The Oathbreaker's Shadow Page 3

  As they darted in amongst the rough, dusty streets of the village, tribespeople and villagers alike stopped in their tracks to wonder just where the prince could be running off to this time.

  They arrived at the royal caravan. It was stationed outside the village – there was nowhere for it to fit within the restrictive confines of the tiny settlement. Besides, even though the caravan was portable, it was infinitely more comfortable than any of the ramshackle village houses. Sometimes Raim forgot just how opulent it must appear to those unused to seeing it. It was built up off the ground on a platform of wooden planks. It had eight wheels so it could be transported easily and pulled from village to village by four oxen. The exterior was wrapped in the pelts of snow leopards and tied together by ropes that had been dipped in gold. But the most dazzling adornments were the seven rugs that represented the pledges of fealty from seven warlords of Darhan to Batar-Khan. Mhara reminded him constantly that this was the highest number of oaths any single Khan had managed to unite under his reign.

  Highly skilled clans of weavers created the carpets – and the competition for a commission from the Khan was fierce. Weavers held a prestigious position in Darhan society and men and women with nimble fingers and an eye for colour would be quick to try and join oneI’m so sorryt >

  The carpets then represented the source of the Khan’s power: absolute loyalty.

  Raim crept into the royal yurt behind Khareh. They had been friends for so long that no one took any notice of the fact that he was there. They zigzagged round members of the royal entourage lounging on pillows on the ground until they reached where Altan was standing.

  Raim felt a sudden rush of cold, like an icy winter draught blowing under the felt of an unsealed yurt. It wrapped around him and made him shiver, a deep-seated shake that started in his neck and travelled all the way down his spine. But it was the height of summer, and he wasn’t shivering from cold; he was shuddering in disgust.

  Amidst the rich golden ornaments, the lush silks and the sweet-smelling incense, Raim’s stomach was turning, boiling over with a nausea that caused sweat to drip down his spine and the bile in his stomach to rise.

  He wasn’t alone. All around him, people were looking pale and physically shying away from the far corner of the room. Not Khareh, though. If he was feeling any discomfort he wasn’t going to be the one to show it. Raim tried to emulate his friend’s iron-hard will, and attempted to compose his features.

  There could only be one source: a shadow. And that shadow belonged to a frail, cowering old man in a tatty tunic that must have been white at some point, although now it was stained red with dust. He had a very long beard that was tied in a bizarre bow under his chin. The thick beard could not totally conceal the dark slash of a scar running from underneath his nose, across his lips to his jawline. It wasn’t bright red, like the scar from a fresh betrayal, but paler, almost flesh tone. And behind him was the swirl of a grey shadow – not black and threatening as shadows normally were, but thick, bulbous and swirling grey as a storm cloud. Out of the corner of his eye, Raim saw Mhara take a protective stance, her hand moving to her Yun sword. Raim was confused. Were this man and his shadow dangerous? He wasn’t behaving like any oathbreaker he had seen before.

  Altan stepped forward from his position behind the Khan’s seat and addressed the trembling man. ‘Prisoner of Darhan. You requested an audience with the Khan and by some miracle you have been granted it. If it results that you have wasted His Royal Elegance’s time, you will suffer punishment beyond the torments of your most horrific nightmare.’

  The man didn’t respond, at least not out loud. He continued to stare at the ground, not willing to make eye contact with anyone in the room, but he noticeably straightened a little, rolled back his shoulders and took a deep breath.

  The cloud-shadow was in front of the man now, hovering over one of the Khan’s intricately woven prayer rugs. Raim couldn’t understand it. If it had been any normal shadow, they all would have been instantly repulsed. Instead, it had managed to approach the crowd while their attention was focused on Altan.

  Khareh let out a sharp cry of astonishment and the eyes of the entire room snapped back to the old man. A collective gasp escaped the audience as the corners of the prayer rug in front of him began to lift in unison, each muddy yellow fibre along the fringe quivering, though there was no breeze inside the yurt. Raim and Khareh jostled for to speakblgrose f position but Khareh pushed in front. Raim craned his neck over his friend’s shoulder, trying to get a better look. The old man was staring intently at the rug and stretched his hands out over it, the palms facing downwards. His beard trembled as he chanted an incantation.

