Winter Warriors Read online

  'I hope so.'

  Orendo sighed. 'I can't feel the cold now. That's a good thing. I've always hated the cold. Tell Bison not to judge me too hard, eh?'

  'I am sure that he won't.'

  Orendo's voice was slurring, then his eyes flared open. 'There are demons,' he said, suddenly. 'I can see them. There are demons!'

  He died then, and Nogusta rose, collected the pouch of jewels and walked to his horse.

  He glanced up at the sky, which was blue, clear and bright. Not a trace of cloud.

  Stepping into the saddle he gathered the other three mounts and headed back for the city.

  There were demons in the air over the city of Usa, shroud-pale and skinny, their talons long, their teeth sharp. Ordinary eyes could not see them, and they seemed to pose no threat to ordinary folk.

  Why then are they here, thought Ulmenetha? Why do they hover close to the palace? The large priestess pushed her thick fingers through her short cropped blond hair. Rising from her bed she poured water into a bowl and washed her face. Refreshed she silently opened the connecting door and stepped through into the queen's bedroom. Axiana was asleep, lying on her back, one white slender arm curled around a satin pillow. Ulmenetha smiled. Only a few years before that arm had, in the same manner, cuddled a stuffed toy - a woollen lioness with only one glass eye.

  Now Axiana was a child no longer.

  Ulmenetha sighed. Despite her bulk the priestess moved silently across the royal bedroom, casting an affectionate look at the pregnant Axiana. The queen's face shone in the moonlight, and, in sleep, Ulmenetha could just discern the child she had grown to love. 'May your dreams be rich and joyful,' she whispered.

  Axiana did not stir. The fat priestess reached the window balcony and stepped out into the moonlight. Her white-streaked blond hair shone like silver beneath the stars, and her voluminous nightdress of white cotton shimmered, as if turned to silk. There was a marble-topped table set on the balcony, and four chairs. Easing herself down she untied her rune pouch and placed it on the table. Ulmenetha gazed up at the night sky. All she could see with the eyes of her body were the stars, shining bright. To her left a crescent moon seemed to be balancing precariously on the uppermost tower of the Veshin temple. Closing the eyes of her body, she opened the eyes of her spirit. The stars remained, brighter and clearer now, robbed of the twinkling illusion caused by human astigmatism and the earth's atmosphere. Tall mountains could clearly be seen on the far-away face of the crescent moon. But it was not the night sky Ulmenetha wished to see.

  Above the palace three scaled forms were hovering.

  For weeks now their malevolent presence had kept her chained to her flesh, and she longed to fly free. But the last time she had tried they had come for her, screeching across the sky. Ulmenetha had barely made it back to her body.

  Who had summoned them, and why?

  Closing her eyes she loosened the draw-string of her rune pouch and reached inside, her fingers stroking the stones within. They were smooth and round and flat, and for a while she continued to stir them. At last one stone seemed to call for her, and she drew it from the pouch. Painted upon it was a cracked goblet. Ulmenetha sat back.

  The Broken Flagon was a stone signalling mistrust. At best it warned of caution in dealings with strangers. At worst it signalled treachery among friends.

  From the pocket of her white dress she produced two leaves. Rolling them into a ball she placed them in her mouth and began to chew. The juices were acrid and bitter. Pain lanced into her head and she stifled a groan. Bright colours danced now on the edge of her vision, and she pictured the Broken Flagon, holding to the image and freeing her mind of conscious thought.

  A silver serpent slithered up and around the flagon, slowly crushing it. The flagon suddenly shattered, the pieces exploding outward, ripping through the curtain of time. Ulmenetha saw a tree-shrouded hollow and four men. Axiana was there. Ulmenetha saw herself kneeling beside the queen, a protective arm around her shoulder. The four men were warriors, and they had formed a circle around Axiana, facing outward ready to fight off some unseen threat. A white crow was hovering over them all, his wings beating silently.

