She Who Has No Name (The Legacy Trilogy) (45 page)

Sand and Stone

They dared not approach Kalid, for the town had a legion of Paatin encamped around it.  They learned from the odd villager and huntsman they met on the road that even greater numbers of desert-men had recently returned unsuccessfully from the mountains and had departed
again
immediately.  No one could say whether they had gone north or south or simply turned back to the east.  The locals had no wish to ask them and the Paatin had no wish to tell.

Samuel and his companions
made
their way
along the back roads and forest paths, heading east to towns that Balten knew well.  These lands had once been the Earldoms of Glass, gathered under King Rike
,
a rich and fertile land high on the steppes of central Amandia, peaceful and quiet for centuries—until the Empire had crossed the mountains.  Further east were the Eastern Reaches, which was a wide and barren land that led into the Paatin wastes proper.

It was surprisingly easy for them to make their way, for the Paatin had made no effort to set up roadblocks or checkpoints or other things that the Empire typically employed in times of war.  Any settlements not in the direct path of the Paatin were untouched and many of the people they met had no idea their land was now occupied.  As such, the party made good time and did not have nearly as much trouble as they feared. 

They spent a couple of weeks crossing those lands, hiding on sight of Paatin troops, avoiding the main centres of population, but the time was otherwise uneventful.  It was only when they reached Tosah on the very edge of the Earldoms that they saw the effect of the Paatin
—
for the town was gone
,
razed to the ground and demolished as if in effort to remove all hint of its existence.  It had been the main hub of travel for merchants who had come from the desert and those who lived in the region, but now there was nothing at all but an expanse of flattened rubble.  Rumour had it that the Imperial garrison had scoffed at the requests to surrender, and the Paatin host had shown them no mercy.

There was no sign of Lomar or where he could possibly be hiding and so after a half-day’s hiatus
,
they had no choice but to push on.  Balten led them onwards, into the Eastern Reaches, where the trees were sparse and the riverbeds were dry and cracked.  They only approached the odd
,
small settlement that he indicated would be friendly, for the people here were increasingly inhospitable.  Some were obviously of mixed blood while others had the same dark skin as the Paatin invaders.  It was still a long way to the Paatin capital, so Balten explained, but their influence extended even to these distant reaches of their territory. 

Finally, after Samuel had lost count of the days, they found themselves surrounded by lands of baked rock and blowing sands.  A few spiny shrubs existed and the occasional lizard scurried across their paths, but otherwise the earth was barren and devoid of life, open and featureless from horizon to horizon.  Balten led them across a tiny strip of a stream, with withered sticks jutting up from its pitiful banks.  One step and they were over it. 

Balten stopped and took note of the landscape.  ‘This is the start of the great wastes—the lands of the Paatin.  From here
,
there is little else but rock and endless deserts.’

‘How many deserts are there?’ Ambassador Canyon asked.

Balten was set to answer, but Sir Ferse took his turn to speak and he reeled off his description as if reading from a cartographer’s report.  ‘Countless deserts lie to the east, like seas of sand and stone.  They stretch into the unknown and beyond, for no one,
save
the desert people, has any desire to delve into such unforgiving places.  The varieties of desert are as endless as their number
:
all manner of barren plains, windswept crags, sandy dunes and salty wastes.  The most precious treasures of the deserts are the sparse wells and springs.  The locations of these secret places are guarded fiercely by the desert folk: nomadic and secretive people, wary of those outside their tribe.  Their skins have been made dark by lifetimes under the sun.  Their women are rarely seen, but it is said they are treated well and even act as matriarchs in some families.  The deserts are many and impenetrable, but their mysteries are even more so.’

Balten was impressed.  ‘You surprise me, Sir Ferse, and you seem to have some mysteries of your own.  I would not have guessed you knew so much of this land.  But
,
yes, you are correct in your summary
,
although it is quite a rudimentary account.  These lands are vast and dangerous.  One small mistake here will see a man wandering and lost, gasping for water upon the scorched earth until the scavengers come to pick at his bones.  I don’t know why anyone bothers to persist here.’

‘What do you know of this Desert Queen, then?’ Samuel asked of Balten.

‘Her people called her
Alahativa
, which means Wondrous One in the most common of Paatin tongues, for they have as many languages as they have tribes
,
each markedly different and distinct from one another.  Nobody knows her full history—only that she came from the desert one day and forged a city in the heart of the Paatin.  They say
of all the women upon the earth,
she is of unequalled beauty.  She is terrible and ruthless
,
and her people fear her as much as they love her.  She is more of a legend than a person, for I first heard tales of her when I was just a boy and she was already
renowned
by then.  I sometimes doubt that she may even be a single person, but is rather a legacy of queens.  There is much we don’t know, but I
dare say
we will find out more once we get there.’

