without further delay, leaping in the air, war club above his head, his knife hand drawn back for a slash. It was a practised move performed with elegant precision. Vaelin side-stepped the club as it came down, caught the knife hand in mid-slash and knocked the boy unconscious with an open-handed blow to the temple.
His hand went to his sword as he looked around for further enemies, eyes scanning the rocks above. Where there’s one, there’s more, Brother Artin had warned him. There’s always more. There was nothing, no sound or scent on the wind, nothing to disturb the faint patter of rain on rock. Spit clearly sensed nothing either as he began to nibble at the unconscious boy’s leather-clad feet.
Vaelin pulled him away, earning a near-miss kick from a fore hoof, and crouched to check on the boy. His breathing was regular and there was no blood coming from his ears or nose. Vaelin positioned him so he wouldn’t choke on his tongue and tugged Spit onwards.
After another hour the gullies gave way to what Brother Artin had called the Anvil of Stone. It was the strangest and most unfamiliar landscape he had seen, a broad expanse of mostly bare rock, pocked by small pools of rain water and rocky tors rising from the undulating surface like great deformed mushrooms. He could only marvel at whatever design of nature had produced such a scene. The Cumbraelins claimed their god had made the earth and all it held in a blinking of his eye, but seeing the weather fashioned channels in the tors rising above he knew this place had taken many centuries to reach such a state of profound strangeness.
He remounted Spit and headed north at a walk, covering another ten miles before nightfall. He camped in the shelter of the largest tor he could find, his cloak once again tight around him as he sought sleep. His eyelids were drooping when the Lonak boy attacked again.
The boy raged in his unfathomable language as Vaelin tied the rope around his chest, his hands already bound behind his back. A livid bruise marred his temple and another was forming beneath his nose where Vaelin’s forenuckles had found the nerve cluster which sent him senseless.
“ Nisha ulniss ne Serantim!” the boy screamed at Vaelin, his bruised face rigid with hate. “ Herin! Garnin!”
“ Oh shut up,” Vaelin said tiredly, pushing a rag into the boy’s mouth.
He left him writhing in his bonds and led Spit onwards, careful of his footing in the dark although the half- moon was bright enough to make his way without misstep. He kept going until the boy’s muffled cries were no longer audible and found shelter next to a large boulder, laying down to let sleep claim him.
The next day brought his first glimpse of sunlight, intermittent rays breaking through the clouds to play across the frozen rock of the Anvil, drawing huge shadows from the tors, their weathered surfaces seeming to shimmer. Beautiful, he thought, wishing he had come here on a different mission. His heavy heart seemed to forbid enjoyment of simple things.
The Anvil stretched on for another five miles, eventually giving way to a series of low hills dotted with the stunted pine which seemed to proliferate in the north. Spit spurred into an unbidden gallop as soon as his hooves touched the grass, snorting his relief at leaving the unyielding rock of the Anvil. Vaelin gave him his head and let him run. Spit was ever a mean spirited animal and it was a novelty to feel the joy in him as he raced up and down the hills, churning sod in their wake. By nightfall they were in sight of the broad plateau where the fallen city waited. Vaelin found a campsite atop the last of the hills, affording a good view of the approaches and cover from a cluster of pine near the summit.
He tethered Spit to a low hanging branch and gathered wood, arranging it within a circle of rocks, adding pine shavings for kindling. He struck his flint and blew softly on the flames until the fire built, sitting cross-legged, his sword still on his back and his bow within reach, an arrow already notched, waiting. He had become aware of being followed in the early evening so there seemed little point in observing Artin’s stricture against lighting a fire.
Night came on quickly, the clouded sky making the darkness deep and impenetrable beyond the firelight. It was another hour before the soft scrape of hooves on sod told of a visitor. The man who walked into the camp stood at least six and a half feet tall with broad shoulders and thickly muscled arms, his chest confined within a bearskin vest which reached to his waist where a war club and a steel-bladed hatchet hung on his belt. He wore deerskin trews and leather boots. Like the boy who had attacked Vaelin earlier his head was shaved and tattooed, an intricate maze-like design which circled his head from temple to temple. More tattoos covered his arms, strange whirls and barb-like shapes stretching from shoulder to wrist. His face was lean and angular, making him difficult to age, but his eyes, dark and hostile beneath a heavy frown, spoke of many years and, if Vaelin was any judge, many battles. He was leading a sturdy pony which bore something slung across its back, something bound in rope which writhed and moaned.
