Sovereign

Kayakun nodded. 'She came into the sooq about thirty days ago. She was on a sorry-looking mare, and so exhausted she was near death. She managed to mumble some words about a war band, but no one believed her. Those who found her brought her to me.'

'They always bring you strangers?' Eynon asked.

'I am known for my interest in the world outside the sooq. Rare among the merchants that live here.'

'Then they are not true Chetts,' Eynon spat.

'Because they are concerned only with their own affairs? How long ago did that describe every clan on the plains?'

Eynon waved his hand. It was not an argument he had time for now. 'The woman?' he urged.

'She is here, but she may not be able to tell you much. She was unconscious when I received her. Despite all that I could do, she did not wake for several days, and when she finally did she could not—or would not—talk. She sits in the room I have given her, staring out the west window. She holds her hands in her lap so they do not shake.'

Eynon and Makon exchanged glances. 'Take me to her,' Eynon said.

Kayakun led the way to a small, clean room with a low cot and a rough-made chair. Sitting on the chair was a woman who on first impression seemed to be very old: bent over herself, shoulders tucked in, limbs thin and joints as angular as rocks. As they got closer Eynon saw she was in fact quite young, with smooth skin and clear eyes that stared across the plains, searching.

He held his breath. He knew her. She was of his clan. Jenrosa Alucar had been right. His breath finally shuddered out of him. He did not realise how much he had hoped against hope that she had been wrong.

'Wennem?'

The woman looked up at Eynon and froze completely.

Eynon knelt down next to her and cupped her face in his hands. 'Wennem? What has happened to you?'

For a long while nothing happened, and then a single tear tracked down her cheek. She opened her mouth to say something but could only make a croaking sound.

'What happened, Wennem?' Eynon gently asked again.

Kayakun left the room and returned with a cup of wine. He held the cup in front of the woman's mouth and slowly tipped some of the wine into her mouth. She sipped at it, swallowed, and lifted one hand to push the cup away. She opened her mouth again and uttered, 'All dead.'

'All dead?' Eynon heard his own voice crack.

She nodded slowly. 'All dead,' she repeated. 'My husband. My baby.' She grabbed Eynon's arms suddenly and shook him. 'My baby! Dead!'

Eynon wrapped his arms around her and held her to him as tightly as he dared. Tears now flooded down her face, but she made no sound as the grief emptied from her and swallowed them all.

Under the stars, Eynon said to Makon, 'And what is it you are thinking about her?'

'That she should not be with us. She should have stayed at the Strangers' Sooq.'

'I agree. But would you have tied her to her chair? It would have been the only way to stop her.'

'No.'

'I have seen you talk to her.'

'I want to learn about our enemy.'

'Does she tell you anything we don't already know?'

'No.'

Eynon lifted himself on one elbow. 'You like her.'

'She has no one to look after her.'

'She is a Chett. She can look after herself.'

'She needs someone.'

'What she needs is a strong mare and a strong sword and the opportunity to use them against the Saranah. That is what I am going to give her.'

'You are her guardian.'

Eynon opened his mouth to say, 'With all her family dead, of course I am her guardian' when he realised where Makon was trying to take the conversation. 'Wennem is badly hurt,' he said instead.

'I will protect her.'

'What if you or she do not survive the coming season?'

'That is a risk whether or not we are together.'

'How does she feel about you?'

Makon shrugged uselessly. 'I am afraid to ask. It is so soon after she has lost everything she loved.'

'I advise you to say nothing to her for the while. Wait.'

'To see if we both survive,' Makon said, nodding. 'I thought you would say that.'

'And you know it is what you would say if you were the clan chief and I the suitor.'

Makon looked up sharply at the last word. 'I am no suitor—' he started to say.

'You are Makon, commander of three troops of King Lynan's Red Hands, warrior of growing fame, son of a Truespeaker, brother of Gudon, friend of Eynon. And we are all in the middle of a war that may not end in our lifetime, however long that may be for each of us.'

Makon slumped on to his back. Eynon joined him and they both stared into the sky. After a while Makon asked, 'Did you have a wife?'

'Yes. A long time ago.'

'Did you have children?'

'Two. One died being born, together with his mother. The other died in the last battle against Korigan's father, taking a spear that was meant for me. She was thirteen, but already had slain three enemies.'

Eynon tried to block out the memories. Some pain never left, and it was best simply to ignore it, to make it a part of your life rather than the point of it. But he could not shut his mind against it. He closed his eyes and saw again the faces of his wife and daughter, and even the strange, cold, purple thing that had been, if only for a handful of moments, his son. He even heard again its last faint mewlings.

'Did you hear that?' Makon said, and quickly stood up.

Eynon blinked, looked up at Makon's dark shape. 'What are you talking about?'

'Listen!' Makon said sharply, looking west.

Eynon stood up then and cupped his ears. For a long while there was nothing, and he was about to ask Makon what it was he had heard when a slight breeze came out of the west and he heard something faintly like crying.

'Yes. But I don't know—'

More sounds. Despair. Pain.

'God!' Eynon shouted. 'It's them! It's the Saranah! They're attacking another clan!'

'So close?' Makon asked disbelievingly.

'Why not? They've obviously been ranging all along the border seeking out those clans that wander this far south in the summer and autumn. We had to come across them eventually, or their trail.' He turned and shouted to the sleeping camp: 'Arise! Arise! The enemy is near! The enemy is near!'

The response was almost immediate. Those still awake roused their companions, horses were saddled, gear thrown on, low fires stamped out. By the time the column was ready to ride two scouts were galloping back from the west, breathless with their news. Eynon grabbed the first one and shouted in his face: 'How far?'

The scout looked surprised that Eynon already seemed to know his news, but quickly gathered his wits. 'An hour's hard ride. I heard the fighting as soon as it started.'

'An hour?' Makon cried. 'We'll never make it in time,'

'Gods but we can try!' Eynon shouted, and kicked his horse into a fast trot that would eat up the leagues and still leave his mare some strength at the end for a charge. His column wheeled in behind him. Makon rode by Eynon's right-hand side, and soon after he saw a third figure sidle up beside them. He glanced around and saw the determined outline of Wennem's face; in her right hand she already gripped her sword.

Dekelon paused from the fighting and quickly looked around him. His warriors had hit from all sides, but because of the smaller size of their force now some of the Chetts had inevitably escaped, most on horseback. Around him some of the Saranah were starting to set alight the camp, the flames somehow making the dark night even more intense. He quickly searched for Amemun, and guessed he was in the midst of a clump of fighters that had encircled a staunch group of defenders and were gradually wearing them down. If Dekelon had his way he would order his warriors back to send in flight after flight of arrows, but Amemun's enthusiasm for the kill was too keen and too contagious.

He should have been born one of us instead of one of those soft easterners.

He started walking among the bodies littering the ground, cutting the throats of the wounded, divesting them of any jewellery or fancy weapons. He did not have any idea how much booty his war band had gathered, but enough he was sure to set up his family for two or more generations. Already the uncrowned king of his people, he even thought about building something more permanent than the extended shack he now lived in. Something from stone imported from Aman, perhaps. Once he had a palace, no matter how small compared to the one in Pila or Kendra, it would not be long before he would be called king, and his family's dominance of the Saranah would be complete.