Whisper of Leaves

by Unknown

  ‘Have you spoken of this to others?’

  Kest shook his head. ‘To be honest, now that I’ve voiced my thoughts, they seem improbable.’

  ‘It’s best they remain between us for the time being,’ said Miken softly, his eyes on the cavern opening, ‘and that Kira remains in the Warens until the Shargh’s intentions are clearer.’

  The training room was little changed since Kest had last seen it, the wounded still lying in neat rows and the air carrying the familiar scent of morning-bright. Tresen got to his feet as Miken and Kest approached, Miken embracing his son. The attack had left them all with a deepened appreciation for those they loved. Kest scanned the room, tensing as he saw the mattress where Kesilini had slept was empty, and there were two other mattresses with their coverings folded neatly on top.

  ‘Kesilini’s helping Arlen prepare herbs in the last training room,’ said Tresen, seeing the direction of his gaze, ‘and we’ve had two deaths since you were last here.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Miken sharply.

  ‘Renclansman Marakin and Tarclansman Jarin.’

  ‘But they weren’t badly wounded,’ exclaimed Kest.

  ‘No. They only had need of sickleseed, not everest, but we’re finding that everest staves off the rot longer.’

  ‘Then give them all everest,’ said Kest.

  ‘There’s a risk with everest that the sleeper won’t wake,’ said Miken.

  ‘And in the end, everest only postpones the rot, not destroys it,’ added Tresen, his face grim.

  Kest had to remind himself that Tresen was only in his first season of protecting.

  ‘Where’s Kira?’ asked Miken, propping his pack against the wall.

  ‘Sleeping,’ said Tresen, nodding towards the far end of the room. ‘She refused to leave the wounded so I set up a bed for her here. It’s the first real rest she’s had since this started.’

  ‘I should check on her,’ said Miken, moving off.

  ‘How is she, Tresen?’ asked Kest softly.

  ‘The same. She does what she must for the injured, but barely eats or speaks. Kesilini was working with her earlier.’

  ‘Kesilini?’

  Tresen’s expression eased. ‘Kesilini’s idea, not mine. I suggested she be escorted back to your longhouse but she refused, saying Kira is her bondsister after all. I was hoping Kesilini’s grief might help Kira with hers, but it hasn’t. Kira loved Kandor more than anyone else in the world.’

  And you loved him too, thought Kest, remembering how, as a young Protector, he’d seen them at play among the trees. He hadn’t known who they were then, just three Kashclan children, but they were always together.

  There was a stifled exclamation and Kest turned to see Miken weaving his way back through the wounded, clearly perturbed.

  ‘Kira’s not there!’

  ‘She must be!’ said Tresen, frowning and starting forward. ‘She said she was going to sleep.’

  ‘Is there anywhere else she could be?’ asked Kest.

  ‘The Herbery in the last training room, or the latrines, but if she’d gone there, she wouldn’t have . . .’

  ‘Slipped out while your back was turned?’ finished Kest for him. ‘Well, the entrances to the Warens are guarded, so she’s still here somewhere. She may have gone further into the Warens looking for a cure for Shargh wounds.’

  Miken’s eyebrows shot up and Kest felt scarcely less surprised at his own certainty.

  ‘I think you might be right,’ said Tresen.

  Miken rubbed his face wearily. ‘The further caverns are unmapped.’

  ‘Yes, but I know Kira’s been to at least some of them before, and I have too since the first attack. There are Writings there, very old and all but rotted. If there is a cure for Shargh wounds, it would be there.’

  ‘If,’ echoed Miken. ‘That’s less of a concern now than the possibility of her losing herself.’

  ‘She once told me that she had a good memory of the way,’ said Kest.

  ‘That was before her heart was torn out,’ muttered Miken, striding over to reclaim his pack.

  Kest hastened after him. ‘I’ll go, Clanleader.’

  ‘And what makes you think you won’t get lost?’

  ‘On my last visit I took the precaution of drawing myself a map.’

  Miken stared at him for a moment, then his face cracked into a smile. ‘That was very wise of you, Commander Kest.’

  Kest picked up one of the lamps from the table and checked the oil. ‘Don’t wait up,’ he said, by way of farewell.

