Dark Heart (13 page)

‘I don’t trust you,’ Noetos said brusquely. ‘Wait here until I return, and don’t go on a walking tour. If your heavy-footed journey tonight is any indication, you will be seen and taken as a spy. That you want to avoid: the Neherians are not a merciful people.’

‘I see you intend to invade Raceme single-handedly and without a weapon,’ Duon said.

The man grunted. ‘I have come tonight to retrieve the blade I left here.’

‘Plenty of blades back at the camp. What is so special about this one?’

‘Because,’ Noetos said, sighing, ‘this one belongs to the heir of Roudhos, and I fear the Racemen may have need of it.’

Anomer woke as the moon sank behind nearby trees. His bladder demanded he make a walk to those trees, where a score or more men stood satisfying the same need.

‘The men of Buntha won’t see us wrong,’ an old man muttered as he shook himself, spraying drops everywhere.

‘Can’t see how a few hundred villagers can help us,’ said a younger man. ‘We need to go north to Trais or south to Tochar. Plenty of men there who hate the Neherians.’

Anomer moved into the space cleared by the old man’s lack of control. ‘Don’t you think they might have their own problems?’ he asked them. ‘The Neherians are not about to conquer the Fisher Coast and ignore the inland towns.’

‘Is that what they’ve done?’ the younger man asked. ‘Conquered the Fisher Coast?’

‘Where you from, lad?’ said the old man to Anomer.

‘Fossa. A small village not far north of Neherius.’

‘Heard of it,’ the old man allowed.

‘The Neherian fleet has been moving north, destroying the villages and taking the people as slaves. They succeeded in most of the villages. Seems like conquest to me.’

‘Your village?’

‘Burned to the ground,’ Anomer said bleakly.

He finished his business and bade the men goodbye. Now the moon had set there was virtually no light by which to make his way back; he stumbled into one sleeping group and extricated himself only after profuse apologies.

He realised he was near the remains of his own fire only when Arathé’s voice crept into his head.
Look over to your right, you should see the embers glowing. Is Father with you?
Her voice was anxious.

He came down a shallow slope and could barely see her, a pale figure smeared against the darkness.
No,
he answered, surprised.

Noetos’s sleeping mat lay unoccupied. Anomer reached down: cold.
He’s been gone for some time.
The missing pack suggested his father was not merely off walking.

He’s gone to do something stupid, hasn’t he?
Arathé thought.

Well, it’s been at least a day since the last time,
her brother agreed.
Here, take my strength and reach out to him.

He sat on his father’s sleeping mat and felt a bump beneath his buttock. He pulled back the mat.

‘Now I’m really worried,’ he said, but did not touch the object lying there on the grass. ‘Father would not have left this behind unless he thought he might not return.’

What is it?
Arathé asked, and reached out to pick it up.

‘Don’t touch that!’ Anomer cried.

Her hand stopped just short of the dark thing on the grass. She turned a puzzled expression towards him.

‘It’s too dark to see, and I’m not going to pick it up. But, sister, that is the most valuable and the most dangerous thing you’ve ever encountered.’

The stone you were telling me about?

‘The huanu stone,’ he replied. ‘With it Father drained the magic from a Recruiter; and you saw what it did to the whirlwinds. For him to leave it here means he’s either gone to do something so risky he wanted to keep it safe, or he has been taken from his bed.’

Then we must contact him immediately,
his sister thought.

Anomer nodded, and replaced the mat over the carving. His sister had always taken his strength gently, carefully, but he knew it would hurt all the same. He lay back and waited for the pain to begin.

‘No talking, I said.’

Duon sighed. The man was insufferably bluff.

‘If I’m to help you, I need to know what we’re doing,’ he whispered.

‘If we are caught I’m leaving you to your own devices,’ Noetos replied, continuing to ignore Duon’s questions. ‘And the more you talk, the greater chance we have of being caught.’

‘Your voice is far louder than mine,’ Duon said, aggrieved.

‘Then don’t make me speak,’ came the reply, demonstrating, Duon thought, admirable logic.

