Smoke in the Glass

by Chris Humphreys

  Their mounts were of the local breed. Akin to the Sarphardi he was used to, tall and strong, they would ride these grasslands as effortlessly as the Sarphardi did the sand dunes. They alternated canters with stretches of walking. At that rate, their scarred guide had said, they would reach the gathering place of the Assani by sunset.

  As the day passed, and despite the rains that regularly came and soaked them, Ferros began to feel better and better. Ever since he’d been … smitten by immortality – he could not think about it any other way – he’d been worried about the consequences of it, of all that would be demanded of him. He’d sat in classrooms, watched dances, drank Tinderos wine and resented nearly all of it. He’d let Lara come with him when he should have forbidden her, and so had let her die. Now, though, he had a fine mount between his legs, a sword at his side and he was riding to defend the empire. This had been his life before. Perhaps in doing his duty well now, he would begin to atone for Lara’s death, somehow make it … not worthwhile, never that, but at least not the futility it was.

  His nature was to lead the column. But the troop had an officer and though Gandalos knew he answered to the newcomers, these were still his men. So when at one point Ferros got ahead of him, the other man again retook the lead – and gave Ferros a smile as he passed him. It was a challenge Ferros was delighted to take up – so whenever Gandalos ordered the gallop, the two would race. It was unspoken yet also clear, some distant feature of land laid out for a finishing post. They soon discovered that they were equal, these two cavalry officers from either end of the empire. And Ferros revelled in a camaraderie he had missed.

  At a break they took to water, feed and rest the horses near the middle of the day, Roxanna drew him aside. ‘You are enjoying yourself.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Should I be jealous?’

  Ferros shrugged. Roxanna was another unanswered question he’d set aside as he raced. He knew she did not stir his heart as Lara always had. His loins, however … ‘Have you thought more on a plan?’

  ‘You read the dispatches, as I did.’ Roxanna took a bite of the cured meat they all carried. ‘It was little enough to go on, to be sure. This “Smoke” rouses the tribes against us. He preaches, as so many wilderness prophets have before him, about salvation to come – to be found in rebellion. He has had more success than any before him. So we must deal with him as we have with all other such messiahs – with the blade.’

  ‘If we can do what other assassins have failed to do – get close enough to use one.’

  ‘That,’ replied Roxanna, chewing slowly, ‘is indeed the trick. And we will only know the way of it when we get there.’

  They rode again, through alternating rain squalls and bursts of sunlight. Soon those were on their backs, and as the sun sank they entered a rising land, the foothills of the great mountains beyond. Grasslands gave way to scrub, then trees, finally to narrow canyons, the way forward lined in walls carved by wind and water, the path strewn with boulders. It was a place made for ambush and both Ferros and Gandalos walked their horses with wary eyes and hands on weapons. But their scarred guide soon came level with them, dismounted and shook his head when asked. ‘They do not post sentries. Why would they when they are “loyal” to the empire? Besides, no warrior will miss the gathering.’ He grinned briefly. ‘This Smoke always provides fermented asses’ milk and plenty of it.’

  This latest, narrowest gorge ended, opening into a larger bowl of rock that rose steeply towards the walls of the mountains ahead. It would have been too dark to see their tops now, even if they weren’t swathed in clouds. Ferros was only aware of an immensity that made him slightly giddy when he looked up. When he looked down, he realised the width of this last valley they’d entered – for what he took for fireflies were, in truth, distant campfires.

  ‘The gathering,’ the guide said unnecessarily, and spurred his horse forward.

  The sound of it came soon enough – a distant drumming that grew louder as they approached, and was soon punctuated by the ululations the eastern tribes were known for – a cascade of notes rising from deep to shrill, ending in prolonged screams, like an animal caught in a snare.

  They came to a crossroads of sorts, muddy tracks sweeping away to either side, with one going straight forward. To the right was a slight rise, a stand of small, scrubby pines. Calling a halt, Ferros dismounted, and led the troop into them. At its furthest edge they could see clearly into the camp about two hundred paces ahead. The drumming, the screams were building. Men were leaping over fires to shouts of acclaim.

