John Flanagan - Erak_s ransom

'And what might that be, Halt?' Evanlyn asked him, willing to humour him.

Halt caught the tone in her voice and glared at her. Then he said, with some force:

'Will's still out there somewhere.'

The first light of the sun was striking the white-painted houses of Maashava when Will and Umar finally reached a vantage point above the town.

They had climbed for several hours in the pre-dawn dimness, following narrow animal tracks to one side of the township, then angling back until they emerged fifty metres above it, with a perfect view of the comings and goings of the townspeople.

Now they surveyed the town. A low wall ran around three sides. The fourth was protected by the cliffs themselves. There were watch towers raised at intervals along the wall but there was no sign of any sentries. Will remarked on the fact and Umar shook his head contemptuously.

'The townspeople are too lazy to mount guards and the Tualaghi believe there's no enemy within hundreds of kilometres.'

Smoke from cooking fires was rising from many points around the town. Mixed with the acrid woodsmoke was another aroma that set Will's tastebuds alight. Fresh coffee,was being brewed in kitchens throughout the town. Men and women were beginning to stream out of the town, heading down the winding road to the flatlands below, or to terraced fields on the mountain side itself. Will pointed to them and raised his eyebrows.

'Field workers,' Umar said in response to the unspoken question. 'They grow maize and wheat on the flatlands, and fruit and some vegetables in the terraces.'

There was no shortage of water in Maashava. A series of wells tapped into an underground stream that ran through the mountains. Some of this was piped to the terraces, some all the way down to the fields. It was a complex irrigation and cultivation system and Will had seen nothing like it in his time in the dry, and country.

'Who built all this?' he asked.

Umar shrugged. 'No one knows. The terraces and aqueducts are hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. The Arridi found them and restored the town.'

'Well, in any event, they give us an opportunity,' Will said. Umar glanced at him and he continued. 'With all those workers moving in and out each day, we can infiltrate some of your men into the town. I figure if they go in in ones and twos, we could get up to fifty men in over the course of a day.'

'And then what?' Umar asked.

'They could make contact with the townspeople and hide among them. Surely the people of Maashava will welcome anyone who wants to get rid of the Tualaghi once and for all?'

Umar looked doubtful. 'Not my men,' he said. 'They'd stand out as outsiders. The locals wouldn't trust them. They'd be just as likely to betray them to the Tualaghi.'

'But why?' Will's voice rose a little in his frustration at the answer and Umar made urgent gestures for him to keep his voice down. Sound carried a long way in the mountains. 'Sorry,' Will continued, 'but why would they betray you? You're all the same nationality, aren't you?'

The Bedullin shook his head. 'We may live in the same country, but we're different tribes. We are Bedullin. They are Arridi. Our accents are different, so are our customs. In general, Bedullin don't trust Arridi and the Arridi reciprocate. My men would be recognised as Bedullin as soon as they spoke.'

'That's ridiculous,' Will growled. The thought that people could be divided by such minor differences was an affront to intelligent behaviour, he thought.

Umar shrugged. 'Ridiculous maybe. But a fact.'

Will stared at the town below, watching as more people moved out into the street. He gnawed thoughtfully on his thumb.

'But you sent a man in there last night?' he said.

Umar nodded. One of the Bedullin scouts had slipped over the wall after dark. He'd leave again that night and report on what he had heard in the town.

'One man. It's easy for one man to go unnoticed, particularly as he didn't have to speak, merely listen. But we'd never hope to get fifty men in there without someone noticing the different accent.' He decided it was time to change the subject and pointed to one of the openings in the cliff face, at the rear of the township. Unlike others of its kind, where the doors had been thrown wide open to receive the fresh morning air, this one remained closed and barred, and a dozen Tualaghi warriors lounged around it.

That storeroom must be where they're holding your friends.'

Will held his hands up to his eyes, shrouding them to focus his attention as he peered at the strongly defended door.

'I'd say you're right.' He thought for a few minutes. 'Wonder if there's any way we could break them out.'

Umar shook his head. 'Even if you got to the storeroom undetected, with enough men to overpower the guards, you'd be seen and heard. Then you'd have to fight your way out through the town again.'

Will's eyes went upwards to the sheer cliffs towering behind the town.

'What about coming in from above? And going out the same way?'

Umar considered the idea. 'Might work. But you'd need ropes. Lots of ropes. And we don't have them,' he concluded.

Will nodded. 'Best way then is to be waiting for them to bring Halt and the others out of that prison,' he said, almost to himself.

'There's only one reason I can think of that they might do that,' Umar said. 'That's if they were going to execute them.'

Will looked at him for several seconds before speaking. 'Well, that's a big comfort,' he said.

Yusal had appropriated the largest and most comfortable house in the town for his own use. It was the home of the town headman and Yusal also forced the town elder and his family to wait on him and his bodyguard. The man and his wife were terrified of the veiled nomad leader and Yusal enjoyed the fact. He liked striking fear into other people's hearts. And he enjoyed belittling people like the headman and his wife, destroying their dignity and authority by forcing them to perform menial servants' duties for him. Yusal sprawled at ease on a pile of thick cushions in the main room of the house.

The headman had just moved through, lighting oil lamps and candles against the gathering dusk. Yusal insisted on having two or three times as many of each as was necessary. Oil and candles were expensive and hard to come by in a town like this. He liked seeing the dismay on the old man's face as they were used in such a profligate manner. In a few weeks, Yusal would use up three months' supply. But it was of no concern to the Tualaghi leader. When the oil and candles and food ran out, he'd move on.

The woman entered to serve him coffee. As he demanded, she went down on her knees to offer him the cup. He took it from her, then glared at her until she lowered her eyes. Then he raised the blue veil that covered his mouth and tasted the coffee. Using the sole of his foot, he shoved her away, sending her sprawling on the mud floor.

'Too weak,' he said.

Face averted, the woman crawled on her hands and knees from the room. She had quickly learned not to look at the Tualaghi war leader's face when he raised the blue veil to eat or drink. The first time she had been slow to avert her eyes, he had had her savagely whipped.

In fact, there was nothing wrong with the coffee. The headman's wife was an excellent cook and all Arridi women learned to make good coffee as children. But it gave him an excuse to reassert his authority and Yusal enjoyed that.

His good humour evaporated as the main door of the house opened to admit Toshak.

By rights, the ill-mannered Northman should wait until he was announced and then admitted to the Aseikh's presence. Yusal glared at him now, hastily replacing the veil across his mouth and nose.

'You should wait,' he said. 'You should be announced and you should await permission to enter.'