The Shadow’s Curse Read online

  ‘My studies,’ said Tarik. ‘I have been studying the history of relations between the North and the South.’

  ‘Qatir may have led you to believe that he knew all things, but there is much that the Council has kept hidden. Firstly, we have a secure passage to the south: a ship.’

  Raim stood up so abruptly he knocked over the bowl of food he had been given, sending it flying over the floor. ‘You mean – across the water?’ The only ships he had seen were the ragged collection of timber planks that made their shuddering way across Lake Oudo. They didn’t look like they were made to last for more than a day on a quiet lake – let alone a long journey across the fierce ocean. Not that Raim had ever seen the great salt water. He had never wanted to.

  ‘How have you managed to hide that?’ asked Tarik, picking his jaw up off the floor.

  ‘The ship anchors near the Temple of Bones.’

  A shiver ran down Raim’s spine. The Temple of Bones was a legendary Baril temple, somewhere across an enormous wasteland that most people believed to be abandoned. Raim had never been there on his nomadic travels. Nor had anyone he knew. There was no pasture there for animals, no game to hunt or plants to harvest. Only death. Nothing lived in the desert, but this wasn’t the same. The Sola desert had raw, natural power. The Baril burned the land around the Temple of Bones to ash so that no one would have reason to travel there. It kept it isolated from the rest of Darhan – just as the Council wanted.

  ‘We need to get you there quickly,’ said Aelina to Raim. ‘The ship will leave at the next full moon – only five nights away. The captain only has a short window in which he can make the journey safely, before the storms become too dangerous on the open ocean.’

  ‘And when you get to the South, what then?’ said Tarik, like a dog with a bone he was unwilling to drop.

  Aelina threw him an icy glare. ‘That is the second stage of our preparations. The Southern King has been raising an army to conquer the North, awaiting the arrival of the rightful heir of Darhan to lead his campaign. There are Council members in the South who have been preparing this for far longer than you have been alive, Baril novice! We have waited and waited for the rightful heir to appear, and now that he is here, we are ready to help Raim take back what is his.’

  ‘You are ready, but is Raim?’ said Tarik, his voice steady. He turned to Raim. ‘Do you even know the Southern King’s name?’

  Raim swallowed. ‘No.’

  ‘King Song,’ said Tarik, his voice quiet.

  ‘There is plenty of time for Raim to learn everything he will need to know on his journey,’ said Aelina.

  ‘What are we waiting for then?’ said Mhara, still in possession of her Yun impatience for action. ‘We will leave at first light.’

  ‘Tarik must come too,’ blurted out Raim. Tarik might not have been part of the Council, but he was still the smartest person Raim knew – and he wanted him there. ‘He knows about the South. He can be useful.’

  Aelina frowned, but after catching Mhara’s eye, she nodded. ‘We will gather the necessary supplies.’

  There was a flurry of movement around Raim, the women of the Council each dropping into a bow as they walked past him.

  ‘My Khan,’ they all said.

  It was enough to turn Raim’s stomach. He was no one’s khan.

  20

  WADI

  ‘My Khan,’ Altan stopped abruptly as he entered the chamber just moments after the messenger had been killed. His body was still splayed on the throne-room floor. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. We need to send men and spirits to the steppes between the Tyr River and the Amarapura mountains. One of the soldiers who accompanied the prisoner is injured there. The prisoner has escaped. We need to get him back.’

  Altan’s facial expression didn’t change. The man was hard as desert earth. ‘Was it the other?’

  Khareh nodded. ‘I want him captured, Altan. I need him where I can control him. How could we not find him yet? The messenger said that old men had accompanied him from a Cheren. Did we not search the Cherens?’

  ‘I’m not sure that we thought those communities were capable of doing anything.’

  ‘I bet it’s his grandfather – that old man was always crafty. And after . . . the incident . . . Loni just disappeared from the Moloti tribe. I bet it was to that Cheren.’

  ‘By incident do you mean the fact that you killed a little girl he considered his granddaughter?’ shot Wadi, remembering Raim’s pain from Lazar. The entire time, she had barely been able to tear her eyes from the messenger’s body. Her body shook with revulsion.

