The Oathbreaker's Shadow (12 page)

The sharp end of a twig nicked his face as he pushed his way through the thickly tangled vines, and to punish the branch he chose its berries to feast on. He passed the largest bunch to Garna, who devoured the rare treat. It was the least he could do, for putting the innocent mare in so
much danger and for pushing her so hard for the past few hours. He coaxed her onwards with more berries, but suddenly she refused to go further.

‘What is it, Garna?’ Even in the dark, he could see the whites of her eyes. ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered, trying to sound reassured. He couldn’t allow her to bolt now; he still needed her. ‘We’ll go another way. Let me just check things out.’ He wasn’t sure whether horses could sense intention or not, but she seemed to understand that he wasn’t pressuring her to go onwards. She took steps back, while Raim cautiously pressed on. The vines were sealed across his passage, so densely packed they were like a wall. He took his dagger out of his boot and sliced away the branches that were at eye level. All he could see beyond was darkness, but the way seemed clear of more vines. He pushed the blade down the rest of the way, thankful for the Yun workmanship that made the edge slide through the vines like butter. He took a step forward.

The ground crumbled beneath his feet. Instinctively he groped for the vines, catching onto them with both hands. They sna a temporary settlementmSVnCC fpped and he slid, the vines shuddering in his arms until finally they caught and held above him. The dagger clattered down into the black abyss. He hung there, in shock. Blood trickled down his arms from where the branches slashed his palms. He took in two deep breaths and gently pulled on the vine he held in his right hand. It seemed to be holding. He put his foot out a="F891C">gnd felt rock. He realized he could balance on it, if he was careful.

He used the rock as a ledge to lift his left hand up above his right and pulled with all his might. When he crawled over the edge again, Garna was lying down, looking at him with sleepy eyes.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess you told me so.’ He sat down next to her but immediately regretted it, as exhaustion overwhelmed his body. He manoeuvred so that his legs hung over the edge of the cliff he had just discovered, forced by his training to always face his fear. There was no discernable landscape. It was as if he sat on the edge of the world, looking out into a starless universe. Even the air was still, like it too was playing hide and seek with Raim’s senses. He suddenly felt his heart and throat close, claustrophobic in the dark. He leaned back against Garna’s flank, his head rising and falling in time with her deep, even breathing.

He sat bolt upright. The back of his head was wet and sticky and when he reached behind he pulled leaves and thick clumps of seed out of his hair. He wondered how long he had been asleep, for though the darkness didn’t seem any lighter he felt uncomfortably refreshed, as if he had rested for a long time. Too long for a man on the run. Garna was nowhere to be seen. He whispered her name tentatively.

There was noise, but it wasn’t from any horse or other animal. There were human voices amongst the rustling of the vines and the sound of running water. Raim froze,
squatting frog-like facing the tangled vines, his back to the abyss. He listened.

‘Where?’ The voice, a man’s, was to his left.

‘Further.’ The voice, a woman’s, was closer and almost directly in front of him, along the line he and Garna had entered. Raim took two small steps backward and felt the vines press and release against his back, where hours before he had cut them. His muscles tightened, remembering the steep drop that he would encounter if he retreated further. The voices became clearer. It hadn’t taken the Yun long to track him down after all.

‘I came as soon as I got the message you had caught the horse.’

‘She emerged out of these vines.’

‘Have you found trace of him? What if he abandoned the horse? Let us move away from here, get closer to Pennar.’

There was silence for a few brief moments. The woman’s last words resounded in his head.
Pennar. How did they know?

‘Here is a trace. Blood. He must have passed through here.’

They were so close. There was no time to ponder over what they knew about his plans, or how they knew it. The vines to the left of him shuddered, and he knew what force was moving them. He slipped further backward, under the edge of the vines, his toes creeping over the precipice first. He lowered his feet until they found footing on a
ledge and his body reluctantly followed suit, stopping when only his fingertips gripped the cliff’s edge. He prayed he had been quiet enough.

His nose was pressed tightly against the rock and he breath to speakblyou ded in dust and soil. Pebbles bounced over his head as the Yun drew close to the edge.

