*
Despite all he’d been through in Makkathran, the city had made him soft, Edeard acknowledged on the second day. An easy life was an easy trap to fall into. Life on the road was a sharp reminder of the way he used to live. Making camp each night. Looking after the genistars himself rather than asking a servant. Collecting wood to make a fire. Cooking his own food. Sleeping under a blanket and an oilskin beneath the nebula-swathed sky. That was cold enough. Then after the third day they didn’t even have a fire for fear the bandit crew would notice it, and they were high in the Donsori Mountains by then.
But at that he did better than Dinlay and Macsen. They were real city boys. So he alleviated his own discomfort by enjoying theirs.
Their third night out from North Gate they camped on the side of Mount Iyo, half a day’s ride from the main road through the mountains. There was still a lot of traffic on the road, with caravans and wagons and carriages rattling along the broad paved slabs that switchbacked along the rugged slopes. But all of them were accompanied by packs of ge-wolves. The wealthier travellers had their own guards as well. There were also daily patrols of local militia squads. Edeard’s own party went under the guise of trading Guildsmen, a common enough sight on the roads. As well as himself and Topar, they had Boloton, an ex-sheriff from Oki who had spent over half of his seventy years roaming across the countryside. The second of Topar’s companions was Fresage, a huge man whose bulk was mostly muscle, another outdoors type who had seen membership in a southern provincial militia as well as serving ten years as a costal warden. In turn, he was good friends with Verini, born to a caravan family, who was taking a decade-long break from the eternal trade routes to scout round new markets and learn the roads in different territories. Then there was Larby, who had the manners of a Grand Family son yet was clearly comfortable with road life, and proficient with a pistol. He said little about his background, but Edeard suspected he had been affiliated to the families in a fashion not too dissimilar to Argian.
That just left Dinlay and Macsen to complete their number. By the end of the first day, saddle-sore himself, Edeard was beginning to think he shouldn’t have asked them along. Macsen had proved particularly difficult to convince: he was naturally concerned for Kanseen, who was due in just a few weeks. However, they stuck it out and learned from the others quickly enough. That they’d adapt was never Edeard’s concern. His main worry was that the three of them would be absent from Makkathran at the same time. Such a thing would be noticeable to a suspicious mind. If there was someone in the senior ranks of government collaborating with the bandits they might raise a warning – even though they’d never know exactly what to warn against. And it would be difficult getting word out here ahead of Topar’s group.
As their party progressed, their main source of information was fellow travellers. They didn’t even have to ask difficult questions; those who used the road frequently were unrivalled gossips. Rumour of a bandit crew was strong. There had been another raid after Northford, at a hamlet called Regentfleet. Five families dead and the buildings torched. The local governor was demanding assistance from Makkathran’s militia regiments to catch the bandits. Regentfleet was uncomfortably close to Sandmarket, the provincial capital.
‘They’re heading south, then,’ Topar said when they first heard the news of Regentfleet. Which is why they eventually left the main road to strike out across the high terrain by themselves. It was hard going, even for the stoic ge-horses, a type which blended traits of high endurance with speed; not as fast as terrestrial horses, they still had the stamina to keep a fair pace going even on the rocky slopes away from the road.
Topar led them along the edge of the woodlands which dominated the middle slopes. Thick forests of tall spindly kalkand trees whose feathery blue-gold fronds spent the winter months curled up in tight whorls.
They made camp that third day under overhanging branches which dripped an unpleasant waxy sap from their newly budded scarlet sporecones. A small stream trickled along one side, allowing the horses and ge-wolves to drink. That night they sent their ge-eagles roving around the peaks and swooping through the valleys. The big birds had a trait Edeard had never known of before, a near-perfect night-sight. There were no colours to the vision he received from them: the world they flew over was drawn in shades of grey, but still the features were sharp and true. Edeard could see small creatures scuttling along oblivious to the birds gliding silently overhead.
‘You’re still young, you can still become an apprentice to the Blue Tower yet,’ Topar taunted when Edeard remarked upon the trait. Like the Weapons Guild, the Masters of the Blue Tower kept secrets that might work to their advantage.
