Darkburn
Book 2
Winter
Chapter 1
“There are five of us now,” said Charo. He tried to smile at the woman because he was terribly afraid that she would climb on her horse and ride away. There was nothing here for her to stay for. Everything was in ashes: his house, his family, his friends, his whole world.
Sometimes, at night, it seemed as though the town and its inhabitants were still burning. But when he awoke, shivering on the hard unsympathetic ground, Obandiro was stark and silent. The ashes had been slowly cooling for a week now; although the fires, he thought, must still seethe unseen in a few smoking buildings, where sudden small collapses now and then occurred like mocking forgeries of life.
Charo had nothing left to stay for either. But he had nowhere else to go. And then there were the others: the responsibility for them weighed heavy on him. Now he suddenly hoped this woman wouldn’t turn out to be a useless deadweight, another burden on his shoulders. If that were the case then maybe it would be better after all if she just rode away.
She was looking up and down the street again, taking everything in. Her face was familiar so he must have seen her in the market before the… Before. But he had never spoken to her.
When she looked back at him her gaze was no longer stunned. It was intense and focused.
“Where do you sleep?”
“We found a cellar,” Charo said. “I’ll show you.” Now he didn’t know what he wanted. She would make up her own mind anyway.
So he led her down the Cross-street, the elegant horse following them, to the ruins of the inn. The yard was blocked by the remains of a burnt-out cart. Charo stepped over it and past the grey approximations that might once have been the innkeeper and an ostler or a guest. If he had cared to search what was left of the bodies he supposed he might find some identifying badge or buckle. But he had not cared to search the bodies. Whoever they were, it could make no difference now.
The inn had neither door nor roof. Within its walls of sooty flaking stone, the counter and the furnishings were turned to shapeless stumps of charcoal. Two pewter tankards lay amidst the ashes on the flagstoned floor, melted and distorted.
As the woman entered after him, Charo picked up the branch of fir which he had walked half a mile to find and brushed away their footprints in the courtyard. In the street it didn’t matter, because the ash was so well-trodden anyway by the feet of the men who had done this. But it was important to leave no new trail of footprints leading into here.
He had told the others to stay down in the cellar while he went out in a vain search for some vessel to hold water. All they had was one warped tankard. So many things they needed, and he didn’t know how to find any of them.
The trapdoor to the cellar was behind what once had been the bar: the rusted hoops of barrels lay across it. The barrels, spilling out their beer, had probably saved the trapdoor from being completely burnt away. Its wood was blackened but intact.
Charo lifted the concealing hoops aside. Beneath them the trapdoor was already propped slightly ajar, to allow air in.
“It’s me,” he said into the opening, and saw the small yellow pool of a lamp being unshielded. He let himself down the ladder into the cellar and the woman followed, a little clumsily.
Only two of the other three were there. They were already on their feet and staring at the descending woman in something close to fear: certainly not delight.
“That’s Elket,” he said, pointing at the older of the pair. “She’s fifteen, the same as me. That’s her brother Dil. He’s nine. And this is…” He paused. He had forgotten the woman’s name. The other two were like statues in the lamplight.
“I’m Yaret Thuleikand,” said the woman. “I’m the grand-daughter of the old weaver Ilo, from the farmhouse on the forest road. I’ve just returned from travelling. My farm is burnt out, no survivors, everything the same as here. I am very glad to find you.” Her voice was low but matter-of-fact. Charo was glad she wasn’t crying, because they had done enough of that and it really didn’t help.
The others seemed stricken dumb.
“Where is your fourth?” asked the woman, and finally Elket answered.
“She’s gone out.”
“She’s not supposed to,” said Charo, exasperated.
“I couldn’t stop her,” said Elket. “How could I stop her? You know what she’s like. She said she was going to look for eggs.”
“Eggs? Where does she think she’s going to find eggs?”
“She said near the chicken huts,” said Dil. “She said some of them might have escaped and be roosting nearby.”
“She’s mad,” said Charo. “I wish she wouldn’t do this.”
The woman sat down on the nearest barrel and glanced around. There were plenty of beer barrels inside the spacious cellar, although not much else. It was high enough for them to stand up in. The roof beams had been protected from the fire by the flagstones laid above.
