by David Hair
He gripped her arm. ‘Anise, it’s okay,’ he said, though he knew she didn’t speak his language. He sent reassurance; he was accomplished enough at mesmerism to use the gnostic art of manipulating other minds to take the edge off her panic, though their lack of a common language hindered him. ‘You’re safe,’ he lied as convincingly as he could.
‘Alron?’ she repeated, looking about her, and as a torrent of memories struck her she began to shake and unleashed a babble of Rimoni. ‘Alron? Dove sono il mio popolo?’
Where are my people?
But he didn’t have the language to respond. He found the odd word he’d learnt from Ramon, wishing he knew more, trying to soften the message, but there was no way. ‘They are dead – morto, si? Morto,’ he tried.
At first she was puzzled, then she swallowed a sob. ‘Mio fratello? Ferdi?’ Then she remembered; he saw the look of horror crawl across her face.
He shook his head, feeling utterly awful. ‘Morto,’ he whispered.
Her whole face dissolved. She began to shake her head from side to side and a wail began in the back of her throat. It tore at him and he pulled her to him, holding her close though she beat at him, ripping his shirt and his skin with her flailing fingernails, until she realised that he was neither going to hurt her, nor let her go. Then she burst into agonised tears and he wept with her, finally, for Muhren, and Mercellus, and Ferdi … and then it was for Langstrit, and for his mother, and for all the hateful things people like Belonius Vult and Malevorn Andevarion would do to gain power over others.
When he next became aware of anything beyond the weeping girl, the sun was rising over the valley and he could see a Silacian farm not far away, built on a rise. He climbed unsteadily to his feet, pulling Anise with him, catching her as her legs wobbled. Her moon-face was a picture of misery. ‘I need to find you somewhere safe,’ he told her, knowing she wasn’t understanding. ‘Come with me.’
He put her on Mallet’s back and walked the two horses towards the farm. A group of men stood by a wooden gate, peering westwards to where two columns of black smoke rose. They had pitchforks and machetes in their hands. When they saw him they fanned out, calling challenges.
‘Please, do you speak Rondian?’ he called nervously. ‘Can you help us?’
The men were swarthy and weather-beaten, and they looked at each other with dark eyes. They noted his Noros garb, his dirty, sweating, face and tired eyes. They peered at Anise and made threatening noises. His hand went to his sword, a gesture that made them all pause.
The eldest of the Silacian farmers stepped forward. He spoke Rondian with a heavy accent, but his words were understandable. ‘My name is Alfonso. Who are you?’
‘My name is …’ He paused. ‘Not important. This girl – she is one of Mercellus di Regia’s people. There was an attack at Torrini’s. Will you take her in?’
The Silacian looked at the other men, then spat. ‘Inquisitio,’ he growled. ‘Murdering bastidos.’
Damned right they are. ‘This girl needs a home,’ he said, throwing in Rimoni words as they occurred in the hope they stuck. ‘Per favore? Prego? Please!’
He watched Alfonso carefully as he considered, looking at those about him and conferring in a low stream of Rimoni. Then he turned back to him. ‘Others have come. I show.’ He waved a hand brusquely. ‘Follow.’
Alaron led Mallet and Prancer behind the farmers to a stable with a corral where a pair of donkeys and several oxen chewed placidly. An array of Rimoni men and women were there, and they stared mutely at him and Anise. He recognised some of the faces – they were di Regia people. Then someone screamed, a sound pitched somewhere between joy and sadness, and a girl erupted from a doorway and ran towards him.
Mallet and Prancer danced backwards in alarm and he had to fight to keep them calm as the girl threw herself at Anise, pulling her from the saddle and wrapping herself around her. Both burst into fresh tears as he stood there helplessly, staring about him. More women came forward, moving cautiously, and he realised that most of them were Rimoni, not Silacian, seeing the differences only in their dress, not their faces.
One of the matrons stared at him, firing a burst of questions he completely failed to understand. ‘She asks, how is this girl with you?’ Alfonso translated.
The woman didn’t wait for an answer but reached for Alaron and grasped his periapt, pulling it into view, then dropping her hand away as if afraid it would burn off. ‘Stregone!’ she cried, ‘Stregone!’
