Under Fragile Stone

by Oisin McGann

  ‘Like an earthquake?’ Lorkrin put in.

  ‘No, this is different. An earthquake is a shaking movement that starts in one place and passes through the ground. It happens once and it is over. Like these ones we’ve been having. You feel a vibration through the ground, but the ground itself is only moving because something else is having an effect on it. Krundengrond is almost like a swarm of creatures. Every piece of it is equally dangerous. The soil itself grinds up anything that falls upon it. It is not like swamp, for it can lie over hills and is as dangerous dry as it is in the wet. Only the most skilled and daring men ever try to cross the krundengrond plain that I visited and many of them are killed in the attempt.’

  ‘The Reisenicks think there is some in the Myunan territories,’ Taya said. ‘They were talking about it while we were there. They thought we were living on top of it.’

  Draegar snorted.

  ‘If there were krundengrond there, you would know all about it. And as for living on it, nothing lives on that accursed earth; it would be like living in the jaws of a skack.’

  ‘What would it have to do with Orgarth?’ Lorkrin asked. ‘That’s the god of Absaleth, isn’t it?’

  ‘It was said that Orgarth was the size of a mountain and had a body of iron,’ Draegar told them. ‘He was cast down from the stars and his fall laid waste to the land. Your uncle would probably know more about this. He collects such stories for amusement. You can ask him when you see him. But you have to understand, the Reisenicks know little of the world beyond their own territories. They do not travel …’ He glanced at Pluggitch: ‘No offence meant.’

  ‘No, you have a point there, all right,’ Pluggitch shrugged. ‘We’re all home birds at heart, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘Many of them are suspicious of strangers,’ Draegar went on. ‘They are especially afraid of the Noranians, because they know that the northerners have turned their attention to this land. The Reisenicks can hunt and kill most things in these forests, but in the end they would be no match for the Noranian armies. They make up stories about what goes on beyond their borders because fear of the outside keeps the clans united. And because they don’t listen to much news from the outside, there is nothing to contradict the stories they concoct. You should not take their tales too seriously.’

  ‘They sounded pretty serious to us,’ Taya insisted. ‘And they said other people didn’t know about it, not even that Braskhiam, Harsq. They said all the Myunans would disappear and all the maps would change.’

  ‘Take it from me, child,’ Draegar reassured her, ‘maps do not change overnight; they change over decades … centuries. I have drawn more than most, and it would take more than a Reisenick’s flight of fancy to change a landscape.’

  Taya looked at her brother, who was keeping quiet. Lorkrin idolised Draegar and she knew he would want to believe him, but they had heard Ludditch talking and the Reisenick chieftain did not seem the kind of man given to flights of fancy. He seemed the kind of man who knew what he was doing. Draegar arched his back and groaned.

  ‘By the gods, I’m stiff!’ he said, at last. ‘I suppose we could all do with a rest, but we need to keep moving. Mr Pluggitch, you were telling us about a storyhouse?’

  * * * *

  Taya, Lorkrin and Rug followed Draegar along the trail the morose Reisenick had shown them. The two Myunans wanted to transform themselves and fly ahead, but Draegar would not allow it. The Reisenicks hunted birds in the air, as well as beasts on the ground. The Parsinor was walking stiffly, as if his back were hurting him. The mist wisped through the trees around them, strands of it seeming to catch in the branches. Carkhams croaked to each other, and the children remembered that the Reisenicks used trained birds as messengers and trackers as well as for hunting. Strange animal sounds carried through the trees. It brought Taya back to the eerie room in the roof of the Reisenick meetinghouse and she mentioned it to the Parsinor.

  ‘The Reisenicks put great store in ancestry,’ he told them. ‘Most of their dead are laid to rest in burial grounds, sacred places where even the Reisenicks are not allowed to hunt or build. But the most respected chieftains are preserved so that their spirit will remain to share their wisdom with their descendants. Ludditch will no doubt have all his most important ancestors from the last century in that room.’

  ‘That’s sick,’ Lorkrin wrinkled his nose.

