A Skillful Warrior: SoulNecklace Stories, #2

Part One

Chapter One

Dreaming

I breathed in the summer smell of crushed grass. Through the branches of trees stars winked, faint pinpricks of light against the black. In such a short time so much had changed. My home had vanished, my world had altered; grown larger, it seemed, overnight. I stared up at the night sky, wondering at this transformation. I’d never seen so many stars before.

A breeze rattled the leaves, sending them sighing. ‘Sleep,’ they seemed to say. ‘Sleep.’

My eyes closed. I dreamed.

I stood on a stone wall, looking down at a city. Night, and the moon was high. Below lay a food market, full of red-hot stoves and shouting vendors; the smoky air smelt of roasting meat. It was like the Fire Festival at home, but warmer and far, far noisier. Drums throbbed, loud as heartbeats. Cymbals crashed, rockets exploded into smoke. Through the crowd a red-gold dragon danced.

At the far end of the courtyard stood a wide stage, crowded with drums and copper gongs. Laughing, men pegged a white sheet tight to a wooden frame, stretched it across the front of the stage, forming a screen. Their brown arms glistened in the torchlight. Flags cracked overhead; horses’ tails fluttered from poles. Musicians climbed onto the platform, took their place at their instruments. A show was beginning.

Behind the screen a lamp glowed bright against the darkness. A man’s strident voice cut through the crowd. Heads turned and people gathered, squatting on the ground before the stage. They cried out when the puppets appeared.

When we were little, my brothers and I had made stories from the shadows of our hands — our fingers and fists making dogs or butterflies, or the head of a goose. This dream was similar; puppets dancing in the light, casting their shadows on a screen. Their bodies were supported by long sticks and, as they gestured on the screen with long, insectile arms, they appeared alive.

A sudden roll on a deep, deep drum. Abruptly, the spectators hushed. Small infants pressed dark heads into their parent’s shoulders. Evidently this was a scary story.

One shadow puppet walked across the screen towards five smaller ones. As the lone puppet reached them, the five seemed to grow. They stretched twig-like arms towards him.

Abruptly, the bigger puppet fell. The five gathered around, dancing in a ring as the gong beat slowly. Finally, they stopped. One puppet reached towards the prone figure, towards his chest. The crowd gasped.

The five raised their arms, stretching them towards the top of the sheet. The audience fell silent. The drums were stilled. For a moment, the world seemed to freeze, to the sheet, to the shadows poised.

And the five fell upon the one, and tore him apart; scattering legs and arms. A child screamed. The drum beat like thunder.

The wind shook the sheet and the lamp shone in my eyes. I blinked, and woke.

A full moon shone through the branches, bleaching the world white. In the distance an owl hooted. The forest seemed a place of peace after the rowdiness of the dream-crowd. What had I just witnessed?

It had been a true dream. Somewhere, probably far away judging by the warmth of the air and the smells, there had been a puppet show. Shadows, shaped like insects, had gestured and gamboled on a white cloth. But what was the sense of the dream?

True dreams, so my father had told me, were sendings to teach us. They should not be feared, for when dreaming a true dream a dreamer could not be hurt. But my father had been wrong. Terror made its own injuries; in a true dream, you might indeed be harmed.

Yet this dream had not been terrifying. Strange, certainly. And a little disturbing, to see a plaything torn apart. What legend had they been depicting? And why had I, on this particular night, slept and watched the show?

True dreams are strange; they may show things that have passed or events that are about to happen. I could not direct which dreams came to me. Not yet. But I could shift the dream; I could shape the story. In a true dream, I could fly. I could hunt, and I had killed. What sort of person could kill another in her sleep?

For a moment, the wind sounded like a person talking. ‘Hush,’ it said.

On the bank behind, Jed shifted, the moonlight gleaming on his sword. Will sighed and stretched towards me and I shuffled close to him, leaning into his warmth. It was good to be here in this moment, with him. A true dream was nothing to fear, my father had said. My eyes closed against the moonlight, and I collapsed into sleep.

I stood in a forest clearing, facing myself. A strange position to be in. No longer Dana, no longer me. It was like regarding myself in a mirror, but subtly different because I watched myself through a stranger’s eyes. I looked pale.

I was someone else. Yet, somehow this body felt familiar, as though I’d been inside it before.

