Chapter 44
“What do you want to do?” said Yaret, her hands on Durba’s shoulders.
“A… a…”
“Either nod or shake your head. Do you want to continue the sweep out here, and keep hunting for stonemen?”
It was more of a twitch than a shake of the head.
“Do you want to go back to the camp?”
Another twitch. Yaret repressed a sigh as she tried to puzzle this out.
“My guess is,” she said, “that you’ve had enough of chasing stonemen, but you don’t want to be seen as giving up. Am I right?”
A definite nod.
“I admit I’ve had enough of it as well,” said Yaret. She thought of the four stonemen she had killed in the last hour, while trying not to notice the numbers of their stones… Now that they barely tried to fight back, the slaughter sickened her. Yet it had to be done, to put the men out of their misery as much as for revenge. She just wanted not to be the one who did it.
So she patted Durba’s shoulder, and added, “You’ve managed really well to get this far. But now I’ll take you back to camp. I can pretend my leg is giving me difficulty and that I need to rest it.”
A shake of the head. “B… b… b…”
“All right, Durba. I know you don’t want to give up, but I have my own reasons for wishing to go back. There’s something useful we can do. Interested?”
A nod. Yaret glanced around to make sure that Rothir and Leor were well out of earshot before continuing. But Leor was already galloping off, while Rothir stood at a distance, watching the Kelvhans with a frown.
“I propose that we discreetly follow the Kelvhans who are going to take the darkburn back to their own camp,” she told Durba. “I want to make sure that they don’t do anything stupid. They seem to think they can control it, even though they have hardly any experience of darkburns. I know you don’t like darkburns – nobody does – but you won’t get close to it, and we have the stones to keep us safe. At least, I hope you still have yours?”
Durba took a hand from her pocket and opened it to show two stones.
“Good. Then do you agree?”
A small nod.
“All right. That’s what we’ll do.” Yaret reached down and fiddled with the straps of her wooden leg, before beginning to walk over towards Poda. The leg buckled as it freed itself from its bindings, so that she tumbled over in a very convincing manner.
Ouch, she thought as she sat up. Too convincing. She rubbed the stump and picked up the wooden leg as if in dismay. As she made a performance of trying to re-affix it, some of the Kelvhans were looking at her; one of them laughed. It was Rothir who came over to her aid.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine. The strapping just gave way. I think I’d better go back to the camp to fix it. I’ll take Durba with me.” She found that despite her resolve to say nothing of her motives, it hurt her to deceive him. Did Rothir ever deceive anybody? Probably not. So she added, “It’ll give me a chance to make sure they don’t do anything stupid with that darkburn.”
Rothir sighed: she read both resignation and exasperation in his face. “I wish that had gone undiscovered.”
“It was bound to be discovered at some point.”
“But not by Kelvha.” A crease had appeared between his brows. “I hope I did the right thing in asking Leor to retrieve it. But I don’t think I could have refused.”
“Probably not.”
The crease deepened. “Anyway, you keep your distance from it, do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
She saluted him. He nodded and strode off to exchange a terse word with the Kelvhans before riding away on Narba.
Yaret sat on the ground fiddling with her leg and watching the Kelvhans, who were attaching the cage’s chains to four unhappy horses. The cage had bars on either side, but not the front, which like the back was solid metal – presumably to protect any towing horses or men from the full force of the darkburn’s heat. Even so, in places the metal glowed a faint dull red. The fine rain hissed and spat as it landed on it.
The cage’s iron wheels appeared to be undamaged; but once it was set trundling across the uneven ground, its progress was slow and very unsteady. The horses didn’t like it. They strained and heaved, trying to get away from the darkburn. And the darkburn threw itself repeatedly against the back of the cage, trying to get away from the horses, until Rhadlun told his men sternly to remove the stones that were set into the harnesses.
Once that was done, he made any men who were carrying stones move further from the cage. He himself led the procession from some thirty yards ahead. The darkburn quietened as it was towed away at a painfully laborious pace.
Yaret stood up and made a show of testing her leg before limping over to mount Poda.
“Come on,” she said; and she and Durba set off at a safe distance behind the slowly trundling cart.
They were probably still too close to it for Rothir’s liking; but Rothir was no longer there to watch, which was a relief. After the great joy of her reunion with the Riders – a reunion which she suspected had given Rothir as much concern as pleasure – and then the great wrenching pain of events in the infirmary, Yaret now felt a confusion of delight and doubt at being with the Vonn. Although she hoped she could be useful in some minor way, she certainly did not want to cause Rothir any more concern. She held him in her heart, because he had found her, twice now: he had brought her back to life: he had helped her up from the dreadful pit of grief, and from the stony shore of death beneath the cliffs along the Thore.
Not that he would see it with the same intensity. It had been merely kindness in him – that, and duty.
But Rothir was not the only one she aimed not to upset right now. In a strange juxtaposition of cares, she did not want to distress the darkburn by getting any closer; and neither did she wish to subject Durba or the horses to its sense of horror. So she kept back to where the aura would not cause a major problem.
