Ask the chicken if it admires the fox, old man.
Ten years on, he frames the argument he had never used because he didn’t think of it at the time. Understandably: eight-year-olds make poor philosophers. And besides, a fox kills because it is in its nature. Only men kill when they have the choice to be merciful.
Sometimes when he closes his eyes, he can still hear the cries, see the flames rising from the doomed building and the warriors of the Tribe standing around it, fire reflected in their feral, staring eyes, the hysteria in their faces settling to an inhuman emptiness, as the farmhouse flares and the people inside die screaming.
Lying under the bush, cloaked in its leaves and hidden by midday shadows, he measures moments of his own, watching the line of the fence as it disappears in the distance, over the curve of an old hill. The wires glint in the sunlight, hair-thin. No barrier at all, it seems, but barrier enough, for built astride the fence at intervals of 2000 paces stand the Towers. And the Watchers scan the fence-line for signs of movement.
Few in the Wood are bold enough to risk the vigilance of the Watchers.
Bran stares at the Tower, its roof and platform visible in the distance, awaiting the signal and the small window of opportunity it affords.
A bee hovers noisily near his head. Alighting on a small red blossom, it begins its work in silence. Deep in the forest behind him, something bigger disturbs the undergrowth. He sends out a questing thought and touches the plodding wombat mind. The creature is unaware of his intrusion. It is aware only of the scent of a mate, a hundred metres farther on between the trees.
His consciousness is tuned to the thoughts of the forest, the symphony within the silence. He draws a breath and holds it, damping with an effort of will the tiny instinctive fear-patterns of the family of field mice that quiver a few centimetres from his elbow. Gently, he sends out a wave of calm, bathing the nest with a security that stills the fear. Then he sees it. A thin plume of smoke snaking into the sky beyond the Tower to his left and the glint of sunlight on glass, as the lens is moved to cover the diversion. To his right, another grey column rises and he waits for the reflection of light on glass.
There. He smiles.
Alek and Reggie have done their job. Even now, as the Watchers in both Towers turn their lenses on the fires, they will be melting back into the forest and safety.
He readies himself.
Between the bush and the fence-line runs a road of beaten earth, ten metres wide, sun-cracked and straight as a plumb line, stretching away into the heat haze. Lying in the grass at the edge of the road, he listens and sends a probing thought along it, then he rises to a crouch and sprints across the open space towards the green of the cornfield.
At the last moment, he leaps for the solid fencepost, grasping the top and flipping his legs high above his head. He clears the wires, twists in the air and lands knees bent among the towering stalks. For a moment, he is still, probing the silence. A rat pauses at the disturbance, then continues gnawing on a fallen cob. A snake slithers away between the stalks to the safety of its hole. Wind rustles the brittle corn-fronds above his head.
His heart is racing. Breathing in, he closes his eyes, shutting off the flood of adrenalin and slowing the beat, as Carlin once taught him. Then he stands, draws the sharp knife from its sheath on his thigh, reaches into his loose tunic for the thin woven sack and begins to harvest.
The heads of corn are heavy and ripe. They drop solidly into his hand and then into the sack, as the knife flashes.
In a few minutes, the sack is full and he is ready to go. A jack-sparrow hangs sideways on a leaf above his head, twittering mindlessly. He imitates the bird’s sound and approaches it gently, soothing its sudden fear with a thought, reaching up to touch the soft down of its tiny neck. Wings flutter, but it settles and remains, its fragile body lighter than the breeze.
Suddenly it tenses, then springs into the air, its wings a blur against the green, as it flies away between the cornstalks, leaving in its wake a lingering pinprick of fear.
And then the fear becomes his own, as he hears the sound that the bird’s more finely tuned senses had detected seconds earlier. The sound that freezes the blood in his heart and paralyses his limbs momentarily.
Hooves on the beaten earth of the road and the sudden baying of a hound.
He probes the approaching threat. A single horseman and a hunting dog. A boundary-rider, returning from the south, a brace of rabbits and a small wallaby hanging from the saddle-horn, and a loaded gun in the pannier.
Stay still and hope they pass? The dog has caught his scent already. The baying is the call of the hunt.
Make a break for the Wood and attempt to outrun a galloping horse?
Sure.
Run deeper into the cornfield where the horse cannot follow, and hope to evade the patrol that will inevitably arrive? No one evades the patrols. They will quarter the field and move together, trapping him.
Choose your ground and make a stand? The horseman has a gun. What chance would –
A sudden idea forms in the fog of panic that is slowly overwhelming him. He breathes in deeply, and concentrates on control. His heart slows, his mind clears.
He picks up the sack, hefts it over his shoulder and moves towards the fence, unsheathing his knife as he goes. At the fence, he swings the knife three times, severing the thin wires, and steps through onto the road.
Part of him knows what is already happening. In both Towers, his presence on the road will have drawn the attention of the Watchers, and the flagmen will be signalling to alert the patrols.
Semaphore. The secret language of the flags, which Carlin taught him late at night, by candlelight, from the pages of the book in which he kept all his most treasured knowledge. Scraps of wisdom copied painstakingly from the ancient books that members of the Sect spent their entire existence collecting, restoring and protecting. He has watched the flags many times from the safety of the covering forest, reading the meaning in the crisp precision of their movements.
