Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

“He was too confident, that Edris. There’ll be a dozen of them at least.”

“Shit.” A dozen! I squeezed my nag along that little bit faster. I’d named the gelding Ron, after the Amazing Ronaldo whose ill-advised bet with Snorri had financed the early part of our trip.

We rattled along up the valley at a decent pace, fast enough to startle the sheep in successive fields into waves of woolly panic. It had to be said that, as uninspiring as Chamy-Nix was, the surroundings viewed with the morning coming up red and rosy behind them were quite stunning. Rhone gets hilly as you work your way north. Hills become mountains, mountains become peaks, and from Chamy-Nix you can see the white heights of the Aups, mountains so tall and so legion that they divide the empire more surely than a blade. In many senses the empire had always been broken and the Aups were the sword that divided it.

An hour later, gaining height and with our path back to Chamy-Nix laid out behind us, I spotted the pursuit. “Hell, that looks like a lot more than a dozen!” And a dozen was a lot more than we could handle. In fact, if it had been only Edris, Darab, and Meegan, that would have been too many. My stomach folded around itself in a cold knot. I remembered the Aral Pass. There’s no way any sensible person could view the prospect of someone else attempting to open them with a sharp edge as anything but terrifying. I found myself eyeing up the larger rocks in the hope I might hide beneath one of them.

“Twenty. Near enough.” Snorri looked back up the track and nudged Sleipnir on. He’d told me the original bearer of the name in his heathen tales had sported eight legs. It’s possible that on such an overendowed beast even Snorri stood a chance of outpacing the band on our trail. On any regular mount, though, it was never going to happen.

“Maybe if we just left the locket here . . .” It took about three seconds for my resolve to fail. I could abandon Snorri and set Edris’s band a stiffer test. By rights I would win clear, but Ron was far from the best of horses and in such mountainous terrain it’s easy to lame an animal if you push too hard. That would leave me meeting the band alone—if, of course, I managed to survive Snorri’s death given the magics binding us. Abandoning the locket to them seemed the easiest of paths.

Snorri just laughed as if I’d made a joke. “We should keep one of them alive,” he said. “I want to know who set them on us.”

“Oh, right.” A madman, I was riding with a madman. “I’ll try to keep a small one for later.” Snorri, it seemed, was as capable of deluding himself about upcoming battles as I was about the value of my locket. Perhaps that was all bravery was—a form of delusion. It certainly made it much easier to understand if that were the case.

“We need a good place to make a stand.” Snorri cast about as if this might be such a place. I could have told him with some confidence that no such place existed, anywhere. Instead I tried a different tactic.

“We need to get higher up.” I pointed to the barren slopes above us where the mean grass lost its footing and bare rock cut a path towards the heavens. “We’ll have to abandon our horses, but so will they, and then the fact you can’t ride for shit won’t matter any more.” And if I had my way we’d lose Edris’s party amongst the confusion of ridge and gorge, then win free to buy better horses somewhere else.

Snorri rubbed his short beard, pursed his lips, looked back at the distant band, and nodded. “Better if everyone is on two feet.”

I led the way, urging Ron off the track and up towards the ridges impossibly far above us. Beyond those ridges peaks rose, white with snow and brilliant in the sunshine. A fresh breeze followed us up the side of the valley, offering a helpful push, and for a while I felt hope sinking its cruel hooks into me.

Tough mountain grass gave way to boulder fields and scree; Sleipnir’s hooves skittered out from under her and she fell, legs flailing, looking for a moment as if she might actually have eight of them. Snorri grunted as he hit the ground, pulling clear while Sleipnir struggled to right herself.

“That hurt.” He brushed his thigh where the horse’s weight had pressed, then used his fingers to pry loose the small stones bedded into his flesh. “I’ll walk from here.”

I stayed in the saddle for another five or ten minutes, while Snorri hobbled along without complaint. At last, though, even with my expert guidance, the going became too steep for Ron. Rather than wait for the inevitable tumble, which would probably see us both rolling down the slopes to where Snorri had had his own fall, I dismounted.

“Off you go, Ronaldo.” The climb ahead of us would test a mountain goat. I gave his flank a sound slap and moved on, burdened once more beneath my few possessions. The sword that Snorri had given me was the heaviest of my loads and kept trying to trip me. I held on to it mainly to please the Norseman, though my ultimate plan was to throw it away and beg for mercy if cornered.