A Skillful Warrior (SoulNecklace Stories Book 2) Read online

  Chapter Three

  Bread and Conversation

  Seated by the campfire, N’tombe and Will crouched under a tarpaulin shelter. The tightly woven canvas kept off the worst of the rain but didn’t stop the wind, which blew through the open sides and swirled the smoke about. Weather like this made Will long for simple things: a warm bed, a house with walls, a fire that didn’t smoke. N’tombe appeared equally uncomfortable; she crouched beside the fire, hands huddled into the folds of her cloak.

  Traveling in wet weather held little charm and, as there had been no sign of pursuit, the company decided on a rest day. A fortnight of constant riding was hard on horse and rider. Although, Will thought, crowding together under a small tarpaulin was not exactly relaxing.

  Dana had muttered and twitched until eventually Jed had mentioned the lack of fresh meat.

  ‘I’ll go hunting,’ the Princess had said eagerly, taking up her bow and quiver.

  Will stared out at the damp moorland morosely. Maybe he should have offered to go instead of Jed, but he and Dana ... well, things were not so good between them. She seemed so distant. Had he done something to offend her?

  He laid another pine branch on the fire, watched the flames lick sullenly at damp wood.

  N’tombe shivered. ‘I hate this weather. So cold.’

  N’tombe’s power was extraordinary, yet here she sat, blowing on her hands just like any commonplace traveler. From another world, so she said. How could there be many worlds? Wasn’t one large enough?

  Will pointed to the saddlebags. They were well equipped; he’d never had so much gear with him before. ‘We have more clothes.’

  She made a face. ‘More clothes? I feel like a parcel. I can barely move.’

  ‘Keeps you warm, though.’

  She nodded reluctantly and shuffled over to the packs. Then she smiled. ‘Look! Hats! And a woolen undershirt.‘ She pulled a cream garment from a saddlebag and examined it closely. ‘This is finely made. Not at all itchy.’ The Enchantress held the garment up against her as if measuring it for size. ‘I will wear it.’ She frowned at Will. ‘What are you waiting for? Turn around.’

  Quickly, Will turned his back, stared out across the heath. N’tombe rustled behind him. What was she doing? From the sounds it seemed she was removing her garments. He swallowed, watched the grey sky intently. He didn’t want to peek at a partially-clad Enchantress; she might turn him into a frog if he showed signs of disrespect. Stop! She can read thoughts, remember?

  Desperately, Will considered the climate. It is raining again. Not the cold of winter, but still ’tis cold for this time of year. On days like this, a body wants hot food. What did they have in those saddlebags? Dried peas. Beans. Barley. Suitable for a rabbit stew, provided Dana and Jed could find some. Most coneys would be hiding down in their holes in weather like this. He was getting plaguey sick of rabbit, anyway.

  They had flour, wrapped carefully in brown paper bags. He could make camp bread! Would be a treat for Dana when she returned from her hunting. Will smiled, imagining her pleasure.

  ‘You can look now,’ said N’tombe.

  Will blinked. She was wearing the hat. Such a hat! Knitted in thick wool, its creator had decorated it with tassels and added ear flaps that could be tied under the chin. Will coughed.

  ‘What?’ asked N’tombe.

  ‘Um. Your hat.’

  ‘It is very warm. Look. It is lined with wool.’ She pulled another from the pack. ‘Here. Try it.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘It will keep your head warm.’

  ‘My head is fine, thank you.’ It would take a fair amount of cold weather to get him to wear a hat like that. Although it appeared better on the Enchantress than it would on him; something about her black skin and smooth cheeks. She could make even a stupid hat look exotic.

  She smiled at him approvingly.

  Oh damn, he thought.

  ‘You remember the warrior?’ she asked, as if to take his thoughts from his embarrassment. ‘The one you fought?’

  Will pulled the saddlebag with the provisions over. The flour should be in here somewhere. ‘Warrior? You mean the Noyan?’

  ‘A Noyan is someone important?’

  Will set the bag down. ‘Aye. Very important. A general, a leader.’ He remembered the dark-eyed warrior. He had met TeSin at the Crossing, before embarking on his journey. Strange that he’d encountered the same man on his return. Strange, and unlucky for TeSin.

