by Kearney Paul
‘They would be dead if it were not for us.’
‘That is of no account. One day, if they are spared, they will live in a palace again, lords of the world, and we will be forgotten.’
‘They will not forget us – how could they?’
Ushau smiled, and leaned his head back against the wall. ‘Go look on the horses.’
Outside, the birds were singing in invisible crowds from every bush and tree. Not even in the Gardens of the Great King had Kurun ever heard so many together. The sun was rising fast; it seemed to slide up the sky with unseemly haste in this part of the world, so that the moment of the dawn, that daily miracle, was barely to be experienced before it was over.
The horses were head-hung and silent, though they turned to Kurun as he approached, knowing his smell. He had brought them an apple each, and they ate them with relish, but seemed barely awake.
The sunlight rose over the broken walls of the garden, flooding the back of the house, warming the world. Tendrils of mist which had been coiling along the ground withered at its touch, and Kurun stood feeling the light and life of Bel the Renewer soak into him. It seemed to him in that moment he had found for himself a corner of a better world, and he knew that in such a place he could be happy, even if he were only a slave.
FOUR DAYS PASSED in peace and silence. The disparate foursome lost the aches and pain that constant travel had ground into them, and began to feel rested, clean, almost normal. The headlong urgency of the past weeks faded, and in the warm air of the lowland summer, the snows of the Magron became but a dream. Their lives in the ziggurat seemed more distant still, a memory to puzzle over.
In a chest in the upstairs of the house they found clothes, put away with bunches of lavender and columbine so as to deter the insects. They were, it seemed, plain garments, suited to a prosperous lower-caste household. Roshana set to adjusting them with her wayward needle skills, and Rakhsar took Kurun farther afield, to look over the estate which had been bought in his name at his birth.
Poplars, cypress and plane trees had been planted in lines fanning out from the house, but over the years the lines had become irregular and entangled with saplings and all manner of secondary growth. The borders of the estate were impossible to define, though Rakhsar and Kurun stumbled across a deep, overgrown ditch with water running at the bottom of it which seemed a boundary of some sort.
They raised partridge, pheasant, and – once – a magnificent heron out of the wetter ground as they beat the bounds of the little kingdom. There was no sign of people anywhere, and the city of Arimya was a mere bump of shadow on the hazy horizon.
But there was something almost indefinable which intruded on the peace. Kurun could not put a word to it until Rakhsar lifted his head and sniffed the air like a hound.
‘Woodsmoke,’ he said, frowning.
They looked back at the house, and saw the black bar of smoke rising from the kitchen-chimney, like a marker set in the sky. Rakhsar swore, and began to run.
They pelted into the kitchen as though they had wolves on their tail, and saw Roshana by the fire, feeding it with mossy branches she had picked up in the garden. A thick smoke rose from it, to be sucked into the mantle above.
Rakhsar said not a word, but shoved his sister aside, grabbed a fire-iron, and began raking the burning wood out of the hearth. He stamped upon it and beat it with the iron until the kitchen was filled with smuts and sparks and they were choking on it.
‘Where is Ushau?’
Roshana was bewildered. ‘I sent him for more wood.’
‘Get out of my way, you stupid bitch.’ Rakhsar grabbed at a pot of water, which was full of peeled onions, and threw it on the last of the coals. A billow of steam went up. He stood, panting. Roshana cowered against Kurun.
‘What is wrong – what did I do?’
‘We cannot have smoke. Are you stupid? How many times have I told you; if you must have a fire in the day, the wood must be powder-dry. You’ve just signalled our presence here for pasangs all around.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think –’
‘It was not burning long, master,’ Kurun said.
‘Long enough.’ Rakhsar stood, looking into the ruined fire, still breathing heavily. ‘We have been here too long. We are forgetting our fate.’
Roshana began to sob silently, and Kurun put his arm about her shoulders.
‘Stop crying, sister. It will not do anyone any good.’
‘Do we have to leave? Can’t we stay here?’ she wept.
