“Do you want a slice of porridge?”
Rothir opened his eyes. The sun was high. Yaret stood over him holding out a mottled slab. Beside him Eled yawned and smiled. Eled had been quiet all night; or perhaps Rothir himself had been too worn out to notice.
“I’ll try him on some peas and biscuit while you wash,” said Yaret.
“That would be good.” Rothir stood up and stretched, as much as he could in the narrow space. Then he carried a bundle of clothes and his strangely purple-dotted slab of porridge out of the rocks and down to the streamlet where the horses grazed together.
Last night’s gold had turned to lemon in the hazy sunshine: it felt like a veiled, enchanted land, both wild and peaceful. He’d ridden across this plain a number of times – always in a hurry to get somewhere else – and had never stopped to look around. There had never been much here to seize the attention.
Nor was there now. A fangol basking on a rock was the most notable sight: the peace was punctuated only by the rasping of the grazing horses and one of Yaret’s donkeys munching on a thistle. Prickly things seemed to thrive up here. Not much else did. There was just enough thin grass for the horses.
Poda was much calmer now. All the same Rothir did not approach the mare, but simply sat down near her while he ate his porridge. Then he stripped off and, standing in the cold water where the streamlet pooled, rubbed himself down thoroughly with his dampened linen shirt. Poda, watching this familiar activity, drew a little closer.
After he had dressed himself in his spare clothes, he threw the grimy shirt and underbreeches in the pool and scrubbed them briefly before he rose and greeted his own horse – Narba remaining as stolid and unbothered as usual.
Finally he turned to the mare, speaking softly to her in Vonnish. At last she let him stroke her shoulder and take hold of the bridle. Carefully he unstrapped the saddle-bag, released the saddle and freed her from her burden. He was pleased to see that her back was not too chafed. After a few more murmured words and pats of reassurance he left her, retrieved his wet clothes from the pool and carried all the gear back to the camp.
There, even before he laid out his clothes to dry, he unpacked the saddle-bag. He immediately saw that this was not the one he wanted. None the less, the food inside it would be useful; stale bread, plenty of biscuit, dried fruit and a few hard-boiled eggs. He walked into the cleft to tell Yaret.
He was used to moving silently and Yaret did not hear. He saw the youth kneeling beside his fallen kinsman, gently offering him a spoon of sludgy biscuit with a murmur of “Try and eat a little more, Eled,” in a voice that sounded higher than before; raising a slim hand to brush away Eled’s hair with such a tender touch that Rothir froze.
The world shifted slightly. He saw kneeling before him not a beardless boy, but a female, age unknown, ministering to his friend. But why think that? Men could show tenderness too.
Yaret looked up and saw him. There was a flicker of alarmed awareness. That was what convinced him. He – she – knew that she had given herself away.
They stared at each other. Rothir began to frame a question, but Yaret got in first.
“What does Eled usually have for breakfast?” The voice was low and brisk again, the tenderness hidden so instantly that he could not be sure it had been there.
“What? Bread. Fruit. Whatever’s quick.”
“I have no bread,” said Yaret. “I suppose biscuit is no worse.”
She was signalling him to ignore it. In front of Eled the discussion could be postponed at least.
“I have some bread,” he said. “Not fresh, but still edible. Also eggs, fruit and biscuit, from Poda’s saddle-bag. I’ve just got it off her.” He addressed Eled. “Poda is safe and settling down now. She let me unsaddle her.”
“She’s not hurt?” asked Eled.
“No. She was only scared.”
“A little later, Eled,” Yaret said, “we can try to stand you up between us, and then if you can take a few steps out of this cave, with our support, you can see Poda. And she will see you. That will help her settle down some more.”
“Later,” murmured Eled, his eyelids already drooping.
Once they had left him and stood outside the cleft, Rothir tried again.
“Yaret. I understand that you–”
She cut across his words severely. “We should go and look for the second saddle-bag, if you think it will contain anything useful.” Her gaze was cool and distant; her hand a casual inch from the knife in her belt.
