The Cloven Land Trilogy

by Simon Kewin

  The shifting light between the trees played tricks on her eyes. She began to think it was no longer a stag she was following but a tall, powerful man, a crown of antlers upon his head. She smiled to herself at that. In all her long years she'd never met or seen this being. Heard plenty of tales, of course. That he'd chosen to appear now couldn't be good. Still, she couldn't prevent a girlish thrill running through her.

  After an hour or more of her slow pursuit, light glimmered up ahead. Detail and colour returned to the leaves as the sun found them once more. The woods were thinning. She wondered where in Angere she was. Some deep corner of the forest she'd never visited. There was a clearing before her, the sun blazing bright after the gloom beneath the branches. As she stepped to the edge of the trees she had the strange sensation of approaching a stage, like an actor in one of the mummers' companies that toured the land with their travelling plays.

  The being she'd pursued stood on the far side of the clearing, waiting. He was completely naked and definitely, impressively, a man. His body was lithe and powerful. Sometimes, according to the stories, he was old and grey. At other times, in the spring of the year, he was young and handsome. He was like this now, the first wisps of a beard on his face. But the antlers on his head were large, festooned with garlands of green. For a moment, his transition incomplete, he had cloven hooves and cloven hands but as she looked on they became feet and fingers. He nodded to her, so she thought, as she entered the ring. His green eyes sparkled. The open wound was still there, a brutal gash on his left thigh, although he paid it no attention.

  Between them in the clearing stood two deer, one buck, one doe. They were a normal colour, hides dappled tan, but Meg didn't bother to reach into their minds. They were clearly unnatural. A part of the show she'd been brought to see.

  The horned man walked forwards to stand between the two deer. He stroked their necks, murmuring words to them Meg couldn't hear. The creatures had no fear of him; they nuzzled his hands, delighting in his touch. Something in the man's stance or the angle of his head suggested sadness, though, as if he was saying a goodbye.

  Then there was a weapon in his hand, a long blade of sharpened horn. With a swift movement, the man plunged the blade into the soft underbelly of one of the deer. He slid the knife forwards to disembowel the creature.

  Meg called out in alarm, but she didn't move. This was no simple act of destruction. There was meaning here. A message.

  Blood and gore splattered the green of the clearing. The ruined deer stood for a moment as if unable to understand what was happening, then it collapsed to the ground. The horned man went down with it, cradling it, crouching beside the stricken creature. The deer's sides heaved once, twice, three times as it laboured to breathe, and then it was gone.

  The horned man lingered for a moment, the blood from his own wound mingling with that of the deer. The sorrow in his eyes was stark as he stood. He studied the horn blade he still held, then let it drop. He placed one hand onto the neck of the other deer and caressed the creature gently, murmuring reassurance.

  Finally he looked to Meg, as if to tell her the scene was complete.

  She stepped towards him. Time to play her part. She knelt to no one, but she bowed her head to the being in front of her. The Horned Man. The Spirit of the Green. Hyrn the Hunter, who had walked these woods when there were only woods in the world. The untamed shepherd of all the lands of An.

  She looked down at the carcass of the dead deer lying upon its carpet of blood, trying to make sense of what she'd seen. “This … this one is Angere? And this one that still stands … this is An beyond the great river? This is Andar?”

  The antlers nodded in assent.

  “And is this a warning or a prophecy of what might happen?” she asked.

  Hyrn spoke at last. His voice was the creak of old oaks and the babbling song of the river. “This is what will be. A sickness is born in the land. A wound has been opened.”

  “But surely you can do something? You of all people.”

  “I can do nothing. I do not dream the woods and the peoples. They dream me.”

  She considered Hyrn. Considered the dead deer and the living one. “So by sacrificing Angere, Andar survives? That's what you're saying?”

  The great head dipped in assent, or sorrow.

  “But how is that possible?” said Meg. “The An is vast and wide, but the King and his ilk can use the bridge as well as any of us. Andar isn't any safer than Angere.”

  Hyrn didn't reply, waiting for her to answer her own question. Perhaps he couldn't tell her what to do, and she had to work it out for herself. She tried to think clearly. Much might turn on this strange, woodland meeting.

  “We … we have to protect Andar,” she said. “Seal it off. Destroy the great bridge before the King can use it?”

  The antlers dipped again, in agreement now. “The land cloven. Half sacrificed and half saved. It is the only way. You and the other children must do this thing. Unleash the flood waters locked in the northern ice. Sweep the bridge away.”

  Was such magic possible? She had no idea. The witches were good at sorting out people's everyday problems, healing them when they were sick, helping them see sense when they were being foolish. That was what they did. But this? This was a different scale. This was the whole land.

  Well. There were those on both sides of the An who could help. Perhaps between them they could attempt such a thing. But the scale of it was dizzying.

  “You will help?” she asked. “Lend your strength?”

  “I will play my part. The ice is not my domain, but I am river as well as wood.”

  She considered. Flight across so much running water was impossible, as she knew well. One reason there were no dragons in Andar. But there was a more obvious threat. “Even with the bridge gone Andar won't be safe. The King can build ships.”

