by Janny Wurts
From the trestle behind, a grain merchant with basset-hound eyes bewailed his lost profits to hailstorms that flattened a season’s crops. As though a sick miasma poisoned the flux, a drover weighed in, “Two mules lamed from stones after casting shoes on the highway, and a linch-pin sheared at the cost of six shattered wheel-spokes? That much bad luck is unnatural. Ask any man east-bound on the Great Road. Evil’s abroad, and blight rides the haulage forced on us by temple decree.”
“Be silent!” The Sunwheel officer hammered a gauntleted fist on the trestle. “I’ll have no loose talk. Not while my lancers bear arms against Darkness.”
Elaira’s heart skipped a beat in recoil from the resonant flare that surged off the tavern’s slate floor. Mage-sense grasped the spelled pattern that magnified dissent into harmonic sympathy. Likely the Mad Prophet’s patent touch, selectively sharpened by the receptivity of common minerals. Every stone, brick, and sand-grain around her imprinted the carping of hagridden travellers. The massive transfer of troops, and their cumulative roil of angst framed the source that skewed the course of event. Folk bemoaned their ill luck, unaware their distress augmented the rip-tide of mishaps.
While the officer ranted away, the merchant grumbled behind his lace cuff to the sallow clerk seated adjacent, “If Erdane’s examiners don’t fathom the cause, the assault in Rathain may founder before The Hatchet’s companies are positioned to cull the forest barbarians.”
Elaira lost her taste for the inn’s bitter ale, sobered as she weighed the upcoming recoil of righteous back-lash. Added scrutiny by Sunwheel priests redoubled her chance of exposure, a fresh thorn in the quandary given her need to obfuscate the Prime’s scryers. She made herself finish her savourless meal, left the boisterous tap-room, and forwent her comfort to push south. Against drastic risk, she must hazard the distance and reach Davien’s protection at Kewar.
Since a healer’s trade would draw notice, Elaira bought an awl, heavy needles, harness tacks, and wax thread from a tinker. Mending and saddlery peddled on the road provided an innocuous upkeep. Burdened with only a satchel, she pressed ahead into the storm.
The long days dawned under pale summer haze stilled to stifling heat, shimmering through the ochre pall churned up by the ox-drawn drays. Evenings she spent with her fellow travellers, stitching harness or clothing by fire-light. Gleaned conversation provided her only awareness of current events. From caravan traders out-bound from Dyshent, she learned that The Hatchet’s invasion fleet had stranded itself at the fringes of Halwythwood. A foray of lancers became disoriented in Daon Ramon, while supply trains were plundered and wrecked by furtive clan raiders. Against the ill wind of hysterical rumour, the True Sect priests unleashed their diviners. The witch-hunt swept down from Erdane like a grass fire, with all suspect talent condemned to burn, and the hapless populace wont to be stopped for inquisition by Sunwheel examiners.
Elaira kept her head down and sewed, in dread of the prickling chills that bespoke the prying scrutiny of fanatics, or worse, the scrying interest of Koriathain: but none came. That puzzling absence nagged her to concern, stretched over days into worry the sisterhood’s exclusive focus might have prioritized Arithon. Beyond the occasional, startling grue, Elaira’s innate rapport with his Grace remained silent. The withdrawal had extended for far too long. Yet she dared not jeopardize his precarious safety or threaten her own to pursue his activity.
Not while caught in the paranoid fervour stirred up by a True Sect purge.
The zeal to stamp out Shadow continued, spread with the billows of dust that choked the summer trade-road. Sunwheel couriers out-bound from Erdane galloped through, flinging mud clods, while the commonplace traffic scrambled and parted. Carts slewed into the ditches and mired, and an elderly shepherd was thrown from the saddle and trampled when his upset flock scattered. Just another victim mowed down by an armed company on a forced march. Elaira carried no simples to help. She stanched and bound the stricken man’s injuries, then stayed by him to soothe his shocked trauma.
“How many won’t live to come home?” he asked, while the final rank passed them by, and the young dreamers with more bravado than sense chased the rear-guard to enlist, boastful and eager for the Light’s glory. Too many had straw in their hair from tying the shocks of cut barley. As disturbingly ominous, the must of spoiled grain wafted off the fields, where unharvested crops were abandoned to rot.
