Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’ A noise in the scorched trees above the gully made Kheda look up. ‘Zicre, what’s that?’

  ‘Loals.’ The former huntsman came back down the gully. ‘I suppose that could be a sign of sorts, my lord.’

  Kheda decided to ignore the insolence and watched the black-furred creatures picking their way along the edge of the gully, chittering with what sounded like displeasure at the ash stirred up by their steps. At this distance, when they stood upright to see their path more clearly, the animals looked oddly human, only betrayed by their strange rocking gait. The group paused some distance downwind above one of the larger pools left by the subdued river.

  The biggest loal looked suspiciously at the three motionless men and barked a challenge, lips curling back to better display its impressively pointed eyeteeth. Its dark eyes were whiteless, shining points of light above its long, black-furred muzzle. It sprang down into the gully, poised on all fours, long tail lashing as it sniffed the air and barked again

  ‘Are they always this bold?’ Kheda asked quietly.

  ‘One that size is entitled to be bold, my lord,’ Zicre replied with a grin, tension momentarily leaving his lean face. ‘He could rip your arm off and club you senseless with it.’

  ‘Let’s allow him and his family their evening drink, then,’ said Kheda dryly. ‘You go and get something to eat. I’ll be a moment or so.’

  The biggest loal watched warily as the two men picked their way carefully over to the cave. Sniffing the air again, it sneezed, scrubbing at its muzzle with its strangely human hands. Evidently deciding that Kheda was no immediate threat, it turned to chitter up to the rest of the group who climbed cautiously down into the gully. The half-grown infants released their grip on their mothers’ fur to drop down and lap at the puddles. Kheda watched with amusement as the first ones to quench their thirst began flicking mud at each other while the adults turned to foraging under stones for grubs and worms.

  They all froze with barks of alarm and Kheda jumped. Then he realised that all the loals were looking at Dev who had got up from his uncomfortable bed across the cave entrance. He glanced incuriously at the creatures and walked over to join Kheda on his boulder.

  ‘So you’re going to throw me to the dragon if Yelindre doesn’t come up with the goods?’ he asked with something of his old combativeness.

  ‘What else was I supposed to say?’ Kheda hissed. ‘I won’t let it come to that. I owe you better and you know it.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d mind if it did catch up with me.’ Dev hung his head, hands dangling loose between his knees. ‘I sure as curses don’t want to live like this much longer.’

  ‘You put it behind you before,’ Kheda began cautiously.

  ‘T .ast time you gave me half a pinch of that cursed powder in a bottle of wine and that stifled my wizardry for a day or so,’ spat Dev furiously. ‘It feels as if you’ve poisoned every mageborn instinct in me this time. You might as well have cut off my stones and made a real zamorin of me.’

  ‘It’s keeping you alive,’ countered Kheda resolutely.

  ‘I’m starting to think I’d rather be dead,’ Dev muttered with passion. ‘You’ve no idea what this is like.’ I had no idea it would make you this vulnerable and wretched.

  No,’ Kheda agreed with reluctant pity. ‘I’m still sorry for it, though I’d do it again ‘

  ‘So the dragon couldn’t eat your handy decoy.’ Dev’s face twisted with bitterness.

  ‘I wanted to save your life. I didn’t know it would still be able to follow you. At least it has no more than a vague idea where you are now.’ Kheda went to unfold Risala’s letter. ‘You just have to keep taking the drug until Velindre gets here. It shouldn’t be too much longer—’

  ‘What happens then?’ Dev sat upright, horror on his drawn, dirty face. ‘What happens when the dragon gets a sniff of Velindre’s power?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kheda looked to make sure there were no curious faces at the cave mouth. But she’ll surely be a far more tempting morsel than Dev in this sorry state.

  ‘I won’t be able to do a thing to save her.’ Dev stared at him, distraught.

  ‘Risala says she has the secrets we need.’ Kheda raised the crumpled paper slowly. ‘Won’t she be able to save herself?’

  Won’t she be able to save both of them, and the boat they’re on and all its crew? What will the domain make of the dragon destroying the vessel I’ve been telling everyone all our hopes are riding in?

  ‘My lord.’ Ridu appeared at the mouth of the cave, cold baked fish wrapped in lilla leaves in his hands. ‘You must eat, both of you.’

