His first name wasn’t Char. That was what the slavers called him. Neither was his second name Lesko: that was Ma’s name. But Ma had raised him, so he had taken her name for his own. In a way, Ma was mother to the whole caravan. We slavers are all Leskos, he thought.
Technically, Ma was nobody’s mother. She was a mercenary, perhaps the finest fighter in the Beaches. No slave escaped on her watch, and when she was present at negotiations, buyers paid the agreed sums and proper courtesies were observed. The slim kali sticks sheathed at her hips were a fierce deterrent to any who thought they could cheat the slaver master, Genge.
Still, if Ma Lesko was anyone’s mother, she was his. She had found him as a baby, after all. And, for reasons known only to herself, instead of leaving him to die by the side of the road, she’d kept him and signed on as a guard with Genge’s caravan. It wasn’t a good life, but they had food and a tent over their heads. Ma had done her best. No matter that the slavers called him Char, saying his dark grey skin looked as if he’d been pulled out of a fire. No matter that they shunned and spat at him when his back was turned. No matter that it was only his relationship to Ma that protected him from a coward’s knife in the back. The slavers were yellow bastards at heart.
And that was why he was going to kill them.
Char eased the kali sticks into his palms. Ma had taught him that, when wielded right, they could break a neck in one strike. It was a quicker death than the slavers deserved and certainly too swift an end for their leader, Genge. But Char was no torturer. He’d settle for justice.
He moved through the camp, a shadow amongst shadows. The night came suddenly in the Beaches. If it caught you unaware on the dunes, you’d never see sunrise. There were worse things out here than slavers.
A voice moaned, loud in the quiet. Char jumped, silently cursing the slave. His fingers slipped on the sticks and he almost dropped them. Concentrate. He tightened his grip. One misstep and it would be his blood soaking the sand. He doubted even Ma could talk Genge down if the slave master discovered him out of bed with drawn weapons in the heart of the camp.
He tried to keep his breathing even, tried to find the calm centre Ma was always talking about. As usual, he couldn’t sense it. He always felt so full of rage.
Char hissed through his teeth. Concentrate, you idiot. Too many thoughts. He was always thinking too many—
There was a sharp blow to his windpipe. Char choked and clapped a hand to his throat. His sticks tumbled to the sand as an arm encircled his neck and dragged him backwards. He hadn’t even time to reach for the knife in his boot. Struggling to breathe, Char kicked back, hoping to catch his attacker on the shin, but his foot met no resistance and the next moment, pain blazed across his knees. He crumpled.
‘Stupid,’ hissed a voice.
It took Char several seconds to recover his breath. ‘Ma?’
‘Shut up.’
He was dragged through the chilly night sand, back towards the safety of his tent, back towards the life he’d sworn to escape. Anger lent him strength. He felt that she hadn’t used the full lock on his arms. Only one stick held them twisted behind his back. With a growl of effort, Char broke her hold and spun to a standing position.
Her full-armed slap sent him staggering back. He raised a hand to ward off another blow, forgetting too late that he’d dropped his kali sticks. Instead, Ma only looked at him. Her face was a chiselled shadow under the stars. He glanced at a dark smear on one of the elbow-length gloves she always wore. Blood. Char touched his stinging cheek and rubbed the wetness between finger and thumb. Ma’s expression did not waver. In one smooth motion, she sheathed her sticks, seized his arm and hauled him bodily through the flap of his tent.
Char said nothing as she sat him down. He let her clean the cut on his face, ignoring the tincture’s sting. Ma worked in silence. Only when she’d capped the bottle and cleaned her cloths did she reach for the two sticks tucked safely behind her belt.
Char took his weapons back. His throat still hurt from Ma’s jab and he swallowed painfully.
‘When you have surprise on your side, always go for the throat,’ Ma said. ‘With the right speed and pressure, you can close an opponent’s windpipe for a few critical seconds.’
Char rubbed his throat and kept silent. For her, disarming him had been no harder than taking an infant’s toy. It rankled more than he wished to admit and he looked away.
Ma seized his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. ‘No,’ she said softly and he knew what she saw: his eyes burned, black pupils narrowed to slits like a cat’s. Char tried to breathe deeply, tried to force down the ever-present anger, but spiked with humiliation, it wouldn’t leave.
