"We have to go ahead to a city, you, me and Kieran," he announced.
She pulled a face. "Do we need Kieran?"
"Yes, you'll need his protection in the city. Although I can fly above it, I must not reveal my presence, for if I fall I'll be helpless on the ground. The earth blood will trap me the moment I touch it. I cannot risk that."
She nodded. "What about the chosen?"
"I'll protect them from the Hashon Jahar before I leave, and the land will not harm them. I'll build a wall of ice around the camp. They must wait within it until we return. You must explain it to them."
"Why must we hurry to the city?"
Chanter glanced at the pale rays of morning light that lanced through the forest. "There's a column of Black Riders headed towards it, only a few days away. We won't have a lot of time. You must be out of the city before they arrive."
"But how will we find chosen in a city? There will be thousands of people there, and if we go around asking, we'll be caught."
"You must find the seer," he said. "He or she will know who the chosen are. Seers are always chosen."
"But surely they'll already have fled?"
"How? To flee into the forests of this land is certain death. No, they'll still be there."
Talsy nodded. "Then we just lead them out of the city?"
"Some of them. Once I've spoken to the seer, we'll decide how to free the rest." Chanter stood up. "Now we must be on our way. Time is of the essence."
Talsy followed him back to the camp, where she drew Sheera aside and explained what was to happen. The old woman gazed at Chanter as he went over to Kieran.
"He's leaving us here?"
"He must. We have to reach the city quickly to free the chosen there. You'll be safe. He's going to build a wall of ice, and you must all remain within it until we return."
"What if you don't?" Sheera looked doubtful. "What if something happens to him?"
"He won't come into the city. He'll stay outside where he's safe. If anything does happen to Chanter, the ice wall will fall, and then you must hide from the Black Riders as best you can. The land won't harm you."
The old woman shook her head, unconvinced. "The chosen won't like it. He's our Mujar, not the city people's. If they hadn't flung all of theirs into the Pits, they'd have their own to protect them, wouldn't they?"
"He's not our Mujar. He doesn't belong to anyone. You didn't save him, or any other Mujar, from the Pits, so you can't object to his saving more Truemen."
She sighed, forcing a feeble smile. "You're right, it's just fear talking. If Chanter says we'll be safe, I believe him. I'll tell the others, but don't expect them to be happy about it."
"I won't," Talsy assured her.
Sheera went to spread the word, and arguments erupted in her wake, as people shouted in anger and fear. Three men broke away from the group and strode towards the Mujar. Kieran moved to intercept them, his hand on his sword hilt. They ignored his veiled threat and pushed past. Chanter held his ground as they approached, and as soon as he stepped back, the air swelling with Ashmar, they stopped. The leader, a burly potter, protested their abandonment in loud brash tones that made Talsy's hackles rise.
"You can't leave us here! We need your protection, Mujar! Why bring us all this way, then leave us to the Hashon Jahar?"
Chanter frowned. "I must."
This incensed the Truemen further. "You don't have to do anything! Leave the bastards to rot, I say!"
The other men nodded, one adding, "Let them find their own Mujar!"
Chanter shook his head. "No."
"You owe them nothing. They don't deserve to be saved!"
"I owe you nothing, and you're not the judges of their worthiness."
"We'll make you stay here, if we must," the potter threatened.
The men sidled closer, their attitude menacing. Kieran's sword hissed from its scabbard, which diverted the men. Kieran became the centre of attention, and he gestured with his sword.
"If you let those people die, you're unworthy! Truemen have reviled Mujar for not helping them, yet here you are, doing the exact same thing! Now we have a Mujar who wants to save people, and you want to prevent him! You're hypocrites! Do you really want to be the only ones left? Twenty-two of you?"
"If anything happens to the Mujar, we could die!" the potter shouted.
"Yes, and if we hadn't found you, you'd have died on the eastern continent. You already owe him your lives, so if he says you stay here, that's what you do! Show some respect!"
The men scowled and glanced at each other, clearly unhappy, but he had reduced the bawling outrage of the Trueman herd to grumbling resentment.
