‘Aye,’ Keira said, ‘tell me about it.’
‘There’s something I need to say,’ he said.
‘Oh aye?’
‘Something I’ve been keeping from you,’ he said. ‘Do you remember when Kalayne put the images of Shella and Daphne into my head, back in Kell?’
‘Aye,’ she said, ‘before you all fucked off and left me.’
Kylon nodded. ‘Since then, Kalayne has appeared in my dreams. Not often, three times in fact. In the first dream he gave me a vision of Killop leading a slave army, and in the second he showed me you near the great tunnel through the mountains.’
‘You sneaky wee toerag,’ Keira said. ‘So that old bastard’s been pulling yer strings?’
‘Guiding me,’ Kylon said. ‘Showing me what I have to do.’
‘When was the third time?’ asked Leah.
‘Last night,’ he replied. ‘He showed me Killop’s baby. A girl.’
‘My wee brother’s a da’?’ Keira laughed.
‘Aye. Then he showed me a glimpse of the future. Our fight’s not over yet.’
Keira shrugged. ‘I hadn’t thought for one fucking moment that it was.’
Kylon looked away, his face grim. ‘We have a lot to do. On this day, an empire is being proclaimed, with the ruler of the world sitting on his throne in Plateau City. All five nations have sworn fealty to him, and the reach of his church spreads.’
‘His church?’ Keira said. ‘Who gives a fuck about their stupid religion?’
She caught the glance of Niall and Flora.
‘No offence.’
‘There’s only one problem,’ Kylon said. ‘The Holdings religion happens to be true.’
‘Yer arse.’
‘Kalayne is convinced. He sees the mind of their god. Do you not remember what he told us in Kell, the night we met him?’
‘I was too drunk to pay attention,’ she lied, recalling the words of the prophecies as if they had been spoken the day before.
‘Our church is peaceful,’ Niall said. ‘There’s no reason to fear it.’
‘You think?’ Flora said. ‘My folks always told me that the priests used to control everything, back when they were young before the queen ruled. I don’t want to go back to that.’
‘The King wouldn’t let them,’ Niall said.
‘Emperor now,’ Kylon said. ‘Emperor Guilliam the First, Holder of the World.’
‘Holder?’ Keira said. ‘He’s not getting his fucking hands on me.’
‘Kalayne fears the church, and what they intend to do. The Lord Vicar and his priests are planning something that involves gathering mages from every part of the world. His message was a warning to us, to be on our guard, as the Emperor’s reach now includes the Sanang forest.’
‘We’ll just have to get lost somewhere,’ Keira said. ‘Was that all the old freak said?’
‘He told us to prepare,’ he said, ‘for the day when we might have to return to Plateau City.’
After breakfast, the squad trooped through the woods, heading further into the long valley where the Plateau met the new realm of Sanang. There was no clear border, no flags or fortresses, but after a few hours Keira knew they had crossed a threshold.
The feeling of being watched crept up on her. She saw no one except her companions, walking on the track through the trees, but she couldn’t shake it.
Thick thorny undergrowth bordered the path. The dense trees behind were budding, the ground below covered in a tangled mat of the previous year’s growth. The path wound its way round enormous boulders that littered the landscape, blocking the view ahead.
Her anxiety started to grow. She led them on for another hour, across a stream and into a stretch of pine forest. The air was still and warm, and the branches were cutting out most of the daylight.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Everyone stop. I can’t take this shit.’
‘What’s up?’ said Kylon.
‘Do you not feel it?’ she said. ‘Fuckers are everywhere, watching us.’
The squad glanced around in alarm.
‘You’re just paranoid,’ Leah said.
‘Really?’ Keira said. ‘Fang?’
The Sanang shrugged.
‘Fucksake,’ Keira said. ‘Flora, get over here. Niall, do you still have that Rahain lamp?’
‘Somewhere, ma’am,’ he said, slinging his pack from his back.
‘Any oil you have for it as well,’ Keira said.
Flora came over as Niall found the small lamp, and started rooting about for fuel.
