‘He would be imprisoned, or maimed,’ admitted the foreign trespasser, his voice now sounding tired. ‘Very well. Come forward. Perhaps we should speak.’
Tal looked to Ruk, who nodded his assent. They found three men and one woman, all four ill dressed for the cold, shivering, the leathers under their cloaks soaked in sweat that froze into frost and ice before Tal’s eyes. How could these ill-prepared wretches have forestalled them time and again? But the spokesman, a muscular squat fellow, dark-skinned, was sitting on his haunches calmly awaiting them. Tal squatted down with him. ‘Greetings.’
‘Greetings. It would seem we owe you our apologies and reparation of some kind. That is acceptable to us if it is acceptable to you. What repayment would you require?’
Astonished, Tal glanced up at Ruk but found the man grinning at one of the strangers, a skinny youth bearing an unruly thatch of thick black hair. This one wore a brooch on his wool cloak, a silver snake or dragon over a red field. The sight of that insignia triggered a distant recognition within Tal. Thinking of that vague impression, she asked, ‘Your names, first.’
The four exchanged uncertain glances. Why the uneasiness? What could they possibly have to hide? But then the spokesman shrugged. ‘Fair enough. I am Blues. This is Fingers, Lazar, Shell. We are of the Crimson Guard.’
Tal rocked back on her heels. That name she knew. Crimson Guard – they had ruled Stratem to the south in her grandfather’s time. Warriors and mages, her grandfather had told her. War is for them as is the hunt for us. Examining the four, Tal now wondered who had let who escape back there so many times on the trail.
The two named Fingers and Shell straightened then, their gazes roving about. Blues frowned. ‘What …?’
‘It’s a trap,’ Fingers said. ‘We’re surrounded.’
Ruk thrust himself to his feet, cursing. ‘The young fool!’
Tal straightened as well, knowing what she would see. Hemtl had cast the Chase out in a broad encirclement and they closed now, he coming forward. He pointed his spear, calling, ‘Harm our two and you all die!’
None of the four had made any move to defend themselves or restrain Tal and Ruk. Tal raised her hands to Blues. ‘We had no knowledge of this.’
Blues gave his gentle assent. ‘I know – you wouldn’t have delivered yourselves otherwise.’
‘Let me speak to him.’
‘You’d better,’ the man answered quietly.
That gentle warning moved Tal to run to Hemtl. Ruk remained, as if offering himself out of shame as hostage.
‘You fool!’ she snarled, closing.
The young man was panting, his face flushed. ‘We have them. Your trick stopped them.’
‘It wasn’t a trick. This isn’t a game. I was close to terms. Now, thanks to you, I doubt I’ll be able to salvage this …’
But Hemtl wasn’t facing her. Spear levelled, he shouted, ‘Release our man or you will all die!’
Tal slapped him. The blow sent his visor flying, loosed his mane of long kinked hair to blow in the wind. His eyes went huge. ‘I see it now,’ he breathed. ‘You would betray us – allow them to escape for payment. You are a whore …’
She raised her arm to slap him again but he was quicker and it was as if instantly the man’s spear was through her stomach. She felt the broad flint head glance from the bone of her pelvis. How easy it is to die, she thought, amazed, before a sea of pain erased all else. To her shame she screamed but over that she heard the roar of Ruk’s bull outrage.
Tal did not expect to ever awaken again, yet she did. It was night. The lights of the Holds shimmered pink and green in the black starry sky. A fire burned nearby. A woman’s face loomed close. The foreigner, Shell. Then Ruk, face wet with tears. ‘What … what …’ she murmured before sleep took her once more.
When she awoke again it was light and she was strapped in a travois. The men and women of her hunt all gathered around. Ruk pushed his way forward. He took her head in his rough hands. ‘I thought we’d lost you.’
‘What happened?’
‘You were healed. The foreigners healed you. It was far beyond our skills. We’re taking you home now.’
‘Ruk!’ she snarled, then gasped her pain. ‘What happened?’
The old man glanced away. The wind threw his long snow-bright hair about. ‘I killed him.’
