A time of ashes, p.10
A Time of Ashes, page 10
part #1 of Fate and the Wheel Series
‘What you suggest will require remarkable diplomacy,’ the overseer agreed, turning back to Murrin. ‘To put it mildly.’
‘Then we prepare the ground,’ Murrin said, ‘to ensure its fertility. The idea of an expedition needs to be firmly established outside the Brotherhood before we bring it to the table. At the same time, we must avoid charges of preaching down either to the islanders or the Shi’iin. We need agents to act on our behalf. Subtly informing, spreading rumours, inviting discussion – in homes, bars, institutions; everywhere. Rather than the explosion, the Corruption itself must come to be the topic on everyone’s lips. People must believe that what happened to Heòla Shargòsh is a foretaste. We need townsfolk petitioning their politicians – saying, “This scares us. What do you intend to do about it?” Far from us begging the islanders and the Shi’iin for their help, what we need is them approaching the Brotherhood – obliging us, even – to help and advise them.’
‘Why, Truthkeep Murrin. I was unaware we could add politics to your list of talents.’ While the overseer’s expression exposed his gums, it was far more ambiguous than a smile. ‘I take it you have someone in mind? To begin this … dissemination?’
Feeling dazed, Murrin nodded. To himself as much as anyone.
‘I am aware of a couple of possible starting points.’
CHAPTER 8
____________
The Hunger of Sand
‘SOREN.’
No response.
‘Soren! Listen to me.’
This time there was a weak groan. Somewhere in the dark of the cave Coll could hear the wheezing and soft trampling of the exhausted gennel. He had no food for the creature, no water he could spare in quantities that would have made the slightest difference to it. He cursed his stupidity. Years to plan his great retribution, and he hadn’t considered an escape route.
He had little imagined that other lives could be affected by this oversight. Less that he would care.
Ears straining, he interpreted every faint sound as the approach of the army the town had sent after him, baying for his blood. He could not outrun them. They would be well equipped, their animals as fast than the one he had stolen, or more so. And the tracks he and Soren had so helpfully left in the sand would ensure they could not be eluded, no matter how he might try.
‘Uncle. Drink this.’
The last of the first skin of water. Two full skins left. Moving between caves at night, these would last them perhaps three days.
Yet moving only at night was a luxury their pursuers would never grant them. And this cave was where his knowledge of the lands surrounding Tun Grel ran out. There seemed little point bearing north again to follow the riverbed. Their tracks would be no less visible, and water was unlikely to flow there for another three months, if rains came this year at all. Away from the river his knowledge was confined to tales of murderous nomads, and savage beasts that hunted in packs, moved twice as fast as a gennel, and were utterly untameable, though many had tried.
Soren coughed again. He slurred some words Coll did not understand. Coll pressed a palm to his forehead. The heat from it was worrying. Despite the cool air in the cave, his uncle was sweating profusely, wasting water.
Coll placed fingers either side of the stump where the arrow had entered the side of the big man’s chest. He did not know what to do. He wanted to pull out the rest of the arrow, but Soren had told him not to: that fluid would enter his lungs if he did, drowning him. Blood around the wound had turned flaky and black in the sun. At least it was no longer flowing, externally, at least. The smell told Coll that his uncle had pissed and shat himself.
‘We cannot stay here.’
He went from the cave and clambered to the top of the chimney of rock which watched over it like a sentinel. It did not take him long to find what he was looking for.
On the horizon to the west was a cloud of dust. A faint smudge above endless ranks of ochre-red dunes.
He returned to the cave.
‘We should go,’ he grunted, lifting the blacksmith on to his shoulder and propping him up on the broad saddle of the gennel.
DESPITE ITS OBVIOUS FATIGUE, the gennel made good time eastwards, and soon Coll was lost in the hypnotic rhythm of its six sturdy legs.
Wafts of musky reek rose off the shaggy fur protecting the animal’s broad back. Its trumpet-like ears twitched at the attentions of the flies swarming in the shade beneath its scaly belly. Supporting Soren with one hand, Coll dug his fingers through the hot fur, scratching his nails into the platey hide beneath. The beast gurgled and whinnied appreciatively.
