‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ Daphne said. ‘Lots of people freeze in battle.’ She looked at Mink. ‘I know you’re not a coward, Lieutenant.’
‘You’re right Captain,’ Weir said, ‘about people freezing. Only thing is, when troopers do it, they’re dishonourably discharged, but when officers do it…’
‘When we get back to the Holdings…’ Mink cried.
‘We’re going to say “thank you sergeant for helping us escape”, aren’t we?’ Daphne said.
Mink snorted.
‘If we get back.’ Weir sighed. ‘I overhead those boys talking. They were on their way to Agang’s to see if they could enrol. Said they were four days away from his household. Meaning, that in ten nights, we’ve only come the distance it would them four fucking days to do. I propose, Captain, that seeing as how we’re already up, we should make an early start of it, and run for the rest of today.’
She got to her feet, groaning. ‘What I’d do for a cup of tea.’
Weir shrugged. ‘I’ve got every kind of Sanang weed there is, but no tea, I’m afraid.’
Something occurred to her.
‘Could I have some keenweed, please, I want to try something.’
‘Sure,’ he said, rummaging in his pack. He opened a box, extracted a stick, and lit it off the end of his cigarette.
She took it and inhaled deeply. She let its effects clear her mind, and heighten her senses, then drew upon a little of her battle-vision, not turning it on completely as she usually did, but just pulling a small strand of it.
She reeled back as her senses were almost overwhelmed. Her sight, smell, hearing, all were amplified. Every detail of the forest around her was picked out in clarity, and the noises of the birds and insects, which she had started to block out, came shouting and screeching back into her mind. Energy pulsed through her, and she felt strong and fit, and alive.
‘They should try this in the academy,’ she said, puffing out her cheeks.
Weir helped her on with her pack, and they got ready to leave. He kicked a shield to pieces, and stowed away some of the parts.
‘Follow my lead today,’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Weir grinned.
She nodded, then started to run towards the east.
Daphne finally let her battle-vision slip and fade when she heard Mink stumble again on the dark path behind her. She slowed and came to a stop, the keenweed keeping her standing, where usually she would have collapsed following such a long pull on the vision. It was nearly dawn, and they had been running for sixteen hours, putting more miles between them and Agang’s compound than they had for several nights put together.
She gripped the branch of a tree, leaning forwards, panting, as Weir and Mink came up. Mink was retching, and Weir stumbled to his knees.
They crawled to a hiding place, under a thick overhanging bush that was clinging to the side of an outcrop of rock. They pulled the undergrowth in around them.
‘Same again tonight, Captain?’ Weir gasped, opening his waterskin and splashing his face. ‘Can you manage that?’
‘You got enough keenweed?’ she asked, gulping down the water from her own flask.
‘For a while yet,’ he nodded.
She felt herself slipping, as the last of the narcotic’s effects wore off.
‘Wake me up at sunset,’ she muttered, asleep the moment the words had left her mouth.
Ten hours sleep was nowhere near enough, she thought, as she stumbled to her feet in the fading light of dusk. She retched, coughed and gagged, then spat. Her head ached.
‘Here,’ Weir said, holding out a lit stick.
The three of them stood and smoked, passing the stick between them.
She felt her senses awaken, and once again pulled on a tiny strand of battle vision. Energy soared back into her, not as quickly as it had the day before, but enough.
‘You need to eat,’ Weir said, handing her a bowl. In it was a greasy lump of pork fat, a peeled orange, a few nuts, and a miniscule square of chocolate. ‘You get double rations from now on,’ he said. Mink looked like he was about to speak, but Weir glared at him. ‘With her leading, we can travel at twice the speed.’
‘But,’ Mink said, ‘mixing narcotics with her mage powers, isn’t that dangerous? I knew a recruit, a battler, who used to drink a few shots of rum before using his vision. It made him a great fighter, until his heart stopped one day, right in the middle of the training field. Officers gave us a lecture about never mixing the power with anything else. It’s dangerous enough, they said, and they asked us to report any battler we saw drinking before practice.’
‘I remember being at a similar lecture,’ she smiled, barely able to contain her energy. ‘You going to report me, Lieutenant?’
‘Fine,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You do what you like, Captain. Despite everything, I’d still prefer you to be alive when we get back.’
‘I didn’t know you cared.’
‘I don’t,’ he snapped. ‘Neither of you seem to have realised that the moment we step foot back in the Holdings, we’ll be arrested, and marched off to the capital. If we don’t get our stories straight, and back each other up, they’ll hang us as traitors. Avoiding that is what I care about.’
‘No, Mink,’ she said. ‘It’s too late. You don’t want me to die. That’s enough for me.’
Mink almost smiled.
Weir handed her a waterskin.
‘It pains me to say it, Captain,’ he said, ‘but he has a point, about mixing the weed with your powers. All we can do is try it for a few days, and see how you are. If you feel like it’s too much, then we’ll find some quiet place to hole up for a while and let you recover.’
‘Sounds fair,’ she replied.
Mink shrugged.
