‘I agree. I’ll need my own aquar. And before you object to that remember I’m a Plainswoman and have been riding longer than you.’
He laughed. ‘I can see that I’m not going to win this.’
Poppy was still girl enough to consider for a moment being offended by his laughter, but his smile reassured her. ‘So that’s settled then. I ride with you.’
Carnelian became grim again, considering what they would be riding into, but he gave a nod.
When Morunasa appeared, Carnelian told the Darkcloud to go down and say their farewells to their kin. They thanked him, clearly relieved there still was time to do so. As Carnelian watched them go he was aware of the pressure of Morunasa’s gaze. He felt deeply the part he had played in the disaster that had overtaken Morunasa’s people, but stood his ground. The Oracles were every bit as rapacious as the Masters.
He led the Maruli to where Fern was standing over Osidian. ‘Will he die?’
Morunasa crouched to peer at Osidian’s face. He looked up. ‘After the twelfth day no initiate has ever died, but then none has ever left the Isle of Flies before the maggots emerged. It was only seventeen days after he was incepted that the Master came here. He’s been pushing himself too hard. I can’t be certain what will happen.’
‘When will the maggots emerge?’
Morunasa shrugged. ‘Most likely…’ His brows knitted as he calculated ‘… it won’t be more than fifty days.’
‘He can’t ride like this,’ said Fern.
‘I’ll wake him.’ Morunasa leaned forward to bring his lips close to Osidian’s ear and began whispering.
Osidian frowned, then slowly awoke. He began mumbling. Carnelian strained to make out words. Morunasa cocked his head to listen. His eyes narrowed as if he disliked what he was hearing. As Carnelian brought his face closer Osidian focused on him. ‘Carnelian.’
The look of love Osidian gave him caused Carnelian to draw back, embarrassed. ‘Can you walk, my Lord?’
Osidian stared up into the sky for some moments then, with a grunt, rolled over, pushed himself up and rose unsteadily to his feet.
Carnelian turned to Fern. ‘He won’t be able to walk far. Could you bring an aquar to the foot of the steps?’
Silently Fern moved off while Carnelian and Morunasa helped Osidian.
As they descended the steps the first rays of the sun caught the patchy canopies of the mother trees below. The jade of new cones glowed among the dark brushes. Carnelian felt the fresh odour of resin cleanse his lungs. Hope surprised him, but only served to make him view the Plainsmen below with an aching heart. Hope was a vulnerability he could ill afford.
Fern was waiting with an aquar. When they reached her they helped Osidian clamber into her saddle-chair. They made her rise and led her down through the grove. Crossing the ditch, they descended to the ferngardens where Marula and Plainsmen crowded between the humps of their kneeling mounts. A Maruli – it was Sthax – brought an aquar over to Carnelian. The man gave him a wary look that took in Morunasa. Warned, Carnelian did not greet him. In Sthax’s face he could see neither accusation nor grief. It seemed unlikely that the Maruli knew anything about the cut-down baobabs.
Once mounted, Carnelian could see the Darkcloud warriors mingling among their people. Men clung to their children as their mothers and wives embraced them, faces tight from holding back tears. Carnelian noticed sartlar there too. He had forgotten them. Then he became aware that the men from other tribes were gazing at him, tense hope on every face. They needed to have faith in him and so he put aside his doubts. His smile made them sit straighter. He rode down through their ranks. As he passed, aquar rose with a great din. Across the ferngarden he rode, raising a quaking in the ground as they followed him. He jumped the ditch into the outer garden, hearing them surging after him. He resisted the temptation of rushing speed. When he reached the fernland, he turned to watch them pouring out from the koppie after him, and sped off towards Aurum’s camp.
The perfect geometries of the military camp were an alien imposition on the fernland. It had none of the yielding curves of a koppie. Its rampart was not softened by living trees but, rather, toothed with stakes. Even the morning gleam of the lagoon behind the camp seemed harsh and brittle. Carnelian’s plan to expose himself as bait now seemed childish. The camp was a mechanism devoid of human weakness. He suppressed a surge of fear that any attempt to defy Aurum was madness. The old Master was there at its centre as its directing mind. He must focus on Aurum and not on the terrible power that was an extension of his will.
