“Mia never did anything wrong!” Hurst said in a spurt of anger.
“No, but she was curious about the tunnels, wasn’t she? These secret tunnels that nobody is supposed to know about. And the funeral towers. I think she may have asked too many questions. Or asked the wrong person, maybe.”
“The Karninghold Slave?” Hurst said. “But surely – surely no one would condemn her to this Vortex of a place for such a thing! That would be evil.”
“And what about you?” said Lukannis. “What did you do?”
“Do?” Hurst was bewildered.
Gantor sighed. “Do pay attention, Hurst. Everyone here has been found guilty of – well, some transgression. Except us. Are you going to explain or shall I?”
So Hurst told them how they had broken into the tunnels through the Godstower, and simply walked all the way to the border and beyond.
“So you’re not marked!” Lukannis said, astonished. “You could go back if you wanted.”
“Of course,” said Hurst. “If we can get back up the tunnels.”
“And if they’ll have us back,” said Trimon darkly.
~~~
Hurst’s office was the top floor of the highest tower, but he discovered he had living quarters in another, much lower, tower. When he was first shown there, it was late on his first evening as Commander. After days in his prison cell, the stresses of the trial, his unforeseen reprieve and promotion and a whirlwind tour of his new domain, he had no thought in his head beyond falling into bed.
So he ignored the several doors leading off the landing at the top of the stairs, and took the one pointed out to him as his bedroom. It was poorly furnished, containing only a bed, a couple of small boxes and a chair, but the bed looked clean enough and he had slept in much worse. He undressed, scattering clothes onto the boxes, crawled into bed and was asleep within moments.
Sometime later he half woke to gentle movements of the bed as someone climbed in beside him.
“Are you asleep?” a female voice asked.
“Who are you?” Hurst whispered, and heard a chuckle. And then hands began to touch him.
Now if anyone had asked him if he wanted a little bed play, Hurst would undoubtedly have turned the offer down, thinking of Mia. But his powers of resistance were at a very low ebb and he wasn’t strong-minded enough to refuse a woman determined to have her way, especially when he’d awoken to find the process already underway.
So with no more than a token protest, he lay on his back and allowed his mysterious visitor to do whatever she wanted with him. She stroked him all over, and when he responded in the inevitable way, she took him expertly in hand. After a while, with another throaty chuckle, she tossed the covers aside and straddled him, and soon brought him to a very satisfactory conclusion.
“Who are you?” he said again, but she only laughed.
“Go to sleep, Commander,” she whispered. And he did.
Her name was Mallissa, he discovered the next morning, and she had been Bulraney’s woman and so now she was his. She lived in his rooms, having her own sitting room and lots of cupboards, where she kept her personal supplies of whatever treats she could wangle from the stores. It was her job, it seemed, to look after him.
“I don’t really need a woman all to myself,” he protested, but at once her face fell.
“The Commander always has his own woman,” she pouted. “You can pick one of the others if you like, one of the Captains’ women, and then she comes here and I go there, but if you just send me away, I have to go to the Section House.” She pulled a face. “I like it here, and I’ll do whatever you want. I did for Bulraney.”
She was not much more than twenty, he guessed, a well-rounded woman with pretty features, and he told himself that it was no different from the Companions. Mia was his wife and his love, but while he waited to find her, there was no reason not to sleep with Mallissa. It was not as if she were unwilling, he told himself. And it was surprisingly good to have regular sex again, there was no doubt.
~~~
Ainsley seemed to take a certain pride in Hurst’s sudden elevation in rank, claiming credit for having spotted him the instant he arrived at Third, but Hurst suspected it was partly the Skirmisher in him according him the respect due to a Karningholder, an entirely automatic response. Ainsley had been at Third for less than three years, and a Skirmisher for almost ten years before that, and the training ran deep. So it was Ainsley who, eventually, talked about Mia openly.
“Your wife – she was very ill when she first arrived,” he quietly told Hurst one day when they stood alone at the edge of the training ground.