  Ulmenetha sensed a colossal evil, about to sweep over the hollow. The vision began to fade. She struggled to hold the image, but it collapsed in upon itself and a fresh scene unfolded. A camp-fire beside a dark frozen lake stretching between high mountains. A man - a tall man - sitting with his back to the lake. Behind him a dark, taloned hand reached up through the ice, then a demonic form pulled itself clear. It was colossal and winged and stood blinking in the moonlight. The great wings spread wide and the demon floated closer to the man at the camp-fire. It extended an arm. Ulmenetha wanted to cry out, to warn him, but she couldn't. The talons rammed into the back of the seated man. He reared up and screamed once, then slumped forward.

  As Ulmenetha watched the demon began to shimmer, his body became black smoke, which swirled into the bloody wound in the dead man's back. Then the demon was gone, and the body of the man rose. Ulmenetha could not see his face, for he was hooded. He turned towards the lake and raised his arms. Through the surface of the ice a thousand taloned hands rose up to salute him.

  Once more the vision faded and she saw an altar. Upon it, held with chains of iron, was a naked man with a golden beard. It was Axiana's father, the murdered emperor. A voice spoke, a soft voice, which she felt she should recognize, but it was blurred somehow, as if she were listening to a distant echo. 'Now,' said the voice, 'the day of Resurrection is at hand. You are the first of the Three.' The chained emperor was about to speak when a curved dagger sliced into his chest. His body arched.

  Ulmenetha cried out - and the vision disappeared. She found her gaze focused now only on the bare, moonlit wall of the royal bedchamber.

  The visions made no sense. The emperor was not sacrificed. Having lost the last battle he had fled with his aides. He had been slain, so it was said, by officers of his own guard, men disgusted by his cowardice. Why then should she see him sacrificed in this way? Was the vision symbolic?

  The incident at the lake of ice was equally nonsensical. Demons did not live below ice.

  And the queen would never be in a wood with a mere four warriors. Where was the king and his army? Where were the royal guards?

  'Dismiss the visions from your mind,' she told herself. 'They are flawed in some way. Perhaps your preparation was at fault.'Axiana moaned in her sleep and the priestess rose and moved to the bedside. 'Be still, my pet,' she whispered, soothingly. 'All is well.'But all was not well, Ulmenetha knew. Her lorassium visions were certainly mysterious, and might indeed be symbolic. They were, however, never false.

  And who were the four men? She summoned their faces to her mind. One was a black man, with bright blue eyes, the second a huge bald man, with a white, droop­ing moustache. The third was young and handsome. The fourth held a bow. She remembered the white crow and a shudder went through her.

  This was one sign she could read without interpret­ation.

  The white crow was Death.

  Kebra the Bowman dropped a small golden coin into the palm of the outraged innkeeper. The fat man's anger faded instantly. There was no feeling in the world quite so warming as that of gold against the skin. The seething anger at the thought of broken furniture and lost business receded into minor irritation. The innkeeper glanced up at the bowman, who was now surveying the wreckage. Ilbren had long been a student of human nature, able to read a man swiftly and accurately. Yet the friendship of Kebra and Bison remained a mystery. The bowman was a fastidious man. His clothes were always clean, as were his hands and skin. He was cultured and softly spoken, and he had a rare talent for creating space around himself, as if he disliked crowds and the closeness of bodies. Bison, on the other hand, was an un­cultured oaf and Ilbren despised him. The sort of man who would always drink two more flagons of ale than he could handle, and then became aggressive. Innkeepers loathed such customers. Bison's saving grace, however, was t
hat to reach the last two flagons he could drink an inn dry, and would make every effort to do so. This naturally created large profits. Ilbren wondered how Kebra could tolerate such a friend.

  'He did all this?' asked Kebra, shaking his head. Two long bench tables had been smashed, and several chairs were lying in pieces on the sawdust-covered floor. The far window had been smashed outward, and shards of broken glass still clung to the lead frame. An un­conscious Ventrian officer was being tended by the window, and two other victims, common soldiers, were sitting near the doorway, one still bleeding from a gashed cheek, the other holding his bandaged head in his hands.

  'All this and more. We have already swept away the broken crockery and two bent pots, which cannot be used again.'

  'Well, at least no-one is dead,' said Kebra, his voice deep and sombre, 'so we must be grateful.'

  The innkeeper smiled and lifted a flagon of wine, gesturing the grey clad bowman to join him at a nearby table. As they sat down he looked closely at Kebra's face. Deeply lined, as if carved from stone, Kebra looked every inch his fifty-six years. The bowman rubbed his tired eyes. 'Bison's like a child,' he said. 'When things go against him he loses control.'