  ‘Truly?’ he said to the man beside him. ‘No guards?’

  ‘With that going on?’ The scarred man pointed. ‘No one wants to miss it. Besides,’ he leaned forward, spat, and Ferros thought suddenly, achingly, of Ashtan, ‘this Smoke always appears when the tribe is at the height of its frenzy – and in a spectacular manner. No one wants to miss that either.’ He tied the reins of his horse to a tree. ‘I’ll go in, come back, tell you what I see.’

  He took a step. ‘No,’ said Ferros. ‘You’ll stay here.’

  The scarred man whipped around. ‘What? Don’t you trust me, Corinthian?’

  ‘Not further than my reach,’ Ferros said, raising his hand to demonstrate. The man’s sullen eyes followed the slow rising but not the sudden snap as Ferros changed his open hand to a fist and struck. The guide fell, unconscious before he hit the ground.

  ‘Tie him to a tree,’ Ferros called.

  Two soldiers trussed the man. Meanwhile, Ferros led Roxanna and Gandalos out of earshot, to where they could see ahead. The drumming was even more frenzied now, the voices blending from separate cries into one chant, a rising and a fall on a single sound. On a word.

  ‘Are they chanting a name?’ Ferros asked.

  The other officer shook his head. ‘No. A number.’

  ‘Is it “one”?’ murmured Roxanna.

  Gandalos nodded.

  ‘I see.’ Ferros pointed to where the biggest flames rose. A mob was dancing before them, more joining all the time. ‘That looks like the centre of it, there. See the flat-topped rock above and behind it? A fine place to speak from. I’d wager that is where this Smoke will appear to speak to the tribe. So we need to get close to it.’

  ‘How close?’

  ‘So close you will not miss with a javelin.’ He looked at Roxanna. ‘Throwing at a man is different from throwing at a hay bale. Will you be as accurate?’

  ‘Oh,’ she replied, running a tongue over her lips. ‘I have managed it before, once or twice.’

  ‘Good. Two spears, in the heart, on my command. Then we—’

  ‘Two?’ Gandalos interrupted. ‘Three, because I will be beside you.’

  ‘You will not. You’ll be here. Mounted. Ready—’

  ‘I should be with you. Three javelins for certainty. I am—’

  Ferros raised a hand. ‘That is the second time you have interrupted me, soldier,’ he said softly. ‘Do not make it three.’

  Gandalos stood straighter, stiffened. Then he said, quietly. ‘I apologise, sir. It’s just that I know these people—’

  ‘Which is why I need you here,’ said Ferros. ‘Killing is one thing, and hard enough. Killing and escape afterwards is harder still. I do not wish to lose a single man in this. We will need you, your bows, and your knowledge to have any hope of getting away.’

  Gandalos looked as if he would debate it further. But after a moment of staring he nodded. And the moment he did, the ululations, that had been building in noise, in frenzy, suddenly and totally ceased. That word, which Ferros now knew as ‘one’, echoed once more off the mountain, then faded to an unnerving silence. ‘Be ready, Gandalos. It is time for us to move,’ Ferros said.

  ‘The guide?’

  ‘Leave him where he lies.’

  The rain had been coming in intermittent squalls. Now it strengthened, came hard and steady. It was a ble
ssing, for once he and Roxanna pulled the hooded tribal cloaks over themselves, and wrapped their scarves around their faces, there was nothing of the city showing about them, save their boots – and the quiver of hunting javelins they slung over their shoulders. But as Ferros turned to go, Roxanna grabbed his arm.

  ‘There is an easier way. Why not possess two savages? We can get as close as we wish, then. Kill easily and as easily slip away.’

  Ferros studied her a long moment. ‘You may do as you wish, lady,’ he eventually replied. ‘I cannot see a time when I will ever want to … use another man like that. So I am going to do what I have always done – serve the empire as myself.’

  ‘Very well, Ferros of Balbek. We will do it your way – for now.’ She smiled. ‘But trust me – “ever” has a new meaning for you now. You will see that time, and sooner than you think.’

