Darkburn Book 4: The Haunt of Ternss by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 6

The following day, when she set eyes on the farm, a far worse anxiety than meeting Olbeth laid hold of Yaret.

It was the smoke that did it. Two burnt fields and the black stumps of a coppice told the story. Even though the farmhouse and its out-buildings appeared to be undamaged, the lingering smell of smoke had already made her throat close up and her mind begin to fill with an inescapable swirl of images. Streets inhabited by ashen corpses, the drifting hazy pall above the only thing that stirred… The finding of Obandiro rushed back at her so strongly that for a moment she could neither move nor speak.

“We had word of this,” said Rothir. They had paused their horses to gaze down into the valley a half mile away. He was frowning but not discomposed. “They were attacked a week ago, by about two dozen stonemen; and one darkburn.”

Yaret sat still and looked. He probably thought her quite unmoved, when in truth the ability to move was gone. All her brain would see were shattered houses, greyly silent streets: and in the ash, small, lonely footprints.

She tried to focus as Rothir continued matter-of-factly.

“Huldarion had already left men to protect our supply base here, and more had turned up prior to the muster. So the stonemen were easily overcome. No injuries apart from minor burns. Olbeth had some stones for protection, of course, so the darkburn couldn’t get near the house. When it tried to run off, the surviving stonemen caught it up and herded it away; which makes me think they may have used up more darkburns than they’d like, if they’re now trying to conserve them.”

“Good,” said Yaret, her voice a croak.

He turned to her. “Are you all right?”

“Mmm.” In a moment they would have to cross that scorched terrain. She felt that had she been on foot she could never have forced her legs to walk down past those empty smoking spaces. And that was stupid, for had she not been in far worse places than this one, and seen worse sights? This was only a burnt field or two.

It is because I’ve seen such sights, she told herself, that this one floors me now.

But Poda followed Narba in any case. Yaret sat rigid on the regal horse while they approached the farmhouse. Her dead no longer stood behind her shoulder: she felt them ranged along the roadside. Although they did not look at her, she was conscious of a sense of deep reproach. Why? What could she have done?

Maybe that was just her sense of shame at surviving the onslaught of the darkburns on her town. No; shame not at surviving it – but rather at not experiencing it. She had not been there. She had escaped the fires, the slaughter, the destruction. Shame on her.

She glanced around and saw among the other Riders Sashel, looking sombre. Did he feel as she did? Did he too tremble at the smell of smoke and feel the presence of the dead? Did his brother rise before him? No way of knowing.

Not just him, she thought. All the Riders must have dreadful moments in their memories. Yet as they drew close to the farm she found that her anxiety receded, the real scene gradually taking over from the one that haunted her imagination.

Like and yet unlike: the memory of her grandparents’ ruined small-holding faded under this more solid view. Olbeth’s farmhouse was not as tall as her grandparents’ home, nor as narrow: its single storey of limed plaster had wide jutting arms that embraced a cobbled yard hemmed in with sheds and barns. The crops in the surrounding fields, unburnt, appeared to thrive: she saw sweetroot and bristling barley. Would the barley be growing in Obandiro?

Yaret switched her gaze to the tents that marked the upward slope behind the farmhouse. There were a lot – at least a hundred tents, she guessed, with figures walking busily between them, and horses grazing round the edges.

So that was Thield. The city of the exiled Vonn, which according to Rothir moved constantly, to avoid attack: and which now found itself established by this sprawl of sheds. An incongruous setting.

“Where is the Kelvhan army?”

“Still a dozen miles behind us,” said Rothir. “They won’t bother coming closer. Not grand enough for the Kelvhan High Lords – even in the house. Especially not inside the house. I don’t think Prince Faldron would appreciate being put up on a farm.”

“But it’s a big farm. All those barns.”

“True. It has its own forge: that dark stone building on the left, at the end of the track,” said Rothir, a note of wistful longing in his voice.

“Theol told me that you were a blacksmith. And that you made your own sword. The Kelvhan blacksmith – Martun – admired it, so he said.”

“Did he? I don’t remember,” said Rothir. “If so, it was very kind of Martun. In truth, I lack practice. And he wouldn’t think our forge was very grand compared to his, against the castle walls.”

“Well, let’s hope this place is grand enough for Meya to let her daughter stay. How do you think Olbeth and her husband will take to their new charge?”

“Oh, they’ll be fine. It’s Aliya herself who may not be so happy.”

“We’ll soon find out,” she said.

