Players of the Game
Book Three of Shadow in the Storm
GRAEME K TALBOYS

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017

Copyright © Graeme K Talboys 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017; Cover design by Mike Topping; Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Graeme K. Talboys asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008103576

Version: 2017-01-17

For Susan Murray

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One: Move

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Part Two: Countermove

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Part Three: Collision

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

A Guide to Pronunciation

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Graeme k Talboys

About the Publisher

PART ONE

Chapter One

There was no escape. Even on the high balcony, the smothering heat and dry, stale air sapped energy and sense. Jeniche rested a moment against the parapet to gather herself and looked out over the city of Alboran with a half-seeing eye. Beside her, a cat waited out the heat with the patience natural to any predator, head down and paws tucked in. Little had changed since she had last stood there. The sun had moved a fraction further west, hanging like a polished bronze plaque in a smoky room, but there were still no shadows anywhere in the city, just an umber gloom, a perpetual twilight that waxed and waned.

It was three days since the dust storm out of the south had passed. The heavy stuff had settled straight away, dark like dried blood. It had covered the rooftops, piled into corners, tainted wells, and coated the streets. Women had swept it from their steps; men had shovelled it into carts and taken it away to goodness knows where. The river had become sluggish, exuding a dull, underground stench and the sea had changed colour from translucent blue to a wine darkness that was only now starting to fade. But the fine stuff that got in their noses and mouths and made their eyes water, that stained their clothing and laced the air and their food with a stale flavour of metallic salts, that was still there.

It gave the city, spread out before her, an ancient and otherworldly feel, as if it was a painting made by an artist who only had the colours of earth to work with – ochres, reddy browns, clay yellows, silty greys. The sprawling complex of buildings that she could see from her vantage point dropped away in the south to the landward city walls. To the north, had she been able to see it from the balcony, the view was across rooftops all the way down to the docks and the coast. The wealthy quarter of the city was in the west where they could enjoy evening breezes; the poor lived in their maze of streets and alleys on the eastern slopes where the sun would wake them early.

She was reminded of Makamba, the place she had come nearest to thinking of as home. Mud-brick buildings, hot desert air carrying the blended aromas of ten thousand cooking fires, quiet afternoons and the whole place coming alive in the evening with lamps burning in the souks and alleyways; a roofscape that called out to be explored. Makamba, she added to herself, before the Occassans invaded and tore it apart in their search for her and the treasure she wore. She wondered how the city was faring, unconsciously fingering her pendant through the thin cloth of her tunic.

A faint movement of air made the cat sneeze. It cost a lot that breeze. Not as much as it would have in one of the shady, north-facing rooms up here on the top floor, but expensive enough. Too expensive. She turned and stepped back into the room. The cat jumped down from its perch on the balcony wall and followed her, waiting patiently until it was let out. It went and sat on the landing and had started washing behind one ear as she closed the door.

‘It’s always me, isn’t it,’ she said.

Alltud barely moved. ‘Well, who else is going to do it? I can’t think of any other way round this, and you know what I’m like with heights.’

The feeble, carmine ghost of the hot, dry breeze strayed in from the opening to the balcony. It made it halfway through the small room before it expired, leaving a tiny cloud of ochre dust to sift down to the bare boards. Jeniche watched it before she turned to the washstand and picked up the ewer.

Water splashed and formed complex wave patterns as it filled the wide, shallow bowl. She dipped one corner of her keffiyeh in the tepid liquid and squeezed the cloth lightly, dust washing away from the cinnamon flesh of her scarred fingers. After she had wiped her face and cropped raven hair, she stared at the faint muddy stains on the cloth with a resigned shaking of the head. The stuff got everywhere. She was not vain, but she liked to keep clean. Water, though, cost money. Especially here. Especially now.

‘Could we not, just once, do something that involves me sitting in the shade outside a tavern with my feet up while it’s you risking your neck?’

She turned and paced with silent steps along the narrow space to the other end of their room. It didn’t take long.

Alltud, sitting on his bed, had long since stopped watching her go back and forth. The constant movement of her diminutive form was too wearing, had started to make him feel queasy.

‘That won’t get us out of this predicament,’ he said to his hands where they clutched his knees.

Jeniche shrugged, her back to him.

He saw the twitch of her shoulders from the corner of his eye and his hands tightened their grip. ‘I’m not doing this on purpose, you know.’

‘No?’ she asked, turning.

‘It’s not my fault our money’s gone.’

‘Really? Stay in a cheap tavern, I said. More than once. Down by the harbour. Plenty there to choose from. But, no, you said. If we are looking for well-paid work, we need to keep up a front. Look respectable. But there isn’t any work, is there? Not up here. Not anywhere. Not for strangers, anyway. Not for outsiders. We’ve had that made clear enough on more than one occasion. Too many displaced people drifting in from the south with their families and not enough trade. Not enough goods coming up from wherever it is all those people have abandoned.’ She was back at the open doorway to the balcony long before she had finished.

‘I wasn’t to know that. Any more than you did.’

‘So, instead of having several more weeks to look for work or decide to move on, we’re here. In our fine little room. Putting on a front. But now we’ve nothing left to pay for our time here and virtually nothing left for buying food. And your answer? You want me to climb down a sheer mud wall. In the dark. With all our gear. While you saunter out the front door as if you owned the place. And then we go sneaking off in the night.’

Alltud looked up from his hands and surveyed their lodgings. Given how basic the room was – four square and simple, just big enough for a solid lockable door, two beds, a washstand, a lamp, a balcony, and room to pace up and down – it was difficult to imagine how bad a cheaper lodging could have been. Difficult, but not impossible. They had done cheap. They had done filthy. This was quiet, clean, secure and relatively cool at night. He didn’t regret the decision and Jeniche hadn’t fought that hard against it at the time. But he wasn’t going to bring that up. He didn’t have the energy. He didn’t have the heart.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I really am sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.’

Jeniche turned in the balcony doorway and glared into the room. ‘I’m tired of it. I don’t like cheating people. It’s all wrong. And you needn’t look at me like that. Yes, I was a thief. And a good one. But I only stole from those who could afford to lose it. And I only did it to survive.’

‘What about that place in the south of Kamar? Oh, come on; don’t put on an expression of outraged innocence. I know you too well. Besides, it doesn’t suit you.’

‘I had nothing to do with that. I had very little to do with…’ She shrugged as she passed him on the way to the other end of the room. ‘All right,’ she added as she turned. ‘So I redistributed his wealth a bit. But that’s just my point. He was a bastard. Cheated his customers, including us, and treated his staff like something you’d step in after the cattle had been driven through. Which is why I don’t want to run out on this one.’

‘We don’t have much choice.’

She leaned against the wall by the washstand and rubbed her eyes. ‘Well at least you’ll look after your purse more carefully in future.’

Alltud looked up at the ceiling, perhaps well beyond. ‘I knew you’d bring that into it.’

‘Well, you had the rent money,’ she said, ‘and you would insist on taking it everywhere in that fat, fancy, tempting purse. I told you to keep it out of sight, but no. And some light-fingered guttersnipe gave up resisting the temptation. Which is pretty much the reason you are now proposing I climb out in the dark.’

She pushed away from the wall.

‘Be that as it… Would you stop!’

She stopped.

‘We couldn’t have left earlier,’ he continued. ‘Wherever we had stayed. Nobody was going anywhere during that latest storm. Nothing left the harbour and no one was venturing out on the roads. Besides. Where would we go?’

Jeniche looked down at him with a frown and wiped her face again. ‘I thought you wanted to go south,’ she said.

‘Only because you did.’

‘Me? When did I say that?’

‘You’re the one that suggested that boat out of Haynja.’ He looked up, her frown mirrored on his face.

‘Only because I thought that gang from Kamar had caught up with us and it was the only boat taking on crew that didn’t look like it would infect us with something deadly before it sank and drowned us. What are you sighing for?’

‘Nothing.’

Jeniche shook her head slowly and went back out onto the balcony. She rested her forearms on the balustrade and closed her eyes for a moment, aware of the deep ache in her limbs. They had been bickering all through the afternoon heat when everyone else, at least anyone who had any sense, was resting or sleeping. The whole thing had been conducted in angry whispers, like sparring snakes. Quite aside from the fact it was far too hot to engage in an all-out shouting match, they were anxious to avoid drawing attention to themselves. At least that had gone in their favour.

She leaned out over the mud wall at the end of the balcony to get the benefit of the faint stirring of air before it expired. From there she could see four floors down to the narrow, crooked alley that ran along the side and back of their lodging house. Out of habit, she looked for a route down. She had done it as soon as they had arrived a fortnight before. Checked that the locking bar on the door worked and couldn’t be opened from outside; checked for ledges and handholds on this outside wall. Had ambled out into the alley and looked it over from ground level. But it was as well to be certain. There might not be time to think about it when she made the climb later on. As she knew she would.

When she eventually stepped back into the room, Alltud was still sitting on his bed, only now he was staring at the floor between his feet. His hands, which had been resting on his knees, were otherwise occupied – holding up his head.

For the first time it really struck her just how grey his hair had become, how white his six-day growth of beard. And it wasn’t desert dust. That and the fact his once-rangy figure now simply looked half-starved drew the fire from her frustrated anger. She felt her own bone-deep tiredness again. Alltud looked every day of his fifty or so years. She was in her early thirties, as best as she could calculate, but with all the aches and pains she might just as well be the same age as him.

‘“Anywhere green,”’ he said, ‘“with a flagon of good white wine, fresh bread, a mature cheese, sweet apples and students courteous enough not to pester me while I doze.” Remember that?’ he asked and looked up, slowly straightening his back.

She managed a flat smile and nodded.

‘I’m feeling my age, Jen,’ he went on, as if he had read her mind. ‘It’s been two years or more since we left Ynysvron.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Nearly three. It was fun at first. I had finally achieved the goal of uniting the tribes and sending the Gwerin back to where they belong. Something I could not have done without you. We had no worries. There were new places to explore. But… I don’t know. The shine has worn off. We’ve been lost many more times than once, herded pigs, watched sheep, chased bandits, been chased by bandits, mistaken for bandits, dug ditches, dug graves, fought with considerable reluctance in three grubby little wars, marched who knows where with another army only to find the fighting was over, planted potatoes, planted cabbages, picked apples, been in far too many boats and bug-infested taverns, climbed too many high places and seen enough blasted ruins to last a dozen lifetimes. And do you know? I’m tired. Fed up with wandering in to villages and towns I don’t know, wondering what sort of welcome we’ll face; being cold, getting wet, going hungry. And all that walking. Now this. No money. No prospect of work. I don’t want to end up a mad old beggar on the streets of some dusty town where I don’t even know how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to the natives. I don’t want to die alone in some desert or get cut down in someone else’s war. I’m sorry, Jen, but I want to go home.’

