‘Well, not exactly. I’m a comnee man, you see, and I just wandered down from the camp.’
‘Ah.’ The old man sat down next to him. ‘Don’t mind if I join you, do you?’
‘Not at all. Do you live in town?’
‘Well, off and on, off and on. I have a daughter here, and I live with her most times, but I like to wander around the country during the summer.’ He waved vaguely at the animals he’d called ducks. ‘I make lists of beasties, you see. I count ’em and write down what they look like. I’ll bet that strikes you as a peculiar way to spend your time.’
‘As long as you enjoy it, it’s none of my business, is it?’
‘I wish more people saw it your way. And I look for old books, too. Know what a book is?’
‘Daccor.’
‘Well, that’s a surprise. A lot of comnee men have never seen one.’
‘I wasn’t always a comnee man. I’m from Kazrajistan. Ever heard of it?’
‘Oh, heavens, yes! They’re supposed to have wonderful libraries there, filled with books so old we’ve forgotten the titles in our part of the world. When I was young, I used to think about making the trip, but I waited too long. Too old, now, to travel that far.’ He sighed, a long rattle of sound. ‘My name’s Onree, by the by.’
‘Mine’s Zayn.’
‘Pleased to meet you. Ah, you Kazraks! After all, you were never invaded.’
‘Um?’
‘To lose your books, I mean. When the ChaMeech took N’Dosha, they burned a lot of ours, all they could find, or so the story runs. They came for the books, you see, or well, that’s what some people say. For the books and for the – well, the magic.’
‘What would ChaMeech want with books?’
‘Nothing. That’s why they burned them. Or that’s what the story says. I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there myself. I mean, I know I’m old and all, but not that old.’
‘Not by half, no.’ Zayn paused for a smile. ‘You travel all over, you say?’
‘Yes, I certainly do. Every spring and summer. When the weather gets wet, I go home.’
‘I was wondering if you’d ever run across a man named Yarl Soutan.’
The old man tossed his head back and laughed. Out on the river the ducks turned towards shore and laughed with him, or at least, they cackled and whistled.
‘Uh, what’s so funny?’ Zayn said.
‘Do I know Soutan? Oh yes, I know him. Rotten little bastard, that’s what he is. Why are you asking?’
‘Well, it’s a long story. The man I’m really looking for is another Kazrak, named Jezro. Someone told me that Soutan might know where he was.’
Onree laughed again. ‘Maybe he does,’ he said at last. ‘But asking Soutan a favour is a little like asking a longtooth saur for the time of day. Maybe he knows it, maybe he doesn’t, but he’s likely to bite your head off before he tells you either way.’
‘All right. I’ll keep that in mind.’
Onree cocked his head to one side and considered Zayn for a long moment. ‘Do you think I’m crazy? Just a crazy old man with a wandering mind?’
His stare was disturbing, an unblinking gaze from surprisingly clear and shrewd blue eyes.
‘Not in the least,’ Zayn said.
‘Thank you.’ Onree brought out a thin wooden tablet, coated on one face with thick wax, and a thin pointed stick. ‘Time to count these ducks.’
‘Nice to have met you.’ Zayn stood up. ‘I’d better get back to camp.’
As he walked away he glanced back and saw Onree writing on the wax with the stick. Out on the river the ducks sailed back and forth, teeth and jaws green with crab blood.
Zayn had been dreading having to cook for Ammadin and chat as if nothing in particular was on his mind, but when he returned to the tent, she was gone. One of Sammador’s men told him that she and Kassidor were eating with the two chiefs in Apanador’s tent.
‘She might have told me, damn it!’ Zayn snapped.
‘Well, you know what spirit riders are like. Always off on a cloud somewhere.’
Zayn stayed inside the tent until the twilight turned thick and grey over the camp. He could not bear seeing Dallador. All it would take, he knew, was one of Dallo’s slow smiles, and he would never leave. He waited until everyone in the comnee was eating at one fire or another, then slipped out, carrying his saddlebags. At the far end of the meadow stood a cluster of fountain trees. Zayn cached the saddlebags among them, then went back to camp and hid in the tent again. The evening wore on, darkened. The other men began to sing, a sure sign that they’d drunk enough keese to blunt their eyesight. Zayn took his saddle and his bedroll out to the fountain trees and laid them down with the saddlebags.
