Enchantment's Reach (Book 1)

by Martin Ash

  Twisting her head Issul saw the booted feet of her abductor, or one of her abductors, plodding just ahead, leading the horse. Straining the other way she saw others marching behind. She could not tell how many. Because of her awkward position and an excruciating stiffness at the back of her neck she could barely lift her head, and thus could see no faces or even identifying uniforms or emblems.

  They marched in silence, and the world slewed, swayed and jolted. Nausea swelled dangerously on the back of her pain. She clamped shut jaw and eyes, fighting it back. She tried to make herself think clearly, for everything was a red haze of pain.

  She was a captive, that was plain. But by whom, or what?

  And to where was she being taken?

  Anyone's guess. But she lived, and that in itself suggested her captors had some purpose in mind for her.

  Did they know who she was?

  She had no way of telling.

  She wondered about the wisdom of letting them know that she was conscious. Nothing could be worse than the agony she was currently suffering. Her thirst had become unbearable, her wrists and ankles chafed by the rope that bound them. Her back, gut, neck and head felt as though she were being wrenched apart.

  Issul called out, but her voice emerged as a dry rasp, barely audible. She tried again, this time making no effort to form words, simply letting out a long, arid moan as loudly as she could.

  The horse upon which she was slung came abruptly to a halt. The world rotated slowly, dizzyingly, disorientating her further. Through the swirling fog of her pain she made out the booted feet, moving close into her line of vision. A hand grasped her hair and swept it aside, twisting her head around. Issul rolled her eyes to try to see, but her captor remained beyond her view.

  "She is awake," said a voice.

  Another replied: "Release her."

  Big, pale, wrinkled hands reached down to release the thong that linked her wrists to her ankles. Then the boots passed around the rear of the horse and Issul felt the bindings at her ankles being untied. Not cut. She noted this: whoever they were, her captors were not wasteful. The bindings were valuable to them.

  She was grasped by her belt and hauled from the horse. Sharp spasms of pain lanced through her entire body, and she cried out again, this time involuntarily. Her feet, numb and bloodless, gave way and she fell. Strong hands saved her from harm and allowed her to sink onto her buttocks on the ground.

  "Water," Issul rasped. A leather bottle was placed in her hands, which were still bound together at the wrists. Gratefully she raised the bottle and drank with long, greedy draughts.

  "Can you stand?"

  "Give me a moment."

  She stretched and rotated her ankles, bent and extended her legs to ease the stiffness, and massaged the muscles with her bound hands, then nodded. A hand beneath her armpit helped her upright. She took quick note of her surroundings: deep forest, the dull light above, then she was propelled forward. She staggered limply around the horse, and came face to face with a man the like of whom she had never seen before.

  Issul had read and heard descriptions and seen likenesses in books and paintings, of course, but this was the first time she had found herself locking eyes with a living Karai. And what she saw shocked her.

  It was not that the Karai were so different from humans. Rather it was that they were so similar, but those differences they possessed were striking and made them appear utterly alien. The man - the Karai warrior - she faced was no taller than she. His face was pale and long and deeply lined and seamed. The flesh brought to mind that of an etiolated raisin. The mouth was a small, tight gash, the lips almost colourless. But it was the eyes that drew. The globes themselves were almost pure turquoise in hue. A fine latticework of vessels of a darker tone could just be made out, tracing a filigree pattern across their surfaces. There appeared to be no iris, but the pupil was a gleaming horizontal slit of darkest malachite.

  Gem-eyes. Issul had heard the Karai referred to that way many times, and the term was fully justified. Stories were told of Karai being murdered, or at least mutilated, for their eyes. The globes, however, quickly faded and decayed once deprived of a blood supply, so the practice never gained great popularity. Karai ornamental slaves were spoken of, though: individuals abducted or purchased by ruthless nabobs and condemned to a life of absolute immobility confined in imaginatively-fashioned cages, their vocal organs removed and only their marvellous eyes visible for any who paused to admire.

