42
The Hunting Party
It took a little while for me to get my strength back. By then Ferius was already regaining consciousness. Shalla was still out of it. I suspected it would be a while before the effects of the mine wore off.
‘Something bothering you, kid?’ Ferius asked.
I looked behind me to see her barely holding on to the reins of her horse, listing from side to side as the animal navigated the uneven forest terrain. She was so beaten up that the only thing keeping her conscious was Reichis periodically clambering up onto her shoulder to slap her around the face with his paw. The squirrel cat seemed to find this tremendously entertaining.
‘Nothing much,’ I replied, turning back to make sure the horse I’d taken from one of Ra’meth’s men wasn’t leading us off the edge of the narrow path. Below lay a steep-sided gorge that I was using to guide us back towards the northern edge of town. Shalla lay unconscious across my saddle, her breathing still so slow and shallow that I couldn’t stop myself from repeatedly checking her pulse.
Ferius gave a chuckle. ‘You’re a terrible liar, kid.’
‘Guess I’d better start practising then.’ My own uncle had conspired against our people. My parents had been secretly weakening my magic all these years because they’d known since I was a child that I was going to develop the shadowblack. And it turned out my clan had never fought a war against the Mahdek people. We’d murdered them in their sleep and stolen their cities – and their magic. ‘No one is who they say they are,’ I said.
‘First thing you learn wandering the long roads, kid. Everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story.’
‘Somebody’s out there,’ Reichis chittered suddenly, beady black eyes glimmering from his perch on Ferius’s shoulder.
I looked all around and saw only trees and rocks and thick underbrush. ‘Where are they?’
The squirrel cat’s whiskers twitched in annoyance. ‘I don’t know – they must be hiding. But I’m telling you: this place stinks of Jan’Tep.’
‘What’s the little bugger saying?’ Ferius asked, a hand reaching back into her waistcoat for her razor-sharp steel cards. ‘Maybe we’d better—’
Whatever she was going to say was cut off by a sound like the screeching of a thousand nails dragged across a chalkboard. Reflexively my hands formed the somatic shapes for the shield spell I’d been taught to practise every day since I’d started school. ‘Senhathet!’ I shouted. It accomplished nothing of course. I couldn’t spark the tattooed iron band around my forearm that would have given me access to that form of magic. Also, I wasn’t the target.
Reichis leaped away from Ferius an instant before she went flying from her horse. There was no sign of any weapon, but instead a shifting purplish light that moved like water through the air, pooling around her, holding her aloft even as patches of it extended into long black tentacles and began to strike her over and over. A lightshaper, I thought, looking around for the source but still unable to see who was casting the spell.
I rolled Shalla forward on the horse’s back and jumped off to try to help Ferius. Her mount reared wildly, desperately trying to stamp at the strange light surrounding its mistress. The glowing shape seemed to take notice, and suddenly three of its tentacles bunched together and drove themselves deep into the animal’s belly, only to split apart again, tearing the horse’s insides out. The horse’s screams became a terrifying counterpoint to the gleeful shrieks of encouragement I heard from somewhere in the shadows.
I reached my hands into the pouches inside my pockets. Lightshapes can be blown apart, I thought. But how was I going to hit the shape without burning Ferius?
‘Enough,’ a voice called out. The sound was muffled … distorted. Someone’s using a misting spell … That’s why I can’t see them, and why I can’t recognise who’s speaking.
A moment later the purple lightform dissipated and Ferius fell heavily to the ground. I ran to her and found she was still breathing. But her face and arms looked as if a dozen men had been kicking and beating her all night. Her right eye was already swollen shut, but the left flickered open. ‘Hey, kid? How come you keep pissing people off and I’m the one who takes the beatings?’
‘Step away from the Daroman spy, Kellen,’ the voice called out again.
I recognised it this time, and turned to see the misting spell had been dismissed. ‘Panahsi?’
My oldest friend shook his head. ‘Not any more. I passed my mage’s trial this morning. My name is Pan’erath now.’
‘You’re a lightshaper,’ I said, not quite able to keep the awe out of my voice.
He gave me a smile that was proud and dismissive at the same time. ‘Been practising since the trials started. Since you betrayed us that first time, helping a Daroman spy against your own people.’
