The Stealers' War

by Stephen Hunt

  Temmell administered no new drugs to Cassandra, although he preferred keeping her inside his quarters in the centre of the camouflaged aircraft works. That, Cassandra suspected, had more to do with the sorcerer’s desire to keep a beady eye on her while Alexamir risked his life on her behalf. Nothing to do with repeated medical treatments. Alexamir’s Aunt Nonna accepted this new arrangement with reluctant grace. Nonna wasn’t in a position to countermand the sorcerer’s hospitality. Instead, she insisted on visiting with food every morning, afternoon and evening, as though the servants in the Great Krul’s service were incapable of cooking. Still, Cassandra was always happy to see the old woman. She reminded her that Alexamir was in the world. Risking his neck in Rodal so the untrustworthy sorcerer would complete her treatment. And how Cassandra prayed Temmell would, that he could. How cruel would it be if Alexamir returned with the stolen secrets of the Rodalian monks only for Temmell to shrug and admit that her healing was only a temporary treatment and that is all it could ever be. If ten minutes healed a day is to be my lot, how could I go on?

  After an hour of perusing books, Casandra saw Nonna appear at the door. She smelt her before she heard her. Nonna came bearing a cold pie called a kurnak inside her small pottery dish – filled with chewy goat meat, berries, mushrooms and a little honey.

  Cassandra hadn’t realized she was hungry until the old aunt entered the sorcerer’s lair. ‘Any word of Alexamir?’

  ‘What word do you think to receive, girl?’ sniffed Nonna. ‘All the metal we have stolen rests in our blades, not iron towers which foreign fools use to call the invisible radio spirits. Alexamir Arinnbold carried no cage of homing crows with him, and even if the fool had, I dare say he would have cooked them all up over his campfire by now.’

  ‘I hoped the pilot Zald might have returned with Alexamir or word of his success . . .’

  ‘Pah, the mighty Zald Mirok? If I know that old hound, he is snoring loudly in the shade of his wooden pigeon, an empty bottle by his side and dreaming of the days when he rode a swift horse like a real warrior. Two fools together, on a fool’s errand for a cunning foreign galoot. Never in my day.’

  He’s no fool. ‘Alexamir will survive. He has to.’

  ‘Alexamir is a capable thief,’ said Nonna. ‘But that devil Temmell needs a fool as much as he needs a thief. He knows my nephew’s soul well. Always trying to prove himself in front of the Great Krul.’

  ‘Don’t all clansmen ride to prove their strength?’

  ‘Not all riders have their mother warming the Great Krul’s tent. Not all riders were raised as much a son of the Great Krul as his own blood. Alexamir is the same as my dead dolt of a brother. He would ride through hell for Kani Yargul. If Temmell has his way, I dare say my nephew will not lack for opportunities to show his hooves to hell’s minions.’

  ‘You should not speak ill of the dead. Insulting your ancestors brings bad fortune.’

  ‘A fie for my ancestors,’ snorted Nonna. ‘And a double fie for Alexamir’s father. My brother has been feasting like a hero beside Atamva and the hosts of the fallen while those who survive him work their fingers to the bone scrubbing clothes in the stream, gathering firewood, skinning goats and burning their fingers over hot clay cauldrons.’ She thrust her gnarled fingers under Cassandra’s nose. ‘Look at my hands. They belonged to a warrior princess once, fit for any man who dared consider himself Nijumeti and attempted to steal me. I could once fire a bow riding backwards while skinning a hare, dismount with a somersault and slice the necks of three rival clansmen, and then curse the morning’s work as only half-done.’

  ‘A pity there is no man in the tent now.’

  ‘There was never any man worthy of me. It is the curse of all those born to beauty and great cunning. Kani Yargul tried to steal me twice and I kicked him in the balls both times and cursed him for a weak-livered courtier. If he had tried a third time, I would have sliced his jewels off and made them into a bolas to chase off all the other wolves who came yapping after me.’

  Cassandra believed it. Age had slowed Nonna a little, but Cassandra could tell from the way that the old woman moved that she had been blade-trained every bit as thoroughly as any Vandian noblewoman. And where has it got her? For that matter, what did it bring me? A prisoner of my own flesh, dependent on an ambitious madman’s dreams and dark sorceries.