‘Also,’ Weir went on, ‘I have this for you.’ He stooped down to where his pack lay, and picked up something. It consisted of two diamond shaped sections of wood, hinged together with leather straps. ‘Made it this evening while you were sleeping.’
Daphne held her left arm out towards him, and he buckled the straps of the two-piece shield to her lower and upper arm. She raised her limb as he stepped back, looking down at the wooden armour. It was solid enough to deflect most blows, but wouldn’t hinder her running.
She smiled. ‘Thank you, sergeant.’
‘And,’ he said, pulling out a broken Sanang spearhead, ‘I saw you fight with this yesterday.’ He fixed the spearhead into a low groove on the lower diamond. The flint blade extended beyond her twisted fingers by a good four inches.
She laughed, and took up a fighting stance, holding her knife in her right hand, and swinging out with her left, the spear blade cutting through the air. She carried out a few training ground moves, dancing as she slashed, parried and lunged at an imaginary foe. The two others watched, Weir with an appreciative smile on his face, while Mink smirked.
‘When you’re quite finished,’ the lieutenant said, holding up her pack. ‘I would rather we got back to the Holdings before Winter’s Day.’
Daphne stood while he slung the pack over her shoulders, while Weir pulled his own on.
She nodded at them both, and started running.
Chapter 11
On the Edge
Mya Region, Sanang – 6th Day, Second Third Autumn 503
There was a pounding inside Daphne’s head, as regular as a pulse, and she ran to its insistent beat.
She couldn’t remember why she was running, but knew it was important. It certainly seemed so to her two companions, although she had forgotten their names, or the reason why they followed her through the forest night after night. She hadn’t talked to them for so long she was unsure as to whether she could speak, or ever had. Each dawn, when she stopped running, she would hear the two men argue, about her she was sure. Sometimes they seemed to address her directly, but she couldn’t make sense of their words, and was always unconscious within a few minutes of stopping anyway.
Every dusk she was aw
oken from her dreamless state, and she smoked, and ate, and then she would run again. She had started to believe that this was all her life had consisted of, and all it would ever be; a never ending alternation between running and oblivion. Part of her mind felt like it was screaming in pain, but she tried to ignore the signals coming from every inch of her strained and exhausted body, and found it was easy if she instead focussed on the pounding in her head.
When she had been shaken awake the previous evening, it had taken her longer than normal to get up, and one of the men had made her have lots to smoke, before she was able to stumble to her feet. The two men were angry with each other, and she had thought that they were going to start fighting, so she ran, and hadn’t looked back since.
Running to the pounding beat.
Her conscious mind had long since ceased processing the overwhelming amount of information coming from her senses while she ran, and she was only vaguely aware of her dark surroundings, like running through shadows. Her body kept going however, regardless of what was going on in her mind. She sprinted along boar tracks, leaping fallen tree limbs, ducking under branches, always, somehow, finding the best path.
She registered in her mind that it was nearly dawn. The vague blacks were transforming into hazy greys, and she felt her body automatically respond, her senses scanning for somewhere to shelter. She tried to observe her body during this, but the sudden rush of stimuli threatened to break her mind. She almost stumbled, and she pulled her mind back to a safe space, where there was nothing but the pounding.
Just as the first rays of the autumn sun were sending beams through the branches above, she burst through a dense patch of undergrowth, and ran straight into a large pool of water, up to her knees. Her momentum kept her going, and she toppled forward into the cold pond with a splash, her head dipping under. She slowly sank to the muddy bottom, her mind a dull blank, bubbles escaping from her mouth. Then she was pulled back, and up out of the water into a sitting position, strong hands gripping her shoulders. She looked up to see a tall, thin man, with dark hair and skin. He was saying something to her, while shaking his head, but her ears were ringing, and she heard nothing. The other man was behind him, and he was gesturing in alarm over her shoulder.
Still sitting in the pool, she turned to look.
There were a dozen pale-skinned women on the other side of the pool, just twenty paces away. They had armfuls of clothes for washing, and were sitting on the edge of the water, where they had been busy rinsing and scrubbing, until a few moments ago.
Now every one of the pale faces was looking wide eyed at Daphne and her companions.
For what seemed like an eternity, the two groups stared at each other across the pool, neither side moving or speaking.
Then one of the pale women opened her mouth and screamed.
Guards with spears burst through the edges of the forest around the pool, looking for the threat to the womenfolk, and seeing Daphne and the two men.
The shorter man pulled her to her feet, and shouted something in her face as he pulled a knife. She heard nothing, but saw his lips mouth ‘run’. He started to push her to the left, away from the guards, who were rushing round the pool towards them.
He gave her a final shove, then turned to stand between her and the guards. She stood there, helpless, her mind disengaged. Run, she thought. Run.
She started to jog along by the side of the pool, the screaming from her body louder now, as she felt the narcotics given to her at dusk begin to wear off. She drew on every last thread of battle vision that she possessed, and her speed increased to a sprint, and she flew off through the forest like a startled deer. Without the drugs, her senses started to shut down, her hearing, her sense of touch, and soon her sight were failing, but still she ran. Although the day was bright, and the sky crisp and cloudless, everything seemed to her as if she were running at night, and all around was cast in silent greys and shadow, but still her body pushed her on and on. The pounding in her head increased, until there was no space for any other thought in her mind, just the pounding, pounding, pounding.
