Read The Shadow’s Curse Online
Authors: Amy McCulloch
The Shadow’s Curse
Contents
‘Discover the origins of your scar. Then you can carry out your mission for revenge.’
Raim always dreamed of becoming protector of the Khan, but destiny had other plans for him. Now the new Khan has betrayed him, kidnapped the girl he loves, and started a bloody war for control of Darhan.
Raim longs to rescue Wadi, but his duty to the people must come first. Having made an unbreakable vow to protect Khareh’s life, Raim may be the only one strong enough to stop him. But in order to master his new-found sage powers, he must seek the truth about the dark secrets of his past . . .
The electrifying sequel to
The Oathbreaker’s Shadow
For Sophie, mapmaker extraordinaire
1
RAIM
Raim snatched at a long blade of grass and released the seeds from their cluster at the top of the stem. They dropped like stones from his hand to the ground. The air was still, and the grass here was so tall it covered the men with ease. The perfect place for an ambush.
He caught his grandfather’s eye and Loni nodded once, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. They had spent many hours poring over Dharma’s visions. Raim’s younger sister had woven them into an intricate carpet, which predicted where the wagon would pass. The wagon destined for the prison where Khareh kept his most dangerous enemies, and guarded by both man and shadow. The wagon that Raim believed was carrying the most important person in his whole world: Wadi.
Wind whistled by Raim’s ear. He looked up and saw his spirit-companion Draikh settle down amid the grass. Even Draikh had to hide here. With this wagon in possession of its own shadow-guard, Draikh was vulnerable to being seen. Only oathbreakers could see the true figures of shadows – to everyone else, they appeared as patches of swirling dark, like ominous clouds.
‘Oyu has seen them,’ whispered Draikh.
Raim craned his neck to the sky and saw the garfalcon wheeling overhead.
How far?
he thought in reply.
‘They’re travelling quickly. Ten minutes, at most,’ said the spirit.
Raim locked eyes with his grandfather again and signalled with his hands:
Time to go.
Getting into position, the group barely moved the grass more than would the gentlest breeze, and for a moment Raim allowed himself a touch of confidence. They were going to do this. And who would have known it from looking at them? The group was made up of old men, long banished from their tribes, awaiting death in groups of yurts known collectively as ‘Cherens’, not even worth the knowledge they could pass on to their grand or great-grandchildren. But their new mission had drawn purpose out of the most cobwebbed minds. What they lacked in energy, they made up for in experience.
Then doubt. Were he and Draikh ready? Any physical combat with the guards was going to be up to them to win. They had practised. They had trained. But what if they failed?
Raim didn’t want to think about losing Wadi for a second time.
Then, there was no more time to think. Raim’s head filled with the pounding of horse hooves, and the grating of iron wheels slicing their way through the field. Dust, rising and pluming in the air, stung his eyes. It happened so fast, he wondered if his muscles would move in time or if he would remain rooted to the ground like another of the blades of grass, bending and breaking in the wagon’s wake rather than holding firm, rather than leaping forward to attack . . .
A screech broke through the cloud in his mind and he answered with a cry of his own, raw and almost primal.
He leaped forwards, stringing an arrow and releasing it almost immediately, striking down the driver.
Simultaneously, the old men of the Cheren reacted, one man spearing a gnarled branch between the spokes of the front wheel. The horse, already spooked by the sudden loss of a man behind the reins, jumped forwards. A loud crack filled the air as the branch snapped and splintered, and as it broke, so did the wheel. The wagon lurched and toppled, coming down hard on the corner where its wheel had given way.
The door on the far side flung open, almost horizontal, and immediately the space was full of swords as the human guards sprang out.
Raim was there to meet them. He swung his first strike with abandon, a wide arc that gave plenty of time for his opponent to leap clear. He cursed loudly.
‘We will get to her!’ shouted Loni. ‘Keep the guards away from us!’
That was it. Raim needed to keep his concentration, and then the others would rescue her. He stared at his enemy with sharper focus, slashing with purpose. In a few strokes he disarmed the man, and Draikh was at his side to collect the fallen weapon. Raim kicked the man to the ground and leaped over his prostrate body to find a new target, as another of his group trussed up the fallen enemy with rope.
