Berin stood up quickly. "It‘s a fire."
"It couldn't be Tresmar or Bittin, could it?"
"Why on earth would they be up there? And how could they have got there by this time?"
Berin's logic was unassailable. It was strangers. Caldar made his decision instantly.
"I'm going up anyway. Maybe someone there could help."
Half a dozen reasons for not going up leaped into Berin's mind. What if they were outlaws? Or didn't speak Esparit? What if Caldar himself got lost or hurt in the dark? And so on. What he said was quite different.
"I'll wait here, Caldar. If you're not back by first light, I'll make my way back to Far End as fast as I can. Take care.”
They touched hands briefly, then Caldar set off towards the distant fire. The first hour in the shadow of the peak above was very slow and difficult. A faint backwash of moonlight coming off the glacier and the mountains opposite made it possible to move; but he could see no details and he kept stumbling and scraping his shins as he constantly misjudged distances. It got worse when he reached the trees. The shadows were blacker than ever and there were branches everywhere at head height reaching out in the dark to poke him in the eye. He went on step by step, head down, holding his hands in front of his face. When it became too steep to walk, he crawled. When it was too steep to crawl, he climbed. He was like some blind insect that creeps on in a straight line over every obstacle. Straight line? He had long since lost sight of the fire and was simply struggling up and across the face of the mountain, hoping that he would see it again when he came close.
Perhaps he should have expected what brought him to a standstill. The moon had cleared the top of the mountain now and he was able to move more easily. Then a long eerie howl rang across the silent hillside, followed by shorter howls and yips. The wolves. Bittin had heard them up this way. It sounded as though there were several of them and they were close. Sweat broke out all over Caldar's body. He had never even seen a wolf, but he had heard tales of their savagery and the animal fear aroused by that dreadful howl raised the hair right up the back of his head. He had his knife, not much use against a pack of wolves. A climbable tree was a much better idea. He chose one and started towards it at a stumbling trot, imagining grey stalking shapes in every shadow.
Just before he reached the tree, Caldar slowed to a halt. What was he doing? Climbing a tree, because there were wolves somewhere on the mountainside, who probably weren't interested in him anyway? And how long was he going to sit in the tree while Rasscu's life ebbed away? Unless the wolves attacked him, he had to go on to find whoever had lighted that fire. Grasping his knife in his hand, he started uphill again, peering nervously from side to side.
Soon he began to hear small rustling and panting sounds in the trees all around him. No, they were on his right. Veering left he fought down his panic and struggled on faster and faster, at moments certain he could see the terrifying dark shapes as they came close. Suddenly he came out at the top of a small outcrop and there was the fire no more than fifty yards away. The clear sound of voices promised safety and he ran all the way to collapse on all fours in the circle of firelight.
When his labouring heart and lungs had slowed down, he became aware that all was quiet. There were no voices, nor when he looked around, was there anyone to be seen. Had he imagined the sounds? No, someone lit this fire. Where were they? As if he had heard the question, a man appeared from the darkness and stood studying Caldar as he got to his feet. The stranger was tall, the hood of his simple brown robe thrown back to reveal a dark bearded face with prominent cheek bones and deep sunk eyes separated by a large hooked nose. His long dark hair was held back by a band of material around his forehead. There was a long silence.
"Gresst opor mithin a-thaikar?" It was obviously a question, put in a clear dry voice, but in a language Caldar had never heard before.
"Gresst opor mithin a-thaikar?" The same question, with no inflection or expression of either welcome or aggression.
"I have come for help." Caldar said, feeling foolish at speaking in a foreign tongue to this man, but not knowing any other way to start.
"Then why the knife?" the dry voice asked in Esparit. Caldar stared foolishly at the knife in his right hand. Suddenly the whole situation seemed absurd. He began to laugh and then inexplicably to cry. He collapsed weakly to his knees, trying in vain to stem the storm of sobbing that shook his body for the second time that night. He felt a gentle hand laid on his shoulder, resting there until the spasms subsided.
