Tayven glanced at him warily, clearly perplexed because he hadn’t intuited the train of Khaster’s thoughts. Then, he grimaced and nodded. ‘You’re right. I am looking at the ground. I should remember I am light, and look up. I shouldn’t burden you with my feelings, because they can never be yours.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Thanks, Khas. What you said has actually helped.’
‘Good, although that wasn’t what I meant at all. I’m not that subtle.’
‘What did you mean, then?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s go and finish our lunch. I want to see more sites before sundown.’
Back at the rock beside the pool, a flock of small brightly-coloured birds was occupied with devouring the scattered food. They flew off in a whirring shrieking cloud as Tayven jumped onto the rock. ‘Spoiled,’ he said. ‘Are you still hungry?’
Khaster climbed up beside him. ‘No.’ He put his hands on Tayven’s shoulders, sensed the boy’s spine stiffen in discomfort, and withdrew as if scalded. ‘How far to the next lake?’
‘Not far.’ Tayven turned. ‘Khas, I do have wine.’
Khaster stared into his eyes. Feelings and urges warred within him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s too early.’
‘Before midnight?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Explain it to me. Tell me why you’ll kiss me if you’re drunk and not when you’re sober. What do you feel? Is it repulsion? It is fear? What? I’m like a guilty secret of yours, something to hide. You’re ashamed of what you want to do when you’re drunk.’
This was the first time the matter had been addressed openly. Tayven looked belligerent, but Khaster knew he deserved answers.
‘I feel I have a wall around me when I’m sober,’ Khaster said. ‘Even when I went to the whore in Magrast, I had to get drunk. It’s because of what happened in Caradore. My wife preferred to sleep with her brother than me. When I found out about it, when Bayard told me, I thought about how Pharinet must have felt sick every time I came home. She endured me. It did nothing for my confidence.’
‘Is she beautiful?’
‘Yes, like Valraven.’
‘Did you love her so much?’
‘She was beautiful, Tay. I never knew her, not really. I was merely a child, more so than you’ve ever been. I believed life would be one thing, then it was another. The life I knew had never existed. People weren’t who I thought them to be.’
‘You must let it go,’ Tayven said. ‘Don’t let it cripple you. Soon, you may be fighting for your life. Your despair weakens you physically. I can see it in you.’
‘I’ve decided not to drink here. That’s a start, isn’t it?’
‘I wish I could reach you.’
‘You do.’ Khaster stretched out a hand and touched Tayven’s hair. ‘I know you better than I ever knew Pharinet. You are so alive.’
Tayven uttered a sorrowful sound and pulled Khaster into his arms. Khaster rested his chin on Tayven’s head, breathing in his scent. The air was still, the only sound the lap of water against the rocks. ‘We will live through everything,’ Khaster said. ‘Almorante will help us. I’ll do whatever he asks of me, and then he will give me freedom. I’ll take you to Caradore, to the wildest places.’
‘Away from your family?’ Tayven murmured.
Khaster was silent for a moment, then, ‘Yes, away from them.’
Khaster felt a great lightness in his heart. He was renewed. The wall was breaking. Soon he might step through it completely.
They returned to the retreat in the dusk and ate the meal the servants had left out for them. As night fell, a tautness came into the room. Khaster sat in a chair before the window, staring out at the mountains. Tayven went up to him and kissed the top of his head. ‘I’m going to bed now. Don’t sit here all night brooding. Get some sleep.’
‘Good night, Tay,’ Khaster said. He squeezed Tayven’s hand, which lay on his shoulder. ‘I have to think. Some things became clear today.’
‘Sleep on it.’
‘I will.’
Khaster watched the moon arc across the sky. The air in the room was chill, for the fire had burned away. Khaster shivered. He stood up and went to the stairs, his mind strangely numb. On the first landing, he paused, his hand on the door to his room. He looked up the next flight of stairs, where watchful ghosts seemed to cluster in the shadows. No light burned there. He climbed the stairs carefully, making no sound. In the room at the top, the curtains were open and the last of the moonlight fell across the bed. Tayven, not lying on his back with outspread hair like a beautiful effigy, was a shapeless mound beneath the blankets. Khaster crept across the threshold and crossed the room. He stood staring at the bed, unsure why he was there, what he would do. Then Tayven said, ‘I’m not asleep, Khas.’ He emerged from the blankets with his hair over his eyes. Khaster knew he had been expected.
