by Jo Spurrier
Rasten jerked his hand away, but the girl fell back anyway, her face turned aside with her eyes scrunched closed.
‘Tigers take you, Greska!’ Rasten thundered. ‘I told you never to sneak up on me!’
Breathing hard, she scrambled away. Rasten turned away from her, grinding his teeth as he surveyed the folk surrounding him. He knew them all. He’d tried to learn their names, but it seemed the part of his mind that remembered such things had withered away in the dungeons. No one there lasted long enough to need them. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
‘We’ve got some fresh meat for you,’ one of the women said, a wicked smile on her lips. She was slightly built, with swept-back cheekbones and an aquiline nose that had been broken sometime during her stint as a slave.
Rasten focused on her. He crossed the clearing in two quick strides and seized her with one hand on her arm and the other buried in her hair. He studied her closely, reaching inside her to examine the currents and channels power had carved out within her, before at last shoving her away and turning his back.
‘I told you I’d meet up in a week — in the meantime, you can cursed well leave me alone!’ He no longer had any idea how many patrols roamed this corner of the empire, but he was still the only one who could wake the dormant seed of power into a weapon.
‘If we waited another week we’d have twice as many,’ Greska said. ‘The patrols have been busy. And it takes it out of you, doing those kinds of numbers.’
‘The way things are going, it’d be better not to wait,’ another woman said. She was a priestess, nearly twice his age, with tattooed vines curling across her cheekbone. Rasten remembered how she’d wept as she asked for the ritual that would turn her into something she’d been taught to despise. ‘There are legions in the south.’
‘Legions?’ Rasten rubbed the back of his neck. He could still taste the woman’s power, familiar and unpleasant. ‘How many?’
‘Hard to say — they look to be aiming for the main camp with the women and children. The king is riding with them, and Lady Sierra, too. Don’t know what’s brewing, but we may not have the time to get these newcomers trained up.’
Somewhere nearby, a horse nickered, and Rasten’s head jerked up like a startled deer. That wasn’t his gelding. The wind had shifted, and he could smell fresh smoke and roasting meat. ‘How many?’ he said.
‘Twenty,’ the priestess said, and cut a dark glance at the woman who’d mentioned fresh meat. ‘Would have been more, but some got scared off.’
The number made his eyebrows rise. That was a lot for a short stretch of days. ‘Where?’
The priestess nodded to the east. ‘There’s a big house off that way. We took it today, no trouble. The commander’s having the barn cleared for you. They’ve been fasting in case you want to get started right away, but if not the commander had an ox put on a spit to roast.’
His belly was empty and growling with hunger, but Rasten ignored it. Better to get it over with, and worry about food later. ‘Where’s my horse?’
The meeting party hung back once he’d gathered up his gear and mounted his gelding, letting him ride on alone.
He had missed the house while riding through the night. Had he known it was there, he wouldn’t have camped so close. The farmhouse was a vast building, easily as large as a Ricalani dwelling that combined living quarters and shelter for the stock through the long winter. Outbuildings were scattered around it: barns, granaries, pens for animals and the long, low lines of slave quarters.
The grounds were thronged with people, with dozens of tether-lines for horses, and many rows of rough tents. Scattered among the dark-haired Ricalanis were a number of foreigners with the coloured hair or dark skin of the Akharian folk. Some of them seemed utterly bewildered, wandering as though lost. It was inevitable that the Ricalani forces would come across other slaves — many farms were run entirely by slaves while their masters lived in the capital. The Ricalanis gave them a choice — they could join the northerners and go with them to Ricalan; remain in the empire and take their chances as runaways; or remain with their former masters and flee with them. By the king’s order, no Akharian folk were to be mistreated or offered any violence so long as they surrendered without resistance.
