SHIANG

by C. F. Iggulden

  Roaring at a startled wine merchant to make way for an injured man, Doctor Adams forced his way into a row of carts and horsemen trundling along a narrow road. Everywhere Hondo looked, there was a crush of men and women, all yelling at the tops of their voices.

  Almost knocking against the wheels of the cart, Hondo saw a wrinkled man pushing a little hand-wagon, piled high with what looked like rags. As Hondo watched, the man stiffened suddenly and fell into the gutter, spilling the wagon and its contents. The swordsman leaned to stare as a small child tumbled out and sat bawling, holding up its hands. A passing woman stepped into the mud and swept the baby up out of the road, but the man who had fallen lay there still, blind and twitching, kicking his heels in some sort of fit. Hondo saw the woman purse her lips angrily as she was forced to wait, her good deed punished.

  The sword saint blinked as he sat back, disliking the city on first sight and smell. If Bosin lived, Hondo suspected the man would find much to enjoy. Darien had a sense of chaos to it, much like Bosin himself. Hondo looked back at the swordsman who had groaned or wheezed constantly since being shot. The pallor of his skin was not good and he was wet with sweat despite the cold. Yet he was alive. That was all that mattered. As Hondo glanced back, he saw the twin reach down and pat his brother’s corpse on the shoulder, as if encouraging him or to give himself comfort. Both the brothers had reached Darien. Hondo grimaced. What words could possibly help with that loss? He had said almost nothing to Je since the death. Yet he had witnessed a private moment of grief and he could not ignore it.

  ‘He died going forward,’ Hondo said. ‘In courage and honour.’

  Je bowed his head in reply, though his eyes gleamed. Hondo had to turn away, rather than shame him by noticing. He called instead to Doctor Adams as the man swore at another carter trying to edge in front of them.

  ‘Which way now?’ Hondo discovered he too had to shout, just to be heard over the arguments all around him.

  The doctor pointed mutely to another road, leading away from the walls. Making that turn took an age and Hondo was tempted to draw his sword before they were through. Yet the change was immediate, the noise level half what it had been before.

  The gates to a tavern yard lay open ahead of them. If they had been painted red many years before, it looked as if they had not been rubbed down or even closed after that first day.

  ‘The Old Red Inn will have rooms for us,’ Adams said. ‘Basker owes me a favour, anyway. I can call a doctor from here easily enough – someone who’ll know what to do with your friend.’

  ‘He’s not my friend,’ Hondo said.

  Adams raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I heard he stepped in front of Vic Deeds, while that man’s hands were on his guns. I’d say that qualifies him.’

  The doctor reined in and dismounted, going inside to look for the owner. Hondo wondered at a city that would just let him enter without a search or even a question about his intentions. He supposed the doctor was well known to guardsmen who might occasionally need a wound tended. Perhaps, too, the sort of men who drifted into a logging camp were not always the most upright of citizens.

  It was still a strange feeling, to stand in Darien at last. Hondo dismounted onto flat-cut cobbles, neat work by the look of it. The yard looked well kept, with a small fountain in the middle and a cup that was held by a piece of rope. Hondo used it to drink the dust from his throat, though he thought the water had a taste of iron in it. A few horses nosed from the stable doors, watching the new arrivals. Hondo and the twin exchanged a glance, though Je was blank with grief.

  ‘Can you put your hurt aside for a time?’ Hondo asked softly. ‘I need to know you are able to finish the task we were given.’

  The twin nodded.

  ‘Find Tellius,’ Je said in a whisper. ‘Bring him home.’

  It was not a command – he would not have dared give an order to a sword saint. The words were the last the young king had spoken to them. Je’s eyes were bleak and utterly cold, but Hondo found the remembered words reassuring. The twins had not been sent west for their charm, but because they were ruthless killers. He needed that focus. No matter the death of one of their number, or whether Bosin survived or not, they still had the task they had been given.

  Hondo wrinkled his nose as a faint smell of rot wafted out from the cart. The cold had helped preserve the twin, but the city was warmer around them and another need presented itself. They had to discover how the people of Darien dealt with the dead – and urgently.

