The river fork marked the great change in the land, and what grew upon it. There the floodplains ended, and with them the canes. Long before the day’s end it was trees and bushes they scanned, with only rare canebrakes; and between them they could see open hills. The upper river itself was wider and less meandering, flowing faster and deeper through the channel it had carved out between their slopes. In mid-afternoon the little party passed out from between the arms of the trees at last; and Kalkan let out a great bellow of relieved laughter.
Alya was about to rebuke him, when from among the greenery a horrible noise arose, a howling, hungry screech that was louder far and larger, though it seemed to come from only one throat. It lasted only a moment, but it sent small birds flying up in frantic clouds, and made the horses shy. Nothing could be seen, and nothing made any move to come after them; but in the silence that followed, nobody spoke. But Alya raised his eyes to the skies; and so did the rest.
They saw nothing that day, and they made camp that night undisturbed. Indeed, in many respects the days that followed were the most peaceful part of their journey; for Alya knew the way now, and the lie of the land, and they passed without any great incident. They were anxious, at first most of all, constantly watching the clouds above and the great slow river on their right flank – slow, save where it drove through narrows, steep and rapid. Then the enormous weight behind it became clear, transformed into raging white waters no boat could pass, even by portage. ‘Such a mass of water,’ mused Asquan, watching the flying foam. ‘And yet the Ice constantly throws out many hundred times as much, and never misses it!’
‘More than that!’ said Tseshya, now much restored to his old self. ‘It recoups it constantly, through winter snows. And the waters carry its chill southward, and carve its path, for glaciers are but frozen rivers, in a sense.’
‘The rivers carry many things, indeed,’ said Alya slowly. ‘And in more than one direction.’
Most of them thought he meant the birds, as usual; but Asquan looked thoughtful. Later he rode up alongside Alya, apart from the rest. ‘I also have been scouting out the land, in a sense. Following your orders. I talked to the women, while you were … away; and very wearisome and confusing it was. I have spent time since, piecing together much that was no more than legend, weeding out the fancies and the spiteful lies, weaving a slender thread of truth with what you have told us. And I believe I can guess something of what you are planning.’ Alya said nothing, and the old lord’s smile grew more like a lizard’s. ‘Bold, as I would expect. But dangerous. Appallingly so.’
‘Can you see it so clearly?’ Alya smiled ruefully. ‘That’s more than I can. I’ve no master-plan already mapped out in my mind. No more than … an idea. An opening I saw, a chance we might be able to use, if only we can seize the moment. And it need not be so dangerous. We might be able to do it all without fighting. I would like that, if I can.’
Asquan frowned. ‘Beware it does not lose you more lives! Fighting is why you brought these men, remember; and me. Fighting is not the worst of evils. And it may well come to that in the end, if the girl is as close to the heart of the place as you suggest.’
‘Then I would delay it as long as possible! I cannot shake off the feeling that I was meant to tread this path alone, and risk no other life!’
‘Who decides what is meant? Those who gave you your strength also left you the freedom to use it as you will. No, be as cunning as you like, but accept that some may well still die.’ Asquan chuckled. ‘After all, if we do not, we’ll just have to find some better way!’
‘And if this is a bad way? Worse than any I can imagine?’
Asquan looked more serious than usual. ‘If it is the right one in all other ways, then we must still risk it. But for now, let us say no more of it, and enjoy the peace while we can!’
It was not so hard to do. Indeed, they marvelled at the richness of that land as Alya had, and at the wealth of life and growth within it, even compared to the best of Volmur’s kingdom. And like him they grew ever more furious with the Ice, that had locked away so much water, and starved the southern lands to the verge of desert. ‘Look at these vast herds,’ cried Kalkan. ‘These huge things with the long snouts and teeth – mammuts, you say, scholar?’
‘They’d never survive down south,’ agreed Alya. So, my lord?’
‘So, if we could tame them, herd them! Think of them for labour, for dragging carts – such strength!’
‘And just possibly for beasts of war, my lord?’ enquired Alya. It was a barbed question worthy of Asquan, which worried Alya a little.
