Art of Hunting

by Alan Campbell

  ‘I will make you a deal,’ Granger said.

  Shehernan regarded him in silence.

  He wants to deal, Granger realized. ‘Back off,’ he went on. ‘Stop forcing your will onto me. Give me control of my own replicates until my daughter is safe from harm. Agree to that and I’ll persuade her to find whatever you want.’

  The sorcerer got up from his throne and walked over to Granger. Standing, he was even more intimidating. He stood a full foot taller than Granger. He placed a hand on Granger’s shoulder. ‘Easier for me to enslave you. I can make you give the sword to Ianthe.’

  ‘I won’t do it.’

  ‘You won’t have a choice.’

  Granger’s jaw tightened. ‘Even if my daughter accepted the sword,’ he said through his teeth, ‘you wouldn’t enslave her so easily. She’d crush you like a fucking insect. And what about Marquetta? Do you think he’d allow you to corrupt his queen?’

  Shehernan lifted his hand again. Granger knew from the other man’s expression that he had him. Trying to enslave Ianthe was too much of a risk.

  ‘Now, do as I say,’ Granger said. ‘And I’ll ask her nicely. What is it you want found?’

  The sorcerer was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded and said, ‘I was old before I created this sword. Much older than my appearance suggests. We Unmer are long lived, but we are not immortal.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘I created all this to escape death. For four thousand years, I have been passed from warrior to warrior, lost for decades and then found again. My wielders have slain thousands. And yet none of them has been able to find the artefact I require.’

  ‘What artefact?’

  ‘It is another replicating sword. Much like this one.’

  ‘Why do you want it?’

  ‘That does not concern you.’

  ‘Then there’s no deal.’

  Shehernan growled. ‘I want to find the blade because I want to kill the sorcerer who lives inside it.’

  Granger opened his eyes, to find himself back on the forest trail overlooking Losoto. The two ships at sea were now adjusting their sails to bring them into the ruined harbour, where the remains of cranes and dockside buildings choked the waters. Conquillas’s daughter, Siselo, was sitting on a rock, watching him.

  ‘How did it go?’ she said.

  Granger rubbed his eyes and nodded. ‘It went well.’

  ‘What was the sorcerer like?’

  ‘Old and angry.’

  ‘The usual, then.’

  Granger shook his head and got to his feet groggily. Not much time seemed to have passed while he’d been inside the sword. And yet he definitely felt different. His ever-present headache had gone. He felt lighter. He looked down at the weapon and considered picking it up to test if it really had returned to him control of his own replicates. Maybe it was best to wait until the child wasn’t around.

  ‘How many sword phantoms can you make?’ she said.

  Granger looked over at her. ‘Eight,’ he said. ‘Eight phantoms.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well how many did your father conjure?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t really remember.’ Suddenly she rushed over and snatched the sword up from the ground.

  ‘Wait,’ Granger said. He moved instinctively to stop her, but then halted. It occurred to him that something surprising had happened.

  Siselo waved the blade through the air a few times, looking at it without much apparent interest. ‘It’s much heavier than our one,’ she said. ‘Ours was forged in Galea about three thousand years ago and the old Unmer blacksmiths folded the steel over on itself like a million times. This one looks even more ancient. But I don’t think it’s a very good example.’

  ‘You don’t have any replicates,’ Granger said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The sword phantoms,’ Granger said. ‘You don’t have any!’

  ‘Uh, that’s not true!’

  Granger frowned. ‘How do you do it? How do you stop the replicates appearing?’

  She looked puzzled, and then a light of comprehension lit her face. ‘You mean, how do I do this?’ she said. Siselo grinned widely and waved the sword around her head. ‘I have four replicates,’ she said. ‘Can you see them?’

  Granger looked around, but saw nobody. They were alone.

  Siselo swished the blade in front of her. ‘Now I have five replicates. Now six, seven, eight, nine.’ She continued to grin. ‘Can’t you see them yet, Colonel?’

  She looked around and then skipped across the trail, over to a large boulder. ‘Ten and eleven and twelve,’ she said, waving the sword around. ‘Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Sixteen sword phantoms. You still can’t see them?’