Elaira had no happy answer but urged the shaken herder not to sell his flighty mare.
“Heed the drovers, they’ll say the same.” Reliable mules were scarce, and horseflesh for harness nowhere to be found. With so many animals taken in tithe by the temple, two stalwart smiths stopped for rest vented their bitter opinion, unasked.
“The cartwrights’ shops are overburdened,” said one. “Worked day and night without pay to keep up with the war host’s allotment.”
The other spat out a chewed grass stem and carped, “We’ve forged shoes and pounded new wheel-rims till our backs ache, no matter the post-houses are stripped of stock. Sound horses broken to saddle or draught are scant on the market at any price.”
“Our hostler’s stuck harnessing swaybacks and plough mules,” chorused a liveried groom, bent by the wayside to buff his caked boots, while a subordinate watered the lathered team for the public coach en route to Falgaire.
Everywhere, from tavern tap-rooms to the smoky fires where sunburned women brewed tea for the caravans, travellers bemoaned the short-falls inflicted by stalemated war.
Elaira stitched worn leathers and broken straps, listening, her eyes etched with crow’s-feet by the summer glare as her snail’s-pace progress hugged the coast. Flushed in the sweltering heat, she approached the choke point at the southern border, where old law customs still governed the segment of road that looped briefly through Havish. Traffic stopped. Folk clumped by the roadside, sweating through the hindrance. Their unease was justified: Tysan’s soil hosted a troop of white dedicates, kept armed in fractious readiness. Across the dusty scar of the road, more slit-eyed watch-dogs in Havish’s crown blazon all but breathed the same air, stewed jumpy by boredom.
Nerves stretched to short tempers, while the indigo shadow of East Bransing’s walls swathed the disputed landscape each morning. Bay-side, the port seethed with True Sect steel, on guard and overkeyed with anxiety.
There, footsore under the parched blaze of noon, Elaira encountered a Koriani hospice pavilion pitched outside the brick arch of the landward gate. This far removed from the battle front, a sisterhood presence would not be tending the wounded. The town had been sealed, with all passing traffic subject to tightened scrutiny.
Elaira stalled at the verge. Palms clammy, she surveyed the hubbub, noisy with restive animals and the curses of nettled carters. Somewhere nearby, corpses had been burned: either Daelion’s toll of corrupted dead or condemned flesh cut down from the gibbet.
If the latter, a busy Sunwheel examiner also pinned the region under the Light of the Canon. Elaira joined a cluster of country matrons, pink and moist as hams, as they rested through the inconvenience. She broke out hard cheese and bread and chewed, deep in circumspect thought. Soon enough, the idle conversation around her revealed that a True Sect mandate had closed the east-bound road.
“The way’s unsafe, uncanny and haunted,” explained a chipper granddame swathed in a shawl. Still vigorous despite her shortened breath, she accompanied a plump younger relative in a tired calico dress. Wilted under the burden of a cherubic babe in a basket, the woman abandoned her harassed effort to calm the whiny toddler tagging her skirts. But the smile turned towards Elaira was friendly. “Given the malfeasance of Shadow’s abroad? The Light’s soldiers are vigilant. No one’s permitted to pass without challenge.”
“And the affliction here?” Elaira offered a morsel of cheese to mollify the fretful child. “Is the town pestilent with fever as well?”
The elder wheezed derisively through yellowed teeth. “The town’s teeming, truly, but not beset. Stranded f
olk have the dock-side quarter packed full. The rich leave by galley, while the rest fight the mob for an open deck passage. No one in residence has succumbed yet. Only the Light’s dedicates, sent back from Rathain. They say Halwythwood’s poisoned. Accursed by Shadow, goes word from the priests. Men encamped by the forest come out laid low, tainted by black arts and illness.”
Elaira’s surprise was miscalled as fear.
“The temple’s examiners have stepped up the burnings,” the matron was quick to qualify. As her child subsided to sniffles, she added, “Mostly to clap a lid on the panic. Gives some terrified folk reassurance to witness the purges.”
Elaira gestured to ward off evil, an acceptable pretence much safer than truth: in fact the malaise of the men surely stemmed from their own disaffection. The Hatchet’s intrusion brought town-bred ignorance. Taken into the heightened flux of the free wilds, where cause to consequence quickened, the confluence of their aggression would sow unsettled dreams, then unlucky accidents and cumulative outbreaks of raving and sickness. The resonant shock gathered force with exposure, perhaps tweaked for the worse by Dakar’s subtle tinkering, or the ripple effect of Asandir’s warding.
