The Path of Anger (18 page)

Three years had passed since the Saltmarsh and the war continued, a string of victories and defeats that granted them little respite. On three occasions, they had returned to Emeris. Each time Frog had failed to meet the Emperor. However, although Frog had not witnessed the fact, Dun-Cadal had never ceased to sing his praises. As a result, Asham Ivani Reyes was following the progress of the general’s apprentice with interest, even raising the prospect that Frog might be dubbed in his presence. For an orphan to become a knight was rare enough in itself, but for the Emperor to deign to honour him personally was unheard of. Only a few noblemen had enjoyed the privilege of having the Emperor attend their oath-taking, the last being Etienne Azdeki. The general had never said as much to Frog, no doubt for modesty’s sake or to preserve his aura as mentor, but he was proud of the lad. Not a day went by without his performing his exercises, sometimes coming close to passing out. Nor did he speak of the pain. He continued to wait until his master was either asleep or absent to test his limits and each time, push them further. For modesty’s sake, no doubt . . .

‘Stop that,’ ordered Dun-Cadal. ‘A child like you will only do himself harm.’

‘A child like me could knock you off your feet, Wader,’ retorted Frog with a grin, rolling his shoulders to get the kinks out.

His face was more seasoned, his jaw squarer, his features sharper. Little by little, the man in him was becoming defined. A nascent goatee ringed his lips. Dun-Cadal noted it with amusement. Someday soon he would have to teach him to shave properly.

‘Really? I wouldn’t bet on it if I were you.’

‘No, because if you were me, you would be years younger. And who was it who fought the rouargs in the Saltmarsh? Not you in any case. You were asleep underneath your horse.’

Dun-Cadal smiled as he nodded his head, putting on thick leather gloves. He enjoyed the gentle warmth wrapping his fingers and seized his horse’s reins, putting one foot in the stirrup.

‘Now you’re bragging, Frog.’

‘I’m just applying your lessons,’ the lad protested as he imitated his mentor.

‘I didn’t teach you be a braggart.’

The pair mounted their steeds and set off at a trot down a small path, barely visible in the snow. Here and there the earth was churned up into muck, but otherwise a smooth white coat stretched off between the trees. Silence reigned, disturbed only slightly by the horses’ hooves.

‘That’s because you don’t take into account the lessons I absorb from observing you.’

‘Flattery, is it now?’ laughed Dun-Cadal. ‘Are you afraid that I’ll kick your arse once we reach Kapernevic, to be complimenting me so?’

‘Why have they sent us here?’ the boy complained suddenly, drawing up his fur-edged hood to protect himself from the cold. ‘All the real action of the war is happening in the South.’

‘You’re not enjoying the countryside?’

‘You’re a general, Wader,’ Frog said indignantly. ‘And we’ve proved our valour many times, haven’t we? So why have they sent us to seek out this . . . this alchemist?’

‘Perhaps the Emperor thought it was time to cool your ardour,’ mocked Dun-Cadal.

Frog had grown up in many ways but he still tended to talk back to the general. Showing more restraint than before, to be sure, even giving matters some thought before responding. But his anger remained intact. ‘Ardour’ was a very feeble word for it, in fact. He was sixteen years old and sometimes behaved like a child, sometimes like a man. The day would soon come when maturity finally prevailed.

They crossed the snowy woods, descending to the valley, galloping through clearings covered by a heavy white blanket. They passed by several wagons carrying dull-eyed women and children who were fleeing the region. But where would they go? No lands were spared
from the crackling flames; no valley, field, or road was safe from bloodshed any more. The war was everywhere.

They reached Kapernevic beneath a pale sky. Its wooden houses rose on the banks of the icy river, hemmed in by two conifer forests. The stone chimneys exhaled wisps of grey smoke that dispersed towards the four corners of the village, flying over the watchtowers before dying above the surrounding trees. The villagers who had decided to remain here, or who simply could not afford to abandon the little they possessed, were bundled up in thick patched clothing. They wandered about like phantoms with livid faces and dark rings under their eyes. On the porch of a dilapidated house a woman sat, holding in her arms a little girl who looked barely five years old. Among the filth that spattered the child’s hair Frog could make out a few blond locks, like a vestige of happier times. Her eyes followed him without expression. She watched him blankly from the cradle of her mother’s arms. Life seemed to have deserted them all.

