by Patty Jansen
They talked to whomever wanted to listen.
Their stories were all equally haunting. Some had come from the City of Glass, others from Bordertown. The ones from the City of Glass were mostly nobles or those who had been in possession of sleds. They spoke of a wall of icefire following them and burning everyone who was too slow.
Many had been fleeing constantly without sleep, and had festering sores that needed urgent attention. Loriane did what she could, but without materials, that wasn’t much.
The platform filled up more and more. No one seemed to know where they were going, except out of here. Wherever the train went when it came, wherever there was work, wherever someone had some distant relatives or some acquaintance who had long forgotten about them. Most of them had no knowledge of Chevakia, and knew no one, no matter how vaguely, who lived there. It didn’t matter, they all waited for the train that still hadn’t entered the station. Word came that a second train had entered the town.
Scuffles broke out as some people were trying to leave again, arguing all of Chevakia was dead and there wasn’t going to be a train, but the platform was too full and no one knew where to go.
Still the people came. The old and the very young, in a sad, stinking heap of humanity that soon spilled out the station onto the adjacent square.
Ruko had to fight for the bench they had secured for Tandor. He was well enough to stand up, but couldn’t do so, or they would lose their seat.
Dara surprised Loriane by bartering some of their saltmeat for a blanket from a group of young men who seemed to be travelling together. When she spread the blanket over Tandor, the Knighthood crest in the corner was clearly visible.
Myra helped where she could. She caught a baby as it slid from the distressed mother’s body, while next to her the boy’s father succumbed to his injuries. Six more people died before she could attend to them.
There was nowhere to leave the dead. No space, no platforms for laying them out as was the custom in the City of Glass. There were no wild animals to come for their meat.
Fights broke out over the meagre supplies some people had with them.
Then there was a loud whistle in the distance and such hissing as Loriane had never heard before. A few children near the edge of the platform pointed and screamed. One of the children’s mothers looked and screamed as well, and young man yelled, “A train, a train!” Using the Chevakian word.
An older man yelled at him, “Use the right language. We once had trains, too.”
A few people gave him suspicious glances, since he was clearly a supporter of the old king.
With much hissing, the huge thing rumbled into the station like some monster.
Mothers drew their little children out of the way, screaming at the older ones to stand back. Children cried and everyone stared at this huge, dark, gleaming and hissing thing.
Loriane felt awed. If this was the technology Chevakia had, then why didn’t have the Southern Land have this kind of magic? Tandor had even spoken about it. He said he had old books that showed the trains in the City of Glass. He even told her where to look for the remains of the tracks. She had never cared. Why not?
She searched the crowd for the man who had made the remark about trains, and found him surrounded by a couple of others engaged in serious discussion, pointing at parts of the train.
The train came to a complete halt. Despite the refugees’ fear of its hissing steam, the boldest ones soon opened the doors and clambered into the carriages where there were rows of seats. Bewildered attendants aboard were pushed aside in the tide of humanity; they were helpless. Healthy and sick, strong and frail scrambled aboard.
Anything to get out of here.
Ontane managed to clamber into a wide door and held out his hand to Myra. In the stream of jostling people, they pushed Tandor up, followed by their luggage, which included Tandor’s chest, under close guard of Ruko. Ontane then heaved Loriane aboard and Dara followed.
There were no seats in this part of the train, just a large carriage, with straw covering the floor. Loraine guessed this was how camels travelled. The air even smelled of the beasts.
While others clambered in the door, they secured themselves a seat in the corner of the carriage, and draped Tandor on a heap of straw. He was shivering and mumbling. Loriane covered him with their new blanket, meeting Dara’s eyes. A thought crossed her mind that, away from her whingeing husband, Dara might be a successful healer, or merchant.
Still, people were trying to push in, but there was no more room in the carriage, and plenty of people still on the platform. Someone blew a whistle. Steam hissed past the open door. People screamed; a few young men pushed themselves in, stepping and stumbling over the knees and legs.
Men yelled out the door that there would be another train, that they could see it.
The train chugged into motion, and the crowd of people crammed on the platform slid from sight. The screaming and crying for loved ones who had become separated lingered a bit longer.
Silence descended. The only sound was that of the machine that pulled the train and the rumbling on the rails. Loriane had expected to be afraid, but it was much like being in a sled.
Wind blew in through the open doors.
Soon people started asking questions. Where was the train going?
No one knew.
Tiverius, someone said. Others said they had family there, but didn’t seem too certain when asked where their family lived.
How long would that take?
Again, no one knew.
The man in black who had known about the trains was with a group of similar fellows in the same carriage. They were explaining to children and anyone who would listen how the trains worked.
“You know anything about this thing of icefire that’s following us?” Dara asked them.
“It’s power that has escaped from the Heart,” a man said. His black clothing looked more clean and unruffled than that of the others, and his white-flecked beard was neatly clipped. “The Knights tried to stifle it, because they wanted to make sure that the people were poor and never understood the riches of icefire. Only because they, themselves cannot see it and cannot feel it or do anything with it. But the Heart doesn’t like to be locked up. Its power built and built until it exploded from the earth.”