  Will didn’t like thinking about the folk he’d killed; made him feel somewhat guilty even though it was never his choice to do the killing. Carefully, he poured two handfuls of fine white flour into the smoke-rimmed cooking pot before tucking the remainder into a saddlebag. Might be enough for another batch, if he were careful. It was good to think only of cooking; better by far than remembering killing and death.

  Will poured water into the flour.

  N’tombe watched his preparations with interest. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Making camp bread.’

  She smiled. ‘I used to bake bread on the fire, also. Once upon a time, that is.’ She sighed. ‘The Kingdom is so strange. And I am far from home. Tell me, Will, what do you think of the Kingdom? You and I are both strangers there.’

  Will considered her question carefully. What did he think of the Kingdom? Such a complex question – how could he even begin to respond? ‘Sometimes,’ he hesitated, ‘it doesn’t feel quite real.’

  ‘I know what you mean. It is peaceful, prosperous, all the things my own country lacks. Yet somehow it felt curiously remote; as if I saw it in a dream.’ She smiled, then patted her head. ‘Now, see this hat?’

  Will looked at the tassels, looked away before his thoughts betrayed him. He concentrated instead on pouring water from the bladder into the mound of flour. If I had some yeast, he thought carefully, so thoughts of hats and turkey-cocks did not intrude, I could make proper bread. But I am on a moorland, far from habitation. I’ll have to make do.

  ‘This hat now,’ N’tombe repeated, ‘is warm and well made. Attractive. Like many things from in the Kingdom.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Will. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So surely, such a land could share its wealth. Yet, it does not. I do not understand why the Kingdom keeps itself apart.’

  Will nodded. He knew what she meant. As an orphan traveling to the Kingdom after his parents died, he had stood at the seashore with the carved wood of the token clenched tight in his hands and called. Called for a homeland; for the family he’d lost. And then had come the Ferryman, poling his lonely way across the straits; it was as if he’d Will’s desire and brought the Kingdom in answer.

  The land of the Kingdom was distinct from the mainland in a way that was more than just being an island. The land felt different. Because of this difference, it was fortunate, or so he had been told by Aunt Agnes between beatings.

  ‘Isn’t it the Guardian who keeps it separate?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘and no. The Guardian does what the land demands. The land of the Kingdom is very demanding.’

  ‘What is your own country like?’

  She paused. ‘At home, always the soldiers come. Rape the women. Kill the men. They steal children, and train them to be soldiers, just like them. And so the cycle continues. But it was not always so. When my mother was young, there was peace. Holy men came to our village. They started a school. My mother went there, so my Aunt Zissi said. She was a very good student. So good she won a scholarship.’

  ‘A scholarship? What’s that?’

  ‘Yes!’ said N’tombe excitedly. ‘That is what is missing. Education. Training. Do you know what a university is, Will?’

  Will shook his head.

  ‘How old were you when you left school?’

  Will tallied up the years. ‘Thirteen.’

  ‘And in your travels, have you seen anywhere a place where children might continue to learn?’

  Will, about to say surely thirteen years wer
e sufficient for learning, stopped. He remembered the Black Stronghold, the City of the Eternal where, for a brief time, he had been a guard.

  One night he had stood on the parapets, overlooking the Stronghold. It was a festival or somesuch. So many people! He’d never heard such noise. Below, in the Square of the Fountain, a wide-open courtyard with a silver fountain and a pond, a festival had begun. Puppeteers were setting up a shadow show; the orchestra was beating on gongs and cymbals. There was much to watch and the guards stared impatiently at the performers, waiting for the show.

  But Will was interested in the calm quiet courtyard on the other side of the wall. The clear light of the full moon had bleached the buildings white as bone.

  He pointed at the peaceful courtyard. ‘What is that?’

  ‘It is a school,’ said Kasar, Will’s friend.

  No school could be this large — why, it was near on as big as the great hall of the Castle. ‘Many children go there?’

  Kasar laughed. ‘For slaves, eunuchs. No children.’

  ‘Eunuch?’

