Meg fumbled inside her dress, pretending to find the coins and held out her hand as if to make the exchange as the soldiers closed in. A Ahmud Ki shuffled beside her. ‘Now what?’ he asked.
‘Thanks, lady. You won’t regret it,’ said the potter and he began to bundle four cooking pots together.
‘You!’ a Kerwyn soldier called. Meg looked at him. ‘Come here.’
The potter hissed, ‘Stay where you are,’ and stumbled out of his shop into the soldiers’ path, asking, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Not you,’ the soldier growled and pushed the potter back to crash among his pots. People stopped to watch and those closest stepped back.
I’m too tall, Meg cursed silently and fumbled with her shawl. My red hair. Somehow they’ve seen it. Whisper wriggled inside her dress, wanting to get down. Not now, Meg projected to the bush rat.
Yes, now, the rat replied and wriggled. Meg let her slide to the ground. The soldier at the forefront watched Meg’s dress shuffle and stepped back as the bush rat suddenly appeared at her feet. Whisper ran straight at the soldier and up his trouser leg, throwing the man into panic and the crowd into hysterics. Run, the rat projected to Meg. Meg grabbed A Ahmud Ki’s arm and plunged into the amused crowd, pushing through towards the tavern. ‘No!’ A Ahmud Ki yelled and pulled her to the left. ‘Don’t lead them there!’ She understood as she looked back and saw that the Kerwyn were already pursuing them. She followed A Ahmud Ki who headed for a narrow alley between a farrier and a tanner. The alley dog-legged to the right and then back to the left and they emerged in another street, this one with far less people. ‘Give me your hand!’ A Ahmud Ki demanded.
‘Why?’ Meg asked.
‘Now!’ he ordered.
She held his hand, but as he faced the alley and she realised what he intended to do she frantically tried to pull away. A Kerwyn soldier appeared. A Ahmud Ki pointed his finger, uttered an Aelendyell word, and a bolt of energy shot through the startled soldier’s chest. ‘No!’ Meg screamed. She ripped her hand from his grip and bolted down the street. She dodged a horse, pushed through a group of merchants and scattered a flock of chickens before she cut across the street and rushed into an open shop, stopping behind a high shelf. Catching her breath, she stared into the street through the doorway, watching for Kerwyn soldiers, her heart racing.
‘Got some trouble?’ An elderly woman with long grey hair and a wizened, skinny face squinted at her. ‘I think you better come this way, lovey,’ the woman said, gesturing for Meg to follow.
‘Who are you?’ Meg asked, glancing into the street, ready to run again.
‘Roo,’ the old woman said. Three Kerwyn soldiers came into view in the street. ‘You’d best come now,’ Roo insisted. Meg checked the Kerwyn soldiers who stopped to talk to a man leading a pony and dogcart, before she warily followed the old woman between the shelves to a rickety back door. ‘Go out and climb into the loft up the ladder on the left,’ Roo instructed as she opened the door into a narrow alley. ‘Stay there until I come for you.’ Meg stepped into the alley which was barely wide enough for a person to pass along and a brown dog got up and stared at her. ‘That’s Onebark,’ the old woman explained. ‘Ignore him. He won’t bite,’ and she closed the door behind Meg.
A forlorn ladder, the bottom two rungs snapped, leaned against a wooden shed. As Meg went to it, Onebark growled. ‘It’s all right,’ she crooned and held an enticing hand towards the dog, but Onebark backed away. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said. She clambered up the ladder into an opening in the shed loft where startled starlings erupted in a mad flutter of black wings and flew out of the opening. The loft was little more than two arm-spans width of bird shit-spattered wooden planks nailed to the ceiling beams, perching precariously like a mezzanine space above the shed floor. The pungent odour of animal faeces filled the shed cavity and when Meg risked peering over the edge she saw six sheep sitting in straw. The loft was crammed into the roof peak so she could only sit or kneel in the space. She shifted until she could sit leaning against a beam to gaze out of the opening across the neighbouring rooftops.
Where is A Ahmud Ki? she wondered. Whisper, she remembered. Where did the rat go? She wanted to climb down and search the streets for them, but self-preservation warned her to remain where she was, at least for a while. Why did he do that? she wondered, remembering A Ahmud Ki’s impulsive channelling of her energy. Where were Talemaker and Blade?
