Shiang by C. F. Iggulden

Author:C. F. Iggulden
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780718186791
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

14

Gabriel

Gabriel pushed them all hard. Sanjin suffered the worst, when the cauterised wounds on his foot took another infection. The man rode in constant pain, wincing at every jog and bounce. When they stopped, he limped around the camp, his foot always wet. Sanjin’s eyes became red and sore from fevers, but they had no medicine and he did not ask Gabriel to look at it again. As the days passed, Sanjin’s gaze seemed to turn within.

Gabriel watched the man sitting alone, holding his leg bent and searching for the internal sea that Gabriel had described. It was surely there, though Gabriel felt a perverse pleasure that Sanjin had no luck finding it. Each time the swordsman failed, he shouted in fury, a great blast of frustration. The rest of the time, Sanjin glowered, his gaze always drifting to Gabriel.

Gabriel understood that silent accusation, but ignored it. He was tempted to put the man down like a mad dog before he made trouble for them all. Yet Sanjin was still enhanced as a swordsman, remade by whatever part of the Aeris Stone had touched them. Even a mad dog could be useful.

Marias was a more intractable problem, at least to Gabriel. While Sanjin watched him, Gabriel watched her in turn, as a puzzle to be solved. There was no hiding her feelings for the one whose body he wore. They shone, whenever Marias met his eyes. She thought he did not notice, but he felt it, just as he sensed the rage in Sanjin. It seemed at times that only Lord Ran and Thomas were at all sane in that little camp.

Lord Ran was not doing well, Gabriel had to admit. He had not troubled to ask the man his age, but the Shiang lord was not young. The pace Gabriel had insisted upon might have exhausted a royal messenger of half his years. Gabriel himself seemed to need very little sleep, so he roused them all when they were still groggy and the dark was absolute. He made them ride horses to exhaustion and change mounts at every opportunity, so it was just the riders who grew slack and dull in the eye.

Thump. The pulse sounded as Gabriel gazed at the mountains rising before him. Winter had come, to be seen in spirals of snow caught in the wind. The village elders said the passes were all blocked by then, even the lowest, the one they called Horse Skulls. The headman assured the strange group that they could not cross alive, not until spring. He told them he had said the same to four other swordsmen just weeks before, but back then, there had at least been sun in the mornings. Winter had taken its grip on the peaks since they had passed. When it came, there was no mistaking it – and no release until the thaw.

Gabriel stood and thought. The sky was clear and he did not fear the cold. Whatever the stone had done to him to give him speed and strength, he knew he could walk where any other man would freeze.

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