  But what startled Issul as much as the visual impact of the eyes was the fact that she could read nothing in them. No hint of the thoughts or emotions that resided behind them. In that sense they were even more like gems: fascinating and beautiful, bright and utterly strange, but without sensitivity or soul.

  As she gathered her thoughts she realized something else, perhaps even more startling. It was the fact that this was a Karai. They were here, deep within the wildlands of Enchantment's Reach. So close!

  She glanced aside. From what she could see, at least fifteen Karai warriors made up her party. There could have been more, though, concealed by the deep, close forest. She noted that some wore bloody bandages.

  The Karai who faced her, apparently in command, spoke. "You are a lady."

  "Your intelligence is astonishing. Are all of your race so perceptive?" Issul stood proud and scornful, determined to conceal the fact that she was, in truth, deeply afraid.

  The Karai captain remained impassive, as though the taunt had no meaning to him. "I mean, you ride with an escort. You have rank. You come from Orbia palace."

  Issul thought swiftly. Obviously he did not know who she was. She must keep it that way. What would the knowledge that their enemy Queen was in their hands be worth to them? "I am a lady-in-waiting, to the family of the Lord Treasurer."

  "You will be missed?"

  She shrugged. "Yes, but quickly replaced."

  Immediately she regretted it. It was possible the Karai was assessing her ransom value, and she had just declared herself virtually worthless. A ransom demand for the lady-in-waiting to the family of the Lord Treasurer? They would guess that it was me. Leth would know it immediately!

  "However," she quickly added, "they will do all in their power to get me back."

  The Karai captain weighed this emotionlessly. His continuing lack of expression, fully emphasised by the eyes, disconcerted her. It was impossible to gain any inkling of his thoughts.

  "Why were you on the road? Where were you going?"

  Suddenly it was all flooding back to her. Her pain and confusion had been blocking it. Ohirbe and Arrin. The ambush. The old woman in the woods. Moscul!

  Issul turned to the side to see if any other captives were among the party. The Karai captain reached out quickly and took her jaw between fingers and thumb, brought her head around to face him again. His grip was strong but not excessively forceful, and he did not hold it longer than was required to make his point and achieve his aim.

  But Issul went rigid, her hackles rising. That he should touch her like this!

  She fought down her emotion, the urge to strike him on shin or in the groin. He must have no clue as to who I am!

  "Why were you on the road? Where were you going?" the Karai repeated with perfect precision.

  "I was returning to Orbia after visiting my family."

  Again no response.

  She held up her wrists. "Can this be untied, please?"

  "No."

  "Where am I being taken?"

  He ignored her. "Can you walk?"

  "I- I think so." She flexed the muscles of her legs again and arched her back, stretching the spine. Gradually the blood had flowed back into her limbs; she was fairly sure that, though stiff, bruised and grazed, she had suffered no serious injury. Her neck was painful to turn, however, and the pain in her head still raged.

  "Good." The Karai captain nodded towards the waiting men. Issul saw that, in the midst of the Karai soldiers, there were a pair of prisoners. They were both m
en, neither known to her, one grey-haired and elderly and one youthful, quite slim but robust. Their wrists were bound like hers, and a length of slender rope was stretched between the two, linking them.

  The Karai who had taken her from the horse now guided her to where the two stood. She was placed behind them and another line attached between her and the younger prisoner. The horse that she had ridden, the only animal in the party, was now loaded with baggage, which had previously been lugged by the two prisoners and a couple of soldiers. There was a short wait as the Karai captain conferred with one of his men. The man then turned and made off down the pathway, back the way they had come. Ten or so Karai warriors went with him, armed with bows and swords.

  Issul wondered how much time had passed since she had been ambushed and captured. She thought it unlikely that she had been unconscious for more than a day. The ambush had taken place some time after midday. It was now, by her estimate, late afternoon. The same day? Short of asking the Karai, who presumably would not reply, she had no way of knowing.