The whole yard went silent as they all looked at him. ‘You are magi, si?’ Alfonso asked warily.
When Alaron nodded, the men gripped their pitchforks tighter, their knuckles white. He wondered if he would have to fight his way out. Then Anise pulled herself from her girlfriend’s hands and stepped to his side as if shielding him. ‘Egli è il mio uomo,’ she said, pressing herself to his side. He thought he understood: This is my man. There was more, and he picked out words for ‘fire’ and ‘brother’ and ‘horse’ as the girl, her chin high, defiantly laid claim to him. It was the strangest feeling, like a wedding proposal at a funeral.
‘She says you saved her,’ Alfonso said eventually while the ring of suspicious eyes looked on.
‘I tried,’ Alaron replied, holding Anise against him. ‘I couldn’t save her brother,’ he added, unable to keep the guilt and pain away. ‘I should have done more.’
‘You are … what is word … ? Pure-blood?’
He shook his head, blinking away tears. I wish I fucking was. ‘Quarter-blood.’
‘Quattro-sangue? Then you could have done nothing,’ Alfonso said softly. ‘Niy contro Inquisitio.’
‘Did many people escape?’ Alaron asked hopefully.
‘A dozen here. Maybe others, si? I think we learn more as the day passes.’
Alaron bit his lower lip. ‘They will be hunting for me,’ he told the man. ‘I can’t stay.’ He didn’t know that for certain, but it was likely. ‘Please, will you look after Anise? And all these people?’
‘We will do what we can. It is hard,’ Alfonso added apologetically.
Alaron thought quickly; he grabbed Prancer’s reins. ‘Take this horse – use it to pay for Anise’s lodging.’
Alfonso frowned, and another round of intense conversation followed. Then he looked the two horses up and down. ‘Is a warhorse,’ he said firmly. ‘No good for farm work.’ He looked at Mallet. ‘This one.’
Alaron pursed his lips. He was dreading a flight of winged beasts and their riders swooping from the sky at any moment. ‘All right – but you will treat Anise as your own daughter, yes?’
Alfonso frowned, his eyes going from the horse to the girl to the circle of listening Rimoni. ‘Si,’ he said heavily, glancing at a woman in an apron beside the door. He fired a string of words at her. ‘I tell my wife. Is good horse. Good bargain.’
They shook hands. ‘Thank you,’ Alaron said gratefully.
Anise looked up at him, but as she realised what he was doing, she clung to him. ‘Niy, niy,’ she whispered, adding in awkward Rondian, ‘You stay.’
He shook his head and pushed her gently to arm’s length. ‘I have to go.’
She blinked fearfully, stamped her feet. ‘Niy.’ She fired a volley of words at him, ending with a question.
‘She asks to go with you,’ the man said, while the matrons of the di Regia people shook their heads.
I wish she could … It was crazy; he barely knew her, could hardly even communicate, but right now, she felt as important to him as Cym, as vital as the Scytale. There was no logic to it– but then, there had never been any sense to the crushes he’d had before. Things didn’t work like that. And who knew what fantasies she’d harboured all her life, what future she’d imagined that somehow could be fulfilled by him? If Malevorn Andevarion and the Inquisition weren’t in the next valley, he might even have agreed to stay with her. Right now a life of rural obscurity was a wonderful fantasy.
‘It’s too dangerous,’ he said sadly. ‘I can’
t stay, and she can’t come with me. Please, explain to her—’
He wrenched himself from Anise, unable to block out her wailing as he began to unbuckle Mallet’s saddle. The women gathered round her, glaring resentfully at him as he checked Prancer’s saddle and transferred all his gear. When he was ready, she stepped from the cloud of women, her face soaked in tears but her head high. She said something to the old man, who blinked. ‘She asks if you will return?’
He swallowed. ‘I hope so. If I can.’
Anise said something else.
‘She asks, “Should I wait for you?”’
O Kore! He felt his heart pause mid-beat. Breathing was suddenly impossible. A future appeared to him: a long journey away, rescuing Cym – who never loved him and never would – and then returning here, with Anise beside the door, waiting. She would see him and run down the lane towards him, her face alive with joy.
