‘Get him inside and set a patrol in the valley.’
Jac nodded and stepped away as the messenger limped up the stairs behind him. A pair of men helped the rider through the hall door and Lidan followed behind them, half the clan and their children filing in after them to see the newcomer. She pushed her way to the front, using the space left in her father’s wake, and stopped at the edge of the crowd beside the fire pit. Warm soup and a blanket appeared before the messenger, and a stool for him to sit on and rest his legs. Grent slipped from the gathering and crouched beside the man while the daari collected himself and glanced around to make certain everyone of importance was in attendance.
Seeing an opportunity to be at the centre of things, Lidan squeezed between the shifting bodies and squatted beside Grent. His eyes smiled at her despite the blood on his hands and he nodded at his attendee box, the lid already off and the contents a jumbled mess. Lidan shook her head and handed him a dressing. She’d organised all his kits before she started training with Loge, and in a fortnight all her work had been undone.
‘You’ve come from Namjin?’ Erlon asked the rider and the hall fell silent.
‘Yes,’ the man winced as Grent dabbed a wound in his back. ‘Fast as I could…’
Erlon’s eyes scanned the man from head to foot, taking in the filth and blood. ‘You were brave to travel alone.’
Lidan could only stare at the rider’s back. Something had torn through the man’s coat, his leathers and his shirt to score deep lacerations in his skin. They gaped, wide and angry, and were almost rancid with infection. She knew those wounds…
‘I was one of ten riders who left to deliver this message.’
A murmur of confusion rippled through the hall.
‘Pardon me?’ The daari leaned forwards in his audience chair.
Lidan continued to stare at the man’s back and sat on her heels, her heart pounding so hard she could hardly hear over the frantic beat.
‘A party of ten left for each clan in the South Lands, all with the same message. Of my party, all but me were killed on the way. Argh!’
He flinched away as Grent poured alcohol over a wound and cut away fabric glued to his skin with dried blood. The wounds became clearer under the dirt and muck, and bile rose in Lidan’s mouth.
‘Killed by what?’ The gravity in Erlon’s voice told Lidan he already knew the answer. She already knew the answer.
‘Ngaru,’ she replied without thinking. The eyes of the room fell on where she sat crouched at the man’s shoulder and the messenger turned to the small voice at his side. She looked at him and saw the same shadows lingering in his eyes as they did in Loge’s. ‘Black creatures in the forms of men, with weapons of iron?’
‘The like I’ve never seen before…’ the rider replied, his voice wavering. He swallowed hard, and Lidan noticed the tremor in his hands. ‘Monsters…’
‘How many?’ Erlon broke the moment between his daughter and the messenger. ‘Did you see them?’
‘Can’t say for sure, sir. We rode hard to get away from it, until the horses died. Could have been one or more, or maybe different ones as we went. They don’t come out in the open. They stick to the shadows…’ He reached to point at his injured back. ‘I got this when my last companion was snatched from his horse—’ His voice broke and he coughed, a shaking breath rattling his chest and only barely suppressing tears. His chin shook as badly as his hands, so Lidan gently took the soup before it spilled. ‘Still don’t know how it missed me, and got him…’
The daari turned to consult Siman and the messenger kept talking, staring at the fire as if he saw something there other than embers and flame.
‘They attack our villages at night, when the guards are tired and the people are unawares. They don’t make a sound when they come over the walls, no screeches or howls, just silence, like they don’t need to speak to know what to do.’ The silence in the hall pressed down; even the children stared. Lidan’s stomach flipped and a dressing fell from her limp fingers, forgotten in the despair of the messenger’s story. ‘But in the bush, they scream…’
‘They attack villages?’ Siman’s voice rose with shock, a sound alien to Lidan’s ears, the stoic bravery of the ranger waning in the face of the news.
The ngaru had only ever attacked Tolak ranging parties. Never had they made an attempt to enter Hummel. How many more of them were out there, waiting in the trees and in the lee of the tablelands? Lidan’s chest tightened, her mind spinning at the thought of a plague of the creatures seething out of the ravines and canyons.
