by Jaine Fenn
She had only been in the saddle a while when, despite the constant pain of legs and buttocks and back, she began to doze. She caught herself the first time, a moment of vertigo as she pitched forward towards the horse’s neck. The second time sleep crept up on her she flinched awake at the touch of Captain Deviock’s hand on her arm. The third time she nearly fell when her horse stumbled, and she was jerked from fitful half-sleep into full wakefulness, grabbing for support that wasn’t there. Instantly awake but confused, it took a moment to realise the horse had stopped. She felt it shudder under her.
“She’s gone lame.”
Rhia focused on Deviock’s voice, then worked out what he meant. “I suppose I’d better dismount.” Her voice sounded creaky and cranky in her ears.
The column flowed past them. Deviock had also dismounted, and now indicated his own horse. “Please mount up quickly, Countess.”
“But I…” He was right. If riding was almost beyond her, walking certainly was. She realised she was still holding onto her horse’s saddle for support. She made herself let go and stagger free.
As she pulled herself onto the grey’s back she saw the militia captain undo the saddle on her old horse, which stood with its head bowed, one front leg lifted. “What are…?” She didn’t have the energy to finish the query.
“So she stands some chance.”
Rhia just nodded. From the captain’s voice he was at least as upset as she was at leaving the poor animal to die.
They carried on. Deviock walked alongside her, shoulder not quite touching her leg. Whether from the shock of losing her mount or the closeness of a strange man, Rhia found herself wide awake. Craning her aching neck she saw a sky full of stars. But in the east, the velvet darkness was tinged with grey. Dawn was coming.
She looked ahead, and in the distance saw a solid line of darkness: the umbral forest. But which part? She must have been dozing when they took the fork in the road. “Are we…” She tried again; even speaking took too much effort. “Are we going to Marn or Zekt?”
“Zekt.”
Captain Deviock spoke without turning his head. He hadn’t dissembled, so perhaps she should try asking more questions. Except, she didn’t have the energy.
Shortly afterwards the column slowed and stopped. Rhia tensed, ready to dismount, but they weren’t taking a rest; the front of the column was moving off the road, striking out across muddy fields. The exhausted men and horses slowed to a crawl to pick their way over the uneven ground in the dark. We can’t afford to slow down! The sky to the left was silver now, the stars washed out.
A curse to one side: someone else’s horse had gone lame. Rhia’s kept plodding along, its hooves dragging in the cloying earth. It stank of sweat, and her trousers, against its lathered flanks, were damp. The combined lethargy and urgency turned their flight into an endless nightmare of fear and frustration.
But, slowly, the umbral forest became clearer. Rhia could see individual trees now, and for a moment that lifted her heart: they were close. But it was almost light.
The front of the column reached the trees as the first rays of the Sun raced across the land. Rhia felt it strike her cheek, and screwed up her eyes. Why hadn’t she thought to bring her cloak?
But it didn’t burn her in the saddle, even though she could feel the heat build by the moment. Just a few more steps… They entered the shade of the trees. They didn’t stop at once, but carried on deeper. Please just let me stop, let me rest!
She got her wish shortly afterwards. The horses and men fanned out, and stumbled to a halt. She let Captain Deviock help her from the saddle, but her knees gave way when she touched the ground. He half caught, half supported her, then lowered her down. She stretched out gratefully. All that mattered was that she could finally, finally rest.
CHAPTER 49
The journey south was very different. Fleeing north, Dej had been empty inside, shedding her love for Etyan step by painful step. Now she was doubly full: her body of the life he had sparked in her; her head of Jat’s many lives.
Damn him.
Many of the memories she had inherited gave her joy – echoes of Jat’s past moments of love and wonder still warmed her, and she was delighted at the confirmation that skykin did have music, drums and flutes, which they danced to unselfconsciously, extravagantly – but the knowledge of what the skykin really were and what was happening to them now weighed her down.
The low hills continued inland. On the first night, she lit a fire with wood-stuff taken from the ruined city. As the sparks rose, a cloud of floating, translucent creatures drifted towards her out of the night, converging from several directions. She tensed, in case they meant her harm, but both her animus’s response and her newly acquired seer’s knowledge said they were no threat. There were about a dozen, each a cluster of bubbles, each bubble with a single dark, thick spot shifting across its surface; currently all the spots were directed towards her.
Dej smiled, pointed back at the creatures and said, “What do we think those are then?” Speaking to her unborn child was a habit that came easily now. At the sound of her voice the eyes, or whatever they were, slid back inside the mass of bubbles. Dej opened her arms to show she meant no harm, and stood still. The bubble-creatures came closer and began circling the fire, a slow bob and drift. After a while two approached each other and the bubble masses merged for a moment. Then they whirled apart, a motion accompanied by a sigh like distant wind. A few minutes later another pair did the same and, Dej saw as they glistened in the moonlight, one of the bubbles had transferred itself from one cluster to another. She grinned; she was pretty sure this was the skyland equivalent of wild sex.
Dej watched the float-bubbles at play until they finally drifted away again. She hoped they might return the next night, but they didn’t.
