Hondo woke with frost pinning his hair to the ground. He blew air as a stream of vapour and sighed. He hated the cold. As a young man, he could not recall even noticing it, but after he’d turned fifty, winters had seemed to grow worse and worse each year, as if the world drifted further from the sun.
Away from civilisation, he had decided it was mere vanity to continue to shave and trim his hair. The straggling beard he’d grown gave him some protection from the wind, though it itched to the point of madness. Even so, it had been the right decision. His service to the king lay in how fast and how well he could complete the task ahead of him. Hondo had been given the name of a man who had offended the honour of the king’s father. Whatever this Tellius had done in his years of exile, Hondo wanted nothing more than to see him at that moment, so that he could consider the journey at an end and begin making his way home with the prisoner.
He sat up to see white first light and a thick mist lying over tended fields. The boundaries had been marked by their owner with stone walls and neat fences. This was not wild land, but a farm in the middle of nowhere, perhaps a thousand miles from Shiang. Away to the west, Hondo had no way of judging how far they had come, beyond the vaguest of guesses. The first days of good roads, regular taverns and fifty miles a stretch were long behind. His first horse had gone lame and he’d replaced it with a farmer’s mare of lesser quality. The man had been almost in tears, though the mount Hondo had left him was worth a hundred in silver, perhaps more.
Bosin, of course, had pointed in satisfaction to his enormous shire horse, still plodding on while weaker mounts fell behind. The idea made him insufferable for a time, until Hondo reminded Bosin of the temple dogs of Shiang. Those animals stood almost as high as a man, but lived just eight or nine years. Terriers on the other hand, lived twice that long. Bosin had been silent for days after that. Given that the twins seemed to need only their own company and spoke hardly at all, it had been a period of silent meditation that had left Hondo feeling quite rested and prepared for whatever lay ahead.
Shiang’s influence had waned over the previous few days, though there had been no clear boundary. Hondo saw it in untended trees left to be a danger to travellers, as well as different crops in the fields. These farmers no longer sent their goods to Shiang. It was just too far to keep the food fresh. Perhaps that was the natural boundary of all cities, Hondo thought, as he stretched.
No one really knew how far Darien lay beyond. Hondo had seen maps of the world that showed it by another name he could not pronounce, though the king had been certain they were one and the same. Hondo had asked the twins about it and discovered neither had troubled to view the maps. The young appeared to lack the intellectual curiosity he remembered from his own youth. It was somehow less surprising that Bosin had not checked the maps either. Nothing about that man gave an impression of careful preparation. ‘What if I were killed? How would any of you find your way then?’ Hondo had demanded at the beginning of their trip. Bosin had just shrugged at him and pointed west.
Honestly, the man could be infuriating. Hondo sometimes spent days imagining the giant swordsman hanging by his fingernails off a cliff, or vanishing slowly into quicksand. Hondo enjoyed constructing the last conversations, over and over. He had developed a number of favourite variations on the theme. In not one of them did he manage to save the big man from death.
The world was rather beautiful when it was trapped in frost, he thought, as he ran through morning patterns with the precision of decades of practice. More importantly, a farm meant food somewhere nearby. Hondo brushed himself down, feeling warmth begin and fade in his chest. He began to shiver again, as soon as he was still. The night’s cold had sunk right into him, as it never had when he’d been young. He slapped his hands back and forth and blew air harder. He was starving, but he would be able to buy eggs at the farmhouse – and a thick piece of bacon. Perhaps even a handful of onions, if he could keep them away from Bosin.
The twins had woken and were untying their packs, ready to start a fire from the embers of the night before. Hi, or possibly Je, nodded to the sword saint in acknowledgement. For once, Bosin’s snoring was muted by his own bulk, as the cold had made him curl up into a ball. The morning was peaceful and Hondo was glad to be alive. He took joy in such moments of beauty, knowing that they would come to an end.
‘Don’t touch your sword and you’ll live,’ said a voice over to the right.
