It didn’t take long for the clan leader to respond to her challenge. Within minutes a retinue of two dozen riders raised a tall column of dust as they came galloping from the camp. They were led by two men, one young, one old. The younger of the two rode partially in front of the old man who, Lizanne saw, carried a gourd of some kind which he held tight to his chest.
The pair reined in a short distance from Lizanne, their followers spreading out on either side. She made note of the fact that they had all drawn their sabres. The younger rider was lean almost to the point of thinness with the pale complexion and dark hair typical of the northern provinces. He wore a short beard and moustache waxed into spear-points that contrasted somewhat with the unconstrained chest-length beards of his clansmen. In all other respects, however, his appearance was every inch that of a leader of a horse clan. He was clad in leather britches and vest, arms bare to reveal his scars and a red-silk scarf on his head braided in silver.
He returned Lizanne’s scrutiny in full before trotting his horse forward and coming to a halt barely six feet away. Unlike his men he hadn’t drawn his sabre, nor did he share their evident trepidation at being confronted by a Blood-blessed. “‘Piss-britches,’ eh?” he asked her in finely spoken Eutherian, grinning a little.
“I needed to talk to you,” she explained, also slipping into Eutherian.
“And what would the famous Miss Blood have to say to me, pray tell?” His grin broadened a little as her face betrayed a tic of surprise. “Oh yes, I know your story. We wrung it out of some radical shit-eater a few days ago. He said something about you wreaking justice upon our barbarian souls, before we cut his tongue out, that is.”
Lizanne resisted the sudden urge to forget her good intentions, kill this savage with a lashing of Black and ride off into the forest. But she could see the other clan-folk gathering to watch this diverting exchange, children chattering excitedly amongst the throng. “You need to leave this place,” she said. “Abandon whatever arrangement you have with Countess Sefka and go home.”
“Fifty crowns per head,” he said. “That’s our arrangement and so far it’s proving highly lucrative. Can your rebel friends match that? If not, it seems we have little to discuss.”
He turned and gave a nonchalant wave to the old man, who duly trotted his mount closer. Although he did his best to hide it behind a fierce glower, Lizanne could see he was markedly more nervous of her than his clan leader. It was there in the way his bony hands twitched on the gourd held close to his chest, a gourd she could now see was inscribed all over with runes.
“This is Tikrut,” the younger man said in Selvurin. “Blood Shaman to the Red Eagle Clan. See his mighty power and tremble, foreign witch.” The sardonic lilt to the clan leader’s voice indicated a less-than-serious attitude to this confrontation, a sense of ritual performed for the sake of appearance.
The old man managed to maintain his glower as he met Lizanne’s gaze, though his bony neck bulged as he began to speak in a low guttural chant. The words were gibberish to Lizanne’s ears, some form of archaic tribal tongue she suspected no one else present could decipher. Tikrut raised the gourd above his head as he spoke, shaking it back and forth so Lizanne could hear the liquid contents sloshing about.
“He invokes the Blessing of the gods,” the clan leader said as Tikrut chanted on. “The divine brew is potent, formed of drake blood fermented over the span of centuries and imbued with the gods’ essence.”
“Really?” Lizanne enquired, refreshing her reserves of Black with the Spider before reaching out to snatch the gourd from the old shaman’s hands. She plucked it out of the air and turned it over in her hands, Tikrut sputtering all the while, this time in Selvurin. “Blaspheming witch! Prepare to burn! The gods will not tolerate so vile an insult . . .”
He trailed off as Lizanne found a stoppered opening on the underside of the gourd. She pried it open and dipped a finger inside. “This is water,” she said, after tasting the contents. “Fresh too. I expect he refills it quite regularly.” She replaced the stopper and tossed the gourd back to Tikrut. He failed to catch it and the receptacle duly tumbled to the ground, much to the gasping shock of all present, apart from the young clan leader.
“You useless old bastard,” he told Tikrut as the shaman scrambled from his saddle, fumbling desperately for the holy gourd. Upon grasping it the shaman immediately began his chant once more, sinking to his knees and raising the gourd to the heavens in the hope, Lizanne presumed, the gods might see fit to smite her with a thunderbolt or two.
“Been hearing about his remarkable powers my entire life,” the clan leader said, switching to Eutherian as he turned to Lizanne. “But never seen him do a damned thing, except eat and drink all the offerings my people piled outside his tent. Nice to have one’s suspicions confirmed, even if it is by an enemy. Name’s Ahnkrit, by the way. Tenth of his name, slayer of a hundred men and leader by the gods’ will of the Red Eagle Clan.” He inclined his head, turning his horse about and trotting back towards camp. “Nice to meet you, miss. Come and have a spot of lunch, why don’t you?”
? ? ?
“It’s all a matter of honour, I’m afraid,” Ahnkrit told her, sipping wine as he reclined on a cushion of wolf pelts. “I assured Sefka I’d have my lot visit their barbaric worst on your rebellious swine, you see? It’s just not done to break a promise to an old friend.”
“Old friend?” Lizanne enquired. She had been provided with a generous plate of undercooked venison and a large goblet of wine, neither of which she had touched. Despite the clan leader’s sudden affability, she couldn’t discount the possibility of poison.
“Oh yes,” Ahnkrit replied. “You could say we went to school together. I was but a toddler when dear old papa sent me off to the Imperial Court. Officially as a guest but in actuality a hostage to his continued loyalty to the crown. Sefka was one of the few high-born brats who bothered to talk to me. Fifteen years of courtly etiquette and noble education did wonders for my manners, as you can see. However, it did make for a slightly troublesome home-coming. Papa had been busy siring bastards in my absence, none of whom relished the prospect of surrendering the first saddle to a youth who spoke Eutherian better than he did Selvurin.” Ahnkrit’s face clouded a little in sorrowful nostalgia. “It’s a hard thing to kill one’s own brother, I must say. But, like anything else, it got easier with practice.”
Lizanne’s gaze went to the shelter’s entrance where the light had begun to dim. “I would have thought survival would trump honour,” she said. “And as for promises, I can promise that you and most of your people will be dead come morning if you don’t break camp and leave now.”
“A less enlightened man might take that for a threat.” Ahnkrit sat up, leaning forward to regard her with intent scrutiny. “But that’s not it, is it, my dear Miss Blood? Is it all the little kiddies? Worried what may become of them, are we?”