‘She’s not a spy, Pan! She’s just a—’
Tennat appeared from the darkness with his brothers close behind. ‘Go on, Kellen. Tell us how she’s nothing more than an innocent Argosi who just happened to arrive right before your treasonous uncle and his Sha’Tep allies came up with a plan to destroy our clan.’
Ra’dir sent out a blast of fire into the air, lighting up the forest. ‘Where’s the nekhek?’
‘Ran away, no doubt,’ Ra’fan said, his hands already preparing one of the binding shapes I knew he’d use on Reichis the second he spotted him.
Ra’fan was a chaincaster and Ra’dir a war mage, so neither of them had been the one to cast the misting spell. ‘So I guess you’re the sightbinder of this hunting party, Tennat?’ I asked.
‘My name is Ra’ennat now,’ he replied.
Great. Everybody has a mage’s name except me.
I felt Ferius reach out to grip my arm. There was no strength to it. ‘Kid, soon as I make my move, grab your sister and run. I’ll keep them—’
‘You’re half dead and flat on your back,’ I whispered back. ‘What kind of “move” are you planning to make?’
She sounded oddly offended. ‘I’ve still got moves.’
‘Come on, Kellen,’ Panahsi – no, he’s Pan’erath now – called out. ‘Step away from the Daroman and don’t make this worse than it needs to be. We know all about the conspiracy. We know how she and your uncle plotted to use the nekhek to destroy our clan’s magic.’
‘It makes sense if you think about it,’ Tennat said. I had no intention of calling him Ra’ennat. ‘If our clan lost its magic, you wouldn’t really be a cripple any more, would you?’
I rose to my feet. ‘You’re a liar, Tennat. Your family knew what was going on and you –’
I was interrupted by a groaning sound and turned to see Shalla, still draped across the horse’s back, her body shivering and convulsing. I started towards her. ‘I’ve got to get her home to—’
I was knocked off my feet by a blast of force. ‘You stay away from her!’ Pan’erath shouted. When I looked up at him his face was full of righteous anger. He thinks he’s protecting her. From me.
I finally understood what was going through Pan’s mind. He wasn’t ganging up against his friend. He was facing off against the classic villains of all our childhood stories: the foreigner spy, come to tear apart the clan; the nekhek monster, foul teeth hungry to pierce the flesh of Jan’Tep mages and destroy their magic. And the most nefarious of all: the traitor Sha’Tep, who would deliver his own sister to his clan’s enemies out of bitterness and envy. Pan’erath was the hero – the young mage who’d assembled a coven to save the helpless princess. It all had such perfect symmetry. ‘You’re an idiot,’ I told him.
Ra’fan uttered a word and my arms pinned themselves against my sides, crushing my own ribs.
‘Don’t,’ Pan’erath said. ‘Save the spell for the nekhek.’
I don’t think Ra’fan liked being ordered around by someone who’d only been made adept a few hours before, but he complied and I felt the crushing grip fade away. ‘The monster’s probably already fled back to its lair,’ he said dismissively. ‘We should just—’
‘We do this my way,’ Pan’erath said, taking a step towards me. ‘Surrender, Kellen. I promise I’ll speak for you to the council. I don’t want to see you hurt.’ Winding tendrils of light, red this time, formed around his hands as his fingers traced tiny symbols at his sides in preparation. ‘Or we can duel, and I’ll do my best not to kill you.’
He’s so proud of his lightshaping spells, I thought. He won’t be able to resist the urge to show them off. But Pan hadn’t seen me use the powders and he didn’t know what I could do with them. Fire could burn through his lightshapes. If I was fast enough, I could end the fight in one shot. Our people’s most ancient laws would demand that the others let us go.
Of course, one look at the way Tennat, Ra’fan and Ra’dir were glancing at each other told me they had no intention of honouring the terms of any duel. So there’s no way my one spell is going to get me out of this alive.
‘That’s a really tempting offer, Pan,’ I said as I walked very slowly to kneel beside Ferius. I closed her waistcoat against the cool night air. ‘But you shouldn’t have attacked my friends.’
‘Kid, this is a terrible plan,’ she whispered.
‘Quit calling me kid,’ I said, palming the deck of steel cards I’d taken from her.
