by Unknown
But there were other ways of knowing that might cause her to turn for home without her consciously knowing why. The skin, the blood, the heart – all built meaning that the head might recognise and act upon without being aware of doing so.
Still, as a Healer, she must have some suspicions, and he was determined to find out what they were. Perhaps her illness was to do with her extraordinary ability to take pain, a skill that exacted a heavy price. But was the final price to be death? Again Caledon struggled to calm. If he considered her illness as troubling but not, in itself, lethal, the star-thought could mean that the cause of her death flowed from another quarter. Her time since the coming of the Shargh had been marked by some extraordinary escapes, and these suggested the sheltering hand of Aeris. But if Kira had now served her purpose in their design, then perhaps the stars’ grace was to be withdrawn.
Much was still unknown, but of one thing he was certain: his life was inextricably twined with Kira’s. Kira had broken every tenet of healing by killing to save him, and if he were now required to give the gift back, then he would do so. Perhaps his love for a woman would surpass his love for the stars after all.
41
Caledon looked tired as they journeyed the next day, and when a small grove appeared he called a halt. Kira was glad to rest and settled against one of the boles. She shut her eyes, enjoying the sun on her face, but something touched her knee and she jumped.
Caledon was crouched beside her. ‘We need to speak.’
‘Are there Shargh?’ asked Kira in alarm.
Caledon shook his head impatiently. ‘We need to speak of your illness, of why you left the north, of what you intend once you reach the forests.’
‘I’ve told you I don’t know why I’m ill,’ said Kira, puzzled by his manner.
‘You’re a Healer. You must have some idea.’
‘I might have brushed against a poisonous plant while I was working in the Wastes. Perhaps that’s the cause,’ said Kira.
‘Can’t you take something for it? Some herb? You certainly carry many.’
‘If I don’t know the cause, I could make it worse.’
‘What about the taking of pain? I know that makes you ill, and you would have done a lot of it during the fighting.’
Kira struggled to her feet, mystified by the sudden change in him. Caledon had never badgered her like this before.
‘Is it the taking of pain?’ he pursued.
‘It might be,’ said Kira reluctantly.
‘Miken told me there’ve been others in Allogrenia who could take pain. Did they sicken?’
‘It isn’t recorded.’
‘Well, did they die young?’ asked Caledon.
‘Yes. But many died young in the early days of Allogrenia. They had no knowing of what the forest offered.’
‘Is there anything else you can think of?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘And so we come back to why you’ve left the north.’
‘I’ve told you I’ll not speak of that,’ she said, turning away.
He caught her arm. ‘You must. It might be linked to your sickness.’
‘Linked to your stinking star-pattern more likely,’ said Kira, jerking free. ‘That’s all that matters, isn’t it? That I don’t thwart the stars by dying!’
‘What matters is that you don’t throw your life away because of something that isn’t your fault! I warned you in Sarnia that the northern Leader hadn’t committed to your bonding.’
Kira said nothing and he softened his voice. ‘You brought the Tremen and Terak together, Kira. You saved your people. But it was at a terrible cost to yourself. It’s over now. You don’t need to keep trading away your health and happiness.’
Kira said nothing, knowing in her heart that it wasn’t over. The enduring hatred between the Terak and the Shargh, and the Shargh’s continued suffering, all but guaranteed that the fighting would come back. Perhaps this was the reason for her break with Tierken, for her return . . .
Caledon lifted a lock of hair from her eyes.
‘You know that I love you, Kira, and that I want you, just as you are,’ he said tenderly. ‘We can bond, or simply stay together, knowing that our hearts belong to each other. We can live in Allogrenia or Talliel, or somewhere else, if that’s what you choose.’
‘I’m faithless, Caledon. You of all people should know that.’
‘I know exactly the opposite, Kira, but my love’s patient,’ he said. ‘I can wait.’
They ate in silence and then went on. Kira felt awkward now in Caledon’s company, regretting that she’d not denied her love for him. In contrast, he seemed almost content, as if some sort of understanding had been established between them. But as she sat beside him that night as he named the stars for her, she saw a very different pattern to the one that enthralled him.
