Betrayal

by Lara Morgan

  ‘I was ready as soon as I woke up.’

  ‘How’s your sister?’ He heaved on a strap, pulling the saddle tight around the serpent’s wing nubs. Haraka eyed him, blowing hard through his kettle-sized nostrils.

  ‘Don’t give me that look,’ Attar grunted at the serpent. ‘Do you want me to fall off?’ Haraka snorted again and looked away, an expression that could have been affection or indifference in his eyes.

  Attar shook his head and looked at Tallis. ‘This bastard gets cockier every day. Maybe what he needs is a good female to knock him down to size. Perhaps there’ll be some in the Isles that can come over and teach him a lesson or three.’ He delivered a hard thump to the serpent’s hide.

  ‘Keep that up and one day he might drop you,’ Tallis said, but Attar’s grin only widened.

  ‘He tell you that?’ He punched the serpent’s ribs. ‘He’s a liar. We’re good mates, now. He just likes to needle me.’

  Arak-ferish, Marathin’s hissing whisper came to Tallis. Azoth’s bane. He looked up to see the female serpent, half as large again as Haraka, nearing the Dome. Cloud still hung heavy in the sky and the sun was yet to top the hills behind the city, the light a pale grey washing to shadow.

  The serpent swooped down to the rooftop, beating her heavy wings once then settling on the edge. The scent of musk, dust and ash rolled across as she fixed an eye on them.

  ‘So, Hilltown?’ Attar put his hands on his hips.

  ‘Yes,’ Tallis replied. ‘Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Off the Middle Road near a spur that juts out of the Goran Ranges.’ Attar rubbed a hand over his cropped greying hair and spat on the ground. ‘Rorc worried Scanorians have attacked the village? It’s close enough to the mountains; could be them.’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Well, we’ve had nothing from there for a while so I don’t know what else it could be. The runts have been heading in droves to join the Fallen; they probably decided to take some presents with them. Make them look good to their new boss.’

  Tallis didn’t know if he was right — he’d never yet seen a Scanorian — but if there had been serpents he would have felt them, and he didn’t think they’d venture this far south, not yet, anyway. The Wild Lands were a long way from Salmut.

  Tallis put a hand on Marathin’s hide.

  Fly? Marathin looked at him.

  Fly, he echoed, and using her foreleg as a step to climb onto her back, he settled in the gap between her wings. He hadn’t used a saddle for weeks now.

  ‘Ready?’ Attar called from Haraka.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Tallis gripped with his thighs as Marathin crouched then launched into the air. For a moment they dropped down toward the tree tops, the air rushing past his face, pulling at his hair, then with a sound like leather unfurling the serpent extended her wings and her claws brushed the leaves of the trees as she skimmed up and over them, wheeling about in a great arc, banking away from the coast. Tallis squinted into the wind as the city peeled away beneath them. Far below Salmut’s disordered streets were pinpointed with the glow of lamplight as they passed above the merchants’ quarter, the pale domes of the palace and beyond to the ring of hills surrounding the bay. Red rock, limned by the first rays of the sun and dotted with trees and shrubbery, was left quickly behind as they headed northeast over the open plains, following the hard-packed dirt of the Middle Road. In the distance the craggy peaks of the Goran Ranges shadowed the horizon.

  After a few hours the landscape changed to rougher country. Hills of rock covered in scrub and stone pines forced the road to become a winding pass. By midday they were only a few leagues from the village. The rocky peaks of the ranges rose up into the bright, clear sky, the slopes covered in pine and brush, and Tallis saw a cluster of buildings far below between a set of low hills. Hilltown. A thin plume of smoke rose in the air above it.

  A sense of foreboding touched him and Marathin suddenly hissed. Then the smell hit them: an acrid burning.

  Attar shouted something and pointed, and Tallis raised his arm to show he’d seen it. This could not be good. He urged Marathin down and they spiralled lower over the small settlement.

  There was little left. What had once been a town was now a blackened smouldering shell of scorched stone. Tallis scanned the area as Marathin banked over the streets, then a sudden sharp feeling made him look toward the ranges. In the shadows of the foothills a straggling procession of people were being forced toward the ranges’ tree line.