‘Boy,’ she said. She never called him Char. ‘Let it go.’
He shook her off. ‘Why should I?’ he snarled, as the untempered fury beat at his insides. Tonight it felt like vast, bound wings, straining to open. ‘Why did you stop me?’
Ma faced him calmly. ‘You know why.’
It was too much. Char felt walled in by years of unanswered questions, the same things asked over and over again. Where did Ma come from? Why did they live like this? What stopped them from leaving? Every way he turned, Ma was there with her inscrutable face and her refusal to answer. She was the only person he loved in this cursed world. He would never hurt her. But the rage boiled and writhed and lashed him, so that he almost cried out against the horror of what it could do if it ever got loose. ‘Ma,’ he breathed.
‘I know,’ she said in her husky voice, catching him in a rough hug. ‘I know you hate them. But we must stay. We stay because it’s safe.’
Char pulled away. ‘I wouldn’t call Genge safe.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, brown eyes opaque. ‘But he’s a different kind of dangerous.’
‘How?’
Ma wrapped muscled arms around her midriff, though the tent was well insulated against the cold desert night. She gazed at him a while before answering, as if searching for the right words. ‘Genge is a beast, but a beast we know how to handle. There are other beasts out there, ones I don’t understand, ones I am afraid of meeting.’
Char shook his head. ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’ His anger had begun to fade, a profound weariness taking its place. ‘Can’t you give me a simple answer for once?’
Ma dropped her arms. ‘There are no simple answers, Boy.’ Her dark face was hard. ‘I’ve told you. I can’t fight the beasts I don’t know.’
‘Then I will fight them,’ Char said impulsively. He knew nothing of Ma’s past, of the time before she rescued him. But it was obvious: she was hiding from something … or someone. He grabbed her gloved hands. ‘You needn’t be afraid, Ma. I’ll kill whatever beasts you fear and then you and I will be free to go where we want.’
‘No,’ she said, and he recoiled from the fierceness in her voice. ‘It is not your place.’
But Char had seen all that he needed to. Ma was hiding. And underneath her calm façade, she was terrified.
Char didn’t sleep much that night. When dawn picked out the stitches in the stretched hide of the tent, he knew what he had to do.
He had reason enough to kill Genge, but his goal was manifold: he would do it for Ma. When Genge was dead, she’d have nowhere to hide. Years of running had blown her fear out of all proportion. She had broken her own rule: never turn your back on your demons. Now, when Ma glanced over her shoulder, her demons had become giants. This was the reason why she insisted they stay with Genge – always on the move.
Skin tingling with his decision, Char threw back the tent flap … and got a face full of sand. The smoky black lenses he wore to cover his eyes blocked the worst of it. But the fine grains coated his lips and nostrils and stuck to the sweat on his face. Char retched and choked, guffaws ringing in his ears. Ren and Tunser. He spat his next mouthful at their boots.
Tunser let out a growl to match his girth. He was wide, unlike his brother, but with the same pale skin that blistered beneath the unforgiving sun of the Beaches. They hailed from the north, Char knew, up near the borders of Yrmfast, where they were still under bounty. Many of the men Genge hired were criminals in their own lands. But no matter what they’d done, the law wouldn’t pursue them into the Beaches, not when the Beaches were themselves considered a death sentence.
Char straightened. ‘Bastards.’
‘Thought you’d like a blast,’ Ren said, grinning. ‘Scrub some of that dirt off you.’
Char shook the last of the sand from his clothes. ‘Too stupid to think up anything new?’
Ren shrugged off the insult, but Tunser clenched his fists. Char laid a casual hand on the sticks behind his belt. ‘Come on, then, Tun,’ he said invitingly and rolled the night’s stiffness out of his shoulders. ‘Or you’ll be thinking about me all day.’
Ren’s grin disappeared. He grabbed his brother’s wrist, a warning.
Char smiled. ‘Just between you and me, Tunser,’ he said, ‘I think Ren’s worried I’ll hurt you.’
The big man shook off his brother and furiously lunged at Char.
He sidestepped the charge, spun the kali sticks into his hands and cracked one across Tunser’s shoulder blades. That move wouldn’t cause injury, but it would enrage him further. Predictably, Tunser bellowed and swung a meaty fist at Char’s head.