I stood back up and turned to face the four of them. ‘No more duels, Pan. No more rules. No more games. I’m giving you one chance, because …’ Because we were friends once. Because you waited a whole year to take your tests just so I wouldn’t be alone with people like Tennat. It seemed hard to believe that he’d once valued my friendship so highly. All that was gone now. ‘Get these three morons out of here and help me clean up the mess Tennat’s father made before our whole clan really is in danger.’
The early crest of Pan’s lightshaper magic slithered and grew around his hands. ‘I’d rather see our people disappear from the world than take orders from a Sha’Tep weakling.’
For a moment I tried to think of something to say, some way to break down the wall between us, but there wasn’t one. Pan’erath was a Jan’Tep mage. I was a Sha’Tep traitor. That was all there was to it. I looked out into the tops of the trees, still not seeing Reichis but having no choice but to hope he was somewhere up there. Wonder what he’ll charge me for this. ‘In that case, gentlemen, I rescind my offer. I’m going to kick all your asses and then I’m going to save our people myself.’
When you’ve only got one good spell it’s hard to resist the urge to use it. After all, the powder magic was the most powerful weapon I had, and neither Pan nor the others had seen it before. With any luck, I could take them by surprise and maybe even knock one or two of them out of the fight at the outset. Even more though, I so badly wanted to show them that I had my own magic, that I was as good as they were. And then what? There was no way I could hit them all fast enough. Ra’dir’s war-mage training meant he’d be prepared for surprises, and Ra’fan would use one of his chaincaster spells to bind me the second I fired off the spell. Fine, I thought. Card tricks it is.
‘Don’t do this,’ Pan said, a look of genuine concern on his face for the first time.
I guess it’s one thing to make threats against an enemy and another to realise you’re about five seconds away from killing your childhood friend. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to be gentle.’
The way I had it figured, my one chance was to stop thinking like a Jan’Tep and start thinking like an Argosi, the way Ferius did when she kept tricking them. All Pan and the others understood was magic – who had what spells and when to use them. They didn’t notice the uneven terrain and the shifting darkness around us. They didn’t consider how close together the four of them were standing, or that I might not be alone in this. All they saw was a good old-fashioned Jan’Tep tale of good versus evil, where good always wins. What I saw was a card game with a half-dozen different decks in play. Ancestors save me, I thought. I really am turning into an Argosi.
‘Come on,’ Tennat urged. ‘Make your move, coward.’
I almost laughed. Even now, after everything that had happened, with us ready to maim or even kill each other, Tennat was still using the same old taunts he’d tossed at me our whole lives. I ignored him and turned my mind to solving the first of my very real problems: Ra’dir. If he hit me with the flames or lightning from a war spell, I’d be dead before the fight even started. Then again, if Ra’fan got one of his chain spells around me, I’d be helpless. I needed a way to get both of them off balance at the outset. I glanced up at Tennat and smiled. ‘Hey, remember that time I nearly got you to crush your intestines with your own spell? How much do you want to bet I can make you blind yourself?’
He took a step forward. ‘I can’t wait to get you in a small room away from prying eyes, weakling.’ He spread his arms wide apart – the opening of the strongest of the blinding spells. Once he set his intention and uttered the words, he’d bring them together and it’d be like a curtain closing over me. The second he opened his mouth, I flung one of Ferius’s steel cards straight for him.
Ra’dir and Ra’fan were more experienced and knew not to flinch, but Tennat suddenly fell back – right into them. ‘Get out of the way, you idiot,’ Ra’dir shouted, trying to shove him aside to get a line on me.
I dived to my right, rolling awkwardly over my shoulder but managing not to drop the cards or slice my own palm on them. As I came up on one knee, I flung two more. One sailed harmlessly off into the darkness, but the other caught Ra’fan in the leg. He gave out a yell and stumbled forward into Pan’erath.
A burning sensation passed my left ear as one of Ra’dir’s spells flew by. If I hadn’t still been in motion, he’d have set me ablaze instead of the tree behind me. I kept moving as fast as I could. This isn’t going to work for long, I reminded myself. War mages train to hit moving targets.
