‘Must you bait the woman?’
Shimmer looked to see that K’azz was now gazing up at her. ‘She insists upon baiting me.’ She extended a hand to him and pulled him upright.
‘I dreamed,’ he murmured, his gaze narrowed on the glimmering waters of the river.
‘So do we all.’
‘I have read philosophers who posit that life itself is a dream.’
‘Life bleeds,’ Shimmer answered, full of contempt for such a claim.
The man’s slit gaze shifted to her and she felt its weight. ‘You may just have something there, Shimmer. Though even the basest animals bleed.’
Sighing, she leaned her weight on the cracked, sun-faded wood of the ship’s side. ‘Then we are animals, K’azz. And we are base.’
He joined her, peering at her while she steadfastly regarded the light glimmering from the murky blood-red waters. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘You have come to the preferred response in the philosophical dialogue. And so I ask — what sets us apart then, if anything, from the animal?’
She felt so tired. It seemed as if she’d slept all these last weeks, yet she felt unaccountably exhausted. Worn out, or ground down. As if her will was under some sort of relentless crushing pressure. She rubbed her eyes, bruised as they were by the stabbing scintillating reflections. What was he going on about? Surely he must have some point — he was no fool. Perhaps it merely eluded her. She was not tutored in philosophy as he was. ‘I don’t know, K’azz,’ she whispered — or believed she did. ‘We have each other.’
‘Yes. Exactly, Shimmer. Each other. Society. That is what sets us apart.’
She’d heard this argument before, in many shapes and versions. The critique came to her at once. ‘The herd. The group. So — we are sheep.’ Still she refused to meet his gaze.
He snorted as if mildly amused by the rebuttal. ‘That old line. Sheep and wolves. People who push that analogy haven’t spent much time with either animal. Truth is, the wolves’ society is more sophisticated. Wolves have a hierarchy. And the worst fate for any wolf is to be cast out of the pack. If a sheep becomes lost it just wanders around until something eats it. If a wolf is cast out, it dies of loneliness. Human society shares much more with the wolf than the sheep. So that comparison isn’t valid.’
Frustrated now, Shimmer turned on her commander. This close, his sickness, or condition, made her almost wince. Parchment-like skin stretched taut over high cheekbones, the skull’s orbits of the eyes clearly visible. His hair was a thin white mat flattened now by sweat and grime. Reading her reaction, he turned his face away.
That in her thoughtlessness she had hurt him stabbed her and she cursed her stupidity. I am not the one who is ill. Or dying. Yet she had to believe he still spoke with a purpose. ‘What are you trying to say, K’azz?’
Head turned away, he said, his voice now rough, ‘Where we are going there is neither sheep nor wolf, Shimmer. I believe the entity awaiting us does not even know what society is. Has never been part of a group, or even a family, such as we know or understand it. She, or it, is unfathomably alien to us. Remember that, Shimmer. In the days to come.’
‘Yes, K’azz. I will.’
Straightening, he cleared his throat. ‘Very good. Shall we go wake the others, then?’
‘Yes.’
CHAPTER VIII
Fortunately for us, our impressed bearers and scouts, of the village we currently occupied, then assured us that the neighbouring village, with whom they had warred for years, were in fact cannibals of the worst sort. Forewarned, we fell upon the village with fire and sword and utterly exterminated the nest of vile monsters.
In the end, Jatal found that the council took very little convincing. The various Adwami family heads were easily steered towards considering further advance into Thaumaturg territory — half-drunk as they were with the heady ease of their victory in crushing and pillaging Isana Pura. He and Andanii took turns guiding the debate, at times staging confrontations and disagreements over this or that minor point in the order of march, or the division of spoils. Such quarrels the minor houses eagerly fixed upon and fanned, pleased to think they were driving a wedge between the Hafinaj and the Vehajarwi. A perception he and Andanii were pleased to allow them.
Eventually each family secured its division of the loot, including slaves, and sent them rearward in one long straggling caravan of guarded wagons and carts. Watching the various men-at-arms securing the accumulated boxes and crates of silver and gold jewellery, fine cloths and the best furniture, Jatal almost laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of it. Somehow, it now struck him as absurd, this squirrel-like fixation upon the accumulation of goods and objects, even though just a short time ago he too would have been among those evaluating the merits of this silver fork versus that.
What had changed, he wondered, as he sat watching, his hands crossed over the pommel of his saddle, his helmet pushed back high upon his head. Was it he? Or perhaps the object that he fought for had changed. Gold, rubies, jewelled daggers, fine robes or engraved leatherwork: none held the appeal they once commanded when compared to a certain bright smile and eager, challenging gaze.
It struck him that the heat of his desire could perhaps be no more than this substitution of one object of possession for another. And perhaps it was. He pressed a sleeve of his robe to his face to wipe away the sweat and the dust. He found that the question troubled him not, although he knew that it should. No matter. They had cast their lots together. Their fates would rise or fall upon the success or failure of this throw. Having up until now lived the careful and considered life of a student and scholar, he found this new audaciousness and daring quite, well, delicious.
Jatal pulled his helmet down and turned Ash to face the column. Yet could this be nothing more than the oh-so-clichéd exhilaration and allure of the illicit affair?
He gave Ash a sharp knee to urge him on, and, for the first time he could remember, found that he wished he could just turn off his damned mind. Suddenly he saw all his second-guessing, quibbling and differing analyses of any given situation as the weakness his brothers had always mocked him for.
Is this because only now have I found the passion and ambition they were born with?
Oh, shut up.
He returned to the van of the column. Here, at the very head of the troops, because no family of the concord would now allow any other family the honour, if only symbolic, of leading, rode the Warleader, with a small troop of guards and staff. Then came Jatal and Andanii as co-leaders of the Adwami Elite — the name Andanii had seemingly invented at the first council gathering after the sack of Isana Pura.
And what a stroke that was. Jatal had since found himself besieged by requests to place this son or that within the ranks of the ‘Elite’.
It was a wonder to him that no one else saw how hollow and absurd it all was. Other than Andanii, of course. And perhaps this foreigner warrior. How he had arched one bristling brow at that word, elite. He saw it for the shabby vacant trick that it was. He had merely pursed his wrinkled lips and pinned Jatal with that knowing glance.
Yet we all have our secrets, do we not?
Jatal nodded to Andanii who rode surrounded by her honour-guard. She blew out a frustrated breath and waved a hand to call attention to the column’s crawling advance. He nodded his commiseration.