The Stealers' War (2 page)

‘No Great Krul has ever breached the Walls of Rodal,’ warned Madinsar.

‘I am no mere Great Krul,’ said the warlord. ‘I am Kani Yargul. I shall make the god Atamva weep in envy at how thoroughly my foes are smashed. I will forge a victory crown so heavy that only my own sons will be able to bear its glory without being crushed.’

‘Atamva always remembers,’ whispered the priestess. Then Madinsar raised her face and looked at the warlord. ‘Claim the right of the Great Krul again, my lord, and give me the forest dweller as my thrall.’

‘What use do you have for this creature?’ said Kani Yargul, staring down contemptuously at Kerge. ‘I thought him half a bear and half porcupine, walking upright like a man when he entered my tent.’

‘He could dance for us. Or perhaps the high priestess wishes to use the spines from his hide to pick meat from her teeth,’ said the sorcerer. ‘I hear the care of teeth becomes of great importance when one reaches such an inestimable age.’

‘One of a great many nuisances I would rid myself of,’ said Madinsar, staring down the sorcerer. ‘If I could. This one is a gask. A twisted man, and the people of the forests possess many gifts, including that of dreaming the future. Such a thrall would be useful to me, and of service, thereby, to the clans.’

Kerge looked like he was going to say something, but didn’t. Cassandra guessed the gask was going to point out that he had lost his gift of prophetic vision, but on second thoughts had wisely decided to keep his loss quiet lest he end up with a far worse fate.
Poor Kerge. If you could still see the future, you would have never come after me with Sheplar. You would have stayed safe in Rodal and gone back to your shaded city in the trees
.

‘I must have something so you must have something,’ said the sorcerer.

‘As long as our clans grow stronger,’ said Kani Yargul. ‘So be it. Now bring me my feast. No more talk without action. I have a hunger and I have a thirst.’

He waved away the foreigners and court supplicants. Cassandra was dragged through the crowded tent until Alexamir caught up with her and lifted the weight of her body from the two guards. Nurai manoeuvred through the crowd to make sure she was there too. A knowing look on the young witch rider’s face that Cassandra wished she could wipe off by breaking her proud nose.
If I could just take the step towards you, I would
.

‘You came back from the raid with three thralls,’ said Nurai. ‘And you leave the tent with just one.’

‘I leave the Great Krul having made two gifts to him,’ said Alexamir. ‘And the golden fox is the only prize I value.’

Those words struck Nurai like a slap. ‘Fools’ gold for a fool,’ she growled and stalked off.

‘The witch rider is right,’ said Cassandra. ‘I am no prize worth possessing.’

‘Her words drip with envy,’ said Alexamir. ‘But then, what woman would not be envious? I am already a legend among the clans and my saga has only just begun.’

While mine is doomed to end here, it seems.
‘And what of me?’

‘I gave you my word that you would be free to return to your people if that is what you wished.’

‘You gave your word to a different woman.’
One who could walk
.

‘You shall be that woman again. I will talk to Temmell. Beg him to heal you. Offer him my life and loyalty if he heals you for me.’

Cassandra felt her heart sink. This golden-skinned outsider, Temmell; he was clearly an itinerant medicine man whose wagon had been seized by the clans trying to cross the plains; an ex-clan slave who had used science and his canny knowledge of herbs and powders to bluff his way into a minor position of power. Not even the imperial surgeons attending the emperor and the imperial family could mend a broken spine. What chance did some travelling peddler who had landed on his feet here have? ‘You are wasting your time.’

‘It is my time to waste,’ said Alexamir. ‘Come, I shall take you to meet my family.’

As if I have any choice in the matter
. ‘I am sorry to hear your father is gone. Does your mother still live?’

‘She became one of the Great Krul’s wives and lives inside the palace. It is the way of our people. If your friend dies, you take in the wives of your fallen brother. My Aunt Nonna keeps my household. You will like her.’

Cassandra suspected nothing would be further from the truth. Survival out here in the grasslands, cooking, cleaning, finding water, keeping the animals alive that helped feed mouths and give the clans their hides and wool for clothes, leather, saddles and tents . . . that was a full-time occupation. A pampered Vandian noblewoman, raised for power and made a cripple, that was only another burden.

