The Jalakh Bow Read online

  Moneva nudged at Gyrmund, telling him to look at Soren.

  Then, suddenly, the sorcerer shuddered, and shouted out loud.

  ‘Belwynn?’ he shouted.

  He looked about him desperately, blindly, as if she might be here.

  Moneva and Gyrmund rushed over to him, as the members of the Oligud tribe he was sat with stared at him.

  ‘What is it?’ Gyrmund asked Soren, kneeling next to him.

  ‘Belwynn!’ he shouted out loud again, then slumped over.

  Moneva caught him and laid him down on the ground. She placed Onella’s Staff back into his hands, hoping that the weapon might revive him, but it seemed to have no effect.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said to Gyrmund. ‘Why shout out Belwynn’s name?’

  He shrugged, no wiser than she was.

  Next to Soren, Bolormaa was visibly sweating as she concentrated on her son’s fight, lacking the support that Soren had been providing until now.

  Moneva turned to the fight. She wasn’t surprised to see Qadan gaining the upper hand now, driving Gansukh back, his defence getting more desperate. Then, a brutal blow landed on Gansukh’s shoulder, smashing through his scale armour and cutting into flesh. A gasp emerged from the crowd. Gansukh reeled backwards but somehow stayed on his horse, weaving away from Qadan’s follow up attacks. Excited talk babbled across the crowd, as they discussed the wound that Qadan had inflicted. Even if Gansukh didn’t die right now, his quest to become khan seemed over. Moneva knew it wasn’t the gash itself, so much as the damage to Gansukh’s movement that was the issue. If he couldn’t move his shoulder and arm properly, he would have no chance of defending against further attacks. The situation was critical.

  Gyrmund knelt down to Soren, talking in his ear, even giving him a slap on the face in an effort to wake him.

  Moneva could see tears in Bolormaa’s eyes, but she maintained her focus. Her face was red with effort.

  Qadan and Gansukh clashed again. Gansukh made no attempt to attack, his energies directed at moving, guiding his horse this way and that, unbalancing Qadan so that he failed to land a clear blow. It was an impressive display of horsemanship, but it was surely only a matter of time before Qadan landed a second blow. And that might be it.

  Soren stirred, mumbling incoherently.

  Desperate, Moneva and Gyrmund lifted him into a sitting position.

  ‘Belwynn?’ he asked drowsily.

  ‘Soren,’ said Moneva. ‘We need you to focus on the fight right now. Gansukh is injured.’

  Soren frowned. She saw his knuckles turn white as he squeezed his staff, perhaps drawing on its energy to revive himself. He opened his eyes and stared at the fight ahead of him.

  Gansukh parried Qadan’s blows, but he was getting weaker. He couldn’t lift his arm properly. Qadan was growing frustrated, trying to batter his way through Gansukh’s flimsy looking defence, his chest heaving with the exertion, his horse’s sides lathered in sweat.

  Then, Gansukh turned it around. He went to parry a blow, dodged it instead, then flicked his blade at Qadan’s wrist. Qadan managed to hold onto his sword but Gansukh was on to him, lightning fast, sending blows to the left, then the right, at his face, then his sword arm. Qadan never completely recovered, desperately trying to get back to neutral. Gansukh faked a high blow, circling around instead, then plunging his sword into the horse’s neck, before withdrawing it in a fountain of blood.

  As the horse fell, Qadan somehow managed to land on his feet, charging at Gansukh in a final bid for victory. Gansukh’s horse didn’t need to be told what to do, skipping out of the way, and as Qadan’s blow fell way too short, Gansukh chopped his scimitar down, the razor-sharp edge cutting through bone and detaching his enemy’s sword-hand from his arm.

  Qadan stood there briefly, gazing at his raised stump, in apparent disbelief that the fight had ended in such a way, before Gansukh finished the job.

  The Oliguds cheered, rushing to the ropes to guide their champion back to the embrace of his tribe.

  Bolormaa, shaky on her feet, immediately ordered that Gansukh be sat down and his wound inspected. Her son had won, but she wore the face of defeat.

