Gathering Voices

by Kris Humphrey

  Mika nodded. Star’s words brought to mind that the worst was yet to come. She knew that. When they reached Meridar there would be shelter and food and soldiers, but the Narlaw were close now, and they were waiting to strike. They were strong and deadly and they wanted Meridina for themselves.

  Mika thought about what Dawn had asked of her: to teach the other Whisperers how to wake the victims of the ghost-sleep. She wondered how many Whisperers had gathered in Meridar and what they would think about being taught by an unknown girl from the western highlands. And what if it was a skill that couldn’t be taught? Mika ran through the process of awakening in her mind. She visualized the demon binding, the particular earth trance and constant attack required to tear through the Narlaw’s evil and reach the sleeper beneath. The technique was clear to her. She had performed it successfully six times already. But that didn’t mean she could teach anyone else how to do it. She wasn’t a mentor, she was a novice.

  Mika wished Astor was there to help her. She pictured the wind shrine and the snow falling on the desolate hilltop where they had parted and her chest ached with sadness. If only she knew whether Astor was safe – if she and Suri had made it away from Rakeen and found food and shelter somewhere. She felt a sudden, fierce determination kindle inside her.

  She would teach the new art of awakening in Meridar and, more importantly, she would find a way to banish the Narlaw forever. It seemed impossible – there were just so many demons – but there had to be a way, and she would do everything she could to win this war, to clear the Narlaw from the streets of Rakeen, to make the hills and valleys safe again. She would do it for Astor, wherever she was.

  The afternoon wore on, cold and bright.

  Ona rode, warily, behind Damon, the highland warrior who led the group. Her time with the Narlaw laid a murky, oppressive veil over every thought and feeling. She’d been imprisoned in the ghost-sleep and had returned. Now she understood the distraction her friend Yusuf had experienced in the days following his own reawakening.

  The road they were following had brought them through a patch of woodland. As Ona surveyed the trees to either side she couldn’t help but remember the face of Captain Niels sneering at her, and being dragged toward the woodland inn and the dreadful people there. She looked ahead. The road rose gently for some fifty paces to the top of a low hill. She watched the highlander in front, and then beyond, to where the trees thinned at the top of the hill and opened out on to a great stretch of farmland.

  And there, rising above the fields, was Meridar.

  Ona’s body tingled with joy and relief.

  They passed between the farms and villages, and everyone they saw seemed to be travelling toward the city, its yellow stone walls and the angles of the slate roofs beyond promising safety. The Palace of the Sun, standing proudly above, promised home.

  As they neared the city walls, Ona, princess of Meridina, joined the long procession of refugees. The people around her glanced nervously as she passed. Those who recognized her turned to whisper to their friends and families. Those who didn’t kept a respectful distance; it was clear from her clothing and the company she kept that she was someone important, at least.

  Ona walked her horse slowly amid the throng of people. At the gates the guards barked and bellowed, ushering the refugees into the city and dispensing orders: where to find food and be assigned a place to sleep; what to do with livestock and where to report for defence duties.

  Ona felt trepidation rise inside her. If she did as Dawn said and took charge of the city then everyone within these walls would be reliant on her. She looked down at the refugees that surrounded her – they looked so tired and vulnerable. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t know how to rule a city, let alone defend one against an army of demons. Her father had never taught her how the kingdom worked. Where were the infirmaries? How many guards were there? How many horses?

  As she drew closer to the gates the crowd became tighter, bodies pressed against her legs and the flanks of her horse. It was only the forward motion of the crowd that kept Ona from turning her horse around and running from the responsibility Dawn had thrust on her.

  Her heart fluttered in her chest as the shadow of the city wall fell over her. A scowling, helmeted guard locked eyes with her and, after a moment of recognition, his eyes widened with shock.

  “The princess!” he cried. “Make way for Princess Ona!”

  The volume of the crowd increased tenfold. Heads turned and the guards cleared the way with a good deal of shouting and shoving. Then they stood to attention and saluted as she passed beneath the high stone archway.