– Knowledge, boy. It robs the unknown of its mystery. There is no magic in the world of men. Only that which still remains to be explained—
There is no magic.
But there is danger and if his plan is to work, he will have to face it head on.
He walks deliberately towards the Wood, the sack slung over his left shoulder, the knife still grasped in his right hand. As he walks, he sheaths it, buttoning the clasp. He is Esper, and Esper do not kill, except as a last desperate resort.
The hoof-beats are growing louder as the horseman approaches. Bran steals a glance. The man is maybe 30 metres away, with the huge dog bounding beside him. He is reaching into the pannier for the gun.
‘Hey, you!’ The harsh dialect of the serving class. ‘Stop, or I’ll put a bullet in you! Baron!’
At its name, the dog bounds forward. Fifteen metres separate them now, and the horseman draws rein, watching with malicious joy, as the hound closes on the quarry, baying its hunting call to the clear sky. As the dog leaps, Bran grasps the neck of the sack in his right hand and swings around in a full circle, catching the animal in mid-air with the full weight of the stolen corn.
The impact jolts the sack from his grasp, but the dog tumbles, yelping and winded to the ground. It regains its feet, but watches him warily. With part of his mind, he reads the wave of canine fear and anger.
And suddenly a response is triggered. Obedience to the alpha male. The dog drops to its belly, tail twitching nervously, forepaws outstretched.
The horseman raises his gun. ‘Damn warlock! Bewitch my dog? Well, bewitch this!’
Reflex takes over and Bran spins around, to catch the look of hatred in the rider’s eyes, and the fear emanating from deep in his mind. But the thought is already on its way, aimed, not at the man, but at the beast on which he sits.
The horse reacts to the te
rror that washes through it, rearing up, hooves flailing, as the bullet flies wildly into the trees and buries itself in the flesh of an ancient trunk.
The man has no time to react and, even as his fingers tighten on the reins, his knees lose their grip on the horse’s flanks and he tumbles backwards from the saddle, cracking his neck with a sickening finality. A brief searing wave of pain, then he lies unmoving on the road, eyes staring vacantly into the blue of the perfect sky.
Bran takes a step towards the body, but he knows it is hopeless. All thoughts ceased at the moment of impact.
The sound of horses approaching breaks the spell. With a final glance back at the body on the road, he turns and heads for the safety of the Wood, picking up the sack as he passes. He moves swiftly, but he does not run. The forest is close by and the horsemen will not follow him among the trees. Even the Guard fear the traps and the pitfalls that await them in the domain of the Esper.
At the edge of the tree-line, he looks back along the road. The first of the patrol have crested the rise and he sends out a probing thought. They have seen him, and the lead rider spurs his mount on, even as it dawns on him that he is too late.
Bran flinches at the wave of rage and hatred that sweeps towards and over him as he turns and steps between the trees.
The dog stays a moment longer, watching the horsemen approach, then it rises from its haunches and follows the Stranger/Master into the shadows of the WildWood.
7
Fe’ls
The Settlement
December 8, 3382ad
LEANA
‘C’on, Freak. Get up. Now!’
Nem pulls the dog skin from around her and throws it behind him. It lands in the muddy pool at the centre of the hut.
‘Five minutes, or y’ll bloody know ’bout it.’
Then he is gone.
Leana feels no emotion. The beatings and the deprivations have hardened the part of her that once knew fear. Even the thought of dying holds little terror for her.
Ten years of survival as a captive Esper have meant living two lives.
Her outer life is the scant existence of the slave, doing the bidding of Tomas or Nem, reading thoughts for them, testing Tribal loyalty, scouting the Fe’ls, or riding point on the rare occasions when they take her on a Farm raid.
It passes over and around her like a succession of dream images. It cannot touch her inside, where she lives. Behind the Shield, she lives her inner life, which keeps her from losing her mind, like old Madoc.
The inner life is a seamless story, forever made and remade; a journey that takes her far away beyond the dank walls of her hut-prison, back to the forest of her birth and her people.
In the world of her imagination, she is free. It is a tangible world, with a beauty far more real than the brutality and primitive violence of the settlement.
She bends down and picks up the soiled dog skin, shaking it to dislodge the water. She lays it across the windowsill to dry it, then turns to leave the hut.
Tomas the leader has summoned. Nem the enforcer has delivered the directive.
Leana the slave will obey.
All across the settlement, the Tribe is stirring, while in the forest of her mind, birds sing in the silence and the dew hangs from drooping leaf tips.
‘No-go Zone’
Old Bourne
December 9, 3382ad
Seen from the top of the hill, the ancient ruins stretch out to the horizon.
This time, the raid is a hit-and-run – a small armed force, mounted on the settlement’s fastest horses, aiming for the weak northern flank of the Fe’ls’ sprawling territory, just inside the no-go zone.
Unlike the larger operations, which can see most of the settlement involved and often result in pitched battles, this is designed as a swift strike.
A timely warning, delivered without mercy, to remind the ruin-dwellers of their rightful place in the order of things.
