The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection

by David Gilchrist

  ‘What about Sevika?’ asked Wist.

  The Intoli…Aviti had forgotten about her. Sevika still stood at the mouth of the cave.

  ‘I will not bear an Intoli,’ said Decheal. Haumea tutted at her, but Decheal ignored her kinswoman.

  ‘She will manage by herself.’ Wist was about to say something, but Aviti added, ‘She managed to get here without any help. She will have fewer problems than us.’

  Aviti prepared herself as best she could. She donned the remainder of her clothes once more, tightening them so as not to leave avenues for the cold to bite at her skin. Wist did the same, but with less care.

  ‘You will freeze on the mountain,’ she said, but he just laughed.

  A few moments later, they gathered outside the cave and received the fresh bite of the wind. Decheal kneeled and Wist jumped onto her back. He tied himself onto the Giantess, using a couple of leather straps that she had provided for the purpose. Then the warrior stood up to her full height, hoisting Wist into the air.

  Aviti tried to follow suit, but it took her a couple of attempts to get onto Haumea’s back.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Haumea with a chuckle. ‘You may find that the ride is not as comfortable on a cripple.’

  ‘Hush,’ said Aviti as she fastened herself on. ‘Do not lay claim to my clumsiness. Tyla would chasten me for such...’ She let her voice trail off at the mention of the Lyrat.

  ‘Easy,’ said Haumea. ‘You may yet see him once more. Ah, I do not think that mere distance could stop that one. Or you, my brave Aviti.’

  Aviti was glad that she was behind the Giantess. She turned her head to the side so she could rest it against Haumea’s back. As she moved her head, she caught sight of Sevika staring at the Ghria Duh as it slid down toward a peak on the Western horizon.

  Decheal roared, shouting a Giantish curse or call to arms. Haumea replied with the same call and then they moved.

  Aviti gripped the cord as best she could through the coarse gloves whilst she battered off the Giantess’ back. She could hear Wist whooping. It was a mad high-pitched call of delight, the kind she had issued when ridding their families horse, pretending that she was out on an adventure on the vast desert of Tapasya.

  Perhaps this was not so different she thought. The sand here was white and deathly cold and her horse had been replaced by a creature that would have terrified everyone in Mashesh; everyone but her mother and father. She admonished herself for thinking of Haumea in such a fashion, even in jest.

  ‘Move!’ Decheal shouted when the ground started to slope upwards. The Giants’ pace did not slow.

  The tether bit into Aviti’s wrists and squeezed the blood from her numb hands. She wondered how Decheal expected Haumea to move any faster with her burden. Aviti slackened her grip to try and see around the Giant’s furs. Then there was a crack, and the world moved below them.

  16 - We Who Are Not as Others

  The ground lurched and the blackened snow writhed below Aviti. Then her world span and the sky became indistinguishable from the thrashing floor. She hit the ground with her left shoulder. It screamed in pain, still tender from the punishment it had endured when she had freed herself from the Intoli. Then her face was rammed into Haumea’s back and they were thrown into the air, only to land on the sliding ice a second later. The impact jarred her shoulder once more, causing her to cry out, but her voice was drowned by the cacophony surrounding them.

  A hand grasped at her and the ropes that bound her pulled tight once more. Then Haumea spun Aviti around to face her chest. The ground was still beneath them, but the air howled past them as they slid.

  Haumea curled an arm around Aviti, holding her close as they fell. With her other arm, Haumea reached out and grabbed Decheal’s hand. The warrior had performed the same manoeuvre as Haumea and now Wist lay against her bosom.

  ‘Aviti,’ the Giantess shouted over the noise of the avalanche. ‘Aviti, save us. Save us!’

  The end of the fall rushed at them. Solid, impenetrable rock waited below, and a dune’s worth of ice and snow above them. She had heard stories of people buried in the dunes out in the Great desert. But that would not be their fate. The fall would kill them first.

  Wist screamed. The air came alive around them, but it was wrong, there was too much unchained emotion there.

  ‘Wist, no!’ she screamed.