Exhausted, she sat on her own bed, facing him. ‘You too?’

Chapter Two

Embraced by the hot, starless night, Jeniche sat in the dark and relaxed for the first time in… She tried to remember the last time she had really been at her ease and thought of the sunshine on the stable roof by the Great Hall in Gwydr. Despite the many hardships and bloody battles in Ynysvron, the northern homeland of Alltud, it was the aftermath she remembered best; the spring weather, watching them tear down the Great Hall which had been too stained with blood ever to use again, watching them rebuild it as the country knitted itself back together. It seemed a lifetime ago, sitting up there admiring her new boots and wondering what life would bring next. Now she knew.

Knees up, back wedged into the corner of the balcony walls, the sounds of the city at work, the voices calling, laughter and song, the tantalising smells of jostling humanity that reached through the stale air… all drew her from her reverie. Her stomach rumbled as she caught a hint of spices, of something frying. Perhaps later.

For now, she was alone. Alltud had gone. The door was locked. And their packs kept her company where she sat in the darkness on the balcony. Listening. Waiting for Alltud’s signal.

She allowed herself a smile, thinking back to the first time she had come across him, all those years ago in Makamba, the night the Occassans invaded. It had been dark then as well, death dropping from the sky, the only light from burning banners and buildings.

His voice had emerged from the darkness of an alley where she was sheltering for a moment. Having just escaped from prison she had been wary. He had sounded drunk. Had smelt disgusting. Not a promising start. Especially as the legs she had fallen over had been those of a corpse. One day she would ask him about that. One day.

Someone was whistling in the alley below. It was a melancholy tune, a traditional song of Ynysvron. There were words, something about the road that takes you away being the same one that will lead you home. Alltud had been singing it quietly to himself a lot of late. Time to move. She hoped there wasn’t a corpse this time.

Leaning over the mud-brick balustrade, she looked down into the alley. With eyes long accustomed to the gloom she could just make out the shape of a figure standing directly beneath. She waved and the whistling repeated softly again.

Happy that it was Alltud, she found his pack and the end of the cord to which it was attached. They couldn’t afford any rope, so Jeniche had gone out and helped herself to a length of washing line. It probably wasn’t long enough, but it would have to do. She pushed Alltud’s pack off the edge and heard bits of grit tick and clack as they fell.

Taking the strain, she lowered the pack, keeping it away from the wall so that it didn’t make any noise. Not for the first time she wondered what he kept in there that was so heavy. Even now when he had all his travelling clothes on.

The line ran out and the pack had not reached the ground. Looking over again and listening to be certain no one else was about, she let go. A second’s silence was followed by a muffled thud and an equally muffled grunt that might just have been an obscenity. Alltud had broken its fall. She grinned for a moment and then remembered it was her turn.

In the dark she put on the harness that held her swords and buckled it tight. She followed it with her pack, adjusting the straps so it was comfortably settled and her arms were free. As a last, almost reflex, action she reached back, drew her swords, and swivelled them once to get the feel of them, enjoying the way they managed to find light to reflect even in this starless gloom. They were back in their scabbards in an instant and she climbed over the balustrade, placing her feet on the ledge on the other side.

From the first she knew that what should have been a simple climb was going to be difficult. Every little foot and handhold was piled with dust. Fine dust that was slick and made it difficult to get a decent purchase. Even on the comparatively broad ledge on the outside of the balustrade, she lost her footing. The toe of her boot seemed secure, but as soon as she put her whole weight on it to move to the next hold, she felt it begin to slide.

With a secure handhold, she let it go and shifted her weight. At least it was dust and could be brushed away. If it had rained, this stuff would have set solid and made the climb impossible. Instead it was just dangerous. But she had grown used to that over the years.

So, rather than a straightforward descent that should have taken no more than a couple of minutes, she had to scrape carefully at each crevice and protuberance to clear away as much dust as possible. Handholds were easy. Her boots, however, were not designed for it.

Halfway down, a figure appeared on the balcony just below her level. Light glimmered faintly from a lamp inside the room, painting a vague outline of someone taking what little air there was to be had. There was a voice from inside and the person on the balcony replied.

Jeniche clung as best she could to the wall. Her left hand was twisted with the fingertips jammed into a shallow vertical crack. Her left foot seemed to be resting on thin air and prayers to whatever gods were listening. It wasn’t the fall that worried her so much as being discovered.

The person on the balcony rested themselves on the parapet as if settling for a while, but the voice from inside must have called them in because they stood, turned, and disappeared. A moment later, the lamp went out.

Without waiting to see what happened next, Jeniche continued down. She hadn’t gone much further when a substantial foothold broke away from the wall and she fell amidst a shower of grit and dust.

Braced for impact with the hard ground, her fall was broken by something marginally softer that prompted, in an urgent undertone, what were definitely obscenities, a lot of them, not to mention the inventive string of imprecations hurled against her parentage, intelligence, and general behaviour.

Pushed to one side, she rolled onto the packed earth of the alley and sprang to her feet.

Alltud stood as well and brushed dust from his clothes. ‘Anything else you’d care to drop on me? I’ll be black and blue for weeks.’

Smiling to herself, Jeniche grabbed his sleeve and pulled him along toward the rear of the building.

‘I’m fine. Thanks for asking. Someone is leaving by the front,’ she added when Alltud grunted. ‘Best if we cut through this way for now.’

‘Do you know where…?’ he began. ‘Silly question.’

Letting himself be dragged along, he followed her through the maze of shadowy alleys that cut between the backs of the buildings. What little light there was filtered through thin curtains, shutters, and the open doorways of houses and taverns. Conversation and cooking smells filled the space and reminded them both that a meal was long overdue.

Rounding a corner, Jeniche froze for a moment, turned, and pushed Alltud back the way they had come. Alltud edged past her to the end of the building and peered round to see for himself what had made Jeniche stop in her tracks. It couldn’t have been the smell of baking bread, strong as it was. At first he couldn’t make out what was happening. Two people scuffling in the shadows just beyond a bar of light escaping from the back doorway of a bakery. There was a faint moan. He wondered for a moment if one of them was being mugged by the other, and then realized.

He stepped back and turned to Jeniche. ‘They seem happy in their work,’ he whispered. ‘Is there a different route?’

‘In a minute.’

‘What?’ Before he could stop her, she had disappeared round the corner. By the time he had plucked up the courage to look, she was gone. Moments later she walked out of the bakery, cool as you please, passed the couple who were still otherwise engaged, and stepped round the corner to where Alltud was cursing her all over again. She didn’t stop and he had to hop and step to keep up.

Several alleyways further along, it began to get lighter. They stopped in one that gave out onto a main thoroughfare where torches and lanterns blazed and people came and went. Jeniche broke the stolen loaf in two and handed half to Alltud.

‘Not much,’ she said, ‘but not likely to be missed.’

They joined the crowds on the road. It wasn’t that busy, but after the dark and being cooped up for days, it felt frenetic. Stalls lined the way, mostly selling fruit and vegetables. Men stood around or sat in the small cafés on the corners playing tawla. Women inspected produce, haggled and bought, gossiped and laughed. Children raced about, getting under everyone’s feet.

‘Keep an eye on your purse,’ said Jeniche automatically as they passed a couple of youths who seemed to have nothing better to do than watch what was going on.

‘I haven’t got one any more. Remember?’

‘Oops. Sorry.’

Chewing on their bread, they made their way up the gently sloping road to the crest of the hill. Behind them the landward side of the city was mostly dark, faint glimmers from buildings, one or two ways like the one they had just come along lit by torches. In front of them, however, it was a different picture. Many of the roads down to the port were ablaze with torches and lanterns. The souks and arcades were doing business in the relative cool of the evening and, despite the recent troubles and shortages, they were busy.

As well as the local inhabitants and the migratory population of sailors and traders, the thoroughfares were crowded with refugees. The wealthy ones had no trouble finding accommodation and anyone with a relative in the city had relied on their hospitality. Most, however, were camped on the streets. They had set up home in every conceivable corner, niche, and disused doorway. Some had found work. Others begged. Most traipsed about looking for some way of improving their lot. One or two priests and prophets wandered about preaching. Before long, the strain on the city’s resources would become too great. Then the tolerance of the locals would really be tested.

Joining the crowds, Jeniche and Alltud began to make their way downhill toward the docks. It became clear before too long that it would take them all night. They seemed to be the only ones there who knew where they were going and wanted to get there quickly.

‘Let’s try down there,’ said Alltud, pointing to a side road that seemed less crowded. ‘As long as we keep going downhill, we’ll end up at the harbour.’

Jeniche agreed and they cut through to a narrower street that had houses between the shops and stalls. Partway along, a donkey suddenly lurched forward in front of them. The cart it was pulling caught against a stall and brought it down, spilling produce across the ground.

Immediately they were engulfed in a fierce argument. Several boys were trying to free the frightened donkey, the stall holder was cursing the carter whilst trying to stop a half-starved youth from helping himself to a handful of carrots, shoppers were gathering to watch the free show, and people were emerging from surrounding houses to join in. The road was completely blocked.

‘Where have they all come from?’ asked Alltud, trying to back away from the arguing throng.

‘This is quiet by Makamban standards,’ said Jeniche with a grin. She pointed to an alley that seemed to be going downhill. ‘This has probably just thrown fuel on a long-running rivalry. The carter and the stallholder most likely belong to two different local families. All their relatives will be there. And anyone else who enjoys a good argument.’

They reached the quiet of the alley, but after a few paces it turned to the right and led them back to the main thoroughfare. The noise and bustle seemed worse than ever, shoppers haggling, arguing over the sharply rising prices, stall holders arguing back. But at least they were able to make their way downhill, no matter how slowly.

At one stall, Jeniche stopped and bought two slices of melon, talking with the elderly vendor.

