by Stephen Hunt
‘Free wine and the forbearance of great princes. Long life. Good counsel and open borders and intelligent conversation.’
‘I’d like the real answer one day.’
‘One day I might just give it to you,’ said Sariel. ‘In the interim, you’ll need to settle for helping me frustrate the ambitions of the maggots before they gnaw away the last of the fruit.’
Ahead of them, Beula Fetterman stopped by the brow of a low foothill. She dropped down to one knee and pointed at the sky behind them. An aircraft. A dark triangle drifted across the sky. As the plane grew closer Carter could hear the engine’s drone. Distant at first, a mosquito hum, then louder as it continued its flight many miles to their west.
‘That looks small,’ said Carter. ‘A two-person flying wing.’
‘Can’t be Rodalian,’ said Fetterman, sounding confused. ‘We’re beyond fuel range of the mountains.’
A pity you didn’t realize that earlier, thought Carter, but he kept his criticism to himself. It didn’t take much to make the pilot explode, leaving a dour, lingering mood over the party for hours.
‘Doesn’t look up to much from this distance,’ said Carter, watching the plane dip and wobble through the air. Even the wrecks flown by the skel slavers are faster and more durable than that. It’s certainly not Vandian. ‘How the heck did it fly this far out?’
‘Perhaps someone is refuelling it locally,’ said Sariel, darkly.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ snorted Fetterman. ‘Who is there to do that in the grasslands? The only things the steppes hold are savages on horseback and a painful death. The Nijumeti would sooner pour oil over you and roast you over a fire-pit than sell fuel to you, even if they had stolen a few fuel barrels from a caravan. No, that plane is launched from a merchant carrier . . . it’s a ground-to-air trading shuttle.’
‘Then why can we not see the carrier?’ asked Sariel, pointing to the clear sky. ‘And why, with so little trade, would a merchant carrier bother to launch a landing plane over the steppes?’
Fetterman’s features creased dismissively. ‘They’re picking up fresh water from one of the rivers. It’s easy to run low on water when you try to cross the length of the Arak-natikh.’
‘So it is,’ said Sariel, but his doubtful tone of voice left much hanging in the wind. The aircraft passed out of sight fast enough, leaving the three travellers to march on for the rest of the day. That night they found a small copse of trees, a thin orchard, in the lee of one of the low hills and made their camp inside for its windbreak. Carter was careful to dig out a small, deep fire pit to conceal the light of their camp, and when it was done, he fashioned a stake out of a fallen branch and cooked the meat of a hare they had trapped the day before. It didn’t take much to cook the stringy meat, which was good, as he kept the fire low to ensure a weak, wispy smoke.
Fetterman gnawed on her share of the meal. ‘Do you know where you’re going, old man?’
‘I know where I’ve been,’ said Sariel, ‘which tends to equate to more or less the same thing.’
The aviator grunted unhappily. ‘Saints preserve me. Just give me an honest answer. How much longer until we reach where we need to be?’
‘I’d imagine a week more,’ said Sariel. ‘But then, I understand the clans embrace a free, roaming lifestyle. It is probably why they are known as nomads. A moving target is always hard to hit.’
‘And why did Prince Owen order me to fly you here?’
‘Because General Carnehan asked him to,’ said Sariel.
‘But what are we doing here?’ she barked, increasingly frustrated.
‘Oh, eating a rabbit supper for the large part. Enjoying the bracing night and a wide vista of stars.’
Carter sure did enjoy seeing someone else driven to irritation by the wandering vagrant’s manners. Makes a change from me.
‘Why are you seeking out the nomads?’
‘Because they’re here.’
‘You are not answering me. You’re cracked. What makes you think the Nijumeti won’t just scalp you and stake you out on the grass over the first ant hill they find?’
‘The clans tend to respect those touched by madness,’ said Sariel. ‘I recommend the condition. Leaving your sanity behind is one of the most liberating experiences.’
‘Damn you, how is this journey to aid the rebellion?’
‘When you have a sickness,’ said Sariel, slowly, as though talking to a child, ‘it behoves you to treat the root cause of the disease rather than just rub salve on the wounds.’
‘You’re talking in riddles.’
