by Warhammer
‘They have a point.’
Athol turned and looked at his wife with a frown.
‘Do not side with them against me.’
‘I’m not talking about sides, or drunken complaints. I’m talking about you.’
‘You think I’m weak?’ The words choked in his throat and his heart quickened with fear.
‘No. I think you are too strong. Too strong for us to understand.’ He shook his head but Marolin continued. ‘You do not shout, or throw things, or drink too much. You barely swear. It’s like you aren’t Khul. They don’t understand you.’
‘You understand me, daughter-of-Khul,’ he said gently, reaching out to her.
‘I love you and believe in you,’ she said, stepping back from his hand. He let it drop to his side, feeling numbed by her words, though they were meant as comfort. ‘I know that your passion is deeper than any here, and that is why it does not show on the surface.’
‘But…?’
‘But a leader cannot be apart from his people.’
‘I am not leader, the–’
‘Don’t hide behind your title as spear-carrier. The elders guide, but you lead. Why did you not punish Korlik? Why did you let Farsas speak against you without reply?’
‘So it was Farsas that called me weak?’
‘It doesn’t matter which of them did it.’
‘Farsas is limp in one leg – he cannot fight me.’
‘And yet he showed more spirit by insulting you than you have done in four seasons.’
Athol kicked at a stone, wrestling with his own thoughts.
‘Why is everyone so restless all of a sudden? It’s like someone has heated the water too long so it bubbles from the pot. The Aridians have allowed us to live in relative peace, and these idiots would–’
‘Listen to yourself!’ Marolin almost shrieked the words. She lowered her voice, looking around, mindful that others might mark the dispute between the spear-carrier and his wife. ‘Perhaps we don’t want peace. Perhaps we don’t want to be “allowed” anything, but to fight and build for ourselves? Have you ever wondered why the Aridians chose to make mercenaries of us?’
‘It was an arrangement that was good for both them and the Khul.’
‘Some of them keep serpents as pets. They draw the venom to make sure they are safe, milking it from the snakes periodically. The snakes cannot hunt, and have to be fed captured food.’
‘And you think they do the same to us?’
‘Can we depend on the Aridians forever?’
‘Little lasts forever, you know that.’
She approached him, eyes wide in the starlight, intent upon his face. He did not see anger there, but pleading, an expression he had never seen before from Marolin.
‘And if the Aridians chose to break the bargain, are we still strong enough to survive without them? We train their warriors in our battle-arts. Soon they will not need us, but we will have no venom left to fight back.’
Athol wanted to argue with her, to tell her that Humekhta would not turn on the Khul like that, but stopped himself. He remembered what Khibal Anuk had told him, of sentiment in the court turning on Athol. Would there be a campaign not just to see him removed as spear-carrier, but perhaps to renege on the pact with the Khul?
‘I see that the spark of my words has landed on the tinder of your thoughts,’ said Marolin. She stepped even closer and he felt the heat of her body even above the warmth of the night. His wife placed her hand on his breastplate, above his heart. ‘You are the best of us, and the best for us, Athol. I know that.’
He pulled her closer still, a calloused hand on her back, and held her tight. A few heartbeats later she put her arms around him and returned the embrace, and in their grip the tension flowed from his body.
‘Thank you.’ He said the words in a whisper but raised his voice for the next ones. ‘I love you, Marolin, daughter-of-Khul.’
‘I love you too,’ she replied.
He closed his eyes and let himself feel the moment, drawing her strength into himself, her energy and love stoking the flame that lay deep within his breast. Unsettling times lay ahead. Perhaps the signs had been growing and he had ignored them, but twice today people he respected had given him direct warning of the changes on the wind.
He would be a fool not to heed them.
Athol rose early after dawn, as he usually did, and started with a few simple exercises to stretch the muscles and loosen his joints. Eruil, his son, came up beside him and copied his father, while Marolin emerged from the shelter and watched them, her sword in hand.
