She was frantically pushing at Poda’s body with her left foot to try and free her right, all the time aware that the edge of the rock platform was just behind her. Her head was already lolling in thin air and the roar of the water below pummelled her ears. She needed to pull free and get up and join the fight. She could hear the shouts and clash of swords but she could not see what was going on.
When the stoneman leapt up onto Poda’s belly her first fear was for the poor labouring horse. She thought his axe would fall on Poda’s neck. She did not fear for herself until it was too late: the axe’s sudden crunch had freed her leg, though she was conscious of no pain. As she struggled to sit up the blow of the stoneman’s boot in her chest was a heavy jolt. It sent her helplessly backwards, flying, tumbling, falling.
Strangely, her only coherent thought was “the donkeys!” Then something hit her painfully on the head and shoulders, tugging on her clothes and ripping at her skin. As she tore past and through it she realised it was a thornbush and tried to grab it; but too fast, too slow, it was gone upward and she was going down again. This time she was not head first but still did not see the second shrub as it rushed up and caught her by the legs.
It held her for about a second, maybe two. Then with a strident crack it let her go, spilling her from its hard fingers, and she bounced off rock and fell again for a bewildering long moment until there was sudden water, so cold that it shocked her more than anything so far.
She had not heard a splash.
But she knew she must not breathe it in – the instinct to breathe seemed to have stopped in any case during the fall – so she thrashed and thrashed and willed the water to let go, to give her up as the bushes had.
It did not want to. But then she found the surface, or the water freed her. There was air.
With her first gasping breath she recognised where she was and what had happened to her foot.
Her brain began to work, after a fashion. The icy water might help to slow the bleeding.
But she had to get out of it. When she tried to stand, her left foot met a stony bed. She realised that she was very close to shore.
But then the water swept her up and away again in strong cold arms and it wasn’t until a rock hit her that she was able to stop herself. She realised that her pack was still strapped to her back and could not remember why. She clung on to the projecting rock and tried to stand again – no, that was stupid, not enough feet – so she threw herself towards the bank and found herself sitting in the shallows. With her arms and her left leg she levered herself further out.
Not far enough. Further, further. The river dragged at her. She shuffled higher onto the narrow stony shore above the water’s roar and rush. As she felt herself starting to shiver she thought, No, no, not yet, not yet, there are things I have to do!
Back-pack. Get it off. Open it. Don’t look at your foot yet, it’s not there anyway, unbuckle, unstrap, that’s it. Now. Find the samples. Any of them. That one. Fold it. Fold again.
Her fingers were cold and clumsy but they managed to obey. Then she allowed herself to look. Blood was pulsing but not leaping from the new end of her leg. It was a clean cut apart from a ragged flap of skin that had been left dangling underneath. This flap she took hold of, and pulled over so that it covered the stump. Nothing hurt much yet. That must be the cold, or shock, or some wonderful decision by her body.
Now the cloth. She pressed the folded woollen cloth over and round the stump and tried to tie it. Her fingers fumbled. Done, sort of. Now fold another strip: no, no, something else first.
She tipped up the pack and her pots of salt and honey tumbled out.
Salt. She threw it at the cloth-bound leg. Most of it missed. She put her fingers in the honey and smeared it round the edges. She still felt nothing. Extraordinary. Now fold another sample.
It was harder this time: she was beginning to shiver badly. Not only her fingers had grown clumsy but her hands, her arms, her shoulders: none of them wanted to do anything.
Somehow she managed to fold the cloth and make a pad. Another strip to hold it on: she wound it round and over. Tie. Tie. Tie. Her hands would not do it.
Yet at last it seemed to be done. At least, the strip did not fall off. Her fingers were sticky and she fell back with relief and licked them while she could still move. Delicious.
She scooped the remains of the honey from the pot, dipped them in the remains of the salt, and licked again. It was odd licking honey from her own fingers. It might help, though. Salt and sugar.
Water. There was plenty of it if she had the energy. She could feel herself weakening fast now, all her muscles seeming to go into spasm. Her leg was stinging and everything was starting to hurt much more, not just her leg but hips, knees, elbows, back, her whole body.
She reached out with the empty honey jar and dipped it in a pool of water. Drank. Cold, too cold, but necessary. Dipped and drank again.
Her mouth was numb now, with the cold or something else. She hoped that everything would go numb as it had been before. But it refused. It was getting worse. Her leg was fiercely angry and growing angrier, as if a lion were biting off her foot. But there was no lion.
She had imagined the lion although she thought she heard it growling. No, that must be the river. She turned her head and looked at the water to make sure. Thought of reaching out to touch it although her hand did not respond.
But now she had done everything necessary. She felt almost exultant as she lay and let the shivering take over. She was shaking uncontrollably, despite the exultancy. But the shivering would pass. The pain would pass. Everything would pass.
Then she must have slept, because it was twilight, and then a little later on it was fully dark. She wasn’t sure how that had happened. How long would the night be? Would there be a morning? The shivering had stopped but she was cold and achy yet she couldn’t move. She felt helplessly limp and there was a dense burning pain somewhere. Try not to notice.
But now it resolved into a clear pain of the mind as she thought of Rothir and the others high up on the cliff. Would they be able to see her from up there? Would they still be there to look? Or had they…
The thought of them also falling, cut down, was too dreadful. That made her sob in anguish until she told herself not to be so stupid. She had seen how they could fight. Whether they would be in any state to find her was another matter.
In any case she was not sure that she could be found. With the cliff towering above her on one side and the stars above and the rush of water past her on the other side, she was surely untouchable. Inviolable. Pristine.
There was something that she ought to have done, that she had missed out. What was it?
She remembered, and said Oveyn. She wasn’t sure who for. Maybe it was for herself. Some of the words seemed to have changed and she hoped it wouldn’t matter.
The pain seemed further off now. It was walking away with her foot. She stared up at the stars that were shining high above her, a slice of them visible at least with the blackness of the cliff trying to shoulder them aside. But it could not do it. The stars moved but they could not be moved, they were faithful, they were always there. Thank you, stars. She stared at
those pale points and felt herself hurtling upwards to meet them, pierced on their thin spears until everything was light.
He did not think that he had slept at all although the sudden presence of the bruised-blue dawn told him that sleep must have stolen an hour or two from his waiting. At once he was on his feet, looking for the horses.
Parthenal stirred and sat up. “I’ll come with you.”
Rothir nodded. It seemed all too clear to him now, in the cold dim light, that he was going only to find a corpse at best. At worst, nothing. And then he would never know where she was. Last night he had held on doggedly to hope. This morning, even as he pulled himself up onto Narba, he knew that hope was pointless.
All the same he would try to find her. He motioned with his hand to Tiburé, as she woke and blinked and scratched her head, and then he rode away before she could start to dissuade him.
He was thankful that Parthenal did not try to either comfort or to disillusion him. His friend accompanied him in silence as Narba picked a way along the narrow trail beside the busy, hurrying Thore. He wished that he could hurry likewise. He had five miles to go; at least an hour at this rate. Too long. But it could not make a difference now.
The thundering of the Thore was too tremendous to permit much speech. In any case what was there to say? His mind kept turning to the same images: a crumpled, broken body lying by the river, or disappearing downstream, vanishing as he tried to reach it. Carried far beyond his grasp.
Accept it, he thought, there will be nothing to find. But something rebelled inside him. He would not accept it. He had to accept it. No. Sickness welled up within him.
So he forced himself away from those thoughts to guess at distances while the horses walked on carefully. Sometimes they were in the water, sometimes out of it, as the path dipped in and out of the shallow margin of the river. Gradually the slopes above him grew and steepened and the echoes of the hoof-steps lengthened.
“It can’t be far now,” said Parthenal eventually. “There’s the split crag we saw from the other side. So that must be the stone platform jutting out up there.”
Rothir nodded. It was an appallingly long fall. All this way he thought he had been slowly hardening his heart and will in readiness. Now his efforts seemed to have had no effect. He felt sick again as he began to scan the opposite bank of the river.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The water rushed and roared beside him. It did not care. He checked the landmarks above his head; moved a little further on, and checked again, Parthenal always following.
Nothing. He walked Narba on, and scanned the far shore again.
Nothing. He had known this from the start. It was hopeless. Yet he had to keep on looking.
Nothing. And again here.
Nothing. Further down. Keep going. Even if there’s no point.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
And then a…
On the far side, a bundle. A huddle of clothes and limbs and straggled hair. It wasn’t a stoneman.
“That’s her,” he said, in utter disbelief, and flinging himself off the horse he thrust his sword and cloak at Parthenal to hold before immediately beginning to wade into the river.
Despite his haste he knew he had to test its depth. Here it had widened into one of its smoothly swirling pools, but was not too deep: so he went back for Narba.
“I’ll wait here,” said Parthenal. “Wave if you need help.” Rothir nodded and led his horse into the water. At its deepest it was barely chest-high. He did not need to swim, although he could only make his way slowly to avoid being pushed over by the icy current. Narba moved strongly and confidently by his side. He had to concentrate on the tumultuous river and watch where he was wading. When he emerged on the gravelly rocks of the other shore he was shocked all over again by the sight of the body.
She was lying on her side with her back to him. When he rolled her gently over she was cold and still and wet. He drew away the clinging strands of hair. Her face was bloody and bruised and seemed to be sticky with something; but it dawned on him that she was breathing.
His heart seemed to give a great leap in his chest. He felt her throat for a pulse and after a moment found it: fast but weak. Now for the first time he noticed the bundle of cloth that was wrapped around her right leg, untidily but firmly tied. It had a thin green check running through it where it was not soaked red with blood. Her pack was lying open next to her, its contents spilled. Cloth and empty jars. He could not imagine how she had survived the fall well enough to do so much.
But he did not know what other injuries she might have suffered in that fall. Under the ripped clothing her arms and legs seemed scraped and battered but not broken, as far as he could tell from running his hands swiftly down them. He could afford to spend no more time checking. Picking her up carefully in both arms he deposited her face down across the saddle, hanging over Narba’s back. It was the safest way to carry her across the river.
Then he held her on as he led the horse back, through the rushing, whirling, grasping Thore. Her hands trailed in the water. Still he did not dare to hope. She could die at any moment. Not yet, please, not yet. Narba snorted and stepped purposefully out onto the other side.
“She’s alive,” he said to Parthenal as soon as he was across.
Parthenal stared, incredulous. “How can she be?”
“I don’t know. She is.” He checked that she was in fact still breathing, and then left her in the same position dangling over Narba’s back. Undignified, but it worked. He took his dry cloak from Parthenal and threw it over her to try and warm her up.
Narba walked sedately along the path as if totally unbothered by his freezing dip. Ignoring his own chilled and sodden limbs, Rothir held Yaret’s bandaged leg away from the horse’s jolting body. It was dripping blood but not too much. Keep her alive, he thought, keep her alive, without knowing whether it was himself he thus implored or someone else.
They were half way back along the shore path when the cloak began to flap and flounder.
Rothir swiftly removed it, and lifted the struggling Yaret down. With Parthenal’s help he laid her on the path. Her eyes were closed and she was shivering convulsively.
“Yaret?”
No answer.
“She’s cold,” said Parthenal, “and you’re too wet to help.” He lay down alongside Yaret on the stony ground and put his arms around her, pulling his cloak round them both. Rothir draped his own cloak on top. Then he knelt and dripped on her other side and willed her not to die.
After five minutes the shaking lessened. Her eyes half-opened although her mind did not appear to be there. She gazed up at Rothir for a long moment, yet she seemed aware of neither him nor Parthenal, who now stood up.
“You’re safe,” said Rothir to her none the less. “You’re safe, Yaret. We found you.”
The saying of it seemed finally to make it true, and he was astounded that it had been possible. That they had done it. That she had survived. He did not want to allow himself to believe it yet.
“Ah.” Yaret let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “Stone,” she whispered.
“The stonemen are all gone. You’re safe now. We’re taking you back to the others.”
“Safe?”
“Everyone is safe,” said Rothir.
While she was still conscious he propped up her head and held a waterskin to her mouth, although not much went in. Then after a brief discussion with Parthenal, he said,
“We’re going to sit you on the horse. I’ll go up behind you.”
They lifted her back onto Narba, this time semi-upright in the saddle. Parthenal suggested binding his rolled-up cloak underneath the truncated leg to stop it bumping into Narba’s flank; so this they did. Then Rothir carefully swung himself up behind her, praying that she would be easier to keep in place than Eled had been.
She was. Her head soon dropped down on her chest as she lost consciousness again, but she was lighter than Eled, and with one arm firmly round her Rothir was able to hold her on the saddle as he rode.
He felt as if he had been given a reprieve from a death sentence. Yet he dared not place too much trust in this sudden hope. She could still die at any time. Take her last breath in this saddle, on this path.
He tried to will life into her through his own body. Lungs, keep breathing. Heart, keep beating. Narba walked on steadily; he was well used to this exercise by now.
She was unconscious but still alive when they arrived back at the ford. They lifted her carefully down and deposited her at Tiburé’s feet, like a defiant offering.
Tiburé looked up at him, startled. “She can’t be!”
“She is,” said Rothir. He felt exhausted but he could not rest just yet. “I don’t think she’s broken anything obvious, but you need to check her over. She may have internal injuries, in which case I’ve just made everything much worse. And we need to look at her foot.”
“Who put that bandage on?”
“She did.”
“What? How?”
He shrugged.
“I never heard her,” said Maeneb, sounding shattered. “I never heard her.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rothir said. “It made no difference. I had to look for her in any case.”
Tiburé undid Yaret’s damp clothing and felt gently down her trunk and along her limbs.
“Gashes and bruises,” she said. “She’s going to be black and blue in a few days.” Rothir’s heart turned over at her assumption that Yaret would still be alive by then.
“I can’t be sure about internal damage,” Tiburé went on, “but her limbs seem to be intact.
The left knee’s swollen. As for her foot…” She looked carefully at it but did no more than gently touch the bloodied woollen wrappings. Her finger came away sticky. Putting it experimentally to her nose and then her mouth, she smiled and shook her head in disbelief.
“Honey!” she said. “And salt, I think. Well, better than nothing. I wouldn’t want to attempt to take that bandage off. Removing it will do more harm than good. It’ll just start the leg bleeding again; at the moment it’s almost stopped. There’s some oozing there, around the edge, but that’s all. We’re better leaving the whole thing in place until we reach Farwithiel.”
Rothir nodded.
“I’ll give her ethlon,” said Tiburé. “It ought to wake her up.” She took out the vial and dribbled a few drops into Yaret’s mouth. Although Yaret did not visibly swallow, after a couple of minutes she stirred and tried to turn over.
“Open your eyes,” commanded Tiburé. “Look at me. At me. You need to drink.”
“Let me do it,” said Rothir, faintly disgusted with her peremptory demands. He lifted Yaret with one arm under her shoulders and again offered her water. She drank this time, but messily, water spilling down her shirt.
