.
‘Did you ever care for me, father?’ White smoke escaped his lips. ‘Was there any love?’
His father didn’t breach his vow of silence as he walked beside him. Shaw saw that his lips were sown shut. Just as the day they hanged you,” This preacher will speak no more.”
I wish had the chance do it myself. But you couldn’t even give me that.
Shaw hung his head backwards to see the canopy above him. A vault of barren branches, gnarled and deformed, gripped by the cold. Beyond them he could see the heavens, dark and brooding. A mad king’s calm before his inevitable wrath. It would be worse than before; he could feel it. The question was when?
Can you feel his eyes, Shaw? Judge whispered. The pup’s?
Shaw shot a glance behind him, not questioning the voice anymore. He saw the young pup, the dark coat hung around him like a dark bird’s feathers.
He has been eyeing us for a long time, Judge continued.
‘You sure?’ He mumbled to his ghost.
Have I ever been wrong, Shaw?
You led us through that path, told us it was safe. How many came home, Judge? Shaw thought. He didn’t know if the ghost could hear his thoughts. If he could, Judge didn’t say a word.
We have seen him dining with the commander. He is a loyal dog.
‘And?’
He knows it was you, Shaw. That is why we are out here. He knows who murdered the Madman! He knows it was you who murdered John and Darshan!
Shaw threw back a glance again, the boy still kept his gaze away from him. He could hide a dagger beneath the cloak, Shaw thought. He is waiting for an opportunity. His fingers found his knife. The wise thing would be to deny the boy the opportunity. He slowed down.
‘We are freezing to death out here!’ Shaw saw Jackals stride up towards the front. ‘And yet we hardly understand why!’
‘We were ordered to find the Madman,’ Aike said, not giving the young man the slightest glance.
‘To find a corpse, Aike? Is that why we are out here?’ Jackals sneered, forced the warrior to meet his gaze. ‘We both know that is absurd.’
Shaw chuckled to himself as he saw the pup walk up to the front. Maybe there were no need for a cold blade this time.
‘The Lord Commander firmly believes that we will find him alive,’ the pup said.
‘Didn’t hear your master whistle, Dog.’ Jackals said. ‘And yet you come here, barking.’
The pup bit down on the insult. ‘You shouldn’t question his orders.’
‘Why, Dog?’
‘He is your Lord Commander.’
‘Aye. But I don’t follow him blindly like an obedient fucking child. Do you know what happens to a man out here? Do you? In the cold?’ The pup said nothing. ‘It aint pretty. Parts of you go numb, change colour, blacken, and dry out.’ Jackals leaned in close, his face a knife’s edge from the Pup’s. The Pup, however, did not avert his eyes.
‘I’ve seen real warriors start to forget things; become confused. Death takes them when they can’t fight no more. They give up. I promise you, Dog, if that Madman is out here, he didn’t survive the night. And if he came out here, he came out here to die.’
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‘Afraid the cold, Jackals?’ The pup japed. ‘What if the Lord Commander asks you to fight a man? Will you run away then?’
‘Afraid?’ Jackals snarled. ‘I have killed five men. How many have you killed, Dog? None I have heard.’
‘Do you want to be my first?’ The boy snapped. ‘Or maybe you are too afraid? Shall I tell the Lord Commander what sort of man you are? A liar and a coward.’
Jackals unsheathed his axe. ‘You dare, Dog?’
‘Jackals enough!’ Aike shouted over the howling wind.
‘Enough?’ Jackals laughed. ‘My father taught me to kill a dog that you can’t reason with. But don’t worry, Aike, I will give this pup a fighting chance.’
The pup gave himself distance but struggled with dislodging his sword from its scabbard. The other brothers in the company laughed, even Shaw couldn’t help but give a tired chuckle. Look at the men that follow you, Arthur. You have strayed far.
‘Enough!’ Aike forced himself between the two fighting pups. ‘I will not have blood be shed between two brothers under my command!’
‘Let them fight, Aike. Then there will be one fewer mouth to feed,’ one of the brothers said and few voices joined him. ‘Let them fight!’
