by Shannah Jay
‘I’d be delighted. Er - do you have any paper?’
‘A little. Why do you need it?’
‘I’d like to write down what’s been happening to me lately and describe the way the deleff guided me here, but I’ve run out of paper. All through the Discord Wars, I’ve been travelling and making notes on what I saw. I have papers hidden all over the land. One day, I’ll go back and retrieve them, then arrange them into proper archives.’
Karialla could only stare at Niam in astonishment, then stammer, ‘You have full records about what’s been happening?’
‘Oh, yes! About everything I saw and about things other people told me, too, if I felt they were reliable witnesses.
I’ve been everywhere except Tenebrak, and each time I tried to come here, something prevented me.’
Karialla knew she should be overjoyed to hear this, but she felt more than a little aggrieved. She’d planned for the people in her centre of learning to gather such information. That had been one of her main reasons for living, apart from the healing. And now, what was left of her great plans? Deverith was a far superior healer; Sarann was a trader to the core and had taken over the buying for their household, getting better bargains in the markets than anyone else; and now, here was Niam, who had already gathered information about the Discord Wars and was talking about setting up archives and passing wisdom down from one generation to another!
Karialla tried to hide her disappointment, but she’d been feeling restless for several days now, and this news made her feel of little value. She’d lost her parents, borne no child, seen her husband die, couldn’t even attract the slightest sign of interest from Deverith. Everyone else was doing the things she’d planned to do - and doing them better than she ever could. What purpose was there left now in her life? None! It was as barren as she was. Oh, she could become a Healer of the First Cadre, with Deverith’s help, but she wanted more, much more. A childless woman should be able to make some contribution to her world, surely?
She realised Niam was waiting patiently for her. ‘Sorry!’ she managed. ‘Aftermath of talking to the deleff. Come on!
I’ll show you where we live.’ But she wished suddenly she hadn’t invited the other woman to stay with them.
As they walked into town, Niam continued to talk as if starved of human companionship, as if Karialla, seething with jealousy, were her best friend or sister. When they reached the meeting house, the newcomer stopped dead. ‘Oh, how wonderful! I do so enjoy gatherings.’
‘Well, you’ll get plenty of those at the One Circle. And they’ll tell you what to do with your life, too.’ Karialla could hear how sharp her voice was, but couldn’t help that.
Niam only grinned. ‘Oh, they all think they’re following the one true path. That doesn’t matter. Let them keep their illusions. I just like going to the gatherings, or whatever different people call them, meeting other people, singing, communing with whatever the gods are.’
Shannah Jay TENEBRAK63
‘You’re welcome to it! Personally, I don’t believe in gods! They only sell illusions in those places!’
This time Niam raised her eyebrows at the sharpness of Karialla’s tone, then shrugged. ‘Well, each to her own. It’d be a tedious, dull world if we were all alike, wouldn’t it?’
Niam’s cheerfulness could be very irritating, Karialla decided. No one had any right to be so cheerful after all the years of Discord, certainly not someone who had seen so many dreadful things! She had to grit her teeth not to snap at the newcomer.
It was grew worse when they reached the house. Everyone hung upon Niam’s words, acting as if no one else had ever travelled the land before. Goodness, did that woman never stop talking? And what was Deverith finding so amusing? Niam’s tales weren’t that different from anyone else’s!
In the end Karialla could sense everyone looking at her in puzzlement, knew herself to be at fault, but could do nothing about her strange mood. She stood up, unable to bear their covert glances any longer. ‘I think I’ll go out for a stroll. I’m feeling restless.’
Deverith looked across at her. ‘Would you like me to come with you?’
‘No!’ She realised how ungracious she sounded and tried to speak more pleasantly. ‘Thank you, Deverith, but you should be resting. You’ve worked hard all day.’
‘Well, take these two with you, then.’ He grinned at Heth and Ferilla. ‘They need plenty of exercise at their age.’
