SHIANG

by C. F. Iggulden

  One of the twins lay in the road, held in the arms of the other. The one who had been shot was still and very pale.

  ‘Hi is dead,’ Je said hoarsely.

  The young man held up his hand and Hondo saw the palm was marked with bright blood. The twin opened his brother’s tunic to reveal two red holes. When they turned him, two more could be seen in his back. Blood dribbled from them, pooling in his brother’s lap.

  Hondo looked to where Bosin stood, rooted to the spot. The big man still wore his furs and yet he was breathing hard, as if he had run a long way. As Hondo stared, Bosin went down on one knee in the mud, his head dipping. With a visible effort of will, he pulled himself back to his feet.

  ‘Were you hit as well?’ Hondo asked.

  Bosin nodded at him. There was anger in the man’s eyes and Hondo wanted to look away from it. He had seen Bosin drunk and complaining. He recalled he had never seen him truly angry before that moment.

  ‘Sir? Gentlemen?’ a voice came.

  Hondo was up in an instant, his sword held ready to strike. He looked into the terrified expression of a short man who had approached them with his hands held up to show he carried no weapon. The stranger could not quite believe how quickly Hondo had crossed the space between them. He held very still and Hondo could see he was shaking.

  ‘Sir? That Vic Deeds is a drunk and a scoundrel. He’s no friend to this camp. He don’t represent us, do you understand? We do have a doctor here. If you want to have wounds looked at, he’s a good man, I swear. We don’t want any more trouble, sir.’

  The man’s gaze slid to where the bodies of four loggers lay sprawled in the mud. Hondo did not turn to see. Instead, he chewed the bristles of his lower lip as he thought, folding them between his teeth. He was tempted to make an example of the men of the camp, but two things held his hand. Not only had the culprit already escaped, but Bosin was clearly hurt.

  ‘Very well. I will see your doctor. We need food and a place to rest. If this … Vic Deeds returns, I would like to be told immediately.’

  The woodsman glanced at Hondo’s sword, shining like a bar of moonlight in the darkness. He was a senior man, however, and not one to push without him pushing back.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll return here, sir. If he does, that is between you and none of my concern, if you follow me. The doctor and the food I can arrange. There has been enough trouble here tonight. We ain’t soldiers, sir. We’re working men, away from our families and homes to make a bit of money.’

  ‘And where is home?’ Hondo asked. He sheathed his sword as he spoke, knowing how fast he could draw it once more. ‘When you are not in the forests, cutting trees?’

  ‘Why, Darien, sir. The city. A hundred miles or so to the west, as the crow flies. Most of us are from there, or thereabouts.’

  Hondo felt his heart thump faster. Despite the disaster, it still raised his spirits to hear that name spoken by another after so long.

  Doctor Adams stank of old sweat, which did not endear him to Hondo. He could not help wondering when the man had last washed his hands, but there was no one else. The twin, Je, brought in his brother’s body in his arms, laying him down on a table in the tavern and arranging his hands. Bosin was persuaded to follow, though he just stood and stared at nothing while the doctor was summoned.

  Hondo watched the man carefully, noting the black bag he carried and the whiskers on his face. He supposed the wounds of a logging camp would always be serious. The man would have seen fingers or feet cut off many times, but perhaps not so many wounds of this sort.

  The doctor went first to the body, but when he saw the wax colour of death, he looked to the giant who stood with glazed eyes, breathing hard. Hondo watched the man snap his fingers in front of Bosin’s face. There was no response.

  ‘This one’s out on his feet, just about. I need to get these layers off, to see if he’s been hit, or if it’s just shock.’

  ‘Shock?’ Hondo said, raising his eyebrows.

  The doctor glanced at him, registering him as another stranger.

  ‘Some men freeze up when they see death, sir. It speaks to their own and they panic.’

  ‘It is not shock,’ Hondo said. ‘This is Master Bosin of Shiang. He is an experienced swordsman. He has seen death many times.’

  ‘Either way, these furs need to come off. Can you hear me, son? Can you lie down?’