He began listing what he knew. Aurum would not imagine Osidian had been overthrown. The fire on the Bluedancing crags he would have seen as a sign of Osidian’s defiance. This was unlikely to daunt him. Aurum would be confident he controlled the situation. His legion was in the heart of Osidian’s Plainsman empire. He could now bring terror to bear on the women of the tribes opposing him, on their children. It was only a matter of time before they would yield Osidian up to him. Yes, Aurum would be confident, but not absolutely so. It was not a barbarian who confronted him, but a Lord of the House of the Masks. Such were not to be casually underestimated.
Carnelian saw with what fear the Plainsmen were surveying the camp. Certain that any movement by Aurum would wake alarm in their ranks, he sank his head and tried to enter the Master’s mind. Try as he might he could imagine nothing specific that would unsettle him. Carnelian could taste despair as he began to doubt that even an attack on the render supply would be enough to cause Aurum to abandon his position of dominance among the tribes. Then it came to him: Aurum could have no clear understanding as to why Osidian had risked so much to delay his southward march. It was unlikely he would know about the Upper Reach salt. Certainly, the delay Osidian had won was too slight to allow him any hope of protecting the koppies that were the source of his power. This point of doubt might be a chink in Aurum’s invulnerability. With growing excitement, Carnelian saw that to ride north would be to signal a complete disregard for the dominance of Aurum’s position. Such an act he might regard as typical of Osidian’s arrogance, but he might also see in it evidence of some factor he was ignorant of. Surely this would cause Aurum’s certainty to crumble? Carnelian almost let forth a whoop. He was sure he had him, but he set himself to check his reasoning. So much hung on its slender links. His confidence grew as he found no flaw. Few Masters, Aurum least of all, could conceivably deduce the real reason behind the movement north: compassion. It would never occur to Aurum that any Master, certainly not Osidian, would carry out such a plan merely with the aim of saving some barbarians.
Consternation around him made Carnelian look up. Though too far away for them to make out any detail, Aurum’s camp was coming alive. He pushed his left heel into his aquar’s neck and she veered away from the camp. The Plainsmen began to wheel behind him.
Fern rode up, angry. ‘You’ve not shown yourself to Hookfork. How will he know the Master is with us?’
Carnelian smiled grimly. ‘He knows and he will follow us.’
The sun climbed high enough to steal their shadows. Ahead, lagoons became blinding shards of light. Tramping through the heat had wilted Carnelian’s confidence. His spirit had been wounded by the charcoal breeze wafting from the Koppie as they passed it. Even before then he had been constantly craning round, hoping to see the dust tide of Aurum’s pursuit, but the shimmering horizon remained stubbornly clear.
A cry brought their whole march to a halt. Carnelian turned his aquar. Thick smoke was rising from the direction of Aurum’s camp. He tried to deduce what new devilment this might portend. Then his heart went cold. The koppie of the Woading was on fire. The same realization was spreading panic among the Plainsmen. Before he had time to think, they were mobbing him. Woading fought their way to the front, baying that he had led their people into this disaster. Stunned, striving to calm his aquar, he could give them no answer. Other voices were making themselves heard. They wanted to return. He watched them arguing, shouting,
panicking. Had his plan failed already? If he had given Osidian to Aurum, would he have left? Anger displaced his doubts with a memory of Aurum telling him his uncle Crail had died during the mutilation the Master had insisted on. Carnelian relived Aurum slicing open the throat of a Maruli. Aurum was a monster. Even if he had left immediately for Osrakum with Osidian, he would have made sure to leave behind enough dragons to visit retribution on the tribes.
Carnelian forced his aquar in among the Woading. They turned on him, shrieking. Ignoring their threats he bellowed for silence. The tumult faded.
One of the Woading snarled at him: ‘We’ll kill you. We’ll give you to Hookfork in pieces; you and the Master.’
‘Do that and every single one of your koppies will be set alight.’
One man rolled his eyes up. ‘Father in heaven, but haven’t we heard enough of your threats?’
