by Rob Scott
Rutting mess, Churn thought, this will slow us down. We should have gone back and circled around. He made a solemn promise to himself: if he were able to carry Hannah back up the slope, he would never again return to another high place – not a ledge, nor a building, and certainly not another icy mud slope above a swirling, freezing mountain river – no matter who might be chasing him.
Churn shook his head to keep his thoughts clear: he had to move Hannah, before she lapsed into a coma. He searched the hillside, waiting for Hoyt and Alen to pass down a rope: he could climb the embankment with Hannah over one shoulder, if they pulled from the top. His main concern was to give the injured woman as gentle a ride as possible.
First things first: he needed to immobilise Hannah’s shoulder. Keeping it from moving would be critical if they were to make a safe ascent, and Churn thought it best that she remain unconscious until he had her safely out of the gorge. Jouncing the broken collarbone might wake the girl (she had looked like a sea nymph that day in Southport) and then she might jerk away and cause them both to tumble back down. Ignoring the fact that he was freezing himself, Churn started to unhook his cloak; he needed it for bandages – but as he did so, something glinted in the sun.
He crawled painfully over to the shining object – a cloak pin, holding closed a thick woollen wrap being worn by what was undoubtedly a dead man. It looked as if he had fallen, like they had, but he hadn’t been as lucky: a pace or two further and the mud would have cushioned his fall, as it had Hannah’s.
Churn peered closely at the body; he reckoned the man, a forester, maybe, judging by his clothes, had been dead for several days, though the chill air had stopped the corpse from rotting. The body rested half on and half off the rocky ledge. It looked like the man had cracked his skull, killing him on impact. Churn warmed somewhat at the notion of another dead Malakasian, then got to work pillaging the corpse for anything he might use to make safer his and Hannah’s potentially dangerous journey up the muddy embankment. The man had a knife and a small wood axe, nothing appropriate for battle, tucked in his belt. He tore the man’s cloak into strips which he used to bind up Hannah’s injured shoulder, being especially thorough, then he attended to her head, using another makeshift bandage to tie around her forehead, stopping the flow of blood from her wound. He dipped a bit of cloth into the river and used it to clean her face.
From somewhere above, Churn heard Hoyt and Alen calling, but he couldn’t call back; he could just hope they found him soon. He returned to the corpse and reached for a leather pouch, small but bulging with what he hoped was silver. It was tied tightly at the top with a wet leather thong. Churn fumbled with the tie for a moment, the cold making his fingers cramp, and then gave up and drew his own knife to slice through the leather and open the pouch.
Almost immediately, he was gone. It wasn’t cold and he wasn’t wet. The snow was falling again, warm weather snow, tickling his face and catching in his hair. His shoulders ached, but he was happy to be free from the frigid waters. He tried and failed to free one of his hands to brush the snow from his face.
He was back in the cottonwood tree, but this time he didn’t look down. Instead, he forced himself to keep his gaze focused on the perfect azure sky, Gods of the forest, but it was a beautiful sky. Churn wouldn’t pull his gaze away from the cloudless expanse of Pragan blue perfection, despite the heavy aroma of smoke and ash. He was back, but it wasn’t real. It was a dream. The smells made him want to look down, but he wouldn’t; he would look up at that sky for the rest of his life if necessary.
Then he heard them: there were at least two, above him someplace, hiding in the Pragan sky, but they called him and he didn’t answer – he couldn’t answer. There was no shouting left in him, certainly not from the top of this rutting tree where he had shouted and cried for so long. Instead, he shook his head, a gesture he had perfected in those few moments after climbing from the river, and he would use it again now. It helped him ward off the cold. It was cold now, even there in the cottonwood tree. Perhaps it was winter snow. Churn knew, without looking down from the branches, that Hannah Sorenson was not down there on the ground outside his family farmhouse; she was somewhere else – he tried to remember where she had fallen, but the vast Pragan sky called him back and he forgot the woman for a moment, just long enough to smell the ashes burning below…
Churn dropped the leather pouch. Demonpiss! It’s more of that cursed bark, he screamed in his mind. He dipped his hands in the river and wiped them repeatedly across his leggings, hoping to wipe any vestiges away. Adrenalin surged through his body, warming him for what he needed to do. He picked up the pouch and secured it with the leather thongs, then tied it safely onto his belt. Then he stood for the first time since crawling from the river and looked up the embankment. The curve of the hillside blocked his view, but he could hear Hoyt and Alen right above him, shouting his name
Cry out to them, he thought, yell up to them now. Churn threw his head back, rounded his shoulders and drew a deep breath – but nothing emerged, not a squeak. He couldn’t make himself shout, and as he couldn’t see them, he guessed that they couldn’t see him or Hannah either – and still he couldn’t make himself shout up to his companions. Why would you not call out to them? What is the matter with you? he asked himself, shuffling from foot to foot. Do it now – they need to know where you are! Call up to them, you great stupid rutter!