The dry voice spoke again. "Tell us. We listen." When Caldar raised his head, he found the tall stranger sitting on the ground in front of him flanked by six more brown-robed men. He started a little incoherently to explain why he was asking for help, then got a hold of himself and spoke clearly, realising that if Rasscu had any faint chance of being rescued, it rested with these men.
After he had been speaking for two or three minutes, the tall man held up his hand to silence him and then turned his head and spoke rapidly to his companions in their own tongue. A brisk interchange took place which the interpreter cut short by turning back to Caldar and saying "continue."
When he had finished, the same sequence of interpretation and discussion took place. This time it was followed by questions.
"How deep down is the injured man - exactly?" "Has he other injuries besides his arm?" "How long has he been there?" "Can you definitely find the place on the glacier again? By moonlight?"
These questions for the first time began to rekindle some real hope in Caldar. It seemed that these strangers were considering the practicalities of rescue as if the decision to help had already been taken. Relief loosened the tension which had held him to his purpose and he began to feel extremely tired. From then on the rest of the night passed in a kind of weary disjointed dream.
Food being thrust into his hand. The descent with a party of men carrying ropes and staves. A very cold Berin huddled in his cloak, rising to greet them. Both of them watching from the rock ledges as men with torches tied ropes to each other and went out onto the glacier. The long cold wait, unable to tell what was happening, and then the return of the rescue party carrying a bundle on a makeshift stretcher. Rasscu's face a bloodless white, even in the glow of the torches. The enigmatic "It's possible" from the interpreter, when the boys asked if he was alive. And finally the awful exhausted stumble back up the mountainside. Of reaching the camp and going to sleep, Caldar had no recollection whatsoever.
He awoke to sunshine. He was wrapped in a thick fleecy blanket which he did not recognise, with towering crags, which he also did not recognise, filling his vision as they soared up towards a pure blue sky. He felt very good about something and he was very worried about something and he couldn’t remember the reason for either. Suddenly everything snapped into focus and he sat up abruptly.
"Berin. Berin." His friend was sound asleep in a blanket beside him, his head resting on his pack. Caldar shook his shoulder, until the sleeper rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes, blinking in the sunshine. "Come on, let’s find Rasscu." He squinted up at the sun. "Heavens, it’s midmorning. Tresmar and the others will be searching all over for us."
"I'm thirsty." Berin sat up slowly and looked around.
They had been sleeping on top of an outcrop of smooth grey rock, which commanded an incredible view up the glacier into the mountains. To the south west the Rails valley lay green and sunny far below them. The boys found their interpreter a few yards away by the burnt-out fire. There was no sign of the other men or of Rasscu. He nodded to them gravely and waved them to sit down near him where there was bread and cheese on a platter and a leather flask.
"You were tired." The dry voice made it a statement.
"Yes. And thank you for the blankets." Caldar said politely between mouthfuls, finding himself extremely hungry. "Where's our friend? We want to see him before we go back to Far End, because the others will be searching for us and they won't know...."
"Eat. We will speak when you are finished."
The black eyes were compelling and Caldar found himself obeying, although eating in silence was unnatural to him, particularly when there were so many important things to talk about. Their host had turned to sit facing down the slope in a relaxed watchful posture without the slightest movement. When the youths were full, they asked again about Rasscu, with some hesitation because this composed unsmiling stranger disconcerted them. His reply unsettled them even more.
"We have taken your friend over the pass to our camp in the next valley,” he answered without turning round. “He is near to death, maybe too near. One arm is broken and one leg. But the most dangerous is the cold. He was frozen and his heart beats very slow. You must wait a long time to hear it. At our camp there are people who may help him. We know much about dying from cold. I sent a messenger this morning before dawn to your friends at the house to tell them that you are well, that your injured friend may live if God wills it so, and that we will bring him back soon if he lives. Do you yourselves wish to return to the house or to come to our camp to join your friend?"
