The tenth night saw him staring into the jungle, his hand itching for a sword as something large crashed about in the trees, occasionally giving off a deafening crack that could only be a tree snapping in two.
“Ah, so there are still some left this far north,” the woman said in mild surprise. “Come on, dearest.” Her will tugged him along as she walked into the jungle. “It’s a rare sight, one you’ll cherish.”
His eyes darted about as he followed, searching the blackness for unimaginable horrors. Fear was an old friend, but terror was a stranger. “Look.” The woman came to a halt, crouching and pointing. The only light came from the half-moon above the tree canopy, painting the jungle floor a faint blue. It took him some time to fathom what he was seeing, the size and oddness of the thing defeating his comprehension. The beast stood at least ten feet tall, covered in long shaggy fur from tip to tail, moving about on great elongated limbs tipped with vicious-looking hooks. Its head was long and tubular, the narrow mouth giving off a faint hoot as it tore down a sapling, the crack echoing through the jungle.
“He’s an old one,” the woman said. “Probably been haunting this jungle longer than you’ve been alive, dearest.”
What’s it called? he wanted to ask, but didn’t. As ever she didn’t need to hear him say it. “The great sloth. It’s not dangerous, provided you don’t get too close. Only eats tree bark.”
The beast stopped suddenly, a strip of bark hanging from its mouth, two black eyes staring straight at them. It gave a low, sombre hoot and turned, lumbering away into the depths of the jungle on its impossible limbs.
“I doubt I’ll see another,” the woman commented as they returned to the road. “Every year the jungle grows smaller and the roads grow longer. Oh well.” She settled onto her bedroll. “Perhaps we’ll see a tiger tomorrow.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The next day brought them to the great river forming the border with Alpiran territory where a small town of stilted structures waited on the near shore. The river was nearly a mile wide but unlike the lake crossing to Mirtesk, there was no ferry to be seen here. The stilt-town was a series of interlinked platforms at the end of a long jetty, dwellings clustered on each, uniform only in their ramshackle construction. A slave market was in full swing on the largest platform, the overseer’s voice a constant chorus of barely intelligible jargon as he took bids from the audience, mostly grey-clads, although a few black robes were also present, sweating in the sun as their slaves wafted stale air over them with palm leaves.
“Lot seventy-three!” the overseer called as a naked girl was dragged onto the platform by a brawny Varitai. Frentis judged her to be no more than thirteen years old. “Fresh from the Twelve Sisters. No skills, no Volarian. Too plain for the pleasure house but trainable as a house-slave or breeding stock. Four circles to start.”
Frentis felt his binding flare as he watched the girl stand trembling and weeping on the platform, a stream of urine covering her thigh. “Now, now, dearest,” the woman said, clasping his hand, the loving wife replacing the scolding nag. She leaned close to plant a kiss on his cheek, whispering, “Your heroic days are gone. But, if you want to spare this one all that awaits her, I’ll buy her and you can kill her. Would you like that?”
It was no empty threat, he knew. She meant to do it, possibly even in kindness rather than cruelty. He was beginning to suspect she barely understood the difference between the two. He shook his head, trembling.
“As you wish.”
The girl went for two squares and a circle. She began to scream as they dragged her away, choking into silence as an overseer clamped a gag in her mouth.
“Lot seventy-four,” the overseer on the platform intoned as a stocky, broad-shouldered man was brought forward, his back striped red with fresh whip-strokes. “Onetime pirate, this one. From some islands in the north. Speaks Alpiran but no Volarian. Bit too spirited for the fields but will make a good show in the spectacles or fetch a decent price if you care to take him to the pits. Six circles to start.”
“Come along,” the woman said, leading him away from the auction. “I think this is making you a little too nostalgic.”
They found a merchant on one of the smaller platforms who took the cart and pony in exchange for two squares. Frentis secured the contents of the hidden compartment in his pack and they made their way to a boardinghouse, renting a room at an exorbitant rate. “Slavers in town,” the owner said, spreading his hands. “Should’ve come tomorrow, citizens.”
