The Demon Horsemen (30 page)

‘What?’

‘Abreotan’s sword hilt.’

His expression changed to amazement and she sensed a flicker of fear in him.

‘You know what it is, don’t you?’

‘Here?’ he said, approaching her. ‘You have it here?’

‘Shadow has it,’ she told him.

‘That’s not possible,’ he blurted, then asked, ‘How did it get here?’

‘I don’t know. Ashuak explorers. Perhaps Western Shess sailors. There’s a long history of trade across the western ocean. Relics of collapsed empires and kingdoms were sold or stolen and the kings collected them in museums.’ She paused to assess his keen interest. ‘It’s sealed with magic.’

‘Dylan smashed the blade to lock Mareg and me in Se’Treya,’ he said slowly, and his grey eyes narrowed as if he was anticipating her answer.

‘I’ve read the records kept by King Dylan’s personal drycraefter. The scribes were called drycraefters, weren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Smashing the blade didn’t work.’

She gave a tight, grim smile. ‘Not as Dylan thought it might. Mareg wasn’t trapped. He had his own way in and out.’

‘Did you learn anything about what happened to Mareg after that?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He vanished. The Demon Horsemen are his legacy.’ She stared at the elegant figure in the white Ranu suit. ‘And you.’

The silence following her words held them as if they were frozen by their implicit meaning. He gazed at her and she could see questions in his grey eyes for which she had only uncertain answers.

Finally, he looked down at his black mud-spattered boots and said, ‘First, we have to deal with Shadow’s army.’ He looked back at her. ‘Then we need to talk. Just you and me.’

T
he news from Blade Cutter and Hunter left Meg fighting strong emotions. Once again, her family were in grave danger. She hadn’t expected Swift or Chase to act so rashly, and chided herself for her prolonged absence and for not explaining where she was going. Now Chase had disappeared, and her great-grandson along with him. She could only guess that Chase was trying to retrieve the canvas bag, but there was no way of telling where he’d gone. Swift, on the other hand, had been given a specific mission and target. Information had come in overnight from the two surviving assassins that their diversion to allow Swift access to Shadow had been costly: eight men cut down by Shadow’s Kerwyn soldiers. There was no news of Swift.

Despite her grief and concern, Meg knew she had to control her emotions if she was to do as she intended. She stood before the portal and steeled herself for what was to unfold. She was lucky that she had a memory of Princestown to make the portal link. More than forty years had passed since her journey through the town in the company of Leader Westridge and the Elite Mounted Archers on her way to meet Queen Sunset for
the first time. Then, she had been naive, oblivious to the darkness threatening the world from beyond the mortal plane. Now she knew first-hand the evil that was waiting to destroy humanity and she accepted her fate in the greater scheme of things.

A Ahmud Ki’s unexpected reappearance had filled her dreams all night. ‘You have awesome power,’ he told her. ‘Power beyond all imagining. You can defeat Shadow’s army alone with your power.’ And she dreamed of her family, mixed together in places they had never been—of old Emma and her own daughter Emma walking through the Whispering Forest; of her brothers and Chase working in a fish market in Westport; of the three little Jons playing together with Sunfire and Whisper; of her mother nursing her great-great-granddaughter, Jewel, with Passion sitting beside them in the living room of the cottage in Port of Joy; of Button and Treasure walking across a bridge in Lightsword. The only person who did not appear in her dreams was Swift and she woke troubled by that omission.

Constructing the portal into Princestown had taken little effort even though her mind whirled with other thoughts. How many times had death stalked her? How many lucky escapes had she had, fortunate interventions, providential accidents? Her life belonged to the risks taken by others—Wombat, Westridge, Cutter, Whisper; even strangers like Luca the dragoneer and Crystal Merchant. Fate protected her so that she could do what had to be done, and she had run from her fate too many times. One step through the portal and she would embrace her fate, be who she was meant to be. It was sad to think it had taken her a lifetime to realise what was obvious to everyone else.

She had three matters to resolve. Swift—she had to find her granddaughter, and quickly. Then there was the canvas bag to retrieve from Shadow, which would
precipitate the third matter—a final confrontation with the Seers. What shape that would take she could not predict—only that it had to happen and that its outcome would determine the destiny of every living creature. Whatever Jarudha may or may not be, one fact was certain; the Demon Horsemen were not divine servants of a god. They were the brutal, destructive tools of a long-dead Dragonlord and they could not be released in this world.

