by Shannah Jay
She inclined her head, but kept her distance from him. And her hand remained as steady on the dagger as her eyes were on his face.
Slowly, two paces apart, the man and girl walked out of the settlement. Tears trickled down the cheeks of the Sisters watching them, but there was nothing they could do, nothing at all. This way, at least, the rest of the children might be saved. Though they would have to flee yet again and set up another creche.
The minute the Verderer and Taslyn had passed through the gateway, the tall Sister made a gesture with one hand and the wards fell back into place. 'Brother, watch over her!' she murmured. Then she turned to her Sisters and said firmly, 'Scatter and flee.'
'But they've gone.'
'They will be back.'
Outside the gates Cheral remained hunched up in the back of the cart, where the man driving it had knocked her. When the cart stopped and the child approached it, Cheral remained where she was, mumbling to herself about old bones and harsh treatment.
As Taslyn took hold of the cart to climb on board, the Chief Verderer snatched her from behind and took her dagger away. 'You won't need that now.'
She said nothing, only stared at him, with her clear accusing eyes, dark eyes, gleaming with inner certainty, in a way no child's eyes should ever gleam. A strange one, this, he thought, and a shiver ran through him.
Dread lord, watch over us all,' he prayed, and he couldn’t shake off a feeling of apprehension, for all that he’d just won what his master wanted so desperately.
They travelled along the ill-defined track until second moonrise, then stopped to make camp. Cheral hobbled about, broiling the strips of dried travel meat in enough water to soften them quickly, and using some more of her herbs to flavour them.
'You've got to give it the old besom. She makes even travel meat taste good,' joked one of the men.
'Told you I could cook,' mumbled Cheral. 'Ain't no one can cook like me. What've you done with my sons?
Where are they?'
'Oh, we're meeting them tomorrow.' The Chief Verderer, in a mellow mood now, winked at his companions as he spoke. He’d said the same thing to the old hag several times already and it seemed to satisfy her fuddled brain. It’d no doubt serve for several days to come, until they were back home and had no more need of her services. Then she could be used in the inner shrine. She wasn’t a very tasty morsel to offer their dread lord, but her pain would help build his power, as all pain did. At the thought of inflicting pain, the Verderer's loins throbbed.
For two more days they continued to travel through the high forests. The draught nerids grew tired, for they hadn’t the stamina of deleff, but the men whipped them into motion and allowed them only minimal rests. Cheral made no attempt to talk to the girl, who seemed to have lost her defiance now and sat hunched in the corner of the wagon.
Every night they tied up Cheral and the girl separately, and kept watch over them most carefully. They even kept watch over what herbs Cheral used in her cooking. They were mistrustful, these men, mistrustful of everything, each other included. She still hadn’t seen a way to escape. But she would, she surely would.
'We'll go back there later and smoke out that nest of rock adders,' the Chief Verderer said at regular intervals. 'But for the moment you'd better keep alert. My master wants this girl very badly.'
So Cheral waited, holding back from useless action. Her Gifts were not like Herra's, and she wasn’t strong enough to still these men. And yet, and yet - she remained sure their Brother was guiding them, sure something would happen to rescue them. She’d done the right thing in allowing herself to be captured, she was sure.
That night a storm blew up suddenly. Wind howled, driving rain stabbed sharp needles down on the men in the camp. The rain extinguished the fires almost immediately. The Chief Verderer yelled to his men to gather round the wagon and keep watch, even as he grabbed Taslyn and leaped on board himself. As lightning flashed across the sky, the ragged awning dripped moisture steadily through on to the three people sheltering beneath it.
The other men huddled next to the open wagon, cloaks drawn across their faces to keep off the rain. They gasped and cursed, hands on daggers, but they didn’t dare disobey the Verderer's orders and seek shelter for themselves.
A flash of lightning illuminated the space under the awning. Taslyn looked across at Cheral. 'It's time,' she said quietly.