My dream self wore metal wrist covers and carried a sodden leather shield. My other hand held a sword with a curved blade. Blood dripped from its edge. The weight of the weapons was so familiar I barely noticed them. Sho and Jorghe, my captains, were at my back. I didn’t have to see them; I felt their presence. We had fought together so often that we knew where the other would be without even looking.

She and I, I and myself, began to circle each other warily. She had two blades; smaller, lighter than my own. Her eyes seemed to burn and her hair was bright against the forest gloom.

No time to wonder. This was a battle.

She struck with her blades, one at my face, one at my heart. Automatically, I stooped, bending away. The tiniest thing: rough ground beneath your feet, the tremble of a leaf, too deep a breath; all could shift the balance. Thus had I been trained. The warrior’s principal task: to make each moment count.

Time slowed, stretched, so her twisting and my feints seemed languorous, more dance than combat. Yet, even in this false slowness she was faster, stepping up and under my guard, into my upraised shield, and the shock shook through my arm. The leather split. I shook it free of my forearm as Sho and Jorghe stepped closer, covering me, trying to reach her.

She was too swift. Stepping close to Sho, her elbow raised, she sliced a blade across his neck. He slumped, a broken puppet, as the blood arced, but she had moved on. Dancing at my legs, raising her foot, kicking at my wrist. A flare of pain. My empty shield arm dropped. She sliced a knife across my face. Blood in my eyes, blinding.

I stepped back. The moment snapped and sped. She twisted in a blur, stabbing upwards into the pit of Jorghe’s, arm, exposed as he raised his hand to aid me.

My Jorghe! My Sho! No time for grief. A man falls, another steps forward to take his place. This is the way of the Shield.

She didn’t wait for him to fall, just turned to me, and I, stupidly watching this like a man set in stone, had no time. But, in the end, it wasn’t her blade that killed me. From the side, arching, stabbing into my chest. A flare of fire. Sudden, absolute, consuming agony.

I’d forgotten the other. Chest heaving, he stood beside her, watching as my chest lifted, bubbling and leaking and oh, the pain, such hurt that overwhelmed as I tried to grab the thing in my chest, to pull it out, but I could not breathe and my hand was red and sticky and slipped on the handle. My vision blurred as I fell and all I could think of was freedom and youth being spent without thought, and of Morque, my wife. Had death been like this for her?

‘I join you,’ I said, maybe out loud. The girl’s face was soft with puzzlement and anger, and radiant with power.

She was annoyed with the warrior. I was to be her prize, not his. I lifted my hand to tell them to stop, for a death is a death, but she turned away, shrugging her shoulders. As I fell into blackness it was only the boy, the warrior-to-come, the warrior-that-is, who watched as my breath throbbed and bubbled and stopped.

‘Dana! Dana! Wake up!’ Someone shook me. I blinked. It was Will.

‘You were dreaming.’

I pushed at him. ‘Stop it.’ Sitting up, my eyes felt gritty with sleep. ‘What time is it?’

‘I don’t know. Night time.’

Two horses, dim shadows against the inky sky, the mottled glow of the fire. Gentle snores, strangely frog-like, from Jed. N’tombe lay silent, wrapped in her own mystery. Tendrils of gold enfolded her, cocooning her in a strange, delicate blanket. And Will. He must have been on watch. I hugged him, grateful that he had woken me.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

I nodded, breathing deeply. There was no knife in my chest, no blood and it no longer hurt to inhale. ‘I dreamt…’

‘Of the warrior.’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I had been TeSin. No wonder his body had felt familiar; I had inhabited it before. ‘And there were others. His friends.’

We had fought TeSin, the Noyan, the army’s general, five days ago. At the time I had barely noticed his men; they had been disposed of so easily. I wished the dream had not taught me their names. It is easier to kill someone when you know nothing about him. A name gives too much knowledge.

‘Others?’

‘His men. And you. And him.’

Will shook his head. ‘I’m no warrior.’

‘He thought you were.’

‘How?’ Will stopped, brow furrowed. I reached to touch it, smooth away his concern, but fast as a snake, he grabbed my hand, holding it tight. ‘You dreamt you were the Noyan?’

I nodded and rubbed my chest. It was still sore. Maybe I’d slept on a stick, or a stone; maybe the hardness of the ground had caused my dream. Maybe.

