The Singing

by Alison Croggon

  Where is Lirigon? Irc asked at last.

  It’s a School at the end of the road. All you'd have to do would be to follow the road. But I think it's a long way. Would it be a brave thing?

  Yes. Hem smiled again. Yes, it would. You would save many lives. You would be the bird that saved the city, like the heroes of tales of old.

  Irc fixed Hem with his eye, his head cocked to one side. I do not like these armies, he said. J will help to fight them. But if it is a long way, I will miss you. I will fly very fast and come back as soon as I can.

  Hem stroked Irc's neck, and he put his head down, enjoying the tickling.

  "Irc says that he will fly to Lirigon to warn the city," Hem said to the others. "He could certainly get there quicker than the army. And all he'd have to do would be to follow the road, so he wouldn't get lost."

  Cadvan stared at Hem, his face lighting up. "Why did I not think of that?" Then he frowned in thought. "The only problem is that he has to find the right person to speak to. It's no use going all that way if no one listens, and it might be hard to get the right person to listen to a crow—however eminent he is. It would be good if he could carry a letter." He looked at Irc, and asked him in the Speech if he would take something to give to the Bards in Lirigon. Irc cocked his head and cawed assent.

  "He's very good at carrying messages," said Hem anxiously, looking at Cadvan. "He helped me so much when I was at Sjug'hakar Im. And in Den Raven."

  I am a clever bird, said Irc complacently. And I am the King's messenger.

  "Yes, well." Cadvan considered Irc, who met his eye with a bold look, and then smiled. "It is a much better chance than no hope at all. But we have neither pen nor paper."

  "I have," said Maerad. She rushed over to her pack and pulled out a small oilskin bag, in which she kept the pen Dernhil had given her a year ago in Innail, a tiny stoppered bottle of ink, and some precious leaves of paper. "I always keep these, in case—well, in case I find somewhere to practice my writing." She looked ruefully at the bottle, which was almost full. "I haven't had many chances, though."

  Cadvan seized the pen and paper, found a flat rock, and wrote a short letter, outlining what they knew about the army. Then, looking to Irc for permission, he folded the letter as tightly as he could, and tied it securely to Irc's leg with a leather thong.

  You must find Vaclal of Lirigon, he said. Ask any Bard you see to take you to Vaclal. They will all know who he is, because he is the First Bard. Tell them you have urgent news about the Black Army.

  Vaclal, said Irc.

  You won't forget the name?

  Irc looked scornful at the suggestion, and didn't deign to answer. He bent his neck, pecking experimentally at the letter on his leg, and then flapped onto Hem's shoulder.

  I go now, he said.

  Be careful, said Hem. I do not want to lose you. Don't do anything silly.

  I will be clever, said Irc. I will be the King's messenger and a hero and I will save the city. Farewell, my friend. I will fly faster than the wind and I will see you soon.

  Then he launched himself into the air, describing a series of graceful arabesques to underline the sense of occasion. Hem watched him until he vanished into the distance. A new pain lodged itself in his heart. He wondered if he would ever see Irc again. Even if he got to Lirigon and back safely, would Hem still be alive when he returned? And what would Irc do if Hem died?

  Cadvan cleared his throat. "May the Light lift his wings, and protect him," he said. "If the King's messenger saves Lirigon, I'll personally give him seven new titles."

  "If he does save Lirigon, he'll be unbearable," said Hem. "But I love him for it, all the same. I just hope he's all right." Despite himself, his voice cracked.

  Saliman put his hand lightly on Hem's shoulder. "Do not underestimate Irc's cunning," he said gently. "I'd wager a lot of gold on his safe return."

  "You'd have to give half of it to Irc. Though the Light knows what he would do with it, except to stuff it in a hole in some old tree," said Hem.