‘You look stiff,’ she remarked as Athol reached high with both arms, fingers entwined. ‘Apprehensive.’
‘I didn’t sleep well,’ he admitted, twisting to the left and then the right. Beside him, Eruil did the same, his face a study in concentration.
‘It’s just another trial combat, why are you worried?’ the woman asked.
Athol did not answer. He glanced down at his son with a smile.
Marolin joined them and the three finished their exercise routine in silence. When they were done Marolin stalked off gruffly, to stoke up the fire for breakfast.
‘Are you worried, dad?’ Eruil asked when he was finished.
Athol had promised himself he would raise Eruil in the traditional fashion of the Khul, and had tried his best. That meant there was no lies about death, no softening of the harshness of life or offering false hope against the vagaries of injustice and inequality. But in that moment, as he crouched down and looked at his son’s concerned expression, he broke his promise. He could not bring himself to give words to the unease that made a gulf of his stomach and caused his shoulders to tighten with tension.
‘Just tired, that’s all.’ He kissed the boy’s cheek and stood up, laying a hand on his shoulder. ‘Let’s go and cook breakfast.’
He went about the normal affairs of the morning, eating breakfast and then washing himself in the river with the rest of his family, but Marolin’s terseness throughout was testament to her own feelings. When Eruil had been sent off to fetch faggots of dried dung for the fires with the other youngsters, Marolin cornered Athol as he went to the spring to fetch water. There were a few other families there and she kept her voice low as they dipped their pails in the cool ground-sprung waters.
‘What have you been thinking about?’ she asked. ‘There’s not a man alive that can beat you one-on-one.’
‘The Bataari is too confident.’
‘He has a champion, he thinks that gives him a second chance. If he did not have faith in his champion, he would not have hired him.’ She shrugged. ‘What does this Williarch really know about you, eh? Beyond the Aridians, who knows of your skill?’
‘No, it is something else. Orhatka said that he was too willing to submit to trial by challenge. He didn’t even try to pay his way out.’
‘That is unusual for a Bataari…’ Marolin turned and picked up the second of her buckets. ‘But I know you. There’s a chance you will die every time you pick up the spear for Humekhta. You have never shown fear before.’
‘It is not fear!’ The words had escaped him without thought and Athol calmed himself, looking around the rock-bordered basin to see if anyone else had heard his small outburst. He continued in a quieter tone. ‘It is not fear. Not for me.’
‘Then what is it?’ insisted Marolin. ‘Is it about what happened two nights ago, with the others?’
‘You agreed with them,’ Athol reminded her.
‘I told you to be careful, that was all.’
He said nothing but his expression must have betrayed him, for Marolin leaned closer, lips thin. ‘What is it, Athol? What haven’t you told me?’
‘Khibal Anuk spoke to me the last time I was in the royal city.’
‘What does the Hammerpriest have to do with any of this?’
‘He had a warning.’ Athol sighed, regretting that he had said anything at all, but there was no point saying anything less than the full trut
h now. ‘The Aridians… Let’s just say you’re not the first person to suggest that the Khul are not so favoured in the eyes of the Aridians as I had thought. Well, this particular son-of-Khul, at least.’
‘You have been loyal, and you are undefeated. What more could they want of you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Athol dragged his other pail through the water and stood up, a bucket in each hand. Marolin followed him with her own as he turned back to the encampment. ‘Like those that spoke the other night, there are some around Humekhta that are forgetting what it was that led our two peoples together.’
‘Did Khibal Anuk have anything else to say? Any advice, perhaps?’
‘Yes,’ replied Athol but he said nothing else for a while as they made their way back up the track to the spread of bivouacs on the higher ground.
When they had tipped their water into the covered tubs that they shared with a score of other families, the buckets stowed beneath an awning nearby, he returned to their half-tent to prepare for the walk back to the royal city.