This time, when he returned to camp, he paused at the edge of the darkness and looked at the fire-lit tents, the wagons, the people who sat among them, laughing and talking. He had been planning on hiding in the tent for a while more, but he knew that he had to leave right then or never. He got his bridle and the last of his gear from the tent and strode out to the horse herd. No one seemed to notice, or if they did, they assumed that he was doing some errand that needed to be done. He found the sorrel and led him into the fountain trees.
Picking up the saddle nearly lost him his nerve. Once he rode out, he’d never ride back. He would find Jezro, kill him, and then return to the khanate, where his superior officers would doubtless shower him with praise he didn’t want and a promotion he’d despise. The sorrel gelding nuzzled his shoulder.
‘We’ve got to go,’ Zayn whispered to the horse. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll find some way to get you back to Ammi, all right?’
The sorrel made no objections. Zayn saddled and bridled him, hung and tied his gear to the saddle, then mounted and rode out, skirting the edge of the meadow until he reached the road that ran due east, deeper into Bredanee. At first it ran through fields of wheatian, an odd yellowish-grey in the light from the silver spiral of the Herd. Some miles on, though, the fields gave way to rough pasture, and ahead Zayn could see the dark mound, shot with glints of blue light, that marked the forest edge, curving round to intersect his path. Had the road run among the trees, he never would have followed it, but it turned to skirt the forest edge, then continued east, running about twenty yards away from the verge.
The Herd was just reaching zenith when the road brought him to a fast-flowing river and a wooden bridge. When Zayn started to ride across, the sorrel balked, tossing its head and fighting the bit. The hollow sound of hooves on wood had spooked it, Zayn realized. Tribal horses never crossed bridges in the normal course of things. He let the horse turn and walk back a few paces on the road.
‘Steady on, old boy,’ Zayn said. ‘I’ll lead you across. How’s that?’
Zayn dismounted, then shortened up on the reins to walk right beside the sorrel’s head.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s try this again.’
The sorrel walked forward calmly enough, but just as they reached the edge of the bridge, something shrieked in the river below. A crane! The sorrel tossed its head and began to back up. With one last cry the crane rose from the river and flapped off. Against the dark night, the phosphorescent dots along its legs gleamed.
‘We’d better get out of here,’ Zayn said. ‘I don’t know why, but we’d better.’
Ahead on the road someone laughed, a human voice this time, jubilant. Riders were coming out of the forest, blocking the bridge, blocking the road. Zayn grabbed for a stirrup and started to mount, but sudden light flared, blinding him. He managed to swing himself into the saddle, but when he looked back, he saw two more riders cutting off his escape. Seven men altogether, from his hasty count, and all of them were wearing cloth hoods, slit for their eyes. Zayn pulled his long knife.
‘If you’re going to rob me, you’re not going to get very much,’ Zayn said. ‘I don’t carry enough coin to make dying worthwhile, and I’ll get at least one of you before you bring me down.’
One of the hooded men laughed
under his breath and raised his hand. Zayn felt something brush his shoulder from behind – a lasso. He twisted around and tried to grab it, but another one flew and snared the gelding around his neck. Zayn leaned forward and tried to cut it away. As the horse began to prance and snort, another came from the side and caught him around the shoulders. Zayn writhed, trying to get free, but it was pulled tight by a man on horseback, and a second one followed from the other side, tangling him round like a bird in a wire snare. All at once he went limp, slumping in the saddle. When he felt the ropes relax around him, he ducked and grabbed, had one off and the next slipping half-way up his body before the third rope fell around his neck and jerked tight. He dropped the noose he was holding and grabbed the deadly loop, but it was too late. The long knife slipped from his fingers as the noose pulled tight, then tighter still. He heard an ocean roaring in his ears and saw a black wave rising up in front of him, to sweep down and tumble him into darkness.
In the darkness he heard voices. He opened his eyes to a world turned upside-down and realized that he’d been slung face down over his saddle and tied like a dead browzar. Other riders surrounded him, but he could only see the legs of men and horses both. The pain in his throat was a stab and a thirst all at once. Every step his horse took made his head throb.