Char ducked it and punched the ends of both sticks into the man’s diaphragm. Winded, Tunser staggered back and knocked over his brother. They tumbled to the sand in a tangle of limbs, and Char threw back his head and laughed.
Like a snake, Ren twisted free of his brother and sprang up, pulling a knife from his belt. He had none of Tunser’s bulk, being spear-thin and half a head taller. Still, he was the more dangerous of the two, quick and vicious.
Darting forward, Char went for his wrist, using the first disarming form Ma had taught him. Ren parried and Char saw his error too late. The scuffle had carried him perilously close to one of the wagons. When Ren lunged back at him, he had nowhere to go. Char got one stick up to block, but the knife shivered along its length and sliced into his forearm.
Several things happened at once. Char gasped as Ren hooted in triumph. He watched as the wound on his arm opened, oozing blood. The pain came a moment later … and some restraint broke within him. Ren had only a moment to stare at the blood that ran in black rivulets down Char’s arm before a wind hit him, a wind with all the force of the desert behind it.
Ren flew ten feet to smash against the door of an empty cage. The wind, which had come from nowhere on a windless day, held him there, splayed and defenceless, and his knife dropped from nerveless fingers. Char could see the whites of Ren’s eyes, as the man stared at him, inaudible words forming on his lips.
Rage thundered in Char, boiling the black blood that welled from his slashed arm. The wind roared, filled his whole body with a whirl of air and sky.
Genge. And with his shout, the wind died. Char blinked. For the first time, he saw Tunser, contorted in a ball on the ground. Sand coated everything … everything except Char. He looked over his shoulder. The wind had come from the desert, but behind him, nothing was disturbed. Instead, a tumbled trail of debris spread in a rough cone from where he stood backed against the wagon.
Dazed, Char tugged off his headscarf to bind the wound. His grey hair, more the colour of true ash than the dark char he was named for, fell around his face. Hoping the slave master hadn’t seen the blood, he wrapped his injury and pulled the scarf tight, biting off a curse.
Genge kicked a length of rope out of his way. Stepping over a spare wheel, he came to stand in front of the three men. Char felt light-headed. He rifled through the last few minutes, trying to make sense of them.
‘What is this?’
The slave master filled his vision. Char stood, clutching his arm, and Genge’s face darkened at his silence. It was a placid face with wide-set, not unpleasant features. It was a face few suspected and many came afterwards to hate. Char thought bitterly, It is a face to hide behind.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ren uncurl from where the wind had dropped him in a heap on the sand. The brothers struggled to their feet, spitting out mouthfuls of desert sand. Char almost smiled.
‘I said,’ Genge breathed in a low voice, ‘what is this?’
‘He attacked Tun,’ Ren said before Char could answer.
‘It was self-defence.’
‘He attacked him.’ Ren spoke more loudly. ‘He’s wild, Genge. Like a dog. You ought to be rid of him.’
Genge’s pale eyes flicked to the scarf wrapped around Char’s arm and Char felt cold, standing there under the sweltering sun. Surely Ren had seen him bleed, had noticed the colour of his blood.
Then, cat-quick, Genge reached out and whipped the lenses off his eyes.
Panic shot through Char. But the slave master merely tossed the black lenses into the sand. ‘You’ll look at me when I talk to you.’
Char let go of his breath. ‘Yessir.’ If his pupils looked like a regular man’s, then the rage truly had left him. For now. He had no illusion that this was anything but a temporary calm.
‘I keep you on your Ma’s word,’ Genge said, grabbing a fistful of cloth at Char’s neck. ‘She says you’re good. And she doesn’t lie.’
How little you know her, Char thought.
With a glance at his bandaged arm, Genge shoved him away and turned to include the brothers. ‘I pay you to fight bandits and mysha.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Unless you want a night on the dunes, you’ll keep your peace.’
Char grimaced and saw his expression echoed on the faces of Ren and Tunser. A night on the dunes meant death; there was no way to hide from the packs of sand dogs, the mysha, that hunted there. Although if it came to a choice between them and facing Ma’s wrath if she found out he’d been fighting, he might opt for the mysha.
The caravan rolled on its slow course under the relentless sun. Char made sure to keep the slaves hydrated. Until they reached Na Sung Aro and were sold at auction, their well-being was his responsibility. A dead slave meant a serious loss of profit for the crew.
