Heartland

by Lucy Hounsom

  She hadn’t asked Shika to come, but that was irrelevant; he’d been her responsibility. It was her duty to protect those who’d selflessly chosen to follow her and she had failed in it. When Irilin met her eyes over the little cairn, Kyndra knew she was thinking the same.

  ‘We can’t stay here.’ Kait’s voice was loud in the silence. They had stood for an hour, as the sun sank towards evening, none of them willing to turn their backs on Shika, to walk away. It would mean saying goodbye; it would mean leaving the memory of him here alone in an alien world.

  ‘Give them a moment,’ Medavle said harshly. The anger in his dark eyes was tempered somewhat, but they still burned whenever they met Kyndra’s. There was a judgement in them that she knew she deserved.

  ‘No,’ Irilin said suddenly, ‘she’s right.’ She pulled Shika’s scarf tighter around her neck. ‘I don’t want to be here any more.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Nediah’s eyes were red-rimmed. ‘We can stay as long as you want.’

  Irilin shook her head.

  ‘There’s a village not far from here.’ Medavle had no need to point; they could all see the smoke that hung like a pall in the still air.

  No one spoke of turning round, of going back to Naris. Perhaps they saw it as a betrayal, Kyndra thought. If they gave up their mission, Shika would have died for nothing. She moved to stand before the cairn, looking down at the pathetic tumble of stones that was all that was left of a life. She wondered where Shika’s family were – the family he never talked about. They didn’t know he was gone, how he’d died; it was likely they’d never know. And Gareth … how could she ever tell Gareth what had happened?

  Kyndra made herself stop. She was supposed to be leading the others, supposed to be taking charge; if she let these thoughts consume her, she’d fail them too.

  She closed her eyes briefly and then turned her back on the cairn. ‘If we want to reach the village before nightfall, we had better be going.’ The words sounded harsh and unfeeling.

  They remounted, Kait riding Shika’s horse, and left the little clearing behind.

  The bare plain they travelled turned to fields, untidily dissected by drystone walls. Most lay fallow, the rocky soil dotted with weeds and tumble-down farm buildings. Kyndra found herself wondering whether war was responsible for this, or some other tragedy. There were no discarded weapons in the fields, no rusting armour or – thankfully – evidence of bodies. But as they drew closer to the village, strange, monstrous shapes began to appear, as dead as the land they lay on. Medavle reined in beside one and ran his hand over its blunted metal teeth.

  ‘This is Sartyan technology,’ he said. ‘I think farmers used it to help bring in the harvest.’ He tapped his knuckles on the metal hulk and it rang dully.

  Nediah rode up to the great body of wheels and blades. ‘How could horses pull that?’ he asked, and Kyndra thought he seemed glad of the distraction the machine provided them.

  ‘No horses.’ The rusting metal had left smears on Medavle’s white gloves. ‘It is – or was – powered by ambertrix.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Nediah circled the contraption; Kyndra could see him through the weeds that had sprung up to fill its interior.

  ‘Ambertrix is the power that fuelled the Sartyan Conquest,’ Medavle said. ‘The emperor and his elite kept its origins a strict secret, but, like Solar and Lunar energy, it had hundreds of uses – from the domestic to the military. There was a college called Thabarat, founded solely to research ambertrix.’ He smiled without humour. ‘The Wielders of Solinaris and technicians of Thabarat were bitter enemies. They constantly tried to outdo each other.’

  ‘To think that such a force existed,’ Nediah said quietly, ‘an energy available to all. If Mariar had had access to it, how different the last five hundred years might have been.’

  ‘You should be thankful it didn’t,’ Kait said. ‘If ordinary people had power like ours, what use would we be as Wielders?’

  Nediah’s eyes narrowed. ‘How would we retain our superiority, you mean?’

  ‘Don’t sound so sanctimonious, Nediah. You were thinking the same.’

  ‘Well, whatever this ambertrix was, it’s gone now,’ Kyndra said before the conversation turned into an argument. She glanced at Irilin; the young woman wasn’t even looking at the machine. One hand rested on Shika’s scarf; the other on the reins in her lap.

  ‘Yes,’ Medavle agreed, dusting down his white gloves. ‘And perhaps that bodes well for us. If the empire has somehow lost the use of its technology, it can’t pose the same threat it did five centuries ago.’

  Glancing back at the machine as they rode away, Kyndra wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t. Her naivety had killed Shika. If she’d been more careful, if she’d planned for every eventuality like a leader should … A voice in the back of her head told her she couldn’t have predicted the wraiths. If they were the Yadin, it meant that the black wind hadn’t destroyed them. Perhaps, if they’d never been truly alive, they couldn’t truly die. She glanced at Medavle, at the harsh, ageless lines of his face, and knew she wouldn’t be able to ask him.

  The sun was setting by the time they reached the outskirts of the village. It was smaller than Sky Port East, Kyndra saw, and – like the Sartyan machine – it had seen better days. The houses were little more than huts roofed with straw, and there were gaps in the stone walls where the mortar had crumbled. Another dead Sartyan contraption sat in the centre of the village like an ugly totem. Broken ropes trailed from its spokes, as if the villagers had tried to move it and failed.

  There was a large communal fire pit, blackened through years of use, the fatty remains of some animal clinging to a spit. They reined in beside it, staring around at the empty, dirt-paved square. The place smelled strongly of goat. ‘This isn’t exactly how I imagined Acre,’ Kait said. Kyndra agreed with her. After all the stories she’d heard about the empire, after all the things she’d seen in Kierik’s memories, a poverty-stricken village wasn’t what she’d expected to encounter first.

