‘If it’s a trap, why are we walking into it?’ Kivi demanded, holding the paint horse by the bridle and running alongside. He glanced back, saw Ketar closing on him, and leaped into the saddle.
‘I am walking into it,’ Tarquin said, ‘because you tell me you have seen Clan warriors on Everien horses and a Sekk without eyes.’
‘I think you have a death wish,’ Kivi said with passion, gathering his reins clumsily.
‘Thank you for your opinion. Now be silent, and follow me.’
They rode to the edge of the Pharician camp and rested there. The sun came up in the south. The last ridge of Everien’s western mountains sculpted the dawn like a frozen wave. In the dense light, the ridge and each of the mountains behind it looked two-dimensional, as if each hill were a piece of torn paper lying on top of the one beyond it, faintly translucent. Everien, Tarquin thought, might be nothing more than this: some light-stained old record to be folded up and pocketed. By contrast, the meadow where they now stood was vividly alive with insects and birds. Nearby, the camp had sprung into action. The army was stirring. Using the long grass as cover, they walked their horses closer.
The soldiery of Pharice and the Clans did not look so different when seen in this formation, Tarquin thought with disgust. The Clansmen had retained their paint, but they wore uniforms not so different from the standard Pharician army issue, and their expressions were equally vacant. All wore the looks of men who had been too long on the move. That their garb should be stained and scuffed was no surprise given the distance across the plains they’d lately crossed; but also their faces wore the kind of haggard expression that sets in after nothing in particular has happened for too many weeks running, and there is no reward to look forward to beyond a game of cards at the end of a long march. Yet Tarquin was not fooled by their apparent ennui. These men were Slaves – and when the Sekk willed them to fight, their eyes would burn with hate.
The real problem lay in their number. Tarquin had never had to cope with so many files of infantry, and he didn’t know where to begin. He had not fully appreciated the size of the force until he had ridden past rank after rank of trudging soldiers and came to feel he would never see the end of them. Every so often an outrider would pass down the ranks with a routine air; one even nodded at Tarquin. He never once saw the same outrider return along the line, which gave him the sense that the columns of soldiers were infinite in length.
Their first objective had to be to get closer to the chariots at the vanguard; but this would mean passing close to the leaders, who would immediately see that they were not in uniform and attack them. Tarquin was debating the wisdom of this with himself when he saw Riesel riding among the infantry.
With the strange clarity of a familiar face glimpsed unexpectedly across a room crowded with strangers, the vision of his old comrade emerged from the dust and confusion of Pharician men and their arms, rendering them all meaningless. Tarquin’s astonished eye bored all its attention into a detailed analysis of the rider he could scarcely believe he saw. Riesel had worn such a costume a thousand times before, mounted on Changeling his bay stallion, one axe thrust into his belt at the small of his back, the other hooked casually over his shoulder. Its haft had worn a shiny spot in the leather of his cloak where it always rested. Riesel wore the steel Wolf helmet painted with his family’s symbols, and his tunic was made of leather tightly interwoven with deer bones.
Tarquin took all this in with even less faith than he invested in the waking dreams that had plagued him of late. He would not be taken in by the trick: seeing Riesel again was just another taunt on the part of his long madness, another insult born of a long night spent in Jai Pendu. He rode on in a strange calm, the horse blowing beneath him and jiggling the bit experimentally. The soldiers kept their heads down as he rode by them, and the nearest of the Pharician outriders was well out of earshot. Riesel on the bay wove through the columns of Pharicians mixed with Clan, head up, questing from side to side.
Kivi drew alongside him, fighting for the bit with his paint horse. ‘Tarquin, we’re too close – we’ll get caught!’ he hissed.
Without taking his eyes off Riesel, Tarquin reached over and grabbed the bridle. ‘Sit back,’ he said. ‘Give her more rein and stop fretting.’
Kivi said, ‘You saw him, didn’t you? What is it? Who is it? See how he isn’t really there?’
