‘We have no choice,’ he said with far more confidence than he felt. ‘We must go. Do not mention this to the rest.’ Though that would make little difference. Plenty of them would pick up on the facts as they passed. Aram wondered silently how many of those thousands following him would turn away at the marker, even having travelled half the length of the land to get here. Many, he suspected. He had almost been one of them himself, after all. And those people would settle somewhere in those sparsely populated southern lands. And if they survived the numerous roving patrols of both empires, they might turn into a village one day. Then eventually the war would be won by one power or another and their village would become naught but a statistic in the ledgers of an emperor, whether he be an eastern autocrat or a western madman.
Aram steeled himself. There was only one choice if they were to remain free Inda, and that choice was staring at him with those bottomless black eyes, as if waiting for his decision. ‘Remember that no weapons must pass the markers,’ he said, unbuckling his belt and removing the sword, still sheathed, dropping it carelessly to the ground beside the path. Mani and Bajaan followed suit. Now was the time, Aram thought, taking a deep breath. ‘The gods will protect the Faithful,’ he announced, and strode past the marker.
Two things almost made him turn around immediately and run north for his very life.
Firstly, as though even nature could not survive in the south, the rain stopped the very moment his foot passed the great carved monolith. The wind simply stopped blowing and the air dried out in a heartbeat.
Secondly, as his head spun around in surprise, he caught sight of the back of the marker. The carved figure at the top of the southern side was a smooth, slightly stylised figure just like its counterpart. It might have been considered a blessing that its eyes were closed. But instead, the figure was gripping the stony surface of its chest and hauling the ‘flesh’ apart as though opening a coat. And in the depth of the hole he had opened in his chest, where a heart should be, was that same black substance into which light just fell forever. Aram was grateful the figure was too high to reach, for he had the horrible urge to touch the black and see what if felt like. Logic said it was just some type of weird stone, but he couldn’t shake the impression it would feel clammy and slippery.
He shivered again, uncontrollably. He was in the land of the dead. He had crossed the line. He was not dead yet, though something had clearly changed, and the hair stood proud on his neck as he felt the weight of a world of ghosts pressing down upon him. Every step might bring that ghastly vengeance upon him, but he would take the steps. It was his duty.
Slowly, he recovered himself as best he could, though the prayers he chanted repeatedly with silent breaths through pursed lips were fervent and desperate. He turned to the others. Every face he could see was staring goggle-eyed and terrified at him. Not one had followed him across the line.
‘See how the gods favour us? Even the rain stops,’ he said, trying to sound positive.
Mani – good, dependable Mani, whom Aram was beginning to see as true leader material – cleared his throat to address the crowd.
‘Ahead lies uncertainty and fear. But it is dry uncertainty and fear with only unseen incorporeal danger. Behind you lie the armies of two emperors who want nothing other than to strip you of your freedom and your value, and to turn you into their subjects. That is a very real, corporeal danger. And that enslavement will only happen if you survive the war, for there could be years of conflict yet, raping and ruining the lands of the Inda. These southern reaches have been largely spared thus far, but that will not last for long. Uncertainty and fear is to be sought and treasured when the alternatives are certain pain, hunger and subjugation. Walk sheltered beneath the hands of the gods, and follow good Aram, who leads the way.’
Aram tried not to let his legs shake the way they wanted to and plastered a horribly fake smile of confidence across his face. Beckoning the others, he turned and walked into the land of ghosts. Behind him, he heard Mani and Bajaan following, and then other tentative footsteps too. He desperately hoped he had made the right decision.
He walked, each step inviting horrible death, yet miraculously not bringing it, and the others quickly caught up with him, a steady stream of civilians scurrying after them, desperate not to find themselves separated and alone in this place. The trail they followed turned slowly east, and after a short while met another such path, becoming a wider trail. Aram strode on, trying to exude authority and confidence.
Both fled him in a trice as they turned another corner in the dense, tropical forest.