  “Welcome home, Your Highness,” said the leader of the watch.

  Ona nodded and thanked him. She rode uphill toward the palace, casting her gaze over the shop fronts, the warehouses and homes; the schools, taverns and infirmaries. She was suddenly excited at the thought of seeing her father. He would be so pleased to know she was safe. But how could she explain to him, the king of Meridina, that he was unfit to rule? Even considering such a thing felt like an act of betrayal. Perhaps she could stay by his side and guide him instead. She could even draw him out of his absent-mindedness – make him strong again? There had to be a way.

  In four days everything had changed. She wasn’t the same princess any more.

  Ona peered back across the rooftops and the teeming streets – all the way to the city wall and the fields beyond. She knew one thing for sure – this was her city and she refused to let the Narlaw take it.

  Dawn galloped her copper-coloured mare into the full blast of the wind – south and east, on the trail of the earthstone.

  Behind her, the last woman standing from Valderin’s guards rode at the same desperate, breakneck pace. Her name was Loren, and she had followed Dawn without needing to be asked.

  Dawn felt Ebony high above, her companion battling the high winds as she scanned the rolling hills and the glittering rivers for their prey.

  Ebony was their eyes. And she had the scent of the demons already.

  They’re riding fast, she said. We may not catch them.

  Then we’ll have to ride faster, said Dawn.

  She leaned lower still against the neck of her horse, who was strong, fast and agile. Dawn didn’t know the horse’s name, but she could feel her power and her focus. She reached out to her as she gripped the reins, letting her know that she was focused too, dead set on closing the ground with the Narlaw.

  The grass whipped by and the mare thundered over the fields and leaped the meandering streams without faltering. Dawn held tight and the world flashed by. Riding like this she felt at home again, free. She was back in the Southlands, racing her friends along the rocky hillsides, whooping into the sun as her horse kicked up a long, red cloud of dust. Only now she wasn’t racing for fun, she was racing for survival; for Meridina and for everyone and everything that lived there.

  Ahead, she saw a river gully – three paces wide or more.

  The mare leaped and sun-sparkled water flashed beneath them.

  That’s it! she whispered. That’s it!

  The horse galloped on and Dawn heard Loren land the jump behind her.

  The wind forced tears from Dawn’s eyes and her whole body ached for rest. But there could be no rest. Not until the hunt was over and she held the earthstone in her hands.

  Alice hurried through the narrow streets of Catchwood. Today was market day and the village was packed with traders from all over the mountainside; boots, hooves and cart wheels rumbled across the hard-packed mud. Alice clutched a heavy wicker basket and the jars and pots within clanked together as she wove through the market-day traffic.

  She stepped aside to allow a line of mules to pass and, as she did so, she noticed an elderly man sitting beside her in the doorway of a low-ceilinged cottage, carving a chunk of wood. Alice nodded at him politely as she waited, but the man simply narrowed his eyes, casting her a look of unconcealed suspicion.

  Alice turned back to the street, her ch
eeks burning with embarrassment and anger. She should have grown used to this by now, but her visits to the village remained as uncomfortable as ever. She tried to believe what Moraine, her mentor, had told her: that although the villagers feared her now, they would come, in time, to respect her as their Whisperer. But how long would she have to wait? She was twelve years old now and had been living here, apprenticed to Moraine, since she was old enough to walk.

  She stared down at her boots and the mud stains on her long, patterned skirt – the one Moraine always insisted she wore into the village. When the last of the mules had gone by, Alice left the old man to his work, wishing she were back in the forest already.

  The market square was a chaos of stalls and wagons. There were so many people – and so many animals, pulling carts or tethered to the posts and fences around the edges of the square. Colourful awnings flapped in the breeze and the stallholders bellowed their prices, vying for the custom of the crowds. Above it all stood the festival tree: a solitary pine that rose up, ancient and proud. And above the tree, the autumn sky raced with clouds.

