"What're you going to do?"
"Go after Haroun and Megelin Radetic. They're all that's left of the Wahlig's family."
"King Aboud and Prince Ahmed?"
"Ahmed killed Aboud." Nassef chuckled. "He was my creature. Was he ever upset when I wouldn't let him become king."
The Disciple smelled the ambition hidden behind Nassef's gloating. Nassef wasn't a true believer. He served Nassef alone. He was dangerous-and indispensible. He had no peer on the battlefield, save perhaps Sir Tury Hawkwind. And that mercenary captain no longer had an employer. "Must you go?"
"I want to do this myself." Again the wicked chuckle. El Murid tried to argue. He did not want to be alone. If Meryem died...
His son and daughter arrived during the exchange. Sidi looked bored. The girl was angry and hard. She was so like her uncle, yet had something more, an empathy absent in Nassef. Nassef recognized no limitations or feelings he did not experience himself. She held her father's hand, saying nothing. In moments he felt better, almost as if Esmat had given him a potion.
He realized that he hadn't needed Esmat's painkillers tonight. Stress usually aggravated his old injuries and the curse of that beast Haroun.
The Wahlig wasn't satisfied keeping the Movement bottled up in Sebil el Selib for a decade, he had to train his whelps in sorcery as well. The kingdom would be freed of that heresy! Soon, for tonight the Kingdom of Peace had undergone its final birth agonies. He looked at Meryem, bravely trying to bear up, and wondered if the price of heaven were not too steep. "Nassef?"
But Nassef was gone already, leading most of the bodyguard out after the Wahlig's brat. Tonight the boy had become the last Quesani pretender to Hammad al Nakir's Peacock Throne. Without him the Evil One's Royalist lackeys would be left without a rallying point.
A dark, angry, vengeful sore festered in the Disciple's heart, though love and forgiveness were the soul of his message to the Chosen. The riders clattered and rattled and creaked into the night. "Good luck," El Murid breathed, though he suspected that Nassef was not motivated by revenge alone.
His daughter squeezed his hand, rested her forehead against his chest. "Mother will be all right, won't she?"
"Of course she will. Of course." He sped a silent prayer up into the night.
Chapter Two:
THE FUGITIVES
The desert smouldered like the forges of Hell, the sun hammering the waste with sledges of heat. The barrens flung the heat back in fiery defiance, shimmered with phantoms of old oceans. Charcoal-indigo islands reared in the north, the Kapenrung Mountains standing tall, forming reality's distant shoreline. Mirages and ifrit wind-devils pranced the intervening miles. There was little breeze, and no sound save that made by the animals and five youths stumbling toward the high country. There were no odors save their own. Heat and the dull ache of exhaustion were the only sensations they knew.
Haroun spotted a pool of shade in the solar lee of a sedimentary upthrust protruding from a slope of bare ochre earth and loose flat stones like the stern of some giant vessel sliding slowly into a devouring wave. A dry watercourse snaked around its foot. In the distance, four spires of orange-red rock stood like the chimneys of a burned and plundered city. Their skirts wore dots of sagey green, suggesting the occasional kiss of rain.
"We'll rest there." Haroun indicated the shadow. His companions did not lift their eyes.
They went on, tiny figures against the immensity of the waste, Haroun leading, three boys straggling in his footsteps, a mercenary named Bragi Ragnarson in the rear, struggling continuously with animals who wanted to lie down and die.
Behind somewhere, stuck to their trail like a beast of nightmare, came the Scourge of God.
They stumbled into the shadow, onto ground as yet unscorched by the wrath of the sun, and collapsed, oblivious of their beds of edged and pointed stones. After half an hour, during which his mind meandered in and out of sleep, flitting through a hundred unrelated images, Haroun levered himself up. "Might be water under that sand down there."
Ragnarson grunted. Their companions-the oldest was twelve-did not bestir themselves.
"How much water left?"
"Maybe two quarts. Not enough."
"We'll get to the mountains tomorrow. Be plenty of water there."
"You said that yesterday. And the day before. Maybe you're going around in circles."
