by Ian Graham
Ballas followed, aware of his clumsiness. In his limbs, he felt every ounce of his body’s weight. And every ounce of his rucksack. He clambered to the top, then sat down, groaning.
‘Are you thirsty?’ asked Laike, pointing at a spring close by.
‘Nah.’
‘I am,’ said the old man, walking towards the trickling water.
Half numb with fatigue, Ballas gazed at the mountains. Many were so high that their summits were indiscernible; they vanished into the sky’s stark blue. Waterfalls tumbled here and there: light-struck, a few flickered with rainbows. Ballas looked dully at the slopes, gullies and grass-patches—then he froze.
A figure was moving across a tract of scree, several hundred yards away. Ballas’s vision was far from perfect, yet he knew instantly who it was.
Heresh.
Her red hair was a faint patch of colour against the grey stone. And Ballas also recognised the dark woollen travelling cape, given to her by Laike.
She should have been partway to her uncle’s home by now. Not scrambling up the Garsbracks. Something must have happened. Something must have stopped her journey not too long after it had begun.
‘Ballas—what troubles you?’
The big man blinked. ‘Nothing,’ he told Laike.
‘Then what do you say?’
‘Say?’
‘Are you ready to move on?’ The explorer rapped his staff on the ground. ‘How often must I ask you, my friend? Three times I have—’
‘I am ready.’
Rising, Ballas glanced towards Heresh … to the hardly discernible figure, alone up on the Garsbracks. Then he turned away.
They walked until evening approached and a thin darkness crept over the mountains. With the sun gone, the air grew still colder. A breeze blew—scarcely more than a soft rustling of air. Yet it was so icy that it seemed to peel the skin from Ballas’s face.
They pitched camp between two large boulders, stretching a tarpaulin overhead to form a roof. Exhausted, Ballas did not bother lighting a fire. If Laike wanted a blaze, he could make it himself. Slouching against a boulder, drawing a blanket up to his chin, Ballas fell asleep instantly.
When he woke, it was dawn. Laike had built a fire, at the edge of the camp. It burned feebly—a few tiny flames, flickering upon a bed of ash. The explorer slept on the ground, his head upon his rucksack, his staff in his arms. He seemed peaceful, contented. As if mountain-sleep were something nourishing. Ballas had slept deeply. Yet he still felt tired. A dull weight hung behind his eyes. His body was stiff, as if it was acquiring the hard quality of the mountains’ rock.
From a pouch, Ballas tipped a few beans into his palm. They were brown-black in colour, and round in shape. Laike had imported them from the Distant East. He claimed that they dispelled tiredness. That they could fill the weariest of men with vigour. Crunching them between his teeth, Ballas stepped out from the camp.
The day was cold, clear—much like the previous day. Ballas wandered a dozen yards away, unfastened his leggings and urinated.
A sudden noise disturbed him. It was not loud. Nor did it come from anywhere close by. It surprised him, for it was the sound of a human voice. Once more it rang out, drifting over the mountains. Ballas couldn’t make out the words: the cry was muffled by distance and had lost its clarity to the confusion of echoes. Yet its tone remained expressive.
It was a cry for help. And it belonged to a woman.
From the camp, Ballas retrieved the bow and some arrows. The cry rang out again—thin, dull, tired: yet laden with pain and fear. The big man followed the sound, treading as lightly as he could over frost-coated grassland. After half a mile, he came upon a deep, broad gully.
Upon a ledge, thirty feet from the top, Heresh sat motionless, her head bowed. Her left arm was folded across her chest, as if shielding a wound. Blood soaked her travelling cape and caked her hands. Her hair had broken free of its ponytail, grease-dulled strands straggling over her face. She breathed heavily, her shoulders rising and falling.
Ballas ducked behind a rowan tree. He stared at the bow— at its polished wood and tautened string. Then at the arrows: copper-tipped, red-fletched.
He blinked. Then, nocking an arrow, he moved from behind the rowan and took aim. Heresh was an easy target—as easy as the goat had been the day before. He drew the bowstring tighter, felt it taut against his fingers.
Then a voice spoke. ‘Trouble?’
