by Unknown
Tierken kept Kalos to a gentle pace, letting him drink from the Silver River, and reached the Tiar Lookround near the middle of the following day.
The plain was clad in mist made gold by the sun, and the sun gilded Sarnia too, turning the stone a deep yellow. Tierken had felt settled in Sarnia before, but as he made his way up the Domain path accompanied by a wash of pealing bells, he knew that Eris’s death made his break from Kessom final. In fact, the only thing that dampened his sense of wellbeing was the absence of Kira’s mare from the stables.
Kira’s timing was nothing if not consistent – she was never present when he returned.
‘The Lady Kira rides?’ he asked Ryn, as he handed Kalos over.
‘I’m unsure, Feailner. The mare hasn’t been here in recent days. The Lady might have stabled her at the wall.’
Tierken stilled. ‘How many days, Horse Master?’
‘Close to eight now, Feailner.’
Tierken hastened across the courtyard, up the steps to the balcony and threw open her door. The rooms had the same derelict feeling as Eris’s house and he hurried on to the Meeting Hall.
Farid rose and bowed. ‘Welcome home, Feailner,’ he said.
‘Where’s Kira?’
‘I don’t know exactly,’ said Farid.
‘As Keeper, it’s your duty to know!’
‘With respect, Feailner, my duty is to administer the city in your absence. It’s the Domain Guard who ensure the safety of the Domain’s residents. But they have no authority over any guest who chooses to leave.’
‘ Chooses to leave?’
‘Yes, Feailner. Eight days ago, the Tremen Leader rode to the mouth of the Rehan, accompanied by Domain Guard. There she thanked them for her care during her stay in the city, and rode away at speed. They followed as best they could, but the swiftness of her mare made it impossible for them to stay with her. They searched but as they had neither food nor water, they were forced to return.’
Tierken’s eyes flashed to a colour Farid had never seen before. ‘You’ve sent a patrol to bring her back?’
‘No, Feailner. I’ve sent Marin to confirm her arrival in Maraschin, but the Domain has no authority over a guest who chooses to leave the city.’
‘Don’t dare instruct me on the Domain’s authority!’ shouted Tierken. ‘You’ve violated my trust by not pursuing her!’
‘The Tremen Leader wasn’t our prisoner!’ Farid shouted back.
Tierken’s sword was at Farid’s throat in an instant. ‘I’ll decide the status of the Tremen Leader!’
‘I’m not your enemy, Tierken! I’m your friend and the only person in the Domain who will dare to tell you what you must know!’
Tierken’s glare didn’t lessen, but he lowered his sword. ‘Tell me what I must know then, friend!’
‘In your absence, I’ve spent much time with the Tremen Leader –’
‘As the whole of Sarnia knows!’
‘What they don’t know is how she continues to be hurt by the happenings of the time before she came here.’
‘I know of her family’s murder and of the brother whose name she screams in her sleep, Keeper.’
‘And of her father?’ asked Farid.
‘He was a cold man.’
‘It went beyond coldness,’ said Farid.
‘She told you that?’
‘Not in words. She has a singularly unguarded face, and her eyes –’
‘Tell me what she said!’
‘Her father’s antagonism increased as her healing skills grew. He accused her of provoking the first Shargh attack and stripped her of her place as Healer. This added to her guilt at having failed to protect her younger brother. In fact, I was disturbed by how many times she used the word “failed” when she spoke of herself. She “failed” for too many days to realise that the Shargh hunted her; she “failed” to discover – quickly enough – the herb that cured Shargh wounds; she “failed” to leave Allogrenia without causing more suffering, particularly to the other person she loved – her clanmate, Healer Tresen.
‘I’ve had time to ponder how this sense of failure feeds her lack of self-care, and how her father’s bullying has made her fear things that threaten to confine or curtail her.’
‘You mean she won’t marry me because she doesn’t trust me,’ retorted Tierken. ‘Hardly news.’
‘She saw being bonded as akin to marriage,’ said Farid quietly.
Tierken shrugged dismissively. ‘Anything else I must know?’
