CHAPTER 42
The morning air was crisp, but Hanara knew that once the sun rose above the mist that shrouded the hills below, baking the air dry, the day would be a hot one. The place Takado, Asara and Dachido had chosen to camp was several strides from the road, out of sight on a rock shelf. If they moved to the edge and looked down they could see the road twisting back and forth down the side of the mountain, curving over hills and eventually straightening and pointing, like an arrow, toward Arvice.
Hanara’s master was not enjoying the view. He was being served by Asara’s remaining slave, while Hanara kept watch on the road. Dachido’s slave was packing up his master’s belongings. The three slaves took turns at these tasks every morning, until all were ready to travel on.
But for the first time, none of the magicians were in a hurry.
Hanara looked up. The pass itself was not visible, but he could see where the road emerged from it. They had fled through it the previous morning, aware the Kyralian army was only a half day’s ride behind them.
“Why send a whole army after us?” Asara had asked, a few nights before. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Because they want Takado,” Dachido had replied. “It was his idea to conquer them, after all. And they fear he will come back for another try.”
Takado had chuckled. “I would, if it were possible.”
The three magicians had argued over what to do when they reached Sachaka. Takado wanted them to stay together and gather supporters. Hanara wasn’t sure if this was in order to invade Kyralia again, or in order to gain enough status and allies to return to his former life.
“None of us can expect to walk into our old homes and continue as if nothing happened,” Takado had pointed out.
Asara had nodded. “We need to know if Emperor Vochira has learned of our defeat and taken our assets for himself, or given them to someone else. It’ll be easier to regain them if he hasn’t given them away.”
It hadn’t occurred to Hanara that he might not be returning to the place of his birth. Since he’d realised how unlikely it was, he’d woken with an ache in his stomach every morning, and a nagging uneasiness. Where will we go, even if it is just until Takado gets his home back? And how likely is that?
Though none of the magicians had stated it, the lack of conviction in their voices when they discussed regaining the emperor’s favour told how much they doubted it would happen. Last night, as if standing on the soil of their own country had broken them out of a trance of denial, they had finally discussed what they would do in the short term.
“I’ve decided I’m going north,” Asara announced. “I have contacts there. People who owe me favours. And ...I must go alone. They will not help me if there are others with me.”
Both Dachido and Takado had looked at her in silence, but neither of them argued against her choice. Dachido had turned to Takado then, his expression almost apologetic.
“I, too, am going to call in a favour. With a sea trader. How do you fancy sailing the seas of the south?”
Takado had grimaced, then patted Dachido on the shoulder. “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’d rather Emperor Vochira cut out my heart than spend the rest of my days stuck on a ship.” He sighed and looked out towards Arvice. “I belong here.”
“In hiding?” Dachido asked. “An ichani?”
“I have always regarded ichani – most ichani – as my equals,” Takado said, with a hint of pride. “It will be no shame to me to wear the term. After all, I began this for their benefit, so they would have a chance to own land and throw off their outcast status.”
“I hope they remember that, if you encounter any,” Asara said. “Those that remained here were clearly not impressed enough by you to join your cause. And you led a lot of their kind to their deaths.”
“Perhaps if I found them another place to make their own...” Takado began, but then he shook his head. “Unless they don’t mind living on a volcano, I doubt there’s anything I can offer them.”
Having decided their futures, the three magicians had slept soundly for the first time in weeks. Hanara and the other slaves had taken turns keeping watch.
Hearing movement behind him, Hanara looked over his shoulder to see that Takado, Asara and Dachido were now standing, regarding each other with expectant looks. Then Takado grasped the others’ shoulders.
“Thank you for answering my call,” he said. “I would rather we were arranging Kyralia to our liking right now instead of parting ways, but I am proud to have fought beside you both.” He paused, his eyes flickering to Hanara.
Hanara forced himself to turn away and look at the road, but his eyes itched to witness the moment taking place behind him. At least he could hear it.
“It was a grand idea, your plan to conquer Kyralia,” Asara said. “And it almost worked. I’ll never regret the attempt.”
“Nor I,” Dachido agreed. “I have fought beside great men – and women – which is more than my father or grandfather could claim.”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?” Takado laughed, but then he sighed. “I am glad I had you two to advise and support me. I’m sure I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. I hope we will meet again some day.”
“Is there a way we can keep in contact safely?” Asara wondered aloud.
“We could leave messages somewhere. Send slaves to deliver or check for them,” Dachido suggested.
“Where?” Takado asked.
Something shifted before Hanara’s eyes. He blinked and stared at the road winding down the side of the mountain. Then he blinked again.
Men. Horses. At least a hundred of them so far, turning into sight around a curve in the road. He should have seen them when they had first emerged from the pass. Turning, he rose and hurried over to Takado, threw himself on the ground and waited.
The three magicians stopped talking.
“What is it?” Takado asked, his voice low with annoyance.
“Riders,” Hanara said. “Coming into Sachaka.”
“Into Sachaka?” Dachido repeated.
Hurried footsteps led away to the edge of the rock shelf. As Hanara rose he heard Takado curse. The other two slaves exchanged glances, then tentatively hurried after their owners. Hanara followed.