Kalkan shrugged with boisterous innocence. ‘Well, perhaps, perhaps! Since you mention it! Be bloody terrifying, wouldn’t they? And you could armour them against spears and arrows, around the legs too. Once they got in among the infantry – the cavalry, too, even, you saw how the horses don’t like ’em … Rulers must take such things into account, yes. But maybe the meat tastes good, too. A royal banquet on four legs, eh? What a show on parade!’
‘With a couple of daggerteeth on chains to lead them!’ grinned Vansha. ‘Or pull your chariot!’
The soldiers laughed. ‘What price Volmur and his cardboard dragon, then! All hail to King Kalkan! Down with his foes!’
Asquan, who had said nothing throughout, simply raised an eyebrow to Alya. He understood, well enough. These were men who thought of fighting, even in times of peace; it was natural to them. And Vansha seemed to think much the same way; even Tseshya, to some extent. Perhaps he should worry less about setting their lives in jeopardy; and yet he could not. To him that would be too like the Ice, and the way it treated men; and that was often before them.
If the peasant farms had seemed mean from high above, they looked worse below. Alya saw now how prosperous the women had been, by comparison. Sometimes there were no real houses at all here, merely lean-to sheds covering the mouth of some sordid cave or cleft, often dank and stinking. Often they were little more than wide shallow pits dug into the soil, roofed with canes or bundled branches. Inside, the houses were usually smoky, filthy tangles alive with dogs, infants and vermin, all uncontrolled. After their experiences with the women, Alya and the company were wary of sleeping beneath another’s roof. They usually sought the barn or granary; and they soon found they had the best of it. The barns were relatively sound and well kept, because the peasants had at all costs to store grain and produce for their masters, and the effort that might have gone into better houses went largely to the stores.
Their inhabitants were little better, a peasant people beaten and degraded, noticeably smaller and squatter of frame than the southerners, as if crushed by the burdens of their existence. Literally so; they had few draught animals, except a few huge wagon and plough oxen, and bore most weights on their own backs. Most were surly and suspicious towards the strangers, though some became a little friendlier when they realised these were not raiders. Even those who had the look of the Aikiya’wahsa themselves, small wonder on such a road, showed little love for them. There was evidently little chance Alya and his party would be betrayed – even had there been anyone to betray them to, for the road was as empty as it had seemed from above. The peasants knew no reason; they were only relieved. They cared little about anything beyond their near neighbours, and the overlords who came to snatch away almost all their toil produced. That was their world, and its triumphs and tragedies lay in concealing some food, and some children – but not too much of either.
From one such homestead to another the company passed in some two weeks’ long riding, or a little more, and with each day their anger and hatred grew for the Powers they faced. With each, it became clear, the ground was growing ever poorer, the soil thinner, the grass less lush, browner and tougher, the fields more sparse. As the woman had said, the farm buildings no longer stood alone now, but lumped together in gaggles of tiny huts that hardly merited the name of village. Only the road remained clear and straight, with no more than small rough paths and drovers’ track
s leading off from it; so that it was a surprise for most of them, one bleak and misty afternoon, to find it forking ahead, and still more so sloping away towards the right, leading only down to the river.
Alya was not surprised; and neither, he guessed, was Asquan. ‘That is our way,’ he told them. ‘And a reminder to take care. We’ve ridden far and hard, but free from hindrance. Now that may change. I wanted to get here in time for something, and I think we have, just barely. But that means we have to be ready for enemies!’
‘Fine by me!’ said Chiansha. ‘These peasants are getting me down! I need a neck or two to wring – preferably Ekwesh!’
‘Be wary of wishing!’ warned Asquan sardonically. ‘You may find it all too generously granted!’
Alya grinned, and urged his horse down the road. He was startled to hear the sudden ring under his mount’s hooves. This was a way of great flagstones, like the roads away south, some leftover from a forgotten past. It was mostly overgrown now, and in places sunken to spongy bog; but it led them through without a break, into the mists that rose from the river every evening, that at last closed about them.
