Cry of the Newborn

by James Barclay

  Kovan said his good nights, walked out of the library and headed across the colonnaded gardens. They were beautifully lit tonight, illuminating the fountains and flowers. Small lanterns at ground level highlighted the paths.

  'Running off home now, are you?' came a voice from the gloom.

  Kovan stopped and turned towards the sound. He could see a shape beyond the lights that was not part of the gardens.

  'It's late, Gorian,' he said. 'Time I was in bed. And way past time little boys were asleep.'

  Gorian walked into the light and onto the path in front of him.

  'Couldn't leave her alone, could you?' he said, sauntering towards Kovan, his sandals whispering on the stone.

  'What?' Kovan stared back. Gorian was as tall as him and would be a stronger man in a couple of years. But not yet.

  'Do you think she went up there so you could be alone with her?' Gorian walked up to within a pace. 'She needs space and peace to understand herself and her work. We all do. We understood and respected that. Why didn't you? You just interfered.'

  'She went through something none of you have experienced,' said Kovan. 'Father Kessian says it was lucky I was there.'

  'Lucky?' scoffed Gorian. 'When you're in Westfallen we're lucky if you aren't hanging around like a cloud of dung flies. And what could you really do to help? You are not part of the Ascendancy. Why don't you just leave her alone? She went up the hill to the orchard to get away from you, don't you get it?'

  Kovan did not blink. He knew it unnerved Gorian. It was a duellist's tactic. 'She could have asked me to leave. She did not. Perhaps she was trying to avoid you.'

  That stung him, took the words from him. 'She doesn't need your interference. None of us do.'

  'Then who do you think will protect the Ascendancy when my father is gone?' Kovan sneered at him. 'I will hold all of your futures.'

  Gorian laughed. 'No you won't. God-look-upon-us, you have no idea, do you? And you're supposed to be the older, clever one. Don't you see, when Exchequer Jhered reports, we will be called to Estorr to see the Advocate. And while we're living in the palace, continuing our learning under the protection of the Advocacy itself, where will you be? Lying dead in some Tsardon field probably, having had to go to war to prove yourself a worthy Marshal Defender.'

  Kovan couldn't find the words and Gorian ploughed on.

  'Forget her,' he said. 'You can never have her. That is for others.' His smile was full of malice. 'That is for me, should I so choose.'

  'She will make that choice,' said Kovan. 'And your arrogance will prove your undoing. She will care nothing for your tricks because she can perform them all herself. I offer her so much more.'

  Gorian shook his head. 'I've told you before, it won't happen that way. You know something, Vasselis? There will come a time when I will be able to kill you with a touch or a whim of the elements under my control. Your fancy sword play won't help you then, will it?'

  'Are you threatening me, Gorian?'

  'What does it sound like?' It was Gorian's turn to sneer. 'In the end, your influence will stop at the borders of Caraduk whereas mine will reach to the heart of the Conquord.' He paused and his voice softened. 'Let it go, before it gets you hurt. There are people in this town I care about. Become the good Marshal Defender you are destined to be and look after them. Then perhaps we can be friends.'

  Kovan was genuinely surprised by what he had heard. He watched Gorian for new signs of mockery but there were none. 'Only life isn't that simple, is it? And one thing you'll learn is that a Vasselis always shapes his own destiny. No one lays it down for him.'

  'Then perhaps we won't be friends,' said Gorian.

  Kovan shrugged and walked past him. ‘I can live with that.'

  Mirron awoke to a changed world. It was a while before she could put her finger on it. She knew she felt different when she went to sleep the evening before. Her fear had been replaced by an unsettling calm and she had slept undisturbed until the sun pouring through her open shutters brought her round.

  She lay with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling which was reflecting sunlight off a pond outside her bedroom window. She could hear the sound of fountains and sense the heat of the day rising quickly. In the sky, she could feel the thrill of wind through the feathers of the birds that swooped over the ripening crops or gathered on the dockside.

