Whisper of Leaves

by Unknown

  ‘. . . heartily sick of this darkness . . .’, someone grumbled. So am I, thought Kira. ‘. . . not a place you’d want to live.’

  ‘At least she’s safe here,’ a second voice broke in, and Kira stiffened.

  ‘She’s not safe anywhere anymore,’ the first speaker said. ‘There’s an opening in Renclan, and two in Kenclan, and who’s to say there aren’t more. And the cursed Shargh’d know all about Nogren, after what they did to Bern. Poor Bern . . .’

  There was a shout from the Leader, ordering them to hurry, then the rapid staccato of feet as the men complied, the echo of their passing fading, leaving only the smell of lamp oil behind. Kira scarcely noticed, frozen against the wall, everything suddenly, appallingly clear. Bern had been taken to the edge of the forest to elicit information about her. The Shargh didn’t speak Tremen, but there must have been someone with them who knew it, or Terak, which was the same anyway. Bern had been stabbed, Kest said, and now she knew why; cutting his throat would have been too quick. They’d tortured him for information about her. By the alwaysgreen which Shelters us!

  Her stomach churned. Kest knew this or else how did the Protectors know? The Shargh didn’t hunt healing, or food, or extra land, they hunted her! Kest was sending patrols through the Warens looking for other entry points, not to keep healing safe, but to keep her safe. But the Protectors were right; there was no safety. Sooner or later the Shargh would find their way in, hunt her down in the darkness and kill her. How many others would die too? How many Berns? How many Kandors?

  Vomit spilled from her mouth and she rocked on her knees, sweat and tears mixing with the liquid on the floor, until empty, she rolled away from it, lying on her back like a husk in the darkness. Her very existence put every Tremen at risk. Surely her death would be better? Death came to everyone and everything; even the alwaysgreens fell, giving their essence back to the earth so that new things might grow. It was not death she feared so much as the moment of death: the slice of the blade through flesh, the blood in the lungs, the drowning; the loss of everyone and everything. Her face grew wet again and she wiped at it angrily. She was a coward, that was all, huddled here in the darkness feeling sorry for herself.

  She hauled herself up into a sitting position and dried her face on her shirt. Kest had hidden the truth from her. Had Tresen too? Who else knew? Miken? All the Protectors? Was she to live her life surrounded by liars? Maybe the Shargh were hunting healing and through their eyes she and it were the same thing. But in that case, why had they left the Kashclan longhouse alone? After torturing Bern, they must have known healing was strong there. And there’d been no attacks in the last two full moons, which meant they were most likely after her, not healing. On the other hand, maybe they simply wanted to destroy the Tremen leadership, not her in particular. It amounted to the same thing anyway. Maybe, maybe! Maybe she was just grasping at straws.

  Her choices were, in fact, horrifyingly clear: stay in the Warens until the Shargh inevitably found her, or leave. There would be a lot of killing if she stayed. Kest would send every last Protector to his death, including himself, before surrendering her. And if she left? She had a vision of running through the trees, the pound of Shargh feet, the flash of metal in sunlight. Would the Shargh leave the Tremen in peace with her dead? If only she knew for sure, the choice would be simpler.

  She forced herself up and moved off slowly, using the wall to support as well as guide her. Was there nothing else she could do? The maps showed other places and other peoples beyond the trees, perhaps they would help. But why should they? What were the Tremen to them? Did they even know of their existence? Kasheron had hidden them too well, that was the problem. The trees that had sheltered them from likely enemies had sheltered them from likely friends.

  She stopped, hope firing as she thought of the possibility of seeking help from the Terak Kutan. The Terak Kutan were kin, blood-linked, but to go begging to them would be to betray everything Kasheron had fought for: healing kneeling before the sword. No! It was abhorrent, unthinkable! There had to be another way! She was tired, that was all; once she’d eaten and slept and perhaps spoken to Kest or Miken, things would look different. And there were many more Writings yet to be read; surely they would hold things that would help them. Powerful salves to make the Shargh disappear; to unburn the Bough; to bring the dead to life? She pushed the thought away, refusing to give way to despair again; food and sleep, that was what she needed, and time to think.