Rakhsar lifted his head, incredulous. He spun round, pushed Kurun out of the way and took his sister by the upper arms. He shook her like a terrier worrying a rat.
‘Is that what you thought – that somehow we could set up home here? My dear sister, I credited you with more wit – even this boy knew better.’
‘I’m tired of running,’ Roshana said brokenly.
‘Are you tired of living?’ He released her. To Kurun, he snapped, ‘Get her out of here, and then clean this mess up.’
‘Yes, master,’ Kurun murmured.
‘And keep your little paws off her, boy. You may have no balls, but I see what’s in your eyes. Now get out.’
THEY WERE AFRAID again. For a short time they had dared to believe the worst might be over, but they all recognised the truth of Rakhsar’s words. That afternoon they began methodically to pack up food and bedding and anything else they could glean from the house which would speed their onward journey. The hearth remained cold and black, and the weather took a turn for the worse in the early evening, a long slew of thunderclouds edging east over the world, and then congregating on the wide plains west of the Bekai River.
Rakhsar did not let them light so much as a single clay lamp, so agitated had he become. He stood and stared out at the silver sheets of the rain, the patient horses standing under it with the bags already packed upon their rumps, and whatever peace they had all known in the last few days entirely gone. The house seemed dank and cold in the rain, streams of water pouring through the threadbare roof and puddling on the floors. It was as though it knew they were leaving, and was turning its face from them.
It was the middle hours of the night before the rain stopped, and Rakhsar herded them out into the dripping garden. Roshana was lifted up onto one of the horses by Ushau, and then the little company went in single file around the drenched, dark building, the overgrown trees and bushes snatching at them with wet fingers. They were soaked before they had gone fifty paces, but finally they were at the front of the house, and here the rest clambered on the horses, Ushau behind Roshana on her horse, Rakhsar and Kurun on the other. It was dark as pitch, with not a star showing; but in the clouds to the west there was a faint red glow as Firghe, moon of wrath, rose far above the swollen thunderheads.
They did not look back. The path ahead was a slightly paler bar between black overhanging trees, a tunnel of growth that smelled of dank earth and wild garlic in the dark. The rain had subdued all sounds of life save the frogs, which were burping to each other in the ditches, a mindless chorus.
They disappeared into the tunnel, the horses clopping along through fetlock-deep puddles, and the water streaming down on them from the trees above – everywhere, the sound of gurgling water, the whole night awash.
Rakhsar reined in and set his hand on his sword-hilt, stiffening like a downwind deer.
‘Kurun,’ he whispered, his lips close to the boy’s ear. ‘Listen.’
It was the merest tangle of distant noise, but it rang out, clear of the dripping water and the frogs and the breathing of their own animals. There was a click of metal on metal, like a spoon clattering against the bottom of a pot. Or a spearhead on armour.
And all at once a horse neighed, high and clear in the night, the sound as startling as a horn-blast.
Rakhsar’s own horse, a mare, began to reply, and he punched it between the ears. It threw its head up but was silent, knowing better than to argue the point.
Roshana’s mount
crowded up against them, the animals abreast in the narrow lane. ‘What is it?’ she demanded in a low hiss. For a second she sounded just like her brother.
‘Trouble. Back away, Roshana – back to the house. We cannot leave this way.’
They turned the horses round. The darkness pressed close on them now, and everything was soaked and awkward, twigs poking their faces, leaves slapping them derisively. Firghe broke through the clouds for a few moments, and his red light streamed down on them, bloodying the puddles.
There were men standing in the lane behind them.
Roshana cried out, a dark wail. Rakhsar drew his scimitar.
‘Do not try it, Rakhsar,’ a voice said, in good Kefren. ‘I have my people all around you. There is nowhere to run.’
Feet splashing in the water, the flicker of movement. The wind had begun to pick up, and the limbs of the trees moved in mockery of their fear, mimicking the shapes of the hunters.
‘I’m not running,’ Rakhsar said clearly. He shoved Kurun off the horse with his rein-hand and raised the red-gleaming sword in the other. Then, with a wordless cry, he kicked his mount in the ribs, and the beast whinnied and leapt almost from its haunches into a canter, straight down the lane.