  The rest of the richly woven carpet rose up slowly until it tickled the underside of the man’s nose. Then his eyes opened, and the rug flew over the heads of the guests. It did a circle, a loop and a turn in front of the Khan before landing gracefully in front of the man. With a flick of his hand, the rug rolled up into a tight cylinder. He picked it up and brought it over to the feet of Batar-Khan. He bowed low, but after a moment he lifted his hooded eyes to meet the Khan’s. Raim was shocked by his brazenness.

  What followed was a wall of silence. Sages were people of legend – at least, that was what Raim had been taught and he’d never had reason to doubt it. The old stories, passed down by the elders, told of a time when the strongest Khans were the ones with a sage at their right hand, performing magic that gave them the edge on the battlefield. But that was long before even the oldest elder had been born, and for as long as any memory could reach every trace of sage magic had disappeared, lost for ever – or so it had seemed. But now, here was a real sage, one who could make carpets fly. Now that caught Raim’s attention, and Khareh’s too, by the hungry look on his face.

  But Batar-Khan didn’t look impressed. No; from Raim’s point of view he looked almost nervous, the tendons popping out of the back of his hands as he gripped the edge of his throne.

  ‘Arrest him.’ The Khan waved his guards over and they grabbed the man brusquely under the arms. ‘This man has a scar and he is haunted. He is clearly an oathbreaker. He was found heading away from Lazar, in clear violation of his exile.’ He spat after the name, before settling his gaze back on the cowering man. ‘His sentence now is death.’

  ‘No . . . please, no!’ The old sage struggled, but despite his magic, he was weak and frail and had no strength to rival that of the Khan’s guards.

  ‘Stop! What are you doing?’ Khareh sprung forward and grabbed one of the guards. He turned to Batar-Khan, still gripping a fist full of the guard’s tunic. ‘Uncle, don’t you understand what a gift this is? We could learn something from this sage.’

  ‘Khareh, step away.’

  ‘I will not. By arresting this man you are making a mistake.’

  ‘Are you daring to question my judgement?’ Batar-Khan stood up and pulled himself to his full height, well over six feet. His enormous bulk only added to the impression of power he made as he strode over to where Khareh stood; compared to the slender Khareh he seemed a giant. ‘You may be the prince but be careful with your words.’

  ‘I think you are a fool if you do this.’

  Batar-Khan responded by hitting Khareh hard over the face. ‘You would disrespect me so?’ he roared. ‘I told you to take him away!’ he said to the guards.

  Then he turned on the rest of the crowd. ‘Everything that has passed in this room today will remain secret. You will all knot for this. Now.’

  They could not refuse the Khan. Raim watched as every person in the room, every guard and adviser, and even Khareh, removed to speakblgrose f long pieces of thread from their belts and chanted in unison after Batar-Khan: ‘Our eyes today have seen nothing. Our lips will let pass no information of what has happened here. For this you have our solemn vow. This promise shall be fulfilled after three full circles of Naran.’ Then each rushed forward and knotted their vow to the Khan’s long cloak, joining the thousands of promises that already frin
ged his royal robe.

  Raim was shaking. Although he too had been a witness, he was too young to make a vow of any kind. He had not yet reached Honour Age and so could not make a true promise to anyone. He was scared enough, though, not to let any knowledge of what he had seen slip from the room. He sneaked a glance at Batar-Khan, and saw an emotion on the K"1.0" encoding

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  Shell-shocked and still gaping, Raim stumbled out of the royal yurt only to be accosted by his grandfather.

  ‘Raim,’ Loni hissed. ‘I told you to come straight back home after the ceremony. I’ve spent the past hour looking for you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just send an errand boy? You could’ve saved yourself the trouble,’ said Raim, desperate to have a moment to think over what he had just seen.

  ‘Because’ – Loni took a few more steps until they were well out of earshot of anyone else exiting the royal yurt – ‘Yasmin has returned. With the aksha herb. Now, we can brew memory tea.’

  The news stopped Raim in his tracks. They had been waiting for Yasmin the healer for over three months, so long had passed since her last visit.