  Westfallen was busy, the market open and thriving. Vitality pulsed, though here and there the grey stain on her mind signified sickness of mind or darkness of mood. Right outside her window, the gardens grew strongly, their roots working down, swelling and building. The grand old beech tree in the far corner, though, that was dying. A disease was in its trunk, killing it from the inside while outside, a few curled leaves were the only visible evidence. It was exactly like the tree in the orchard yesterday—

  Mirron shook her head violently, her heart pounding. She was hot and the fear was back. She tried to focus on the dancing reflections on her ceiling but she couldn't keep the outside from her head. Every time her mind slipped just a fraction, she felt or sensed - she wasn't sure which - the life beyond her window. She knew the strength and direction of the wind, she knew the state of the tide in the bay.

  'Calm down, calm down,' she said to herself. 'It'll go away.'

  She concentrated on her own breathing and pulse, using the relaxation exercises Hesther had shown them all in the early days before they emerged and the world was still closed to them. But all that happened was that her body spoke more loudly to her than it ever had before. She could feel the blood in every vein and artery, the movement of her bowels and the air in her lungs. And there was a crackling that she wasn't sure if she could hear or not. If she could hear it, it sounded like the growth of roots through the earth.

  It didn't go away. She did manage to quieten her heart but the relaxation brought only stronger feelings across her, all vying for her attention. She couldn't shut it out. She felt the edges of panic on her skin. Her hands gripped the sheet below her and tightened into fists. The tree was suffering, the shrubs by it were healthy and reaching for the sun above and the water below. In the marketplace, not far from the villa, the crush of life threatened to overwhelm her completely.

  'Mother!' she shouted, her voice cracking a little. 'Mother!' More of a wail this time though she hadn't meant it.

  She didn't know if anyone would hear her but she didn't think she wanted to get out of bed to find out. She wasn't sure her legs would carry her despite the fact she knew with absolute certainty that there was nothing physically wrong with her.

  'M—'

  There were sandalled footsteps on the marble, getting louder. Mirron dragged in a huge breath and sighed it out, feeling the air energising her body. And she heard, if that was what it was, the roar in her lungs. The door opened and Gwythen Terol stood there. Her face was full of concern.

  'What is it, darling? Are you all right?' She came into the bedroom and moved across the wooden floor onto the rugs by the bed. She sat on its edge and put a hand on Mirron's brow. 'You're hot, young lady. And a little flushed.' She frowned. 'Are you sickening?'

  Mirron shook her head. 'I can't shut it out, Mother,' she said. 'It's in my head and it won't go away.'

  'What do you mean?' Gwythen's frown deepened.

  Mirron wasn't sure how to make her understand. Her mother's concern was in the heat of her body, the heightening of her pulse and the focusing of the energy trails that ran through her. She watched the trails for a moment, her mind automatically seeing them and comprehending them. Those she could shut away with a blink of the eye.

  'The world is speaking to me,' she said, fighting for the right words. 'It's just there all around me and I can't make it stop.'

  Gwythen got up. 'Hang on, Mirron, let me get Father Kessian. He needs to hear this.'

  'Don't leave me,' said Mirron, tears behind her eyes.

  'Shh shh. It's just for a moment. He's not far.'

  Mirron watched her mother go. And when the
door closed, the world shouted for her attention. She was helpless to stop her mind seeking out the roots of every feeling. She wasn't actually hearing it all, but the sensations expressed themselves to her as sounds. It was the only way she could make sense of them.

  With every passing moment, it got louder. Insects flashed by, revealing themselves by a whine in her head. Their energy burned quickly, dying even as they sought life, such was the shortness of their span on the earth. And at the other end of the spectrum, the ponderous sensations of deep-rooted plants and trees.

  'Leave me alone,' she said, her voice little more than a whimper. 'Please.'

