The Stealers' War (28 page)

‘Lady Cassandra has no home among us,’ said Helrena. ‘Her life is finished.’

‘But we can take her back,’ persisted Duncan. ‘There must be a doctor inside the Imperium able to help her. They saved me when I was half-dead on the battlefield! They healed Paetro too.’

‘Even the Imperial Medical College has limits to its medicine,’ said Helrena. She stared angrily at Brean Luagh. ‘Put her back on the horse. Let her pretend to be a person again among these barbarians.’

‘Sweet mercy,’ said the trader as he reluctantly carried Cassandra to her mare, ‘you cannot be serious? I brought you here to your own blood. You’re going to abandon her now to the Nijumeti?’

Cassandra pulled herself back into the saddle, hardly daring to look at her mother’s face for the shame she felt. The Vandians stood in a line in front of her, their faces hard and disapproving for the most part. A few with disappointment or remorse at her obvious humiliation. Temmell came over and held her horse’s reins.
As though I’m rejected goods at the fair. And he’s right. That’s all I am.

‘I have no blood here,’ said Helrena. ‘My blood would understand what is necessary to bring honour to her house. How this must end.’

‘No!’ begged Duncan.

‘Please be quiet, Duncan of Weyland,’ whispered Cassandra. ‘My mother is right. I may not carry a dagger by my side, but there have been blades within reach. I could have stolen one and ended my suffering.’

‘This is madness,’ said Duncan. ‘You can talk, you can eat, you can use your hands and your mind.’

‘And the first challenge issued against my house, against me?’ said Cassandra. ‘Would you and Paetro push my wheelchair around for me during the duel? You stood inside the arena and watched my mother fight. Would you turn my existence into a freak-show and see our house harried to extinction by its enemies?’

Duncan lurched back, rendered mute by the horror of how quickly her rescue had turned into heartbreak for them both.

‘What about my money?’ demanded Brean Luagh, facing the Vandians. ‘The reward for finding the lady, for returning her to you?’

‘The house always honours its debts,’ said Helrena, coldly. She raised a hand towards her retinue and a soldier stepped forward carrying a heavy leather satchel. The princess took it from her guardsman and lifted its flap, showing the Hellenise smuggler the gold trading coins piled inside. She passed it across to the smuggler. ‘As agreed, this is yours.’ She raised a finger in Temmell’s direction. ‘You are this tribe’s leader, despite the lack of blue tint on your skin?’

‘The Krul of Kruls is currently away with a hunting party,’ said Temmell. ‘Else he would be here to meet with you. Your arrival is certainly worthy of attention. I am his . . . adviser.’

‘And how would you advise your absent barbarian chieftain to deal with a trader who gave away the location of your camp and brought dangerous far-called foreigners into your land?’

Temmell’s intense gaze turned in the smuggler’s direction. ‘That the time to hunt has not yet ended.’

Helrena nodded curtly. ‘I believe that is wise advice.’

‘I am coming back with you,’ Brean spluttered at the Vandian visitors.

Helrena patted the side of the smuggler’s coin-filled satchel. ‘Sadly, you can no longer afford the fare . . . triple the weight of this. My counsel would be to toss your gold in the grass as you flee. Hope that your hunters knife each other over the spoils. You will not find it particularly easy to run with a pack as heavy as that.’

‘Please!’ Brean glanced madly around, but seeing no mercy among either the Vandians or the nomads, he stumbled away towards the long grass beyond the makeshift aircraft works. Still clutching his reward.
Your death sentence
. Brean was a fool, but perhaps he had tried to help Cassandra.
No, he just tried to make himself rich. As far as he was concerned, you were a stray head of cattle and he was the rustler.

‘Not
too
much of a head start,’ observed Helrena.

‘He could run for a week and the clans would still ride him down,’ said Temmell.

Princess Helrena grunted, then strode away towards the four helos. She gave the aircraft a taut wave and their main blades began to spin into lift mode, balance bars quivering with each engine roaring into life.

Cassandra called after her. ‘Please, at least say goodbye!’
She’ll come back. My mother won’t leave me like this.
‘Help give me the strength . . .’

But Lady Cassandra’s mother didn’t even break step.
She would have shown more emotion over a corpse she was able to mourn than to me
.

Duncan reached Cassandra’s nag, her old master-of-arms, Paetro, trudging behind with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It’s my world and he, at least, knows it’s over
. ‘Helrena will change her mind. I’ll make her, Cassandra, I swear to you.’