Kurun toppled into the ditch at the foot of the trees. There was reassurance in the undergrowth about him. He felt almost invisible. He drew his knife and lay wide-eyed.
Then Roshana screamed, and he clambered to his feet with a snarl.
They were coming up the other end of the lane also; shadows pelting on foot, weapons raised red in the moonlight. Ushau was off the horse and charging them, an immense shape wielding the gleam of a kitchen hatchet. Roshana’s horse bolted, galloping after Rakhsar with her clinging to its neck. Kurun stood alone in the lane. He saw Ushau scatter the figures to their rear like tailor’s dolls. There was the clang of iron on iron.
‘Forgive me,’ Kurun muttered, and he began to sprint after Roshana and her brother.
‘HOLD YOUR GROUND!’ someone shouted in Asurian. ‘That’s no warhorse. Stand fast!’
It seemed that Rakhsar was going to ride down the figures in his way, the wicked scimitar point questing for their faces, but at the last moment the horse balked and twisted, lost its footing in the muck underfoot, and fell heavily in a spray of water. Then it was all flailing hooves, teeth and mane as it struggled to its feet again.
Rakhsar rose with it, his eyes shining red as they caught the moon. He slashed the animal’s flank and it screamed in pain and kicked away from him, bowling over the men before it and sending them flying.
Rakhsar held onto its tail and was pulled with it. The scimitar licked out and one of the men sank to his knees, hands pressed to the streaming slash in his throat. He toppled onto his face and lay gurgling and drowning in the bloody lane.
Roshana’s horse came galloping through a moment later. Someone struck out at its forelegs; it cartwheeled with a scream and she went hurtling through the air, splashed to the ground and rolled like a ball of rags. When she raised herself groggily to her hands and knees, one of the attackers kicked her in the head and she went down again.
Kurun sprinted up beside this man – a stocky hufsan in a leather cuirass – and stabbed up, beneath the waist of the armour, feeling the blade go deep, deep, until his very fingers were in the wound.
He pulled the knife out with a grunt, and then stabbed again, and again. He punched the knife into the man’s flesh in a silent frenzy, and as the hufsan sank to his knees, he shifted his grip on the blade, and stabbed down into the side of the man’s neck. The hufsan collapsed like a puppet with slashed strings, ripping the knife out of Kurun’s nerveless fingers.
He ran to Roshana, but was kicked aside. A curved blade licked out and took him in the ribs, the blow not a sharp thing, but like a solid punch. He clasped his side, gaping like a landed fish, and went down with his head resting at Roshana’s feet, his face half-buried in water. It was raining again, and he could feel the drops strike his cheek, but from his breastbone down, there was no sensation at all. It was as if his legs had suddenly disappeared.
A foot flipped him over; a shadow looked him in the face, and then ran on. There was a chaos of shouting. Roshana was dragged limply away. But he could still hear swordplay, the clack and ring of steel.
‘Kill them, master,’ he whispered. ‘Save her.’
Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he no longer felt anything, and the red moon made a bone-carved mask of his bloodless face.
THE HORSEMEN CHOKED the lane, a stamping cavalcade of them. Kouros cursed and swore and lashed out with his riding crop as he strove to get to the forefront of the crowd. He had brought too many, and had not thought about deploying them, merely told his guards to charge hell-for-leather towards the house in which Kuthra had finally cornered his half-brother. A dead horse in the lane had brought down two of the lead riders, and the rest was chaos. Some of them were bearing lit torches, and the fitful yellow light almost made the thing worse.
The Niseian under him remembered its training. It shouldered the other horses aside, biting and kicking with the fury of its rider. A wild leap, and it was over the bodies on the ground – a surprising number of them – and then Kouros was galloping alone up the track. He cast aside the whip and drew his sword.