  She thought about Sir Bandullo and the others of her escort. All dead? Ohirbe? Moscul?

  Perhaps she would never know. She felt confused and suddenly deeply despondent.

  The Karai captain motioned with his arm and they moved on.

  II

  They walked for as long as the light held. The trees obscured much of the sky, but Issul saw that the brightest of the dying light was concentrated obliquely towards her rear. Her direction of travel, then, was generally south. Towards Enchantment.

  She tried speaking to the two prisoners in front of her, hoping to gain some basic information, most particularly in regard to her missing companions. But though she put her words in an undertone, she had barely opened her mouth before a Karai guard stepped in and prodded her roughly in the back, ordering her to silence.

  When the light became too dim for further travel the Karai captain brought them to a halt. Issul was grateful. Though she had walked for no more than a couple of hours, she was weak and her limbs ached. She longed for rest. The older of the two prisoners had also been stumbling and dragging his feet, as though the effort pained him.

  A couple of Karai herded her and the other two to one side. They were ordered to sit, their ankles tied and food was then brought: a chunk of hardtack, cold rice and water. The Karai warriors formed a wide circle around them. No one lit a fire; no one spoke, other than to issue the occasional curt, hushed command.

  Issul ate, finding the food barely palateable, but too hungry to leave even a single grain of rice. She observed the Karai warriors as they sat hunched in the twilight, and noted that they ate the same rations as she. In due course the captain came and stood before the three of them, his wrinkled face a pale blotch in the near-dark. He carried blankets, and dropped one at the feet of each. "Sleep now. Do not talk. Tomorrow we leave early."

  As he walked away Issul pulled the blanket around her and lay back upon the hard earth. She was weary and miserable, and she lay with her eyes open staring at the great mist of stars in the blackness overhead.

  Are you there, now? Do you look and wonder from afar, ask yourself what is happening here, on this distant world? Do you suffer as we do? Or are we truly as alone as we feel?

  The older man beside her had begun to snore. She heard an owl screech in the woods nearby. It came to her that she might have fared worse. She was the only woman in the party, young and beautiful, even with scuffs and bruises. But no one had so much as looked at her with the kind of interest she might have expected. The prisoners were frightened and subdued. They had barely raised their eyes when she joined them. And the Karai. . . . Well, the Karai were the Karai.

  It was small comfort, for who knew what awaited her tomorrow? Where were they taking her?

  With these questions uppermost in her mind she fell eventually into sleep.

  *

  Dawn brought a light, cool breeze snaking through the forest. Issul awoke shivering; her single blanket had been less than adequate protection against the night's chill. The cold hardness of the earth beneath her seemed to have seeped through her flesh to penetrate her very bones. A Karai stomped past, slapping her buttocks with a switch to rouse her. She sat up with abrupt anger, but forced herself to keep it inside. The soldier paid her no heed, but moved on to rouse the other two prisoners in the same manner.

  The Karai were up, stamping and shaking themselves into wakefulness. Food was brought: the same basic rations of the night before. Then the blankets and other accoutrements were swiftly and efficiently packed away by ever-silent Karai, and they resumed their march.

  They had walked for perhaps an hour, following no discernible path, twisting and looping deeper into the forest, when Issul heard a strange, soft, sound overhead. Arrhythmically pulsing, breathy and indefinable. She looked up, in time to see passing above the trees a group of those same huge birdlike creatures that she had seen previously from the road beyond Enchantment's Reach. They were lower than before, travelling in roughly the same direction as she. Broad wings patiently beat the air with a sound somewhere between a sigh and a slap. It seemed to Issul now that they were not birds at all, though what they were she could not say. She shuddered, counting thirteen of the dark creatures before the dense canopy of trees obscured them from sight. The other two prisoners also gaped at them and exchanged fearful glances, but the Karai appeared indifferent to their passage.