‘Is it midnight yet?’ Tayven asked.
Khaster pulled off his shirt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nowhere near.’
Tayven woke Khaster in the twilight before dawn. ‘Come down to the lake with me,’ he said softly but urgently. ‘Now.’
Khaster blinked, befuddled by sleep. ‘Why?’
‘It’s important. I don’t care what you feel about magic, you must experience the power of Anterity. It is the lake of the warrior, and you need that force within you.’
‘I’ll do it for you,’ Khaster said.
Tayven was already out of bed.
The air outside was cold, and Khaster wished he’d bothered to put on his boots. The grass was icy wet against his feet. Tayven hurried ahead of him down the path from the retreat, pausing every now and then to look back and make sure Khaster was following. What was the urgency?
At the lakeside, Khaster stood yawning, scratching his hair. He felt physically replete and at peace. He could not believe he could feel that way. Perhaps he and Tayven could bathe in the water together.
‘I had a dream,’ Tayven said, ‘about you and the lakes. I know you are meant to undertake the quest.’
‘What quest?’ Khaster said. ‘Why?’
‘I saw you here, invoking the spirit of Anterity. I saw you at every lake.’
‘Even the last?’
‘I was with you at the last. Perhaps this is our chance at salvation, at survival.’
‘You said it was inaccessible, perhaps didn’t even exist.’
‘Will you try? We could visit each lake and perform the invocations, as I did with Almorante. If we are to succeed, we’ll find the seventh lake. It will just happen.’
‘Tayven, I’m not really interested in this kind of thing.’
‘Will you do it?’ Tayven insisted.
Khaster had never seen him so fierce. He sighed. ‘If you really want me to.’
‘I do. You don’t know how much.’
‘But what’s the point, what’s to be gained?’
‘Knowledge and strength,’ Tayven said. ‘Sit down.’
Grumbling beneath his breath, Khaster did so.
Tayven sat beside him. ‘Close your eyes,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain what we have to do.’
Tayven’s voice was no more than a whisper in the cold air. He told Khaster how to breathe correctly to induce a meditative state. Khaster felt himself drifting. He could so easily slip back into sleep.
‘I call upon the spirits of Anterity,’ Tayven said. ‘Reveal yourselves to us. Enter the heart of Khaster Leckery, impart your knowledge to him.’
To Khaster he said, ‘Concentrate on the image of the lake as you last saw it. Imagine the spirits are coming to you. They can take any form. It will be personal to you. If any images appear before your mind’s eye, you must tell me.’
‘It’s just fog,’ Khaster murmured. He could imagine what the lake looked like, but nothing more.
‘Relax,’ Tayven said gently. ‘This is the lake of the element of metal, the warrior’s sword, the spear. Concentrate on that aspect.’
As soon as Tayven finished speaking, Khaster sa
w an image. ‘Yes, I see it. A sword. Is that right?’
‘What else?’ Tayven urged.
Khaster frowned in concentration. He’d seen the sword because Tayven had suggested it. He hadn’t generated the image himself. He couldn’t conjure any more. ‘Nothing,’ he said, and then a clear, precise picture splashed across his mind. He saw Valraven crowned and throned as a king and holding the great sword. In a flash, he pointed this weapon towards Khaster and said, ‘You are a champion of mine. One day, you’ll return to me. We are one.’ The experience of the image was so real, it was as if Khaster had seen it with his physical eyes, heard it with his ears. More than a dream.
‘No!’ Khaster opened his eyes and was instantly relieved to see only the soft-focus dawn landscape around him.
‘What is it?’ Tayven asked. ‘What did you see?’
‘Nothing,’ Khaster said. Why had his mind shown that to him? He hated Valraven. There could be no reconciliation. Valraven was not, and never could be, his king. The idea was obscene. He got to his feet. ‘I’m cold. I want to go back.’
‘Khas, you saw something. I know you did. What was it? I have to know before we go to the next lake.’