Hondo looked round in astonishment as a ragged group of men raced down the slope of a hill towards them. They were still some twenty yards off and Hondo cursed himself for his inattention. He’d been too long in civilised lands! The very idea of any citizen of Shiang creeping up on the sword saint was laughable. Yet the result was that he hadn’t been wary of it happening.
Hondo crossed their little campsite and booted Bosin hard in the back, making the giant grunt and ask a garbled question in his sleep. Hondo kicked him again in a temper. He no longer felt cold, he realised. Perhaps he should begin every day by kicking Bosin awake.
The half-dozen men who approached their little camp spread out in a fan formation. Only one held a sword, though the blade was spotted black with ancient rust, resistant to all polishing. Three of the others carried long-handled axes, like woodsmen, while the remaining pair held only knives in their hands. Those two jabbed the air with them, as if they could intimidate the camp with sheer effort.
The twins were ready, Hondo saw, their hands resting on the hilts of swords worth more than the ragged men would see in a lifetime. Hondo wondered if they could even understand the quality of his own blade, made for his own hand by the greatest master in Shiang. Whenever he drew the sword, it passed between lips of brass that caused a note, as if a finger rubbed the edge of a crystal glass. In Shiang, the Ling or Bell sword was as famous in its way as the man who wielded it.
Hondo kept his hands loose. These men were not worthy to hear that sound. As they came closer, he and the twins took up positions on an arc. They left a place for Bosin as the giant sat up and smacked his lips, opening one eye at a time.
‘When you are ready, Master Bosin, we are being robbed,’ Hondo hissed at him.
‘How many are there?’ Bosin replied, looking around blearily. He was about as rumpled as his own blanket, with creases across his face from his own weight as he slept.
‘Six men,’ Hondo snapped.
Bosin lay down once more and rolled himself into the blankets.
‘Then you do not need me,’ he muttered, closing his eyes.
Hondo was tempted to kick him again, but now that Bosin was awake, he was not sure how the man would react. Also, it had been like kicking a tree. He thought there was a chance he had cracked a bone in one of his toes, as he could not clench it in his boot.
‘Surrender your weapons,’ the leader said. ‘If you do it now, you will live.’
Hondo turned to face that one. The accent had been strange, so he spoke slowly and clearly in reply.
‘Are you “roadmen”? Yes? You steal from travellers?’
The fellow was not used to being questioned so openly. He looked over Hondo’s padded coat with a sort of longing. It was clearly warmer than his own. He saw too the perfect black scabbard, with an orange tassel. The man who wore it was bearded and a little unkempt. There was frost in his hair.
The thief felt his confidence unravelling and his anger grew. He jabbed his sword at Hondo, inching closer. His ragged companions went with him, step by step, like a pack of dogs closing on prey. Hondo had rarely seen a more pitiful crew. He had been warned of such bands of brigands while he had been in Shiang. They were said to be a terror to travellers in the wild lands beyond the influence of that city. The reality was actually a little disappointing.
‘Put that sword away, young man,’ Hondo said. ‘It will win you nothing from us. However, I am willing to pay you for directions to Darien. Earn a coin rather than steal one, yes? How close are we to the city?’
The leader of the thieves blinked at the offer, sensing that something was wrong. The man speaking as if to a child appeared quite unworried by the weapons they carried. The other two … The thief saw they were twins. They were smiling in the oddest way, both dressed the same, like a mirror. And the last! Even curled up and grumbling about all the talking, the man was about the size of a brown bear. The thief had no interest in seeing him stand up. He made a decision.
‘Very well,’ he said. He sheathed his sword with a clumsiness that made Hondo wince. ‘Pax in the camp, lads. We’ll earn our coin this morning.’
‘It won’t be as much as they have with them,’ one of the others grumbled.
Hondo lost patience. It was one thing to spare scavengers, just as he might ignore wild dogs. He was a swordsman after all, not a butcher. It was quite another to have to listen to them bicker as if he had not just granted them their lives. Hondo gestured to the twins and one of them strode forward through the thieves. The twin moved like smoke, startling them. For one who had never seen a Mazer swordsman before, it might have seemed like a cat running along a branch, a balance so perfect it could make a grown man stand in awe.
