The Plains of Kallanash

by Pauline M. Ross

  But when he was awake, particularly when it was his turn to stand watch, he found himself prey to all sorts of strange thoughts. It was not the tunnel which bothered him, for he had long since assimilated all the little noises of the rats and perhaps other creatures in the lower part, the steady breathing of the other three, the creaks when one turned over, the occasional whispers of voices from further down the tunnel, the water gurgling constantly beneath them. He shut them out, knowing he would be instantly alert if anything changed, if something unusual appeared in the mixture.

  No, it was all the things he could do nothing about. He thought about Mia and wondered where she was, if she was well, what was happening to her. Was she with the barbarians? His heart was cold at the prospect. And if Mia had survived her apparent death, maybe Tella and Jonnor had. Perhaps they too had travelled down these tunnels and were amongst the barbarians.

  He worried, too, about their dwindling food supply, and whether they would run out before anyone came past. He tried to imagine what would happen, in fact, if anyone did come by. Would they calmly open the gate for them? Would it come to swords and knives down here in the gloom?

  Sometimes his mind wandered to the Karninghold, what they made of his absence, if his father had arrived and whether Hemmond had managed to tell him where they had gone.

  Most of all, he worried about his friends who had followed him blindly on this foolish journey, trusting his judgment and, perhaps, about to die because of that. Had he made a terrible mistake? Maybe Trimon had been right after all.

  They fell into a routine, of sorts. The light from the Godstower delineated day and night for them, so they kept to a strict schedule marked by three small meals at the proper times, as well as they could judge what that was. They stayed awake during the day, and slept at night. Every third day they lit the brazier and heated water to wash with, both themselves and their clothes, and to cook a single pot of stew with the dwindling supply of dried meat and vegetables and grains. They didn’t bother to shave.

  Walst instituted a training program to keep them fit, running up and down the tunnel between the gates each afternoon and practising sword moves, although they never dared risk the noise of actual combat. Clashing swords would indubitably attract the attention of the barbarians, although Walst wasn’t even sure of that. “They’re really loud down there,” he said more than once. “I think there are more of them than there used to be.” It was not reassuring.

  There was still a lot of time to sit around and contemplate their situation. The others had not yet reached Hurst’s state of fatalism, and even Trimon, who grumbled most, talked about what they would do when they escaped. It was in fact their primary topic of conversation – recalling everything they knew about the barbarians and their practices, and trying to work out what approach to take when they finally bumped into one.

  Hurst was all for simply introducing themselves and asking to speak to the leader, but the others thought all that would get them was a chest full of arrows, or a sword in the gut. They went all round the subject, without reaching a conclusion, but in the end it would be up to Hurst to make whatever move he deemed fit; he was the Karningholder; their job was merely to follow his commands. It simplified things.

  Gantor had not given up hope of finding a way to open the gates. He was convinced the marks on the wall nearby were instructions – a code, perhaps – to allow the gate to be opened without a lever. He had three sets of marks to examine now, for they were trapped by three separate gates. One was a short way back up the tunnel they had come from, one blocked access to the Godstower and the third was down the tunnel near the barbarians’ light. Whenever there was enough light from the Godstower, he stood for hours in front of the nearby walls examining the marks there carefully, running his long fingers over the indentations carved in the stone, looking for inspiration.

  “Is the wall speaking to you yet?” Hurst said one day.

  “No, it’s frustrating. It looks a bit like Kannick Old Script – you know, the one that has all the dots. But it’s a modified version.”

  “Isn’t there a new Kannick as well?” Hurst said, dredging up long-forgotten scraps from the scholars.

  “Yes, yes, Kannick Revised Script, but that’s completely different,” Gantor said impatiently. “It’s virtually the same as Middle Kashinorian, all straight lines. Kannick Old Script is nothing but dots, but look, there are curved lines mixed in with this. Just a few, but it’s very confusing.”

  “These lower bits are all dots,” Hurst said helpfully.

  Gantor shot him a look of amusement. “Thank you, Most Learned. What would I do without you to point out the blindingly obvious? Actually, I think they’re all numbers, these dots at the bottom. I’m not totally sure, because I can’t quite remember what the squashed dots mean, but these are obvious – that’s two, and that’s five, see?”

  “That’s just the number of dots.”

  “Well, yes. And over on the other wall, there’s a couple of threes. But I can’t remember how it goes beyond five.”

  “Well, six would be six dots, wouldn’t it?”

  “Maybe it’s like the Herramish number system,” Trimon said, coming up behind them. “They count in fives – one, two, three, four, blob, blob one, blob two… and so on.”

  “Gods, of course!” Gantor punched the air. “It’s a duodecimal system. How could I forget that!”

  “Of course, so obvious,” Hurst said dryly. “It’s a what system?”

  “Duo… oh, never mind. They counted in twelves. And they had a symbol for six, which is what the squashed dot must be. So that is a nine, and that there is eleven. Ha!”

