‘No,’ she answered. ‘What has that to do with my question?’
‘Like trying to teach mathematics to a fish,’ said Senta, shaking his head.
Angel edged his horse forward and leaned close to Shia. ‘Let’s put it this way, lady. He and I are the finest swordsmen you’ll ever see, but our reasons for being here are none of your damned business!’
Shia nodded solemnly. ‘That is true,’ she admitted, no trace of rancour in her voice.
Senta laughed aloud. ‘You should have been a diplomat, Angel.’ The gladiator merely grunted.
Belash led the way to the east and the distant mountains, Miriel riding behind with Shia, Angel alongside Senta bringing up the rear. Dark clouds loomed above the peaks and lightning flashed like a jagged spear from earth to sky. The sound of thunder followed almost instantly.
‘The mountains are angry,’ Belash told Miriel.
‘So am I,’ she replied. A howling easterly wind blew sheets of rain across the barren, featureless land, and soon the riders travelled hunched in their saddles, drenched through.
For several hours they rode, until at last the sheer walls of the Mountains of the Moon loomed above them. The rain died down and Belash rode on ahead, angling back towards the south, scanning the forbidding peaks and the open steppes to the north. They had seen no soldiers, but now, with the clouds clearing, the smoke of many campfires could be seen in the distance, drifting up to merge with the grey sky.
This is the secret path,’ said Belash, pointing to the mountain face.
‘There’s no way through,’ said Angel, gazing up at the black, basaltic wall of rock. But Belash rode up a short scree slope – and vanished. Angel blinked. ‘Shemak’s balls!’ he whispered.
Miriel urged her mount up the slope, the others following. Virtually invisible from the outside there was a wide crack in the face, some four feet wide, leading to a shining tunnel. Miriel rode in, Angel behind her. There was scarcely a finger’s breadth of space between thigh and wall on both sides, and several times the riders had to lift their legs up on to the saddle in order for their mounts to squeeze through. The walls loomed around them and Angel felt his heartbeat quickening. Above them huge boulders were clustered, having fallen and wedged together precariously.
Senta spoke. ‘If a butterfly were to land on that mass it would all come tumbling down.’ His voice echoed up into the crack. A low groan came from above them and black dust filtered down through the rocks.
‘No speaking!’ whispered Shia.
They rode on, emerging at last on a wide ledge overlooking a bowl-shaped crater. More than a hundred tents were pitched there. Belash touched heels to his horse and galloped down the slope.
‘I think we’re home,’ said Senta.
From this high vantage point Angel could see the vastness of the steppes beyond the mountains, brown and arid, great folds across the land, rippling hills, humped-back ridges, as far as the eye could see. It was a hard, dry land and yet, as the sun dipped below the storm clouds, Angel saw in the steppes a relentless beauty that spoke to his warrior’s heart. It was the beauty of a sword-blade, strong and unyielding. There were no fields or meadows, no silver streams. Even the hills were sharp and unwelcoming. And the voice of the land whispered to him.
Be strong or die, it said.
The mountains reared around him like a jagged black crown, the tents of the Nadir seeming fragile, almost insubstantial against the eternal power of the rocks on which they stood.
Angel shivered. Senta was right.
They were home.
*
Altharin was angry. He had been angry since the Emperor had given him this command. Where was the glory in wiping out vermin? Where was the advancement? Within days the main body of the army would be filing through Sathuli lands to invade the Drenai, sweeping across the Sentran Plain, meeting the Drenai sword to sword, lance to lance.
But no. Not for Altharin. He gazed up at the looming black peaks and wrapped his fur-lined cloak more tightly about his long, lean frame.