The Demon Horsemen (23 page)

‘
T
here’s no sign of her or Whisper anywhere,’ Swift told the group.

‘But where would she have gone?’ Chase asked. ‘It’s been days.’

‘To get the canvas bag,’ Inheritor said as he entered the chamber. They all turned to him. ‘She asked me what I’d done with it,’ he explained. ‘I told her that as far as I knew, the Seers had it.’

‘Then she’s opened a portal into the temple,’ said Swift. ‘She’s gone to retrieve it herself.’

‘Alone?’ Cutter asked, although he already knew the answer from his past adventures with her.

‘She wouldn’t take us because we’d be a liability,’ said Wahim.

‘Speak for yourself,’ Swift retorted, green eyes flashing defiantly.

‘I was referring to Chase,’ Wahim said, grinning at the mousy-haired youth, who glared with feigned anger at his friend.

‘So what do we do?’ Swift said.

‘We get on with our tasks here,’ Inheritor replied. ‘If she can get the bag, then she’ll return with it.’

‘What if she gets caught?’ Chase asked.

‘She won’t get caught,’ said Cutter. ‘She has a knack of avoiding capture.’

‘We won’t be helping her by standing around here,’ Inheritor insisted. ‘The sun will set shortly. The people need us.’

The brief meeting over, each person returned to the group they were responsible for training, but Chase dismissed his group and slipped out of the settlement. He climbed a hill, weaving through the bush to the crest, where he stopped to gaze to the north-west in the direction of Port of Joy. The late afternoon shadows were lengthening quickly across the land and crows and magpies were heading for their roosts. Meg’s disappearance troubled him. He’d failed in the duty that old Seer Sunlight had entrusted to him: to get the canvas bag into safe hands before the Seers could take it back. Now the old woman he’d accepted as his grandmother was risking her life to correct his error. And, ironically, the man he’d been expected to deliver the bag to was here in the camp.
I wasn’t meant to deliver it
, he reminded himself.
That was his granddaughter’s job
. But rationalising his role in the task didn’t ease his guilt. He sat against a large granite boulder, feeling the rough stone prickle his skin through his green tunic and the cooling air on his arms, and silently stared at the fading landscape.

‘Want to talk about it?’

He turned his head to stare at Swift. ‘What are you doing up here?’

‘Saw you skulk out of the village. Thought I’d follow. One of us disappearing is enough.’ She sat beside her half-brother. ‘Worried about her?’

‘A little,’ he murmured.

‘Don’t underestimate what she can do,’ Swift told him. ‘I’ve learned that.’

‘The bag should’ve already been safe.’

‘Is that what you’re worried about?’

Chase nodded.

Swift snorted. ‘There was nothing you could’ve done differently. Inheritor’s brother was going to try to kill him, bag or no bag.’

Chase shrugged. ‘What do you think of him?’ he asked.

‘Inheritor? Don’t know yet.’

‘He’s not like I imagined a Kerwyn king to be.’

‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘It’s still about him, though, all this war preparation. It’s still about one king fighting another and using us to do the fighting.’

‘Then why are you helping him?’

‘Why are you?’ Swift retorted.

‘We’re here, and Meg was willing to help him. I don’t know. Why are you?’

‘I just don’t want to see those poor sods get into a fight without some hope of coming out alive,’ she told him. ‘What I’m doing isn’t about the king. It’s about us.’

‘Look.’

Swift followed Chase’s pointing finger and saw the riders moving like shadows across the landscape, heading for the settlement. ‘They’re in a hurry,’ she said. ‘We’d better go down to see if there’s trouble coming.’

‘We can expect a lot of refugees to be spreading through the countryside,’ Inheritor informed the assembly, his strong voice full of authority. ‘The Ranu are unlikely to be put off by the Seers’ inventions. They have a history of taking other lands and I expected we would have to deal with them sooner or later when I was handed my father’s crown.’

‘Perhaps the Ranu will put you back on the throne,’ Dogskinner Trapper suggested.

‘It would only be as a puppet ruler,’ Inheritor replied. ‘From what I know of the Ranu, they have little interest in supporting a monarchy. Their ambassadors always referred to their democracy—a rule of the people by the people for the people. I would have no role in their world.’

‘They have a president,’ said Trapper. ‘That could be your role.’

‘Only if the people elected me to that role,’ Inheritor explained.

