Snare

Ammadin waited until Palindor was ready to ride. When he led his bay gelding out, loaded with saddlebags, she joined him at the edge of the camp. He refused to look at her, merely twisted his reins round and round his bruised fingers while the horse snorted and tossed its head.

‘Find a woman who wants you,’ she said. ‘You’re too good a man to demean yourself this way.’

Palindor shrugged and twisted the leather tight. ‘When he betrays you, remember that I love you.’

He turned away and swung into the saddle. Ammadin watched him till he rode out of sight, a tiny figure, disappearing into the purple grasslands like a stone dropping into the sea.

When they were still some two days’ ride away from the Great River, Warkannan and his men came across another Tribal camp, an unusually small comnee led by a chief named Sammador. They rode in, dismounted, and found themselves in the middle of a swarm of young children, who stared at them silently with solemn eyes.

‘Where are your fathers?’ Warkannan said in Hirl-Onglay. ‘Hunting?’

The children said nothing. From one of the tents someone shouted; from another an older girl crawled out. When she called, the camp came alive, and adults surrounded the Kazraks. The girl, or young woman, really – Warkannan judged her to be fifteen or so – hooked her thumbs into the waist of her saurskin trousers and stood off to one side, staring at Tareev and Arkazo with undisguised interest.

Warkannan addressed himself to the young chief. After the usual greetings, Warkannan asked if anyone knew a Kazrak travelling with a spirit rider to the south. Luck favoured him. Sammador’s comnee had travelled to the Blosk horse fair, and they gave him names: Zayn was the Kazrak, and Ammadin, who rode with old Apanador’s comnee, the spirit rider. With this information, however, came ominous news.

‘Ammadin is a really powerful woman,’ Sammador told him. ‘All the other spirit riders say so.’

‘Really? Well, I’ll count myself honoured if I ever meet her.’

‘Good, good.’ Sammador glanced around at his people. ‘But I’m forgetting my manners. Will you join our camp for the night?’

‘Thanks, but no,’ Warkannan said. ‘I was hoping to make a few more miles before sunset.’

With a wave of his arm, Warkannan gathered up his men, mounted, and led them back out into the grass. When they’d gone about a mile, he stopped his small caravan; the other men guided their horses up to his.

‘Listen,’ Warkannan said. ‘We’re going to have to plan Zayn’s death carefully. If we kill the servant of a witchwoman, the Tribes will take it as an insult, and they’ll be crying for our blood. The Tribes practically worship their witches.’

‘It’s much more likely that she’d take her vengeance on her own,’ Soutan said. ‘This is a damned nuisance, Captain. I’ve never met a witchwoman yet who didn’t have the greatest power. They look primitive, these people, but their magic isn’t.’

‘I take it you know something about it, then,’ Warkannan said. ‘Their kind of magic, that is.’

‘There’s only one kind of magic.’ Soutan paused for one of his teeth-baring smiles. ‘The kind that works.’

That afternoon they made camp by a stream deep enough for bathing. The three Kazraks stripped off their clothes and waded in, passing a bar of soap back and forth. Soutan sat on the bank, however, and read a book he’d been carrying in his saddlebags.

‘Don’t you want to come in?’ Warkannan called to him.

‘Later perhaps.’ Soutan kept his nose in his book. ‘Not right now.’

His choice, Warkannan supposed. When Tareev and Arkazo lapsed into horseplay, threatening to drown one another and yelling mock insults, Warkannan left the water. Still naked he knelt on the bank and washed out his undershirt and shorts, then put them on wet. In the heat of late afternoon, they’d dry fast enough. He washed his socks and shirt, too, and laid them onto the grass to dry. Soutan looked up and shut his book.

‘Where did you get that scar?’ Soutan said. ‘The long one on the back of your leg.’

‘From a ChaMeech spear.’

‘It looks like you’re lucky to be alive. A few inches higher, and you’d have bled to death.’

‘Yes, that’s certainly true.’ Warkannan reflexively reached down and rubbed the scar. ‘But that’s not the worst thing they ever did to me.’

‘Oh?’ Soutan cocked an eyebrow.

‘I was taken prisoner by the slimy bastards – me and Zahir Benumar. Kareem and I mentioned him, if you remember. He was one of my sergeants, then; he was commissioned later. Anyway, we caught a pack of them trying to steal our horses, and they outnumbered us.’

Soutan winced. ‘That must have been unpleasant.’

‘You could call it that. They tied leather thongs around our wrists, tied ropes to those, then took off at a lope in the hot sun.’ Warkannan held up his hands so Soutan could see the scars, thick as bracelets, around each wrist. ‘Benumar has a set to match these.’ He lowered his hands again. ‘They dragged us along when we couldn’t run any more. Now and then they’d stop, let us rest, then take off again.’ Warkannan shook his head to clear it of the memory. ‘If it weren’t for Jezro Khan, we’d have been killed for their amusement. Very slowly.’

Soutan winced again, then put the book down on the grass beside him. ‘Jezro was an acknowledged heir then, yes?’

‘Acknowledged and sanctified. He had the zalet khanej around his neck.’

‘Ah yes, the medallion. He showed it to me once. He seemed quite proud of it, but it ended up being his death warrant.’

‘Once the old khan – his father – died, yes.’ Warkannan felt his rage, rising sharp in his blood. ‘Gemet turned out to be a murderous little swine.’

‘Indan told me that it wasn’t technically murder, that the oldest son has some sort of legal right to clear away excess heirs.’

‘That’s true, but it’s a very old law. Most great khans find positions at the palace or in the army for their brothers, or at least for the ones who are willing to swear loyalty. The recalcitrant ones are usually just castrated. Gemet had every single one of them killed, loyal or not, even the bastards.’

‘Except Jezro.’

‘Yes, except Jezro. The Lord is merciful, blessed be His name.’

Soutan glanced away, his lips pursed as if he were thinking something through. Out in the stream Tareev and Arkazo were still splashing around like schoolboys.

‘All right,’ Warkannan called out. ‘That’s enough. Out of the water! Get your stinking underwear clean, will you?’

Still laughing they climbed out to follow his orders. Soutan picked up his book again and ostentatiously began to read. Soutan’s loose trousers had once been tan, and his tunic blue, but they were spotted and stained with grass and sweat both. His face, oddly enough, looked both unstubbled and clean, but the rest of him stank.

‘Soutan?’ Warkannan said. ‘You can bathe in peace now.’

‘Thank you, but no.’ Soutan kept his gaze on the book. ‘I prefer to bathe in complete privacy. I know this seems strange to you Kazraks, what with your public bath houses and all, but I detest the idea of someone watching me.’

‘To each his own.’ Warkannan raised his hands palms upward. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’

After the evening meal, Soutan did indeed borrow the soap and take himself off downstream. As they sat by their fire, they could hear him splashing and even, at odd moments, singing.

‘Tell me something, Uncle,’ Arkazo said. ‘That girl this afternoon?’

‘What girl?’

‘The one in the comnee’s camp. The pretty one.’

Warkannan suppressed a smile. ‘Most Tribal women are pretty,’ he said.

‘Yes sir,’ Arkazo went on. ‘It’s really something, isn’t it, how all these people look alike? But we meant –’

‘Sir, the one who –’ Tareev interrupted. ‘Well, I thought she was looking me and Kaz over. Those stories you hear about comnee women? Are they true?’