Blood Brothers

'Of your own brother?'

'Yes,' Nestor answered. 'Of the trouble he's been to me, and the trouble still to come.'

'Ah!' said Jason. For he believed he understood something of that, at least.

Nestor frowned at him. 'Ah?'

Jason saw his mistake at once and tried to change the subject. 'Back on Starside, you said that Nathan was neither deaf nor daft. And yet a moment ago you called him an idiot. Something doesn't match up.'

Now Nestor scowled. 'A lot doesn't match up,' he answered. 'Like the way you're avoiding saying what's on your mind! Now out with it.'

Jason grimaced, shrugged awkwardly. And: 'Misha,' he said. A single word, a name, which felt like a great weight rolling off his tongue. Nestor was a hard one; his hands were hard; it wouldn't be the first time he had broken lips just for speaking that name.

The other sat up straighter, pulled air into his chest, let a little of it come growling out. 'What of her?' Nestor's young voice was all gravel now, a man's voice, threatening and inquiring in one. Indeed, a jealous voice.

'As children you three were inseparable,' Jason said, hurriedly. 'All four of us together, all the hours of the day. Me, I was a friend. But you and Nathan, she loved both of you. She still does, I'm sure.'

Nestor slumped down again. 'So am I,' he answered, perhaps morosely. 'And that can't be. And you're right, of course, for that's the trouble in store: Misha. She loves us both, but who the most? If it's me, then it's because I'm a man and can look after her. If it's Nathan, then it's because he's still a child and needs looking after! Well, a real rival wouldn't be much of a problem. I could deal with that. But Nathan? My ridiculous, speechless — or at best stuttering — pale-faced, corn-cropped brother?'

Jason nodded. 'I see now why you've gone your own ways. I saw it begin — oh, four, five years ago? — but didn't really understand what it was.'

Nestor, caught up in his own thoughts, scarcely heard him. There have been times,' he burst out, 'when I might have taken her — even by force!' (Jason looked startled, shocked.) 'Maybe I should have. It might have settled things there and then. But Nathan… Nathan… damn him.' I know he only has to smile at her, just smile, and… and…'

Jason stared at him. 'And does he know it, d'you think?'

Nestor sat up again and tossed back his wine in one. 'No,' he said. 'Not an inkling. And now you know why I consider him an idiot. For all his dreaming of other places, and his endless quest for meaning in a handful of numbers, where she's concerned he can't add two and two! And if he could — or if he ever does — what then? If I can't live with him as he is now, how could I ever live with both of them together? What, Misha and Nathan? And who would look the dumb one then?'

'What will you do?' Jason's concern for his father was all but forgotten now.

Nestor poured more wine into their goblets, then snatched up and drank his own as if it were water. 'Ask her to be mine, and soon,' he answered. 'No, tell her she's going to be mine!'

'And if she says no?'

'Then I'm gone, out of Settlement, away from the Szgany Lidesci forever. What opportunity for me here? You're the next chief of the tribe. And shall I be a hunter all my days, grow old by the campfire, and sit there telling stories like your father? Forgive me, Jason, but I see little profit in that. And anyway, what stories would I have to tell? How one day I caught a fish, put a bolt through a rabbit, and skewered a wolf where he crept up on my animals? No, the days of adventure went with the Wamphryi. But me, I wish they were back, and I always have! What good in being strong in a world where even the weakest is my equal? I feel I've a name to make for myself, but how? And where? Not here, for sure. And not without Misha…'

'You're ambitious,' Jason told him, his eyes narrow now.

'And is that wrong?'

'You don't much like it that I'll be chief one day.'

Abruptly, Nestor stood up, swayed a little, clutched at the table to steady himself. The trek had been long and he was tired — they were both tired — and the wine was strong. 'Maybe I don't much like anything about Settlement any more,' the words came slurring out. 'Maybe I should leave come what may. There are places to the west, and new territories far to the east. It's rumoured there's even a place beyond the farthest wasteland. But frontiers are few, and time is wasting.'

'You'll take Misha and go?'

Nestor snorted and shook his head. 'No, for her brothers are big lads, both of them! So for the moment it has to be her choice. But with or without her, still I'll go. And if it's the latter, then be sure I'll be back one day.'

Now Jason stood up, but only to take a pace to the rear. 'Be sure you'll be back? But why do you make it sound like a threat? What, will you bring an army with you? To steal Misha? Or… do you also covet my father's territory?'

'Are you worried?' Nestor scowled. 'For Lardis? But it's you who'll likely be chief by then.'

'And should I be afraid of an old friend?' Jason's look was sour as Nestor's now. 'Aye, and maybe I should.' He shrugged and turned away. 'Anyway, it's high time I was home. My mother will be waiting up for me.'

For a moment Nestor's expression changed, softened; but then he stiffened his back, and turned it on Jason where the other moved off abruptly towards the North Gate and the dark foothills. And as that young friend of his childhood went off, disturbed and soured by their conversation, so Nestor chewed his lip and glanced all around, perhaps to avoid calling out after him…

Meanwhile, the old meeting place had filled up, and now there was movement, shouting at the East Gate. Lardis and Andrei were here. But in all this great crowd, never a sign of Misha. Where was she? And where Nathan?

Nestor picked up the jar, drained it, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. And: Tonight/ he promised himself. I'll have it out with Misha tonight. Or I'll have her tonight, one way or the other. And if there's anything of a man in Nathan — and if he cares for her at all — maybe then he'll yelp and bare his teeth!

Jason had disappeared now, out through the North Gate and into the night, on his way home to Lardis's cabin on the knoll. But here in Settlement… what was going on? That awful commotion and shouting. And angry, furious shouting, at that! Was it Lardis, bellowing like a stag at the rut? It could only be. His voice was unmistakable.

And pushing his way through the gathering crowd, Nestor went to see what it was all about…

II

Some two hours earlier, eastwards, and not quite twenty miles distant:

… The Lady Wratha climbed down out of the saddle of her flyer on to a high plateau still warm from the sun's last rays. Stepping to the rim, she looked down through hooded eyes on the fires of a Szgany town nestling in the lee of the barrier range; looked down on the fires of Twin Fords.. and smiled. She smiled with all the delight of a young girl, and lusted after Twin Fords with all the evil of an ancient horror.

And waiting on the rim of the plateau while her band of circling renegades found landing places on the flat, scrubby expanse of rock behind her, she gazed on Sunside in the twilight of early evening — a sight unseen by Wamphyri eyes for all of fourteen years — and let her mind drift back a little: to her flight from Turgosheim across the Great Red Waste, all along the spine of these unknown mountains, and deep into Old Starside…

Unlike Turgo Zolte's flight in the time of Shaitan the Unborn, Wratha's had been relatively easy. Where Turgo was pursued and unable to pause for respite, Wratha suffered no such handicap. Which was just as well; her flyers were unused to covering vast distances, and for all her boasting in Vormspire's great hall, her aerial warriors were mainly untried. Oh, no one could doubt that they were superb engines of destruction, but as for flying skills: there had been no way to put those to the test, not in the skies over Turgosheim.