“And before, this power was used for trains?” a young girl asked.
“Yes, that, and much more. The Knights denied us the riches. The Knights wanted the power gone. But you cannot stifle the Heart . . .”
Ontane was making frantic hand movements.
Dara mouthed, What?
He whispered, “They be rebels, and we don’t want anything to do with them.”
“And you liked the Knights so much?”
“Please—these rebels be dangerous.”
“You remember how the Knights used to come into Bordertown and rape the women?”
“Shhh.”
“I haven’t forgotten, husband. I haven’t forgotten that the people who called themselves our parents let it happen—”
“Dara!”
She glared. “That’s the first time in years you haven’t called me ‘woman’.”
“Just shut up. We mind our business, and get into nobody’s way.”
Dara turned away, her face tense. Loriane guessed that had Ontane not been there, she would very much like to join the black-clad men. However did she put up with such a selfish prick as husband? However did he put up with such a prune as wife? How come Myra had grown up as kind and open-minded as she was with parents like them? That had to be the greatest miracle of all.
Loriane stroked Tandor’s hot forehead. She lifted the bandages. The wound didn’t look too bad, but she w
orried about him. He should have woken up by now. His wounds were healing faster than she had thought possible, and there didn’t seem to be a reason for him to remain half-conscious. Unless . . . unless icefire kept him asleep.
Either way, she was uncomfortable sitting cross-legged on the floor next to him. Her back ached. She was sore all the time.
And the train rumbled on.
Some people munched on whatever food they had been able to bring. Men stepped over sleeping bodies to piss out the open door. Women could do no such thing.
Soon, Loriane found herself crouching in the corner, the darkest place she could find, dribbling piss on the straw. Her bowels twisted and churned, ejecting jets of brown, bloodstained fluid, and she wasn’t the only one. Many of the weaker people didn’t even bother getting up but let it run into the straw where they sat. A young boy close to her was sick. The sound of retching made her cringe. The smell followed soon after.
With that, and the stinking wounds, the vomit and sun baking on the roof of the wagon, the smell became unbearable. Only those close to the door got enough fresh air, but as the train continued, the air became hot, and those close to the door had red skin from the wind and became thirsty. The young men in black organised a rotating scheme so that everyone got a turn at sitting near the door.
Somewhere on the far side of the carriage, a woman wailed when her child stopped breathing. The little boy, covered in blisters and ugly sores, couldn’t have been more than a year old. There was nothing to cover him. Nowhere to put him aside so the mother took off his shirt and draped it over his head.
When an old woman died, the young men pushed some straw in the corner and stacked the bodies on top. They were soon joined by the body of the woman who had given birth on the platform. Fever, Loriane knew. The woman’s adolescent son clutched the child, but Loriane knew that without its mother, it would soon die. She would offer to feed it, but she hadn’t eaten for two days and was desperately thirsty and didn’t think she’d have much milk to share.
Myra sat against the wall where they had secured a place, and clutched her baby. No one had any water, and Myra didn’t have enough milk either.
The train rumbled on. Steam trailed past the windows.
Forest replaced fields, and then came wide expanses of grass. Groups of camels roamed the countryside. It grew warmer, even as the sunlight turned golden.
Then came night.
Several of the wounded did not stir the next morning. The young men again stacked the bodies in the corner.
A man, who must have done some nursing work, started arguing that they should remove the dead from the carriage.
“What do you mean—remove?” yelled the mother of the young boy, her face stained with tears.
“Well . . .” He looked at the door, over the jumble of dirty and stinking bodies.
“How dare you suggest that!”
“It’s in the interest of all of us. If the bodies stay here much longer, they will go bad, and all of us will get sick.”
“I will not put my son to rest without a proper ceremony.”
Several parents agreed with that.
The man retreated, mumbling about having been to Chevakia before and knowing how quickly things went bad here.
Loriane’s belly cramped from sickness and hunger, and the foul smell that grew worse as the sun rose. At night, she suffered another lot of stabbing pains. Same thing as before: strange sharp bumps moving under her skin. She put her hands on the spot and pushed back, and felt the bumps moving, too sharp to be a knee, too strong to be a hand. She sat like that for a long time, sweat rolling off her back. In her mind, she kept seeing those drawings of malformed children.
There was another pregnant woman in the carriage, and occasionally, they threw each other anxious glances, hoping and knowing that the babes would be better off being born once they got off this train. Loriane was scared. By now, she had to be almost a moon overdue. Not long, and the birth would become impossible.
Tandor, what did you do?
But Tandor had no answers. He sat in his crazy stupor, moving where they told him to go, but not communicating with anyone. Ruko sat next to him, protecting him from people who came too close, and making sure he wasn’t hurt. Loriane was glad for that, but the two of them seemed lost to everyone else, and she didn’t know what she could to bring them out of their stupor, so that either could tell them where Tandor’s family lived. Worse, Ruko had locked Tandor’s chest and wouldn’t let anyone near it.