Changeling sidestepped, and instead of jostling two Pharician spearmen, he stepped through them as if they were made of air. Both of them shuddered and they looked at each other, then turned their gazes up toward Riesel, who was still oblivious to their presence.
‘Get control of your damn horse,’ Tarquin snapped at Kivi. ‘We must overtake the leaders.’
‘I smell Sekk,’ said Kivi.
Tarquin said, ‘I smell Night.’
Snug as a Bad Dream
‘Tarquin, I don’t mind telling you you’re frightening me,’ Kivi said. ‘You have the strangest look on your face.’
‘Shut up and pay attention to your horse,’ Tarquin said, just as Kivi slipped in the saddle when his mount swerved. The ground had become rougher, full of ditches, marshy patches, and thorn-brakes. They had to sweep well around the main body of soldiers and circle towards the vanguard out of bowshot, and their horses were hot and blowing when they overtook the lead chariots at last, a wall of flashing armour and shining pelts moving steadily forward. These were Pharician horse-warriors trained to the highest standards: their animals were fine and well-kept, their armour expensively and cunningly made, and they themselves wore the decorations of many battles. They were a composed, disciplined lot; they did not ride in circles and pull each other’s braids as Clansmen might have done. Yet it could not be said for certain that they were Slaves, either. When one was summoned by an outrider and turned to cut back through the ranks, he moved with the grace of a man in full command of himself. Slaves were half-mad, often witless creatures. Not so the leaders of this army.
They had hit a swampy area, which the Pharician chariots now began swinging wide to avoid; Tarquin decided to make the most of the cover and led Kivi trudging through mud and standing water and high reeds.
‘What are we going to do?’ Kivi asked, swatting bugs away and thrashing through the long grass. ‘What more do you need to see? If we go any closer they’ll pick us out as strangers and kill us.’
‘Where do you think we will find this Sekk of yours?’
Kivi pointed out the group of chariots that he had seen the day before. He repeated, ‘What are you going to do, Tarquin? Do you think the Sekk is controlling this army, or is it just friends with the Pharicians?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tarquin said. He was scrutinizing the chariots, hoping for some glimpse of the Sekk. His body had started to harden with anticipation and anger like the point of an arrow hardening in fire, an anger that he would eventually release to a specific target. He could see the front line of chariots now, and his legs tightened against the saddle; his horse picked up its trot.
After a moment Kivi spoke again, and his voice cracked. ‘You do have a plan, right?’
There was another silence. Tarquin showed his teeth. He was starting to feel ready.
‘Well, that’s better,’ said Kivi in a relieved tone, seeing the smile but not the intent behind it. ‘You don’t look worried, so I’m not going to be worried.’
Tarquin loosened his sword in the scabbard. ‘There’s nothing for me to worry about, for I’m about to be reunited with my Company – or whatever it is they have become. I’m not worried, my friend. But maybe you should be.’
‘Oh, brothers and sisters of the moon,’ Kivi moaned faintly. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I think you’d better run away now.’
‘What? What about you?’
‘Me? I’m happy, Kivi.’
‘Tarquin, look out!’
Arrows whizzed between them as they were identified as enemies. Tarquin’s blade was out and he was charging; he heard Ki
vi’s cries as the Deer was left trying to manage his horse. Mounted archers had cut in front of the line of chariots and were firing on him, but even on a substandard horse, he eluded them easily: this was old hat for him. He took in the archers on the periphery of his vision and dealt with them without really thinking about it: his eye was combing through the advancing chariots, seeking the one that held the Sekk. He guided his horse off to the right, looking for a way between the lines of chariots, and Kivi came galloping alongside him.
‘That way,’ he screamed, pointing with one of his sticks. ‘See, among the Clan riders.’
It was true. In the third line of chariots moved one that was surrounded by Ruarel, Lyetar and Ovi. The chariot horses foamed, white-eyed behind spiked headpieces and iron shoes that churned up the dry ground as if it were surf. The driver was Pharician through and through: lean, blue-black, shaven-headed, with visored eyes and witch-webs gilding his bulging limbs with protection spells. His whip was out and he was standing high in the harness as though he could barely wait to cut them down where they stood. The one on the left was much smaller, clad in black but preternaturally pale and almost ethereal by contrast. It was unarmed and it had no eyes, but it turned towards them, head cocked to one side as if it were mad or stupid.