  But it just got worse. There was a low rumble that seemed to come from beneath her, the very movement of the earth. Crackling and snapping from all around her, the growth and death of leaf, bloom and root. Scratching and creeping, animals large and small in the ground below her, the air above and the gardens outside. And the hum, growing and growing, of the citizens of Westfallen.

  By the time Father Kessian walked in, slowly and painfully, her mind was so crowded she could barely focus on him. His voice calmed her a little and she found she could fix on his face, its lines and wrinkles, its care and love. She burst into tears.

  'Oh, my child, don't cry,' he said.

  'Please make it stop,' she said.

  He was helped to sit by her and he, like her mother had, put a hand to her brow. His reaction told her he could feel the heat surging from her.

  'Try and tell me how you feel,' said Kessian. 'Is it like you felt yesterday with the tree and the bark?'

  Mirron nodded, feeling a little relief. Like always, the Father could make them stop, think and see.

  'When I touched the tree it spoke to me so strongly,' she said. 'And now everything speaks to me.'

  'And what did you do with the tree? Try and think about that.'

  'I don't know ... I understood why it was sick and I tried to fix it. But it was more than that. I felt like I was part of it.' She stopped. 'I joined with it, became one with it just for a time. Until Kovan broke the contact.'

  'And could you still feel it speaking to you after that?'

  'So loud it hurt.'

  'And could you shut it out?'

  'I don't remember. It went when I was taken from the orchard.' 'Well that makes sense,' said Kessian. 'You were too far away to feel it.'

  'But why can I feel people in the marketplace now?' Kessian's eyes widened. 'Are you sure?'

  Mirron nodded and the noise got louder again. Much louder. 'I don't need to see the energy paths to know they are there. And I don't need to see the paths to know the beech in the garden is dying. Cut into the trunk if you don't believe me.'

  'Oh, we believe you, Mirron. Nothing you can sense should be too farfetched for us to believe. And can you concentrate on me? What do you see?'

  'I don't want to,' she said, but she found her mind reaching out anyway, unbidden, seeking him.

  'Because you don't want to feel a body that is dying?'

  She nodded and the state of the Father was revealed to her. She could see the grey and dark in his lifelines and the paucity of the energy available to him. She tried to shut it out. Before long, she would be able to guess how long he had left and she didn't want to know that. But she couldn't keep out the feelings that flooded her. They were the feelings of life ebbing fast and the sounds that represented them were tortured and wrenching, the sounds of a struggle that could not be won.

  'I don't want to have to feel it,' she said, beginning to cry again. 'Help me make it stop.'

  'My child you are connecting to the world around you at a new level,' said Kessian gently. 'You can sense everything from the elements that make up all of us to those that make up this earth, be they man, animal or flower.'

  'Why?' she wailed. 'I don't want this. It's too loud.'

  'You will learn to control it like you did the visions of the energy paths. It is part of your development, though one that is not written about. Try and welcome it, try and understand it.'

  'I can't!' she shouted.

  The sensations poured over her like a wave on the beach. Louder than ever before, every individual thing clamouring for her attention. The rumble in the earth set her teeth on edge and the screaming of the wind in the bay rattled in her head. The energy of the marketplace was a roar now and she couldn't pick out any of the individual elements that had spoken to her when she awoke. She gasped at the power of it all and squeezed her eyes shut. It hurt. It hurt her so badly she thought it would shake her apart.

  'Help me,' she whimpered, staring past Kessian at her mother. 'Help me.'

  'Try and keep calm,' said Kessian.

  Mirron's body convulsed.

  'Help me!' she screamed.

  The tide washed her away from them.

  Chapter 31

  848th cycle of God, 3rd day of Solasrise 15th year of the true Ascendancy

  The Tsardon army came to order and marched from the fords at Scintarit two days after their victory. It was a huge movement of men, horses, farm animals and wagons broken into three columns to ease congestion on the roads as well as their supply chain.

  Master Kell had watched them whenever she could. They had scoured the battlefield, taking weapons, armour and mementos from the dead. Their own fallen they had laid in lines and performed religious rites before burning them on pyres. The Conquord dead had been left to the heat, the rodents and the carrion crows. Already the stench was growing and the air hummed with clouds of insects.