  Still gripping the sword, she stooped and abruptly lifted the boulder between both hands, in what was a seemingly impossible feat of strength. That rock must have weighed twice as much as she did. And then she turned and balanced it on one hand, holding it aloft. ‘Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,’ she said. ‘You must see them now, Colonel?’

  Granger gaped at her for the second time that afternoon. Here was this waif of a girl, holding up a rock that should have crushed her like a flower. ‘Don’t you get it, Colonel?’ she said. ‘Don’t you see?’

  ‘How are you doing that?’

  She grinned. ‘You don’t let the replicates wander about on their own. That’s hard. It takes concentration.’ She shook her head. ‘All you have to do is keep them inside yourself. It’s called phasing.’ She hefted the rock over one shoulder, with little apparent effort, and then hurled it down into the forest below, where it crashed through the canopy and disappeared.

  ‘Right now, you’re looking at twenty of me. But you can’t see us because we’re all in the same place.’

  Granger frowned. ‘How can two things be in the same place?’

  Siselo snorted. ‘Easy!’ she said. ‘Matter is just energy. All you have to do is break a few laws, or something. It’s like so simple I can’t believe you had the sword all this time and never even thought of it.’ She grinned again and thrust out the sword, pointing it at him. ‘Phasing makes you stronger,’ she said. ‘And really, really heavy.’ She jumped, and her boots sank three inches into the earth. ‘Only Father says it’s not good for you. Too many copies puts stress on your body and that can kill you. I’m not allowed to make more than thirty of them.’ Suddenly she glanced up. ‘But I don’t suppose that’s going to bother you much,’ she said, ‘seeing as how you’re already dead.’

  Ianthe wandered through the blasted city with Paulus and Cyr and the others from the two ships. Captain Howlish had come ashore with a small contingent of his men, as had Raceme Athentro – the old Unmer captain from the Ilena Grey – after leaving three of his men to guard the tenders.

  Most of the buildings facing the harbour had been destroyed and the streets between them were strewn with rubble and bodies. A heavy silence hung in the air as Ianthe and the others picked their way through this human wreckage. She saw hands and limbs lying amidst piles of stone and rumpled clothing and shoes; mouths open but not breathing, dust-coated eyeballs. In places the streets were still puddled with brine, and the broken mortar had turned to grey mud.

  Flies had already begun to gather.

  Fifty yards further back, the damage was less severe. Half of the shops and houses still stood, although the Uriun had left many of these on the brink of collapse and so Howlish remarked that it was more dangerous here and they should keep to the centre of the streets. They climbed over a treacherous jumble of wooden joists and roof slates that had evidently been dragged here from further up the hill and then they followed a steep cobbled road flanked by shuttered shopfronts.

  Ianthe began to feel as if she was being watched.

  She noticed the others becoming aware of it too. They glimpsed people in the surviving buildings, faces that shrank away from windows when spotted, mothers who snatched up sma
ll children and ran. It was with an increasingly uncomfortable sense of unease that Ianthe realized that the occupants of this place were terrified. Terrified of the Unmer who now walked among them.

  Terrified of her?

  She tried to banish such thoughts from her mind, and yet with every step she took through Losoto’s silent streets, she felt more like a burglar creeping further into someone’s home.

  They were not challenged. There were, just as Nera had claimed, no soldiers in the capital. Losoto’s citizens continued to watch the intruders from their hiding places.

  After a while the party reached a rich and airy quarter where birch trees stood in symmetry between ranks of grand townhouses. Rust-coloured leaves skittered across the street. A terrace of white sandstone and black iron balustrades granted them open views across the distant harbour. Ianthe looked down at the sea and felt a momentary stab of fear that the great worm was still there somewhere. But the waters remained quiet, the waves untroubled by memories of violence.

  Howlish must have noticed the anxiety on her face for he smiled and said, ‘Remember this moment, lass. I swear you’ll never see Losoto this quiet again in your lifetime.’

  ‘It’s creepy.’

  The captain looked up at a nearby townhouse. ‘Bland, I’d call it.’Then he grinned and wandered off to speak to his men.