‘Once a week, then almost nightly at the new moon, then less as it rises again. All over the south we’ve heard stories. Some Namjin villages have been cleared out completely. That’s why they sent us.’ The messenger looked up at the daari and their eyes locked. ‘They’ve called a Corron.’
Chatter burst into the silence and Lidan flinched away, the sound ripping at her ears. Her head started to throb as her father held his hands up to plead for calm.
‘A Corron? There hasn’t been a Corron in two generations!’ The daari glanced at the shadows to the right and found Sellan, her arms crossed and lips pressed into a hard line. She kept her eyes on the messenger, studying him as if trying to read a deeper meaning in his words, but she made no move to speak.
The messenger shrugged. ‘Our daari feels this matter requires a united approach.’
‘Clear the hall!’ Erlon bellowed and people started, then hurried to comply. ‘First Wife, see the messenger has all he needs.’
Sellan stared at her husband. ‘But, I—’
Erlon’s fist slammed into the armrest of the chair, a boom echoing through the emptying hall and cutting his wife’s words from the air. ‘I will call for you when I have need of you!’
The dana’s stare turned to the messenger and with a flick of her head she had him limping after her to the kitchen. It was only then Erlon saw Lidan crouched beside the stool at the fire pit.
‘You too, Liddy. I’ll send for you all soon.’
Us all? She didn’t have a chance to ask what he meant before Grent ushered her from the hall. Beyond, she found Loge sitting on the steps with Behn and a cluster of rangers and tradesmen milling at their feet.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Loge patted the step beside him. ‘We’ll be here a while.’
*
It was well after dark before the door opened again and Siman’s face appeared. He looked at his rangers, then at Lidan, then at the brazier they had burning at the base of the stairs to fight off the encroaching cold. ‘Rangers and daari’s kin only.’
He slipped back inside and Lidan threw an apologetic glance at Behn, then darted inside, ignoring the ache in her knees and the sting of the hall’s heat on her face after hours sitting outside in the cold. Her father sat where she’d left him, and her mothers and sisters gathered before him, silent and waiting. His eyes seemed to have sunk into pools of fatigue as the hours passed and this struck a chord of worry in Lidan’s heart. The message must have brought grave tidings indeed.
‘They’re all here, sir.’ Siman murmured.
The daari nodded and leaned forwards in his chair, elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped tightly together. ‘The Namjin have called a Corron to discuss the ngaru and what can be done to stop them. As the messenger said, they’ve hit the northern clans the hardest and refugees are fleeing south. It seems we’ve been lucky, by comparison, and have only encountered a few on our borders.
‘This Corron will be held in Namjin, at Daari Yorrell’s hall in Jinloh.’ He licked his lips and paused, seeming to think carefully on his next words. ‘And the Law requires each daari to travel to the meeting… with their family.’
‘What?’ the dana put her hands on Marrit’s slight shoulders, hugging her youngest daughter against her skirt. Abbi shuffled in beside Lidan and the little girl’s soft hand slipped into hers. Lidan gave her hand a gentle squeeze and Abbi leaned into her leg. Kelill and Raeh looked at
each other with wide eyes, an unspoken question passing between them. Sellan scoffed, ‘Your whole family? That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!’
‘Of course it is, but that doesn’t change the fact of the matter.’ Erlon looked at them all in turn, his wives, his rangers and his daughters. ‘We must all go.’
‘What in the world for? What possible use are women and children on such a journey?’ Instead of her usual scornful scowl, Sellan’s frown deepened to one of genuine concern. ‘Have they no regard for the dangers?’
Lidan felt sick. Craving a little freedom beyond the walls of the village was one thing. Travelling for weeks through bushland infested with ngaru was something else entirely. She glanced at Loge and saw the same fear mirrored in his eyes, dancing with the glimmer of the fire and torchlight.