Sariel examined the hare meat on the end of his stake. ‘A philosopher is someone who can fatten a plump riddle out of the thinnest of answers.’
‘Philosophy will not win an inch of ground in our war!’ spat Fetterman.
‘That depends on which war,’ said Sariel, before adding pointedly, ‘and perhaps which side you are on.’
The aviator stood up angrily from the comfort of the fire and grabbed up her rifle from the grass. ‘I’ll take first watch. May the night’s cold freeze some sense into your addled brain before sunrise.’ She stalked out of the trees.
‘Miss Fetterman might be more bearable company with the answers to some of those questions,’ said Carter.
‘And my seventh wife might have made the Sultan of Utorcore very happy,’ said Sariel, throwing his canvas groundsheet over the damp ground to make his bed. He lay down, coughed and drew the wool blanket around him. ‘But I’m still not inclined to go back to discover the truth of the matter.’
When sleep found Carter, it was a shallow, worry-filled affair. Not for himself or what might go wrong on their journey, but for his family’s fate back in Rodal. If the Vandians felt free enough to spend time scouting the steppes for more victims, what did that say about their control over Rodal? Maybe Willow and my father are already dead or prisoners in some cramped, stinking cage awaiting shipment to the slave markets of the Imperium? Carter drifted uneasily into slumber, the hardness of the ground and bite of the cold air flowing through the trees holding off a restful sleep. He tried not to focus too hard on how long he remained in that anxious state, just the thought of it enough to hold a deep sleep away. At last, an unhappy grey unconsciousness claimed Carter. How long he was out he could not say. It was a strange gurgling noise that awoke him. His eyes fluttered open. Carter struggled to make sense of what he could see from the fire pit’s embers and moonlight falling through the fine canopy, dawn’s first gleaming hanging close. Is that? A silhouette stood over Sariel’s sleeping blanket. A female form . . . Beula Fetterman, and as she moved away from the blanket on the ground, Carter saw the dagger plunged into the old trickster’s chest, so deep only the hilt was left visible. All weariness vanished. Carter kicked off his blanket and lunged for the rifle by his side, but he was too slow. The aviator had her own rifle raised straight toward him.
‘Not another inch towards the gun,’ ordered Fetterman. ‘I want you alive long enough to dig this doddering fool’s grave.’
She’s gone insane. Cold stung Carter’s face. ‘Just because Sariel wouldn’t tell you where we’re heading to or why we’re going there?’
‘No,’ she sneered. ‘Just because we are far enough away from the border that your bodies won’t be found by anyone from the Lanca.’
‘We’re your mission.’
‘Yes, you are. In a manner of speaking, but never the pretender’s mission. I take my orders from the royalist army. They sent me to Rodal to bring Lady Cassandra back to King Marcus. He wanted the return of the Vandian emperor’s granddaughter as a gift to keep the Imperium happy. Lean over slowly, just enough to pick up your rifle by the tip of its barrel and toss it over here in front of me.’
Carter groaned but did as she ordered. There was a crack as the gun landed, striking a stone in the grass. Another traitor. ‘How can you do this?’
She never took her eyes off Carter as she kicked the rifle away to her side. ‘Oh, but I’m late for what I was ordered to d
o. You’re lucky the emperor’s granddaughter is still missing. I should have already killed you, Carnehan. If the Rodalians hadn’t arrested us and thrown us in the poky together, you’d have met with an “accident” a long time ago. Plunging a knife through this old fool’s heart and cutting his throat in his sleep? That’s a bonus and my pleasure.’
‘If you shoot me, you’ll never find out why we were sent here.’
‘I don’t care,’ laughed Fetterman. ‘Trying to hire mercenaries from the clans to fight alongside you? Some secret treaty the pretender hopes to cut with these Nijumeti savages? Finding Lady Cassandra to use her as a hostage again? Whatever you’re travelling for dies tonight with you two idiots.’
‘They’ll hang you in Hadra-Hareer for this.’
