Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  Her breasts cut and diced and stuffed into his mouth while she screamed and pleaded and the Ravage beasts giggled as they played with her body, their talons tearing and probing and violating—

  While he slept the agony was real; the blood was wet in his mouth, on his chin, the taste of it on his tongue. The teeth ripped open his belly, the intestines spilled. They forced him to run, trailing his innards behind him over the frost, leaving a bloody furrow behind while Samia vomited and vomited and her vomit was full of baby Ravage beasts that crawled to feed…

  He smelled the vileness of their Ravage glee in his nostrils as he woke, rocked in Samia’s arms, her cool hand stroking his head. Her healing empathy seeped into him with her touch to banish the horror.

  Yet, as always, the respite was only temporary. Worse, her healer’s empathy and her cabochon made his torture her own; he would feel the tears on her cheeks, he would see the horror within the compassion of her gaze. They clutched each other in wordless consolation.

  After the second night of the journey, their spirits weakened, and the shleths grew more irritable. The third night of riding was even worse. The steady pace, essential if they were to arrive before dawn and the melt of the frozen surface, disintegrated into a shambling run, interspersed with a dragging walk that broke the frozen surface and set free a line of dancing sand behind them. Whenever Arrant looked back he could see it, marking their path like dust behind a galloping horse, until the sands succumbed to the cold and fell back to the surface.

  They barely made the safety of the Fourth Rake. The sun was already perched on the horizon, misshapen by rising mist to the shape of a huge red water-filled bladder. The cavorting sand grains, lit by the dawn, were fire-sparks of crimson and scarlet and carmine under the feet of their mounts.

  ‘Cabochon be thanked,’ Samia said as she slid down from the saddle. ‘One more night. Will we make it?’

  ‘Yes, of course we will.’ He knelt and broke the ice on a pool of water for the shleths to drink. ‘We have no choice. The distance between the Fourth and Fifth Rakes is narrower than the others. Or so I have been told. We still have a handful of grain left. And we can give the shleths the rest of our food, if you think you can go a day without anything. Once on the Fifth Rake, Tarran can tell us where to find Raker’s Camp.’ But the prosaic voice of reason told him that the animals were weary and starving and that they had never had the strength of pavilion hacks in the first place.

  She tried to smile. ‘A choice between not eating at all for a day or two, or rubbed raw, skinned and then choked with a throatful of sand? Hardly a difficult decision, Arrant. I’ll starve. For a week if you like.’

  ‘We’ll make it,’ he said, smiling to cheer her, but he knew there was more determination than certainty in his words.

  He lay awake a long time that day. Fear skipped across his mind. Fear of sleeping. Fear of the Shiver Barrens. Memories. The feel of sand against his skin…Grains wriggling into his nose, shredding the skin inside. Pushing under his cuticles, forcing their way into his flesh in trails of fiery pain. Trickling into his ears to thunder against his eardrums. Edging under his bleeding eyelids to scratch his eyeballs.

  Blinding his father.

  And even if they crossed the Barrens successfully, he was going to face the Ravage for the first time in reality, and this time it would be no dream from which he could wake.

  Arrant glanced over his shoulder, but couldn’t see the rake behind. The sky was beginning to lighten, yet when he looked forward, he couldn’t see the one ahead, either. They were halfway. Perhaps. And he knew then—with crushing certainty—that they weren’t going to make it. Not with these shleths. His mount was already faltering beneath him, and only kept its feet because he asked it to, because his necklet warmed at his throat and he and the animal were attuned to each other. He had slowed the pace, but still it fumbled. The shleth would die for him, if he asked that of it.

  ‘Arrant.’

  He turned his head to look at her. Samia. Gods, how he loved her. Her courage, her calmness—her smile. Even now she could smile, the curve of her lips gentle with love, though her tone was taut with warning. ‘Stop a moment.’

  He halted his shleth and so did she.

  ‘Someone is following us.’

  He felt a surge of hope and looked behind, but it was too dark to see anyone, even against the white of the frost. He couldn’t hear anything either, but his shleth was pricking up its ears and had swung its head back as if it sensed something, or someone, behind.

