by Patty Jansen
“They’re warning each other, huh?” Nolan said.
“Not used to being spied on from the air.”
The accuracy of these men was disturbing. Things they picked up he never would have. If Isandor and Jevaithi were in the area, they would surely be found. There were only a few farmhouses left that were yet unmarked by fire. What would Isandor say if he found his friend had been sent to hunt and kill him and the young Queen?
“I’ve spotted some soldiers on the road, over there.” Carro pointed at the map, away from the unmarked farms.
Jeito looked over his shoulder, a hint of irritation flitting over his face. Did he sense the deliberate change of subject?
“I saw them, too,” Nolan said. “There were four.”
“Four is not an army.” Jeito’s voice had a what do you know? tone about it.
Nolan shook his head. “It’s a spying unit. Or a special mission squad.”
Jeito raised his eyebrows. “What would they be doing here?”
“Same thing we are?” Nolan said. “They were doing something strange. They had a long section of cloth which they spread on the forest floor. Then they took a crate of silver cylinders from their vehicle. There was a frame attached to it, and they attached the cloth to it. Then was a burst of air and a flame, and a section of the cloth bulged. And a bit later, it had grown bigger.”
“By the skylights, what was it?”
“I think . . .” Carro hesitated, remembering his books; he hadn’t seen the thing, but he’d been too busy staying on the eagle. “I think that thing is going to fly. I think it was a balloon.”
Nolan laughed. “That a balloon? It was huge and lumbering, and _slow_. Our eagles are much faster.”
“They are, but they don’t carry heavy weapons.” He’d learned about balloons in his books, even though he had never seen one. “You know that Chevakia defeated Arania with an army of balloons?”
“They did not. You’re just making up things. Chevakians would be too dumb to think of using things that fly.”
“Actually, he’s right,” Farey said.
Silence was instant. Farey didn’t speak much but when he did, everyone listened.
“The Chevakians had hundreds of balloons. In each balloon there were up to ten soldiers. The carried heavy weapons and vats of powder which they dropped on the ground. There were explosions everywhere, and fires, and people burnt to cinders. My father lost many of his cousins that way. The balloons are a great evil. Many people in Arania are still angry about it, and curse at the King who has gone weak and panders to Chevakia.”
“But what are they doing here with that thing?”
A moment of silence followed. Wind whistled through the trees. The Chevakians might have had word that the Queen was gone. The Chevakians had all kinds of strange magical equipment to carry their messages.
“We need to warn the Knights.”
“You don’t think they already know?”
Jeito shrugged. “Question is: do we care if the Chevakians do our job for us?”
“Course we do.” Nolan’s voice sounded indignant. “No bodies, no payment. Leastways, not for me. Yeah, yeah, I know.” He held up his hands. “I still care about getting myself some silvergulls so I can buy things in the City of Glass. I happen to like going back home every now and then.”
Jeito scowled.
Carro felt sick. So that was the deal. He knew that the patrol was meant to return the bodies, and he had some idle hope to prevent the killing. They could always say that the remains were too badly burnt to return. But no, it seemed that wasn’t going to please the Knights.
“Right, so let’s keep an eye on these Chevakian scouts. They know the country better than we do.”
He and Farey exchanged worried looks.
“Do you think it had anything to do with the flare we saw last night?” Nolan asked.
Jeito shrugged, but looked worried.
Farey said, with a glance at Carro, “It worries me that we haven’t heard from the Supreme Rider, especially since you are with us. I’d have thought he’d be sending us gulls every day.”
“How often does he normally contact you?” Carro asked.
“Once every few days,” Farey said.
“Why don’t we release a messenger gull?” Nolan asked.
“We haven’t heard back from the first one yet. We only have one left, and none have come to replace it.”
They all looked at the small cage hanging in a tree, with in it a white bird with orange legs and a fierce beak.
Jeito shook his head and there was another silence.
“That never happens,” Nolan explained to Carro. “Whatever Rider Cornatan thinks of us, he’s normally good with his replies. He always sends gulls if we’re out. He gives lots of instructions.”
“Too many,” Farey said, and then glanced uneasily at Carro. “Tends to meddle a lot, telling us how to do our jobs and all that. He says he used to be part of the raiding parties in Chevakia. He’d find the best women, claim them there and then, and take them to the City of Glass, letting the silly noble soft guys think they’d actually sired the children the women bore.”
“Quit talking about that, will you?” Jeito said.
An uncomfortable silence fell. Like Nolan, it seemed Jeito had been one of those children. Did that mean Jeito was his half-brother?
“That’s right. We were talking about sending out gulls,” Nolan said.
Jeito said, “Not much good talking. I think we should send this one. Not much good sitting here yabbering about what might have happened when we have a chance of finding out.”
Farey nodded. “Can’t argue with that logic.”
Jeito had taken a leather folder out of his saddlebag. When he folded it open, it revealed thin sheets of leather and a pen. He went to write a note with a cramped, childish hand. Carro spotted spelling mistakes, but he didn’t dare point them out.
