by Jacky Gray
Palita had stopped screaming, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Trying not to think what might be happening to her now the giant had probably joined in as well; Slater tried instead to think of his options for getting out of there. Aurala was the only person he knew and their only hope for freedom. She would have no idea what was happening to them.
Then it hit him – if he didn’t get free, she would be killed tonight. He focused renewed energy on his legs, trying to shift the bindings down to his ankles where they would be looser. With all the wriggling and contorting, he was in danger of dislocating something, but he didn’t care. Anything was better than lying trussed up like a chicken waiting for the pot. He heard footsteps approaching and a commanding voice. ‘Slater, stop.’ Without warning, the hood was ripped off and the giant was standing over him with a long, sharp blade.
So this was it, he was going to die. Remembering something Reagan said about your life flashing before your eyes just before you died, he thought what a miserably short time that would take. Where would it start?
Most of the scenes would involve his mother and father, but mostly his big brother Sawyer. He was the one who taught Slater everything: how to string a bow and shoot his first arrow; how to ride a horse so his back and thighs didn’t ache and how to tickle a fish so it jumped out of the water and into the net. He showed him how to choose the right branches when climbing trees and how to roll when he fell out, which berries to eat and how to find a squirrel’s store of nuts.
But he would never see Sawyer again, nor his parents, not even Reagan or Carver. The most frustrating thing was the cowardly way his life was to end. Slater finally understood why the old warriors wanted to die with a sword in their hands, fighting to defend something they cared about. It was so much better than lying there helpless, waiting for death to be thrust upon you at someone else’s pleasure. That was the end fate had in store for him. Wishing Maxoli would put the hood back on so he couldn’t see it coming, he closed his eyes instead.
8 – Maxoli, the Giant
Several moments passed before Slater realised the knife was being used to cut through his bindings. Opening his eyes, he saw the coils of thick twine drop from his legs. He was unconsciously preparing for some kind of action against the giant – maybe there was some decency in the man and he wanted to give Slater the chance of an honourable death. Before he could do anything stupid, Palita appeared in front of him, gently removing the gag from his mouth.
‘What? How?’
‘Maxoli friend. Altoli tribe.’ She pointed to the giant, then herself.
‘But he’s not a slave. He doesn’t wear the armband of a slave.’ He pointed to her arm.
‘Tauroch free Maxoli. Tauroch bid, Maxoli do.’
‘Sounds like he’s still a slave to me.’ Slater was sceptical.
Palita tried with her limited vocabulary to convince him that Maxoli was loyal to the Altoli. That he only tied Slater up to stop him flying in like Jenoti did.
She gulped. ‘Dear Jenoti. Help Palita.’
Slater hugged her awkwardly. ‘Don’t blame yourself; you couldn’t have guessed what he would do. He was trying to protect you.’
The giant’s frown alerted Slater that she wouldn’t have understood a word and he tried again. ‘Jenoti with Solah. Watch Palita from up above.’ As he pointed, a large grey bird flew overhead.
Palita drew a sharp breath. ‘Rock dove.’
The bird was a good omen and Slater remembered a professor saying that these people had very different attitude to death than their own. Standing up and rubbing his throbbing wrist, Slater left her to her thoughts as she sat in silent meditation. He put out a hand to Maxoli before realising they probably didn’t clasp hands in greeting, the way his people did. The giant seemed to understand and raised his fist to match Slater’s.
‘Slater thank Maxoli for help Palita.’
‘Maxoli thank Slater.’ He bowed low.
There was no sign of Jenoti’s body near the tomb’s entrance, but Slater saw a leg sticking out from behind one of the stones that lined the entrance. He figured the giant had moved it so Palita would not be distressed by the sight of her brother’s body. The two guards were lying on their sides, bound as Slater had been. From the sounds of their snoring, the sleeping potions had worked well. They both had gags – Maxoli was taking no chances as he fitted Slater’s hood over the younger man’s head.