Carnelian saw the utter despair behind the man’s rage. ‘I don’t know if my plan will work,’ he said. ‘But what choice is there… ?’ He raised his voice. ‘There is no choice. Either we draw the bastard away or else he’ll burn your tribes. He’ll not be argued with and, even if he gets what he wants, he’ll not stop.’
Men gaped at him, bleak-eyed. Several moaned. Tears were blinding them. They turned their backs on him and began to push through the press.
‘Where’re you going?’ Carnelian cried, but they showed no sign they heard. He tried to think what he could do. If they went back to their koppie Aurum was bound to take some of them alive. They would be unable to avoid betraying Carnelian’s plan. Then it would all be over. He glanced around and found Morunasa and the Marula some distance away through the crowd. He could command them to stop the Woading, but that would unleash a bloodbath. Even as he groaned, seeing no way out, his feet were making his aquar slip forward, his hand unhitching his spear. He picked up speed following the Woading. ‘If they return all hope is gone.’
Plainsmen stared at him. He raised his spear, crying: ‘Woading, I will not let you go.’
One of the men turned and went white seeing Carnelian urging his aquar towards him. Other Woading were turning too. One face distorted with rage. ‘Then we’ll kill you now.’ The man’s spear was in his hand. He rode at Carnelian brandishing it. The flanks of their aquar slapped into each other. Their saddle-chairs scraped together. Carnelian ducked and drove his spear into the man’s chest. Both he and the man stared at where the haft sprang from his robe, which was darkening with blood. Carnelian’s anger left him as he watched the man die. Someone was speaking. Recognizing Fern’s voice, he turned. He registered the shock in the faces around him.
‘Let’s give it until morning. If Hookfork’s not come after us by then, we’ll send him a message that we will give him the Standing Dead.’
Everyone agreed they should make for the Backbone, where they might camp safe from raveners. Fern announced he knew a fastness where it had been the custom of his tribe to spend the first night of their journeys to Osrakum. When he described it the Darkcloud gave their support. It was a place they used too.
It was nearing dusk when they reached the serried rocks of the Backbone that rose up from the fernland in a seemingly unscalable cliff. Fern and the Darkcloud found paths winding up into it. Though negotiable by aquar these would be too narrow for a ravener to climb.
When they reached the summits they saw a wide slope falling gently into the west, strewn with black boulders. As the sun swelled raw on the horizon they gathered fernwood for fires. Carnelian helped Fern build theirs among some stunted trees in the lee of the Backbone’s ragged edge. Afterwards he clambered up to survey the road they had crushed through the ferns. Poppy followed him. ‘If Hookfork comes after us he’ll have no difficulty finding us.’
Grim, they returned to where Fern was coaxing flames from a nest of roots. Osidian had clambered out from his saddle-chair then climbed a few steps to slump against a rock face. Swathed as he was in his Oracle indigos, all Carnelian could see of him was his narrowed eyes. On the horizon nothing was left of the sun but an incandescent filament that branded his vision for a while after it had disappeared. The slopes around him were dotted with huddles of Plainsmen illuminated by the fires in their midst. Further out, on their own, Marula in rings. It was Fern crisping djada in the flames that drew Carnelian’s attention back. The smell evoked times he had spent among the Ochre; happier times. His mind turned reluctantly to the fate of the Woading: another koppie that had suffered holocaust. Hope had once more drained away, leaving nothing but sapping despair.
Poppy called him to eat. As he approached she made a place for him by the fire. She talked brightly, trying to kindle some life in them. ‘Are you sure the raveners won’t come at us up this slope?’
Fern shook his head almost imperceptibly. Without looking up from the flames, he moved his arm vaguely. ‘The Backbone here runs unbroken north and south for a great distance. There’s no water west of here and so no herds. Any raveners will come from the east.’
Carnelian read Fern’s look of misery as he looked around him. The last time he had been camping here it had been with his tribesmen, all now dead.
Carnelian’s eyes snapped open. He could see nothing but the black between the stars. Terror clutched his chest. Raveners had been hunting him in his dreams. Tremors in the ground beneath his back. He sprang up. The slope was peopled by shadow men. The earth under his feet was trembling. A murmur of fear breathed up the slope as if a wind through trees. He scrambled up the incline, slipping, reaching the edge of the Backbone on all fours. Hair rose on his neck. The rising moon was almost blotted out by a spined tower rising black from the earth. Other immensities were sliding forward on either side with a dull clatter of brass. Thin light caught on surfaces, on curves, on infernal machines. The chemical reek of naphtha. Dragons!