One of the oldest Cheren men cowered in fear, a battered old axe in his trembling hand, his eyes wide, as a much younger man approached with menacing slowness. But the old man wasn’t staring at his opponent directly . . . because he was unable to see him.
‘Draikh!’ Raim screamed and pointed at the soldier – who was, in reality, a shadow. ‘Haunt!’
Draikh swooped down as the haunt attacked. Raim heard a scream, but was instantly distracted as another guard leaped towards him.
Raim was so close to the wagon now, he could almost feel Wadi’s presence. Strength imbued his every move in a way he had never experienced before. The next guard, already weak in the shoulder from the crash, was no match at all. He fell quickly to the ground.
Raim jumped onto the wagon and looked inside. It was empty.
‘Escape! Escape!’
Raim jerked his head up at the sound of the cries and saw a guard dig his heels into the side of his horse. There was a struggling prisoner, bound with their head covered by a sack, thrown roughly on the horse’s back.
Raim strung another arrow, and shot. It whistled past the guard, missing him and, crucially, the prisoner, but flew close enough to the horse’s ear to make it rear. The prisoner, still wriggling to break free, rolled off the back and hit the ground with a thump.
The panicked guard looked down at the prisoner, back at the ambush, and gave his horse rein, disappearing fast across the grassland.
Raim ran towards the writhing bundle on the ground.
‘What of the guard?’ shouted one of Raim’s men.
‘Leave him,’ replied Loni. ‘We have what we came for.’
Reaching his target, Raim flung himself down, skidding on his knees in his haste. He grabbed the edges of the rattan sack and ripped it from the prisoner’s head.
But it wasn’t Wadi.
It was Vlad.
RAIM
Vlad’s wrists were ravaged red-raw, the edges blackened and blistered. His face, already so lined and drawn from his years in Lazar, seemed older by a decade. Raim found Vlad’s haunt too, in the remnants of the wagon, so weak he was almost transparent.
There was no sign of Wadi. Raim kicked at the broken body of the cart, the wood splintering with a satisfying crack. He could blame no one for the assumption but himself.
Dharma’s vision had been of the wagon, not the prisoner. Raim had let his hopes soar, and now they’d come crashing down, brought down by yet another of Khareh’s arrows.
He swallowed down his disappointment, and walked over to where his companions were bandaging Vlad up as best they could with their meagre healing supplies. He was barely conscious through all of it, only a low moan escaping his lips.
‘You know this man?’ asked Loni when they had finished, although it was more of a statement than a question.
Raim nodded. ‘His name is Vlad. He accompanied Wadi and me from Lazar. We thought that he was just helping us to reach Darhan, but in reality, he wanted revenge.’
‘Revenge?’ Now Loni was confused.
Raim’s voice broke, the sudden wave of memories hitting him hard as a lightning bolt. ‘On Khareh.’ He looked up into his grandfather’s face, the man who had raised him on the steppes. He was grandfather to Raim’s two adopted siblings as well: his older brother, Tarik, and his younger sister, Dharma. Raim didn’t know how Loni was going to take the next news. ‘He is Dharma’s father.’
As ever, Loni’s expression remained stoical, though he tugged at his beard with twisting fingers. ‘And how could you possibly know that?’
‘He was Baril, once. Like Tarik is now. He and his wife, Zu, were exiled from Baril when they broke their oath. They used their Baril knowledge in Lazar to help me, and they said they once had a daughter, named Dharma.’
‘A name means nothing,’ Loni scoffed, and released his beard from his nervous hands.
‘The scarf,’ Raim continued. ‘Zu gave her daughter her scarf as a token just before they were sent away. The same one that Dharma gave to me, before my . . .’ He didn’t need to finish. During his exile, that scarf had been his lifeline back to the home he never wanted to forget. He blinked back tears that had risen behind his eyes. ‘When Vlad found out what Khareh had done to Dharma, he wanted to kill him. He thinks she is dead, but even if he knew how Khareh had injured her, he would have wanted vengeance. Obviously, he didn’t succeed.’ He looked over the man’s scars again. ‘Who knows what he must have suffered.’