‘Same story,’ she said when she returned to Alltud. ‘My Arbiq’s a bit shaky, but it’s clear he was saying less stuff is coming up from the south. More mouths here to feed. No shortages as yet, but he seemed a bit worried.’

Alltud nodded as he enjoyed the sweet flesh of the fruit. ‘Sounds like another argument further down.’

Jeniche went up on tiptoe to look over the crowds. ‘There’s a gathering of some sort. One of those preachers on a box.’

They pushed closer. They might be half mad, these prophets out of the mountains to the south, but they often had news.

‘New bloke,’ they heard someone say.

‘Wish they’d leave off with the doom and gloom,’ said another.

It was difficult to make it all out. The man, dirty and ragged, wild eyes in a hollow face, balanced on an old fish box and ranted. They caught snippets; talk of pale demons stalking the land, stealing the crops, forcing people from their villages, talk of them desecrating holy places, breaking taboos. Talk of them flying.

Jeniche and Alltud looked at each other. They had heard this before. Witnessed it elsewhere. It could only mean one thing. Somewhere, to the south, there were Occassans, their enemies of old. Cold-hearted, equipped with weapons and machines far in advance of everyone else, they were locusts in human form. Wherever they appeared they stripped the land and displaced the people, driven by some obscure craving.

Memories they had both suppressed unfolded themselves. Of danger and fear and pain and loss. Grim-faced, they pushed forward so they could hear clearly. It was barely worth the effort. The crowd had obviously listened to this kind of thing before and not all of them were impressed or happy that trade was being disrupted. But even though he was only partially coherent, the preacher was getting through to some, whipping up resentment against the Occassans who he constantly called the defilers.

Alltud nudged Jeniche and she followed his gaze. There were people working the crowd. Not thieves, but compatriots of the speaker. They were focussing on young men, talking to them, persuading. Some weren’t interested. Others, the hungry, discontented, and displaced were making their way to one side.

‘Recruiting,’ said Alltud. ‘That means trouble ahead. Definitely time to get out.’

It would have been wasted effort to try to carry on down the main thoroughfare. A nearby arcade looked less crowded and they ducked in that way. It was part of the jeweller’s quarter and Jeniche looked over the goods with a professional interest, her hands well in view. They stopped at one stall to admire some intricate dagger sheaths. The owner looked up and scowled at them. He clearly knew a thief when he saw one, recognized the way she assessed pieces by the ease with which they could be broken up and sold on. He must have rung a bell or given some other signal because an elaborately embroidered inner curtain was pushed aside and a large, heavily scarred man appeared. They didn’t hang around to see what he would do.

The jewellers’ shops gave way to other emporia and workshops, with smaller arcades running off at different angles. Brassmongers hammered at plates, jugs, and buckles; cutlers sprayed passers-by and knots of admiring children with sparks from their grindstones, whitesmiths toiled over intricate confections of silver, tin, and pewter. Further on, the din of metal working was softened as they passed booths selling cloth and clothes, carpets, slippers, sandals, and boots.

At the far end, they found themselves on a quieter street, but as soon as they tried to turn downhill again the way was blocked by several well-armed men in some kind of uniform.

‘You can’t go down this way. There’s been an incident.’

The speaker had a face and physique they didn’t care to argue with so they carried on, still moving parallel to the coast. Before long they found themselves in a poor residential area. Dark, narrow streets lit only by the occasional torch, paving stones and cobbles giving way to packed earth. And then dark, narrow alleys where the ground was broken and lit only by stray beams of lamplight from houses of people too poor for curtains or properly fitting shutters.

Jeniche was not happy.

‘I don’t like this,’ she said.

‘Neither do I,’ agreed Alltud.

They decided to retrace their steps and look for a better-lit way down to the harbour. After a few steps, they stopped. Blocking off the end of the alley, leaning with casual menace against the walls, were three well-armed young men.

‘I’m beginning to think someone doesn’t want us to get to the harbour.’

Chapter Three

Alltud followed Jeniche into yet another narrow gap between buildings. He groped along behind her as fast as he dared in the darkness, fumbling to get his keffiyeh across his face as Jeniche had done. There was still a great deal of desert dust about, especially in less-frequented byways. When they had been out for an evening stroll it was bearable, especially in areas kept clean on a regular basis, but they were now in a hurry and trying to avoid others, darting through places that street sweepers had not bothered or dared to venture. The last thing either of them wanted was to be incapacitated by a coughing fit.

He was happy to follow her lead. Desert girl she may be, but this kind of landscape was her natural environment and she seemed to know by instinct which alleys were blind, where the crossways were, what doorways were safe to rest in.

There was, however, precious little time to rest. Jeniche grabbed the cuff of his right sleeve in her left hand and continued to lead the way. Even though his eyes had now become accustomed to the intense gloom, he could see very little beyond the shape of Jeniche in front of him – a swift shadow in the darkness ahead.

‘How much chance,’ he asked in a whisper as they stopped at a junction, ‘do we stand of losing them?’

Jeniche said nothing for a moment, checking that the way ahead was clear, and then tugged his sleeve to get him moving. ‘Not much,’ she replied once they had crossed an unlit residential road and plunged into another alley. Invisible walls loomed above them on either side, their unseen presence sensed through sound and touch.

‘They looked like locals. They’ll have run the streets since they were knee-high to desert rats,’ she added as they skirted the edges of a large yard, keeping to the deeper shadow. Alltud eyed what little he could see of the roofline whilst Jeniche guided him round invisible obstacles. He thought he caught the odour of burnt sand and hot metal characteristic of a forge, but it was a fleeting impression. ‘They’ll know all these back ways blindfolded and sleepwalking. Still, they may get arrogant and careless. Or we might, in our ignorance, go places they wouldn’t dare to enter.’

‘Was that meant to be reassuring?’

Beyond the yard there were more of the seemingly endless alleyways and narrow gaps between buildings. Alltud wondered just who lived there and if it was as bad in daylight as it felt in pitch darkness.

Tired, they stopped for a moment in a broader, silent thoroughfare, standing side by side in a wide doorway. The gates behind them felt solid. Even through the cloth over their lower faces they could smell and taste the fine desert dust they had kicked up in their flight.

Alltud pushed back against the door. ‘Any chance—’

‘No lock. Barred from the inside.’

‘What if we split up?’

He should have been ready for it considering the number of times she’d done it in the past to make a point, but the punch on his arm was as unexpected and painful as it had ever been. He smiled in the dark.

‘We are not splitting up,’ she said. ‘Not until we both have safe passage home.’

Alltud refrained from sighing. He knew that meant when he had safe passage home, but that was an argument to have later. Right now, they needed to escape from this maze and find their way down to the waterfront.

Stepping out into a street where several lanterns hung was disorientating. They had both become so accustomed to moving silently in the dark, that they felt exposed and uncertain. They could travel faster, but they could be seen.

Jeniche looked a silent question at Alltud, who shrugged in reply. ‘At least it’s downhill,’ he said.

They stepped out and walked as if they had every right to be there and weren’t being chased for some reason. Several women crossed the street further down the hill and went into a large building. Two donkeys stood outside patiently chewing on fodder and ignoring the noise from within. There were other signs of life as well.

‘All that must have been workshops back there,’ said Jeniche. ‘They weren’t likely to risk the rooftops in case of guards.’

‘So we shook them off?’

Three men appeared further downhill. The same ones they had seen before.

‘You had to ask.’

‘What do they want?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s go and ask.’

‘Very funny. So what now?’

‘Let’s go and find out who owns those donkeys.’

‘What?’

But he followed all the same. He had no doubt that they could have beaten the three men in a fight, but the last thing they wanted was trouble. Of course, the last thing you want…

Jeniche patted one of the donkeys as they passed, but it was too busy eating to do much more than twitch its long, soft ears. They stepped through the open double doors of the building where the women had gone. Hot, damp air enveloped them, carrying faint sounds of talking and splashing.

‘A bath house?’ asked Alltud.

‘Better hope it’s not ladies’ night if it is,’ said Jeniche.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he replied, stepping sideways to avoid her knuckles.

Following the noise, they went through an inner door, pulling down their keffiyeh. It was ladies’ night, but it wasn’t a bath house.

Lanterns ranged round the walls were wreathed with steam. The women there were emptying baskets of clothing into large vats, standing on a low step to drop their loads into the steaming water. Boys scuttled about carrying bundles of firewood.

Bemused, Alltud stopped and watched until a nudge from Jeniche moved him on. He looked over his shoulder as they went through into another room, catching a glimpse of the three men.

The new room was noisier and much larger. There, baskets of wet laundry were dumped into smaller tubs of soapy water and large, bare-armed women stood with washing paddles to stir and pound the clothes. Others were transferring the lathered garments into shallow troughs where they beat them against angled stone slabs. The wet smacking drowned out any conversation and the steam made it difficult to see a way through.

Weaving between the tubs, slipping on the floor, avoiding the paddles that rose and fell, dancing round youngsters who carried dripping loads from one tub to another, they made their way through the complex of rooms looking for a way out. Their pursuers, not having to waste time looking for a route, gained ground.

Beyond the washing and rinsing area, they found themselves in a huge drying shed. Lines of washing hung dripping onto a floor lined with drainage channels. Jeniche pushed Alltud ahead of her between two lines of sheets.

‘Run,’ she said.

He didn’t need urging and they sped along as fast as the uneven ground would allow. Risking a glance, Jeniche saw their pursuers following.

As they reached the far end, Jeniche called: ‘I need a leg up.’

Alltud turned, bent forward, and laced his fingers together, palm up, making a step. Without breaking stride, Jeniche placed a foot into Alltud’s hands and he straightened his back. As she was hoisted upward, she drew her swords. With delicate twists of her wrists, she sheared through the heavy washing lines on either side of her and dropped back to the ground.

Somewhere behind them was a roar as their pursuers went down beneath a tangle of wet sheets and line. Another roar as the owner of the laundry saw what had happened.

From the enclosed smell of soap and clean linen they ran out into a vast yard filled with low bleaching vats filled with urine, reeking under the night sky. Another young man stood uncertainly in their way. He was armed but looked neither happy nor prepared. Alltud charged straight at him and shouldered him to one side.

Jeniche saw the look of horror on the young man’s face as he realized there was no way he could stop himself from going into one of the vats. He wouldn’t be rejoining the chase anytime soon. They could still hear his pathetic cries for help as they clambered over a wall and vanished into the darkness beyond.

