by David Hair
Kip laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘He’ll return, Kirol. Let’s make sure we’re here to greet him.’ He hesitated, then asked, ‘Will Hajya be able to aid our defence?’
‘No,’ Kyrik answered flatly. ‘It was a mistake to bring her here.’
Freihaafen
Ogre emerged from the trees where he’d been watching the comings and goings of the human women and female Mantauri left in Freihaafen. Their days were mostly filled with tending the children and feeding everyone. He was waiting for Sabina to be on her own; as she was headwoman, that took some time, but finally, around midmorning, he found her standing alone beside the palisade gates, catching her breath.
‘Sabina?’ he called deferentially. ‘May I speak with you?’
Although she was clearly a little frazzled, she waited as he ambled up. ‘Ogre, what is it? Have some of the children been in your cave again?’
He smiled. ‘I didn’t mind, truly. No, it’s just that . . . well, I have to go.’
She stiffened. ‘Go?’
He dropped his gaze apologetically. ‘I’ve solved the book – I know what the Master intends and I need to tell certain people. I can’t do that from here – I have no relay-staves and Mollachia is too mountainous for me to penetrate without one.’
Sabina said, looking worried, ‘The truth is, we are comforted to have you here, Ogre, especially when all the other warriors have gone. But of course we’ll cope. One warrior more or less will not matter if the enemy find us here.’
‘I would not ask this if I didn’t believe that time is of the essence,’ Ogre told her, ‘but I understand his intentions and what he needs for his triumph and I believe there’s no time to lose.’
The Master writes of requiring a tamed dwymancer, he reminded himself, and he’s got Jehana Mubarak. It could already be too late.
‘Then you must be careful,’ Sabina told him. ‘If your old master knows what you’ve learned, he will fear you and send hunters.’
That the Master might fear him was ridiculous; Ervyn Naxius was above him like the sun was above the sea. ‘I’m nothing to him,’ he told her modestly, ‘but others will know what to do.’
Tarita will know. Part of him wondered if he was just making an excuse to seek her out, but he dismissed that thought. No, it’s necessary. She is Merozain and she has the ear of powerful people.
‘Then I wish you good fortune,’ Sabina said formally.
He was waved off an hour later with a small pack, an axe and little fanfare. Faleesa gave him a satchel of flatbread and cured meat and Sabina handed him an argenstael dagger and some silver dust, ‘Just in case.’
He walked through the narrow ravine concealing the hidden vale, following the stream that ran from the lake seeking the greater rivers of the Mollachia lowlands. He emerged around the middle of the day into a tangle of trees, where he shed his clothing and packed everything into his pack, then bound it to his back before invoking morphic-gnosis. Shape-changing was something he found disturbingly easy, as if reverting to beast-form was natural. There was pain, and a disturbing flood of heightened scent and hearing as he fell forward onto all fours, emitting a groan that became a whine and then a growl as bones shrank or lengthened, muscles and joints popped and cracked and bristles burst through his skin.
When it was done, the pack was still on his back and he needed only to tighten the straps around his new shape before thrusting the axe through the straps and turning his hands to padded feet. He resembled something like a shaggy carnivorous pony with a bearish pelt and wolverine head, coloured a mottled tawny brown and black. He could smell and see much more clearly, and these limbs would eat up the miles.
Become a beast too long and you’ll remain one, the old gnostic texts warned, but as he inhaled the scent of creatures that had passed this way, listened to the birds and the roar of the wind in the trees, he felt the call of the wilderland, the lure of vanishing into another life. But even that wouldn’t protect him from the Master’s plans, so he resolved to heed the warning.
The landscape beyond the small wood was broken and harsh, with bare stone and streaks of snow on the heights above. High above, eagles circled and in the distance he could hear the bellow of a stag. The scent of spring gave the clear air a lusty tang. The going was hard, but he covered the miles easily, clambering over rock falls and through narrows that a horse could not have managed, keeping under the cover of the trees, hidden from eyes in the air.
His senses tingled and he realised that someone, somewhere, was scrying for him. The peaks around Freihaafen must have blocked earlier attempts. Determined not to be caught now, he strengthened his wards before moving on.