  Bosin winced suddenly. The pain seemed to revive him, so that he nodded and clambered up onto the largest table in that place, where some twenty men could sit to eat dinner. As might be expected in a logging camp, it was a great heavy thing, with planks as thick as a man’s hand. Even so, it creaked alarmingly as Bosin lay back on it. The swordsman’s face was bright with sweat. His breathing was audible indoors, a wheeze that sounded wet and heavy.

  ‘He has a cold,’ Hondo said, though he knew it was something more.

  The doctor didn’t look up, but busied himself cutting away the furs and the clothes beneath. Hondo winced at the grey flesh that was revealed, stained by damp and the dyes in the tunic. The doctor used a razor with neat strokes, and strips of fur and cloth fluttered down.

  Three more of the red holes could be seen. The doctor put his finger into one and nodded.

  ‘That’s the one that hit his belt. Look there – the bullet is so close to the surface you can almost see it. I can get that one out.’

  ‘What about the other two?’ Hondo asked the man. He felt out of his depth, numbed by the sudden change in their fortunes. He had not expected Bosin to be badly wounded. The man was too large to be brought down by some small fellow, no matter what weapon he held.

  The doctor wiped his hands with a cloth and shook his head.

  ‘There’s one in his side – so he’ll be bleeding in there. The other sounds like it’s in a lung. If I could roll him, I’d know whether it went through.’

  They both looked at the man lying unconscious on the massive table. Rolling him was no small thing to contemplate.

  ‘Will he die?’ Hondo asked. The idea was ludicrous, impossible.

  The doctor rubbed bristles with fingers still marked in Bosin’s blood.

  ‘He has one chance in three, something like that. I can take the one bullet out, but if the other two are still in him, he’ll rot from the inside and there’s nothing anyone can do, not here anyway.’

  ‘Where, then?’ Hondo asked, though he knew the answer even as he spoke.

  ‘Darien, maybe. If he lives that long. I would not hope for it, sir, if you understand me. These are serious wounds.’

  ‘But there are doctors in Darien, men who could heal him?’

  Once again, Adams rubbed his chin.

  ‘If he survives the trip, and if you have gold, he has a chance.’

  ‘Fetch a cart to carry him,’ Hondo said. ‘And a man who knows the way.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the night, son. I think it would be better …’

  Hondo placed the flat of his hand on the man’s chest. He could feel the heartbeat quicken.

  ‘I have lost two men since entering this camp. My patience is at an end. Fetch me a cart and a guide or I will burn this place to the ground.’

  The doctor stared at the stranger who had brought violence and death to the logging camp that evening. He remembered too the bodies still lying in the mud outside.

  He nodded.

  ‘Very well. One of the lads is going back tomorrow. He’ll take you.’

  Hondo looked back at the figure of Bosin.

  ‘Tonight. I will need blankets and food – and some men to help me lift him onto the cart.’

  ‘I can’t just let you take a cart, sir.’

  ‘You cannot stop me,’ Hondo replied. He said it with such quiet assurance that the doctor believed him.

  ‘Even so. The cart belongs to the logging company. Take it if you want. But you and your mates killed four men. You have no friends here to help you. Not now.’

  Hondo tossed a small pouch to the man, who cau
ght it and glanced inside.

  ‘I’ll gather a few lads.’

  As the doctor left, Hondo clenched his jaw, feeling himself sway. It was always the same after a fight, or it had been since he’d turned forty. He was exhausted and still cold. The room’s warmth was making him sleepy, but he would not give in to it. Only Bosin’s wheezing and the muted sobs of Je as he brushed the hair from his brother’s forehead broke the silence.

  14

  Gabriel

  Gabriel pushed them all hard. Sanjin suffered the worst, when the cauterised wounds on his foot took another infection. The man rode in constant pain, wincing at every jog and bounce. When they stopped, he limped around the camp, his foot always wet. Sanjin’s eyes became red and sore from fevers, but they had no medicine and he did not ask Gabriel to look at it again. As the days passed, Sanjin’s gaze seemed to turn within.