Cheral nodded. She, too, had sensed the moment's promise. She stood up, oblivious to the rain, oblivious to the Chief Verderer gaping at her and opening his mouth to call to his men to kill the old hag.
She must still him, Cheral realised, and quickly, too. Suddenly she felt a strength join itself to hers and saw that the child had raised her hands. The Chief Verderer's mouth was open, but no sound was issuing forth.
Only his eyes seemed able to move and they rolled to and fro in panic. If his dread lord was trying to answer his silent call for help, then the noise of the storm hid any other sounds, just as the curtain of lashing rain hid the trio on the cart from the men around it.
Taslyn beckoned to Cheral and as the two of them slipped down from the cart, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. The ground shook beneath them and the men huddled together. The roaring of the storm filled the air, the rain turned to hail and battered at the huddled figures. Swiftly, with no need to keep quiet, the child and woman began to run along the track. As they ran, they held hands, and Taslyn used her Gifts to augment their strength, so that they could flee more quickly than anyone could pursue them.
Cheral marvelled at this, even as they ran. Another new Gift, she exulted. Another Gift from their Brother.
Surrounded by the wild whirling darkness and the clamour of the storm, they didn't even try to look back.
Either our Brother will help us escape, thought Cheral, or we shall perish here, but we shall not give ourselves up to those fiends again. In the darkness she smiled to herself. The child's hand was as warm in hers as the hope pulsing in her heart.
Brother, look down! Brother, look down! The words repeated themselves in Cheral's brain as they ran.
And she knew that their Brother was watching over them.
A few hundred paces along the track, they came to a gasping halt. There a deleff was waiting for them, an enormous creature, surely the largest that had ever travelled the Twelve Claims. It seemed to flicker in the lightning and moonlight, as if it were nearly transparent. Where it blocked the track, they swerved, to find themselves on a very narrow pathway. Then the deleff turned to wait for the panting, cursing men who’d discovered the escape and were pursuing the two fugitives with all the strength they could summon up, in blind terror of losing their own lives.
When they arrived, the deleff's wings began flashing with a shimmering blue light. The first man ran into the wings before he could stop himself and his screams were heard for a moment even above the fury of the storm, as the evil within his soul was turned back upon itself. By the time he’d fallen to the ground, the others had stopped their wild chase, and were standing there panting and gasping.
The deleff raised its head and trumpeted so loudly the men held their ears, held them and moaned in pain.
Just as the trumpeting ended, the Chief Verderer arrived. He too stopped to stare at the beast.
'I've never seen one so large.' He was speaking slowly and was still moving like one half paralysed. By rights, he shouldn’t yet be able to move, after being stilled, but his dread lord was strong within him.
The deleff trumpeted once more, then took a pace backwards. Its body shimmered with that iridescent grey sheen that seemed to promise rainbows at the edges of one's vision. Then the tone of the call changed to one of piercing sweetness, which wrapped around the men. Before they’d realised what was happening, they were trapped in a bubble of blue light, in a sphere filled with their own pain and soul-darkness.
Hands raised in instinctive pleas for the mercy they’d never offered to others, moans made a throbbing counterpoint to the deleff
's calls, but the song continued, rising to a crescendo. Suddenly a chorus of other voices joined that of the deleff, coming from nowhere it seemed to the anguished, shaking men. Thunder roared across the sky, the blue wings beat one last sweep and suddenly there was a pool of silence in the heart of the storm.
The great deleff stood perfectly still. Light seemed to pour down from nowhere, to wash around it, and even the fringes of that light magnified the men's own warped evil thoughts, so that they rolled on the ground in an agony of their own making.
And when the pain lifted suddenly and the men raised their eyes in hope, the deleff had vanished, as had the track along which Cheral had fled. Only thick forest fringed the path they were on now.
By common accord they fled into the wildwoods. If they returned home, they’d die in the Shrine for this failure. Only the Verderer remained. He stood like one turned to stone, with the rain pelting down upon him, then slowly he drew his knife and killed himself, offering his soul's pain to his dread lord in payment for his failure.
