Maeneb knew that they were losing, and it made her angry.
She blamed the Kelvhans. They’d gone in too early, charging at the enemy on their prancing over-decorated horses, which had promptly panicked at the first rush of darkburns and had thrown several of their riders – then trampling on them for good measure.
The premature charge had not allowed enough time for stakes to be set, as Ikelder had suggested: a good suggestion that had worked where a single meagre row had been put hurriedly in place. The stakes had caught the stonemen’s chains with such unexpected impact that they’d been pulled right off their horses and were easily dispatched. But elsewhere the pairs of stonemen rode in herding darkburns with impunity.
Kelvha had been pushed back; had regrouped; and had charged again. Maeneb knew it wasn’t fair to blame the troops, who were both skilled and determined. She blamed the Arch-Lord Marshal Shargun, because he did not learn.
Whereas the stonemen did. It surprised her because on previous encounters they had stuck rigidly to one strategy: attack. But now they used new tactics – pretending to turn tail and run, so luring the Kelvhan cavalry onto boggy ground. The stonemen, they discovered, had already laid down planks to enable their escape on foot; but the pursuing horses floundered, lurched and fell. Maeneb felt more pity for the horses than the Kelvhans, who surely should have foreseen this, and certainly shouldn’t have been caught out after the first time it happened. But orders once given seemed to be followed blindly.
Perhaps the Arch-Lord Shargun had such force of numbers that, like the stonemen, he didn’t worry about casualties. When Kelvha were pushed back a second time, Shargun had rejected outright the suggestions of the Vonn – and of some of his own captains – that they should forgo the cavalry and advance with archers and foot-soldiers. He seemed to think that the only worthy wars were fought on horseback. Parthenal returned from the meeting of captains tight-lipped and icy with suppressed rage.
“What a puffed-up bag of wind,” he expostulated. “Thinks he’s inherited genius along with his titles. He’s got staff with ten times more brains, but will he listen to them?”
“I’m guessing not,” said Maeneb.
There was no time for a third charge in any case before the stonemen came up with another novel tactic. From the far forts they dragged out great wheeled catapults, with which they fired bundles of burning pitch and straw across the battlefield. These were distracting but not especially disruptive.
However, they paved the way for more deadly missiles: when a darkburn came hurtling over their heads the pandemonium was immediate. Nobody had been prepared for this. As a second one shot overhead, wrapped in red-hot chains, Maeneb did not know whether to laugh or wail. Although the darkburn shattered on hitting the ground, the burning pieces flew through the nearest troops with devastating effect. Throughout the ranks the same was happening as more darkburns plunged down from the sky.
And now she was dealing with the aftermath, half-stunned with shouts and screaming horses and the clash of iron, and assailed even more by the fear and hate and anger emanating from all sides, all minds, as she fought the new oncoming wave of stonemen. She had run out of arrows long ago. During one of the brief lulls she and a few others had managed to purloin chain mail vests from some of the Kelvhan dead, to replace their own slashed and battered leather armour. The metal was effective but it was hot and heavy, and she was quickly wearying.
Her feet stuck to the ground, for the field had turned to mud. Dead and injured horses were a constant hindrance. None the less, her company under Parthenal’s command was making headway, as were the companies of Rothir and Ikelder to the left and right. The stonemen seemed to concentrate their forces on the Kelvhan cavalry, who were now riding out yet again.
It caused Parthenal to groan. “Has the man no sense?”
“Who’s that in the middle of them?” Maeneb asked.
He stared over at the group of horsemen. “Oh, no. What the stars can they be thinking of?
That’s the Prince!”
Maeneb stared too, in disbelief. But it was so. The High Prince was riding out with the latest company of Kelvhans – not at their head, it was true, but still exposed unnecessarily, when the battle was at its height and the Kelvhans were getting the worst of it.
She could not imagine why Shargun had allowed this. Prince Faldron was reportedly a brave and eager boy, but a mere boy none the less: untested and unproven. And he was the heir to the entire kingdom of Kelvha.
“They must be mad,” she said to Parthenal.
“Well, we can’t help him,” he answered, raising his sword in preparation for the next stoneman wave. “Just do what we can here – and pray.”
Pray? To whom? What god of war might she call on, to make things worse than they already were? In any case Maeneb believed in no gods. She believed in something, maybe, but not in proud supernatural beings that might reluctantly be bribed by prayers to take sides in a battle.
All this she thought, as she slew a stoneman running headlong at her. Then she dodged a stray axe which flew past her to thud into the ground, before she picked it up and hurled it at a second stonemen. A lucky shot: it hit him in the face. She was aware of Rigal engaged in grunting axe-work next to her, and Durba nearby, hesitant and slow.
“Look out!” she shouted, and threw her sword like a spear at the stoneman that was about to bring his axe down on top of Durba’s head. The man fell backwards with a cry of surprise.
Durba turned in dazed bewilderment as Maeneb strode up to retrieve her sword and finish the stoneman off with a blow between the ribs.
“Wake up,” Maeneb shouted at the younger woman, exasperated. “I can’t take care of you.”
Durba made no answer. She held her sword unsteadily in both her hands as if unsure of what to do with it. Had she been stunned? Although she was smeared with blood Maeneb could see no wounds upon her head.
Fortunately there was now another lull in the immediate assault: for the stonemen were hurrying away to add their numbers to the attack on Kelvha. Around the Prince, the Kelvhan horsemen struck out again and again, swords flashing orange as fire in the late sun; but the horde of the surrounding foe became no smaller. Rather it increased in size.
She realised that the Kelvhans were trying to retreat – but now they were cut off by stonemen. The Prince was in dire peril.
“We need to go to their aid!” she yelled to Parthenal, although she knew that there was little they could do.
But at the same time she realised that others of the Vonn were already racing to the Prince’s rescue. Huldarion and Thoronal and perhaps some thirty of the Riders came charging at a run, attacking the stonemen at the rear.
She glimpsed Huldarion’s face, set and hard, as he laid about him mercilessly with his sword. The Prince, still waving his own sword less effectively, looked just as eager as before.
He seemed quite unaware of any danger – either his own, or that of the men who now surrounded him in his defence.
That was all that she had time to see before she had to turn round swiftly to attend to the defence of her own company, for a dozen stonemen were pounding heavily towards them.
Durba just stood there. She was worse than useless. What was wrong with the girl?
Maeneb battled with the stoneman who led this latest charge – a big, heavily-scarred man with at least ten stones in his head: a leader, she thought, as she parried the blow from his sword and tried to get in her own. He was a more skilful fighter than most, and she was desperately tired. As their blades clashed she gritted her teeth in the effort to ward him off.
Rigal came to her aid, his sword slicing through the man’s thick neck. Maeneb stepped back with a sigh of relief – which turned in the same breath to a groan.
For now she saw yet more troops marching out from behind the fifteenth fort, emerging from obscuring clouds of smoke. Reinforcements. Hundreds of them; thousands.
“Oh, no,” murmured Rigal, echoing her dismay.
Too many. Far too many. She leant exhausted on her sword. These troops must have been deliberately held back until now, to have all the more effect when Kelvha and the Vonn were weakened with fatigue and casualties. Now they flowed out from behind the fort – a river of stonemen, running fast with axes held aloft.
“Back! Get those injured men away, and re-group!” shouted Parthenal. A little distance away, Rothir was urging his own company to do the same. But everyone was weary and few were unhurt. Maeneb herself was trying to ignore a gash on her shoulder as well as aching muscles that screamed for rest. She scrabbled in the mud and blood for spent arrows, finding only three.
“Back into the line! We’ll show them what we’re made of!” roared Parthenal. Yet for a man who seldom displayed any weariness, his near-exhaustion was all too obvious now. The strain showed in his face and in his voice.
All the companies of the Vonn regrouped, while Huldarion and Thoronal with their men still fought off the enemy that clustered round the Kelvhan Prince. The fighting there was bitter, yet they seemed to be holding their own – so far. But that would not last once the reinforcements reached the stonemen. Nobody could hold out. Every company was too diminished by wounds and too spent in strength.
Maeneb knew that the next attack would be the last. The Vonn could not survive much longer. Kelvha had failed them, with their blind insistence on their cavalry. All around her she felt despair spread amongst her fellows; but also an implacable resolve. The Vonn would not die lightly, nor would they see their friends die without defending them to the utmost.
She herself was angry more than anything. Gripping her sword, she surveyed the ranks of the new stoneman army with furious determination. The air seemed to darken as if in anticipation of the Riders’ coming fate. Maeneb thought she even noticed stars glittering around a luminous moon, but had no time to pay attention to the sky. She was glowering at the advancing enemy.
Then she exclaimed aloud.
“What on earth is that?”
Nobody replied. They too were staring in exhausted puzzlement. The enemy army seemed to have broken apart at the back – dividing into two halves as if cleaved apart by some huge invisible sword. Men ran from either side. But she could not see anything in the middle.
Until suddenly she could. Where before there had been only smoke, now there was a dark surging mass cutting its way through the enemy ranks. But it was not a human army. She saw to her amazement that it was a sea of creatures, running low and swiftly, flooding across the battlefield and calling as they ran. Howl after howl curled up into the darkening sky. Her blood chilled.
“What the stars?” breathed Rigal. “Are those… ? ”
“Wolves,” said Maeneb.
“Veron.”
For there he was, galloping in the midst of the great wolf-pack, standing on the stirrups to whirl his bladed chain around his head. As he reached the front of the stoneman army the blades flew out and struck several of the enemy. They staggered and fell; an instant later the wolves were tearing at their limbs.
At this sight, more stonemen tried to flee in panic. Others, unable to escape, attempted to defend themselves against the onslaught of ravenously snapping wolves.
What is this? thought Maeneb. Surely this is not just Veron? Wolves do not behave this way. And nor do stonemen.
For the stonemen who remained in their positions seemed to stumble oddly, as if blinded by some light she could not see. Many of them dropped their swords and axes, while those who held on to them lowered them uncertainly.
The mass of wolves drew closer. When a stray one hurled itself at Maeneb she hit it on the nose with her shield, at which it yelped and swerved back to its fellows. That at least was relatively normal. But nothing else was normal about the scene that lay before her.
Despite the wavering of the stonemen, their army was still far greater in number than the wolves. While the stonemen in the centre had become weak and ineffectual, those furthest from the animals regathered their wits speedily and once more flung themselves upon the Vonn. No sooner had Parthenal shouted a warning than Maeneb found herself again fighting desperately: and now she had to defend not just herself, but also Durba, who was hesitant and unresponsive.
Could the wolves sway the battle? Maeneb feared not, for the enemy onslaught was still fierce. She turned from slitting a stoneman’s throat with her long knife to find Yaret standing next to her, shooting off arrows, although she had not even noticed her arrive.
“Where did you come from?” she yelled through the hubbub of shouts and howls.
“With Veron,” Yaret yelled back, releasing another arrow. A stoneman fell; but too many more still rushed in from either side.
“It’s not enough!” cried Maeneb in frustration. As she spoke, an axe-man charged at Durba. Why was the girl so slow? Maeneb threw herself at the attacker, and lost both her balance and her knife. A heavy blow of the axe upon her shield sent her stumbling to her knees.
An instant later the stoneman fell with Yaret’s sword between his ribs. But before Maeneb could get to her feet, a second stoneman hurled his axe at her.
The spinning axe hit her full in the chest with a heavy thump. Her borrowed chain-mail saved her life; but she was thrown onto her back, totally winded, unable for the moment to move. She was helplessly aware of a large stoneman bearing down on her, his eyes glaring, sword upraised. She could not even lift an arm in answer as she waited for the final blow.
A second later he fell on top of her, pinning her to the ground, and lay completely still.
Then, over the dead man’s shoulder, Maeneb saw a woman.
A woman? No. Too tall. Too strange, too silver, with her braided silver hair and robes like carven moonlight. She bore a silver spear which she was withdrawing from the dead man’s back, although it seemed to leave no blood. Upon her back, a quiver; in her other hand, a bow, also silver in the moonlight that seemed now to flood the plain.
What had happened to the sun? The woman’s face was like marble, both fierce and serene.
Those eyes…
Maeneb had to close her own. Trying to catch her breath, she blindly pulled herself free of the dead stoneman’s weight. As she staggered to her feet she was gasping raggedly not just for air, but also with huge fear and apprehension. What was this? What was she?
For the woman’s mind was like nothing that Maeneb had ever felt before; not even the Farwth. It was pure light, silver-white and piercing. Its power made her so conscious of her weakness that she almost fell again.
Stonemen seemed to collapse at the mere touch of the woman’s spear. When she thrust it at one bemused attacker it was with a smooth, effortless movement: and even as the man toppled, the spear was back in the woman’s hand, shimmering. As if a moonbeam had momentarily solidified, thought Maeneb, and had turned to steel before once more becoming moonlight.
A group of a dozen stonemen charged in a chaotic rush, shielding their faces while brandishing their axes – so many of them that despite their disarray Maeneb was sure the woman must be overwhelmed. Snatching up her knife, she stumbled over to assist; but Yaret had already leapt to the strange woman’s defence, and was yelling furiously as she swung her sword two-handed. Maeneb was reminded of Parthenal: that characteristic sway and twist as the sword slashed across the foremost stoneman’s shoulder.
“Don’t you dare!” Yaret shouted, and one man fell beneath her blow. A second blundered forward with his axe upraised, but before he could use it, the woman’s spear alighted on his neck. It left no mark of blood. It did not even pierce the skin. Yet Maeneb both saw and felt the man die at the instant that it touched him.
Yaret was still laying about her frantically; so Maeneb threw herself into the affray, stabbing one man and immediately clashing swords with a second. He fought back hard, snarling like an animal beneath his dozen stones.
The silver spear reached over her to touch him on the shoulder. The man went limp and fell down at her feet. As the spear withdrew it brushed against her hair. She felt her skin both freeze and tingle: like an icicle, like freezing flame, a cold burning caress.
She risked a swift glance at the woman’s face. It seemed to be smiling. Maeneb could not look for long enough to tell.
“You need not defend me,” the woman said. Or did she say it? The words shone white in Maeneb’s mind. Then she had to spin round, swiping her knife at the next stoneman; clumsier than the last, he dropped his sword and she kicked him in the stomach before swiping her knife again, this time across his throat.
Yet more of the enemy were still coming. Too many more. Was there no end to them? She felt exhaustion hit her, more debilitating than any wound.
At that moment, even as she slumped in tiredness, the hairs stood up on her head. The light had shifted sideways: the world seemed to tilt a little. Maeneb became aware from the appalled faces of the stonemen that, behind her back, something had changed.
She did not dare to drop her guard to turn and look. But she heard a long, vibrating growl, as deep and resonant as if it came out of the very earth.
The stonemen yelled. Some were screaming in sudden terror. Then they scattered and a long white creature leapt past Maeneb.
She stood open-mouthed. What was this? No leopard could ever grow to this size, surely?
So big, so powerful...
Maeneb could not move. She could only watch as the silver leopard hunted down the stonemen. Its long claws tore the screams from their bodies: curved scimitars of teeth ripped out their throats. It was pitiless. Yet it was beautiful – all sinuous muscle and silky force.
How could there be such beauty in such killing?
Beside her Yaret stood gasping with fatigue and perhaps with shock. There was no further need to fight; there was nothing left for them to do. The stonemen were all running now – but the leopard ran faster. Always faster. Its acceleration was extraordinary as it stretched out its rippling body: and its agile leap was always glorious and always deadly.
Was this a dream? Maeneb realised that the sun had disappeared and the world had turned to moonlight. There was Leor, in the middle of the fray, spearing stonemen as if they were fish in a silver sea. Beyond him, still more dream-like, a line of bears was rearing up, startlingly tall, to fall with all their weight upon the fleeing stonemen; and to one side, a pair of lions prowled, speeding to bring down any that escaped.
And always, in the midst, the silver leopard. It was bigger than the lions by far. She saw one lion draw too close to it and flinch aside, its head down, fawning. The leopard seized another stoneman by the neck and flung him away as if he were made out of straw.
Within minutes it was clear that the fight was over. The enemy were in full retreat and being rapidly hunted down. When Maeneb strained to see the great white leopard in pursuit, it was hidden from her sight.
Its disappearance filled her, oddly, with a kind of grief. Again she felt the touch of that long silver spear, moonlight made solid: a cold, acknowledging caress.
“Who was that?” she tried to call to Leor. It came out as a croak. The wizard shook his head and made no answer. Instead he dropped his sword on to the ground and stared at it.
“That was the huntress,” said Yaret. She was breathless, on her knees.
So was Rigal: he looked completely spent. And all around her, Maeneb saw the other Riders cast their weapons, and sometimes their bloodied bodies, to the ground. She felt herself staggering with the knowledge that the battle was over. It was done.
Parthenal threw no weapons down. Instead he strode over to the nearest group of Kelvhans. He seemed to be trying to persuade them to take advantage of the moment and pursue the stonemen in a final rout.
Maeneb was not sure that any such final charge was needed. The commotion of animals and stonemen was moving further and further back; few of the enemy had escaped. The battle plain was piled with their wrecked bodies.
Although she knew she ought to help the wounded, she seemed immobilised with more than mere exhaustion. While she stood there, trying to gather her strength, a nearby Kelvhan soldier walked over to her, grabbed her by the upper arms and kissed her.
When he let her go she stood and stared at him, frozen in indignant shock. He grinned down at her. Could she knife him? He was an ally, supposedly. She tried to frame her anger into words, while slowly realising that she must not offend him.
“Victory is ours,” the Kelvhan said triumphantly. She said nothing. All she could do was stare her revulsion of being kissed. The pressing of his teeth against her – what was meant to be pleasant about that? Didn’t he know she was a soldier too? Like Durba and Yaret and all the others?
But I am the most obviously female person on this patch of battleground, she thought furiously. I am his spoils of war.
“So what was that with the wolves and the white lion?” the Kelvhan asked. “Was that witchery?” And now his voice held a note of contempt. Taken aback, Maeneb still did not speak.
A deep male voice spoke for her. “Say rather wizardry.” It was Leor, straightening up to look the Kelvhan in the eye with proud severity.
“Ah… wizardry! Of course.” The Kelvhan nodded, with more respect.
Wise man, Leor, she thought bitterly. To Kelvha, the female art of witchery was to be despised, while wizardry was male and therefore acceptable.
And Leor looked every inch the wizard. His red hair blazed suddenly in the setting sun; and she realised that the moon had lost its sway. Now it was its usual self – a mere, pale, unobtrusive disc, while the scarlet sun rolled and roared on the horizon.
The soldier kissed his hand to her with a flourish before he strolled away. He ignored both Yaret and Durba who stood nearby. Maeneb wished that she herself were not, as people had informed her, pretty. It was nothing but a handicap. A liability.
At that moment Durba began to fall.
“Look out!” said Yaret. She caught Durba as the girl’s legs buckled underneath her. Durba did not speak, but she was shivering; shaking visibly all over.
“Where are you hurt?” asked Maeneb sharply.
Durba did not answer. She merely shook. Maeneb could see no blood on her beyond the usual scrapes and cuts of battle; the borrowed chain-mail looked to have done its job.
“Durba! Where are you hurt? Speak up!”
“She’s in shock,” said Yaret. “We’d better take her to the rear and sit her down, get her checked over. Then I ought to go back to my own company.”
Maeneb was unwilling. Quite apart from her dislike of touching other people, there were plenty of stricken soldiers who needed her assistance more than Durba did. But the girl seemed incapable of walking, so she helped Yaret support her through the weary troops to the back of the field.
There they found the area designated for the wounded, who were being laid down for immediate treatment, or placed in carts to be carried back to the forts. They sat Durba on the muddy ground. She was still shaking.
“Be nice to her,” said Yaret, and she left.
Maeneb had no idea what to say to Durba. She felt for the girl’s mind, and found it all confusion, as chaotic as the battlefield. Her thoughts – such as they were – seemed to be spattered with blood and flashing blades and moonlight.
“Well, that’s battle,” Maeneb said at last. “What did you expect? But cheer up. We won.”
Rothir felt no joy at the victory. Relief, certainly; or he expected that he would feel relief, at some point, later on. But as yet, there was no happiness.
He and Theol, his second in command, looked at each other without speaking. Theol’s wry half-smile and shake of the head said it all. Not much to be happy about. They had lost three of his company: two men, one woman, and many more were wounded. Rothir himself had a few knocks and cuts, but nothing that he considered major.
“Other companies have done worse,” said Theol. A level-headed man in his forties, he often understood what Rothir was thinking without him needing to say.
“I know.” It wasn’t any comfort.
“We couldn’t have avoided some losses. We did as well as possible, in the circumstances.”
Theol never criticised Rothir’s decisions despite the age gap: a quizzical head-tilt was the furthest that it ever went. But he was a man of long experience and that comment, from him, was worth something.
Rothir nodded. Were the battle to be fought again – which stars above forbid – there was nothing he would do differently. The outcome would always have brought grief.
After wiping his sword on the grass, he sheathed it carefully at last. It had survived undamaged. I forged it better than I knew, he thought, with only the dullest sense of satisfaction.
“All right. We need to get the company organised and moving back to the Watch Forts before nightfall,” he said. The wounded were already being ferried towards the back of the field where the carts were waiting.
“Night is slow to fall this far up north,” Theol remarked. “And the light’s misleading.
Where was the sun hiding before? It’s much brighter now than it was earlier.”
“True.” He glanced up at the sky. The light had been playing tricks towards the end of the battle; he could not account for it, but he had not had any time to think about the weather.
Maybe it was down to Leor. It had been strange.
But that whole conclusion to the conflict had been strange. The ethereal moonlit period when wolves and lions over-ran the field seemed almost dreamlike, now that the setting sun was hurling its thick red cloak across the battle plain.
The wolves must have been the helpers that Veron had promised; they’d certainly helped to sow confusion in the stonemen’s ranks. When Rothir had noticed the tall woman at some distance on the battlefield, he’d wondered who she was. But then a series of assaults had taken all his attention, until he realised that the enemy ranks had disintegrated and the stonemen were being chased back to the fifteenth fort.
By that time there had not been many left to chase. He thought he’d seen a great white cat leap after the last few stonemen as they ran for the hills, a phenomenon of speed and terrible grace; but that might have been a trick of the strange light. Glancing up in puzzlement at the retiring moon, he wondered how Veron had done it. But he was too weary to feel much real curiosity.
As he helped to convey the wounded Riders to the rear he noted with dull gratitude that nearly all the captains had survived relatively unhurt. Sashel had come off worst, with a bad blow to the head: apparently he had gone berserk at the final attack of the stonemen, and had rushed straight at them – “as if he didn’t care if he lived or died,” said one of his company.
