A Draw of Kings

by Patrick W. Carr

  Martin understood the gesture without translation. Such short-coated horses would never thrive in the fierce weather of the steppes. Karele nodded, then left the horse and the circle of stone-faced guards. Sallow hands darted for sabers that rested on each hip before his intent became obvious. One man, the leader, drew, his face stern, affronted. Karele pushed his hands forward toward the nose of one of the Morgols’ long-haired ponies.

  The mount tossed its head, then quieted. Karele dug his hands deep into the coat, nodding toward the mounts they’d brought. He came back into the circle, paused to bow from the waist toward the Morgol leader whose horse he had dared to touch.

  Cruk’s hands still hung loose and relaxed at his sides, but he held his weight forward on his feet. Wind tugged at Martin’s hair, found passage down the neck of his cloak.

  “What happens now?”

  Karele shrugged. “It’s up to them. I told them the horses are a gift, but I didn’t say for whom. I’m waiting for them to ask. Once they do, they’re honor bound to guide us to the recipient.”

  Martin surveyed the faces around them, faces as bleak as their surroundings. “What’s to keep them from simply killing us and taking the horses?”

  The healer looked shocked. “Anathema. A gift of horses is the highest honor to the Morgols. Taking them for themselves would be tantamount to forsaking their entire society.”

  Cruk’s growl cut through the cold behind him. “Where’s the boy? If they’ve harmed Owen, healer, no amount of horseflesh reverence matters.”

  The Morgols reacted to Cruk’s tone, their open expressions sliding away to be replaced by their former implacability.

  Karele sighed. “The nomads don’t kill children, Captain, but if it will keep you from setting them on their guard . . .” He turned, and a stream of words in the Morgol tongue spilled from him. Martin caught Owen’s name among the pile of nonsense syllables.

  The lead guard answered, stealing glances at Cruk as he did so.

  Cruk unclenched his jaws enough to ask for the translation.

  Karele shrugged. “Owen was taken back to their camp. When they found him, he was weak from exposure; they did not wish to further expose him to the wind off the steppes.”

  The leader of the guards interjected with a string of words that finished with a questioning tone.

  Karele conversed with him briefly, then turned to Martin and smiled. “Our gift has been accepted. They will take us to my father.” He sprang onto the back of the nearest horse. Martin mounted and moved his horse close to Karele’s.

  When the Morgol captain gave orders to his men, Karele shook his head and spoke in a diffident tone. The eyes of the Morgol leader grew wide and his tone doubting. Karele placed his hands on the space between his mount’s flickering ears and recited something that put Martin in mind of the rite of compulsion. Satisfied, the Morgol leader signaled, and the Morgols turned their horses to start across the plain.

  “What was that?” Martin asked.

  Karele shrugged. “They intended to return the stone to block the passage. I took an oath on my honor as a master of horses that the creature inhabiting the caves was dead, drowned in a lake on the far side of the mountains.”

  “And he believed you?”

  The healer smiled. “There is no greater vow among the nomads. Of course, all of our lives are forfeit if I turn out to be wrong. Let’s hope there was only one of those things in the caves.”

  Martin drew a breath sharp with the distilled cold of winter. “They are a strange and complicated people.”

  Karele nodded. “Did I not tell you that there was much about them worth redeeming?”

  The healer’s passion for the nomads moved Martin, but hundreds of years of combat and strife lay between the two kingdoms. “I’m not contesting your words, but how can we overcome the influence of their theurgists?”

  Karele rode in silence before he sighed with a small sound like winter’s chill whistling through the long grass. “I don’t know.”

  18

  Fathers

  AGAINST WIND that bent the long yellow grass of the steppes until it lay nearly flat against the frozen pack of the ground, they rode at a slow canter interspersed with quick trots for the better part of the day. “I thought the steppes would be covered in snow,” Martin said, the flesh around his mouth thick and stiff from cold. The Morgols’ expressionless faces were beginning to make sense. Toward evening, with the sun nothing more than a ball of heatless light above the mountains behind them, they finally reached the Morgol camp.