They had been none too certain where they were before, although Jeniche had a vague idea of which direction they should be heading. Now they were completely lost. The chase through the laundry and the subsequent desire to put distance between themselves and the trouble churning in their wake had left them disorientated.

After catching their breath, they had cast around until they found a narrow road that went downhill. With a great deal of caution they crept along, avoiding doors and windows, hoping their presence would go unremarked by the occasional local that they encountered.

Before long, Jeniche stopped. They rested against the side of a decrepit building.

‘Problem?’ asked Alltud in a whisper.

‘I’m not sure this is the right downhill any more,’ said Jeniche. ‘We may be heading inland. It’s too dark down there. The harbour is always well lit at night.’

‘Well we can’t stay here,’ he replied. ‘Wherever here is. Take your best guess.’

They stepped back out onto the road for a few paces before Jeniche found them another alley. Alltud found he was getting used to the dark, although it was not something he wanted to make a habit of.

Following close on Jeniche’s heels, he became aware that she was slowing. Lowering his head, he whispered in her ear, ‘What’s wrong?’

In the dark they heard a whistle.

‘That,’ she replied.

From a distance came a whistled response.

‘There’s someone up at roof level following us. Been there a little while. I wasn’t sure, but that exchange just gave it away.’

‘Same people?’

‘I doubt we’re interesting enough to be followed by two separate groups.’

‘I didn’t think we were interesting enough for one, unless the lodging house owner has a big family.’

‘Well, whoever they are, they don’t seem to want a confrontation.’

‘Ever the optimist, desert girl. They’re just making sure we face them on ground of their choosing.’

‘Then let’s see if we can disoblige them.’

Alltud stepped forward and collided with Jeniche. She grabbed him and turned him round and gave him a shove. He got the idea, but was happier when Jeniche took the lead again.

She didn’t double back for long before finding a new direction. And it was clear they were moving into a much poorer part of town. The ground became uneven and the walls felt rougher to the touch. Several times they stumbled on rubble from houses that had fallen into disrepair.

At the same time it became more populous. Alboran was full of refugees. Whilst the bolder ones had camped out in the more prosperous areas, the majority had sought out the empty houses and derelict spaces, the very places that Jeniche and Alltud now found themselves. And with people there was increasing noise and light. Fires burned, people cooked and talked, a whole city within a city carried on its life in the flickering shadows and starless summer dark.

They wandered for a while, tantalized by the smells of hot food, watching warily for pursuit, eager to avoid trouble. Before long they were deep in the heart of the enclave and had found themselves a niche where they could rest. It was close enough to someone’s fire to make them seem part of the group without them infringing on the small territory that had been established with piles of rubble.

While Alltud sat and rested, well back in the shadows, Jeniche approached the nearest group of refugees and bought some of their food. It was just a stale loaf and some old apples, but along with water from their own water skins, it was a feast. And as they ate, Jeniche had a chance to work out where they were.

When they had finished their meal and dozed and woken again in the early hours of the morning, they took stock. It wasn’t a long process.

‘So,’ said Alltud. ‘We’re in trouble again.’

‘It’s our one abiding talent.’

‘What did they want, I wonder.’

‘More to the point, do they still want it?’

Musing on that, they watched the sky. The moment it began to lighten would be a good time to make a move and try once more to get down to the harbour. Ships would be venturing out to sea again, and they may need crew members, people willing to work their passage to wherever they wanted to go. If Alltud was lucky there might even be something heading for Ynysvron. A lot of wine and olives went there from the region around Alboran, along with spices and rare metals.

Jeniche knew she would have a longer and more difficult journey, but there was bound to be something heading in the opposite direction. She looked sidelong at Alltud. And thought again. Makamba was calling, but perhaps another visit to Alltud’s homeland wouldn’t go amiss. Despite all the recent bickering, parting company seemed like the worst of all options, even if they would have to retrace their steps northward across western Arben to Brocel, trying to remember who they had annoyed on the journey south. It was best faced together. She smiled to herself.

A light kick from Alltud brought her back to the here and now where, somewhere on the far side of the refugee camp, there was a commotion. They looked at each other. It could be a lot of things. A fight between neighbours, drunks kicking up a fuss, some ritual awakening of a particularly religious group of refugees. They neither of them really thought so.

Without a word, they gathered themselves and set off as inconspicuously as possible. A steady pace, no lurking, trying not to glance over their shoulders too often at the increasing noise behind them.

‘Sounds like they’ve had a chance to find where we went to ground,’ said Alltud as they slipped round a corner and ran downhill. ‘I wonder if that poor lad has finished washing himself yet.’

‘As long as we don’t have to go back and redo all those sheets.’

‘Well, I’m no expert, but I’d say that was the least of our worries, desert girl.’

They had pulled up short. In the dim dawn light filtering through the dust they could see the way ahead was already occupied.

Jeniche said a rude word. ‘They seem to have multiplied in the night.’

Alltud sighed. ‘Here we go again.’

The nearest alley was inviting, but they passed it up as too obvious. Instead, they ducked into the open doorway of a large house, ran through the ground floor startling a young lad in the kitchens before emerging into an alley at the rear.

Left, right, left, they darted along the narrow passages. At one point someone made a grab at Alltud, pulling him off balance. He went down in a cloud of dust, but was on his feet again in an instant, his assailant’s head gripped under his arm.

‘No time for dancing,’ called Jeniche.

Alltud left the man on the ground with a painful and bloody nose.

‘This is beginning to annoy me,’ he gasped when he caught up with Jeniche. ‘Perhaps we should just let them catch up and show them what we can do.’

‘Oh, can you imagine how far we’d get if real blood was spilled?’

‘I didn’t start it. Whatever it might be.’

‘They would surely finish it. Archers on the roof. The end.’

‘For sneaking out without paying? It all seems a bit drastic.’

‘Some people are like that.’

Once again they pulled up short. The alley was almost wide enough to be called a street, but the two men ahead blocked it quite effectively. As they stepped closer one of them drew a sword. It was a clumsy move and one look at his face told them he’d never faced an opponent before. Alltud shook his head slowly and the man, barely more than a boy, turned to face him, lifting the point of his blade.

The shing of Jeniche’s swords surprised the young man and he barely had time to change focus before his own sword lay in the dirt. His companion vanished.

‘Get home and wrap that wrist in a poultice. It’s only sprained. But a word of advice. Never draw a sword unless you mean to use it.’ She spoke kindly as she re-sheathed her blades, but the young man’s face whitened and they could hear him retching as they turned the corner.

There was only one direction left to go and that, in itself, seemed ominous. It didn’t help that it led to a large and very deserted square.

‘If you were going to choose a place…?’ Alltud asked.

Their pace slowed and faltered. In the centre they stopped. There were a number of ways in and out. The roofline was low. The ground was smooth and had been swept clean of dust.

‘This would be it,’ Jeniche replied. ‘Whichever way we try to exit we will find is blocked. There are no doubt archers up there.’

‘Would that lad have friends who knew one end of an arrow from the other?’

Several men appeared at the far end. They were different to the ones who had been chasing them. These were well rested, all wearing the same plain livery, well armed, with calm faces.

‘I don’t think it’s his friends we have to contend with.’

Behind them, others stepped out from alleys and doorways. They were surrounded.

‘Shit. Not like this. Not here.’

They drew their swords.

Chapter Four

‘Please. There is no need for that. Put up your kettle.’

Taken aback, they surveyed their opponents, not one of whom had moved closer, let alone drawn a sword. The one who had spoken stepped forward, his hands out palm upwards.

‘I am sorry for the way this has gone,’ he continued. ‘The others… failed their instructions. They became… over-excited and were lucky you were so… kind, gentle.’

Jeniche and Alltud gaped. They had expected him to speak Arbiq, the language of the area. Instead, the young man was speaking Makamban. Admittedly his accent was poor and his grasp of vocabulary left something to be desired.

‘Dhorisay,’ replied Jeniche, summoning her equally shaky Arbiq. ‘I think you meant dhorisay. That’s the Makamban for “swords”.’

‘Oh?’

‘Dhorisoh means “kettle”.’

The young man laughed. The others simply watched. Jeniche relaxed a little. Alltud let the tip of his sword rest on the ground.

‘They were simply meant to keep an eye out for you; report on where you had gone and keep me informed that I might, at the right time, approach you.’

‘For what?’ Jeniche wasn’t that relaxed. The young man smiled again. He seemed at his ease, but she had lived on the streets long enough to know how to evaluate someone. Most people were like tapestries. It was nearly all there on the surface; they were straightforward, had nothing to hide, and couldn’t do it when they tried. This one, though, was different. It seemed to be there. On the surface. But he was more like a book with a bright cover. There was plenty to see on the outside, but unless you got inside and took your time, there were many layers you would never discover.

‘Again, my apologies. Diplomacy is not really my strength. My name is Tohmarz. I represent Dahbeer who is the Qasireu of Alboran. He would very much like to meet you both.’

Jeniche accepted they could not hope to fight their way out and sheathed her swords in a single, fluid movement.

Alltud followed her example.

‘What is a qasireu,’ he asked as his blade slid home. ‘And do we have any choice?’

They were escorted through Alboran at a leisurely pace. The streets and alleys were relatively empty; few people were about that early in the morning. The Qasireu’s men seemed to be spread out casually enough, but both Alltud and Jeniche knew how tight the formation really was. Some ahead, others behind, no one far from the flank and always someone at the entrance of an alley as they passed. There was no coercion; there was no escape.

They were moving into a more prosperous area of Alboran when Tohmarz spoke again, this time in his native Arbiq. ‘The Qasireu is… he’s responsible to the Caleph of Alboran for the keeping of law and order in the city. I believe in Makamba that was the responsibility of a group of the wealthiest merchants.’

Jeniche nodded. She knew all about law and order in Makamba. Perhaps not in the way this Tohmarz or the Qasireu he worked for did. On the other hand… She gave up trying to speculate, concentrated instead on learning from the things she did know about. That the Qasireu could afford well-trained and well-equipped men; that he kept his well-trained men in reserve for the things they were needed for and employed others as appropriate for the tasks in hand. Organized, then, and thinking ahead. Powerful. Wealthy. Which meant he was probably well entrenched in Alboran society. And that raised a very interesting question in her mind: what did someone like that want with the likes of us?

