They rode hard and fast across the bleak plains west of the Thore. When they had crossed the outer woodlands of Farwithiel, with the trees ever diminishing in size and splendour, they had felt as if they were emerging from a languorous sleep. A sense of urgency rose in them and hurried them over the river and past the dour Coban Hills hunched to their north. They galloped across long miles of increasingly withered scrub until they found themselves high on the Iarad plateau, the cold wind slapping in their faces to wake them up still further.
Maeneb, at least, was very aware of the difference. She was not sure if it affected the others in the same way. But she herself seemed to be riding away from an unlikely dream whose true nature slipped into forgetfulness minute by minute. Yet who was to say which was more real: the great living halls of the Farwth, or this mad galloping over a vast empty land in pursuit of an unseen enemy?
After the enclosing lushness of Farwithiel the grey moorland of the barren Iarad was bleak and hostile. Maeneb had heard that it had once been forested, many centuries ago, before blight and drought reduced it to a semi-desert. Although it rained enough here now, the land had not recovered; there were areas of muddy ground where nothing grew. In other stretches, stunted gorse and heather seemed to battle for survival.
The biting wind scoured the drab earth and dragged wave after wave of black, heavy clouds across the sky. As they pulled up by a stream to let the horses drink, and to drink themselves, Rothir looked at her.
“Well? Any clues, Maeneb? Which way do we go next?”
She stared upstream, listening for the stonemen. It was not like listening to the Farwth, for that would speak to her whether she were prepared for it or not. And its voice those last two days had put her into a kind of trance of gladness. Almost of belonging – that was the only way to describe it. The sense of belonging had no connection with her father: she hadn’t even seen him this time, although he must have been told that she was there. No, it was due purely to the Farwth, when it had given her the unexpected news about the stonemen.
More than that. It had discussed the threat as if her opinion actually mattered. She felt that it had finally accepted her, or had chosen to let her know that it accepted her. Yet now that it was gone she struggled to remember exactly how it sounded.
Now she strained to listen to what she thought of as the lesser voices of the land, although what she heard came neither through the ground nor through the air. It was a sense for which she had no name. What had been developed in the Wardens to speak to the Farwth seemed in her to apply to any human – indeed, she could sense any living thing, if in a weaker way. So she put forth all her strength to hear.
And she did not like what she heard.
“There are so many of them,” she said in some dismay. “Perhaps more than a thousand. Certainly many hundreds.”
“All stonemen?” queried Tiburé.
Maeneb nodded. “They all have the same colour of thought. They all think of war, and fury, and the triumph and honour of killing. It is a concentration of minds all turned in the same direction – but distorted, too, like a picture seen through a twisted glass.”
“The drugs,” said Parthenal.
“The stones,” said Rothir.
“No darkburns there with them?” asked Tiburé.
“There may well be darkburns. I do not hear them as I hear living things. I can barely feel them at all, and only when they are very close. By that time everybody else can feel them coming too.”
“How far away are these stonemen now?” asked Rothir. Although she had detected in his mind some sadness at leaving Eled and Farwithiel, now he seemed equally determined to get away as fast as possible. All his mind was keenly focused on the road ahead.
“They are distant,” she replied. “Perhaps as much as thirty miles away. They’re travelling quite fast, but not towards us: they are marching north. I think they may have recently split into two groups; there is a divergence, but the groups are not yet very far apart.”
“Then we’ll ride on,” said Tiburé, “because however fast they march, we can ride faster. We’ll try to get close enough to judge their numbers and their destination.”
“We may judge their numbers to some degree by the trail they’ll have left behind them,” Rothir pointed out. “If we’re marching north we’ll cross their path. It can’t be far away.”
So they rode on; and within a few miles found the expected trail, a wide trampling of the withered shrubs. In one muddy place the marks were clear, so they dismounted to examine them. Maeneb immediately recognised the prints left by the stonemen’s rope-soled boots.
“Six or maybe eight abreast,” reported Parthenal. “And another six abreast just over there. Two columns… but who knows how long each column might have been?”
