The Shadow’s Curse (6 page)

Oathbreaking was the ultimate Darhanian taboo. But now here was Khareh, changing the rules again. Wadi’s stomach felt like it was full of lead. She could see where this was leading, and she didn’t like it at all.

‘I promise you, oathbreaker of Yelak, that you will be able to return home after my war is won. I promise this as your khan.’

‘I accept your vow,’ said the man, and pulled the string tight. But he did not seem pleased by the vow he had just made. His shoulders remained slumped, his chin down by his chest.

Khareh went down the line, making the same vow to each one of the oathbreakers, until he held six knotted promise strings in his hand. He spun around and signalled to his guards. ‘Take them away,’ he said. ‘They will all be prisoners in the Camp of Shadows until their deaths.’

‘No!’ cried one of the oathbreakers, even though he must have known what was coming.

Wadi couldn’t tear her eyes away from Khareh. Or, more specifically, away from Khareh’s hands, which were engulfed in fire from the burning promises. The flames danced in his eyes, reflecting orange on his face. But he didn’t cry out. He didn’t wince in pain. He just stared at them, and Wadi couldn’t help but think he was mad.

Then, just as quickly as they appeared, the flames flew towards Khareh’s torso and went out. Dark holes were singed in his tunic. Garus threw a cloak over his shoulders and Khareh pulled it tight across his chest. Now Khareh winced in pain, closing his eyes tightly shut and clenching his fists around the fabric.

Wadi blinked, and Khareh was engulfed in shadows. Six of them, she realized. Six shadows, for the six oaths Khareh had just broken.

‘Make your spirits obey me!’ commanded Khareh, his eyes still closed.

Khareh’s Yun guard drew their swords, pointing them at the six oathbreakers. But they didn’t have to use them. All six dropped to their knees and began to whisper prayers – or, more likely, pleas – into the ground. The shadows swirling around Khareh speeded up, faster and faster. Wadi bit her lip. She didn’t think this was going as Khareh planned.

Then Khareh began to rise. At first, it looked as if he was pushing up from the ground with his toes. But as the distance between his feet and the ground grew from the width of a finger, to a palm, to an arm’s length – she knew he had exactly what he wanted.

When his feet touched the ground again, his eyes flew open, and a huge smile was on his face. He snapped his fingers. ‘What are you waiting for? I told you lead them to the Camp of Shadows,’ he said to one of the guards. The oathbreakers dutifully followed, still tormented by their haunts, but allowed to stay in Darhan.

Was that any better?
Wadi wasn’t sure.

Khareh turned to her. ‘And now you see how I formed my shadow-army. Imagine this’ – he gestured to the six shadows that now obeyed his every command – ‘but now imagine thousands of them.’

Wadi could. Her stomach tightened, and she thought she might be sick.

‘I almost pity them. They think the burden of their broken oath will be lessened if they can at least stay in their homeland. They think I might somehow have the power to free them from their haunts. They cannot see that they are a means to an end. That it would be better for them if they accepted what they deserved. If they went into exile.’

‘You are offering them hope, and then you snatch it away for your own gain. You are despicable.’

His jaw tightened at Wadi’s words, the skin pulling tightly across his sharp cheekbones. ‘I am doing what is necessary to win. I am using every resource at hand. Including the filthy oathbreakers.’

‘You are an oathbreaker too,’ Wadi spat back. ‘You are the worst of them all.’

His eyes darkened and he raised his hand. Wadi winced instinctively. But Khareh only adjusted his crown, and let out a sharp breath. ‘I know,’ he said, not loud enough for anyone else to hear. Then he marched off, back toward the centre of the army camp.

Wadi was marched back after him by the guards. Once they reached the royal yurt again and she was installed inside, Khareh and the human guards left but Khareh’s shadow lingered. The shadow drifted to Wadi. She knew it was Raim. She knew it was Raim’s spirit. A part of him that she had never really known. ‘Please,’ she said to the shadow. ‘Please stay away from me.’

The shadow hesitated. But it did as it was told. It did not come any closer. It lingered for an instant, as if studying Wadi, then in a swirl, a rush, it swept through the yurt wall – surely to find Khareh again.

Wadi let out a breath. And with it came the first of many tears.