‘Can she truly be a witch?’ Eric asked.

‘Again, tales of her powers are common in these parts—but we will be able to make that judgement soon enough.’

Balten led them to a tiny hut, hidden in the crevices of a set of low hills that hugged the side of the desert.  He left them waiting outside upon their horses and, while it was evident there were people inside, there was no sound of any conversation.  He emerged moments later with an armful of thin
,
brown cloaks.

‘Put these on, over your underclothes,’ he told them and threw the bundle to Eric.  ‘In the desert, you do things in the way of the desert, or you perish.’

They did as they were told, with the magicians discarding their own robes of black for the thinner, brown cloths.  Balten demonstrated how to wear them, for the clothes were of a simple cut and needed to be wound around the body and tied with laces and cords. 
Out of view,
Canyon assisted his god to wrap herself in the fabri  and
,
when she re-emerged, she had pulled the hood over her face as tightly as she could.

‘These are clothes of the hill-tribe people.  We should not meet any others of such caste here, but they can be quick
of
temper.  Our disguises will grant us some safety, but it will be even safer to give any others we meet a wide berth.’ 

He then lifted the heavy lid from a large
,
flat barrel beside the door
,
replenished the water bags in their packs and ensured their mounts had drunk their fill.  After that, they were quickly away.

They rode along the bleak landscape from landmark to landmark.  Sometimes, it seemed Balten had lost his way
,
but then he would find some tiny feature on the horizon that had them changing direction and setting off again.  Nights were spent in the open, and they gathered sticks from the dry scrub that scattered the land to make their fire, eating from their supplies. 

Every second or third day, they would spy another encampment or party of travelling desert-men.  Sometimes they would change their path to avoid the others entirely and sometimes Balten would speak with them and return with more supplies—the frequency of which seemed impossible to foretell.  They only did as they were told, and pulled their hoods up over their heads when he instructed, riding slow
ly
and
with
straight
backs
to avoid attention. 

Local food consist
ed
of a high volume of roots and bitter berries, but goat seemed to be the domestic animal of choice and they had that meat as often as they liked, for it was not in short supply.  Samuel suspected that some of the flesh they were given was actually horse, for many of the tiny settlements they met had a pen of small strong ponies beside it, with legs and hocks of the preserved meat stored in the shade.  He was not bothered after long, for they had little choice in what they ate, and he actually found the tender meat was to his liking
,
very similar to beef.

‘How do you know these lands so well?’ Eric asked of Balten, as they made for the shadows of a lone cluster of boulders.

‘I come here e
very
year or
so
,’ was the mysterious answer.

‘What business do you have in the desert?’ Sir Ferse asked.

‘The Circle has interest in all the affairs of the world.  I go where I am sent,’ was his reply.

It had been weeks since they had entered the wastes and everyone had begun to think the journey would have no end.  Each day they rose earlier and slept later.  Before noon
,
they would find whatever shade they could and rest for several hours.  In this way, the daytime heat became somewhat more tolerable. 

They were leading their horses down a crumbling, red-stoned hill when Samuel felt magic ahead.  At the same moment, Balten looked up with alarm and raised his hand for them to stop.  He peered down towards the flat land, where dark clots of men were massing like ants, climbing from hidden cracks and crevices.  Somewhere down there, magic was being readied.

‘What is it?’ Master Celios asked.

A spell crackled from far away and Samuel suddenly became aware of men on either side.  They came charging
at the small group
, leaping over the rocks and howling, holding their curved swords above their heads.

Horse was the first to react and he leapt from his horse and ran to meet the men, empty-handed.  His strides were like bounds and he covered the distance in a heartbeat, slamming his fists into the first of the men and sending them flying.  Others surged around him, but Horse was a blur of fists, ducking their blades and shattering their bones with lightning-fast strokes imbued by his innate magic. 

More desert-men were inbound from their right and Eric saw to those with a series of curt spells, thrown from his saddle.  In moments, the Paatin on either side had been dispatched, but many more were already scaling
the hill
towards them from below.

‘Leave the horses,’ Balten told them.  ‘We run.  Back for the top of the hill.  We can hold them if we have the high ground.’

He abandoned his mount, then tucked his long
,
desert-style cloak into his trousers for ease, and began back up the rocky hill as fast as he could.  The others did likewise and followed him, dropping from their saddles and scrambling to keep up.  Horse climbed faster than everyone.  He reached the crest first and stood eyeing the far side with concern.  When Samuel finally arrived, panting for breath beside the Koian warrior, it was evident they had been surrounded, for a throng of pale-cloaked Paatin were already halfway up the far side of the rise, some clambering on all fours to come straight up at them, others following the zigzagging path that had been worn into the hill.