Erlon shook his head. ‘The risks are shared across the clans. Everyone has to bring their family and their rangers. We have no choice. The Corron is called and we must attend.’
‘And what of Farah?’ Raeh asked, balancing a weary Cerise on her hip. ‘The poor woman is surely too ill to travel.’
Silence fell across the gathering and the daari sighed heavily. ‘All my children must attend, even the unborn.’
Lidan’s mother spat on the floor. ‘I will not let you take my daughters beyond that gate to be fed to whatever monsters waits in the shadows!’
Abbi burst into tears beside Lidan and she scooped the child up, settling her on her hip. She bounced Abbi a few times and kissed her forehead, and the little one pressed her face into her sister’s neck. She might not be old enough to understand what her parents were saying, but the emotion in the room was enough to set her on edge. Her slight body shivered despite the warmth of the fire pit. Marrit’s wide green eyes found Lidan and she saw the girl biting her lip to stop it quivering. She gave her younger sister a wink and a small smile. It was the only reassurance she could manage across the space between them.
‘We’ll have every able-bodied ranger with us, Sellan. This is not a negotiation.’
‘What in the name of the ancestors do the Council want the children for?’ The dana snapped.
Erlon’s gaze shifted to Lidan and held there; bearing down with a sudden weight of expectation she hadn’t anticipated. ‘They are my heirs.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
Hummel, Tolak Range, the South Lands
Dawn broke to the snorting and stamping of horses, the muttering of rangers and the grumbling of tired children woken too early from their beds. Two wagons, brought out from storage in the stables, had been dusted off and were now packed high with provisions and weapons. Under the flat beds, boxes held stores of arrows and spears, spare bowstrings and axes. Along the sides, spears hung in leather ties, ready at a moment’s notice to be snatched from their bonds and turned against an enemy attack. Lidan wondered at them from across the common, thinking to herself there might be more weaponry than food in either carriage.
Theus shied and she soothed him with a pat on the nose. A crowd emerged from the hall, clustered around Farah as she came awkwardly down the stairs with a hand clutched to her belly. It was big but not as large as it should be for her term. Beside Lidan, Moyra clicked her tongue and sighed.
‘Poor girl,’ the midwife muttered. ‘She’s only a cycle or two shy of having that baby, if she lasts that long.’
‘I thought it wasn’t due ‘til the rains?’ Lidan countered with a frown. The group moved across the common and helped Farah into the wagon; her gaunt face and shaking legs disappearing under the arching hide cover. The weather was markedly warmer with each passing day, but the air remained so dry it seemed impossible that it might turn and bring rain.
‘The rains are due in a month or two, First Daughter. It’s this dry that won’t let up! We’ve had cold rain before, but it’s not the usual.’ Moyra and Lidan looked at the clear, empty sky. Only a handful of high, white puffs of cloud lingered above the tablelands. ‘No chance of those bringing rain.’
Lidan looked across at the older woman, a large woven basket in her hands, covered in fabric and tied with a rope. ‘What’s that for?’
‘Midwife’s travel kit.’ Moyra nodded at the basket.
‘Midwives have travelling kits?’ Lidan frowned again and tried to recall if she’d seen such a thing in Grent’s healing rooms.
‘They do now,’ the midwife sighed and walked towards the carriages, climbing the same step as Farah and disappearing behind the hide door flap.
Lidan’s sisters piled into the carriages, followed by their mothers, all glancing around the village common as if they’d left something behind. Finally, the dana appeared at the top of the hall steps, her dark green eyes scanning the common. While the messenger had urged the daari to depart for the Corron immediately, the dana had refused, insisting on at least three days to prepare the convoy.
For the most part, Lidan didn’t mind the delay. She spent her time training with Loge and working to make sure Theus was ready to ride, staying out from under everyone’s hurrying feet. Even the forge was too busy for her liking, ringing day and night as Rick and Behn raced to prepare weapons. The delay chafed at her father though, as much as he tried to hide it behind his smile and booming laugh.
