The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (121 page)

“I know you did.”

“When I was in my sixteenth
summer, the Governor chose to make a tour of all the cities and landmarks of
Keralah,
and I was chosen to go along. To protect Tilka, naturally. To make sure he
stayed out of trouble.”

“Naturally.”

Now he adjusted position so that
he was sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“There is this amazing place in
Keralah
called
Edukkalah
in the Nambukuthri Mountains. It takes an entire day to
climb up, up, up but once up, there is a cave, and you squeeze inside and then
go down, down, down into the very heart of the earth. It’s called the Mouth of
God. It is a very holy place, but cats are, after all, a very holy people.”

“Dogs not holy,” she said.

“Well, some cats are not very
holy either. The Governor and his party were having a tour of the cavern when
my dear little Tilka slips through a crack in the wall and is gone! I follow
him but before I can catch him, he is outside on the very top of the rock! It
is so very high up and you can see the entire province from up there!”

“Like your Wall.”

He tried to smile. “Yes, like
our Wall. But strange. Round. The rock is so smooth that it’s almost a dome.
Two sides are sheer and smooth, and the others are very craggy. Of course,
Tilka is balanced on the very smooth side. So, I move carefully to where he is.
I can tell he doesn’t want me there and he screams very loudly. He tells me to
go away, that I never let him have any fun, that he wishes I were dead and that
he will kill me when he gets the chance. And then he falls.”

“Falls?” She sat forward.

“Yes. He is wearing silk
slippers and they have no grip. He slides down the dome toward the cliff face.
There are roots and scraggly bushes and I can see him trying to grab them but
he is an awkward boy and dresses inappropriately and he keeps on sliding. I run
after him, throw myself on the rock just as he is about to go over the edge and
I catch him but barely. We both go over but I have a hold of a dry root that is
somehow growing out of the rock and we swing there for a moment and I am very
grateful to the god from whose mouth we are hanging, until the root begins to
pull out of the rock and we begin to fall. And we do fall, but not terribly
far, because I am strong and there is a ledge.”

She gasped, looked down. “This
big?”

“Just that big. No bigger. I
bounce off it first on the way down but then my hand catches hold and we swing
a little bit more—”

“You have bad boy still?”

Her expression was so eager. He
had forgotten what it was like to be in the company of a woman, even one so
strange. He looked down again.

“Yes. So one hand on the bad
boy, one hand on the ledge. I manage to pull myself and then him up to sitting
but it is so narrow there is room for only one and he must sit on my lap. He
hates this and he is kicking and scratching and hitting me to try to push me
off and I am forced to use a soldier hold on him to make him stop.”

“I would let him go,” she said
quietly.

“Believe me, that thought
crossed my mind. But I was a soldier and he was my charge and I couldn’t. Not
honourably. I would die before I let him die.”

She nodded.

“I called and called but there
was no one to hear. Everyone was deep inside the Mouth of God. We were very
high up and the sun was hot – it gets very hot in
Keralah
so I
knew we couldn’t stay on that ledge for long. So I made him hold on to my back
and I began to climb.”

“Climb up smooth round rock?”

“Exactly. It was difficult and
we slid back many times. He was holding on with his claws and I could feel the
blood running inside my uniform making everything sticky but I needed to keep
going. The roots and bushes were not very helpful. I would grab them and they
would hold for a moment then let loose and we would slide back yet again. It
was sunset when I heard them calling. We were almost at the top and Tilka
started to scream.”

He paused, stared at the ground.
Silence blinked one eye.

“He began to climb up my back
using his claws. He had kicked off his slippers and was using his feet and my
uniform was almost gone from his tearing, but he is screaming and climbing and
I was desperately trying to get to the top and suddenly we are there! I get one
hand and then the other and he scrambles up and over my head onto the round top
of
Edukkalah…”

He took a deep breath.

“Then, he found a large rock,
picked it up in his hands and began to strike my fingers. One by one, Tilka
struck my fingers until they were all broken and I could not hold any longer
and I fell.”

She was silent.