“Ah,” she said, looking up at him. Then she craned her head to peer at her foot. After a moment she murmured “Ah well,” and her head fell back on to his arm.
“We’re going to take you to Farwithiel,” he promised. “They have healers there. They’ll look after you.”
“Ah.” A faint smile twitched across her pale lips. Healers would not be able to replace her foot, he thought.
And it would be at least a two days’ journey. It would have taken only one more day to reach Farwithiel without the invalids. But they had two invalids now: this expedition had turned into a disaster. He glanced across at Eled, who was sitting up and staring, with a question in his wide dark eyes.
“We’ll tell you later,” said Parthenal to him quietly. “Tiburé? How soon can we move on?”
“The sooner the better,” answered Tiburé. “Assuming that the Farwth will allow us in.
What do you think, Maeneb?”
“I don’t know,” said Maeneb, her voice desolate. “I think that I know nothing any more.”
“Well, you will have to persuade the Farwth to let us in,” Rothir told her. He heard the roughness in his own voice and did not care. “Or I will.”
“Persuade the Farwth?” queried Parthenal, his eyebrows raised.
Rothir nodded grimly. He knew the Farwth was not persuadable. But if he had to, he would force it to admit them. He had no idea how – for the Farwth was greater than any earthbound power that he had ever met – but right now he felt as ruthless as a whirlwind, full of a turmoil of fear and impatience and some other, indefinable, emotion. He was not to be denied. Somehow he would get the Farwth to agree.
It was a relief to Maeneb not to have Eled up in front of her this time. She was fond of Eled and grieved for his state; but she also found his close presence irritating to the point of pain, and a distraction from her foremost task of listening.
This was nothing to do with Eled’s character, she knew. It was the same with everyone.
They were all too noisy and too near. Even her riding partner Tiburé talked far too much.
This travelling in close company, albeit only with a few others, was difficult; Maeneb would have much preferred to ride alone.
At least now, on the far side of the Thore, she was a little ahead of the rest so that she could listen for her route without much interference. Around her stretched the unremarkable landscape of spindly trees, their thin branches netted together, and tall clumps of common weeds disappearing into shrouding mist. Unremarkable to look at… but these were the borderlands of Farwithiel, where nothing could be taken for granted.
She reined in her horse Shoda, and closed her eyes, feeling for the Farwth. Surely the Farwth must be aware of the Riders’ presence now that they had crossed the Thore. But she heard and felt nothing of its will.
That did not mean to say that its will was not active. The signals were there, even if intended for the Wardens. As a half-Warden herself, she could detect them. Opening her eyes again she concentrated on listening to the land.
“We need to avoid that beech copse to our left,” she reported.
“Really?” queried Tiburé behind her. “I thought we came straight through it last time. That was less than a month ago. How can it have changed so fast?”
“It has,” said Maeneb obstinately.
And as they passed to the right of the clump of trees Parthenal said quietly, “There are two stonemen in there, lying dead. What could have killed them?”
“We won’t stop to find out,” said Tiburé, who had Eled on her horse in front of her.
“Poisonous vines, perhaps,” said Maeneb. That was one of the methods the Farwth used to keep out unwanted strangers from its land.
Another method lay a little further on. She felt its presence before she saw it. Possibly, by making the trap so plain to her, the Farwth was allowing them to enter…
Or maybe it was warning her off. She would not find out for a while which one it was.
“Avoid those bushes,” she said. “Those are not ordinary thorns.”
“Poisonous, again?” asked Parthenal.
“I’m not sure. But there is a threat around them.”
“I feel nothing,” said Tiburé. “Would the Farwth let us merely barge on into them, if you were not here with us?”
“I don’t know,” said Maeneb. “Stop talking, please.”
Her words were addressed only to Tiburé and Parthenal. Since they had left the banks of the Thore, Rothir had not spoken. He had the air of a man stunned and trying to work out what had stunned him. Maeneb could hear his thoughts moving round and round in ever-widening circles. What those thoughts were, she could not guess.
The woman Yaretkoro was up in front of him, drooping and semi-conscious in the saddle.
Now and then she sighed and leaned back against Rothir. She did not speak; but Maeneb could hear her too, a faint whisper somewhere far away.
Yet not as far away as Eled. She had the feeling that a part of Eled had departed permanently, and it saddened her. As she looked back, the two injured passengers were like ill-matched twins, each with a leg stuck out at a strange angle. And one of those was her fault.
Looking away again, Maeneb concentrated on the path ahead. She had already failed her companions on the cliff top by the Thore: she must not fail them here. The weight of responsibility was like a heavy rope around her neck. Miss anything now and it would tighten.
“Here we turn towards the hill,” she said, seeing a fork in the rough trail.
“Really? We went the other way last time,” said Tiburé.
“Really,” said Maeneb, trying not to mind. Tiburé had the right to ask. But she had to trust that the Farwth would not try to mislead her – not treat them like that stoneman whom she now saw from the corner of her eye, impaled on a cluster of sharp reeds. He was long dead; very long, to judge by his appearance, and she assumed the reeds had grown through him since his death. She hoped so, at any rate.
“He’s got a lot of stones,” Tiburé muttered. Although the skin was largely gone from the yellow skull, the stones remained. “At least twelve.”
“High rank,” suggested Parthenal.
“Hmph,” said Rothir. In front of him Yaret stirred and sighed.
“It really does not help me if you talk,” said Maeneb, and the others once again fell silent.
They passed the small tree-covered hill, so unremarkable apart from the dead man. Flies buzzed around his head; bees shot through the warm air on their errands; warblers sang to each other unseen in the bushes.
At the bottom of the hill a browsing deer looked up in mild alarm, before skipping away into the mist. Their progress was hardly secret. Indeed there was no way it could be secret from the Farwth.
“Stop,” said Tiburé suddenly. “It’s Eled again.” Maeneb had expected it for a mile now; she had felt Eled’s mind drifting, floating away – where to, she did not know.
They lifted down the injured pair to lie beneath a group of undersized oaks. None of the trees here on Farwithiel’s fringe were large; not like further in. The pattern of trees seemed to change every time Maeneb visited Farwithiel – which was more often than the rest of the Riders, but not as often as perhaps might have been expected, given that her father lived here in the shade of the Farwth.
But her father had never given her much incentive to visit. He was always mildly pleased when she arrived, and did not invite her back.
Of course, she told herself, it was not for him to say. Even as a Warden of Farwithiel he had not that power; it was for the Farwth to decide who came here and who left alive.
After a few minutes Eled revived enough to be propped up against a frail tree that was only a quarter the width of his back. He looked up at the rustling leaves not very far above his head.
“Nice,” he said dreamily. “Where are we?”
“Farwithiel.”
“Oh, yes. I knew that. Will we stay?”
“Some of us will,” said Rothir. Maeneb thought there was a catch in his deep voice. But he looked exactly the same as always: stern and slightly fearsome. Yaret lay beside him, curled up on the grass like a sleeping child. The woollen dressing round her lower leg was entirely bloodstained now, with no hint of a green check visible.
“The Farwth has allowed us in unhindered so far,” said Tiburé. “Have you agreed anything with it?”
This galled Maeneb. Tiburé ought to know that the Farwth could not be addressed as one might petition a human lord or overseer. One could say things, certainly, and the Farwth would hear them; but might then just shut them out. The Farwth did not answer questions –
not from her, at any rate.
“There has been no communication,” she said stiffly.
“The fact that we have been allowed this far is hopeful, but no guarantee of anything,” put in Parthenal. He understood more fully than Tiburé did, thought Maeneb, and she was grateful. Parthenal in general understood her better than the other Riders did; and he was never caustic to her, as he sometimes was to them.
Yaret uncurled herself. Although she had appeared to be asleep, Maeneb saw that she was staring from her prone position at a clump of flowers nearby, as if she were puzzled by them.
They were only some kind of ragwort, Maeneb thought, nothing out of the ordinary. Yaret said several words in her own language, like an incantation, and kept staring. Maeneb suspected that she was hallucinating.
“What do you see?” Rothir asked her quietly. At first Yaret did not appear to have heard.
But then she answered in a murmur.
“Lin.”
Definitely hallucinating, decided Maeneb. Lins did not exist. Probably. Certainly she had never seen or heard one. All the same she felt a faint stab of apprehension in case there was something present that she was failing to detect. Just as she should have detected those stonemen back by the Thore.
Rothir felt Yaret’s forehead. “You’re hot,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“Bit strange,” said Yaret. Her voice was blurred. Her gaze kept wandering to things that were not there.
“Let’s move on,” said Tiburé briskly.
Nobody else was brisk. That was an effect of crossing the borders of Farwithiel: it slowed you down. It sharpened some instincts and blunted others – amongst them, the desire for speed. Even Rothir was almost languid as he lifted Yaret back up into the saddle.
But now Yaret seemed wider awake despite her feebleness and fever. She turned her head to look about her as they passed through the scrub, which now gradually increased in size and strength until it was true woodland.
The mists thickened. They could still see as far as they needed to but through a fine pale film. Yaret stared and stared as if she were endeavouring to penetrate the veil; at times Maeneb heard her mutter. Then she leant against Rothir and closed her eyes again.
No-one else spoke. The horses snuffed and snorted: twigs cracked beneath their feet, and birds’ alarms rose in short-lived protest as they passed. Maeneb guided Shoda steadily through the woodland. Tomorrow it would become a greater forest.
Now the mist was darkening; it must be evening, although she had lost all sense of time when finally she halted in a large open glade. She had the feeling that the trees had only just moved aside, to make a space especially for them. But that was ridiculous. Even the Farwth could not do that.
Don’t judge of what I can and cannot do.
Maeneb froze. It was apparent that nobody else had heard. The voice had been in her head only: speaking in no language she could name, yet its meaning was quite clear. It was nothing like the muddled, whispering human voices that she was used to listening for. It was like wind calling through immense branches. A deep echo. A mighty resonance.
She gazed at the ground and made silent apologies. And then she made pleas that they might be admitted, and would not simply find themselves leaving the far edge of the forest with nothing gained and much time lost.
But the Farwth was now silent.
“We may as well stop here for the night,” said Tiburé. The presence of the glade seemed to indicate to Maeneb that they were allowed that much. In any case the others were already unloading the horses and setting out the bedrolls.
Tiburé administered a few meagre drops of ethlon to each invalid to dull their pains and wake them up enough to eat. Maeneb busied herself with the food so that she would not have
to help the helpless. It was Rothir who assisted Eled behind a tree so that he could pee, and Parthenal who carried Yaret into the bushes, with Tiburé on hand to help, so that she could do the same. Maeneb could not endure all these bodily functions. Her own were bad enough.
As for what the others called love – she didn’t even care to think about it. Why would anyone want to get so horribly close to another human being? Yet she sensed that they all wanted to, at times, in different degrees. Especially Parthenal, whose thoughts often veered that way, as she could tell from their colour. Thankfully she could not discern their content.
And Tiburé was almost as bad.
Not for the first time, Maeneb wondered if her own aversion to human closeness was an inheritance from her father. Yet her father was a human, if a strange one. And her mother…
Well, it was hardly an inheritance from her. Maeneb knew that she was nothing like her mother, a fiercely self-willed Rider. Thirty years ago, Daneb had been one of a company from Caervonn who had visited the Farwth. She had come away pregnant. There had been no question of a marriage: for the Wardens would not leave Farwithiel, nor would they permit outsiders to stay – not permanently, anyway.
So Maeneb had seen her father for the first time when she was eighteen and already in exile from Caervonn, along with the rest of Huldarion’s people. During the infrequent meetings of father and daughter since then, they had grown no closer. To her he seemed an aged, distant man and her mother’s choice grew even more mysterious.
Maeneb felt herself to be quite different to the Wardens. But she heard the voices of the land: and the Farwth spoke to her, as it did to the Wardens; sometimes heard by all, sometimes by her alone. She supposed it ought to be a reason to be proud. It felt more like a burden.
Parthenal was carrying Yaret back into the glade. When he placed her gently on the ground, her face was grey.
“Yed, galeth,” she said huskily.
“Is that Bandiran?” he asked. “What does it mean?”
A pause. “Thank you, brother,” Yaret whispered.
“Thank you, donkey,” said Parthenal. He looked taken aback.
“And what does Har en thoni mean?” asked Rothir.
It was Yaret’s turn to look faintly startled. “Why? Where…?”
“You said it earlier.”
“Did I? Means… Keep me here.” Her voice was fading.
“We’ll do our best to keep you here,” said Parthenal. “She’s still too hot. Tiburé? Can she have more ethlon?”
“No,” said Tiburé decidedly. “Neither can Eled. It’s too addictive.”
“The Wardens will be able to provide their own remedies and medicines,” Maeneb assured them.
“If they’re allowed to,” Rothir said. “Do you have any indication of that yet?”
“The Farwth has already let us come this far,” Tiburé pointed out.
“As Parthenal said earlier, that means nothing. We are not yet properly inside Farwithiel.
It may wish simply to observe us,” Maeneb said sharply. The uncertainty made her edgy.
Rothir bowed his head where he sat beneath a leafy branch. His thoughts concentrated themselves. Maeneb had the impression that he was praying.
“The Farwth is not a god,” she told him. “Do not think of it as one.”
He raised his head sharply. “Don’t worry. I don’t.” He stood up again and went to dole food into a dish for Eled.
Then they all ate, and helped the sick to eat, and tried to sleep beneath the gently hushing trees in a pattern that was becoming painfully familiar. At least they did not need to set a sentry here, thought Maeneb, as she began to build up the mental barrier that she would need
in order to sleep properly. Too often lately she’d had to leave it down and her sleep had been broken frequently by stray voices in consequence.
But tonight she would shut all external voices out, and allow herself to fall deep into restful sleep. For tomorrow she would fall deeper into another kind of dream: into Farwithiel.
Yaret thought that she might be awake. It was hard to be certain. It was hard to be certain of anything except the throbbing of her leg, a dark burning pulse that beat its way through day and night. It had been louder today. Or heavier, or something. Pain. That was the word. It was pain.
But now that she seemed to be lying still it was not so bad as earlier. Wa s she lying still?
The ground was gently rising and dipping underneath her as if she were on the horse. Maybe she was still on his horse and dreaming. His arm around her. But she could hear the steady breathing of sleepers on all sides, like a protection. So maybe she too was asleep.
To test this theory, she tried to open her eyes. Were they open, or had she merely dreamed of opening them? If they were open, all was dark, so she might as well close them again.
Much easier. So tiring to be awake and trying to remember things.
She had forgotten where she was. A forest: that seemed to fit. She heard the rustling of faint leaves. The sound was something to hold on to.
But there were so many forests. Was this the Bander, near her home? A journey chasing after strayed sheep that preferred the forest to the pasture. Huge oaks. Shafts of light hurled deep between them. The trees shed comfort along with acorns. No wonder the sheep liked it.
She had to persuade them home but she didn’t want to leave the place herself.
And Gramma Thuli. Stepping between trees she had disappeared in her brown cloak. Then reappeared a little further on. Gathering something. Acorns. No. Squirrels. No. Sunlight. No.
