‘Another hour according to Rheagor,’ Dameon said. ‘He and the other wolves that stayed with us have been digging ever since the pipe caved in. But don’t worry about the time. Once we get all of you through we can block the gap to stop the rhenlings coming after us, for there are none beyond here. I must have been mistaken about being able to sense them.’
‘You were not mistaken,’ the gypsy told him grimly. ‘The pipe had obviously begun to split open before the collapse and hundreds of them have been coming through the cracks. They are all around us. They are not awake yet, but they are stirring.’
There was an aghast silence then Dameon said urgently, ‘Dig then. The wolves will dig from this side!’
At that moment, an eerie ululating call came echoing along the pipe behind us and the rhenlings on the walls rustled like leaves stirred by rising wind and began flexing their leathery wings, slitted lids sliding open to reveal eyes that were green and glistening as peeled grapes. I lay in horror, waiting for them to fall on me, but though the creatures slavered and bared their fangs, they did not attack.
After a long frozen moment, Swallow whispered, ‘Why aren’t they attacking?’
The rhenlings chittered and seethed at the sound of his voice, but they still did not attack.
After a long moment, Analivia breathed, ‘Maybe the light from the bottle is holding them back …’
Again a ripple went through the rhenlings but still they did not attack. I farsent to Dameon to ask what he could feel, praying that my sending would not enrage them so long as it was not directed at them.
‘Hunger, rage,’ the empath told me. ‘But there is something else … Something holding them in thrall …’
I sucked in a breath that gave me a jab of pain and turned my head to look at Gavyn. He was now gazing up at the creatures on the roof. Incredibly, he was smiling.
‘Rasial, is this Gavyn’s doing?’ I farsent to the ridgeback.
‘He thralls their spirits, but we cannot hold them forever,’ Rasial sent dreamily. No doubt the boy was drawing on her.
‘I don’t know how, but Gavyn holds them in his thrall,’ I farsent to Ahmedri and then I said aloud to Swallow and Analivia. ‘Dig!’
It took almost an hour, but at last the way was wide enough for a single person to pass through. It was stable because Ahmedri had insisted that they take the time to strengthen the wall of what was effectively a small tunnel using some of the stones. Ahmedri went through first and then Analivia and Swallow lifted me through to him. It was a short but painful journey, and I was still recovering from it as Analivia came through. Gavyn continued to exert his strange will on the rhenlings until Swallow lifted Rasial through. He would have gone back to lead the boy through, but Gavyn came through of his own accord after the dog and then Ahmedri blocked the passage, after first lighting a torch so we could inspect our injuries.
We all looked at one another, wide-eyed and filthy, then Swallow asked, ‘What just happened back there? What woke them?’
‘That did be the cry a rhenling does give to alert the horde that prey did blunder into their midst,’ Rheagor sent, reading the question in my mind. He regarded Gavyn with his queer silver eyes. ‘The cub and the she-dog did mesmerise those close by, to prevent them rising to swarm. Their power do be very great, though it be narjulk.’
Gavyn yawned and Analivia said, ‘Look, I do not know about the rest of you, but I am well and truly sick of this pipe. Let’s talk about what happened once we are out of here.’
‘Well said,’ Swallow said firmly. ‘Elspeth, can you ride?’
‘I can’t walk,’ I said, grimacing.
‘I will carry you gently / safely, ElspethInnle,’ Faraf sent.
They were as gentle as they could be getting me up onto the little mare’s back, but in the end the pain was so fierce that I was forced to weave a coercive net to hold it off, otherwise I would have passed out.
As we set off, I noticed the body of a wolf half buried under heavy rubble. Its hindquarters had been crushed but its head and forepaws were clear of the stones. Its jaws were open wide in a frozen gape of agony, and its throat was red with gore, testament to the fact that its pack leader had slain it. I swallowed hard and asked Rheagor, ‘Do the others know what happened here?’
‘They know, for this one did send a wolf to tell it lest they did return to seek us. They do wait by the shadow lake,’ sent Rheagor.