  'I do not know how it started,' said Ilbren. 'The first I knew of trouble was when I saw that officer flying through the air. He hit that table there, and cracked it clean through.'

  Two Ventrian soldiers came in carrying a stretcher. Tenderly they lifted the unconscious man onto it, and carried him out. A Drenai officer approached Kebra. He was a veteran, and well known to the bowman as a fair man. 'You'd better find him fast!' he warned Kebra. 'The wounded man is an officer on Malikada's staff. You know what the penalty will be if he dies.'

  'I know, sir.'

  'Gods, man! As if we haven't enough trouble with the cursed Ventrians as it is, without one of our men crack­ing the skull of one of their officers.' The Drenai swung to the innkeeper. 'No offence meant, Ilbren,' he said.

  'Oh, none taken I am sure,' replied the Ventrian, with just a trace of sarcasm. The officer wandered away.

  'I am sorry for the trouble, Ilbren,' said Kebra. 'Do you know where Bison went?'

  'I do not know. He is old enough to know better than to wreak such . . . such devastation.' The innkeeper filled two goblets, passing one to Kebra.

  'This has not been a good day for him,' said Kebra, softly. 'Not a good day for any of us.' He sipped the wine, then laid the goblet down.

  Ilbren sighed. 'I heard of the king's decision. We all have. For what it is worth I shall miss you.' He smiled. 'I will even miss Bison.' He stared at the white-haired archer. 'Still, war is for young men, eh? It is way past the time when you should have settled down with a wife and raised sons.'

  Kebra ignored the comment. 'Which way did Bison go.?'

  'I did not see.'

  Kebra moved away, stepping past the injured men in the doorway.

  'It was just a bad joke,' said the soldier with the bandaged head. 'Then he went berserk.'

  'Let me guess,' said Kebra. 'Something about his age, was it?'

  The young soldier looked suddenly sheepish. 'It was just a joke,' he repeated.

  'Well, I'm sure Bison didn't take it too seriously.'

  'How can you say that?' stormed the second soldier. 'Look what he did to my face.' Blood was still seeping from his swollen cheekbone, and his right eye was closed tight, purple swelling distending the eyelid.

  'I can say it because you are still alive, boy,' said Kebra, coldly. 'Did anyone see where he went?'

  Both men shook their heads and Kebra stepped out into the fading winter sunlight. Across the square market traders were packing up their wares, and children were playing by the frozen fountain, scooping snow and fashioning balls which they hurled at one another. A tall black man in a long dark cloak moved through the crowd. The children stopped to watch him. Then one child moved silently behind him, a snowball in his raised hand.

  'Not a wise move, child,' said the black man, without looking back. 'For if you throw it I shall be obliged to -' suddenly he swung around '- cut off your head!' Terrified the boy dropped the snowball and sprinted back to his friends. The black man chuckled and strode on to where Kebra waited.

  'I take it he was not at the barracks,' said Kebra. Nogusta shook his head.

  'They have not seen him.'

  The two men made an incongruous pair as they walked off together, Nogusta black and powerful, Kebra wand slim, white-haired and pale. Cutting through the narrow streets they reached a small eating house over­looking the river. They took a table by the fire and ordered a meal. Nogusta removed his cloak and the sheepskin jerkin he wore below it and sat down, holding his hands out to the blaze. 'I, for one, will be pleased to say farewell to this frozen country. Why is Bison so depressed? Does he not have three wives waiting for him back home?'

  'That's enough to depress anyone,' replied Kebra, with a smile.

  They ate in companionable silence and Nogusta added another log to the fire. 'Why is he depressed?' he asked again, as they finished their meal. 'There must come a time when a man is too old for soldiering, and we are all way past that. And the king has offered every soldier a pouch of gold, and a scrip to give them land when they return to Drenan. The scrip alone is worth a hundred in gold.'

  Kebra thought about the question. 'There was a time,' he said, 'when I could outshoot any archer alive. Then, as the years went by, I noticed I could no longer see quite as clearly. When I turned fifty I could no longer read small script. That was when I began to think of going home. Nothing lasts for ever. But Bison is not a thinker. As far as he is concerned the king has just told him he is no longer a man. And he is hurting.'

