The certainty that they were not being followed was Rothir’s only consolation for their slow progress. Time was so short…
He knew that he could leave the other two behind if need be, and gallop onward to the rendezvous, but he was reluctant to abandon them. Yaret’s bow would be of little use against the darkburns; and Eled could not fight.
Yaret evidently felt she had a duty to Eled as well. While she was mounted behind the injured man, she copied Rothir’s example in trying to keep him awake by chattering about this and that.
“The other day you talked about Caervonn, I think?” she said after a while, quite casually. “I’ve heard about the city of Caervonn.”
“And what have you heard?” Rothir demanded. He knew he sounded stern. The history of Caervonn and the expulsion of the Riders was in itself no secret; yet he hated to hear it spoken of lightly, as an idle rumour.
She shrugged. “I’m told it’s far away down south, towards the sea. There was a battle, or a civil war, or something. Now its people are split in two. That was just a bit of tavern gossip in Outer Kelvha. They said the Vonn who had no homes would sometimes aid the Kelvhans in their battles, or send wolf-hunters to the north.”
“That much is true.”
“So you are one of the homeless ones? The ones they called the Riders of the Vonn?”
“We are.” He hoped his tone was sufficiently forbidding. Perhaps it had been a mistake to mention Caervonn in front of her, even though the conflict there was common knowledge. But it was more important not to mention Thield or Huldarion – or rather, their current location, which was secret.
However, she asked nothing else. Instead she spoke again to Eled.
“Shall I tell you about the town I come from?”
Eled nodded.
“It’s north of the hills and west of the mountains,” she said. “A very long way from the sea. None of us has ever seen the sea. There are some small lakes a dozen miles away where people can catch fish; but they are muddy lakes, and the fish are even muddier. Not many people venture so far from Obandiro in any case. They are content at home.”
The homeplace that she described was very different to Caervonn. It sounded as if Obandiro were barely even a town – more of a large, sprawling village, with no tall buildings except a bell tower at the marketplace. Its greatest glory seemed to be that marketplace, an area where three hundred people could gather; in Yaret’s awed tones, an enormous number. Rothir suppressed a smile.
“How large is your population?” he inquired.
“Perhaps a thousand and a half.”
“That’s not many.”
“No.” She was silent for a moment. “There have been setbacks through the years. We have suffered blight and famine, and endless winter storms that blow down from the north, and of course the fever… But for the last twenty years or so, Obandiro has thrived.”
“I’m glad of that,” he said, feeling a little ashamed of his former amusement.
“And what is your house like?” asked Eled.
“It’s outside the town,” said Yaret, “a couple of miles away. I live on my grandparents’ farm – well, just a small-holding, really. A few sheep and goats and chickens. But they have a large house. It has three floors! It’s built of wood and so old that it’s mostly held together with ivy. Everything creaks, especially at night. The stairs play tunes when you use them: one tune for up, and one for down.”
Eled laughed.
“Downstairs are the kitchen and the living quarters, and upstairs are the looms, because the light is better there for weaving. That’s where my grandfather will be busy right now, clattering away at his loom and making the whole house shake. Once, when I was about eleven, I tried to climb up the ivy on the outside wall to surprise him at his work, but the ivy wasn’t strong enough; that’s how I broke my nose. And my collarbone as well.”
“You’re a weaver,” said Eled experimentally.
“Yes. Grandfather is the main weaver. I help him in the winter, but I’m not so skilled as he is. His cloth is always perfectly smooth and even. It’s in great demand. Gramma spins the wool, but downstairs to avoid the racket of the looms. Half a dozen of her cronies in the town spin wool for us as well. I do a bit of spinning, and look after the animals.”
“What about your parents?” asked Rothir.
She looked past Eled at him. A cool, withdrawing gaze.
“My mother died of fever along with my small brother, soon after he was born. I don’t remember much about it; I was only three. My father died when I was six. A lion got him while he was out hunting. I remember that. But I’ve had a good life with my grandparents.”
Rothir’s inclination to smile had gone entirely. A reminder that Caervonn’s was not the only tragedy, he thought: every family had its own disasters, often barely visible and managed without fuss. People just got on with whatever had to be done, because what alternative was there?
