The Dawn King (The Moon People, Book Five)

by Claudia King

  “Kiren! Kiren!”

  Netya was with the warriors who had mounted the canoes, leaping from foothold to wobbling foothold as she tried to cross the water behind the wolves. He called out, but she seemed not to hear him. She was standing upright, making an easy target of herself. If only Netya had learned to use her teeth and claws instead of the spear, she might have taken to the shape of her wolf as instinctively as the others.

  No arrow flew Netya's way. Instead it was the stick thrower who set his eyes upon her. The lanky warrior drew back his arm, a huge piece of curved and polished hardwood held ready to throw. Caspian saw the discolouration on the front edge of the weapon where it had been sharpened. He gripped his wet javelin, reeled back, and sent it flying across the water, straight into the man's heart. His throw was an instant too late. The stick thrower collapsed into the water, but the weapon had already left his hand. Spinning end over end, it soared like a bird over the heads of the other warriors and cracked into Netya's skull. She dropped without a sound, crumpling into the water as the canoe she had been standing on tipped and upended.

  Caspian felt the riverbed sucking at his feet, pulling him down as a terrible fear threatened to steal the strength from his body.

  “Netya!” he called at the top of his lungs, seeing her bob into view through the melee. She was floating in the water face down, her black hair trailing behind her as the current dragged her away. “Someone get her! Get her!”

  Orec yanked him back behind the canoe before he could invite any more arrows his way.

  “Don't get yourself killed too,” the alpha panted.

  Wresting back control from the fearful beast that had taken over him, Caspian braved a brief glance over the top of the canoe before ducking down again. Had he seen someone go into the water after Netya, or had it just been the splash of another falling body?

  “We have to get to the other side,” he said, bracing his arm beneath the canoe again and digging his feet into the riverbed. One agonisingly slow pace at a time, they dragged their cover downriver, straining to keep it between them and their attackers as the current pulled and their footing slipped beneath them. Frustration joined Caspian's fear for Netya. They were so far away, so helpless to intervene, and the Sun People were regaining control of the fight. They had given up on the canoes the Moon People had mounted. They cut that part of the flotilla free, leaving two of their own men to die as the canoes drifted slowly back to shore by the tethers that bound them there. All of the other ropes had been severed. The Sun People who had not been fighting finished hauling in the banked canoes and picked up their paddles. As soon as they were free they let the current take them, breaking away from the battle and leaving the floundering Moon People behind them.

  “Back to the shore!” Caspian called to the wolves who were still trying to cling to canoes and swim after their enemies. “We can follow them from the shore!”

  “No!” Orec's voice rose behind him, still laboured with pain but carrying a note of command. “We cannot reach them, their bows will kill us if we try! Keep yourselves alive, protect the wounded!”

  Glancing downriver, Caspian realised that the alpha was right. No matter how desperate he felt, no matter how strongly he wanted to run after those canoes, he knew that it was now a fool's errand. The Sun People had open water protecting them, and the forest downriver would soon thin into open grassland where bows could be used to their full advantage. It would invite certain death to keep the chase going.

  He prayed that someone had found Netya, and that she was still alive. Adel and Kiren were gone, taken by their enemies, but there might still be hope for the others. Within moments the canoes had disappeared around a bend in the river. The arrows stopped flying, and the howls of wolves gave way to whimpers of pain. Figures splashed through the shallows all along the riverbank in front of him, dragging the wounded back ashore along with the others who had fallen still entirely.

  Caspian pushed the canoe aside and helped Orec back to dry land, setting the alpha down on the edge of the clearing.

  “Is your wound bad?” he asked hurriedly, still fighting his urge to run downstream and search for Netya.

  The alpha grimaced, clutching the side of his neck. “I'd have bled to death by now if I were going to. Go and find her.”

  Before he turned around Caspian caught the flash of sunlight reflecting off something bright in the shallows. It was the metal blade, dropped in the fighting. Bobbing alongside it was the map. Both had been discarded without a thought.

