The group settled back into a quiet but unrelenting ride. We wanted to be as far away from Farrowhale as possible, out of the battle. We'd be even worse off out in the open.
Long hours passed in the saddle, and the sun dipped even lower. Then I heard a sudden commotion.
Faro had reined in and stopped by the side of the road. He and Adar stared into the orange horizon, just under the fat red sun, as if expecting something. Sir Erroll was at their side, angrily questioning his squire, and I decided to stop as I passed them.
I asked, “Something amiss?”
“I should box your ears for falling out without permission, boy!” thundered Sir Erroll. “What are you doing?”
“Yes, Master,” Faro said absently. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the light, still scanning the horizon. He whispered, “Are you sure?”
In front of him, Adar stirred from his torpor. The boy pulled his glittering bronze sword from its scabbard and levelled it at the faraway sun, scattering brilliant gold and amber reflections every which way. He moved the point left and right as if hunting for water with a dowsing rod. The blade drifted closer and closer towards a single, central spot.
“There.”
I tried to squint but couldn't make out anything against the light. My eyes weren't as keen as they used to be. I did notice the way Faro's shoulders sagged, how he let the hand drop from his eyes and gripped his reins tight. Adar, too, lowered his arm. He started to put the sword back in its scabbard, then changed his mind and rested the naked blade across his thighs instead.
I hissed to the squire, “What is it?”
“About twenty light horse with lances, wearing the Duke's livery. No baggage. I don't think they've spotted us yet.”
Sir Erroll scoffed as he rode up closer. He couldn't see any better than I could. “Ridiculous! The Duke hasn't been this far south in six years. You're seeing things, boy.”
Suitably chastised, Faro lowered his head and mumbled, “Yes, Master.” He spurred his horse to rejoin the others. Sir Erroll lingered, though, still gazing into the setting sun.
“Maybe we should get off the road,” he said. “regardless of any phantoms. No need to take chances.”
I glanced at our little column, lit up like midnight mass in the syrupy light, and agreed.
We spent an anxious night peering into the dark, listening for the sound of hoofbeats. Nobody slept well, and we kept a guard at all times. I spent four hours sitting across from Adar in absolute silence until Faro and Sir Erroll relieved us. Even then I kept my armour on, just in case.
The sky began to lighten again. Everyone crept out from between their blankets, and when we looked, there was no more sign of Ducal troops. The woman insisted we hold a proper breakfast with hot wine and fresh bread before moving on. I toasted to her wisdom, warming my belly on several cups of mulled red. Even Adar began to look a little bit more alive.
The rest of the day and night we rode through empty countryside. With the Army occupied elsewhere, only a few hardscrabble villages clung to life between Farrowhale and the steppe, hanging bitterly on while the Harari raided them into oblivion. We didn't bother to stop for them, only sending Faro out to buy any supplies people could spare. Soon the road vanished and we were faced with rough country from horizon to horizon.
I spent most of the journey watching Aemedd, taking note of the way he moved and spoke. I felt like I'd gotten to know everyone else to some extent, but the scholar was a new variable which had to be carefully measured. On the plains or in the hills, in rough brush or grassland, there wasn't one moment when he looked uncomfortable or ill at ease swaying back and forth on top of that damned camel. Occasionally he would lean over to the woman or Sir Erroll to make some passing comment about the history of the area. Other times he just sat with his bronze helm glittering in the sun, like a monarch waiting for his kingdom to present itself.
The man must have some redeeming features, no matter how well he hid them.
By midmorning the next day I could tell we were making headway. The vegetation thinned out, scattered trees and bushes gave way to gnarly shrubs, and the sun-baked grass dried out until it was yellow and brown. We'd passed a few starveling streams in the last few days but now there was no open water anywhere, and the landscape stretched out in every direction to a horizon as flat as a board.
Aemedd hunched over a map as he rode, always conferring with the woman and Sir Erroll. I rode a short distance away to eavesdrop. Long years of campaigning in the Army taught me many things, and I remembered one lesson very well: Being punished for eavesdropping beats dying directionless and lost behind enemy lines.
