Ibryen [A sequel to the Chronicles of Hawklan]

by Roger Taylor

  With unexpected agility he was on to his knees and then his feet and a powerful hand was dragging Jeyan painfully upright. Her legs could hardly support her. ‘Be quiet,’ the soldier said, shaking her. The very softness of his voice carried more menace than any roaring curse. ‘I've had worse hurts than this further from safety before now. If you want to stay alive, just keep quiet and hope that I don't feel myself about to pass out, because if I do, I'll make sure you don't escape by pinning you to the ground with your own knife.'

  He gave her a violent push that sent her sprawling again, then he yanked her upright by her bound hands. ‘And the next time you go down, boy, I'll kick you until you get up. I can kick you all the way to the Citadel if I have to.’ He snarled into her face. ‘In fact, it's something I'd enjoy doing.’ He dropped her again.

  Jeyan had no doubt that he would at least try to fulfil this threat. She shook her head frantically. ‘No more, no more. I'll do my best to walk, but I'm dizzy,’ she gasped.

  They had gone only a few paces when the soldier faltered and propped himself against a wall to avoid collapsing again. Jeyan made no attempt to escape, however. The rope around her ankle was a very effective restraint. From somewhere she found another resource.

  'I'm sorry I cut you with the knife,’ she said plaintively. ‘You frightened me, chasing me like that. I didn't know what to do. I just lashed out. And the dogs—they're my friends, they look after me. They'll attack anything that threatens me.'

  The soldier, clutching his bleeding arm, glowered at her, but said nothing.

  Jeyan slumped against the wall alongside him and stared down at the arm. ‘It's bad, isn't it?’ she said guiltily.

  Still no reply. Exaggerating her distress, she went on, in rasping breaths, affecting kinship in suffering. ‘Look, we're both lost here. I don't know where I am. I only know a little bit of the Ennerhald—near the city. I usually beg—I never come this far in—there's all sorts of strange people in here. And I don't know anything about Lord Hagen. I didn't even know he was dead. And there's scores of dogs round here. Fierce dogs. People use them for protection. Why don't you let me go—save yourself before you lose too much blood.'

  She bent forward to look into his eyes. She had been hoping that his silence meant unconsciousness, but it was not the case. He was wide awake and alert. With an effort, she kept the disappointment from her face, and nodded towards his injured arm. ‘Look, the blood's coming out with your heartbeat. That's bad. I know it's bad when it does that. Go and get help before it's ...'

  A ferocious back-handed blow across the face ended her plea.

  'Keep quiet, I told you!’ The soldier snatched at the rope attached to her ankle, partially unbalancing her. She lurched into him, taking some satisfaction in bumping into his injured arm. It cost her another blow which left her on her knees, her head ringing. She pushed herself upright again. To her horror, the soldier was staring at her intently.

  Let him not see I'm a woman, she thought frantically, all her fears re-doubled. She dropped her head. A hand gripped her chin cruelly and jerked her upright so that the inspection could be completed. ‘What's the matter?’ she asked tremulously, the grip blurring her words. ‘You're hurting. I'm trying to do what you want. I can't help falling over.'

  The hand twisted her head round to look along the crumbling street. Over the broken and crooked rooftops at the end could be seen the five towers of the building where she had started that morning. ‘Don't worry about being lost, boy. You recognize those, don't you? All we've got to do is keep walking towards them, isn't it? Then even I know the way.’ He shook her head viciously, making it throb. ‘What were you doing there? Enjoying the purging? You'd have been better to run and keep running after what you did. The Gevethen see everything, and they can reach everywhere, believe me, I know. Whoever paid you to kill Lord Hagen did you no favours.'

  Jeyan did not need to be reminded where they were, she knew exactly, and it was imperative that she get away from her captor as soon as possible. ‘I didn't kill Lord Hagen,’ she protested. ‘I didn't kill anyone—I've never killed anyone. Why would I ...'

  Her head was jerked round again. The soldier's face was barely a hand's width from hers and his scrutiny was as intense as before, though it was apparent to her that he was having difficulty in focusing.

