The Singing

by Alison Croggon

  She had not eaten a meal nor slept since they had left the Hollow Lands, and yet she felt no hunger, nor any diminishment in her energy. Cadvan offered her food every night, and she felt a rebuke in his silence when she refused, even as she was relieved he did not pressure her. Cadvan's silence was tact rather than disapproval, but she did not realize this; nor was she aware of the concern in his eyes when his gaze rested on her. Cadvan's expression was almost always guarded, but at times his fear for Maerad appeared nakedly—when he saw her standing outside at midnight, staring at things visible to no one else, or once when she almost rode Keru straight into a tree that she had not seen because her eyes perceived a landscape that was no longer there. Although he didn't speak of them, Cadvan was more aware of the shadows that troubled Maerad than she knew.

  And both he and Saliman were very conscious of Maerad's fragility. Without drawing attention to it, they made sure that she took no shifts on the watch at night, so that she was never alone. Nights bored her. Sometimes she lay down as if she were sleeping, feeling her body humming with the living power that never left her, or she walked restlessly through the grass, gazing south to the jagged peaks of the Broken Hills, where she sensed a great, heavy shadow, or west toward the Hutmoors. But most often she would sit with whoever kept watch.

  On the second night, she shared a long watch with Hekibel. She found that Hekibel was unexpectedly charming company, with an unspoken gift of understanding that was leavened with a sharp wit. Her conversation soothed Maerad, and for a time it was no struggle to remain in the present, and her ghostly visions vanished. Hekibel passed the time by telling Maerad comic stories about her life as a player. She told them well, and Maerad's laughter echoed over the empty plains and startled a hunting owl, which swooped sharply away from them, hooting in alarm.

  The wind had shifted during the day and died down. There had been a light rain earlier in the evening and the good smell of damp spring earth rose in the night air. Maerad felt more lighthearted than she had since leaving Innail. When Hekibel asked Maerad about her childhood, she answered without discomfort. It was pleasant to talk to a woman, to lean into Hekibel's sympathetic, unjudging ear.

  Maerad asked Hekibel why she had not chosen to go to Innail with Grigar when they had left Desor, where she would have been safer than she was journeying through the wilderness on their uncertain quest. Hekibel, who liked to keep her hands busy, was rubbing fat into her boots, and when Maerad asked this question, she paused, her face serious, and did not answer for a time. Finally she looked at Maerad ruefully, and laughed.

  "I fear very much that I have fallen in love with Saliman," she said. "And I think I would follow him to the ends of the earth."

  For a moment Maerad didn't know what to say. "Oh," she said, and then she blushed. "Does—does Saliman know?"

  Hekibel was silent for a time. "I can't imagine that he doesn't," she said. "You Bards can see things that others can't. He is always very gentle when he speaks to me, but I rather think that is because he pities me." Hekibel grinned wryly. "It is difficult not to feel a little foolish."

  Maerad clasped her hand. "Oh, no, please don't feel foolish," she said, with a rush of warmth. "It isn't foolish to love. Cadvan said to me once that to love is never wrong. It may be disastrous; it may never be possible; it may be the deepest agony. But it is never wrong. I've never forgotten it; it seems true to me." She met Hekibel's eyes, her own gaze suddenly clear and present. "In any case, I think that Saliman does love you."

  Hekibel turned her eyes away. "If he does," she said, "I don't know how anyone would know. He conceals it well."

  Maerad studied Hekibel's profile, the dark blonde hair that curled out from her hood, her soft, sensuous mouth. She envied Hekibel's beauty: next to her luscious roundness, Maerad felt thin and sharp. Hekibel's skin had the golden bloom of a winter apple, smooth and rich, but her sweetness was never cloying: she was too intelligent, too strong. Of course Saliman loved this woman.

  "It's obvious that he likes you," she said at last. She realized she was not used to this kind of conversation between women, and suddenly wished fiercely that Silvia was with them. Silvia would know the right thing to say.