Athreos Laike moved to stand beside the big man. ‘I heard you leave the camp a short time ago,’ he said. ‘Then I heard someone calling for help. It is the girl, is it not? The woman who journeyed with you? I could recognise her voice.’ He touched the bowstring with his fingertips. ‘I noticed, too, that this weapon was missing. One need not be a genius to work out your intent. Where is she, Ballas? Upon a ledge?’
‘Go back to the camp,’ said Ballas.
‘A ledge, yes? Of course—if she had fallen to the gully floor, she would not have survived.’
‘It doesn’t matter where she is. Go back, Laike. I’ll sort this out.’
‘If you kill her, I shall not guide you. Among mountain men, there is a code of honour. The injured, the despairing—they cannot be abandoned. I intend to be loyal to such principles. I have upheld them all my life. I shall not forsake them now.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Ballas softly. ‘What use would she be? Piss-all. She’d be nothing but a burden. She’s injured. I reckon her ribs are broken. And beside that she’s a bloody woman. She’s got no place upon the mountains. She would slow us down. We’ve got to reach the top before the snows come in. We can’t afford to be … be dragging a dead weight with us.’
‘She is, as you say, injured. Yet she has made it this far up the mountains—and has done so by herself. Doesn’t that suggest you are underestimating her? She couldn’t have gone much further, of course. About a mile further on, the ground on that side of the gully falls away, and there is nothing except a quarter-mile drop to a rock bed.’ Laike exhaled slowly. ‘She is strong, Ballas. And resilient. The route she has taken is not easy …’
‘She was probably hysterical. I reckon she didn’t even know what she was doing—’
‘Panic cannot endure for two days,’ said Laike mildly. ‘It burns itself out.’
Ballas shook his head. ‘It’s not important. Not important at all. Strength? Resilience? Horseshit to them both. She isn’t coming with us. I’ll grant her a quick death—a clean death. She won’t know it is coming. She’ll just wake up in the Eltheryn Forest—or in the sulphur pits of Hell. Either way—’
‘I shall say it once more: take her life, and I will not guide you, Ballas. I will simply leave you here. Then you will die. And with you, your dreams of Belthirran shall also die. To die knowing one’s ambitions are unfulfilled—that is a terrible thing. Perhaps the worst of all things.’
For a long time Ballas did not move. He held the bow poised, the arrow pointing at Heresh. Then, swearing, he hurled down the weapon.
Laike had brought a length of rope. Ballas secured one end to the rowan. The other he fastened around a piece of stone. Moving to the edge of the gully, he shouted, ‘Woman! Wake up!’
Heresh raised her head. She stared uncomprehendingly at Ballas. Suddenly, she understood. Her eyes widened and she started to get to her feet.
‘Please,’ she began. ‘Help—’
‘Shut up! Catch this, all right?’ Drawing back his arm, Ballas hurled the stone over the gully to the ledge. It struck the gully wall, several inches away from Heresh’s head. Then it bounced, clattered off the ledge and vanished into the gully. The rope slithered tight; grasping it, Ballas drew the stone up again. ‘This time,’ he shouted, ‘you’d better do as you are told. Catch it. Drop it, and that’s it—we’ll bloody well leave you there.’ He threw the stone over. It cracked against the gully wall, above the ledge. Twisting, Heresh caught it—then staggered, grimacing. She curled her arm across her chest again.
‘Yeah,’
said Ballas, ‘her ribs are broken. She’s half crippled.’ He looked at Laike. The explorer’s expression was impassive.
Following Ballas’s instructions, Heresh untied the stone, threw it away, then wove the rope into a makeshift harness, which she slipped over her upper body. Tightening it, drawing the rope against her chest, she winced. Ballas gripped his end of the rope, winding it around his fist. Stepping back from the gully edge, he shouted, ‘Jump!’
Heresh stared up at him.
‘Jump, damn it!’
Licking her lips, Heresh moved to the rim of the ledge. Then she halted. She peered into the gully, and froze.