Cassandra glanced behind her to the palace. No sign of Kerge or Sheplar. It was strange, when that pair had been her captors, there hadn’t been a day as prisoner in Weyland when she hadn’t dreamt of escaping and making her way back to Vandia. But now the pair were thralls, slaves to the clan, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for them.

She gazed out to the east, beyond the hills where acres of camouflage netting helped conceal the clans’ greatest secret. Perhaps this Kani Yargul would be the first war leader of the hordes to do what had never been done before. Conquer Rodal and push into the rich nations of the south.
So, Vandia is now involved in Weyland’s civil war?
The Imperium had come at last to punish the slave revolt in Vandia. Her people were across the mountains in force. Ridiculously close, given the scale of distances the Vandians must have flown to reach Weyland.
Is my mother there? Paetro, Duncan, others from my house?
Almost certainly. Cassandra knew her mother. Nothing in Pellas would stop Princess Helrena Skar from seeking out her kidnapped daughter, punishing the escaped slaves who had humiliated her by snatching the daughter of her house as a hostage. Lady Cassandra had to stop herself from laughing at the irony. All this way and did her grandfather’s legions but know it, it was only the indignity of the slave revolt they had left to punish.
With me, there is nothing left to save
. Only to avenge. Better she stayed here among the savage nomads. Lost to her house. Let Helrena Skar think her daughter dead.
For I am. If I only didn’t have Alexamir’s affections to remind me that I’m alive
.

Alexamir lifted Cassandra on to a horse so she could pass through the camp with more dignity than being carried like a sack of meal.

‘You should have let me end my life,’ declared Cassandra.

‘Then you would have ended two.’ It was clear Alexamir would brook no interference with his plans for Cassandra, no matter what her wishes.

There were thousands of similarly sized and shaped tents in the busy encampment, although there was no chance of the nomads getting lost. Each tent’s exterior had been dyed or embroidered with unique runes and symbols, prayers for success against rivals and protection against evil spirits. Children played outside while adults cooked on low stone ovens, cleaning weapons and brushing horses, picking stones from their steeds’ hooves. She reached a tent, or rather, three connected circular tents formed into a triangular formation. It had been staked on the top of a low hill. Down on the other side was a stream where nomads squatted by the side of the frothing water, beating clothes clean against rocks.

‘I return from the raid, Aunt,’ said Alexamir, pushing aside a woollen flap acting as a door to the tent.

‘Yes. Yes. I heard the cheers from the palace,’ said Nonna. ‘I shall cook their applause at once to make a fine feast from the great words of such heroes.’

The nomad woman standing inside sniffed, irritated, watching Alexamir bear Cassandra in and laying her down on a simple bed of sheep skins in the corner. Nonna had the same blue tint to her skin as all the nomads. The same twisted blood that allowed Alexamir to walk around Rodal’s frozen heights bare-chested. Alexamir’s aunt must have been close to her sixtieth year, but she was still a handsome woman, with the muscled tone of a woman a third her age, dark leather riding clothes belted with twin daggers swinging on wide hips. To Cassandra’s eyes, Nonna appeared a gladiator born to battle, not a housekeeper.
Perhaps that is the way with all the Nijumeti
.

‘And what else have you carried back from your raid? Sheep with no pelts and a stallion that only gallops backwards? A sword hilt with no blade attached, perhaps?’

‘This is the Lady Cassandra of Vandia, granddaughter of a rich and powerful emperor,’ said Alexamir, a touch too haughtily. ‘She has been given my guest oath.’

Nonna bowed ironically in Cassandra’s direction. ‘Then I live to serve. As
always
.’

‘She will be no burden on you. Not for long. Temmell will heal her. I know it.’

‘That one? That foreign
degg
? That golden-skinned spell-sucker? Promise him your soul for a saddle-wife if you must. He shall not have mine.’

‘My golden fox is to be no thrall or saddle-wife,’ said Alexamir, setting matters out clearly. ‘She has my protection and we will honour her with all the traditions of roof and salt. She is free to go among us as she wishes.’

Cassandra couldn’t help but feel her heart soften at the young nomad’s words. Few men in this land or any other would have held to her in this state.
But he has
. Nothing had inhibited his yearning for her. Not being held as a prisoner in Salasang or being shot out of the clouds by the Rodalian skyguard. Alexamir was a savage, a reiver and a common thief, but he possessed the nobility of a prince of the plains.

