A Leopard in the Mist

by S E Turner

  He saw a disused steel bucket and threw it at her. It caught her temple and she staggered back. He launched a rock that caught her in the chest and took the wind out of her. She held her left hand up to her throat—she couldn't breathe now. Short bursts of frantic panting got in the way of her precision. She ran into him, screaming and bellowing, but he threw down his weapon, swept the sword out of her grasp with his left hand, and punched her in the stomach with his right. She was now doubled over. He booted the sword away and then kicked her onto her back.

  'You thought you could overthrow me?' he bellowed, striking her in the ribs.

  Pushing with her feet, she tried to back away from him, but he pulled her back and stamped on her shin. She swallowed the scream. 'I taught you well, Cornelius. I taught you well.' Her voice was weak and thin.

  'You were never a match for me.' His spittle ran down her cheek.

  He sat astride her, and with both hands round her throat, started to throttle her. The life was going out of her—she couldn't breathe and had no energy left to throw him off. Her arms were useless. She had no power, no muscle, no energy to fight this brute. She wouldn't be able to save Namir. They were both doomed. This wasn't supposed to happen. On a better day, she would have won, but coming out of confinement, he was right—she was no match for him. But then she saw Macus out of the corner of her eye, and he leapt on the back of Cornelius, pulling at his head to release the grip.

  'Get off me, you filthy rodent,' barked Cornelius. 'You are a servant and you are forgetting your place.'

  Macus would not let go. 'I can't let you do this. There has been too much bloodshed here already, and there will be no more.'

  The Emperor roared in fury. He swung his arm behind him and grabbed hold of Macus by his shirt. 'By whose orders?' He pulled the boy off his back and threw him against the stable wall. Macus slid down and a trickle of blood oozed from his head. Cornelius followed in with a rain of hammering blows. Macus' defending arms did little to stave off the ferocious attack.

  'Cornelius, no!' shouted out Gya, her voice strained. 'Leave him!'

  Cornelius turned to her. His eyes were narrow, and a wicked smile exposed hungry incisors.

  'Eliminating three savages in one day! I think the General is guiding me.'

  'You are possessed by something, Cornelius. Be it power, envy, or cowardice, I know not what, but you are a changed man.'

  A brutal fist smashed down on her face. 'Coward! Are you calling me a coward? How dare you!'

  He wrapped his hands round her throat again.

  Macus opened one eye—the other was bruised and swollen. His lip was split, and his face was cut. He managed to withdraw something from his boot and slid it along the gravel towards the helpless girl. She inched at it with outstretched fingers. Just a bit more, just a little further. She grabbed the handle and spun it in her hand. With one last ounce of effort, she plunged it into the Emperor's side. 'Accuracy is more vital than power.'

  His weight collapsed on top of her. She pushed him off and rolled away so she was laying on her back again.

  'Are you all right?' groaned the boy in a shallow whisper.

  She couldn't talk. Her hands flew up to her throat and she calmed her breathing. 'Thank you,' she strained. 'You saved my life.'

  'I didn't want to kill him, Gya, but he left me no choice.' Macus was still recovering from the beating; legs outstretched, with his back supported by the stable wall.

  'I know you didn't, Macus, neither did I.' Gya sat up awkwardly. 'I think you took the worst of it, though.' Her face didn't agree as the palm of her hand nursed an injured jaw.

  'There would have been more bloodshed if he had lived, and Ataxata needs to thrive again.' Macus exonerated his actions.

  'I know Macus. Neither of us had a choice.' She looked over at the corpse. 'But we need to get rid of the body before the guards come out.' The enormity of the situation became perilous. 'Are you able to ride?'

  'Yes, I think so.' He pulled himself up and winced as the blood rushed to his head.

  'That eye will need looking at first.' She got to her feet and moved towards him, but he pulled his head away.

  'We haven't got time, Gya. We have to get rid of this body. The weather won't wait for us, and the guards will be doing their rounds soon. We have to go now.'

  'Yes, you are right. You take the body and dump it up at Break Pass Ridge. The gorge opens up into the bowels of the earth under a naturally formed bridge. I will find Namir and meet you there as soon as I can. Then we will travel to the Smilodon Fort. It's the closest settlement to Ataxata.'

  'Your old settlement?'

  'Yes, it's our only hope.'

  Macus disappeared into the stables and brought out an old horse blanket. 'Here, wrap the body in this and help me lift it onto the Emperor's horse. And get that bucket of sand to soak up the blood.'

  The two of them pulled Cornelius face down onto his destrier, tied the stirrup leathers over the body, and then began to cover up their tracks.

  'Namir's horse is still here. I saddled her up. Hopefully the guards will think he has taken Namir back to his clan.'

  'And when he doesn't return, and we have gone as well?' She put the question to him gravely. 'We will need a saviour ourselves.'

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  She saw the frozen figure moulded into a snowbank. Gya had thought he was a corpse already with his body so skeletal and his skin so pale. Even against the freshly fallen snow he looked even whiter. It was only after she had dismounted and bent over him, she heard him whisper.

  'Are you my saviour or my destroyer?'

