The Best Weapon
Page 14
"I can see nothing."
Colken sighed. "If you pulled your head out of your ass once in a while, Viepa, you might be able to see past your own shit."
The other three snorted.
Gildran came to peer over Colken's shoulder. "Someone slept on this bank last night."
"Where is the fire then?" Viepa asked.
"I can't explain why there is no fire, but the shape of a body here in the wet sand is unmistakable. Odd that there are none of the other usual remains. It's as if he just wandered down here and collapsed, then got up and carried on walking that way." Colken pointed west.
"Perhaps he was injured?" Beetal said.
"That is the first thing I thought, but there is no blood. And the footprints leading away are regular. There is no limp, no stagger." Colken was perplexed. "Still, whatever the reason, he went that way."
They continued west for a few hundred paces.
Suddenly Colken stopped again. "Look, the footprints stop here and there is a second set coming from the west. He met someone here." He scratched his head and looked around him. "They appear to have headed north, into the desert."
"This is nonsense!" Viepa stamped his foot like a spoiled child. "You said he would be a fool to leave the river. Now you say he has headed north, into the desert! We must give up this foolish hunt and go home. We will not find him!"
Colken turned to Viepa. "Go home if you wish. If Kelta does not kill you—which he will—the tribe will think you are a coward and then you will be an outcast. We cannot go back without Naiyar, whether we like it or not."
Viepa looked pleadingly at the others, but none of them said a word.
"Look," said Colken, "he was here this morning, just hours ago. We can catch up with him today if we stop arguing and get moving." With that he stalked off into the desert, followed by three of his four companions.
Eventually, Viepa followed too.
* * * *
"What am I then? The voices said I am not a god, but not a man. What does that mean?"
Naiyar and Kayla had walked all day. He had struggled to keep up with her purposeful stride, not through lack of stamina, but because he was distracted by all the questions in his mind.
"The answers are within you, Naiyar. I will try to help you find them but you must be patient. Soon we will come to a place where everything will be revealed. Not by me, but by you."
He had been asking her questions all day, but she kept giving him the same answer. Finally, when Naiyar's shadow was stretching eastwards, as though it was homesick, they came to a large outcrop of grey rock, the lone feature in an otherwise barren expanse of desert.
"We're here," said Kayla.
Naiyar looked around. "We're where?"
"This rock is the centre of the world. On its summit you will find the answers."
Naiyar looked at her as though she had just told him the rock was a giant nipple and he had to get his mouth round it.
He turned his attention to the outcrop. The flanks at the bottom were sheer, but then curved inwards and appeared easier to traverse nearer the top. It was about a hundred paces wide, nearly as high, and roughly circular at its base. From above, he imagined, it would look like a giant rain drop which had solidified when it hit the ground instead of bursting into a million smaller drops.
"Go on! Up!"
"It's a bit big."
Kayla rolled her eyes. "You climbed cliffs three times the height of this back in the jungle, and twice as steep."
"What? How do you know that?"
She waved away his question. "Hurry up. We don't have much time."
Naiyar shook his head in disbelief. Nothing in his life made sense any more.
"It will all make sense soon," said Kayla, as though she had read his thoughts.
He studied the rock, found a hand-hold, and started climbing. She was right, it was much easier than many of the cliffs he had climbed in the jungle, and at least it wasn't slick with water or covered in slimy moss. It didn't take him long to reach the summit. Here there was a small platform with sheer sides, which dropped about the height of a man and then spread out in a shallower gradient to form the main bulk of the rock.
He looked down at Kayla and spread his arms. "What now?"
"You must relax and empty your mind of all the trivial thoughts and feelings that have filled it since your birth. You will be left with all that you truly are. Then you will find answers."
Naiyar took a deep breath, squatted with his arms resting on his knees, and closed his eyes. He tried to let his mind go blank, to put aside all that had happened in the past week, the past year, the past eighteen years. All that remained were the basic questions.
Who am I? What am I? Why am I here?
He opened his eyes, irritated, and glanced down at Kayla. She sat with her back against the rock, gazing out across the landscape and drinking from a water skin. He felt annoyed that she wasn't looking up at him expectantly.
"Nothing is happening!" he called down to her, feeling the angst and impatience flood back into him.
"The questions themselves block the answers. You must forget them too. They ground you like rocks tied to a bird's feet. They are a product of this world. You need to shed them along with all the other baggage."
"This world?" He didn't like the sound of that.
"Look." She stood up and looked at him. "Don't close your eyes. You see too much to distract you. Try to gaze at something in the distance and focus on it."
He looked around him. What could he gaze at? He was in a desert. Not much to gaze at in a desert. He scanned about and saw nothing but endless yellow sands stretching away to the horizon. Then it hit him. A sudden realisation.
The horizon.
The thing that signified the beginning of his new life. It dawned on him that that small answer had seemed to come to him. She was right, he had to open himself to all that lay buried within him, and let it rise to the surface. You cannot take a shovel and dig for fish, you have to throw your line in and wait for them to bite.
He settled down again, relaxed his muscles, and set his eyes on the horizon. This time he waited patiently, confident that he knew what to do.
