The Enchanted Castle (Shioni of Sheba Book 1) (14 page)

T
he warriors surrounded her
at spear-point before Shioni fully woke up. Her heart lurched. She had been dozing on Star’s back, exhausted after spending a second whole night in the saddle without rest, while the pony plodded steadily up the high pass south of Ras Dejen and onward, she hoped, to same valley that housed Castle Asmat.

Sheban Elites, dark shadows all around her in the faint light of false dawn… she swallowed as relief washed through her, closely followed by trepidation.

“What in God’s name are you doing out here, girl?”

The warrior who had spoken was one of the sub-Captains, a leader of twenty warriors. Shioni knew that Tariku–whose name meant ‘the story’–was very popular and his name was always mentioned with respect.

“Where did you come from?” Tariku growled. “How’d you get past the patrols?”

“I didn’t see any patrols, sir.”

“Huh! I’ll have their hides to decorate my shield. Fancy missing a Sheban slave-girl; next, we’ll have the Wasabi strolling unasked into the King’s bedchamber!”

“That’s what I meant to tell you,” said Shioni. She had meant to sound brave, but her voice wobbled traitorously. “The Wasabi are planning an attack.”

“What?” chorused the warriors.

“How’d you know that?” asked Tariku.

“I found their camp in the mountains,” said Shioni, wishing they would lower their spears. “The Wasabi were talking near where I hid, sir. They said they had captured some of our warriors and thrown them off a waterfall. And they said Kalcha was going to attack in four days, with the full moon.”

Tariku snapped his fingers. “The missing patrol! Dear Mother Mary–you’re sure about this, girl?”

She nodded.

“Describe the Wasabi camp. Did you see Kalcha?”

As Shioni began to describe the Wasabi camp and their forces as best she could remember, the disbelief faded off Tariku’s face, to be replaced by equal parts of astonishment and rock-hard determination. He must believe her, she thought. She could easily have been branded a liar. He asked several further details, and then suddenly stopped her in her tracks.

“We must take your report to the General. When was this, exactly?”

“Yesterday–sorry, two evenings ago, sir.” Had it been that long? No wonder she was dreaming that even rocks would make wonderfully soft pillows…

“
Why were you in the mountains?”

Shioni took a deep breath. “I was running away, sir. But I changed my mind.”

His jaw dropped. “
Into
the mountains?” Tariku scratched his head, clearly trying to make sense of her lie. “That has to be the stupidest, the most–”

“Tariku, sir,” one of the men put in. “With the King away in Takazze we’ve only a skeleton force left at the Castle. If the Wasabi number half of what the slave-girl described… sir.”

“Where’s Kifle?”

“Gate guard at the castle, sir.”

Tariku’s eyes narrowed. “He’s the only one who could get to Takazze in time. That boy can outrun the wind. Mount up! Let’s move out! Shioni, you will ride with me. That pony of yours looks ready to drop.” He shook his head slowly. “What in the name of God got into your head, girl, running away? I wouldn’t want to be you when Captain Dabir hears about this.”

Shioni raised her chin. “I’ll take full responsibility for what I’ve done, sir.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re whipped at the post.”

She winced as she accepted Tariku’s boost into the saddle of his horse. She was a little surprised that his patrol was all mounted. Usually the warriors were on foot. Her mind helpfully supplied an image of a whipping she had once glimpsed at a barracks in Takazze–before Annakiya pulled her away.
Touching Mama’s pouch which was tied to her belt, Shioni wondered if it would be worth the punishment. Dabir was going to think heaven itself had opened to smile upon him.

Her dread did not abate as the patrol rode rapidly on through the morning, soon cresting the high pass and clattering down the far side. Had the day been clear, she might have been able to see all the way to Takazze from the top. The terrain up here was strange; giant spiky lobelia plants dotted the high meadows, while other places were overrun with thick stands of St John’s wort and giant heather that stood several times the height of a man. The heather was fuzzy with moss, which swayed gently in the hot breeze.

The Sheban warriors, however, spared neither man nor mount in their descent. A warrior whose horse threw a shoe was left behind with another for company to suffer the indignity of walking back to Castle Asmat. Around midday they paused at a spring hidden amongst a clutch of boulders to let the horses drink and graze briefly. The men snacked on kolo and looked on as Shioni sketched a map of her journey in the dust for Tariku, trying to describe the approximate location of the Wasabi camp. As she suspected, the area had not been scouted before.