Their next problem in rescuing Roldan was getting into the barrow. A huge boulder covered the entrance, taller than Slater at its highest point, and more than two paces wide. Maxoli was strong, but he could not move it at all. At least twenty men and probably as many oxen would have been needed to drag it into place. Guessing there must be an opening mechanism, Slater examined the small gap at the base of the stone.
Thanking the rowan tree for its help, Slater selected a fallen branch and poked it under the stone to determine the mechanism. At the centre of the stone, the twig could not pass freely, stopped by a pivot with a socket carved into the door stone, and a matching protrusion in the stone bed at the base. He discovered a similar arrangement at the top and tried to explain it to the others. They didn’t understand the technical words, so he demonstrated the action by twisting a large flat stone between his finger and thumb.
Maxoli understood and grinned, dashing straight to one end of the stone and pushing.
‘Wait Max, we need to decide which end to push and which one to pull. It may not go both ways.’
The giant stopped pushing and hit his chest, saying ‘Max good. Maxoli now Max.’
Slater grinned, feeling privileged that such a man would allow him to use a familiar name. They worked out that the slope on both edges meant the door could only open in a sunwise direction. With Max pushing the left and the other two pulling the right, it finally gave up its resting place and shifted the smallest fraction. Slater adjusted his position, bracing his leg against the wall of the tomb and Max roared as he gave an almighty shove. The slab squealed in protest as it opened a few inches, then stopped as though something was blocking its path.
Resisting the urge to howl in frustration, Slater tried to think logically. When he ran the twig along the bottom, it snagged on an obstruction and broke off. The depth of the slab was more than a hand’s length and the movement had only revealed a couple of finger’s width of space.
Max appeared unaffected by the latest setback, sitting himself down in front of the stone and gesturing for the others to do the same. Following the giant’s lead, Slater put his palms on the rock and prayed to the spirit of the rock to reveal its secrets. Relaxing with closed eyes, he emptied his mind, becoming a blank page on which the rock told its story.
The stone sent them back before time began, when the forces on the spinning planet and the combination of heat and pressure caused a massive layer of rock to form. Continual shifting of the earth’s crust and massive amounts of melted ice caused large movements across continents to the stone’s resting place on the Marlburgh Downs.
Images of men pulling it many miles using greased logs came next, followed by continual pounding to carve it into the exact shape to fit the hole. Slater had no time to be astounded by this unusual experience as the stone told the final chapter of its history, showing minor adjustments to make it a perfect fit. Finally, it reached the part he was most interested in, before returning control of his senses.
Smiling hugely, Slater got up, a little unsteady as his limbs tried to reacquaint themselves with the connections to his brain. At the doorway, he located the small channel and reached inside where his probing fingers found a lever. After pulling, pushing and twisting, it finally gave and they all heard the grating sound as something shifted. Max poked another twig through the gap, confirming the obstruction had gone. When they resumed their places, the stone moved.
Before they had time to celebrate, it stopped again, this time, leaving a gap big enough for a boy to get through. No matter how hard they pushed and pulled, it would not
budge another inch. Max tried to force the lever, but it was stuck solid. Roaring, he used his full strength and it broke off in his hand. He grunted his frustration in an oath Slater didn’t recognise.
Nothing more could be done. The obstruction was not on the edge, something inside restricted the progress. They just had to hope Roldan could squeeze through or there would be a way of widening the opening from the inside. Slater was the obvious choice to enter the tomb and look for the chief-to-be. As Slater took off his tunic, Max nodded his approval. ‘Slater take care.’
Although he was not sturdy, it was a tight squeeze for Slater’s chest which stuck solid. The only way he could continue was by wriggling down, exhaling every last ounce of oxygen then sliding so he followed the curve of a channel in the rock behind. When he was through, Max handed him the tunic and held out his knife, saying he would try to widen the gap. Slater tried to remember what he knew about the layout of long barrows from the ones he had visited.