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’ Even Khareh had the decency to sound pained. ‘Just . . . injured her.’

  ‘Well, that makes it all better then. Just injuring someone. Now, I see you’re getting better at the killing part!’ she said.

  ‘Khareh-khan, you don’t have to listen to this!’ said Erdene, who had come in behind Altan. ‘I will silence her for you.’

  ‘No need.’ Khareh shrugged, took a moment to shake himself of his guilt, then turned with a confident look to Altan. ‘You have brought people here to see me?’

  ‘Yes, Your Highness.’ Altan snapped his fingers, and two men were brought forward, one clothed in battle gear, the other in a long white tunic. ‘These are the last two of Mermaden’s men – one of his generals, Imal-yun, and his chief engineer, Regar. The rest fled with him.’

  Imal-yun stared straight at Khareh, Wadi noticed, his gaze unwavering. By contrast, Regar’s eyes kept flickering from Khareh to the shadow behind him, but not with fear – as most people looked upon them – but in curiosity. ‘So it is true,’ the man muttered.

  ‘Why did you two not join Mermaden in his flight?’

  The engineer spoke first. ‘I was put in charge of the defence of the city in his absence.’

  ‘A brave post, I should imagine, and surely one he should have held himself?’

  Regar did not answer.

  ‘And you?’ Khareh turned to the Yun warrior, Imal.

  ‘This morning, you suffered a setback, did you not, Lord Khareh?’

  ‘It is Khareh-khan and what setback did I receive?’

  ‘Your horse was cut from under you by a well-placed arrow.’

  ‘It was,’ said Khareh, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

  ‘I shot that arrow.’ Imal dropped to his knees. ‘I will happily accept any punishment you see fit to give me, under the watchful eyes of the Undying Women.’

  ‘You are a good shot. Not good enough to take me down, of course. Surely a Yun should be able to take down a man on horseback – or has Mermaden allowed you to go soft on your skills?’

  ‘Reputation precedes you, Khareh-khan,’ said Imal. ‘I thought your shadow would catch the arrow, then from that arrow create a hundred more and send them flying back at me, guided by its spirit hand to enter my heart. I gambled that your horse might not have such protection.’

  Khareh threw his head back and laughed. ‘That’s a good one; I want that recorded in the account of my life. My spirits catching and duplicating arrows. There’s a tale that will inspire fear.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Altan. ‘What punishment do you wish for the Yun?’

  ‘Punishment? For what? He obeyed the command he was given; he did not betray his leader, nor more importantly did he abandon his city and his people. That is the kind of man I would like in my service. I always need more Yun.’ He turned to Imal. ‘Will you join my army?’

  Imal-yun was silent for a moment, then carefully looked over Khareh’s company – from Erdene to Altan, then finally to Wadi. ‘My last leader abandoned his post and is running scared like a dog with its tail between its legs. I will join you.’ He untied the length of string from around his waist. ‘I will even knot for you, if you will let me.’

  But Khareh held up a hand. ‘No. Your word is enough.’

  ‘My Khan?’ Imal could not hide the shock from his voice. Wadi was shocked too, but she saw tha
t Erdene and Altan were not. Erdene even looked vaguely embarrassed.

  ‘Only one person now holds a knot of loyalty to me. That is enough. Even my new Protector has not knotted – her words hold her. Isn’t that right, Erdene?’

  ‘Of course, my Khan,’ she said, her eyes not leaving the ground.

  ‘You see? So your word will be enough. You are Yun. Your loyalty will not come into question.’

  Imal continued kneeling, seemingly paralysed by the events. But Khareh gestured for him to stand by Altan. He recovered and got to his feet, while Khareh addressed the other man.

  ‘As for you, Regar, you are also proven to be loyal to your master, and as you can see that is a trait that I value highly. You must also be well known to these people if Mermaden sought to put them into your care while he fled. So, I require that your people feed and water my soldiers and their animals. I require that you allow half of your workforce to accompany me back to Kharein. I require that you give me half of Mermaden’s wealth, to continue to fund my campaign. If you do this, I will accept your city under my rule and I will be lenient with your people. If you do not accept, I will loot your treasures and set my men on your town and there will be no city left for you to rule over. Is that clear?’