A length of rope, tied in clumsy knots to three sets of leather reins, landed in the river some distance off to his right and swirled there for a moment before it began moving downriver towards him: Hoyt and Alen had thrown down a lifeline and were dragging it the length of the gorge, hoping he or Hannah would grab hold and offer them a reassuring tug.
Hoyt.
Gods keep Hoyt for a thousand Twinmoons. His old friend had come up with this strategy; Churn swore he would crush the little thief in a bear-hug if he made it back to the top. He watched as the rope came ever closer, then bent to lift Hannah gently over his shoulder. As soon as he moved her, she awakened briefly, screamed what he guessed was a string of obscenities in her own language, and then passed out again. When the line reached the flat stone, he grabbed it, wrapped it several times around his free wrist, tugged twice to let Hoyt and Alen know he was ready and then worked his way up the slope, digging in with the toes of his boots and allowing the two men to haul him and Hannah back to the upper edge of the gorge.
Churn was careful not to look down until well after they had reached the safety of the forested hilltop.
THE BORDER CROSSING
‘We would have known, right?’ Steven asked.
‘I suppose so,’ Gilmour answered, ‘although I can’t be certain anymore – I’ve lost track of myself recently…’
‘I think you’re underestimating yourself, Gilmour. Maybe you’re tired – we’ve been going at breakneck speed since Mark and I arrived, and that’s just been the past Twinmoon or so. You’ve been pushing yourself for much longer: you’ve been running on fumes since Orindale.’ Steven held back a branch to let the old man past. The forest they were walking through was thick with young growth, periodically interspersed with the charred remains of an older tree, still standing, but truncated by fire and crusted in black ash. Steven released the pliable branch with a snap. ‘Anyway, I’m sure we would have felt it.’
‘I agree,’ Gilmour nodded, ‘if he had levelled the city, we would have known. I felt the Port Denis spell from all the way across Eldarn, so even in my current state I think I would have sensed it if Nerak reduced Traver’s Notch to rubble three days’ ride from here.’ He tried to sound encouraged, but he wasn’t happy at the idea of resting at Sandcliff; the site of the massacre that had killed nearly all of his closest friends was not the most relaxing prospect. ‘You may be right, Steven,’ he continued. ‘I’m not young any more – I haven’t been young in nearly two thousand Twinmoons.’ He laughed. ‘But on fumes? That I don’t understand.’
‘Fumes, yes,’ Steven said, �
�gas fumes – it’s a car reference, Gilmour. Automobiles: you’re going to love them.’
‘Automobiles.’ He considered the word. ‘Very well; we shall see in due course.’
Comforted by the idea that Traver’s Notch still stood, Steven changed the subject and asked, ‘Where are we, anyway?’
‘You see that hill over there?’ Gilmour pointed across a shallow valley to the north. ‘That’s Gorsk. Sandcliff is probably four or five days’ ride north of there, longer if Nerak has the hills patrolled and we have to work our way up the coast.’
‘What’s keeping us from just riding through the valley and heading north right here?’ Steven indicated the gentle downward slope from their current position on top of a long ridge running west to east along the border. He was anxious to cross over into Gorsk; he needed to feel as though the final leg of their journey had begun. Lessek’s key had been feeling especially heavy in his pocket.
Gilmour stared for a moment across the valley, then said, ‘I’m no expert on foreign affairs, but I suspect they might have some questions for us.’ He pointed down into the draw where smoke swirled among the treetops that encircled a clearing. There were several rows of large canvas tents.
‘Holy shit,’ Steven exclaimed, ‘where did they come from?’
