William Nicholson - [Wind on Fire 02]

by Slaves of the Mastery (epub)

  He glanced to his left as he rode, and saw that his foot-soldiers were in place. Behind him, the first rays of the rising sun were reaching over the black line of hills. This is it, he thought, the moment of no turning back, the all or nothing: and rising in the saddle, he was swept by a sensation of pure joy. Eyes bright, lips parted in a smile, he raised his sword as he rode, spurred his mount into the gallop, and cried,

  ‘Charge!’

  The wind singer was burning fiercely. Hanno Hath trained the nozzle of a fire hose on the flames, while Bowman and Kestrel, one at each end of the handle, pumped with all their might. Already the tiered arena was alive with running figures. The cry of ‘Fire!’ spread through the city. Ira Hath and Pinto were racing down the streets, banging on doors to wake the sleeping people. From all sides families in nightclothes came streaming into the arena. Kestrel wept as she pumped, saying, ‘No! No! No!’ with each downward stroke. Bowman didn’t turn to look at the smoking wind singer for fear he too would cry.

  Hanno’s fire hose succeeded at last in dousing the flames, leaving the tower half-destroyed, charred and hissing.

  ‘Keep pumping!’ he cried, turning the hose on a burning building. But Kestrel had already left the pump and was swinging herself up onto the smoking ruin.

  ‘Be careful, Kess –’

  Her father’s voice was cut short by a terrible screaming. A great rush of men, women and children burst into the arena. With a thunder of galloping hooves, the chasseurs of the Mastery crashed through the pillared arcade, swords flashing, and the people of Aramanth ran before them. Those that fell or turned back were cut down by the long swords, so that as the lines of horsemen advanced, their horses rode over the bodies of the wounded and the dead. Behind the chasseurs came foot-soldiers with short spears, with which they stabbed the bodies lying bleeding on the ground. Terrified, the people of the city fled before this savage killing machine, across the arena, down burning streets, out of the city, towards the ocean shore.

  Kestrel clung to the burnt-out wind singer, and in her black clothing she wasn’t noticed by the invaders. The scorched wood hurt her arms and legs, but she dared not move; and unmoving, she watched the slaughter. She saw her father and brother forced back with the rest. She heard the piteous cries of the wounded, and the brisk blows of the spearmen. She watched the leader of the invaders ride by on his horse, saw him clearly in the light of the rising sun, his handsome young face framed in a cascade of tawny hair, his eyes cruel as a hawk hunting vermin. She stared as long as she could, printing the image deep in her memory.

  I won’t forget you, my enemy.

  As the last soldier passed out of sight, an unearthly silence fell. Kestrel reached up for the slot in the wind singer that held its silver voice. The metal throat was almost too hot to touch, but she made her fingers feel into the slot, and quickly, before she knew she was burned, she snatched out the voice. It fell to the flagstones below. She followed it, dropping swiftly down the tower, feeling the skin tear on the fingertips of her right hand. She found the voice on the ground, already cool enough to handle, and with her left hand slipped it into her pocket.

  All round her now she heard the sound of flames, and felt the heat in the air. The great circular arena was built of stone, and there was little there to burn. But beyond the ring of pillars there rose a wall of fire. There was nowhere for her to go.

  Outside the city, the fleeing people now found themselves penned in a broad space between the fire and the ocean. Here the foot-soldiers of the Mastery were waiting for them. The soldiers made no move to attack. They stood in menacing clusters, swords drawn, while the thousands of helpless townspeople milled about, dazed and frightened, looking for members of their families, crying and sobbing, unable to take in what had happened. There was no leadership, no organisation. The blow had fallen too suddenly.

  Marius Semeon Ortiz rode up and saw the stunned looks all around him, and was satisfied. His provisioning parties were withdrawing from the torched city, their wagons full. It was time to calm the prisoners, and teach them obedience.

  ‘You will not be harmed! Do as you are ordered, and you will not be harmed!’

  Mounted officers rode through the crowd repeating the cry.