  Gabriel felt Marias huddle closer behind him. They’d all wrapped themselves in furs and blankets until they were just shambling figures, staggering onward and upward, step by step. The path had been clear at first, if cold. Gabriel had pushed the others on, though Sanjin limped and cursed, saying he’d lose the foot when it froze. Gabriel privately agreed that would be the case, though he was no longer sure. Sanjin wore an expression of bitter joy when he thought he was unobserved.

  They’d rested where the headman had told them to stop for the night, in a cleft high up on the slopes that offered at least some shelter from the gale. The poor man had been almost in tears when he’d heard they were leaving, pleading with them to wait until spring. He’d offered to keep Marias and Lord Ran while the others went on, but Gabriel had refused.

  In the darkness, snow had come whirling down upon them, burying the rocks that made their shelter, so that in the morning they had to kick and shovel snow just to get out onto a pristine new surface. There was no longer any path to be seen and the peaks were impossibly far. Gabriel knew the cleft he wanted was much lower down, but it was too easy to imagine missing the route to Horse Skulls pass.

  The morning was clear enough, but the sky whitened above them and new snow fell as they trudged upwards, each step muffled in a hiss of flakes. It was near impossible to see where they were heading and yet they did not stop. At intervals, Gabriel would turn a full circle and then point in the right direction. He was not certain the pulse could be used in that way, but there was no other choice. The cold had begun to reach through whatever defences he’d won from the stone, so that he shivered and had to clench his jaw. Marias walked in his shadow with her eyes closed or her face hidden in the crook of her arm. Lord Ran … Gabriel had to admit the older man was failing. The nobleman fell often and it seemed to take longer and longer for him to rise. Lord Ran seemed to have lost any desire to live. Gabriel had even taken time to explain what he knew of the grey place that awaited them, hoping it would give the lord new heart. Yet the man was past caring.

  Sanjin complained bitterly that the cold was ruining his leg, that he would find ice there and have to cut it before it rotted and killed him. The voice was a litany, but it did not grow weaker. It took Gabriel until the second afternoon to see the man was not suffering as much as he claimed to be. They were all panting by then, heading up a slope so steep they had to put their gloved hands to the ground and climb. Yet Sanjin was humming to himself as he went.

  Gabriel waited for him to catch up. As the wind howled and snow whipped around them, he drew the sword he had taken from the hand of a dead king.

  Sanjin looked up, sensing the stillness of the figure above him. His eyes widened when he saw the bare blade.

  ‘What is it?’ Sajin demanded. ‘A bear? What?’

  ‘You are not cold, Sanjin,’ Gabriel said over the wind. ‘You are not shivering.’

  ‘What do you mean? I am freezing …’ Sanjin gave up his protest and grinned. ‘All right, Gabriel, what of it? I found a way to use what lies within me. Just as you did.’

  ‘I gave Thomas his eyes,’ Gabriel snapped. ‘I did what I could for you …’

  ‘Not enough!’ Sanjin replied, instantly angry. ‘I have not known a single day without agony since I returned. Without bleeding and stink and rot! And I could do nothing, while you …’ His voice became a growl. ‘You made yourself a king, in a body you stole, just as I did.’

  ‘And I have overreached, Sanjin! Do you unders
tand? Whatever faults you see in me can wait for later. The cold, the wind – it is too much. We will not survive this place.’

  ‘I will,’ Sanjin replied, with a shrug. ‘I can walk right over the pass and down to the plains beyond. Even on this half-foot, I can.’

  Gabriel saw ugly triumph in the man, but he had another card to play.

  ‘And what of Lord Ran? If he dies, how will you seek out the other stones that call to us? How will you use them if you find them? Lord Ran is the one who drew us back, Sanjin. There is no one else! Yet he is almost dead on his feet. I thought we could push through with our strength, but the pass is buried so deeply, it will take an age to dig it out. Lord Ran will not last another night up here. No matter what you feel about me, if he dies, you are done.’

  Gabriel waited, though every moment of stillness brought cold further into his bones. He saw both Marias and Lord Ran were pale, with death riding on them. He would have prayed, but there had been no one in the grey land to hear.

  Sanjin swore.

  ‘Damn you,’ he said. ‘Very well.’

