‘No!’ The captain’s sharp word held ringing distress. ‘No, Orannia, don’t do this.’
Anja lifted her drooping head, grabbed the brown fist clenched like iron in Stormfront’s soaked mane. ‘Mykkael, what’s wrong?’
‘If she dies,’ he gasped, breathless, ‘the sorcerer’s demon will claim her!’
Thrust past the first, ugly start of her fear, Anja realized he was raving. ‘Mykkael,’ she entreated, ‘Mykkael, I’m not harmed. The wards in your sword hilt are silent.’
But the voice he heard in delirium was not hers. He did not respond to assurance. Words poured from him in an anguished torrent, fuelled by heartsick memory. ‘As her family, I beg you, assist me! Do not allow her to take her own life and become for ever consumed. Please, no! I don’t care how she cries, or what torment she suffers in madness. You must stand strong, as I have. Guard her, each minute. Don’t give her life over to Rathtet without fighting.’
Anja stroked his wracked face, and laid her cheek on his forearm. ‘Hush, Mykkael.’ Her woman’s touch seemed to calm him. ‘Whatever princess you speak for, she’s safe.’
He subsided. The last word he whispered held shattering sorrow, and a clarity cruel as glass. ‘Orannia.’
Anja could do no more than press onwards, coaxing Stormfront’s choppy stride towards the encroaching cliffs. Daylight was fast fading, sped on by the gloom of the storm. As sunset approached, no clinging remnant of trap scent would deter the kerries’ night-hunting acuity.
Under the rock face, the streaming water splashed into shallow catch basins. The sloped verges were surrounded with lush groves of trees, and tangles of late-blooming wildflowers. Their sodden colour did little to restore Anja’s courage. She had gone beyond tired. Wending a dispirited course under the dripping evergreens, she was chilled and wet, and starting to shiver. The rock wall to her right showed no trace of an opening. The marshy tussocks around her were broken by flooded gullies and split stone, a trial to Stormfront’s lameness. Mykkael’s raving had lapsed into ominous quiet, the rasp of his breathing grown shallow and thin. Anja touched his hand, and found the clenched fingers icy. Fear rode her, that he was slipping away.
He needed rest, and a fire for warmth. Yet her ongoing search encountered no safe place for respite. She kept on, without other option, except to sit down and give up in the rain.
That moment, cold as tapped crystal, the shaman-sung pattern etched into the sword hilt sang out a note of clear warning.
Anja stopped Stormfront. Planted against his steamed shoulder, she fastened wet fingers around Mykkael’s wrist, as the sword in his harness continued to ring, and terror hazed her to trembling.
‘Captain,’ she whispered. ‘Beware, there is sorcery.’ Torn apart by harrowing dread, she did not expect him to answer.
Yet the queer, thrumming cry of the blade had cut across his mazed senses. Mykkael stirred and sucked in a hitched breath. He raised his bent head and made a brave effort to survey the dripping slope under the cliff face. After a moment, a frown marred his brow. ‘Do you smell the breeze, Princess?’ he whispered. ‘That’s no kerrie’s fire, but wood smoke.’
Anja had not picked up the detail. Light-headed from hunger and adrift in bleak misery, she was never so keenly attuned to the nuance of the open wilds. She gripped Stormfront’s cheek strap, blinking through misted lashes, but could detect no glint of a nearby blaze.
That moment, in front and behind, the soaked leaves of the thickets rustled and shed their strung burden of droplets. Furtive movement closed on their position from all sides, driving Mykkael to wild anxiety. His clawing effort to clear his sheathed sword was clipped short by a spasm of agony.
Stormfront was too worn and crippled to run. Anja stood exposed, while the surrounding wood came alive with the emergent forms of twelve people. They were clad in tanned pelts and deer hide. Oddments of carved bone swung from their belts, and their shoulder-strapped bundles of belongings. Each held a straight spear with a leaf-shaped steel point, and a grip made of cross-wrapped leather.
Except for one, in the lead, an unarmed old man who carried a slender wood staff.
‘Don’t move,’ Mykkael grated. ‘We’re pinned down.’ He jammed his hands against Stormfront’s crest and forced his cramped posture back upright.
