The Enchanted Castle (Shioni of Sheba Book 1) (13 page)

F
or two further days
Shioni roamed the mountains like the proverbial lost sheep, doing much seeking and considerably less finding.

Her thoughts f
loated on the wind as Star trotted wearily away from the village she had just visited. She had spent three days and nights high in the mountains so far, but the rare, water-loving red disa flower the Fiuri needed was no closer to being found. She’d lost count of the number of villages she had stopped in to enquire.

She
stretched her aching legs. She could gladly have peeled off her ferengi skin. Yesterday, some villagers had driven her away by pelting her with stones. Some villagers seemed to fear she was one of the Wasabi; others shouted about a giant asmati. When she tried to explain that she was from West Sheba, from the river-people, a bold child had enquired if the river had washed all the brown out of her skin! She felt too worn out and dejected to find this funny.

Why
a disa flower? Why not desert rose, euphorbia, or even a fireball lily? She’d passed these in bucket-loads, in cart-loads even! Although the desert rose was a deadly poison, often used on arrows. That might not work. As she wound along the stream higher and higher amidst the peaks, the still pools were often thick with fiery orange and crimson water-lilies. Surely one of the butterfly-people wouldn’t mind a few of these? They were beautiful enough!

At least this side of the mountain seemed to be wetter. She was sure to find a red disa soon. Shioni tried not to think too hard about the
Fiuri dying before she returned.

It was late afternoon, and the sun’s rays still pressed down intently, as though intent on smothering anything that moved and breathed in a blanket of heat. Shioni wished she had brought a hat or a headscarf. But then she didn’t own any, did she? Her skin would fry like Mama’s crispy beef. And her stomach had a hole in it! A growling, growing hole. Next time she should remember to bring
a reasonable amount of food to eat. Silly! She had only been able to scavenge berries and grass seeds so far. Selam or Tariku would probably have known many edible plants, having grown up in the mountains.

Here the stream
she was following ended in a pretty dell, surrounded by spikey lobelia trees and tufty mountain grasses, where a spring bubbled up from beneath a large boulder. At least the last set of villagers hadn’t been lying about this part! The blind leader of the village–the
shemagele
or male elder–had been kind to her and helped with directions. Shioni dismounted. But he had been curiously vague about the trail beyond the spring. Hesitant, as if he knew something he was not telling her.

She let the pony drink, rubbing her st
omach absently. This niggling in her gut wasn’t just hunger… she should keep a falcon’s watch on her surroundings. Would the Sheban scouts have come this deep into the mountains? Where was the sun? Having set out north from the castle, the trail had slowly curved around to the west and even directly southward now, so that she was not that far from the castle, perhaps only a day and a half’s hard riding at her best guess–if she did not have to detour for another impassable cliff or cleft.

Shioni turned on her heel. A few berries, a drink and a rest were needed to refresh her.

Toward sundown she set off on foot, up the steep, rocky slope beyond the spring toward the top of the ridge she had been aiming for all day. Somewhere up here she should find a waterfall called the ‘little Jinbar’ by the villagers.

As she approached the crest of the ridge, Shioni began to feel a low rumbling beneath her feet and hear a powerful rushing of water. To her left hand the peaks and high meadows
of emerald-green moss, dotted with small rocks, rose still higher, but ahead of her a wonderful vista opened up. The ridge cut away in a dizzying drop to an avocado-green valley ridged like a crumpled tablecloth, and beyond it, ridges and peaks scored with the tracks of ancient rivers marched off to the horizon. Mist rose from a plume of water jetting into the depths, so far down that she couldn’t see the bottom.

Shioni wobbled slightly and squatted on her heels so as to feel closer to solid ground. “And this is the
little
Jinbar?” she said. “Amazing! Where’s its big brother?”

It seemed the most likely place to find the elusive disa flower so far.

Just then, she saw something that made her duck behind the nearest boulder. She peered out warily.

Spear
tips… a group of unfamiliar warriors had appeared suddenly from a hidden fold in the ground! Shioni blinked, searching more intently now. That rising meadow above the waterfall must be tricking her eyes. There had to be something concealed… there! Now, with the sun’s help, she could see smoke rising into the reddening sky. The warriors were coming her way. She quickly wormed her way as far beneath the boulder as she could.

“Kalcha needs more goats!” she heard.

“We’ve already taken everything from the villages. They’ve got nothing left.”

Shioni pressed herself against the ground and tried to hold her breath. T
he faces approaching her hiding place were those of fierce, warlike men, their cheeks and foreheads scarred with tribal markings and painted to resemble hyenas.

