Alya nodded. ‘I thought the same. You are not wholly immune to her, my lord. But it only shows what an asset she may be.’
‘I will not … worry you,’ Rysha said earnestly, in a breathy young girl’s tone, as if the voice from the dark belonged to someone else entirely. ‘I want to live. I want to breathe. I will come.’
‘I did not ask,’ said Alya sternly. Asquan looked at him, surprised, but nodded approvingly. ‘You have heard too much, to be left behind in all your malice. You have no choice. Come, gaoler! Our tally’s complete.’
When the great door boomed shut behind them, it was like a cloud lifting. The passage no longer seemed so dark and haunted, as if its spirits had fled back to the deep at the sight of still more inhumanity. The men around him, anonymous hulks of hair and filth and rags, stood suddenly straighter, and though they carried the gaol-stench with them, they sniffed at the air like keen hounds. Kalkan almost seemed to be sobbing, and the scholar was running long fingers along the rough wall as if he moved in some world of dreams. Rysha, back in the shadows, stood silent, which might be a good sign.
‘Do not linger!’ said Lord Asquan urgently. ‘The night is well gone, and they must be made ready, bathed, fed, equipped – especially bathed! Volmur will sleep late today, after his last night’s sousing, and we can take our leave quietly. But he will awaken late, and with a sore head on him. And by then I wish to be well beyond his reach!’
CHAPTER 6
Beyond the Wall
ALYA reined in his horse atop the rise, and watched as the rest came circling around to join him. The sight gave him a thrill, despite his black mood. For the first time they looked like quite a formidable little war-band; and they were at his command.
And Vansha’s, of course. He would do better not to forget that, too often.
In name they were the joint leaders; but he was only too aware of how soon that might change. The soldiers were evidently used to obeying Kalkan, and he to obeying nobody much. So far he had taken their orders with genial enthusiasm, as if he were joining in a boy’s game. What he would do when they met any real problem was hard to tell. Asquan seemed to daunt him, though, loudly as he despised him. And Asquan, so far, was astonishingly helpful, always deferring to the young men and prompting them, if at all, from the background, spending his money freely to equip the little force, seizing every quiet opportunity to school them in using their new arms.
Alya had asked Kalkan and his men to instruct the less soldierly in their use, himself and Vansha included; but to his surprise they had all deferred to Asquan. And, slight and effete as he might be, he must once have been a skilful fighter, and proved a good instructor even now. With his support they could command, for now; but how fully could they rely on that? The man was a complete enigma. And strong as he showed himself, he was old. They would be less able to rely on him when any real fighting started.
And suppose Alya and Vansha came to clash? As they might, especially if Alya did not pay the older boy proper regard. Alya decided he simply could not let that happen.
If he died, Vansha was Savi’s only real chance. None of the others even knew what she looked like; none of them had the same drive to help her. Assuming they even kept their oaths. Vansha had strengths of his own; and they were his own, owing nothing to whatever the forces were that seethed constantly in Alya’s limbs. In his new armour he looked much more the handsome hero than Alya, as he and Asquan trotted easily up the slope and waved a casual salute. ‘You’ve found some signs, then?’
‘It wasn’t too hard,’ answered Alya, but his pleasure faded. He had ridden back towards the Citadel to scout out the raiders’ tracks, and found all too much, too clear. ‘They had wagons waiting, it seems. So the tracks say. And a use for them. I found bodies.’
Vansha stared. ‘The women?’
‘Only one or two. Something had been at them, but I knew them well enough. Kemashal, the digger’s wife, she was one. And Lamatyal, Usha’s mother. She spared me a fowl’s wing, once.’
‘Older women,’ said Vansha, after a moment. ‘So … you think they took the younger ones in the wagons?’
‘There are more small footprints, but they don’t lead away anywhere. Just the horsemen and wheels, heading west and north. Swiftly enough, by the look of it, but no desperate hurry. You never know, they might have decided to camp somewhere for a day or two.’
‘No more than a night!’ said Asquan. ‘Volmur does have the odd warband out on patrol, at times. For appearances’ sake; and they wouldn’t know about any truce. They’d attack.’