  They hurried to where they had camped, a temporary settlement for the twelve families that made up the Moloti tribe and the other, smaller group of five Temu yurts that had brought Solongal. Raim was unsure whether the chills running up and down his spine were from the early evening air or from excitement over the sage’s visit . . . and now Yasmin’s. Raim was surprised at how quickly the air cooled near the mountains. His ignorance of the weather cycles made him uncomfortable. This area was not like the rest of the steppes, where his tribe spent most of the year. In the steppes he knew everything, from when the sun would rise to when the rains would fall. Every Darhanian knew. They grew up learning about the land and their environment. Here, in this unfamiliar and rarely visited mountain place, the rocks sapped the heat from the air as soon as the sun disappeared behind the lowest peak and Raim was not prepared for the sudden cold.

  Their yurt had been set up far apart from the rest of the village. It was a good thing too, Raim realized, as the stench that reached his nostrils sent his senses reeling. Drinking memory tea would not be a pleasant experience, he predicted. own path to follows IHe picked up his sword seco

  Loose pebbles clattered over his thin shoes, sent flying down from above. He looked up at the mountainside, a sheer rock face that served as shade from the heat. His eyes traced the line of smoke that led up from his own yurt to a jagged ledge almost halfway up the cliff. There, almost completely concealed by the rock, were six or seven people. They stood rigid like statues, backs pressed stiff against the cliff, and had veils of grey cloth over their faces, leaving only slits for eyes.

  Raim’s eyes widened. It was Yasmin’s clan of healers: the Otoshi. She really had come.

  Smoke unfurled from the base of the yurt as his grandfather held open the curtain door. Raim pivoted round when the thick, wool cloth cascaded shut behind him. His grandfather was staying outside, keeping watch so they wouldn’t be disturbed.

  The strange, sickly sweet scent made his own home feel uncomfortable, like he didn’t belong. It stung his eyes but through the smoke he made out the cross-legged silhouette of Yasmin. He picked up a cushion from the floor and moved it so he sat opposite the old, sun-ripened woman dressed in grey.

  Yasmin was Loni’s partner, and therefore Raim’s adoptive grandmother. But she was a renowned shaman and the greatest healer in Darhan. Her immense skill with herbs and poultices, combined with her vast stores of knowledge, made her invaluable to the tribe of healers. She was not allowed to retire and look after Darhan’s youth, like Loni had after he had grown too old to continue his job as a tracker in the army. But she had kept a closer eye on Raim than would normally be expected throughout the years, all because of the little indigo string bracelet Raim wore on his left wrist.

  He had come to them as a baby, the string tied around his chubby wrist, and his grandfather had only noticed it when he’d first unwrapped him from the torn and dirty linen cloth he’d been bundled up in. It was traditional for elders to remove all traces of a baby’s ancestry, so that the child’s future did not have to be tied to their parents’ past. Loni had tried to cut the string off with shears, but it refused to slice.

  Loni had worried, then. He had worried so much he had tracked down his long-lost partner, Yasmin, to seek her advice. Even when Raim had only been a young child, he had noticed the whispered conversations and darkened looks exchanged between them where his little bracelet was concerned.

  His life apart from that remained unchanged. He still trained to join his chosen clan – the Yun – and prepared for his Honour Age. But the bracelet was like a shadow over his achievements. Yasmin visited them at least three times a year, from wherever the Otoshi were in Darhan, no matter how far they had to travel. And always with the same purpose: to try to remove the knotted bracelet.

  After Yasmin had left them the last time – after new meditation tricks designed to unlock his mind had failed – Raim had slipped his Yun training dagger beneath the string and tried to slice through it. It didn’t break, or even fray. But in a way he was glad. Someone had given this to him, and he wanted to keep it for just a little bit longer. To everyone else – the other tribe members, Mhara, Khareh – he claimed the bracelet was a good luck charm from his sister Dharma that he would remove once he joined the Yun.

  There was a small fire between them and on top of it sat a squat, round black pot. Yasmin did not look at him as he sat, but continued to stir the contents, occasionally sifting in more of a powd } div.shading-50-whiteor mark of permanenceCC fery green substance with her other hand. After a few moments, more thick white smoke appeared at the rim of the bowl. She blew it, hard, into his face.

