Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (30 page)

‘Jhafi and Harkun are kin, of course,’ Harshal acknowledged. ‘But we’ve been sundered by the Rift for centuries – as you say, we’ve become a sedentary people. We grow crops and build permanent dwellings. We eat different foods, wear different clothes. But our languages remain similar, and so too our faiths. Our conflicts are resolvable without seeking accursed Rondian magi for aid.’

‘But the Rondians offer us lands in the upper realm, something you’ve never given us. If that means some brief cooperation with the Rondians, what of it? In a few years they will tire of Ja’afar’s heat and leave.’

Harshal wondered anxiously how much of this was real and how much was posturing, to wring some further concession. ‘Consider the Nesti counter-proposal,’ he said earnestly. ‘The Regency Council have allowed me to offer your tribal clan favourable trading terms on all goods. We know that some seasons your people struggle. We know that you’ve little or no metal-working, such that most of your armour is boiled leather and a sword is worth more than ten camels. Imagine a future trading with the Nesti for
all
you need. You could dominate the Harkun plain yourselves, and keep the other tribal clans at bay.’

‘Become clients of the Nesti, in other words.’

‘Partners,’ Harshal countered, ‘working together. Ghujad, you don’t even have
schools
. Imagine educating your children so that they can make better lives.’

‘Civilising us?’ iz’Kho scoffed.

Harshal took a deep breath. ‘All right, yes, let’s use that word:
civilising
. There are places on the Harkun plains where you could build, if you knew how. Places where you could create cities like we have. It is in our interest for your people to become more like us, and it’s in your interests too.’

‘Is it?’ iz’Kho rumbled. He gestured back to the great Katlakoz, looming over the plains. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to live in the shadow of that wall, my friend. You loom over us, like the gods of the ancients, judging and finding us wanting. “See the barbarous Harkun, illiterate and savage, wandering the desert like herds of wild kine. They can’t build or grow, they can’t write or count. Just primitives!”’ He reined in his camel and suddenly Harshal was acutely aware of the men behind him.

Iz’Kho jabbed a finger at him. ‘The thing about you
civilised
Jhafi is that you think we want to be like you. But that is not our dream!’

Harshal could sense the hands on the hilts behind him, and his mouth went dry. ‘So what is your dream, iz’Kho?’

‘To ride the highlands, free and proud as our fathers, and watch your cities burn.’ He looked beyond Harshal at someone behind him and faintly shook his head.

Harshal exhaled softly.

Ghujad met his gaze, his eyes hooded and unreadable. ‘I have a message for your queen and her counsellors.’

Harshal’s heart sank.
I’ve failed
. ‘What message shall I give?’

Ghujad’s face emptied of emotion. ‘A primitive one.’

Forensa, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia

Zulqeda (Noveleve) 929

17
^th
month of the Moontide

Cera stared at the grisly trophy, felt her gorge rise and turned away. ‘Sol et Lune, take it away,’ she burst out, feeling her limbs turning to jelly and stumbling to a seat.

‘A Rondian dropped it at the gates, then flew away.’ Comte Piero Inveglio was ashen-faced, and so was the soldier who’d brought this horrible thing to her.

‘Flew?’ she said dazedly, her eyes going back to the bloody mess. A canvas bag, soaked scarlet. A severed head, the eyes wide and staring, the expression slack, all that wit and intelligence and charm gone, lost for ever.

Oh Harshal, I should never have let you go there.

‘It was a mage,’ the soldier said. ‘A skiff-pilot.’

She strove for composure, looking away from what had once been her friend and trying to speak, though it took a couple of tries before she managed to thank the man and dismiss him. When Piero closed the door, she slumped over and wept.
Mater Lune, I sent him to die . . .

‘Take it away! Inter it respectfully. I can’t bear to look at it.’

Inveglio closed the bag over its contents, gave it to a servant and sent him away. It left a hideous smear of gore on the table and she started rubbing at it furiously with her sleeve, sobbing as she worsened the mess.

‘I’ve sent summons to the rest of the council,’ Inveglio said grimly.

‘We should never have sent him – you all warned me! They’re
savages
, they always have been— It’s my fault!’

‘We might have warned you, but we all agreed, Cera,’ Inveglio reminded her. ‘He knew the risks; he’d been among them before.’