Rothir nodded, unsurprised. He felt beyond surprise at the moment. Everything in battle was dreadful and none of it was cause for wonder. Not even the appearance of the wolves had surprised him. He had immediately guessed that Veron was responsible, and was just exasperated that it had taken him so long.
Which was unfair, he knew. While he was lifting a wounded soldier into one of the carts, he saw Veron close by with his band of huntsmen. As Rothir walked over to them, Veron was smiling; he clapped his hand on Rothir’s shoulder, a most unusual gesture of familiarity for him. Now there was a happy man, thought Rothir; ecstatic, even, consumed by some inexplicable delight.
“Well, you did it,” he said flatly.
“She did it,” Veron answered.
“She…?”
“My wife. The huntress.”
Rothir thought of the tall silver woman striding through the battlefield, and wondered. The moonlight shone from Veron’s eyes as it did not shine elsewhere.
“I’m going back to her now,” Veron said, exultant. He whistled to his horse, which came trotting up; but he paused before he mounted. “Your protégé did well,” he added. “Yaret.
Better than I had hoped. She seemed to know her.”
“Yaret’s not my protégé,” said Rothir, totally bemused. “Who seemed to know who? And she did well at what? I didn’t even know that she was with you.”
“She had to petition my wife. It can be fatal,” said Veron. He swung himself up into the saddle. “But she knew the words without being told and she was unafraid.”
“But what was–” Too late. Veron was already riding away.
One of the huntsmen turned to him. Rothir recognised him as Naduk, who had come to the captains’ council.
“It was amazing when she changed,” Naduk told him, with something of the same exultancy that had shone from Veron’s face. “I thought she’d run. Or get her head bit off.”
“Who? What do you mean?”
The huntsman merely grinned and shook his head. “The best day of my life,” he said. “I never thought I’d see her.” He strode off to the carts.
Rothir gathered that by that last her Naduk did not mean Yaret. The best day of his life?
What an extraordinary way to feel. For him, it was very far from that. It was victory, for now, but that was all.
But he was at last conscious of some small cause for relief, because it seemed Yaret was safe. He’d assumed that she was at the back of the army; if he’d known she’d been in the thick of it with Veron it would have added to the burden of his cares.
Her unexpected appearance at the Watch Fort had given him a shock. No other word for it.
An odd mixture of gladness and annoyance – even anger, because there was no need for Yaret to have travelled so far west into such danger. It was quite unnecessary. Yet he was also conscious of a rising joy; because… Well. Of course to see any friend at that time must bring joy. But seeing Yaret had also brought him a new fear: he worried about her to a slightly perplexing degree. It must arise from having saved her life. And from having left her with that ugly stump; he felt responsible for that, in part at least.
But for the moment she was evidently safe. And there was more cause for relief when he saw Huldarion upright and uninjured, directing the exodus of wounded soldiers. Beside Huldarion stood a pair of Kelvhan nobles – not the Prince or Arch-Lord Shargun, thankfully, but two of the senior captains: in Rothir’s opinion, capable enough men who had commanded their troops well.
He walked over, saluted Huldarion, and bowed to the Kelvhans, although both his sense of justice and his back complained.
“I trust Prince Faldron is unhurt?” he said.
“Entirely, I thank you,” answered one of the Kelvhans. “He is unscathed, partly due to the prompt actions of Lord Huldarion and his men.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“He is a valiant youth,” said Huldarion.
“Impressively brave-hearted,” said Rothir, although he had cursed the Prince for a heedless fool when he first realised he had ridden out into the battle. Cost men their lives.
The Arch-Lord Shargun ought to have known better. But he said the needful thing. “His courage was remarkable.”
Huldarion didn’t look particularly happy either, he noted, even allowing for the scars. He looked grim. Nobody was looking happy except Veron and his men – and these Kelvhan captains.
“The wizard Leor,” said one of them to Huldarion. “A friend of yours?”
“The friendship is long-standing,” said Huldarion.
“A crude form of wizardry, that enchantment of the animals,” commented the other captain. “Yet effective in its crudeness. Without it the Vonn must surely have foundered; and even Kelvha might have struggled to prevail.”
“Indeed,” said Huldarion evenly. Rothir, as he bowed again and walked away, could not find the energy to feel indignant. He felt drained. But he ignored his tiredness and checked the carts holding his injured Riders, making sure that all were as comfortable as possible.
Then he supervised the orderly return of the uninjured, encouraging them to ride back to the nearest Watch Forts before night fell.
He was the last of his company to leave the battlefield. As he swung himself up onto Narba, he looked back at the scene. The sun had set, pulling its bloodied rags of clouds down with it. The last pink glow had faded and the moon was taking precedence once more: it sailed high above the plain, which was littered with the slumped and twisted bodies of the stonemen. He doubted if any of their fellows would come to claim them. A few Kelvhan troops were busy harvesting their stones: after that, they would be left here for the crows and buzzards.
Somewhere a lonely wolf howled. A reminder of the turning of the battle’s tide. We won, Rothir told himself, we won. He felt no triumph; maybe that also would come later. Right now, there was too much to attend to. The familiar grim aftermath of battle. Oh, I have had enough of war, he thought, and shoved the thought aside.
After the ride back to the nearest Watch Forts, he found that the largest building, which had been designated for use as an infirmary, was already almost full. The wounded were being tended on crude trestles, or crammed together on the floor, in tight rows all down the pooled lamplight of the long hall. However, he managed to find places for the most severely injured of his people, and then seized hold of medics – Kelvhan or Vonn, he didn’t care – and ordered them to attend to each.
Leor was already in the infirmary fort, doctoring the Melmet troops, his orange hair a beacon moving between the crowded beds. Parthenal, too, was there, tending some of his own company; he raised a brief hand in acknowledgement to Rothir before starting to clean and stitch a gash in Hevral’s side. Although Parthenal rolled his eyes slightly at Hevral’s agonised groans, his hands were deft and gentle. This caring aspect of his friend was seldom evident to Rothir, and he knew he ought to find it touching. But neither Parthenal’s gentleness nor Hevral’s pain seemed to affect him. Emotion was better kept for later, he decided. He wanted a clear mind, no, an empty mind, just now.
Seeing Sashel sitting in a corner with a mountain of bandage on his head, he sat down with him for a few moments to say encouraging things. How bravely he had fought, how proud his brother Gordal would have been. Sashel nodded with his eyes closed, his bruised face pulled tight. It was hard to think of the right things to say. The crying from the far end of the great hall was not helping. There was a constant low hubbub of murmurs and groans of pain, but this was different: someone was sobbing, almost shrieking in distress.
Eventually he got up and walked over to see if he could quiet the man. It was an Ioben –
not one of Veron’s hardened huntsmen, but a young man, very young; one of those who had at first rebelled, and then had been persuaded to fight alongside Melmet.
And had fought his last, Rothir could see at once. His abdomen had been ripped open. It was beyond any needlework to mend that dreadful overflowing of his innards. The attendant was trying to hold the wound closed while he changed the dressings, which were soaked with blood. The boy lay in a growing pool of red, crying and calling over and over for his mother.
“She’s here,” said his attendant. “She’s here.”
He realised that the attendant was Yaret. While she applied the clean, useless dressings, she spoke quietly to the boy in his own tongue. Her words were calm and almost steady despite the tears that trickled down her grimy cheeks.
“Muma! Muma!” How recognisable it was in all languages, thought Rothir. Yaret took the hands that were trying to rip off the new dressings and held them, still talking softly. Almost singing to him.
The boy grew quiet at last. “Muma,” he said once more, and that was all.
After a moment she released his hands. Then she covered his face with his blood-stained cloak and got awkwardly to her feet. She was trying to say something, still in her own language, but choked on the words; her face was twisting up.
He found it scarcely bearable. It was not needed. He walked across to her.
“Crying doesn’t help,” he said.
Yaret looked up and stared at him through a film of tears. “What?”
“You feel too much. It’s not useful.”
For a moment she did not speak. Then she answered, “It’s not useful? Tell me, then, when should I feel? Should I wait until a hundred men have died, or a thousand, or ten thousand?
When should I feel anything, if not for a boy who has just died far from home and calling for his mother?” Her voice was not loud, but it was hoarse and biting.
“It doesn’t help.”
Her mouth worked before she could speak again. “If you feel none of this,” she said, “if you make yourself feel nothing, the time will come when you can feel nothing. You’ll want to feel and there will be nothing there.”
With that she picked up the bundle of bloody dressings, turned her back on him and walked away down the full length of the hall to where a row of tubs stood at the far end.
When she reached them she dropped the cloths into one tub and began to wash her hands in another.
Rothir leant against the wall next to the dead boy. After a few minutes two men came and carried the limp body away. A third mopped the floor, without speaking.
He knew that he was right; to feel too much just now was dangerous. There would be no end of it. It would send you crazed and yelling, like Sashel, rushing to seek your death. It would stop you from doing what you needed to.
So feel nothing. But he felt something. He did not know what it was. It caught his throat in an implacable grip and closed it tight. At his sister Olbeth’s he had suffered some sort of winter of the soul: he thought that it had passed. But here it was again, and it was worse.
A deeper, fiercer, hungrier winter. So much death. So much had been lost. His three dead Riders stood at a distance with bowed heads, both visible and not visible. He did not look too closely at them. If he let sorrow for them surface, it would pull him down and drown him.
But Yaret was also right. He ought to feel some sorrow. He ought to feel more grief for Gordal, that loud, cheerful, uncomplicated man, and for the others who had died. Yet when he looked inside himself for grief, he found none there.
So what was he feeling? It was pain. The sense of something lost. What was that? Was that his sorrow?
Yaret had dried her hands and was walking across the far end of the hall. Her limp was obvious. She picked up another bundle of clean cloths from a pile and walked round the edge of the hall past all the crowded beds. She was coming back towards him. It seemed to take forever. He braced himself for what she might say next, because he knew he could not answer.
She stopped in front of him with her cloths folded under one arm. Then she put her right thumb to her forehead, dipping her head in the archer’s salute.
“I apologise. I ought not to have said that. I spoke from my distress. You were right, Rothir. I know that it is not useful to feel too much. It means you cannot act as you should.”
She looked him in the eyes, and her own were anxious. But her manner was formal, as befitted a junior soldier addressing a captain. He became aware that other eyes were on them, some of them Kelvhan, and realised that the apology was necessary.
“I do not wish to lose your friendship over this,” she said. “It is very valuable to me. I beg your pardon.” He said nothing. After a few seconds she saluted him again, and walked away.
Rothir still leant against the wall unmoving until the pain in his throat eased a little. So much was lost; and yet perhaps some things were not lost altogether.
He saw Parthenal looking over at him but did not want to talk. So he went back outside.
He returned to the remainder of his company, who were setting up their camp in a dry hollow a short distance away. Rothir at once began to help Theol in managing the bivouac, for there were many things to organise. He made sure the Riders had sufficient fuel for their fires, and blankets for the night: a few had lost their horses and their gear. So he took two men to search for them amongst the Kelvhan horses, with some success, and spoke to the Kelvhan quartermaster about extra food. Huldarion must have primed the quartermaster because it was instantly forthcoming. But only half his mind was on all this.
After leaving the Riders with their fires and food he went with Theol to the compact fort where Huldarion was quartered with his captains and their seconds. Normally they would have stayed each with their own companies, but Huldarion said that such an arrangement would seem strange to Kelvha, and that right now they needed to do everything to make themselves acceptable. So that meant sleeping in the fort while their soldiers stayed outside.
Rothir did not care for this; he would rather have remained with his weary soldiers in their hollow. Nevertheless he had to admit to himself that the shelter was most welcome, even though there were neither chairs nor tables, only a few stools; the trestles were all in use in the infirmary. They would be sleeping on the earthen floor which still held the remains of ancient layers of rushes, too fragile to add more than a modicum of comfort. There was a feeble fire on which a cauldron sat and simmered. So not that much better off than the men and women outdoors, after all, merely warmer.
However, Huldarion was right about the Kelvhans. Rothir had only just arrived when the Kelvhan Arch-Lord Marshal Shargun and his two chief commanders came in to exchange courteous words – or, in the Arch-Lord’s case, what passed for courteous.
“You did not bring your beds?” the Arch-Lord said in a surprise that was surely pretended.
He must know perfectly well that the Vonn had not come accompanied by carriages containing folding beds and mattresses and rugs and little luxuries, as had the Kelvhans.
“We travel light,” said Huldarion calmly.
“Jeveran would approve of this,” said one of the Kelvhan commanders to the other, who laughed; but Shargun looked at them askance.
“Jeveran has low-born tastes,” he said quellingly. The Kelvhan speaker bowed acquiescence.
“I expect my Lord Huldarion has quartered in still worse places during his campaigns,”
said the second commander – a man called Rhadlun, if Rothir’s memory was correct – with a better attempt at diplomacy than his Marshal had managed. All the same Rothir sensed that both the Kelvhan captains were inclined to wrinkle their noses at the austerity of their surroundings. Clearly, to have been sitting outside around a campfire would have marked the Riders down as little more than tribesmen.
Rothir wondered that the two commanders, whose judgement in battle had seemed astute, should place such store by outward show. Its importance filtered all the way down through the Kelvhans’ ranks, as demonstrated by the varied levels of adornment on their gear; yet surely, he thought, it must be a drag on their efficiency.
Once the Kelvhans had departed to their more comfortable quarters, he listened to the other Riders talk, without wishing to join in. He did not want to think about the battle. None the less he had to hear the Kelvhan strategy being dissected, and the Kelvhan commanders broadly approved. Shargun was generally disliked, while the High Prince of Kelvha was spoken of with sympathetic censure.
“Brave, but foolish. You’d think Shargun would have kept him off the field,” said Theol.
“He probably tried. I expect Faldron’s wishes are not easily gainsaid,” remarked Huldarion.
“The Prince didn’t seem all that strong-willed to me,” said Uld.
“Nor to me, at first; but I’ve noticed a marked change in him since he left Kelvha. He seems to have woken up.”
“Activity must suit him,” said Solon. “Lucky for him he was uninjured.”
“Lucky for all of us,” Huldarion replied. “It could have been calamitous had the Prince died in this battle. Kelvha would be in uproar; there would have been little chance of an alliance with them after that – not for a long while, at any rate.”
“Shargun’s too rigid in his strategy,” commented Uld. “Even the Baron of Melmet thinks faster on his feet, for all that he’s a curmudgeonly old man.”
“I don’t think that helped Melmet much, though, once they were in the thick of it,” said Ikelder. “They suffered some severe losses.”
Huldarion nodded. “The lack of experience told against the Baron’s men. And they were already tired.”
Parthenal looked over at Rothir. “I noticed Yaret tore you off a strip over that dead Ioben boy in the infirmary. You looked as grim as an executioner. Whatever did she say?”
Rothir merely raised a hand and put it down to signify nothing of importance.
“I suppose she was upset,” said Parthenal. “After all, he was her kinsman; even if a very distant one. And she’s not used to such violence and death, not until these last few days at least. It must be very different to what she’s always known.”
At that, Huldarion looked over at him sombrely. “On the contrary, Parthenal. Yaret is well acquainted with death. She lived with it all winter. I asked her not to tell you when she first came to the forts. But I think you ought to know before you next encounter her.”
“Know what?”
“Her town, Obandiro, was destroyed. It was obliterated by darkburns shortly before she arrived home from Farwithiel.”
“What?” said Rothir.
“Veron witnessed the devastation there soon after the stonemen left; and so did Leor. They thought there was no-one left alive. As it happened, they were wrong. When Yaret turned up she found four children hiding in the cellars.”
“Four children?” said Theol, his normally placid face aghast.
“Dear stars. How on earth did they manage?” asked Uld. “Did the neighbouring towns take them in?”
“What towns? Veron said there was nowhere near that hadn’t been burnt out,” replied Huldarion. “They spent the winter living in the cellars, surrounded by the dead.”
“But how did they survive? What did they live on?” asked Ikelder in dismay.
Huldarion shrugged. “Whatever they could find, I think. A few other survivors did turn up eventually. I believe there were about two dozen in the end.”
“But what–”
“I don’t know any details,” said Huldarion. “You’ll have to ask her – if you must. But don’t be surprised if she doesn’t want to answer. Where are you going, Rothir?”
“I’ve got something still to do,” he said. He stood up and went out.
The moon had retreated behind the clouds. The many fires dotting the darkness spoke to his memory: the reek of smoke, the burnt farmhouses, the ruined hamlets. The slaughtered village, and the captives he had tried to save. But never a whole town… Four children living in the cellars, surrounded by the dead.
The Melmet camp was a quarter-mile away, beneath a stand of old pine trees which whistled and wailed mournfully. There he spoke to a man called Jerred, who wasn’t sure where Yaret was.
“She went to the infirmary some hours ago with our injured men,” Jerred told him. “She didn’t come back. Maybe she’s gone off again with Veron.”
“Unlikely,” said Rothir. “What did she tell you about Obandiro?”
Jerred wrinkled his brow. “That’s her home town over east, isn’t it?”
“Was.”
“What do you mean, was?”
So she hadn’t told them either. He nodded and returned to the infirmary fort.
He couldn’t see her in the great hall. It was much quieter now than it had been earlier, though no less crowded; many of the patients were asleep, as were some of the attendants. He noticed Leor bending over a moaning man: a few seconds later, the moaning stopped and the man was still. Not dead but sleeping soundly. Well, if that was wizardry, at least it was benign.
Walking around the crowded beds in the dim lamplight, Rothir found Sashel also in deep sleep. He stood over him for a while, aware that he had always liked Sashel better than his twin, as the less brash and more thoughtful of the two. It seemed like a thing he should not admit even to himself. He tried to imagine what Sashel must feel now. It was not easy; nor pleasant. Despair at Gordal’s death. Rage. Guilt. He understood that. Loneliness. Yes, that too.
He laid his hand lightly on Sashel’s brow for a brief moment. Then he sighed and walked over to the supervisor nodding in his chair.
“The lame archer who was here before, helping out?”
“The peg-leg?” The supervisor peered around, bleary eyed. “He was here ten minutes ago.
Don’t know where he’s gone.”
Leor was walking over to them, like a tall candle topped with a flame, bright in the faded lamplight. He beckoned Rothir aside and spoke quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping patients.
“You want Yaret? She’s been helping here all evening. Last time I saw her she was handing out water; so you could try the well. It’s out the back. And, Rothir…”
“What?”
“Just don’t be harsh on her. I saw you were angry with each other. But she’s had a long day and a lot going on, what with Veron and the other one.”
“What other one?”
“The huntress. Yaret was in the middle of all that. See if you can persuade her to go away and get some sleep.”
Rothir studied the wizard, who looked unusually stooped and heavy-eyed.
“It’s been a long day for you too,” he told Leor. “You should go away and get some sleep as well.”
“In a while, maybe.”
“When you need food and rest, come and find us in the third fort.”
Leor nodded and walked away to check another patient. Rothir went outside to seek the well. It was not hard to find. But there was no-one there: just a stack of empty buckets in the semi-darkness and a jumbled heap of firewood piled against the wall.
And somewhere in the background, a muffled, momentary sob.
Rothir took two more steps and halted, letting his eyes accustom themselves to the gloom.
Whoever it was had gone quiet at his step. But in the shadows beyond the piled firewood he could just glimpse someone sitting huddled on the ground with their knees drawn up under their chin. He went over to see who it was.
Yaret. Whom he had never seen weep until today, and had thought it was a weakness in her. When he sat down on the stone floor in the shadows next to her he felt her stiffen. Her head turned slightly to see who he was. He could barely make out her face although he could
visualise it, streaked with those entirely justified tears. He expected her to snap, lash out at him, to tell him cuttingly to go away. But she did not.
So he put an arm around her shoulders and felt the sobs he could not hear, still convulsing through her body, which was held as tight as wire.
“I know,” he said. “I know. The young and old, all calling for their mothers. It’s.” He found he had no words for it and had to stop.
But slowly he felt the tightness in her loosen; the unvoiced sobbing eased, turning at last to a long shivering sigh. She leaned against him in the darkness.
They sat in silence in the dark until Yaret said huskily, “You found me.”
“I will–”
He stopped a second time. What a stupid thing he’d been about to say. Meaningless. She sighed again and after a moment let her head fall sideways to rest upon his shoulder. Her hair was against his cheek: she smelt of mud and smoke.
As he felt her gradually relax, relief came washing over him at last. The tautness of his own mind was allowed to slacken. After all the bloody chaos of the day there was a kind of peace here together in this gloom with the cold stone underneath them. He let it grow within the shadows, hearing Yaret’s breathing. Despite his knowledge of the dead and wounded, despite the grievous losses from his people, yet much was saved, and he knew that he was grateful.
They sat there for a while longer, neither moving, until something occurred to him.
“When did you last have anything to eat?”
“I don’t know. This morning?”
“Come.” Rothir stood up and gave her his hand to pull her to her feet. They were both stiff and slow. Then he led her stumbling over the dark ground between the dotted campfires, past groups of soldiers dozing or talking in low voices.
By the time he reached the third fort he had decided that if Huldarion did not let her enter he would simply argue that she should take his own place. He could sleep outside. From the doorway he saw the banked fire blazing strongly in the hearth, with the stew-pot steaming over it; Huldarion glanced up at him and beckoned. So he pushed Yaret into the room and made her sit down amongst the others, who were already eating. Parthenal took one look and handed each of them a bowl of stew.
It was mostly beans and roots with only a few shreds of some stringy fowl, but that didn’t matter. Rothir ate with an eye on Yaret. She just sat cross-legged with the bowl in her hands for a while, but once she began to eat, she devoured the stew and oat-bread hungrily.
She was definitely thinner than she used to be. He wondered what she’d been eating through the winter, in those cold cellars; but now was not the time to ask. When the bowl was empty she put it down with a long sigh.
“Better?” asked Thoronal.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“You’ve had a hard day, I expect,” said Thoronal. Rothir realised that he was trying to be kind. He wasn’t very good at it. Not enough practice.
But then how good was he himself? What had he actually said to comfort her? Nothing.
Some nonsense about the dead being old and young.
I will always find you. At least he hadn’t said that. What a ridiculous remark it would have been. It wasn’t as if Yaret was even of the Vonn. Once this campaign was over she’d be going back home, doubtless, to those cellars. Home? Back, anyway.
The other Riders resumed their quiet talk, but now mostly in Standard, not Vonnish.
Rothir recognised this as an act of kindness in them too. They were not obtrusive in the curious glances that they cast her way. By now, all knew the story of her lost foot, although it was Parthenal who had told it, not Rothir himself. He still found the memory of her
disappearance down the cliff-face too painful to recall. The overwhelming emptiness of seeing her vanish from his sight... As if it were the end of everything. His own internal darkburn.
