The Heroes | страница 9



‘He was asleep,’ growled Yon. ‘Weren’t looking out too careful, were you?’

Hardbread shrugged. ‘Weren’t expecting anyone. If there’s two things we’ve got too much of in the North it’s hills and rocks. Didn’t reckon a hill with rocks on it would be a big draw.’

‘It ain’t to me,’ said Craw, ‘but Black Dow said come down here—’

‘And when Black Dow says a thing …’ Brack-i-Dayn half-sang the words, that way the hillmen tend to. He stepped into the wide circle of grass, tattooed side of his great big face turned towards the firelight, shadows gathered in the hollows of the other.

Redcrow made to jump up but Hardbread weighed him down with a pat on the shoulder. ‘My, my. You lot just keep popping up.’ His eyes slid from Jolly Yon’s axe, to Wonderful’s grin, to Brack’s belly, to Scorry’s knife still at his man’s throat. Judging the odds, no doubt, just the way Craw would’ve done. ‘You got Whirrun of Bligh with you?’

Craw slowly nodded. ‘I don’t know why, but he insists on following me around.’

Right on cue, Whirrun’s strange valley accent floated from the dark. ‘Shoglig said … I would be shown my destiny … by a man choking on a bone.’ It echoed off the stones, seeming to come from everywhere at once. He’d quite the sense of theatre, Whirrun. Every real hero needs one. ‘And Shoglig is old as these stones. Hell won’t take her, some say. Blade won’t cut her. Saw the world born, some say, and will see it die. That’s a woman a man has to listen to, ain’t it? Or so some say.’

Whirrun strolled through the gap one of the missing Heroes had left and into the firelight, tall and lean, face in shadow from his hood, patient as winter. He had the Father of Swords across his shoulders like a milkmaid’s yoke, dull grey metal of the hilt all agleam, arms slung over the sheathed blade and his long hands dangling. ‘Shoglig told me the time, and the place, and the manner of my death. She whispered it, and made me swear to keep it secret, for magic shared is no magic at all. So I cannot tell you where it will be, or when, but it is not here, and it is not now.’ He stopped a few paces from the fire. ‘You boys, on the other hand …’ Whirrun’s hooded head tipped to one side, only the end of his sharp nose, and the line of his sharp jaw, and his thin mouth showing. ‘Shoglig didn’t say when you’d be going.’ He didn’t move. He didn’t have to. Wonderful looked at Craw, and rolled her eyes towards the starry sky.