Early in their time together, Caledon had told her how the scattered people of the north had traded for metal and swift horses, then united and, in bloody battle, dispossessed the Shargh. Over the seasons, the defeated Shargh had grown strong again, fought again, and lost again. And so there was now another generation of Shargh women whose bondmates wouldn’t return, of children who would grow fatherless, of fighters whose wounds would fester. The Shargh women, children and crippled men would fill their empty hearts and bellies with hate and so the pattern of killing would repeat, not bright like the stars above, but terrible, bleak and inescapable.
Kira shivered and Caledon touched the back of his fingers to her cheek.
‘Cold?’ he asked.
‘Not really,’ said Kira.
‘The morrow will be another long day. Time for sleep.’
Kira nodded and entered her sleep-shelter, wriggling deep into her sleeping-sheet. Caledon’s caress had woken an agonising need for her lost bondmate. The longing would pass, she told herself, as she pulled the sleeping-sheet higher to stifle the sound of her sobs. It would pass.
They woke to a mist as thick as the one that had clothed the land when Irlian had attacked her. Kira peered around nervously as they walked, hoping it would clear, but shafts of sunlight didn’t break through till midday, and the mist took till evening to drift away. Just in time for dark, thought Kira sourly, then stopped. Surely it couldn’t be!
‘The edge of the southern forests,’ confirmed Caledon. ‘Another day and we’ll be at the allogrenia you call the Sentinel.’
‘The Renclan Sentinel,’ said Kira, dismayed that Caledon had seen the forests first. But then she’d never looked upon Allogrenia from the north before, because leaving it had only been possible if she didn’t look back. It was the same reason she refused to look north now.
‘The last time I was here –’ began Caledon, then went rigid. ‘Shargh!’ he hissed, drawing his sword and thrusting her behind him.
‘It’s only a woman with a child,’ whispered Kira in relief.
‘Shargh women don’t travel alone!’ And she was coming towards them, tentatively. ‘Stay behind,’ he ordered Kira.
The woman had finer features than the Shargh men Kira had seen, but wore skins as they did, hers fashioned into a shirt and skirt. She wore a pack, too, but the sling across the front of her body definitely held a child.
Caledon’s sword moved in a quick arc as he scanned. ‘Halt,’ he ordered in Onespeak.
She came to a stop, her clear dark eyes fixed on Kira in wonder. ‘Healer-creature,’ she breathed in heavily accented Terak.
Then she pushed back the sling and exposed the child’s face. Even in the dwindling light, Kira could see he was fevered.
‘The child’s ill,’ said Kira, starting forward, but Caledon’s hand fastened on her arm. ‘I told you to stay behind! She could be the bait in a trap!’
‘My son,’ she said. ‘Help . . . heal.’
Kira wrenched her arm free and Caledon cursed and leapt between them, his sword at the woman’s throat.
‘Put the child on the ground,’ he ordered in Terak, gesturing with his free hand.
The woman’s face was wooden with fear.
‘You can’t expect –’ started Kira.
‘On the ground,’ demanded Caledon, gesturing violently.
The woman reluctantly lowered the child down and Caledon forced her back with his sword.
‘My son,’ she repeated, hands clenching, as Kira knelt beside him.
Kira smiled up at her reassuringly as she laid her hands over the child’s heart.
There was no sense of pain coming from the child, but his fever was high, and when Kira laid her head against his chest, she was appalled to hear bubbling.
She rose and went to the woman.
‘Stay back,’ hissed Caledon.
‘Tell her that if she kills me, you will kill the child, then her,’ said Kira to placate Caledon.
Caledon did so with explicit gestures and simple words, and when Kira saw that the woman understood, she drew the woman aside. Their exchange was difficult and lengthy. The woman’s fear for her son distracted her, and Kira was aware of Caledon pacing angrily behind her, but as the night wore on, the woman’s words painted a picture that filled Kira with horror. The fever afflicting the child was killing other children, and adults, at the Shargh settlement, and they had no cure.