‘We’d elect you!’ someone cried from the crowd, and more voices echoed the sentiment until Inheritor raised his hand for quiet. Firelight flickered across his face, making his features disappear into the depth of his beard and the shadow of his hair, but his eyes sparkled with light.

‘The Ranu have brought us one opportunity to save our land,’ he said. ‘If we gather our forces and march to the outskirts of the city we can swell our ranks with those who have escaped and trap Shadow’s army between us and the Ranu.’

‘What good would that do?’ Cutter asked, stepping into the circle of light to face the king. ‘We’d be in the path of Shadow’s retreating army and he has more soldiers than we do. And then there’s the Ranu following them.’

‘It’s a good strategy,’ Inheritor argued. ‘If we send a messenger to the Ranu offering to support their invasion, we might just be able to negotiate favourably for a peaceful agreement and Shadow would be forced to surrender.’

‘You would sacrifice your kingdom for that?’

‘I would take the risk if it meant peace for my people,’ Inheritor replied.

Cutter stared at Inheritor, assessing the man, then he nodded approvingly and said, ‘I’d fight for my
kingdom. It’s what I was trained to do. But I understand.’

‘Thank you,’ Inheritor said humbly. ‘Which is why I want you to lead our army from now on.’

‘I’m too old to play warmaster,’ Cutter said.

‘I doubt that. Perhaps too old to stand in the middle of the battle—although even then a man would be stupid to cross swords with you—but not too old to give orders and good advice. You are my warlord.’

The crowd cheered Inheritor’s decision and Cutter bowed his white-haired head before the king as a show of reluctant acceptance.

When the hubbub quietened, Inheritor announced, ‘In the morning we march towards Port of Joy. Everyone should now go and prepare. Bring plenty of food. There will be a lot of people from the city foraging in the countryside so we have to be self-sufficient. I need five volunteers to ride north to marshal our allies and lead them to us, but we have to move quickly. I don’t know how long the city or Shadow’s army will hold out against the Ranu and we have to be in position before the Ranu take Port of Joy.’

Chase grabbed Swift’s arm as everyone headed out of the hall to prepare for the morning. ‘What about Meg?’

‘Passion and the children will stay here. She can tell Meg what’s happened,’ Swift replied.

‘I’m still worried,’ he said.

Swift met his gaze. ‘If anyone can look after herself Meg can. She’ll be all right.’

He smiled weakly. ‘I guess so.’

‘Go get your things ready. Make sure Passion and little Jon know what’s going on.’

As Swift watched her half-brother walk away, she felt small hands wrap around her wrist. She looked down at her daughter, Jewel, who asked, ‘Why is everyone in such a hurry?’

‘Come with me and I’ll tell you,’ Swift answered and led her daughter towards the chamber they shared with Sparkle and a dozen others. Outwardly she appeared calm, but her thoughts were racing with concern for the safety of the old woman who was her daughter’s great-grandmother.

A Ahmud Ki trudged across the grey landscape, familiarity flooding his mind with memories of another place, an unearthly place. The Kerwyn destruction of the Fallen Star Islands settlement that had been briefly under the control of his troops was absolute. Nothing remained alive—not even plants. The stumps and stripped boughs of the few remaining trees were bleached white, like the trees in Se’Treya. The force the Kerwyn had unleashed was lethal and awesome and could only have come from one source.
But how did they release the Demon Horsemen?
he pondered.

He knelt to scoop a portion of the grey dust into his right hand and sifted the particles through his long, slender fingers. This wasn’t the fine, slippery magical dust of Se’Treya and yet it was still familiar. It was like the dust that covered a vast stretch of the old Andrakian landscape—the Dragon Breath Plains. Legend recorded, two millennia past, that the Dragon Breath Plains were where Aian Abreotan’s army had fought the Dragonlord armies. The ensuing desolation was caused by the scorching dragon breath that laid everything to waste. A Ahmud Ki had marched and flown across the grey desert a thousand years later and it remained desolate and uninhabitable.

He put his hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the bright sun as he surveyed the surrounding hills. He’d observed from the deck of his dreadnought as it circumnavigated the island that the destruction was confined to the settlement and a short distance beyond,
so the pastures of euphoria plants remained unscathed, which was one good thing.

He gestured to his accompanying squad of soldiers to fan out and head in a westerly direction, then beckoned to the captain in charge of the squad. ‘Take three men and reconnoitre the hills,’ he ordered. ‘Look for caves, anywhere someone could hide or use as a shelter. Report what you find to me. I will be over the ridge in the growing fields.’ Then he started the steady trek up the rise and into the fields beyond.

