Song of the Silvercades

by K S Nikakis

  ‘The fighting was bloody and long, but in the end, peoples such as the Shargh lost their grazing pastures.’

  ‘That was a great injustice,’ said Kira slowly.

  ‘Then, as now, justice was decided by the barbs of arrows and the blades of swords,’ said Caledon.

  ‘Would the Northerners consider sharing their grazing lands?’ asked Kira.

  ‘Would your people consider sharing Allogrenia with the Shargh?’ replied Caledon.

  ‘We are fewer than a thousand,’ said Kira. ‘I don’t think there would be enough food in the forests to sustain many more.’

  ‘It’s an argument the Terak would use also,’ said Caledon, ‘if they considered the possibility at all, which they wouldn’t. Like the Shargh, the Terak build their communities on fighting – swords-manship and arrow skills are highly prized. Both peoples believe that the victor in a battle rightfully takes all.

  ‘Since that time, the Northerners and their cities have prospered, while the Shargh have remained confined in the lands the fighting left them … until now. When did the Shargh first attack your people, Kira?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I wonder if it’s the same time the Weshargh attacks started on the Tain,’ said Caledon.

  ‘What difference would it make?’

  ‘Neither good nor evil happens without reason. As a Placidien, I seek the pattern of these reasons, which is why I go south to speak with your people.’

  ‘South? But you pledged to go north with me,’ exclaimed Kira, sitting upright. ‘Was that another lie?’

  ‘I made the pledge in good faith. But since then, the stars have revealed more to me.’

  ‘The stars!’ said Kira, swinging herself off the pallet. ‘I’ve already delayed too long, and won’t delay longer. My people might be being murdered while I wait on your stars!’

  ‘The Shargh attacks on the Tain will continue. Would you abandon the Tain wounded?’ said Caledon.

  ‘I owe the Tremen first!’

  ‘Which is why you must stay here. As Tremen Leader, you need to be here to meet with your people when they come to Maraschin to fight,’ said Caledon.

  Kira gaped at him astonishment. ‘What mean you?’

  Caledon took her by the shoulders. ‘What’s happening concerns not just the Tain but the Tremen as well. If the Cashgar Shargh and Weshargh are to be turned from their murderous path, the Tremen must work with the Tain to do it.’

  ‘I won’t have my people being butchered on the plains!’ she exclaimed, jerking away from him.

  ‘Then they’ll be butchered in the trees,’ said Caledon. ‘You’ve seen what the Shargh do to children. If the Shargh overwhelm the Tain, do you think they’ll let your people live on in peace?’

  ‘I’ll get aid from the north,’ said Kira, pacing round the alcove.

  ‘You’ve kin there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kira, suddenly cautious.

  ‘How long is it since you’ve had ought to do with these kin?’ asked Caledon.

  Kira shrugged, her gaze on the wall.

  ‘The Tain have a treaty of mutual aid with the Terak, but there’s been no contact between King Beris and the northern leader for many years. I’ve been in the Terak lands and know the ways of the people there. The Terak aren’t troubled by the Shargh and won’t come south.’

  Kira pushed the hair from her eyes and Caledon went to her, gentling his voice. ‘What I am saying is true. If the Terak have no reason to come to the Tain’s aid, they have less reason to come to yours. If your people are to survive this, they must fight with the Tain.’

  Kira stood with head bowed for a long time. ‘I won’t order my people to come,’ she said finally, her face agonised.

  ‘If you ask them to volunteer, the choice will be theirs,’ said Caledon. There was a pause and then he drew her cautiously into his arms. ‘The Shargh move too quickly for trust to grow between us, but our hearts know what our minds don’t. I ask that you await me here. I also ask that you aid me in my journey through the trees, and give me a message to take to your people. The stars do not show my death on this journey, but sometimes their light dazzles me, blinding me to what lies ahead.

  ‘Grant me seven days after the new moon that follows this. Before I go, I’ll secure a pledge from Adris to give you escort to the north should I not return.’

  ‘You won’t return.’

  Her conviction was so powerful that Caledon’s heart missed a beat. ‘Why do you believe so?’

  ‘Everyone I love dies.’

  ‘Not this time, my beautiful gold-eyed Healer,’ he said, kiss ing her.