Naiyar felt his mind dispense with the confusing recent memories, one by one. Then the rest of his life before that seemed to flow out of him faster, swirling, gaining momentum. He felt like a cup with a hole in the bottom, with his life pouring through it until all that was left was the clay from which it was made.
He found himself floating in a seemingly endless void, filled with a feeling of serenity.
Eventually he began to see murky images, forming into solid shapes and colours. Snippets of what sounded like muffled voices. He knew not to try and focus or concentrate on them, but to let them wash over him until they made themselves clear.
He relaxed and let the strange sights and sounds take their course, knowing that if he succumbed to his basic instincts to dictate or touch them, he would fail.
The blackness dissolved and revealed two strange, terrible creatures, cowering in a deep cavern. They were frightened of something. Very frightened.
They muttered in an awful, unearthly tongue that Naiyar found he could understand, though he knew not how. The scene was familiar, yet he knew he had never seen or heard anything like it in his lifetime.
He watched as one of the creatures reached into space and held up a lump of clay. The sight of that clay struck him like an arrow, as the knowledge of what it was flooded into him.
Then the clay was split between the two ghastly creatures and the scene before him dissipated. All the time the knowledge of what he was and why he was made rushed into him in powerful, nauseating waves. He tried to scream but he was unable to make a sound—or at least, he could not hear it over the howling in his ears.
Then another scene materialized before him. A baby. White-skinned. His true brother. That baby's life seemed to fill up Naiyar's mind at lightning speed, yet somehow he saw every detail, felt every emotion
. The boy's name was Fulk.
He saw Fulk orphaned and wept. He saw him given over to the grim-faced warriors of the temple and laughed at his first clumsy attempts to wield a sword, then marvelled at his growing skill with weapons and hands. He saw him fight in the Test, screaming with rage as he was humiliated by Etienne, then roaring with triumph as he saw his brother fight back and win.
He saw the massacre of the civilians in Hope, and the feast afterwards where the Reconquest was announced. He saw Odo, and wept again as he recognised him as the drowned man in the Donkey's Back. Then he saw Fulk on a ship, in the midst of a terrible storm, and his friend Odo sink into the depths.
Everything about Fulk should have been alien to him, but it wasn't, it was all familiar. He knew the meaning of everything he saw and heard, but he had no idea how.
Suddenly his visions dissipated once more, as if interrupted by some important event.
The next thing he saw was his family's hut in the jungle. It was night time. He smiled as he heard Lokee's snoring. Then he saw shadowy figures appear in the door way and heard his mother's scream.
He cried out as he saw his young sister Evva, her life ebbing away, staring desperately up at her mother. His rage grew as he saw Salla's death and Grizzal's attempt to humiliate and shame Lokee.
His rage boiled inside him like a pot of water on a camp fire. He cried aloud in anguish and fury, his endless roar shattering the heavens.
* * * *
The group of hunters trudged on in silence. Even Viepa had stopped talking.
It was almost completely dark now. The sun had just disappeared beneath the horizon, leaving a purple sky with a dusting of twinkling stars.
Colken, being the best tracker and having wordlessly assumed charge of their hunt, had been following the two sets of footprints through the desert all day. He had marched onwards in grim silence. Viepa had fallen into a sulky plod, several paces behind the rest.
Now, a breeze had whipped up. Not the normal, light chill of the desert evening after the sun disappears and the temperature drops, but an ominous, swirling wind with no discernible direction. Dark, heavy clouds were forming in the sky at unusual speed, the wind was getting stronger, and the five hunters had to fight for every step.
The clouds seemed to be forming and swirling around a certain point in the sky, like the eye of a storm.
As the hunters drew closer, they noticed the storm was spinning round a great rock, and they could see a dark figure standing on top. His back was arched, and he stared at the sky with his arms outstretched. His black hair whipped about his head in the wind, and his hands were lost in swirling clouds of sparks.
The wind roared and whined about them and threatened to scoop them all up and carry them away. But they pressed on, the consequences of failure being too great.
Suddenly, even Colken halted in his tracks as the figure on the outcrop uttered a cry which shook the ground beneath them and stung their ears. As the figure bellowed, a great fork of lightning shot down from the looming mass of cloud, split into three and coalesced round his hands and head. His unearthly shriek continued and seemed to mingle with the noise of wind and thunder.
At that moment, a great shock wave exploded from the rock on which the figure stood. With it came a wall of billowing sand and raw power that raced outwards from the rock like a ripple in a vast pond, travelling at break-neck speed for miles across the land. The five young warriors were knocked from their feet, blinded and half-buried in sand.
The lightning receded into the clouds and the figure on the rock turned to stare at his hunters. His eyes glowed white, the wind swirled around him and his outline shimmered and flickered as though he was raw energy manifest.
Colken struggled onto his hands and knees, coughing sand from his mouth and blinking it from his eyes. He looked up and was able to see the figure clearly for the first time.
"Naiyar." Colken uttered the name with awe. Everything he had just witnessed made him doubt his people's beliefs. After all, if all the Chosen Sons had the power Naiyar had just demonstrated, how could they have been hunted down and killed?