He appreciated the precision evident in the euphoria cultivation. The Kerwyn had organised the process into eight phases. Two paddocks were fallow, and piles of animal dung and compost at the edges of the last paddock revealed the efficient fertilising process. The remaining six paddocks contained euphoria plants at various stages of growth, from seedlings to mature plants whose purple blossoms advertised their potency and readiness for picking. There were agricultural tools and baskets scattered across the plantation, suggesting that the workers had fled in panic when the settlement was destroyed. A Ahmud Ki expected to find survivors hiding in the shelters and sheds at the edges of the plantation, but the buildings were empty. There were some unfortunate horses and dogs tied to chains and stakes already dead from dehydration. Other animals, which had apparently been free at the time of the attack, wandered the paddocks, watching the new human intruders with vague interest.

A Ahmud Ki picked a purple bloom and studied the thick, sturdy petals protecting the flower’s heart. He knew from many reports he’d heard and read that euphoria plants rarely thrived anywhere beyond the islands, and in the few instances where people had successfully cultivated a crop the yield of drug was low in quality and potency. Something on these islands
supported the plants’ growth and enhanced their potency.

His brief experience with the drug had revealed that he could restore his former magical powers if he could guarantee a permanent source. He stared in the direction of the settlement, out of sight beyond the ridge and the hills, and contemplated the situation. The Seers had pursued Meg for her amber crystal because they believed it was the key to setting the Demon Horsemen loose, and they had been correct in that assumption. He rolled the plant stem in his fingers. This plant—or, more importantly, the drug manufactured from it—enhanced the psychic energies just as the amber crystal did, though nowhere near to equivalent levels. Had the Seers somehow refined the drug to recreate the same effect as the crystal? Was that how they had released the Demon Horsemen?

He needed euphoria and he needed a large supply. If he was lucky, there would be stocks abandoned on the islands. If not, then he had to find someone who knew how to manufacture and refine the drug so that he too could use it. The key was in his hands and sweltering in the sun before him. Before he left the island, he would have his soldiers harvest the mature crop to begin amassing his personal cache of euphoria, and he would gather sample plants to see if he could succeed in growing them elsewhere, despite the failures of others. In the meantime, he had to re-establish the euphoria industry on the islands, and quickly.

T
he rumbling explosions set loose another cascade of dust from the cavern ceiling. Shadow swore.

‘How long will they keep that up?’ Lastchild muttered. As he spoke, the makeshift wire-lightning network strung across the low ceiling winked out, plunging the cavern into darkness.

‘Bastards!’ Gift snarled.

‘Lamps!’ Shadow ordered. ‘Now!’

Gas lighters sparked and after several moments half a dozen lamps flickered to life, throwing shadows across the dirt-smudged faces of the people sheltering in the palace’s underground tunnels.

‘It’s been five days!’ Lastchild complained. ‘I can’t put up with much more of this!’

‘Where’s that useless warlord?’ Gift asked petulantly.

‘Both of you, shut up,’ Shadow said in a menacing tone. ‘If Fist is doing what I instructed, the Ranu will be stopped shortly.’

‘And if not?’ Lastchild asked, accepting a mug of wine from a servant.

‘Then we leave.’

‘And I’ll be king!’ Gift declared gleefully.

Shadow stared at his youngest brother. A short, thin, gangly youth covered in dust, Gift looked more like a street urchin from the Foundry Quarter than an aspiring monarch. ‘Yes,’ Shadow said slowly, ‘you will be king.’

‘I thought you were joking about that,’ Lastchild blurted, looking intently at his older brother.

Shadow smirked and twisted his neck. ‘Ah,’ he gasped as it cracked twice. ‘Better.’ The earth trembled again and another cloud of dust rained over them.

‘When will we know if your warlord has done his job?’ Lastchild asked.

‘That will stop,’ Shadow replied, indicating the dust. ‘Now, I want some time on my own,’ and he walked from the cavern.

