“Where did you find the horse?”
He could not keep the threat out of his words. He was too tired and too desperately anxious after three days of continuous riding, searching. The young man standing by the brook was slightly built: despite the knife he held, he’d be easy enough to overpower if he didn’t answer soon.
He made himself wait.
The young man gave him a long, curiously assessing look. He seemed to be in no hurry to reply. When he did speak, it was almost casually. His low, quiet voice was liltingly accented, sounding a little like the villagers around Melmet.
“I didn’t find the horse,” he said. “The horse found me – or rather, it found my donkeys.” He nodded to where the three animals were grazing together on the far side of the boggy stream. “It turned up here last night. But it won’t let me get close to it: that’s the reason it’s still saddled.” He paused. “Why? Is it yours?”
“It belongs to my friend and kinsman.” And now he knew he could not keep the weariness and disappointment from his voice.
“What is your friend’s name?”
“Eled.” It didn’t matter now.
The young man stood still, considering him for a few more seconds. His loose-fitting clothes looked as if they had been made for someone else. His rusty hair as well as his accent marked him as a northerner; that colouring could be seen around Ioben. The man shrugged, stuck his knife in his belt, stooped to pick up a bunch of carrots, and as he straightened up said,
“Your friend is over here.”
“What?”
The young man was already walking away as he continued to speak over his shoulder.
“I found him after he’d been thrown from his horse. He’s quite badly hurt. His right thigh’s broken, probably some ribs as well, and he hit his head on the rocks as he went down. He’s got concussion; it seems serious. He’s still not woken up properly. Not for long.”
Wary and astonished, he followed. The northerner walked up to a rocky outcrop and then straight into it, entering through a split between the high stone walls which had been concealed by thorny bushes.
Inside there was a tidy camp – a compact space with a thin oil-cloth for a roof. Lying stretched out on his back, part covered by a cloak, was the comrade for whom he had been hunting for so long.
“Eled!” As he knelt down beside Eled a surge of relief mingled with concern washed through him. He was aware that the young man standing over them had closed his hand on his knife hilt.
Eled opened his eyes and gave him a sleepy smile. “Hello, Rothir.”
The hand relaxed and left the knife.
“How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” said Eled. “A bit hot.” His words were slightly slurred. When Rothir placed a hand across his forehead it felt decidedly hot to his touch. But Eled’s pulse was steady, if a little fast. Beneath a dressing of striped woollen cloth, the wound on his head looked ugly, with its clotted scabs, but at least was clean.
Rothir drew away the cloak and dressing covering Eled’s legs to reveal the broken thigh. Equally ugly. He felt a deep responsibility for this youngest member of his troop; and such a brave, eager member Eled was. His heart ached for him now, his anxiety rearranging itself into a different shape.
After inspecting the thigh gently he looked up at the northerner with creased brows. “Hutila bark?”
“It was the best thing I could think of to splint it,” said the young man with a faint note of defensiveness. “His leg was quite badly swollen. It was twisted when I found him so I straightened it out as best I could. Luckily he was unconscious at the time. The swelling seems to have gone down a little today.”
“When did you find him?”
The young man tapped fingers against his leg, counting. “Three nights,” he said. “This is the fourth day.” Rothir was astounded, again. “I found him fallen just outside this cavern. He’d been thrown against those rocks beside the entrance. I’d already seen the horse an hour or so earlier, running witless and riderless down by the Darkburn. It disappeared and I didn’t see it again until last night. But it had an empty saddle so I knew I had to look for a rider. So I looked. And I found Eled.”
Rothir frowned again. Three nights? The young man seemed unbothered. Time could not mean much to him.
He bent to ask his comrade a question in his own tongue. “Eled, do you remember what happened?”
“The stonemen,” whispered Eled breathlessly, also in Vonnish. “Ambush. I escaped. But they sent a darkburn after me. A big one.” He spoke in painful, urgent jerks, with a short pause every few words. “Arguril? Did he get away?”
“He’s safe, don’t worry. He met up with us and gave the alarm. Do your ribs hurt?”
Eled nodded. The northerner quietly picked up a pan from his side – a piss pan, evidently – and carried it away, as if to give them privacy. He did not re-enter the rock cleft while Rothir was there.
