The Plains of Kallanash

by Pauline M. Ross

  Tanist laughed again. “Well, we’ll see if they’re still speaking to each other in the morning.”

  Dethin’s room consisted of a small suite of bedroom, sitting room and water room squeezed into a corner of a tower used for storage. The rest of the floor contained locked rooms full of swords, daggers and other weaponry. The bedroom was bare, apart from the bed, a small rug faded with age and a single chair. It was kept for his sole use, and had a dusty neglected air, but the bed was neatly arranged. Mia was not surprised, for he always straightened the blankets after he got up, so that the bed looked unused.

  He and Hurst had said not a word as they made their way there, Dethin carrying his own travel bag and Hurst with Mia’s. Now they both stood, looking at each other across the bed. Mia laughed.

  “Come on, get undressed, you two.”

  They turned their backs on each other and sat down on either side of the bed, pulling off boots in unison.

  “Look,” said Dethin suddenly, “why don’t I bunk down next door? Give you some privacy.”

  “No,” Mia said, and impulsively bent down to kiss him. “Let’s try this first. If it doesn’t work – well, we can think again.”

  “Are you sure?” he said, but she had felt him responding to her kiss.

  “Yes. This feels right, to me.”

  “I’ll turn my back, then…”

  “You don’t have to. I’m going to see to Hurst first, because it’s been a long time, but then I shall come to you, so don’t go to sleep.”

  He laughed then. “No danger of that!”

  She undressed and got into bed, and the two men lay down either side of her, avoiding looking at each other, each of them lying sideways, gazing at her. She turned to face Hurst. Oh, the joy of being with him again! His hands were gentle, his kisses were so sweet and warm.

  “That beard will have to go,” she said. She heard a chuckle from behind her.

  “You don’t mind his,” Hurst said, but his voice was soft, not angry now.

  “Crannor keeps his beard trimmed,” she replied.

  “I could trim mine.”

  “That would do very well. Oh Hurst, I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too. I love you, Mia.”

  “I love you, too.”

  And after a while, they stopped talking. She was aware of Dethin lying there, watching them, but somehow it didn’t matter. And when Hurst gently pushed her onto her back and began to kiss her breasts, she stopped thinking about him altogether. For a while, there were only the two of them in the whole world. When Hurst had finished, though, she became aware of Dethin again and turned to smile at him as he lay, wide eyed, beside her. He was breathing heavily, and she guessed he must be more than ready.

  “Not asleep, then?”

  “You have to be joking,” he breathed. “That was – interesting!”

  She giggled. “Now it’s your turn.”

  He didn’t need a second invitation. For a time, he snuggled against her, nuzzling her neck and stroking her breasts, but when she turned her head a little and kissed him properly, he groaned.

  “Whenever you want,” she whispered, and in a moment he was on top of her, inside her. It didn’t take him long, and she felt a pang of regret when finally he pulled out of her. Two men, one after the other, but it wasn’t quite enough. Hurst understood, though. Without a word, he pushed the covers aside and slid down the bed to kiss her. She cried out at the sudden pleasure of it, and then gave herself up entirely to the sensations.

  Afterwards she laughed. “Oh, that was wonderful! Thank you, Hurst.”

  Eyes wide, Dethin said, “You’re going to have to teach me how to do that.”

  “Gods! This is so much fun!” said Hurst, grinning.

  Then, with Hurst nestled on one side of her, and Dethin curled up on the other, she slept.

  38: The Game (Hurst)

  Hurst woke to see Mia’s head on the pillow beside him. His joy was tempered by the shortness of her lovely hair, which made her look like a barbarian. He could see the ugly mark on her neck, dark and livid, reminding him again that she was one of them now. Worst of all, she was turned away from him, facing the Warlord and they were whispering together.

  Was he jealous? A little hurt, perhaps, but then he remembered her words last night. Had she really said she loved him? It was hard to believe. Did she love him too? What were they whispering about anyway? He was saying something about not being greedy.