  Young men with dark wisps of down on their faces took their mounts. Martin smiled at the short, round-faced adolescent who took his reins as though approaching a ghost. The boy started, stumbling over a small fold in the earth, and almost broke into a run.

  “What tales do they tell of us, I wonder?” He hadn’t meant the words to carry, but Karele picked them up.

  “Men of the kingdom are painted as giants, living in a land of warmth and water.” He waved a hand. “There’s not much of either here. The steppes are a place of dry, barren cold.” Martin thought he spoke almost fondly.

  The Morgols led them to a large tent with smoke drifting from a hole at its apex, and they followed as their escort shouldered aside a thick flap of hide and entered into blessed warmth.

  Karele rushed toward a figure seated by a brazier as though he meant to embrace him, but at the last moment the solis slowed, became tentative. “Baabgai Ablajin.” He knelt, not looking at the impassive man above him. Karele’s adoptive father looked like every other Morgol, perhaps even more stoic.

  “Son, it is death for you to return,” Ablajin said.

  Martin jerked in surprise. This was not Merakh. Tradesmen did not ply routes to the steppes. A Merakhi might have reason to speak the language of Illustra, but it surprised him that a Morgol would, unless . . .

  Ablajin turned to face them. “My son convinced me of the wisdom of learning your tongue.” It seemed the planes of his face might have softened into a smile. “Before today, I questioned the time and effort spent doing so.”

  When no one responded, he turned to Karele and uttered a string of Morgol, gesturing toward Martin and the rest. Karele shook his head, replying in the same tongue.

  “My son says you do not answer because you are unsure of your welcome. Please, come and sit.”

  Martin stepped forward into the ruddy warmth of the tent and seated himself near a brazier surrounded by a thick pile of furs. He didn’t recognize the animal, but the stiff hair prickled his skin through his clothes.

  Karele seated himself cross-legged and bowed from the waist. “Father, I have brought you a gift of horses.”

  Ablajin nodded, his eyes somber. “So I have been told, my son. Were these different times, I would hold a feast for such a gift to honor you and your friends.”

  Martin responded with a bow of his head. “What times are we in, um . . . ?” He stammered, searching for the correct address.

  Ablajin smiled at his discomfort. “In the tongue of the Jhengjin, I am a jheng. You may call me chieftain. It is close enough to the idea to suffice for informal gatherings such as this. The times I refer to are war. We are at war with your kingdom.”

  Karele shook his head in denial. “No, Father. While the winter holds we are not. The hooves are silent and will be until they ascend the pass.”

  Ablajin sighed and stared at the base of the brass brazier. “Things change, son, and not always for the better. The theurgists have taken control of the clans. The council of chiefs no longer commands the horsemen.” He raised his head, lines of wariness etched around his eyes.

  Another flap opened to admit a gust of cold, and a squat man with burning, haughty eyes. Streaks of red, poorly healed scars, ran the length of each jawline. Half a dozen men with bared sabers followed him. “What he says is so.” He turned to Karele’s father. “You have brought the enemy into your tent? Have care, Ablajin. A jheng is not above the word of the holy.”


  Ablajin’s gaze burned in protest, but when he spoke, his voice carried resignation more than anything else. “Is not a man, any man of the plains, allowed to see his son and his son’s companions, Oorgat?”

  The theurgist snapped his fingers, and the guards used their sabers to prod Martin and the rest to a standing position. “I will test their intention, Ablajin. When I uncover their purpose, I will kill them and set you to the question.”

  Martin gaped as his native tongue rolled from the theurgist’s lips. Oorgat faced him. “Yes, I know your speech, as do all the holy. Your kingdom will soon serve us.”

  Ablajin stood, squaring his shoulders. “I have accepted their gift of horses, Oorgat.”

  The theurgist shrugged. “What is that to me?”

  Ablajin’s eyes flared, and even Oorgat’s men looked uncomfortable, but the guards, each of them as cold and unyeilding as iron, prodded Martin and the rest of them from the warmth of Ablajin’s welcome out into the dusk. They herded them to a small, lightless tent where they were tied to the central support. Oorgat smiled down at them from the entrance. “The cold of the steppes is holy. It often induces men to confess and save themselves the trouble of the question.”

