A Circle of Iron

Chapter 8

Over the next two weeks, the crew killed nine wights, and the wights took at least twenty scavs. Only three of the wights merited staking, but Thorn couldn’t say if his message was getting across or it was just hard to catch a wight in the act. Jem kept the other scavs in line and they paid their bounties, but the grumbling was getting louder. Thorn figured there might have been a revolt already, except the bravos weren’t coming around anymore. The scavs might be dying, but at least they weren’t being robbed first.

Thorn had gradually come to realize there were a lot more wights in the ruins than anyone thought, and more by the day. On a couple of occasions, he’d seen wights fighting each other—usually over a scav. Still, he might never have gotten a sense for their numbers if it hadn’t been for the body paint. They were all different and he rarely saw the same one twice.

“When I was soldiering,” Thorn said, “there were a couple dreams I had every night.” The crew was walking in a line down a narrow street with hollow, ruined buildings crowding in from either side. They were trailing a group of scavs who’d decided to break off from the usual work sites and push deeper into the city. Thorn heard his own words bounce off the cracked and crumbling stone.

“Tell me about them,” said Quinix. He looked up at the roofs above their heads, and into the darkness of the gaping doorways and windows they passed.

“The first one, I went out to fight on the morning of a big battle and I realized I was alone. My army was gone. The enemy stood across the field and laughed at me. Then their commander called the archers. They moved forward, drew and loosed their arrows, and they turned the sky black over my head. All those shafts in flight, and all meant for me.”

“That sounds terrible,” Quinix muttered.

“Well, they were of a kind, but the second was worse. Like the other, I woke up on the morning of the battle. But this time, I woke up in the enemy camp. I knew, somehow, that my army had moved on and the enemy came in while I was sleeping. I was surrounded by the enemy and I had to creep out of that camp before they realized I didn’t belong there.”

Big Odd spoke up from the back of the line. “I like that one better than the one with a thousand arrows falling out of the sky on me.”

“Maybe, Odd, but you weren’t there. Loneliest I ever been, waking up in that camp surrounded by the enemy.”

“I’m starting to feel that way about the ruins,” said Quinix.

Thorn nodded. “I’m not sure when it happened, but I think we’re in an enemy camp. Only difference is, they already know we’re here.”

“If there’s an army of wights in here,” Mara said, “why haven’t they come after us?”

“Wights are solitary creatures,” said Quinix. “It’s based on their hunting behavior. They tend to hunt alone. They aren’t wolves—they don’t hunt in packs.”

“Maybe they ain’t here to hunt,” said Thorn. “This feels more like the raids on the timber camps. Maybe they see us as scouts, and they don’t want to attack the scouts until they’re ready to move on the main force. Or maybe they just don’t want to work together, like the wizard says.”

“I’d rather be in the Duck,” said Big Odd. Thorn glanced behind him and saw the big man turn a full circle, his longspear gripped tightly in both hands.

Thorn gestured for the line to stop, and then motioned Quinix up. “Let’s have a look at that scrying tablet.”

Quinix removed the wooden plate from his pack and set it out where the cobblestones were mostly level. He poured the iron balls from the pouch into his hand, and then dropped them one by one onto the surface of the scrying tablet. The balls spun around and around, crossing the orbits of the others, back and forth. Thorn had to blink his eyes to keep his vision from losing focus as he watched.