  “It’s all right,” she replied. “It costs nothing, and it’s nice, isn’t it?” Ah, that.

  “I don’t want to wake Hurst,” he murmured.

  “He’s awake already, I think.”

  “He is,” said Hurst, “and if she’s offering, I should go for it. Never say no to a lady.”

  Mia giggled, and he heard Dethin chuckle too. It felt cosy, somehow. It would be different if they were in another room, he would be jealous as a passabird then, but this was fun. It set him on fire, listening to them, watching them. So in the end they both got another round with her.

  By the time they were all up and dressed, and Hurst had trimmed his beard to Mia’s satisfaction, it was well into the morning and the canteen was almost empty. One table was still occupied, however – Tanist, Bernast, Mannigor and Hilligor were there already. They sat on one side, with Gantor and most of the Captains on the other. They all cheered when the three of them arrived. Hurst sat down beside Gantor, and Mia and Dethin sat a little apart.

  “Well, you haven’t murdered each other, then,” Tanist said, grinning widely.

  “They’re all smiling, anyway,” Gantor said, sliding the ale jug down to Dethin.

  “I’d be smiling, too,” Mannigor said. “When I marry, I’m going to insist on this kind of arrangement. Much more fun than boring pairs.”

  “Oh, it was certainly fun,” Hurst said, spooning porridge. “How did you lot get here without Trimon’s men spitting you?”

  “We just rode over and knocked on the door,” Tanist said. “They saw my handsome face and opened up at once. But I must say, I’m regretting it – this coffee is foul, Hurst. How do you survive?”

  “Oh, I never touch the stuff. The ale is better. I miss decent wine most – and a crowns set. I wish I’d thought to bring my travelling set.”

  “I’ve brought one for you,” Dethin said. “It was in the pack horse baggage. Mia tried to teach me, without success, but I know you like to play.”

  “How do you know that? I suppose Mia told you, did she? Well, it will be much appreciated. Have you all eaten? Shall we go and have a look at the training?”

  But Hilligor frowned. “You know, Commander, pleasant as this is, we’re not really here as tourists. I don’t think I can walk around your training ground admiring the swordplay of your men, knowing that next week or next month or next year I’m going to have to kill them. Or you, possibly. We need to discuss your future.”

  “Let’s be optimistic – maybe I’ll be the one to kill you.”

  “It’s not a joking matter,” Tanist said sharply, but Hilligor laughed. He was younger than Hurst; still young enough, it seemed, to be amused by the idea of his own death in battle. Or perhaps, Hurst thought, he believes he can beat me. He too had once thought himself invincible.

  “Sorry.” Hurst stroked his newly trimmed beard. “But if you’re asking me to make an instant decision, I can’t do that. It’s very clear that Mia can’t go back to the Karningplain, but I still can, for now. What I don’t know is how long I have to decide.”

  “Not long,” said Bernast. “At the moment, you’re still officially somewhere in the Karnings, location unknown, but if you don’t show up in time for your interview this winter, you’ll be declared dead. After that, if you reappear, you will be executed.”

  “Executed? Hmm… that’s uncompromising. So that gives me a few weeks, at most.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” said Tanist. “The Karninghold Slave was pretty upset about you going off like th
at. They don’t like disobedience. And at the interview, they will want the full details and you won’t be able to lie, not unless you can fool the blue globe. If Mia was sent here simply for asking questions about the tunnels, what do you suppose the penalty might be for actually walking through them? So you may not have the option to go back at all. And I’m fairly sure that I won’t.”

  “What? Oh, the knife to the Slave’s throat. But – Gods, I’m sorry to have dragged you into this. You’re saying we’re both stuck here, whether we like it or not? That we have to spend our lives trying to kill Commander Hilligor?”

  “Well – there are other options. I don’t know about you, but I’m mad as fire about all this. Do you realise, our whole lives have been a lie? We’ve devoted ourselves to keeping the good Karningers safe from the ravaging hordes of barbarians, defending the borders with our lives against the evil beyond, and now we find they’re just like us. They are us! They’re ordinary farmers and millers and Skirmishers who may have made a mistake and broken the law, or they may have done nothing at all, like Mia here, who never did anything wrong in her whole life, but they’re condemned all the same. People we thought were dead, people we grieved over—”

  Hurst made a sudden choking noise.

