The Demon Horsemen

by Tony Shillitoe

  ‘That might be the outcome,’ Inheritor agreed, ‘but my brother has tried to win before now and I am still here.’

  ‘And here you will remain, because I have come to offer you a formidable ally,’ said A Ahmud Ki, eager to get to the main issue. ‘These are my conditions.’

  Blade Cutter met Hunter’s serious gaze. ‘Swift’s party hasn’t returned from Shadow’s base,’ he said. ‘Our informants say there’s been some movement through the enemy camp that suggests something has happened, but as yet we don’t know what.’

  ‘Trackmarker sent a messenger to report that he’s also got a problem we might want to know about,’ said Hunter.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Chase and the boy Runner—no one’s seen them for two days.’

  Cutter ran his hand through his unruly white hair and sighed. ‘Meg, Swift, Chase and the lad,’ he muttered. ‘What is it with this family?’

  ‘It’s that bag,’ said Hunter. ‘They’re all obsessed with it.’

  ‘You’ve seen it, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it as special as they say?’

  Hunter shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Mrs Merchant thought it was, but only after Chase made her believe it. And he believed it because Crystal’s grandfather apparently told him about it. It just looked like a canvas bag with a big lock to me.’

  ‘And Meg knew about it too,’ murmured Cutter.

  He turned to look at the green pavilion on the crest of the hill where Inheritor and the Ranu president were meeting. ‘Can we trust the Ranu?’

  ‘Can we afford not to?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘You want full ownership of the Fallen Star Islands,’ said Inheritor, leaning back in his chair to study A Ahmud Ki. ‘Is this to do with the euphoria plantations?’

  A Ahmud Ki met Inheritor’s dark-eyed stare with his steady grey-eyed gaze. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t want that product sold to my people.’

  ‘It’s an established trade,’ A Ahmud Ki reminded him. ‘You have a city of addicts, thanks to Shadow’s Seers.’

  ‘And I want that ended when I return to the throne,’ Inheritor stated bluntly. ‘You get the islands and you keep the euphoria for your own people.’

  A Ahmud Ki nodded. ‘As you wish.’

  ‘And my brother is handed over to me,’ Inheritor went on.

  A Ahmud Ki smiled. ‘Your brother is yours. The Seers, however, are mine.’

  ‘What will you do with them?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. First I need to know what they know about euphoria. Then I’ll decide.’ A Ahmud Ki pressed his hands together and rested his bearded chin on the apex of his index fingers. ‘When I arrive back in Port of Joy I will send my general to organise my forces to deal with Shadow’s army. Your people can assist if you wish, but there will be little need. Shadow has nothing to stop my army now that it’s on land.’

  Inheritor rose and extended a hand towards A Ahmud Ki, who accepted it. ‘My father believed I would ruin his kingdom,’ said Inheritor. ‘I doubt he ever thought I might save it.’

  ‘We cannot be slaves to what others believe we are,’ A Ahmud Ki replied. ‘We make our own destinies.’

  There was a sudden tumult at the pavilion entrance, causing both men to turn. Soldiers burst in, chasing a black and white bird that squawked in protest as it landed awkwardly beside a startled A Ahmud Ki. An instant later, a tall elderly woman stood beside him, brushing creases out of her khaki smock. All the men in the pavilion gaped at the vision. A Ahmud Ki’s body thrilled in the presence of magic.

  ‘Meg?’ he queried.

  The woman stared at him, then touched a hand to his cheek in a show of affection. ‘I thought I would never see you again,’ she said.

  His hand enfolded hers and energy surged through his arm and into his body; the sensation he remembered from when they travelled together. ‘You worked out how to do it,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ she replied. ‘I’m only just learning.’

  Inheritor politely cleared his throat, and kept his serious expression as he asked, ‘I take it you know one another?’

  A Ahmud Ki chuckled and stepped back from Meg, releasing her hand. ‘Yes indeed,’ he said and there was joy in his voice. ‘We’ve known each other for a very long time.’