  The man gestured at his groin. ‘Men, made into women.’

  ‘Will?’ asked N’tombe.

  Will blinked. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘We were speaking of schools, then you became suddenly quiet.’

  He swallowed. ‘I was thinking on what you said. Yes. In the Stronghold, there are schools for older children.’

  ‘There are? And what do they learn?’

  Will poured salt onto the dough and began kneading it in. ‘Dull stuff. Tax-keeping, languages. Figuring. The children are slaves, the ones that show promise. Them that go to the schools end up in charge of the city.’ He shook his head. What sort of city put slaves in control?

  ‘You say they’re in charge? What of?’

  ‘Wayhouses,’ said Will, thinking of the government inns, dotted along the roadways. ‘Tax collecting. Um. Measuring the stars and such for the ceremonies.’

  He told N’tombe of the figurers whose job it was to calculate when the eclipses would occur. It had felt kind of wondrous to realize that men could calculate these things. ‘Magic workers have schools, too.’ But the magic workers were not slaves. Oh no. And they were not eunuchs. They were ugly, foul-smelling, powerful brutes. Even the guards were afraid of them. And their schools were not places of calm.

  ‘What do they learn?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The dough was ready; he’d keep it near to the warmth until Jed and Dana returned.

  ‘Are there many magic workers?’

  Will shrugged. ‘There seem to be a fair few. Folk hide when they pass. They’re afraid of them.’

  The guards had hated the magicians. But they were useful in a fight, so they were tolerated; tales were told of their deeds, and their deeds had become legend, turned into theatre for the townsfolk to watch. That same night in the Stronghold he’d seen such a story.

  The guards had an excellent view from the ramparts, and the puppet show had interesting enough to watch, even though Will couldn’t understand what was being said. There had been five puppets, grotesque things like insects, dancing an awkward dance across the white screen.

  The audience appeared to draw a collective breath as a sixth puppet appeared.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Will had stared down at the courtyard in frustration. He was sick of being an outsider.

  ‘Sssh! Kamaye. Old Ones. Sorcerers.’ Kasar pressed his amulet to his forehead to prevent the evil eye.

  ‘What is a Kamaye?’

  ‘Sssh. Not talk,’ hissed Kasar. ‘They bad luck. Very bad luck. Watch puppets. Then you see.’

  The story was about a magic worker, off to steal a man’s city or his face or his wife or somesuch. Maybe all three. There had been screeching and yelling and cymbals banging. When the puppet had stolen the man’s face and was with the wife — well, then the shadows had gotten mighty interesting. Kasar had laughed so hard he’d nearly fallen from the wall.

  That night on the ramparts; ah, that had been the last evening of peace. For the next day Will had killed Kasar, his friend. All because Kasar had realized that Will was a spy. What sort of man killed a friend? Yet, what alternative did he, Will, have?

  After that, he and Jed had had to run. Will felt that he’d not stopped running since. It was good to have this rest day, even if the weather was a mite ugly.

  Will tipped the beans into the pot, added enough water to cover them, put the lid on and set the pot on the coals. The pot hissed and sizzled. He looked around at the moorland. The rain seemed to be lessening and somehow he felt warmer. Nothing like cooking to set the world to rights.

  ‘Tell me more about the Stronghold,’ asked N’tombe.

  Will sighed. He wished he hadn’t remembered the puppet show. For he didn’t want to talk about Kasar. The guilt he felt was buried down, deep, not ready for speaking of yet.

  ‘You mentioned the Emperor. What of him?’

  ‘He is immortal, as much as I can tell,’ said Will. ‘The guards called him “the Eternal One.”’

  N’tombe sat in silence, as if considering what he’d said. Then she stirred. ‘Can you tell me more about the magic-workers?’

  ‘Well, there’s the pointy-nail type. You’ve met one of these.’

  ‘And?’

  Will wrinkled his forehead, remembering the guards and the ramparts and the puppets on the screen. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that there’s others. The guards called them Kamaye.’

  ‘Kamaye? What are they?’

  ‘They have something to do with the Emperor. The guards didn’t want to talk about them much. Perhaps they’re a myth.’