Talsy marvelled at how easily the chosen could come to resent a Mujar, and still resorted to threats even when they knew this tactic was wasted on him. Despite their grumbling, the people set about gathering firewood and moving their tents closer to the stream that would provide water for them during Chanter's absence. Talsy packed a bag of supplies and warm clothes, tossing it to Kieran to carry with a sharp glare that defied him to refuse the burden. Chanter led them into the forest, and the chosen watched them go with doubtful, unhappy expressions, not pleased at being left without the Mujar's protection for any length of time. Some raised their hands in farewell, and Talsy waved back.
Fifty feet from them, Chanter turned. The air swelled and filled with the manifestation of Shissar. A thick wet mist swirled around them, and the distant booming of surf mixed with the hiss of rain and the tinkle of running brooks. The faint roaring of a river in flood or a waterfall gushing its torrents onto rocks below joined the usual Shissar sounds. The manifestation was so powerful that Talsy could hardly breathe, the air thick with moisture.
It vanished, and a ring of frost, about fifty feet in diameter, formed on the dead leaves, with the chosen and their fires at its centre. The frost thickened, becoming a wall of snow, then that solidified into ice and grew. The ice wall rose slowly, condensed from the air and drawn from the stream, thickening and clouding as the pressure increased. As the wall grew, the base thickened, spreading across the fallen leaves in a freezing frontier. The process quickened, and the wall narrowed towards the top, rising five, then seven paces high.
Chanter turned to Talsy while it formed. "You both must ride, so don't fight with Kieran, all right?"
The Mujar smiled at her disarmingly, stilling the protest that sprang onto her tongue. Had she aired it, she would have seemed as selfish as the rest of the people, and quelled her immediate dislike for the idea, nodding. Chanter's smile broadened into a white grin, then he bent to press his palms to the ground. The icy grip of Dolana clamped down, and she held her breath until it released her. The huge black stallion with blazing silver-blue eyes tossed his head and pawed the ground.
Talsy turned to Kieran. "I'll ride in front."
He shrugged. "Then I must mount first."
Talsy gestured to the waiting Mujar, and the warrior hesitated before using the stallion's raised foreleg to mount. She scrambled up before him, unpleasantly aware of him close behind her, his arms encircling her to grip Chanter's mane. Holding on to it herself, she glanced back at the ice wall as the stallion moved off. It had grown to over twelve paces high now, and still continued to form. She wondered how tall it would be before the Mujar considered the chosen safe. Or was it for their peace of mind that he made it so lofty?
The stallion quickened his pace, and she concentrated on holding on and staying as far away from Kieran as she could. Soon they travelled at a gallop, the earth blurring beneath the horse's hooves, the trees whipping past. From the white-knuckled grip Kieran had on Chanter's mane, she deduced that he did not know how safe they were aboard the stallion's back, and was not about to enlighten him.
By late afternoon, they entered a dark, twisted forest like the one near Jishan. The Mujar's hooves flew unchecked over treacherous ground clogged with twisted roots. After passing through many miles of distorted trees, silent but for the drumming of the st
allion's hooves, they entered an area razed by fire. Blackened stumps and twisted, burnt trees rose from a thick carpet of grey ash that flew up in a cloud behind them. Talsy gazed around in horror at the acres of ravaged land, blackened and dead, that Truemen had killed. The treetops had been burnt away, leaving a forest of twisted trunks, like lost sentinels in a grey sea of ash. Chanter slowed as the trunks thinned to reveal a stretch of open, grassy land ahead. Beyond that was the blighted city, surrounded by its web of earth blood.
The stallion stopped several feet from the nearest black path, and Talsy slid from his back, followed by Kieran. From the grim set of the warrior's face and the hard glint in his eyes, he did not like the city dwellers' deeds any more than she did. Chanter transformed, and gazed at the city for a moment before he turned to her.
"Remember what I told you. Bring me the seer and what chosen he or she can gather, then we'll decide what to do."
