Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (30 page)

‘I thought the city would be bigger.’

‘It doesn’t look like much from here, but it’s one of the oldest cities in the desert. Only Abu Nidar is older.’

Gair had no patience for a history lesson. ‘How long are we staying?’

‘A day or two, no more. Long enough to see which way the wind’s blowing and obtain some supplies.’

‘And then?’

‘And then we shall see.’

He bit back further questions. Two days into their journey from the Isles he had realised that Alderan was not going to tell him any more than he already knew, and that was precious little. South to Gimrael was all the old man would say.

South be damned. At least tell me what you’re dragging me into!

Alderan glanced sideways as if he’d heard him. ‘All in good time, my lad. You’ll know when you need to.’

His face must have given his thoughts away – or else the old man simply knew him too well.

‘I’ll get my things,’ he said and headed aft.

As he’d predicted, the heat was worse once they stepped off the pilot boat and climbed the stone steps to the quay. Any breeze off the land was blocked by buildings; in the lee of the dockside warehouses the pale stone underfoot threw the afternoon sun back like a mirror. In seconds Gair’s headache had worsened; his skull felt as if it was wedged in a carpenter’s vice, and this was just the docks. Saints only knew how hot it would get further into the city. Shifting his bundle to his other shoulder, cursing the sun and the jostle and most especially Alderan, he followed the old man along the waterfront.

Zhiman-dar was unlike any other city he had seen. Instead of the more varied architecture of Mesarild or Yelda, all the buildings looked the same: squarish, rarely more than three or four storeys in height and covered with thick, gritty plaster the colour of pale sand. They piled into and on top of each other in a haphazard fashion, threaded with narrow alleys. Doors were plain painted wood, the paint cracked and sun-faded to indeterminate shades of brown or grey. There were few windows, none at street level, and all were narrow and shuttered. It did not look welcoming.

Even the people thronging the streets had a sameness about them. They were not tall, and all the men dressed in loose white or black robes over striped baggy trousers. Gold jewellery on fingers and pierced ears contrasted with skins as dark as leather, and black eyes in closed faces watched the passage of the northerners without expression.

Occasional stares made the back of Gair’s neck prickle. Every Gimraeli who jostled him or caught his eye as he stepped out of their path looked more hostile than the last, though never was a hand raised nor a frown given. Those who spoke a word or two of common were unfailingly polite, but their heavily accented speech was hard to follow. He quickened his pace to keep up with Alderan, who wove through the press of figures with the confidence of a native. This was no place to be caught out by a wrong turn.

Rounding a corner, Gair stepped into bedlam. Awnings made from faded blankets and a web of ropes strung from building to building gave shade of a sort without offering any relief from the heat, and beneath them stalls lined both sides of the street in a mosaic of colour. Between the rows of stalls were more people in one place than he had ever seen, with scarcely a scrap of space between them. Dark heads, white robes, colourful veils, all loudly engaged in what was presumably commerce but more closely resembled theatre: he was surrounded by earnest entreaties and exaggerated gestures of disappointment or outrage. It was chaos, and Alderan plunged into it with barely a break in his stride.

Gair hurried after him. If he lost the old man in the souq he might never find him again. The awnings appeared to trap the heat and noise of the crowd, turning the screw on his headache ever tighter. Spices and perfumes tickled his nose. Small boys flicking fly-whisks over trays of candies stared as he passed, before their masters cuffed them back to work. Where Alderan found a way through the throng with a nod and a smile, Gair found himself waylaid every yard or two by out-thrust bolts of silk or intricately worked leather goods. Merely waving his indifference was not enough; often he had to physically push past the importunate stallholder and each tiny delay let Alderan get further ahead. Only the old man’s distinctive blue shirt distinguished him in the throng.

When a merchant and his customer broke into heated, finger-waving argument, everyone within earshot stopped to watch, forcing Gair to pick his way around them. Except he couldn’t: the street was choked with citizens enjoying the spectacle of the two men, now almost nose to nose over a heaped display of fruit, determined to discover who could shout the loudest.