‘Duncan, she’s the head of house and she has spoken. I’ll never see my mother again.’
Or Vandia. This is my life, here now. With Alexamir
.

‘She will!’ insisted Duncan, gazing desperately at the departing princess.

‘You’ll end up banished if you keep speaking for me,’ said Cassandra. ‘Make him see sense, Paetro.’

The stocky bodyguard tugged Duncan away from her horse. ‘The little highness is speaking the truth, lad. We have to leave here now. Or we’ll be the ones trying to out-pace barbarian hunting lances alongside that young Hellenise chancer.’

‘I’m sorry, Paetro,’ said Cassandra.
Sorry you had to discover me like this.

‘Don’t be sorry, little highness. I trained you as well as any of us. Stay on that horse with a sword in your hand and you’ll end up the Queen of the Steppes, you see if you don’t.’

I wanted to live too much. For Alexamir’s sake, if not my own.
‘Vandia’s far-called and beyond the horizon,’ said Paetro, gazing out across the endless prairie and the low hills. Tears wet his eyes as well as Cassandra’s. ‘That’s a big sky. Everywhere is different. You live well for me. Hold to the barbarians’ customs here and live well.’ ‘I’m not abandoning you,’ sobbed Duncan.

Cassandra nodded to Paetro and her old bodyguard dragged the Weylander back struggling towards the helo, assisted by a couple of burly guardsmen from the landing force. They forced Duncan inside a transporter and held him there, Paetro standing by its open hatch.

He raised his hand in a weary farewell and the hatch door closed.

One by one, the four helos lifted up, turning in the air and heading for the massive metal warship squatting on the other side of the river.

Cassandra didn’t see her mother in the cockpit or the observation ports. Not even one final glance.

Cassandra turned her attention to Temmell. ‘You lied to them.

They might have taken me if they thought there was even a hope I could use my legs again . . .’

‘But you didn’t want to leave, did you? Not truly.’

‘You lied to them!’

‘I merely denied the truth. Which among them would believe my enchantment over your flesh?’ asked the sorcerer. ‘Not even your own family. They hold to their power and I hold to mine.’

‘You need to keep me trapped here, don’t you? A convenient piece of bait to dangle in front of Alexamir.’

‘Perhaps I value our little evening conversations more than you think,’ smiled the sorcerer. ‘Someone whose interests stretch further than how many cattle your kin have stolen during the week . . .’ ‘What do you really want, Temmell?’

‘Always just a little bit more than I already have,’ said the odd golden-skinned man. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, sounding vexed. ‘There was more, once. But what was it?

Would that I could pick it out of my throbbing soup of a mind. No matter. I shall start by regaining lost face. Your people dare come here and rake my new skyguard with their rockets and cannons? To treat with me as though I am one of their filthy slaves? They will pay sorely for their arrogance!’

Cassandra snorted in derision. ‘I would settle for being glad your land has nothing the Imperium’s legions desire.’
Certainly not me, anymore.

Temmell’s sly eyes watched the giant Vandian warship. He said nothing more until the vessel rose into the air, swivelling on pillars of fire from her engine pods, anti-gravity stones studding her hull flaring into life and pushing her into the sky. ‘As I said, they have their power. I have
mine
.’

They left me. Abandoned me
. It was one thing to learn the Code of Caste from birth. To watch badly wounded duellists swaying in the arena sand and call for the Knife of Honour from the emperor’s stand, to open their bowels with the blade. Quite another to experience the code’s cruel logic first-hand.
Of course my mother abandoned me. I should never have hoped otherwise.
‘I am finished,’ she whispered. ‘Not yet,’ said Temmell. He had fine hearing. ‘All that training, all that dedication. Every day. Duty every single hour. A living blade polished to perfection. No existence but service to the house and empire. No amusements. Never a second of freedom to live your life as you might choose. You pick up a single blemish and what do they do? They discard the knife on the ground. Toss it into the dirt without a second thought. No longer wanted. Doesn’t that make you angry?’ ‘Yes,’ growled Cassandra. She was shocked how easily her grief boiled into fury. A fiery sea of magma that even a stratovolcano’s crater could not contain. ‘I’m not broken. I’m
not
.’
To hell with the house and the Imperium. How dare they stand here with pity and shame in their eyes, judging me. I survived. I’m free and alive, and even without my legs, I’m more than they could ever make me. And I will make myself more yet.