  Nonna leapt up at the sound of an explosion in the distance, scattering her food as she practically sniffed the air. ‘What in the name of Seven Horses was that?’

  A fuel explosion? ‘It came from inside the aircraft works.’

  ‘These twice-plagued wooden pigeons,’ said Nonna. ‘They are not our way. Such craft belong to rice-eaters and outsiders who sorely tempt holy vengeance by trespassing across the heavens.’ She disappeared outside to investigate, leaving Cassandra staring at her piefilled plate and wondering. Nonna returned with two of Temmell’s men, big riders with curved swords strapped to their backs.

  ‘You are sent for,’ said one of the warriors.

  ‘If it’s expertise in extinguishing aircraft fires you need, I suggest you seek out Sheplar Lesh,’ said Cassandra.

  ‘Come,’ repeated the second man. He pushed Nonna back as she attempted to leave with them. ‘Not you, woman. You are not sent for.’

  ‘You send for my blade,’ snapped the old woman. ‘You lay your dirty hand on me again and you’ll be holding the reins with the arm I didn’t slice to the grass.’

  The two warriors grabbed Cassandra and carried her outside Temmell’s quarters. Cassandra’s mare waited there, tied to the building, and she shrugged off the riders’ thick hands as she mounted the saddle. How quickly I’ve grown accustomed to using my arms to pull me up and throw my dead useless legs across the nag. Nonna emerged from the entrance, looking irritated and worried in equal measure.

  ‘Stay here, Nonna,’ said Cassandra. ‘I’ll be back soon enough.’

  ‘Sharp eyes, Golden Fox,’ muttered the aunt. ‘With a sharper blade for what you ride across.’

  A pall of thick dark smoke rose from somewhere on the steppes, perhaps inside the concealed manufactory itself ? Is it Alexamir? If the ancestors love me, please, let him not have returned home only to crash. The two men leapt into the saddles of their own horses and led her through the maze of half-stripped carriers, construction huts and mounds of salvage. Towards a sight she never thought she would see again. Just outside the camouflage netting thrown over the primitive aircraft works. Three grounded helos, another two hovering in the air, heavily armed gunships of Vandian design. And back behind the rolling hills and the small river, her heart quickened at the sight of a capital ship of the Imperium, soil still smoking from where her engine pods had scoured the grass upon landing. That ship, she looks like . . . it was at that moment she noticed a group of house guardsmen being led towards the works by Temmell. Cassandra could hardly believe her eyes. After all this time. Mother, Paetro, Duncan! They had come for her, found her. But how? Then she noticed the trader and smuggler, Brean Luagh, happily strutting at the front of the Vandian party. So, Brean found something more valuable than aircraft fuel and metal engine parts to sell. Her soul felt ripped apart. Will they take me away with them? How can I go now? What about Alexamir, still risking his life for me? How can I never see him again? Know if he lives or dies? Cassandra felt as though she was two people inside one body, and only one could leave to return to the Imperium.

  ‘As you asked,’ said Temmell, halting in front of Cassandra’s horse. He raised his hand at her. ‘Your daughter.’

  ‘Do you think I asked?’ said Princess Helrena. She indicated the pall of smoke coming from a crashed carrier, the giant half-stripped aircraft further damaged by incendiary shells if Cassandra was any judge. ‘If I had kept on “asking” there would not be a barbarian left alive within a hundred miles of here.’

  ‘The Nijumeti are a civilized if simple people,’ smiled Temmell, ingratiatingly. ‘Despite some indications to the contrary. Have we not given r
oof and salt to your daughter? Treated Lady Cassandra as though she was one of our own clanswomen?’

  ‘If you maltreated my daughter, the range of my “asking” would have extended to every blade of grass in this dry, flat land of yours,’ threatened Princess Helrena. She beckoned Cassandra. ‘Are you not going to dismount? Give me a proper welcome?’

  ‘She cannot,’ said Brean Luagh.

  Cassandra’s mother turned and shot the trader a dark glare. ‘What do you mean, she cannot?’

