Duty is a curious thing. It often leads us to act in a manner that is directly contradictory to our desire. And only a man without conscience is also without duty. The soldier has a duty to his commander. The citizen has a duty to his lord. The priest has a duty to his god. But duty is reciprocal. It is the duty of gods to watch over their believers. It is the duty of a commander to support his soldiers. And it is the duty of a lord to protect and serve his people. Thus it is that a man can do the unthinkable when there is no other way for him to discharge his duty.
I pray that I choose correctly. There is no small future riding on my decision.
The sound of horns in the middle distance drew worried looks from the gathered, suddenly shocked people. Aram glanced sharply at the leader of his guards, and the man – one constant of Initpur since the days of Aram’s father – nodded and gestured for the soldiers to follow him. Fifteen hardened, ageing soldiers in laminated lacquered wood-and-chain armour scurried off through the dust.
The village of Nalla was the westernmost settlement in Aram’s kingdom and the last to be mobilised as part of the scheme. Many weeks after its creation, Aram’s plan was still a fragile and mutable thing, for it relied upon numerous factors outside his control. When word had come that a giant force of the Jade Empire’s military had moved into the neighbouring kingdom, Aram had put his plan into action and assumed all would follow his design. He had been wrong.
All goods and population had already been catalogued, the people informed and routes laid out in discussion with each village’s headman. As soon as the word of impending invasion went out, the people began to move and gather, travelling west all the time, across Initpur, away from the Jade Empire. What Aram had not counted on, though, was the tremendous slowness and disorganisation of his people. He found it baffling. They knew what was coming, knew what had happened to the kingdoms east of here. If it had been Aram in one of these villages, he could have gathered what mattered to him, slung them on a donkey and left the village in the time it took to draw a dozen breaths. Yet some of these villages had taken half a day to empty, such was the tardiness and fussiness of their occupants.
Aram had left the palace, sending on four of his precious few remaining men with his own baggage to the meeting place, while he took the other fifteen to round up any stragglers. The first few villages had been clear, though his men had found a few of the precious resources the villagers had been instructed to bring still in situ, and had been forced to act as porters as well as soldiers, drawing the important supplies with them. Slowly, throughout the day, Aram and his men had moved through the villages of Initpur methodically, gathering what was supposed to have left with the population, urging the occasional reluctant ageing villager out of their house and seating them on the pack horses to carry them to safety.
It had not worked as smoothly as Aram had anticipated, but finally, as the sun began to descend towards the Kalagund Hills that marked the heart of the next kingdom in the west, Aram and his men had cleared all but Nalla, which marked the last stage of the plan. When the Jade Empire rolled over Initpur there would be no rajah to kill, no people to enslave or control, and no goods to take. The kingdom would be empty.
But Nalla had been no better than any of the others. In fact, Nalla had been altogether lazy and slow in its preparations. As the golden orb touched the treetops and the seething, crackling summer air still steamed the parched ground, Aram and his men had entered the village to find a wedding feast in progress. A wedding feast, for the love of the seven sacred gods of the mountains!
The forces of the Jade Empire were rolling across the northern lands of the Inda, crushing, controlling and enslaving, yet the people of Nalla were dancing and throwing flowers. It had almost been enough to make Aram weep. He and the soldiers had interrupted the wedding feast mid-dance, striding into the dusty square. The soldiers had silenced the three musicians, and the dancers had spun to a halt in baffled dismay. The bride in her bright and colourful traditional dress had risen from the table in confusion, shock and anger on her new husband’s face.
The father – apparently Nalla’s headman, which only served to make the whole farce more stupid still – had demanded of his rajah why such a joyous and sacred occasion should be halted like this. Aram had rounded angrily on the man and reminded him of the plans set in place so many days ago. The forces of the Jade Empire were close, and Nalla had been instructed to move out like every other village.
The husband had scoffed then, noting that they were far in the west of Initpur and that it would take long enough for the enemy to move across the kingdom that the feast would easily be finished and the village evacuated before the Jade Empire came.
