A Future, Forged Read online

  She wasn’t far from the docks, which were a maze of warehouses and alleys. The stink of damp wood and rotting fish overwhelmed the Migong’s usual stench of shit and garbage. Close by, the Dahab River’s warm, fast waters sloshed against timber pylons driven into the rocky river bottom. The vast Dahab Falls rumbled upriver to the west, hazing the air permanently with damp mist and washing the sun to faded orange.

  But, even closer, shadows moved in the dark nooks between skewed buildings.

  ‘Shenshi,’ she muttered, eyeing two men whose ragged clothing hid wiry bodies made strong by desperation. ‘You shouldn’t be here. Get back to the north side of town, where you belong.’

  Dallan swept a shrewd look at the ragtag crowd sidling closer from all directions. He nodded to his weishi, who drew weapons and faced outward, protecting their shenshi. Teya shrank away but there was nowhere to go. Migong inhabitants, drawn by the smell of money, blocked every exit. If only Perrin had the sense to hide. Her mouth dried at the thought of him, small and alone, just around the corner. So close!

  A large, bald man in a leather jacket shouldered to the fore of the crowd. He carried a weapon Teya had never seen before: a sickle-shaped bronze blade with a long chain attached to the handle, and a spiked bronze ball on the other end. He swung the ball and jerked his chin at Dallan.

  ‘Give over the dagger, the sword and your purse and we might let you go.’

  Dallan snorted. ‘I find that unlikely.’ He gestured at the gathering crowd. ‘If you let us go, we’ll be obliged to report to the city junren. And while you’re welcome to almost anything I have, I can’t give you the one thing you most want—my weapons. So we’re left with two options.’ His smile thinned and his long fingers whitened on the hilt of his sword, on his left hip. ‘You attack us and see how many survive. Four trained fighters against…’ he did a swift count. ‘Fifteen? I like our odds. Or you can leave with my purse and keep your arms and legs. Up to you,’ he finished cheerfully.

  ‘Zhal?’ A wiry woman in maroon looked at the bald man.

  He glared. ‘C’mon. We can take them. I want that dagger and steel sword!’ He released the spiked ball and it shot at Dallan’s weishi. The crowd surged forward, blood-fever gleaming in their wild eyes.

  Dallan and his weishi engaged, ceramic and steel ringing against bronze and wood. Teya pressed herself against the wall. She tried to slide sideways to the alley’s safety; toward Perrin. Too much attention pinned her in place. Her blood pounded, scattering her thoughts and making it impossible to shift notice away from herself. A toothless face leered in hers, blackweed-fouled breath gusting.

  ‘You’re mine, pretty one!’ A thick-knuckled hand wrapped around Teya’s wrist and dragged her away from Dallan and his weishi.

  She jammed her dagger into the man’s filthy arm and kicked at his shin. ‘Get away from me!’

  He swore and wrenched the dagger from her. The bloodstained blade slashed at her head. Teya threw herself sideways and the tip scored her shoulder. She slammed against the stone wall, gasping at the pain. Her assailant stalked closer, grinning in manic madness, turning the bronze dagger in bloodied fingers. From the back of his belt he produced another weapon—a vicious thing with four short, curved blades on the end of a short handle.

  ‘Slavers from Melcor’ll pay nice for a pretty-boy like you. Just have to tame you a bit, won’t I?’

  Teya shuffled along the wall, hoping to escape around the corner.

  ‘No you don’t, boy,’ he growled. ‘Hold still. I don’t want to mess you up too much.’

  She kept moving. Only a few more steps.

  He threw the weapon. It flipped in the air. She tried to dodge. Misjudged. The longest blade drove into her shoulder. The same one he’d already tagged. But this time it dug deep into muscle and bone. Agonising. Blinding. Paralysing.

  ‘Gaisi!’ Dallan’s voice growled nearby. A silvery blur passed over Teya’s head. Her attacker collapsed; a heap of bloodsoaked rags with a steel sword buried in his gullet.

  A strange warmth spread down the right side of her body. She gazed vaguely at Dallan, bemused as he swayed and spun before her.

  ‘Shenshi!’ one of Dallan’s weishi cried. ‘City junren. Coming this way. Quickly.’

  ‘Catch him!’ Dallan pointed at Teya. ‘Bring him. We can’t be found here.’

  Her knees gave way and she sagged into waiting arms.