It was little comfort. Harshal ali-Assam had been one of those people she’d felt privileged to call a friend. He’d courted her sister Solinde, and was perhaps the only man she’d ever thought wistfully about. For him to be taken away from her – and like this, so
horribly
– was crippling, and she wanted desperately to strike back somehow.

If Elena were here, I’d send her after this Ghujad iz’Kho.

There was no doubt who had killed Harshal, for he’d carved his name into his face. And
Rondians
had delivered it, the blood barely dry.

‘They’re cooperating: the Harkun and the Rondians,’ she noted.

‘So it would appear, Princessa.’ Inveglio looked as if he’d aged a decade.

One by one, her Regency Council arrived. She lifted the cowl of her bekira-shroud, which felt so appropriate on this day of death. Pita Rosco and Luigi Ginovisi looked sickened but unsurprised. The young Knight-Commander Seir Ionus Mardium looked mortified, as if he feared he might somehow be blamed. Justiano di Kestria had been a close friend of Harshal’s; he was furious, and so too Camlad a’Luki, a Jhafi kinsman of the ali-Assam family who held personal grievances against the Harkun. Scriptualist Nehlan and Drui Tavis were last to arrive, clearly shaken by the news.

First they prayed, both Amteh and Sollan, for Harshal’s soul, and speaking the ritual words helped to settle her, giving her the calmness she’d need to get through this meeting.

After the Rite of Family, she bared her face. ‘Dear, dear friends, I cannot begin to express my sorrow and anger at what has happened, and I know you feel the same,’ she started, her voice breaking despite herself.

They murmured agreement, some in sadness and some through gritted teeth.

‘Harshal is irreplaceable to this gathering. His wit, wisdom and courage will be sadly missed. This is a grievous blow, the worst we’ve suffered since Fishil Wadi, and it is hard to know how we’ll cope without him.’

‘We will endure for him,’ Justiano di Kestria vowed. ‘We’ll avenge him a hundredfold.’

All the men made noises of agreement, even the normally placid Pita Rosco. Cera, feeling the heat of their anger, reminded them of caution. ‘We’re all furious at this provocation, but we’re not so foolish as they think. The Rondians are marching towards us, and they’ve obviously made alliance with the Harkun. If we march out to meet them, we’ll be overwhelmed. We will await them here.’

The young ones didn’t like it, but the more experienced heads nodded. ‘Let them come to us,’ Luigi Ginovisi said grimly. ‘Home-cooked revenge tastes just as sweet.’

‘How many Harkun will the Rondians commit to the battlefield?’ Camlad a’Luki asked.

‘Enough to sweep us away,’ Piero replied. ‘The magi will think they can control them afterwards.’

‘Then Elena’s mission is doubly vital,’ Pita Rosco said. ‘Our fate hangs on her.’

South Javon, on the continent of Antiopia

Zulqeda (Noveleve) 929

17
^th
month of the Moontide

Elena nudged her horse through the tangled rocks while Kazim concentrated on using Animagery to dissuade a jackal pack that was tracking them. She could hear them as they yowled and whined a few hundred yards away. This cluster of broken hills south of Intemsa was some thirty miles from the Rift, a forbidding place scattered with sun-bleached bones; most of the birds above were vultures. It was three weeks since they’d left Forensa, unnoted riders leaving by the eastern gates, then looping southwest once out of sight. Evading patrols of Staria Canestos’ Estellans, they’d skirted Intemsa, picking up supplies in small villages as they sought a place far enough from Staria’s magi to risk a calling spell. Reaching an unprepared recipient, undetected by others, took great delicacy. This particular call required them both: Kazim for his knowledge of the subject, and Elena for her skill in masking. They succeeded in making contact eventually, and she was fairly sure they’d not been overheard.

Whether the other party would honour their request to come alone was quite another thing. She’d never met the man, and had only Kazim’s word that he could be trusted. But he was growing more worldly, her lover; she was learning to rely on his judgement.

The meeting place was a pool hidden within this maze of stone. It was muddied by all the animals that used it, but she purified it with Water-gnosis and refilled their bottles, then Kazim let the horses drink. Their mounts were Jhafi, feisty by nature but skittish from the pervasive stink of jackals in the air.

‘If this goes well, we might have to abandon the horses,’ she warned him.