Cheral and Taslyn continued to flee through the wildwoods along the narrow track. The moons above them seemed dimmer, as if faded by the glory that had glowed in the sky behind them. They stopped as they felt a wash of sheer joy and paused to stare at the sky, filled with a blue light so intense it hurt the eyes.
'What's happening?' the child asked.
'I know not,' Cheral replied, hugging her close. 'But that feeling came of goodness, not of evil. I’d guess,'
she tested the idea in her mind and nodded at the rightness of it, 'that the giant deleff which was waiting for us has just traversed the alignment and joined its kindred on another plane of existence. There can be no other explanation.' And one day, she felt in her soul, she, too, would know a similar joy.
As the glow faded, Taslyn clung to Cheral and shivered. 'I'm tired, so very tired.'
'You're too young to use your powers like that,' Cheral mourned, her motherly instincts aroused. 'I must teach you to use them less wantonly.'
'We're safe now, though, aren't we? I can't feel anyone following us.' The young body was still pressed against Cheral, but the voice was faint and wobbly, a child's voice again.
'Yes, dear. We're safe.'
But as they approached the young deleff standing patiently beside the portal, Cheral looked back. They were safe for the moment, but for how long? The power of the Serpent was growing. And each time its followers raised the Avatar, it was harder to defeat.
CHAPTER 28 GATHERING IN THE HIGH ALDER
A group of deleff stayed in the camp to help Katia and Kensin carry tree trunks for the new houses they must build before winter set in; the others returned to the wildwoods. For the first month, the days were filled with frenetic bustle, as Kensin ably directed people's labours into building a new settlement near the portal and near Greygulf Pass. First food and shelter, then fuel for the winter. Never mind if the shelters were crowded, just so long as they had roofs over their heads.
Some groups went further out, following the age-old principle that you never ever put all your riches together in one hiding place. And the people who’d survived the reign of the Serpent were riches now, tough and seasoned in fighting and planning, used to doing whatever was necessary.
Those who’d lost family members buried their grief in hard work. New friendships were formed, children adopted into family groups and new marriages made. They celebrated marriages in the old way in the High Alder, with a Sister to bless the couple and to lead the dancing. And the happiness seemed all the greater for the struggle they’d had to retain these Sisterhood ways.
The Kindred of the God had their own joys, too, for they were able to gather openly, wear their blue robes and tunics to ceremonies, and share each other's strength openly and at will.
As the days continued to pass happily, groups of fugitives would drift in, sometimes bringing other Sisters, sometimes just bringing themselves and their skills. Word had gone out and people from across the border in Kelandra were making their choices. The deleff played a great part in leading these groups through their portals, now that Greygulf Pass was no more, but some folk scaled the high reaches, braving the snow and ice up there, so great was their determination to escape from the domination of the Serpent.
When Benjan brought the ironworkers through the portal, the community held a feast night to celebrate.
The next day, Kensin led that group further into the mountains to an iron lode he’d found there many years previously, and some nearby caves he knew where they could find shelter. There the ironworkers formed their own community, soon able to supply nails and other small necessities from melted down pieces, in return for the winter supplies that other folk could garner. Thus the old patterns of trusting and inter-dependency were re-established.
The great grey gulf of the pass remained uncrossed, though the scouts posted there reported that sentries were always on duty on the other side of the landslip. A careful watch was kept near the possible routes into the High Alder, and there were occasional skirmishes as Those of the Serpent tried to penetrate the mountains. But they made few attempts, not with deep winter drawing on apace. For the time being it was stalemate, as each side regrouped and laid its plans for the future.
One day the deleff startled everyone by trumpeting loudly and stamping up into the hills to the pool from which the new settlement's main water supply flowed and through which their new portal passed. Katia and Benjan were the first to follow them, so it was they who saw Cheral, Jonner, Narla, a stranger and a child come through the portal.
