Whisper of Leaves

by Unknown

  The moon was big again, spilling in around the door flap and pooling on the wolf-pelts beneath the smoke-vent, painting the sorcha as bright as day. The food baskets Palansa had woven sat in a neat row on the shelves Erboran had built for her. Alongside them were the earthen bowls she’d baked, their rims imprinted with the flowers and targasso leaves she’d pressed into the wet clay. All she needed now were some new pelts for the floor and the sorcha would be as she wanted it.

  She craned forward and wrinkled her nose in disgust. The pelts had been hunted in the days of Erboran’s father, and were bald in places and torn about the edges.

  ‘What is it?’

  Palansa started, still surprised by how quickly Erboran went from sleep to alert wakefulness. ‘I was just thinking about pelts for the floor.’

  The bed rustled as he turned to face her. ‘First I must hunt along the Thanawah for shelf-wood for my join-wife, now it seems I must hunt the Cashgars for wolves. Is she never to be satisfied?’ His face was in shadow but his voice lightly teasing.

  ‘I’m well satisfied,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, so the Chief is to her liking?’ His hand slipped to her thigh, stroking gently, waking her passion again.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, forgetting the wolf-pelts and the moonlight. His skin was warm, his hair in soft curls low over his belly. She caressed it, feeling him harden. He pulled her close and they were both wet with sweat before they fell back panting. They lay for a while, letting their breathing steady and listening to the night sounds beyond the sorcha.

  ‘And am I to the Chief’s liking?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Every woman is to my liking.’

  ‘Ah then, as you’ve already loved me twice this night, I’ll seek another for your enjoyment,’ she said, swinging her legs from the bed.

  Erboran caught her arm. ‘Stay.’

  ‘But Chief Erboran, there are many women who’d be pleased to lie where I now lie.’

  ‘I chose you.’

  ‘Because Arkendrin sought me?’ There, it was said, the thought that had haunted her in all their days together. Was she a fool to raise it even now?

  But when Erboran spoke, there was no anger in his voice. ‘Let us say, Palansa, that the fact that my dear brother also desired you was a bonus.’

  She jerked her arm away and Erboran’s voice softened. ‘I’d chosen you before I knew of Arkendrin’s desires. I’d been watching you. The way you walked, the shape of you through your dress, the way the light caught your hair.’ His hand stroked the thick fall of her hair down her back. ‘And I knew you were capable of more than idle chatter. I could have had nearly any woman on the Grounds, Palansa, but I wanted more than a chipbird to share my bed, to share my life with.’

  Palansa’s eyes glistened and she lay back down into the crook of his shoulder, her palm on the fine hair of his chest, her ear to the beat of his heart. ‘I love you, Erboran.’

  ‘You should,’ he said, teasing again, ‘as I’m your Chief.’

  Ebis lowed out on the Grounds and hunting bats chittered above the sorcha.

  ‘My father says that if rain doesn’t come soon, the herders will have to take our ebis beyond the stone-trees,’ murmured Palansa.

  ‘The Dendora Plain is Weshargh grazing, as he well knows.’

  ‘But they’re blood-tied,’ said Palansa.

  ‘The Dendora’s had as little rain as we have,’ said Erboran.

  ‘What of south then?’ pursued Palansa.

  ‘The same. The Soushargh suffer also.’

  Palansa sighed. ‘I don’t understand why the Sky Chiefs don’t send rain. Father says the ebi will die soon.’

  ‘Your father forgets the days of plenty, as do many others on the Grounds. The herds grow when the pastures are lush, and shrink when they become bare. The Sky Chiefs follow their own ways, but they’ve never let the ebis herds dwindle to where they can’t grow large again. The rains will come, Palansa, when the Sky Chiefs see fit.’

  Erboran fell silent, his breathing sinking to a steady rhythm, and Palansa had just begun to drift into sleep when two high-pitched shrieks tore the darkness. Erboran sprang from the bed, jerking on his breeches as he snatched his spear. There was a third piercing cry and he was gone.

  Palansa gripped the cover to herself, rigid. Three cries of the marwing. For Yrkut’s sake, let there be a fourth. She strained for sound, but there was nothing. The bats had fled; the ebis were silent.