  Squeal and die, pig, she thought vehemently, though no sign of it appeared on her face.

  The soldier growled through clenched teeth. ‘Your dogs killed our men in the tower. You led us a dance all over this place just so they could do the same again. And I've seen you use that knife of yours. You killed Lord Hagen all right—I can smell it all over you. We know our own kind, don't we? We brothers in blood, we're different, aren't we? No hesitation, just ...’ He jabbed a finger into her chest and seemed to gather new strength. ‘But keep it up, keep it up. Shout your innocence as much as you like, you'll have plenty to shout about when the Gevethen's Questioners—Hagen's people—his loyal people—start working on you.’ He came even closer, malevolently confidential now. ‘They always enjoy their work. It frightens me just to be near them, and it takes a lot to frighten me, I can tell you. But I might ask if I can come and watch after what you've done. Then again, perhaps they'll do it in the Citadel Square for everyone to see—bit by bit, nice and slow, just to discourage any others who might be thinking the same way.'

  For the first time since she had been captured, Jeyan's fear threatened to become screaming panic; her knees and bowels began to yield as the scene described by the soldier appeared before her, lit vividly by his wide and shining eyes. Then the gaze was gone as the eyes screwed tight; the soldier's relish in this anticipated celebration fading before more pressing needs.

  When they opened again, there was simple puzzlement in them. ‘But there's something odd about you,’ he muttered, shaking his head to clear his vision. ‘Something odd. I can't grasp it, but ...’ He grimaced and pushed himself off the wall. He was swaying. Jeyan was little more steady herself and the throbbing in her arm from the kicks she had received was merely the focus of the pain that suffused her entire body. She looked around at the familiar landscape, her haven, her hunting ground, now almost mocking her as blank-eyed windows and shattered doorways gaped, indifferent to the drama being enacted before them. And beyond, the five towers, which had once held her high and invulnerable to view the city at her will, had become a menacing hand, signalling to all where she was to be found—even she was not totally immune to the soldier's fears—the Gevethen see everything.

  Then she changed.

  So far she had been contending with the fears of the moment, but the soldier's gleeful reference to the Questioners and what lay ahead had set light to truly deep and awful terrors. And too, lurching inside her was an emptiness which Assh and Frey had once occupied. Their mother had attacked her when she stumbled into her lair in search of a refuge of her own, and she had killed the animal. Following who could say what instinct, the pups had trailed after Jeyan and she had tended them. They had been with her ever since, at once free and bound. Despite her other fears, the emptiness was bleak and awful, and such as she had not felt since her early days in the Ennerhald following the death of her parents. Now, as she stared at the soldier, his shadow swaying raggedly over the uneven ground, and felt the gaunt hand of the towers at her back beckoning the city to her, the emptiness welled up and became one with the terror. Their combined momentum pushed her beyond anywhere she had ever been before. She would not be taken alive into the city. Either she escaped from this failing butcher here and now ... or she died.

  She dropped to her knees and slumped forward on to her elbows, ‘I can't go on,’ she said. An exasperated gasp of pain and weary anger greeted her. Head lowered, she watched the unsteady legs out of the corner of her eye. They were covered in blood and more was dripping constantly, some splattering on to soiled boots, some on to the sun-dried roadstones, cutting new rectangular valleys along the ancient weathered joints.

&nbs
p; The sight awoke no compassion. Rather it rekindled the bloodlust that had filled her in the dismal little room where she had been cornered.

  Drip, drip. Squeal and die, pig.