He squeezed through the press into a narrow gap between two stalls but almost at once found his way forward blocked by a broad-hipped, gaudily veiled merchant. She rattled off a volley of Gimraeli and flapped her hands at him as if shooing chickens. No way through there. Over her shoulder he could just see Alderan stopped at the next corner, looking around for him. Turning back the way he had come, trying to keep one eye on the old man at the same time, he stumbled over something and jostled a bearded fellow in the crowd.

‘Sorry—’ Gair fumbled for the Gimraeli words. ‘Your pardon,
sayyar
.’

The man gave him a hard look and grunted something he didn’t catch before pushing past. Another robed figure followed close behind him – a woman, judging by the demurely covered head and the burnt orange silks peeping out from beneath the plain white outer robe.

‘
Sayyan
.’ He stepped back to let her pass, and as she did so she glanced up at him. Perhaps it was to acknowledge his courtesy, or perhaps she had heard him speak to her companion and was curious about this northerner in her city, but all he saw was the colour of her eyes.

She wasn’t Aysha. She couldn’t be: her nose was too narrow, her plucked and painted brows too perfect, but that glimpse of blue eyes in smooth cinnamon skin was enough to make him believe, for an instant, that she was. Then she walked on, a stranger again, and Gair was left staring after her until her white robe vanished into the sea of other white robes, anonymous as a single snowflake in a blizzard.

Aysha was gone.

A sharp jab at his hip jolted him back to the present. He swung around, ready to snap, but it was the chicken-shooing woman again, firing words at him like arrows.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak much—’ Gair frowned, trying to make sense of her rapid chatter with his limited Gimraeli vocabulary, most of it pushed clean out of his head by the appearance of the blue-eyed girl. Finally, the woman sighed impatiently and tugged at his sleeve to indicate that he should move.

‘All right, I’m sorry!’ Hands held up in appeasement, he shuffled aside to let her through. With more rapid Gimraeli and a series of further prods to press her point home, she heaved her bulk past him and joined the throng of the souq.

Gair looked up the crowded street one more time for the girl, but she was long gone. Part of him wanted to go after her, but what would he say if he caught up with her? What would he do? She didn’t even resemble Aysha very much, and besides, the bearded man was probably her husband or father and likely to offer a knife in the belly to an inarticulate northerner who came blundering up. It was a stupid idea, but oh, Goddess, he couldn’t shake it.

He raked a hand through his hair. This journey, coming to Gimrael, was a colossal mistake. He should never have come. If only Alderan hadn’t— Blood and stones!

Swearing in frustration, he cast around quickly for the old man but couldn’t see him at the next corner. He’d been sidetracked only for a minute or two, but it had been long enough for Alderan to pass out of sight. Now he was lost.

Pushing through the crowd, Gair hurried towards the spot where he had last seen his companion, muttering
your pardon
for each jogged elbow on the way. Fresh sweat broke on his chest and back, and under the pack slung on his shoulder his shirt stuck to his skin like a mustard plaster. The deeper he ventured into the souq, the slower his progress became: the Gimraelis, all smiles and bows, simply would not get out of his way.

Eventually he reached the junction with the next street and had to stop. The souq stretched away in all directions, each alley as cluttered and clamorous as the next. His head throbbed. Which way had Alderan gone – straight ahead or left? Gair was tall enough to see over the heads of almost everyone else, even without standing on his toes, but the sagging awnings overhead and the shadows they cast obscured much of his view.

Damn, damn, damn
.

He chewed his lip, looking both ways again, then plunged back into the press to follow the busiest street. It was all he could think to do since he didn’t dare use the Song – even in Gimrael, where they had little love for the Church, there could be a witchfinder, and he had enough problems without tangling with another one of them.

Up ahead, at the entrance to another cross-alley, he caught sight of a distinctive mane of iron-grey hair and headed for it, but in a couple of strides he had lost sight of it again. He continued to make for that point, hoping the press might thin a little, but when he had fought his way to the corner, Alderan – if it had been him – was gone.