  ‘Remain where you are! You will not be harmed!’

  Ortiz now ordered the monkey wagons to be brought forward. Teams of horses hauled the high-wheeled cages into the heart of the crowd, where the horses were unharnessed and led away. Ortiz looked round for a suitable victim among the conquered people, to demonstrate why the cage had acquired its name.

  Hanno Hath had succeeded in reuniting all his family except Kestrel. The way back into the city was barred by armed men, but even had they been able to slip past the cordon, the fire was raging too fiercely. They could only hope that somehow Kestrel had found a means to escape the inferno. Meanwhile, here and now, too many people were wounded. The first priority was to survive, and to help others to survive.

  A mounted officer clattered past, crying, ‘Do as you are ordered, and you will not be harmed!’

  ‘Are you all right? Pinto, you’re bleeding.’

  ‘I’m all right, pa,’ said Pinto, her voice trembling. ‘It’s not my blood.’

  ‘Did anyone see what happened to Kess?’

  Ira Hath looked at Bowman. He had his eyes shut, his mind reaching out for his twin.

  Kess! Can you feel me?

  He shook his head.

  ‘Would you know if she was –?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’

  Pinto caught sight of Mumpo, with his father Maslo Inch.

  ‘There’s Mumpo! He’s all right!’

  Marius Semeon Ortiz, high on his handsome charger, was looking in the same direction, his eyes drawn by the tall man in the white robes. Maslo Inch, once the all-powerful Chief Examiner of Aramanth, had no pride any more. Ever since the changes, he had grown increasingly confused, and in recent years he had come to depend entirely on his only son. All that was left of his former glory was the white robe, the old sign of the highest rating, and his dignified bearing. His heart was broken, his mind bewildered, but his body, through force of long habit, walked tall. It was this that singled him out.

  Ortiz pointed, and his men pushed through the crowd and seized Maslo Inch by either arm. Mumpo tried to stop them, but they brushed him aside, and a mounted officer shook his sword at him. His father, only half-understanding what was happening, smiled for him as he was led off.

  ‘Let them be, son. What does it matter?’

  Mumpo followed, as did many others, including Hanno Hath. They saw Maslo Inch pushed into the high cage, and the barred door locked after him.

  Mumpo turned to Hanno Hath in distress.

  ‘What will they do to him?’

  Hanno shook his head, afraid to speak.

  ‘My orders will be obeyed!’ Ortiz cried out, his horse wheeling round and round. ‘Without question! Without delay! The first sign of disobedience –’ he pointed to the cage, ‘and this man will die!’

  Ortiz looked round and heard the rushing murmur of voices. His words were being repeated all across the great crowd of prisoners. This was good: fear made them attentive. They must learn that he did not make empty threats. As the Master himself had taught, a single act of brutality could control an entire city, so long as it was carried out without hesitation, and without mercy. Ortiz had his victim. Now all he needed was a pretext.

  Mumpo knew nothing of this. All he knew was that the father he had come to love had fallen into an unexplained danger. The horseman with the sword had frightened him, but he had now ridden away, and Mumpo was angry. He possessed the courage of the uncalculating soul: wishing to save his father, he thought nothing of the risks he might himself face. So marching forward to the cage, he rattled its blackened bars and shouted,

  ‘Let him go!’

  Ortiz swung round on his horse. He pointed his sword at Mumpo.

  ‘Stand back!’

  ‘He’s my father,�
�� said Mumpo, saying not what was needed, but what he felt. ‘Let him go!’

  Maslo Inch reached his hand through the bars and stroked Mumpo’s cheek.

  ‘My son,’ he said proudly.

  Ortiz saw with grim satisfaction that his order had been disobeyed.

  ‘You were warned. Now the price will be paid.’

  He gave a sign, and one of his men stepped forward with a burning torch. Beneath the cage there was an iron tray, in which lay a deep bed of firewood topped by oil-soaked kindling. Above the kindling, the floor of the cage was an open iron grid. As the kindling caught fire, and the smoke began to rise, the people nearest to the cage realised with horror that Maslo Inch had no way of escaping the flames. He was about to be burned alive.