‘Yes. You should know of the plans she had for her future here with you. She spoke of firstly taking you to her lands and sharing their beauty with you, of making her farewells – properly – before spending the rest of her days here.
‘She spoke of the Wastes – Queen Kiraon’s garden, as she calls it – and of how she wanted to make it bloom again. She spoke of how the water pipes could be repaired, of replanting the allogrenia and replacing the stone seat in the centre. She spoke of the trees that she could seed in Kasheron’s Quarter, and of how water could be brought to them. She spoke of how, when Kasheron’s Quarter was alive with birds and greenery, and Queen Kiraon’s garden bright with flowers, others in Sarnia would see the loveliness of such things and welcome them into their own Quarters.
‘She spoke of the kind of trees that could line the Domain path, and how pots of flowering shrubs could brighten the Domain. She said that, in time, the Domain could combine the beauty of both the south and the north, pairing the green and growing with the speed and grace of the horse. She said that it would be like the glass window come to life.’
Tierken remained motionless, staring into space, then sat heavily. After a little, Farid poured two mugs of ale and handed him one.
‘Eris is dead,’ said Tierken hoarsely.
‘I am sorry, Feailner.’
‘No,’ said Tierken, looking at him. ‘It is I who am sorry. I need beg your pardon, Farid.’
‘There’s no need –’
‘We both know there is,’ said Tierken.
They embraced, then settled at the table again, drinking without speaking for a time.
‘Could Kira have saved Eris?’ asked Farid tentatively.
‘Perhaps. But Eris knew her time was ending and made Kira pledge not to come. She wanted Kira to stay here, safe with me.’
Tierken smiled bitterly and there was a long silence. ‘Now Eris is dead, and Laryia far from me, and Kira fled across the plain. No one travels the plain alone, Farid – and survives.’
36
As suddenly as he’d attacked, the man released her, but Kira remained huddled on the ground, sucking air down her bruised throat, horribly aware of the dark outline standing over her. Then, terrifyingly, he grabbed her arm and yanked her upright.
‘I didn’t recognise you, Healer of the Southern Forests,’ he said in Onespeak. ‘Our Chief granted you protection. Where would you go?’
Kira hung in his grip, taking several attempts to form a word. ‘South,’ she croaked. ‘To Maraschin.’
‘The Sky Chiefs have taken the moon, sun and stars,’ said the man. ‘We must wait till they give them back.’
He released her and whistled shrilly, and when a pony appeared from the gloom, he vaulted onto it. ‘We go,’ he said.
Still shaking with fright, Kira scrambled onto Brightwings and followed the man through the foggy darkness, considering whether she should make her escape – but to where?
The man glanced back often, and when dawn brightened the fog she saw that his disfigurement was caused by burn scars. Then she realised that he was the man whose injured back she’d once mended – the Ashmiri Chief’s son.
The Chief had indeed pledged her protection, but although the Chief’s son didn’t appear to be about to kill her, his undertaking to protect her didn’t fit with what she’d learned about the Ashmiri from the Terak patrols. She couldn’t think of a single Terak who trusted them.
The dim outlines of round skin huts appeared, and the man dismo
unted, gesturing Kira to do the same, then hailed someone.
An older man with green dots on his cheeks appeared. He gaped at her but led the Ashmiri pony and Brightwings away, Kira watching in dread as her mare disappeared into the fog.
‘I am Irlian, son of Uthlin, Chief of the Ashmiri, and I welcome you to my sorcha,’ he said. ‘My fire is your fire, my pelts your pelts, my blades your blades.’ He bowed and gestured her in and Kira reluctantly ducked through the flap.
There was a young woman inside, busy chopping some sort of vegetable, her welcoming smile freezing as she saw Kira. Then she exploded into speech. It was clear the woman didn’t want her there, but Irlian’s response was short and sharp and followed by silence, despite the indignation on the woman’s face.
‘My join-wife, Brishanda, will attend your needs till the Sky Chiefs send clear skies,’ said Irlian. ‘Then we go south.’
He ducked back out of the hut and Brishanda indicated stonily that Kira should sit on the pelts near the cooking fire. Kira sat, considering whether to gesture her thanks and go on her way, but having no idea what her ‘way’ was, or where Brightwings had been taken.
