by Evie Manieri
‘And Rho!’
‘And Rho,’ she added with careful patience, ‘have a lot to do tonight. They’re protecting the Shadar from very bad people.’
‘The White Wolf,’ he whispered, looking back at her with wide eyes. ‘I thought she was my friend, but she’s not. She’s bad. I saw her hurt people.’
‘That’s right.’ She nodded approvingly. ‘Now it’s very important that you and I don’t give the others anything else to worry about, or distract them in any way, do you see? By staying here, we’re really helping them.’
He beckoned her closer and a shy smile danced on his lips. ‘I can help better than that,’ he told her confidentially. ‘I did it before – I did it at the mines, and in the temple, too. Lots of times! I can do it whenever I want to.’
She swallowed, feeling ill. ‘I know you can. It’s a very special gift you’ve been given, Dramash. Maybe we should talk about—’
‘I saw him move!’ he announced suddenly, pointing at her belly. ‘There’s a baby in there, isn’t there?’
‘That’s right.’ She smiled gratefully and lurched back up to her feet, though her back ached fiercely. She moved further into the room, hoping he would follow her away from the door. ‘He’s your cousin, you know – he’ll be born in just a few weeks. Come over here and sit down with me and I’ll let you feel him kick, if you like.’
‘I had a baby sister, but she wasn’t alive when she was born,’ he told her, strangely boastful. Then he lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. ‘I’m not supposed to talk about that.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry – I didn’t know that,’ she said faintly. So Saria and Faroth had lost a baby, and Saria had never said a word about it. She stroked her stomach protectively. A stillbirth – how awful. And then for Saria to take care of her, all those months, watching her get bigger and bigger—
‘Is Mama back yet?’
‘Mama? No – no, I don’t think she’s back yet,’ she said quickly, feeling the numbness tingling in her hands again. She had to remember to breathe.
‘But I told Papa that she shouldn’t have to look after the goats any more,’ Dramash complained. ‘She should buy a new goat with the money I got for her.’
‘What money?’
‘The White Wolf gave her a gold eagle when she took me away – I saw it. It was this big!’ He drew a circle in the air the size of a dinner plate, and she would have laughed had the circumstances been different. Then his face clouded over with anger. ‘Someone should tell her to come home. I want her to come home now.’
She looked back at him helplessly, feeling her control of the situation sliding away. She didn’t want to embroider the lies Faroth had already told the boy, but this hardly seemed the time or place to tell him the truth about his mother … Or maybe she was just too much of a coward. ‘I’m sure she wants to come home, Dramash, but—’
‘I’m going to find Rho. He’ll take me up on his dereshadi. We’ll find her and bring her back.’
‘Dramash, I told you, they’re very busy. You can’t—’
‘Rho will help me. He’s my friend,’ he assured her confidently. ‘I’ll just go and get him. You can stay here if you want to.’
‘Dramash!’ she shouted, close to losing her temper. ‘Dramash, you come back here and sit down, right this minute! You are not going anywhere: do you hear me?’
‘I don’t want to stay here!’ he whined. ‘I hate it here!’
She seized his arm. ‘That’s enough! You will stay here until your father comes to get you! I will have no more nonsense!’
He stiffened under her grasp, and his dark eyes widened and then narrowed strangely. At the sound of a crash she spun around to find the cistern lying on the ground, cracked and gushing precious water. She dropped Dramash’s arm as the lamp on the table trembled, throwing up shadows around the room, and the dishes began to rattle and skitter.
‘I don’t have to do what you say,’ he told her darkly, a triumphant light kindling in his eyes. ‘I can do anything I want to and you can’t stop me.’ He turned from her and ran back to the door.
She struggled up from the floor, calling, ‘Dramash, wait!’, but he dived underneath the curtain and disappeared. Harotha, now desperate, didn’t bother with the knots either, but tore the curtains aside with a strength born of absolute panic and ran out into the street. Dramash was nowhere to be seen. She smelled smoke now for certain, and there were shouts and screams coming from all directions.