Tarik was running. Raim took off after him like a shot, knowing that he could absorb the shock of seeing his brother
after
he caught up with him.
Draikh, can you help?
Raim asked in his mind. Tarik still wasn’t the quickest runner, but on this unfamiliar ground, he had the advantage over Raim.

‘Tarik, wait!’ he shouted out. His brother’s head bobbed almost out of sight. Then Raim caught sight of him again, heading upwards, towards the hidden heights of the mountain.

Draikh, however, had no hindrances. He didn’t have to worry about overturning a rock underfoot, or keeping a sense of direction on unknown ground. He simply flew up to Tarik and held his hand out. Tarik ran chest-first into Draikh’s outstretched palm. He let out an anguished cry, and beat at the air with his hands, but Draikh had disconnected again, so his fists flailed at nothing.

Raim used those few seconds to scramble up to the same level as Tarik. Still, his brother tried to run from him, but now Raim was able to pick up his pace. He reached out and grabbed his brother by the edge of his tunic. Tarik pulled away, shaking and twisting his body as hard as he could, but Raim didn’t let go and they both tumbled to the ground. Still, Tarik struggled.

‘Tarik! It’s me!’

‘Raim?’ Tarik stopped struggling. It was as if his eyes had opened and Tarik was seeing him for the first time. ‘But what are you doing here? Last I heard, you had been exiled from Darhan to the desert!’

Raim studied his brother, still holding him tightly by his tunic. He wasn’t certain he could trust him, not after seeing the way he ran so quickly. Finally, he let out a long sigh and let go. He was going to have to trust Tarik if he was going to get answers. And, in turn, he somehow had to find a way to get Tarik to trust him. ‘I was in the desert, you’re right, but not for the reasons you think. I’m not an oathbreaker.’

‘Then what are you?’

‘I’m . . .’ Raim hesitated. He hadn’t ever spoken the words out loud before. ‘I’m a sage.’

Tarik stared. ‘What did you say?’

The words had barely come out a whisper. Raim cleared his throat, and spoke more loudly. It was the truth, after all. ‘I’m a sage.’

Raim had expected shock, or at least surprise from Tarik, but all he could see in his brother’s eyes was curiosity. Tarik looked from Raim to the shadow-form of Draikh. ‘That isn’t possible,’ he said.

‘It is,’ said Raim. ‘I control this shadow,’ he added, following Tarik’s gaze as it continued to flicker between them.

‘That’s not strictly true,’ said Draikh, in Raim’s mind.

I know, but our situation is too difficult to explain just now. Will you cooperate?

‘For you, I suppose,’ the spirit replied.

‘Can you prove it?’ asked Tarik, his voice edged with excitement.

Raim nodded. He made a show of swirling his hands in front of him, and in response, Draikh flew in circles around him, so it looked to Tarik as if Raim were engulfed by shadow. Draikh picked up several shards of rock for effect, so it looked as if Raim were able to levitate the stones. Then Raim raised his hands to the sky, and Draikh flew straight up in the air.

Sagery.

Or so it would have looked to Tarik.

Then, that curiosity turned to something else. Tarik sat up straighter, and stared wide-eyed at Raim. ‘You’ve taken a big risk coming here. Are you alone?’

Raim nodded. He had no choice but to be completely honest with his brother. ‘I need your help.’

Tarik shook his head, but there was a small smile on his face. ‘I’m not sure I will be able to help you. I’m just a novice. But if anyone has answers, then Qatir-bar, my master, will have them. I can take you to him.’

‘Thank you,’ said Raim. ‘It is good to see you, brother.’ He suppressed the urge to pull him into an embrace. Although they had never been close, it still filled Raim’s heart with warmth to see him alive, and looking well.

But the gulf between them remained wide.

Walking beside his brother, Raim looked at him more closely. His head was shaved, but he still didn’t have the signature flattened-forehead of the Baril, said to be formed by hours of intensive prayer. Tarik was the most pious person Raim had ever known, so it surprised him that he hadn’t spent every second he’d been in the Baril with his head bowed to the floor.

Maybe he was too busy running chores to pray. Raim bit at the edge of his fingernail as they walked. Tarik looked the same as the brother he had known but there was something different about him. In the tribe, Tarik had been the most intelligent one – the one who could read and write, the one who was destined to be a Baril master. Ordinary tribespeople both feared and were in awe of the Baril. The secretive monks spent their days devoted to exploring life’s mysteries, while most tribespeople were too busy simply living to spend much time pondering.