  Immediately he reeled back into a vision: a memory. It was ten years ago, and he was just a young boy of five, still years from his Yun apprenticeship. He was sitting on a rock, in the middle of nowhere, with Yasmin and her clan of healers. The air was different from that in the heart of the steppes, and yet it was not mountain air either. It was air parched of water. They were at the edge of the Sola desert.

  The wind picked up Yasmin’s shawl, lifting it from her face, so much smoother and softer in memory. She grabbed Raim’s hand, held it firmly palm up, then curled his fingers shut. When he opened them again, there lay a bright white flower, its edges lined with silver.

  ‘Eat,’ she said.

  ‘Drink,’ she said. ‘Drink,’ more firmly, and Raim snapped back to the present as his fingers grasped the steaming-hot cup she was handing him. He looked nervously at the murky brown liquid.

  ‘This is strong stuff, huh?’ If just breathing the fumes could trigger such vivid memories, he wondered what would happen when he drank it. He wrinkled his nose as he brought the cup to his lips. The rim scalded his lower lip, but as the liquid sloshed into his mouth he realized it was cold. The sensation shocked him; the cup fell to the ground and the spilled tea stained the carpet.

  ‘Ach!’ Yasmin righted the cup to preserve the remaining tea. ‘We searched for months looking for that berry.’ She put her hand on his forehead. ‘Feel anything?’

  Raim shook his head.

  ‘You need some sort of stimuli. Try touching it.’ Her nails, long and curly like pig’s tails, drummed against the thread-bare carpet which covered the floor.

  He ran his fingers over the string until he felt a slight abnormality. Then he took a deep breath and squeezed the tiny knot.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said after a few seconds, and slumped down onto the cushion. Raim thought he caught the smallest frown on Yasmin’s face, but decided it was just a wrinkle fidgeting – every line on her face seemed to possess a life of its own.

  ‘Think of something else,’ she said. ‘Think of the Yun.’

  Instinctively his hand went to his apprentice blade, and memories of the Yun induction ceremony flooded in front of his eyes. Almost eight years ago he had been chosen to train to join the
Yun, along with a host of other young boys and girls. They were all given an initial test. They were each given the chance to shoot with a Daga bow – the second greatest weapon in the Yun arsenal after the signature sword. Raim had shot the target – an apple balanced on the tip of a post – straight through the middle.

  It was the first time he had ever met Mhara. She was the Khan’s Protector, and therefore the most powerful person in the Yun, someone to be feared and admired. He remembered the first words he ever heard her say: ‘I will take him on.’ And then it was settled. He was to be apprenticed to Mhara.

  He distinctly remembered her coming up to him, and his hands trembling as he held them out and she placed the ochir blade in his palms. Next to him, solemn and rigid as a board, was a young girl with thick black hair braided in pigtails that reached down to her waist. Her name was Erdene, and she wasn’t trembling softened. ‘You should n from the dyse f – she was beautiful and serene. Her bravery had made Raim bite down on his lip and focus on showing the same courage. The memory faded.

  ‘So it must work,’ mused Yasmin. ‘Try again, this time, focus your mind back. And’ – Yasmin smirked – ‘don’t you dare start thinking about a girl.’

  Raim grimaced, but he was already focusing on the vision he had seen during their last session. The last time they had tried to figure out the promise within the knot, they hadn’t used memory tea, but rather a series of exhausting meditation sessions. Yasmin had posed Raim in a series of awkward body positions designed to open his mind to the universe. At the end of the sequence, cross-legged and with his eyes closed, he had only seen one image: a woman’s hands gripping tightly around his own.

  He pressed down hard on the knot while trying to create a clearer picture of the hands. Their colour could only be described as wet sand, until they opened and they were lighter, like dry sand. Around these two images of wet and dry, more of the picture came together. Wet – wet was important because the woman was sweating, she was shivering and afraid, no, terrified. Dry – he was dry, his mouth was dry and his eyes were dry and no wonder, as he gnashed his teeth together and tasted gritty sand. Were they near the desert? He heard shouts, felt shoves, started falling. A voice yelled his name and then spoke other words in a language he didn’t understand.