Master of furies, p.19
Master of Furies, page 19
Declan sat eating the remains of last night’s stew, which was cold and even less appetizing than normal, but needed for the tasks ahead. After the evening meal he and the others had organized as much as they could, ridding themselves of everything but food, water, weapons, and rope.
After sorting the supplies, Declan fell into an exhausted, but restless, doze. He had startled awake before anyone else, in the darkness, gripped by a terrifying uncertainty. Since Gwen’s death and his own injury, he’d been haunted during his waking moments, filled with nameless forebodings.
As his injuries healed, pain would interrupt his sleep at first, and his mind would be seized with guilt and regret over why he couldn’t have saved the people he loved. But as time passed his thoughts turned more often to whether he would be able to exact vengeance. Now his mind asked, could he save these men? Declan had given up on a good night’s sleep.
He stood up and saw that everyone else was asleep, though Tobias was moving and in a moment he too sat up. In the half-dark as the world above them experienced first light, he got up and motioned to Declan to come away from the camp, so as not to wake the others.
Tobias said softly, ‘It’s a good thing we’re doing this.’
‘I don’t know how you survived ten years here.’
‘Well, to start with, we were about three times the number when we got here, and ten years younger. We lost a lot of lads working out how to survive here.’
Declan could only nod.
‘Took a while to learn how to scrounge food, what we could eat and what killed us. Lost a couple who tried some lovely-smelling berries and died before they could bring a sackful back to us.’ Tobias looked away as if that memory was still painful.
He took a deep breath than tapped Declan on the chest with his finger. ‘If you save us, I’ll follow you to the lowest hell, no questions asked. I’ve never been a leader, and I think the only reason the boys looked to me is I’m the biggest bastard in the company, and when the younger lads came tumbling down from above, well, they just took it for granted I knew what I was doing.’ He smiled. ‘You said you didn’t choose to be a captain, but Bogartis knew what he was doing when he made you his deputy. You’re a natural-born leader. You could command armies. And as I said, from this day forward, I’m your man.’
Declan found himself moved. ‘I’ll do everything I can to get us all out of here.’
‘And none too soon, from what you said about that chanting and howling down there,’ whispered Tobias.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Declan.
‘I told you why we call them eaters.’
Declan nodded.
‘We know they’re cannibals because the first time we tangled with them they killed maybe ten of us – it’s hard to remember exactly – but the rest of us got away because a group of them stopped fighting and just started chewing on the bodies of the dead.
‘They look like regular people, a little short and skinny, but though their skin is dark, as you’d expect in a hot land, some have white hair or strange yellow eyes. They’re not skilled fighters as we’d usually reckon it, but they just don’t stop coming. It’s like they don’t care who they lose. They’ll just eat the fallen, I guess.
‘But when they get all worked up, they just roll out of their village and kill and eat everything in sight.’ Tobias shrugged. ‘Remember how I said they left us alone after we gave them a beating? Well, one time one of our scouts heard all the shouting and dancing, and came back to tell us, they hit us right after. Maybe they followed him, or maybe they were coming here anyway, but we lost another bunch of boys. The rest of us got away only because we bothered them with the traps, and we set fire to everything here so they wouldn’t follow us.
‘We hid for a few days up near those rocks we’re going to be climbing. Took us weeks to rebuild the camp.’ Tobias fell silent at the memory. ‘After that, they went back to leaving us alone, and we kept clear of their hunting grounds. Like I showed you, everywhere but north of where those trails meet, and up the draw you came through.’ With a hopeful note, he added, ‘They might not be coming this way.’
‘But they might be, if they decide to ignore the traps,’ said Declan. He then glanced around and saw the sky above was lightening. ‘Time to get the men up.’
Tobias nodded. ‘Good.’
It took only a few minutes for the men to rise, eat what was left of the cold stew, and gather their remaining food, weapons and equipment. Declan did a quick look around the camp, ensuring that nothing had been forgotten, then moved to the head of the line where he just began walking.