Finally Kira beckoned the woman back to the child, and methodically went through all the things the woman must do and how she must do them. Herbs to lessen the fever, to clear the lungs, to strengthen the body; rubs to aid healing and bring sleep. The woman’s eyes never left hers and, when Kira had finished, the woman packed the herbs and pastes away carefully. Then she bowed low and brought her palm to her forehead, struggled upright and adjusted the child in the sling.
‘Ersalan,’ she said, touching the sling. ‘Palansa,’ she said, touching herself.
‘Kira,’ reciprocated Kira.
The giving of names had been a gift, Kira knew, and somewhere in the dark future that she feared, the faintest glimmer of hope woke.
Snatching a look at Caledon patrolling a circle around them, Kira pointed to the waning moon, made the shape of a full moon with her hands, then pointed to the north-east where she knew the Shargh lands lay.
Palansa showed no understanding, and Kira tried again.
‘I come,’ she whispered, repeating the gestures, ‘at the full moon.’
This time Palansa nodded. ‘I,’ she said, indicating herself, ‘wait you.’
Then, with a wary glance in Caledon’s direction, Palansa disappeared back into the night.
They went on, Caledon now intent on reaching the shelter of the forest before resting. He didn’t speak again, but carried his sword in his hand and scanned continually. Even so, Kira knew his silence owed more to anger than caution. It was close to dawn when they finally set camp on the edge of the trees, but exhaustion had long ago robbed Kira of any joy in reaching her home. Ignoring Caledon’s offer of food, she crawled into her sleep-shelter and slept.
42
The sun was high before Kira clambered out and stared about, delighting in the dance of leaf shadows as wind riffled the canopy. But then she noticed Caledon leaning against a nearby bole. His eyes were dark with weariness, and she realised that he hadn’t slept at all. He dismantled her sleep-shelter wordlessly, and pushed it into his pack.
‘We’ll eat deeper in the trees,’ he said, heading off.
Kira fell into step beside him but paused under the Renclan Sentinel, wanting to spend a moment where she’d buried Kandor’s pipe. ‘I just need –’
Then the branches above rustled and Caledon drew his sword and dropped into a crouch – but it was only a bird, disturbed by their passing.
‘The mira kiraon,’ exclaimed Kira excitedly, watching it arc away across the clear blue sky.
But even as she watched, a black shape dropped from above, striking with cruel talons. With a harsh cry, it bore the bundle of bloodied plumage away.
‘A marwing. They’re common in the Shargh lands,’ said Caledon. ‘The Shargh believe them ill-omened.’
He moved on and Kira stumbled after him, shocked by the violence of the owl’s death. The fact that it had been killed by a bird of the Shargh lands reminded her forcibly that the Shargh still hunted her. And if she went to them, the best she could hope for was death – like the mira kiraon’s. But it was more likely that they would do as Farid had warned and use her as a weapon against the Terak and Tremen before killing her.
In the broad light of day, she began to perceive that her pledge to Palansa to go to the Shargh lands and to heal those there was an act of madness. Instead, she must simply accept, as others did, that the Shargh’s suffering was the inevitable result of a barbaric people’s barbaric actions.
‘We’ll eat here,’ said Caledon.
The forest had thickened and the light under the canopy was now emerald, shot through with gold. Kira took a deep breath of the fragrant air. Caledon was busy making a space for a fire and Kira collected nearby windfall. Soon a pan of water was bubbling.
‘I know what we need,’ she said with a smile, dropping her pack before moving off.
‘Don’t go far.’
‘I won’t have to,’ she said, slipping through the shelterbushes to the lee of a fallowood, and finding what she sought.
‘What is it?’ asked Caledon, as she tossed the leaves into the water.
‘Lemonleaf. It soothes the nerves and improves the mood.’
‘Does it replace rest?’ asked Caledon wearily.
‘No. Only closing your eyes does that. You sleep and I’ll watch. I’ll call if I need you.’
‘You might not have time,’ said Caledon, sipping the brew.
For a while, only the song of springleslips disturbed the silence.
‘Are you glad to be back?’ asked Caledon, watching her.