  The flap closed behind him, leaving a gap through which the wind cut like the naked edge of a dagger.

  Cruk sat on Martin’s left, Luis to his right, and Karele behind. Martin, facing the flap, pulled his knees up and tucked his head as far down as he could. The fact that his bulk shielded Karele from the worst of the gusts failed to cheer him.

  A sour grunt came from his left. “I don’t think this is the welcome you envisioned, healer.” Cruk’s voice sounded as if he chewed his words and found them distasteful, but now it shook as well, perhaps with cold.

  “We can’t stay like this,” Karele said.

  “I don’t think we’ve got much choice in the matter,” Cruk pointed out. He grunted. “I haven’t been able to do much with these ropes.”

  “This is the testing,” Karele said. “The Morgols use the cold to gauge a man’s strength. In an hour, after the sun has gone down, it’s going to get very cold in here.”

  Martin’s breath misted despite the fact he still held his head as close to his legs as possible. They were going to die.

  Cruk snorted. “What would you suggest?”

  Martin felt a tug on his bonds as unseen hands groped, inching their way around the pole.

  “Whose ropes are lowest on the pole?” Karele asked.

  “How are we supposed to know that?” Cruk snapped.

  Karele sighed. “Reach down with your hands. If you feel ropes, someone is beneath you. If you feel earth, you’re on the bottom. We don’t have much time. We have to stack ourselves. Whose ropes are on the bottom?”

  “M-m-mine,” Cruk stuttered through his usual growl.

  “Move your hands up and tug on the ropes above you.”

  Martin felt a pull against his wrists. “Those are mine.”

  “Good,” Karele said. “Martin, you should be able to slide around until you’re mostly sitting on Cruk. We need to share body heat. Luis, you’re on top. See if you can get your legs underneath you and stand. The tent pole tapers as it goes up.”

  Pants of exertion filled the tent as the four of them strove to move into pairs. Martin thrashed like a netted fish until he ended up half on Cruk, half off. It was the best he could do.

  “You’ve lost weight, Pater,” Cruk said. “Thank you.”

  Martin managed a weak laugh at Cruk’s wry tone. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Luis struggle against numbness and cold to stand. He shimmied, working his bonds back and forth up the pole.

  A relieved sigh came from the reader. “Much better. Why did they tie me so tight?”

  Karele’s lips thinned. “The theurgist spotted you as a reader. He probably wanted you to lose your hands.”

  Luis’s voice, when it came, sounded worried. “How could he recognize me? There was no test.”

  The healer’s sigh added to the chill of the tent. “Theurgists are a mix of skills between the readers of the kingdom and the ghostwalkers of Merakh.” He drew breath as if he were about to go on but stopped.

  “What are you not saying?” Luis asked.

  The whistling of the wind invaded the silence of their tent, and the stillness grew against Martin’s shoulders like a weight. What did Karele fear to reveal?

  “If we live to wake in the morning, you must prepare yourselves.” Martin barely heard him. “The theurgists are unwilling to open themselves to the spirits the Merakhi channel freely. They . . . they use children,” Karele said. “Morgol’s theurgists train a child from birth to accept the touch of those spirits. Using the child along with their innate skill, they try to see into the future. They maintain the combination gives them the power of divination.”

  Martin’s tongue, thick with dread, made a hash of his words. “Who would surrender their child to such a fate?”

  “They use their own.” Karele’s pause hung in the air. “Usually.”

  Cruk’s voice rasped like a saw on stone. “Usually? You let us bring Owen here knowing this? We should have left him in his village. Oorgat will use him as a tool.” Cruk jerked against his bonds as if he longed to strike the healer.

  “I inquired,” Karele said. “Aurae gave me no word one way or the other.” He hung his head. “I thought he would be safe.”

  “I don’t believe you know Aurae,” Cruk said. “I think you’re a trickster, a jade. What’s your game? What betrayal do you have planned?”

