The Stealers' War (39 page)
Leyla smiled at the look of consternation on Willow’s face. ‘So, you didn’t know, then? If your precious troublesome pastor still had a heart for fighting, he never would have fled the Burn. He would have stayed a warlord prince, killing and pillaging as befits such savages. Instead, Carnehan fled across the sea and hid himself away under a cheap woollen church shirt, talking of peace and leading all the good sheep to heaven. What does that tell you about your dangerous, legendary Quicksilver? He is a twice-broken man who has forgotten whatever he was. Where is the great general? Where is the master strategist? He led the rebels down a ravine into a cave with no exit and the royalist army is close to smoking him out for good.’
‘I have seen your smoke,’ muttered Willow, a shiver running down her back that had nothing to do with the damp of this cell. ‘I have seen stealers and the demons shifting inside it. And one is coming for
you
.’
Leyla shook her head in contempt. ‘Carnehan’s not the only one left broken by the wheel of life’s turn. I always believed your time in captivity as a slave had left your deranged. Now I have the proof of it.’
‘Why did you drag me back to Weyland, Holten? Why did that murderous pig Nocks risk his neck for you? It surely wasn’t just revenge for me escaping from your arranged marriage and humiliating you? There has to be more to it than that?’
‘You will find out just how much more,’ promised Leyla. ‘All in good time.’ She banged on the cell door for the guards to open it. ‘And then we shall see who has won and who has lost here.’
Willow cursed the treacherous woman after she left.
What is she planning?
To outguess Leyla Holten, Willow would have to learn to think like the scheming woman, a prospect that frankly sickened her.
But I have the time. That is all I have locked in here. Time and my mind. Yes, let us see who is to win here.
TRIAL BY FIRE
Anticipation had built all morning along with the crowd’s numbers, and at last, the moment Carter was dreading arrived. The young Weylander had known it would come when the nomads entered the cage at sun-up, manacling his and Sariel’s hands behind their backs.
Trussed like birds clucking for a plucking.
Now, four blue-skinned warriors arrived and unlocked the cage, hauling Carter and Sariel roughly through the narrow entrance. His stomach turned in horror. They were going to be put to the fire on an empty gut, but that had a sharp logic to it.
Why waste good food on someone who is going to meet a bad death?
The man in control of the proceedings stepped forward and raised his hands. He put Carter in mind of a slightly younger Sariel, if the rascally old bard had shaved his white beard and been starved to gaunter features. The chants of the mob threw Carter the name he’d expected.
Temmell Longgate.
Warriors behind Carter forced him down to his knees. Sariel as well, to show deference to their appointed judge.
‘It is time,’ called Temmell. ‘Time for these intruders to face the trial.’
Howls of approval met his words, hundreds of swords and daggers jabbing in unison towards the sky.
‘Do you not know me?’ demanded Sariel, struggling as two warriors pulled the old man to his feet and shoved him towards his stake. ‘Do you not recognize Sariel Skel-Bane?’
‘I know you very well. You are a pair of fools stupid enough to try to steal from the clans and believe you might live to boast of it,’ said Temmell. ‘You are rodents who think to steal scraps from hill lions. This is the rodents’ reward.’
‘I know you, Temmell Longgate,’ thundered Sariel, ‘and I have seen your dreams. Troubled and dark and filled with scampering devils.’
Temmell shook his head for a second, as though groggily warding off a hypnotism cast by Sariel. ‘Perhaps you are just the sort of trickster who sends such dreams, then sells cures to ease them? I am not taken in by your chicanery, you tickle-brained liar. It is a pale shadow of my power.’
Demands to get on with the weirdling’s torching resounded from the nomad mob. The Nijumeti wanted their trial by fire. Carter saw savage bloodlust burning in their faces as the guards hauled him unwillingly towards the second stake. He had a terrible feeling that whatever tales Sariel had saved for this moment would have little influence over their fate.
Carter was halfway to his stake when an old woman stepped forward. He spotted Kerge in the crowd behind her.
This must be the sorcerer’s rival Kerge spoke of. Madinsar. The witch rider.
Kerge had at least accomplished what he promised. Carter prayed hard that the gask’s mistress could sway the clan. The loud mob fell silent behind her.
Respect or fear?
‘I have seen this old weirdling in my dream-walkings. He has the power to aid the clans,’ appealed the high priestess.
‘Or perhaps the power to destroy us?’ snared Temmell. ‘A blade may cut both ways.’
‘I caution for their release,’ said the witch rider. ‘Sparing them will please Atamva.’
‘So such a dangerous weapon may fall into your hands, Madinsar?’ said Temmell, angry at his challenger’s mischief at the trial.
‘These hands have long served the clan.’