  Despite the cries of the sellers, with their ferocious bustle and salesmanship, one fact could not be hidden – most of the stalls were pitifully empty. There was simply not enough food to fill the market.

  It had been a hard summer on the mountain. Edible plants had grown sparse, the streams and rivers were all but empty of fish, and those who hunted rabbit and deer were forced to travel further than ever before. In fact, the village’s main hunting party had set out four days ago and not yet returned. This was the first time in years that they had missed a market day and people were beginning to talk.

  Alice edged through the crowd. She hefted the wicker basket and aimed for Sal’s grain stall, her first call of the day. The shadow of the festival tree slid over her and with it, like an all-powerful tide, came the smells and sounds of the traders. Alice was shoved aside by people carrying huge sacks and crates; elbows jabbed at her from every angle. It was simply the bustle of market day – she knew this – but every nudge and push made her feel even less welcome in the village than she already did.

  These errands were vital to Alice’s training as a healer, but Alice knew there was more to being a Whisperer than quietly producing medicines for the villagers. There had been a time when the Whisperers were respected, and even obeyed, throughout the kingdom. Under the leadership of Queen Amina they had protected Meridina from the Narlaw and banished the demon armies back to the Darklands. Nowadays any mention of the Narlaw was greeted with a condescending shake of the head. They were little more than monsters from the history books, used for scaring children into doing their chores.

  Alice wished that the demons were just ancient history, but she knew better than that. The missing hunters and the changes in the forest were small things, coincidences perhaps, but Alice felt a growing fear that something sinister was behind it all – and she knew Storm and the other wolves shared her suspicions.

  She felt a pang of loneliness at the thought of Storm. But she could only ever enter the village alone. The people of Catchwood didn’t understand her bond with Storm, and a fully grown wolf was not a welcome guest in any village.

  She arrived at the grain stall and made her way to the front. The goods on display were meagre: half a dozen loaves, a stack of wheat-flour parcels, some salt and a single coil of dry red sausage. There would normally be four or five times as much, and an extra table of wheat and barley sacks in reserve behind the stall.

  Alice waited her turn, listening in as Sal finished her conversation with another customer.

  “They’ve been gone four days now…” said the boy. He was about Alice’s age, but his face was drawn with worry. He wore the short leather apron of an apprentice blacksmith or carpenter.

  “Don’t you fret, Owen lad,” said Sal. “I’m sure they’ve just gone further out, looking for a better hunting ground.”

  “Four days, though,” said Owen. “Something has to be wrong. Dad’s never been away so long before.”

  Sal smiled sympathetically and the boy glanced sideways at Alice as he turned to leave.

  Alice met his gaze silently. Perhaps he recognized a similar, troubled expression on Alice’s face because he nodded to her solemnly before he turned and vanished into the crowds.

  “The usual, is it?” Sal asked cheerily.

  Alice smiled and nodded, putting the frightened eyes of the apprentice boy out of her mind. She picked two jars from her basket: one ointment for the gums and one powder to help with aching of the joints – both for Sal’s elderly father. Alice liked Sal and hoped she was right about the hunters – that they had simply extended their search and would return soon with a healthy stock of meat to trade. But she couldn’t help agreeing with Owen.

  The tension she had noticed in the village over the past few weeks was even more obvious now. The people here were forest people, just like she was. They too would sense the change in the woods – small things, hard to pin down – as well as the lack of food and the poor hunting. To Alice it seemed as if everyone knew something terrible was looming, but nobody wished to voice their fears. It made her keener than ever to return to the forest and see what news Storm had from the wolf packs.

  She added two pounds of flour and a fist of salt to her basket, thanked Sal and began pushing her way out towards her next stop. The villagers barged and jostled her, casting their sidelong looks as she passed.

  Once her rounds were complete, Alice wasted no time in leaving Catchwood and the market-day crowds behind. She wove quickly towards the north gate, nodding to the guard as she passed through the wall of thick wooden stakes that surrounded the village. Immediately she felt the deep relief of being back on the wild mountainside. The breeze flowed over her, lifting her hair and catching in the folds of her skirt. The musty, human smells of the village were swept away, replaced by the sweetness of the pines and the crystalline mountain air.

