The Oathbreaker's Shadow **SAMPLE COMPLETE**

Part 4 - Chapter 2.2

The priest then turned to Solongal, who repeated the vows back to Tarik. She in turn knotted her string to Tarik’s and pulled the knot tight. They were promised together, now and for always.

Qatir pulled a blade out of his robes and sliced through the piece of string joining the two circles of knots together. He placed one loop around Tarik’s neck and pronounced him Tarik-bar.

Raim bristled and his shoulder blades tightened under his skin. The knotted necklace gave his brother an instant authority, making him seem stronger and wiser. Raim, despite being three years younger than Tarik, had always been the leader of their family. Tall and muscular, he towered over his eighteen-year-old scrawny sibling. While Raim spent nearly every hour training to join the Yun, Tarik learned to read and write, preparing for a life of quiet domesticity and study. But now it was different. Tarik-bar had purpose. Tarik-bar had a knot.

Instinctively, Raim clasped a hand to his left wrist. Underneath the heavy cloth of his tunic, so small he couldn’t feel it – although he knew it was there – was a tiny indigo bracelet he had worn on his wrist since before he could remember.

The bracelet had the tiniest knot in it, almost imperceptible unless you ran your fingers over the string and noticed the tiny bump along the way. It had grown with him as his muscles expanded from Yun training; the bracelet was a part of him. Sometimes he paid it as little mind as a birthmark. Other times – like now – it felt as heavy as an iron clamp. Raim swallowed hard and repeated his mantra back to himself: he hadn’t reached his Honour Age yet, so whatever promise the knot held – if it did hold a promise – it couldn’t mean anything. He let the moment of fear pass from his mind, then pushed his left sleeve up until the bracelet was visible. Just an insignificant thing. A tiny bit of string. It meant nothing.

He looked up. Tarik-bar and Solongal-barja turned their backs to the crowd and walked towards the gaping black hole that led deep into the mountain, following the Baril priest. Sound seemed to follow them into the cave, until all that was left outside was an unearthly silence. No one breathed. No one moved.

The silence was shattered by the clatter of a horse’s hooves. A Darhan soldier thundered round the corner – a scout from the outlying borders. Normally scouts wore camouflaged clothing, but this one had changed into the sky-blue turban of a messenger. Raim’s thoughts immediately turned to war, and he wondered who had invaded Darhan this time. What else could be important enough to interrupt the Khan during a solemn Baril wedding?

Men and women, caught in the soldier’s path, yelled in protest as they were forced to leap out of the way of the charging stallion, heading straight for the royal tent.

Raim could see that Batar-Khan was fuming with anger that the ancient ceremony had been interrupted. The Khan snapped his fingers at his most senior adviser, Altan, who immediately stepped forward and barked at the man, ‘What is the meaning of this?’

The soldier leaped off his horse and bowed low at the feet of the adviser, without lifting his eyes from the ground. ‘Please, Altan-leder, I must speak with the Batar-Khan in private.’

The Great Khan sensed the urgency in the man’s voice – the entire congregation could. He hesitated for a moment, then with a regal wave of his wrist, he ushered the man towards him as the servants dropped a curtain over the tent’s entrance to separate the Khan from the congregation.

Raim watched Khareh closely throughout the commotion. Khareh signed a message to Raim in the language he had invented for them after learning in one of his lessons that the savage desert nomads, the Alashan, used sign language to communicate while hunting, so as not to spook their prey.

‘If they can do it, you bet that we can,’ Khareh had said as he tried to invent enough signs to keep their conversations interesting. There had to be signs for at least the most basic of words and phrases: yes, no, you’re on your own now. ‘And just think! That way we can talk to each other without any of these stone-heads knowing.’ Khareh was always trying to think about ways to get around his bodyguards.

Back on the mountain ledge, Khareh repeated the message, and Raim decoded: ‘Meet me in the glade in ten minutes.’ He signed back that he understood and Khareh disappeared behind the curtain with his uncle.

Suddenly, Raim remembered his brother and swung back round to look at the mountain. But the entrance to the cave was empty; his brother now a sworn entrant into the Baril.

Raim swallowed down a lump in his throat, which threatened to escape as a tear. He felt like applauding Tarik’s achievement. He felt like yelling a goodbye into the mouth of the cave. He felt like running after his brother and making him promise to visit. But he did none of those things, and simply lowered his head to the ground, allowing himself to be swept along with the rest of the tribe who were beginning to descend from the mountain ledge.

His brother had a knotted purpose now, a clan. And soon, Raim would have a purpose of his own. He was going to join the Yun, and leave his old life behind for ever.

 Raim would never see his brother again.

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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