While he battled to secure his reeling balance, his sword hilt fell ominously silent.
Anja huddled against the drooping black horse and surveyed the ring of queer foreigners who had crept up and set wary ambush. They made no overt move towards violence. The spears stayed upright. The bone-handled knives at their hips remained sheathed, while their dark-skinned, foreign faces inspected captain and princess with scouring interest.
Held straight by royal bearing, Anja regarded them back.
Six were wizened elders. These wore ornate bracelets on their forearms and wrists, fashioned of silver and copper. Two pairs were young warriors, of exquisite, lithe build. The other cloaked forms appeared to be female. Man, woman or elder, their faces had the same sharp-edged leanness, the same angled jaw and high cast of cheekbone. They could have been stamped from the selfsame mould as the desert-bred captain beside her.
Anja stared at their elderly leader. The white hair at his temples had been laced into braids beneath a peaked snakeskin headdress. He carried no weapon. His simple, cut staff bore no decoration. Despite his exotic, uncivilized clothes, his weathered features bespoke a commanding presence. Caught like a stunned rabbit under his gaze, Anja realized that Mykkael might have looked so, had he the chance to live out his years to the dignity of advanced age.
Stormfront tossed his soaked mane and snorted. The movement jostled the captain, and broke the uncanny quiet settled over the glen like a spell.
‘They’re tribal,’ breathed Mykkael. ‘Scoraign shamans, beyond doubt.’ His wet skin ruffled up into gooseflesh as though his mind went on fire with witch thought.
‘Mercy,’ gasped Anja. ‘Mykkael, you told me they’d kill you for being an outcast.’
He unfastened a clenched hand and touched her to silence. ‘Let me handle this, Princess. Despite their stern customs, they won’t be discourteous.’ Unsteady with pain, braced upright on Stormfront, he raised his closed fist to his forehead in trembling salute.
The elder in front returned the same gesture. His spill of white hair blew in the damp wind. His attendant circle made no forward move. The warriors stood with stilled hands on their spears, apparently not concerned for the hour, or the predations of night-hunting kerries. The old man’s dark eyes raked the princess’s protector, avid as piercing black glass. He did not speak. His tradition insisted the male stranger on horseback should be the first to declare himself.
Mykkael strove to match that implicit demand. Erect as his injuries would allow, alert though his ears rang with fever, he addressed the elder in the poorly accented southern dialect used by the caravan traders. ‘She is Princess Anja of Sessalie, descended of King Isendon and Queen Anjoulie. Of her line, she is both the last born, and the last, after her sire who is failing. You behold the heir who must bear the light of her ancestry unto the next generation. Her nation is under assault by cold sorcery. Her people have no vizier to defend them, and no shaman to hallow the ground. If you will accept her and grant her protection, my first charge to her sire will be fulfilled.’
The ancient man measured him. Bone-thin and graceful, with hands that revealed the hard wear of a lifetime clasped to his stave, he said nothing for a drawn moment. Then, as though each word had been carefully weighed, he said, ‘Warrior, behold, you are heard. I am listening.’
‘There is more.’ Mykkael inclined his head. ‘This woman’s brother, Prince Kailen, has been bound beyond death by a shape-changer. The creature’s dissolved head and right arm remain in my hands, prisoned in leather and salt. My oath of service to Sessalie’s crown demands my vigilance, until his Highness’s spirit can be redeemed. I ask, might Tuinvardia’s knowledge achieve his safe passage through banishment?
My life is pledged to stand guard, that Isendon’s son should not fall to further ill use as a sorcerer’s abomination.’
No move from the elder; the warriors maintained their motionless poise. Their stark expressions revealed their harsh understanding. To a man, they realized the gravity of the peril this outsider had brought to their country. The shamans behind exchanged unsettled glances, while darkness loomed, and the gathered mist drifted. Rain trickled and fell. In due time, the ancient inclined his head towards Anja, granting leave for her consultation. Then he settled to wait in strict form, while Mykkael shared a whispered translation to summarize the exchange.
