Darkburn Book 1: Fall by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

“We can’t fight an army,” Maeneb objected.

“No. We’ll stay secret. But we need to know where he is and where they’re headed.

Maybe together we can do something. Tomorrow evening, or as soon as possible the day after, we will return and rendezvous. Where?”

Rothir looked around, and nodded at a craggy hillock crowned with one lone stunted tree.

“Foot of that greythorn,” he said. Wheeling his horse round, he gave them a brief wave of salute before cantering away. Apprehension spurred him on. There was no time to waste.

He followed a farm-track to the eastern upland. When he turned to check his orientation and to fix the rendezvous landmark in his mind, the other two were already a fair distance west, moving rapidly away from him. Nothing else stirred in the landscape below except the drifts of dirty smoke from the places they had left. A deserted country; like so many. He turned back to the east.

Although it felt strange to be so abruptly solitary again, it was in some ways a relief. It was good to ride at his own speed without halts and distractions. The farm track soon disappeared, but he headed for the pall of smoke that veiled the horizon, and after a few miles he came across the signs of many trampling feet and cart-wheels.

Now with the trail clear before him he could gallop as fast as Narba was prepared to.

Although treeless, this was not as bleak and hostile a stretch of moorland as the Iarad had been: the going was firm, and the trampled trail impossible to lose. In fact, he could see it stretching for a full two miles ahead between the clumps of heather, its purple blooms now turned to rust.

There was little but the undulation of the land and a few wandering sheep to obscure his view or hinder his swift progress. He had to tell himself to slow down from time to time, to check for anything that he might miss: broken carts, abandoned bodies.

He saw neither, although this apparently blank land was, once he looked, full of the small signs of life. Narba’s hooves flushed little brown larklets from the heather, along with hares and the occasional squirming fangol; and every time he slowed, he heard over the harsh breathing of his horse the chuckling alarm call of a brindlecock. Not always the same one presumably. Now and then he would inadvertently send one running, its neck stretched out, its stubby wings trying to haul it off the ground. Brindlecocks were so well camouflaged that they were invisible until they moved. A cloak that colour would be useful, he thought; could a weaver reproduce that random pattern of grey and rust? He would have to ask Yaret.

But then he remembered that he would not see Yaret again. The recollection was like a bucketful of water in the face – cold and sobering. It was stupid to keep thinking of her: and quite unnecessary. She was safe. A temporary friend, no more. He set his mind back on the trail.

Soon afterwards he came upon something which sobered him still further. A day or two ago it had been a tranquil hamlet of low-roofed cottages on the far edge of the upland. Now it was a set of smoking ruins.

He approached them warily – an irreverent larklet singing overhead – in case any of the perpetrators were still here. Heat radiated strongly from the buildings. The only inhabitants were the scattered corpses lying in between the houses, barely recognisable as having once been human. Not Arguril. They had worn ear-rings.

Rothir straightened up and looked away and said his prayer. He had said it briefly in his head for the first corpse they had found along the road; but after that he had thought chiefly of vengeance. The memory of Yaret’s murmurings brought a sense of remorse that he had not said it for the others.

So this time, although there was nobody to hear, he spoke the words aloud. An acknowledgement of what had happened in this desolate place. An apology that he could not prevent it. He commended the dead to the power of the stars, while overhead the larklet still kept singing, no longer irreverent but offering its tremulous note of hope – if hope could exist for the dead. Rothir remounted and rode on with cold determination.

An hour later he caught his first sight of the stonemen. By now he had left the stretch of higher land behind and had descended to a more fertile region scattered with gnarled fruit trees and small cottages. Despite their thick stone walls, all of the latter were burnt out, roofless, full of ash and rubble whose heat was like an open oven. An egg thrown on the stones would have fried and shrivelled up in seconds. There were many corpses, all charred so badly that if Arguril had been one of them Rothir would not have been able to tell. He had to trust that he was not.

No bustling brindlecocks ran here: no larklets sang. Only the crows circled, and even they saw nothing in the ruins worth flying down for. But as he glanced up at the crows he became aware of movement through the smoke; a change in the middle distance, perhaps four miles away.

So Rothir spoke his prayer again and then rode on, more cautiously this time, shutting away his anger and anxiety so that they would not distract him. Behind his back, the sun was going down. It illumined his path with a swelling glow of golden fire, as if to show him what had lately happened here. Despite his resolution he could not help imagining the sudden blaze becoming an inferno as the darkburns rushed through the hamlet: the fleeing villagers thrust back into the flames by surrounding stonemen.

His shadow lengthened, a black ghost in a golden land that was fading gradually to grey. It was just after sunset when he found the stonemen’s camp. The army had stopped, not at another hamlet, but at a much more sizeable village – almost a small town – that was surrounded by hedged fields.

Rothir halted Narba in a stand of trees some distance from the nearest buildings.

Dismounting and unstrapping his pack, he instructed his horse to stay there in the trees.

Yaret’s donkeys came unbidden to his mind… Narba too would get the gist. He did not tether the horse; if he himself were caught, Narba should have the chance to get away. He had the sense and instinct to go and look for the other Riders.

So Rothir left him, to creep up a concealing rise and slink behind the hedges. He skulked past fields of sweetroot leaves and barley stalks to a patch of thorny undergrowth that was close enough to the camp for him to look down at it through the thorns and assess the stonemen’s numbers.

Perhaps a hundred people were in sight, although not all appeared to wear red tunics. No doubt there were many others that he could not see. The carts were clearly visible, however: about a dozen of them, drawn up to the side of a group of low stone barns at the town’s edge.

For all the buildings of this place were still intact. If I were a stoneman deciding to pitch camp, he thought, I’d raid the village first. Kill the inhabitants, eat their animals, steal their food and use their shelter. Fire the buildings when I leave.

He felt revulsion at this putting himself inside a stoneman’s head. But it was necessary.

Now he checked the wind and studied his surroundings while the light was still sufficient. In some of the narrow hedge-lined fields, cattle stamped or ran, turning in small, panicky stampedes, upset by the nearness of the darkburns. The carts were drawn up in a circle and were faintly smoking. Or perhaps it was the wet ground under them that steamed.

It was still too light for him to try to get any closer. So he watched and waited in his patch of undergrowth. Not until the dusk was growing deep did he finally move. Then he made his careful way down the border of a field he had noted, where he could creep close to the village in the shelter of a high double hedge. The stink and aura of the darkburns became noticeable, and then unpleasant.

At its end nearest to the village, the hedge was tall and thick, a tight double row of beech: he burrowed into it. The leaves crackled against him horribly for a second but once he was in the centre there was enough space for him to crouch and spy through to the other side.

He was at a junction, where an earthen track met the cobbled road that ran into the town, with more paths leading off it. In the twilight he saw small but sturdy houses, built of wood and stone and undefended by any encircling walls. It was an ordinary little country townlet, which had probably never thought it needed any defending walls until today.

Groups of stonemen patrolled the streets which were empty of living inhabitants but littered with the dead; in one spot he could see corpses piled in a careless heap. The stonemen were still plundering houses for food, kicking open doors and charging in, to emerge minutes later with armfuls of bread or bulging sacks.

One stoneman entered a house opposite him: immediately there came a yell. A man – a grey-haired villager – dived out of the open door into the street, followed by the shouting stoneman. The villager turned and stabbed his pursuer with a short knife before two more stonemen dragged him off and disarmed him. The fight was over very quickly.

But the stonemen did not kill the hapless villager. They shoved him down the road a little way past the junction where Rothir was hiding, and there tied him to a tree. There was some consultation between them.

Meanwhile another stoneman went up to his bleeding comrade and turned him over roughly; the man was evidently dead. Somewhat to Rothir’s surprised disgust, the stoneman did not make any gesture of regret or pity towards his fellow-soldier. He did not even bother to move the corpse aside.

Instead he took from his belt what looked like a pair of pliers, and applied them to the blood-spattered victim’s head, prising out the stones set in the skull. It seemed to take considerable effort. He dropped the stones inside a metal box: Rothir could hear the series of small clunks. As the stoneman pulled at the last stone, it flew from the pliers’ grip and bounced across the road, landing on the grassy verge not far from the hedge where Rothir was concealed.

With a muttered curse, the stoneman crossed the road to look for it, poking around in the weeds and grass some distance from where the stone had actually fallen. He was a mere three yards from Rothir, who kept entirely still. If the stoneman had looked up and paid attention he could have seen him even in the dusk. But he did not. After a moment or two he gave up the search and went back, grumbling, to his companions.

And then there was a stir among the carts drawn up on the north side of the village, to Rothir’s left. Movement, stonemen’s voices, and a heavy clang: one of the cages had been opened.

A minute later, apprehension gripped him. Down the road there came a darkburn rushing towards him in a whirl of heat and shadow.

Rothir froze. Three following stonemen waved the darkburn on, driving it before them.

Although they held long whips they did not use them.

Why were they doing this? Had they freed the darkburn to hunt down any intruders? Fear wrapped itself round Rothir. Part of it was the rapidly growing horror of the darkburn’s aura; but part was far more rational. If the darkburn were to sense his presence it would fling itself towards the hedge, setting both it and him burning. He swiftly planned his escape route were that to happen – at the same time knowing that escape would be unlikely. If he ran he would be seen at once. If he did not run he would be burnt alive.

So don’t move until it’s absolutely necessary, he told himself. The darkburn hurtled on towards him. Still motionless, he felt the wave of sudden heat ahead of it, as if an oven had been opened. But he held his ground.

Just before the heat became too fierce, the darkburn swerved aside. It veered away from him, moving in a wide arc around his section of the hedge. It struck Rothir that it might be avoiding, not him, but the place where the lost stone had fallen.

And then, as it whirled on down the track, the darkburn sensed another prey. It gained speed. In a blurring haze of darkness it flung itself at the tree and the man tied to it. There was a hideous sound and a searing blaze of heat. Rothir turned his head, but he was unable to shut out the crackle and roar of flames. He hoped it would be quick.

That it had been extremely quick was evident when he raised his head again some minutes later: both tree and man were burnt to white-hot embers. Smoke billowed up and was lost in the darkening sky. The darkburn was being herded back towards the carts: he watched carefully to see how the stonemen did it.

Again, they did not use their whips. Although one bore a spear it was not needed either.

As they moved towards the darkburn, it veered away from them.

And now for the first time Rothir thought he understood their power over the darkburns. It lay in the stones around their heads. He did not know how that might work, but it surely must be so.

The darkburn was driven back into its cage: although he could no longer see it, he heard the clash of an iron door being slammed. Next there came a bellow, as an ox was herded past him by another pair of stonemen, to disappear up the street into the village. From the subsequent noises he suspected it was killed and butchered on the spot. The glow and sparks of a fire showed where it was being cooked – probably in the village square.

The stonemen in his sight-line hurried off towards the fire. Gradually the smell of roasting ox and mutton mingled with the darkburn stench, not doing a great deal to improve it.

By now the blue twilight was as thick as water. The sparking fires – for two others had sprung up within the town – were bright by contrast, making the darkness elsewhere even darker. Rothir could see no stonemen now. They had set no sentries, evidently feeling themselves safe from attack.

Well, they had a point, he thought grimly. While there was still a modicum of light, he eased himself out of the hedge.

First he looked for the lost stone. He had noted carefully where it fell and even in the dusk it did not take too long for his fingers to alight upon it. It was unmistakable: a long, worked flint, or similar rock, rounded at one end and sharpened to a fierce point at the other. Shreds of flesh still clung to it. He wiped it on the grass and put it in his pocket.

Then he moved silently towards the carts, using the abandoned houses as cover. When he could see the whole group of carts, he counted them: twelve, of which eight seemed to hold cages. Although they were black against the indigo dusk of their surroundings, the bars of the central ones glowed darkly red. These carts were drawn up in a rough circle, while those

without cages stood a little further back; he thought that they most likely held supplies. He crawled towards them through the grass until the heat became uncomfortable. Much closer, and it would be unbearable.

Yet someone had to bear it. Men – not stonemen – sat slumped and either tied or shackled by the legs, in three long rows. These were men enslaved to pull the carts: that much seemed clear. Probably they had been collected at various villages along the way, the stonemen capturing any young men before they killed the rest.

Again he counted. Just over fifty men: so four men for each cart, plus a few to spare. Two red-clad stonemen sat nearby, beside a pair of spluttering torches, eating greedily and flicking idle whips at the captive men from time to time.

Rothir scanned the rows of huddled prisoners carefully in the almost non-existent light, trying to see if any of them looked like Arguril. It was too dark. He could not tell.

He contemplated creeping up to kill the guards – he could dispatch at least one before they would even know that he was there; but they were too far apart for him to kill both swiftly, and the second might sound the alarm before he fell. Then he would still have to hunt for Arguril, unshackle him – if he was amongst the captives – and whether he was there or not, fight off the hundred or more enemies that would soon come running.

Even as he dismissed the idea, one of the captive men began to wail. It was some poor villager calling out the names of his lost family, who were most likely lying slaughtered in the street. Rothir found his fist was clenched.

“Shut the noise!” yelled one of the guards. “You want to end up like the one just down the road? Shut up or we’ll feed you to the burners!”

The man kept wailing. The guard stood up, picked up a torch and strode towards the line of shackled men to give one of them a vicious lash with the long whip.

There was a sudden clatter and a heavy thump from the nearest cage. Rothir saw a thing of darkness hurl itself against the glowing bars – away from the stoneman, who had evidently got too close to it. The stoneman stopped and moved away from the cage before he lashed the prisoner again.

Rothir measured that distance, between stoneman and cage, with his eye. About six yards.

As the stoneman strolled back towards his seat, he tripped over something and swore. There was the rattle of a metal chain; that must be what was shackling the rows of captive men together.

The stoneman swung his torch round briefly, to allow him to release his foot. The torchlight shone upon the nearest prisoner, lighting up a brow, a nose, a face – and Rothir knew that he saw Arguril.

Chapter 32

Retreating silently, Rothir followed the line of hedges away from the village in what was now almost complete darkness. He found his way back to the clump of trees where Narba waited.

The horse stamped and snorted, seeming impatient for action.

“Rest now,” Rothir told him. “You’ll be driven hard enough tomorrow.” Narba nuzzled at his hand for food although he had nothing to give him. He had little enough for himself, but he sat underneath a tree and ate a third of what he had. Then he drew up his knees and rested his arms on them, planning.

His plans were all conditional. If this, if that. He could be sure of nothing. Perhaps he could be fairly sure of two things: one which was hopeful, and one not. The clank of metal chains holding the captive men was not a hopeful sign. His sword could cut through rope but would not bite through metal. Unless some axe were conveniently lying by, he would not be able to free Arguril swiftly without the shackles’ key. While the guards must hold the keys, he could not get at them without raising the alarm.

On the other hand, the prisoners could hardly pull the carts while they were shackled. If the stonemen were to move off the next morning, the prisoners’ bonds would have to be removed. That might be his best chance of rescuing Arguril – if he could keep the stonemen at bay for long enough.

He sat and made his plans, going through different scenarios, and then dozed for a while, waking at frequent intervals. When he woke a final time before the dawn, he dared to sleep no longer. At the first glimmer in the eastern sky he saddled Narba, feeling for the straps, and then led him across the fields towards the road.

Crossing the cobbled road was the most dangerous part of this short journey. He lifted Narba’s feet, one by one, and tied around his hooves the cloths that he kept in his pack for this purpose. Narba was used to the procedure and did not kick.

Then they crossed the road almost silently. Rothir led the horse over to the group of low barns near which the carts stood. Between two of the barns, as he had hoped, there was sufficient space for them to wait. There they were shielded on three sides: and although he felt horribly exposed from the fourth side, that nearest the road, there were no stonemen at this end of the village to see him. The stonemen were all within the centre, where the fires had been lit and the ox had been roasted. He could hear no feet or voices and hoped that no-one would decide to walk down here just yet.

From his stirrups he could easily climb onto the sloping roof of one of the barns and peer over it at the shadowy camp where the carts stood. When he did so he saw nothing stirring, so he slid down the roof onto Narba’s back again and waited. He felt for the stone in his pocket: checked his sword; rehearsed various possibilities in his mind.

It was another quarter-hour or so before he heard any movement. He climbed up to peer over the roof again. Although the sun had not yet risen, the sky was now pale enough for him to see the carts and lines of shackled men quite distinctly. He could pick out Arguril, sitting with his head bowed. Stonemen began to stroll out from the upper end of the village, walking towards the lines of prisoners, who lay on the ground or sat slumped and dejected.

“Up! Up! Wake up! No food until you’ve done the first five miles!”

Whips were wielded, and kicks given. A stoneman bent down to the captive at the end of one row: his legs were unshackled, and along with the next man he was pushed over towards a cart. Rothir could now see chains dangling from the carts’ handles: the man was shackled to one of these by the wrist.