Rothir was frowning at the trampled earth.
“There are wheel marks here,” he said, “as if there were carts. But no sign of any hooves. So were there no horses pulling them?”
“Hand-carts,” said Tiburé. “They must need them for provisions for such a long march.”
“Well, maybe,” said Rothir, although he seemed unconvinced as he raised his head to scan the area. Then he pointed. “Look, there’s a cart that’s been abandoned over there. Let’s go and see if it can tell us anything.”
Maeneb noted the tracks of many over-lapping wheels as they rode to the fallen cart, which was lying on its side several hundred yards away. It was a crude green-wood handcart with metal shafts, small enough to be pulled by two men. It had lost a wheel: the axle had evidently broken as it was hauled over the rocky ground. But it was the cart itself that gripped Rothir’s attention.
“It’s burnt,” he said. “Look. Burnt half way through the base.”
“It’s been carrying darkburns,” Maeneb said. The thought filled her with a sudden grim anxiety and fear – an irrational dread, she told herself, a mere memory of fear; for there was neither the smell nor feel of any darkburn here. They were too long gone.
“You couldn’t use a wooden cart to carry darkburns,” Parthenal objected. “The wood would turn to charcoal within minutes. And even with the metal handles, the men pulling the cart would suffer burns.”
“Those holes drilled through the handles could take ropes or chains, and lengthen the distance between cart and man. Also, the wood is sodden,” Rothir pointed out. “I expect they sluiced it down at intervals. And, look here: something has been torn up from the cart’s base – see the nail marks?”
“A cart lined with metal sheeting might not burn away too fast,” said Tiburé, “particularly if it were regularly soaked with water.”
“You could use tin, perhaps,” said Parthenal doubtfully.
“A darkburn would melt tin. Iron more likely,” said Rothir, “but you’d need a lot of it if all the carts were lined that way.”
“And they’d be heavy. So you’d need more than two men for each cart,” said Parthenal.
“The ropes would allow for that. We must have crossed the tracks of at least a dozen carts – maybe twenty.”
“Twenty darkburns?” queried Tiburé. “In iron carts?”
“Caged,” said Maeneb suddenly. “I saw strange rows of bars in the stonemen’s thoughts. Stripes of darkness. And heat within them.”
They looked at each other.
“Why?” asked Parthenal. Maeneb shook her head.
“Twenty darkburns would be hard to keep control of,” Tiburé observed. “With those numbers, and for these distances, it would be difficult to herd them. The stonemen might well have to cage them just to keep themselves safe.”
“I don’t like it,” Rothir muttered.
“I like none of this,” replied Tiburé, somewhat sharply. “Is there anything else to be learned here? If not, let’s move on and keep following the trail.”
They did so. But they had ridden only a few miles further when Maeneb’s sensation of anxiety grew much stronger.
Something here was in terrible distress. Something she recognised. Not a human – but some familiar being none the less. She pulled up to a sudden halt, putting both hands to her head.
“What is it?” asked Tiburé.
“Something dreadful happened here,” she answered hoarsely. “There’s an animal nearby, I think, in appalling pain. It’s struggling. We need to find it.”
She pointed to the direction of the feeling. Within minutes they had found its source, deep in a ditch. It was a horse, with all its legs broken. Its saddle had been cut from its body with a violence that left deep bloody slashes along its flank. It was trying to stand up.
It was Arguril’s.
“That’s Vela,” said Maeneb in new anguish.
“So where is Arguril?”
“I don’t know. I can’t hear him anywhere.”
Tiburé gripped her sword hilt, her face stern. “We’ll look around,” she said, “in case. Parthenal?” She nodded at the horse. Then she and Rothir rode away to scour the area for any sign of Arguril, leaving Parthenal to do what needed to be done.
Parthenal climbed down into the ditch to reach Vela, the stricken mare. He spoke soothingly to her and stroked the bloodied neck and mane until the eyes stopped wildly rolling. As she grew calm, he told her what a good horse she had been, what a fine and faithful servant: how she was loved. Then he drew his knife and gently cut her throat.