From her solitary position on the hilltop, Meg glanced into the valley where Inheritor’s troops were readying in the purple shadows of the morning for a final confrontation with Shadow’s army. A Ahmud Ki’s Ranu army was doing the same in Port of Joy. Inheritor’s spies had located Shadow at the Shepherd’s Rest tavern, so Meg planned to arrive somewhere near it in the main street. She expected to have to use her power to deal with whatever ensued, but if her plan was successful there might not be a need for a battle and thousands of lives would be spared.

She stepped into the blue light.

A Ahmud Ki studied the beige canvas bag lying at his feet. Even without touching it he could feel the magic oozing from it. If Meg was correct, inside was the hilt of the weapon that had brought about his downfall a millennium ago; the weapon that had nearly killed him when he tried to master it for himself.

‘Where did you find this?’ he asked, looking up.

‘My men found it in the rubble of the Kerwyn palace, President,’ General Shakir replied.

‘Do you know what it is?’

‘No. But no one can force the lock or damage the canvas. The material is impervious.’

A Ahmud Ki smiled. Aelendyell magic was a concept these men would never understand. ‘Leave it
with me,’ he said. ‘I will arrange for the inventors to study it closely.’

‘There is a further minor matter,’ Shakir said.

‘Well?’

‘We caught two thieves in the catacombs beneath the palace ruins. The older one confessed that he was looking for this bag.’

A Ahmud Ki raised an eyebrow. ‘Name?’

‘Chase,’ said Shakir. ‘Odd name, like all these Kerwyn names.’

‘Did it occur to you that he might know how the bag is opened?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

Shakir nodded. ‘Yes, President, it did. And he has no idea.’

A Ahmud Ki smiled at Shakir’s friendly mockery. It wasn’t insolence, merely the confidence of a man who respected his leader and felt comfortable sparring with him on occasion. In another place and era, as chancellor in the realm of Andrakis, he would have ruthlessly reprimanded anyone for a similar response, but his time in the modern democratic world of Ranu Ka Shehaala had mellowed him.

‘I’ll speak to him anyway,’ he said, ‘out of curiosity. Is the military operation underway?’

‘Dragon eggs are ferrying troops out to the plains, President,’ Shakir informed him. ‘Captain Ramir has troops assembled to the north. We will trap the enemy between them. It should be a swift outcome.’

‘Thank you, General,’ said A Ahmud Ki. ‘Good luck. I look forward to hearing positive news later this afternoon.’

Shakir saluted and left the room.

Alone, A Ahmud Ki scrutinised the map spread across the trestle table in his temporary headquarters. After this clash, the Ranu empire would embrace half the world. He walked across the room to a small chest,
opened it and lifted out a phial of purple powder. He’d collected six phials of the precious drug from the crops on the Fallen Star Islands and now hoped to find out who had engineered the crop production and employ him in the re-establishment of the industry when the war was ended. He was studying the powder, wondering how the plants were imbued with their magical quality, when he heard a knock at his door. His personal aide, Hasan, entered.

‘President Ki, there’s an urgent call on the farspeaker from Councillor Benir’Lakaim in Yul Ithrandyr.’

The election result
, A Ahmud Ki decided. He returned the phial to the chest and followed Hasan to the farspeaker room where two soldiers saluted as he entered. He approached the farspeaker table and the operator handed him the silver speaking wire.

‘Hello, Councillor. President Ki speaking,’ he began. ‘I presume the election results are in.’

The farspeaker crackled and hissed and Benir’Lakaim’s voice came through the noise. ‘Greetings, Ki. I trust you are well.’

‘Very well, Councillor. What is the news?’

‘The Ranu people have spoken,’ Benir’Lakaim announced. ‘The new Ranu president is Karem Ne’Shebar. He will be installed within the month. Council has voted and you are to return to Yul Ithrandyr at once.’

A Ahmud Ki’s smile dissolved into a grim expression. ‘We are about to add another glorious victory to the Ranu empire,’ he said, trying to control his disappointment.

The farspeaker crackled and Benir’Lakaim replied, ‘I’m sorry, Ki, but the election of Ne’Shebar and his party means the end of your expansionist policy. The vote is for peace. The people want their troops to come home. Council orders that you break off all military action at once and return home.’

A Ahmud Ki looked at Hasan but the man’s face was impassive. Lowering the speaking wire, A Ahmud Ki said, ‘I’m sorry, Benir’Lakaim, can you repeat what you said, please? There’s too much static.’

Benir’Lakaim’s voice came again through the hiss. ‘I said that Council orders—’

A Ahmud Ki reached for the switch on the farspeaker panel and flicked it off. He looked at Hasan again and smiled dourly. ‘This information hasn’t come through to us yet. Am I clear?’

Hasan nodded. A Ahmud Ki turned and left the room.