Virtually no light penetrated the streets of Raceme, but the Bhrudwan bear needed none. He was much lighter on his feet than his bulk suggested, and navigated the streets with surety, though many of them remained choked with rubble.

That there were Neherian patrols was confirmed soon after they had scaled the city wall. The bear had found a less visible place to climb it, just short of where the wall came down from Suggate to meet the coastal cliffs: a large tree thirty paces from the wall ensured the shadows were even deeper there. They had just scrambled to the ground inside the city when the sound of steps stilled them: a group of ten men with torches and gleaming armour came within a dozen paces of where they lay.

‘Armour,’ the bear breathed after the men had passed by. ‘The Neherians have been reinforced; they must have had a land army in support of their fleet. I pity Tochar and Altima. The inland cities will be in flames.’

‘How can you tell these are reinforcements?’ Duon had asked.

‘The Neherians don’t carry armour on their ships; it is too heavy. I suppose this could be an elite squad, but I doubt it. What puzzles me is why the fleet attacked before the army—of course,’ he corrected himself. ‘The fleet was drawn north more quickly than they intended, then forced into harbour by the storm. They had no choice but to attack. This was supposed to be a pincer invasion, I think: army at Suggate, fleet in the harbour. Total destruction, then move in with their own people; that’s their usual pattern. Five thousand people, more or less, owe their lives to the storm.’

‘So there is now an army in Raceme as well as the invaders from the ships?’

The bear-man groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. ‘It would be safest to assume so,’ he said.

They encountered numerous patrols on their journey into the city; or, possibly, the same few patrols again and again. It was too dark to tell. Individual Neherians moved about the streets carrying torches, engaged in bearing messages or some such errand. The sky began to lighten, and the bear kept them firmly in the shadows. Duon considered the man’s caution commendable.

‘This is ridiculous,’ the man said now. So closely did the sentiment echo his own thoughts that Duon thought for a moment he himself had spoken aloud. But the voice continued.

‘The sword lay for years in a box under the floor of my bedroom in Old Fossa. Not once during that time did I use it; I trained my daughter and son using practice swords. After we were given Fisher House I stored it on a ledge at the base of the cupola above the house’s Great Room. I told my family it was a keepsake, which it is. Nothing more. So I ought to be able to let it go.’

Duon grunted, a sound he hoped would be interpreted as encouragement for the man to continue.

‘So why did leaving the sword behind—forgetting it, if the truth be told—feel like such a betrayal? Why am I risking my life to get it back?’

‘Our lives,’ Duon said dryly.

‘No one asked you,’ the bear growled. ‘Pick a direction; you’ll arrive at the wall.’

‘You’re a trained soldier,’ Duon responded. ‘So am I. Let us do what we are trained to do, and get out of this city before the sun shows your enemies where we are. Then, after we have put many paces between ourselves and this place, you can tell me what is so special about your sword.’

‘Well put,’ said the bear. ‘In a moment we—nnnnn.’

‘What is it? Are you all right?’

Captain Duon, can you hear me?
The voice was faint, right on the edge of…what? Not hearing. Mind-strength?

Beside him in the shadows the man groaned again, shockingly loud in the early morning silence.

Duon focused on the spot at the back of his head where the voices seemed to come from.
I can barely hear you,
he thought,
but I think you’re hurting your father with the strength of your thoughts.

He’s not answering me. I’ve been trying for the last hour or more. We’re frantic with worry. Where is he? Is he safe? What is he doing?

Be careful,
came another voice. Arathé’s brother.
We must not attract attention.

We have to take the risk.

Would you people mind not arguing in my head?
Duon asked them.

Then answer our questions swiftly.
Arathé this time.

We are in Raceme,
he said.
Your father is here to recover his sword. All things being equal, we should return to you an hour or so after dawn.

Why did you agree to help him?
Arathé appeared to be angry.

I didn’t,
Duon began, then Noetos grabbed at his arm.

‘This is very painful for me,’ he said. ‘Clearly, to make themselves heard to you, they are having to shout. Can we leave explanations and blame for another time?’

‘Then why don’t you talk to your children?’

