The Shadow’s Curse (20 page)

Khareh caught her expression, yearning for them, and teased her by placing them down in a woven basket almost within her reach. With all the Yun and the guards around, though, any attempt by her to reach them would likely result in her death.

Khareh let most of the warlords make their presentations without too much fuss or interrogation, sending them back to their tribes with all their limbs and most of their dignity intact. Maybe he was learning. Wadi dared to dream.

Erdene was as good as her word, and once the tribe leaders had made their pledges she announced the start of a Yun contest. As darkness descended around them, and the moon rose to hang high in the sky, a hush fell over the army that only something truly awe-inspiring could cause. Wadi craned her neck to look. At first, she couldn’t see anything. But then the crowd parted in a smooth motion, like scissors through cloth.

Even once they came into sight, Wadi couldn’t really tell what she was looking at. She wasn’t sure she could even believe her eyes.

The Yun were in their ceremonial garb: long, midnight-blue cloaks edged with gold, tied with a thick leather belt, and breastplates of boiled leather, pieced together like snakeskin, which allowed them both freedom of movement and protection. Each had a leather shield lashed to their left arm, and they carried their dazzling Yun swords straight up and pointing at the sky. The swords bent and dispersed the light from the fires and the moon, looking as if each sword took the light and drank it in, then pumped it through its blade like blood through veins.

But the swords didn’t compare to the final element of the Yun garb. The mask. The masks cast from the face of Malog – one of the strongest Yun ever to exist, whose face was finally brutally disfigured by a rival khan. Dressed in that mask, all the Yun looked the same, distinguished only by their heights and body shapes. But even so, it would be hard to tell them apart from each other. Wadi knew Lars and Erdene best, but she couldn’t pick them out from the line-up of Yun. Even their boots, trimmed with silver fox fur, were all the same.

They paired off and fought, one by one. The sight of them was mesmerizing, as if watching two people dance, not fight with swords. None of them lacked any training; not a single one had slacked off in their duties. As they were duelling, Wadi kept noticing something else – the knots, encased within the translucent material of the swords.

There were dangerous moments too. One Yun’s sword came down across another’s shield so hard that the leather snapped and blood spilt from an arm wound. The Yun cried out in pain, and the other stopped his approach.

‘Keep going!’ shouted Khareh. ‘There’s no reason to stop – he’s not going to die from that!’

But when the wounded Yun pulled the face mask off; it was Erdene. Khareh bit back a protest of annoyance, and waved her off. She left the field, her head hanging in shame.

Khareh wasn’t the same after that, and no longer enjoyed the contest the way that he had been previously.
Good
, thought Wadi.

The other Yun were unsure how to proceed now Erdene was not there to lead them. They didn’t want to continue fighting each other if they didn’t have to.

Then one Yun stepped forward. Wadi wasn’t sure whether it was man or woman, but whoever it was, they were bold. They pointed their sword straight at Khareh.

Wadi tilted her head to one side and tried to guess. The Yun looked the same height as Imal, the Samar general and stood with the same easy confidence.

‘Khareh-khan, would you agree to a duel?’ The mask distorted the Yun’s voice, so that Wadi still couldn’t be sure.

A stunned silence descended once again, as all eyes turned to Khareh. There was a cry of protest from Erdene to break the moment, but Khareh stood up, a smile on his face. ‘I think I will.’ He removed some of the more elaborate rings from around his fingers and dropped them in the basket next to the knives he’d been given.

Wadi rolled her eyes. As if any of the Yun would be stupid enough to offer up a
real
fight against the Khan. And then there was the matter of Khareh’s shadow. His haunt – the main source of his sage power – would not let him come to any harm, and besides, could heal him instantly if he did.

The haunt must have caught her staring, because he drifted over in her direction. The closer the shadow came, the more she felt like there was a hand constricting her heart. She knew the shadow was part of Raim, but she couldn’t fully understand it. In the prison cell, a moment of madness had possessed her to ask him to make her a promise so that she could break it, and have a piece of him with her.

She thought maybe she would have done it, even if it meant becoming an oathbreaker, but time had slipped away from them.