“You said three floors,” said Eled. “What’s on the third floor?” Rothir was pleased by his attention to this detail.
“That’s the cellar,” Yaret answered with some pride. “My father and grandfather dug it out. In winter it’s full of piles of roots and sacks of oats and boxes of apples and shelves of cheese. My grandmother makes Kelvhan cheese; it lasts for ever.”
“And smells worse the older it gets,” Rothir commented. “How close are you to Kelvha, then? I thought your town lay further to the east.”
“It does. We’re a long way from Kelvha. But my grandmother is from Outer Kelvha – very outer – where our distant kinsmen settled many years ago, after our people migrated from further north.”
“Your people,” said Eled enquiringly.
“The Bandiran. We came south about four centuries ago. Many settled where I live at Obandiro, north of the Coban hills. Others kept going west past Melmet, to Ioben. That’s where my grandmother is from.”
“Very outer Kelvha, indeed,” said Rothir.
“You know it?” she asked in some surprise.
“I’ve travelled through both Melmet and Ioben; in the past some of us have hired ourselves as wolf-hunters to the Baron of the Broc. I have travelled a good deal, though more to the west than in the direction of Obandiro. If I have passed close by, it was without realising Obandiro was there. I admit that I’m not quite sure that I have ever heard its name.”
“Good,” said Yaret. “That’s the way we like it.”
“Where did your people come from, when you migrated from the north?” asked Eled, impressing Rothir again.
“Up in the hills, behind a land called Horva,” Yaret said.
“I know Horva. It’s a hard life they have there,” commented Rothir. It was an unyielding land of semi-nomadic herdsmen with scrawny cattle and bad-tempered sheep. “I didn’t see any settlements in the hills beyond,” he added.
“I don’t think anyone lives there any more. There was an earthquake – more than one: a series of them. The town was destroyed and the waters changed their courses. The Bandiran decided to leave and settle elsewhere, but the Horvans didn’t want us. So we kept going. We have no written records from the time. But there are plenty of tales and ballads about it, especially by our bard, Madeo.” She said the name with a kind of reverence.
“I have not heard of Madeo,” said Rothir.
“I expect not. But Madeo was one of the leaders of the exodus and after that a great traveller in the new lands, whose songs have gone down through the generations.”
“Could you sing any of them?” asked Eled eagerly.
“Not while we are riding. Maybe later.”
Rothir found himself somewhat dejected by the tale. Did the Vonn also face four hundred years of exile, with no hope of return? If that were to be the case, what was the point of anything that he could do?
We can try to make things better, he reminded himself. Just stick to now. Do whatever needs to be done, without fuss.
He plodded on, the muffled thud of Poda’s hooves beating a leisurely rhythm: too slow, too slow, too slow.
Mile after weary mile they walked, their progress snail-like even once they left behind the giant boulders of the Hayle; for they needed to halt every hour or two when Eled began to slump. Once he nearly fell from the horse before Rothir, reacting to Yaret’s sudden cry of alarm, quickly moved across to hold him up.
“I’m all right really. I can go a bit further,” said Eled apologetically. So Rothir agreed, although he knew that this long ride could not be good for his companion.
When they stopped for the night Eled’s leg was red and swollen. Rothir tended to him, trying in vain to engage him in gentle conversation while he reapplied the star-moss dressing. Meanwhile Yaret built the fire and cooked up a mix of oats, biscuit and dried fruit – fast if uninviting food. She unpacked small pots of salt and honey, but Rothir, seeing her prepare to add a spoonful of honey to the mix, said, “Save it.”
“It’ll make it tastier for Eled.”
“Save it.” He could not give a reason. He just had the feeling that some unforeseen emergency or need might yet occur; though what sort of emergency could require a small pot of honey, he did not know. But he was uneasy with foreboding and could not have spelt out why.
Perhaps it was the rank and rotten smell that pervaded this whole area. Now, with the Hayle left far behind, they were beginning to traverse swampier ground. The land was pitted with numerous small ponds and shallow, reedy lakes which were fringed with sad bedraggled trees. The wetness of the surroundings should have been reassuring, if Rothir’s theories about the darkburns were correct; but the place stank of rotting vegetation.