  15

  Three days after Caledon had gone, Jesa was shifted to the Small Room, and a few days later Aranz came to Kira’s alcove with a beautifully carved wooden box.

  ‘The Spursman child has been collected by her uncle. This is for you,’ he said, handing Kira the box. ‘Why don’t you trade it for some clothing, or a comb? Speri will be back on the morrow and I’ll ask Dumer to release her to help you,’ he said.

  Kira’s face burned. Caledon hadn’t thought she’d looked awful when he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her.

  She sighed, as she considered that he would be nearing the shelterless southern slopes of the Azurcades by now, close to where she’d met him. She’d told him how to find his way through the forests and had given him a message for the Clancouncil, authorising Protectors to leave Allogrenia. It was her heart that had gifted him these things, but in the broad light of day her head could see how flimsy the reasoning of her heart had been. What if he betrayed her – again?

  Snatching up her pack, she strode out of the Sanctum and up King’s Way towards the green of Queen’s Grove as she had mentally christened it. Children laughed as they rolled balls and flicked ropes, and Kira stopped at the entrance of a side street to watch them. This was how it should have been for Jesin and Jesa, carefree and safe. She noticed the odd glance of recognition, and realised word of a stranger with gold eyes must have spread.

  Someone touched her arm and she started. It was a woman, her face deeply lined, her shirt and long skirt ragged at the edges. A man stood behind her, his clothes equally poor, his face grim. The woman bobbed up and down, offering Kira a crudely carved stone box.

  Kira shook her head and made an open hand gesture, showing that she had nothing to trade, but the woman again offered the box.

  ‘I have nothing,’ said Kira in Onespeak.

  The man stepped forward and Kira’s scalp prickled, thinking she was about to be robbed but he caught hold of the woman to pull her away. The woman shrugged him off, put the box on the ground, spread her legs and brought her arms over her belly in a sweeping gesture.

  Childbirth! The woman sought help for someone in childbirth, realised Kira, smiling and nodding. Kira followed the woman, reassured by the well-kept houses they passed and the clean paving, but then the woman slipped between the houses, and the paving gave way to dirt and an earthen drain filled with sludge.

  The houses here were patched with scavenged wood, though some had holes big enough to see through. Kira picked her way along behind the woman, following her through a yawning doorway and up a flight of creaking wooden steps, finally entering a room so crowded that she couldn’t see the woman in childbirth.

  ‘I need space,’ said Kira in Onespeak, waving her hands as if scaring birds.

  No one moved.

  ‘And I need someone who understands Onespeak,’ she continued.

  A girl stepped forward, dark-haired and heavy-browed, her face a younger version of the others. ‘I Tarki. I Onespeak little know.’

  ‘Tell people to go,’ said Kira, waving her hands again.

  ‘All go?’ questioned the girl, shocked.

  ‘Four stay, rest go,’ said Kira, not wanting to totally upset the customs of the birthing woman.

  Tarki spoke rapidly and several of the women moved grudgingly towards the door, allowing Kira to reach the bed. The labouring woman l
ooked scarcely older than the girl translating, and had an enormous belly and stick-like arms and legs.

  ‘Vinna,’ said the girl, pointing to the labouring woman.

  ‘She’s big,’ muttered Kira.

  ‘Two babes,’ said Tarki.

  Kira mustered a reassuring smile and placed her hands on Vinna’s belly, intent on finding the position of the babes. Her hands warmed but she shut herself off from the fiery tunnel, concentrating on the bulge of the little bodies. One was low down, ready to be born, the other seemed to be still sitting upright. Once the first was safely born, the second should have room to turn.

  ‘Babe ready,’ said Kira, and paused while Tarki exchanged quick words with Vinna.

  ‘Vinna wait … for physick,’ said Tarki, gesturing to Kira.

  ‘First babe?’ asked Kira, knowing that if Vinna had birthed before, she’d be less frightened and more prepared.

  The girl shook her head and went through the motions of rocking two babes.

  ‘Vinna … other babes?’ Kira tried again.

  Tarki repeated the motions of rocking two babes, and then did something that made Kira’s blood run cold. She turned her arms over, so that if she’d actually cradled a child, it would have fallen. Then she did it a second time. Two dead babes. Kira didn’t have the words or gestures to find out the circumstances of the deaths, but she understood the older woman’s desperation for a physick.