  Kira sat back on her heels, stretching her aching back and wiping the mottled fragments of paper from her fingers. There was nothing more here, but she’d wanted to be certain. It was little wonder the Writings were decayed; even the walls had growths upon them, though what they were she had no idea. Certainly not moss, for there was no light for it to grow by, and these were slimy and rank-smelling. Grimacing, she wiped her hands on her leggings, then froze as she remembered her father’s harsh rebukes. For a moment she was caught, a mouse under owl-shadow, then life returned to her limbs and she struggled to her feet.

  Which way should she go? Ahead the tunnel disappeared into thick blackness, while behind her, the wounded lay dying. She had to keep looking. Once she would have scorned a light, finding her way by touch and practising her remembering, but she carried the lamp before her now, too tired to trust herself. At least the floor was smooth and the journeying easy; the drip of water occasionally breaking the silence and drafts of air reminding her that there was a world above.

  There were no forest scents and she felt their absence keenly. In fact, there was nothing at all here to ease her heart or to distract her from thoughts of the dying; even the slimy growths had given way to bare stone.

  How much further could she go this night? Or was it day? It seemed an age since she’d heard a springleslip or seen a mira kiraon in flight. She pushed the images away. Keep moving; that was all that was important, just keep moving. She was a Healer and there were wounded to be healed. She was of Kasheron’s seed and he’d sundered a people to heal. Healing was all that mattered. Her steps kept time with the mantra in her head, the tunnel ahead narrowing, the ache in her bones growing. Surely Kasheron hadn’t come this far; any caverns here would be too distant to be convenient for storage, or for anything else.

  Unless he’d wanted to hide something precious.

  She stopped and leaned on the wall as she considered the idea; at least it was dry here, the stone unexpectedly gritty under her shoulder. Soot! She swung the lamp high and blinked the sweat from her eyes. There was a hole in the stone, a place where once a bracket had been fixed. A bracket meant that people had come here often. Right on the edge of the yellow circle of light, a shadow yawned, and she hurried forward.

  The cavern was huge and she could see other entrances off at the edge of her lamp-glow. Closer to her though were two lots of wooden shelving running from floor to ceiling, each stacked high with cloth-wrapped bundles. Her heart raced, her hope rising. Kasheron’s people had established a worthy hiding place indeed.

  Setting the lamp down, she lifted a bundle and carefully unwound the oiled cloth from the sheaf, heart fluttering. Kasheron’s followers may have been the last people to touch this, perhaps even Kasheron himself! Some of the paper was fine, lacking the ridges of patchet paper, and confirming that at least some of it had come from the north.

  Kira’s excitement gradually cooled as she skimmed page after page – the provisioning and placement of the longhouses, records of what each octad offered as gathering, lists of storage space assigned to each clan. It was written in Tremen, but strangely spelt and phrased, and at the top of each page, in faded ink, was a date: Season twenty, Allogrenia.

  Twenty seasons after Kasheron had come south? The Tremen no longer measured time from their arrival in the forest. Still, the date held her gaze. What else had changed in the north apart from the way words were phrased? Had Terak’s legacy of barbarity endured
in the same way as Kasheron’s healing had? Both brothers had been strong-willed, neither able to compromise. Was the Terak way still to kill . . . like the Shargh? She stared at the rows of wrapped sheafs and a horrible realisation came to her; no matter what herbal lore lay in the yellowing paper, it couldn’t stand against the sword. Only a sword could defeat a sword; Terak’s barbarism had defeated Kasheron’s healing.

  Kira snapped the sheaf shut, bundled the oiled cloth round it, and thrust it back on the shelf, angry with herself. Killing could never be mightier than that which gave life! The thought was abhorrent, ridiculous, seeded by weariness, nothing more. She jerked another sheaf from the shelf but it too, was full of lists. And the next and the next. In the end she gave up looking at every page, flicking the paper over quickly and scanning for herbal or healing words. She was on her fifth sheaf when a loose page fluttered out. At first she thought her carelessness had torn it loose, but it was unlike the rest of the sheaf; it was a drawing of some kind. The lamplight flickered and she screwed up her eyes, lines resolving into patterns, then into something she recognised: a map – of the Warens.