  ‘Teya!’ Perrin’s cry was the distant wail of an orphaned lu-deer kid.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TEYA

  Teya awoke to a warmth and softness she’d not experienced in five years. She snuggled deeper into thick sheets. A heavy quilt weighted her with lazy security and smelled of lavender and red-yin, Mother’s favourite sleeping herb.

  ‘Mother?’ She swept a palm across the smooth linen. Pain stabbed through her shoulder and she snapped awake. Old, dark grief surged forth from its prison and threatened to overwhelm her. She pushed it aside automatically.

  Overhead hung heavy drapes of midnight grey material, edged with copper thread. A window let faint, purplish light in around the edges of more thick curtains. The room was dark save for a single, flickering mel-oil lantern set next to the bed. A bed so huge Teya couldn’t touch both sides.

  She shot upright and flung the covers aside, holding her right arm against her stomach. The room tipped and spun. She swallowed hard against nausea and slid off the high mattress. A nearby chair provided a steadying brace. Her bare feet touched cold wood and she flinched. She plucked at her clothing in dismay. In place of her grey bamboo-cloth shirt and trous, she wore an oversized man’s shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the hem hanging to her knees. Underneath she was naked. Her own clothes were nowhere to be seen.

  She clutched at her throat, her stomach knotting. Then she sighed. Her mother’s locket was still there, around her neck. But where was everything else? And where was this house?

  She tiptoed over to the massive window and twitched the heavy curtain aside. The room was on the ground floor, facing a wide, quiet street lined with tall, stately houses. Somewhere in the better parts of Asalam, then.

  One of the two moons was out. Luna Yi’s ruddy glow soaked the red-tiled roofs in pale blood and deepened the shadows to purple. Here and there, movement suggested people ignored the curfew, and the lack of city guards showed they went unpunished. Teya suppressed bitter understanding.

  She raised her eyes to the Chinshi’s two sandstone towers, blood-dark in the moonlight. The Jun First’s country home, surrounded by a high, sandstone wall, dominated the city’s skyline. If she could see the Chinshi’s front she must be somewhere in Asalam’s northwest quadrant. In the house of someone very well-off, judging by the rich furnishing.

  But whose? And where was Perrin?

  She returned to the bed and yanked out a drawer in the zitan-wood bedside table. Her things must be here somewhere.

  The bedroom door clicked open and she snatched up the nearest possible weapon—a half-full glass of water—only to drop it when her fingers refused to work. The tumbler smashed on the timber floor, spraying her feet with cold water and sending shining slivers of glass sliding through the puddle.

  ‘Don’t move!’ Dallan’s voice whipcracked through the darkness.

  Teya froze. His booted feet crunched and splashed through the water. He lifted her onto the bed. Then he calmly set the largest chunks of blue glass on a table, collected a towel from a pile of linen stacked on the chair and threw it across the mess on the floor. Finally, he drew up an elegant, spindle-legged chair and sat. Teya smoothed the shirt over her knees and wiped her wet feet on the bedlinen. She crossed her arms, holding her right elbow as her shoulder twinged.

  Dallan pointed at her injury. ‘Feeling alright?’

  She nodded, considering him warily. ‘Where am I? Where’re my things?’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, a corner of his mouth lifting. ‘You’re in the house of a friend of mine. Your clothes are being washed and mended. O
h.’ He rummaged in a pocket of his dark grey trous and dumped a small pile of items onto the bed. ‘Here’s the rest. Forgive me if I don’t return the dagger quite yet.’

  Teya thrust the tangle of jewellery into the silk purse and clutched it close with her left hand.

  ‘Thank you. I have to go. I want my clothes.’

  He cocked his head. ‘My healer’s of the opinion you should rest for a day. You lost a lot of blood. You were unconscious for two hours.’

  ‘Two hours! Perrin! I have to…’ She slid off the bed and ran to the door then paused. ‘I can’t go out like this.’ She fisted the shirt.

  Dallan moved toward her but stopped when she shrank away. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, girl. Let me help. Who’s this Perrin? Someone we can tell of your injury? Your father?’

  ‘I’m wasting time. Get my clothes!’

  ‘Child…’ He paused. ‘I can’t keep calling you “girl” and “child”. What’s your name?’

  ‘Teya,’ she muttered. ‘But it doesn’t matter. Please. I have to go find him.’

