Song of the Silvercades

by K S Nikakis

  ‘Fear and longing are the price the traveller pays,’ said Caledon, taking her hands. ‘No traveller knows how their journey will end, whether in triumph or in death. But the stars send gifts, compensation for storms and rough sleeping, truths which can’t be discovered at the comfort of a hearth, and friends unlooked for, pure in heart and spirit.’

  He was very close and something in the way he looked at her reminded her of Kest.

  ‘Come, my friend,’ he said softly. ‘Tonight we’ll make a fire in memory of all the fires we’ve shared with those we love, and I’ll make music to keep the dark at bay. It’s just a little further.’

  They went on to a small grove of trees. Caledon set the fire swiftly and laid out the food, and when they’d eaten, packed the food away and brought out his thumbelin.

  Kira sat snug in her sleeping-sheet, listening to Caledon play. Orange sparks winked out against the trees. ‘Rosarins’, Caledon called them.

  Kira’s belly was full of Caledon’s food again, but at least she’d provided the thornyflower tea, even if it’d been brewed in a metal pan Caledon had pulled from his pack.

  Caledon played with his eyes closed, almost as if he slept, only his fingers moving as he plucked the thumbelin. First he played the same song he’d played in the Aurantia Cave. The music was like rain falling from the canopy, or the Drinkwater flowing over rocks, beautiful but infinitely sad. She was the first Tremen to hear such things, to converse with a stranger, to eat figs and tachil and biscuit, to cross the Azurcades. The knowing was overwhelming and she pulled her sleeping-sheet closer.

  The music ended and Caledon sighed and opened his eyes.

  ‘What’s it called?’ asked Kira.

  ‘The Zirsa Dirge.’

  ‘Is dirge another word for song?’ she asked, pleased with her growing proficiency in Onespeak.

  ‘It’s a song played for the dead,’ said Caledon, slipping off the hoods and wrapping them carefully. ‘But it’s not all sad. It celebrates the love felt for the dead person and all the good things they did in life.’

  Talk of the dead brought visions of smoke and Kira concentrated on the sky.

  ‘Do your people have songs for the dead?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kira, her knuckles whitening on the sleeping-sheet.

  ‘Of what do they speak?’

  ‘Of the earth taking them, of the green and growing drawing up their essence, of the wind sending them back to us in the whisper of leaves,’ she said, unable to look at Caledon.

  ‘I’ve not journeyed to the southern forests,’ said Caledon. ‘What are they like?’

  ‘I cannot speak of them.’

  ‘Trust me, Kira,’ he said in Terak.

  Kira stared at him and her thoughts turned to the Tremen. They must come before her own needs and wishes.

  ‘You ask too much,’ she answered in Onespeak.

  ‘Perhaps I ask too quickly and for that I’m sorry. Time runs quicker than the waves, and often quicker than we think,’ he replied, still using Terak.

  Kira said nothing and Caledon sighed.

  ‘We must be on our way at dawn. I bid you good dreams, Kira,’ he said.

  Kira slept deeply and dreamlessly, which was a blessing, for when the recurring nightmare of Kandor’s death afflicted her, it coloured the whole day. They set off again in the predawn light, entering stands of rosarin which were swiftly joined by taller, darker trees and bushes with small yellow flowers: mallit and soldis, Caledon told her. The light showed rosarins to be pinkish, while the mallit had bark like frayed rope, hanging in untidy loops. Kira wanted to ask Caledon about them, but he seemed preoccupied, his eyes on the ground as if he sought a path.

  As they walked, the rosarins dwindled, then the mallits, crowded out by pale-barked trees with leaves like severs.

  ‘What trees are these?’ she asked.

  ‘Perlwoods,’ said Caledon, looking grim.

  ‘Are there Shargh on this side of the mountain?’ asked Kira, tensing.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But what if the Shargh on the Dendora Plain sent a message to their kin to look out for us in case we come down the mountain here?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have,’ said Caledon. ‘These are Tain lands.’

  ‘But what if they have?’

  He stopped abruptly. ‘We’re less than three days from the Tain city of Maraschin.’

  Kira jerked to a stop, remembering the map. Maraschin had been west of the Pass. She glanced up at the sun and her heart missed a beat. Caledon had hinted they’d have to go west to cross the mountains, but the Pass was behind them and they still went west.