Aram had opened his mouth to give an angry retort, but that had been when they first heard the horn. He had thrown a pointed look at the father, who paled in an instant.
‘Isha. Bilau. Gather everything that matters and do it now,’ the old man had said, sharply.
Aram had shaken his head as the horn blew again and received an answer from another somewhere in the hills. ‘There is no time now. That is why the call came to you when it did. You are out of time. You have to move. Now. All of you. Go to the meeting place. Run or ride, but move.’
There had been baffled looks of consternation, and now the horns blew again. The people were more than worried now. Panic was beginning to set in.
‘Go.’
Another blast. Aram glanced sharply at the leader of his guards, and the man nodded and gestured for the soldiers to follow him. The square exploded into activity as the fifteen soldiers drew their swords and hefted their spears, hurrying to the eastern edge of the small community. Men and women were running now, shouting for their children. Musical instruments lay discarded on the ground and the bride’s dress tore as someone trod on the colourful, delicate hem in the commotion. She did not notice.
Aram looked around at the chaos and cleared his throat.
‘Calm down!’ he bellowed, and the whole exodus stopped suddenly, like a child caught doing something he shouldn’t. ‘Panic kills people as readily as combat. Gather your loved ones. Leave everything else. Run or get your beast, but do it sensibly, aware of the others around you. Get to the meeting point and wait there.’
Idiocy. This should have happened hours ago.
Leaving the villagers, who were now at least moving with purpose, Aram drew his own blade and followed his soldiers. The horn honked again, this time worryingly close. The old man peered at the sword in his hand. It had been his father’s and his grandfather’s before him. Unlike the precious blade that had been taken by the foragers all those years ago, this was worth little and had thus been ignored by the interlopers. It was not precious, delicate or artistic. It was a warrior’s blade, steel and brass, with a curve that displayed a few small notches that had been too deep to fully polish out. A blade that had seen war. His great-grandfather had used it in anger, defending Initpur against the territorial ambitions of a neighbour, but it had not been drawn from its scabbard in anger for three generations. Aram had never used it. He had never used any sword, or even struck a man in anger.
But there was a first time for everything. And his duty was to his people.
He found his own men at the same time he found the enemy.
The soldiers of Initpur – once a small army his great-grandfather had led in combat and now fifteen hungry old men just like Aram – were bracing themselves with their spears held out as men did when facing a tiger or suchlike on a jungle hunt. But this was no tiger.
There were only a dozen of them, for which Aram felt he should be grateful. The bulk of the Jade Empire’s army were still some distance away, moving through the deserted villages, but scouts had ridden on ahead. These men were lightly armed and armoured – ten with spears and belted swords, two with bows and daggers, all wearing light vests of leather that flexed well in the saddle. Aram felt a sudden panic flow through him. What should he do? Realistically he would not add a great deal to the force arrayed here and might perhaps be more use herding the people, but he had a duty, and how hard could it be? Leather grip goes in the hand, pointy end goes in the enemy.
He moved into one of the gaps between the men, where they filled a roadway between two old brittle fences at the edge of the village. His roving eyes caught the other men with swords and he took in their stance and the way they held their blade. Imitating them, he braced, his left foot forward and his right at an angle behind. He gripped the sword in both hands and drew it back, held out at an angle in the same way as his men.
‘None can escape,’ Aram said to his men. Several of them nodded. It was the right decision. If no scout reported back to the army, then there would be enough time for the people of Initpur to disappear into the woods and move into deeper jungle. It would not be worth the effort of the enemy general to follow a ragged band of natives into such terrain. But they had to buy time, and that meant killing the scouts.
He glanced over his shoulder at the vanishing figures of the last few villagers and then wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve before settling the sword back into position. It was hot for this early in the year. How did soldiers fight well in this heat?