After the princess’s nod to her spokesman, the aged shaman deigned to give answer. ‘Warrior, tell the woman you guard, we accept her. She will be given the same care as our Jantii tribe’s daughters, until presented to Tuinvardia’s emperor. If our circle should fail, and her enemy triumphs, all shall weep, for our own will have fallen before her.’
Mykkael saluted, fist to forehead again. ‘You do her high honour, as the line of her ancestry deserves.’
Anja, listening, did not grasp the strange words. She could but watch as the old shaman addressed the captain again.
‘Warrior! For the burden you carry, named as Isendon’s son, fox clan circle will undertake a deliverance, but at a price. To attempt this banishment, you must grant us the song line that Jantii tribe does not possess. Give my people the patterns sung into your wardings if we are to try to achieve what you ask.’
Mykkael caught a hitched breath. He shut his eyes through a moment of reeling dizziness, then murmured in clipped words to Anja, ‘Princess, you shall have learned help. Let me make the arrangements, and pray that Prince Kailen may be redeemed along with you.’
‘What are the demands, Mykkael?’
He jerked his chin, no; refused the pause to enact explanation. The entreaty on his stripped face suggested his lucid awareness was slipping away. If he should succumb, she would have no one else to treat for her. Anja rested her hand on his knee, and gave him her tacit consent.
Mykkael bowed his head to the elder forthwith. Besieged by pain, he bound over the price that was asked without hesitation. ‘Take all that I have, beginning with this blade I carry.’
Too stricken to unbuckle his harness, he bent. His face turned in wrenching appeal towards Anja. Aware that his gesture presaged a surrender, but not knowing what terms must be served, the princess was forced to draw the weapon on his behalf. At his firm bidding, she laid the battered blade on the ground at the old man’s feet.
Mykkael fought a wringing shiver and straightened. The next phrase he spoke came through ragged, while Anja stood trembling behind Stormfront’s drooped head. She listened to each foreign syllable in tense, agonized silence.
‘A Sanouk circle sang the white ward on that hilt. Begin there.’ Even pressed to the bittermost edge of endurance, the grace of Mykkael’s ear for language shone through. His gutturals had instinctively altered to match the living example before him. ‘My nape bears the tattooed patterns of guard wrought first by Eishwin, then augmented by Perincar to fight Rathtet. Into your hands, I commit my live flesh, bearing these protections as you require.’
The elder raised his stave, then thumped the end to the earth’s breast to seal a pact of honour with the mounted stranger before him. ‘Warrior! I am Anzbek, born to fox clan’s mothers. Let my name and ancestry bear witness to Jantii tribe’s pledged half of the circle.’
Anja saw Mykkael’s locked fingers whiten. She felt the terrible spasm that raked him shudder through Stormfront’s neck. She dared not move, even to offer her hands. Though the next moment brought his collapse, his bearing decried any effort to help. Whether he fell off the back of the horse, the princess could not in that moment have risked the affront to his dignity.
Mykkael had to fight, now, for the breath to frame speech. He had lost all aplomb. In appeal before Anzbek, threadbare with emotion, he set seal to his share of the bargain. ‘Elder, I am Mykkael. I have name, but no claim to ancestry. Let the sword at your feet and the gift of Sanouk regard stand for my half of the circle.’
Anzbek touched his fist to his brow. Then he raised his staff in salute and announced to the tribesfolk assembled around him, ‘Jantii people, bear witness! This pledge is accepted.’ He bent and collected the sword, and clasped the marked hilt to his breast.
‘Hail, Mykkael! You do us great honour!’ His sharp eyes glittered. ‘Hear my praise, warrior! Know that your run through Hell’s Chasm has restored our hope, and that of the brothers we serve in Tuinvardia. The line of song that your valour has bequeathed shall be sung with reverence by fox clan circle’s children. For as long as life lasts, their grandchildren will preserve the notes after them, and their offspring, throughout generations to come.’
The old shaman spun his staff. He thumped the base to the ground, setting seal to an oath his tribe must uphold for as long as their descendants walked on the earth.
The young warriors slapped their opened palms to their spear shafts. They broke their poised stance and pressed forward. Yet as their crowding attentions closed in, Mykkael reeled. Stormfront sidled to his sharp shift in weight. Before the captain’s lurching slide should pitch him off the black gelding’s back, Anja lunged and braced up his limp weight.