‘Well, there’s an even odder band on the loose now!’ said Vansha scornfully. ‘Look at them! I imagined us riding out with lines of horse, not a handful of starveling townie gaolbirds. And worse!’
Alya nodded. ‘I also. A few more hardened warriors, at least. But I like them well enough, for all that! And there is this good – king’s horsemen we could not have commanded, or restrained.’
Vansha’s face darkened. ‘True! We’d have been mere hangers-on, to them.’
‘There are good men here, I’m sure. They may be more use to us, in the end.’
‘We’d better hope so. Since you’re sure of the trail—’
‘For now. But it may not last forever. We must always be looking for more guidance, however we may come by it.’
Vansha clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘Time enough. Well, do we ride, my captain?’
‘We do!’ said Alya, and with a gentle tug of the reins he cantered down the slope towards the rest, who waited there with spare horses in tow. Whatever Vansha thought, they already looked far from the shaggy, half-naked wrecks who had stumbled out of the gaol’s gate, blinking even in grey dawn light, and drinking in the dank, dungy town air as if it were the free wind of the peaks. All this time Alya had been fighting against the feeling that he had been landed with a crew of grotesque scarecrows, an absurd crew to even think of challenging the iron-handed men of the Ice. But drawn up here in order, armed and on horseback, they presented a different picture.
Half-starved frames were already filling out again, and not one of them but sat his or her mount well, better than he, probably. The soldiers wore their mail with stiff-necked pride, and trailed their cloaks like banners, hefting weapons that meant independence and trust; and Vansha aped them well. Asquan and the scholar Tseshya, though they sat easier in their saddles, looked all the stronger. That also was satisfying. Even Rysha seemed more cheerful, once the dungeon lay behind her; she rode, as she said, like a man, and seemed at ease under her mail. And she was the only one, so far, who had tried to escape.
That had been at Asquan’s lodging in a side building of the royal compound, to Alya’s eyes a huge and lordly apartment, but which Asquan himself seemed to find mean and comfortless. ‘There’s no satisfying some people!’ whispered Vansha, fingering a wall hanging of some impossibly smooth fabric. ‘Why, he’s even got his own bathhouse out back!’
‘And there you can scrub the prison off you!’ said its owner sardonically. Evidently his ears were sharper than most. It’s being readied now. I’ve sent for fresh clothes, and we’ll buy our other gear in the town. Dead men’s armour’s always to be had, and cheaply.’
Rysha, though, indignantly refused to enter the bathhouse with the men. Vansha and Alya found that funny, but nobody else, apparently. ‘Been married, hasn’t she?’ demanded Vansha, smelling suspiciously at peculiar oils and pumice stones. ‘Knows what it all looks like, close up.’
‘Yes, well, we town-dwellers have our strange little ways,’ sniffed Asquan. He did not join the bathers himself, but leaned against the wood-planked wall, apparently enjoying the spectacle. ‘Though the lady is of modest origins, I gather, and used enough to life in the wild. Still, after a year in that stinking hole I would expect cleanliness to overcome shyness—’
Asquan broke off abruptly, turned on his heel and stalked out. There was an outburst of shrieking and cursing somewhere outside, and he returned dragging a sna
rling Rysha by one arm and her ear.
‘Halfway across the roof,’ he said laconically, and with little effort tipped her bodily into the earthen-tiled pool among the rest. She surfaced, spat at him as she clambered out, and with no inhibition at all stripped off her rags, keeping only a scrap of silken neckscarf, and began to scrub herself down at the hot tub with a bag of oilseed chaff.
Asquan watched her, as well.
Alya thought how pallid and bony she seemed compared to Savi. Vansha spared her a look, no more. Her fellow gaolbirds glared, though Almur, the youngest, let his gaze linger. Kalkan saw that, and bridled. ‘Think yourself lucky we don’t just drown you here and now, you stupid bitch!’ he growled, as she came back to the pool. ‘Traditional, for such as you!’
‘Who’s the more stupid?’ she demanded. ‘The curs who run right into the bear’s mouth, or the bitch that slips away? After all, what have I to lose?’
‘Doesn’t how you die matter?’ demanded Alya. ‘And why you risk it?’
