Free Cold Redemption by Nathan Hawke Page A

would like to know if Gallow is still alive. Is
there a way, do you think, to find out?’

 
     
     
     
9
BRAWLIC’S FARM
     
     
     
     
    B eyard led the Lhosir from Varyxhun back down the high mountain pass. He rode at the front and now and then stopped and got off his horse and knelt
down in the snow and pushed his face towards it and sniffed. Men left traces. Not only the tread of their boots but a deeper mark. It was said among the Lhosir that no one could evade the Fateguard
once they had the sight of the Eyes of Time upon them, and it was true. Beyard closed his eyes behind his mask and touched the iron to the snow and knew, without knowing how, that two men had
passed this way days ago, the two men that he was following. The essence of their presence remained.
    He did it over and over again until he lost count of how many times, but as the light was starting to fade he did it once more and found they were not there, and knew that they’d left the
Varyxhun Road. He turned the grumbling Lhosir around and led them back until he found a winding twisting track where men had passed since the last heavy snows. He sniffed again. This was the
way.
    He knew where they were going now. The track wound back and forth over a ridge and down into one of the higher valleys. From the top he saw smoke a few miles away. Chimney smoke. He stopped and
pointed. ‘That’s where we sleep tonight.’
    The Lhosir moved with purpose now, hurrying down the ridge before the day ended and plunged them into the deep quick darkness that came after a mountain sunset. They wove between stands of
towering Varyxhun pines, across the uneven ground and the thick drifts of snow. They lost sight of the smoke, and when the last rays of the sun sank below the horizon they started to mutter among
themselves. All of them knew how cold the mountainsides became at night and how quickly any warmth faded. Beyard snarled at them. Cold? He felt nothing else. Out here in the snow and ice and the
falling dark, or in a warm summer meadow with the sun blazing down, or standing in the flickering orange glare of a funeral pyre. Always the same. Always cold.
    He whipped them with words and it wasn’t quite full dark when they spied the farmhouse ahead of them again, large and welcoming with its warmth, firelight flickering between the cracks in
the shutters and sparks rising into the night from the chimney. One house for one family of Marroc, a couple of barns for the animals. Beyard felt the mood around him change. An easy fight, a full
belly, mead and a warm place to sleep – yes, the Lhosir weren’t muttering now – they were eager, but the coldness inside Beyard only bit deeper. None of those pleasures were his
any more. Pleasures were forgotten things among the Fateguard. Cold and iron and the weave of fate were all he’d know for the rest of time. The Beyard of long ago yearned for something else,
but that Beyard was a distant voice now, all but lost in a blizzard of howls.
    The Lhosir dismounted and left their horses far enough from the farm not to be heard. They argued about what to do with Gallow, whether to leave him with a couple of men to watch him or to take
him with them; and in the end they took him because they couldn’t agree on who’d stay behind to do the watching. Beyard undid his bonds and tied him again, this time with his hands
behind his back. ‘So you don’t throw anyone into something that’s not good for them,
nioingr
.’
    ‘That’s the second time you’ve called me that, old friend.’ Gallow’s voice was as cold as the snow. ‘A third time and it’s axes and shields.’
Under his mask the old Beyard stirred at that. Might even have smiled. Axes and shields. The right way to settle matters, not some spiritless hanging.
    He pushed the Foxbeard on, letting the other Lhosir lead the way. The deep twilight was perfect. The Marroc would be inside and huddled around their fire. They’d probably eaten and