While the newly freed slaves grappled with a world suddenly turned inside out, the Ricalani folk set about stripping the house. As Rasten approached, folk were carrying armloads of goods outside to lay on the ground — pots and pans, knives and implements, clothes and shoes and bolts of cloth, candles and oil-lamps. Even needles and spools of thread would be carefully gathered up. In the central courtyard, a fire had been lit, and along with the promised ox, a pig had been set over the coals to roast, while folk gathered around barrels, drinking rich dark ale.
Despite the festive feel, sentries had been posted, and as Rasten passed through the outer ring, a runner was sent to inform the commander, and the fellow came striding out to meet him as Rasten drew close.
Rasten had seen this man often enough to know his face and his name. ‘Commander Madric,’ he said as he swung down from the saddle. The lad who’d run to announce him silently took the reins.
‘Lord Rasten. Good of you to come. I take it the women found you without too much trouble.’
Rasten made a noncommittal noise. It was an unintended side-effect of the rituals. It gave the subjects a connection with him, albeit a tenuous one. None of them had learnt to reach him mind-to-mind, and he hoped it would stay that way, but some of them could locate him, much like a lodestone reaches for north. They shared a similar connection with Sierra, it seemed, a kind of kinship that passed through him. They could draw power from her, if she chose to grant it.
A flash of bright metal caught his eye, and Rasten looked around to see a table set up near the farmhouse door that men and women were crowded around, talking and laughing as they worked on something he could not see. Off to the side, a young girl of perhaps thirteen seemed to have just finished her task, and was holding it up to admire — a necklace of gold coins, pierced and knotted onto a cord. She hung it around her neck, then saw Rasten watching her and waved as she flashed him a smile. He bowed his head in a nod before turning back to Madric. ‘How is she?’
The commander followed his gaze. ‘Ilesha? Well enough, considering. I tried to send her to Lady Sierra, but she begged to stay with the exploratory forces.’
The girl was one of the few faces and names he did remember. She was the youngest he’d put to the ritual. He hadn’t wanted to do it — she was more a child than a woman, and he’d always hated working on children … but the Akharians had treated her as a woman grown, and he remembered only too well what it felt like to be thirteen years old and torn away from everything you knew and loved; powerless, helpless and in pain, desperate for anything that would give some small measure of control. How could he deny her, when he knew what it would have meant to him to receive such a gift? It still bothered him, what he’d done to her, but if she was doing well, if she could smile like that at the sight of him, then he was doing something good, after all. It was hard to think that way, sometimes.
That thought reminded Rasten of what he’d seen when the women encircled him. ‘The mage with the broken nose — you know the one?’ he said to Madric.
The commander nodded, and jerked his head towards the barn. ‘The new recruits are waiting — I expect you’ll want to get to them right away, as usual? Come, let’s talk on the way, where there are fewer people to hear.’ This last he said in an undertone. Rasten shrugged and gestured to the commander to lead the way.
‘I wondered if you’d notice anything strange about her,’ Madric said as they walked away. ‘There’s been some unsettling rumours. And then, with these new recruits — she was telling them some wretched awful tales about what to expect. I sent her to see what you’d think of her.’
‘She’s a Blood-Mage,’ Rasten said.
Madric faltered and nearly stumbled. ‘Fires Below,’ he mutter
ed. ‘How? I thought that sort had to be initiated —’
‘No, any novice can stumble onto the path. Ones who are brought in by a competent mage are just harder to kill.’
Madric sucked a breath between his teeth. ‘Well, with Lady Sierra on hand it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll send word to the ki— to the prince, I mean, and have her taken to him for trial.’
Rasten turned to him. ‘Trial?’
‘We can’t just kill her. We’re not savages — we’re still bound to follow the laws.’
Rasten scowled down at his feet. It seemed ridiculous to him, but what did he know of living in civilisation? As far as he knew, a person was guilty if the king said they were … Besides, the woman would likely slip away long before reaching Cammarian. All they could give to escort her were the fledgling mages, and even a novice Blood-Mage could flatten them, unless Sierra lent them strength.