By mid-afternoon, still heading due east by the sun, they had entered a landscape of grey-blue rock pinnacles. Their colour contrasted strangely with the ochre-red of the dunes. In the breathless air, the heat was formidable. Made of the silvery hides of several tensin, one of the less formidable desert creatures, Soren’s greatcloak shielded them from the worst of the sun, but still Soren’s mouth had dried, his tongue swelling until it resembled a root vegetable protruding between his cracked lips. Occasionally Coll spotted small, furry desert tarls scurrying between the pinnacles. He attempted to shoot a couple, but was not used to archery on gennelback. None of his shots went anywhere near their targets, forcing him to steer the animal back to retrieve the arrows, wasting further time.
As evening approached, he summoned the courage to take a proper look behind once more.
Their pursuers had been gaining steadily. They were perhaps an hour behind now, he reckoned, from the position and apparent size of the dust cloud.
He and Soren would be caught sometime tomorrow.
With light waning, he risked crossing the back of a great dune. He halted the gennel for a moment as the sun, the size and colour of an orangine held at arm’s length, sank beyond the desert, cut off just above the horizon by the jagged outline of the mountains, which were invisible during the day. As the sky darkened to shades of mauve, the Wheel of the Gods emerged in the north, a whirl of ghostly silver dominating the sky. Stars began appearing, scattered in a vague arc running more or less north to south.
A breeze had risen in fitful gusts. It made dust rise about the gennel’s plodding feet, though insufficiently to cover their tracks. Coll had considered dragging Soren’s cloak behind them to mask the trail, hoping the shallower traces it would leave would stand a better chance of filling in. But their followers would have dings, for tracking them whether their trail was visible or not. He doubted that even a sandstorm would put a ding off a scent.
As the Wheel rotated, the gennel’s strides became slower. While the great animal could endure for years without water, unfortunately for Coll and Soren, part of its survival strategy was progressively to slow down the processes which kept it alive. In extremis, it would finally secrete a hard, waterproof wax from its skin, burrowing into the sand with its spade-like foreclaws to hibernate until rain came. Encysted gennels were reputed to survive for centuries. Coll derived a shred of comfort from the thought that their followers were likely riding gennels too.
The breeze was pleasantly cool. As the Wheel of the Gods dipped its central hub beneath the horizon he found himself lolling to sleep. He awoke with a start, wondering with alarm how long he had been unconscious, staring wildly about the sky for orientation.
To his relief, the gennel was still plodding dutifully eastward, towards the heart of the great desert and the moon which had risen, round and violet, above it. He blinked and yawned. The movement elicited a soft moan from his uncle.
He squinted ahead.
The edge of the dune ahead didn’t look right. It seemed to be glowing faintly – in a hue at odds with the moon and Wheel-light.
A fire? Was someone camped down in the hollow?
Despite saddle-sore limbs he slid silently off the gennel’s back, catching Soren as he overbalanced, lowering him to the ground with a hand over his uncle’s mouth to muffle his whimpers of pain. He patted the gennel gently and, as an afterthought, slipped the creature’s reins through the injured man’s belt. ‘Hold these,’ he whispered. ‘Stay quiet.’
To his surprise, Soren blinked and looked directly up at him. ‘What is it?’
‘Maybe nomads. I’ll tell you in a moment.’
On elbows and knees, he squirmed up to the top of the dune and peered over.
What he saw didn’t at first make sense.
It was as though an unnaturally yellow flame had issued from the floor of the desert and frozen, leaving it entombed in a sort of tree-shaped cage of clear crystal. There was a hollow in the dunes around it, where the eddying wind had scoured underlying stones clear of sand. Three times the height of a man, the structure emitted faint creaking and cracking noises as he watched, ears straining. In ways which defeated his eyes, making him unsure whether what he was seeing was real or a product of his thirst and fatigue, he could swear it was subtly changing.
Near its base, the sand was marked with strange tracks, as though heavy objects had been dragged in loops or circles. Similar pairs of parallel grooves fanned away in most directions over the surrounding dunes.