Tomas rides at the head of the raiding party and sings silently to himself. For once, he is truly happy. With the promise of battle and the chance to prove his mettle once again, he feels alive.
Of all the Clans, the Fe’ls are the most unpredictable.
Spawned among the ruins of the great city, they are barely human, but that is what makes them dangerous. Fe’ls have no respect for boundaries, or treaties. Force is all they understand.
Or so Tomas believes.
An animal does not respect you, but it can be made to obey, brought to heel through force and timely punishment. It is the reason for the raid. A warning that even the Fe’ls will understand.
But it is a calculated risk. A small force must strike swiftly, and retreat before the Fe’ls’ leadership can muster its forces and respond. And this is where Leana comes in.
She sits astride a small horse at the head of the raiding-party, scanning for activity ahead. A lone Fe’l, who might raise the alarm. An ambush. A sentry, set to watch the boundaries.
At a safe distance, Leana can sense them. It is this talent, more than any other, which has kept her alive all these years, despite Tomas’s mistrust and Nem’s undisguised hatred.
‘Time t’earn yer keep, Esper.’ Tomas materialises beside her, staring out over the ruined landscape. ‘Find me a camp. Sooner’s better we gets this over wit’.’
8
Echoes
The Forest of D’nong
Northern Perimeter
Bourne Region
December 9, 3382ad
BRAN
‘Stay, boy!’ The whispered command is accompanied by a silent imperative. The huge hound stops in its tracks and lowers itself to a prone position, its eyes fixed on his. For a moment longer, Bran hesitates. Then he turns and crawls on hands and knees between the two close-set bushes that screen him from the open field beyond.
The sun is halfway down the western sky and the moisture in the air from the approaching drizzle refracts its light in a near-perfect rainbow, but he barely notices. She is there again, sitting with her back against the stone of the old wall, drawing in a large sketchbook on her knees.
Her horse is tethered a few metres away, grazing negligently, and her guards watch from the shade of a copse of trees 50 metres distant, banished from her presence with a sharp look and a whispered command.
Defiant she is – and brave, with rebellious traits quite unexpected in one spawned by the Families.
Silently, he scans the surrounding area for signs of movement, for unguarded thoughts that will betray a threat, but the only thought-lines are those of the watching guards and the ever present undertones of the creatures inhabiting the Wood behind him.
It is not the first time he has hidden to watch her and he knows the risk he is taking just being here, but he is drawn to her – as he is drawn to anything that breaks with the dominant patterns.
– We learn nothing from observing the obvious, boy. Carlin’s words, from an afternoon much like this one, spent watching a hawk trace lazy circles, while a ten-year-old novice learnt the art of reading the field – the subtle threads of creature consciousness.
– If you aim to tease the meaning from the myth, Bran, you have to look beyond what is there to be seen. Seek out whatever is different and unpredictable. The Truth, if you have the wit to find it, is written in the margins, in the spaces between the words, between the lines. The world looks at shadow as the absence of light, but sometimes it is only by looking into the shadow, studying its fall, that we can identify the nature and the source of the light that gives the shadow its meaning.
She is humming to herself, sketching the single stunted tree that stands near the boundary wall of the field. As she –
What?
The sudden angry mind-tones of a party of Fe’ls, as they move into sensing range.
They are far from home and bent on murder and the
y are coming fast. He wants to warn the men still lying at ease under the trees, but it is pointless. The Fe’ls are almost upon them and if he calls attention to himself, it will focus attention on her too.
With an explosion of yelling and the crash of armed bodies through the undergrowth, they are upon the Guards, who struggle to make their feet and face the sudden threat.
The girl is up on her feet, terrified, but she has the sense not to scream, as the one-sided battle plays itself out. Then it is over. The last Guard falls and the leader of the Fe’ls lets out an animal cry of victory across the silent field.
The girl’s horse snorts and whinnies and the leader turns towards the sound.
She is exposed. Before she can dive for cover behind the rough stones of the wall, the man screams an order and the other Fe’ls cease celebrating. Another growled command and they are running towards her.
For a moment, the horror of what she has witnessed has frozen her will. Bran can sense her fear and knows her fate. If they capture her, she will beg for death all night before her wish is granted. But if he tries to save her –
Beside him, Baron has tensed, yet he does not move.
Suddenly, the panic in the girl’s mind is replaced by a cold almost-calm. She casts around, looking for an escape route. The horse, spooked by the triumphant Fe’ls, has galloped for the far end of the meadow and the approaching men spread out, cutting off her options.
Then, she is running, towards a shadowy gap between the great trees.
A trap.
She does not know the Wood. How could she? She is Family and, for Family, safety is the driving instinct. They never stray beyond the boundaries of the known.
And the Wood is the unknown.
She runs towards the gap in the hope of escape, but the choice will seal her fate, for a few steps beyond the sentry trees, the thick grass of the clearing masks one of the Espers’ pitfalls, a deep rectangular hole. Its sides are lined with sharply pointed sticks, angled down, so that the unwary intruder can tumble in unharmed, but find it impossible to climb out.
Dreams of the Chosen Page 5