  Kheda nodded and got to his feet. ‘You have to try, Dev,’ he insisted in an undertone.

  ‘I don’t see much point,’ muttered the mage miserably. ‘I probably won’t keep it down.’

  ‘There must be crush-root growing somewhere.’ Kheda looked at Dev with growing concern. ‘That could help.’ He caught Dev’s arm as the wizard stumbled over a rock. The sharp sound startled the loals. The whole group fled in moments, leaving nothing behind but damp overturned rocks and the echo of their shrill cries.

  What kind of a sign might that be? I don’t know and I’m starting to think I don’t really care.

  He took more of the wizard’s weight on his arm and they made their way to the darkness of the cave.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The harsh Aldabreshin tongue was the first thing Velindre heard as her senses returned. Slowly she realised that the darkness was no longer complete. There was light beyond her eyelids. She was lying somewhere, on her side. There was something soft beneath her but no coverlet.

  Velindre tried to open her eyes but found her lashes sticky and crusted. She tried to raise a hand to rub at then but her movements were clumsy and awkward. She rolled on to her back but any further movement was beyond her. The air was stale and stifling, unexpected heat oppressive.

  Someone caught her hand and placed it carefully on her midriff ‘All right, don’t fret.’ She felt a hand on her neck, checking her heartbeat.

  She recognised that voice. It was the girl who had drugged her. Velindre tried to twist away but her body wouldn’t obey her.

  ‘Lie still,’ soothed the girl.

  Risala, that was her name, Velindre remembered. Further recollection fled at the shock of a cool, damp cloth on her forehead. The magewoman could do nothing but submit as her eyes were gently cleansed. She lay rigid with growing anger as memory returned. She had been here for some unfathomable length of time. She recalled struggling to wake, time and again, tormented by thirst. The water she had been given to drink had thrust her back into the abyss of unconsciousness.

  ‘There you are,’ concluded Risala with satisfaction.

  Velindre blinked and squinted, her blurred vision clearing to reveal that she was lying in a cramped, window-less room. Bright sunlight edging through a narrow door fell on the wooden walls and floor. She did her best to scowl at Risala, who was kneeling beside her.

  ‘What did you do to me?’ Her accusation was a harsh whisper. Her mouth was dry and foul.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Risala’s apology was perfunctory. ‘We couldn’t afford any more delay—still less risk you refusing to come at all. Not when we knew you had the lore we need.’ She slipped an arm behind Velindre’s shoulders to raise her up, bringing a wooden cup to her lips.

  Velindre found some strength returning to her nerveless arms but not enough to resist. Not enough to slap this bitch’s face. She resolved to bide her time and sipped at the liquid in the cup. Citrus juice cut through the stale-ness in her mouth and she licked at her rough, dry lips. ‘So you enslaved me?’ She would have said more but a fit of coughing seized her, leaving a burning ache in her chest. Not exactly.’ That seemed to amuse the girl, to Velindre’s impotent fury. Risala tugged at a cushion to prop the magewoman’s head up and sat back on her heels. ‘Don’t worry. The soporific will soon wear off

  Velindre looked
down towards her feet, wondering when she would be able to move. Then she would be gone from here as soon as she could find some breath of air to work with. She looked at her legs, distracted by the realisation that she was now dressed like her captor. Both of them wore loose trousers of undyed cotton reaching to mid-shin and sleeveless tunics in faded red. Velindre’s skin was startlingly pale compared to the Aldabreshin girl’s rich brown complexion.

  Her thoughts wandered. She’d never worn anything red, not since she’d been a child. Her parents had dressed her in neutral colours until their acute observation might determine the nature of any inborn affinity she might possess.

  She dismissed the irrelevance angrily. She must still be half-stupefied. No matter. She’d be gone from this inadequate prison just as soon as she could gather her wits and her strength. Her stomach gurgled noisily. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Am Ito be starved as well as enslaved?’ Risala smiled with that infuriating amusement again. ‘I’ll get you some food.’ She disappeared through the open door.