The two apprentices exchanged long-suffering glances. Both were inclined to solemnity and earnestness but Deverith kept telling them they must learn to enjoy life more, and he would even make them laugh in the middle of important lessons.
‘Look,’ said Karialla desperately, ‘I’d just like to be on my own for a while. You know how it is sometimes.’
‘But it’s not really safe to go outside on your own this late at night,’ Sarann protested.
‘I’m only going to stroll up and down the main street, for goodness’ sake. The town patrols will be keeping watch, so I’ll be quite all right.’ She walked out quickly before anyone could stop her, relieved when the darkness wrapped itself gently around her and the sound of chichi insects humming softly in the gardens replaced Niam’s garrulous outpourings.
Most of the houses she passed were dark. Tenebrani usually went to bed early and rose early at this time of year to get as much work done as possible before the heat of the day. She strode up and down the main street restlessly, stopping once for a word with the couple on patrol duty then watching them walk away.
She looked up at the ridge, looked away, then looked up again. Longing filled her. She just had to go up there. She knew she shouldn’t, knew it was dangerous, but something was drawing her on, something she couldn’t resist. Giving way to the impulse, she walked slowly up the path towards the top, the place where the building would one day stand.
She slipped past a second patrol while one man was relieving himself in the bushes, because she knew they’d have tried to stop her leaving the relative safety of the streets. The Elders in their wisdom had decided no one should be allowed to go outside the town boundaries after midnight and everyone either took turns at patrolling - or paid someone else to do that chore for them.
After a brief hesitation, she moved on. She would be very careful, but she needed to be truly alone so that she could think about her future. Up on the ridge there would be no lights, no voices or footsteps, and no jabbering women. Just herself and the breeze, with the moons silvering everything.
She still felt disoriented and it was all that huge deleff’s fault. She hadn’t felt right since it spoke to her - if you could call planting pictures in her mind speaking. And it was Niam’s fault, too, for the newcomer had pre-empted her own future role. She felt useless now.
Up on top of the ridge all was calm and the night was beautiful. Two of the three moons were near full, so it was bright enough for Karialla to find her way around easily. She strolled up and down, breathing in the perfume of the night-flowering trumpet vines. After a while, she sat on a tree stump, her arms clasped round her knees, and stared down at the town.
She didn’t hear any footsteps, but suddenly she was seized from behind. Before she could even start to struggle someone threw her to the ground and pushed her head into the grass to stop her screaming. ‘You make any noise and we’ll knock you over the head!’ a voice hissed in her ear. A second person wrenched her arms round painfully and tied them behind her. When she was rolled over on to her back, she found herself looking up at a face she recognised and fear began fluttering inside her.
‘He-llo, girlie! Nice to see you again! I hope you’re in a better mood than you were last time we met. What a lucky day this is for me! I was just feeling the need for a little female company and you’ve saved me the trouble of coming down to get you. I’m real happy about that.’ Gerrell nudged her with his foot and when she didn’t say anything, just tried to roll away from him, he kicked her in the side hard enough to make her gasp in pa
in and lie still.
‘Pay attention to me, girlie, when I’m speaking to you! And don’t be stupid enough to call out or I’ll knock you unconscious before you can so much as gurgle.’
Shannah Jay TENEBRAK64
She could see his men standing around, grinning, and knew there was no help for her there. She felt soul-sick now, to think she’d been so foolish, so careless. What in the name of all the fates had got into her tonight? She must have run mad.
Gerrell pretended to think aloud. ‘Now, what was I saying? Oh yes. You should be happy about our meeting, you know! You’ve probably saved your friends’ lives by walking out to greet me. I was coming to get you, but I was going to kill that old fellow first. I don’t like the way he looks at you, as if he owns you. He doesn’t. You’re mine.’
Karialla stared at Gerrell in astonishment. Did Deverith really look at her like that?
‘We were going to take the other woman as well, the young one. But I won’t bother with her today. We’ll make do with you. Hey, it almost makes you believe in those gods up there, doesn’t it? They must have been watching out for your friends.’