At the foot of the strange object was a dark shape.
He strained forward, squinting, sniffing the air. The shape’s outline was indistinct. Fur? Its size was hard to judge, but seemed considerably less than that of a grown man.
The corpse of an animal?
Coll’s stomach growled. He found himself touching his lips together in what would have been a smack had moisture been involved. He looked carefully about the hollow. He had never seen anything so reeking of a trap. Yet he knew with sudden certainty that, without that meal, he may as well leave Soren here to die.
Decision made, he began skirting the hollow in a running crouch, sliding and stumbling along the steep dune sides. Every few paces he would stop and cock his head, listening, peering about for movement or further lights. But there was no sign of anything except the curious tracks.
After a while, having completed a cautious circumnavigation, he was skidding back down the big dune to where Soren and the gennel were waiting.
‘Crystal tree,’ he told Soren. ‘Big one, too – I think. I’ve only seen shards traders have chipped from them. I was told they attract dew. We may get a drink.’ He forced a grin. ‘And food! There is some kind of animal down there. Dead.’
He gently raised Soren’s head towards his. Soren coughed, his tongue just visible moving between his parched lips in the fading Wheel-light. ‘Animal? Just lying about?’
Coll nodded. His uncle laughed weakly.
‘Well,’ Coll murmured, scanning the skyline, ‘even if it is some kind of trap …’ He sighed. ‘I fear we have little choice, Uncle.’
HEFTING THE MAN up in his arms, Coll bore him with difficulty to the top of the ridge, leading the gennel on behind. He half-ran down the other side, and by the time they reached the foot of the crystal tree he was out of breath.
The structure seemed even bigger from here, looming against the stars. Coll laid Soren against its side, resting his head carefully in the nook where the lowest two branches parted. He gingerly touched its surface. He had heard that metal did strange things in the vicinity of crystal trees.
He put his ear against it.
It seemed to be emitting a faint oscillation: a pulse so deep it was felt in his body as much as heard.
And it was wet.
Coll licked it greedily. It was shockingly cold, and there was enough moisture on its glass-like surface to dilute the secretions which had dried like leather over his tongue. During the day, he had worn a linen scarf round his head, slit with a knife to let him see while protecting his eyes from the glare. He pulled it from round his neck and wiped it over the monolith. Soon it was damp enough to squeeze water from. He held it over Soren’s mouth, which opened, tongue lolling.
‘I’ll never understand how you learned fighting like that.’
‘Amazing what years of hatred can achieve.’
Coll bent to examine the animal’s corpse. He had not seen a creature quite like it before. A carnivore, it had four lithe legs covered with short greyish fur, a shaggy darker mane round its shoulders and along its back, and a long snout full of neat holding and slicing teeth. A flat, pale tongue had lolled between them on to the sand. Also in the sand were most of the creature’s guts. Its belly gave the appearance of having been opened with some kind of four-bladed shredder.
The guts felt and smelled wet and fresh. He looked about apprehensively.
‘I haven’t thanked you yet.’
Soren coughed – or maybe it was a laugh. ‘Your gratitude,’ he croaked, ‘seems premature.’
‘Regardless. I doubt that I deserved your help.’
‘Thirteen years late.’ Swallowing painfully, Soren raised his head, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. ‘You were right about that, Coll. Isn’t a day that’s passed … when it hasn’t eaten at me. She was my sister. And yet I did nothing.’
Coll looked away, up at the arc of stars. ‘What about your wife?’ The words sounded more contemptuous than intended. Soren wheezed. Coughed again.
‘They can keep her. Good riddance.’ He grunted. ‘She’ll survive. She has a way … of doing that.’
Coll poked the sand with his toes.
‘Leave me here,’ Soren told him.
‘Shut up, old man. Save your strength.’
Soren grasped Coll’s arm weakly. He was shaking. ‘I only slow you. I’ll not see another sunset. We both know that.’
For a moment there was only the subliminal hum of the crystal tree, and the noisy breathing of the gennel, which had wisely taken the opportunity to fall asleep.