There, across the path before him, lay the bodies of nine Jade Empire scouts. Aram stumbled to a halt and stared at them. Bajaan and Mani hurried round him and peered closely at the corpses, turning them over. There were no wounds! Aram shivered, a frisson of supernatural fear creeping across his flesh. The scouts had all died together, weapons in hand, but none of them were marked or wounded. In fact, the only sign of anything unusual was the look of utter horror on each face. Aram tore away his gaze.
‘Did they die of fright?’ Bajaan asked quietly.
‘That’s how it looks,’ Mani replied, then gestured at his leader. ‘Do we burn them?’
Aram shook his head. ‘Tradition does not apply here. These men broke the sacred taboo and brought weapons, so the spirits dealt with them. We don’t interfere. Clear them off the road so the others don’t see their faces, but that is all.’
It was too late for that, of course. Many of those following were close behind and had already seen the eerie, grisly obstacle, and the rumour would spread from them quickly throughout the crowd. How many, Aram wondered, who had crossed the border would now turn and flee out of this strange land altogether once more? Too many, he suspected. But they would only exchange an unknown fate for a certain and unpleasant one.
He waited as the bodies were moved aside into the undergrowth and hidden from view, and then gestured forward and began to walk again.
‘What now?’ Mani asked, falling in beside him.
‘Now we see if we can find the monks. They alone know how to survive in these lands, and their presence will comfort the civilians with us.’
And me, Aram thought to himself as he walked ever deeper into the forbidden land, shaking with every step.
Chapter 9
From: Orosius Devinius, commander, 6th Cohort, Germalla Cavalry
To: Prefect in command, forward scout station, Chara Gorge
Sir, my unit and I are engaged upon a special mission in the mountains. Being aware of the broad dangers posed by the region and the specific peril of my task, I request that you keep this message for a period of twenty-four days, and if my unit and I have not returned to your station by that time, please forward it to General Flavius Cinna at Jalnapur.
Dev hauled on the reins, nerves beginning to twitch.
‘That must be it.’
The cohort’s captain nodded his agreement silently. Ahead, the valley they had been following narrowed between two rocky spurs that stood tall and powerful, twin sentinels set by the gods to guard an important place. Atop each spur they could see a ruin – a small tower, stone tumbled from the top, crenellations gone, holes in the walls. Testament to the once powerful rulers of this land in days long gone, when the mountains had still been the territory of rajahs, before the horse lord raids began and the bandits claimed the region.
Behind those twin peaks the valley disappeared east into the brown dusty mountains, deep enough that the bottom of the gorge was hidden in shadow even in the early afternoon. It was, Dev had to admit, the perfect hiding place for a bandit.
Everything he had heard of the Sizhad had increased Dev’s concerns over this mission.
They had travelled north and east for many days, entering the mountainous region carefully and keeping to the more populated areas to begin with. Dev had approached each Inda settlement pacifically, leaving his cohort out of sight on the road, and taking only the captain and half
a dozen men with him. At first the locals had been reluctant to speak to Dev, despite his clear Inda origins, because of the imperial threat he represented. It had taken much cajoling, and occasional threats, to learn anything. As they followed the trail of hints and clues north-east, though, the attitude changed. Not the reluctance, of course, but at least the reason for it. The further into the region they travelled and the closer to their quarry they came, the more fear and respect they encountered for the Sizhad. People became unhappy discussing him not because the questioner was imperial, but because of the potential consequences from the bandits themselves.
But slowly they had found their way to this place, and now Dev felt reluctant to enter, and not just because of the danger that valley posed, though that was very much a concern. Clearly, from what the region’s inhabitants had intimated, the Sizhad had a sizeable army of fanatically loyal warriors that seriously outnumbered Dev’s.
Fanatics. That worried Dev, and from the look on the man’s face, it was of equal concern to the cohort’s captain.
‘What do you know of these sun worshippers?’ the captain said.