But it shouldn’t be such a dreadful memory, because he’d found her. He had not failed, not altogether. Not failing, not letting people down, mattered to him more than anything.
Parthenal never seemed to worry about failure the way he did; but then Parthenal seldom failed at anything he put his mind to. Or perhaps he did not put his mind to things that he might fail at. No, that was not fair. Parthenal simply assumed that he would not fail in any task.
Now Parthenal refilled Yaret’s bowl of stew without being asked. It was not until she’d emptied it a second time that Huldarion asked the question that all the Riders probably wanted to.
“How did it go with Veron? Can you tell us what exactly happened?”
“Well… It started when one of his huntsmen came to fetch me from the Melmet camp.”
Slowly and haltingly at first, Yaret started to describe the day’s events.
Gradually the words gathered pace and fluency. As Rothir listened, he felt himself to be in the close dark forest, hearing the wolves’ howl, seeing the huntsmen melt into the trees; he saw the snow leopard crouching on the stone, poised to spring as it watched him with ice-blue eyes. The Riders did not interrupt.
Yet when it came to the petition of the huntress Yaret slowed again, and picked her words with greater care and hesitancy. There were evidently things she would or could not say.
None the less Rothir now understood what Veron had meant. It can be fatal. His hand clenched on his knee. If it had been fatal, he would not have been able to forgive Veron. He reminded himself that all was well, and made his fist unclench.
“But who exactly is the huntress?” asked Ikelder.
Yaret spread her hands. “She is… Ulthared. Which means something hidden: something sacred, secret. Exceptionally so. All that I can tell you is that she seems made of Ulthared –
as if it made her; or maybe she made it. Our lore says she is the daughter of the moon but what exactly that means I don’t know. I don’t have sufficient understanding.”
“You recognised her,” said Rothir.
“Yes. Although I didn’t realise she would take that shape. The Ulthared only says she can transform at will; it doesn’t specify what into.”
“But is she human?”
“When she wants to be.”
“But… Veron… How can…” Ikelder was embarrassed.
“I think I would say that Veron worships her,” said Yaret.
“So is she… a goddess?”
“Some would call her so.”
“You seem to know more about Veron’s wife than we all do,” commented Solon drily. He looked at Huldarion, who shrugged.
“A king ought to know his subjects,” he said, “but I admit I hardly know Veron. Although his father was a Rider, Veron lived far in the north with his mother’s remote clan till he was twelve. When I first met him he was already an accomplished wolf-hunter. As for his wife…
He told me only that they came upon each other while he was out hunting. No more. This is the first time that any of us has seen her.”
“You are honoured,” said Yaret. “The huntress obeys no will but her own.” After a moment’s thought she added, “In Ioben she is for the huntsmen. In Obandiro she is also for the women. I can’t explain that difference, apart from the connection with the moon.”
In Obandiro she is. Not was. Rothir noted that, as surely did they all. Nobody commented on it.
“When we move south, would she come to our aid again, do you think?” enquired Uld.
“You’d have to ask Veron,” she said, “but personally, I think it is unlikely. When I said that you are honoured, I meant it. That was no light thing she did. I think that also she is a being of the north, where she is believed in, and that if she moves south her power will diminish.”
“Does she need to be believed in to be effective?” asked Uld.
Yaret smiled at him, a little sadly.
“Who doesn’t?” she said. “But talking of moving south: I gather that although the Baron will return to Melmet now, the huntsmen want to stay with Veron. They seem to have developed a great fealty to him even in so short a time, as the partner of the huntress as well as in his own right. They’re saying they will follow him wherever he wishes, to see the job done properly, as they put it. But I don’t know what that may involve.”
“The job is, I hope, almost done properly now,” Huldarion answered. “Dispatches say that General Istard has been successful to the west of Kelvha, where the enemy were few in number. We shall march there next to make sure of that success, but probably with only a small part of the Kelvhan army. The rest of the Kelvhans will go home.”
“But even if the stonemen are defeated there, that will not be the end of them?”
“No. I hope it is the end of them in the north. Their stronghold is in the south, along the Darkburn. But they have sent so many of their men up here that their forces in the south will be much depleted, and I think we shall have several weeks or even months of peace before any more attacks.”
“By which time we shall be still firmer and closer allies with Kelvha,” added Thoronal.
Unwisely: it earned him a look from Huldarion that made him stare at the floor.
“And you?” Huldarion addressed Yaret with careful courtesy. “Will you now go back to Obandiro?”
She took a moment to answer. “I’m not sure. If Veron permits me to stay with the huntsmen, I admit I too would like to see the job done properly before I return home. I’d like to be able to tell them that there is no stoneman threat left for them to fear. I don’t know how feasible that is.”
“It is feasible,” said Huldarion, “if not straightforward. With Kelvha’s help – and our other allies – I believe it can be done.”
“Your other allies? They can’t be numerous, though, can they?”
“But you never know who will make the difference,” said Huldarion. “Melmet made a difference. And the Ioben huntsmen also, though they are few.”
“True. They’re not all Iobens, though. There are three of them who follow Veron not because he’s a hunter but because he’s of the Vonn. Their village got burnt out,” said Yaret sombrely. “Most of the people were massacred, but a dozen of the younger men were taken prisoner to pull the darkburn carts. One of them was called Zan. He was shackled to another man called Arguril – yes, that Arguril – who told him he was of the Vonn.”
“He shouldn’t have admitted that,” said Thoronal.
“Shouldn’t he? He probably thought it didn't matter because they’d all be dead soon anyway. But they were rescued. Another Rider turned up: he somehow set a darkburn loose and galloped off with Arguril, and managed to allow several of the others to unlock their shackles and get free. It sounds like quite a feat.”
“That was Rothir,” said Parthenal.
“Was it?” Yaret turned to give Rothir an appraising look. “Zan speaks of you as someone almost godlike,” she remarked.
“Hah! That’s because he doesn’t know him,” said Parthenal, amused.
“You did all that?”
Rothir shook his head. “It wasn’t enough. I had to leave behind too many captives, at the mercy of a darkburn.”
“Zan told me that eleven men were freed.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s more than I had thought. But still not enough.”
“Can I tell Zan? He’ll probably rush straight over to throw himself at your feet and swear eternal allegiance. Don’t smile; I’m serious. He and his kinsmen feel themselves beholden to you – and to the Vonn. They have vowed to keep fighting for vengeance.”
“And you?” asked Theol. “You fight for vengeance also?”
“I fight to stop it happening again… but yes, for vengeance too, on behalf of all Obandiro.
There is no-one else who can.” Yaret traced a circle on the ground with one finger. “They are mostly children. But it’s not as if they need me there – not now. Enough people had turned up by the time I left. I don’t think I’ll be missed. Maybe Dil… but he has the donkeys.”
Huldarion said gently, “Some time I would like to hear more of the children you left behind, if there is an opportunity.” Rothir looked over at his chief and wondered in which direction his thoughts were now turning. War had been his craft till now, not children.
But it was for children, known or unknown, that they all did this. For whom they fought.
He remembered Olbeth’s baby; that warm weight in his arms, the milky dribble down his shoulder. More responsibility. But such an unfamiliar soft feeling.
After a brief discussion about what the morning might bring, the Riders blew out all the lamps but one and began to settle down to sleep. Although the floor of broken reeds was somewhat scratchy Rothir was too tired to care. The sound of Theol’s snoring was soon joined by Thoronal’s rasp.
Parthenal rolled close up behind Rothir for extra warmth as he so often did out in the wild: his was a comfortable, familiar presence. Yaret, lying curled on Rothir’s other side, seemed to be asleep almost immediately. She must have been exhausted. Well, they all were. Only Huldarion still sat up, on one of the low stools, gazing at the glowing embers of the fire, evidently thinking.
A king ought to know his subjects. Another remark that surely had been noted if not commented upon. Huldarion never normally referred to himself as King. But the time was coming when that title might be justly claimed: King not just of the itinerant Riders, but of Caervonn.
I hope it won’t change him, Rothir thought. I hope he won’t forget what it is to be a Rider.
Right now he’s just one of those around me: my kin, my family. All here, except those few who stand around the walls in spirit, whose bodies lie outside. Tomorrow we will mourn them. Today’s job is done. My kin are safely sleeping. There, that’s relief, at last. He closed his eyes.
Although Huldarion was bone-weary in body, the pain was firing up all along his left-hand side after his exertions in the fight. He knew that it would not allow him to sleep for a while yet. In any case his mind was over-active: so he put it to work reviewing the long day’s events, setting them in order in his mind, labelling and sorting.
His own men and women first. All evening, even through the conversations, his thoughts had kept returning to the dead. The Riders had already said words of respect and thanks but of course that was not enough, nothing was ever enough, and now he listed the names again in silence – that silence wherein the dead eternally endured – and wondered if any would be added to their number from the injured. No more, he hoped. Next he travelled mentally around the infirmary, assessing who might require transport in the carts.
His thoughts paused on Sashel, the youngest of his captains. Sashel would mend – but asking him to keep his captaincy after his brother’s death might have been a mistake. On the other hand, would making him step down not have been seen as a humiliation?
No easy answer. Should have foreseen his sudden impetuous rage: Gordal had been like that. Don’t dwell on Gordal’s death. He himself could put that picture of the crumbling corpse aside at will. Sashel would not be able to: perhaps not ever. But he was young.
But then so was Ikelder. He’d done well, surpassing expectations. For a man so awkward
– moved as if none of his limbs quite fitted – he was anything but awkward on the field.
Strong fighter. Kept his head, and directed his company wisely, without panic. A good second, too, in Dorac: that could be a man worth considering for captain himself, if Thoronal…?
But no, he couldn’t demote Thoronal. He was too senior and his cousin besides. That counted for something even with the Vonn. Not to Kelvhan levels, but still. And Thoronal’s loss of confidence would be temporary, surely; it was unusual for him.
Perhaps he needed another first counsellor, though, while Thoronal recovered his sense of self-worth. Indeed, he hoped he would soon need half a dozen counsellors – men suited to accompany him into Kelvha Castle, were he to win an invitation as he hoped: men he could trust, but who would also look and act the part. No women, naturally. But they were probably getting used to that.
Now he began to run through candidates in his mind. Solon? Probably, although he was inclined to cynicism. Uld? A thoughtful man, perhaps too reticent. Crade? Over-cautious.
Huldarion knew that he himself was already circumspect: he didn’t need an over-cautious counsellor.
Veron… No, not inside the castle. Veron was a man apart. Huldarion had been aware that not once in her account had Yaret spoken of the huntress by her name. The name still echoed in his mind. Unsaryun: he thought it but would never say it. That circumspection. You never knew what might happen. But no. Not Veron.
Parthenal? Unequalled on the battlefield, but off it had perhaps too little caution, too much confidence. He looked over at Parthenal, stretched out on the floor. Always restless in his sleep, he had flung an arm over Rothir. With his proclivities… unacceptable in Kelvha.
Parthenal would have to restrain himself for a while. Might be safer to keep him in the background.
Rothir. Deep. He’d known the man most of his life – would trust him with his life – but hard to work him out sometimes. Tough as steel when needed, resolute even to the point of defiance, but had a conscience, thankfully; a good tactician, but not a strategist, not a planner for the long-term.
While he gazed at Rothir with affection, Yaret half sat up and with her eyes still closed unloosed some strapping round her leg. There was a faint thunk as her boot fell off, the false foot still inside it. As she lay back down again to sleep he thought, Well. That was disconcerting.
So what was going on between Rothir and Yaret – if anything? Rothir probably didn’t know himself. He’d rescued her, of course, that made a bond. And a difficulty. If you’d saved someone’s life they had a lot to live up to. Made it hard to see them clearly.
Maybe it was no more than gratitude and friendship on Yaret’s side. And Rothir’s sense of responsibility was always strong – like his sister Olbeth. No, don’t go there.
Yet I must go there, he thought. Soon I must think of some woman, if I am to progress in Kelvha. Women are their chief diplomatic currency after military might. Not likely there’ll be any Olbeth waiting for me in the castle, though…. Just hope for a woman I can live with, who can live with me. Even that might be too optimistic. Need to talk to Tiburé about it.
But that was some way off. There was still fighting to be done; though none as fierce, he hoped, as what they’d just gone through. Now that the Outland Forts had been reclaimed, there were the western borderlands to reinforce. Shargun to be propitiated. The Prince to be befriended.
All that to think about. He made himself put much of it aside except the coming journey to the borderlands: calculating how many sound horses they still had, how long it would take.
Yet just before he slept, it was Olbeth’s face he saw.
In the morning there was a more general stock-taking. The reports from the western borderlands continued to be good; General Istard had successfully destroyed the stonemen’s stronghold there. Huldarion walked over to the second fort where the Kelvhan Prince sat breakfasting with Shargun at an ornate travelling table, picking at a plate of elegant sweetmeats, while his commanders were standing in attendance. Did the Kelvhans bring a pastry-cook with them? Huldarion wondered, both amused and faintly appalled.
He was not invited to sit down and join them. But that will change, he thought; for I will see to it: and then he volunteered the services of the Vonn to go west and help clear up after General Istard. His offer was accepted. One of the Kelvhan commanders would also go, with a small troop of cavalry. There was no rush, however, so they would use this day to organise matters: not least the burial of the dead.
Prince Faldron and the Arch-Lord Shargun were to return the following day to Kelvha –
much to the Prince’s disgust. But the Arch-Lord argued persuasively for his return.
“I don’t see why. I’d rather stay and be part of the campaign,” said Faldron. “I don’t often get the chance to do any real fighting. I have to learn it somehow. It’s quite different to a tournament.”
To Faldron this was still little more than a game, thought Huldarion; and yet he considered that the young Prince had a point. The western borderlands would be a far safer place to blood him in battle than the one they had just gone through. There, Faldron could track down and kill a stray stoneman or two with minimum risk.
Huldarion became aware that, like the Kelvhans, he was thinking of the stonemen as little more than wooden soldiers: mere targets for military practice. It bothered him, even if the stonemen’s own commanders regarded them in the same way. They were profligate with their men, and made no attempt to reclaim the bodies – only the stones. Those seemed more important than the heads that bore them. He had not forgotten what Yaret had told him about the lonely stoneman she had killed. Only ten... His dislike of the idea was not a reason to ignore it.
But Shargun was still speaking to the Prince.
“You must think of your people, Highness, who wish most earnestly to see you safely back in Kelvha. They fret for you every day that you are absent,” said the Arch-Lord smoothly.
The Prince pouted a little. But he gave in to Shargun; which made Huldarion wonder why the Arch-Lord had not put his foot down earlier, to stop Faldron charging into battle?
He could not read the situation. Possibly the Prince was not all that sorry to return to his home comforts, and Shargun seemed genuinely anxious that he should withdraw. Perhaps the near-disaster of the Prince’s riding out to fight had made him wary. Huldarion put in an appreciative word about Faldron’s gallantry, and was rewarded by an invitation to the castle hunt.
“When you come to Kelvha,” said the Prince – that when was a reassuring thing to hear ––
“when you come to Kelvha, you will see our hunting forest, far more attractive and well-filled than this one.” As if the battlefield were merely a hunting forest too, scaled up, with human prey. And insufficiently attractive for the Prince’s liking. Huldarion bowed and smiled his thanks.
No, he would not be sorry to see Faldron and Shargun and their entourage depart. They were to take a portion of their dead – the high-born – back to Kelvha with them, for burial in their homeland. Their common soldiers had already been interred with meagre ceremony in a hastily dug grave behind the forts. Huldarion, who had not even been aware of this until they now mentioned it in passing, did not approve of such casual disposal of the slain.
By contrast, the Vonn’s dead, along with Melmet’s, would be laid to rest with full honours near the bleak battlefield where they had fallen. After the meeting dispersed he made his way first to the low mound that hid the Kelvhan corpses, and stood at its foot to give his murmured thanks regardless of what any watching Kelvhans might make of this behaviour.
These had not been his people, yet he honoured them.
Next, heavy-hearted, he walked away from the camp to check the progress of the digging of the Vonn’s mass grave. Although the plain was despoiled by the trampling of countless feet, and the stonemen had felled so many of the trees, he thought the land would recover its wildness in due time – once it was left alone. Lonely it would certainly be. Are the dead lonely, he wondered, or are they anywhere? In any case, the untouchable shining glory of the Liath Mountains would be a fitting backdrop for them.
Next there was the management of the carrying of casualties back to Thield. That tented city would soon move and be re-established, he hoped, within the bounds of eastern Kelvha.
He went to consult with the medics and to check the status of the carts.
While he was there, the Baron of the Broc came marching over to him with one of his attendants.
“Huldarion. How do.”
He did not mind this abrupt form of address from the Baron; for he sensed that Grusald would have been more formal with someone he liked less.
“I do well,” he said. “And you?”
“Getting ready to leave,” said Grusald. “However, some of the men under my command wish to continue on with you rather than return to Melmet.”
“The hunters?”
The Baron bowed. “Those and a few others.”
“All help is welcome, especially from Melmet,” he replied.
“I myself have some regrets in riding back to Melmet,” said the Baron, “not least in leaving you. But our affairs there call us, and our casualties do not permit of us continuing.”
Huldarion knew that the Baron had no love for Kelvha; so this admission of regret must be meant as a compliment to the Vonn.
He bowed in his turn. “Your support has been greatly valued. The courage and discipline of your men is most impressive; and I say that not to flatter, but because it is true.”
“I think we fought our corner,” said the Baron with a grim smile. “We’ve rid this part of the country of the plague of stonemen, at least. By the way; we’ve got two of them held prisoner. Are you interested?”
“Stonemen?”
The Baron nodded. “The only two that we could take alive. At the first sign of being captured, they’ll generally kill themselves. These two were disarmed first. Not that it stops them from trying anyway. They were beating their heads against the trees until we tethered them away from any means of doing themselves harm.”
“Where are they?”
“On the other side of our camp. We kept them away from the Kelvhans. I thought we might get something useful out of them; but it’s my opinion they don’t know anything useful.
Almost feel sorry for the poor devils.”
“Why?”
The Baron shook his head. “Since last night, they seem to have been going mad with pain.
Clutching at their heads… Come and see them, if you like. We’ll have to put them out of their misery before we leave – unless you want them? Don’t like killing a prisoner unnecessarily. One thing in battle, quite another when they’re tied.”
“I understand that,” said Huldarion. “Yes. I’d like to see them.” After a moment’s thought he called Solon to accompany him to the far side of the Melmet camp.
Poor devils, indeed, he thought, on seeing the two stonemen, each tethered separately to stakes driven deep into the earth. On their short halters one walked, one crawled, unceasingly, as if they could not bear to be still. Their heads were marked with bruises, and long trickles of blood were running from the stones. They’d been given bread and water which lay within their reach, untouched.
Huldarion understood pain well. He understood his own, at least, from long acquaintance: he knew how it waxed and waned, what helped, what didn’t. Distraction was, for him, important. These men had no distraction from their pain. And while his own face was afflicted, he considered himself lucky that his head was not. Those stones… Even his partial knowledge of what they must be suffering turned him nauseous.
He tried to speak to each stoneman in turn, while the Baron and his men looked on in a mixture of pity and disgust. The stoneman on his knees either could not or would not answer any question except in moans. The other did not cease his restless pacing, but he did speak.
His name was Kostor. He would not say his commander’s name, nor the names of any of his superiors. He did not know their plans, he said.
“I just follow orders. March here, march there. Now fight.” He spoke guttural Standard.
“The fighting is over,” Huldarion told him. “You have nothing to lose by speaking.”
“I have nothing to say.” He turned to walk the few paces that were possible for him before he had to turn again.
“Do you know the name of Adonil? Adon?”
At that, the stoneman stopped moving. A few seconds later, without a word, he resumed his prowling.
“Is there anything we can get for you?” asked Huldarion.
“Give me athelid. Or a knife. Or both. Give me a knife, for stars’ sake.” The man put his hands to his head but did not halt his pacing.
“I have no athelid. How often do you need to take it?”
“I need it hours ago,” the man said in a low growl. “Or I need a knife. Just give me a knife.
My head is… It’s going to get worse. Give me a knife.”
Huldarion realised that the stoneman was barely holding himself within control. He did not like to imagine the increasing undrugged pain of the stones. Seven of them were drilled into the stoneman’s head. He thought of something else to ask.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen. How old are you, scarface?”
Despite Yaret’s warning, he was taken aback. “Fifteen? You don’t look fifteen. You look thirty.”
“We grow fast,” said the man with a fierce grimace, turning round to walk the other way.
“When did you get your first stone?”
“Ten. Ten is manhood.”
“Ten is boyhood,” said Solon.
The stoneman grinned a dreadful grin. “Not for us. We have no boyhood. We are men from the start, not like you… you … animals. You are too low to ever become men.” And then he stopped again, dropped his head into his hands and gripped it as if he would like to tear the stones out. He was starting to tremble.
“How old is your companion?” asked Huldarion. He pointed to the stoneman on his knees, who still crawled on the ground with a low continuous moaning.
“How would I know? How many stones has he got?”
“Four.”
“So he’ll be twelve or thirteen. I’ve answered you, toadface. Now give me a knife.”
Huldarion took from his pocket the small packet of belvane he had brought with him.
Tiburé had assured him that the painkiller from Farwithiel was harmless; none the less he had used it only once or twice, wary of addiction. It seemed effective if not as powerful as ethlon.
Now he poured a full dose of the powder onto a paper and pushed it over to the stoneman.
“What’s that?”
“It will help with the pain.”
“Poison me more like,” the stoneman said. All the same he reached out a trembling hand and grasped the paper, tipping the powder down his throat.
“You see what I mean,” said the Baron, who was standing behind Huldarion. “They must be going crazy. Fifteen! His head’s turned.”
“Possibly.” He gazed at the stoneman. “Kostor. How often do you take your athelid?”
“Dawn and nightfall. Can’t you give me some? This stuff isn’t working.”
“You need to allow it a few minutes,” said Huldarion. “What is in athelid? Its ingredients?”
“How should I know? I just swallow it.”
“How long have you taken it for?”
“Since I reached manhood. Only men can take it. You couldn’t. It would kill you.” Kostor almost spat the words.
“Who gives it to you?”
“Our commanders.”
“I’m guessing it is not a powder. Is it a liquid?”
“It’s a paste. A white paste. It comes in jars.” The man walked towards Huldarion and strained on his rope, as close as he could get to him. He was trembling all over. “Can you find some? Can you get me some? This stuff doesn’t work. It’s rubbish.”
“Where do your commanders keep the athelid?”
“I don’t know. How should I know? They have boxes of it on the carts. Always guarded.
So that you can’t get hold of it. It’s only for us. Find me some.” His voice had risen. “I bet you’ve got some. Why don’t you give me it, you mangy dog?”
