Warrior of Golmeira

by Marianne Ratcliffe

  ‘It’s hard to betray anyone when you are dead,’ Ithgol said bluntly. ‘Or worse.’

  He shot a glance towards Jelgar’s attendants, cowering in the background. They failed, Zastra realised.

  ‘No Kyrg should be willing to serve a leader who cannot face the Warrior,’ Jelgar said. ‘Let her fate determine yours. If she succeeds, you will no longer be Mordaka.’

  ‘I accept,’ said Zastra quickly, as Ithgol looked about to protest.

  ‘Time is short,’ said Lungrid. ‘You begin the journey tomorrow. Tonight, you will meditate.

  Zastra was taken to a tiny rondavel, set aside from the others. It had no windows and a fur-lined curtain hung inside the canvas door, blocking out the light. Voghal brought a bundle and a candle that gave off a faint scent of fruit and placed it in yet another empty fireplace. An attendant brought a tray of food.

  ‘Thank you,’ Zastra said, ‘but I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Eat,’ said Voghal. ‘You may take nothing with you. A Kyrginite must live off the land.’

  Zastra took a dry biscuit and began to nibble at it.

  ‘You are a hunter,’ she said. ‘You’ve been up the Warrior Mountain. What is it like? And what is this wisdom I am supposed to find?’

  ‘I am permitted only to give you this.’

  She presented Zastra with the bundle, which contained clothes, all fur-lined, even the boots. Zastra tried them on. They were slightly too large. Voghal helped her adjust the straps on her coat so it clung to her body and found an extra pair of socks so her feet fitted snugly into the boots.

  ‘What’s this?’ Zastra pulled out a strip of soft, densely woven material. Voghal showed her how to wrap it round her face and neck, leaving only a narrow slit for her eyes.

  ‘To protect your skin,’ she said. ‘If you make it to the top of the Warrior Mountain, you will find an object. You will bring it back. In its place, you must leave something that is precious to you.’

  She presented Zastra with a spear.

  ‘This will be your only weapon. You are allowed no other.’

  Zastra’s confidence was fading rapidly. She could take no food, and how would she hunt without her trusty crossbow?

  ‘I will leave you to meditate on the path that lies ahead.’ Voghal retreated, leaving her alone.

  Great, thought Zastra. All night to worry about everything that can go wrong. She forced herself to eat everything on the tray as it could well be her last square meal for some time. She was about to try to catch some sleep when Lungrid and Ithgol entered. Ithgol seemed determined not to meet her eye.

  ‘Have you chosen your object?’ asked Lungrid. It took Zastra a moment to realise what she meant. She reached into the pocket of her discarded leggings and took out a fragment of a firering. It had been her talisman when she and Findar had been parted. He had a matching piece. Ithgol thrust something into her hands.

  ‘Here,’ he grunted, still not looking at her. The parcel contained dried meat and nuts, hard biscuits and a can of syrup. Enough food for several days. Maybe enough to see her to the top of the Warrior Mountain.

  ‘I thought I wasn’t supposed to take any food?’

  ‘Nobody needs to know about this.’

  It was tempting. Much rested on her succeeding in this quest, and Ithgol’s gift would make it more likely she would survive. With a pang of regret, Zastra returned the parcel to him.

  ‘I cannot accept. The purpose of this quest is to prove I can live like a Kyrginite. It would be wrong to accept special treatment.’

  Ithgol turned to Lungrid.

  ‘I told you she was worthy of our trust.’

  ‘That was a test?’ Zastra’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Ithgol, I didn’t think you were capable of such deviousness.’

  Ithgol flushed.

  ‘The test is part of our ritual,’ said Lungrid. ‘Those without honour are not permitted to sully the slopes of the Warrior.’

  ‘Are you allowed to give advice?’ Zastra asked. ‘Directions, or things to be wary of?’

  ‘As for directions, go upwards,’ said Lungrid bluntly. ‘And be wary of everything. There are a hundred ways to die on the slopes of the Warrior.’