  She tutted at the injury as Gansukh was cut out of his armour. He needed rest for it to heal, but if he was to become khan, he had to fight again tomorrow. And his opponent would know exactly where to target.

  ‘It’s over,’ Bolormaa muttered, but Gansukh raged at her, saying he would never withdraw.

  ‘Her husband died on the fifth day,’ Gyrmund said quietly for only Moneva to hear.

  They turned away from the scene and went to check on Soren.

  He was still sitting on the floor, his staff resting on his knees, a dazed expression on his face.

  ‘You called out Belwynn’s name?’ Moneva asked him.

  ‘Something’s happened to her,’ he said dully. ‘Something-,’ he paused, looking up at them, as if trying to find the right words, and then giving up. ‘Something I don’t understand. She’s not replying to me.’

  ‘Did she say anything?’ Moneva asked. She felt a sense of dread. They shouldn’t have left Belwynn and Elana alone for this long. It had been a bad mistake. She knew, as much as anyone perhaps, what the Isharites could do. Heractus wasn’t safe.

  ‘No. I felt her pain, a sense of loss. And I felt something else. It reminded me of Samir Durg,’ he said, his face ashen, ‘when Siavash was inside my head.’

  A sense of helplessness came over Moneva then, a feeling she had sworn she would never tolerate again. All this time wasted, and they were still no closer to getting their hands on the Jalakh Bow, their one chance fading away in front of their eyes.

  She walked over to Bolormaa. The woman looked exhausted, observing her son’s wound being cleaned before they would sew it up.

  ‘I need to talk with you,’ said Moneva.

  Bolormaa looked up at her. She seemed ready to tell Moneva to get lost, before relenting, and the two of them walked away from the crowd gathered about Gansukh.

  ‘We need to try something else,’ Moneva said. She didn’t have to explain why. Gansukh had barely come through that fight, and no-one expected him to win tomorrow. ‘Show me the main challengers to Gansukh; the men who are likely to enter the Contest tomorrow.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Bolormaa. ‘What will that achieve?’

  ‘I’ll make sure they never make it to the ropes.’

  Bolormaa stopped walking, instead looking Moneva in the eye. Moneva didn’t look away. What was the woman’s problem? Had her suggestion gone too far, challenged some sacred rule that Bolormaa wasn’t prepared to break?

  ‘Very well,’ said Bolormaa at last. ‘I will show you.’

  Eighteen of them crossed from Kalinth into Persala. Eight Barbarians; five Persaleians; two men of Rotelegen; two Dog-men; and a Magnian. Clarin decided they’d go no farther this day. It seemed a decent place to stop for the night.

  A cluster of buildings on the Persaleian side marked the border. Here the authorities used to regulate traffic passing between the two countries, but they were now abandoned. Trade was dead, and the Persaleian government destroyed when the Haskans had invaded and taken the capital, Baserno. They could only speculate about who was in charge now. A Drobax army had been seen crossing from Persala into the lands of the Grand Caladri days ago. That suggested that both Haskany and Persala were now firmly back under the control of the Isharites.

  Either the people who lived here hadn’t left in a hurry, or someone else had come since and cleaned the place out, because there was nothing much to show for it after they carried out a sweep of the buildings. Still, the inn was cosy, with a good roof. Spring was different this far north compared to Magnia. The days were pleasant enough, but the nights were cold. Cyprian got a fire going in the hearth and they all made their beds in the main hall. Clarin organised two lookouts at a time, in two-hour shifts, and everyone enjoyed a comfortable first night.

  When the sun appeared they continued east,
using a road that Zared confirmed would take them to Baserno. As they walked along, Clarin quizzed him about his country. Cyprian, Clarin knew, came from the east of Persala, the port city of Lumberco, whereas Zared had told him he had lived in the capital. He would know the area better than anyone else.

  ‘How long will it take us to get to Baserno?’

  ‘At this pace, with no interruptions, three days.’

  ‘What have you heard of the Persaleian Shield?’