  ‘Attar,’ he shouted, ‘survivors!’ and he turned Marathin toward the small group, the ranges looming high above as they skimmed over the uneven plain. As they neared them, Tallis saw the bodies of children lying in the short grass and bile rose in his throat. He glanced at Attar. The warrior’s face was grim and he had his bow in hand.

  Tallis urged Marathin on, drawing his own bow and notching an arrow. Now he could see a group of men and women, tethered together, being forced toward the rocky slopes. Alongside ran short creatures, poking at them with spears. Faint guttural cries reached him. These must be Scanorians. Their hair was short and matted and their limbs wiry, and he couldn’t tell if they were male or female. They had obviously seen them coming and were screeching at the people to make them move faster. Tallis drew back his bow and began firing.

  The people stared upward, their faces pale, and the Scanorians ducked down in the grass.

  ‘The leader!’ Attar shouted, pointing, and Tallis headed toward the front of the line.

  At first he thought the figure Attar had indicated was an oversized man, huge and muscled, but it was no normal man.

  Marathin hissed and shrieked in his mind. Father’s child! Broken one!

  Tallis flinched, her fury sharp as a blade. So this was an Alhanti.

  Blue serpent skin rose from the middle of the creature’s spine to form a ridge along its powerful neck, the gleam of the skin spreading along the top of the shoulders and merging with the bare human skin of its muscled torso. Yellowed eyes glared out of a face that had once been human. With a roar, the Alhanti threw a spear at him.

  Arak-ferish! Its hissing whisper hammered into his mind and Tallis instinctively blocked it as Marathin wheeled, the spear whistling past under her wing.

  Go back! Tallis commanded. A furious anger filled him. This thing had murdered children. Marathin turned and they charged at it. The Alhanti stood its ground, sword in hand. Tallis aimed his arrow, feeling for its pulse, the pounding of the blood to its heart. The darkness rose and sounds and senses narrowed, but just as he was about to loose the arrow he felt the creature’s human soul cry out. Trapped within the monstrosity, the man sacrificed to create it was still there. Tallis flinched and the arrow went wide. The Alhanti’s mouth stretched into a parody of a grin as it ducked under Marathin’s sweeping talons.

  Tallis looked behind to see Attar peppering the Scanorians with arrows, the creatures running toward the trees. The prisoners’ screams rose in the air and the Alhanti raced back toward them, batting away the arrows Attar fired at it as if they were nothing.

  Attack it, Tallis said to Marathin, and tucking in her wings she swept down and ploughed into the Alhanti. It turned at the last moment so that the crest of her head struck it square in the chest, but the creature didn’t fall. Instead it flung its arms around the serpent’s head, gripping her eye ridges and staring maniacally at Tallis across the long expanse of her neck. Tallis felt the horror of its twisted mind and heard the wailing of the man trapped within. Marathin skimmed the ground, her talons churning through rock and grass, then flicked her head and the creature was flung away, landing with a heavy thud face down on the ground. They hovered over it.

  It was still alive. Tallis could feel it, still hating him. It rolled over and got to its feet and he reached for another arrow. This time he was not going to miss. For a heartbeat it watched, its yellow eyes shrewdly vicious, then it turned and with shocking speed ran toward the loose scree of the foothills. Tallis’s arrow went wide
and he was about to follow when Attar swooped up on Haraka.

  ‘Let it go,’ he shouted. ‘Look after the people; the Scanorians could come back.’

  Tallis hesitated, but knew Attar was right. In frustration he turned the serpent around, but not before he saw the Alhanti climb an outcrop of rock and disappear beneath the shadow of the trees.

  ***

  They spent the rest of the afternoon burying the dead. Of the town’s population of four hundred only eighty had survived, most of them the younger men and women. They told them how the Scanorians and Alhanti had targeted the older folk and the children, killing them as they ran for the shelter of a cave in the ranges.