  Kira put her hands over Vinna’s heart. The babes were there, boys, somehow separate from the scorch of the tunnel.

  ‘Tell Vinna to push,’ said Kira to Tarki. ‘Push,’ she repeated to Vinna, and splayed her own legs in clumsy imitation.

  Tarki spoke and the women bustled to the bedside, pulling Vinna upright and beginning to chant. Kira watched, content to let the women guide the birth for a little.

  Vinna grunted and gasped, hair stringing across her forehead, and the babe’s head appeared, then the rest of him in a slithery rush. There were whoops of joy, his feeding tube was cut and he was bundled away. Vinna hung panting in the arms of the women, then began to grunt again. Kira felt a wash of relief, then the feeding sack slithered out, the feeding tube of the second babe still attached. There were harsh exclamations.

  ‘Babe die,’ said Tarki darkly.

  The eyes of the women swung to Kira.

  ‘Lie Vinna down,’ ordered Kira, gesturing urgently. Then she was back in the fire-filled tunnel. The babe was still sitting upright, and she wanted to shriek at him to turn but, even as the idea passed her mind, she sensed him drift deeper into the fire. Vinna’s pain surged anew and Kira was back in the room, the part of her not drenched with dizziness knowing that she couldn’t save the babe from within the fire-filled tunnel.

  Shoving up her sleeve, Kira slid her hand into the warm, bloody space and groped about until her hand closed over a tiny foot.

  ‘Vinna push,’ she grunted, and as the space around her wrist spasmed, she pulled down gently.

  ‘Push,’ repeated Kira.

  Vinna took another gasping breath and pushed.

  The babe moved down and Kira’s bloodied hand emerged clasping his tiny foot. She resisted the urge to tug the little body out as, sobbing with effort, Vinna gave a final push. With a whoosh of blood, he was born.

  He was a lot smaller than his brother, limp and blue. Vinna cried when she saw him and the women rocked and moaned. Kira quickly sucked the sticky mess from his mouth and nose, spat it to one side, then puffed air into him. His tiny chest rose and fell. She did it again, and his arms and legs jerked, and flushed pink. His eyes opened and for a moment she was lost in them, then he gave a long, loud bawl.

  The room erupted in laughter, but Kira felt like weeping. He was only half the size of his brother, and the place where he must grow was dirty and poor.

  After he was picked up and wrapped, the women crowded round Vinna, stripping away the bloodied sheets and her soiled gown. Meanwhile Kira followed Tarki to a water bucket to wash her hands and face. There wasn’t much she could do about the blood on her shirt and breeches.

  Tarki gestured back to the birth room but Kira pointed down the stairs. Taking pain exhausted her, but it was a weariness usually eased by the joy of healing. Instead she felt sad, her joy extinguished by memories of the richness of King’s Hall compared with the harsh reality of life here.

  Caledon had spent the night at the Aurantia Cave and now sat at its mouth as the light of the new sun crept across the land. Reaching inside his shirt to the secret pocket where he carried the things most precious to him, he pulled out the carving. In a fight he might have to abandon everything, but these things would go to the grave with him: a lock of Roshai’s hair, a crudely made silver star Pisa had presented him with, and the delicately crafted wooden owl.

  It’s the mira kiraon, my namesake. Protector Commander Kest carved it, Kira had said.Morclansmen are fine woodworkers. Show it to Kest as a sign of my trust.

  Kira’s trust hadn’t extended to a written message but what she had told him should be enough.

  Caledon slipped the carving back into his pocket and rose. In fact, the owl wasn’t just Kira’s namesake, but that of the northern queen who’d had gold eyes too, and who’d birthed the gold-eyed twins Terak and Kasheron.

  By the stars! Kashclan, Kasheron’s clan! A gold-eyed Healer who spoke Terak, whose title of Feailner was a northern one, whose name of Kiraon came from the north, yet who wasn’t of the north herself! Kasheron’s seed!

  Caledon was familiar with the Terak histories that told of Kasheron taking his followers north over the seas. But still, he reflected, the construction of truths – especially unpleasant ones – was the prerogative of those who remained. Nor were histories solid crystals of fact, but rather wax to be moulded to suit the wants and needs of the time.