When he reached his temporary chamber he checked that it was empty before entering. Lin had adopted an annoying habit of waiting naked in his bed, demanding that he pleasure her to alleviate her boredom. His interest in her had reached a plateau and confinement beneath the palace was only serving to exacerbate his irritation with her. In the beginning, when he discovered her working as a serving girl in his father’s palace, the relationship had been one of convenient lust. Then it became a working relationship as he used her to infiltrate Crystal Merchant’s house to monitor the Joker’s business operations. When the Seers wanted him to take control of the Joker’s drug industry, Lin’s relationship with Crystal had proved invaluable, and he had enjoyed the additional excitement of Lin’s bisexual behaviour. It had also ignited a lust in him for Crystal Merchant, a lust that was only sated when the Joker was arrested. He had had his fill of her before she was thrown in the Bog Pit. Lin, of course, wasn’t privy to that information, and the soldiers who guarded Crystal’s cell were killed to prevent them from talking
of the king’s visitations. And then the relationship with Lin had become concubine-like, although he was determined to maintain his facade of self-imposed chastity to appear as Jarudha’s pure and holy royal representative to the Seers and the general public. Only two trusted guards and his brothers knew the truth, although no one but Lin knew how instrumental she had been in the Joker’s downfall.

He lit a candle and sat on his bedding, contemplating the shadows dancing across the earthen walls. There were many complications, but he had to resolve them if the path to Jarudha’s Paradise was to be opened for him. The Ranu had to be stopped. If Fist couldn’t prevent them invading Port of Joy, then the army would have to defeat them in open battle on the land outside the city.

His attempt to kill the Abomination had been thwarted by his own bureaucracy and now that opportunity had passed. Seer Word had issued a strict instruction to keep the Abomination chained, drugged and alive until the Ranu matter was resolved. The Seer’s order frustrated him. The Abomination, according to every piece of information that he had uncovered, had to be killed. He could countermand Word’s order, but the timing couldn’t be more dangerous with the Seers providing their support to the city’s defence. Lose their backing and he would lose everything. What he needed was to find someone desperate or fanatical enough to kill the Abomination and leave no possible link to him. If she died at the hands of a madman, the Seers couldn’t blame him and the problem would be eliminated. He needed Fist to engineer something special in the middle of the siege.

From his vantage point on the southern bluff near the Royal Gaol, Warlord Fist observed the Ranu fleet. The dreadnoughts were systematically bombarding
the palace, the temple and the Northern Quarter, steadily reducing the buildings to rubble. More than half the palace was in ruins. The temple dome was intact, but fires raged in the surrounding buildings. The king, the princes and their servants were safely underground, as were the Seers. Seer Law spoke with him each day, appearing spookily out of nowhere on the bluff to help him conduct the organisation of the defences. The Ranu had destroyed the star-reachers in the palace, but a new battery was ready along the Royal Gaol’s battlements. Fist expected a war fleet to arrive during the day from the old Kerwyn northern capital of Storm to engage the Ranu.

The city was in chaos. People were evacuating in droves and the countryside was flooded with refugees. Even though the Ranu bombardment hadn’t targeted the city’s poorer quarters, people were leaving out of fear of what might follow. Fist didn’t mind. The fewer people in the city, the more effectively his soldiers could defend it without interference. Having received reports that the Ranu had sent ships south and north and that Ranu troops were disembarking, he’d counter-attacked with his own forces to protect his fortifications. So far his response was working. Now he had to eliminate the dreadnoughts to save the city. With two more airbirds built, it was time to strike at the dreadnoughts to stop the incessant bombardment.

Almost as if in answer to his wish, the sails of the Kerwyn fleet appeared on the horizon, glowing in a shaft of sunshine that burst from the thick clouds. He smiled at the vision and signalled to the hordemaster in charge of operations at the Royal Gaol, who in turn barked orders at his soldiers. A horseman galloped towards the paddock where the airbird riders were waiting to take flight. The time was at hand to give the Ranu their second round of punishment.

General Shalam saw the smoke trails of the approaching star-reachers from the deck of his dreadnought and immediately understood the Kerwyn strategy. All eight missiles smashed into his ship, exploding in fireballs and sending shudders through the giant metal structure. The deck listed sharply to starboard. As he held grimly to a rail, hearing the tumultuous panic resounding through the stricken vessel as his men battled the flames and water, he glimpsed through the columns of smoke five Kerwyn airbirds heading for his ship from the southern promontory.
You hope to sink us one by one
, he thought.
If I was in your predicament, I’d do exactly the same thing.

‘General!’ he heard, and faces appeared through the smoke. ‘Captain Aram says we can’t save the ship,’ said one.

‘Captain says there’s a Kerwyn war fleet bearing in from the north,’ another announced.

‘Get orders to the other captains to bring down the airbirds,’ Shalam replied. ‘And radio General Shakir to begin the ground assault on the city.’