  'I am your saviour, Namir. You will come with me now. I will take you to safety.' She bent down to him. 'Here, take this. It was given to me to replace lost minerals and vitamins. You need it now.' She gently poured the liquid into a thimble-sized vessel and he took the healing nectar.

  'Skyrah gives me the yarrow flower,' he whispered. 'But this tastes just as good.'

  'Maybe it is the yarrow flower ground down into a liquid. It certainly helped me.'

  He pulled the cloak tighter round him.

  'You need fluid as well.' She offered a flagon of water. 'Just little sips, you are severely malnourished, and your body will reject it if you take too much.'

  'It's all right. I have little strength to take too much anyway.' His voice was patchy.

  'But now we have to get you back up on your horse. She is here waiting for you.'

  He got to his feet like a fragile old man, brushed the snow off his shoulders, and leaned in towards his destrier. 'I've missed you my beauty.'

  She nuzzled into him and he felt the warmth from her withers.

  'Are you ready, Namir? I think we should ride together so I can hold on to you. I don't want you falling off.'

  Gya helped him up into the saddle and she sat behind him. That way he was sandwiched between two pillars of body heat. The second horse followed by way of a lead rein. As the hills grew steeper, it got more perilous for the horses. Drifts of snow cracked under their hooves, and where the ground had solidified, they began to slip. Namir was packed in so tightly that he had fallen asleep with the gentle rocking motion of his steed.

  It was still light when she spotted Macus. He was waiting for them, standing in the middle of a natural bridge above a cavernous gorge. Far below raged the core of the mountain.

  'Have you disposed of the body?' she asked, dismounting gently so as not to wake Namir.

  He looked down into the endless ravine. 'He won't ever be found again. '

  She followed his gaze into the pits of hell and felt a sudden ache of remorse. 'Foolish man, it didn't have to end this way.'

  'I think it did, Gya. Too much power breeds uncontrollable hatred and greed. I've seen it so many times, and I saw it in Master Cornelius' eyes as soon as I told him about Namir's army defeating the General. I knew he wouldn't rest until he had absolute power. If we hadn't killed him back there, then there would have been more blood on his hands.'
He looked down into the ravine. 'I have stood by for too long and watched young boys be taken as prisoners and made to fight to the death. I have seen whole families ripped apart by despicable acts of cruelty.' He was struck with uncontrollable sadness. 'I could have saved Namir weeks ago. Instead, I stood back like a coward because I was too scared to do anything.'

  'You are not a coward, Macus. You must never think that. You said it yourself: you witnessed torture, and you watched the General burn a family to death because their daughter escaped. Of course, that was at the back of your mind. You were protecting your own family.'

  'I still should have helped him.' He was frantically searching for answers in the gorge. 'It will haunt me forever.'

  'Macus, look at me.'

  Eyes full of sorrow faced her.

  'A long time ago, I watched the General slaughter my people. I hid under a wagon while I heard my father begging for his life and my mother screaming for the life of her children. I can still hear the cries of my younger siblings as they died. The General killed all of my people and I did nothing. I was too scared and mute, so I hid myself away and tried to block it out.'

  They held the empowering silence while coming to terms with their lack of courage in desperate times.

  'So, where did you get your strength from?' he asked in awe.

  'A wise old man showed me the way, he taught me how to overcome my fears, he showed me the way of the sword, and how to find my courage. When I did that, I swore that I would get vengeance for the death of my people.'

  'So, you killed the Marquis and took his identity?'

  'It wasn't as simple as that, Macus. The Marquis took something of mine and didn't honour an agreement.' She looked down into the gorge. 'He paid the ultimate price in the end, though.'

  'And then you came for revenge, to kill the General and the Emperor?'

  'I did; but Master Cornelius was a vulnerable young man, then. I didn't want to corrupt him and change him into a monster by killing his father.' Their thoughts emptied into the ravine. The irony was left there to fester.

  'It seems that corruption and evil was always in his blood,' said Macus pitifully recognising the truth.

  'I think it was... and he followed that spiral downwards. Unfortunate man.' She looked up from the cavern and faced him. 'But destiny has shown you your own strength and courage, Macus. You are a hero now. You saved my life, and you saved Namir.'

  Macus thought about it for a while. 'Well, when you put it like that.' He tilted his head with a shrug.

  'Our destiny is always out there. It just takes a while to find it.'

  'Thank you.'

  Namir stirred and brought her back to the moment. 'This man here is another hero, and we have to get him to my village. Plus, your face needs attention.'

  'I had forgotten about that.' He winced when he touched his swollen eye and cut lip. 'But I thought you said the Smilodon Fort had been burnt to the ground with no survivors.'

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Break Pass Ridge was a series of passes and steep twisting ridges that curved back down through glades and grottos. Here, they were dappled with the rays of a struggling sun and a thin blanket of snow. Back in the summer, it would have been a truly wondrous sight. Meadows full of summer blooms would have heralded their arrival, and supreme raptors nesting in the heights would have come down to hunt in those very fields. Alpine hares and mountain goats would have jumped from glen to glade, and rodents would have burrowed deep in the marshes.