‘How about selling them in that village three miles north?’ he replied, concerned for the creatures.

‘It’ll attract attention, my love. People don’t sell horses out here. But I can set a compulsion on them to head towards Forensa. It’s the best I can do.’

Kazim didn’t look happy, but there really was no other choice. So they sat and idly talked through the gossip they’d picked up in the villages: the Rondians were closing in on Forensa, and the Aranio family were barely helping, just locking themselves in Riban to protect their own. She could feel the urgency of their mission mounting. ‘My love, is your man going to agree to this? It’s asking so much.’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’

‘If he doesn’t agree, I’m going to have to . . .
make
him agree.’

His face became troubled. ‘I know.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s war,’ he said heavily.

Then she felt another presence and looked up. ‘He’s here.’

A triangular-sailed skiff appeared above, and circled until Kazim stepped into the open and waved. The pilot skilfully brought it to land beside the pool, then clambered out, eyeing Kazim and Elena warily. They kept their weapons in their scabbards and their hands raised, palms forward.

‘Sal’Ahm, Molmar,’ Kazim called. ‘Peace of the Prophet be upon you.’

‘And upon you,’ the Hadishah pilot responded gravely. His grizzled features were taut with worry; his hand kept straying to his scimitar hilt. ‘You’ve brought your woman.’ He eyed her with hostility. Not only was she Rondian and a mage, but she was also the reason that many of his fellow Hadishah were dead.

‘We’re here in peace,’ Elena called. ‘Kazim speaks well of you.’

‘He also speaks well of you,’ Molmar replied. ‘But he called Jamil and the others “brother”, then killed them: for you.’ His voice suspended judgement, for now.

‘He had justifiable cause to do so.’

Molmar looked from her to Kazim and relented a little. ‘What Gatoz sought to do to you was a crime, Lady. I wish only that it had not resulted in the loss of so many who did not share in that wrong.’

They stood aside
, Elena thought coolly, but she kept her silence.

‘We all do, brother,’ Kazim said, stepping forward. The two men examined each other, then tentatively embraced. Elena knew they’d made peace to some extent earlier in the year, but she needed much more from Molmar than that.

Kore . . . Ahm . . .
anyone
: please let him agree to this.

Molmar, part of the small Hadishah group still operating in Javon, had been at a refuge in the south when Kazim’s call came. He’d had to wait until he was sent out on patrol before he could slip away and meet with them. He’d promised not to tell his fellow assassins, and it appeared he hadn’t, at least so far.

‘Will you share water with us, brother?’ Kazim offered. ‘And listen to what we have to say?’

Molmar grunted his assent, still eyeing Elena warily, but he drank from his own waterskin, keeping his distance. The sun, dipping towards the horizon, cast his craggy features into sharp relief as he gestured for Kazim to speak.

‘Molmar, the Rondians are marching on Forensa. I’m sure you know this: two legions – ten thousand men – with a full complement of magi, loyal to Tomas Betillon and Gurvon Gyle. Our enemies have united.’

‘We Hadishah know this,’ Molmar conceded. ‘They have thirty magi . . . and the only magi the Nesti have are you and your woman. So why are you here?’

‘Because we still have two weeks in which to do something to even the odds.’

‘If you are here to ask for Hadishah support, the answer is no. The Brotherhood will never deal with you again, Kazim. You know this.’

‘I do,’ Kazim admitted. ‘That isn’t why we’re here.’ He took a deep breath, then asked, ‘Do you remember your mother, Molmar?’

The skiff-pilot froze at the unexpected question, then said slowly, ‘My earliest memories are of a Hadishah orphanage. The mothers were permitted to see us until the age of six, when we began our education. She was a Dhassan prostitute who’d gained the gnosis when she fell pregnant to a Rondian mage, a quarter-blood. My father was an eighth-blood Dhassan, but I never met him – he died in the Second Crusade. My mother is probably dead too. She would be sixty if she lived, but women die young in the breeding-houses.’ His voice was filled with revulsion.

‘Have you ever gone back?’

‘To that
damned
place . . . ?’ Molmar shook his head. ‘Why would I? There’s nothing for me there, and I have never bred a child who lived. My bloodline is not worth preserving, in the eyes of my superiors.’ He looked at Kazim carefully. ‘Why do you ask?’