Finn stepped to the table, lifted a single ring and slipped it on his finger. ‘This will do for me,’ he said. Maggrig chose a wristband. Chareos took nothing.
Beltzer stood and glared at the others. ‘You will not shame me,’ he hissed. ‘I will take what is mine!’ He shovelled a number of items into his deep pockets and returned to the fire.
‘We leave at first light for Tavern Town,’ said Chareos. ‘We will buy extra horses there. Since you are now rich, Beltzer, you can buy your own – and all the food and supplies you will need.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘You tell me I face great danger – and yet you do not know from whence it comes?’ asked Jungir Khan, his manner easy, his voice cold. He lounged back on the ivory inlaid throne and stared down at the shaman kneeling before him.
Shotza kept his eyes on the rugs below him, considering his words with great care. He was the third shaman to serve Jungir Khan; the first had been impaled and the second strangled. He was determined there would be no fourth. ‘Great Khan,’ he said, ‘there is a magic barrier at work which will take me time to pierce. I already know where the magic originates.’
‘And where is that?’ whispered Jungir.
‘From Asta Khan, sire.’ Shotza risked a glance to see the effect the name had on the man above him.
Jungir’s face betrayed no emotion, but his dark eyes narrowed. ‘Still alive? How can this be? He was an old man when my father became Khan. He left the city of tents to die more than twenty years ago.’
‘But he did not die, lord. He lives still in the Mountains of the Moon. There are many caves there, and tunnels that go through to the centre of the world.’
Jungir rose to his feet. He was tall for a Nadir, as his father Tenaka had been. He had jet-black hair drawn back in a tight topknot, and a short, trimmed trident beard. His eyes were slanted and dark, betraying no evidence of his half-breed ancestry. ‘Stand up,’ he ordered the little shaman and Shotza rose. He was just over five feet tall, wiry and bald. Less than sixty years old, the skin of his face hung in wrinkled folds.
Jungir looked into the shaman’s curiously pale eyes and smiled. ‘Do you fear me?” he asked.
‘As I fear the winds of death, lord.’
‘Do you love me?’
‘Love? You are my Khan. The future of the Nadir rests with you,’ answered Shotza. ‘Why would you need my love also?’
‘I do not. But the answer is a good one. Now tell me of Asta.’
The Khan returned to his throne and sat with his head back, gazing up at the silken roof which gave the throne hall the appearance of a vast tent. The silks were gifts from the Eastern kingdom of Kiatze, dowry for the bride they had sent him.
‘After Asta left the Wolves, he passed from the knowledge of men,’ began Shotza. ‘We all thought he had died. But at the last full moon, when I tried to trace the Silver Thread of your destiny, I found a great mist had settled over the sign of your house. I tried to pierce it, and at first had some success. Then it hardened into a wall. I flew high, but could not find the top. Using all the arcane powers my masters taught me, I finally breached the wall. But all too briefly. Yet I saw the face of Asta Khan. And I sensed the perils that await you in the coming year.’
Shotza licked his lips and once more considered his words. ‘I saw gleaming Armour of Bronze, floating beneath a star, and a swordsman of great skill. But then Asta became aware of me – I was thrown back, and the wall sealed itself once more.’
‘And that is all you saw?’ asked Jungir softly.
‘All that I could see clearly,’ Shotza answered, wary of offering a direct lie to his king.
The Khan nodded. ‘Find Asta Khan – and kill him. Take a hundred of my Guards. Scour the mountains. Bring me his head.’