As Takado began to climb a steep slope, angling across the incline, Hanara leaned forward and followed. He could hear Jochara panting behind him. Sweat ran down his back, soaking the shirt the stable master had given him. That life – his time in Mandryn – already seemed like a dream. It had been foolish of him to think it might last. There was a reassuring familiarity about serving Takado again. It was hard, but he knew the rules. He fitted in.
He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the top of the slope. Takado, unburdened, had gained some distance and was standing further along the ridge listening to a slave belonging to one of the other magicians. The boy was fast and agile, so he was being used as a scout rather than a carrier.
“. . . saw the light. Heard the boom, boom,” the boy was saying, pointing towards where the road to the pass could be seen, like a wound cut in the forest, below them.
“A magical battle,” Takado said, frowning at the distance. “How long ago?”
“Half a shadow line,” the slave said. “Maybe more.”
How the boy could estimate the time this way without a shadow dial was a mystery. Takado glanced at Hanara and the rest of his group, but said nothing, turning back to stare down at the forest again. Hanara could guess what he was thinking. Had the slaves at the pass failed to meet some potential new allies? Had the newcomers encountered the Kyralians instead? Had they won or lost?
Takado and his allies hadn’t considered the group of Kyralians following them a serious threat, as there were only seven of them against the twelve Sachakans. But Takado wanted to avoid killing Kyralian magicians until the numbers at his side were much greater, and they could withstand whatever retaliation was sure to follow.
Waving the scout away, Takado started down the slope towards the road and the battle’s location. Hanara felt his stomach sink and heard Jochara curse behind him. The other three of Takado’s allies did not protest, though they did order their slaves to be silent and not make any noise.
Time slowed then. With every step Hanara scanned the forest ahead as well as the uneven ground in front. He listened for voices, or the whistling calls the slaves sometimes used to signal each other. Takado set a cautious pace, every step taken carefully. They reached the bottom of the slope, and set out across the valley the road followed. Time stretched on.
The closer they drew to the road, the more Hanara’s heart raced. He kept trying to quieten his breathing by keeping his breaths shallow, but the exertion of carrying Takado’s belongings was too much and he soon found himself gasping for breath.
Then Takado stopped and raised a hand to indicate the others should follow suit. Hanara realised they were now in sight of the road. They waited in silence.
Voices drifted to them from somewhere ahead. Takado didn’t move. Slowly his shoulders relaxed. He shifted his weight to one leg. He crossed his arms.
Around a bend in the road rode two men. Before them walked a man dressed in fine clothing, bound with rope and bleeding from the temple. Behind them followed four slave girls, hunched and thin.
The hairs on the back of Hanara’s neck prickled as he recognised the riders. They were two of Takado’s ichani friends, Dovaka and Nagana. Both had been outcasts for some years now, and were tanned and toughened from surviving in the northern mountains and ash desert. There was something about the older one, Dovaka, that made Hanara’s stomach quiver and his skin prickle.
It was not just that his slaves were always starved, cowed and terrified young women. His conversations were full of such eagerness for violence that even other ichani were repelled by him. As Takado moved forward, out of the trees and onto the road, Hanara’s stomach sank. The rest of the group followed.
“Takado!” Dovaka called as he saw them. “I have a gift for you.” He leapt off his horse, grabbed the bound man by the collar and pushed him forward, then onto his knees in front of Takado. “Emperor Vochira’s messenger. We heard he’d gone through the pass ahead of us, so we caught up with him to see what he was hoping to deliver.”
“Messenger?” Takado repeated.
“Yes. He was carrying this.”
Dovaka’s eyes gleamed as he handed over a metal cylinder. Taking it, Takado slid the end off and pulled out a roll of parchment. He uncurled it and read, and his mouth twitched into a crooked smile.
“So the emperor is sending magicians to deal with us,” he said, looking over his shoulder at his allies. “Or at least he wants the Kyralian king to believe so.” He turned his attention to the messenger. “Is it true?”
“Would you believe me if I said it was?” the man replied defiantly.
“Probably not.”
Takado grasped the man’s head in his two hands and stared at him intently. All was silent but for the occasional bird call, and the distant bellow of some animal. Then Takado straightened.
“You believe it to be true.” He paused and considered the man. “I will let you live if you join us.”
The man blinked, then his eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I won’t slip away at the first opportunity?”
Takado shook his head. “Because, Harika, you failed. Your task was to take the message to the Kyralian king, but, more important, it was to prevent that message from reaching
The messenger looked down, his brow furrowed.
“You may as well join us,” Takado said. “I can promise what the emperor can’t, that if we succeed and you survive, you will no longer be a landless, slaveless lackey. You can claim land for yourself, regain the status you have lost, and have something for your son to inherit.”
Taking a deep breath, the messenger sighed and began to nod. “Yes,” he said. He looked up and stared back at Takado. “I’ll join you.”
“Good.” Takado smiled and the bindings fell away from the man’s wrists. “Get up. My slave will take a look at that cut.”
Takado turned and waved at Hanara. Pushing aside a strong desire to go no closer to Dovaka, Hanara hurried forward, set his burden down and brought out some clean water and cloth to clean Harika’s wound. As he worked, he watched Takado and Dovaka move away from the others a little, their conversation too quiet for him to hear, their stance and gestures relaxed and friendly. But there was a deliberation to Takado’s movements, as if he was forcing an impression of calm.
It worried Dakon every time he saw an empty village, farmhouse or unploughed field. It worried him despite the fact that they were no longer his empty villages, farmhouses and unploughed fields but Lord Ardalen’s, because he knew the situation was the same in his own ley.
It worried him on two levels: hundreds of people he was responsible for were homeless and dozens of them dead; and part of his land – from which he must earn the money to maintain his ley, pay his servants and rebuild Mandryn – was lying abandoned and neglected at the time of year crops should be planted and domestic animals set to breeding.
Fewer people had been killed or displaced than there would have been if the lowlands had been invaded, and there were few fields to be left unplanted. Even so, he wished he was in the lowlands, ensuring those driven from their homes were being given food and shelter in the southern villages, and that resources were not being
