Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

Nona’s fist connected with the side of Clera’s head, the sort of solid blow that puts an end to conversations and to fights. She was at Tarkax’s pack almost before Clera hit the ground, but she felt as though she were running through a bad dream. Clera would abandon her for as little as money? Trust, Sister Apple had said, was the most insidious of poisons. It hurt Nona to know how well she had learned that lesson.

‘Tie her up, quick!’ She threw the rope from the warrior’s pack at Darla. ‘Quick! Gag her too.’

A moment later she had the leather wrap, crouching so as not to be seen from outside the cave. Clera’s throwing star, the four-pointed one from Partnis Reeve, was stuck in it. The contents of four tubes dripped from the leather, unstoppered by the impact.

She brought it back across the cave and threw herself down beside Tarkax. ‘Which one? Which one?’ She waved it before his face but his eyes were unfocused, blood leaking from beneath his cheek and forehead where he had struck a rock. He had been reaching for the antidote, she knew that, but which tube was it in? She couldn’t risk using the wrong one. She might dose him with a whole new poison.

Rising, Nona went to Ara and held her face in both hands, putting herself in her eye line. ‘You’ve been poisoned, Ara. Clera jabbed you with a needle. It was coated with lock-up. Tincture of segren root. You had it before, first day with the Poisoner. You’ll be fine.’ She glanced across to Ruli, standing helpless, watching as Darla and Jula bound the unconscious Clera. ‘Help me lie her down.’

Together they lay Ara on the ground, the unnatural stiffness of her limbs unpleasant to touch.

‘Your eyes, Nona.’ Ruli looked up from her examination of Ara, one hand still twined in the gold of her hair. ‘What’s wrong with them?’

‘I …’ Nona reached up to touch them. ‘I don’t know. I can see. They don’t hurt.’

‘But, they’re black … like someone poured ink into them.’ Ruli looked frightened, but there was plenty more to be frightened about than odd eyes.

‘I took the black cure … the one I made with Hessa and Ara.’

Ruli’s fear turned to horror. ‘Why? Why would you do that?’

Nona pointed towards the brightness of the slopes. ‘Those soldiers haven’t just come for Ara. I don’t care what promises Thuran Tacsis made or where he made them. Raymel Tacsis wants his revenge and someone out there knows that if they don’t go back with me they may as well not go back at all. Maybe all of them know that. And if they come I’m going to go down fighting, not poisoned and helpless, ready to be bound and carried off to some torture chamber.’ It was almost true. She had put the vial to her lips when she heard that the soldiers were advancing on the cave, worried that they might carry venoms to take her alive – but what had made her tip it into her mouth? That had been the memory of Clera coming back off the plateau having brewed the catweed liquor. She had blamed the stink on poor Malkin because, despite the plant’s name, Sister Apple’s silly rhyme held truth, catweed didn’t smell like a cat weed, but segren root did.

‘I took it because I didn’t trust my friend.’ That was the truth, and like many truths it was hard and it hurt.

When Nona raided Sister Apple’s stores she had stolen catweed and segren root along with anything else that looked useful. After Clera’s alchemy out on the plateau some of both were missing, the segren root cut to disguise the loss … but Nona had spotted it anyway, because the smell had made her suspicious and, hating herself, she had checked up on Clera. Nona had come on the ranging knowing that Clera was carrying lock-up … she just hadn’t quite known why.

‘Zole’s talking …’ Jula was crouched beside the girl that Sherzal had set among them. The four-blood come to claim her place in history.

‘Tarkax got the biggest dose, then Ara, then me. Zole got jabbed in the fight but Clera must have been running out of needles, or used one twice.’

‘Kill. Her.’ Zole watched Nona kneel beside her, her black eyes dull.

‘I’m not killing her,’ Nona said. Whatever Clera had done she was Nona’s friend. It wasn’t a bond made for breaking. ‘She’s well tied.’

‘Kill.’

‘No!’ Nona snapped the word. ‘Tell me what Sherzal wants. We’re probably going to die here, so you may as well. The Tacsis aren’t going to want to leave witnesses. Tell me and I’ll do my best to draw things out so you’ve got a chance to face this on your feet.’

‘Argatha.’ Zole forced the word past a locked jaw.

‘I know she doesn’t want that …’ Nona frowned. ‘She did. Once. But something changed. She gave you to the abbess.’

‘Argatha. Not. Four-blood.’

‘Yes it is. That’s what the prophecy says. Four bloods speaking with one voice, and the Ark will listen.’

‘Four. Hearts.’

‘Oh gods.’ Nona looked around. Only Darla and Jula were on their feet, both looking blank.

‘Yisht!’ Ruli said.

‘Yisht.’ Nona nodded. ‘Sherzal’s after four shiphearts, not one four-blood. And Yisht’s not going to have given up on getting the one from the convent.’

Nona bent back down to Zole. ‘What can the Ark do?’

Zole shook her head, just a faint vibration of movement.

‘You don’t know?’

‘No.’

‘I know,’ Jula said, her voice faint.

‘You?’ Nona got to her feet.

‘Well.’ Jula spread her hands. ‘I know what the books in the convent library say about it. Some of them anyway. I helped Hessa research it. It’s what she’s been doing for two years while we train to fight.’

‘And?’ Nona wasn’t sure why she cared. There were soldiers out in the gully with swords in hand and murder on their minds. ‘What do the books say?’

‘They say a lot of things. Miracles, cures, wisdom, all those things …’

‘So they tell us nothing?’ Nona had harboured suspicions about whether anything of worth might be found in a book.

‘Hessa said there’s a common thread,’ Jula said. ‘That’s how she found the right books. She’s very good with thread-work. Better than—’

‘Tell me!’ Nona barked. In her mind’s eye the soldiers were already advancing, spread across the slopes, the sun’s red light bleeding across their blades.

‘Most accounts agree that the Ark can take us to the Hope just like the four tribes were brought here in their ships. And …’

‘And?’ Nona remembered Sherzal’s smile when Ara tried to cow her with the power of the Path. She hadn’t looked like a woman who would go to all these lengths to run away to a distant sun. Even one that burned so white amid heavens scattered with the red embers of dying stars.

‘And … it controls the moon. It can turn it, change the focus …’

‘Ancestor!’ Ruli covered her mouth with a hand.

‘Shit!’ Darla let her jaw drop.

‘Gods!’ Nona shook her head. A person who could steer the moon wouldn’t want to flee Abeth … they would own Abeth!