Tarquin stared at it. He should not even glance at it, much less seek to engage it over these yards of torn earth.
He was eighteen years beyond should.
The sky was blue, hooves drummed the plain and voices shouted in Pharician – Prisoners, they were saying to each other in a foreign echo of Lerien’s words to Tarquin yesterday, take prisoners. The wind carried the smell of burning oil up the ranks from the siege towers, where black smoke had begun to billow. Tarquin was aware of all of these things, but he had zeroed in on the Sekk, hell-bent on discerning whether it was the same creature he had seen long ago. Beside the Sekk, Lyetar threw his head back and laughed. Bile rose in Tarquin’s throat. An arrow was coming towards him, and his sword came up automatically and sliced it in twain. Then a Pharician rider passed between him and the Sekk, swinging a whip and singing.
He had forgotten about Kivi. The Pharician chased the Seer down easily and lashed the fighting sticks out of his hands; then the whip went around Kivi’s neck and the Deer was pulled to the ground, where he rolled, clutching his throat. His neck was surely broken, Tarquin thought, and so must have thought the rider who had attacked him, for he tied the end of the whip to his saddle horn and raised his arms to invite congratulations. The other officers laughed and cheered. Kivi, still rolling, had been drawn behind the hooves of the Pharician battlehorse. At first it seemed there was no hope for him, but then he got his feet under him and actually began to run behind the horse. Tarquin wheeled his horse around and began to pursue.
It was a cruel sport, one which Tarquin had never seen the Pharicians use on their prisoners; but as Kivi and the rider progressed down the convoy towards the regular cavalry, it was obvious that the men were deriving much amusement from Kivi’s plight. Kivi’s Clan was not called Deer for nothing. The Seer could run, and when the Pharician reined his horse to avoid trampling a stray infantryman, Kivi seized the opportunity to grab a stirrup and vault to the animal’s back. Tarquin almost reached him.
Then Chyko came crashing towards him.
The Wasp was riding high up on his horse’s withers, bareback of course, and he had a vial of some poison in one hand, a blowgun clamped horizontally between his teeth, and a strung bow on his back. That light was in his eyes, and Tarquin got a whiff of his smell as Chyko’s horse collided with his own and passed through like a wave of sound.
Tarquin suddenly felt nauseated. Chyko galloped across the front of the cavalry without heeding any of them, but the Pharicians and occasional Clan riders whom he passed suddenly became more alert. The Sekk in its chariot wove into view again, extending one finger towards Tarquin as if administering a curse; as one, the riders converged on him, and the light of Chyko’s eyes had found its way into theirs as if it were a disease.
Tarquin hadn’t realized how angry he was until he had cut down three of them with no effort. They were overaroused and sloppy, and they were Pharician: he had no qualms about killing them. But Kivi was on the ground beneath the rider and had lost his sticks. For a second it seemed the chaos would work in his favour, and Tarquin pressed to get closer to Kivi, thinking momentarily that next time he did something like this he ought to have a real fighter by his side, not a well-intentioned Seer who thought he could be useful. The sheer number of men and horses moving made it almost impossible to manoeuvre. The masses of soldiers had not even come to a halt: apparently to an army of this size, Tarquin and Kivi represented a minor distraction. This, too, annoyed Tarquin, but before he could penetrate to the place where Kivi was fighting, the first of the Enslaved riders caught up and hit him in the side with a spear, and he fell.
The point had not driven in, and as he tumbled in the air Tarquin grabbed the spear and pulled; the man came off with it and they rolled in the dirt while the horses shot off away from them, leaving an empty area of earth like an arena for the two to hack it out with their swords.
