She pulled one of the sheets from the tray and handed it to him. It was warm, and the ink smudged beneath his fingers.
‘We have people who’ll carry these all over Rah lands. We’re telling them what you’ve done, freeing the slaves.’
Up close, he could see that they’d drawn his nose too large and the crescents of his pupils seemed to take up all of his eyes. ‘Freed them to die.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said fervently.
‘How can you say that? There are, there are babies …’
She blushed and bowed her head. When she raised it again, her expression was calmer but no less determined. ‘These slaves will die, but there won’t be any more. No more captives taken from their home. My father won’t lie with any more women who don’t have a choice. He won’t make me any more slave brothers.’
She took his hand and squeezed it between both of hers, cream, brown, cream, his rough fingers tangled with her soft ones. ‘Don’t back down. Don’t let my father win. What you’re doing is right.’
15
Sang Ki had read quite a number of rousing speeches over the years, their transcriptions more or less accurate, but he’d never previously been called upon to deliver one. He was surprised to find his palms sweating and his mouth dry. He was also surprised to find that he’d sought the company of the carrion mount for comfort. It was absurd. The bird smelled horrendous and was highly unlikely to give him any useful advice.
‘I’m a fool, Laali,’ he said, patting her matted feathers, ‘and apparently also a sentimentalist.’
She cocked her head to regard him through one fogged black eye. Since they’d started their travels she’d become more restless, sometimes flapping her wings as if she longed to take to the crisp, clear air of the northern plains. It was said Ashane the Founder had stolen the carrion mounts from the ice of the Great Nothing, so perhaps this seemed like home to her. It felt very far from it to him.
He looked back at the train of his followers. They stretched over the grasslands behind him in a long column, gradually congealing as he watched into a sweating knot at the heart of the campsite his mother had selected with her usual eye for detail: near to fresh water and with a clear view in all directions. They were close now, close enough that their next march would need to be in battle formation. He’d brought all the fair’s refugees with him, unwilling to leave them unguarded on the great plain, but he’d leave them here with a few Jorlith, safe from the fighting.
The plains seemed featureless but they were far from it. Sang Ki had brought half the maps his father’s library possessed on his travels, and he was glad of it now. Two days ago they’d passed by the Diamonds of Iskra, a ring of small but deep lakes, icy even in summer. Those were marked on every map and showed that they’d veered a little to the east of their destination. Yesterday they’d turned west to walk through the Deulpan Gae, the Field of Dogs. Sang Ki had hoped his trip might shed light on why it had been given that name, but he’d seen nothing except a jumble of boulders scattered for a mile in every direction over the silver-green grass.
Today they would finally reach their destination, a place shown on only one of his maps. Perhaps the other cartographers had chosen to omit it, sensing something of its provenance.
The deep paths, the night roads, nameless but everywhere, or so his one map said. It was a strange, bare thing, without other topographical features, only a fine tracery of lines criss-crossing the continent from the Eternal Empire – whose southern coast was marked on it, as it was nowhere else – to the Great Nothing. Sang Ki reckoned the map to be nearly a thousand years old, but the hand that had marked other features on it was more recent. In blue ink, and at only eleven points, this unknown geographer had added another feature: the places where the night roads were exposed to the air.
Sang Ki had seen one for himself, in the depths of the Rune Waste. And there was another, only a few miles ahead of them now. The Brotherband were using the night roads to travel from the Rune Waste to the Moon Forest, he was sure of it. How else could they hope to fall upon the Hunt without warning? Sensible people shunned the unlit ways and the worm men who used them. But the oldest texts in his father’s library called the worm men the moon’s servants. Sang Ki thought that alone among the tribes, the Brotherband might not fear them.
He looked again at the force he’d brought, gathering to hear him speak, to hear the words he must find that would explain why and how they could defeat a force greater, more disciplined, more savage than themselves.
‘Wish me luck, Laali,’ he said.
An hour later, he looked at the crowd of upturned faces in front of him and knew that luck alone wouldn’t be enough. ‘We’ll find them,’ he said in what he’d planned to be a spirit-lifting conclusion, ‘and we’ll defeat them. My confidence in you is absolute.’
There was a half-hearted cheer, its message clear. He might have confidence in them, but they had very little in him. He’d seen it in their eyes, trailing over his rolls of fat as he spoke and wondering what he knew of war.
At least the Jorlith in the vanguard looked ready for battle. Sang Ki pulled on the rein of his mammoth and led it in among the steel-tipped sea of spears as they began the march. The fair could afford metal for its guards and his own were also so armed, but the Ashane levies and all the citizens of the fair he’d pressed into service were armed with flint.
Surprise, at least, was possible. Walking beneath the ground, the Brotherband couldn’t know what awaited them. Sang Ki meant to plant an ambush and wait for them to stride straight into it. It seemed a foolproof plan, but many a fool had felt the same and suffered the consequences.
He had fewer than a thousand men. The Brotherband boasted at least five times that, maybe more. Their captive had been vague on the numbers and Min Soo’s drugs had worn off before Sang Ki could press him. Still, they had surprise and they’d have the higher ground. This morning, when a distinctive rock formation had left him sure of the direction, he’d sent scouts ahead to the place where the roof of the deep way had collapsed and – so his map claimed – exposed it to the air.