  Brean advanced towards Cassandra’s horse and raised his arms to her. ‘Come, lady. Let me help you down.’

  Cassandra dismounted into his arms and let him bear her towards the shocked visitors. You fool, Brean Luagh. You didn’t tell them about my injuries. Of course they flew here for me, not knowing. But then, how could any foreign-born smuggler from Hellin hope to understand what her impairment meant inside the Imperium?

  Princess Helrena was practically shaking, the sight of her missing daughter being presented in this ignoble manner. ‘How badly are you injured?’

  Cassandra shook her head and shrugged, fearing to speak the answer. ‘My spine was crushed. The aircraft I escaped my captors in came down hard on the steppes during combat.’

  Paetro stared worriedly up at her. At his failed responsibility. Guilt and shame tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘Send for the surgeon from the ship. Get him down here at once.’

  Soldiers rushed back to a helo to radio for the man. Cassandra vaguely recognized the doctor when he appeared from a newly settled fourth transporter. An old silver-bearded man attached to the house’s medical staff, a couple of orderlies behind him, bearing heavy black bags containing the instruments of his trade. I know you. You’re the one who gave me the vaccine for Red Fever the last time the sickness swept through Vandis. They lay her on the soil like a bedroll. The surgeon rolled up the simple cotton and leather clothing from her back and examined her body. First with warm hands, then with a variety of cold medical instruments. At the last, the surgeon brought out a heavy device with two handholds jutting at its side like iron ears, gripping it tightly with both hands. He pushed the cold metal against her spine and took an x-ray image of her back, skeletal bones and flesh imaged in spectral green on the glass plate at the machine’s rear. He examined the image slowly, then discussed it with his two assistants before walking across to Cassandra’s mother. Princess Helrena had a hushed conversation with the doctor, her temper obviously not improved by their news. Then she finally returned to speak with her daughter.

  ‘You have fractured three vertebras and your spinal cord has been severed in at least two places. Even the imperial surgeons cannot heal you. You will never walk again.’

  ‘But I can,’ insisted Cassandra. She glanced urgently at Temmell. ‘Tell my mother. Tell her of my healing each morning.’

  ‘That is but a potion for the pain,’ said the sorcerer.

  ‘There is no potion,’ spat Cassandra. ‘I can walk, unassisted. I can even sprint. For at least ten minutes each morning, before I return to this paralyzed state.’

  ‘You fly,’ said Temmell, sadly. ‘You soar. Caught up in the visions of our healing herbs.’

  ‘Are you so desperate to avoid upholding your honour?’ Helrena glanced in the direction of the surgeon again, but he just sadly shook his head. You lying dog, Temmell!

  ‘What honour?’ said Duncan, confused, to Helrena. ‘We’ve found her at last. She’s safe! We can take Lady Cassandra home.’ Cassandra almost felt sorry for her old protector. He doesn’t know. Poor Duncan. You have spent so much time among us, but you still don’t understand what it is to be born celestial caste. What it is to hold the Imperium against the rest of the world.

  ‘Lady Cassandra has no home among us,’ said Helrena. ‘Her life is finished.’

  ‘But we can take her back,’ persisted Duncan. ‘There must be a doctor inside the Imperium able to help her. They saved me when I was half-dead on the battlefield! They healed Paetro too.’

  ‘Even the Imperial Medical College has limits to its medicine,’ said Helrena. She stared angrily at Brean Luagh. ‘Put her back on the horse. Let her pretend to be a person again among these barbarians.’

  ‘Sweet mercy,’ said the trader as he reluctantly carried Cassandra to her mare, ‘you cannot be serious? I brought you here to your own blood. You’re going to abandon her now to the Nijumeti?’

  Cassandra pulled herself back into the saddle, hardly daring to look at her mother’s face for the shame she felt. The Vandians stood in a line in front of her, their faces hard and disapproving for the most part. A few with disappointment or remorse at her obvious humiliation. Temmell came over and held her horse’s reins. As though I’m rejected goods at the fair. And he’s right. That’s all I am.