‘Pilgrims’ blood,’ muttered Ballas. Yanking the rope, he tugged Heresh off the ledge. Screaming, she tumbled into empty air. As she fell, the slack vanished from the rope. The harness squeezed her damaged ribcage. Her scream fractured into a rasping howl. She swung on the rope, smacking into the gully wall across from the ledge. Leaning backwards, heels jabbing into the earth, Ballas dragged her upward. Against his shoulder blades, his muscles locked solid. The rope pulled hard around his hands, constricting them painfully. Growling, he took step after strenuous step backwards until Heresh appeared over the gully’s edge—first a dull glint of red hair, then a face clenched in pain. Striding over, Ballas grasped her arm, and manhandled her on to the grassland. She rolled on to her back, sobbing. Then she sat upright, leaning forward, both arms covering her chest. Her face was pale and tears streamed down her cheeks.
Ballas threw down the rope. ‘There,’ he said, turning to Laike. ‘Now she’s your bloody problem.’
A short while later, Ballas sat on a rock, drinking whisky, staring across the mountains. Before the journey could be resumed, Heresh’s injuries had to be tended. Ballas left this task to Athreos Laike. And it seemed that Laike’s ministrations were far from painless. From the camp, a hundred yards away, sounds of agony drifted: a mix of groans, yelps, gasps. The big man did not pity Heresh. He cursed her silently.
He cursed, too, Laike’s code of honour. By insisting that Heresh was rescued, the explorer had jeopardised the ascent. As if it did not matter whether they reached the summit.
Which, of course, it did not—not to Athreos Laike. For he did not believe Belthirran could be found.
So why had he agreed to travel with him? Why, if he believed failure lay ahead?
Ballas hadn’t asked himself this question before. Now, it preoccupied him. Sipping at the whisky, he suddenly understood. Laike didn’t care about Belthirran. He simply enjoyed being up on the Garsbracks. For Ballas, the expedition was a serious matter. But for Laike, it was a mere holiday, a pastime, a pleasant recreation.
Angrily, Ballas hurled the whisky flagon at a heap of rocks. It shattered, shards flashing in the icy light.
‘I hope you drank the last drop,’ said Athreos Laike from behind Ballas. ‘It is one of Druine’s finest liquors. For half a century, it has been maturing. It would be villainous to waste it.’ The explorer settled next to the big man. ‘My servant, Beirun, betrayed me. He is a weak, timid man—and he loathes change. He believed that I would not be returning from these mountains. For twenty years he had served me—but now he believed that I was deserting him. He was vengeful, I think— and he exacted the vengeance of the weak: he turned the strong against me. He informed the Wardens of our alliance. Heresh had scarcely left Dayshadow when she was intercepted by the Church’s men. She managed to escape, though. She ran through Briande Copse. And started to climb the mountains. She is a brave girl, resourceful. But you will understand that. You have known her far longer than I have.’
The explorer shifted to get more comfortable.
‘When she fell on to the ledge, she broke her ribs—as you suspected. Her skin is cut, from the thorn bushes in the forest. And she is badly bruised. I am surprised that she is alive. She has endured much.’ Laike hesitated. ‘She says a Lectivin is seeking you?’
‘Yes. One of the hunter caste.’
‘He will fare well in these mountains. They are fast, and have much stamina. The mountain’s convolutions will not trouble it, either. It will not find itself trapped upon a dead-end ledge, for it will be following your soul-glow—and that soul-glow, of course, will be giving away our route: the safe route. It is as if you have left behind a trail of footprints. We will have to be wary.’
‘Wary,’ murmured Ballas, sourly. ‘If you wanted to be wary, you’d have let me do away with Heresh. She will be slowing us down. Perhaps the Lectivin will catch up with us before we find Belthirran.’
‘So what?’ said Laike, rising. ‘By nature, you are a killer. If the Lectivin appears—kill it.’
For two days, they walked through the mountains, moving upwards into thinner air. Laike led the way, Heresh at his side. Despite her injuries, the young woman maintained a respectable pace. Despite her pain, she did not complain. She listened, as if genuinely curious, when Laike pointed out the Garsbrack’s ingenious hazards: the dead ends, from which no way back was possible; the bewildering webwork of ledges and ridge walks; the gullies that, though easy enough to enter, permitted no escape. She enjoyed the explorer’s talk; and the explorer enjoyed talking, sensing perhaps that she was more interested than Ballas had ever been. Walking behind them, Ballas was unsure whether Heresh truly cared. Or whether the old man’s chatter was merely something to distract her from the pain and discomfort of her battered body.