The big man grunted, and Duon was glad he couldn’t see the expression on the man’s face. ‘I would have thought the answer self-evident,’ Noetos said. ‘I hoped to be back before they knew I had gone.’ Another grunt. ‘Though don’t put it to them like that.’

‘Why didn’t Arathé just listen to your mind, like she can mine?’

‘Because I have no magic,’ the bear replied. ‘Now, we must move on. The sky brightens as we have a conversation we could have had to the north of here with much less risk.’

‘Though with much less cause,’ Duon responded. The bear-man favoured him with another grunt.

He has no magic? Is the reason I can hear his children, then, because I
do
have magic?

It took them some time to thread their way down a narrow, debris-strewn street to the alley the big man had described as his goal. He had clearly underestimated the time it would take to gain his objective: by the time they drew near, the eastern rim of the world glowed yellow, rapidly driving the purple night away to the west. They would have a difficult task in extricating themselves from Raceme without being discovered by the Neherians.

Duon found walking a little easier in the growing light. They were aided by the fact that someone had cleared a path through the rubble; obviously, this was a main thoroughfare. Something about that thought made Duon uneasy.

‘Here it is,’ the bear said, and turned towards a dark notch in the buildings to their left. He bent down to pick up something hidden in the shadows.

‘Noetos!’ Duon hissed, as he realised what had been bothering him.
It’s a main thoroughfare, so where are the people?

‘Yours?’ a melodious, high-pitched voice asked, and a small man wearing what passed in the north for battle dress stepped forward from the deeper shadows of the alley. ‘Or are you engaging in some creative salvage?’

Noetos’s hand halted a finger’s-width from the sword, then darted forward and grasped the hilt. Duon could see what the big man could not: at least two feet stood on the blade, their owners shrouded in shadow. Noetos tugged at the sword, then let go and stood back. The look in the baulked bear’s eye made all the skin on Duon’s body prickle, from the forehead down through neck, chest, hands, knees. Anger unfettered by sanity’s restraints.

Someone will breathe their last here today,
he thought.

‘Secure them,’ said the small man. A half-dozen men moved at the command.

In the back of Duon’s mind a girl’s voice cried in anguish.

I will try my best to ensure it is not your father,
he reassured her. Though what he could do was not clear; and his options, such as they were, became further limited when hands grasped him from behind. He was relieved of his own blade and his hands were bound. Duon did not bother to struggle, nor did he even turn around to acknowledge his captors. All his attention was on the burly bear-man and the Neherian asking him questions.

‘That is my sword,’ was all Noetos said as his hands were tied.

‘Well, that saves a whole series of questions,’ the Neherian replied, and mimed rolling up a scroll and casting it to the ground. ‘I might as well not have bothered thinking them up. What is the point of an elaborate trap when the quarry locks the cage himself?’

Laughter came from the shadows behind the Neherian, and from those standing behind Duon. At least twenty men, the captain estimated.

‘If it is yours,’ the effete Neherian continued inexorably, ‘then you must be the heir of Roudhos.’

The bear’s anger rose another notch, if it were possible. Duon wondered how anyone could stand to look on him, so intense did it burn.

‘And if you know that, you must know why the sword is mine and not my father’s,’ came the words, falling like rocks torn from a bluff.

‘Aye, I’ve been told.’

‘Told? More than told, if memory serves. I remember a voice like yours in a certain clearing some years ago.’ The effort Noetos was exercising in restraint was obvious: his body shook, and his voice seemed to clamber up from a death-pit. He closed his eyes as though remembering. ‘“Not the boys! Leave the boys!” you said.’ The eyes opened. ‘Wanted my brothers for yourself, did you?’

‘I have no doubt the incident had an impact on you,’ the Neherian said, his features pinching together. ‘Yes, I was there. You were smaller, I recall.’

‘I was still bigger than you,’ Noetos sneered. ‘Do you think I would have forgotten you? I doubt there are many back-passagers even in the Neherian army.’

The man coloured a little. ‘Your insults are worthless if they do not hit their mark,’ he said. ‘For what it is worth, I found the whole incident distasteful, and tried repeatedly to dissuade my commanding officer from following his orders with such vigour—at some risk to myself.’