She nodded, and the Mujar looked at Kieran. "Put aside your differences. You must protect her at all costs, for she's the chosen one. I hesitate to send her into such danger, but you alone will not do the job. If you fail, I'll be forced to try to save her, and that, I wish to avoid. To enter that place would be very dangerous for me. If I'm trapped, all of you will be in grave peril."
"I'll do my best."
Chanter faced Talsy again. "Be very careful, that's a bad place. If anything happens to me, if I'm trapped in the city for any reason, leave me there until the Hashon Jahar have passed by, understand? Promise me."
Her eyes stung. "I promise."
"And I'll see that she keeps it," Kieran added.
"Good. Now go."
Talsy set off towards the city on a black path, Kieran close behind. When she glanced back, the Mujar had vanished. Many people trod the paths, tended their crops from their safety or ventured onto the land in carts that they pushed along with poles. Even when gathering their crops, they used metal or wooden tools, never allowing their flesh to come into contact with the ground. Men drove carts to and from the city, others rode strapped into their saddles for safety. As long as they had no contact with the land, they were safe, it seemed.
Twice, Talsy and Kieran had to sidle past other path users, being careful to copy the city folk lest they be found out. No one appeared to have noticed the Mujar, or that Talsy and Kieran had come out of the forest. Perhaps the impossibility of that idea made them disbelieve their eyes, or dismiss it as a figment of their imagination. Whatever the reason, they had to be careful not to arouse suspicion once they were amongst the people.
They passed through the gates unchallenged, entering a city that, apart from a lookout perched high above, was unguarded. It appeared that when Truemen were at war with the land, they made no wars with each other. Surviving in this strange manner was difficult, for to set foot on the ground was certain death. It gave a whole new meaning to living in a hostile land. This place was not merely inhospitable, but deadly. What saved them was that the land hated Truemen alone, and their beasts could carry them safely across it. That Truemen had the ability to survive it was testament to their ingenuity, as much as their stupidity for causing it.
Within the walls, life seemed normal, although the city had an air of lethargy about it. Pedestrians traversed the streets in a leisurely manner, pausing at vendors and shops whose poor wares showed the battle scars of years at war with the land. Vegetables were scarce and sickly, goods such as flour were not in evidence, but sweetmeats, sugared fruits and sticky cherries were plentiful. Children followed their mothers, some escaping to play desultory games on the tar. They would never know the joy of rolling in soft grass or playing in the mud. Walking between the low stone buildings, Talsy noted the populace's forced affability, false smiles and bright eyes that hid deep fear and sorrow.
Snatches of conversation between shoppers proved enlightening. People swapped tales of those who had fallen from the pathways and been swallowed, or touched a tree from a wagon and been snagged and rent apart by the forest giant. A woman wept for her lost son, who had slipped from his cart in the fields. A toddler had escaped from her mother and run onto the grass, only to be snatched from death by a brave gallant who had paid for the deed with his life. The morbid talk turned Talsy's stomach, and she hurried up the street to escape it. Stopping at a quiet vendor who sold trinkets of polished glass, she enquired after the city's seer.
The gaunt old man scratched a stubbly chin. "Well now, missy, Shern would most probably be visiting the alehouse this time of day. Does his business in the evening, mostly."
"Where might the alehouse be?"
Talsy followed the old man's rambling directions and ended up, after a few wrong turns, outside a busy alehouse. She glanced back at Kieran, who followed like a shadow, offering no help other than his looming presence. Several comatose men lay beside a doorway whence singing and drunken laughter wafted. Up the street, some cutpurses lingered. Talsy pushed open the door and entered the dingy, ill lighted confines of a common ale room. The smell of liquor mixed with the stench of the vomit and urine that soiled the rushes on the floor. Pipe smoke thickened the air and added to the claustrophobic atmosphere. Carved furniture and wooden panelling told of a more prosperous past, reduced to dull seediness by ill use and lack of repair.
