Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) (25 page)

‘How the fuck should I know?’ Rint said under his breath.

To his relief all three laughed, although Rint saw a glint of something in his sister’s eyes, something walled off from any pleasure. But then, he reminded himself, there was nothing new in that.

‘Rabbit in a boy’s skin,’ said Galak to Ville. ‘I like that one.’

‘Now forget you ever heard it,’ Rint warned.

‘Sure, but still, it fits—’

‘And how do you know that?’ demanded Feren, startling the others. ‘I like what he did with the horses. Traditions are all very well, but they
started
for good reasons. These days, it seems everybody’s so caught up in the forms they forget those reasons. The boy was right – you share with the beast that served you. That’s how you give thanks.’

‘You give thanks to the beast you ride into battle with,’ Ville retorted.

‘Give thanks to them all. That’s how it started, Ville. Back when it meant something.’

Rint studied his sister. He’d not seen such fire from her in years. He should have welcomed it; he should have found hope from it. Instead, he felt vaguely disturbed, as if he was missing some hidden significance to this outburst.

‘Meat’s soft enough for chewing,’ said Galak.

‘I’ll call the others,’ Rint said.

* * *

Arathan sat on the ground, studying the gorse and the clouds of busy insects. The heat was making him sleepy. His spirits sank when he heard the scrape of feet behind him.

‘Arathan, my name is Feren.’

Startled, he clambered to his feet and faced the Bordersword. Wiping wet fingers on his thigh, he stood uncertainly.

‘We have a ritual,’ she said. Her eyes were level with his, and their steadiness unnerved him as she continued, ‘The first meal of the journey. Meat is shared. With everyone.’

He nodded.

She moved slightly closer and suddenly Arathan felt cornered. She smelled of tanned leather and something like blossoms, but spicier. She was twice his age, but the lines in the corners of her dark eyes made him think of passion, and then she gave him a half-smile. ‘In my eyes,’ she said, ‘you did right with your horse. There are ways that people think must be followed, and then there are ways of the heart. If two paths await you, one cold and the other warm, which would you choose?’

He thought about this for a moment, and then asked, ‘And if there are no paths?’

‘Then make your own, Arathan.’ She gestured. ‘Come along, the first taste must be your father’s. The next must be yours.’ She set out and he fell in behind her.

‘I am a bastard son.’

She halted and turned. ‘You are about to come of age,’ she said in a low tone. ‘From that day forward, you are your own man. We all had fathers and mothers, but when we come of age we stand in our own shadow and none other’s. If you are called a bastard then the failing is your father’s, not yours.’

This woman was nothing like his sisters. Her attention confused him; her interest frightened him. He suspected that she had been given
this
task – of escorting him – because no one else wanted it. Yet even pity felt like a caress.

When she resumed walking, he followed.

The others were all waiting by the fire.

As they arrived, one of the other Borderswords grunted and said, ‘Relax, lad, it ain’t rabbit.’

The one whose name Arathan knew was Rint seemed to scowl, before saying, ‘My sister offers you the gift, Arathan. Your father has already shared the meat.’

Feren went over to the pot and speared a grey sliver of flesh with a dagger. Straightening, she offered it to Arathan.

When he took the dagger from her hand there was some chance contact, and the roughness of her palm shocked him. Regretting that the instant had been so brief, he bit into the meat and tugged it from the iron point.

It was tough and tasteless.

Feren then handed her dagger to one of her comrades and he repeated the ritual with Gate Sergeant Raskan. The fourth Bordersword did the same with Sagander. Once this was done, hard bread was provided, along with bowls of melted lard in which herbs had been mixed. Arathan watched Rint dipping the bread into the lard and biting into it, and so followed suit.

Unlike the meat, this was delicious.

‘In the cold season,’ one of the other Borderswords said, ‘it is lard that will save your life. Burning like an oil lamp in your stomach. Bread alone will kill you, as will lean meat.’

Raskan said, ‘There was a pursuit of the Jheleck, I recall, in the dead of winter. It did not seem to matter how many furs we wore, we could not stop shivering.’

‘Wrong food in your packs, sergeant,’ said the Bordersword.

‘Well, Galak, none of your kin were accompanying us.’

‘Did you track them down in the end?’ Rint asked.

Raskan shook his head. ‘We gave up after one bitter night out in the cold, and with a storm coming down from the north we knew we would lose the trail. So we returned to the fort. A warm fire and mulled wine enticed me back from death’s ledge, but it was most of a day and a night before the chill left my bones.’

‘It was well you turned back,’ observed Galak, nodding as he chewed. He swallowed before adding, ‘Jheleck like to use storms to ambush. I’d wager my best sword they were tracking back to you, hiding in that storm.’

‘That was an unpleasant war,’ Rint said.

‘Never knew a pleasant one,’ Feren replied.

Arathan had noticed his father’s retreat from this easy conversation,
and
he wondered at what force or quality of character Draconus possessed, to ensure loyalty, when camaraderie was so clearly absent. Was it enough that Mother Dark had chosen him to be her Consort?

Draconus had fought well in the Forulkan War. This much was known, meaning his courage and valour were above reproach. He had led Houseblades into battle, and he wore his heavy armour as if it were light as silk, and the sword at his belt looked worn and plain as a common soldier’s. These details, Arathan suspected, meant something. There was a code among soldiers – how could there not be?

The meal was suddenly over and everyone was preparing to resume the trek. Arathan hurried over to Besra – and saw that Raskan had instead readied Hellar. His steps slowed slightly, and then Feren was walking beside him, her eyes on the warhorse.

