Warrior

by Jennifer Fallon

  “Before he starts to associate jumping with pain,” Damin finished, a little impatiently. “And thinks he’s being punished for something. I have jumped a horse before, Captain Harlen.”

  “Just checking,” Raek said, obviously pleased that Damin seemed to know what he was about.

  He trotted up the slope a little further and then turned and waited for Almodavar to give the signal. The older captain scanned the slope on the other side of the gorge once again and then nodded.

  They took the jump one at a time, the trooper Axton in the lead. The young man was a fearless horseman, no doubt the reason he’d been chosen to go first. He gave the mare her head and Damin held his breath as they galloped down the long slope and neared the edge of the gorge. At the very last minute, Axton leaned forward in the saddle and the horse launched herself over the log at the edge of the cliff and sailed across the gorge, stretching out to land on the other side without missing her stride, the momentum carrying both horse and rider into the trees.

  Damin let out his breath and grinned. “That was impressive.”

  “Wait until it’s your turn,” Raek laughed. “Watching it is nothing compared to doing it.”

  Helling was already headed down towards the gorge at a gallop, as Raek and his scouts rode a little further up the slope to get as long a run-up as possible. Damin followed them, his heart pounding.

  He watched Helling land safely and then Raek Harlen and the two scouts, who would spread out as soon as they reached the other side, making sure the area was clear of Defenders.

  And then, before he realised what was happening, it was his turn and Damin was thundering down the slope towards the Bardarlen Gorge and certain death if he misjudged the jump by so much as a single step.

  Trust the horse, Raek had told him. There wasn’t much else he could do. The gorge appeared in front of them far too soon, and he felt Windracer gathering beneath him for the leap. His heart in his mouth, the blood rushing through his veins so loudly it was all he could hear, Damin fixed his eyes on a thin sapling directly in front of them on the other side of the gorge, leaned forward and grabbed a handful of mane, letting the reins go loose. The horse leaped without faltering, and suddenly they were airborne. Damin had barely time to register that remarkable fact before the ground came rushing up to meet them and Windracer grunted, almost tossing him from the saddle, as they landed on the other side.

  A faint cheer greeted his successful landing, but Damin had no time to savour his achievement, too intent on keeping his seat and avoiding the scattered trees that were suddenly in front of them.

  They plunged into the woodlands beyond the gorge. Whooping with glee, he let Windracer have his head for a few moments longer, and then gradually brought the beast under control.

  With the blood singing through his veins so fast he was shaking from it, Damin turned the horse around and headed back towards the gorge.

  By the time he got back to the others, Almodavar and several more Raiders had made the jump successfully, but they’d done this more often and were able to pull up their mounts long before they got lost in the trees as Damin had.

  “Well done,” Almodavar told him with a grin when he saw Damin trotting up the slope through the trees.

  Damin’s pulse was pounding, his heart still banging against his ribs as if it wanted to burst clean out of his chest, but he was grinning so hard his face was aching. He leaned forward and patted Windracer’s neck fondly. “Windracer deserves most of the credit, not me, but by the gods, that was unbelievable!”

  “You’re a proper Raider now,” Raek assured him, as another man and horse sailed across the gap and landed safely.

  “Does that mean we can do it again?” he asked, afraid he sounded like an excited child asking for a special treat. He was still exhilarated from his death-defying leap and doubted he’d be over it for some time yet.

  “Provided your uncle doesn’t find out about it,” Almodavar agreed, waving the next rider across.

  Damin laughed. “You’re not even going to tell him we came this way, are you?”

  “Actually, it’s your mother I’m concerned about, more than your uncle,” Almodavar said.

  Raek nodded in agreement. “There’s an old Harshini saying, Damin. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve.”

  Almodavar looked at him, shaking his head. “Mahkas could probably cope with the idea that you’ve jumped the Bardarlen Gorge—he jumped it himself more than once when he was younger—but your mother . . . Well, she has enough to worry about. If Mahkas doesn’t know, then the Princess Marla isn’t likely to learn of it, either. Not unless you tell her.”