‘Sinyur Alayn, I think he’s awake,’ someone said in Vranz. ‘Better let him sit up. Father Sharl won’t be happy if he dies on the way.’
‘That’s true. Here, let’s get him down.’
In a jingle of tack the bandits – or whoever they were – came to a halt. Zayn heard men dismounting; then hands lifted him down from the horse. As soon as his feet touched the ground his knees gave way; he staggered, then fell. Hands hauled him up to a sitting sprawl. A torch flared, and he could see hooded figures all around him. One knelt in front of him and held up a bottle.
‘Drink this,’ he said in Kazraki. ‘It’s not poison. It will help your throat.’
When he held up the bottle, Zayn drank from it. The thick liquid tasted bitter, but the pain in his throat did ease. When he tried to raise his hands, he found them bound in front of him. The man kneeling in front of him pulled off his hood.
‘Hot in these things,’ he remarked.
The torchbearer came closer, holding up – not a torch at all, but a long metal tube, pouring out light, similar to the one Ammadin had got from the ChaMeech. In its glare the blond man’s face loomed, and the jewelled band round his head sent out long glints of glare like knives.
‘Drink some more.’ Soutan spoke Kazraki well. ‘These idiots nearly crushed your windpipe.’
Zayn gulped down another mouthful of the acrid stuff. After a few attempts, he realized that he could talk, though his voice rasped and caught.
‘Well, Soutan,’ Zayn said. ‘Looks like we’ve finally met.’
‘Oh yes, all good things come to him who waits, or however that goes. How do you know who I am?’
‘You were pointed out to me in Haz Kazrak. I doubt if you even realized it.’
Soutan shuddered, then got up and turned to the other men. ‘He’ll be able to ride now if you tie him to the saddle. We need to get back.’
‘So we’re agreed?’ Ammadin said.
Sammador and Apanador said yes at the exact same moment, then laughed. They were sitting in Apanador’s tent, passing round a bowl of keese to seal their bargain: the two comnees would ride as one while Ammadin rode her quest.
‘That’s a good omen, the way you answered in unison,’ Kassidor said. ‘I certainly agree. Now remember, Ammi, you’ve got to tell me everything you learn. Maybe you should take that servant of yours with you, if he’s got such a good memory.’
‘No, I think I’d best ride alone.’
With handshakes all round, the conference in Apanador’s tent broke up. Ammadin and Kassidor walked across the meadow together in the pale light of the Herd. They said little; Ammadin was thinking of ways to tell Zayn that she’d not be riding back to the plains with the comnee. Someone called out. Maradin, flickering lamp in hand, came trotting to meet them.
‘Ammi! Something’s wrong. Zayn’s gone.’
‘He’s what?’
‘Gone! Dallo went to your tent to invite him over to our fire. He was gone, his gear was gone, and the sorrel’s gone, too.’
‘That rotten little gelding!’ Ammadin burst out. ‘Stealing one of my horses!’
‘Ammi!’ Maradin held up the lamp and cast light on both their faces. ‘That sorcerer! He must have lured Zayn away somehow. Dallo’s frantic’
‘It’s possible,’ Kassidor joined in. ‘The Canton sorcerers have a lot of power at their command.’
‘I think he left of his own free will.’ Ammadin realized that she was close to snarling and paused for a long deep breath. ‘He’s been lying to me – or partly lying – ever since the day I brought him into camp. I’m beginning to see that those lies had something to do with the Cantons. He used us to get here, and now he’s stolen a horse and ridden off.’
By this time Apanador and Sammador had caught up to them. Ammadin left Maradin to explain and ran back to her tent. She looked through all her tent bags, half-expecting to find that Zayn had stolen something else.
‘Ammadin! Please!’ The voice belonged to Dallador, torn between rage and grief. ‘Aren’t you going to do anything?’
Ammadin opened the tent flap and stepped out to find a small crowd gathered. Dallador, Apanador, some of the other men, all stood waiting, and Kassidor hovered off to one side.
‘We’re better off without him,’ Ammadin said.
‘I don’t see it that way.’ Dallador tossed his head. ‘Besides, I can’t see it that way. We traded knives.’