  ‘Why do you delay?’ asked Caledon, turning back.

  Kira looked around her, judging the lay of the land. If she were to run he’d catch her. He was lithe and strong, and familiar with the lands, while she knew nothing, except he’d lied.

  ‘What is it?’ repeated Caledon, using Terak.

  ‘We go west, not north,’ said Kira, using her language also. ‘You told me you were going north which is why I agreed to travel with you. You lied to me,’ she said.

  ‘Until we neared the Pass, we were going north,’ said Caledon.

  ‘But we’re not now!’

  ‘No. Now I take you west to my friends in Maraschin. There we can rest and replenish our food stores for the journey north.’

  ‘I’m not going to Maraschin.’

  ‘It’s twelve days from here to the northern city of Sarnia, Kira. And you must traverse a plain with no people and little gathering. Without my food, what are you going to eat?’

  ‘What I ate before I met you,’ Kira retorted, furious with herself. How could she have been so gullible as to trust him?

  ‘I’d give you all my food for the sake of our friendship,’ said Caledon hurriedly, ‘or I’d give it in payment for my life, if that’s how you would see it. But even that wouldn’t be enough. I have friends in Maraschin,’ he repeated. ‘We can restock our food and go on together.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ cried Kira, then movement caught her eye, and she gasped in horror.

  Caledon drew his sword and spun. There were men all around them, wood creaking as bows bent, barbed arrows levelling at their hearts. An order was yelled in Onespeak.

  ‘Drop your sword or we’ll kill her!’

  6

  In the Kashclan longhouse, deep in the southern forests, Miken watched his son Tresen sleep. The chimes sounded as the breeze found the window, but all else was quiet. It was ten days since Kest’s patrol had returned with two of their number missing, Tresen more dead than alive, and no Kira.

  Brem had been in the patrol and had looked scarcely better than Tresen, white-faced and hollow-eyed, but he’d changed Tresen’s bandages before he’d rested.

  ‘He’s come all the way from the Fourth Eight. He’ll not be dying now,’ he’d assured Miken.

  Since then, Mikini had tended her brother with Brem’s help, and it was only now that the danger had all but passed that Tresen was well enough to have visitors. Miken wandered to the window, his thoughts going to Kira. The chances of her reaching the north were almost nonexistent. In fact, she might already be dead. Miken watched a tippet snatch a bark beetle and fly off into the dusk, and turned back to his ashen-faced son, contemplating how Tresen’s closest clanmates – Kandor and Kira – were dead or gone.

  ‘Is it morning or evening?’ whispered Tresen, rousing.

  ‘Evening,’ said Miken. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  Tresen nodded and Miken poured him a cup of sweetened water, then held it for him. Tresen grew stronger but still slept a lot of the time.

  ‘So tell me what’s happened in the wide world beyond the door,’ said Tresen, playing out a ritual they’d developed over the past days.

  ‘There’s been no sign of the Shargh, but Seri came again while you slept. She wanted me to fetch her when you awoke,’ said Miken, watching his son’s face carefully.

  Tresen shook his head.

/>   ‘I thought you courted her,’ said Miken.

  ‘I don’t want to court anyone. It’s better not to love,’ said Tresen, his face drawn. ‘Kest shouldn’t have let Kira go,’ he went on. ‘All those days in the Warens dealing with the dead and dying, losing Kandor, losing everyone. She wasn’t thinking clearly – Kest knew that – yet he let her go. He should’ve gone himself.’

  Tresen had said all this before and Brem had summed up Tresen’s antagonism succinctly. The wounded are hurt in body and mind, but both will heal in time.

  Tresen slipped back into an uneasy sleep and Miken stooped and kissed his son’s brow. ‘At least we’ve still got you,’ he murmured, his thoughts going to the night of his son’s return.

  It had been a long and difficult one for everyone, Kest included. He’d endured worse encounters with the Shargh, but this time he’d returned without the Tremen Leader. Miken had taken him to the quietest part of the hall, their mood making them drink withyweed ale, rather than eat the food Tenerini had brought them. Kest owed Miken no special favours, but he’d brought Tresen to his longhouse. With Kira gone and the Bough in ashes, the Kashclan longhouse held the strongest Healers.