Kneeling beside his stricken friend, Rothir listened carefully to his disjointed account. There was not much more to learn from Eled that he had not already heard from Arguril.
On the way home from their mission, when the six Riders had split into their accustomed pairs, Eled and Arguril had been allocated the eighth branch of the Darkburn river to explore. A dozen miles down that branch they were ambushed by a large company of stonemen. Eled had fled west, upriver, losing Arguril in his flight. He had spent the best part of a day trying to elude the stonemen through the knotted labyrinth of the Darkburn forest.
“I thought I was safe,” he whispered hoarsely. “Thought I’d got away. Then… then the darkburn came. Big. Bigger than any we’ve seen before. Much bigger. Longer. Felt stronger. Worse.”
“Worse?” That was bad news. It was hard to imagine anything worse than the darkburns Rothir had already met.
“Much stronger. I couldn’t control Poda. She ran all over the place. Eventually she got up the bank. Out of the forest. I don’t remember after that.”
“How big was the darkburn?”
“Long. Low.…” Eled’s eyes half-closed. “Strong.”
“Don’t worry about it now, Eled. It’s gone, and you’re safe,” said Rothir, although he was deeply worried himself, not just by his friend’s condition but also by his words. This was something new.
But he did not ask any more questions for the moment. He took a pack of star-moss from his inner pocket, and dampening it from the waterskin which lay by Eled’s side, he applied it to the head-wound and the swollen, blue-bruised thigh. A pity the northerner hadn’t thought to do that.
Then he stayed by Eled’s side a little longer, talking to him calmly, reassuring him that the other four Riders of the troop were all unhurt – or at least they had been a few days ago, when Rothir had last seen them. Although he felt a deep and even brotherly concern for Eled, he took care to keep his tone light. As Eled’s eyelids closed again, he covered him gently with the cloak and left him.
Some distance from the cleft, well out of earshot, he saw the young man – or youth, rather, perhaps little more than a teenager after all: for despite his leisurely self-assurance he was slim and beardless. He was slicing carrots into a cooking pot. A small fireplace had been built, and the wood within was smouldering.
“No room in that little space for all three of us,” said the young man as Rothir approached. “So I’ll cook and sleep out here tonight. You’d better stay near Eled.”
“I have to thank you for your service to him over the last few days. I imagine he would otherwise be dead by now; or at least, beyond recovery.”
He got another long, assessing look. It was slightly disconcerting from one presumably so young. Rothir realised that despite his casual demeanour the youth’s eyes were alert and searching.
“I take your thanks,” the northerner said formally, and then added in a rueful tone, “I wish I could have done more for him. I know the bark splint isn’t ideal. But I had nothing better, and no star-moss.”
“I have applied star-moss. I should introduce myself. My name is Rothir.”
“Yes. Eled said it once or twice when he was rambling. He wouldn’t say any names when he was lucid.” He stood up, wiping his hands on his breeches. Not a big youth, but straight-limbed enough. He had broken his nose at some point. “I am Yaretkoro Thuleikand of Obandiro in the north,” he announced, and watched for Rothir’s reaction.
Rothir did not know what reaction was appropriate. Although he thought he might have heard of Obandiro, he did not remember where it was. He was certain that it was not somewhere he had ever visited on his travels. Nor did he recognise the patronymic form of Thuleikand. Did it indicate high birth?
“Yaret for short. I’m a pedlar of woollen cloth,” the youth added, immediately dispelling that possibility. “I pass through here every summer and then head home. Beyond the Coban hills.” He indicated the direction with a vague sweep of his arm. Beyond the Coban hills, Rothir knew, lay quiet, sparsely populated lands, prone to cruel winters but otherwise free of trouble. No reason for him ever to have been there.
“When you saw the horse that first day,” he asked Yaret, “did you see anything else?”
Yaret looked at him soberly. “I saw… something difficult to describe.”
“Please try anyway.”
So the tale was told, a little stumblingly. Rothir could tell that it was difficult to remember as well as to describe. It did not surprise him. A first encounter with a darkburn was always a dreadful thing to recall – if you survived. And this one sounded even more formidable than the others he had met.
