‘Let’s go,’ I said.
To move through utter blackness was strange, and my extreme weariness made it feel as if I were walking in a dream. I kept my hand on Dameon’s shoulder, and it took me some time to realise that as well as leading us forward at a far better pace than I could have managed, Dameon was empathising reassurance and calm to all of us. The fact that we were in physical contact with one another made it easier for him to empathise all of us than if we had been walking separately.
Then Dameon stopped, saying softly to me that he sensed rhenlings ahead. The torch was lit and we continued for some minutes before I smelled rhenling musk. Once we had passed the pipe, the others lavished praise on Dameon’s perception, but Swallow asked softly if I had noticed that the pipe we had just passed had been damaged in the same way as the first one. I said nothing, but when we reached a third pipe joint, I saw that it, too, had been wrenched to the side and had split open at the seam. But what showed through was not solid earth and stone as with the last two pipes, but a long rift going deep down into the earth.
I bade Ahmedri hold the torch closer and stifled a gasp as the light fell on hundreds and hundreds of rhenlings clustered on the roof and walls of the rift as well as in the pipe. No wonder the reek was so strong. Some of the creatures were close enough for me to see that their misshapen bodies were quite small but that they had very long, thick, oddly jointed legs, which they kept folded against them, small pointed heads with large tattered-looking ears and long slitted mouths that twisted into a snout. They looked like a grotesque merging of spider and rat.
Once we had got well past the pipe, and the torch had again been extinguished, Dameon asked what they looked like. No doubt he had felt my fear and revulsion, but it was Analivia who described the rhenlings to him, displaying a facility with words that reminded me of the way Matthew had used to describe things to the empath. I lacked their skill of rendering what I saw into words.
‘What do you suppose damaged all of the pipes?’ Swallow asked me.
‘Whatever foul weapon it was that turned this region into a black wasteland,’ I said. ‘What else could it be? The thing I would like to know is the original purpose of these pipes.’
‘I should like to know where they go,’ Dameon said.
‘Maybe the efari will tell us,’ Analivia said. ‘But I have been thinking, couldn’t you just beastspeak the rhenlings if they try to attack us?’
‘Rheagor said they would react to the touch of a mind as if it were the touch of a hand, and what is worse, they would be able to fix on my mind if I did, and find me even days later.’
‘Well at least we know they are not roused by light or sound,’ Swallow said.
‘Not during the hours of day,’ Ahmedri said. ‘But what happens when the sun sets? They do not fly by moonlight, but mayhap they sleep light enough to be disturbed by it.’
‘I don’t believe the torchlight will trouble the rhenlings unless they actually open their eyes,’ I said. ‘Rheagor told me they use a combination of hearing and sound to hunt prey, so it seems to me that their eyes are simply vulnerabilities.’
‘Which means light could be a weapon against them,’ Swallow said.
‘Only sunlight, for apparently if they are roused to swarm and feed, they will endure all lesser lights and attack,’ I said. ‘Indeed it seems to me those lesser lights might even infuriate them enough to make them attack whoever bears them. I hope we can simply slip through their territory like shadows, unseen and unnoticed.’
We walked a while in silence and then Analivia said, ‘Couldn’t we just lie down and be still if they flew? After all, if we had not touched them and showed no light and made no noise or movement, wouldn’t they just fly over us and not even notice we were there?’
‘I will ask Rheagor,’ I said, pleased to see Analivia beginning to rouse from her morose lethargy. I had already become accustomed to the way her quick, clever mind leapt in unexpected directions and although she had rallied from her initial shock after seeing the Blacklands for the first time and making her brave little speech, she had continued to be withdrawn. Whether or not it was shame as Dameon had suggested, or shock at the fact that she had killed her brother, she had cut herself off from the rest of us. Now, for the first time in days, she seemed as sharply inquisitive as before Moss appeared.
We had passed two more pipes clogged with rhenlings when Dameon stopped abruptly, saying something was coming towards us. We stood frozen and speechless until Darga beastspoke me to say that it was only one of the wolves, come with a message from the pack leader. The bright place was not more than an hour ahead, if we wished to rest before going on.
