Carnelian could see how much Poppy wanted to believe that. It seemed strange to him that the Plainsmen should have an ancient fear of the name Hookfork. Could this really be a memory of some Lord of House Aurum campaigning in the Earthsky? If so then this might reflect another aberration in the history of the Commonwealth. Peering into the flames he tried to see deep into the past to another Carnelian, another Osidian fugitive in the Earthsky. He could not. Such parallel events seemed implausible. What then was the answer to this riddle? His fingers recalled some beadcord they had read in the Library of the Wise: a story of a God Emperor making war on the Plainsmen. That They should leave Osrakum was also forbidden. The conclusion to be drawn from this was startling. There had been a time before the Balance of the Powers had been set up. His hand shaped Aurum’s cypher: a horned-ring set upon a staff. A representative of the God Emperor might carry such insignia. He caught glimpses of another world in the flames, of a time before the Great and the House of the Masks were caged in Osrakum by the Law-that-must-be-obeyed. He drew greedily on what comfort there was in that. Perhaps the order of things was not as immutable as he had been taught to believe.
The next morning the dust-cloud Aurum’s dragons were raising could be seen rolling up from the south. In punishing heat Carnelian led his host on.
Some time in the afternoon they lost sight of their pursuers. He called a halt and stood anxiously with others on a bluff of the Backbone, searching. Not even the keenest eye could see any sign of the dragons. Fearing some stratagem of Aurum’s, some outflanking, worried that if Aurum found them waiting for him he would deduce he was being lured north, Carnelian made his host push on.
When they stopped to make a camp for the night, the southern horizon was still empty. There was a whispering around the hearths. Sharp in every eye was the fear that Hookfork had turned back towards their koppies.
In the morning the Plainsmen lingered at their breakfasts. Watching them eat in silence Carnelian hoped his face did not betray that he shared their fear. On the rocks above their camp, scouts were gazing south. He would have been there with them if he could. Cries from these lookouts made every Plainsman surge to his feet. Carnelian scrambled up with them onto the heights. Relief moved along the ridge like light released by a passing cloud. Carnelian’s height allowed him to look over the others’ heads to where the Backbone faded into the stirred-up dust of Aurum’s pursuit.
By midday they had once again left Aurum behind. Though the Plainsman commanders urged Carnelian to slow their pace he refused. He wanted to force Aurum to continue his night marches to catch up with them.
Later, consternation up ahead made Carnelian ride to the head of their column with Fern. When they saw him men pointed north. Carnelian’s heart sank as he saw the hazing touching the Backbone. ‘It can’t be,’ he muttered.
‘Not dragons,’ Fern said. He looked Carnelian in the eye. ‘The cloud is smaller, closer.’
Carnelian saw Fern was right. ‘It must be a render convoy.’
Hundreds of pack huimur lumbered by, weighed down by frames like pitched roofs hung with rows of what in size and shape could have been human heads. Their legs were lost in the dust they raised, clouds of which were rolling up into the defiles of the Backbone. Crouching, Carnelian shifted his attention to the escort of riders. Auxiliaries on pacing aquar, lances across their laps, heads sagging. He looked to either side where his men formed a ragged ambush, squatting concealed among the ferns, cradling the heads of their aquar to keep them stretched out upon the ground.
He gave the signal then edged back, clucking to his aquar. He slipped his legs around the pommel and over the crossbar. Grasping his saddle-chair he put his feet onto her back, encouraging her to rise. Her head came up, flicking from side to side as she blinked to look around her. The jerk of her rolling onto her feet wrenched him fully into the chair. She rocked forward, her hands touched the ground, then she rocked back and thrust him into the air. Carnelian could see others rising all around him, but he did not wait. He freed his spear from its scabbard then launched his aquar at the convoy. He chose a target and watched the man becoming suddenly aware of the threat, reining his mount round, swinging his lance up. Carnelian saw how his charge was threatening to impale him on the auxiliary’s bronze blade. Striking the lance with the haft of his spear, he rolled it from his path. He registered the auxiliary’s terror as he realized it was a Master coming at him, but then the spear pierced the man’s leather cuirass. Carnelian felt momentary resistance then his blade penetrating flesh. It jerked in his hand as it struck a rib. His aquar pulled up, trying to avoid colliding with the auxiliary’s. He managed to hold onto his spear. The man grimaced as Carnelian twisted it out. He slumped, blood running down into his lap. Carnelian used his feet to swing his aquar deeper into the melee.
The auxiliary line dissolved into chaos. A few in flight were pursued by Plainsmen but mostly it was riderless aquar that were running away into the ferns. Carnelian turned to the huimur, who were backing away, lowering their heads to present the stumps of their sawn-off horns. Riders astride their necks cowered behind the shields of the monsters’ crests. Plainsmen were throwing themselves onto the sloping sides of the wicker frames. Scrabbling up them they struck at the riders with mattocks. Though some managed to put up a fight with their goads, they soon joined the others tumbling to the ground, where they were crunched, screaming, under the huge feet of the huimur.
Astride the necks of the huimur the Plainsmen managed to bring them under control. More men clambered up the frames and began releasing the objects that Carnelian could now see were like huge leather pomegranates. Plainsmen queued up to catch the things. Grinning, a Darkcloud came to offer Carnelian one. It was a bottle of some kind, of leather held in a net of rope. It had a stumpy neck topped with a crown of bony knobs.
