‘You’ll have questions, I imagine,’ Morn said, picking up the discarded towel and wiping his face. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much of a sweat you can build up, even in this cold.’
He said something to Reyek, who ran off and returned with our weapons. Kest strapped his shield across his back, though he was still watching Morn and I could see him re-evaluating our fellow Greatcoat in that strange mathematical way of his. ‘I would have thought the thinner air at this altitude would be the greater challenge.’
Morn chuckled. ‘Of course you would be the one to notice that, Kest.’ He tossed the towel to Reyek. ‘The body gets used to it after a while, but I’ll admit I was worried that perhaps I’d spent too long away bringing you here.’ He tilted his head back and took in a series of staggered breaths through his nostrils. ‘Fortunately, there are ways to adapt more quickly.’
‘That old man you talked about,’ I said. ‘He really was Rangieri?’
He nodded. ‘Yimris could do things that would amaze you. Walk for days without rest, sleep in ice-cold snow without getting frostbite – one time I came upon him and his heartbeat was so slow that I thought for sure he’d died in the night. I actually started crying. All of a sudden one of his eyes opened and he said, “Rangieri don’t waste water,” and then went back to sleep.’
I knew almost nothing about the Rangieri – even less than I did about the Bardatti or the Dashini. All these ancient Orders with their secret ways . . . what was it all for?
‘That’s a nice story, Morn,’ Brasti said. ‘Is it supposed to make us ignore the fact that you apparently fucked off and became an Avarean Warlord while no one was looking?’
Reyek, who’d been watching us through the squinting eyes of someone trying to keep up with a conversation he couldn’t hope to follow, nonetheless caught the edge in Brasti’s words. He cuffed him across the back of the head and said, ‘I speak you language good. You speak to the Magdan good.’
‘Jas beyat, Reyek,’ Morn said, motioning for him to be calm. ‘Jas beyat.’
‘“Rest easy”,’ Kest translated.
‘Yeah, I figured,’ I said.
It’s not as if I’m uneducated. I’m fluent in modern and archaic Tristian, I can manage a fair bit of Shan and can even puzzle out ancient Tristian if need be, which I promise is a lot more than most people. But this language of grunts and growls and words that all sounded like they meant, ‘Come over here so I can beat your brains in’? I felt woefully unprepared for this mission. Then again, I’m supposed to be a bloody Tristian magistrate. What business do I have in this Gods-forsaken country?
‘Brasti’s right,’ I said. ‘What in all the hells are you doing here, Morn?’
His eyes narrowed – only momentarily, but long enough for me to see he didn’t appreciate being questioned. I supposed that came with the territory: he was a Warlord and he’d just killed the last man who’d challenged his authority. But Morn’s jovial smile quickly returned. ‘Now that is a much longer story than we have time for right now.’
All right, so you don’t want to talk about it – is that because you’re waiting until we’re alone? Or because you just don’t want us to know?
‘Wait, let me have a try.’ Brasti turned to Morn. ‘You went north as the King ordered and almost died in the mountains, only to be saved by the old Rangieri, who taught you his ways. Somehow you wound up in a duel with an Avarean Warlord who underestimated how dangerous you were because he’d never fought a Greatcoat before – even one who mostly fights with a big stick with a knife stuck on the end.’
‘Brasti . . .’ I warned, but he ignored me.
Gesturing at Reyek, he went on, ‘Then you convinced a bunch of these great big bastards to follow you, and using a combination of the tactics we learned in the Greatcoats and somehow finding a way to bring Shan steel weapons to Avares, you gradually took over several other warbands.’ He poked a finger at Morn’s chest. ‘How am I doing so far?’
Morn had to wave off Reyek a second time, then admitted, ‘Pretty damned close, actually.’
Brasti turned to Kest. ‘See, I can be clever, too, sometimes.’
‘You should try to do it more often,’ he replied.
Morn gave a big, deep-throated laugh. ‘Ah, see? This is what I missed. The three of you! Your little travelling comedy routine, the masterful heroics, the speeches.’ He looked down at me. ‘Those things don’t work quite so well in the north.’ Without another word he took off for one of the large wooden buildings inside of the compound, not even bothering to make sure we followed. Mind you, he didn’t need to, because several of his warriors immediately started prodding us with their spears until we set out after him.
‘The Avareans aren’t like us, Falcio,’ Morn said as he walked. ‘War isn’t a means to an end for them; it’s not an act of anger or hatred. It’s religion. It’s the way they show their worth to their Gods, and the way they measure one another. There are no games, no politics.’
‘You sound as if you admire them,’ Kest said, keeping an eye on the men behind us.
Morn stopped, forcing us to do the same. ‘I do, in a way. There’s a kind of . . . purity to their ways that’s different to anything we have back home. Justice is absolute for them, unyielding. It’s a far cry from all the corruption and manipulation we deal with in Tristia.’ He glanced back at me. ‘I’ll bet you think that’s terribly militaristic, don’t you, Falcio?’
I hate it when people know exactly what I’m thinking.
The inside of the building was larger than I’d expected. The walls, beams and supports that held it all together were made of massive logs. The men, women and children we’d come over the mountains with were being attended by Avarean warriors, men and women, who were feeding them and dealing with the wounds of the injured.
‘The Avareans are remarkably skilled healers,’ Morn commented.
‘That’s charitable of them,’ Brasti said. ‘Do they have to bandage one wound for every five people they eat?’
‘You still don’t get it,’ Morn said. ‘Those people who came over the mountains with you? They risked everything to get here. The Avareans call that rokhan.’
‘“Spirit”?’ Kest asked.
‘Almost: mix courage and daring and faith all into one and you have rokhan. To an Avarean, it isn’t a favour or even a duty to feed and care for someone with rokhan. It’s an honour.’
I looked at the men and women of this place, struggling to reconcile Morn’s words with the impressions I’d grown up with. Apparently Brasti found it impossible. ‘All sounds very admirable,’ he said, ‘except I don’t recall Avarean warbands ever taking prisoners when they’ve attacked Tristian villages. They kill them all.’
‘Kill cowards,’ Reyek rumbled from behind me.
I turned. ‘Cowards? They’re farmers and craftspeople, not soldiers.’