by Prue Batten
‘It’s the headwaters of the Styx, I think. All the rivers of Eirie are birthed somewhere along this range I’ll bet.’ Poli pocketed the compass and pulled at his stirrup leathers. ‘Not to put too finer point on it, Nico, but I hope there’s a bridge…’
*
The Vale of Kush might have been a distant memory if the emerging blue of the newborn day was a marker. Far ahead a mountain storm brooded, the lower edges of the cloud heavy with sleet or snow. But it was far enough away to be no threat and the warmth of the infant sun did its best to erase uneasy recollections.
But in honesty, the Vale was not to be forgotten so quickly. Occasionally Poli turned his head to gaze down over the country through which they had passed – both forest and diseased plain – and a shadow would pass across his face, eyebrows flattening as if he had a vague memory of something from long ago and far away.
Nicholas didn’t need to turn around. The detail was as vivid as the sight of the horse’s ears in front of him, but decidedly short on colour, an image of never-ending grey. And substance? Ah, the Vale’s army may have been shades but they had been reviled by legend, hated and feared by the tongues that talked of them – their substance came from the mists of Time past.
Nico shuddered to rid himself of the images, concentrating instead on the fact that they were that much closer to whatever North by Northwest meant.
She is still alive. She must be.
He wondered at the miracle of the shifu cloth.
Fate.
Fate dominated their lives. Adelina had once said an individual’s fate was decided in the womb so it was Fate that the bolt found its way to the Stitching Fair, that it should call to Adelina as it did, as the Travellers predicted it would; predictions, readings and augury. And Fate.
‘Something hangs about you…’ Viviane had said. ‘Whatever has happened to your family and to mine, it has to stop and you are the only one who can stop it.’
He shook his head, almost in despair.
What, Viviane? Stop what?
‘Nicholas!’ Poli’s voice burst upon his convoluted thoughts. ‘By the stars, I’ve been chatting away to myself for the last half a league. Did you not hear a word?’
Nico shrugged.
‘I said if we have no bridge then we have a problem. And yet,’ Poli emphasised his point by waving his hand at the ground. ‘This is a track that we follow and surely a track implies traffic, crossings, bridges.’ He didn’t wait for any sort of acknowledgement. ‘I’m sure there will be a bridge and damn it, the sun might be shining but it’s bloody cold. Here…’
He dragged two knitted caps from his saddlebag, thrust one at Nicholas and jammed his own down over his ears, pulling up his collar. Nicholas followed his example, revelling in the immediate warmth of the greasy wool.
Such mortal comfort.
He sat straighter in the saddle.
I have left the Vale and my Otherness weakens in consequence the further I move from enchanted lands.
Once again, Nicholas knew that he and Poli might only have quick wits and physical strength on which to rely.
Nothing changes.
*
The roar and shout of the water now filled the air – not just with reverberation but with flying clumps of white froth and a glistening spray that settled on everything and through which rainbows danced.
‘Bloody hell!’ Poli pulled his horse up as they entered a clearing. Then more quietly, ‘Bloody hell.’
*
There was a bridge to be sure, a swaying structure that slung itself between the gorge walls like cobweb filaments. Both men looked down, down…
And who, thought Nicholas, in their right minds would walk across cobwebs? Particularly when below, the snapping water jumped, turned, rolled back on itself in vicious twists, only to thunder forward again, its voice the snarl of a hungry spirit in need of propitiation.
That’s no spirit and yet its force is as powerful.
Nicholas backed his horse to the other side of the clearing, away from the vertiginous drop. Dismounting and tying the animal to a fallen tree, he watched the spray surround Poli in a halo as he joined him.
‘Could that bridge hold hors…’ Poli’s head whipped sideways, hand to forehead as he stared upstream. ‘What was that?’
Nicholas scanned the forest farther away along the ravine sides.
‘Listen!’ Poli grabbed his arm.
Faintly in the morning breeze that shook crystalline droplets from the needle sharp pine foliage, a horn could be heard – not just one, perhaps three, even four. Shrill, piercing, a call to arms. Then above the rantings of the river, shouts and as if magicked from nowhere, three horses burst out of the trees, mere specks in the distance and galloping toward the bridge at full stretch.