After a few days the hills flattened out, with more bare earth and boulders between patches of vegetation. Soon she saw a new type of landscape ahead, massive rock formations, red and imposing. She doubted there would be any water there, and probably not much to eat either.
“Let’s see what we can find here first.” Her girl kicked in response. She moved a lot now, getting ready to meet the world.
She stood stock-still on the barren plain and let her awareness roam over it, drawing extra strength from the life inside her. She picked up the presence of a few interesting creatures, but they were for later.
Aha. A little way southwest, the scent of water under rock. She opened her eyes, gave her perpetually sore back a rub, and set off.
Her instinct was true: a spring in a boulder-filled dip in the land. She filled both waterskins; she’d taken Jat’s too, given he had no further use for it.
Now: food. She picked her way over to the area of jumbled rocks she’d sensed earlier, careful of her footing. She couldn’t afford a fall. As expected, the rockslithers heard her coming and burst from their nest, darting off in every direction. Which was fine. Dej tasted the wind, and found a place to wait where they wouldn’t catch her scent. She sat back on her haunches and let thought drain away, aware only of her immediate surroundings and her gravid body. It was a battle to keep her over-full head empty, to still her thoughts, but she managed it.
Slowly, cautiously, the rockslithers ventured back. The first few didn’t come near her. She shifted to relieve a cramped shin. This would be easier without the extra weight she carried. Finally a fair-sized ’slither passed within reach. She jumped up, one foot pinning it down at the same time as she drew her knife and plunged it in between the creature’s first and second segments, killing it at once. She felt its life flee, and offered up something between a prayer and an apology for having taken it.
It was a big beastie – a full five segments – and once she’d got back onto even ground she prised off the fore-segment, cracked it open, and scraped it clean of meat. A full segment on a ’slither this size was a hearty meal. When she’d eaten, she curled the remaining four segments up in the bottom of her pack.
&
nbsp; The next day she reached the maze of wind-sculpted rock. Her choice was to go round or through, and round was a long detour. At first the rock walls loomed overhead and she doubted her decision. But the gulleys soon widened out, and her unerring sense of direction allowed her to pick the best path.
No chance of firewood here, which was less of a concern given the lack of predators – this land was as empty as any she’d passed through – but she’d have liked a cooking fire. As well as tasting better cooked, the rockslither meat would keep longer that way. After eating another segment that night while camped under a rocky overhang, she considered discarding the final segments but decided they might keep for one more day.
She came out of the rocky maze the next afternoon. The land was less arid here, similar to the scrublands around Shen, but still with no standing water and nothing to eat or burn. In the evening when she opened her pack she could smell that the rockslither meat was spoiling. She tipped the pack out; hopefully any staining would just be at the bottom.
That was odd: one segment had indeed discoloured, turning from mauve to brown, and going soft in places. The other two looked fine. She examined them more closely. There was something stuck to the un-rotted segments: the cleansing-moss. She’d forgotten about her stolen tech but it looked like, as well as removing dirt, it could preserve meat. Useful stuff indeed.
That night she extended her senses as far as she could while on the verge of sleep and utterly relaxed. She estimated she was about a week away from the band of shadowlands around the world’s equator – another term she’d got from Jat’s knowledge – but given the large gap between each shadowland she could pass between any two, most likely Marn and Zekt, without realising it. If the terrain was favourable a shadowland might be visible from several days walk away, but if she approached in a valley, or if the clouds remained as low as they had been today, she could easily overshoot. Her child was only a couple of weeks away. She might only get one chance.
CHAPTER 50
Broiling heat dragged her into wakefulness. Rhia gasped, coughed and rolled over. Next to her a strange man in militia uniform lay stretched out on the ground, asleep. He had his hands curled loosely on his breast, and looked as unselfconscious as a sleeping child.
Captain Deviock. That was Captain Deviock. And she was in the umbral, on the way to Zekt. But how could that be? How could any of this be?
She levered herself up onto all fours, feeling sweat break out across her body at even this minimal effort, then stood. Her throat burned, and she reached for the waterskin next to the sleeping militiaman. Someone had filled it, thank the First. Her head as clear as it would get in this heat, she looked around. Men sat or lay in the close, hot shadow of the ironwood trees. There were no horses in sight.
Her papers! They’d left several horses behind on the road: what if one of those poor beasts had been carrying her possessions? Spotting a pile of baggage next to a pair of sleeping soldiers she staggered over. Yes, she recognised that backpack. She clung to this small, momentary reassurance in an impossible new world of danger and uncertainty.
At the edge of the forest the light burned bright but she recognised that worn quality from her days in the cave at the red valley: a skyland evening. She’d slept all day. It didn’t feel like it.
Though heat and exhaustion made lying down again tempting, she needed answers. She walked through the dim, hot forest, past resting soldiers. Those few who were awake gave her uncertain but respectful nods. She asked one of them where the duke was. The man pointed through the trees.
