We were suddenly clambering down from the loose rock of the slide area, going very quietly and carefully. Kettle spoke very softly. "We've a ways to go yet. But when we get there, let me choose my spot, and get my first shot off. As soon as the man is down, show yourself and draw their attention. They may not look for me, and I may get another clean shot."
"Have you done this sort of thing before?" I asked softly.
"It's not that different from our game, Fitz. From here, let us go silently."
I knew then she had not killed this way before, if she had ever killed a human before at all. I began to doubt the wisdom of giving her the bow. At the same time, I was selfishly grateful for her companionship. I wondered if I were losing my courage.
Perhaps you are learning that a pack is best for such things.
Perhaps.
There was little cover on the road. Above and below us, the mountainside rose sheer. The road itself was flat and bare. We rounded a shoulder of the mountain and their camp was in plain sight. All three guards still sat carelessly about the fire, eating and talking. The horses caught our scent and shifted with small snortings. But as the wolf had kept them uneasy for some time, the men paid them no mind. Kettle set an arrow to her bow as we walked and carried it ready. In the end, it was simple. Ugly mindless slaughter, but simple. She let go her arrow when one of the men noticed us. It took him through the chest. The other two leaped to their feet, turned to see us, and dived for their weapons. But in that short space of time, Kettle had nocked another arrow and let fly as the helpless wretch drew a sword clear. Nighteyes came suddenly from behind to bear the last man down and hold him until I could rush in to finish him with a sword.
It had happened swiftly, almost quietly. Three dead men sprawled in the snow. Six sweating, restless horses, one impassive mule. "Kettle. See what food they have on the horses," I told her, to stop her awful staring. She swung her gaze to me, then slowly nodded.
I went over the bodies, to see what they might tell me. They did not wear Regal's colors, but the origin of two were plain in the features of their faces and the cut of their clothes. Farrowmen. The third one, when I turned him over, near stopped my heart. I'd known him in Buckkeep. Not well, but enough to know his name was Tallow. I crouched looking down into his dead face, ashamed that I could recall no more of him than that. I supposed he had gone on to Tradeford when Regal moved the court there; many of the servants had. I tried to tell myself it did not matter where he had begun, he had ended here. I closed my heart and did my tasks.
I tumbled the bodies off the cliff's edge. While Kettle went through their stores and sorted out what she thought we two could carry back, I stripped the horses of every bit of harness and tack. This followed the bodies down the cliff. I went through their bags, finding little besides warm clothes. The pack animal carried only their tent and such things. No papers. What need would coterie members have of written instructions?
Drive the horses well down the road. I doubt they'll come back here on their own.
That much meat, and you want me to just chase it away?
If we kill one here, it's more than we can eat and carry. Whatever we left would feed those three when they return. They were carrying dry meat and cheese. I'll see your belly is full tonight.
Nighteyes was not pleased, but he heeded me. I think he chased the horses farther and faster than he truly needed to, but at least he left them alive. I had no idea what their chances were in the mountains. Probably end up in a snowcat's belly, or as a feast for the ravens. I was suddenly horribly tired of it all.
"Shall we go on?" I asked Kettle needlessly, and she nodded. It was a good trove of food she had packed for us to carry, but I privately wondered if I'd be able to stomach any of it. What little we could not carry nor the wolf stuff down, we kicked over the edge. I looked around us. "Dare I touch it, I'd try to push that pillar over the edge, too," I told Kettle.
She gave me a look as if she thought I had asked it of her. "I fear to touch it also," she said at last, and we both turned away from it.
Evening crept across the mountains as we went up the road, and night came swift on her heels. I followed Kettle and the wolf across the landslide in near darkness. Neither of them seemed afraid, and I was suddenly too weary to care if I survived the trek. "Don't let your mind wander," Kettle chided me as we finally came down off the tumble of stone and onto the road again. She took my arm and gripped it tightly. We walked for a time in almost blackness, simply following the straight flat road before us as it cut across the face of the mountain. The wolf went ahead of us, coming back frequently to check on us. Camp's not much farther, he encouraged me after one such trip.
"How long have you been doing this?" Kettle asked me after a time.
I didn't pretend to misunderstand the question. "Since I was about twelve," I told her.
"How many men have you killed?"
It was not the cold question it sounded. I answered her seriously. "I don't know. My… teacher advised me against keeping a count. He said it wasn't a good idea." Those weren't his exact words. I remembered them well. "How many doesn't matter after one," Chade had said. "We know what we are. Quantity makes you neither better nor worse."
I pondered now what he had meant by that as Kettle said to the dark, "I killed once before."
I made no reply. I'd let her tell me about it if she wished, but I really didn't want to know.
Her arm in mine began to tremble slightly. "I killed her, in a temper. I didn't think I could, she had always been stronger. But I lived and she died. So they burned me out, and turned me out.
Sent me into exile forever." Her hand found mine and gripped it tightly. We kept on walking. Ahead of us, I spied a tiny glow. It was most likely the brazier burning inside the tent.
"It was so unthinkable, to do what I had done," Kettle said wearily. "It had never happened before. Oh, between coteries, certainly, once in a great while, for rivalry for the King's favor. But I Skill-dueled a member of my own coterie, and killed her. And that was unforgivable."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Rooster Crown
There is a game played among the Mountain folk. It is a complex game to learn, and a difficult one to master. It features a combination of cards and rune chips. There are seventeen cards, usually about the size of a man's hand and made from any light-colored wood. Each of these cards features an emblem from Mountain lore, such as the Old Weaver-Man or She Who Tracks. The renderings of these highly stylized images are usually done in paint over a burnt outline. The thirty-one rune chips are made from a gray stone peculiar to the Mountains, and are incised with glyphs for Stone, Water, Pasture, and the like. The cards and stones are dealt out to the players, usually three, until no more remain. Both cards and runes have traditional weights that are varied when they are played in combination. It is reputed to be a very old game.
We walked the rest of the way to the tent in silence. What she had told me was so immense I could not think of anything to say. It would have been stupid to voice the hundreds of questions that sprang up in me. She had the answers, and she would choose when to give them to me. I knew that now. Nighteyes came back to me silently and swiftly. He slunk close to my heels.
She killed within her pack?
So it seems.
It happens. It is not good, but it happens. Tell her that. Not just now.
No one said much as we came into the tent. No one wanted to ask. So I quietly said, "We killed the guards and drove off the horses and threw their supplies off the cliff."