  Chapter Fifty-four

  The driving rain hadn’t let up since they had left Finistron. Even though she was soaked to the skin, Kylen completed her inspection of the encampment, heartened to see pride once more in the faces of her fellow Sendorans. Her army was pitifully small in comparison to the twenty thousand or more that Ixendred could command, but Kylen had no doubts about what they were doing. It felt right, striking back against the forces that had occupied her lands for so long.

  Her first move had been to liberate Finistron. General Alboraz, who had served her father, led the defenders. He had held it for nearly four years, ever since Kylen and Zastra had helped him recapture it. Alboraz seemed pleased to see her.

  ‘We were running low on food,’ he said. ‘This last month, we’ve been eating scrittals.’

  Kylen explained Zastra’s plan.

  ‘You expect us to help resolve a Golmeiran squabble?’

  ‘The fates of our countries lie together. This fight is ours as much as Zastra’s. Besides, isn’t it better to die in battle than live by eating scrittals?’

  Alboraz had been unable to disagree with that and they had left a skeleton force to defend Finistron and marched north, seizing control of any towns and villages in their path. They skirted round the larger fortresses. They hadn’t the time or the numbers to lay sieges, even as their ranks swelled with those they freed from Golmeiran working parties. Kylen began to wonder how she would feed everyone. She commandeered any Golmeiran stores they found, and villagers offered what little they could spare, but even so, she had to put everyone on half rations. It was a concern. A hungry army was weak and easily divided. Beregan suggested they turn south and head for the richer farmlands and cities on the coast. It was where Ixendred was based after all, and Sendor would never be free until his army was defeated. Kylen insisted they stick to Zastra’s plan.

  ‘Although it would help if we could draw Ixendred out,’ she said. Alboraz had a suggestion.

  ‘The autumn jula crop has recently been harvested. There will be thousands of barrels ready to be transported to Golmeira. Ixendred cannot afford to lose something of such value.’

  The Jula Mountains lay to their north. Kylen allowed defeated Golmeiran soldiers to flee rather than capture or kill them. It wasn’t as if they had enough food for prisoners and she hoped the Golmeirans would take word back to Ixendred. She was surprised at how few Kyrgs they encountered, until Alboraz explained that most were stationed with Ixendred at Castanton, or deployed at the most important fortresses.

  ‘Ixendred likes to keep a close eye on his Kyrg allies,’ Alboraz said. ‘Either he doesn’t trust them, or he doesn’t want to waste them on anything that isn’t strategically vital.’

  Kylen was glad of it. Kyrgs made tough opponents and it would do her no good to antagonise those who might soon be their allies.

  As they marched further north, the rain turned to sleet and then to snow. They reached the Jula Mountains, on whose shale covered slopes grew the jula berry trees. The walled town of Kricklend served as the main collection point for the harvest. Kylen halted a day’s march away and sent scouts ahead. The Golmeirans had grown complacent after years of unopposed occupation and there was only a small guard placed on the town gates, with a handful of black ravens in attendance. Kylen and her army closed on the town during the night and she gave the order to attack just as the gates opened for the day. The surprised garrison didn’t even have time to close the gates before they were set upon. The mindweavers in their black robes proved no obstacle. Kylen’s army included plenty of true-blooded Sendorans, resistant to their powers.

  The town secured, Kylen sent scouts to the south and waited. Before long word came that Ixendred had set out from Castanton with a large army.

  ‘This is not a great defensive position,�
�� said Alboraz. ‘The ease of our victory proved that. Your friend Zastra had better be on her way.’

  ‘She’ll be here,’ Kylen said confidently. Although as the snow grew thicker, she couldn’t help looking towards the white peaks of the Northern Wastes. She wondered how much longer the pass would stay open. Where are you, Zastra?

