The Place of Dead Kings

by Geoffrey Wilson

  Jack constantly passed through sattva streams, each one seemingly stronger than the last. His skin rippled, his scalp tingled and the sweet scent burnt his nostrils and the back of his throat.

  About twenty minutes after leaving the village, they came to a shallow river where the water rushed and danced over stones. Cormac said a prayer to a monster who lurked within, and then they splashed across and set off up a hill. They paused twice in the next hour, once to say a prayer outside a grove of trees and another time to bow and chant to the moon when it sailed free of the cloud for a few minutes.

  After an hour and a half, Jack noticed the pain beating in his chest and his breathing growing more shallow. Rao wheezed and tripped at times on rocks and clumps of heather. Jack was considering demanding a rest stop, when the Mar ahead of him suddenly halted, dropped to their knees and slipped behind a gorse bush. Cormac looked back, put his finger to his lips and gestured frantically for Jack and Rao to stay low.

  Christ. What now? A Cattan patrol?

  Jack and Rao jogged silently across to the Mar. Cormac had already raised his bow and drawn out an arrow.

  ‘What is it?’ Jack whispered.

  Cormac pressed his finger to his lips again and pointed through the thorny branches of the bush.

  Jack stared hard into the darkness. At first he saw nothing, but then noticed a pale wisp flitting across a stretch of open ground. Gradually, he traced the outline of a deer with a white marking on its back.

  A deer? Was that it? Why were the Mar hunting now?

  Cormac nocked the arrow, drew back the bowstring and stared at the deer, his face like stone. The other Mar watched him intently, their features drawn and grey, as if their lives depended on what happened next.

  Cormac took at least a minute to line up his shot. Jack shifted on his haunches. He was about to say they shouldn’t waste any more time, when Cormac loosed the arrow. The bowstring quivered and sang, and the arrow whistled through the dark.

  The deer jumped, squealed, tripped, then got up again. It tried to run, but kept falling.

  Cormac grinned, tossed aside the bow, sprang out from behind the bush and sprinted across to the deer. His comrades followed, smiling and giving little whoops. The creature flailed on the ground, clambered up and ran a few feet further. Cormac charged at the beast with incredible speed, whipped out his knife, dived on the animal and slit its throat. The deer bucked a few times and then fell still.

  The Mar gathered about Cormac and appeared to jab the fallen creature with their spears.

  ‘What on earth are they doing?’ Rao asked.

  ‘Let’s find out,’ Jack said.

  They walked across and saw the warriors were dipping the ends of their weapons in the dead animal’s blood.

  Cormac raised a red-stained arrow and beamed. ‘Blood give good luck.’

  Jack put his hands on his hips. ‘Is this going to happen all the way to the Place of Dead Kings?’

  ‘No. Just first animal. See first animal on journey. Kill it. Good luck.’

  Jack rolled his eyes and glanced at Rao, who shrugged and said, ‘I needed a break anyway.’

  When the Mar had finished their ritual, they squatted on the ground and rested for a few minutes. They fingered their amulets, muttered prayers and pointed towards a rocky outcrop about two hundred yards away.

  Rao asked Cormac, ‘What are you pointing at?’

  ‘Bad place,’ Cormac said. ‘Evil spirits live there.’

  ‘You see spirits everywhere?’

  Cormac blinked. ‘Of course, Great Shee.’ He waved his arm across the shadowy landscape. ‘Many spirits.’

  Rao gestured at a grove. ‘What about those trees over there?’

  ‘Forest spirit live there. Like old man.’

  ‘And that mountain?’

  ‘Big monster. Lizard.’

  ‘Fascinating. You seem to know every bit of the landscape around here. And every bit is associated with some creature.’

  ‘Aye. Ken all land. All spirits.’ Cormac pressed his hand to his chest. ‘All land in here. In heart. Long time ago, I go south. No see land.’ He opened the palm of his hand as if catching liquid. ‘My heart. Like blood.’

  ‘I think I understand. You suffered when you were away from this place.’

  ‘Aye. We call duthchas. Not ken word in English. Land in heart. When away from land, heart bleeds.’