I ran behind the trees, flinging cards as I went, trying to keep the group close together and prevent any one of them from getting a line on me. A lucky throw sent another card spinning into Ra’fan’s left hand, a thread of blood appearing where his palm was cut open. He wouldn’t be casting any chain spells for a few minutes. It’s working! I thought. Then a shape of almost black light enveloped me and I found myself pinned against a tree. Pan’erath had finally cast his own spell.
I’d known this was coming of course. If I’d prepared pinches of powder instead of the cards I could have blasted the shadows apart, but that wasn’t my plan. I guess now I find out just how reliable squirrel cats are. ‘Reichis, now!’
For a second nothing happened. The others had just started to relax when a chittering voice said, ‘Okay, but you’re really going to owe me for this.’ A dark shape swooped down from the treetops onto Pan’s head. I watched in sick fascination as Reichis covered Pan’s face with the furry webbing that stretched between his front and back limbs while his rear claws drew gashes into the back of Pan’s neck, causing him to stumble back, screaming in pain.
I felt the shadow release me and flung two more cards to keep the others from grabbing Reichis.
‘Get him off me!’ Pan shouted.
‘Lousy torturing skinbag,’ Reichis growled. ‘Let’s see how well your blood magic works once I’ve ripped your eyes out.’
‘Reichis, don’t!’ I screamed.
Fire flared in Ra’dir’s hands as he prepared to blast the squirrel cat out of existence. I wondered if he cared that he was probably going to kill Pan at the same time. Reichis didn’t take any notice, his complete commitment to revenge outweighing any sensible fear he might have. I launched the remaining cards at our enemies, desperately trying to distract them. I missed them all, except for Ra’fan, for whom I was seriously starting to feel some sympathy, since I’d now hit him for the third time, this card lodging deep into the muscle of his shoulder. ‘Damn it!’ he screamed. ‘Blind him, Tennat!’
‘My name is Ra’ennat,’ his brother insisted, but in the chaos and confusion he couldn’t summon the concentration to make the spell work. Still haven’t learned that you can’t cast spells when you’re scared.
Ra’dir had a lot more training and composure though. He fired his spell, eyes on Reichis. The squirrel cat leaped off Pan’s face, but his left side still got caught in the blast and his fur caught fire. I took off at a run and by some small miracle caught the squirrel cat mid-air. I curled into a ball and tumbled forward to roll on the ground, smothering the flames with my body. From the burning sensation on my torso, I guessed I wouldn’t be growing any chest hair for a while.
Reichis got out from under me and ran back into the forest. I felt a twinge of resentment at his utter lack of gratitude, but I forgave him a few seconds later when he emerged from the trees behind our opponents and gave Ra’dir a deep gash in the back of the leg before disappearing back into the underbrush.
‘Get the nekhek,’ Pan’erath ordered, rising up from the ground, blood on his forehead and iron in his eyes. ‘I’ll deal with the Sha’Tep.’
The shifting blackness around his hands grew and slithered out towards me, reaching for me. Okay, this is it, I thought, as I dug my hands into my pockets and brought out generous pinches of the red and black powders. ‘Carath,’ I said, uttering the simple breath spell as I flung the powders into the air towards each other. My fingers took on the somatic shapes, aiming the resulting explosion into Pan’s lightform. It blew apart and he fell to the ground, winded.
‘How …?’ he began, looking up at me.
‘I told you before, Pan. I’ll never be Sha’Tep.’
‘You’ll never be Jan’Tep either,’ Ra’fan said, his bleeding hand outstretched towards me. Somehow he pushed through the pain and shock of his wounds and cast a chain spell that wrapped itself around me, paralysing me where I stood.
Reichis appeared again from the underbrush and raced for Ra’fan, but this time Ra’dir was ready for him. He fired off another blast and the squirrel cat had to pull up short to keep from running right into it.
‘Reichis, run!’ I shouted.
He hesitated as if he might stay, but I think he realised the odds had turned sour on us. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he chittered, turning back into the darkness before Ra’dir could try again.
Ra’fan gritted his teeth and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he clenched his fists. Damn … he’s not just trying to bind me any more. Every part of my body was being squeezed, crushed by the force of his will. I was sure I heard my ribs creaking as the invisible chains tightened around them. ‘You’re done, Sha’Tep. I’m killing you. Now.’