But there was another future, trapped in a circle of steel and fire and spitted like Jeris Muhren on the lances of the Inquisitors. And a young woman, growing old alone, waiting for someone who would never come back.
He could say yes and give her something to hope for, if that was what she wanted.
Or he could say no and have her hate him, but at least she would be free.
He met her eyes, wondering what sort of dreamer she could be to place her hopes in such tenuous things. In the face of such a look, he couldn’t give a simple answer. ‘Tell her … tell her I’m going to die. No one escapes the Inquisition.’
He watched her as the words were translated. She walked up to him with a grace and dignity well beyond her years, and tilted her head up. He didn’t need this translated.
Tears stung his eyes as they kissed gently.
The moment was all too brief. She stepped away. ‘Buona fortuna,’ she whispered.
‘And you,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Che sarà sarà,’ she said.
‘What will be, will be,’ Alfonso translated.
Anise turned and slowly walked back into the crowd of women as Alaron’s throat seized up. He exhaled heavily, turned to Alfonso. ‘Is there a path I can take east?’ he asked quietly. ‘Not the main road.’
‘I show you.’
*
Alaron rode all day, fighting the fatigue that at times saw him nodding off in the saddle. Alfonso had set him on a hilly path leading through groves of wild olives, but there was enough foliage to mask him from the air, provided he had enough warning. The Silacian farmer planned to hide the survivors in his granary silos if the Inquisitors came. ‘We have been hiding things from Rondians for centuries, Noros boy,’ he said calmly. He gave Alaron a bag of feed for Prancer and some baked sweetcakes from his kitchen.
He stayed well away from inhabited areas, terrified of bringing death to more innocents. Instead he followed the game trails, keeping one eye on the skies, and near sunset he saw a shape too big to be a bird circling high above. He immediately headed for the deeper woods and stayed there until after dark. Then he found the road again, and trotted east all night, running on adrenalin and fear, the half-moon bright enough to light his way. Prancer grumped, but did as he was bid.
Near dawn he found himself at a crossroads he vaguely remembered on the journey south – just a couple of days ago, though it felt like a lifetime. They’d approached it from the north, so he turned Prancer in that direction – and then he froze.
A dark silhouette was sitting atop the hill above him, barely two hundred yards away. At first he’d thought it was just a large bush, then massive wings unfurled. He shuddered and stopped dead, sending gnostic calm to Prancer. The horse trusted him now, and though his nostrils flared, he stayed silent.
If they’d waited at the crossroads I’d have walked straight into them … But the greenery around the crossroads was overgrown so perhaps there was nowhere for the beast to land, or maybe they didn’t even know it was there. Perhaps this particular hunter was just sloppy, or lazy. Whatever, he was deeply grateful for the stroke of luck.
He rode for as long as he dared, but all too soon the sun rose again. He walked Prancer up a little stream into a tiny gully where fresh water trickled, then managed to find an overgrown glade out of sight of the path. Though he was exhausted, he rubbed Prancer down first, then tied the horse to a fallen log, leaving the tether long enough that the beast could reach the stream and drink. He huddled into his cloak as the day brightened and kept watch as he ate, chewing dried meat and sipping water. He was quite sure that at any moment winged shapes would swoop overhead, screeching in triumph, but the air remained empty of all but birdsong and wind and at last the weight of his eyelids dragged him down into slumber.
It was after dusk when he woke, and his stomach was rebelling. He realised he’d not eaten properly in a day and a half, and Prancer was nuzzling the half-empty feedbags and looked severely disgruntled too. But he had only the vaguest idea where they were, and no idea when they might get more supplies, so he was loath to let the warhorse have more.
Stop running blind, he ordered himself. Stop thinking about what happened to Muhren and the rest and try to think.
He’d seen only two Inquisitors since he’d been on the road. Presumably they were searching for him, but they must have fanned out – maybe they thought he would continue going south? Perhaps he could slip outside their search perimeter. He decided to try the coast road and to keep moving at night, relying on the moon to light the way.