  Rao sat up straighter and stared into the night. His voice was husky as he spoke. ‘Yes, I believe I do understand. When one is away from one’s home, one’s heart can certainly bleed.’

  ‘I agree with that.’ Jack stood and picked up his scimitar. ‘But we should get moving again. We have to reach the Place of Dead Kings before dawn.’

  They ran on through the night, with the wind streaming over them and the jagged backs of the mountains filing past. In the darkness, the landscape, with its hollows, dells and clefts, seemed to contain endless secrets. As if spirits and monsters really did dwell within the shadows.

  At about five o’clock, Cormac paused them with his hand, crouched and led them to a line of rocks running along the top of a ridge. Jack peered over a boulder and spotted dim figures crossing a valley below. He took the glass from Rao, stared through it and made out the white skull on the men’s tunics.

  ‘Cattans.’ He offered the glass to Cormac.

  Cormac shook his head. ‘No need. I ken Cattans. Many Cattans here near Place of Dead Kings.’

  ‘How far away is it?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Not far. We go slow now.’ Cormac went to stand, then squatted down again. ‘Bad magic starts soon.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This land. Bad magic from Demon. You will see.’

  Cormac stood again and led them to the right, staying below the crest of the ridge.

  Jack followed, looking about him, searching for any sign of Cattans in the dark.

  Bad magic starts soon.

  What was Cormac talking about? Was this just superstition or something more?

  They jogged into a birch forest, which enclosed them in a mist of naked branches. The trees rattled and scraped in the breeze and the damp mulch of leaves underfoot smelt faintly of wine.

  Cormac slowed the pace to a walk and they crept ahead stealthily.

  Jack kept glancing around and couldn’t get it out of his head that there were Cattans waiting nearby with arrows pointed straight at them. They passed into yet another stream and he sensed the sattva rushing around him. His nose ran as the scent scorched his nostrils.

  He noticed Rao sniffing. ‘You smell it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rao said. ‘It’s like the mills back home.’

  One of the Mar gasped and sprang away from the track, slapping at his cloak with his hands. The other two warriors cowered beside a birch.

  Jack’s heart spiked. They were under attack. He tore the scimitar from his belt, slipped to the side of the path and scoured the darkness for enemies. Rao gave a small yelp and scrambled across to him.

  But Jack saw nothing. Heard no sound.

  Then Rao nudged him and pointed at the Mar. ‘Look.’

  Cormac stood about twenty feet away, staring at what looked like a tiny star drifting down from the treetops. The speck gave off a silver glow and made a faint tinkling sound as it descended. Cormac’s eyes were wide and his mouth half open, while the crouching Mar warriors’ faces were stricken with terror. The light made the lines on their faces appear deeper and cast their skin a sickly white.

  Jack frowned. What the hell was that?

  He took a few steps up the track. The shining dot was now level with Cormac’s head. Up close, Jack could see it was like a flake of snow or scrap of tissue. And it smelt so strongly of sattva it made him reel.

  The thing spun to the ground and melted into the leaf litter, disappearing completely.

  One of the Mar cried out. Another speck had fallen on his cloak and he shook it off. Looking around, Jack saw more of the things twirling down, some
overhead, some further up the track, some far off in the depths of the forest, where they lit up the tangled branches and gnarled trunks.

  ‘Bad magic,’ Cormac said. ‘I see before.’

  ‘I’ve seen it before too.’ Rao’s boots crunched as he walked up the track. ‘There was an accident at a mill once, near where I lived as a child. I saw these that night. It’s a kind of ash.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. We were told to stay indoors and not touch them, but I put my hand out of a window and grabbed them anyway.’

  Jack looked up and saw thousands of shining fragments floating down, as if the heavens were falling. ‘Looks like we’re not going to be able to avoid the stuff anyway. Let’s go.’

  Cormac led the way on through the woods. The ghostly ash continued to spin down, the Mar flinching each time a fragment touched them. The smell of sattva grew stronger and Jack detected something else – coal smoke.

