by K S Nikakis
It must be the King’s Guard! But then hope turned to horror as the air near her face whined. She wasn’t to die by a Shargh knife after all, but by a Tain arrow! The Guard were so close now that she could hear the twang of arrows being released.
A Shargh screamed, and there was a thump, then one of the horses shrieked in pain and cannoned into hers. Her mount crashed sideways, throwing Kira over its shoulder and smashing the air from her lungs. A jumble of hoofbeats sounded to her right, with more shouts and thumps, and the squeal of swords clashing. Kira curled into a shaking ball, expecting an arrow to tear into her any moment.
A rider thumped to the ground near her and Kira cowered as a sword rasped free.
‘By Meros,’ the man muttered in Tremen, wrenching her upright. ‘Shargh on Ashmiri horses and with a prisoner.’
He’d spoken Tremen! No, he’d spoken Terak! realised Kira in amazement.
Her bindings were cut, the blindfold yanked off, then the gag, but she kept her head down. Their use of Terak meant they must be Terak Kutan, but she daren’t risk finding out that they loathed gold eyes too. She felt dizzy, as if she’d been too greedy for air, and shivered despite not being cold. The man holding her tightened his grip.
‘Here, give me your waterskin, Slivkash; he’s all but done in.’
The man lowered her to the ground and brought the water-skin to her lips. Kira gulped down the water with eyes shut, but all too soon it was taken away.
‘That’s enough for now, or you’ll be heaving your guts out on the grass,’ the man said in Onespeak. ‘You can have some more later,’ he added, hauling her upright again.
‘Slivkash, bring Frost. The Tain can go in front of you, as you’re naught but a sapling. Mind he doesn’t fall now.’
‘Yes, Commander Marin.’
The pale legs of a horse appeared in Kira’s line of vision and strong arms swung her upward, more hands depositing her in front of the rider. His arms came round her and she gasped as he pressed against her pack.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked in Onespeak, with genuine concern.
Kira shook her head, desperate to be away from where more Shargh might lurk. Orders were shouted, then they sped off over the plain.
Tierken remained staring at Commander Marin long after he had fallen silent. He should have heard report of a routine scouting expedition, but instead Marin told of Shargh riding Ashmiri horses with a Tain troopsman as a prisoner. These things were extraordinary and neither of them augured well. The Shargh didn’t come north of the Azurcades, nor did they ride, nor did they burden themselves with captives.
‘Are you sure they weren’t Ashmiri,’ he asked, but knew it wasn’t possible.
Marin shook his head. ‘Shall I get Slivkash to bring the Tain to the fire?’ he asked. ‘The Tain might be able to offer expla nation.’
‘Best keep him separate. Get Jarvid to set another fire and bring some cotzee and jackin,’ said Tierken, moving off.
When Tierken arrived, Slivkash stood stiffly to attention, but the Tain shook, and could barely stand at all. Slivkash’s grip on his arm was all that kept him upright. Jarvid had dug a fire-hole and was busy transferring coals from the cooking fire into it.
‘Has he said how he came to be captured?’ Tierken asked Slivkash.
‘No, Feailner. He hasn’t spoken at all.’
The Tain looked young for a troopsman, or perhaps it was just that he was slightly built. His head hung forward, a tangle of hair hiding his face. He still wore his pack, Tierken noted with surprise. He’d have thought it would be the first thing the Shargh would’ve taken.
‘You’re now under Terak Kirillian protection,’ he said slowly in Onespeak.
There wasn’t even a flicker to show the Tain had heard him.
‘Did you check him for injuries?’ Tierken asked Slivkash.
‘No, Feailner.’
Jarvid had finished his fire-building and Tierken gestured for Slivkash to lower the Tain beside it. The small fire showed the Tain’s hair to be fair but still he didn’t look up and Tierken quelled his impatience. The man had been blindfolded, gagged and bound. Irid only knew what else had been done to him.
The Tain chafed his hands, probably to get the blood flowing again. There were deep rope burns on his wrists, now clear in the firelight. He had beautiful, fine-boned hands, and Tierken stiffened. Then he caught the Tain’s chin and forced his face to the firelight. The Tain clamped his eyes shut and cowered away, but Tierken had seen enough.