“Last night was something, eh?”

“Torture! Ah, those Shebans bleated like pitiful little lambs. Call them warriors?”

Footsteps thudded around the boulder. Be small, be silent, and don’t see me, Shioni prayed. One of the Wasabi gave an evil laugh:

“Threw them over the waterfall, after. Ha ha!”

“Four days till full moon, boys. Then we crush those weaklings!”

A
s their voices faded,
Shioni lay in the lee of the boulder and tried not to be sick. Those poor captured warriors! She could hardly imagine what they must have suffered. Finally, weakly, she wriggled out and considered her options. A horrible fate awaited her if she was discovered. But if she could take a look at the Wasabi camp and give General Getu some good information, her punishment might be lightened. She might also find a disa near the waterfall. But both tasks were best accomplished while there was still some light in the sky.

Finally, she chose the
Fiuri. She was dying, whereas the warriors in the castle still had a good chance if she could warn them in time.

Dropping into a crouching run, Shioni
darted from boulder to boulder, as far down the slope towards the cliff edge as she dared so as not to be easily seen. Here she found the thread of an animal trail. But as she neared the waterfall, following the trail, the rocks grew slick with wet mosses, and the thick, overhanging ferns and long sharp grasses had to be pushed aside. She picked her way uneasily now, placing each step with care. The tree branches were blotched with lichens and draped with soggy, hanging old-man’s-beard moss. She surprised a young wild goat grazing on the lichens. It bounded away down the sheer cliff face with astonishing agility.

Her clothes were
sticking to her skin. Here, right next to the rushing water, the thunder was deafening and the spray constant. Where were those… oh! There, peeking out from beneath an overhang, in a splash of the most vivid red–just as Mama had described, with three distinctive blade-shaped petals–was a small disa. She smiled happily. Now that she had spotted one, she saw several others lower down, but those would be impossible to reach without the wings of an eagle.

So near
…! The pretty flower was
just
out of her reach, and to secure it Shioni realised she would have to brave the waterfall itself. She could almost see Mama Nomuula and Annakiya wagging their fingers sternly. ‘Don’t put yourself in danger, Shioni!’ ‘No risks please!’

Well,
it was worth it, right?

She
always said something like that when she was about to do something foolish. Shioni untied the rough cord belt of her leggings, feeling both annoyed and comforted by her friends’ mothering. She looped one end of the cord around the base of a spindly tree and tied it fast. Then she tied the free end around her wrist.

“Oh!” she gasped
. The water was freezing! Shioni leaned out, trying to plunge her hand through the torrent, but the rushing water kept batting her about like a toy. She tried to squeeze herself like another layer of moss along the rocks, but that meant putting her head into the flow. It was so cold it hurt to think.

But finally, her determination won out
. Shioni’s exploring fingers won a grip near the flower. “Come on. Gently…”

The root-clump came loose in her numb
ed fingers. Gingerly, she drew back, praying all the while the plant wouldn’t be swept away. Every muscle in her back bore the weight of water crashing down over her body. She almost bit a hole in her tongue as her wounded shoulder twinged severely. With a small scream, she broke free!

Mama Nomuula had given her a small bag she used for collecting herbs
. With trembling fingers, Shioni worked the buckle open and drew out a clay pot. First, she scooped up a handful of wet moss and tamped it into the bottom and sides. Next she inserted the root clump, and then with great care, bent the stem to persuade the precious flower inside the lid. She tied it shut.

Now… back to her mount to
fetch her blanket? The sun was already dipping behind those far mountains. The sunset had a gorgeous, luminous quality–but that would quickly disappear into the gathering evening.

Sodden and shivering to her very core
, Shioni scrambled back up the trail, her precious bundle tapping against her back at every step. The temperature was dropping alarmingly. She was far higher even than at Castle Asmat. Yes, and she should bring more clothing next time, even if she had to steal it! And try not to jump through waterfalls in the cool of the evening...

It was all open
, flower-sprinkled meadow up to where the warriors had appeared, dotted here and there with giant lobelia trees and waist-high boulders. Shioni drew a deep breath and gathered her courage. Time to spy on the Wasabi.

Hopefully her chattering teeth would not give her away.

The Wasabi warriors had come along a narrow gully, she found, which climbed sharply up to the meadow. That was why they had appeared so unexpectedly. But rather than follow their route, she chose to climb higher still, up to a rocky clump of boulders on the lip of a huge overhang. Here the meadow had been gouged away, perhaps by a flood, leaving a vertical cliff of blood-red soil and dark embedded rocks some five or six warriors tall.