Hurst immediately turned to him. “Mia? You remember her?”
“Oh yes. Delicate little thing, with hair the colour of autumn leaves. She was ill the whole time in the tunnel – because of the baby. But you know about all that, don’t you? And then when she was recovering, Bulraney stupidly wouldn’t let anyone near her. Put her down in the kitchens. I think that was why – you see, it takes a long time to travel the whole way. I came from the Ring and it was about ten days.”
“Took us weeks,” grumbled Hurst.
“You were walking it, but most people come in the carriers. It’s quite quick. But it’s long enough for the guide to explain everything. You have time to adjust. But she didn’t have that – your wife. So when she came to be assigned, she was spitting fire. ‘Slavery’s illegal’ – that’s what she said. And she asked to be sent back – to her ‘place in the world’. Bulraney would have wrung her neck if he could. It was so funny – this tiny little woman standing up to him! But the Warlord – he said he liked a woman with spirit.”
“He took her with him, then? Back to – Sixth, isn’t it?”
“Near there, yes. But – you don’t need to worry, he’ll treat her well. All the women are treated well.”
“Apart from being slaves,” Hurst said with asperity.
“They’re no more slaves than any of us,” Ainsley said sharply.
“What about the rest of them? Her Companions, the others before that?”
“They’ve all gone. It’s policy to split up groups who know each other, so no one gets too attached to anyone. Are you going to try to find all of them? Or just – your wife?”
“No idea at the moment. I confess I never had a plan beyond finding Mia. I just assumed, I suppose, that once I found her, everything would fall into place. But it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it?”
Ainsley just nodded. Then he hesitated, and looked sideways at Hurst. “The one you killed with the blue arrow – you didn’t like him much, then?”
“I liked him well enough, I suppose,” Hurst answered. “It wasn’t personal, just – awkward. Why?”
“Because – he had a bad time here actually. He took a dislike to Bulraney, and that was never a good idea.”
“What happened?”
“He was like you, in some ways – this air of confidence you all have. So he started bleating about the right way to do this and that, and how he was going to challenge Bulraney, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. Thought he knew better.”
“That sounds like Jonnor,” said Hurst wryly.
“So one day, there was some minor infraction – I have a feeling Bulraney just made it up actually, because the poor fellow protested up and down he’d done nothing. Bulraney had him flogged and sent to Supplies.”
“Gods!” said Hurst, horrified.
“He’ll probably be fine there, I daresay, and we have all the proper stuff – for dealing with infections and so forth. He’ll be fine, I’m sure.” But he couldn’t quite look Hurst in the eye. “Anyway – that’s why I warned you about Bulraney. He’s not the sort of man you cross.”
“As I discovered. And I appreciated the advice, Captain. Should have paid it more attention.”
“You’re most welcome, Commander. And it worked out well enough, in the end.”
~~~
Hurst began to settle into his new role, althoug
h at the back of his mind was the conviction that he would not be there long. And yet, he couldn’t quite work out how best to proceed. Mia was gone, in fact all of them – Tella, Jonnor, Mia and all their Companions – were gone, and he had no power to bring them back. He had no idea where most of them had been sent, and even if he did, there was no assurance that they were still there. Or even alive, he thought uneasily, remembering Jonnor. A flogging at Bulraney’s orders was no trivial affair. Nevertheless, he was beginning to formulate a plan for approaching the Warlord and asking him directly about Mia, when events took a more threatening turn.
He was dressing one morning when a bell began clanging from somewhere outside. It was not the tinny sound of the canteen bell, or the clamour of the gate bell announcing arrivals. This was a sonorous affair, a large stately bell swung with determined rhythm. He opened the bedroom door to find Mallissa, almost bumping into her on the landing above the stairs, her arms filled with clothes and, incongruously, a small sword.
“Whatever is that noise?” he said.