‘An apprentice blade worked on this vine. Look at the smooth edges. He must be around here somewhere.’ The man spat, and Raim felt the moisture settle on his fingertips. ‘Traitor.’ He took a step forward, but the woman stopped him abruptly.

‘The vines of Rago obscure the edge of the stone cliffs,’ she said, and as she spoke her foot came down hard on Raim’s fingers. He winced, and prepared for capture. But she continued to speak. ‘It is impossible to go further. He did not pass this way.’

The man’s voice was gruff and insistent. ‘But what if he descended? Should we not pursue him?’

‘At the base of these cliffs begins the Sola desert. If he went down, there is no way to get up again, and he will perish under Naran. Nevertheless, we will post guards all the way along these cliffs from here to Pennar. If the Prince has informed us correctly, we will be watching from every direction. The traitor betrayed and was betrayed. There is no place for him here, no Darhanian will harbour him, no city or monastery will be safe for him. We will find him. And if he is already running across the sands of Sola, then so much better that death will be for him than if he
stayed.’ And Raim suddenly recognized the woman’s voice. It was Mhara. And Mhara was not speaking to her Yun companion, but directly to him. She took a step back; he felt her weight lift off his fingers.

He thought of the promise-knot to Khareh around his neck. His promise was to defend Khareh, and Khareh’s honour, even against the head of the Yun. Even against his mentor. This was his first challenge.

How did the Yun know about Pennar? Had they tortured Khareh? The thought was impossible. He was still royalty. Maybe they coerced it out of him. Memory tea?

‘Let’s keep moving then,’ said the deeper voice.

‘You go on ahead,’ said Mhara. ‘I want to examine this path more.’

Heavy steps moved away and when he could hear the man no more, Raim gritted his teeth and pushed up over the edge.

Mhara was standing with her back to him, her bow curving across her spine like a snake. ‘It’s not true,’ he said, his hands curled into tight fists.

‘Don’t be a fool, of course it is,’ she said, turning to face him.

‘Tell me how you found out about Pennar!’ He tried to keep his voice steady, but it broke with his desperation.

Her eyes held no pity, only anger at his stubborn refusal to believe. ‘Khareh told us. You mean nothing to him.’

Raim heard a voice in his head:
She insults me. Don’t allow her
. He knew at once it was the promise. He
wondered how anyone at all could break a vow, not with their voice, the person’s voice, in their head all the time, a constant presence. Khareh’s voice was say

‘You lie!’
Get to Pennar
, he told himself.
Get to Pennar, get to Khareh, he will put things right
. He charged forward into the vines. Lightning fast, she was at himing his movement, her tal softened. ‘You should n from the Ldon-like fingernails digging into his biceps.

After he had dropped down from the last hold at the very bottom of the cliff, he touched the sand, and immediately started searching for Mhara.

He found his dagger first. The red gem embedded in the handle glinted in the light of the desert moon, revealing it lodged in a crevice between two rocks. Somehow, the blade hadn’t shattered. He silently praised the Yun craftsman ship, and then quickly put it away beneath his robes before it reminded him too much of all he had lost. He dropped to the sand, his knees slowly sinking into the soft surface. ‘Please,’ he prayed to Sola harder than he ever had before. ‘Let her be alive. I would do anything to find her alive.’ The adrenaline that he had been carrying with him since his climb down was slowly ebbing away, his mind pushing hard against the creeping advances of despair. But the dagger sparked an ember of hope in his heart that he would find her. the other apprenticesgh
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He redoubled his efforts. The darkness made it almost impossible, but if he could find her now there might still be a chance . . .

Hours passed, and the first rays of sunlight spread rapidly across the sky. As the cliffs around him brightened, he could see just how huge they really were. There was no way for him to climb back up; the fact that he had come down without breaking his neck he attributed to adrenaline-fuelled luck. He retraced his steps to where he had landed and searched again in all the places he had looked the previous night, in case the dark had obscured any clues. But every rock he shifted seemed to add to the weight in the pit of his stomach. He knew now that he was searching for Mhara’s body – there was no way anyone could survive a fall from that height. Still, he scoured the edge of the rock. He dug in mysterious mounds in the sand. He tried to search for a ledge where her body might have landed, but he could see nothing.