There had been three hams hanging from the beams, but they had eaten all except the second half of one. There were still two big rounds of cheese – they had finished off the other two – and a sack of red roots in the corner. None of them liked red roots, which were pungent and stained everything they touched, but Charo supposed they would have to start eating them soon. They had been a popular fried snack in the inn, before.
Before. Everything was before. There was a huge burning line dividing then and now. It separated him from everything that he had known, everything normal. The days passed mostly blank and numb and the burning line with his family on the far side of it didn’t seem to get any further away. The separation just got deeper. More uncrossable. More permanent.
He tried not to think about it. He had quickly learned that it was better to concentrate only on the present, not the past or future. He didn’t often succeed.
But the cellar had been safe till now. It had been a giver of gifts. As well as the food, there were several large jars of lamp-oil, and three lamps. There was beer in some of the barrels, but he had no intention of letting anybody drink it. Luckily none of them showed any wish to.
“What’s the name of your fourth?” asked Yaret.
“Shuli,” answered Elket.
“How old is she?”
“Twelve.”
“She’s not,” put in Dil. “She’s says she’s twelve but she’s really only eleven and ten and a half months.”
“How long has she been out?”
“About an hour,” said Elket.
Yaret nodded. “I walked all through the town and saw nobody,” she said. “She’s good at keeping hidden. I expect she’s safe enough. Has anybody else been through Obandiro since this happened?”
Charo answered reluctantly. “The men who did this.” He did not know what to call them, but gestured at his hair. “Men with… things on their head. They’ve been back twice since the, since the first time. The last time they came through was five days ago.”
“Stonemen,” she said. “I know them. How many were there, do you think?”
“When it, when it, when it happened, there might have been about two hundred, I suppose. Maybe more. I don’t really know.”
“What about when they came back?”
“We were all in the cellar so we only heard them,” Elket said. “I think they came into the inn but they didn’t find the trapdoor. They tramped around outside a lot.”
“The second time they came back while I was out,” said Charo, “looking for food. I heard them coming. They weren’t quiet. There were only about ten of them and they walked up and down the streets and then they went away.”
“Searching for survivors,” said Yaret. “Or people who might have escaped and returned later. You have had none of those yet, I suppose?”
“They’re still waiting till it’s safe,” said Dil. Charo winced. He knew that Dil had hopes and didn’t want to squash them. But he had to be realistic.
“No one else has come back yet,” he said. He thought the four of them were the town’s only survivors, but he had never said it aloud. Although his voice had broken last year the words made it crack as if it were breaking all over again.
“Well, I have come back now,” said Yaret. “One more question, and then you may start asking me your questions instead. When they returned, did the stonemen bring with them any darkburns? They are the hot, burnt creatures that–”
“We know what they are,” he said, before she could start describing what they did. “No. We didn’t see any. Not since that first, that first time.”
“Good. Now: your turn.”
Charo didn’t have as many questions as he had expected. He knew she was a travelling pedlar, but it didn’t really make much difference where she had been and for how long, and he didn’t really care. He asked who had lived with her – and had died – at her farmhouse. The only other thing he could think of to ask was,
“Is that your horse outside?” It didn’t look like a weaver’s horse.
“You’ve got a horse?” asked Dil eagerly.
“It was given to me,” said Yaret.
“Who by?”
“Friends, far away. It’s a long story.”
“Can you ride it?” Dil demanded.
“I can.”
“Good,” said Dil, and he then asked a much more useful question than any that Charo had thought of. “Is there food at your farmhouse?”
At that, Yaret smiled.
“Oh, yes,” she answered. “Quite a lot of food. There is a cellar nearly as big as this one, with oats and flour and roots and apples and cheese, all safe and unburnt.”
“They’re not red roots, are they?” said Dil.
“No. They’re yellow ones and sweetroots.”
“Hurray!” Dil cheered. And then the trapdoor lifted and Shuli’s surprised face looked down at them.
“There’s a horse outside,” she said.
“And there’s a strange person inside,” said Yaret. “What if we all go out, and find somewhere to sit where we can see each other properly, and talk for a while?”
So they all climbed out of the cellar. Yaret again seemed slightly clumsy – of course, she was an adult, so not nimble – but when she walked over to her horse he noticed that she had a limp.