‘How splendid. Then I shall be witness to a miracle of the gods . . . I shall see a fox walk,’ said Nonna. She waved her hand indifferently around the connected tents. ‘Welcome to your new kingdom, then, Lady Cassandra of Vandia. You will find we have fewer servants than an emperor’s offspring is used to, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in spirit.’ She snorted and picked up a leather drinking bottle, uncorking it and tossing it to the little-welcomed guest.

Cassandra sniffed at the canteen and then took a gulp, swallowing a pale white liquid that tasted of almonds. It burnt her throat like acid before moving down her gut as a stream of liquid fire. She only just resisted the urge to spit it out again. The young Vandian woman experienced a strange, dizzying warmth coursing through her veins. ‘What in the name of the ancestors did I just drink?’

‘
Cosmos
,’ said Nonna. ‘Distilled and fermented milk of the mare. Only the finest. Sent by my sister-in-law from the leavings of the Great Krul himself. Milk of the mare gives a woman the strength to see out the day and work like a devil.’ She laughed. ‘Drink too much and I shall lose my legs as surely as you have lost yours. Or perhaps I shall go blind first?’

Cassandra proffered the bottle back for Nonna to take. As Nonna reached over, she grabbed Cassandra’s wrist and turned it around, inspecting the guest’s fingers and hand like a palm reader. ‘An emperor’s granddaughter, you say? On whose word? These hands are hard and calloused, not soft and coddled.’

‘I speak the truth,’ protested Alexamir. ‘The rice-eaters and men of Weyland held her hostage in the kin war across the mountains. I rescued her. I freed her.’

‘Indeed. So, you could not resist stealing a burning brand from the fire,’ said Nonna. ‘Every day you walk into the tent and I glance up and see you and think you are your father, returned from riding the heavens. Like two peas in a pod, in bad manners, poor wisdom and fine features. Truly you are my brother’s blood, Alexamir Arinnbold.’

Cassandra broke the aunt’s grip. ‘That he may be, but
I
am Vandian. The Imperium’s celestial caste does not have soft hands and fat chins. We are raised to battle and trained to rule. No house that carries weaklings survives long in the Imperium.’

‘Then perhaps your people are not so different from ours, after all,’ said Nonna. ‘You certainly show enough pride to be a Nijumet. But is it false pride? Never in my day.’

‘Your nephew would be dead without me,’ said Cassandra. ‘I flew the flying wing we stole from Rodal. It was crashing it which broke my back.’

‘Indeed? Well, even foul water may put out a fire.’ Nonna shrugged and lay a hand not unkindly on one of Alexamir’s boulder-like shoulders. ‘Yet, where would I be without my Alexamir and his hot air to warm my tent? Winter would have claimed me an age ago.’

If winter tried, I suspect it would end up with a dagger shoved through its eye
. This was Cassandra’s fate, her future. Worn fabric walls stretched over a wooden frame, her bones warmed by a dried sheep-dung hearth. Before, she had been a prisoner in Weyland. Now she was a prisoner inside her own body.
Where is my escape to be, here
?

War hasn’t been kind to Midsburg
, mused Duncan Landor, blackened rubble crunching under his feet as he strode toward the military headquarters with his friend Paetro. As sieges go, this city had seen a quick, decisive action. Even the Guild of Radiomen’s hold he and Paetro had just left had escaped largely undamaged. But it wasn’t the war that was troubling Duncan so much as what passed for a peace which had followed it. After a brief spell of looting, mostly by Weyland’s victorious southern army rather than their Vandian allies, both King Marcus’ regiments and Vandia’s legions had set up camp inside the city’s unaffected quarters. And very little that had followed had gone according to plan.

‘Have you heard that Captain Aleria’s section was posted missing yesterday?’ asked Duncan.

‘I hadn’t,’ said Paetro. ‘He was no greenhorn; there was a man who knew what he was about. Where was his section dispatched?’

‘A rebel artillery column was spotted heading for the Sparsnow line. The captain took a patrol ship out to investigate. The ship was found later, empty. No legionaries, no pilots.’

Paetro grunted. ‘There is a road in Vandis where courtesans play the same game . . . Lares Shrine Street. Show a little leg, lure a man into an alley, a flash of knives, and the blockheads were never seen again. Not unless you count the rats in the sewer going after chunks of meat floating by.’

‘I hear that King Marcus has declared the rebellion over,’ said Duncan. ‘He’s leaving the capital and travelling on a royal progress through the pacified prefectures.’