“What are they doing?” Asara asked.
“I doubt they’re paying the emperor a friendly visit,” Dachido replied.
“They’re invading us?” Her voice was strained with disbelief.
“Why not?” Takado said darkly. He sounded tired. Resigned. “They defeated us easily. Why not invade us in return?”
“Are they after revenge?” Asara sounded angry now.
“Probably, but I doubt that’s their only reason. Beating us has given them confidence.” He paused. “Perhaps a little too much.”
“If they lose, there’ll be nothing to stop us returning to Kyralia,” Dachido pointed out, a hint of excitement in his voice.
Takado turned to his friend and smiled. “That is true.”
Looking at them both, Asara became thoughtful. “So we wait here until they pass, then go back and take over Kyralia?”
Takado frowned. “And in the meantime, they invade Sachaka. No. We can’t abandon our homeland.”
“Surely there’s no risk the Kyralians will succeed,” Asara said.
“If we warn Emperor Vochir there’s an army coming . . .” Dachido began. “If we help in the fight...”
“He might forgive us for getting him into such a mess in the first place?” Asara asked. As Takado frowned at her, she shook her head. “I think he would kill us first and discover the truth of our warning later.” She looked out at the army and sighed. “But I can’t run away from this. I can’t abandon our people. We must warn them.”
Dachido nodded. “At the very least.”
They both turned to Takado, who nodded. “Of course we must.” Then he smiled. “And I’m sure we’ll find a way to come out the heroes and saviours in this. We only need to stay alive long en
ough to arrange it.”
I can’t believe I’m in Sachaka, Jayan found himself thinking yet again. I always thought if I visited another country it would probably be Elyne. Definitely not Sachaka!
At first there had been little vegetation to block the view of the land below. Jayan had traced the lines of roads, noting where they intersected or vanished in the distance. He’d studied the courses of rivers and positions of houses, trying to create a map in his mind. Though there were clusters of houses, they didn’t follow the familiar layout of Kyralian villages. They were positioned off the road, enclosed by walls.
Eventually the road from the pass descended into forested slopes similar to those on the other side of the mountains. They could have been travelling in Kyralia, then. Everything looked the same, from the types of trees to the colour of the rocky ground. The air grew steadily warmer, until it was as hot as the hottest summer days he remembered while living in Mandryn.
Hearing a sigh, he glanced at Mikken. The young man was wiping his brow with his sleeve. He met Jayan’s gaze and grimaced.
Smiling crookedly, Jayan looked ahead. How well was Tessia coping with the heat? She was riding alone, he saw. Dakon was further ahead talking to Narvelan. Urging his horse into a trot, Jayan caught up with her. She looked at him, her brow creased by a frown.
“How are you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Worried.”
Jayan felt a flash of concern. “About Dakon? Yourself?”
“No.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the riders ahead. “About us all. About the future. This... this invasion of Sachaka.”
“You’re worried we’ll lose?”
“Yes. Or that we’ll win.”
Jayan smiled, but her expression remained serious. “What’s the problem with winning?”
She sighed. “They’ll hate us. We already hate them. We’re seeking revenge for them invading us. They’ll then seek revenge for us invading them. It’ll go on and on. Never ending.”
“They can’t invade us in revenge if we win,” Jayan pointed out. “We’ll be in charge.”
“They’ll rebel. They’ll find ways to make controlling them cost us more than we gain.” She paused. “Dakon has been telling me what Kyralians and Elynes did in order to get Sachaka to grant us independence last time.”
“Ah.” Jayan nodded. “I’ve had those lessons too. But the situation is not the same. They imposed slavery on us. We’ll end it here. They made the strong weak, we’ll make the weak strong.”
“The slaves?” She shook her head. “We’re relying too much on the idea that Sachaka’s slaves are going to rejoice at us marching in and changing their lives. They may not want us to. They may be loyal to their masters. Hanara returned to Takado, after all. They may not co-operate. They may resist us. Non-magicians can fight, too. You don’t need magic – as you showed when you set fire to the storeroom to save the apprentices.”
She may be right, he thought. “But not all slaves will be like Hanara,” he reasoned. “If he had been truly loyal to Takado, he’d have left Mandryn as soon as he was well enough. He probably only returned to Takado because he knew his master was close by, and that Mandryn wasn’t safe any more. If he didn’t think he could escape, he’d think he had no choice.”
Tessia gave him an oddly approving look. “Even so, Hanara did not adjust to freedom well. He did not make friends or trust anyone... except me, I think.” She looked away. “I don’t think Sachaka’s slaves are going to trust or befriend us just because we free them. They won’t know what to do with themselves. Without someone ordering their lives, fields won’t be harvested, food won’t be prepared. They’ll starve.”
“Then we’ll have to help them learn a different way of doing things.”
Tessia looked back at the magicians riding behind them. “Do you think enough of us will want to stay here, afterwards, to help Sachaka’s slaves adapt to freedom? Or will everybody go home?”
Jayan doubted many would stay, but he did not want to admit that. He shrugged, instead.
