Chapter 19
“You’re determined to go on to battle, then?”
Yaret paused in loading baggage on to Poda. “Yes, I am.”
Rubila sucked her teeth. “Did the cave not advise you against it?”
“No. It said nothing about battles.”
Rubila waited, her head a little on one side. She was obviously hoping for more information about what the cave had said – for Yaret had told her the previous evening only that she had indeed heard several words. She had added, “It was very odd,” and that was all.
Nor did she feel that she was willing to tell Rubila now the phrases she had heard, in case the other woman placed some unwelcome interpretation on them. Even so she did not want to hurt Rubila’s feelings. So she said placatingly,
“There was nothing about death in the words, as you assured me. Nothing for me to fear.”
“Then perhaps there will be no battle after all,” said Rubila, “and you are riding all that way for nothing. You can always stay on here with us, you know.”
Home is where you are... She could decide that it meant the Fiordal. It was tempting to remain here, so cocooned and cared for. But if she were to abandon this journey, it ought to be to Obandiro that she returned.
“Thank you, but no,” she said, and to appease Rubila she added, “After the words, I thought I heard the sea.”
“The sea?” repeated Rubila blankly. Of course she had never been there either. “The sea! Ah, well. If that’s what you heard, I expect that’s what you need to go and find. But be safe and come back soon.”
Yaret had just begun to explain that she did not intend to search for the sea, when Igolo and Brula came running out – they had no fear of falling, those children – and thrust towards her little bags of offerings to add to the tough dried roots and plums that Rubila had already given her, refusing any payment.
She opened one bag. Inside, wrapped in leaves, were a dozen cherries stickily preserved in honey. She was touched, for this was a real treat given up by Igolo on her behalf. Brula’s bag held five glossy hard-boiled pigeon eggs.
“Thank you,” she said, and bowed, even though they could not see her. But they would hear the bow as she went on, “I will visit you again next year, no doubt. When you will be still taller.”
“Come back before that!” said Igolo. Brula hugged her and they ran off together.
Yaret bent to kiss Rubila’s wrinkled cheek before she mounted Poda. This was a good home, but it was not hers. All the same, an unexpected feeling of regret pulled at her as she rode away.
My dear. Did she take those dead with her? She imagined them still standing in the whispering stone hall, like eternal statues.
But they had no more reason to remain there than she did. So out of the Uin-Buin she rode determinedly, away from the murmuring waves hidden beneath the earth, past the mounds and across the many streamlets.
The landscape here was just awakening into green and gold. The air smelt fresh – for the first few hours, at least. It was several hours later, when she reached the next stretch of farmland, that the scent of smoke began to taint the air, and grew thicker as she rode.
Soon there were more signs of burning: hayricks, spinneys, one whole wood of coppiced willow, many acres razed to black with no sign of new growth. This felt worse than the countryside around Obandiro, which had largely escaped the fire, and Yaret began to canter through it as fast as Poda would allow. She continued to ride as night fell, hearing the hoofbeats pound rhythmically across the moonlit desert. The same frantic thudding she had heard down by the Darkburn, before Poda had burst through the undergrowth, riderless and snorting... Now that heartbeat seemed to be the only sound in all this land.
When finally she halted and lay down to sleep beside the burnt, cold remnants of a hayrick, the smell of smoke immersing her like an unwelcome extra cloak, she asked the Farwth, whispering through the ground, What has happened here?
She neither expected nor got any answer. But the land felt somehow paralysed with shock. It made her think of Eled, that gentle, dazed young man. She hoped he was still safe in Farwithiel – and that Farwithiel itself was safe. Surely it must be, given the power of the Farwth to dispel intruders.
As she lay huddled on the smoky ground her mind turned to the other Riders of the Vonn, remembering how they had rested in that huge hollow tree. Back in Obandiro she had seldom allowed herself to think about the Riders except during the telling of her evening tale. Only now and then would she pull out memories to give her information, or simply comfort. She rationed herself, because it had seemed so unlikely that she would ever see them again. And she wanted to see them again: she admitted that now. They seemed to beckon her from some obscure horizon.
“Parthenal,” she murmured to the smoky darkness, aware that it sounded like an incantation, or a prayer. “Rothir. Tiburé. Maeneb.”
