The Oathbreaker's Shadow **SAMPLE COMPLETE**

Part 3 - Chapter 2.1

The priest’s voice was slow and monotonous as he led Tarik, Raim’s brother, and his young soon-to-be wife, Solongal, through a series of complicated vows and sermons. Raim had never seen his brother’s betrothed before. They were an odd pairing. His brother was tall and as thin as a stick of bamboo. Khareh used to joke that Tarik had too many bones as so many poked out of his skin at odd angles – especially his Adam’s apple, which jutted out of his throat like a second chin. By contrast Solongal was several inches shorter, with a squashed round face and hooded eyes so small they seemed like little black peas in a sea of rice pudding. They both held long pieces of string in their hands, and at the end of each vow the priest signalled for them to tie a knot in the string to form an elaborate pattern. Slowly they were sealing their fate as Baril.

Tarik was tripping over his words, the letters in his mouth tumbling out as cumbersome as an elephant wading through mud. He wasn’t handling himself well, but anyone would be nervous in the presence of Qatir-bar, the first of all the Baril priests. When Qatir-bar had appeared, Raim had been awed. The man was shaped like a spear, with a gaze that was just as sharp. Around his neck, lying on top of his pristine white robes, was an intricate necklace of knots that represented his Baril vows. But it was his forehead that drew the most attention. It was almost completely flat. Tarik had told him in the past that the Baril spent so much time deep in prayer with their heads on the ground that their foreheads flattened, but Raim hadn’t believed him. He wondered how long it would take for Tarik’s head to get like that. Tarik was so pious, he imagined it wouldn’t be too long.

Raim sat cross-legged on the ground a few rows of people back from where the priest and the couple were standing. Baril marriages were the exception in Darhan. For a man and a woman to promise to remain together and raise a family until death was a foreign concept to most tribespeople. It was a luxury they could not afford. Life on the steppes was hard at the best of times and it was necessary for each person – man or woman – to continue to work for their clans in order for life to continue. When she came of age, a woman would promise herself to her chosen partner and his tribe, and her children would become the tribe’s children, raised by the elders. After the birth, the parents would return to their clan roles – perhaps as soldiers in the army or as weavers or tenders to the animals. When they grew too old to perform their role, they would return to their old tribe as elders to raise the tribe’s children, and so it would continue. On the steppes, idleness wasn’t a sin; it simply wasn’t an option.

Loni was one of the Moloti tribe elders, and he had taken in first Tarik, then Raim and then Raim’s sister, Dharma, as his grandchildren. Tarik and Dharma were Raim’s siblings by adoption, not blood. Raim knew almost nothing about his true parents, not even their clan profession. It didn’t matter; he had his own path to follow. His father could be the lowliest dung collector in Darhan and Raim would still aspire to be Chief Yun.

Beside him, his grandfather was squinting forward to capture every moment of the ceremony. In fact, most of the other people around Raim were leaning forward, but they were falling asleep, not craning their necks in interest. Raim yearned to join the ranks of the dozing. He felt his eyelids droop, heavy with sweat and boredom. But Loni’s hand, hard and bulbous, pressed down on his, snapping him back to attention. Raim scolded himself. He should try to stay awake. It was his brother’s wedding after all.

To keep alert, he ran over his moves for the upcoming Yun trial. He put his recent tussle with Khareh out of his head. It’s only nerves, he told himself. He had allowed himself to get distracted. He wouldn’t let it happen again. Step left, parry, retreat. Forward, strike to the shoulder, swoop down to the knee, protect his chest with the shield. Knock the enemy’s weapon out of his hand, finish with a fatal blow to the neck. Well, without the last move in the actual duel.

An involuntary shiver ran down his neck. Was Lars thinking the same thing? He tried to think back to what he could remember of Lars’s first attempt. Raim had watched from the very front – all the Yun apprentices who had yet to reach their Honour Age stood side by side to form the ring in which the older apprentices fought, to keep the crowds back. Lars had done well – the duel had lasted a long time, with neither side backing down easily. Eventually, though, Lars had tired. That had been his mistake. If it had been Raim in his position, he would have spent all of the next year training to increase his stamina. To avoid the same problem, Raim would have to try to end the duel quickly, beforehe became the one that ran out of fuel.

The priest raised his hands and Raim scrambled to his feet with the rest of the crowd. As he stretched to shake the stiffness from his back and neck, Raim caught sight of Khareh surreptitiously making his way over to where the royal family was seated. Under a carefully erected shelter lay Batar-Khan, the Seer-Queen, the Khan’s advisers and their entourage. The Seer-Queen was barely feigning interest as she was attended by servants clad in pristine white linen, trying to create a breeze in the still, stifling air by waving fans of woven reeds. She was supposed to be one of the most powerful women in the world, with the power to ‘see’ into the future. The Baril were charged with examining dozens of women to find the one who could pass the test and become the Khan’s principal wife. Somehow, a remarkable number of ugly daughters of important warlords turned out to be ‘seers’. When it was Khareh’s turn he would have to marry whomever the Baril chose – and that was an obligation Raim didn’t envy one bit. Heat pricked the back of his neck as he thought of the girl he would be seeing in only a few short days. No, he knew who he would choose if he could. Suddenly, he really envied the breeze Khareh was enjoying.

With the sun at its peak, the royal tent was the only source of shade on the flat ledge about halfway up Mount Dahl. The entire village had climbed the long, circuitous path carved into the mountain in the early morning, when the sun was low and hidden by the mist. But now the sun beat down on the weary audience with its powerful rays. Raim slipped his finger under the edge of his turban, trying to release some of the sweat that glued the cloth to his forehead. The villagers steamed around him, forced to sit on the hard ground outside and endure the entire ceremony with the sunshine reflecting off the smooth, flat rock.

Finally, the moment of the ceremony Raim had been waiting for arrived. The moment when the apprentice Tarik-en-bar was to become Tarik-bar: a Baril priest. Raim stood up on his tiptoes to see over the crowd. Tarik’s length of promise string was tied in a complicated web of knots, each of which was an oath to the Baril to obey their laws.

Qatir-bar turned to Tarik. ‘Tarik-en-bar, son of the Moloti tribe, this string is your word. And with this string do you vow to join your life with Solongal-en-barja, daughter of the Temu tribe, until death takes you?’

‘I vow this,’ said Tarik, all traces of nerves vanished and replaced with a calm solemnity. In one swift movement, he knotted one end of his string to Solongal’s.

‘Let this knot be your vow to Solongal-en-barja, and may you never witness the flames of your betrayal.’

Thank you for reading this exclusive excerpt from THE OATHBREAKER'S SHADOW! I'll be posting more every Tuesday and Friday in the runup to the publication of the paperback on the 22nd of May. You can buy also the book now in hardback and ebook editions - check the Introduction for details.

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