‘But it cannot be more than mid afternoon,’ I protested, wondering why Rheagor had not simply farsought me. Perhaps he feared to alert the rhenlings.
‘I do not understand,’ Darga sent. ‘Surely if it has taken such a short time to reach the bright place, we can get to the other end of the graag by dusk.’
After a pause, Darga went on, ‘The wolf says the end of the graag is much farther past the safe place than the distance from the start of the graag to the bright place. He says that if we tried to go to the end now, the rhenlings would catch us in the graag.’
‘What if we just lie down and wait till they have gone before continuing?’ I asked.
Another silence then Darga said, ‘The rhenlings use calls to see so their ears would tell them there was something in the graag. When they flew to investigate, they would hear your breathing and even the thump of your heart. Also they can smell you, and would know you for meat.’
I shuddered and told him soberly to tell the wolf that we would rest a little and then continue on to the bright place, where we would spend the night even as Rheagor bade us do. I told the others what he had said, adding, ‘We will have to move faster tomorrow. I wish we knew exactly how long the pipe was.’
‘Since we do not,’ Swallow said, hunkering down against the wall of the pipe, ‘I suggest we ride tomorrow, for if we get to the end of the pipe on sunset, by my reckoning the moon will not have risen. That means the rhenlings can come out after us. So we will need time to get well away unless there is another bright pool handily placed to repel them.’
‘He is right,’ Ahmedri said, sitting down and clamping his knees around the torch he had lit, so that he could get out his water bottle. ‘At least we need to arrive early enough to find shelter.’
‘A fire at the mouth of a cave would be best, for even if they would endure the light, the rhenlings will not want to be burnt,’ Analivia said. She sat cross-legged too. I lowered myself wearily to sit beside Dameon and Darga flopped down next to Analivia, who began to pet him absently.
‘If we can find a cave,’ Swallow said.
‘If not we must dig a trench and use the torches to defend ourselves,’ Ahmedri declared.
‘We could ride if we lay down over the horses’ necks,’ Analivia suggested.
I was so tired, I wondered blearily if I would have the energy to get up again. I forced myself to say, ‘We cannot ride lying down for a whole day, and in any case, Gavyn will not ride. We will alternate running with walking, but the horses can go ahead with Dragon and Maruman and the wolves, and get well clear of the end of the pipe.’
‘Can you lead us at a run, Empath?’ Ahmedri asked Dameon.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Dameon will ride on Faraf. Being smaller she can carry you so that you will just clear the top of the pipe. You can remain with us until we get close to the end, but if it is nearing sunset, you will ride on and we will light a torch and follow at a run. How many do we have left?’
‘Three remain but I will mend some of those we burned today when we stop,’ Ahmedri said. ‘The wood is hard and the wax and sap in the bandages I use burns at a low enough heat that the wood is barely singed.’
‘Done then,’ I said. I noticed that Gavyn was staring as if mesmerised at the torch flame. I had been worried the boy would be curious about the rhenlings
, and would endanger himself and Rasial trying to investigate them, but Darga had sent to me that he had walked meekly between them and had not once appeared to think of stopping or wandering off. Hearing the exchange, Rasial assured me that she would not allow him to risk himself or us. I suppressed the impulse to ask how she planned to do that, for her manner had been less cold lately and the last thing I wanted was to push her back into her shell.
I noticed the white ridgeback watching me steadily, and I sent, ‘When you and the boy/cub slept alongside MornirDragon in the mountain cave, what did you/ Gavyn see?’ Despite my weariness it was not difficult to beastspeak her when we were so close. It would have been easier still if I had touched the white dog, but I did not think she would welcome the intimacy.
‘We / I flew with MornirDragon,’ Rasial sent. ‘Now she does fly the dreamtrails with Maruman.’
The dreamtrails, I thought, wondering if I had made a mistake in putting the old cat back in the bier with Dragon. The others began getting up, groaning and sighing, as Gahltha sent that he and the other horses would go on ahead with the wolf. When Swallow offered his hand, I gave it to him wordlessly and let him heave me up. Ahmedri extinguished the torch after we had arranged ourselves behind Dameon and we walked on in watchful silence until we saw light ahead.