‘A belly,’ the man said.
Another had come up. ‘A sac, Master. Enough render in these two,’ the veteran indicated the bottles, ‘to feed you and your aquar for ten days.’
‘Can we tie them on for you, Master?’ asked the other.
When Carnelian nodded, they moved to fasten the sacs to the rear pole of his saddle-chair, one on each side. Turning, Carnelian could see how comfortably the sacs nestled between the flank and upper thigh of his beast. As he made her walk he could feel by her gait that they were heavy, but they did not impede her movement.
When everyone had a pair of sacs, Carnelian was asked what he wanted done with the rest.
‘Destroy them.’
Whooping, they rode among the huimur slashing at the sacs. The vessels ruptured like stomachs, spilling their soupy contents down the frames. Carnelian curled his nose up at the meaty smell as it soaked into the earth. The Plainsmen struck the haunches of the huimur with the flats of their spears and, bleating, the monsters lumbered off into the plain, spraying ferns brown with render as they went. The poor creatures would not survive long. The odour of the render was sure to draw raveners.
Carnelian gazed south, but could see no evidence that Aurum was following them. Still, without this consignment, Aurum’s host would begin to starve. Aurum would have no choice but to follow him north as fast as he could.
Carnelian unhitched one of the sacs from his saddle-chair. He did not like the feeling of the liquid moving under the leather. He crouched to set it down. He had watched the veterans moving among the Plainsmen and Marula explaining how to open them. Its shape reminded him of the funerary urns. The leather swelled up to form lips: two arcs of bone that bit up through the leather in a series of carved knobs. Within the lips the leather formed a puckered mouth. He pierced this with a flint. The gash released a meaty, salty smell. The knife came out moistened. Gingerly he lifted the sac and held it over a hollow he had scooped in the earth and lined with fern fronds. He tipped the sac and poured render out of a corner of its mouth. Lumps of meat spluttered out, falling into the puddle, splashing him with juice. When he judged there was enough for his aquar he let her feed.
He lugged the sac over to the fire Fern had lit. Sitting down with it between his legs, as he saw others doing, he dipped his flint into the opening and, drawing it out, licked some of the render off it. He grimaced at the salt burn. The taste was even worse than the smell. He forced himself to have some more, but could not manage a third scoop.
Looking up, he saw Poppy and Fern watching him. ‘I think I’ll finish the djada first.’
Poppy made a face. ‘I don’t like it either.’
Fern looked down at his sac grimly. ‘We’ll have to eat it eventually.’
Carnelian nodded. ‘But not until we’ve run out of djada.’ The others agreed. Fern demonstrated how twisting some twine from knob to knob across the gash in his sac pulled its lips closed. Carnelian rehitched his sac to his saddle-chair then returned with some djada which he handed out.
As they chewed contentedly Poppy spoke. ‘Where’s Hookfork?’
Carnelian shrugged. ‘I’m sure we’ll see him again in the morning.’
Poppy nodded and resumed her chewing.
Morning brought unease when the lookouts declared they could see no sign of Hookfork. Grumbling, the Plainsmen agreed to follow Carnelian north, though they hung back, their march becoming ragged as men took turns to ride up onto the Backbone to gaze south.
Carnelian’s gaze was fixed in the direction they were riding. He dared not turn his head despite being as anxious as the Plainsmen. He feared that if he did so they might refuse to go further.
A rider came up on his flank. Though the man was shrouded against the dust, Carnelian knew it was Fern and saw the worry in his eyes. ‘You must give them a reason to go on.’
Carnelian had run out of reasons. He shared the Plainsmen’s fear that Aurum had returned south. Before he could vent his irritation Fern said: ‘We’re near the koppie of the Twostone.’
Carnelian looked at Poppy to see if she had heard this mention of her birthplace, but she was slumped in her saddle-chair and seemed asleep. He surveyed the route ahead. For a while now the Backbone had sunk so that only knobs of rock rose up out of the earth. These rocks no longer offered decent vantage points nor any place well enough defended to make a camp. The Twostone koppie would provide both, but then there was the matter of the massacre of that tribe. He leaned close to Fern. ‘What about Poppy… Krow?’
Fern frowned. ‘Because it’s abandoned we’d not be endangering another tribe. The men would be glad to spend a night in a koppie.’
Carnelian worried too about how the Plainsmen might feel towards the Marula once they found themselves at the scene of another of their massacres. He said nothing, however. It was not likely to be something Fern had forgotten. He gave a nod and Fern returned it before swinging his aquar away. He gazed at Poppy, remembering the nightmares she had had about the massacre of her people. What would it do to her, or to Krow, who had seen his tribe left as carrion by Marula? Carnelian looked for the youth. The news spreading down the march was making men gaze north with an eagerness that had been absent for days.
The outer ditch had become a waterhole that held a bright sickle of water. Rain had softened the banks to lips, gouged where saurians had slid down to drink, printed with the huge arrowheads of ravener tracks. Some of the magnolias, gripping the banks, leaned, exposing their roots. Others lay fallen, rotting, bearded with moss.
Glancing at Poppy’s fixed expression, at Krow who rode staring at her side, Carnelian led the Plainsmen on a broad front over the ditch into a ferngarden that was being reclaimed by the plain. Once across, Fern rode ahead down the avenue of cone trees towards the two crag teeth that had given this koppie’s tribe its name.
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.’ H
e 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.’
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