Shrew, mouse, rabbit… how did it go again?
Eled shook his head in frustration. Then he looked guiltily at Rothir. But Rothir was not watching him just now. Instead he kept taking glances at Yaret’s poor leg. So he didn’t realise how Eled had failed. It should be easy. Shrew, mouse…
Maybe it didn’t matter. He didn’t think Rothir cared about this game. He had never heard Rothir play it. But he wanted to please Yaret, because Yaret was kind.
He couldn’t remember the next animal. It filled him with a nagging anxiety. And he was aware that there was something else that he could not remember, that was very important, that he had to look after.
His sword. He turned his head. There it was, in the corner under a root. What was this place? He didn’t remember coming in here. He only remembered a lot of riding. But he could see through the wide entrance to the cave and knew from the size of the trees that this must be Farwithiel. He had been here before. He was almost sure of that, anyway.
But why were they back here now? He looked down at his leg and remembered that it was broken. Not broken off, like Yaret’s, only broken. He had forgotten because it had stopped hurting. So perhaps that meant that it was nearly better now and they could all move on.
He didn’t remember breaking it. One more thing that was hidden in the fog. Things would appear, and disappear, and he didn’t understand why they didn’t stay.
Shrew. Mouse. Rat. It was such an effort. And what was the other thing?
Not his sword. Not his name. He knew his name. Then it came to him in a rush of sudden fear.
“The scroll!” he said.
Rothir looked round at him. “It’s safe with Arguril. Don’t worry about it, Eled.”
“I won’t,” said Eled, relief flushing out the fear. He did not need to worry. Rothir would sort things out. He always found a way through difficult places. Rothir had found him after… after what?
Poda sweating under him. He remembered galloping beneath trees, scared of crashing into a low branch, but unable to rein her in. Had that been here? He looked out of the cave and saw big trees; it looked rather like Farwithiel. He thought he had been somewhere else.
The Darkburn river. A shadow crawled across his mind. The beating hooves: the stench of smoke – of something worse. It had no name. He realised that his fists were clenched and trembling and he made himself unclench them, carefully, before the others noticed.
Because now the troop was all in here, filling up this wooden cave, although he didn’t remember seeing them come in. Time seemed to slip past him unnoticed. That was another worry.
“The scroll,” said Tiburé. So she had remembered it as well. Maybe he didn’t need to worry after all, because the others would do the remembering and the worrying. When he was better he would remember better too. He knew he had something wrong with him. His leg, that was it. It was in a splint. But it wasn’t hurting any more. So he was getting better. He felt a small surge of relief.
“One scroll is with Arguril. I have the second scroll safe here,” said Parthenal.
“We may as well destroy it,” said Tiburé curtly.
“Why?”
“It’s obsolete,” said Maeneb. “It’s no longer relevant. The information that was in it has been superseded, according to the Farwth.”
“In what way?” asked Rothir.
“The scroll described the settlements and movements of the stonemen as they advanced north of the river. It drew a possible connection with… the one we call ignoble.” She glanced at Yaret. “It surmised his plans.”
“But now?”
“Now those plans have been set in place. The stonemen have already formed an army and are marching swiftly across the Iarad wildlands, west of the Thore. I felt something of them, from the cliffs… but the Farwth has a longer reach, across the waters of the Thore. In places the trees touch across the river: their roots can penetrate beneath it. Even from the treeless Iarad some tidings come back to the Farwth. They tell of hundreds, maybe thousands of stonemen heading north. And as they cross the wilderness, they are starting to lay a trail of destruction.”
Stonemen. He remembered those now. Chasing and yelling. And something else. Something darker. His fingers clenched helplessly around nothing. Where was his sword? Where was his horse?
“What sort of destruction?” demanded Parthenal.
“Attacking villages. Killing. Burning.” Eled could see Maeneb swallow. “They are meeting little resistance, the Farwth says… because they take with them so many darkburns.”
Darkburn. That was it. The thing that he could not remember. Now it leapt back at him in a cloud of fear: he vividly recalled the smell, the smoke, the dread, the glow embedded deep in charcoaled horror. The burning thing that crawled towards him.
Darkburn. Forget, forget, forget.