They had several able-bodied slaves that Iarl Rogan would probably buy for his Causcan mines. And if they were lucky, Iarl Alder would take their girls, seeing as how he only ever staffed his smithies with women. Char grinned. Good stock sometimes meant a bonus and he wanted a new scabbard to hold his kali sticks. Na Sung Aro wasn’t the best place to buy leather, but –
What am I thinking? Char snatched back the water skin from the slave girl he had passed it to, ignoring her pleading request for more. He jammed the stopper in savagely and hooked the skin onto his belt. I need a plan to get out of here, not a bloody scabbard. But it was difficult to think in this blinding sun, let alone to think logically.
The nameless girl slumped defeated against the bars of her cage, but her sister eyed him venomously, her blue eyes afire with hatred. She hawked and spat and her aim was unerringly true. Calmly, Char removed the black lenses he wore and wiped them clean. The girl should be grateful, he thought, as he turned away – at least she had shade and didn’t have to trudge through the burning sands.
Blotting the sweat from his face with the trailing end of a fresh headscarf, he returned to his assigned place in the vanguard. Genge’s caravan consisted of three covered slave wagons, pulled by a desert team of dune mules, a cart that carried whatever of the slaves’ possessions Genge considered worth selling, and another that held the tents, weapons, water barrels and rations they’d need to survive in the desert.
Genge had been one of the first to capitalize on the empire’s slackening grip on its territories. And its grip on the Beaches was the slackest of all. Stalked by the rabid mysha, baked by blistering sun during the day and frozen under clear skies at night, only the very brave or very stupid made a life here. The Beaches had seen off the last Sartyan patrol around three years ago and it seemed that the Davaratch was disinclined to lose another. It wasn’t any surprise, then, that illicit trades had sprung up in and around the desert. Na Sung Aro had once been a ragtag straggle of huts sliding into the sand; now it was known as the Black Bazaar – a place that sold anything and anyone.
Char let his lip curl. Slavery was the cleanest trade out here in the desert, considering what else went on. He had no patience with those who dabbled in narcotics like ithum or the rare and dangerous lotys stems, worth ten times their weight in ken. But drugs were the lifeblood of Na Sung Aro and ensured that the Black Bazaar remained a haven for the empire’s many enemies.
‘Hey!’
The shout came from behind him. One of the slaves had managed to drag half the canvas covering off his cage in the front of the wagon and was standing as upright as the bars allowed. He was newly acquired from a ship unlucky enough to be wrecked on the barren coast of the Beaches. Most shipwrecked died within days, either from injuries sustained in the wreck or at the jaws of a pack of mysha, but this man had suffered only bruises. Genge had considerately ‘rescued’ him and now intended to sell him in Na Sung Aro. Char didn’t think he’d get much.
‘Do you know who I am?’
Char sighed wearily. ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ he muttered.
‘My name is Iarl Blattley – of Calmarac!’ the captive added, as if on sudden inspiration. ‘My estate supplies wine to the Davaratch himself.’
Char glanced over his shoulder. The man’s face was ruddy in the heat and his salt-stained tunic had shrunk to reveal a fat strip of belly beneath. ‘Vintner to the Davaratch, eh?’ he said. ‘You must be good.’
‘Yes – yes,’ the portly man gasped, wiping his face on his sleeve. ‘The secret of the golden grape has been preserved in my family for generations. No other estate can produce so rich a flavour.’
‘A talent that brings in a tidy profit, no doubt.’
‘Tidy, yes,’ the man said eagerly. ‘I knew you’d understand – you’ve a sharp look about you. I am a wealthy man, very wealthy indeed. And I could provide significant reparation were you to set me free.’
Char turned back to the desert to hide his smile. ‘Exactly how significant?’
There was a pause in which he could almost hear the fat man struggling with his greed.
‘I could stretch to, say, one hundred red ken.’
Char snorted. ‘A hundred? I could make twice that from selling your hide in Na Sung Aro.’
‘All right, two hundred,’ the man said, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice.
Char turned to look at him again and the man visibly recoiled. ‘Two hundred miserable red ken?’ he asked him softly. ‘You don’t place much value on freedom, vintner to the Davaratch.’
‘Three hundred, four hundred,’ the man spluttered, but Char shook his head.
‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you’ve never seen a bottle of Calmaracian wine in your life. Your tunic carries the signature of the Arkhann Weavers – fake, by the way – and your boots are made from green Stroc skin that only a local of the Hozen Swamps would be able to obtain. My guess is that you’re a minor lord with a few debts in his saddlebags who decided to try his hand at smuggling. A storm blew up on the Cargarac – and if you were a genuine smuggler, you’d have known that it’s currently storm season – wrecked your ship and destroyed your cargo of poteen, which is the only illegal substance that the people of the Hozen Swamps are any good at making.’
There was stunned silence from the man in the cage. Then – ‘My tunic’s a fake?’
‘And a poor one at that,’ Char answered. ‘You can tell by the lack of double loops around the kingfisher’s tail.’
‘I’ll kill Egger,’ came the man’s reply.
‘So you see, my friend,’ Char said, gazing out at the shimmering sands that hid Na Sung Aro, ‘your knowledge of hooch-brew is worth more to us than your stingy offering of ken. Which, for the record, I don’t believe exists.’
When he next looked round, the man had turned his back and small, smothered sobs shook his shoulders. ‘In the desert,’ Char informed him, ‘tears are a waste of water.’ He smiled without humour. ‘I suspect you’ll learn that the hard way.’
The walls of Na Sung Aro slowly shaped themselves out of the twilight and Char breathed a sigh of relief. He glanced at the surrounding desert, but nothing moved. Though mysha were shy around Na Sung Aro, their scavenger instinct was sometimes too powerful for them to ignore, particularly when the pack hadn’t eaten well. So the people of the Black Bazaar were guarded by seven-foot walls of smooth adobe brick, which completely encircled the town. They might keep the mysha out, but they also kept people in and sand dogs were far from the only danger here.
Beyond the low, round-roofed buildings, a wind was blowing up in the east. Char felt it in his bones. He’d always been sensitive to the airy force that whipped up the dune tops in a frenzy of dust. He knew the direction the wind would come from; he knew how strong it would blow, as if something inside both of them was the same. As a boy, he’d mentioned the feeling to Ma, and hadn’t forgotten the fleeting fear that had crossed her face. He’d kept quiet about it after that.
The wind tasted strange tonight. The familiar dry tang of the desert was there, but beneath it was something more, some-thing he’d never felt. This wind was rich, as if it blew from a land far greater than the desert. Char thought he discerned pine trees, hot rock, frothing rivers and mountains – those fabled spires of stone he’d heard tell of but had never seen.
The only land east of Na Sung Aro was Baior … and the hoarlands. The Beaches might be famous for swallowing Sartyan patrols, but a whole division had once disappeared in the hoarlands. With Rairam gone, they marked the end of the world. The last Starborn had vanished five centuries before, taking the lost continent with him and thereby ending the Sartyan Conquest. Some people believed Rairam to be destroyed, gone forever, but Char wasn’t so sure. Especially when the wind blew from the east.
‘Lesko,’ a voice snapped and Char realized he was standing as though frozen. He shook himself out of his daze and saw Genge. The slave master pulled a cloak over his leathers and shrugged up its hood to protect him from the whirling sands. ‘Help Hake set up,’ he said, ‘and keep a watch on the girls.’ His pale eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t want them spoiled before market.’
Char nodded and the slave master strode away towards the centre of town. He’d be back by midnight, his pockets bulging with ken – private viewings were reserved for top customers and accounted for nearly a quarter of the caravan’s profit. They’d have tonight to prepare the slaves before potential buyers began arriving at dawn.
Several caravans had already set up camp in the space reserved for them just inside Na Sung Aro’s walls. The make-shift paving didn’t stretch to this apron of land where the sand was packed solid by the hard feet of the slave trade. Char took the water around again, letting the slaves drink their fill. Long practice had taught him to close his ears to the pleas and rages of people crying out for freedom. Although the harsh reality of the caravan was the only world he knew, he couldn’t help wondering what his life might have been if his parents, whoever they were, had wanted him. It was a bitter poison that made him despise the caravan and his sordid existence all the more.
But Ma wouldn’t leave, and if he belonged anywhere, it was at her side.