It was beneath the impassive gaze of these poor people that the riders entered the village, advancing at a walk. Some soldiers escorted them to a watchtower on the far side of the settlement that looked out towards the tree-covered hills to the north. Not a word, not a murmur greeted their arrival. Until the chilling silence was broken by a laugh. Descending from the tower’s ladder, a round man was almost choking with joy. Clad in heavy dented armour, an animal’s hide thrown over his shoulders, he rubbed at his face with pudgy fingers, looking as though he could not believe his eyes.

‘They told me someone would come for the inventor but I was a thousand leagues from thinking it would be you,’ he confessed between two chuckles. ‘You . . .’

He pointed a finger at the general who was dismounting.

‘You, here!’ he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. ‘My old friend!’

‘They should have sent you to the South instead! Has the cold in these parts given you an ever bigger appetite?’ Dun-Cadal jested, before the two men fell into one another’s arms. ‘But I thought we were supposed to be escorting an alchemist?’

‘Alchemist, inventor, he’s a little of this and that, my friend.’

Frog got down from his horse, allowing one of the soldiers to lead the mounts to a drinking trough. Some villagers passing by the watchtower stopped to observe them with a haggard air. In contrast
to all of them, soldiers included, the general and his pupil were wearing handsome kit that appeared to have never seen battle. Frog eyed the spectators with a wary gaze, a thumb in his belt and his fingers grazing the pommel of his sword. Wrenching himself from the embrace of his comrade in arms, Dun-Cadal glanced over at the lad. He was on his guard, as if this were enemy territory. What was making him so edgy? These poor ragged buggers? He read an expression it saddened him to see on his pupil’s face . . . contempt. Frog felt contempt for these people. His education was far from being complete . . .

‘Frog,’ he hailed. ‘Come here.’

‘He’s grown up,’ Negus murmured.

‘He hasn’t become much wiser, though,’ Dun-Cadal said before raising his voice once Frog had joined them. ‘Do you remember Negus? From Garmaret?’

Without saying a word, the boy nodded before bowing slightly. Their first stop once they left the Saltmarsh behind had been the fort at Garmaret, then under the command of General Negus. Of course he remembered. Dun-Cadal had spotted him talking to a girl, a refugee from the Saltmarsh, and with his keen eye had understood that he was attracted to her. But now Frog remained unsmiling, displaying only the politeness owed to a general. Negus’s face darkened.

‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he said. ‘You’ve changed a great deal since we met at Garmaret.’

‘As have you, since you lost that town,’ Frog replied bluntly.

In the shadow of his hood, his grey eyes shone with a piercing light, looking straight at the dumbfounded little general. Time stretched between them, as though the boy’s reply left them both stunned. Before Dun-Cadal could give voice to his indignation, Negus let out a breath of stupefaction. Then he tilted his head back to look at the sky and laughed loudly, striking his bulging belly.

‘No doubt about it,’ he chuckled. ‘You are indeed his mentor!’

‘He sometimes forgets who he’s talking to,’ Dun-Cadal fumed, giving the lad a black look.

But Frog did not seem to care.

Negus immediately calmed his comrade’s wrath with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

‘Bah . . . he’s right,’ conceded Negus with a sweep of the hand. ‘I
lost Garmaret. But who could have held it, faced with the scale of the revolt?’

Dun-Cadal feared that a voice would pipe up to claim that he, Frog, would have done so, but the boy remained quiet. He had to be aware of his mentor’s embarrassment. He nevertheless gave the general an amused glance full of mischief and provocation. Dun-Cadal stiffened, his fists balled, ready to deliver a reprimand. But deep down he’d grown fond of the lad’s spiritedness. In other circumstances, facing people he disliked, he would have been entertained by such impudence.

‘I didn’t think the Emperor would send you here,’ Negus remarked. ‘Especially for mere escort duty. Is this inventor really so important?’

The scowl on his round face left little doubt as to his low opinion of the man.

‘The inventor himself ? I don’t know. But the nobleman at court who requested his repatriation surely is, yes.’

‘Bah,’ Negus murmured. ‘If the Emperor granted the request and assigned you to this mission, then he must have deemed it important too. And to tell you the truth, it suits me. A few more days and I would have skewered him.’

Dun-Cadal raised his eyebrows in puzzlement. Negus looked around the village, studying the houses.

‘Aladzio! Aladzio!’ he called out. ‘Where is the blockhead? Aladzio!