  "I know that," said Hekibel. She began to rub her boots with renewed vigor. "And his friendship is precious to me. But all the same, I can't help wanting more than that. I wish I were a Bard, or that he wasn't. He is the most handsome, most generous man that I have ever met. When I left him there, sick to death in Hiert, I wanted to die ..."

  "There's no reason why a Bard might not love someone without the Gift. It can be difficult, that's all, because Bards are so long-lived. I met a Bard once who told me he was very old, and his wife had been dead two hundred years, and he still misses her. That's probably why Saliman might not speak to you about this. Quite apart from . . . well, none of us know if we'll be alive in a week...."

  "I wish all the same that he would look at me like Cadvan looks at you." Hekibel looked critically at her boots, and laid them carefully side by side on the grass. "Well, a dog might howl at the moon ..."

  Maerad blinked. "What do you mean, how Cadvan looks at me?"

  "If I saw near so much passion in Saliman's face, I would be buying my wedding clothes," said Hekibel. "That is, assuming there are any weddings after all this."

  Maerad's mouth dropped open. For a long moment she was too shocked to say anything at all. "Passion?" she said. "Cadvan is my very dear—my dearest—friend, but I don't think..."

  Hekibel looked sideways at Maerad. "You mean you haven't noticed? If that's mere friendship, my dear, then I have never in my life seen a man in love. And I assure you that I have. I can tell you, if my heart were not already ensnared, I might be in very great danger of falling in love with Cadvan myself. Have you never realized how handsome he is?"

  Maerad was silent for some time, trying to gather her scattered wits. She felt as stunned as if Hekibel had struck her in the face. She thought back over her recent conversations with Cadvan. It was true that something had changed in his manner since they had reunited in Pellinor. She had thought it an expression of a deepened understanding between them, a deeper friendship; but it had never occurred to her that he might have fallen in love with her.

  Hekibel, her expression inscrutable, was studying Maerad's face. "Is it that you don't return the feeling?" she asked at last. "That can be awkward, especially if you are fond of a person..."

  "I—I don't know." Maerad said this in a whisper. "I haven't thought about it." But was that true? she wondered. Perhaps she had thought about it, and had always pushed it to the back of her mind. It was easy to admit that she loved Dernhil, because he was dead and no longer asked anything of her. She had always known that the Winterking did not love her, at least not in any way she could begin to understand, so that her feelings about him were again easier to admit.

  But Cadvan . . . was different. She found it difficult to breathe, as if her chest were constricted with terror, but perhaps it wasn't terror at all. Underneath she felt something else; at the thought that Cadvan might love her, a warm rush of excitement made her heart flutter like a dazed bird. Perhaps she had been more truthful than she realized when she had told Cadvan that she knew nothing of love.

  Hekibel was watching her closely. "I've upset you," she said. "I'm sorry, Maerad. It was stupid of me. I just meant that Cadvan is very fond of you, and it's obvious. And, well, it's silly to be talking about love like an airheaded girl when we're in the middle of this terrible war, with the Black Army marching through Annar and Hulls on our tail and who knows what awful things happening to people all over Edil-Amarandh." Her eyes were dark and serious, but then she smiled. "It's just a little difficult to keep my mind on the war when Saliman's around."

  "No, I'm not upset. I just feel a bit—shocked." Maerad looked down at her hands. "I don't think I know very much about love. Well, that kind of love. And when I do think about it, it frightens me. I am not very brave, I think.
Perhaps I ought to be braver." She smiled wryly. "Although the only time I thought I fell in love, it was with an Elidhu, so perhaps I am not so cowardly, after all..."

  Hekibel's eyebrows shot up. "An Elidhu?" she said. "That puts me in my place. I mean, what's a Bard compared to an immortal?"

  Maerad looked up, fearing mockery, and saw that Hekibel's eyes twinkled with wry mischief. Despite herself, she began to laugh.

