The Right Hand of God (38 page)

'Yes,' Maendraga had said, his rich voice reminding Leith of the time they shared on the Wodhaitic Sea. 'Jethart is right when he says the Arrow only affects those of the Fire.'

'Why is that? Are there talismans for each of the other elements?'

Belladonna laughed, the gap in her front teeth visible in her smile. 'We were told so. The knowledge was passed down from Bewray's time, but no one knows with certainty.'

'Can't see it myself,' Maendraga interrupted his daughter agreeably. 'The Jugom Ark is the product of rebellion and justice. I don't think similar situations prevailed for the people of the Water, Earth and Air.'

For a while the two guardians debated this idea, constantly referring to the writings of Maendraga's ancestors, an increasingly esoteric subject to which Leith could contribute nothing. Eventually the river rocked him gently to sleep.

A few days later Leith had asked the question foremost

on his mind. 'Is the Jugom Ark a weapon?' For a reason he could not yet name, the subject was difficult to broach.

Father and daughter discussed it for a while, but could not make up their minds. Maendraga began by arguing forcefully for the position that the Arrow must have a function as a weapon, but Belladonna opposed him. 'Can a weapon unify?' she wondered aloud, after her father suggested the very shape of the Jugom Ark pointed to its function.

Leith seized on her argument. 'Weapons are made to divide and defeat,' he said. 'How does division suggest unity?'

Maendraga answered immediately. 'Easily, Leith. Especially if the weapon divides Faltha and Bhrudwo. What better reason to unify Faltha? Of course it's a weapon.'

'But if it is a weapon, how does it work?' Belladonna continued to pull at the issue like a loose thread hanging from a garment.

Maendraga turned to Leith and raised his eyebrows ques-tioningly.

'Well, I haven't used it as a weapon,' he said. 'I've healed with it, at the Court of Nemohaim and when Escaigne and the Ecclesia were ambushed by Deorc. I used it to resist the blue fire of the Destroyer. I don't know what other powers it has.' He looked down at the Arrow in his hand.

'The biggest miracle, of course, is the assembling of this army,' Maendraga said thoughtfully.

'Perhaps the Bearer is supposed to heal the hurts of his army, thereby maintaining their unity?'

Belladonna uncrossed her long legs as she said this, and began pacing back and forth on the barge.

'Or maybe heal the hurts of the Bhrudwan army, drawing them in to some greater unity with Faltha?' Maendraga put out an arm and touched her, emphasising his point.

'But it took the Destroyer's hand,' Leith said. 'Wasn't that its original purpose? What if I'm supposed to assault the Destroyer with it?'

'I'm not sure how you would go about that,' Belladonna said doubtfully.

Leith pulled out his most convincing argument, the one which had come to him weeks before.

'The carvings in the Hall of Meeting show the Most High loosing the Arrow at the Destroyer using a bow. I wasn't given a bow. Surely, if the Arrow was meant to be used as a weapon, I would have been given a bow? How can I launch this weapon at our foe?'

Maendraga rubbed his chin, deep in thought. 'The Jugom Ark would not suffer an ordinary bow, however constructed. It would set the wood alight.'

'Must I sneak into the Bhrudwan camp, then, and throw it at him? If I throw the Arrow and it does not destroy him, I will have surrendered it to him for nothing.'

'Maybe you need to get even closer and stab him with it.' Belladonna's tone suggested she harboured severe reservations about what she said.

'Through the massed might of Bhrudwo and the Lords of Fear? That's even worse. If they catch me I will have surrendered myself as well as the Arrow.'

The discussion continued on for an hour or so, but seemed to Leith a waste of time. Nothing could be proved anyway. They could conceive of no simple method of testing the Jugom Ark's efficacy as a weapon without rounding up some of their own soldiers and using it against them. He could hear Hal's outraged voice of protest if that idea was suggested! And, thought Leith, my voice would be added to his.

Though their time on the barges was soon over, Leith

hoped to spend more time with the guardians later in the march. They were friendlier, more knowledgeable and less judgmental than his parents would likely be. Go and speak with Hal, his mother and father would say. He doubted he could explain to them why he couldn't do that. Hal speaks in my head, he'd say to them. He is taking over my mind. 1 need to work this out without his interference! No, telling them about the voice would further harm the already reduced respect in which his family held him.