‘I’m afraid I still have some need of him,’ Ferius Parfax said. In the periphery of my vision I saw her struggling to stay on her feet as she flung one of her steel cards straight for Ra’fan’s eyes.
It flew in a perfect line, only to disappear into the watery light emanating from Pan’erath’s hands. ‘This is your fault, Daroman.’ I’d never heard his voice sound so cold, so hard. ‘You ruined everything.’
The tendrils of light set themselves upon Ferius, pulling at her hair, her hands, bending her fingers back too far. I tried desperately to reach into my pockets for more powders. If nothing else, I might be able to create some kind of distracting flash.
‘I don’t think so,’ Ra’fan said. The squeezing around my ribs grew tighter and I couldn’t take in a breath any more.
Tennat, evidently having finally overcome his fears, started walking towards me. ‘It’s over now, Kellen. You played all your dirty little tricks and now it’s time to say goodnight to the world.’
He spread his arms, uttered a word, and in an instant I was completely blind.
I heard Ra’dir say, ‘Keep an eye out for the nekhek. It’s still dangerous.’
Tennat practically giggled. ‘No, it isn’t. My blinding spell covered all of them. The moment the creature shows up, we burn him.’
Something dropped heavily to the ground a few feet away from me. Pan must have dropped Ferius, I thought.
‘It’s enough,’ he said. There was a weariness to his voice. ‘Let’s bring them back to the council. They’ll stand trial for what they’ve done.’
‘No,’ Tennat said.
‘We agreed—’
The sound of footsteps accompanied Tennat’s voice as he walked the last steps towards me. ‘You may have agreed, Pan, but the rest of us have different plans.’ My eyelids closed reflexively as thumbs began pressing against them.
‘Tennat, no!’ Pan called out.
‘Look!’ Tennat said, scraping with his thumbnails at the paste covering the markings around my left eye. ‘Look at the marks. It’s like my father said: Kellen is a shadowblack.’
The forest went silent. I heard the sound of more footsteps coming closer, so close I could feel breath on my face. ‘So it’s true,’ Pan said. Something wet hit my cheek just below my eye. Pan had spat on me.
‘We take him to the council,’ he said. ‘They need to see what he’s become.’
‘They can see from his corpse,’ Tennat said, and I felt him gripping the sides of my head again.
‘No. I said—’
A brief sound of scuffling ended when Ra’dir said, ‘You’re still new at this, Pan’erath. You don’t understand how wars are fought. Think of this as the fifth test – the one every war mage has to pass.’
Tennat’s thumbs pressed ever so slowly against my eyes. I would have screamed, but the chain spell wound its way over my mouth and Ra’fan squeezed what little air was left in my lungs. This is it, I realised. I’m going to die now. For real. Forever.
Tennat’s voice crept into my ears. ‘You deserve this, Kellen. For being a liar and a cheat. For all of—’
He screamed so loud I went deaf for a second.
Another shout of pain, this one I think from Ra’dir. More screams. More shouts. Chaos penetrated the darkness of my world. I had no idea what was happening, but then I realised the blinding spell was gone. I opened my eyes just in time to watch a white-gold light smash into Ra’fan so hard it flung him deep into the darkness of the forest. A dull thud echoed in the air.
With Ra’fan unconscious, his chain spell dispersed and I fell to the ground. I looked up to see Pan standing alone, his eyes full of tears.
At first I thought he’d changed his mind – that once he saw what the others were doing, he had turned on them to save my life. But then the white-gold light shimmered again, and Pan’s body lifted up high above the ground. He spun in the air, slowly, almost gracefully, as if he were underwater. Finally his body settled some seven feet up, his arms and legs splayed out as if he were tied to four horses pulling him apart. He was still conscious. He said, ‘But I did it for you … I saved you.’
My head turned, following the line of his sorrowful gaze, and I saw Shalla leaning unsteadily against a tree. Her arms were outstretched in front of her. One by one the links holding back the coloured bands on her arms began shattering like thin rings of glass exploding to the vibrations of a perfect note. The last constraints on her abilities fell before the raw force of her magic. Shalla’s eyes, usually a piercing blue, gleamed pure gold, like the light of her spell. She turned her palms up and Pan’s body rose even higher into the air, then she closed them into fists, and he crashed to the ground.
‘Nobody touches my brother,’ she said.