Mushrooms. That was it. Mushrooms.
Then she became aware that Thuli was quite close to her, and speaking. Saying to her not her name, but some other words that she ought to know. She could not recognise them although they were very familiar.
“Gramma?” she said. “Were you looking for me? I found the sheep.” Then she realised that the sheep were in a different time, and that this was not the Bander forest. It was too dark. It felt older. She was here for a reason but she could not remember it. It was somewhere far away. Far, far.
“Have you come all this way to find me?” she said. “Did they tell you that I hurt my leg?
It’s not that bad, you know. It’ll stop singing soon.”
Tell me the song, said Gramma Thuli.
It was winding through her head, along with the beat of the pulse and the pain, and when she followed it she discovered that it was a song by Madeo. Of course it was. So she sang it, as best she could. Probably not aloud because she could not hear a voice. And she did not have her gourd. It was about a path. Where did it lead, that path? The song must tell it somewhere but she could not remember the end.
“I forget,” she said. “But you know it, Gramma. You taught it me. And your gramma taught it you. Grammas all the way to Madeo.” The idea pleased her and she was laughing.
The gramma liked the song and remembered it well. But this was not her gramma after all, it was someone else’s. Still now that she was here, she enjoyed the song.
“I am honoured,” Yaret told her. And then she fell asleep.
Today she was inside the dream.
That was what it felt like to Maeneb, although it was perhaps not so much dream as memory. Once the Riders left the close-knit woods behind, and the trees lengthened and become more widely spaced in stately isolation, it was like some clear, sharp recollection of when she was a child and everything was giant. But she had never come here as a child.
On that first visit, eleven years ago, Farwithiel had filled her both with wonder and a sense of drowning. Maeneb had had no consciousness of coming home. Nor did she now. She was stuck between two countries, two heritages, and belonged to neither.
All she had left to her was her task. Farwithiel stripped everything else away. The trees grew still more massive, more majestic: she saw before her striped ranks of great pillars, pale gold and red and grey and silver-white and earth-brown. Trees that grew nowhere else, that had no name that she knew of. Some rose above huge buttresses of roots; others held out enormous horizontal branches in defiance of gravity; a few tall ones had no boughs at all save at the top where they rose into the mist that kept them hidden.
It was not silent. There were small animals: Maeneb saw the signs of darrowfox and badger, cat and slinking fangol, although the muffled voices that she detected from them –
with more colour and less shape than human voices – were subdued and wary. Even the horses knew that this was no ordinary forest. Yet the birds were carefree, half-seen flashes of brightness that swooped and frolicked high up in the branches.
She glanced round at the other riders. Rothir had Eled in front of him today, and all his attention seemed fixed on his friend. But Parthenal gazed upwards with a slightly stricken look upon his face. He felt it too, then: the awe that turned an individual to nothing. You had to fight it or accept.
In front of Parthenal and held up by his arm Yaret swayed in the saddle, pale and sweating. Her eyes were closed but her lips moved, murmuring inaudible words. She looked more feverish than yesterday.
Tiburé too was pale, though not with fever; and it would hardly be with fear. Tiburé was a fighter, not an accepter. Maeneb knew that submission was difficult for her, even to the Farwth. Perhaps especially to the Farwth. But you could only be here on its terms.
At least it seemed they had its leave to enter. They had not been sent through wayward paths to the outer reaches of the forest. That had happened to Maeneb once, on a previous visit; the Riders had not been allowed in, but had found themselves back in the thin scrubland east of the Thore. Both she and the land had felt desolate: abandoned and alone.
But this time they were not abandoned. They were approaching the heart of Farwithiel, the horses’ soft tread muted by the dense mulch of leaves underfoot. And still the trees grew silently before them and made them diminish in comparison. Maeneb realised with something of a shock that the path that opened to the Riders between the mighty trees seemed to be leading not to the habitations of the Wardens but to the Farwth itself. She bowed her head and mentally prepared what she must say.
There is no need, the Farwth said. I know it.
They all stopped. That meant they had all heard it, perhaps even the horses. Yet the voice had been soundless. It was the strongest and most unforgettable of all voices that Maeneb had ever known, yet she heard it only in her mind.
She looked round at the others. They were all staring, except for Yaret. Even Eled’s eyes were wide and wondering.
“What do you know?” said Rothir aloud. Tiburé made a shushing gesture at him with her hand. But he ignored her and went on. “Do you know our plight? Will you help us?”
I know your needs, the Farwth said. I cannot help them all.
“We do not ask you to help them all,” said Maeneb. She found that she was trembling, and had an idea that if she had not been sitting on the horse her legs would have given way beneath her. This was worse than the last time, which had been only a few weeks ago. But last time, the Wardens had been here to mediate.
She felt the path beckon. The Farwth was inviting them further in.
“Come on,” she said breathlessly, and with a surge of resolve she made Shoda move. They walked on, a small, thin string of horses with too many riders. Too much damage in their midst. The Farwth could not help them all.
Still, they were here, and there was a wonder in that fact alone, because she was closer now to the Farwth itself than she had ever been before. The tree trunks had grown to the breadth of houses, their bark engraved with intensely intricate patterns of cracks that were many inches deep. The lowest branches, close above their heads, were thicker than the horses’ bodies. Maeneb felt alarm at that vast tonnage of timber just overhead; she knew that it was in the Farwth’s control. If it wanted to release a branch and crush them all, it could.
She had to trust that it would not.
And then ahead of them the forest seemed to close in and to concentrate itself. Between the massive trunks rose a thickening multitude of stems and looping vines and twining creepers and aerial roots and clustered leaves, all forming a dense, impenetrable gathering of wood and stalk and foliage. It might have been all one tree were it not that there were so many varieties of leaf and bark. It was perhaps six hundred yards across: a mile around. It smelt strongly sweet and earthy, fragrant, wet. A fine rain dripped from the outer trees.
Everywhere was damp.
The heart of the Farwth, she thought; although the Farwth was much greater than this.
They had already been walking through it for hours, for the Farwth was in part Farwithiel, although Farwithiel was not the Farwth. It extended for many miles in each direction; and deep underground, by its roots, it reached much further – for it was connected to all the land north of the Darkburn and east of the Thore, and maybe beyond that too. Thousands of square miles. From those long linking root systems it gathered knowledge, accumulating it in its slow store. How old the Farwth was could not be told. Ten thousand years perhaps. Maybe much older.
Maeneb had never had a home. She had fled Caervonn with her mother when it fell. But even before that, her mother had never been accepted fully by the aristocracy of Caervonn, because of her strange half-breed illegitimate child. By Huldarion she had been accepted: and to Huldarion they went when he set up his base in exile in the tents of Thield. But that was hardly a home either.
Now, standing before the rustling mass of the Farwth, she had stepped inside a dream where the strange became familiar, a long-known, long-lost, forgotten part of her. She was so used to seeing herself as of little importance that submission to the Farwth came easily. Not that it actively demanded submission. But its size and power were humbling.
She could not help herself. “I am nothing,” she said silently.
You are Maeneb. That is more than a name. The words must have been for her alone to hear, because there was no reaction from the others.
“I have often felt less than a name. Less than a Warden. Less than a Rider.” She could say this because she knew that only the Farwth heard it.
But she was aware that it was foolish of her to make that confession, especially now. It was not what she was here for. She had a job to do. So she spoke aloud.
“We come to beg your mercy, Farwth.”
Behind her Rothir stirred.
“We do not beg for your mercy,” he said strongly. “We ask you for your hospitality, for two of us who are badly wounded.”
I know it. This time it was evident that all could hear the voice, including Eled who looked up in awe. Only Yaret still seemed oblivious.
“Then you know that they need care,” said Rothir. “Will you send your Wardens to us?”
They waited.
Do you command me?
“You know what I am thinking,” Rothir said.
Do you think that you can bend the forest to your will?
“I can if necessary.” The way in which he said this frightened Maeneb.
You would risk that damage for the sake of two sick people?
“For whom I am responsible,” said Rothir.
“For whom we are all responsible,” put in Tiburé, with a frown at Rothir, “and for whom we–”
I see your heart, the Farwth said, which is more than you do.
“Then you see my resolve,” said Rothir.
You do not understand it yourself. And forcing me to do your will would not benefit you in the long run.
“We are not trying to force you,” said Tiburé, with another admonitory frown.
Rothir ignored it. “I am not interested in the long run.”
You should be. Humans often forget to look the longer distance.
Rothir stared at the Farwth. He drew in a long breath and said evenly, “True. I will not try to force you. But will you help us now?”
The Wardens will be sent. Lay the wounded ones down over there.
Maeneb turned around. As if stirred by an unfelt wind, vines and creepers moved aside from the trunk of a gigantic tree that might have been a beech if it were smaller. She saw that it was partly hollow: inside its wide mouth there was enough shelter for several people to lie down or even stand in.
This type of shelter too was something new to Maeneb. Last time they had been permitted to stay only in the Wardens’ cottages: strange structures woven out of living willow, two or three miles away. She had never expected to be allowed to linger this close to the Farwth.
“Why?” said Tiburé. “Why are you doing this?” She sounded almost accusing.
They will rest better here. They are harmless. I know them both.
“You know one of them,” said Maeneb. “You know Eled, who came here with us recently.
But the other one is called Yaretkoro, and is a woman from a far land–”
Near the Bander Forest. I know it also. And I know her through her ancestor that was called Madeo.
“The bard?” said Rothir. “Her ancestor?” He looked at Yaret who seemed not to be hearing any of this. Her head was lolling and her body was held on the horse only by Parthenal.
“Help me get her down,” said Parthenal roughly. Rothir jumped off Narba and together they lifted her to the ground where she lay in an untidy heap, ragged and bloody. They carried her inside the hollow tree, which was lined with moss, and yet was dry where everything else seemed to be damp. After setting her down, they next helped Eled in and propped him on the cushioned mossy floor beside her. He winced; a rare groan escaped him as Tiburé tried to ease his broken leg.
Maeneb felt superfluous. She could not assist the others. She was useless to the injured.
There was nothing for her to do here: it had all been done without her, even the negotiations.
“Thank you for getting us this far,” said Parthenal quietly to her, and she nodded. At least she had not failed in that.
And now she could see a group of Wardens walking towards them through the trees: so the Farwth must have sent for them some time ago. To her relief her father was not amongst them.
You are more than your father’s daughter.
Maeneb stood stock still. Nobody else seemed to have heard. She thought there was no more to come, but after a while the great voice added, as if thoughtfully: A human is of many parts, just like a tree.
Tiburé did not know whether to be thankful or exasperated. Rothir had no right to go barging in like that, over-riding her authority. It was totally unlike him. What had he been thinking of? He could easily have ruined their chances of getting any help. She would have approached the Farwth quite differently, with more show of respect. And as for Maeneb…
Well, Maeneb had got them here at least. And luckily the Farwth had not been offended.
Tiburé was not sure if it could be offended in the same way as a human; did a tree have emotions? But the Farwth could certainly have shut the Riders out.
Now she walked forward to greet the approaching Wardens. There were three of them: two men, one woman, all of them much older than her, and she was over fifty. There must be two hundred or so Wardens altogether, but if any of them were younger than Tiburé she had not met them. And she had a strong impression that they were all even older than they looked.
“I am Walen,” said the woman. “I am a healer.”
She nodded. “Tiburé,” she answered briefly. The Farwth would no doubt have already told these Wardens everything that they needed to know.
“Baird and Golen will see to the injured man,” said Walen. Like all the Wardens, she spoke a quaintly antique variety of Standard; although not as antique nor as remote from Standard as the Vonnish tongue. “After that, Baird will help me with the woman. He is expert with broken bones. Golen is expert with men’s minds.”
“What about women’s minds?” said Tiburé. It was not altogether a joke. The Wardens lived such an isolated, secret life here that she doubted their ability to understand the minds of those outside – whether men or women. Even the Warden she had become close to on her last visit, despite being an intelligent man, had seemed baffled by her sense of self-determination.
Walen did not respond. She was already opening a bag of instruments and dressings.
“Water, please,” she said. Tiburé looked around for a container that might hold water, but in vain: yet even as she looked, the ground nearby began to bubble and then produced a tiny fountain. From this new small spring, clear water pooled neatly in the grass.
“Thank you,” said Walen. Dipping a bowl into the pool, she carried both that and her bag into the hollow of the tree. “Has the woman had any drugs?”
“They have both had a few doses of ethlon, but only two or three drops at a time. She had no apparent fever until yesterday.”
Walen’s lips compressed. “Very well.” She began to cut away Yaret’s clothing from her leg with narrow-bladed scissors. Then she gently dabbed the bloodied woollen bandages with water before beginning to cut through those as well.
On the other side of the wooden hollow Eled was moaning again as the other two Wardens examined his broken thigh. Kneeling next to him, Rothir took his hand and pressed it. At a terse word from the Wardens he reluctantly stood up and moved back to join Tiburé, out of their way.
Parthenal sat by the entrance to the hollow, watching the Wardens with fierce concentration. Tiburé thought that if they hurt Eled unnecessarily he would not hesitate to throw them out, no matter how old they were. Maeneb had not come in at all.
Even from here Tiburé could see that Eled’s leg was still swollen. It looked slightly distorted. Was that a result of all the enforced riding? No doubt. It could have been much worse, she thought, but even so, it was bad enough. The leg was unlikely ever to be as straight again as it had been… She felt a strong pang of regret for the young man who had
once been so active and cheerful, and would now be lamed. He would have a lot of adjusting to do.
“How long ago did this break happen?” asked the shorter, stockier Warden, Baird.
“Two weeks.”
Baird shook his head. “It’s not been setting as it should. He’s been moved around too much,” he said with disapproval.
“You know the circumstances,” Tiburé answered tersely. “Or the Farwth does, at least. We had to get him out of danger. What else could we have done?”
Baird merely shook his head some more. Tiburé was intensely irritated. These Wardens knew nothing of the Riders’ lives and the perils that they faced. It took her a few deep breaths before she could acknowledge that much of her annoyance was with herself.
If only she had not agreed to that expedition by the two least experienced members of her troop, things might have turned out differently. She had not realised how far north the stonemen had come, and none of them had known about the new type of darkburn; but ignorance was no excuse. The whole point of their journey was to find out more about the stonemen. They should have been more careful.
And she had been in charge. Ultimately it was her fault. She would have to stand before Huldarion and explain the crippling of a good and faithful soldier. She doubted very much if Eled would be standing there beside her.
However, Eled would not be even lying here, but would be having his bones picked by crows on some far-flung moor, were it not for Yaret. Tiburé was conscious that she ought to feel the same concern for Yaret as she did for Eled, although there was nobody in Yaret’s case that she would have to answer to. She acknowledged her own bias against a foreign pedlar compared to one of her own kindred. It was unfair of her. No matter what her origins Yaret had shown remarkable resourcefulness.