  He met Saliman's eyes and smiled crookedly. Saliman was the only one who really understood how much he loved his boastful friend. For all his undoubted intelligence, Irc was just an ordinary crow, as vulnerable as any other small creature to the accident and malice of the wider world. Hem remembered, with a sudden painful vividness, his first sight of Irc: a scrawny, awkward fledgling, being pecked unmercifully by his fellows. He had grown into a strong, handsome bird, but he was still only a bird. And now he was flying into the darkening clouds of evening, a tiny speck of life lost to sight in the huge sky; and much of Hem's heart had gone with him.

  Chapter XX

  THE HUTMOORS

  THEY didn't dare to cross the valley until after midnight, long after the final ranks, followed by a trail of laden wagons, had disappeared down the dark road toward Lirigon. Gradually, as the Black Army vanished into the north, the ordinary noises of the night reasserted themselves, but the travelers did not relax. The tension seemed rather to increase as the shadows deepened into nightfall; they spoke only in whispers, and most of the time did not speak at all.

  It seemed that Maerad had been correct that they would not be noticed. Although Saliman and Cadvan were both on full alert, once the Black Army had disappeared they detected no whiff of sorcery, no hint of the presence of Hulls or any other creature of the Dark. But there was still a palpable sense of threat; the empty night stretched out around them like a predatory animal. Clouds gathered overhead, obscuring the moon, and there was a smell of rain, but no rain fell. The wind rustled restlessly through the trees and the horses stamped and snorted as they dozed, but otherwise there was no sound.

  Hem and Hekibel napped, huddled against the gnarled roots, while Saliman and Cadvan kept watch. Maerad said nothing at all: now her attention was turned westward. When the army had passed, she climbed to the top of the valley and stared toward the Hutmoors as if she were searching for something, her face white, her eyes blazing. No one asked her what she was looking for. There was something fierce in her stance that forbade questions.

  They saddled the grumbling horses and moved cautiously south. Here the Usk ran swiftly between deep banks, and the only crossing was the bridge that carried the Bard Road north from Ettinor, in the shadow of the northern edge of the Broken Hills. They followed the river, while keeping it in sight to their right, and their way was rocky and uneven. Saliman, Cadvan, and Hem were forced to make magelights to light the horses' steps, using simple veiling charms to hide them from unfriendly eyes, but it seemed to Hem that the magery drained him more than it should.

  Hem's earth sense was stirring; or at least, he thought it was his earth sense. He felt an overpowering urge pulling him toward the Hutmoors. It was impossible to ignore and seemed to grow with every moment. He wondered if perhaps migrating birds might feel something similar, when they returned to their spring nests in the north: an exact knowledge, a desire like hunger that ran through every fiber of their being, pulling them to a particular place. Journeying south along the Usk, they were actually moving farther away from where they had to be, and the knowledge weighed him down with reluctance, even though he knew in his rational mind that it was the only way they could get across the river.

  At the same time he was troubled by a deep unease that he couldn't quite identify. The shadows seemed darker than even this dark night warranted, full of desolate cries that sounded below the threshold of his hearing; and he felt a loathing creep insidiously into his mind that had nothing to do with his anxiety about their direction. It was as if he sensed the edges of a presence, a premonition that something or someone was coming closer and closer. Perhaps, he thought glumly, it was just his fear about what might happen. For he was very afraid, in a way that he hadn't felt since he had been in Dagra.

  They had not gone far when Maerad screamed. The sound went through Hem like a knife. He turned in time to see Maerad, her hands covering her eyes, topple off Keru's back onto the
ground. He scrambled off Usha in a single movement, drawing his shortsword and scanning the night for enemies; but he could see no sign of attack, and there was no sound except Maerad's harsh panting as she lay on the ground, her hands covering her face.

  Cadvan, who was closest, reached Maerad first. Keru was sniffing her rider in simple astonishment, her ears pricked, her nostrils flaring.

  She fell off my back, Keru said, as Cadvan reached her.

  Maerad took her hands from her eyes reluctantly and slowly sat up, blinking.

  Keru pushed her gently with her nose. Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?

  Maerad seemed stunned, and at first did not respond; then she gave a laugh that sounded like a sob, and reached up and patted Keru's nose. No, my sweet, it is not your fault, she said. I just fell.