Without orders, the others moved into a single file and followed their captain.
DONTE CHATTED WITH THE TWO Azhante prisoners, as each tried to gain a better understanding of the other’s language. With Hava’s departure, and Donte’s need to fully heal, the baron had decided the time would be well spent if Donte could glean any more useful information from the two prisoners.
‘So, you get chosen to be Azhante, is that how it works?’ Donte asked.
Sepi nodded, eating a grape. ‘They tell us it is an honour …’ He looked at Firash, who also nodded. ‘An honour to take us to train when we are boys and girls.’
‘Same with us, sort of,’ replied Donte.
‘But then,’ said Firash, ‘it is a harsh …’ He turned to Sepi and asked something in a dialect Donte didn’t recognize.
‘Place to learn children?’ Sepi asked. He had spent more time with Hava than Firash and had a better grasp of the difference between the two variant languages.
‘School,’ Donte supplied.
‘Harsh school.’ Firash nodded. ‘Bad lessons, many boys and girls hurt.’
‘Some die,’ Sepi added.
Donte nodded. ‘Ours, much the same, I think.’
The door opened and Baron Daylon stood in the doorway, beckoning Donte to come outside.
Donte said farewell to the two prisoners and exited the room in which they were confined. A guard closed the door behind Donte, and he halted in front of Dumarch and gave a small lowering of his chin in what Daylon accepted as a bow.
‘Learn anything useful?’ asked the baron.
Donte gave a slight shrug. ‘Maybe. Interesting, but I don’t know if it’s useful.’
‘Explain.’
Donte said, ‘To begin with, I think someone like my old master Bodai will be a big help if Hava and Balven can get him to come, because a lot of what we’re talking about in there is … history. What I’ve pieced together is that Coaltachin was once a … clan? Or a big family. And we escaped, so the rest of the Azhante want to know how we did it.’
‘I got that much from Hava before she left,’ said Daylon. ‘Anything else?’
‘As I said, I don’t know if it’s useful, but it seems like there are a lot of different nations on that continent and there are a lot of wars, and the Azhante are …’ He looked frustrated as if fighting to frame a concept. ‘I don’t know. They’re commanded by the Pride Lords, and they sometimes stop wars, or jump in to win for one side, but the Azhante are not one people, but come from all the different nations. They’re taken when young and sent to school, like my people are.’
‘Now, that may be useful to know.’
Donte smiled, basking in that bit of praise. His status was uncertain – somewhere between prisoner and servant. For the moment, it appeared to be a bit of both.
‘I have a task for you,’ said Daylon.
Donte said nothing.
‘We’re taking back the entire coast up to Port Calos and fortifying Copper Hills and building a new fortification for a garrison at Beran’s Hill. Everything up there is in disarray, with people fleeing that way from the Wildlands to the Dangerous Passage.’
Donte nodded, indicating that he understood. ‘You want me to keep an eye out for more like those two.’ He hiked his thumb over his shoulder at where the Azhante were quartered.
‘Balven’s right. You’re a good bit cleverer than you let on. With the episkopos fleeing along that route all the way from Sandura, it must be total chaos from there across the Sea of Grass as well.’
Donte laughed. ‘A carnival troupe of mummers, jugglers, jesters, and zanies could march through the Dangerous Passage in full costume playing instruments without attracting notice, so a few Azhante spies will be invisible.’
‘Pack whatever you have and be ready to leave within an hour. I’m putting Captain Baldasar in charge of the fortifications at Beran’s Hill, so answer only to him.’
‘Then on to Port Calos?’
‘No. Baron Rodrigo Bavangine of Copper Hills will assume control of Port Calos.’
Donte gave one of his typical shrugs of indifference, but he smiled, so that he didn’t quite look insolent. ‘Yes, m’lord,’ he said, offered his slight bow, then headed back towards the little room in the castle he’d recuperated in. He had decided, since getting to know the two Azhante agents, that he couldn’t truly know which of them had stuck a dagger in him, so he had decided not to kill either of them. Besides, he was finding them quite likeable, now that they had stopped trying to kill him.
