The Shadow’s Curse (39 page)

Song’s words about his mother made the hair stand up on the back of Raim’s neck. Khareh opened his mouth to say something, but Raim jumped in first. ‘King Song, this is your chance to surrender to Khareh-khan. If you do, you may return to your lands to govern them as you always have. We will have several demands that will need to be met, of course. No more slavery. And free trade routes between the North and South.’

‘I hope your plan is a good one,’ Khareh leaned over and whispered to Raim.

‘Don’t worry,’ replied Raim. ‘I made a vow to be your Protector, and I intend to keep it this time.’

‘Go home, Song. We are making the choice easy for you. The North is not yours for the taking,’ said Khareh.

King Song’s eyes threatened to bulge out of his head. ‘You would give orders to me? You are nothing but a boy with a crown and a single friend. I am a king. I have an army of thousands. I don’t have to listen to you. If you do not move, I will crush you.’

‘I am nothing but a boy with a crown, that is true. But you underestimate the power of my friend.’

At that, Raim closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and outstretched his arms. He called his spirit to the surface, where it coiled like a snake about to strike. Like a layer peeling away, his spirit spread from his body. He was a sage of the highest order: he could use
his own
spirit as the source of his power. His spectral form flew straight up in the air, following the line of the cliff, and as he did so, a handful of sand from by Raim’s feet flew out behind him.

The sand buffeted against the king’s clothes. He wiped it away, perplexed.

Then Raim’s eyes flew open and he directed all his energy at the king. His spirit whipped up the sand in front of the king, until it was a whirlwind in miniature.

King Song took several steps backwards. ‘You think a little sand will stop me?’ he bellowed. Then, he raised a horn to his lips and blew it hard. The signal for his army. They began to rush towards the cliffs, a thousands spears lifted at once, and the desert shook with the sudden approach of men hollering for victory. They wanted to make Raim and Khareh flee to safety in Lazar, where they would pursue them until the end. But Raim had no plans to move. And Khareh stood solid as a stone beside him.

Raim sent his spirit flying out across the desert, picking up more and more sand in his wake. It looked as if a curtain of sand was lifting up out of the desert – a wall built from thousands of tiny grains. The spirit spun the grit around, so that the walls became more like tornadoes: whirlwinds of sand that were about to hit the Southern King’s army with all the force that he could muster.

‘Do not falter!’ the king shouted, and he blew the horn again. Raim couldn’t tell if his words or the horn had an impact on the sand-battered soldiers – the great golden wall absorbed all sound in the thunderous roar of its own making.

The sand hit the soldiers as they were running, and their battle roars turned to screams. As Raim fed more power into his spirit, the sand gained momentum, building into a fierce maelstrom that devoured everything in its path.

‘Are . . . they . . . running?’ Raim’s voice sounded strained and stilted. His eyes had closed again from the effort, but his eyelids twitched as if they were under great strain. His lips moved, speaking unheard words. Every real word required a lot of effort – effort that he didn’t have.

‘They’re dropping their weapons!’ Khareh said, and Raim could hear it too. Swords fell to the ground as the sand, each grain as sharp as a shard of glass, ate away at every inch of exposed flesh on the soldiers’ bodies – starting with their hands.

‘They’re turning back!’ said Khareh, unable to disguise the glee in his voice.

‘No!’ said the king. ‘Keep coming! Keep coming! Make it to the cliffs!’ But even if they wanted to, the army could not obey. The men covered their heads with their cloaks, disorientated, confused and in pain. The only relief came from turning back, away from the storm.

Inside the whirlwind, the friction of the sand in the air set the king’s tent alight, and flames joined the sand and the wind. The heat grew unbearably intense and smoke thickened any air that was left to breathe.

‘Just a little more!’ shouted Khareh to Raim.

Raim squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. The storm that raged in the desert grew even stronger as his spirit summoned even more sand, engulfing the army. They turned and fled, sprinting back across the sand as fast as they could run. ‘Retreat!’ came the cry from further back, but it was unnecessary. Every soldier was abandoning their post, and soon there was nothing left in that stretch of desert but the bent and broken blades of dropped swords and the bodies of the men who had succumbed to the sand.

