The second ditch was as ruined as the first, but when they reached the one that encircled the cedar grove they found that its walls were still held sheer by the roots of the cedar trees. The rampart of the further bank still rose crenellated with earther skulls. The avenue brought them to the opening in that rampart which was still barred by the wicker gate studded with horns, at which a huskman had failed in his duty by letting in the Marula who had sheltered in the koppie and slaughtered the Twostone when they returned from their migration.
Dismounting, Poppy and Krow were first across the earthbridge to the gate. She pushed at the wicker and, when it resisted her, Krow put his shoulder to it and forced it ajar. The two stood for a moment gazing through the gap, then entered the grove. Carnelian followed them, warily, peering up a rootstair into the gloom beneath the mother trees. Hunched, he listened to their creaking. His shoulders only relaxed once he became aware he was searching for corpses hanging.
Poppy glanced at Carnelian then past him. He followed her gaze and saw Fern by the gate.
‘Please come in, Fern,’ she said.
Almost against his will Fern looked towards Krow, who was surveying the grove as if he were counting each tree, each stone. Poppy reached out and touched Krow gently. When he turned to her, she indicated Fern. Krow flushed when he saw that Fern was waiting for his permission. He gave a nod and Fern entered.
The four of them climbed the hill. They passed the funeral pyre the Marula had made to burn their dead. Its scar lay between the mother trees they had mutilated for firewood.
When they reached the foot of the twin crags, Carnelian eyed the Ancestor House nestling in the fork where they met. He knew that its walls, its floor, its roof contained the bones of Poppy’s and Krow’s grandmothers and grandfathers. There Oracles had camped, lighting fires upon that sacred floor.
They followed Krow up a stair to the summit of the highest crag. There among the bare funerary trestles they stood to survey the plain. South the Backbone ran away to a scratch. They widened their search east along the southern horizon. Of Aurum and his dragons there was no sign.
Poppy and Krow sat together gazing into the flames. Carnelian watched with concern. Earlier they had crept off, whispering as they pointed things out to each other. When they had returned they had seemed empty of themselves.
Fern was gazing at them with a father’s eyes. Becoming aware he was being watched, he focused on kneading his hands. It salved Carnelian’s misery a little that, perhaps, Fern was halfway to forgiving Krow. He looked at the trunk of the cedar under whose branches they were sitting. He felt affection for Poppy’s mother tree. This hearth, the sleeping hollows, even the water jar nestling between the roots, were very like Akaisha’s. He could not remember the last time he had felt so much at home. His gaze lingered on Osidian lying near the fire, twitching.
The whole hill was clothed with Plainsmen. Poppy had given them leave to camp beneath the mother trees and to light fires wherever they could find space. She had even allowed in the small number of sartlar who had managed to keep up with the march. Only the Marula and the aquar were outside the protection of the inner ditch. He was glad Morunasa had accepted this without argument. Even had Poppy been prepared to allow the Marula into the grove Carnelian was sure Krow and Fern would not countenance it.
Carnelian pondered what the next day might bring. If the morning did not reveal some sign Aurum was still pursuing them they would have to return south. He blanked his inner sight to what they might be returning to. He would not allow himself to consider failure until he had to. Instead he clung to the hope that, in destroying the render, he had made it impossible for Aurum not to follow them.
Carnelian was woken by a tremor in the ground. He jumped up, certain Aurum had come for them. Embers lit the shapes of Plainsmen panicking. The grove seemed an ant nest breached. He tried desperately to pierce the cedar canopy to look down into the ferngardens, anticipating at any moment that the night would be lit by dragonfire.
He became aware Poppy was clinging to him. Fern was there in front of him demanding to know what they should do. At his side, Krow looked stunned. Carnelian found his voice. ‘We need to quell this disorder and find out what’s going on.’
Fern jerked a nod. ‘I’ll see to the men.’
Carnelian grabbed his shoulder. ‘No.’ He prised Poppy loose, knelt and looked into her eyes. ‘You do it, Poppy. This is your koppie; they’ll listen to you.’ When she nodded he rose and looked at Krow. ‘You too.’
As they sped away Carnelian grabbed Fern’s arm and pulled him off towards a rootstair. Fern broke free. ‘What about the Master?’
Carnelian glanced back to Osidian, lying like a corpse in the glow of their hearth. ‘Leave him.’
