The Stealers' War Read Free Page B

her with all the traditions of roof and salt. She is free to go among us as she wishes.’
    Cassandra couldn’t help but feel her heart soften at the young nomad’s words. Few men in this land or any other would have held to her in this state. But he has . Nothing had inhibited his yearning for her. Not being held as a prisoner in Salasang or being shot out of the clouds by the Rodalian skyguard. Alexamir was a savage, a reiver and a common thief, but he possessed the nobility of a prince of the plains.
    ‘How splendid. Then I shall be witness to a miracle of the gods . . . I shall see a fox walk,’ said Nonna. She waved her hand indifferently around the connected tents. ‘Welcome to your new kingdom, then, Lady Cassandra of Vandia. You will find we have fewer servants than an emperor’s offspring is used to, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in spirit.’ She snorted and picked up a leather drinking bottle, uncorking it and tossing it to the little-welcomed guest.
    Cassandra sniffed at the canteen and then took a gulp, swallowing a pale white liquid that tasted of almonds. It burnt her throat like acid before moving down her gut as a stream of liquid fire. She only just resisted the urge to spit it out again. The young Vandian woman experienced a strange, dizzying warmth coursing through her veins. ‘What in the name of the ancestors did I just drink?’
    ‘ Cosmos ,’ said Nonna. ‘Distilled and fermented milk of the mare. Only the finest. Sent by my sister-in-law from the leavings of the Great Krul himself. Milk of the mare gives a woman the strength to see out the day and work like a devil.’ She laughed. ‘Drink too much and I shall lose my legs as surely as you have lost yours. Or perhaps I shall go blind first?’
    Cassandra proffered the bottle back for Nonna to take. As Nonna reached over, she grabbed Cassandra’s wrist and turned it around, inspecting the guest’s fingers and hand like a palm reader. ‘An emperor’s granddaughter, you say? On whose word? These hands are hard and calloused, not soft and coddled.’
    ‘I speak the truth,’ protested Alexamir. ‘The rice-eaters and men of Weyland held her hostage in the kin war across the mountains. I rescued her. I freed her.’
    ‘Indeed. So, you could not resist stealing a burning brand from the fire,’ said Nonna. ‘Every day you walk into the tent and I glance up and see you and think you are your father, returned from riding the heavens. Like two peas in a pod, in bad manners, poor wisdom and fine features. Truly you are my brother’s blood, Alexamir Arinnbold.’
    Cassandra broke the aunt’s grip. ‘That he may be, but I am Vandian. The Imperium’s celestial caste does not have soft hands and fat chins. We are raised to battle and trained to rule. No house that carries weaklings survives long in the Imperium.’
    ‘Then perhaps your people are not so different from ours, after all,’ said Nonna. ‘You certainly show enough pride to be a Nijumet. But is it false pride? Never in my day.’
    ‘Your nephew would be dead without me,’ said Cassandra. ‘I flew the flying wing we stole from Rodal. It was crashing it which broke my back.’
    ‘Indeed? Well, even foul water may put out a fire.’ Nonna shrugged and lay a hand not unkindly on one of Alexamir’s boulder-like shoulders. ‘Yet, where would I be without my Alexamir and his hot air to warm my tent? Winter would have claimed me an age ago.’
    If winter tried, I suspect it would end up with a dagger shoved through its eye . This was Cassandra’s fate, her future. Worn fabric walls stretched over a wooden frame, her bones warmed by a dried sheep-dung hearth. Before, she had been a prisoner in Weyland. Now she was a prisoner inside her own body. Where is my escape to be, here ?
    War hasn’t been kind to Midsburg , mused Duncan Landor, blackened rubble crunching under his feet as he strode toward the military headquarters with his friend Paetro. As sieges go, this city