‘They’ve stopped,’ said Khareh, and at that Raim broke his contact and opened his eyes. The wall of sand dropped like the final gasp of a waterfall, and an exhausted – but triumphant – spirit came back to join Raim. Immediately, Raim’s spine straightened and a new light came into his eyes. He had done it. He was a sage – and without a single broken oath in sight.

Somehow, the king was still on his feet in front of them, his armour beaten and bent, his rich garments ripped to shreds by the sand, his skin blistered and burned. His army had abandoned him; even his generals looked defeated. The Alashan had huddled together, making themselves as small as possible in the storm. Helmets, swords, shields, littered the ground around the broken king.

Khareh took a step forward. ‘Song, this is the end. Turn over your army and your lands to my command.’

Raim was drained from raising the sand. His muscles were weak; his spirit exhausted. It took all his concentration merely to remain on his feet. And so he was almost too late to see the knife.

King Song snarled. ‘Never,’ he said. He whipped back his cloak, where in his hand, he held a sharp silver dagger. He stabbed the blade at Khareh.

‘Draikh!’ Raim screamed.

The spirit burst from Khareh, in time to shove Khareh aside. The blade sliced harmlessly through the air. Draikh and Khareh rejoined, but by now Khareh had had time to draw his own sword, and it plunged into the king’s side.

Song dropped to his knees. ‘I have failed,’ he said, and those were his final words.

King Song’s generals were in shock, but when Khareh turned to look at them, they instantly dropped to the ground in the lowest bow they could muster.

One dared to lift his sword above his head, and he said the words: ‘Our swords belong to you, now. You are our king.’

‘Raim!’ Wadi couldn’t stand it any more. As soon as she had seen the storm of sand die down, she had rushed out of her place inside the tunnel. She had seen the danger as the king thrust a blade toward Khareh, and she’d seen the exhaustion in Raim as he struggled to prevent it.

She had never seen a storm rage so fiercely in the desert – not in all her years of living there – and Raim had controlled it. No wonder he was tired.

She ran up to him and threw her arms around him. She felt his body collapse into hers, and she broke his fall as he slumped onto the ground. She held his body close to hers and buried her face in his hair.

‘Wadi, you’re here,’ he said, his voice weak.

She pushed him away, enough to look into his eyes. ‘You have changed everything now. You have given it all to him.’ She looked up at Khareh and her eyes flashed.

‘I’m not a khan, Wadi. I never was. Khareh is, in every way.’

Wadi grimaced. ‘There will be many you will have to convince. Including me.’

‘I know. And that is why I will be at his side, making sure he doesn’t make the same mistakes. But I trust him. I trust Draikh.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ she said.

‘Help me stand?’ he asked. She put his arm across her shoulders and together they stood and faced Khareh.

Khareh came over and clasped Raim’s hand. ‘We’ve done it.’

Raim nodded. ‘The South is yours now. You are the Golden Khan. You can claim it.’

‘Yes. The South is mine. But I have one last thing to do first. Can you stand on your own?’

Raim nodded again. Wadi unhooked his arm from around her shoulder, but did not move from his side. Her body still tensed in high alert from having Khareh so near. She didn’t know what he was going to do, and she didn’t trust him. Not even Raim’s trust in him could convince her to – not yet.

Khareh reached out and grasped Raim’s hand. ‘Raimanan, I want to release you from your Absolute Vow to me.’

Wadi saw Raim’s hand tighten around Khareh’s, felt his shock as the words hit home. She placed her other hand on his upper arm, steadying him as he took a shaky step forward. ‘What?’ he said.

Khareh bit his lip, a moment of hesitation, before continuing. ‘You must agree, of course. But I don’t want you to protect me any more.’ He held his hand up to stop Raim from interrupting. ‘Only
if
, in exchange, you agree to knot your allegiance to me as Khan of Darhan in my place, instead.’ He lifted his crown from atop his head and held it out to Raim, gripping it by one of its jaguar fangs.

Raim’s eyes grew wide. He didn’t reach out to take the crown. ‘I . . . I don’t understand.’

Khareh gestured to his new generals. ‘I have a new land to rule now. And if what you say is true about the slaves, then I have a lot of work to do to change things there. And I have so much to learn about the South – knowledge that can help improve life in Darhan. You know it’s always been my dream to visit Aqben. If I want to be the true Golden Khan, then I have to rule equally over the South as the North. And to do that, I have to go there and understand the people.’

