The Namura Stone (9 page)

Diva gasped. The word slaughter seemed to fall into her brain like a piece of shrapnel, cutting through all her self-control. She gave a demented shriek of total rage.

“Nobody is going to slaughter my daughter, you sorry excuse for a dung beetle.” She lunged forwards so fast that he barely had time to see the flash of metal, and buried her dagger in his torso. He gave a howl, and fell back, bleeding heavily.

Diva smiled savagely at him, but the other men had closed in on her and she was having to use all her skill now to protect herself.

Then she heard shouts, and a figure threw itself into the fight. Bennel, who had been waiting for them over a mile further down the path, had heard the disturbance and lost no time in reaching them.

As soon as Tallen realized who had arrived, he disengaged from the man opposing him.

“Bennel!” The Namuri’s voice was frozen with fear. “Take over! One of them has taken Raven into the marsh. I must follow. I am the only one who knows the secret ways.”

“Go, hothead. I will take care of the problem here,” Bennel replied calmly. “
Valhai
Diva and I will mop these men up in a flash. We will meet you at the crossroads, where I left my family.”

Tallen nodded his understanding and ran into the marshes. He knew which path the guard had taken, and it lead to a particularly treacherous area of quickmire. If the man was planning to make Raven disappear without a trace, he had headed in the right direction.

He ran on and on through the short reedy grass which grew in the marshes. The man had not much of a start, and Tallen knew the ways like the back of his hand. But the boy’s heart was frozen. What if the guard had already reached his destination? What if he had already put the little girl into the quickmire?

After a minute or two, he caught sight of the flash of light off a sword, and veered accordingly. They were on the left-hand trail, the one which led to the black swamp. That was not good news; it was one of the most dangerous areas in all the sacred marshes.

But he was close now; he could smell his quarry up ahead, and the slight white mist which hung over the area was not enough to hide him any longer.

Tallen ran even faster, his feet barely touching the grass, although he chose every step carefully. If he didn’t, it might be his last.

Then the man was in front of him. Tallen felt a thrill of expectation travel physically right up and down his spine. He skidded to a halt on the bright green grass and then advanced on his quarry.

“Put the little girl down,” he said quietly. “Put her down on the ground behind you and make your peace with the blue stone. You are about to meet whatever witless god made you in the first place.” The Namuri stood proudly erect in front of the fully-grown man, his body still, only his eyes promising vengeance.

The guard hesitated and then realized that he could not fight with Raven under one arm. He grinned evilly, his eyes never leaving Tallen’s, and in one quick movement, threw the girl from him, directly into the quickmire. She bounced once on the grassy knoll and then lay, slightly winded, about to cry.

“Raven!” Tallen shouted. A trusting pair of eyes looked up. “I want you to crawl over to that tree.” He pointed to a slender young papakura tree, one which was struggling to grasp a hold on life in an inhospitable place. “Stay underneath it, until I come for you. You know how to reach it?”

The little girl looked at him solemnly, and then nodded. She turned and began to make her way to the tree, taking care to avoid the very greenest patches, and the pretty brown turf, just as he had taught her when they had been going through the marsh before, on their way to the camp.

Tallen circled his quarry until he saw that Raven had reached the shade of the tree. “Now stay there! Do not move!”

He saw her nod, and then was upon his opponent. He raised his sword arm over his head, and prepared to kill. The thought of the man flinging Raven into the quickmire to drown made his blood boil. He was sworn to protect this little girl, and he would now fulfill that promise. He attacked.

The guard was trained, was in leather body armour and was very experienced. He seemed to have recovered from the previous wound to his sword arm, and he towered over Tallen, but the boy was undeterred. Nothing short of Diva could have stopped him now. He closed eagerly with the guard, and they began a fight to the death. It was slow, and very bloody.

Gradually the grass around them became splattered with two types of blood, making the terrain slippery. Tallen fought on, grimly determined to remove the danger.

The sound of the swords clashing became more spaced apart as the two opponents tired, but still sparks flew from the meeting of the blades.

Tallen fought on, and on, and on. His youth gave him stamina; his anger gave him the determination not to yield.

Ten minutes later the guard slumped down in his own blood, the remains of his life draining into the ground. His eyes still held a suspicion of surprise as they glazed into death; he had not thought one of the clan could fight so long and so well. His last breath rattled in his throat as it mingled with his blood to escape.

Tallen stood over him, watching with dark impassive eyes as the man died. He saw the life evaporate from the body in front of him, and then looked across to the tree where Raven was sitting, as still as a statue.

He took a step towards her but was brought up sharply. One of those last, desperate parries of the guard had cut deep; there was something wrong with his leg. He was telling it to move, but it wasn’t obeying. He looked down.

There was a savage gash in the thigh. It went deep. He sighed. That would make things difficult. He moved with some difficulty to the nearest plant – the type with the pretty scarlet flowers Raven had admired a week earlier. They were entwiners, and he tore off a section of the plant, together with a couple of metres of its creeping shoots.

He wound them around his leg, above the deep cut, which was spurting blood, and then used a more solid piece of root to twist it tighter and tighter until the blood flow had almost stopped.

Then he hobbled over to Raven and held out his arms. “Come on, little one, it is time to find your mother.”

Raven wrinkled her brow. “T’an hurt. ’Aven walk.”

Tallen was so surprised that she could have taken so much in that he dropped his hands. Raven took hold of one of them and gave a small tug.

“Come on, T’an! We go!”

He allowed himself to be led through the dangerous quickmire, which Raven seemed to navigate almost by instinct. Then she led him past the dead guard.

Diva’s daughter stared down at the body. “Bad man!” she sentenced, apparently not in the least disturbed by his hasty demise. Then she looked up trustingly at Tallen.

