The Plains of Kallanash

by Pauline M. Ross

  “If we happen on one in sunlight, or a full moon, we can have another look,” Tanist said gloomily, “but let’s not waste any more time on it otherwise.”

  On the third day, they reached another of Tanist’s interests, a side room filled with carts. The cart they had brought with them was light and easy to push along by only one person, even when fully loaded with their gear. It had enough padded seats for eight people, and if they could get just two more, they would be able to speed the whole group through the tunnel. But the gate barring the entrance was locked, and this time it was a simple padlock and heavy chain, and nothing they tried would open it.

  “Well, we always planned to walk the whole way,” Tanist said with a sigh. “We’ll still be able to carry one or two people in the cart, if anyone is injured or finding it difficult to keep up. Let’s carry on.”

  Hurst said nothing. There were only two people Tanist might have in mind as being unable to keep up, and Mia was certainly not finding it difficult at the moment. He himself was most in danger of needing the ignominious assistance of the cart. He was all too aware that he was unused to such punishing exercise, for the ache in his bad leg was a constant reminder. It was going to be a long dreary walk.

  45: Maintenance (Mia)

  Every step down the tunnel was torture for Mia. Her heart thundered, her breathing was fast, every nerve was stretched to breaking point. Her muscles were tensed to run for safety, although there was nowhere to run to. Her eyes were alert to the least movement in the shadows beyond the flickering torchlight, and her ears strained for any unusual noise. They walked quietly and without talking, but fourteen armed men could hardly be silent. She heard the creak of leather, the jingle of sword-loops, the stump of booted feet, the clap of a scabbard against thigh, the whisper of many breaths, the rumble of the cart. Beneath her feet water rushed in a constant torrent. And always around her was the confining, suffocating darkness.

  Tanist and Hurst walked in front with the torch, with Gantor and Trimon behind. Then Mia, near enough to help read the signs when they came to a gate, with Dethin alongside her. Behind them was the cart, fitted with another torch, then the rest of the group in pairs. At the back, Groonerst and Ainsley kept watch behind them. Mia envied the Skirmishers their easy acceptance of the dangers. Who knew what they might find beyond the next gate, or in the next camp cave? Yet they walked stolidly along without complaint, without apparent fear, and whenever they stopped, however briefly, they rested and even slept.

  Mia found it impossible to sleep. She lay down obediently when directed, with a blanket folded under her and another as a pillow, wrapped herself in her cloak and closed her eyes, but that only intensified her awareness of the noises around her. Those on watch whispered together, there were snuffles and gentle snores, or creaking when someone turned over. Occasionally footsteps would creep through the room, followed by the unmistakeable sounds of the carsi being used. For hour after hour she lay, pretending to sleep, until someone came to rouse her and another long day’s walking began, if day it was. It was hard to tell, in the perpetual darkness.

  She had known fear before, but only that brief jag of terror before someone – a servant, her husband, a guard, a Slave – stepped in to deal with the problem. There was Cristo, of course, but that hadn’t lasted long, either. Since then, it had been something less – a kind of background anxiety, a constant murmuring worry about Bulraney or Dethin, and the unknown future. But this was more intense – and it was constant, like a continual screech in her ears, jangling her nerves and reducing her to quivering helplessness.

  In this strange underworld, Dethin was her greatest comfort. He walked silently beside her, catching her arm if she stumbled, waiting for her if she stopped for a moment, smiling sometimes when she caught his eye. Whenever they stopped to rest, he made sure she got her food first, and had the best of the blankets, and the most secluded and secure sleeping bench. He draped a blanket for privacy when she used the carsi or washed. The last thing she saw when she closed her eyes to sleep was Dethin sitting not far away, watching over her.

  Hurst kept an eye on her too, but he was occupied with Tanist and Gantor, planning, organising watch shifts and cooking rotas, so mostly she was left to Dethin. She would have liked to hold his hand sometimes as they walked, just for the pleasure of a human touch, but he was fully mailed, even to the gloves. She was mailed herself, in fact, wearing an armoured leather over-tunic, vambraces and greaves, although it had been difficult to find anything small enough to fit her.