He shrugged again. ‘In that case I want a closer look at her. I’ll send word to Sirri myself of what ought to be done with her.’
‘That’d be very good of you, sir,’ Madric said. ‘I’ll see that it happens. When?’
‘Once I’m done with these newcomers,’ Rasten said. He’d just kill the fledgling Blood-Mage, and spare Sirri the trouble. He probably should have done it in the clearing. The attention he’d already showed her might be enough to warn her off — but he could always track her down. ‘Until then, have her watched.’
‘I’ll see she has no chance to work harm.’ Madric led him to a door at the side of the barn, and when he rapped his knuckles on the wood it was opened by a round-faced woman with her hair bound back into a sleek knot. ‘Ven will see to anything you need,’ Madric said. ‘I’ll speak to you later, Lord Rasten.’
It was cool and dark inside the barn, and Ven moved quietly as she shut the door behind him. ‘We have some folk on hand to take care of the recruits afterwards,’ she said. ‘They know to stay out of your way.’
Rasten nodded and walked into the cavernous space to look around. The floor had been swept clean and pots and buckets of water had been scattered around.
‘Do you want me on fire watch, sir?’
‘Not to begin with. I’ll call you if you’re needed.’
She only nodded in reply. He liked Ven. She was calm and quiet, she didn’t stare at him when she thought he couldn’t see and didn’t talk when it wasn’t needed. Standing this close, he could feel that her power had grown in the last few weeks, but it was quiet, deep and still, just like her.
Rasten rolled his shoulders and flexed his neck, feeling the joints crack and pop. He drew in a deep breath, taking in the scent of animals and earth, of old wood and hay. Soon enough the barn would stink of blood and fear, that old familiar reek, but for now he would draw the cleaner scents within him. He turned to Ven. ‘Bring the first one in.’
Chapter 8
Cam reined his horse in at the crest of the hill, squinting at the surrounding slopes, half-hidden in a misty haze of rain. ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘where in the Fires Below are they?’
‘Tracks are still heading southeast, sir,’ the chief scout said.
Cam growled under his breath, and turned to Sierra, who’d pulled up beside him.
It still felt wrong to halt at the crest, where they’d be outlined against the sky. A year ago he’d have felt too vulnerable to consider it — they’d make a tempting target to a man with a crossbow, let alone the mage-crafted weapons the Akharians hoped to recover from Ricalan. At times, Cam still had to remind himself that Sierra had them shielded. ‘Sirri?’ he said.
‘They’re not close,’ she replied. ‘I can sense them, but only just. I think they’re retreating.’
Cam turned to the scout, raising one eyebrow.
‘Seems that way, sir,’ the scout said. ‘The tracks have them moving at a fair clip.’
Cam nodded, and twisted around in the saddle to look behind. If it weren’t for the low clouds and the constant drizzle of rain, he would see the hills slowly flattening out to the north as the damp grassland gave way to the arid interior. Behind them lay the rest of his camp … the women and children, the wounded and the elderly, along with the latest crop of mages under Delphine’s tutelage. When the outriders reported a legion approaching from the south, there’d been no question whether they’d ride out to meet them.
‘They could be holding back, hoping the weather clears, sir,’ the scout said. ‘If they fear it’ll worsen they might think it better to run than to fight in knee-deep mud.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe they don’t mean to fight us at all.’
Cam leant back to reach into his saddlebags, and pulled out an Akharian map case. Someone had taken the trouble to scratch away the imperial symbol, a bull poised to charge engraved onto the silver tube. As he spread the map across his knees and saddlebow, Sierra stretched over to peer at the markings. ‘So they came from the west.’
‘The supply train did,’ Cam said. ‘The legion seems to have come from the south or southwest, as near as we can tell.’
‘And now they’re heading southeast. Why? A supply train from the west, with the legion sent to escort it? That’s a cursed lot of men.’
