The Awakening (7 page)

She lay sobbing, yet dry-eyed. There were no more tears left for her to cry. The deep, racking sobs slowed and then stopped. The pain did not abate, but Hwenfayre was able to look up at Wyn. He stood motionless, impassive, as he stared down at her. Their eyes met. An unreadable expression flickered across Wyn’s eyes, then he reached out his hand to help Hwenfayre to her feet.

She took his hand, feeling the calluses of a fighting man. He lifted her up with a strength that surprised her.

‘Come, Hwenfayre. You should leave this place. It is no longer safe,’ he rumbled. Numbly she nodded and followed him as he led her down the stairs and along the dark streets, back to her empty home.

As they walked, Hwenfayre was faintly aware that he never let go of her hand. She was also conscious, as though looking through a glass, of the stares of the people they passed. Their mutters, their words, went unheard. The only thing Hwenfayre was aware of was the pain.

Once inside, Wyn released her hand. Gently he guided her to a chair. She sat limply. He hunkered down in front of her, taking hold of her hand once more.

‘Hwenfayre,’ he said gently. ‘Hwenfayre. You cannot stay here.’ She stared past him, her eyes registering neither Wyn nor his words. The only indication he received that she even heard him was a slight tightening of her hand as it lay in his. ‘Hwenfayre,’ he said again. ‘Hwenfayre, it is too dangerous for you to stay here. You must leave.’

She blinked and pulled her hand back. ‘Why?’

‘Don’t you remember what the Coerl told you? These people are simple, superstitious. They fear what they don’t understand. And what they fear, they kill. You are in great danger.’ He spoke in low, earnest tones.

‘But how can I leave? Where would I go?’

‘Hwenfayre, you must go home. Back to the Sea, where you truly belong. Come with me.’ A light of impossible hope flickered in her eyes as she stared at the man crouched before her. A small smile played about the corners of his mouth as he nodded slightly. ‘It’s true,’ he continued, ‘you do not belong here.’ He stood, suddenly looming tall in front of her. ‘Come. Let me take you home, my Princess of the Sea.’

Slowly, wrestling with the tumult of conflicting emotions within her, Hwenfayre reached up and took the hand he offered.

Together they vanished into the night.

Shanek grunted with effort as he spun away. The sun was hot on his head and sweat beaded his torso. He wore only his training kilt and his feet were bare as they scuffed the hot sands of the battle ring. Over the sound of his own laboured breathing, he heard the creak of leather armour as Coerl Leone drew back her arm for a strike at his naked back.

His momentum carried him forward, twisting to his right as he spun the bolas over his head. The ancient weapon hummed, almost in anticipation, as he regained his balance. His next move was one that he had practised in private and he was sure that Leone would have no defence.

The Coerl’s blade sliced through the air. Shanek dropped to his left knee, pivoted, and spun the bolas into two overlapping circles, one horizontal, one vertical. The horizontally spinning cable wrapped around her knees, whilst the vertical one snaked around her sword arm.

‘Burn it!’ Leone cursed as the two bolae crashed painfully against her. But the move was not complete. Even as she started to drag her sword
arm back, Shanek continued in his pivot, leaning back and throwing all his weight away from her. The sudden change of direction jerked Leone off balance. With her knees still wrapped by the heavy bolas cord, she had no option but to crash to the ground.

Still balanced, Shanek threw himself on the winded Coerl as he whipped a length of the bolas cord around her neck. Panting heavily, he grinned at her, his face close to hers.

‘You’re dead, Coerl Leone,’ he gasped. ‘Now I hold power over you.’

‘No, First Son,’ she said. ‘You don’t. And I am not dead, you are.’ Her eyes looked down. Shanek followed her gaze to where she held a dagger in her left hand. It was lightly touching his groin, a hair’s breadth away from the artery. He looked up into her eyes. ‘Your lifeblood would be staining my uniform before you could tighten that cord, First Son,’ she hissed.

‘Burn me, but you’re good!’ shouted Shanek. He rolled off Leone and sprang to his feet. In deference to centuries of custom, he stepped out of the battle ring and bowed to his opponent.

Coerl Leone stood. Shanek was pleased to note that she was breathing heavily, her face flushed with exertion. ‘That was a new move, First Son,’ she said. ‘You’ve been practising on your own again.’

Shanek nodded. ‘Coerl…’ he began.

‘First Son!’ the call interrupted him.

In annoyance, he looked to find the voice. He frowned as he identified Salen, a young noble who had been attempting to cultivate his friendship for
several months. Shanek had considered using the ambitious man, but no one interrupted a weapons session. He turned to address Leone.

‘I think that the ambitious Salen has just won a ten-year tour of the Great Fastness, hunting wyverns and keeping the Thane safe from banditry.’

Coerl Leone allowed herself a small smile. ‘I think he may need some company, First Son.’

Shanek raised his eyebrows. ‘Who did you have in mind?’

