I’m a damn fool, he thought as he bolted, heading down a narrow street, through a crowded market where women haggled over rough linen and hard bread. He rushed down an alley and into an intersection; the gray-cloaks close behind, Ren stumbling. The alley ended in an intersection. He looked right and left, but there was nowhere to flee—the men approached from both directions. Ren took one step back, then a second, nearly tripping over a hunk of wood. He lifted the heavy timber. It was no weapon, but Ren didn’t care. I’d rather fight—I’m tired of running. He was tired of cowering, tired of scurrying and hiding. If he bolted once more, they would only catch him, he saw that now. There were too many men, approaching from too many directions. He retreated to the edge of a courtyard, his hands gripping the wood. The club made him recall the blade he kept hidden in his cell. It reminded him that he was not defenseless.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked, but the gray-cloaks did not respond, nor did they approach. Instead, all but one backed away, hiding their weapons and disappearing into the crowd. The remaining gray-cloak drew a short sword from beneath his cloak. Raising the weapon, he threw himself at Ren, sword flailing, anger on his face. Finally, a decent fight, thought Ren. He swung, as did the gray-cloak, but the blows never landed. An arrow pierced the gray-cloak’s shoulder, arresting his advance, dropping him to his knees where a spearman struck the deathblow.
Ren let go of the hunk of wood and turned to see who had done this.
Harkan soldiers packed the courtyard.
The men surrounded him, their faces awed and respectful, the eyes of the nearest man focused upon the ring Ren wore on his third finger.
He had forgotten about the silver band. The ring that Suten had returned to him glittered in the lamplight. It was Arko’s ring, and his father’s before that. The ring worn by the Harkan heir.
Their captain, a stout, hardy man with a dark beard wearing a full suit of black leather armor, his hands gauntleted, moved closer to inspect it.
Ren cringed but to his surprise the man bowed deeply. “My lord,” the captain said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
15
Crow-hopping his horse between a broken chariot’s shattered wheels, cutting around the trunkless legs of a half-buried statue, Arko Hark-Wadi, king of Harkana, pursued a pack of horned deer to the edge of the Shambles, Harkana’s sacred hunting ground.
Breathing fast but even, Arko turned his mount with his knees, leaving his hands free to nock an arrow in his longbow and take aim. He had chosen the largest buck of the herd, a ten-point beauty the size of two strong men. For weeks he had pursued this particular deer, the oldest and craftiest of the lot, losing it time and again as it disappeared into the heaps of brush, the broken trees and ancient cities of stone ground to dust by the wind.
Nearly three and fifty years, his dark hair flecked with silver, Arko was strong-featured, with an angular nose and a cleft chin covered with a week’s worth of stubble he never bothered to shave. A white stone hung from his neck, a charm that he always wore. His golden-brown eyes took in everything in one great sweep—the desert, the plain, the herd—and found it lacking. Himself, most of all. Thick and strong-limbed, shoulders as broad as his horse’s withers, he was a formidable hunter and a formidable man, but his people called him the Bartered King, and more often than not he felt he deserved their contempt and to be called such a name.
The desert plains were baking under the midmorning sun. Spiky patches of needle grass rose like enemy traps amid the scattered stones. To the east were distant gray hunchbacked mountains, while to the west the verdant green line of the riverbank cut a lone lifeline through the arid landscape. He sighted along the arrow for the sweet point just behind the deer’s pumping forelegs, but as soon as he let fly, he knew it was too soon. The buck jumped around a jutting piece of rock and the bolt sailed free, skittering across the field littered with the bleached skeletons of old ballistas, rusting arrowheads shot long ago. The herd bounded away, unscathed.
Arko cursed his luck, the deer, the desert. His mind wasn’t on the hunt, not anymore. Not in this place.
He gulped amber from an oilskin. His love of hunting was exceeded only by his love of drink. He emptied the oilskin and drew forth a second, wondering if it was time to leave the Shambles, guessing he had stayed too long. The five lost days had come and gone, and the sun had not dimmed. Time to go home, he thought, but not before I fell this deer. He kicked his horse again and started off after the herd, ignoring the Harkan soldiers waiting at the edge of the field, shading their eyes warily.
The deer fled into a rocky outcropping some distance away, the buck leading, sniffing the air, nostrils flaring. Arko rode to the far side and waited for the herd to emerge from behind the rocks. He stilled his heart, his breath. Soon those magnificent antlers would come into view, and he would loose another arrow.
The stillness did little to allow him to forget where he stood, what had happened here.
This place had a name that stuck to him like a shadow, like a reproach. The Blood-Dyed Reg. It was on this field that his father stood against the empire, it was on this sunbaked patch of desert that so many of his father’s men fell to ensure one boy’s safety. His. They had died to prevent Arko from doing what every Harkan heir had done for two centuries—serve in the Priory until their fathers died. Five times a thousand men had died in the Children’s War, had died for Arko when he was still a child. A war to keep him home with his mother and father, a gift of which he had never felt worthy, or able to repay. The war, the men who died for his freedom, shadowed his every thought. He wished only to be free of the burden of that guilt.
At last the buck took a tentative step from behind the rocks out onto the sandy field, lifting its head, its haunches still hidden by the stone. Arko had grown patient in his age, no longer the impetuous youth he once was, and weeks of chasing this particular buck had taught him the value of that patience. Too many times he had lost his chance at victory to recklessness, a too-quick movement here, a bad choice of cover there. Not this time. I plan on drawing blood before I take my leave.
He drew his arrow with his full weight. Breathed in. Waited.
When the buck took his next step, exposing that sweet spot behind its front haunches, Arko released the string, sending the bolt flying straight and true. It passed through the buck’s foreleg and out the other side, frothy pink blood bubbling up from beneath. A perfect shot. The deer tried to take off, but Arko was on it in a heartbeat, jumping off his horse, drawing his knife, and slitting the animal’s throat, ending its pain along with its cunning.