She guessed Dramash would head towards the dereshadi. She looked up, at first seeing only the glitter of lights darting around the sky, until her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the bulky shapes of the dereshadi and their slender riders. Just at that moment a torch fell from one, tumbling down until it disappeared behind the houses in front of her. She shut her eyes.
‘Don’t,’ she muttered furiously to herself as a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over her. ‘Don’t do this!’ A deep pain grabbed her in the gut and squeezed like a fist, sending cramp pulsing through her, sucking the strength from her body. She clutched her stomach and fell to her knees in the dirt. ‘No! Not now – not now,’ she chanted breathlessly, praying for the pain to stop.
After a few moments she was able to pull herself back to her feet and drag herself to the side of the street, but she hadn’t gone far before the next contraction hit. She stumbled over to the wall of the nearest house and pressed her forehead hard against the rough clay, leaning on it for support as she waited for the cramping to pass.
Without warning a hand grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and turned her around. ‘What are you doing here?’ the Mongrel demanded furiously.
Looking into her scarred face, Harotha realised – quite suddenly, and with complete conviction – that the Mongrel hated her.
‘Why are you here?’ the mercenary asked again. ‘Why aren’t you back there at the house?’
‘Dramash ran off,’ she panted, still trying to catch her breath. ‘I couldn’t stop him. We have to—’
‘Are the Nomas there yet?’
‘The Nomas?’ she echoed in confusion. ‘No, no one is there – no one knows where we are. Dramash—’
‘Forget about him – I don’t care about him.’
‘But I was supposed to be protecting him! That’s why you left him with me!’
‘He was supposed to be protecting you!’ the Mongrel shouted back hoarsely.
Harotha stared at her, completely taken aback, but someone shouted her name and she saw Alkar rushing towards them, followed by others of Faroth’s gang.
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, waving his maimed hand in her face. ‘Dramash is out there running loose – what have you done? What happened to your plan?’
‘You saw Dramash? Where is he?’ she cried.
‘We have him and he’s being taken to Faroth, of course,’ Alkar told her contemptuously.
‘Yes, I—’ she began, but another contraction hit her before she could finish. Involuntarily she snatched at the Mongrel’s arm and dug her fingers into her wrist.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Alkar asked, hurriedly backing away.
Over the pulse pounding in her ears, she heard the Mongrel drawl, ‘What do you think?’
‘She’s not having that baby now?’
‘Not now,’ she gasped out, ‘no, not yet – it’s too soon. It’s just the first pains.’ She let go of the Mongrel’s arm and cringed at the deep marks her fingernails had left in her skin, but the mercenary appeared not even to have noticed. ‘Take me to Faroth,’ she told Alkar, ‘quickly, please! There’s something I must tell him!’
Alkar regarded her suspiciously for a moment, but then he said, ‘All right, come on then,’ and led the way down the street. The Shadari closed ranks around her, hemming her in, and though she couldn’t see the Mongrel, she knew that she was following too. The houses they passed were dark and quiet, but not peaceful; the whole city was holding its breath, and though she saw no fire, the ai
r was riddled with the sharp smell of smoke. Every few moments a voice punctured the dark: a shout, or a scream, or a cheer. Shadari ran to and fro, waving torches, brandishing weapons.
She was hurried through a square where a crowd had gathered around the exploded remains of a downed dereshadi. The mob was cheering on the strong-stomached man who had taken it upon himself to drag the Dead One’s corpse from the saddle. She snatched a quick look, just enough to be certain it wasn’t Eofar, before she had to turn away. In another square they found piles of stones and Shadari ready to hurl them upwards at any rider within reach. But the real battle was taking place high above their heads.
She touched Alkar’s shoulder. ‘Are we winning?’
‘Most of the Dead Ones are still alive.’
‘On whose side?’
‘Both,’ Alkar answered grimly, ‘and that’s not winning, not as far as I’m concerned.’
She soon realised she was being taken back to the ruined palace. She comforted herself with the thought that Dramash would be safe with Faroth by now, and once she’d told her brother about the visions, she was certain he would help her to protect him. He hasn’t changed so much that he will ignore a sign from the gods themselves, surely?