  Most of what Kest spoke of, Miken had heard from Clanleader Sanden at the Renclan longhouse. But he didn’t know the details of the attack that had almost claimed his son’s life. Nor did he know Kira’s part in it. The sword blow that had wounded Tresen would have been followed by a second, deadlier one had Kira not thrown herself at the Shargh attacker. In turn, it was only chance and a pot of bruise-ease that had saved Kira. But Kest’s willingness to let Kira leave the forests, after all of this, was incomprehensible to Miken.

  ‘It’s hard to believe that she’ll reach the north,’ Miken had said, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice. ‘And she carries so much of what it means to be Tremen.’

  ‘Kira is Allogrenia,’ acknowledged Kest. ‘The best of what we are, the best of what Kasheron intended us to be. But the Clan-council made her Leader, and that meant that in the end I had no authority over her. In fact, none of us did. I could have brought her back by force and claimed she was mind-sick from Kandor’s death and everything else she’s endured. Half the Tremen might’ve agreed with me. But not the other half. Where we must have unity to survive, we’d have schism. That was another thing Kira pointed out,’ he said, draining his cup.

  ‘It’s ironic isn’t it?’ he continued. ‘She became Leader in every sense of the word, proving all my doubts wrong, then used her leadership skills to leave.’

  Miken said nothing.

  ‘And if she’d stayed with the patrol?’ went on Kest. ‘I doubt many of us would’ve returned, so desperate were they to take her. We already had Tresen scarce able to walk, and Darmanin in the same state with his ankle. If the Shargh hadn’t broken off the attack to tend to their Leader, we’d have lost more than Jonkesh and Saresh.’

  ‘Do you think the Shargh might have caught her anyway?’ asked Miken.

  ‘There are things I know, Miken, and things I hope,’ said Kest. ‘They may be the hopes of a fool, but time will tell and, no doubt, the Clancouncil judge. I know the Shargh Leader was wounded and the attack abandoned because of it. The same thing happened when they attacked the Bough and their previous Leader was killed. I don’t know how badly this Leader was injured, but they were all but carrying him.

  ‘What I hope is, in their haste, they wouldn’t have had the time to look for Kira. What I fear is, they might have stumbled on her anyway. It would be an ill chance if they did, and so far chance has favoured her. I sometimes wonder –’ began Kest, then broke off.

  ‘I sometimes wonder, what?’ prompted Miken.

  ‘Whether there’s some greater plan at work,’ said Kest, half smiling. ‘When I suggested to Kira that we come back here and I take her north with a patrol, she said a patrol would have no more chance of reaching the north than she would. Perhaps less. And, I admit, I’ve started to agree. Fortune has smiled on her, if you can call it smiling. It seems to me that chance, evil though it’s been, has so far kept her safe. I hope it will continue to do so.’

  ‘We can’t live on hope, nor can we simply wait for her return,’ said Miken.

  ‘No,’ agreed Kest. ‘We must plan for life without her, and without help from the outside. If she is right, the Shargh will leave us in peace now. Even if they don’t, we need to consider where healing is to be carried out and by whom, and think on how to protect ourselves and remain true to Kasheron’s vision.’

  ‘I’ll call a special clancouncil to discuss whether we appoint another Leader or wait. Never before has a Leader left us, except by death,’ said Miken.

  There was a brief silence while both men considered the possibility that Kira was, in fact, dead.

  ‘Now, Commander, it’s time you slept,’ said Miken. ‘Kashclan welcomes you and would be pleased if you’d share our shelter this night.’

  ‘Morclan thanks Kashclan,’ said Kest, bowing.

  7

  Kira’s face was frozen in terror, but the Tains’ attention was focused on Caledon. For a moment he didn’t move, then the order was shouted again.

  ‘Drop your sword or we’ll kill her!’

  Caledon let the sword fall and the Tains swarmed over him. He wrenched his head round in time to see Kira’s pack pulled off before she was dragged aside, her hands bound behind her, as were his. Caledon called out to her but the Commander bawled at him.

  ‘Silence!’

