Paul Collins - Swords Of Quentaris

'So you're saying your father was famous. Not as famous as the legendary Nathine, I bet! She never lost a client. She — '

But Tulcia was already putting distance between them. Rad cursed beneath his breath and strove to close the gap. Despite his eagerness to match Tulcia's independence, he was coming to realise that without her alliance, he would not have had a hope of accomplishing this adventure.

The girl had already proven herself to be a formidable fighter. Still, without him, she would never have had the opportunity to follow in her father's footsteps — an ambition she had no doubt secretly harboured all her life.

Rad drove his heels into his mount's flanks.

How come she was leading the way?

But foreboding soon sank Rad's spirits like water dousing a fire. It was barely after cockcrow and the eddying Quentaran fog curled around their horses' fetlocks as though chaining them to the dank flagstones. The air itself was damp and rain-laden. The horses, perhaps sensing some ominous portent, seemed reluctant to drag their weary legs across the cobbled streets.

Rad suspected on more than one occasion that they were being followed. Not only by Vindon Nibhelline, but by others too. Rad scoured the rooftops for telltale signs. But no, these people were professionals. The Thieves' Guild had probably kept watch on the stables. Or maybe their pursuers were from the Murderers' Guild?

As they wove their way through the maze-like backstreets and laneways, Rad imagined all kinds of horrific ambushes that lay in wait: poisoned arrows fired from any number of grimy windows, hair-fine wire strung across the lanes to decapit-ate the unwary rider, cutthroats ready to lunge out at them from behind piles of refuge rotting in

the gutters. Alarm spread through him like poison.

He hunched forward and spurred his horse again but the sudden canter was little comfort.

Rad felt that he was hastening to meet his doom.

Although Tulcia knew the surest and safest way to the rift caves, it took them the best part of the morning to reach the thick granite walls manned by the army. It seemed that no thoroughfare was safe from the prying eyes of the Thieves'

Guild and the Nibhelline family, who in fact owned entire slabs of Quentaris.

'Hail!' said Tulcia to the fresh-faced guards.

The guards, in bronzed-leather cuirasses, swag-gered over, appraising the latest adventurers.

There was no set fee for entering the rift caves; each adventurer was assessed as to how much they could afford. The red-haired girl and her street rat companion appeared to be slim pickings.

'Nice horse,' one of them said to Tulcia. The other barely glanced at Rad's old stallion. 'Two gold royals plus your horses if you don't return within a week,' the first one bargained.

The chill air snatched at Tulcia's throat. She

glanced at Rad before replying. 'His horse if we don't return within the week.'

'Wait on!' Rad said. 'Randoff's a purebred. He sired Misty Oak, winner of the Quentaran Cup three times running! Didn't he, Tulcia?'

One of the guards raised an eyebrow. 'When was that?'

At Tulcia's silence, Rad said, 'It was a while ago, maybe. But still, the bloodline is there.'

'This hack hasn't bred in a long time, is too old even for dog food and I doubt a learner's school would waste agistment on him,' the second guard replied. 'Both horses, and two gold royals.'

While Rad glared at her for her deceit, Tulcia closed her eyes in concentration. 'Both our horses if we don't return within three days. That's the best we can do. Gold royals — aiyee! — are out of the question. Where would we get gold royals?'

She squinted and leaned forward in her saddle.

'You're new recruits, aren't you? Perhaps you should call the regulars so we can sort this out.'

The conscripts exchanged fleeting glances.

'Right you are! Sign here,' one of them said, indic-ating an 'x' on a piece of parchment.

Tulcia signed her name where it said 'horses'.

'You must have quite a stable,' she said wryly.

The guard snatched the parchment and quill from her and passed them to Rad for his signature.

'Horses are decoys. When the likes of you release evil from the rifts, we send in the horses first.

While the rift creatures let loose their usual bloodbath, we flank them and attack. Works every time.'

Tulcia blanched. She had better return within three days. If her father's best mare was turned into alien fodder, she had better stay in the rift cave. As for Rad's, it would be on its way to the knackery any day now.

Away you go,' the guard said. 'Three days, mind. Not a moment more. Stay undercover where you can — the Zolka are about.'

'The Zolka!' Tulcia scoffed and grinned at Rad. 'My partner's more than a match for them, hey, Rad?' She laughed at the guard's puzzled look and dug heels to flanks.

Together, the adventurers cantered up the winding path. They passed Elfin Cave, Deadly Cave, Lucky-dip Cave, and a host of others with

outlandish names. They rode past a few adventurers coming back from rifts. Some were wounded and barely alive, others hurried down the paths laden with what Tulcia and Rad as-sumed was treasure.

Soon the path became a thin line of rubble, barely discernible. The last wooden sign they had passed declared that beyond it there were no more caves, only fissures in the rock that led nowhere.

Tulcia unfolded the map, squinting against the rising sun. 'We have precisely two hours to reach the spot marked as the pointer. When the sun reaches its zenith, the Scar will point to the entrance of the rift we're looking for.'

Rad glowered. I've read the cursed map more times than I care to remember. If you don't get a move on, we'll be camping out here overnight!'

Tulcia shook her head. 'That's what I get for going slowly for you.' She clucked her horse into motion and moved off the thin ledge. The action loosed pebbles and Rad's mount shied.

Rad managed to control him and with some difficulty urged the trembling horse up the incline.

When he reached the crest of the next ledge he reined his horse in. Already they were further from the most travelled paths than was advised.

Here, the pebble-strewn pathway emerged onto a barren escarpment. He dismounted.

Rad found Tulcia on her backside, shielding her eyes. 'Take a look at that,' she whispered.

'Such a breathtaking sight you will never see again.'

Rad followed her gaze and almost plunged headlong down the steep decline.

'It helps if you sit,' Tulcia advised him calmly.

Rad plonked himself down, starting a mini-ature avalanche that tumbled out of sight beneath an overhang. Beyond the ridge lay Quentaris. The golden minarets on the Cathedral of the Holy Benefactor gleamed like giant candles; the towers of Lord Chalm's palace stood like sentinels against the forces of evil; the cobblestoned laneways and main thoroughfares of the city appeared to twist and turn, serpent-like — all this rising from beneath a shroud of dissipating fog that was rolling in from the river.

'It's Quentaris,' Rad said simply. 'No-one in

their right mind would come all this way to see it. Not when you can see it close up like we have done every day of our lives.'

Tulcia sighed heavily. 'That's the trouble with boys,' she said. 'No soul. Can't you smell the freshness of the air? Or see the beauty below?

The colouring of the marshlands to the west, the cemetery and the desert beyond to the east.

And surrounding us on the horizons, the states of Hadran, Simesian, Tolrush and Brunt — all shrouded in the purple and orange mist of distance.'

Shading his eyes, Rad faced the sunlit city and beyond, where the horizon curved like a burning scythe. He shrugged. 'I can. But since I have no desire to travel to distant climes, I see no reason why anyone would want to stare at them. Besides, that's what paintings are for.'