Shioni
looked around. No sentries? But plenty of warriors down below! None that she could see on the edge of the cliff…
no–there was one man, far off and looking in a different direction. She dropped onto her belly and crawled to the edge.

Below, she saw that
a sandy expanse beside the Jinbar River had been completely taken over by the Wasabi camp. There must have been over two hundred smaller tents, about as many fires, and in the distance, she saw several towering catapults and a thorn bush corral that held too many mountain ponies to count. The nearest and largest pavilion tent was pitched so close to the cliff, she could have taken a running leap and landed right on top of it.

But it was the great black pavilion that
arrested her attention. Eight of the largest hyenas she had ever seen, great brutes the size of a small pony, were chained alongside it. Poor Anbessa! But her jaw hadn’t even begun to drop open before a tall woman in black robes came sweeping out of the tent, shouting:

“Where is my chariot?
Bring me my chariot, you idiots! I must make sacrifices to the spirits before moonrise!” She kicked out at a scuttling servant. “Or it’ll be your head rolling tonight, I promise!”

Kalcha!
Shioni had no doubt whatsoever that she was lying a stone’s throw from the witch-leader of the Wasabi. If they discovered her she would be tossed over the waterfall like the Sheban warriors the night before.

Kalcha
clapped her hands. At once all the hyenas’ chains unwound themselves from their posts, and writhed like tinkling metal snakes across the ground, before leaping into her outstretched hand! The hyenas followed, crawling on their bellies before her like young wolves abasing themselves before their pack leader.

“Ah, my lovelies!” she said
, with a ghastly smile. “Soon we will feast on the blood and bones of these soft river people. We will descend like locusts upon a succulent harvest and gorge ourselves until our bellies are sore. Such a delicious feast I have prepared for you!”

“Mistress!” yipped the beasts
. “Command us, great mistress!”

“Four days!”
Kalcha drew three or four of their revoltingly ugly heads into her embrace. “Four days and my power shall rise even as the full moon waxes above the mountains, and my curse fall like fire upon their heads! Then will I hold in my hands the power to change you all, to make you men, men such as this world has never seen! We will build our kingdom of death and destruction, and you will become kings and enslave all mankind!”

Such a wild, bawling
, bloodthirsty chorus rose from the hyenas that every hair on the back of Shioni’s neck stood on end. She recoiled, turned, and found herself gazing down the meadow at a young Wasabi warrior leading Star along by a rope! He stared at her in shock. Had he stopped because of the fearful howling?

Shioni responded
instinctively. Slowly, as if dreaming, she lifted her arms and started down the hill toward the warrior, chanting, “I am the spirit of your father… the ghost of those long gone…”

The poor young man startled
as though he
had
seen a ghost. First he threw up his arms, as if to ward her off, and then his face drained of colour and, dropping the pony’s rope halter, he pelted away screeching and hollering that he was about to die!

Shioni quickly caught
Star and swung onto her back. Already, there were shouts coming from the hill as warriors responded to the commotion. An arrow pinged off a nearby boulder. Two long-legged Wasabi warriors came hurtling down the meadow toward her, brandishing their spears, hurdling the boulders and pounding over the grassy tussocks like crazed goats in an attempt to cut off her escape. “Come on, girl!” Shioni urged Star. “The hyenas will eat you if you don’t!”

Scaring
her mount half to death was hardly a kindness!

But the tired old pony found such wind as would have made the finest of Arabian
horses proud. She took off like a peregrine falcon at the apex of its dive, so fast that the wind beat like wings in Shioni’s ears, and she had to clutch Star’s neck to keep from being thrown off. In moments they outran a brief flurry of spears and arrows.

Shioni clucked gently
. “Easy now Star, old girl. You did well!”

Star was not too tired to send
her a boasting picture of a pony with wings swooping over the peaks and valleys.

She
glanced back. The Wasabi hyena-warriors would be hot on her trail soon. God help her if the witch caught up! She had to think quickly now–yes, down to the river she had come along, throw a false trail, and then bag the pony’s feet with cuts of her blanket. It was an old trick she had overheard two of the warriors talking about one night at the castle. She only hoped it worked, or she would be strung up a Wasabi tree faster than she could scare a turtledove out of its nest! After that she would cut eastward over the high passes, if she could, to Castle Asmat.

She prodded Star with her knees
. She should make haste, but not panic. Even if returning to the castle meant leaping out of the frying pan into a nice hot fire. What a cheerful thought!