And there was one of them returning now. No, more than one – at least a dozen, sprinting through the tall grass. Sang Ki frowned. He was no seasoned military commander, but he strongly suspected they weren’t bringing him good news.
He’d become more adept if not more elegant at dismounting from his mammoth. His mother watched in silence as he slid down the beast’s hairy flank.
The Jorlith spears shifted like stalks of wheat in a high wind to let the scouts pass. By the time Sang Ki had found his feet and his balance, the first of them was before him. He was Jorlith too and was usually as blank-faced as all his kin, but his expression now wasn’t hard to read. He was horrified.
A terrible squawking distracted Sang Ki from the sight as Laali pecked a path through the warriors to rush to his side. She cawed disapprovingly and he rested his hand against her great grey wing, more for his support than for her comfort.
‘They’re already here?’ Sang Ki guessed. An army massed to meet them was a far different prospect from one marching oblivious into an ambush.
The scout shook his head.
‘They aren’t here? Then some other problem?’
Two other scouts had joined the first, gasping for breath. ‘They were here,’ the shorter of them said. ‘They’re gone now.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Come and see for yourself,’ the first said grimly.
The tribespeople had camped near the entrance to the night roads, at least a dozen packs of the Four Together. Perhaps they hadn’t realised where the entrance led. And even if they had, why should it have worried them? They knew the worm men couldn’t emerge into the light of day. But the Brotherband had.
The men were merely dead. Sang Ki had seen enough corpses in Smiler’s Fair to have become inured to the look and stench of them.
It was different with the women. He’d known – he’d heard i
t from his captive’s own mouth – what the Brotherband did with those they caught. But hearing and seeing were very different things. That, he supposed, was one of the more important lessons of the last few months.
The Brotherband hadn’t even tried to hide what they’d done. They hadn’t granted their victims that dignity. The women lay where they’d been ravished and then stabbed, or strangled, or killed by the act itself, by the things those savages had used to do it.
They hadn’t spared the children, not if they were girls. One of them had left his spear behind, the butt dug into the ground and a baby fresh from its mother’s womb impaled on the point, a glint of metal piercing – but Sang Ki had to look away.
It almost would have been easier to bear if he thought this was a message for him, a warning not to follow. But, deep beneath the earth, the Brotherband couldn’t have known that he was tracking them. This wasn’t any kind of message, it was only an ordinary day’s endeavour.
Sang Ki walked through it, making himself look at the least mutilated of the corpses, forcing himself to reckon how long ago the slaughter had been done: at least two days, he thought. The flies had begun to feast.
Finally, he found the source of the attack. The roof of the deep way had caved in, a very long way down. He thought he could hear water down there; it was too dark to see. The cleft was narrow but the walls of the chasm weren’t steep. The collapse must have happened years ago, and over time the rain had worn one side away, leaving a ramp that must have been very easy for the Brotherband to climb. He could see their shoe-prints in the soft earth. They’d probably grown tired of the dark after days below ground. They must have welcomed the chance for some fresh air and slaughter.
And now they were back out of sight and out of reach, marching towards the Moon Forest and the unprepared folk. They had two days’ lead, maybe more. He could send his fastest horsemen to try to outpace them, but it was unlikely they’d succeed. The land in this part of the plains was rough. There were ravines, rivers, fields of poison-thorn not even a horse’s hoof could risk. His men would have to go a roundabout way, while the Brotherband forged ahead on their straight, underground path.
He had been right, and it had done him no good at all.
He told his army to stand down. What else could he do? They set up camp, only a few miles from their previous one, and he retreated to his tent. But his tent was empty, and the last thing he felt in need of was his own company.
He wasn’t entirely surprised to find himself heading to the hospital tent instead and its one inhabitant: the woman who still claimed not to be Nethmi.
She was awake, but her eyes stayed fixed on the canvas above her, so his were free to study her face. The burns had begun the process of healing. They were no less red but somewhat less inflamed. The scarring would never be gone, though. Her beauty had been taken by the fire. Nethmi’s beauty, he was – no, he wasn’t quite sure of it. That was the problem. He wasn’t sure, and he wanted to be.
‘I have a problem,’ he said.
Why should it trouble me? Nethmi might have said. This woman didn’t. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘My plan has failed. The Brotherband have outpaced us and now the Moon Forest awaits their ravages. If the lost prince’s forces triumph there, the plains will be next, and after that Ashanesland, and with each victory their forces grow. You heard our captive too. That’s how they recruit: offering life to any man they capture in return for his service. The beast they have let loose lurks in the heart of many men – or so they believe, and the evidence would seem to support it.’
‘Then you’ve got to stop them.’
‘Would that it were so simple.’
‘You’ve got a carrion mount. Min Soo told me.’
He’d thought of this too, of course. But, ‘An ancient carrion mount, barely capable of flight. And she’ll let no one but me near her.’
‘Then you’ll have to ride her, won’t you?’
