A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

and amber to it, and something else, something sour. . . Then the water started pouring on her face. Instantly, the material moulded to her skin; she inhaled hard but her lungs found only water now. And again, and her chest contracted in shock, realizing she couldn’t breathe at all. She tried to hold her breath – though she had none to spare in her lungs – and then panic took over, the muscles in her body straining to extract something through the wall of water. But there was nothing to be had. Her back arched, her feet kicked against their bonds, shifting the bench legs with a fearful scrape of wood on stone. The back of her skull cracked against the end of the plank. ‘Hold her steady,’ she heard that strange voice utter, its pitch of neither man nor woman. Stars burst in the darkness of her vision, her chest heaved in vain, the muscles between her ribs burned in desperation.

And suddenly the silk was relaxed and slipped from her face. She could move her neck, and she gasped down lungfuls of air.

‘Interesting,’ Katāros murmured. ‘I’ve never seen this done to a woman. You have surprising strength. The will to live is powerful.’

‘You’re a devil,’ she spat, her throat and lungs still burning.

‘A devil! Ha! On the contrary, my lady. My kind are beautiful. We are the select. We surround the emperor in his palace as the angels surround the very throne of God. We are not devils. We are perfection, untainted by the foulness of the flesh with which lesser men sully themselves. We are the perfect instruments of the emperor’s will. Like the angels.’ Lilla’s eyes were rolled back in her head. But she sensed him bend down beside her, could smell his overbearing perfume filling her nostrils. ‘We are the ideal,’ he whispered. ‘Do you know why? Because we have no will of our own. We desire nothing. I exist only to serve. Like an angel.’ His soft whisper hardened. ‘And like an angel, I have no pity. . .’

The silk tightened over her face. Lilla’s limbs locked rigid, her mind filled with the horror of her helplessness, knowing this would not stop until she was broken. And that she refused to break.

Water poured over her face again, smothering her nose and mouth, and she steeled herself to suffer.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Pliska, the capital of the Bulgar khan, was a ride of three hundred miles to the north and west, their escort leader told them in mangled Greek. Ten days in the saddle – which was enough to provoke groans of protest from at least one of the Byzantine party. But they were all resolved to go on.

They travelled fast and rested little. At first the weather was grim – wet skies, waterlogged ground – although they soon came onto a road, which was solid under hoof and well drained. Davit, who seemed to have developed a grudging respect for Erlan after their close shave with the Arab lancers, told him it had been an old military road of the empire. After four days on it, they crossed into Bulgar territory.

‘This was all part of the empire not forty years ago,’ Davit explained. ‘Then the Bulgars crossed the Danubius around the time the first Arab siege was ending. They won a quick victory against Constantine Augustus and instead of prolonging the fighting he cut his losses and made a treaty with them. And here they settled.’

Erlan was curious where they had come from. They certainly didn’t look like any folk he’d ever seen.

‘Best I know of it, they rode in from lands north-east of the Friendly Sea. Out of the steppes beyond the Khazar kingdom that roll on forever to the dawn-lands.’ Davit dropped his voice. ‘Anyhow – they’re as contrary a pack of mongrels as God, in his infinite mystery, saw fit to make. They’d sell their own mothers for a skin of wine.’

‘That sounds damn sensible if you ask me,’ observed Einar.

‘They’re nomads then?’ asked Erlan, still eager to know what kind of people they were dealing with.

‘Hard to say. They were – till they crossed the Danubius and liked what they saw. Since then they’ve been throwing down a few crops, staying put for a while. But I heard even their towns are more like big herding grounds.’

As they journeyed north, the rain relented and the sun broke through the dreary clouds and touched the land. It was quite serene. The hills were low and rolling, sometimes capped with limestone bluffs, and divided by wide, shallow valleys filled with green pasturelands or birch woods that snagged shards of sunlight making them glitter like silver. Easy country for herding, and coming into a thick crop of grass.

As for their Bulgar escort, they didn’t talk much, even among themselves. They were another dark people. To a man, they had black hair, lean faces, weather-worn skin, but more ruddy than tanned. Those with armour wore leather breastplates and grieves on their arms. Their leader carried a curved sword, but most of them were armed with lances like the Arabs, except longer and with smaller spearheads. Useless weapons, by Einar’s reckoning, until Davit told him a Bulgar rider could pierce a man through the eye at full gallop. They as good as proved it one day – two of them chasing across the open pasture after a hare, whooping and shrieking like berserkers, trying to shove each other off the line. The wretched hare was ripped in two.

Nearing their destination, their progress was slowed by herds of cattle on the road heading south, then vast flocks of sheep which seeped around their horses like a white sea, setting Aska off to bark all morning. The mounted shepherd boys stared at the foreigners, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

At last tall wreaths of smoke appeared on the horizon ahead of them. ‘Pliska! Pliska!’ their escort yelled, showing black-toothed smiles. Ahead of them a massive earthen rampart rose out