‘No, they won’t,’ said Fetterman. She swivelled and kicked Sariel’s corpse. ‘I’ll tell them you ordered me to fly over the steppes until I ran out of fuel. Then you and the old devil set off into the north on your fools’ errand, leaving me to hike back to the nearest border fortress. Who would be surprised if they never lay eyes on the pair of you again? And the truth of the matter is that before long there’ll be nobody left in Rodal to even care. King Marcus has crushed the rebellion. His foreign allies will finish off the last of you left cowering inside Rodal, along with anyone unwise enough to stand by the pretender’s cause. Your father, your girl, the pretender and his court of traitors in exile. Everyone will be dead.’
‘You’ve got it all figured out.’
Fetterman jabbed her rifle at Carter. ‘Well, I know who here’s digging the grave big enough for two. Lift the spade out of your pack and get on with the job.’
Poor Sariel’s murdered. Of all the stupid ways to go. The boastful old vagrant had survived a journey around half the world to save Carter and the other slaves taken by the Imperium. Saved Jacob Carnehan’s hide more than once. Only to be murdered in his sleep by an aviator turned spy, slain in the wilds by a royalist fanatic. Even the ageing rascal would have been hard-pressed to spin a tale of fame and distinction from this sorry fiasco. But outside the pages of cheap novels, wasn’t this how all outlaws ended their life? Not in a blaze of glory in some heroic last stand, surrounded by the piled bodies of their enemies. But shot in the back in a tavern. Jumped in an alley when drunk. Or the swift painful slice of a dagger across a sleeping throat. Carter crossed sadly to his pack and drew out the spade, a small army trenching tool that needed to be folded out to its full length. Its blade was muddy. He hadn’t had time to clean it after digging their fire pit.
Carter dug its blade into the chill hard ground, breaking the soil. ‘You never struck me as the religious type.’
‘This isn’t for your soul, pastor’s boy. It’s for mine. I don’t want vultures circling your bodies and warning every clansmen in the vicinity there are strangers in the steppes. I’d like a nice uneventful trek back to Rodal. Not a pursuit with me needing to ambush Nijumeti scouts every night.’
‘Wouldn’t want to put you to any bother,’ muttered Carter.
‘You won’t.’
Despite the cold, the work of digging the grave left Carter sweating. A good way to catch a fever. Maybe even sick enough to die. But not before this turncoat puts a bullet in my heart. All too soon Carter’s work was done. The hole was dug. He felt the warmth of the rising sun outside the trees. My last day in the world. ‘You going to leave a marker on our grave?’
‘What for? This is a big land. It will be centuries until someone wanders across your bones. And besides, I don’t think you’d like what I’d write anyway.’ Beula Fetterman raised her rifle and Carter waited to die.
As councils were wont to run, Jacob could tell this meeting was going to be fat with difficult discussions. They were gathered to mull over the news that the Rodalian town of Zimar had been seized by the massed forces of Vandia and Marcus’ royalists. Now they faced ground forces heading up the Pilgrim’s Way, seizing wind harbours along the key trade route as they advanced. Leapfrogging slowly towards the capital, village by village, mountain by mountain. He could smell the fear in the meeting chamber. And fear and panic are worth a dozen legions to our enemy. Marcus and his allies will dig in properly around the capital. A siege. Look to starve us out. I don’t know where this imperial princeling Gyal learned the trade of war, but he’s not a complete idiot. The mountains’ killing winds weren’t going to be summoned to such devastating effect a second time.
Nima Tash arrived in the chamber with a grim face, sitting with the head of the army to her left and the chief of the skyguard to her right. ‘We are to wait for Prince Owen?’
I’ve had enough of his defeatism; whining complaints born of privilege. ‘We are not,’ said Jacob.
‘Let us make a start of this. We have just received worrying intelligence from our scout wing,’ announced Skyguard Marshal Samden Stol. ‘They have discovered mercenary carriers in the air, circling the territory captured by the royalists and their allies. Flying high above Zimar, at the very edge of their operating ceiling. Many of the aircraft are skel carriers.’
At last. ‘Seems like they want every dog they’ve got thrown into this fight.’
‘You sound happy about this?’ said Nima Tash.
Jacob could hardly deny it. ‘I’m always happy when my enemy does something I expect, Madam Speaker. It makes my life easier.’