  38

  Pain always wore the same face whether it be that of a birthing woman, a turned ankle, or a sword wound. Under her fingers, in the flame-dark world Feseren had shown her, it wore the same face. Now, as she ran her fingers lightly over the part-healed wound, pain smiled its ghastly smile, though Brithin’s face remained unchanged.

  ‘Does it hurt here?’ she asked.

  The young Protector shook his head.

  ‘Here?’ Her fingers fired, but again the headshake.

  Kira flicked her fingers slightly to dispel the heat, glad that her only witness was a young Protector who didn’t understand what he saw, not that she understood her increasing sensitivity to pain either.

  ‘Another few days,’ she said, easing his shirt back over his shoulder.

  The Protector’s disappointment was plain. ‘The wound feels well. I’m strong enough to go.’

  She slipped the buttons through their holes, the wood smooth and cool like the buttons on Kandor’s shirts. Pain fluttered again and she busied herself collecting her salves.

  ‘Tenedren has enough to do guarding the Kenclan longhouse without having to worry about you –’ she started, then seeing his face fall, paused. He was the last of the wounded and it was understandable that he’d want to be among his clanmates again.

  ‘You can start taking some gentle exercise to build your strength when Arlen comes back. He’ll help you.’

  His expression lightened and he nodded.

  Kira rose and went to the table at the side, crushing some morning-bright leaves into a bowl of water, the leaves turning the water a faint red and sweetening the air. The vapours should soothe Brithin’s impatience a little, she thought as she made her way back through the empty mattresses to her alcove. The room seemed strange now without its rows of wounded, each neatly folded cover a testament to the fact her work was almost done. The alcove was the same though, small and dingy. Tossing the salves on her bed, she wandered restlessly round the cramped space, wondering whether she should go back and take a deep breath of the morning-bright herself.

  It was quiet beyond the curtain and she peered through the slit, then went back and lifted the mattress. The coarse filling rustled dryly, sending grassy scents into the air as she drew out a map and laid it on the cover. She didn’t open it but, half-closing her eyes, mentally retraced the Warens’ route that would take her close to the Renclan Second Eight. Only when she’d finished visualising the way did she open the map and pore over it with intense concentration, raising her head at last with a satisfied grin.

  She’d remembered accurately; her knowing was complete. The map could go back to the safety of the Storage Cavern, all she need do was rehearse the route occasionally so as not to forget. Sliding the map back under the mattress, she drew out a second one showing the lands north of Allogrenia and as far as the Oskinas Sea. She hadn’t bothered committing it to memory as she intended to take a copy with her. It wouldn’t matter if the Shargh found this one, for they probably knew about the northern lands, but she couldn’t risk them finding a map of the Warens.

  Kira didn’t know when the resolve to leave Allogrenia had crystallised, but it was there now, as hard as sun-baked sap. If she somehow escaped the Shargh blades and reached the edges of the forest, where to then? The possibility of going north to the Terak Kutan lurked on the edges of her mind, abhorrent though it was. In her explorations of the Storage Caverns she’d come upon many references to their blood-thirst, to their love of horses, and to the massive stone city of Sarnia th
ey had been building at the time of the Sundering. Both Kasheron and Terak had been birthed by the first Kiraon, a mighty Healer. Surely some shred of healing lived on in the Terak Kutan.

  She stared down at the rivers and mountains she’d have to pass – if she went north – and wondered how much food she would need to carry. Her pack wasn’t large and she must take her Healer’s pastes and pouches. She calculated quickly. The Warens map had shown an opening in Renclan – near the Second Eight – that she could use. There were also two openings in Kenclan, but she needed to go north, not north-east towards the Shargh. If she were able to come out of the Warens beyond the Second Eight, it would take her another three days to reach the Renclan Sentinel. She knew gathering was plentiful between the Renclan Second Eight and the Renclan Sentinel. Abutting the forests, the map showed a lightly treed plain; if the small blotches of ink represented trees, at least some of these should be blacknuts. The Dendora Plain; it was a pretty name and, unlike many of the other names, had no ‘S’ or ‘T’ following it.