Huldarion walked away and left him pulling on his rope and shouting.
“Solon,” he said quietly, “Go and find Parthenal, or ask at the infirmary. Get some ethlon, and bring it back here.”
Solon strode away. The stoneman kept shouting. One of the Baron’s men moved forward with a stick, but Huldarion shook his head.
“Leave him. He won’t notice even if you beat him. He’s in enough pain. Clearly what I gave him isn’t strong enough. The consequences of the stones must be extreme.”
The Baron chewed his moustache. “Or he’s so used to this athelid he talks of that nothing else has any effect.”
“That is possible.” Huldarion remembered those dreadful months after the fire… Long afterwards, his body was still burning, burning unstoppably all down one side. He had been given ethlon, but after a while he felt he needed more, and had been denied it. He knew what it was like to beg for relief. But he had never begged for a knife to end it.
Solon soon came hurrying back with a small bottle. “Ethlon. Parthenal says we don’t have much left, so administer it sparingly. Only a few drops.”
“I know.” But he had to enlist the Baron’s men to hold Kostor still while he let those few drops fall into his mouth: the stoneman wrestled as though he would have seized the whole bottle from his hand and drained it.
As Huldarion stepped back Kostor sat down heavily, for the first time, and closed his eyes.
He let out a long sigh.
“Does that do the same job as athelid?”
Slowly the eyes reopened. “Don’t talk to me, you piece of northern cow-dung: you runt of a pig’s litter. Go back to your mud where you belong.”
“What is your commander’s name?”
In answer the man spat at him.
“I can’t say that it improves him,” said the Baron, as Huldarion withdrew beyond spitting distance.
“No. A wasted effort, I think.” He addressed Kostor again. “I gave you ethlon. What can you tell me about Adon? Adonil? Where is he?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, you wipings off a goat’s arse…” The man launched into a stream of curses. Huldarion listened patiently. When there was a pause, he asked,
“How old are you?”
“I told you, I’m fifteen. Are you deaf as well as stupid?”
“Ethlon doesn’t normally make people angry,” said Solon with aloof distaste.
“No,” agreed Huldarion. “This is probably just his normal state. He’s been well indoctrinated against us.”
“Against everybody, if you ask me,” said the Baron. The stoneman was now tugging with renewed vigour and many expletives at the stake that held him down.
Huldarion decided on one more attempt. “What could we do that would persuade you to help us?”
“Nothing, you northern scum. Crawl back to your scummy hole.”
He nodded and turned away. “Let’s try the other one.”
“No point wasting any more ethlon,” objected Solon. “And that one’s a junior. Fewer stones. He won’t know anything in any case.”
“None the less.” This prisoner was more passive, or more far gone. It needed only one man to hold him while Huldarion administered the drops into his mouth.
At first the stoneman still crouched on the ground. Then he straightened up and looked around, with dawning bewilderment in his eyes as if he had just woken.
“What’s your name?” asked Huldarion.
“Don’t tell him! Don’t tell him anything!” yelled Kostor. That was rich, thought Huldarion. The younger stoneman merely blinked at him.
The man looked down again, at his hands. He spread them out. Ten, thought Huldarion.
The man raised both thumbs. And two.
“You’re twelve?”
The man said nothing. He lay down on the ground as if he wanted to sleep.
“Will you talk to me?”
He closed his eyes again.
So what do I do with this one? thought Huldarion. What do I do with either of them? The ethlon will give them a few hours free of pain. It won’t give me anything.
He looked at the Baron, who shrugged and asked, “You want them?”
“I don’t see what use they will be. You may as well kill the noisy one.”
“I’ll have it done,” the Baron said. “And this one?”
Huldarion hesitated. Twelve. But what was the point in keeping him alive? They couldn’t keep feeding him ethlon twice a day. He’d be better off dying now, while he was free of pain.
“Leave him for the moment.”
“Crazy, aren’t they?” said Solon.
“Or they don’t understand how years work,” said the Baron. “Probably have no idea how old they really are.”
“You’re right,” Huldarion said. “I’ll talk to you again before you leave.” He saluted the old man courteously and strode away.
The two stonemen looked like grown men in size and strength. Yet the quiet one had a quality to his skin – a fineness... But how could it be believed that he was twelve?
And his companion fifteen, a belligerent teenager. A teenager who had been reared to fight and hate his enemy, and nothing else. Possibly years were counted differently in stoneman culture. Except that there was no culture in his experience that didn’t measure years in exactly the same way.
“Solon?” he murmured to his companion. “Don’t mention this to any of the others. Not yet. It may simply be a misunderstanding or a hoax. So say nothing, until we can learn more.”
There was now a new addition to his mental list of tasks. After a little thought he dismissed Solon, summoned Delgeb and Maeneb, and gave the two women the errand.
It was to ride out to the far forts where the stonemen had been quartered, and which, to the best of their knowledge, were now abandoned. Huldarion explained what he wanted them to search for: jars of a white paste, once stored in boxes.
“It’s athelid,” he said. “The substance that the stonemen drug themselves with. I want to know what’s in it.”
“You’re hoping they’ve left some behind?”
“It’s a long shot. Don’t put yourselves in danger. I’m hoping Maeneb will be able to detect any stoneman presence. If you do, then come away.”
“We can deal with the odd few of them,” said Delgeb. “If there’s any greater number, we’ll withdraw. Can we take a third person? Shebel has a good knowledge of herbalism.”
This was agreed; and the three female Riders soon cantered away. It would be several hours before they returned. Meanwhile, Huldarion went to check the horses. Most were unhurt: their numbers tallied closely with the figures he had calculated last night. It was pleasing.
He noticed a couple of other horses there which did not belong to the Riders. They were fine Kelvhan steeds, from which the gilded saddles and trappings were being stripped by a Kelvhan stableman.
“What’s wrong with those?”
“Nothing, sir,” said the stableman, pausing in his work, “save that their riders died atop
’em. It’s bad luck. We can maybe sell them on back home in Kelvha, but nobody here will want to ride them now.”
“So who do they belong to?”
“The families. But I have authority to sell them.”
“Good. Walk them up and down for me. If they’re sound I’ll take them off your hands,”
Huldarion said. The man obeyed. He seemed to hold Huldarion in some awe, for he accepted the price offered – low but not unreasonable – and was even persuaded to throw in one of the gilded saddles without quibbling.
The quiet grey would do for Sashel, who had lost his steed, Huldarion decided. The larger and more impressive black horse, with its embossed and decorated saddle, he planned to offer to the Baron in exchange for Poda. He arranged to collect it later on.
Then it was time to walk over to the quarter-master for yet more negotiations about provisioning: he had the numbers ready in his head. His marshal of resources, Vaneb, had stayed behind in Thield since she was pregnant. Huldarion supposed that he should have appointed another, yet he did not dislike the task himself.
That reminded him of his next task: to visit the young Prince. So he summoned Thoronal, and together they paid a call to Prince Faldron’s quarters. They found him sulky and restless, wandering aimlessly around the fort with Shargun in tow while his quantities of baggage were being packed up.
“Your Highness,” said Huldarion with a bow, “We are loth to leave you with no more than a brief farewell.”
The prince brightened. He waved a servant over: spiced drinks were served, and this time Huldarion was invited to sit down. Shargun raised an eyebrow, but Huldarion did not care.
He and Thoronal sat on the thickly padded couch which had been carried all this way in Kelvha’s carts.
Although four soldiers stood guard behind them, Faldron spoke as eagerly as if they were not there. He wanted to talk about the battle, but Huldarion diplomatically gave the conversation a more general turn. It ranged from military tactics to horsemanship and weaponry, in all of which Faldron had obviously been well schooled.
“I wish I could have played a greater part in the battle yesterday,” he remarked wistfully.
“That chance will no doubt come,” Huldarion said.
“Yes. Once I am High King I will able to go on the field when I choose.”
Huldarion trusted that the Prince would not start a war to give himself the opportunity. He said, smiling, “The strongest king is he who listens to his counsellors.” This was a sop to Shargun, who sat in silent watchfulness. And the four impassive guards against the wall were no doubt taking in every word to report back to their fellow-soldiers.
The Prince said, “I would have thought the strongest king is he who is not afraid to act.”
“That is true,” said Huldarion. “The problem can sometimes be how to act in the right way
– and that is best decided with the aid of counsellors.”
“I don’t always care for the advice of my counsellors.” Although this was said without any glance at Shargun, Huldarion immediately sensed a pitfall.
“I think the first task of a king must always be to acquire wisdom,” he said. “When you return to Kelvha, what will be the first thing you wish to do?”
“Oh! Go hunting. See my falcons. Kiss a few maids,” said the Prince.
Huldarion laughed. “So acquiring wisdom will wait a little longer?”
“There will be time enough for all that weighty stuff,” said Faldron. His wish to kick against the traces was understandable, thought Huldarion, especially if he had been kept trammelled in the castle with his tutors. But it did not bode well for Kelvha.
On the other hand, if his counsellors were anything like Shargun they would stay as close as leeches even once he was High King. After a few more courteous words, Huldarion rose to take his leave.
“You will come to Kelvha, won’t you?” said the Prince.
“That would certainly be my wish,” he said, “once victory in this part of your realm is accomplished. But the matter is in your hands. I have no desire to force an invitation.”
“Of course you will come,” said Faldron.
Huldarion bowed. “I possess few treasures,” he said, “but the friendship of Kelvha would be amongst the greatest I could own. Of the few I do possess, let me give you this parting gift as a token of goodwill and gratitude.”
He produced a badge which had belonged to his father. It was a wrench to give it away –
he had so little in the way of heirlooms; but it was necessary.
“That is a handsome thing,” the Prince said appreciatively, studying the jet and gold-work.
He offered no gift in exchange. Huldarion had not expected that he would.
On his way out he stopped and looked at one of the guards.
“I saw you fell two stonemen with one stroke,” he said. It had been a phenomenal stroke.
He said nothing more, for it would not do to praise the man more than his master; but at least the soldier knew he had been recognised. That too would get back, that Huldarion noticed the men as well as their leaders. He left the fort with a reasonable degree of satisfaction.
“I hope I did what was required,” said Thoronal, when they were a safe distance away.
“You did exactly what was required: you looked noble and grave, and gave the Prince’s views your careful attention. And just the right amount of flattery. I think what he wants more than anything is to be taken seriously.”
“That will certainly happen when he becomes High King.”
“And he could so easily have become a corpse, like those ones over there.” Out on the plain the covered bodies were being laid out in sad rows, in readiness for burial. “He owes us his life,” said Huldarion.
“Do you think he knows? Did he even realise his danger – or does he think he escaped through his own wonderful skills in battle?”
Huldarion considered. “He must know. He’s not a fool. But he can’t admit it. And we must never mention it.”
The series of burials was the next task to be gone through; and while the most important, it was also the least pleasant. It had been at the back of his mind all day.
Melmet held their ceremonies first, out on the muddy field where the long pits had been dug. All the Riders of the Vonn who were fit enough to attend did so; and Veron appeared from somewhere to join the group of Iobens. Huldarion noted that Yaret also stood beside them. He was saddened that only one Kelvhan commander, Rhadlun, turned up at the graveside with a token handful of his men.
The many Melmet casualties were placed into a common grave and songs sung over them, the soldiers’ untrained voices ringing out clear and heartfelt in remarkable harmony through the cold still air. Although Huldarion could not make out all the words, the underlying emotion was plain. As he stood opposite the Baron with the grave between them, he saw the old man weep. So many dead. But not for nothing.
After the Baron’s hoarse address he himself said a few words about their loyal gallantry, which he honoured and which would not be forgotten. Then Rhadlun spoke of the honour of fighting alongside Kelvha – as if the privilege were all Melmet’s. Huldarion respected Rhadlun’s abilities, but this annoyed him.
Thankfully the Kelvhan commander deemed it unnecessary to add any of his own words to the Ioben burials. These were fewer, and there was no singing. Veron stepped forward to say a few terse words about how these men would soon be riding over the great fields spread between the stars. A surprisingly poetic concept from Veron’s mouth; Huldarion had seldom seen the man so serious. One of the huntsmen uttered what sounded like a prayer in his own language, during which they were all very still. Then Yaret said another, which seemed to be a variation on the first, and during which they were, if possible, even stiller. At the end the silence felt as if it stretched across to the horizon.
Finally the first spadeful of earth was thrown in, breaking the spell; and as more spadefuls followed, and men began to turn away, he lingered, watching. There should be more than this to a life. More than a few words and a bowed head. But what more could you do?
The crowd was moving to the next line of newly-dug graves, and as he walked across he braced himself, for next came the burial of his own people. Twenty-seven men and twelve women. It could have been so many more; yet thirty-nine was bad enough.
As he stood by the graveside with his captains, for once he felt the need to neither feign nor to disguise emotion. If it hardly showed in his face, he knew it sounded in his voice. He spoke of each of the dead Riders by their name: their qualities, their deeds; and found it amongst the most difficult things that he had ever done. It was a battle with himself.
Afterwards while the Riders sang the Vonndal – so sad, so slow – he did not even try to mime. He had to keep his mouth clenched shut. This was terrible. He had put this grief away from him all night and day and now it leapt out like a darkburn from its cage, nearly destroying him.
Don’t think of the darkburns, he commanded himself. Think of your other Riders, the ones who are still alive and suffering too. After the song, as the soil was tumbled in, he saw that Parthenal wept. Ikelder also, furtively. Even that dry man Uld wiped his cheek. Rothir, a few yards away, did not weep but looked as clenched as Huldarion was himself.
Yaret had walked over to stand beside the Riders, although to the best of his knowledge she knew none of those who had died. She glanced up at Rothir.
“Don’t worry,” he heard Rothir say. “I feel this.”
“I know,” she answered.
Huldarion was not sure what was meant. But afterwards when he stepped over to embrace Rothir, he felt it was some relief to both of them. Then he went to embrace Thoronal, and Parthenal, although perhaps – but forget that, no matter now – and then Solon, and would have embraced Veron had not the man looked so alarmed and backed away. That almost made Huldarion laugh despite his agony of mind. There were twelve widows he would have to talk to eventually. Three widowers. Several children.
Gradually the crowd trickled back towards the forts. He was the last to leave, and followed the others sombrely, musing about children. Although he did not particularly wish to, he walked alone over to the Melmet camp to have another look at the captive stonemen.
The older one had gone; there was nothing but a bloodstain on the ground where he had been. The younger one was curled up on the grass. At least he had eaten the food provided for him. His eyes were open.
With a nod to the guard, Huldarion approached and squatted down near the stoneman to address him.
“How do you feel?”
The man – boy? – gazed at him sideways, from the ground.
“What is your name? I am Huldarion.”
“Girik,” said the stoneman. He did not move. He sounded lost and dazed.
“Tell me about yourself, Girik.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where were you born?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where were you brought up? Who did you live with?”
“I lived with the others, in the dormitory.”
“Where was that?”
“It was by the sea,” said Girik. “It was the place of terns. There were lots of them.”
“Did you like being by the sea?”
The lost eyes looked into some far remembered distance.
“I liked... the sound of it. Sometimes it roared like a lion and sometimes it just breathed like a…”
“Like a sleeper,” said Huldarion.
“Yes. When it was asleep they let us go swimming. I saw a dolphin. It came right up to me.”
“I have never seen a dolphin that close up.”
“It was big. It swam with me. I was good as swimming.” He still lay with his head upon the ground, staring at some remembered ocean.
“What about your parents? Your mother?”
“I don’t remember. She was… tall… I think.”
Huldarion swallowed. “And when did you get your first stone?”
“Two years ago. You have to be ten.”
“Ten summers?”
“Ten years,” said the boy. “You get two the first year, and one or two the next year. I still have one to go this year. I won’t get it now, will I?” and to Huldarion’s dismay, a tear ran down his adult, yet unbearded cheek.
“Do they hurt you?”
“Yes, a bit, when they go in. But they give you athelid. You have to have the stones to be a man. Only real true men have them.” He stared at Huldarion now from the ground. “So you’re not. What happened to your face?”
“A darkburn,” said Huldarion.
“That’s why you need the stones. They give you power. So the darkburns can’t hurt you.”
“Only when you don’t get the athelid in time.”
“Do yours hurt you now?”
“Not now. But I’m tired. Can I have some more tonight?”
He took a deep breath. “If you will tell me what you know of your commanders, and of Adon, or Adonil.”
“I won’t tell you any of that.”
Huldarion nodded and stood up. “Very well. I’ll come back later.” He turned to the man who stood guard nearby. “See that he has food and water. I’ll return.”
Then he left. He would have to wait until the stones began to hurt again before his next attempt. He was not looking forward to it.
Meanwhile he went to visit his Riders who were still in the infirmary. Leor was there, sitting by the side of a young female Rider. He went through his memory and retrieved her name before he walked up to them.
“Durba,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“I… I…”
He waited. She stammered.
“She’s having difficulty in speaking,” said Leor. “And she hasn’t slept since yesterday.”
He noticed that Durba was shaking slightly, especially her hands. “I expect you must be very tired,” he said, “but that too much has been going on to allow you to sleep.”
Then he motioned Leor aside. “Head injury?”
“No injury at all,” said Leor, “except to her sense of how things ought to be. Maeneb said she seemed to find the battle exciting at first. Then all at once it became real.”
“Battle shock,” said Huldarion. He had seen it before and knew of no cure for it other than time; and peace. “She had better go back to Thield with the other injured.”
“She refuses.”
“Does she? How, if she can’t talk?” He was sharp.
“You try,” said Leor. He looked worn out.
“I will.” He returned to Durba’s side and told her his decision. “You need to go back home to Thield with the wounded. There is no shame in it.”
She shook her head vehemently. “U… u… u…”
“But there you can rest and recover.”
“U… u…u…” Now her hands were shaking badly too.
“Well, well,” said Huldarion, at a loss for once. “Try and sleep, and then we’ll see.” He looked at Leor. “What about you? Have you slept?”
“A little,” said Leor. It was probably a lie.
“Then you must. Go and eat and then find somewhere to lie down, and rest.” He wished he could make his word his command. No sooner said than instantly obeyed. But if a wizard couldn’t put himself to sleep, what hope had he?
Leaving them, he crossed the hall to visit Sashel, and to tell him about the burials. He described the ceremony and promised that later he would walk down with him to see Gordal’s grave. Sashel nodded. His face was very pale but he said the dizziness had almost passed. He would be ready to ride out with them on the following day.
Privately Huldarion thought he would be better travelling in one of the provision carts.
However, he said merely,
“I have a new horse for you, Sashel; it’s Kelvhan, a good-looking grey mare. I don’t know what it will be like to ride, though. I thought I’d seat Veron on it to try it out, while you stay with the carts at first. Veron seems to enjoy wayward horses; and nobody will mind if he gets thrown.” There was the ghost of an answering smile.
Then he went to fetch the other Kelvhan horse, the showy black one. After satisfying himself that both it and its tack were gleaming he led it over to the Melmet camp and offered it formally to the Baron. The gift went down well; the Baron’s eyes gleamed more brightly than the golden fastenings on the saddle, and Huldarion returned to his own camp leading a weary Poda.
On the way he saw three riders galloping towards him over the plain, and waited for them to arrive.
It was Delgeb and her two companions. They drew up and reigned in their horses. Delgeb reported seeing few signs of life at the farthest forts, apart from a small group of stonemen whom they had disturbed in the act of removing their dead compatriots’ stones from their skulls.
“We only managed to shoot three of them,” said Maeneb. “The others got away.”
Huldarion refrained from the question that leapt unwanted into his head, about how many stones each man had worn. He said, “Did you find anything else?”
Delgeb took out a leather pouch, which she opened to reveal a small lump of creamy paste.
“We saw no jars or boxes, but we did find this. We scraped it off the flagstones in one of the forts, where it must have fallen,” she said. “Shebel reckons it’s athelid.”
“It certainly has ethlon as one of its components,” said Shebel, “although I’m not sure about the others. There’s probably more than one additional ingredient. The paste smells a little like zalephony, but I’m not aware that zalephony has any pain-killing properties. Maybe it’s simply there to make it palatable.”
“Possibly,” said Huldarion, although he doubted it. Stonemen would not care if athelid were palatable or not, so long as it worked. “Thank you. Let’s go and try it out. Come with me, if you will.”
So they accompanied him back to the captive stoneman, Girik, for the third time that day.
It was now ten hours or so since he had had the ethlon, and he was showing signs of distress. No longer lying on the ground, he was pacing to and fro as the other stoneman had been earlier, his hands clasped to his head. When he saw Huldarion he almost threw himself at him like a dog on a leash. The tether held him; and his guard pushed him back.
“Have you got it?”
Huldarion showed him the contents of the pouch. “Is this athelid?”
He gasped. “Ah! That’s it. Give me that. I need it.” He reached out frantically for the pouch; but Huldarion held it back, beyond his arm’s length.
“Some information first,” he said. “Adon. Where is he?”
“He was up in the snow with us,” said Girik. “They showed us him. He’s a god.”
“A god?”
“He has a shining face and a triple row of stones around his head. No-one ever had so many. That’s how we can be sure he is a god. Now give me the athelid.”
“What did Adon say?”
“Stuff about fighting and following. How we can–” He wrinkled his brow. “I can’t remember.”
“You must remember. Otherwise I give you none of this.”
Girik gripped his head again. “He said, he said – I know, he said we can win in the north and then go home to the south and win there and have all the land for ourselves between the Darkburn and the sea. We had to cheer. I mean we cheered. Now can I have it?”
“Not yet.” Between the Darkburn and the sea: that meant Caervonn. “What else?”
“I don’t remember anything else! And it’s hurting! You said you’d give it to me!”
“Where did Adon go?”
“I don’t know.” And now the man began to cry.
“Give him some of the athelid,” said Huldarion to Shebel. He had no stomach for any more of this.
“How much do you think he ought to have? It’s hard to judge,” she said, looking at the pouch.
“Ask him.”
“How much of this do you take?” she asked the weeping Girik.
“All of it! Give me all of it!”
Delgeb shook her head. “No, don’t do that.”
“If we give you all of it,” said Huldarion to the stoneman, “there will be none left for tomorrow.”
“I don’t care. Just give it me.”
Shebel put some of the paste on her finger – about a quarter of the whole. “Is this the right amount?”
“More! More!”
“Careful he doesn’t bite your hand off,” Delgeb said.
“This is all you’re getting,” Shebel told him. She held out her hand and Girik held out his until he could wipe his fingers against hers. He put the paste to his mouth. Seconds later his eyes closed. His face relaxed, and he sat down heavily on the ground.
“What will you do with him tomorrow?” Delgeb asked.
“I don’t know yet,” said Huldarion. “There may be something more that he can tell us; I need to think about it. But I’m not hopeful.”
