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

Chapter 48

Alone at last, Huldarion leaned wearily on his sword and looked out along the Red Roads in the sullen glow of evening. Truly, now, they ran with blood.

The streams were littered still with slaughtered stonemen, heaped like boulders. The dead and wounded Riders had been dealt with; the Kelvhans had efficiently borne away their casualties; only the stonemen lay unheeded, causing diversions in the water’s tranquil flow.

All else was calm – in a strange, flat way. After the hours of directing, ordering, maintaining discipline, this calm was not as welcome as Huldarion would have thought. It left him too much space: which was immediately filled up with his losses.

So many losses. Not just of Riders. He grieved for them; but also for his loss of face, the loss of credibility. The loss of self-belief, of self-control, of the former certainty of his own rightness.

Yet the greatest and the most dreadful loss, he knew, was that of High Prince Faldron. Both Vonn and Kelvhans had scoured the land and found no sign of either the royal carriage or its occupants. He thought that Faldron was probably already dead.

Now he felt the Kelvhans were avoiding him; for they would undoubtedly blame him for the disaster, despite their own failings in defence. They would censure him for dragging the Kelvhans here to the Red Roads; a sitting target, they would say, and given what had happened how could he prove them wrong?

Even Meya was avoiding him. He had glimpsed her helping to direct the moving of the Kelvhan wounded but she did not come near him. So, there too I have failed, he thought. She will leave me now.

He knew he ought to go back to his own injured people: but not just yet, for in truth he lacked the strength to face them. Lifting his gaze to the grey sky, he tried to call his mind to its accustomed certitudes. But the heavens aroused no stir of lofty hope. The low streaked clouds seemed to reflect the tainted water: the lurking sun created a long, hostile shore that sat above him, judging.

Huldarion was reminded of another vista – not so long ago – another coastline of streaked clouds. A fantasy-land, serene and bright and almost within grasp. Where had that been?

On the escarpment near Bruilde’s farm, he thought. I stood there looking down upon the Darkburn River and its forest. Thoronal was there. I remember that huge lode of life below me, the weightless clouds above. In between, a soaring bird. I remember asking for some words of guidance. And they came: Protect the land. Protect the people.

And what have I done now? The land is indifferent to me at best; at worst has turned against me. That weed that lamed our horses and attacked Veron. The fog-bank where we lost our carts. That sea that spawned the serpent.

As for the people…. I’ve tried, the stars know well. I’ve tried to keep my people out of danger. Yet danger followed me. Considering what my mission is, what else could I have done to keep my Riders safe?

Not your people only. Whose voice was that?

“My voice,” he said. “My cursed, unhelpful conscience.” But what had his conscience to complain of?

Everything.

I should not have come here, he said inwardly, I should not have sought the truth about the stonemen unless I was prepared to act upon it. Pity and humanity drove me to the Place of Terns: where are they now? I have laid them aside. I came here for nothing. No matter what the stonemen’s age, we had to slaughter them before they slaughtered us. And those Riders who feel pity – I accuse them of betrayal.

He stared at the reddened clouds, that bloody handprint smeared across the sky. When his heart spoke again he did not wish to hear it.

You have choices.

“Hah,” he said aloud.

You came on this long detour, his heart told him, hoping for some rebuttal, some reason to ignore the truth about the stonemen. It was procrastination. You delayed in marching to Caervonn because you do not wish to slaughter children. You came here not to learn the truth but to put off your decision. That was a choice. There are always choices.

“Should I choose therefore not to fight?” Huldarion muttered. “Should I abandon everything, walk away, and leave my people homeless, desolate?”

They are already homeless.

But if I walk away I fail them, he argued to himself. I fail my people, and my ancestors, and my lost home. To win my homeland back was always my desire; a deep, alluring dream. Is it to be no more attainable than those red lands in the sky?

He sighed and lowered his gaze. Rothir and Theol walked past some twenty yards away, carrying a stretcher. They were alive, then.

Rothir looked up at him. Huldarion felt again that beat of anger for the man who had defied him, however courteously. He did not know what he should do – what it might yet be possible to do – but he knew he needed somebody to hate just then, someone to blame besides himself.

The truth is, he thought, I hate Rothir because he voices the opinions that I cannot say. I have responsibilities. I have a realm to win. I have an exiled people who wait for me to win it. He ought to know that. He does know it. He too has a choice, and he has chosen to reject me, publicly. Well, I reject him back.

He made no sign to Rothir. The stretcher was carried over to the hurriedly erected tents; from that direction he saw Meya come, walking purposefully towards him. What did that purpose signify? Would she still stand beside him in this disaster, or return to Kelvha? The latter would destroy his chances of Caervonn. Yet he knew it was most likely.

She marched up to him. He stood silent, waiting for the next catastrophe.

“Well,” said Meya, “this situation is not ideal. The enemy dead cannot be burnt, with everything here so soaking wet. It would be best to move the army on as soon as possible, to avoid the risk of contamination and disease. I’ve made sure that the water-carts are being replenished from the cleanest streams.”

He found himself unable to respond. Instead he looked at her.

“Prince Faldron will be kept as hostage, I expect,” continued Meya in the same down-to-earth, undramatic manner. “I doubt if he will be mistreated. A dying hostage is no use to anyone. I fear more for his valet, and that meek little archivist, Tamu, who apparently was also in the carriage. However, there’s nothing we can do about them at the moment.”

Huldarion made a questioning noise in his throat.

“I’m sure you’ll be sent word of them,” said Meya, “by some means, soon enough, and then you can decide what action it is best to take. Shargun and Nerogun each blame the other. And they blame you, of course, and the wizard Leor; but they have less power over you, and they’ll look to Leor to use his wizardry to find Faldron. So I’d advise you to stick close with Leor, and with Jeveran. He’s not interested in making excuses. He’s a general of the old school.”

“And you?” His voice came out in a harsh, impatient creak. Yet it was not impatience that he felt, or even resentment at her daring to advise him. Rather, it was wonder. Did she then mean to stand by him?

“Until I see my daughter,” Meya said, “of course we work together. But you know my daughter’s safety must come first.” She sighed. “I should have stayed with her. But I was torn.”

“We are all torn,” said Huldarion.

“One other thing I had no chance to mention earlier. Perhaps this is the wrong time; but still. A couple of your men – and women – dug up some clay which may be an ingredient of the stonemen’s drug called Athelid. Certainly it smells the same as the liquid with which Faldron’s former valet dosed his wine, and tried to administer to you. If you have a use for it, Rigal keeps the samples.”

He nodded. Perhaps there was some use for it; but he could not think just what. He could not think at all. It was terrible, this inability to think, to plan, to use his logic.

Meya was eyeing him with a mixture of what he felt were compassion and impatience. He needed to respond.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t. So. What now?”

“Caervonn,” Huldarion said, without conviction. It must be visible to all, he thought, that he had lost his faith in his own destiny.

She studied him and nodded, slowly. Then she put her hand out and took his. For the first time he realised how cold he was, both in body and in soul; for her hand was warm and welcome.

“Caervonn,” she said. “But first, I pray you, let me see my daughter.”