  “A knife in the upper arm or leg won’t be fatal,” Hurst had told her in a matter-of-fact way, “but a knife in the heart will be.”

  She had a knife of her own, too, a long, curved spike, which Hurst had shown her how to hold, while pointing out the best places to aim for. It did nothing to reassure her.

  The third night they used the last of the bread brought from the compound, crumbling it into the stewpot so that it thickened the gravy almost to the consistency of porridge. Everyone agreed it was the best meal yet. Mia lay down, her belly full, and she was so exhausted that she slept almost instantly.

  She woke to lights, strange flickering blue-green lights. Someone was crying, a high wail. Faces leaned over her, spoke to her, but she couldn’t understand the words. On the floor, a heap of bloodstained cloths. Then she must have slept again, because she was in the cart, moving so fast she felt sick. That wailing again. Then another face, a man, a stranger with dark hair and a short beard, bending close to her, hushing her, his hand on her forehead.

  “Sssh, it’s all right, Mia. It’s only a dream. Wake up! Sssh now.”

  Who was he, this man? She started up, and then, in a rush, she realised. “Dethin? Sorry, sorry… Did I wake everyone?”

  Dethin tucked an arm around her back, and smiled.

  “Not really. Don’t worry about it. This place – it doesn’t make for easy dreams.”

  It was true, for while she had lain awake for hours, she’d noticed several others who were restless in their sleep. Some even cried out momentarily, or muttered as they dreamed. Perhaps they suffered on this miserable journey, just as she did.

  She lay down again, and he kissed her softly on the forehead. Impulsively she pulled him down for a real kiss. He laughed and laid a hand soothingly across her stomach. He had removed his armoured gear, and she could feel the soft warmth of his arm through her tunic.

  “Go back to sleep,” he murmured, pulling her cloak up to her chin and tucking it around her. She closed her eyes, and almost immediately drifted off.

  She woke some time later – hours or minutes, she couldn’t tell – to find him still sitting on the floor beside her, his head resting on his arm inches from her face. He was sleeping, but not quietly, muttering and twitching, his other hand moving in the air, as if grasping something. He seemed to be talking, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  “Dethin? Wake up!” she whispered.

  He woke instantly, his head jerking up, and drew a sharp breath when he saw her. To her dismay she saw tears on his face. He must have seen her expression, for he looked down and quickly wiped his sleeve across his eyes.

  “I hate this place,” he said, almost too low for her to catch the words.

  “So do I, and I don’t even remember much about my previous journey. But you remember everything, I expect.”

  He looked up at her then, and quickly down again, nodding almost imperceptibly.

  “There’s room for both of us on here,” she said. “Come and lie down beside me.”

