Sila only needed to flick his wrist twice, and the lock to the butchery swung open. I was impressed. I’d known a lot of sticky-fingered types in my life, and none of them could have opened a door as fast and quietly as he had with those little bits of metal. Gertha, however, hissed a chastisement.

  “My own Hold Son. Using the art of thieves?” Her face was a mask of shock, but I saw a wicked glint in her eye. She was lucky a Dragon didn’t see it.

  Sila smiled back, whispering, “Ah, so you admit it’s an art? After you, Hold Mother.” he held the door open with practised ease. Every inch the gentleman.

  If he hadn’t just helped us break into the Butchery that was.

  Our way there had been easy, suspiciously so. No guards wandered the streets of Cemfyllen at night. I put it down to most of their forces being occupied with the march south and presumable destruction of my former home. Yet I noticed few men on the walls, either.

  Cemfyllen was sparsely defended, and all it would take was one suitably pissed-off bastard Lizard. Sorry, Li’ard, to make our night go from tense to fucked quicker than you could say Oh fuck, it’s a drag—.

  I checked the skies one last time before I went inside. An old habit from my days in the String Guard, but I also couldn’t shake the memory of that Fell Dragon Leech had spirited us away from. Eggs had eaten their offspring, and their eggs. I stroked my medallion. At least in there, Eggs scent wouldn’t carry on the wind.

  I shut the door behind me, and we all stood there in silence, letting our eyes adjust to the lack of light. The tang of blood and ageing meat filled my nostrils. My belly rumbled slightly, and I placed a hand over it. It did nothing to stifle the noise. Gertha popped an arrowhead into her mouth, and a dull red glow glowed from inside her hands. Her bones and veins were illuminated by the arcane light, and I found myself staring in fascination at them.

  You might sit there and call me weird, but the human body would never cease to amaze me. It was fucking complicated, and so fragile yet strong at the same time. I’d heard of people dying from their hearts giving in and heard of other people surviving a Lindwyrm bite. The gentle scrape of wood snapped me out of my thoughts and told me the others were assembling the arrows and bows the Doctor had given us. I tucked my swordstick under my arm and withdrew my own staves from the bag I wore over my shoulder and twisted them together. I then started to slot my arrows together one by one until I had at least fifteen. I left the bow string off for now, as did the others.

  No point snapping the limbs by leaving it strung too long. I’d found a shortbow in the armoury once as bent as the crescent moon. Rumour had it Sergeant-Teller Rolfo had forgotten about it after he’d used it on one of his rare visits to the wall. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but I chose to believe it and tell the story to anyone I could, anyway.

  He was an arse after all. The bow and arrows went back in the bag, and on my shoulder, and my swordstick back into my hand, where it belonged.

  “Quite a handy spell that Gertha.” I chuckled.

  “Shut the fuck up.” She hissed.

  Sila and Sayo desperately tried to smother their snorts of laughter. Good to know they had my back.

  I looked Gertha in the eye and gestured in the direction of the carts behind the work counter. It was too dark to see them in detail, but I could make out all twelve of them, and I was sure glowy hands could help us with that once she’d finished being in a huff.

  Her stare was blank before she nodded and started making her way over to the carts.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I paused. I held my breath and searched around the room with my eyes. I peered in the dark corners, focused on my hearing to see if I could uncover whatever had piqued my subconscious awareness. I found nothing.

  Must have been my imagination.

  I exhaled slowly and continued my way over. None of the others had noticed my brief stop.

  “So what’s the plan? We just get in the carts and under all of this?” Sayo said, wrinkling her nose at the piles of stale meat on the carts.

  “Come on, we’ll give you a hand,” I said.

  The cart by Sayo was stacked high with a cow carcass and several pigs. Sila and I jumped on top of it, each grabbing the end of the Pig on the very top, still had its head, trotters, and tail. It hadn't been butchered yet, just slaughtered, and my heart started racing faster. Were we to be sent to the king's personal butchers? We’d have to strike them hard and fast so they didn’t raise an alarm.

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  The pig was heavier than I thought it would be, and with some effort, heaving and grunting, we slid it on top of one of the other pigs, exposing the cow corpse.