  “Are you kidding? She’d kill me herself.”

  “Then it’ll just be our little secret, won’t it?”

  “It’s hardly a secret, Almodavar,” he laughed. “Every man here just saw me do it.”

  “But they’re Krakandar Raiders, Damin,” Raek told him. “And you’re one of us now. They’d never tell.”

  Another Raider landed safely and plunged into the trees, carried forward by the momentum of the jump. Damin watched the soldiers crossing the gorge one by one, filled with a deep sense of contentment at Raek’s words; it was an even more intense feeling of homecoming, sneaking into Medalon on a cattle raid, than when he rode into Krakandar city and was greeted by a cheering mob.

  This is what it is to be alive, he decided. This was more fun than anything he did in Greenharbour, more thrilling than the political games his mother played so expertly and insisted he master as well. Damin might have a natural gift for politics, but this was his legacy and his birthright. For all that he was Marla Wolfblade’s son, he was Laran Krakenshield’s son, too, and that part of him which hankered for action over rhetoric seemed suddenly fulfilled.

  Damin had lived in Greenharbour for six years now; long enough to be under no illusions about his uncle, the High Prince. He saw how Lernen Wolfblade lived, he knew how confined his uncle was by his rank, and while he didn’t agree with the way Lernen chose to keep himself amused, he could see how successive generations of High Princes had degenerated into overgrown children with nothing but their own pleasure to keep them occupied.

  But this was real. This was dangerous, and exhilarating, and made him more aware than he had ever been that he was truly alive. The Krakandar Raiders were his to command some day and being Krakandar’s Warlord when he came of age, six years from now, seemed more real to him, at that moment, than the idea that he would ever be Hythria’s High Prince.

  Chapter 58

  When the busy, raucous docks at Bordertown came into view, jutting haphazardly into the Glass River, Luciena wasn’t sure if she should be relieved their hurried flight from Fardohnya was at an end or worried about what trouble they might have stepped into. Although their arrival in Medalon was not accompanied by the same intuitive feeling she’d had of something being badly amiss as in Talabar, Bordertown didn’t particularly thrill her, either. It was foreign, strange, unfriendly and far, far from her home in Greenharbour.

  “You look worried,” Xanda remarked, coming to stand beside his wife as Captain Drendik eased his shallow-draughted river barge into the chaotic wharves, looking for an empty berth. The Melissa was a trading boat; one Luciena’s shipping company owned (although not according to its papers). It regularly plied the trade routes between Talabar in Fardohnya all the way to Brodenvale near the Citadel in northern Medalon. The Melissa’s captain was a big, brusque man, with good reason to help Luciena and her family escape the Fardohnyan capital in the dead of night. He was Rory’s father and Luciena’s cousin.

  “Escaping one unfriendly foreign country simply to land in another . . .” Luciena sighed, shivering as a chill breeze whipped the hair around her face. Bordertown was more east than north of Talabar, but here, where the Sanctuary Mountains tinted the northern horizon blue, the wind tumbling off their tall peaks had the smell of distant snow upon it. “It isn’t necessarily the best solution to our problem.”


  Xanda nodded in agreement. “I think I prefer the Sisterhood’s indifferent hospitality, though, to Hablet’s rather more personal interest in us.” He studied his wife closely for a moment. Luciena knew he was waiting for her to offer an explanation.

  Things had been awkward between them since she’d returned from her meeting with Princess Adrina, refusing to say who’d she been with and demanding they leave Talabar that very day without offering any reason. Fortunately, Xanda trusted her enough to do as she asked without pressing her for an explanation at the time, but he wasn’t happy with her continued silence on the issue.

  Luciena had made all their escape plans alone.