After a little searching they found a spot that was dry enough to spend the night. However, there was no refuge from the smell. It was not as bad as the stench of darkburns, but bad enough.
“Is this still the Loft, in your parlance?” he asked Yaret as they ate their limited provisions.
She shook her head. “I doubt it. It feels too depressing.”
It is our situation that is depressing, Rothir thought. They finished eating in near-silence and Yaret set aside the remnants for the morning. She did not sing any ballads as she had promised; nor did Eled ask for them. Indeed, as soon as he had eaten he fell restlessly asleep.
Rothir studied him with concern. As his anxiety for Eled grew, so too did his affection and respect for the young man. He must not fail him.
While he unpacked his gear he had come to a decision. Now he turned to Yaret.
“I’d better tell you who it is that we are fleeing from.”
“Apart from darkburns? Rothir, you don’t have to tell me anything that you would prefer to keep to yourself.”
“I know that. And I thank you. But I think it would be wise, so that you’re prepared.”
She pulled a face. “All right. Go on.”
“It is not just the darkburns that we have to fear,” he told her soberly. “It is the people whom the darkburns lead – or at least who follow after them, and who are much more numerous. The darkburns sometimes act as trackers for them. Also the terror instigated by the presence of a darkburn gives them a significant advantage in a fight. These people are called stonemen.”
“Stonemen…. I think I may have heard of somebody like that,” she said slowly. “Odd drunken tales in inns, again. Men who worship stone, or are made of stone, one story said. I didn’t believe it.”
“They are certainly not made of stone,” said Rothir. “They are human. But they do worship stone, after a fashion, and have their own strange rituals.” He did not want to go into detail. “It is enough to say that recently – in the last dozen years or a little longer – they have become much more aggressive. They nurture hatred of all other peoples, and hunt down those who don’t share their beliefs.”
“Why? What’s changed to make them start doing that? Have they been persecuted?”
Rothir shook his head. “Not by us. In the past they were simply a secretive tribe in the lands towards the sea; they kept to themselves. It’s not clear what has altered.”
“Have they attacked Caervonn?”
“They have in the past, twelve years ago.” He thought of those first bloody battles underneath the city walls, and decided not to elaborate. “Afterwards, once our group of Riders had been exiled, a truce was called between the stonemen and Caervonn. It did not include us exiles and they have hunted us down ever since. But Caervonn itself has been peaceful, until lately: however, it seems that now the situation may have changed.”
“You don’t know?”
“No news comes out of Caervonn now,” said Rothir sombrely. “The stonemen have also had several encounters with Kelvha, whom they hate. This year there has been a marked increase in their attacks on Kelvha’s south-east borders. But they attacked Kelvha first, not the other way around. And perhaps hate is the wrong word. The stonemen simply regard all those who don’t share their culture and beliefs as not fully human.”
“That’s always dangerous,” commented Yaret.
“It is. It seems that over the years their beliefs and practices have become much more extreme,” said Rothir carefully. “Also, they drug themselves. That may account for some of the change.”
“But not all of it?”
He considered before saying, “There may be somebody behind it. The same somebody who is behind the darkburns. For the appearance of the first darkburns twelve years ago coincided with the rising of the stonemen… and with other things.” The towers of Caervonn stood in memory before him, no longer beautiful but burning.
“How would I know a stoneman?”
“You’ll know one as soon as he comes running at you with an axe.” At once Rothir wished he had not said that. “They wear red tunics and they often paint their faces. Daub them with grey. And they wear a crown of stones. Like the darkburns that they drive before them, they are an increasing threat across an area that grows wider by the year.”
“But you do not know what the darkburns are,” said Yaret.
“No.”
“Yet you think the same wizardly power may have instigated all these attacks?”
He was silent for a long moment. “We think so.”
She nodded. “I thank you for your confidence.”
“Don’t thank me,” Rothir said. “It’s not good news.”
“I have one more question, if I may? It’s not about the Vonn.”
“Ask.”
“I have now seen two darkburns,” said Yaret. “Yet no stonemen. So the one does not always follow the other?”
“It usually does, in my experience at least. When the lone darkburn attacked our camp I assumed a dawn attack by stonemen might be imminent. That is why I made us leave.”
