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

Chapter 49

As she walked towards the cliff edge, Bruilde was aware of the small fingers laced in hers.

“Not too close,” she said.

“I won’t be,” said Aliya, although Bruilde had actually been talking to Veron.

Who, of course, ignored her. He was standing far too close to the high brink for safety, looking down upon the land. Such a huge land it appeared from up here on the edge of the escarpment.

Near to her, the many tiny streams that ran across the plain were quickly swallowed up into the forest – a forest that stretched to the horizon, its size beyond imagining, its dense distances melting like smoke into the hazy clouds. A bird of prey called, drifting in the space between: that warning scream was the only sound apart from trickling water.

A land of streams, she thought. I have not seen the Darkburn forest from up here before, although I’ve been down there, along its borders; and I do not want to go that way again. I’m too old. I want my comfort. Fifty years ago I would have pranced along that cliff edge and down it like an antelope – but age brings caution. Or it ought to.

Aliya let go of her hand and held up her own, framing it against the great green spreading hand below.

“What is that?” she said.

“A forest,” said Bruilde.

“A wood, with fat green fingers,” Flodda added. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.”

“I can count,” Aliya said. But she sounded tired rather than annoyed. Bruilde immediately wanted to pick her up, to cuddle her, although she was not a cuddler by nature; and in truth Aliya was not a cuddly child – or not with her at any rate. So it was odd the way she made Bruilde’s heart ache.

She is the memory of the children that I never had, she thought. Leor, was that down to you? I didn’t wish to bear a wizard’s children. I feared how they’d turn out. And of course I always knew that you would leave me, once I started to grow old... unless I left you first. So that was what I did. My choice.

“See how the streams all run into the wood,” said Flodda.

“I see,” said Aliya distantly, and she turned away, trudging back over the cold stone slabs to where the horses waited with the others. Flodda immediately followed her.

Aliya needs a home, Bruilde thought. She needs a place to huddle in, a cosy bed. She needs a den. Somewhere that’s hers.

And we have nowhere. No farm, no house, no shed. Not even carts: they are all burnt. All we have are horses, and ourselves.

She looked round at the group. Besides Veron, there were two hunters, two of her own farm workers, Flodda, Aliya, Olbeth and the baby.

She walked up to Veron, as close as she dared. She no longer trusted her body not to take a sudden bad decision, to give way at the legs, to wobble, to collapse.

“Where shall we find shelter?” she said quietly. “I see none from here.”

“I see plenty,” said Veron.

“Inside the forest?”

“Why not? The stonemen will expect us to turn south to join the army, or west to Kelvha City; or north-west to the estates of Outer Kelvha.”

“How about north?”

He shook his head. “Blighted. And further north again is burnt.”

“We could go north-east, and find Farwithiel.”

“Have you ever been there?” asked Veron.

“No.”

“Me neither. The Farwth doesn’t know us. It very likely wouldn’t let us in.”

“Let’s go south-west, then, back to Wiln’s, with Olbeth and her baby.” Olbeth wanted to rejoin her husband, and Bruilde’s two farmhands were to accompany her. Flodda had been urged to join them on the journey but would not leave Aliya. As for Aliya herself... Bruilde knew before she finished speaking what Veron’s response would be.

“And take Aliya back into the lion’s mouth?”

“South-east,” she said. “South-east, towards Caervonn.”

Even to speak the name awoke in her the echo of desire, the old ache of homesickness. She had been fortunate that her family owned Deloran: in exile she had not been homeless like so many of the Vonn. She knew that Caervonn was not the source of such intense and helpless longing for her as it was for many of her friends. But still it called.

Veron snorted. “Caervonn is surrounded by stonemen. And soon that area will be a battlefield.”

Bruilde was silent, looking east at sky and forest. The sullen mass of trees shut out the world. She remembered the darkness that had lain within. Yet she hadn’t been in very far.

“I would not take her where our enemies are,” she said. “And we know that they have strongholds in the Darkburn forest.”

“Not at this end, not at the river’s head,” he argued. “They’re much deeper in. And they won’t look for us to come this way.”

“But there’s a reason no-one comes this way! It’s uninhabitable!”

In answer, he pointed to the land north of the forest; the flat, bare, sparsely vegetated plateau with blue faded hills beyond. What had Yaret called that area? The Darkburn Loft. A land of rain and goats and little else.

“Smoke,” he said; and then she picked out what she had not seen before, the thinnest thread of smoke that spiralled up from that wide empty space where nothing else was moving. “So there is someone there.”

“Stonemen.”

“Maybe. But not many. We can deal with them.”

“If we don’t go south to join the army,” Bruilde said, “we must send a message to Huldarion, and Aliya’s mother.”

Veron shook his head. “No messengers. They can be caught.”

“But, Veron. This is… this is not…” She took a breath and tried again. “Inside that Darkburn forest,” she said, finding the words oddly difficult to say, “far inside that forest lies a road that leads towards the river. I’ve been there. It’s guarded by some fearsome creatures: firedrakes, and who knows what else? It is a place of wizardry. Veron, that forest is not safe.”

“That’s why the stonemen will not seek us there. It’s our best hiding-place, until Caervonn is won or lost.”

“No,” said Bruilde.

“Yes,” said Veron, still gazing past the sharp edge of the escarpment; past the circling hawk, across the forest’s hazy bulk towards the blurred horizon. “No stoneman will expect us to conceal Aliya there. So once we’ve said farewell to Olbeth and your men, the remaining six of us will head that way. We shall take our chance, and go down to the Darkburn.”

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End of Book 4

The tale continues in

Darkburn Book 5: Caervonn

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