He realised that he would have to be quick. Another two prisoners were already having their metal bonds unlocked. They stood up stiffly, shaking their limbs before they were shoved over to the carts at swordpoint.

Arguril would be one of the next pair. Rothir watched tensely from his roof. He had to get this timing right.

The stoneman bent down. As soon as the shackle began to fall away from Arguril’s leg Rothir threw himself onto the horse and galloped out of hiding.

Narba needed no urging: he rode straight at the stonemen. He was used to battle, and even seemed to relish it. But Rothir steered him away from the men, towards the ring of carts with their cargoes of searing darkness. He felt the growing sense of dread objectively this time, as if it were nothing to do with him.

He heard shouts and saw stonemen running towards him. By now the heat of the darkburns was beginning to bite. He steered Narba in an arc; and as the horse swung round to face the stonemen, he raised his arm and flung the stone into the middle of the ring of carts.

At once the nearest carts began to move and sway. There was the thump and crash of darkburns hitting iron bars. Several of the carts rocked to and fro with increasing violence: one, more top-heavy than the rest, leaned so far over that it began to slowly topple.

Stonemen were running around the field, yelling and waving axes, faces distorted underneath the grey lines of paint: but they were not organised. Some ran to the carts, making matters worse by getting too close. The swaying and thumps increased, followed by a thunderous crash as the most unstable cart fell right over on its side. Other stonemen were charging at Rothir with their axes raised.

Ignoring them, he galloped straight at Arguril, who had had the wit to step away from the line of prisoners unobserved amidst the alarm, and who was ready.

As he galloped past Arguril Narba barely had to slow. Rothir reached down and summoning his strength hoisted Arguril up by his belt; he felt the young man grab and slither his way onto the horse’s back behind him. Then Narba was away, scarcely breaking the rhythm of his hooves. Rothir blessed his horse fervently as he rode. Had he ever had a better?

“Hold on,” he said over his shoulder. This was a risk, but he felt he had to take it. With Arguril clinging round his waist, he wheeled Narba round again and back, between two of the lines of shackled men – all on their feet now, staring – and straight towards the guard who still held his bunch of keys in one hand. With the other he brandished his sword, shouting incoherent threats.

Rothir swung his own sword as he rode and swiped the weapon from the stoneman’s hand.

With a second stroke, the hand holding the keys was parted from the guard’s arm to sail over the heads of the shackled men. He saw one of the prisoners catch the keys as they fell.

That was the best that he could do for them. He rode on through a group of stonemen, slashing his sword from side to side without compunction. One man who tried to grab the reins fell under Narba’s thudding hooves. Arguril grabbed Rothir’s knife from his belt to stab at another until he too let go.

And then they were through and galloping across the road and up the hill. Most of the stonemen were still near the carts, shouting furiously.

As Rothir glanced back he saw why. A darkburn had escaped from the fallen cage: the stonemen were trying to herd it back behind the bars. Instead it rushed away from them in a smoky blur and threw itself towards the nearest line of prisoners.

His sense of heady triumph was immediately dispelled. Grimly he continued to gallop away from the screams and chaos while Arguril clung on behind him. He hated himself now, hated what he had just done despite the fact that he could not have rescued all the other men.

To attempt it would be suicidal. Reason told him that. Yet he felt that somehow he should have found a way. Neither he nor Arguril spoke.

Narba laboured valiantly uphill and then down towards the trees, heading south and west with Rothir hardly needing to direct him. Although a few stonemen had started running in pursuit, without horses of their own they had no chance of catching Narba and were soon left far behind.

Once the camp was out of sight, Rothir was able to pull on the reins, and as his horse slowed, finally to turn and speak.

“Arguril. All right?”

“Rothir. Good to see you.”

For a moment they gripped each other’s arms. He thought that Arguril did not look too bad considering what he must have been through. “Any damage?”

“Not much. They didn’t beat me; they needed me and the other men to be fit enough to pull those carts. Dreadful work.”

“So I imagine.”

“Exhausting, hot, and soul-destroying. One man went mad, I think. They fed him to a darkburn. But I’m all right. I’m hungry.”

Normally Rothir would have made a joke of this, for Arguril was always hungry. Now he just said soberly, “Look in the saddle-bag. Have anything that’s there.”

They rode on, Arguril tearing at bread and chewing behind him. Eventually he swallowed and said, “Rothir. That was horrible, I know. But you couldn’t have done anything about the darkburn that escaped.”

“Maybe not; but I caused it.”

“Did you? How?”

“I caused the carts to overturn, by using one of the enemy’s stones.” Tersely Rothir explained what he had surmised about the stones and how he had put his guess to use. “It was the only way I could think of to get you out,” he finished. “I just didn’t foresee the consequences.”

“Those men would have been fed to the darkburns anyway,” said Arguril, “once they wore out. Me too. That was what they did every time a man collapsed. They’d just replace us at the next farm or village.”

“That village where I found you… What exactly happened there?”

“The stoneman army arrived there yesterday, about mid-day. We were already almost worn out from pulling the carts: I don’t know if the stoneman commander had decided beforehand to stop there, or just saw it as convenient. There was no attempt at stealth.”

Arguril took another bite of bread, possibly to delay the moment when he would have to speak again.

“The men-folk all came running out,” he said, “armed and ready to accost the stonemen, but they had encircled the town. They set a darkburn loose to race through the streets. It only started one or two small fires, but it caused panic. When people tried to run out of the town the stonemen killed them. They took a number of the younger men as prisoners, to pull the carts: picked off all the others as they fled. Women and children too. Marched through the town to find any that were hiding. It was not good.”

Rothir shook his head. A prayer flowed through his mind, tied to a curse. Neither seemed adequate.

“You said exhausted prisoners were fed to the darkburns,” he remarked after a moment.

“Is that why the darkburns chase humans, then, do you think? For food? We’re just fuel?”

“I expect so. What else could it be? Either that or a pure instinct to kill. When you’ve seen them burn a body up…”

“I have,” said Rothir, and both the men again fell silent. Eventually he added, “Parthenal and Maeneb will await us on the far side of the highland. They’ll be glad to see you.”

“And I to see them,” said Arguril. “You must have ridden a long way, Rothir. I’ll get down now and walk, to give Narba a rest. I believe… that they killed Vela some miles from the Thore.”

“Yes, they did.” Rothir did not elaborate. But there was one thing more he needed to ask.

“Arguril, what happened to the scroll?”

“It’s stuffed down a rabbit-hole, near to where they caught me. I’d just woken up when I heard them coming. I didn’t even have time to get to Vela – I only just had time to hide the scroll. It’ll still be there if nothing’s eaten it.”

“So they didn’t know who you were. Well done. Get back on the horse, Arguril; I’ll walk.”

In the end they both walked, and took occasional turns to ride, past the burnt out farm at the edge of the moor and up onto the higher ground. As they walked Rothir related all that had happened in the days since Arguril had left the other Riders, before they reached the Thore, and had galloped off on his lone errand. Some of it he found inexplicably difficult to say.

But he said it, and as they trudged over the empty uplands, disturbing occasional brindlecocks, the peaceful everyday landscape seemed to calm some of the tumult in his mind. He made Arguril mount the horse again, although he himself was bone-tired now, and thought the lone tree of the rendezvous would never come into sight. Finally it did, however, and he dragged himself towards it.

At first he thought there was nobody there. But as they drew closer the long figure of Parthenal unwound itself from a rock where he had made himself invisible, and greeted him.

“You found him, then.”

Parthenal’s tone was terse, but he was grinning. He embraced first Arguril and then Rothir, who dropped to the ground beneath the twisted tree and lay there unwilling to move until he had to.

“Where’s Maeneb?” asked Arguril.

“Not far away. She’s taken the horses to water.”

“Ah, water,” said Arguril longingly, and Parthenal threw him a waterskin.

Before long Maeneb appeared; and then Rothir and Arguril each had to tell his tale in full.

“So the stones around their heads are a deterrent to the darkburns,” said Parthenal.

“It appears so,” answered Rothir. “Though how that works, I couldn’t tell you.”

“It’s a shame you couldn’t keep one.”

“Yes. But next time we pass a dead stoneman, feel free to prise one from his head.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” said Parthenal grimly. “Dead or alive.”

“What did you two discover when you went after the larger group of stonemen?” Rothir asked. “Anything of interest?”

“Much the same as you,” said Maeneb. “We found three burnt out hamlets. And we saw the stonemen’s camp. We hid nearby overnight and watched as they moved out this morning.

They’re moving fast. Roaming the country with their darkburns, looking for villages to terrify and sack – almost at random, it would seem.”

“A campaign of terror.”

“Perhaps. Although they are working their way gradually towards Outer Kelvha.”

“And then into Kelvha itself?” asked Arguril.

Maeneb blew out her cheeks. “I can’t imagine that. Take on Kelvha? They’d have to be mad.”

“They are mad,” said Parthenal. “They’re pumped full of ethlon and whatever else, and they don’t much care if they live or die, so long as they die fighting.”

Rothir looked into the distance, frowning. “That group I followed puzzled me,” he said.

“I’m not familiar with all the furthest parts of those northern reaches, but surely there’s little

there for them to sack and burn? Working round to an attack on Kelvha is one thing. But why are they heading for the empty lands up north and east? They’re still two hundred miles even from the fur-trading outposts. It’s just a waste of effort.”

“They may not know that,” Maeneb pointed out. “When they find nothing, they may turn west again and head for Kelvha.”

“True,” admitted Rothir. “I did think of riding off somewhere to warn people that the stonemen were coming – but I didn’t know where to ride or who to warn.”

“I felt the same,” said Maeneb in a low voice. “If we’d kept going, perhaps we could have overtaken our half of the stoneman army and reached the next town in time to raise the alarm.”

“And perhaps we couldn’t,” countered Parthenal. “Our horses are close to exhaustion as it is.”

“And now we’re one horse down,” said Arguril.

“Ideas?”

“Sleep,” said Rothir.

“Find the nearest inn,” said Maeneb, “buy a horse, go after the western group of darkburns and try to get ahead of them to spread the warning. No point in chasing after the ones going north to nowhere.”

“The nearest inn will be the Wyedown. That’s two days’ ride,” objected Rothir. Although the Wyedown was the obvious place for them to go, he wasn’t sure quite how he felt about visiting the inn just now. Normally he’d welcome it. But then he reflected that Gwenna might no longer be there anyway.

“Find the nearest inn,” said Parthenal, “buy a horse – if we can afford one that has four legs – tell them to send warning to Outer Kelvha by the fastest messenger they have, and then go home to Thield. The message is the important thing. We don’t have to carry it ourselves.

And we do need to report to Huldarion, as soon as we can.”

“All right. I vote for that.”

They all voted for that in the end. And after a chilly and uncomfortable night beneath the twisted tree – during which Rothir’s sleep was continually broken by the memory of screams

– the Wyedown Inn was where they went.

Chapter 33

On the long ride to the inn they passed an increasing number of farmsteads and small villages, but thankfully all appeared unharmed by darkburns. The stonemen had not marched through this land, and when the Riders stopped to speak to farmers working in the fields, their questions about a red-clad army were met with incredulity. On Maeneb’s trying to explain the nature of the army, the incredulity grew greater.

“If the stonemen do come here, these people will be totally unprepared,” she told the others in dismay.

“We’ll just have to hope the stonemen won’t decide to come this way.”

“But whichever way they go, the people will be unprepared!”

“Then the best thing we can do is send a messenger,” said Rothir, “to prepare them. Even if one of us were to go on alone, our horses are too tired now.” The three horses had taken it in turns to carry Arguril; when it was Maeneb’s turn, she simply swapped horses with Parthenal and let him and Arguril go up on Shoda. So all the steeds were weary, no less than their riders.

They coaxed them on, alternately cantering and plodding through a rolling countryside that was tamer than any they had passed through for a while. This was the eastern edge of Outer Kelvha and, it might be said by some – not Rothir – the start of civilisation.

It was not simply that he preferred the wilderness or the semi-populated landscapes further east. He did not particularly care for Kelvha, although the demands of the last twelve years had often called him there.

But Rothir had always liked the rambling, friendly Wyedown Inn on the border. It was well over a year – more like two – since he had last been there, and he feared the Wyedown might be full. It was a popular place, because it lay so close to the great road that led west to Inner Kelvha, and usually held an ever-changing crowd of travellers and traders. He thought that if it turned out to be full he would sleep in a barn if necessary; just so long as he could sleep. Both mind and body ached for rest.

As they drew closer to the inn, however, it was clear that although they had arrived quite late in the day there would be no need to seek a barn. On crossing the wide Kelvha Road they saw no other travellers in either direction. Only a couple of farmers’ carts stood in the Wyedown’s yard; and when they went round to the stables, their horses more than doubled the number of inmates there. The sprawling inn itself, which had always been a cheerful, bustling place, looked more run-down than Rothir remembered.

While they were in the privacy of the stables, Maeneb retrieved her money from an inner pocket. They all carried coins secreted in various pockets in their gear and clothing, but Maeneb had been handed most of Tiburé’s share before they parted. This she now gave to Parthenal.

“Go and find us a horse. You’ll be the best at picking one out,” she said.

Parthenal gave a resigned sigh. “All right. Order me some food, and a decent ale,” he told them as he took the coins. “I shouldn’t be too long.”

In the end he took well over an hour. He walked into the taproom when Rothir was already half-way through a somewhat disappointing mutton stew, and on his second mug of an ale that was just about half-decent. There were less than a dozen people in the place all told, and the landlord was not his usual chatty self. The Riders’ voices seemed to echo amidst the empty shadows cast by the lamplight.

“It used to be better than this here,” said Rothir, as he signalled for food and another tankard to be brought to Parthenal. “Did you manage to find a horse with four legs?”

“Eventually. I had quite a search. All the good horses have recently been sold to Kelvha.”

“But that’s where they will have come from in the first place, surely?”

“And now Kelvha’s buying them back. But not at full price. They’re driving some hard bargains, and the local people are having to accept because they need the money. Things have been tough here, apparently. Failed crops, and traders not appearing as they should.”

“That’s what old Bell the landlord told me too, when I asked him to find me a messenger,”

said Rothir. “He said there’d be no shortage of candidates if the money was right. So what did you pay for your horse?”

“Sixteen. The best one I could find – she’s a bit long in the tooth, but she looks like a tough old nag. She’ll carry Arguril home all right.”

“She sounds enticing. Maybe you should ride her home yourself, and I’ll have Alda,”

offered Arguril, who was on his third mug of ale and was now relaxing nicely, Rothir was glad to see. Maeneb had declined to eat with them but had taken her meal away with her to her room. As he spoke, Parthenal’s meal was carried over to their table.

“Rothir!” exclaimed the serving-woman as she put it down. “How are you? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen you in the Wyedown.”

“Nearly two years,” said Rothir, pulling himself to his feet. “Hallo, Gwenna. I hoped I’d find you here.” In fact he had half-hoped. He knew he ought to hope. But he was so tired.

“Gwenna is the landlady’s sister,” he explained to the other two. He introduced them and then watched her exchanging pleasantries. He could see Parthenal already charming her, as he could so ably do when in the mood.

And although Gwenna too looked tired, to his eyes, she was as lively as ever, with the easy friendliness that had first attracted him to her. Or had it been she who had approached him? It seemed to him that that had been the case, on looking back to his first visit six or seven years ago. His visits since had been infrequent; but Gwenna had always greeted him with the same openness and pleasure. It made things very easy.

This evening was no exception. Soon she was telling the Riders all about the cancelled autumn fair, the strange travellers on the road, the troop of twenty Kelvhans in full war-gear who had treated the serving staff like dirt and left mud all over the floor.

“But that’s Kelvhans for you,” she said. “And that old wizard that you used to know, Rothir – he came in here last week and hardly spent a shilling. I thought a wizard would be rolling in it. Though how old is he, really? I can’t tell.”

“Wizard? You mean Leor?” Parthenal said sharply. “What was he doing here?”

“I thought he was called Liol. I didn’t talk to him myself. He told Bell he was heading north and east: goodness knows why. That’s a long trip to nowhere.”

“But we’ve just–” Arguril began to say, until Rothir quelled him with a look.

“He wouldn’t even do any magic for the crowd,” Gwenna went on, “though it wouldn’t have cost him anything. Not that there really was a crowd – there never is, these days. A magic trick or two might have helped to pull a few more people in.”

Then her voice softened as she turned to Rothir and asked him for his news. Which of course he could not tell her, since she had no idea who he really was. As far as she was concerned he was an itinerant farrier – a job he had actually done for a year or two in Kelvha, back in the days when the Vonn were still trying to find a way of living after their exile. The Vonn had become somewhat more established since that time, but that was simply the more reason not to tell her the truth.

So he murmured banalities about family business before he carefully ventured on the subject of the stonemen. Gwenna looked bewildered.

“Men with stones around their heads? You mean like on a crown? I’ve not seen anyone like that.”