By evening, he’d reached the Osiapa River, where he took his own form again to make a cold camp in the lee of the river bank, guzzling water so cold it froze his gullet. Gulping down food, he estimated progress. Twelve miles, he guessed, good going over such rugged land. It would be easier as he descended. Hegikaro was still fifty miles away as birds flew, two or three days on foot in such terrain, he’d been told.
Do our enemies watch these paths? He gazed up, wondering about the birds. Possessed animals died swiftly, but if Asiv had magi, they might use beast-magic to use creatures as scouts. Hopefully they had no great reason to seek him in this area, but once he reached the main trails, there might be unfriendly eyes. In the end it would come down to luck.
*
Despite the discomfort, Ogre woke next morning refreshed. Excitable birds squalled in the trees, roused by the kiss of sunlight on the peaks, but the river’s music was soothing. He wolfed down the remaining flatbread, then changed shape and got underway, following the west bank of the Osiapa downstream towards the lower valley.
Evening found him wading across a swift-flowing ford, the water up to his furred belly and cold enough to make him shiver. As he reached an eyot midstream, little more than a few yards of shingle, a low rumbling snarl carried from the high top of the cutting. A mountain lion was silhouetted against the ridgeline, looking down at him a hundred yards below. It coughed out a second throaty roar and was joined by another. When it appeared, Ogre could see the second animal was smaller and leaner, a female. They looked scrawny and hungry – it had obviously been a hard winter.
Then both lions rose on hind legs and even across the distance, Ogre could feel the sudden flare of malice as their eyes went black. The male growled and called down in a smug, oily voice, ‘Ogre, we’ve found you at last.’
12
A Place of Refuge
Impersonators
Throughout history, vulnerable rulers have employed impersonators as a security measure, so that others might take the knives and arrows meant for them. A successful impersonator must erase their own identity, forsake the immortality of being remembered – and often also forsake any hope of family and children. I confess, I find this impossible to comprehend: I want everyone to know my name.
ARUN ‘ELAN’ LANTREY, CRUSADER GENERAL, HEBUSALIM 897
Norostein, Noros
Febreux 936
‘Ali Beyrami?’ Waqar gasped. ‘How dare you assail—’
The Shihadi cleric made a silencing gesture and for all he was not a mage, it had the same effect on Waqar as a spell, silencing him. He watched in dread for the imam’s eyes to go black, but he remained clear-eyed, as did his Godspeakers.
Waqar looked around the pavilion, which was full of priests and ex-Hadishah magi, all of them Shihadi men, apart from the young female mage, who’d backed away. No one looked at all sympathetic to him – no surprise, for Waqar had never hidden his distaste for the Shihad or the Amteh fanatics.
None of these men believe I’m worthy of their Paradise . . .
‘Prince Waqar,’ the imam mused. ‘Do you know how much your head is worth right now?’
‘I neither know nor care,’ Waqar retorted, adding, ‘And neither do you.’
Beyrami’s all about religion and power.
‘Perhaps not, but it would sweeten the pot, w
hen I can already rid myself of a troublesome sceptic whom I have no desire to see upon the sultan’s throne.’
That’s undoubtedly true. But he’s not handed me over yet. He’s curious . . . or afraid.
‘Would you rather have a cabalist on the throne?’ he demanded in response. ‘A man whose allegiances are to a renegade mage, the man who murdered Sultan Salim – a man who is possessed by a daemon?’
‘Extraordinary claims.’ Beyrami sniffed. ‘Do you have any proof?’
‘If the word of a prince is not enough to—’
‘None, then?’ Beyrami grunted, straightening and turning to his Hadishah captain, a shaven-skulled man with scars all the way up his bare arms, the marks of self-penitence. Reconciling the gnosis to worship of Ahm was a painful undertaking for some. ‘Shaarvin, take him to the sultan and—’
‘Wait,’ said a new voice, one that sent a thrill through him.
Waqar jerked his head around and saw the face of the young female mage alter from a round-faced, unremarkable woman to the bony features of Tarita Alhani. Her eyes were alight with mirth as she raised her hands, palms empty.
The room exploded into motion, blades limned with gnostic light flashing out, shields flaring as Shaarvin interposed himself between her and Beyrami. For an instant Waqar feared they’d cut her down where she stood, but Beyrami snapped, ‘Hold—’
That stilled them all.