  Alice turned uphill towards the trees and reached out with her Whisperer sense. The tree line altered minutely as a familiar grey silhouette padded into view. Alice smiled. She ran the rest of the way, swinging the basket of supplies at her side, and plunged into the forest, letting its coolness envelop her. Dogwood and sagebrush whipped harmlessly at her legs as she ran. She ducked the low sweeping branches of oaks, and dodged between the slender aspens and pines.

  And then Storm was there, grey and black and golden-eyed, nuzzling into her. Alice ran her hands through the thick, soft fur behind her companion’s velvety ears. The bond between them pulsed with the warmth of their friendship – and with anticipation: Storm had something to tell her.

  You’ve heard from the wolf packs? Alice said, her words entering Storm’s mind directly. She stepped back, sensing that bad news was coming.

  There’s a trail, said Storm. Lifeless forest on the high ridge – scorched earth and dead trees. It leads to the mountain pass, to the Darklands.

  Alice stared blankly off into the pines. Her heart thumped in her chest.

  Narlaw, she whispered.

  Yes. Storm bowed her head. We must tell Moraine. And the elders. The village is in danger.

  Alice nodded in a state of shock. Generations had passed since the Narlaw had been banished to the Darklands. They were shape-shifters, beings who lived only to destroy the natural world. Their touch had the power to wither anything that lived. It seemed so wrong to think of such things, especially here in the great forest, with the trees swaying gently and the birds trilling their midday songs overhead.

  But the wolves did not lie. And they had smelled the scent of demons.

  The sun rose behind Sleeping Rock and, as its rays crested the summit, long shafts of light burst across the savannah: pink, orange, brilliant white. The earth woke, insects buzzed into the air and the acacia trees shifted in the breeze.

  Nara stood at the front of the house, her pack, bow and arrows beside her and her water skin hitched to her belt. She would miss this sight. Sleeping Rock
would always mean home to her, no matter how glad she was to be leaving.

  She could hear her father in the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast. Her mother was tending to the cows, milking them in her quick, orderly way, and Nara’s sister, Kali, was busy cleaning out the chicken sheds and collecting eggs to sell at the next market.

  All this hard work going on around her felt like a reproach.

  Nara was a Whisperer, not a farmer. She had been chosen on the day she was born, when a single white feather landed at the door of her parents’ home.

  Everybody knew that Whisperers were vital to the kingdom of Meridina, that they were healers and channelers of the earth’s power, and that they had saved the kingdom from destruction in the past. But still Nara’s parents had cursed the arrival of the white feather, along with the raven who delivered it.

  What use were a Whisperer’s skills when only hard work and experience could put food on the table?

  Nara was a good Whisperer – she could heal, she could communicate with almost any kind of animal and she could set protective wards that kept predators at bay. But her daily training took her away from the family farm and, at the age of twelve, she still couldn’t milk a cow properly, or separate a herd for market, or plant maize that would grow in the crumbly red soil of their farmland.

  Although her parents never said so, Nara knew she was a disappointment to them. It was clear in the way they constantly praised her sister. Kali was devoted to the farm in a way that Nara never could be.

  And now the raven had visited their home once again.

  It had come like a falling shadow, bringing Nara an urgent message from the palace in Meridar. She had closed her eyes and the raven had placed images in her mind. She saw a strange, dense forest – more green than she could ever have imagined. And between the trees she had seen the Narlaw, the shape-shifting demons she had learned so much about in her Whisperer training. In the raven’s vision they took the forms of women, men and wolves, and Nara had felt a terrible chill run through her. A hundred years had passed since these demons were last banished into the Darklands. But the raven’s message was clear: the Narlaw had returned and Nara, along with all of the Whisperers of Meridina, must journey to the palace for a council of war.