Meanwhile, Farey had retrieved the cage with a messenger gull. The bird hissed and pecked at Farey’s hand when he inserted it in the cage, but he took it out without the loss of one feather. Jeito gave him the message, rolled up in a tiny cylinder. Farey tied it to the bird’s foot and threw the bird up into the air. It gave a single undignified squawk and flew off into the dusk, leaving the hunters in silence.
The flames of the fire hissed. A chill wind made Carro shiver. Shadows trailed through his mind, of the merchant, and a dark cavernous warehouse, but he managed to hold the visions at bay. Not a sound came out of the forest, as if the world waited for a disaster to come.
They sat down and ate, all in silence.
If something had happened in the City of Glass . . . Was this war? Were they now marooned in hostile territory? Or was this just another of his father’s silly tests?
Chapter 16
* * *
LORIANE AND THE FAMILY got up early the next morning, all of them miserable and with not much inclination to talk. A dense mist had settled over the mountainside, dulling any sounds. Loriane kept looking up, expecting to see Eagle Knights searching, or expecting to see hordes of refugees bearing down the mountain, but seeing nothing in that dreadful forest. And she didn’t know what was worse: fearing the refugees might come, or fearing they wouldn’t come, meaning that everyone up there had been killed.
There were sounds she could not identify. Something was up there, just behind them. She knew they were being followed and sooner rather than later this thing, or these people, would catch up. And it scared her, not being able to see any further than those infernal trees all around them.
At first light, Ontane had stoked the fire, and now Dara had put on a blackened pot of water in which she had tossed a couple of handfulls of dr
ied meat.
Branches cracked and Ruko came from the forest with a bloodied animal of sorts. He sat down at the fireside and effortlessly tore a hind leg off the creature and ripped the skin off with his teeth. Blood ran down his chin.
Myra whimpered, looking up from feeding the baby.
“That’s disgusting.”
“He’s likely lived like an animal the last few years,” Ontane said. “He don’t know any better.”
“He could be considerate and do it somewhere else,” Dara said, giving Ruko a harsh glare.
Ruko ignored her. Loriane wasn’t sure if he heard anything at all. Sometimes she thought he did, and sometimes she thought she didn’t. If his transformation meant that he was now free, he seemed to be more protective of Tandor.
Dara kept urging, “Ontane, you do something about him.”
“What do you want me to do, woman? Ye know he hears us. Ye know he doesn’t listen except when it suits him. Ye know I din’t invite him along, and ye know that if he hadn’t come, we’d never had got the cart down here, o’er those rocks.”
“I wanted no sorcerers with us.”
“Jus’ shut yer compaining fer a change.”
Dara rolled her eyes at her husband. She ladled out jelly, a thick gloppy substance congealed from the extract of the salted meat. It had a stale, rancid smell that made Loriane’s stomach churn.
Myra pulled a face at her bowl. “This is like cement.”
Dara snapped at her. “You be the cook next time ’n if it’s still too thick, you can go piss in it.”
Loriane was so weary of this family’s bickering. She wanted to be alone.
For all the jelly’s stickiness, it allowed Loriane to pick up little clumps of grain and shove them between Tandor’s cracked and scabbed lips, under Ruko’s suspicious glare. Earlier on, he’d tried to feed Tandor pieces of the raw meat, torn off with his teeth, but Tandor refused to eat them.
He seemed a little better, at least he swallowed the tiny mouthfulls. At times he opened his eyes a sliver. He mumbled a bit, but even when Loriane held her ear to his mouth, she couldn’t make out what he said. She didn’t think his physical injuries still stopped him speaking. His wounds had scabbed over and although ugly, they were not life-threatening. His breath still smelled sweet with icefire.
By the skylights, Tandor, wake up and stop this charade.
She met Ruko’s eyes, deep black and hollow. His pale face never showed any emotion, but just the look of it made her shiver. Whenever someone came close to Tandor, he would watch. Sometimes she wondered: did Tandor control him or did he control Tandor?
Loriane ate some jelly, too, but spewed it back out moments later. Myra saw her, and looked concerned. Yes, Loriane knew. She was weakening. If this went on for long, she wouldn’t have the strength for the birth. With every moment that passed, the child grew bigger, until the head was too large to fit through her birth canal and when she couldn’t pass it, she would have to ask Myra to use Tandor’s knife and cut the child up inside her and bring it out in pieces. She had done that a few times over the years, and only ever three of those women had survived. And that was when the thing was done by her with all her experience in clean surroundings of the palace, and not by a young girl on a dirty forest floor.
They went on. Packed up, tied their belongings to the cart pulled by the camel and descended further down the hill.
Ruko went first, leading the camel, limping on his wooden leg. He stayed with Tandor, attending every step, and wouldn’t let anyone near.
Ontane and Dara came next, with Ontane walking next to the cart and Myra and Loriane made up the rear.
Ontane and Dara’s voices carried in the still forest.
“You be wrong, woman! I’m not sure what I heard las’ night, but there be people higher up the mountain. All those poor buggers camping in town are following us.”
“That’s why we must leave the road. If we go into the forest now . . . There is a path that goes up from here to the shack—”
“Dang it, woman, don’ ye feel it? There be icefire all around us. I don’ know what happened, but somethin’ happened and I’m not goin’ to hang around here to find out.”
