A Time of Ghosts Page 6

  He walked towards her. “Why do you follow me?”

  Raven shook her head. “We thought you aboard a ship from Ghorm with the others. But Karmana and myself, we travel to the land of the Sons of Uthaan, to Garakka and the oracle there.”

  Moonshadow showed no surprise; his gaze flickered beyond Raven to the quiet form of the other girl. “For what purpose?”

  “A private purpose,” said Raven. She was uneasy with the man’s calm arrogance. She wanted him to respond more eagerly to her, but he was cool, dominant. “And yourself?”

  Moonshadow smiled now, a thin smile that did little to melt the hardness of his pale features. He was lean and strong, totally unlike any man that Raven had ever seen; he had a warrior’s bearing, and a survivor’s confidence, and yet the bones of his hips and cheeks were obvious, his ribs were thin lines of shadows and there was none of the bursting muscle she would have expected about his sword arm. He said, “My destination, mayhap my destiny, lies also with this oracle. Ask not how I know of its existence. Suffice it that I do, and where to find it, and how to use it.”

  “And how to pay for it?” demanded Karmana. “What will you offer?”

  Moonshadow stared at her, then looked at Raven again. “I have nothing to offer,” he said, “but death if I am denied my right to consult the crystal.”

  Raven shook her head as if to tell him that would not work. She looked round at Karmana and smiled, a knowing smile that Karmana received and responded to with just the slightest frown.

  Turning back to Moonshadow, Raven said, “We shall pay the price for your consultation.”

  “How?”

  “Ask not. But repay me by adding your sword skills to mine for just one year. Is it a bargain?”

  Moonshadow shrugged. “It will be a bargain when the oracle has told me what I wish to know.”

  Then came Karmana’s warning cry.

  In a single motion, as if they sensed each other’s minds and skills, Moonshadow and Raven had turned back to back, and drawn their swords. They stood there, tense and waiting, and Raven saw what had alarmed Karmana.

  There were armed men on the great wall, watching them, and others emerging on to a dipping walkway behind them, so that they were effectively surrounded.

  In the bright sunlight it was difficult to make out features; little in the way of metal gleamed, but the thick bone and leather armour of them all told well enough of their nature.

  From a ruined, cuboid building near at hand, three tall warriors came, walking easily towards Raven who watched them approach and never flinched. They held swords to the fire, broad bladed, short, with ominous blood gutters and highly decorated bases. They wore blue-painted leather cuirasses, and boots to the knee. Bare-shouldered, their strength was greatly in evidence. One only wore a helm, crested and wide rimmed, with face guards that covered all but his mouth and eyes. Yellow hair hung from beneath the yellow metal of his head-covering; the swords too were of a yellow metal, not bronze, nor any form of Tirwand steel that Raven knew, but something mystical perhaps, some alloy of gold.

  The helmed man stopped and plunged his sword into the sand, reached up to take off his head-piece. He was young; there was mischief in his eyes, and an easy smile to his lips.

  “Who are you?” he asked softly. “And why have you come to Uthaan?”

  “Travellers,” said Raven, glancing about her at the motionless warrior shapes, estimating numbers. She estimated forty, all of them yellow haired, and young. Inexperience showed in a few, fear in a handful of others, but for the most part they were arrogant young soldiers, and would not flinch at the thought of battle with at trio of silver-crested strangers. “We seek the Oracle of Uthaan,” finished Raven.

  “Many have done so before you,” said the young man. “Their bones crawl through the sands of the Wastelands, while their shriveled heads decorate our war chariots. See…!” He shouted a command.

  A chariot was driven recklessly, and furiously, in through the gates of the sand barrier. A single warrior rode it, whipping the horses with a short, black flail; his golden hair streamed behind him, his muscular body was naked and dark. The chariot skidded to a halt, a scant few paces distant, and the sand flew and rapidly settled. Raven regarded the war machine, assessed its wooden, metal-trimmed frame, found it wanting in very little. It was light-weight and sleek, and the wheels were broad rimmed, ideal for riding the sands.