  ‘Arrant, I’m not sure it’s someone who will help. It could be Firgan. I keep getting a wisp of—of a pursuer. A man hunting.’

  His hope plummeted as fast as it had been born. ‘Only one person?’

  ‘I don’t know. Still too far back to tell.’

  He concentrated, using the power of his necklet. ‘Two shleths.’ One person with a pack animal? Or two people without? ‘Sam, if it is Firgan, no matter what—keep riding. You understand? If one of us can escape, he dare not kill the other. Just ride. Get help.’ Useless to tell her that her shleth would not make it. She knew it. But they had to try. No matter what, they must never give up, not until the last breath. He’d learned that lesson.

  She nodded.

  He followed, pushing his fear away, trying to gather all the strands together to give him the truest picture of their situation. They were not on the usual route across the Barrens. If they had been, they would have seen signs of others by now. But they had seen nothing, not even the mark of camp fires on the rakes. They were miles either to the west or east of the usual route. So whoever was behind them was unlikely to be a Magor warrior on his way to the Fifth Rake and the Mirage. This had to be someone looking for them. Anything else would have been too great a coincidence. Someone had spent the day on the same rake as they had. After sunset, perhaps he—or she—had looked for their footprints on the frost. And found them.

  Sarana? Garis? Firgan? Or someone else? No way to know for sure, but Samia’s far-sensing had made her uneasy. If it was Firgan, there could only be one reason—and it wasn’t concern for their wellbeing. Yet if Firgan attacked them now, out here on the Shiver Barrens, he would have little advantage. His cabochon wouldn’t work here, any more than Arrant’s, or Samia’s. His sword would be no more than a cutting blade. But Firgan had a soldier’s experience. And possibly a faster, better-fed mount. He might not even be riding a wayhouse beast, not if he’d found the First Rake camp, and he would never have started out without enough food for it, and a spare mount as well, carrying extra supplies. Firgan would have the speed to catch up with them.

  But would the man really try to kill him? He’d have to kill Samia as well…He’d threatened to do it, although that might just have been to frighten Arrant. ‘Can’t rely on that, though,’ he thought. ‘Maybe he can be persuaded into helping us in exchange for—what? My promise to leave Kardiastan?’

  No. Firgan would never believe that.

  There would be no bargaining. If it was Firgan riding after them, it was for one reason only: to make sure Arrant would never be Mirager-heir.

  Arrant grimaced and called for Tarran. No answer.

  ‘He’s closer,’ Samia said. ‘I think it’s Firgan.’

  ‘If it is, you keep riding!’ he yelled, hoping his urgency would impress itself on her. ‘No matter what. It’s our only chance.’

  He looked back over his shoulder and saw the shape behind him. A man on a shleth, a pack beast on a lead behind. Arrant’s mount was striving to please his rider, but still it slowed, its exhaustion palpable.

  Samia was slightly ahead and to Arrant’s right, when the follower drew level on Arrant’s left. Arrant looked across. It was just light enough now for him to recognise features. Firgan, without a doubt.

  Damn him to a mirageless hell.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Firgan dropped the lead to his pack animal and smiled. Arrant was glad he couldn’t feel the emotions that went with that smile. />
  ‘Ride on, Sam,’ he thought, ‘please ride on. Don’t look behind. Not now, not ever.’

  When the man pulled his Magor sword free of its scabbard, Arrant hauled on the reins to swerve his mount. Firgan moved with him, stirrup to stirrup. And jabbed the sword, not at Arrant, but at his shleth. Arrant dragged back hard on the reins. The animal, indignant, propped as abruptly as it could. Firgan overran them and the blade did not connect. Arrant turned them away still further, dug in his heels and headed off in another direction. Away from Samia.

  Once again Firgan moved with him. Arrant drew his own sword, but a wayhouse shleth was no battle mount, and it was too tired and too weak anyway. Firgan caught up. This time it was Arrant’s sword that deflected the lunging blade.

  On his third pass, Firgan slammed the edge of his sword across the rump of Arrant’s mount. It screamed, the horrible sound of an animal in pain, and stumbled. As Arrant tried to hold it up, Firgan swerved in again and slashed his blade into the delicate throat area at the base of the shleth’s neck.

