She glanced back and her shoulders fell as she saw that the two had stopped far back up the rocky path and were awaiting her return in their typical complete silence. Brainless idiots! Could at least give me a shout. Retracing her steps, she found them standing where a major fork led off into the higher slopes.
‘What, dammit?’ she demanded, rubbing the wet mist from her cheeks and shuddering with cold.
The one called Sall gestured up the other trail. ‘It occurs to us that you are leading far to the east when we wish to go north. This trail appears to lead north.’
Yusek gave a curt wave gesturing them on. ‘Well, go ahead, by the Queen’s tits! What do you need me for then? I’ll just go my own damned way, shall I?’
Deep within the shadows of his hood, Sall’s masked face revealed no emotion. It did look as if he frowned, though, as he squinted up the rocky trail. ‘This will not get us north?’
‘Look. You took me on to guide you, right? Well, that’s what I’m doing. Guiding. I don’t go telling you how to be all stiff as a board, okay? So don’t question my choices. It just so happens that we have to swing around easterly here for a few days to avoid the valleys just north of us.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why must we avoid the valleys to the north?’
Yusek snarled her annoyance, coughed, and spat. Throughout all this the third member of the party, Lo, remained his usual silent self. Only his hood shifted as he glanced behind from time to time, watching, always scanning about. ‘Listen,’ she began again after clearing her raw throat, ‘Dernan the Wolf controls these valleys. My old boss is a pup compared to him. He might squeeze a few coins where he can from travellers, but Dernan wipes out entire caravans. He even beat back soldiers from Kurl sent to smoke him out.’ She shook her head and hugged herself against the chill, shuddering. ‘No. We go round.’
Lo’s hood dipped then as he spoke close to Sall and the lad gave one quick nod. ‘Presumably this Dernan has shelter of some sort. A building or retreat. You are ill. In need of warmth, dry clothes. We will go north.’
Yusek gaped her disbelief. ‘What? Go north? Are you fucking stupid or something? Haven’t you listened to a word I said? Dernan will kill us for the gear on our backs. Or maybe just sell us as slaves down south.’ Panting, her chest aching, she glared from one to the other. Both remained unmoved, mute in the drifting rain like grey ghosts. Drops pattered on them and a hidden stream hissed down a nearby cliff. Fucking foreigners! Don’t know a damned thing! Gonna get me killed.
She cursed them, waved them to the Abyss, and turned away. ‘I’m not going—’ She froze as cold iron suddenly lay against her neck.
‘Do not worry, Yusek. You will not be harmed.’ The blade tapped her in a signal to turn round. She faced him. From behind the mask his mild brown eyes, though guarded, seemed to hold amusement. ‘You can hardly guide us if you are dead, yes?’
Two days later, deep within the thick woods of the valley, next to a small stream, Sall and Lo froze in their steps and Yusek’s heart sank. Gods spare us! She gripped her long-knife under her sodden cloak and crouched, seeking cover among the moss-grown wet boulders.
‘Don’t move!’ a harsh voice bellowed from the woods. ‘You’re covered and surrounded!’
Peering over a rock, she watched a number of men and women closing in among the trees. They wore battered mismatched armour like the tattered remnants of some defeated mercenary army. Two had beads upon her over the stocks of crossbows. An army! An entire fucking army!
The voice called out again: ‘Hands out! That’s right. Don’t move.’
She glanced back to see Lo and Sall standing motionless in their loose cloaks, hoods up, hands held out a slight distance from their sides. Men and women, crossbows raised, took up positions while others approached, swords drawn.
‘Hand over your weapons,’ the hidden voice ordered.
Sall and Lo remained immobile, hands at their sides.
‘Drop them, or we fill you full of quarrels. Now.’
The two shared a glance then reached under their cloaks to produce their swords, still sheathed, offering them one-handed. Yusek dropped her long-knife. A scraggy-bearded fellow came scrambling down to her.
Two of Dernan’s soldiers – and she was quite sure these must be they – warily approached Lo and Sall. A woman reached out a free hand to take Sall’s sword, her own blade held ready to stab. She wore torn hunting leathers and tall moccasins that came up to her knees. A great fat fellow in a banded hauberk too small for him came swaggering up to Lo and reached out to snatch his sword.