She glanced at him under her thin lashes, as if surprised. ‘There’s only one way to die,’ she said, swirling her hair around on the surface with surprising care. ‘And that’s the wrong one. Life’s all you’ve got. They tried to ruin mine, and I paid them. I just didn’t move fast enough.’
‘Does she mean then, or just now?’ muttered Vansha.
However that might be, she had chosen armour and weapons as readily as the rest, demure, downcast, silent. Only when she encountered Nightingale, perched uneasily like a beggar-child atop one of the baggage horses, did she show any feeling, and that seemed to be genuine fear. Understandable enough, for the creature’s black eyes fixed on her with an unhealthy intensity, and his tongue lolled and slavered like a dog’s. But when Alya rebuked him, he only cackled, a little wistfully. ‘I never got many women, stuck out there in the wood.’
‘Shouldn’t think you’d want this one!’ said Vansha curtly. ‘I wouldn’t want a murderess witch in my bed!’
‘Oh, I don’t want her,’ cackled Nightingale. ‘Not like that. But there’d be a heady life to drink, eh? All those tasty memories and feelings, writhing up together like a ball of fat wet worms! All those hates and spites and loathings, and herself most of all. Give her to me! If she offends you, give her to me!’
‘I might just do that!’ said Vansha, loudly enough for Rysha to hear. ‘One demon deserves another!’
She sneered, and mounted up, when the order was given, in a sullen fury. But she took her place in line readily enough, set where Asquan could watch her; and as they rode down through the morning bustle of the town, she had made no new attempt to break free.
When they filed out through those enormous gates the guards, seeing Asquan’s standard, sprang to throw aside the barriers, and Vansha was amused to see how they all but grovelled before this well-armed and aristocratic-looking party.
‘If they only knew, eh?’ he tossed back, rather too soon for Alya’s liking. But it raised a laugh along the line, and caught their lightening mood. Just emerging from the looming shadow of that wall, raising the first dust from the yellow road, shed a deadly burden from their shoulders, the weight of Volmur’s anger.
He might pursue them now, when he found what had happened, but that would hurt his prestige. Most likely he would brush the matter off – unless, of course, they fell into his hands again. Wherever Alya and Savi might go now, it could never be back to the Citadel. Alya could not feel that mattered too much. There would always be somewhere, if only it could be with her.
Now he waved to the horsemen at the hill’s foot, without stopping, showing them the way; and at Asquan’s command they moved off in a swift canter, no longer in line but in such files as the rough track permitted. Alya stood off a little, watching, and was interested to see Rysha riding quite close behind the Nightingale, her eyes as fixed upon him as his had been on her.
‘Those two will want watching!’ grunted the Lord Kalkan, riding up beside Alya. ‘Too strong, too wicked. Too alike.’
‘True. But they may yet be our greatest hope.’
Kalkan shook his head, and the look in his eye was strange. ‘Don’t forget yourself! I’ve never seen anyone like you, not even a Seer. Half a country lad, and half – I don’t know. Something out of old tales. The Powers don’t hand out that sort of strength for nothing. And you’ve a strength of mind, too. There’s some destiny in you, working itself out.’
‘I feel so, maybe. But for your good, or mine? The Powers have larger purposes, as I’ve heard; and woe to the little men who get caught in them. And we’re going up against some others at least as mighty.’
‘That’s all true,’ said Kalkan, sounding little concerned. ‘But ill or well, it’s got me out of that living tomb, and that alone’s enough, my lad. Would only you’d come a little sooner, and saved my boy! But that wasn’t to be.’
He wheeled his mount then, roaring at the scholar Tseshya to have a care of those baggage nags, and did he want all their food in the roadside mire?
Alya watched him join the column now, and take over the reins, whipping them to his own saddle and guiding the horse expertly on to the smoother part of the way. They were a fascinating study, these new followers of his; and one he had better take up at once, to make the best of what hope they represented.
Washed and barbered, Lord Kalkan revealed a formidable presence, a square, heavy-boned face with hard lines and creases still etched in the loose skin of his starvation. He had kept his moustache, and it drooped grimly over a hard, set mouth. It was a stern, proud, habitually scowling countenance, but not, somehow, an angry or brutal one, far more open and readable than Asquan’s. He could imagine Kalkan conspiring against a corrupt king; he could also imagine him getting caught.