  For fear of being overheard, she was afraid to discuss anything more contentious than the weather with her husband while a guest in the Summer Palace. She had kept her own counsel and sent Aleesha with a sealed note to the only person in Talabar Luciena was sure she could trust and whom Lecter Turon would not have any reason to suspect. Then, under the pretext of taking the children to see a show by the famous Lanipoor Players, who were currently performing in the city, they had left the palace with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

  It was only in the carriage on the way to Rorin’s father’s house that Luciena informed her husband they were leaving Talabar and it was a stroke of sheer good fortune that her cousin, her one trusted ally, was actually in port.

  It would have been impossible to escape the city on the ship that had brought them to Talabar; it was under guard by Hablet’s soldiers, supposedly to protect it from Fardohnyan citizens concerned the Hythrun ship might have brought plague to the city. Normally, at this time of year, the Melissa should be heading up the Glass River to Brodenvale in Medalon with a cargo of fine Fardohnyan silks, ready to wait on the spring melt to speed her journey downstream, returning by the end of summer with a load of Medalonian wool and wines. They’d been delayed by a broken rudder, which was finally repaired, and Drendik had been preparing to sail that very day.

  Had Luciena waited another hour, they would have missed him completely.

  Her husband, however, was still a little annoyed at her refusal to divulge the source of her intelligence, or the reason why she had insisted they leave Talabar so abruptly.

  “Of course,” he added cautiously, “if I knew exactly what we were supposed to be escaping from

  . . .”

  “I promised I wouldn’t betray my source,” she reminded him. She’d been telling him the same thing for weeks.

  “You sound like Ruxton Tirstone,” he complained. “He says the same thing to Marla whenever she tries to find out where he gets his intelligence from.”

  “I’m not trying to be mysterious, Xanda. I simply gave someone my word.”

  “And your word to this mysterious someone is more important than your oath to me?”

  “That’s not fair. My marriage vows have nothing to do with my word to someone else.” She smiled, trying to lighten the tension a little. “Besides, I thought we’d already established that I married you under duress? If that’s the case, then my oath to someone else would be far more binding than my oath to . . . Adham Tirstone?”

  “You made an oath to Adham Tirstone?” Xanda asked, obviously confused.

  “No! He’s here! Look!” she exclaimed, pointing to the familiar figure standing on the dock scanning the cluttered boats for something. “Adham!”

  Damin’s stepbrother looked up, searching for whoever had called his name. When he spied Luciena and the Melissa, he waved frantically to get their attention and then pointed to an empty berth a little further along the crowded dock. Luciena and Xanda both hurried along the railing in parallel with him as Drendik followed Adham’s directions and, with his two brothers’ help, eased the boat into the narrow berth.

  “Welcome to Medalon!” the young man called, as the barge bumped against the wharf.

  “What, in the name of all the Primal Gods, are you doing in Border-town?” Xanda called down to him, impatiently waiting for the Fardohnyan crew to secure the boat.

  “Long story!” Adham called back, looking around with a frown. Luciena could easily guess the reason for his concern. This was Medalon, home of the Sisters of the Blade. In this country, they conducted periodic purges to rid themselves of pagan worshippers. Even in Bordertown, probably the most tolerant place in the whole country, it was inadvisable to swear by the name of any god, let alone all of them. “Are the children with you?”

  “We’re all fine!” Luciena assured him, yelling to be heard over the racket of the surrounding docks. She glanced around nervously, wondering if anybody was paying their shouted conversation any attention. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you,” he called up to her.

  Too impatient to wait until the short gangplank was pushed out, as soon as the boat was tied up Xanda jumped the railing and landed on the dock beside Adham. Luciena couldn’t hear what he was saying to Adham, though, because at that moment, against her explicit instructions, Emilie appeared from belowdecks.

  “Why is it so cold here, Mama?”

  Luciena looked down at her daughter with a frown. “I thought I told you to stay below with your brothers.”

  “They’re fighting again. Is that Uncle Adham that Papa’s talking to, Mama?”

  “Yes, it is,” she replied, drawing Emilie to her for warmth. The children had no other clothes than those they’d fled Talabar wearing, and they were far too flimsy for Bordertown’s chill winds.

  Although she’d been on deck for only a few moments, already the child was shivering.