Something, maybe it was just common sense, told Colken that Naiyar was not what the Djanki had believed him to be. He remembered the rumours which had been whispered in the jungle after the ceremony at the temple, how people had said Naiyar had not filled the shamans with jubilation, but terrified them half to death.
As Colken sat there, looking back at Naiyar and wondering what to do next, Viepa ran past him, towards the rock. "Now I will have him, Colken, I will save our people!"
The other three followed Viepa, their spears raised.
Colken swore. What a time for these fools to suddenly take the initiative.
He stood and ran after them. "No, Viepa! Can't you see? Things are not as we thought! You're making a big mistake!"
But Viepa kept running.
Naiyar cleared the rock with a single leap, landing twenty paces away from it. The ground shuddered as he landed, sending up a cloud of sand. Viepa ran towards him, screaming a war cry. Naiyar knelt on one knee with his arms spread wide. A menacing smile played on his lips as he watched Viepa approach.
As soon as Viepa was close enough he threw his spear. It was an accurate throw, straight and true, directly at Naiyar's heart. Naiyar jumped from his crouching position, spinning with his arms still stretched outwards on either side. He caught the spear in his right hand and span in mid-air. As Viepa's momentum carried him forward Naiyar brought the spear round and, planting his feet firmly, swung the blunt end hard against the back of Viepa's head.
The sound of the blow rang out and Colken winced as the spear splintered on Viepa's skull. He was lifted off his feet and did not touch the ground again until his body crunched against the rock. He slumped to the sand and was still.
Gildran was right behind Viepa, and he launched his spear just as Naiyar had struck him. Naiyar ducked under the spear, came up under Gildran's guard and thrust the sharp end of Viepa's spear upwards through his jaw, so that it shot up through his tongue and pierced the roof of his mouth. Gildran let out a gurgled shriek of pain as blood frothed around his mouth.
Naiyar glared into his eyes for an instant, then vaulted over his head and wrenched the spear up and over, bringing the back of Gildran's neck down onto his knee as he crouched behind him. The sickening snap pierced the sound of the wind as Gildran's neck split in two. Then a squelching crunch as Naiyar twisted the spear sideways until his head faced the ground and blood cascaded from his mouth as his body convulsed and twitched.
Aramesh was further back but, still determined not to fail his chief, advanced on Naiyar more slowly, hoping to find a weakness which he might use to his advantage. Naiyar tossed Gildran's flaccid, soggy corpse to one side, and watched him in silence.
Suddenly, Aramesh's legs were swept from under him and he hit the floor with a thud. He looked up in surprise to see Colken standing over him. Aramesh opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced as Colken's spear pierced his throat.
Beetal had stopped short, his courage appearing to desert him. He stood there now, open mouthed, staring at Colken. Then he turned and fled.
The wind died down, and the mass of cloud which had loomed overhead now dissipated as quickly as it had formed. Dust was settling all around them.
Naiyar's face changed from rage to grief, his eyes growing dimmer again, until all the inhuman fury was gone and only pain remained. He looked up at Colken, tears streaming down his face. He reached out with one hand. "Evva." He croaked the name. "Evva."
Colken stepped forward and caught him as he slumped forward, weeping inconsolably, and passed into unconsciousness.
He lay Naiyar down next to the rock, to give him as much shelter as possible, then went through the provisions that Aramesh, Gildran and Viepa had brought with them. He thanked the gods that the three boys had packed well, they each had a large animal skin, one of which he used to cover Naiyar, and plenty of water and smoked meat.
Colken had just begun to make a fire when he started at the sound of someone approaching. He drew his belt knife and instinctively stood in front of Naiyar, guarding him as he shivered and muttered incoherently.
Kayla raised a hand. "You have no need for that, I'm with Naiyar."
"You met him on the river." Colken relaxed a little, but did not step away from Naiyar. "Who are you?"
"A friend." Kayla nodded at Naiyar. "He has a fever. He will need you to watch over him."
"What has happened to him?"
"He has discovered the truth about who and what he is. He has discovered that he possesses great power, wielding that power has made him weak, and his grief has drained what energy he had left."
"Grief?" Colken frowned.
"His family was killed this night. Your friend Viepa's father—"
"Viepa was no friend of mine," Colken said through gritted teeth.
"That's just as well, because you are now Naiyar's guardian. You must keep him safe until I return. Protect him with your life."
"Where are you going?"
"I have an important task to perform, one that cannot fail. I must go immediately. I cannot say how long I will be, but I will come back as soon as possible."
Kayla turned west, disappeared into the darkness, and left Colken and Naiyar alone.
2.
"We must get you out, Majesty. Now, before his men come for you."
Hard-bitten veteran that he was and Captain of The Queen's Own, Sir William Burun did not scare easily, but his grizzled face was white as milk. He was in full armour, hooded and cloaked, with a spare cloak slung over his right arm.
Eleanor Clifford, the Queen Mother, looked up from her tapestry. She despised sewing and was grateful for any distraction, but could not help but be alarmed by the big knight crashing unexpectedly into her quarters so late in the evening.
"I won't go anywhere without my daughter," she said firmly, laying down her needles and folding her slender hands in her lap.