She looked at Alltud who had clearly been following a similar train of thought because he shrugged and said, ‘I don’t suppose we’ll have to wait long to find out.’

As the light grew and the city began to move from stupefied early morning stumbling into full wakefulness, they found themselves on wider, well-maintained streets lined with houses behind high walls. Tall palms grew that doubtless offered shade when the sky was not filled with dust.

The further west they went, the more opulent it became. Well-tended public garden squares, people sweeping the paved roads, servants moving in that well-practised way that made them look busy even if they were doing nothing, a slight and cooling breeze taking the edge off the perpetual heat. It was toward the western edge of the city that they finally arrived at the residence of the Qasireu.

A lot of words sprang to mind. Palatial was the one that stuck, especially when Tohmarz announced: ‘The Palace.’

He led them to the main entrance where guards let them in. As the high gates closed behind them with the sound you would expect of heavy, well-maintained defences, Jeniche realized they had lost their escort. She also realized that ‘fortress’ would have been a better description.

Tohmarz led them across an outer courtyard toward a second set of gates. The yard was well maintained but bare. Not something you could cross unseen or without resistance from the narrow windows in the imposing building that faced them. The only concession to any other use was the line of benches set against the outer wall. Perhaps a place for supplicants, those awaiting an audience, or where those awaiting justice could sit before being admitted. Alltud and Jeniche were led straight through.

Beyond the stern façade and the reinforced inner doors, the wealth of the place became apparent. Cooling breezes blew, channelled by the architecture into the interior. Fountains could be heard splashing in verdant courtyards glimpsed through doorways along the main corridor. Water ran in a narrow channel along the centre of the floor with its dazzling mosaic of intricate patterns. Staff walked at a sedate pace on their errands. One of them caught Alltud’s eye as he passed by an open window. The man seemed vaguely familiar, although Alltud could not think why.

Within an arched way through a wing of the palace, Tohmarz stopped them and knocked lightly on a door. After a few seconds it opened, an elderly woman looking them up and down.

‘Good morning, Laila. Please see the Qasireu’s guests to a room where they can freshen themselves.’ She nodded. To Jeniche and Alltud he said: ‘I will return in an hour. If there’s anything you need in the meantime, please ask Laila.’

‘The way out?’ muttered Alltud when Tohmarz had gone and they were following Laila along a corridor to a room.

She held open a door. ‘There is water and fresh clothing in the suite. When you are ready, go on through to the garden where you will find food.’

They stood in the room as the door closed behind them, silent out of habit, listening to see if it was locked. After a few minutes, Jeniche tried it. It was open. The corridor was deserted although she could hear domestic sounds from nearby, people talking quietly, water pouring. Further away, someone laughed.

Back in the room, she took stock. Four doors led off the small space. One to the corridor. A second that was open and clearly led out into a garden. Standing in a third doorway was Alltud, shaking his head with a smile. He pointed across to the final door. ‘You’ve got your own room through there.’

It wasn’t large, but there was a chair in the corner with a neat pile of fresh clothes on the rushwork seat, a bed frame, a bench with ewer and bowl, soap, a sponge, and some towels. In the corner, behind a low dividing wall, a large shallow tray was set in the floor with a small hand pump to one side. The water was clear and cool, running away in a small drain. No wonder Alltud had been grinning. What a luxury. She wedged the door with the chair and began to undress.

Alltud was already sitting at the table in the garden, helping himself to the food that had been set out. Clean shaven and in fresh clothes, he almost looked like a respectable merchant. Almost. His wary eyes and the hilt of his sword within easy reach spoke of a different role.

‘That’s something I could get used to,’ said Jeniche as she crossed to the table.

‘Washing? Well, it does suit you. But I doubt it will figure highly in whatever they have planned for us.’

‘As long as we get to eat this.’

She saw his eyes flicker to the hilts of her own swords where they jutted in their familiar position above each shoulder.

‘I see you have as much confidence in their hospitality as me,’ he said in an undertone as he leaned forward for more bread.

Settling opposite him, she began to load a platter with food, surveying her surroundings as casually as she could. It was a quiet meal after that. They both had the feeling, communicated through looks, that they were being watched, but neither of them could spot from where.

As if in deliberate confirmation of their suspicions, the moment they pushed their plates away, Laila appeared and cleared the table. And the moment she had disappeared back inside, Tohmarz approached through an arched entrance, followed by a small elderly man in a simple white robe who might easily have been mistaken for a clerk or dockside tallyman were it not for the deference with which a chair was placed for him in the shade of a jasmine-laden bower.

‘Will you join me?’ he asked as he sat.

Alltud and Jeniche had stood when he appeared. As they crossed the garden, Tohmarz set out two more chairs at a small table and Laila re-appeared with a tray of drinks.

‘I am Dahbeer.’ He lifted a delicate jug and poured a pale liquid into three glasses as they pulled back the chairs and settled themselves. ‘Lemonade. Always useful to have a drink to hand to cover those awkward silences between strangers.’ He smiled. ‘And you are Jeniche and Alltud,’ he added, nodding to each in turn.

There was an awkward silence and all three lifted their glasses, sipping the sharp and refreshing drink.

‘It would seem that we are to be blessed with some proper sunshine this morning. Shadows on the ground for the first time in a week.’ Alltud and Jeniche exchanged a quick glance, both of them wondering where this was leading. ‘It has not been good for trade, especially in these difficult times. A city full of refugees from the south. Rumours of war. Travellers stuck. Employment difficult to find, particularly for strangers; especially those down on their luck.’

‘Or,’ said Alltud, remembering where he had seen that member of the Qasireu’s staff before, ‘those whose luck was lifted along with their purse.’

‘Tohmarz,’ called Dahbeer, raising his voice for the first time.

Tohmarz appeared.

‘Please bring our guest’s “lost” property.’

A few moments later, Tohmarz re-appeared and placed Alltud’s purse on the small table. Alltud left it where it was.

‘It is all there,’ said Dahbeer. ‘With a bonus for the inconvenience.’

‘You could have just asked,’ said Jeniche. ‘Sent Tohmarz with an offer of work. I assume that’s what is happening here.’

‘Do you play chess?’ Dahbeer asked.

They both shook their heads.

‘I have been known to win the odd game of Fidchell,’ said Alltud.

‘Ah. Yes. I have read about it.’ An indolent wave of the hand was perhaps meant to indicate an extensive library somewhere within the palace. ‘A similar game. Strategy is important. Keeping your overall plan to yourself whilst testing your opponent, finding their strengths and weaknesses, protecting your king.’

‘And how is your game going?’ asked Jeniche.

‘Please, do not be annoyed. Consider it part of the interview process. Consider it evidence of how anxious I have been to persuade you here.’

‘For what?’

‘That is an interesting pair of swords you carry, young woman.’

The Qasireu reached forward as if he intended to take one of them. Jeniche sat back and Alltud drew his own sword a few inches.

‘You would die if you unsheathed it,’ said Dahbeer calmly.

‘Then we would make that journey together,’ replied Alltud as calmly.

Dahbeer was silent a moment, shrewd eyes assessing first Alltud and then Jeniche, the positions in which they had placed their chairs. He nodded slowly. ‘Just as I had been told. Fearless. Loyal.’

‘More of your interview?’ asked Jeniche, who drew one of her swords and laid it on the table before the old man had time to react.

‘And much quicker than my own people.’

‘You placed them in an awkward position. The archer on the roof behind us has the light in his eyes and, since Alltud moved his chair, runs the risk of putting an arrow straight through his intended target and into you.’ She sipped some lemonade. ‘Strategy,’ she added.

With exaggerated care, Dahbeer picked up the Tunduri sword and spent some time admiring its workmanship. ‘A matched pair?’ he asked, returning it. ‘You have been to Tundur?’

‘Why are we here?’ asked Alltud.

Dahbeer sighed and then smiled. ‘I have an extremely valuable item that must be moved to… a destination in the south.’

‘You seem to have an able household,’ said Jeniche. ‘The men we saw with Tohmarz looked capable of guarding something.’

‘Oh, they are. But everyone knows them to be my men. Besides, they have another task.’

‘A diversion?’ asked Alltud.

‘Exactly.’ He looked pleased. ‘I don’t want the people guarding my treasure to be too obviously of my household. That is why I have been recruiting—’

‘Mercenaries.’

‘Some people are uncomfortable with that term.’

‘And what is the going rate for a mercenary in your employ?’

Dahbeer clapped his hands and Tohmarz appeared. He placed two heavy purses on the small table.

‘That,’ said Dahbeer, gesturing to the purses, ‘is half. The other half will be given to you when the item is delivered. All food and equipment will be supplied.’ He became brisk now, as if bored with the game.

‘And if we refuse?’ asked Jeniche.

‘You are free to do so.’

She looked at Alltud. They both knew it was no answer. Alltud shrugged. He still wanted to go home, but he knew it would be easier if they weren’t being chased by Dahbeer’s men through the city streets, if they could choose a time of their own to slip away, so he picked up one of the new purses along with his own. He opened it and counted out a sum which he placed beside his glass.

‘What is that for?’ asked Dahbeer.

‘To pay the owner of the lodging house for our room there.’

As Alltud answered, Jeniche counted out a sum from her purse.

‘And that?’

‘For the damage I caused in the laundry.’

‘But that has all been taken care of.’

Jeniche and Alltud stood and returned to their rooms. They left the money on the table.

Chapter Five

‘Who in their right mind tells his plans to strangers and then hires them to protect his treasure on a long journey?’

Alltud shook his head slowly as he crossed the room to the main door. Satisfied the corridor was empty, he said: ‘No one. The whole thing stinks worse than a fish market at the end of a long, hot day. Unless…’

‘What?’

‘Pointless speculating, I suppose, but I was wondering if we were going to be part of the decoy.’

‘That’s a bit too complex for me.’

‘He did seem to go on about game playing. He clearly fancies himself as a strategist. In this case, you have two sets of guards. One obviously his own and sent out to draw interest while a covert group slips quietly away.’

‘Except, of course, that is a bit obvious. So anyone interested in the treasure, whatever it is, will be expecting such a strategy and keep a watch for the covert group. If they see one, they’ll go for that.’ She shook her head.

‘Might work.’

