To Capture a Concubine
IT ALL BEGAN that day when I was nineteen, the day we tracked down the concubine who had opened her master’s throat and left him floating in a crimson pool of his own blood.
My name is Rosteval, son of Bosvadal, and on that day I rode on the open plains with my uncle, Galvoban, and twenty-five men from our household in search of the woman who had slain one of our kinsmen.
We rode for much of that warm, late spring day as the hounds followed the scent through the rustling tall-grass. Even from the back of my mount, I could see signs of the woman and her companions: the hoof-prints of their horses, places where the grass had been trampled.
Like the rest of the men, I was girded for war: a pointed iron helmet on my head, a lamellar cuirass of sewn-together iron plates over a cotton tunic with wide sleeves that covered my upper arms, leather guards on my forearms, as well as cotton trousers and leather boots.
My bow hung in its case over my back, my quiver of arrows hung at my side, and I had a single-edged iron blade, about fourteen inches in length, in a scabbard at my belt. I also wore a pair of bronze bracelets, each of which was studded with a glass disc about an inch in diameter: the one on my left wrist glowed with silver, while the one on my right wrist glowed blue.
The dogs were ogre-hounds, great dark wolfish beasts about the size of hyenas, and their barks and howls were clear signals that the trail presented them with no difficulties. They had been bred to hunt ogres, bears, lions, and hyenas, and to track down runaway slaves—or, in this case, a concubine and an armed party.
Toward mid-afternoon my cousin Daryubal reined in next to me, his yellow-gold eyes sparkling with mischief. “This is a lot of trouble to avenge Juryodan, you know.”
I snickered, sensing the joke. “How do you mean?” At nineteen I was sinewy and whip-strong, my complexion the tawny brown so common among my people, my eyes the same yellow-gold as Daryubal’s—an inheritance from my father.
Daryubal gave a playful, leering grin, baring his teeth. “Man of his size needs a large mount, no?”
I laughed. “An aurochs, maybe, or a mammoth. He could ride it… and mount it, too.” Juryodan had been a giant of a man, with an appetite more voracious than that of an ogre. I had also found him about as agreeable as an ogre.
Daryubal howled. Still laughing, he drew a leather skin from his saddlebags and took a swig. He smacked his lips, and I could smell the kumis—fermented mare’s milk—on his breath.
“Truly, we all know what happened,” he said with a smirk, his eyes glinting. “She got tired of it, and decided to stick him for a change.”
I threw back my head and laughed, and when my uncle Galvoban turned his mount toward Daryubal’s and swiped at his son with the back of his hand, cuffing him on the ear, I laughed some more.
“Fool lads, both of you, to value a kinsman’s life so lightly,” he said, his large eyes darting and dancing from Daryubal to me and back. “Even if he were a lush, a glutton, and a drunkard—and I’ll allow he were—still, it’s a blood debt.”
Daryubal gave a small smirk and rubbed at his ear. “I am but a colt, and my father is the great stallion.”
I grimaced. “Juryodan was Lord Varyem’s man, uncle.”
Galvoban frowned, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. He grasped my shoulder and upper arm, just past the edge of my lamellar cuirass, and squeezed with fingers that felt like five iron rods. If my shoulder and upper arm had not been thick with muscle and sinew—after all, I had been practicing archery since I was a boy of six—his grip might actually have hurt.
“Truth, my boy, and who is Lord Varyem to you?”
The words came to me by reflex. “Varyem the Usurper, son of Beregan the Red Adulterer, of the line of Beregan the Elder of the Barduvatra, the one who unjustly reigns as prince of the Barduvatra, the People of the Storm, since my father Bosvadal fell in battle against our enemies.”
His eyes rolled and danced, the whites flashing. “True, boy, and don’t ever forget it.”
“I will never forget that I am Rosteval, son of Bosvadal of the line of Verestam, rightful prince of the Barduvatra.” My father had died when I was but a babe in arms, fighting the Moggad-Dahra, our enemies to the east. We were not that far from the frontier with their realm.
His mouth broadened into a smile. “True words. Now, back to the chase. Hounds are near the quarry, I’ll reckon. Any luck, we’ll catch the murderess and her party before they cross to the Moggad-Dahra.”
I was rightful prince of the Barduvatra, and Varyem son of Beregan the Red Adulterer, of the line of Beregan the Elder of the Barduvatra, was the illegitimate crony my grandfather Hamarvan, king of all the Ketaryat tribes, had put in my stead. All the same, a blood debt was still a blood debt, and a duty was still a duty: we had been tasked with avenging Juryodan, and that was what we had to do.
We rode with scant conversation after that. I took the strands of what I knew, or thought I knew, and tried to weave them together in my mind.
The woman was a dark-eyed beauty named Lotaipa, and by all accounts she was a spirited woman, a skilled rider, and a songstress who delighted in the ballads of her people. A part of me could understand how a woman with such a spirit might balk at becoming the eleventh concubine of an ogreish man like Juryodan… but then again, she was the daughter of a minor clan among the Jala-Luwahra, while he was the first cousin of Lord Varyem, who reigned as prince of the Barduvatra—however illegitimately, in my view.
A little over an hour later, the ogre-hounds bayed, and we finally caught sight of our quarry: perhaps a dozen figures or so, riding with spare mounts behind them. Most seemed to be warriors—even at a distance, I could see the glint of their iron helmets in the sun—and the woman, Lotaipa, was in the lead, her long, dark hair streaming in the wind.
At our approach they shouted, and blue spiraling Rishva-forms, whirling helixes of blue light surmounted by blue-glowing spirit-figures, shot up over the heads of the woman and perhaps five of her companions. They streaked away at speed, the blue light suffusing them and their mounts, their blue Rishva-forms and spirit-figures spiraling over their heads.
I raised my left wrist with its silver disc, bringing it closer to my face, and made a resonant, droning aural hum, an emanation resonance. A silver Rishva-form about three feet in height sprang into being, surmounted by a silver spirit-figure who stood about another two feet in height, and I willed it to hover overhead even as a warm, exhilarating sense of power and speed flooded through me. All around me, the others were doing the same, and ahead of us the other six—or perhaps seven, it was hard to tell—of the enemy warriors were deploying their own silver Rishva-forms and spirit-figures.
Now the hunt was on, and by acts of will we lent power to our mounts and to the ogre-hounds, thread-like tendrils of power shooting out from our Rishva-forms to connect with the hounds and grant them speed beyond even their considerable abilities.
As we galloped toward our enemies, I drew my bow with a smooth, practiced motion of my right hand, and grasped three arrows with my left. This was not my first combat—I had been in skirmishes with bandits and Moggad-Dahi raiders since I was sixteen—but the stakes were higher this time. Either we would succeed in avenging the death of our late kinsman Juryodan, or we would fail. I did not lament Juryodan’s passing, but I knew my uncle Galvoban was right: we could not suffer a dishonor to the name of the Barduvatra, not without exacting vengeance.
The woman herself would have to be killed, of course, along with all of her accomplices. I wondered how Galvoban would do it, and how long it would take.
As we closed the distance with the enemy rearguard, they all drew out arrows and aimed them toward us.
My intuition suddenly screamed at me that something was very wrong about those arrows, that their points did not have the glint of iron, that they seemed larger and heavier than arrows should be, and then the enemy loosed them even as I grasped the dreadful truth.
“GAIDJENT CHARM-ARROWS!” I shouted, hoping that even in the heat of the moment my warning would do some good.
I saw an arrow impact on my uncle Galvoban’s lamellar cuirass, glimpsed the broad bone arrowhead before it exploded with a sharp CRACK and a burst of luminous mist, shards of bone flying everywhere along with a handful of the small iron plates of his cuirass.
Another arrow took one of our warriors in the face, and he fell to the ground—dead, I was certain. I glimpsed a third warrior who had been hit in the shoulder, and saw a bloody stump where his arm had been. I couldn’t account for all of the arrows, but a few others had definitely hit the ground and exploded there.
My uncle swayed and almost fell—I could see his eyes rolling in a half-dazed fashion, and there were fresh cuts on his face and a dark, spreading stain where the arrow had hit that told me some of the bone-shards had entered his body.
Galvoban let out a roar, like a lion who has been blooded and is now out for revenge.
“FEED YOUR GUTS TO MY DOGS, I WILL!” he shouted, and he drew out his bow and arrows.
With a skill honed through long practice, my fingers nocked an arrow to my bow. The bow had an almost yoke-like shape, and it felt like a living thing in my hands as I drew it back, my muscles rippling in a practiced motion as I willed the three layers of sinew, wood, and horn to bend. I sighted, released, and without waiting to see if I hit, I nocked, sighted, and loosed again.
The enemy had seemingly expended all of their Gaidjent charm-arrows in one round, and small wonder: I knew that such charms were obtained only at great expense. Now the enemy warriors drew iron-tipped arrows out of their quivers and loosed them at us.
But they were six in number—six now, I realized, seeing the corpse of one on the ground—and we were still twenty-three. Six could not stand for long before twenty-three.
My uncle blew a quick blast for attention, and then I saw his silver Rishva-form and spirit-figure whisk ahead, streaking toward the enemy position. I understood instantly, and willed mine to do the same even as the others followed suit.
We mobbed the enemy Rishva-forms with their spirit-figures, and we willed their power to leach to us. One on one we could have made but little headway, but with twenty-three to six it was no great difficulty to begin drawing their power into our own Rishva-forms, slowly leaching them of the enhanced power they needed to stay in the fight.
At the same time, we peppered them with more arrows, and I thrilled as I saw another of their number topple, an arrow through his throat and another embedded in his eye.
The remaining five stopped trying to shoot arrows at us. First one and then another recalled their silver Rishva-forms and spirit-figures, and then deployed their blues.
I gave a war-cry: “LABARAKTANA! OVERCOME-AND-SLAY!” Everyone knew blue Rishva were easier to leach from than silver Rishva—but they also granted greater speed.
The enemy streaked away, five mounted figures moving so fast that it was difficult for the eye to follow.
Galvoban let out a roar. “They flee! The blue, men, the blue!”
It took a simple act of will, no more than a thought, to withdraw my silver Rishva into my left bracelet even as I drone-hummed the emanation resonance to the blue Rishva-form in the bracelet on my right wrist. The blue Rishva shot into the sky, both Rishva and spirit-figure about the same size as the silver but possessed of much greater potential for speed.
The wind in my face tugged at my dark hair and my beard, and I laughed at the thrill of it as my horse now streaked forward with a speed that would credit even the hunting party of Father Sun himself.
The grasslands were wide and open, and as we put on speed, we quickly closed the distance with the rearguard and the woman and the warriors in the van. There was nowhere for them to run, nowhere for them to hide, nowhere for them to escape to.
Unless they can make it across the frontier, I thought, laughing to myself. Even then, they would need to find a party of Moggad-Dahra to protect them. No one really knew exactly where the frontier started and ended. Hamarvan our king and the king of the Moggad-Dahra had made various agreements about the ownership of specific cities, towns, and the banks of specific rivers, creeks, and lakes.
Even so, that left a great swath of territory, an ill-defined ribbon of borderland, an ambiguous zone with unclear and often locally contested borders. No one, not even my uncle Galvoban, who had been born and grown to manhood in these eastern lands, knew exactly where the border was supposed to be.
Something in the corner of my vision drew my eye north, toward the horizon.
Clouds… no, more than clouds, I realized, my eye resolving the multiple spiraling Rishva-forms.
“RISHVA-STORM!” I shouted, hoping I would be heard over the sound of the horse-hooves, and pointed north. As I did, I saw that it was gaining on us rapidly. I could see dozens of blue Rishva-forms and spirit-figures, or Rishva-shades, much larger than the ones we were wielding: some of them whirled along on the ground, kicking up dust, while others hovered several feet or many feet in the air. I glimpsed silver Rishva-forms and Rishva-shades behind them, also far larger than the ones we had used.
And now I could hear the Rishva-storm, too: a rhythmic whirring sound, one that put me in mind of a great flock of large birds with furiously flapping wings. Dust blew into my face, and I winced, my eyes smarting.
The woman, Lotaipa, and her party cheered at the approach of the Rishva-storm, and turned north. I knew what they intended as soon as I saw them change course: they were going to try to give us the slip.
Galvoban gestured toward them. “DON’T LET THEM ESCAPE!” he shouted. I saw his jaw was set and his eyes flashed and rolled in a way that told me he was bound and determined to get them.
But even as we turned our pursuit to follow Lotaipa and the men, I could see that they were angling toward the storm and would likely intersect it.
Galvoban urged his mount forward, kicking its flanks with his heels, and I followed suit, exhilarated to be engaged in a pursuit like this.
Lotaipa and her party reached the Rishva-storm and were swallowed up by it, hidden from our view.
And then we were in the Rishva-storm, and the whirling spiral-forms were all around us. I lowered my blue Rishva-form and Rishva-shade and slowed my speed, hoping to avoid the corrosive effects of the silver Rishva-forms and Rishva-shades all around us. I could see the others doing the same.
I heard it first, a great throbbing hum in the very heart of the Rishva-storm. Even as I turned, I saw it: a mighty column of a Rishva-form, massive like a great cedar tree, and white rather than silver or blue—though I saw shadows moving within it.
A white Rishva-form! Eagerly I looked up, my eyes taking in the spirit-figure or Rishva-shade standing atop the Rishva-spiral, perhaps thirty feet up: a glowing figure of white light about the size of a man. As it drew closer, I could see shadows clinging around it and billowing behind it.
And then it happened: even as the white Rishva-form swept past us, the white Rishva-shade turned its head and looked at me. I could see no eyes or discernible facial features, but I knew in that moment that it was staring at me.
I felt a sense of mental contact, as if its mind—if it had a mind—was reaching out and probing my own.
The moment passed, and the white Rishva-form surged past us.
By the time we were clear of the Rishva-storm, Lotaipa and her party were visible only as small figures in the distance. The ogre-hounds howled and streaked forward, muzzles slavering, hair standing up on their backs and necks.
“Quarry’s getting AWAY!” Daryubal shouted, but his face was gleeful, and a wild light was in his eyes. He was enjoying this, probably more than any of us.
I drew on the blue Rishva and kicked my heels against my mount’s flanks. The gelding I was riding snorted and began to gallop, but I knew that even with the aid of the Rishva, our horses would soon need rest and water. For that matter, so would the ogre-hounds.
As we drew closer to the fugitives, I saw a low rise in the ground ahead. I blinked, not certain of what I was seeing. I looked again, and saw the glint of iron.
There was a low rise, and on it there were riders drawn up in a line.
“RIDERS AHEAD!” I shouted, and two or three other men sounded the alarm at the same time.
As we drew closer, I saw that they were many—dozens, perhaps scores? It was hard to be certain, but they were more numerous than we were by far. Iron helmets glinted on their heads—warriors, then, prepared for combat.
We drew closer to the fugitives, and now I could see that a small, slow-moving river lay ahead—it had been hidden from my view by the tall grass.
Ahead of us, I heard Lotaipa give a cry of triumph as her horse plunged into the river, kicking up plumes of water. Her companions also began to whoop with delight.
Galvoban blew two quick blasts on the horn, the signal for us to rein in.
Even as I reined in, my horse snorting and blowing, my mind was weaving cords into a rope.
I took in the warriors on the other bank with a glance: their complexions were tawny, but yellower, sallower than those of my people or the Jala-Luwahra. Their faces were flatter, too, but many of them had the same yellow-gold eyes common among my people—common, I knew, among all the tribes that had come out of the Roof of the World. They wore long-sleeved robes that came most of the way down their legs, and the ones who seemed to be the leading men wore red robes with black vests, and their clothing was embroidered with a variety of patterns in white, green, and blue thread.
The other thing I noticed was that all of them carried bows, quivers of arrows, and swords sheathed at their sides.
Moggad-Dahra, I thought. Our enemies to the east. My heart was pounding, both from the gallop and the prospect of what was to come. I wondered if they would attack us and force us to flee. What a chase we would give them!
Lotaipa and her companions were making their way across the river, the water coming no higher than the knees of their horses.
Galvoban held up his right hand, a neutral gesture of greeting, and guided his mount closer to the bank of the river. I rode beside him, and Daryubal rode beside me, and the rest of the men formed an approximate line on either side of us.
“Hail, greetings,” Galvoban said, speaking in our Ketaryat tongue. He repeated himself in Orestamarian, the language of the Jala-Luwahra and the other peoples who had inhabited this land before us.
A man in the center of the enemy warriors spoke. “Greetings to you,” he said in Orestamarian.
I could see Lotaipa and the others making their way into the party of Moggad-Dahra. One warrior dipped his head to her, a sign of deference, and offered her a water-skin. She took it and drank. Other warriors started to offer water to her men.
Galvoban’s eyes flashed, and he sucked in air through his teeth. “I am Galvoban, son of Verestam, of the line of Bardamal of the Barduvatra. I greet you in the name of the king of all Ketaryat tribes, Hamarvan of the Ashvasadra.”
My mind was already weaving the cords together. The Moggad-Dahra were not attacking so far. Instead, they were staying on the far side of the small river.
That probably meant they thought it was the border, or at least thought they had a reasonable case it was.
Clearly, they were in league with Lotaipa, had planned to be here to defend her once she reached the border. The question, of course, was why? What did the Moggad-Dahra care for the murder of Juryodan? The man had been ogreish, true, but I could think of no reason his death would matter so much to them. If they wanted to kill a warrior who was well-placed in the Magradol Commandery, either my uncle Galvoban or Lord Varyem would be a better prize.
The Moggad-Dahi warrior had thin mustachios, and a well-trimmed beard that only came down a few inches below his chin. “I am Gurtokrin, son of Yedchak my father and Sedzokrin my mother, of the Bali-Umbatra of the Moggad-Dahra.”
Galvoban beamed, laugh-lines creasing around his eyes. “Good! Good! You know me, and I know you. Tell me, Gurtokrin the son of Yedchak and Sedzokrin, for what purpose have you come to Ketaryat land?”
Gurtokrin raised a single eyebrow and extended his right hand toward the river. “We were out watering our horses at the Tadjemai. If you cross the Tadjemai, you will be in the territory of the Moggad-Dahra.”
Galvoban frowned, but I thought I knew what Gurtokrin was talking about: my man Sabtemor had drilled me in Moggad-Dahi place-names.
“Uncle,” I said, leaning toward Galvoban.
My uncle turned his head partway toward me. “Eh?”
“I think he means the Tayyakora.”
Galvoban’s eyes rolled. “Tayyakora?” he growled. He put his smile back on his face, but it was strained. He turned back to Gurtokrin and raised his voice: “We call it Tayyakora, my lord Gurtokrin, a part of our domain.” He pointed beyond Gurtokrin. “The border’s east, the creek called Dulohain.”
Gurtokrin shook his head once, and pointed south with his left hand. “The Tadjemai, what you call Tayyakora, it is only your domain past the gateway altar near the big trees, about a half-day’s ride from here, where it meets the creek you call Dulohain.” The corner of his mouth curled. “Perhaps a full day’s ride, for a Ketaryat.”
Galvoban puffed out his chest, his smile slipping a little more. “Tayyakora is part of our domain. Dulohain, that’s the border.”
“Not here,” Gurtokrin said. “Here, the Tayyakora is the border.”
Galvoban frowned and pointed to Lotaipa. “That woman, she has slain my kinsman Juryodan. Satisfaction, we need, to avenge our honor. Send her back over, and we’ll forget the border.”
Gurtokrin rubbed his beard. “There’s one problem with that. She is on Moggad-Dahi land. That means I can give her sanctuary if I wish—and I do wish.”
Lotaipa turned her horse to face us, her dark eyes shining with triumph. Strands of her long, dark hair were plastered to her face—she was sweaty from the long ride.
“Your plan will never work!” she said in Orestamarian. “The prince, the Rishva, all of it—you will be undone!”