‘Marcene and her poisonous sister should be able to keep him warm at night, First Son,’ she said.

‘Hmm. I hadn’t thought of them.’ He regarded Leone. ‘Do they have any military training?’

Leone shook her head. ‘No, First Son, but they’re bright girls. They’ll learn fast.’

Shanek laughed, half considering her idea. The two girls were becoming annoying with their importuning. A few years chasing bandits and wyverns, and maybe a few wild Skrinnies, might dampen their enthusiasm a bit. The light tread of Salen’s approach broke his train of thought. Shanek slowly shifted to face the approaching noble.

‘What are you doing here?’ he snarled.

Salen was taken aback by the venom in the First Son’s voice.

‘I…I,’ he stammered.

‘Well?’ demanded Shanek. ‘Out with it!’

‘Your father sent me,’ he said.

‘My father? Why would he send you?’

‘He didn’t say, Shanek. He just told me to come here and bring you to meet with the Thane.’

Coerl Leone stiffened, her hand gripping her sword hilt. ‘You will address the First Son with due respect, Salen!’ she hissed.

Salen regarded the Coerl with an arrogant eye. ‘Who are you to tell me how to speak?’ he demanded.

‘I am Coerl Leone,’ she replied, her voice now a whisper.

‘So?’ replied Salen.

Shanek marvelled at how stupid one man could be. Surely anyone with a whit of sense could have smelled the death in the air. This fool was a careless syllable away from violent death, and he even swaggered!

Leone’s anger was unlike anything he had seen in her before. It seemed that he could actually feel it, yet as he turned to look at her she appeared completely at ease. Only the slight tightness around her eyes and the way she gripped her sword gave any hint of the violence he could feel.

Salen smirked and looked to Shanek. ‘Call off your bitch, Shanek,’ he said. ‘I am unamused by her posturing.’

The First Son was still looking at Leone as Salen spoke. Her expression did not change, but he knew what she was about to do and threw himself to the ground as her sword whistled out of its scabbard.

Salen’s blood splattered the dirt around him, several heavy red drops splashing on his back. The noble was dead before he saw the sword move, but Shanek had
known
it was coming.

‘It is unlike you to duck, First Son,’ Leone observed as she wiped her blade. ‘You should know I never miss from this distance.’

Shanek rolled over and looked up at her. ‘I knew you were going to do that.’

Leone nodded. ‘I thought your reflexes were good, First Son, but I must be getting sloppy if you could read my expression that easily.’

‘I didn’t. I just knew,’ he said, still lying flat on his back.

Leone sheathed her blade and held out her hand to help him up. Shanek took it and she pulled him to his feet. ‘We have been fighting together for years, First Son. You know my moves well by now.’

Shanek was unconvinced, but he nodded. He needed to think.

Coerl Leone stood beside him, waiting. Finally, he started to move away towards the changing rooms. With a gesture to the awaiting Skrinnies, Leone followed him.

Behind them, the tall, angular Skrin Tia’k slaves walked with their peculiarly lugubrious gait to clean up the mess that used to be Salen, their exoskeletal legs clicking as they moved.

Shanek received a small smattering of applause as he left the Training Arena. One or two young women called out encouragement or made other, less seemly offers. The First Son ignored them as he left, just as he also ignored the comradely greetings from other soldiers who were training. Normally, he would have stopped to talk to some, but today he was too distracted. The disappointment of his failure with the new move, the interruption, the odd sense of knowing Leone’s move before time, as well as the curious summons from his father, all spun through
his mind. What could his father want? It was the Thane’s Week of Celebration; no one worked, not even the First Counsellor. Tradition held that it celebrated the last great victory over the Skrin Tia’k.

He stopped and looked at the three Skrinnie slaves as they carried the body off the arena, trying to imagine the gangly arthropoid creatures fighting a war that lasted for generations. They stood, usually on their hind limbs, about half as tall again as a human, with their middle limbs doing any carrying, while their forelimbs were used for any delicate work. As vassals of the Asan, their long and supple fingers were used to create art works of exceptional complexity, while their strong backs were useful for labour. A quality Skrinnie carving, especially in the rare red obsidian from the far north, would sell for a year’s wages. The Skrin Tia’k slaves were strong and skilled, but usually slow to learn to follow anything but the most simple commands. It appeared that their artistic ability was innate and any slave owner who happened upon a natural artisan was suddenly wealthy. The Skrinnies were useful slaves but had been a formidable foe in a generations-long war. Shanek had trouble believing that they could ever be anything but a nuisance to the mighty Army of the World.

The historical accounts, now so old as to be almost legend, recounted that after a particularly brutal battle the humans were so impoverished by decades of losing that the Thane and the First Counsellor were barefoot, having given their shoes to the army. They also slept on the ground with the army as their fine tent had been torn up for bandages.