  Cadvan tilted up her chin and looked searchingly into her face. Maerad met his eyes as if the sight of him were a spar she was clutching in a stormy sea to save her from drowning.

  "So," he said. "What happened?"

  "I just fell off," she said.

  "I have never seen you 'just fall off a horse in a year of riding with you," he said, with gentle skepticism. "What is wrong, Maerad?"

  For a moment his heart chilled, because Maerad seemed to look right through him as if he weren't there. Her face was so pale that her skin seemed translucent; Cadvan fancied that he could see the delicate globe of her skull. Then she focused on his face and blinked.

  "I can't see," she said at last. "I mean, I keep seeing too many things and then I can't see."

  "Is it the dead?"

  Maerad met his eyes, and something within her gaze flinched at his words as if they pained her. "Yes. And other things. I don't—I don't know what they are. Or who they are."

  Cadvan nodded, although he had only the vaguest idea what she meant. The one thing that was clear to him was that Maerad could no longer ride. He thought for a moment, and suggested that Hem ride Keru, while Maerad rode with him on Darsor. Hem, who was watching anxiously, began to talk softly to Keru, stroking her nose. She already approved of Hem, and had no objections to carrying him.

  Maerad said nothing further, and Cadvan didn't press her. Obediently she climbed onto Darsor behind Cadvan, putting her arms around his waist. She breathed in his familiar smell, which was slightly spicy, like pepper, and leaned her cheek against his back. He was the one solid thing in a world that seemed to be falling away beneath her feet. It was such a relief to close her eyes.

  "This way, I can grab hold of you before you fall," Cadvan said over his shoulder as they started on their way again. "In theory, at least."

  "I won't fall," Maerad said, and tightened her arms around him.

  Maerad didn't know what was happening to her. Since she had seen the Black Army marching through the valley—a monstrous killing machine bent on destruction—it was as if something had slipped in her mind. The instability of vision that had tormented her over the past few days was rapidly increasing: she changed dizzyingly from one state to another without reason or warning. One moment she was fearful, the next completely unafraid; in one instant she was acutely aware of everything that moved in the landscape around her, down to the smallest field mouse, and in the next a great black abyss seemed to yawn before her, drawing her in with a terrible gravity and filling her vision like blindness. She had fallen off Keru when she had first glimpsed that abyss: she had put her hands over her eyes in horror, forgetting that she was on horseback. For the first time since leaving the Hollow Lands, she wished she could escape into sleep, but sleep was a place so far away that she couldn't even imagine what it must be like.

  The rational, conscious Maerad was still there, but she was a tiny, lonely figure in the midst of an impending storm; the wind moved in jumps and startles, or suddenly ceased altogether, and an eerie light illuminated everything around her with an almost unbearable clarity. Or then it seemed that it darkened without warning, and sudden, unpredictable lightnings shivered through her being. Through all the bewildering transformations, she felt an increasing premonition of doom. The one thing that stopped her from feeling that she was going mad was Cadvan's closeness. She didn't think at all anymore about whether he loved her, or how much she loved him. She needed him, and he was there, and that was all that mattered.

  The dead still flickered before her, but they were fewer and more fleeting, and almost everyone she saw was afraid or sad or in pain. The lamentation she had sensed earlier had retreated, although she was still aware of it. A greater force seemed to be pushing the dead aside, a presence she could not quite locate or identify, and they fled before it, poor desolate shadows, like dry leaves before a rising wind. Whatever it was, Maerad was quite sure of its intent: it was hunting her, and it wanted to destroy her, to swallow her up in its unending darkness.

  She kept her eyes squeezed shut; if she opened them she felt nauseated, as if she were falling from a great height. Things weren't much better with her eyes closed, but she concentrated on the rough wool of Cadvan's cloak, which scraped her cheek as she pressed her face against it. She could feel his heartbeat and the warmth of his body through the cloth. It was like a glowing hearth in a cold and terrifying world.