“I intend to go and search for it now.” He saw that there would be no discussion. He could force her to admit her disguise, but what would he gain? He needed her help and did not wish to forfeit her goodwill. “Since you say Poda ran off to the escarpment, I’ll ride Narba up there to look around,” he added, reflecting that it might be politic for him to distance himself for a while. He was aware his breadth and looks could be intimidating – an impression which he knew was fully justified, but which at this moment was slightly to be regretted.
When she nodded he whistled his horse over. After saddling Narba, he buckled on his sword belt and slung his bow over his back, because he never rode unprepared. Then he cantered off towards the Darkburn forest. Such a short, unhurried ride counted as rest and recreation for both horse and rider.
As he rode he tried to analyse the disturbance he had felt. That sudden sense of things shifting. He did not like to find himself so easily deceived, although he fully understood why such deceit was necessary.
Indeed, it was practised by some of the female Riders of the Vonn – those who could pass as male – when they were on the road. Two members of his own troop were women, from one of whom he took his orders. Maybe he could tell Yaret that.
But no, he couldn’t. Say as little as possible to as few people as possible: that was one of their rules, and a wise one, because you could never be certain who would talk to who. And he knew nothing of Yaret. She might not even be a pedlar, although he was inclined to think that that at least was true. All those woollen samples backed it up.
When he reached the Darkburn stream he examined the ground more carefully than he had the previous day. Leaving Narba by the forest edge, he followed the trail on foot where it led further in beneath the groping trees.
No saddle-bag lay on the ground. All was perhaps more silent than it should be. The tracks had not been overlaid by any others. Crucially, there was still no sign of any stonemen, which was what he had chiefly feared to see. Nor was there any lingering aura or scent of danger, although after a few moments he had the curious sensation that he was being watched.
Rothir had had that feeling before. In a place like this it was as likely to be wrong as right… or as likely to be right as wrong. He turned round in a full circle slowly: nothing moved. He looked overhead: a squirrel sat curled up on a branch. Maybe that was all.
Nevertheless he stood against the tree and watched the forest, quite motionless himself. After five minutes he decided he was wrong this time. On turning to leave, he stumbled over an old tree-stump and apologised to it before he knew what he was doing. He must be still more tired than he had realised.
Out of the wood the wind was brisk and the sun bright. He led Narba along the trail of hoofprints and burnt grass that headed to the cliff. There it diverged into two: the snaking scorch of the darkburn was easy to see, moving away from the exposed side of the escarpment where the thing had crawled back to the trees. That was the trail he followed first.
It led along a small, deep stream which flowed into the forest to meet the larger Darkburn. At the narrowest point the trail crossed the stream; so this creature could cope with a little water at least. Such a shallow stream would not put out its fires.
Then the creature had turned right as it met the main stream, heading deep into the wood. Rothir followed the trail for another mile in case there was some lair; but the blackened path did not halt. The darkburn had returned the way it had come, along its namesake river. Was it blind, he wondered, and simply following the scent or sound of water?
His knowledge of darkburns was too limited. Since the first one had appeared twelve years ago – he still shuddered at the memory – contact with them had for a long time been thankfully infrequent, but devastating when it happened. In this last year, however, it had happened more and more.
Even so, he did not know how many different types there were. Some that he had come across had been smaller than a human although far more deadly. Things of smoke and darkness, they were fast-moving and could out-run a man – or rather, out-rush him: for often they appeared as a rushing whirl, a spinning, smoky, indistinct mass of fear and dreadful heat.
Only once destroyed – for they could be destroyed, if your sword was strong enough and the fire did not eat you first – did they acquire some sort of substance. He remembered the first time he had managed it: the shards of charcoal left on the smouldering ground had been hard and brittle, white-hot in temperature if black in colour. For the darkburns’ heat was never expressed in light.
Except for this new sort. That red inward glow that Yaret had reported. And crawling legs… A few darkburns appeared to have limbs, of a sort; but he didn’t recognise this type at all, with its heavy slithering track and occasional claw-marks. This was something big, and new.
