The Stealers' War (26 page)

‘Not us, sir,’ said Mandus. ‘We’ve got another mission. Our helo’s under orders to rendezvous with Princess Helrena.’

Duncan remembered his last glimpse of
The Caller
, the mighty battery ship twisting in the storm and bursting apart on the peaks, cracked with the ease of an egg. ‘Gyal won’t have a marriage if Helrena’s ordered to fly against Hadra-Hareer.’
There’ll be no house left to marry into
.

‘The raid’s failure is Gyal’s problem. The princess doesn’t give a fig about Hadra-Hareer anymore,’ said Mandus. ‘Not after this morning’s news. We received a fix on Lady Cassandra’s position from some local traders with a taste for imperial gold. Lady Cassandra isn’t a prisoner inside Hadra-Hareer. She’s free, north of Rodal!’

How can that be?
‘There’s nothing north of Rodal but steppes and nomads on horseback,’ said Duncan. ‘A grass sea thick with clans of spear-throwing Nijumeti warriors.’

Mandus shrugged. ‘Sounds as if Lady Cassandra is riding with them.’

‘There’s Vandian blood for you,’ said Paetro, pride filling every word. ‘The little highness used the chaos of the civil war to escape that dog Carnehan and slip away north. We trained her well, lad. Best we bring her back home quick before she ends up crowning herself Queen of the Wilds out there.’

Duncan reeled from the unexpected news.
Cassandra is free and safe? Then Prince Gyal can’t use Cassandra’s rescue as leverage over Helrena. She can cut the fool loose and claim the imperial throne for herself
. No wonder Mandus’s demeanour seemed unusually sunny.
Our part in this pointless foreign adventure is over. We can return to Vandia with Cassandra and our victory against the rebels. Leave the rest of the mess to Gyal. This is perfect! Cassandra will be safe. Helrena will be free from Gyal’s machinations. Free to choose me!

Similar thoughts had obviously occurred to Paetro. ‘Back to civilization. I won’t be sorry to put your home behind me, Duncan.’

Duncan felt conflicted. Any residual homesickness he had felt in Vandia had well and truly gone.
All the fighting and the scheming and the disappointments.
And now it was over. Just like that. A derailed train couldn’t have shaken him more. They would recover Helrena’s only child and return her home. In all likelihood, this was the last time Duncan would ever walk the land where he had been born.

‘My home’s Vandia now as much as it is yours,’ said Duncan.
No, there isn’t much of my homeland I will miss.
Maybe Leyla’s delicate attentions and adoration. The rest of it could go to hell.
My murderous sister and grasping father. The warring assembly and grasping King Marcus. Northhaven and our backward, primitive nation at the far-called end of the caravan routes. The Imperium isn’t wrong when they label us as barbarians. But Weyland’s barbarity won’t be my embarrassment any longer
. That happy day couldn’t arrive soon enough.

Alexamir and Nocks moved cautiously up the mountain slope, holding a heavy wooden crate resting between a pair of splints – Alexamir at the rear, the Weylander at the front. Alexamir’s eyes swept the slope. Hundreds of workers wrapped in warm cloaks against the wind; locals carrying sacks, crates and wooden boxes for their booty.
At least we don’t look out of place here
. With a fortune in scrap waiting to be torn, hammered and cut off the crashed Vandian warship, plenty of rice-eaters scurried outside the city. Entry on to the peak was now strictly regulated with passes from the office of the Land Master; lest the entire city empty itself, abandon defence construction for prospecting the sudden fortune in metal torn out of the sky. In acquiring their papers, Nocks had proved his worth. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, the spies helping King Marcus inside Hadra-Hareer had proved their worth. Providing safe accommodation, food, money and something more valuable than all of those . . . the details and layout of the monks’ temple. Alexamir had recently visited the temple as a pilgrim to see it for himself, but the spies’ information showed
other
ways of getting access to its rooms. Many of the agents served with the Hellenise embassy. Slippery double-dealers seeking to befriend the victor of the struggle for Weyland’s throne.
And if the victor looks set to change, their help will evaporate like the morning dew
. Maybe it was paranoia, but Alexamir suspected the Hellenise were spying on him, too. Trying to learn what he and Nocks had entered Hadra-Hareer to do. Like any good thief, Alexamir’s hackles prickled when secret watchers were about. But he had yet to catch them at it. Just a feeling of unease. For the moment, the Hellenise aided Nocks, and Nocks aided Alexamir. That was all that counted. The gods had provided and Alexamir accepted it as his due. Night would be falling soon.
Darkness is always a thief ’s friend.

