Foul Tide's Turning

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘Or Khow saw truly, but kept silent and pressed ahead all the same. Your father gave his life to save yours,’ said Sheplar. ‘He knew what he was doing.’

  ‘It was bargain poorly struck, then.’

  ‘All fathers would strike a similar trade without hesitation,’ said Sheplar. ‘Jacob Carnehan crossed the world to save Carter when many voices derided his task as impossible and named him a desperate fool for attempting it. My own father’s blood soaked the ground we crossed yesterday. He was a great pilot of the skyguard who gave his life to keep Rodal safe and free. I live and breathe because of his sacrifice, as do we all.’

  Including you and your forest people, living safe in the shadow of the mountains, thought Sheplar. But he left the words unsaid. Kerge had enough troubles to dwell on. I hope you are proud of me, Father. Rodal faces many new threats you never had to face. Civil war among our old friends and allies. Vandia preying upon the league like a leech. Lend me the strength to face my enemies, old and new alike. When the other pilots training at the temple had wished to wound Sheplar, they had called him togam’nagum, little shadow. But if Sheplar lived in the shadow of his father’s legend, then it was a shade he was proud to embrace.

  ‘That is why you are here, to follow after your father?’ asked the gask.

  ‘I follow my honour.’

  ‘It takes you on a curious path,’ said Kerge. ‘First the hard journey to Vandia to help free me as a slave, and then all the way home again. You know that the womanling may not have flown from Talatala with a nomad knife at her throat. Perhaps it is time to let her follow her own path.’

  ‘The bumo is not just a prisoner, she is under my protection,’ said Sheplar.

  ‘Then this is not simply a matter of revenge? Redressing the insult made to Rodal by a barbarian who dared to climb into your town and steal back something your people had taken from him? Besting two of your skyguards in a duel he should not have been able to win.’

  ‘Not for me,’ said Sheplar. ‘I follow my honour.’

  ‘You are stubborn, even for your people,’ said Kerge.

  ‘Rights are stubborn while wrongs are oft pliable,’ said Sheplar.

  ‘No doubt that’s carved into many a manling temple,’ muttered the gask, but Sheplar ignored his words. ‘If you wish to go back, Kerge, I will not hold it against you. Perhaps it is better if I ride on alone.’

  ‘As I recall telling you in your mountain fortress, that I shall not do,’ said Kerge. ‘I may lack my mean, but I know my fate is bound to your cause and the Vandian womanling. If I am to find my path again, I must journey with you.’

  Sheplar grunted by way of acknowledgement. Gasks were different people in the forests. Twisted far from the common pattern as they were, Kerge found the wide open spaces of Arak-natikh almost as uncomfortable and unfamiliar as the cold elevations of Rodal. Though probably preferable to the hot hell of the Vandian sky mines. It’s easy to forget that Kerge is still young. The leathery skin and formal manners of Kerge’s people made him appear older than his true age. Easy for Sheplar to confuse the boy with his dead father; even after he put aside their strange skin and pelt of spines, the two gasks looked very alike. Kerge had been snatched as a slave during his vision quest, the rite of adult passage among the forest people. Poor Kerge had asked for none of this. Still suffering from the aftermath of his father’s death; acting as jailor to the bumo, then banished because of the gasks’ bizarre superstitions. Perhaps he really did use up all his luck escaping from the sky mines.

  They kept travelling, Sheplar feeling strangely adrift under the wide, open sky. This constant warm breeze would have been described as gentle by many visitors, but Sheplar knew it for what it truly was. An angry, unfriendly, alien thing. Back in Rodal you could navigate by the direction of a storm, even tempered and tamed where necessary by the temple priests. You felt winds rubbing against your coat and knew which mountain you climbed, which valley you crossed and which canyon you found yourself in. Here, the unceasing wind seemed to crawl from every direction, only reminding Sheplar that one compass point was as deadly as the next. This wind had nothing to say to him. Every mile they travelled carried them further into the riders’ territory, making it more likely that they would run into a clan and be chased and harried to a fatal end; where Sheplar’s bones would join his father’s in this exposed, endless land. Taunted by a breeze that had expelled all spirits and only carried its own incessant refrain. I think this wind is insane. No wonder the Nijumeti have been made savages by it. But then, the nomads had arrived here as savages. The horde must have pillaged countless kingdoms through the millennia on their journey overland from their far-called foreign ocean. Something about this land had sung deep to them and made the horde halt here. You should have kept going, following the sun, you damn wild Nijumeti. Then Rodal would be a quiet, contented land, rather than the ramparts of the Lanca. And perhaps my father would still be alive for my family to honour.