  ‘You will be silent!’ commanded Ortiz. ‘For each person who speaks, I will take one more from among you, and they will die in the same way.’

  A terrible silence fell over the people of Aramanth. How could they think of disobeying? Even the bravest of them, even those willing to risk death, dared not bring about the death of others. So they made no noise at all, as the fire spread in the deep tray beneath the cage, and the poor lost man inside tried to climb the bars to escape the heat.

  Ortiz watched, as he had watched before. It was unpleasant, but it was necessary. All new slaves must witness a death in the cage before entering the provinces controlled by the Mastery. It was the Master’s order.

  Maslo Inch didn’t make much of a monkey for the watching soldiers. After his first desperate efforts, he fell limp, and his white robes caught fire. He then folded noiselessly to the cage floor, without so much as a scream, which was unusual. But the sound of the burning was sufficient. Ortiz could see from the drawn white faces of his prisoners that the lesson was well learned.

  There came a low cry, and a thud. The young man who had disobeyed him had fallen to the ground. The people around dared not stoop to help him, and so he lay there, apparently in a faint. Ortiz decided to overlook the incident. It was time to prepare for the long march home.

  ‘People of Aramanth,’ he called to the shocked and silent crowd. ‘Your city is destroyed. Your freedom is at an end. You are now slaves of the Mastery.’

  Bowman stood utterly still, his eyes fixed on the burning city, searching with all his senses for Kestrel. He heard the flames and smelt the smoke. Here and there he found pockets of buried pain among the ashes, which burst like bubbles against the touch of his mind, releasing the last cries of those who lay there, dead but still warm. So much sadness rose from the smoking ruins, so much hurt and loss. He flinched as he felt it, but made himself search on. Then a soldier pulled roughly at his sleeve, and turning, no longer searching, he caught a fugitive touch of her, no more than a flash of a figure seen through scorched pillars, through heat-distorted air: but he knew her. She was there. She was alive. It was enough.

  Already the soldiers were forming the new slaves into lines. He let himself be pulled and commanded. He didn’t care. She was alive, and the future now had a shape. In parting him from his sister, his half-self, his enemy had drawn taut the cord that linked them, shivering taut, like the bowstring on an archer’s bow. They would find each other again. The drawn string would be loosed. Then the hunter would become the hunted, and the arrow would fly.

  3

  The wind is rising

  Kestrel remained by the burnt-out wind singer all that day, while the fire raged through the city. As night fell and the air grew cold, the flames began to die down at last, and slowly, fearfully, she climbed the nine tiers of the arena to see if anyone else was left alive.

  Aramanth was gone. In its place, by the orange glow of the burning houses, she saw ruined streets littered with bodies over which carrion birds screeched. She called out as she went, at first low and afraid; but hearing nothing, she called louder and louder. No one answered.

  The statue of Creoth, the first Emperor of Aramanth, still stood, the white stone now blackened by smoke. The fountain no longer flowed, but there was water in its basin. She cleared the ash floating on the water’s surface and drank deep. The water tasted bitter, but she forced herself to drink until she could drink no more.

  She made her way back to the building in which her family had lived, and found it roofless and still burning. The stairs had caved in. There was no way she could reach their apartment, even if she had dared to brave the fire. Looking up, she made out the space that had once been her room, now a skeleton of black beams against the night sky.

  Her foot stumbled against a dark mound in the street. It was the dead body of a woman. The face was pressed to the ground, but Kestrel recognised that plump back. It was Mrs Blesh, their one-time neighbour when they had lived in Orange District, before the changes. Her hand, outreached in the dirt where she had fallen, still clutched a merit medal that had been awarded to her son Rufy, for a prize poem he had written. Kestrel remembered that medal well. Mrs Blesh had carried it with her everywhere, and shown it to everyone. She remembered the poem, too. It was called ‘Waiting to Smile’, and was about being afraid to smile until someone else smiled first. Kestrel remembered how astonished she had been that dull studious Rufy Blesh had had such feelings at all, let alone put them in a poem. His mother hadn’t understood the poem, but she had been ridiculously proud about the medal, to her son’s embarrassment.