  After half an hour, they climbed out of the forest, clambered up a steep scarp and reached a stand of trees that ran along the summit. The Mar reached the other side of the woods first and stood pointing down the far side of the hill, gasping and talking agitatedly.

  When Jack reached them, he almost tripped backwards in surprise at what he saw.

  Below him, a slope rolled down to a valley, in the centre of which rose a low, flat-topped hill. A dark building squatted like a spider on the summit. A swarm of turrets and spires jutted up from the structure, while a series of chimneys belched grey smoke and streams of luminous ash. The million pinpricks of light sailed like dandelion seeds across the valley, drifting to the ground or wafting away over the surrounding hills.

  Jack blinked repeatedly as a wall of sattva stung his eyes.

  The Mar crossed themselves, mumbled prayers and fiddled with their amulets.

  Cormac pointed at the building. ‘Place of Dead Kings. Under hill bury kings.’

  ‘Shiva,’ Rao said softly. ‘I wasn’t expecting something like that.’

  ‘What is it? A mill?’ Jack said.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Rao peered through the glass. ‘Something like a mill. Take a look.’

  Jack gripped the glass and swept it over to the central hill. A tangle of stonework and blackened pipes seethed before him. The walls appeared to be the remains of an ancient castle, but over these squirmed tubes covered in soot. Jagged towers, also a combination of aging stone and iron, rose from the middle of the building. Clouds of smoke, steam and glimmering ash swirled about the structure, almost completely obscuring it at times.

  Jack lowered the glass. ‘Mahajan’s been busy.’

  ‘Indeed.’ A flake of shining ash drifted near Rao and lit up his face for a moment. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘We have to get into that castle and take a look around. Saleem and Parihar must be in there somewhere. If they’re not, then I don’t know where we’ll find them.’

  ‘I could go. Talk to Mahajan.’

  ‘And then you might end up captured too. No, we have to be careful. Sneak in somehow.’

  Jack peered through the glass again and searched the valley floor. It was difficult to make anything out, but he did spot pale lines, which appeared to be tracks or roads, with bands of Cattans patrolling along them. He lowered the glass and glanced at the sky. A trace of dawn was spreading behind the mountains. ‘It’ll be light soon. The Cattans will see us straight away if we go down into that valley now. There’s nowhere to hide there.’

  ‘So, we wait until tonight?’ Rao asked.

  Jack rubbed his chin. ‘We might have to. Don’t like to leave it so long, though.’

  Cormac grasped Jack’s arm and pressed his finger to his lips. He pointed into the trees behind him.

  Jack peered into the darkness and listened carefully. He saw nothing, but heard the distinct crackle of footsteps on leaves and twigs.

  His heart quivered. Had they been seen?

  ‘Down,’ he hissed.

  They all crouched low.

  Jack cocked his head. The footsteps were around twenty yards away. About thirty people. Wearing the hide shoes of the natives.

  The Mar inched their way silently to a low boulder and stared over the top. Jack followed, with Rao behind him. The Captain trod on a fallen branch and made a scuffling noise. The Mar flinched and Jack froze. But the footsteps continued as before.

  Jack crept up beside Cormac and edged his head over the rock. Below, he saw a short slope, at the bottom of which marched a column of savages. The figures were hard to make out as they passed through the dappled shadows of the woods. At first he thought they were Cattans, but none of them bore the white skull on their clothing and none appeared to be carrying weapons. They wore their cloaks lifted high and folded over their heads like cowls, which made them look strange and misshapen in the dim light.

  Jack shot a questioning look at Cormac.

  ‘Not Cattans,’ Cormac whispered. He lowered his head and tightened his jaw. ‘They Mar.’

  ‘What are they doing here?’

  Cormac’s eyes flashed. ‘Traitors.’

  ‘You said the Mar don’t work for the Demon.’

  ‘No. None work. But some now come worship.’

  ‘Worship?’

  ‘Demon say he sent by God. Some begin believe. Every few weeks come castle and worship.’

  Interesting. An idea was occurring to Jack. ‘Are these worshippers let into the castle?’