‘Look at that beauty,’ said Nocks, wistfully, glancing towards the massive downed air machine. Much of its metallic fuselage had been cut away and taken inside the city. It did not resemble the crashed merchant carriers of Alexamir’s acquaintance – mostly wood, canvas and card-like struts burnt up after a crash. This Vandian craft was a black powder cannon compared to a sharpened stick.
But still the Rodalians’ spirits struck her from the sky.
Alexamir banished his doubts.
But the spirits that protect this city have not yet faced the Prince of Thieves.

‘Have you ever seen so much metal sitting in one place,’ Nocks continued. ‘Just begging to be carried away?’

The Weylander isn’t wrong.
Such a fortune in metals wouldn’t have lasted a day out on the steppes if she had,
Atamva willing
, been brought down inside his homeland. Cassandra would have been saddened to see this sight, though. Her people’s mighty warship wrecked and stripped, covered by rice-eaters like carrion crows over a corpse. ‘The treasure I seek is worth more,’ said Alexamir as they climbed, the nomad trying not to stumble with the weight of the crate.

‘To your Krul of Kruls, perhaps,’ said Nocks.

‘I was speaking of the Golden Fox.’ Alexamir hadn’t told the scarfaced soldier that the woman he ventured here for was a Vandian princess. As far as Nocks was concerned, she was just a sick loved one. Alexamir was willing to trust the foreign fighter as far as their raids here coincided, but little more.
For every good reason there is to tell the truth, there is a better reason to lie.

‘You can buy ladies cheaper by the hour,’ grunted Nocks.

‘Hearts bought with silver are filled with poison.’

‘Wasn’t their hearts I was talking of renting. Old Nocks, he’s forgotten all them curious wrinkles of your Nijumeti code. You’re as mule-headed as your pa. Well, if it’s sweeter for the theft of it, you’ll get your chance of a taste of that with me too.’

‘Before I help you, I will steal a copy of the Deb-rlung’rta.’ They climbed further away from the wreckage.

‘Just another old temple book? Damned if I ever understood you people.’

‘The power to call the rice-eaters’ spirits . . . who would not desire it?’

‘A fresh hurricane starts blowing up, I suggest heading for the nearest wind harbour before praying for storm’s end,’ grunted Nocks, amused at his own humour. ‘And if you want a healing for your true, true love, then I reckon buying medicines from a Rodalian doctor will see you a sight further than your shaman’s promises.’

‘If you had met our clan’s sorcerer, you would not speak with such disrespect. He is a powerful man.’

‘Well, it’s your game as much it is mine, “Norbu”.’

How Alexamir would be glad to have Norbu disappear from the face of the world forever. The rice-eater from the Mask Heights had started as a tale, a fiction of his clan’s sorcerer, and would end as one too. ‘
This
game is a deadly one.’

‘You’re preaching to the choir. I fought at Midsburg,’ said Nocks. ‘Them Vandians broke the city like an egg against an iron anvil. I reckon when the Imperium knows what to make of their bad luck here, they’ll be back with a vengeance. You and me better both be gone by then. After they start raising siege works around HadraHareer, one Weylander and a half-caste Rodalian at the end of a gun sight will look much the same as the next.’

And when Temmell’s enchantment over my features fade, there will be a Nijumet inside the city for the rice-eaters to hang as a spy
. No, as far as Alexamir was concerned, any siege should start
after
he had escaped the rice-eaters’ capital. Not trapping him inside. Following that happy event, the Golden Fox’s people could damage Hadra-Hareer as much as made them happy. Lady Cassandra had claimed her empire would come looking for her. And here her people were.
Atamva, hear me, let them travel no further north. Do not take the Golden Fox from me before I can prove myself to her. This is my time. This is my prize.
In truth, the sight of the ruined ship on the slopes filled him with dread. Alexamir hadn’t witnessed the raid’s fighting first-hand. The city bells sounding an attack had barely finished ringing when the warning of a storm followed. But the wealth of the crash below spoke of how little a dirt-poor nomad like him had to offer the Golden Fox compared to her homeland’s riches.
How does Lady Cassandra see me? A fool? A savage? A diversion? This is my one and only chance to prove to her what the Prince of Thieves is capable of. To dazzle her with my cunning and claim her heart. The gods would never have carried me so far if they meant for me to fail, surely?

Nocks stopped and they lowered the crate to the rock for the Weylander to examine his map. Ahead of them, between a ring of boulders, a brick stack as tall as a man’s height jutted out from the slope. One of thousands of similar chimneys dotting the twin mountains and canyon tops. ‘Reckon this is the right vent.’

There was an irony in the fact Norbu had been bound for HadraHareer to repair and maintain the city’s air vents, and here was Alexamir about to attempt the same dangerous trade.
You enjoy your jokes, Atamva. I shall make you roar with amusement by stealing your rivals’ power. Just see me safely through their dirty squeeze holes
. Alexamir rummaged inside the crate. Below the tools needed for breaking apart the Vandian ship were rods and keys designed to remove the iron grates blocking his way.