  The Sun People had not come here looking for trinkets, nor for peace. All of Liliac's show, every moment of it, had been nothing but a trick to lure in his real prize: Adel.

  Swallowing the rising bile in his throat, Caspian hurried down the riverbank, helping those he could along the way as they staggered ashore.

  “Where is Netya?” he asked as he caught hold of Fern. The huntress was pale, but she looked unhurt.

  “I do not know,” she said. “Everyone was busy fighting, but when you called out Kale dove in after her.”

  “Kale?” Caspian yelled over the group. “Kale?!”

  “He's not with us,” one of the warriors said. “The river took him. Your Netya, too.”

  Caspian shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun, hurrying a few paces down the bank as he stared out across the river. The current moved swiftly near the centre, tugging down fallen leaves in small whirlpools and eddies.

  “Kale wasn't wounded,” Fern said, gripping Caspian's arm with an anxiety that echoed his own. “He must have pulled her out somewhere downriver.”

  “Against this current?”

  “It would have to bring them ashore eventually.”

  Caspian nodded, praying that it was true. If not, the Sun People would be right behind them. How long could the current carry them before the canoes caught up? His heart wanted him to run after them immediately, but his mind told him to wait. He remembered the last time he had charged recklessly after Netya without thinking. It had almost cost him his life. Rubbing the old scars on his throat, he tore his gaze away from the river and hurried back to Orec. The alpha was on his feet again, leaning on one of the other warriors as he took in the battle's aftermath with a sullen expression.

  “Four of us dead. Most wounded. We may have more deaths by tonight without the seers and their healing magic.”

  Caspian looked down at the body of one of the fallen wolves. It was grizzled old Koura. After surviving dozens of fights with the Sun People in his years, this had finally been the one to bring him down.

  “How many are still fit to travel?” Caspian asked.

  “Not many. I've sent runners back to the den to fetch help. The more hands we have tending the wounded the better.”

  “Someone must go after the Sun People. They have Adel and Kiren.”

  Orec nodded. “You go. With the spirits' grace you may find Netya and the boy along the way. We'll not be able to face those bows again until our wounds are healed, but maybe our wolves can run faster than the Sun People's canoes swim. Track them. Once I have a dozen strong warriors ready to fight I'll send them after you. If you have to cross the river then leave a mark so that we can follow.”

  “I'm going with him,” Fern said from behind Caspian. Orec gave her a hesitant look, but the huntress's voice was firm. “Netya is my dearest sister.”

  “It's always better to travel in pairs,” Caspian said. “If we can carry supplies it will be easier to keep up with them.” And one of us will be able to carry Netya back home if we need to, he added silently.

  “Very well. Go as soon as you can, but stay out of sight of those canoes.” Orec's voice rose over the noise, and he called for waterskins to be brought along with a carrying bundle.

  As they gathered their scant travelling supplies Fern stepped into the shallows and picked up the fallen blade. When Caspian caught her eye she grimaced.

  “Better than a knife.”

  Someone pressed a sheet of leather with
carrying ties into Caspian's hands. It the sort that could easily be folded and fastened around a wolf's back when they were travelling. As Fern was putting the blade back into its sheathe he gestured to the map bobbing in the shallows nearby.

  “Bring that, too. Who knows how far we will have to travel before we catch them.”

  Along with a pair of hastily-filled waterskins Caspian tucked the blade and map into a pouch at the bottom of the carrying bundle, then wrapped the leather sheet around them and secured the ties. “Ready?” He held out the bundle to Fern.

  “I'll run all night and day if I have to.”

  Though his heart still felt like it was being dragged farther and farther downriver with every passing moment, Caspian was glad to have the huntress at his side. He took the shape of his wolf and she bound the bundle to his back, then joined him on four paws.