  Affecting to make an effort to rise, she took her weight from her hands and clenched them to her as if in pain. As she did so, she surreptitiously took hold of the rope that was fastened to her ankle. It tautened as the soldier tottered back with a view to delivering a kick and, unconsciously, he took support from it. The tug rang through Jeyan like a signal and, animal now, she gathered all her pain and rage into a single intent and hurled herself at him. Already off-balance, and suddenly losing his unwitting reliance on the rope, the soldier staggered back. Bound hands flying at his face and mouth screaming, Jeyan crashed into him. When she felt him toppling under this impact, she relaxed and lifted her feet off the ground so that her entire weight landed on him as he struck the ground. Immediately she hammered her clenched fists into his face, then jumped to her feet with the intention of stamping on it. Reflexes rolled the soldier out of the way, but the defending arm that he raised was his injured one and it took the full force of Jeyan's descending foot. Crying out, he flailed it desperately, knocking Jeyan off her feet as she tried to stamp on the arm again. Then there was only milling, blood-spraying confusion, with Jeyan wriggling and thrashing wildly to do what hurt she could, where she could, and to prevent the soldier from retaining any grip he succeeded in fastening on her. In so far as she was aware of what she was doing, she was also trying to snatch her knife from the soldier's belt. And as they rolled over, so the rope faithfully measured out the consequences of their every move, entangling them, releasing them, gripping tight, flying loose. Then it was around Jeyan's hands and across the soldier's face and as she threw her weight to one side again, so it wrapped itself painfully about her hands binding her to her enemy even more firmly than before. Only when she twisted and turned her hands to free them did she realize that at the same time it had looped itself about the soldier's throat and that his uninjured hand was clutching at it.

  Freedom came into sight. She could escape this nightmare. A touch of the future came to her; showed her herself snatching cached supplies and running, running, deep into the forest, far beyond any search. All it needed now was one last effort.

  Ferociously, and oblivious to the pain in her hands, she twisted the rope tighter and tighter, leaning backwards and driving her heels into the ground for purchase.

  So absorbed was she in the destruction of her captor that she did not see the figures appearing round a corner of the crooked street. Nor did she see them suddenly start running towards her. Only when hands that were not her own came into her narrow, desperate focus did the world become again anything other than a protesting skein of twisting fibres. And only as they gripped her wrists and forbade them movement and a knife sliced through the rope, jerking her loose, did she return to the Ennerhald.

  And to the Citadel Guards surrounding her.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  It was night and Iscar had gone. For all the solace that his journeys to the valley offered him of being free to be himself again instead of watching his every word, his every gesture, albeit within the confines of the Council Hall, the responsibilities that he voluntarily bore on the Count's behalf would allow no true respite and once he had eaten and was sufficiently rested he sought Ibryen's permission to leave.

  As he was escorted, blindfolded again, out of the valley, to begin his dangerous return to the choking claustrophobia of the city, he took with him not only food and news of the well-being and renewed determination of the Count and his followers, but also the reiterated pronouncement that the Gevethen were soon to be attacked, ‘from a direction they do not even know exists'. Further, and to Marris's unspoken but increasing alarm, Ibryen had extemporized about the message.

  'Hagen's death is but the start.'

  Unusually, this message was not to be wrapped in ciphers, to be discreetly passed to the Count's followers in the city; it was to be spread far and wide, to as many people as possible. It was to become part of common gossip—the many-headed monster that could not be silenced and that had no heart to slay.

  Whatever elation Iscar carried back to the city, it was not to be found in the room in the Council Hall where Ibryen sat, part of a grim circle. Marris and the Traveller were on either side of him and Rachyl and Hynard sat opposite. The atmosphere was tense.

  Lanterns lit the room and hid the bright stars that the Hall's mirrorways carried through the darkness and strewed across the ceiling. In the daytime, or in the absence of the lanterns, the room seemed to be open to the air, so faithful was the picture. It was unlikely that a finer example of mirror art existed even in Dirynhald but the craftsman who had built the ways, almost on a whim and with unpromising materials left over from other work, declared that the quality was attributable more to good fortune than any skill on his part. He was deeply pleased for all that, though he was hesitant about doing new work for some time after.

  Rachyl and Hynard had only just returned with their team from the southern ridge and their manner was oddly strained. Food stood untouched on a small table in front of them, though a pitcher of water had twice been emptied, some of it across Rachyl's face and neck as she had performed an impromptu and sulky ablution when Ibryen had directed her and Hynard immediately to the room on their return.