The plan was good. The village of Nalla lay at the edge of the mountains. To the north and east of here lay the true valleys and heights. To the south lay a low range of hills, and then open farmland. But to the west… well, there were more hills and mountains, but in between there was a wide vale of woodland that became steadily more tropical as one travelled south. And within that vale lay the great River Nadu. Here, in the north, there were crossing points if you knew where to look, but it would save them from imperial pursuit, for it would be far too difficult for a full army to cross. Once on the far side of the river, they could travel south and seek refuge in the lands near the border of the western empire, where they might hope to be safe from the Jade Emperor’s men.
All that relied on them getting out of Initpur alive, of course.
The scouts charged. Aram concentrated not on his stance or the weaknesses of his enemy or his own strength, or any of those things he understood warriors considered at this point. He concentrated quite simply on staying where he was and not turning and fleeing, which was what his heart, his brain and his legs were all telling him to do.
The scouts advanced, urging their horses across the open ground at the edge of the village, and Aram realised at that moment that the enemy had fully expected the paltry collection of poorly armed old warriors here to break and run. To the credit of each man of Initpur, not one man turned away. Not even Aram.
In a moment that gave him heart, the first kill went to the commander of his guards. A scout tried to ride him down, but the man held tight to his spear and at the last moment brought the tip up slightly, slamming the butt back into the sandy soil. The horse hit the spear and the point punched through its chest. The startled scout made an attempt to stab down with his own lance, but the horse reared and fell. Aram just had time to watch the rider disappear beneath the massive bulk of the dying horse before his attention was drawn back by the man riding directly at him. He had no spear. How did you attack a horseman with a sword? Possibly he could sever a leg from the horse and bring the man down, but he didn’t like the thought of that, since the horse had never done him any harm, and he would almost certainly be crushed by the beast as it either ran or fell.
It was in that split second of confusion that Aram learned his first lesson of war. Reaction is sometimes more important than planning. The scout’s spear lanced out at Aram even as he dithered and panicked, unsure what to do. Without conscious decision, his sword came up and slashed this way and that in a very inexpert manner, attempting to keep the spear from his face. He had also automatically sidestepped in his confusion, so as not to be in direct line of trampling. Somehow, the flailing blade managed to cut through the ash shaft of the enemy spear.
The rider’s momentum carried him past Aram. The rajah looked around for the next enemy, but it seemed they were all engaged with his men. With a terrified leap of the heart, Aram realised that his erstwhile assailant was now behind him. The scout was already wheeling his horse for another charge. He had cast aside his broken spear – still a good six feet of shaft there – and was drawing his sword now. Aram took two steps towards the man and dropped, scooping up the discarded shaft.
What was he doing? The thing had no point, just some splintered shards at one end. It was not long enough to brace against the ground as his men had done. Panic filled him, and he started to back away as the horseman charged.
It was only as he stumbled into something that he realised he had been backing away at an angle and not straight. His spine was against one of the fences. The horseman was coming. Panic filled Aram now and he dropped, trying to climb between the rails of the fence. The horseman was still charging, picking up speed.
Aram felt death swooping down from the sky, ready to gather him up in its arms. He was stuck. Somehow the scabbard at his side had caught on two pieces of timber. He had one leg through the fence and was at a truly uncomfortable angle, jammed and unable to extricate himself. The horseman seemed set on killing him. He realised that the weight of horse and rider might just be enough to smash through the old fence and the man trapped in it both, crushing them all.
As death stooped ever lower from the clouds, opening its cloaked embrace, the grey horse of the scout closed in, the Jade warrior on its back snarling imprecations in his curious tongue.
The sword was useless.
Aram found that he had his hand on the butt of the broken spear, and in desperation he stopped struggling with the fence and gripped the length of ash with both hands, fighting the dreadful weight as he held the long pole at one end and pulled it back against the timber of the fence. The tip dropped and wavered, danced and circled. The horse was on him.