The shadow lake turned out to be a dry lake bed of fine powdery black sand in a great cavern at the end of a tunnel that looked to have been carved out by the humans as a continuation of the pipe we had been travelling through. The cavern itself appeared to be naturally formed. There was no sign of Gahltha or Falada or any of the wolves, but I could see there were several cracks and holes in the sides of the cavern wide enough for a horse to pass through.
‘Why are there no rhenlings here?’ Analivia asked wonderingly to Swallow, who was carrying a torch.
‘Creatures dwell here that prey on anything that does sleep here. They do be very small but deadly,’ Rheagor told me, responding to the echo of Analivia’s question in my mind.
‘You said the others were waiting here,’ I sent.
‘This one bade Descantra wait until the sun did set,’ he said.
He led us to one of the cracks and as Faraf entered it, I asked the pack leader why his ancestor and three she-cubs had set off alone to make the journey to the mountains in the first place.
‘That one did have the power to go seliga,’ Rheagor sent. ‘That one did tell his pack leader of great danger coming to their territory and he did say they must flee. The leader did tell him there be no use in fleeing for all else in the world was poison lands. The cub did tell of the graag beyond the white dead land, through which they could travel safely to black mountains that did rise up to claw the sky. There might the wolves find a territory that would be safe for many generations. The pack leader did drive him out. One of the she-wolves was his sister and she did go with him and two of her companions.’
I was so astonished at this tale that I almost forgot I was hurting.
‘Were all of them captured by the efari?’ I asked, eager to know more in this rare moment of openness from the wolf.
‘Nah nah nah,’ Rheagor said. ‘Only the male be taken, but that one did escape and three females were waiting. One did die by the rhenlings soon after as this one did tell tha before.’
‘What happened to the others?’
‘The three did come through the graag and reach the mountains, but another died there of some sickness so there did be only the cub and his litter sister. He could not mate with his sister so he did challenge the pack master of a fierce pack of mountain wolves. He did be more than a cub now, and strong, but the wolf he challenged did be fully grown and powerful and wily. Yet that one did yield and this one’s ancestor claimed his pack. From that one and the mate he took from the pack, did come the Brildane.’ There was reverence in his voice but also a sorrow. Was that because he was truly blood kin to the wolf that founded the Brildane? I wondered, or was it the fact that they both had the ability to go seliga?
‘What was the danger the cub foresaw befalling his old territory?’ I asked.
‘That the pack and their territory would perish in darkness and fire if they did not go to the black mountains,’ Rheagor said. ‘But when he did be old, he did see that no harm came to that pack or that territory. It did be needful only for him to leave.’
He broke contact then, and I was left to wonder if the doom Rheagor’s ancestor had seen was the dreadful fate that would come to all the world if I failed to complete my quest. For had not Atthis warned that I would fail if the Brildane could not be persuaded to accompany me, and if the cub had not made his perilous journey to the mountains, there would have been no Brildane.
A gust of wind and cool air lifted the lank strands of hair from my sticky face and I drew in a deep, glorious breath, uncaring of the pain it caused me. A short time later Faraf ascen
ded a slope that brought us out of the earth into the wide, cold, dark night.
The sun had long set, and there was no more left of it than a dim bloody smear upon the western horizon, illuminating the slight unevenness that was the Blacklands Range far behind us. A dim haze of greenish light marked the end of the glowing Blacklands, but it was too dark to see if there was a white plain to the northeast, for the moon had yet to rise and there were only a few stars pricking the velvet darkness overhead. At least the ground to the north and south and east did not glow. The ground we were on was dark and stony and much as the terrain had been between the mountains and the graag. Darga had pronounced it Blacklands, but Rheagor sent that the taint was so slight as to be no taint at all, and in any case, in a few hours we would come to the white plain, where there was no taint. There was clean water there, too, he added casually, answering another concern.