Another horse. The Niseian crashed into it deliberately, the big warhorse knocking the smaller animal clear off its feet. But the shock shook Kouros in the saddle. He dropped his sword, gripped the pommel of his saddle with both hands, and struggled to stay on the wild warhorse’s back. The reins now loose, the Niseian lifted its head and screamed out a challenge to the blank darkness of the house looming under the moon. There were more bundles underfoot, and it danced over them; like all horses, it was unwilling to step on a body.
Kouros roundly consigned the animal to Mot’s shadow, and leapt off. It sprang away. Now he saw that the girth had slipped and it was trying to kick the saddle free. The iron-shod hooves went by his head so close he felt the wind. He dropped to the ground, scrabbling for his sword, a little incredulous that his moment of triumph should have taken such a turn. He came upon a warm body lying in the rainwater, a boy’s face that seemed familiar. He could not find his sword, and splashed through the puddles while the rain grew colder on his back. At last he found a hilt to hand. A long kitchen knife, bloody to the handle – it would do; it would have to do.
He stood up. ‘Kuthra!’ Where were his men? He looked back down the track leading from the house, that tree-dark tunnel, and saw shapes milling there, shattered torchlight, a meaningless melee. What were they at?
No matter. They would be with him by and by.
‘Kuthra!’
He ran forward, wiping the rain out of his eyes, puffing. Bushes and undergrowth everywhere, a veritable jungle out of which the dark bulk of the house rose like some lightless monolith, and behind it the red moon glowed in a speeding welter of broken cloud.
‘Here, brother,’ a voice said. And there was a dark shape sitting at the wall of the house, like a man taking his ease. Kouros sprinted to it, cursing the heavy cuirass he wore and his water-filled boots that sloshed at every step.
Panting, he knelt, and saw Kuthra’s pain-racked face, a smile guttering across it like the last flicker of a spent lamp.
‘Almost on time, Kouros. But not quite.’
‘Where are you hurt?’ Kouros felt a thrill of shock and grief blast through him.
‘He gutted me. A good swordsman, our brother. I did not know that.’
‘Where is he?’ Kouros was weeping soundlessly. He tried to clasp Kuthra’s hand but could not pry the other’s fingers from the great wound in his belly. The very leather of Kuthra’s cuirass had been slashed through, and there were nameless shining things bulging between his straining fingers.
‘Oh Kuthra, my brother.’ He wept like a child. ‘I will take you out of here. My father’s surgeons –’
‘I am a dead man, Kouros. Rakhsar has done for me in fair fig
ht. Do not trouble yourself.’
Kouros leaned until his forehead and Kuthra’s were touching. He kissed the dying man on the cheek. There was nothing else in the world but that face he loved. The one person in creation he trusted.
‘Kill him for me,’ Kuthra whispered, blood on his teeth. ‘I should have lived. I wanted to see you King.’
‘I need you, Kuthra.’
‘You must find someone else to trust, brother. Your mother’s people are here also. That was the problem – we brought too many to this party.’
‘Roshana?’
‘Here somewhere – she may be dead. I made a mess of things, right at the last. Forgive me, Kouros.’
‘I love you, my brother. There is nothing to forgive.’
Kuthra smiled. ‘You are a better man than you know. Be a good king. Remember me, Kouros.’ He struggled, as though he had one last thing to say.
‘Kouros –’
But there were no more words. Kuthra sighed, and his face took on a look of mild surprise, as though things were not quite what he had thought. His head tilted to one side and came to rest against his brother’s face, so that Kouros’s tears were on both their cheeks. The straining hands relaxed.
Kouros took one hand in his own, the blood gluing their palms together.
‘Goodnight my dear brother,’ he whispered, and bent his head. He knelt there beside the body in the soft rain, and above them both the Moon of Wrath beamed full and bright in the cloud-streaked sky.
IT WAS BARKA who found him, and knelt beside him in the rain. He took one look at Kuthra’s waxen face, and set a hand on Kouros’s shoulder.
‘My prince.’
‘Get your hand off me.’
‘There is work to be done, Kouros.’
‘Find Rakhsar. I want him alive, Barka. The man who takes his life will lose his own.’
‘We have found the lady Roshana.’
At last, Kouros raised his head. Barka recoiled from the look on his face.