  They collected the bodies of the dead while Attar directed others to digging graves in the town’s small cemetery. By sunset, five mass graves had been marked with stones and the people were gathered in a makeshift shelter in what had been the home of the town’s councilman. No one spoke. Some of the women wept quietly while the men sat pale faced. The horror of covering the dead faces, of closing the staring eyes of the children, had rendered them all silent. Tallis knew their despair matched his own. He had never seen so many dead children. Even when he was younger and warring between Clans had been rife, children were rarely involved. Women and children were captured, certainly, but not put to the knife. Was this what Azoth was planning to do throughout the land?

  Attar motioned for Tallis to follow him outside. They walked a few paces from the open wood lean-to, halting at the town’s destroyed well. The rider’s face was grim and Tallis guessed what he was thinking. They were leagues from any town. If there were more Scanorians and Alhanti out there it was going to be a long night.

  ‘What do you think, clansman?’ he said. ‘Sense anything out there?’

  Tallis shook his head. ‘No. But they’re not like serpents; I didn’t feel the Alhanti when we arrived.’

  ‘Shame.’ Attar looked away into the darkness. ‘Never thought I’d see one of them, you know. Thought they were just stories. And even though we’ve got two serpents here I can’t shake the feeling they’re going to come back.’

  Tallis knew what he meant. ‘I saw some way into the Alhanti’s mind,’ he said. ‘I don’t think retreat was a word it knew.’

  ‘We need to barricade ourselves, form a defence,’ Attar said. ‘Use the remains of the houses, build a wall of some kind.’ He glanced back at the shelter. ‘We’ll set watch and the serpents can stand guard. But we’ve limited weapons.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the villagers have some?’

  ‘Could be.’ Attar beckoned to a young man who was sitting in the dirt nearby. He was probably his own age, Tallis guessed, and tall, with the shoulders of a farmer. The youth stood and came over to the serpent rider, looking lost. His hands were dirty from grave digging and smears of dried blood smattered his clothes.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Attar asked.

  ‘Orwin.’

  ‘Orwin,’ Attar repeated, ‘you think there are any weapons left here? Knives, bows?’

  ‘Maybe.’ The young man shrugged, his gaze listless. ‘Most of us had bows, some knives. Me and my little brother, we shoot rabbits off the crops, he —’ His voice shook and he looked down at the ground for a moment, gathering his breath. ‘Could be some of the bows survived the burning. We could look.’

  ‘Good.’ Attar flicked a glance at Tallis then at the remains of the village. It would be a miracle if they found anything.

  ‘You go organise some of the women to search for weapons,’ he said to Orwin. ‘Also any food and water, some bedding if they can. We’ll need all you men to put together some defences for tonight.’

  Orwin looked at the rider. ‘You think they’ll come back?’

  ‘We’ve got to be ready,’ Attar said, and the young man’s lips pressed hard together as he nodded and went back to the shelter.

  ‘We should get them out of here,’ Tallis said.

  ‘It’s too late now, sun’s gone and Scanorians like to hunt in the dark. These folk know that, they live near enough to ‘em. But I doubt they’ve faced them in numbers before. Probably just a theft of stock here and there.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘If we make it through the night I’ll take Haraka and lead them toward Cermez at dawn. There are soldiers garrisoned there, just outside the city. You can fly ahead and get them to ride out and meet us, then you go back to Salmut and report to the Commander.’

  Tallis didn’t like the idea of leaving Attar on his own. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we escorted them together?’

  ‘Take too long. The Commander needs to be told what’s gone on here and you’ve the faster serpent. Marathin can outpace Haraka’s speed half again.’ Attar leaned in. ‘But that’s the plan if all goes well. If things go sour tonight, if they come back with reinforcements and look like getting the better of us, I want you to go straight back to the city.’

  ‘What? No —’

  ‘Listen.’ Attar pulled him close and spoke in a low voice. ‘There’s a war coming, clansman, and if the Alhanti are here already, culling villages, then it’s coming faster than we thought and the Commander needs to know. He won’t if we both die, so you will take word back, understood?’

  Tallis stared at him a moment, then said, ‘Understood. But it won’t happen. Marathin and I can defeat the Alhanti if you and Haraka look after the Scanorians.’

  Attar grinned. ‘Stubborn as always. All right.’ He clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘But if things don’t go to plan, you get out.’