“I told you, dullard!” the woman snarled at Frentis. “Oh why did I shun my mother’s wisdom?”
“This is on the house though, citizen,” the owner said, handing Frentis a bottle with an understanding wink. “Might help the night go quicker, eh?”
They waited in their small room until nightfall. This unnamed stilt-town falling to silence as the slavers took their purchases to the road and their various fates.
“You don’t have slaves in your realm, do you?” the woman asked.
He stared out of the window at the broad, fast-flowing river and said nothing.
“No, you’re all free,” she went on. “But still slaves to your various superstitions, of course. Something we divested ourselves of centuries ago. Tell me, do you really think you’re going to live forever in some paradise with your dead relatives when you die?”
She flared the binding again when he didn’t answer. Tonight, it seemed, she actually wanted a conversation. “‘What is death?’” he quoted. “‘Death is but a gateway to the Beyond and union with the Departed. It is both ending and beginning. Fear it and welcome it.’”
“What’s that? One of your prayers?”
“The Faithful don’t pray. Prayers are for god worshippers and Deniers. It’s from the Catechism of the Faith.”
“And this faith promises eternal life after death?”
“Not life, life is of the body. The Beyond is the realm of the soul.”
“The soul?” She shook her head and gave a small laugh. “Well, in that at least, your Faithful seem to know something. A childish conceit, but founded on a grain of truth.”
She reached into the pack and extracted a pair of narrow-bladed daggers. “We need a boat.” She handed him a dagger which he concealed in the leather sheath strapped to his forearm.
The jetty where the boats were moored was guarded by two Varitai, both armed with the standard-issue broad-bladed spears common to this lowest tier of Volarian soldiery. They were a poorly maintained pair, with badly repaired armour showing numerous gaps and too much dullness in their eyes, bespeaking an overseer with a meagre knowledge of the correct mix of drugs.
“No boats available,” the largest of them said, blocking their path, the butt of his spear thumping onto the planks. “Come back in the morning.”
Frentis stabbed him in the eye, the narrow blade piercing the orb and the brain beyond in a single thrust. The woman leapt past the falling corpse and ducked under the orthodox but too slow slash of the second soldier to thrust her dagger into a gap between his breastplate and armpit, stepping behind him as he collapsed to his knees, pushing his helmeted head forward and finishing him with a thrust to the base of the skull.
They slipped the bodies into the river feetfirst, slowly so as to avoid any telltale splash. The woman chose a medium-sized boat, a flat-hulled river craft propelled by a single oar in the stern. She undid the mooring rope and let the river take them downstream for a mile or more before instructing Frentis to begin rowing. The current was swift, too swift to allow a straight crossing and he could only keep the prow pointed at the opposite bank with strenuous hauling on the oar.
“Atethia,” the woman said as the far bank grew in size, a stretch of marshland peppered with small islets each covered in tall rushes. “Southernmost province of the great Alpiran Empire, where we have much to do, dearest.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The dawn s
aw him guiding the boat through the marshes amidst an unceasing cloud of midges. The water was dulled brown with silt, the channels through the countless islets narrow and difficult to navigate.
“Awful place isn’t it?” the woman commented. “The graveyard of my father’s final invasion in fact. He spent three years building a fleet on the opposite bank. That wretched town was first constructed from wood salvaged from the wrecks. Four hundred warships and a thousand boats carried his great host across the river where they spent a full month slogging through this marsh, hundreds died of disease or drowning but on they went, only for them to die by the thousands in a great and mysterious fire that ravaged the marshes. Most Alpirans believe the gods intervened to destroy the invaders with their divine fury, but Volarian historians insist they simply soaked the fringes of the marsh with naphtha and set it alight with fire arrows. Fifty thousand Free Swords and slaves burned to cinders in the space of a single night. Not my father though. Mad as he was by then, he was still wise enough to remain on the other side of the river.” She glanced around at the rushes which grew so high as to obscure any view of the surrounding country. “Even today the Alpirans don’t bother to fortify this stretch of bank, for what general would be insane enough to try the same tactic?”