‘I don’t doubt it, and you are probably right. Dahbeer seemed to know a lot about us. A great deal more than he let on. In which case, he knows what I used to be. So he wouldn’t hire a thief to watch his most valued possession. Unless he’s trying to bluff us as well.’

‘I doubt that. He wouldn’t bother hiring you at all, unless he thought we were in the running.’

‘How so?’

‘Valuable object. Thief.’

‘So he hires me and put me in the decoy group to ensure I can’t get my hands on his valuables. I wonder if the rest of this party is made up of the light-fingered and morally challenged.’

‘Oh. That will be fun.’

Jeniche went to the open doorway that looked out onto the garden. ‘I don’t buy it. Why go to all this trouble? He must know who all the likely candidates are. Which we weren’t, until now. We’d never heard of his treasure until he told us about it. Besides, why not just arrest all the likely thieves and throw them in jail for the duration? Why go to the bother of stealing our money and making us run, then recruiting us and paying us? What if we hadn’t run?’

‘He’s a game player. Perhaps it’s second nature.’

‘A game player who cheats.’

‘We can do that as well. We’re being fed and paid, provided with horses I would assume. And once we’re well away from this place, we can cut out and head off north. There are bound to be other ports along the coast to the west. More likely to find something there that’s heading up the coast of Iber and on to Brocel.’

With something resembling a plan, they relaxed a little, but were given no time to enjoy themselves. Tohmarz appeared and asked them to collect their gear and follow him. Jeniche hoped the washing facilities would be as good. And as private.

They were led through a maze of small rooms and passageways at the rear of the palace, emerging from the cool shadow where breezes blew onto a large sun-baked yard surrounded by stables and barracks. No fountains and bowers of jasmine here, just pumps and troughs with benches in the shade of the long roof that overhung the stable doors.

Jeniche cast a seasoned eye over the horses’ accommodation. Grilles and shutters meant it was well ventilated and cool inside for the animals. She could hear them as she and Alltud crossed the yard, jostling and fidgeting, the quiet voices of grooms working in there with them.

Those men that were outside sat on the benches, working on harnesses, sharpening swords, taking what rest they could in their duties. Only Tohmarz was dressed in the livery of the Qasireu’s household.

He showed them to a small storeroom in one corner, half filled with bales of hay.

‘You can put your things here, sleep overnight. Hadar,’ he pointed to an open doorway at the far end of the range from which hammering emerged, ‘will check your boots and any harness or belts you want repaired.’

Alltud put their things in the dusty, stuffy hay store and began to improvise places to sleep. Jeniche stood in the doorway watching Tohmarz as he made his way back across the yard toward the palace.

‘Why do these things always start so early?’

Alltud continued to grumble to himself, still half asleep in the relative cool of the dark. Jeniche was used to it. He was not a morning person, always took his time waking. She smiled, walking in torchlight to the nearest pump. There she doused her head in cold water, shaking it from her cropped hair.

All around her, the yard was filling with men and horses; order emerging by fits and starts from the chaos. Whilst Alltud woke himself properly at the pump, Jeniche pulled on her boots, strapped her swords on over her coat, and checked everything was neatly settled in her pack. By the time Alltud was likewise dressed and ready, their mounts were being led across to them by a large, smiling ostler. Jeniche could not help but think of her old friend Trag, lost all those years ago beneath the desert. He had worked with horses in the stables in Makamba, had sheltered Jeniche there and watched over her. One of many dear friends lost for ever. She hoped it wasn’t an omen.

Alltud took the smaller horse intended for Jeniche. ‘That one leered at me,’ he said, pointing at the horse he had left for her.

‘Can’t bite you if you’re on its back,’ she said.

Once they had made their first overtures to their beasts, checked the food in their saddle bags and the straps on the bedrolls, they climbed into their saddles and watched the rest of the company mounting up. No one was wearing Dahbeer’s livery, not even Tohmarz. In well-worn riding clothes, he had lost something of the effete look he had cultivated before. Jeniche wasn’t altogether surprised. She had already realized there was more to him than she had so far seen and wondered what games, if any, he played.

As the troop formed up, Alltud edged his horse close to Jeniche. ‘Lot of riders,’ he said quietly.

He stood in the stirrups to count those ranked in front of them while Jeniche twisted to count those behind.

‘At least twenty up front,’ he said.

‘Thirty or so behind. Others still mounting.’

Alltud raised an eyebrow. ‘Big escort. And no sign of any treasure. Not so much as a pretty young daughter in disguise. No wagons, no boxes, not even any extra saddle bags as far as I can see.’

‘No uniforms either.’

‘Hmm. Decoy.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Look at their swords.’

Alltud gave the once-over to all the swords he could see from his limited vantage point. ‘Now that is interesting.’

They were all the same.

Pale stars still littered the western sky as they rode out through the rear gates of the palace and down the main western thoroughfare of Alboran. Hoofs clattering, harnesses ringing, men coughing; a troop of sixty or so horses makes a lot of noise in a confined space and there was no way they could sneak out of the city. They didn’t even try. Shutters and doors opened and sleepy eyes watched as they passed. The city guard had the gates open before they arrived and doubtless had them closed again as soon as the last rider had gone through.

With commendable casualness and riding with ease, Tohmarz slipped back down from the head of the column and took up a position alongside Jeniche and Alltud. They would have admired the deftness with which it was done had it not been for the equally casual way in which the riders had gone from two abreast in the city streets to three once they were on the open road, scouts galloping ahead in the first light of dawn.

‘That was an education,’ said Alltud to no one in particular.

They had heard no order, seen no signal; knew they were riding with an experienced and well-drilled cavalry troop. The only reply offered by Tohmarz was a satisfied smile and a nod.

As they followed the road along the coast, the early morning sky behind them took flame, sunlight filtered through the last of the dust. A rich red emerged from the dark and faded as the day grew, casting a strange light across the low mist before it burned away.

To their right the sea was flat calm, small waves expiring on the smooth, pale beach. To their left, low sun-baked hills threw out long, misty shadows, glimpses of green lining the shallow valleys through which rivers ambled. The road rose and fell in gentle curves across the landscape, pale dust rising as they passed. Ahead, a ridge which they climbed at an easy pace.

On the far side, the road dropped down into a wide valley. It continued to run parallel to the coast and in the distance they could see a broad, shallow river running sluggish through the many wandering islands of a delta. Long before that, however, they turned south onto another road.

As they headed inland, the column broke into a trot, stretching out as it did so. Jeniche and Alltud had to concentrate. It had been a long time since either of them had ridden and they both took a while to find and keep the rhythm to rise to the trot.

‘Going to be sleeping face down tonight, desert girl.’

‘And riding on hot coals tomorrow.’

The deeper they rode into the valley, the greener it became. Trees on the high slopes sheltered small fields and pasture, producing a harvest of dates and figs. Down by the river, strip fields were planted out with vegetables, people working back and forth while it was still cool.

Hiding between the trees and buried beneath rocky outcrops were the farm buildings and small villages. Several times they passed wagons laden with produce heading down the valley, ignoring the curious stares of the locals. Along the side of the road, there were signs of camp fires, places stripped of brush for fuel, crude latrines swarming with flies, all the detritus people could not help but leave in their wake, especially those a long way from home. They were too close to the city for refugees to think of camping permanently, but they had passed that way.

Jeniche and Alltud exchanged glances. They had been refugees once, knew what sort of reception the people who made those camps were likely to have received. And the further inland they travelled, the more they could sense unease, wariness, even suspicion in the villagers and farmers they passed.

Not long after midday, with the horses back to a walk, Tohmarz rode ahead to meet one of the scouts. A few minutes later the troop turned off the road and into the shelter of a stand of trees that grew along the banks of a stream. The horses were stripped of their saddles and bridles, watered and hobbled, allowed to crop the thin grass.

Once their mounts were settled, Jeniche and Alltud went back down to the stream and sat themselves in a shallow pool of water. There was some laughter, but they didn’t care.

As they sat and nibbled at their rations, they watched Tohmarz set pickets, check on the state of the horses, and talk with the members of the troop, all the while keeping an eye on them where they sat cooling their backsides.

‘I wonder what his history is?’ said Alltud. ‘He looks like a toy soldier; son of a wealthy family given a sinecure.’

‘Sleight of hand. It always looks as if someone else might be in charge until you actually look for them. Then you realize it’s that affable young chap who looks like he’d have trouble choosing the right end of his sword to hold.’

‘Right up to the moment he slides it through you.’

‘And even then you’d probably want to apologize to him for getting it dirty.’

Dripping, they climbed out of the half full watercourse and found a bit of unoccupied shade close to their horses.

‘This is an army, isn’t it,’ said Jeniche, just as Alltud was dozing off.

‘Well we aren’t transporting treasure, that’s for sure. Unless Tohmarz has it in his pocket. And we aren’t a diversion, either.’

They lapsed into a drowsy silence.

‘No,’ said Alltud, just as Jeniche closed her eyes. ‘If Dahbeer had wanted to raise an army, he only needed to spread the word. Alboran was packed with young men looking for something to do. Remember that prophet? His lot were recruiting.’

‘So what are we doing, then?’

‘I have no idea, Jen. At least we aren’t on camels. Yet. But I have a horrible feeling that somewhere along the way this is going to involve mountains. And then a desert.’

Chapter Six

‘Again,’ said Jeniche. ‘That line of scrub along the hilltop directly behind me.’

She continued to fiddle with a strap on one of the saddlebags, standing close against her horse. Alltud, still mounted, stretched and eased his neck, taking in the view as he did so.

‘Can’t see anything,’ he replied. ‘They probably dropped down the other side as soon as you pulled out of the column and dismounted.’

‘Anything the matter?’

Alltud turned where he was sitting and Jeniche peered across the seat of her saddle to see that Tohmarz had come down the line. The last of the troop were passing them on the narrow stony path. The rear guard were further down the slope and had also stopped.

Jeniche shook her head. ‘Not sure there’s much point in telling you.’

Tohmarz smiled. ‘If these are the same people you first mentioned four days ago… The scouts have seen no one.’

‘One person. Always the same.’

‘Really?’

It was remarkable, thought Jeniche, how Tohmarz managed to sound grateful for the information whilst completely disbelieving it. All in one word.

‘If that’s what she said, that’s what she saw.’

‘Yes, Alltud, your loyalty is commendable, but I can’t keep sending scouts out hither and yon when the only person who has seen anything is Jeniche here.’