“Nor heard of them?”

“No.”

“You will,” said Arguril, draining his tankard. Rothir frowned at him again. But the words reminded him that the landlord had still not let him know whether a messenger had been found to leave first thing next morning. He’d been assured that no-one would be prepared to travel overnight.

So now he got up – his muscles all complaining – and walked over to the bar to discuss it with old Bell, the message ready in his pocket.

“Well, I’ve got you an errand boy,” said the landlord, a shrewd, stout man. “He’s got a good fast horse. Where do you want him to go?”

That was not so easy to work out. Bell chalked a map on his bar and eventually they agreed a destination – Moreva in Outer Kelvha – and a price: a thin young man was summoned from the back room to do the riding. Rothir looked him over, questioned him, and nodded.

“All right. He’ll do. Make sure he leaves at first light tomorrow. Half the money now, half when he returns.” The price was high but he knew that Bell would take his cut.

And then once the young man had departed he asked Bell about the wizard Leor, as casually as he could: had Leor said anything about his purpose? The landlord looked at him stonily and shook his head. Bell must, he thought, be a friend of Leor’s. Or perhaps the wizard had left a little spell of silence over him. Would Leor have done that? Rothir had heard a report that the wizard had vowed to abandon all his magic, but that seemed such an unlikely prospect that he was doubtful of its truth.

Leor was also a friend of the Vonn – supposedly. Yet Rothir, who had met him on several occasions through the years, would still call him an acquaintance rather than a friend. Well-meaning, he judged, if you could judge a wizard in the same way as ordinary mortals; polite enough, but mysterious. Nobody ever seemed to know what Leor was about.

So now Leor is heading north and east, thought Rothir – only a few days ahead of the stoneman army which had captured Arguril. Why? What had Leor known? What was he up to, going in that direction, towards the cold wastes of the northlands? While they were not empty of life or interest, humans were certainly thin on the ground up there.

Although Rothir racked his brains, he couldn’t imagine any reason for Leor’s journey. But he couldn’t think straight now. Too tired. And nothing to be done about it anyway.

Nothing to be done about any of it. He stared into the shadows flickering around the fire.

Somewhere out there in the dark, the stoneman army rested and the darkburns smouldered: some poor unsuspecting village slept before the storm of fire and blood broke on them, and he hated his inability to act, his failure to ride out and save them.

Try to forget it for a few hours. Time to rest.

As he was gathering the energy to leave the bar Gwenna slipped over to him and took his hand.

“You remember where my room is, Rothir?”

“Do I?”

“Up the stairs, third on the right. I’m nearly finished here.” She smiled, leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “That’s if you want to?”

“How could I refuse?” he said gallantly. As he walked towards the stairs he told himself he ought to be more glad to take this chance. It was what he had half-hoped for, after all.

Almost two years since he had been with a woman – and it had been Gwenna that time too. It might be two more years before the chance came round again.

Oh, the romantic life of a Rider of the Vonn, he thought as he entered her little room and sat down wearily on the bed. It was a life that didn’t leave much space for love. There were women riders of the Vonn, certainly, but he was related in some way to many of them and in any case they were his comrades in arms. Love was the last thing he wished to think about when he was on a mission; he needed all his focus for his task.

In any case love in real life was difficult. Rothir thought fleetingly of his mother and how she had left his father, so abruptly, when he was seventeen. Olbeth fourteen. Things must have been going on that he had never known about. Still didn’t know. Forget her. She forgot us, after all.

He removed his thoughts from her and let them rest more gently on the woman of his dreams: the one as dark and lovely as a rose, smiling as she leaned down to him from that imagined balcony in a reclaimed Caervonn. Silken hair the colour of a blackbird. A voice as sweet as any blackbird’s too. Skin soft as a peach. But that ivied balcony was a long, long way from here... As he gazed around the snug, untidy room he acknowledged just how far those dreams were from reality.

Not that reality lacked comfort. The patchwork quilt upon the bed looked so inviting that he felt inclined to lie down on it and go straight to sleep. If I really were a farrier, he thought, working in this everyday little place, with no other responsibilities, I might well have sought to marry Gwenna. Nice girl, practical. And kind. That’s important. I could have done much worse. She might even have married me. But she wouldn’t marry a homeless Rider of the Vonn.

Oh but I would like some tenderness, he thought. To lie wrapped in someone’s arms, to feel her gently stroke me, even just to talk in murmured voices, to rest next to her warm body.

That would be so good.

Gwenna came in now. In the lamplight she looked older than he remembered; the happy smile lines around her eyes had acquired a careworn aspect. But he probably looked aged and careworn too; and she greeted him cheerfully.

It seemed that she didn’t want to talk too much. What she did want was soon obvious. She was as innocently brisk as last time about stripping off her clothes.

Rothir, by contrast, felt himself creaking. All his over-worked muscles complained at the effort as he pulled off his shirt and breeches. He really wanted to lie down and sleep with his arms around her. Wake to her body. But he was a gentleman.

“Do I need to take precautions?”

“No. We can still get Callaret. But thanks for asking.”

He was a little disturbed that she took the herb: so who else was she sleeping with? Sternly he reminded himself that lots of women took it to control their periods, and that anyway it was none of his business. He had no rights over Gwenna, and should not expect her to keep herself for him. He lay down on the quilt and kissed her, although she didn’t seem to want preliminaries. She seemed quite happy to get down to it, so he tried to tell himself that he was happy too.

But when they did get down to it, he was too tired to enjoy it. His legs and back were aching relentlessly. He wanted it to be over, but that wasn’t fair on Gwenna and in any case there was no sign that it would be over soon. Gwenna must have sensed this, for after a while she said,

“Is this not working for you?”

“It’s fine,” Rothir assured her. “I just want to make sure that it’s good for you.” Shifting his position, he caressed her in the way he knew she liked, touching her with the tenderness that he himself desired although he could not think how his hard roughened fingers could give her any pleasure.

Evidently they did, however, which was something, because once he reapplied himself to his task he found that he was still getting exactly nowhere. It felt like more a labour of duty than of love, and all that would come into his head were screaming men and smoking carts which were of no help in the slightest.

Think of something else. Some success. It’s not all failure. He conjured up Arguril, successfully rescued and galloping away with him on Narba across the fields, miraculously

unhurt. Eled, saved, and up on Narba: poor old Narba, allowed no rest, so weary, and so slow…

“Are you still all right?”

“I’m just enjoying it,” he said, and thought of Yaret, found and brought back from the swirling river of death, sat before him on the horse, head lolling as she leaned against him, only held there by his arm around her…

Good grief. Stop thinking about these things. Put it in a box.

Something must have done the trick, however, because now he was back on course, he had got into his rhythm, the end was thankfully in sight, and he was there at last, even if he did feel like a tired old racehorse galloping to the finish and then collapsing on the line, exhausted.

He fell on top of Gwenna on the bed. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. It was for me, anyway.” She snuggled herself against him. That was pleasant. He wondered if he could stay here and sleep instead of going back to the cramped, expensive room he had to share with Parthenal and Arguril. It would be so much easier than moving now. And there might be another chance for him in the morning, before they began the long trudge home to Thield.

But now Gwenna wanted to talk. With her hand laid on his chest, she began in a low voice to tell him how things were.

It seemed that they were even worse than she had said before. Trade was so poor. Bell was so worried. Everyone was worried, because if things didn’t pick up, the inn might have to close and she would have to go back to her mother in Selba, and she didn’t know how she would manage, she didn’t even have the money to get there, everything cost so much these days…

Listening and murmuring occasional tired sympathy, Rothir understood the nature of the act they had just undertaken. It hadn’t been like this before. He felt saddened, both for her and for himself.

At last he kissed her tenderly, for old times’ sake, got up and dressed himself. Reaching inside his boot he found a silver coin secreted in a pocket there, and placed it on the corner of the table. Then he left her room and made his way back down the narrow stairs and through the inn’s dank rambling passages.

“Good time, dwarf?” That was Parthenal, who was folding up his clothes. Arguril was already in the bunk above him, alert and interested and even admiring. Much he knew.

“Fine,” said Rothir somewhat grumpily. “And you? No luck? No willing waiter or gracious groom?”

“Sadly not on this occasion.”

“That’s not like you.” He was conscious that he sounded sour. Parthenal raised an eyebrow.

“You were quick off the mark yourself tonight.”

“I’ve known Gwenna for a long time,” Rothir said. But he knew that that would be his last time in her bed.

Chapter 34

The wind was high. Literally: when she suddenly awoke from another dream of falling, Yaret could feel the wind’s force running down the tree – the tremors as the tree-top swayed and leaned, and then rebounded. Yet when she crawled out of the shelter of the hollow there was scarcely a breeze down on the forest floor. A fine small rain was falling as it did through every night and often into early morning. At the moment it was just enough to dampen her clothes but it was never cold.

She sat up and tried to shake off the dream. It was always the same one – the cliff hurtling past her, the fall far more terrifying than it had actually been when it had happened. She woke before she landed, feeling dizzy and appalled.

“But I’m here,” she said. “I’m safe.” And she performed her Haedath, touching earth, heart, lips, forehead, thinking of the riders who had saved her. She missed them. She missed that vividness, that sense of urgency – even the danger, because with it came the sense that her decisions mattered; and she missed the companionship. Although she had never felt lonely in her life before, she found that she did now.

In the days since they had left, it had at times occurred to her that if she stayed here in Farwithiel with Eled, perhaps when the Riders came back for him she could rejoin their fellowship. Then she could ride out of Farwithiel alongside them, to embark on some extraordinary, unknown life….

Except that they would not know what to do with her. And she would not know what to do in that existence. And her grandparents needed her back at the farm.

So enough, she told herself again. That’s past. Think of the future: think of home, of Gramma. Washing day today; her grandmother would be bending over the tub, her sleeves rolled up, the mangle ready. Good morning, Gramma. The old lady waved a soapy hand but did not look up nor pause in her diligent scrubbing. Good morning, grandfather. She did not bother to imagine him.

Breakfast was waiting for her: in fact, the whole day’s food was waiting, in covered dishes just outside the entrance to the tree. She lifted a lid. The usual coarse damp bread, and the orange and yellow fruit, the same as yesterday. She did not know the name for it. She wondered if it was safe to pick and eat any of the small bright red fruits she had seen hanging in the trees around.

If it is not safe, I will stop you.

“Thank you,” said Yaret aloud. However, most of the fruit was too high in the branches for her to reach until she was able to climb. One day.

Meanwhile, another day. She crawled back into the hollow tree and marked it on the corner of the scroll: that made twelve marks. Eled was still fast asleep. He would sleep for another hour and the Wardens would not arrive until mid-day.

Yaret sighed, and read the scroll again. She could understand those Vonnish words of encouragement now. She felt that she had learnt a fair amount of Vonnish in the last twelve days, even though Eled could teach her only a little at a time.

The scroll held exhortations to Eled to get well, to stay cheerful, to remember that he was not forgotten. It told him that the Riders had to return to Thield (how far away was Thield?

she wondered, not for the first time) but he would join them soon, when he was well. They would hear word from Farwithiel and send for him. He was beloved.

Eled would read the scroll several times a day. At first it had sometimes seemed new to him but now he nodded as if it was familiar. Progress. Perhaps.

She seized her crutches and hobbled out of the tree again, this time to go and wash and walk before she ate. She did her standard circuit of the pools, swinging on the crutches, and looking up into the trees to see the birds’ indignant jostling.

These great grey trees were growing familiar now; she was learning them too, from their deeply scored trunks to their most delicate stems and leaves, which were starting to turn gold around their scalloped edges although none had yet fallen. She wondered when they would –

or if they would: did winter come here? The more she studied them the more she realised that every tree’s life was a vast mystery to her. Each one was a world unto itself, on which the birds and insects – and darting lizards, and small fleet-footed furry things – built their own mysterious worlds which she could not hope to fully comprehend. No reason not to try, apart from time. She had plenty of that.

So she stood awhile and gazed at trees without understanding anything more, until her left leg began to hurt from taking all her weight. Then she hobbled on around the small, clear pools. They changed shape and moved from day to day, but she walked around them just the same. Her routine was fairly set now. It was important both for her and Eled. She had an idea that if you stayed here for long, your sense of time could easily unravel.

Time works differently for the Farwth.

Why sometimes I, and sometimes the Farwth? she mused.

It is the same.

That was something else it was important to get used to. Otherwise you might think you were paranoid, or mad. Inspired by spirits, or by heavenly voices. Although the Farwth never told her what to do: it only told her how things were.

“How are things today,” she said, “with you?”

That amused it. Which parts?

“Roots,” said Yaret.

They feed. They drink. They reach. They touch. They exchange. They send. They do that every day. And your roots?

She looked down. “Getting better, I think.” Her stump was still tingling but not so badly as before. It could no longer be called pain. Walen had stopped giving her the drugs some days ago, and it had not mattered too much. When the bandage had been changed yesterday the skin had no longer looked so red and ugly. The wound seemed to be turning in on itself somehow, its curved seams slowly neatening.

But her arms were sore from the crutches, and her left leg was aching from doing all the work: tired from carrying double the normal weight. She thought of Narba, that strong stoical horse, labouring steadfastly under its load, not so different from its rider. Then she steered her thoughts away.

As for her right leg, that posed a different problem quite apart from the healing stump. She feared its muscles must be weakening. Walen had suggested exercises, and Yaret had added her own to try and keep the muscles strong, but none of them was as good as walking would be. She wondered if she would have to live her life on crutches.

It is a strange thing to do in any case. To be uprooted always.

“I like it,” said Yaret, “to go where I will, to not be tied down to the earth.”

If you are not tied to the earth how can you feel it? How can you know it?

She considered this. “By observation. And by digging.”

But you cannot dig deep.

“True enough.” If she could not comprehend a single tree, how could she understand the whole earth?

Even I cannot do that entirely.

“Can anyone?”

They may try. But they may find that it is dangerous to dig too deep.

“I am sure,” said Yaret, feeling that this was altogether too deep for her before breakfast.

She swung and hobbled her way back to the hollow tree where Eled was just sitting up, stretching and yawning and rubbing his eyes like a bewildered child. Perhaps not quite so bewildered as he had been a week ago.

“Good morning, Eled. We’re in Farwithiel,” she began, “inside one of the trees–”

“Oh yes, I remember.”

Eled sat up and touched the sword that lay sheathed beside him, and then reached for the scroll, unfurling it.

“I remember this,” he said. He read it, nodding. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. How long ago did they leave?”

“Twelve days. Come, Eled, breakfast is outside.”

He shuffled out behind her. He used his crutches too, although he did not find them easy –

his sense of balance seemed to be awry. Yaret made a mental note to try some more balancing exercises on him later, after she had led him out on his own morning walk.

Just round one pool was enough for him. The trees no longer overwhelmed him as they had – in fact, he hardly seemed to notice them – but any sustained activity was difficult. So after circling the largest pool he would bathe in its margin, careful of his splinted leg.

Yaret had told him several times that she was female, but because he frequently forgot, he was unembarrassed that she stayed near him to ensure his safety. She would watch his beautiful lean brown body and think of Parthenal. Wondering if Parthenal ever… But no; even if Eled were sideways, probably not. Eled would be too close. She had an idea – whence it came she did not know – that Parthenal would prefer his lovers more detached.

This is something else I do not understand.

“Not just now,” she said.

As she helped Eled climb out of the pool she wondered when – or whether – to tell him again that she was a woman. It distressed her a little that he did not remember, and she was not sure why. She knew that she did not have the feminine beauty of, say, Maeneb; and she had never hankered after it. Her looks were serviceable enough. The two lovers in her life had not complained. But perhaps her lack of beauty had been the chief attraction there: maybe they had assumed that she’d be grateful for their interest. It was a dampening thought.

However, Eled’s assumption of her maleness was useful now. Once she had helped him dress, it would be time for some exercises on his crutches. Then Eled would be tired for a while; so she would lead him back to the tree where she would sing to him – one old song to relax and cheer him, one new one that she was slowly teaching him. Very slowly.

Then she would practise her Vonnish. Eled enjoyed that: words were something he had not forgotten and he was an encouraging and patient teacher. She had learnt to spot the patterns of how Vonnish differed from Standard – how p slid to v, for instance, and a to e. Many of the words were familiar once you knew which way to turn them. The grammar too seemed like a peculiarly archaic version of that she was familiar with. The Wardens spoke an old-fashioned variety of Standard but Vonnish went still deeper into some mysterious and attractive past.

“You are quick to learn,” Eled had recently remarked. She was pleased that he was able to pay that much attention.

“I grew up speaking three languages,” she had explained; “well, two and half anyway, because my grandmother speaks Ioben, which is not so different to Bandiran, and we learnt Standard in school. And I’ve picked up some Kelvhan on my travels. But I prefer Vonnish.”

“So do I,” said Eled.