“We should turn north now, before the Harari know we're here,” Sir Erroll was saying. “If we wait until we hit tribal land we'll be putting ourselves at risk.”
The scholar squinted pale, beady eyes at the knight, face drawn tight. “The directions are quite clear, Sir. If we deviate from the path we may never find our objective.”
“I can read a map well enough to make allowances,” the knight said peevishly.
“'When you see dead grass all around and a high rocky ridge up on the left, turn north and follow the known border.'“ Aemedd stabbed a finger at the quote on his parchment. “It's all there. Would you rather have us lost in the desert, wandering aimlessly until we die of thirst, than follow simple instructions?”
“Written by a man who in all likelihood has already been made to eat his own entrails! This is a fool's errand!”
Aemedd started to fire off a heated rebuttal, until the woman raised her hand. The entire argument ground to an abrupt halt. “Gentlemen, that will do.”
Whatever strange power she had over us, she knew just how to exercise it.
Even Sir Erroll was cowed, reduced to a sullen pout. “We haven't reached a decision,” was all he dared to say.
“Then I'll make one.” The woman rounded on me. “Master Byren, you haven't weighed in. What are your thoughts?”
The sudden question took me by surprise. I opened my mouth, then shut it quickly before I could say something stupid. This took a little more deliberation.
“We'll have to turn north sooner or later, Milady,” I said after an awkward pause. “The only decision here is about which would hurt us worse, being discovered or getting lost.”
“Too right,” muttered Sir Erroll.
Aemedd wasn't ready to concede the point just yet. “If we abandon the directions, we should at least hire a native guide to help us make sense of this country.”
I could barely stop myself from bursting out a laugh. The sholar's naivety was staggering, and possibly dangerous. “Professor, we have a Harari girl with us in chains. If we announce that to the tribes they'll stop at nothing to separate us from our scalps.”
“Then she'll have do it,” said Sir Erroll. He shared a look with Aemedd, who nodded in reply. They seemed to reach some kind of unspoken agreement.
I, however, was looking at the woman, whose almond-shaped eyes never wavered from mine. Her calm, satisfied expression told me everything. This whole conversation had been anticipated and subtly directed into a conclusion where she appeared in control. I touched my forehead in salute. She accepted it with a smile and a shushing finger to her lips, a message to keep this between ourselves.
“North it is, then,” she said aloud. “Byren, you can watch the girl and handle her. Tell me when she has anything to say, yes?”
“Of course, Milady. You can rely on me.”
We turned towards the setting sun and rode on, with Aemedd fighting his documents and Sir Erroll hunched over a compass, while the woman rode confidently between them.
“I believe this is the valley,” Aemedd said critically. He squinted at the arid, sweeping landscape the same way he squinted at everything. “'A dry river bed with salt deposits.' From here it should be due west until we reach the mausoleum.”
Sir Erroll seemed about to start up the argument anew, but the woman headed him off. She asked, “Ho
w far?”
“We should be there before sundown, my lady.”
That seemed to please her. It certainly pleased me. “Let us make haste then.”
The landscape continued to change around us as we rode. The dry grass turned to dirt and sand, broken only every few feet by lonely clumps of yellow-green. Every hoofbeat kicked up a cloud of dust which trailed behind us like a tiny sandstorm. The sky was mercilessly blue, as devoid of clouds as the land was of shelter. The sun beat down on us until sweat poured down every bit of visible skin. It had been hot before, but the dog days of early autumn were amplified ten times in the steppe. No wonder the Harari didn't farm anything.
We kept moving while the sun rose to its zenith and finally began to fall again. It was halfway between sky and horizon when our column pulled up. Aemedd spurred his camel on ahead and wobbled out of the saddle to have a look at something. I went to see what was the matter, taking Yazizi with me.