“I saw you near the Dondel bridge,” said Shuli.
“And I did not see you.” Yaret introduced herself to Shuli, and asked, “Did you find any eggs?”
Shuli uncurled her hand. There was a small brown egg inside it.
“They’re roosting on the other side of the orchard,” she said. “Some of them, anyway.”
“Well discovered,” Yaret said.
“I think so,” said Shuli, and she put the egg down carefully just inside the ruined gateway to the inn.
“We’ll go to the burial ground,” said Charo, because he felt he ought to be in charge, and wanted to get a suggestion in before Shuli did. “We can sit down there and talk, away from the, away from the town.” He meant away from the bodies.
“Can I take the horse?” asked Dil, and Yaret let him hold the bridle. Elket said nothing as she led the way. Shuli walked at the back, probably so that she could watch the woman. She was nosy about everything. Charo did not know where she found the energy.
The new woman was nosy too, or at least, she was looking hard at the bodies in the streets. She need not have bothered because none of them were recognisable. He suspected that there were many more that were not even recognisable as bodies, but had been devoured entirely by the fire. He said nothing about them, and neither did she. Dil was the only one who talked, pointing out buildings as if they were still there and Yaret was a casual visitor to town. The joiner’s yard, the fletcher’s shop. There was nothing left of them. Yaret merely nodded.
But the burial ground, outside the southern edge of town, was relatively untouched by fire. The memorial stones and the paved paths between them were blackened, and some of the stones had fallen – or had been pushed over – but that was all. They could sit on the curved stone bench in the middle, in the remembrance circle, and look at each other. They had seen each other so little in daylight for the last few days that Charo was shocked at how grubby and tired and thin the others looked.
“A good choice of place,” said Yaret, and unstrapping one of her saddlebags she began to hand food and a waterskin around. The biscuit was slightly gritty and the cheese stronger than he was used to, while the dried fruit was of a kind unknown to him; but it was all very welcome.
“Have you come across much food apart from what is in your cellar?” Yaret asked.
He shook his head. It was a worry although personally he really didn’t mind much if he starved to death. Except that it might not be a pleasant way to die. And it wouldn’t be fair on the others.
“And the cellar is also where you sleep?”
He nodded.
“A hard bed,” she commented.
Charo shrugged. It was another thing that didn’t really matter, given what had happened to Obandiro. He hoped she wouldn’t start asking them about that dreadful night. She was bound to want to know.
Thankfully she did not ask, but merely looked around her as she ate her biscuit, until she said,
“Is this where you hold evening council?” Although she addressed nobody in particular Charo answered.
“No, we have it in the cellar.”
“We did,” said Shuli, “to start with, but then we stopped.”
“That was your fault,” said Dil.
“It was boring,” Shuli said.
“We stopped,” said Charo, “because there seemed to be not much to say.”
Yaret nodded, her eyes moving thoughtfully from one to another of them in turn. Then she wrapped up the uneaten end of her biscuit.
“Although it is not quite evening,” she said, “I wonder if you would consent to hold the evening council here, now. I for one feel badly in need of it.”
“I suppose so,” said Charo. He glanced at Shuli. She was the person most likely to make trouble.
“I pray you all to attend this one time,” said Yaret, “because it is important to me.”
“All right,” said Shuli. “I don’t mind.”
“Very well. We will start with Oveyn, for all those who lie around us.”
She began the incantation and the others joined in. Charo felt it was meaningless. He had stopped saying Oveyn because it was not adequate for what had happened. Nothing was. None the less he now felt a certain relief in hearing Yaret speak the familiar words.
Then he realised that she was saying a longer version than he knew, and it gave him a shock. It did not only offer thanks and honour to the dead but spoke of them as standing by the shoulders of the living. It spoke of them becoming one with earth or trees or skies, as was ordained by powers beyond thought. He knew that this was Ulthared and it made his scalp tingle.
Yaret finished, touching her hand to her forehead, and studied their faces. Even Shuli was looking faintly stunned.
“I have said the last part which is Ulthared,” said Yaret quietly, “although you younger ones in particular would not normally be made acquainted with it for some years to come. But there is no-one now to tell you the Ulthared lore except myself. So I think I have to impart some of it early. Not all. And of course I do not know it all myself.”