They reached the walled courtyard at last. Torches reeking strongly of fish oil danced on spikes stuck into the dirt, making the air feel greasy as she drew it into her lungs. As Alkar hustled her past the sentries at the doorway with a curt word she saw Dramash dancing excitedly atop a pile of rubble. He was gazing up, open-mouthed, at the lights bobbing in the dark sky above. She sighed in deep relief.
She didn’t see Faroth at all until he was right in front of her. ‘I knew you’d come,’ he told her, smiling in a way that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. ‘You were right after all, about the gods. They have given us a sign. I was wrong to doubt them.’
‘Faroth, that’s why I need to—’
‘I wasn’t sure, not until Dramash came back to me, but now I have no doubts, none at all.’ He held up his hand and pushed something in front of her eyes. It appeared to be a coin, but as soon as she leaned forward for a closer look, he snapped his hand shut around it. ‘I know what I have to do, Harotha. I’m glad you’re here to see it. We’ve waited all of our lives for this.’
‘Faroth, wait!’ she called after him as he turned and walked away.
‘Dramash.’ Faroth stepped up to the little hillock of broken stone. ‘Come down here. I need to talk to you.’
‘I can’t see him. It’s too dark,’ he told his father disappointedly, turning away from the dereshadi with a frown.
‘I said come down here!’
He scrambled down and Harotha looked at the two of them standing together, her brother and Saria’s little boy. The presentiment that had been pushing in at the corner of her mind suddenly crystallised, and the blood in her veins turned to salt water.
‘No!’ she wanted to scream, but the syllable came out no louder than a croaking whisper.
Faroth squatted down in front of Dramash and held out the coin he had shown her. ‘Take it,’ he told his son, who obeyed. ‘Do you recognise it?’
‘Wait, Faroth, listen to me,’ Harotha begged him. ‘I’m your sister – your twin. We’ve always done everything together—’
‘It’s an eagle,’ the boy declared, holding the coin up in front of his eyes. He rubbed his fingers over its surface. ‘It’s got dirt all over it.’
‘Blood,’ said someone else, and a man in rags stepped forward. He’d been standing unnoticed behind Faroth until now. She had never seen him before, but something in his whipcord body and hunched stance screamed malice.
‘Faroth!’ she called to her brother again, and as Alkar tried to block her path she shoved him aside with a desperate sob and plunged forward. ‘Faroth, stop!’ she pleaded. ‘Stop! Listen to me!’ She heard Alkar shouting angrily, and then someone grabbed her arms from behind and held them fast.
‘Easy,’ advised the Mongrel’s low voice into her ear.
‘Stop this,’ she sobbed, twisting around to face her, ‘please! This isn’t your plan – this isn’t what you wanted!’
The Mongrel looked down at her with her silver-green eye glinting like moonlight on metal. ‘What I wanted?’ she repeated coldly. ‘You have no idea what I want. None of you do.’
‘Dramash,’ said Faroth, taking his son by both shoulders, ‘this man’s name is Josah. He has something to tell you.’
Josah looked down at the boy. ‘That’s the coin the White Wolf gave your mother before they took you away. As soon as you were gone, that soldier – Rho – he cut her throat.’ He slipped behind Dramash like a shadow and slid his bony finger across the child’s neck. ‘Cut it, just like that – like butchering an animal. I saw it: he killed her like she was nothing.’
‘It’s true,’ Faroth said, giving Dramash a little shake.
The boy stared back at his father, the colour draining visibly from his face.
‘Faroth, don’t do this,’ she moaned, fruitlessly tugging against the Mongrel’s iron grip. ‘Oh gods, please don’t. You don’t know—’
‘You can’t change the visions,’ said the Mongrel. Something shifted behind her silver-green eye, some emotion, furtive as a ghost. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I – I waved goodbye to her,’ Dramash said haltingly. His wide-eyed face dissolved as Harotha’s eyes swam with tears for the second time that day. ‘I saw her – she said it was all right to go. Rho was with her. Rho—’
‘That’s right,’ Faroth said, jerking him again, ‘Rho – he was the one. Josah saw him – he recognised him right away. Rho is not your friend, Dramash. He murdered your mother. Do you understand me, boy? That Dead One murdered your mother! She’s dead! She’s never coming back!’