The men saluted and vanished. He looked up at the airbirds, spotted a flash of fire and knew more star-reachers were heading for his ship.
I expected to die on land
, he mused.

Fist was elated when the dreadnought slowly rolled over in the bay like a grey whale and disappeared into the dark blue water in a cloud of steam and smoke.
One down—two to go
, he silently cheered. The airbirds were already diving towards the second dreadnought and a new barrage of star-reachers was arching into the harbour. The Ranu fleet was fragmenting, the sailing ships wheeling to face the oncoming Kerwyn. The strategy was perfect.

One airbird caught fire and plummeted into the water before it reached the second target, but the remaining four delivered their star-reachers, explosions flashing along the dreadnought’s hull and deck. Another series of explosions ripped through the vessel as the battery-fired star-reachers struck. And then, to Fist’s disappointment, a second airbird dropped from the sky. The second dreadnought was on fire from bow to stern, but the metal ship did not look as willing to sink as the first and the remaining airbirds were sweeping back towards the promontory to reload their brace of star-reachers.

Fist’s attention was diverted by a rider who reined in beside him and announced, ‘A Ranu army is approaching along the southern coast.’

Fist nodded. ‘As expected. Tell Hordemaster Brook to engage them.’ The man saluted and galloped south to deliver the order.

Fist looked up as the airbirds flew over, their tiny driver pistons clattering frantically, and watched until the first started its landing descent before he returned to observing the battle in the harbour mouth. The rest of the Ranu fleet was taking up a defensive line, facing the north where the Kerwyn fleet was racing in with the wind in its sails. The burning dreadnought was dead in the water now, but the third ship was steaming into the harbour, coming in close to the cliffs. Fist hadn’t anticipated this manoeuvre. Another barrage of star-reachers smoked towards the third dreadnought, but only two struck home. The dreadnought opened fire with its giant peacemaker cannons and explosions erupted along the wharfs and among the ships and boats moored in the harbour.
So you want to wreak some havoc before we sink you
, Fist decided.

By the time the three airbirds were reloaded and in the air again the rogue dreadnought was rampaging
through the fishing vessels while its guns pounded the larger warships and trading vessels trapped near the docks. The burning dreadnought at the harbour mouth was a smoking wreck but still showed no signs of sinking. To his amazement, two of the dreadnought’s huge peacemakers boomed and projectiles whistled towards the Royal Gaol and exploded against the high walls. The star-reacher battery returned a salvo, but even as the deadly missiles homed in on the hulk, the dreadnought’s guns roared again. The star-reacher explosions tore through the burning wreck, immediately followed by a huge fireball as the ship’s magazine erupted. The ocean boiled as the dreadnought broke in half and rapidly disappeared, leaving a bobbing mess of wreckage and desperate survivors on the surface.

Elated at the destruction of the second dreadnought, Fist turned to the Royal Gaol. He was stunned by the damage the dreadnought’s final defiance had wrought on the star-reacher battery. His defences were in tatters.

Shouting soldiers drew his attention to the north where, against the grey backdrop of clouds, an armada of dragon eggs was quickly sweeping towards the city. The northern defences must have collapsed, or else the Ranu had landed a sizeable force further up the coast. Fist realised that the battle’s momentum was rapidly swinging to his opponents.

Out to sea, the Kerwyn and Ranu fleets were locked in combat. They were too far out to determine which fleet was gaining the upper hand, but the telltale columns of smoke from burning vessels were quickly growing in number. Fist lifted his farseeing device and focussed it and saw immediately that the sea battle was a rout with the Ranu mercilessly hunting down the scattering Kerwyn ships. Out-gunned, out-manoeuvred, the Kerwyn survivors were fleeing for their lives.

He lowered the farseeing device and watched the airbirds begin their attack on the rogue dreadnought. He needed them to abandon that action and engage the approaching dragon eggs, but he had no method for communicating with the airbird riders, and the dragon eggs were already over the city’s northern outskirts. Frustrated, he watched as explosions rocked the ground and buildings beneath the path of the dragon eggs, throwing up billowing smoke and dust clouds. He had engineered a brief psychological victory over the Ranu inventions with Kerwyn inventions, but the siege outcome was inevitable given the Ranu’s superior military strength.

Fist beckoned a soldier to approach and said, ‘Deliver this message to the palace. Tell the king the city is lost and that he and his brothers and the Seers should immediately evacuate.’

As the soldier ran for his horse, Fist returned to watching the airbirds attack the third dreadnought.