Shanakan (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 1)

Shanakan

By

Tim Stead

The Fourth Age of Shanakan

Book 1

Shanakan

Copyright © Tim Stead 2015

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying form without written permission of the author.

This book is for Kieran.

Also by Tim Stead

The Sparrow and the Wolf

The Seventh Friend

The Bloodstained God

The Pity Stone

Find more at:

http://www.timstead.info

All Change comes with the wind,

and life, and death,

and luck good and bad.

                            Northern Proverb

It was hot. It was very hot, as though the sun knew malice and meant them harm. And the gusty wind drove dust devils down the hunters’ path.

Delf Killore, Master Builder, fellow of the company of gentlemen architects of Samara, keeper of the secrets of the ancient and proper school of masons, clutched his blunt sword, crouched and waited. He shifted on his heels, trying to get some circulation back into his numb feet. He was hot and his skin itched. Sweat trickled down his back and face and got into his eyes, making him blink and rub them with his thumbs. His arms glistened. He shook his water flask. It was still half full, so he took a sip and briefly banished the dust from his mouth. He was hungry.

Peering through the leaves he could see the path leading away towards the snow capped mountains, dipping, rising, falling and twisting until it vanished into places where ice never melted, and where few hunters ventured. It diminished until it was a suggestion of a line on a distant mountainside, and then was gone.

Delf wished he was not here. He should have stayed in Samara with its blue harbour and its golden sandstone buildings. Leaving had seemed a clever move at the time. He was confident and young. Building work had dried up in the city and he had left for new places, certain of success. He was a master and his skills were exceptional. But these were evil times. Things were not good in the world. There were fewer people, too many houses, great buildings were no longer being built, or even maintained, and the law was broken more often than it was kept.

In desperation he and Wulf had gone north, away from the coast, away from the cities and the people. His friend Wulf was a northern man and said that there were towns.

But the north was big and the population scattered. Towns were small and functional. They had picked up a few jobs here and there, mostly repairing houses. An inn in Rivershade had been their best work, lasting two weeks. There was not enough, though, even to feed themselves properly. In desperation they had turned to theft, but banditry was a crowded profession, there being no shortage of desperate men to ply the trade. So at last they had come to this, pushed into the hills, robbing incautious hunters of their game to survive, but the hunters were getting more careful and their prizes fewer and smaller.

Even now he was waiting to rob someone. Wulf was a short way back up the track, hidden behind a similar bush. Wulf wasn't his partner's real name – that was Wallace, but Wallace preferred to be called Wulf – more suitable for a bandit he had declared. Delf humoured him. Their plan today was to get on both sides of their intended victim so that he couldn't run. It was easier if they couldn’t run.

They were not, he would have freely admitted, very successful bandits. They weren't ruthless, and had they been, there was just not very much to steal. People were poor. Mostly they were as desperate as the bandits. He fingered his sword, and rubbed his unshaven face vigorously with his other hand. The heat was making him sleepy in spite of the discomfort.

About an hour ago they had spotted a traveller coming down the road from the hills. If you looked towards the far peaks, to the places where the path was less distinct and only sharp eyes could make it out, you could see anyone who travelled on it long before they could see you. The distant figure had walked steadily at a good pace, following the track faithfully. Most hunters knew that there were bandits in the low hills, and so walked with some stealth, keeping close to the track, seeking cover in the scrub, so this was unusual, and welcome.

The hour passed slowly, and unbelievably it got hotter.

By the time he heard the careless tread of their intended victim Delf was about as ready to rob someone as he'd ever been. He stepped out to confront the traveller, gripping his sword tightly.

The man stopped and stared, giving Delf a chance to look him over. He seemed a young man, perhaps twenty, solidly built and showing no signs of fatigue. He wore a simple white tunic over a pair of well made trousers and boots a little too solid to be really comfortable in this heat. He carried a stout staff about as long as he was tall, and a modest pack slung over one shoulder. The clothes were dusty, but not particularly worn and he had an air, if not of prosperity, then at least of an absence of poverty. It was the pack that interested Delf, there might be food, and perhaps the boots if he could get his feet into them.

It was a poor reward. There couldn't be much in so small a pack, but they'd been waiting well over an hour, and that warranted some prize.

But Delf didn't get the reaction he expected. The traveller looked at him steadily for a moment, as if to reassure himself that nothing was going to happen quite yet, but otherwise seemed unconcerned. Delf found this annoying and a little unsettling. He was used to a bit more surprise, even a little fear.

The traveller glanced back down the track and examined Wulf, who had emerged from the scrub about twenty yards behind him. Even this didn't seem to trouble him.

"I'll have the pack," said Delf, making sure that the stranger could see his sword.

"There’s nothing in it," the man replied. “Nothing worth this.”

"Never the less…"

The man shook his head. "I need it," he said.

Delf could see that Wulf was easing forwards. He had already halved the distance between himself and the young man, his sword held low and flat, so Delf took a step forward to keep the traveller's eyes on himself.

"You'd be a fool to die for it," he said.

The man said nothing, but shifted his grip on his staff, and then to Delf's surprise, took three rapid steps backwards, spinning and swinging the stout wood as a weapon. Wulf, even more surprised, was caught flat footed and tried to bring his sword up to fend of the blow, but he wasn't quick enough. The end of the staff struck the side of his head with a loud crack. Wulf went down on one knee, stunned, but the staff didn't seem to have stopped its spinning motion, and a second blow connected with his wrist, sending his sword clattering onto the road and tipping Wulf onto his back.