On the first night, they made camp. They ate the food from Ballas and Laike’s rucksacks, sharing it with Heresh. Ballas noticed that Heresh’s gaze was as sharp, as reflexively watchful as it had always been. Yet something was absent. The gentle hardness of her strength of mind had faded: in its place there was timidity. An understanding that, despite having survived so many things in the lowlands, she was, here in the mountains, fragile. Ballas wondered if her broken ribs had humbled her. Or whether the mountains themselves—a place wholly alien to someone raised in the marshes—were to blame.
On the second evening, they struck camp against a tall boulder. The tarpaulin slanted from boulder face to earth, once more creating a roof. Laike had wandered off, to wash in a stream. No food remained in the rucksacks. Ballas had to find a goat to kill and, sitting in the camp, he restrung the bow and selected the arrows. Heresh had gathered firewood. She struck a flint and steel, aiming at a small pile of moss kindling. Sparks flared; yet the kindling did not take. She tried over and over to light the moss. At first, her failures amused Ballas. He enjoyed a type of dark gratification: she was useless, a hindrance, he had said so from the start, and now she was proving him correct: a task as simple as fire-lighting was beyond her.
Then he grew annoyed. Every snick of flint and steel, every impotent spark-flash, angered him.
He snatched the flint and steel from her. With a single strike, he lit the kindling. Smoke coiled up from the moss, which he picked up and placed in Heresh’s hands.
‘Blow on it,’ he said. ‘You can manage that, I suppose? You can bloody breathe without fouling things up?’
Silently, Heresh obeyed.
‘Why are you here, eh?’ asked Ballas.
Heresh did not speak.
Lashing out, Ballas struck the kindling from her grasp. ‘Answer me.’
‘I can’t light a fire,’ she said, retrieving the moss, ‘if you hinder me like that.’
‘Why are you on the bloody mountains?’
‘I had no choice. Surely Laike has told you—’
‘Yes,’ interrupted Ballas. ‘But there are other places you could have gone.’
‘Really? Tell me where, Ballas. For I don’t believe that there is anywhere safe in Druine.’
‘That doesn’t explain why you are here.’
‘I am here because there is nowhere else.’
‘You intend to live for ever on the mountains?’
Heresh looked up, puzzled.
‘You’re going to stay here until you die? You’re going to settle down here? Maybe screw a billy goat, and raise a few k
ids?’
‘You’re obscene,’ said Heresh, slipping the smouldering moss beneath a clump of twigs.
‘Yeah, perhaps. But I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. Nor do I lie about my ambitions. I’m seeking Belthirran. And I reckon you’re doing the same now.’
Heresh became still.
‘I was being hunted by the Church. Belthirran was my only hope of survival. Yet you mocked me. You thought me a fool. But now—now you are hunted, and desperate. So: what happens? You start hungering for Belthirran. Suddenly, it isn’t the dream of an idiot. Nah. It’s a truth. An aspiration. Something that must exist; something you want to exist.’
‘Laike has spoken of the evidence. But this morning, he told me of the bone map …’
‘You didn’t know about it when you started, though,’ countered Ballas. ‘And has he told you of the rock wall? That cannot be climbed?’
‘He has.’
‘And it doesn’t trouble you?’
‘It troubles me,’ said Heresh. ‘But once we are there …’
‘Yes?’
‘We will find a way. Isn’t that the way of things? There is a problem that seems insoluble. But once you are there … once it is in front of you … In the alley, in Granthaven, when the Wardens were approaching—there was no way out. Yet somehow, we found one—’
Ballas snorted. ‘I found one. You simply did as you were told. And that’s the size of it, I reckon. You expect me to take you to Belthirran. Tell me this, then: why should I help you? You thought me a halfwit. You say I’m obscene. You spat in my face, at Laike’s home. What do I owe you? Why should I help you?’
‘Laike says that if you don’t, he, in turn, will not help you. In fact, he will leave you here.’ She looked up: a flicker of defiance had returned. ‘Are such arrangements not familiar to you? Have you not forced people to do your bidding, upon threats of death?’
Muttering, Ballas left the camp.
Rain-fat clouds blotted the sky. A luminous darkness lay over the mountains—and an airlessness, as if every living thing was holding its breath. Ballas tramped two hundred yards over grassland, towards a grazing goat. Halting, he nocked an arrow and took aim.