‘He said that maybe a war would remind the Aridians of what they had forgotten,’ Athol confessed as he pulled his armour free from its covers. He looked up at Marolin when she did not immediately exclaim any objection to the idea. ‘We gave enough blood to create this alliance. The point of working for the Aridians is that we don’t have to give up a lot more.’
Still his wife did not say anything, arms crossed, lips pursed in thought. He was about to turn away when she spoke again.
‘What is a warrior without a war?’ she asked quietly.
‘Alive,’ Athol replied without hesitation.
‘You’re right,’ she said, focusing on his face, a smile on her lips. ‘No need to fight more than one battle at a time. Beat this Bataari’s champion and we’ll face whatever comes next as we’ve always done. Together.’
‘Together.’
She helped him get ready, tying the cords of his armour as he readied his vambraces and greaves. When they were done she untied the scabbard at her waist and handed him her half-sword. Normally he would take only the spear for trials and he raised an eyebrow in question.
‘Just in case,’ Marolin told him. ‘Indulge me.’
He nodded and took the weapon. It was about as long as his forearms, the blade sharp on both edges. He strapped the sheath to his right thigh and then took up his helm. She brought his spear forth from where it was kept in a dark wooden case, its tip glistening with a light that owed nothing to the sun slanting down beneath the shelter roof. It had been made with the Last Forge, a symbol of the Khul, the sharp tip of the Aridian spear. Athol took it lightly in one hand, the haft across his shoulder.
‘I’ll come back,’ he promised his wife, laying a hand on her shoulder.
‘Fight like a Khul,’ she replied.
The royal city was so different from the Khul encampment that Athol always felt as if he might have stepped through a gateway to a different place whenever he crossed from the plains into the rambling tent streets. Where the Khul were orderly and functional, the Aridians set up their tents almost on a whim. The size of a tent and its owner’s influence was directly related to the number of family within, and the number of menials that worked for them. Its closeness to the centre where Humekhta held court was a rough indication of status.
Remembering this as he received a raised fist in salute from a warrior at one of the guard posts around the tent city’s outskirts, Athol thought more about the effects of the Aridians’ lifestyle.
Every time the city moved, the status of those within was literally uprooted. On setting up a new camp at the next location it was as much a physical battle to pitch one’s shelter near to the Prophet-Queen as it was a matter of who was entitled to site themselves closer to the royal family.
The further Athol moved into the settlement the closer the tents started to be to one another, their occupants attempting to gain favour by proximity. Those that arrived first could sprawl at their leisure, but those that came a little later pushed as far inwards as possible, often until coming to blows with their neighbours. Only a few streets allowed access to the inner circle, enforced by the royal family’s retainers. Elsewhere one had to pick their way through awnings, guy ropes and poles to make any progress.
But it had been almost a season since the city had moved. Families that had perhaps hoped to do better at the next camp were forced to be patient, their route to the queen literally barred by their betters. It was like a pool grown stagnant. The Aridians were a people that were meant to move, to refresh themselves sporadically as they followed the herds. Perhaps the immobility was the cause of the discontent that Khibal Anuk had spoken of – the Khul merely being the target of the grievance rather than its actual cause.
The mood of the place was subdued; very few people were on the streets and those that saw him were half-hearted in their greetings. Athol’s apprehension grew as he neared the palace-tent. He could see the highest peaks of the immense pavilion but no one had come out to meet him as was usually custom.
He found a pair of guards standing attentively a little way ahead. Their conversation stopped as he approached and they shared an awkward glance with each other.
‘The queen is waiting for you,’ said one, only briefly meeting Athol’s gaze.
The spear-carrier was not sure if it was meant as warning or admonishment. He said nothing as he entered the great tent by one of the lesser doors.
Orhatka was waiting for him a few paces inside. A frown fleetingly deepened his brow before he looked away, leading Athol towards the main chamber without comment. It was the closest Athol had seen the lawsmith to open agitation and it did little to settle his own mood.
‘Wait,’ Athol growled before they moved through the flap that led into the queen’s presence, gently grabbing Orhatka’s arm.