Tarita hadn’t moved a muscle.
‘Who are you?’ the cleric demanded.
She kept her hands raised, palms out, as a man behind her placed a blade against her throat. She said lightly, ‘I am Prince Waqar’s official concubine.’
Beyrami raised his eyebrows. Waqar had vanished from the Shihad camp after the death of his former lover Fatima and being declared a traitor by Xoredh – and the woman’s accent was clearly Jhafi dirt-caste. ‘Prince?’ he asked.
‘Ai, she is,’ Waqar replied, concealing his doubt on that point.
She flashed him a smile. ‘If you will permit, I have something to show you,’ she told Beyrami.
Beyrami glanced at his Hadishah commander. ‘Shaarvin?’
The Hadishah captain looked like he’d as soon slit her throat and have done. ‘A traitor has no voice, and neither does his foreign slut.’
‘Mind your tongue,’ Waqar snarled, ‘lest I cut it out when we’re done here.’
‘Shaarvin has my protection,’ Beyrami warned, before glaring down at Tarita. ‘Where’s the real Kamilala?’
‘She’s in her tent, unharmed,’ Tarita replied. ‘There’s a bound man with her. You should bring him in – but be careful not to remove his Chain-rune or bindings.’
Beyrami’s eyes bored into her. ‘Your name?’
‘Reeta,’ Tarita lied.
‘If there is such a man there, we will bring him, and if there isn’t, I’ll have you stoned as an adulteress. I may do so, regardless.’
Waqar checked his tongue, marvelling at Tarita’s composure and fearing for her survival. Beyrami was not a man to get on the wrong side of. A moment passed until Beyrami’s Hadishah returned with a bound and hooded man.
Beyrami conferred with his people, then he signed to Shaarvin, who tore away the captive’s hood and removed the gag.
The prisoner’s teeth immediately crunched into Shaarvin’s hand, blackened saliva spraying everywhere as his teeth tore through skin and cracked bones. The Hadishah backhanded the captive, before cradling the bitten hand, wincing angrily.
The prisoner’s eyes were ebony pools. His face contorted into a rictus of hatred as he snarled about him, trying to wrench his way clear of his bindings. Even Beyrami flinched, but he gestured and two of his men leaped on the prisoner’s back and bore him down, mashing his face into the mud.
Beside him, Shaarvin swayed woozily as tendrils of black fluid spread up his forearm. He gave a horrified squeak and turned to Tarita. ‘What is—?’ he stammered.
Waqar looked at Tarita, who stared back, the faintest shift in her expression telling him that she’d given him the tools he needed to persuade Beyrami – no one was going to listen to her, so he needed to think and speak fast.
‘That daemon possession I mentioned?’ he put in, improvising fast, working hard at keeping his voice calm and clinical, ‘it’s spread by bodily fluids.’
Shaarvin’s eyes went round and his knees gave way. ‘Master,’ he pleaded to Beyrami, who’d gone pale.
‘Join us, pig,’ the possessed prisoner leered. ‘Help me kill these scum.’ Then his face cleared and he rasped, ‘Beyrami, bring me the prince and his slut in chains, or I’ll slaughter you all.’
The voice was Xoredh’s.
Everyone looked at Beyrami in horror, their faces ashen.
In the shocked silence, only Tarita moved: she drove one elbow into the throat of the man who was holding her while her other hand seized his wrist and twisted until he dropped his dagger – which flew sideways into her fingers. Without pausing, she slammed some kind of mesmerism spell into the daemon’s skull, knocking him out cold.
‘Now you know where Xoredh stands,’ she told the imam, then she looked down at the man she’d felled and added, ‘You touch me again and I’ll break your face.’
Beyrami still hadn’t moved.
Waqar pulled out a silver coin and thrusting it at Beyrami’s lieutenant, told him, ‘Silver is sovereign against the ichor. Press this coin to the wound – do it now if you wish to live.’
Shaarvin looked up at him imploringly, then grabbed the coin and pressed it to the wound. He convulsed in agony, his flesh searing as he collapsed into a shaking heap.
‘You’re welcome,’ Tarita said drily.
