by Unknown
‘You seem disappointed, Tremen Leader.’
His tone was mocking and she wondered whether he was still smarting from her less-than-warm welcome earlier.
‘The forest never disappoints me, Commander. Even as day dies, the dew is born and silvermoths rouse. Dusk is hunting time for the mira kiraon, and the signal for stickspiders to work their webs.’ She ran her hand over Nogren’s mighty trunk peering up into the branches. ‘When the moon rises, the canopy turns silver. Have you ever climbed to the top of an alwaysgreen, Commander, and watched the canopy ripple like a vast silver ocean?’
‘Not lately.’
‘Shall we climb together?’
‘Not this night.’
‘You disappoint me, Commander. It seems I must climb alone.’
‘We came to speak!’
‘We can do so at the top of Nogren.’
Kest caught her arm. ‘You’re being foolish, Tremen Leader.’
‘As long as I’m not being irresponsible, it doesn’t matter.’ She looked down at his hand on her arm. ‘I’m a bit confused, Commander. If I were to call for help now, would the Protectors aid me or you?’
Kest swore and dropped his hand. ‘What has got into you Kira? I thought at council that you’d stopped acting like a child.’
‘Climb with me, Kest. I need to remember what I’m fighting for.’
Her eyes were burning gold, but there was no anger, just a strange combination of power and vulnerability. Swearing again, he unlaced his scabbard and tossed it at the base of the tree. ‘I must be mad contemplating doing this.’
Kira was already swinging herself up into the lower branches, going quickly hand over hand, barely hesitating, never slipping. He went far more slowly, finding the spice of the tree overpowering and the foliage closer to the trunk than he remembered, or maybe it was just that he was a lot bigger.
‘Take care with the thinner branches,’ he panted. They were already a considerable way up, Kira barely visible above him in the thickening dusk. The return climb would be in complete darkness, he realised suddenly. He was mad.
Her voice floated down. ‘Don’t worry. No alwaysgreen has ever broken under a Kashclan climber.’
‘I’m Morclan.’
‘I’m sure they love Morclan too.’
He grinned in spite of himself. The bole began to taper, then sway, and he had to force himself not to look down.
‘This is far enough,’ he yelled.
‘Only a little further.’
Finally he swung himself up to where she was waiting.
‘Put your back like this, and brace your feet there,’ she said, pointing.
Kest manoeuvred himself gingerly into place but she didn’t settle beside him.
‘I need to create a window,’ she said. She stood up and Kest’s heart jolted.
‘Kira!’
She turned and he saw the flash of her teeth. ‘One slip and I become my namesake, except I can’t fly.’
Kest was too far away to stop her and was forced to watch her step out along the bough and weave the foliage into an opening. Then she came nimbly back, taking a seat on a branch slightly above him.
‘Imagine the mighty oceans of the north,’ she related. ‘There our forebears landed, with the running horses of the far lands and, coming south, took the many-treed mountains and the plains for their own. And there they lived, loving both the forests and the plains, the speed of the running horse and the slow growth of herbs, until . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Terak’s lust for power tore them apart, and broke the first Kiraon’s heart.’
‘That was an act of stupidity,’ gritted Kest, his neck slicked in cold sweat.
‘Kasheron would have been insulted to hear you describe his words thus.’
‘I speak of your stupidity, not his. Why do you court death?’
‘Perhaps death courts me. Tell me your news, Commander.’
‘Bern is dead.’
‘Ah.’ She was staring out over the treetops, just enough daylight left to sheen her face. ‘Another I have killed.’
‘You’re a fool if you believe that. Bern told his father one thing and did another. He brought about his own death.’
‘No boy of thirteen brings about his own death!’
Kest grimaced. Kandor was always there between Kira and those who sought to comfort her. How could the dead have so much power?
‘You’re right,’ he conceded. ‘In the past, it wouldn’t have mattered. A boy who loves to wander, who tells his father he’s going to his friend’s longhouse and goes elsewhere. But those days are gone.’