  Lower on the slope, Tarkenda had also risen, throwing on her cape and going to the door to survey the Grounds. The sorchas glimmered in the moonlight but she could see and hear nothing amiss. No lamps burned and no one shouted or wailed. If death had come, it hadn’t been here. She turned reluctantly and gazed south-west to where Arkendrin and Urgundin had gone. Had death visited them in the murky land of trees?

  The grass whispered and broke and Erboran emerged from the shadows, the moonlight glancing off his spear and gilding the naked skin of his shoulders.

  ‘Is there sickness in the Grounds?’ he asked.

  ‘Ermashin’s father coughs like the Thanawah in flood and Marenka’s babe refuses to suckle. Neither death would be unexpected.’

  The cries of the marwing portended death of a more violent nature and Erboran’s gaze swung south-west too. Tarkenda knew he wouldn’t grieve if Arkendrin were lost; his brother’s greed for the chiefship had long ago robbed them of any familial feeling. Tarkenda ducked back into her sorcha, and Erboran followed, settling at the table and taking the honeyed water she offered.

  ‘How does Palansa?’ she asked, sitting opposite him and sipping her own drink.

  ‘Well.’

  ‘Has she bled?’

  ‘On the first night, but not since.’

  The question was far from idle. The Shargh must know that Palansa had spilled only first-joined blood and might already be carrying the next Chief. Tarkenda hoped it was so, for sons born to a young Chief could grow to manhood under his protection, sparing Palansa the fight Tarkenda had endured to bring Erboran to manhood.

  ‘And how does having a join-wife suit you?’ she asked.

  ‘It suits me very well,’ said Erboran, smiling.

  Indeed it seemed to, for Erboran had an air of contentment Tarkenda had never seen before. Perhaps the match had the good fortune to contain affection. Unexpectedly, her thoughts turned to Ergardrin, to their early days together, awaking an ache of yearning, deep and keen as pain. Then Erboran’s bowl clicked back on the table and she was back in the sorcha.

  ‘Time will show what the marwing tells,’ he said as he went out.

  Tarkenda watched the door flap still, her thoughts on the land of trees again. If there had been death there, the news wouldn’t reach them for many dawnings.

  ‘Time will show,’ she muttered, as she went to her bed.

  13

  Deep in the forest, Kest was thinking no further ahead than surviving the night. The rain drowned the moon, blinding him to any Shargh who might be near, no matter how many times he wiped his sleeve across his eyes. The Healer had stopped again and was bending down at the bole of a tree. Kest sucked in air in a vain attempt to quiet the roar of his heart. He had no idea what she was looking at and was almost past caring.

  Keeping her within vision range was hard enough, for although it was dark she ran as if chased by wolves and with an astonishing sure-footedness. He was well used to rough travel but he’d slipped several times, whereas she hadn’t stumbled once.

  She turned back to him, her face a pale smudge, hair plastered to her forehead.

  ‘I think we’re near Barclan octad,’ she said.

  ‘If we are, I don’t see anything I recognise,’ he admitted. In this light, he couldn’t even tell whether the trees were castellas or fallowoods.

  ‘I’ve gathered here before,’ she continued. ‘If we keep westerly, we’ll come to espins on a westward-facing slope. There should be sorren there.’

  ‘Should be?’ Didn’t she know?

  �
��Espin’s friendly to sorren and western slopes catch the last of the sun,’ she said. ‘There are terrawoods there, which break the wind, and the ground’s spongy and catches run-off; both things suit sorren.’

  ‘How far is this grove?’ he asked.

  ‘If we are near Barclan octad, we should be there before the night turns.’

  ‘Is there nowhere closer?’

  ‘Do you think I’d be stumbling about in this stinking night if there were?’

  ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ he began, but she’d set off again and he was forced to follow; weaving between branches, tripping over roots, dodging pale stones and stumbling over darker ones. Fronds whipped his face and scamper vine and sour-ripe tore at his clothes.

  After a time the land began to rise and Kira came to a halt again, her breathing as harsh as his, a dark line under her eye appearing and disappearing with each wash of rain.

  ‘You’ve scratched your face,’ he said, but she ignored him, staring at a deeper darkness ahead.