The haunt was in front of her now, the grey shadow swirling before her eyes. She held her nerve and looked at it, wondering if she looked hard enough whether she could see the outline of Raim’s face in the nebulous cloud, the broad set of his shoulders, the delicate slant of his eyes.

Behind the shadow, Khareh descended the wooden steps from his platform towards the makeshift arena. He had yet to even draw his sword. Erdene had been bundled off to one side, while her arm was being bandaged. The rest of the Yun had melted back into the crowd. Even Khareh’s other guards seemed distracted.

And his haunt was distracted by Wadi and did not follow Khareh down into the arena. The shadow seemed to reach out to her, like a ghostly hand outstretched. She braced herself as the shadow touched the skin of her cheek.

‘Raim?’ she whispered.

The Yun who had challenged Khareh reached up and pulled off the mask, throwing it down onto the ground.

‘I have been searching for you, boy.’

Wadi’s eyes opened wide. It was a woman. Not just any woman; but the woman she had seen in the Baril line-up. The woman who had looked at her with so much hatred. But her shock didn’t even come close to mirroring the shock on every single other face around the arena – including Khareh’s. In fact, Khareh looked more horrified than shocked. His mouth dropped open, his sword-tip nearly scraping the ground before he remembered himself.

‘Mhara?’

‘That’s right, Khareh. I have come for vengeance.’

Khareh spun around, searching for his spirit. ‘Not possible . . .’ he said, looking every bit as young as his eighteen years. The other Yun – Imal, Erdene, even with her injured arm – had started moving, rushing toward them, but the distance was too great. Khareh’s shadow, the spirit-Raim, flew away from Wadi then too.

Mhara had a snarl on her face that was more wolf than person. Her cheeks were hollow, her skin deathly pale, her eyes fierce and fixed on one goal. She thrust the sword in Khareh’s direction.

And nothing, not even Raim’s spirit, could have come between Mhara’s blade and Khareh’s heart at that moment, except that Wadi had launched herself toward the box of throwing knives and snatched one out of its casing.

Without even waiting a beat for rational thought to take over, she let her instincts guide her and flung one of the knives in Khareh’s direction. It flew over Khareh’s shoulder and stuck into the Yun woman’s heart.

Mhara’s sword clattered onto the ground and she dropped down onto her knees. ‘I’m sorry,’ were her final words, until the light left her eyes and she slumped to the dirt floor.

Erdene came to a screeching halt, ‘My Khan, are you all right?’ she cried. But then she followed Khareh’s gaze up to the source of the thrown knife – to where Wadi trembled by the platform, wondering what in Sola’s name she had done.

The boat anchored out to sea was vast and hideous.

Raim thought back to the last time he had seen a boat, when he and Khareh had spent time lounging on the shores of Lake Oudo. The memory brought a smile to his face, until he caught himself.

Raim thought how much Khareh would have loved the journey he was on. Raim had seen so much – from how to find water in the desert, to the tunnels in Lazar, the Baril mountains and now a great vessel that could cross the ocean between the North and the South. Khareh would have known exactly what questions to ask to understand everything that he saw. Raim just felt like tumbleweed being blown around by strong winds – the twisting tornado of exile, and now, the hurricane of his supposed destiny.

They would never have those moments again. They were on opposite sides now, and Raim could not fulfil his destiny and be friends with Khareh at the same time.

At least he had Draikh, who let out a low whistle. His shadow-friend was staring out across the waves, watching as the boat gently rose and fell with the swell of the tide. The ship had three tall masts, with enormous sails like bat wings. Lit up by the dying sun, they appeared a burnished red against the darkening sky. It didn’t look right that something so enormous should be able to stay afloat.

How is that possible?
Raim thought.

‘They must have some wondrous ship-builders in the South,’ said Draikh. ‘Far more sophisticated than anything we have.’

Raim shuddered.
I’m surprised anyone would want to experiment out over the salt water. I only hope I don’t have to swim.

Even though Mhara and Aelina reassured him several times that this boat – and only this boat – had made the passage to the South and back several times, he wasn’t filled with confidence. It was easy for them to say – they weren’t the ones who had to clamber on board and survive the journey. He was comforted to look over and see that Tarik had turned a sickly shade of green and he had covered his mouth with his hands.