When they reached the rootstair Carnelian stumbled up it, pushing his way through the Plainsmen coming down. He was only distantly aware of Fern barking orders. He was focused on trying to devise a plan that might salvage something. What could they do if dragons were coming across the ferngardens?
As he reached the crag, Fern said: ‘Why Poppy?’
Carnelian answered him without turning. ‘She’ll shame them.’
It took them a while to find the steps they had climbed earlier. Carnelian scaled them on all fours so as not to fall. Reaching the top he almost tripped over one of the funerary trestles. Then he was standing on the edge surveying the night. At first he was tormented by a certainty he could see shapes creeping towards them across the ferngardens. Gradually he convinced himself he was imagining it. Then he noticed a flickering circle to the north. Campfires. It was puzzling. ‘It’s too small to be a camp.’
‘There’s another there,’ said Fern.
Carnelian saw another circle to the south. Neither was large enough to be a dragon encampment. He walked along the edge gazing out. When he had made a complete circuit, he turned to Fern. ‘Earlier, when you woke, you felt it too?’
‘Dragons . . . perhaps earthers, though I’ve never known a herd move in darkness.’
‘Raveners?’ Carnelian tensed. ‘The Marula!’
‘The Plainsmen are safe within the ditch,’ Fern said, coldly; but then added: ‘If there was a ravener among the Marula, we would’ve heard their screams.’
Carnelian nodded and returned his attention to the fernland. ‘He must be out there somewhere.’
Fern walked to the edge and gazed down. The din from the Plainsman panic was ringing out into the night. ‘Perhaps he’s waiting for the dawn. You said yourself he wants the Master alive. He’d not risk a night attack.’
Carnelian became lost in pondering what they should do. It would be foolish to assume Aurum had learned nothing from his previous attempt at encirclement. The handover was now being forced on them. Were they far enough north to be certain Aurum would choose to immediately quit the Earthsky with his prize? What about the Plainsmen? Would Aurum let them go?
‘Why did you want me up here? I’d be more use down there.’
Carnelian had a notion. Perhaps he could negotiate with Aurum. If he went in person the auxiliaries would have no choice but to take him to their master. He suppressed sympathy for those men who, for setting eyes on him, would suffer death. Perhaps he might be able to convince Aurum that he had come to betray Osidian. Betrayal was something Aurum might believe. Besides, it was not so far from the truth. Could Carnelian persuade Aurum to let the Plainsmen go by saying it was more likely he would get Osidian alive? It was a narrow hope. Then there was the problem of the Marula. The warriors might let Osidian go; Morunasa would not.
‘I’ll go down then,’ Fern said, his voice tinged with anger.
Carnelian rose, apologizing. It was instinct that had made him bring Fern. He now knew why. ‘Fern, the only hope we have to save the Plainsmen is through you.’
Fern gave a snort. ‘How?’
Carnelian explained his plan. ‘They’ll follow you out of the trap. I don’t know if Hookfork will let them go, but you’ll have a chance to break ou
t. I might even be able to send you a signal.’
Fern’s head dropped. Carnelian waited, knowing he was talking about them separating for ever. Fern looked up again. ‘And Poppy?’
‘Take her with you. I’ll slip away . . . not say goodbye . . . She wouldn’t go with you if I said goodbye.’ Carnelian was surprised he was feeling nothing.
‘And the Marula?’
‘Leave them to me.’
At that moment they heard a scrabbling from the steps and a figure appeared. It was Morunasa. Carnelian’s first feeling was outrage that the man had chosen to defy the ban set on him and his people from entering the grove. His next feeling was anxiety: how much had Morunasa heard? With relief, he realized that he and Fern had been talking in Ochre. Fern was regarding Morunasa with anger, but, since he chose to say nothing, Carnelian decided that, in the circumstances, it was best to let Morunasa’s defiance pass.
Morunasa was surveying the night. ‘Are we surrounded?’
‘I imagine we are,’ Carnelian said. He gazed eastwards. ‘Dawn’s not near yet. We’ve time to prepare a breakout. Go ready your men.’
‘And you?’ Fern asked.
‘I’ll remain here a while alone.’
Carnelian watched them leave before returning to sit upon the rock, where he fell prey to his doubts, his failures and the contemplation of unavoidable loss.