  “I will protect Andar,” said Hyrn. “I shall fill the deep waters with serpents that coil and crush any craft attempting the crossing. There are creatures in the deeps you have no knowledge of.”

  She nodded. “And what of you, Hyrn?”

  “What of me?”

  “You are already wounded. What will this cleaving do to you? You are the land, or I haven't understood any of the tales told to me as a girl.”

  “You need have no fears for me, child. People may die, you all may die, but life goes on. I will go on.”

  “No. That thing the King has become isn't life. It's death. Death will spread and you are the land you walk. You are An. If half of you is death and half is life, where will that leave you? Caught between, the two halves warring in you. You will not escape that struggle unscathed, I fancy.”

  Hyrn snorted steam from his nostrils and for a moment it was a beast standing there, huge and powerful and dangerous, eyes wild. She thought he was going to attack, toss her lifeless body to the ground for daring to speak to him with such words.

  Then the light of understanding returned to him. The antler-crowned head bowed. His voice was a breath as he replied. “Yes. You are right. This wound we are about to inflict will be my wound. I am strong, but the cut will not heal. Slowly the light will fade and the frost creep across the forests. In time it will claim me. Until the land is healed. Only then will I be whole again.”

  “And will that ever be?”

  “I do not know.”

  “And if the cleaving remains for the rest of days?”

  “Then there will be nothing left of me except the wound. It will consume me, and I will become it. I will be the spirit of the An that cuts the world in two and nothing more. I will be river serpent and flood and flow and no more of tree and meadow.”

  “That would be a sad loss, Hyrn of the Green.”

  “Yes. But this is what must be, child of the wycka. The days draw short. The wound is widening.”

  She dipped her head in assent. His suggestion was alarming. But the wisdom of it was clear. Very well. Time to get on with it. But she'd become disorientated in t
he trek through the wood. Twilight was gathering among the old trees. “Then tell me, hunter of the wild wood, which is the quickest way to Morvale Wycka?”

  Hyrn waved towards the trees on his left. “A river rises among the rocks a short distance that way. Follow it and it will take you where you need to go.”

  “And will I see you again?” she asked. “Whether we live or die?”

  “Who can say? But I will be there when you work your magic. Trust in that.”

  “Well,” said Black Meg. “We'll do our best.” She turned and headed back into the gloom of the trees to find the river that was, presumably, the rising Babblerush. Glancing back once, she saw Hyrn crouching beside the dead deer, gently stroking its lifeless neck. He didn't look up at her.

  The aether around Morvale Wycka teemed with a hubbub of voices: arguing, questioning, some more shrill, edged with panic. Meg slipped her mind into the confused rush of the coven's conversation, trying to follow the ebb and flow of the arguments.

  She'd walked for nearly a day and was still some way from the building itself. The red tower of the Wycka stood on a crag of rock thrusting upwards from a wide wood. The river she'd followed on the day's march circled around the crag before running another fifty miles or so to the An. A half-hour's climb and she would reach the ancient stones that many of the witches in Angere called home. But she was near enough to sense the conversation that buzzed in the air like a swarm of bees.

  She'd never known so many to come together in coven. As well as the familiar voices of the witches and wise men who lived at the Wycka, there were numerous hedge witches from the surrounding countryside, those that normally shunned the coven and its traditions. There were charm-mumblers and those who claimed to read the future in the night-time stars and even one or two mancers. News had spread quickly.

  The witches of Islagray Wycka were also present, speaking at great effort from the other side of the An, two hundred miles away. Meg had travelled there twice in her life, made the long crossing of the great bridge to Andar. Islagray Wycka stood on an island in a lake, but in all other regards it was the same as their own Morvale Wycka. A spiritual home. A place of safety.

  Until now.

  Meg said nothing as she approached. They would hear what she had to say when they noticed her presence. Everyone was equal in the coven, but the words of the eldest would always be given special attention. Even as she wound her way up the path that spiralled through the woods on the slopes, a hush fell. They'd noticed her. In her mind's eye she saw herself walking into the middle of a great room thronged with hundreds - thousands - of people, all suddenly waiting for her to tell them what was happening. What they should do.

  When she'd finished recounting her experiences of the last two days, her meeting with Dervil and then Hyrn, the hubbub resumed immediately. Now there was alarm and doubt and open fear in their voices. Meg heard clear hostility to her suggestions. A rejection of the very idea of abandoning Angere. She said nothing more. She understood their doubts, their fears. She had them herself. But here was the world as it was, not as they might wish it to be. She could see no other way, desperate as the plan was. She'd turned it over and over in her mind on her day's march but had found no alternative she preferred.

  Her feet finally reached the stone tower. Her heart was hammering from the climb and her chest was heaving. Lost to the coven, she'd barely noticed the ascent. She took a moment to catch her breath.

  There were many caves and tunnels beneath the Wycka, miles and miles of them, all unexplored. But one cavern they did use. The Songroom. She could feel the deep, resonant hum echoing from there: the eternal, unending music the witches took their turns to chant. There was a clear edge of wrongness, of discord, to the song of Angere. Another sign, another portent. Would the singing ever stop? It was unthinkable, impossible. But now, also, inevitable.

