Part 25 (1/2)

Asten reddened, but took a deep breath before he replied. 'As you say, I am a good leader - no false modesty - but I am not, and never will be, a charismatic leader. I cannot raise morale to the heights you can. You are vital to us, and now you are planning to ride into Sathuli lands with a mere twenty men! They hate us, Karnak - you most of all. Before the Vagrian War you led two legions into their territory and crushed their army. Kashti's teeth, man, you killed the present lord's father!'

'Ancient history!' snapped Karnak. They are a warrior race. They understand the nature of battle.'

'The risk is too great,' said Asten wearily, knowing he had lost.

Karnak grinned. 'Risk? G.o.ds, man, that's what I live for! To look into the eye of the beast, to feel its breath upon my face. What are we if we face no dangers? Frail flesh and bone to live and age and die. I'll ride into those mountains with my twenty men, I'll beard the Sathuli lord in his own den, and I'll win him over. The Gothir will not reach the Sentran Plain, and the Drenai will be secure. Isn't that a risk worth taking?'

'Aye,' stormed Asten. 'It's a risk I would willingly take. But then the Drenai can afford to lose old Asten, the farmer's son. There are many capable officers who could take his place. But who will take yours when the Sathuli betray you and nail your head to a palace post?'

Karnak was silent for a moment. 'If I do... die,' he said softly, 'you'll win for us, Asten. You're a survivor, old lad. The men know that.'

'Then know this, Karnak. If for any reason Galen comes back without you, I intend to cut his throat.'

Karnak chuckled. 'You do that,' he said, the smile fading. 'You do exactly that!'

13

Black and grey vultures, their bellies distended, hobbled on the plain. Some still squabbled over the carca.s.ses that lay around the ruined tents. Crows had also gathered, and these darted in among the vultures, their sharp beaks pecking at unresisting flesh. Smoke spiralled lazily from the burning tents, creating a grey pall that hung over the scene of the ma.s.sacre.

Angel guided his horse down on to the plain. The glutted vultures closest to the hors.e.m.e.n waddled away, the others ignoring the newcomers.

Belash and s.h.i.+a rode alongside Angel. 'These were Green Monkey tribe,' said Belash. 'Not Wolves.' Vaulting from the saddle he moved among the bodies.

Angel did not dismount. To his left was a small circle of bodies, the men on the outside, women and children within. Obviously the last of the warriors had died defending their families. One woman had covered her baby's body with her own, but the broken lance that jutted from her back had thrust through the infant she s.h.i.+elded.

'Must be more than a hundred dead,' said Senta. Angel nodded. To his right the bodies of five infants lay where they had been thrown against a wagon, their heads crushed. Blood stained the rim of the wagon-wheel, and it was all too obvious how the babes had been killed.

Belash walked back to where Angel sat his mount. 'More than a thousand soldiers,' he said.

'Heading for the mountains.'

'Wanton slaughter,' whispered Angel.

'Yes,' agreed Belash. 'So they can't be all bad, eh?'

Angel felt a piercing stab of shame as he heard his own words repeated back to him, but he said nothing and tugged on the reins, galloping his horse back up the hillside to where Miriel waited.

Her face was the colour of wood-ash and she was gripping the pommel of her saddle, her knuckles bone-white. 'I can feel their pain,' she said. 'I can feel it, Angel. I can't close it out!'

'Then don't try,' he told her.

She let out a shuddering sigh, and huge tears formed, spilling to her cheeks. Dismounting, Angel lifted her from the saddle, holding her close as wracking sobs shuddered her frame. 'It is all in the land,' she said. 'All the memories. Soaked in blood. The land knows.'

He rubbed her back and stroked her hair. 'It's seen blood before, Miriel. And they can't be hurt any more.'

'What kind of men could do this?' she stormed, anger replacing her sorrow.

Angel had no answer. To kill a man in battle he understood, but to lift a baby by its heels and ...

he shuddered. It pa.s.sed all understanding.

Belash, s.h.i.+a and Senta rode up the hill. Miriel wiped her eyes and looked up at Belash. 'The soldiers are between us and the mountains,' she said. ”This is your land. What do you advise?'

'There are paths they will not know,' he told her. 'I will lead you - if you still wish to go on.'

'Why would I not?' she countered.

'There will be no time for tears, woman, where we shall ride. Only swords and true hearts.'

She smiled at him then, a cold smile, and mounted her horse. 'You lead, Belash. We will follow.'

'Why are you doing this?' asked s.h.i.+a. 'We are not your people, and old Hard-to-Kill hates the Nadir. So tell me why.'

'Because Kesa Khan asked me,' said Miriel.

'I will accept that,' the girl said, after a moment. 'But what of you?' She turned her gaze to Angel and Senta.

Senta chuckled and drew his sword. 'This blade,' he said, 'was specially made for me by a master armourer. It was a gift, lovely. He came to me one day and presented it. No man has ever bested me with a sword. I'm rather proud of that. But, you know, I didn't ask the armourer about the quality of the steel, or the amount of care that went into its Grafting. I just accepted the gift and thanked him for it. You understand?'

'No,' she answered. 'What has that to do with my question?'

'Like trying to teach mathematics to a fish,' said Senta, shaking his head.

Angel edged his horse forward and leaned close to s.h.i.+a. 'Let's put it this way, lady. He and I are the finest swordsmen you'll ever see, but our reasons for being here are none of your d.a.m.ned business!'

s.h.i.+a nodded solemnly. 'That is true,' she admitted, no trace of rancour in her voice.

Senta laughed aloud. 'You should have been a diplomat, Angel.' The gladiator merely grunted.

Belash led the way to the east and the distant mountains, Miriel riding behind with s.h.i.+a, Angel alongside Senta bringing up the rear. Dark clouds loomed above the peaks and lightning flashed like a jagged spear from earth to sky. The sound of thunder followed almost instantly.

'The mountains are angry,' Belash told Miriel.

'So am I,' she replied. A howling easterly wind blew sheets of rain across the barren, featureless land, and soon the riders travelled hunched in their saddles, drenched through.

For several hours they rode, until at last the sheer walls of the Mountains of the Moon loomed above them. The rain died down and Belash rode on ahead, angling back towards the south, scanning the forbidding peaks and the open steppes to the north. They had seen no soldiers, but now, with the clouds clearing, the smoke of many campfires could be seen in the distance, drifting up to merge with the grey sky.

This is the secret path,' said Belash, pointing to the mountain face.

'There's no way through,' said Angel, gazing up at the black, basaltic wall of rock. But Belash rode up a short scree slope - and vanished. Angel blinked. 'Shemak's b.a.l.l.s!' he whispered.

Miriel urged her mount up the slope, the others following. Virtually invisible from the outside there was a wide crack in the face, some four feet wide, leading to a s.h.i.+ning tunnel. Miriel rode in, Angel behind her. There was scarcely a finger's breadth of s.p.a.ce between thigh and wall on both sides, and several times the riders had to lift their legs up on to the saddle in order for their mounts to squeeze through. The walls loomed around them and Angel felt his heartbeat quickening. Above them huge boulders were cl.u.s.tered, having fallen and wedged together precariously.

Senta spoke. 'If a b.u.t.terfly were to land on that ma.s.s it would all come tumbling down.' His voice echoed up into the crack. A low groan came from above them and black dust filtered down through the rocks.

'No speaking!' whispered s.h.i.+a.