  ‘I’ll take you home, myself, Teya. But will you answer me one question?’

  She waited. Anything to get to Perrin. He would be worried. He always thought he could help by copying her ways, but he hadn’t her skill at hiding in plain sight. If he took to thieving, thinking she wasn’t coming home, he’d be caught for sure.

  ‘Why couldn’t my weishi see you, when we met in the street?’

  Teya retreated until her shoulders pressed against the dark timber door. She wrenched at the handle and dashed out, running blindly along a shadowed hallway with no idea of how to escape.

  But she must.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TEYA

  An arm caught her around the waist, knocking the wind from her lungs. She coughed and groaned as pain in her shoulder blurred her vision.

  ‘Why the hurry, little one?’ A woman wearing severe indigo robes with delicate embroidered copper and grey flowers twining up the sleeves held Teya’s body against her own. Teya squirmed but could neither let go the precious purse nor use her injured right arm.

  ‘Dal?’ The woman glanced along the hall. ‘Did you lose something?’

  ‘She’s quick, I’ll give her that,’ Dallan said. ‘Shunu Nerina Qin-Turner, meet Teya who seems reluctant to give her family name.’

  ‘Qin-Turner!’ Teya stared at the elegant older woman. ‘You’re a jun!’

  Nerina inclined her head. She rolled the indigo silk veil up onto her forehead, revealing rain grey eyes, wrinkled with amusement and deep-set in a narrow face.

  ‘A Jun Fourth, in fact. Here in town by order of our illustrious Jun First, Jenna Zah-Hill, who is deigning to join us.’ Her voice dripped with irony Teya didn’t understand.

  She released Teya, who put distance between them, raked the woman with scorn, and spat at her feet. The jun’s lips pursed.

  ‘Neri.’ Dallan’s low warning stopped whatever the woman might have said. ‘She’s a kid. She’s afraid and you’re scaring her.’

  ‘I am not a kid. And I’m not scared. I’m angry. Let me go. I have to find my brother before he gets hurt. He was with me. He’s only six.’

  ‘There was no child…no, wait.’ Dallan gazed off into middle distance, stroking his chin. ‘A boy.’ He held a palm out at hip height. ‘About this tall? Blond hair and no shoes—something amiss with one foot?’

  Teya nodded.

  ‘Ah.’ Dallan’s expression became grave. ‘I’m sorry. He was captured by the city junren, along with some of the people who attacked us. The junren must have thought him part of their group. They’ll have taken him to the eastern gatehouse prison.’

  The corridor seemed to sway again. Teya leaned against the bamboo-lined wall. Blood roared in her ears and echoed her mother’s despairing cry as the cart carried her away.

  ‘She said…’ Teya sniffed and waited until she could control herself. ‘The last thing my mother said was that I had to look after him. He’s my responsibility. What have I done?’ She turned to Dallan in desperation.

  He held her arms and she flinched as pain stabbed into her shoulder. His dark eyes searched hers.

  ‘There was nothing you could have done. He’ll be alright.’

  ‘Dallan,’ Neri murmured. ‘Jun Fourth Gray-Saud has taken charge of the city guards. He’s announced capital punishment for all crimes as a deterrent—’

  He cast Neri a level look and she snapped her teeth shut.

  ‘Grey-Saud! He’s here?’ Teya covered her mouth. ‘Capital…you mean death? They’ll kill Perrin?’ She tugged against Dallan’s hold but he pinned her against the wall. ‘Let me go! I must save him.’ She fought, struggling until something ripped at the skin of her shoulder and blood stained the pale shirt.

  ‘Stop!’ Dallan wrapped her in a tight embrace that shocked her into obedience. ‘Stop.’ His tone gentled and he held her away, his expression soft with understanding she could barely tolerate. ‘This helps no-one, Teya. Least of all Perrin. It’s night. They won’t do anything until noon tomorrow at the earliest. That’s when the executions take place. Neri, get the healer again. Then send food to the bedroom. And a city map.’

  ‘Why?’

  Dallan glared over his shoulder at the jun. ‘Because I said so.’

  ‘Dal, you know we don’t have time for this,’ the woman said. ‘You can’t free him.’

  Hope flooded Teya’s body and she studied Dallan. He would help? Why? He must want something. What, though? His hands were warm and strong on her arms. She shuddered and moved out of reach. He let her go.