Hope withered, that Elaira might slip through unremarked, then abandon the road for safe passage across the fast deeps of Halwythwood. Daunted by the hurdle she faced at the border, she repacked her satchel and mustered the brazen nerve to move on.
Hoof-beats and the purposeful jingle of steel hushed the female chatter around her. Elaira glanced up, doused by sudden shadow as a half dozen dedicate lancers reined in. They were armed. The wolfish fellow at the fore barked an order that lowered their pennoned weapons. Then he tipped back his helm. Older than his cock-sure manner suggested, he surveyed the cluster of women detained by his grinning subordinates. A flicked glance dismissed the asthmatic granddame. His interest passed over the children, then measured the rest as though sizing up beef.
“That one!” His decisive nod ear-marked the sturdy matron.
“You’ve no right! I won’t go.” The basket with the infant clamped to her breast, the woman stood firm and clutched her bewildered toddler. “Who’ll look after my children?”
“The weans have their granny.” The officer signalled his right-hand man to dismount and hand off his horse. “Must we prise your offspring away by main force?”
“Whoremongering snake!” The woman spat. “I’ll be warming no beds! Not though you promise the Light of salvation.”
Ribbed by amused comments from his comrades in arms, the lead rider curbed his restive gelding. “Dame, shut your yap! We’re upright husbands, not lechers. Nobody’s hunting for trollops, besides. Our troop captain’s sent us recruiting because we require a laundress. You’re fit for the post. Now take leave of those bairns and get packing!”
The hefty woman dug in her heels. As her panicky children started to wail, the footbound lancer reached for the scruff of the toddler latched to her side.
Elaira thrust herself in between. “I’ll go instead.”
The challenged man recoiled in testy surprise. “Will you so?” His contemptuous stare raked her. “Woman, you’re scrawnier than a plucked hen!”
Elaira returned the glare of a trained Koriathain, which ruthlessly analysed everything. “Besides washing, I can stitch cloth and mend harness. A skill that’s deficient in your slackers’ camp. A sharp superior might forgive your frayed seams, but the lot of you ought to be whipped for the untended wear on the straps of your armour.”
Which tart critique raised the dedicate’s eyebrows. “And you’re not a rag-tag beggar yourself, besides lacking the muscle to wring out a dandy’s silk shirt?”
“Irregular meals haven’t helped,” snapped Elaira. “You want proof? I carry trade tools in my satchel.”
The lead rider shrugged, unimpressed. A clipped gesture remanded his lancer. “Carry on.”
Elaira moved first and grabbed the nearest man’s levelled spear. Braced hard, she yanked with a vengeance. The dumbfounded brute gripping the pole weapon tumbled out of the saddle and measured his length. His startled horse bolted. Amid shouting confusion, Elaira jumped on his kidneys and yelled at the matron, “Go! Get away. Take your children and run!”
Before the pinned rider’s outrage dislodged her, she received the back-handed brunt of the captain’s gauntlet. The blow hammered her down from behind and up-ended her into nothingness.
Awareness returned to ringing ears and the throb of a battering headache. “Light above, you’re lucky I’m not tending a corpse.” The speaker’s calm hands bathed the clotted bruise beneath Elaira’s hair with tepid water.
“Sadly not.” The enchantress groaned. “My skull’s split.”
Swimming vision dazzled her with a taupe view of overhead sun through seamed canvas. The lidded air smelled of greased leather, mildew, and pungent sweat. Miserably nauseous, she tried to roll over.
“Be still!” The chiding female was not without sympathy. “What brainless folly led you to brangle with mounted Sunwheel recruiters?”
Elaira let jellied weakness defeat her effort to sit up. Outside, someone’s cheerful whistling broke off to a surly order. A horn-call, muffled with distance, suggested the industry of the Light’s war camp, shortly confirmed by the brisk rattle of steel, male complaint, and the unison thunder of drums that accompanied a phalanx of marching feet. Elaira’s queasy focus returned to measure her care-taker. Surprised, she said, “Why didn’t you run?”