However, half an hour of Vonnish was plenty, possibly too much for Eled, so after that he took a nap. After the nap, there was another walk, this time along the Farwth. They would skirt its edge, looking into the dense tangle of stems and leaves and multitude of shades of

green and brown – so many shades that her vocabulary in any tongue was totally inadequate.

She asked Eled for words for one section but all that he could suggest was chestnut. She thought of russet, hazel, auburn, copper, earth and dun… And still a hundred more were needed.

“What colour do you call yourself?” she asked the Farwth – silently, so as not to confuse Eled.

I do not know colour. I know new growth and old: the tender and the tough. I know bud, leaf, blossom, twig, branch, root, stem.

She could not disentangle all those she saw before her. It seemed a tapestry woven out of trees: somewhere in the middle she guessed at some vast single entity, some huge heart of wood. However, she did not know this for sure and the Farwth did not enlighten her.

They had never yet got even half way round the Farwth before Eled became tired. His physical strength was improving rapidly but his stamina – or maybe simply his ability to stay awake – was slower to recover. By the time they returned the sun would be streaming down through the distant tree-tops and it would be time for lunch. And after lunch the Wardens would arrive.

And then another walk, some exercises, talk, doze: wake and watch the birds that gathered during the long late afternoon, and try to think of names for them: eat, play memory games that she devised, sing, talk quietly until dusk fell.

It was then that Eled would talk about his home – or rather the lack of it. He spoke about the places he had ridden through, in small disjointed snippets. She glimpsed wide plains full of roaming herds, a mountain pass, a long strand by a pounding sea. He mentioned once or twice the place called Thield. She thought he did not realise that the word had passed his lips, so she did not draw attention to it. In any case he gave no clue as to where or what it was.

His home, it gradually became clear to her, lay in his people: both his own family and the extended family of the Vonn. He had two sisters who were also Riders, as was his father, although his father was perhaps a farmer too. It was not clear. He spoke of his riding partner Arguril, Rothir whom he evidently regarded as a mentor or perhaps an honorary older brother, and other names were mentioned besides the ones she knew: Sashel, Gordal, Alburé, Aretor.

And once Huldarion. As soon as he had said that name he looked suddenly afraid. It was something he thought he ought not to have said. So she pretended not to have heard it and turned the conversation to his horse, Poda, who was suffering from a sore fetlock. The last thing he would do before he slept was read the scroll again.

Every day a pattern of orderly variety. Every day the same.

But today was not quite the same. The Wardens arrived – all three of them this time.

Golen, as always, came to talk to Eled, to check his eyes and speech, and memory and reactions. But Baird and Walen took Yaret aside, a little way round the huge home tree as if for privacy. There they sat her down on the root that seemed to have grown there for the purpose, and carefully unwrapped her dressings.

“How is Poda?” she asked. The horse was being kept near the Wardens’ residences, too far away for Yaret to walk there and see her.

“She is continuing to heal well,” said Baird. “As is your own leg.” He gently felt her stump, and Yaret tried not to mind. “Is it still tender?”

“Hardly at all,” she said, for it was not sensitivity that made the touch unwelcome, but simply the reminder that such a major part of her was missing.

“We have something for you,” Walen said with a faint smile: and she produced a foot.

An approximate foot, at least. It had no toes. It was slightly smaller than Yaret’s remaining foot and was bent at a walking angle. It was made of a strangely grained, pale wood. Above the ankle and lower shin was a mass of what looked like some fine clay.

“This is only a prototype,” said Baird, “a first fitting, if you like,” and he offered it up to Yaret’s stump and strapped it in place with wide leather straps. It felt cool and heavy although it was probably lighter than her original foot would have been.

“What sort of wood is that?” she asked.

“It is a piece of rootwood: very strong, slightly flexible, and almost unbreakable –

certainly less breakable than bone. The clay is merely to take an impression. From that a more accurate fitting can be cut, with a leather pad and cup placed where the clay is now. No, don’t get up. You need to keep still for a while. The clay will take a good half-hour to set.

The leg’s too long in any case; we’ve allowed for it to be whittled down into shape.”

Then Baird went to check on Eled’s splint, leaving Walen sitting near her with the leg stretched out between them like an unexpected guest.

“How soon can you adjust the foot to fit?” she asked the female Warden.

“By tomorrow,” Walen said. “But don’t expect to run around on it straight away. Or even to walk more than a few steps. It’ll take a while for you to adapt to it; and you have some healing still to do.”

“Yes. I know all that. But it’s wonderful news. Thank you.” She couldn’t stop smiling at the leg. “May I ask one other thing, Walen, while you’re here? My monthly bleed has started

– the first for a while because I normally take Callaret. But I lost my supplies two weeks ago.

Can you help?”

“With cloths or Callaret?”

“Both, if possible.”

Walen considered. “Well, I’ll see what I can do. Callaret’s not something we grow much, because we have so little need of it ourselves. Almost all the Wardens are too old to require it.”

“But you must have younger Wardens here as well?”

Walen shook her head. “Hardly any.”

“How will you renew your numbers, then?” asked Yaret curiously. “Surely you’ll need younger people to take over the wardenship in time?”

“Eventually, yes. But we are a very long-lived people.” Walen paused. “I myself am a hundred and sixty-nine years old.”

“What? ” Yaret sat bolt upright. Some craven instinct was telling her to shuffle away – as if Walen would transform into a shrunken crone before her eyes. The other woman looked only seventy at the most. Luckily her leg prevented her from doing such an insulting thing.

“Oh, I’m by no means the oldest of us,” said Walen. She sounded matter-of-fact but seemed a little sad. “The few youngsters that we have are half-wardens like Maeneb – but they are very few indeed. The oldest warden is well over two hundred.”

“How can that be? Is it an effect of living in this place?” Yaret looked around at her surroundings in sudden new alarm. Living twice a normal life-span held no charms for her.

I do not think two hundred years is a particularly long life-span.

Walen evidently heard that too, for she dipped her head in acknowledgement.

“Not for a tree. It is for humans, however,” she said.

I am aware of that. But it is only custom that makes humanity think a century is long.

“It’s not custom, it’s experience. We live at a faster rate than trees do,” argued Yaret.

Walen looked faintly alarmed at her casual contradiction of the Farwth. But was she supposed to simply agree with everything it said?

That is not necessary. Not for you.

“Ah… only for the Wardens, then?” said Yaret.

The Farwth does not ask that. But it happens.

“So perhaps compliance is a result of living here,” she said drily.

Walen looked put out. “Compliance? We make our own choices. Farwithiel is kind to us.”

Kindness is not a concept that I understand.

“It is hospitality,” said Yaret. “For instance, it was kind of you to take us in and send the Wardens here to care for us.”

It suited the Farwth to do so. That was not kindness.

Yaret considered this. “Kindness may have its basis in selfish motives as well as in compassion,” she observed. “We humans, for example, may be kind because we wish to think better of ourselves. Or because we want others to admire us. The result is kindness none the less.”

I have no need to think better of myself.

“I would like to know what you do think of yourself.”

“Yaret!” Walen addressed her with mild but definite reproof. Her remarks were obviously unsuitable.

“I beg your pardon,” she said to the Warden. “I asked you about your lifespan, but I did not allow you to answer.”

Walen looked down at her hands upon her lap. They were slightly gnarled and wrinkled.

“It is true that long life is partly a result of living here,” she said. “But only for the Wardens, not for you. And it only works while we stay here. If we leave Farwithiel we will begin to age again at the normal rate.”

“So you can’t leave.” Yaret tried to imagine a century and a half spent enclosed amongst such huge, mysterious trees, in this enchanted world.

“We can’t leave if we want to live long, no. But why would we wish to leave in any case?”

Walen gestured at the vine-clad trunk above her, massive and serene. “We have peace and a purpose. Farwithiel needs its wardens. To protect the Farwth is a vital and enriching task.

And we in turn have everything we need.”

Compliance, thought Yaret, and heard the Farwth answer.

I do not ask them for such service.

This time she thought that Walen did not hear. The Farwth’s voice was for her alone. So she answered it silently, inside her head.

Then why are the Wardens here?

They arrived at a time of plague and pestilence. I gave them shelter and they in turn tended my trees and guarded my borders. It was not kindness. It was an exchange.

But the Wardens call it service. I’d say they worship you.

The Farwth does not ask for worship. That is another concept that is alien to me.

Possibly because you can imagine nothing greater than yourself, Yaret reflected.

On the contrary. The earth is greater than the Farwth. So is the sun.

She dipped her head. I beg your pardon. I spoke carelessly.

But I do not worship the earth or the sun.

Oh, I expect you do, in your own way, she thought. But it is human nature to worship age and power. Particularly power.

Madeo did not worship me. She argued with me. Politely. As do you. The Farwth seemed amused.

“I wish I’d met Madeo,” said Yaret aloud, before realising both that it was a singularly foolish statement and that Walen was looking at her with bewilderment.

“Madeo?” queried Walen. No doubt it seemed to her that Yaret had just been sitting and staring rudely into space.

Yaret pulled her attention back to the Warden. “I beg your pardon, once again. My thoughts were roaming. May I ask if your long life is given you by the Farwth?”

Not I.

And Walen shook her head. “The Farwth has many powers, but that sort of spell-making is not one of them. No, it was the result of wizardry.”

Yaret frowned. “So you mean that two hundred years ago, some sorcerer or wizard–”

“Oh, it was much longer ago than that,” said Walen with an odd wistfulness. “I am the third generation and the last for whom the enchantment works. The spell was created four centuries ago to give long life to the original Wardens, and their children, and their children’s children. No further.”

“So you don’t have any children yourself?”

“I did,” said Walen. Her voice was almost steady. “Two. They are dead now. They died of old age.”

Yaret caught her breath; and this time she did instinctively draw back, not in horror at Walen but at what had been inflicted on her. To lose your children to old age, while you yourself stayed young… What parent could want that? Surely no human would cast that sort of spell. No human with any sense of foresight.

“Who devised this magic?” she asked, her voice hushed with pity. “If not the Farwth, then who was it?”

Walen looked away and up into the trees as if she did not want to say. But Yaret heard the answer resonating through her mind.

The Farwth said, It was the Wizard Liol.

Chapter 35

“Leor,” said Huldarion, his voice cool and even. “Leor is what I do not understand. What was he doing up there, crossing the wildland from Outer Kelvha?”

“We could have roamed around for another three weeks and not discovered that,” said Rothir.

“You could roam for a lifetime,” added Tiburé, “and if Leor did not want you to know what he was up to, you would never find out.”

Huldarion looked across at Maeneb, who shook her head. “He has always been obscure to me,” she said.

He looked down again, and laid his hands upon the map spread out across the table. The lower part of it was dominated by the strong blue ribbon of the Darkburn River, which was surrounded by the dark green of the forest and looped around in two great curves before it reached the sea.

There, near to the coast, was the city of Caervonn; Parthenal’s eyes were drawn to it. Not all that far away in miles but still unreachable. The rivers Thore and Borelet were lesser strings of blue, the first running almost straight from north to south, the other winding to the east. To the west, the Pridore gathered up its tributaries as it flowed through Kelvha, accumulating might: just as the Inner Kingdom of Kelvha seemed to gather tributary states around it.

Parthenal watched the scarred hand point to the area north of Outer Kelvha, a scattering of nondescript small towns. The hand was more interesting to him than anything it was pointing at.

“Some of these places are prosperous enough but none are of any military account,” said Huldarion in his unemotional, meditative way. “Why would a stoneman army go up there?”

“Because they could,” suggested Solon, casual as always. As one of Huldarion’s chief councillors he assumed an informality that others seldom did. When the council had gathered in the tent, he had greeted his wife Tiburé with the merest nod.

Thoronal’s nod to Parthenal had been hardly any warmer. Thoronal, who was Huldarion’s cousin and another chief councillor, was also Parthenal’s cousin on his father’s side and nominal head of his family. Parthenal knew well that Thoronal, ten years his senior, did not approve of him, although nothing had ever been said to him outright. He had schooled himself not to care, because Thoronal was an experienced and valuable Rider. That should be all that mattered. Somehow it wasn’t.

Vaneb, as marshal of resources, was also present. Arguril, being a mere junior patrolman, was not. The eight of them standing round the table filled the tent. A sharp autumn wind blew a few dead leaves around their feet.

“As I told you earlier,” Tiburé said sharply, “we don’t know where the stonemen went.

We had to guess. We didn’t have the manpower to investigate.” She was the only one of them who would dare to speak so tersely to Huldarion.

Though I would dare, reflected Parthenal, if it were necessary. It is not a question of requiring daring. It is simply that Huldarion is so seldom wrong.

Huldarion looked up at him now, expressionless as always. Even Parthenal, who had known him all his life, found it difficult to read his face, its left side drawn taut with the old scars of his burns. The fire had spared his eye but not much else. Huldarion was the older by three years but also by a dozen years of silently borne pain.

“Parthenal,” he said. “You’re very quiet. What is your opinion?”

Parthenal studied the map and gathered his thoughts. “It was such an unpredictable expedition all round,” he said, “that I find it hard to know what to make of it. Possibly my wits have been slightly addled by the Farwth…”

“It does that,” said Solon, while Maeneb stirred but did not speak.

“...but it seems to me that the stonemen could have had no short-term military objective in heading north. They might have been pursuing Leor, but so many of them?”

“It would need many,” said Rothir.

“But why divide the way they did?”

“To broaden their search,” said Solon. “More chance to cut him off.”

Parthenal shook his head. “If they wanted to cut him off they should have spread out wide and thin. And they were hardly in a hurry; those carts slowed them down. I admit that the smaller group which Rothir followed north-east had no obvious destination, unless they were indeed pursuing Leor: so that is a possibility.”

“But what would Leor be doing up there in the wilderness?” demanded Tiburé.

“Who knows? Who ever understands Leor’s business?”

“The stonemen do,” said Huldarion drily, “according to your theory.”

“Knowing which direction he is taking is a different thing to knowing why.”

Huldarion nodded slightly. “Very well. The other group: the stonemen that you and Maeneb followed. I know you sent out your message warning the towns that lay ahead of them. On Tiburé’s return, we issued dispatches to Kelvha and they ordered some of their own troops up there. Only two companies; they don’t regard that area as of tactical importance.”

“Do they even have jurisdiction that far north?” asked Rothir.

“No. But that wouldn’t stop them interfering if they wished. Anyway, reports from those two Kelvhan companies came back to me this morning.” Huldarion picked up a scroll from the table. “As much as they choose to tell us, at any rate. They count this as a minor incident.

They report three villages and a town – Moreva – burnt. An estimate of between fifty and seventy dead.”

“And that’s a minor incident?”

“To Kelvha it is. They didn’t bother to count the bodies. It could have been far worse, but for your warning message. They spoke to a few of the survivors: thanks to you, most of the population got out before the stonemen came. Only the men who stayed to defend the place were killed.”

Rothir sighed. “That’s something, I suppose.”

“It is much,” said Huldarion. “The Kelvhan companies saw no stonemen. One company followed the stoneman army’s trail west to the Outlands; when it was clear it was continuing to head away from Kelvha, they turned round and came home again.”

“The Outlands? But there’s nothing there.”

“Except stonemen, now.”

There was a pause.

“We should go back there ourselves,” said Rothir. “Find out what’s happening.”

“We know what’s happening,” said Huldarion, “we just don’t know why.”

Here Vaneb spoke for the first time, her voice quiet and clear after the stern bass of the two men. “If we went back ourselves, Rothir, it would require a great part of our resources.

Two Kelvhan companies is equivalent to a quarter of our Riders. We could empty Thield and leave it unprotected, of course…”

Meaning of course we couldn’t, thought Parthenal. Huldarion was looking at him again.

“You still have something left to say,” Huldarion observed. “You told us that the stonemen could have no short-term military objective. But what about long-term?”

“Long-term is a different matter,” replied Parthenal. “It’s just possible they could overwinter in the Outlands, and in the spring make an attack on Kelvha from the north.”

There was a silence. Huldarion studied him, one finger tapping thoughtfully on the table.

Those considering eyes on him made Parthenal’s skin tingle. He hoped he did not show it.

“That would be a long winter,” Huldarion said. “Provisions?”

“The villages that were burnt out – it’s my guess that they ransacked the granaries and store barns first.”

Huldarion nodded slowly. “And harvest fully in,” he said. “But where would the stoneman army stay?”

“The Outland Forts,” said Parthenal.

Rothir threw back his head as if in sudden memory. “The Outland Forts. Why didn’t I think of them? And I was there only a couple of years ago – less than that. They’re still habitable if you’re not fastidious.”

“Stonemen are not fastidious,” said Tiburé. “What were you doing all the way up there?”

“Chasing a rumour that there had been signs of life within the Forts. Fires had been seen from a distance. Parthenal didn’t come with me; it wasn’t deemed all that important, only the word of a wandering shepherd. So I took a few days out to check.”