“Alarm bell,” she said shortly, puffing to the stairs and starting downwards. Then she turned and looked him up and down. “Better get your battle gear on.”
“Where are you going?”
“Tunnels. Warriors to the walls, everyone else to the tunnels. Better get moving, Commander.” And she was gone.
Instead, he went through to her sitting room, which faced west, the most likely direction for a threat. Sure enough, there was a cloud of dust on the horizon. He had no means to determine whether it was an army or just kishorn, but he guessed that someone else had and would hardly sound the alarm for kishorn.
“Well, Trimon, it looks like they haven’t forgiven you for your accuracy with a fire arrow,” he muttered, and went back to the bedroom to find his battle gear.
By the time he got to the west-facing wall, Trimon was already shouting instructions at his archers amidst a dense crowd of swordsmen hustling for vantage points, and the dust cloud was closer and obviously not kishorn. Through the dust were glimmers of metallic weaponry, and Hurst caught glimpses of banners here and there. He turned to look back over the compound with an appraising eye. The main buildings were brick or stone, but there were many outbuildings with reed-thatched roofs vulnerable to fire. He called his Captains to him.
“Heddizan, I only need your group here. Ainsley, you’re down in the yard defending the gate. Gronnash, your men are watching the other three walls, in case they try to go round the back.”
“What about me?” Walst asked eagerly.
“You’re organising the fire watch.” His face fell. “Look, fire’s the biggest risk, they’re likely to want their revenge for Trimon burning their precious fort. Water all the roofs, fill as many buckets as you can from the wells. Anyone able-bodied can help. Drag them out of the tunnels if you need to.”
Walst looked gloomy, but he tore off at once, shouting orders to his men.
Gantor raised an eyebrow.
“Well, he’d be a liability on the wall,” Hurst shrugged. “Too eager to start fighting. He’s better down below, where he’s got space to swing his sword. Anyway, that’s where the action’s going to be. It won’t take them long to overrun us.”
Gantor nodded. They both knew the odds. Cassinor Annamost had fifteen hundred battle-hardened Skirmishers at his disposal, whereas they had no more than a hundred ill-trained apprentice blacksmiths and plough boys.
“Once the gate falls,” Gantor said, “this lot will all retreat to the tunnels and seal themselves in. What will you do?” But Hurst had no answer to that.
The morning wore away and the dust cloud slowly drew nearer and resolved itself into organised groups of men, who then stopped and began to form into camps.
“Not as many as I’d feared,” Gantor murmured. “Five Hundreds, I make it.”
“Still more than enough,” Hurst said. “The question is what they want to achieve. Do they intend to wipe us off the plains altogether? Or will they just burn the compound, but let us escape? Or maybe they only want to have a little warning skirmish to flex their muscles and then go home.”
Gantor was silent.
Hurst ordered small groups at a time to eat, and as noon passed by he went himself to find food. There was little enough left. The leavings from the morning meal had been picked clean, last night’s roast kishorn was nothing but bones on the spit and a barrel of dried meat was almost empty. Hurst took a few strips and some dried crusts of bread. By the time he got back to the wall, he found the watchers in a state of high excitement.
“They’re coming!” someone yelled at him, skittering down the steps three at a time and racing across the compound.
He climbed the stairs without haste, knowing that Gantor would alert him to any urgent situation. He gained the top of the wall, and warriors stood aside to let him through. The archers were all in position, arrows nocked, ready to fire. As soon as he could see, he understood. A small group of riders had moved towards them, away from the main army, although the dust they kicked up made it hard to count them. Their banners strained on their poles, but the wind was from the east, so Hurst couldn’t see them. He hardly needed to, for surely it was Cassinor, or some of his family.