  “What?”

  “Gods!” Hurst said, looking at Dethin. “I’ve realised who you are – how you knew I played crowns.”

  “I wondered when you would realise. Mia called me by my old name last night.”

  Everyone looked mystified.

  “It’s Crannor!” Hurst burst out. “You must remember Crannor!” And he jumped up and rushed round the table. Dethin got up too, and backed away in alarm, but Hurst threw his arms round him and clasped him a bear hug. After a moment’s hesitation, Dethin patted him awkwardly on the back.

  “No!” said Tanist. “It can’t be! I saw his body. You can’t be… But it’s – what, twenty years? By the Gods! Is it really you?”

  “You know each other?” Mia said, looking from one to another.

  “He’s my cousin!” Hurst said with a broad grin. “Maybe I told you about him? We all broke into one of the ladies’ gardens once, just for a laugh, except that he got caught. I tell you, we never did anything like that again! They made us all go and see your body – well, we thought you were dead. You looked very dead to me, but obviously they’re experts at faking it, aren’t they? Gods, I hate these people! I hate them! They’re evil.”

  And he sat down again very suddenly, head in hands, shaking. It was all too much, suddenly.

  Tanist led Dethin to the nearest window, where he examined his face minutely. “No, I wouldn’t have known you,” he said eventually, shaking his head. “I don’t suppose I shall ever think of you as anything other than the Warlord. But this just makes it ten times worse – not just ordinary Karningers, but kin, that’s who we end up killing. On both sides. It’s not right.”

  They sat down again and for a while there was silence around the table. Then Walst abruptly pushed his chair back, the legs scraping loudly on the rough stone floor. “I’m going to see if there’s any of the decent wine left.” He clumped off.

  “You said there were other options,” Dethin said after a while. “If there’s some way we can live without routinely killing each other, I’d like to hear it.”

  “Well, you don’t have to, do you?” Hilligor said, his eyebrows snapping together. “You’re the ones who come out of your holes and attack us. We’re just defending ourselves.”

  Dethin’s brows lifted a little in surprise, but he said nothing, eyeing him impassively.

  Tanist turned to him. “Actually, it’s a good question – why do you attack us? We don’t threaten you, we have nothing you want, yet out you come, spoiling for a fight. Why do it if you don’t want to?”

  They all looked at Dethin, but although he turned away, he remained silent, staring at his hands. It was Mia who blurted out, “They have to! For the resupply.”

  She explained how goods and materials were sent down the tunnels after every battle, and that if they stopped fighting, they would receive nothing. The Karningers looked astonished. Hurst was surprised, too. He had not been there long enough to wonder about such things, assuming that the well-stocked stores were no more than the spoils of war, taken by force. But a moment’s thought convinced him that it couldn’t be so. There were very few shortages and even hard to come by things, like needles and thread, planks of wood and paint, were plentiful.

  Walst returned with several flasks of wine, and passed around beakers. In the distance, clanging noises and a low murmur of voices suggested that the kitchen workers were busy on the noon meal. Someone came to collect empty porridge bowls and flasks.

  “It’s ridiculous!” said Hilligor in disgust. “They’re supposed to be the enemy, yet we’re supplying them with everything they need to fight us. It makes no sense.”

  “It’s a game,” said Tanist softly. “We’re all just crowns on the board.”

  “But the question that bothers me is why,” Gantor said. “It takes a huge amount of resources to maintain a war like this. There must be a purpose to it.”

  “Agreed,” said Tanist, “but clearly the point is not to win or lose.”

  “Well, obviously we don’t want to lose,” Hilligor said.