‘I have a job for you, Flora,’ Keira said.
‘Yes, ma’am?’
‘Sit yourself down,’ Keira said, handing her Niall’s lamp. ‘This is now yours. I want you to light it as fast as you can. Come on. Now.’
Flora sat cross-legged, with the lamp on her lap, and fumbled with the flint.
‘Looking for a new Lacey?’ Kylon said.
‘Aye.’
They watched as Flora caught a spark, and lit the wick of the lamp.
‘Blow it out,’ Keira said to her. ‘Don’t waste the oil. That was too fucking slow, by the way, you’ll need to practise. Try again.’
Niall placed a full flask of oil by Flora’s feet, and the squad stood around and watched as Keira made Flora light and blow out the lamp several times.
‘Better,’ Keira said, ‘but still too slow. You’re in charge of the lamp now, Flora, and the oil. Carry them everywhere we go, and stay close to me at all times. If I tell you to light it, you drop everything and get it done. Understood?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Flora said, sweat on her forehead from concentrating.
‘Right, my wee fire-starter, up you get,’ Keira said. ‘Everyone else, start gathering firewood along the way. Anything old and dry, nothing green.’
Flora got to her feet, and hung the oil and lamp off her belt pouch.
‘Niall,’ Keira said, ‘you watch my fire-starter’s back, alright?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Let’s go, then,’ she said, ‘and remember to pick up wood. I’ve a feeling we might need it later.’
They walked until it began to get dark, then found a wide clearing to camp for the night, tall pine and spruce trees towering round them. The squad dumped their collected firewood onto the ground, forming a pile near the middle of the clearing.
‘Make a fire, Flora,’ Keira said. ‘Keep it as small as you can, but have the rest of the wood close by.’
She gazed out into the forest as the squad laid their blankets on the soft needles. As Flora worked, Niall and Kylon took mugs and supplies from their packs. Leah sat on a boulder and unwrapped her bow.
‘You sense them, Fang?’ Keira asked the Sanang.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They’re out there.’
‘Who?’
‘Fuck knows, boss. I’ve never been this far south in Sanang before.’
She heard the sound of flint striking stone, and saw flames rise out of the corner of her eye.
‘Backs to the fire, everyone,’ she said. ‘Keep your eyes on the trees.’
They sat, and Kylon shared out the evening’s rations. The water was from the stream they had passed, and it tasted earthy but good.
‘No booze, and fuck all to smoke,’ Keira said. ‘Some fucking holiday this is.’
The squad nodded in the growing darkness, and they settled to sleep.
‘I’ll take first watch,’ Keira said. ‘Flora, I hope you’re a light sleeper.’
The squad lay down on their blankets in the still air of the clearing, and she heard their gentle snores within a few minutes. The fire burned lower, and she fed it just enough to keep it going, shielding her eyes whenever she had to turn to it. Flora’s face was glowing in the red light of the embers as she slept.
The noise from the forest increased the darker it got. Birds called and screeched, insects buzzed and clicked, and a hundred other sounds she didn’t recognise competed for her attention. She saw eyes appear in the gaps
between the trees, small green eyes or yellow, attracted by the campfire.
Her eyes drooped a little, and she wished she had some keenweed, or even a cigarette. No one had told her that it would be hard to stop smoking, and she had been experiencing pangs ever since their supply had run out several days before.
She thought about Kylon, and that crazy old bastard Kalayne. So he had been feeding him information all this time? So like Kylon not to tell her, he always had that ‘I know important shit that you don’t’ look about him. She glanced down at him. Fuck, what she would give to have ten minutes alone with him, but the squad were always around, ruining any opportunity for fun.
An arrow struck her right leg, under the knee, and she clenched her teeth, slipping off the boulder where she had been sitting.
‘Flora!’ she cried, grasping her leg as more arrows flew into the clearing, and a roar of voices grew from the forest.
Keira reached over and slapped the young Holdings woman.
‘Now, Flora!’
She heard Niall grunt in pain, as Flora started heaping wood onto the fire.
