The Banned commander turned from the paling, striated sky to poke the fire with a thoughtful boot. He was an unremarkable-looking man – not tall, not muscular, not handsome – but he had a quiet, taut presence that kept his gathered riders in a loose kind of line. They may have a jest at his expense, but there wasn’t a member of the Banned that would cross him. His expression was sharp, thoughtful. “Ress rode for Roviarath?”
“Was taking Triq and Jayr with him.” Taure, Ress’s veteran friend who’d been helping him prop up the bar earlier that evening, was brushing the dust from his sleeves and thighs. Possibly more sober than his mates, he’d ridden hard to reach the camp. “Whole thing’s horseshit, if you ask me – but you needed to know. Damned Bard’s a loon. Pass the wine.”
The Banned commander cuffed Taure’s shoulder, grinning. “Half man, half horse, eh? Kid could’ve meant us.” He watched Taure’s eyes roll, his own sparking with mischief. “D’you believe him?”
“What?” Taure kicked the fire. “Some alchemical beastie nicked this kid’s teacher and carried her off... to what? Be his personal apothecary? Knock her up with some quarter-horse offspring?” The dying embers turned to reveal a new glow, warm in the cool air. “I think the poor kid’s mind has snapped like so much chewed leather. Hey, I said pass the wine.”
“Maybe.” Syke had been drinking for most of the night, but his gaze was as clear and grey as the dawn. “And yet, if there is hassle at the Monument, it’s not beyond a certain CityWarden to try and make us scout it for him.” He jerked his head at the Roviarath Lighthouse. “Canny bastard, old Jade.”
“Jade wouldn’t go to all this trouble, for the Gods’ sakes.” Taure nabbed the half-full wineskin himself and took a healthy swig. “He’d just pay.”
“I don’t like the smell of this.” The commander turned to watch the paling sky. “Not one little bit.”
“You reckon the Bard’s onto something? We should go out there?”
Syke gave a short, humourless gaffaw. “You’re jesting. The Bard’s a basket case loony and I’m not washing Jade’s dirty linen for him, sonofoamare.”
Taure missed a swig and covered his dusty face in wine. He spluttered, wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
But Syke was thinking.
“So,” he said, “either the plains are being taken over by some politically motivated half stallion with a massive inferiority complex – or CityWarden Larred Jade’s deposited this boy as bait so we do a recce for him – or the boy’s brain got flash-fried by the open sun. I’m riding towards option three.”
Taure was still coughing. “Not being funny – but what if there is something out there? Even a loose bweao...”
“I’m not responsible for the open Grasslands, whatever the damned CityWardens may think –”
“That kid didn’t come from the CityWarden –”
In the rising brightness, the sky was clear and the horizon empty. Syke commented thoughtfully, “Old Roderick’s right about one thing, though. I don’t like anything about this.”
Taure said, “So – you believe in monsters. With longbows. This is loco.”
“Yep.” Syke picked up the leather mug that had been sitting beside him, tilted it to inspect its contents and set it down again. “Taure, old man, I trust my instincts. Something about this is giving me the fireblasted crawlies.”
“You want to move camp?”
“Not yet,” Syke told him. “I still don’t trust that CityWarden as far as I can spit an esphen.” A grin grew across his face. “I got a better idea.”
11: MONSTER
OUTSIDE ROVIARATH
The horsewoman leaned low over the neck of her mare, laughing like a daemon. Beneath her, the horse raced like an arrow shot from the sun, smooth and swift, her shoulders churning fluidly with her speed. Her heels kicked at the grass as she ran, she was as glad as her rider of the freedom of the Varchinde.
Triq was sitting astride the wind. The mare’s hooves barely seemed to touch the soil, her chest knifed through the grass and it rushed past them, swishing as they ran. The horse was sleek and strong, and her mane flew in the woman’s face, making her laugh even more. Sunlight bathed their skin, but they moved so fast the air felt cold as it thrilled past.
Triqueta’s yellow hair and the mare’s tail were bright as flags in the midst of the empty plain. Behind them, they left a ripple of wake.
There!
She sat up. In one hand was a horseman’s bow, short limbed beneath the grip and long limbed above. She had several arrows in the same hand, resting against the wood and parallel with the bowstring.
The other hand nocked a loose shaft. Without missing breath or hoofbeat, she tracked the rustle in the long grasses, drew the string back to her ear, and let it go.
The arrow thunked into a squeak. The rustling stopped.
Gottim!
Grinning, she drew and nocked another – a reflex action. The mare, feeling the change in the pressure of the woman’s thighs, made a slowing, inward spiral and came at last to a halt.
Somewhere behind her, voices. Ress and Jayr, laughing at her. Jayr’s laughter was a rare sound and a joyous one – her past had scarred more than her flesh.
Triq hadn’t asked – life was too short. However Jayr had come by her fighter’s calluses and Kartian scarring, it didn’t matter. Why not celebrate?
Showing off, she jumped up to her feet on the mare’s back, balancing with no effort. She bowed like a theatre player, bow and arrows still in hands, then turned as if to do likewise to an audience behind her.
She stopped.
Against the bright eastern horizon, there was a black speck – no, two of them. They were too far away to see, they shimmered with heat-haze and pollen – but bweao ran alone, and they were far too fast for Range Patrol outriders.
They weren’t on the trade-road.
Controlling a flash of nervousness, she paused, squinting against the bright sky. They were a long way out of bow range, but whatever they were, they were coming across the open grass and they were... By the rhez, they were fast!
Ress shouted, “What is it?”
“Don’t know!” She dropped back into the saddle without struggle or thought. “Why don’t you and Jayr keep moving – I’ll run scout!”
None of them glanced at the clumsy, wheeled cart upon which the injured Feren lay dying.
* * *
Jayr the Infamous was being torn in half.
She was scratchy eyed from the sun, sneezing from the pollen. Their progress was agonisingly slow and she eyed the horizon almost eagerly, just waiting for some kind of contact. She had been raised to fight, trained to win from before she could walk. She needed and craved the adrenaline and the release that came with combat.
But in her own blunt way, she was worried about the boy.
Feren was getting worse. He called aloud to the empty sky, nonsense words and phrases, jagged fragments that tore at her memories and shredded her heart. He clung to his life only by the determination that had walked him, critically wounded, to tumble and fall at the edges of the Banned’s awareness.
She knew that determination: only two returns ago, she had known it personally. How it felt to be young and alone, how it felt to fight through desperation and pain.
She needed to help him. As if reaching to her younger self, she listened to his fevered voice as it called out, a cascade of the broken pieces of his life and memory. Perhaps, if she helped him, she could purge herself of her own dark figments.
Yet she had no idea what to do.