For they were through the open gates now. Yaret noted that those gates looked as if they were never closed, judging by the long grass that grew around them. A peaceful place then, normally. As their horses rode into the yard with a clatter of hooves on cobbles, she saw Meya and Huldarion being greeted by a tall man with deepset eyes and a curling smile.

“That’s Olbeth’s husband, Wiln,” said Rothir.

Although Yaret could not hear Wiln’s words, she could see how stiffly Meya responded. Her head half turned to look behind her before she jerked it back to face the front. Then she was led into the house.

She wants her daughter, thought Yaret, and cannot publicly acknowledge her. But Aliya and her nursemaid were not far behind; for they trotted alongside the stretcher on which Veron was now being carried into the yard. Two of his huntsmen hefted it while Veron shifted restlessly.

Seeing Yaret, he raised a hand to beckon her. Even that small movement appeared to be a major effort. When Yaret and Rothir walked up to him, the sweat was glistening on his face.

“Is the pain worse?” she asked.

He did not answer that. Instead he flapped his hand at Flodda, saying hoarsely, “She’s no use. Send her off. You come.”

“Actually, I need to go with my lady Meya in any case,” said Flodda with breathless eagerness. She grasped Aliya’s hand and hurried off as if she couldn’t wait to get away, dragging Aliya with her.

“What about Shebel?” Yaret asked Veron.

He shook his head. “No. You.”

“Bring him in,” said Rothir to the huntsmen.

They carried Veron in through a porch and past a guard of two great shaggy hunting dogs with watchful eyes and waving tails, whom Rothir greeted with a brief caress. The porch led straight into a large gathering-hall, its fireplace glowing a warm welcome which Veron turned his face away from. There was a continuous bustle of people filling the place with noise: Riders and farmhands, most carrying packs and sacks, and trundling barrels across the flagstoned floor.

“Calenir! Are you all mended now?” Rothir stopped to talk to one young man. The stretcher-bearers and Yaret pushed on through the crowd, until a compact, dark-haired woman appeared.

“This way,” she said. She led them to the far end of the hall and through a doorway, out of the bustle and into the sudden peace of a wide wood-panelled corridor, which held many other doors. Windowless and softly lit by oil-lamps, its brown shadows seemed at odds with the brightness of the spring outside. Yet it also felt very solid and protected and reminded Yaret of the earth-houses of the Uin-Buin.

At the woman’s direction the two huntsmen carried Veron down the corridor and through the last of its doors into a small room with a single window. The sill was two feet deep, indicating how impenetrably thick the house’s walls must be. As the stretcher-bearers carefully laid Veron upon the bed, Yaret walked over to the window to inspect the view. A shed: a corner of a straw-strewn yard: the track that led to the smithy; and beyond all these, wide rolling pastures where ruddy long-haired cattle grazed.

It made her homesick. She had to remind herself that home was no home now; that she was here to play her tiny part in trying to give Obandiro a future.

So do your tiny part as best you can, she thought. Pay attention. The grazing on those fields looked better than Obandiro’s; much better than the blighted lands which they had recently passed through. When she turned to address the other woman her mind was running on that barren country.

“Do you grow clover here?”

The young woman stopped in the act of adjusting Veron’s pillows, which she had been doing in a manner both gentle and efficient. Her dark gaze was acute.

“Clover? We have some in those meadows. It keeps them green. Occasionally we sow it, but more often it propagates itself.”

“Does it thrive, these last few days?”

Veron laughed with a short, fierce, desperate-sounding rasp, while the woman said in some amusement, “I believe it does. The fields look lush enough, at any rate. I’ll ask my husband Wiln to check when next he’s out there.”

“Oh! So you’re Olbeth?” Yaret, disconcerted, attempted to explain. “It’s just that the plant that wounded Veron was a relative of clover called brienot, but with its nature altered, probably by magic. When Leor cast a spell to wither up the brienot I wondered if it might have withered up the clover too – if the magic spread that far... the two species being akin, you see.” What a fool I must sound, she thought ruefully, babbling about clover at such a time.

“It would be interesting to know how wide the spell’s effect might be,” said Olbeth. “But it seems not to have come this far. No, lie down, Veron. You need to rest.” When she laid a hand upon his shoulder he struggled against it, attempting to lever himself off the bed.

“I don’t want to rest!”

“But she’s right, you must,” said Edrik, one of the stretcher bearers; a grizzled man whose normally stoical face bore an unusually worried expression.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Veron’s voice was harsh, if weak. He tried to push Olbeth away. “I’ve had enough of lying down. D’you think I–”

He stopped, for someone else was entering the room: a much smaller person, who put one hand on her hip and pointed an accusing finger at him.

“Get back into your bed, Mr Wolfman,” Aliya said, “and don’t you dare get up until I say.”

Veron remained where he was; not quite in the bed, but not out of it either. Aliya made a small, perfunctory curtsey to Olbeth.

“I’m afraid he’s quite naughty,” she said. “You have to keep an eye on him. I’ve been telling him stories but he doesn’t listen properly. He wriggles. Have you got any medicine for him?”

“I’m going to find it in a minute,” Olbeth assured her.

“Good. And he needs food.”

“My Lady Aliya!” Her nursemaid appeared in the doorway, looking abject and flustered. “Please, come back with me now! I’m so sorry sir, sir, ma’am, ma’am, sir.” She addressed everyone in the small room in turn.

“I’ll come with you later, Flodda,” said Aliya imperiously. “Right now I have things to do.” She turned back to Olbeth. “I’m going to the kitchen. I need to order the wolfman something to eat. Will your cook know how to make tumbled eggs?”

“If you mean scrambled eggs,” said Olbeth courteously, “then yes. At least, I know how to make them. I myself am the cook, as well as the lady of the household.”

“Oh! You are a lady?” Aliya looked surprised.

“Broadly speaking,” Olbeth said.

After a moment’s thought Aliya made another, slightly deeper curtsey. “You might not know it,” she said, “but that person there” – she pointed to Yaret – “is a lady too although she does not look it. I’m afraid she doesn’t have the proper clothes.”

Olbeth turned to look again at Yaret, who bowed. “I am Yaretkoro,” she said.

“I thought you might be. I’m very glad to meet you,” said Olbeth, her eyes alight.

“Eggs,” said Aliya firmly. “I want three eggs. Do you have any duck eggs? Because they are the best.”

“You can check whether our ducks have laid this morning,” answered Olbeth. “I’ll show you and your nursemaid the way, before I go and find the medicine. And I also need to check if my baby has woken from his nap.”

“A baby? Hmm,” said Aliya, as if deciding whether to approve or not. “All right. Flodda, come along.” She gave Veron a warning look. “But you stay there,” she told him. “I don’t want any nonsense from you.”

As soon as the two women and the child had left the room, Veron began to struggle out of bed again.

“You’d better do as she says, and lie down,” said Yaret, wondering if she dared to try and force him. It would not take much force to hold him down. But it would take considerable courage. And I have not as much courage as a five year old, she thought; or at least, Veron will not hold back from me as he does from Aliya.

He paused now, sitting on the edge of the bed, but she suspected it was only to try and gather enough strength to move again. When Edrik took his arm he shook it off abruptly. But he himself was almost shaking. Tremors ran through his body.

“Lie down for a few moments,” advised Yaret. “Rest, and wait for Olbeth to return. There’s nowhere else for you to go in any case.”

He closed his eyes. “Can’t endure…”

She waited, almost in anguish herself. How could she allay the pain? What ought she to do?

“Can’t endure another of her stories,” said Veron huskily.

“She’s trying to take control,” said Yaret, “because she doesn’t understand what’s going on. Bear with her.” She risked putting an arm around the hunter’s shoulders to encourage him to once again lie down. She could feel his heartbeat, way too fast, too forceful, pulsing through his fevered body. His muscles, hard as wood, were quivering.

But at least he didn’t shake her off. What he needed was distraction: Aliya had unwittingly provided that.

“I take it you don’t have children of your own?” she asked as she tried to ease him back against the pillows.

“Ach. No.” He let himself be laid back, slowly, rigidly. “Huntress,” he added after a few seconds. “Before.”

“So the huntress has had children? Were they all girls?” she said, wondering and were they leopard cubs or human infants? Maybe they were interchangeable, as the huntress was herself. But that was not something she could ask.

“Don’t know. Never met.” Veron’s speech was jerky.

“Well, listening to Aliya’s stories will be good practice for when you have your own.”

The hunter merely grimaced and plucked at the sheet that was covering his legs. “Off.”

“You want it off your legs?”

“Heavy.” He seemed to be too weak to remove it himself. When she obeyed, his legs looked worse than before: the weals were higher, darker, fiercer, deeper. It frightened her.

Veron sighed. “Might have to cut my legs off after all,” he said in a single outward breath, and then in the next, “Can’t be worse than this.” He spoke as if speech hurt him. His lips were very pale.

“Do you want me to find Shebel?” she asked. “Do you want ethlon?”

“No.” Veron paused and closed his eyes. “Maybe.”

“I’ll see if I can find her. Stay here. Don’t try to get up. You stay here too,” she told the pair of huntsmen, Edrik and Aurok, giving them a look full of meaning. Both seemed cowed, almost scared, if such a thing were possible for such tough men. She doubted their ability to keep Veron – whom they regarded as their unquestioned lord and master – in place against his will.

But the huntsmen were in unfamiliar territory here. And so was she, as far as medical matters were concerned. As she hobbled down the shadowed corridor, she wondered if she ought in fact to call the huntress. Was Veron’s condition bad enough? How bad was bad enough? Quite apart from the pain that he was suffering – and that must be extreme – his wounds alarmed her. They were not healing, but increasing. Poison? Or malignant magic? Ethlon might dull the pain. It would not cure the cause.

Would the huntress be able to do more? She rolled the name, extremely carefully, around her head. Unsaryun. She saw within her mind those ice-blue eyes; that heavy body wrought of fur and muscle, of speed and ruthless strength. She sensed the cold air of the mountains, sharp peaks wreathed in freezing mist.

But this was not the huntress’s territory. And it was not up to Yaret to summon her: Veron would have to do that for himself. So she did not speak the name aloud.

“Rothir!” she called out, when she glimpsed him talking in the busy hall. “Rothir, I need you!”

He immediately switched all his attention to her, and strode over. “What is it?”

“Veron. He’s bad. I’m going to find Shebel. Can you help guard him? He keeps trying to get up. Those two huntsmen won’t dare stop him, but you will.”

“Whether I can is another matter,” said Rothir, but he went off at once towards Veron’s room. As she hurried through the hall, and out across the cobbles of the front court past the ranks of carts, Yaret felt slightly sick. A familiar feeling; but familiar from where? That time when Rothir had sent her riding on her own towards the craggy thumb, while he protected Eled from approaching stonemen.

This was quite different. But a sick man’s life was still at stake. Such a responsibility. She passed a row of barns, and following the muddy trail of hooves and wheel-ruts, ran up the slope – her leg complaining – until she reached the town of tents so oddly planted on the hillside, like clumped bushes. The tents were bigger than she’d thought: each would comfortably house a dozen men.

But she did not know where to find Shebel in this newly mushroomed town. So she resorted to calling her name repeatedly, like some frantic bird, until Delgeb stuck her head out of a nearby tent.

“What do you want Shebel for?”

“Veron. Where is she?”

Delgeb shrugged. “No idea. Will anybody else do?”

“Anyone with ethlon,” said Yaret.

“Parthenal!” yelled Delgeb, with extraordinary loudness, and Parthenal at once appeared from a neighbouring tent. “Veron needs ethlon.”

He nodded. “All right. I have some. Let me get it.”

“I’ll go and look for Shebel meanwhile,” offered Delgeb. “I’ll send her to you.” She hurried off.

Parthenal re-emerged from his tent and strode with Yaret down the hill. While she told him of Veron’s condition he nodded, apparently unmoved, until they entered the yard.

Then he said reflectively, “Well! Doesn’t seem a minute since the last time I was here. Always liked the place.”

“Last time?

“Winterfest. Olbeth puts on a good feast. Rothir was a bit down, as I remember – not that it’s always easy to tell, with him – but the rest of us had a fine time. Sashel and Gordal were there.”

“I never knew Gordal.”

“Larger than life. He filled a room.” They walked into the smoky hall, Parthenal gazing around with a furrowed brow. “And still here. I feel as if that loud voice of his is about to boom out some bad joke. He could be standing just behind me.”

“The dead do that,” said Yaret. “It’s not quite a haunting; it’s just that they don’t leave.” Sometimes she was fully conscious of her own dead, sometimes not. They faded in and out of her awareness. But they never disappeared entirely.

Hurrying to Veron’s room they found the two hunters standing by the door as if on guard, while Rothir sat on the bed hugging Veron in an unyielding embrace. Veron looked both furious and exhausted: he struggled in Rothir’s grip, and then subsided as Parthenal came over.

“You may as well sit still,” Parthenal advised, “or I won’t be able to give you any ethlon.”

“And I won’t be able to put this salve on your legs.” Olbeth entered, carrying a plate of scrambled eggs in one hand and a stoneware jar in the other. “Wiln is keeping Aliya away,” she said. “He’s taken her on a tour of the animals. I’m glad you’re here, Parthenal. Have you brought ethlon? Use that first, I think.”

Parthenal sat down on the bed beside Veron and took a vial from his upper pocket.

“Three drops,” he said, dribbling them between the pale lips.

Veron sat still embraced by Rothir, with his eyes closed. A minute later he opened his eyes again and said, “No good.”

“Give it a little longer.” Parthenal’s voice was unusually tender. He could be so gentle, thought Yaret, when ministering to the sick or injured. Not much tenderness was evident at other times.

Veron gave the shadow of a nod and allowed Rothir to lay him down. Voices called casually outside: hooves scuffed on the cobbles: inside the chamber, all were silent, until Veron spoke again.

“No good.”

Shebel came in and Parthenal addressed her. “He’s had three drops of ethlon. No effect.”

“I have belvane here,” said Shebel in her cool, considered way. “You had that before, Veron; did it not help a little?”

“No,” said Veron. “No good. Just cut my legs off.” It occurred to Yaret with a dreadful jolt that he wasn’t joking. She saw how Rothir’s face drew taut and grim.

He would take that responsibility on himself, she thought. But nobody should have to do it. And even if it could be done without tremendous pain and trauma, even if Veron survived, the most determined hunter cannot hunt without his legs. I have one wooden leg, not two; and I can barely run. Veron would surely rather die.

She felt her own muscles pull as tight as the sick man’s – her pulse race as hard and fast. There had to be a better cure than this.

“There is one other thing that I can give you,” said Shebel, sounding a little less collected than before. “I have it here.” Taking a small canister from her bag, she carefully uncorked it. “Only... I’ve never tried it on a patient. Except for one man, and he did not live long afterwards.”

“Hah!” It was no more than a sigh from Veron.

“He died because I gave him far too much. I didn’t know the dose. It quelled his pain, but it killed him within hours. He was a captive stoneman: and this paste is Athelid.”

Yaret caught her breath. Athelid. The drug that the stonemen took daily to relieve the agony of their stones. If it could make a man forget he had stones drilled into his skull, surely it could work on Veron’s legs? But only if Shebel got the dosage right.

“No!” objected Parthenal. “You still don’t know the right amount – to say nothing of the side-effects. We can only guess from the stonemen’s behaviour that they aren’t good.”

“What do you think?” Rothir asked Veron. The hunter’s face twitched.

“Try,” he muttered.

“A few grains only,” said Shebel. She prised a tiny morsel of whitish paste from the canister on to a wooden spatula and wrinkled her forehead at it. “Well, here goes,” she said.

Veron closed his eyes as she put the spatula to his lips. His jaw worked: they waited for another long moment. Somewhere outside a dog howled, long and plaintive.

Veron’s eyes reopened. He looked different. Alert.

“Let me go,” he commanded. Rothir released him cautiously. The hunter sat upright on the bed and looked around at his audience with a scowl. When he pushed the sheet aside his movements were quick and decided.

“Better?” said Shebel.

“Better,” said Veron.

“Good. Can I just–”

“No,” said Veron. “You’re done here. Get out. Well? What are you staring at? You think I’m a travelling show? Get out of here, the lot of you!”

“We just need to check that you’re not–”

“Out!” roared Veron. The croak had vanished. “I’ve had enough of being prodded and peered at! Leave me alone! And where are all my knives?” He felt around his belt. “Have you stolen them?”

“Narduk has them,” answered Edrik, looking startled. “He’ll keep them safe until you–”

“Narduk? That joker? Bring them to me!” snapped Veron. “And now, the rest of you, get out!”

Olbeth motioned to the others that they ought to leave. When she began to pull the sheet over Veron’s legs, he whipped it aside, wrenching it from her hands so violently that Yaret was suddenly afraid.

“Veron,” said Olbeth firmly, “you are our guest here on the farm. Stay inside this room.”

She put the plate of eggs down next to him, withdrew swiftly behind the others and closed the door. An instant later there was the crashing thud of crockery being hurled against it.

Olbeth leaned on the door, her face grave. “This room has no lock,” she said quietly. “Parthenal and Rothir: stay here, please, until I can get a couple of men to replace you. Also I think you huntsmen should go outside and stand guard by his window. Don’t let him out. And on no account should you let him have his knives.”