The Path of Sorrow Page 8

  As Colken followed Eggs through the doorway, he was dazzled by polished steel glinting in the light of the torches set in the walls, which bristled with every kind of weapon he had ever seen. The sight of so many beautifully crafted weapons made Colken's fingers twitch with the urge to wield a spear or a sword.

  “If you would like to step this way, Master Colken,” Eggs ushered him past the rows of exotic looking blades. “Time is of the essence. We must show you to your vessel.”

  He handed Colken a black fur-trimmed cloak he carried over his arm. “Eastern Temeria is a land of extremes, while it swelters in the daylight hours, the nights can be bitterly cold.”

  Colken took the cloak and fastened it about his neck, shrugging it behind him so that it hung down his back.

  The three men walked through the armoury and, as they passed under the skylight, something glinted on the far wall, catching Colken's eye. He stopped and turned towards it.

  In its own space on the wall, there hung a great long sword, its dull steel blade shimmering in the half-light. Colken was drawn to it. Forgetting his company, he strode across and stood in front of the sword, gazing up at it. He took the sword slowly in his hand, plucking it from the sconce in the wall, and turned toward the skylight.

  The gleam of the blade seemed unreal to him as he tested its weight. It was a simple shape, but that in itself gave the sword its innate beauty. The hilt was as long as Colken's forearm and the pommel was a polished steel fist. The thickest part of the blade, below the hilt, was wrapped in a hand's width of leather and engraved in the broad blade was an arm extending half way down clutching a blacksmith's hammer in its fist.

  There was a black scabbard for the sword mounted on the wall. It was tipped at each end with silver and on the side was a silver relief of the same arm and blacksmith's hammer that was engraved on the sword. The scabbard was attached to a strangely shaped leather belt.

  Colken took the strap and removed his cloak to fasten the loops around his shoulders and the other end of the harness buckled around his waist. The scabbard sat surprisingly comfortably between his shoulder blades. He took a couple more practice swings with the sword and whipped it over his head, sliding it smoothly into its scabbard.

  “Have the sword if you wish,” Nurse Lofty said primly. “Now, if you have quite finished posing…”

  The odd couple ushered him back to the far end of the chamber, where a table was laid out with weapons. A long scimitar, a Djanki belt knife, a dagger, and two curved blades like the ones he had seen the Sharib carry in the Southern Sands.

  Leaning against the table was a Djanki war spear. The weapon Colken had trained with his whole life, it was a wooden shaft roughly the same height as Colken with a double-edged blade at one end that was half as long as his arm. At the other end was traditionally an egg-shaped steel ball, but on this one it was moulded into the shape of a fist, a larger version of the pommel of his new sword. Two thirds of the centre of the shaft was wrapped in a fine soft leather strap, which helped its user wield it like a staff.

  Colken wasted no time in arming himself while Eggs and Nurse Lofty watched with the expressions of parents seeing an only son wield his first sword.

  They then lead him back past the guard and through a door opposite, down another narrow staircase that widened at the bottom and opened out onto a wide dock.

  Dozens of jetties extended from the dock populated by galleons, flutes, various merchant vessels, and strangely shaped craft Colken had never seen before. Hundreds of people were busy loading or unloading barrels and crates.

  “Temeria is a few days' sailing to the West, depending on the weather.” Eggs pointed to the horizon and lead Colken along a jetty that was unoccupied except for a small cog moored at the very end.

  “I have prepared a small pack for you,” Nurse Lofty said with a smile. “It contains the bare necessities, of course.” A bag awaited Colken at the foot of the gangplank. “And to ensure your safe passage, at least as far as the shores of Temeria, Captain Grist will take you within rowing distance.”

  Aboard the cog, looking silently down at Colken, stood a wind-battered, sun-leathered old salt with a shock of white hair and a craggy face which looked like a map of a mountain range.

  “The crew have been instructed not to converse with you, Master Colken,” continued Nurse Lofty, “and I cannot illustrate too clearly the, uh, delicate nature of your mission. You must not discuss it with anyone. Good luck.”