"Well, we could go down and meet the others, then come back with them to see Rasscu in your camp." Berin suggested.
"No. The men in the house will not come to our camp. We have forbidden it."
The boys were out of their depth. They wanted to know what was behind this unusual statement, but couldn't think how to ask. In the end it was Caldar, who simply blurted out, "What's wrong? I mean, why shouldn't they go to your camp? You're not enemies, are you? Or outlaws? And won't they just come looking anyway?" By the time he had finished, he was wishing he hadn't opened his mouth, and Berin was looking at him warningly.
"They will not come, for the same reason that we forbid them. We are Hamna. This is our land. We allow your people to bring their cattle to this valley. The rest of the mountains we do not permit strangers to enter except in time of need." He stood up in one swift movement, still looking down the hill. "Come, you must decide which way you will go. My messenger is returning now and will soon be here. Then I will leave to rejoin my family."
The boys saw a figure far below, jinking and bobbing as he ran straight up the steep mountainside. They stared in amazement for a moment before returning to the question before them.
"We ought to go back," Berin said slowly. Then seeing the total commitment in his friend’s face, he gave in to the inevitable. “But perhaps we should see how Rasscu is first.”
Caldar nodded his thanks. "I have to go. I …just have to.” Even to Berin he could explain it no better. Then he spoke out loud for both of them, "We want to come with you."
The climb to the pass was steep and rocky and the descent at first equally precipitous, landing them in a small desolate combe. When they walked to the edge, they found themselves looking down another valley as green as the Rails, although larger and wilder in every aspect. Huge crags and waterfalls abounded, and high rocky peaks crowded close.
They followed their guides down a precarious path that crept to and fro descending the vertical valley rim. It took them into a beautiful bowl, full of grass and rushing streams; full of strange looking cattle too, with long shaggy coats and enormous horns. Crossing the level pastures they came to another drop-off and below it the camp. The valley was wider here and well-timbered. There were about thirty large circular tents pitched on the flats next to a small lake, and more people in one place than the boys had seen since Tariska's feast.
A crowd of curious children accompanied by a few dogs gathered as soon as they reached the fringe of the camp and followed them, until their guides halted outside a tent pitched a little away from the rest. The boys were glad to see that at least the children smiled readily here. The messenger who had returned from Far End had proved to be a younger version of the interpreter, his dark face unsmiling and aloof despite his gentle manner.
The older man waved the children to silence and addressed some quiet words to the tent wall. Moments later the tent flap was pushed back and a woman stepped out. She was tiny and stout with a round wrinkled face and greying hair held back in a plait. She motioned them away from the tent, then studied the boys with a long direct look from her mild brown eyes. Then she smiled. It was like the sun breaking through after days of cloud. They smiled back in delight.
"You friend?" she said pointing to the tent. Presumably Rasscu was in there, so the boys nodded and said 'yes'.
"You want see friend?" At their nods, she beckoned them to follow, saying just before she led them inside, "No speak. No touch."
Rasscu lay on some kind of raised bed, covered with fleecy blankets. Caldar looked at him in consternation. His face was still a waxy white and he lay absolutely still, with no sign of breathing. Caldar had seen dead people before, and he was sure he was looking at a corpse. Tears rose hot in his eyes and he turned and went outside.
Finding a boulder to sit on, he stared blindly down the valley. Guilt was already beginning to compound his grief, when he heard someone come up behind him.
"He's alive, you know." It was Berin's voice.
"How can you tell? He doesn't look it.”
Berin settled down on the rock beside him. "Because I've been talking to Tsandro, the doctor looking after him. She says he's definitely still alive at the moment, but it's a special state which hangs in the balance between life and death and people usually come out of it by themselves. Only thing is the longer it goes on, the less hope there is. She says she’s done everything she can already. All we can do now is wait."