  After Kasheron’s bitter departure from the north – the Sundering – Terak’s people made up of his own blood, the Kessomis, joined with the Kirs and Illians – had triumphed in their long and bloody struggle with the Shargh, and completed the building of Sarnia. In the histories written since, Kasheron’s leaving had been described as abandonment. Less kind histories even called it desertion. It was little wonder that the same histories had banished Kasheron’s people to a place so distant there’d be no returning.

  Kira had spoken of having kin in the north, but he hadn’t guessed the potency of the link when he’d suggested the Terak wouldn’t come south. The fighting had prompted the Sundering and, in turn, had finally forced the Terak, Kessomis, Kirs and Illians to acknowledge themselves as a single people. But Caledon knew from his time in the north that blood-links remained all-powerful, and would take precedence over any treaty, and even over the antagonism Kasheron’s departure had generated.

  The Tremen’s direct kin claim would draw Terak aid south to the forests, away from the Tain lands, and it was the Tain lands where the battles would be fought and must be won.

  Caledon turned his face to the sky and touched the back of his hand to his forehead, thanking the stars for their guidance. He’d halted Kira’s northward journey and Adris had her safely behind the Maraschin walls. Caledon smiled as he hefted on his pack, better prepared now for his meeting with the Tremen.

  He made his way down the steep dewy path, considering all that Kira had told him. She’d described a number of clans living separately and that each had a gathering right, known as an octad, surrounding their longhouses. She also –

  Caledon’s foot slipped on the dew-slicked slope and he leapt nimbly onto a broad brittle-bite-coated stone. The plant usually gave good traction, and it did now, but the stone beneath was rotten. It shattered, sending him sprawling backwards, his head cracking the rock behind him. The bright day exploded into plumes of blackness as the ground beneath him shifted and Caledon skidded towards the path’s edge. Throwing his arm back, he locked it round a canthus and jerked to a stop, the pain of the tearing thorns rousing him from the spiralling pit of darkness. For a moment he lay still, vaguel
y aware that there was no earth under his right shoulder, then the canthus gave way and he plunged over the edge.

  16

  In the shadow of the Cashgars, Arkendrin gathered with his blood-ties and several of the Weshargh warriors. The Weshargh had brought Ashmiri horses with them and he glared at the odd creatures. His was black and the tallest of the four, the others the same dusty brown as the ebis. Everything about them was strange, from the metal through their mouths, to their smell and shape.

  Arkendrin had no idea how to ride and no wish to find out. If only the vile suppurating gash on his leg would heal none of this would be necessary. Whatever Orbdargan said, the Sky Chiefs had never intended Shargh to ride, giving them sufficient strength in their own legs to run for days. Curse the gold-eyed creature who’d breathed its filthy breath into his flesh!

  Irdodun, Orthaken and Ermashin stood in silence and Arkendrin limped forward, the Weshargh Orfedren jumping from his own beast and holding the black horse steady.

  ‘A horse is mounted by putting one foot in that strap, Chief Arkendrin, and swinging the other leg up and over the back,’ he said.

  Arkendrin put the foot of his wounded leg in the leather loop, grasped the sweaty neck of the animal and heaved himself up. Pain spasmed through the wound and he thumped down onto the beast’s back. It jerked sideways and he snapped the straps from its mouth taut, making the horse toss its head and grunt in pain. Arkendrin dragged them tighter.

  ‘The reins are for guiding the horse, Chief Arkendrin,’ said Orfedren, but Arkendrin seemed not to hear him.

  ‘Get the others up, Weshargh,’ grunted Arkendrin. ‘If we must travel like the cursed Ashmiri, we’ll start this day.’

  It was some days later that Palansa ventured down to the Thanawah carrying Ersalan in a sling across her belly. The day was fine and women busy at their washing, snatches of gossip drifting up the slope – the sloth of their husbands and the faults of their sons. Palansa envied them their small concerns. Ersalan was almost two moons old but she’d yet to show him off to those he’d one day rule over. With Arkendrin on the Grounds she’d been reluctant to take Ersalan far from the sorcha, even with Ormadon or Erlken in attendance. But now Arkendrin had disappeared, and while his absence troubled Palansa it also gave her a freedom she hadn’t enjoyed since Erboran’s death.