The fellow who had spoken was dead a moment later. The twin had drawn and cut him in a single blow. As Hondo watched in silent appreciation, Hi, or perhaps Je, cleaned the blade on the fellow’s coat, then polished it with a second cloth before replacing it in the scabbard, protected once more. Even the touch of a bare finger could spoil the mirror finish of the steel if left untended. A blade was not just for a lifetime, but centuries, if treated with respect.
Hondo bowed to the twin as he returned, honouring his skill. The young man flushed, delighted by praise from the sword saint as he rejoined his brother. The rest of the thieves still stood transfixed and horrified.
‘There,’ Hondo said, as if the entire event had been merely an interruption. ‘Now, without further argument, please. You know of Darien? You can direct us?’
The leader of the thieves had paled at seeing one he called a friend bleeding into the frozen ground. The frost vanished there as the blood touched it, he noticed. He seemed a little dazed, but when Hondo raised his hand, he babbled a response.
‘My father knew it well. He met traders from the west. He said it lies six hundred miles past the mountains there, on the banks of a great river. It’s a trading city, my lord. Once you are across the highest peaks, you’ll surely meet merchants who call it home.’
‘Thank you,’ Hondo said, though he had hoped to hear it was closer. Even so, he fished in his pouch for a low-value piece of silver and passed it into the man’s hands. ‘Go on your way now, gentlemen. Know that you have earned an honest coin.’
They trooped off like boys dismissed from class. Hondo watched them go and turned in irritation to Bosin as the man gave up on sleep and sat up. He saw Hondo’s expression and shrugged.
‘What? You won’t say you needed me against a few skinny thieves?’
‘It was not a matter of need, Master Bosin, it was a matter of discipline and my orders.’
‘The king sent me to Darien, Master Hondo. He did not say I was to be your servant. I don’t remember that. Do you remember that? You were there as well. Did he say that? Did he say, “Oh yes, don’t forget, Bosin, Hondo is your master on the trip”? When was that?’
Hondo controlled his temper with difficulty. He was suddenly no longer hungry. Bosin watched the sword saint move stiffly to saddle his horse, anger in every gesture. The big man was already feeling guilty for what he had said, but he didn’t know how to call it back. Instead, Bosin stood in sullen silence until Hondo mounted and rode on, clearly determined to leave him behind in his bad temper.
The twins looked nervously to Bosin as he stood there. He sighed and waved them after Hondo.
‘Go on. Look after the old bastard. I’ll catch up when I’ve had breakfast.’
Gabriel felt ill. There was no better way to describe it, as he had no words for the discomfort he felt. It was not quite a pain, but almost a sense of loss, as if he had watched a child die and each moment was the anniversary … He gave up with a wave of his hand. For weeks he had ruled a terrified populace in Shiang. At his order, the noble families and great estates had come to prostrate themselves before him. Those who had refused he had visited himself, leaving the walls of their homes daubed in blood. It had been necessary only twice, though he had made an example of a third in the city, so the Fool could have somewhere to live and be tended. The other estates had gone to Thomas and Sanjin, his gift to them.
Gabriel leaned on a balcony, looking out at the administrative buildings they called the Hub. He had thought he would have those cleared for the view, but he had planned many things that remained undone. He gripped the stone and felt the sill crack, so that his palms were marked with dust. He had been given much, but it came with a price that was driving him to madness.
Even as he had the thought, he felt a slight passage in the air, the beating heart that seemed to eat at his self-control each time he felt it. He’d read once of a torture that was no more than a drip of water landing on a man’s forehead, while he was bound beneath and unable to move. Gabriel had laughed at the idea of it. He had known torture in many forms and when he compared the slow drip of water with his knives and irons and his room of little ease, he thought it a foolish thing.
The reality was different, he knew by then. Over the previous week, he’d even had an iron bed made to test the water-drop torture on a royal guardsman. So far, the man had lasted three days, but he’d begun screaming that morning and it did not look as if he would stop. All from a drop of water, or a call he would not answer.