‘No steel! No blood! We carry on!’
‘To our deaths, Aike?’ Jackals cried out. ‘To our fucking deaths? That is what he wants, isn’t it? That is what he bloody wants. Just like John. Just like Darshan. He wants to get rid of us! And that fucker —’ he pointed his axe toward the Pup who finally had manged to draw his sword and held it with the grace of an untutored ‘—he is going to make sure that it will happen.’
‘Jackals listen! He is your brother! Don’t be a—’
But the axe had already been thrown and swirled through the air and, with a violent thud, lodged itself into the pup’s left shoulder. The young Pup stumbled a few steps backwards from the force of the impact, eyes frantically watching red bloom around the edges of the axe.
Violence is the argument of the weak, Shaw’s father preached, mouth still sown shut. Their love of it draws the ire of the gods.
‘You don’t understand father,’ Shaw mumbled. ‘The gods love it.’
Jackals charged forward with dagger drawn. The brothers cheered him on. It would be butchery; the loyal pup wouldn’t stand a chance. One less mouth to feed.
‘Enough!’ Aike roared, but his voice was drowned by a man’s scream.
Shaw cast a glance behind him and saw a brother thrashing beneath the weight of a grey wolf. The wolf was tearing at his throat, ripped it free in a spray of blood.
It turned its yellow eyes towards them, flesh between its teeth, grey fur stained with blood. The company could hear howls all around them.
‘Wolfs!’
Chaos broke loose amongst them. Screams and shouts morphed into a shrilled cacophony of violence as the wolfs charged into the company: jaws snapping and biting into flesh and fur.
Shaw caught a wolf charging towards him and frantically drew his sword. His hands trembled. Come then.
But when the wolf saw the steel, it hesitated. Shaw thought he saw fear and acted on instinct. He placed one foot before him and charged, hoping to skewer the beast before it could draw blood on him. The wolf, however, didn’t hesitate this time. It leapt aside, Shaw stumbled. He had overstated his own strength, his own limits. He fell violently into the snow.
Shaw felt the pains and aches, his body remembering what it chose to forget in the spur of the moment. He couldn’t muster the strength to stand, the pain burning through his body. The cold crept in like a bird of prey, leeching away his warmth. Shaw wished he could turn, to see the vault of heaven. He wanted view the moon, the billion burning stars. But he knew that he would only find dark clouds. I’m not dead and I will not die.
Shaw heard a low growl and voice that spoke his name.
‘Shaw.’
He lifted his gaze and saw the wolf, starved, bones protruding beneath the fur. But Shaw’s eyes only lingered on the grey beast for a moment before seeing the man beside it. Scavengers had eaten his face; an eye ripped from its socket; flesh picked from his lips and chins. But the grey hair, the wolfish features told Shaw who it was.
‘Darshan,’ Shaw whispered.
‘Those who draw the sword, shall die by the sword. You knew it as well as any man,’ Darshan said in a croaking voice, words hissed and breathy.
I killed you once, I will kill you again.
‘For why should you be here? In the place of better men?’
Shaw tried to get up, veins bulging, a scream escaping between gritted teeth. ‘I will kill you!’
‘They await you.’
The wolf charged, jaws snapping down on his left forearm, teeth puncturing skin. Shaw screamed. He grasped for the sword, but it had skidded across the snow, far from his reach. The wolf tugged and tore, blood bubbling up between its teeth. His fingers clasped for his dagger, finding its hilt, he drew it and drove it into the wolf’s side. The wolf cried out and released its hold. Shaw had given himself a moment’s respite, but the dagger hadn’t killed the wolf, and he was too weak to run. Worse of all, he was losing blood.
The wolf charged again, furious from its wounds. They struggled through the snow before Shaw managed to snatch the beast’s jaws, locking them from tearing his face apart.
You have been promised, he could hear Darshan say. They await you.
He felt his arms shaking, heard his rasping and gasping breath.
They await you.
Shaw felt his arms give in, saw an arrow pierce the wolf’s neck before everything turned black.