  This one had been prepared. Skinned, de-hoofed and beheaded.

  Sila and I stood on one side of the cow, and placed our hands where its belly would have been and slowly peeled back the flesh.

  “You…you expect me to get in that?” Sayo stammered.

  “It’s the only way,” I said.

  “I can’t lie straight in that.” She hissed.

  “You’ll have to curl up, like a baby,” Gertha said quietly. Placing her hand on Sayo’s shoulder.

  “Fuck this.” Sayo squeaked, and she clambered onto the cart. To her credit, she crawled right into the carcass without hesitating, but I heard her gag and felt bad for her.

  “Right, slide it back over. Sayo. Don’t move.” I said.

  “Not going to be able to.” She said, her voice muffled.

  “You next,” I said, looking at Gertha.

  She nodded solemnly and walked to the next cart.

  We repeated the macabre process. This time on a cart that carried just two cow carcasses. They lay there like spooning lovers. We helped Gertha into the one on the outside; the inner carcass would hide the opening and keep her safely concealed.

  “Try to take slow deep breaths” I said.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Tull. I can’t really smell anything.” Metal clacked against her teeth as she spoke, and I snorted a laugh. I didn’t often envy fizzmouths, but today was a good day to be one.

  Sila wiped his brow with his sleeve, and I winced. He’d left a smear of something dark across his face, and he swore, wiping at it with his hands and swearing again. Without Gertha’s light magic, we could only see in shades of grey and black now.

  “Just stop, Sila. You’re gonna get mucky anyway inside these carcasses.” I whispered.

  “This entire thing is Drake shit insane,” Sila whispered back.

  In unison, we got off the cart and moved to the next cart.

  “You go first,” I said.

  “Not a chance, old man. You’ll need my help to get inside more than I need yours.”

  “I’m in my mid-thirties,” I said, not helping my case.

  “Exactly. If you were a nomad. You’d be on your way to becoming an eldar,” he laughed.

  “Oh, get glinted,” I swore.

  To drive his point home, Sila leapt from the standing onto the cart and positioned himself by another unfortunate cow. I jumped up as well, but my foot slipped in some kind of viscera, and I slammed my shin on the cart with a thud. Tears stung my eyes as Sila groaned.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” I spat.

  “That sounded painful.”

  “I. Am. Fine. Just put me inside the fucking cow.” I growled.

  Flesh squelched as Sila dug his fingers into the carcass's top half, and I unslung my bag, pushing it inside first. I then crawled inside the carcass, using my free hand to push it from the inside to help Sila as much as I could. Damp flesh and rivulets of liquid poured over me and seeped into my clothing. I gagged as it had a sickly sweet smell to it, with an almost buttery after scent. This particular cow was ripe, probably headed straight for a stew to disguise its age.

  The small opening I had pushed through closed, and my world was muffled.

  I was reminded of that bloody Lindwyrm that had harangued me for so long, the one I had ended up inside. Before I’d cut myself out.

  “You didn’t expect that, did you, you arsehole,” I whispered to the memory of the beast. I also immediately regretted speaking aloud as it let more of the smell, or the taste of the damned cow in.

  The Lindwyrm did not respond. It was neither here nor alive.

  I smiled in satisfaction and closed my eyes. I hoped that Sila would get in ok on his own.

  I heard some straining, groans and swearing before all fell silent.

  He must have managed okay. Cheeky prat. Making out that I was so much older when he was likely nearing the thirties himself. My clothes gradually got more damp as the cow carcass, and I became one. There wasn’t an inch of me that was dry now, and I had the urge to squirm and scratch at the itches that had started to erupt across my body. Each lungful of air I took started to make my eyes water, and a river of saliva had started running down the back of my throat.

  I couldn’t have vomited there. It’d have looked suspicious for a guard to see vomit spilling out of a cow that no longer had any in it.

  Luckily for me, my heart and body stopped in their entirety when I heard a door slam open, and the steel-shod boots of guards started marching in.

  Chuckles caressed the edges of my mind as I lay inside the corpse.

  I just hoped they wouldn’t look too closely.

  My hand tightened around my sword stick, and I waited.