When a slender figure appeared around the bend in a street, a tricorne jammed on his head, Negus beckoned him to hurry.

‘Aladzio! Get over here!’

‘I’m coming, General, I’m coming,’ the young man answered breathlessly. ’Just give me time to . . . Oops!’

In his haste, he dropped four long parchment scrolls he’d been carrying under his arm. He bent down to pick them up, but in doing so he let slip some books he had been hugging to his chest with his other arm. On his knees in the snow, huffing, he tried to gather all of it up again. His breaths formed little clouds in the cold air, coming faster as his anxiety grew.

‘Him? A genius?’ sneered Negus. ‘Three months he’s been out here, studying I-don’t-know-what kind of stone and the only thing he’s achieved is to set fire to a barn.’

‘An accident?’ Dun-Cadal suggested.

‘Three times in a row?’

Dun-Cadal held back a laugh, crossing his arms.

‘I don’t know which nobleman values this good-for-nothing so highly, but if he’s planning to burn down his apartments he’s found the right man for the job,’ added the little general before shouting again: ‘Aladzio! They’re just bits of paper, let them rot in the snow!’

‘Let them rot?’ objected the alchemist, clumsily scooping up his scrolls. ‘Works hand-copied by the scribes in their monasteries? You have no idea, General, of the sum of knowledge contained in these bits of paper, as you put it. The Order of Fangol would be appalled if I damaged these scrolls.’

And, shivering in his long grey cloak, he shuffled forward with tiny steps. When he arrived at the foot of the watchtower Frog barred his way, tapping the pommel of his sword. The alchemist looked to be about twenty-five years old, with a pale face and rings under his eyes. His high cheekbones were reddened by the cold and his hair tumbled out from beneath his jet-black tricorne to fall in curls to the nape of his neck. His cloak was spattered with odd stains, either the result of his experiments or simply dirt, it was difficult to say. Licking his thin chapped lips, he repressed a nervous giggle, stepped around Frog and presented himself to the two generals, looking highly embarrassed.

‘A thousand pardons, I— I’ve found some . . . some . . . yes, some finds, I would say,’ he stammered. ‘Some stones in the mines near . . . over there, the mines . . .’

Crushing the parchments against his chest, he managed to free one of his arms to extend it towards the woods before the watchtower.

‘The territory of Stromdag’s men,’ Negus explained, raising his eyes towards his friend. ‘He’s the one leading the revolt in Kaperdae, Krapen and the area surrounding us here in Kapernevic. The miners have joined him. He promised them their freedom.’

‘The mines,’ repeated Aladzio in a dreamy tone. ‘There are plenty of finds there.’

His face lit up with a wide grin, almost like that of a half-wit.

‘Just the idea, it’s like . . .’ He hunted for the right words and then, leaning forward slightly, said in a confidential tone: ‘It’s like the kiss of a woman on your . . . I mean . . .’

Dun-Cadal looked away, both amused and shocked. Who had taken such an interest in this man that they must fetch him from this distant region of the Empire? Ignoring Aladzio, the general turned to his friend.

‘Stromdag?’ he asked. ‘I can’t stay long, but what’s the situation here?’

‘Oh, there’s not much to be said,’ Negus sighed.

Advancing towards the pillars of the watchtower, Dun-Cadal raised his voice.

‘Frog, go with Aladzio to the inn and see about our chambers.’

‘But . . .’ the boy whined.

Dun-Cadal barely turned his head. His tone was enough to quash any further insolence.

‘Take care of Aladzio and don’t argue. We’ll be leaving at dawn tomorrow.’

He exchanged a smile with Negus upon hearing the lad mutter in discontent.

‘Come here,’ Frog said to the inventor in an icy tone.

And the pair of them went back up the village main street, heading in the direction of the inn. Aladzio almost trotted to keep up with the boy, taking care not to drop his precious scrolls.

A few soldiers passed by the watchtower, looking wan and tired. Their armour was tarnished and bore numerous nicks, while beneath it pieces of their chain mail hung down like tatters of old cloth.

‘Stromdag,’ sighed Dun-Cadal. ‘Who’s he?’

‘He started off as a common thief,’ Negus replied. ‘A sort of bandit with a big heart, in the eyes of the peasants in these parts.’

He began to climb the ladder leading to the tower’s summit, inviting his friend to follow him, and as he climbed he continued his account: