Sword Destiny Read online

  Bharat had urged his chariot forward. He was a large man, black-bearded and black-hearted. The wide grin on his face was one of triumph and satisfaction. He had overheard the last words of his elder brother, but they meant nothing to him.

  “Prince Zarin is ruler of Kanju now.” He flung out a mailed hand to grandly indicate his younger, grim-faced companion. “Kanju has a new monarch and will be stronger under his leadership. Kanju will not leave the field. Not until Karakhor has fallen. Then the spoils of war are ours when we share the victory with Maghalla.”

  “And you are the King-maker,” Jahan snarled contemptuously. The old Warmaster turned his gaze toward Zarin, although he knew that any appeal to any filial sense of love or duty in that direction would be an empty formality. However, Bharat was in no mood to permit any further discourse.

  “King-maker and King-slayer,” he roared, mainly for the benefit of the watching warriors of Kanju. “Kumar-Rao will be avenged.” He snatched a javelin from his rack and hurled it at Kara-Rashna, and in the same moment charged his chariot forward.

  Devan heaved his horses round, thrusting out his arm and shield to deflect the speeding javelin. The weapon tore through the hard, stretched leather, almost wrenching Devan’s arm from its socket, but Kara-Rashna was unharmed. In the same second, Jahan leaped his horses forward, speeding between his King and the on-coming Bharat. Their chariots crashed and buckled and their swords clashed in a fast and furious ring of steel.

  For a moment the rules of single combat again prevailed, but the horses on both sides were rearing and plunging out of control. Bharat’s team suddenly bolted, dragging his chariot behind them, and then the tide of battle closed in behind him as Zarin too backed away, shouting for his warriors to kill them all.

  Jahan found himself besieged by the men of Kanju, like some savage old lion of the forest trapped by jackals. His great sword whirled and cleaved around him, cutting back the pressing ranks of his enemies. He cleared a breathing space and then looked again for Zarin or Bharat. Both had fled, but then he heard a warning shout from one of his own captains.

  He turned to see that Devan had jumped down from his own chariot. Now he was standing over the slumped bodies of the two old kings in the centre of another savage fight, defending them both with his sword. Jahan turned his chariot and charged his horses into the fray, sweeping past the spot where Devan stood and smashing the biggest knot of his opponents aside.

  Kara-Rashna still held the lifeless form of Kanju’s king, held him as in a lover’s embrace or as a drowning man might cling with his last slipping grip upon the shore. He was only vaguely aware of Devan fighting above him and of the mighty battle raging all around. There was a red mist before his eyes and a fierce, stabbing pain in his broken heart. He felt as though he had been pierced by a spear or sword, but when his hand clasped at his chest there was no cold steel and no warm blood. There was no wound. The pain was all inside his chest and it was slowly quenched by an all-consuming darkness.

  On Ghedda, Kananda and his companions had survived two nights and two days in the desert. They had escaped from the City of Swords in a stolen patrol ship but had soon come under attack from three Gheddan fighters. Zela’s superior flying skills had saved them and all four ships had been shot down in the few mad moments of battle.

  Kananda, Zela and Jayna waited long minutes for their crashed patrol ship to explode, but nothing more happened. Finally, when the frantic beating of their hearts had slowed and their shattered senses had regained some equilibrium, they dared to raise their faces from the sand. They could see glows of light where the remains of the three enemy ships still burned fiercely, but their own craft lay still and black against the dark slope of the dune.

  “We need water,” Zela said grimly, her mind already racing ahead to the problems of survival. She stood and Kananda moved to join her, but she pushed him back. “Wait here, I know where to look.”

  She ran quickly to the wreckage and climbed back into the broken cabin. There were overhead racks for maps and documents and side pockets inside the doors where the crews usually stuffed any personal belongings. In the latter she found two half-filled water bottles and a few cakes and oddments of snack food. These she swiftly gathered up and then made another hasty exit.

  They had already lingered as long as they dared and immediately began the long trek north, knowing that it was imperative to cover as much ground as possible under the blanket of darkness. Once the sun rose, they would be more easily seen and they would roast in the merciless heat. Zela led, half supporting Jayna who was now in considerable pain. There was massive bruising around the left side of Jayna’s rib cage and she had been either more badly hurt than she wanted to admit, or else suffered more damage from being thrown about in the crash. Jayna’s lips were pursed tight and bloodless and her face poured sweat, and Zela suspected that she now had at least one cracked rib.

  Kananda brought up the rear and, with his bare hands, carefully smoothed out their footprints from the sand behind them. The palls of smoke from the three Kaz-ar fliers gradually faded from the black horizons, but they all knew that eventually there must be more pursuit and that, from the air, the crash sites would be easily found. Zela guessed that they were now no more than an hour’s flight from Kaz-ar, and they would not get far in that time. Their only hope was to leave no clue as to the direction they had taken.

  Mercifully, high clouds were filtering out much of the starlight and only one of Dooma’s three moons was aloft, a stark, black-swirled grey satellite low on the eastern horizon which threw long, dark shadows from the high dunes. Zela was using the stars to navigate and fortunately her knowledge of the star patterns and the constellations was good enough for even partial glimpses of them to give her their direction. Kananda, too, knew most of the constellations. They were the same stars that he had so often seen from Earth, but here he had no way of relating them to the unfamiliar terrain. With only half the picture, he could only trust to Zela’s skills and instincts.

  Eventually they heard the sounds of the second wave of pursuit from Kaz-ar, the faint, distant drone of more fliers circling the crash site behind them. They kept going until one of the drones became louder, and then dropped flat and lay motionless in the sand. Far to their left they saw a distant beam of white light weaving a zigzag pathway across the dunes. Above it hovered the searching flier, like some great black, hostile insect combing the sky. The flier and its searchlight beam passed several hundred yards behind them and flew on its way.

  “They are circling out from the crash site,” Zela explained, her voice calm and matter of fact. “But the Great Gar is a huge desert and they have missed us on the first sweep. The further away we get the more they have to search and the better our chances. We must keep moving.”

  Jayna nodded and tried to push herself upright. Her face contorted in pain and she collapsed again. Zela and Kananda helped her to stand and they continued as before. The soft sand pulled at their feet as though trying to suck them under the desert surface and their progress was slow. A strengthening wind was now beginning to blow, and although it flung fine sand to sting their bodies and faces, it was also helping to clear their tracks. Kananda decided that it was now safe to leave that task wholly to the wind and concentrated on helping Zela to support the near-fainting Jayna.

  Twice more they heard the searching Gheddan ships and cowered down in the sand, but each time the ships passed at a distance and only once did they see the far glimmer of a searching light. They were tiring, and when the dawn began to bleed its pale glimmer across the eastern rim of their harsh and barren world, they were all beginning to stagger.

  They paused for a brief rest and Zela allowed them each a mouthful from one of the water bottles. Then they began walking again. The sun became Zela’s only navigational aid as the stars and the low moon disappeared, but she was still confident that they were heading due north. It was not the direct route back to the swamp and the skimmer, but it was their shortest route out
of the desert, and she knew that if they did not find tree-shelter and more water as soon as possible, then they would surely die.

  The dunes at last gave way to a more hard and stony landscape, all brown and yellow with a few rust-red hills. It was a blistering world of heat and glare and dust devils, growing more cruel and deadly with every step as the sun rose higher. Zela pushed them on until they found a pile of rocks that afforded a few square feet of shade, and there they dug themselves into the hard sand and lay up for the rest of the day. Their bodies craved the rest, but the heat hammered them in savage waves and they lay exhausted. Their mouths were parched dry and Zela was sparing with the water. Even so, by noon one of their precious water bottles was empty.

  Shortly after noon another Gheddan rotary flier appeared and flew almost directly overhead. All three of them lay still as death in their holes among the rocks, scarcely daring to breathe. The sound of the circling blades battered the stillness with waves of scorching heat and flying dust, but the craft did not land. Eventually it flew on to look for more patches of possible shade, and Kananda relaxed his vice-like grip on the hilt of his sword with a slow exhalation of relief.

  “They know we have escaped the crash because they have found no bodies,” Zela croaked through cracking lips. “They also know that if we were still in the dunes we would by now be dead. So they are now sweeping the edge of the foothills beyond the dunes. After this they may give up.”

  Jayna looked doubtful, but Kananda merely nodded. He had neither the energy nor the knowledge to argue with her line of reasoning.

  For the rest of that awful day, they lay up in their pitifully small shelter and it seemed as though the killing white ball of the sun would never set. At last it began to redden and sink toward the western horizon. As the shadows lengthened, Zela roused them and allowed them to share the few scraps of food and drink half of their remaining water. A little of their strength returned, the cooler air of evening revived them slightly and again they marched toward the north.

  The barren lands continued, bleak and lifeless, a uniform grey in the clear starlight. The clouds that had partially covered their escape the night before had vanished, and the brilliance of the stars against the velvet blackness of space gave them some consolation. The moon of the previous night was higher now and a second moon trailed it, half hidden behind the horizon. They no longer had the soft sand sucking at their boots, but there were stones and small rocks under foot that tripped their feet and constantly threatened to twist a knee or ankle.

  After four hours, they rested again and each wetted their lips and throats with another mouthful of water. Then they moved on, their bodies aching in every bone and muscle and with Jayna now needing both Zela and Kananda on either side to support her. Sometimes her feet dragged and she was barely conscious.

  Dawn found them struggling almost drunkenly in the low, bare foothills, but still there was no glimpse of green in the unrelenting desert landscape. Zela had hoped to get clear of the desert before the sun rose for another day. Now she began to fear that they would not survive. As the sun rose higher and lashed them with its burning rays, they found another patch of shade beside a sand-scoured hill and collapsed into a sprawling heap.

  They dozed fitfully. Their half-waking moments were delirious with hopeless dreams and haunting nightmares. Their bodies were dehydrated and their tongues began to swell. Zela finally shared out the last of their water. She threw the empty bottle away but Kananda crawled out into the merciless sun to retrieve it. His head was swimming but he was not yet ready to die. He said nothing but clung on to the hope that somewhere, somehow, they might be able to find more water and fill the bottle again.

  When the sun dropped out of sight again, they were still alive. Kananda struggled to his knees and crawled closer to Zela. He pulled at her shoulder and she opened her eyes and stared at him blankly. He couldn’t speak but tugged again at her shoulder, insistently, until at last she roused herself. Together they turned to Jayna who lay as though dead. Kananda slapped her face. Zela croaked her name. Finally Jayna too opened her eyes.

  Somehow they got Jayna up between them and in the cooler night air they began to move on. Kananda started them off blindly in the direction from which they had come, toward the dunes and a certain death in the sands, but then Zela blinked her eyes and focused on the first stars appearing above. She recognized one of the constellations and with an effort pulled Kananda around to start them walking north again.

  To Kananda, all that mattered now was to put one foot in front of the other, to keep going forward and to somehow drag Jayna and Zela along with him. He was light-headed and could feel his tongue growing larger in his mouth. Soon it would choke him and that would be the end, but until then he would not give up. More dead than alive, they continued doggedly northward, step by tortured step.

  Kananda closed his eyes and closed his mind, concentrating every effort of his will into the one task of moving forward. Jayna became a dead weight, her right arm curled around his shoulder and neck, gradually slipping back. And then slowly came the realization that she was not just slipping away from him but actually trying to pull him to a stop. She groaned aloud and when he turned to look at her face, he saw that her bloated lips were moving and she was trying to speak.

  He stopped and stared at her. On her other side, Zela too stumbled to a halt. Jayna moved her arm from Zela’s shoulders and pointed unsteadily forward. They were in a hollow between two hills and a few paces in front of them there grew a living bush. It was a plant of green, bulbous stems protected by a fierce array of spiked thorns.

  Jayna gave up her attempt to speak. She had their attention and slowly she disentangled herself from Kananda. She swayed on her feet and pulled at the hilt of his sword. Kananda understood. He pulled the blade free of the scabbard and gave it to her. Jayna tottered forward and sliced through one of the fat green stems of the plant. The sharp thorns gashed her hand and drew blood as she held the severed limb, but she was unfeeling to any pain. With two more cuts, she sliced off some of the hard, outer rind, and then pushed the soft inner plant flesh into her mouth. She chewed with difficulty, but after a few minutes, green juices were running down her chin and her eyes shone with delight. Deftly she cut another thick slice of the plant limb, halved it and gave them half each. With no questions asked, Kananda and Zela crammed the soft centers into their mouths and sucked at the bitter juice.

  “Not too much,” Jayna managed to say at last. “Too much will make us sick but a little will keep us going.”

  They sat beside the strange plant of bloated, silver green stumps and shining thorns and ate and chewed as much as Jayna deemed wise. The taste was not pleasant, but their mouths were refreshed and their spirits revived. Where their lips had started to crack, the juices stung, but that was a small price to pay.

  “The Cacti plant stores moisture,” Jayna told them. “But to find it we must be on higher ground and we must be near to the tree line. I think we are going to live.”

  After half an hour of rest, they moved on again. They soon began to see more of the strange cacti plants, growing larger and making weird and grotesque silhouettes against the darkness. They moved out of the low, barren hills and suddenly they were encountering tufts of sparse scrub bushes. When dawn broke, they could see the first of the distant clumps of low woodland.

  “Trees.” Zela tried to laugh but the sound came out as a hoarse cackle. “Shelter. Water. We have won. We have crossed the Great Gar Desert.”

  She clung to Kananda and kissed him, and then they included Jayna in their embrace. They had found the tree line and now had to only turn east under the tree canopy and hope to strike the Great Swamp River. There, if they did not drown in the murky marshes or fall foul of the giant crocodiles and lizards, they had only to follow the river upstream to find their hidden river and landing craft.

  Despite their pains, exhaustion and hunger, hope flared again in all their hearts.

  Chapter Two

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sp; Maryam, the first princess of Karakhor, stood on the bridge of the Gheddan Mark Five Solar Cruiser and stared at the vastness of space on the main viewscreen. In the command seat in front of her sat Raven, Sword Lord of Ghedda and Space Commander of the six-ship mission that was now heading for Earth. Raven wore the high-collared white tunic uniform of the Gheddan Space Corps. Maryam wore the leather shirt and skirt of a Gheddan warrior woman. Her wardrobe was severely limited.

  In between the tense activity of launch and landing, space flight was interminably boring. Raven shared the watches with his crew. One of them was at all times seated here in the command seat and monitoring the ship’s systems and view-screens. However, while everything ran smoothly and there was no meteor or other cosmic debris likely to cross their path, there was very little for them to do.

  Dooma, the fifth planet of the solar system, still loomed large in the rear view-screen. Earth, the third planet, was still only a small star of light far away towards the sun.

  Maryam wondered what was happening there, whether the war had already started. She feared that by now Maghalla must have gathered her allies for the great onslaught on Karakhor. She had been away too long but at last she was returning. This time Raven had six ships under his command, not just the one. Surely that would be enough to defeat Maghalla. She knew that was not his prime intention but it would be necessary if he was to secure Karakhor for Ghedda.

  She let her brown hand rest on his shoulder and his blue hand stroked it briefly. His dark eyes looked up at her. His face was blue, his hair a tight mass of crinkly black curls. His smile was charming, but he smiled when he killed almost as warmly as when he made love.

  “What will happen when we reach Earth?” she asked him.

  Raven shrugged. “We will land and take over your city of Karakhor. Then we wait. If an Alphan ship appears, we will destroy it. When we hear that Alpha has been defeated and the war on Dooma is over, we will leave a garrison force at Karakhor and I will return to Dooma. I still intend to find out exactly what happened to the Sword Lord Karn.”