  Grinning skulls, held together by sun-baked tendons and shriveled muscle, hung by many coloured braids of hair from the wooden guards at front and side.

  The man who led these Sons of Uthaan lifted a hand and indicated the gruesome trophies. “Fellow travelers,” he said with a smile.

  “To take our heads will cost you dearly,” said Raven. “But we were given to understand that the oracle was available to those who could pay.”

  The flaxen-haired warrior laughed. “Indeed it is. The oracle is guarded by my own tribe, and in particular by my father who is the High Prince, and Warlord of Uthaan. He is called Karagan, and I am his son, Dion, heir to the leadership of the Sons of Uthaan in this part of the world. Tell me, lady…how will you pay? What coinage? I see no coinage. I see nothing but three scant equipped warriors riding into trouble.”

  “At least give Karagan a change to hear our terms,” said Karmana angrily. She kicked her horse forward so that it came up beside the two horse chariot. Dion looked up at her appraisingly. His smile was frank, his glance at Moonshadow pointed. “How will he pay?”

  Karmana said quickly, “I shall pay for him.” She looked at the tall, pale man. “Twice I will have paid for him, then. It becomes a habit.”

  Moonshadow was puzzled for a moment, staring up at her. Then he slowly nodded. He seemed to grasp what was being offered, and he seemed embarrassed by it. “I shall not leave this place until those debts are paid,” he said quietly.

  Dion laughed aloud. “If the payment is not satisfactory, then none of you will leave this place.”

  They rode, with an escort of ten warriors, deeper into the sand ridden city. Shimmering blocks of obsidian rose above them, casting dark, cool shadows across them which they welcomed as a relief from the baking heat. Towers and spires, with crystal faces cracked and fallen to expose corroded girders and distorted woodwork, marked their passage as they wound through the streets and across squares, sometimes up to the bellies of their horses in the wind-gathered sand.

  At length they galloped up into a roadway that reached above the street and had once wound round a bulging, glob topped structure of hundreds of feet in height. As they rode upwards so the sand seemed to follow them, for at this side of the city the desert had swamped the buildings almost complete. They never left the desert, but the city sank below them, and when at last they trotted on to scrub grasslands and turned to look behind them, just the unusual humping of the dunes and a hazy glimpse of spires told of the magnificence that lay below them, the beauty and civilisation that had long since been swallowed beneath the waves. In time that fate would befall all of the ruined place.

  “The city is the gateway to our lands,” said Dion. “Once, so legend tells us, it was the greatest city in Uthaan. The Warlord lived there, with a thousand princes and a thousand concubines. Warriors crowded the walls so thick they must have seemed like ants. Now we inhabit a more fundamental and functional part of the land, in more fundamental and functional ways.”

  He had drawn his yellow metal sword and was pointing distantly, when Raven strained her eyes to see she observed the spiraling shape of a stone city, surrounded by wood defenses, its houses and castle small and regular in their shape, and hunched together as if they were somehow safer that way. Smoke trails wound into the bright sky; warriors on horses rode slowly about the perimeter of the place, and carts and hearts of animals were being driven to the west, to where a great lake shimmered and welcomed. Ships bobbed on the steel surface of the water, white sailed, narrow prowed. From this distance it was impossible to say whether they were warships o
r merchantmen.

  “Garakka,” said Dion. “The new city of Uthaan. It borders the great rift that separates us from Xandrone and Haamscir, but the rift is further south and our city is built where the sheer walls have fallen to noting. The lake is the Lake of Time. Legend tells us that all our High Princes and Sorcerers, all who have ever lived, sleep at the bottom of the lake.” He grinned as he glanced at Raven. “Children’s stories.”

  Moonshadow kicked his horse up on to a rise and shaded his eyes as he stared at their destination. Behind him it was still possible to see sunlight reflected from more ancient structures. “Why have you chosen to live here, with so much of the city behind us still intact?”

  Dion shrugged. “I’m no spinner of tales. Consult with the old men of Garakka. They will tell you as much of the history of Uthaan as you can bear to hear.”