Leith looked up from his musings: the King of Favony was about to take his leave. Best to keep my eyes open. Take every opportunity to speak to Belladonna and Maendraga. And Phemanderac, if 1 can find him.

'I do not like the look of this weather, no matter what Ruben-rammen says.' Kurr was unhappy, and not afraid to let others know it. 'I know what we'd call this weather in Firanes.'

Farr stood shoulder to shoulder with the old farmer. 'You can smell it, can't you. Up on Vinkullen we'd be bringing in the stock and splitting the firewood. There's snow out there, sure enough.'

Ruben-rammen, their stocky Favonian guide, stared up at them from under bushy black eyebrows. 'So I come to your land, outdoorsman, and tell you how to live on it? You would sit at my feet and ask me when to plant and when to harvest? Not all the world is like your home!

Allow someone who lives here to share his wisdom!'

Kurr hissed on an indrawn breath but held his tongue, looking to Leith. Farr, however, had no such self-restraint. 'Snow smells like snow anywhere in the world.' The Vinkullen man gestured around him, to the wide greensward, the narrow bridge across the swirling, deep-channelled Aleinus, and the

towering hills on both sides. 'It's calm down here in the valley, but look up on the shoulders of the mountains to the north. See the faint white smear in the sky? That's windblown snow picked up from the upper slopes and tossed out into this gorge. Unless snow here behaves in a completely different fashion to the snow of Firanes, there is a gale blowing above us. Who can tell what the wind will bring?'

'Very clever, mountain boy. Always it is windy there, up on the Wodranian heights.

Sometimes from the north, mostly from the south, until the tail of winter. Anyone who lives in the lee of the mountains knows this! I say the wind will turn to the south before the day is over, and your army will have a safe passage to the east. One week from now you will be feasting in Kaskyne, remembering to toast Ruben-rammen of Favony.'

'Aren't you coming with us?' Kurr asked, surprised.

'My king requires me at Sturrenkol,' came the short reply. 'I cannot disobey.'

Leith stepped forward. 'We are grateful to your king, and to you, Ruben-rammen. Take these coins as extra payment for advice well given, in the face of adversity.' Here Leith cast a baleful glance at his friends.

'That is undeserved, boy,' muttered Kurr. Beside him, Fan-growled his agreement.

'So was the criticism,' replied Leith, angered by the old man's intransigence. 'Why must we always think we know best? Every chance we get, we First Men try to enforce our desires on others. This time we are going to listen to the advice we are given.' In the back of his mind he could hear a dockworker yelling abuse at the Pei-ran navigator on the morning he arrived at Instruere, and remembered the shame he had felt.

'We will take the south road, as Ruben-rammen suggested. The king was kind enough to help us: how would ignoring his advice advance the cause of unity in Faltha? We will use all help offered. Now, please kindly go and tell my captains to prepare their charges. We leave as soon as we are ready.'

Though he hated the stares and mutterings the decision drew, Leith felt strangely satisfied with his choice - as if a decision based on information supplied by people outside the Company redressed some celestial balance in which the First Men were always the beneficiaries. It didn't matter that Favonians were First Men themselves. It was good, Leith judged, that the Company didn't appear to always get their way.

At first the weather stayed clear but cold, as it had done since they marched through the Aleinus Gates, a huge and impressive basalt cliff sundered by the roaring waters of the Aleinus a few hours' journey east of the town. Above this point the great river was not navigable, falling over two thousand feet in the hundred leagues between the Gates and Kaskyne, the chief city of Redana'a. The army woke every morning to a heavy frost, which in many shaded parts of Vulture's Craw did not melt before the early afternoon sun left the valley. Leith stopped to inspect the wooden bridge that led to the northern path, and noted the wooden slats had already become slippery with frost. His army would have experienced some difficulty crossing it, and again he congratulated himself on his decision.

The snow began on the fourth day east of Aleinus Gates, the forty-seventh of their march to the Gap. Light at first, it sifted down in patches from a mostly clear sky, garnishing the hard road with a treacherous granular surface. The air became bitterly cold. 'Issue cloaks to anyone without them,' Sjenda barked, her breath frosting in the frigid morning, her words sending people scurrying for the wagons. 'Prepare extra rations,' she ordered the cooks.

'Include a nip of brandy.' A few of the cooks smiled inwardly. The dragon had a heart after all.