  “Yes, but we’re not supposed to win, either. I don’t know what the rules are on this side,” he said, turning to Dethin, “but we have very specific rules of engagement. If you attack, we can defend, but only one Karning at a time. We can’t come out and attack you – except in very specific circumstances. But when we do—”

  “You wipe us out,” Dethin said, with a flash of anger. “As you did three years ago – more than a thousand died that day, warriors, stores men, stable workers, even the women…”

  “So many!” Tanist said, his voice a whisper.

  “It was the fires.”

  “We burned the buildings. It was only what was above ground. We thought everyone was safely hidden. Don’t you all live underground?”

  “Every Section has some underground space, yes, but mostly just earth cellars. The fires were so fierce the roofs caved in. Some Sections have proper tunnels, and some people escaped that way. A few still live out there, as best they can. But five of Western’s Sections were totally destroyed – uninhabitable, and no one left to rebuild.”

  “Gods, I’m so sorry! I never intended that.”

  “It was you, then!” Dethin was on his feet now and the room was silent. He was very still, but his anger was palpable.

  Tanist rose too. “It was my idea, yes. The year before, my sixth husband was killed in battle – as much his own fault and bad luck as anything – but that allowed us to make reprisals. I requested permission to co-ordinate an attack down the whole western border, and it was approved. But the fire – that was my idea.”

  “Was it, now?” Dethin’s voice was like ice.

  “I did what I thought necessary at the time.”

  “Really.”

  It was as if everyone in the room had stopped breathing. As he watched the two men facing each other, Hurst found himself weighing up weapons, relative combat experience, exits, how quickly reinforcements could arrive. It was instinctive, and he knew that all the men would be making the same assessments.

  Then in the stillness came Mia’s clear voice, a tiny pebble sending ripples across a pool.

  “I don’t think we should be arguing with each other like this,” she said calmly.

  Tanist looked at her, and then nodded, and the tension dissipated in an instant.

  “I think,” said Hilligor, “that we should withdraw to our camp. We all have much to think about. Perhaps you would all like to join us this evening for meat?”

  ~~~

  Hurst went out into the compound and sat on one of the barrels surrounding the training ground, staring unseeingly at the men sparring in front of him. He saw Dethin cross to the larger stables, he presumed to check his horse, while Walst and
the other Captains went to gear up for training, a way to work out their anger. Mia had disappeared. Gantor, as always, was at his shoulder.

  “This is a mess, isn’t it?” Hurst said, trying to keep his tone light.

  Gantor laughed. “It’s certainly turned out more complicated than we expected when we climbed into that first Godstower.”

  “What are we to do?” Hurst said, subdued. “I don’t want to kill my own kin and friends, but it seems I can’t stop fighting them, or we starve. And I can’t even leave, now.”

  “What did you expect would happen? That we would just collect Mia and go marching home, and everyone would be happy?”

  “Well – something like that. I expected to have some choice, at least. But we’re out of options, it seems.”

  “Look on the bright side – Tanist will be here too, so you’ll have the Karnings’ best strategist on your side. And I shall have a decent crowns opponent.”

  “That doesn’t help.” But he couldn’t help smiling all the same. “At least I have Mia.”

  “You and the Warlord both.”

  But Hurst laughed. “That’s all right. If Mia’s happy with it, I’m happy with it. The rest of it doesn’t really matter.”

  “You’re a strange man, Hurst,” Gantor said crossly. “Don’t you think that there may be more important issues at stake here than your sex life?”

  “No. Well, maybe, but ultimately, isn’t that what we’re supposed to be fighting for? Families, people we love. A safe place for children to grow up in. But it isn’t, is it? Within the Karnings, families can be torn apart by a single mistake, or for no reason at all. And here—”For a moment he had to control his anger. “No families at all here. They’ve taken that away from Mia, the bastards.”

  “And what they are we talking about, exactly?”

  Hurst hesitated. He knew it in his own mind, but it was another thing altogether to voice the thought.

  “The Slaves. It’s them, isn’t it? The Servants, the Voices, the Slaves. They’re the ones who’ve done this, created this never ending war with its artificial rules.”