Elbowing her way through the torpid throng to the counter, she tried to catch the eye of the harassed barkeep, but gave up when she realised that he was as drunk as his clients. The foul swill he passed over the counter looked as if it had been brewed from garbage, and smelt almost as bad. Casting her eye over the motley mob, she spotted a more respectable elder man in semi-clean clothes sitting in a corner, and approached him. He rose politely at her approach, his blue eyes brightening. Talsy leant close to be heard over the baritone hubbub.
"I'm looking for Shern the seer."
The man's happiness faded, his smile becoming sad as his eyes raked her. "I wish I could lay claim to that title at this moment, but I'm afraid Shern's over there, a bit the worse for wear."
He pointed at a large, hirsute man sprawled across a table, his mouth open to emit loud rasping snores. As she turned to leave, the man grabbed her arm.
"Stay awhile, my company is better than his."
She tried to jerk free. "I have business with him, not you."
"I'm surprised he can afford you."
Anger washed through her at his assumption that she was a trollop, and her free hand dropped to her knife. Kieran stepped up to the man, his eyes like chips of obsidian.
"Let her go."
The elder released Talsy like a hot coal and sank back into his seat. She contented herself with a glare before marching away, pushing aside drunken patrons. Shern proved impossible to rouse, so deep in his drunken stupor that she could have throttled him without his knowing it. Kieran solved the problem by hoisting the man's arm over his shoulders and dragging him from the alehouse. In the street, they propped him against a wall, and with the-none-too gentle administration of slaps and cold water, roused him sufficiently to learn his address. Kieran dragged him along several dingy side streets to a dilapidated house with a sagging red tile roof. Kicking open the door, Kieran entered a seedy room with grimy yellow walls, dusty shelves covered in brick-a-brack, a tatty grey rug and a hearth overflowing with ash that three worn brown leather chairs faced. Going into the cramped, stuffy bedroom that led off it, he dumped Shern on a creaky bed with a frayed patchwork quilt and turned to Talsy.
"Better wait outside. Sobering him up won't be pretty."
With snort, she left to kick up her heels in the street for almost an hour before Kieran poked his head out to invite her in again. Shern sat at the kitchen table, clasped a mug of hot tea and stared owlishly into space. Several copper pots, green with verdigris, hung above a soot-blackened stove, and soiled cups and plates were stacked beside a basin of scummy water on a table in the corner. He focussed on her when she sat opposite, his thick brows drawing together.
"That was almost five dolran of good liquo
r your manservant rid me of, lady, just so you could have a seeing, which means that's what I'll charge you."
"You won't charge me a cent. I'm not here for a seeing, I'm here to save you and all the chosen in this city."
His bloodshot eyes narrowed. "What chosen?"
"You had a dream in which you were told to take all the chosen and leave the city, didn't you?"
"Fat lot of good that would have done."
She leant closer. "You don't hate Mujar, do you?"
Shern slurped his tea. "You know what happens to Mujar lovers in this city? They're branded and chained to the wheel."
"You're a seer, and therefore one of the chosen. Do you know what the mark on my brow is?"
He shrugged. "A tattoo?"
"No, it's the mark of the Mujar."
"Like hell," he growled.
"We have a Mujar with us, waiting outside the city. You must believe me."
Shern glanced at Kieran, who nodded. The seer turned back to Talsy. "Let me touch your mark."
She leant forward, allowing Shern to place his hand on the mark. The seer jerked back as if burnt, and his eyes widened and lost their suspicion.
"What did you see?" she asked, curious.
"Shining eyes." Shern shook his head in amazement. "I thought we were doomed."
"The Hashon Jahar are coming. You must gather the chosen and leave the city. We'll come with you and guide you to the Mujar."
The seer's eyes overflowed, and he bowed his head to hide his tears. "We're to be saved after all. I've been trying to drown that dream for months. How cruel to be offered redemption and be unable to take it."
"We have little time. We must leave as soon as we can," Talsy urged. "Go and gather your people, buy a cart and bring food."
The seer nodded, wiping his cheeks. Talsy smiled, relieved that her mission had succeeded so easily.
Broken World Book Two - StarSword Page 4