Brishanda picked up a bowl and lifted the lid from a pot on the fire, but the smell of the meat made Kira’s belly churn. Though she wasn’t really hungry, Kira extricated a handful of nuts from her pack and ate those to show Brishanda that she already had food. Only after Brishanda clanged the lid down did Kira remember that the refusal of food was insulting. Thinking quickly, Kira laid her hand on her belly, grimaced and half shook her head. Brishanda’s chopping of the vegetable became less violent.
It was warm in the hut and Kira had not slept at all since leaving Sarnia, so after a little she began to nod. Brishanda gestured to a low bed set along the hut’s side and Kira lay down contemplating whether she should guard her pack – or, indeed, risk sleeping at all. But she guessed that Brishanda was more likely to spit on her than take to her with a cooking knife.
The light suggested early evening when Kira drifted awake, hearing Brishanda and Irlian speaking together in low voices, their tenderness plain despite their strange tongue. Brishanda laughed softly now and then, and Irlian’s tone was teasing. Thoughts of Tierken tried to slide into her mind, but she blocked them, instead exaggerating a yawn to alert Irlian to her wakefulness.
Brishanda looked no more welcoming than earlier but at least Irlian’s face was friendly.
‘I will send a Hal if you are ill,’ he said.
Brishanda had obviously told him she was unwell, but Kira no longer felt nauseous, instead needing to relieve herself. She was thinking about how to ask politely when Irlian pre-empted her.
‘Before the evening meal is taken, the Ashmiri ensure they are clean,’ he said. ‘Brishanda will take you.’
Kira followed Brishanda through the thick fog but Irlian’s join-wife showed none of his concern about Kira straying, and they were scarcely a dozen paces from the hut before Brishanda had disappeared into the murk. Kira took the opportunity to relieve herself, then cleaned her hands on the moisture-laden grass and waited. When Brishanda didn’t reappear, Kira carefully retraced her steps, coming to a stop outside a hut.
She was reasonably sure it was the same one, but she suspected it would not only be rude to enter the wrong hut, but possibly fatal. The damp began to creep into her bones, for she hadn’t thought to don her cape, and in the end, she ducked into the warmth of the hut, relieved to see her pack.
Kira was holding her hands to the fire, enjoying the delicious ease it brought, when she heard a babe cry, astonished to realise that it came from nearby. The gentle movement of a small sling near the far wall drew her attention, and Kira had just reached it when Brishanda reappeared. With a shriek, the young Ashmiri rushed at Kira and snatched up the babe.
Irlian ducked through the flap, and there was a shrill exchange, Brishanda not taking her eyes from Kira as she edged around to the door and then fled.
‘My join-wife fears the Northerners,’ said Irlian. ‘She’s seen what they’ve done.’
‘I’m a Healer,’ asserted Kira, shaken by Brishanda’s reaction, but even as the words left her lips, she remembered that she’d killed.
Irlian was busy adding meat to the pan and didn’t look up. ‘The Sky Chiefs will give back the sun at dawn. We leave then.’
Arkendrin knelt at a pool and worked the pus from his eye. The pain throbbed with sickening ferocity, but he continued to probe, sluicing water into the socket to quench the burn as much as to rid the wound of fester. It was many moons since the filthy sword had seeded the creature’s foulness into his flesh, yet still the eye wept and he shivered and sweated. But once the gold-eyed creature was dead, its vile poisons would die with it, and he’d be whole again. And the creature was close, he could feel it, despite the dank cloud that all but hid his companions.
As Arkendrin struggled to his feet, Orlun rushed to assist him, but Arkendrin shrugged him off, tilting his head to glower at him.
‘Ebis are close, Chief,’ said Orlun excitedly, oblivious to Arkendrin’s animosity. ‘I’ve a keen nose and it’s served me well in the past – and the Shargh. It was I who smelled the trap in the Northerner’s food valley, and saved many of our warriors.’
‘And did you smell Yrshin’s blindness, blood-tie? And Uthlin’s treachery? It takes no skill to smell ebis when their droppings are under our feet,’ retorted Arkendrin.