The lawsmith stopped, and half turned.
‘Queen Humekhta is waiting.’
‘A moment longer won’t matter,’ answered Athol. ‘Why does everyone look like they’re walking on hot coals?’
Orhatka started to move away but Athol’s grip tightened, holding him in place.
‘It’s Williarch’s champion,’ the lawsmith admitted with a sigh.
‘What of it?’
‘See for yourself,’ said Orhatka, dragging his arm free. He pushed through the drape and Athol was forced to follow.
The Prophet-Queen sat as usual to the left, the taer-huma marked out by rope in a broad oval before her. As before, the regulars of court stood a little distance back from the bladespace, but there were a few unfamiliar faces among them, the crowd larger than usual. Athol’s first thought was one of disdain; he had never understood the appeal of watching others fight. It was followed quickly by consternation. What spectacle had brought this audience forth?
His answer stood on the opposite side of the taer-huma. Williarch’s champion was about the same height as Athol, which was to say a little taller than most of the Aridians, and from the figure’s general build he assumed his opponent to be a man. It was impossible to be sure, for the Bataari champion was clad head to foot in overlapping plates of moulded steel, every part of the full armour rune-carved and burnished. A black horsehair crest topped a full helm with a facemask shaped like a snarling hunting cat. The entire panoply had been given a gleaming sheen of lacquer that reflected the sun that streamed through the openings in the tent roof.
Athol’s eye fell upon the two swords that hung at the stranger’s hips. Each was straight-bladed, almost as long as a man’s arm, but as slender as two fingers together. A gilded beast decorated each scabbard, stylised and rearing up. Their hilts and pommels, too, were wrought in the shape of leonine winged creatures.
Stopping just short of the rope boundary, Athol stared at the other warrior, seeking the eyes hidden behind the slits of the visor. He found a bright blue gaze in the shadows, regarding him with a cool detachment.
An excited shout from the right drew the other champion’s eye to t
he crowd and Athol followed his gaze, seeing Aless and Joira standing either side of Khibal Anuk. The spear-carrier tipped a nod to the queen’s nieces and his gaze lingered for a moment on their father, whose expression was one of studied passivity. Athol’s eyes moved on, returning to Queen Humekhta. Not far from her stood Williarch, flanked by guards, a satisfied smugness marking his features.
Humekhta’s eyes gave a flicker of recognition. Reassurance, perhaps? The odd atmosphere, expectation mixed with apprehension, gnawed at Athol. He needed a few heartbeats to shed the distracting thoughts that had tried to crowd him on entering. He planted his spear and adjusted the strap of his helm, focusing once more upon his opponent. He gently cleared his throat, not wanting the dust of the journey to make him hoarse, for it might be taken as a sign of nervousness. Prepared, he took up the spear and placed his hand upon the sculpted breastplate.
‘I am the Spear-carrier, champion of Humekhta the Third,’ he declared. ‘Trial has been called and I offer my spear in defence of the Prophet-Queen’s honour.’
Orhatka had made his way around the bladespace and was stood between Humekhta and Williarch.
‘The accused will answer the challenge,’ the lawsmith said.
‘I Williarch de Breughel, taskmaster from Keredam. I answer with champion. I defend honour by Serleon of Aquita, called the Peerless Blade.’
‘Then it is agreed – the trial by combat will decide the guilt of Williarch of Bataar.’
Athol stepped over the rope, loosening his shoulders as he did so. Opposite him Serleon of Aquita turned towards his paymaster, touched a finger to the brow of his helm and received a nod in return. With a whisper of metal he drew both blades and advanced into the taer-huma.
‘The trial begins!’ announced Queen Humekhta.
CHAPTER FIVE
Striding over the rise that bordered the Asha Vale, Threx felt a surge of pride. He had never doubted that he would return in victory, but it was his first experience of doing so as the leader of an army. His hand had restored honour to the Skullbrands.