“We hide and the people will pass.”
“An’ where do ye think they be going? They’s fleeing the icefire. Nah, I won’ stop until we’s safe on the other side of the border. I feel it in my bones.”
“You remember what happened last time we went into Chevakia?”
“That’s twenty years ago. It’s different now.”
“It’s not. They’re the same people. The old folk will remember the raid by the Eagle Knights. They still hate us.”
“I say things be different now. Shut up, woman.”
“No, because you are wrong. We go to the hunting lodge, wait until they pass and go back home. There is nothing in Chevakia for us. I don’t want to go there.”
On and on they went. Loriane closed herself off from their voices, but caught Myra rolling her eyes.
“Are they always like this?”
“Yes, pretty much. Da likes bossing people about, and Ma doesn’t like to be bossed about, so whatever he says, she never agrees. He just likes arguing. Are you . . . you’re not married, aren’t you?”
“As a breeder?” Loriane gave a hollow chuckle. “I have far too many men wanting to use my services.”
“Doesn’t it ever hurt . . . you know . . . giving away the child that you suffered for? Don’t you ever wonder where all those children are? I couldn’t imagine giving him up . . .” Her voice cracked and she patted little Beido on the back.
Loriane saw the baby boy in her arms. She saw him suckling at her breast. Felt the despair when a nurse in the palace birthing room had torn him from her arms to give him to some merchant. Since the boy had been born to an Eagle Knight, he would not even have had the joy of living with his natural father. Isandor was . . . not a replacement, but his presence and needs as a child had comforted her. After that first time, it had become easier.
She shrugged. “That’s the way it’s done in the City of Glass.” But she hated how her voice sounded unsteady.
“Whose child is this?”
The path widened and Myra could now walk next to Loriane. The rest of the group was quite a way ahead.
Loriane hesitated. It would be so easy to say Yanko but ultimately it wasn’t true, and she wanted answers. The time for lies was past. Yanko was probably dead, and her contract with him would never go ahead.
She said, in a low voice, “I don’t know.”
Myra frowned. “What do you mean? How can you not know? This man is paying for it, isn’t he?”
“Well . . .” Loriane hesitated again. “Yes, he’s paying.” She blew out a breath. “But he’s not the father of the child.”
Myra’s frown deepened. “You were with another man—”
“No, it’s nothing like that, because otherwise, if I’d cheated, I’d keep that a secret. I’m not like that. I wouldn’t give a man a child that’s not his. The truth is, I wasn’t with a man for some time before I made the contract, but I was already expecting when I signed it. The only man who came to my house in that time was Tandor. Yes, Tandor sleeps in my bed, and he gives me pleasure. But you know how he is. Damaged.”
Myra nodded.
“There is no way Tandor can father a child. Yet, there is no other man I’ve touched.”
“What about any of your patients?”
Loriane shook her head. They were all female anyway.
“Or the apprentice Knight you cared for?”
Isandor? “I would never do such a thing. He’s my—” No, Isandor wasn’t her son; he wasn’t even closely related in bloo
d. Isandor was purest Thillei, and she . . . Tandor had often told her that he was attracted to her because of her pure Pirosian heritage.
And then she felt chilled. She had never considered Isandor. He hadn’t touched her; just the thought revolted her; he was her son, even if only in mind. But such thoughts, of course, did not worry Tandor, and it might well be . . . after all, you did not need to sleep with a man to become pregnant; you only needed his seed, and Tandor always liked to rub her with salves and concoctions which he said he’d bought on his travels.
* * *
Slowly, the group made its way down the wet and muddy mountainside.
Fortunately, it had stopped raining and the path was less slippery. It was warmer here, too.
The ground became less steep, and the path wider and less rocky. But the walls of green forest unsettled Loriane, handy spots though they offered her for a pee. The trees made unfamiliar noises in the wind, and there were animals, too, moving in the foliage. She didn’t like the idea of animals moving out of sight
Myra walked next to her, but since the path was less steep, she needed no assistance. Walking wasn’t any less of a struggle, though. She was one big hurt. Her back hurt, her legs hurt.
Myra said little and patted the infant. Like all children born with a lot of weight on them, he was a good baby, asleep most of the time with the rocking of his mother’s body, and drinking greedily from her breast at stops. Loriane found it hard to watch the bond between Myra and her son. Out of her children, she had only fed two or three and then only once, after birth. Isandor was the only child she had cradled against her stomach, watching him fall asleep with the nipple in his mouth.
There, she was thinking about Isandor again. I hope the boy made it out alive. Her stomach stabbed at the thought.
At about midday, they came out of the forest into a field of green. Sunlight peeked out from between the clouds, and Loraine couldn’t get over the amount of colour in the landscape. The grass was so green it almost hurt her eyes. Flowers, which were a delicate rarity in the City of Glass, grew by the side of the road. Animals, not ones she recognised, buried their noses in the greenery, chomping on bits of grass. Their coats were outrageously orange-brown with large blotches of white. They had big wet, pink noses and sometimes one would curl it tongue in to one of the nostrils.