  Gabriel watched the man sitting alone, holding his leg bent and searching for the internal sea that Gabriel had described. It was surely there, though Gabriel felt a perverse pleasure that Sanjin had no luck finding it. Each time the swordsman failed, he shouted in fury, a great blast of frustration. The rest of the time, Sanjin glowered, his gaze always drifting to Gabriel.

  Gabriel understood that silent accusation, but ignored it. He was tempted to put the man down like a mad dog before he made trouble for them all. Yet Sanjin was still enhanced as a swordsman, remade by whatever part of the Aeris Stone had touched them. Even a mad dog could be useful.

  Marias was a more intractable problem, at least to Gabriel. While Sanjin watched him, Gabriel watched her in turn, as a puzzle to be solved. There was no hiding her feelings for the one whose body he wore. They shone, whenever Marias met his eyes. She thought he did not notice, but he felt it, just as he sensed the rage in Sanjin. It seemed at times that only Lord Ran and Thomas were at all sane in that little camp.

  Lord Ran was not doing well, Gabriel had to admit. He had not troubled to ask the man his age, but the Shiang lord was not young. The pace Gabriel had insisted upon might have exhausted a royal messenger of half his years. Gabriel himself seemed to need very little sleep, so he roused them all when they were still groggy and the dark was absolute. He made them ride horses to exhaustion and change mounts at every opportunity, so it was just the riders who grew slack and dull in the eye.

  Thump. The pulse sounded as Gabriel gazed at the mountains rising before him. Winter had come, to be seen in spirals of snow caught in the wind. The village elders said the passes were all blocked by then, even the lowest, the one they called Horse Skulls. The headman assured the strange group that they could not cross alive, not until spring. He told them he had said the same to four other swordsmen just weeks before, but back then, there had at least been sun in the mornings. Winter had taken its grip on the peaks since they had passed. When it came, there was no mistaking it – and no release until the thaw.

  Gabriel stood and thought. The sky was clear and he did not fear the cold. Whatever the stone had done to him to give him speed and strength, he knew he could walk where any other man would freeze. Even in that place, he stood wearing leggings and a loose shirt, while the villagers went wrapped in furs. Yet if he went on, Marias and Lord Ran would surely die.

  He hissed an old curse to himself. He needed Lord Ran for his knowledge – and he could not abandon Marias. That certainty remained like a fishbone in his throat. His will was his own, but he could not leave her, so his will was not his own! Gabriel went round and round in his thoughts. This Taeshin retained some scattered sense of self, perhaps no more than grains on a threshing floor, drifting without purpose. There was no intruder in Gabriel’s thoughts, no second voice. Still, he was not completely free, not to do as he wished.

  Gabriel knew he needed stones. He needed power. He stared up at the mountains, willing himself across them as if sheer focus would see him taken to the other side. He had seen stranger things. He had come back from the dead.

  ‘I have brought tea, Taeshin,’ he heard Marias say. She held out a shallow bowl to him as he turned. He accepted it, breathing in the scent with pleasure.

  ‘You must not call me that,’ he said, sipping. ‘I am Gabriel. I will kill you if you do not call me by my name.’

  ‘I … I’m sorry … Gabriel,’ she stammered, bowing her head.

  ‘Do you hope to summon him, Marias? Is that why you use his name? He is not here. Believe me when I say I have searched for him.’

  ‘I serve, master,’ she said without raising her head. ‘That is all.’

  Gabriel felt a spasm of anger and yet he did not touch his sword. No one else had thought to serve him tea, after all.

  ‘It seems these mountains cannot be crossed,’ he said. ‘If I am to remain here until spring, perhaps … perhaps I will need someone to serve me.’

  He had felt the pulse in the air as he’d spoken. The call, if call it was, sounded more forcefully a thousand miles closer to Darien. Even the idea of waiting till spring made it beat, hard enough to stop the four returners in their tracks. Gabriel looked across the stable yard, where a huge black workhorse bowed over its door. Thomas had been stroking the animal, enjoying the velvet touch of its muzzle. The Fool still stared at the mountains as Gabriel had been doing, caught mid-step as he had crossed the yard. He’d felt it. So had Sanjin, who was sitting at a table covered in frost, staring into nothing.