The light from the gaps did not penetrate very far; he could see the first two burial chambers, lined up in a pair. The one to the right contained several baskets of bones, but no sign of Roldan. The opposite entrance was blocked by two large stones, suggesting there were no more bodies from that family to lay to rest. He saw enough of the contents to ignore it, but he couldn’t help trembling with an involuntary shiver.
Offering a prayer to the spirits of the people buried within the tomb, Slater continued to the next pair of chambers. They were totally black inside and he could not see past the openings, even when he took a tentative step and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Holding his breath, he listened for sounds from within, but heard nothing. That was not conclusive; the chief’s son could be asleep or unconscious with very shallow breathing. He didn’t want to think of the alternative.
Stepping back into the entrance corridor, he felt his way, testing for firm ground before transferring his weight. Inching his way forward, Slater probed the stone walls, making sure no obstructions jutted out to knock his head. At this point, his eyes could not penetrate the blackness, so he decided to light a fire-stick to gain an idea of the layout. There were only a few left, so he wanted to use them sparingly as there could be dozens of chambers up ahead. The sensible thing would have been to gather some wood and make a torch, but the being-in-charge bit was all new to him. Normally someone else would have done the clever stuff, thinking through all the possibilities. He reasoned he had not done too badly so far.
As he struck a fire-stick against the sand strip, his fingers trembled and it dropped to the floor without lighting, lost on the dark floor. Cursing his bad luck, he took a couple of steps back toward the light and counted how many were left in the box. Only four. They’d all have to count if it went much deeper. Returning to the edge of the darkness, he faced the entrance to give him a better chance and took careful aim. As the match flared with its precious flame, a massive thump from the entrance made him jump. His hand banged on the side of the narrow space, dropping the fire-stick which extinguished as it fell. His foot landed awkwardly on a small rock and he overbalanced, dropping the box as he put out his other hand to steady himself. This time he did allow himself to react to the frustration, adding Max’s curse to his own string of oaths.
9 – Roldan, the Warrior Prince
Anger was of no use in situations like this and Slater thought back to something Reagan had told him. The older boy liked to pass on the teachings of his specialist trainer Kalen and this one really resonated. How did it go? Something like “Anger is a destructive force best converted to fight or flight where it adds strength or speed. In all other cases, it is as much use as a wax cooking pot.” He vaguely remembered something about most anger being misplaced frustration, but all that came to mind was Reagan chanting, “Frustration is futile” over and over again. It quickly got annoying, but helped him remember the techniques designed to dissipate anger, involving a lot of silliness and some deep breathing.
Thinking about Reagan’s method helped. Crouching, he searched the dusty ground, feeling around fruitlessly amongst hundreds of small stones until his fingers found something wet and cold. Flinching, he brought his fingers to his nose – a faint metallic smell. The texture was thick when he rubbed his fingers together. Definitely blood – and quite recent, indicating Roldan was probably injured.
The discovery made Slater focus his efforts. Inching forward, he ran his hands lightly along the ground in opposite directions from the centre until they reached the walls, then back again. On the seventh sweep, his fingertip nudged the box. Rattling it in victory, he stood.
As Max’s pounding paused, he heard a tiny sound coming from the direction of the doorway, as though someone was trying to creep up on him. ‘Who’s there?’ Placing the box in his pocket, he searched blindly for a big rock to use as a weapon, wishing Max would stop making such a din so he could hear better. The sliver of light from the doorway penetrated the deep blackness enough to outline a moving shadow. The pounding stopped and he shouted again. ‘Who’s there? Say your name. If you don’t speak, I will attack.’
‘Palita. No attack. Bring torch.’
Something sharp brushed his arm and he felt the bundle of twigs she had primed with dry moss to make it easier to light. ‘Good girl. Be still. Slater make fire.’ With the greatest of care, he struck another fire-stick, holding the flame to the kindling. Although she had never seen him do this before, she had the good sense to keep still, but he saw fear widening her eyes as the flame lit up the chamber. ‘Thank you Palita, good thinking.’