On the summit of the crag, sitting among funerary trestles, Carnelian saw the brightening east. He rose but, however much he strained his tired eyes, he could see nothing of his enemy.
As he waited for dawn others came up, Fern and Morunasa among them. They joined him anxiously watching the creep of light across the land.
‘There,’ cried one.
All eyes followed his finger south to an encampment of men and aquar. Carnelian scanned the land in an arc. The other encampment was there to the north; but of Aurum and his dragons nothing.
As the Plainsmen began arguing among themselves Carnelian turned desperately to Fern. ‘Can you see them?’
Fern shook his head. He raised his eyebrows in a silent question, but Carnelian had no answer for him. He had no idea whatever where Aurum might be. He regarded the two encampments, noting they were equidistant from the koppie. Such a precise deployment had the flavour of a trap. He searched again for the dragons, this time more carefully, seeking out rocks or any fold in the ground where Aurum might be concealed. He gave up, exasperated. A dragon would be hard to hide anywhere, never mind a legion of them and on this plain. He considered that Aurum might have sent his auxiliaries forward to hold them until he arrived. But then what was it that had passed them in the night if not dragons? A saurian herd?
Carnelian gazed north then south. Estimating how far the auxiliaries were from the koppie brought understanding. Their deployment was actually an encirclement. There was no direction in which he and the Plainsmen and Marula could ride out that could avoid them being caught between the two forces of auxiliaries.
One of the Plainsmen confronted him. ‘We leave now.’
His fellows echoed him with much nodding. ‘Nothing you can say, Master, will change our minds. We’re going home.’
When Carnelian turned away, Fern stepped in to argue with them. Carnelian lost awareness of them as he pondered the position of the auxiliaries and the ground that lay between them. East, a lagoon was beginning to burn in the dawn. A breeze seemed to flow from it that was caressing his face with the earth’s musk. As he breathed it, an idea began growing in his mind. He let it blossom. He controlled his excitement as he checked it through. Only then did he turn back to the Plainsmen. The look on his face made them fall silent. ‘If you go south you’ll be caught between them like this.’ Clapping his hands made them blink. He silenced their protests with a gesture. ‘If you ride east there may be a way to confound them.’
If there was doubt in their faces, there was also a wary hope. As Carnelian explained how they could use the Earthsky against the invaders, the Plainsmen began frowning. They looked at each other for support, but none voiced opposition. Fern was looking at him, then he glanced at Morunasa. Carnelian had not forgotten the problem of the Marula. However much Plainsman blood was on their hands, the fate he had in mind for them saddened him. Morunasa had good reason to look uneasy but, for now, he would have no choice other than to go along with the Plainsmen.
As they slaughtered enough aquar Carnelian took Poppy aside to say goodbye to her. He expected tears when he told her that the time for their parting had come, but she gazed at him steadily, saying nothing. So much loss and horror had perhaps made her woman enough to accept the inevitable. When he told her she would be returning south with Fern she gave a slight nod. He felt too numb to kiss her. He was thankful that neither of them cried. Tears might thaw their hearts to grief.
Together they returned to watch the Plainsmen tearing strips from their robes then steeping these in aquar blood. What the Plainsmen did not catch pumping from the creatures’ severed throats soaked dark into the earth.
Osidian’s back arched as he convulsed, eyes rolling back into his head. Fern gave Carnelian a look he understood. There was something in Osidian’s condition that recalled the time they had carried him across the swamp. Carnelian sensed that Fern was seeing an omen in this. He dismissed doubt and crouched to slip his arms under Osidian’s back. As Fern took his feet Morunasa appeared. He looked down at Osidian.
‘They are eating their way out of him,’ he said, pointing.
Carnelian saw with disgust a shape like a finger moving under the skin of Osidian’s neck.
‘It is always the moment of greatest pain . . . and of the deepest communion with our Lord.’
Carnelian made no attempt to keep from his face his contempt for Morunasa’s god. He gave Fern a nod and together they lifted Osidian and carried him to the waiting saddle-chair. When they had settled him in they stepped back and looked at each other. Carnelian searched Fern’s face for feeling and saw only confusion. In a short time they would part for ever, but they had lost the ability to talk, never mind touch. He turned away. Besides, neither wished to make a display of their emotions before Morunasa.