Then he went to the wolves and I noticed that one of them lay on its side, whining softly. Dameon had mentioned that two wolves had been injured and I realised it must have been the other that Rheagor had sent out to tell the pack about the cave-in. Rheagor was sniffing at the other wolf and as all talk fell silent, I heard the bubbling sound of its breathing with cold dismay.
‘If you can convince them to allow me to examine it…’ Analivia began, but without warning, Rheagor lunged at its throat to deal out his swift and savage mercy. There was a dark gush and the slaty metallic smell of blood made my stomach turn.
Rheagor looked up at me, his muzzle streaked with red. ‘A wolf that cannot run with the pack is better dead,’ he sent.
‘My companion is a healer,’ I said. ‘She might have saved that wolf.’
‘Would tha go on, dinrai?’ Rheagor sent, the cold question my only answer.
I drew a shaken breath and said, ‘I would go on.’
‘Then prepare,’ Rheagor said and led his wolves apart.
I told the others what he had said of the white plain and the water and Analivia asked if it would not be wiser for me to rest for a few hours before we continued.
‘I would rather go on if there is clean ground to be had at the end of the journey,’ I said. ‘If there is clean water there will likely be grazing for the horses and it might be possible to do some foraging. Better to get there before we stop. Besides, I would far rather sleep on untainted ground under the sun when I know that no rhenling horde can come hunting me.’
That put an end to their arguments, for while it was true that the creatures could not come through the blocked pipe, there were other outlets and they might very well fly to this end of the pipe as they must have done many times before when the moon was near to rising.
Ahmedri and Swallow reconstructed the travois and Dragon’s bier was tied in place after it had been fastened to Sendari. In the meantime, Analivia fashioned a sling for my splinted arm. Swallow suggested I would be more comfortable riding if they bandaged my ribs but both Analivia and Ahmedri said this would do more harm than good.
I could have walked, but not quickly and I would have ridden Gahltha, as he wished, but it proved easier simply to mount me up on little Faraf again. She truly had a gentle gait; moreover, with Dameon walking alongside me emanating serenity, and the coercive net catching any pain, I could manage very well. It struck me that this would be the right moment to tell the others my body would heal itself, but by the time I was in place, I had decided to wait until we stopped.
There was no moon or sun to light our way, but Rheagor took the lead confidently and the wolves followed. Ahmedri and Swallow both carried lit torches at his suggestion, not for light so much as for protection.
‘There be beasts that do dwell in this place other than rhenlings and all wild creatures do fear the hot bite of flame,’ Rheagor had answered when I asked if he expected the rhenlings to attack us.
For a time we moved in silence over the flat barren ground. I noticed all of the wolves stayed well back from the circles of torchlight and wondered what they would do if we were on an open plain with no shelter when day broke.
Then I heard Analivia say softly to Swallow, who rode behind her on Gahltha, ‘I was never so frightened as when you opened the bottle and we saw all those rhenlings around us in the pipe. Not even when Moss threatened to throw me over the cliff when I was six.’
An appalled silence met her words and Swallow reached back and rested a hand on her leg. He meant only to comfort her, I thought, but he could not see her face, which revealed a mixture of yearning and panic. I glanced around at the others. Ahmedri was riding alongside with Dameon mounted up behind him on Falada, but he had noticed nothing. Gavyn was walking behind them with Rasial, whom Ahmedri had carried from the pipe, slung ignominiously about his shoulders. Once she had awakened, she insisted that her injured leg was no more than a flesh wound. When she had licked it, it had seemed she had been right, nevertheless I noticed now that she was limping. I said nothing, knowing she would not appreciate my interference, but I would suggest that Analivia offer to treat it when we stopped.
I looked across at the travois being dragged behind Sendari. I had been worried about Dragon and Maruman, but they had been well out of the pipe before it had collapsed, and they slept on, oblivious to what had been happening.
‘Do not fear for them,’ Gahltha sent. ‘Maruman will bring MornirDragon back when she remembers what must be remembered, even as the oldOnes bade.’