Tunser drew a whetstone in slow strokes up and down his blade; an empty threat. Char knew the big man wouldn’t continue their quarrel. It was more than both their lives were worth if Genge returned and found them fighting. A quiet cough sounded behind him and Char turned to find Ma standing with bucket and sponge in hand.
‘Time to see to the girls,’ she said and then looked narrowly at his stained clothes. ‘You could do with a bath yourself.’
He sighed. ‘Do you ever think of a life outside the caravan, Ma?’
Her face darkened. ‘We have spoken about this.’
‘But there’s a whole world beyond the Beaches,’ Char pressed. The scent of the wind was still in his nostrils and it made him restless. ‘You weren’t born here. Don’t you ever feel like going home?’
Ma’s look was cold. ‘I have no home.’
‘So you keep saying.’ The restlessness was creeping into Char’s voice now, making it stronger. ‘But you came from somewhere outside the desert. You had a family, a people. You belonged. I’m an orphan, so this is the only life I’ve known, but—’
‘Enough,’ she said, throwing her pail to the ground. ‘I refuse to be judged by you – whom I rescued and raised instead of leaving to perish as I should have done.’
Char took a step closer, the strange wind at his back. It seemed to whisper in his ears, to blow shivering down his spine. ‘You owe me the truth, Ma.’
To his surprise, she retreated, suddenly uneasy. ‘I must see to the girls,’ she repeated and snatched up her dropped bucket. As Char stared at her back, the east wind slackened and the resolute force that had driven him to confront Ma vanished.
Char helped Hake unpack the wagons and begin work erecting the tents. Genge’s second was a sturdy man – not huge like Tunser, but equally muscled. Rumour had it he’d been born in Na Sung Aro itself, a true child of the Black Bazaar.
Char grunted with the effort of stretching the tight hide and tethering it to the metal pegs he’d hammered into the dirt. It was hot work, even in the cooling dusk, and sweat prickled his neck. When finally he rose to stow his tools, the unforgiving stars of the desert peppered the sky and lights bloomed in the town like fetid blossoms. The lamp-gas stank and the illumination it produced was yellowy-brown, a colour that suited the debauched streets of Na Sung Aro. Needing some space, Char flipped the gate guard a single white ken and stepped outside. The sounds of the town were muted here, the smooth sand untroubled by mysha prints. The dogs weren’t haunting Na Sung Aro tonight, but he’d do well to stay alert. Char strolled a little way away from the walls, turning his face south to the sea. The Cargarac murmured in its restless sleep and turned over with a sigh. Waves lapped at sands still hot from the day and Char stood watching them, breathing in the salt-scent.
It might have happened between blinks, or in the still point at the end of an exhaled breath, but where before there was only empty beach, suddenly there was a figure standing a few feet away from him.
Char hissed and leapt back, his hands going for his kali sticks, but he’d switched his weapons belt for the one that held his tools and hadn’t replaced it. Cursing, he took another step back, but the figure didn’t follow. It just stood there with its arms held loosely at its sides, face shrouded in bandages.
‘Who are you?’ Char asked finally, his voice a whisper.
To his astonishment, the figure placed bandaged palms together and bowed. ‘Kala,’ it said in a male voice, ‘we have searched long for you.’
‘For me?’ Char repeated, at a loss. More bandages wrapped the stranger’s torso, arms and legs, leaving bare only the soles of his unshod feet.
‘It is my honour to have found you,’ the man continued, and he bowed even lower. ‘It is my honour to serve the Kala.’
‘What did you call me?’
The man spoke to the sand. ‘My Kala, my master and teacher, guide and leader. The one who saw, sees and will see.’
‘I’ve never heard of the Kala,’ Char said, now thoroughly unnerved. The stranger must have mistaken him for someone else. ‘How did you come here – how did you avoid the mysha?’
‘All beasts are beneath notice, my Kala,’ the man said, straightening.
Char stared. ‘Few would agree with you.’
‘You no longer need worry over others.’ The bandaged stranger’s voice was flat. ‘You will come to us and we will be made rich.’
Something tightened in Char’s stomach. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘You belong with your people, who have searched through years and lands for the marks of your coming.’
The man was mad. Char swallowed and cursed himself yet again for shedding his weapons belt. Easing into a wider stance, he said, ‘I think you have me confused with someone else. I’m a slaver, not a leader. I don’t know who your people are.’