She’d thought so. Good – in that he’d managed to keep it among themselves. No new blood feud. Now Ruk would present himself at the Guth-Ull, the council of chiefs, and hear their judgement. They should be lenient, considering.
‘And the foreigners?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone? I can’t even thank them?’
Ruk shook his head in wonderment at the strange ways of all those not blessed enough to be of the Jhek. ‘They left as soon as they knew you were mended. Would not wait. Said they’d been in a rush because they were in a hurry to rescue a friend. Damned odd these strangers, yes?’
No. Perhaps not so odd, old friend.
* * *
‘So where, in the name of all the buggering Faladah, are we?’
Kiska eyed the man. Her … what? Protector? She’d frankly rather die. Guide? Obviously not. Partner? Hardly. Ally? … Perhaps. To be generous – perhaps. She knew nothing of the man, though she’d like to think that the Enchantress was no fool. He was wrapping a cloth about his face and neck in a manner that spoke of long practice and easy familiarity. She scanned the horizon: league after league of desolate near-desert prostrate beneath a dull slate sky. She knew this place. It had been a long time, yet how could anyone ever forget?
‘Shadow. We are in the Shadow Realm.’
The man grunted his distaste. ‘The Kingdom of the Deceiver? He is reviled in my lands.’
Kneeling, Kiska laid her roll on the ground. She took articles from her pockets and waist, including a water skin, wrapped dried meat and the sack, and folded them tightly into the roll, which she then tied off with rope. This went on to her back. She pulled a grey cloth from beneath her leather hauberk, and, like Jheval, wrapped it round her head and face. Thin leather gloves finished the change; she yanked them tight, then checked the ties of the two long-knives she carried towards the back of each hip.
Jheval looked her up and down, from her now dusty knee-high boots up her trousers to her full-sleeved hauberk and the headscarf she was tucking in. ‘You’re too lightly armoured,’ he observed.
‘Have to do.’
‘It won’t.’
‘That’s my problem.’
‘Not if I have to carry you.’
‘You won’t.’
The Seven Cities native had half turned away, scanning the surroundings. Now he eyed her sidelong, bemused. ‘How did you know that?’
Arsehole. She gestured to one side. ‘Let’s take a look from that rise,’ she said, and headed off. After a moment she heard him follow. At least he hasn’t tried to take charge. That’s something. And he had the grace, or the confidence, to admit he had no idea where they were. Nothing too insufferable yet.
The yielding sands pulled at her feet; already she felt tired. From the modest rise she now saw what she presumed to be the hills the Enchantress spoke of. They were no more than lumps on the distant horizon – or what she assumed must be distant; there was no way of knowing here in Shadow. Beside her Jheval grunted upon spotting the feature, and in that single vocalization Kiska read his frustration and disgust at the sight.
Smiling behind her headscarf, she headed down the slope.
Some time later – and she had no way of knowing how long that might’ve been – as they walked more or less side by side, yet apart, she grew tired of squinting into the distances, searching for a hint of the geography she’d encountered during earlier visits to this realm. She saw nothing familiar, and decided it was ridiculous to search for it; Shadow must be vast, and any traveller in Genabackis may as well hope for a glimpse of the Fenn Mountains.
During all this time she hadn’t spoken. But then, n
either had Jheval. Clearing her throat, her gaze fixed ahead, she began, ‘So. Strictly speaking, should we be enemies?’
A silent pause; perhaps long enough for a shrug. ‘Not at all. Are you some sort of Imperial fanatic?’
‘No! I withdrew from service.’ She glared to see his eyes amused above what must be a smile hidden by his scarf. ‘I was a private bodyguard.’
It was hard to tell, but she thought the smile disappeared. ‘Not so unalike after all, then.’
‘We are quite unalike, thank you,’ she sniffed, and regretted it instantly – that priggish superior tone. He just gave a low knowing chuckle and Kiska was then very glad of her scarf for it hid her flushed embarrassment.
For all their walking the range of hills appeared no closer. The dune fields interspersed by flats of hardpan passed monotonously. They passed occasional ruins of canted pillars and shattered stone walls half buried in the sands. The emptiness struck Kiska as odd; her memories were of a much more crowded place.