Raim seemed lost for words. ‘But, I’m not ready. I’m not a khan.’

Khareh raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s a part of me that says different.’

For a moment, Khareh’s face flickered, and Wadi caught a smile on his face that she had never seen before. It was kind and mischievous all at once.

Raim seemed to recognize this other side of Khareh.

‘Draikh?’ Raim said. The tension seemed to leave his body and a smile appeared on his face too. ‘You’ll love it in the South. Get them to show you their boats – they’re so different from the ones on Lake Oudo – although I don’t suggest a long journey on one.’

‘I will. And don’t worry about leadership. You will have Wadi with you. I don’t think you could ask for a better person to help you remember what’s most important.’

Wadi raised her eyebrows at Khareh’s praise, and he laughed. Then he flicked his eyes back to Raim. ‘So . . . do you accept?’

Raim swallowed hard. ‘I do.’ He reached behind his neck and lifted the knotted promise over his head.

‘Raimanan of the Moloti tribe, I release you from your Absolute Vow to me,’ said Khareh, holding onto one side of the necklace.

‘Khareh-khan, by your will and yours alone, I am no longer your Protector.’

The knot began to smoke and dissolve in front of Wadi’s eyes. There was nothing left except the piece of promise string and the strand of Raim’s hair. They tied them together again in a loose knot, and spoke the new words.

‘Now, Raimanan of the Moloti tribe, will you make a vow of fealty to me, your Golden Khan, as the Khan of Darhan, to be my honoured vassal, and to watch over the homeland of my birth in my stead?’

‘I vow that I will, and that you will always have my loyalty, Khareh-khan, the Golden Khan, leader of the known world.’ Raim’s voice was steady as he spoke, and Wadi squeezed his shoulder in encouragement. They pulled the knot tight.

‘With you looking after Darhan for me, I know my homeland will be safe. In a year, you must come back here to Lazar to meet with me again and I will share with you everything I’ve learned from the South! We’ll make Darhan great,’ said Khareh.

‘We will,’ said Raim. He finally reached out and took the crown from Khareh’s hands.

Wadi felt her heart soar. This was what Raim was destined for. When Raim had pledged his Absolute Vow again to Khareh, she thought all her hard work had been for naught. She thought she had failed Dharma – and failed Darhan. But Raim was Khan now, and Khareh was heading to the South.

A groan came from one of the Alashan, and Wadi remembered herself. She rushed forward, sliding a knife out from the sheath at her belt, and sliced it through their bindings. When she reached Old-maa, she hugged the old woman tightly. She felt her stiffen at the affection at first, but then she relaxed. Wadi smiled until her cheeks burned. She had missed her old tribe so much.

Raim turned to Mesan. ‘Are you all right?’

Mesan nodded. ‘The king did not take too kindly to me helping you escape. But that doesn’t matter now. That was quite the storm. I don’t know how you did it, but I have never seen anything like that in all my time in Sola’s grasp.’ Wadi helped to interpret his rush of language.

Raim clasped his shoulder. ‘Will you help Khareh return safely through Sola to the borders in the South? Then you and the rest of the tribe will be free to travel as you choose.’

‘Of course,’ said Mesan. ‘It is the least we can do for you both.’

Wadi stepped up and embraced Mesan too. ‘Thank you.’

Khareh turned to Wadi, his deep black eyes boring into hers. ‘Look after Raim for me, won’t you?’

‘Always.’

Wadi hooked her arm through Raim’s, and they watched as the Alashan led Khareh and his new generals back across the dunes, to find the remnants of King Song’s army and claim his place on the Southern King’s throne.

The city of Lazar welcomed Raim and Wadi with open arms once they returned from the desert. Puutra-bar came rushing out to greet them through the main gates, the eyes of the citizens of Lazar still peering down from every angle. This time, Raim felt no fear or trepidation.

This time, Raim was no oathbreaker. He was a khan.

‘We could hear the sand storm from everywhere in the city,’ the old man said, his voice trembling. ‘We thought Sola had taken you all.’

‘No,’ said Wadi. ‘It was Raim who summoned it. Or should I say, the Khan of Darhan did.’

‘What’s this?’ asked Puutra, one eyebrow rising.