his family of chancers acting as his first disciples. Hushing to barely a whisper, he confessed to their murders and betrayals committed over the following years – no longer trusting them once his pre-eminence was established, removing them in one way or the other until only he himself remained.
By now the looks of alarm around Ash and the Sun King had turned to uncertainty and then anger.
'Please,' he pleaded. 'Surely a god's hand did indeed truly guide me here. Who could have done so without a spark of divine aid, I ask you? If I am not a god, then know at least that I am a god's chosen intermediary.'
'Then go to your god,' said Ash, and finally stepped away from him.
The assembled crowd did not try to stop the old Rshun from leaving. Instead they turned to the naked, golden man quivering before them… and fell on him as wild animals fall on their prey.
*
'And so you know all this from Baracha and Ash, that talkative pair?' inquired Nico, squinting in the sunlight of the stable.
'Well, I may have embellished the gaps a little, I confess. And I've heard other variations of the story told. But what counts is that my master was hardly grateful for Ash's intervention. No, he actually felt slighted by it, and from then onwards has never missed an opportunity to match himself against his rescuer, or to pass derogatory comments within the earshot of others. He most of all wishes for a reckoning between them both, to prove he is not second best after all.'
'But you think Ash would win such a contest?'
'Of course he would win. Haven't you been listening?'
Aleas had been digging around inside his robe as they spoke. He produced two dried preens, and tossed one to Nico.
'I'll tell you this much,' he continued. 'Consider a hundred vendettas conducted by this order – ninety-nine of those will involve the killing of greedy merchants or jealous lovers. Not for Ash, though: the Rshun have a name for him here. They call him inshasha, which means killer of kings.'
Nico bit into the dried fruit, relishing its smoky sharpness on his tongue. He swallowed some, considering all he had heard.
'And what is it they call Baracha?' he asked.
Before Aleas could reply a shadow fell across their laps. Olson stood in the doorway, hands planted on hips.
'What's this idling?' he sneered, taking in the two apprentices lazing on the stable floor. He squinted at Aleas's bloody lip. 'And you've been fighting, too!' He bustled towards them in his loose robes, grabbing each by the ear and pulling hard.
'Up! Up!' he commanded, yanking them simultaneously to their feet.
The sudden pain was sharp enough to blur Nico's vision. 'What do they call Baracha?' he nevertheless hissed, half bent-over in the grip of Olson's fingers.
Choking on a mixture of laughter and pain, Aleas managed to reply, 'Alhazii.'
*
'What's going on here?' bellowed a voice from across the courtyard as Olson hauled them, stumbling, from the stable. It belonged to Baracha, breaking off from his practice session with a great broadsword.
Both young men straightened up instantly, as Olson released them. 'I caught them lounging about, eating stolen food. They've clearly been fighting too.'
'Is that true, Aleas?' the Alhazii demanded of his apprentice. 'You squabble now in the dirt like a child?'
'Not at all,' Aleas replied as he wiped the remaining blood from his chin. 'We were merely practising our short- staff skills. I fear I was a little slow in defending myself.'
'Just practising?' The big man took Aleas by the chin, inspecting his wound. Displeased at the sight, he released it. 'I told you to stay away from this one, and now you see why. Remember, you are training to be Rshun. We do not settle our differences like dogs fighting in the street. If you have a problem with each other, then we must settle it in the proper way.'
Aleas and Nico exchanged apprehensive looks.
'But we have no problem between us,' Aleas said with care.
'What? You have been bled, boy.
'Yes – and it was but an accident.'
'It is still an insult!'
'Master,' said Aleas, 'I have hardly been insulted. It was merely sport.'
'Be quiet, Aleas.'
His apprentice looked to the ground glumly.
'We must settle this properly,' repeated Baracha, exchanging a knowing glance with Olson. 'And we will do it in the old way – you understand, the pair of you?'
Oh no, thought Nico, not liking the sound of that.
'A fine idea,' said Olson with a renewed sparkle in his eyes. 'I will fetch what they need.' And he hurried off towards the north wing.
'What we need?' echoed Nico, asking of no one in particular.
'We are going fishing,' said Aleas with a sigh, his gaze still fixed firmly on the ground.
Fishing? marvelled Nico, but he knew better than to open his mouth again. Instead he wondered, with a rising panic, what terrible ordeal could lurk behind such an innocent phrase.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Fishing 'You keep your distance from him, I see,' Kosh remarked in their native Honshu.
'I keep my distance from everyone,' replied Ash, passing his old friend the gourd of Cheem Fire.
Kosh took a drink and returned it. 'Aye. But particularly from the boy, is what I mean.'
'It's best for him that way.'
'Really? Best for him, or best for you?'
Ash leaned his back against the tree they sat beneath at the edge of the mali forest. He took another mouthful and felt the liquid searing down his throat and into the depths of his stomach. It was an unusually hot day for the mountains of Cheem, so the shade here beneath the leaves of this mali tree was a pleasant relief to the two farlanders. The everyday sounds of the nearby monastery fell into the silence of the valley floor extending before them. The valley itself was reduced to something small and precious by the stark mountains rising all around it: high snow-caps soaring in the distance, the lower slopes closer by speckled with wild goats, and above them the intense blue of the sky, the clouds sailing across it looking flimsier than paper.
Kosh belched. 'I sent off a letter to his mother, you know,' he said tightly.
'Did you read it first?'
A shake of the head. 'That boy seems a sensitive soul. I hear he keeps himself to himself most of the time.'
'Perhaps he prefers it that way.'
'Aye, like his master. I wonder, though. I wonder if he is ready for all of this.'
Ash snorted. 'Who is ever ready for this?'
'We were,' said Kosh.
'We were soldiers. We had butchered already.'
'Soldiers or not, we were both cast for this life. When I look at your boy, though, I do not see it in his eyes. He could be a fighter, yes… but a hunter, a slayer?'
'You speak nonsense, Kosh, as you have always spoken nonsense. There is only one thing that counts in this work, in this world even. And it's that which he has most of all.'
'A handsome mother in need of stiff action?'
Ash raised his chin. 'He has heart,' he replied.
For a time they sat and gazed out over the bright valley, without speaking. The sunlight was catching itself in the ripples of the river, producing a long, twisting ribbon of silver with reflections of gold. Kosh still had questions on