  Velindre looked after her, trying to make sense of the noises beyond. With a jolt that was half-surprise and half-fear, she identified the slap of water against a ship’s hull and the creak of oars and ropes. A pipe was sounding out a regular rhythm somewhere in the pattern of light and shade beyond the door and she could half-hear, half-feel the rush of the sea running beneath the wooden floor of her prison. Idle conversation floated over the boards above her head.

  With a further shiver she realised that she had no way of knowing what was being said. She might be fluent in every tongue spoken from the polite debates of Toremal’s enlightenment to the haphazard archives of Solura’s robust feudalism, but that would do her little good here. She’d never had cause to learn anything of Aldabreshin languages or dialects. These uncouth barbarians had never produced any scholarship worth noting. Nor would they, as long as they persisted in their superstitious fear of magic. That superstitious fear would be the death of her, if she didn’t get away.

  Velindre realised that more than disquiet was coursing through her. With an unpleasant crawling sensation, warmth was replacing the numbness in her legs. Bracing her hands against the flower-embroidered quilt beneath her, she managed to sit upright against the planking. She froze at the abrupt realisation of another violation, far worse than the loss of her clothes: her hair had been cropped so short it barely covered the nape of her neck. She ran a shaking hand over her head, unbidden tears starting to her eyes. Risala reappeared in the doorway, a covered bowl in her hands. ‘Weep if you want to,’ she invited with sympathy. ‘It’s the soporific. It distresses some people.’

  ‘I’m not distressed, I’m angry,’ Velindre said with shaky accusation. ‘You cut my hair.’

  ‘I did,’ the Aldabreshin girl admitted with more genuine remorse than she’d shown thus far. ‘I’ve kept it for you. I’m son-y, but it had to be done.’

  ‘Why?’ snapped Velindre, scrubbing the tears clumsily from her cheeks.

  ‘Eat this, slowly.’ Risala knelt to place the bowl between Velindre’s hands. Once she was satisfied that the wizard woman had secure hold of it, she lifted the lid. ‘I’ll explain what I can.’

  The bowl was warm between Velindre’s hands and against her cotton-clad thighs. A savoury scent rose and her stomach growled again. Swollen golden grain was sinking slowly in a clear broth along with chunks of pale fish. Resentful, she picked up the long, shallow spoon of unadorned silver and began to eat. The sooner she regained her strength, the sooner she would be gone.

  ‘I’m sorry we had to take you like this.’ Satisfied with the magewoman’s apparent compliance, Risala sat on a folded quilt by the door. But the lives of hundreds depend on the lore that you promised, and much more besides. We must be rid of this dragon.’

  The concoction in the bowl was delicious. Velindre forced herself to pause in her eating. What has any of that to do with cutting my hair?’ she asked coldly.

  Risala considered her for a moment, blue eyes opaque. ‘You do know what happens to those who use magic in the Archipelago?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Velindre curtly, shoving the spoon viciously into the delicately poached fish and aromatic grain

  ‘Then you appreciate the necessity for some disguise.’ Sarcasm coloured Risala’s tone. ‘We’ve a long way to travel and there are plenty of domains who’ve suffered at barbarian hands. More than one warlord prefers killing any unexplained traveller with pale skin or yellow hair over risking further theft or insult. Travelling openly as a northern barbarian would draw every curious eye towards you, never mind risking inevitable suspicion that you might be a mage.’

  ‘And you have the gall to call us barbarians,’ Velindre muttered, returning to her food. ‘So what’s my part in this masquerade? Slave?’

  ‘Yes, for the moment. To be safe under Chazen Kheda’s protection, you’ll have to play the part of a slave. Forgive us, but it’s the only way someone so obviously barbarian—’ Risala corrected herself ‘—someone born in the unbroken lands would ever come to the far southern reaches of the Archipelago.’

  ‘You want my help but you dress me in rags and crop my head like a criminal?’ Velindre scraped crossly at the last few spoonfuls of broth.

  ‘There’s more to it than that.’ Risala sounded sufficiently awkward to make Velindre look up.

  ‘Slave or free, you’ll still be turning every head,’ Risala said frankly. ‘The best way to quell that curiosity is to make it known that you’re a eunuch—’

  ‘What?’ Velindre was dumbfounded.