29
The horses were standing on the other side of a shimmering pool of water lying in a triangular dip at the centre of a large chamber formed by the junction of six pipes all as big as the one from which we had emerged. The water shone with the familiar yellow glow of the taint-devouring creatures the wolves called dryka. Seeing steam rising from it, I went to the edge of the pool and leaned over it, trying to see if there was a crack in the pipe, for how else could spring water have got in? But the metallic plast shone in a way that made it impossi ble to see clearly. Yet there was simply no other way the creatures could have got into the pipe. The upheavals that had wrenched the smaller pipes out of place must have left a fracture through which the water had seeped, carrying the eggs of the dryka. Jak had told me the eggs of the taint-devouring creatures would go into a forced hibernation if deprived of anything they needed, and that they could lie dormant in that state for a very long time and still hatch, once conditions were right.
‘Elspeth, can we light a fire and make a meal?’ Analivia asked, as Ahmedri and Swallow went to divest the horses of their burdens and give them some food.
‘I don’t think a fire will be a problem since the water is giving off heat and light, but I am not sure about cooking, given that the creatures hunt by scent as well as hearing, and are probably beginning to come out of their deepest sleep,’ I said, stifling a yawn. ‘Let me go and ask the wolves if the smell of boiling vegetables or campbread will bring them down on us. Don’t light a fire until I come back. There is no point in wasting wood if we can’t cook.’
‘Better take some food for the wolves,’ Swallow advised. ‘They may hunt their food when we are outside, but there is nothing in here for them.’ He threw me several packages of a hard biscuit Katlyn had produced when she had been trying her hand at developing travel food.
The wolves were just far enough along the next pipe to be outside the arc of brightest light, but there was still enough light to see Descantra, who lay nearest of all the pack to me. She bared her teeth as I set down the packets of biscuit, but when I straightened, Rheagor was coming towards me.
‘Rest and sleep while tha has the chance for tha must move more swiftly on the morrow,’ the pack leader sent, sniffing at the packets. ‘This one will come for tha when the sun do be rising.’
I felt him beginning to withdraw and said quickly, ‘Can we cook food?’
Rheagor yawned, showing me his red throat, and then he told me that the only scent that would draw a rhenling towards the bright place and a fire when they woke was that of blood and to overcome their loathing of the light it would have to be a great deal of blood, and fresh. The wolf broke off to snap ferociously at one of the cubs that had come slinking closer to the food packets, and when it recoiled with a yelp he fell to tearing one of the packets open, his mind now closed to me.
I made my way back to the others. Swallow was brushing the horses down and Ahmedri was mending the used torches while Dameon and Analivia were rummaging through the packs for food. They had mine open too and I ought to have felt indignant, but I was too tired. When I went to tell them they could cook, I noticed that Darga was sprawled by Analivia’s feet. Gavyn and Rasial were stretched out a little distance away beside Dragon’s bier sound asleep. I went to look down at them, wondering if they were together on the dreamtrails, and praying that they were safe.
‘Can you help me feed her?’ Analivia asked, coming to stand beside me with a bowl of gruel.
‘That was quick,’ I said, but when I glanced back to where the packs stood, Ahmedri was only just beginning to make a fire.
‘I used some of the water from the pool,’ Analivia said. ‘Darga said it was clean and I strained it.’
I knelt, took Dragon’s hand and closed my eyes, finding my way into her muscles so that I could force her to open her mouth, and to chew and swallow when Analivia spooned the gruel into her. It did not take long and when Analivia was finished, she rose and urged me to come and eat something myself, for I was white as parchment.
‘I need sleep more than food,’ I mumbled.
‘It is probably the way the taint poisoning is afflicting you,’ Analivia murmured sympathetically, pressing a hand to her stomach. ‘I feel it in my stomach. I suppose it is only to be expected that we would suffer some sickness from crossing tainted ground, but Ahmedri says we will take no permanent harm if the taint was truly slight.’
