Read A Solitary Journey Online
Authors: Tony Shillitoe
A Solitary Journey
For Girlie, who knows the joy and pain of the solitary journey of life, and knows also how to face each challenge and change with hope and determination.
ART
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‘The path to the future is seldom travelled in the company of friends, but travelled alone, because vision is a solitary demon.’
TRANSLATED BY SEER VALE, FROM
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RITINGS OF THE
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he hot sun assailed Cleaver Broadback as he reined in, removed his greasy red leather helmet, wiped the sweat from his eyes and eased forward in his saddle to peer into the bright valley. Throughout the afternoon he’d led his troop of seventy men towards the thin column of white smoke and it had taken them to a tiny settlement clustered along a glittering stream. He estimated twenty or thirty people lived in the valley, mostly in the village. Three men were harvesting the rich golden grain in a paddock directly below him, a horse and cart lumbered across the solitary bridge and two people were talking outside a building in the village centre—women, he guessed. The sensible villagers were inside, out of the mid-Fuszash heat. The few domestic animals were lying under the scant shade. No more settlements were visible in the sun-yellowed grassland and khaki bush landscape. He leaned back and signalled for a rider, and when the rider reached him he said, ‘Take three men and scout the area. I want an estimate of the likelihood of resistance, but don’t get seen.’ The rider nodded to three companions and they disappeared into the mallee. Broadback ordered the
rest of his troop to dismount while they waited for the report, but he remained on horseback to study the foreign landscape.
Since King Ironfist’s order to invade the southern kingdom a moon cycle ago his troop had sacked nine villages and enslaved a hundred enemy children. His men came from his hometown beneath The-Mountain- of-Providence—family or friends, or people known to him—and they had proven themselves more than equals of the southern flatlanders in battle. He’d buried eight of his men and knew he would bury more before this mission was completed, but the King’s promises of land and wealth drove him. The southern land, with its low hills, stunted bushes and twisted trees and long flat plains, lacked his mountain home’s majestic beauty, but it was mostly empty and offered everyone the opportunity to own property like the great Kerwyn landholders.
A raucous noise echoed across the hillside and Broadback gazed up at the big black bird perched on the white branch of a gum tree.
I don’t see you as bad luck for me,
he reasoned,
but bad luck for those people down there. The gods have turned away from their queen and their lands are ours.
As if it understood the crow took flight and swept across the bush-covered hillside towards the village, heralding the descending doom.
He heard the crunch of a twig and looked around to find his half-brother, Lance Shortarms, walking towards him. Shortarms squinted against the harsh daylight, his left hand holding back his knotted and dirty black locks, as he asked, ‘Want me to get the thundermakers in place down near the river?’
‘Wait till Doghunter gets back,’ Broadback replied. ‘If this place is what it looks like, you can get them ready.’
Shortarms grunted and turned away, and as he wandered back among the men Broadback studied his half-brother. He was a man on whom he could rely—a man born to follow. Having him lead the thundermakers was a masterstroke in leadership, Broadback decided, pleased with himself. Methodical and calm under pressure, Shortarms was the lynchpin that held the thundermakers together in the middle of battle because he never lost his nerve and he never tolerated anyone losing theirs. Broadback noted with satisfaction how Shortarms was already checking that every man was loading his weapon with the magical black powder created by the southern priests who came north with their prince. He saw that they packed in the metal pellets firmly. Thundermakers were true magic—long metal shafts that killed the enemy before they could get within range to effectively use their bows or spears. The black thunder powder was also potent when it was packed tightly inside leather sacks called thunderclaps and lit with a fuse. Broadback had seen thunderclaps destroy houses and walls and bridges so his troop carried some on their packhorses, but there had been no use for the thunderclaps so far. They would be more useful against larger settlements and buildings.
He stood in his stirrups to peer into the valley. Doghunter and his scouts would be a while, but the place looked harmless so he turned in his saddle and gave the order to his men to rest and eat. Then he dismounted and joined them, glad to take a break.