  ‘Maybe we can’t free him,’ Dallan said to the jun, but he held Teya’s gaze, ‘but we can try. I can try, if you’re not willing to help.’

  ‘You’ll undo all our plans for one nameless child’s life?’ The jun frowned at Teya.

  ‘His name is Perrin!’ Teya snarled. ‘He may not have a colony funding-family name, like a jun, but he has a heart truer than every jun I’ve ever met.’

  Dallan cocked his head. ‘And I suspect you’ve met more than one, haven’t you? Where are you from?’

  She said nothing and shot him and Neri a suspicious look from beneath her lashes.

  ‘Neri,’ Dallan said. ‘Just go.’ He plucked at Teya’s bloodied sleeve. ‘And be quick.’

  Neri spun on her heel, silk robes fluttering as she stalked along the hall.

  ‘Neri, wait!’ he called. ‘Bring Ying Li. She’s home on holidays, isn’t she?’

  The jun opened her eyes wide, nodded, and inspected Teya.

  ‘Good,’ he added. ‘I think she’ll be helpful in teaching control, don’t you? Closer in age than anyone else in the city, too.’

  Neri’s doubt cleared. She nodded again and strode away without questioning him.

  ‘Who are you to give orders to a jun like that?’ Teya asked, eyeing him with wary respect.

  He grinned and looked more like twenty-five than the thirty-something she had thought him. He patted the full purse at his hip.

  ‘I’m the money in this venture. Quite a few juns are feeling the pinch at the moment.’ The smile faded. ‘They need me. The jundom needs me. And I need you, so they’ll do what I ask—for now, anyway. Later…’ He shrugged. ‘That might be another matter. Come.’ He tugged on her good arm. ‘Let’s get you fixed and fed. Then we can make plans about how to get Perrin.’

  Pulling free, Teya folded her arms, hissing when the action hurt. ‘What do you need me for? I’m just a kid, remember.’ She might be fifteen, but people saw her as about twelve and that was a good thing. Adults underestimated children.

  ‘No. You’re not just a kid. You’ve got a gift. A gift you can use for more than petty theft, if you’ll let me show you how.’

  ‘No.’ Her heart stuttered. ‘You’re wrong. I don’t know what you mean. I’m nothing special.’

  Sympathy lit Dallan’s eyes. ‘Yes, you are. You’re xintou and we both know it.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

&n
bsp; DALLAN

  Dallan observed the effect of his words on the girl-child. Her already-pale cheeks whitened to rival the oversized shirt she wore. Her sapphire eyes widened and darted left and right. He tightened his hold on her thin wrist.

  ‘Come.’ Her jerked his chin at the bedroom. ‘You need rest. There’s nothing to fear in being xintou. Most girls would be thrilled. It means a life of plenty and luxury.’ He led her gently into the room and patted the bed. She hesitated and cast him a quick, half-frightened, half-defiant look.

  ‘You’re safe, Teya,’ he assured her. ‘You have nothing to fear from me.’

  Her cheeks flushed. She clambered onto the bed and pressed her spine against the chimera-carved wooden bed-head. She pulled up her knees and dragged the heavy, embroidered quilt over them. He cleaned the spilt water and broken glass, waiting for her to speak.

  ‘Xintou are Bonded to juns, aren’t they?’ Suspicion coloured her tone.

  Interesting.

  He kept his reply calm and light. ‘That’s right. They’re telepaths and empaths. Telepathic Bonding helps them to better advise and control their jun. Each head of the twenty-one ruling jun families has one. From our Jun First, right through to the lowest Jun Sixth. Xintou are the reason the Jundom of Mamlakah has been peaceful for so long.’ He scowled at the broken glass in his hands, trying to keep anger out of his voice. The situation in the jundom wasn’t her fault. ‘Others are Law Mistresses and advisors to the various House Masters and Mistresses. But they’re all pledged to do whatever is needed to avert war between the juns, and between Mamlakah and the other Jundoms. The Xintou help protect us.’

  ‘From who?’

  Dallan chuckled. ‘Ourselves, mostly.’ He folded the glass in the wet linen and placed it on a table. ‘Our ancestors came to Kalima to escape war on our homeworld, Earth. We’re trying to avoid repeating past mistakes. The Xintou’s job is to keep their jun in check so no one becomes too powerful.’