Her appearance in the main street startled three soldiers. They stared at her, clearly confused, and she used their hesitation to assess the situation. The street swarmed with Shadow’s soldiers, and there were more on guard outside the Shepherd’s Rest. One of the soldiers near her recovered and raised his peacemaker. She loosed an energy bolt from her pointed finger. It tore through his arm and he screamed and collapsed, his peacemaker discharging harmlessly into the ground. Before his friends could react, she wounded both in the knee and walked quickly towards the Shepherd’s Rest. The soldiers guarding the tavern entrance raised their weapons to fire, but with a wave of her hand a powerful gust of wind slammed them against the wooden walls. Her acute hearing warned her of another threat behind, and she spun and fired three energy bolts, each felling a soldier aiming a peacemaker at her. She strode through the door into the tavern.

Inside the common room, two crouched men waited for her. She ducked as a bullet whined past her cheek, then closed her eyes. A brilliant ball of light burst in the room and vanished an instant after. The soldiers cried out and sank to their knees, clutching their eyes,
blinded. Meg headed for the staircase, ignoring their moans.

On the landing a lone soldier confronted her with his peacemaker. ‘Don’t move,’ he warned, his finger tightening on the trigger. She imagined herself behind him and an instant later she was. The soldier straightened, gaping at the empty space where she had stood, and by then she was already ascending the next flight of stairs.

There were five soldiers on the second landing but they dropped their guard momentarily when they saw an old woman appear. By the time the soldier on the lower level shouted his warning she had fired five bolts of energy, leaving all five men writhing on the floor. She stepped around them and opened the door they had been guarding.

Shadow was lying on a bed, attended by three physicians and a Seer, in a bloodied sheet and green blanket pulled to his waist, his chest swathed in bandages. The physicians retreated at her entrance, but the Seer turned and raised his hand aggressively. Meg was faster. A searing bolt of white energy ripped through the Seer’s chest, punching him backwards against the wall. He crumpled to the floor, blood spilling from his open mouth.

Meg ordered the physicians to leave. They shuffled towards the door, and as they reached it she added, ‘I will kill anyone who comes up here. Do you understand?’ They nodded in terrified unison and edged out, eyes wide, stumbling with fear.

With a wave of her hand, the door swung shut and the bolt slid into place. Satisfied the room was secure, she approached the bed and stared at Shadow who stared back at her from a gaunt, pale face, his eyes sunk deep into their dark sockets. ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked.

His lips moved as he forced a harsh whisper. ‘The Abomination.’

‘Meg Farmer,’ she said. ‘I’ve come for my granddaughter and the canvas bag.’

Shadow’s eyes didn’t move. He tried to lick his lips to speak, but it was as if he had lost the skill.

‘Where is Swift?’ she demanded, and glanced at the bandaging on Shadow’s chest. Fresh blood seeped through the fabric. ‘She did this to you, didn’t she?’

Shadow’s eyes narrowed a little and he tried to speak again, this time emitting a deep rattling cough. He raised his left hand and beckoned for Meg to bend closer to him. As she cautiously leaned forward, he rasped, ‘I had her executed.’

She fought the urge to kill him, even when she saw the faint smile form on his spit-encrusted lips. Instead, she ripped the bandaging from his chest to uncover the puncture wounds left by Swift’s knife. Meeting Shadow’s startled and agonised gaze, she said coldly, ‘You have one other chance to live. Where have you hidden the canvas bag?’

Shadow shook his head.

‘You’re going to die,’ she said. ‘I could save you. But I need the bag. I know you didn’t give it to the Seers. Where have you put it?’

His eyes were empty, begging, reminding her of those of people she’d seen lost to the addiction of euphoria, starving in the streets, dying to feed their need. But he forced his lips to work and hissed, ‘Rot in the hells.’

Something thumped against the door and a voice yelled, ‘Come out! There’s no escape!’

Meg left Shadow and studied the dead Seer. He was young, his hair still brown in colour, his beard thick and healthy. She searched his robe for anything of use but found nothing. The voice beyond the door bellowed again, ‘There’s no escape for you! Come out!’

She returned to Shadow. ‘You can’t win,’ his lips formed, but the sound did not come. She looked out the window at the daylight flooding the countryside as the sun rose above the eastern hills and remembered another Shadow, a young man she had met when she first came to Port of Joy as a Jarudhan acolyte. He had confided in her his ambitions to be a good man and a servant of Jarudha. That two men could share the same name and be so different saddened her. She lowered her gaze to the pale wretch on the bed and put her hand over his heart.

When Shadow’s bodyguard summoned the courage to burst into the room, they discovered their king dead, his empty eyes staring at something terrible beyond the mortal realm. Seer Pelican was also dead, a hole through his heart. There was no sign of the old woman.