The Oathbreaker's Shadow Read Free Page B

wasn’t an option.
    Loni was one of the Moloti tribe elders, and he had taken in first Tarik, then Raim and then Raim’s sister, Dharma, as his grandchildren. Tarik and Dharma were Raim’s siblings by adoption, not blood. Raim knew almost nothing about his true parents, not even their clan profession. It didn’t matter; he had his own path to follow. His father could be the lowliest dung collector in Darhan and Raim would still aspire to be Chief Yun.
    Beside him, his grandfather was squinting forward to capture every moment of the ceremony. In fact, most of the other people around Raim were leaning forward, but they were falling asleep, not craning their necks in interest. Raim yearned to join the ranks of the dozing. He felt his eyelids droop, heavy with sweat and boredom. But Loni’s hand, hard and bulbous, pressed down on his, snapping him back to attention. Raim scolded himself. He should try to stay awake. It was his brother’s wedding after all.
    To keep alert, he ran over his moves for the upcoming Yun trial. He put his recent tussle with Khareh out of his head.
It’s only nerves
, he told himself. He had allowed himself to get distracted. He wouldn’t let it happen again. Step left, parry, retreat. Forward, strike to the shoulder, swoop down to the knee, protect his chest with the shield. Knock the enemy’s weapon out of his hand, finish with a fatalblow to the neck. Well, without the last move in the actual duel.
    An involuntary shiver ran down his neck. Was Lars thinking the same thing? He tried to think back to what he could remember of Lars’s first attempt. Raim had watched from the very front – all the Yun apprentices who had yet to reach their Honour Age stood side by side to form the ring in which the older apprentices fought, to keep the crowds back. Lars had done well – the duel had lasted a long time, with neither side backing down easily. Eventually, though, Lars had tired. That had been his mistake. If it had been Raim in his position, he would have spent all of the next year training to increase his stamina. To avoid the same problem, Raim would have to try to end the duel quickly, before
he
became the one that ran out of fuel.
    The priest raised his hands and Raim scrambled to his feet with the rest of the crowd. As he stretched to shake the stiffness from his back and neck, Raim caught sight of Khareh surreptitiously making his way over to where the royal family was seated. Under a carefully erected shelter lay Batar-Khan, the Seer-Queen, the Khan’s advisers and their entourage. The Seer-Queen was barely feigning interest as she was attended by servants clad in pristine white linen, trying to create a breeze in the still, stifling air by waving fans of woven reeds. She was supposed to be one of the most powerful women in the world, with the power to ‘see’ into the future. The Baril were charged withexamining dozens of women to find the one who could pass the test and become the Khan’s principal wife. Somehow, a remarkable number of ugly daughters of important warlords turned out to be ‘seers’. When it was Khareh’s turn he would have to marry whomever the Baril chose – and that was an obligation Raim didn’t envy one bit. Heat pricked the back of his neck as he thought of the girl he would be seeing in only a few short days. No, he knew who he the other apprenticesgh deliberateCC f would choose if he could. Suddenly, he really envied the breeze Khareh was enjoying.
    With the sun at its peak, the royal tent was the only source of shade on the flat ledge about halfway up Mount Dahl. The entire village had climbed the long, circuitous path carved into the mountain in the early morning, when the sun was low and hidden by the mist. But now the sun beat down on the weary audience with its powerful rays. Raim slipped his finger under the edge of his turban, trying to release some of the sweat that glued the cloth to his forehead. The villagers steamed around him, forced to sit on