‘Are the Tain so short of men they send their women on patrol?’ he demanded, unsettled. What were the odds of her looking like him? Surely it was a trick of the light. She was fair, and he was dark – but maybe the Tain had Kessomi blood. He had half a mind to force her face to the light again, but she had hunched into a ball, hands gripped round her knees, shivering giving way to violent shaking.
Had the Shargh taken her for rape? Was that why she hid her face from him, recoiled from his touch, and shook like a tree in a gale? Tierken recalled how when Laryia crashed through the Kristlin ice, the water had been freezing, but it had been shock that caused her to shake so violently she could scarcely stand. The woman shook like that now.
Tierken slipped her pack off, half expecting her to cringe away from him, but she was beyond noticing. Tain troopsmen carried sleeping-sheets like the Terak did, and he searched through her pack till he found hers. It was buried under pots and pouches of pastes and herbs. A Kessomi resemblance and a Kessomi Healer’s kit! Still, the Tain had physicks who travelled with patrols; she was likely one of those.
Flicking the sheet open, Tierken lifted her onto it and wrapped it round her snugly, then stood with hands on hips, surveying her. He’d spent three hard seasons burying his Kessomi blood, and was loath to undo his efforts now, but her breathing was harsh and her teeth rattled. He settled on the ground with his back to his men, undid his jacket and shirt, and held her as Eris had held Laryia after the accident at the Kristlin, with her head resting against his heart.
Gradually the shaking lessened, and Tierken thought of what his grandmother had said as she’d held Laryia.
The first sound a babe hears is the beat of its mother’s heart. Never underestimate the power of the heart, Tierken.
It was a Kessomi warning to a man who was to become the Terak Feailner.
After a time Tierken shifted his position so that more of the light reached the woman’s face. By Irid, she did look Kessomi, and eerily like him! His careful plans were unravelling like a derelict dwinhir nest. Come south and make ‘accidental’ contact with the Tain, preferably a troop, so that his greetings could be passed on to the Tain King. It was all that was left to him after seasons of silence under his uncle’s rule.
Well, he’d made contact all right – with a Kessomi-like Tain female physick who could almost be his twin. Was Irid in a jocular mood? Or perhaps, as Tierken now travelled the plains, Meros had taken charge of his fortunes. At least the woman slept now, only the occasional tremor passing through her. Tierken eased her back so she lay on the ground, making sure the sleeping-sheet was close about her.
He wondered again how badly the Shargh had hurt her. Two dead, Marin had said, and two fled. There’d be four dead if he came across them!
29
Kira woke from the nightmare with a choking cry. A knife had been slicing towards her eyes, and it took her several moments to reassure herself that it wasn’t real and that the Shargh didn’t have her anymore. She still felt shivery and clenched her hands to stop them shaking. Her rescuers had lit a fire beside her, and another near where the men slept. Beyond the men, a group of massive silver horses cropped the grass, knee deep in mist.
Pushing her sleeping-sheet open, Kira rose unsteadily, the pain in her back making her groan. She rummaged around in her pack searching for bruise-ease, finding the pot at last.
Voices came towards her and she made sure to keep her head down as two sets of boots came to a halt in front of her.
‘I’m Tierken, the Terak Feailner,’ one of them said in Onespeak. ‘As I told you last night, you are now under the protection of the Terak Kirillian. You have nothing to fear from us.’
The Terak Kirillian, thought Kira in confusion. Yet he called himself a ‘feailner’. She had never heard of them. They must be some sort of kin of the Terak Kutan. Would they hate her gold eyes like the Shargh did? She had no idea, for she didn’t know what prompted the Shargh’s loathing. Kira straightened, but was careful to keep her gaze on the ground.
‘I thank you,’ she replied in Onespeak.
‘This is Commander Marin. He led the men who rescued you,’ the voice continued.
‘I thank you,’ she said again, this time in the direction of the other boots.
‘She’s no better than last night,’ Tierken muttered in Terak.
Kira tightened her grip on the bruise-ease, not daring to show her understanding of his language in case she’d need it to escape them.