  “Well, now, that is helpful,” Trimon said sarcastically. “We’ll be out of here in no time, I feel sure. But if you’ve finished counting dots, it’s time for the noon meal. Do you think it’s noon? I think it’s noon.”

  ~~~

  About two weeks after they found themselves trapped at the tunnel’s end, they had visitors. They had eaten their last, rather inadequate, meal of the day and were sitting in the near-dark wondering what was happening back at the Karning, and whether Bernast had been allowed to resume the skirmishes without Hurst around, and joking about how bad the results might be by the time they got home. They were not bothering to keep their voices down, so it was a shock when Walst suddenly raised a hand.

  “Hush a minute. I heard something.”

  There was instant silence. At first they could hear nothing, straining to catch some other sound above the noise of their own breathing and the gurgling water, which was loud and rushing at the moment. But then, clear as a gong, the sound of voices, and too loud to be the barbarians far down the tunnel. Walst reached for his sword.

  Since they had no torch burning and the brazier was out, the door to the cave had been left open, but there was no tell-tale flickering of light from the tunnel, nor was there the distinctive rumble of carts. Only the voices, and the sound of boots on stone and the occasional thump or rattle. Whoever the newcomers were, they were not trying to be quiet.

  Hurst poked his head quickly out of the doorway, but could see nothing moving in either direction. Then, as they waited in silence, more boots, more talking and the voices were closer now.

  “… flat down here, lads. Pass that down, Fennis. Oof, careful, will you? Come on, come on, we need to get settled before dark.”

  “Godstower!” whispered Gantor.

  Very stealthily Hurst crept out of the cave, and up the tunnel a short way. Still nothing to be seen in either direction. From out here, though, it was clear that Gantor was right – there were men in the Godstower, and coming down the stairs.

  He signalled for Gantor to join him, and they stood either side of the entrance to the side tunnel that led to the Godstower. From there, the voices were very clear. It sounded as if these men, whoever they were, had stationed themselves in the large space at the bottom of the tower, just out of sight.

  Signalling Gantor to stay back in
the tunnel, Hurst crept into the side tunnel and as far along it as the gate. Beyond it, there were no lights, just the sounds of men settling down and opening packs as they chatted. After a while, the distinctive sound of a flask being uncorked, and the glug of liquid down one throat after another.

  “That’s better,” a voice said.

  “Told you, didn’t I?” said another. “Once we’re shut up in the basement, there’s not a drop of ale until afterwards.”

  “Or women,” said a third.

  “We’ll just have to fight over the old woman, then.”

  “No, not even her. They lock ‘em all away, even the crones from the kitchen. So we’ll have one more night of sweet dreams before we get herded in with all the others. Pass it back, will you?”

  “How long will it be? Before… you know…” A young voice, nervous.

  “First time in battle, eh? A while, a week maybe. Then a day of marching and a day of fun.”

  “Don’t worry, lad.” A deeper voice, older. “Stay close to us, we’ll get you through it. They’re cowards, you know, they turn and run as soon as you push them.”

  “What is this place, then? Is it a back way into the basement?”

  “No, no, you can’t get in from here, there’s a gate that doesn’t open. Want to see it?”

  Hurst had just time to scramble back to the main tunnel and out of sight before the voices got closer, and they could hear the gate being rattled. Gantor had his sword out now, but Hurst was confident the visitors couldn’t open the gate. So they were safe from them, but equally there would be no opportunity to escape that way.

  For a while, as the men in the Godstower chatted and drank, Hurst and his Companions took it in turns to creep into the side tunnel to listen to their conversation. Gradually, as full darkness fell, they became silent, and in time snores could be heard. It was a strange feeling discovering that the barbarians were preparing for a major battle without being able to do anything at all about it.

  The next morning as soon as the sun rose the visitors packed up and left, and the four Skirmishers were alone again. But now when they crept down the tunnel to the next gate, they could hear a constant drone from further on, the noise of a great many men gathered together. From time to time they even caught glimpses of people in the tunnel itself, although some distance away.

  “How many of them will there be, do you think?” asked Trimon, who had never been in battle.

  “A thousand, maybe,” Hurst shrugged. “Bit more. I never saw more than two thousand, but usually less. They do a lot of small scale stuff, fifty or a hundred, two hundred at most. I imagine it must be more difficult for them to organise themselves.”

  “How so?”

  “They’re barbarians, aren’t they?”

  “We call them that,” Gantor said, “but they could be just as organised as us.”

  “Well, organised or not, they’re no fighters,” Hurst said. “They’re a rabble, like animals with swords. No discipline at all. We can usually beat them easily, even when they outnumber us two to one. If we have anything close to parity, we can scuttle them in minutes.”

  “That just means they’ve had no proper training. They’re brave enough, actually. If they had a few decent Skirmishers to train them, we’d have a lot more trouble.”

  “Well, it’s lucky they don’t have any Skirmishers, then,” Hurst said.

  Gantor just grunted, and looked at him sideways.

  “Oh, come on, out with it,” Hurst said with a grin.

  “Hasn’t it crossed your mind,” Gantor said slowly, “that Jonnor may have passed down these tunnels only a few months ago? With his Companions. Jonnor wasn’t the world’s best Skirmisher, but he was handy enough with a sword, and very good on the training grounds.”

  They were all thoughtful after that.

