‘You wish me to marry a savage, Grandfather? To live in filth and squalor among a people who value women less than they value their goats? How could you do this?’
Chorin-Tsu had ignored the breach of manners, though Zhusai could see he was stung – and disappointed by her outburst. ‘The savage – as you call him – is a special man. Nosta Khan has walked the Mist. I have studied the charts, and cast the runes. There is no doubt; you are vital to this quest. Without you the days of the Uniter will pass us by.’
‘This is your dream – not mine! How could you do this to me?’
‘Please control yourself, grand-daughter. This unseemly display is extremely disheartening. The situation is not of my making. Let me also say this, Zhusai: I have cast your charts many times, and always they have shown you are destined to marry a great man. You know this to be true. Well, that man is the Uniter. I know this without any shade of doubt.’
Under the moon and stars, Zhusai gazed down at Talisman. ‘Why could it not have been you?’ she whispered.
His dark eyes opened. ‘Did you speak?’
She shivered. ‘No. I am sorry to have disturbed you.’
He rolled to his elbow, and saw that the fire was still burning. Then he lay down and slept once more.
When she awoke she found that Talisman’s blanket, as well as her own, was laid across her. Sitting up, she saw the Nadir sitting cross-legged on the rocks some distance away, his back to her. Pushing the blankets aside, she rose. The sun was clearing the peaks, and already the temperature was rising. Zhusai stretched, then made her way to where Talisman sat. His eyes were closed, his arms folded to his chest, palms flat and thumbs interlinked. Zhusai’s grandfather often adopted this position when meditating, usually when he was trying to solve a .problem. Silently Zhusai sat opposite the warrior.
‘Where are you now, Talisman?’ she wondered. ‘Where does your restless spirit fly ?’
He was a small boy who had never seen a city. His young life had been spent on the steppes, running and playing among the tents of his father’s people. At the age of five he had learned to tend the goats, and to make cheese from their milk, to stretch and scrape the skins of the slaughtered animals. At seven, he could ride a small pony and shoot a bow. But at twelve he was taken from his father by men in bright armour who journeyed far beyond the steppes, all the way to a stone city by the sea.
It had been the first real shock of Talisman’s life. His father, the strongest and bravest of Nadir chieftains, had sat by in silence as the round-eyed men in armour came. This man who had fought in a hundred battles had said not a word, he had not even looked his son in the eye. Only Nosta Khan had approached him, laying his scrawny hand on Talisman’s shoulder. ‘You must go with them, Okai. The safety of the tribe depends upon it.’
‘Why? We are Wolfshead, stronger than all.’
‘Because your father orders it.’
They had lifted Okai to the back of a tall horse, and the long journey began. Not all Nadir children were fully taught the tongue of the Round-eye, but Talisman had a good ear for language and Nosta Khan had spent many months teaching him the subtleties. Thus it was that he could understand the shining soldiers. They made jokes about the children they were gathering, referring to them as dung-puppies. Other than this, they were not unkind to their prisoners. Twenty-four days they travelled, until at last they came to a place of nightmare which the Nadir children gazed upon with awe and terror. Everything was stone, covering the earth, rearing up to challenge the sky; huge walls and high houses, narrow lanes, and a mass of humanity continually writhing like a giant snake through its market-places, streets, alleys and avenues.
Seventeen Nadir youngsters, all the sons of chieftains, were brought to the city of Bodacas in that late summer. Talisman-Okai remembered the ride through the city streets, children pointing at the Nadir, then baying and screeching and making gestures with their fingers. Adults too stood and watched, their faces grim. The cavalcade came to a stop at a walled structure on the outskirts of the city, where the double gates of bronze and iron were dragged open. For Okai it was like riding into the mouth of a great dark beast, and fear rose as bile in his throat.