“And the creeping thing in the forest? I saw no stonemen there.”
“Luckily for you.” Rothir felt suddenly very weary. None of this was easy to explain; not least because his own understanding of events was so incomplete. He did not like not knowing what was going on.
“Well,” said Yaret, “we had better copy Eled now, and go to sleep.”
“I wish that I could sleep as soundly as he can,” Rothir answered.
“Ah…” She made a movement of her hand towards him, almost as if she would have patted his arm, before thinking better of it.
Definitely female, he decided, before recognising his own prejudice: for neither Tiburé nor Maeneb would ever have done anything of the sort. Indeed he expected no such tenderness from most of the women that he knew. His riding-partner Parthenal would be more likely to give him a kind pat.
The night was cold, and frequently disturbed by plaintive bird-calls. The donkeys stamped noisily and huffed in uneasy indignation. When it was barely light Rothir arose and woke his comrades. Yaret stood up and, still half asleep, did her usual morning ritual, not bothering to conceal it this time as she touched first the ground and then chest, lips and forehead with a floppy hand and her eyes closed.
Rothir urged them both to get moving. Despite his urgency, he felt bad about giving them so little rest. The fact that neither of them complained did not reduce his sense of guilt.
They ploughed through mud and splashed around the reedbeds. The stink of decaying vegetation grew stronger the further east they went. Far to their right, the dense bulk of the Darkburn forest still marched alongside the swamplands, keeping pace with them. Yaret’s troubled gaze was often drawn to it.
“I never realised that it was so big,” she said. “My grandfather’s map only showed a little scrap of woodland. But it just goes on and on.”
“In a dozen miles or so it will start to bend increasingly round to the south, following the Darkburn river. But we’re at a safe enough distance from it here.” Or so he hoped. Yet to move further from the Darkburn would slow them down.
And Rothir now judged, with a deep wrench of his gut, that they were not going to be in time to make the rendezvous. Tomorrow – however little he liked the idea – he would have to leave the other two and go on ahead alone.
“Oh,” said Yaret. Her horse had stopped. Eled swayed in front of her, eyes half-closed; but it was not that. She was staring down at one of the stagnant pools, her face stricken.
“What is it?” Following her gaze, Rothir jumped down from Poda to take a look. Under the pool’s surface there was a dark, thick shape which after a few seconds he identified as an old tree stump with some roots still attached. Perhaps she had taken it for a drowned person.
“It’s only a piece of wood,” he said.
“It’s... burnt.”
“Perhaps. But it’s not human.”
“I didn’t think it was,” said Yaret, still staring. He could not work out why. “Is it a darkburn?”
He reached into the cold water and fished it out to reassure her that whatever it was, it was innocuous. The object was half as long as he was. Tangled in the weed, it came up draped with wet green strands: a twisted lump of blackened, sodden something that might have once been either wood or charcoal.
“More likely a bit of tree; although I suppose it’s possibly a darkburn,” he said. “Or was once. It could have been in there for years.” He tipped it back into the pool and dried his hands on his breeches.
“How would a darkburn end up in the pool?”
“Unknown,” said Rothir, climbing back onto the horse. Yaret’s face held a tight expression, almost of pain, despite the harmlessness of what he had pulled out of the water. He realised that the pain was reflected on Eled’s face, although for different reasons. Best to keep moving while they could.
“Let’s get on,” he said, and urged Poda to a swifter walk.
“Eled is not well,” said Yaret’s voice, about five minutes later. “I think he’s going to–”
Rothir wheeled Poda round quickly; but not fast enough. Eled had gone limp. He abruptly collapsed forwards and sideways in the saddle, and in trying to hold him, Yaret slid off too. They fell together heavily onto the damp ground.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” cried Yaret, scrambling to her feet. “I couldn’t hold him. Is his leg all right?”
Luckily the ground was soft; and Eled had fallen on his good side. Nonetheless the splint had twisted round his broken leg. The bark support had flown off somewhere.
Rothir lifted him gently and carried him to a dryer spot, where he laid him down. The weary eyes had opened and were bewildered and ashamed.
“I’m not much use,” Eled whispered. “Like an old man.”
“Does your leg hurt badly?”