Will looked puzzled. ‘You dreamt you fought yourself?’

I nodded. Shook my head. ‘I dreamt you killed me.’

Chapter Two

No Center

We left the sea coast and passed into the floor of a wide valley, traveling inland towards the mountains. The midsummer weather was kind, the sun bright, and the flies were out in force, nipping at our legs and arms and annoying the horses, who shuddered and swished their tails in irritation.

Riding beside a burbling river to the drone of summer insects might once have been idyllic, relaxing. But that was in another life. Now I rode nervously, aware of the army behind.

Not all of us seemed anxious. Jed rested his chin on his chest, slumping into the saddle like a man in a doze. But the two knives in his boots and the large sword across his back told of a traveler well-armed and ready for conflict. newly exposed Inured to travel, little troubled Jed, but now even he seemed tired.

Will, too, had long knives at his waist. He and I favored these weapons; shorter than swords, they were easier to conceal and throw. A compromise between action and concealment. Staves, kept in the tops of his saddlebags, could be used as weapons and like me, he wore throwing knives tucked into scabbards at his wrists and ankles. One can never have too many knives. Will rode alert, the tops of his knives glinting in the sun.

Lacing herself to the saddle with golden light, N’tombe’s body dipped and swayed like a sack of wheat. Untrained to riding, she would never look graceful on a horse. It seemed she’d given up trying, for this afternoon her spirit traveled in the air above us, a haze against the blue sky. Our guide, our protector, our watcher. I worried for her, for she rarely rested, and if she failed, what would happen to us all?

We spoke seldom. There seemed little to say, and in truth, I think we were in shock. Jed and Will, facing death by drowning, had found themselves rescued, only to be locked into a nightmare flight across the Kingdom.

Will, whom I’d greeted with such joy, now seemed distant, riding in his own thoughts, pausing occasionally to check the horses, his tack, or the sharpness of his weapons. We lay back to back at night, but rarely spoke or touched. It seemed as though we were two self-contained islands, complete in ourselves, needing no one to remove our isolation.

And I? I felt as though I watched the world from behind a pane of glass. Locked into a waking dream, I was aware of movement and constant little noises: the sigh of the wind in the trees, the jingle of tack, the snort of a horse. Always sound, always traveling. All my life, I’d dreamt of riding from the Kingdom, discovering strange lands and customs, yet now I felt lost, bewildered by the world’s vastness. My family and my home had disappeared; torn from the world by a blast of power. A power that I had helped to wield. Was it my fault they were gone?

I had been used to seeing walls of stone about me, but here was only wild forest and the blue and empty sky. I had no center any more.

‘We should stop soon,’ Will said. ‘Need to let the horses rest.’

‘At the ford,’ said Jed. ‘It’s not far.’

The horses. Another reason to worry. Without them, we had no chance, for how could we escape an army on foot? I’d never traveled more than an hour from a stable of horses, with grooms, trained to care for my mount. My father’s stablehands knew more about horses than I. Why had I not learnt more about horses in my studies, instead of sums and grammars and who was which king when?

N’tombe stirred, opened an eye and studied me solemnly. Sheltered behind a wide-brimmed hat, her face was near invisible; only her white eyes and teeth caught the light. ‘Are you well, Princess?’

I nodded fiercely. I am well. Of course I am well.

The sun had passed its zenith by the time we stopped for lunch. We loosened the girths of the horses and took them to the river. They drank deeply and set to grazing. We kept them saddled, for Jed, self-appointed as a guide, had decreed we should keep traveling as long as the good weather held.

There was bread, apples, ham and cheese in our saddlebags, a part of the Kingdom to fill our bellies. I ate slowly, trying to prolong the contact with my homeland. Fruit and meat and bread, the most mundane of foods, was all that remained to prove my country was not a figment of a fevered imagination.

‘You see anything?’ Jed tossed his apple core into a bush. Irrationally, I wanted to run after it. How could he throw away something so precious? But no, maybe one day it would sprout and grow more apples.

N’tombe shook her head. ‘Everything is quiet. As though man has never touched this valley.’

Jed spat out a pip. ‘So how was this track made, then?’

‘Sheep,’ said Will. ‘And cattle.’

‘Sheep don’t arrive by themselves. Takes folk to manage stock.’