  ‘Nothing. This long-ago war against the Isharites you speak of—alliances with Krykkers and Caladri, magic weapons—it’s not a story that Persaleians know. Our history begins with Avilius, founder of Persala. We then conquered the north: alone, not with allies; by force of arms, not with magic. Two centuries after Avilius, our armies drove the Drobax away at the Battle of the Tarn. If this war fought with magic weapons did happen, it was before our empire was born.’

  Clarin didn’t really know his history, not like people such as Soren. Although Belwynn had told him what the Caladri wise man, Szabolcs, had said in Coldeberg, he was more than vague on the when of the story.

  ‘If it did exist,’ he persisted, ‘forgotten somewhere, where would it have been kept?’

  ‘Baserno. There are two obvious locations: the Imperial Palace, or the Temple of Ludovis. The Temple has a depository where the wealthy can store their money and possessions. It’s known to contain many ancient artefacts.’

  ‘Have you been?’

  ‘I’ve been to the Temple plenty of times. But my family never had anything worth putting into the depository, nor do I know where exactly the items are kept. That’s a secret kept by the priests, because the riches held there would be a target for thieves.’

  Clarin knew he wasn’t the smartest. He’d always been content to leave the thinking to people like Herin and Soren. But he had worked out there was more to Zared than the young man let on. He said his family had modest wealth, that his father was a shopkeeper. But at some point, he had been trained to fight properly. Then, there was the fact that the rest of the Persaleians deferred to him, despite his young age. There was something he wasn’t telling Clarin. No doubt he had his reasons. And as long as he helped Clarin to find the Shield, which he’d promised he would, did it really matter?

  They followed the road to Baserno. This part of Persala was sparsely settled, heath and gorse stretching out in every direction. A good morning’s walk saw them approaching a settlement. Zared named it Bineto, a town that straddled the road to Baserno. He described it a focal point for the local area, as well as a market for Kalinthian traders in years past.

  Clarin deliberated over their tactics one last time. His instincts told him to skirt around the town, but Zared and the Persaleians argued against this.

  ‘From now on,’ Zared said, ‘there will be town after town, then cities. There is no countryside we can hide in: this is Persala. Either we pass through these places or we give up.’

  Zared’s plan was simply to boldly walk into Bineto. Once there, they would get a feel for the situation. If challenged, they would pose as soldiers serving Ishari. Clarin knew they had a chance of getting away with such a ruse. The Isharites had humans in their armies. But the two Dog-men were key. It was known that their kind served Ishari, so their presence made such a claim more convincing. Zared would do the talking if his countrymen began to ask questions. But if it didn’t work, they would be in serious trouble, seriously fast.

  And it wasn’t just that. The farther they got into Persala, the more Zared was gaining control over what they did, and the more Clarin was fading into the background. Had he made a mistake coming here in the first place?

  Clarin sighed, shaking himself out of his introspection. They were here now, and Zared’s plan was the only one they had. It was pointless to think about it anymore. They walked for Bineto.

  Bineto had known better times, that was for sure. The streets were filthy, uncared for. Many of the houses were run down, if not empty, and when they got into the town centre many of the shops were boarded up. The townsfolk had a sullen, fearful look about them. They made for the market area, where a few stalls huddled together in one corner of the square, the rest of it empty.

  Zared and Cyprian moved over to the stallholders with purpose, hailing them in loud, confident voices, as if they were meant to be here. The following conversations were quieter, and Clarin, stood with the rest of the group out of earshot, looked about them and tried to think.

  There were no soldiers here. That said something. The Isharites had sent an army south—they were set on conquest. They wouldn’t want to waste men occupying the towns of Persala if they didn’t have to. From what Zared said, there were many settlements bigger than Bineto. It suggested that they would likely be unoccupied, too. The population were cowed, serving their new masters. Should a rebellion stir, troops would be sent in to put it down, from the larger centres such as Baserno. Clarin nodded to himself, feeling like he was gaining a sense of the state of the country. A large population, defeated and leaderless, no doubt many pressed into the Isharite armies. Relatively few occupying troops—just enough to keep them submissive. It was possible, in such a place, for them to pass through unchallenged. To somehow make their way into Baserno. And once there? They had to find a shield that no-one knew existed.