Coll stood. Sighed. He drew his knife from its sheath on his belt, and dragged the strange animal closer by its limp hind leg. It was quite a bit heavier than it had looked. ‘I am tired of running,’ he said, dropping to a crouch beside Soren. ‘Whatever our fate, Uncle, here is where it will be decided.’
‘Eighteen summers. Already such a fatalist. When I was your age …’ Soren was seized by a coughing fit. Recovering, he shook his head. ‘I swear … all I could think about was grog and fornication.’ Coll saw teeth glinting. ‘And the breasts of a woman – married, mind you – called … Tanith Biddens.’
‘Another difference, then, between you and me.’
‘Ah, Coll … but you never saw them. High point of my life. Seriously.’ More coughing. ‘She was so much better than me … in every way. And yet, somehow, I got to hold those incredible breasts … in my blacksmith’s hands. I wonder if I’ll think of them … when Dar Felisti comes?’
Dar Felisti. The god charged with escorting the dead across the Endless Desert to the Gardens of Fellas. Or some such shit. Coll slid his knife along the creature’s spine and, with three quick rips, yanked off its skin.
Then he placed the skin over his uncle’s torso and began to fillet its previous owner.
THEIR HUNTERS CAME just after sunrise.
Coll suspected they had known his and Soren’s location for most of the night. They had just waited until daylight to be sure there could be no surprises.
The troupe must have been thirty strong. Each sat astride a gennel, the leading animals ridden – if Coll had their crests and colours right – by Hels, Lord Froeslen’s only male heir, and the brothers and sons of most of the other nobles Coll had slaughtered, what seemed now a lifetime ago.
Even in the heat, they wore steel chainmail or light plate armour beneath their travel cloaks. The flanks of their gennels were protected by skirts of armoured hides or flexibly linked, scale-like plates of beaten steel. Clearly hand-picked from the House Guard and lower ranks of the affronted families, their followers wore a variety of more tarnished armour and travel-stained cloaks and tunics. All wore headscarves or wide-brimmed leather hats to keep off the sun. A pair of slavering dings strained silently on long leashes.
The small army fanned out on the crest of the dune overlooking the crystal tree’s hollow.
In the shadow at the base of the tree, they saw two figures lying side by side, huddled beneath the blacksmith’s greatcloak. Wearing Coll’s bloodstained tunic, and with a russet scarf wrapped, nomad-style, round its head and face, only one showed signs of life. Heavy boots and a what looked like matted hair protruded from the cloak’s wider part. Blood darkened the sand. Tied to one of the tree’s branches, whinnying nervously, the gennel the pair had been riding pulled lethargically at its tether.
Hels took off first his broad-brimmed hat, and then his father’s splendidly polished helmet. He had looked most foolish, Coll thought, wearing both at once.
‘Blacksmith’s apprentice!’ Hels called down at the forlorn spectacle. His strident voice was tight with fury. ‘You fought well, I’ll grant you that. And you have given us a good chase. Four of our riders have returned home in shame. The same goes to you, blacksmith Soren. Treacherous though you are.
‘But it is over now! Now is the time to yield. Do you yield?’
The figure in the bloody tunic stirred slightly.
‘What are your terms?’ croaked a voice from the hollow.
‘“Terms”, you say?’ Hels turned his head fractionally and barked out a cold laugh. His mount fidgeted, snorting. ‘Has your cowardly friend lost his tongue, blacksmith? How are you enjoying the arrow we put in you? You must be near death, I should imagine. The truth is, I already mistook you for a corpse.’
Eyes wide and staring, Hels leaned forward, elbows splayed, hands braced on his thighs.
‘Well now, our “terms” may not be so enticing. That traitorous lowlife you rescued, who squirms beside you like a worm, has murdered an entire generation of lords and duchens. He shall suffer mightily for it. As shall you – and so shall your family, to the furthest removed child. In fact, such shall be the extent and duration of the suffering we will inflict upon you and your kin that new machines will have to be built to inflict it. Our only terms are these: that should you fail to resist when we take you, the retribution exacted upon you and your families will be marginally less bloody and merciless. So I say to you both now, I beg you. Please – resist us!’