  The night was wholly black: heavy clouds concealed the moon. Cadvan led them as swiftly as he dared. Although he had often ridden through this valley, he also feared that he might miss the Usk Bridge in the darkness, and he did not wish to stay near the river a moment longer than was necessary. A light but steady rain began, soaking them through. The raindrops shone silver in the magelight, dropping like cold pearls from their sodden cloaks into the shadows at their feet.

  Cadvan was deeply worried about Maerad. Her light body trembled against him, with cold or something else, and she had not said a word since she had mounted Darsor. She clutched him so tightly it was difficult to ride. He tried to touch her mind, but Maerad was far distant, in some place he did not comprehend, and when he tried to reach toward her, his spirit shriveled before an overpowering sorrow that made him draw tactfully back, uncertain and full of sadness.

  He no longer knew why they were riding through this dark night, or what they would find at the end of their journey. He felt despair creeping into his soul. He contemplated it with cold loathing, as if it were a cockroach that would not die no matter how many times he stamped on it, and turned away. His own personal despair did not matter anymore.

  Hem also felt the distance from Maerad, and in his present anxiety it distressed him. He missed Irc, but even though Irc was too far away now for mindtouching, he was always aware of his slight presence, a dim but perceptible light in the wide and empty wilderness. Although Maerad rode less than two spans away from him, she seemed to him immeasurably farther away, lost in an impenetrable maze of shadows, and he knew that he couldn't help her. He rode as close as he could to Saliman and Hekibel, and while Cadvan and Maerad rode in silence, these three sometimes spoke softly together, making a fugitive human warmth in the cold night.

  They reached the bridge over the Usk in the darkest hours of the night. None of them expected to find the bridge unguarded, and they approached it cautiously. Hem, Saliman, and Cadvan had woven the strongest shielding they could manage, though with a sense of hopelessness. They could conceal their own presences, and hide magelights from prying eyes, but the power that emanated from Maerad was another question altogether. If Hulls guarded the bridge, they did not have a chance of crossing it unnoticed.

  They halted some distance from the road, studying the black arch of the bridge and the shadowy trees that huddled against the river, and the silence around them seemed to deepen, as if something were listening to their approach.

  Maerad stirred behind Cadvan.

  "There are Hulls," she said. Then she gasped, as if she were in sudden pain, and clutched Cadvan more tightly.

  Maerad, what's wrong? said Cadvan urgently into her mind.

  He thought that she wouldn't answer, but at last she did. They hurt,
she said. They are all hurting. They'll never stop hurting...

  Who? Cadvan turned his head, trying to look into her eyes, but she had hidden her face against his back. Who hurts?

  Everything is burning, said Maerad. And the river is red; it's a river of blood ...

  Her voice seemed to be coming from farther and farther away, and Cadvan reached with his mindtouch to bring her back. But she slipped from his grasp, as if she were falling, and then he knew she was beyond his call. She clasped him as if she were in danger of being torn away by some invisible torrent.

  Usk, Cadvan thought. The river of tears. It had been so named when the Nameless One had laid waste to the fair land of Imbral, slaughtering the Dhyllin people without mercy. The Hutmoors was a hard place to be in the best of times; when he and Maerad had last crossed them, it was haunted with an old and irrevocable grief. Now, he guessed, Maerad was feeling this ancient slaughter as if it were happening now, as if it had never stopped happening in all the thousands of years since the beginning of the Great Silence, as if time itself were so deeply scarred that the cries would never cease. He shuddered, and then wrenched his attention to the present. He did not doubt that Hulls guarded the bridge if Maerad said so; but he felt no trace of them at all.

  He glanced across at Saliman, who caught his thought. Hulls? said Saliman into his mind. J cannot feel them ...

  Maerad says they are at the bridge, all the same. But I fear that she'll be unable to help us this time.

  Saliman nodded. The Bards checked their shields; they thought the Hulls could not but be aware of them by now, and they were alert for an attack at any time. Cadvan took the black-stone out from underneath his jerkin, and clasped it hard in his palm, feeling the strange numbness that it spread through his arm. Swiftly and deftly he wove its power into their shield, to deflect any sorcery, and then turned to his companions.