  She studied his face while he stared across the landscape at Inheritor’s rebel army camp. The passing years had barely marked his features and at a quick glance he could be mistaken for a man half his age. His fine skin, the high cheekbones, even the carefully trimmed beard and hair, despite the streaks of grey, added to the deception. There was no paunch, none of the alcohol and heavy eating decay that aged men.

  ‘I thought you’d perished in West Andrak,’ he said without looking at her.

  ‘I almost did. I lost the will to live when—’ The words stuck in her throat, even after more than thirty years.

  He touched her arm and the coursing magic flowed into him. ‘I’m sorry. If I’d known—’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she cut in. ‘It was…it was war. People do stupid things in wartime.’

  ‘I looked for you.’

  ‘And I wasn’t going to be found, by anyone.’

  He was silent and she stared over the valley, across the rows of khaki tents and makeshift shelters, tears forming in the corners of her eyes, lost in the past.

  ‘How did you become president?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘A very long story,’ he replied. ‘One I’ll tell you when the political necessities are resolved and we have time.’

  ‘You didn’t find your magic?’

  He snorted. ‘Not yet.’ He stepped away, then turned to her again. ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you,’ he said gently.

  A soft smile creased her cheeks. ‘And you’ve barely changed.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied. ‘I never expected to be who I’ve become.’

  ‘But you got power anyway,’ she said. ‘You’ve got what you always wanted.’ She paused before adding, ‘I read about you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There’s a library, a huge library, under the ruins of the old Ashuak empire capital city. A whole chamber is devoted to the Andrakis region.’

  ‘And I was painted as a monster in every book,’ he muttered, looking away.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You wrote some of the volumes.’

  ‘My books are there?’ She nodded. ‘Then when this is done I’ll go there,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not that easy.’

  ‘Why?’

  Her smiled widened. ‘It’s a very long story.’

  He grinned as well, nodding understanding. ‘You could defeat Shadow’s army on your own,’ he told her. ‘I can feel your power even from here.’

  ‘Shadow isn’t the problem. It’s the Seers and what they intend to do that I have to fight.’ She reminded him of the threat of the Demon Horsemen—how they were part of the religious belief operating in her land, as well as constructions of Mareg the Dragonlord. ‘But there’s a bag, an ancient bag,’ she told him, ‘and it has something in it you might recognise.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Abreotan’s sword hilt.’

  His expression changed to amazement and she sensed a flicker of fear in him.

  ‘You know what it is, don’t you?’

  ‘Here?’ he said, approaching her. ‘You have it here?’

  ‘Shadow has it,’ she told him.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ he blurted, then asked, ‘How did it get here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ashuak explorers. Perhaps Western Shess sailors. There’s a long history of trade across the western ocean. Relics of collapsed empires and kingdoms were sold or stolen and the kings collected them in museums.’ She paused to assess his keen interest. ‘It’s sealed with magic.’

  ‘Dylan smashed the blade to lock Mareg and me in Se’Treya,’ he said slowly, and his grey eyes narrowed as if he was anticipating her answer.

  ‘I’ve
read the records kept by King Dylan’s personal drycraefter. The scribes were called drycraefters, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Smashing the blade didn’t work.’

  She gave a tight, grim smile. ‘Not as Dylan thought it might. Mareg wasn’t trapped. He had his own way in and out.’

  ‘Did you learn anything about what happened to Mareg after that?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He vanished. The Demon Horsemen are his legacy.’ She stared at the elegant figure in the white Ranu suit. ‘And you.’

  The silence following her words held them as if they were frozen by their implicit meaning. He gazed at her and she could see questions in his grey eyes for which she had only uncertain answers.

  Finally, he looked down at his black mud-spattered boots and said, ‘First, we have to deal with Shadow’s army.’ He looked back at her. ‘Then we need to talk. Just you and me.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The news from Blade Cutter and Hunter left Meg fighting strong emotions. Once again, her family were in grave danger. She hadn’t expected Swift or Chase to act so rashly, and chided herself for her prolonged absence and for not explaining where she was going. Now Chase had disappeared, and her great-grandson along with him. She could only guess that Chase was trying to retrieve the canvas bag, but there was no way of telling where he’d gone. Swift, on the other hand, had been given a specific mission and target. Information had come in overnight from the two surviving assassins that their diversion to allow Swift access to Shadow had been costly: eight men cut down by Shadow’s Kerwyn soldiers. There was no news of Swift.