  Magic coursed around her, wild and unfettered, so, she grabbed it from Wist, the same way she had back in Bohba. She pulled as much as she could into her frail body and then, when she felt the ground about to crush them, she thrust it all out from herself.

  They came to a sudden stop, but Haumea’s hold remained fast. She cushioned them from the impact, but the real problem was what fell from above. With Haumea’s arms pinning her, she could not turn her head to see it, but she could sense it, the mass thundering down toward them; black upon black. Even the Ghria Duh would not reach them inside the tomb it was about to create.

  Aviti was spent. She could not do it.

  Let it fall on us, she thought. Bury me.

  Wist pushed a fresh wave of magical energy into her and her senses exploded into life. Immediately, she pulled the energy from beneath them and flipped it upwards.

  A second later, the Ghria Duh disappeared from sight. The air was pressed from her lungs as the ice, rock and detritus fell onto the company. The darkness around them was absolute, but Aviti knew that the lid of their tomb lay only inches from them. It wanted to crush them, obliterate them from the mountain. She could not hold it.

  ‘Wist!’ she cried with the last of her strength, but he did not answer her.

  The Giantess Decheal bellowed and then the thumping began. Decheal howled with each thump and Aviti released the magic.

  The earth fell on them then, but Aviti was only aware of some of the impact, as the pain came for her again. Her body jerked again and again as Haumea joined in with Decheal’s efforts to free them.

  Every vibration was agony for Aviti, and the smaller ones were worse than the huge concussions. Her skin was aflame. She could not bear the waves of incendiary pain that flogged her soul as her body was thrust upwards. Even her lungs joined in the assault on her, the air scouring them from the inside. Colours sparkled in the air around her. Yellow and green stripes shot across the inside of her eyes or in the depth of infinity. Crooked lines of light snaked along the surface of her pain. Each thundering shudder of her body widened the cracks and let more of the insubstantial light in.

  Aviti tried to spit out the frozen dirt in her mouth, but as she tried, more forced its way up her nose. The pain of withdrawal from magic vanished as the mountain began to suffocate her, smothering her in its icy blanket.

  Then she exploded through the surface. For a second she floated in free air and stared at the Ghria Duh. It mocked her existence. It laughed at her meagre attempt to defy its crushing control over life. It confirmed her thoughts of failure.

  Aviti’s back struck the mountain and the dirt that choked her erupted from her mouth. Then she was rolled onto her side by a massive hand. Ice scraped at her savaged skin, but the sensations did not register beneath the tidal wave of pain that engulfed her as the adrenaline wore off.

  After an eternity of agony, movement brought her back to herself. She lay flat out, floating along below Haumea’s face. She was not sure if the others were there, and she did not care.

  She let herself drift along under the waves of shattering pain that fell upon her. Consciousness floated beside her, just out of her grasp. She heard voices, but could not make out the words. Everything was black and shades of grey; the imagined rainbow of colours banished by the drabness of reality. Even her dreams and imaginings were colourless and bland. It was as if her soul had paid the price of their survival.

  She woke to see jagged rock all around her. The pain still ricocheted around her body, but there was no threat of it overwhelming her. Wist’s face loomed large above her. Then there were hands on her head, stroking her sparse ha
ir. She flicked her head to get him to stop. The sensations brought too much pain to the surface of her awareness for now, though the dim amber light was a relief.

  Wist made soothing noises as if he sought to lull her back to sleep, but she was done with rest. With an effort, she pulled herself upright and sat beside him.

  At once, Haumea thrust a bowl into her hands. ‘Eat please, eat,’ she said in a desperate voice. Aviti thought of refusing, but her stomach complained when she caught the scent of the lightly spiced stew.

  Each movement was agony. Every time she lifted the spoon to her mouth, she had to force her teeth apart. Even swallowing brought her a stabbing icicle of pain in her brain, but it passed, and as she ate, each mouthful became easier.

  Decheal lay on her bedroll at the other side of the small cave. Her face was a mass of cuts and scrapes, but Aviti could not see any more serious wounds.