‘We need to speak of how you came to be with the Shargh,’ Tierken went on in Onespeak, ‘and how we might return you to your people. Breakfast is cooking and we can eat as we speak.’
Kira saw them settle on the ground and followed suit. Then another pair of legs appeared and a plate of cooked meat and a cup of metz was placed next to her. She could hear Marin and Tierken eating and drinking, but found even the smell of the meat repellent.
‘What’s your name?’ Tierken asked in Onespeak.
‘Kira.’
‘How did you come to be a prisoner of the Shargh?’
‘I gathered herbs in the Thanaval,’ she answered.
‘Alone?’ asked Tierken in surprise.
‘With Tain troopsmen.’
‘So the troopsmen were attacked?’ said Tierken.
‘By Shargh on the wrong side of the Azurcades, on Ashmiri horses,’ said Marin in Terak.
‘Were the troopsmen attacked?’ repeated Tierken.
Kira racked her brains for how to respond. The troopsmen were attacked, but only because of her.
‘Do me the courtesy of looking at me when I speak to you,’ said Tierken, his voice irritated.
Kira forced herself to raise her head, but kept her gaze on the ground. If only she knew more about these people called the Terak Kirillian.
‘Look at me!’ ordered Tierken.
Kira clenched her teeth and raised her eyes to see a man with eyes as gold as her own. His shock was as great as hers, as was Marin’s. They all scrambled to their feet.
‘Get the men mounted,’ Tierken ordered Marin in Terak. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘North or south, Feailner?’ asked Marin, his voice hoarse.
‘North!’
The Commander looked at Tierken in surprise, but strode away, leaving Kira and Tierken alone.
‘Who are your people?’ he demanded.
‘The Tremen,’ said Kira, and could see from his face that her answer meant nothing to him.
‘Where do they dwell?’
‘In the southern forests.’ Again he looked blank.
‘Are there others in the forests with gold eyes?’ he asked.
‘No. Are there in your lands?’ she whispered.
‘No,’ said Tierken, glancing to Marin who had returned leading two horses and carrying a small metal box.
‘Eat,’ ordered Tierken.
‘I can’t eat meat,’ she said in Onespeak.
He scowled and tossed the meat onto the grass, and the cup of metz.
Marin bowed to Tierken and handed him the box, which had a wisp of smoke coming from it.
‘Guard it well, Feailner,’ said Marin.
‘With my life,’ said Tierken, and buckled the box into a pouch on his saddle, then mounted.
‘Patrolman Slivkash,’ he bawled.
The young patrolman urged his horse out of formation.
‘You are charged with the care of Kira, our guest from the southern forests. She’s to be kept safe, and,’ Tierken raised his voice to include the remainder of his men, ‘to be shown the courtesy a woman should expect when she travels with the Terak Kirillian.’
Then he turned to Marin. ‘We spend tonight at Hazlin Spring. I’ll await you there,’ he said.
‘You go alone? It’s a long ride, Feailner.’
‘Time to test the horses and our own strength,’ replied Tierken, then rode off, letting the big stallion have his head.
Kalos’s speed scoured away Tierken’s churn of emotions and his spirits lifted as he stared at the pale sky and washed-gold of the grasses. It was the sort of perfect day the Sarsalin offered in recompense for sleet-storms, snow-storms, dirt-storms, wolves and fanchon. Silverjacks bounded out of Kalos’s path and Tierken laughed as he urged Kalos to greater speed. The plain looked smooth but appearances were deceptive, the grasses hiding silver-jack holes, grahen burrows and sometimes stone. A misplaced hoof could end the lives of both horse and rider, but Tierken was content to leave the timing of his death in Irid’s hands.
The sun climbed higher and eventually Kalos slowed, his shoulders dark with sweat. Tierken kept him moving though. It was a long way from where they’d camped on the edge of the Tain lands to Hazlin Spring, and his men wouldn’t reach the spring till dark.
Since becoming Feailner, Tierken’s aim had been to show his men all the lands that were theirs, and to bind them to each other, and to him. He’d succeeded on all counts but it had come at a cost, necessitating he spend more time on the Sarsalin than in the Domain, leaving Laryia lonely.
