Sovereign

CHAPTER 7

Amemun looked down from the dune rise to wide green plains and could not help breathing a sigh of relief. After travelling for so long in the deserts of the Saranah, he longed to walk in a land that actually had grass and trees instead of the stunted bushes and spiky weeds that passed for vegetation in the south of the continent. Dekelon raised himself on his elbows to get a better view of the land that spread northwards.

'The Oceans of Grass,' he said, and could not hide the excitement in his voice. He turned to Amemun. 'My people have dreamed of returning here for generations to exact our revenge on the Chetts and take back our land. And now it is possible.'

Amemun smiled sympathetically. I would have the same dream had I come from your home, old man, he thought.

'What now?' he asked.

'We wait until night before moving. On these plains we would stick out like trees in the desert.'

Amemun glanced behind him at the small army Dekelon had gathered. There were four thousand warriors, all young and all male, all wearing sheepskin lapcloths tied around their waists with long strands of dyed and twisted wool, and all were armed with a simple bow, javelin and hunting knife. He still found it hard to believe just how quickly the Saranah had organised once he and Dekelon had come to an agreement about the level of Grenda Lear support for their invasion. In the end it was the temptation of new land, especially the richer pasture on the Oceans of Grass, that convinced the Saranah to take up arms. Financial support was not as important as the news that the Chetts had mobilised as never before and gone east with their army, leaving their southern border more vulnerable than it had been in living memory.

'My great-great-grandfather grew up here,' Dekelon said, now gazing out over the plains again. 'We were once the strongest and biggest clan on all the Oceans of Grass.'

Amemun had heard the story before, not only from Dekelon but from every other Saranah who had bothered talking to him. You were also the most aggressive, Amemun wanted to add, but there was no benefit in needling new friends.

'When this is over we will again be a clan. All our tribes can come together for the first time in over a hundred years.'

'First you have to win your land back,' Amemun reminded him.

Dekelon grinned. His bald pate shone in the sun, and he patted it. 'My skull will lie in this good earth, not the desert behind us.'

The pair eased their way down the dune. The army was camped in a deep gully that hid a small creek of fresh water and afforded shade during most of the day. Dekelon stretched himself out on the ground and almost immediately fell asleep. Amemun, native to the cool mountainsides of Aman, found it almost impossible to sleep during the day: the heat and the flies made him more uncomfortable than he could ever remember being before. He reminded himself that from now on they would be marching at night and so would not be able to sleep then either. Cursing under his breath, he closed his eyes and tried to rest.

Savero of the Horse Clan, nephew of great Eynon, swelled his chest in pride as he watched his clan's mighty herd make its way along the narrow valley called the Solstice Way. Four thousand head. No larger among the Chetts, except for possibly the White Wolf herd, and everyone knew they got that by reaving cattle from other clans. Savero fidgeted with his sword belt. Every time he swelled his chest the belt would slip a little. Well, he would grow into it. He was already tall for his thirteen years. Eynon—the great Eynon—had said so himself. And he was already working as one of the clan's outriders. He could not help it, his chest swelled with pride again.

True, if Eynon had not gone to help out poor Prince Lynan, that strange albino creature from the east, and with him taken a good portion of the clan's warriors, Savero might still be among the young riders assigned to guard the clan's wagons. Whatever the reason, here he was, outriding for the mighty Horse Clan—

He smelled something in the wind. He reined in and looked around. He sniffed the air. There it was again. Not animal. Not vegetable. Nothing he knew. Curious, he kneed his horse away from the lip of the valley and started criss-crossing the high ground, homing in on the scent.

There was something vaguely odd about it. Something that did not belong to the Oceans of Grass.

He reined in a second time and looked around him. He could see nothing unusual. He could hear the low calling of the cattle rising from the valley, but not much else. Maybe he should get old Colden; he would know what the smell was. Colden knew everything there was to know about the Oceans of Grass; at least, that's what he told everyone around the camp fires at night. According to him, he had even taught Eynon how to ride and fight. Savero snorted. No one had taught Eynon how to ride and fight; he was born with a sabre in his hand and stirrups around his feet. Now Savero sniggered, thinking how uncomfortable that must have been for his mother.

A breeze whipped up around him, and it was full of the strange smell. Whatever it was, it was getting closer. For the first time Savero felt his spine twinge. Just the slightest twinge. He tried puffing out his chest again, but it did not seem to work.

Colden, he reminded himself. Get Colden.

As he pulled his horse around he heard the grass suddenly rustling not twenty paces from him. He looked over his shoulder and saw the face of a man, and the eyes in that face were staring at him with hatred. As he opened his mouth to cry out a warning, an arrow suddenly sprouted from his neck with a soft thwack. Savero gargled blood and toppled sideways from his saddle, dead before his small body hit the hard earth.