For a while all was raw, cold and quiet, save for the odd bird-cry eerily flattened by the dank air, and the gurgle and ripple of water near and far. Twilight dimmed the mist still further. Vansha came riding up to the fore. ‘Are those lights out there ahead?’
‘Should be,’ said Alya, squinting. ‘You always did have good sight. Keep it in use now. Single file, and be careful!’
Lights there were indeed, faint and red in the haze. Alya trotted on towards what looked like the nearest, a dim red glow apparently hanging high in emptiness; and the others saw him loosen his sword in its sheath. Then they saw the light clearly all of a sudden, a battered lantern hanging on a heavy wooden post; and just then Alya’s horse’s hooves drummed suddenly hollow. He reined in sharply, and they rode up about him as usual; but he held them back.
‘Listen! D’you not hear? You might go riding straight into the river!’
Carefully he swung from his saddle, and his feet also boomed on wood. ‘Take care, it’s narrow. And slippery!’
The others, behind him, saw a mass of shadows, low and long. He stood on a grey outline of planks, and all around it was dim and empty, filled with the cold chuckle of flowing water. Another light gleamed in the distance, over what might be another jetty; but there were others still further off in the deep dusk, the glow of fires, perhaps. There was a hint of smoke in the still cold air. It smelt like winter, although in their own lands winter was still far away.
Vansha also dismounted. ‘Slippery? Powers, it’s half rotten!’
‘You do surprise me!’ said Asquan, peering into the murk. ‘Made with wood, bodged with cane – has anyone seen a tree lately? I thought not. I shudder to think what the ferry will be like. Over the other side; it always is, isn’t it? I suppose one simply shouts.’
‘Seems so,’ agreed Alya, and he cupped his hands and cried out. His voice echoed out over the dusky river, but nothing stirred. He called again and again, with no result, and his voice cracked.
‘Hoi!’ bellowed Kalkan, deafening. ‘Stir your stumps, ferryman! And stumps he’ll have,’ he added more quietly, ‘if we don’t get some answer soon!’
‘First time I’ve missed that Nightingale and his whistles!’ said Darzhan. ‘Hoi!’ Sticking his fingers in his loose mouth, he whistled deafeningly. Ahead in the greyness something creaked, and they saw the shape of an opening door picked out by a dim lantern. The lean figure carrying it limped down to what must be the far jetty.
‘Who’s there?’ The voice was tremulous, but not especially old. ‘Who’s there? I got a bow!’
‘Then stick your head in it and let loose!’ snarled Vansha. ‘But first come ferry us over!’
The man held up the miserable lantern, that barely lit his own arm, and peered into the gathering dusk. ‘Who’s that? What manner of men are you?’
‘Just men,’ said Alya, not unkindly. ‘We won’t hurt you, or take you away. But come now, before it grows dark!’
‘No ferry after dark!’ said the man sullenly.
‘That’s why we need you to come now!’ exploded Alya. ‘There’s a reward for you, if you do!’
‘And if I have to swim over there,’ roared Kalkan, ‘you’ll be ferrying a different River soon enough! One with no returning!’
To their astonishment the man almost dropped the lantern, and fell to his knees.
‘Didn’t think I was that horrible!’ growled the old warrior.
‘Oh you are, my lord, you are!’ said Asquan blithely. ‘Utterly unspeakable, I assure you. At least our lazy boatman seems to be hurrying now.’
They could see him hurrying indeed, practically sliding over the jetty on all fours. From out of its shadow slid a long craft, wide and flat and riding low in the water, lifting only a little at its square-edged prow and stern. The boatman was poling it across vigorously enough, with little drift downstream; but a few yards off their shore he dug in the pole to hold the ferry in place, and held up his lantern.
‘Come nearer!’ he said, in a quavering voice. ‘Need to see who y’are!’
‘Why, when you don’t know us from the dead?’ demanded Asquan.
There was silence for a moment. ‘Come closer, I say! You look strange! Or – or swim, and do your damnedest!’
Alya shrugged, and picked his way gingerly along the decaying jetty, nearer the light. ‘Well, then? We are from far in the south, but we don’t bite!’