By afternoon snow covered the rutted road. Tramped flat by thousands of feet, it froze into a glass-like icy surface almost impossible to stay upright on. Leith's mighty Falthan army suffered a spate of bruised hands and knees, with a few broken bones. As light faded from the southern hills, Leith looked wistfully across the wide southern banks to where the river cut into the base of the northern slopes. Just discernible on the sun-lit slope was the thin line that marked the north bank path. Leith fancied he could even see a few people travelling on the road - or were they watching the Falthan army picking their way east on the southern path?

The King of Favony called a halt. High above the Aleinus River, he and his most trusted advisers observed the long, snake-like procession make its way haltingly up the valley. 'You have done well,' he said to the stocky man at his side. 'Fools beyond belief, entrusting the leadership of such an army to a child.'

'Yes, my lord,' Ruben-rammen replied. 'He actually rejected the advice of his wildscrafty outdoorsmen.'

'How many do you think they'll lose?' the king asked his liegeman and fellow traitor.

'My lord, the question, really, is how many of them will return?'

The curly-haired monarch laughed. 'Set the fire, Ruben-rammen. Let us see whether this magic works. Our master will be very pleased with our work.'

'Yes, your majesty. So pleased, perhaps, that he will agree to the rest of your plan?'

'The rest of my plan? What do you know, my old friend?'

'Know, my king? Just that if I were you I would be planning a western excursion with the ten thousand soldiers you kept in reserve. I can think of an undefended city that might be a gift well received by our new Friend.'

The king laughed again, loud and long. 'Oh, Ruben, I forget just how clever you are. Would that you were of royal blood: you are worthier by far than the talentless clods that squander the king's purse.'

Ruben-rammen smiled at the delight of his king, pleased he had guessed correctly. Inwardly, however, he tasted anger, and as he unstoppered the small vial of potion he had been given at the dark castle in Bhrudwo, in preparation for the blue fire, he reminded himself of the coup d'etat conducted by Cuantha's grandfather. Royal blood indeed! The old man had been half Wodrani!

Stella's first night in the northern snows was agony, and she doubted she would survive a second. Her dash for freedom was instinctive, an unthinking flight from despair. Her first thought was to make for the village the Bhrudwans had sacked days before, hoping to find food and shelter among the houses left standing. She had a vague thought of doing something for any survivors: there had to be some, surely? Someone she could help, something to do to assuage the guilt that racked her every time the sickening images flashed through her head.

For the first few hours she expected discovery at any

moment. When the minutes stretched into hours, and the day came to an end, she began to hope - and to worry. Her cloak was flimsy, barely covering a ridiculous lace nightgown, and a light snow had begun to fall. She was not yet hungry, and there were plenty of streams from which to drink, but where would she find shelter?

At the base of a pine tree, it turned out. With night all but fallen she climbed down into a narrow valley sheltering a woody copse. Shivering uncontrollably, she dug into the soft soil between the roots of a tall tree and pulled a thick layer of needles over herself. The ground was cold, but by huddling into a ball Stella preserved a little of her warmth beneath her blanket of needles.

Throughout the long night she lay there, contemplating her freedom. She had exchanged perfume for pine sap, silk for needles, food for hunger. But for the first time since the night she had so foolishly abandoned the Company in favour of Tanghin, she allowed the faint stirrings of hope to steal around her heart.

By the middle of the following day Leith knew they were in trouble. The snow had slowed overnight, but the temperature fell markedly just before sunrise, bringing more snow; and for the first time the wind began to blow, throwing icy pellets into the faces of the soldiers.

Progress slowed to a stumbling walk for the footsoldiers, and by noon - at least, by the time Leith estimated it was noon - they had travelled no more than a league from the place they spent the previous night. The wind howled, spitting snow at them like a million darts, closing down their world to sixty thousand small white circles, at the centre of each a soldier under siege. Heads down, hunched under their cloaks, eyes fixed on the road in front of them, the army moved doggedly forward - but cold, so cold. Captains began to lose contact with their troops. Wagons became mired in the snow. Horses lost their footing, and soldiers cursed their luck in the way soldiers do. The better-equipped losian army, more familiar with these conditions, nevertheless called a halt for their midday meal and did not set out again. While the great shaggy aurochs, in particular, appeared to be in their element, unaffected by mere drifts of cold white powder, their captains knew what conditions like these could do to man and beast alike. There was little cheer and much grumbling, even amongst the merry Fodhram. And still the snow kept driving in.