‘Aine, Nico, they run as if they are pursued. Something’s wrong.’
Poli, don’t get involved. Don’t. We have other business.
‘I think they’ll try and cross over to this side. I’m sure.’
The riders hurtled into the clearing opposite and Nico would swear he saw reflected light flash from beneath the cowl of one of the riders but then shouts from the other companions began as further back, right where the fugitives had launched onto the side of the ravine from the forest, a posse of riders appeared. Twenty at least, horns blaring and weapons glittering – long pikes with nothing but iniquity hanging from them and bows full-stretched to let arrows fly.
‘They aren’t playing pick-up-sticks, Nico.’ Poli’s silver dagger slid out. ‘They want to hurt someone…’
Nicholas and Isabella.
Chapter Twenty One
They had galloped into the shelter of the forest foothills, the sleet passing as quickly as it had emerged. To the southeast, the sky had parted to reveal a strip of cerulean.
Isabella saw it as a sign – that break in the forbidding alpine grey – a sign from the Fox Lady that all might be well, a banner of hope. She knew that if they galloped toward the strip of blue, then the Spirits would protect them.
Behind, she heard Ming Xao calling and slowed her horse to a jog so that he could ride abreast.
‘Isabella, we have a problem.’ He halted and she turned to look at his face – so young, so old, so apt to be wise.
Her horse grabbed at the reins, stretching its neck and then shaking, blowing down its nose and fidgeting.
‘How so?’ she asked, aware Xuan and Chi had pulled up next to her.
‘You shouted in your native tongue. They heard and watched and if they are half the men they have been trained to be, they will think something is odd. If you look, the sleet has cleared and they will see the smoke…’ Ming Xao rubbed at his spectacles, cleaning and re-cleaning the glass. As he spoke, from far behind sounded the chilling call of horns.
Xuan jumped off his horse, reaching up for Chi.
‘Lady, I would sit you in front of me now for protection, for we must fly as if we have wings.’
He began to reconfigure the saddlebags.
Chi sighed, her face tight with anxiety.
‘I wish I could help but my punishment prevents me using celestial powers. They have removed every bit of my freedom. All I can do is pray for us.’
Pray, thought Isabella. And who would listen?
She damned the Celestials for placing Chi Nü in her path, for what choice did she have but to be honourable toward the woman? Without doubt the Fox Lady knew and by Isabella deciding to protect Chi, ‘sometimes the sheer weight of different occurrences forces a decision to be made, forces people to act in certain ways.’
Yes, thought Isabella. I acted with what I thought was care and now I may risk all our lives because who can travel fast with a blind woman?
The Lady Chi turned her head toward Isabella, an unerring act that pinned Belle’s thoughts to the ground.
‘My Lady Ibo, I would not place you in danger. I beg your forgiveness. You could leave me…’
Guilt and shame brought a blush to Isabella’s che
eks.
‘No. I undertook – that is myself and my Lord Ming Xao agreed to remove you from the danger in the Han.’ She reached down and touched the woman’s slim wrist, surprised at how chilled she was. ‘You are cold. Come.’ She began to chafe some warmth into the Celestial’s hands. ‘We’re a companionship, are we not?’
‘We shall be nothing,’ said Ming Xao, his horse swinging nervously as the horns sounded closer, ‘if we don’t move immediately.’
‘I don’t know why you can’t order them to desist,’ Isabella said as she took up the reins. ‘You are the Imperial Son. Doesn’t that stand for anything?’
Xuan hoisted Lady Chi onto the front of the saddle and sprang up behind her.
‘Lady Ibo, my lord could order them to leave him alone and they might do so. But we three would be seen to have coerced him and our lives would be forfeit.’
‘But…’ Isabella said.
‘Dear Ibo,’ Ming Xao broke in, ‘think on it. Can you recall anywhere in your known history of a place called the Han? Anything from your father’s lips, or the wisest person in Eirie, or in books, libraries or from men of knowledge?’