‘We’re not going,’ Khaster said. ‘I’m sorry, Tay. This isn’t for me. I don’t like the tricks the mind plays on us.’
‘Khas, what did you see?’ Tayven asked, more insistently, but Khaster was already walking away from him, back towards the retreat.
He heard Tayven running up behind him.
‘It’s so important,’ Tayven said. ‘I want you to have what I have.’
Khaster turned round and cupped Tayven’s face with his hands. ‘You already have more than I ever thought could be given. Please don’t push for more.’
Tayven dropped his gaze. ‘I’ve bullied you,’ he said. ‘But that’s because there may not be another chance.’
‘You have my body, you have my heart, you even have my mind. But the spirit’s another matter. We’re on different levels there.’
‘We don’t have to be.’
‘Enough, Tay,’ Khaster said. ‘You must leave it. Let’s enjoy what time we have together here.’
Tayven knew enough to leave it be, but the furious frustration in his eyes, the certainty that a vital tide had been missed, haunted Khaster for the rest of their stay in Recolletine.
Chapter Eight: The War in Cos
The going was hard because the wagons were hampered by mud. Whips cracked across the flanks of the straining, steaming horses. Rain fell in sheets. Men caught fever of the lungs and died along the way. It was merciless, the country’s assault on those who would chase her children from her landscape.
Back in Magravandias, the weather had been perfect as the troops filed through the city beneath the royal balcony on the outer wall of the palace, away to war. Their armour had shone, and the pelts of the horses. Petals and confetti had been strewn down upon them. The foot soldiers wore flowers in their helmets. The empress Tatrini and Leonid the emperor had stood upon the balcony, surrounded by those of their family who were in residence: Almorante, Roarke, Celetian, and the young princess, Varencienne. Valraven had led the army beneath them, beautiful upon a high-stepping black stallion, whose mane flowed like the hair of Pharinet, dense and lush and fragrant. Valraven stared straight ahead, his face pale like a sculpture. Bayard rode nearly abreast of him, gilded, with the emblem of Madragore emblazoned on his cloak. Banners had surrounded them and pennants had fluttered from a forest of lifted spears, carried by a company of mounted holy knights, the Splendifers. Behind had come the officers, Khaster among them, and Rufus Lorca and several others well-known to him, leading in procession the cavalry, the artillery, the infantry. They were followed by the supply wagons and those that carried the beasts of war, which snarled and gibbered in darkness, beneath heavy coverings. The parade was the wealth of the capital, leaving it behind, flowing out to be squandered, and perhaps lost, in a foreign land.
People had lined the streets and cheered. Leonid stood with arms upraised, beaming down upon his warriors. The empress lifted a hand and smiled faintly, while Almorante stood behind her, his expression contemplative. Khaster looked up to him as he passed, but Almorante caught no one’s eye. Tayven rode behind the officers with the other squires. He had an official position with Khaster now.
The army travelled east overland to the narrow coastal county of Petrussia and the port of Ornac on the shores of the Ranquil Sea. Here, great ships braved the tumultuous waves and carried the vast company to the western shore of Cos, where all the ports were firmly under Magravandian control. Diluente, the coastal town, was very ancient. Crumbling walls, adorned by basalt demons designed to frighten away invaders, cupped the vine-cloaked marble villas and temples. The sea gods might wear the yoke of Madragore, but the docks were garlanded with offerings of fresh gobbets of beef bound with wheat to appease the hunger of the water denizens.
The Magravandian company seethed ashore, creating chaos in the docklands. Horses neighed and stamped, cargo creaked upon its ropes, pulleys screamed with strain, men shouted orders impatiently. Native Diluentians gathered to watch the army disembark, their patrician faces haughty and scornful. Bayard made haste to a high class inn to enjoy a final session of expensive food and drink, while Valraven stood like a stern gargoyle at the edge of the docks, overseeing the unloading, oblivious to the curious local onlookers who all knew his name.
Even then, purple thunderheads were gathering in the east. Some said renegade Cossic priests had called upon the goddess, Challis Hespereth. She had power over all the elements. By the time the army left the farmland beyond Diluente and ventured into the wilder areas of the foothills of the Rhye, the rain had begun to fall. It was relentless, punishing. It drowned the land.