  Without a word, he lifted her cloak and slid in alongside her, wrapping the cloak round both of them and curling his arm over her waist and round her back, to pull her close. She folded into his arms with a sigh. Comforted, they both slept.

  ~~~

  Mia lost track of the days after that. There was nothing but the endless tunnel, the brief stops at gates, and the longer stops at camp caves. Occasionally the group would pass a side tunnel to a Godstower, a
nd once she was astonished to see grey daylight filtering down. Another time it was raining, and she could hear water pouring down from the open roof and into the drains below their feet. There were many side tunnels now, each marked with a Karning number, or sometimes several, presumably leading to funeral towers. Eventually, they came to the one with Mia’s own Karning number on it, and she knew it was the one she had travelled down. It still had Hurst’s chalk mark on the wall.

  “That will be the last of my marks,” he said cheerfully. “We’re into new territory now.”

  The group fell into a rhythm, with everyone knowing their assigned tasks. Even their rest stops were quiet now, as people did what needed to be done with silent efficiency. Mia supposed that Skirmishers were always this way, once a mission got under way, but she couldn’t help admiring the quickness of everything they did. Every morning, before they left their sleeping place, they prepared two bags of food, one to be eaten at meal stops, and one for the pot – dried meat, vegetables, beans, grains, whatever was to hand – so that when they arrived at the next sleeping place, it would go straight into water over the brazier, with no waste of time. It meant they had hot food in an hour or so. While they waited, they prepared sleeping places, washed in cold water and changed into clean underthings. Or at least, Mia did. She wasn’t sure about all the men. Dethin always trimmed his beard, using his own blades and a small hand mirror, and she noticed that after a few days Hurst began to do the same.

  The hot meal was the most sociable time of the day. Hurst and Dethin came to sit with her, one either side, and often Tanist or Gantor or Trimon as well, if they weren’t on watch duty. After that, the group slept and either Hurst or Dethin would lie with her. When they woke, there was a pot of porridge ready, and another long day of walking began.

  Once they passed through an entire stretch of tunnel between two gates lit with an unearthly greenish glow high up along one wall, which flickered and dimmed and sputtered in the strangest fashion. They waited some time before venturing into that section in case they met anyone, but when they plucked up the courage to walk on, they found it empty. Nor could they see any way of controlling the lights.

  “It would be useful if we could light the whole tunnel like this,” Tanist said. “But I don’t see any levers. Does anyone know how it works?”

  “It all seemed like magic to me,” Ainsley said. “The guide would open the gate, and then after a minute or two, by the time everyone was through, the next lights just came on by themselves.”

  “Well, it’s not magic,” said Gantor, “That’s for sure. And I would guess it’s the same kind of vapour that lights the funeral towers. There must be some trigger around here somewhere.”

  “We can’t spare the time to look for it,” Tanist said. “It’s a pity, but we must keep going.”

  ~~~

  A day or two after that, they came to another section filled with light, this time a yellowish colour. They passed through the gate and on along the tunnel, but they hadn’t gone far when Tanist raised his fist and they all stopped. Mia could hear her heart thumping, but there was no other sound apart from the ever-present rush of water under their feet and a slight hissing from the lights.

  “People ahead,” Tanist whispered. “Defensive formation.” The words were passed back down the line.

  Gantor and Trimon moved forward to take up position alongside Tanist and Hurst. Trimon readied his bow, and the others drew their swords. Mia and Dethin moved behind the cart and four warriors moved forward to help out if there was trouble.

  Slowly they began to walk again. Mia couldn’t see anything but the backs of the Skirmishers ahead of her but Dethin, who was taller, signalled four fingers at her. He was on her right, his hand resting on his sword hilt, his eyes focused somewhere ahead of them.

  They stopped again, and just as Mia’s nerves were stretched tight enough to snap, Tanist came back to find her.

  “Mia, you read the old myths, don’t you?” he said in a low voice. “Weren’t there some creatures that live in the caves under the Ring of Bonnegar?”

  For a moment she was too confused to think straight. She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

  “There were dragons once, supposedly. And keelarim. But – they don’t exist anymore.”

  “Keelarim?”

  “Big caterpillar things with sharp teeth.”

  “No, these—”

  He was interrupted by a frantic shout from Groonerst at the back.

  “Carts behind! Carts!”

  At once there was chaos. Dethin hastily pulled Mia to one side and several people rushed past, swords out. There was shouting, the rasp of swords being drawn, the creak of a bowstring, boots thumping. The strange light glimmered on bare blades. Someone shifted the cart round to partially block the tunnel, with Mia on the far side from the approaching carts.

  “Keep down!” Dethin hissed to her, drawing his own sword. “Whatever happens, stay behind me.” And he positioned himself between her and the unknown threat ahead of them.

  They had rehearsed this situation many times, but they had never considered that they might be under attack from two directions at once. Mia crouched down in the shelter of the cart. In front of her, Dethin was her only defence from whatever unknown danger lay further down the tunnel. Her fear was a palpable thing, a knot in her stomach, heavy and solid. And yet, now that the moment had come and she was facing a real threat, something in her rebelled at huddling on the ground in terror while a man protected her, and perhaps died for her. Wasn’t she a descendant of the sword-maidens of the old tales? Wasn’t she just as capable of wielding a weapon? Wasn’t she brave enough to fight in battle and die with honour, just like them? Or was she to be cowed and fearful all her life?