  The scent of blood and battle was rich in the air all along the riverbank, interspersed with the fragrance of splintered wood from the canoes. Fern looked at one of the overturned vessels bobbing against the shore, but Caspian shook his head and called her away with a snort. They might be able to follow the river more easily if they knew how to ride the water like the Sun People did, but he didn't want to risk trying to clumsily handle a canoe when Netya's life was in danger. His legs were easier to rely on, and he led the way down the shore with an urgency in his stride that he had not felt in many years. They raced past the warriors with calls of anger and encouragement in their ears, promises of vengeance upon the Sun People for what they had done and curses against those who had wronged the den mother. Yet Caspian's haste was not driven by any desire for revenge. All he felt was a sense of mounting anxiety as they passed bend after bend in the river, seeing nothing but rippling water and the empty eddies of the treacherous current. No Sun People, and no Netya.

  —6—

  The King's Conclave

  Jarek sat upon his cushioned bench, fingers steepled before him as the conclave of high priests vied for their king's attention. None but the seven of them were permitted to sit within this chamber, and it was here that the shaping of the Dawn King's will took place. Across from him on the opposite side of the rectangular stone table, Hasham, High Priest of the Father, spoke with laughter in his rich voice, ringlets of dark hair jiggling in time with the bounce of his broad stomach.

  “Two feasts a year? Three? Even four? The farms can bear it as easily as my wife bears new children.” He barked with amusement and slapped the table, the tinkling of his metal jewellery joining the undulation of his restless body.

  “The question is not whether the farms can bear it,” Radeen-Na, Priest of the Brother, replied, anger reddening his ritually scarred cheeks. “Take the food from your feast and send it to another farmstead with workers and tools. Make a village of it! More settlements to the north will mean more travellers to the mountains, then perhaps we will find metal that does not have a sea of Moon People standing in its way.”

  The two argued back and forth, Hasham always advocating for the health and prosperity of the heartlands while Radeen-Na sought to expand the Dawn King's lands farther north. In truth these meetings of the conclave often bored Jarek. He had been in awe of this chamber when he first set foot inside it many years ago, marvelling at the six stone pillars that stood behind each bench like the ones at the temple's entrance. Six pillars for six great spirits, and a stone table carved with the circle of the sun at its centre. He could not even begin to imagine how many men it must have taken to drag so much stone up the hillside and chip it into shape, nor how many tools must have been worn down in the process. From the heavy beams above them hung drapes of the finest wool, their dyed shades threaded through with the yellow lines of the Dawn King's priesthood. A seventh bench stood at the far end of the table, braziers of incense burning to its left and right. From there Atalyn, the Dawn King, listened to his priests debate with his eyes downcast. One would not have thought him a great leader at first glance. Understated in his stature, he bore the wrinkled, sun-brown skin of a farmer, and his brow and eyelids were heavy in a way that suggested a man far older than his four or five dozen years. His black, haylike hair had mostly faded into a stony grey, draping in washed but unoiled layers down his shoulders and back. Upon his brow was a simple circlet woven from two intertwining twigs, and the only jewellery adorning his person was a bronzen ring that pinched his long beard at the midpoint. Anyone outside the conclave might have seen weariness in the Dawn King's downcast eyes and vacant expression, but Jarek knew he was listening carefully to every word being said.

  “Is it so bad to send our boys out tussling with the Moon People?” Hasham said. “Where else will they test their spirit? Give them the thrill of the pilgrimage, I say. Don't turn them into moles burrowing down the old metal holes in the mountains.”

  Radeen-Na made a chopping motion with his palm as he explained every point in response, his motions clipped and vicious in contrast to the playful rumbling of his counterpart. “More villages means more children. More children means more farms. More workers. More warriors. Metal from the north is safer than metal from the west. Why waste warriors on the Moon People when we have wild men raiding our farmsteads in the east?”

  Hasham wafted a heavy hand through the air dismissively. “No one wants to worry about the east. The runaways can stay out there in the cold while we bask here in the heartlands. North's much the same, I hear. Bitter cold.” He gave an exaggerated shiver, looking up the table toward the Dawn King. “We'll be bickering all day unless someone settles this.”