  Colken hung the bag from his shoulder and boarded the cog. Grist eye-balled him for a heartbeat then bellowed orders to his crew. Colken sailed away from the House of Unkindness, to find a child he had never seen in a foreign land torn apart by war.

  5.

  The people of Moon-Path were indeed a strange tribe; respected, slightly feared, and preferably avoided by the other nomadic tribes that wandered their obscure part of the world. They were not entirely human, though the secret of their origin was lost in the contradictory accounts of their bizarre folklore. The other tribes knew them variously as Dog People, The Star-Readers, Moon-Walkers, and The Sleepers, all pertaining to their unusual appearance and way of life.

  One of the few things known for certain about the Moon-Walkers was that they had many secrets. They were nomadic, and made a living by trafficking in human flesh. They were, in short, wandering slave-traders.

  Bail realised this as soon as he came within sight of the settlement. Moon-Path was no civilised person’s idea of a town, being a cluster of hide tents and ramshackle dwellings scattered about a hollow between two dunes. Flies buzzed around the hollow, picking at discarded bits of meat and fruit, and annoying the group of rangy camels that rested at the northern end of the settlement. The place resembled a rubbish heap, and it stank from a mixture of sweat, unwashed bodies, and rotting matter.

  That the Moon-Walkers were slavers was obvious from the cages placed on a wagon outside the largest of the tents. There were three of them, crude but strongly-made affairs of timber and knotted ropes, each taller than a man and large enough to contain several adults.

  They were stuffed full of people. Bail counted twelve grown men, three women, and a couple of children —all filthy, clothed in rags, and slumped in attitudes of despair. None looked like they were starving, though: evidently the Moon-Walkers knew their business and were careful to fatten their slaves for market.

  All this he took in with a glance, as he and Sorrow stood on the dune overlooking the settlement. No guard or sentry had challenged them, which seemed odd to Bail, and those Moon-Walkers who could be seen were lounging about in front of their tents. They were a fine, athletic-looking people, with an odd combination of silvery hair and dark brown skins. The men were tall and muscular, the women lithe and long-limbed, but none showed much sign of activity.

  Most of the men Bail could see were fast asleep, while the women were either sitting around chatting or making half-hearted attempts at repairing clothes or preparing meals. Gangs of naked children swarmed about the place like lice, fighting, playing, and shrieking with a vital energy lacking in their seniors.

  “They don’t seem very concerned about us,” said Bail. One or two of the women in the hollow had glanced up in their direction, but didn’t seem to find the appearance of two strangers very interesting.

  “It is their way,” said Sorrow, “as a people, they believe in fate to the extreme. They show no surprise at us being here, because we are fated to be here.”

  “Really? I wonder if we’re also fated to get a cup of tea, or whatever they drink. My throat feels like an army of dust devils have been lodging in it for a month.”

  Bail assumed an air of superiority and half-swaggered, half-limped down towards the settlement. As well as an accomplished thief, street fighter, acrobat, confidence trickster, and dagger-for-hire, he considered himself a passable actor. It would be fatal, he thought, to show any lack of confidence in front of savages. The fact that his confidence was at this moment lower than a snake’s belly
was of no consequence. He had to tough it out.

  A man was sitting at the foot of the dune, with a spear across his knees and his back resting against a saddle. He seemed the closest thing to a sentry, and looked up without much interest as Bail and Sorrow approached.

  “Good evening,” Bail said cheerfully, raising his hand in greeting. The spearman stared at his hand, looking perplexed, and said something in a sing-song language that Bail didn’t understand. It sounded more like a chant, fluid and lyrical.

  “I expect you speak their lingo, don’t you, boy?” he said, cocking his head at Sorrow.

  Sorrow frowned. “A little, but not very well,” he admitted.

  “So what did he say?”

  “Something like...I’m not certain...why is this fool showing me his hand?”

  Not for the first time that day, Bail swallowed his anger. He had an impulsive temper, one he had never quite learned to control, and the Gods seemed determined to test it.