The train rumbled on.
How long was this going to last?
Chapter 22
* * *
IT WAS A GLOOMY circle of faces that gathered in the wood when the sky began to darken. A cold breeze whistled through the pine trees, blowing any heat from the fitful fire away.
It was amazing how quickly Carro had become used to the mildness of the Chevakian climate. He liked it.
“I found this,” Jeito said, holding up a wet and bedraggled bird. It had the orange legs and white feathers of a southern gull, and the red paint on the beak to show that it was a bird belonging to the Eagle Knights. A baleful light blue eye blinked, but that was the only sign of life it displayed. “Found it flapping about in a puddle of mud next to the creek.”
Carro recognised it. This was the same bird they had released to fly to the City of Glass with messages for Rider Cornatan, and questions for instructions. They had been away for more than ten days now, and not one bird had reached them with further orders or updates on how the Knights coped with the Queen’s absence.
Jeito untied the note it had tied to its leg. It was the same note he had attached to the bird a few days ago, except now it was dirty and wet. He crumpled it in a white-knuckled hand, and let it fall in the grass.
“What has happened?” Farey asked, his face in expression of shock. “We’ve never had any birds fail to reach their destination.”
It was the first time Carro had seen Farey worried.
“Maybe the bird was blown off-course,” Carro said.
Jeito and Farey gave him dirty looks.
“A few options,” Jeito said, his voice low. “Either the bird fell ill, it got lost, or it somehow couldn’t reach the City of Glass. Apart from being wet, the bird looks healthy enough, so that leaves the other two.”
“I’m not liking either of those,” Farey said.
Carro struggled to make sense of it. The birds used icefire to navigate. They were much more sensitive to it than humans, and could detect it even in Chevakia. They always knew their way back to the City of Glass. It was where nature told them to go in summer, after having spent the winter on the Aranian shores.
“What could have happened?” Jeito asked.
Farey shrugged. “Bad weather?”
“Maybe,” Jeito said, but they all knew the underlying truth: bad weather of the type that disturbed animals’ navigation involved the release of icefire. Not only that, they had seen a flare.
“What do we do now?” Nolan asked.
“Stick to our orders,” said Farey. “Find the highest in command.”
“Go back to the City of Glass?” Carro asked. He didn’t want to go back to the City of Glass. He didn’t want to face his father, or any of the Knights, or, for that matter, Korinne.
Farey nodded, slowly.
* * *
The hunters packed up the camp at first light.
Carro was nervous, looking about him for an excuse so that they could stay. A night of fitful sleep hadn’t changed his mind. The obligatory sex with Nolan hadn’t changed his mind, nor had the promise of being able to stay in luxury in his father’s apartments in the palace. The pool where the hunters held their orgies, the empty-headed girls like Korinne who c
ame only so that they had a chance of securing a good payment for carrying a senior Knight’s child. All those thoughts made him sick.
Carro did not want to go back to the City of Glass. He did not want to face his father. He did not want to go back to having visions and having to hide them. And he especially did not want to have to take a girl’s medicine to help alleviate them.
But the others were ready to go, supplies packed on their eagles.
“Come on, Carro,” Nolan said, and smiled in that leery way of his.
Jeito snorted, already on the back of his bird.
Farey was even less talkative than normal. He was by far the oldest of the group, and his silence unnerved Carro more than anything that had happened so far.
He untied his eagle from the tree and jumped into the saddle. He left his harness dangling. The saddle’s leather showed the shine of frequent use. At least none of the Knights would ever tease him again for being clumsy.
Then they were off with a flapping of wings. The countryside glided under him, with its neat fields and forests, and burnt-out shells of farmhouses. At least no one would ever question him on the two people he had seen running towards a Chevakian truck from the last farmhouse they burned, one with long black hair and an awkward gait, one with honey-coloured hair, whose Chevakian farm clothes didn’t hide her fine figure. Carro had avoided his worst fear of having to witness Isandor’s death.
They came to a road which was unusually busy. The vehicles were all travelling in the same direction.
“The Chevakians are fleeing,” Nolan said and he laughed. “That’s how scared they are of us. This land will all be ours. We don’t even have to fight for it.”
Carro felt sick. Remembered the flames and Farey’s murdering of people whose only crime was not to reply to questions.
Ahead lay the area the Chevakians called the wastelands, forested hills that slowly climbed to the southern platform. From up here the hills didn’t seem so tall, and in the distance the cliffs of the plateau were already visible. It was strange, Carro contemplated. He had never thought about it, but the plateau was as if a giant had cut out a section of land, and pushed it up from the earth. He wondered if in history before human memory icefire had anything to do with this strange layout of the land. After all, the City of Glass was said to have been built by an ancient civilisation and destroyed in an evil war. The machine sometimes referred to as the Heart was said to be a construct of that civilisation. Living with his stepfather, Carro had learned not to believe everything—his stepfather distrusted everyone—but surely there was a reason for those rumours to exist? Even if they were spread by old Thilleian books. It couldn’t be coincidence that his father had approved of him reading those books.