But now, so much more made sense. He had always heard Khareh talk about the South with a kind of reverential tone – and he had been convinced that there was far more to the South than met the eye. Had Khareh ever seen the true extent of the power they had there? If they could make ships as big as a temple float – what else could they do? They were like sages themselves . . .

But if these items existed in the South, why were they not in the North? Why didn’t the rest of the Darhanian population have access to them? He could imagine the tribes along the Zalinzar river trading much more briskly with ships like these, but not even the richest warlord had one. Not even Khareh-khan.

Once they reached the beach, not made up of sand but of millions of crushed shells, the priestess of the Temple of Bones introduced him to the captain of the ship, a grizzled old man with blackened stubble on his face. His face was lined with wrinkles, his hands calloused with rope burns, his skin weather-beaten and leathery.

‘Raim, meet Shen-quo, captain of the
Zuan
,’ said the priestess.

‘To be honest, we thought you would never come.’

‘We came as fast as we could – far more quickly than I wanted,’ replied Raim. His knees still felt shaky from the steep walk down the narrow cliffside path. At some points, he had felt like a strong breeze would have easily blown him over the edge to a rocky death on the beach below. Even Tarik was more sure-footed than him, but then he guessed that he had had more practice in the mountainous Amarapura region.

‘Aye, and I stayed already a day longer than I had intended. Does that make us even?’ The old sailor spat a wad of chewing tobacco on the ground. ‘I come to this godsforsaken North only once a year. That’s all the Council can afford, plus, I wouldn’t brave the passage across this sea at any other time of the year. I’m the only man mad enough to do it at all, so you’d have been a long time waiting for anyone else. Until next year!’ He chuckled, although it sounded more like a gag. He eyed up their meagre possessions. ‘Get in the rowboat. We leave as soon as you’re aboard.’

This was it. The moment Raim stepped on the deck of the ship, he would be on his way south and there would be no turning back.

As if sensing his hesitation, Draikh said: ‘What are you waiting for?’

This is it.

‘Yes. And?’

I don’t know if it’s the right thing.

‘What do you think is best for Darhan?’ asked Draikh.

‘Not to have Khareh in charge,’ Raim said, although it came out like barely a whisper.

‘Exactly,’ said Draikh. ‘And with his spirit-army, he is unstoppable. But there is
one
person who can stop him.’

Me
.

Draikh raised an eyebrow.

Me, but without a scar.

‘You, without a scar, and with an army. That is your answer.’

Raim nodded, and turned back around to face the rowboat. The captain was there, looking at him strangely.

‘The shadow that surrounds you . . . I have never seen anything like it. Do you control it?’

‘Yes,’ said Raim, as he stepped into the boat. ‘I am a sage.’

The captain’s eyes widened, but he said no more. Once they reached the ship, they climbed up a shaky hemp-rope ladder to reach the deck.

This would be Raim’s home for the foreseeable future.

Straightaway, his stomach churned, and his first few steps forward sent him swaying across the deck. He threw himself against the rails and gripped tightly.

Draikh laughed at him, as did the other sailors.

Luckily, Tarik was exactly the same.

‘You Northerners will get your sea legs soon. Either that, or this will be a very long journey for you all.’ The captain’s steps were sturdy, his legs adjusting to the ship’s every movement. He appeared like an extension of the ship, rather than a passenger on it. ‘Boy?’ Shen gestured to Raim. ‘Let’s see it then. On board ship, there can be no secrets.’

Raim swallowed hard, and balled his hands into fists. He wanted to be strong, but the motion of the boat kept threatening to take his legs from under him.

‘Come on. Don’t be shy. We were informed that one day we would carry a dirty Northern oathbreaker to the South. We must see the scar.’

All eyes on the ship were turned toward him, and the back of Raim’s neck burned. Even the sailors that were previously engaged in fixing the sails or swabbing the deck turned to look at him.

Finally, he could bare the scrutiny no longer. He pulled up the sleeve of his tunic so that it revealed his twisted red scar in all its cruelty. It was enough to make Shen shudder.