‘No…’
‘For all Eirie’s history the Han has maintained its isolation, its secrets. Do you think they will allow you to return to Pymm and shout the Han’s existence to the world? Do you think they will allow me to break an infinite history?’
‘But you are the Son.’
‘I am, for my sins, my parents’ shame.’
‘Then why did you come with me?’
‘Because I could not stay behind. The need to know is too great. I would forgo everything of what I am to know more.’
They had begun to trot and talking became more difficult. Nevertheless, she needed to ask.
‘You will never go back?’
‘Perhaps I never can.’ His glasses magnified the great sorrow in his eyes. ‘Fate and the Celestials handed me a world of discovery. Tomorrow I might be handed a way back. At this point I will only be content if we all remain safe. Maybe I can die for the foolishness of my ambitions, but I will not have it so for you three; not on my conscience.’
The horns sounded closer still and the bowel-clenching sound filleted Isabella’s backbone. Her horse, sensing her anxiety, began to rear.
‘Then,’ Xuan chafed. ‘We must fly. That way, my lord, take that path along the edge of the ravine. It is more dangerous than the way I wished for us to travel but we are compromised. Go!’
Isabella’s would-be husband tapped his horse’s sides with his heels, crouching over its neck. ‘Hyar!’ he shouted and set off in a swirl of leaf litter. Her opinion of him re-configured at that moment – admiration. Her own horse leaped in Ming Xao’s wake when she slapped it on the neck and Xuan’s horse snorted, breathing down hard on the rump of her own. They flew as if the Devil and Herle’s Rade snapped behind, raining fire and brimstone down with every hoof beat.
Ming Xao, Ming Xao.
His name resonated with the sound of galloping horses.
Extraordinary.
Her scholarly companion, whom she imagined would need chains and six oxen to drag him from his palace, was prepared to give up all he held dear and familiar to seek knowledge that he may never be able to take back without losing his own life. That he was beyond brave was undeniable. The Han needed one such as he to lead them forward; its beauty needed to shine without the tawdry shadow of its insecurities.
‘Exactly. You have helped him find his way. Perhaps he helps you find yours.’
Isabella’s horse stumbled as she looked around for the Fox lady. It was surely she who expressed such thoughts. She steadied the animal, picking up the stride again, the horse’s mane flying in her face.
No time to think because she could see a bridge – the worst type of bridge.
No, oh no!
It hung suspended across a fierce chasm where angry water – no, apoplectic water jumped and clambered up the walls of the ravine. The bridge’s ropes were no thicker than her forearm, its planking not flush but with small gaps between; not big enough for a hoof to slip through but surely enough space to see Death waiting below. The sides were laced heavily, a basket weave to the height of a tall masculine shoulder.
Ming Xao, diminutive and slight, with the appearance of a man of letters, flung off his mount, and with the assurance of a man of adventure, grasped the animal’s rein, pulling the sash from his robe and blindfolding it, urging it forward as men shouted in the distance, horns blared and a volley of arrows shrieked across their heads.
‘Ibo,’ he yelled. ‘Do it! Xuan, come on!’
Isabella pushed at her fear, terror that choked her as she eyed the bridge, grabbing her sash, flinging it around her horse’s eyes, holding tight to the reins as it pulled back sharply, speaking to it, rubbing its nose until its head dropped, and then she swallowed the lump in her throat, tried to ignore her heart which jumped as chaotically as the river below and clicked the animal forward, pulling it as confidently as she could. Placing her own foot on the damp planks, feeling the bridge swing slightly as Ming Xao continued on.
Another arrow whined past the horse’s ear, its head throwing up, bridge swaying, Belle’s heart jumping into her mouth, cold sweat on her neck, her bowels set to loosen. The shadows of the trees stretched out over the bridge and Ming Xao was lost in them, his cloak and cowl a darker stain amongst many. The water leaped making her hands slippery with the spray and her horse trembled as she shook with it, her knees threatening to fold a dozen times.