She looked over at Yaret now, and winced as Walen carefully withdrew the blood-soaked dressings from the stump. The leg ended several inches above the ankle – or where the ankle would have been – in a mess of black and clotted blood.
“Does it look badly infected?” That was Rothir, who was also watching Walen’s cautious movements with a frown.
Walen did not answer immediately. She gently swabbed the skin around the stump: without the dried blood it looked both better and worse. Better, because cleaner. Worse, because the damage became all the more obvious.
At last Walen looked up. “It’s not infected at all, I think. Her fever is probably simply due to trauma, blood loss and over-exertion.”
“That was also unavoidable,” said Tiburé, in anger.
Rothir touched her shoulder. “What do you need to do to help her heal?” he said to Walen.
“Possibly nothing,” replied the Warden. “The leg’s already showing initial signs of healing around this flap of skin. Covering the bone in that way was probably the best action to take. Who did it?”
“She did it herself.”
Walen froze, staring at him. “Extraordinary,” she said, her composed, lined face showing some surprise for the first time.
“You have no idea just how extraordinary,” said Rothir. “What can you do to help?”
“To attempt further repairs now may add to the damage and increase the risk of bleeding and infection. The residual limb’s not pretty, but it’s tidy enough. It may prove functional.”
“Functional in what way?” said Rothir.
“To take a prosthetic.”
“You mean a wooden leg,” said Tiburé. Rothir turned round abruptly and walked out of the tree.
Tiburé remained in her place. It was her responsibility to see that Eled fared as comfortably as possible. It was clear that Rothir also extended that responsibility to Yaret’s welfare, and she could not disagree.
She had to keep everything under her control. That meant she needed to make sure that Rothir’s outspokenness to the Farwth would not be repeated. It was lucky that Rothir and Parthenal were more reasonable men than some. Her husband, Solon, for instance… She and Solon couldn’t survive being in the same troop for more than a day. They found they had no patience with each other: better to stay apart.
But poor Eled. She would have to leave him here. Both he and Yaret would need to remain here, with the Wardens, probably for some time, while they healed. She thought the Farwth would not be unwilling – since, strangely, it seemed to think it knew Yaret. Or knew her ancestor. Descended from the bard Madeo… What had that been all about? What could a bard mean to the Farwth? Thield had bards. Maybe she should have brought them here.
“Food will be delivered to you soon,” said Walen. She had applied a fresh bandage to Yaret’s leg and was beginning to pack up her bag.
“Thank you.”
“And you may all sleep here in this chamber. Blankets also will be brought.”
“Again, I thank you. May I visit the Wardens’ habitations?”
Walen looked surprised. Then she considered this, and nodded. “The Farwth permits it.”
“I would like to speak with Habend. To consult with him.”
“Habend is a wise man,” said Walen, with a sidelong look at Tiburé.
Tiburé looked back at her steadily. “Yes, he is.” She didn’t really care if Walen knew. The Farwth surely knew, in any case, which was all that mattered here.
But if the other riders guessed – and she thought that Parthenal might have – they did not say. She was certain Maeneb did not know. And it would hardly be diplomatic to inform Maeneb that her mother was not the only woman of the Vonn to have sought love in Farwithiel.
Parthenal was performing his sword drill for the first time in many mornings. Although he aimed to do it every day, circumstances had been against him lately. So now he stood beneath the mighty branches and went through the whole array of exercises, progressing from the guards onwards through the strikes and feints to the upper swings. As he whirled the sword two-handed round his head, slowly gathering speed but never losing accuracy, the movements had a paradoxically calming effect. It was like a complex dance with a lethal partner that was just waiting for a chance to stab you if you didn’t concentrate.
So he concentrated, until he realised that Rothir had come to watch him. He was holding a basket of food which the wardens had left the previous evening.
“You should be doing this too,” Parthenal told him as he lowered his sword and paused to rest.
“Later on. I’m too stiff now. After breakfast.” Rothir regarded sword drill as a duty rather than a pleasure. For Parthenal it was both: a ritual of skill and beauty rather than a mere rehearsal for the battle. But then he knew that Rothir had never anticipated combat with the same enthusiasm that he did himself.
Laying the sword aside he cast a sardonic eye on Tiburé. Another one whom he guessed disliked battle, although she was ruthless enough. But practical; no sense of glory.
His leader was currently emerging from the hollow tree to sit down next to Maeneb, who tried to shuffle away. He had heard Tiburé return to their wooden cavern in the early hours of the morning. Despite the darkness she had required no lantern; for some sort of phosphorescence made the forest visible in an eerie, faintly-glowing way, even when there was no moonlight visible through the lofty canopy.
Tiburé had been accompanied by a man – Habend, he assumed – whom he had seen through half-closed eyes kiss her at the doorway before departing.
“I hope you learnt something useful last night,” he said to her now.
“Habend is not a naturally talkative man. None the less I learnt several things,” Tiburé answered calmly, “perhaps not immediately useful, but they may be in the future.” She took a bite of the Wardens’ coarse flatbread and looked at it doubtfully. It was made not of wheat, but in Parthenal’s opinion of something more like spearweed: food for horses. Although he was not a fussy eater he found this right at the boundaries of edibility. However, the fruit supplied by the Wardens was plentiful and good.
“What sort of useful things?” he asked.
“For one, what they gave Eled to help him sleep. It is not ethlon but a herb called belvane, less effective as a painkiller and stimulant but also less addictive. I aim to take some back with us for Huldarion.”
Parthenal thought about those scars: the daily, unforgettable suffering that Huldarion endured. He said nothing of that, feeling that he had no right to. Instead he commented drily,
“Eled needs no help sleeping. It’s staying awake that’s the difficulty.”
“Yaret was awake for much of the night,” Rothir informed Tiburé.
“Everyone in the tree got woken up by her,” said Parthenal. “Even Eled.”
“She was mumbling in her own language for a long time,” said Rothir. “I think she might have been trying to sing.”
“Like a frog with bronchitis,” added Parthenal. “So what else did you learn from your wise but taciturn Warden, Tiburé?”
“That there have been numbers of stonemen encroaching on the southern edge of Farwithiel, even in the short time since we last were here.”
“By numbers, what do you mean? Dozens, or hundreds?”
“Not hundreds. Certainly dozens. Habend was not sure of the exact number. The Farwth deals with them in its own fashion. None that came in went out again.” This sobered them all.
“What about darkburns?” Rothir asked. “Have they had any of those?”
“Habend didn’t know. He has never seen a darkburn and did not fully understand my description of them. But he has come across no burnt areas that might be ascribed to them.”
“The Farwth is aware of darkburns,” said Maeneb, speaking now for the first time, “but none have come here yet.”
“I expect the Farwth could deal with them too,” muttered Parthenal. “In its own way. I need a shave.” He stood up.
“Of course you do,” said Rothir. “What could be more important right now?”
“Your having a wash, dwarf. That river water did nothing for you.”
“Ah. Probably true,” said Rothir ruefully.
“We’ll be able to wash and rest today at our leisure,” said Tiburé, “but tomorrow we must leave.”
Rothir looked at her sharply. He seemed a little shocked. “That soon?”
“We have already been away too long.”
“And what about Eled and Yaret?”
“They will stay here as long as is needful.”
“That could be a long time,” said Parthenal.
“Habend assured me that they may remain here and will be tended until they can be moved elsewhere, or are able to ride away.”
“Ride away? Where to?” demanded Rothir. “Eled can’t ride anywhere on his own.”
“His condition may improve.”
“Then why don’t we wait a few days and see? We might be able to take him back to Thield with us.”
“It will not improve that quickly,” said Tiburé firmly. “The Warden yesterday, Golen, thought Eled would recover – eventually. But it will take some time for both his mind and leg to heal. The Wardens will take care of him meanwhile.”
“Why?” said Rothir, frowning. “Why would they bother looking after Eled or Yaret? The Wardens don’t need all the disturbance. And they owe us nothing.” Parthenal glanced at his friend. Rothir was not usually so argumentative. He was upset.
Well, we are all upset, he reflected wryly. We are all in the wrong place. None of this should have happened.
At Rothir’s words, Maeneb stirred. “You think the Wardens slow and self-absorbed,” she said, with more vigorous self-assertion than Parthenal had heard in her voice for some while.
“But the Wardens serve the Farwth diligently. To determine and carry out the will of the Farwth is no light thing. It takes all their attention. They are born to it, and it is the core and meaning of their lives. If the Farwth wills it, Eled will be safe here.”
“And Yaret?”
“The same. And do not think they owe us nothing. Our enemy is their enemy, and they and the Farwth look to us to keep the stonemen from ravaging the land. Not just Farwithiel, but the land it speaks to, all the lands beyond.”
To Parthenal’s surprise, Rothir stood up and bowed to Maeneb.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I meant no disrespect to the Wardens nor to the Farwth. I am just anxious.”
“I know. And also foolish. Yesterday, you thought of using fire.”
“I did,” said Rothir. “But I only thought of it. I would not have used it.”
“I know that too.”
“Shave,” said Parthenal. “Come on, dwarf.” He tugged Rothir away to take a path that twined between the trees and past a number of small pools. “What are you thinking of?” he
muttered at him once they were well away from the others. “Admitting that you threatened the Farwth with fire?”
“I didn’t threaten. I did consider it. I knew that it was pointless.”
“Not just pointless,” countered Parthenal. “It was extremely dangerous.”
“I know. That’s why I would have not used it. In any case, the Farwth knows what I thought.”
“Yes, it knows more of your mind than you do, apparently,” said Parthenal. “But, Rothir, never admit anything aloud that might compromise you – whether you think it is already known or not.”
He thought Rothir gave him a look of pity and understanding. But then his friend turned away, saying merely, “There must be somewhere we can wash, with all this water hereabouts.”
“It’s all in tiny pools,” said Parthenal. “Perfect for a mouse to bathe in. Or a smaller dwarf than you are.”
They walked further in amongst the trees. He thought that Rothir truly was a dwarf amongst them: their size and silence were both humbling. The men’s feet made practically no sound, for although the forest floor was covered with all types of leaf, they were softly pliant underfoot. There was not a crunch nor a rustle. Butterflies and long, iridescent whirring insects wavered or shot beneath the branches, finding and losing themselves amidst the shadows.
Parthenal felt himself swallowed up by the monumental vastness of the forest. But no stone monument could equal this palace of great pillars, he thought; for they are the work of nature, not of man, and accordingly so much the more to be revered.
A hundred yards from their home tree, he spotted a much larger pool, which looked the perfect size and depth for a man to wash in. He was fairly sure it had not been there yesterday. When he stripped and sunk himself into the water, it was pleasantly cool without being cold.
“This water’s so clean I could drink it,” he remarked after a while, floating and feeling himself relax. “That is, if you hadn’t just been washing in it.”
“Ah! That’s better. It’s been a hard two weeks.” Rothir pulled himself on to the bank and stretched out his wet limbs.
Parthenal studied him. There was no desire in his gaze; he had long since decided not to think of Rothir in that way. Too hairy in any case. So Parthenal merely noted that his friend’s arms and chest were marked not just with old scars but with a number of new gashes and bloody scrapes.
“You ought to put something on those,” he said severely.
“I’ll filch some of the ointment that the Wardens gave to Yaret.”
“Don’t filch. Just ask them for more. That Warden – Habend. Do you think it’s wise of Tiburé?”
“I expect she gets far more information out of him than he could ever get from her,” said Rothir.
“That’s not really what I meant. I was thinking more of the emotional ties created there.
They could clash with her other loyalties.” Parthenal reflected on Tiburé’s husband Solon; sometimes a difficult companion, for he could be cuttingly scornful; but a clever man too, and one who stood at Huldarion’s right hand.
“I don’t think Tiburé has any emotional ties,” said Rothir, “except maybe to her daughters.
She and Solon haven’t been a couple for a while as far as I can gather. And as for Habend, he’s surely old enough to know what he’s doing.”
“They all are, all those Wardens,” remarked Parthenal. “They ought to have acquired enough wisdom by now, surely. Not that I feel any wiser the older I get. And soon I will be middle-aged.” He did not really believe that, however.
“Never mind – you’ll always be a mere youth to me,” said Rothir, who was the elder by a full five months.
After dressing they strolled back languorously to the hollow tree. They found it changed since they had left it. Roots had burst up through the ground inside the space to make two low benches of smooth if strangely twisted wood.
Propped up against one of these, Eled and Yaret sat together. They were both fully awake, to Parthenal’s surprise; and talking. They seemed to be playing some sort of game. Yaret was listing animals, and Eled was hesitantly repeating them.
“Shrew, rat, mole, rabbit, fangol,” Yaret recited. “Now you say them back, and then add one to the list that’s bigger than a fangol.”
“Shrew, rat…”
Yaret made digging motions with her fore-arms.
“Oh! Mole, badger…”
She put her hands up to her forehead.
“Ears,” said Eled. “Rabbit. What was after that? I’ve forgotten.”
“Polecat,” said Parthenal. Yaret turned to them with a smile in which there was also some dismay.
“You’re both looking a lot better this morning,” said Rothir. “How do you feel, Eled?”
“Better,” said Eled. The former lines of trouble on his face had been smoothed away. His leg was held in a proper wooden splint with clean, neat bandages; two pairs of wooden crutches lay nearby.
“The wardens have been here while you were out,” said Yaret, “and have given us some medicine.”
“Belvane?”
“I don’t know what. They didn’t say.”
“They should have told you,” said Parthenal sternly. It must have been powerful stuff, he thought.
“They said they’d come back in a while to see how we go on,” said Yaret. She was not as pale as she had been before; her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide and black – as were Eled’s, although hers seemed to focus more easily than his.
“Hm.” He did not approve of the Wardens dosing Eled with unknown drugs and then disappearing. “It seems to have woken you both up, at least.”
“I feel – reborn, almost,” she admitted. “Well. That’s overstating it. But certainly surprised to be alive. I believe I owe my life to you and Rothir. For that I have to thank you both.”
She reached for a crutch and began to pull herself to her feet – no doubt to bow her thanks; but Parthenal, amused, motioned her to sit down again.
“No thanks are due to me,” he said. “It was Rothir who insisted that we go back down the riverbank to try and find you. I have never seen anyone so relieved as he was.”
Rothir in his turn made a brief gesture of dismissal. “We all were. How does that game go, Eled?”
“You have to say them in order of size,” said Eled. “Shrew, mouse, rabbit, polecat.” He seemed happy, with glimpses of the old Eled as he asked them what they’d had for breakfast and what the weather was like outside the tree. When two of the Wardens entered, he greeted them as old friends. Yet he could not remember their names.
“That’s Golen; and I’m Walen. I’ve come to change the dressing on your friend’s leg,” the female Warden told him.
“Let me just check your eyes,” said Golen kindly, laying a hand on Eled’s head. Parthenal found himself annoyed at the Warden’s patronising tone. He recognised that his irritation had its origin in worry, but that did not diminish it.