The man regarded him, his expression obscured in cloth. ‘You will remember, Kala. Once we reach Khronosta, you will remember your people.’
Khronosta. The scions of time. This must be one of the du-alakat, the feared assassins bent on taking out Sartya’s leaders one by one. Never seen, never heard, they left only corpses behind them. ‘Shit,’ Char said.
Before he could move, a figure loomed behind the man, darkening the stars: Ma. Her kali stick swept towards his neck, but the man dodged inhumanly fast and spun to face her, bringing a weapon into each hand.
Kali sticks.
Char’s eyes widened. In all his life, he’d only ever seen himself and Ma wield the sticks. Most mercenaries considered them a child’s weapons. Ma, of course, knew better, which was why she’d chosen to teach him. There were many ways to kill or disable a person and only a few of them required blades.
As Ma circled the stranger, her sticks gripped in gloved hands, Char saw his own shock mirrored in the man’s eyes.
‘Who are you?’ the Khronostian asked Ma, whose face was grim and implacable. She did not answer, but continued to circle.
‘How long have you—?’
His question ended in a gasp as Ma launched a flurry of strikes. Char stared – she was using her ironwood sticks and aiming to kill. The quick-footed stranger dodged and parried and Ma’s attacks grew fiercer. If they’d been aimed at him, Char would be dead, his throat staved in, his skull cracked. But the stranger was a formidable opponent. He parried all but a handful of Ma’s strikes and dodged the rest.
And then – Char blinked. For a moment, it seemed as if the man had vanished and reappeared just behind Ma. Somehow she sensed him there and turned to meet his attack, but she was a fraction too slow; one of the kali sticks slipped under her guard and smacked across her ribs.
Char made to rush forward, but she snarled at him, ‘Stay back, Boy.’
‘Why do you fight me?’ the stranger asked, half lowering his weapons. ‘You must be—’
Ma yelled and aimed a double blow at his kneecaps. The man dodged it, but only just. His face wrapping was loose and Char caught a glimpse of wrinkled cheek. It surprised him – the man’s voice was surely that of someone years younger.
‘You will not have him,’ Ma growled and struck a vicious blow at the stranger’s temple.
Under her onslaught, the man began to move impossibly fast – Char could not keep track of him. His heart was pounding and he found himself stumbling back. Was this the famed Khronostian power to manipulate time? If he hadn’t seen it for himself, he’d have joked that such a thing was impossible. Surely Ma couldn’t best the man, but it seemed that no matter which direction he attacked from, one of her sticks was always there to block him.
‘You – who are you?’ the stranger managed to gasp between strikes. Blood had soaked the bandages around his nose and his movements no longer flowed as they had at the start of the fight.
‘I am Ma Lesko,’ she said in a voice like death. The next moment, Char heard the sickening crunch of bone and saw blood pouring from the man’s ruined eye. Ma’s attack had come out of nowhere. The stranger staggered, equally shocked. With a gasp of disbelief, he fell to one knee and Ma was on him. Three blows split his skull, though she could have done it in one. The thirsty sand turned red.
Char stood, sickened and shaken, unable to meet her eyes. The whole episode had unfolded in less than five minutes. He looked at the corpse of the man who had bowed to him, his blood spilled out across the sands. He didn’t even know his name.
‘Help me.’ Ma seized the stranger’s bandaged legs and began to haul him away from the town. Char glanced back, but it seemed the fight had gone unnoticed. The gate was closed and the guard had disappeared. Ren and Tunser were probably dicing, as they always did before a night in the Black Bazaar.
Moving automatically, he grasped the corpse’s arms and helped manoeuvre it southwards. ‘We can’t go too far,’ he said. ‘What about the mysha?’
‘What about them?’ Ma said coldly. ‘I mean for them to eat tonight.’
Char shuddered despite himself. When Ma considered them far enough away from the caravan, they dropped the corpse and lightly scattered it with sand. The mysha would do the rest of the work. By morning, there’d be nothing left. In silence they retraced their steps until they reached the site of the skirmish. Ma kicked at it savagely until the bloody sand became part of the desert once more.
‘Who was that man?’ Char asked as they approached the gate. ‘He seemed to recognize you. And he used kali sticks.’
‘Many people use kali sticks.’