The ge-eagles found nothing that night. Topar and Edeard called them back in the early hours to rest before breaking camp early the next day.
Edeard woke to the sound of Dinlay cursing heavily, hopping about on one foot as he held his other boot high. His glasses were still on the roll he used as a pillow, so his face was screwed up as he squinted at the boot. ‘Ladydamnit!’
Everyone else was lifting their heads, using farsight to scan round, anxious they’d been discovered. Everyone apart from Macsen, who was on watch. He was unperturbed, just sitting on an old fallen trunk watching Dinlay with cool amusement.
‘Bloody Honious!’ Dinlay took a bad hop backwards, and tripped on a small rock. He landed hard on his arse and let out a distressed grunt. Edeard winced in sympathy as the flare of pain burst out of his friend’s mind.
‘What? What?’ Dinlay spluttered.
‘You okay back there?’ Macsen called in a voice that was far too calm. It triggered a suspicious grin on Edeard’s face. When he pushed his farsight into Dinlay’s boot he found a mush in the toe that had been a utog beetle, a native insect with a particularly prickly carapace.
‘Did you . . . ?’ an outraged Dinlay gasped. ‘Was that you . . . ?’
‘Me what?’ Macsen replied innocently.
The others were chuckling now as Dinlay started shivering, partly from the bruise on his buttocks and partly from the cold; he was dressed only in a thin shirt and cotton under-trousers.
‘May the Lady crap on you from a great height,’ Dinlay muttered darkly. His third hand pulled his glasses on to his face, then began scraping the squashed remains of the beetle out of his boot.
‘Children, children,’ Fresage said with a shake of his head. He pushed his blanket back and rose ponderously, flexing his arms to work out the knots earned from sleeping on rough ground.
Edeard pulled on a thick sweater of his own and clambered to his feet. He never could get comfortable just lying on the ground. A careful farsight examination of his own boots revealed they were unused by nesting insects, and he pulled them on.
Topar had snatched up a pistol as soon as he’d woken. Now he gave Macsen a disapproving glance and clicked the safety catch back on.
Boloton and Larby started rolling up their sleeping blankets. Now his boot was clean, Dinlay transferred his attention to his toe. Several utog spikes were sticking through his woollen socks. He removed them one at a time.
‘Well done,’ Edeard said to Macsen. ‘Just how I envisaged a District Master would behave.’
Verini was grinning along with the rest of them. ‘How did you three ever clear the city of gangs?’ he mused quietly.
Macsen flashed Edeard a profoundly guilty smirk.
‘You’re so pathetic,’ Dinlay grumbled.
‘Got to do something to stay awake,’ Macsen murmured. He pulled a kettle off the little stove that burned Jamolar oil. ‘Tea, anyone?’
‘You do have a use,’ Fresage mocked.
‘Few and far between, but those I have I excel at.’
Edeard and Dinlay exchanged a look. ‘Not what Kanseen says,’ Dinlay said smugly, and pulled his boot on.
Edeard took his cup over to Macsen. ‘You’re an arse,’ he said, grinning as his friend poured out the boiling water.
‘Yep, and that’s just on the plus side.’
‘How much longer is this going to take?’ Dinlay asked as he held his cup out.
‘For all this is empty land, there aren’t that many places the bandits can hide out in,’ Topar said, drinking down his own tea. ‘Shepherds use the high pastures for grazing, and it’s turning cold up here now.’
‘They will have found themselves half a dozen remote camp sites,’ Fresage said. ‘And they’ll shift between them.’
Edeard gave the valley to the south a shrewd gaze. The Donsori Mountains weren’t the highest range on Querencia, yet the snowcaps were creeping downwards again as the last weeks of summer passed away. And the forests that smothered the mid-slopes were changing colour, the fronds on the dominant kalkand trees were shading towards beige as they began to contract. Below the treeline, the gentler lower slopes had a yellow tinge. Grass deprived of water during the dry summer months was just starting to taste rain again. Clumps chewed down by terrestrial sheep and cattle along with the roaming flocks of native chamalans were putting up their last wispy sprouts before the snows came once more. The soil on these remote lands wasn’t rich enough to support farms. There were a few isolated cattle stations but that was all. Though with the peaks fencing away clouds the air was beautifully clear. Visibility stretched for miles.