“Where go?”

Tallen felt something in his heart contract. He thought he had never seen such a brave little soul in his whole life. He pointed weakly to the right.

Raven nodded stoutly. She picked up his hand again and began to lead the way, pulling him along after her. He followed, his leg dragging behind him along the grassy track, the plant creeper around it gradually turning red with blood.

DIVA AND BENNEL, who assumed that Tallen had already taken Raven out of danger, and were unaware of recent events, reached the crossroads first. Bennel gave a sharp whistle and a woman with two children emerged from a thicket close by the road.

“They insisted on coming with me as far as the crossroads,” he told Diva rather sheepishly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Diva smiled at the two children, who looked in awe of meeting a real meritocrat. “What are their names?”

Bennel indicated the girl. “This is my daughter, Quenna. She is eight.” Then he drew the boy forwards. “And this is my son, who is two years older. His name is Sanjai.”

Both children curtsied low. The girl spoke in a soft voice. “This is my mother, who asks to be commended to your trust,
Valhai
Diva. Her name is Lannie.” The older woman bowed even lower than her children had.

Diva gave a small bow in return. “I … I apologize for the way we look. We were attacked on the road. My daughter is … my daughter has …” She couldn’t go on.

Quenna and Sanjai stared up at the woman in front of them, awed. “Your hair is so black that it is almost blue,” said Quenna in hushed tones. Sanjai thought that he had never seen such a magnificent woman in all his life.

“It is rude to stare, Quenna,” corrected her father, embarrassed.

Immediately a mortified flush spread across his daughter’s face. She had not meant to be inquisitive. She curtsied again. “Please to forgive.” Then she turned beseeching eyes on her father, aware that she had shown him up in front of his employer. He softened.

“It is all right, Quenna.
Valha
i Diva is not offended.”

Then there was a rustling from one side and a commotion in the marshes. They looked up, startled, to see a resolute Raven pulling on the arm of Tallen, who was clearly wounded.

Both Diva and Bennel dived into the marshes.

Raven stopped when she saw them.

“T’an hurt, Mummy,” she said. “T’an very hurt.”

Diva picked her up and hugged her. “I can see, poppet. Don’t worry, we will look after him now. You did well.”

“Did well.” Raven looked pleased with herself.

Bennel was examining Tallen’s wound. “This is exceptionally deep,” he told Diva. “We must get him to Vion immediately. He needs medical attention before he loses much more blood. The tourniquet is helping, but I think it is dangerous for it to be left on for too long.”

Diva nodded. “Right.” She thought. “Actually, I think the quickest thing would be to take him to the shuttle and up to the New Independence. Once there, Arcan can take him anywhere Vion wants. If we manhandle him all the way back to Mesteta it will take more time.”

Bennel inclined his head. “Very well. My family will help carry him.” He removed the vines that Tallen had bound his leg with, to let the blood flow back to the whole leg for a few moments. The strands of vegetable fibre were slippery with blood, and the older man had to scout around quickly for new ones to bind back above the deep gash.

Tallen stirred. “Don’t need to be carried,” he said faintly. “Warrior. Warriors don’t get carried by women and children.”

Diva put her hands on her hips. “You will oblige me by shutting up, Tallen,” she told him. “I am in your debt for saving Raven’s life, but I will not permit you to tell me what to do.”

Tallen looked penitent. “Sorry.”

Diva grunted. “I should think so. What did you do with the guard? Did you throw him into the sacred marshes?”

“Certainly not! I would never contaminate the marshes with the likes of him. I left him where he was.”

“Good. Let him be a warning to others of his ilk. You did well, Namuri. Now, lie quietly. Let us try to save that leg.”

“Raven is as brave as you, you know.” His voice was already weaker.

“But not as brave as you. I am in your debt.”

He smiled. “I am Namuri. I had to keep my promise.”

“—You are more than a Namuri. You are my friend.”

Bennel took control after that, organizing his family so that Tallen could be transported as quickly as possible, and with the least disturbance, to the shuttle. Both his children and his wife obeyed him blindly, happy to be of service to a meritocrat.

Diva looked back at Coriolis. She would have to take precautions, if she ever came back here. There would be no more underestimating of Tartalus. Her second cousin had tried once too often to interfere in her life. She would not, she decided, let him have any more opportunities. As they climbed inside the shuttle, Diva looked back at the green countryside of Coriolis. She wondered when she would see it again.

Chapter 4

DIVA ASKED ARCAN to transport them directly to the 1
st
floor of the 367
th
skyrise on Valhai and to take Vion there too.

Vion stared down at Tallen’s injured leg. “That will need microsurgery,” he told her flatly, quickly removing the makeshift tourniquet. “Immediately.”

Diva closed her eyes. “Can I do anything?”

“Yes. I need somebody to hand me the instruments. I need to get this done as quickly as I can. You can scrub up and help me.”

“What?” Diva had never done anything like that before; she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to start now.

“Come on, Diva. If we want to save that leg for this young man, we are going to have to start right now! I would get my father, but he has been called out to one of the asteroids after a mining accident.”

She blinked, and then looked around for something to put on. Vion indicated the sterile robes to one side of the operating theatre, and she moved over, as if in a dream, to put them on.

Tallen looked unhappy. “Can’t you do it by yourself?” he demanded, fixing Vion with a hard look.

“No I can’t. And if you don’t want things like this to happen then I suggest you keep yourself out of battles with swords. Inevitably, somebody will get hurt.”

Tallen stiffened. “And what would you know about it, Sellite?”

“More than you, clearly, if you need my help.”

“We didn’t choose the fight.”

“I believe you. Fights have the habit of following Diva around.”

Diva glowered. “It’s not my fault if people keep trying to assassinate us, is it?”