Aemedd was circling a small collection of stones half-buried in the sand. Two large, irregular boulders lay on top of each other in a cross shape, circled with a dozen small rounded rocks. From the marks carved into them by years of exposure to the steppe winds, these stones were truly ancient. Even so I might've ridden right by them had I been on my own.
“Fascinating!” cried the scholar. “A formation like this couldn't occur in nature, it must be man-made. I wonder who put it here.”
Yazizi kept her distance, shifting in the saddle as if she had something to say but wasn't sure if it was wise. I gestured for her to speak up.
“They are Harari warstones,” she said nervously, and drew a symbol in the air to ward off evil spirits. “We should avoid them.”
“War stones?” scoffed Aemedd. He ran his hand along the uneven rock. “These things wouldn't even work in a catapult. They couldn't serve any martial purpose.”
“Not in the wars of men. Warstones guard the divine boundary of Harari land. Our gods may cross it, but no deities or spirits from outside can pass through. The border is patrolled each day by Khazon of the Vigilant Eye and his Unmounted Army, the souls of warriors killed out of the saddle.” She shuddered as her eyes travelled across the stones. “Crossed warstones stand on battlefields in the realm of the gods, and the circle around them is a grave marker. A god has been buried here. It is not wise to linger.”
“Heathen prattle,” Sir Erroll snorted.
Aemedd looked up from his intense study of the stones. “Yes, I tend to agree. We should‒”
Sir Erroll continued right over him. “And yet,” a shiver ran through him, “by God's holy name I dislike this place.”
The woman seemed to feel it too. She glanced at me, but I didn't need to say anything. Adar trembled like a leaf, Faro clutched his sword belt with white-knuckled hands, and the strain of self-control stood plain on Yazizi's face. It was all she could do not to bolt. Everybody shared the same uneasiness but our intrepid scholar.
He grumbled, but followed orders to mount up again. We got underway in double-quick time and put some distance between us and the stones. If this was indeed the border, we were really in Harari territory now.
I said to the whole group, “Be on guard. We know the tribes are out here, so keep scanning that horizon and shout if you see anything. Anything at all.”
They all agreed, and remained vigilant at least until the sandstorm hit us.
I struggled to breathe through the wet cloth tied in front of my mouth, but even that was better than the alternative. The steppe itself was reduced to a yellow-orange blur. I could just about make out the rest of the group as dark shadows in the storm, stumbling across treacherous ground. Even the compass needle didn't seem sure of itself anymore. It wobbled from side to side, as confused as we were, never staying in one place for more than a few seconds.
My arms stung as whirling sand sliced my skin, yet the wind dried out each cut in an instant, sucking the very moisture out of my body. The grains got into everything. I had to keep scooping sand out of my trousers as it collected. It went on relentlessly, for hours and more, until all I could think about was a bath in a warm river.
“This is intolerable,” I told Yazizi, raising my voice over the wind's fierce and constant howl. “How do you stand it?”
“Harari do nothing while the Tzan is blowing, unless it is desperately necessary. Those who have no choice wear veils and masks and carry much water.” She looked at me, shielding her eyes with an upraised hand, and rode a little closer so we didn't have to shout so much. “There was a time before the West Wind blew here, before my people became Harari. We remember it in a story. Would you like to hear it?”
I nodded, and she smiled behind her veil. Her eyes drifted closed and she began the tale.
“Many, many years ago, there was no steppe. In summer there were fields of tough grass and bushes, and we settled where our animals could graze. In winter everything was covered with ice and snow, and we became nomads on ox-pulled sledges.
“One winter the land had become too cold. The snows stayed thick on the ground until well into summer, and when it thawed my people saw the grass had died underneath. There was no more grazing. Many animals died, and many people starved in the year to come.
“Garta Azhar, the khan of a powerful tribe, watched his wives and sons taken by cold and famine. He cursed the gods for allowing his people to suffer this way. Garta was so wrathful that he journeyed into the kingdom of the gods by stepping through a mirage on the ice, and tricked his way past the guardian spirits into the gods' feasting camp. The gods were distracted in the middle of their nightly meal. Garta hid himself among the wandering souls who served the table and snuck into the tent of Orrobok, khan and mightiest of the gods. There he found the spirit of summer hidden in a sack, and took it.