‘They are encamped all along this ridge,’ the Larion sorcerer said. ‘Take a look back there.’ He pointed west, the way they had come.
Squinting, Steven could see more tendrils of smoke snaking their way skywards from within the trees. ‘Jeez, they’re everywhere,’ he said, then, as if noticing their position for the first time, ‘Shouldn’t we take cover?’
‘Why?’
‘For one, the only cover we have right now is a few charred stumps. And two, well… there is no two, but one seems a healthy enough reason to duck down for me, wouldn’t you agree?
‘I wouldn’t worry, Steven,’ the old man said calmly.
Steven looked incredulous. ‘And why not?’
‘Your mother’s blanket, remember?’
Steven stopped and rubbed his horse’s nose. ‘It works on them too?’
‘From what I can gather, your spell was very thorough.’ Gilmour didn’t elaborate.
Steven looked around, suddenly uncomfortable, and gripped a fistful of mane. ‘All right then. If they don’t know we’re here, let’s go, before they find us some other way. What are we waiting for?’
‘Did I mention that I’m a little uncertain of my own skills right now?’
Steven nodded. ‘And?’
‘I don’t doubt your magic at all, but I would hate to attempt a crossing and have someone hear our horses whinny, or see too many tree branches moving against the wind – they’d be bound to investigate.’
‘Oh.’ Steven sounded dejected.
‘Don’t get downhearted.’ Gilmour tried to sound reassuring. ‘You did a very thorough job and I am quite sure Nerak has no idea where we are – at least for now.’
‘I think I’ve felt him looking for us,’ Steven said.
‘Me, too,’ Gilmour said. ‘But until I am convinced we won’t be riding into an enemy prison, I want to continue east until the patrols thin out enough that we could cross in one of your fuming automobiles and no one would be any wiser.’
‘All right then.’ Steven turned back to the trail.
Gilmour said, ‘I was impressed, by the way.’
Steven looked surprised at the unexpected compliment. ‘You were?’
‘No spells, no fancy incantations, just focus and concentration: you are far, far ahead of any Larion sorcerer I ever knew, Steven, even some who had been studying for twenty Twinmoons or more – except Kantu, Pikan and Nerak, of course, but they were exceptional.’ He sighed and climbed into the saddle. ‘I was impressed. Come on, I think we can ride from here.’
Steven looked back to where Garec and Mark were engrossed in a conversation about arrows and homemade fletching. ‘Mount up, boys,’ he called softly. ‘We’re going to ride from here.’
‘Oh, hurrah,’ Mark groaned. He was still clumsy in the saddle and would have been far happier jogging all the way to Sandcliff Palace. ‘How much further today?’
‘We need to get past that encampment, and Gilmour says we might have to go another day or two east towards the coast.’
Garec agreed with Gilmour. ‘They won’t patrol as much out there, especially east of the Merchants’ Highway. There’s nothing out there.’
As they set off, Mark tried to pull the wrinkles out of his leggings where the unruly fabric had bunched up to expose his lower legs; he cursed and nearly fell into the dirt beside the trail. ‘Goddamn these creatures,’ he muttered, pulling himself straight again.
Gilmour, confident Steven’s cloaking spell would effectively distract any one who thought they detected something out of the ordinary, allowed a small fire behind a house-sized boulder left on the ridge by a god building a mountain somewhere further north. It wasn’t strictly necessary – they had plenty of dried meat and cheese still – but Gilmour had been craving a cup of coffee himself, and as the milk wouldn’t last much longer, he decided a break would do them all good. Everyone was anxious to cross the border into Gorsk and he couldn’t blame them; he was a little excited as well. He hoped they had come east far enough to slip north safely.
As Mark busied himself with the coffee pans, Gilmour moved around the boulder and gazed at the hills rolling towards Sandcliff Palace. In the twilight they were brown fading to purple, flanked by the grey-black northern mountains. He pitied those who died late on a winter’s day: the journey to the Northern Forest – a journey Gilmour wasn’t even sure he believed in any more – would be long and tiresome, especially for someone his age. To pass this way after the leaves had fallen, the naked trees and hills cold in the late day sun, would be an anticlimax to a life filled with love, passion and engaging pursuits. He reached out with his mind, hoping to detect a soul making its way across the burned-over ridge, to offer a greeting and ease the loneliness of that final trek, but he could sense nothing.