Meanwhile Walen sat down next to Yaret and began to carefully unwind her bandages. As she drew away the dressings she seemed to be positioning herself to try to hide the stump from Yaret’s view.
“Stop,” said Yaret. “I’ll do that. I need to see what it’s like.” Her voice was firm.
Reluctantly Walen sat back.
Her face set in determined composure, Yaret carefully peeled away the final dressing.
Then she examined the stump without any change in her expression.
“All right,” she said eventually, and leaned back against the bench again. “How long before I can wear a wooden leg?”
Parthenal wanted to laugh. But nobody else seemed inclined to. Rothir’s face was grim.
“Perhaps we could try to fit one in two to three weeks’ time,” said Walen, looking a little startled. “That’s if it continues to heal cleanly. But you mustn’t expect to be able to walk around much. That will take longer.”
“How much longer?”
“A few more weeks, perhaps. It is not something I have experience of. But you are younger than my usual patients, and should both adapt and heal quite quickly.”
Yaret nodded, licking her lips. Despite her apparent equanimity, she looked suddenly extremely tired and Parthenal felt an unexpected wave of pity for her. She was hardly delicate, and yet compared to him she was a fragile thing; a donkey to his horse. He became conscious that she might not want an audience for the tending of that ugly stump.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, and went back outside to wander amongst the great pillars of the trees.
Maeneb was standing fifty yards away. She was staring into the intricacy of trunks and stems and clustered foliage that was the Farwth. It created a pattern that he could not read: its complexity and density nonplussed him, giving him a sensation of faint dizziness.
But it absorbed Maeneb. He stopped and watched her, and then began to feel that this was something else that he ought not to be watching. Maeneb was almost in a trance, evidently in some sort of private communion with the Farwth. Her lips moved yet no words came out.
He became aware of the faintest whisper of leaves, like the softest sigh. But he heard nothing inside his own head. The Farwth’s meaning was for Maeneb only.
Parthenal stepped away, intending to leave her alone; but just then she let her head fall in an exhausted salute, and turned around. When she looked at him her face was alight with exhilaration – a sort of dazzlement. But her voice was urgent with anxiety.
“Where’s Tiburé?” she asked.
“She went to check the horses.”
“I need to talk to her,” said Maeneb. “Everything has changed.”
Shrew, mouse, rabbit… how did it go again?
Eled shook his head in frustration. Then he looked guiltily at Rothir. But Rothir was not watching him just now. Instead he kept taking glances at Yaret’s poor leg. So he didn’t realise how Eled had failed. It should be easy. Shrew, mouse…
Maybe it didn’t matter. He didn’t think Rothir cared about this game. He had never heard Rothir play it. But he wanted to please Yaret, because Yaret was kind.
He couldn’t remember the next animal. It filled him with a nagging anxiety. And he was aware that there was something else that he could not remember, that was very important, that he had to look after.
His sword. He turned his head. There it was, in the corner under a root. What was this place? He didn’t remember coming in here. He only remembered a lot of riding. But he could see through the wide entrance to the cave and knew from the size of the trees that this must be Farwithiel. He had been here before. He was almost sure of that, anyway.
But why were they back here now? He looked down at his leg and remembered that it was broken. Not broken off, like Yaret’s, only broken. He had forgotten because it had stopped hurting. So perhaps that meant that it was nearly better now and they could all move on.
He didn’t remember breaking it. One more thing that was hidden in the fog. Things would appear, and disappear, and he didn’t understand why they didn’t stay.
Shrew. Mouse. Rat. It was such an effort. And what was the other thing?
Not his sword. Not his name. He knew his name. Then it came to him in a rush of sudden fear.
“The scroll!” he said.
Rothir looked round at him. “It’s safe with Arguril. Don’t worry about it, Eled.”
“I won’t,” said Eled, relief flushing out the fear. He did not need to worry. Rothir would sort things out. He always found a way through difficult places. Rothir had found him after…
after what?
Poda sweating under him. He remembered galloping beneath trees, scared of crashing into a low branch, but unable to rein her in. Had that been here? He looked out of the cave and saw big trees; it looked rather like Farwithiel. He thought he had been somewhere else.
The Darkburn river. A shadow crawled across his mind. The beating hooves: the stench of smoke – of something worse. It had no name. He realised that his fists were clenched and trembling and he made himself unclench them, carefully, before the others noticed.
Because now the troop was all in here, filling up this wooden cave, although he didn’t remember seeing them come in. Time seemed to slip past him unnoticed. That was another worry.
“The scroll,” said Tiburé. So she had remembered it as well. Maybe he didn’t need to worry after all, because the others would do the remembering and the worrying. When he was better he would remember better too. He knew he had something wrong with him. His leg, that was it. It was in a splint. But it wasn’t hurting any more. So he was getting better. He felt a small surge of relief.
“One scroll is with Arguril. I have the second scroll safe here,” said Parthenal.
“We may as well destroy it,” said Tiburé curtly.
“Why?”
“It’s obsolete,” said Maeneb. “It’s no longer relevant. The information that was in it has been superseded, according to the Farwth.”
“In what way?” asked Rothir.
“The scroll described the settlements and movements of the stonemen as they advanced north of the river. It drew a possible connection with… the one we call ignoble.” She glanced at Yaret. “It surmised his plans.”
“But now?”
“Now those plans have been set in place. The stonemen have already formed an army and are marching swiftly across the Iarad wildlands, west of the Thore. I felt something of them, from the cliffs… but the Farwth has a longer reach, across the waters of the Thore. In places the trees touch across the river: their roots can penetrate beneath it. Even from the treeless Iarad some tidings come back to the Farwth. They tell of hundreds, maybe thousands of stonemen heading north. And as they cross the wilderness, they are starting to lay a trail of destruction.”
Stonemen. He remembered those now. Chasing and yelling. And something else.
Something darker. His fingers clenched helplessly around nothing. Where was his sword?
Where was his horse?
“What sort of destruction?” demanded Parthenal.
“Attacking villages. Killing. Burning.” Eled could see Maeneb swallow. “They are meeting little resistance, the Farwth says… because they take with them so many darkburns.”
Darkburn. That was it. The thing that he could not remember. Now it leapt back at him in a cloud of fear: he vividly recalled the smell, the smoke, the dread, the glow embedded deep in charcoaled horror. The burning thing that crawled towards him.
Darkburn. Forget, forget, forget.
Yaret was trying to remember everything. Although the tiredness was starting to creep over her again, yet still she tried to notice every gesture, every look and word; because in moments of sudden startling lucidity, she was aware that she was about to lose the Riders from her life and that it was a loss that would be difficult to bear. She already felt a strange sorrow in the anticipation.
For what had she ever lost in her previous life? Her parents; but she had been too young to have much memory of them. Although she remembered her grief for her lost father, the man himself was no more than a tall smiling shadow. She had lost her lover Dalko, a year ago and more, but that had been by choice. At some point she would lose her grandparents, but she assumed it would not be for several years yet.
And now she had lost a part of her body. Even a foot seemed a smaller loss than that of the new intensity that had lately flooded through her life. Ever since she had found Eled bleeding and unconscious on the Darkburn Loft, subsequent events had imprinted themselves with force upon her mind. She seemed to have been living in a heightened state where everything mattered. Everything glowed: luminous, sharp and memorable.
That was the side-effect of danger, Yaret thought. It took over, it made sure you paid attention. Otherwise you died. And she had so nearly died.
But she had not died, because of the Riders: because of Rothir and Parthenal especially.
She had merely lost a foot. It could have been far worse. That was surely a small price to pay for life; although somewhere inside her was an ache that mourned for that lost limb. She repressed it firmly.
Harder to repress was the ache of knowledge that the four Riders would be leaving soon, tomorrow at first light. The doorway into that bright if sometimes terrifying world of quest and risk and battle, which had been briefly opened to her, would close again. It felt like an abandonment although she knew that it was not.
She was still weak, Yaret told herself. Walen’s medicine had, for the moment, removed the pain and fever and restored her to alertness, but she had been warned that the weakness would remain for a considerable time. There would be a long wait before she could hope to get back to her old life – or as much of it as she could manage. So it was no wonder if she felt a little wretched. The important thing was not to show it.
Once Maeneb had revealed her news from the Farwth, Parthenal had been all for riding off that very afternoon. Handsome of face, strong of body, decisive in his speech, he seemed to her to epitomise the perfect warrior. Or one type of warrior at least. He spoke in an eloquent, persuasive mixture of Standard and Vonnish which her over-active brain quickly untangled: he was desperate, it seemed, to get after the enemy, hating the idea of lounging around in Farwithiel when his task lay elsewhere.
Tiburé dissuaded him. Or, rather, she had the final say in the decision.
“We all need the rest,” she said, “especially Rothir. And the horses need the rest too after their double duty. An extra night here will make them fresher and faster tomorrow. We also need to gather provisions: that can’t be done in ten minutes.”
And then there followed a debate about where they should go once they had re-crossed the Thore. Should they pursue the stonemen to assess their movements, or go back to the place called Thield? At that point the discussion moved over entirely into Vonnish, even on Rothir’s part. Yaret felt herself estranged from them. She leaned against the ribbed wall of the tree and closed her eyes.
Then she heard another voice. It was not a Rider, nor a Warden. It was clear and resonant inside her head: but maybe it was a result of the drugs, for she could not tell if the words it spoke were Standard or Vonnish. It spoke only meaning, like a voice within a dream.
Yet within the meaning one word was distinct. It was a word she did not know. The voice spoke the same thing twice, and then fell silent.
“Oh,” she said. “What?”
The others stopped their discussion to look round at her.
“What?” said Rothir.
“I heard someone. But it might have been the medicine.”
“It was the Farwth,” Maeneb said. “I heard it too. It said, Look for the – something.”
“Look for the skeln,” said Yaret.
“Skeln?” repeated Tiburé.
“I’m sure of it,” said Yaret. “But I don’t know what a skeln is.”
“Neither do I,” said Maeneb. “I shall ask the Farwth.” Her face took on a look of concentration. Yaret wondered if she also ought to ask the Farwth, but she did not know how.
Skeln? The word meant nothing to her. For some reason she thought of her tough old grandmother Thuli, back home in the long low room that was both kitchen and parlour. She was rummaging in a cupboard with her back to Yaret.
“Gramma,” she said silently, “what is a skeln?”
In her mind’s eye her grandmother straightened up and turned to look at her. She was folding a cloth in her gnarled hands. She put her head on one side like a small, brown, distracted bird.
“Oh, dear,” said Gramma, “have I not told you that before? One of Madeo’s. I sung it to you, surely.” And she disappeared.
“It’s in a song by Madeo,” Yaret said aloud.
“Is it? I heard nothing from the Farwth,” said Maeneb, sounding deflated.
“Neither did I. But I remembered – I’m sure it’s somewhere in a song. I just have to work out which one.”
“So what is a skeln?” asked Tiburé. “A person or an object?
“I don’t know yet.”
Tiburé stood up, brushing down her breeches. “Well, you need to think about it,” she said sternly. “Work it out as quickly as you can. I’m going to see the Wardens about loading our provisions.”
Parthenal glanced at Yaret as if he wanted to laugh. “You’d better start singing,” he advised.
“Singing?” she said, and looked at Rothir, whose opinion mattered more to her than Parthenal’s despite the other’s graceful height and beauty. Of course, she had known Rothir longer. A full seven days longer. But such days.
“If that’s what it takes,” said Rothir. “The Farwth’s word is not to be ignored. If you can discover what a skeln is, we need to know.”
So once the others had departed to sort out their gear, Yaret began to run through songs inside her head. In her present state she found it hard. Therefore she began to sing aloud –
though quietly – beginning with the songs she remembered from the earliest days of childhood. She was not always sure which were by Madeo and which were not, but she sang through them anyway, though some were little more than nursery rhymes. There was no skeln in those.
Eled listened and at times smiled and nodded along. That the songs were all in Bandiran did not seem to bother him. The more rhythmic the song, the more he enjoyed it. She encouraged him to clap his hands in time: he could do that, and was pleased.
Rothir came back in and sat down on the floor opposite them with his pack. He took out a small pot and a piece of rag and began to grease his boots.
“Music while I work,” he said.
“I don’t sing well,” said Yaret apologetically. “I can hold a tune, that’s all.”
“You sing well enough. Any sign of the skeln yet?”
Shaking her head, she went on with her song. This one was about a mountain: for many of Madeo’s songs were on the theme of travelling. But several of the words escaped her. It was so long since she had heard some of these songs that trying to recall them was like dredging them out of a deep, muddy pond.
She remembered the stagnant pools before they had reached the Gyr: the darkburn struggling in the water: and stopped singing in a wave of pity and revulsion. It took her a few seconds to pick up the thread of the song again.
“Not that one,” she said. She started another one, Long Walk, but ran down after the first few lines as they blurred together in her memory. She shook her head in disappointment.
“No, it’s gone. It would be easier to remember if I had a lutine.”
“A what?” said Eled tentatively, as if he felt he ought to know.
“It’s a musical instrument,” she explained, “a kind of five-string lute that we play back home. I’m used to having the accompaniment.”
“They play a six-string one in Kelvha,” Rothir said.
“And in Caervonn?”
“Also six strings. They used to, at any rate. Is one string any use?” he asked.
“One string?”
He reached into his pack and tossed something over to her. She looked at it in bemused wonderment.
“Oh,” she said, “my gourd! But I left it in the Gyr cave.”
“And I picked it up. It’s not heavy, after all. I had an idea that you might want to keep it. It may help to occupy you here while you recover.”
“Well,” said Yaret. “Thank you.” She opened it and tested the mournful plink of the string.
It was like an old friend that she thought she’d left behind, to be seen no more. Welcome, friend, she thought; although it was more than the gourd itself that warmed her heart.
She began to sing Long Walk again, accompanying herself on the gourd, and this time the words came back to her with ease. Eled laughed at the slow doleful pecking of the string. But half a dozen songs later, no skeln had yet emerged.
“Those are pleasant tunes,” said Rothir. “Even though I don’t understand the words, most of them seem to me to hold a sense of yearning.”
“You’re right, they do… I suppose that’s because Madeo lived a life of exile.”
Rothir put down his boot and rag. “Madeo was in exile?”
“Yes; along with all the rest of our people after they were forced to leave their home up north. Even once the Bandiran had settled in their new home, Madeo kept on wandering.”
“And those songs that you’ve been singing, they were all written by your ancestor?”
Yaret’s fingers stilled on the gourd-string. She looked up at him in puzzlement. “What do you mean – my ancestor?”
“That’s what the Farwth said: that Madeo was your ancestor. It had certainly heard of Madeo. I think that was the main reason it allowed you to stay here.”
Yaret was almost dumbfounded. “What? The Farwth said that? When?”
“Yesterday, while you were still unconscious.”
“But it’s impossible. Madeo had no children,” she protested, staring back at him in disbelief. “None that are recorded, anyway.”
Rothir shrugged. “Well, perhaps he had one that he didn’t know about.”