  Chapter Fifty-five

  By Zastra’s reckoning, she wasn’t even halfway up the Warrior Mountain and already she was struggling. Her boots broke through the thin crust on top of the snow and she sank up to her knees. It was like wading through cold porridge. Her heart thundered like a herd of vizzals and never seemed to slow, even when she stopped for a rest. However hard she tried, she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. There was no running water to be found. She tried chewing snow but that only made her teeth ache and did little to quench her thirst. Each time she reached the top of a ridge, the peak of the Warrior frowned back at her, seemingly as far away as ever. Her stomach growled. It had been two days since she hit the snowline and food was as scarce as running water. Earlier that day she had glimpsed a snow hare, hopping across the surface and had flung her spear at it but thanks to her numb fingers, or perhaps her lack of experience with the weapon, the spear had flown harmlessly over the creature. The hare had disappeared and Zastra wasted precious energy ploughing through the soft snow to retrieve her spear. Not a mistake she would repeat.

  In front of her, a cliff of ice rose out of the crumbly snow, glittering in the morning sunlight. There was no way round it unless she retraced her steps to try and find an easier route further round the mountain. Zastra dismissed that idea. If she didn’t return before the pass through the Guardians was cut off for the winter, Kylen and her small band of Sendorans would be stranded, easy prey for Ixendred’s vastly superior army. There was no time for detours. The ice cliff was cracked in places and pockmarked with natural handholds but Zastra didn’t dare remove her mittens. Frostbite was a constant risk. The blade of her spear had jagged edges. Gripping it where the blade joined the shaft, she dug the spear into a crack in the ice. It held, and she began to ascend carefully, using the spear to lever herself up, knowing there was nobody to save her if she fell. Without stopping or looking down, she forced herself to keep moving even as her forearms and biceps began to lock up with the effort. A quarter of the way up the ice fall, a new problem arose. The glare of the sun bouncing off the ice was slowly blinding her, dancing particles of light blurring her vision. Blinking hard did nothing to remove the particles. Eyes closed, she reached upwards with her mittened hand, found a crack and jabbed in her spear into it. Icy air burned her fingers as the serrated blade ripped open her mitten. Clinging to the cliff, Zastra pressed her eyelids together and tried to think. If she continued blindly, she was likely to seriously injure herself, but opening her eyes meant losing what little sight she had left. Risking a quick glance at her surroundings she noticed a shadow cutting across the cliff to her right. Perhaps there the glare wouldn’t be so bad. She crabbed sideways across ice that became increasingly slick. With the sun now directly overhead, the surface was melting. The line of shade was almost within reach, but between her and it was a column of completely smooth ice with no way to climb across safely. She could no longer feel the cold seeping into her damaged mitten. A bad sign. A narrow shelf of rock protruded from the ice below her position, just within the area of shadow. It was a jump she’d be confident of making if she had been starting from solid ground, but the slippery ice gave her very little to push away from. Added to that, the ledge was dusted in ice crystals and would make a treacherous landing site. She flexed her left hand, trying to force blood back into her fingers and weighed up her options, realising quickly that she didn’t have any. She transferred all her weight onto her toes, levered her spear out of the ice cliff, and jumped. Her feet missed the ledge and she flung out her arms in desperation. The tips of her mittened fingers curled round a lip of rock and she clung on grimly as her chin smashed against the ledge and she tasted the warm tang of blood. The spear pinged out of her despairing grip and slid towards the edge of the shelf where it juddered to a stop, the jagged blade hung over the drop. If it fell, she was done for. Without the spear it would be impossible to climb the rest of the cliff.

  Zastra forced herself to take her time. Her legs pumped air as she heaved herself up and onto the ledge, curving her chest away from the spear so as not to dislodge it. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, then reached out slowly to grasp the spear and clutch it to her chest. Her heart refused to stop racing as she lay on her back for a few moments, sucking in air, eyes closed as she flexed the fingers of her left hand to try and regain feeling. That proved unsuccessful, so she levered off a boot, removed one of her two layers of socks and used it to plug the hole in her mitten, blowing onto her fingers until they began to tingle. Her vision cleared now she was in the shade. It was time to start climbing again.