  Paulus and Duke Cyr were speaking quietly with Captain Athentro and the other Unmer survivors, but they fell silent when Ianthe approached them. After a moment’s hesitation, Paulus said, ‘Can you sense anything unusual, Ianthe?’

  ‘What do you mean? Like what?’

  ‘This feels like a trap.’

  She let her mind slip out to the edge of her own perception from where she might look out upon the gathered vision of all those around her. There were people hiding in the nearby buildings, but not many. Thousands more filled the city, clustered mainly in the area through which they’d passed, and – oddly – below it. She glimpsed brick vaults, aisles of Unmer objects. Suddenly she thought she understood.

  ‘The market below this city,’ she said.

  ‘The trove market,’ Paulus confirmed.‘You see people there?’

  ‘Thousands.’

  ‘That’s to be expected. But no military? No soldiers?’

  ‘No.’

  Paulus sighed. ‘Can they really have abandoned this place so readily?’

  His question was met with silence from the others. None of the Unmer looked particularly convinced. Athentro said, ‘The lack of resistance will make the task of assuming authority more difficult. These humans are base creatures. We have no hereditary pedestal here. Real authority requires that opposition is engaged and crushed. A battle should have been fought and won here. Instead we brought slaughter.’

  ‘The tournament,’ Paulus said. ‘Perhaps they can find a champion in Conquillas?’

  Athentro shrugged. ‘The dragon lord has never represented these people before. It would be preferable if you defeated one of their own.’

  Paulus glanced at Ianthe. ‘Any news of your father?’

  She shook her head.

  He stared at her in silence for a moment, before signalling his intention to move on.

  They found the palace gates – a tangle of garishly painted iron– lying open. Indeed it soon became apparent that the palace itself was deserted. They walked through bright halls and along glittering corridors resplendent in gold and silver. They progressed in silence, the sound of their footsteps echoing for miles.

  At last they came to the throne room, and here they found the palace’s only occupant.

  She was dressed in rags and seated on the floor with her wrist chained to the arm of the throne. Around her lay scraps of food and pieces of smashed crockery – plates and cups and the broken remains of a water jug. It looked as if she’d destroyed them in a fit of anger. Her hair was matted and filthy and bruises covered her wrist and upper arm. Her right eye had been blackened and looked swollen and painful. Despite these injuries, Ianthe recognized her at once.

  ‘Sister Marks!’ she said, hurrying over.

  When Briana Marks looked up at her, Ianthe could immediately see that something was desperately wrong with the woman. Something far worse than a mere beating. Her mouth was slack and trailing a line of spittle. She gaped up at her with bovine eyes.

  Ianthe halted. ‘What have they done to her?’

  Duke Cyr arrived beside them. ‘They have leucotomized her.’ He examined the Haurstaf witch for a moment, then sniffed. ‘A soldier did that to her, not a surgeon.’

  Briana Marks rattled her chain.

  ‘Sister Marks,’ Ianthe said. ‘Do you remember me?’

  The Haurstaf witch ignored her and began pulling at her chain.

  Ianthe felt tears filling her eyes. Despite everything Briana Marks had done to her, she didn’t deserve this cruel fate. I would have forgiven you, Ianthe thought. I’m so sorry. ‘Will someone please help her?’ she said.

  ‘It would be kinder to kill her,’ Athentro said.

  ‘Nobody’s going to harm her,’ Ianthe replied. She looked at Paulus, Cyr and Howlish. ‘Please.’

  Howlish nodded to one of his men. ‘Find something.’

  ‘Captain.’ The man departed.

  He returned with a gas cutting-torch and began cutting through the chains. Paulus, meanwhile, ordered Athentro and the other Unmer sailors to search the palace for anyone else – there would undoubtedly be servants hiding somewhere, he assured them – while he instructed Howlish and the rest of his crew to go back into the city and find out who, if anyone, was prepared to speak for however many of Losoto’s two hundred thousand inhabitants remained. Then he took his uncle aside and the pair of them spoke in whispers for a long time. Finally, Duke Cyr nodded and hurried away.