The traveller stooped, picked up the sword and threw it in a graceful arc into the bushes. The staff swung round once more and finally halted pressed against Wulf's throat, pinning him to the ground.

"Stay down," the man said. "You can play dead or be it."

Wulf slumped back, but the traveller wasn't looking at him any more. Delf had managed to take a few hesitant steps. It seemed that only a couple of seconds had passed, and now he was on his own.

"What now?" he said. He tried to sound confident. "You won't take me by surprise."

The young man’s face said he didn’t think that mattered.

Delf considered this for a moment. He was armed with a sword and facing a man with a stick, but he didn't feel at all confident after what he had just witnessed. He felt a surge of anger; at himself, at this capable stranger, at life. He could see no point in getting beaten up, though, and the look in the other man's eyes was enough to tell him that's exactly what would happen. Wulf might need help, and he would have to be the one to give it. He shrugged and tucked the sword back into his belt.

"I'm no warrior," he said. "I’m no match for a trained man." He kept the anger out of his voice, but even he could hear the bitterness there.

"Wise", the young man smiled. He stepped past Delf, keeping a cautious eye on him.

"Any chance you can spare a little food?" Delf asked. Nothing to lose, he thought, and some deeply buried instinct told him it might be worth asking.

The man laughed. "You have some nerve," he said.

"Well, we were here half the morning waiting to rob you and that hasn't gone so well. We're hungry."

"I can see," the man said. "Bandit business not going well, then?"

"Not our first choice of work,” Delf said. “But a man has to eat."

The youth seemed to think for a moment, he glanced down at the plains, up at the sun, and then back at Delf. It was as though some swift calculation had been made.

"Sit," he said, pointing with his staff to a rock on the side of the road, and called out "You on the floor come and join your friend." He sat on the opposite side of the track from Delf, swung his pack into his lap and untied the top.

To Delf's relief he saw Wulf get up off the road and approach slowly. He was holding the side of his head and pulling faces, but he looked all right. There would be an impressive bruise. Delf sat. Two small bundles wrapped in cloth emerged from the pack and were tossed to Delf, much to his surprise.

"This place is new to me,” the man said. “What can you tell me about the plains down there?"

Delf opened his bundle and found that it contained a hard biscuit and a hard cheese, with some pieces of dried fruit. Travelling rations, he guessed. Food for information seemed a good deal.

"I'm not from these parts,” he began. “Started out down south on the coast, but it's chaos down there too. Everyone's afraid and trying to get what they can for themselves. No work. No law. Wulf and I came up here a couple of years ago, hoping to find things more settled, but it's no better. Look."

He pointed out towards the plains at a very distant lump standing up from the pancake flatness. The air was very clear, and the lump was many miles distant.

"That's the fortress of White Rock," he said. "It's said to be impregnable. It stands on a stump of rock about seventy feet high, and the walls are made of stone and twenty feet thick. The only way in is a track that winds up the south face of the rock, and it's overlooked by a hundred archer's windows." He shook his head. "Anyway, it's supposed to have been built by men, but a shape shifter lives there now." He spat, showing what he thought of shape shifters.

"A Faer Karani? Do you know which one?"

Delf had the impression that the young man already knew the answer.

"Gerique. This is all his land."

"I take it you haven't met?"

"Met?” It was an insane question. “We steer well clear of the place. There are a few villages round here, and a lot of bandits. The bigger towns are all further east. Gerique's soldiers raid here and all over the territory. Bandits do the same, and the farmers get the rough end of it."

"Were you a farmer?"

"Me?" Delf laughed. "No, Sir. I am a master stone mason, a builder, trained in Samara and worked all over the south – but nobody's building any more – not even the creatures in the castles." He gestured at Wulf, who was deeply intent on chewing. "Wulf here is a builder, too. Great carpenter. Give him a set of tools and a forest and he can build you a town."

Wulf nodded absently.

"How many soldiers does Gerique have here?"

"Maybe four hundred, and about another sixty folk doing various odd jobs. There are a couple of other Faer Karan in the place too. You're not thinking of going there?"

The man shrugged, non committal.

"It's the centre of power," he said.

"Those bastards will roast you as soon as look at you, and the guards are mostly no better. Not all of them, truth be told, but it's not worth the risk."

The stranger stoppered his water bottle and tied up the top of his pack again.

"Better be on the way," he said.

"No skin off my nose," Delf swallowed the last piece of dry fruit. "Can't say I didn't warn you."

"As you say."

The young man stood up and took a couple of steps in the direction of the plains, but paused and looked back.

"Give up the thieving. You're no good at it. Farming's not so bad. At least nobody wants to kill farmers, and there's always the food."

"And you would know?" Delf was sceptical.

"I would know."

He turned again and strode off down the track. The two of them sat in silence for a minute as his figure diminished, and then was gone over the brow of the next rise.

He looked at Wulf.

"Farming," he said, trying out the word, but it came out laden with scorn. He'd always looked down on farmers. He pulled a face. Farming was beneath him.

Wulf shrugged. "At least there'd be food."