‘I am just tired,’ I said, and gritting my teeth, I went to get my blanket. Laying it out near the horses, I stretched out on it and slept.
Almost at once it seemed, someone was shaking me. I opened my eyes to find Analivia looking down at me in consternation. ‘You were dreaming,’ she said gently. ‘You cried out.’
‘I was dreaming that I was ill,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember anything but feeling sick and feverish. My bones hurt and my head was aching.’
Analivia helped me to sit up and I realised that I felt better, aside from being dreadfully thirsty and hungry. Analivia, on the other hand, looked pale and gaunt and there were dark circles under her eyes.
‘It has been a bad night for us all one way and another,’ she said, laughing shakily. ‘You seem to have slept away the worst of it. The rest of us have been vomiting and shivering all night long. To think this is mild taint poisoning! I saw the teknoguilders like this sometimes but I did not imagine how horrible they must have felt. The horses are all right though, and so are Maruman and Dragon, but the dogs have been ill.’
‘The wolves?’
‘I don’t know how they fare,’ she said. ‘They came for a drink a few times, but you could see the light was hurting their eyes and they didn’t stay long. I would have offered to bathe their eyes with a soothing herb, but when I signalled to ask Darga to offer, the pack leader refused.’
‘You have been standing watch?’
‘Only for an hour,’ she said wanly. ‘Swallow was up before me.’
‘Well, I am monstrously hungry so I will get up now and take the watch,’ I said, and hustled her into my blanket. She thanked me, adding that she had left some food for me by the fire. It was not much, she said apologetically, but they had dug the food out of all the packs to inventory it and we had very little left. I thanked her and went to check on the horses. Gahltha was awake and confirmed that he and the equines had not been ill, but that both dogs and Gavyn had vomited. I went to look at Dragon. If she had been affected by taint poisoning there was no sign of it. She lay asleep looking exactly the same, though her clothes had been changed and Maruman was now lying by her side rather than beside her head. Had he moved or had someone moved him? I wondered. I was tempted to lift him into my arms, but if it woke him and they were d
reamtravelling together, my touch might drag him back, leaving her stranded somewhere.
Reluctantly I left them and went to find the food Analivia had left out for me. It was no more than a few mouthfuls of stew and some nuts and my stomach was still growling when I finished it, but given our diminishing supplies, I drank water until my belly felt full and then walked around to check on the others.
Swallow and Ahmedri were sound asleep and looking relatively peaceful, as Gavyn had been, sleeping alongside Rasial. Dameon was lying close to Dragon’s bier and I saw that Darga lay alongside the empath. Perhaps the worst of their reaction to the tainted ground had passed in the night, as it often had with teknoguilders who ventured over tainted ground. On the other hand it might be wiser to spend another night here, so that everyone could recover completely.
Yet I was beginning to long for fresh air and open skies, and even the bleak terrain we had crossed to reach the pipe in the first place began to seem desirable. It was hard to believe that we had been but a day and a night in the pipe. There was something about the still silence and the smooth sameness of the curved walls, not to mention the oppressive knowledge of the rhenlings, that made it feel as if we had been walking through it for days on end.
I changed my underclothes, washed a few clothes and laid them out to dry in the warmth by the pool, then I sat by the edge of it to bathe my face and feet and hands in water that was just short of being too hot. I had just dressed and laced up my boots when Rheagor beastspoke me to say that the sun was rising.
I wasted no time in waking Ahmedri and Dameon, reckoning they had slept longest, then I woke Swallow, and last of all a bleary-eyed Analivia. In an amazingly short time we had the horses packed up and ready to go. Rasial had woken and roused Gavyn and while Dameon mounted up reluctantly on Faraf, I bade Gahltha lead the other horses out of the pipe. Most of the wolf pack would be ahead of them, having already set off, but Rheagor had told me that he and several of the stronger wolves would remain with us. Aware of Gahltha’s reluctance to leave me, I went to him and stroked his neck, bidding him obey me, for was I not ElspethInnle, whom he had sworn to serve? He sent that he had sworn to guard me, and what use was a guardian who left behind that which he was to guard?
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