The Plainsmen swarmed across the whole arc of the outer ditch from north to south. Hoping to conceal his intentions from the auxiliaries Carnelian had first marshalled them in the inner ferngardens. Once everyone was mounted they had begun to leap the second ditch and fan out over the outer gardens towards the final ditch.
Carnelian glanced over at Osidian convulsing in his saddle-chair. He had made sure to put himself between Osidian and Morunasa. Around them were ranged the Oracles. Marula formed a wall of beaded, gleaming flesh on either side.
As he saw the last Plainsmen scramble up out of the ditch, Carnelian urged his aquar forward and the Marula lurched into movement. The feet of their aquar drummed a rumble into the earth. He held onto his chair as his aquar stumbled down into the ditch. As she scrambled up the other side, he kept an anxious eye on Osidian being shaken around as if he were a full waterskin. Then they were striding over the plain. Turning, he saw the Marula emerging up between the magnolias. He rocked his feet on his aquar’s back and she picked up speed. He was relieved to see Osidian’s beast keeping pace with his. Ahead, black against the incandescent blade of the lagoon, the Plainsman line was thinning as it widened to shield the body of Marula in its crescent. Fern was there at its centre with Poppy and Krow. Carnelian glanced to his right. Morunasa showed no sign he suspected anything. His yellow eyes trained north then south to where the auxiliaries were moving towards them. Judging their speed, Carnelian gave a grunt of satisfaction. The auxiliaries were not racing to intercept them, but seemed content merely to match their pace. So far so good.
As shadows shortened, Carnelian had watched the two lines of pursuing auxiliaries join. North and south their new line now stretched to match that of the Plainsmen, whose wavefront was separating and reforming around what appeared to be rocks but Carnelian knew to be raveners lazing in the heat.
Soon he and the Marula were moving through this region. He too eyed the striped dark mounds nervously. Fear rippled through their ranks whenever one of the monsters stirred. Carnelian breathed more freely when he and the Marula reached the relative safety of the clear ground between the raveners and the earther herds. He watched the wall of Plainsmen encouraging the earthers to lumber off towards the lagoon. It was their experience with herding the creatures that he had used to justify to Morunasa why the Marula must ride behind the Plainsmen. An earther stampede now could wreck his dispositions.
Satisfied that events were proceeding as he had hoped, Carnelian led Morunasa, his Oracles and Osidian back through the ranks of the Marula warriors until there was nothing but open fernland between him and the auxiliaries. He watched their line being disrupted by aquar shying away from raveners. He chewed his lip. He needed the auxiliaries safely on this side of the raveners. Glancing round, he saw Fern had brought the Plainsmen to a halt. Their line now stretched so far that, at either end, the heat made its thread waver away to nothing.
Carnelian resumed watching the auxiliaries approach. Their commanders probably believed they had their quarry trapped against the lagoon. His heart became a war drum as he watched their line smooth. The raveners were now behind them. He made sure everyone was in place. Death was in his hands as he raised them to comb the breeze flowing over him towards the auxiliaries. Behind him there was a flutter like flamingos taking to flight. Glancing round, he saw the Plainsmen holding aloft red pennants, scarlet and russet banners, all tainting the wind with the iron smell of blood.
The auxiliaries were now close enough for their brass collars to stitch a glint along their line. As time stretched, Carnelian began to fear his plan was failing. Suddenly a section of their line buckled as something forced some riders forwards. Then another eruption at a different part of the line. Two more. Squinting, he saw the dark shapes looming up behind each focus of disturbance. Thinned by the distance, he could hear the screaming of men and aquar. Military order dissolved as more and more raveners, woken by the odour of blood in the air, came in to feed. Raggedly, the auxiliary line fled towards him. He looked round the back of his saddle-chair. The Plainsmen seemed ready to leave. He tried to pierce their ranks to see Fern and Poppy one last time. Of course it was hopeless. The Marula were gaping at the oncoming auxiliaries. Carnelian was getting ready to charge when he noticed Osidian’s eyes were open, staring. He hardly had time to register this before Osidian’s aquar lunged forward. Cries erupted around him. He glimpsed Morunasa’s face, frozen in a silent scream as the whole mass of the Marula began sliding forward. Carnelian sent his aquar after Osidian, riding the thunder of the Marula charge.
The Third God Page 10