“Not really.” Eled was lying. His pain was obvious, and there was nothing that Rothir could do about it apart from trying to settle him more comfortably where he lay. He cursed himself for driving Eled on when he knew that he was suffering.
“I’m sorry,” Yaret said again.
Rothir stood up. “I should have been paying more attention. I was trying to lead us on too fast. No; lie still, Eled. Take a rest. You may as well rest here awhile as anywhere else.”
“I’ll find the piece of bark,” said Yaret, and she ran back a little way to where the bark support lay floating in a pool. She lifted it out and then dropped it, withdrawing sharply from the brink.
“Rothir.”
“What?”
“It’s another one.”
He walked over to look. “It’s another dead stump,” he said, gazing down into the brown water. The thing was a twisted trunk maybe a metre long.
“No,” said Yaret. “It’s not.”
“If it’s a darkburn, it’s drowned, inert, just like the last one. I’ll show you.” He rolled up a sleeve, reached in and heaved the charred, twisted lump of wood out of the water. He heard Yaret’s sharp intake of breath.
And in the same instant he became aware that the stump was warm beneath his hand. Its gnarled, black, broken limbs began to steam even as they dripped water back into the pool. Belatedly, he realised that the water had felt warm too.
“It’s not dead,” said Yaret hoarsely, and it writhed suddenly in his hands. He dropped it as if it had burnt him. Another moment, and it might have.
The darkburn fell at the edge of the pool, twitching. Rothir kicked it back into the water. Seizing a large stone from the bank in both hands he dropped it in on top of the thing. There was movement for a while beneath the surface; and then stillness.
When he turned round Yaret was crying. At least, tears glistened in her eyes although she did not move a muscle nor make a sound. His instinct was to put his arms around her. He kicked the urge down as firmly as he had kicked the darkburn. Not the right place, nor time, nor the right thing to do. He decided to feel mild irritation instead. There was no need for tears.
“We’re safe from it,” he told her. “It can’t hurt us from in there. It couldn’t even get out on its own, let alone with that rock of top of it.”
She did not answer. He saw her swallow as she picked up the bark support and passed it to him. It had cracked down the middle, but was still usable.
“What is this place?” muttered Rothir as he took it. “A darkburn graveyard?”
“Yes.” She murmured something that he could not catch.
“What was that?”
“I was... saying words for the dead.”
“For darkburns?”
“For any dead.”
Rothir felt his exasperation grow, although part of it was with himself. “These aren’t dead, because they were never alive. Graveyard was the wrong word to use. Better to say they are inactive.”
Yaret did not reply. She walked over to the donkeys and put her arm around Dolm’s neck, as if to draw comfort from his sturdy nonchalance.
Rothir shook his head and went to offer Eled a drink of water. It was fortunate that they were carrying plenty, for he was unwilling to fill the waterskins from these peaty pools. How many of them held darkburns – inactive or otherwise? Did some of the ponds steam, or was that simply his imagination?
While Eled rested, he took a brief stroll around, pretending to scan the landscape but in fact surreptitiously checking the many pools near his feet. He thought he glimpsed half-hidden in their brown waters more submerged and twisted shapes. Had some fight involving darkburns happened here? Or were there so many darkburns wandering through this area, and so much water, that some inevitably ended up in it?
He wondered how long the writhing thing had been underwater for. How long it would take before it died… Or became inactive, rather.
On rejoining the others, he said briskly, “I can see a drier path ahead of us. Do you feel able to go on?”
Eled nodded, although he was clearly still in pain. Nevertheless, Rothir helped him to stand up without further delay. He wanted to be out of this place of drowned darkburns as soon as possible, and to get away from the Darkburn forest.
There was no getting away from the river altogether – its tributaries were everywhere: every watercourse within thousands of square miles ended up feeding the Darkburn. But once they reached the Gyr Tarn he would breathe more easily.
He pictured the still lake that lay cupped in its shallow bowl within the bleak, bare foothills of the Gyr. There were caves on its perimeter where Yaret and Eled could shelter, while he himself rode on to the meeting-point behind the craggy hills. The Gyr tarn would be a safer place than here to leave Yaret and Eled – if it came to that.
So, his urgency still stronger than his guilt, he helped them mount the horse, and led the small troop on.