‘We were enemies once, I suppose,’ the man said after a time, perhaps only to hear a human voice in all this silence. ‘For you were a Claw.’
Kiska turned on him, about to demand who said so, and to deny it utterly, but then the absurdity of it all came to her and she deflated, her shoulders falling. She gave a dismissive wave and continued on. ‘How did you know? Did the Enchantress tell you?’
‘No. It’s in your walk. The way you move.’
‘Seen many, have you, up there in Seven Cities?’
‘I was stalked by a number of them,’ he answered, without any note of boasting.
She glanced over, attempting to penetrate the layers of his armour, his face-masking headscarf. ‘I’m impressed.’
It was his turn to wave the issue aside. ‘Don’t be. My friend killed most of them. He’s very good at killing. I’m not.’
Kiska was caught off guard by this surprising claim, or confession. ‘Really? What are you good at then?’
Now came an unmistakable broad smile behind the scarf. ‘Living.’
Kiska almost shared the contagious smile before quickly turning away. After walking again for a while, she began, ‘Yes. I was a Claw. I trained as one. Was offered command of a Hand. But I refused. I withdrew.’
‘I thought they wouldn’t allow that,’ he said. ‘That they’d just kill you.’
‘Sometimes. If you go independent. Not if you join the regular ranks. Or, as I did, serve as a bodyguard within the Imperium.’
‘It must have been hard … walking away from all that …’
‘Not at all. It was simplicity—’ She stopped, peering aside. ‘What’s that?’
The undulating terrain had brought a hollow into view where a large dark shape lay twisted among broken ground. Jumbled tracks led from it off to their right.
‘It’s not moving,’ said Jheval.
Kiska gestured onward. ‘Let’s just keep going.’
‘We should at least take a look.’
She shook her head. ‘No. This is Shadow – we mustn’t involve ourselves.’
But Jheval was already heading down the slope. ‘Aren’t you even curious?’
‘This is no place for curiosity … or stupidity,’ she added under her breath, peering warily about. Yet follow she did. It was the fresh corpse of a titanic lizard beast. Upright, it would have stood twice her height. Its forearms ended in curved blades, battered and stained. Jheval was crouched by its great head. He had pulled down his face scarf.
‘So … this is K’Chain Che’Malle,’ he said, musing.
‘Yes. A warrior. One of their Kell Hunters.’
‘What is it doing here, I wonder.’
‘I have no idea.’ Whatever had happened, the beast’s death had not been easy. Great savage wounds gouged its sides and legs. Dried blood sheathed its scaled skin. Kiska noted a track close by and she knelt: an enormous paw-print wider across than the span of her hand. She straightened, rigid. ‘Jheval …’
The sandpaper hiss of the tail shifting warned them and one forelimb scythed through the air where Jheval had been crouching. His morningstars appeared almost instantly as blurs. The beast twisted, lumbered to its clawed feet. A kind of harness of leather and metal hung from it in tattered ruins. Kiska saw there was no point in running: the thing’s stride was greater than her height. Jheval desperately gave ground in a series of clashing parries, somehow deflecting each of the Kell Hunter’s ponderous slashes. Kiska was appalled; it seemed to her that any one of those blows could have levelled a building.
Since they could not outrun it she had to slow it down. And it seemed to be ignoring her. She lunged after the beast, long-knives drawn. A forward roll brought her within reach of its trailing leg and she slashed. A bellow of pain rewarded her, together with a blow from its tail that crushed the breath from her and sent her tumbling across the sands.
She awoke coughing and gagging. Jheval was crouched over her, water skin raised. She wiped her face and peered about. Off in the distance a trumpet roar of pain and frustration blasted the air.
‘You carried me.’
He sat heavily, out of breath. ‘No. I dragged you.’
‘Thank you so much.’
‘You’re welcome.’
She suddenly remembered what she’d found next to the fallen Kell Hunter and struggled to rise. ‘We have to move.’
He pressed her down gently. ‘No, no. You crippled it. And it was too stupid to know it was dead anyway.’