Dev sighed. ‘Not a great deal. They are an uncommon sect who have shunned the traditional gods of the Inda in favour of the sun itself. They’ve been around for over a hundred years, but they’ve always been a mysterious and private bunch. They tend to live in the wilderness and avoid contact with the towns of the Inda, in some sort of self-imposed exile. Why, I couldn’t tell you, but they’ve always been considered a peaceful, if odd, bunch. I’ve never even heard of a sun worshipper taking up arms, let alone forming an army. It is so strange that I really don’t know what to expect from this, but I recommend keeping your religious views to yourself and not mentioning the sun or the gods in this conversation. Same goes for your men. Let’s not provoke anything if we can avoid it.
‘I think I would rather be in Jalnapur getting the shit kicked out of me by the Jade Empire,’ the captain said with feeling.
‘I know what you mean. Come on. Let’s get it over with.’
As the captain signalled to the cohort and the riders began to move forward, Dev rode at the front with the officer, both sitting high and proud in the saddle as befitted imperial officers. Those twin sentinels with their broken stone fangs closed on either side, reaching to the sky, and in a quarter of an hour they passed from the bright sunshine into the deep shade of the valley. At least the weather was holding here. Word was that the monsoons had begun further south in the lowlands, and the rains would be dreadful for the general and his forces. It would be weeks before the weather changed here in the mountains, and even then it would be a pale shadow of the storms further south.
Dev blinked in the relative gloom, allowing his eyes to adjust to the change. The defile snaked through the peaks. He could see the mountains rising to the east, mapping in his head the shape of the valley. The captain looked at him quizzically.
‘You’ve been here before, sir?’
Dev shook his head. ‘I’ve never been within fifty miles of this place. The villages on the lower slopes I was familiar with, but no sensible rajah or his men came this far north. Too dangerous. There has been no authority but the bandit chiefs in these mountains for a hundred years.’
‘I hate bandits.’
Dev threw a warning glance at the officer. ‘I would be grateful if you kept sentiments like that well and truly buried for now too.’
The captain nodded, though he looked no happier. The five hundred cavalrymen closed their ranks, moving four men abreast and barely leaving breathing room between themselves and the beast in front. Tension had grown throughout the ranks on their approach to the Sizhad’s realm. Moving at a sedate, cautious pace, the cohort travelled along the shadowed base of the valley. Small stands of trees and scrubby grass filling out into shrubs and bushes represented the majority of the area’s vegetation and there was no sign of current settlement. A seasonal stream wound along the centre of the defile, though at this time of the year it was little more than brown dust and smooth rocks. There were no fields, farms or bridges, huts or shrines. The place was devoid of civilisation, though here and there on the hillsides and among the trees and bushes they spotted ruins that suggested this place had been a rajah’s pride once, many years ago, before the bandit chiefs rose.
Dev shivered and stroked his horse’s mane, opening his mouth to speak to the captain and shutting it again in surprise.
The Sizhad’s men were suddenly everywhere.
Dev was impressed even through the shock as his horse reared and he fought to control the reins. The captain, beside him, was in similar trouble, and the entire column had halted, panicked, urgent voices ripping through the strangely silent valley.
They must have been secreted among the trees and rocks and within the ruins. At some unheard signal they had risen from their hiding places as one. They were all in white and pale beige with white turbans. Some held spears, others swords, but most had bows with an arrow already nocked and the string drawn back to the chin. And there were so many of them.
It took him a moment to realise that the captain was telling his men to stand down, and Dev turned as his horse finally reluctantly settled, to see that a number of the cohort had drawn their swords.
‘No,’ he bellowed, echoing the captain’s own commands. ‘Sheathe your blades. We’re here to talk. We want them as allies.’ Although, in that moment, he was not sure how much he really wanted them at all.
A man stepped out onto the road, his apparel identical to the rest and yet somehow carrying an air of authority. He faced Dev and the captain and folded his arms. Dev looked him up and down. The man showed no fear at the approach of a cohort of imperial cavalry, but then why would he? He had several hundred warriors himself, and many of those would be able to pin two men apiece with arrows before they had to consider a blade.