When she said nothing, he kicked her again. ‘Come on, girlie! Cheer up and make the best of things. You’re caught.
Good - and - caught.’
She didn’t reply and when they pulled her to her feet, let herself slide down again, refusing to move of her own accord. She didn’t scream because she was sure they’d keep their word and hit her over the head. There was no chance of escaping when you were unconscious, and she intended to try her hardest to get away from them.
Gerrell sighed. ‘Why are you always so unreasonable?’
‘Why won’t you leave me alone?’ she countered.
‘Because you’re a pretty little girlie, Karialla the Healer, and I like to play with the pretty ones.’ He lost patience when she turned her face away. ‘All right, we’ll have to carry her back to the camp, lads, since she won’t walk. She’s going to need a bit of careful training, I can see that, but we don’t want those patrols hearing her. If she makes so much as one squeak, hit her good and hard on the head.’
One of the men picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. ‘No need to be too careful,’ Gerrell tossed back at him. ‘She won’t break!’
‘Right, Faction Leader.’
Karialla gasped in horror. Faction Leader! Surely they weren’t trying to bring that evil back? The organised factions had wrought so much evil, caused so much death and destruction.
Once they were away from Tenebrak, the men chatted happily about their plans to create mayhem and fill the townsfolk with terror. They seemed very sure they’d succeed.
With her head hanging down over someone’s shoulder and her hands tied behind her back, she found it impossible to struggle. Had Gerrell really gathered enough men together to start another fighting faction? Surely not! Discord was ebbing. It was, it must be! Everyone said so.
She continued to regret her own stupidity most bitterly as she was jolted along. At one stage the man reached up and squeezed her breast, and she let out a strangled cry of panic.
‘Oy! None of that!’ called Gerrell. ‘She’s mine first!’
‘Sorry, Ger - er - Faction Leader!’ After a few seconds, while Gerrell was talking to someone else, the man whispered in Karialla’s ear, ‘I’ll get my turn with you later.’
When the first man tired of carrying her, he shouted to another to take over, then simply tossed her to the ground for the other to pick up. The terrain was rough and it hurt.
The next man managed to bang her head and legs against several trees as he walked along. ‘Whoops!’ he kept saying and chuckling at his own wit. ‘Tut! Tut! Hope I didn’t hurt you, healer lady.’
Gerrell’s voice floated back to them. ‘Don’t let her get too bruised to be of use to me, Pell.’
‘I won’t, Faction Leader.’ Pell laughed again and pretended to stumble against a tree, just missing it at the last minute. The men nearby roared with laughter.
They were all talking loudly now they were a long way from the town, and there was a feverish excitement in their voices to match the madness lurking in their eyes. Karialla felt very alone and afraid, for all her defiance. She could see no possibility of help.
By the time they arrived at their destination she felt bruised all over, and was sick and dizzy from being carried with her head down. But every time they tried to make her walk, she slid to the ground, and no thumps or kicks would make her stand up again.
Gerrell’s camp was a good two hours’ walk out of Tenebrak in an offshoot of a narrow valley behind the Ridge. Its entrance was so well concealed by a natural rocky outcrop that Karialla was astonished to find there was anything behind it. This made her feel more afraid than ever, for even if people went out to search for her, no one would think to look behind the outcrop.
When they stopped, her captor threw her to the ground, jerked her into a sitting position and fastened her arms behind her to a tree, which was better than being carried, but only just. She closed her eyes, willing herself not to be sick as her body readjusted to being upright again.
Shannah Jay TENEBRAK65
After a while the nausea passed and she began to study her surroundings. The men were sitting by a couple of fires where some small animals skewered on metal rods were roasting gently. Each man had a bottle from which he took occasional swigs. There were a couple of cowed-looking women in ragged clothes hovering in the background, coming forward occasionally to serve the men more drink. They remained mostly in the shadows and made no attempt to approach or even look at Karialla.