‘And mine do not?’ rumbled Temmell. ‘I do not send Kani Yargul’s horde ambiguous visions of what may come, designed to be interpreted whichever way the wind blows. I have made the clans a mighty skyguard! I have fashioned the means by which we will sweep over every enemy who has stolen soil, calls it their own and denies us our destiny.’
‘How little you know the Nijumeti. Victory is only ever claimed by the rider,’ said Madinsar insolently, ‘never the trader who sold the metal that forged the rider’s blade.’
Carter gazed around the nomad crowd’s angry, intent faces. He could see that there were no viscounts and dukes among these quarrelsome people. They had a democracy of sorts. They convinced by words and deeds, and when that failed, a sharp sabre edge.
‘You claim the future, witch rider, yet you live only in the past.’
‘I have seen a little of what this weirdling means for
your
future,’ said the witch rider. ‘And I smell your fear of him upon you.’
‘These interlopers have no future,’ said Temmell. ‘Not unless the weirdling’s sorcery proves stronger than mine.’
‘Summon Kani Yargul here,’ demanded the woman. ‘Let him decide.’
‘And trouble the Krul of Kruls over a couple of foreign reivers? Perhaps he would like to come and advise the clan on how many nuts should be counted into your breakfast bowl? After that, he can decide on the colour of my boots’ fur lining and whether I should mount my black stallion or my white.’
The crowd roared with amusement. They seemed to like a good joke. Unfortunately, Carter couldn’t think of any.
Temmell shook his head fiercely. ‘No! Let us begin the trial.’
Carter felt the slim thread of hope slip out of his grasp.
She’s lost the day.
He felt like a fool for daring to hope.
How can any witch’s words compete with the gift of a skyguard?
Two people stepped from the crowd behind the witch rider.
Allies or foes?
A large warrior Carter didn’t recognize, with a woman he knew all too well.
Lady Cassandra Skar.
Carter wasn’t so much surprised by her appearance as the fact she seemed far less crippled than he had been led to believe. The young woman was mobile and on her legs. Carter saw the way the warrior treated the young Vandian noblewoman and he recognized that look well.
Did Cassandra fake her injuries to remain here with that big brute?
If Cassandra had tricked
‘The weirdling asks who knows him,’ said Lady Cassandra. ‘I shall answer. I know both the sly sorcerer and the Weyland boy.’
‘What is this? Were you a thief in a gang with these two dogs, then?’ laughed Temmell. ‘How well you have chosen, Alexamir Arinnbold. I had believed Lady Cassandra merely a noblewoman of Vandia. You should have let the clan know of your celebrated bloodline of robbery before your mother flew here, my lady. Casting large shadows with her metal toys. Trespassing against people never given to the empire to command.’
‘Let her speak, Temmell,’ demanded Alexamir. ‘She is of the clan now and has the right.’
Temmell bowed, mockingly. ‘Very well, let the Vandian use the gift of her tongue as well as she uses
my
gift of her restored legs. The former is a gift I find common in the fine women of our clan.’
There were more roars of laughter at this, as well as hoots of amused derision from female warriors.
Carter barely had time to take in what had been said before Cassandra approached the two captives, standing directly behind Sariel and himself. She seized Sariel by the scruff of his long leather coat. ‘This trickster is chief adviser to my enemies and captors. He travelled to Vandia to assist in my abduction. He carried me back to Weyland to make a hostage of me, to ask for a ransom so mighty that even the richest emperor in Pellas would not pay it.’
Carter bitterly shook his head. The girl failed to mention her only ransom was to spare Weyland for punishment over the slave revolt.
A cost too high.
Lady Cassandra’s words didn’t provoke further demands for the prisoners to be burnt at the stake, however. Some of the Nijumeti murmured almost appreciatively.
Is she trying to help us, or get us executed faster here
?
The Vandian girl shoved Sariel forward and stepped behind Carter, yanking him about roughly by the back of his faded greatcoat. ‘While this one, he is a reckless puppy who follows the old dog around on a tight leash. He kept me locked up in his church’s basement as though I was little better than a thrall, then, worried Weyland’s king might hunt me down and take me for his own, he as good as sold me to the people of the forest. Let both dogs burn for their sins against my person.’
There were more signs of approval from the crowd. A hot-headed thief who dared defy a foreign king, while humbly obeying an elder raider with the wisdom of the ages to impart? Carter suspected the girl was playing a cunning game. Lady Cassandra was singing his praises while making the tune sound like bitter complaints.
And no blue-skinned warrior will want to be seen obeying orders from a recently taken saddle-wife of foreign birth.
‘Enough! You all know the way. Even our recently arrived tentguest sees what must be done. Let the intruders be tested and Atamva judge!’ shouted Temmell, clearly eager not to lose the initiative among the wavering nomads.
