Running, Iko leapt and slammed down hard on the stern-piece. The barge’s pilot reached for her, one hand on the tiller. She slashed his arm and he stared, gaping, at his severed wrist. Releasing the tiller, he clamped the stump between his legs, screaming.
The sailors flinched from her but the troops closed, drawing their weapons.
As the barge lazily curled its way downriver towards the harbour, Iko stalked the deck, killing. These men and women proved the most resilient. She could tell they were veterans – probably cashiered or deserted Itko Kan infantry. They parried and counterattacked, but her own training was that of an expert and these veterans, though competent, fell one by one as Iko advanced upon the bows.
Here the obvious leader awaited her, shortsword held negligently in one hand, no doubt an officer herself. The barge spun rudderless now, as most of the sailors had jumped ship.
‘Who are you?’ the woman called.
‘Where is the king?’ Iko demanded. ‘Tell me, or I will kill you!’
The woman nodded as if considering, then drew back a tarp at her feet, revealing the lad, gagged and wrapped in chains. Chulalorn the Fourth stared up at Iko, his eyes huge.
‘Don’t worry,’ she told him soothingly. ‘It will be all right.’
‘They told me to get rid of him,’ the veteran officer said. ‘No trace. No burial site. No cairn or tomb for remembrance … and now you want me to give him to you.’
Iko nodded, her whipsword held ready. ‘Do that and I will let you live.’
‘I can think of a third option,’ the officer said. And she took hold of the lad’s chains and raised him up to set him on the edge of the barge. ‘I think that you will let me live … if I do this.’ And she pushed the boy over the edge, where he disappeared with a splash into the river.
‘Nooooo!’ Iko dived off the barge.
The waters of the Itko river were dark and silty. Abandoning her whipsword, Iko felt about, grasping at the muddy bottom until her screaming lungs forced her to surface for one desperate gulp of air before submerging once more to search again.
Again and again she did so, her breathing ragged, coughing on the dirty water, squeezing mud between her fingers as she searched on and on. But she found nothing. The weak current had drawn her some way past where the lad had fallen and she just floated now, almost unconscious, limp, pulled along towards the harbour.
She lay staring up at the cloudy sky as she drifted along. Then, resolutely, she threw her arms back and ducked her head under, exhaling all her breath. Holding herself under, lips clenched, eventually she could resist her body no longer and her lungs convulsed, drawing in a great spasm of water. She flailed then, her body clawing towards the surface where sunlight rippled so close above, in a last desperate bid to save itself against her will.
But her vision darkened. Her arms weakened. And she hung motionless under the surface and knew nothing more.
*
She awoke amid nets on board a small fishing vessel. It was night, and two old men peered down at her, a lantern between them. One was scratching his head, the other stood with hands on hips.
‘You are perhaps a mermaid?’ one asked, rather hopefully.
Iko just let her head fall back.
‘She is, I think, one of those sad suicides,’ the other said. ‘A lover betrayed her, perhaps.’
Iko threw herself for the side, but she was so weak that even these two scrawny elders were able to pull her back.
‘By Chem!’ the first said, ‘I think you are right!’
‘Bind her,’ the second said, and the first did so.
‘Let me die,’ Iko croaked, and she could not help it or resist it – she started to weep.
The second elder patted her shoulder. ‘Later,’ he said, as one might soothe an infant. ‘Plenty of time for dying later.’
* * *
Once there was no more wood for fires – or bare rock to set them on anyway, only ice – Ullara was beginning to suspect that she’d pushed her luck past the breaking point. That night she sat wrapped in blankets in the lee of a crag of ice, trying to gnaw a portion of dried meat from a frozen strip. Chewing, she decided she’d gone too far to turn back now, and she lifted a portion of the blankets to study Tiny in his wicker cage and feed him a few bits of seed from a dwindling pouch.
In the morning she set out northward once more. The only birds she could reach inhabiting these icy wastes were large snow-white owls, and these she drew near her occasionally to serve as her eyes. Other than these broader views, it was Tiny who provided her vision.
So it was a blow when she awoke to find she could not see. Whether it was the cold, the improper feed, or perhaps plain loneliness, she wasn’t certain. She couldn’t help but sit and cradle the basket, thinking that it was now fairly certain that it would not be long before she followed.
And if that were to be the case, she decided, then she might as well get a move on. Feeling about, she grasped her long probing stick and stood, sensing about. She found a hunting owl not too far off and urged it her way. After a short wait she was peering down at herself, and she set off.
With the aid of the hardy snow-owls, she crossed many more leagues of the wind-scoured ice wastes. Now she began to despair. Was there nothing here to come to? Why the drive for such a journey? To what end? Was it all just a delusion, or childish wilful foolishness, as that Crimson Guard commander Seth had suggested?
Yet there was no turning back now, so she hunched her shoulders against the driving wind with its stinging jabbing needles of ice, and struggled on.
As the days passed, the owls became more and more difficult to find or call. Eventually, one morning, she found herself blind, her allies gone. She knew she couldn’t just sit still and freeze, so she set out, probing the ice and crusted snow before her, advancing one step at a time.
Later that very day, the sun’s heat sinking where it touched upon her cheeks, she pushed her stick down before her, testing, and relaxed her grip momentarily, only to have the stick slip from her hands and disappear. She heard it, for a few moments, banging and rattling as it fell hundreds of paces, striking the edges of whatever deep crevasse of ice lay before her.
Now she did find herself fighting back tears, but they flowed anyway, freezing to little beads of ice upon her cheeks. She sat hunched. Now what? Who knew how far across this canyon was, or how far to either side? What could she do now, other than just sit?