The splintered shaft missed the horse as it flicked and wobbled. The horse hit the fence hard. Somehow, and Aram could not have explained it other than as blind luck or the favour of the gods, the horse smashed through the fence and continued on into the field beyond. Aram was not only whole and unharmed, but the shattered rails of the fence where the horse had passed seemingly through – over? – him made it possible to free himself.
He staggered in confusion and realised oddly that he was unarmed. His roving eyes found his sword lying in the dust next to the fence, unbloodied still. Where had the broken spear shaft gone?
His eyes took in the horse, now racing in mad circles around the large paddock, the rider still on its back swaying with every turn, the shattered ash pole jutting from his chest.
Dead.
How had that happened? Aram was perplexed. Had that wavering point not missed? No. It had missed the horse, hadn’t it? His brain reassembled the flashing jagged memories of the past few moments, and he realised what had happened. The wavering point of the spear had frightened the horse enough that it had turned slightly, smashing through the open fence next to him, rather than riding him down. And somehow as the horse had passed, the roving point of the shaft had hit the rider. Even without a steel point, braced against the fence timbers, the shaft had punched through the leather vest and the man’s ribs, driving deep.
Aram looked up. Death had gone on to hunt new prey.
He was alive. He had won.
He let out a wild, crazed laugh.
Death turned back to look at him for a moment as an arrow whispered through the air close to his ear and thudded into the broken fence. Aram’s head snapped around, but he was in no further danger from that source as two of his men were now busy pulling the archer from his horse and stabbing him repeatedly.
His gaze took in the scene. Could it really be over already? He’d always thought battles lasted much longer than that. They did in books and songs and paintings. Seven of his men remained standing, including their commander, though he was cradling an arm and blood was pouring from it. The enemy were down. Had he gifts to give, he would have made these men wealthy for what they had just done. But he was poor, and few men were willing to work for the tiny sums he could pay.
Something occurred to him, and he spun round, examining the fallen. Eight of his men lay dead, but that was a small figure given what they had achieved. That was not what nagged at him, though. Eleven. There were the bodies of eleven of the scouts and nine horses. The absence of horses was no worry. Horses would undoubtedly flee as soon as their riders were dead. But one of the enemy was missing.
‘One got away,’ Aram said in a worried whisper.
The leader of his guards nodded. ‘He was wounded. He may well die.’
‘Or he may find his army and tell them about us. We have to go, and we have to move fast.’
He waited impatiently, dancing from foot to foot as one of the guards bound a strip of linen around the officer’s arm to staunch the blood flow. Then, gathering up what weapons they felt might be useful, they each sought one of the enemy horses, caught hold of the reins and climbed into the saddle. Mounted, they gathered together and raced through the village and out into the woodland trail beyond.
It was a terrifying ride. The meeting place was only a mile from the village, a huge clearing – more of a moor, really – where once upon a time trade fairs had been held, when the land was still rich in resources. Even as they raced along the track through the woods, continually ducking to avoid being swept from the saddle by stray branches, Aram could hear a frenzy of horn-blowing carried from some distance on the gentle breeze. Was that the sound of the Jade Empire advancing, or did it signal that a wounded scout had returned to his column with news of a group of defiant fugitives? Either way it was an ill portent.
Aram and his men burst out into the clearing and his heart leapt into his throat at what he saw there.
In his grandfather’s time he had witnessed the fairs held on this sward. Many thousands of people would gather here along with tents, trade stalls and pens of animals for sale. There were just over three and a half thousand people in all of Initpur these days, and that number should fit neatly in less than a third of this space.
Why, then, was the clearing almost full?
A path opened up through the crowd as they emerged, and the riders slowed as they moved through the mass of bodies and pack animals. At the centre was the gathering of supplies that had been pulled together from the various villages and the palace. And standing in front of them were two dozen armed men in two different but unfamiliar uniforms. Aram rode towards them and reined in.