“And you told me you found nothing,” said Parthenal.

Rothir nodded. “That’s right. I didn’t check all the forts: they go on for miles, in various states of dilapidation.” He brushed a hand across the map. “All the way west to the far mountains. There must be dozens of them, but I only visited the ones closest to the eastern road. No life was visible apart from birds and a few mangy sheep. The earth was trodden down around the forts but the only prints I could see clearly were those of wolves and bears.”

“Bears do not light fires,” said Huldarion.

“No. It’s true I did see signs of fire-making in two places. I put them down to another wandering shepherd.”

“How habitable are the forts?”

“Considering their age – what are they, five, six hundred years old? – they’re surprisingly well-built. The ones I checked had their walls almost entirely intact. Doors and roofs had gone, of course, but you could see the stone brackets for each set of floor beams – at least three levels – and the stone staircases were complete most of the way up.”

“You told me you wouldn’t mind moving in yourself,” Parthenal reminded him. “Put a ceiling in and it would be more comfortable than Thield, you said.”

“I expect I did.”

Huldarion asked, “Are there trees nearby?”

“Yes. Numerous large stands of pine. Not exactly forests, but certainly enough to refurbish a few forts. I saw no signs of attempted refurbishment.”

Huldarion looked at Rothir in a way that Parthenal recognised. He had been on the receiving end of that look too, from time to time. When it happened, it made him feel afraid –

not because of any ill-will on his leader’s part, but because Huldarion always understood more than he was told, and then he judged. That they had been friends since boyhood made no difference. Huldarion’s was the only opinion that Parthenal ranked above his own: and his the only judgement that he feared.

“So you put in your report saying there was no cause of concern,” Huldarion said to Rothir.

“Yes.”

“But you thought privately that re-use was possible.”

“I… yes. The forts seem made for it – if there were any point. They’re on the edge of nowhere. It’s not a defensive location.”

“It was once.”

“Evidently. But hasn’t been for centuries.”

Huldarion looked at Parthenal. “And you think the forts may be re-used this winter.”

“There’s nothing else up there,” he said. “No other place the stonemen could hide out. So, yes, I think the Outland Forts may be re-used: not for defence, but for attack.”

He watched the scarred hand place two red tokens on the map, in the area where a number of small squares denoted the Outland Forts.

“So,” said Huldarion. “Thoronal? Your turn.”

Thoronal stepped forward. “Crade and I rode south,” he said, somewhat importantly. “We crossed the Pridore and skirted southern Kelvha, then rode up its western edge.”

“What for?” asked Parthenal.

Thoronal gave him a flicker of a glance. “Stonemen. What else?”

“We’d had reports,” Solon explained, “of troops of stonemen heading out that way. Small numbers but at frequent intervals, driving a few darkburns. They go west and they don’t come back. Kelvha have been too busy with the encroachments on their south-east borders to take much notice.”

“So what are these stonemen doing?”

“They’ve been setting up camps at the upper end of the Pridore, around the caves there,”

said Thoronal. “We didn’t retreat until we tracked them down.” Parthenal sensed that this was a pointed comment on his own failure to track the enemy to its destination.

“Again, they have sought a deserted area to camp,” commented Huldarion. He reached forward to place more red tokens on the map. “Now Kelvha has stonemen on its south-west and its north-west flanks. If the group that Rothir followed were to stay in the north-east –

and especially if their numbers were added to – Kelvha would then have enemies on three sides: none of them directions from which it would normally expect attack.”

“It would expect it from the south-east,” said Tiburé, “from the Darkburn forest, as usual.”

“Exactly. Kelvha has already been tackling a number of minor incursions – nothing serious as yet; but they seem to expect more heavy attacks from that direction. So if we are right, they will be surrounded on all four sides.”

“And with the snows up north,” said Parthenal, “and the frozen swamplands to the west, it would be almost impossible to prise the enemy out of their strongholds over winter. In fact, it would be extremely dangerous to try.”

Thoronal moved restlessly.

“This is leaping to conclusions, Parthenal. It’s all very well,” he argued, “this talk of wintering here and wintering there as if it were nothing for an army. Food might not be a problem if they’ve been sacking places as they go: and I suppose they can hunt if they run out of supplies. But the cold in the north would be dreadful. Spending weeks in freezing temperatures and darkness? The stonemen would be fatally weakened before they even started their campaign.”

“Cold is not a problem,” answered Parthenal, “if you have darkburns.”

For a moment everyone was silent.

“Kelvha needs to know this,” said Huldarion at last.

“They probably won’t want to listen,” Solon warned.

“They also need to know about the stones,” put in Rothir, “that they repel the darkburns. If that power applies to all the stones the stonemen wear around their heads–”

“Kelvha won’t want to know that either,” said Tiburé acidly, “unless they think it’s their own discovery.”

“All the same,” said Rothir. He seemed about to say more, but fell silent at a movement of the scarred hand upon the map.

“I think we need more proof of that power,” said Huldarion, “before we present it to the Kelvhans as a definite fact. And we also need more definite facts about the stonemen’s current hide-outs. I shall travel up to the Outlands with a company. A small one. It will not require a quarter of our strength to merely scout them out.”

Vaneb bowed her head in acquiescence.

“I should like to be the captain of that company,” offered Thoronal. Of course you would, thought Parthenal, so sure you are of your own claim. Who else would put himself forward in that presumptuous way?

“That will be decided shortly.” But Huldarion looked across at Tiburé. “I would have considered you for captain, Tiburé, were it not that I have another task for you to undertake.

And if Kelvha is to be involved we cannot be seen to have a woman in authority.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Is Kelvha to be involved?”

“I hope so. That is where your task will be – in Kelvha City. We need to make sure that Kelvha takes an interest,” said Huldarion, “both for their sake and our own. Kelvha’s forces outnumber ours considerably. At present we are not important to them.”

“But we could be, if we bring intelligence of a forthcoming attack,” said Tiburé thoughtfully. “Especially if we then help them to repel it.”

“Kelvha’s problems are not ours,” objected Solon, possibly just for the sake of disagreeing with Tiburé. “Why should we risk our lives to protect their borders?”

Huldarion gazed down at the map.

“Two reasons,” he said. “Firstly, it is not just Kelvha who will suffer. At present it is not Kelvha at all. It is those outer settlements which have no defence against the stonemen; and I do not wish to stand by while they are ransacked and their people slaughtered.” Parthenal thought that at that moment Huldarion did, unusually for him, betray emotion.

“I agree,” Rothir murmured. “It is what we are for.”

“And the second reason?” asked Parthenal.

Huldarion raised his damaged, now totally impassive face.

“The second reason is Caervonn.”

Chapter 36

Yaret missed the hollow tree. The cottage that she shared with Walen and another elderly female Warden was certainly more comfortable than the tree had been. It had walls strangely woven out of yellow-green stems that grew up from the ground – perhaps a variety of willow

– and which seemed still to be alive. Inside were low beds with rustling, sweet-scented mattresses, and reed mats underfoot in every room. It had proper wooden chairs.

But she missed waking to the rain and birdsong and the sense of green: she missed the solitude of her mornings walking round the shifting pools... Although it had never been quite solitude, with the inescapable presence of the Farwth.

However, the Wardens’ cottages were undoubtedly a better environment for Eled now that his leg was healing and his alertness had improved. Yesterday she’d tried a memory game on him and he had laughed.

“We played this one last week!” He was right. He did not need her company so much now that he took frequent walks with Habend and the other Wardens. She still had her daily language lesson with him; but they did not talk so much, nor sing.

Yaret missed that too. The Wardens sang occasionally, and she had sung one or two of Madeo’s songs to them, but she felt too embarrassed to accompany herself on her little one-string gourd. In any case she sensed that the Wardens weren’t really interested in Madeo’s songs or in Madeo herself the way the Farwth was.

The Farwth had given her glimpses of Madeo’s life here. There had been four visits, not three as Yaret had thought; two of them long, the last one with a baby girl. Madeo had leaned against the massive trees and sung to them and to her child. She had been quick and restless, always moving, said the Farwth, although Yaret suspected that anyone other than the Wardens would seem restless to it.

Madeo’s hair was as brown and curled as a fallen leaf, reported the Farwth; her body as lean and sturdy as an oak sapling. She liked to muse upon her travels, picking out tunes at the same time as words.

And it seemed the Farwth liked to muse upon them too. Hence it asked Yaret several times for details of Madeo’s journeys.

“She was your friend,” said Yaret on one of these occasions, in sudden realisation. She spoke aloud, since the Wardens were not by.

That seemed to give the Farwth pause for thought.

We gave each other information. And nourishment. Does that make us friends?

“If you cared about each other, yes.”

It made no difference if I cared or not. She is long dead.

“But you still think about her.” And even though Madeo was long dead and buried, could the Farwth not commune with her bones as they decayed deep in the earth?

This was not a thought intended for the Farwth. None the less it answered.

She is still there, but changed. We do not talk.

“Can anyone talk with the dead?” asked Yaret.

I talk with her in memory, the Farwth said. Tell me more of that second journey to the north she made.

As Yaret cast her own memory back to those ballads of the north, it occurred to her that the Farwth had side-stepped the question. It was unanswerable, after all.

But to her the Farwth’s affection for the long-dead Madeo seemed clear. The Farwth was especially interested in her stories of the forests of the north – vast tracts of pine and fir and selver and other trees that Madeo had described but did not name. Yaret saw them growing in

her own mind as she related the old words. Those great forests had not died as Madeo had; many of the trees that the bard had spoken of would still be alive.

Yet Madeo, commented the Farwth, hardly spoke about the homeland whence she had fled with all her people; which was what Yaret would have most liked to hear. And the Farwth itself could – or would – tell her nothing of the lands left by the Bandiran.

Despite such gaps and silences the Farwth was better company than the Wardens. They spoke mainly about their everyday concerns, showing little curiosity about the world outside Farwithiel. The exception was Habend, a tall, softly-spoken man who seemed to know Tiburé and asked Yaret wistfully for details of her life. Questions which Yaret could not answer.

Everything was very gentle, very quiet, very much the same from day to day.

This morning was no different. She had just limped over to see Poda; the mare was kept in a wooded enclosure with half a dozen other horses, and was recovering her fitness more quickly than Eled. As Yaret stroked her and spoke to her in clumsy Vonnish she thought about her donkeys. More things that she missed.

Then, since Eled was occupied with Habend, she walked the two miles to the Farwth. She took a stick but barely used it. Although she limped, it was not as markedly as before.

Yaret did this walk daily now: at first it had been hard on her leg – on both legs – but now they seemed to be toughening up as she adapted to the wooden limb, and her muscles had almost returned to their former strength. She just needed to be careful not to overdo it.

Later on she would practise her sword-play, or at least the basic moves Eled had shown her; and privately, a few more complex moves that she had seen Parthenal employ that morning when she’d watched his sword drill. They had been difficult and she probably did them wrong. Eled’s sword was too long and heavy for her, and would have been dangerous; so instead she used a length of wood.

Her exercises would be of little practical use in an actual fight, she thought, but she could feel her muscles growing stronger. She enjoyed the stretching that was involved, and sensed that the sword-play was good for her balance. Her leg didn’t seem to mind it either. She was on her second wooden leg now: the first had ceased to fit after a while. But this one felt right.

You are faster today, the Farwth said.

“I am faster every day.” She could have talked to the Farwth from Walen’s little hut, but it seemed unmannerly with other people around her who could not hear it when she did. She assumed that at times it spoke to Walen or another Warden, for she would see their eyes glaze and their lips half-move. It felt strange and intrusive to be watching that.

So she sought solitude amidst the great trunks near the Farwth. Today she first walked over to see what shape the pools assumed; they were scattered with leaves, and she looked up at the reddening boughs and speckled golden fruits hanging high above her.

She thought she could climb a number of the trees now if she tried. But when she attempted to plan the footholds on those branches, she immediately imagined herself falling, plummeting endlessly as she had so often in her dreams. Then she had to look down at the pools again until the dizziness receded. I was found, she told herself. I was found. I am still here.

After visiting the pools she walked over to the great hollow tree for old time’s sake. It was almost three weeks since she had slept here – Eled’s scroll now held forty marks, and she had been amongst the Wardens for the last eighteen of those. It felt like longer.

How far could you walk now?

“A few miles more, I think,” said Yaret.

And ride?

“I haven’t tried that yet.”

Try it. You may need to ride before too long. When you leave here.

She was startled. “Really? How soon do you think I can leave? The Wardens haven’t said anything about me going home yet.”

The Farwth did not answer immediately.

Not too soon. Not too long. I have not heard you singing for a while.

“I’ll sing now if you like,” said Yaret, and she went to sit on the grass facing the green mass of the Farwth.

A song by Madeo, it said.

“Most of them are.” Although she had been writing her own songs recently, they were not what the Farwth wished to hear. She thought she had probably emptied her mental store of Madeo’s songs by now, and was singing repeats. She had not forgotten that she had previously been searching through them for the mysterious skeln. However, if the skeln had ever been in any of Madeo’s songs, it still refused to surface in her memory.

Today she found herself singing the Long Walk that she had sung the day before the Riders had departed.

“The light on the hills is beckoning me

“As I set my foot on the track

“And its beauty calls me forwards

“And bids me not look back.

“When I reach the summit the light is gone,

“But a further mountain beckons me on…”

Where were the Riders being beckoned to now? From Eled she had gained a sense that they were carried along by history, by events, and had no fixed destination nor proper home.

None that he could describe to her, at least. Although she knew they were in exile from Caervonn, Eled could tell her little of that place, having been a child when he left. He was unable to add anything to what she had heard of it from Rothir.

In any case she did not think the Riders could return there. In her imagination they galloped across endless plains, always seeking out or escaping from their foe. Galloping away from her into a separate future.

Well, she would be glad enough to be crossing the endless plain herself soon. And it would not be endless at all, not for her. Once she could see the Coban hills it was not much more than a two week journey on foot to reach Obandiro; with a horse it would be less. She would not have to backtrack as far as the Darkburn Loft, which was a relief, although she also felt for that wild region something almost like nostalgia. It seemed more untouched than any other place that she had visited. Or touched by something different. After she had sung the last refrain she asked,

“Do you have lin here, Farwth?”

No answer. She tried to elaborate. “A sort of tree spirit, or earth spirit maybe, which just pops up when–”

I know what lin are. Rather, I know what you mean by them. I do not know them. I have not seen nor sensed them here.

“I’d expect you to see them if anyone could. And you’d think Farwithiel would be just the place for lin,” said Yaret a little wistfully, “or woodwones, certainly, if they existed. Do you think they don’t actually exist, then?”

Again there was no answer for a while.

She began to explain, “My grandmother swears that the lin are real, although–”

They may be real. They are not as the Farwth is. It is tree and earth and air and water, but not spirit.

“But surely everything alive has a spirit?”

I do not know what you mean.

“Well, everything that is conscious–”

You spoke of your grandmother. You need to go back home.

At once she was alert and anxious.

“Why? Farwth, have you learnt something? My gramma – is she ill?”

Again that pause, during which Yaret wondered how much she ought to worry, and a formless fear grew like a sickness in her throat.

I have no cause to think that she is ill. That is not something I would be able to detect.

“Then have you learnt something else about her? Or Grandda?”

I know nothing about them except that it is time for you to leave. You need to prepare.

Maybe she had just outstayed her welcome. Outside Farwithiel the autumn was passing; winter would be swift in coming, to Obandiro if not to here. Provided she was fit enough she ought to leave here soon in any case.

She stood up somewhat clumsily, picked up her one-string gourd and bowed.

“I thank you for your hospitality,” she said, “and for your many kindnesses, whether you call them that or not. I am extremely grateful, on my own behalf and on behalf of Madeo and her Bandiran descendants.”

The Farwth did not answer. So she set off walking towards the Wardens’ houses. She was several steps away before she heard it speak again.

It was your grandmother, and not your grandfather, who was descended from Madeo.

Yaret came to a halt and turned to stare back at the twined and impenetrable green. “But I assumed… My grandmother isn’t even from Obandiro! She’s from Ioben.”

It was to Ioben that Madeo went to have her child. She brought it here to Farwithiel so that I would know it; and then she said that she intended to return to Ioben and there leave the child with friends.

“With its father?”

She did not say.

“Who was its father?”

She did not say.

“Well,” said Yaret. “Can I tell my gramma? Or does she already know?”

Again a long, long silence. The trees dripped.

She knows everything that she needs to know. And you need to prepare.

Chapter 37

“If you can’t tell us their numbers,” said Thoronal, “then what are you here for? What exactly is the point?”

Maeneb did not answer immediately. She stared out across the dull browns and sickly greens of the Outlands with her lips tightly compressed. Inwardly she was assessing stoneman numbers by the weight and shape of distant minds. She was also beating down the wave of anger that seethed through her.