‘I don’t know,’ said Kira. ‘Allogrenia’s as beautiful as I remember, but I’ve learned to love the golden plains of the north and the silver mountains of Kessom too.’
‘I think you’d enjoy Talliel then. From the shores of the Oskinas you can see all the way to the world’s end. The ocean is made up of myriad blues and greens and, where the wind breaks it, is as bright as the Silvercades. Then at dusk, it fires red and gold in the setting sun, until the moon rises to paint a pathway across its skin, perfectly still but ever-moving.’
‘Your heart lies in Talliel, doesn’t it, Caledon?’
‘It lies wherever you are.’
Kira concentrated on her tea, and then springleslips burst from the trees to their right and Caledon scrambled up and drew his sword.
‘Too quiet for Shargh,’ said Kira. ‘They’re Protectors. They would have smelled our smoke and will come from all sides, as they’re trained to.’
Kira was right, for no sooner had Caledon become aware of movement to his side, than he sensed it at his back, and was swiftly surrounded by a circle of sword points. A buzz of excitement erupted as the men saw Kira, then the Protector Leader appeared and Kira got to her feet.
‘Tremen Leader Feailner Kiraon of Kashclan,’ exclaimed the Patrol Leader in delight.
‘Protector Leader Bendrash,’ said Kira, gripping his hands. ‘It is good to see you.’
‘This is a wondrous day indeed. There will be celebrations throughout the forest and in all of the longhouses.’
‘You know the Lord Caledon?’ asked Kira.
‘Indeed,’ said Bendrash, nodding to Caledon briefly. ‘You have a Terak patrol with you?’
‘The Lord Caledon is from Talliel and doesn’t normally travel with Terak patrols. And as a Tremen, neither do I. Are you patrolling Kenclan octad or Renclan, Protector Leader?’
‘Kenclan, Tremen Leader,’ said Bendrash vaguely, seeming disconcerted by the lack of escort.
‘Then I won’t detain you further. If Protector Commander Kest is nearby and needs urgent speech with me, tell him that the Lord Caledon and I will follow the Renclan Eights in and pass through the Arborean on the way to the Kashclan longhouse. Have there bee
n any recent Shargh attacks?’
‘None since your leaving, Tremen Leader.’ He paused. ‘You may not be aware that the Bough has been rebuilt.’
‘I did hear it was being rebuilt, and it brought me great comfort to know that the heart of healing was being restored,’ said Kira.
Bendrash bowed again, issued quick orders, and the Protectors slid back into the trees.
Kest appeared at dusk the next day, so Caledon guessed he must have been leading a patrol somewhere close. Kira ran to his arms, and they stood enclosed for a long time, exchanging words that were too soft for Caledon to hear. Finally Kest turned to Caledon and welcomed him formally, expressing surprise that he hadn’t returned to Talliel after all.
‘I never know what I intend until I get a good view of the stars,’ said Caledon, taken aback by Kira’s show of affection for the Protector Commander. ‘And when I finally cleared the trees, I felt I should return to Maraschin. There I learned from a Terak patrol that the Tremen Leader was travelling the Sarsalin Plain alone, so King Adris and I set off on search, fortunately finding her safe and well.’
Kest’s intense blue eyes swung to Kira, but she hid her irritation at Caledon’s revelation. ‘Perhaps you should douse the fire,’ she said to Caledon, as she put her pack back on.
‘Protector Leader Bendrash told me you’ve suffered no attacks since I left,’ she said to Kest, as they started off again.
‘That’s correct. Bendrash might also have told you that the Bough’s been rebuilt. I’ve sent scouts ahead to prepare it for your arrival.’
‘I’m intending to stay at Kashclan,’ said Kira.
‘The Tremen Leader resides in the Bough,’ said Kest.
‘Perhaps they did in the past. But that time no longer exists. Besides, Tresen and Laryia are there.’
‘It’s a very large building from what I saw when it was part-built,’ said Caledon, unexpectedly siding with Kest. ‘I’m sure Tresen and Laryia would welcome your company until you renounce the leadership. Then, if you choose to remain, it would be acceptable for you to live in the Kashclan longhouse.’