A breeze woke and the branch he was sitting on swayed gently. It would have been pleasant if he hadn’t been so far off the ground.
‘We cannot survive this, Kest.’
‘They’re hardly the words of a Leader,’ he said, managing to keep his face impassive.
‘Tell me what I say is untrue . . . Commander.’
He shrugged. ‘We don’t know the Shargh’s intent. They might tire of their sport and leave us in peace.’
‘I’ve read many things in my search for fireweed, Kest. The Shargh are hunters, following their prey on foot for days on end. They do not give up until they’ve killed whatever it is they seek.’ Kest could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t be a lie.
‘Was it you who found Bern?’ she asked.
Kest braced himself for the questioning to come. ‘My patrol.’
‘Where was he?’
‘Near the Kenclan Sentinel.’ Now she would ask how he came to be so far from the Sarnia Cave. The wind stirred again and the tree sighed.
‘Did they cut his throat, too?’
Kandor again; he should be grateful. ‘No . . . he was stabbed.’
She said nothing for a long time and Kest began to feel cold. His shirt was damp under his jerkin, and the breeze had freshened. ‘Time to go.’
‘I want to wait for moonrise.’
‘Kira . . .’
‘Please!’
Kest sighed. ‘As you wish.’
She said nothing more, and in the silence that followed he became aware of myriad small sounds: the heart of the tree creaking, the whisper of leaves, the scratching of some small creature above his head. In the distance, a bird gave voice, then another, closer, wings scything the air.
‘The hanawey hunts,’ she said softly.
‘And a frostking?’
‘Perhaps. It sounded more like a hanawey hatchling. Often the parent bird and its young hunt together.’
‘We see a lot of hanaweys on patrol. They’re not as striking as the frostking, but quicker in flight. Which do you like best?’
‘Neither.’
‘Ah, let me guess. You favour the gold-eyed mira kiraon.’
‘Yes, but not for its eyes, for its freedom.’
Kest peered at her, the moon at last lighting her face. ‘Is it so bad in the Warens?’
‘Kasheron never intended people to live there. He built the Bough to house healing and the longhouses; the Warens were only for storage and training.’ She moved restlessly and her branch rattled and creaked. ‘I’ve finished the Writings, and Arlen and Paterek are more than halfway through the other copies. Almost half the wounded have now gone back to their longhouses too. I pledged the council to remain only until they’re all gone. I understand that the Bough can’t be rebuilt for the present, Kest, but I won’t live my life in the Warens.’
Tendrils of moonlight were drifting through the leaves, painting her hair and skin silver.
‘You will be easier to protect, as Leader, if you remain there,’ he said carefully.
‘The Leader should endure the same hardships as the rest of the Tremen. I can hardly claim Leadership if I skulk underground.’
‘You wouldn’t be skulking, you’d be keeping healing safe and lessening the risk to those who must protect it.’
Kira’s branch jerked up and down. ‘I’ve recorded my knowing and copies will be hidden around Allogrenia. Tresen or
even Arlen or Paterek could now heal as I do. Healing is safe, irrespective of what happens to me.’
‘You know that’s not true. For one thing, no one else can take pain.’ There was a short silence. ‘I’m taking Tresen back on patrol,’ said Kest suddenly, taking the opportunity to change the conversation’s direction. ‘It’s time he resumed his training, and as you say, the need for healing is less now.’
Kira was silent but Kest pretended not to notice. He needed every man he could get for the patrols, but that wasn’t the only reason he wanted Tresen out of the Warens. He knew of no instances where clanmates had defied their clan-ties to be together, but it could happen . . . if the circumstances were right.
‘Miken will be glad to have his son back in his longhouse too,’ he added. ‘I know he’s been missed there.’
‘Yes, he’s greatly loved.’
Kira’s voice was sad, but Kest resisted the urge to reach out to her. His task was to keep her safe, both from breaking Tremen law and from the Shargh – at all costs. ‘The moon’s up,’ he said, craning forward. ‘Almost full. Very impressive.’