Once again there was a celebration in the old style and Cheral herself led the dancing circle, as only Cheral could. And a new generation of children practised the steps in a smaller circle within the other.
Then Jonner and Narla came forward to make their marriage vows in front of their friends. Afterwards Cheral led them into a dancing chain and the whole community joined in behind them.
As the celebrations proceeded, Cheral confided to her Kindred that Taslyn was one of the two children of the prophecy. 'We shan't say anything about that yet,' she finished. 'Let her taste a few of the joys of childhood first and be accepted by the other children as one of them, not an oddity.' She looking across fondly at the child who was being taught a skipping game by some new friends. Tonight Taslyn didn’t look like a key figure in their quest.
After the celebrations Katia sat on beside one of the smaller campfires with her grandfather.
'What are you thinking about, lass, to make you look so sad?' he asked.
'I was wondering where my Davred was.'
'Can you sense him?'
'Yes, but he's far away and he's not getting any nearer.' She sighed. 'I miss him dreadfully. I feel sometimes as if half of me is lost. I turn to speak to him and he's not there.'
'It's a good marriage, then, for all he's an offworlder?' They’d all learned new words, and could speak with reasonable understanding about satellites and other planets and the Galactic Confederation. It’d have surprised Those of the Confederation to see how easily these 'primitives' could accept and absorb such new knowledge.
But the folk of Sunrise had one basic difference to folk on other worlds that had been discovered and colonised. On Sunrise, people had no desire to change their ways, no hunger for Confederation machinery and tricks. Even though they knew about the Confederation, their sights were set on one thing - a return to a peaceful way of life and to Sisterhood ways. They wanted that enough to fight hard for it and to offer up their lives if necessary to achieve it.
'A good marriage?' Kensin repeated when his granddaughter didn’t immediately reply.
'Oh, yes.' Katia's eyes grew dreamy. 'It's a very good marriage. Davred is no different from the men of our world, grandfather, not in the things that matter between a man and a woman. He thinks people here on Sunrise must be descended from Terran stock, because there are no real physical differences between us. He thinks there must be some truth in the old legends.'
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'But you said Those of the Confederation didn't have our Gifts,' Kensin reminded her. 'How do you explain that?'
'I said they hadn't bred for such Gifts,' she corrected. 'That doesn't mean the Gifts don’t occur among them in a random fashion. If we’re from the same stock, the Gifts must be there. Davred has certainly demonstrated many of them. He hopes he and I will be able to go to Galactic Central one day to share our knowledge with his people - but only after we’ve defeated the Serpent.' She sighed. 'I don't know how I shall feel about that. Even Tenebrak was too far away from the forests for me. In space there are no forests, only darkness between worlds, and people must live in metal containers with their own supply of air and food.'
She shuddered, but added with determination. 'But if I have to, I shall follow any path our Brother sets my feet upon.'
'Those of the Confederation sound to have strange ways of organising their lives, from what you tell me.'
Kensin fiddled with his leathers and said softly, 'And that son of yours, Erlic - is he descended from Terran stock, too?'
'No, grandfather - well, only partly. He's descended from the deleff, as I told you. But he's also of our line.
It's a heavy burden for him to carry, being so different, melding the Gifts of two species like that.'
'It's been done before. The Lord Terraccalliss was also an alien, from all accounts, but he fathered children for our Gifted Lines.'
'Yes, he was very different. I've seen his statue in Temple Tenebrak. He had wings, great golden wings. He was very beautiful in a slender sharp-boned way. Herra is descended from him, you know.' She fell silent for a moment. Surely, surely, with an enhanced Herra beside him, her Davred would return to her safely one day?
A voice seemed to echo inside her head as she thought of her husband. 'You shall be reunited,' it sang, 'One day, you shall be together again.'
She sucked in her breath, almost afraid to believe what she’d heard, but as the voice faded, a chuckle drifted back to her. 'Believe what I tell you, Katia! That much of the path I can see clearly.'