  ‘Hear me out.’ Risala leaned forward to retrieve the bowl that was threatening to roll from Velindre’s lap. ‘It must be an omen in our favour that you’ve the build and colouring to make it believable—’

  ‘That I’m some mutilated man?’ Velindre was still too astonished to be angry.

  ‘That you’re zamorin who was made so in early youth.’ Risala set the cover back on the bowl and leaned against the wall. ‘If a little boy, and I mean one barely walking, is taken to be made zamorin, he’s bathed in hot water and the seeds of his manhood are squeezed each day until they disappear—’

  ‘I don’t want to know this,’ Velindre protested, appalled. ‘You need to know, if you’re to be believed.’ Risala overrode her. ‘A eunuch, zamorin in our tongue, who has been made in that way keeps a smooth skin, grows tall for the most part and, if he has barbarian blood to begin with, will often stay fair-haired and fair-skinned. You’ll be entirely believable as such a zamorin, as long as you dress in loose tunics,’ she added apologetically.

  Velindre couldn’t help but glance down at her modest bosom, barely showing through the folds of cotton as it was. She had lost still more weight in her drugged sleep on this voyage. ‘You’ll make me out to be one kind of freak, to stop people thinking I’m some other more dangerous oddity. That makes some kind of sense.’ She scowled. ‘Was this Dev’s idea?’

  ‘Dev knows nothing of this,’ Risala interrupted. ‘It doesn’t concern him. My concern is to get you to Chazen waters undetected and this is the best way to achieve that. You’ll have far more privacy if people think you’re zamorin than you could in any other guise. Zamorin made as little children are actually quite uncommon; it’s hardly something to do lightly, to cut such a young boy off from his chance of fathering children.’

  ‘An unfortunate turn of phrase,’ commented Velindre coldly.

  Risala studied her for a moment before going on. ‘Most zamorin are made as grown men, at best, after thorough consideration and with good reason. At worst, yes, there are domains more interested in the profit to be gained from trading in such slaves than in the violence they do to their captives and their futures. Depending on how it is done, yes, some zamorin are cruelly mutilated. So all zamorin are given a good deal of privacy for bathing and suchlike. You’ll have to do something remarkably stupid to be discovered. Do you think you can manage to avoid that?’ Her tone was unexpectedly cut
ting.

  ‘What do I have to do, to play a slave?’ Velindre’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fetch and carry and keep my mouth shut? I think I can manage that. And you can hardly have me stripped and whipped without revealing our secret,’ she concluded with bitter satisfaction.

  ‘Dev has been telling us you’re very clever. Perhaps, but you’re as ignorant as any other barbarian.’ Risala drew up her knees and laced her hands around them. ‘Let me guess: you’re convinced that all Aldabreshi live lives of indulgent ease, their cruel feet stamping on the necks of downtrodden captives who are worked to death burdened with chains?’

  ‘I’ve seen the slave market in Relshaz,’ Velindre countered frostily. ‘Every unfortunate who ends up there can expect shackles and manacles, not to mention the lash if they so much as look sideways at the wrong person.’

  Risala shrugged. ‘It’s no business of ours what you mainlanders do with people whose fortunes in life bring them to such a pass.’

  ‘You prey on such unfortunates readily enough,’ retorted Velindre.

  ‘What do you mainlanders do with those destitute or desperate enough to give themselves over to theft or violence to keep themselves alive?’ Risala countered. ‘You flog them or hang them or leave them to die like dogs in the gutters. No one need fear such a fate in the

  Archipelago, slave or free. Besides, what has a slave to complain of, when his own choices have led to his ruin, if a warlord or his lady is prepared to take up the burden of guiding his life toward a better future?’

  ‘What is there to complain of?’ Velindre stared at the girl. ‘In slavery?’

  ‘You’ve never seen life beyond your own waters.’ Risala cut her off with a sharp gesture. You need to hide your ignorance if you’re to play your part well enough for us both to stay safe.’ She rose to her feet. ‘Keep your main-lander opinions to yourself or we’ll both be at risk.’

  Velindre looked up, uncomprehending, as the ship lurched and voices rose on the deck above. Feet ran, slapping unshod on the planks. There was a splash and the vessel was brought up with a jerk as an anchor bit into the sea bed. Cheerful approval rang through a sudden tumult of voices in the main body of the ship.