  Apart from his bafflement at Bail’s greeting, the guard didn’t seem inclined to do much guarding, and let them pass with a shrug. Sorrow led Bail to the largest of the tents, past the indifferent, half-slumbering people and scattered piles of refuse and unwashed clothes.

  There, just inside the entrance to the tent, a huge man lay with his head propped against an overturned bucket, snoozing peacefully while two of his wives sat either side of him and glowered at each other. He was as muscular and athletic in appearance as the rest of the men of his tribe, but bearded, with deep lines scored into his handsome features, and the silvery hair on his scalp was receding.

  The man, whom Bail assumed to be some sort of chief, opened his eyes slightly as the shadows of Bail and Sorrow fell across him, but otherwise made no movement.

  “Ask him for food and water, and if we can shelter here for the night,” said Bail, wrinkling his nose at the stench emanating from the tent, “but don’t tell him that his village stinks like one enormous pigsty.”

  “I shall do my best,” answered Sorrow, and launched into a stumbling, hesitant version of the sing-song language of the Moon-Walkers. The chief’s face wrinkled into an expression of slight confusion as Sorrow spoke, and then split into an amused grin. He nodded, and spoke a few words.

  “He’s smiling,” said Bail, who hated not knowing what was being said around him, “is that a good thing, or is he contemplating doing something horrible to us? If he tries to have us put into one of those slave wagons I’ll put my stiletto through his eye.”

  Red-faced at his poor attempt at the language, Sorrow finished speaking and bowed, very elegantly, with a hand placed over his heart. “He has no objection to us staying here,” he said in a low voice, “but for one night only. While we are here we can eat and drink what we like, and you” – the boy’s face reddened further – “can enjoy one or two of the slave women, if you pay for the privilege.”

  Bail sniffed. “A charming offer, but I don’t think so. Most of them have probably been humped half to death by his followers, and I don’t do sloppy seconds. I’ll keep until we reach proper civilisation.”

  He remembered who he was talking to, and grinned down at Sorrow. “I expect you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you? Or at least I hope you don’t. Never mind, wait until you’re a few years older and then I’ll tell you all about it. Assuming we still know each other by then, which we won’t.”

  Sorrow’s face was now threatening to burn up in shame, and he stared fixedly at his feet. Relenting, Bail cuffed him amiably about the head.

  “Go and find us a tent to sleep in,” he said, “one that’s relatively clean, and at a decent distance from these savages. Get some food and water as well, or wine if you can find it. I’ve got things to discuss with the big man here.”

  “Discuss?” Sorrow glanced up at him, frowning, “but you can’t speak his language.”

  “I’ll make myself understood, never fear. Now off you go and do as I’ve told you.”

  Sorrow was nothing if not obedient, and so off he went.

  If the adults among the Moon-Walkers showed little interest in Sorrow, the same could not be said for the children. As soon as he left the tent a crowd of virtually naked, filthy little brigands began dogging his steps. Some of them called after him, but Sorrow had difficulty understanding their language when spoken so fast, and was anxious to do the jobs Bail had given him. Foolishly, he broke into a run, and the brigands scampered after him, laughing and shouting at the excitement of the chase.

  Two of them, the pack leaders, were bigger and older than Sorrow, and could run faster. They caught up with him in the heart of the encampment, right next to the slave wagons, and tackled him to the ground. With the thoughtless malice of feral bullies, one knelt on his chest and rained punches down on Sorrow’s face, while the other kicked him in the legs and ribs and beckoned the others to follow his example.

  Sorrow retreated to the quiet inner peace that his family had taught him to use during moments of inescapable danger or stress. His people had developed this meditative state in order to cope with physical torture, something they had often suffered during their long and tragic history. It meant that those inflicting torture on a member of the tribe was denied the satisfaction of making their victim cry out in pain, or of extracting information.

