The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (40 page)

“From whence comes your power?”

“I do not know, but I assume that Pelion understood. I was made to act, not to teach, and that knowledge was not given to me. Some of us have sought it, but none have learned Pelion’s secrets, and he in no longer… available.”

Keb thought for a moment that Narak was trying to mislead him, to confuse him in some way. It was said among the priests of Seth Yarra that the demon Narak was the cleverest of all the demons in this land, that he could foretell the actions of others and lead them into error. It was said that he could even make the truth lie on his behalf. Keb saw none of that. Narak seemed relaxed. He seemed honest. Keb had seen men with power. In the weeks before he had boarded ship for this land he had been spoken to by the highly exalted, the black and green clad men who ruled his own and, and in Narak he saw the same ease, the same confidence.

“Why do you tell me these things?” he asked.

“Call it whim,” Narak laughed. “I could not say such words to others. Now you tell me, from where comes your power?”

“Power? I have no power.”

“Your rule; the stick with which you beat your common folk. Where does it come from?”

“We beat no-one,” he said, but in his minds eye he saw his father again, a strong man whining and bending before the pompous priests.

“Your truth, then, though I’ll wager it amounts to the same thing. Whence comes your truth?”

“From Seth Yarra.”

“He speaks to you?”

“You mean The Book. It is all written down in The Book.”

“A mighty volume, then, if it tells all you say.”

“It is many volumes,” Keb said. “Together they are known as The Book.”

“And who wrote this book?”

“Seth Yarra.”

“What? Your god took up pen and ink and sat at a desk writing words on parchment?”

Keb tried to frame an answer in his head, but found that he could not. The image of Seth Yarra with a quill in hand scratching at a parchment by candle light seemed blasphemous, but most of the alternatives were worse.

“That knowledge has not been given to me,” he said, resorting to Narak’s own words. The Wolf smiled.

“A fair answer,” he said. “But it is a question that you should ask if you ever have the opportunity. So all the words in this book, they remain unchanged, year after year, century after century.”

“They do.”

“There is never any improvement, no advance, no better plough, no stronger bow, no better way to sail a ship?”

“No. Why would there be? All are things that Seth Yarra has revealed to us. They are the best of everything.”

“No new tactics in battle, then? No adaptation, originality, creative thinking?”

“No.”

“Then you will lose, because our tactics are better. They change and adapt to our enemy. Our cavalry gives us a great advantage, and four hundred years ago we beat you. Nothing changes. Your own book says that you must lose, that your fellows must be slaughtered.” He stood and rapped on the door. “I must go now. There is an army to be led, and another to be defeated. I will come back and tell you how it went.”

The door opened and closed, and Keb was abruptly alone once more. How could that be? Narak’s words had a ring of truth. He had read the section of The Book that dealt with warfare. He had read it many times. Whole passages still lived in his head.

He knew with awful certainty that Narak was correct. If they obeyed the book they would lose. If they did not then they were indeed lost.

Pascha watched the men for some time. It was quickly apparent from their behaviour that they were hiding, and shortly after that she saw that several of them were wounded. A flock of sparrows moved from branch to branch above them, and through sparrow ears she listened to their conversation. Through their eyes she studied them.

They were Berashi. These were men who had escaped when the gate fell, and she was surprised that there were so many. There were enough of them to be a useful force.

Pascha was unsure what she should do. She had stayed on the hill outside Benafelas until the Seth Yarra army marched, but it had not been a lengthy wait. She had expected it to be days. The camps were not even half complete when they left. It was as though they had seized upon a new urgency. There was a lot of shouting, and men had formed up into marching order, long columns snaking through the camps, and then they had gone, followed by ox-drawn carts laden with supplies. Pascha did not recognise the breed of ox, and thought that they must be something that had come with them on the ships.

She had tried to count them, and had reported their number to Narak using the calling ring. Ten thousand men marched. The remainder stayed behind.

Now she was in the woods close to the pass, west of the Green Road, west of the gate. She had looked at the gate, and seen that it was still closed, blocked by a great stone. She had passed through it many times, usually disguised as a mortal woman, and she had seen the great stone that hung above the arch. From the activity around it she guessed that the Berashi had cut it down as they left.

But what to do? She had told Narak about the Seth Yarra, she had found the men as he had asked, but he had not told her what to do when she found them. What would Narak want?

She should speak to them. They would be afraid, thinking that they would be unable to return home, that all was lost. It would help them to know that Narak meant to retake the gate.

She rose from the grass where she had been sitting, watching them, and started through the trees. She was glad of the cloak she wore, glad of all her warm clothes and her stout boots. This close to the Dragon’s Back, this far north, it was cold.

She made no concessions to stealth. She did not want to be thought to be sneaking up on the men, but strode purposefully through the trees in their direction, scuffing leaves and snapping sticks beneath her feet. It was no surprise at all when a couple of soldiers stepped out from behind a bush, one with a sword and another with a bow, and told her to halt.

“Take me to your commander,” she said.

The men hesitated for a moment. She assumed that they would do what she asked because she did not look particularly threatening. In spite of the sword at her hip and the bow across her shoulders she was a foot shorter than both of them, and slightly built.