  ‘Espins?’ he asked, hope surging.

  ‘By the ’green, I hope so.’

  The desperation in her voice lessened his own feelings of inadequacy. As they drew nearer the grove, the tang in the air was unmistakable, heightened by the glove of water each leaf wore. It was drier here too, the rain reduced to irregular plinks, so that he was able to clear his eyes. The Healer dropped to her knees.

  ‘Sorren?’ he asked.

  She nodded, intent on extricating her herbing sickle. The plant didn’t look much different to slipper grass, common enough around the Morclan longhouse, and he watched her cut the stems slowly and carefully. He would have simply ripped it up. She wrapped it in her sling and stowed the sickle.

  ‘Will that be enough?’ he asked. She’d gathered very little, considering the effort it had cost them.

  ‘Its potency isn’t increased by quantity, and it’s important to take only what’s needed.’

  She set off again, but now her gait was awkward, as if the desperate strength that had propelled her forward earlier had deserted her. He felt scarcely better, his muscles having stiffened in the short time they’d stopped, his belly rattling with hunger. They’d journey better if they stopped, rested and ate; the rain was dwindling now so it wouldn’t be quite as miserable. He was about to suggest it when she stumbled, then pitched forward, falling heavily and lying unmoving.

  Stinking heart-rot, that’s all he needed: an unconscious body to lug through the night. Forcing his aching legs up the slope he dropped beside her and turned her gently.

  Her eyes were shut and blood oozed from a cut on her brow, mixing with the leaves and mud coating the side of her face. He wiped it away and her eyes flickered open, then she muttered a word he’d only ever heard very disgruntled Protectors use.

  He smiled in spite of himself. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

  She struggled into a sitting position, her head in her hands. ‘Wonderful, Protector Leader, wonderful.’

  He sat on the soggy ground beside her, feeling the wet soak through his breeches. ‘I think we can dispense with the title. Just call me Kest.’ She looked at him sideways, blood trickling down her cheek. ‘You look terrible, Healer Kiraon.’

  ‘You don’t look so grand yourself,’ she muttered. ‘And my friends call me Kira.’

  The night was quiet, the only sound the delicate music of droplets falling from the leaf-roof. Nothing moved or gave voice, yet the night held a sense of expectancy, as if the water-washed light of the new day secreted itself behind every bole.

  ‘Dawn’s close,’ she said softly. ‘We’ve been away too long.’

  ‘We need to rest and eat.’

  ‘We don’t have time.’

  ‘Travel is swifter and surer with food in the belly. We’ll be back in the caves sooner if we rest and eat now.’ He pulled some dried mundleberries from his pack and passed her some. ‘Eat,’ he ordered, ‘then I’ll clean that cut.’

  ‘Later,’ she said, cramming the berries into her mouth and struggling to her feet.

  ‘Now.’

  Her mouth set but she bent her head and he gently washed away the mud and leaves. ‘You need some bluemint; you don’t want it to scar.’

  ‘My scarring concerns me less than Feseren.’

  ‘Bluemint,’ he repeated. Why did the best Healer in Allogrenia have to be the stubbornest?

  Kira grunted and pulled bluemint from her pack.

  ‘Scarring might concern you when you’re older,’ added Kest, smoothing it on.

  ‘Healers don’t need to be beautiful,’ she retorted.

  At that age, thought Kest, Kesilini hadn’t worried about the neatness of her hair or the brightness of her eyes either. These days she spent half her time peering into the quieter pools of the Drinkwater and lamenting that Kasheron hadn’t brought any of the fabled looking-glasses south. The Healer was close to her seventeenth Turning, and no doubt would soon be similarly obsessed.

  They went on, the rain drifting away and finally silvery fingers of light stealing between the trees making the going easier. Instead of quickening her pace, Kira slowed. Nothing around her looked familiar.

  ‘I don’t know this part of the octad at all,’ she confessed.

  Kest stopped, offered Kira his waterskin, then took a swig himself. His eyes were more grey than blue in the early morning light, but no less intense as he scanned their surroundings, his gaze moving methodically over slope, stone and tree as he turned. ‘Ah, we’re further north than I thought,’ he said, an uncharacteristic grin on his face. ‘We can strike south from here to the caves.’