Then a number of things seemed to happen all on their own. The woman reaching out to Sall tottered to her side. The wide fellow in front of Lo now had a blade thrusting out from his back. Crossbows thumped, firing, and bolts hissed but Sall simply seemed to roll aside and the missiles snapped past. He disappeared among the trees. Crossbow bolts hammered into the fellow standing before Lo but somehow the great wide bulk of him didn’t fall. Lo even seemed to be manoeuvring him, turning this way and that, intercepting the missiles. Everyone was shouting; the bearded one in front of Yusek was watching all this, mouth agape. Then he turned to her. ‘A mask? Is that guy wearing a Hood-damned mask?’
She tried to dodge past him but he smacked her back down among the rocks. Her right hand found a stone and she swung, catching him on the side of his head, making him stagger. She dodged again but somehow he tripped her up. Standing over her he touched a hand to the blood streaming down his temple and into his beard. He gave her a gap-toothed grin. ‘I’m gonna tear you from crotch to gullet for that.’ He drew back his blade for a thrust.
A shadow arose behind the man and something hummed in the air, and then his head flew from its neck. The corpse tottered forward to fall gushing a great hot flow over Yusek, who screamed and screamed. All she remembered after that was scrambling on all fours for the stream, crying, utterly revolted, desperate to clean herself. The blood stained the icy water red.
When she stood, water dripping from her, it was silent. Only the stream hissed and gurgled around her. The woods were dark and still. She struggled over the slick wet rocks out of the water. Bodies lay everywhere. The amount of blood and fluids was terrifying, as were the wounds: many men were decapitated. Movement caught her eye and she glimpsed Lo throwing on his cloak. He appeared to be wearing beneath it some sort of light leather gambeson, possibly sewn with blued iron rings.
Sall appeared. His cloak was open as well, revealing nothing more than a plain shirt and sashed wide trousers. His sword was sheathed and he was escorting one of Dernan’s people, a woman. Her long sandy hair was a tangled mess but she appeared unharmed.
‘Did you …’ Yusek began, but could only motion to the dead man who had threatened her.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, thanks. Who’s this? A prisoner?’
He cocked his head, considering. ‘I suppose you could say that.’ Then he walked off, leaving the two of them together. Yusek eyed the woman; she couldn’t take her stunned gaze from the Seguleh. Disgusted, Yusek went to find her knife. The woman followed.
‘How is it you’re still alive?’ Yusek asked.
‘I’ve spent time on the south shore – I threw down my blade. I’ve never heard of them this far north.’
‘So you gave up? Just like that?’ The woman wore a long coat of scaled leather armour, was tall and rangy. She appeared competent.
Her awed gaze shifted to Yusek. ‘You travel with them and you say that?’
Yusek felt her face flushing. ‘It’s different, okay? They – they hired me to guide them.’
‘Hired …’ the woman echoed, clearly sceptical. She gazed off to the north and her brow clenched in pain as she seemed to contemplate what was to come. ‘Gods, girl … why didn’t you take them round?’
Yusek thrust herself close. ‘Listen,’ she hissed. ‘I tried, all right? Now we’re stuck with it, ain’t we.’
‘Find a
way. All this blood … it is on your head.’
‘No, it Hood well isn’t!’
Lo and Sall approached.
‘What do you want here?’ the woman demanded.
Neither answered. Sall cocked his hooded head to Yusek. She eyed them in return, uncertain of their silence.
‘Well?’ the woman asked her.
She hugged herself, shuddering with the cold. ‘There’s a path I know west of here. It’s a short cut. We should take it.’ She thought she glimpsed Sall’s eyes wrinkle, perhaps in a small smile.
‘We go north,’ he said.
‘North? Why?’ Yusek stepped closer, almost reached out to the youth’s arm. ‘Look at all this. We should go round.’
The hooded head shook a negative. ‘They shouldn’t have challenged.’
‘Challenged?’ the woman spat suddenly. ‘No one here knows anything of your ways. How can you hold them responsible?’