  He rode forward, then, waving his yellow sword above his head in a signal that was acknowledged from the distant walls.

  Raven rode up behind him, drawing (cautiously) her own silver bladed weapon and holding it out before her. “Yellow metal,” she said. “I have heard that once all kingdoms fought with yellow metal blades.”

  “Mabion!” said Dion proudly, holding up his blade. “Many nations still fight with bronze, but this is not bronze. This is mabion, a metal from the past. Forged in glowing crystal rock, tempered with water from the virgin stream that runs through yonder city, honed and polished with sands from the moaning deserts to the east and south of here, bordering the fire mountains. The metal is as light as it is strong. The secret of its making is now, like so much else, just legend. But weapons made of it last forever; the hits rot and shatter, but the blades are eternal. Eternal! And strong!”

  “As strong as Tirwand steel?” asked Raven.

  “Perhaps not,” said Dion. He held the blade towards her. “Strike, strike with all your strength and speed, and suddenly, mind. Take me by surprise.”

  Raven hesitated just a moment, looked puzzled as if she didn’t understand, then swept her blade in a lightning strike to cut the yellow sword across the middle of its shaft.

  She cut thin air, nearly toppled from her horse with the surprise of it. The yellow blade had moved in a flash.

  “Now you,” said Dion. Raven noticed Moonshadow watching with a smile. Karmana was less engrossed with the display, seemed more intent on reaching the cool waters of the lake.

  Raven held out her sword and as she sensed Dion about to strike so she jerked the weapon away, a smooth motion accomplished in an instant. Metal rang as the blades met; the shock passed into Raven’s arm and she tensed the muscles to allay the unpleasant sensation.

  “I do not deny,” said Dion, sheathing his sword, “that your metal is slightly the stronger. But ours is faster.”

  He rode ahead. Raven rememberd Argor, his words, his thoughts as they had fought in training all those months ago. Judge a man not on the strength of his steel, but the skill and speed with which he uses it.

  They had left the desert behind and rode, now, across thinly grassed soil, perhaps the baked and hardened mud and rock of the lack which may have once reached further into the land than now. Along the lake short itself a thin strand of trees stretched as far as the eye could see, and among those trees children played outside the city walls. Raven watched them, amused, delighted by their antics.

  The ships, she noticed, were moored to floating wooden platforms. They were warships, troop carriers of little elegance. With whom did the Sons of Uthaan fight, she wondered? With Haamscir, across the great lake? With Xandrone? Why would anyone want to war with the cattle kings?

  It was of no importance, save that it threatened trouble at some future time, trouble that would inevitably involve Raven.

  The double gates of the city opened and they rode across the earth-bridge that spanned the shallow outer ditch. Thus they entered the noise and stench of Garakka.

  At the entrance to the inner fortress, which was a vast, stone-walled castle towering five man heights above them, Dion turned his horse and waved adieu.

  “Here I leave you,” he said to Raven. “As the son of the High Prince I am not allowed into the fortress on pain of…” He glanced up to where huge, yellow-metal spikes probed from the tops of the castle walls. He shivered, looked back at Raven. “But I shall wait outside the city walls and if you are thrown across the bridge, then know that your life is numbered in as many minutes as your steel can survive against our mabion blades. This is the way of things, here. But I wish you good fortune, for I have had my fill of slaughter these last weeks.”

  He vanished among the squat, stone houses, his troop guard with him. The fortress gate, a heavy wooden affair, with a bronze carving of a flaming sword spread across it, opened slowly. Raven and Karmana rode first, with Moonshadow lingering behind. In this way they entered the domain of Karagan.

  They were first taken to small living quarters. The stone walls were hung with luxurious tapestries, and in one corner, protected by a metal cowl, a low fire burned, lending to the pleasantly cool room an element of unwelcome heat. Moonshadow extinguished the fire with water from a pitcher, and then lay down on a thick, fur covered couch. He closed his eyes.

  Raven watched him for a moment, then glanced at Karmana and at the wide bath that had been placed in the room for their use. It was half full with warm water, and on a small stool by its side were perfumes and unguents that Raven examined for a moment before selecting some for use.