‘Faroth!’ Harotha cried frantically, breaking free from the Mongrel at last. She rushed forward and pounded her fists against her brother’s back. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ she screamed.
‘Rho is in the temple right now,’ Faroth continued, ignoring Harotha’s blows. Dramash was still staring at his father, slack-jawed with shock. ‘The Dead One who killed your mother is in there – he lied to you, Dramash. He pretended to be your friend when all along he knew what he’d done. Dramash! Do you hear me?’
Faroth stood up and motioned for the crowd around them to scatter.
This time when the Mongrel took Harotha’s arms, she offered no resistance. She had failed. She could not stop what was about to happen.
Faroth tilted Dramash’s head up so he was looking at the temple. ‘There he is, Dramash, your mother’s murderer is up there!’
Dramash turned away from the temple, still holding the coin encrusted with his mother’s blood. With the slow, deliberate movements of an old man he sat down on the sand and looked at the coin, and then he looked back at the temple. When he swung back around to face Harotha, she recognised the expression instantly, and she collapsed into the Mongrel’s unyielding arms in utter despair.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A torch streaked down past Eofar’s shoulder and he jerked his arm out of the way, unintentionally tugging on the triffon’s reins and sending the beast into a dive. Stupid mistake, he chided himself; he was flying like a boy who’d never been in the saddle before. Strife’s Bane wavered dangerously in his hand, lashed about by his lack of focus and the shifting winds, as if the triffons on the hilt had decided to fly away in disgust. He tightened his grip on the sword, steadied his mind and pulled the reins taut. He was allowing fear to get to him – fear for Harotha, for his child, for the men under his command … for himself.
Another triffon loomed up in front of him and he scanned the other rider’s saddle anxiously, looking for a scrap of white cloth – thank Onfar for Daem, suggesting that signal; he would never have thought of it himself, and now that the battle had started he couldn’t remember anyone’s allegiance but his own. He was still looking for the cloth when the other rider picked up speed and streaked towards him. He l
ooped the reins over the pommel of the saddle and secured them with a sharp tug, loosened the strap around his waist and stood to meet the attack. The other rider – it was Kharl – had already drawn his own sword; now he too stood up in the stirrups and both triffons tucked their wings back, allowing their lithe bodies to glide to within a hand’s-breadth of each other. Eofar swung, picturing the path of the black blade in his mind, adding the force of his will to the strength of his arms. The straps around his thighs, his only protection against a deadly tumble from the saddle, dug in reassuringly. The swords clashed once and twice, then scraped apart as the triffons’ trajectories carried them past each other: no hits. He gulped down a breath of night air and snatched up the reins again.
Both riders turned their triffons around.
Eofar watched him approach, feeling his own triffon tense as they picked up speed. Strife’s Bane’s blade pulsed like an extension of his own arm. He was the only one in the battle with an imperial sword; he had no excuse for failure. It’s just like the tournaments, he told himself, count your opponent’s wing-beats. Gauge his speed. Wait – not yet, a little closer.
Just as Kharl’s triffon tucked in its wings, Eofar pulled smoothly on the reins, guiding his beast into a dive underneath the other’s nose, bringing them out again on Kharl’s left side instead of the right. Kharl twisted in his saddle, caught out by the move, and offered only one ineffective swing in Eofar’s direction.
He blocked, but didn’t strike back immediately; he was waiting for the instant when his angled climb would lift him above his opponent, giving him a clear shot at his back. Kharl saw it coming and changed his grip to block the attack, but he was too late; Eofar felt the blade digging into yielding flesh before he was pulled away by his speeding beast.
He leaned over the saddle and looked down; Kharl’s triffon was spiralling towards a landing spot on the narrow plain between the temple and the edge of the city, but dark figures on the ground had already converged and were waiting for him.