The Pharician was a captain, one of the foreguard, bearing a tracery of honour in the form of scars that altered the landscape of his face. Tarquin forgot about saving Kivi and focused on saving himself as the captain turned his weapon on him with total assurance, almost as if he recognized Tarquin. When they engaged, Tarquin very nearly didn’t believe he could be a Slave. The Pharician had retained great skill and fought without a trace of the zombie quality that could affect badly made Slaves. Tarquin was hard-pressed at first and narrowly missed losing his horse before he woke up and began fighting with real concentration. In different circumstances, he might have taken more time to appreciate his opponent before killing him; but he knew he had only seconds before a mob surrounded him and slashed him to pieces. The rest of the elite were holding back for the moment out of respect for their captain, but Tarquin knew that even if he won this round, he’d have to deal with all of them.
The curved Pharician sword was not as long as a Seahawk weapon, but it could be deceptively quick in the right hands. The captain’s blade was so swift as to be almost invisible; again and again Tarquin found himself sliding out of the way by a hair’s-breadth and stabbing a hasty riposte, always moving to his opponent’s off side in the hope of getting the sun behind him. Just when he was convinced this Pharician could in no way be a Slave, he spotted the Sekk Master standing in his chariot not a dozen yards away like a carrion crow. He quailed a little inside as he realized that only a highly accomplished Sekk could have cast a slaving spell subtle enough to control the Pharician without blocking the man’s talent and experience with weapons. There was his real opponent; but he resolutely kept his eyes on the Pharician captain, who now came at him with the sword clutched in both hands.
Going for the big one, Tarquin thought, and saw his opening. But he found little relish in cutting off the blow before it had been released, smashing his sword into his opponent’s elbows just as they began to extend. Bone shattered and flesh rended. The Pharician fell to his knees, screaming, and Tarquin saw the light catch on the Glass in the Sekk’s hand as it prepared for its next move.
Now understanding seized Tarquin, snug as a bad dream.
The Sekk was tall and slender, with sleek black hair. It was clad all in black. It did not draw its weapon, but held the Glass before its face where its eyes should be. Grace was in its every movement as it stepped out of the chariot and came to meet Tarquin, unperturbed by the blood-blackened sword, the bared teeth, the overbright gaze. Tarquin could hear the cries of Kivi behind him, but paid no attention. He could make out the shape of the Glass possessed by the Master: three riders, fused together so that they surged as one out of the crystal base, their weapons drawn. The Glass was beautiful.
And he had seen it before.
Going into battle against a Sekk Master was like diving for oysters: you took a ve
ry very deep breath and hoped it would last you long enough. There was a trick of concentration, a way of shutting down parts of the mind that were vulnerable to the Slaving spells, which could mean the difference between life and death during those crucial seconds of an engagement. How long you could maintain this concentration was a factor of experience, training, and sheer will. But Tarquin was not dealing with an ordinary Sekk; he was dealing with his nemesis, his past, his loss and the failure of his understanding – everything he had tried to forget. He was too incensed to be careful. That was how he made the grave error of looking into the Sekk’s face with a naked mind, all his senses wide open.
He couldn’t see her but he knew she was there. She smelled of lilacs and rain, and when her fingers touched his forehead he found he couldn’t move and didn’t want to. He made a sound low in his throat.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she said. ‘Your face.’
‘Don’t know how you can stand to look at me,’ he answered self-consciously. She moved against him and he didn’t know where to put his hands. Everything about her was soft.
‘It’s not a handsome face,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s yours. This one must have been painful.’
Her fingertips traced a particularly virulent scar.
He pushed her away, tried to open his eyes.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
A sword ripped the air over his head and he found himself on his knees and the Sekk standing over him casting no shadow.
You Can’t Sneeze
Kassien spun to face the others and cried, ‘Get off the road. Now!’
Startled from their collective daze, the group obeyed him without question, scrambling over the rampart and down into the forest again. Anatar would have fallen had not Pentar caught the edge of his cloak and stopped him. At the bottom, the wounded man sank to the ground, shaking. Xiriel bent to offer help, but Anatar shrank away in fear when he came close.
The Company of Glass Page 23