Keira got to one knee, raised her arm, and swept it across the face of the forest, in the direction the arrows and voices were coming from. The fire responded to her will, and rose up into a great roiling ball of flames, before fanning out across the trees, sending them ablaze in seconds.
Keira grinned. ‘Save the rest of the fuel,’ she shouted to Flora, before raising her hands.
She clapped, and a great stream of flame spread out from the burning trees, rushing back in a arc, incinerating anything within a twenty yard radius. She moved her arms a few inches to the right, clapped again, and another section of the forest burst into flames.
She staggered back, the heat intense on her skin, and her leg throbbing with pain.
‘Shields,’ she cried above the roar of the flames and the screams from within the inferno. ‘Close up.’
Kylon and Fang arrived at her flanks, their shields raised, and they gathered by the boulder where she had been shot. Leah joined them from the other side, and crouched with her shield up, and Keira put her own shield in place to fully enclose them.
Someone had dragged Niall in the centre of the squad, where Flora tried to staunch the wound from the arrow in his belly.
‘You get hit?’ Kylon called to Keira.
‘Aye,’ she said, peering at the fire raging in the forest through a gap in the circle of shields. ‘My own fucking fault. Was day-dreaming.’
‘Niall!’ Flora cried.
Keira glanced down. The Holdings man was unconscious. Blood was seeping from his guts, despite Flora holding down a torn section of his shirt that she had ripped off. Her arms were red to the elbows.
‘Shit,’ Keira said. She grabbed the arrow in her own leg, gritted her teeth, and yanked it out.
‘Fucking bastard,’ she grunted. Kylon tied a strip of cloth around her leg, and she held the arrowhead up to her nose and sniffed.
‘The fire’s dying down,’ Leah said.
Keira glanced up. Small flames were dotting an area about fifteen metres wide by thirty metres long, where trees had stood a few minutes previously, but was now filled with blackened stumps and swirling ash. Long objects that could have been branches or bodies littered the smoking ground. Glowing pine needles span up through the night sky, and the forest was silent.
‘Flora,’ Keira whispered, ‘keep the lamp ready.’
‘He’s going to die,’ she said.
‘You in the clearing!’ a voice called out from the forest in Sanangka. ‘Let’s talk.’
‘Bit late for that, ya dipshit fucks,’ Keira shouted back. ‘You could have talked before you started shooting at us.’
‘We fucked up,’ the voice said. ‘We didn’t know you had a fire mage.’
‘Well you fucking know now. Any more attacks, and I’ll burn the bawsacks off the lot of ye.’
‘What are you doing in Sanang?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘You’ve invaded my patch, that’s what it fucking is to me. Let’s talk, see if we can come to an arrangement.’
‘I want a healer first,’ Keira said. ‘You hit one of my guys.’
‘Do you think I’ll just hand over my hedgewitch to you? Do you think I’m stupid?’
‘You’ve already proved that. Send your man over. I’ll let him go once he’s done his healing. If you don’t, then I could always set the rest of your shitty wee forest on fire. Your choice, ya fud.’
There was silence from the forest.
‘Maybe you should try being friendlier,’ Fang said. ‘No warrior would take being spoken to like that from…’
‘Don’t fucking say it, Fang.’
The undergrowth rustled, and a short, wide-legged man approached, his eyes darting about. He came to the circle of shields, and Kylon ushered him through.
The hedgewitch knelt by Niall’s side. He gestured to Fang, and the warrior leant forward, and pulled the arrow from the Holdings man’s belly, a stream of fluid gushing out from the wound. The hedgewitch placed his hands on Niall’s stomach and closed his eyes. Niall’s body spasmed and twisted, and Flora let out a cry.
The bleeding stopped, and Niall lay still, panting but unconscious.
The hedgewitch nodded, and Keira pointed to her leg.
‘That as well.’
The hedgewitch placed a hand on her calf, and Keira felt a glorious jolt of life surge through her.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘All right, off ye go.’
The hedgewitch looked almost surprised, then dashed off between the shields and disappeared into the dark forest.
‘How is he?’ Keira asked Flora.