“It’s not an easy task,” she said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I certainly do not understand,” said Thoronal with heavy disdain, “why you thought it worth our while for you to come all the way out here to tell us what we can already guess perfectly well using our own eyes.”

“A little over three thousand,” said Maeneb coldly. “Say three thousand and three hundred, distributed over about the first ten forts. I can’t tell the numbers of darkburns.” She wondered what Thoronal would do if she whipped out her long knife and held it to his throat, here, now, on top of the Outland wall. Laugh, probably. Except that Thoronal hardly ever laughed. He took everything in earnest.

Holding a knife to his throat would achieve nothing. And it would mean getting too close to him in any case. She tried to swallow down her anger: this was all just part and parcel of being who she was.

“Unfortunately the number of darkburns is equally important,” said Thoronal, and he walked away along the top of the ruined wall to watch the distant Riders who were returning from the forts across the muddy plain. The nearest forts were small grey blocks, surprisingly regular in shape considering their age. Beyond them rose stern mountains already topped with white, in warning of the winter. It would come early and without mercy to these northern Outlands.

Parthenal climbed up the steps to join her on the Outland wall. He also stood watching the Riders, at a distance from her that she found acceptable. Thoronal had stood too close.

“Don’t let him get to you,” said Parthenal quietly. “He does that to everybody. It’s not personal.”

Maeneb nodded. However, in her case it probably was personal. Thoronal thought she was a freak, a misfit, an undesirable aberration from the norm. The norm, of course, being him.

“He doesn’t approve of me either,” said Parthenal. “Can you tell if there are any stonemen in the furthest forts, beyond those first ten?”

“I’m sure there are. But I can’t tell the numbers. It gets too confusing at that distance.”

The group of four riders galloped over to the wall and pulled their horses up below it.

Maeneb and Parthenal saluted – not to Huldarion, who did not expect such formalities, but to the General who rode alongside him. The General was a small, blunt man, very upright in the saddle: he was not of Kelvha, as was evident from his lack of ornament, but was from West Vale on its borders. Kelvha had delegated this remote and chilly task to his command. Behind Maeneb a few soldiers were still milling around after the morning’s muster.

The muster had been interesting. Maeneb had kept her distance, being female, while Huldarion inspected the General’s troops. She had read a lot of curiosity in the soldiers’

minds – centring on those scars of Huldarion’s, of course. The troops from West Vale regarded his disfigured face with respect. That, and something in his manner, seemed to mark Huldarion to them as an able military man. Which he was. She just hadn’t expected the soldiers to recognise it so quickly. Esteem gave their massed thoughts a certain colour.

But the colours of men’s minds were often contradictory. Take Parthenal’s mind, now, looking half ahead and half behind him: a mixture of thoughts that seemed shocking even to her, who knew him well, and ought to be used to it by now.

“It’s a pity we can’t go and explore any closer to the Forts,” she said to him as they watched Huldarion and his companions dismount.

“Yes. But by this time of year it’s all bog and swamp out there. If we picked the wrong path the horses would sink up to their shoulders very quickly. Men too. It would not be pretty.”

“But once it freezes…”

“No better, really,” Parthenal remarked. “You never know if the ice will be thick enough to bear the horses’ weight. Where it is, they skid. Where it’s not, they drown. Not pretty, again. I’m glad we don’t have to stay up here all winter.”

“Unlike the stonemen.”

“I hope they all freeze and starve,” said Parthenal. “Unfortunately they’re not likely to do either.” His gaze followed Huldarion, who was consulting with the General and his aides. His mind veered back and forth and settled somewhere behind them. She knew why but would certainly not discuss it.

“Where will you go when we’re finished here?” she asked.

“Thield, I expect.” Thield would move its tents to a more sheltered spot for the coldest weeks. But it would be diminished in size, and not the most comfortable of winter quarters.

“Then I plan to join Rothir at his sister’s farm for a week or two, just to get warm.”

“I’ve been invited there for winterfest,” said Maeneb glumly. “Though it’s not really the sort of thing I enjoy.”

“Ah, but Olbeth won’t force you to make merry. And she does a fine feast. I hope Rothir is finding it congenial working in the forge there: more than enough heat for him, I should think. Good practice for darkburns.”

“Indeed.” Maeneb gazed past him at the Outlands, whose cold prospect was to her almost more inviting than the idea of farmhouse warmth and feasting. At least the Outlands were solitary.

She studied the Outland Forts, which receded in a long line across the weary landscape.

From here, none looked inhabited: the nearest three had been evidently occupied quite recently and then abandoned as the stonemen had moved further west. The stands of pine trees had nearly all gone, presumably to re-roof the forts for the stonemen. So not a solitary landscape after all.

“Where would the stonemen keep the darkburns, do you think?” she asked.

“Cellars or dungeons, I expect,” said Parthenal. “As long as there’s a stone floor above them that they can’t burn through. One darkburn could probably heat the whole fort. But each fort might hold several darkburns.”

“I expect so.” Maeneb felt across the Outlands for them yet again. Nothing. Thoronal was right: there was no point in her being here. Her despondency and sense of uselessness returned, and again she had to fight against the fall into gloom. It was such a struggle, sometimes. Exhausting; this continual self-measurement she had to undergo, the repeated consciousness of failure.

“You’re doing a useful job,” said Parthenal, and she was grateful. She thought that, like her, he must sometimes feel alone.

Not today, though. She was well aware that Parthenal was not just standing on the rampart to look out and keep her company. Somewhere behind her was that familiar colour of longing and desire which sprang up rather frequently around him, in both men and women. She suspected he had already noticed someone’s interest amidst the soldiers from West Vale and

was now, as it were, on display. Later on, she would have to avoid looking in the direction of his thoughts for a while.

Parthenal walked along the wall towards the steps to greet Huldarion and the General.

After they had exchanged a few words the men dispersed. Huldarion and the others descended from the wall, but the General lingered. He came over to her, hands clasped behind his back.

She couldn’t remember his name. He was a stocky man the same height as her; he looked steadily in her face, before turning his gaze towards the Outlands and taking one courteous step away from her. So somebody had warned him, then. Probably not Thoronal. The General’s thoughts were very focused.

“I’m glad you could come,” he said. “We need all the information we can get, from whatever source.”

“The help that I can give is limited.”

“It is certainly unusual. You see men’s minds, I understand?”

“I detect their presence. I see their colour and shape – their leanings perhaps – rather than their detailed thoughts.”

“How very odd that must be,” said the General, although he did not seem taken aback.

Maeneb shrugged. “I’ve never known things any other way.”

“Could you see my men’s thoughts now?”

“As I say, only the colour of them. Your men seem to be steadfast enough if that is what you’re asking. They study the Outlands. Their minds are on their future task. I cannot be more specific than that.” Nor would she mention the two or three minds fixed on Parthenal.

“And are the men’s thoughts different to their leaders’?”

Now she turned to look at him. “Not in their quality, no. Why would they be?”

“Ah,” said the General. His gaze was fixed on the distant Forts but his mind was set the other way. It looked south and backwards, and seemed to hold a tinge of anger.

However, there was no anger in his voice when he continued. “The Kelvhans would say that there is all the difference in the world between a commander and his troops, or a lord and his servants. Also between the men of Kelvha and those from outside. Do you know Kelvha?”

“Outer only. I have never been to Inner Kelvha and do not wish to go – although a friend of mine is there at the moment.” Tiburé was not quite a friend; Maeneb was not sure what friendship entailed. But it was the easiest term for now.

“Indeed? A good moment to visit, with the Prince about to be invested. Will your friend see the ceremony?”

“I imagine so,” said Maeneb. “She’s staying with one of the ladies-in-waiting at the castle, who is married to a High Lord.”

He whistled. “With the big-wigs, eh?”

“She herself was a maid-in-waiting to the past queen there, many years ago.” Maeneb found it hard to visualise Tiburé as a maid-in-waiting, even in her youth. She couldn’t imagine her compliant and curtseying – and in a dress, of all things. “She was on a visit from Caervonn.”

“Caervonn,” repeated the General. “Now, there was a city indeed.”

“There still is.”

“One hopes so.” He stood ramrod straight, gazing out at the Forts. “Your commander, Huldarion. He aims to take back Caervonn eventually?”

“You would have to ask him that.”

“I will. He seems to be a man that I can deal with. He speaks with sense. Where did he get those scars? I hardly like to ask him that.”

Maeneb was silent for a moment. It was not her tale to tell, but on the other hand it was no secret. If she did not tell him, somebody else would.

“A darkburn,” she replied. “At Caervonn, twelve years ago, in the feud between Huldarion’s house and that of his cousin–”

“Olvirion. Who claimed the throne through primogeniture, although being descended of the female line, yes?”

“Yes. The throne should have gone to Huldarion through the male line, as was the law.”

She paused and added, “I am sure that Huldarion would tell you that it was a law that he did not actually agree with; but it was not for him to change it. That had to be done by the council.”

“And was not.”

“It was done by half the council: not enough. But Olvirion claimed he had won the right to rule. It caused a great deal of unrest.” She remembered the fights in the streets, the antagonism that had sprung up between families. Old feuds had been reignited and new ones brooded over. It had been a horrible time.

“Which became war,” said the General. “I study my military history, you see.”

“Which became war only because of the actions of one other person,” she said sharply.

“Huldarion was ready to negotiate–”

“Wouldn’t have worked. You can only have one king.”

“It could have worked. It wasn’t given a chance. This – person – offered Olvirion a weapon that could destroy any opposition; that could demolish Huldarion and all his allies.

Olvirion took it. It was a darkburn. The first of its kind that anyone had seen.”

The General fell silent.

“They set it in his house,” she said. She had not witnessed this but they had lived in the same quarter. She remembered well her mother’s grief and horror, and the scenes that had followed were vivid to her mind. “It ran through the place seeking people to kill – well, you know what darkburns do. But nobody knew then what it was. Huldarion’s mother and sister were dead before he could even get to them. He tried to shield his brother and fought against the darkburn while the house went up in flames. He managed to cut it to pieces eventually but not before they were both badly burnt. Meanwhile fire had spread through the quarter and killed a dozen others. Huldarion’s brother died a few days later. As for Huldarion himself…”

“I see,” the General said sombrely. “Yet nowadays it prospers, does it not? Caervonn?”

“In some ways,” Maeneb answered. “Olvirion was not a tyrant. For the first few years, when harvests were good, it seems that he was well-accepted. But fear of the darkburns may have had something to do with that. Caervonn has become an inward-looking place. Little information comes out.”

“I believe some information has come out lately that is not so good.”

“You mean the stonemen.”

“How can Caervonn form an alliance with such savages?” the General expostulated.

“The stonemen never caused a problem until recently,” Maeneb pointed out. “They were an isolated people and kept to themselves. I suppose Olvirion saw no reason not to trust them.”

“I see every reason. I don’t believe the stonemen are even capable of forming an alliance.

And to what ends?”

“To their own ends,” said Maeneb. “But if you mean someone else has formed the alliance, you are probably right. We believe the stonemen are driven by the will of the one who is said to rule Caervonn from outside its walls. The one who introduced the darkburn.”

The Riders of the Vonn usually referred to him as The Ignoble One. If they spoke his name it was with hatred and disgust; and with disgust she said it now. “Adon.”

The General studied her.

“Come with me a little way,” he said, and he led her briskly along the uneven wall.

He did not speak until they had walked for some distance. At one point they had to descend where the wall had collapsed, and re-ascend it twenty yards further on as it regained its integrity. Here, the wall curved round to face the west so that they were no longer looking straight at the Outland Forts, but at the featureless swamplands, and beyond them at a blur of far-flung forest and pale hills.

The General gestured at the empty landscape. High overhead some kite or vulture circled; apart from that, no sign of life was visible.

“Can you hear anyone out there?”

Maeneb listened. “If there is anyone, I can’t detect them.”

He nodded. “Many hundred years ago,” he said, “that land you see stretching to the horizon was a rich and fertile plain. It produced great quantities of wheat and barley and held many thousands of cattle on the meadows around a number of small towns. That land was called Elthe, and my people are descended from those who lived there once.”

“What happened to it?”

“A combination of things. The weather changed; the watercourses altered; the land may have been over-farmed and too many trees cut down. But all those changes were put down to one ruler. Adon.”

He stared out at the land as if seeing those ancient scenes. “Adon was not just a king; he was a god, or so he claimed. He also claimed that the floods and famine were the fault of the people – they were a punishment.”

“A punishment for what?”

The General smiled at her sadly. “For not believing in him enough, I think. It’s not clear. It was a very long time ago and the records are few. Of course he wasn’t a god at all. He was just an incompetent ruler. There was a battle and he was driven out – but Elthe collapsed anyway. It could no longer sustain people: the land that had been fertile was now barren. The surviving inhabitants moved south to settle in West Dale. Adon himself moved north with a number of his soldiers. If this ruler of Caervonn has now taken on his name and mantle–”

“It is the same Adon,” said Maeneb.

“That’s impossible. Adon was no god.”

“True. But neither is he quite a human. What happened to your Adon after he moved north?”

“Oh, he subjected some other poor tribe to his rule. The Outland forts are said to have been built to keep him and his new army out. And they succeeded. He went further east eventually, I believe, and disappeared. Presumably he died.”

“He didn’t disappear, nor die,” said Maeneb. “It’s said he crossed the northern lands and laid them waste: some of them at least, with fire and flood and earthquakes.”

“Earthquakes?” The General took a step away from her as if doubtful of her sanity.

“It’s not known how he could have engineered them,” Maeneb said calmly, “but he certainly boasted of doing so. Four hundred years ago he was on his way east and south again. Do you know the Iarad, the land west of the Thore?”

“I do not.”

“The Iarad once was fertile, and now is blighted since Adon passed through it, though perhaps not as badly as Elthe. It seems he then crossed the ocean to the southlands and tried to set up some sort of empire there. Within two centuries the southlands were largely lost to desert. Wherever he went, he despoiled and exploited, trying to extract as much wealth as he could in minerals and gems and food, and ruining the land in the process.”

“This cannot all be the same man,” said the General stiffly. “I daresay it could be a series of Adons, a dynasty passing the name down the line.”

“It is all the same man – or rather, the same not-quite-a-human,” countered Maeneb.

“When the Southlands failed to meet Adon’s needs he crossed the seas again. It was on the coast some distance from Caervonn that he found the stonemen and placed them under his dominion. For a long time he was quiet; but he was laying his plans. He set up his stronghold in the elbow of the Darkburn river. And somewhere there – somehow – the darkburns were created.”

She thought the General was going to scoff, but he was silent.

“Adon,” he said, as if testing the word. “Adon. It cannot be the same.”

“It is. We know that for sure.”

He turned to look at her.

“We know who Adon is,” she said, “because we know his brother Leor, who is a wizard.

Adon was a wizard too, before he called himself a god. I have never seen Adon, but I have met Leor on several occasions.” She saw him in her mind’s eye, tall and thin and energetic with a tremendously long stride.

Always in a hurry, she thought, always busy on some errand that he would not divulge.

Huldarion trusted Leor, so she had to; but she could not see the wizard’s mind. Although she could feel its quicksilver presence, its shades of feeling were cloaked and shielded from her.

The General’s face grew dark. “I have heard of Leor, if that is the same wizard as Lioril. Is he in league with his brother?”

“No. I am almost certain he is not.”

“But he doesn’t do much to stop him, does he? Where is this Leor now?”

Maeneb gazed out across the plain. Although it was still early, night was already falling, thickening across the Outlands to hide the grey Forts in its gloomy shroud.

“Nobody knows,” she said.

Chapter 38

Tiburé looked in the mirror in some disgust. It wasn’t that she objected to dresses in principle; it was the Kelvhan style that she didn’t like. This dress combined maximum display with minimum practicality. She didn’t care that the tight embroidered sleeves were not flattering to her muscled arms. She did care that she couldn’t raise her arms above her head. Not without hearing some stitching rip, at any rate; and this dress didn’t belong to her.

“You look quite lovely, my dear,” said Shildha with audible doubt.

Tiburé laughed as she turned round from the mirror to speak to her hostess.

“I’ve never looked lovely, Shildha! But at least I look presentable by your exacting Kelvhan standards. I’m certainly quite believable as your clod-hopping cousin from the country.”

“Not clod-hopping,” Shildha protested weakly. Tiburé patted her old friend on the shoulder.

“I’m fine with that description,” she assured her. “It explains my mutilation of the Kelvhan language too.”

Shildha sighed. Then she said, more hopefully, “I could lend you some pearls.”

“Lend them to Alburé instead. They’ll suit her better.” Tiburé pictured her daughter Alburé, currently downstairs with Shildha’s daughter, in her silver-threaded dress. Pearls would be appropriate on her. She would look very fine. Alburé had both style and stature, though perhaps a little too much swagger to look convincing as a Kelvhan lady. Tiburé had advised her daughter to tone down the self-confidence and to keep her mouth shut.