That was one explanation. The camp to their north was only a small portion of Cam’s army, but it was the most vulnerable. The bulk of his fighting forces ranged ahead, freeing slaves and gathering supplies. For some weeks, Cam had wondered how long they had before the Akharians felt the bite of his depredations. Had they already grown desperate enough to bring in supplies from west of the empire? Perhaps, but why overland and so close to the enemy forces? The Akharians had to know it would make a tempting target. The legion offered them no protection. They knew by now that numbers were no obstacle to Sierra.
Cam studied the map, searching for a fortified town or a river to block the pursuer’s path, but there was nothing to offer any defence.
Sierra straightened in the saddle. ‘This puts me in mind of plovers drawing beasts away from their nests by feigning a broken wing.’
‘I was thinking much the same,’ Cam said, and he glanced up at the sky. It was early afternoon. This was the cold season for this part of the world, but he struggled to think of it that way — the days stayed light well into the afternoon, and though it snowed on occasion, it never lingered. Puddles might freeze at night, but never solid enough to bear a man’s weight, and in daylight they soon melted. His northerner’s mind couldn’t bear to think of it as winter.
Cam shook himself and turned to Sierra as he rolled the map up again. ‘Supplies or not, I don’t want to get too far from the base camp. We’ll halt, and send the scouts to see what they do when they realise we’re not following. Sirri, have our mages get in touch with the camp. Tell Rouldin to double the perimeter patrols and be on guard. If they see anything out of the ordinary, have them inform us right away.’
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
As she turned away, Cam signalled to his officers, but even as he passed on his orders, he felt a hard knot of unease forming in his belly. If the Akharians did mean to attack the camp, there was only one target of value. Killing the non-combatants would land a blow to their spirit and morale, but the true target could only be Delphine and her training camp for the new mages.
On the spur of the moment, Cam changed his orders. Instead of a halt, he called a retreat. They weren’t so far away, just a few days — at a hard pace, they could be back with the base camp within a day or two.
There was something out there.
The tent was dark. The only light came from the fire beneath the smoke-hole and a lantern hanging from the ridgepole.
Isidro stared up at the roof. How long had he been lying here with the single thought running over and over through his head? There’s something out there there’s something out there there’s something out there there’s something out there there’s something …
He squeezed his eyes shut and raised his hands to his face. The left one made contact, but the right …
for a moment he felt as though it was flailing around in empty space, somehow transported to a different plane than the rest of him, but after a moment he remembered. Gone. It’s gone. Long ago, now.
By the Black Sun, he ought to remember. It was a blessing, really — it never pained him anymore, and he never grew feverish when his reserves ran low. He was better off without it. And yet sometimes he forgot that he no longer had a right hand … sometimes he forgot he’d ever been injured. Sometimes he found himself staring at his vacant sleeve, utterly unable to recall why a vital part of himself was missing. I’m a warrior. How am I supposed to fight without a sword arm?
It always came back to him sooner or later, and then he cursed himself for his scattered wits. This wasn’t right. He wasn’t normally like this. Was he?
There’s something out there.
He was lying on his furs, fully dressed, aside from his boots. The tent was empty. He was alone.
There’s something out there.
Isidro heaved himself up, and winced as his head began to spin. He hooked his good arm around his knees, waiting for it to pass. Back when the wound on his arm was still fresh, he’d fainted when he stood too quickly. They’d never dared leave him alone. That was a while ago now, though. Was it weeks, or months? It could have been years for all he knew. The days ran together, seamless, unchanging.
There’s something out there.
‘What?’ Isidro demanded, and his own voice startled him, hoarse and rough in the dim silence. ‘What is out there?’
The only answer was the crackle of the fire burning low in the brazier, and the silent voice in his head. There’s something out there there’s something out there there’s something out there there’s something out there there’s something …
With a groan he pressed his hand against his temple, sinking his fingers into his hair and gripping it tight, as though he could pull the maddening thought from his head. ‘Shut up,’ he growled. ‘Shut up, shut up.’