Prisoner of Fate (34 page)

‘How? When?’ Chase asked.

‘It was a long time ago,’ Meg replied, improvising. ‘There was a battle between Queen Sunset’s troops and the Rebels under Prince Future. The Demon Horsemen wiped out both armies.’

Swift laughed. ‘What’s so funny?’ Chase demanded.

‘It’s a ballad,’ Swift explained. ‘She’s telling you a story.’

‘What do you mean?’ Chase queried, confused.

‘Find any balladeer or bar of drunks and you’ll hear it.
The Legend of Lady Amber
,’ Swift explained.

‘I know that tune!’ declared Chase with a grin, and then he looked at Meg inquisitively, a sparkle of disbelief in his eyes. ‘Is this true?’ Meg shrugged and gazed at the fire, grateful for the twist Swift had added, but Chase chuckled quietly, saying, ‘All right, I’m gullible. I get it. You’re a storyteller, right?’

Meg looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m a storyteller.’

‘We could do with a good story around the fire tonight,’ Wahim suggested. ‘I don’t know this ballad. Tell us the story to it.’

‘I will,’ Meg replied. ‘I will,’ and she gathered her memories, rehearsing a tale that she could carefully relate without revealing why she knew it so well.

T
he warriors on the pathway midmorning reminded Meg of a past time when Shesskar men confronted her as a desperate refugee escaping the Kerwyn. Instead of helping the Shessian refugees, the Shesskar imprisoned her companions and her for entering their country illegally and drove others away or killed them. This time she was a traveller, with no intention of staying in Shesskar, but she closed her fist around the crystal beneath her tunic and waited warily, hoping that Whisper would stay hidden in the undergrowth while the leader of the tall, lithe and dark-skinned warriors addressed Wahim.

‘Why does a man of Shesskar wear foreign clothes and walk with foreign people?’ the Shesskar leader asked.

Wahim looked at Meg for reassurance before he met the leading warrior’s gaze to explain, ‘These are my friends and they wish to travel beyond the land of Shesskar-sharel to Ashua.’

‘Who are you?’ the warrior asked.

‘Wahim, of Port of Joy. And you?’

‘I am Sherunda, ahtim of Ashante-Jatia. You walk on my people’s land,’ the Shesskar leader replied.

‘Then, Sherunda, I ask permission to walk your land to the river and beyond.’

Sherunda studied the little band with the eye of one appraising people that he considered his inferiors. ‘For my people,’ he said, ‘I give you permission to pass through the land of Ashante-Jatia to the river. Two of my men will show you the way and pass you to ahtim Eshan whose land you must walk to reach the place of the Old Ones. Do not stray from your pathway.’

Wahim glanced again at Meg, who nodded to show that she understood the agreement made in the interchange, before he thanked Sherunda. Sherunda spoke cursorily to his warriors. He led away six. Two remained as promised. Their companions gone, the Shesskar warriors gestured to the foreigners that they were to recommence the steep descent into Shesskar-sharel, with one Shesskar warrior leading and one in the rear.

Mist drifted along the lower reaches of the valley most of the morning, obscuring the river on the rare occasions that Meg could see through the tree canopy, so she studied the ferns, the trees, the thick lichen covering the rocks and the lush green undergrowth, appreciating the beauty in the flora. Three multicoloured parrots flitted across her vision, twittering excitedly as they vanished into the trees. The valley captured rains that never reached the western plains, siphoning precious water down steep hillsides into the river that ran the full length of Shesskar-sharel and fed the dense forest. This was a rich land, unlike her dry, hot homeland where eucalypts and grasses competed for the rains of Shahk and Tayooh and sweltered in the long, hot Fuar season.

The boom of thundermakers fired in unison higher up the mountain broke her daydream. The Shesskar warriors stopped the party. ‘What’s the problem?’ Chase asked.

Wahim spoke to the leading Shesskar who pointed up the slope as he quietly answered. ‘He says there are intruders,’ Wahim explained to his companions.

‘Not just hunters?’ Swift asked.

‘The Shesskar don’t carry thundermakers,’ Wahim informed her. ‘Only western barbarians carry them.’

Meg observed the warriors who were listening to the sounds higher up, wondering what they would do. Finally, they ordered the group to stay put while the thundermakers kept firing randomly. When the mountains were silent, the Shesskar began to move on. ‘If they aren’t hunters and they aren’t Shesskar, who would it be?’ Chase asked. Swift shrugged and Wahim shook his head.

‘We need to keep going,’ Meg urged, indicating that the Shesskar warriors were staring at them. ‘It might not be safe for us.’

‘They couldn’t have tracked us out here?’ Chase asked. ‘Could they?’ but his question was left hanging as the party continued the descent into the valley.