The sun crouching above the western hills threw long shadows by the time Broadback’s men were in position to take the village. When Doghunter confirmed that the villagers were going about their daily business, unaware of their impending fate, Broadback decided on the cross tactic—men coming from the four points of the
compass with five thundermakers in each group to terrorise the enemy into submission. It was his standard daylight attack because it was effective and worth the extra time taken to position his men. Seeing the mirror flash from Shortarms’s south-eastern party he nodded to Warshield Slayer, his second-in-command, and Slayer flashed his mirror to order the attack.
He loved the moments before battle because the adrenaline ran like fire through his veins and everything in the world came into sharper focus. As he trotted out of the mallee towards the three men who were pitching hay into mounds in the grain field he could smell the mown wheat and hear the dry earth crushed beneath his boots, and feel the breeze on his face and through his beard. He was filled with life, his sword strong in his grip and his mind set on its grim task. The three men turned to face their attackers, caught between surprise, fear and understanding that they had to fight to save what was theirs, and Broadback savoured the instant before he charged at the oldest. The man was unusually quick and strong for someone hampered by a crutch and a missing leg, but Broadback quickly cut him down before helping Slayer to kill a second of the trio. The third was beaten down, severely wounded.
Southwards, across the village, a brace of thundermakers shattered the dying afternoon followed by the shouts of men and cries of women. ‘Take the thundermakers that way!’ Broadback ordered Slayer, pointing at the line of gum trees bordering the stream. ‘Make sure no one gets out!’ Slayer and the five thundermakers headed for the stream while Broadback led his band of nine men towards the first farmhouse.
A gangly red-haired boy charged out of the house, yelling and flailing a sword, heading for Broadback, but Broadback let one of his men step into the wild boy’s path to parry the first three swings of the boy’s sword
before stabbing him in the stomach. The boy’s face filled with shock as he dropped to his knees, clutching his guts, and he started to cry. Broadback went to him and looked down and saw that the boy was probably nine or ten years old, close to the age of his youngest. The boy said something in his alien tongue and Broadback ruffled his hair, replying, ‘Bravely done, lad. You are a good warrior. Your father would be proud.’ The boy started shaking and his eyes rolled up as he toppled and twitched on the ground.
Broadback headed for the house. A skinny yellow dingo, half-blind with age, stood in his path and snarled so Broadback took a kick to frighten the animal, but the dingo latched onto his leg, yellowed teeth sinking into the skin. Bellowing with pain and rage Broadback swung with his sword and cleaved the old animal’s skull. He shook his trouser leg to loosen the dingo’s grip, spat on the dying animal and continued on, ignoring the stinging wound.
At the stream Slayer positioned his thundermakers along the bank, each beside a tree. ‘On my order,’ he reminded them. On the other side he glimpsed patches of fighting where the villagers were giving more resistance than expected. A thundermaker boomed in the village centre and smoke billowed from several buildings so the battle was clearly going the way of Slayer’s people, but the villagers weren’t capitulating.
His attention was diverted to a fireball that erupted beyond a building on the far side of the stream.
What caused that
? he wondered. Two children appeared on the opposite bank and scrambled down the steep slope to hide in the reeds. They’d come from between a pair of huts where a third person stood—a woman with her back to them. Beyond her, three of his companions—men with thundermakers—were setting up to fire and
he was curious as to why they were so eager to shoot a solitary woman. There was far more sport in bringing them down by hand and taking them for pleasure, especially the pretty ones, and this tall one with red hair looked very pretty from the back. She would be good sport. Then he was astounded as the woman pointed sharply at the three thundermakers and they exploded in a second ball of flame.
What madness is this?
he wondered. The woman turned and looked down into the reeds where the children were hiding—and then across the stream, straight at Slayer. He felt her eyes burning into him. The words were almost stuck in his throat, but he fought his astonishment and yelled, ‘The woman! Fire!’ but his eyes widened with horror as her arm snapped up and pointed. Thunder boomed. White smoke enveloped him. When it cleared, the woman’s body was tumbling down the bank into the water, the children were screaming and he was still alive.