‘You are only what you believe. A better lesson than dusty words in old texts, don’t you think?’ said Temmell. ‘Everything passes and so little of it matters. Not what you thought once was of consequence, certainly. The world turns with the tedious inevitability of the wheels on a trader’s wagon. And it all fades. What you love and cherish. Your life, my life, all our little certainties. They all fly away in the end.’ ‘Then what do we live for?’

‘Oh, I’d suggest making fine mischief,’ said Temmell. ‘And best suiting ourselves.’

Cassandra gazed down at her stupid useless legs. She loathed them almost as much as she did this lying trickster. ‘I should never have let Alexamir risk himself for me.’

‘Tell yourself that you had no choice in the matter,’ suggested Temmell.

‘If Alexamir is killed or hurt in Rodal, I shall crawl every inch of this land to track you down. I’ll pull the feathers out of your concealed wings as though I was plucking a plump chicken and finish by slitting your throat to see what colour blood your abomination of a heart pumps.’

‘You deserve to walk again,’ laughed Temmell. ‘Your imperial friend spoke the truth. You deserve to be Queen of the Steppes. Perhaps more than Kani Yargul deserves to be Krul of Kruls.’

‘May we all get what we
deserve
.’

‘I do believe you have unlocked the first door of your cage,’ said Temmell. ‘If Alexamir survives his little task for me, I shall be sure to open the last gate for you. I will let you loose on the world again.

I don’t think Pellas will thank me for the deed, but then when has it ever? Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.’ Temmell shook his head and stood up straight, as though waking from a slumber. ‘I will find myself, out here, one day. Fires to put out. Yes, and a few more to start. Go back to the tent of Alexamir’s aunt. Drink your troubles away on her milky firewater. Forget your old life. It was worthless and this is as fine a place to be reborn as anywhere.’

Cassandra tugged on the reins and set her nag trotting towards old Nonna and her cooling supper. She kept one eye on the horizon, but no longer watching for Vandian rescue aircraft.
Alexamir. Return alive for me. You must
.

There was a chuckle from the lip of the well above and Alexamir, his desperate spine-walking along the shaft temporarily halted, imagined the vent-man sighting on his skull and conjuring up all the things the bounty on an intruder’s corpse would pay for.
I just have one more gift to add.
The nomad’s left foot hit empty space where a side-tunnel had been carved into the well’s wall.
Exactly where the map said it would
.

‘You want a song?’ Alexamir called up. ‘Here it is!’

He released the tension of his body stretched out across the shaft, using the sudden momentum to swing himself forward on the climbing line, carried across towards the side-tunnel. As his bulk came down on his climbing line, the first pin in the well’s mouth above took his full weight. The booby-trapped iron pin cracked forward on its hidden lever mechanism. A cloud of arrows released from the ceiling of the passage above the well. Many of the projectiles whistled down through the shaft, shooting into the narrow space so recently vacated by Alexamir. But enough of the volley met the vent-man’s back. He went from leaning over the well to tumbling down into it. Alexamir hit the side-passage, rolled, and turned just in time to see the ventman’s corpse plummeting past, his back feathered with arrow shafts. A second later the rice-eater’s pistol and mess of climbing gear came cracking past, jouncing off the well’s sides and heading after their owner. Alexamir poked his head out, watching the dim light from the worker’s torch painting the sides of the well, the illumination growing smaller and smaller, before vanishing to a distant termination. So deep he didn’t even hear the impact of landing. With any luck, the vent-man’s death would be written off as forgetfulness, tying his line’s clip to one of the traps set to murder intruders. Alexamir leaned out, grabbed the end of his line still attached to the iron pin and triggered the clip release, catching the line as it tumbled.

‘Thank you, Aunt,’ whispered Alexamir.
First fight using your brain.
His escape had been as narrow as Hadra-Hareer’s labyrinth of air vents. He had barely reached the snared shaft with enough time to climb into the side-tunnel.
A second slower and it would be me at the bottom of the shaft, riddled with bullets. Truly, Atamva, you favour the bold
. He gobbed down the shaft. Many thought the Nijumeti tradition of spitting on defeated foes was an insult, but it was not.
You have to wet the souls of the fallen so they will not burn when they pass the Three Fiery Rivers circling hell. As long as they fought bravely. The cowards cry to keep from burning. Any fool knows this.