It took another two days before the marsh finally gave way to solid ground, the boat grounding on a silt bank where the rushes were less tall and they could see a stretch of open country beyond. After the monotony of the marsh and the fetid threat of the jungle the green fields ahead were a welcome and inviting reminder of the Realm.
“We’ll need new clothes,” the woman said, starting forward. “I am the daughter of a wealthy Alpiran merchant from the northern ports, sent to the Twelve Sisters to meet with a prospective husband. You are a runaway slave turned mercenary hired as my bodyguard.”
A half-day’s walk brought them to a midsize town hugging the banks of one of the tributaries to the great river. There were no defensive walls but from a distance they could see numerous Alpiran soldiers walking the streets. “A little too busy for us, dearest,” the woman decided. “There should be a plantation house or two further north.”
They stayed off the roads, avoiding occasional Alpiran cavalry patrols by trekking through the fields of cotton that seemed to be the main crop in the region. Before long a plantation house came into view, a wide two-storey complex of interlinked houses and farm buildings, busy with workers. They hid in an irrigation ditch until nightfall when the woman sent him to the house to seek out the laundry. “The finest you can find for me, dearest,” she told him. “I have appearances to maintain. Kill anyone who sees you. If it’s more than one, kill everyone in the house and burn it down.”
He approached from the west, the house having fewer windows on this side, moving from shadow to shadow, hugging the exterior wall. There were no guards, not even a dog to bark at the stranger appearing from the darkness. He made his way to the rear of the house where he assumed the servants’ quarters were situated. The house was quiet but for the faint sound of song coming from what he judged to be the kitchen from the rich, savoury aroma emanating from the window.
He stopped at the sound of movement, lying prone beneath a large cart as two women emerged from a doorway to the courtyard. They chatted as they worked, hanging clothes on the lines strung across the yard. Frentis had picked up a little Alpiran during the war but this was an unfamiliar dialect, the accent harsher and more guttural than in the northern ports. He could pick out only one word in ten, but the term “Choosing” was voiced more than once, spoken in a kind of hushed reverence, as was the word “Emperor.”
He watched the women complete their task and go back inside, waited the space of a hundred heartbeats then stole from beneath the wagon, pulling clothes from the washing line and wrapping them in a tight bundle. He was no judge of fashion but decided the woman would be content with a finely made robe of cotton with silk sleeves, plus a long cloak of dark blue—he froze at the sound of shuffling feet.
The boy stood in the doorway, playing with a wooden spindle on a string. He was no more than seven years old with a tumble of unkempt dark hair, his eyes rapt on his toy as it spun on the string. Kill anyone who sees you . . .
Frentis stood as still as he ever had, more still than the time he brought down his first stag under Master Hutril’s guiding eyes, more still than when he hid from One Eye’s thugs during his Test of the Wild.
The top spun and spun on the string.
Kill anyone who sees you . . .
Slowly, the binding began to flare. She knows, he realised. How did she always know?
It would be easy. Snap his neck then take him to the well. A tragic accident.
The top spun and spun . . . and the binding burned with a new pitch of agony. The damp bundle of clothes in his hands dripped onto the courtyard, a slow steady patter sure to draw a boy’s curious eyes.
“Neries!” a woman’s voice called from the kitchen window, followed by an insistent string of verbiage carrying a tone of maternal authority. The boy huffed, spun his top a few more times then went back inside.
Frentis fled.
◆ ◆ ◆
“It’ll do, I suppose.” The woman discarded her grey attire and dressed in the silk-sleeved robe he had brought her. Frentis had already donned the pale blue trews and shirt he had chosen for himself. “Little loose around the waist though. Do you think me fat, dearest?” She grinned at him. The sun was rising and lit her face with a golden hue. You would never know, he thought, studying her feline beauty, the grace with which she moved. A monster lives behind her face.