  Sheplar made his decision. ‘We must close the gap between ourselves and the raiders. If they reach the main body of their clan, the task of retaking the bumo will be made many times more dangerous. Their campfires’ ashes are yet to blow away as we happen across them; they can be at most no more than a day or two’s ride ahead of us.’

  ‘Golden-ears seems eager enough to race forward, but I do not think our mounts will suffer a long gallop,’ said Kerge.

  Sheplar’s horse snorted irritably as though it could understand the gask. ‘I agree. These two mares are better used to a slow ranging in the shadow of Dalranga’s earthworks. But they are not short of stamina. We must ride day and night until we catch up with the raiding party.’

  ‘Will our steeds not then be too tired to carry us home?’

  ‘Then we shall steal the nomads’ horses.’ Sheplar burned with pleasure at the thought of that. There was no worse insult to a Nijumet, and such a theft coming at the hands of a trespassing skyguard would be the greatest disgrace of all. His own raid would teach them a long overdue lesson about the price of attacking Rodal. ‘The nomads we chase are diminished in number. Most of their band perished when the skyguard attacked their raiding party the first time. There are only a handful of weary survivors left, their numbers swelled by whatever children and elderly picketed their horses outside the mountains.’

  ‘Those weary survivors broke into Talatala and carried Lady Cassandra away,’ said Kerge, ‘and not before they tried to burn your town to the ground.’

  ‘The Nijumeti are a brazen, foolhardy people,’ said Sheplar, ‘who enjoy treating death like a game. I have seen hundreds of cheering Nijumets charge cannons on Dalranga’s walls as though they were racing towards a market stall offering free samples of rice wine. But chain-shot brings down their mounts and makes blue-skinned corpses of the pests just the same. The clansmen are mortal and I intend to treat them to a mortal chastisement before we depart.’

  ‘And such are the people we pursue?’ said Kerge. ‘I wonder who is the more foolhardy … them or us?’

  Time will tell. They put ever more miles behind them, their hound bounding ahead, weaving through grasslands green then brown then green again, until it grew silver-tipped with seeds, swaying in the breeze like the surf of an endless living sea. When night fell, Sheplar and Kerge unpacked fur-lined cloaks and wore them wrapped tight around their clothes, continuing to ride, kicking their reluctant steeds on. Golden-ears understood what they were trying to do, raised as he had been on night-time sentry duty over herds of mountain goats. The rusty-furred hound continued, uncomplaining, even nipping at the two horses’ heels when the steeds proved reluctant to ride on. Luckily they travelled under a full moon, and with the plains flat and uniform, they passed around the steppe’s rolling hills and hardly faltered in their pace, never stumbling. With no fire and blankets this night, Sheplar came to appreciate how cold it became on the steppes, a harsh chill rivalling the heights of home during winter. If anything, the cold made it harder to stay awake rather than easie
r. At least their horses and hound had the exercise of the chase to engage them. For Sheplar and Kerge it was just a numb, cold pursuit above chafing saddle leather, swaying as they fought exhaustion. Thankfully, night proved short, sharp and quick, its rapid retreat surprising the two weary travellers, yawning and trying not to fall asleep in their saddles. Dawn’s diffuse orange light glowed almost unnaturally, scuffling clouds crimson and so forked with blood-red that Sheplar prayed the sky was not an augury of grim events yet to come. Sheplar ached when it came time to eat breakfast in the saddle, his legs and spine burning hot with a hundred invisible fissures. He tossed strips of dried beef down to Golden-ears, who bounced happily around the irritable horses. Sheplar wished he had been born a great lumbering hound of a door-guard.