Four streets converged here, the market stretching away in each direction. Gair turned around slowly, scanning the bobbing heads in the crowd. Dark heads, white robes, no sign of a blue shirt. Round again, standing on tiptoes this time, though it didn’t help much as the throng ebbed and flowed around him. There – a flash of colour, disappearing between two stalls off to his left. Weaving through the market-goers as fast as he could, treading on some toes in the process, he followed the elusive scrap of blue down another side alley.

The crowd was thinner here, with fewer stalls, and he was finally able to run a pace or two. Another turn, left then right again, and he dodged around a handcart from which two men were unloading bales of cloth. Nothing else lay beyond it. In this street the stalls had come to an end and there were barely a half-dozen people ahead of him, flickering through the stripes of shadow cast by the scattered awnings, only their white robes visible in the deep shade. Apart from them, nothing moved.

Gair swore again, louder this time. One of the labourers at the handcart glanced at him and said something to his companion, then the pair of them stared, the last bale still slung between their hands. After a second or two, they carried it through a nearby doorway. One slammed the door and shot the bolts after him whilst the other fellow picked up the shafts of the cart and trundled it away.

The street was suddenly very quiet. Gair could still hear the sounds of the souq, but faintly, as if it was several streets away instead of just around the corner. The high sun beat down on his exposed head and shoulders like fists. A sick, heavy pain sat behind his eyes and his feet throbbed in his boots. This was not good.

He peeled his sticky shirt away from his skin and muttered a curse at his own foolishness. Then he shrugged his belongings onto his other shoulder and turned to make his way back towards the market to try to find some trace of Alderan. Maybe he could find a stallholder who spoke enough common to ask after him. It was the best plan he could come up with.

Before he had taken three paces, he heard a noise behind him that sent a prickling down his spine: the sound of swords being drawn. Gair stopped. That was not good at all. Slowly he turned around.

There were three Gimraelis in the alley with him. They wore the familiar loose white outer robes over their long divided tunics, but also the elaborately twisted headdresses and sand-veils of men from the inner desert. Two held drawn
qatans
; the one in the middle had his arms folded across his chest and his sword still through his sash, but his stance said he could have steel in his hands in a heartbeat.

Gair’s chest constricted. His own sword was thrust through the bundle on his shoulder – Alderan’s suggestion, to avoid attracting unfriendly attention. Too late for that – worse, now that he needed a weapon he was unable to draw it cleanly.

‘You are a long way from home, my friend,’ said the Gimraeli in the middle, his common speech accented but clear. ‘Zhiman-dar is no place for
ammanai
.’

Politely translated it meant ‘outlanders’, Alderan had said, what the desertmen, particularly the deep desertmen, called pale-skinned imperial citizens. He’d declined to give the other interpretation, but it was safe to say it was not a compliment.

‘I’m just travelling through,’ Gair said. ‘I’ll be gone in a day or two.’

‘Nevertheless.’

‘What do you want?’

‘You to be gone.’ A different speaker this time, the Gimraeli on the left. He took a half-pace forward. The naked blade of his
qatan
flashed blue, reflecting the sky overhead.

Gair held his hands away from his sides, palms down. ‘I’m going,’ he said, stepping back.

‘I think not.’

He froze. He’d let himself lose track of the third Gimraeli. Now a
qatan
was laid flat against his right arm, ice-cold in spite of the heat. Sunlight ran down the edge like quicksilver. A little more pressure, a twist of the wrist and it would take off his hand.

Slowly, he lowered his arms. Careless. If he’d been paying attention he might have avoided this. Now there was no way out that wouldn’t leave blood on the ground. His, theirs, it didn’t matter. Blood was blood and all things end.

Take a breath, deep and slow. Weight onto the balls of his feet. It was time to dance.

Behind him, an unfamiliar voice murmured, ‘I’ll take the one on the right.’

Gair resisted the urge to look around. He didn’t need to know who was behind him. As the Gimraeli ahead of him darted forward, he tossed his pack off his shoulder and threw himself into a roll. A hot thread of pain scored the point of his shoulder as a
qatan
swung at him and almost missed, but he kept hold of his pack and snatched out his own sword as soon as he regained his feet. The pack itself he flung after the swordsman who had marked him.