The mother from the roadside paused, blew her nose, then tossed her cloth compress with a vehement splash into a nearby bucket. “Where could I have gone chased down by armed riders? Before you ask, yes, my wee ones are safe. I left them with their granddame.”
“I’m sorry.” Elaira shut her eyelids against the pound of rushed blood through her brain. She pulled a deep breath, which did nothing for the torment that savaged her temples. Her wrists were not bound. The hand she raised to explore her bashed nape was caught short by the matron.
“You have a bruise like a hen’s egg, but no cracked skull, if the troop surgeon here knows his business.”
“He should, though no thanks to the clumsy muscle wielded by the Sunwheel rank and file.” Though the fact she recovered on an officer’s field cot meant the lancer’s assault had not aimed to kill. Dogged, Elaira pursued, “They wanted you for service as a laundress. After the press-gang, we’re not in chains. Perhaps the captain’s not lacking all decency?”
Encouraged, her fellow conscript talked freely. “The fellow admired your provocative spirit. Said you’ll be kept as his personal drudge if you’ve the gumption to shoulder the labour.” She added, “The wax thread and tools in your satchel also confirmed you pursued an honest trade.”
Elaira snatched in alarm for the less obvious valuables hung from her neck. The fast move clenched her stomach. Curled, miserably retching, she fought panic, while the matron’s kindness reassured her. “The Light’s dedicates are not undisciplined rogues. They searched your belongings but left your coin. None of them rifled your person. Your dignity was respected the moment they saw the Sunwheel token.”
Elaira stilled, breathless. “What?”
“The disk you now wear was my mother’s,” the woman explained. “She reached your side before anyone else. Her sly gift went unnoticed, she made sure of that by the ruckus she threw when you fell. She even kicked the shins of the lancers ordered to pull her away.”
Elaira lay back, bathed in unquiet sweat. Her shaking touch fingered the brass amulet pinned at her breast. “Why?” she whispered, touched. “How under sky did the goodwoman guess I wasn’t a follower?”
The matron swiped moisture off her damp cheeks, her generous heart apparent despite the pouched eyes of raw grief. “Well, you stood up for my family, when no one of faith protested the Light’s authority. The True Sect devout sometimes kill unbelievers. Likely, she wanted no blood on an upright man’s hands for our sake.”
Elaira swallowed. “I owe her a debt I can never
repay.” For her straits in the enemy camp were not desperate, employed as an officer’s servant. She might evade notice, masked by bumpkin stupidity, as long as she kept to herself and ducked the boisterous men on the prowl for a wench in the blankets.
The troubled eyes of both women locked through a moment of sober assessment. “You wanted to be here?” the matron said, shocked.
“Maybe,” allowed Elaira. “Fortune’s cards might be turned to play in my favour.” A camp-follower in The Hatchet’s armed troop could find a legitimate passage across Instrell Bay to Rathain. “Whatever befalls, I will watch your back, if you’d have the friendship of a chance-met stranger.”
“One who doesn’t embrace the Sunwheel Canon?” But the matron’s shrewd comment belied any threat. “I’m called Liess, and my mother’s token stays with you for as long as you need it.”
Past solstice and into the stifling days of late summer, all of the north seethed under the impact of the True Sect war. Fires blazed across Tysan. The Plain of Karmak brooded, dappled in smoke, where Sunwheel companies kindled the heath to drive Orlan’s displaced clan enclaves into the open. By turns the chased fox and the blood-letting weasel, Saroic s’Gannley harried their lines, his genius for evasive retreat and covert strikes become legend. Where the temple expounded on virtuous good in reward for relentless trials and set-back, The Hatchet’s pragmatic strategy applied steady pressure to keep his elusive antagonist on the run.
“The clan’s fighting strength was well broken when we gutted the warren entrenched at the Pass of Orlan.” A dismissive glower, a shrug, then the sidelong gleam of bared teeth. “What’s left to mop up but the fugitive dregs? They’ll have no chance to stockpile provisions. Keep them hopping, and next winter’s privation will finish them off with minimal losses.”
Which laconic efficiency brought the Light’s best strength to bear on the greater clan presence entrenched in Rathain. The towns used for staging suffered the scars, with the croft-lands at Narms and Morvain gridded with encampments, and commerce choked under troops and supply the length and breadth of Rathain.