During the week that followed this battle, the First Counsellor showed the brilliance in warfare that had been the trademark of the Asan ever since. With a series of stunningly perceptive moves, he had outmanoeuvred the Skrinnie army, inflicting massive casualties. Each move, if legend reflected truth, seemed to fly in the face of everything they had done before, but each one caught the enemy by surprise. The carnage had been terrible, with fully eight of every ten Skrinnies killed. The entire nation was routed and the once-powerful creatures were driven into perpetual slavery.

Now, the Skrinnies were subservient and weak. Domovoi was right about one thing: the free labour provided by the Skrin Tia’k had long aided the Asan economy. By putting the captured armies of the other human peoples on the continent to work in the farms, the Asan had become wealthy beyond measure.

Now, however, the tactical genius of early First Counsellors was a thing of the legendary past. Instead of brilliance, the Asan overwhelmed their enemies by the simple weight of numbers.

Anger!

The raw emotion shot through Shanek like a spear thrust. His head snapped around, looking for the shout or the cry that must have come, but the arena was quiet. Only the normal grunts and muted clang of weapons echoed. Unconsciously, he started to whirl the bolas, the heavy spiked balls whistling as they circled his head.

The distinctive bolas whistle caused a few to stop in their practice bouts to look, puzzlement on their
faces. Shanek let the bolas slow and fall to the ground.

‘First Son?’ asked Leone. ‘Is something wrong?’ Her sword was out, her eyes searching.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I just thought I heard something. It’s nothing.’

Coerl Leone took up her station, one pace back at Shanek’s left. The rest of the Fyrd encircled them as they made their way back to the Palace of the Thane.

Outside the Training Arena, the celebrating crowds parted for them. On this the fourth day of the Celebration week, the people were free to fill the streets and enjoy a day of unbridled merrymaking. Many children owed their conception to this day of wild debauchery. Naturally, it was also a day on which many lost their lives to opportunistic crime as the various gangs took to the streets in search of easy prey.

The noise of happy revelry filled Shanek’s ears as he walked within his protective shield. The normal glares of discontent that he often noticed were missing, replaced by drunken leering, the glazed stares of the drugged and the wild-eyed excitement of the young. It was another hot afternoon and the drink had been flowing freely since sunrise. The smells of stale beer, vomit and sex mingled with the normal stench of the masses to produce something special for this most special of days.

A shrill ululating squeal split the air, stilling the raucous cheerfulness as a Skrin Tia’k somewhere met its end at the hands of a mob bent on celebrating their victory in style. While the unnatural silence held, Shanek looked at the faces of the revellers around
him. He saw bestial pleasure as they savoured the sounds of the death of the ancient enemy. A shock of visceral hunger ripped through him, drawing his face into a snarl. He could almost taste the blood and feel the death shudders of the slave as the knife struck again and again. He could see the angry faces of his attackers as they tore the Skrinnie’s body apart. Shanek shook with the Skrinnie’s pain.

‘First Son!’

His eyes focused on Coerl Leone. Why was she suddenly so tall? The sky above him was glaringly bright. Why was he lying on the ground?

‘What happened?’ he asked. As he spoke, he felt blood trickle down his chin. He wiped it off, staring at the bright red stain on his fingers.

Leone helped him to his feet. ‘You started to scream and fell down,’ she said. ‘We feared you had been attacked.’

Shanek felt his body, checking for wounds. Finding none, he thought back over his vision. ‘Down there,’ he pointed to a narrow alley. ‘You will find seven men armed with knives. They have just butchered that Skrinnie we heard. I want them brought alive to me at the palace.’

Leone gestured to four of her Fyrd. They turned and jogged away, swords drawn. Shanek stalked towards the Palace, his confusion and fear rapidly changing to anger.

How dare they!
He seethed. Around him the noise of the crowd seemed to dim, to be replaced by a simmering fury, the like of which he had never experienced. He was unaware of Leone and her Fyrd as they re-formed the living shield around him, he
was only conscious of the hard ground beneath his feet and the rising emotion within.

His hands, gloved to protect them from the hundreds of tiny barbs that ran the length of the bolas cord, gripped the weapon. The layer of metal that prevented the barbs from catching on the gloves rasped as he alternately clenched and released his fists. By the time he reached the Palace, his fury was almost out of control. His hands, when they weren’t tightly gripping his bolas, were shaking, his face was pale, and his back, still splattered with blood, was rigid. Leone had seen him angry but never anything like this.

His mood left her edgy and unsure. Normally alert for anything that might threaten his welfare, she found herself distracted and unfocused, unable to decide whether Shanek was in danger from the crowd or posed one himself. She watched his movements, trying to discern if he was about to use his weapon, and if so, on whom. Her sword drawn as she walked, she was oblivious to the trail of tiny drops of blood that followed her, evidence of the dozens of wounds Shanek had given her during their training bout. Such wounds were normal, but today he had caught her by surprise with his new move. Its combination of speed, strength and subtlety was remarkably skilful, far beyond what he had done previously.