He fed the warhorse as much as he dared, then walked him along the westwards-winding wooded trail. The track ended in a clearing shortly after passing a group of woodsmen’s huts, maybe the only reason for the track in the first place. There were plenty of fallen logs, some partially sawn, many concealed by the long grass. Crossing the clearing was nerve-racking, and the ground beyond was uneven and treacherous, a wall of trees tumbling down towards another stream. He couldn’t immediately see any obvious way down, but circling to the south brought him to another track, rutted by hooves and dragged logs. He walked Prancer down the path into the deeper darkness, and as the trees crowded about him, shutting out the open sky, he risked a little gnosis-light. The sudden glow made the fingers of the branches seem to recoil in shock, so he dimmed the light to a tiny glow.
Then he froze as something shrieked in the sky above. He instantly extinguished the gnosis-light and his gaze flew upwards, but utter darkness reigned. Then came the patter of rain on leaves. Straining his ears, he thought he heard the flap of giant wings, but he couldn’t be certain. Beyond that he could hear a dim roaring sound, one that came and went rhythmically. He puzzled over it until the rising wind and heavier rain obliterated the noise. Something was in the skies above him, he was sure of it, but he had to move. Trembling with apprehension, he lit his gnosis-light again, then he and Prancer descended the track.
At the bottom of the track was a gully and another stream flowing eastwards, or so he thought. He let the horse drink, but not too much, then they began the arduous slog downstream.
Onwards, he thought.
*
Dawn seeped into the sky, a barely discernible lift in the shades of grey. The rain had stopped about an hour before and from beneath its curtain of sound came that distant booming, rushing sound that had so puzzled Alaron. By now he was so tired he was glassy-eyed, not thinking straight. The stream had met another and had steadily grown; it was a muddy brown river now, a wide bed of shingle over which the water unhurriedly twisted its way along. The banks were overgrown, so he walked Prancer in the dry parts of the riverbed, constantly crossing and re-crossing the river as it wandered along.
It dimly occurred to him that he should be stopping to rest; they were both soaked to the skin, and he was ravenous. He’d let Prancer forage grass on the banks, but he was frightened the horse might eat something he shouldn’t. T
he hills on either side of the river were thick with stunted trees and undergrowth, but he caught sight of a stand of willows on a flat patch of ground on a bend and gratefully stumbled towards it. The sky grew lighter, revealing mist patches clinging to the slopes higher up. That distant sound like rolling thunder rose louder as the wind shifted.
‘Come on, lad, let’s rest here,’ he said, and Prancer whinnied moodily. There was a large pile of dung drying there, obviously from something equally big, and it was making the horse distinctly nervy, so Alaron buried it. Once he’d rubbed Prancer down, he finished the remains of his hardtack, softening it with river water. The day looked set for more rain, but for now the only sounds were birdsong, the wind in the leaves and the distant roar of what he finally realised must be the sea.
The sea … He’d never seen it for real before, only illustrations in textbooks, pictures of massive cliffs and crashing waves hundreds of feet high. Will the coast road – if there truly is one – take me right to the edge? He hoped so. His father had spoken of the sea – and of course, crossing the great Bridge – and he’d always wanted to see it for himself.
He finished his desultory meal, and settled himself to try and sleep. He felt bone-weary, not just from the travelling, but from the loss of Jeris Muhren and the horror of what he’d seen at the Rimoni camp. Ferdi’s face kept haunting him, his casual, brutal slaying replaying over and over in his head. His killer had been utterly indifferent, as if she were just brushing off an insect.
There has to be a Hel. There has to be a place for such people.
He went to close his eyes when from above a shrill cry like a giant eagle filled the gully. A great black shape swooped down and flew along the river, only yards above the water. It was like a featherless bird with a wingspan of thirty feet at least, the musculature and veins clearly visible as it soared past him, close enough that its passing stirred the leaves. Its body was hues of grey and cream, and a long serpentine neck was topped by a bulbous head. A word dropped into his mind from his father’s tales of the Revolt: this was a venator, a winged reptile bred for hunting. There was a rider on its back, mounted just behind the neck on a complicated-looking saddle, with straps binding the rider to his seat. A male Inquisitor, he thought, peering at the young, sour-looking rider with his fur-lined cloak streaming out behind him.