  But on a day like today, the scene was of a glistening white blanket tinged with silver from the reflections, and the sky was a mottled shade of grey as the sun struggled to break through. Today, the sky was as solemn as the town of Ataxata behind them, and the snow fell softly and steadily, muffling the sound of their horses' hooves and sticking to their frozen faces.

  They rode north, away from Break Pass Ridge, following the mountain tracks, over the weathered field, and into the dense forest. Gya took the lead, keeping her mount to a steady pace, and guiding with the reins whilst holding on to Namir at the same time. Macus followed her with the two other horses as best he could. Every so often, they both glanced behind them to see if they were being followed, but the snow was their ally today and was covering their tracks within seconds. The guards would surely know that something was wrong soon with Namir and the Emperor gone, plus herself and Macus and four horses.

  What would they do to them? She dared not dwell on it. But her mind was working overtime now. Of course, the guards wouldn't think that. They would think that Cornelius had taken Namir home, just like they had discussed. And they would not associate any link between Macus and herself, she hoped. Nevertheless, the whole reason for going this way was because of the tricky mountain path, and because not many people knew this way.

  When they crossed another bridge, Gya turned her horse to the right and followed the twisting course of the river for half a mile before scrambling up a stony bank and back amongst the trees again. Even though she was sure no one knew this way, she couldn't leave anything to chance. They could not stay on the road. Macus did not question her choice—he had every faith in her. After all, she was a clan girl. And after the feat that Skyrah pulled off the previous year, who was he to question anything a girl did.

  The snow seemed to be less furious now, and the group was able to keep to a steady pace. The soft broken ground was still treacherous with half-buried roots and hidden stones. She heard Macus' horse stumble and she quickly turned to check he was all right. They crossed another road, its edges lined with the mush of decaying leaves and topped with the recent fall of snow and rain. Up and down hills they went, through brambles and briars, and tangles of underbrush, and along gullies where they had to duck and dive below the weighted branches.

  'Not long now, Macus,' she called back. Namir stirred in front of her. 'Are you all right?' she whispered, aware that he was awake now.

  His groan was weary in response, and she couldn't make out what he was saying.

  'We need to stop a while, Macus. I need to give Namir some more medication.'

  'I think the horses need a rest as well, Gya. We have covered a good amount of ground so far and they are tiring.'

  The wooded glade gave them protection as Macus helped to lift Namir gently down. He took a rug from the side of his horse and laid it out for the frail man.

  'Thank you,' said Namir weakly.

  'Here, take this.’ Gya poured another spoonful of medicine into his open mouth. 'It will help your recovery. And take these pills, they will give you added minerals.'

  'Where are we going?' Namir asked through thin lips, licking every last ounce of the healing nectar and swallowing the tablets whole .

  'I am taking you to the Smilodon Fort. It's my tribal home. The last time I saw it, the General was burning it down, but I am sure there must be somewhere untouched where we can rest in safety.'

  'What about my home, the Clan of the Mountain Lion? Can't we go there?' His voice was tiny.

  'It is too far, you are not strong enough. Smilodon is the closest settlement, I can assure you. I promise I will get you strong again, then I...' She looked over to Macus. '...we, can return you to your people.'

  Namir returned a weak smile.

  'Here, I have something that belongs to you.' She took the pendant out of her pocket and secured it gently round his neck. 'It's the picture of your mother.'

  He clasped it and started to weep. 'How can I ever repay you?'

  'You already have.'

  A fragile hand touched her own as a sign of gratitude, and he closed his eyes again as the medication began to work.

  Macus was with the horses, feeding them from a bag of oats he had brought with him. He patted each of them and stroked their soft muzzles.

  'You're a kind man, Macus,' said Gya, noticing the rapport he had with the destriers.

  'I love these horses. They are such majestic animals that only want to serve their riders.'

  'Perhaps they
have lessons to teach us,' Gya surmised.

  'I think they do,' he agreed.

  'Come and sit with me a while, dear friend,' she said, patting the rug. 'You know all about me, so tell me more about you.'

  'What's there to tell?' he said quietly, almost embarrassed to divulge the entire contents of his dull life to someone who had lived so much.

  'I'm truly interested. How old are you? Do you have siblings? What does your future look like?'

  'That's a huge task to answer in one go,' he stammered with a smile.

  She grinned back, and her expression encouraged him to continue.

  'Well, I'm nearly twenty-four years old now and been working in the stables for about ten years.' He laughed at the memory. 'Where does the time go? Now that I say it out loud, ten years is quite a long time.'

  'Yes, it is,' she said thoughtfully, her own memories taking her back that same length of time to when her people were slaughtered.

  'A fourteen-year-old whipper snapper, knee high to a grasshopper,' he laughed.

  She tittered at the allegory.

  'I had worked with my father on the farm since I was about four years old, helping drive big old Betsy on a mouldboard plough.' He drew a thin smile and breathed out a sigh of reminiscence.

  'You've always liked horses, then?' she asked, pulling her legs into her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

  'I have, indeed. Betsy was such a good old Shire—such a strong girl.'