HATUSHALY TOOK A DEEP BREATH, then asked, ‘So, where do we begin?’
‘Where we left off yesterday,’ replied Nathan.
Bodai watched from the table, a large pot of coffee at his elbow. He’d carried it with him from the community mess, it having become a habit for the last week or so to consume it with the morning meal, and to bring it and his mug along. It had reached the point where this morning he had gone into the kitchen to enquire how the stock of coffee beans was holding up. He’d been gratified to learn that not many people besides himself and Hatushaly were drinking the dark brew, though they were running low on tea.
Hatu and Nathan stood facing each other, then both reached out and gripped the other’s shoulders. Both lowered their heads and closed their eyes.
Bodai topped up his mug and settled in, knowing they might be locked in that pose for some time to come.
In the roiling void Hatu found himself alone with Nathan, and quickly Hatu used his emerging abilities to order the chaos. The swirls of colour almost instantly became a myriad of threads, scintillating in every imaginable colour and hue.
Hatu understood that his and Nathan’s images were only a trick of the mind, that their actual bodies were standing motionless in the library. Yet he chose to imagine them as real, as that gave him a stronger hold on his identity. He had begun to realize a few days earlier that there existed a seductive aspect to this process, one he had discussed with Nathan, that the more power he commanded the less individual identity remained. It was addictive, Nathan had explained, and part of the risk of the training.
The most numerous and common of the threads fell away, a mental construct Hatu had fashioned, so that it appeared in his mind that he floated above the mass of energy threads between the furies. They were out of sight but he knew they were still there and that all this was an illusion he was manipulating, but as Nathan had instructed, anything he could do to preserve his sense of identity and place in the real world was welcome.
Then he let the second tier of lines fall, and then the third. The day before he had come to fully engage with what the fourth layer of these lines related to, flows of energy having their source in furies impacted by the actions of large groups, people, animals, fish, and creatures down to sizes so small that no unaided eye could see them. Intertwined with those forces were natural elements: wind, rain, tremors in the earth, tides and currents.
He returned to where he had stopped the day before, studying the play of natural forces on groups, herds, pods of whales, flocks of birds. In his mind it was as if he reached out a hand and dipped it in water, feeling the flow of currents as countless schools of fish used them to move and find food.
‘All movement, everywhere, is commanded by the tensions between positive and negative furies,’ came the voice of Nathan.
‘I understand,’ said Hatu; that fact had been restated constantly since the lessons had started.
‘The lesson for today is to sense which is life force and which is elemental force.’
In his mind, Hatu put out his hand to touch the point where the forces intersected, then heard Nathan warn, ‘Be as gentle as you can, as if you were picking up the tiniest petal of the most delicate flower. The furies’ lines are uncountable and massive in their abundance, but each line can be brittle. Should you break one, consequences might result, from the tiniest movement of a single fish in a school, to the collapse of a cliff face into the ocean. Until you completely master knowing which lines connect which furies, avoid interacting.’
‘How then do I do that?’ asked Hatu.
‘Get as close as you can in your mind, but not quite touching. Let the energy pulsing along that line reveal its nature to you. We are a long way from you actually interacting with all those forces. Think of this as learning to crawl before you attempt walking.’
‘I understand,’ said Hatu, though he wasn’t sure he did.
Hatu returned his focus to the pod of whales he had sensed before and in his mind moved his hand to the very edge of where they swam. For a brief instant he attempted to judge where they were swimming relative to his physical location in the Sanctuary, but all he could tell was they were somewhere to the northeast.
He imagined that his hand was at the edge of the pod, moving in unison with them, as if he were some giant being standing knee-deep in the ocean, able to bend down and simply run his fingers through the ocean’s swells.
Then he felt the sea moving in a different rhythm, almost a pulsing of energy rising and falling in a unity he could never have imagined before. It struck him like two songs sung by two different voices, one deep and mellow, a soft melody of relaxed power. That was the sea. The other was the energy from the whales, who swam in alternating counterpoint and harmony with the sea. He did as Nathan instructed, simply waited and let the energies reveal what they were to him.