  Blood spurted, and their forward momentum whipped it back to shower Arrant. The shleth crumpled under him. Far to the left, Samia’s mount faltered at the scream and Arrant saw her white face through the pre-dawn gloom, peering in his direction. He wanted to shout at her to keep going, but he was already falling, tumbling with his beast, trying to kick his feet free of the stirrups.

  He hit the ground and the shleth came down on top of him. For one terrible moment, he thought he’d died. He couldn’t breathe. His chest felt crushed. His arms were paralysed. Red blurs billowed in his mind. Terror that wasn’t his wrapped around his thoughts, squeezing everything else out. He felt pain that didn’t belong to him. And the runes at his neck warmed against his skin. He was sensing the dying of the shleth.

  It struggled to its feet and stood, head drooping, blood pumping from its neck. The alien emotions weakened, and Arrant could breathe again. His arms and legs moved, the terror—not his—faded into lassitude and vanished. His body ached, one big bruise, but nothing seemed broken. He groaned and rose on one knee.

  He stared, and saw certain death: the animal’s, and his own. The blood splashed down to melt the white of the frost; dancing sands escaped and jiggled upwards, washed red with blood. They looked so harmless. A wave of fury broke in his mind, his own anger.

  The shleth collapsed once more. Arrant looked around for Samia, but the gloom ahead had swallowed her. He thought, ‘Keep going, please…just keep going.’ He groped for his sword and his hand closed on the hilt.

  Firgan, still mounted, backed his shleth away to a safe distance. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ he said softly. ‘You can’t harm me with that, Arrant.’

  ‘Maybe I can,’ Arrant thought. ‘Magor magic doesn’t work here, remember, Firgan? Maybe this is the only place in the world where I can use the edge of this blade to cut you open…’ Good reasoning or just a wild hope? He had no way of knowing. For some reason he remembered Favonius. The way the legionnaire had died, asking not to be killed by cabochon power.

  ‘Let me die on your sword then,’ he said aloud. ‘Give me that much. Or are you so much of a coward you won’t even take your chance with an inexperienced bridge builder who has only a blade you have neutered by your hold?’

  Firgan laughed again. ‘So, boy, you are that frightened of the sands, are you? And with good cause, I imagine, having tasted their bite. And having seen your father humbled to become the crippled old blind man that he is.’

  ‘I am not a boy and my father is neither old, nor blind, nor crippled, Firgan. Wisdom can never be blind. Do you think we don’t know how you killed Lesgath? Do you think no one will realise you killed Serenelle? Do you really dream that you will ever step into Temellin’s sandals as Mirager? It will not happen. Even if you strike me down here, now, it will never happen. I know who is crippled here: the man whose soul is so twisted that he would kill his sister, betray his own brother, his own kind, his land. Come, Firgan, show me you can kill me. Prove yourself a warrior. It’s the only thing you are good at, after all.’ To himself, he added, ‘Keep riding, Sam. I’ll give you time if I can.’

  Firgan smiled, mocking. ‘Throw me your knife, Arrant. And then I’ll fight you.’

  Arrant hesitated, his desperation a cold grip ever tightening its grasp in his chest. He reached into his belt and drew out his dagger. It wasn’t much of a fighting weapon anyway, more designed for slicing a hunk of bread than killing a man. He tossed it at the feet of Firgan’s mount. ‘There, does that even it up, you treacherous piece of muck?’ As if the man didn’t have his own dagger tucked away somewhere.

  Firgan gave a command to his mount, which then picked up the dagger with its feeding arm and handed it to him. ‘Not to even up the battle, Arrant,’ he said. ‘This is just to make sure you have no way of killing yourself. You see, I want to know that you die at the hands of the Shiver Barrens during the course of the coming day. You and your pretty little healer. In the most excruciating way possible. Goodbye, Arrant. Enjoy the next few hours. I am sure you will have time to do so.’

  He turned his mount around, looking for his pack animal. And it galloped out of the darkness, passing them both into the grey dawn light ahead. And there was someone on its back. Samia.

  Arrant laughed out loud. ‘Skies, Sam, I love you, you foolish, brave, wonderful woman…’

  Firgan scowled, dug in his heels and took off after her.