“Follow me,” the swordsman said. The archer waited for her to do so, and then followed, an arrow on his string. She heard his footsteps a prudent distance behind her, and smiled. His arrow’s point was plain steel, and could not harm her, but these were cautious men, good soldiers.

It was one of the odd things about blood silver. Narak could smell it. He had told her that if blood silver was within fifty feet he could smell it like burnt sugar in the air. Pascha smelled nothing, but when a weapon was drawn she could see blood silver as a colour, a sheen of red and blue like a piece of a rainbow drawn from the metal.

They marched her into the midst of the Berashi camp, if it could be called a camp. There were no tents, there was no fire. Men sat or lay on the bare ground. They looked defeated, and she supposed that was fair.

An older man, grey touching his hair, got to his feet when he saw her. He seemed a little sore jointed, perhaps a little old to be running in the woods with younger men. He executed a shallow but polite bow.

“I am Major Tragil,” the man said, speaking in fluent Telan. “You are welcome to our camp, my lady, but I fear we have nothing to share with you but hardship.”

Pascha chose to reply in Berashi. “I am pleased to find so many of you well, Major,” she said. “I am come to tell you that you have not been forgotten. Even now soldiers march to retake the gate. Narak said you left many dead Telans behind you.”

She felt the stir she caused among the soldiers. Heads were raised. Faces turned to catch her words.

“Wolf Narak comes?” the Major asked. There was hope in his voice, almost as if he expected the victor of Afael to retake the gate single handed, and maybe he could.

“Narak is busy in the east,” she said. “But I am here in his stead.”

Shaking heads, expressions of despair from the men, but Tragil was not so unwise.

“Forgive me, my lady, but I do not know your name.”

“I am called by many names,” she replied. “Passerina, lady of a thousand eyes, Benetheon god of sparrows, lord of the air. The customary form of address is Deus.”

She saw doubt in Tragil’s eyes. There was part of her that had expected it. She had stayed hidden for as long as any mortal could remember. The Benetheon’s business was none of men’s, but she had not been called by her god name since Afael, or at least not by men. She had become Pascha, an imitation of the woman she had been when Pelion called her.

“Deus, I am glad to see you. It has been said that you were dead.”

“As you can see, I am not.”

“So you say,” a voice from behind declared. She turned to see an officer with one arm in a sling. He was a good looking young man, and in another time and place he would have been interesting, but his challenge was an irritation.

“You challenge me?” she asked.

“Feran, don’t be a fool,” Tragil’s voice was sharp.

“With one arm,” Feran said, not heeding his commander. “I challenge you.”

Pascha laughed. Suddenly it was all very funny. All these years she had hidden in the kingdoms of the south, flitting from house to house, changing her name, pretending that Passerina no longer existed, and now this. It was no more than she deserved. Yet this was a brave man.

“I will be kind to you, Feran of the Berashi,” she said. She took her bow from her shoulders and bending it with her foot she unstrung it. “If any of your men can string my bow I will consider your challenge proven.” She turned to Tragil. “Will you try it Major? I will not consider it an offence.”

She could see the curiosity in his eyes, and knew that he wanted to try. He took the bow from her, and the string, hooked it on the lower notch and tried to bend the bow. He put weight on it, and the lower tip sank into the ground, but it did not bend. He moved it to a rock and tried again. It still would not bend. He hung on the upper end with both hands and pushed at the middle part with his hip. She could see he was going red in the face with the effort, and the bow bent in the gentlest arc, not nearly enough to string it.

“I cannot,” Tragil said, handing it back to her. Pascha smiled and put her foot to the bow again, bending it and fitting the string in a single movement. She unstrung it again.

“Is there another who would try?” she asked.

“You carry a Seth Yarra blade,” Feran said.

“I do,” she admitted. “It is a blood silver blade, an assassin’s weapon, but its owner no longer needed it, and I had no other blade to hand.”

“Hemas?” Feran called a man from among the soldiers. He was a huge bear of a man with unruly dark hair and a beard to match. He reminded Pascha of Beloff, but Hemas apparently didn’t share his officer’s doubts. He bowed respectfully. “Try the bow, Hemas.”

She gave him the bow, wondering if she had been wise with her challenge. His muscles bulged beneath his tunic, and he must have weighed three times what she weighed, being well over six feet tall. He carried an axe that most men would struggle to lift.

Hemas took the bow apologetically and tried it with his hands, managing to bend it slightly. Then he took the string and did as his commander had done, found a rock and tried to bend it. The bow curved. Straining with both hands on the top, and with all his weight pulling down he bent it enough to string it, but the string was not in his hand. He could not catch the string up while keeping the bow bent. Each time he took a hand away the bow straightened again so that he could not get the string to where it needed to be. After a minute of trying he gave up, much to Pascha’s relief.

“I cannot do it, lieutenant,” he said. He handed the bow back to Pascha, bowing again. She made her point by stringing it again with apparent ease.

“Your strength is great, Hemas of the Berashi,” she said. “I have never seen a mortal man do so much with an Aeolian bow. Respect to you.” Hemas looked delighted and embarrassed at the same time. He bowed yet again and sought out anonymity among the men. Pascha turned to Feran. “Is it enough?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at the lieutenant.

“Deus,” he replied. “It is enough. I apologise for doubting you, but your death is part of legend, and your name is unspoken.”

“It will be remember by the Telans,” she said, a dark edge to her voice.