  “Why is Uncle Adham here?”

  That was something Luciena was also anxious to learn. “We’ll find out soon enough, darling.

  Now go below, please, and tell Aleesha we’ll be disembarking soon. And remind those boys that if I have to come down there and speak to them, neither of them will be able to sit down for the rest of the week.”

  “You can thank Drendik’s broken rudder that I’m here,” Adham informed them an hour or so later, after settling the family into one of Bordertown’s better inns. The children were being bathed and fed in their rooms by Aleesha while the adults met in the taproom downstairs with a welcome cup of mulled wine and a loaf of fresh bread, baked so recently it was still warm from the oven. It was reasonably quiet so early in the day, with only a couple of women wearing the distinctive blue robes of the Sisterhood sitting at one of the tables on the other side of the room. Drinking tea and deep in conversation with each other, the Sisters paid the Hythrun newcomers little notice.

  “As can we,” Luciena agreed. “But what has Drendik’s misfortune got to do with you?”

  “I’ve been trying to unload a shipment of spices we had earmarked for Karien. They’re turning us away at every port these days.”

  “But why store your cargo here in Medalon?” Xanda asked. “Aren’t they just as sensitive about Hythrun ships carrying the plague?”

  “The ship wasn’t one of ours, it was a Karien trader.” Adham smiled apologetically. “I know we have an unofficial agreement to use your ships wherever we can, Luciena, but the Kariens are much easier to deal with when it’s their own people bringing the spices up the Ironbrook River, especially into Yarnarrow. We’ve had shipments held up for months at a time in the past, because they’ve supposedly been polluted by ‘heathen’ handling. And it would cost too much to sail them back home, even if I could have found a way to cajole a terrified Karien crew to land in any port ravaged by plague.”

  “So Ruxton arranged for the ship to offload in Medalon?”

  Adham nodded. “He sent me up here to sort the whole mess out just after you two left Greenharbour for Talabar. I eventually found some warehouse space in Testra where we could store the stuff until things settled down. Rodja contacted Drendik through our agent in Talabar while I was on the way here. He was supposed to pick up the spices here in Bordertown and move them up to Testra for us. Once I found the warehouse, I came back here and ar
ranged for the Kariens to offload the cargo, paid them off and sent them on their way, thinking the Melissa would arrive any moment. That was a fortnight ago.”

  “But, fortunately for us, Drendik’s rudder broke,” Luciena said. “What happened to your spice cargo?”

  “It’s still sitting on the end of the Bordertown wharves, while I go grey praying for it not to rain.

  Still, it’s not a problem now,” he said, with obvious relief. “The Primal Gods must have heard my prayers.

  Drendik promises me he can have my spices loaded and under cover by this evening. He’ll be on the river again by tomorrow, heading for Testra. After that, Brehn can send us a deluge and I won’t give a damn.”

  “You’re not going with the cargo to Testra?”

  Adham shook his head. “I’ve had enough of atheists and the Sisterhood’s bureaucracy for a while. I trust Drendik. Besides, I’ve heard a few rather disturbing rumours about what’s going on behind Fardohnya’s closed borders on the other side of the Widowmaker. I think I’m going to be needed at home.”

  “But Greenharbour is rife with plague,” Luciena reminded him.

  “I meant home as in Krakandar. Rumour has it that’s the only city in Hythria still free of the plague. At the very least, it’s bound to be safer than Greenharbour, otherwise Damin wouldn’t have been sent there.”

  “Damin is back home in Krakandar?” Luciena glanced at Xanda in surprise before turning to Adham. “But how will you get there? Surely the borders are closed?”

  “You don’t know our border with Medalon very well, do you?”

  “He means it’s miles and miles long,” Xanda explained in response to Luciena’s questioning look.

  “It’s the reason there’s no customs post on the border, either. It’s impossible to police. Set up a roadblock in one place and everyone would just cross somewhere else. Fortunately, most of the trade between Hythria and Medalon happens on the Glass River with ships that sail out of Greenharbour.”