‘I’d trust her eyes over anyone else’s.’

Jeniche watched the two men squaring up. Alltud had become very quiet over the last few days and she couldn’t decide if this was just him testing the defences, as it were, or something deeper.

‘Then we must ask her to keep watching on our behalf and if she sees anything more alarming than… a moonstruck boyfriend of one of the riders… let us know.’

He kicked lightly against the flanks of his horse and carried on downhill to the rear guard. Jeniche mounted her own steed and, once Alltud had persuaded his own to turn round, they carried on up the slope. After a few moments, Alltud twisted in his saddle, thunder clouds still in his face. He dropped an eyelid in a solemn wink and Jeniche grinned.

She knew how much he wanted to go home. He talked of little else at night when they were camped out under strange skies, each day a little further south, a little further away from that orchard behind the library of the Great College of the Derw on Pengaver, one of the isles of Ynysvron. And when he talked, she thought more and more of Makamba where she had grown from a broken child into a confident young woman.

Try as she might to keep them suppressed, other memories were inextricably entwined and dragged to the surface. The light of happy times was surrounded by shadow. The misery of growing up in Antar, escaping across the desert to Makamba with little more than her life, the death of friends, the years of wandering after the Occassans appeared. At least Alltud knew his homeland was in safe hands. Jeniche had no homeland and no idea how the one place she had put down tentative roots now fared.

She shut down her memories and scanned the horizon once more, trying to keep her mind in the here and now. It was no more comforting a place to be. They felt like they had been in the saddle for a year. The dust of the road and the desert was deeply ingrained in their flesh, their food was getting stale and running low, and they smelled of horse. They were stiff, bruised, and bored, constantly wondering what they were really doing and where they were going. But now they knew how the pickets operated at night they were beginning to think seriously of cutting loose.

When the track widened and they could ride two abreast, Jeniche made sure they were well away from the others and then said, ‘Time, I think, for us to part company with this circus. Make our way home.’

Alltud nodded, looking ahead. ‘Before we get into those higher hills and our routes get limited.’

They had climbed steadily since leaving Alboran. Several days across the gently sloping fertile coastal region, with broad river valleys and prosperous villages. Several more through this slightly cooler upland of rough pasture and little hidden valleys where the farms and villages were smaller and poorer and the goats watched them with thoughtful eyes and half smiles. Ahead, higher hills could now be seen, hazy in the distance. Steep-sided and dark, stretching as far as the eye could see to east and west.

At least their grasp of Arbiq had improved. Several of the other riders were glad of the conversation and the chance to pick up a bit of Makamban or Ketic, Alltud’s native language. It passed the time and relieved the monotony of constant travel. All attempts to find out what they were or were not guarding, however, proved fruitless. Tohmarz knew. Everyone else just did what they were told.

As the sun began to set, they found the ground levelling off. The track they were on had taken them up into a wide, shallow valley where a near-empty river meandered. It was a curious, fractured place as if dumped onto an older landscape that was patiently re-asserting itself.

The path they followed brought them out along one edge of the valley at the foot of a low, notched ridge from which streams flowed at intervals, each cutting its own smaller valley back into the soil and rock of higher ground.

The floor of the main valley was mostly smooth, but large, erratic boulders cast long shadows across the wiry grass and scrub. There wasn’t a person or sign of settlement in sight. More than once they thought of their nearly empty saddle bags as they scouted for somewhere to camp that night.

Tohmarz chose a side valley, in the end. The further they travelled, the larger the tributary vales had become, branching and winding, cutting into the higher terrain. Most of them were dry although the presence of scrub and low withered trees were evidence of water beneath the ground, of seasonal floods. The one they chose had a reasonable flow of water in the very bottom of the stream bed. In the winter it would have been a different prospect as the scatter of boulders testified.

The horses were seen to first, as always. Details were then sent off to collect fuel for fires, pickets were set, and the troop settled itself as best it could in the long, twisting stony ravine.

Jeniche sat on her heels, lost in thought. Alltud returned from collecting a loaf of unleavened bread that one of the others had baked on a griddle. He stretched out beside her, broke the loaf in two, and handed her one half.

‘Seen any more of our camp follower?’ he asked before biting into his share of the bread.

‘Camp follower my bruised backside. Whoever it is, they’re good. They’ve kept pace with us for days and, apparently, they’re invisible. Not one other member of this troop has seen them.’

‘Well, neither have I.’

‘The other sixty? The scouts that Tohmarz may or may not have sent out? No sign of the person, their trail, their camp? Nothing?’

‘Perhaps they really are a useless bunch of ne’er-do-wells hired to act as a decoy.’

‘I’ll treat that observation with the derision it deserves.’

‘So, what else? You think he knows someone else is out there and he doesn’t care?’

She rolled a small pellet of the bread between thumb and finger before flicking it at Alltud. ‘I don’t suppose it matters in the long run.’

He sat up, brushing the pellet away as Jeniche looked round. ‘Why?’

‘Tomorrow night? We can head back toward this spot and then cross to the far side of the main valley before it gets properly light.’

‘Well, as far as a plan goes… It’s a plan.’

‘Right. Well, if you’ll just make up my bed, I have an appointment with a bush. If I can find one that’s private enough.’

In the quiet, Jeniche lay on her back and watched the stars. It was well past midnight and the Milky Way lay at an angle with a long irregular line of red stars pulsing slowly down its centre. Off to the right a blue star shone steadily, surrounded by a faint magenta aura. It was mesmerising and the clarity reminded her why Makamba came first to her thoughts so often. Ynysvron was wonderful, there were distinct attractions, but it was a land of cloud and mist.

Against the background of the slow stellar dance, she picked out the planets Baspati and Angraka, just as Teague, the astronomer at Makamba University, had taught her. And then the wandering stars which moved swiftly in their paths through the dark. She had watched them through Teague’s telescope. Odd-shaped objects that rotated and tumbled, catching the light. Put there by men, Teague had said, before the Evanescence. Sometimes they lost their way, breaking apart and blazing as they fell to Earth. She wished she had learned more; wished there had been time to learn more.

The top of the ravine where willow vale, lavender, and morning glory grew started to glow and, as she watched, the Moon began to rise. Two days from full, it dimmed the stars in that part of the sky. The plains, mountains, and craters on its surface were clear, even to the naked eye. And tonight, the fine spider web of lines that crossed Serenity glistened as they caught the sun.

Teague had studied those lines night after night; she had filled whole books with drawings, notes, and speculations, with gleanings from sparse references that had survived the great dissolution; had planned a more powerful telescope. And when she spoke of them, of her impossible dream of travelling to the Moon to see them, touch them… But Teague was lost. Like the child Shooly with her dolls and Wedol, the baker’s son. Trag. So many victims in Makamba. And Mowen Bey, the gentle Tunduri nun, killed on the threshold of her own country. Remembering the dead, Jeniche drifted off to sleep.

Woke on her feet, swords drawn. Alltud stood beside her, watching her back as she watched his. Around them, noise, people running and calling, hysterical voices. And then, above the pandemonium, Tohmarz could be heard calling for Jeniche.

She made her way down the floor of the ravine to where she knew Tohmarz was camped. Someone was throwing extra fuel on the fire there and in the blaze she saw members of the troop on the slopes surrounding a pitiful band of interlopers.

Sheathing her swords, she stepped forward into the firelight. Several of the strangers turned to look at her and then back to Tohmarz.

‘Refugees,’ he said.

She could see that for herself. Tired, half-starved, and terrified.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I thought your presence might reassure them. Calm them.’

‘A woman with two swords?’

‘You know what I mean.’

She did, and she didn’t much like it. After all, she had ridden with the troop for a week and barely knew any of them. She had been with Alltud for three years or more, depending on how you counted it, and they were still strangers in some ways. Now she was being asked to calm distraught refugees.

Not knowing what else to do, she gestured for them to sit and then did so herself. With slow, wary movements, they gathered by the fire, eleven of them in total, and sat on the stony ground. The three children attached themselves to the women and two of them fell asleep straight away. At that Jeniche ran out of ideas, but Alltud appeared with some food he had gathered.

Tohmarz had the good sense to get his men out of sight, although she could hear him questioning some of them about how a group of refugees could stumble into the camp so easily. He sounded angry. Very angry. And it was the only sense she got out of anyone that night.

Once the refugees had eaten, she asked them where they were from, where they were going, if they had been alone. They stared at her with frightened eyes but remained mute. She didn’t push too hard. Instead she told them of the path to the coast, of the villages and towns, of the poor reception they were likely to get. The men nodded. And then they lay down and slept as well.

She left them to it, picking her way quietly into the dark beyond the flames where Tohmarz stood.

‘There’s your watcher,’ he said.

She shrugged. He didn’t sound convinced and she certainly wasn’t. The little band of refugees had been heading north, had likely come down from the mountains, perhaps from beyond them.

‘If you wish,’ she said and went on up the ravine to find Alltud, and maybe some sleep as well.

Chapter Seven

‘What’s eating you?’

Jeniche looked up from where she was making a mess of packing her bedroll. She sat back on her heels.

‘I don’t like being treated with such contempt.’

Alltud waited. He had long since packed up his own stuff and had even saddled his horse. This was an event. Normally, Jeniche was the one who waited whilst he stumbled around half asleep gathering his things.

‘Come on,’ he said, and knelt beside her. He took her roll, shook it out, and packed it for her. ‘Explain.’

‘Tohmarz. Trying to imply it was one of those refugees that had been watching us.’

They both turned their heads as she spoke, looking across at the battered huddle by the smouldering fire. Some of them still slept. The others were listless. One of the children watched the remains of the fire with eyes that saw no future. Jeniche cursed under her breath. Children shouldn’t even be looking for the future, let alone discovering it may not actually be there.

‘You told me all this last night. Remember? During that bit when I was trying to get back to sleep.’

She turned her gaze back to him. Most men would have flinched.

Taking a moment, she stood and approached her horse, strapped the bedroll on behind the cantle of the saddle. ‘Not that. It’s just the way he wasn’t even trying to make it seem convincing.’

‘So what?’ He climbed to his feet and glanced around with a casual air to make sure no one was too close. ‘This time tomorrow, with a bit of care, we’ll be well away from them and whatever idiot plan they have.’