She found Francin sitting on a camp stool. Asleep on his side on the ground nearby lay Lord Crethen; seeing him here, now, Rhia suspected he had known full well why the duke was absent when she had asked him what seemed like a lifetime ago. Beyond him, sitting on the ground and chewing on some rations was General Prendor, head of the militia. On his other side, by contrast, was Francin’s close family – all of them. Princess Yorisa, his oldest child, sat on the ground, looking sullenly solemn as only a girl being thrust towards adulthood can; her younger sister and brother slept next to her. Beyond them lay Alharet, curled in a loose crescent, one hand half flung towards her children. Seeing the duchess free, out of doors and oblivious added yet another layer to Rhia’s sense that the world had been turned upside down; then she saw the militia captain who sat beyond the family tableau, just behind Alharet, keeping watch over her.
“Cousin.” Francin’s voice was quiet and tired.
When Rhia turned to look at the duke she saw the dog at his feet, flopped onto its side and panting hard.
“You brought your pet?” Though she didn’t raise her voice – it was too much effort in this heat – an odd, detached rage bubbled up in her. Francin had his whole family, even his dog. She had left everyone she cared for behind, and though no doubt Etyan would make his way somehow, her family servants, her new husband and her poor cats had all been condemned to a slow and awful end.
“I did, yes.” At his bleak tone her anger abated a little. “I need to know there is one living creature who loves me unconditionally. Can you understand that, my genius confidante?”
“Perhaps.” She gestured around them. “But what is all this? I thought you were up to something but this is… staggering. I had no idea. So I’m hardly your confidante, am I?”
Francin smiled and cocked his head at her. “Cousin, even if the affairs of state were of interest to you, they are not your business.”
“I know, but… this is something else. Did you plan it?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you had a plan, you were already making preparations when it all went wrong. Where are we going, Francin? Zekt?”
“That’s right.”
“How? We can just about wait out the day here in cover, but we can hardly travel to Zekt in a single night! It took a week by caravan.”
“Our route is quicker, though whether it is quick enough…” He shook his head.
“What route? How are we getting there?” Perhaps he planned to camp during the day, hiding from the Sun in wagons and under canvas as his expeditions to the red valley had. But there were no wagons, and only minimal luggage.
“Remember that glass book from a few years back?”
“What? What has that to do with this?”
“Well, it didn’t come from one of those isolated treasure-rooms the Church get so worked up about.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Some tree-cutters in the umbral saw something odd out in the skyland a while back, a shadow in the evening light. They came back in the dark to investigate. It was a sinkhole, a pit that had opened up just beyond the umbral. It gave access to a great underground room. And, leading out of that, a tunnel.”
“A tunnel? To Zekt?”
“That’s right. Pre-Separation work. Full of incomprehensible and miraculous stuff.”
She found her imagination filling with possibilities, thinking on what wonders he might have found… but she needed to stay focused. “You’re sure this tunnel goes to Zekt?”
“Oh yes. I did my research. I’ve even travelled part way along it myself.”
Which explained his odd absences. “But how can you be sure where it comes out?”
“I found a very old map, then had a trusted agent look for the far end. It took a while, as that was outside Zekt’s umbral too–”
“Sorne! That was why Captain Sorne stayed in Zekt!”
“One reason, yes.”
“You’ve been planning this for years!”
“For a couple of years, yes.”
“But you had no idea about the shade failing?”
“The shade… ah, you mean waking up to find my shadowland had ceased to exist overnight.” His tone showed a dark humour. “No. I had no idea that was going to happen. But I did know Shen was in trouble. Every rain-year we endured droughts while Zekt prospered. Yet it did so without stable leadership, under a dynasty of madmen. I could see a better way.”
“Not invade as such. But the eunuchs are all about stability. If they invited me, or rather my children by a Zekti royal, to take an active role in Zekt’s future, then I would be happy to accept their overtures, backed up by a degree of military force of course–”
“Alharet!” Rhia looked over to the sleeping duchess. “That’s why you never tried her for treason, why you kept her confined to her rooms. You wanted to use her to get access to the Zekti throne!”
“My children are half Zekti, but yes, the presence of their mother would make the proceedings smoother, when it came to it.”
“And she agreed to this?”
“Discussions had been initiated.”
“How close were you to carrying out this plan?”
“A matter of weeks.”
“So you brought it forward when the shade fell?”
“As best I could, yes.” A childish voice said something about being too hot. Francin looked over at his youngest girl, just awakening. “I know, sweet. But it’ll be night soon, and you’ll be cooler then.” Beyond her, perhaps in response to her child’s voice, Alharet was stirring. The duchess looked pale and woozy. Rhia half made to call out to her, but what would she say?
The duke murmured, “Rhia, go get some more sleep. You’ll need it. We leave before dawn.”
Rhia nodded, and left. She considered going to the skyland side of the umbral, to see if this tunnel entrance was visible, but lacked the energy. She’d see it soon enough.
Captain Deviock was awake when she got back, and volunteered to fetch some food. For the first time she looked directly at him. Her inital impression was correct: he was young; probably had minor noble or high guild blood to be a captain barely into his twenties. The upright way he carried himself implied good breeding, although that might have just been stress. Discipline and willpower kept the men around her functioning, but they too must have left people behind.
The ration of bread and jerky Deviock brought back was small and far from tasty, but Rhia did not complain. After they had eaten she asked her escort where the horses had gone.