Ammadin let out her breath in a long sigh. No matter what she thought of Zayn at the moment, Dallador and his bond-oaths were her responsibility.
‘Oh all right!’ she snapped. ‘Light a fire. Make it a good bright one. Kasso, will you help me? We need to scan.’
Fortunately, the Riders still hung overhead. Once the fire was producing plenty of light, the two spirit riders knelt in front of it, each with their own scanning crystal.
‘He must have ridden east, further into the Cantons,’ Ammadin said. ‘That’s the way the sorcerer and the other Kazraks were riding.’
‘We’ll start here, then. I’ll take north-east. You take east to the south.’
In the spirit language they summoned their spirits and sent them racing out over the dark landscape. They both talked aloud, telling each other what they were seeing, while Ammadin’s comnee clustered together, a respectful distance away. At last, in the dark forest, a glint of yellow light caught her attention.
‘A torch on the forest road,’ she said to Kassidor. ‘Start at your ten.’
‘All right. I – yes, got it. Oh by the gods!’
Deep in the crystal Ammadin saw torchlight, illuminating a bridge, sparkling on a river. Men on horseback, one mounted man in their midst – something flew through the air. Magic? No, ropes! She saw Zayn, roped and struggling like a wild horse. Men surrounded him, he nearly slid away, they were choking him. She heard herself swear, caught her breath – at last they released the noose.
‘He’s still alive,’ Kassidor whispered.
‘Of course he is. They can’t sacrifice a dead man to the old gods.’
He laid his crystal down on its pouch, then turned to look directly at her. ‘Aggnavvachur?’ he said.
‘Who else, in that forest?’
Kassidor shuddered and got up to signal to the others. Ammadin laid her crystal out to feed on the firelight, then rose, listening to Kassidor tell the men what they’d seen. Apanador listened gravely, his fingers rubbing the hilt of his long knife, but Dallador – even in the uncertain light Ammadin could see him turn pale in cold rage.
‘I’m riding after him,’ Dallador said. ‘Even if I have to ride alone.’
‘Calm down, Dallo,’ Apanador snapped. ‘You won’t be riding alone, and you know it. Get
a warparty together and go after Zayn with the spirit riders. I’ll go wake up the mayor. He hates these priests, or so I’ve heard, but we don’t have time to let him do the riding for us. The women will load the wagons and strike camp. If you have to kill someone to rescue Zayn, so be it, but if you do, we’d better be ready to leave.’
When Dallador called for volunteers, both comnees responded. In fact, every man available would have ridden with him, but Apanador insisted that some remain behind to help the women pack up the camp. The warparty raced for the herd and began frantically saddling horses while Ammadin and Kassidor put their crystals away. Although Ammadin had thoughts of scanning again, she refused to risk killing a crystal over Zayn.
By the time they reached the bridge, the Herd had set. The dark line of the forest billowed against the darker sky, shot with the eerie glow of Death’s Necklaces strung in the oak crowns. Finding a path in took time, while Dallador swore and chivvied the two spirit riders to hurry. Finally Kassidor recognized a path from their scanning. ‘I’m pretty sure,’ he said, ‘that this is the one.’
‘Well, we’ve got to start somewhere,’ Ammadin said. ‘Dallo, if you don’t calm down I’m going to hit you over the head with something. It’ll be sunrise soon, and the Riders will be back. We’ll be able to scan again.’
‘It could be too late by then,’ Dallador growled.
‘Just be quiet!’ Ammadin turned her horse’s head towards the path. ‘Let’s go.’
At sunrise, however, they found something they’d never expected: a guide. In the pale grey light of dawn, they reached a fork in the path and paused their horses. Down one fork Ammadin saw some glimmery thing; she rode a few yards closer and realized that it was a white sphere similar to the one near the sleeping tower. She rode back to find Kassidor and Dallador arguing furiously while the others kept yelling at them to make up their minds. Grenidor let out a sudden yelp.
‘What now?’ Ammadin snapped, then turned in the saddle to look where he was pointing.
Ambling down the path marked by the white stone came an old man, pausing now and then to lean on the stick he carried. He was dressed in brown leggings and a dirty smock patched together from bits of different colours of cloth. He carried several misshapen sacks slung over his shoulders and some sort of bundle under one arm.