  ‘As the waters of Lake Nebu, Khareh-khan.’

  ‘Good. Now, you both know Mermaden well. Where will he have gone?’

  ‘North-east, my Khan,’ said Imal. ‘He will try to find sanctuary with the Baril who are friendly to him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The monastery of Pennar.’

  ‘That settles it then. One night in this blasted palace, one night to get our men rested and fed, then we will hunt down that traitor.’ Khareh clicked his fingers, and the group followed him out of the room. As he reached the throne room’s great doors, Khareh stopped and gestured at the dead body of the messenger. ‘Oh, Regar – your first duty as warlord of the city. You might want to clean up that mess.’

  Wadi fought down the urge to slap him.

  21

  WADI

  They had travelled from sunrise to sunset on Mermaden’s tail. They moved at a hurried pace, dogged in their pursuit of the old ruler and his envoy. Khareh wanted to capture him before he reached the Baril temple. Even Khareh wanted to do his killing out in the open air – not in a holy place.

  That night, once again for reasons out of her control and comprehension, Wadi was summoned to Khareh’s yurt. Even though she had been with Khareh for some time now, every one of these private meetings scared her, as if one day they would turn violent – or, possibly worse in her eyes, intimate. But they never did. It was always the same: Khareh would welcome her like an old friend, and invite her to sit on the cushions in his yurt while he sat opposite.

  ‘I have sent the guards after Raimanan. They will find him and bring him here. Wouldn’t you like that, Wadi?’

  Wadi didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He was most likely planning to kill Raim in front of her.

  In the awkward silence that followed, Khareh stared at the stones around her neck. It made her want to touch the design, it was the habit that always calmed her, but she forced her hands to stay down in her lap.

  Normally Khareh’s tent was filled with heady scents of incense and sweet perfumes, but today it was earthy, damp – the way a yurt should smell. Wadi was glad, as the other perfumes gave her a headache. But it also set her on edge. Anything that was different always made her nervous.

  ‘These are strange times, you know that, Wadi?’ Khareh said, although still he didn’t look at her. ‘Sometimes I wish I had been born earlier – in the time of my grandfather, maybe – when things were simpler. A time when there were no sages but in legends. And I say that even as a sage myself.’

  ‘You probably wouldn’t have conquered so much so quickly,’ she said.

  ‘That is true. But I would have got there.’ Abruptly he turned his gaze away from the stones, and slumped onto more cushions. Now this was more like the Khareh Wadi was used to, and she let out a long breath of relief. ‘Did you know that there are rumours that a seer has emerged in the East? Not a seer like the fakers who have sat on the throne next to every khan for a generation. So called “Seer-Queens” like my uncle’s wife, or Erdene, who mysteriously “passed” the test despite the fact that I know that girl can see nothing past the end of her robe. A real seer. One who can see into the future and read the events that are going to take place. And how can I doubt that there might be a seer, when I am a sage? If one legend can come true, why not another? I should find her.’

  ‘If she really could see the future and saw you coming, I hope she would kill herself rather than let you find her.’

  Khareh chuckled. ‘I know you hate me, but I like talking to you, Wadi. It’s because my shadow likes you a lot. He tells me to listen to you, and I trust him.’

  ‘You should never have betrayed the person who made that shadow.’

  ‘I know.’ Khareh chewed his lip thoughtfully. ‘And maybe that’s why I like having you around, really. You remind me of that. Not only with your words! But just your presence. You remind me of where I have come from. Even more than this scar.’ He gestured to his palm. ‘This, I can cover up. But I can’t cover up you, no matter how hard I try.’

  ‘You hurt a little girl to get that scar.’ She was so tired of listening to Khareh’s excuses, his explanations. There was still a fact that remained: he had gained his power at the suffering of an innocent child.