  Gabriel looked sharply back at Sanjin. As he watched, Sanjin grinned for the first time he could remember. Slowly, Sanjin stood up and leaned over the table, pointing.

  ‘Look! Look, Gabriel, Thomas … come and see!’

  Gabriel went closer, while Thomas came with his hand on his hilt, always wary of a trap. The man trusted no one, which had not saved him from death the first time. Gabriel felt his thoughts scatter as he saw crystals of frost retreat from the table. Where Sanjin laid his hand, whiteness blurred and melted away, leaving dark, wet wood.

  ‘Can you heal yourself?’ Gabriel said. The spite he felt was beneath him, he knew very well. Yet he had been the only one able to harness whatever power had brought them back. That unique status was vanishing in the awe of Sanjin’s expression.

  ‘I don’t know …’ Sanjin said. He closed his eyes. Lines appeared on his forehead as he frowned, but Gabriel could neither see nor feel any other change. Sanjin gasped as if he’d held his breath and shook his head.

  ‘No, but I felt something. I reached out and I touched … something. And the frost vanished.’

  ‘That’s good, brother,’ Gabriel said.

  He did not say it wasn’t quite restoring a man’s eyes, but he could see that awareness come to Sanjin as he flushed. Gabriel turned to Marias and discovered once again that he could not leave her behind. He made a decision, though he felt his stomach knot as he spoke.

  ‘Marias. Tell the village headman to fetch the best wraps and shoes and cloaks, enough for us all – whatever he would wear himself. We’ll dig out the pass by hand if we must. We’ll trust in the stone or die. Either way, we’re not stopping here, not till spring.’

  He and Sanjin tensed for another pulse, but there was nothing. They sagged, exchanging a glance. That silent beat wore a man down, no matter what drove him. Yet the choice to go on felt like no choice at all.

  Hondo had refused to let the doctor rest for two nights, though the man dozed on his seat for most of the second day. They’d taken a great ham from the camp store, as well as bread and pickled vegetables that made Hondo’s mouth pucker. He’d found Doctor Adams a somewhat surly companion, at least once he’d discovered he would be accompanying his patient.

  The logging trails were wider and clear, leading right back to the city. The doctor said they wouldn’t even be active at that time of year if not for all the construction going on in Darien. It seemed new walls were going up. Entire streets were being flattened and rebuilt, or built higher inside. That winter, the city was a hive of activity, though Doctor Adams had no particular interest in the reasons for it. He whipped
the two oxen whenever they slowed and replaced one at the village of Wyburn as they went through, with Hondo’s silver greasing their passage.

  Hondo came awake when the twin Je dug an elbow into his side. His brother lay wrapped and cold on the bed of the cart, with Bosin moaning alongside him. That seemed an almost familiar sound to Hondo’s ear, though the big swordsman was delirious and hot with fever. His words made very little sense, which was a relief from the complaining they had known before.

  Ahead of them, the city gate stood open, with a trail of carts stretching back along the road for the best part of a mile. The line ground forward slowly and yet Hondo realised their own road would cut right to the front of the queue. Adams made no attempt to slow, but called out for a doctor as soon as he was in earshot of the gate guards. They seemed to know him and waved him past, though Hondo saw them peer into the cart as they did so. His own attention was caught by a huge gold dog sitting with the gate guards. It turned its massive head to watch them pass. Hondo shivered. It seemed the sort of animal Bosin would appreciate. For his own part, he had never liked the creatures.

  Some of the waiting carters called out in protest at their being let through, but Hondo ignored them as the doctor steered expertly around a narrow space and into the city beyond. It had taken just moments. Hondo looked for the first time at the inner streets of the foreign city that had given shelter to the king’s uncle, the adulterer Tellius. He could hardly believe he was there at last, nor the sheer noise, filth and chaos that formed the roads within. It was impossible not to compare it with home. Shiang was paved in clean stone in all but the slave areas. It was a place of perfect order, beyond occasions such as the king’s birthday when people were allowed more licence to drink and celebrate. Hondo shook his head in distaste. If the streets of Darien even had stone underpinnings, they were hidden by a thick layer of mud and manure.