She might have put too much faith in those memories, she thought. She might have made of the Riders more than they actually were. Parthenal, after all, was slightly dazzling: more than slightly. Maeneb’s gift had fascinated her, although she’d been careful not to show her curiosity. Tiburé had commanded her respect.
And Rothir. He had saved her life. No, she had not put too much faith in them. She owed it to the Riders to show equal courage, if she could, in the fight against the stonemen.
“Give me fortitude,” she whispered to the moon. “Show me the way.”
Yet she had no notion where the Riders were right now. Hundreds of miles south, most probably, in that mysterious place called Thield, or with that equally mysterious person called Huldarion. Intent on their own tasks. What a fool she was to try and make herself into a Rider... So much to get wrong.
Last night, in the warm shelter of Rubila’s fire-room, she had slept dreamlessly; but tonight her sleep was full of rumbling hooves and wailing wolves and worse. She woke to a clatter of spears that dissolved into the silence of the smoke-stained dawn.
I heard the voices of the cave, she thought as she arose, half-dazed, but the whole world is my cavern now; the vast bowl of the sky can send me echoes from anywhere it wills. So listen. And observe.
She ate her tough dried plums and then three honeyed cherries, before she mounted Poda and set out again.
At the next junction of paths she found the tracks of many feet and cart-wheels crossing her path. They were heading north-west on the old Tuatha, an ancient and in places sunken road which was little used except by farmers and small traders.
And now, stonemen. They seemed to be long gone. She followed their trail along this road that was almost half-submerged in earth, so steep were the banks on either side: she knew that it led to the north of Outer Kelvha, where she was heading too. But she saw no other sign of the stoneman army’s passing, until in the distance ahead a black blotch appeared in the middle of the road.
Yaret stopped dead and studied it intently. It did not move. It was inanimate: a square.
As she cautiously approached, the square resolved itself into an iron cage, lying broken and rusting beside the burnt-out remnants of a wooden cart. When she touched it, it was cold. When she put her head inside the broken cage she found no clues. An unexplained wreck in a silent land.
A few miles further along the Tuatha road, she saw the smoke, hanging over a strip of woodland. This was more than just the general haze – and much more than the thin trickle that might signify a campfire. It was a wide thick pall which she had learnt was never a good sign. The trees themselves did not appear to be burnt; but behind them, she knew, was a hamlet where she’d previously done business, and her heart began to beat a little faster in dismay.
Climbing out of the sunken Tuatha, she rode towards the wood. Although the smell of smoke was strong, the trees had not been touched by fire; so she continued through them to the far side. There she saw between the trunks a dull red glow.
Yaret dismounted and commanded Poda, in Vonnish, to stay where she was. Then taking up her bow she cautiously progressed on foot, creeping to the margin of the trees to see what lay beyond.
Not cold and black, this one. The farmstead just ahead of her seemed made of embers. It was not ablaze, yet all its innards were red-hot, as if it were some huge just-slaughtered animal spilling out its guts and blood. No life was visible: no farmers, and no stonemen either. The pasture was devoid of animals. No birds flew. The heavy drifting smoke was the only thing that moved.
With a sense of growing dread, Yaret left the shelter of the trees to walk warily towards the smouldering wreck. There was smoke everywhere: it even seemed to be coming out of the ground itself.
Half way to the farm, she slowed. It was not an illusion. The smoke was seeping from the ground ahead of her. Was it burning peat? No, more than that...
The feeling hit her at the same time as the smell. Darkburn.
She stopped abruptly. The stench was almost familiar now, the stink of every rank and bitter rotting thing she could imagine. But the feeling… Without realising it, she’d already felt it as she approached; but now, full on, it was a horror that made her weak.
She wanted to run straight back to Poda. Instead she tensed her limbs against the weakness and made herself observe. No darkburn was in sight. No blot of darkness rushed towards her. Perhaps the thing was trapped somewhere: so no need to run away just yet.
What was she feeling? She remembered the ferocity and hatred created by the creeping darkburn in the forest, so many months ago. The start of everything; although at the time it had felt like the end of everything. That first darkburn had been full of fury. This was different, for here too was fury – but what she mostly felt was fear. Worse than fear: despair.