Gabriel clenched his fist and felt a sting as a flake of white marble sliced his palm. He held it up in something like wonder, seeing the extraordinary brightness of blood against the paler dust. Blood was the only true red – and only then when it was full of life. It darkened as life drained away. It became brown and then black, then the dust of the grey land. Gabriel shuddered at the thought and then again, when the strange thrum in the air touched him.
How many times had it been that morning? His great fear was that they were coming more often. He told himself it was mere imagination, but if there was any truth in it, he knew he could not withstand the beats for ever. Like the water drops, each one was nothing, but together they would bring his walls down, he could feel it. Water wormed its way into foundations, so that castles and even cities fell.
He turned back to a room where his ministers waited for him. They included men and women taken from the street and made to wear the robes of a noble house. It had amused him to do it, to see the light of greed or just possibility come to their faces as he gave them more than they had ever dreamed. He thought those common men and women would be loyal to him, if only to protect what they had.
What a pleasure it was to lead! People were such simple creatures, in the end. They needed food and warmth and family. They wanted power over others. The men wanted a harem; the women … well, who knew, really? His first wife had said women wanted babies and security. Give them that and they would ask for nothing else. He wondered if that could be true, though. His new queen seemed not to need him at all, now that he had given her power. She had gathered an army of servants to tend her, seeking out old enemies around the city to lie in the mud and be walked upon. One of them had drowned just that morning, he’d been told. He liked her, but she could be vicious, there was no doubt about that.
‘Gentlemen, ladies, I thought some sort of ball might entertain the families of Shiang …’ He paused as the thump ran through him. Of course, they felt nothing, but just stared at him with bovine expressions or obsequious smiles. He gathered his thoughts and tried again.
‘There are trading cities further to the east. I thought I might invite their ambassadors to my coronation here. The ball could be’ – thump – ‘… an event to mark a new reign, and a new royal house.
‘There are no riots any longer in Shiang. Now that I have brought back execution for treason in all its forms, there is no unrest against my rule. I trust that will continue. I thought to hold the ball at the new moon’ – thump – ‘… Damn it! None of you feel that movement in the air?’
They looked at him in terror, he realised, with the whites of their eyes showing. They already feared him, but this was the dread of the insane, of a different order entirely. He shook his head to clear it, forcing his thoughts back on course.
‘It is my intention to make Shiang a great trading city once more.’ Thump. ‘We have too long looked inward.’ Thump. ‘Hellfire! What? Would you draw back from me? Perhaps you should be afraid! Thump thump thump! Can none of you hear it?’
‘I hear it, brother,’ Thomas said wearily from the doorway. ‘Sanjin does as well now. The Fool is tormented by it. He does nothing but shriek at his servants like a cat caught in a trap. He gets worse each day. We all do.’
Gabriel raised hands like claws, showing the red blood that still seeped from one of them. He had not bothered to heal or clean it.
‘It’s getting harder to bear,’ he said. ‘Not stronger, but …’
‘But more often, Gabriel, yes. There is no doubt any more.’
Both of them winced as the pulse went through them again, the tugging, deep in their stomachs.
‘If I leave Shiang, they will forget me in a month,’ Gabriel said. ‘They will undo all I have done.’ Thump. ‘You know it.’
Thomas shrugged.
‘I have enjoyed living as a lord, but I cannot go on like this. We’ll win it back, perhaps, or find some other place. It is still better than the grey land, brother. Remember that.’
Gabriel nodded slowly. He looked around at the lords and commoners all staring at him.
‘Very well. It seems I must leave my throne and this city behind. Bring Sanjin and the Fool. There are horses here. I will answer this call. I’ll face whatever there is waiting for me – and if there are stones, I will take them all.’
He and Thomas both tensed for the pulse, but there was nothing. They looked at one another in wild surmise. Thomas nodded.
‘It seems you have made the right decision, brother.’