The men bowed.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Mani, and this is Bajaan,’ one of the soldiers replied, indicating another, dressed differently. ‘We are of the men of the rajahs of Kahali and Magur, seeking new lands to settle.’
Aram frowned. The two kingdoms they had named were far to the west.
‘You are travelling in the wrong direction, then,’ Aram said. ‘I am the rajah of this land, and the forces of the Jade Empire are mere miles from here.’
The soldier’s face turned grave.
‘Then we are to be crushed between hammer and anvil. The army of the emperor Bassianus has crossed the western river and moved into our lands. They have not made war upon us yet as such, but their mere passage strips the land of all food and goods, and our rajahs hand it all over in the name of peace. But we all know this Bassianus by reputation from tales from his own people. He is not a man of his word and his embassies cannot be trusted. Their generals smile now and hold out a hand in greeting, but there is death behind their smile and a dagger behind their back.’
Aram shook his head in dismay. He had been counting on being able to move into land close enough to the western empire to hold off the Jade Emperor’s armies. But it seemed his grandfather’s predictions were coming true. The two great powers were marching on each other and the Inda lay in between.
He mused for long, silent moments.
‘It is forbidden,’ he said.
‘Majesty?’ prompted one of the foreign soldiers.
‘Mmmm?’ Aram looked up. ‘Oh. Thinking. We were moving west. East is not possible. And to the north are the mountain bandits and then the lords of the horse clans. There is only south.’
‘But the empire will be moving all across the western lands, even stretching to the south,’ the soldier called Mani said.
‘None of them will go far enough south, because it is forbidden.’
The soldiers’ faces paled. ‘The land of ghosts?’
Aram nodded. ‘It is forbidden. And sacred. And haunted. And because of that it is the one place none of our enemies will go.’
‘With good reason, Majesty,’ Bajaan replied. ‘Men go mad and die there.’
‘But there are monks just beyond the border. If they can survive there, so can we.’
There was no answer to that, though each man and woman within earshot would now be looking inward, wondering if their own soul was pure enough, their heart pious enough, to protect them as it did the monks.
‘Our enemies have left us with no choice,’ Aram said loudly, turning to his own people. ‘One way lies the Jade Empire on its merciless war of annexation, another the western empire, with its efficient killers and mad ruler. To the north are the bandits and the horse clans who would kill us all and use our flesh for saddles. Only the spirit lands of the south remain. If the monks can survive beyond the sacred markers, then so can we. We shall cross the Nadu River and travel south along its western side until we enter the lands of the south. It is a very long journey, through dangerous lands, but we shall prevail.’
There was an air of nervous uncertainty among his people. He straightened. ‘If the gathered people of Kahali and Magur wish to travel with us, then they are welcome. All the Inda need to be safe now. There is no call for rajahs in this new world, just survivors. I was a rajah, but I will be a survivor, and I pledge to make you all survivors too if you will come with me.’
It was a good speech, he thought. Good enough to rouse the spirits of most men. But there was still uncertainty here. In centuries the only men who had crossed into the ghost lands of the south were the monks who maintained the shrines and the occasional criminal on the run who was never heard from again.
‘The south is frightening,’ he said. ‘I know. It is the unknown. But the unknown is preferable sometimes to the known. And we know what is coming through the woods right now. Listen.’
He stopped and there was an eerie silence.
There, distant, but clearly audible, were the war horns of the Jade Empire. A murmur of worry filtered through the crowd.
‘If you stay here you will hear those horns becoming swiftly louder. And then you will start to hear the drums of their infantry. And then the rumble of their cavalry. And then it will be too late and you will be bowing to the Jade Emperor, at sword point if necessary.’
He turned to his own guards. ‘Get the wagons moving. We make for the river at speed.’
And with that, he turned his horse to the west and started to walk it towards the great Nadu River. The very thought of passing into those dead lands in the south chilled him to the bone, but it was the only choice left, and his duty was to brave the dangers and lead these people to safety.
Safety… in the land of ghosts.