“I wish I could have persuaded you both to lighten your hair,” said Shildha with a mild, regretful pout.

Tiburé smiled. “That would not have made me into a swan, Shildha! I’ll always be a crow, even when I’m grey.”

“But Alburé…”

“Is so clearly not from Inner Kelvha that I doubt if it really matters.”

Shildha gave a small sigh of resignation. To achieve the Kelvhan ideal of female beauty was for her the pinnacle of ambition. She did not need to lighten her own fair hair, as did so many of the Kelvhan ladies with their dry, bleached golden locks. Men too. Tiburé didn’t care for the stiffly orange-haired look and was glad Alburé had rejected it outright.

This was her sixth visit to Inner Kelvha since that first winter she had spent as maid-in-waiting at the castle, thirty years ago. She had been one of three young women accompanying an envoy from Caervonn in the name of amity. Tiburé had volunteered for the adventure and had not regretted it. Shildha, the pretty, conciliatory girl she had befriended then, had remained her friend ever since. When Shildha married her nobleman, Tiburé had been one of her entourage of honour, and had continued to visit her at intervals.

Huldarion had encouraged her visits. Not that Tiburé attempted to be any sort of ambassador from Thield – that was impossible, with her being a woman – but her very femaleness made her visits useful in a different way. Nobody in Kelvha remembered who she was, or took her seriously. Her curiosity about the place they put down to naivety and ignorance.

Shildha’s husband, the High Lord Melegan, was a benign and indolent man who did very little actual work in his position as the Keeper of the Keys. Nevertheless he knew everything that was going on inside Kelvha Castle, and with a little naïve and ignorant questioning Tiburé was able to extract a good deal of information from him.

She had no qualms about this. Indeed, she was hoping to train Alburé to fulfil a similar function with Shildha’s daughter, who would doubtless also marry well, and probably soon –

the girl was eighteen already. But Tiburé was also fond of Shildha for her own sake, so that she able to say now with real sincerity,

“You quite outshine me in beauty, my dear Shildha, and that is as it should be.”

By good fortune Melegan came in at that moment and overheard. He beamed with satisfaction.

“I married a fine-looking woman, did I not?”

Tiburé dropped him a curtsey before answering. “The finest, my lord. And your own magnificence is simply… breath-taking.”

Breath-taking it certainly was. Long plumes were involved as well as large bronze shoulder-buckles, an enamelled ornamental breastplate, and the usual acres of embroidery in red and silver thread.

Melegan beamed some more. “Shall we go? I need to take my place in good time before the Prince arrives.”

It would not do to be late for such an important event as the Prince’s crowning. Yet rather than walk the three hundred yards to the castle, they had to travel in the coach, with all the tedious business of handing in and arranging gowns. They joined a procession of similar coaches which crawled from the enclave of large villas to the massive outer gates of Kelvha Castle.

Within the gates, the courtyard had been cleared of its usual rabble of hurrying grooms and servants, and was instead lined with ranks of immobile and impassive soldiers. Tiburé counted the rows: three hundred men: and noted their standard. Fifth Company.

“Who is that impressive looking man at their head?” she whispered.

“Commander Jeveran. Not high-born but capable enough,” replied her host, somewhat condescendingly. Tiburé had heard him speak of Jeveran before. Now she filed the face alongside the information in her memory.

The coach came to a halt beside the inner gates. The four ladies were helped down by a phalanx of footmen, and escorted through the inner courtyard with its high towers into the vast and complex space of the castle proper. Kelvha Castle was not one single building but a gathering of many, of various ages and sizes, but all strongly built and loftily turreted, and held together by two miles of outer wall.

It was to the greatest of these buildings that they proceeded, past more soldiers – Eighth Company, noted Tiburé, perfectly disciplined as always – and mounted the massive steps, the ladies attending carefully to their long gowns, anxious not to catch their feet in the low hems.

In the Hall of Light – despite its name, windowless but illuminated by a hundred oil lamps –

they paused to be announced. Then when their turn came they processed, gowns rustling, into the Coronation Hall.

After the yellow lamp-light the high windows dazzled. Where there were no windows the long tapestries hanging down the walls were bright and richly patterned. Tiburé knew without looking what they depicted: coats of arms and noble genealogies. In the centre of the far wall hung the longest, most ornate tapestry, that of the royal line.

Melegan led them past the towering stone columns to their seats and then walked on alone with slow, ceremonial steps to take his place in the row of gilded chairs on one side of the royal throne. He almost strutted in his self-conscious pride. The ladies of his household were seated at the front of the audience, as befitted Melegan’s high rank: the lesser nobles and their families were relegated to a greater distance, near the door.

No commoners attended the investiture of the High Prince – not as audience, at least. Two rows of heralds flanked the furthest columns while a line of servants in gold-embroidered tunics stood rigidly against each wall. Woe betide any of them who smeared or snagged their uniform, thought Tiburé.

“It’s all so very grand,” she whispered. As they waited for the Prince and Regent to make their entrance, the great hall echoed with whispers which seemed to fly around it like trapped birds. “Who is that man in the elegant red gown?”

“That’s Arch-Lord Helb, the Keeper of the Scrolls and Archives.” Shildha whispered back. “Next to him is High Lord Brolgun, the Keeper of the Swords.”

“Is he head of the army, then?” asked Tiburé, although she knew that he was not.

“Oh, no. That’s Arch-Lord Marshal Shargun, with the little beard, on the left.”

Tiburé studied him intently. Another face to fit to a name she knew. Shargun was elderly, aloof, his pinched narrow face a closed book to her. He did not look especially soldierly in his ceremonial robes, but appearances could deceive – especially here in Kelvha.

And so it went on, Shildha happily describing every Lord in the two rows of gilded chairs while Tiburé memorised their relative positions. The closer to the throne, the higher their current standing. Despite his indolence Melegan evidently stood a little higher than she had thought.

The heralds raised their trumpets for a long, strident fanfare during which everybody stood and waited, trying not to cough. There was a long pause, which Tiburé appreciated, as a sign that those about to enter outranked the audience so greatly that they could keep them waiting all they liked.

At last, while the trumpeters again raised their instruments and redoubled their efforts, in strode the Regent, without any hurry: a robust and heavily-built man between fifty and sixty.

He was followed by the young Prince Faldron, and then the Princess Idria with a troop of courtiers who arranged her in a lesser throne next to the Prince’s before melting away. The old Vizier came creeping in the rear, to be guided to the gilded chair on the Prince’s other side.

The Regent, Nerogun, had no chair. He remained on his feet throughout. Tiburé was interested to see that he took charge of the ceremony even though the whole point of it was that he would lose much of his existing power. For eleven years, since the death of the old King, Nerogun had ruled as Regent while waiting for the Prince to come of age.

And now Faldron was twenty. Today he would be invested as High Prince. For the next twelve months, Nerogun, as Post-Regent, would continue to advise him; effectively, they would rule together. A year from now the High Prince would be crowned High King and become sole sovereign of Kelvha.

Tiburé personally did not think that Faldron looked old enough to be either. He appeared almost unchanged since she had glimpsed him on her last visit five years previously: a bland, unformed young man, with a faintly startled look that she suspected might be permanent.

“How very handsome the Prince is!” she whispered to Shildha as the rustling crowd resumed their seats.

“And he is said to be very adept at swordplay, and a matchless rider,” Shildha whispered back.

That was something, Tiburé supposed. But not much for a man to rule with. A speech was mumbled, almost inaudibly, by the aged Vizier. Tiburé heard nothing in it worth reporting.

Then a crown and sceptre were carried reverently in. Again Nerogun seemed to be in charge; it was he who handed the sceptre to the Vizier, for the old man to place somewhat shakily in the Prince’s hands. Faldron smiled and nodded. He looked remarkably at ease for one who was the centrepiece of such a ceremony.

“How old does he have to be to marry?” Alburé whispered on Shildha’s other side.

“Twenty-four. But his sister can marry now, and probably will soon.”

Tiburé pitied the princess. She looked frail and timid, young even for seventeen. The Prince was smiling up at some unheard remark made by the Regent.

“He looks all right,” said Alburé. “Young and fit. And he looks biddable enough.” Her voice was smiling. Had that actually been biddable she said, or beddable? Tiburé bent forward to give her a warning shush.

When she looked back, the Regent was frowning at their section of the audience. Tiburé let her mouth fall slightly open, like an over-awed country cousin.

The Regent turned and nodded to the heralds. Another long fanfare rang out; the crown was carried forward on a crimson cushion. Tiburé noted the sleek young man who bore it, but when she nudged Shildha to ask his name, the only answer was a shrug.

“Some equerry of Nerogun’s. Jaul, I think.”

“A fine crown indeed.”

“That’s only the High Crown,” murmured Shildha. “The Sovereign Crown the Prince will wear next year is much more impressive.”

Even the High Crown looked ridiculously cumbersome to Tiburé’s eyes, its golden spires aglitter with green jewels. The Regent took the crown in both his hands and held it up.

Standing behind the throne, a solid and imposing figure, he addressed the hall. His forceful voice rang out to fill the space.

“By the powers invested in me as Regent to the throne of this our mighty Realm of Kelvha, I hereby crown the most august and royal Prince Faldron as High Prince of the Realm. I hope before long to have the exalted task of placing a still greater and more extraordinary crown upon his head.”

There was yet another fanfare. The prince smiled good-humouredly as the jewelled crown descended over his blond locks. He put up a hand to steady it. The audience rose and cheered in unison.

Tiburé copied them, miming the cheers. But she felt a strange and sudden frisson of anxiety. Something in the Regent’s voice, and in his face, as he looked down upon the placid prince, disturbed her.

And yet she could not work out what exactly caused that unexpected prickle of alarm, or why.

Chapter 39

Poda stepped elegantly along the faded track that led north from the Coban hills towards Obandiro. Yaret, perched on her back, held on to the makeshift saddlebags; she would have to do something about those before they fell off completely. The Wardens were not particularly handy at that sort of craft. She thought of Kelvha – of the ornamental saddlebags she’d seen at various markets with their embossed leather flaps and straps, the gilding and long tassels and decorative buckles. The Wardens hardly knew what a buckle was.

But it had been kind of them to escort her safely through Farwithiel and across the swirling waters of the Thore. She had forded the river on Poda with a shudder of memory which she tried hard to repress.

Once the Wardens had departed, she had stopped and said a farewell to the Farwth.

“I thank you once again,” she had said aloud, gazing back across the river to the shrouded trees. She already missed those great edifices of Farwithiel, supreme and massive harbours. “I will not forget you or your kindness.” This seemed, indeed, a superfluous thing to say: how could anyone forget the Farwth?

While she felt sure that the Farwth would hear her words, she did not expect to be able to detect any returning answer. So it was a pleasant surprise when the answer came, almost as strongly as before.

I shall remember you too, and your songs.

Yaret smiled. “Perhaps I may even see you again some time?” This was presumptuous, she realised as soon as she said it: for she had gathered from the Riders that the Farwth did not allow every traveller to proceed past its borders. Indeed, it permitted very few.

I do not know that. Winter comes, and spring should follow: but who can foresee what will happen in the world of humans?

“Well, I hope spring comes with bounty to Farwithiel.”

I do not understand hope. Things thrive, or they do not. Wishing has no effect.

Yaret thought about this, and then countered, “Wishing has an effect if it makes you act for the better.”

In that case it is not a wish but a deed.

She thought some more. “I suppose the point of hope is that it makes action possible,” she said; “or at least it impels you to action when otherwise you might do nothing.”

That would make hope also a deed and not a thought.

“Yes. Yes, it would.”

No answer. After a while, she bowed, and then turned on her way. The river was already out of sight and hearing before the reply came.

That is the first time that you have chosen to agree with me.

She felt no anger in the Farwth’s voice: perhaps even some amusement. So she said,

“I don’t think I always disagreed with you.” Who was she, after all, to challenge the Farwth? She was of no more account in that marvellous forest than a slightly annoying insect

– yet one that it had cared for and discharged into safety.

You disagreed with me most courteously. As did Madeo.

Yaret had smiled again, and waved, and then continued riding.

After that there had been no word from the Farwth. That was a cause for sadness but also some relief. By now, a few days further on, she supposed she was too far beyond the Farwth’s boundaries to hear its voice, and was truly solitary once more.

Her farewell to Eled had been harder – for her, at least. Eled had not minded her leaving. It was obvious that he no longer needed her presence to keep him steady, and was content with the tranquil company of the Wardens. So that was good.

All the same it saddened her. Not only was she very fond of Eled for his own sake, but he was the last human link to that other world she had found herself entering so unexpectedly: the world of the Riders of the Vonn. She was left with Poda, a smattering of Vonnish, and vivid, sometimes painful memories. She suspected that life back home would seem flat and tame at first after the strangeness of the last few weeks.

Still, it would be good to be back with her grandmother – with both her grandparents. She was conscious that they needed her; and that was a need she could fulfil. Bringing Poda to a halt, she readjusted the slipping saddlebags yet again, before gazing up at her onward path.

She had not ridden as far west as the lonely wastes of the Iarad, and the scene, though somewhat stark, was not without attractions. The landscape had been painted in new colours during her long weeks in Farwithiel. Autumn seemed hardly to have arrived in that forest, yet here the trees were already almost bare; between their austere black outlines all the hues were of rust and mud and ochre. It was very beautiful in its way. And also cold. She spurred Poda on until she crested the hill, and the first villages of North Coba came into sight.

Yaret surveyed the smoking chimneys and grazing cattle with a faint sense of relief. All was as it should be. Of course there was no reason why it might be any different.

She decided that she might spend a couple of the coins given her by Walen on a comfortable night at an inn: but no, on second thoughts she’d save them, while the weather remained dry. It was the only money she had. Her own had been left along with much else by the banks of the roaring, tumbling Thore.

Once again that night came unbidden to her mind. The stars so powerful in the sky, so close. Lying alone and on the shores of death with the pain and wonder and knowledge of oncoming oblivion.

She found herself catching her breath and made herself recall that she was safe. She had been found, by Rothir. Who had departed. That too was as it should be. So forget about it now. She put the thought away.

Normally on this last leg of her annual journey she would have stopped at various villages to take orders for cloth. Now she avoided the usual stopping-points; she had no samples and no time. She dared not gallop in case Poda went lame again, and did not want to waste precious hours in social chit-chat with past customers. Indeed they would not want to waste time either if she had nothing to sell.

So instead, following meandering earthen roads that were occasionally blocked by sheep, she determinedly set her mind on the life ahead and the winter to come. She was still several days away from home; her lateness would have started to worry Gramma even though Gramma was not given to worrying. Yaret felt bad about that. Her grandfather’s feelings she did not bother to consider just now.

Plenty of jobs would be waiting for her. Once she was back at the farm she would need to work hard to lift the autumn roots and cellar them before the snow set in. Buy in flour and oats and oil from Obandiro. Make the yard ready for the nanny-goats. The sheep would look after themselves. And the donkeys…

Oh, my donkeys, she thought, my donkeys; and suddenly weary, she pulled Poda up and steered her off the road behind a sheltering hazel copse, deciding she might as well stop here for the night. It would grow dark within an hour anyway.

Well before the darkness fell, the fire was built and the pan was simmering. Yaret left the camp to search the copse for cobnuts. She had noticed that there were still quite a few around which the squirrels and mice had failed to find.

She spent a pleasant quarter-hour amidst the bushes in the company of complaining finches: her pockets were full and lumpy when she emerged from the far side of the hazel copse and saw an old man sitting by the road. Behind him a bony horse was grazing.

“Good evening, great-uncle. How are you?” she said, using the standard greeting to the aged in these parts. There was no need to adopt male mode for one so old, but she kept it on anyway, since it matched her clothing. The Wardens had kindly equipped her with a pair of old-fashioned breeches and two dun shirts; cast-offs, but she was grateful for them.

“Good evening to you,” he said, looking up.

Her first thought was , Oh, I’ll have offended him, he’s not that old at all. For his eyes were young and as blue as the evening sky. But when he smiled his face crinkled with a hundred lines as if he were as old as the hill. His hair was red – made redder by the twilight glow, most probably – but with two great streaks of white across his head from front to back. Like an elderly fox, she thought, intrigued.

“Have you come from Melmet, or Ioben?” she asked him. It was the first thing his red hair made her think of. For only in that distant western region had she ever seen people of that colouring – the same bright red as her grandmother’s hair, before it had turned grey.

Although Yaret’s own hair was brown she had been told it held a reddish tinge in certain lights.

“From neither place,” he said, looking startled.

“I beg your pardon. It was the hair.” She gestured vaguely.

“No, no. I’m… just wandering,” he said.

“A fine evening for it.”

“Yes.” He hadn’t bothered to stand up to greet her. Of course to him she was only a youthful journeyman, and a scruffy one at that.