“I fell for a very long time. It
seemed like years. I was falling and falling and falling and as I fell, I saw
owls and dragons and Empires and you.”

He looked up now and smiled. It
was not a pleasant smile and he quickly looked away. “And then I hit the
ground. The physicians say I broke every bone in my body. I don’t know. I don’t
remember. But I was not a very good soldier after that.”

They sat like that for a long
while before she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. He thought that
there were tears in her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. She rose, pulled him to
his feet and led him to the horse.

***

The feasting came to an abrupt
end as Eye of the Needle and the Eye of the Storm lumbered into the village,
dragging the carcass of Tsakhiagiin Yisu behind them. Their footfall was the
sound of thunder and without exception, all who saw them stopped to stare.
Soon, a path was opened through the Khargan’s Ten Thousand to the heart of
Jia’Khan where the feast fire was raging.

With a savage twist, the Eye of
the Storm ripped one arm from the body of the dead villager the same way
Long-Swift might tear the wing off a roasted quail. The rest he tossed into
flames alongside yak, goat and boar, and the pelt sizzled with smoke. Holding
the arm by the long bone, he dipped the hand into the flames until the flesh
burned away and the tendons and fingers began to curl. One finger remained
outstretched and the Storm stood for a long moment as if thinking, turned his
body once, twice, three times before settling on his haunches like a mountain.
He began to draw in the earth with the arm like a stick.

The Needle had been hidden under
a tattered cloak and now, his hairless skull could be seen peering out beneath
the hood. Long-Swift could see the wires, threads and pins that held the
scrawny creature in its pocket of flesh and he shuddered. Of all the Oracles
the Bear had tortured and killed, none had been as unnatural as these.

The Needle began to whisper into
the Storm’s ear.

“Tsgaan,”
they hissed in
their syncopated voices, one like a crow, the other like thunder.
“Give us
tsgaan ari…”

The Bear reached out as the Ten
Thousand pressed in, grabbed a horn from the closest soldier. He passed it to
the Storm, who turned it and emptied the contents into his gaping mouth.
Wotchka spilled over his lips and down his jowls and the Needle crawled over his
shoulder to lap at the overflow. When finished, the Needle snatched the horn
and disappeared under the fold of skin. The Storm continued to draw with the
fingerstick, seemingly unmindful of the creature in his back and Long-Swift
wondered how life could have conspired to create something as dark and
disturbing as these.

 
Soon, the Needle reappeared, holding eyes in his bony
fingers. Five eyeballs still attached to tendons, and one by one he dropped
them onto the ground. The Storm began moving the orbs with the fingerstick, one
north, one south, one west and two east.

“The Magic,”
rumbled the
Eyes.
“Five souls serve the Khanmaker with power.”

“The Khanmaker?” asked the Bear.

“Kuren Ulaan Baator.
Khanmaker, Khan
Un
-maker. Lion Lord of the Army of Blood.”

There was a murmur in the ranks
and Long-Swift snarled at them all. They could not fear lions. Not now.

“We can break the Magic,”
the Eyes hissed and groaned.
“We break the Magic and we break the Blood. One
by one, we break them all.”

And with the tip of the finger
of the stick of bone, the Storm pushed at one of the eyes. He poked it until it
swelled and burst, spilling jelly onto the rocks. He lifted it with the
fingerstick and dropped it into the fire. The soldiers murmured anew and this
time, the Irh-Khan did not stop them.

He approached the Khargan,
leaned into his ear.

“Lord,” he said quietly, not
wishing the men to hear. “There is a saying.”

The Bear arched a brow.

“Choniin amnaas garaad,
bariin amand orokh,”
he said
.
“From the fangs of a wolf into the
jaws of a tiger.”

“And your meaning?”

“This is Necromancy, Lord. Dark
magic. It is dangerous to use dark magic to fight a war.”

“There is also a saying,
Long-Swift. ‘
Be
fire,
with
fire.’”

“This is no way to win a war.”

“I use any way to win a war,
Long-Swift. Perhaps that is why I am Khan and you are not.”