Haroun was desert-born. He could navigate a straight course. Yet he was afraid Bragi was right. The mountains seemed no closer than yesterday. It was a strange land, this northern corner of the desert. It was as barren as teeth in an old skull, and haunted by shadows and memories of darker days. There might be things, dark forces, leading them astray. This strip, under the eyes of the Kapenrungs, was shunned by the most daring northern tribes.
"That tower where we ran into the old wizard... "
"Where you ran into a wizard," Ragnarson corrected. "I never saw anything except maybe a ghost." The young mercenary seemed more vacant, more distant than their straits would command.
"What's the matter?" Haroun asked.
"Worried about my brother."
Haroun chuckled, a pale, tentative, strained excuse for laughter. "He's better off than we are. Hawkwind is on a known road. And nobody will try to stop him."
"Be nice to know if Haaken is all right, though. Be nice if he knew I was all right." The attack on Al Rhemish had caught Bragi away from his camp, forcing him to throw in his lot with Haroun.
"How old are you?" Haroun had known the mercenary several months, but could not recall. A lot of small memories had vanished during their flight. His mind retained only the tools of survival. Maybe details would surface once he reached sanctuary.
"Seventeen. About a month older than Haaken. He's not really my brother. My father found him where somebody left him in the forest." Ragnarson rambled on, trying to articulate his longing for his distant northern homeland. Haroun, who had known nothing but the wastes of Hammad al Nakir, and had not seen vegetation more magnificent than the scrub brush on the western flanks of Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni, could not picture the Trolledyngjan grandeur Bragi wanted to convey.
"So why did you leave?"
"Same reason as you. My dad wasn't no duke, but he picked the wrong side when the old king croaked and they fought it out for the crown. Everybody died but me and Haaken. We came south and signed on with the Mercenary's Guild. And look what that got us."
Haroun could not help smiling. "Yeah."
"How about you?"
"What?"
"How old?"
"Eighteen."
"The old guy that died. Megelin Radetic. He was special?"
Haroun winced. A week had not deadened the pain. "My teacher. Since I was four. He was more a father to me than my father was."
"Sorry."
"He couldn't have survived this even if he hadn't been hurt."
"What's it like, being a king?"
"Like a sour practical joke. The fates are splitting their sides. King of the biggest country in this end of the world, and I can't even control what I see. All I can do is run."
"Well, your majesty, what say let's see if there's water down there." Bragi levered himself up, collected a short, broad knife from the gear packed on one of the camels. The camels were bearing up still. Haroun drew his belt knife. They went down to the thread of sand. "I hope you know what you're looking for," Bragi said. "All I know is secondhand from your warriors back at el Aswad."
"I'll find water if it's there." While Megelin Radetic had been teaching him geometry, astronomy, botany, and languages, darker pedants out of the Jebal had instructed him in the skills of a shagh–n, a soldier-wizard. "Be quiet."
Haroun covered his eyes to negate the glare off the desert, let the weak form of the trance take him. He sent his shagh–n's senses roving. Down the bed of sand, down, bone-dry. Up, up, ten yards, fifty... There! Under that pocket of shadow seldom dispersed by the sun, where the watercourse looped under the overhang... Moisture.
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Haroun shuddered, momentarily chilled. "Come on."
Ragnarson looked at him oddly but said nothing. He had seen Haroun do stranger things.
They loosened the sand with their knives, scooped it with their hands, and, lo! two feet down they found moisture. They scooped another foot of wet sand before encountering rock, then sat back, watched a pool form. Haroun dipped a finger, tasted. Bragi followed suit. "Pretty thick."
Haroun nodded. "Don't drink much. Let the horses have it. Bring them down one at a time."
It was slow business. They did not mind. It was an excuse to stay in one place, in shade, instead of enduring the blazing lens of the sun.
Horses watered, Bragi brought the camels. He said, "Those kids aren't bouncing back. They're burned out."
"Yeah. If we can get them to the mountains... "
"Who are they?"
Haroun shrugged. "Their fathers were in Aboud's court."