  ‘I have no blood here,’ said Helrena. ‘My blood would understand what is necessary to bring honour to her house. How this must end.’

  ‘No!’ begged Duncan.

  ‘Please be quiet, Duncan of Weyland,’ whispered Cassandra. ‘My mother is right. I may not carry a dagger by my side, but there have been blades within reach. I could have stolen one and ended my suffering.’

  ‘This is madness,’ said Duncan. ‘You can talk, you can eat, you can use your hands and your mind.’

  ‘And the first challenge issued against my house, against me?’ said Cassandra. ‘Would you and Paetro push my wheelchair around for me during the duel? You stood inside the arena and watched my mother fight. Would you turn my existence into a freak-show and see our house harried to extinction by its enemies?’

  Duncan lurched back, rendered mute by the horror of how quickly her rescue had turned into heartbreak for them both.

  ‘What about my money?’ demanded Brean Luagh, facing the Vandians. ‘The reward for finding the lady, for returning her to you?’

  ‘The house always honours its debts,’ said Helrena, coldly. She raised a hand towards her retinue and a soldier stepped forward carrying a heavy leather satchel. The princess took it from her guardsman and lifted its flap, showing the Hellenise smuggler the gold trading coins piled inside. She passed it across to the smuggler. ‘As agreed, this is yours.’ She raised a finger in Temmell’s direction. ‘You are this tribe’s leader, despite the lack of blue tint on your skin?’

  ‘The Krul of Kruls is currently away with a hunting party,’ said Temmell. ‘Else he would be here to meet with you. Your arrival is certainly worthy of attention. I am his . . . adviser.’

  ‘And how would you advise your absent barbarian chieftain to deal with a trader who gave away the location of your camp and brought dangerous far-called foreigners into your land?’

  Temmell’s intense gaze turned in the smuggler’s direction. ‘That the time to hunt has not yet ended.’

  Helrena nodded curtly. ‘I believe that is wise advice.’

  ‘I am coming back with you,’ Brean spluttered at the Vandian visitors.

  Helrena patted the side of the smuggler’s coin-filled satchel. ‘Sadly, you can no longer afford the fare . . . triple the weight of this. My counsel would be to toss your gold in the grass as you flee. Hope that your hunters knife each other over the spoils. You will not find it particularly easy to run with a pack as heavy as that.’

  ‘Please!’ Brean glanced madly around, but seeing no mercy among either the Vandians or the nomads, he stumbled away towards the long grass beyond the makeshift aircraft works. Still clutching his reward. Your death sentence. Brean was a fool, but perhaps he had tried to help Cassandra. No, he just tried to make himself rich. As far as he was concerned, you were a stray head of cattle and he was the rustler.

  ‘Not too much of a head start,’ observed Helrena.

  ‘He could run for a week and the clans would still ride him down,’ said Temmell.

  Princess Helrena grunted, then strode away towards the four helos. She gave the aircraft a taut wave and their main blades began to spin into lift mode, balance bars quivering with each engine roaring into
life.

  Cassandra called after her. ‘Please, at least say goodbye!’ She’ll come back. My mother won’t leave me like this. ‘Help give me the strength . . .’

  But Lady Cassandra’s mother didn’t even break step. She would have shown more emotion over a corpse she was able to mourn than to me.

  Duncan reached Cassandra’s nag, her old master-of-arms, Paetro, trudging behind with the weight of the world on his shoulders. It’s my world and he, at least, knows it’s over. ‘Helrena will change her mind. I’ll make her, Cassandra, I swear to you.’

  ‘Duncan, she’s the head of house and she has spoken. I’ll never see my mother again.’ Or Vandia. This is my life, here now. With Alexamir.

  ‘She will!’ insisted Duncan, gazing desperately at the departing princess.

  ‘You’ll end up banished if you keep speaking for me,’ said Cassandra. ‘Make him see sense, Paetro.’

  The stocky bodyguard tugged Duncan away from her horse. ‘The little highness is speaking the truth, lad. We have to leave here now. Or we’ll be the ones trying to out-pace barbarian hunting lances alongside that young Hellenise chancer.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Paetro,’ said Cassandra. Sorry you had to discover me like this.