  ‘It is their way, Lorkrin. Myunan ways can seem strange to other races.’

  ‘We don’t stuff our dead, though.’

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t agree with you, lad,’ the Parsinor arched his back and grunted, reaching behind and scratching at his armour as if something irritated him.

  ‘The Reisenicks love the past,’ he went on. ‘They live for telling stories of ancient days. A clansman’s status is decided before he is born, by the actions of his forefathers. The dead are easily explained and hold no surprises. They are suspicious of anything new or different, so the living mould themselves in the image of their dead.’

  ‘Aw, they’re just sounding weirder every time somebody talks about ’em,’ Lorkrin grunted. ‘I’m amazed Uncle Emos ever managed to get through this place in one piece. All we wanted to do was try and reach Ma and Pa and we end up kidnapped, caged, crushed and lost and we’ve only been here two days …’

  He was interrupted as Draegar dropped into a crouch and gestured to them to get under the cover of some low-hanging foliage. They scurried into the shadows and looked up at where he was pointing. In the gloom of the trees above them, something leapt from a branch, throwing itself in a sprawling glide to a tree on the other side of the trail. It was the shape of a weasel, but the size of a tall man, with striped brown and blue-grey fur, a flat tail and powerful, hooked claws on its feet. It glided on two flaps of skin, which stretched down on each side of its body from its elbows to its knees. Even in the quick glimpse they had caught of it, they could see that it wore a collar.

  ‘It’s a hunnud,’ Draegar told them. ‘The Reisenicks use them for running down quarry. They are formidable trackers and savage predators, and they are pack animals. Where there is one, there will be more. I don’t think it saw us, but we were lucky to spot it. We might not be so lucky the next time. We need to move on, quickly.’

  * * * *

  Kalayal Harsq glared at the clansman who blocked the road.

  ‘What do you mean, “we can’t leave”?’

  ‘Orders from the chieftain. He says you got ta stay fer a while.’

  ‘But he told us to go!’

  ‘He’s gone and changed his mind, then, hasn’t he?’

  ‘And what’s made him change his mind, exactly?’

  ‘Says you haven’t finished with your part of the deal.’

  ‘I paid the man! That was my part of the deal!’

  ‘Well,’ the Reisenick shrugged. ‘Learup says you don’t leave, then you don’t leave and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Where is he?’ the Braskhiam demanded. ‘I want to have this out with him. By Brask, I’ll not be treated like one of his vassals.’

  ‘He’s off huntin’ some fugitives, so “vassals” is all you got to have this out with. An’ I’d mind your tone, if you ever want ta see the outside o’ Ainslidge.’

  Harsq motioned angrily to the wagon behind him and the two vehicles reversed awkwardly back up the narrow road to a place wide enough to turn around. From there, they drove back towards the village. The exorcist was careful to hide his concern from his followers. He had slept badly again during the night and the strain of his fears was wearing him down. And now this. If Ludditch was changing the terms of their agreement it could mean anything. Harsq was growing increasingly suspicious about the Reisenick’s motives – there was something else afoot, something he had unwittingly started with his ceremony at Absaleth. Seething with frustration, he glared into the trees. He could feel it out there somewhere, the ghost of the mountain. Somehow, it had escaped him again. He had never known such an elusive spirit, and he co
uld not help but feel respect for a soul that could withstand not just one, but two withering assaults. And that respect was mingled with fear. His best efforts had not defeated the spirit, and he knew that despite the damage he had done it, the thing would be coming for him, looking for retribution. The earthquakes were part of it, but they were only the beginning; there would be worse to come.

  He had to escape this land before the spirit claimed him, but Ludditch meant to get further use out of him and he knew that if he crossed the chieftain, it could cost him his life and the lives of his disciples. He needed to give the clansmen a reason to let them leave, and for that, he needed to know why Ludditch wanted him to stay.

  He climbed down from the wagon as it drew up outside their cabin once more and jumped to the ground.