Thereafter there was a narrow, scrambling descent into a pungent juniper forest. The warriors, having led their horses down this loose scree, now mounted up again and picked up the pace.

“This is our valley,” Tariku told her. “The river which flows past our castle issues from a cave back there in the forest. And I do hope you have a sincere apology prepared for the Princess.”

Shioni rather hoped her friend would act her part–and hopefully head Captain Dabir off from ordering a whipping.

But it was General Getu she was most worried about. Would he believe her story?

T
wo days later, Shioni
was hard at work on the castle walls in the late afternoon heat, hauling stones for the masons. The heavy manacles adorning her hands and feet forced her to shuffle along like an arthritic old woman–which was part of the punishment, she accepted. But her fate depended now on two things: the King’s imminent arrival, and the imminent Wasabi attack. Then the King would decide what became of his daughter’s slave-girl. She might be whipped, reassigned, or sold. She might never see Annakiya or Mama Nomuula again.

The manacles and the
back-breaking work were hardly the most hurtful aspect of her situation, Shioni thought, flexing her aching shoulder. It was definitely improving. Nor were the rough jibes and goading that her abrupt fall from grace had initiated. She had always been a target; now it had become a nastier game than before. Nor indeed was the vicious, visible pleasure Captain Dabir had taken in accusing her of breaking the King’s law, of stealing a pony, and of bringing the Wasabi scourge down upon them. How his eyes had glittered as he locked the manacles in place!

No, most hurtful of all was General Getu’s response. His bitter, cold fury was etched in her memory like acid-drawings on metal.

In close second, she reflected sadly, came the fact that the disa’s sweet nectar had not helped the magical creature recover. ‘Yet!’ Mama Nomuula insisted. But Shioni was forced to consider that her trip, and all that followed, had been a complete waste at great risk.

All this for an overgrown insect? But the moment this thought popped up, she banished it, ashamed of herself. Should she not value another life as her own? Even the life of some non-human magical creature straight out of a storyteller’s story-chest? Shioni shook her head. Who was she to judge? Even so.

‘What is in my power, what is given me, I’ll do,’ she muttered quietly, feeling disturbed at the path her thoughts were taking.

It was as simple as some of the number work Hakim Isoke had been teaching Princess Annakiya. Add together the bottle, the hidden location beneath the baobab tree, the arcane symbols etched on the chamber’s floor, and Kalcha’s snake to guard it all, and what could they conclude? The butterfly-person must be important in some way they could not imagine. Valuable. Possibly, extremely powerful. Would she make an ally, or had they unearthed another enemy?

A trumpet fanfare lifted her mood. The King had arrived! At last, not a day too soon. After her report, delivered to a hostile audience, Kifle had been dispatched to Takazze in order to fetch the King and his Elite warriors. He had taken off like a scared goat, his slender legs fairly racing him along–and he would keep up that pace for hour upon hour.

Now a song
rose on the wind, three hundred male voices singing the marching-in, and the people of the castle quickly started to gather around the courtyard to welcome and cheer the King’s arrival. Shioni hurried to take her place behind Princess Annakiya.

The King himself rode in first, his full armour and lack of royal robes signalling the seriousness of the occasion. Talaku, the King’s Champion, was next. “He’s part-giant,” someone whispered. Hakim Isoke, standing to Annakiya’s right, gave the person a withering glare. “Giants,” she sniffed, “are stories best
kept for scaring little children.”

Talaku looked
as though he could walk right off the back of his horse, he was that tall. The poor animal was sweating and blowing, foam-flecked at the mouth, from the effort of carrying such a huge man up into the mountains. Behind him came a brace of donkeys carrying his armour and weapons, and then the main body of warriors tramped in, their lion’s-mane headdresses bobbing in perfect step.

“The Elites,” Isoke instructed Annakiya. “Sheba’s finest, chosen and trained from birth for the warrior life. None can stand against such as these!”