  ~~~

  To pass the time, Hurst used the remaining chalks to draw a gameboard on the ground in the cave, and with odd pebbles and broken bits of used torches they fashioned enough playing pieces to construct simple games.

  “Waste of chalk,” Trimon muttered. “Never know how much we might need.”

  “We won’t need any more,” Hurst said. “We’ve got as far as we’re going, it seems to me, and really, we hardly needed it in the first place. It’s not as if we had any choices to make, there was only ever one option to take at any of the junctions.”

  Gantor made a sudden strangled noise, and dashed out into the tunnel. Trimon rolled his eyes, but Walst and Hurst followed Gantor out.

  “Directions!” Gantor said, waving his arms in excitement. “See, there’s all this writing at the top, lots of words, but then lower down it’s just numbers.”

  “Right,” said Hurst, mystified. “We know all that.”

  “Think about it! Suppose you’re walking through these tunnels, and unlike us, you can open all the gates, you can go wherever you like. What information would you need?”

  “How to open the gates?”

  “Yes, yes, of course, but what else? You come to a junction, say – what would you like to know?”

  “Where it goes!” Hurst cried, getting the point. “Directions!”

  “Yes! And probably distances, as well. And these curved lines? I think they’re pointers. See how that one faces up the tunnel, but this one faces down it? So all this writing at the top just means – this way, twenty miles to somewhere, and thirty miles to somewhere else.”

  “So you can’t actually read it?”

  “Well no, but that part doesn’t matter. Not unless we ever need to go back up the tunnels in a different direction. I daresay…” Gantor stopped abruptly, and looked sideways at Hurst, chewing his lip.

  “Go on,” Hurst said.

  Gantor sighed. “I was only going to say,” he muttered, “that Mia could probably read it. She had quite a good grasp of some of these old scripts.”

  “Well, when we find her, that will be useful,” Hurst said evenly. Gantor and Walst exchanged glances. “I know, I know, it won’t be easy to find her, I realise that. And I’m not totally stupid, you know, I understand it may just be a dream. Maybe she’s dead. Maybe they’re all dead. But I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing, shrivelling up like an autumn leaf. It’s better to be doing something, anything. Isn’t it?” Walst stared at his feet, and none of them said anything. “So, what about the numbers, then?”

  “The numbers open the gate,” Gantor said. “There are five numbers. It’s a code or key of some sort. There are devices at the Ring that operate that way – you set little levers somehow in a pattern and it unlocks the door. But there are no little levers on the gate, nothing in the wall. I just don’t see anything that moves.”

  “It must be hidden then,” said Trimon, emerging from the cave.

  “Yes, but where?” Gantor said.

  “Well, let’s think about this logically,” Hurst said. After the days and weeks of inactivity it was a relief to have a puzzle to focus on. “So, let’s suppose I’ve brought my cargo of – well, people or goods, whatever, and dropped it off, and now I’m making my way back up the tunnels. Coming down was easy, just a single lever to open each gate, but now I’ve got to use this – code, key, thing. But it can’t be difficult, because I don’t want to spend ages at each gate fiddling. It’s got to be something very simple, something that doesn’t involve climbing or stretching or crawling on the ground.”

  “Head height!” Gantor exclaimed.

  “And it’s a lock of some sort, so something with matching bits on each half of the gate,” added Trimon.

  “There are several of those,” Walst said, “and we’ve tried them all already.”

  “Yes, but only one pair at the right height,” Trimon said. “It has to be these two.” He began to run his fingers over a solid patch of metal. “Nothing on this side… let’s try the – oh!” And with a click, a small door popped open.

  “Fuck me!” said Walst.

  There were five levers inside, and it was obvious what
they had to do, but even so it took a good half hour of sliding them this way and that before there was a sudden thunk, the lock opened and the gates could be pushed open. Several times Gantor insisted they let the gates swing shut again, which reset all the levers and closed the cover over them, just so that he could reopen them, and then he made each of them try it until they could all do it easily. They turned to Hurst.

  “Looks like we’re free,” Gantor said, surprise in his voice. “So – where to?”

  “There’s no point going back up the tunnel,” Hurst shrugged, “and down that way are hundreds, maybe thousands, of armed men, all raring for a fight. So let’s try the Godstower, and see what we find.”

  He sent Walst through the gate first, and let it close again, to check that it could be re-opened from the other side. There was no lever, but the numbers were engraved on the wall and Walst easily opened the gate from the far side. Then they all put on armour, weapons and packs and filed through into the tower. Immediately they saw a difference. This tower had been partially demolished, and it was easy enough to scramble over the debris and down heaps of fallen masonry on the outside to the ground. The fallen stones were partially overgrown with grass and weeds, so whatever catastrophe had occurred was not a recent event.

  One by one they reached ground level and stood looking around them. The light was dazzling after the gloom of the tunnel and it took a while for their eyes to adjust. There was nothing much to see. They were standing on open plain, head high in waving grasses. Away in the far distance was an odd misshapen tower. As they stood, gazing around them and wondering which way to go, a voice rang out behind them.

  “Hey! You there! What the fuck are you doing out here? You should be inside, you stupid fuckers! Come on, quick, sun’s up, get yourselves out of sight!”