But she thought that he looked tired. His dark grey cloak was mud-spattered and badly needed mending: the hem had come unstitched. The pack beside him seemed inadequate for anyone wandering far. Yet the scrawny horse carried no other baggage.

“Are you hungry?” she asked on impulse. “I have some spare food, and a fire.”

The searching blue eyes looked up at her again. “Thank you, young man, but no. I need to move on soon.”

“You’ll travel further on a full stomach than an empty one. My camp’s not far away.”

“Well… perhaps, then.”

He stood up stiffly and followed her back around the hazel copse to the little campfire. His long stride kept up easily with her slightly halting step. It was not quite a limp, but it still slowed her up by the end of every day.

She could hear Poda pulling up the grass beyond the bushes. It occurred to her that it was as well that her fine horse should remain unseen. An old man could be as unscrupulous as a young one. But she had offered this old man hospitality; so she threw another chunk of wood on to the fire and added a handful of oats to the simmering pot to bulk out its contents.

“Rabbit and roots, is that all right?” As she spoke she seemed to be back on the Darkburn Loft, that first evening with Rothir. Her head swam for a moment. But that was probably just weariness. She knew that she was still not fully fit.

“It’s ample. How did you hurt your leg?”

“Oh… I had a fall, a little while ago,” she said. “I’ve been laid up with friends while I recovered. I’m a weaver and a pedlar of woven goods, on my way back home.” It was polite to tell a passing companion like this something of the nature of your journey. You didn’t have to tell him everything.

But her present companion did not seem inclined to tell her anything at all. He sat staring at the gently crackling fire with creased brows. After a while he gave his head a shake, as if to dismiss unwelcome thoughts, and asked her:

“Why did you think I was from Ioben?”

“The red hair, like I said. You usually only see it in those parts.”

“You’ve been to Ioben, then.”

“Yes, on my travels.”

“Lately?”

“The last time was two years ago. But I was in Melmet just three months ago,” she answered.

“Ah.” He relapsed into silence, again staring at the fire, until she handed him a bowl of rabbit stew. Then he ate hungrily.

Once the bowl was half empty, he spoke again. “And today you’ve come from…?”

“From the south. From Coba,” said Yaret. She wasn’t going to mention Farwithiel or the Riders.

“Ah. And how are things… south?”

She shrugged. “Quiet. Not much business.”

“What sort of woven goods?”

“Woollen cloth and garments, chiefly cloaks. I sell a few on the road and take orders to be fulfilled next year.”

“Ah.” He ate. She didn’t know whether to be offended by his failure to offer any corresponding information. It wasn’t good etiquette. But again he seemed deep in his own thoughts.

“I notice that your cloak is badly torn,” she said after a while. “I could mend it if you like, while you finish eating.”

His eyes narrowed in puzzlement. “Mend it? Why? I can’t pay you.”

“Why would I want payment?” she retorted. “It’s ten minutes work. I can do it now, while there’s extra light from the fire.”

He took off the cloak and passed it over. Yaret found the needle and thread in her pack: that had been another small gift from the Wardens. They must have put some thought into her leaving gifts, for they’d included ample provisions, as well as the clothing and the pan and bowls that sat beside the fire. And the best gift of all, the wooden leg. She felt a wave of gratitude and hoped she’d expressed it adequately at the time, because in the end, she had left in somewhat of a rush.

The cloak was a heavy wool serge. Old-fashioned in its style, and too heavy, she thought, to be comfortable for such an old man; although when she glanced up from her work he looked strangely young again, the blue eyes dancing in the firelight as he watched her.

“Thank you, young man. You are nimble with a needle.”

There seemed to be some extra meaning in his words. She had probably stepped outside her male mode by offering to sew. But it did not really matter with such an old man, who must surely have come across a number of such women through the years. And at least it meant he was showing her something more like proper courtesy.

“It’s the only thing I am nimble with, these days,” she said, a little ruefully. “How did this get burnt?” For the cloak, along its tattered hem, was but not just mud-spattered but charred black.

“I was too close to the fire.”

She had the feeling that she was not the only one who was not telling all she might. “It could really do with patching.”

“That will have to wait,” he said.

“How far do you have still to go?”

He paused. “Some way.”

“I’ll stop asking questions,” she said with a smile, handing the cloak back over. “Except for one – would you like any more to eat?”

He shook his head and hauled himself to his feet, donning the cloak once more. His height was striking. Taller than Parthenal, she thought, but not nearly as graceful. For an old man, though, he was agile, so that again she found herself becoming doubtful of his age.

“I must be on my way,” he said, his deep voice a little friendlier than before. “But thank you for the hospitality. I wish you a safe journey, young person, wherever you are going.”

“I’m going home to Obandiro,” she said. “What? Do you know it?” For he appeared to have frozen as she said the name.

The old man slowly shook his head. “Ah… No. Yes. I knew it once.” He seemed to be staring at her in some perplexity. Anxiety, perhaps. Or more like fear.

“Well, I wish you safe travelling also,” said Yaret, since the man seemed rooted to the ground.

“Thank you.” He was subdued. Then he finally turned and strode swiftly away. He must have been in an immense hurry, for within seconds she heard him calling to his horse.

Bryddesda. An outlandish name; not Ioben, certainly. Yaret listened for the hoofbeats, and heard them briskly disappearing down the road.

That was strange, she thought, the way he looked at me just then. Young person. Maybe he wasn’t sure if I was male or female. She turned it over in her mind and then forgot about it.

For several days of uneventful travelling, she did not think about the old man with his strangely striped red hair. Her mind was set on home. Gently wheedling Poda to all possible speed, she headed north from Coba, riding across wide cattle pastures to reach the shallow Reedlakes.

There were small settlements here, perched precariously on stilts above the water, but she did not visit them. Even if she had her normal wares to sell, the Reeders never bought much; and what they did buy, tried to pay for in dried salt fish or basketware. She did not care for the former and did not need the latter. So she skirted round the clustered lakes, watching distant fishing boats glide smoothly out upon the dark still waters. Nobody waved. They did not see her. She rode on north.

To save time she missed out her usual last diversion to the little town of Byant, and instead crossed the windy wildlands, the peaty ridges where even greythorn struggled to grow tall.

But the weary up-and-down of this final stretch eventually relented, and brought her to the shelter of the Bander Woods. As she entered their familiar shade – so different to the gloomy tangle of the Darkburn, or the giant spaces of Farwithiel – she felt she was already home.

The last brown leaves clung to the oaks. The air was full of the smell of wood-smoke and damp earth. The dead leaves blanketing the ground, soft and sodden beneath Poda’s hooves, sent up their own decaying sweetness. Amidst them a jay was busily collecting acorns; a host of mushrooms had sprung up in clumps like small white villages. She thought of collecting some for Gramma, but decided not to delay. She was only two or three miles from her house now, and just wanted to be there at last.

Emerging from the edge of the Bander Woods she stared out across the land. And then she thought of the tall red-haired man staring at her, frozen in perplexity, anxiety; or fear.

For the smoke that she had smelt had not come from any bonfire in the woods. Over where Obandiro should be, its pall lay wide and grey. And underneath the pall was only blackness.

Chapter 40

Yaret looked for what felt like a long time – a lifetime in shocked disbelief, although it was probably only minutes in reality. She searched the landscape for signs of human life: and she saw none. Beneath the hanging cloud of smoke the blackened area stretched in a wide radius all around the town. Nothing stirred. She realised that the smell was more than woodsmoke.

Other things had burnt there too.

She hardly dared look over to her right. There, a couple of miles east of Obandiro, the familiar stand of trees appeared to be untouched – as far as she could tell from this distance.

In a clearing amongst those trees was her grandparents’ farm.

At last she nudged Poda into a sedate walk towards it. She did not rush. In one way she wished never to arrive there. She could still – just – imagine her grandmother in the yard, looking up at her approach to say, Well, here you are at last! She kept scanning her surroundings and checking Poda for any sign of panic that might signify a darkburn; but Poda remained calm.

Some trees were indeed untouched. But as she drew closer to the farm more and more of them were burnt and broken. The track here had been trampled. The hedge was turned to a dark skeleton. She put out a hand to it as she passed and the burnt leaves crumbled in her fingers.

Beyond the hedge, the vegetable patch had been destroyed. Charred carcasses of goats lay in the ash-strewn paddock by the ruined remnants of the fences. The farmhouse – what was left of it – was a tumbled heap of black and grey. She dismounted from the horse and walked into the yard.

Something lay in the yard amidst the grey ash. Two burnt somethings. She could not tell which was which except by their relative sizes. She knelt down beside them.

“I’m so sorry,” she said into the smoky silence. “Oh, gramma, I’m so sorry. I should have been here.” She said Oveyn, twice, although it was wholly inadequate. Then she left the bodies of what were no longer her grandparents, burnt objects that were now meaningless, and walked slowly over to the house as if they might be there after all in some other guise.

But no memory of her grandparents or anything else remained in the ruins. The wooden walls had been demolished by fire. The two looms had fallen through the kitchen ceiling and lay amidst the ashes. There was nothing left to rescue. There was nothing to pick up and hug.

She stood in the kitchen trying to take it in, trying to believe it, because her brain kept denying it and telling her those things outside were just… what? Trees? Goats? And that any moment Gramma would walk in, and purse her lips, and say,

“Well! What a mess. Just as well that we were out…”

But Gramma would not appear even in her imagination. There was nothing but a blackened stump where Gramma had once been.

Yaret stumbled out into the yard and threw up, violently, over the ashes of the wash-house. Then she sat down on the stone sink, weak and shaking. When she had fallen off the cliff she had felt no dread or shock or emptiness equal in any way to this. Her brain felt wiped of all sensation except the attempt to grasp the silent horror. It loomed in and out in great tides of nausea. This was real. This could not be real. This was real. While she sat, Poda ambled round the yard in mild bewilderment, looking for something to eat.

At last she got up on her feet again. She walked back into the house. This time she made herself touch the singed stones of the hearth and the charcoaled wood of the dead looms. All completely cold. A fire this size would have taken a long time to cool down. This had happened many days ago: a week at least. She stood still again, her mind a total blank until she forced it into thought.

She picked her way around the room. The cupboards were all burnt, any food they had contained now transformed to lumps and grains of black. One corner held shards of pottery.

She picked up a smoke-stained bowl and watched it fall to pieces in her hand. A pile of spoons lay fused together on the floor.

Yaret looked up. There was nothing where the ceiling and the looms had been, except the open sky, grey like the ash around her, but a cleaner grey. She wished she was up there somewhere. Anywhere far away so that she did not have to experience this.

But it was her grandparents who had experienced it, not her. Of all the things they’d built their home from, sixty years ago, was nothing to remain? If anything was left, she had to find it.

The cellar. It was accessible only by a wooden trapdoor set into the stone flags of the floor. The trapdoor was half hidden now, between the fallen looms. Although it too was burnt to black its wood remained intact enough to cover the cellar’s entrance.

As soon as she tried to lift it by its iron ring, the trapdoor broke and crumbled. Beneath it the ladder was scorched but was still propped in its place; and when she began to descend cautiously it did not give way beneath her.

She stepped down to the bottom and in the dim light saw the sacks of oats and a smaller sack of flour, the boxes of apples, the shelf laden with cheeses. The roots that she had planned to dig up this week were piled in a corner. Gramma had been busy. Everything smelt of smoke but the food appeared to be unharmed. Well done, Gramma. Thank you. She lay down amongst the sacks for a while and thought of nothing but the smell of roots and earth and apples that seemed to go deeper than the smoke. She wanted to sleep. And not wake again.

Then she got up and climbed the stair back to the kitchen and went out to Poda. After leaning against the horse’s shoulder for a moment, she began to walk her first around the farmyard and then in a widening spiral round the farm.

There was no clue as to how it had begun. The cloth-house reeked of burnt wool, but not so much as a strand remained in there. The stable which once held her donkeys now held silence. In the orchard the blackened bones of trees stood to attention. Slowly she realised that the Farwth must have known of this burning. She touched a tree and wondered if some record of her touch would reach the Farwth through it. But no, this one was well and truly dead.

So were all the goats, not just in the paddock but the orchard. She started to count their bodies and then gave up, because there seemed to be no point. The sheep out in the fields might have survived but she had no inclination to go and look for them.

It took a while for her to find a patch of grass where Poda could be left to graze. Then she returned to the farmhouse. The objects that had once been her grandparents seemed to greet her as if they had already grown familiar. They looked not totally unlike darkburns. But they thankfully lay still.

Because she did not know what else to do she descended once more to the cellar and ate an apple and some cheese. Then she lay down again, and wept, and then slept, probably, because darkness came and went and left this next thing that must be another day. Somehow it had to be got through. But how? For what?

Slowly a plan formed. Not a plan, really, just a task. Something to do. Yaret climbed out of the cellar and trudged through the remnants of the house. Outside she found the small spring behind the cloth-house that was still bubbling into a pool of sodden ashes. There she washed and filled the waterskins, and forced herself to eat some biscuit. Remembered filling a waterskin beside a river: the smell of the approaching darkburn. A creeping shadow in a shroud of fear. The anger, grief, and desolation. The heat. The end of everything.

Darkburn. The thought came to her again when she fetched Poda and found the mare skittish and nervous. But that was probably just the smell and strangeness of the place, because once Yaret was mounted, Poda quickly settled down again. She trotted blithely along the narrow wooded track that led from the farmhouse to Obandiro and came out of the trees just above the mill.

Burnt, of course. But this was as good a place to start as any. So Yaret dismounted and led the horse down the track and to the mill, which was built of stone, not wood. Yet it was as thorough ruined as the farm, although unlike her own house the ruins were still warm. The fires had burnt for longer here.

She walked on to the miller’s house at the edge of town. Burnt, empty but for ashen relics.

When she whispered her Oveyns her voice had almost vanished. The huge silence of the streets here overwhelmed it. In several places low loose drifts of smoke unwound and wound themselves in the caressing breeze: they were the only things that moved.

Street by street, leading Poda by her bridle, she carefully patrolled the town. As she walked she spoke aloud but quietly the names of those she knew. All gone, that was too evident. Menlo, Coret, Dalko, where are you now?

There was no one to reply. Nothing left except their names echoing into silence. In places the town was unrecognisable; yet elsewhere some stone buildings appeared almost intact until the blackened hollows of the windows gave away the nature of what lay inside.

Along her path lay numbers of charred corpses, like burnt effigies – so many of them that she almost gave up saying Oveyn. Some of them might have been trying to defend themselves: she saw amidst the ashes the grey glint of a knife. Intruders had been here then, either before or during the burning. Someone for them to fight.

In a corner of the village square she found the first dead stoneman. He was burnt too and identifiable only by the halo of stones set into his skull. She walked in a long circle round the town: more of the same, corpses, ashes, silence. A warmth still lingered in the ruined walls.

The ash that filled the streets was damp with rain and roughly trodden down by many feet with strangely patterned soles – stonemen’s, presumably. At the north-east edge of town a second dead stoneman lay outside the forge next to what might once have been Shay the blacksmith.

She stepped across the bodies that were not even bodies, into the forge which was cold and still. Three swords were hanging on the scorched stone wall, their steel blackened. She stared at them for a long moment before nodding and stepping out again. They would be there later if she needed them.

Walking back into the Cross-street, for the first time she heard a noise.

At once she stopped and put a hand on Poda’s neck. Should have taken down one of those swords after all. Too late to go back now. But handier with a knife in any case. She drew it from her belt.

And then she thought more clearly. It had been a stealthy, scuffling, furtive noise. She did not think a stoneman had just made that sound. As she understood it, a stoneman would simply yell and charge, not hide.

So she put her knife back in her belt and said loudly, in Bandiran,

“Hallo? Is anybody there? I’ve been away for weeks. I’ve only just got back. What’s happened here?”

She waited. Nothing.

“I’m Yaretkoro, Ilo the weaver’s grand-daughter from the farm on the east road. Ilo is dead. I need to know what’s happened.”

Still silence. But a different sort of silence. And then there was a rustle: and a boy emerged from behind a wall and stood before her in the street, his clothes streaked grey with dirt and ash. He was, she judged, about fourteen. His eyes were wide and wary.

“Is there anybody else?” he said.

“I’m here alone,” said Yaret. “What’s your name?”

“Charo.” He stared at her as if she was not real.

“When did this happen, Charo?” she said gently.

“Two weeks ago. Where have you been?” His voice was urgent, almost accusing.

“Peddling cloth,” she said. “I got held up.” And now for the first time since arriving home she felt terribly afraid, in case those two weeks had been spent in desperate loneliness.

“Charo,” she said, “are you the only one? Are you alone?”

“No.”

She felt a huge relief flood through her at the answer.

“But I’m the oldest. There are four of us.” He looked at her with a strange twist of his mouth. It might have been an attempt at something like a smile. “Five, now,” he said.

*****

*

End of Book 1