“Oh, I think she would have known,” said Yaret. She gazed across the hollow tree into the mysterious distance of the past, pondering the matter. “It’s true that there are many gaps in our knowledge of her life. She roamed around so much. What we know is mostly through her songs, and old traditions. But we do know that Madeo came here.”
“To Farwithiel?”
“Yes. She didn’t call it that. She called it by a different name.”
“Which is Ulthared.”
“Naturally. She is supposed to have stayed here quite a while.”
Rothir sat up. “So when the Farwth told you to look for the skeln, was it because the Farwth itself had heard it in one of Madeo’s songs?”
“I suppose that’s possible. The skeln must be there in my memory somewhere.” She rubbed at her forehead in frustration. “I just can’t find it.”
“I can’t either,” said Eled, who had been listening, but, it seemed, not entirely understanding. “I keep forgetting.”
“It will come,” Rothir said to both of them.
“But probably too late. I expect I’ll remember it once you’ve gone,” said Yaret with a sigh. “And how can I get a message to you then, from here?”
“The Farwth should be able to communicate with Maeneb, if it wishes, for a considerable distance. Although it does depend on where we are.”
“We are here,” said Eled.
“But we will not all be here tomorrow.” Rothir turned to the younger man. “You need to stay here with Yaret, Eled, and wait for your leg to heal. After we go, we hope to gain news of you from the Farwth, so that we can come back for you when you feel well enough.”
“I’m sorry I’m not well enough just yet,” said Eled, glancing at his splinted leg. “But it’s healing. And when it heals I’ll be better too.”
“I have no doubt of that,” said Rothir.
But Eled’s pleasure at the music had departed, to be replaced by guilt. He sighed and looked so unhappy that Yaret swiftly changed the subject.
“Why can’t the Farwth just tell us what a skeln is?” she said. “It would make things so much easier.”
“Ulthared,” said Rothir. “Maybe there are things that even the Farwth does not know, or is not at liberty to tell.”
“Rothir, how did the Vonn get to know the Farwth? How is it that the Riders are allowed here?”
“History,” said Rothir. “Also Ulthared, I’m afraid.”
Yaret sat back again, strumming at the gourd. “Ah, well. I expect the answer is that you people of the Vonn had your own Madeo, or someone like her, who found the Farwth on their travels.”
“I expect so,” said Rothir, and Eled nodded wisely.
“Somebody who loved trees,” she went on, “somebody with a large mind, and far-sightedness, and influence. Lots of influence. So that you are allowed back.”
“Somebody like that.”
She thought for a while, absently tapping the gourd.
“Could that person be anything to do with the skeln?”
Rothir looked slightly startled. “They would certainly be a good person to ask,” he said,
“if we only knew where they were.”
“Oh! So they are still alive, then? Meaning that it’s not someone from four hundred years ago like Madeo.” When Rothir was silent she said, a little contritely, “I did not mean to trick you into giving away anything that is Ulthared.”
“You didn’t trick me. I was unwary.”
“You didn’t trick him,” confirmed Eled. “Nobody tricks Rothir.” He grinned at his friend, who reached forward to tweak his good leg.
“I’m glad you have such faith in me, Eled.”
“I do,” said Eled. He lay back and closed his eyes. They both watched him for a moment before exchanging a glance. In Rothir’s face she read sorrow and concern; and resignation.
“Well,” she said, “the skeln. Could it be a place? Madeo travelled widely.”
“So have I,” said Rothir, “yet I have never heard of a place called Skeln, or anything remotely like it.”
She put the gourd down on her lap. “Where was your favourite place, Rothir? Or is that a secret too?”
“Not really.” He gazed into space, reflecting, and then spoke quietly. “The city where I grew up is very dear to me – or rather the image of it, as it was back then. The memory of Caervonn is both a comfort and a hope, but the place itself is much changed by now, I dare say. I’ve not been back these last twelve years.”
“Caervonn… It sounds like the wind high in the clouds; a sailing ship, swift and easy. It is a lovely name.”
He smiled. “It’s a lovely place. I’m not sure about the sailing ship; Caervonn is twenty miles from the sea – although I suppose you could say that the city sails like a ship above the plain, but looking down on wheatfields and orchards instead of on the waves. There is rich land around it.”
“And all that once belonged to you? I mean to the Vonn?”
“You might say rather that we belonged to it. But yes.”
“What about all the other places you have travelled to? Are any of those as dear to you as Caervonn?”
“There are a number that I like,” he answered. “I have never ranked them in terms of how much they mean to me. There seems little point.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never stay at any of them for long.”
“But you must now have a home, somewhere, surely?”
He smiled at her again, ruefully. “I do. It moves around.”
“So did Madeo’s,” Yaret said, and she began to sing the Long Walk again, this time in the Standard translation. With the gourd’s help it came to her readily.
“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–
“And on and on and on…”
“And on,” said Rothir. Then he fell silent, listening while Yaret continued singing.
But in all the songs she sang there was no skeln.
There was more singing in the evening, although not by Yaret. Parthenal took the lead: he had a fine tenor voice, and Rothir sometimes accompanied him in a bass rumble. Tiburé and Eled added choruses, a little less tunefully; but the overall sound for Yaret was both strange and lovely. They sang three ballads in Vonnish, in a slightly melancholy six-note mode that she had not come across before. When she tried to catch at the words, the meaning slipped past the edges of her mind. She was now feeling extremely tired.
“Maeneb is the best singer of us,” said Parthenal, “but I doubt if we can induce her to join in.” Maeneb was the only one of them not present in the hollow tree, although there was plenty of room there for her. Tiburé said that she had stayed outside to commune with the Farwth.
“And with the insects,” added Rothir. “There are wonderful multitudes of them here, but the biters come out in the evening.” Indeed, Yaret could hear their faint hum and whine from where she sat; along with the calls of unknown birds, which coloured the night air with plangent hollow flutings.
They had already eaten, a Warden having brought them bowls of some small fish and plain vegetables. After the songs they fell into quiet conversation, mainly in Vonnish; it seemed to Yaret that they were trying to engage Eled in their talk and to reassure him. She wondered how much he understood of his own situation – whether tomorrow he would feel lost once they had gone.
“I will look after Eled,” she said into a pause. “We will learn to walk again together. I am sure the Wardens will give us exercises to do; will they not, Eled? We can practise those and devise our own. And by the next time you meet your friends I’ll have taught how you to dance the Rannikan. You remember the Rannikan?”
Eled laughed, but with an anxious look in his brown eyes.
“It will not be for long, Eled,” Tiburé told him briskly.
“You’ll be well-cared for here,” said Rothir.
“We’ll explore the forest,” Yaret told him, “and learn the names of all those birds and trees. And play games. And perhaps you can teach me to speak Vonnish.”
“Good luck with that,” said Parthenal in an undertone. But he said aloud to Eled, “We will leave you my scroll, Eled. And we’ll write on it what is happening, as a reminder, so that you will always know that we are thinking of you.”
He produced a leather tube from which he unrolled a short parchment scroll and flattened it out. Yaret, seeing a map and words and numbers, looked quickly away.
“It doesn’t matter now,” said Parthenal. “It’s no secret any more.” He took up a small quill-tank pen and wrote a line or two beneath the map in a fluent script; then passed the scroll to Tiburé, who did the same before passing it to Rothir.
“We’ll get Maeneb to sign it also, later,” said Rothir as he finished writing.
“I will guard the scroll,” said Eled earnestly.
“We know it. You are also charged with taking care of Yaret, as far as you can with your leg still in a splint.”
Eled glanced around the tree as if looking for some immediate danger, a lurking lion perhaps. He put a hand on the hilt of the sword that lay beside him.
“I pledge to do so,” he said soberly.
“Good,” said Rothir. “We know that we can trust you in that.”
But a little later, once Eled had drifted off to sleep, Rothir turned to Yaret and said softly,
“I doubt if you will need much looking after. I told Eled to do it because he needs a task.”
“We all do,” said Yaret, “and mine shall be to take care of him, as far as I can with one foot.”
He nodded. She did not ask what the task of the Riders would be now, and where they would go, since they had chosen not to tell her.
Nor did they say any more about their destination the following morning.
It was a dawn of pale green-lemon light. Seemingly a whole choir of birds jostled on a branch outside the hollow tree, all intent on out-piping each other. The riders arose with the same organised quiet bustle that there had been in the Gyr cave; and then all too soon the horses were stamping outside, laden and ready to leave.
Yaret sat next to Eled on a root just outside the entrance of the hollow tree to watch them, her bandaged leg dangling. The effect of the Wardens’ drugs had worn off overnight so that now she felt blearily slow. Her leg was throbbing and tingling, as if the absent foot were being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles. But not tiny enough.
“Farewell,” said Tiburé. “Maeneb will send word through the wardens.”
“And I will hear word of you from the Farwth,” said Maeneb.
Tiburé rested her hand briefly on Eled’s head and nodded to Yaret, who propped herself on a crutch and stood up to bow. She had barely tried to use the crutches yet, and felt clumsy and unsafe. She bowed also to Maeneb, who made a vague gesture that might have been a wave.
Parthenal clapped Eled on the shoulder.
“Bear up, get well,” he said.
“I am,” Eled assured him.
He turned to Yaret. “You too, donkey.”
“Parthenal?” She put out her right hand to clasp his shoulder, before clenching it and touching it to her chest. “I hold you in my heart,” she said, “galeth.”
When Rothir came up to her she made the same gesture. “I hold you in my heart,” she said. “Always.”
“I too.” He laid his hand briefly on her arm. Then he turned to Eled and took his hand.
“You are a brave man, my friend,” he said, “and you bear your injury with fortitude. It will heal. Don’t be afraid. Keep up your courage.”
“I will,” said Eled.
A minute later, they were gone. Yaret stayed on her feet, leaning on the crutches to watch the horses disappear amidst the trees. Very quickly they were so completely swallowed by the forest that even the thud of hooves was no longer audible. Yet the shuffling rank of birds above her sang on blithely as if nothing had just changed.
She sat down again next to Eled.
“Well,” she said, “I have a plan for today.”
Eled looked round at her, his face unhappy. “What is it?”
“First we eat. Then when the Wardens come, we ask them to take us for a walk. If we are to stay in this forest, I would like to learn it a little. Then, while we are resting, I will sing and help you learn the songs that you enjoy. But you have to teach me something in return.”
“What?”
“You have to teach me Vonnish.”
Eled smiled. “I know Vonnish!”
“Good. So that is my plan, but if you think of more things to do along the way, we can add them in. Now, let me sort out breakfast.”
There was another thing she wanted to ask Eled to teach her; but that would have to wait.
As she fetched the basket of fruit and grainy bread that had been left outside the tree, she reflected that it would be a while before either of them could engage in swordplay.
The previous morning, while half-asleep, she had seen Parthenal outside the entrance to the tree, going through his drill. It had been impressive enough to wake her up. Now it made her think that she ought to learn to wield a sword. Although she did not particularly relish the idea, she had a feeling that it might be useful, in case by some mischance she ever came across a stoneman.
For she had gathered from the Riders’ talk that the stonemen were marching north, in considerable numbers. It was unlikely that they would ever come close to Obandiro, since there was no reason for them to aim for such a sparsely populated area; but all the same…
Enough of that, she told herself. Stop fighting shadows. Swordplay might be interesting, that’s all.
However, the perils that the Riders of the Vonn could meet with soon were all too real to her. She tried to shut out those thoughts too. The Riders would not be in any danger yet; not until they left the safety of Farwithiel.
So it was better for her to focus on the here and now. Establishing a routine was important, both for her sake and for Eled’s. She was not short of ideas for things to do – if anything, she had too many. But she needed to learn what activities Eled could cope with, and what would benefit his recovery and mood the most.
The walk in the forest was too much for him, she realised almost as soon as they set out.
The problem was not physical. After the Wardens had arrived and given them a dose of belvane, the pair of them took up the wooden crutches which had been provided. They were able to practise hobbling around the tree without too much discomfort, laughing at each other’s efforts.
But when they set out to hobble through the forest – with a Warden in attendance alongside each – Eled quickly became at first alarmed and then overwhelmed. She had thought the exercise must surely be good for him. Perhaps it was. But the vast strangeness of the forest was not, even though he was aware that he was in Farwithiel.
“He’s only been here once before, for a few days,” murmured Goren the mind-doctor, who now was Eled’s chief attendant. “He’s had no time to get to know it. Farwithiel has laid no roots in him.”
“Does it usually? Lay down roots, I mean.”
Goren smiled. He was a neat, affable old man with thinning white hair and a bland manner. Behind it Yaret suspected he was scrutinising everything.
“I don’t mean literally,” he said. “But anyone who stays for any length of time will find themselves changed. Farwithiel will grow into their dreams. Its strength and wildness will have their effect.”
She thought that he was over-dramatising. But certainly Farwithiel had its effect on Eled.
Seeing his bewilderment at his surroundings – which seemed almost a kind of grief – Yaret soon pleaded tiredness so that they could both retreat into the hollow tree.
Even back in that more manageable sanctuary Eled looked around as if it were all new to him, and saw with relief his pack and sword and scroll.
“I have to look after that,” he said.
“Read it now, Eled,” she suggested.
“Am I allowed?”
“You are. Look for the messages on the bottom. Your friends want you to read this every day.”
Eled unfurled the scroll and read the messages, his lips moving. “Yes,” he said, “yes.”
That seemed to settle him again. And once the Wardens had departed, their medical duties over, the singing was more successful than walking about had been. Yaret taught him half a children’s song about a greedy bird, translated into Standard. While he was slow to learn, that did not seem to bother him. So it did not matter.
She gave him the gourd to play with and watched him inspecting the hinge and experimenting with the tension of the string. His innate intelligence was evident. Perhaps she could make another instrument? Surely in all this forest there must be gourds somewhere that were suitable. She could ask the Farwth, if she knew how. Though it seemed far too trivial a thing to bother the Farwth with. Maybe she could ask the Wardens.
In fact, there were many things she wanted to ask the Wardens, but neither Goren nor Walen were particularly forthcoming. Certainly they showed no curiosity equal to her own.
She felt that they were too wrapped up in the concerns of Farwithiel to have much interest in people from outside.
And it was true that there was much here to enrapture. Once Eled was asleep again, Yaret took up her crutches and hobbled back out of the giant tree.
The birds were quieter now, but more visible; bright moving sparks of red and vivid green high up in the branches. She could not identify any of them. One type in particular caught her fancy. They had small, round, orange-brown bodies, and long tails that wagged whenever they perched – which was never for long. They flew in changeable tweeting flocks, settling for a moment restlessly before all taking off again.
She limped away from the close-stemmed mass of trunks and foliage that Maeneb had called the Farwth, under the more widely spread trees. Even so, some grew so close to each other – their trunks touching and branches intertwining – that she was hard put to say which tree was which. Others stood alone, reaching up to join a lofty canopy that was hidden from her sight in mist.