Gritting her teeth against it she continued walking through its rising tide. Only a few paces on, she saw the pit that had been dug across the track, narrow but long and deep – deeper than a man’s height. Perhaps it had been originally intended as a drainage ditch. But it had been dug recently enough for the earthen sides to be still sharp and free of weeds. And it contained the darkburn.
Yaret could barely breathe when she looked in. The fear was suffocating, drowning her, a horror out of all proportion to the ditch’s mundane appearance. At its base she saw a huddle of shadow, moving rapidly – not towards her, but to the far end of the pit. The darkburn hurled itself against the end wall; she was reminded of the lonely stoneman dashing his head against the tower.
It was trying to get away from her. Of course – one of the stones was in her pocket. The other was with Poda in the saddlebag.
The darkburn threw itself against the wall again as if it would like to burrow its way into the earth. But that feat seemed beyond it; and evidently it could not climb out either. The pit was smoking where the peat had dried sufficiently to smoulder. How long had the thing been trapped in here?
The dread and fear were clouding her thoughts. They told her to lie down and die. So she retreated, walked back to the trees to fetch Poda, and sat down at the woodland’s margin while she waited for her head to clear. Then she pieced facts together.
The hotly glowing farmhouse... The fields that were littered with drying cowpats, but no cattle. So the stonemen who had passed this way had stolen livestock, but at the same time had lost their darkburn from the overturned cart. A cage would be the only way to carry it; but evidently not a safe way.
Perhaps they had fired the farmhouse, or the escaped darkburn had done it independently. If the stonemen had been unable to catch it – and it would be a difficult thing to catch once loose – they might simply have moved on; especially if they had other darkburns. She had seen the tracks of many carts.
But the pit had done what the stonemen could not, and had caught the darkburn. Then what? Where were the ditch’s diggers? Maybe they lay dead in that inferno of a farmhouse, or had run away. Even without the fire, the darkburn’s presence would be too oppressive for anyone to hang around the place for long.
Even at this distance she could feel it. But although Poda stamped once or twice, uneasily, at least she was not panicking. Perhaps the horse was becoming accustomed to the fear.
So I ought to be able to accustom myself too, thought Yaret. I should acclimatise myself while I have a captive darkburn close to hand. I really don’t want to, but I should.
Taking the stone from her pocket, she tucked it into Poda’s saddle-bag. “Stay here,” she told the horse in Vonnish. “You’ll be fine.” Then, while she walked towards the pit once more, she analysed the feelings as they grew.
Don’t take them personally. Just observe them. Fear. Yes. Horror. Yes. Sorrow; grief. Anger. Abandonment. Misery. Loneliness. The end of everything. Just die.
She had to stop.
Were these her feelings, amplified, or the darkburn’s own? Was it putting sensations in her head to weaken her, or was she simply feeling what it felt? The Riders of the Vonn would say the former: they had told her that the darkburns manufactured horror purely to disable and disarm.
Slowly she moved forward again. Pain. There was some sort of pain here – something that would not stop, that would not go away. Something that removed all hope. At the bottom of the pit was a concentration of despair.
She was looking down into the pit, and now that she no longer had the stone, the darkburn was not trying to climb its walls to get away but was rushing back along its length towards her. She pulled back, tugging against the horror that was like a heavy rope, a weight, a leaden anchor trying to pull her down and in.
But the darkburn could not pull her in. And it could not get out. Nonetheless as it reached her end of the pit the heat grew so intense that she had to withdraw a few steps until she was shielded by the earth. Then she sat down before she fell. Still the dread and horror surged through her in a sickening tide.
Shuffling a little further back, she waited for the feelings to recede before she tried again. Then she made herself stand up and walked towards the pit.
The darkburn’s indistinct body was pressed against the earth as if it wished to tunnel through to get to her. It threw pain and terror at her in great waves. And the heat. Such heat, attacking both brain and body…
Again she retreated, sat down, forced herself to breathe. Then she braced herself, and wrapping her cloak around her as some poor defence against the heat, she advanced towards the pit a third time.
It became no easier. But perhaps the feelings were a little more distinct. They grasped at her. The darkburn wanted her; or it wanted something she could give it.
What could it want? What could she give it?