  Cormac spoke to one of the Mar warriors, then said to Jack, ‘He say worshipper go in castle. Met one man once who go in.’

  ‘Good. We’ll pretend to be worshippers, then.’

  The Mar warrior tugged Cormac’s cloak and spoke again. Cormac nodded and said to Jack, ‘Dangerous. They search for weapon.’

  Jack sat back. ‘We’ll be careful, then. No weapons.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Rao said. ‘If the Cattans get suspicious, we won’t be able to defend ourselves.’

  ‘Don’t see what other option we have at the moment.’

  Jack looked down the hill. The light was steadily brightening and it was easy to make out the group of Mar worshippers, who were now almost a third of the way down the incline.

  ‘Look.’ Cormac pointed to his right.

  About fifty savages were winding their way down another hillside. When Jack checked through the glass, he saw they were also worshippers. He searched and spotted other groups making their way across more distant hills. ‘There must be a few hundred on their way. We’ll blend in easily.’

  Several clusters of Mar had already reached the valley floor. Jack observed them through the glass and saw they were sitting down, as if waiting for something.

  ‘Worship later,’ Cormac said. ‘Open castle gate when sun going down.’

  Jack crouched again. Damn, so they would have to wait for nightfall after all. But there was nothing he could do about that. ‘We’ll stay here, then. But later this afternoon we have to get down into that valley. We have to be ready when they open the gates.’

  They remained hidden through the day, taking turns to sleep and keep watch. Finally, Cormac shook them all awake as the sun was lowering and the giant claws of the shadows were reaching across the valley.

  It was time. But Jack knew he couldn’t walk into the castle dressed as he was. His tunic was the wrong style and too finely stitched. He could change his clothes, but Rao presented an even greater problem.

  ‘I can remove my turban,’ Rao said. ‘Perhaps take off my boots and borrow someone’s shoes.’

  Cormac shook his head. ‘Brown skin.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Jack said. ‘There’s no way you can pass for a Scot. Even with a cloak over your head.’

  ‘Perhaps Great Shee have magic change skin?’ Cormac said.

  Jack smiled wryly. ‘That would be a good power. But no, unfortunately the Great Shee can’t do that.’ He turned to Rao and said in Arabic. ‘You’ll have to stay here.’

  Rao’
s moustache tightened. ‘I object. I want to rescue our friends as much as you do.’

  ‘It’s impossible—’

  ‘I am in charge of this mission.’

  Jack snorted. He was about to say something sarcastic but held back. ‘Look, I understand what you’re saying, but you’d put us all in danger.’

  Rao’s moustache rippled and his eyes quivered. Finally, he nodded. ‘Very well. I suppose you’re right.’

  Jack switched back to English and included Cormac in the conversation. ‘The Great Shee will stay, plus three others. I want only one person coming with me. We can’t risk too many of us getting caught. The rest will stay here and take word to the village if we don’t come back.’

  ‘I will come,’ Cormac said quickly.

  Jack nodded. ‘Good.’

  Cormac explained the plan to the Mar warriors, who seemed to raise some objections at first, but were eventually convinced.

  Jack wrenched off his boots and slid down his hose – he had to have naked legs if he were going to pass for a Mar. He swapped clothes with one of the warriors and slipped on the man’s tunic and hide shoes. Finally, he slung the heavy woollen cloak over his shoulders and fastened it at his neck with a metal brooch. The cloak smelt of old sweat and wood smoke. But it was warm. Surprisingly warm.

  He handed his scimitar and knife to Rao. He would have liked to take the knife with him, but it would be too difficult to conceal.

  He put his hand on Rao’s shoulder. ‘If we’re not back by midnight, go to the village and tell them what happened. Then get back to Dun Fries as best you can.’

  Rao stood up straighter and raised his chin. ‘I will not leave a comrade behind. If you don’t return, I shall come to find you.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous for you to go in there.’

  ‘I would reason with Mahajan.’

  Jack lifted an eyebrow. ‘Somehow he doesn’t sound like the type who’ll listen to reason.’

  ‘I would do my best.’