Sall’s hood did not shift from Yusek as the youth said mildly, ‘So among you here in the north it is customary to murder travellers? People should be allowed to do so at will?’
‘We didn’t – that is …’ The woman fell silent, turning away.
Despite her dread of more bloodshed, Yusek had to give this one to Sall. His point, though, gave her an idea. ‘You want to go north, hey? To this monastery? Well, how will chasing some feud help that?’
The youth was still for a time, then he stepped over to Lo, who had kept his usual distance. The two conversed very briefly. Lo made a cutting hand gesture and Sall bowed. He returned to them. ‘The challenge stands – and must be answered.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ the woman burst out. ‘More bloodshed? And for what?’ She pointed at Lo. ‘Now I understand your reputation. Seguleh. No better than butchers! You enjoy it!’
‘We are the test of the sword!’ Sall answered hotly. ‘Those who choose to pursue the path of the sword should be prepared to be challenged. And if they should fall’ – he turned away – ‘they have no grounds for complaint.’
‘I understand,’ Yusek breathed in wonder. Something in that outburst spoke directly to her heart.
The woman eyed her warily. ‘You have been too long among them,’ she said, then bent to begin rooting through the clothes of one of her dead companions.
Yusek followed the woman as she went from corpse to corpse, taking a pouch here, a ring there. On an impulse Yusek collected a longsword and sheath from one body. ‘What is your name?’ she finally asked, breaking the long silence between them.
‘You can call me Lorkal,’ she said, not looking up from her grisly work. ‘You?’
‘Yusek.’
‘Where are you from then?’
‘My family’s from around Bastion.’
Lorkal stilled. She peered up, wonder in her eyes. ‘Were you …’
‘No. We fled.’
The woman grunted her understanding. She would have spoken, but Sall approached.
‘We must move on,’ he said to Yusek, ignoring Lorkal. ‘Tell the woman to journey ahead and contact Dernan. We have a message for him. We are not bloodthirsty. We have decided that if he will provide us with food and shelter we will not trouble him.’
Lorkal straightened from a body to face Sall. ‘No,’ she said, loudly and firmly.
Sall’s hood did not turn from Yusek. He was silent for a time; a deep breath raised and lowered his shoulders. ‘Tell the woman it would be best if she complied …’
‘Or what? You’ll cut off my head?’ Lorkal held out her open hands. ‘I’m unarmed. What does your precious path of the sword say to that?’
‘Tell the prisoner,’ Sall began again, his voice tight.
But Yusek stepped away, waving to Lorkal. ‘Tell her yourself – she’s right here.’ Lorkal chuckled, shaking her head and grinning. ‘What’s so damned funny?’ Yusek demanded.
‘Speaking to outsiders is your responsibility,’ Sall told her.
‘Speaking to … who? Outsiders? Aren’t I an outsider?’
‘You have entered into patronage with us. You are Eshen-ai. An outsider with countenance.’
‘That means they’re willing to consider you a potential human being. For a while,’ Lorkal explained.
Yusek eyed Sall up and down. ‘Well, thank you so very fucking much!’
Lorkal laughed anew but quietened as Lo approached. These Seguleh seemed to specialize in hiding all hint of their emotions and intent, but it appeared to Yusek that a new tension and discomfort had taken hold of Sall’s stiff posture. He took another long slow breath. ‘Before I departed on this trip,’ he began, ‘my father told me this would be the greatest test I would ever face.’ The hood rose to the sky. ‘I did not believe him at the time. It seemed to me then that no test could be greater than facing the challenges of my brothers and sisters. But I see now that I was wrong. My father was not speaking of the rankings. He was speaking of greater trials. Of challenges to everything I have been taught. I understand this now.’ He pointed to Lorkal. ‘Tell this woman that if she cooperates and speaks to Dernan then there is a chance that further bloodshed can be avoided. However, should she refuse, it is very certain that a great many more lives will be lost.’ And with a small bow of his head for emphasis, he walked away.
Yusek let go a long breath, impressed. Probably the longest speech of his life. She cocked a brow to Lorkal.
The woman was studying the pouches and gold ornaments in her hands. ‘Shit.’