It was a tedious and uneventful journey. Rhadlun, at the front, had to stop at frequent intervals while the slowly jolting cart caught up with him. He soon grew restless and impatient, and after giving a few commands to the four men who accompanied him, he wheeled his horse round and rode off back across the plain to where the action was.
Ten minutes later two more of the men – the senior pair, judging by the quality of their gear – did the same. They galloped off to more exciting duties, leaving the last two men in charge of the darkburn.
Yaret was appalled. Did they have no idea how dangerous the thing was? It was true that the stones ought to protect them; but if the cart tipped over on the uneven ground and the darkburn got out, it could run off to wreak havoc elsewhere.
Elsewhere was a long way off, it was true, but the two remaining men weren’t paying enough attention, in her opinion. They glanced back at her and Durba, and evidently made some joke between themselves. Apart from that they ignored the women, just as they ignored the darkburn rumbling along behind them. The back of the cage was glowing deep red in one corner, so Yaret guessed that was where the darkburn huddled.
“How are you feeling?” she asked Durba. “Are we far enough away from it?”
A nod.
“Good,” said Yaret. “You stay at this distance. I’m going a little closer.”
“B… b…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Hold my stones for me.” She handed over her two stones to Durba, who gazed at her doubtfully.
“I just want to take a closer look,” Yaret assured her. “I won’t do anything foolish.”
Well, that was a lie, she thought as she spurred Poda on towards the cart. What could be more foolish than trying to talk to a darkburn? She didn’t even know what had put the idea into her head.
But nobody had ever, in her hearing, simply spoken to a darkburn. They screamed, and shouted, and wailed at them, and howled, and died. The dying was the part to avoid.
The two men – even had they taken any interest – would not have seen her as she drew up behind the heavily trundling cage. She realised that she was definitely getting used to the grim aura. After all the exposure to darkburns amidst the horrors of the battlefield, this solitary captive did not seem so terrible. She could bear the fear if she made herself understand that it was outside her.
Poda was snorting and trying to root the reins from her hands, however: so Yaret dismounted and let the mare trot back to Durba. The cart was moving so slowly that she did not need to ride – she could walk as fast as it was travelling. The warmth grew more intense, but from the back it was still bearable. She drew her cloak around her for protection as she moved round to the side and felt the heat flame like a sudden furnace through the bars.
“Be still,” she said, for she didn’t want it hurling itself over to her side. It was still, but not because of her words, she was sure. Ridiculous to be talking to a darkburn. And she wouldn’t be able to stay this close for more than a few seconds.
She glanced sideways, screwing up her eyes against the heat and her mind against the fear. The darkburn was black and small – smaller than she was – a blur with no discernible limbs. Perhaps it had a head. But it seemed to change and shift even in the brief moment that she studied it.
Then she had to retreat back to the less intense heat behind the cart. After giving herself a minute to recover, she tried again. By now she had a little more of a plan. A stupid plan, but still.
This time when she moved up to the bars she spoke to the huddle in the cage.
“Who are you? Do you have a name?” She said it in Standard, then in Kelvhan, and finally in Bandiran. There was a thump. No words, of course. How could there be? It could pump out fear and horror. But it could not speak.
Leor would be better at this, or Maeneb, she reflected as she again retreated. Either of them might be able to find a way to speak without needing words.
But then it occurred to her: had she herself not done that with the Farwth? She had simply thought, not spoken.
So now, from behind the cart, still sweating in the heat, she thought her questions at the darkburn. Since she could not think without language, she thought in Bandiran, asking where it was from, and what it wanted. There was no answer, naturally – either in her head or out of it. Just the despair, unchanging.
Such despair. Although she tried to sit outside the feeling it was becoming almost overwhelming. She began to pity the darkburn. Even if despair was simply something that it used to weaken and dismay its enemies, might it not also have to experience the pain itself? Could you manufacture anguish without feeling its effects?
Poor thing, she thought, this little smoky rag of heat and darkness, lost and trapped so far from home – wherever its home was. But certainly not here, in an iron cage.
And although she knew it was a crazy thing to do, she began to sing to it.
She sang in Bandiran. It was a lullaby that she had sung to Dil, and as she sang she thought of Dil, that small, scared, lonely boy trying to be brave; and she put her heart into the song. She did not even know if the darkburn could hear anything through the iron of the cage. It had no visible ears. Perhaps it heard, or sensed, something. At least it did not thump.
So after that short song, baking in the darkburn’s heat behind the cart, she sang another. This was one of Madeo’s songs, about coming to the end of a long journey; a homecoming. Although it was soothing, the ending was ambiguous. It might even have been about death. It was a song she had come back to often in Obandiro. Ever since she had found it buried in her memory during the search for the skeln, it had been recurring to her without her volition.