They were silent for a moment. Then Dil said in an awed voice,
“Can you say it again?”
“Tomorrow evening,” answered Yaret. “Now it is time for news, if you are willing. But for my part I feel that anyone unwilling does not need to speak. Do you agree?”
Since she was asking rather than commanding them to agree, Charo said, “Just for this evening, maybe. But I think it’s important that everyone joins in or there’s no point.”
“Elket never says anything,” said Shuli.
“I have heard Elket speak,” said Yaret mildly, “so perhaps seldom would be more accurate.”
“I’ll go first,” said Dil. “It’s always youngest first.” Yaret turned on him a long, thoughtful look and said nothing. To Charo’s astonishment Dil began to squirm.
“Please may I go first,” he said.
“Please do,” said Yaret.
“My news is that somebody arrived today, and we don’t know yet what she is like, but she did bring some food and she has more in her own cellar and we hope that she is good.”
“Shuli next,” said Charo.
“The hens are roosting behind the orchard. I think they’ve settled there. I found an egg.”
“Elket.”
“Somebody arrived,” said Elket, and left it at that.
“Now you,” said Dil to him.
“I think you summed it up, Dil,” he said. “Somebody arrived. Thank you for the food. We hope you will not go just yet.”
“I will not go just yet,” she said.
“Your turn,” said Dil.
Yaret did not speak immediately. Then she said quietly, “You know my news. It was your news two weeks ago. It is that everything has changed. And everything will keep on changing; and not always for the worse.”
“That wasn’t news,” objected Shuli.
“Forgive me.”
“Now best thing,” said Dil. “Can I do best thing first?” Charo realised that Dil had been missing evening council. Perhaps he had been wrong to let it drop.
“Go on,” he said. “Best thing today.” It was really meant to be Thanks-saying, but they were following the simplified children’s version of evening council for Dil’s sake.
Dil beamed. “We’ve got a horse! I mean, it’s nice to have you here too, but we’ve got a horse!”
“He likes horses,” explained Elket.
“She’s called Poda,” said Yaret, “and really she should be rubbed down properly before nightfall. She’s worked hard these last few days.”
“Can I rub her down?”
“Anyone who wishes can,” said Yaret. “She’ll enjoy that. I have a brush in my pack.”
“Then that’ll be my best thing ever today,” announced Dil. He sounded even younger than usual. To Charo it seemed that Dil did not fully grasp the catastrophe that had come upon them. Sometimes he appeared to just ignore it; although at nine he should have better sense. But Elket protected him, perhaps too much.
“Shuli’s turn for best thing,” he said.
“I found an egg,” said Shuli. “Elket’s turn.”
“We have the promise of more food,” said Elket, “in the cellar at your weaving place.”
Now Yaret looked at him. He knew what the obvious thing to say was. Of course her arrival ought to be the best thing of the day. But everything was so confusing. He did not know what she would want to do with them or what might happen. In one way she had upset everything.
“Your coming here,” he said, because he had to.
“I hope it will be,” Yaret answered gravely, “but you cannot know that yet.”
He nodded and bit his lip.
“My turn,” said Yaret.
“It’s finding us,” said Dil.
“Yes, it is. I don’t know how you four come to be here, and you don’t need to tell me now. Tell me later if you wish. But I am very glad to find you.”
She looked at Charo, so he said, “Now. Plans for tomorrow. Dil?”
“I want to ride the horse,” said Dil. “Please.”
“Find more eggs,” said Shuli.
“Find more food,” said Elket. “Not just eggs. Anything.”
Charo took a deep breath. “Work out what we’re going to do,” he said, because it now seemed slightly more possible than it had been before.
“Those are all good aims,” said Yaret, “and since my brain seems to be rather slow at present I think I should just fall in with all of them. So tomorrow morning, if you are willing, I will take Dil and Elket and the horse back to my farm, and load up with provisions there and bring them back. If Shuli wishes for help in hunting eggs I will do that on our return.”
“I don’t need any help,” said Shuli.
Yaret bowed her head in acknowledgement. “And then,” she went on, “at tomorrow’s evening council, we can start to work out what we’re going to do.”