  How can just sitting on a horse be so painful? I’ve stayed aloft in a cockpit for three days riding tall winds without half the cramps spawned by these cursed nags. Perhaps that is why the Nijumeti are so ferocious? Life in the saddle has made them tetchy enough that stampeding towards our bullets and blades seems a blessing by comparison. Hah. If I have my way, the wild rascals will have an extra reason for irritability soon enough.

  It wasn’t long before the last stars faded in the sky and the ghost of the moon dwindled away too, a warm sun sliding up to follow them in their pursuit. The pair’s passage took them past more hills covered by overgrown mounds – rubble no higher than a traveller-on-foot’s ankles – but judging by how far the ruins extended, these must have been once mighty cities of the long vanished local kingdoms. What fools the nomads are. They could have kept the cities whole and made subjects of those they conquered. Lived like kings. Instead, they are still here millennia later, cooking meat on dried horse dung, stealing foreign brides and enduring every winter in draughty tents. The evil dry breeze returned and whispered the answer in his ear. Except then the land would have conquered them. Made them no different to the people they ruled. All the cities had lost, the kingdoms faded. Only the Nijumeti remained. Sheplar leant over and removed the rifle from the saddle, checking it. Along with the pistol and knife in his belt, he was undoubtedly better armed than the nomads. Kerge had refused all weapons back in the fortress. Not that he needed them with his poisoned spines. How much use would Kerge really prove should their rescue attempt turn ugly, Sheplar wondered? The pacifistic gasks refused all violence, acting in defence only when battle was forced upon them. But when roused, they could slaughter every foe in the field with their toxin-tipped spines. The rage that allowed the twisted men’s blood to quicken and release their spines also drove them into a killing madness to match any berserker fury. Only the dead prod a gask, was an old saying in Rodal’s southern heights. It was no wonder the forest people were so calm and reasonable. Their spines were as poisonous to each other as they were to their common pattern siblings. A single loss of temper by one of their kind could leave scores slaughtered. Murderous gasks never lived long enough to marry and bring children into the world. Those who prospered were people like Kerge and his brave dead father. Sheplar wished he could do more for his old friend’s child. It was a painful thing to watch Kerge when they halted, unwrapping the calculation device from his saddle and tapping numbers drawn from his mysterious fractal tree, cursing softly as the results failed to resolve in the manner his mathematical faith anticipated. Kerge could not see the future. Left cut off from his place in the tapestry of existence. Sheplar could only understand the pain of it by seeing how badly it affected his gask friend. I wish you were here, Khow, to tell me how to help him. I crossed Pellas to help rescue your son from the slavers. But he thinks himself broken, and as long as he believes it, it will be true. How can I help heal him? I am not a gask doctor. I am barely even a skyguard these days, judged unworthy to marry the only woman I ever loved. How can I fix your son? If your shade is out there, watching us, send us a sign. Though if any sign came, it arrived a few hours later and was not a good one.

  They came across one of the circles of standing stones, lonely black sentinels covered in strange runes. A cold shiver passed down Sheplar’s spine. This was a dark, ominous place, made more so by his knowledge of the stones’ true purpose. Even the superstitious nomads had left the ancient stone circle untouched, though in truth, there was probably little they could do to destroy it. The circle in the shadow of the great Vandian stratovolcano had survived generations of eruptions and magma outflows. A nomad’s chisel would, he suspect, make little difference, even if the Nijumet managed to overcome his superstitions long enough to raise his hand out here.

  ‘If Sariel rode with us, he could open a portal here and we might travel back to the forests in an instant,’ said Kerge.

  ‘Then I am glad the thieving old rascal is far-called,’ said Sheplar. ‘I have ridden on the back of his strange sorcery twice already and I do not care for a third such voyage. Even the smelly one is loath to use the gates … he says these passages cross hell and each opening calls demons to the destination.’

  ‘The venerable manling claims many curious truths,’ said Kerge.

  ‘If you mean he cannot but open his mouth for demented tales to spill out and build a hill of lies, then I agree with you. But Sariel did not lie, I think, about the demons. I caught a glimpse of the strange creature he battled in Vandia during the rebellion. If it was not a stealer broken free of hell, then it was doing a most fine impression of one.’