Will looked at him for a moment, then turned to N’tombe. ‘Could we have shaken off the army?’

‘It is possible.’

‘But you think unlikely?’

‘They have lost their leader and many of their men. It will take time for them to regroup.’

Jed picked at his teeth. ‘We should move now. While we can.’

With a sigh, N’tombe got to her feet. ‘Can you help me mount?’ The only time N’tombe asked for help was in getting on and off a horse. And sometimes she needed no assistance for dismounting, for she was most easily unseated.

Will cupped his hands and she stepped into them. He lifted her up onto her saddle. His arms were golden in the afternoon light, and strong.

‘Thus far, I’ve seen nothing.’ N’tombe slid her feet into her stirrups, relaxed her legs so her heels stretched down. ‘But maybe I am not searching for the right thing. What should I look for?’

‘Scouts,’ said Will. ‘They always post scouts. Small groups of men, three at the most. They ride light, and live off the land. They range far from the army, and report in regularly. And fire. If the Shield marches, they will need to signal the scouts. The smoke is their signal.’

‘The Shield?’

‘It’s what they call themselves.’

Jed tightened his girth. ‘They have other names too. Like the Great Horde or the Arm of the Eternal.’ The horse lifted one ear, as if listening to his rider. ‘Think themselves mighty important with such names.’ He spat. ‘Matters little what they call themselves. More needful is to know what their actions will be.’

‘They kill, is what they do,’ said Will.

‘Aye, they’re good at that. You’ll be mighty lucky to spot their scouts, Lady. They’re expert at hiding. But for their signals, Will’s right. Watch for smoke or flames or flags.’

‘All three?’

‘On the plains they use flags or flames. But in woodland they use smoke.’

N’tombe nodded and closed her eyes, shutting herself away.

Jed turned to me. ‘You coming, Lady?’

‘Sorry.’ Listening to them I’d forgotten that I, too, needed to get on my horse.

Jed and Will exchanged a look, but I pretended not to notice.

We camped that night in a brush of thorn, The low hanging branches created a natural hut. Good for keeping away wolves, said Jed, and for hiding us from men. Will suggested drawing lots for the watch, but I offered to go first. Dreading the night and the dreaming, I preferred to remain awake.

Built into a hollow of the land, the fire smoked a little. I tossed twigs and leaves onto the dying coals to watch them spark until Jed barked a sleepy order to leave the fire be. Sitting upwind on the hill above our wild hut, I watched the stars come out.

What does one do on night vigil? There was nothing to see, just the shapes of the horses resting on the grass, the dulling embers and the stars. N’tombe loved the stars. She would often tread the battlements to watch them, saying that in her home world they were not as bright. How much more she would love them here, without the sentry’s torches flaring and dazzling her. But she lay silent, entombed in gold, breathing gently. I could see her chest rising and falling as the golden energy of the wilds ebbed and fell about her like a slow-moving tide.

What was this golden light? At first, I had thought it a dream, something glimpsed between sleep and waking, until Rinpoche had shown me more. This energy was N’tombe’s air, her natural element. She still needed to eat, though; the golden light might give her spirit sustenance, but it wasn’t enough for her body. So Rosa had reminded her, teasing her gently.

Rosa. My aunt, the Guardian. Where was she? I tried to reach towards her. But I felt and heard nothing, just the sighing of the breeze and the lonely cry of a crow. Was she well? And my parents, my brothers? Did they even notice that the world about them had changed? I rubbed my face. These were not tears on my cheeks; no, it was only the chill of the evening that made my eyes water.

I tucked cold hands beneath my cloak. The stones about my wrist were a heavy weight. Five glass beads given to me less than a week ago, their power displayed at the Crossing, when their light had shone a beam into the clouds, separating land from sea and my homeland from this world. Now they were quiet grey shapes. Nothing remarkable. They had changed in form as Rosa had taken them from her necklace. When resting against her skin they had been precious stones: sapphires, emeralds, diamonds. Did they mind becoming glass?

I missed the castle. It had winding stairs, walls of honey-colored stone and secret tunnels that stretched from the cellars into the heart of the mountain. The kitchens, hard against the south wall, had been full of noise and bustle and the smell of baking bread. I wanted the activity of the place; the sense that there was always something about to happen.

Was Rosa