  Many of the rivers and mountains had two names, each with an ‘S’ or ‘T’ after it, and the only reason she could think of was that different peoples had named them. If the ‘S’ stood for Shargh, did ‘T’ stand for Terak Kutan? Many of the places were a long way from the Terak lands. Maybe there were other peoples living nearby whose name began with ‘T’ as well. She’d long known that Onespeak had come into being because different peoples lived beyond the forests, but seeing the evidence before her eyes was extraordinary.

  The Dendora Plain lay west of the Shargh lands and maybe the absence of the ‘S’ meant the Shargh didn’t go there. After all, why would they have a word for something they had no need to name. Hope fired and she scanned excitedly, but the massive mountain range she must cross had two names: Azurcades (T) and Braghan (S). If the scale were as she thought, it would be at least eight days before she even reached it. Eight days with the Shargh at her heels!

  It would be better to stay here; the Shargh would never find her, it was safe here . . .

  No! She scrambled to her feet and strode up and down the tiny space. If she stayed more Tremen would die. If she were to be Leader in more than name, she must go north and beg aid of the Terak Kutan. She came to a stop. The idea was just as appalling as when it had come to her nearly half a moon ago. She’d probably be dead long before that anyway. That was a comfort, she chided herself sarcastically, and not much practical use to her planning.

  She took a steadying breath. Suppose the Shargh didn’t catch her, and there were nuts or other types of gathering on the Dendora Plain, how was she to cross the Braghans? Azurcades, she corrected, refusing to use a Shargh word. They appeared to have trees as well, so there’d be shelter and possibly nuts or vine fruit, but there might also be ravines and rushing rivers and many days of climbing. Did people live there? If so, were they friends or foe of the Shargh? And even if she made it across the mountains, there was another massive plain on the other side, the Sarsalin, which was, she calculated, another ten days across. At least it was only followed by a (T).

  She slumped back, staring despondently round the room. What was the use of looking so far ahead? Better to take each day as it came: reaching the Third Eight, reaching the Fourth Eight, reaching the Sentinel, completing a day’s travel across the plain, then another. To think of the whole journey was akin to watching a heart-rotted tree crash towards her.

  ‘Leader Kiraon?’

  She started violently. Kest’s shadow was distinct through the curtain. ‘One moment, Commander.’ Silently cursing that she hadn’t noticed his steps, she quickly folded the map and slid it back under the mattress, hoping that Kest would think the rustling some private female matter. He’d developed an irritating sense of propriety recently, refusing to come into her alcove, which at least had saved her from discovery.

  Kest looked fresh and relaxed: his face lightly tanned, his eyes a startling blue despite the poor light. He even smelt of sun-tinged air. Kira smoothed down her crumpled over-sized Protector shirt, aware of how unkempt she must look, but her other clothes were still drying near the very small fire the vents allowed.

  ‘Only one wounded remaining,’ he commented.

  ‘Yes, Brithin of Kenclan. There’s still pain in the wound, so it’s best he stays here till it fades.’

  ‘Is that his view too?’ asked Kest with a smile.

  Kira shrugged. ‘He’s young. It’s natural he misses his clan and Protector-mates.’

  ‘He’s nineteen, Kira. Two seasons older than you.’

  Kest’s face had gentled and she shifted uncomfortably. ‘I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss my age, Commander.’

  ‘No, I came to see how you were,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘I am well, as you can see,’ she replied.

  ‘What I see is someone who’s too thin and too pale.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve learned healing since last we spoke,’ she said.

  Kest refused to bite. ‘I think it would be a good idea for you to go the Kashclan longhouse for a while.’

  Kira stared at him in astonishment. She must really look awful. ‘I still have a wounded man to care for,’ she said.

  ‘Then go after he’s well. A few more days, you said.’ His hand had closed over her arm in the same way she held the wounded as they took their first steps.

  ‘Come to the second training room, it’s a pleasanter place to talk and we can eat there as well.’