  ‘You speak of dark attractors,’ said Kerge. ‘I wish I could find the truth in my numbers.’

  ‘Perhaps be glad you cannot. We have enough problems with blue-skinned raiders and our troublesome little bumo. Let the stealers coil under hell while we mortals scurry on the ground below heaven. Should we never meet, I will count myself well satisfied.’

  By the time the distant horizon had called down the tumbling sun, Sheplar and Kerge faced a second hard night’s ride, and Sheplar doubted whether they could ride further without falling asleep in the saddle – assuming their exhausted horses didn’t collapse first. Even their exuberant hunting hound showed signs of losing his will to continue, no more springing around their steeds. Golden-ears’ snout was low to the ground in a slow, plodding pace. They needed to make camp this night. Sheplar urged his horse to climb one last hill to search for ruins they might shelter in, Khow close behind him. And that was where he spotted the camp fire of those who halted before them. Sheplar carefully led his horse back to the lee of the hill and returned with rifle and telescope.

  ‘Is it those we chase?’ asked Kerge, crouching down besides the skyguard.

  Sheplar extended his eyeglass towards the distant crackling fire, focusing on the silhouettes of tethered horses. Six mounts. Too many to be scouts, far too few to be stragglers from a clan. Just about the right number for the raid’s survivors. As Sheplar stared, he spied the dark shape of a flying wing’s propeller strapped to one of the steeds. No doubt broken from the aircraft they had escaped Talatala in. So, it still amused the chieftains to use skyguard propeller wood to carve their seats? Warming their savage arses inside their tents on a trophy taken from their enemies. He saw shadows sitting around the fire. No doubt bragging of their daring attack on Talatala and how easy it had been to steal Rodalian women for wives. I have extra booty for you; a little sharp Rodalian steel you left behind. ‘Fate smiles on us.’

  ‘Is Lady Cassandra among them?’

  ‘I can see only shadows at this range. But they have the propeller from the flying wing they stole, so I do not doubt they have our little bumo, too.’

  ‘How are we to do this, manling?’

  ‘Let us stake our nags and Golden-ears out of sight and then crawl towards the camp. You hide by the horses, ready to cut them loose, saving three mounts for us. I will grab the bumo. If the Nijumeti get in our way, they will meet my bullets; if our surprise is complete, we will leave them horseless. A long walk back on foot and songs of shame will await them at their clan, rather than proud boasts of how they set fire to Talatala.’

  ‘They will die
out here without horses.’

  ‘I doubt it, but they will surely wish they had,’ scowled Sheplar. ‘Save your kind thoughts for the bumo. She may have been dishonoured by these devils.’

  Golden-ears wanted to come with them, but Sheplar muttered one of the instructions the fortress soldiers had passed on to him, and the hound sunk to his belly, watching the pair of secured horses with raised ears. Silence to protect the herd. He and the gask stalked around the low hill before sinking into the grass on the other side, crawling slowly through the sward towards the fire ahead. With their heads by the rich dirt of the plains, waist-high grass swallowed the two rescuers whole. Sheplar needed to halt every few minutes, gently raising his head above the grass line to ensure that they were still navigating true. The land, already damp from evening’s dew, grew moister still as a mist started flowing around them. All for the good. It took twenty minutes of careful skulking, the rifle clutched in Sheplar’s hands, before they gained the camp. Sheplar jabbed two fingers towards the tethered mounts, and Kerge split off to flank the horses.

  Save for the dull crackling of the flames, Sheplar heard only heavy silence from the camp. No boasts. No songs. No curses. Had the nomads fallen asleep huddled around their fire, not wanting to roll out bedrolls in the mist and wake soaked? Spirits be kind. Let these dogs be insensible with pipe weed. If the raiding party’s survivors had been celebrating their victory, Sheplar should be able to lift the bumo’s bound form over his shoulders, leaving the nomads to wake with throbbing skulls and minus their horses and prizes. It might even be worth abandoning his fine dagger impaled in the dirt of the camp, as a message that a Rodalian had stolen their precious steeds and left their pitiable throats unslit. They’ll weep tears of shame when they spy it.