The roar of the river thundering over the rocks below the shallow cliff on the opposite bank drowned their voices when they tried to speak, so they fell into line behind the leading warrior, fine spray drifting across their cheeks and the backs of their hands. Meg wished she had a cloak with a hood for protection, but she compensated by concentrating on the crystal to generate soft warmth along her skin. Early morning sunlight formed rainbow shards in the spray, creating an uncommon beauty that filled Meg with calm. The Shesskar lived in a stunning world and one day she would like to return to enjoy it.

The overnight stay beside the river had been quiet and her sleep was restful, because for the first time in years she hadn’t dreamed. She felt sorry for Chase and
Swift whose families remained in Port of Joy, but she believed that the families would be safe as long as their pursuers thought that the fugitives had all run east.

The revelation that Swift was a mother of a son and a daughter surprised her most of all, but because Swift said little else, other than to acknowledge her children, Meg was left to ponder how the assassin could divorce herself so ruthlessly from her mothering instinct. That was something she could not do. As long as there had been hope of finding her children during the Kerwyn invasion, she had kept searching, desperately wanting to be reunited. But it was not to be. The forces controlling her destiny determined that she would lose her children and suffer. In the end, with Emma dead and her grieving done, years lost at sea in misery and euphoria, she had accepted her fate, but it had been a cruel and solitary journey and she did not wish the same upon Swift. Yet Swift’s disassociation from her children seemed wrong, unhealthy, and it made Meg less sure of the assassin’s character, so she was surprised, with so much going through her head when she lay down to sleep, that she slept soundly until dawn.

After a short distance, the leading Shesskar gestured towards a narrow rope bridge suspended over the river twenty paces ahead.
The way over
, Meg thought and smiled—and was astonished when the warrior, Wahim, Swift and Chase all crumpled like rag dolls. Something thumped her right shoulder, she felt sharp pain and lost her balance an instant later, falling to the wet earth, the roar of the river obliterating her cry.

On her side, she watched seven men in red uniforms emerge from the forest, hastily reloading thundermakers. One suddenly threw up his arms with a spear in his chest. Two took aim, but another stumbled
as a knife spun through the air and buried in his shoulder. The second vanished in a puff of white smoke as his thundermaker discharged. At the edge of her vision, the remaining Shesskar fell.
So I have to do this
, she decided.

Clutching the amber gem beneath her tunic with her right hand, ignoring the throbbing along her arm as energy surged through her spine, she pushed into a sitting position with her left arm. The Kerwyn soldiers were already within twenty paces, approaching cautiously, their thundermakers reloaded. One took a bead on her, so she lifted her left hand, remembering the old skill, and released a pulse of white energy. The energy speared through the soldier’s chest and punched him backward, his thundermaker firing harmlessly at the sky. Startled by the attack, the other Kerwyn soldiers stopped, giving Meg time to conjure two more energy bolts. Two more soldiers fell. She saw a flash of brown to her left as Swift launched at a soldier who was about to fire and brought him down. The surviving soldier bolted into the forest. With a sigh, Meg collapsed.

A shadow filled her face and she opened her eyes to find Swift, her neck bloodied, crouched beside her. ‘Are you all right?’ the young woman asked.

Meg drew a deep breath and nodded, feeling the magic churning through her body already healing the wound in her shoulder. ‘I’m all right. Check the others.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘I’ll explain later,’ Meg said. ‘Please, check the others.’

Swift trotted to Chase, then to Wahim, who was already on his feet, holding his left thigh, and the Shesskar warriors in turn, before finally returning to Chase. She helped him to sit up as Meg got to her feet, exhaustion threatening to drag her down. ‘The Shesskar
are both dead,’ Swift said. ‘Chase has a hole in his stomach. Wahim has a leg wound.’

‘Can you carry Chase across the bridge?’ Meg asked as she stumbled forward.

Swift spoke to Chase and helped her brother to his feet. ‘We can get a little way,’ she said, ‘but he’s losing blood.’

‘Wahim?’ Meg asked as she reached Chase and briefly examined his bleeding stomach.

‘I can make it across,’ Wahim assured her.

‘Then let’s go over,’ Meg urged. ‘There’ll be others coming. Of that we can be sure.’

Hidden in thick foliage, the soft rumble of the river in the background, Meg tended her companions’ wounds. ‘Ideally I’d cleanse these, but this is not an ideal situation. Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘Let me see your neck,’ she said to Swift and she wiped aside the coagulating blood to uncover a crease along the skin. ‘You were lucky,’ she said. ‘I need you to keep very careful watch while I heal the others.’

‘You owe me an explanation,’ Swift reminded her as she crouched at the edge of the hideaway.