  ‘I’m going to the tavern,’ he told his driver. ‘Wait for me here. And stay together. I don’t trust these Braskforsaken inbreeds.’

  ‘The tavern, Kalayal? But …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But you don’t drink.’

  ‘No, but they all do.’

  Whipping his robes around him, he strode down to the ramshackle, wood-and-hide building that served as a tavern for the village and swung the door open. The chatter of conversation inside died the instant he walked in, and he found himself being stared at by a dozen pairs of eyes. He walked to the counter and slapped some drokes on the stained, wooden surface.

  ‘Drinks all round,’ he told the proprietor. Then he turned to face the room. ‘And there’ll be more if I get to hear a good story or two.’

  * * * *

  Cullum was in a bad way. The wound in his leg was filled with pus and the leg itself was nearly twice its normal size. The Forward-Batterer’s face was drenched in sweat and screwed up in pain. Emos shook his head and covered up the wound again with the dressing he had prepared.

  ‘This needs to be treated, and by a real healer. I’ve done what I can, but if you don’t get some help soon, you’re going to lose the leg. And if we don’t take the leg off in time, you’ll die.’

  ‘Don’t pussyfoot about. Give it to me straight,’ Cullum scowled.

  ‘My guess is the trap was dirty, probably used over and over again without changing the spikes. The rot is spreading fast. You need proper treatment and there is only one place within reach where you will get it.’

  ‘And let me guess,’ Jube grunted. ‘It’s not on our way.’

  The dark look on Emos’s tattooed face was all the answer he needed. It seemed that everything was working against them. The cave entrance seemed as far away as ever.

  ‘We need to head east,’ the Myunan said. ‘It will take us out of our way, but from there, we can get on another road that will take us in the direction of the cave. There is an old Reisenick woman who knows the healing ways as well as anyone, and she’s not from Ludditch’s clan. She will help for a price.’

  Without another word, they all climbed aboard the wagons. Cullum lay in the back of Jube’s truck, his wounded leg stretched out on a soft, folded blanket. The vehicles started up and he winced with pain as the flatbed shook with the motion over the rough track. They were in a gully that followed the course of a stream down through a narrow valley. The banks on either side hid the vehicles well and would help muffle their sound.

  Emos sat with the Noranian, his eyes on the layers of clay and stone that had been cut away by centuries of water, his mind out in the wilderness, desperately willing the safe return of his niece and nephew. He wondered if Draegar had found them. If so, the wise move for them would be to make their way home, but he knew they would come after him. It was all going so wrong. Instead of saving his sister and brother-in-law, he had led others deeper and deeper into trouble. He was beginning to doubt that Nayalla and Mirkrin were alive at all, or that the fissure they had found had any connection with the tunnels beneath Old Man’s Cave. All their efforts could be for nothing.

  He was gazing up at the bank of earth above him, when he spotted a bright bunch of pink and yellow flowers. He called to Jube to stop and jumped down, climbing the bank and gently parting the flowers to see what lay beneath. There, as he’d hoped, were a number of small snails with copper-coloured shells. He picked up a few and brought them back down to truck.

  ‘What are they for?’ Cullum grunted.

  ‘They’re for you,’ the Myunan replied.

  He picked up the Noranian’s canteen and opened it. The snails had retreated into their shells, but that did not matter. What Emos needed was the slime they used to seal themselves in. He rubbed his little finger in the opening of each shell and then smeared the mucus on the inside of the cap of the canteen.

  ‘Hey!’ Cullum barked. ‘What are you playing at? I have to drink out of that!’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Emos replied, putting the cap on the container and shaking it, so that the water mixed with the snail’s slime.

  He held the canteen out to the injured man.

  ‘The mucus is a palliative,’ he told the Noranian. ‘Try not to think about where it came from, but even mixed with water, this is powerful stuff. It’ll numb the pain, but it’ll numb everything else as well. Just take a bit at a time as you need it, all right?’

  He leaned over and tossed the snails into the grass at the top of the bank.