‘Harder to locate the joy in such news for me,’ grumbled the head of the Rodalian army. Land Master Namdak Galasang pushed his slablike hands across the table as though he planned to topple a mountain on the Imperium’s legions. ‘With the skels’ arrival, the invaders’ aerial forces have an advantage of speed, armament and numbers. We have always relied on command of the skies to keep Rodal safe from those that would breach the peace of the Lanca.’
‘It is true,’ said Samden Stol. ‘Our army’s ranks are adequate to defeat bandits and hunt down nomad raiders, but the Walls of the World face north towards the Nijumeti horde. Our fortresses and garrisons are fixed the wrong way for this war.’
‘We have what we have,’ said Nima. ‘We must fight with that.’
‘There have been many reports filtering in from the north,’ said the land master. ‘Unusual activity. The clans have not been fighting each other with much enthusiasm of late. This new Krul of Kruls has imposed an order of a sort on the Nijumeti. You know what that means . . .’
‘That the border fortresses will be earning their substantial upkeep again soon enough,’ sighed Nima.
‘We cannot strip our garrisons up there and march a relief force down through the valleys of the Mask Heights. Every soldier and pilot will be needed at Chalhand and Dalranga when a full horde is formed and led against us.’
Jacob stared at the politician. ‘How likely are the nomads to open up a second front?’
‘They are true opportunists like all bandits,’ said Nima. ‘They see a weakly defended caravan and they ride down on it.’
And currently we’re looking like the caravan with its escort too light on swords. This wasn’t news Jacob needed. Sadly, it wasn’t likely to be the last bad account he’d receive this day. ‘Has the plane flying Carter and Sariel up north returned to your border fortresses?’
‘There has been no report of it landing yet,’ said the sky marshal.
Overdue, then. Overdue in a land overrun by savages with bad intentions. Could he trust Sariel to keep Carter safe? Could he trust anybody other than himself anymore?
‘But the scout wing did report one additional detail that will no doubt be of some personal interest to you,’ continued Samden Stol. His tired old eyes fixed on Jacob. ‘One of the carriers above Zimar is well known to us.’
‘Known to you?’
‘A notorious pirate who plagues the trade routes of the Lancean Ocean. The Plunderbird.’
Jacob grunted. ‘So, what do you want me to say?’
‘That the pirate captain of the Plunderbird is your brother!’
‘The commander of that carrier is
a privateer,’ said Jacob. ‘Black Barnaby sells his forces to whoever pays the best and can write a letter of marque for licensed pillage. Barnaby may be my blood, but Prince Gyal can pay his crew enough imperial gold to make every fighter on the carrier consider Gyal their best and truest brother.’
Nima spoke sadly. ‘This will strike against the morale of our defenders. Look, they will say, even General Carnehan’s own family fights against us.’
‘And how many families in Weyland have been split down the middle by the civil war?’ said Jacob. ‘You do know who Owen’s uncle is?’
‘Don’t you feel anything?’ demanded the Speaker of the Winds.
‘I buried a wife and a town full of friends because of the people advancing on this city,’ growled Jacob. ‘I buried a good few more fighting to rescue Carter and Northhaven’s young. Since Bad Marcus dissolved the national assembly and launched his damn coup, all I’ve been doing is watching good people being put down in the soil. You want to know what I feel? That up to now there have been too many graves dug for exactly the wrong kind of folks.’
‘My people aren’t here to die for yours,’ said Nima.
‘Then you had better decide what you will die for,’ said Jacob. ‘Because when Vandia and the southern army tighten the noose around your necks, they’ll deserve an answer to that.’
Off to their side the large doors of the chamber drew open, sentries standing aside, and Prince Owen stalked inside the chamber. Jacob noted the strange look on his face. Something else to worry about, I reckon.
‘What is it?’ asked Jacob.
Prince Owen took his seat as though the weight of city rested on his shoulders. The nobleman could hardly meet Jacob’s gaze. After a long pause he spoke. ‘Willow Landor has been snatched from HadraHareer. She was ambushed inside her rooms last night. Anna Kurtain was with Willow at the time and tried to fight off their attackers, but they overpowered her.’
Jacob drew his breath in slowly, so as not to show what he felt. What he wanted to scream and shout. He managed a single word, hissed out like a dagger being drawn. ‘Who?’