She held up a second torch and he lit it from the first, so they could continue the search independently. The idea that she might be afraid of the chambers’ contents never entered his mind; she had shown so much courage already. He indicated she should look in the second pair of tombs and work her way to the back while he started there and worked forward.
Walking to the end of the corridor, Slater berated himself for not lighting a torch earlier, wasting time scrabbling around in the dark. Everything was much quicker and easier with even a small amount of light. After counting seven pairs of chambers, he started with the single one at the end of the corridor. As it was larger than the others and contained only a few baskets with their grisly remains, he reasoned it must have been for the most important people. His attention was drawn to the pottery and weapons: stone maces and flint axe heads. He spotted some antlers which would have been used for digging, and picked them up just in case. A quick check of the room’s outer edges revealed no sign of anything alive, so he tried the first chamber to the left.
This was smaller and the floor was covered in baskets. Some of the woven sides had rotted away, leaving just an oval of hide under the bones. He could see more than one layer of bodies; several baskets had been placed over the older skeletons. The absence of coffers in the opposite chamber suggested a reason for this lack of respect: they had been cleared to make room for its single occupant – a large male, lying bound and gagged on his side.
Calling to Palita to bring the other torch, Slater bent down to see if the red-haired man was indeed asleep or unconscious. His face was discoloured with purple bruises and a line of dried blood trickled from his nose. Palita’s torch revealed a skin hanging on the wall. The weight suggested it was nearly empty. When he untied the thong sealing the opening, the stench of rancid water met his nostrils. Sniffing cautiously, he caught a hint of something else – probably the same sleeping draught Aurala had used. But it was all they had and would have to do.
Palita held his torch while he used Max’s knife to cut through the thick twine binding Roldan’s arms and legs. Splashing a handful of the water on the man’s face, Slater shook his shoulder gently. ‘Roldan, wake up; we have come to free you.’ Realising the chief’s son would be suspicious of the strange speech, he tried again. ‘Slater and Palita come free Roldan. Roldan waken.’
Roldan gave no sign of waking, so the hand grabbing his arm startled Slater and he dropped th
e water skin.
Roldan’s voice cracked as he spoke. ‘What day?’
‘Midsummer.’
‘How long Solah die?’
‘I’m not sure, about two or three hours.’
‘Boy not speak right. Boy Kenit?’ Suspicion tinged his tone as his grip tightened.
‘Slater friend. Help Roldan.’ Palita’s words didn’t placate the angry man who pulled on Slater’s arm to jerk himself up, wincing in pain.
She tried again. ‘Roldan harm. Need sleep.’
‘Sleep long. Solah die, Aurala die. Must stop Tauroch. Help Aurala.’ He tried again to get up, but his limbs obviously weren’t up to supporting his weight.
Fishing in his pockets, Slater found a bundle, unwrapped the linen and held out an oatcake. ‘Need eat for strength.’ Roldan looked at it suspiciously, so Slater broke off a small piece and put it in his mouth, rubbing his stomach and smiling. ‘Mmmm, good.’
Taking a small piece, Roldan sniffed it cautiously, smiling at the sweet honey smell. Putting it in his mouth, he swallowed immediately. Slater offered the rest and Roldan stuffed it all in his mouth, chewing noisily. ‘Good. More?’
Slater gave him the other two, which he demolished just as quickly. He held out his hand but Slater shook his head, patting his pockets to show they were empty.
‘Water.’ The chief’s son reached for the skin, but the water had spilt, not a bad thing if it was drugged. He held it over his upturned mouth and a few drops splashed on his face which he rubbed around, smearing the blood.
Slater found a pack of lemon candies; they would help to relieve the man’s thirst. Again he had to show they were not harmful, but Roldan had no concept of sucking, instead crunching each sweet despite a second demonstration.
‘Slater not Durren.’ It was more of a challenge than a statement, so he was glad when Palita explained again.