And then we may just have to kill him anyway, he thought, before we leave. Before the pain takes over once again. Even if we take him with us, we only have enough athelid for three more doses. And we need what’s left of our ethlon for our wounded. Kinder to kill him.
The Baron found somebody to do that for him. I’ll have to do it myself. A captive. Twelve.
Not fair to ask anybody else.
But in the end the athelid carried out that task for him. It must have been too high a dose by far; for in the morning Girik lay curled up, smiling, dead.
Leor could feel the sadness as they all rode out. You did not need to be Maeneb to sense the loss, the pull at the hearts of every Rider as they left the dead behind with the great mountains guarding them. He should be used to death by now, after so many centuries. Yet it always surprised him with its suddenness and irrevocability.
He saw Sashel, sitting in the cart ahead of him, twist around for one last look. Was the loss of a twin doubly hard?
Adon had been almost his twin. Although he resisted giving Adon the status of a brother, they had been made at the same time, of the same matter; so much Leor had been told. The rest he did not know. There was no-one whom the two boys called parent; they had a group of six guardians, not wizards but ordinary men and women, or ordinary as far as lifespan went. However, the guardians between them held a great amount of knowledge, including something about wizardry – enough to set Adon and Leor on their paths of self-discovery.
Paths which intertwined throughout their early years. As boys the two of them had been glad of each other’s company, running through the fields and woods together, revelling in their invulnerability. It made them thoughtless of their safety; for they could feel no lasting hurt. A bone that was broken swiftly mended. A fall from a tree had no ill effects. Cuts healed without trace. They were invincible.
He never understood whose power it was that made them and then kept them safe. Adon declared back then that they had made themselves. Nowadays Adon would probably declare that he – Adon – had made them both, and much of the world besides. Huldarion had told Leor what the stoneman said about Adon: a god with a shining face. Well. No surprise.
He looked over to his right, where the Kelvhan company formed a shorter, separate line of carts and riders two hundred yards away. They moved in perfect, disciplined formation.
Behind them trailed the few men of Melmet who had chosen to come this far: a short untidy straggle, outnumbered by the hunters at their rear. There was little communication between the two lines, although Huldarion had ridden over at one point to speak to the Kelvhan commander, Rhadlun; and Yaret had come over from Melmet’s ranks to join the Riders.
“I don’t like being the only female in the train,” she said.
“You don’t trust Melmet?” Solon asked.
“Oh, they’re all right. My old captain Jerred’s still with them and he has a fair amount of clout. But I don’t trust Kelvha. They all seem to know; I suppose word had to get out some time. Actually it’s not fair to say that I don’t trust them – I expect they’re trustworthy enough.
But I don’t care much for the way they look at me. I expect the female Riders get the same sort of looks from them.”
“We do,” said Maeneb, with a harshness that surprised Leor till he remembered seeing that Kelvhan soldier seize and kiss her. Was a kiss in victory so terrible? To, Maeneb, yes; any kiss would be terrible, he supposed.
But then Maeneb was comely: even beautiful. He wouldn’t have thought Yaret had much cause to worry. Although she had a pleasant enough face it was made so by its alert expression, and her baggy clothes did her no favours. He had heard the occasional shouts of peg-leg as she passed.
“At least you’re not surrounded by them here,” said Yaret.
The line of Vonn was looser than that of the Kelvhans, and soon began to flow and ebb around him like a shoal of fish, as various Riders sought friends to exchange sombre words with. Nobody came out of their way to ride alongside Leor. Trying not to mind, he kept his eye on Durba, who was sitting with Sashel and the others in the jolting cart.
Leor didn’t think the jolting could be good for her. He had seen battle shock before, on many occasions through the years. He did not know the answer to it except kindness. Poor Durba; she was so young, hardly older than a child…
But older than those stonemen, he reflected. Huldarion had told him, quietly, about that as well, requesting him to tell nobody else before he asked Leor if such a thing were possible.
Stone children. It made his heart sink because he felt at once that it was true. Had he himself not played with men’s longevity to give the Wardens of Farwithiel longer life? It hadn’t been all that difficult. He’d been proud of the feat until its consequences gradually revealed themselves.
Adon could have done the same thing, in reverse, he told Huldarion; speeding up the stonemen’s growth. It would not have been beyond him.
“But why on earth would he want to?” Huldarion had said, in a rare failure of understanding.
“To swell his armies the more swiftly,” Leor had replied. To him it was obvious. “And so that he can bring them up more easily in the way he chooses. Indoctrinate them.”
“Such youngsters can have no judgement.”
“Adon doesn’t want them to have judgement. He just wants them to obey.”
“If it were true,” said Huldarion, “it would be grossly immoral, to breed children to be maimed, and led into addiction, and then to make them fight.”
Leor felt himself condemned along with Adon. Not by Huldarion; but by himself. He saw so clearly what Adon was doing – yet he had no idea where he was or why. He could be anywhere in the world. He could be in this very train amongst the Vonn and Leor would not know. The mere idea made him shudder.
He looked round for Maeneb, who had been riding close behind him, and called to her to catch him up.
“Maeneb,” he said, “Can you feel where I am? With your mind, I mean?”
She looked surprised. “I can feel you, certainly. You’re a different note, a different colour to the rest.”
“From how far away can you detect me?”
“A few miles, perhaps. I could tell when you were up in the hills back there with Veron, some of the time. At other times you were too distant.”
“Have you ever felt someone that… that might have been Adon?”
She shook her head. “No. But I wouldn’t expect to. I should think he always cloaks himself. I’m surprised you don’t.”
At that, he was surprised; even though he’d cloaked, or camouflaged, his body several times recently, it had never occurred to him to camouflage his mind. “Why should I cloak myself? Who would ever sense my presence anywhere, but you? A maybe a few Wardens of the Farwth, but they’re a long way off.”
Maeneb looked at him. “Who might sense you? Adon, of course,” she said, as if he were a child.
Adon. I have never cloaked myself from Adon, he thought, because he told me long ago that I was an eternal beacon to him, that he could always see me no matter where I hid, my soul no less flaming than my hair no matter how I tried to cover it. I have tried to hide that flaming soul. To quench its fire. To not do what I want to do, because it has so often not turned out the way I thought it would. I have tried not to be Adon.
“I don’t think I could cloak myself from Adon,” he muttered.
“Why not? If he can cloak himself from you?”
“He cloaks everything,” said Leor. He felt depressed, and turned the subject. “I think you ought to go and have a talk with Durba.”
“Why?” demanded Maeneb. “What about?” She sounded almost angry.
“Why? Because she looks up to you, and a kind word or two might help. As for what about…” He spread his hands. “Does it matter? It’s the act of talking that makes the difference.”
“I don’t see that,” said Maeneb. But after a moment she nudged her horse ahead to draw level with the cart. It was another moment or two before he heard her speak to Durba, making some comment on the roughness of the road. Her tone was not kind, not unkind. He sighed.
But then Yaret rode up to the cart on her new horse, Poda. A fine mare, too fine for her really, he thought, and she evidently thought so too. She hadn’t wanted to ride it, saying her little Melmet hack had served her well; but Huldarion had insisted. The little Melmet hack was carrying baggage in the rear instead.
Now Yaret joined the two women in conversation, to Leor’s great surprise: because Maeneb had been speaking Vonnish, and so did she.
Yaret spoke very halting, rather strangely accented Vonnish. She would try out a few words and then wait for Maeneb to correct her. Even Durba smiled at her attempts and tried to stammer out a word or two, never getting further than the first letter.
Nearby, Parthenal laughed. Then, in a long stream of rapid, idiosyncratic Vonnish he told Yaret just what a slow and rustic illiterate donkey she was to be riding such a noble horse.
“Say that again,” said Yaret eagerly. “One bit at a time. Slow and… what?”
He said it again, and now more of them were laughing as she carefully repeated it, with Parthenal correcting her accent until she got it right.
“Could you teach me some Vonnish swear words?” she asked.
“There aren’t any,” said Rothir.
She looked over at him with a hint of mischief in her eyes. “No, you won’t know them. I remember, you’re unfailingly polite. But Parthenal isn’t.”
“You really don’t want to know any words that Parthenal can teach you,” Thoronal put in.
“But swear words are always useful. I could say them to the Kelvhans and they’d never know.”
“Don’t do that,” said Rothir.
“Melmet, then. There are one or two of them that I’d quite like to swear at. A man called Inthed, for a start.”
“Why? What did he do to you?”
She shrugged. “He’s just a turnip-head. But he’s stuck it out this far, so I don’t want to insult him too conspicuously.”
Now suggestions came thick and fast, and the laughter became more general as Yaret repeated them, mangling the words with an air of enquiring innocence. He could tell that it was a relief for the Riders to have an excuse to laugh.
The dead were not dismissed, but they could be put behind them for a while. The elastic thread of memory and regret would be drawn out further and further as they moved west, but it would never break. Lost, but not forgotten, Leor thought. In the end everything would be forgotten. But not yet.
It was a three day ride to reach the western marches. The journey, through increasingly unappetising swampland, was without incident – to Leor’s relief. He’d had enough of incident for a while.
Not much changed except that Sashel and one or two others of the wounded were allowed to leave the carts and ride. Durba only ventured on a horse for short periods, because still she trembled, and could not speak. Leor thought she ought not to be there. Yaret spent much of her time with Durba during the day, talking to her as if nothing were amiss, and in the evenings camped with her and Shebel the herb-mistress and three other women.
Leor himself seemed to have been similarly adopted by Theol, who took care to include him in the general conversations; during which Leor became aware that he was not disliked by the Riders as he had thought, so much as feared. No, feared was the wrong word. They were cautious of him – even deferential. They could not forget that he was a wizard.
There was no deference from Veron, however. Now and then Veron would gallop out of some unknown region on his wiry horse to report tersely to Huldarion. He and a few of the huntsmen were clearing up the edges, as he put it; but there wasn’t much that needing clearing. The small groups of stonemen they had tracked down were apparently befuddled with pain, and unable to put up any effective fight. Veron seemed almost disappointed.
“And the huntress?” Yaret asked him. “Where is she now? Can she travel this far east and south?”
Leor would not have dared to ask him such a question. Last time he had mentioned his wife to Veron, the man had looked straight past him as if he hadn’t spoken. Or wasn’t even there. So that was one way of cloaking himself, with Veron at least… Merely speak of the forbidden, and become instantly invisible.
But it seemed that it was a subject not forbidden to Yaret. For Veron replied,
“If there is need, she can travel far. But she neither needs nor wants to.”
“She belongs in the mountains?” The austere blue-white peaks were now diminishing behind them, looking even more untouchable with distance.
“For preference.”
“How does she travel?” asked Yaret, cautiously enough. But it was a question too many, for Veron gave her a look as sharp as a knife.
“How she chooses to,” he said. And a minute later he had galloped off again.
“You’re bold,” commented Rothir.
“I have as much right to talk of the huntress as he does,” she replied with a shrug.
“And more than any of us from the south do, I suppose. You worship her in Obandiro?”
That too was bold, thought Leor, surprised that Rothir could speak so casually not just of the huntress but of Obandiro – as if it were not gone. Leor himself had talked of it to Yaret in hushed tones.
However, hushed tones were apparently unnecessary; Yaret showed no sign of distress.
Indeed, if anything, she seemed glad of the chance to talk about her stricken homeland. Leor was made aware – as he was so frequently – that he really did not understand people very well.
“We don’t worship the huntress,” she answered. “But we do revere her. We treasure her.”
“Do you have temples?” asked Rothir.
“There are no temples to her – nor to any other being for that matter. Whatever people in Obandiro may worship they hold in their hearts.”
Again Leor found his thoughts reverting to Adon, who claimed to be a god; and who, like a particularly selfish god, desired power and worship above all else. The power, he thought,
was not worth much to Adon without the worship – even if it was the glory of being feared and hated. Anything but being ignored. People had to notice him, or rather, notice his effects.
Leor felt that in this he understood Adon better than he did any human. But then both Adon and he himself were divided from humanity.
Yet could Adon do as the huntress did, and transform himself into another creature? He could certainly make himself appear to, as Leor could if needed. But that was only in appearance, not true transformation.
What sort of creature, he mused, would Adon be? Leor was rather fond of snakes; so not a snake. He was not fond of cockroaches, but admired their resilience. So not a cockroach. He had heard of a giant lizard in the east that ate its prey alive, extremely slowly. That might be the closest.
And his thought the other day that Adon could be here, now, in the train of Kelvhan soldiers, still lingered in his mind. It was unnerving. He told himself that Adon would not bother coming to these western borderlands. He had spoiled and destroyed them long ago, and would find nothing in them to attract him now.
Except Huldarion. And, perhaps, Leor himself…. But Huldarion had little power as yet, and Leor had forsworn his own, as Adon surely knew. There could be no contest of wizardry to draw him. Doubtless he felt for Leor nothing but contempt.
The two columns came to a halt at the edge of a ruined town. This place was not burnt, but had long collapsed. Moss and ivy crept over its broken walls. Leor remembered it from many years ago: not much of a place back then. Nice people, though. Hospitable, until the land had failed, thanks to Adon’s exploitation, when famine had driven them to move elsewhere.
General Istard of the Western Borderlands emerged from the dilapidated gatehouse to meet them and to hold an immediate council. Leor was gratified to find that he was now a dignitary in the Kelvhan commander’s eyes: for Rhadlun invited him to attend the gathering of captains inside the gatehouse.
He was not so gratified when Rhadlun, outlining the Kelvhan victory to the General, described the routing of the stonemen by the wolves, and then added:
“This was done by the wizard Leor’s power. A most valuable asset to our army.”
Rhadlun gave Leor an approving nod. Leor opened his mouth to put him right. At a single, tiny shake of the head from Huldarion he closed it again.
General Istard was eyeing him suspiciously, with some disdain. “I’m sure. However, I don’t think your powers will be required here, master wizard. There’s only the mopping up left to be done. We managed to deal with the stonemen perfectly well without a wizard’s help.” Leor bowed, relieved.
“Of course, the numbers here were smaller,” Rhadlun said.
“That is true,” the General conceded. “It was a mighty victory that you won in the north.”
To Leor’s watchful eyes, the General was careful to flatter Rhadlun; showed genuine respect towards Huldarion; and disapproved of Leor himself. Some people were like that about wizardry. He didn’t mind. In fact he tended to admire them for it.
The plan for “mopping up” was duly debated and agreed. It was perhaps not such a trivial matter as the General had implied, for there were still plenty of stonemen roaming the western marches, but in small uncoordinated bands rather than an army. Their chief commanders had been killed and their base ransacked by the General’s men.
“You must have had some losses,” said Huldarion in a sober tone.
The General nodded. “Sixty-five,” he said, and Leor could see the pain in his eyes.
Not so Rhadlun, evidently. “A small price to pay.”
“Not to the men concerned,” said Huldarion quietly. “We will honour them in due course, once the task is finished.”
It was agreed that the newly arrived troops would ride out to the Marches without delay and then split into twos and threes, sweeping the widest possible area for stray stonemen.
For the Vonn, this meant falling into their accustomed pairings. Rothir and Parthenal were to lead out the greater part of the Vonn towards the southern half of the region: Huldarion and Thoronal along with the General would take on the north. Huldarion manoeuvred for this arrangement, with Kelvha filling in the middle. Leor suspected that Huldarion had no confidence in Kelvha sweeping the edges thoroughly; however, he managed to make it seem as if it were Kelvha’s own idea.
Leor himself had no usual riding partner amongst the Vonn. After the council had broken up and he had returned to the troops, he was adjusting Bryddesda’s tack and wondering to whom he should attach himself when Yaret came up to him.
“Ride with me,” she said. “I have no partner either. I was going to make a three with Maeneb and Durba.”
“Durba? Is she fit to ride?”
“Probably not,” said Yaret. “But she insists, and Huldarion allows her. Maybe he thinks that it will help her to recover. They don’t seem to be expecting too much trouble here.”
“Nobody can be sure of that. It only takes one ambush… How would she react?”
“That’s why I was going to make a three with them. If you partner me instead, we can ride close by without it being too obvious to Durba.”
“I don’t think she should be here at all,” said Leor. But he saw the sense in Yaret’s suggestion.
As they cantered out in the line behind Rothir and Parthenal a thin rain fell feebly on them.
This was a barren, treeless country, although to Leor’s memory it had once been rich with orchards. Everything that grew here now looked weak and sickly. The place could hardly have been made much worse by the charred streaks of the darkburn trails and the detritus of war. A low haze of smoke hung over the whole scene.
Yaret halted a few times to collect spare arrows. They passed several stoneman corpses, noting that somebody had removed the stones from the heads; Leor did not know which side was responsible. It was all he could do to stop himself from counting the black holes in those skulls, already defaced by carrion crows. How old would that one be? Fourteen?
Don’t think about it. No certainty in any case. Don’t talk about it either: Huldarion’s orders.
He looked away, glancing back at Durba. She seemed to be all right. Now the Riders spread out to begin the sweep of the marches, each pair about fifty yards apart; he could see them stretching to the horizon on his left. And on his other side, beyond Maeneb and Durba –
they had allowed that gap to close to twenty yards – his eye was caught by the flashing gear and glittering harnesses of Kelvhan horsemen. He wondered how much time they spent polishing their gilt and bronze.
Maeneb gave a yell. A lone figure had jumped up from the tussocky plain to run. A stoneman. She galloped after it, unsheathing her sword, while Durba held back. Leor rode after Maeneb, but she needed no assistance: the stoneman was already dead before he reached them.
“He didn’t even fight,” she said in some surprise. “Yet he had his axe with him.”
“But if he had no food, no drugs to quell his pain, maybe he had no fight left in him,” Leor commented.
That seemed to set the pattern. Stonemen still lurked in places, hiding in dips in the ground, amongst the long yellow tussocks of dead grass. Some did not even bother running.
They just lay and moaned. It was hard for him not to count the stones; hard not to wonder how old each man might be. There was no triumph in killing them, but Leor knew it was the only thing that could be done, for without their athelid they would die in any case, in an
exhaustion of agony. Now that they were helpless individuals, and not an attacking army, he could feel pity for them.
Kelvha evidently felt otherwise. There were distant cheers as a stoneman darted up from the ground and was overtaken by a cavalryman before he had taken a dozen staggering steps.
This was necessary, Leor told himself again. The cheering wasn’t, though.
Yaret had stopped using her bow after shooting only once. “A sword is surer,” she said grimly. “Quicker.”
He nodded and glanced again at Durba. So far she had pursued no stonemen. But presumably she needed to prove something to herself just by being here. At least she hadn’t turned and fled. Indeed, she looked quite determined as she steered her horse carefully around a patch of prickly scrub. The ground was rutted, so that they had to slow.
“Stop,” said Yaret suddenly.
He stopped at once. “What is it?”
“Can’t you feel it? Durba! Stop!” she yelled.
But Durba must have been out of earshot, for she kept riding on until suddenly her horse halted, bucking fiercely. Durba was almost pitched over its head: she fell sideways out of the saddle and slithered to the ground next to a mass of dead gorse bushes. Over them, the haze of smoke was thicker than elsewhere.
When Leor rode anxiously across to help her, he felt it: a fierce and savage wave of fear.
Almost over-powering dread. So familiar by now, and yet it came as a new shock of horror every time. Darkburn…
But where was it? He couldn’t smell it, which was strange. His horse Bryddesda pulled his head round and refused to walk on any further. Fighting the dreadful weakness that came over him, he dismounted before hurrying to help Durba to her feet.
“Are you all right?”
She leant against him, clinging to his arms. She was shaking.
“D…d…”
“Yes, yes, I know.” Yet he could not see it. Where was it? “I won’t let it hurt you. Come back this way.”
He threw a rough shielding spell around them both as he began to lead her back. It was for her protection, after all, surely allowable in the circumstances: and the only person who could justly blame him for using magic was himself.
But the spell was not necessary, for no darkburn rushed out from an unseen hiding-place.
Meanwhile Yaret had dismounted too: she walked past them over the rough ground, motioning to Maeneb to stay away. If the darkburn fear affected her she did not show it.
Yaret halted just beyond the gorse bushes, looking through the smoke at the ground close to her feet. Leor could see nothing there. Then he heard a muffled clanking sound and a series of dull thumps: the earth vibrated slightly.
Yaret bent over to peer down before walking back towards them. Although her step was steady he saw how rigid her face was: it was held tight with the strain as she spoke.
“I can’t see it, but it’s there,” she said tersely. “It sounds as if it’s still trapped in its cage.
The whole thing’s fallen down a pit. Some sort of pot hole, or maybe an old mine-working.
It’s black in there, so I can’t see far, but it must be several yards down at least. The walls of the pit are burnt but they’re not burning now.”
“Don’t worry,” Leor said to Durba, who was still clinging to his arm. “It’s harmless there.
It can’t get out.”
Maeneb went over to where Yaret had stood. She too looked down; and then she pulled up an armful of grass, damp with the rain, and dropped it in the pit. A yellow flame flared high, before dying down again. A following plume of smoke grew like a thin grey tree, and then dissolved. The Riders on their right called over to ask what was going on.
“Darkburn,” Maeneb yelled back.
“We’ll just go round it,” said Leor. “Ignore it. It can’t hurt us.”
“C… c… c…”
“It’s harmless while it’s trapped in there,” he assured her. “We’ll walk the horses round this way.”
But Durba seemed frozen to the spot. It took him a few minutes to cajole her into walking even a few yards away – just far enough to allow the sense of dread to diminish. Not until then was he was able to leave her and go to retrieve her nervous horse; then he had to coax both it and Durba into taking a wide diversion round the pit.
They had not got very far before they were joined by a pair of curious Kelvhan soldiers who had ridden over.
“What’s going on?” demanded one.
“Darkburn,” answered Maeneb curtly. “It’s trapped in a hole.”
“Show us.” The Kelvhans left their horses, to accompany Maeneb to the pit’s edge. They looked in briefly; recoiled and hastily retreated. After a brief, vehement argument between the pair, one of them galloped off again.
Maeneb strode back to Leor and the others. She looked not just tense and jittery from her proximity to the darkburn, but also furiously angry.
“Well, that’s done it,” she said bitterly.
“What has?”
“Those turnip-headed Kelvhans want to keep it.”
“They what?”
“They want to pull the darkburn out and take it home with them.” Maeneb was almost spitting the words. “That’s what they’re saying, anyway. They’re wondering if the cage is still intact.”
“Dear stars in heaven,” said Leor. “Are they mad?”
“They mustn’t do that! It would be incredibly dangerous,” exclaimed Yaret.
“How are you going to stop them?” countered Maeneb. “They won’t take any notice of us.”