They are like corpses, he thought, burnt and desiccated corpses given animation, but hotter than a blacksmith’s forge. Not alive in any normal sense. They are artifices created purely to cause fear and destruction – to create horror. Overwhelming, disabling, fatal horror.
Contemplating the sooty trail he shook his head. He was a mile into the forest now and that was far enough. So he returned the way that he had come.
On leaving the trees he made for the long austere barrier of the escarpment. He could see where Eled’s horse had scrambled its way to the top, so he sprang up its rocky side by the same route. As he stood on the plateau and looked back at the dark mass of the forest fading into the distance, he thought of his companions somewhere beyond that obscure horizon.
If only he could send a message to Parthenal. Speak it to the woods, perhaps, and let the leaves carry the whisper long mile upon mile… No doubt the Farwth could easily arrange something like that.
But the Farwth would not do it here, for this was not its realm. The only way to get a message to his fellow Riders was in person.
“All the same,” said Rothir aloud, “I wish that you were here with me, Parthenal. One female pedlar’s not enough.” Then he shook his head again wryly at the pointlessness of his words, and resumed his hunt.
He tracked the signs the horse had left in its flight across the grass and stony slabs towards the higher ground. Its trail betrayed its panic as it zigzagged, sometimes widening to a gallop, its hooves leaving white scrapes on the rock; then slowing to a trot, before something spurred it to another gallop.
And there in the middle of the gallop, lying on a slab of orange lichen-painted granite, was Eled’s second saddle bag. Rothir let out a breath of relief as he walked over and picked it up.
It was still tied closed and intact. It wouldn’t have mattered if the saddle-bag had been lost, except that Eled would have been distraught; but there was no guarantee that it would have stayed lost.
Eled’s scabbard was there too, still attached to it, but no matter how carefully Rothir looked, he could see no sign of the sword. That was a frustration. Still, Eled was in no condition to use a sword right now. Unlikely to be for some time. Soberly he climbed down from the escarpment and went to retrieve Narba.
Halfway to the horse, something caught his eye. He strode over to inspect it: a shredded mess of skin and bones. It was the remains of an antelope, two or three days old, much chewed and torn – by wolves, most likely, judging by the toothmarks. A reminder that the darkburn was not the only thing out here to be wary of.
And now he had the responsibility of the helpless Eled, and a female – who might not be so helpless, who in fact seemed quite resourceful, but who was certainly not a warrior.
When he got back to the camp and dropped his haul on to the ground, Yaret looked at the scabbard.
“Oh,” she said, “there it is. I’ve got the sword. I forgot to tell you. It’s rolled up in hutila bark underneath my packs.”
Rothir was exasperated and hoped it did not show. He stowed away the saddle-bag without unpacking it. He knew what it would contain. Eled looked at it anxiously and said nothing.
“We’ve got both bags now, both undamaged,” he told Eled, and saw the relief in the younger man’s eyes.
Yaret hitched up her breeches and squatted next to Eled. “How do you feel about trying to stand up?” she asked him.
She? He? Rothir was unsure again. Yaret acted very like a boy, with a faint brusqueness and casualness of movement that made him wonder. Was it possible that he’d been mistaken?
“You don’t need to put any weight on that leg,” Yaret was saying. “We can support you on either side, and set you down again if you feel dizzy.”
The voice was business-like rather than gentle: in that middle register where it could be either a young man’s highish tenor or a low-toned woman. Rothir studied the face, noting the total lack of beard and the smooth throat. The slightly crooked nose and strong lines of the bones were good camouflage. As were the attitude, and the shapeless clothes. But no, he thought, he was not mistaken.
“I’ll try to stand,” said Eled, looking up at Rothir.
So Rothir went on one knee at his right side – the side of the broken leg – and with a “One, two, three” the two of them hauled Eled up together. Leaning on him heavily, the injured man stood trembling on one foot.
“All right,” said Eled breathlessly, and they were able to move him a few steps forward to the entrance of the cleft. Yaret released him and let Rothir guide him through the narrow opening.
“Ah.” Eled breathed deep and looked around. “Poda!” The horse came over at a trot to nose and snort at him. With Rothir supporting him, Eled put up a hand to touch Poda’s head. “Not your fault,” he said in Vonnish. “You were right to run. There’s nothing else you could have done just then.”