Kira was looking out over the trees too, but there was no pleasure in her face. ‘It’s a Shargh moon, a hunting moon,’ she said, swinging herself down from the branch. ‘Let us go.’
37
The Storage Cavern still elicited equal amounts of excitement and dread for Kira, no matter how many times she visited it. What else could be hidden in the shelves of Writings? Cures for the aching bones of the old? Concoctions to stop a babe from coming too early? Salves to replace the skin that flame peeled away like sweetchew bark? Or tales of the Shargh and the Terak Kutan, and other scarcely guessed-at barbaric peoples? Searching through it was like looking for glitterstones in the Drinkwater. Each Writing contained a potential treasure waiting to be extricated from the detritus of records upon records upon records.
But at least she had time to look now, and no one to ask leave of. The only good thing that had come from Kest ordering Tresen back to his longhouse was that Kest had lost his spy. She wondered if Kest had realised this. There was no one to argue with about going to the Storage Cavern or even deeper into the Warens, no one to point out the reasonableness of Pekrash’s commands. She thumped another sheaf down on the floor, flicking over the pages and sighing. How many times did the harvests of Allogrenia need to be recorded? And its births, deaths and bondings? And the goings-on of the Clancouncils? It must have been Kasheron’s bent to have everything noted and accounted for. And his sons had been record-keepers too, although they seemed to have tired of it once he’d died for there was nothing after season forty-three.
Still, their keenness for record-keeping was puzzling. Surely such meticulousness wasn’t a trait of a people who’d spent their lives riding, hunting and fighting? She pushed the sheaf back onto the shelf and dusted herself down. Her clothes were grimy and her other set was yet to be washed. Not that it mattered, there were few in the Warens to see her or miss her. Arlen and Werem had gone gathering and Paterek was readying one of the wounded Sherclansmen for removal to his longhouse.
She wondered what Tresen was doing now? Taking his midday meal with Miken and Tenerini? She could see the sunlit walls of the longhouse and imagine him teasing Mikini across the table. Or was he patrolling under the trees that now hid Shargh swords and daggers? She hugged herself, feeling suddenly cold. How she missed him! His jokes, his smiles, his easy familiarity . . . Nothing had to be explained to him, unlike Arlen, Paterek or Werem – why she’d chosen this herb over that, why she’d prepared a salve in a particular way. Kesilini had gone back to Morclan, back to her people as well. No doubt Kest was glad to have her in his longhouse again.
Wrenching another sheaf off the shelf, she sneezed repeatedly and then swore. More records! Nothing on the Shargh, or the battles the Northerners had fought; nothing of any use. She stood with hands on hips, surveying the shelves opposite. Perhaps she’d start there, even though the sheafs looked newer. Taking one at random, she slid it off the shelf, but it seemed to give way under her hand, the pages fluttering like leaves all over the cavern floor.
Stinking heart-rot! They must be older than they looked, the stitching decayed. Now she’d have to spend valuable reading time putting it back together again. Then she stilled; these weren’t Writings at all, but maps like the one of the Warens she’d found earlier – which Kest had taken. They weren’t just of the Warens either, but of rivers and mountains and forests, all drawn on large pieces of paper carefully folded to fit within the covers of the sheaf.
Her hands were shaking as she laid them out. There were settlements with strange and exotic names: Kessom, Maraschin, Talliel – words she rolled round in her mouth, tasting them like food. One map even had an ocean called Oskinas marked on it. Putting it aside she unfolded another: Allogrenia and lands. The floor bit into her knees but she barely noticed, craning forward, for it showed the lands west, north and east of Allogrenia. Her eyes darted over it eagerly, and the flowing script resolved itself into a familiar word: Shargh.
Even in the safety of the cavern, the word had the power to make her tremble. So close! Only a little north-east of Kenclan’s Sentinel, where Bern had been killed. It didn’t make sense. The Sentinel was a long, long way from Sarnia Cave. Perhaps the distances weren’t the same. What had Kest called such things? Scale? Yet the Eights seemed to be shown correctly, evenly spaced, a day’s march apart.