“What I cannot explain,” said Yaret at the end of the tale, “is the feeling that the creeping thing put into me. The great fear – the despair. And anger; even grief. I can ascribe it only to the deathly smell.”
“Grief?”
“I would say even that.” Yaret spoke softly and with care, as though Standard was not his tongue of choice.
“I have experienced those feelings,” Rothir said. “Not the grief, but the horror and despair. They are generated by the creatures.”
“Eled said that it was called a darkburn, like the river. So it is not unique, then? There is more than one darkburn?”
Rothir nodded. “You described this one as being long and low,” he said. “How long?”
“As long as a horse. Longer. A horse and a half. Low to the ground, on four short crawling legs. It seemed to have very little head. Even less tail. And it was burning.”
“Burning? Not burnt? You said it was charred black.”
“With fire inside,” said Yaret. “I saw in its midst for a second a glow, like embers. After that I did not look.”
Rothir thought about this. “Can you show me exactly where you came across this thing?”
“Now?”
“Yes, while Eled is sleeping, if it’s not too far.”
“It’s little more than a mile. Dolm! Nuolo!” The youth called to the donkeys before turning back to Rothir. “What is the horse’s name?”
“Poda.”
Yaret nodded. Once the donkeys had ambled over he addressed them. The language he used was unfamiliar; not Kelvhan, at least. It might be Ioben, a remote tongue of which Rothir knew little. He heard the words Poda, Rothir and Eled, as if Yaret were informing the donkeys of events, and he was faintly amused.
“They will look after things while we are gone,” said Yaret confidently.
“How well do they understand you?”
“Who knows? They get the gist.” Yaret set off striding towards the forest and the river. “You have your own horse? Or did you walk here?”
“I certainly did not walk. My horse is resting over there.” Rothir pointed east, to where a gorse thicket four hundred yards away was concealing his horse Narba. As soon as he had spotted the young man by the stream near Poda, he had dismounted and approached silently on foot, aiming to take him by surprise.
Now he scanned the rest of the landscape carefully, checking for movement: for anything that ought not to be there. All appeared to be calm and undisturbed. Such an empty, lonely land this was; it seemed always to be listening – not necessarily to him, but to something that he could not hear. Apart from the throaty complaints of scattered goats, there was no sound, not even of the wind.
By the time they reached the forest edge he had observed nothing untoward. There was no stink of darkburn; just the clean, deep scents of earth and water and damp leaves, the presages of autumn. Yaret followed the course of the stream as it plunged underneath the trees.
“Here I saw the horse. There I went in, by the way that the horse had come out.” They entered the full gloom of the forest and walked a short distance until Yaret stopped. “Here I stood. And there, moving by the water, I saw the thing you call a darkburn.”
Rothir went to inspect the ground beside the busy stream. The weeds were crushed and blackened, but no matter how minutely he looked he could discern no clear prints.
But then in general darkburns did not leave anything that could be called footprints, only occasional marks on the burnt ground. Here he noted some indented lines like claw-marks, but judging by the flattened plants it seemed this darkburn had chiefly slithered on its stomach. Nothing like the previous ones.
“Did you see it again after it crawled away?” he asked.
“No. When I came back about three hours later, I saw its trail crossing the loft. The trail went along the bottom of the escarpment – the cliff at the loft’s western end – and then headed back towards the trees.”
“The loft?”
“That is what we call this land above the forest,” explained Yaret. “The Darkburn Loft. It means a high habitation.”
Rothir looked at him. “Habitation? For whom?”
“A good question,” said Yaret. “I have always thought it was merely for itself. Now I don’t know.”
“Can you show me where you saw this trail?”
For answer Yaret turned and led the way back out of the shadow of the trees.
“To the left of those boulders.” He pointed and Rothir studied the escarpment. He ought to go up there to look around… but not today. He wanted to get back to Eled. Then tonight he simply needed to extract all the information he could from the pedlar before the youth moved on.
On the walk back to the camp it occurred to him that Yaret had asked no question of him apart from whether he had a horse. Maybe the pedlar was a little simple, although on further reflection Rothir was inclined to think that that was far from being the case. So maybe Yaret’s idea of etiquette meant minding his own business. That would suit Rothir, who had no intention of telling his business to any stranger.