‘If they’re to move round unnoticed it will have to be through the trees,’ Larby said.
‘And the camps will have to be within range of villages,’ Topar agreed. He pointed at the summit of Mount Alvice at the south-eastern end of the valley. ‘There’s a plateau beyond the crest, with several villages. Sandmarket is a day’s ride beyond that.’
‘That kind of area is a possible for them,’ Boloton agreed. ‘Secluded but in range of Regentfleet.’
Edeard thought they were right, but didn’t say anything. He was content with someone else making all the decisions for once. Topar hadn’t said how long he was prepared to stay out here trying to track down the bandits, but they were carrying enough food for a fortnight.
Once they were back in the saddle, Topar led them onwards towards Mount Alvice. As before, they clung to the treeline to avoid being spotted. They were assuming the bandits would be using ge-eagles, and probably dogs. All of them had listened intently to Edeard on the first day when he told them about the tamed fastfoxes he’d encountered back in Rulan province.
By midday they were halfway round the mountain’s slopes when Topar stopped them. Their ge-eagles came flashing down to settle among the treetops. Verini, who was using the ge-eagle with ordinary vision, had spied two similar ge-eagles in the air above the shallow pass into the plateau country. The pair of them were orbiting high above the stony track, soaring round in a huge circle.
‘Definitely keeping watch,’ Topar said after they’d watched the ge-eagles for over half an hour. ‘We’ll have to go through the trees to get past them.’
Everyone dismounted and began to lead their ge-horses into the trees. Edeard went last, sweeping his farsight along the track through the pass to see if he could locate the bandits instructing the ge-eagles. There was no sign of them, not even if he used the counter to concealment – though that wasn’t reliable at any distance. They were either on the other side of the pass, or hidden behind some thick rock.
Their ge-wolves prowled through the forest of kalkand trees, using natural senses to scent anyone hidden amid the undergrowth. It was dank and cold under the boughs, as if the tall leaden trunks were somehow caging a winter’s mist. The cold soon wormed its way through their jackets and trousers to chill their limbs. Everyone had to use their third hand to ward off low branches and clinging damp fronds. The undergrowth of straggly bushes stunted by the lack of light tore at their legs, slowing them further. An endless canopy of scarlet sporecones dripped sap on to their hats which then dribbled in sluggish rivulets down on to their shoulders.
It was late afternoon by the time they reached the far side of the mountain. The plateau was more hospitable than the saddle lands behind. A broad expanse of deciduous forests and long meadows laced with small streams. The peaks all around were low, without snowcaps. Miles away to the north-east they could see a village; its yellow stone buildings cresting a hillock. Thin strands of smoke wound their way up out of chimneys.
‘No wall,’ Edeard said under his breath. Even now that still startled him. He remembered his surprise on the long journey east with the Barkus caravan how the fortifications around settlements grew smaller and more dilapidated with every mile they travelled. Until finally in Oxfolk province on the other side of the Ulfsen Mountains they had been abandoned altogether, leaving towns and villages completely exposed to whatever lurked outside their boundary. Only nothing dangerous did lurk there, not any more. Not for hundreds of years.
With the pass guarded by the ge-eagles far behind them, Topar guided them along the treeline to a steep little valley leading away from the mountain. They hiked down to the stream at the bottom, and mounted up again. The ge-horses splashed along the stone bed, taking them out on to the plateau. Small martoz and bluebeech trees grew out of the steep slopes, their roots webbing the big flood boulders littering the valley. Long whip-like branches waved across the sky above them, providing more cover. Their ge-eagles flew low, barely skimming the uppermost branches, watching for any of their own kind; while the ge-wolves spread out across the boggy meadowland on either side, sniffing the air.