None of her words made sense to me, but they were fascinating: the first real clue we had regarding her motivations.
“We should probably head back,” I said to Galvoban in a low voice, speaking Ketaryat.
Galvoban grit his teeth. “Duwairos’ balls, I hate it, but you’re right, my lad.” His face hardened, and he looked back toward Gurtokrin. “Hear me, Gurtokrin: this is NOT OVER! We will avenge Barduvat blood!”
Gurtokrin’s yellow-gold eyes glinted. “As surely as the gods fight ogres, so the Moggad-Dahra fight Ketaryatra. So it is across the face of the world, from the Dark Sea to the White Sea.” He turned without another word and began leading the party away.
My fingers twitched as I fantasized about loosing a shaft at Gurtokrin. How dare he liken us to ogres?
Galvoban waited until they were gone, and then he began to curse and swear, his eyes dancing wildly, whites flashing.
“By the cock of Duwairos and the fat tits of Ruvaspa, no man takes a fugitive from Galvoban, son of Verestam!”
“We’ll kill them all another day, Father,” Daryubal said. “That Gurtokrin, his head would look good on a spear, yes?”
Galvoban nodded and sighed. “That he would. Rosteval, what do you think?”
I was used to Galvoban deferring to me in some situations. He was my father’s younger brother, but he had looked up to my father Bosvadal and had committed to raising me to follow in his footsteps as head of our family.
“We will avenge the honor of the Barduvatra,” I said. “But not today. Today we go back. One of our men is dead, another lost an arm.”
“And there are a couple of dead enemies to plunder,” Daryubal said. He grinned and licked his lips.
I nodded in agreement. “Lotaipa said something about a plan, a prince, and a Rishva. I wonder what she meant.”
Galvoban shook his head and sighed. “No plan of mine. But Juryodan, he was cousin to Lord Varyem…”
“And Varyem son of Beregan the Red Adulterer, of the line of Beregan the Elder of the Barduvatra, is close to Hamarvan our king,” I said. Hamarvan our king—and my grandfather, father of my mother, as well as the man who had made Varyem prince of the Barduvatra when my father had died.
We made our way back to our fallen man. The man who had lost an arm was with him—he’d stopped the bleeding with an amber-spirit.
Galvoban clapped him on his good shoulder. “You will have the better part of a year growing it back, aye, but in the meantime, you will have such a story to tell.”
Later, as we made our way back to our command post, I found myself talking to Galvoban alone.
“Wish this hadn’t happened just now,” he said, his brow furrowed. “Hamarvan our king coming here and all—terrible time.”
“I get the sense that this woman Lotaipa planned it that way,” I said. “Well, her and the Moggad-Dahra. Why is it a bad time for us?”
He sighed. “Barduvatra have always guarded the frontier in the east. Tribes of the Jala-Luwahra rebel, we put it down. Moggad-Dahra invade, we fight them. That’s how it is. Hamarvan our king, though… it’s harder when he’s here, telling us how to do it.”
A gentle breeze was rustling the tall-grass, and I looked out across the fastnesses of these plains of Orestamar. This was our land, Barduvat land. We were subjects of Hamarvan, true, but very few of his tribe, the Ashvasadra, had crossed the mountains and come east to Orestamar-land.
“You are right, uncle,” I said. “I am to lead our family to glory, status, and spoils… but Hamarvan has taken my birthright and given it to Lord Varyem. Now he comes here with his armies. Where will it end?”
He reached out and grasped my wrist. I could see a fervor in those rolling eyes of his, an urgency. “You, Rosteval, you must gain power, glory, and spoils for our house: slave-girls, horses, cattle, things of gold and silver and precious stones, all of it. You have the spirit of your father Bosvadal.”
“I will,” I said. I had always known this was my fate: to lead my house to glory, or perish in the attempt.
My thoughts drifted back to the white Rishva-form and the white Rishva-shade. Very few people had managed to bind a white Rishva-shade, and there were usually dreadful consequences: madness, for one.
I’ll do it, I thought. I’ll bind the white Rishva-shade.