  ‘That is my biggest regret,’ Khareh said, and Wadi looked up sharply. Khareh’s voice was different from how she had heard it before. It was breaking, in a way that his normally confident voice never would. ‘Raim loved that little girl so much. She was special. She was a great weaver too – so talented for one so young. When Raim asked me to promise to protect her, I was so blind with rage at the thought that he had betrayed me only hours after making his Absolute Vow to me, I didn’t even think what it would mean. I just said: “done” and made the knot.

  ‘Then, after Raim had fled, I went straight back to Garus. He was pleased to see that I had taken a vow, and then he reminded me that all I needed to do was break it, and I could be a sage too. That’s when it hit me: what I’d agreed to do. I’d vowed to protect Dharma. That meant that in order to break the vow I’d have to let harm come to her.

  ‘But who would harm her? No one. Only me. I could have summoned Dharma to me – the Yun were searching for them, after all, in case Raim headed to them for help. But I knew that Loni wouldn’t have stayed near the city; he would have taken Dharma away as soon as Raim had been captured. He knew he couldn’t help Raim if he was locked up in a jail cell in the city.’

  ‘But you knew him well.’

  ‘Of course I did. Raim and I were practically brothers! Loni has scolded me almost as much as Altan, and I learned much about “normal” life from him. Just the ordinary stuff that even Altan can’t teach because he’s never lived it. But Loni was a man of the steppes, through and through. So I knew he would try to run.

  ‘Then Garus told me another hideous thing, which I believed at the time to be a lie but now I know it was true. The Seer-Queen was pregnant, and I was to be stripped of my heirdom whatever happened.

  ‘Needless to say, that made me angry again and I agreed to Garus’s plan. We sneaked out of the prison tent, his shadow following us and making me shudder, and stole two horses from where they were hitched at a nearby post. I sent Garus on ahead, then I found the nearest Yun and told him about Pennar – where I had sent Raim. That would at least keep them busy, and send them away in a different direction to me. Then I set off after Loni and Dharma.’

  ‘I wish to all the gods that you had never found them,’ spat Wadi.

  Khareh had the decency to look ashamed. ‘They couldn’t have escaped me. I was on a mission now – maybe the most important mission of my life. Garus and I rode North, where I knew Loni would be heading. If Raim’d had the choice to go anywhere on his own
, it would have been back to the Amarapura, where Tarik, his only other relative lived. So Loni was heading there too. It was obvious.

  ‘We pursued them for well over two nights and a day. On the third night, they obviously thought they were far enough from Kharein to have eluded capture. They even lit a fire – why would you do that if you weren’t confident you were safe? We hitched the horses nearby, and approached silently. Doubt still raged across my mind, this way and that, but every time I really doubted what I was about to do, I looked across to Garus and I knew that I was doomed unless I became a sage. Then I could fulfil my ultimate ambition: I could lead the Darhanian people to be the greatest tribe in the known world! I could bring them all the things I had seen in my time as prince that they didn’t even know they were missing – education! Culture! Architecture and sophisticated war machines!

  ‘Still, a voice inside me kept telling me how wrong it was. I wanted to listen to that part of me. This was Dharma I was thinking about! This was Raimanan that I was about to betray – my best friend in the entire world. Was that worth nothing to me?’

  ‘So you have a conscience then? I didn’t think that was possible for you.’

  ‘That’s . . . that’s just it. I don’t think I do any more. I lost it, that day that I disobeyed it. I went into the tent first, and the surprise on Loni’s face was incredible! He didn’t know whether to looked pleased or horrified to see me, but then he looked down at the blade in my hand and knew the correct emotion was terror.

  ‘He railed at me, and came at me, but I pushed him backwards and he tumbled to the floor. Dharma didn’t look scared, though. She put her hand on her grandfather’s arm and told him not to be afraid. Then she turned her face to look at me, her beautiful, round, innocent face and told me to do it.

  ‘I called Garus in and told him to take Loni away. He couldn’t do it on his own, but with the help of his shadow he managed to drag the weakened old man out of the tent. As he did so, Loni spat on my shoes. “You will pay for this,” he said to me. “But it’s for the greater good,” I told him, but without conviction. Still something raged at me inside. Don’t do it! it said. Think what you will become . . . think what you will have to live with! Raim will come back for you and you can build your empire together!