  ‘I get out,’ Tallis repeated, and his gaze went beyond the rider to the huddle of scared people under the shelter. Mostly young men and women, they would at least be fit enough to fight to the last, he thought. A faint cry sounded above and he looked up at Marathin circling.

  Made one watches and waits, she hissed in his mind, and he glanced toward the mountains.

  ‘The Alhanti’s watching,’ he said to Attar.

  ‘I didn’t doubt it.’ The rider walked past him back to the shelter to check on Orwin.

  Tallis stood staring at the dark shadows of the ranges for a moment then, rolling his shoulders, he went to help the men build a defence.

  ***

  The night came on still and dark and Tallis leaned on the rough wooden barricade they’d erected around the shelter. He and Attar had stationed themselves at opposite ends, facing out toward the mountains. The barricade was less than six feet high but it was all they could manage with what they had. They had found five bows and thirty-eight arrows in the ruins of the village and picked the five best bowmen from the survivors to use them. The rest held sharpened staves of wood, the few knives they’d found and some garden hoes. They all stood between Tallis and Attar in a line along the barricade, fear sharp in their eyes.

  The only sounds were insects chirping in the scrubby grass and the low murmuring of some of the women.

  Tallis sent his mind upward to Marathin as she glided overhead, circling the area. The serpents had been taking it in turns to keep watch from the sky; Haraka was on the ground now, crouched facing out toward the dark ranges and forested slopes.

  Where is it? Tallis sent to them, referring to the Alhanti. It had been ranging back and forth along the edge of the scrub in the foothills for most of the evening. Haraka had picked up the Scanorians with it not an hour before and Tallis was wondering if they would make their move soon.

  It stopped, Marathin sent. It watches me. He picked up her disgust for the creature like bitter breath as her words entered his mind. The dark ones are at its back. They are many. More than before.

  So they had reinforcements. He turned to the young man beside him and sent him along the line to give Attar the news.

  Watching him go, Tallis couldn’t help but feel he was pretending at being a warrior. What experience did he have? A few fights with his own clansmen, some weapons training. He didn’t like the way the young men here looked at him, as though he could protect them.

  Arak-ferish, Marathin’s voice ghosted
through his mind. Born to fight, to be his bane.

  He looked up at the sky, seeing the moving outline of the serpent against the black, but he didn’t have time to reply for she spoke again, and this time it was a warning. Fear leaped inside him.

  ‘They’re coming!’ he shouted. Immediately all the villagers in the shelter rose to their feet and there was a clatter of bows.

  ‘Ready the torches!’ Attar cried. They had wrapped some sticks with rags soaked in oil to light and use as weapons if the Scanorians come close enough, and the young women tasked with lighting them readied their flints. Tallis held his bow tight, waiting.

  Beside him a young man stood quivering, his bow held hard. Behind them the women waited, their harsh breathing filling his ears as Tallis moved to walk quickly among them, checking they had their weapons. When he reached Attar he said, ‘Marathin’s coming. I’m going now.’

  The rider nodded. ‘Good luck, clansman. Be quick. Scanorians run fast.’

  Tallis vaulted over the wooden wall, his legs feeling strangely light and loose as he ran toward the serpent, who dropped from the air to meet him. The ground vibrated as she landed, and his crossbow felt rough and solid in his hand as he leaped up onto her back. Her powerful leg muscles coiled then pushed, and air rushed past his face as they rose into the sky. The thrumming of the serpent’s blood hummed in his veins as their senses connected and the ancient words of command rose to his tongue. Below, Haraka crouched on the ground, facing the oncoming enemy.

  Fly, Tallis said to the younger serpent. Hunt. He lay himself low along Marathin’s neck as she swept toward the coming Scanorians.

  He could barely see them at first; small and dark they flowed over the uneven ground, blending with the shadows. There were so many of them. Then he saw the Alhanti running behind them in the darkness, driving the Scanorians on. In its fist it clutched a long sword.

  Power crept up through Tallis’s blood, until it surged like cold fire under his skin and, aiming an arrow, he dropped from the sky in a rush of wind and fury. The arrow took the Alhanti in the chest, but it barely faltered.