“We need to tell the others.” Immediately Yaret flung herself on to her horse, and galloped away towards the nearest Riders to their south.
“I don’t think we need worry too much,” said Leor to the other two women. “They’ll never be able to get it back up to the surface. The cage must weigh a ton or two at least, and it sounds as if it’s gone a long way down.”
“They could use horses to pull it out,” said Maeneb.
“They’d need a lot of horses to drag it up,” he argued. “It’s not like pulling a cart. And ropes would burn: so they’d have to use chains. I doubt if they’ve got that many chains handy, and even if they have, they’d need to get down into the pit and attach them to the cart somehow, without being burnt alive. I can’t think of a way of doing that.”
“B…b…b…”
“It’s all right,” added Leor reassuringly to Durba, “no-one is going to get burnt alive.
We’ll prevent them from even trying. There’s the Kelvhan commander coming over: I’ll have a word with him.”
He felt tenderly protective towards her. Patting her shoulder, he managed to unprise her clinging fingers from his arm and latch them on to Maeneb – who looked alarmed – before he strode over to speak with the Kelvhans.
It was Rhadlun who had arrived, with a number of his men. They were inspecting the pit from a safe distance when he walked up to meet them.
“My lord,” said Leor. “A stray darkburn. Best left where it is, I think.”
Rhadlun turned to him. “We want to keep this one.”
“To take back to Kelvha with us, if at all possible. To study and to understand the thing. It seems to be still trapped within its cage. If we can pull it out…”
“No, that’s nigh on impossible,” said Leor. “And even were it possible, it’s far too dangerous.”
“Not easy, granted. But there is a way.”
“There is no way that’s safe.”
Rhadlun looked at Leor with a considering expression. “No? I think differently. You are, after all, a wizard.”
Leor caught his breath. “What? I will not use my wizardry on such an enterprise.”
“Do you mean you couldn’t do it?”
He was nettled. “I could, certainly – but it would be most unwise. The danger to everyone concerned would be excessive.”
“I don’t see why,” said Rhadlun. “We can all stand clear while you lift the thing out. If the cage comes open, surely you can hold it closed? Once it’s on the ground, we’ll do the rest.”
“It’s not that simple!”
The Kelvhan commander raised his eyebrows. “You just told me you could lift the creature from the pit. And I saw the effects of your wizardry over the animals at the northern forts: that was undeniably strong magic, to make them fight in such a way. So are you now refusing us your aid, when we request it?”
Leor felt himself trapped. To say that he had forsworn magic would hold no sway with Rhadlun.
“I simply question the wisdom of trying to keep a darkburn captive,” he replied.
“Stonemen do it. Why shouldn’t we try? Especially now that we have plenty of their stones. We’re well protected if by any faint chance it did get loose.”
He tried again. “It’s not simply the physical danger. The effect on people’s minds – the terror that the darkburns induce – the stonemen were, I think, immune to that.”
“Yes. Drugged,” said Rhadlun. “According to those stonemen that the Baron took prisoner. I heard about those. It made me realise that we should have tried to take more prisoners ourselves – but not stonemen: they cannot be of use to us. Darkburns can. This is a golden opportunity.”
Leor did not know what to say. With some relief he saw Rothir galloping towards him, with Yaret’s horse trailing behind. Rothir would surely back him up.
Rothir jumped off his horse, looked at the pit and strode across to them, offering Rhadlun the briefest of bows.
“There is a darkburn in that ditch there, so I’m told?”
“Caged,” said Rhadlun. “The cage appears to be intact. The thing could be invaluable to us as an object of study. We would like to take it back to Kelvha.” As he expounded on his desire to have the darkburn pulled out, his words and tone implied that he was not to be denied.
Rothir listened without expression. “I appreciate your wish to understand the darkburn,”
he replied. “However, they are unpredictable things, and I believe that such an attempt would be both dangerous and unwise.”
“There is no danger at all with the right tools.”
“What tools?”
“You say this wizard is your ally,” said Rhadlun with a hint of lofty scorn. “He claims to be a friend to Kelvha. He has already told me that he can raise the darkburn using wizardry. I ask you, then, why will he not comply with my request? Is he, after all, an enemy to Kelvha –
or is he simply lying, and unable to do the feats he boasts of?”
“Let me discuss the matter with him,” said Rothir. He took Leor to one side while the Kelvhans waited.
“Could you do this thing?” he said to him abruptly.
“Yes, I could,” said Leor. “But I should not.”
“I agree. The very idea of taking a darkburn back to Kelvha… However.” Rothir frowned, thinking. “It’s clear that to refuse will displease Rhadlun greatly. It could jeopardise our whole alliance.”
“Then we need to ask Huldarion.”
“Yes, ideally, but Huldarion is miles away. It will take too long to find him and procure an answer. But I think that he would say that you should do it. We have the stones to keep us safe. How the Kelvhans deal with the darkburn once it’s out is up to them.”
“I could just say that I’m unable. I’m not so proud that I can’t do that.”
Rothir considered this, before shaking his head.
“I don’t think they’d believe you. Didn’t you tell Rhadlun you could do it?”
“I did, unfortunately.” Leor cursed his own pride.
“And they’ve already seen a powerful example of what they assume was your wizardry.”
Leor groaned. “The wolves weren’t my doing, though!” he protested.
“Whether they were or not is irrelevant. If you refuse to aid the Kelvhans now, they’ll see it as obstinacy at best, or at worst as outright hostility.” Rothir spoke with decision. “No, Leor: do it if you can. If I’m wrong and Huldarion objects, I take full responsibility.”
“I really don’t want to raise the darkburn.”
“I know. Sorry, Leor. Do it anyway. Can I help at all?”
“Just keep everyone well out of the way,” said Leor. He was angry – a little with Rothir, but mainly with the Kelvhan commander and his request which was actually an order. The arrogance of it: thinking he could not just control a darkburn, but command a wizard.
However, now he had to set his mind to the task. It must be several years since he’d attempted such strong magic; and for a dreadful moment he feared that he would find his power diminished, or that he would somehow have forgotten how to use it.
As soon as the onlookers were all safely standing back, he concentrated on the darkburn in the pit. He threw back his cloak with a flourish – a little theatre for the Kelvhans – and stretched out his hand. This too was theatre. It didn’t matter where his hand was; it was his will that mattered. Now, focusing his will, he stretched it out as well, in a way he had not done for a long time, feeling for the unseen cage.
And the power began to flow through him as it always used to do. He realised that he had forgotten – not how to use his wizardry – but how it felt. The sheer joy of it. The sense of force untrammelled; the feeling that he could do anything he wanted. It blazed through him as hot as any darkburn, but with a fire of life, not death.
Gradually, a ruddy glow of iron bars and then the piece of night that was the darkburn became visible as the cage was lifted, rattling, from the pit. Leor, both arms outstretched now, felt exultant. Curious how he made the earth expel it. He himself did not know how it worked, any more than a man knows how he beats his heart: he knows that muscles do this and that, but the actual thing does itself.
The wizardry does itself, he thought, and I am a mere instrument. It was the first time he had ever had such a notion.
The cage was fully out. It was on its side: he laid it down amidst crushed gorse bushes, looking somewhat twisted and distorted. After carefully setting it upright he next sealed the joints and door with spells to guard against any accident. Behind the bars he saw the darkburn huddled, a small blot of shadow emanating heat and stink and fear. All those were strong to his senses now.
It had taken about a minute. He looked around almost expecting applause – it had been done well, and certainly deserved applause, he thought – and saw Rothir, grave, and Yaret holding Durba who hid her face. Maeneb stood apart and glowering. The Kelvhans simply looked intrigued, while Rhadlun strode over to the darkburn cage as if he took the extraordinary feat for granted.
As he approached, Rhadlun retrieved an object from his pocket and held it out. It must have been a stone; for there was a loud thump as the darkburn tried to hurl itself through the back of the cage. Luckily, though warped, the iron structure was intact. Its wheels were still in place; long chains dangled from it down into the pit. Around the cage the grass was already steaming and starting to curl up.
“Bring those up,” said Rhadlun, pointing to the dangling chains. He meant Leor.
Unwillingly, Leor complied, and Rhadlun immediately ordered them to be affixed to horses.
More Kelvhans were called over to perform the task.
“Happy?” said Leor to Rothir.
“No. But I think you had to do it. We can leave them to it now. We need to continue our sweep of the Marches. I’d advise you to get well away before the Kelvhans ask you to do anything else.”
It was good advice. Rhadlun offered no more than the dismissive wave of a hand as Leor announced his intention to move on.
He strode away fuming. Rothir was right: he needed to get away before Rhadlun tried to give him any more orders. What an ungrateful, over-bearing man. He almost hoped despite himself that the darkburn would give the Kelvhans trouble. Mounting his horse, he beckoned to Yaret.
“Come on,” he said, “Let’s move. We’ve still got a job to do.”
“Maeneb will go with you. I might take Durba back to camp,” said Yaret. “I think she’s had enough of this.”
And so have I, Leor thought irately, riding off so fast that Maeneb had to hurry to catch up.
Resentful anger burnt in his chest. He was almost tempted to blast the Kelvhan commander off his feet and throw him in the pit: that would show him what command really was…
Of course he would not do any such thing. But he had been reminded that if he chose, he could. His whole body tingled as the sense of his own power ran through him; like a river, purposeful and fast and strong, that had just been released after being so long dammed up.
“What do you want to do?” said Yaret, her hands on Durba’s shoulders.
“A… a…”
“Either nod or shake your head. Do you want to continue the sweep out here, and keep hunting for stonemen?”
It was more of a twitch than a shake of the head.
“Do you want to go back to the camp?”
Another twitch. Yaret repressed a sigh as she tried to puzzle this out.
“My guess is,” she said, “that you’ve had enough of chasing stonemen, but you don’t want to be seen as giving up. Am I right?”
A definite nod.
“I admit I’ve had enough of it as well,” said Yaret. She thought of the four stonemen she had killed in the last hour, while trying not to notice the numbers of their stones… Now that they barely tried to fight back, the slaughter sickened her. Yet it had to be done, to put the men out of their misery as much as for revenge. She just wanted not to be the one who did it.
So she patted Durba’s shoulder, and added, “You’ve managed really well to get this far.
But now I’ll take you back to camp. I can pretend my leg is giving me difficulty and that I need to rest it.”
A shake of the head. “B… b… b…”
“All right, Durba. I know you don’t want to give up, but I have my own reasons for wishing to go back. There’s something useful we can do. Interested?”
A nod. Yaret glanced around to make sure that Rothir and Leor were well out of earshot before continuing. But Leor was already galloping off, while Rothir stood at a distance, watching the Kelvhans with a frown.
“I propose that we discreetly follow the Kelvhans who are going to take the darkburn back to their own camp,” she told Durba. “I want to make sure that they don’t do anything stupid.
They seem to think they can control it, even though they have hardly any experience of darkburns. I know you don’t like darkburns – nobody does – but you won’t get close to it, and we have the stones to keep us safe. At least, I hope you still have yours?”
Durba took a hand from her pocket and opened it to show two stones.
“Good. Then do you agree?”
A small nod.
“All right. That’s what we’ll do.” Yaret reached down and fiddled with the straps of her wooden leg, before beginning to walk over towards Poda. The leg buckled as it freed itself from its bindings, so that she tumbled over in a very convincing manner.
Ouch, she thought as she sat up. Too convincing. She rubbed the stump and picked up the wooden leg as if in dismay. As she made a performance of trying to re-affix it, some of the Kelvhans were looking at her; one of them laughed. It was Rothir who came over to her aid.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine. The strapping just gave way. I think I’d better go back to the camp to fix it. I’ll take Durba with me.” She found that despite her resolve to say nothing of her motives, it hurt her to deceive him. Did Rothir ever deceive anybody? Probably not. So she added, “It’ll give me a chance to make sure they don’t do anything stupid with that darkburn.”
Rothir sighed: she read both resignation and exasperation in his face. “I wish that had gone undiscovered.”
“It was bound to be discovered at some point.”
“But not by Kelvha.” A crease had appeared between his brows. “I hope I did the right thing in asking Leor to retrieve it. But I don’t think I could have refused.”
The crease deepened. “Anyway, you keep your distance from it, do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
She saluted him. He nodded and strode off to exchange a terse word with the Kelvhans before riding away on Narba.
Yaret sat on the ground fiddling with her leg and watching the Kelvhans, who were attaching the cage’s chains to four unhappy horses. The cage had bars on either side, but not the front, which like the back was solid metal – presumably to protect any towing horses or men from the full force of the darkburn’s heat. Even so, in places the metal glowed a faint dull red. The fine rain hissed and spat as it landed on it.
The cage’s iron wheels appeared to be undamaged; but once it was set trundling across the uneven ground, its progress was slow and very unsteady. The horses didn’t like it. They strained and heaved, trying to get away from the darkburn. And the darkburn threw itself repeatedly against the back of the cage, trying to get away from the horses, until Rhadlun told his men sternly to remove the stones that were set into the harnesses.
Once that was done, he made any men who were carrying stones move further from the cage. He himself led the procession from some thirty yards ahead. The darkburn quietened as it was towed away at a painfully laborious pace.
Yaret stood up and made a show of testing her leg before limping over to mount Poda.
“Come on,” she said; and she and Durba set off at a safe distance behind the slowly trundling cart.
They were probably still too close to it for Rothir’s liking; but Rothir was no longer there to watch, which was a relief. After the great joy of her reunion with the Riders – a reunion which she suspected had given Rothir as much concern as pleasure – and then the great wrenching pain of events in the infirmary, Yaret now felt a confusion of delight and doubt at being with the Vonn. Although she hoped she could be useful in some minor way, she certainly did not want to cause Rothir any more concern. She held him in her heart, because he had found her, twice now: he had brought her back to life: he had helped her up from the dreadful pit of grief, and from the stony shore of death beneath the cliffs along the Thore.
Not that he would see it with the same intensity. It had been merely kindness in him – that, and duty.
But Rothir was not the only one she aimed not to upset right now. In a strange juxtaposition of cares, she did not want to distress the darkburn by getting any closer; and neither did she wish to subject Durba or the horses to its sense of horror. So she kept back to where the aura would not cause a major problem.
It was a tedious and uneventful journey. Rhadlun, at the front, had to stop at frequent intervals while the slowly jolting cart caught up with him. He soon grew restless and impatient, and after giving a few commands to the four men who accompanied him, he wheeled his horse round and rode off back across the plain to where the action was.
Ten minutes later two more of the men – the senior pair, judging by the quality of their gear – did the same. They galloped off to more exciting duties, leaving the last two men in charge of the darkburn.
Yaret was appalled. Did they have no idea how dangerous the thing was? It was true that the stones ought to protect them; but if the cart tipped over on the uneven ground and the darkburn got out, it could run off to wreak havoc elsewhere.
Elsewhere was a long way off, it was true, but the two remaining men weren’t paying enough attention, in her opinion. They glanced back at her and Durba, and evidently made some joke between themselves. Apart from that they ignored the women, just as they ignored the darkburn rumbling along behind them. The back of the cage was glowing deep red in one corner, so Yaret guessed that was where the darkburn huddled.
“How are you feeling?” she asked Durba. “Are we far enough away from it?”
A nod.
“Good,” said Yaret. “You stay at this distance. I’m going a little closer.”
“B… b…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Hold my stones for me.” She handed over her two stones to Durba, who gazed at her doubtfully.
“I just want to take a closer look,” Yaret assured her. “I won’t do anything foolish.”
Well, that was a lie, she thought as she spurred Poda on towards the cart. What could be more foolish than trying to talk to a darkburn? She didn’t even know what had put the idea into her head.
But nobody had ever, in her hearing, simply spoken to a darkburn. They screamed, and shouted, and wailed at them, and howled, and died. The dying was the part to avoid.
The two men – even had they taken any interest – would not have seen her as she drew up behind the heavily trundling cage. She realised that she was definitely getting used to the grim aura. After all the exposure to darkburns amidst the horrors of the battlefield, this solitary captive did not seem so terrible. She could bear the fear if she made herself understand that it was outside her.
Poda was snorting and trying to root the reins from her hands, however: so Yaret dismounted and let the mare trot back to Durba. The cart was moving so slowly that she did not need to ride – she could walk as fast as it was travelling. The warmth grew more intense, but from the back it was still bearable. She drew her cloak around her for protection as she moved round to the side and felt the heat flame like a sudden furnace through the bars.
“Be still,” she said, for she didn’t want it hurling itself over to her side. It was still, but not because of her words, she was sure. Ridiculous to be talking to a darkburn. And she wouldn’t be able to stay this close for more than a few seconds.
She glanced sideways, screwing up her eyes against the heat and her mind against the fear.
The darkburn was black and small – smaller than she was – a blur with no discernible limbs.
Perhaps it had a head. But it seemed to change and shift even in the brief moment that she studied it.
Then she had to retreat back to the less intense heat behind the cart. After giving herself a minute to recover, she tried again. By now she had a little more of a plan. A stupid plan, but still.
This time when she moved up to the bars she spoke to the huddle in the cage.
“Who are you? Do you have a name?” She said it in Standard, then in Kelvhan, and finally in Bandiran. There was a thump. No words, of course. How could there be? It could pump out fear and horror. But it could not speak.
Leor would be better at this, or Maeneb, she reflected as she again retreated. Either of them might be able to find a way to speak without needing words.
But then it occurred to her: had she herself not done that with the Farwth? She had simply thought, not spoken.
So now, from behind the cart, still sweating in the heat, she thought her questions at the darkburn. Since she could not think without language, she thought in Bandiran, asking where it was from, and what it wanted. There was no answer, naturally – either in her head or out of it. Just the despair, unchanging.
Such despair. Although she tried to sit outside the feeling it was becoming almost overwhelming. She began to pity the darkburn. Even if despair was simply something that it used to weaken and dismay its enemies, might it not also have to experience the pain itself?
Could you manufacture anguish without feeling its effects?
Poor thing, she thought, this little smoky rag of heat and darkness, lost and trapped so far from home – wherever its home was. But certainly not here, in an iron cage.
And although she knew it was a crazy thing to do, she began to sing to it.
She sang in Bandiran. It was a lullaby that she had sung to Dil, and as she sang she thought of Dil, that small, scared, lonely boy trying to be brave; and she put her heart into the song. She did not even know if the darkburn could hear anything through the iron of the cage.
It had no visible ears. Perhaps it heard, or sensed, something. At least it did not thump.
So after that short song, baking in the darkburn’s heat behind the cart, she sang another.
This was one of Madeo’s songs, about coming to the end of a long journey; a homecoming.
Although it was soothing, the ending was ambiguous. It might even have been about death. It was a song she had come back to often in Obandiro. Ever since she had found it buried in her memory during the search for the skeln, it had been recurring to her without her volition.
As she sang, the unseen darkburn was still silent. But the feeling of despair increased. It brought Yaret up short. She stopped walking: the cart drew away, the despair receded. She gave herself a few moments to cool down and think.
It was a redoubling of the darkburn’s weaponry. An attack. Perhaps.
Perhaps it was simply despair.
She glanced back at Durba, who looked worried but otherwise seemed to be all right. She was too far away to hear any of the singing.
While she walked between the cart and Durba, another song came to Yaret’s mind.
Striding forward to close the distance to the darkburn, she ignored the burning of her face and sang once more.
This was a song of comfort to the lonely. It was one she had not sung to Dil and the rest of them back home; because it was a song for solitude. It had run through her head intermittently during her recent trek across the scarred and lonely northlands.
It was a reminder that the sun was always with you, and the moon, and that the stars would not desert you and that the earth would be your friend for ever. Whether or not it was by Madeo she did not know. Part of it was by Yaret herself.
She just wanted to lessen the despair. And somewhat to her surprise it did seem to wane. It was still there, but now there was also another emotion that she could not put a name to. A sense of waiting: a sense of reaching.
And not once had the darkburn tried to throw itself towards her.
She felt suddenly afraid; and this was an inborn fear, not one generated from outside.
What had just happened? Had the darkburn truly responded to her singing? If so, what did it mean? She stood stock-still while the cart moved on ahead. Then, deeply troubled, she walked back to Durba and remounted her horse.
“It got too hot for me,” she said. They continued to ride, very slowly, at a distance from the cart. She did not try to talk to Durba. She was all the time considering what this might signify.
After a while the camps and the ruined town were in sight although it would still take a half-hour or so to reach them. Time for one more attempt.
What could she try to say to it? I mean you no harm? Patently untrue. If the darkburn got out she would do her best to destroy it – hack it to pieces with her sword. No matter what the feelings, it was a thing with one sole purpose: to burn and kill. She wanted to ask it where it came from, but did not know how.
It responded to song. So use another song.
She left the horses and walked swiftly forward again while spinning a song round in her mind. It took some recalling, but she wound it in from the depths of her memory. An old one, this, and definitely not Madeo’s: it had come down from the mountains where her people had lived long before they came south to Obandiro.
It was called The Count, for it was a count of creatures, from the oldest to the newest, since the world was made. She had not thought of it for many years because it was regarded
as childish doggerel. Yet it baffled children – so many of the creatures listed were imaginary, or at least long gone and forgotten. The tune was strange but simple: it used an archaic scale.
The scale of animals was archaic too. It began with worms and fish and worked up to birds via the creatures of the land. She sang her way through these, wondering if any of it reached the darkburn’s consciousness. Within the cage, all was quiet, at least, so she kept going through the snakes and lizards. She sang of a number of creatures that she did not know, or not by the names the song used for them, as least. What was a gallowcat?
Griff and grogg and gallowcat,
and fenny tall and ferret thin,
Slow the brock and quick the stoat,
and in and out the hob and lin…
There was a crash as the darkburn hit the side of the cage.
Yaret ran around from the back to take a look. The blur of darkness was crouching against the bars on the far side. As she watched, it crashed itself against the furthest bars again, making the whole cage rock.
Had it been her words that set it off? Or something else? Looking round, she saw a body almost hidden in the grass. A dead stoneman lay sprawled there, unnoticed until now… That must have done it. Although there were black holes where his stones ought to have been, some might still remain on the underside of his head. She walked over to check the corpse.
But she never got there. At the noise of the crash, the two Kelvhan horsemen had turned around and seen her. Angrily they yelled at her to move away. She saluted them and headed back to wait for to Durba.
“I think we’ll make our own way home from here,” she said, climbing back on to Poda. It would be better not to draw any more attention to herself; so they diverged from the cart’s route and rode south towards the Riders’ camp. She watched the cage with its imprisoned darkburn being dragged slowly away.
What had she learnt? That the darkburn liked her singing. Maybe. That change in feeling: that had been noticeable.