Mid-country was where the troubled nested. A great range of mountains, the Rhye, effectively split Cos in two. In the past, Cossic emperors had ordered thoroughfares to be blasted through the living rock, but these were high, treacherous paths, hardly more than tunnels through the earth, where it was easy for Cossic snipers to make sport with anyone passing below. Valraven ordered Mewtish scouts to haunt the higher paths, in the hope of guarding his precious troops. It was true they flushed out several knots of resistance, but still the cliffs were immense and pocked with caves and tunnels. Cossic terrorists could move like ghosts, leaving no spoor, so there were casualties.
Every night, Khaster held Tayven to him, but sensed a distance in him. He presumed the boy was afraid of Bayard, or perhaps he missed the comforts of home. When questioned, Tayven would make an effort to be cheerful, but Khaster knew this was a sham.
Two weeks into the Rhye, the scouts reported a possible trap ahead. The army travelled a high pass that swept down into a deep, lush river valley. At its far end the cliffs formed what was virtually a natural amphitheatre. The scouts were sure that the Cossics had stationed their best men here. They could attack the Magravandians from on high, as if shooting at rabbits in an empty field. Valraven gave the order to make camp at the western end of the valley. Mist steamed off the swift-moving river, but at least the rain had eased.
Khaster had felt oddly removed from reality all the way from Magrast, but now, seated on a stool outside his tent, while Tayven attended to their belongings inside, he listened to the eerily muffled sounds around him and began to feel a deep unease. Was Valraven confident of victory here? The Cossics had a superb line of defence ahead, and they were driven by outrage and a lust for survival. Khaster stared through the mist at the barely visible cliff face at the other end of the valley. He could see nothing suspicious, but knew in his heart that they were being observed very closely. The Magravandians would set up their war machines and bombard the cliffs in an attempt to debilitate the enemy, but the Cossics would see that coming, wouldn’t they? In the distant past, Khaster’s own people had tried to repel the Magravandians. They had failed, because of the empire’s sheer force of numbers. But the Cossics were more tenacious. Khaster considered th
at the Caradorean soul contained an element of melancholic doom, which had perhaps contributed towards their downfall. And yet, they made good soldiers, because they were able to anticipate the moves of an enemy. They were clever strategists and rode into battle with a sense of destiny, even if that destiny was to die. Khaster was confused about his own destiny. In Magrast, it hadn’t been too hard to believe in Almorante’s dream, but out here, in the cold, hostile world, the intrigues of the court meant nothing. Even Bayard seemed different to how he behaved at home, his energy focused entirely on the task in hand. Or so it seemed.
There was no sign of life in the crags that night, but the men barely slept. In the morning, at Bayard’s directive, foot soldiers dragged out the cannons and arranged them in a line to face the rocks. Bayard enjoyed a spectacle of fire and explosions. Valraven was not wholly behind Bayard’s move, because he thought the Cossics had long fled the area, deterred from attack by the size of the Magravandian army. Bayard, however, insisted that the scouts had seen figures moving among the rocks. Still, Valraven must have thought they had little to lose, and for two hours the Magravandians directed the full blast of their artillery against the cliffs. There was no responding fire. Afterwards, all was silent. Birds had fled. It seemed too easy. Nimble scouts scaled the smoking cliffs to count the dead. And dead there were in abundance. Unfortunately, they turned out to be the troops from a Magravandian garrison situated some miles to the north, recognisable mainly by their commander who was found impaled in a cave nearby. They had been tied up among the rocks. It could only be surmised the garrison was no more.
Valraven seemed unaffected by the carnage and didn’t even criticise Bayard’s action, which surprised the other officers. He decided the Cossics would let the Magravandians press onwards towards the city of Synticula, high in the mountains, long considered invincible. No doubt the Cossics expected to make short work of the exhausted Magravandian army there. But no city was invincible to Valraven. Before a siege was attempted, however, Valraven wanted to retake the garrison to the north, so as not to allow the Cossics a secure area from where to launch further attacks. Valraven himself would take his elite troops to undertake this task. Meanwhile, Bayard would remain with the rest of the men in the valley, guarding the pass to the west.
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