Rescue, she thought. But she couldn’t rescue it. If it were free of the pit the darkburn would rush at her and burn her up within a moment. So it must want her for fuel – for food.
Yet hunger was not one of the emotions that she felt. Instead there was a sense of pulling; almost pleading. Like Brula tugging at her hand. Or like Brael, the lonely stoneman, begging her for athelid, then for a knife.
As the horror mounted she staggered back again to the refuge of the tussocky grass and sat down with her head upon her knees. This was dreadful. But not unbearable, as it had seemed at first. Not quite. One more attempt, then she would stop.
So, reluctantly, after a few minutes she forced herself back to the pit’s edge, kneeling down so that she could not tumble in. The heat instantly engulfed her.
“I don't understand,” she said aloud. “Tell me what it is you want.”
Of course it didn’t understand either. It had no words. There was only raging heat, and the feelings, so agonised, so fierce, so desperately begging in their need that she had to crawl right away this time, thinking no, I was wrong, it is unbearable; and then it took a while before she had the strength to struggle to her feet and stumble, trembling, back to Poda. Once out of the darkburn’s range she clung to the horse and gasped, until gradually the fear and desperation receded from her mind.
Well, she’d got as close to a darkburn as she could without dying. If it had rushed at her on level ground, when she didn’t have the protection of the stones, would she be able to stand and fight it?
She didn’t think so. Not like the Riders. She remembered Parthenal and Rothir on the cliffs above the Thore, slashing at the darkburn with the waters roaring far below.
That darkburn had fallen over the cliff edge... and then she’d followed it, hurtling through the rushing air. Without warning she found herself reliving the moment of the fall. This still happened quite a lot. Gripping Poda’s bridle, she waited for the memory to fade, as the darkburn’s dread had faded: although it was a vivid shock of recall quite different to the darkburn’s stifling fear.
When the fall had happened, there’d been no time for fear. There’d been no time for anything except surprise; and then the tree had caught her, and then the other tree, and finally the river.
She’d been lucky. But, she thought now, imagine a longer fall – a fall that went on for hours, for days, for weeks, in full consciousness of falling. What would she feel then? Something like the darkburn.
Beyond imagining. Yaret shook her head, and then shook her whole body to try and rid herself of those appalling feelings. Over in the pit the darkburn raged and stank and smouldered but she would not go close to it again. As she walked over to collect Poda, she glanced back at the pit and saw the lin.
It was near the edge. When she stared harder, it was just a tussock. All the same she said the lin’s grace aloud before she swung herself up on to Poda. She’d had enough of darkburns: enough of sickening despair and grief and that dreadful feeling of abandonment.
As she set Poda moving she had the strangest sense that she was abandoning the darkburn. Yet what else could she do? The only thing that she could give it was her life. That must be what it wanted: death. Because to get too close to it – unless she became a much stronger and more skilful fighter than she was now – would mean instant and inevitable death by burning.
For relief she turned her mind towards the thought of lins, the opposite of darkburns. To see a lin brought not despair and rage, but something lighter, something hard to analyse. It was like a reminder: a small jolt of some partly-known awareness. A half-remembered dream. It was always pleasant, if disconcerting, to see a lin.
What had a lin been doing there, by the ditch? Just chance, no doubt. Before she rode too far she looked back over her shoulder.
There were more lin: maybe half a dozen of them, grouped around the pit.
No, that couldn’t be right. Half a dozen? She’d never in her life seen more than one lin at a time.
Turning Poda, she began to ride towards them even though it meant returning to the darkburn. She stopped again, because they now were merely clumps of grass. Maybe they always had been.
Or maybe not. Was the darkburn drawing lins towards it somehow? That worried her, until she reflected that it couldn’t hurt them – not least because they probably weren’t really there. In weary bafflement, she said the lin’s grace again before she finally rode away.
She reflected that since she and Charo had returned from their trip north, they had seen hardly any lin. Dil had commented on it more than once: she remembered him mourning the lack of the school hob. He had felt abandoned by it.
Unexpectedly she found her eyes were wet. And Dil has been abandoned now by me, she thought. But I’m going away to fight for them. So better make sure I do. This trip needs to be worth it.
No crying: stop the tears. Ride on.