Yaret could not name many of the trees. Even those she thought she recognised, like Eastern Ash, were so hugely increased in size that she was doubtful if they were actually the same species. In places light fell in and splashed across the leafy, pool-dotted floor.
Occasional fruits fell, too, with faint thunks, gold and pitted or furred and pink. Not knowing what they were, she left them where they lay. No doubt the Farwth had a purpose in their falling.
Always in her consciousness was the massive presence of the Farwth behind her. Or was it around her? Did she walk through it now? Which part of the forest was the Farwth?
And how had a tree – or a forest – learned to communicate with humans? Something else to ask the Wardens. Though she did not expect to get an answer from them.
Ask me.
The voice made her stop in her tracks. Again she thought of her grandmother, busy in the kitchen, tying on her apron. Nothing asked, nothing given, Gramma Thuli used to say.
“If I ask, will you give me an answer?” she said aloud.
No answer.
Yaret smiled. Then she asked, speaking to the air, “Farwth. How did you learn to communicate with humans?”
I was taught, said the Farwth. She wondered if the birds heard it as well. Probably not, because the nearest flock continued its alternate twittering and flitting.
“By whom were you taught?”
Silence.
Yaret reflected, and then, to be polite, turned on her crutches to face the immense close-knit mass of greenery. Not just greenery: brownery. Goldery. So many shades.
“What is the best thing for me to do with Eled?” she asked.
He is not a tree. If he were a tree then I would know.
“What would you do if he were a damaged tree?”
Keep him watered, sheltered, and free of pests. If he were too damaged, then withdraw.
“Withdraw what?”
Myself, said the Farwth.
Yaret reflected again, more on the nature of the Farwth than on Eled. She would have to work out Eled for herself.
“Where in the forest may I go?” she asked.
Wherever you wish. I will stop you if you go too far.
“That is very kind,” said Yaret, and she bowed.
It is not kind. It is necessary. Now y ou may tell me about Madeo. I should like to know her history.
“I will try,” said Yaret. “Although you probably know more than me, if you know Madeo was my ancestor. How did you learn that?”
From your blood and bone. As I can tell which tree a sapling is descended from.
“It must be through my grandfather’s line: he’s the one that’s from Obandiro. But he never mentioned anything like that,” she mused. Most likely he hadn’t known. Or maybe it had been another secret kept from her… Yaret waited, but the Farwth made no comment on the matter.
“Well, ancestor or not,” she said, “I don’t know much about Madeo apart from her songs.
Was it Madeo who taught you to speak?”
I could speak before she came.
Yaret sat down carefully on the dry grass beneath a tree that was strange to her: its huge leaves were like many-fingered, feathery hands. She laid her crutches down beside her. Both her legs were aching, not just the shortened one; her arms and shoulders too. But the bruises from her fall were starting to turn from blue to yellow now.
She thought about Madeo, putting in order what she knew of the bard’s life four hundred years ago. After the long journey south, it was not really much. Madeo had spent little time in Obandiro, except for the last years of her long life. The sequence and full extent of her travels had been much guessed at from her lyrics but could not be defined for certain.
Madeo had made perhaps three trips to Farwithiel; however, they were wrapped in mystery and obscurity. Mentally Yaret ran through those songs that referred to the ancient forests which the bard had found within the cloud-banks. But much of what Madeo had said about Farwithiel was Ulthared. It could not be spoken of except in certain circumstances.
So Yaret thought it instead. The Ulthared spoke of the wisdom of the earth grown straight and tall: a sea of roots with a multitude of changing waves of green above it; yet a single entity. Perhaps the Farwth then was not as huge as it had since become. But in the Ulthared its grace and power were clear, if not much else was.
That is of interest.
It seemed that she did not need to speak her thoughts aloud; for whatever she wished the Farwth to know, it knew.
She wondered if it also knew her other thoughts. That would be disconcerting. Especially as it was a one-way street: the Farwth’s thoughts were closed to her.
You would not understand them, said the Farwth.
Very likely not, thought Yaret. It occurred to her – she did not know why – that the Farwth might be lonely, if it was indeed a single entity. No matter how old and huge and wise it was, it was only one.
And many.
“I stand corrected,” Yaret said.
And many, and yet one.
They rode hard and fast across the bleak plains west of the Thore. When they had crossed the outer woodlands of Farwithiel, with the trees ever diminishing in size and splendour, they had felt as if they were emerging from a languorous sleep. A sense of urgency rose in them and hurried them over the river and past the dour Coban Hills hunched to their north. They galloped across long miles of increasingly withered scrub until they found themselves high on the Iarad plateau, the cold wind slapping in their faces to wake them up still further.
Maeneb, at least, was very aware of the difference. She was not sure if it affected the others in the same way. But she herself seemed to be riding away from an unlikely dream whose true nature slipped into forgetfulness minute by minute. Yet who was to say which was more real: the great living halls of the Farwth, or this mad galloping over a vast empty land in pursuit of an unseen enemy?
After the enclosing lushness of Farwithiel the grey moorland of the barren Iarad was bleak and hostile. Maeneb had heard that it had once been forested, many centuries ago, before blight and drought reduced it to a semi-desert. Although it rained enough here now, the land had not recovered; there were areas of muddy ground where nothing grew. In other stretches, stunted gorse and heather seemed to battle for survival.
The biting wind scoured the drab earth and dragged wave after wave of black, heavy clouds across the sky. As they pulled up by a stream to let the horses drink, and to drink themselves, Rothir looked at her.
“Well? Any clues, Maeneb? Which way do we go next?”
She stared upstream, listening for the stonemen. It was not like listening to the Farwth, for that would speak to her whether she were prepared for it or not. And its voice those last two days had put her into a kind of trance of gladness. Almost of belonging – that was the only way to describe it. The sense of belonging had no connection with her father: she hadn’t even seen him this time, although he must have been told that she was there. No, it was due purely to the Farwth, when it had given her the unexpected news about the stonemen.
More than that. It had discussed the threat as if her opinion actually mattered. She felt that it had finally accepted her, or had chosen to let her know that it accepted her. Yet now that it was gone she struggled to remember exactly how it sounded.
Now she strained to listen to what she thought of as the lesser voices of the land, although what she heard came neither through the ground nor through the air. It was a sense for which she had no name. What had been developed in the Wardens to speak to the Farwth seemed in her to apply to any human – indeed, she could sense any living thing, if in a weaker way. So she put forth all her strength to hear.
And she did not like what she heard.
“There are so many of them,” she said in some dismay. “Perhaps more than a thousand.
Certainly many hundreds.”
“All stonemen?” queried Tiburé.
Maeneb nodded. “They all have the same colour of thought. They all think of war, and fury, and the triumph and honour of killing. It is a concentration of minds all turned in the same direction – but distorted, too, like a picture seen through a twisted glass.”
“The drugs,” said Parthenal.
“The stones,” said Rothir.
“No darkburns there with them?” asked Tiburé.
“There may well be darkburns. I do not hear them as I hear living things. I can barely feel them at all, and only when they are very close. By that time everybody else can feel them coming too.”
“How far away are these stonemen now?” asked Rothir. Although she had detected in his mind some sadness at leaving Eled and Farwithiel, now he seemed equally determined to get away as fast as possible. All his mind was keenly focused on the road ahead.
“They are distant,” she replied. “Perhaps as much as thirty miles away. They’re travelling quite fast, but not towards us: they are marching north. I think they may have recently split into two groups; there is a divergence, but the groups are not yet very far apart.”
“Then we’ll ride on,” said Tiburé, “because however fast they march, we can ride faster.
We’ll try to get close enough to judge their numbers and their destination.”
“We may judge their numbers to some degree by the trail they’ll have left behind them,”
Rothir pointed out. “If we’re marching north we’ll cross their path. It can’t be far away.”
So they rode on; and within a few miles found the expected trail, a wide trampling of the withered shrubs. In one muddy place the marks were clear, so they dismounted to examine them. Maeneb immediately recognised the prints left by the stonemen’s rope-soled boots.
“Six or maybe eight abreast,” reported Parthenal. “And another six abreast just over there.
Two columns… but who knows how long each column might have been?”
Rothir was frowning at the trampled earth.
“There are wheel marks here,” he said, “as if there were carts. But no sign of any hooves.
So were there no horses pulling them?”
“Hand-carts,” said Tiburé. “They must need them for provisions for such a long march.”
“Well, maybe,” said Rothir, although he seemed unconvinced as he raised his head to scan the area. Then he pointed. “Look, there’s a cart that’s been abandoned over there. Let’s go and see if it can tell us anything.”
Maeneb noted the tracks of many over-lapping wheels as they rode to the fallen cart, which was lying on its side several hundred yards away. It was a crude green-wood handcart with metal shafts, small enough to be pulled by two men. It had lost a wheel: the axle had evidently broken as it was hauled over the rocky ground. But it was the cart itself that gripped Rothir’s attention.
“It’s burnt,” he said. “Look. Burnt half way through the base.”
“It’s been carrying darkburns,” Maeneb said. The thought filled her with a sudden grim anxiety and fear – an irrational dread, she told herself, a mere memory of fear; for there was neither the smell nor feel of any darkburn here. They were too long gone.
“You couldn’t use a wooden cart to carry darkburns,” Parthenal objected. “The wood would turn to charcoal within minutes. And even with the metal handles, the men pulling the cart would suffer burns.”
“Those holes drilled through the handles could take ropes or chains, and lengthen the distance between cart and man. Also, the wood is sodden,” Rothir pointed out. “I expect they sluiced it down at intervals. And, look here: something has been torn up from the cart’s base
– see the nail marks?”
“A cart lined with metal sheeting might not burn away too fast,” said Tiburé, “particularly if it were regularly soaked with water.”
“You could use tin, perhaps,” said Parthenal doubtfully.
“A darkburn would melt tin. Iron more likely,” said Rothir, “but you’d need a lot of it if all the carts were lined that way.”
“And they’d be heavy. So you’d need more than two men for each cart,” said Parthenal.
“The ropes would allow for that. We must have crossed the tracks of at least a dozen carts
– maybe twenty.”
“Twenty darkburns?” queried Tiburé. “In iron carts?”
“Caged,” said Maeneb suddenly. “I saw strange rows of bars in the stonemen’s thoughts.
Stripes of darkness. And heat within them.”
They looked at each other.
“Why?” asked Parthenal. Maeneb shook her head.
“Twenty darkburns would be hard to keep control of,” Tiburé observed. “With those numbers, and for these distances, it would be difficult to herd them. The stonemen might well have to cage them just to keep themselves safe.”
“I don’t like it,” Rothir muttered.
“I like none of this,” replied Tiburé, somewhat sharply. “Is there anything else to be learned here? If not, let’s move on and keep following the trail.”
They did so. But they had ridden only a few miles further when Maeneb’s sensation of anxiety grew much stronger.
Something here was in terrible distress. Something she recognised. Not a human – but some familiar being none the less. She pulled up to a sudden halt, putting both hands to her head.
“What is it?” asked Tiburé.
“Something dreadful happened here,” she answered hoarsely. “There’s an animal nearby, I think, in appalling pain. It’s struggling. We need to find it.”
She pointed to the direction of the feeling. Within minutes they had found its source, deep in a ditch. It was a horse, with all its legs broken. Its saddle had been cut from its body with a violence that left deep bloody slashes along its flank. It was trying to stand up.
It was Arguril’s.
“That’s Vela,” said Maeneb in new anguish.
“So where is Arguril?”
“I don’t know. I can’t hear him anywhere.”
Tiburé gripped her sword hilt, her face stern. “We’ll look around,” she said, “in case.
Parthenal?” She nodded at the horse. Then she and Rothir rode away to scour the area for any sign of Arguril, leaving Parthenal to do what needed to be done.
Parthenal climbed down into the ditch to reach Vela, the stricken mare. He spoke soothingly to her and stroked the bloodied neck and mane until the eyes stopped wildly rolling. As she grew calm, he told her what a good horse she had been, what a fine and faithful servant: how she was loved. Then he drew his knife and gently cut her throat.
Soon after that, following a terse discussion, the group split up. By common consent, Tiburé set off south-west back to Thield to report what news they had to Huldarion. Most of the news was bad, and Rothir did not envy her that task.
Meanwhile he himself, with Parthenal and Maeneb, rode north into the cold wind, following the stonemen’s trail and hunting for any further sign of Arguril.
There was no trace of the young man to be seen. The trail of rope-soled prints and wheel-ruts continued for many miles with no indication of the stonemen making any stop to camp.
Riding in the army’s wake, they passed a hut, a traveller’s shelter, that had been burnt out: when Rothir investigated he found what might once have been a man’s body lying inside.
However, from the little that remained – chiefly buckles, and hobnails in the remnants of its boots – it did not seem to be Arguril’s.
They left it and rode on until they reached the point at which the stoneman army had, at last, evidently halted for a night. The ground was littered with scraps of food and human waste. There they debated whether they should halt themselves.
“There’s still an hour of daylight,” argued Rothir, who was desperate to move on.
“Twilight rather. As the light drops we may miss something,” Maeneb countered.
“We can at least continue till the light drops too far. Another half hour.”
Rothir knew he was not being entirely reasonable. The daylight was already dimming fast beneath the sullen clouds. A damp, sour smell was sharpening the air: although there was little summer or autumn on the barren Iarad, the seasons were fast turning, and evening would now swing its curtain down upon them earlier each day. Rothir knew they needed both to eat and rest. The horses also needed rest. But he felt he could not rest while he could still see to hunt.
First Eled, then Yaret, now Arguril… This latest care clenched tight within his chest. He did not think that he had any tendency to succumb to unnecessary fear. Yet disaster on disaster was falling on the youngest members of the group, the ones he should be able to protect, and it hurt him. The self-reproach was a pain that would not leave, like a stone being driven hard into his head; a pain he had no remedy for, apart from action.
Never mind that it was Tiburé who had allowed Arguril to ride off alone. Never mind that Arguril himself had been so keen; he was inexperienced, and Rothir should have spoken out against it. He should have safeguarded Arguril.
Parthenal glanced at him from time to time as they rode on.
“You can’t be responsible for everyone,” he said.
“Only those I am responsible for,” Rothir retorted. His friend cocked an eyebrow and said nothing. On Parthenal responsibility never seemed to weigh as heavily as it did upon himself.
Yet he knew that Parthenal was just as apprehensive as he was. They did not speak of what the stonemen might do to Arguril. It did not bear speaking of.
First Eled, then Yaret… Rothir told himself firmly that those two, at any rate, were safe.
He thought of Yaret’s bandaged stump with a pang of loss – oddly deep, he was not certain why, because at least she was alive, he had managed to achieve that much – and then he put the thought firmly in a box and shut it away. Task done. Forget it. Now the next thing.
Box after box. There was little enough time to look back at them, all lined up along his past, let alone to open them and let memory back in. Why bother? Better to think of a future idealised Caervonn. Memory was often painful.
And he did not need more painful memories. So he needed to find Arguril.