  She had watched columns of prisoners marched towards the fords and away. Thousands of them heading to slavery, execution or for ransom. Even from a distance, she had been able to see the bowed-head shambling of the vanquished. But she could not be concerned with them. Not yet anyway.

  Kell kept herself concentrated on her own survival. She had plenty of water but her hunger was growing acute. Her chest was a problem. It would be painful to ride or fight. It was a mass of purple and black bruises, swollen round the damaged and probably broken ribs over her heart. Her right arm, though, was not broken. Torn and bruised certainly but it would recover unaided and that was a blessing.

  It was not long after dawn on that second day that the last of the regular army left Scintarit, marching away while the air was still relatively cool. Kell waited until the middle of the morning just to be sure. People still moved in the thickening heat haze. These were not soldiers but the first scavengers on the search for scraps. Nothing to be concerned about.

  Her time was now. The battlefield would fill with people from settlements located at every point of the compass. Despite the sweep of the army, there were always pieces to be found if you had the stomach to scatter the rats and search the pockets of putrefying corpses. Sightless eyes would stare at you, daring you to go on. And broken limbs would slip suddenly, mimicking brief life. Kell needed to be clear of it before the frenzy began.

  She stood up and stretched in the sunlight for the first time in what seemed like an age. Her body was stiff and her gut achingly empty. She used river water to wash away the mud she had plastered on her armour to dull its shine, scrubbing hard at the Conquord crest until it gleamed afresh. Under cover of the moving army, she'd battered the breastplate a little flatter, relieving the pressure on her ribs.

  Kell clambered up the bank and began to walk across the plain. The stripping of bodies had been comprehensive but she kept her eye open for anything she could use. She bent to rotting corpses often and kept her cloak about her despite the heat in an attempt to look to the casual observer like just another scavenger.

  She found nothing to augment her meagre kit. Her helmet and sword were lost on the field, leaving her with only her twin daggers. They had been a gift from Gesteris in recognition of acts of bravery early in the campaign. With heavily carved hilts and script on the blades they were ornamental pieces, though she kept their edges sharp.

  Her journey across the stained mud showed her the tragic tableau of the rout. So many men and wo
men with wounds in their backs, cut down as they ran. Bodies were densest close to the battle lines and spread in a wide arc away from it. She could see where people had run towards the fords looking for the safety of another army, only to trigger it to rout as well. And she followed the thinning line of bodies that led towards the ashes of the camps. Most had run there seeking sanctuary or a rallying point. The Tsardon had simply overrun them.

  She wanted to hurry but knew it would draw attention to her. So she made her walk a deliberate one, muttering prayers over all those she passed. She was stunned at the violence at her feet. She had experienced defeat in her time in the legion cavalry, most notably in her first year in the wars of Gosland before she joined the Bear Claws. But nothing like this. Then, retreat had been the granted option. This had been a slaughter of all those not fast enough to outrun the Tsardon blades and arrows.

  It was midday by the time she reached the ruins of the Conquord encampments. She had been barely able to take her eyes from them ever since they had resolved themselves from the haze. Smoke still spiralled into the air from fires that would smoulder for days. Parts of the central camp palisade still stood defiant, jutting blackened from the ground. But inside, the destruction was complete. She crunched across the ashes of the principal gate and stopped. Not an inch of tent canvas remained. All that had not been taken had been burned. Scattered across the open space, she saw the bones and skulls of those who would never feel the embrace of God and she wondered who they were.

  From her right she heard the whinny of a horse. It was behind a line of standing timbers. She walked carefully towards it, putting her back to the wood and edging her head around to see. It was her first piece of fortune since she had awoken on the battlefield. A Tsardon rider, a messenger by his lightweight clothes, was relieving himself against the palisade. He was partially concealed by his horse which stood as a disinterested sentinel, turning its head to look at her.