  He closed his eyes and Gabriel felt the change immediately. Warmth washed over him and he cried out in surprise. It grew hotter, so that he was uncomfortable in instants, where before he had been freezing to death. He saw Marias open her eyes in wonder and stretch out from her crouch.

  The wind still howled, but the snow melted under their steps. Sanjin was steaming with the flakes that landed on him, his eyes glittering as he pressed forward.

  ‘Well? Walk then!’ he said.

  Thomas and the Fool brought up the rear, while Marias and Lord Ran fell in behind him, basking in a warmth that slowly brought life back to their limbs. Even the wind died around them then, so that they walked in perfect stillness, with only the sound of steps and panting breath. Thomas began to laugh, in something like awe. Gabriel watched as rock revealed itself beneath their feet, a flat place. Ahead, snow crumpled back to reveal a horse skull on a pole, the eyes empty. He nodded in relief, sheathing his sword and taking up a shovel as the way cleared before him and the storm swirled impotently overhead.

  Taeshin felt himself shudder, though he was not cold. Nor was he hungry, though he had watched the battles on the plain for too many days to remember, over and over. At first, he had not dared leave the spot by the stone at the hill’s peak. The others had trooped down and he’d seen them take up weapons and shields and join the lines of soldiers marching. He did not want to go with them and so he had stayed.

  Yet as time passed, he’d crept forward to watch the battles, always afraid of some nameless pull that might tug him into the ranks, or steal away his sense of who he was. Yet he could not abandon Marias, not to the cruelty of the man who had killed him. Taeshin frowned at the thought.

  He’d had nothing but time to think. He did not sleep or eat or do anything but watch the battles and dream of crossing a snowfield and a high pass in winter. He dreamed one of his companions walked with flame in his veins, so that ice melted before him. Another made the gale bend, the air itself bowing to his will. Taeshin felt the joy of it, even there, in the grey land. The sun he had seen was the only splash of colour in his entire world and Taeshin relished it.

  When he looked up, he was standing at the edge of the battle. One or two of the men saw him there. They glanced over as they picked up their shields, ready to march.

  ‘Come on, lad,’ one of them said gruffly.

  Taeshin’s gaze dropped. At his feet lay a shield. He knew if he picked it up, he would be one of them. His fears would drift away like smoke and he would walk with friends against an evil foe. He would have purpose, with no more strange dreams, no more aimless sense of loss.

  He bent low and his fingers brushed a surface of brass. The desire to let it all go was almost unbearable, but then he thought once more of Marias. He would not let them hurt her. He rose empty-handed as the lines made ready to march, rank upon rank stretching into the distance. Each man looked ahead, in hope, to the battle to come.

  Taeshin watched as the king rode along the line. The horseman was a man in his prime, with a helmet set with a gold circlet, prickly as thorns. He carried a great sword in his hand and he was broad enough to wield it. Taeshin had seen the king make that same ride many times. Sometimes he was killed, while on other days the king was there to declare the victory. It never seemed to matter which it had been. Taeshin stared as the man rode to within a dozen yards of him.

  ‘Highness!’ he called, suddenly. ‘Your Majesty!’

  If the king heard, he did not look over. Instead, he raised his hand in the air and dropped it, while those behind crashed into movement. Before them, another army came out of the dust, ready to defend or to destroy, again and again, for ever.

  15

  The Red Inn

  Hondo stood when the stranger entered. They had been given the largest room in the Red Inn, with clean sheets and hot water steaming in a bowl on the dresser. It seemed the owner had been a soldier in a previous life. Basker had seen injuries before and sent a boy running off down the street as soon as he saw Bosin dragged in by the other three.

  Doctor Adams entered behind. He shut the door firmly and nodded to Hondo and the twin.

  ‘This gentleman is Master Physician Burroughs,’ he said.

  Hondo noted the doctor to a logging camp was in awe of the newcomer. Hondo bowed to one of high status on instinct. As he rose, he saw Burroughs was slightly flushed, his hand still outstretched. Hondo took it, gripping too hard so that the man winced. He bowed again, embarrassed.

  ‘And you are …?’ Burroughs said, a note of impatience in his voice.