“When Garta arrived home under another snowfall, he released the spirit of summer from the sack and bade it to bring him a hot dry wind that would keep the cold at bay forever. The spirit gathered all the winds out of the west and bound them together into the Tzan. It melted away the ice, warming the land even in the depths of winter. Garta thanked the spirit and hurried away with his tribe to find a settling place.
“The tribe found a spot where the grazing was fine and wintered there. The animals soon grew fat and happy in the warmth of the Tzan. When summer came, however, the Tzan did not stop blowing. The green fields dried out and turned to sand. Wherever the sand lay bare, the Tzan whipped it into a storm. The tribe's oxen could not survive the heat and drought, nor their sheep, nor their pigs. Soon all they had left were goats, horses and camels. Garta flew into a rage. He had been tricked.
“He hunted the spirit of summer for many moons, seeking to pin it down with an arrow, but each time the spirit avoided his shots and ran away. Finally Garta found it drinking from a mountain lake and trapped it once again in the sack. He demanded it to stop the Tzan, lest his land become all a desert.
“The spirit wailed in sorrow. It had not foreseen what would happen, and it had already put too much of its power into the Tzan. It couldn't stop what it had begun. Garta was furious and dragged it back to his tribe to show how the land died around them. Still the spirit did nothing. Finally, helpless rage took the khan, and he bashed the sack over and over against the rocks. The spirit wept in pain, pouring its tears from the sky onto the land.
“Suddenly, what was left of the dry grass revived, drinking up the summer's tears. They damped down the sand until it could no longer blow. Although much was dead, Garta saw that what remained would be enough to feed his people if they moved with the seasons.
“That is how my people became Harari. Garta Azhar and his tribe were the first to cast away their sledges for horses. The spirit of summer still lives somewhere in the mountains, and every autumn when the Tzan blows, it weeps in regret for what it has done.”
I dug another handful of sand out of my clothes and treasured a small nugget of hope. “So this storm is always followed by rain?”
“Always. After a
few weeks or so.”
It was all I could do not to scream. She laughed at my sour expression and blew me a kiss, adding, “Tzan nights are sleepless and sweltering. There is little to do except fight and fuck in the sand until you drop from exhaustion. You don't mind, do you, Karl?”
The instant revulsion I'd felt before at her boldness was muted now. The thought of her skin against mine ‒ sand or no sand, chains or no chains ‒ was infinitely preferable to riding through this nightmare, no matter how vulgar or violent a coupling she might have in mind.
Time wore on again. I was too busy battling the sand to notice the change in the weather, or the change in Yazizi. The wind died down. The blistering wall of dust flagged, and suddenly I was able to see without shielding my eyes. The steppe girl had gone quiet, rigid as a plank. I nudged her and she looked at me as if in a dream.
“The Tzan never stops,” she said, her voice trembling.
The mausoleum complex rose around us like a city out of the fog. We'd arrived without even knowing it. As we continued deeper into the field of ruins, the storm lost power until there was nothing left, and we were alone in the land of the dead.
The horses went quiet as we rode among the sun-bleached stones. It wasn't just a mausoleum. It was a necropolis. It dwarfed whole towns with its sprawling, low-ceilinged structures. The curvy, sweeping walls had turned green and blue and yellow with age. Only a handful of buildings still had roofs left. The ground was covered in shards of fallen tiles, and great discoloured columns lay half-buried in the sand.
A strange sense of peace blanketed the whole place. Grass grew more freely in the shade, and heaps of ancient moss covered the undersides of the fallen masonry. All the while Yazizi's eyes grew larger and larger. Her hands fluttered, casting protective wards of every kind.
“There's no sound,” said the woman. She was right. I couldn't hear a hint of background noise, and the ruin seemed to drink her words, leaving no echo. I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “How odd.”
Written in Blood Page 11