  Moonshadow, perhaps unaware that an adjoining room had been prepared for his use, fell asleep on the couch; there was nothing he, or either of the women, could do until they were summoned. Raven grinned as the man began to snore, then stripped off her shift and peeled her skin-dampened boots from her legs. She was grimed with sand and dirt and sweat and the smell of horseback. She stepped lightly into the bath and sank in the water, sighing with pleasure. As she lay there, luxuriating in the silky liquid, watching swirls of colour on the surface, so Karmana came round behind her and unleashed her hair. The golden curls fell free and the dark-haired girl combed them through. She scooped a bowl of water from the bath and balanced it on her knees, and Raven, fatigued and pleasantly relaxed, let her head reset in Karmana’s gentle grip, the hair flowing in the bowl as the girl washed the dirt and grease from the strands.

  After a while Karmana herself stripped and stepped into the bath. It was barely wide enough for two, but Raven shifted her legs, then parted them, so that Karmana could settle between them. Raven washed the other girl’s hair, and rinsed it with cold water from the pitcher. Then they washed the dirt from their bodies, and from each other’s bodies, until the lather and water were splashed everywhere, and the noise of their girlish laughter was enough to wake any normal man.

  Moonshadow sat up and saw what was going on. He smiled. “Room for one more?”

  “No!” cried the girls in unison and he shrugged and settled back to rest.

  Towards dusk, quite refreshed and very hungry, they were fetched to the High Prince, Karagan. New clothes had been made for them, similar to those they had previously worn, but Moonshadow had opted to wear a long, flowing blue silk garment, that hung on him like a tent flapping in the wind about its central pole. He carried a sword. Neither of the women had thought that appropriate.

  They entered a wide hall, to each side of which burned a furious log fire, the smoke being draw away , but the smell of cooking still heavy on the air. Shields decked the walls, shields of all colours and shapes, most of them scarred and split from battle. From the wooden rafters, high above their heads, hung the rusted blades of swords and spears, an immense array of looted weaponry, trophies from the successful campaigns of war that Karagan, and perhaps his predecessors had fought.

  The floor was covered with furs, stitched together to make a warm and luxurious carpet. Torches burned from holders on all sides, and by the bright, flickering light of the flames Raven could see the sombre shapes of guards watching the new arrivals. The guards were heavil
y armed, and heavily protected; yellow hair lay hidden beneath leather caps that bore a single pair of stubby horns, the tips of a Xand horn, supposedly a material even stronger than steel. And facing them, sprawled on a high backed throne, was the warlord of Uthaan himself.

  He was a giant of a man, tickly muscled and his legs covered with a dense growth of blond hair. He wore a simple paint-decorated leather shirt, open to his midriff. His long yellow hair hung to his shoulders; a waxed moustache grew down to his chin, but his face was otherwise clean shaven. Short leggings, with bone stitched into the leather fabric, guarded a modesty that his arrogant appraisal of the two women suggested he did not possess.

  He rose as Raven entered, and stepped down from the throne. He stood a head taller than her, but was matched for height with Moonshadow who seemed, as his name, a mere shadow of a man beside this broad and powerful chieftain. Moonshadow seemed unbothered and unimpressed by the man’s girth, or power of arm. His hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, the strange, pale-skinned man stood beside Raven and watched Karagan with hard, moon-steel-grey eyes.

  “You have come to consult the ancient oracle of Uthaan,” said Karagan, his voice deep and rich, his accent slightly strange, and yet pleasant to Raven’s ears. Karagan signaled to someone who stood in the shadows and a grey-haired, fresh-faced man appeared, came up to stand by his master. Raven stared at this man, at his long hair, dark robes, and thin, boney features, and thought she recognised a sorcerer.

  “This is Duprai, known as the Nightwatcher. He guards three things that Uthaan shelters with a jealously all of her own: the Wall of Tears, the Gate of the Giant Killers and the Oracle. He guards these things with magic, but tomorrow after dawn he will take you to the crystal and allow you to consult the voice of Uthaan itself.”