Walst was still manning the fire buckets down below, but Gantor and Trimon stood silently beside him on the wall. Hurst knew what they were thinking – they could simply walk out to meet the Karningers and return to their own people, leaving these barbarians behind. But that would mean abandoning Mia, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared to do that. On the other hand, was he prepared to fight and die as a barbarian? He had gone into battle with them, but then he’d hardly had a choice at the time. This was different, for there was more than one possibility – he could walk away himself, he could surrender the entire compound or he could hide in the tunnels like a coward. Or he could fight his own people. But then they were all his own people, weren’t they? Those camped in front of him, and those beside him – all of them were Karningers. He sighed, and Gantor threw him an amused glance.
“You do get us into some interesting situations,” he murmured.
The riders stopped, just beyond arrow range. For a while they simply stood, immobile, while the dust settled around them. Then they raised a signal pole.
“Fucking Vortices,” said Trimon, but Gantor just laughed.
“Open the gate!” Hurst yelled down, and prepared to race down the stairs, but to his surprise Heddizan materialised in front of him and drew his sword.
“Can’t allow you to do that,” he said firmly. Gronnash appeared too, brandishing his spear.
“But—”
“Takes three of us to order the gate open, and we’ll kill you rather than allow you to open up to the enemy.”
“No, it’s all right, I know these people—”
“Daresay you do, but still no deal.”
Hurst stopped and took a long breath. “I’m not letting them in, I just want you to let me out, that’s all.”
“You’re going out there? Alone?”
“Alone. They won’t hurt me.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because one of them is my father.”
One gate creaked open a few inches and Hurst squeezed through. Instantly it slammed shut behind him. Then he set off to walk towards the cluster of riders, a distance that had seemed nothing at all from the top of the wall, but now seemed vast. There was one good thing, he thought as he made his way there, about having a bad leg – it made his odd mixture of limp and rolling gait instantly recognisable even from a distance. Long before he had reached the group, several of them had dismounted, awaiting him, although none risked venturing closer to the walls and the archers atop them. But as he drew close, one figure emerged and came towards him, arms outstretched.
Tanist beamed at him. “Hurst! You have no idea how glad I am to find you at last!”
“Not nearly as glad as I am to see you. What took you so long?”
And then
they were laughing and hugging and laughing again.
Apart from Tanist, Bernast was there too, and Cassinor had sent one of the junior husbands, Hilligor, as well as some of his own men. Mannigor was with them, too, the boy Hurst had spared on the battle field. A gaggle of Companions accompanied them. But they had barely made the introductions before a scout came galloping up.
“Beg pardon, Commander Sir,” he said to Hilligor, “but there’s a small group of riders come down the track from the north. They’re hiding in bushes about a mile from here.”
“How many?” asked Hilligor.
“Eight, Sir, with two pack horses in addition.”
“Would they be from your camp, Commander?” Hilligor asked Hurst.
“No, I don’t think so. There’s no one out just now, no hunting parties. Most likely they’re from one of the other Sections, just passing through. They saw you, I daresay, and thought to hide until it’s dark.”
“Well, we have no wish to interfere with these people,” Hilligor said with a shrug, “but they’re safer elsewhere. Shall we go and tell them to be on their way?”
One of the Companions gave up his horse to Hurst, and most of the group wheeled off to the north to find the hidden riders. They were not, as it happened, very well hidden at all, for there were no trees here and nothing but straggly bushes and long grass which covered the humans but left the horses all too visible. There was a sudden flurry of activity when they saw that they were about to have visitors. But Hurst recognised the Warlord’s horse. Signalling the rest to hold back, he spurred his own beast forward to intercept him before he could mount and ride off.
“Wait! Wait!” he called. “It’s all right!”
The Warlord spun round to face him, and then, with some abrupt orders to the rest of his group, he moved forward towards Hurst, stopping a short distance away.
“Commander? What is all this?”
“Oh – long story. But they mean us no harm, and you should be part of this. Won’t you come and hear what they have to say?” Hurst nudged his horse forward, but the Warlord held up his hand.
“Don’t come any closer! Whatever this is about, you can deal with it. My business can wait.”
The Plains of Kallanash Page 38