She watched two magpies cavorting on the peak of a nearby roof, dancing along the wooden beam. What do you know of the worries of the human world? she contemplated. Being a bird would be so much better. A Ahmud Ki tried to show her how to take the shape of a bird through her magic. The concept was absurd, but he was familiar with power and the longer she spent in his company the more it was obvious that he had been a powerful being, a man who believed that magic was immeasurable, limitless—the magic of the old ballads and legends. She never believed in magic until the Conduit was passed to her and she received the Blessing. Even when she discovered that she could conjure spells to heal people and manipulate the weather she struggled to accept that magic was real. Only when she summoned the Demon Horsemen through her grief and rage, and they unleashed their awesome energy on the battling armies, obliterating everything and everyone, did she understand what was possible and she had run from it, abandoning the terrible burden of responsibility that holding such power brought.
She gazed at the white clouds. It was midday. The weather was clear and pleasant, the kind of Ejasot day she remembered enjoying in Summerbrook. These were the days of renewal. Grass flourished, wattle blossomed among the eucalypts, the wildflowers budded through the bush and across the plains and sections of the Summerbrook valley turned shades of purple and crimson and yellow. Baby animals frolicked and hounded their mothers for feeding, blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead in their lives. The days gained heat and rain clouds dried up in readiness for the long hot season of Fuar that stretched across four cycles of the Shessian calendar. She remembered that Button Tailor brought her flowers for the first time in Ejasot. Or was it later? She was fifteen then. It was hard to believe that was more than thirteen years ago—although it was even harder to believe that she had been that young girl: before the Blessing, before the wars and the killing in the name of Queen Sunset, before everything she knew and loved was changed irreversibly by the amber.
A thud followed by a ball of smoke and flame rising above the rooftops shattered her thoughts. She crawled forward to see, listening to the cries of people as the smoke blackened and thickened. Whatever caused the explosion happened several streets from where she was hiding. Was it a thunderclap? Was it magic? Her curiosity urged her to climb down and go see what was happening, but she remembered what the old woman told her and stayed put, watching over the rooftops for more explosions. There were none. As she relaxed against the beam Onebark barked in the alley, so she shuffled forward again in time to see a black bush rat scampering up the ladder on the outer rail. ‘Whisper!’ she cried and scooped the rat into her arms. Found, the rat projected.
Meg stroked Whisper’s shiny coat. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked. She smiled and projected as best as she could the question. Whisper replied with a jumble of images—boots and feet and horses’ hooves and then planks and boxes and stones—which made Meg laugh. ‘I can’t imagine the world from your point of view,’ she said and rubbed Whisper’s neck affectionately. Then she heard voices and tensed.
‘She’s up there,’ the old woman said.
‘Alone?’ a man asked.
‘Yes.’
Meg put Whisper down and edged towards the lip of the loft, but when she glimpsed the dark shock of hair of a stranger ascending the ladder she sat back, wondering what to do—wondering whether or not he was a threat. A head appeared—a young man, close to her age with a plain face except that his eyes sparkled ocean blue. ‘Why are you hiding from the soldiers?’ he asked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
AAhmud Ki crouched under the low w
agon, watching the soldiers’ boots circling. Having lost Meg in the mad dash to escape he took an independent route along two alleys, through a shop and over a tall wooden fence until he emerged in this street and dived under the wagon. The soldiers here weren’t the ones who first chased him, but he wasn’t taking risks. As they moved away, he slid from under the wagon and eased into a small shop doorway. A dagger pressed against his throat and a rough voice whispered, ‘We don’t take kindly to thieves around here.’
‘I’m no thief,’ A Ahmud Ki calmly replied, memories of his experiences with the Andrakian assassin guild sparked by the blade’s cold edge.
‘Then tell me why the soldiers have so much interest in you.’
‘I don’t know. I’m new in the city.’
The knife slid from his throat. ‘Come inside and don’t do anything stupid,’ said the voice.