Broadback strode along the line of prisoners—twelve children, five uninjured men and seven women—a reasonable haul. He ordered the wounded men executed. They were of no use. The old people and babies were also put to the sword. He would let his half-brother select those he considered useful for pleasure from the surviving women. The barbarians had pretty women. The children were a better result. He would send them west with four men to the closest port—probably Westport because it had already fallen into Kerwyn hands—where foreign slave merchants paid handsomely in precious gems for them. The southern land promised by the King, together with the riches spawned by the child slave trade, guaranteed a long and prosperous life for Broadback and his family.
He stopped at the end of the line to look down on a little brown-haired boy who was staring back with dark eyes and a grubby face. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, guessing that the Shess boy probably didn’t understand the Kerwyn tongue. The boy stared silently, but Broadback saw the smouldering hatred and smiled wryly. It was wise that these children were being shipped to distant lands. A generation on and they could be spiteful and dangerous enemies. He expected nothing less of his own sons if their lands were ever stolen by invaders. ‘Shortarms!’ he said, as he faced his men. ‘Choose the women. Slayer! Choose three men to take the children to Westport. Make sure the guards have plenty of rations for themselves and enough for their baggage. I want good pay for this lot.’ He studied the barbarian men. ‘Doghunter! Get these vermin to gather everything worth anything for booty and food. Then get rid of them.’ To the rest of his men he said, ‘We’ll stay here tonight, we’ll eat and drink and rest, and tomorrow we’ll follow the road south. You have proven yourselves worthy warriors again today!’
Later, with the western sky fading from amber and grey into night, and his men settling into the night’s revelries, Cleaver Broadback stood on the wooden bridge over the dark stream, listening to the trickling water, the croaking frogs and the warbling magpies in the gum trees. Slayer had shown him the body of the red-haired woman who burned seven thundermakers and three other men with her barbarian magic before she was killed. He’d never encountered a witch, only heard the balladeers singing of their wild and weird exploits, but he knew there was magic in the world because he used it with the thundermakers and he’d seen the southern priests do miracles. The half-submerged corpse belonged to what he judged was a very beautiful
woman—it was a guess because she was face down in the reeds, but her long red hair flared in the stream’s flow and her body was lithe. He was fascinated that she wore men’s clothes—grey trousers, a khaki tunic. Kerwyn women wore the traditional long robe with a hood to cover their hair from the cold and the barbarian women he’d seen in previous villages normally wore smocks or dresses. A black bush rat perched on the woman’s back was eyeing him warily as if it was claiming possession of the corpse. A pang of superstitious fear stopped him from climbing down the bank to roll the woman over, even though the wounds from at least three pellets, one clearly in her head from the bloodstains, assured him she was dead. Instead, he just stared at the body and the proprietary rat, wondering how any person could conjure magic, especially someone who wasn’t a priest and lived in an isolated village like this one.
He listened to the cicadas in the tall reeds. The taking of this village was the most expensive battle so far on the campaign. Thirteen of his men were dead. Five had wounds that prevented them from going on. The witch was an unexpected adversary.
Are there witches in the other villages we are yet to encounter?
he wondered. He scratched his groin and looked up at the half-moon beginning its nightly journey low in the east.
Is my wife watching it rise
? he mused.
How long will it be before we lie together under the lovers’ ledge above The-Mountain-of-Providence
? A cheer from the centre of the village made him turn. The men were singing. It had been a good day, after all. He smiled and walked towards the firelight.
Prince Future’s curiosity drew him onto the spray-soaked deck and he turned his collar up against the breeze as he stepped out. As the captain bellowed
orders to bring the ship around, sailors heaved on hawsers, canvas sails cracked and the massive boom swept across the rear deck, just clearing heads. To starboard three more Kerwyn ships heeled over as they turned with the wind, their twin masts flexing under the strain of the billowing sails taking up the new course. To port, a ship flying the Western Shess standard of the golden serpent on a black field on its single mast was bearing down and a second Shessian ship sat on its stern, tacking into the breeze before the Kerwyn ships could gain an advantage.
‘Your Highness!’ a soldier yelled, and Future turned towards Leader Sharpaxe, a solidly built, swarthy man whose loyalty had been faultless throughout the fifteen years of rebellion. ‘It’s safer below, Your Highness!’ Sharpaxe warned. ‘We’re about to join battle!’