‘Then how have we never encountered anyone else using them in all the time we’ve travelled the Beaches?’
‘They are not popular here. The sticks take years to master and against mysha, a blade is preferable.’
‘He said he was from Khronosta.’
Ma’s shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t stop walking.
‘He wanted me to come with him,’ Char persisted. ‘He seemed to know me.’
Ma moved so fast, her hand was at his collar before he knew what was happening. She pressed her face close to his, her teeth bared. ‘He was du-alakat. If I hadn’t turned up when I did, you would be dead.’ She spat the last word and there was a terrible kind of rage in her eyes, only a shade away from fear.
‘An assassin?’ Char asked. ‘Why would the Khronostians want me dead?’
Ma turned away from him and continued walking. Perplexed, Char hurried after her. ‘Ma?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said and Char didn’t have to see her face to know she was lying.
‘Why won’t you tell me?’ he asked, anger finally tempering the shock of the last few minutes. ‘What are you hiding?’
Ma stopped just shy of the gate. ‘More will come,’ she said, ‘especially when the first does not return.’
‘Then we leave.’
Ma pressed her lips together, said nothing.
Char caught her arm. ‘You can’t think we should stay after this? You said they’ll send more.’
She was silent for a long time. They returned to the caravan, now lit only by the oily light of torches spaced around the perimeter. Thick canvas draped the slaves’ cages to keep out the desert night. There was no sign of Genge or the others.
Ma stopped when they reached her tent. She turned, hands resting on her weapons, staring into the darkness. ‘Very well,’ she said finally. ‘We’ll leave. Tomorrow night when the auction is done.’
Char stood stunned. After all these years, after all her refusals … Despite the threat of the du-alakat, he couldn’t hold back his grin. ‘You mean that? We’re really going to leave? Forever?’
‘Forever.’
The word dropped from Ma’s lips with a finality that made Char shiver. He shrugged it off. ‘We’ll need supplies.’
‘I will see to them. I can make back the ken at auction tomorrow.’
This really was happening. They were going to leave the caravan and the life he so detested. Char’s heart had never felt lighter. The threats of assassins, his run-in with Ren, the rage that lit an uncontrollable fire in his chest … none of it could trouble him right now. ‘Where will we go?’
‘North out of the Beaches,’ Ma said, keeping her voice low, ‘and then west. We’ll be safest in the Heartland.’
Char raised an eyebrow and held up his forearms. ‘Your plan is to walk into the middle of Sartyan territory with tattoos that scream “slaver”?’
Ma looked unconcerned. ‘They can be removed. The Heartland will be teeming with work for our kind.’ She gently touched his face. ‘We will disappear, Boy. No one will harm you, not as long as I breathe.’
A bit embarrassed at her vehemence, Char changed the subject. ‘The way you moved tonight. I’ve never seen you fight so well.’
Ma’s hand fell from his cheek. ‘Merely long practice.’
‘You were as fast as him. It was like he disappeared and then reappeared in another place. Can all Khronostians do that?’
‘Only the du-alakat train in the art.’ Her voice had turned peculiarly flat. ‘They can slow time. To one watching, it looks as if they’re moving unnaturally fast.’
‘What about the rest of Khronosta?’ Char pressed. ‘Why are they called the scions of time?’
‘They are the children of Khronos. He was their leader. He taught them to control time …’ Ma looked away. ‘But he died.’
‘Control time?’
‘Large groups can travel through time, but the power is limited. They must have an anchor – someone who was alive during that time. And they cannot interact with the world as it was.’ Ma frowned. ‘At least I hope they cannot.’
‘What’s the point of it, then?’
‘The ability has kept them out of Sartyan reach for years. They have a ritual which lets them move their temple and everyone in it to … somewhere else.’
Char regarded her narrowly. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I met a Khronostian once, long before you were born. Where do you think I learned the sticks?’
Another lie? Char wasn’t sure. He wondered whether Ma had seen the Khronostian bow to him. If she had, why did she believe he was an assassin? Assassins didn’t bow to their marks, they didn’t call them ‘Kala’ and talk about taking them back to Khronosta. Unless that had merely been a trick to separate Char from the caravan, to put him off his guard.
One thing, however, was perfectly clear: the Khronostian had not reckoned on Ma. And that mistake had cost him his life.