She sat back, hugging her knees. Why had Bern gone to the Sentinel anyway? It was a three-day trek from where she’d seen him and he’d been excited about exploring the caves. Yet he’d broken his undertaking to her to return home after a couple of days, going off to the Sentinel instead . . . or been taken! She shuddered, chilled by the image of the terrified boy being forced through the trees. But why would the Shargh take him all the way to the Sentinel when they could have killed him where they found him? She peered down at the map. It looked about a two-day walk from the Sentinel to the Shargh lands. Maybe they’d intended to take him all the way back but got tired of his struggles. But why take him there anyway? Surely Shargh came to kill, not kidnap.
The cold stone closed in around her and she sighed, tired of asking questions that had no answers. Gathering the maps, she returned them to the sheaf. Third shelf down, fifth partition from the entranceway, she noted, as she picked up the lamp and made her way to the tunnel. With a final glance back at the Storage Cavern, she extinguished the lamp and placed it just inside the entranceway, then set off into the darkness.
Kest would be most displeased. Lamps, or the lack of them, had been the topic of their very first conversation and similar ones since: no wandering off, no wandering alone, no being irresponsible, no being immature, no risking of healing. Still, she couldn’t be angry with him. His concern for Allogrenia and for those he now commanded was etched into his face. When was the last time she’d seen him smile? After she’d delivered Feseren’s son? Yes, he’d been happy then, his eyes sky-blue, not the blank grey they often looked now. And how grim he’d been in Nogren when he’d told her of Bern’s death.
The stone disappeared under her fingertips and her hand sailed into nothingness: the first left turning. There would be two more, roughly two hundred paces apart, before the tunnel swung west, rejoining one of the better-used tunnels. She concentrated on counting her steps, allowing herself a small smile each time the stone gave way and her memory was vindicated. How many others had found their way by touch, here in darkness, or walked this way by lamplight? Tremen Protectors certainly, but who else? Had people lived in the forests before Kasheron and his followers had come? The sheafs spoke of no one, nor did the Tremen, but that proved nothing. There was much she’d learned in the last few moons that no one spoke of. And there was probably much still to be learned, things only the Protectors knew.
The walls whispered and she stopped, every nerve awake. There were voices, but how far away? The main tunnel must be close and the speakers could be very near or they co
uld be many tunnels distant, but they were still a long way from their rooms and from Nogren. She chewed her lip. Most of the guarding was centred round the longhouses now, except for the patrols in Renclan and Kenclan, Kest had mentioned. Perhaps he had sent a patrol into the further reaches of the Warens to test the accuracy of the map she’d found. She had no wish to meet Protectors in her present grubby state, or to endure another dressing-down if it were Kest, for he’d be greatly displeased that she was so deep in the Warens, and without a lamp. It would be better to wait to see if the patrol came her way, and if so, to follow quietly behind.
She went on until the wall gave way to the main tunnel, then carefully took several steps backwards and settled on the floor to wait, her back against the wall and her knees drawn up for warmth.
The voices continued to ebb and flow, but no one appeared. The sweat under Kira’s shirt cooled and the cold stone bit into her behind. She was parched, having run out of water, and all she wanted to do now was to get back to her alcove and have a drink, wash and think. Curse this waiting. Maybe the men were actually back in the training rooms and she was simply sitting in the dark like a fool, wasting her time.
She pulled her feet under her, intending to go on, when abruptly the sound intensified, the rasp of steps suddenly very close, the blur of sound resolving into individual words: ‘. . . sleep in a decent bed . . .’, ‘. . . old enough to know better, still you can’t tell a Morclansman anything . . .’, ‘. . . best ale I’ve had . . .’, ‘. . . since the last one . . .’ a new voice chimed in. There was a grunt of laughter and Kira grinned. A glow appeared, elongated shadows snaking in advance of their owners, and she smelt burning nut oil as the first of the Protectors passed her line of vision. They were strung out, the tunnel being narrow here, and she didn’t recognise the Leader. They strode by, those nearest their Leader holding their silence but conversations increasing towards the rear:
