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

Darkburn

Book 4

The Haunt of Terns

Chapter 1

The high forbidding walls of Kelvha City were long out of sight and the landscape had changed again. Gone were the narrow fields that had radiated from each huddled Kelvhan village, luminous with infant beans and barley. The Castle’s carefully thicketed hunting forests lay far behind them now; indeed, all trees, all cultivated crofts and pasturage had gone.

Instead, the Riders faced a bleak and barren country that seemed to Parthenal to be practically devoid of any life at all. Surely it hadn’t always been like this? A few years back, he’d ridden through this land past restless, lowing herds of small but noisy oxen. It had been a lush green country then.

There was no lush green here now. The horses trod upon a uniformly greyish carpet of some dull creeping plant; a lichen or a moss, too insignificant to have a name – or one that Parthenal knew, anyway. At first, a few bedraggled weeds had poked their heads up through the drab grey mat in drooping spikes; but even those had disappeared.

Just one more of the inexplicably blighted regions of the world. He found himself doubly depressed, both by this dreary landscape and by the slowness of the Vonnish army in traversing it.

“This was a mistake,” he muttered to Rothir.

His riding-partner turned his head. “What was?”

“Avoiding the main causeway out of Kelvha. That road would have been much faster.”

“Where it wasn’t choked with carts, maybe,” answered Rothir, who seemed surprisingly content. He evidently didn’t mind this plodding progress across a dismal plain.

“A mistake,” repeated Parthenal; and then was shocked at his own thoughts. Huldarion, make an error? That had never happened yet. He assumed their chief had issued the command to march across this empty country in the hope of added speed. But if so, that hope had been unfounded: for while the land here might look flat, it wasn’t. So many bumps and lumps and pock-marks scarred the leaden ground that the army could not move with any haste.

Still, an unimportant error, for battle was not imminent, and this was not yet the full Vonnish army. Parthenal craned round to view the long, thin line that crawled in Huldarion’s wake. It held not quite a thousand Riders of the Vonn, plus a few extras like the Ioben huntsmen, and the odd Kelvhan volunteer.

Those two serving-women from the Castle were still there: he glimpsed them in the middle of a group of female Riders. That was a surprise. He’d thought they would have cut and run by now, once they’d got away from Kelvha Castle – away from the upset over that sad suicide, for which they would have borne the blame.

But he didn’t blame the pair of maids for wanting to escape. In spite of all the feasts and dances he’d endured within the castle, he’d been glad to get away himself, unscathed if somewhat frustrated – in more ways than one. Now he was desperate for some action.

“It’ll take us a week to reach your sister’s farm at this rate,” he complained.

“I don’t think Huldarion’s in any hurry,” answered Rothir in his deep rumble.

“No, that’s obvious. He’s got his new bride to keep him busy, hasn’t he?” said Parthenal. As soon as he spoke he compressed his lips in self-reproach at the bitterness in his own voice. That was something that he needed to beware of. Having kept his feelings for Huldarion a secret for the last eighteen years or so – ever since he was a teenager – he would be abysmally ashamed to have them guessed at now.

Even his closest friend did not know the truth. “I believe Huldarion and Meya discuss Kelvhan politics together,” Rothir answered mildly.

“Oh, I’m sure they do. Especially in that fine carriage of hers, late at night.” There. He’d done it again.

But Rothir merely laughed, his mood at odds with the weather-beaten sternness of his face. He was annoyingly cheerful, considering that this half-army was marching across unpromising terrain towards certain battle and possible death.

“I think Huldarion probably chose the best of the bunch to marry,” he said, “when I consider how flatteringly you described the other candidates.”

“They weren’t all dreadful. Lady Janeya was much younger and prettier than Meya.” Parthenal, instantly remembering that Lady Janeya was now dead by suicide, wanted to beat his head against a wall. He hurried on. “You’re right, of course: we’re lucky that Huldarion didn’t pick Gaelera, even if she is the Post-Regent’s daughter.”

“That’s probably why he didn’t pick her. Who on earth would want Nerogun for a father-in-law? Especially since we’ve learnt he’s been conniving with our enemy. He may have Kelvha under his thumb but he’ll only support us in this war against the stonemen for as long as it suits him.”

“Nerogun won’t have Kelvha under his thumb much longer,” Parthenal pointed out, “not once Prince Faldron becomes High King. That’s only a few months away.”

“Oh, Nerogun will make himself indispensable.” But Rothir’s cheerfulness had dissolved into his normal reflective frown. “I felt sorry for those other girls,” he said. “Even the princess. She may have all the fine dresses and servants she could want but in the end she’s just a bargaining tool. And as for poor Janeya…” He shook his head. “Was that because of us? Was it because Huldarion turned her down and made her relatives angry?”

“Very likely,” said Parthenal. He didn’t actually care about Janeya, who had flung herself so unnecessarily out of a high window. Of course he felt sorry for the girl, but he’d never even spoken to her; and he felt more sorry for her two maidservants, back there in the train amidst the other females.

Our women never used to ride so separately, he thought: that’s the result of just a few short weeks in Kelvha. We’ve already adapted to their hierarchies. Even Huldarion is haughtier than he used to be.

He looked over at Huldarion, who was talking to Veron. The hunter was animated and paid no attention to Meya, although her carriage was right next to his horse. Left out of the discussion, she looked on with a chilly countenance.

Good, thought Parthenal. She’s not yet our queen, and she needs to remember it, even if she doesn’t like Veron’s abrupt manners. But then what does she like about any of us Vonn – apart from Huldarion’s high rank?

Time to stop staring, though. To camouflage his interest in Huldarion, he gazed back once again at the Riders in the rear. A couple took it as a signal to trot up and join him. Both were female, although at first glance neither looked it – particularly the one with the crooked nose. Her rusty hair was plaited tight and pulled back on one side in the Ioben archer’s style. It suited her, thought Parthenal, that boyish look. Her horse, however, was too grand for a lowly archer. It was Eled’s old horse Poda, but she rode it well.

Parthenal felt a swift wave of memory wash over him: that time she had been up in his own horse’s saddle, wounded and half-conscious, borne between gigantic trees. A very different land to this.

“Yaret,” he said, with affectionate concern. “How goes it with you?”

“Fine,” she said, “although I don’t care much for this country.”

“Depressing, isn’t it?”

“There are regions north-east of Obandiro that are not so different,” said Yaret soberly. She spoke Vonnish fairly fluently now, but with a marked northern burr, and with the odd phrase in Standard interposed. “Places where the earth is lacking life; as if it had been poisoned. Although that sounds too dramatic. Things do grow there. Just not many things.”

“There are stretches west of the Thore and north of Kelvha that are the same,” said Rothir.

“It’s a pity to see the land struggling so,” she commented. “In fact, it’s very worrying. Why are there places like this?”

“Because that’s the way they are,” said Parthenal. He was not really bothered, for this stretch of land would soon be crossed, and the sooner the better; but Rothir nodded.

“I’ve wondered that myself,” he said. “This region used to be more fertile. Who knows what happened?”

“Somebody knows,” said Yaret forcefully.

Rothir looked at her with creased brows. “You mean Adon?”

The name gave Parthenal a start. It was always a jolt to hear it spoken openly; for the Vonn more often referred to that detested person as the ignoble one.

Yaret shook her head. “I know little of Adon,” she said, “apart from what I’ve heard from you and Leor. I know that, like Leor, he’s a wizard; and that the two of them are kin, although Leor has apparently disowned him. Actually I was thinking more of Leor himself. Surely a wizard ought to know what’s happened to this place.”

“Well, he’s around somewhere,” said Parthenal, glancing up and down the line of nodding horses. “If you can find him, ask him.”

“I saw him riding alongside the priest’s cart,” said the second woman, Durba. She was several years younger than her companion, and currently quieter. Although she had recovered her lost voice she did not use it much. “He’s friendly with the priest, and with that little man from Kelvha’s library.”

“I’ll find him later,” said Yaret. “How much further?”

“Across this barren strip? We must be near the end of it.” Parthenal squinted ahead. “Aren’t those trees up there on the skyline?”

“They look to be another four or five miles distant.” Yaret sounded unusually out of sorts. Normally she was the one who tried to raise the others’ spirits.

“It’s not like you to grumble,” Parthenal remarked.

“Her leg is hurting,” explained Durba.

“Is it?” said Rothir. “How bad?”

“Just the odd twinge,” said Yaret, with a reproving glance at Durba.

“Ask Shebel to find you something for it,” advised Rothir.

“I have. And the herb-mistress in Kelvha gave me some ointment, which does seem to help.”

“When we get to my sister’s farm,” said Rothir, “Olbeth may be able to recommend some other remedy.”

“Is that where the other Riders will meet us?” Durba asked.

“Yes. They should be mustering near the farm now, so that over two thousand of us will march on from there.”

Still not much of an army, Parthenal reflected. Once the Vonn joined up with the Kelvhan forces, they would be swamped.

But Yaret commented, “That seems a lot,” making him recall that she came from a small town that might be better labelled a large village... And which was now not even that, but merely a ruined field of ash.

“Two thousand soldiers is nothing by Kelvha’s standards,” he assured her. And they all fell silent for a moment, mindful of the fact that they were vastly outnumbered by their allies as well as by their enemies.

“But we won’t go straight there,” Rothir added eventually. “First we’ll head for the estate where the Lady Meya’s daughter lives. We’re to take her to Olbeth’s farm, since her current home’s no longer safe.”

“Or so the Lady Meya thinks,” said Parthenal.

“She has a daughter? How old is she?” enquired Yaret.

Parthenal shrugged. He had no interest in children generally and in Meya’s daughter in particular.

“Five, I believe,” said Rothir.

“Ah! She’ll like it on the farm, then,” said Yaret. “Make sure your sister gives her jobs to do.”

Rothir smiled. “At five years old?”

“Of course.” She was perfectly serious. “At five I could already spin, and throw the shuttle through the loom. I fed the chickens and made bread and was learning to milk the goats. I was fully of the opinion that my grandparents would never cope without me.”

“Was that true?” asked Durba.

“That they couldn’t cope? Not for another twenty years or more. They were still going strong when.” Yaret stopped abruptly; just as her grandparents’ lives had stopped, so suddenly and violently, last year – along with most of the lives in that little, distant town, Obandiro. Parthenal glanced sidelong at her, slightly worried, but she simply looked thoughtful. After a few seconds she added, “My bread was inedible. Even the chickens refused to eat it. What’s going on over there?”

“I don’t know. Something’s holding us up.” The foremost Riders had halted, looking down with serious faces.

Parthenal, taller than the others, raised himself in his stirrups to crane over the heads. What he saw made him grimace in distaste and frustration; because this would mean yet more delay.

“Ach. There’s something lying on the ground,” he said. “Four of them.”

“Four what?” asked Rothir.

“Bodies.”