  Martin’s voice erupted from his throat. “Captain, you forget yourself. He saved your life! Karele is head of the solis. Aurae is real. I have felt it.” He deflated, remembering. “Karele redeemed my vow to Errol, brought us out of the river kingdom. You ask too much of him. No one is infallible.”

  Cruk shook his head in denial. “I can’t let it happen again, Martin. I can’t. Oh, Deas. I told myself we couldn’t afford to get involved, that one drunken boy wasn’t worth the risk of exposing who we were.” His voice broke into splinters. “Don’t you understand? I could have stopped Antil anytime I wanted. You and Luis were at the cabin, but I was there every day, in the inn, listening to Errol scream whenever Antil beat him.”

  Luis’s voice, husky with cold and silence, mixed with the wind. “We all failed him in our own way, Captain; there is no one here who did not.”

  Cruk turned red-rimmed eyes to Martin, his face swollen with grief. “We have to save Owen, Martin. If we don’t, we don’t deserve to win. I don’t want to live in a kingdom whose peace is bought with the lives of children.”

  Pain filled Martin’s chest, as if the broken pieces of his heart struggled to keep beating. “We have no choice in the matter, Cruk. Some will die in our fight, and those of us who live will carry the cost in our hearts.”

  Cruk shook his head. “Not Owen. He’s not a part of it.”

  Luis nodded. “Then we have to find a way to live until morning. I suggest we move as close together as possible.”

  Martin tried to stay awake, told himself that as long as he kept sleep at bay, death couldn’t take him, but the cold lulled him, betraying his senses. False warmth spread its way up his legs and his eyes closed.

  Morgol guards hauled him roughly to his feet, and it took a few minutes to realize his bonds were gone. He beat his hands together, trying to restore feeling. Pain flooded into them, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The morning sun glinted from the eastern edge of the plain, barely halfway over the horizon as he huddled with Cruk, Karele, and Luis in front of the assembled men of Ablajin’s clan and the hungry glare of Oorgat. A girl of about nine, her eyes blank and unseeing, stood in front of the theurgist.

  “Kingdom men,” Oorgat spat. “They huddle even in the absence of wind.”

  “Yet they survived a test many of our own have not,” Ablajin noted.

  Hatred flared in Oorgat’s eyes as he rounded on the chieftain. “It will not avail you, jhe
ng.” He spat the word as if it were an insult. “They have survived the cold only to enter the question. Once I have discerned their purpose against our land, I will give them to the winds.”

  Martin leaned toward Karele. “Give us to the winds?”

  The solis shrugged. He curled against the cold, but his posture suggested he regarded it more as an inconvenience rather than a mortal threat. “It’s a Morgol expression for quartering. They tie each limb to a different horse facing the points of the compass. Then they have the horses run.” One corner of his mouth twitched to the side. “It’s pretty gruesome.”

  Oorgat smiled as he turned to one of the guards. “Bring the foreign boy.” He eyed Karele. “Today I will begin his training so that one day he will be my approach.”

  19

  Divination

  CRUK’S GROWL, low and rumbling like an animal about to attack, set the theurgist back. He waved to the guards. “Watch him.”

  Ablajin’s snort set the ends of his mustache waving. “He does not even have a sword, Oorgat. Are you afraid of one who huddles like a woman?”

  The guards brought Owen from wherever he’d been kept. Martin noted the Morgol clothes. The boy looked comfortable and completely unafraid. When the guard released his arm he went to Ablajin.

  Oorgat snapped his fingers. “Come here, boy.”

  At a nod from Ablajin, Owen went to Oorgat. “Would you like to help me?” The theurgist’s smile stretched his face like a mask, and Owen withdrew from the leering expression.

  “How?”

  Oorgat shot a look filled with malice toward his captives and Ablajin. “I merely want to ask some questions.” The theurgist pulled a rod from within his furred cloak and drew a circle around himself on the ground, being careful to close it.

  “He thinks to guard himself against the spirit he seeks to call.” The solis shook his head. “They do not understand. The malus will take whoever opens themselves to it. It is a question of the will, but they have drawn their useless circles in the ground for hundreds of years.”