‘A formidable beast,’ she said. ‘But see her eyes – she knows you as her master, her protector.’

‘There is nothing that I can protect her from.’

‘But there is, at least in her mind.’

He glanced across at her. ‘What?’

‘Your father’s stallion. Oh, true enough, it is by the Lord’s hand that Calaras is held in check. But this mare looks to you. Such are the ways of beasts. Faith defies logic, and for that we are fortunate. But I see the animal is tall – here, I will give you a boot up.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked suddenly, the words out before he could stop them.

She drew up at the question.

‘My father called you over – I saw that, you know. Did he tell you to be kindly towards me?’

Feren sighed, looked away. ‘None of this is by his command.’

‘Then what did he say to you?’

‘That shall remain between me and him.’

‘Has it do with me?’

A flash of anger lit her eyes. ‘Give me your boot, lad, or will we all have to wait on you again?’

Lifting him into the saddle seemed effortless to her, and once she’d done so she turned away, returning to where her comrades waited on their mounts.

Arathan wanted to call her back. He could hear his own tone echoing in his mind, the words sounding plaintive and thin as a child’s. A petulant child at that. But his suspicions had taken hold of him, and with them he had felt a deep, turgid humiliation, hot and suffocating. Did his father believe a woman’s attention was still required for his son? Was he to be mothered until his very last day in the man’s company?

‘
It may be that you will believe I do not want you
.’ Such had been his words in the Chamber of Campaigns.

But you don’t. Instead, you pass me off on whomever you choose
.

‘Student! To my side!’

Gathering the reins, Arathan nudged Hellar into a trot. The beast lumbered, her stride very different from Besra’s loping gait. Apart from Sagander, no one else remained in the clearing.

I would have liked her better without your meddling, Father. Not every woman should be made to be my mother. Why do you bother interfering in my life at all? Cast me away; I will welcome it. In the meantime, leave me alone
.

‘She means you no good, Arathan. Are you listening to me? Ignore her. Turn your back on her.’

He frowned across at the tutor, wondering at the man’s vehemence.

‘They carry lice. Diseases.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I am your company on this journey, is that understood?’

‘How soon before we arrive at Abara Delack?’

‘Never. We’re going around.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Lord Draconus wills it. Now, enough of your questions! It is time for a lesson. Our subject shall be weakness and desire.’

* * *

By mid-afternoon they were riding through old logging camps, broad swaths of level ground fringed on all sides by uprooted, burnt stumps. They were still some leagues from Abara Delack, but all tracks that remained led towards that settlement. Here they were able to ride side by side and Sagander insisted that Arathan do so.

In a way it was something of a relief. He could see that Rint had been just ahead of Sagander when they’d been in single file, and the Bordersword could not help but have heard the tutor’s loud, harsh proclamations that passed for a lesson, though Arathan had made certain that his infrequent replies to the tutor’s questions were muted.

Once on the wider path Rint kicked his mount up alongside his sister’s and the two fell into quiet conversation.

‘Weakness,’ Sagander now said, his tone both exhausted and relentless, ‘is a disease of the spirit. Among the noblest of our people, it simply does not exist, and it is this innate health, this natural vibrancy, that justifies their station in life. The poor worker in the fields – he is weak and his miserable poverty is but a symptom of the disease. But this alone is insufficient to earn your sympathy, student. You must be made to understand that weakness begins outside the body, and it must be reached for, grasped and then taken inside. It is a choice.

‘In all society there exists a hierarchy and it is measured by strength of will. That and nothing else. In this manner, the observation of
society
reveals a natural form of justice. Those possessing power and wealth are superior in every way to those who serve them. Are you paying attention? I will not accept a wandering mind, Arathan.’

‘I am listening, sir.’

‘There are some – misguided philosophers and bitter agitators – who argue that social hierarchy is an unnatural imposition, and indeed, that it must be made fluid. This is wilful ignorance, because the truth is, mobility does exist. The disease of weakness can be purged from the self. Often, such transformative events occur in times of great stress, in battle and the like, but there are other paths available for those of us for whom soldiering is not in our nature. Principal among these, of course, is education and the rigours of enlightenment.

‘Discipline is the weapon against weakness, Arathan. See it as sword and armour both, capable at once of attack and defence. It stands in stalwart opposition to the forces of weakness, and the middle ground, upon which this battle is waged, is
desire
.

‘Each of us, in our lives, must fight that battle. Indeed, every struggle that you may perceive is but a facet of that one conflict. There are pure desires and there are impure desires. The pure desires give strength to discipline. The impure desires give strength to weakness. Have I made this plain and simple enough for you?’

‘Yes sir. May I ask a question?’

‘Very well.’

Arathan gestured to the wasteland surrounding them. ‘This forest was cut down because people desired the wood. To build, and for warmth. They appear to have been very disciplined, as not a single tree remains standing. This leaves me confused. Were their desires not pure? Were their needs not honest needs? And yet, if the entire forest is destroyed, do we not therefore see a strength revealed as a weakness?’

Sagander’s watery eyes fixed on Arathan, and then he shook his head. ‘You have not understood a word of what I have said. Strength is always strength and weakness is always weakness. No!’ His face twisted. ‘You think confused thoughts and then you voice them – and the confusion infects others. No more questions from you!’

‘Yes sir.’

‘With discipline comes certainty, an end to confusion.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘I don’t think you do, but I have done all that I could – who would dare claim otherwise? But you are drawn to impurity, and it grows like an illness in your spirit, Arathan. This is what comes of an improper union.’