  The Dawn King looked up slowly, gripping the edge of the table as he shifted his posture. He looked to each of his high priests in turn before speaking.

  “I would hear from all of you before I make any decision.” His voice lilted like soft smoke. “Mountain Sky, what are your thoughts on how to distribute the year's excess harvest?”

  The high priest of the Mother had certainly earned his name, for he rose from his bench like a lumpy mountain on the Dawn King's right. Beady-eyed and swollen of features, the man's rich crimson robes did little to soften his appearance. He was one of the village leaders the Dawn King had brought into his fold with the promise of priesthood. Not a natural fit for the conclave, but few of them were. The Dawn King had taken many differing steps to win the loyalty of every village in the heartland plains, and promises of power were sometimes more effective than threats of bloodshed or lavish gifts. Mountain Sky had been satisfied with no less than a place at the Dawn King's own table.

  The large man looked between Radeen-Na and Atalyn, then said, “I agree with the priest of the Brother.”

  “Of course you do,” Hasham blustered. “Brought into this conclave together, following the leader together. A life of service to the Mother cannot compare to the pride of you village chieftains, I am sure!”

  “Enough of your fat tongue, Hasham,” Radeen-Na said. “My spear won me this seat, and it serves the Dawn King now.”

  “You know I only jest, my good friends,” Hasham said, spreading his arms wide to the others with a laugh that was slightly too loud to sound sincere.

  The Dawn King ignored him and turned his gaze upon the high priest of the Daughter, seated at the far end of the table directly opposite Jarek. “Eral, your thoughts?”

  The young man shrugged, removing the grass stalk he had been chewing from between his lips and tossing it aside. “Hasham is so often right about these things. A land of happy feasters is worth more than one sad new village, is it not?”

  “That's right, my boy,” Hasham said. “You've an eye for joy, as the spirits well know.”

  Only two voices remained to be heard, Jarek's, and that of the priest of the Sister, Thakayn, cousin to the Dawn King and an old friend of the shaman Ilen Ra. Of all the high priests, Jarek liked Thakayn the least. Tales of his beauty and vigour were spoken all across the land, and Thakayn knew it well. Golden-haired and handsomely built, the people regarded him with envy and adoration whenever he ventured
down into the village. Age had been far kinder to him than his cousin, but that immaculate beauty of his was still beginning to crack as crow's feet spread from the corners of his eyes and his taut, firm frame began to shrivel.

  “Radeen-Na has the right of it,” Thakayn said without waiting for the Dawn King's invitation to speak. “Forget feasts. Push our hand farther beyond the boundaries of the heartlands.”

  “Shrewd and succinct,” the Dawn King said, finally turning his attention to the last member of the conclave. “And Jarek, my priest of the Son, what do you say?”

  Jarek took several moments to consider before speaking. He was a sharp-witted man, so the Dawn King said, but he was more used to listening to the currents of his heart than considering the divine will of the spirits. The duties of a high priest were complex, to be handled with care and tact, for anything Jarek said within this chamber might go on to shape the lives of a great many people.

  “We can wait till the sun goes down if you wish,” Thakayn said with a half-sneer.

  “If that is what it takes then we shall,” the Dawn King said firmly, silencing his cousin with a frown.

  Jarek sat forward and rested his elbows upon the table, unable to resist antagonising Thakayn a touch further by making a dullard's open-mouthed expression as he tapped his cheek, feigning ponderous thought. The priest of the Sister stared at him contemptuously, but his antics drew rumbling laughs from Hasham and Mountain Sky.

  “It's hard to find hope for the people these days,” Jarek said at last, dropping his playful act. “They gather around me asking for the Son's blessing every time I go down into the village. Can any of us blame them, after this past winter?”

  A chorus of agreements answered him. The cold season had been especially harsh that year, taking the lives of many elders and infants. Travellers had been found dead on the paths between villages, and herds of livestock had been thinned. It was nothing that the prosperous heartland plains could not recover from, but the winter had dampened spirits and stirred talk of bad omens.