Dekelon peeked over the lip of the valley. For a moment his gaze drifted over the huge herd that moved in the valley below; he savoured the sight, then focused on the high ground on the other side. For a long while nothing happened, then he saw it. A figure standing, disappearing, then standing again. That was the signal. 'We are all in place,' he told Amemun.

Amemun grunted.

'You should see this herd…'

'I have seen cattle before,' Amemun said shortly. 'How much longer?'

'We are ready. We wait for the night fires to be lit. That is when they expect their outriders to return, and new outriders to leave.'

'And when no outriders return, they will start to worry.'

'Oh, their outriders will return,' Dekelon said softly.

Colden made sure all the fires were stoked up bright and high. He did not want any of his young charges getting lost this far south; they could end up in the desert, disoriented, especially at night.

He led his horse in a slow circle around the main camp, peering into the growing darkness and wondering why he was not seeing any of his outriders yet. Gods, some of them still had their child's voice and should be in their mother's hut, not out on patrol with a sword strapped to their waist. He wished he could do all their work for them. He wished he could send only the few real warriors he had on patrol, but knew he needed their experience to help control the herd.

He looked south and saw one of the outriders in the middle distance returning at an easy. walk. Relief flooded through him. Which one was that then? Judging by his size it would be Savero, the smallest and the bravest of the lot. He would make his uncle proud one day; Colden knew the boy was a favourite of Eynon's.

He remembered then what it was like when he was not much older than Savero and on his first patrols. For the first time in his life he had felt like a man. Indeed, by the time Eynon returned from campaigning for the

White Wolf, Savero would be eligible to become a full warrior. He sighed heavily, constantly surprised how fast time flew by him. It did not seem that long ago that Savero was nothing but a squalling, shitting squib interested in nothing but his mother's milk, and now look at him!

He dug his heels in and rode to meet the youth. Something about the boy's posture seemed odd; even in this light Colden could see he was riding too stiff, and his balance was obviously all wrong. Too long in the saddle. It was a lengthy turn out on patrol for one so young. Well, he would recover. They all did at that age. And the boy's sword belt was riding too low. Colden would have to talk to him about that, or maybe all that was needed was an extra hole for the buckle.

'Savero, lad,' Colden called out when they were only twenty paces apart. 'I thought you weren't coming home at all'

The boy said nothing, but kneed his horse towards Colden.

'I don't suppose you've seen any of the other riders, have you? You're the first back…'

His voice faded away when he realised he was not talking to Savero at all. For the briefest of moments he wondered which outrider it was, his brain at first failing to realise the rider was someone he did not recognise at all, and by then it was too late. He saw the glint of the knife blade as it stabbed towards him, smelled the breath of the man who wielded it, and then he was overcome by a flash of pain so great it stopped his heart. Wheezing, dying, paralysed by the blow, Colden fell forward into the arms of his murderer who gently let him off his horse and silently dropped him to the ground.

Though fit for his age, Amemun could not keep up with the young Saranah warriors as they jumped up from their hiding places and with terrible screams charged the enemy camp. By the time he reached the first Chett hut the air was already filled with the moans and cries of the dying. Riderless horses skittered among the tents and camp fires. At first all he saw were dead enemy warriors caught in the act of readying their weapons, but as he strode deeper into the camp he started coming across slaughtered children and old folk with nothing more dangerous in their hands than sticks or cooking pots, their pale faces like masks in the moonlight.

The Saranah had formed a circle around the entire valley and were now tightening it. Dekelon's orders had been to ensure no Chett escaped, and his warriors—releasing a century of pent-up hate—were making sure of their task. Amemun could even see Dekelon directing the battle, heading north with a band of his own tribesmen, driving the defenders into the centre. To his right he saw a few individual struggles, including one on the very fringe of the camp. He ran towards it, and as he got closer saw a young Chett woman using a metal pan to fend off a Saranah warrior who was playing games with her, dancing from foot to foot and feinting to the left and right with his javelin. Amemun came up behind him and ran him through cleanly with his dagger. The Saranah grunted in surprise and dropped. The Chett woman looked at him with a mixture of surprise and fear.

'Who are you…?'

'No time for that,' Amemun said, looking around him. 'Run for your life. Tell the other clans the Saranah are here!'

The woman's eyes opened even wider.

'Quick!' Amemun hissed.

She grabbed for the reins of a passing horse and Amemun stopped her.

'They'll shoot you down if they see you! Keep low, get away!'

She fell into a crouch and scampered off. In a few seconds Amemun lost track of her in the grass. If she was lucky, she would stumble across a horse in the morning and be able to reach the territory of another clan in a day or two. Once that happened the Chetts would respond to this new threat instead of attacking Grenda Lear, giving the Kingdom the time it needed to prepare properly for the war.

He licked his lips nervously and looked around again to make sure no Saranah had seen what he had done. If Dekelon had had his way and there had been no survivors, it would be weeks before the Chetts heard of the invasion and responded to it.

Good for the Saranah, Amemun thought, but bad for Grenda Lear.