‘What is it?’ Kutch said. ‘Is somebody coming? Do we have to hide?’
‘We’ve got to trust each other. Now listen to me. Do not, under any circumstances, let me out of there until… well, you’ll probably know when. But if you have any doubts just leave me be.’
‘None of this makes sense.’
‘Just do it. Please.’
Kutch gave him a dazed nod.
‘Are those the keys for the fetters?’ Caldason waved a hand at a bunch hanging from a hook on the cell’s door frame.
‘Yes.’
‘Then chain me.’
‘You want to be chained too?’
‘We’ve no time.
Hurry
.’
With shaking hands, Kutch secured Caldason’s ankles and wrists.
‘Whatever I say or do,’ Caldason restated, ‘don’t open that door. Not if you value your life. Now get out. And stay away.’
In a state of confusion, Kutch backed away from the cell. He closed the bulky door and turned its lock.
Then he stood by the grille and watched what happened next in amazement.
3
His people thought honour meant something. Until betrayal rode in on a thousand horses.
The raiders came under cover of a moonless night, with no aim but murder. They were welcomed by paltry fences and open gates. A sparse watch, taken off-guard. An alarm raised too late.
They set to slaughter, and savoured the task.
But his folk were warriors, first and last, and they met the traitors. There were inexhaustible numbers to unhorse and cut down, and still they made no impression on the tide. Victory was hopeless. Yet better to die with sword in hand.
He did his share of killing. In vain he tried to organise a defence in the face of chaos. Where he could, he protected the weak.
In the confusion of running, screaming, burning and dying he saw a woman and her child cowering before a raider. She pleaded as the youngster wept, balled fists to his eyes. He hacked his way to them and struck down their would-be assassin. The pair fled, the woman clutching the boy’s hand. Then he watched, powerless, as another rider swooped in to spear and trample them.
Dead and wounded littered the ground, most of them his own people. He walked, stumbled, ran over them as he dodged and slashed. The wave of attackers seemed endless. He looked to the central lodge, the communal hub of the camp and traditional sanctuary in times of strife. Some of the more vulnerable, the young, the old and the ailing, had been swiftly shepherded there. That might include his closest kin. Now he wanted only to be with them for the end.
The great round house’s thatch was already ablaze before he battled his way to its door. His arrival, gore encrusted, panting, found the building in full flame. Victims of the conflagration, staggering fireballs, groped shrieking from the burning lodge. Around its entrance lay evidence of a particular massacre within the general carnage. The corpses of family, comrades, and siblings by right of blood oath. His despairing thought was to get away, perhaps then to join with other survivors and strike back at their enemy.
A group of raiders lashed ropes to the camp’s corral and brought it crashing down. Scores of terrified horses galloped out to compound the anarchy. The stampede acted as a diversion for his flight. He sped to a cluster of huts, several of which were also on fire, and weaved through them. His goal was the perimeter fence, the pasture land beyond and then the forest.
He didn’t make it.
A pack of the distinctively garbed attackers appeared and blocked his path. More closed off his exit. He tore into them, fighting with the frenzy of hopelessness. Two he downed at once, ribboning the throat of one, skewering the heart of the next. Then he was at the centre of a storm of blades. He took his own wounds, many of them, but gave plenty in return. Another opponent fell, chest caved, and another, stomach slashed.
His reckless fury brought a small miracle. All but a pair of his opponents were dispatched, and one of them was injured. But his hurts were too many and put paid to hopes of escape. Near collapse from loss of blood, vision swimming, a blow across his shoulders brought him to his knees. His sword slipped from numbing fingers.
He thought he saw, just fleetingly, the figure of an old man cloaked in black smoke, standing at the door of a nearby hut.
His gaze went up to the face of his killer. An ocean of time flowed slowly between them.
Then he felt his ravaged body pierced by cold steel.
Cold water battered his face.
He came round in a spasm, fighting for breath, eyes wide. His arms and legs were held fast, and instinctively he jerked at the chains binding them.
‘Easy.’
Caldason blinked at the figure kneeling alongside.
‘I think it’s over now,’ Kutch told him.
Sitting up, painfully, Caldason took in his surroundings. They were in the cramped demon hole. The hard, irregular stone floor was uncomfortable and wet.
‘How long?’ he grated, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
Kutch put aside the bucket. ‘All day. It’s late evening now.’
‘Did I do any harm?’
‘Only to yourself.’ He surveyed the Qalochian’s bruised face and grazed arms, his dishevelled hair and the dark rings under his still slightly feral eyes. ‘You look terrible.’
‘Did I speak?’
‘You did little else, though rave might be a better word. But not in any tongue I recognised. You’ve no need to fear you gave away any secrets.’
‘I have few enough, but thank you for that, Kutch.’
‘I’ve never seen anybody the way you were, Reeth. Unless they were ramped or possessed of demons.’
‘Neither covers my situation.’
‘No, that was something else. Is that why you wanted to consult my master?’
‘Part of it.’
‘
Part?
You nearly uprooted those restraining rings! You
frothed
, for the gods’ sake! And you have
other
problems?’
‘Let’s say they are complicating factors.’
Kutch could see he wasn’t going to get any more on that subject. ‘I’d heard you were a savage fighter,’ he said. ‘Is that because of these… fits?’ It was an inadequate word.
‘Sometimes. You’ve seen I don’t control it.’
‘How did you -’
‘Kutch. I ache. I’m soaked and I could use food and something to drink.’ He thrust his manacled wrists at him. ‘Get me out of these.’
Kutch looked wary.
‘The seizure’s passed, you’re in no danger. I have some warning of an onset. If it’s going to happen again I’ll come back here.’
Still the boy hesitated.
‘It’s not as though I’m in a permanent state of derangement,’ Caldason persisted. ‘I’m no Melyobar.’
Despite his apprehension, Kutch had to smile as he reached for the keys.
The royal court of the sovereign state of Bhealfa hadn’t stood still in almost twenty years.
When he gained leadership, though technically not the throne itself, Prince Melyobar was eighteen. Some said he was eccentric even then. Given the unusual constitutional situation he found himself in, with his father, the King, neither dead nor properly living, there were doubts about the Prince’s legitimacy as a ruler. It took an interminable time to sort out the problem. Melyobar distracted himself by consulting seers and prophets, hoping to hear something of his coming, ersatz reign.
It was then that he learned the true nature of death.
Nobody knows which of the numerous mystics he received first put the idea into his head. But the result was that, for Melyobar, death became Death. An animate creature, walking the world as men do, dealing out oblivion. Worse, intent on stalking
him
.
Backed by the counsel of some of his more pliable soothsayers, the Prince reasoned that if Death walked like a man, he could be outrun. In eluding Death, death could be cheated.