And he turned back to the feast
fire and the Oracle of Jia’Khan.

Long-Swift tightened his jaw.
His plan to distract the Khargan had failed and worse, he had the sinking
feeling that he would be the one falling into the jaws of the tiger.

***

“You
see
them, Shar?”

“Yes, I see them.”

“They will try kill you.”

“Just because
I’m a cat?”

“Especially because.”

Yahn Nevye released a breath,
steadied his breathing, fixed his eyes on the end of the bridge. Remnants of
the Legion were waiting in ambush, along with the rest of the village of
Lon’Gaar. Their heartbeats were loud, their thoughts all but deafening, but
with Setse’s arms wrapped around his waist, he feared nothing. In fact with
her, he felt strong, something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

The horse had carried them both
easily, for the Oracle weighed less than a chiwa. They had first felt the
Legion as they navigated the winding road down to the bridge and Silence had
confirmed it as he swept over the rocks. It was a new thing for him to be
seeing through the eyes of a bird and he understood why it was so important for
the Seers of
Sha’Hadin.
Now, as they approached the wide expanse of the
bridge and he counted their numbers—nineteen Legion soldiers and more
than forty villagers—it occurred to him that they might need a plan.

He turned his head in the
saddle. “Do you think we can make a Shield? You and I?”

“We try. If not, we fight.”

“I don’t fight. I can’t. Not any
more.”

“You fight last night. You beat
bad cat.”

“That was the Seer, the one with
the eyes like a dog. He was moving my hands and my feet.” He shook his head.
“It wasn’t me.”

“No, not Sakal.
Shar.”

“Sakal?”

She grinned, touched her chin.
“Sakal.”

He laughed softly. He felt so
light in her company, as if the word ‘despair’ had never existed in his
lifetime.

“Make horse run,” she said.
“Dogs fear horses.”

“Yes, that’s a good plan. A
Shield and a running horse.” He looked at the far end of the bridge, blew out a
long deep cleansing breath. “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

She smiled, leaned her head on
his back and closed her eyes, turning her mind to the formation of the Shield.

“Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat,” he
repeated. “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

He drove his heels into the
horse’s side and they leapt onto the bridge.

They were halfway across when
they heard the whistling. The wind on the bridge was strong and rushing in his
face, making his eyes sting. The horse increased its speed and the hard stone
rattled with the sound of hoofs. He could see the arrows like a swarm of bees
closing in and he clenched his eyes tightly, not wanting to know whether or not
the Shield would hold. He could feel the power from her tiny body, joined it
with his own, pushing the air out in front of them, making it grow hard like
steel. He heard the crackling as the wave of arrows shattered against it, felt
the Shield advance and the arrows ricochet in all directions, felt the Legion
fear and turn and run.

Sudden, unexpected and cold like
a dagger, a thought pierced the sight, echoing through his mind. He felt Setse
scream even before he heard it, felt her head snap back and her arms fall away
and he knew that she was falling, falling backwards and he twisted in the
saddle, managing to snag her reindeer cloak as she collapsed from the back of
the horse. The movement cost him his balance and he went with her, hitting the
stone hard and tumbling, rolling and skidding toward the rail-less edge of the
bridge. He lost his grip on her for a heartbeat, watched in horror as her body
slid to the edge before slowly, ever so slowly, tipping over the side.

He lunged, catching the cloak
and almost pulling his arm from its socket. He prayed she didn’t snap her neck
but he held even as her weight dragged him to the very edge of the bridge.

His claws ached and he flattened
his body, peering over the side and knowing it was a mistake. The wind howled
as she swung by the cloak high above the gorge. Mountains rose up on either
side, steep and fierce, a last reminder of their Good Mother. Far far below, a
valley of rocks, snow and shale, almost black in the shadows of the cliffs.
Small scrub cedars, twisted pines, brokenness and pain and death. He knew these
things well.

Eye of the Needle, Eye of the
Storm.

There was a mind, a dagger-mind,
tearing her apart, crushing her soul to death and he pleaded with it to spare
her and crush him instead.