  She brought her nose almost to the paper. Here were the stores and the training rooms, there the Water Cavern and the tunnel she’d travelled to reach this cavern. And there it was – the Sarnia Room. The same name as the cave Sanaken and Feseren had died in. Her skin pricked. Why call the cave and this storage cavern by the same name? Then she noticed that the map showed the tunnel going on beyond where she now was, a dozen more caverns opening off it, and other entrances to the outside world, if that was what the open-ended lines meant. She counted quickly: one entrance to the north, and two to the north-west.

  The light dimmed and she glanced up. The lamp-wick was leaning drunkenly, sucking up the last droplets of oil, and even as she stared at it, the flame shuddered and went out. She sat, frozen, the darkness so intense she couldn’t even see her hand before her face. Where was the entrance she had come in by? Which way had she been facing? For a moment her mind was as dark as the cavern, then she forced herself to visualise the cavern’s layout, remember her last movements.

  Rising carefully, she stretched out her arms and, holding her breath, took two large strides to her right. Nothing. She took another; nothing. Maybe she was wrong, maybe . . . Then her knuckles jarred against the rough cloth of a sheaf and she felt like swooning with relief. Turning slowly, she brought her left hand into contact with the shelf, then moved forward, sliding each foot along the floor, her hand trailing into air again, her teeth chattering in panic. Two more steps and her fingers found the cool stone of the entranceway. She edged round it gingerly, keeping it at her left shoulder. The way back now lay before her. The relief was immense and she half slid down the wall, her legs robbed of rigidity.

  For a while she lay on the stone, panting as if she’d sprinted between the Eights, then she steadied, becoming aware of the absolute silence. She rolled onto her back, not caring about the dust. Was this what the dead endured? No light, no sound, no warmth, no birdsong, no rustle of leaves in summer winds, no scuttle of gold and green across the forest floor. Nothing.

  She wanted to weep for Kandor, for all those she’d lost; to weep for herself. But she’d forgotten how; she was lost, too, an empty shell like the stone around her. Hugging herself, she closed her eyes and slept.

  Kest came to a stop, chest heaving as he stared from the dwindling bulb of nut oil to the vast darkness ahead. If he didn’t turn back soon, he’d be making the return like a blind man, if there were a return journey. He’d come to the end of the rough map he’d drawn eleven caverns ago, and was now compelled to count the openings on his left in an attempt to keep his bearings. He’d never had reason to come this far before and he was surprised at how dry the air was. Dry air but no Kira! Perhaps she’d slipped through some crevice he’d missed, or looped back and was now safely in the training rooms. He started forward again. He was a fool if he believed that. She’d have only turned back if she’d found the cure, and the chances of that were remote.

  Curse this stinking darkness and her stubbornness! Miken must be mad to even be thinking of making her Leader! She was like a child, going her own way with no regard for anyone or anything else. His feet pounded over the floor and his arm ached from holding the lamp aloft. Then he thought of how she’d woken in his bed, the scent of her as she’d stood beside him in his rooms caressing the chimes, the way she’d laughed as they’d danced together. What if she were lost? The thought was like a wood grub in his brain, and the deeper he went into the darkness, the fatter it grew. If she were lost . . . if she were lost. There was no one else. A bare half dozen in Kashclan had healing skills that set them apart, but there was no one like her, no other feailner.

  He continued, for want of something better to do, and finally the lamp picked up a tumble of stone ahead, the first rockfall he’d seen in the otherwise smooth tunnel. And then the stone resolved into a prone figure. Stinking heart-rot! Her face was white, her braid dust-dulled. He ran forward and dropped to his knees beside her, expecting to feel the coldness of death, but she was warm.

  Relief flashed to anger. ‘Get up,’ he ordered, shaking her.

  Kira came awake, recoiling in terror.

  Kest felt a pang of remorse. ‘I’m sorry, I startled you,’ he said grudgingly.

  Kira pushed back her hair, leaving a dusty smudge on her forehead. ‘I ran out of oil,’ she said, as if that were the only thing of importance.

  He hauled her up. ‘Come. You’re needed.’