  Annoyed at Sorrow’s lack of obvious fear, the boys redoubled their efforts to kick and punch him into a pulp. A couple of the lounging adults, a man and woman in middle age, watched the beating with expressions of profound boredom on their faces, but made no move to stop it. Similar expressions of indifference were etched into the wan features of the slaves inside the cages. Every one of them had seen and experienced much violence in their lives, and so a little more came as no surprise.

  Sorrow was about to suffer the further humiliation of being stripped, but then it was the turn of his tormentors to suffer. Two men appeared, both armed with clubs that they normally used to discipline slaves, and started laying into the children like hunters whipping over-eager hounds from a kill.

  The men were members of the chief’s bodyguard, and the chief himself was standing under the awning of his tent, frowning as the children abandoned their prey and scattered in all directions. Bail was just behind him, looking alarmed but reluctant to intervene.

  One of the bodyguards reached down and picked up Sorrow by his arm. The boy was as limp as a boneless fish, and had to be thoroughly shaken before life returned and his eyes snapped open.

  “He seems alright, bar a few cuts and bruises,” said Bail, sighing with relief, before remembering that the chief couldn’t understand a word.

  Turning to face the big man, he stuck his hand out, as if to shake on a bargain. Like the sentry, the chief looked at his hand with a baffled expression, and then the light of understanding dawned on his lined face. He shouted an order into the tent, and a few moments later one of his women slouched out, rubbing the sleep from her face. She carried a leather pouch, and the clinking metallic noise the contents of the pouch made as it swung in her hand brought a happy smile to Bail’s face.

  She handed the pouch to her chief, and with a nod he tossed it to Bail. Bail’s eager fingers undid the twine and he found himself staring at a dozen grubby Temerian silver coins, known as talents. The talents were stamped with the unlovely features of the various Generals that until recently had been fighting over Temeria, but would count as legal tender in most parts of the country.

  Resisting the temptation to run the coins through his fingers, Bail looked up at the chief. “I’ll need a horse as well,” he said in a loud, slow voice, “a horse, man, come on, you must understand what that is. Gods above, do I have to do an impression of one?”

  That wasn’t necessary. In the end Bail made himself understood and got his horse, a wiry little desert screw, as tough as she was ugly. He also managed to obtain a map, torn and stained in places but clear enough to show him the whereabouts of civilisation: real civilisation, in his view, with houses and be
ds and hot water and whores and, with any luck, a few decent ales.

  He rode west, leaving Moon-Path and Sorrow behind him. If what passed for his conscience ever gnawed at him for selling his erstwhile companion into slavery, Bail coped remarkably well. The child had been decent enough company, as children went, but of limited value.

  Twelve silver talents, to be precise.

  * * * *

  General Saqr winced at the effort of pouring sugar into his coffee. The upper part of his right arm throbbed with pain every time he moved it, making his days a misery and his nights a sleepless torture. Though his physicians changed the bandages and applied fresh liniment twice a day, it seemed to have little effect beyond aggravating the wound.

  Even the thought of what he had endured made him shudder. Stabbed in the arm, his own precious flesh pierced by a dirty spear wielded by a common soldier! Worse might have befallen him if Saqr’s devoted bodyguard hadn’t sacrificed himself defending his master, holding off his enemies long enough for the General to scramble aboard a horse and ride to safety.

  All this had occurred in the fight around the tent immediately following the assassination of General Harsu, would-be Emperor of Temeria and now food for worms. Most of the other Generals had perished in the confused brawl, stabbed and hacked and trampled to death, which gave Saqr a deal of satisfaction. The exception was Anma, who had managed to fight her way clear, roaring and laying about her with a sabre.

  That left Saqr and Anma as the only major contenders for the Silver Crown left in the whole of Temeria. Logically, and following the precedents of Temerian history, they should have launched the remnants of their armies at each other and fought to the death like a couple of rabid dogs. To the victor would go the crown, the title of Emperor, and the unenviable task of trying to enforce their authority on a land that had done without Emperors for many generations.

  General Saqr had no intention of going down this route. His armies were exhausted and cut to ribbons, and he knew himself to be an inferior military talent to his rival.