He laughed at the absurdity of the idea, and the bulk of his stomach jiggled as if to make his point for him, but her mutilated face wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t sure it was capable of the expression any longer.
It was strange to find himself being advised by this woman. Of course, if she was Nethmi, the advice could be meant to kill him. ‘I’m far too fat for the bird to carry,’ he told her. ‘Besides having no idea how to fly or guide the beast.’
‘If you want to stop them,’ she said, ‘you’re going to have to try.’
The wheel perch was a perilous looking thing. Wood was scarce on the plains, and they’d constructed it from saplings and planks scavenged from wagons that were themselves scavenged from the wreckage of Smiler’s Fair. No one looked too confident about the venture, Laali least of all.
The bird’s head twisted between the wheel perch and Sang Ki, her expression – if she could be said to have one – dubious. In her heyday as a carrion mount she would have climbed many such a contraption to launch herself airward on her patrols of Ashanesland. It had been many years, though, since she had performed that service and she and her rider had been retired to the White Heights. There they’d had real cliffs to fling themselves from. She didn’t seem keen to return to her earlier methods.
Sang Ki wasn’t too fond of the idea either. Along with the wheel perch they’d had to make him a riding suit. Among the refugees of Smiler’s Fair was a man who’d once been the paramour of a carrion rider. He’d flown on the mount and he told Sang Ki the high air was colder than he could imagine. Leather was a necessity. It had taken the coats from three men of normal size to construct it and now it creaked and chafed as he reluctantly walked to the foot of the wheel perch.
His mother was waiting there for him, as he’d expected. ‘This is lunacy,’ she said. ‘You’ve done your duty as an Ashane – more than your duty. King Nayan will see that. Now it’s time to return home and tell him what you’ve learned.’
‘Mother,’ he said, and paused. He knew there was no argument that would convince her. Her face was set and angry, an expression that experience had taught him could only be shifted by complete capitulation. She had never trusted anyone’s judgement but her own, not even his father’s.
‘You’re far too heavy for her. You could die.’ She still looked angry but she sounded anguished. It was easy to forget that she loved him.
‘Oh, I think I’ll survive the endeavour,’ he said, though he thought no such thing. ‘The carrion mounts are able to carry two fully armoured men to battle. She may not like it, but she can lift even my weight if she tries.’
‘Please, Sang Ki. These Moon Forest folk are nothing to us.’
He was glad she’d said it. It helped his certainty to harden. ‘Nothing? Truly, Mother? Do they mean so little to us that we can watch what was done here be done to them? You’re right, I suppose. King Nayan won’t be grateful if I save the Moon Forest folk from the Brotherband. They are nothing to him. But I won’t let the Brotherband slaughter them if I can prevent it. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.’
It was curious that it was true. Sang Ki had always thought of himself as a pragmatist, not a moralist. But it seemed there were some limits to his detachment. Unfortunately, the Brotherband had tested them. He stooped to kiss his mother’s cheek, then rested his hand on Laali’s new saddle and led her up the steps of the wheel perch.
Laali seemed to perk up as they climbed. The grubby feathers of her neck stood up in a proud ruff and she looked at the faces below and cawed in triumph or challenge. Then she turned her head to Sang Ki and butted it against his chest.
He stroked the oily feathers when they reached the flat top of the perch. ‘We can do this together, can’t we?’ he said, looking into her eye.
They’d fitted her out in the best approximation of a flying rig that the carrion rider’s paramour could remember. They’d even provided stirrups to help him up the side, but it was still a difficult and undignified process. Laali turned a disapproving eye on him as he heaved his bulk on top
of her.
But then, almost unbelievably, he was in the saddle and she hadn’t collapsed beneath his weight. He could feel the tension throughout her body as she strained to hold it, but when he flicked the reins, she took two wobbling steps forward until her talons were gripping the edge of the wheel perch.
It really was a very long way down. If she fell rather than flew it would kill them both. He made himself remember in unpleasant detail the corpses of the slaughtered tribeswomen. It didn’t really help, so instead he made himself think about all the people below, and how they’d laugh at him and lose what little respect they had for him if he came back down again. He thought about his mother, who would never accept his defiance again, if he let her win now. And then he kicked his heels against Laali’s flanks.
She stretched out her wings to their full extent and tipped over the edge of the perch. His stomach lurched as she fell and fell and kept on falling. The ground wasn’t so very far below them after all. It was close and getting terrifyingly closer. He could see the low, yellow-flowered bushes. He could see each blade of grass. Until, with an effort he could feel in the stringy muscles beneath him, Laali raised her wings and flapped.
She did it once, weakly, then again more powerfully. And again. Until, unbelievably, the grassland beneath them became something they were travelling over, not towards. And suddenly they were rising, the air blowing furiously against his leather coat and an exhilaration he’d never known pumping heat through his blood.
16
Krish made himself go to the slaves’ huts every day. Ensee said it was like picking at a scab, and he thought that was right. If you picked a scab long enough, it left a scar behind. A scar helped you remember and he didn’t think he should forget what he’d done here.
The Hunter's Kind: Book II of The Hollow Gods Page 16