‘Come horse,’ she muttered. The animal’s hooves slipped on the wet planking and it flailed. ‘Fox Lady! Help me,’ she called, voice odd, strained and herniated.
But the horse regained its footing and almost surged past her in that last few feet as if it sensed firm ground and dragging her with it.
She turned round, sucking in air, bending with her hands on her knees as faintness filled her head with damp clouds. Xuan and Chi were halfway across, Chi still mounted. The hunters were nearly at the bridge and arrows whistled all around, the shouts louder than ever.
She watched Xuan leap to safety, startled as a stranger in a woolen cap leaped past her from the trees, pushing her away to saw at the hawsers with a silver dagger.
‘Go!’ he exclaimed. ‘Get to the edge of the clearing!’
She glanced to the shrubbery, glimpsing another man who waved his arm and beckoned them urgently.
The hunters ceased loosing arrows as they began to cross the bridge which swung mercilessly in a breeze that freshened in the gorge.
‘Damn it,’ the woolly-capped saviour yelled as his dagger strained through the thick hemp.
‘Look out, sir!’ Xuan slid his sword from its scabbard, the massive red tassel on the end swaying fiercely, declaring war. With a vast swing, a movement Isabella recognised from the dancing meditation in the parks in the Han, he sliced through one then two of the ropes so the bridge sagged, the soldiers on the other side crying out, backing away.
All except one who raised a bow and loosed a final arrow before walking forward without fear…
The arrow sang maliciously toward Ming Xao and Belle pushed at him, feeling a sharp sting as he tripped backward. She turned to see the giant continue on, one huge step after another that made the bridge screech in protest.
She knew him, this warrior with the bald head and a red dyed plait over the side of his head and which dangled where once had been an ear. Xuan leaped onto the bridge, sword in hand, crouching like a tiger to confront him. The man with the silver dagger tried to drag Belle to the trees where the other stranger waited but she resisted and Ming Xao harried her.
‘No, Ibo, leave Xuan. He is trained for this. It must be done.’
Ming Xao pulled her arm but she stood transfixed and silent as a bitter duel unfolded.
*
Xuan uttered not one word, just swept his sword to the side, dragging it through the air toward the neck of the giant, but the man ducked, the bridge swa
ying on its two remaining supports, groaning as the men’s movement and weight weakened it further. The giant punched his own sword two-handed toward Xuan’s middle but he jumped back lightly, the extent of the man’s reach missing him by a hairsbreadth. All that could be heard was the violent roar of the river, no one on either bank saying anything until the giant screamed some unfathomable words.
‘Filthy mortal,’ Lady Chi spat. ‘He calls on the demons of the river.’
Xuan leaped onto the hand-rope, standing balanced and sure above the rapids far below. Belle’s breath sucked in, watching the warrior-trader step as if on a broad walkway and not a piece of rope that threatened to part with every passing moment. In a swift downward blow, he surprised the giant as the man sought to keep his footing on the sagging bridge. Blade edge met flesh and bone and the fighting arm of the giant was almost severed. Blood shot into the air and blended with the spray of the gorge and the man’s howl echoed and echoed around the ravine. Isabella tucked her head deep into her cowl and shut her eyes.
Coward, Belle!
She dared to look again and saw Xuan had jumped to the planking as the bridge swayed further and the giant lay at his feet bleeding to death. The Han men stared as he turned to move back off the bridge.
‘Look out,’ called Belle. ‘Look out!’
The giant had risen to his knees and in a voiceless snarl, pulled a twisted blade from his belt which he pitched, the morning light flashing on its edges as it flew to strike Xuan deep in the back.
Xuan looked up at his friends, surprised, but in a sweep filled with effort he lifted his sword and cut the third support.
‘No!’ Belle cried out.
The bridge hung precariously, as the giant fell forward, dead and Xuan swung again.
Four!
The bridge flipped almost gracefully, waving its frayed ends in the spray as both men fell from it, tumbling through the fog of spray to the hungry river below. The men of the Han stood stunned, bows hanging empty in their hands as they watched their Imperial Son turn away from them.
