Deadhouse Landing

He stumbled among dry dusty ash and dust that rose in clouds into the air about him. Coughing, he waved it away. ‘Kellanved?’

‘Yes.’ The lad sounded very weak.

He found him lying amid the dust, curled into a ball, arms wrapped around his head. ‘That really hurt,’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘Too soon?’

A nod. ‘Yes. Too soon.’

‘Sorry.’ Dancer gently lifted him on to his back, his arms hanging down over his shoulders. ‘I’ll carry you, then. Which way?’

Kellanved raised an arm to point and Dancer set off in that direction. ‘Quite comfortable now, are we?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes, quite.’

Dancer rolled his eyes to the ash-laden sky. ‘Wonderful.’

*   *   *

Dassem walked at the very rear of the caravan. He knew many would resent the position, thinking it the worst, the least safe, and the place where one must choke on the kicked-up dust of all ahead. Probably most would feel that way, yet he did not. He was not afraid; he did not yearn for a central position, snug in the middle of the herd and safe from attack. As to the dust – the winds were contrary, blowing mostly across the line of march, and so the nuisance was not constant. And he’d tied a rag across his nose and mouth in any case.

He usually walked next to the horses. If he wanted a break he would sit up on the front of the small cart. Sometimes, when Nara was lucid, they would talk. Small talk, mostly, of the adherents she’d got to know in Heng. Of small kindnesses or stinging injustices; the typical inadvertent or unthinking acts that carry such great weight and importance among youths.

At times the caravan guard, Shear, would pause in her circuits of the straggling line of wagons and carts to walk with him for a time. She would nod and he would nod in return. But not one word had she ever yet spoken to him, and so he’d responded in kind.

It was not until they’d passed the halfway point of the long road south – the first full moon of the march, in fact – that the first incident occurred. On this day the long line of wagons ground to a halt very early. At first he thought of trouble on the road ahead, a broken axle or a lost child perhaps, but then his gaze went to the tall hills to either side, the dense tree cover that ran right down to the rutted dusty traders’ track, and he raised his gaze to the sky, sighing. He walked behind his cart and crossed his arms, waiting.

Shortly thereafter four very ragged individuals, two male and two female, emerged from the brush. One fellow carried a curved blade that was spotted with rust, one woman a long thin rapier; the other two held readied crossbows.

‘Just stand still and no one will get hurt,’ the woman with the rapier told him.

Dassem waited, his arms crossed.

The four kept glancing up the line then back to him, then away towards the lead wagons again. Two were frowning now.

‘You’re wondering where your friends are,’ Dassem said.

‘Shut up!’ the fellow with the crossbow snarled. The heavy weapon was drooping in his thin arms; he looked as if he’d not had a good solid meal in a long time. Of the four only the swordsman wore any armour, and this a hauberk of large overlapping iron scales riveted to thick leather old enough to be an artefact from his grandfather’s hegemony wars, which it probably was.

‘See them?’ the woman with the crossbow asked him.

‘Shut up, Ahla.’

‘I have a feeling that they won’t be showing up,’ Dassem said.

‘Enough from you!’ the crossbowman snarled, his hands tightening on the weapon. Dassem shifted sideways, putting the swordsman between them. Even as the crossbowman swore, Dassem kicked the swordsman backwards into him then shifted sideways again, putting them between him and the woman who was swinging her crossbow over to track him. He twisted the swordsman’s wrist, holding the weapon aside, then snapped up the crossbow to smack the spokesman in the face; he went down mewling in pain.

The woman with the rapier displayed good form; she lunged to impale but he was faster, sidestepping with the swordsman, who was pulling on the blade to release it. Dassem allowed the man to pull but directed the movement upwards, pushing, adding to the force, and the man butted himself in the face with the iron pommel. His knees gave and he went down.

The duellist thrust again and he spun, closing, and took her arm, bending the wrist backwards. Gasping, she released the blade, which he then raised up under her chin. She rose to her toes and he held her before him and marched for the woman with the crossbow. She retreated, searching for a clear shot, but he closed quickly and reached out to swat her trigger bar with his free hand.

The bolt disappeared harmlessly into the brush.

He faced the two women with the rapier and motioned away to the hillside. The women gritted their teeth, furious, but they grasped the arms of their limp compatriots and dragged them off into the bushes.