The boatman was a scarecrow figure in a ragged loincloth and coarse jacket, a rag around his greasy hair. ‘You look well enough – master! And these others?’
‘My followers, yes! Do we have your august approval now?’
The ferry drove in alongside the jetty. It was bigger than it looked. ‘Three at a time, masters! Three men, three horse, no more, step careful. Don’t worry, I come back as often as need be.’
‘Well, that’s a change!’ spat Vansha, as Kalkan manoeuvred his huge horse on board. ‘Practically grovelling, now, the little snotrag!’
‘Got to be careful, lord, careful who one takes! This night of all nights most of all! I thought—’
‘I understand,’ said Alya quietly.
The boatman sighed. ‘I’ll make all haste now, master. You wager your head on that!’
He made no attempt, in all his journeys, to ask them why they were there or whither they were going. He ferried them fast and well, with all his strength, so that it was still a misty dusk when the last of them came to the far side. From the jetty they could see the source of the lights looming up, the ramshackle hovels of yet another village grey and hunched in the gloom.
When Alya offered the ferryman some small coins that the farmers had accepted, he simply stared and said, ‘What should I do with these?’ But he seized a chunk of salted meat greedily, tucking it under his jacket and looking about. ‘Never seen any of this in a year! Welcome, masters, welcome! No, no lodging in the village. Go to the headman’s out beyond on the East road, he’s a man of your quality, he has a big hall and food for wayfarers. Only mind; he’ll have the door tight barred, this night!’
The village was all too familiar, save for its size, three times that of most others they had passed, and the quality of the road, also of laid stones, but clearer and in better repair than on the other bank. And the headman’s house, when they reached it, was also a surprise. It bulked large in the dusk, larger than anything they had seen since before the canes; and as they came up to it, they saw walls of great stone blocks, evidently laid long ago like the road, and by men who knew their work. Now, though, they looked cracked and ramshackle, and the great beams above them were of wood only. Yet even these looked ancient enough, and richly carven; and so was all the wide front of the house, a hall indeed that squatted among the much older stone for shelter and strength. Faces glared out of foliage, deer fled and dogs sprang, bears lumbered and leaped; and above the arch of the double door it
self the heavy central beam bore lines of intricate, elegant characters none of them, not even Tseshya, could read. Alya thought they looked familiar, but he had more urgent concerns. The doors themselves were shut.
Alya rapped on them with his glove, but nothing happened, though he thought he could hear stirring within. He struck louder, and getting no answer hammered loudly, and called, though courteously; and this time a voice answered him.
‘Who are you? Can you not see the signs that bar my door? Be on your way!’
‘I see signs, but they are nothing I can read! Nor can most in this land, I guess!’
‘You cannot …’ The voice seemed startled, but it grew harsh again. ‘I bear you no ill-will, but you have no business here tonight! Go!’
‘I’m going to kick those bloody doors down around his—’ began Vansha, but Alya shook his head.
‘Will you refuse harmless strangers shelter and fire, or at least a barn to sleep in? When they can pay for it?’
‘Strangers? From another land?’
‘Indeed. Cold and weary ones!’
There was a moment of confusion within, as if people were arguing. Then, very suddenly, bars slammed back within, and the doors boomed open in a flood of golden firelight. ‘Come on then! Come in quickly! Bring your horses! But quickly now!’
The man who hurried them in was something different from the usual miserable peasants, though he was dressed as raggedly as the others who lurked down at the back of the hall, men and women and children. He was no taller than most, but spare and wiry instead of squat, with a deeply lined, sunken face and watchful eyes; and as the doors were slammed and barred behind them, he met the newcomers with what seemed like a shadow of ancient formality.
He bade them take their places at his board, and had the horses led through the back of the hall, past the central firepit, to a stable at the rear. ‘It’s stood empty these many years,’ he told them. ‘But it will serve your beasts for the night. For you we have only these wooden platforms near the old fireplace, but we can at least see your bellies filled first, and build up the fire for you. You will not want to go out again tonight, I think.’
Shadow of the Seer Page 34