  They reached the Usk River, which marked the eastern border of the Hutmoors, after two days of hard riding. The river's course followed the bottom of a shallow valley, and in the distance on the opposite rise ran the Bard Road that led north from Ettinor.

  When they topped the lip of the valley, they saw that the road was not empty. Directly ahead of them, and stretching south as far as the eye could see, marched a great army. They did not have to see the banners to know that it was the Black Army.

  They hastily retreated behind the rise, and then everyone dismounted. It was obvious that they could not cross the Usk now.

  Cadvan looked deeply shaken. "I think your friend Grigar was misled," he said to Saliman. "That must be the army you saw in Desor. But they are clearly not marching on Innail."

  "No," said Saliman. "Lirigon lies at the end of that road. A week's march, I would say."

  Cadvan gazed north toward Lirigon, and Maerad could see the struggle within him. "They must be warned," he said.

  "We could not outrun them, even if we tried," said Saliman. "Their foreriders are already well ahead of us, and they are moving swiftly. I am sure, all the same, that Lirigon will be prepared for some kind of attack."

  "I doubt, even so, that they'll be expecting an army of this size. It's a bitter thought, that the Black Army will be laying waste to the city where I was born." Cadvan turned on his heel and walked abruptly away from the group, and Maerad saw, from the straightness of his back, that he wished to hide his grief from his friends. After all, what he feared for Lirigon had already happened to Saliman's own city, Turbansk, which now lay in ruins under the dominion of the Dark.

  She wanted to follow and comfort him, but felt too shy. In fact, since her conversation with Hekibel, she had felt almost paralyzed with shyness every time she spoke privately to Cadvan. She was now sure that she loved him, and had loved him all along, from the first moment that she had laid eyes on him. It was as if she had been walking around with her eyes closed. And with this realization had risen an agonizing doubt. Hekibel might, after all, be mistaken, and be reading too much into Cadvan's expressions of friendship.

  Maerad also felt culpable. She should have known that the Black Army was so close; now that she was aware of its presence, she wondered how she had missed it. The truth was that over the past few days she had been struggling to remain among the simple realities she craved, to shut out the awareness that haunted her with so many pasts, so many presents, so many futures. And she had mainly been preoccupied with her thoughts about Cadvan. Now she cursed herself: again she had been blind. If she had had her wits about her, perhaps they could have done something to warn Lirigon.

  The sight of the Black Army was a shock: it was the first time she had seen such an army with her own eyes, outside a vision or dream. It did not compare with the Landrost's forces outside Innail. She realized that the mountain men, deadly and grim though they might be, were a mere rabble in comparison to this. She was not prepared for the dread that rose in her throat at the sight of it—how the long stream of warriors and wagons moved with such tangible, organized purpose toward death and destruction.

  I don't like these armies, Irc said, from his perch on Hem's shoulder. Maerad looked up: he was speaking to all of them in the Speech. They make the land frightened. Everything has gone so quiet.

  They frighten me, said Hem.

  I'll fly over and see how big it is, said Irc.

  I wish you wouldn't, said Hem. Some Hull might let an arrow loose and shoot you.

  I'll be high up. They can't catch me. Irc launched himself into the air and hovered over their heads. I'm a clever crow.

  He soared off, high up as he promised, and Hem followed him with his eyes. "I hope he's as clever as he thinks he is," he said.

  "He's certainly as cunning as he thinks he is," said Saliman. "And it would be useful, without any doubt, to know how long we will have to wait before this army passes and we can cross the river safely. For the moment, we're stuck where we are."

  They found a cluster of trees where they could conceal the horses, unsaddled them, and settled down to wait. Cadvan rejoined them, his face grim, and Saliman and Hekibel silently brought out some food.