As the sun fell below the high, rumpled horizon they reached one of the many forests sprawled across the plateau. Here the trees weren’t so tight, and the ground underfoot was a mat of dead leaves and soft loam. Tall weeds and grass offered no resistance to the ge-horses. They made their way to the centre where they set up camp.
When the first glimmers of the nebulas began to shimmer overhead, Topar dispatched their five night-viewing ge-eagles to see if they could spot the watchers from the pass.
‘They’re here somewhere,’ Macsen said intently. ‘They wouldn’t keep a look-out on the pass otherwise.’
‘Unless they’re in the valley on the other side of it,’ Dinlay pointed out. ‘And we crossed each other sometime when we both crept through the trees.’
‘Ever the optimist,’ Macsen grunted.
‘Practicalist.’
‘That’s not a word.’
‘Realist,’ Larby supplied.
‘Thank you,’ Dinlay said.
‘They’re here on the plateau,’ Topar said.
Edeard was one of those guiding the ge-eagles, his farsight enabling him to send it over vast swathes of land. It soared up into the air, giving it a broad view of the rolling plateau. Topar had asked him to cover the south-east, where there were forests and narrow gullies and long talus slides spilling out below from faultline crags.
The ge-eagle flew swift and silent, showing him the muted ground, as if he was peering down on a world shrouded by the thickest stormclouds. He saw a drakken pack scampering along a slim gorge like an oily tide; then they began to churn around a chamalan carcass. Small rusals skipped nimbly up bushes and trees, searching for cones and pods to store for the winter. Trilans wove their low dams across streams, producing wide bogs that proved treacherous to other animals. Several flocks of chamalans huddled together, those on the outside nervous of whatever skulked through the night.
After an hour observing the relatively harmless nocturnal activities of the plateau’s wildlife, the ge-eagle caught a flash of motion next to a sprawl of hatlash trees growing along the marshy banks of a small lake. Something bigger and faster than anything else it had seen that night. The ge-eagle dipped its wing and curved round until it was coasting along several hundred feet above the tops of the hatlash trees. Their trunks were swollen from the lake water, pressed together in a battle for space; the pushing and shoving resulted in the trees leanin
g at steep angles, producing an interlocked tangle. Perfect cover. The ge-eagle turned again, scouring the swaying treetops for any sign of incongruous movement.
It glimpsed something on the third pass, and began a tight spiral. Through its eyes Edeard saw a fastfox slinking along, picking its way through the ragged curtains of weeping boughs. The big predator sped up when it reached a small clearing where dead trunks were rotting into a rancid pile of fungi. Even so, the ge-eagle clearly saw the collar round its neck.
‘They’re here,’ Edeard announced quietly, and gifted the ge-eagle’s vision to the others.
‘Sweet Lady,’ Dinlay muttered.
‘I never thought I’d ever see one of those things,’ Macsen said.
Edeard instructed the ge-eagle to back off.
‘Why?’ Larby asked.
‘Its master won’t be far away,’ Edeard explained. ‘They’re not that easy to keep control of, I know. He might farsight our ge-eagle.’
Sure enough, a few minutes later the fastfox left the hatlash trees. A man was with it, jogging along effortlessly.
‘Dear Lady,’ Edeard gasped. The man was wearing a simple dark tunic and knee-length boots. Two belts were looped over his shoulders, crossing his chest. Slim metal boxes were clipped to it, the kind that held bullets for the rapid-fire gun that was hanging on a third strap. ‘He’s one of them!’ Shock was making him giddy. His hands started pawing at his chest as he sucked down air.
‘Them?’ Macsen asked. ‘You mean the bandits?’
‘The ones from Ashwell. He’s dressed exactly the same as they were that night. I swear on the Lady, he’s got to be one of them.’ He became aware of the nervous glances the others were trading. ‘Them,’ he insisted.
‘To be expected,’ Topar said. ‘They chased me before.’
‘That’s no bandit from the wilds,’ Larby said.
‘Are you okay?’ Macsen asked in concern.
Edeard nodded a slow reassurance. Seeing this nemesis return out of his own past was profoundly shocking. But I’ve grown since then. This time it’s their turn to know fear.
The Temporal Void Page 70