He had just started back towards the fire when he heard Mark shouting.
‘Stand still – right there! Show me your hands!’ The foreigner’s voice drowned out whatever anyone else was trying to say.
Another, unfamiliar, voice answered, ‘I didn’t see you. I can’t believe I didn’t see you.’ He didn’t sound that concerned that he might be run through in the next breath, but rather, someone genuinely surprised. ‘Four horses and three men- four men-’ Gilmour had come around the corner, ‘-and I didn’t see you. Gods rut a dog; you’ve got a fire burning and I didn’t see you!’
‘Hands, asshole!’ Mark, an arrow drawn full, didn’t notice his slip back into English.
‘My hands? What? What should I do with them?’ The stranger spoke calmly, apparently unafraid of the angry bowman.
‘Turn them over. I want to see your wrists,’ Mark said.
‘What an odd thing to-’
‘Now, asshole, or I will drill you through the neck.’
‘I don’t know why-’
‘Shut up,’ Mark interrupted, ‘and pay attention! I want to see the backs of your wrists, so turn your hands over. Do it now, or die. No discussion; your decision. I will not care, not for one moment, if your body rots on this hill for an eternity.’
The man stretched out his arms, causing his tunic sleeves to ride up his wrists, and did his best to show his hands from every angle. ‘I must say, I have been detained from time to time in my life, but this is the most curious demand I’ve ever heard,’ he said conversationally. ‘Where did you all come from? Is it magic?’
Mark ignored him. ‘Do you see anything?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Garec answered.
‘Nothing from over here either,’ Steven said, ‘and I’m getting nothing from-well, you know.’
Mark still held the arrow nocked. ‘What are you doing here?’
The man, who looked somewhat younger than Garec, was dresse
d in the ubiquitous leggings, a wool tunic with a leather bandolier and a heavy brown cloak. His hood was up, but he had made some effort to cast it back from his face, hoping that eye contact with his assailants might convince them of his peaceful intentions. Still waggling his wrists, he said, ‘My name is Rodler Varn. I’m from Capehill. I make, uh, well, deliveries into Gorsk from time to time.’ He indicated the bandolier with his chin. ‘A bit of root, that’s all, and not much. I’m not greedy. I take what I can carry and go in on foot.’
‘Fennaroot,’ Garec said, surprised, ‘you sell fennaroot in Gorsk?’
‘What’s fennaroot?’ Mark kept the arrow trained on Rodler’s chest but looked to the Ronans for clarification.
Gilmour said, ‘You remember your first day out of Estrad, Mark? The root I sliced for you?’
‘Oh, yes, right: it gave a real kick. We tried to get some in Orindale, but it was out of season or something.’
‘Malagon made it illegal,’ Garec added. ‘That’s why we had trouble finding it.’ He moved over to the man and opened one of the leather pockets in the bandolier. He held up a piece of nondescript dirt-covered root. ‘He’s telling the truth.’
‘It’s dope?’ Mark asked. ‘So you’re a drug dealer? Oh, that’s just terrific, the one person we meet out here is a drug smuggler.’ He chuckled and lowered the bow.
‘Fennaroot has many uses, Mark,’ Gilmour said, keeping an eye on Rodler Varn. ‘It’s not very powerful in its raw form-’
‘But let me guess,’ Steven interjected, ‘dried and crushed into powder, it packs a significantly more powerful punch.’
‘Yup,’ Mark said, ‘just sprinkle a little on your pancakes and you’ll be swimming the English Channel.’
Rodler, still exposing his wrists for their inspection, called, ‘Hey, Southie, can I come up now?’
Wheeling back, Mark drew the bow again and trained it on the stranger. Rage twisted his face and for a moment Gilmour feared he would kill the fennaroot smuggler. Mark’s voice was grim. ‘My family has put up with racism for generations, and where I come from, the appropriate thing for me to do right now would be to express my sincere outrage and disgust at your narrowmindedness. But guess what, asshole, we aren’t there, are we?’ Gita Kamrec of Orindale had called him a South Coaster in the caverns below Meyers’ Vale, but Mark had let it pass; there had been nothing pejorative in her usage, and she had obviously earned the respect of the numerous black members of her small fighting force. But that had been some while ago, before something fundamentally good had snapped inside Mark’s mind.