And she had noticed something else. Just before the darkburn hit the iron bars, there had been another flash of feeling. Hard to identify, but sharp; piercing. Perhaps it had simply been alarm, as the darkburn registered the presence of the dead stoneman. Perhaps it had been something else.
Now that they were no longer following the cart, the two of them rode fast, and arrived back at their own camp while the darkburn was still trundling across the sad plain leaving a thin wake of steam. She watched it from a distance, trying to make out where it would eventually be stowed. It was heading directly for the ruined town in which the Kelvhans had set up their camp.
Surely they wouldn’t keep it inside there with them? That would be far too close: too dangerous. And they wouldn’t be able to put up with the fear.
No trace of the darkburn fear could reach her now. But as she and Durba rode on side by side, Yaret relived that strange, quick flash of feeling. What had it been?
She felt deeply dissatisfied, as if she were missing something that ought to be obvious to her. Something that lay in hiding, buried in the depths of her mind: something that she needed to lift up and to drag out.
Yaret spent the afternoon with Durba, endeavouring to create some feeling of normality by involving her in mundane tasks. The Riders had pitched camp to the south of the ruined town: although less well-sheltered than the Kelvhan company’s quarters, their camping-ground was dry and flat. Not too far from the tents stood huddled groves of trees, handy for collecting firewood, while a couple of thin streams trickled past close by.
At one of these streams, they cleaned their gear and washed out a few clothes. Durba seemed fully able to do these tasks, though to Yaret’s carefully undemanding comments she made no reply except an occasional stammering assent. She was still trembling at times but not as badly as she had been on the battlefield.
Yaret was reminded of Renna’s muteness on her first arrival in Obandiro, which had seemed to her a reasonable response to the horrors that the girls had gone through. Renna had been cured – if that was the right word – by Anneke’s arrival; so Yaret hoped that the gentle familiarity of their activities now would help Durba in the same way.
“Shall we go and gather some wood for the cooking fires?” she suggested. “Do the other Riders a favour. We won’t have to go far: we’ll try that nearest copse.”
Durba nodded; so they rode together to the copse a mere half-mile to the east, taking Helba with them as an additional pack-horse. It was a relief to turn their faces away from the churned-up battle-plain.
When they reached the trees they found them to be mostly spindly ash and willow, with young hazel muscling its vigorous way through to sprout its robust, rounded leaves; and here and there were delicate bower-bushes, already in flower though not in leaf. All was peaceful but for a lone thrush, repeating each inquiring phrase before trying out another, and the hum of bees investigating the creamy blossom of the bower-bushes, enlivened by the sun.
The subtle intricacies of the natural world continued here as if a hundred miles from battle or from stonemen. They could stroll in airy ease. There was plenty of dead wood lying around, and as they bent to gather sticks, it seemed to Yaret that Durba was relaxing at long last.
Were faraway stonewomen were doing their own harvesting and gathering? she wondered. Somebody must do it, after all. Would the women too have stones set in their heads?
No – don’t think about the stonemen or the war. Here is enough. An early butterfly in jerky, eager flight. A fastidious kirrfinch gathering twigs for nest-building; old nests hiding there in the matted bushes. And those white lilies, arched and bowed as if they’re praying underneath the trees… I know those, don’t I? Springbells. Oh, that sweetness.
It made her heart lurch. The thin, sweet perfume of the lilies took her straight back to Obandiro, to the edges of the Bander woods, the lilies pale against the green: and she felt a sudden, rather dreadful surge of homesickness; a tenderness just on the wrong side of joy, the wrong side of memory.
She stood up abruptly with a gasp. That emotion. That was it. That was the sudden flash of feeling that had come from the imprisoned darkburn.
Not quite homesickness, but something close. Regret. A sort of longing.
“A… a… a…?”
Yaret realised that she was standing with her mouth open.
“I’m all right,” she said, “just thinking about supper,” and she picked up her pile of brushwood to load it on to Helba’s back. The bigger chunks they threw into sacks to be carried by the other horses.
“It’s a nice spot,” she commented as they secured the load. “Did you see those springbells?”
Durba nodded.
“And we’ve done well here. The Riders should be grateful: we’ve saved them all a job.”
“Yes.”
A whole word. That was progress. But Yaret, deciding it would be wiser not to take much notice of it, said only, “We should head home now.”
As they led the horses back towards the camp they could see the returning pairs of Riders scattered across the marches. Yaret hoped that they had all come back safe, and strained her eyes to check. Beyond the Riders, she could see the men of Melmet on their smaller horses, also returning to their own camp: there was Jerred, and that must be Inthed riding alongside him. She had been surprised at Inthed’s decision to continue this far with the army, and had said so to Jerred the previous day.
“He’s got debts,” Jerred had replied succinctly. “Nobody waiting for him in Gostard apart from a load of disgruntled tradesmen.”
“Ah.” She had reflected that Inthed did not lack for courage: although a turnip-head, he was not a coward. “But you’ve got a wife and family waiting for you, Jerred. What are you still doing here?”
Jerred had merely shrugged. “Same as you. My wife knows me. I’ve sent word home: my sons are old enough to look after the business for a while.”
Jerred, she thought now, was surely an old soldier reawakened to the lure of battle. While she was musing about what previous campaigns he might have fought in, there was a wordless cry from Durba.
“Ah!”
“What?” She turned round. Durba was a dozen yards behind her, staring at something next to Yaret.
Or rather, staring at nothing next to her. Yaret had the impression that an instant earlier there had been a small figure standing within touching distance of her feet. Now there was only a dead stump.
“Oh! It’s a lin,” she exclaimed, in a mixture of pleasure and bewilderment, because she had not seen a lin for so long now. This was the first one since she had arrived at Melmet. But ever since then, her mind had been on other things. However, this quiet, shrubby countryside was certainly the right sort of landscape for lins, when it wasn’t full of army.
“We need to say the rhyme,” she added, and duly recited it first in Standard and then in Bandiran. Not that a lin out here would understand Bandiran: even so, it was only courteous.
Durba was looking baffled.
“You know about lins?” asked Yaret.
“Hob.” Another word. Yaret gave a silent cheer.
Then she explained about the lin’s grace and the difference between lins and hobs and woodwones, while they walked back to the camp where the tired Riders were now milling around. They took the laden horses over to where Rothir and Parthenal’s companies had pitched their tents and were stripping off their war gear.
“Ah,” said Theol, “firewood, and plenty of it too. That’s a welcome sight.”
“How did it go out there?”
“Clean as a whistle,” said Theol. “I think we got all the stragglers. Some of the stoneman troops might have escaped further west, but not many. I don’t think they’ll bother us now.
Huldarion ought to be pleased.” He looked over to Huldarion, who was striding towards them.
It was impossible to tell if Huldarion were pleased or not. His face was like carven stone.
“Rothir,” he said. “On whose authority did you tell Leor to raise that darkburn for the Kelvhans?”
Rothir looked up and dropped his leather breastplate to the ground.
“On my own authority,” he said. “But I thought it was probably what you would have wanted.”
“On the contrary. I would not have wanted it at all. Why didn’t you send word to ask me first?”
“It would have taken too long. Commander Rhadlun was impatient.”
“And so were you. You should have refused him,” said Huldarion.
“And incurred his displeasure?” Rothir asked. “He was already implying that to refuse would mean that we were enemies to Kelvha. Or that Leor was, at least.”
“Better that Leor should appear an enemy of Kelvha than become their plaything – their pet wizard, that they can order to do as they like.” Yaret became aware that despite his impassive expression, Huldarion was extremely angry. Although he did not raise his voice, his tone was withering.
Rothir looked him full in the face, his own expression as stern and inscrutable as his chief’s. They were of a height, and while Rothir was the broader, Huldarion had a whipcord toughness which seemed accentuated by his scars.
“I hardly think that that will happen,” said Rothir evenly.
“You hardly think at all. You should have stayed out of the matter and taken Leor with you.”
“To be fair,” Yaret put in, “it seems Leor had already told the Kelvhans that he could get the darkburn out.” Huldarion turned on her a look which made her wish she hadn’t spoken.
She lowered her eyes to the ground.
“It is not only that you have now given Kelvha a hold on Leor,” said Huldarion. “You have given them a darkburn. What do you think that they intend to do with it, Rothir?”
“To study it, they said. I can see no harm in that. It could even be useful.”
“They certainly intend to use it.” Huldarion’s voice was low and steely. “They intend to use it as a weapon. And possibly an instrument of torture: so Commander Rhadlun implied when he told me about the captive darkburn just now. Rhadlun is most content. I am not.”
There was silence for a moment. “I apologise,” said Rothir.
“And so you ought.” Huldarion turned on his heel and stalked away. There was silence all around them for a moment until Parthenal let out a long, loud breath, and the others began to talk in muted voices: not about darkburns, but about carefully neutral subjects like their supper.
“Where do you want the wood?” said Yaret after a few seconds.
“Anywhere,” said Rothir. He was staring into space. Then he recalled himself. “No, put it behind that tent.”
“I think they would have got Leor to raise the darkburn anyway,” she said tentatively.
“With or without your permission.”
“Maybe. But I should not have sanctioned it.”
“If Leor hadn’t done it, the Kelvhans would most likely have gone back later with more horses and found a way to pull the darkburn out themselves.”
At that Rothir looked at her. “You don’t need to make excuses for me. The point is that I authorised it. And now Huldarion has to pretend to Kelvha that he’s happy with it, because he cannot be seen to have had his wishes over-ridden by an underling.”
“Perhaps somebody could go over to their camp at night and let the darkburn out,” she suggested. “Pretend it escaped by itself.”
“Are you out of your mind?” demanded Rothir. “Let a darkburn loose on the camp? It won’t just go romping home over the hills, you know.”
“No. Silly idea.” Somehow she had thought that it would. That was what came of singing to the captive darkburn, ascribing to it feelings that she doubtless had projected on to it –
imagining that it had any purpose beyond the need to burn and kill.
As for keeping a darkburn as an instrument of torture: that had never occurred to her. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“If the Kelvhans are prepared to use a darkburn as a weapon, or for torture,” she said,
“then Huldarion should not be willing to enter into an alliance with them.”
“If we were willing only to ally ourselves with those whose ideas exactly match our own,”
said Parthenal with a grim smile, “we would end up very lonely. And we would have no chance of winning back Caervonn.”
In that case, maybe Caervonn would be better left un-won, she thought.
But that was not something she could say. So she stacked up two-thirds of the firewood behind the tent whilst saying nothing.
“Who is the rest of the wood for?” asked Theol.
“Melmet. I’ll go back and camp with them tonight. I want to keep myself in their good books,” she told him.
“Ah! Including the ones you’d like to swear at?” remarked Parthenal. She shrugged. “So, you ally yourselves to those who don’t share all your values. Why is that, I wonder?”
“Gratitude,” said Yaret. At a touch on her shoulder, she turned round.
It was Durba. She was holding out the two stones Yaret had asked her to look after. Yaret had forgotten them entirely.
“Yours,” she said.
Another word. That made three. “Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Pocketing the stones she gave Durba a brief hug, and the others a formal salute – as her superiors in command –
before she led away her pair of horses.
Poda and Helba: two different worlds, she thought, yet they manage to work together. The worlds of Melmet and the Vonn.
But neither of them is from my world. Mine is the world of donkeys, quiet and slow. A shrubby nowhere, with a few springbells. The world of lins. And darkburns.
Where did that thought come from? She put it aside.
“You should be pleased,” said Tiburé. She studied Huldarion’s face, which she had learnt to read, to some extent at least, over the years. Was he pleased? He looked, if anything, perturbed.
“I am sure I will be pleased,” he answered coolly, “once I have had a chance to think about it.”
“It’s what you’ve been aiming for. An official invitation into Kelvha, signed by the Post-Regent Nerogun, no less – he’s the real ruler there until Faldron’s crowned High King next year. And Nerogun is proposing an alliance. I don’t know the details, naturally, but the emissary I travelled with was very keen to hint at how important his mission was. I managed to get him to give me the general outline. A marriage is offered. So they mean business.”
He nodded, absently, and then looked up at her. “And you yourself are here in what official capacity, Tiburé?”
“To see my husband, naturally. To greet him with delight and hail his part in a victorious war.”
“I’m sure Solon will be glad to see you.” He sighed. “So. We had better go and meet this emissary now. Let me smarten myself up.”
She left the tent so that he could change his clothing. Wandering around the camp, she soon found Parthenal and Solon, and greeted her husband with a nod.
“Tiburé,” he said in faint surprise. “Have they kicked you out of Kelvha?”
“No. Although I almost wish they would. Life there drives me slightly crazy. Alburé’s enjoying it, though. Or she was, until the news about Gordal arrived.”
“Yes. Poor young man,” said Solon. She waited for more, about either Gordal or their daughter; but that was it. Well, it was stupid of her to have expected anything else. A triumph of hope over experience.
“I’m on an errand here,” she said.
“Ah. So the plans are coming to fruition?”
“I hope so. Although Huldarion didn’t seem to be that thrilled to hear it. I think he was on edge.”
Solon and Parthenal exchanged glances.
“There’s been some friction,” Parthenal said, and he explained how the Kelvhans had insisted on bringing back a captive darkburn from the battlefield.
“Dear stars,” said Tiburé, “do you mean it’s in their camp? In the old town? Where I’m staying? Well, that’s just wonderful. I can see why Huldarion’s upset.”
“Annoyed, certainly,” said her husband.
“Upset,” said Tiburé firmly. “You forget what he suffered at the hands – well, not hands, the whole body – of a darkburn. What he still suffers.” She remembered how she had helped to nurse Huldarion through those early months after the fire. She had found it astonishing that he could survive the pain at all, let alone so silently, with barely a murmur or a groan. “I think his revulsion at darkburns is visceral.”
“Well, there’s nothing to be done about this darkburn now,” said Solon. “Did you say you’re staying in the old town?”
“Yes, in relative luxury. I’m quartered in one of the few buildings with a roof on it.”
“I see you’re still playing the part of the fine lady.” He gestured at the long grey travelling dress.
“Fine, no – I leave that to Alburé – but lady: that’s been necessary. I must admit I’d rather have been here with you.”
Solon laughed, somewhat harshly. “You mean you’d rather have been here.”
“I’d rather have been doing my job as a Rider,” said Tiburé, “than sitting around in gilded splendour in a Kelvhan mansion.”
“Personally I feel as if I could do with some gilded splendour,” remarked Parthenal.
“Well, with any luck, some will shortly come your way.”
She left them and returned to find Huldarion ready, along with Thoronal and Aretor. She nodded her approval: for Aretor, Solon’s second in command, was just the sort of man the Kelvhans admired. Fairer than the majority of the Riders, his good looks and casually aloof air would be to their taste. Such things mattered even when dealing only with an emissary –
because the emissary would report back to his master, and his master would judge the response not just from his servant’s words but from the way he said them.
The master being, in this affair, the Post-Regent Nerogun, that brusque and bullish man, whom Tiburé did not like but had come to warily respect. Although she had spoken to him only briefly, on a few formal occasions, and was sure that he had barely registered her in her
“country cousin” role, she had gleaned every bit of information about him that she could.
Which was surprisingly little. He had an adult daughter and a dead wife: that was about all that she could learn. Nerogun oversaw the whole country, yet kept himself close.
Now the four of them rode together over to the old town – Tiburé side-saddle, which she still disliked but had become adept at – and after handing their horses to the waiting groom entered the Kelvhan emissary’s quarters.
The commander, Rhadlun, was there already. Huldarion bowed to the Kelvhans to the appropriate degree; if he felt any frostiness towards Rhadlun over the matter of the darkburn, it did not show. Then of course, Tiburé had to leave, because this was men’s work and she had no place in it.
Outside, she smiled at the young Kelvhan groom – a motherly smile; she was too old for anything else to have any effect on him – and asked with innocent interest about the darkburn they had brought back from the battlefield. Oh, yes, he answered, they were keeping it outside the north wall. It had made a terrible clattering at times but seemed quite still now.
“I hear you could fry a steak on top of its cage,” she said.
“Fry? You could burn a steak to cinders in ten seconds. It’s that hot.”
“I wonder, could I see it? I’m so curious to know what it is that you’ve been fighting.”
The young groom was flattered; he took her ignorance for granted. He hesitated, but evidently decided there would be no harm in it. So he led her, perched delicately on her horse, past the curious glances of the Kelvhan soldiers to the north wall of the dilapidated town.
There was the iron cage, a few yards from the wall, and well away from any of the tumbledown buildings. The grass around the wheels was dark and withered, while the ground steamed slightly.
“It’s not nice,” the groom said. “It stinks. And it gives you an unpleasant feeling if you get too close.”
“Yes, I can feel that.”
“It hates us,” said the groom.
“No doubt.” Although Tiburé had no stone with which she might repel the darkburn, she asked the groom to stay back where he was while she approached a little closer. Which was not very close before the heat became too intense. The sense of fear also increased, but she found she could detach herself from that quite easily. It helped that the darkburn was imprisoned.
Somewhat strangely, this darkburn – small, indistinct, a type she’d fought quite frequently
– did not hurl itself against the bars in an attempt to reach her. It stayed huddled in one corner of the cage. Perhaps it had exhausted itself. Could darkburns tire?
“Do you feed it?” she asked the young groom, almost in jest. He answered seriously.
“We gave it a bit of meat before. It didn’t even touch it before it just burnt up.”
“I see. What an extraordinary thing. You must be very brave to fight such creatures.”
“Well, it’s our duty,” said the groom, almost preening himself. She resisted the temptation to ask him how many he, personally, had killed.
She herself had killed a dozen by hacking them into small pieces. And according to Rothir, if they spent long enough underwater they might eventually die. How long that took, however, was unknown.
Would darkburns sicken and die if kept captive, as some wild animals did? She gazed at the thing, aware that she had instinctively labelled it as alive. Better to say not die but become inert. Then she studied the cage, noting the thickness of its bars – some bent and distorted –
and assessing the strength of the bolts that held it in.
“I do hope it can’t escape,” she said.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. It’s safe enough. We’ll keep it in there all the way to Kelvha.”
“And what will you do with it there?”
“The Post-Regent will decide.”
Nerogun in charge of a darkburn. The idea sent a shiver down her spine.
“What a terrifying thing,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. It would be useful to know how they are made.”
“Indeed.”
“And then we could make more, to do our bidding. That’s what’s Commander Rhadlun said. Personally, I think we could use them to fire our forges.”
“I think that is an excellent idea,” she said, to conceal her horror.
“I mean, it’s nice and cosy here, isn’t it? If you can stand the smell, and the funny feelings.”
“Indeed it is.” She thanked the groom with her motherly smile and let him lead her back into the town.
Make more darkburns. What an appalling thought. But surely the Kelvhans would not be able? It would be all they could do to keep this one safe, let alone get close enough to study it… That would need wizardry, surely.
She would have to warn Leor, she thought; and Huldarion.
But when Huldarion emerged from the meeting with the emissary his mind was obviously on other things.
“Success?” she said. Thoronal was smirking and Aretor trying unsuccessfully to repress a grin, but she could not read Huldarion’s face.
“Success. It is as you predicted. An alliance is offered. Two weeks from now, we should be entering Kelvha City in triumph.” If there was any triumph in his voice, it was well-controlled. “I would like to speak to you, Tiburé, about how things stand in Kelvha – in private, if we may.” The two other men withdrew to ride back to their camp.
Huldarion stared across the ivy-curtained ruins of the town: seeing what, she wondered?
Caervonn, within his reach at last?
“Let us go for a walk,” he said. “It might calm my mind.” They walked over to the east side of the old town, well away from the darkburn – mention of that could wait till later, she decided – and there they stood outside the ruined walls beneath a clump of sadly singing pines. From here they overlooked the long green road that led eventually to Kelvha.
“What did you want to know?” She was expecting questions about the Post-Regent and his policies; but Huldarion sighed and said,
“About my marriage. Who I am likely to be offered – that is, if I get any choice at all.
How the process will go ahead; how long it will all take.”
Tiburé nodded. “Not long,” she said. “To the Kelvhans it’s equivalent to a commercial transaction.”
“I know. And I’ve always known that this would be the price that must be paid. That I would not be free to take a wife of my own choosing.” He was looking not at her, but at the empty road that trailed into a hazy distance.
“Oh, you’ll have some choice,” she said. “They will offer you at least three to pick from.
Up to six if you’re lucky, depending who’s available. Those will be the highest-ranking women. If none of them are suitable, there may be more of lower rank–”
“No. She will have to be of the highest rank. I don’t care about it, but Kelvha will. I just hope they won’t all be too young.”
Tiburé grimaced. “The chances are they will be. High-born Kelvhan girls get married off in their teens, or early twenties at the latest. I would expect the Princess Idria to be married before she’s twenty. They may even offer her to you. If they do, that would be a real mark of respect.”
“Faldron’s sister? How old is she?”
“Seventeen.”
“Dear stars. And would I have to take her if she were offered to me?”
“Not necessarily. If you didn’t, they wouldn’t be unduly offended, if that’s what you mean; because they can keep her as a bargaining tool for somebody else.”
“Seventeen! I don’t want to wed some poor girl less than half my age.” He sighed again.
“How long will I get to choose this wife?”
“In theory, several days,” Tiburé said. “In practice, I would reckon on three meetings, maximum, with any chosen candidate. Of about ten minutes each. So, all together, half an hour.”
“Half an hour?” Huldarion sounded appalled.
“Maximum. Plus thinking time in between the meetings, naturally. But the faster you decide, the better, in their eyes. It shows your commitment.”
“Ah. Commitment. That leads us to something else,” he said, still staring out along the road. “To show my commitment, I am apparently also expected to consummate the marriage before it happens.”
“You are indeed. It negates any complaints after the wedding night. If either of you is unable or unwilling for some reason, the marriage can be called off.” Tiburé eyed him cautiously. She knew there had been a woman in Caervonn, many years ago, before Huldarion’s exile – and before fire ripped across his body. That fire had probably put paid to any thoughts of physical love for quite a while. She did not know what women there might have been in his life since then. If any, he had been remarkably discreet.
However, there was no point in being discreet right now. So she asked, “Given your injuries, do you think that may be a problem?”
“I hope not. I trust I shall be able to rise to the occasion. It’s the girl that I’m more worried about, whoever she is. When she sees my scars” – he indicated down the left side of his body
– “she may just want to jump straight out of bed and run away.”
“Dim the lights,” suggested Tiburé.
“That won’t work. You can feel it. There’s no hiding it.” He shook his head. “Imagine some poor teenage virgin facing that.”
“Teenage virgins are tougher than you might think,” she said.
“But Kelvhan ones are bound to be uneducated. Will she even know what the act of love involves?”
“She will be told that much. Of course she won’t expect to gain any pleasure from it.