  It took her the rest of the day to reach the top. There was a mere fingernail of red across the eastern sky as Zastra crested the ice cliff. Her arms and legs were shaking from the effort and she was down to the last of her strength. The ground flattened out briefly before rising steeply again. The flat part was solid ice, smooth and treacherous. The wind whistled around the mountain and the temperature had dropped significantly. Zastra skated forward gingerly, using her spear like a crutch its point digging into the frozen ground. At one point she slipped, jarring her knee against the hard surface, and emitted a loud curse. There was nobody to hear. At least her knee still had feeling, unlike her fingers and toes, which had gone numb some while ago. Zastra knew she must find shelter quickly. She slid across the smooth ice and onto a rising slope of windswept rock, hoping to find a cave, or at least a windbreak to cower behind. But the light was fading and her body was shutting down. The strengthening wind crept inside her furs, chilling her to the bone. If she didn’t find shelter soon, she would never survive the night.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Flakes of snow drifted down through the iron grate and landed on Brutila’s frozen cheeks, yet she continued to stare up at the small circle of fading light high above her. Knowing that she was only alive thanks to the food and water brought by Anara was worse than a stab to her gut. The Kyrgs would have left her to starve, but her ex-prisoner visited daily bringing armfuls of furs that had proven only marginally effective in protecting Brutila from the freezing air that sank into the well. The thing that really stung, the thing that for days she refused to acknowledge, was that she had begun to crave Anara’s company. The well was so narrow that when she sat with her back against the curving wall her feet touched the opposite side, and its walls were featureless and dreary. On her first day of imprisonment, she had reached out with her mind, hoping to force an unwary Kyrginite to her will, but a previous addiction to cintara bark had left her powers diminished. Her range was short and the Kyrgs kept their distance. Over recent days, she had even tried to connect with nearby animals to relieve the tedium. She was one of those mindweavers who could sense the thoughts of dumb creatures as well as humans. She had followed a hungry ermine, hunting for roots and then, further away, her mind had touched briefly with a white scrittal as it dug a nest. She quickly pulled her consciousness away. Scrittals were greedy, vicious creatures and she wanted none of them.

  Her eager ears picked out a soft tread crunching on the snow. The grate moved to one side and Anara’s head appeared, outlined against the pure white sky. Brutila buried herself within her mound of blankets and furs, determined not to give into this weakness. She would send Anara away.

  ‘I’ve brought you a brazier,’ Anara said.

  Brutila’s resolution died in an instant, the idea of feeling true warmth too much of a temptation. Something to stop the nightmares that always came with the cold. She shoved aside her cocoon as Anara lowered her offering into the well. The brazier was filled with buckthorn pellets and atop them lay a quarter of a firering.

  ‘Alone today, Anara?’ she asked
roughly, sensing no other minds nearby. Although Findar and Kastara could always be screening. They were talented for ones so young.

  ‘Not everyone values your company as I do.’

  ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ Brutila growled, scraping the fragment of firering against the edge of the brazier to spark the pellets into life.

  ‘I’m sorry. That was not my intention. I will go, if you wish.’

  ‘No!’ The protest shot out of her mouth before Brutila could stop it. Curse this foolishness. She composed herself.

  ‘Why don’t you come down and join me?’ She grinned in the darkness, a smile that Anara returned.

  ‘Give me credit for some intelligence, Brutila.’

  ‘I could use mindweaving to force you. I doubt you are strong enough to resist.’

  Brutila was bluffing. Anara could protect her mind well enough, although in other respects she was a low level mindweaving talent. She couldn’t read the thoughts of others, or control them, although it was said she had unusually strong empathy – a pointless skill as far as Brutila was concerned. Brutila had tried to break down Anara’s mental barriers many times over the years, seeking to understand the game Anara was playing but had always failed.

  ‘The Krygs have instructions to disregard any orders I might give to release you,’ said Anara. ‘Besides, you’ve had plenty of chances to kill me.’

  ‘Thorlberd did not permit it. But now he is dead.’

  ‘Then what’s stopping you?’

  Brutila held her palms close to the glowing brazier. ‘Not worth the effort,’ she muttered.

  Anara lowered a bottle of spiced wine and a pewter tankard down into the well. Brutila pulled the cork with her teeth and tipped half the bottle into the mug.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked. ‘What do you hope to gain? Do not expect gratitude from me.’