West of the Moon: Excerpt

Finally, it seemed, he had room to breathe.

Had the Dolmen Pass been wider or not so perfectly situated for an ambush, Zhanil might have felt more secure. Even though this was the nearest route through the mountains, manned mostly by Turyar, for all he knew the coup could have easily extended this far.

Not knowing was the worst—how many enemies, or how great their reach. And once he reached the Turya-lands, what welcome awaited him there? His Turya allies, save for the handful who fled with him, were all in Rhodeen, left behind by a turkan who had not stood his ground and fought. Of course, he had had practical reasons for not doing so. Who could say how deep the treachery ran, or who among the king’s subjects could be trusted? The public, however, cared nothing for political niceties. They would look no farther than the surface, and Zhanil knew what they would see there.

They will say I am a coward.

Zhanil knew only one man in the west, and Kargil was not his friend.

Whenever he glanced up he saw the walls of the pass rising eighty feet or more above his head, sometimes separated by so narrow a break that the sky was reduced to a thin ribbon of blue. How odd that this cleft, carved by wind and water and earth tremors over uncounted eons, should be the main thoroughfare between Rhodeen and the Turya-lands. No wonder the Turya invasion had come farther south; this route was barely wide enough at its greatest point to accommodate four men abreast. Any army that attempted to cut through the mountains at this point would be vulnerable to attack on the Rhodeen side.

In the years following the invasion, the Turyar had undertaken the maintenance Rhodeen had neglected, clearing debris and marking springs. While Zhanil appreciated the supply of fresh drinking water, the path remained rough, and at any moment he expected a cascade of rocks to shower down upon him.

“There are no ways up to those heights,” Kalmeki reported earlier. “Our people have searched from both sides.”

Zhanil did not trust his optimism. There was no guarantee that his enemies would not find some goatherd who could lead them along an obscure mountain trail above the pass. His fears, coupled with his anger and the persistent ache in his upper arm, made it difficult to rest. Not since before the coup had he slept soundly, and he knew it made him short-tempered.

I want to believe him. Kalmeki, as filthy and exhausted as he, maintained a constant vigil, while urging the other guards to rest in shifts. I believed I was safe before. Gods, I want to believe him. I want to be past this danger so I can think what to do next.

Near sunset on the fourth day, they left the pass and descended into rolling foothills carpeted in yellow beardtongue, yarrow, and rough fescue. With his knowledge of the landscape, Kalmeki led the way up a weed-choked path to the ruins of a dilapidated fortress built and then abandoned by Zhanil’s ancestors. “We will share lodgings with the owls tonight,” he said, “but at least we will have shelter.”

Wearily, he placed a hand on Zhanil’s shoulder, the only one who dared such familiarity. “No one will follow us into these lands. Rhodani fear the sea of grass.”

Rhodani: a new word to describe a new people—native Rhodeen and Turyar living as neighbors, exchanging customs and bloodlines. Zhanil had coined the term in the first year of his reign, yet, like much else he tried to do, it never caught on.

Harkil, one of the Turya Guard, took charge of the horses, while two others gathered brush and twigs for a fire. With misgivings, Zhanil regarded the ruined central hall. Crumbling masonry and bird droppings had nearly obliterated all traces of the building’s origin; only the fragment of a royal sunburst on the lintel above the entrance hinted at a past as one of a string of fortresses west of the Arpan Mountains. Centuries ago, it seemed Rhodeen had not viewed the grasslands with trepidation.

Once, this hall would have been surrounded by barracks and outbuildings. Turya raiders had driven the defenders back beyond the mountains, and nature had reclaimed the place. As Kalmeki pulled the remains of a fallen sapling from the ruins of a generous hearth pit, Zhanil saw a snake whip across the broken floor before disappearing into a crevice.

“Tomorrow we may be able to hunt before moving on,” said Kalmeki. “I am afraid it is too dark now.”

Amhir brought Zhanil’s blanket and a leather bag containing their dwindling rations. What supplies they had been able to grab during their flight had sustained them for nearly five days, but now in this wild country, Zhanil did not know where or how he would survive. Even shelter would prove elusive, for the Turyar kept few permanent shelters, and his guards had neither tents nor a yurt among the baggage. Zhanil had not even been able to grab his Turya composite bow from its place above the mantle before his bodyguards hustled him from his besieged apartments. Kalmeki had given him that bow, made it with his own hands, and it pained Zhanil to picture his enemies tossing it on the fire along with everything else associated with the hated Turyar.

Now he sat in a daze before the ruined hearth, too tired for sleep and trembling from the loss of the adrenaline that had kept him alert through the last few days. As his men moved around him, he tried to anchor himself and comprehend what had happened. I took every precaution. The thought cycled through his head, again and again until it became meaningless. They attacked me in my own house. I tried to be reasonable, I tried to give them what they wanted, and they attacked me.

“You need medicine, sir.” Amhir nodded toward Zhanil’s injured arm.

Bound with a crude bandage fashioned from torn strips of cloth, the wound was a gash that in quieter times would have taken stitches. Lacking leisure and materials, as well as painkillers, Zhanil had tended to his injury by bathing away the dried blood and changing the bandage at each spring. I don’t even remember how I got this. “I doubt it’ll go bad.”

“Sir—”

“Leave me alone.”

Any other man would have obeyed, but Amhir belonged to the Royal Home Guard, and was the only one among the group to have been trained by the king’s childhood bodyguard, Adeja ked Shamuz. As a result, he left nothing to chance. When a weary Zhanil tried to dismiss him, he stood his ground and appealed to Kalmeki. “Would you talk to him?”

Kalmeki waited until Amhir stepped aside before ordering Zhanil to remove the bandage. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Zhanil peeled away the bandage and the scab that had begun to form, wishing for once that his bond with the Turya warrior did not compel him to obey. Fresh blood welled out. Zhanil, hissing at the sting, dabbed at it.

“It’s nothing.” Forced levity strained his tone. “The color is good.”

Kalmeki did not speak, simply motioned him over to the fire where he could take a closer look. “Amhir is right,” he finally said. “When we reach the first settlement you will have this properly stitched up or it will not heal as it should. In the meantime, there are herbs in these meadows that will clean the wound and lessen the pain. In the morning I will look for them.”

I should care. Blinking back his exhaustion, he forced himself to take an interest. Kalmeki must be his guide now. “How far is this first settlement?” asked Zhanil.

“We will reach it tomorrow.” Kalmeki rummaged through Zhanil’s few belongings for the shirt used to make bandages. With his knife he carefully cut one strip off the garment, then another. “It is not a large place. There are beds and food, kept for travelers going between these lands and Rhodeen. Perhaps they already know we are coming.”

Zhanil clenched his teeth as Kalmeki cleaned the wound with water and dressed it; the discarded bandage went into the fire. “We’d better tell them that it isn’t safe for Turyar to travel to Rhodeen at the moment.”

Kalmeki neither agreed nor gave any other sign that he was listening. Unless it was a matter of security, he never ventured an opinion unless Zhanil asked outright. For four days, he had said nothing about the coup, merely went about his business leading the king and the king’s Turya bodyguards to safety.

His silence was maddening, more so because Zhanil knew precisely what he thought.