I turned to stare at him in amazement. That Maruman might have a purpose in dreamtravelling with Dragon, other than merely bringing her to wakefulness, had never occurred to me. But had Maruman told this to Gahltha or had he guessed it? Before I could ask, Dameon asked Analivia what she had meant earlier when she told him that light had shone from a bottle. After she explained, Swallow said that he thought it better if none of us drank the water from the bottles, given that there was no way to tell whether the bottles contained some of the taint-devouring insects. He frowned. ‘What is it the beasts call them? Dryka?’
Analivia bridled, insisting indignantly that she had carefully strained all the water through muslin that she had got from the graag and from the springs in the cave at the foot of the mountains. None of the dryka could have got into the bottles.
‘Perhaps their eggs …? Wait, I have it!’ Swallow said suddenly. ‘The bottle I opened must have been the one I filled from the broken pipe behind the observatory on the bluff. Remember?’ He glanced at me and I nodded in confirmation. ‘I wanted to ask Darga to smell it and see if it was clean. I had forgotten about it, but we must have got it out last night when we were trying to see how much food we had.
‘These dryka are becoming even more interesting.’
‘What interests me is how the boy stopped the rhenlings,’ Ahmedri said, and we all looked at Gavyn who was now romping with two of the wolf cubs who had been running at the rear of the wolf column streaming ahead. I had noticed earlier that several of the cubs had come sniffing and nudging at the boy when he emerged from the crack, and for the first time the adult wolves had done nothing to drive them back, perhaps because Rheagor had told them what Gavyn had done. I could see no other explanation for their sudden tolerance of the enthraller, though I had noticed it did not extend to Rasial. The wolves stayed well away from the injured ridgeback and the cubs cringed and lowered their tails between their legs when she came close.
I turned my gaze to the white dog to see how she regarded the desertion of her soul mate, and saw that she was still limping but seemed otherwise unperturbed.
‘My pain is not your affair,’ Rasial beastspoke me suddenly, and I flushed in shame at the realisation that my curiosity had fashioned a probe that had been groping towards her.
‘Gavyn is what we at Obernewtyn have begun to call an enthraller,’ Dameon was explaining to the other three. ‘That is a person with the rare ability to combine the Talents of coercion and empathy.’
‘The pack leader warned that the touch of a mind would bring the rhenlings down on us,’ Swallow said.
> ‘I suspect Gavyn was not attempting to coerce or to communicate with the rhenlings,’ Dameon said slowly. ‘What I felt was … well, the boy was directing his full attention at them.’
‘But how could that stop them attacking us?’ Analivia asked.
‘The best way I can explain it is to say that it is as if a man absentmindedly held off a flock of chickens so he could pour seed into their bowl,’ Dameon said, after pondering a moment. ‘The hunger and rapacity and the desire of the rhenlings to swarm would have got in the way of Gavyn’s curiosity about them.’ As ever, he sounded dissatisfied with his explanation.
‘You mean he stopped them eating us because that would have distracted him?’ Swallow asked incredulously.
Dameon laughed. ‘I suppose that is one way of putting it.’
‘The power it must have taken …’ Analivia murmured.
‘Is great,’ Dameon said. ‘The strange thing is that I never felt his interest in anything before this moment. It is as if something drew his attention to the rhenlings when usually he would not have seen them. Indeed, he showed no interest in them at all when we passed them earlier.’
‘That’s true,’ Analivia mused.
Rasial, I thought.
30
Two hours later, the moon rose and in the distance its pure pale light fell on the leading edge of a white plain. The meeting of grey, damaged earth and white earth was striking not only for its extreme contrast but because they met in a line that was unnaturally straight. It was impossible to imagine that whatever had befallen these lands had not been of human doing, for nature did not cut its cloth so neat.
Analivia had begun to describe it to Dameon, but when she spoke of the whiteness as a plain, Ahmedri said flatly, ‘It is not a plain.’ He pointed away to the horizon. ‘Those are dunes. It is a desert.’
I squinted and could not see anything other than whiteness, but I did not doubt he had seen what he said, for a Sadorian would know very well what dunes looked like.
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