  They set off into the heavy rain. Soon they had reached the first Assani – all men – for women in this tribe, Galandos had told him, had no sway or say, so would be waiting with the children in a camp nearby. They passed easily through at first, these men in singles and pairs. It got harder when the land began to funnel, slopes rising on each side, and the bodies before them pressed closer together. All were staring hard at the flat ledge ahead, on which another smaller fire burned, two huge men either side of it, cloakless, spears in hand. Some gave passage with a grunt, others snarled and had to be slipped around. Soon enough, and too far off for a safe javelin throw, the wall of cloaked backs became impenetrable. Ferros glanced at Roxanna, who raised an eyebrow, and looked at those blocking them, her meaning clear. He shook his head, sought around – and spotted a tongue of rock jutting from the cliff face to his right. Only a few perched on it, and these were mainly boys, for the approach looked hard to climb – but it was a finger of rock pointing towards the ledge. He indicated it with his eyes. Roxanna shrugged, but followed him.

  It was the hard climb he’d anticipated. But youths reached down and helped haul them up, to grunts for thanks. Soon they found a slightly wider platform and squatted there, on their haunches, tribal style. Hard to reach, it was not only a thirty-pace throw from the ledge, it was the best view in the place. Ferros looked across the silent, staring crowd, spread between the canyon walls. The rain had now stopped again, and a few fresh torches burned in metal baskets clamped to rock faces. The fire on the ledge diminished to a glow … which, even as he looked, transformed suddenly into a wall of flame shooting high above the hearth guards’ spear tips, dazzling in that dark. Men cried out on all sides as, with a loud ‘whoosh’, the flames shot even higher and then were engulfed in a vast billow of smoke. It blew down over the crowd, over them on their perch, sweet and acrid at the same time, bringing tears, causing coughs. Yet even as he wiped his eyes, Ferros saw a man emerge from the cloud he had made, for which he was named.

  Smoke.

  He was nearly as tall as the spearmen beside him but that was the sole similarity. Where they were clad in the garb of their tribe, tight-wound strips of cloth about their chests in alternating colours, heavy wool skirts to below the knees, he wore ankle-length robes in layers, white on black on white. Their heads were shaven to a single topknot, his hair was long, falling in waves either side of his face. Their faces were clean-shaven, he had a thick beard that reached from his cheekbones to a hand’s breadth below his jaw. A large curved nose stood proud of it, like a rock in a dark brown sea.

  Roxanna gasped, leaned forward. Ferros looked at her. Her dark face had flushed, lightened, as if she were a chameleon. Her green eyes had shot wide, and there was a look in them that had never been there before. He’d seen fury, jealousy, lust. But he had never seen terror. And if she was terrified …

  He suddenly needed the comfort of a weapon in his hand. He clutched a javelin, drew it out. But she reached out fast and grasped his throwing arm. ‘No!’ she whispered. ‘We cannot kill him!’

  ‘What? But that is why we are here.’

  ‘You do not understand. We cannot.’ She dug her nails in deeper. ‘We have to take him. He—’

  ‘One!’

  It was the only word Ferros knew in the tribal tongue. And it was spoken softly enough now, by the man on the platform. Not softly at all by the Assani. They roared it back.

  ‘One!’

  The sound echoed off the canyon walls, once, twice, the third fading away. The man smiled, then reached behind him, to another man, unobserved till now, smaller, hooded, also cloaked. Turned back to the crowd holding … a glass globe. It was big, the width and height of his chest, and smoke swirled within it. A moan rose from the mob, from the boys below them on the rocky spur, echoed off the far walls of the canyon. Smoke the man smiled again – and this time his lips parted, revealing teeth that Ferros saw were not white, but blackened. The smaller man came forward again and placed a kind of stand before the fire. Smoke laid the globe upon it. Then he called out something else, something that sounded like a question. Ferros could not understand it but the crowd did, and there was yearning in their shout.

  Smiling wider, Smoke raised a hand. He had something in it – a bottle of some kind, for something dripped onto the glass. Within the globe the mist cleared instantly – and the crowd gasped as one. And Ferros did too, couldn’t help himself. For sitting within the globe, cradled in swathes of mist, was a baby.