“It was a child, wasn’t it?” she said as he hefted the pack onto his shoulder and they made for the road. “Boy or girl?”
Frentis kept walking, saying nothing.
“Doesn’t matter,” she continued. “But you shouldn’t indulge in any delusions. Our list is long and your tiresome notions of morality will no doubt cast every name in the role of innocent victim. But we will strike them through, each and every one, and you will do what I require of you, child or no.”
They came to another town in late afternoon, the woman seeking out a dressmaker and purchasing something more to her liking, paying with an Alpiran gold from the supply sewn into the lining of the pack he carried. She posed for him in a simple but elegant ensemble of black-and-white silk, saying something in Alpiran, presumably seeking his opinion. The dressmaker had been kind enough to help with her hair, now bound up and braided in the Alpiran style, an ornate comb shining in the lustrous black mass. You would never know . . .
One day I will kill you, he thought, wishing he could voice the words. For everything you’ve done, everything you’re going to do and for everything you will make me do. I will kill you.
The dressmaker recommended an inn near the market square where they rented two rooms, her new role requiring the appearance of propriety. He had hoped this might give him some respite but she used him again before dismissing him, straddling his naked form on the bed, sweat sheening her skin as she took the pleasure she wanted. When it was done she collapsed against him, breath hot on his cheek, fingers teasing the hair on his chest, making him put his arms around her. She always did this, creating the tableaux of contented lovers, perhaps she even believed it.
“When this is done,” she breathed, “I’ll have you give me a child.” She nuzzled his neck, kissing, caressing. “Our blood will produce the most beautiful offspring, don’t you think? In three centuries I’ve not found a man worthy of the honour. And now I find him in you, a slave from a soon-to-be-conquered land. How strange the world is.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Morning saw them on the road again, riding now, the woman having spent another gold on two horses, a dappled grey mare for herself and a russet-coloured stallion for her bodyguard. They were sturdy enough animals and docile of nature, making him pine for his old warhorse. Master Rensial h
ad chosen the stallion for him, black from head to tail save for a flash of white on his forehead. “Loyal but spirited,” the mad master had said handing him the reins. Frentis had named him Sabre and in time came to understand he was probably the finest mount ever ridden by a brother of the Sixth Order, an obvious sign of Rensial’s favour. He had last seen Sabre in the stables at the Governor’s mansion in Untesh, treating him to a final grooming before going to take his place on the wall, fully expecting death to come within the hour. Where is he now? he wondered. Taken as booty by some Alpiran highborn, probably. Hope he gave him a good life.
They rode north for another week, sleeping in the many way-stations to be found on this road. It was a poor thing in comparison to the Volarian wonder stretching away from Mirtesk, just a loose gravel track raising dust every time they spurred to a canter. They saw numerous soldiers on the road, all heading south in well-ordered but dusty columns. The basic kit of the Alpiran infantryman hadn’t changed since Frentis last faced them in battle, mail shirts reaching down to the knee, a conical helm and a seven-foot spear resting on every shoulder. He recognised these as regulars, with plenty of veterans in the ranks, judging from the scars and age visible on some dusty faces. The Alpirans may not have fortified the bank but the Emperor was clearly diligent in ensuring the security of this province.
“Were they good soldiers?” the woman asked. They had dismounted by the side of the road to allow a column to pass by, a cohort of about a thousand men marching under a green banner emblazoned with a red star. “The Alpirans, did they fight well in that little war of yours?”
The insistent throb of the binding told him she expected an answer. “It was their land,” he said. “They fought for it. And they won.”
“But I expect you killed quite a few in the process, yes?”
The binding continued to throb. The battle of the dunes, the arrows loosed at the Bloody Hill, the frantic struggle on the wall . . . “Yes.”
“No guilty feelings, my love? All those sons and fathers taken by your sword for the crime of defending their own land? No twinges of conscience?”