  ‘Hondo LuTse of Shiang,’ Hondo replied. ‘My companion is Master Je Saon. Thank you for coming … I …’ He broke off.

  ‘So this is the patient …’ Burroughs said.

  Without waiting for an answer, he crossed to where Bosin lay stretched out on a double bed. With Adams and a flustered Hondo looking on, the man cut through the crude wrappings with scissors and then eased the dressings away from the skin. Hondo watched him smell the wounds and nod. He tried not to think how close he had come to telling the doctor exactly who they were and why they were in Darien.

  ‘Not terrible. Fair bit of pus, but clean pus,’ Burroughs said.

  Adams nodded, looking relieved.

  ‘Master Burroughs was on hand in the hospital when Basker’s lad came in. We’re very lucky to have him.’

  ‘All right, John, don’t drown me in all that butter. How’s my sister these days?’

  ‘Very well. She asks after you.’

  ‘There’s always a place for her husband in the public wards, if he changes his mind. Or if she’d prefer to stop living in a hut in the middle of a forest.’

  ‘We move with the loggers, Master Burroughs. And we have no regrets. Those men need someone to tend them, perhaps more than most.’

  The physician looked over his shoulder with a wry expression, judging Adams with his eyebrows raised. He saw no weakness there and sighed, turning back to his task.

  ‘As you say. Still, tell her I miss her and that she could visit once in a while.’

  He went back to his probing, then frowned, turning to Hondo.

  ‘Bring that lamp over, would you? I can’t see a thing in this light.’

  Hondo hesitated, but in that place, the man’s authority was as absolute as that of any king. He had not missed seeing how Adams deferred to him. Hondo bowed and gathered up the lamp, feeling out of his depth. In a duel, or in the royal court, he knew his status and the correct manners without thought. Here, he was lost. He was aware he needed a wash and a shave, as well as new clothes and a good night’s sleep. Hondo allowed the doctor to adjust his grip and the angle of the oil lamp, so that the light fell exactly as he wanted it to but the hot oil didn’t spill.

  ‘There, that’s perfect. Can you hold it still?’ Burroughs asked without looking up.

  Hondo nodded.

  ‘I believe so.’ He had held a
sword motionless for thousands of hours in his youth, building strength in his forearms. In comparison to that, an oil lamp was not so great a burden.

  Hondo watched as Burroughs produced a set of tools from a case made of fine-grained leather. Each one was dipped into a glass of clear spirit. Hondo watched everything, determined to learn all he could. The man was not particularly fit, Hondo had decided, though his hands were steady and moved as if they belonged to another. They took up tools with a certainty of grip he recognised.

  ‘Did you make the tongs yourself?’ Hondo asked suddenly.

  Burroughs was manipulating something beneath the surface and looked up in surprise.

  ‘No, though they were fitted for me. I have had them since my first year of residency. I have a fascination for the finest steel.’

  The doctor’s glance dropped to the sword laid at Bosin’s side, a scabbard of dark blue enamel topped in a long hilt that had been ruined by mud and blood. Hondo knew it would have to be replaced, though the hilt was nothing. Only the rippled blade mattered. He saw the doctor’s interest and glanced at the twin, Je, who watched the exchange. Je gave an imperceptible nod, granting permission.

  ‘This one is still owned, but if you save this man, I will make a gift of one that is its equal.’

  ‘I would have treated this man anyway,’ Burroughs said, ‘but I won’t refuse the gift either. Isn’t it bad manners to refuse? I have never met someone from Shiang.’

  Hondo blinked. The man missed very little, it seemed.

  ‘Never?’ he asked.

  The doctor did not reply immediately. With a long pair of tongs in one hand and a rod of polished steel in the other, he reached deep into Bosin’s side, right down the passage of a bullet. With a dull click, he gripped something in the flesh and slowly pulled it back to the air. He held up the bloody bullet to show to Hondo.

  ‘There’s one. Damn these things. Three or four years ago, I’d never seen anything like it. Now, they are too common. They are a pestilence – and one thing is always true. You have to get the bullet out or the patient dies. No matter where it is lodged or the damage you have to do to reach it. If it doesn’t go straight through, we lose half our patients cutting deep enough to fetch it, or to the fevers that follow. It is a nasty business.’