  ‘We have to search the cavern,’ said Kira, gesturing to the gaping opening behind her.

  He tightened his grip on the lamp, struggling to keep his voice calm. ‘You’ve been away a long time, Kira, and I’m almost out of oil. We don’t have time to argue; the wounded need you. Come.’

  ‘No!’

  Kest wrenched her forward, so that her face was close to his. ‘It’s not what you want anymore, Kira! Don’t you understand? It’s what the Tremen want. You’re not free to go traipsing off when the mood takes you; you’re not free to risk yourself. You’re all we’ve got left. You’re Kasheron’s blood and Kasheron’s legacy. That gives you obligations! That gives you responsibilities. Responsibilities, Kira! Something I know you’re not familiar with. Now we’re going back, whether you’re willing or not!’

  His grip on her arm was punishing, the bulk of him as he loomed over her reminding her of the moment in the Herbery with her father, before the blow. With desperate strength she jerked backwards, her feet going from under her and one boot catching him in the groin as she went down, breaking his grip as she landed on her backside with a painful thump. He bent double, struggling to keep hold of the lamp, the tunnel filled with the wheeze of air being sucked in and out of his lungs.

  ‘That . . . was a . . . neat trick,’ he said finally. ‘Who . . . taught you that?’

  ‘I . . . no one. I’m sorry I hurt you.’

  ‘That is a . . . great comfort.’

  He had managed to straighten a little and she took a step towards him. ‘If I go back now it’ll make no difference to the injured; they’ll die anyway. I know it, you know it, and probably most of the Tremen know it too by now. But this cave,’ she jerked her head towards it, ‘is filled with Writings. I think it was Kasheron’s main store. If the cure for Shargh wounds isn’t here, then I don’t think it’s anywhere.’

  ‘We’re going to . . . run out of oil,’ panted Kest, still having trouble drawing breath. ‘We’ll find nothing in the dark . . . including our way back.’

  ‘There are holes in the wall where lamps have been fixed; people must have come here and stayed; there must be a store of oil nearby. I need your help, Kest. I need your help to save the wounded. Will you give it to me?’

  For a long moment Kest simply stared at her, then his face kinked in a half-smile. ‘Maybe Miken’s not mad after all,’ he said slowly.

  27

  Tresen yawned and hauled himself up from his position
on the floor next to Farek’s mattress, rubbing his numb backside and forcing his cramped legs to straighten. His Protector comrade had slid into a fretful sleep some time ago, but Tresen had been too weary to shift, unlike his father who’d gone back to his longhouse. Now Tresen hobbled off towards Kira’s alcove where he knew there was a jug of water and a bowl. The pins and needles in his foot gradually dissipated as he walked, but not his sense of dread. Kira should have been back by now. Where in the ’green was she?

  The jug was full, for Kira hadn’t had time to do anything but tend the wounded. Looking down, he grimaced at the sight of his grimy cuffs. What he’d give for a proper wash, clean clothing, and the chance to sleep in a bed not determined to jab him to death. Why the Protectors persevered with sere grass was beyond him; perhaps it was some sort of traditional test of endurance.

  He had no right to complain, though; he’d had his chance to return to his longhouse, Arlen having offered to take his place for a time, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t have gone. The Kashclansman was a careful and competent Healer. But he’d chosen to stay so he could keep an eye on Kira. Well, a fine job he’d done of that!

  He stared at her mattress, with its small pile of clothing at one end, and then at the wooden bench and bowl and jug. There wasn’t even a chair in the room, the alcove’s emptiness seeming to amplify what had happened to her. What if he’d lost everyone? What if he’d seen Miken and Tenerini dead and Mikini murdered before his eyes? How did she draw breath, put one foot in front of the other, go on?

  Hot tears spilled onto his cheeks and he picked up the jug of water and emptied it over his head, gasping as icy trickles found his collar and zigzagged down his back. Well, that had certainly woken him up!

  ‘Protector Tresen?’

  He started, looking around. Kesilini’s tunic was crisp and her hair gleamed in the lamplight. Tresen mopped ineffectually at his face with his sleeve. ‘You’re looking better,’ he said, then regretted his allusion to Merek’s death. ‘Are you looking for Kest?’