  She took a deep breath, stood up and drew her dagger.

  Dethin half turned his head to whisper, “You may not need that after all. They don’t look dangerous, do they?”

  He moved back to stand beside her, and she gazed in astonishment down the tunnel. Four creatures stood there, two legged and two armed like humans, but small and skinny. They wouldn’t even reach her shoulder, she guessed. Their hands and feet were large, relative to their stick-thin arms and legs, and they had bulbous hairless heads with huge pale eyes. They wore loosely draped brown rags – or perhaps that was their skin, she couldn’t tell. They stood in a cluster next to a small cart gazing at her, and twittering to each other. Most bizarre of all, they carried an assortment of what looked like feather dusters and cloths on long poles. The cart was fitted out with a ladder contraption.

  “They’re cleaners!” she whispered. “Cleaning the tunnel.”

  “Yes, but what are they?” he whispered back, wide-eyed. “I’ve never seen anything like them, even in books.”

  “Oh, they’re morodaim. But…” She stopped, bewildered. “But they’re extinct. They were destroyed in the Catastrophe, if they ever even existed. They’re just legends.”

  “They look real enough to me. If they are these morodaim, should we be worried?”

  “They were supposed to be quite friendly – if you got lost in the caves, they would guide you out. So the legends say.”

  There was an increasing amount of noise behind them, but there was no clash of metal, no thud of sword hitting shield, no whine of arrows flying or cries of injured men. Mia thought she even heard laughter. Then everything went quiet again, and Tanist, Hurst, Gantor and Trimon shouldered their way back to the front.

  “Fucking Walst!” said Trimon with a grin. “Giving us a fucking fright like that.”

  Mia wondered how Walst could possibly have caught up when he left a day behind them, but there was no time for explanations.

  “What do you make of them?” Tanist said quietly to Mia, pointing down the tunnel. She told him they were morodaim, and what little she knew of them.

  “Gantor?”

  “Could be. They fit the description, it’s true.”

  “Safe for us to pass?”

&nb
sp; “Yes, if that’s really what they are. No sharp teeth or claws, never known to use weapons. Very docile. They used to clean out the dragon caves, apparently.”

  “Will they go running to the Slaves to tell them about us? Because if so, we have to kill them.”

  Gantor was silent for a long time. Mia sheathed her dagger with a soft shush, and stood head down, staring at her feet, trying to suppress her urge to cry. She dared not speak.

  “I think…” Gantor said, “that they have no way to communicate with humans, except by simple gesture. And they’re cave-bound – or tunnel-bound, they never venture above ground. So I don’t think it’s a risk.”

  “Right,” said Tanist. “We’ll go past two at a time, weapons out of sight. We don’t want to startle them. Gantor and I first, then Hurst and Trimon, and if all’s well, Dethin and Mia. The rest as they wish. Carefully with the cart, don’t bump theirs.”

  Mia realised she was holding her breath, and let it out slowly in relief. She was not after all to witness the first killing of the journey. The whispered instructions were passed down the lines of men. Tanist and Gantor sheathed their swords, and with a nod to Hurst began to walk slowly down the tunnel.

  As they drew nearer to the morodaim, the creatures twittered more rapidly in rising tones, and bobbed about in apparent interest, watching the approaching pair carefully. The two men edged nervously past them, keeping as far from them as they could, and then backed away on the other side, but nothing untoward happened. After that, Hurst and Trimon made their way past, and then it was Mia’s turn. Dethin went first, and she followed, tense and stiff, her hand on her dagger. As she drew level, the twittering reached a crescendo, and all four of them stared at her, their huge eyes unblinking. She was convinced they were talking about her, somehow. She stopped, curiously drawn, staring back at them in fascination. She found she was not afraid of them, just curious. Abruptly the twittering stopped, and as one they lowered their heads in a strange sort of bow. As soon as their eyes dropped, she was released from the spell and hurried after Dethin.