  When her breathing had calmed, Black Meg strode into the courtyard of Morvale Wycka to a barrage of questions and complaints from the assembled witches. The arguments raged on for several minutes until another voice cut through them. Thin and quiet with the distance, but unmistakable. Alice Beetle, the eldest witch of Andar. Like Black Meg, she was just one witch among many. But also like Meg, when she spoke, people listened. Alice was, in fact, a year or two older than Meg, which made her the eldest of them all.

  “And how long do we have before this miraculous flood must be released from the north to destroy the bridge?”

  Was Alice mocking her plan or consenting to it? It was hard to tell. Rare enough for the witches of their own coven to agree to anything. Reaching consent with the Andar witches was more or less unknown. Perhaps Alice and the others would see what the King had done as a problem for distant Angere, not something threatening them all. And if they did, that might be the end of everything then and there.

  “The King will take time to recover from his ordeal,” said Meg. “His attention will be drawn to the fighting around him for a while. That won't last long. He's no fool. I'd say we have a week before he looks our way, certainly no more. If we set off immediately we'll maybe have enough time to reach the north and attempt the magic.”

  “A week to travel to the snows and work the witchcraft?”

  “I think that's all the time we have.”

  “But the cost to us, Black Meg. The price to be paid. How many will be crippled or killed by the effort of it? Do you even think spellmaking on such a scale is possible?”

  “Truly, Alice, I don't know. Hyrn seemed to think so. The An swells in the spring anyway as the ice melts. We simply need to hurry it along. And the river narrows at the bridge, which I suppose is why it was built there. That will funnel the force of the flood. And also … also I don't see what else we can do. Do you?”

  Alice ignored her question. “But even if this worked, anyone on the bridge when the flood waters struck would be washed away too.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Andar and Angere would be separated for ever. Whoever the ancients who built the bridge were, we certainly don't have the skill to recreate it even if we wanted.”

  “True.”

  “And those on your side of the river would be stranded, with no hope of escape from this thing Menhroth has become.”

  “And that's also true. But if we don't try, that will be the fate of all of us. And perhaps those that remain will be able to fight back. Take to the woods or the mountains where Menhroth can't find them.”

  There was a silence in the aether for a moment, and Meg thought maybe Alice had finished her list of objections. But then the Andar witch continued. “Have you considered, also, that not many who live in Angere will be able to reach the bridge in a week? Let alone cross it? You would be condemning those left behind.”

  She thought about the girl she'd just helped through childbirth. Liana. And her baby boy. “They are already condemned, Alice Beetle. We are saving all we can.”

  “And once the King sees everyone fleeing for the bridge he'll act. He'll guess what's happening. He'll stop you reaching the north. He'll send his loyal dragonriders down the wyrm roads to find you and kill you.”

  “Then we have to keep our plans secret. We have to hope he won't believe anyone would attempt such an act of destruction. Maybe he'll think people are trying to put some distance between themselves and Angere. But you're right. There is much that could go wrong. Yet it's either this or sit and wait to be slaughtered.”

  A vision of the deer Hyrn had killed flashed before her eyes, its quivering legs as the blood spattered from it. They couldn't simply wait for that to happen to all of them. That was what Hyrn had showed her.

  There was silence for a moment as Alice and the others conversed among themselves. Meg wished she could hear what was being said. Without the witches and mancers of Andar, they had no chance of succeeding.

  Finally Alice spoke. “We must consider this further. We will bespeak you when we have decided what to do.”

  “Decide quickly, Alice Beetle.”


  “An hour, no more. You have my word.”

  “An hour then.”

  With that, the Andar witches were gone. Meg sank to the cold stone of the floor, suddenly exhausted. If Andar refused to help, what was the point of any of it?

  A young witch, recently arrived at Morvale Wycka, knelt down beside her, offering her a cup of honeyed tea and a platter of bread and cheese. Meg accepted it gratefully. She hadn't slept for three days. Her muscles felt like dry old ropes within her flesh.

  “Will they help us?” the girl asked. Fyr was her name, Meg recalled. A serious, sombre girl from a village near the bridge, eager to do right in the world.

  Meg ate a mouthful of the bread and cheese and sipped at the tea. It tickled as it trickled down inside her. “They may. And they may decide Menhroth is our problem and do nothing.”

  “But that's madness.”

  “What would you do in their situation? Destroying the bridge is a terrible thing to do. And the scale of the magic involved is frightening. A lot of us will kill ourselves with the effort of it. And if we succeed, villages and towns all along the banks will be devastated. Alice Beetle knows that as well as we do.”

  “Even so, it would be madness to do anything else.”

  “True,” said Meg. “But if there's one thing I've learned over the years it's that people can be relied upon to do the daftest things. We just have to hope they see sense. Any more of this tea?”

  “I'll bring you some.”

  “Lovely. More of this bread and cheese would go well with it, too.”

  The girl bustled off. But when she returned her expression was more troubled than before, if such a thing was possible.