  'There is some pain for all of us,' said Nogusta. 'The White Wolf will be leading almost two thousand men home. Every one of them will feel some sense of rejec­tion. But we are alive, Kebra. I fought for the king's father - as you did - and I have carried my sword through thirty-five years of warfare. Now I am tired. The long marches are hard on old bones. Even Bison must admit to that.'

  Kebra shook his head. 'Bison admits to nothing. You should have seen his face when they called the roll. He could not believe he had been chosen. I was standing beside him. You know what he said? 'How can they send me back with all the old men?' I just laughed. For a moment I thought he was joking. But he wasn't. He still thinks he's twenty-five.' He let out a soft curse. 'Why did he have to hit a Ventrian? And what if the man dies?'

  'If he dies they will hang Bison,' said Nogusta. 'Not a pleasant thought. Why did he hit the man?'

  'He made a joke about Bison's age.'

  'And the others?'

  'I have no idea. We'll ask him when we find him. The officer was one of Malikada's men.'

  'That makes it worse,' said Nogusta. 'He might demand a hanging, regardless. He's a hard man.'

  'The White Wolf would never allow it.'

  'Times are changing, Kebra. The White Wolf is being sent home with the rest of us. I doubt he has the power to oppose Malikada.'

  'A pox on Bison,' snapped Kebra. 'He's always been trouble. You remember when he and Orendo stole that pig . . . ?' The bowman's voice faded away. 'I'm sorry, my friend, that was crass.'

  Nogusta shrugged. 'Orendo took part in a rape and a murder. It saddens me that he is dead, but he was the victim of his own actions.'

  'Strange, though,' said Kebra. 'I am a fair judge of men and I would never have believed Orendo capable of such an act.'

  'Nor I. Where shall we look for Bison?' asked Nogusta, changing the subject.

  Kebra shrugged. 'He was drunk when he thrashed those men. You know Bison. After a fight he'll look for a woman. There must be two hundred whorehouses within walking distance. I do not intend to spend the night scouring them.'

  Nogusta nodded, then he gave a wide grin. 'We could try just one, though,' he said.

  'For what purpose? The odds against finding him are enormous.'

  Nogusta leaned forward and placed his hand on his friend's sh
oulder. 'I was not thinking of finding Bison,' he said. 'I was thinking of soft skin and a warm bed.'

  Kebra shook his head. 'I think I'll return to the barracks. I have a warm bed there.'

  Nogusta sighed. 'Bison refuses to get old, and you refuse to stay young. Truly, you white men are a mystery to me.'

  'Life would be dull without mysteries,' said Kebra.

  After Nogusta had gone he ordered another flagon of wine, then made the long walk back to the barracks. The room he shared with Nogusta and Bison was cold and empty. Bison's bed was unmade, the blankets in a heap on the floor beside it. The Senior Cul no longer made inspections, and without the threat of punishment Bison had reverted to slovenly behaviour.

  Nogusta's bed was tidily made, but he had left a tunic upon it.

  Kebra's pallet was immaculate, the blankets folded into a square, topped by the pillow, the undersheet pulled tight, the corners overlapped with a perfect horizontal fold. Kebra moved to the hearth and lit the fire. He had cleaned out the ash and re-laid it that morning, the kindling placed with perfect symmetry.

  Just about now Nogusta would be lying beside a fat, sweating whore. He would be, perhaps, the twentieth man she had opened her legs for that day. Kebra shuddered. It was a nauseating thought.

  Silently he padded out to the bath house. The boilers had not been lit and the water was cold. Even so Kebra undressed and immersed himself, scrubbing at his body with soap. There were no clean towels on the rack. Angry now he searched through the large laundry basket and dabbed at his cold body with the cleanest of the used towels.

  The collapse of discipline unnerved the bowman. Carrying his clothes he returned to the room and sat, shivering, in front of the fire. Then he took a nightshirt from his chest and slipped it on. It was crisp and clean and he could smell the freshness of the cotton. It eased his mind.

  Ilbren's words haunted him. 'It is way past the time when you should have settled down with a wife and raised sons.'

  Kebra felt the weight of the words, like a stone on his heart.