"Ain't that a bite? Busting our butts to save people we don't even know who they are."
"Part of being human, Megelin would have said."
A cry came from the clustered youngsters. The oldest waved, pointed. Far away, a streamer of dust slithered across a reddish hillside. "The Scourge of God," Haroun said. "Let's get moving."
Ragnarson collected the boys, got the animals organized. Haroun filled the hole he had dug, wishing he could leave it poisoned.
As they set off, Bragi chirruped, "Let's see if we can't pull those old mountains in today."
Haroun scowled. The mercenary was moody, likely to become cheerful at the most unreasonable moments.
The mountains were as bad as the desert. There were no trails except those stamped out by game. One by one, they lost animals. Occasionally, because they were trying to keep the beasts with them, and because they were so exhausted, they made but four miles in a day. Lost, without roadmarks, scavenging to stay alive, their days piled into weeks.
"How much longer?" Bragi asked. It had been a month since Al Rhemish, three weeks since they had seen any sign of pursuit.
Haroun shook his head. "I don't know. Sorry. I just know Tamerice and Kavelin are on the other side." They seldom spoke now. There were moments when Haroun hated his companions. He was responsible for them. He could not give up while they persevered.
Exhaustion. Muscles knotting with cramps. Dysentery from strange water and bad food. Every step a major undertaking. Every mile an odyssey. Constant hunger. Countless bruises and abrasions from stumbling in his weakness. Time had no end and no beginning, no yesterday or tomorrow, just an eternal now in which one more step had to be taken. He was losing track of why he was doing this. The boys had forgotten long since. Their existence consisted of staying with him.
Bragi was taking it best. He had evaded the agony and ignominy of dysentery. He had grown up on the wild edge of the mountains of Trolledyngja. He had developed more stamina, if not more will. As Haroun weakened, leadership gradually shifted. The mercenary assumed ever more of the physical labor.
"Should have stopped to rest," Haroun muttered to himself. "Should have laid up somewhere to get our strength back." But Nassef was back there, coming on like a force of nature, as tortured as his quarry, yet implacable in his hunt. Wasn't he? Why did Nassef hate him so?
A horse whinnied. Bragi shouted. Haroun turned.
The animal had lost its footing. It kicked the oldest boy. Both plunged down a slope only slightly less steep than a cliff. The boy gave only one weak cry, hardly protesting this release from torment.
Haroun could find no grief in his heart. In fact, he suffered a disgusting flutter of satisfaction. One less load to carry.
Bragi said, "The animals will kill us all if we keep dragging them along. One way or another."
Haroun stared down the long slope. Should he see about the boy? What the hell was his name? He couldn't remember. He shrugged. "Leave them." He resumed walking.
Days dragged past. Nights piled upon each other. They pushed ever deeper into the Kapenrungs. Haroun did not know when they crossed the summit, for that land all looked identical. He no longer believed it ended. The maps lied. The mountains went on to the edge of the world.
One morning he wakened in misery and said, "I'm not moving today." His will had cracked.
Bragi raised an eyebrow, jerked a thumb in the direction of the desert.
"They've given up. They must have. They would have caught us by now." He looked around. Strange, strange country. Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni were nothing like this. Those mountains were dry and almost lifeless, with rounded backs. These were far taller, all jagged, covered with trees bigger than anything he'd ever imagined. The air was chill. Snow, which he had seen only at the most distant remove before, lurked in every shadow. The air stank of conifer. It was alien territory. He was homesick.
Bragi, though, had taken on life. He seemed comfortable for the first time since Haroun had met him. "This something like the country you came from?"
"A little."
"You don't say much about your people. How come?"
"Not much to tell." Bragi scanned their surroundings intently. "If we're not going to travel we ought to get someplace where we can watch without getting caught on the trail."
"Scout around. I'll clean up."
"Right." The northerner was gone fifteen minutes. "Found it. Dead tree down up yonder. Ferns and moss behind it. We can lay in the shade and see anything coming." He pointed. "Go past those rocks, then climb up behind. Try not to leave tracks. I'll come last."