  It wasn’t the further shouts that spurred him. The moans, the cries of joy, the ecstasy that the coming of the child produced. It was something inside Ferros – the sudden certainty that all that had happened to him – death, rebirth, Ashtan’s death, Lara’s death, everything – the reason for it all was moving in mist before him.

  Fury took him. Throwing off his cloak as he rose, his left arm going forward, his right way back, he crouched, coiled and, unspiralling, used every part of his power to hurl the javelin.

  Roxanna’s cry of ‘No!’ came just as he released. She needn’t have worried – for Ferros wasn’t aiming at the Smoke without… but the smoke within.

  Glass exploded. Fragments, jagged shards flew everywhere. A gush of grey shot not upwards but out. An acrid taint flooded the air and every person close to the ledge was suddenly coughing, retching. Slightly higher, Ferros’s eyes cleared first, and he drew the breaths he needed. He looked. The baby was gone. But the bearded man now clutching a wooden plinth, whose face was cut and bleeding, was staring up, in wonder that shaded fast into fury. Not for him, Ferros realised. For the person beside him.

  The word he spoke was clear, even if Ferros could barely hear it above the coughing. ‘Roxanna!’ Smoke said, hatred in the word.

  Most of the Assani were still choking but some were recovering faster and these were turning, seeking. The youths on the rock below were the first to know where the javelin had come from. All turned, growling, and with daggers in their hands.

  The trumpet blare came sudden and loud, its call cutting through the screaming – the same call used in the empire’s armies wherever they fought. Somewhere nearby, a cavalry squadron was charging.

  Instant mayhem below. Shrieks of surprise, of anger, warriors shedding cloaks and grabbing weapons. Leaders amongst them must have recognised the terrible defensive position, for cavalry would massacre such a packed mob. Their own trumpet sounded, and men began to surge out of the canyon, towards the threat. The youths, torn, glared at the two immortals above them then turned away, scrambling down to follow their tribe to battle.

  A blur whooshed over the crowd. A sound came, terrible but familiar: metal piercing flesh. It came from the ledge and when Ferros turned back to it he saw that death had arrived in a giant arrow from the Bow of Mavros. One of the huge guards hung from it, pinned against the stone wall. The bolt must have only just missed Smoke. He looked once at the dead man, once more at the two of them on their perch, then turned and vanished into the rock cleft.

  ‘We must get him.’ Roxanna was already scrambling forward, along a
narrowing finger of rock that pointed to where Smoke had just stood.

  Ferros followed. ‘You know him!’

  It was not a question. ‘I know him. No time to tell. We must take him.’

  ‘Not kill him?’

  She took a running jump and made the platform, Ferros landing a moment after. Their boots crunched the fragments of glass. ‘I told you – you cannot kill him. He is an immortal.’

  ‘What?’ Ferros stopped. But he would get no explanation for Roxanna had plunged into the rock wall.

  The cleft he followed her into was a tight passage between sheer cliff faces. It was short, twenty paces taking them out into a narrow gulch at the centre of which flowed a stream. Their quarry was ahead of them – and already mounted. There were two of them and they didn’t look back, just spurred their horses and galloped from the gulch.

  Ferros and Roxanna ran to where they’d vanished. The high walls dropped away, a valley opened, the land rose and they could see the stream beside them flowed from the granite wall of the mountain ahead. The riders were galloping straight for it, already about a quarter of the way there.

  ‘Shit, we’ve lost him.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Roxanna, who’d been looking the other way. For in from the side of the valley rode half a troop of cavalry.

  Gandalos was at their head. He reined in, and one of the troopers brought two riderless horses forward. As they mounted he said, ‘The rest lead the Assani away to the north, will return when they can. Like hornets, the tribes always chase whatever poked their nest. We swung around to the south. Which way for us?’

  ‘Forward,’ replied Ferros, mounting. ‘We have to catch … them.’

  As he spoke, he spurred. The troop broke into a fast gallop. Gandalos was at his right side. ‘Is one of them the cloaked bastard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I missed him by a hair.’ He gestured back and Ferros saw the Bow part-dismantled and strapped to the side of one of the horses. ‘I’d like another shot.’