  ‘I prefer Nogren,’ said Kira, resenting his gentle but firm pressure as he escorted her between the mattresses.

  ‘My turn to choose,’ said Kest lightly.

  He really was in a good mood. Surely he didn’t believe the Shargh attacks were over with? Whatever his beliefs, he hadn’t shared them with her, which meant it was time to test her theory.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about all that’s happened,’ she began. ‘I think there’s a pattern to what the Shargh are doing.’

  In the passing pool of lamplight, she saw Kest become guarded.

  ‘What mean you?’ he said.

  ‘The Shargh let the longhouses be in their journey to the Bough, and they killed Bern because he was wandering alone. I think they mistook him for a Healer out gathering. I think they want to destroy healing.’ They turned into the main tunnel, their footsteps echoing hollowly.

  Kira waited till the next lamp to examine Kest’s face. His expression had eased again.

  ‘Do you agree?’ she asked. Thank the ’green it was a little way to the next lamp and Kest couldn’t see her face. She was sure her ruse was written plain upon it.

  ‘It’s possible,’ he said, fingers tightening on her arm.

  ‘If I go to my longhouse, it might suggest that it’s a place of healing. I don’t want to risk those who are there,’ she said, feeling his fingers relax. ‘Do you think I’m right, Commander?’

  ‘You could be.’

  ‘But do you believe it?’

  She held her breath. What he said now would almost determine whether she stayed or went. If she couldn’t trust Kest to tell her the truth, then it was time to go.

  He was a long time answering, but finally he said, ‘Yes.’

  Kira’s knees sagged and his grip tightened again.

  ‘Are you unwell?’ he asked.

  They came to another lamp and she turned her face away. ‘Just a little tired.’

  Tired of the darkness and dankness and dust; of being old enough to lead but not old enough to hear the unpalatable truth; of being afraid, but most of all, of being alone.

  The second training room was bright with lamps and full of men lately come in off patrol, talking noisily and joking as they jostled each other round plates of nutbread and sweetfish, and steaming pots of tea. Pekrash and Merenor were there, sitting with two other Protectors who looked like Leaders but who Kira didn’t know. The shouted conversations of the men quieted as Kest steered her between the tables towards the Leaders, then picked up again as they passed. They c
ame to a halt and the Protector Leaders stood to greet her.

  ‘Protector Leaders Merenor and Pekrash I believe you know,’ said Kest to Kira. ‘This is Protector Leader Senden of Kenclan and Protector Leader Bendrash of Sherclan.’

  ‘Kashclan greets Kenclan,’ she said, bowing to the first. ‘Kashclan greets Sherclan.’ She had no idea whether the normal clan greeting was appropriate between Protector Leaders, or between the Tremen Leader and Protector Leaders. All she could think of was her toobig crumpled Protector shirt, and her half unravelled braid, which she hadn’t thought to redo that morning. In contrast, the Protector Leaders looked as fresh and clean as Kest.

  ‘Would you join us?’ said Pekrash, with a small bow.

  ‘I thank you,’ said Kest smoothly, before Kira had time to reply, ‘but the Tremen Leader and I have things to discuss.’

  Kest still had hold of Kira’s arm and she had to resist the urge to shrug him off as he guided her to the table furthest away from the rest of the room’s inhabitants. ‘I’ll get us some food,’ he said, making his way back to the throng.

  Kira watched the Protector Leaders eat, their faces serious as they exchanged words she couldn’t hear. They knew what Kest knew, as no doubt did the young Protectors opposite, busy dipping their straps of dried sour-ripe in honey. In fact everyone in the room probably knew things about her she didn’t know. Even as she looked at them, one of the young Protectors turned and caught her eye, then glanced towards Kest, now taken up with a tired-looking older man who’d just entered the room. The young Protector pushed his chair back and made his way over to her.

  ‘Tremen Leader Kiraon,’ he said, bowing low, his already ruddy complexion going a deeper shade of red.

  Kira went to rise but he’d taken both of her hands, making any movement awkward.

  ‘Protector . . .?’