  ‘Where is…’ Aviti began to say, but then she caught sight of the Intoli. She was stood outside the cave, staring into the darkness again.

  ‘How did she make it?’ she asked Wist.

  He shook his head and said, ’No idea. After you and Decheal got us out of the avalanche, we made for this place. Sevika just - sort of - appeared.

  ‘Convenient,’ said Aviti, but she smiled.

  The pain came in a fresh wave then and she dropped her empty bowl to shatter on the ground. She pulled her knees into herself and forced her eyelids tight together until she could breathe again. Then she forced herself to breathe through the pain, blowing away a tiny fragment of agony with each lungful of air.

  Breathe in the air and blow away the pain. Breathe in the air

  Then the attack relented and she opened her eyes. The colour of the fire was more muted now. It had been left to burn low by Haumea.

  ‘Haumea, the fire,’ Aviti said in mock admonishment.

  ‘Alas, we have no more wood to burn,’ she replied

  ‘Which is good as we have no more food to cook,’ laughed Decheal. The Giantess must have woken whilst Aviti was in the grip of her pain. Decheal’s face was still raw, but she had washed most of the detritus off.

  Then Decheal yelped, fell over and the room descended into chaos. Flashes of light and glimmers of argent cut across Aviti’s sight. She heard familiar voices mixed with alien ones. They sounded like… like Intoli, but the words were all wrong.

  ‘Stop fighting,’ said one.

  ‘No kill,’ said another. This voice was deeper than the first and the words were issued as a command.

  An instant later, a blade was at Aviti’s throat. It was a blunt, rusted thing, but it would end her life just as easily as a steel katana.

  ‘She is mine,’ said a voice in a guttural rasp. Aviti’s hood tightened around her throat, choking her, but she pulled it free from the grasping fingers.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  A few other voices muttered, but none replied. Then torches blossomed forcing her to shield her eyes. When she lowered her arm, she found the cave rammed with people. Each of her companions sat with a figure behind them. They wore animal skins, similar to the ones that Aviti wore, but they were old and tattered. The woman’s hand that held a blade to Decheal’s neck had only three fingers. These people were desperate and afraid.

  ‘Do not do this,’ said Aviti. ‘Let us go.’

  Her face exploded in pain when the back of a hand caught her a glancing blow.

  ‘She speaks our tongue, but she is…’ The last word was lost on Aviti. They spoke the same language as the Intoli, or at least something similar enough that she could understand it.

  The four intruders looked to the figure in the entranceway. He held Sevika in a headlock with arms that could snap the Intoli in two. ‘She is Witch,’ he growled.

  These people garbled the words that flowed so smoothly from the Intoli.

  Aviti needed to be careful here. If they thought she was powerful enough, they might be afraid of her. If they were too afraid of her, they would kill her and her friends. She could not let them discover she was as powerless as a babe. These were the Hillfolk that Dregan had mentioned, but why were they in the mountains this far north?

  ‘I am no witch,’ she said, ‘but you would do well to beware my power.’ She felt ridiculous mouthing the words, but she had to try something.

  ‘What are you saying?’ said Wist.

  The one that held Wist slapped his head. Aviti got a spike of power from him, a glimmer of that which could endanger them all, but he mastered himself.

  ‘Take them,’ said the leader, then he pulled his huge, gnarled face down to Aviti’s level and said, ’Tell them silence, or we kill you.’

  Aviti repeated the instructions to her friends and then they were dragged to their feet. One by one, their captors forced them out of the cave and into the bitter wind. Then the Hillfolk divided the remains of their possessions between them, but most of it had been scattered on the slopes of the mountain.

  Once they were outside, the Hillfolk bound them together. They used their own rope to bind them, tying their hands behind them and then to each other.

  Then the butt of a crude spear was thrust into Aviti’s back and they were off, marching around the face of the mountain, into the wind, at a brisk pace. A couple of their captors made warding gestures at the Ghria Duh as it emerged over the mountain. The leader spat and shouted curses at them all. His comrades, their captives and the Ghria Duh all got a taste of his spite.

  ‘What did you say to them?’ whispered Wist.

