master!”
The officer looked Ferro up and down. “Your son looks a strong lad. Perhaps he’d make a soldier.” He took a step towards her and grabbed hold of her bare arm. “That’s a strong arm. That arm could draw a bow, I’d say, if it were taught. What do you say, boy? A man’s work, fighting for the glory of God, and your Emperor! Better than grubbing for a pittance!” Ferro’s flesh crawled where his fingers touched her skin. Her other hand crept towards her knife.
“Alas,” said Yulwei quickly, “my son was born… simple. He scarcely speaks.”
“Ah. A shame. The time may come when we need every man. Savages they may be, but these pinks can fight.” The officer turned away and Ferro scowled after him. “Very well, you may go!” He waved them on. The eyes of his soldiers, lounging in the shade of the palms around the road, followed them as they walked past, but without much interest.
Ferro held her tongue until the encampment had dwindled into the distance behind them, then she rounded on Yulwei. “Dagoska?”
“To begin with,” said the old man, staring off across the scrubby plain. “And then north.”
“North?”
“Across the Circle Sea to Adua.”
Across the sea? She stopped in the road. “I’m not fucking going there!”
“Must you make everything so difficult, Ferro? Are you that happy here in Gurkhul?”
“These northerners are mad, everyone knows it! Pinks, Union, or whatever. Mad! Godless!”
Yulwei raised an eyebrow at her. “I didn’t know you were so interested in God, Ferro.”
“At least I know there is one!” she shouted, pointing at the sky. “These pinks, they don’t think like us, like real people! We’ve no business with their kind! I’d rather stay among the Gurkish! Besides, I’ve scores to settle here.”
“What scores? Going to kill Uthman?”
She frowned. “Perhaps I will.”
“Huh.” Yulwei turned and headed off up the road. “They’re looking for you, Ferro, in case you hadn’t noticed. You wouldn’t get ten strides without my help. They’ve still got that cage waiting, remember? The one in front of the palace? They are anxious to fill it.” Ferro ground her teeth. “Uthman is the Emperor now. Ul-Dosht, they call him. The mighty! The merciless! Greatest Emperor for a hundred years, they are saying already. Kill the Emperor!” Yulwei chuckled to himself. “You’re quite a character alright. Quite a character.”
Ferro scowled as she followed the old man up the hill. She wasn’t looking to be anyone’s character. Yulwei could make these soldiers see whatever he pleased, and that was a smart trick, but she’d be damned if she was going north. What business did she have with those godless pinks?
Yulwei was still chuckling away as she drew level with him. “Kill the Emperor.” He shook his head. “He’ll just have to wait until you get back. You owe me, remember?”
Ferro grabbed him by the sinewy arm. “I don’t remember you saying anything about crossing the sea!”
“I don’t remember your asking, Maljinn, and you should be glad you didn’t!” He peeled her fingers gently away. “Your corpse might be drying nicely in the desert, instead of grumbling in my ear, all sleek and healthy—think on that a while.”
That shut her up for the time being. She walked along in silence, scowling out across the scrubby landscape, sandals crunching on the dry dirt of the road. She looked sidelong at the old man. He’d saved her life with his tricks, that couldn’t be denied.
But she’d be damned if she was going north.
The fortress was concealed in a rocky cove, but from where they were, high up on the bluff with the fierce sun behind them, Ferro could see the shape of it well enough. A high wall enclosed neat rows of buildings, enough to make a small town. Next to the them, built out into the water, were long wharves. Moored to the wharves were ships.
Huge ships.
Towers of wood, floating fortresses. Ferro had never seen ships half that size. Their masts were a dark forest against the bright water behind. Ten were docked below them, and further out in the bay two more were cutting slowly through the waves, great sails billowing, tiny figures crawling on the decks and in amongst the spider’s web of ropes above.
“I see twelve,” murmured Yulwei, “but your eyes are the sharper.”
Ferro looked out across the water. Further round the curving shore, twenty miles away perhaps, she could see another fortress, another set of wharves. “There are more over there,” she said, “eight or nine, and those ones are bigger.”
“Bigger than these?”
“A lot bigger.”
“God’s breath!” muttered Yulwei to himself. “The Gurkish never built ships so big before, not half so big, nor half so many. There is not the wood in all the South for such a fleet. They must have bought it from the north, from the Styrians, maybe.”
Ferro cared nothing for boats, or wood, or the north. “So?”
“With a fleet this size, the Gurkish will be a power at sea. They could take Dagoska from the bay, invade Westport even.”
The pointless names of far-away places. “So?”
“You don’t understand, Ferro. I must warn the others. We must make haste, now!” He pushed himself up from the ground and hurried back towards the road.
Ferro grunted. She watched the big wooden tubs moving back and forth in the bay for a moment longer, then she got up and followed Yulwei. Great ships or tiny ships, it meant nothing to her. The Gurkish could take all the pinks in the world for slaves as far as she was concerned.
If that meant they left the real people alone.
“Out of the way!” The soldier spurred his horse right at them, raising his whip.
“A thousand pardons, master!” whined Yulwei, grovelling to the ground, scuttling off into the grass beside the road, pulling Ferro reluctantly by the elbow. She stood in the scrub, watching the column shamble slowly by. Thin figures, ragged, dirty, vacant, hands bound tightly, hollow eyes on the ground. Men and women, all ages, children even. A hundred or more. Six guards rode alongside them, easy in their tall saddles, whips rolled up in their hands.
“Slaves.” Ferro licked her dry lips.
“The people of Kadir have risen up,” said Yulwei, frowning at the miserable procession. “They wished no longer to be part of the glorious nation of Gurkhul, and thought the death of the Emperor might be their chance to leave. It seems they were wrong. The new Emperor is harder even than the last, eh, Ferro? Their rebellion has failed already. It seems your friend Uthman has taken slaves as punishment.”
Ferro watched a scrawny girl limping slowly, bare feet trailing in the dust. Thirteen years old? It was hard to tell. Her face was dirty and listless. There was a scabby cut across her forehead, others on the back of her arm. Whip marks. Ferro swallowed, watched the girl toiling along. An old man, just in front of her, tripped and sprawled face first into the road, making the whole column stumble to a halt.
“Move!” barked one of the riders, spurring his horse forward. “On your feet!” The old man struggled in the dust. “Move!” The soldier’s whip cracked, leaving a long red mark across the man’s scrawny back. Ferro twitched and winced at the sound, and her back began to tingle.
Where the scars were.
Almost as if she’d been whipped herself.
No one whips Ferro Maljinn and lives. Not any more. She shrugged the bow off her shoulder.
“Peace, Ferro!” hissed Yulwei, grabbing her by the arm. “There’s nothing you can do for them!”
The girl bent down, helping the old slave to his feet. The whip cracked again, catching them both, and there was a yelp of pain. Was it the girl or the man who had cried out?
Or had it been Ferro herself?
She shook Yulwei’s hand off, reaching for an arrow. “I can kill this bastard!” she snarled. The soldier’s head