A Ahmud Ki entered the shop, squeezing past cluttered shelves and mountainous tabletops of goods. It was a hotchpotch affair, a confusing jumble of horse and wagon accessories, jars of condiments, haberdashery, pottery and a host of nameless items. His host pointed to a small door at the rear of the shop. ‘In there.’
‘Why?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.
The man raised the knife and A Ahmud Ki saw that it was a long, ugly instrument, more suited to a butcher. ‘Because I said so.’
Having little choice, A Ahmud Ki went to the door, turned the handle and entered a room where two more men looked up at him. ‘Who are you?’ one asked, rising from his chair, a burly character with a thick brown beard.
‘I come from the east,’ A Ahmud Ki answered, remembering Meg’s description of him. He left the door open in case he needed to escape.
The second man was wiry and younger, but his shaven face was serious and his eyes glittered with the kind of energy A Ahmud Ki associated with dangerous men. ‘Where from the east?’ he asked.
Where indeed? A Ahmud Ki thought. ‘Beyond the mountains.’
‘The Valley of Kings?’ the bearded man posited.
‘Further east,’ A Ahmud Ki replied. What he did know was that the people in The Valley of Kings were dark-skinned, nothing like him at all. But then what if they were also dark-skinned further east?
‘The old empire,’ the young man said and nodded. ‘But if you’re from there, how did you get across Kangaroo Plains? The Kerwyn own everything east of here.’
‘Carefully,’ A Ahmud Ki replied and smiled. ‘Forgive me. I don’t speak your language well.’
The bearded man grunted. ‘Well enough to get by,’ he said.
‘Well enough to tell us why the soldiers are after you,’ the familiar rough voice said from behind, and A Ahmud Ki felt the shop owner’s presence. ‘Take a seat, stranger. You’ve got some explaining to do.’
Talemaker and Cutter got as much information as they could from the people who witnessed Meg and A Ahmud Ki’s flight from the market area when they came out of the Three Emus tavern, and so they scoured the streets, carefully avoiding the Kerwyn soldiers, but they failed to find their friends. ‘The Kerwyn are still looking for them,’ Cutter said as they observed a squad of soldiers moving along a narrow street two blocks from the market. ‘That at least means they haven’t been arrested.’
‘They could be anywhere,’ said Talemaker. ‘How will we find them?’
‘Our only hope is to stay near the tavern. If they’re looking for us that’s the first place to—’
Cutter’s reply was drowned by the roar of an explosion, the force throwing both men backwards in a shower of dust, stone and wood. As Cutter sat up he heard people shouting and screaming. He tugged Talemaker’s arm which was protruding from a mound of dirt and the minstrel coughed, shook his head and also sat up. The narrow street where the Kerwyn soldiers had been walking was a burning pile of rubble. Cutter stood and helped Talemaker up, saying quickly, ‘We better get away from here. The Kerwyn will be everywhere.’ The pair walked towards the closest intersection, stepping around people who stopped to stare at the destruction, but before they reached it the familiar red Kerwyn armour appeared. ‘This way,’ Cutter said and pulled Talemaker to a doorway. He knocked. No one answered. With a grunt and shove he forced the door open and they entered, pushing the door shut behind them, and they watched at a small window as the Kerwyn strode past, heading for the site of the explosion.
They were in the main room of a cottage. A rough wooden table and four chairs dominated the centre, and shelves and small cupboards furnished two of the surrounding walls, while a small blackened hearth sat in the centre of the fourth. Opposite the entry door, between two tall yellow cupboards, another door led further into the cottage. ‘Anybody home?’ Cutter called. When no one answered, he opened the second door to discover a bedroom, furnished with a double bed and a trunk. A door led outside and a small window let in light.
‘I found some bread and cheese,’ Talemaker said, and he passed a hunk of each to Cutter who ate hungrily. ‘What was that?’ Talemaker asked, returning to look out the front window.
Between mouthfuls, Cutter mumbled, ‘A thunderclap.’
‘To kill the Kerwyn?’
‘Who else?’ Cutter remarked, chewing a chunk of cheese.
‘But I thought the war was over.’