  ‘South?’ said Kira. That made no sense at all.

  ‘We approached the caves from downslope yesterday because of the bearers. We can reach them from the spur above, and climb down. It’s very steep,’ he said.

  ‘Is it quicker?’

  Kest nodded.

  ‘Then we’ll go that way,’ agreed Kira.

  Kest took the lead and after a time, the slopes gave way to stone-strewn cliffs. Some of the stones were massive, others small and treacherous. Kest occasionally passed Kira his waterskin and she gulped down the chill water, but they didn’t stop and they didn’t rest.

  Finally, Kest announced, ‘We’re almost there.’

  For a moment he looked as if he were being eaten by the canopy, then he disappeared. She could see nothing but a wall of castellas leaning crookedly into space. Kira scrambled after him. Kest was far below her, bracing himself against the curve of the land, using the scrubby bushes to steady himself as he descended. Kira’s heart gave a nauseating jolt.

  Once she and Tresen had climbed onto the roof of the Kashclan longhouse, pretending that they were travelling on one of the legendary ships of the north. The game had been fun until it was time to descend, when she’d frozen completely, unable to move. In the end, Miken had had to climb up and bring her down on his shoulders. Tresen had teased her unmercifully but she’d gained her revenge by winning every tree-climbing and jumping game since.

  Feseren and Sanaken were both at the bottom awaiting her aid, she kept telling herself as she pushed one faltering foot after the other. In the end she squatted, using her backside more than her legs, her knees trembling with the strain, muddy water soaking her to the skin. Finally Kest came into sight again, standing waiting for her. Gripping her wrists, he half lifted her the rest of the way down.

  They were back on the shelf of land rimming the caves, smoke from the campfires purpling the trees. Kira stumbled into the dimmer coolness of the cave, barely aware of Penedrin’s salute to Kest or Tresen’s shocked eyes on her face. The cavern was warm and smoky, but the wound’s stench was worse than she remembered; Feseren’s head was rolling from side to side, his breathing as harsh as sand on stone.

  ‘I’ve kept the wound packed with hot cloths,’ said Brem, materialising from the gloom and squatting beside her, ‘but he’s worsened and will take no water. Have you got the sorren? I’ve found some stones for grinding
.’

  ‘Make enough for Sanaken too,’ said Kira, intent on unbinding the second man’s wounds. Everest had held Sanaken quiet, but his wounds were as rotten as she’d feared they’d be.

  ‘I can dress the wounds, Healer, you should rest,’ said Brem, hovering over her with the sorren, his kindly face creased with concern.

  Kira shook her head and tore up the rest of her Protector shirt, her gaze on the thrashing form of Feseren. It was her poor healing that had caused the infections and now she must make amends. She smoothed the sorren into Feseren’s wound. Then Brem held him while she bound him up again. She did the same with Sanaken, the task taking far longer, for his wounds were many.

  Leaving Brem to wrap each man back into his sleeping-sheet, Kira limped back to the cave’s entrance and squinted out. It was past the mid point of the day now, the sun fiery on the white stone and glancing off the water-filled crevices. Squatting by one of the deeper pools, she washed the reek from her hands, then doused her face, gasping as the water opened the cut. Blood dribbled down her cheek and dripped onto her breeches, adding to the sour-ripe stains and crusted mud. Oh to wash in the warm water of her bathing bowl, to slide beneath her sleeping-cover, to know that Feseren and Sanaken were healed, she thought dazedly.

  ‘Kest says you’re to rest,’ said Tresen, suddenly appearing and hauling her to her feet. ‘Kest sleeps now himself,’ he added, tightening his grip as he felt her sag, and guiding her back to the cave.

  The men taking their meal watched in silence, and Tresen felt a surge of protectiveness. She’d carried out her healing well; none of this was her fault!

  Inside, Brem had laid Kira’s sleeping-sheet ready, and Tresen lowered her down and tucked it over her. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

  ‘I need to watch the wounded.’

  ‘Brem and I will watch them and waken you if they worsen,’ said Tresen.

  ‘I healed poorly.’