Haroun guided his charges up and settled down. Bragi joined them moments later, picking his resting place with care. "Wish I had a bow. Command the trail from here. Think they gave up, eh? Why, when they were willing to kill themselves in the desert?"
"Maybe they did."
"Think so?"
"No. Not Nassef. Good things don't happen to me. And that would be the best... " Tears sprang into his eyes. He brushed them away. So his family were dead. So Megelin had died. He would not yield to grief. "Tell me about your people."
"I already did."
"Tell me."
Bragi saw his need. "My father ran a stead called Draukenbring. Our family and a few others used to get together to go raiding during the summers." Haroun got little sense from the youth's story, but his talking was enough. "... old king died my father and the Thane ended up on opposite sides... Haaken found what he wanted when we joined the Guild."
"You didn't? You already had your own squad."
"No. I don't know what I want, but it isn't that. Maybe just to go home."
Again moisture collected in the corners of Haroun's eyes. He smote the ferns. He couldn't become homesick! It was too late for unproductive emotion. He turned the conversation to cities Bragi had visited. Megelin Radetic had come from Hellin Daimiel.
Shadows were growing in the canyon bottom when Ragnarson said, "Don't look like we're going to have visitors today. I'm going to set some snares. You can eat squirrel, can't you?"
Haroun managed a feeble smile. Bragi was baffled by the dietary laws. "Yes."
"Hallelujah. Why don't you find a place to camp?"
Unbent by the sarcasm, Haroun levered himself upright, leaned on the fallen tree. Amazing, the changes in life. A king, and he had to do for himself. He'd never had to when he was a Wahlig's fourth son.
"People up ahead," Ragnarson said. Haroun raised a questioning eyebrow. "Can't you smell the smoke?"
"No. But I believe you." Twice Bragi had taken detours around mountain hamlets, not trusting the natives.
Inimical or not, their presence was reassuring. Civilization could not be far.
"I'll go scout it out."
"All right." Close now. So close. But to what? Though they had pushed less hard since deciding the Scourge of God had given up, Haroun remained too weary, too depressed, to determine a future course.
Get away from Nassef. Get over the mountains. One down and the other almost accomplished. Vaguely, somewhere in the mists:
hammer the Royalist ideal into a weapon that would destroy the Disciple and his bandit captains. But he knew no specifics, had no neat plan ready to unveil. He was tempted to follow Ragnarson when he rejoined his mercenary brethren.
Bragi certainly smelled the end of their flight. He kept talking about getting back to his unit, to his brother, or at least to Guild headquarters at High Crag, where they would know what had become of Hawkwind's companies.
Haroun wanted to be a king less than Bragi wanted to be a soldier. Become a mercenary? Really? It would be a life circumscribed by clearly stated rules. He would know where he stood. "Foolish," he whispered. Destiny had assigned him a role. He couldn't shed it simply because he didn't like it.
Ragnarson returned. "About twenty of your people up there. Almost as ragged as we are. Couldn't tell if they'd be friendly or not. You go take a look."
"Uhm." They should be friendly. El Murid's partisans had no cause to cross the mountains. He crept forward, eavesdropped.
They were Royalists. They had no better idea where they were than did he and Ragnarson. But they did know there were refugee camps somewhere nearby. A chain of camps had been financed by the Wahlig of el Aswad and his friends, at the suggestion of Megelin Radetic, back when it had become apparent that the Disciple was a serious threat.
Haroun stole back and told Bragi, "They're friends. We ought to join forces."
The northerner looked dubious.
"We wouldn't have to worry about natives anymore."
"Maybe. But after what I've been through I don't trust anybody."
"I'll talk to them."
"But... "
"I'm going."
"Hey," Haroun said. "There's one of my father's captains. Beloul! Hey! Over here!" He waved.
They had been in camp half an hour. The two boys had collapsed and been forgotten. Haroun had wandered dazedly, unable to believe he'd made it, looking for someone he knew. Ragnarson had tagged along, eyeing everyone warily.