Cutter snorted as he looked around for a drinking vessel. ‘Wars are never over as long as the people you were fighting are still alive.’ Seeing a wine bottle he crossed the room and grabbed it and ripped out the sealing cork with his teeth. ‘The Kerwyn were killing off every one of us in the countryside all over the kingdom, but they’ve left this place relatively unscathed, so there’s bound to be people here who hate them and want them to go.’ He drank a mouthful from the bottle, grimaced as the bitter liquid burned his throat with acidity and passed the bottle to Talemaker.
‘Is it that bad?’ Talemaker asked, seeing Cutter’s pinched expression.
‘It’s wet,’ Cutter replied.
Talemaker braced and took a mouthful of the wine to rinse his mouth. He swallowed, his face wrinkling in disgust, and said, ‘Not as bad as the wine in some inns I’ve stayed at.’
‘I don’t know where our host is,’ said Cutter, ‘but we can’t stay here. We’ll go back to the Three Emus and see if your friend is ready to see us yet.’
‘What will the Kerwyn do after that thunderclap?’ Talemaker asked.
‘Take revenge,’ Cutter replied. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘I thought this place looked peaceful when we got here.’
‘Battlefields always do when there’s a lull in the fighting. It’s just peaceful because the combatants are working out how to best kill each other next time.’
Talemaker nodded. ‘Do you still want to kill Kerwyn?’
Cutter laughed. ‘I’m a professional soldier. My job is to kill whoever my leader says I have to kill. That’s what being a soldier means.’
‘Do you ever think about what you do?’
Cutter stopped chewing and stared at the minstrel with a bemused grin. ‘What are you, a philosopher?’ He snorted and shook his head. ‘I think about it all the time. What you have to remember is that your enemy is there to kill you if you don’t kill him. Remembering that makes it all make sense.’
‘But what if he’s not there to kill you?’ Talemaker asked.
‘Then he wouldn’t be there in the first place,’ Cutter retorted.
‘What if he’s been press-ganged into the army as sometimes happens?’
‘Men have consciences,’ Cutter argued calmly, ‘and they don’t have to stay in the army even when they’re pressed into it. They can make a choice. They can die trying to kill me because they choose to obey their leader, or die trying not to kill me because they choose to escape from their leader. I don’t have anything to do with the latter situation. And the first one is what I described before.’
Talemaker was astonished. ‘You think too much.’
‘You started the conversation.’
Both men turned suddenly to the fron
t door that had swung open and in the doorway stood a big man with an enormous club.
The memory of the surge of power channelled through Meg that enabled him to cut down the Kerwyn soldier was strong in him and he craved being close to her again to revive his birthright. She had immense power—the kind of power he once had with the Fifth Ki. He could feel it when he touched her—but it was wasted on her. After the arduous journey and weeks in her company, the talking about magic and the Ki and how spells could be conjured, he knew that she was not a Dragonlord—did not even know the components of the five Ki. The one puzzle was that she knew of the Genesis Stone, an Aelendyell secret passed down from the Elvenaar and the Old Ones—a secret the Aelendyell considered sacred and never shared beyond Aelendyell culture. But he also knew it was possible that a renegade Lore Bearer from an Aelendyell village told her the sacred truth. After all, he himself had betrayed the Aelendyell to punish them for what they did to him. Why couldn’t someone else?
The men left him to wait in the dingy room while they decided his fate in the cramped shop, but he was A Ahmud Ki and he was tired of being dependent on human whims. He had to find Meg. She was his key. He hadn’t told his captors much and he knew they were dissatisfied with his explanation of how he ended up in Westport. He said nothing about Meg or Talemaker or Cutter. He told them he was a traveller who came into Western Shess at a very inopportune time and all he wanted to do was get a ship back home.
Boots scraped and the door opened. A scruffy black- and-tan dog trotted into the room and sniffed at A Ahmud Ki’s leg, followed by the shop owner, a man with a paunch and broad shoulders below a scraggly black beard and rounded face. ‘You’ve got friends looking for you,’ the shop owner said. ‘A slim man and someone who looks like he’s been a soldier. You said you were alone.’
‘I met them outside Westport. They’re casual acquaintances. Where are they?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.
‘First you tell me who they are.’
A Solitary Journey Page 34