She decided to send out as strong a call as she could, for who knew? Perhaps one of the snow-owls, or some other bird, would answer before it was too late.
She called and called as she sat, wrapped in blankets, rocking. Night came, then day, and as she sat, her legs and hands now numb and useless, she thought she sensed some sort of answer. But no doubt her imagination, desperate for life, was playing tricks upon her, for it was too late. Her head was drooping for longer and longer. Her face was completely numb, and she couldn’t feel anything. In fact, it was becoming rather pleasant – she wasn’t feeling any pain at all.
But she could still hear, and what she heard over the constant howling of the winds alarmed her: the crunching of footsteps on crusty snow. She struggled to rise – and hands aided her to her feet. And suddenly, like a blessing, she could see.
Four individuals faced her, squat, wrapped in furs, with wind-darkened wrinkled features and narrow slitted eyes. One held a cage that contained a large bird of prey of some breed unfamiliar to her. The four bowed to her. ‘Welcome, priestess,’ one said – a woman by her voice.
‘Priestess?’ Ullara mumbled through her numb lips. ‘I am no priestess.’
‘Our last priest is old, dying. He cast forth a summoning for new blood and you have answered.’
‘Answered? But who are you? I don’t know you.’
‘We are the Jhek. The beast-blood is strong in us, and you have been called to be our new priestess.’
Ullara’s head sank in exhaustion and she struggled to hold it up. ‘But I don’t …�
��
‘No matter, come.’ The woman gestured to some sort of sledge they’d brought with them. ‘You are welcome. We thank you for answering our call.’
She sank then into the layered warm furs, just happy to be out of the punishing winds.
* * *
Sitting on the gilded throne in the audience hall of Heng, Kellanved shifted uncomfortably. He drummed his fingers on the gilt armrests, sighed loudly, and slumped as if exhausted. Standing next to the throne, arms loose at his sides, Dancer listened as the local official guild of merchants presented their greetings, their authorizations, and began probing Kellanved as to the status of prior agreements and other such understandings.
Finally, Kellanved waved a hand, interrupting, to sigh, ‘Yes, yes. All old arrangements shall be honoured – for now. Thank you.’ He waved the contingent away. ‘Thank you!’
The merchants eyed one another, confused and uncertain, but all bowed and backed away. Once they were gone, and the hall was empty but for guards, Kellanved set his head in one hand. ‘The duties and obligations of rulership are crushing, Dancer my friend,’ he complained. ‘How I long for our old carefree times.’
Dancer cocked a brow. ‘It’s only been two days.’
‘None the less! Every throne is an arrowbutt! Uneasy rests my bottom! Everyone is plotting against the emperor!’
‘Of course they are.’
The wrinkled and spindly mage waved a hand. ‘Oh yes. Of course.’
The doors at the far end of the hall opened and in walked Surly, accompanied by Dassem. They stopped before the throne and Surly crossed her arms. ‘We need to talk privately.’
Kellanved rolled his eyes but waved away the guards. The walking stick appeared in his hands and he leaned forward, resting his chin upon its silver head. ‘Yes?’
‘Strategy,’ she answered, nonplussed. ‘What is our next move?’
Kellanved nodded thoughtfully. ‘It is to our advantage that this city is used to being ruled by a cabal of mages. We will merely replace it with our own – for the time being.’
Surly nodded her agreement. ‘And beyond that?’
Kellanved looked to Dassem. ‘Then we recruit and train for as long as our neighbours will give us. Consolidate.’
The Dal Hon swordsman nodded his agreement.
‘And the neighbours?’ Surly asked.
He glanced significantly to Dancer, then back to her. ‘We’ll need good intelligence as to their moves and intentions.’
Dancer eyed Surly and she inclined her head in agreement once again. ‘Do we have a target?’ she asked.
Kellanved sat back, tapped his fingers on the armrests. ‘I was thinking south first. There is much unrest currently in Itko Kan. We can exploit that.’
For an instant the woman appeared quite startled; then her eyes narrowed as she regarded him, and Dancer could imagine her wondering how he could possibly know such things. ‘As I have heard as well,’ she finally admitted, a touch resentfully.
Kellanved slapped the armrests. ‘Very good. That is a plan.’
‘Can we count on your … allies?’ Dassem asked.
The mage shook his head. ‘No. We cannot. They come and go of their own accord. However – that needn’t leave this room.’
Dassem gave a knowing smile, and nodded. ‘I understand. Deception is the first weapon of any duel.’
‘It’s my main one,’ Kellanved muttered, and Dancer saw Surly tilt her head at that, as if filing the offhand comment away for future reference.
Now the mage raised his hands and waved them as if shooing everyone off. ‘Very good. You know your duties. Get to them.’
Surly drew a hard breath, but bowed, if shallowly. Dassem gave a curt bow from the waist.
Once the two had left and the tall ponderous doors banged shut, Kellanved slumped back in the throne and pressed a hand to his brow. ‘Gods! It’s exhausting! Endless duties and obligations. It will be the death of me, I tell you, Dancer.’
Now the assassin couldn’t help but crook a teasing smile. ‘And just how long has it been? Twenty years? Seventy? Over a hundred? I get confused.’
The mage pressed both hands to his hanging head as if in despair. ‘Oh, shut up.’
However, as Dancer knew it would, the moment passed. Suddenly, Kellanved raised his head and turned to him with a certain impish glint in his eyes. ‘Don’t you think, my friend,’ he said, ‘that it is high time we explored Shadow?’
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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bantam Press
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Copyright © Ian Cameron Esslemont 2019
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Kellanved's Reach (Path to Ascendancy) Page 37