‘He must not ride further,’ Anzbek pronounced, still speaking in Scoraign dialect. He gestured a hurried command to his tribesmen. ‘My brothers, ready your spears.’
Yet as the elder shaman reached out to grasp Stormfront’s headstall, Anja jostled the gelding away.
The old man snapped short. Startled by her vehement hostility, he folded his hands on his staff, then jerked his chin for his spearmen to hold in restraint. ‘Does this warrior’s bargain not please you?’ he inquired in stiffened surprise.
Anja did not know a word of the language. She had heard Mykkael speak, but had grasped little beyond their demand that he yield up his sword. ‘No spears!’ Embarrassed that her protest must be phrased in Sessalie’s clipped tongue, she flushed and said lamely. ‘Forgive me.’ Although convinced she could not make herself understood, she was bound by state courtesy to apologize. ‘I don’t speak Scoraign dialect. Even so, I won’t let you kill him.’
The elder responded in stilted northern. ‘Kill him?’ He raised grizzled eyebrows. His dark features clouded, while the air surrounding his peaked snakeskin hat seemed oddly limned in a soft, grainy light. ‘The warrior has promised the songs in his wardings! Do you forbid him this choice?’
Anja swallowed. Her stance stayed arm-folded and adamant. ‘Mykkael told me himself, if he dies, Eishwin’s pattern will cease to guard against sorcery. If you desire the protections he carries, have your warriors put up their spears. For this man’s life’s sake, I will not back down. Not being armed, I can do no more than beg the grace of your reprieve.’
The elder grunted. The stave in his fist stayed grounded to earth as he shrugged with frowning puzzlement. For a drizzle-soaked interval he studied the princess’s face. In dirt and weariness, he would read exhaustion, and hunger, and trials of harrowing uncertainty. Whether or not he grasped the gist of her speech, his shining black eyes seemed to measure the conflict she held in her heart.
At length, he addressed her. His tone stayed polite. ‘Princess Anja, you have been named and set under our protection.’ His accent was inflected with a musical lilt that rendered the phrase gravely pleasing. ‘We certainly realize your Mykkael is hurt. The spears of our warriors will only be used to fashion a litter to bear him. Jantii people have knowledge of wounds and their treatment. Stand aside. If you value this man’s pledge as we do, you must stand down and allow our healer to treat him.’
When she hesitated, still uncertain, his humour resurged and transformed his stern features with laugh lines. ‘Daughter, do you fret for the beast? He is our sacred relation as well. His hurts will be tended with mindful care.’ Gently, firmly, he captured her chilled hand. ‘Give the rein, Princess. Let
Anzbek of the fox clan circle extend Jantii tribe’s hospitality.’
Presumptuous at the last, he pried her frozen fingers off the black gelding’s headstall. ‘Go with the women,’ urged Anzbek. ‘Our elders will attend to the warrior, while the young men look after the lame horse.’
A tender, shy touch brushed at Anja’s stiff shoulder. One of the women stood at her side, her approach unnervingly soundless. ‘Come away, Princess. We have a fire. You must take food and shelter in a cave in the rocks not far off.’
‘Kerries,’ Anja protested, still resisting. ‘There are roosts in these cliffs. The creatures will prey on the horse.’
The desert-bred woman smiled and tapped a contrivance made of cord and carved wood, looped on a thong at her belt. ‘Not to worry. Our people know what to do when such flying marauders come hunting.’
Anja regarded the warriors, closed in and awaiting her permission. Their fierce expressions were not unfriendly. The six elders, also, watched her next move. Ripped by indecision, she turned her soaked head, and finally surveyed Mykkael. His limp frame bore upon her sprained wrist, the unconscious bulk of his weight more than her failed strength could sustain. The shallow draw of his breath brushed her neck, the rhythm now broken and ragged. The relentless drizzle beaded his skin, wisped to raised steam by his fever. Whatever binding promise he had yielded along with his sword, he had appeared to meet his fate willingly. Untreated, he would certainly die of his wounds. When these Scoraign people stripped off his clothes, they would discover the fact he was outcast by his lack of tribal tattoos.