He clenched his fists hard, but still his eyes filled with tears that stung and blurred his vision. Mhara was gone. The greatest Yun, teacher, person he had ever known would not even be able to receive the proper burial rites she deserved. Raim raged against the gods. Why had they taken her in such a degrading manner? Mhara deserved to die on the battlefield, surrounded by glory. He picked up one of the rocks he had shifted and hurled it at the cliff wall. It bounced off without even leaving a chip, so hard and impenetrable was the stone. And as angry as he was
with the gods, he was stricken with grief and guilt and fury with his own actions.

I killed her. And there is no way to make it right.

Had he just followed Mhara’s instructions from the beginning, she would still be alive. But it was his pride. It was his knot. It was his promise to defend Khareh. Mhara had tried to convince him that Khareh was treacherous, but he was duty bound to defend Khareh’s honour. Was that not justification enough? Well, he had done his job. He had protected Khareh, and at the ultimate cost. Now he would honour his mentor by obeying her final command.

You must go to Lazar.

He turned round to face the desert, and the immensity of it almost overwhelmed him. East and west, and as far into the horizon as he could see, dunes dominated the landscape, rolling and churning like a thunderous sky crashed onto the ground.

He took his first hesitant step forward.

A few minutes after he had made his decision, he regretted it, but by then he had already crossed over the first hill of sand and could see nothing else but the slippery, shifting golden ground. And going back would deny what he knew he deserved. He deserved this exile, now more than ever. He had no idea how to find the Chauk. All he knew was that he had to walk – and whether his feet led him to Lazar or to death, the gods would decide.

It shouldn’t have felt as hard as it did. After all, Raim had spent his whole life walking. If he started counting from the time he first stumbled across a thick red and blue piled carpet and into Loni’s arms, he must have walked the length of Darhan ten times over. It was the Darhanian way. Each tribe walked from one pasture to the next, following the turning of the seasons and the whims of the cattle and the goats. As goatherders, Raim’s tribe were nomads who put the needs of their animals before their own. Other tribes, he knew, might follow the rivers, watching for the telltale flicker of silver and gold amidst the translucent ripples that would indicate a large flock of salmon set in a firm lineor
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div.shading-50CC f or tyrfish fit for eating. Yet, as random and unsystematic as their wanderings might seem to the untrained observer, they were as predictable as the rising of the sun and the moon. The elders called Naran, the sun, the greatest nomad in the sky, constantly wandering, cycling and searching for the ripest pasture for her herd, the Darhanian people.

But the sand was unlike any surface he had ever walked on. It seemed to defy him at every step. Each grain slipped out from underneath his boots. He slid and stumbled, discovered muscles on the insides of his legs that he had never used before. The sun that had once been so predictable and friendly to him now beat down relentlessly on his back. Every ray was a searing knife.

Raim’s life had been like one long march, with his feet as his principal companions. So when they finally gave out
from under him it was in shock and in tears that he fell to the ground.

He felt so weak, with his knees buckled underneath him and his face in his hands. His head was bare and open to the sky. Summoning some strength, he took the left sleeve of his tunic in his teeth and pulled. The material ripped and he tied it over his head and down across his brow, to try to shield his head and eyes from the worst of the sun. At least now he could see without squinting. His legs had taken him down the path of least resistance, but he saw he had travelled halfway into a deep valley between two mountains of sand.

A few of the Rago berries from last night were stuffed deep into his pocket, and the deep-purple juices had dyed the bottom of his tunic and smelled foul. He took two out, held his nose and squeezed what was left of the juice into his parched mouth. The liquid stung his tongue and scratched the back of his throat, as if the droplets were covered in tiny spikes. Instinctively he spat the disgusting juice into the sand. He watched as the sand drank the moisture up greedily, and for a brief moment turned purple, then gold again, as if nothing had ever happened. He missed the saliva the moment it left his mouth and felt jealous of the sand. He popped the wrung out flesh of the berry into his mouth and savoured the coolness preserved within its skin, trying to ignore the taste. He had to press his hand over his mouth to keep his stomach from rejecting it.