They were half way back before Yaret spoke again.
“It is a relief to have you here, I must admit. Eled will need a long recovery, I think. How to move him was a problem.”
“Move him where?”
“Well, that is another problem. The next village I know of is eighteen miles north, in the Coban hills. There is nothing before that but ruins.”
“The southern edge of the Iarad,” said Rothir.
“Is that what you call the deserted land? But even in Coba they would not offer any medical care beyond the most basic – if they would take him in at all. There is no guarantee of that. And it’s a long way to travel for a man with a broken leg.”
“I know of somewhere closer,” said Rothir. “A dozen miles west of here there is a farmstead called Deloran, where–”
“There isn’t,” said Yaret. “Not any more. I came past it. It’s burnt out.”
“It’s what?”
“Sorry. It’s gone. Burnt and empty. It was still warm, five days ago. But I think the people got away.”
Rothir kept walking and said nothing. He was deeply shocked, although a grim interior voice muttered, Why are you so surprised? The stonemen have encroached everywhere this year.
“You saw nobody there?” he asked after a few moments.
“No people, and no bodies either.”
Bruilde will have managed, he thought. But it changed his plans. He could not take Eled there now. And without Bruilde’s help, he would never get the sick man all the way to Thield. He would have to go in the opposite direction.
“In that case, I need to get him to a rendezvous with my companions to the east,” he said.
“When?”
“In seven days’ time.”
“How far away?”
“At least two days hard riding.” That time would be twice as long with Eled, he was well aware – assuming that his friend could even be somehow got onto a horse. But if he missed the rendezvous, how long would the others wait?
He expected the questions to come then, but Yaret merely commented, “Very well. That will not be easy. We’ll eat first, and then think about it. Dinner is rabbit and roots: is that all right with you?”
“Any food is all right with me,” he said.
“Before we eat,” said Yaret as they approached the camp, “I would suggest you go and fetch your horse. Its presence may calm Poda down sufficiently for you to catch her and relieve her of the saddle and the bag. She had two saddle-bags when she first ran out of the forest, so she must have shed the other one somewhere. We can look for it tomorrow.”
“We? You are not concerned in this.”
“If you want to move Eled I think you will need help.”
“Although I want to move him, in truth I don’t see how it can be done,” said Rothir wearily. He felt the extreme fatigue of the last few days fall on him like a heavy cloak.
Nevertheless he did not sit down yet. He could see the sense of Yaret’s suggestion, and the sun was already sinking rapidly; so he went to find his grey horse Narba, still waiting patiently amidst the gorse-bushes. When he led Narba to the camp, Poda whinnied in recognition and trotted over to meet him. Although she would not allow herself to be caught and handled, Rothir trusted that she would now settle down more readily.
He walked over to the fire, where Yaret handed him a bowl half-filled with some unappetising brown mush.
“This is for Eled. You may be able to persuade him to eat more than I can do.”
He sampled it tentatively: soaked biscuit sweetened with a little honey. It tasted better than it looked. Stooping to enter the narrow space where Eled lay, he woke his friend with quiet words. Then, murmuring encouragement, he spooned as much biscuit into Eled’s mouth as he could before Eled waved his hand to indicate enough, smiling faintly as his eyes closed yet again.
Rothir checked his dressings before sitting back to study him. Under the star-moss the inflammation of the thigh seemed to have abated even in the last two hours. But it was a bad break, and Eled’s lethargy would make moving him doubly difficult.
If only Deloran were not burnt… He tried to shake off his fears about the people there. There was nothing he could do to help them: so concentrate on what was possible. But the apprehension clung.
Once Eled dozed, Rothir stepped out of the rocky cleft to join Yaret by the fire. He was handed another bowl, this time of hot stew with a tangle of watercress wilting on top. The rabbit and roots were good; a mysterious ingredient which looked suspiciously like spearweed proved to be slightly gritty but palatable.
As he emptied the bowl Rothir felt belatedly aware of his hunger. It was days since he’d bothered to pay attention to whatever food he ate; he had shovelled in just enough fuel to keep going, as fast as he could. Had taken as little rest as possible. Now he let himself slow down and taste the stew. A feast, of sorts.