Shioni thought the Elites looked terribly impressive. But then her thoughts returned unbidden to the size of Kalcha’s busy encampment; to the engines of war and the monstrous hyenas. And so few in comparison. She shivered. Perhaps there were worse fates than a brutal whipping to be feared.

After the warriors came the supply carts and train, chock-full of weapons and equipment, and the people who kept an army on its feet–cooks and healers, armourers, blacksmiths and farriers, fletchers and tailors and more.

The King raised his hand. “Sheba!”

“SHEBA!” roared every throat in the place, making the castle shake. “WE LIVE, WE FIGHT, WE CONQUER, O KING!”

The King’s boots kicked up dust as he dismounted. “General, who brought us this report?”

This was the moment Shioni had been dreading. Hundreds of eyes turned
to where she knelt just behind Princess Annakiya. She wished she could melt away into the flagstones.

Getu’s salute was as sharp as his sword, and his posture like a flagpole. “Her, my Lord. The ferengi slave
-girl. The scouts confirmed her report this morning. The Wasabi army marches here.”

The King knew her. It was he who had purchased her.
She had learned that it was his intention that she train with the warriors, becoming both bodyguard and companion to the Princess. Now, more than ever, her life was in his hands. She had chosen to spite a King.

But the King’s tone was
as scathing as his response was unexpected: “Since when do we send children and slaves to do our scouting, General?”

“The patrol was captured by the Wasabi, my Lord,” barked the General. “Their absence was not noted by the Captain of the Guard. The slave tricked the watch. She is being punished with hard labour.”

The King paused and, deliberately not looking at him, said, “I am surprised, General. It seems an elephant could enter these gates unannounced. Shall I take her report myself?”

General Getu’s shoulders stiffened until he resembled a petrified tree. “That will not be necessary, my King!”

In front of her, Annakiya stifled a gasp. Shioni bit the inside of her cheek so hard that tears started in her eyes. This was terrible! The General was being blamed for everything she had done. As if anyone in that courtyard could possibly have missed it, the King had hammered the point home by not delivering his rebuke directly to the General. As the two men moved off, talking now in lower voices, General Getu threw her a scowl that would have done a snarling lion proud.

“Huh!” said Isoke, slapping dust off her long robes. “I told you that slave was trouble, Princess! Never was a talent of silver so scorned. Now, let’s return to our lessons.”

Annakiya nodded, and with a quick, sympathetic glance at her slave-girl, followed her tutor with the air of a chastened puppy.

The courtyard descended into a happy chaos of arrival–one warrior being presented with his boy-child, another swinging his girlfriend up into his arms, others breaking for the barracks and a well-earned rest after the
night-and-a-day march up from Takazze.

As Shioni set off on the lonely walk back to her duties, a warrior seized her arm. “Talaku would have words with you,
slave-girl,” he said. “Come.”

Talaku–whose name
appropriately meant ‘the biggest one’, Shioni thought with an inward smile–dwarfed his three-legged stool in the meagre shade of the baobab tree. He was whetting one huge blade of his double-bladed war-axe with studied care. The haft of the weapon alone was taller than Shioni.

His hard-muscled, heavily-tattooed arm lifted and pointed at her, and a voice like the deep groan of an elephant said: “Do not bow to Talaku, slave. Sit and take the shade. Tell me of this witch, this Kalcha. Leave no stone unturned or I will sharpen Siltam here on your belly.” He patted the axe fondly.

Shioni gulped. As she knelt in the shade, a further fifteen or twenty warriors gathered about–the Champion’s Train, they were called, Talaku’s trusted inner circle.

“Don’t scare the girl, Talaku!”

“Her? She don’t scare easy,” said another. Shioni saw that this was the sub-Captain from the patrol, Tariku. So he was an Elite? She ought to have known. “Trains with the warriors.”

“Right, Tariku.” This man popped his knuckles. “Same lot who let a
girl
find the Wasabi for them, says I.”

But Tariku shrugged off the insult with a laugh. “Even a lion-cub will bite off your finger if you’re not careful.”

“Enough!” growled Talaku. “Speak, cub.”

Shioni wavered, thinking upon Anbessa, and how the King had forbidden any talk about magic or witchcraft. Yes, it could be done without mentioning those things. And so she began to weave her story.

The warriors interrogated her until even hauling rocks began to seem attractive.