Gerrell was clearly the leader and the women ran to and fro, trying to anticipate his every wish. The first meat to be ready went to him and when his bottle was empty, another was fetched for him at once.
The camp must have been set up there for a while, for there were well-beaten paths from one tent to another. But the place wasn’t well run. An underlying stink of rotting food and a pungent smell of latrines vied with the smell of roasting meat and sweaty, unwashed bodies.
‘She’s got her eyes open now, Faction Leader,’ said one of the men. ‘You want her over there with you?’
‘Yeah, why not? Play around with her a little while we eat, huh? We could do with some entertainment.’
Karialla felt her stomach churn with horror as a grinning man walked towards her. There would be no deleff walking out of the woods to rescue her this time because there were just too many men here. She must have been moon-twisted to go up on to the ridge at night.
The man released her from the tree, rebound her arms behind her and started to drag her over to the fire, holding her by the hair and bumping her over the ground. She couldn’t help crying out in pain.
Gerrell roared without even looking round, ‘Pick her up, you lazy sod! Don’t want her too damaged to perform, do I?’
When she was dumped at his feet, he leered down at her. ‘Well, then, girlie, we’ll soon see what you’re like under all those clothes.’
‘Want me to take them off her for you, Gerrell?’ the nearest man volunteered, licking his lips.
‘You keep your filthy paws to yourself, Hushney. I’ll do that myself later.’ Gerrell reached down to fondle her breast through her tunic and when she tried to jerk out of his way, he clouted her on the head. ‘Girlie, you got to learn to do as you’re told!’
He dragged her closer to him and as her hands were still tied behind her, she could do nothing to help herself. The heavy hand pinched her nipple so hard she yelped in pain. He roared with laughter and did it again at intervals as the evening progressed. But he left her clothes on and growled if anyone else came near her.
It was well over an hour later that Gerrell ordered Hushney to carry Karialla into his tent while he went to use the latrines. ‘Tie her arms above her head to the bed frame, eh? She ain’t learned obedience yet an’ I’m getting a bit impatient now. I’ll take her clothes off myself, though, after I’ve had a pee.
You lay one finger on her body while you’re movin’ her an’ I’ll fry your balls for breakfast!’
Hushney followed his instructions to the letter, but when they were on their own in the dimness of the tent, he whispered hoarsely in her ear. ‘We drew lots. I’m third. An’ I’m really looking forward to it, girlie!’
Karialla couldn’t stop trembling as she lay there in the dark tent, waiting for Gerrell. When he did come, he studied her face in the light of the fires, then gave a slow, triumphant smile. ‘Afraid now, aren’t you?’
She couldn’t deny it, couldn’t form a single word of defiance.
He pulled the canvas door flaps down. ‘Don’t want anyone watching us, do we, girlie? This is between you an’ me. I owe you for what you done to me at the inn. An’ I mean to make sure you’re more obedient before I let you get up off that bed.’
He tested her bonds, pinched her cheek till pain shot through her whole face, then slapped it for good measure. ‘Just to show you I mean business, girlie.’ When she said nothing, he grunted and took his shirt off. ‘Waited a long time for this, too long.’ He chucked happily at the sight of her expression. ‘I can always tell when they’re frightened. Nothin’
keeps little girlies obedient like a good dose of fear! Now, we’ll start off with a quickie, just to cool me down a bit, then we’ll have us some real fun.’
He stared down admiringly and patted the bulge in his breeches as he undid his belt. ‘Nice an’ ready now.’ He bent over and shoved his face right up against hers. ‘An’ I’m not in the mood for screechin’ and wrigglin’, girlie! You’ve been married, so you know what to do an’ you’ll do it pert, or you’ll be hurting all over by tomorrow!’ He punched her arm to emphasise his point, then straightened up to take his breeches off.
He started muttering to himself as he tugged her clothes off. When he fell across her body, she thought the rape was about to start and couldn’t help whimpering in her throat. But he lay there motionless, his weight making it difficult for her to breathe properly. He stank of sweat and ale.