Then he sensed a difference between the two and after pondering for a long time he said, ‘One is living …’
‘Yes,’ said Nathan.
‘The other is … something else.’
‘We need to leave now,’ said Nathan.
‘Now?’
‘You’re succumbing to the lure,’ was all Nathan said.
Hatu was about to object, then realized that objecting was the trap of the lure of which Nathan spoke. He blinked and they were back in the library.
Bodai had slumped down in his chair, leaning to the right, his elbow on the table and his eyes shut. He was snoring.
Hatu laughed and Bodai’s eyes opened. ‘Oh, I must have dozed off,’ said the one-time master from Coaltachin.
‘Indeed,’ said Nathan.
‘How long have we been gone?’ asked Hatu.
Bodai looked around and muttered, ‘I need to get one of those water clocks or a sand clock.’ He blinked the sleep away and took note of the shadows from the high windows, and said, ‘Judging by the light and the hunger in my stomach, all morning.’
‘Let’s say four hours,’ said Nathan.
‘Inside it felt as if it was only a few minutes.’ Hatu rolled his shoulders and head to combat stiffness. ‘Now it feels like four hours.’
‘Time,’ Nathan said with a smile.
Hatu chuckled and shook his head. ‘Time,’ he repeated: it had become something of a joke between them.
Bodai said, ‘I think next time you go exploring in whatever that … void, or mind-space, or whatever you call it, I’m going to return to other tasks. This is not the best use of my time.’
An expression crossed Nathan’s face, a mix of recognition and humour. In a tone that could only be thought of as mischievous he said, ‘If Hatu is willing this afternoon we can bring you into his vision.’
Nathan looked at Hatu, who nodded. Hatu said, ‘If you want?’
Bodai’s eyes widened and he looked like a child to whom someone had handed a wonderful gift. ‘Can you?’
Hatu smiled. ‘After lunch, then.’
‘After lunch,’ said Bodai, now excited by the promise.
They filed out of the library to the community kitchen, and Bodai had a lift in his step.
DECLAN SURVEYED THE COMPANY. THEY had kept a steady pace, jogging for a minute or more, then walking, a practice he had learned from Bogartis that ate up the miles.
He counted minutes in his head and tried to calculate how long until it would be too dark to travel. He was minutes away from ordering another march, when one of the younger mercenaries, Alex, stood up and pointed. ‘Look!’
Declan turned and looked in the direction indicated, and after a moment, saw what the sharp-eyed youngster had seen. Smoke was rising from behind them.
Tobias appeared at Declan’s elbow. ‘They’re burning our camp. Looks like they’re coming.’
Declan immediately calculated the distance they’d already covered and how much light was left. Then he shouted, ‘Everyone up! We have to move as fast as we can, as far as we can.’ He waved Tobias over.
‘What?’ asked the old fighter.
‘We have to reach that first stone wall,’ said Declan, ‘and get up on top of it. If we can reach the higher ground, we may have a chance. If they stop following after dark, we might get high enough up the rocks after first light to get away from them.’
Tobias whispered, ‘If they get here before we do—’
Declan cut him off. ‘I know.’
As the rest of the men also saw the smoke they began to ask questions, shout pleas, or, like Oscar, predict bloody doom.
Declan shouted, ‘Shut up! Get in line!’
Most fell quiet, but a few continued to yell out questions.
‘We should have stayed and hidden!’ cried Oscar.
‘And we’d all be dead by now!’ spat back Mick Sawyer. ‘Listen to the captain!’
‘I said shut up, all of you!’ Declan shouted even louder. ‘Now, if we’re going to live through this, listen to me!’
The last men fell silent.
‘We can’t run. We run, we fall: we fall, we die. We have to get to the rocks before the eaters get to us. Keep your eyes sharp, watch your footing; break an ankle, you die. Understood?’