  A little later she grew aware that the company had swelled. More warriors had joined them. Issul took them to be the ones that had left them the previous afternoon. From time to time she twisted her head and tried to count them. She had the impression that they had not all returned.

  Further and further they advanced into the deep primordial wood. The gargantuan trees crowded ever closer, their shade ever denser. From time to time they had to scramble up steep banks or rocky spurs, or descend into gulleys and ravines. Issul lost track of their direction, but the Karai appeared to know where they were bound. The pace, though not particularly fast, was nonetheless gruelling. Issul saw that the older man ahead of her was finding it heavy going. When she could she assisted him, as did his young companion.

  At midday they paused. All three flopped down upon the dark earth, hot, sweating and weary. They wolfed their ration of food, the cool water sweet and merciful in their parched throats. But the respite was brief, and soon they were stumbling forward again.

  Sometime in the mid-afternoon they broke suddenly from the trees into a wide grassy clearing. A camp of sorts had been established here, a palisade of sharpened stakes forming its perimeter. Wooden guardtowers had been erected inside, and a Karai sentry was stationed in each.

  They made their way to the gate, which drew open to admit them. Several large tents and a few wooden huts had been erected inside. There were more Karai, and here a fire burned, a slaughtered buck's carcass roasting on a spit above the flames, tended by a plump Karai soldier. Issul and the other two captives were conducted to one of the larger huts. The door was barred behind them and an armed sentry posted outside.

  There were no windows within the hut; the only light came via chinks in the rough timberwork of the walls and roof. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness Issul made out three rows of makeshift beds upon the floor. They were made of dry grass and leaves, with a blanket or old sacking on each. There were a couple of dozen in all, laid almost side to side, with narrow aisles between.

  Issul moved to one and sank down, as did the others. She lay in silence for some time, absorbed in her thoughts and fears. No matter her weariness, her immediate concern was of escape.

  But escape to where?

  She had no notion of where she was. Enchantment's Reach lay away to the north. . . somewhere. Were she somehow to succeed in breaking free of the Karai, she had little hope of surviving alone in the forest. The wildwood was haunted by creatures which, though they might have avoided a party of armed Karai, would have no hesitation in stalking and preying upon a solitary wanderer.


  Still, she would not abandon the thought of freeing herself of her captors; to do so was to abandon hope. Issul spoke to the other two. "Where are you from? How long have you been prisoners?"

  The voice that replied was that of the older man. "The hamlet of Glux. We are charcoal burners. I am Miseon, this is my son, Herbin. We were at work in the woods, not far from Glux, when six of these warriors came upon us. They killed my other son, Demsolt, when he tried to resist, then tied us and led us away. We joined the larger party just a short way into the forest. You were already strapped across the horse."

  "Then you know nothing of a skirmish that took place upon the road to Crosswood?"

  Miseon shook his head, then asked, "What is your name, child?"

  Issul hesitated. "Jace."

  It was the first name that came to mind, after her own. No one was likely to make a connection, whereas her name might just cause men to look twice. But as she said it the sweet face of her little fair-haired daughter formed before her, gazing up at her, her brother Jalry at her side. Issul squeezed back tears and stifled the sob that rose suddenly in her breast. My babies, I will find my way back to you! Believe me, I will. This I swear!

  "Well, Jace, I suggest we rest and conserve our strength. I for one am bone-weary after the long march, and though we seem to have arrived at our destination I do not anticipate tomorrow being a much easier day."

  "Are we to be used for slave-labour, do you think, Miseon?"

  "Who knows. It is in the hands of the gods."

  Later, when the day had faded outside so that barely any light was visible through the chinks in the wood, the door to the hut was thrown suddenly open. Issul, who was seated at the far end of the hut with her back against the wall, saw several dark figures outside. One brought in an oil-lamp which he hung upon a peg just inside the door. They filed into the hut one by one, eight or nine in number, and collapsed onto the litters.