Orlun glanced down at the bare ground in perplexity. ‘I see no –’ he began, then Arkendrin’s fist caught him and he crumpled, blood streaming between his fingers as he clutched his face.
‘You dare argue with your Chief?’ roared Arkendrin, drawing his flatsword.
Orlun cowered, his eyes flicking to Irdodun and his other blood-ties, seeking aid and receiving none. Arkendrin’s flatsword hovered above his head, and he grovelled lower, palming his forehead repeatedly as Arkendrin’s one good eye stared down at him. Then marwings broke from the fog, shrieking as they tilted overhead and whirled away.
‘The creature’s near,’ said Irdodun quickly, stepping forward. ‘Already the marwings sing of its death.’
With a final glare at Orlun, Arkendrin sheathed his sword and wiped the ooze from his face. ‘West,’ he muttered, almost to himself, and limped off.
Irdodun scowled after him, but he heaved Orlun to his feet and, nodding to his blood-ties, followed.
Dawn was as clear as Irlian had predicted, and they were on their way before the sun had breached the horizon. He took three warriors with him; all three had green dots on their cheeks, a suspicious look in their eyes, and no understanding of Onespeak. Kira didn’t recognise any of the lands they traversed, but it was clear that they went more west than south. The knowing filled her with unease, but it wasn’t until the second day that she found the courage to question their direction.
‘Ashmiri have their own paths,’ he said, in response to her challenge.
‘I thank you for your protection, but I need to reach Maraschin as quickly as possible.’
‘Silverjack don’t cross paths with fanchon, nor fanchon with wolf.’
‘It would be quicker to go directly south,’ persisted Kira.
Irlian made no response, and Kira wondered whether she should go on alone. But the empty plain stretched away, the Silver-cades having disappeared from view, the Azurcades yet to emerge from the earth’s southern brow. She’d been nearly a day’s ride south of the Breshlin Ford when the fog had rolled in, and it had taken a good part of the night to reach Irlian’s hut, but Kira had no idea where they’d travelled since.
The Ashmiri used shelters similar to gifans, but they were hardly necessary, for the weather remained fair and the nights mild. Irlian was courteous, although only spoke in response to her questions, while the warriors ignored her. They talked among themselves, scanned and sometimes scouted.
The fifth dawn found them heading east, squinting into the rising sun. Kira again asked Irlian about their route, but his reply was the sa
me.
This time, Kira tried to understand what his words might mean. She didn’t think Irlian was deliberately delaying her, for that would mean a longer separation from his join-wife. The notion that fanchon preyed on silverjack, and wolf on fanchon, suggested Irlian chose a route to avoid danger, but from whom? The Ashmiri were free to move across both Tain and Terak lands, so perhaps there were other – hostile – peoples in the nearby lands.
The possibility worried Kira, but when, on their sixth day of travel, the eleventh since she had set out, two of the warriors hastened back from scout, their urgent exchange with Irlian contained a word that brought back terrifying memories: Shargh.
37
Tierken’s neck muscles crawled, knowing that he should be out overseeing the building in Kasheron’s Quarter, or on patrol on the Ashkal Plain, or working with Farid on the record-keeping of the city. But he felt paralysed. Kira had been gone twelve days, Marin’s patrol nine, and the soonest he could hope to hear anything was another five – and that was only if Marin found Kira in Maraschin, and turned back immediately.
Farid had dissuaded him from setting off on search, rightly pointing out that Kira could be anywhere by this time and Tierken’s chances of finding her slight. He’d also pointed out the unpalatable truth that Tierken’s responsibilities included maintaining the integrity of the Domain, and that excluded chasing his bondmate over the plain. It had been a consideration in the choice of men Farid had earlier sent with Marin to Maraschin, who, like Marin, were both trustworthy and discreet.
The only small comfort Tierken could gain from the appalling situation was that if Kira reached Maraschin, then Adris would give her escort to Allogrenia, and the two Terak patrols already there would keep her safe once she arrived. And her safety was all that mattered to him at this moment.