He talked to the girls about adventure and exciting new things to see. He promised to show them the river to the west and let them swim if the weather grew warm. It was only when he looked away from his daughters, excitedly milling at their father’s feet, that Lidan saw the truth in his face. His smile never reached his eyes, never set them to sparkle as they used to. She knew then how dangerous the journey was, how much of a risk he took taking them to the Corron.
Erlon lifted Marrit into a wagon and went to Titon, already saddled and waiting at the head of the convoy. Loge appeared beside Lidan and she started, so fixed on watching the others she didn’t notice his approach.
‘Time to get up,’ he murmured, lacing his hands together palms up and offering her a step to use. Her leg swung over the saddle and her hands squeezed the reins. Suddenly she felt at home.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ Sellan’s voice echoed against the walls.
Lidan looked up to see her mother striding towards her with a fire in her eyes. Had she not been in the saddle she would have run. Theus sensed her anxiety and bounced on his front hooves, snorting and shaking his head at her mother. With a cry Sellan staggered to a stop and held up her arm as if to defend herself against a snarling beast, drawing the attention of everyone assembled in the common.
‘Lidan Tolak! You will get down from that beast this instant, or mark my words—’
Titon’s hoof falls cut the tirade as her father rode over.
‘What is going on?’ he hissed, pulling the horse up and leaning down to his wife, who stepped stiffly away from the giant black stallion.
‘What is she doing up there?’ Sellan snapped, pointing at Lidan as though she was an errant toddler climbing too far up a tree.
‘I’d say she’s preparing to ride out, like the rest of us.’ Erlon lowered his voice to a growl. ‘I suggest you get in a carriage unless you want to ride in a saddle yourself.’
‘I would rather walk over hot coals than ride one of those hideous things.’
‘Then get aboard.’
‘Lidan, get down. You’re coming with me.’ The dana waved her hand as if the words were all she needed to say, and stepped towards the wagons.
Erlon cleared his throat. ‘There’s not enough room. Lidan is apprenticed now. She rides with the rangers.’
‘She’s—’ Sellan began.
‘She’s quite capable in the saddle, wife.’
‘She is your heir! What if something happens? What if she falls or, ancestors forbid, that wretched thing throws her to her death?’ Her mother glared at the horse as if it had the face of a monster and the temperament to boot, but Erlon leaned down further to face her.
‘Lidan broke that horse with her own hands. You know the Law. It�
�s hers, and it will keep her safe.’
She waited for a retort to burst from her mother’s lips, but somehow Sellan kept it imprisoned behind her clenched jaw. With a final glare at Theus and not so much as a glance at Lidan, she turned on her heel and stormed to the waiting carriages.
A breath Lidan didn’t realise she held burned in her chest and she exhaled, her stomach twisting like writhing snakes. They hadn’t even left Hummel and her parents were already at each other’s throats. How much worse would it be after a week or so of hard travel?
Erlon paused for a moment, then turned Titon to face his daughter.
‘As much as she is wrong, she is right.’ His stare left her in no doubt he was deathly serious. ‘Stay with Loge or Siman or I’ll put that horse on a lead and make you sit in a wagon. Don’t make me regret my decision.’
‘Yes, Da.’ She nodded and glanced over at Loge, still checking his horse’s tack.
The young ranger came around to pat her on the elbow and check Theus’s bridle for the last time. ‘You’ll be right. I won’t let anything happen.’
A sharp whistle rose from the commotion and Siman’s long arm waved. Jac waved back and the huge timber gates groaned open against the dry soil, dust whirling up in their wake. Horses and men pushed forwards, carriages creaked and their wheels began to turn. Lidan gave Theus a little slack in his reins and pressed her boots into his side, urging him forwards alongside Loge and the other rangers.
They passed under the lintel of the gateway and into the valley, the land she’d been separated from for weeks finally opening up before her, blades of grass swaying in greeting with the wind. The breeze hit her face like a wave and she breathed deep, pulling all the scents and freedoms of the range into her chest and willing them to never leave.
Blood of Heirs Page 25