The mere fact that Arguril’s corpse had not yet appeared along the trail meant there was still hope; although not much. If the stonemen found the scroll they would not spare him. The
news within the scroll was old news now. But the very fact that Arguril carried it would mark him as a Rider of the Vonn, as the stonemen’s sworn enemy, and that would mean his death.
Amongst other things, the scroll mentioned the ignoble one, whose name Rothir preferred not to speak aloud if it could be helped; although that did not stop him from saying it in his closed mouth now with disgust and loathing. He would spit it if he could. Adon. All this was bound to be his work.
“Over there,” said Maeneb sharply, swerving to the left. He saw another overturned cart: another broken axle. The carts were not well made, but had been crudely nailed together.
“I missed it,” Rothir said shamefacedly. “I wasn’t paying enough attention.” Like the first cart, this one bore the signs of burning. And there were scorch marks on the thin grass for some distance; so he followed them.
At the end of the scorched path lay the remains of a man, his limbs distorted in agony, his clothes and face burnt badly but still decipherable: not Arguril. Neither was it a stoneman.
Although the corpse was cold, it smelt of smoke and rank roast meat. Rothir turned away, trying not to retch.
“So who is he? There are no houses around here. Was he some slave who was pulling the cart? And when it overturned, perhaps the darkburn broke out and attacked him,” muttered Parthenal.
“Something like that. I hope the stonemen managed to round up the darkburn,” Maeneb said. “I wouldn’t want to find it lurking anywhere near here.”
“How do you round up a darkburn?”
“They must have a way.”
“There’s an end to the burnt trail here,” said Rothir, inspecting the ground, “so they evidently managed it somehow.”
“In that case, so long as there’s no darkburn on the loose, I vote we stop here for the night,” suggested Maeneb. “We are all too tired to be effective. We don’t want to miss anything else.” She looked pointedly at Rothir.
He gave in. Moving away from the stonemen’s trail, they rubbed down the horses in the dusk. Then he ate and slept, because that was his job, and shook Parthenal awake early in the morning. Maeneb was already up. His mind turned to Yaret for some reason; doing her daily ritual, murmuring those words. Back into the box. His thoughts should be on Arguril and his plight.
Parthenal groaned as he heaved himself on to his horse. Normally Rothir would have made some joking remark about him not being the early riser that he usually was; but he did not do so now. There was nothing for them to joke about. Sensing his horse’s weariness, he hoped that Narba would continue to bear up under this enforced effort. It was probably still a full day’s ride before they could hope to catch up with the stonemen.
But then what? If Arguril were captive they could not rescue him from an entire stoneman army. The best they could do was to assess the situation.
“They’re on the move again,” said Maeneb, head cocked to the breeze, “definitely in two groups now. They’re diverging quite widely; one group is going further east.”
“Which group is the larger?”
She concentrated. “The other one, I think, that’s heading west.”
“The large group is marching towards Outer Kelvha, then. Can you sense Arguril?”
Maeneb shook her head. “I’ve been trying at intervals, all night.” He realised that there were shadowed circles underneath her eyes. “There’s nothing detectable. That might mean that he’s… unconscious. Or too far away. Or he simply might be drowned out by the large numbers of stonemen. I’m not good enough to distinguish one voice amidst so many.” Rothir knew she blamed herself, but he did not have the energy to spare to reassure her.
It was Parthenal who said, “Don’t feel bad about it, Maeneb. You’re doing a useful job.
Without you we’d have no clue at all which way to go.” He was not normally so sympathetic.
However, if Parthenal was sympathetic to anyone, it was to Maeneb, thought Rothir as they rode off. His friend showed a gentleness to Maeneb which he demonstrated to few others. To some people he could be ruthless; even cruel. Rothir was often glad that Parthenal was on his side.
“If they have hurt Arguril,” said Parthenal now, deliberately, “I will cut their limbs off, one by one, and feed them to their darkburns.”
“And I will help you,” said Rothir. They both knew that such revenge was not remotely possible.
He urged Narba to a gallop on the moorland, which was not so barren now as the Iarad behind them. All the time he rode, he checked the landscape for a body. None was to be seen.
But if the stonemen had killed Arguril, they would have left his body by the roadside, surely?
They certainly would not bother burying him. If they had not killed him, what were they keeping him alive for?
Information, thought Rothir. But Arguril knew little information that was not also in the scroll. Even the location of Thield would have changed by now. The stonemen already knew the rest.
Sport. They might keep such a captive purely for their pleasure. Yet Rothir doubted this, because in his experience the stonemen’s pleasure lay in outright killing, not in torture. He had an idea they would regard it as a waste of time. Deaths were what counted.
Something to bargain with, then… He hoped that was the reason, because in that case the stonemen would have to keep Arguril not only alive but also relatively unhurt. However, the willingness to bargain was also something which he had not come across in stonemen previously.
There was, of course, one other possibility.
“They might be using him as bait,” he said aloud as he slowed his horse.
“In which case we are riding straight into their trap,” said Parthenal.
“Not really. The trap is still a long way off,” said Maeneb. “And we’ll hardly be taken by surprise.”
But Rothir now began to think, and to study not just the trail but the countryside around them as he rode, looking for clues as to what objective might drive on the stonemen in their swift march through this place. The empty lands appeared more welcoming than before, with increasing signs of cultivation if no actual people. The Iarad wilderness lay behind them: ahead, the gentle hills and wooded vales of the Iartir began a slow rise and fall, as if the Riders were poised on the verge of some wide green frozen sea.
They passed an area of farmland, full of yellow stubble, and then a homestead. It was burnt. When they rode up to it, the blackened stones still felt warm – hot, even, to Rothir’s cautious touch. This had happened within the last twenty-four hours. No survivors: three corpses lay outside the building, also burnt. Two, he thought, were female.
He bent down to check the third. “Not Arguril,” he said. Nobody else said anything, because there was nothing to say. Before he rose, Rothir bowed his head in a silent vow that the dead would be avenged. He would try, at least.
“Do you hear anything new, Maeneb?” asked Parthenal.
She shook her head.
“Keep listening.”
They continued riding fast, but with increased wariness now that they were drawing closer to the enemy. After a few more miles they came to a hill a little taller than the rest. Smoke rose thickly from beyond it. Mounting its summit to look out, they saw no stonemen. Instead, a second burnt-out farmstead lay below them: a black, steaming shell surrounded by a half-
charred orchard. A few goats browsed the slopes as calmly as if nothing untoward had happened.
As they descended Rothir already knew what they would find. This time there were six corpses. One held a knife: a pitiable defence against a darkburn and its following army. Not far away a sack of flour lay on the ground, unburnt and split, a splash of white amidst the black.
“They take the food and kill the farmers,” muttered Parthenal. Rothir nodded.
The army had moved quickly on, for it could not be seen. But in the distance, beyond the swelling waves of the westlands, a long white plume of smoke was drifting to the sky as if pulled upwards by the clouds.
“That’s the western branch of the stoneman army, the ones that we are currently following,” said Maeneb. “The other smaller group is three or four miles east by now –
maybe further.”
Rothir squinted east, to where high moorland again encroached on the cultivated Iartir. A distant pall of smoke seemed to lie over wide areas of the land.
“You still think the western group is larger?” he asked Maeneb.
“I believe so. Their voices are certainly stronger.”
“There are many more villages lying to the north-west than to the east,” observed Parthenal. “Moreva and Brul, and beyond them, Outer Kelvha. There’s nowhere so populous to our right. So the stonemen have split up accordingly.”
“And you think they’re going to attack those places?” Rothir demanded. “It would be a brave army that encroached on Kelvha.”
“But it would be a wise one that tested the defences of Outer Kelvha first.”
“We need to tell Huldarion,” said Maeneb.
“We need to find out more. And above all, we need to find Arguril,” said Rothir. They spurred their horses away from the ravaged farmstead and up the far side of the hill, through the swirling wind and scattering leaves, dispersing the goats who swirled and scattered in the same way.
Over the green hill they rode and down to the next vale, through lush water-meadows where lay the half-butchered corpses of a dozen cattle with only their heads left intact. At the bottom of the vale, a row of gracefully draping willows lined a wide stream. It was not too deep to ford, however, and they had splashed across it and were halfway to the next rise in the ground when Maeneb’s mare suddenly reared up, lurching sideways so that she almost unseated her rider.
At the same instant Alda stopped dead, throwing Parthenal forward in the saddle. Narba threw up his head and neighed.
Then Rothir felt it, and he knew that Parthenal did too from his sharp intake of breath.
Strength drained from his limbs. Beneath him the horse was tense and trembling. He threw himself off Narba and drew his sword to meet what he knew was coming, although with the whirling wind behind him the warning stench came late.
But by that time he had already seen it hurtling down the rise towards him. Darkburn.
This one had wings. Or had had, once. Now it had only tattered shreds of blackness that sent flakes of soot into the sky.
It reminded Rothir strangely of an eagle, although this darkburn was five times an eagle’s size. Yet its head might have been shaped something like a dog’s had it not been burnt into bluntness. It did not bewilder the sight like most smaller darkburns: Rothir could clearly see the charcoaled feet, as big as a lion’s, but more fiercely clawed.
He had two seconds to take all this in, before the darkburn launched itself at them.
It leapt into the air in a wave of heat and made as if it would have dived at them from above. But whatever the wings could once have done, they could not now, in their burnt and shredded state. The darkburn collapsed in a floundering heap on the ground before them, next to a bush which burst instantly into flame.
Welding his sword in a swift arc, Rothir cleaved its neck. It was tough: the head did not fly off but remained half-attached and dangling. There was no blood, merely a shower of soot. The darkburn flailed its rudimentary wings as if struggling to get up.
Both men struck again at the same time, their swords clashing, and now the head did detach itself and toppled quietly on the grass. But the body continued to thrash and writhe and tried to clap its wings, more fire and smoke arising round it constantly.
The two men had to hurriedly withdraw some yards from the heat. Rothir feared for his hair as sparks flew round him. After a few seconds’ respite they looked at each other, nodded, and sprang forward again to finish the thing off. Parthenal slashed at the frantically beating wings, while Rothir hacked at the body, chopping the long tail which writhed independently before falling still.
But the body was still moving, twitching; while around it half the shrubby hillside now seemed to be on fire. They retreated from its heat again to watch it in revulsion. There seemed little harm that the darkburn could do now. The horror which had accompanied it began to slowly fade. Rothir felt that he should put it out of its last misery.
Misery? What misery could it feel? It was already burning of its own volition, creating mindless terror in any human or animal nearby. It was itself already death. How could it suffer?
With these thoughts in his mind, he readied himself to charge into the fire again. But Parthenal beat him to it. He leapt at the fallen darkburn, and swinging his sword furiously he slashed at the twitching body again and again until it was no longer a body but a heap of blackened parts.
“If I had an axe,” he said, panting, “I would use that too.”
They retreated, coughing, to where Maeneb was leaning on her sword. Her face was twisted in shame and sickness.
“I couldn’t attack it,” she said. “It weakened me too much. I couldn’t even lift my sword.
I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” answered Parthenal. “This one was worse than some. And I think you feel them more intensely than we do.”
“You’ve not met as many darkburns as we have,” added Rothir, wiping the sooty sweat from his brow with his wrist. “We seem to be becoming accustomed to them.”
“Unfortunately,” said Parthenal. He frowned at the blackened, smoking heap. “I’ve seen something like that before.”
“Surely not,” said Maeneb in dismay.
“Not in real life. In a picture. Probably a storybook or some such, years ago. The wings of an eagle, the feet of a lion, the head of a dog. I can’t remember what it was called. But I think it was some exotic beast from far in the west.”
“No such thing exists,” said Rothir.
“Well, this thing definitely does.”
“Proof that it’s a manufacture,” Rothir grunted.
“Do you think this is like the darkburn that attacked Eled?” asked Maeneb.
“No; that one crawled, by Eled’s account,” said Rothir. “It kept close to the ground. Yaret told me the same.”
Maeneb said in a low voice, “I heard Yaret mutter words over the dead stonemen back at the Gyr cave. I feel as if something should be said over this creature too.”
“Words? What words? Curses?” asked Parthenal with disdain.
“There was some ritual that she performed,” said Rothir. He remembered the darkburn graveyard in the swamp; and before that, a tumbling rabbit, Yaret murmuring unheard words.
He had his own prayer for the dead, but had never used it on a rabbit.
Maeneb said, “I think they might have been words of appeasement. Apology. Farewell. I don’t know.”
Parthenal snorted. “Apology? Wasted on stonemen – or on darkburns.”
But Rothir, studying Maeneb, asked her, “Why do you feel that something should be said over this one? What is it about this darkburn that makes it different to the others?”
She was silent for a moment. “It’s grief,” she said at last. “I felt such grief, as well as horror.”
He opened his mouth to say that Yaret had felt something of the same. Then he closed it again, because all such feelings were subjective. They proved nothing.
“That’s just an emotion that the darkburns generate,” said Parthenal, “to disarm and dismay. This one happens to be particularly strong.”
“Yes, I know.”
“A more immediate question,” Rothir said, “is what is it doing here? Was it sent here to attack us?”
“I don’t see how. There are no stonemen anywhere nearby,” said Maeneb.
“This must be one of the darkburns whose cart overturned,” suggested Parthenal. “If they couldn’t control it and it got away, it will have been roaming around here for the last day or two, hunting. And found us.”
That seemed to Rothir to be the most likely answer. Perhaps the thing had happened on them by pure chance. Perhaps it smelt them, just as they smelt it. Perhaps it felt their presence…
And what had he felt? Horror, certainly. Grief? He wasn’t sure. But almost a sense of shame. That made no sense, unless it was his own shame at his weakness. He gazed at the smoking remains, and remembered the tears that had stood in Yaret’s eyes back in the swamp.
Needless, pointless. Put it in a box. The thing was destroyed now, that was all that mattered.
“Come on,” he said curtly. “We can’t hang around.”
The left the smouldering remains and continued their trek north. After another mile they came to a point where the stonemen’s trail veered more directly west.
“The eastward group is still only a few miles away,” said Maeneb, “but soon the distances between the two halves of the army will grow wider. We need to decide which group to follow.”
“You still think the eastward group is smaller?”
She nodded. “A few hundred, I think. The other is at least twice the size. But in both directions I feel that impression of stripes and heat within them.”
“The darkburn cages. I wish we knew which of the two armies held Arguril,” growled Parthenal.
Rothir thought, If either of them do, but he said nothing. Never to give up hope even when all reasonable hope seemed dead: the events of the Thore ought to have taught him that.
Maeneb shook her head.
“I have no way of knowing where Arguril is,” she said dolefully. “I still can’t hear him amidst all the other voices. There are too many of them.”
“Statistically,” said Rothir, “he’s more likely to be with the larger group that’s heading west. But we can’t take the risk of pursuing the wrong group and missing him. We need to split up.”
“Then Maeneb and I will ride west,” said Parthenal, “and you go east. We should be able to overtake each group within a day and see if there is any sign of Arguril.”