  She was several lengths away now with one of the troop leaders and his men when, without warning, he saw her pitch forward and lie motionless. Caledon tried to shrug off his captors but a sword came to his throat and he felt a sting as it cut. The Tains knelt beside Kira and one of them shouted for a physick. Caledon’s anxiety rose further as he saw blood on her face. Then one of the men from the other group hurried back.

  ‘Commander Dorchen, the female prisoner has fallen and injured herself,’ the man said. ‘On the physick’s advice, we need to bivouac here this night, and proceed to Maraschin on the morrow. The physick believes she’ll be well enough to travel then.’

  Caledon breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t more serious.

  The Commander’s heavy scowl deepened but he nodded assent, then barked an order for Caledon to be brought to him. Caledon was yanked forward, wincing at the jar to his wounded shoulder.

  ‘You’re in Tain lands,’ the Commander said, in heavily accented Onespeak. ‘Do you have leave?’

  ‘No, I –’ began Caledon in Tain.

  ‘It’s as I thought,’ the Commander said, his stolid face unchanged, despite Caledon’s use of his language. ‘My orders are to take all trespassers to King’s Hall as swiftly as possible.’

  ‘I’m known to King Beris and Prince Adris. I’ve been to –’

  ‘You’ve violated our bounds!’ the Commander shouted, cutting him off. ‘All trespassers are to be taken to King’s Hall, by order of Prince Adris!’

  ‘I’m Caledon e Saridon e Talliel, and I’m known to Prince Adris!’ Caledon shouted back at him in Tain.

  The troopsmen’s eyes slid between him and their Commander and Caledon realised his travel-stained clothing didn’t help his claim. Dorchen’s face went crimson.

  ‘Silence! Or I’ll have you gagged. You’re in Tain lands without leave. The Prince’s orders will be obeyed!’

  The Commander screamed more orders and Caledon was jerked into line, the pain in his shoulder redoubling as men formed up around him. With another bellow from Dorchen, they moved off quickly.

  Kira didn’t wake until Dorchen’s troopsmen were far away. She could hear people speaking a strange tongue, but her head throbbed and she felt too nauseous to open her eyes. One side of her face was warmer than the other and she could smell woodsmoke. There must be a fire near, she thought, the pounding in her head increasing and forcing a groan from her. She dragged open her eyes and retched. By the ’green, she felt awful.

  A man crouched
beside her and slid his hand under her head, lifting it. ‘Drink this,’ he ordered in Onespeak, bringing a metal cup to her lips. ‘It will help with your headache.’

  She flinched at the metal but gulped down the liquid, numbly trying to identify the herbs it contained. The last thing she remembered was the terrifying thought that she was about to be killed.

  ‘I’m Aranz, the troop physick,’ the man added, in strangely accented Onespeak. ‘I’m afraid you fainted and hit your head on a rock before we could catch you.’

  If they were bothering with her headache, they probably weren’t going to murder her, thought Kira vaguely, resisting the urge to shut her eyes again.

  ‘Who are you?’ she managed to ask.

  ‘My people?’ asked Aranz. ‘We’re the Tain. You entered Tain lands when you cleared the Pass.’

  The pound in Kira’s head redoubled.

  You have nothing to fear from the Tain, Caledon had said, yet she was a prisoner. She shouldn’t be surprised that he’d lied. After all, what did she really know about him, except that he played beautiful tinkling music and killed well? Hardly enough to risk the Tremen’s safety for. She could almost hear Kest’s contempt: Really, Tremen Leader Feailner Kiraon of Kashclan. Not very leaderly behaviour! And he would be right!

  Her eyelids drooped, and this time she let them close.

  Kira’s second waking was less painful. The nausea had eased, the ache in her head had dulled and she could think more clearly. The Healer, or physick, had been kind to her in the night and she felt confident now they didn’t intend to harm her.

  There was a noisy yawn and the clang of metal against metal, and she opened her eyes a fraction and saw a troopsman stirring something in a pot. Beyond him, still asleep, she recognised Aranz – the physick. The dawn showed Aranz’s hair as reddish brown, but the man who cooked had hair as bright as flames – even his facial stubble glinted red. Whatever he was cooking smelt like a sweeter version of the biscuit Caledon had given her. Hunger roused, more powerful than the pain in her head, and she sat up gingerly.