“Would you like some more, Rothir?” Yaret spoke his name with a rustic, burring intonation. It made him sound like a stranger to himself; and indeed he did not feel fully himself, but a little light-headed, as if the rabbit and roots had made him drunk.
He shook his head, for he knew there could not be much food to spare, and he had few enough provisions left in his own saddlebags. But Yaret handed the pot over to him anyway, and then sat back propped against the warm rock, crossed legs stretched out towards the fire. The setting sun gleamed gold across his meditative face and made the rusty hair leap into sudden redness. Rothir refilled his bowl.
“I have some dried meat in my pack,” he told the northerner. “You could cook that up tomorrow.”
“Is it from Havvich?”
“No, thank the stars.”
Yaret laughed. A companionable sound. It made him realise that he was not alone.
“I’m fairly sure they all escaped the fire at Deloran,” Yaret said. “All the carts were gone.”
“Were they? Good.” It relieved his mind a little. He ate, more slowly now.
“I’ve been thinking,” Yaret said after a moment in his quiet voice, “that if we could get Eled up on your horse we might be able to rig up some sort of prop for his leg with lengths of hutila bark. I know he’s sleepy. But if his leg’s supported he might be able to ride with one of us on the horse behind him.”
“One of us?”
“However, we don’t need to make a decision yet. If the rendezvous is two days’ hard riding, that is perhaps four days’ steady ride. It gives us three days to see if he recovers his senses before we need to set out.”
“You said we again,” said Rothir.
“And there’s an alternative. You ride to your rendezvous and find help, while I look after Eled here. Or if we can get him to the Coban hills, we could bribe the villagers to take him in. Although I would not recommend you leave him there alone, I could wait there with him.”
Rothir thought about this as he ate his second bowl of stew. They were options, if not good ones. But no option was a good one. He shook his head. “You’ve been here long enough.”
Yaret shrugged. “I’m ahead of my schedule. I’ve got time to spare.” As the donkeys strolled towards them he got to his feet and began to feed a handful of oats to each, pulling their ears and talking to them affectionately in his own soft tongue.
Rothir took a last mouthful of stew and lay back against the warm stone to savour it, watching Yaret with the nuzzling donkeys. Beyond them, the two horses grazed tranquilly together against the setting sun. He’d get that saddle off the mare tomorrow. Give Narba and himself a day to rest.
Rest! It had seemed so far away for so long. He knew that it was not just the effort of the last week, but all the weeks and months before that made him weary. The frequent fights against the stonemen: the constant risk of ambush: the endless – often fruitless – scouting, long days spent in the saddle.
The tents of Thield had moved four times already since the spring, trying to escape the stonemen and the darkburns that ran amok before them sowing fire and devastation. No matter where the Riders went, the stonemen always seemed to find them. There had been no rest all year. But now he felt himself beginning to unwind at last.
In the last few hours his fortunes had turned round, from grim alarm to some variety of hope. Eled was safe: that was the main thing. Somehow he would find a way to get the wounded man to his companions. Although he would have preferred the company of Parthenal, this northern pedlar hadn’t done too badly. By some miraculous chance the youth had rescued Eled; and in doing that, he realised, had rescued Rothir himself.
Exhaustion washed over him in a huge, slow tide. But along with it, like the hush of waves on sand, came something unexpected; almost joy. He recognised the feeling as relief, which in his opinion and experience formed a major part of happiness. Failure was his greatest fear. But thanks to the pedlar, he had not failed his comrades nor Huldarion. He had not let them down.
As if in answer to his thankfulness, a sudden parting of the clouds sent a fine sheen of golden light across the peaceful land, painting it for immortality; an endless moment when earth and heaven met. It seemed a country known in dreams, so bright with hope and promise.
Rothir did not believe in signs and portents. None the less he allowed his tired limbs to relax and his weary mind to drink the beauty of the landscape in. There had been so little hope for years, but against all reason he glimpsed the edges of it now, like the light around a door. Tomorrow…
Well, tomorrow there would be much to do. But meanwhile this evening was enough.