  ‘Keep riding, you can do it on that animal. Don’t stop. Don’t come back. Just keep riding, Sam, please…’ But his unspoken words were agonised. Something told him she wouldn’t heed, even had she heard them.

  ‘Promise, Arrant,’ she’d pleaded, ‘promise no matter what happens, we’ll be together.’

  ‘No!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t come back!’ And he started to run after them, his bruising forgotten, legs taking huge strides, arms pumping, sandals scrunching and slipping on the frozen ground.

  He could keep them in sight. The sky was brightening and he could see the jagged horizon ahead: an outline of tortured rock marking the border between the Barrens and whatever now lay beyond it. An hour’s ride away, perhaps. And in less than an hour, the sun would be cresting the horizon. A little later, there would be enough heat to start the sands dancing. She could make it if she rode on, easily. She had a well-fed, well-bred mount.

  And she was already turning the animal in a wide circle to come back for him.

  ‘Oh gods, Sam. Don’t. Please. No matter what you do, you can’t save me. Firgan will stop you. He’ll kill you. Your only chance is the rake and other people.’

  He ran on until he could run no more. Until he had to halt, chest heaving. Near his feet, a bone had broken free of the frost-encrusted sand: a shleth rib-bone. Someone else’s mount; someone else who had fallen within sight of safety. The ache in his heart seemed infinite.

  Then someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  He yelped and leaped away in fright, his hand flying to his sword hilt as he whirled. And came face to face with Samia’s abandoned shleth, scratching at him with a feeding arm. Its rheumy eyes regarded him sorrowfully. If Arrant had been paying any attention to anyone but Samia, its wheezing alone would have alerted him to its presence long before. It panted asthmatically, each breath more gasp than inhalation, each exhale a cloud on the cold air.

  ‘Oh hells,’ he said aloud, reaching up to pat the beast on the nose. ‘If I were to mount you, I think you’d collapse under me. You’re not going to make it to the rake any more than I will.’

  The beast snuffled at him, its nose twitching at his tunic where the blood from its stablemate stained the cloth. And Arrant felt its grief clutching at him in a surge of pain.

  He looked down at his cabochon. It was colourless and quiescent, even though Sam had sealed it before they had left the last rake. His Magor power was not working. And anyway, it should never have told him what an animal was feeling. It had to be his necklet. Quyriot magic. The necklet h
ummed and the runes shivered against his neck. It had saved him last time…

  The Quyriot smuggler had told his mother, There’s stone magic in the runes. Wear those beads and he’ll always understand the beast he rides.

  He looked away again to where Samia was racing back to him. Firgan had turned as well and would cut her off easily. He stared at Firgan. The vastness of his ache to stop the man overwhelmed him—but the necklet had no interest in men. He switched his focus from man to mount. And the runes at his neck burned. He ignored the pain. His mind sang with something ancient and rudimentary and feral. He felt the shleth’s mind and spoke to it. Ordered it to come. Compelled it. Ancient Quyriot magic flowed. The Shiver Barrens recognised it and allowed it to pass.

  Firgan cursed and battled his mount. It reared and fought him. Unaware, Samia came riding up to Arrant and held out a hand to him. ‘We’ve a better chance with two of us on this beast than if you mount that poor fellow I was riding.’

  He took her hand and pulled himself up behind her. ‘Take me to Firgan,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s no great danger to us at the moment, and I need his shleth. We’ll not make it, else.’

  She turned the mount and urged it to where Firgan and his shleth were dancing in a circle as man and beast struggled for ascendancy. He doubted Samia intended to stop though; she was heading for the Fifth Rake beyond.

  ‘Drop me off near Firgan and you head straight for the rake,’ he yelled in her ear.

  Her reluctance expressed itself in the rigidness of her back. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll explain later.’

  ‘I won’t go without you.’

  ‘I’ll be right behind you, I promise.’ When she opened her mouth to object, he said, ‘Sam, you are a healer. I don’t want you to be a party to what happens here. Stop here—this is close enough.’

  She pulled up and he slid to the ground. They were still at a respectable distance from Firgan. She said, ‘Arrant Temellin, I’ll never forgive you if—’