‘His wound has closed,’ she said, ‘and he’s breathing. I think he’s going to make it.’
Keira smiled.
‘All right,’ she shouted into the forest, ‘come closer, let’s talk.’ She turned to Flora. ‘Get the fire going again, just in case.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She waited until a few flames started to rise, then got to her feet, keeping her shield in front of her, her back to the fire. Kylon stood to her right, Fang to her left, while Leah kept an eye on the other side of the fire.
The undergrowth parted, and half a dozen men walked forward, the hedgewitch among them. In their centre was a short, lean warrior, his head covered in tattoos.
‘You are the fire mage?’ he said to her, halting ten paces away.
‘Aye.’
‘The one the Holdings are looking for?’
‘Aye,’ Keira said. ‘You know about me out here?’
‘No,’ the man said. ‘I heard about you outside Plateau City.’
‘You were there?’
‘Yes. Like you, I am also wanted by the King.’
‘The Emperor,’ Kylon said. ‘As of today, Guilliam is Emperor of the World.’
‘Hogshit,’ the man spat. ‘They’ll never rule here.’
‘Every nation has submitted to the Emperor, including Agang Garo, who is now King of Sanang.’
The man snarled. ‘That fucking traitor, I knew he’d sell us out to those horse-loving bastards.’ He glanced at his men. ‘What did I tell you, lads? You heard him, Agang thinks he’s king, and has bowed his knee to Guilliam.’
The Sanang men were shaking with rage.
‘So we both hate the Emperor,’ Keira said. ‘What else you got? You need me more than I need you. How many warriors do you have?’
‘Fewer than I had a fucking hour ago,’ the man said, his eyes wild with anger.
‘Then you shouldn’t have attacked me,’ she shrugged. ‘Answer my question.’
‘Sixty,’ he said.
‘That’ll do for a start,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘B’Dang D’Bang,’ he said. ‘And yours?’
‘Keira ae Caela ae Kell.’
‘Keira kill-kill,’ said Fang, standing proud beside her.
B’Dang grinned.
‘Welcome to Sanang, Keira kill-kill.’
Needs of the Empire
BOOK THREE
Dramatis Personae
Holdings
Daphne Holdfast, Vision Mage
Chane, Advisor in Broadwater
Giles, Courtier in Broadwater
Rijon, Mage-Priest
Celine, Daphne's sister in law
Emperor Guilliam, Holder of the World
Mirren Blackhold, Queen of the Realm
Prior, Chamberlain of the Realm
Arnault, Lord Vicar to the Prophet
Yosin, Deacon in the One True Path
Suthers, Captain, Plateau City Port
Niall, Trooper, Alliance Force
Flora, Trooper, Alliance Force
Millar, Deacon assigned to Slateford
Joley, Embassy Official
Pieper, Church Agent in Sanang
Robban, Imperial Legate in Sanang
Benel, Mage-Scout
Ghorley, Mage-Priest - Rahain Capital
Rakanese
Shella, Flow Mage and Princess
Sami, Brother of Shella
Jayki, Shella's guard
Jodie, Embassy Staff, Plateau City
Daly, Shella's Secretary
Onna, Rakanese Labour Minister
Noli, Shella's sister
Zonnie, Shella's sister
Lenni, Shella's brother
Thymo, Noli's son
Drappo, Rakanese Prime Minister
Kellach Brigdomin
Keira, Fire Witch
Killop, Chief of the Severed Clan
Bridget, Herald of the Severed Clan
Draewyn, Severed Clan leader
Dyam, Severed Clan leader
Kalden, Militia Commander, Severed Clan
Brodie, Head Brewer, Severed Clan
Conal, Freed Slave
Koreen, Freed Slave
Liam, Sparker
Lilyann, Young Fire Mage
Dean, Young Fire Mage
Kylon, Fugitive
Leah, Fugitive
Kalayne, Crazy old man
Bedig, Daphne’s Babysitter
Duncan, Chief of the Plateau Clan
Sanang
Agang Garo, King of Sanang
The Magelands Box Set Page 91
