Read Online The Leopard (Marakand) by K.V. Johansen - Free Book Online Page B

bees, the green hidden valleys known only to the herd-folk of the little chieftains, the wild heights of juniper and naked stone where even the shepherds rarely ventured, and the wooded ravines of laurel and holm-oak between the bare hills. He avoided the wider valleys, where villages were common, and the heights where gods dwelt and local folk might gather to them. He did not want to meet strangers, and yet . . . better strangers than Ghu, when the darkness came. But maybe they would reach Marakand first, where he would have an enemy to hunt, a focus, and that would be enough to satisfy it, knowing that a death lay at the end. He hoped it would hold off so long. He thought it probable, or he would have sent Ghu on some errand to the city, to be rid of him before he left.
    The poison in his soul had no steady tide, no warning moon. It came, like the four-day fever, with only a little warning, a growing fret once the signs were known, but there was no bitter bark from out of the southlands to head it off. Stalking a clan-father of the Five Cities, a man well guarded by steel and wizardry, who knew his enemies hired assassins against him, killing and coming through alive, could drive it away, often for as much as a few months. Time enough to ride to Marakand. It had fed—call it that—well enough in Gold Harbour lately, as the elderly governor had died—not of natural causes, although perhaps three walls scaled and two wizard guards and a devoted young swordsman dead was natural causes for a wily old Five Cities clan-mother. The merchant-lords and clan-fathers sorted out precedence and alliance in their usual way, choosing her successor. The Leopard had been much in demand by several factions and had spread his favours impartially, as befitted one who sold his body—for whatever use.
    There was no one but Ghu and the occasional shepherd or pedlar on the paths they took. One night Ahjvar found himself unable to sleep, restless, and came to himself pacing, prowling. By the stars, an hour had passed unnoted. Bad. The black tide was rising again. So soon. Too soon. Weren’t all the deaths in Gold Harbour enough to keep it satisfied? But he should have remembered that the nightmares could bring it on. Sometimes he thought it made him wilfully forgetful, hiding itself, to . . . to sneak up on him.
    He was mad, and sick in his soul, and he should have been mercifully slain like a mad dog years since. That had to be done, if a wizard was not handy to drive the sickness from its blood. Well, he’d had a friend try that, too. Both the latter and the former, back when he had still stupidly dared to have friends. And she had died, by his hand.
    He woke Ghu. The man was all edged in shivering light, which might be her , starting to see the world as ghosts saw it, or might be some headache illusion. There was no face within the tracery of light. His own hand looked the same but darker, a dirtier smudge of fire. “I’m leaving,” he said. “Don’t follow me. Take the horses and go where you will.”
    Ghu was silent a long moment. Ahjvar could imagine the wide-eyed, lackwit look. Then the man took his sleeve, and at the touch the light faded, leaving nothing but darkness, shadow and deeper shadow, night as it ought to be. After a moment, as if sense had slowly to seep back into him, Ghu found his voice. “There’s no one out here.”
    “That’s why I’m going.”
    “It will be all right,” Ghu said. “You won’t hurt me.”
    “I have hurt you.”
    “Barley-spirit?”
    “I’ve drunk myself insensible. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t stop it. Opium doesn’t help. I’ve tried. It makes me slower, maybe. That’s all. I’ve told you.”
    Ghu considered. “I could hit you on the head.”
    “Then do it now.”
    He saw the movement as Ghu rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, considering, maybe, the practicality of hitting a much taller, stronger man over the head while he was crouching above and Ghu himself lying