  The three Persaleians returned, arms full of loaves of bread and rounds of cheese that they had purchased from their compatriots.

  ‘Well?’ asked Clarin.

  ‘Not very talkative—suspicious, as you might expect,’ said Zared. ‘Siavash is in charge in Samir Durg, his opponents dead or fled. Haskany has no king or queen any more, the country is said to be as reduced as Persala is. The people here pay heavy taxes, mostly in foodstuffs and other items for the armies. Many of the younger men have been recruited to fight, making life harder for those who remain. Other than that, so long as they do what they are told, they are generally left alone.’

  ‘The other towns are likely to be the same?’ Clarin asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Then let’s get moving. The sooner we leave, the sooner these people forget we were ever here.’

  They continued east, stopping at places much like Bineto. Each town had the same layout, central plazas surrounded by parallel roads. Some were larger, some smaller, but in its essentials their experience was the same at each one. Communities that were suffering, but somehow surviving, under Isharite rule. Zared spoke with the people: sometimes it was traders, at other times mayors or other dignitaries, even passers-by on the street going about their own business. They were cautious, wary of strangers. When pressed, each said the next town along was the same as them. In one town, a place called Pontecchio, they spent the night in a row of empty houses, their occupants either taken away by Isharite soldiers, or had left of their own accord, trying to make a better living elsewhere.

  The next morning Zared announced a change of plan.

  ‘There’s news of soldiers in the next city,’ he explained. ‘It would be better for us to detour around it, just in case. It only involves going down some less travelled roads to other settlements, and then cutting back to the main road, bypassing the city. It will add no more than two hours travel time.’

  They set off. A small road, better described as a track, took them north of Pontecchio, where they soon found themselves passing the well-tended fields of the Persaleian countryside. It seemed to Clarin that in the rural areas, life carried on not so much different than it had before.

  There was something about the outdoors that made Clarin feel better about things. His mind wandered to Belwynn, how he had made a right mess of things in Heractus. He had genuinely thought that he would declare his love, she would return it, and they would settle down on a farm somewhere to live out their days. In hindsight, he had been stupid. She was with Theron now. And maybe, he just had to admit to himself that she was better off that way. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, though. He had already lost Herin. Those were
the two people in the world who really meant anything to him.

  ‘We’ll head up here,’ Zared said from the front, speaking in a voice loud enough to carry to everyone. He was pointing towards a steep slope that led up to a mound. ‘We can get a decent view of the area from up there, check we’re going the right way.’

  Wordlessly, the group followed Zared and the Persaleians up to the top of the mound. It was tough going, Clarin’s thigh muscles protesting by the time they got to the top. The group shrugged packs off shoulders and looked around.

  There were, indeed, good views of the surrounding countryside. A pile of stones, some very large, had been placed in the middle of the mound. Clarin walked over to inspect it, making his legs stretch out a little after the climb. They had definitely been carried up, he decided. Maybe they were atop a burial chamber of some kind. It reminded him of the vossi mound in the Wilderness, where they had been surrounded by the creatures, close to defeat, before Soren had cast a spell to scare them off. Maybe once, many years ago, vossi had lived here. Or some other group of humans. Or Caladri, or Lippers. Maybe this mound was the most important place in the world to them. Now, no-one even knew what it was.

  ‘Clarin!’ came a shout, urgent sounding.

  He turned to see Jurgen gesturing at him. He and Rudy were at one end of the mound, looking down the slope.

  Clarin ran over, one hand on the hilt of his sword. Men in armour, holding spears, were making their way slowly up the mound, looking up at them. They were spread out, all along the base of the mound.

  The Dog-men barked a warning. Turning, Clarin looked at their position a few feet away. He didn’t need to go over to confirm that there were men there too. They were surrounded.

  At the far end of the mound, where Zared and the Persaleians had positioned themselves, armed men had already made it to the top of the slope. Zared and his men were helping them up.

  Clarin took a few paces towards them. Zared gave him an apologetic look.

  A spearman stood next to Zared, as big and strong looking as Clarin, with a huge shield. He pointed his spear in Clarin’s direction, then at the other members of the group, as more soldiers crested the mound behind him.