Her foot went over the soft and crumbling edge of a ravine, and she fell, spinning and tumbling down the steep bank, and landing with a crunch on the rocky bottom of the narrow crevasse. Her face was pressed up against the side of a gnarled tree trunk that was clinging to the ravine’s shallow soil. Her right ankle felt like it had twisted, and her left arm was in agony. She squeezed her eyes closed. Never had she experienced such pain, never had her head felt under such pressure, like it was liable to explode any second, ending her existence in an instant. She longed for death, to end this pain, to end this hurt, this torture.
Be at peace, child.
A calm flooded through her.
Be at peace, the voice said again.
Terror froze her, the feeling of calm vanished, and the pounding returned. She retched.
‘Who is speaking?’ she croaked in agony.
Listen to me. Hear my words, child, for I am your creator.
Her panic increased, and the pressure in her mind threatened to send her into oblivion at any moment.
You are at your limit’s edge. Be Calm.
This time she felt the calmness within her forcibly assert itself, as if the voice had taken control of her mind. The pounding ceased, and the pain in her head receded. The pressure on her skull seemed to lift completely. She felt as if she were floating.
‘You are the Creator?’ she gasped.
Yes, I am your creator, He who speaks through the prophets.
I have gone insane, she thought. The endless draw on the vision, and the drugs. I am insane.
No, child, you are not, although you were perilously close to permanently damaging yourself. Yes, I can sense your thoughts; I can hear them in my mind, as I can hear those of your prophets when they call upon me. You, however, I have never heard before until now. I will heal your mind.
She felt her memories and full consciousness return to her for the first time in many days. She remembered who she was, and where she was, and why. She opened her eyes. Her sight had returned.
‘My…’ she began.
Your friends? The two men are still alive, I can see them. One is injured, the other is carrying him, but they have strayed from the path you took, and are over twenty miles from here.
She focussed on her body. Her left arm had grown numb, to her relief, but pain was still shooting through her ankle.
That, I cannot heal. My powers were long ago limited to mind-to-mind contact with the rare few among your people with the ability, the sole beings I have communicated with in millennia.
‘The prophets are telling the truth?’
Yes. I notice they often simplify my words, but my meaning is carried to your people.
‘Then the war is wrong?’
It is. Your people’s invasion of Sanang is a grave crime, as is the Rahain’s treatment of the Southern Clans. Your queen has erred. Her advisors have erred. Your father has erred.
‘My father?’
Yes.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ she said. ‘I’m going to die out here.’
You will if you remain on the ground, Daphne of Hold Fast. You are so close, yet you do not realise it. I will help you, and in return you will preach my word.
She hesitated.
Yes, people will say that you have lost your mind, but I will tell the prophets that you speak the truth.
‘What should I preach?’ she asked.
Peace and Unity. Peace among the five peoples of this continent, and an unbreakable Union to bring them together as one.
‘If I agree,’ she said, ‘how will you help me?’
Are you bargaining with God, Daphne Hold Fast? the voice laughed. I will do thus; I will make your will unshakable.
Something within her mind changed, and she was infused with a strong belief that she was going to make it home, even if she had to crawl all the way. So powerful was this urging, that she started to stumble
to her feet. Her right ankle gave out immediately, and she fell. She got back up, her right hand grasping onto a thin but sturdy tree branch for support. She leaned against the side of the ravine, and used her knife to trim the branch into a staff.
See Daphne, you are not helpless. Now, watch.
Her sight soared upwards, out of her body, higher and higher, gazing downwards at the Sanang lands below.
The forest spread out endlessly on both sides, and behind her, but ahead the edge was visible as a ragged line, just a few miles distant. Beyond that was the deforested zone, where each year the Holdings had cut back the forest deeper and deeper, carting off the timber. The desert of tree stumps that they had created now spread for miles, all the way back to the frontier forts. She saw carts and wagons dotted about, digging up the great roots of the trees that had been felled. Every scrap of wood fetched a price in the Holdings.
Now look.
Her sight snapped back to her position, then lowered, until it set out a path for her of the quickest route to the nearest cart, inscribing it into her mind.
Now go. I can feel the link between us fading.
‘Will I be able to speak to you again?’ she asked.
That I cannot answer. It may be that your thoughts only appeared in my head due to your extreme use of the vision powers I bestowed upon you. It may be that we shall never speak again…
The voice faded, and disappeared from her head, but the feeling of irrepressible certainty that she was going to get home remained. She held out her staff, and began hobbling along the base of the ravine, following the path that shone brightly in her mind’s eye. She was injured, and exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and probably smelled like horseshit, but her mind was crisp and clear, the pounding a memory only. How many days had she been running, she wondered. She was nearly skeletal, thoroughly emaciated from her legs to her chest and arms. Her bones were showing, and her hair was dank and tangled and stank. She hadn’t brushed her teeth in a third, and she prayed she wouldn’t need to have any teeth pulled when she got back.
The Magelands Origins Page 15