Dev and his men had walked into the lion’s den, and the truth of that suddenly insisted itself upon him as he looked into those eyes and saw not only a lack of fear or concern, but a worrying mix of disdain and unshakable faith.
‘Please stand your men down,’ Dev said to the man in a good northern Inda dialect, slightly tempered by many years of imperial living. Behind him the cohort were once more sheathing their weapons and settling their horses. ‘We have come in peace to discuss matters of great importance with the Sizhad.’
The man in white cocked an eyebrow slightly, though whether it was at those words or the accent in which they were delivered, Dev could not tell. He remained still, arms folded, silent.
‘I am an envoy of General Flavius Cinna, carrying the authority of the emperor Bassianus.’
Still the man said nothing, but something about his silence and his stance told Dev everything he needed to know about the man’s opinion of his mission.
‘Will the Sizhad see us?’ he prompted, rapidly coming to the conclusion that this had been a mistake and that it might be better to cut their losses now and turn away. There was a long silence and, just as Dev was about to announce his intention to do just that, the man spoke.
‘You and your men will surrender your weapons if you wish to travel any further.’
Dev turned to the captain, who shrugged, though his expression showed his reluctance. Dev sighed. One of the advantages of the empire was that the organisation and discipline kept things running smoothly. A disadvantage was that to keep up such discipline meant complete obedience. Dev could not imagine approaching General Cinna without even trying to complete his mission. But there was no advantage to endangering everyone when he did not have to. He turned to the men and singled out the second officer a few ranks back, speaking to him in the imperial tongue in the hope it would go over the locals’ heads.
‘Take four files of men back to the nearest imperial station. Wait there for ten days, and then if we do not return, ride for the war zone. The rest of you, unsheathe your swords and daggers and throw them to the ground.’
As some four hundred riders turn
ed and began to trot their horses back west with a tangible air of relief, the other hundred dropped their blades. Dev and the captain reluctantly added their weapons to the collection. Not one of the Sizhad’s men lowered sword, spear or bow.
‘Come,’ the leader said, and turned. His men remained where they were, but the leader began to stride away up the valley with a purposeful gait, his white turban trailing two silk streamers of gold. Dev and the captain shared a look, shrugged, and began to walk their horses on after the man. The remaining cavalry joined the column, and slowly they moved deeper into the valley.
It was a long ride. Three hours they walked their horses in silence as the man strode ahead, never breaking pace. The valley narrowed gradually and twisted this way and that, as Dev had anticipated from the view of the peaks ahead. The pickets who had ambushed them had not followed along but, though they had appeared to be alone with the white-clad man as they moved along the valley, the ever-present threat hovered in the air, prickling Dev’s skin, and he felt certain that if he made one hostile move, the valley sides would suddenly erupt with white figures intent on bloodshed. And so they walked their horses steadily in the company of the white-clad leader, peacefully, unarmed and in silence.
Finally, as the light began to change, suggesting that the sun they had not seen for hours in the deep valley was now descending towards the western peaks, they turned a corner, and Dev’s breath caught in his throat.
Arrayed before him was an army on a massive scale.
He had not been sure what to expect of the Sizhad and his force. The bandit chiefs were portrayed as uncultured rabble in the tales of the rajahs of old, and though this one had become the greatest of all of them, Dev had still expected roughness. He knew that the man had managed to gather a sizeable force – that, after all, was why they were here – but he’d had simply no idea how sizeable.
This place had once been a sacred site. The valley opened out into a huge wide bowl, with a flattened hill at the centre, wide enough that the centre and the eastern end were still bathed in bright sunlight. A lake sat gleaming at that side, fed by a glittering cascade from the mountains and granting fresh water to the entire place. The huge circular depression was one giant military camp full of tents and small cabins, camp fires and supply stores, and everywhere were white pennants bearing a golden sun design. Dev had never commanded an army, but he had served in one and had made a short career out of evaluating the value of military installations on the empire’s fringe. What he saw made him break into a cold sweat.
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