‘You get stuck down there, don’t be counting on me to get you out. Best you starve yourself thin enough to climb free.’

‘I will shake their mountain apart with my bare hands sooner than fail here,’ said Alexamir.
This Weylander is frightened of shadows in a shaft. No wonder Nocks departed the lands over the sea and left the battles for my father to enjoy. This is what happens to a people who only have a solitary god to protect them. It’s a miracle Nocks ever summoned up the courage to raid Hadra-Hareer for this saddle-wife he speaks of with such lust.
‘Keep your watch until I return.’

‘Don’t tarry too long, boy,’ urged Nocks. ‘These slopes are going to get mighty empty of wreckers when the stars come out. The passes in our pockets will get examined real hard if we’re the last team back inside.’

‘You worry too much, old man,’ said Alexamir.
And what I am about to steal will not be found by any guards’ search. Not unless they can read minds.
He strapped the tools around his waist, belted a rucksack of equipment around his chest and climbed into the stack, working his way to the vent’s entrance. There, he knelt, brushed debris off the iron grille. When it was clear, he moved sideways to the narrow ledge before using his keys to open the gate’s lock. His keys fitted as well as the Hellenise agents had promised.

‘If it was me,’ opined Nocks from above, ‘I’d just go in the temple’s front way and kill a few monks until they brought me out this holy relic you’re fixing on stealing.’

‘Atamva favours the hard ride,’ said Alexamir. And the Weylander was unaware the monks must never know their ancient enemy possessed the Deb-rlung’rta’s contents. Scattering the corpses of guards and monks around the temple would give even the dimmest Rodalian pause for thought.
The hard ride, indeed.
Alexamir uncoiled the ropes he had brought with him. He found a rusty iron pin in the shaft’s wall and secured his line, then began to scramble down.

‘Like a ferret after the hares,’ said Nocks from above. Alexamir didn’t reply.
Who knows how far the echoes will travel or where they might end up
. He carried a couple of torch wands tucked behind his belt. Raising the covers, he activated the sunstones embedded along their length. Expensive, but a tar-soaked wooden torch would quickly be blown out by the flow of air down below.

Alexamir continued his descent, out of sight and sound of his untrustworthy partner. He tried not to shiver as he penetrated the chill darkness. Nobody born to the open hills and endless steppes of the north felt comfortable in a city’s confines, let alone these mountain tombs carved out by the rice-eaters. For Alexamir, shimmying down the Rodalians’ shafts and ventilation chimneys was uncomfortable, excruciating work.
Dangerous if I had been trained for the trade
. Even more dangerous if the nomad hadn’t committed to memory every trap set to murder unwanted visitors. The little guild that maintained Hadra-Hareer’s air passages had the art of more than clearing cave-ins and rock falls. They took a pride in their hidden razor lines, pressure plates activating poisoned darts, fire blasts, sand drownings, skull-crushing stone pendulums and switch-stone plunges down into staked pits. Of course, the people who had sold this information on to the Hellenise spies might have been lying or omitted a few traps, trusting the thief at the other end of the transaction would come to a bad end.
But they reckoned without Alexamir Arinnbold. The Prince of Thieves could avoid and disarm every trap without their help. This way is faster, but I will not rely on the dogs’ map. I rely on my wits and my skill
. This is how the gods tested him. Tested his resolve and his passion for the Golden Fox.

While the passage started out glacial from the cold mountain air outside, it soon grew warmer with air carried from the subterranean city. Climbing down this shaft was much like descending into a well, only enough torchlight to see the walls by his side, never what lay below or above. The mirrored shafts that carried daylight into HadraHareer ran on a parallel labyrinth too narrow for a man to enter. The nomad kept on descending. Slow work when a single slip would prove fatal. The head of his line had a carabiner clip he carefully attached to iron pins driven into the shaft by the tunnel’s builders. Alexamir’s line had been woven around a cord. A hard yank on the cord’s handle opened the clip and sent the rope tumbling down towards him to fix to the next pin.
Climbing back up these shafts will be harder work.
He would need to whirl the rope around like a lasso, catching the open clip around every pin above him. Climbing, and then repeating the manoeuvre.
If only that cowardly Weylander the gods sent me was courageous enough to venture down here with me. Climbing in pairs is easier. Any fool knows this.
He reached a second grille with only darkness and more shaft below the metal barrier. Two horizontal air passages fed off the shaft. Alexamir’s prize lay somewhere below, but he had no intention of opening this particular gate with his tools. Doing so would open a hidden door in the well; a door leading to a ramp loaded with a very large and heavy granite ball designed to leave his body smeared across the chimney’s distant floor. He gathered up his climbing gear and selected the passage with a stone carving of a three-eyed gargoyle above its entrance, falling to his hands and knees to crawl through the inlet.
The other tunnel has only traps to offer the Prince of Thieves.