‘Let me see to Chase,’ Meg replied perfunctorily. She bent over the prostrate young man on the bed of ferns. Placing her right hand over his stomach and her left over the crystal beneath her tunic, she let the warm crystal energy flow through her body, along her arms and into her hands.

‘Death seems keen to claim you,’ she murmured. After a time, she sat back from Chase and beckoned to Wahim. When she’d finished with his thigh, she lay on the ground and let sleep besiege her.

‘How long did I sleep?’ Meg asked of the shadow in the night.

‘It can’t be long until dawn,’ Swift’s voice replied. ‘I thought you were dying from your wound, but when I checked it was healed—healed as if it had never been there. Who are you?’

‘You know who I am,’ Meg replied, stretching her limbs, glad to be rid of the exhaustion that followed whenever she used the amber for healing. ‘Meg Kushel. Batty Booker. Old Lady Time.’

‘Not enough,’ Swift challenged. ‘I saw you kill the Kerwyn. What was that? Was that magic? Are you a Seer?’

Meg chuckled quietly. ‘I’m no Seer,’ she replied. ‘Far from it.’ She paused in the darkness before adding, ‘If they could, the Seers would kill me.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a very long story, girl.’ A bird broke the night with its sharp whistling call. ‘How are the others?’

‘Sleeping,’ Swift told her. ‘There’s time to tell me your story.’

‘It’s a
very
long story,’ Meg emphasised. ‘It belongs to another time.’

‘I’m listening,’ Swift insisted. ‘Start when you’re ready.’

Chase stared at the old woman who was huddled under a small tree stroking the rat on her lap. With her long white hair jutting at all angles and straggling down to her shoulders, her shoulders hunched, her trousers and tunic dirty and bloodied, she reminded him of the old women who begged along the Main Way in the city—desperate, sad, hunger-crazed old souls who begged as much for euphoria as for money. ‘Magic?’ he repeated.

‘I saw it,’ Swift asserted. ‘I still don’t believe it, but I saw her kill the Kerwyn and then heal both of you—and herself.’

Chase poked a finger through the hole in his bloodstained grey vest and shirt, to the unblemished skin on his stomach. ‘I remember. It was like being punched in the stomach.’

‘They ambushed us. The old woman thinks we’ve been chased all the way from Port of Joy.’

‘Passion!’ Chase gasped. ‘Jon!’

‘They’re safe with the villagers,’ Wahim said.

‘Not if the soldiers followed us!’ Chase cried. ‘They’d have gone to the village.’

Swift took hold of his arm to calm him. ‘The villagers are smart. They wouldn’t have told the soldiers anything, except perhaps that we moved on.’

‘But what if they didn’t?’ he argued.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Wahim said quietly.

‘But my sister?’

‘I’m sure she’s all right,’ Swift told him, looking directly into his blue eyes. ‘You’re here. Passion’s there. She’ll make sure Jon and she are safe. There’s nothing else you can do. We made a choice. We came.’

Chase pulled free of Swift’s grip and ruffled his mousey hair in agitation as he walked in circles around the small clearing. ‘It’s just that I promised myself I’d always protect my sister and the little fellow. If I’ve left them and they’ve been caught, then it’s my fault for leaving.’

‘If you go back now, you’ll be days too late to save Passion,’ Swift told him. ‘And the Kerwyn
are
chasing us, so you’d get caught and be killed and then you’d be no use to anyone. Think about it.’ The rat scurried past her feet into the bushes. ‘Besides, I have as many reasons as you to go back.’

‘We never got to warn Runner,’ Chase muttered.

‘I know,’ said Swift. ‘But he’ll be all right. He’s street-wise and no one knows he’s my son. I just wish I could have seen Jewel, to tell her that I’m safe.’

‘I should have stayed with Passion,’ Chase declared.

‘Your sister and nephew wouldn’t be safe no matter what you did by going back,’ said Meg as she approached the trio. ‘The Kerwyn aren’t the real danger.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Chase asked.

‘She means the Seers,’ said Swift. ‘They are trying to release the Demon Horsemen like you told us. If they succeed, we all die.’

Chase looked at Swift in disbelief. ‘I thought you didn’t believe all that.’

Swift shrugged. ‘Maybe I don’t, but if what she told me this morning while you were still asleep
is
true then maybe I do.’

Wahim raised an eyebrow to show that he understood as little as Chase did. ‘I don’t get it,’ Chase said to Swift.

Swift looked at Meg. ‘Ever heard of Lady Amber?’

‘We had that story before we came into the valley,’ Chase reminded her. ‘So what?’

Swift nodded towards Meg. ‘Well, apparently we’re travelling with her.’