  Aviti told him what she had heard, and what she had said before the nearest guard snapped at her. Then she fell silent for a while and they struggled on through the ankle-deep snow. Pain circulated in her body, carried by her blood. Every caress of the wind on her skin brought it to life. Every time the material of her clothes chaffed her skin, the pain responded.

  ‘What do they want from us?’ Wist asked her under the cover of a blast of wind.

  She shrugged instead of giving her fears a voice.

  The Giants were silent, but there was tension and anger in Decheal.

  ‘No, Decheal do not,’ Aviti said. It earned her a blow to the head from the woman behind her.

  Decheal pulled at her tether, but her guard was ready for her and the Giantess knew her chance was gone. If Decheal had succeeded, where could they go, without food or shelter?

  When the latest round of pulsing pain relented, Decheal’s anger was still there in her mind. It was more focussed now; focussed mostly on her for denying their chance at freedom, however doomed it may have been.

  Where was Sevika? Aviti glanced around, trying not to make it too obvious to her guard. Then she spotted the Intoli being dragged along behind the leader of their captors. The grand prize perhaps? But for whom?

  On they went, through the blackest of days. Her entire life had been inverted. Night was day and only the moon provided light. She walked on a frozen desert in the company of wild men; wild men, Giants, an Intoli and a legend that could not exist, and not forgetting her dead father. He did not walk with her, but he was there. He had spoken to her companions through her mouth.

  And still onward they trudged as the Ghria Duh rose and fell. They did not stop for water or food, or even rest. What use did she have of rest now anyway? Her feet were so numb they may as well not be there. Their captors did not chat or sing. Their gaunt faces were absent of any hope or joy. It was a miracle that they had survived for this long.

  They stumbled on until the Ghria Duh was gone and they had reached a deep ravine at the south-eastern foot of the mountain. The Hillfolk dragged them down into the ravine. They slipped and slid down rough, ice covered shale slopes until they found a gravel road at the bottom. The trail went down into the mountain, disappearing around a bend between two fingers of rock. One of the Hillfolk complained often about his stomach, but the others ignored him. They just shuffled along. This must be how Aviti and her party had looked, desperate and futile.

  With prods and poke
s, the Hillfolk forced them along the path. At least it was flat, although Aviti still spent most of her time looking at her feet to avoid the boulders. She could free them all with a thought, but her body was raw, inside and out. Even the thought of opening herself to the magic brought her echoes of pain.

  Then the path dipped as it swung left, heading down into the heart of the mountain. She could make out spots of light to one side of the path, where it met the mountain. A gaping, black hole lay at the end of the path; an opening that was twice as big as a Giant.

  The lights at the wall multiplied as they approached. An overhanging shelf jutted out from the left-hand side of the cliff wall, under which tents lay, sheltering them from the weather and the Ghria Duh. Aviti counted about a dozen of these tents before they reached them.

  They were forced into one of the tents and made to sit back to back. Then Sevika was led away. Aviti protested, but her captor only told her to be quiet and called her a witch once more. As the guard turned away, she caught a glint of gold in the man’s hand.

  Her heart thumped in her chest.

  Not again, she thought, never again.

  Only one guard was left with them, but he had no interest in his charges.

  ‘What the hell is going on,’ snapped Decheal. ‘We could have taken them on the mountain.’

  ‘And then what?’ said Haumea before Aviti could reply. ‘We have no food and no wood. At least here, we have a fire, she said indicating the paltry blaze that heated the tent. The guard raised his eyes from it to them for an instant, but he soon returned to prodding the blaze.

  Decheal exhaled and her shoulders slumped in resignation. ‘It feels wrong to accept capture without resisting.’

  ‘Pick your battles Decheal,’ said Aviti, echoing the words of her father.

  The Giantess replied, ‘That sounds like something Brathoir would have said to evade an argument.’ Then she chuckled.

  ‘They speak the same tongue as the Intoli?’ said Haumea.

  Aviti said, ‘Yes, or something similar. Dregan, my friend, he knew a little of it. I think these are the Hillfolk of Prasad.’