Sariel was shoved forward to his pyre where the guards attached his manacles to a short chain on the stake’s side. Temmell’s supporters among the mob waved torches in the air and whooped with pleasure. Temmell took a lit torch from a warrior’s hand and presented it towards the crowd, then stepped forward in front of Sariel’s stake. He pressed the torch into the kindling around Sariel’s boots and the straw started to catch light, the crowd swaying and chanting. Temmell laughed victoriously and lifted the torch to the air as though an angel might swoop down and lift it from his fingers.
As the warriors behind Carter drove him forward, he realized with a shock that his manacles no longer cut painfully tight.
They’ve been unlocked!
Had the Vandian girl freed him, or was this some sleight of hand of Sariel’s? Carter didn’t hesitate. He tore himself away from his two guards and whipped the hanging chain around as a lash, catching the nearest Nijumeti in the face, his boot connecting with the other nomad’s gut. The first rider doubled up, the second tumbled over reeling. Carter rushed the remaining few feet towards Temmell. The clan’s sorcerer swung the torch around to try to fling it into Carter’s face, but as it was the only weapon Temmell possessed, Carter had been expecting the move. Ducking under the burning, tar-wrapped wood, Carter lunged at Temmell. His fingers caught Temmell around the face and he closed them tight against the man’s cheeks, eyes and forehead, intending to at least blind his tormentor if nothing else. Temmell yelled in agony, but it was a torment far beyond a skull being crushed.
Sariel’s gift.
Carter’s mind felt as though it had turned to water, gushing out and soaking Temmell with memories and knowledge that did not belong to the young Weylander.
So painful
. Intensity worse than driving daggers filleting Carter’s mind. There was nothing he could do; he couldn’t control this process. His brain was a dam burst under pressure, crumbling him into pure agony. Both figures struggled together. Nomad guards came sprinting towards Carter to beat him off and slay him. An explosion of light and burning air detonated from a point sparkling between Temmell and Carter, a cannon shell detonating in the air among the mob. Carter recalled a similar explosion in the sky mines, when Sariel had touched Carter, blowing his friends and family across the chamber. The outrush of energy didn’t break the pair’s physical contact though; for this brief moment, Carter and Temmell were a universe being unravelled, folding out and binding them together. This was far worse for Carter than filling Sariel with what had been lost and forgotten. In Vandia, Carter had burned from a fever and the madness of carrying so many dreams and crazy tales, a walking skeleton desperate for a quick end. Passing the load to Sariel had been a mercy, whatever the pain of the transfer.
But this.
So much raced past. Faces and plagues and lost loves and dead kings and frustrated hopes. Cities and seas and carriers spun from gold, countries that flew through the air and long meadows that stabbed at passing animals with silver acid.
It can’t be real. I’m going insane again.
Carter wasn’t a key. His mind was a carcass where wasp eggs had been laid to hatch. This was something else again, something far different from his healing of Sariel. It was as if part of Temmell was uncoiling and sliding back into Carter’s mind, secreting itself and hiding. At last the trial was over. Carter found himself on the soil, a pile of vomit which had surely originated from his mouth, empty gut or not. Nijumeti struggled across the ground too, crawling like worms as they tried to recover from concussion.
‘You wanted to witness my sorcery!’ yelled Sariel, as though drunk. The unexpected blast had blown away his pyre’s burning straw. Some of it lay smouldering on the canvas roofs of the nomad tents. If it wasn’t tackled quickly an intense fire would soon sweep the camp. ‘Well, here it is, a spell fit for every blue-blushing jackanapes who doubted Sariel. Eat of it! Drink of it! See how it suits you! I walked with Atamva when the world was fresh and the gods of the Nijumeti danced by the Kappel Sea. And you know it is true, don’t you, Temmell Longgate? Because you swam in the surf with Annayla as happy as any of our kind and heard Atamva name me his brother.’
‘Enough,’ moaned Temmell, getting to his feet while clutching his head. ‘You have cursed me, old man.’
‘No. I have cured you.’
‘They are the same thing,’ wailed Temmell as if he was dying still. ‘I was happy out here. I had a purpose. I had made a place for myself.’
‘You fashioned a prairie-shaped hole to hide in, Temmell. Don’t blame the one carrying the ladder to allow you to climb out.’
‘Who else is there to blame?’
Warriors sprinted around the tents, beating out flames with blankets.
‘Let me re-light their pyre,’ begged one of the nomads. What was left of the crowd of onlookers mingled uncertainly now. Their mood broken by this strange, unexpected conflict between sorcerers.
‘I should let you burn. I should let us all burn.’
‘You were the greatest of us, once. Your powers will return, along with wiser counsel.’
‘You remember me better than I remember myself, Sariel Skelbane.’
‘You are my friend. A friend never forgets.’
‘How much better if you had,’ said Temmell.
The Nijumet warrior showed his indignance in a curl of teeth. ‘What of the burning, what of the trial?’
Temmell stared with something approaching distaste at the young Weylander, reserving loathing for Sariel. ‘They have passed it,’ he growled.