The Lonak pulled the hatchet and war club from his belt in a quick and skilful movement Vaelin almost didn’t catch. He watched the man whirl the weapons expertly for a second or two, feeling the rush of displaced air and resisting the impulse to reach for his sword. The man’s eyes never left his, studying, calculating. After a moment he grunted in apparent satisfaction and laid both weapons on the ground near the fire. Taking a step backwards, hands raised, his expression no less hostile.
Vaelin unbuckled his sword from his back and placed it before him, also raising his hands. The Lonak grunted again and went to the pony, pulling the bound boy from its back and dumping him unceremoniously next to the fire.
“ This is yours,” he told Vaelin, his words thickly accented but clearly spoken.
Vaelin glanced at the boy, his mouth securely gagged with a leather strap, eyes dim with exhaustion. “I don’t want it,” he told the Lonak.
The big man regarded him in silence for a moment then moved to the opposite side of the fire, spreading his hands to the warmth. “Among my people, when a man comes to your fire in peace it is custom to offer him meat and something to slake his thirst.”
Vaelin reached for his saddle bags and extracted some dried beef and a water skin, tossing them to the Lonak across the fire. He took a small knife from his boot and cut a strip from the beef, chewing and swallowing quickly. Drinking from the water skin however made him grimace and spit on the ground. “Where is the wine you Merim Her love so much?” he demanded.
“ I rarely drink wine.” Vaelin glanced again at the boy. “Aren’t you going to let him eat too?”
“ Whether he eats is your choice. He belongs to you.”
“ Because I defeated him?”
“ If you defeat a man and don’t deign to kill him, he is yours.”
“ And if I don’t take him?”
“ He will lay here until he starves or the beasts come to claim him.”
“ I could just cut his bonds, set him free.”
The Lonak barked a harsh laugh. “There is no freedom for him. He is varnish, defeated, destroyed, worth no more than dog shit to my people.” The man’s gaze was fixed on the boy now, a fierce implacable glower. “A fitting punishment for one who disobeys Her word, who allows his misplaced pride to blind him to his obeisance. Cut his bonds and he will wander here, weaponless, friendless, my people will shun him and he will find no shelter.”
His gaze swung back to Vaelin and he saw something more than anger there, a faint flicker of something hidden, told in the tension of his jaw and the set of his lips. Concern. He fears for the boy.
“ If he’s mine,” Vaelin said, “then I may do with him as I wish?”
The Lonak’s eyes flicked back to the boy for an instant. He nodded.
“ Then I give him to you. A gift of thanks for allowing me to cross your lands.”
The Lonak’s face remained impassive but Vaelin could read the relief in his eyes. “You Merim Her are soft,” he sneered. “Weak and craven. Only your numbers give you strength, and that will not last forever. One day we will sweep you back to the sea and the waves will turn red with your blood.” He rose and went to the boy, using the boot knife to sever his bonds. “I’ll take your worthless gift, since it’s all you have to offer.”
“ You’re welcome.”
Free of the ropes the boy was listless, sagging as the Lonak dragged him to his feet, whimpering as the big man slapped him awake with a chorus of curses in his own language. Once roused the boy’s gaze swung to Vaelin, the same hatred and bloodlust colouring his features once again. He bridled, tensing himself for another attack. The big Lonak struck him, a hard back-handed cuff across the face, drawing blood from his lip, then pushed him roughly to the waiting pony, hoisting him onto its back and pointing sternly back down the hill. The boy favoured Vaelin with a last glare of naked animosity before spurring away into the darkness.
The Lonak returned to the fire and reached for the dried beef once more, his face sombre as he ate.