  ‘Right,’ Cullum took the canteen from him and screwing up his face, he gulped some down.

  ‘Now, you see, that was probably a bit too much.’

  Cullum managed a dismissive sneer before his eyes rolled back into his head and his face went slack. Khassiel, who was using the stop to strip down her crossbow, looked over and chuckled.

  ‘I’ll have to get some of that stuff for when we head back. There’s a few more of the lads could do with having their brains disconnected for a while.’

  It was strange, hearing this implacable woman laugh, and Emos gave her a quizzical glance.

  ‘What’s it like, being a woman in the army?’

  ‘There are no women in the army,’ she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. ‘A soldier is a soldier. We’re all the same.’

  ‘That’s how it is, is it? Sounds very fair…very disciplined.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, the sarcasm heavy and bitter now. ‘It’s very disciplined. Your family gives you up when you’re barely old enough to walk, because they’ve one too many mouths to feed and from there on in the officers can do what they like with you. And they keep breaking you down until they’ve beaten the child out of you and you just can’t break any more, so that they can build you up to be an obedient servant. And so you become disciplined, because it’s what they want. And because you’re a woman, you have to train harder and work more and kick the teeth out of any man who tries to prove you’re weaker than he is – and I mean really hurt him, because if you don’t they’ll all try it on and then you’d just be meat for them to beat up on and there’d be no way out for you, because you can’t leave once you’re in and that’s what it’s like being a woman in the army. So, what’s it like being a Myunan?’

  ‘Easier.’

  They stood smiling slightly at each other. Emos checked Cullum’s breathing and put the top back on the canteen, before looking to Jube, who had grabbed the chance to eat and refuel the wagons while they were stopped.

  ‘Time to be getting on, I think.’

  ‘Aye.’

  They set off again,

  Cullum’s breaths were slow and laboured from the drug; he had a fever and the leg was looking worse. The sick man reminded Emos of the days he had spent nursing his dying wife. He had been helpless then, unable to save her. Now he felt the same frustration as he steered the trucks away from the cave where he hoped to be able to make his way in under Absaleth and find Nayalla and Mirkrin.

  To the north and west, the Rudstone mountains were just visible through the mist, their tops lost in the clouds. Emos gazed bitterly at them for a while, before turning his mind to the more immediate task of keeping Cullum alive.

 
* * * *

  When Noogan saw the shaft of bright light, he started running. There was no mistaking that gorgeous, blue-white light; it was daylight, beautiful, beautiful daylight. Twice, he nearly tripped and fell over unseen obstacles in the passageway, but he did not stop. Behind him, the others hurried after him, crying out with joy and relief. He slowed as he got closer, for the beam of light was narrower than he had first thought and as he approached it, he saw that it was small, the hole through which it shone was barely large enough to squeeze his forearm into. Nearly blinded by the strength of the light, he shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted as he studied the square hole.

  The others ran up behind him, panting with the exertion of their run. As their eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness, they were all puzzled by what they saw. The hole was just the end of a long, thin, square shaft that stretched far up to the surface. They could even smell the fresh air on the other side.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Dalegin moaned. ‘I don’t believe it. There’s got to be something else here.’

  ‘There’s bound to be,’ Paternasse patted his back. ‘We’re almost there. Come on, everybody split up and start looking for a door or something.’

  They all started searching for other signs of a way out, walking further down the tunnel, checking the passages that branched off it, shining their torches on every wall in the hope of finding the outline of a doorway, but there was nothing. No other hint of daylight could be found. One by one, they all returned to the beam of light. They tried screaming up the shaft, but no answer came.

  Dalegin reached up to the lip of the opening, pushing his fingers up into the glow.

  ‘Solid stone,’ he said. ‘There’s no way we could dig our way up.’

  ‘What about you?’ Paternasse asked the Myunans. ‘Couldn’t you squeeze up there, go and get help?’

  ‘No, it’s too narrow and too long,’ Nayalla replied, miserably. ‘We can only crush our torsos and heads down so far. We could never fit up through there.’