He remained standing for a few moments before a sigh told Rothir that he needed to be let down. They sat him gently against the most forgiving of the rocks near the fire.
“In an hour or so we’ll stand you up again, and have another go,” Yaret told him. “It’ll be good for your muscles. Try to stay awake a little longer now. Watch the horses. Poda will be happier while she can see you.”
On moving away, she murmured to Rothir. “What do you think? Is there any chance of getting him onto a horse within the next three days?”
“I think so.”
“Really? With that leg? But he would not be able to ride far.”
“He would be able to go as far as needed,” Rothir said. “You don’t know him.”
“True. Is he always so… gentle and quiet? I mean, when he is well?”
“He is a quiet man,” said Rothir, “and yes, gentle, and formidably brave. If he can, he will ride with a broken leg.”
“If he can,” she repeated. “Well, possibly he can, but there is the head wound too. You may well have to go to your rendezvous alone, after all.”
Rothir stared out across the empty-seeming plain. “I am reluctant to do that,” he said. “Not because I fear your ability to look after Eled, but because I do not know what else there is to fear.”
“You mean that creeping thing. The darkburn.”
“Yes.” There was no point in mentioning the stonemen to her. Where darkburns were, the stonemen were usually not far behind. But not in this case – or not so far. He did not know if that was merely down to luck.
“Do you think the darkburn might come hunting Eled?” she asked.
“Possibly. And there are other dangers besides the darkburn… Wolves, for instance.”
“I know. I heard wolves howl the other night. They came no closer than two miles, however.”
“Two miles is nothing in a wolf pack’s range. And there may be lions.”
“Seldom,” answered Yaret. “I have only seen a lion here twice in many years of travel.”
“That’s twice too often.”
“True. The second time I was alone,” said Yaret thoughtfully. “The lion circled me. I have never been so frightened in my life – that is, until I met the darkburn.”
“What happened to the lion? Did you shoot it?”
“No. I didn’t want to unless it became unavoidable. And it would have had to be a very good first shot, better than I was capable of at the time. It went away after a while: not hungry, I expect.”
They both gazed out across the loft. It looked undisturbed and undisturbable. A flock of goats scampered briefly, chased by nothing but the wind. Clouds scudded in the sky. But everything could alter in a moment, Rothir knew: a lion could suddenly appear. Everything could go wrong so easily, the way it had a week ago.
There had been no more than the usual cause for care, no signs of any stonemen when the troop of six set out. They had left the cloud-bound land of Farwithiel after holding the council – if it could be called that – with its sovereign. Maeneb was the only one of the troop with whom the Farwth would communicate, and she did not tell the others everything that she had learned. Safer not to know, again. But she had written down the Farwth’s counsel and put a copy of the scroll in the saddle-pack of each pair of Riders, so that if she were lost, all would not be lost.
Then they had set off, in their pairs, exploring the northern fringes of the great forest of the Darkburn for signs of the stonemen’s hideouts on their way back home to Thield. They had arranged to rendezvous every three days.
On the second rendezvous Arguril had ridden up alone. He was unhurt but stuttering with shock. Stonemen had attacked, he told them, and they had barely managed to escape, the thickness of the forest hindering their horses. At last, after many miles, Arguril had lost his pursuers; but he had also lost his riding-partner Eled.
So since then, they had all five of them been hunting for Eled. Now that he was found, Rothir did not want to let him go again.
He had to make the rendezvous in one week’s time. And he would prefer to take Eled with him. Perhaps he could manage that alone; but a glance at Eled propped against his rock – his eyes already closed once more – told him that the prospect was not a likely one. Eled would need someone up behind him to hold him on the horse. Poda was too nervous to bear the wounded man in safety; and even Narba, strong and willing though he was, could not carry two full-grown men for such a distance.
He glanced at Yaret, who stood scanning the landscape, her face somewhat sombre since the talk of lions.
There is, of course, a lighter option, he thought resignedly. Which means I have to take her at her word; and take them both.