  Gently Kestrel detached the medal from the dead fingers, and slipped it into her pocket, alongside the silver voice.

  Where is Rufy Blesh now? Where is everybody?

  Bo! Where are you?

  No answer.

  Suddenly she felt faint, and knew she was going to fall. She closed her eyes, and a greater darkness swallowed her up.

  When she woke, it was light. She stood up, and shook her stiff aching limbs. She made herself walk down the smouldering street. She followed the trail of devastation across the city, and out onto the plain. As she walked, her strength slowly returned. She could feel the cold ocean breeze on her face. She began to be aware that she was hungry. And she began to ask questions.

  Why has this been done to us?

  She turned and looked once more at the burned shell of her world, and knew that nothing would ever bring it back again. Now that it was gone, she found she had loved her city more than she had known. In its clumsy fashion it had tried to make them a home.

  Who has done this to us?

  In a flash, she recalled an arrogant young face, a tumble of tawny hair.

  Who are you? Why do you hate us?

  The attack had been so violent, so personal, that she felt as if her own insides had been ripped out, and she had been made hollow. Whoever had done this had meant to destroy them all – perhaps had destroyed them all. She hadn’t seen a single other living creature since she had left the arena. She could be the only one of the Manth people left alive in the world. This unknown enemy had meant to destroy her too.

  Why?

  Suddenly her fierce will caught like a slumbering fire. All her being rose up to defy the unknown enemy.

  I will not let you destroy me!

  She looked south at the great grey heaving ocean. She looked back towards the last of Aramanth. Then she looked east, and knew that this was the way they had gone, the people-killers, the city-burners. The stiff grasses of the coastland were trampled in a broad swathe, and not far away there lay the huddled shapes of dead bodies.

  She had only to follow the march. Her family may be dead. Her people may be dead. But her enemy would be alive. For this reason alone she had survived the death of her city. For this reason alone she would not die.

  I am the avenger.

  This single simple idea filled her up, it was food and drink. Half-intoxicated with passion and exhaustion, she reached both hands high into the air above her head and spoke aloud, shouted aloud, to her unknown enemy who neither knew nor heard, and to herself who would never forget.

  ‘I will follow you! I will find you! I will destroy you! This I vow!’

 
For all of that first long day on the march, the people of Aramanth could see behind them the smoking ruins of their home. At first, as if drawn to look on their lost happiness against their will, they turned many times, and wept at the sight. But as the dying city became smaller in the distance, and their tears were all used up, they turned to look no more.

  Bowman marched with his family, striding steadily onwards, seeing nothing. With all the power he possessed, he was reaching out, listening, feeling again for the familiar vibrations of his sister’s mind. But now he could hear nothing.

  Marius Semeon Ortiz came riding slowly down the line. Bowman, seeing him approach, woke from his half-sleep, and tuned his acute senses towards him. This was the man who had taken everything from him, including Kestrel. This man was his enemy. More steadily, more surely, he looked on the tawny-haired man on the horse, and reached out his mind towards him, in order that he might know him.

  Ortiz saw the young slave staring up at him. For a moment, their eyes met. Then he rode on, paying him no more attention. Most of the slaves looked at him as he rode by. No doubt they hated him, but they said nothing. They had learned that his punishment was instant and harsh. So it was only a few moments later that he realised the young man had been looking at him in a way he had not known before. Ortiz rode on down the line, puzzling over the sensation. It hadn’t been the look of a captive, or a slave, but of an equal. Somehow, in that short moment in which their eyes had met, the young man had seen inside him. What had he seen? Ortiz was not much given to introspection. He was a man of ambition, a man of action. But now he was intrigued.

  He turned his horse round, and rode back to find Bowman.

  ‘You,’ he said, tapping him on the shoulder with his sheathed sword. ‘What’s your name?’