Beyrami’s Hadishah were waiting for a sign from their leader. At last he shook himself and gestured at his men to put up their weapons.
‘Please, Holiness,’ Waqar started, ‘we should be allies here.’
Beyrami was still staring at his stricken man, watching as the blackness receded up his forearm. ‘Shaarvin?’ he asked.
‘It’s working,’ Shaarvin croaked, ‘but by the Prophet’s tears, I swear I have heard the voice of Shaitan himself.’
‘Not Shaitan,’ Waqar interrupted. ‘Abraxas, the daemon is named. His ichor is being spread by servants of Ervyn Naxius, the man behind the Masked Cabal who murdered Sultan Salim.’
Every man in the room made a sign against evil, even though they were mostly magi.
‘Explain,’ Beyrami croaked.
Waqar would have preferred a private discussion, but perhaps this was for the best. ‘The Masked Cabal who slew Sultan Salim are spreading daemonic possession – not just here, but in Pallas and Mollachia as well.’ He indicated the black-haired, olive-skinned prisoner. ‘This man is one.’
‘He was a soldier in the army of the “Lord of Rym”,’ Tarita put in, moving to stand next to Waqar. ‘I found him down the road, where Xoredh has been sending whole divisions of his own men. Your sultan is feeding your worshippers to the daemon, Imam.’
‘As you just heard, Xoredh is himself possessed,’ Waqar added. ‘Sultan Rashid confessed as he died that he’d given his son to become a pawn of Naxius, to further his own goals for Shihad and the crown.’
Beyrami started to protest, but quickly fell silent again. When at last he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically small. ‘What must we do?’
*
Latif, Ashmak and Sanjeep were preparing Rani the elephant, while trying to conceal that fact. Desertion seemed to be their only option if they were to avoid having to march down the fatal Eastern Road. Around them, the other elephant crews were also busy in the frigid afternoon sun, repairing equipment, feeding or washing their beasts.
Latif paused and gazed south at the walls of Copperleaf looming above them, the sentries visible, half a mile away. Seth’s up there, Latif thought. Ramon too, and maybe others I know. He ached to see them, but uppermost in his mind was the problem of getting out of Norostein. Where could they go? Claiming they’d been reassign
ed to Verelon, to the east of here, was the best they could come up with, but that would be fraught with perils, especially if Waqar was right about the army being surrounded by possessed men.
He surreptitiously lifted another quiver of arrows into the howdah, while Ashmak slipped a satchel of stolen provisions among the blankets. An officer came by and they busied themselves mending a broken piece of wickerwork until he was gone.
Then an eerie sound filled the air: a piercing wail that echoed all the way from the eastern side of the Lowertown tier, then war-horns blew and men stumbled from bedrolls, a few with frightened camp-women clinging to them, all blinking in the glare of daylight.
‘It’s the call to arms,’ Ashmak shouted. ‘Mount up – to arms, men, to arms—’
The cry was taken up on all sides. The elephant crews began preparing their howdahs, but Rani’s crew were already ready; they each took a corner of the howdah and with Ashmak’s kinesis doing the heavy lifting, got it onto Rani’s back. The elephant was flapping her trunk about fussily as they scrambled up, then Sanjeep touched her left ear and she lurched to her feet.
‘That’s efficiency, you slobs,’ Ashmak crowed to the rest as Rani swung round and headed for the north-facing exit.
With any luck we can be away before the officers notice, Latif thought hopefully. They had their route to a quieter gate already planned, and their story for the guards. Rani strode confidently under Sanjeep’s guidance, ignoring the calls of the other crews.
Looking up, Latif saw roc-riders taking to the air, wings hammering as they sought lift. Skiffs were rising too, their sails billowing as they caught the wind, and all the while that dreadful wailing sound tore at the air.
It’s coming from the Eastern Road. Latif’s heart lurched. It’s like the voice of ten thousand daemons . . .
‘Hurry,’ he called down to Sanjeep. ‘Something’s happening . . .’
Officers were bawling contradictory orders from all sides. Rani broke into a trot, the howdah swaying as she tried to shoulder her way through a loose formation of Lakh spearmen all shouting to their many gods as the howling swirled around them. They were forced to haul her nose around, which had Rani trumpeting balefully.