Jeniche smiled, but she wasn’t sure it reached her eyes. Like the child, she was looking for a future and discovered that she, too, couldn’t see one.

Leaving the refugees with what food they could spare, the troop mounted and, as they walked down the ravine, picking their way over the rough ground, formed up in twos. At the mouth of the ravine they turned south, the early morning sun obscured by the side of the valley on their left. Each time they trotted across the mouth of one of the ravines, the sunlight struck them. Hard light in pure air, casting shadows that slowly shortened.

The side wall of the valley grew ever taller and the ravines grew further apart and deeper. Substantial dry water courses cut across their track, slowing their progress. The far side of the main valley was now visible as a hazy smudge on the western horizon. Vegetation on the flat valley floor was little more than low scrub and scattered, withered trees. There was no shelter worth speaking of. Yet Jeniche and Alltud knew they would have to cross it at some time if they were to get away. The ravines on their side at least gave them some hope that the far side would offer similar shelter.

As the gullies became deeper, they offered protection to increasing amounts of vegetation. Aromatic scrub, dwarf trees, taller evergreens, grazing. Shelter, shade, pools of water in the bleached stream beds. At least the season was in favour of an escape. Had it been winter, water would be pouring down from the hills and distant mountains, funnelling into these ravines and making them dangerous. The main valley floor looked like it would become soft underfoot, if not impassable with the river in full flood.

Alltud and Jeniche took careful note of each ravine as they passed, memorising landmarks to argue about later. By some bond they neither of them understood, they turned and looked at each other, breaking into broad grins. The day seemed less harsh.

As the morning wore on, a gentle breeze began blowing from the south. Warm, but pleasant, it cleared away the stale odours of baked clay and stone, of drifted desert dust, and lifted the scents of wild thyme and lavender. The sky had changed as well. A milky gauze of high cloud filtered the worst of the midday sun and to the south and west the horizon had become a slate grey.

Into the long afternoon they rode, alternating between walking and trotting. Alltud dozed in the saddle when he could; Jeniche watched the landscape and calculated distances. They would need to be under cover before dawn without working the horses too hard. To her it seemed that cutting straight across the valley would be the best course.

She spent so much time watching the far side that it came as a surprise to see how high the valley wall beside them now was. A broken slope of loose soil and stones covered with patches of grass and small shrubs. Along the top, bushes softened the edge and prevented worse erosion than was already apparent. And provided excellent cover for anyone who might be watching them. Like that small cluster of bushes beside a jutting slab of rock.

Still angry about Tohmarz’s reaction and just a little on edge about their plan to sneak away, she turned her horse and urged it up the slope toward the bushes. Something moved out of sight as they began to climb. Dust rose from her mount’s feet and loose stones began to clatter back down the steep incline. It was slower going than she had hoped and by the time they reached the top, there was no one to be seen.

Behind her she heard other horses climbing the slope and turned in her saddle to see. Dust drifted away from the track and dispersed northward on the breeze. She looked back that way, surprised at how much could be seen from the top of the bank. Taking advantage of the few seconds left to her, she turned the other way and looked directly across the valley, checking for hazards and hiding places.

There seemed to be none, but she didn’t have much time to be sure before Tohmarz, Alltud and two others appeared, urging their horses up onto the flat area at the top where she waited. Ignoring them, she turned and looked eastward, standing in her stirrups for more height.

Tohmarz drew up alongside her. ‘I really must ask you not to do that again,’ he said.

Jeniche was surprised at the mildness of the request, but did not take her eyes off what she could see.

‘Your mysterious snooper again, I suppose?’

‘No. That is, there was someone.’ Without moving her gaze from the horizon, she pointed to clear tracks on the ground. ‘A horse went that way just a few minutes ago. You could probably track it if you wanted. But a rider could easily hide in these broken lands.’

She sat down, still staring intently into the distance, aware of Tohmarz and the others taking in the landscape. At first glance it seemed like a flat expanse, but it was cut through as far as the eye could see with gullies and ravines, the tops of trees showing where depressions offered shelter for all sorts of plants from the winter winds. And people. It would take them months to search. Ultimately a pointless exercise as it would be easy for someone to move about unseen in the dark.

‘If not your phantom watcher …?’ Tohmarz let the half-asked question tell her he had been paying attention.

She pointed. Alltud drew up beside her and leaned across so he could squint along her arm. He straightened and the pair of them exchanged a worried glance.

‘Shit.’

‘What?’ Tohmarz sounded alarmed.

Jeniche swapped arms so that Tohmarz could look to where she was pointing.

‘I don’t see… That speck? A bird?’

‘No.’

They watched until their eyes began to water. Jeniche heard Tohmarz sigh just before he turned his horse and walked the few steps back to the top of the slope. He called out a series of orders and she heard the troop respond.

‘You two,’ he said. ‘Stay close to me.’

With that he disappeared down the slope.

Jeniche and Alltud looked at each other, looked back at the approaching speck, and then followed Tohmarz down the loose, stony scree. By the time they reached the track, the troop had split and was dispersing. One group was at full gallop heading south, another already trotting after them. They joined the third group as they made off in the opposite direction until they reached a ravine they had passed earlier in the afternoon.

Tohmarz stayed on the road, watching as his troop disappeared into their three separate hiding places. Once he was sure they were off the track, he rode with Jeniche and Alltud into their chosen hideaway. The group that had ridden in here were already dismounted and the horses were being led up under the trees, staying as close to the mouth of the ravine as they could.

Once they had settled, Tohmarz walked the line to ensure all were well concealed. Jeniche had no doubt the sub-commanders of the other groups were doing the same. She watched with interest. They had clearly done this before.

It was a long wait, but no one broke ranks. Tohmarz came back and joined Jeniche and Alltud. They sat in silence in the shade of a tree close to the mouth of the ravine and listened. Eventually, a faint buzz reached them. It might have been one of the bees that drifted in the sage bushes just behind them near the crest of the rise, but the pitch was more insistent and never once broke off. Before long it drowned out the sound of the tiny, dark honey makers.

In the warm afternoon, the heat drained out of Jeniche and she sat miserable and cold as the airship passed close by. It had approached from the west and now, as they watched, swung sharply round at the valley’s edge to cut back across at an angle all the time heading slowly north.

‘Searching,’ said Tohmarz, perhaps to himself.

A scrabbling sound came from further up the ravine, stones rolling down a slope. One of the riders approached. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The surface gave under me.’

‘Any dust?’

‘No, sir.’

‘All right, go on.’

‘No other ships in sight and this one didn’t slow or set down at all.’

Tohmarz dismissed the man with a wave and turned his attention back to the valley just as the airship swung round on the far side.

They watched two more sweeps of the terrain, the airship pulling slowly further away from them, conscious always that any move on their part would be seen straight away from that altitude.

Moving cautiously, they climbed the opposite side of the ravine and lay with just their heads over the top, peering between some thorn bushes. The airship was on their side of the valley again, moving more slowly, almost drifting with the breeze. Swinging round, it turned to face them. For a moment they tensed, half expecting it to head back in their direction. Then they heard faint firecracker sounds.

Jeniche closed her eyes and lowered her head. ‘Bastards.’

‘What?’

‘They’re not searching,’ she said, looking up again. ‘They’re hunting.’ She turned her head to look at Tohmarz. ‘You’ve heard that before, haven’t you? Seen those ships. Faced those killers.’

More mosket fire reached them. The ship shuddered, swinging round again and losing height. Lines were dropped, tiny figures sliding down, moving on the ground. His face a mask of stone, Tohmarz made no reply.

Jeniche turned away, from Tohmarz, from the slaughter. Perhaps the Occassans had seen some goats and were replenishing their larder. Perhaps. She thought of the small huddle of refugees, of the look in the child’s eyes. All the more reason to run.

It was several hours before it was safe to move. The ship had remained anchored for a while and then resumed its pursuit northwards, back and forth across the valley. Once it was completely out of sight, the troop reassembled and they galloped south until the horses needed to rest.

There were no fires that night, which suited Jeniche and Alltud. And the Moon wouldn’t be up until much later if it could be seen at all. As they had ridden up out of the valley onto the southern end of the broken lands, the sun had set, painting the southern cloud with gory colour, bruised reds fading through a charred brown to heavy darkness. For a while, the air had grown oppressive and they had seen flickers of lightning along the horizon.

Thin forest was their only shelter; deep shadows and a heavy layer of pine needles. On Tohmarz’s order they spread themselves out. He had placed Jeniche and Alltud near the centre, but as the light faded and they rubbed down their horses, they edged toward the western end.

When it was fully dark and they were certain it was safe, they re-saddled their mounts, making sure everything was secure and tightly strapped so they wouldn’t rattle or jingle. And then they settled down and waited.

‘If that little display this afternoon wasn’t interesting, I don’t know what is. The way they wheeled off into three groups like that and disappeared into the nearest hiding places. They’ve done that before,’ said Alltud. ‘A lot of times. And as for their reaction to the shooting of the refugees…’

‘They’ve seen it before. All too often. And are too well schooled to let their anger get the better of them. Whatever they are, they aren’t an escort. There’s certainly no evidence of treasure. Nothing large. And no real sign of anything small.’

‘Certainly no sign of anything so valuable it needs sixty or more men as an escort.’

‘Sixty-seven,’ said Jeniche.

‘Are you sure? I thought it was sixty-five.’

‘It was when we set out, but we picked up two more today.’

‘Where from? We haven’t passed through a settlement for days.’

‘No idea, but—’ She stopped short at the sound of horses.

‘One of the pickets?’

‘I’ve never heard them ride off before.’

‘Well, we had better walk the horses out of here for some distance before mounting.’

They said nothing more, but settled down to rest. It was going to be a long, tiring, and dangerous night.

Chapter Eight

They waited side by side in the dark listening to the camp go to sleep. The whispered exchanges of tired horsemen, grunts and rustling, snores, the soft thud of a boot to stop the snores, and then just the shifting of horses, the rustle of a nocturnal creature, and the occasional footfall of someone on watch. The storm that had loured on the sunset horizon had come to nothing and the wind, such as it had been, died away as darkness fell.

Edging a horse through sparse woodland at night without waking anyone else in the process was every bit as difficult as Jeniche had anticipated. Had it been possible to put distance between themselves and the troop without their mounts, she would have been the first to suggest going on foot, but it all went well. Right up to the point they were about to climb into the saddle.