  ‘Will, look at me. I am from another world entirely. You have seen the Kingdom removed from this world. Now, tell me. Are you still so confident that these, these Kamaye are just myths?’

  ‘I think so.’ Life would be much simpler without magic. Seemed as though magic brought naught but trouble. ‘I hope they are.’ He stirred the beans, thinking, remembering. ‘The Kamaye travel in the shadows. If anything goes wrong, then ’twill be a Kamaye at work. I think they’re just a story, something to scare babes with. But Magicians are real enough, mind. I’ve seen them. They outrank everyone in the army. Even a Noyan. And they are always sent on important campaigns.’ He looked at N’tombe. ‘They’ll be in that army following us, won’t they?’

  She shrugged. ‘Probably.’

  ‘So, what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ll stay one step ahead of them,’ she said. ‘We are not defenceless, you know.’

  Will sighed, thinking again of the light in the darkness, soaring from Dana’s wrist to the sky. Of Dana, fighting and blurring into light.

  ‘She doesn’t even look at me anymore,’ he muttered.

  N’tombe seemed to understand this conversational leap. ‘She’s had a lot happen to her.’

  Will stared out at the empty moorland and said nothing. Dana’s family were still alive, weren’t they? What did she have to complain of?

  ‘Give her time, Will.’

  Chapter Four

  Floating

  ‘Feeling better?’ asked N’tombe.

  I lay in the shade of a furze bush, its bright flowers summer-yellow against the blue sky. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Near to midday. You’ve slept half the day.’

  ‘What! You should have woken me.‘

  ‘I have felt no trace,’ she said. ‘Do not worry, Princess.’

  Not worry? How could I not worry, when there were armed men following us? I swallowed, my mouth dry. ‘Is there any water?’

  She handed me the water bladder. ‘Careful. There won’t be much more until we cross the moor.’

  Our horses grazed beside us. Their teeth sounded like small shears, scything the grass. Poor things, dragged away from their home, ridden every day with no rest and inadequate food. N’tombe and I seemed alone on this open space of heather and grass. Where were the men?

  ‘They are hunting. We were growing low in
supplies. Dana, take this. It’s for breaking your fast.’ She passed me some meat, rolled in a leaf. ‘And look, Jed found these.’

  “These” were two fat strawberries, wrapped in another leaf. I gobbled them quickly as lightning, then gnawed at the meat.

  ‘Will can make more bread tonight, if you wish. It would be a change, I have to admit.’

  I took a few sips of brackish water. ‘And you’re sure it’s safe to stop? There’s no-one following?’

  ‘Dana. Don’t worry.’

  But I couldn’t help worrying. How could an army have just ... disappeared? ‘It seems so strange.’

  ‘A lot has happened in a few weeks,’ said N’tombe softly.

  True-spoken. Barely three weeks ago, I was Princess Dana, sitting in my tower, staring longingly out at these same mountains that I now sat beneath. I felt as though my soul was still in my bedchamber, and had yet to find its way to my body.

  I sighed, lay back on the grass, gazed at the sky. So blue, it seemed to go on forever. ‘I dreamed of her again. The bead. The Guardian.’

  ‘Ah,’ She sounded excited. ‘They are speaking to you?’

  I squinted at her, outlined by light. ‘I thought you realized.’

  ‘How should I? I do not follow you into your dreams.’

  Once, years ago, she had sent me a dream of TeSin. It had made me sick. TeSin, whom Will had killed. ‘Yes you do.’

  N’tombe put her hand on my wrist. The glass beads gleamed in the sun. ‘Not any more. You are too powerful for me now.’

  What did she mean? I could never be as strong as her. Why, when she had arrived at the Kingdom, N’tombe had near to blown the gates apart in anger. ‘Do you know where we are going then?’

  ‘There is a,’ she hesitated. ‘A scent. It blows in on the wind, blows out again. But I am reaching towards it. Yes. I know where we are going.’

  Rosa had said we were to find a weapon, and that this weapon would destroy the Emperor. ‘Do you know what this weapon even is?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not exactly. But I feel ... power. It is most strange, Princess. Power that is ancient, as old as the earth itself, and yet also curiously young.’