  Despite her grief and concern, Meg knew she had to control her emotions if she was to do as she intended. She stood before the portal and steeled herself for what was to unfold. She was lucky that she had a memory of Princestown to make the portal link. More than forty years had passed since her journey through the town in the company of Leader Westridge and the Elite Mounted Archers on her way to meet Queen Sunset for the first time. Then, she had been naive, oblivious to the darkness threatening the world from beyond the mortal plane. Now she knew first-hand the evil that was waiting to destroy humanity and she accepted her fate in the greater scheme of things.

  A Ahmud Ki’s unexpected reappearance had filled her dreams all night. ‘You have awesome power,’ he told her. ‘Power beyond all imagining. You can defeat Shadow’s army alone with your power.’ And she dreamed of her family, mixed together in places they had never been—of old Emma and her own daughter Emma walking through the Whispering Forest; of her brothers and Chase working in a fish market in Westport; of the three little Jons playing together with Sunfire and Whisper; of her mother nursing her great-great-granddaughter, Jewel, with Passion sitting beside them in the living room of the cottage in Port of Joy; of Button and Treasure walking across a bridge in Lightsword. The only person who did not appear in her dreams was Swift and she woke troubled by that omission.

  Constructing the portal into Princestown had taken little effort even though her mind whirled with other thoughts. How many times had death stalked her? How many lucky escapes had she had, fortunate interventions, providential accidents? Her life belonged to the risks taken by others—Wombat, Westridge, Cutter, Whisper; even strangers like Luca the dragoneer and Crystal Merchant. Fate protected her so that she could do what had to be done, and she had run from her fate too many times. One step through the portal and she would embrace her fate, be who she was meant to be. It was sad to think it had taken her a lifetime to realise what was obvious to everyone else.

  She had three matters to resolve. Swift—she had to find her granddaughter, and quickly. Then there was the canvas bag to retrieve from Shadow, which would precipitate the third matter—a final confrontation with the Seers. What shape that would take she could not predict—only that it had to happen and that its outcome would determine the destiny of every living creature. Whatever Jarudha may or may not be, one fact was certain; the Demon Horsemen were not divine servants of a god. They were the brutal, destructive tools of a long-dead Dragonlord and they could not be released in this world.

  From her solitary position on the hilltop, Meg glanced into the valley where Inheritor’s troops were readying in the purple shadows of the morning for a final confrontation with Shadow’s army. A Ahmud Ki’s Ranu army was doing the same in Port of Joy. Inheritor’s spies had located Shadow at the Shepherd’s Rest tavern, so Meg planned to arrive somewhere near it in the main street. She expected to have to use her power to deal with whatever ensued, but if her plan was successful there might not be a need for a battle and thousands of lives would be spared.

  She stepped into the blue light.

  A Ahmud Ki studied the beige canvas bag lying at his feet. Even without touching it he could feel the magic oozing from it. If Meg was correct, inside was the hilt of the weapon that had brought about his downfall a millennium ago; the weapon that had nearly killed him when he tried to master it for himself.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ he asked, looking up.

  ‘My men found it in the rubble of the Kerwyn palace, President,’ General Shakir replied.

  ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘No. But no one can force the lock or damage the canvas. The material is impervious.’

  A Ahmud Ki smiled. Aelendyell magic was a concept these men would never understand. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said. ‘I will arrange for the inventors to study it closely.’

  ‘There is a further minor matter,’ Shakir said.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We caught two thieves in the catacombs beneath the palace ruins. The older one confessed that he was looking for this bag.’

  A Ahmud Ki raised an eyebrow. ‘Name?’

  ‘Chase,’ said Shakir. ‘Odd name, like all these Kerwyn names.’

  ‘Did it occur to you that he might know how the bag is opened?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

  Shakir nodded. ‘Yes, President, it did. And he has no idea.’