  'Did you find anything?’ Ibryen asked Hynard almost as soon as the door closed.

  'Oh yes,’ Hynard replied significantly. ‘His tracks.’ He nodded at the Traveller. ‘You're some climber, old man,’ he said. There was reluctant admiration in his voice.

  'I'm small and light, and I'm used to mountains,’ the Traveller replied. ‘It all helps.'

  Hynard pursed his lips and gave an acknowledging nod as at a considerable understatement. ‘There was some faint sign on the ridge, but it was clear enough,’ he went on, addressing Ibryen. Then he paused. ‘And we could see his trail in the snow across the Hummock.'

  'Ye gods.’ Marris's stern expression cracked into amazement in spite of himself, and Ibryen's eyebrows rose.

  'The Hummock! You're sure?’ he asked, wilfully keeping his voice low.

  'We're sure,’ Rachyl replied on Hynard's behalf. ‘We had Seeing stones with us and everyone made damned certain about what they were looking at.'

  The Traveller shuffled his feet uncomfortably. ‘I did tell you where I'd come from,’ he said weakly, adding again, ‘and I am used to mountains. Can we get on now?'

  'You did indeed tell us,’ Ibryen conceded, ignoring the request. ‘But you'll understand our doubts, I'm sure. Had anyone asked me, I'd have said that in so far as any approach was even expected from the south, the Hummock was the best possible defence we could have had.'

  Ibryen looked at his two cousins, Rachyl with her flushed and dirt-streaked face and Hynard, also only now cooling down after what must have been a rapid climb and descent. There was an unfamiliar uncertainty about them both. It was not difficult to surmise its cause. Sceptical and suspicious, at times almost to the point of obsession, they would have led their team up on to the South ridge largely convinced that nothing was going to be found and that the Traveller was beyond doubt some kind of spy. It would have been unsettling for them to find the first small indications that someone had been up there recently. And then to see the footprints still surviving in the snow on the Hummock! That must have been profoundly unnerving. He could see the members of the team on the ridge, looking and looking again across the Hummock in the hope that some other explanation might come to them before they accepted the reality of what they were seeing.

  He must be careful with them. Rigid things shatter, he thought. It was an old memory. As a child he had had a formal training in arms as befitted his station and, for a little while, he had been taught by an old man who, though much respected by his peers, used techniques which were frighteningly effective yet strangely soft and subtle. He had never seen the like since a
nd none of his subsequent instructors had made such an impression on him. ‘Relax. Let go. Only dead things are rigid,’ the old man used to say. ‘And rigid things shatter. Shatter suddenly.’ He would clap his hands explosively and laugh. He laughed a lot. Ibryen had enjoyed his training but had never understood what he was being taught, always throwing himself massively into either attack or defence, invariably to crushing defeat and always much to the old man's amusement. ‘Don't be upset,’ he would say. ‘What little I've truly taught you, you'll understand when you need it. There's no hurry. Some things can come only with time.’ Then he would always add, ‘But you've learned more than you realize.’ There had been a great affection between them and Ibryen had been deeply distressed when the old man had died. Even now, he often thought about him, always remembering his kindly ways but always too, with the feeling that an opportunity had slipped away from him which would not come again.

  Yes, he must be careful with Rachyl and Hynard. Circumstances for his followers demanded a meticulous attention to the procedures that had grown up over the years. To veer away from them was to jeopardize the whole community. That was an article of faith. But had it become mere blind ritual? Had Rachyl and Hynard become strong, supple and well-founded like great trees, or had they become dead stumps, stiff and useless, mere obstructions to be walked around? Would they crumble and disintegrate into ineffectiveness at the wrong touch?

  Patience, he counselled himself. Let them ease fully into the present. Put time between the now and the frightening discovery that there had been silent footsteps at their back.

  'Iscar's been,’ he said abruptly. When the first rush of surprised exclamations petered out he motioned Marris to recount the reason for the premature visit.