The followers he had chosen were men in his own mould, warriors by birth and soldiers by life. They all seemed much alike, hard, sturdy men despite their long confinement, more than a touch dour but open of face and heart, with little learning or breadth of mind, and obviously loyal to Lord Kalkan first and foremost. They would want watching, too, in their way.
Tseshya was a harder study, a burly, square-faced young man who had been studying to gain a post as a tax official, one of the few stable positions in Volmur’s ramshackle government. Bigger and stronger than Alya’s idea of a scholar, he was evidently learned enough, but also as good an archer as he had claimed. He was genial and talkative, compared to the soldiers, but often nervy and irritable also; and as Kalkan was currently pointing out in no uncertain terms, preoccupied and careless in everyday ways. He was fatter than the others, having suffered no more than a few weeks in the dungeons, consigned there for a drunken satire on Volmur. ‘If I’d only been a whit more sober,’ he mourned, ‘the bastard would never even have understood it!’
‘I think he still might have guessed,’ objected Asquan. ‘From the way you painted it on the palace latrine.’
‘No! My style was the most refined in my year! Anyone learned enough to get all the references would hardly have given me away!’
Asquan tugged at a stray lock of hair. ‘Perhaps not. But the picture you drew alongside it might have. Effective, I thought, but somewhat exaggerated.’
‘Well, it was just a joke. I didn’t really believe Volmur went in for …’
‘No? I thought the likeness was excellent. It was the horse that seemed a little strained.’
Definitely careless, thought Alya. That could be a problem. But compared to Rysha, he was as open as one of his own scrolls. She was an enigma, and a nasty one; and yet she might be the key to their success.
Ten against forty – and that assumed Rysha was any use as a fighter, as she claimed. It was one thing to slice open a man’s throat, as Vansha acidly pointed out, when you had him at a disadvantage – quite another to meet him in open fight. But then, in open fight the odds would doom them, anyway.
‘Our best hope must be stealth,’ Alya told Vansha and the others, that first evening of their chase. ‘To ride up c
lose to their camp or stopping place, when we find it, sneak in and free her by stealth – and any others we can, of course. Only rely on force to cover our escape.’
Asquan nodded. ‘And that more as a diversion. To exhaust them, make them feel it’s not worth the following. It will cost a few lives, I believe.’
‘Then shouldn’t we just ride in?’ objected Vansha, prodding angrily at the fire they sat around. ‘Stir up the camp. Fire their tents and wagons, drive off their horses, that kind of thing. We’d at least be sure of getting Savi away properly, then!’ Kalkan nodded vigorously.
‘Would you?’ mused Asquan. Not if the Aikiya’wahsa think as you do, my friends. That is what they will be prepared and organised to cope with; as you are, my dear Lord Kalkan, posting your watchers each night. With a larger force we could risk it. But as things are, our chances lie in mist and moonshadow!’
‘More in my lord’s right hand!’ grumbled Darzhan, and the others rumbled their agreement.
‘Touching, aren’t they?’ Asquan leaned across to Alya. ‘I swear, if Kalkan threw a stick, they’d fetch it! But they seem to take to your friend, at least.’
That was true, and interesting, for Alya. They all called both the young men lords, even Kalkan; Alya found that embarrassing, but Vansha turned to it like a sunflower. He seemed to be on easy terms with them already, far easier than with Alya. Alya knew little enough of men; but he felt he was learning, not least with Asquan’s constant acid whispers in his ear. The ageing lord seemed to believe in nothing, not even himself; and that was an education, if you didn’t take him too seriously. Nothing was obvious about the man, everything concealed; and yet even Kalkan seemed in awe of him. Alya wondered what Asquan whispered to others about him, behind his back. Let Vansha make friends; Alya felt he would do well to win some of Asquan’s trust, before they were much further along the trail.
This led them straight enough in the days that followed, down well-worn paths and tracks across the open grasslands. At first they found odd ruins, or heaps of stone that might once have been more, now cemented into the earth as if it was pulling them back down. The sun rose on brown grasses, whispering in the perpetual wind; but they seemed to hold no secrets, for when it sank little was different. They might almost have been riding the same stretch of land over and over again, for only the details changed.
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