They advanced north up a side-gorge of the valley for a time, until Lo sat down where boulders as large as huts choked the stream. His sitting announced that they would wait there. Saying nothing, Lorkal walked on alone, taking a higher path. Sall crouched down on his haunches where he could keep an eye on the approach up the valley. Yusek came and sat near him, hugging herself for warmth. She felt exhausted yet she could not stop shuddering. Her fingers were numb and blue and she clenched them as hard as she could. What would she do, she wondered, if she were in Lorkal’s position right now?
Would she just keep on walking?
It was one option. Who was to know? Except for you. That was the thing. And she suspected it was somehow similar to this test of the sword Sall mentioned. What would you do when no one would ever know of your actions? The easy thing? Shrink away? Bend? But one shouldn’t bend too much. A sword that bends too easily is useless; yet one that is too rigid will shatter. These Seguleh did not strike her as the type who would bend. What they must watch for, then, was shattering.
She must have drifted off soon after. Dozing, or perhaps sinking into hypothermia, for she thought she heard voices. ‘She won’t last another day,’ one said.
‘There are others with this Dernan,’ said a second, a voice she had never heard before.
‘She has held to our agreement – we can hardly do less,’ said the first.
‘Do not forget she is merely a servant.’
‘How we treat others is the measure of how we should expect to be treated.’
‘Straight from the teaching halls, Sall. Let us hope all such obligations prove as easy to cut.’
She was shaken, gently, but could barely rouse herself. She found Sall’s cloak over her. ‘We’re going,’ Sall said. ‘Lorkal has had time enough.’
Blinking, she waved him off. ‘I’ll stay here,’ she mumbled.
‘If you sleep any longer out here you will never awaken.’
She heard the words but somehow they didn’t mean anything. She shut her eyes. ‘Tired.’
Disjointed images followed. She became aware of being carried. Of crossbows firing and Lo before them, his sword a humming blur. Next she was jarred awake briefly to find herself lying sprawled on the ground while before her Sall and Lo fought side by side facing a score of armed men and women emerging from a steep cliff path. Then, she was carried in Sall’s arms while he stepped over bodies sprawled across the rock steps and, from far ahead, she heard panicked yells and the clash of iron.
She awoke to daylight s
hining in upon a crude circular dwelling of piled rocks. She was lying among hides and blankets. A low fire in a central hearth sent tendrils of blue smoke up through a hole in a roof of laid branches. Two small figures, a boy and a girl, leapt to their feet from next to the hearth and brought her bread and a bowl. ‘Eat,’ said the girl.
She took the flat unleavened bread, tore off a piece. ‘Where am I?’
‘You see,’ the boy hissed to the girl, ‘she can speak.’
Yusek thought she might know what the lad meant by that. ‘Where am I?’ she repeated.
‘Dernan’s—’ the boy began, then flinched as if terrified. ‘Well, that is … your camp, I guess.’
She eyed them, frowning, while she chewed. ‘What do you mean – mine?’
‘Are you their princess?’ the girl asked, her eyes huge.
Yusek coughed on her bread. She forced it down, her eyes watering. ‘Their what?’
‘Are they your servants? They carried you in. Are they Ascendants? They killed everyone.’
‘Not everyone,’ sneered the boy.
‘Well, not us slaves.’
‘Slaves?’
The light was occluded as someone ducked into the hut. It was an old man, pole slim and dressed in a threadbare linen shirt that hung to his bony shins. He bowed his head to Yusek. ‘You are awake. Excellent.’
‘Who’re you?’
‘Bo’ahl Leth. They call me Bo. You may too.’
‘Bo?’
The man raised his sharp narrow shoulders in a sort of apology. ‘It amused Dernan.’
‘Where’s he?’
‘Dernan?’ Bo raised his greying brows as if he himself could not believe what he was about to say. ‘Well, searching for his head, thanks to your friends.’
A coiled band that Yusek did not even know was wound around her chest loosened. She let out her breath. ‘So – it’s over. They won.’
The man’s expressive face clouded with distaste. ‘Won?’ he repeated. ‘That is a rather coarse way to put it. Many men and women lost their lives yesterday. No one wins when so many die.’
Orb Sceptre Throne Page 28