Carnelian recoiled, expecting the night at any moment to be turned to day by jetting flame. Losing his footing, he rolled, found his feet, stumbled into their fire, sparking embers into the air. A chaos of rushing figures, men, aquar rising, careering into each other. Poppy tugging at him. Fern was shouting. Carnelian helped him bundle Osidian into a saddle-chair. Then he was clinging to another as its aquar began striding away from him. He heaved himself up. The aquar reeled under him like a boat in a swell. He struggled to find his seat. Flailing around with his feet. Toes found the creature’s back. Both soles slapped onto its warm hide. His feet stroked her calm while he scried the darkness for Fern, for Poppy. ‘Here,’ he heard her cry. He saw her mounted, Fern nearby. Osidian was swept past, carried by his fleeing aquar. Carnelian felt his beast’s desire to follow and lifted his feet to let her run unguided.
The moon peering above the Backbone lit their flight into the west. It was the land that slowed them. Its dry watercourses and hummocks made treacherous footing for the aquar. Carnelian’s voice carried through the night. It took a while, but he rallied them; their leaders finding him in the moonlight.
‘The Backbone’ll not hold him long,’ said a voice and was answered by a murmur of agreement.
‘Hookfork has come after us as Carnie said he would,’ Poppy announced.
‘So now there’s no reason we can’t go home,’ said one of the Woading.
Voices rose in agreement from among the other tribes. Carnelian was dismayed. Without seeing a substantial force Aurum would not feel the threat of their northward march credible. ‘Impossible.’
They answered him with growling anger.
‘If Hookfork brings his whole legion against us it’s to match our numbers. Should these noticeably decrease I fear he’ll leave enough dragons behind to devastate more koppies.’
His argument swayed enough of them to encourage all save the Woading, reluctantly, to agree to go with him. The sight of the Woading riding away reminded many of what it was they might find waiting for them at home when they returned. Resentfully they followed Carnelian north with the sullen Marula.
As the sun rose, Carnelian rode up to a spur of the Backbo
ne, unsure whether he was more afraid of seeing Aurum or of not seeing him. Golden in the dawn, the Earthsky seemed innocent of war. Closing his eyes, he drank in its musky perfume.
‘There,’ said Fern.
Carnelian opened his eyes. Fern was pointing south to where the Backbone undulated away to haze.
‘Dragons?’
Fern nodded. They rode back to join the others.
When they reached a break in the Backbone, they rode through onto the plains then resumed their march. North, always north. Shadows moved round until each aquar was treading on her own. Periodically Carnelian would send scouts up among the rocks to reassure himself Aurum was still following.
They visited a lagoon that lay close to their route. Cautious among the giant saurians drinking there, watching for raveners, they filled their waterskins. Carnelian saw in the dancing incandescence of the water a warning of the dragonfire following them. He soaked his uba then wrung it out. As he rode away, its wet cling cooled his skin, but not his anxiety.
As shadows lengthened eastwards they found, high on the Backbone, another refuge known to one of the tribes: a valley that raised a shield of rock against the Earthsky. Once again, with darkness came fear that they tried to keep at bay by huddling round their fires, their aquar still saddled in a ring around them.
Sitting with Fern and Poppy Carnelian could tell that, like him, they were listening with their bodies for any tremor in the ground. It seemed to him better to confront their fear. ‘He intended to take us all alive. Afraid to hurt the Master, he used no fire.’ He gouged a crescent in the earth with a stone. He placed the stone within the curve. ‘He meant to surround us with his dragons. Probably his auxiliaries would form an outer cordon to seal his trap.’
Poppy shuddered.
Fern looked up. ‘He would’ve taken you and the Master and then.. .’
Carnelian watched the flames dancing in his eyes and nodded.
Poppy patted the earth and smiled. ‘It was the Mother’s Backbone saved us. She’ll keep us safe from Hookfork.’
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