As she sang, the unseen darkburn was still silent. But the feeling of despair increased. It brought Yaret up short. She stopped walking: the cart drew away, the despair receded. She gave herself a few moments to cool down and think.
It was a redoubling of the darkburn’s weaponry. An attack. Perhaps.
Perhaps it was simply despair.
She glanced back at Durba, who looked worried but otherwise seemed to be all right. She was too far away to hear any of the singing.
While she walked between the cart and Durba, another song came to Yaret’s mind. Striding forward to close the distance to the darkburn, she ignored the burning of her face and sang once more.
This was a song of comfort to the lonely. It was one she had not sung to Dil and the rest of them back home; because it was a song for solitude. It had run through her head intermittently during her recent trek across the scarred and lonely northlands.
It was a reminder that the sun was always with you, and the moon, and that the stars would not desert you and that the earth would be your friend for ever. Whether or not it was by Madeo she did not know. Part of it was by Yaret herself.
She just wanted to lessen the despair. And somewhat to her surprise it did seem to wane. It was still there, but now there was also another emotion that she could not put a name to. A sense of waiting: a sense of reaching.
And not once had the darkburn tried to throw itself towards her.
She felt suddenly afraid; and this was an inborn fear, not one generated from outside. What had just happened? Had the darkburn truly responded to her singing? If so, what did it mean? She stood stock-still while the cart moved on ahead. Then, deeply troubled, she walked back to Durba and remounted her horse.
“It got too hot for me,” she said. They continued to ride, very slowly, at a distance from the cart. She did not try to talk to Durba. She was all the time considering what this might signify.
After a while the camps and the ruined town were in sight although it would still take a half-hour or so to reach them. Time for one more attempt.
What could she try to say to it? I mean you no harm? Patently untrue. If the darkburn got out she would do her best to destroy it – hack it to pieces with her sword. No matter what the feelings, it was a thing with one sole purpose: to burn and kill. She wanted to ask it where it came from, but did not know how.
It responded to song. So use another song.
She left the horses and walked swiftly forward again while spinning a song round in her mind. It took some recalling, but she wound it in from the depths of her memory. An old one, this, and definitely not Madeo’s: it had come down from the mountains where her people had lived long before they came south to Obandiro.
It was called The Count, for it was a count of creatures, from the oldest to the newest, since the world was made. She had not thought of it for many years because it was regarded as childish doggerel. Yet it baffled children – so many of the creatures listed were imaginary, or at least long gone and forgotten. The tune was strange but simple: it used an archaic scale.
The scale of animals was archaic too. It began with worms and fish and worked up to birds via the creatures of the land. She sang her way through these, wondering if any of it reached the darkburn’s consciousness. Within the cage, all was quiet, at least, so she kept going through the snakes and lizards. She sang of a number of creatures that she did not know, or not by the names the song used for them, as least. What was a gallowcat?
Griff and grogg and gallowcat,
and fenny tall and ferret thin,
Slow the brock and quick the stoat,
and in and out the hob and lin…
There was a crash as the darkburn hit the side of the cage.
Yaret ran around from the back to take a look. The blur of darkness was crouching against the bars on the far side. As she watched, it crashed itself against the furthest bars again, making the whole cage rock.
Had it been her words that set it off? Or something else? Looking round, she saw a body almost hidden in the grass. A dead stoneman lay sprawled there, unnoticed until now… That must have done it. Although there were black holes where his stones ought to have been, some might still remain on the underside of his head. She walked over to check the corpse.
But she never got there. At the noise of the crash, the two Kelvhan horsemen had turned around and seen her. Angrily they yelled at her to move away. She saluted them and headed back to wait for to Durba.
“I think we’ll make our own way home from here,” she said, climbing back on to Poda. It would be better not to draw any more attention to herself; so they diverged from the cart’s route and rode south towards the Riders’ camp. She watched the cage with its imprisoned darkburn being dragged slowly away.
What had she learnt? That the darkburn liked her singing. Maybe. That change in feeling: that had been noticeable.
And she had noticed something else. Just before the darkburn hit the iron bars, there had been another flash of feeling. Hard to identify, but sharp; piercing. Perhaps it had simply been alarm, as the darkburn registered the presence of the dead stoneman. Perhaps it had been something else.
Now that they were no longer following the cart, the two of them rode fast, and arrived back at their own camp while the darkburn was still trundling across the sad plain leaving a thin wake of steam. She watched it from a distance, trying to make out where it would eventually be stowed. It was heading directly for the ruined town in which the Kelvhans had set up their camp.
Surely they wouldn’t keep it inside there with them? That would be far too close: too dangerous. And they wouldn’t be able to put up with the fear.
No trace of the darkburn fear could reach her now. But as she and Durba rode on side by side, Yaret relived that strange, quick flash of feeling. What had it been?
She felt deeply dissatisfied, as if she were missing something that ought to be obvious to her. Something that lay in hiding, buried in the depths of her mind: something that she needed to lift up and to drag out.