"Thanks Berin," Caldar sighed. "I don't understand why I feel so strongly about Rasscu. I don't know him at all. I think maybe it's having been so useless when we were the only people he had to depend on."
"I know what you mean. But you're exaggerating, you know you are. He fell down that hole himself. If we hadn't happened to come up to the glacier, he would still be there and he would definitely be dead. If you hadn't gone to look at the bow, you'd never have seen him, and if you hadn't come up and found the Hamna, he wouldn't have been rescued. That he's got any chance of living, Caldar, he owes first to luck and second to you, so stop moping about something that hasn't happened and is definitely not your fault anyway."
"Your friend is right." The interpreter's dry tones startled them both. He came round in front of the pair and continued. "The one in there," he nodded at the tent, "is very lucky also that we were up at the pass. Not for many years have we hunted so far west. So many fortunate things. I think maybe he is destined to live." Then looking straight at Caldar, he said, "Maybe the greatest good fortune of all for him, we have heard that the only man who might help him is nearby, in the next valley to the east. My son Mahyentse is already on the way to ask if he will come."
"Over there?" asked Caldar, looking in awe at the towering eastern wall of the valley.
"Yes. If he comes, he will be here tomorrow."
"Is he a doctor?" Berin queried.
"Of a kind. By trade he is a tinker."
Again this man's strange words left them silent and slightly baffled.
"Come now, let us talk. You are our guests and everyone in our encampment will be asking me questions about you. Apart from Tsandro and my son, I am the only one who speaks the language of the Lake people, so I will be very busy. Maybe you also have questions about us. First my name. I am Nyokhen. I am head of this family." His wave indicated the whole camp. "We are of the Reshid Hamna who live nearest to the Lake, although not usually so near as this. This year we are very far west in the mountains. Now may I know your names and that of your injured friend?"
The youths found themselves very ready to talk to this enigmatic, yet reassuring man, and he soon knew their names and much of their recent travels. Caldar checked when he came to describing about the wolves and looked at the others in amazement.
"That's extraordinary. I forgot all about them.”
"I heard them down where I was," Berin put in. "You mean you actually ran into them?"
He looked up and was surprised to see Nyokhen regarding him with something approaching a smile. It was the first hint of amusement they had ever seen in his expression, welcome, but indicating a grim kind of humour.
"Wolves like to play games too," he said. "You were in much more danger on the glacier. You are like all of us, my young friend, you do not know what you should truly be afraid of." His face grew serious again. "Your friend here was right. This herdsman will owe you a great debt if he lives. Now come. We will be eating our evening meal soon. I will show you our camp and where you are to sleep."
First they fetched their packs and put them by the tent indicated by the headman. By this time they had collected a following of children again, and the tour of the encampment became a procession. The tents - tirots as the Hamna called them - were surprisingly large inside, their dome-shaped structure held up by a skeleton of carved wooden poles, lashed together at the top at a wooden ring. The centre of each ring was a large hole directly above the cooking fires, which were raised waist-high on stones.
Nyokhen turned aside as his arm was tugged fiercely by a small child. He crouched down to listen to the whispered questions, the small face tucked against the side of his head. Then he looked at the boys and to their astonishment burst out laughing. His eyes twinkling with merriment, he translated.
"My grandson wishes to know when you will shed your winter coats. He has never seen anyone so white before." Nyokhen's face became grave. "This will take some time to explain."
He picked up the child and continued the tour, talking to his wide-eyed passenger as they walked. They saw one group of women spinning and another grinding seeds for flour. Both groups stopped working at their approach and the air was thick with questions, comments and laughter. The boys smiled a little self-consciously, knowing that this was all directed at them, but not understanding a word. They moved on, introduced it seemed to every single person in the community. By now the sun had dipped behind the mountains to the west, and as the evening drew in, the cooking fires were lit, the columns of smoke rising straight up in the still air. The children melted away and by the time Nyokhen brought them back to their sleeping quarters, there was no one to be seen.
The Tears of Sisme Page 11