“I can’t help thinking what we’re doing is wrong.” Tessia sighed. “We’re so convinced that all Sachakan magicians are bad. But not all of them joined Takado. Those who did are nearly all dead, so the magicians we’re going to fight will be mostly those that didn’t want to invade us.”
“Just because they didn’t fight doesn’t mean they didn’t support the idea of invading,” Jayan reminded her. “Some might not have been able to fight. Perhaps they were too old, or not well trained enough. Perhaps some were too caught up in something else to leave Sachaka. We can’t assume they were all against their country taking back lands that they once considered theirs.”
Tessia nodded, then glanced at him sidelong. “So how do we tell who was and who wasn’t in favour of the war?”
Jayan considered this. “I expect that if most were against it, they’ll get together and meet with us peacefully.”
“But if only a few were against it?”
“There are always a few people who don’t agree with the majority – or their rule. We can’t let Sachaka recover and return to invade us again because a few of them might be nice people.” He felt frustration rising. “Surely you can see that we must do this to stop Sachaka invading again.”
“I can,” she replied. “But I can also see that it could be disastrous if we lose. Should our invasion of Sachaka fail, Kyralia will be left with a handful of magicians to defend it. The Sachakans will invade us in turn, again, and nobody will be able to stop them.”
Jayan felt his stomach sink at the thought, but as he considered it he realised she had nothing to fear. “Even if the Sachakans win, they’ll be weak as well. The magicians in Imardin have a whole city willing to give them strength. Whether that strength is taken by a few magicians or many, it’s still enough to deter a few Sachakans.”
“Even if those Sachakans have the strength of all the slaves here?” She turned to look at him.
Darn it, she’s right. He bit his lip. “Are you suggesting we kill the slaves, just in case we lose?”
“No!” She glared at him. “We shouldn’t be invading in the first place. It’s justifiable to kill in defence, but saying we’re here to protect ourselves from future invasions is... you could justify anything saying that. It’s . . . wrong.”
Jayan stared back at her. He remembered what Dakon had said the night before. “If we must invade Sachaka in order to save Kyralia, let’s not become Sachakans.”
Perhaps he could dismiss Tessia’s worries as those of someone whose morals were good, but impractical. Even as he disagreed with her he could not help admiring her for her desire to do right. He could not so easily dismiss the opinion of his former master and teacher, either.
“Strategically, we should kill the slaves, but we won’t. We have the luxury of doing things differently from the Sachakans because we have the storestone. And our different ways... our better morals... maybe they’re something we can give to them. Freedom for the slaves and better morals for the magicians. Surely that’s something worth fighting for?”
She glanced at him then looked away, her expression full of doubt. Whether it was at what he said, or at her own opinions, he couldn’t tell. She said nothing, and they rode on in an awkward silence for some time, before Jayan gave up and dropped back to ride next to Mikken again.
CHAPTER 43
The road into Sachaka had stretched across the bare skin of the mountains first, twisting this way and that as it descended steeply. Then, abruptly, it reached the hills below, where it took the easier route along flat valley floors, going wherever the water-courses went.
But the Kyralian army did not venture into the gentler landscape at first. It had camped in the shelter of a forest. Though it had been late afternoon, all but the first watch lay down to sleep. Or attempt to, Tessia thought wryly. She had lain on her pallet, listening to the other women breathing, wide awake and unable to stop worrying about Jayan and the outcome of this conq
uest.
Now, as the army rode silently into the populated lowlands of Sachaka, she ached with tiredness and wished she’d managed to sleep. Tired in my body; tired in my mind. Tired of worrying; tired of arguing with Jayan over what we’re doing.
They’d talked twice more, once after he’d volunteered to go with the group of magicians who would investigate the groups of buildings they encountered on the way, and again, briefly, as they had neared the first settlement.
Now he was gone, riding with twenty or so other magicians, led by Narvelan, down a side road towards distant white walls glowing in the moonlight.
What I suspect bothers me the most is that I know he’s right, she thought. But I’m also sure he isn’t. Invasion is wrong. It makes us the aggressor. It makes us more like the Sachakans. Less certain we are better than them.
Yet I also can’t help thinking we would have to do far worse to be as cruel and immoral as they. Perhaps the harm we do will be balanced by the good. We could make Sachaka a better place. We could end slavery for good.
It’s going to come at a cost. It’s going to change the way we see ourselves. How much are we willing to restrain ourselves in order to be right and moral? If we justify this, then how much easier will it be to justify worse? If Kyralians believe a little wrongdoing is excusable for the right reason, what else will we excuse, or assume others will excuse?
She sighed. If Jayan is right, then we are risking our future for the benefit of a people who have torn our country apart. I’m not sure many magicians would be putting their lives in danger if they saw it that way. A few may be that noble, but not all. No, most magicians are here to take advantage of our sudden magical superiority and, I suspect, to have their revenge.
A faint murmur among the magicians roused her from her thoughts. She looked down the side road towards the faint shapes of the distant buildings. Shadows moved before them. Though she could not make out recognisable shapes, they moved in the rhythmic, jolting way of riders coming at speed. Something about this haste filled her with dread.