Pleasure is for men in Kelvha. In women, they see it as an aberration. Or a pretence by prostitutes. Maybe some of the women manage to educate their husbands, if they can work out what they want, but it would be an uphill struggle. It’s just not in their culture. For a woman, what’s going on in her mind is as important as what’s happening to her body; but
some men don’t seem to think that women have minds – not fully functioning ones, anyway.
It’s difficult for a woman to feel desire where there appears to be no liking or respect or even interest on the man’s side. Yet it seems that some men can desire anything from a dead fish upwards.” She realised that Huldarion was looking startled; and revised her tone of voice.
“Yes, they will know what to expect.”
“Well, that’s something. Do you have any idea about which women might be presented to me, apart from the princess?”
“I can think of two or three candidates. The Lady Janeya, Lady Sina, possibly Belfura…
Sina is the least high-born of those, but accounted a great beauty. I don’t see it myself. You might, however.”
“Which one of them would you recommend to me?”
“Ah, no,” said Tiburé, smiling. “The choice has to be yours. I don’t know if I’ve even given you the right names.”
“Half an hour,” muttered Huldarion despairingly. She decided to shift his attention on to other things.
“That darkburn,” she said. “The one cowering in its cage by the north gate. You know what is intended for it in Kelvha?”
“Supposedly they’re keeping it to study,” said Huldarion. “In actuality, to use against their enemies. Torture was mentioned.”
“According to the groom I spoke to, Rhadlun would like to know how it’s made so that they can make more.”
He turned round and stared at her. “What?”
“Though I doubt if they can do it. Wizardry must surely be involved.”
“Yes. It seems almost certain that the darkburns were created by Adon.” He was silent for a moment. “I had intended to ask Leor to accompany me to Kelvha. Perhaps that would not after all be wise – in case the Kelvhans twist his arm to make him work for them.”
“I don’t see Leor having his arm easily twisted.”
“No? I do. They would simply need to appeal to his pride. No, perhaps that is unfair: say rather to his wish to aid the greater good, and his knowledge that he can do so if he chooses.”
Huldarion began to walk down towards the road, more for the sake of movement, she thought, than anything else. He was agitated.
She gathered up her skirts – annoying things, they did get in the way – and followed him.
“Having a wizard in your train in Kelvha will add to your importance,” she suggested.
“Yes. And Leor’s advice might well be useful to me there. But I will keep his presence hidden: I will not take him in my personal retinue. The invitation to the castle is for myself and six others. A few dozen more Riders can be stationed outside the castle walls; the rest to take their chances where they will. Leor can join them. I expect the cost of boarding houses will go up.”
“The six in your retinue will all be men, of course,” said Tiburé drily.
“Of course. I already had certain men in mind.”
“Who?”
“Three senior advisers: I thought of Thoronal, your husband, and Leor. But I must change my plans. Instead of Leor I shall take Uld.”
She nodded. Uld, a dry, clever, reticent man, was Huldarion’s second cousin. In Kelvha such things counted. “And your other three?”
“Picked for their beauty. You know what I mean: the tall warrior types that the Kelvhans hold in high esteem. Aretor and Sashel.”
“Sashel? I hear that he was wounded.”
“He is recovering. He could probably do with a little luxury.”
“And your last?”
“I had thought Rothir. No one could call him handsome, but he does have an imposing physical presence.”
“Some might say intimidating.”
“But Rothir has countermanded me,” said Huldarion. “He acted without my authority in this matter of the darkburn.”
“You’re angry.”
He turned his gaze from the green Kelvha road to face her. Rothir was not the only intimidating one, she thought, eyeing the stern scarred features beneath the close-shaven head. Huldarion kept his hair short because it would not grow on the left side in any case. But it made for a forbidding appearance, and despite her assurances to him she felt a frisson of anxiety lest the princess – and the other high-born girls – might recoil from the sight.
“I’m annoyed,” he said. “For a normally astute man Rothir made a poor decision. I do not wish to be seen as someone who lets others speak his will for him. So as my last man I shall now take Parthenal.”
“Really?” said Tiburé. “Is that wise? He certainly looks the part, but in view of what Kelvha thinks of men like him....”
“They won’t know.”
“Well,” she said, “make sure he understands that.”
“He will. And Rothir will understand that he cannot bypass my authority. He and Leor will have to stay outside the castle walls.”
“In three days’ time,” said Parthenal, “we reach Kelvha City. So tonight we get drunk.”
“I don’t want to get drunk,” said Rothir.
“Yes, you do. This is our last chance before we enter Inner Kelvha and have to be sober and discreet. There’s a friendly looking inn just down the road.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting drunk,” said Arguril, rather too eagerly.
Parthenal glanced at him. “Only two mugs for you, child. I’m not carrying you home.”
“A drink would be nice,” said Sashel more wistfully. “As long as it’s decent ale.”
“It will be decent, here.” Parthenal was glad that Sashel was showing some interest in normal life at last. Although his wound had healed, the normally voluble young man remained withdrawn and apathetic since his agonised rush onto the battlefield. Still, it was only two weeks since his brother’s death. A week since they had begun the long march down the underused green road from western Kelvha.
They were now more than halfway to their destination. The Kelvhan troops had accompanied them thus far, as had a handful of determined men from Melmet and Ioben, notably Veron’s hunters.
But soon this army would split up. Most of the Riders would disperse to various points in Outer Kelvha, where they had friends and connections. Others would return to Thield. So here, in a small town on the Inner Kelvhan border, they had paused for a last evening together. For those progressing on to Kelvha City, it was a chance to load provisions and apply some spit-and-polish to their gear. Huldarion had insisted on their looking smart.
And he had also told them the names of the six who would be accompanying him to the inner sanctum of the castle. Parthenal was delighted to hear that he was in; and somewhat dismayed to learn that Rothir wasn’t. But Rothir did not appear to be dismayed. He seemed to have expected it. Neither he nor Huldarion made any comment on the omission. None the less, Parthenal knew that Rothir would be hurting over the matter of the darkburn and Huldarion’s exasperated response.
While Parthenal would be savouring the delights of Kelvha Castle, Rothir would have to stay with fifty other Riders in barracks outside the castle walls; about twenty female Riders were to have separate lodgings. Huldarion had refused to keep them shut out of the City.
“Women are an integral part of the Vonn,” he said, addressing Delgeb and the others.
“You have fought with us and for us and I will not have you hidden away.”
“You’d just have us stay quiet and insignificant,” said Delgeb, with that sardonic curl of her lip. “You want us to wear dresses as well?”
“Do you have any?”
“Not to hand.”
“Wear whatever you like,” Huldarion told her. “The Kelvhans will just have to get used to it.” Delgeb had bowed. It was hard to imagine her curtseying.
But their arrival at the castle was still a few days in the future. Right now Parthenal was looking forward to an evening’s rest and recreation. He considered that Rothir needed cheering up. And he himself… A Kelvhan soldier had been giving him the eye: a silent, lean, hard-limbed man, not too young. It was promising. They had exchanged a word or two. This would be the last opportunity for that particular form of recreation for a while, until Huldarion’s business in Kelvha Castle was complete.
“What do you say?” he asked, looking around at the women. “Last chance to enter a tavern for you ladies. Make the most of it.”
Maeneb grimaced. “Not for me.”
“I’ll join you, Parthenal,” said Delgeb, who had been known to drink like a fish on occasion without appearing in the slightest bit intoxicated. And three of her friends immediately agreed.
“M… m…” said Durba.
Yaret looked at her. “Maybe?” she suggested.
Durba nodded. Yaret seemed to have taken charge of the young woman; sometimes she was the only one who understood what Durba was trying to say. Nobody else knew quite what to do with her. Durba’s stammering had not abated. Parthenal had witnessed battle-shock before, without really believing in it – since he himself appeared to be immune – but had never seen anyone affected in this specific way. The trembling came and went.
It was hard to know how to treat Durba when she could not talk. All they could agree on was that it would be best for her to stay amongst the other Riders, rather than lodging with strange people in a strange land. So she would accompany them into Inner Kelvha.
And so would Yaret, who had been invited to board with the female Riders rather than the remaining Melmet soldiers – who would stay outside the city walls – or with the hunters, wherever they might be. Veron seemed to have plans for his men, but Parthenal did not know what they were. Veron and his aims were a mystery to him for the most part, and he had long learnt that there was no point asking, for Veron would simply smile and turn the subject. This evening, Veron said, he planned to spend time with his troop – probably exchanging hunting tales in some other, darker and more secret inn, thought Parthenal.
But Rothir and Sashel both needed to get drunk, in his opinion. He just required enough takers for them to be carried along on the wave. In the end about sixteen Riders – and Yaret, and a friend of hers called Zan – crowded into the tavern, taking over one of the small low-ceilinged rooms and ordering enough food to make the landlord very happy. He lit the lamps and tried to stir the fire into some semblance of a blaze.
Parthenal hoped Zan wouldn’t put a damper on proceedings. A solemn man who rode with the Ioben hunters, he was not himself Ioben, but from an unknown village which had been wiped out by darkburns. On first seeing him, Arguril had greeted him like a long-lost brother, explaining how they had spent several days shackled together before Rothir had ridden to their rescue; and Zan consequently treated Rothir like some kind of nobility. Quite undeserved, thought Parthenal, amused at seeing Zan bow reverently to Rothir on entering the tavern. Well, almost undeserved.
Rothir looked vaguely embarrassed by the reverence. But he let Zan buy him a drink, which was a good start.
Leor sat in a corner, stroking the beard which he had allowed to grow long over the last few weeks. It made him look more wizardly despite its strangely striped appearance. The white streaks were just as marked in the red beard as in his hair.
“Do us a trick, Leor,” Parthenal called over to him. “Speed up the food if you can.” Leor shook his head and smiled.
“Fill my tankard,” suggested Arguril.
“Get that fire going properly,” said Nerobe. “That’s an order.”
“We could use the darkburn for that,” said Shelvor.
“Somebody fetch it. It could probably do with a beer too. Where is it?”
“They had to leave it west of the camp, well away from the trees,” said Yaret.
“Any change there?”
“It just sits,” she said. “Or stands. Whatever they do.”
“Sits, and stinks, and hates, and burns,” said Arguril.
“I think it might be pining,” Yaret said.
“Pining? What for?” Delgeb was incredulous.
“Human flesh,” said Landel.
“Other darkburns,” suggested Nerobe.
“Heaven help us. They might breed.”
“I don’t think so,” said Yaret seriously, and everybody laughed. She still misunderstood some things that were said in Vonnish, although her accent was improving. Parthenal noted that she did not translate these remarks to Zan, as she did other bits of conversation.
“You’re keeping an eye on that darkburn, then,” he said to her.
“Well, somebody has to, Parthenal. The Kelvhans are altogether too casual about it.”
“I trust that everyone still has their stones to hand?” said Rothir. He too was serious.
General nods and mutters of assent. Several patted their pockets.
“Let’s not talk about darkburns,” Parthenal said. “Here’s to Kelvha and the fine time awaiting us there: and after that, and more importantly, Caervonn.”
“I’ll drink to Caervonn,” Delgeb said.
So they all did, and then the conversation turned to what might await them, and particularly Huldarion, inside Kelvha Castle. There was curiosity, and some obvious envy, which entertained Parthenal. But then he had never been tempted by any line-up of aristocratic virgins.
“A bride, untouched, young and fair,” said Arguril wistfully. “Lucky man.”
“He’d be better off with someone who’s been touched,” said Delgeb.
“And done a bit of touching,” Birané added.
“The Kelvhan women are out of bounds,” said Rothir soberly. “Men too.”
“Spoilsport!”
“We can still look,” said Arguril. “I hear they’re very beautiful.”
“They dye their hair,” said Nerobe. “The men as well, unless they’re naturally fair. It’s meant to be as yellow as spun gold – that’s the ideal; not that strange orange colour that some of them end up with.”
“What, all their hair?”
More laughing speculation about the ladies – and the men – of Kelvha. None of them, Parthenal noted, touched on what Huldarion himself might make of the arrangements for his marriage. Speculation about Huldarion’s love life was out of bounds. Maybe Parthenal himself was the only one who privately mused about it. Who had touched that scarred body since that woman long ago in Caervonn? What had they done, and how?
Pointless, he told himself, pointless. Stop it. Food arrived and was a welcome distraction.
But now he wanted more than food.
“You could find yourself a bride in Kelvha, Leor,” Arguril said with his mouth full.
“You’re not Vonn; no ban on you.”
“And you’ve got a fine head of red hair,” Birané pointed out, “even if it’s not quite gold enough to attract the highest rank.”
“So no princess for you. Still, I’m sure there’ll be some chambermaid who’ll have you,”
Delgeb said.
Leor smiled and shook his head. “I shall never marry.”
“But you’ve had time to marry a dozen wives and more,” Shelvor objected.
“That’s why I’ve never married one.”
“Ah! You’ve just not met the right one yet.”
“In five hundred years? You must be picky,” said Nerobe.
“I’m too old now for such things.”
“You’re never too old! You just need to meet a nice three hundred year old lady. Though she’d be a little young for you, admittedly.”
“I’ll leave the marriage-making to you Vonn,” said Leor, still smiling, although with some aloofness now. Parthenal wondered if it were possible that he could be hurt.
“And we Vonn will leave it till we reach Caervonn,” said Rothir.
“Is that an order?” Delgeb asked.
“When we reach Caervonn,” said Sashel softly, and everyone immediately stilled to hear him, “the women there are more beautiful than any here in Kelvha. Isn’t that right, Rothir?
That’s what you once told me.”
Rothir shrugged.
“Caervonn it is, then,” said Shelvor. “We can wait.”
“But the whole city’s beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Birané. Not many of those present were old enough to have much memory of Caervonn, Parthenal realised. The youngest – Durba –
would only have been about seven or eight when she left. And the city had already greatly changed by then in any case, its stones wounded by war no less than its people.
“It is beautiful,” he said, and thought of the young Huldarion, unscarred, untroubled, laughing as he climbed up onto the stone horse in the splendour of the Tiled Courtyard. Both he and the horse had been decorated with bands of feathers: it was the Festival of Birds.
“Especially in the evenings,” said Theol. “The light turns it golden.”
“Beneath the lamps, on the long terraces,” said Rothir a little dreamily, “when the swifts have gone to bed and the nightingales start to sing in the tangles of the rose bushes and the bats flit from the trees, that is the best time in Caervonn.”
“Are there trees inside the city, then?” asked Yaret.
Theol smiled at her. “There are many little greens and planted squares – or rather, hexagons – and trees aplenty.”
“Especially fruit trees,” said Rothir. “Small groves of plum and peach and cherry, in the open spaces. There used to be, at least.”
“We can replant them,” Delgeb said.
“Underneath an apple tree, I saw my love and he saw me,” recited Birané.
“Maybe that’s where you’ll find your love, Leor,” said Nerobe. “Underneath an apple tree in Caervonn. You too, Sashel.”
“Nonsense,” said Sashel, but Parthenal was pleased to see he wore a smile. The ale was working.
It was working on Rothir too. Although not drunk, he was more relaxed than Parthenal had seen him for a while.
“You, Theol, you left a lady languishing for you in Caervonn all those years ago,” he said.
“Possibly more than one. About five, I believe.”
“Theol! And you a married man.”
“There were only two,” said Theol, grinning. “Both married now themselves in any case, the last I heard.”
“You didn’t leave anyone behind, Rothir?” That was Arguril.
“No.”
“Ah! So it’s the apple tree for you too.”
“When we enter Caervonn,” said Rothir, stretching out his legs in front of him, his empty tankard on his knee, “when we ride in through the gates in victory, with the people cheering from the balconies, and throwing handfuls of petals down on us, I shall look up and see a women waiting at a window there as soft and velvety and lovely as a rose.” Parthenal understood at once that this was a vision that had carried Rothir over many a wearisome mile.
“Is that a real woman?” asked Arguril.
“Who knows?” said Rothir. “I can always hope.”
“Velvety?” said Delgeb. “Are you sure this is a woman, and not a vole?”
“Roses aren’t all that soft,” said Nerobe.
“Their blossoms are.”
“An orange rose,” said Parthenal, “or just a lilac one?” General laughter.
“Any colour. I’m not fussy.” Rothir inspected his tankard and reached for the jug.
“Actually, as long as she has two arms and two legs and a kind smile, she’ll do for me.”
“Well, I’m sure we can find someone in Caervonn to fit that bill,” said Theol, and he got up to call the landlord and request more ale. Arguril put his own demand in for more food and was shouted down.
“I think we’ll go,” said Yaret to Parthenal under the clamour. “I’ll take Durba back to our quarters. She’s getting tired.”
Durba nodded and put her hands under her cheek in token that she wanted sleep.
“All right,” said Parthenal. He thought that Yaret looked weary too. Something struck him.
“That about two arms and two legs,” he said. “It’s only a figure of speech.”
“Yes, I know. Good night, Parthenal.”
He wanted to say, And you have the kind smile; but he didn’t say it, because he didn’t know how things lay between Rothir and Yaret. Although Rothir had been so desperately anxious to find her after her long fall – and then after the battle had found her a second time, to bring her to the hearthside – all that might be no more than his sense of responsibility.
Over-developed, in Parthenal’s opinion.
As for Yaret, she wasn’t smiling now, but that might not be because of Rothir. It could be concern for Durba. It could be that the conviviality made her miss her home.
Zan put out a hand to her and asked something with concern, and she did find a smile for him as she replied. Nobody else noticed when she and Durba left. The ale was doing its work on everyone – Zan included – and a general chatter filled the room, sometimes becoming raucous. Even Leor was telling jokes, at which everybody groaned, more loudly with each joke. Some of them were very old indeed.
“Did Yaret go already?” Rothir asked Parthenal when he went over for the third jug of ale.
“You drove her away, you lummock. All she needs is two arms and two legs?”
“What?” Rothir stared at him. It seemed to take a moment to sink in. “Oh. That? But I didn’t even think of it like that. It’s just a – and in any case, it’s not as if – I mean, she wouldn’t be interested anyway.”
“In being your velvety rose? I have no idea. But two arms and two legs has probably given her the idea she’ll never be anybody’s velvety rose. She certainly looked disheartened just now.”
“But… she’s with Durba.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“She has her arm around her half the time.”
“She’s looking after Durba, dimwit. Even if Durba is that way inclined, I don’t think Yaret is. She’s just being sympathetic.”
“Well, anyway,” said Rothir, somewhat grumpily, “that hunter in the corner, Zan, he’s set his sights on Yaret. Arguril reckons that he’s keen, and that she might be too. So there you are.”
“Not Durba after all? You can’t have it both ways.”
“Parthenal, the whole thing is irrelevant.” Rothir sat up, irritated. “Yaret is far too sensible to be affected by any stupid remarks I might make over a mug of ale. She would know I’m talking rubbish.”
“So your hopes and dreams are rubbish, are they?”
“It was tavern talk. I’m not even thinking about anything like that until we reach Caervonn.”
“Ah, so you’re determined to be celibate until you meet your velvety rose?”
“Oh, go away, Parthenal.”
“I’m going,” he said. “I’ve got a prior appointment. I’ll see you later, Rothir. Have fun carrying Arguril home.” And then he left.
As they rode into Inner Kelvha, he felt the very air seem to change.
What caused that? How could it be? It was just his own sense of occasion, thought Parthenal, the feeling of a step taken irrevocably. He had spent time within the Kelvhan kingdom before, without having any such sensation.
But those trips had been as a journeyman, anonymous, selling his skills in horsemanship and falconry. Even the Kelvhan nobles who approved his way with a hawk had hardly ever thought to ask his name and heritage. He had seldom been within the city, and had never stepped inside the castle.
Now he was to enter it as part of the retinue – if the stars were willing – of a future king.
He glanced over at Huldarion, riding at the head of the line. He looked the part in manner if not yet in trappings. Severe, austere. Beloved.
Parthenal sighed and gazed back at the train of Riders, trying to assess them through Kelvhan eyes. Well, not too bad, although there was a little too much laughter, maybe, while the sight of Kelvha ought to fill them with respectful awe. No doubt it would, later on and further down the road, when the barley fields and scattered villages gave way to the bigger, stone-built settlements.
Then would come the high wall with its four gates: inside, the many-storeyed buildings of the city streets, each storey built leaning further out until the edifices seemed about to topple; and at the city’s heart – huge, sprawling, many-towered – the castle. The fortress palace of another future king.
He nodded to Sashel, who looked a little more comfortable than he had of late. Theol had taken him under his wing today. And Maeneb and Leor were arguing – amicably enough –
about something or other over the head of Durba, who switched her gaze from one to another like a spectator watching a game of rackets.
Earlier on, Yaret had been called to the front, to ride alongside Huldarion; apparently to tell him about those children of Obandiro. Huldarion was storing not merely knowledge, he sensed, but alliances. Though of what use a tiny burnt-out northern town could be, Parthenal did not know.
And Yaret too was building her alliances, he thought; which she certainly had much more need of. She had returned to the centre of the line of Vonn and now was practising her Kelvhan verbs with Rothir. Her attitude was casually friendly. If there had been any mention of numbers of arms and legs since last night, it had been outside his hearing. Right now she was struggling to comprehend the Kelvhan tenses.
“If we will have would have went,” she said in laborious Kelvhan.
“Gone. But close,” said Rothir.
“If we will have would have gone, we will have would have see – no, seen – oh, this is ridiculous. Why do you need a future indefinite tense in any case?”
“For those moments when you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Rothir answered.
“Well, that applies to the whole future. You never know what’s going to happen.”
“Sometimes you do. In a few minutes we will reach that tree.”
“Probably,” said Yaret. “But we don’t know for sure until we actually get there.”
“I think some things are so close to certain that it doesn’t matter.”
“It always matters. If we will not would not have gone to Kelvha, perhaps we will not would not have regretted it. ”
“Good,” said Rothir. “But I don’t think we’ll regret it.” He smiled at her; and she smiled back.
Ah, thought Parthenal, there’s your kind smile, Rothir. Forget the arms and legs.
He looked back over the Riders’ heads to where the Kelvhan army were slowly following them at a distance. Where was his soldier of last night? That encounter had been almost wordless: abrupt and strenuous, even fierce; and then the man had left the room without a backward look. Parthenal was not averse to fierceness, but he did expect a backward look. Ah well. Look forward now, towards the glory of the castle.
But he himself cast one more look towards the north. A mile away a small contingent of Kelvhan men and horses was taking its own unobtrusive route along a less-used road. Those distant soldiers marched to the same final destination as the Riders of the Vonn, and kept pace with them, despite their weighty, shadowed load.
A haze of heat, or steam, or smoke, wrapped the soldiers in a dusky shroud. For there travelled in their midst a square of night: the iron cage that held the darkburn.
* * * * *
*End of Book 2
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