She batted his hand aside. ‘No, you fool.’ Then, failing to stand, she grabbed the hand. ‘Oh, help me up.’
He pulled her to her feet and she hissed, cradling her side. It felt as if someone had swung a tree at her. ‘We have to go,’ she gasped. ‘They might return.’
The man was eyeing her, suspicious. ‘Who?’
Clutching his shoulder, she tried a step. ‘The creatures that tore that Kell Hunter apart. The hounds. The Hounds of Shadow.’
‘Even they could not—’
‘Trust me,’ she said, impatient. ‘I’ve seen them.’ She took a tentative step all on her own. ‘Now, we have to go.’
The man was scanning the surroundings, scowling, clearly dubious. But at length he shrugged, acquiescing. ‘If you insist.’ He took her elbow to help her along.
* * *
The corpses may have been fishermen unlucky enough to have had their boat sink, or overturn. Perhaps. They were found tangled on the shore of the tiny Isle of Skytower, a rocky outcropping at the centre of Tower Sea. Yet since the sea, and the isle, were forbidden to all by order of the Korelri Chosen, it was unlikely they had arrived by choice.
Summoned by the watch, Tower Marshal Colberant, commander of the garrison, reluctantly climbed his way down the bare jumbled rocks of the isle’s steep shore. He was old, and frankly cared nothing for the world beyond his life’s duty overseeing this, the most isolated and secure fortress of the Korelri Chosen. Living fishermen or sailors from nearby Jasston or Dourkan barely interested him; their dead remains could hardly be worthy of his attention. But Javus, their youngest recruit to this, the most demanding and important posting achievable for all Chosen, had been very insistent. Such keenness ought to be encouraged.
So Colberant hiked up his long cloak and steadied himself with the haft of his spear as he carefully tested each foothold among the jagged black rocks that led down to the island’s desolate shore. Desolate because within Tower Sea no fish swam, no bird nested, and no plant spread its green leaves. For here against Skytower ages ago the full fury of the demon Riders smashed winter after winter while Colberant’s ancestors fought to complete the final sections of the great Stormwall. And here even now, after so many thousands of years, the land had yet to heal and find its life again.
Downslope, Javus waited a good man-height above the tallest of the high-water marks. At least, Colberant mused, the lad knew better than to extend an arm to help his ageing commander. Planting his spear, Colberant made a show of peering about. ‘So where a
re these bodies that have so spooked you, young Javus?’
The youth smiled, already familiar with his commander’s teasing manner. He slipped an arm from his wrapped cloak. ‘Just there, Marshal. And it is not the corpses that are unsettling – rather the manner of their passing.’
Colberant arched a sharp brow. ‘Oh?’ But the young Chosen, his gaze lowered, would say no more. The marshal probed the rocks and continued on a few more paces. Here he halted, then lowered himself to his haunches, both fists tight on the spear haft.
He would not have thought them corpses had he come across them alone. Tangled lengths of sun-dried driftwood, perhaps. More than ten individuals certainly, deposited high above the highest of all the tide lines. Yet each was as browned and desiccated as if found within a cave.
It had been many years since he, an elder among the Order of the Chosen, had heard of such things. Squatting on his aching haunches he glanced up at the heights of the black volcanic rock tower looming above them. They say the Blessed Lady spurns many and that few achieve permission to sit at her right hand. Is this a warning? Have we angered her with our weakness of late? Who was to know? Not even he, considered the most ardent in his devotion, dared guess her moods. He straightened, returned to the waiting Javus.
He smiled his reassurance. ‘Drowned fishermen. Their boat must have overturned. No matter how many times we tell them not to enter Tower Sea, still they come.’
The young man remained troubled. ‘With all respect, Marshal, I’ve seen drowned bodies. Those men and women have not been in the sea.’
Colberant shrugged his indifference, began searching for a way up. ‘The sun, then, has dried them since.’
‘I only say, Marshal, because I am from Skolati originally …’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes … and in Fist is a similar inland sea, Fist Sea. And there on its shores we sometimes find similar … things.’
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