His intelligence meant he had often segregated himself from the tribe, but it also gave him an edge – an authority. He used to walk with his head held high. But all signs of that quiet authority were gone now, replaced with a curved slump of his shoulders that suggested something else: servitude, maybe. He looked defeated. Something must have happened in the few months to affect the change, but Raim couldn’t think what.

Raim had never been in awe of the Baril, but as they climbed his awe increased of the place they chose to live. On the horizon, Raim could see a line of mountains so huge their snow-covered caps were visible above the clouds. The air was sharp and crisp, every breath searing his lungs and sending shivers running down his spine.

There was a clatter of stones nearby, which attracted Raim’s attention. He looked up the sheer cliff on their right-hand side and spotted a scrawny goat making its sure-footed way across the rock face. Beneath its chin, the goat had a soft beard, something considered very precious in Darhan – it could be spun into high-quality promise string. Such goats were supposed to be quite rare. Raim wondered if the people here hunted the goats for their hair. Even as he was thinking this, a bit further along the mountainside, he caught sight of a young Baril woman edging her way towards the goat.

He imagined that would be a pretty good source of income for the Baril.

‘Watch out,’ said Draikh, a moment too late to be useful. Tarik stopped, and Raim ran straight into his back.

Raim was expecting a temple to appear ahead of them, but as of yet as far as his eye could see, there was nothing more than the same craggy boulders they had been crossing. Despite their proposed pledge to lead simple lives, he could imagine a lot of Baril needing a little bit more luxury than the inside of a cave.

‘This part is a bit tricky,’ said Tarik. ‘You might need my help.’

Raim almost laughed – the Tarik he had known would have never offered help to Raim. But then he saw what Tarik meant. At the base of the cliff face, a very steep set of steps had been cut into the rock, with iron handholds bolted in at some of the trickier junctions where the steps switched directions. Even as he marvelled at the workmanship, he dreaded the prospect of the climb. But seeing his brother scale them as easily as if they were the big, wide steps up to the palace in Kharein filled him with confidence. Or, at least, if not confidence then the desire to prove that he could do anything his brother did.

Do you think they get avalanches here?
Raim thought to Draikh.
Rockslides?
Raim craned his neck and looked up at the mountains around them. They were tall and silent; it did not look like they were in any danger of dumping a load of snow on the stairs.

Raim’s thick winter boots didn’t provide him with the right grip, and he wished for a second that he could take them off and go barefoot, where he could at least feel the surface with his toes. But as he pressed his cheek against the stone, the coldness of it almost froze his skin – his toes wouldn’t have stood a chance.

His brother looked down at him, ‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine!’ said Raim, with more confidence than he felt. At a difficult switchback, Tarik waited for him, and guided him round it as he held on to an iron bar. ‘Thanks,’ Raim said.

‘No problem. Just keep your head up in about ten steps time. You’re not going to want to miss this.’

His feet felt like they were inches from slipping, and each step narrower than the last – too well worn by the passing of hundreds of Baril to really be safe. But he kept his eyes on where Tarik had disappeared over a ledge, and to what he assumed would be the destination.

When he finally reached the last of the steps, he gripped the handhold and practically ran up the last few. And he wasn’t disappointed. At first, he could only see cloud, but then the mist dissipated enough to show a flash of gold. The cloud continued to part like a curtain, unveiling the roof then the terrace, then the walls, then the windows, then the steps leading up to the enormous temple.

Now this was more like what he expected of a great Baril dwelling.

The sight of the gold-painted temple surrounded by majestic mountains was something he thought he would never see in his lifetime. In fact, ordinary people just never came here. Only Baril.

Raim rubbed his palms against his tunic. He was glad there was no one else around. He could feel little beads of sweat accumulating around his hairline.

‘Nervous much?’ asked Draikh.

You have no idea.

‘Come on,’ said Tarik. ‘I will take you to see Qatir-bar.’

The temple doors burst open, and out came a stream of Baril monks – but different from any Baril monks Raim had ever seen before. These men had muscles bigger than most Yun, with expressions that made Raim believe he was about to be pummelled into the ground. There was no escaping it either – behind them were only the sheer steps, and Raim didn’t fancy going down them in a hurry.