Tierken had decided this patrol would be different, coming directly south in seven days – the shortest time man and beast could bear – to let his men experience what their forebears had endured in their battles to establish peace and plenty. His men were far behind him now. Kalos could continue at the same pace until stars clothed the sky, but the horses his men rode couldn’t, and they’d be slowed by Slivkash’s mount bearing two.
A chance-flower, his grandmother Eris would call the woman they’d found – something beautiful that appeared unlooked-for. It was an old Kessomi phrase, but apt. Tierken remembered sitting with Eris and Laryia on the shores of the Kristlin, when an iceencrusted azurefly, perfect in every detail, drifted to the water’s surface. Had the water been warmer, or the azurefly heavier, it would have sunk without a ripple, but it remained afloat, a bright globe of blue.
The woman was beautiful like a chance-flower. But how was he meant to feel – how did anyone feel – who saw themselves in another’s face. And her eyes! Like a window opening into everything she felt! His had once been like that, but he’d spent endless time practising in front of a looking-glass until his emotions could no longer be read in them. She had no such skill, her vulnerability almost painful to look at.
Now, as Tierken surveyed the plain, he wondered whether Irid had guided his decision to come south, in some strange way preparing him for what was to come. Shargh on Ashmiri horses north of the Azurcades. The Ashmiri were treatied to the Terak, but kin to the Shargh, and as a boy growing in Kessom studying the histories of what might one day be his lands, this had seemed problematic. In the event of fighting, would the Ashmiri aid those they’d sworn oaths to, or those they shared blood with?
A flicker of movement caught Tierken’s eye and he looked up at the dwinhir. He used to climb high into the Torlands behind Kessom to watch the fledglings floundering in their woody nests. In retrospect they had been happy times, but all he could think of then was whether a messenger would ride from Sarnia to say that Seren carried a child or, after her death, that Darid had taken another wife. Either would have robbed him of the feailnership, but his uncle had loved only once and, like the dwinhir, when his mate had been lost, he had not loved again.
His thoughts came back to the woman. The Shargh believed in auguries and omens, so it was possible they’d taken her for that reason, but why had the Tain allowed her to be taken? Did they lack the strength to protect even a single person?
30
They h
ad been travelling for some time before Kira managed to impose any sort of order on her thoughts, such was her turmoil and confusion. She was away from the Shargh but with the Terak Kirillian, not the Terak Kutan. But, given the similarity in their names, and in their language to Tremen, the two must surely be kin to each other, and so to her. They were led by a man who called himself Feailner, but as he had authority over the men and the patrol Commander, it was unlikely he was a Healer. In that case, the title ‘Feailner’ must mean something different in the north.
To add to Kira’s discomfort and frustration, she had been given no time to assuage her hunger by getting the food from her pack. The only thing that made the ride bearable was Slivkash’s friendliness, and the fact that they went north. Slivkash was dark like the Feailner, and unshaven, fitting her image of the unkempt Terak Kutan, but that’s where the similarity ended. Apart from being mounted, the patrol was little different to a Protector patrol or a Tain watch-walk, the men talking as they rode of the women who came, or refused to come, to their beds, the quality and price of ale, wagers on racing horses and the flight of birds, sore backsides and the wish for a comfortable rest. Perhaps the Terak Kirillian were a more civilised branch of the Terak Kutan.
‘Do you have a kin called the Terak Kutan?’ Kira asked Slivkash eventually.
‘There’s no people of that name north of the Azurcades. Where did you hear tell of them?’ asked Slivkash, his voice suddenly cold.
‘In the tales of my lands,’ said Kira, surprised by his answer and his coldness. ‘Maybe I’ve confused the name,’ she added, aware that she’d somehow offended him.
‘Most likely,’ said Slivkash. ‘We’re named after the great Leader, Terak, who carved out our lands and built the mighty city of Sarnia. Terak was helped by the Kirs and Illians, and in recognition of our aid, his people – who first came from Kessom – took the herding term of ‘feailner’, as well including our peoples’ names in theirs. I’m Kir, as is Wirinkash on our left flank and Derkash behind. The Feailner is quarter Kir, for his mother was half.