  A Ahmud Ki smiled at Shakir’s friendly mockery. It wasn’t insolence, merely the confidence of a man who respected his leader and felt comfortable sparring with him on occasion. In another place and era, as chancellor in the realm of Andrakis, he would have ruthlessly reprimanded anyone for a similar response, but his time in the modern democratic world of Ranu Ka Shehaala had mellowed him.

  ‘I’ll speak to him anyway,’ he said, ‘out of curiosity. Is the military operation underway?’

  ‘Dragon eggs are ferrying troops out to the plains, President,’ Shakir informed him. ‘Captain Ramir has troops assembled to the north. We will trap the enemy between them. It should be a swift outcome.’

  ‘Thank you, General,’ said A Ahmud Ki. ‘Good luck. I look forward to hearing positive news later this afternoon.’

  Shakir saluted and left the room.

  Alone, A Ahmud Ki scrutinised the map spread across the trestle table in his temporary headquarters. After this clash, the Ranu empire would embrace half the world. He walked across the room to a small chest, opened it and lifted out a phial of purple powder. He’d collected six phials of the precious drug from the crops on the Fallen Star Islands and now hoped to find out who had engineered the crop production and employ him in the re-establishment of the industry when the war was ended. He was studying the powder, wondering how the plants were imbued with their magical quality, when he heard a knock at his door. His personal aide, Hasan, entered.

  ‘President Ki, there’s an urgent call on the farspeaker from Councillor Benir’Lakaim in Yul Ithrandyr.’

  The election result, A Ahmud Ki decided. He returned the phial to the chest and followed Hasan to the farspeaker room where two soldiers saluted as he entered. He approached the farspeaker table and the operator handed him the silver speaking wire.

  ‘Hello, Councillor. President Ki speaking,’ he began. ‘I presume the election results are in.’

  The farspeaker crackled and hissed and Benir’Lakaim’s voice came through the noise. ‘Greetings, K
i. I trust you are well.’

  ‘Very well, Councillor. What is the news?’

  ‘The Ranu people have spoken,’ Benir’Lakaim announced. ‘The new Ranu president is Karem Ne’Shebar. He will be installed within the month. Council has voted and you are to return to Yul Ithrandyr at once.’

  A Ahmud Ki’s smile dissolved into a grim expression. ‘We are about to add another glorious victory to the Ranu empire,’ he said, trying to control his disappointment.

  The farspeaker crackled and Benir’Lakaim replied, ‘I’m sorry, Ki, but the election of Ne’Shebar and his party means the end of your expansionist policy. The vote is for peace. The people want their troops to come home. Council orders that you break off all military action at once and return home.’

  A Ahmud Ki looked at Hasan but the man’s face was impassive. Lowering the speaking wire, A Ahmud Ki said, ‘I’m sorry, Benir’Lakaim, can you repeat what you said, please? There’s too much static.’

  Benir’Lakaim’s voice came again through the hiss. ‘I said that Council orders—’

  A Ahmud Ki reached for the switch on the farspeaker panel and flicked it off. He looked at Hasan again and smiled dourly. ‘This information hasn’t come through to us yet. Am I clear?’

  Hasan nodded. A Ahmud Ki turned and left the room.

  Her appearance in the main street startled three soldiers. They stared at her, clearly confused, and she used their hesitation to assess the situation. The street swarmed with Shadow’s soldiers, and there were more on guard outside the Shepherd’s Rest. One of the soldiers near her recovered and raised his peacemaker. She loosed an energy bolt from her pointed finger. It tore through his arm and he screamed and collapsed, his peacemaker discharging harmlessly into the ground. Before his friends could react, she wounded both in the knee and walked quickly towards the Shepherd’s Rest. The soldiers guarding the tavern entrance raised their weapons to fire, but with a wave of her hand a powerful gust of wind slammed them against the wooden walls. Her acute hearing warned her of another threat behind, and she spun and fired three energy bolts, each felling a soldier aiming a peacemaker at her. She strode through the door into the tavern.