  Paulus came over to Ianthe. ‘This is a delicate time,’ he reminded her. ‘The populace despise us. We have gained the palace but we have not yet earned it.’

  Ianthe glanced at Briana Marks, but then turned away from the fierce glare of the crewman’s gas torch. ‘You mean to earn it through violence, don’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘How else is power earned?’

  Granger and Siselo walked into Losoto from the north. They found a city in which the more affluent areas had been largely abandoned and everywhere else had been battened down. Every once in a while they caught a glimpse of someone peering out at them from a window or a letterbox, or heard footsteps hurrying away. But most of those who had stayed behind had chosen to stay hidden. The streets themselves would have been empty, but for Granger and the girl and a few scrawny cats.

  Siselo was growing bored of shuttered windows and locks. She knocked on yet another door, then listened. ‘Anybody there?’ she called out in a sarcastic voice. She tried the handle and found it locked and so she kicked the doorstep in frustration. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Hiding.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘The one of us who looks most Unmer.’

  ‘I could open any of these doors with a touch of my finger.’

  ‘That would be illegal and immoral. We talked about this.’

  She stamped her foot. ‘What if nobody opens their door? Where are we going to stay?’

  ‘We’ll find somewhere.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘An inn.’

  ‘What if there aren’t any inns? What if they don’t take us in an inn?’

  ‘Shush. Corner.’

  She growled.

  Knowing that the palace would be Marquetta’s destination, Granger gave it a wide berth. Nevertheless, he stayed alert for any sign of the prince’s men, listening carefully at each corner before peering around it. He supposed he might have hidden his presence here better, but then it seemed to him that Marquetta had recently become much less of a worry. Now that Granger was dead, he failed to see what more the young prince could threaten him with. His priority now was keeping Ianthe alive. And that meant finding Conquillas.

  �
��I know what you’re doing,’ Siselo said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know why we’re marching round the whole city. You want everyone to see us. You want them all to know we’re here, so that my father hears of it and comes to find us.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m not stupid.’

  He smiled at her. ‘No, I don’t think you are. And you’re almost right. I’m not hiding our presence from the populace.’ He shrugged. ‘Then again, I don’t suppose I could if I tried.’

  ‘Yes you could,’ she said. ‘Well, I could. But you’re wasting time trying to find my father that way. It’s quicker if we just go straight to him.’

  Granger stopped. ‘You said you didn’t know where he was.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Well I didn’t. But I also said I know where he’ll be. We’ve been in Losoto before, you know. There are places we both know, places we frequent.’

  ‘Frequent? You know where he is?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded, then shook her head. ‘Probably.’

  ‘Where?’

  She pointed at the ground.

  Howlish returned to the palace with news that a number of Losotan citizens had organized themselves to the extent that they had appointed a war committee to speak to the invaders on their behalf. The opinion that the Unmer prince was not here to murder and enslave was beginning to filter through the general population. And, as the middle of the afternoon arrived, Ianthe found herself standing at the window of her requisitioned chambers, from where she could see Losoto’s newly elected representatives being led through the crowds massed behind the palace gates.

  On Duke Cyr’s advice, the council was held in the throne room. The representatives were shown in by Howlish’s men and presented individually to Paulus, who sat upon the seat of power. Ianthe lingered nearby.

  She found the entire process phenomenally tedious and she suspected that Paulus found it so too. The representatives spoke on behalf of various groups: market traders and shop traders and importers; fishermen and farming cooperatives; businessmen and bankers and former council officials; innkeepers, hoteliers and brewers. Mostly they sought assurances from the Unmer that their property would remain in their ownership, that there would be no further appearance of the sorcerous creature that had wreaked havoc on the waterfront and no retaliation against what everyone was now calling past imperial crimes. Paulus conferred with Cyr and nodded and smiled and waved them all on. Since the imperial troops had deserted the city, law and order would be maintained by a royally appointed militia. Any men with military experience were to present themselves to Athentro. Salaries were suggested and agreed on, along with a temporary cessation of all alcohol and tobacco and foreign trade taxes in order to boost the city economy and thus better facilitate the transfer of power.