  Maerad glanced anxiously at Cadvan, but he did not meet her eyes. Everything was beginning to waver again, as it had not done since she had spoken to Hekibel. The sight of the Black Army had shocked her out of her defenses, and now she thought she could hear, at the edges of her perception, cries of sorrow and terror—a distant chorus of lamentation. She didn't know if what she sensed was her own feelings of fear and dread or a premonition of the disaster that now threatened Lirigon or something else entirely; but she feared that if it became any clearer, if she could hear those voices properly, she would be drowned in an ocean of woe.

  "What worries me right at this moment," said Cadvan, "is that a Hull will sense Maerad and send a party up here. I am not sure that even you, Maerad, could keep at bay thousands of soldiers."

  Maerad looked up, and for a moment her eyes focused sharply in the present. "They look forward, not from side to side, and we are still quite a distance from them," she said. "They are in a great hurry. I do not think they will notice us."

  Cadvan lifted his eyebrows. "I hope you're right," he said. "Although you should know, more than anyone, that the Nameless One will be seeking you as urgently as any victory in Annar, and I find it hard to believe that he would allow his forces to bypass you."

  Maerad's face went still for a moment, as she pondered what Cadvan had said. She could sense the Hulls on the other side of the hill as clearly as if they stood in serried rows in front of her, and the attention of none of them was turned their way. What she felt was a terrible, intent purpose directed solely toward speed. "I still think they have not seen us," she said. "They're not keeping a guard up because nobody in their right mind would attack them."

  Hem, propelled by a masochistic curiosity, offered to keep an eye on the progress of the Black Army until Irc returned. He shielded himself, and then crawled up to the top of the ridge on his belly, hiding in the thick grass. He lay there watching the Black Army as it marched, like an obscene, many-legged monster, through the empty valley. Irc was right: the countryside was silent, as if the army's presence throttled the songs of birds in their very throats.

  When Irc returned, he had a self-satisfied look that made Hem think that he'd taken the opportunity to do some pilfering. The army, Irc told them, was very big.

  Any of us could see that with our own eyes, said Hem. How big, do you think?

  Very big, Irc repeated. Fives and fives and fives again and again. It took me a long time to fly to the end of it. They are leaving all sorts of treasures by the side of the road.

  So Irc had been pilfering, thought Hem with exasperation. His irritation stemmed from anxiety: Irc's curiosity could easily get him into trouble. And Hem couldn't help wishing that he could count past five.

  Saliman was listening, his brow creased, and asked Irc if the army stretched back past the bridge that crossed the Usk.

  No, said Irc. Not that far. But it is still a very long line. And there are dogsoldiers and Hulls and snouts and lots of men. Many are Annaren and they are being driven by whips. I didn't go near any of them. There is too much braintwisting there. It makes me choke.

  Hem shuddered, wondering if the army included snouts that he had known in Sjug'hakar Im. It wasn't unlikely; the Hull at the camp had told them that the Nameless One had great plans for them and that they were being marched north.

 
"Lirigon doesn't have a chance," said Cadvan. He looked ill. "The last thing they would be expecting would be a great army coming up from Ettinor. No doubt the captains aim to arrive by night, and have most of the slaughter over before anyone stirs from their beds."

  "They'd have guards, surely," said Hekibel, hesitantly.

  "Yes. But they need more than sentries to be prepared for an attack like this."

  Hem was listening intently, his dark eyes flickering from face to face. He looked at Irc, who was now attempting to burgle the food bag, since he was sure that his scouting deserved a reward.

  Irc, said Hem. Could you outfly the Black Army?

  Irc puffed out his chest feathers. Of course. I am the fastest bird in the world.

  Hem smiled ironically and put out his forearm. Irc hopped onto his arm, wiping his beak on the sleeve, and Hem brought him close to his chest, stroking his crisp feathers. Do you think you could fly to Lirigon, to warn them about the Black Army? It would be a heroic, brave task.

  Irc went silent, and Hem felt the bird's alarm at the thought of leaving him. It kindled his own fears: what if something should happen to Irc? But what else could they do to save Lirigon?