As the sun rose to noon, the king of Shiang rode along the west way to the great gate. Gabriel’s horse bore packs of food and he wore the royal sword on his hip. Thomas rode at his side and Sanjin kept an eye on the Fool and Lord Ran as they rode behind, though he had complained bitterly at being given such a menial task. His foot still bled. Gabriel was so relieved to be heading west he had considered healing it, but changed his mind at the last moment. Perhaps he’d reconsider if Sanjin ever showed a little grace and good manners, instead of the constant scowl.
Few in the city knew they were leaving. Crowds began to gather even so as the horsemen headed for the gate and were recognised. One or two cheered, but most of them were silent. They would not jeer or call out, such was their fear of the new king. Yet they could glower and hope the man would know. That was all they dared to do.
Gabriel ignored the sullen crowd, riding with a straight back. His new guards looked nervous as he passed them. They had not been told the king was leaving the city and some of them feared what might happen when the news spread. Gabriel had employed some as executioners as well. They would surely be torn apart without his protection. There would be violence and fire in his wake. The thought made Gabriel smile as he reached the gate.
‘Taeshin! Oh, it is you!’ Marias called.
A young woman stepped up to his stirrup and touched his boot as if she thought he had to be an apparition. Gabriel was tempted to kick her away, or just dig in his heels and ride on. Somehow, he could not bring himself to do it and drew his mount to a halt with a squeeze of the reins.
‘I do not know you,’ he said.
‘It is Marias! Your slave, Taeshin! Oh, what have they done to you? Taeshin?’
Gabriel sensed a flash of awareness, there and gone in an instant. It frightened him and he wanted to ride on. Yet he was held in that spot as if rooted in stone.
‘Let me come with you, Taeshin. Please. Wherever you are going. I thought you were dead. I was certain. Please, Taeshin.’
She began to weep. Gabriel closed his eyes for a moment and summoned his will. The young woman had clearly known the one who owned the body he had been given. Gabriel had hardly thought of him from the moment of first awakening. She was beautiful – and competent to have survived a month without her master. She would be useful to him on the trail, to cook and tend the animals. Gabriel shook his head once more, confused. He had left Song behind, to whatever fate befell her, but he would take a slave out of Shiang? It was madness.
‘Get up behind me,’ he said, his voice hoarse as if from lack of use.
Perhaps it was a whim, but he was heading out into the wilderness and … no, he had no explanation. Thomas and Sanjin looked at him as if he had lost his wits. The Fool made his ‘shee shee’ sound, though whether he laughed or wept was, as ever, hard to say. Lord Ran just looked stern, though he watched everything they did. At least the man knew by then that he could not run. Both Gabriel and Thomas were as fast across open ground as a galloping horse.
Gabriel felt the woman’s hands slide around his waist and the pressure of her head on his back as she embraced him. It was oddly comforting as he rode through the gate and left Shiang behind. He was going to the source of the call that hurt him. He was going to Darien and whatever waited for him there.
Taeshin opened his eyes on the grey land, unchanging, though armies clashed below. He had been afraid to walk down the hill before. He had no desire to join those serried ranks that slaughtered one another and then reappeared each morning as the sky brightened. The sun did not rise in that place. There was nothing as joyous as warmth, nor even the bite of winter. Neither did he feel hunger or thirst, though at times he longed for those signs of life.
Grim and silent, he watched the armies gather. Officers rode up and down the lines on both sides, exhorting the men to greater efforts than before. Taeshin could hear them shout and answer.
It was not always the same, he had begun to see. Two great kings met on that field every day to fight. Whatever the result, no matter which side was triumphant in the evening camps, they still trooped out to fight again the next day.
He closed his eyes, but no colours came, no flashes of strange scenes he had never lived. Of Marias in the wilderness, of the tiger named Gabriel who walked in his flesh. Taeshin shook his head, feeling once more a surge of anger that anyone could even consider hurting Marias. That was a true emotion, he realised, a part of himself that was not of the grey land. It warmed him like the sun rising would have done. He decided once again that he would not walk down to the battle, not that day.