Orb Sceptre Throne

She appeared competent.

Her awed gaze shifted to Yusek. ‘You travel with them and you say that?’

Yusek felt her face flushing. ‘It’s different, okay? They — they hired me to guide them.’

‘Hired …’ the woman echoed, clearly sceptical. She gazed off to the north and her brow clenched in pain as she seemed to contemplate what was to come. ‘Gods, girl … why didn’t you take them round?’

Yusek thrust herself close. ‘Listen,’ she hissed. ‘I tried, all right? Now we’re stuck with it, ain’t we.’

‘Find a way. All this blood … it is on your head.’

‘No, it Hood well isn’t!’

Lo and Sall approached.

‘What do you want here?’ the woman demanded.

Neither answered. Sall cocked his hooded head to Yusek. She eyed them in return, uncertain of their silence.

‘Well?’ the woman asked her.

She hugged herself, shuddering with the cold. ‘There’s a path I know west of here. It’s a short cut. We should take it.’ She thought she glimpsed Sall’s eyes wrinkle, perhaps in a small smile.

‘We go north,’ he said.

‘North? Why?’ Yusek stepped closer, almost reached out to the youth’s arm. ‘Look at all this. We should go round.’

The hooded head shook a negative. ‘They shouldn’t have challenged.’

‘Challenged?’ the woman spat suddenly. ‘No one here knows anything of your ways. How can you hold them responsible?’

Sall’s hood did not shift from Yusek as the youth said mildly, ‘So among you here in the north it is customary to murder travellers? People should be allowed to do so at will?’

‘We didn’t — that is …’ The woman fell silent, turning away.

Despite her dread of more bloodshed, Yusek had to give this one to Sall. His point, though, gave her an idea. ‘You want to go north, hey? To this monastery? Well, how will chasing some feud help that?’

The youth was still for a time, then he stepped over to Lo, who had kept his usual distance. The two conversed very briefly. Lo made a cutting hand gesture and Sall bowed. He returned to them. ‘The challenge stands — and must be answered.’

‘This is ridiculous!’ the woman burst out. ‘More bloodshed? And for what?’ She pointed at Lo. ‘Now I understand your reputation. Seguleh. No better than butchers! You enjoy it!’

‘We are the test of the sword!’ Sall answered hotly. ‘Those who choose to pursue the path of the sword should be prepared to be challenged. And if they should fall’ — he turned away — ‘they have no grounds for complaint.’

‘I understand,’ Yusek breathed in wonder. Something in that outburst spoke directly to her heart.

The woman eyed her warily. ‘You have been too long among them,’ she said, then bent to begin rooting through the clothes of one of her dead companions.

Yusek followed the woman as she went from corpse to corpse, taking a pouch here, a ring there. On an impulse Yusek collected a longsword and sheath from one body. ‘What is your name?’ she finally asked, breaking the long silence between them.

‘You can call me Lorkal,’ she said, not looking up from her grisly work. ‘You?’

‘Yusek.’

‘Where are you from then?’

‘My family’s from around Bastion.’

Lorkal stilled. She peered up, wonder in her eyes. ‘Were you …’

‘No. We fled.’

The woman grunted her understanding. She would have spoken, but Sall approached.

‘We must move on,’ he said to Yusek, ignoring Lorkal. ‘Tell the woman to journey ahead and contact Dernan. We have a message for him. We are not bloodthirsty. We have decided that if he will provide us with food and shelter we will not trouble him.’

Lorkal straightened from a body to face Sall. ‘No,’ she said, loudly and firmly.

Sall’s hood did not turn from Yusek. He was silent for a time; a deep breath raised and lowered his shoulders. ‘Tell the woman it would be best if she complied …’

‘Or what? You’ll cut off my head?’ Lorkal held out her open hands. ‘I’m unarmed. What does your precious path of the sword say to that?’

‘Tell the prisoner,’ Sall began again, his voice tight.

But Yusek stepped away, waving to Lorkal. ‘Tell her yourself — she’s right here.’ Lorkal chuckled, shaking her head and grinning. ‘What’s so damned funny?’ Yusek demanded.

‘Speaking to outsiders is your responsibility,’ Sall told her.

‘Speaking to … who? Outsiders? Aren’t I an outsider?’

‘You have entered into patronage with us. You are Eshen-ai. An outsider with countenance.’

‘That means they’re willing to consider you a potential human being. For a while,’ Lorkal explained.

Yusek eyed Sall up and down. ‘Well, thank you so very fucking much!’

Lorkal laughed anew but quietened as Lo approached. These Seguleh seemed to specialize in hiding all hint of their emotions and intent, but it appeared to Yusek that a new tension and discomfort had taken hold of Sall’s stiff posture. He took another long slow breath. ‘Before I departed on this trip,’ he began, ‘my father told me this would be the greatest test I would ever face.’ The hood rose to the sky. ‘I did not believe him at the time. It seemed to me then that no test could be greater than facing the challenges of my brothers and sisters. But I see now that I was wrong. My father was not speaking of the rankings. He was speaking of greater trials. Of challenges to everything I have been taught. I understand this now.’ He pointed to Lorkal. ‘Tell this woman that if she cooperates and speaks to Dernan then there is a chance that further bloodshed can be avoided. However, should she refuse, it is very certain that a great many more lives will be lost.’ And with a small bow of his head for emphasis, he walked away.

Yusek let go a long breath, impressed. Probably the longest speech of his life. She cocked a brow to Lorkal.

The woman was studying the pouches and gold ornaments in her hands. ‘Shit.’

They advanced north up a side-gorge of the valley for a time, until Lo sat down where boulders as large as huts choked the stream. His sitting announced that they would wait there. Saying nothing, Lorkal walked on alone, taking a higher path. Sall crouched down on his haunches where he could keep an eye on the approach up the valley. Yusek came and sat near him, hugging herself for warmth. She felt exhausted yet she could not stop shuddering. Her fingers were numb and blue and she clenched them as hard as she could. What would she do, she wondered, if she were in Lorkal’s position right now?

Would she just keep on walking?

It was one option. Who was to know? Except for you. That was the thing. And she suspected it was somehow similar to this test of the sword Sall mentioned. What would you do when no one would ever know of your actions? The easy thing? Shrink away? Bend? But one shouldn’t bend too much. A sword that bends too easily is useless; yet one that is too rigid will shatter. These Seguleh did not strike her as the type who would bend. What they must watch for, then, was shattering.

She must have drifted off soon after. Dozing, or perhaps sinking into hypothermia, for she thought she heard voices. ‘She won’t last another day,’ one said.

‘There are others with this Dernan,’ said a second, a voice she had never heard before.

‘She has held to our agreement — we can hardly do less,’ said the first.

‘Do not forget she is merely a servant.’

‘How we treat others is the measure of how we should expect to be treated.’

‘Straight from the teaching halls, Sall. Let us hope all such obligations prove as easy to cut.’

She was shaken, gently, but could barely rouse herself. She found Sall’s cloak over her. ‘We’re going,’ Sall said. ‘Lorkal has had time enough.’