  With a wild cry, a group of men burst from behind the largest building and ran at them, brandishing a mismatched collection of farming tools. Before Kyndra had a chance to move, Kait leapt from her saddle in one smooth motion, twin daggers flashing in her hands. As the ten or so men closed on them, she spun into the nearest, deftly dodged the spade and planted a boot in his diaphragm. He staggered back with a gasp, bumped into his companion and tumbled them both into the dirt.

  Kyndra blinked, amazed, as always, at Kait’s dexterity. A man holding a pitchfork waited until the tall woman’s back was turned before darting in to jab at her as if she were a pile of hay. Kait sensed him, jumped clear, and his momentum carried him into his fellows, who only narrowly missed being speared.

  It was over in seconds. When every man lay groaning on the ground, winded and bruised, Kait said, ‘Don’t try that again.’ She didn’t sheathe her daggers, but held them poised at her sides.

  ‘Who are you?’ one man asked under a veneer of bravery. ‘What do you want?’

  Thankfully, he was speaking the common tongue, but his accent was heavy and strange, unlike anything Kyndra had heard spoken in Mariar.

  ‘We come from the east,’ Medavle said. ‘From Rairam.’

  Muttering spread through the group; someone laughed. Medavle opened his mouth to say more, but a voice cut across him. ‘If you keep your peace, I will speak with you, strangers.’

  Kyndra turned her head to see an old woman, bent double from years of labour, standing in the doorway of a hut that looked slightly sturdier than its fellows. Other women were peering curiously from windows and doorways, their clothes rough and woollen, not wholly unlike those worn in Brenwym. The men had kirtles instead of trousers and their hair was short, cut close to the scalp. The women had short hair too and not a few of them were staring unabashedly at the length of Kait’s.

  ‘Please put away your weapons,’ the old woman said wearily to Kait. ‘We hardly have the means or the w
ill to fight you.’

  Kait reluctantly sheathed her daggers and Kyndra was glad she hadn’t used them to draw blood – not from people who lived in such a wretched place as this.

  The old woman exchanged a glance with one of the men before turning her back and disappearing into her hut. Medavle bent his head to Irilin. ‘I think it best if you remain outside to watch our horses. I don’t believe they’ll try anything, but it’s better to be cautious.’ Glancing at the rapidly darkening sky, he added in an even quieter voice, ‘Don’t use your power unless you have to.’

  Irilin only nodded. She hadn’t spoken for hours. With a worried backward glance at her, Kyndra followed the others into the hut, pushing aside the ragged curtain that hung just inside the doorway. There was only one room – more like the inside of a tent than a permanent home. A bedroll lay on the hard-packed dirt, which was softened only by a scattering of rush mats. A few copper pots – well-used, by the look of them – hung from a frame above their heads. The old woman had few possessions and these were piled amongst earthenware jars and bundles of raw wool. A fire smoked in one corner beneath a rough chimney.

  The woman poked it awake with a stick and then gestured them towards the mats. She threw several cones of what looked like incense on the flames and a moment later, a strong, but not unpleasant aroma filled the hut. It was an improvement on the stink of animal.

  ‘I am Damesh,’ the old woman said, one hand on her heart. ‘Why have you come to Asha?’ She spoke with the same thick accent as the men outside.

  ‘This is the first village we’ve seen since we left Rairam,’ Kyndra explained.

  An unfriendly smile grew out of the wrinkles that ringed the old woman’s mouth. ‘If you wish to lie to me,’ she said, ‘you’d do better to choose words I’d have a hope of believing.’

  Nediah shook his head, sober-faced. ‘We thought you knew Rairam had returned – you live so close to the border. It happened over a month ago.’

  ‘We don’t venture east,’ the old woman replied. ‘The hoarlands are cursed. Only death is there.’

  They looked at each other. Kyndra was glad Irilin had stayed outside.

  ‘The hoarlands?’ Nediah asked. ‘Do you mean the red valley?’

  The woman’s face paled. ‘You’ve … seen it?’

  ‘We rode through it,’ Kait said when Kyndra and the others didn’t answer.

  A pendant hung around the old woman’s neck; she clasped it in gnarled, brown hands. ‘The Sundered Valley,’ she whispered. ‘It was lost when the Starborn took Rairam away.’

  Kyndra started. ‘You know of the Starborn?’ she said before she could stop herself.

  ‘Everyone knows, child. The Starborn brought the war to an end, but Rairam was lost.’

  ‘Lord Kierik’s deeds were not forgotten here,’ Kait murmured. Her eyes were shining. ‘If only they were recalled so clearly at home.’

  Medavle looked darkly at her. ‘It is a mercy they weren’t,’ he said, his voice almost a growl.

  I thought everyone would know about us, Kyndra thought. She’d half expected to find an army awaiting them, not a fearful bunch of farmers. ‘We were hoping you could tell us about Acre,’ she said, ‘about the Sartyans.’

  The old woman glanced once at the fire and hunched her shoulders. ‘The empire has done much good. The Baioran villages are proud to live under his Imperial Majesty’s rule.’

  Kyndra exchanged incredulous looks with the others.

  ‘But what about your contraptions like the one outside?’ Nediah asked. ‘It looks as if it hasn’t worked for years.’

  The old woman wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘It’s of no consequence.’

  ‘Your fields, though. Most are lying fallow. How are you surviving here?’

  Finally, she looked up to regard Nediah with a hostile glare. For the first time, Kyndra felt a wave of uneasiness. ‘The Davaratch has more important issues to contend with than the problems of Asha.’ The old woman paused. ‘We are content with our lives.’

  ‘Who is the Davaratch?’ Medavle asked. ‘That was the name of the emperor at the time of the Conquest.’

  ‘Yes. Each new emperor takes his name as a royal title.’

  ‘Why? Davaratch was a mons—’ Medavle stopped. ‘He was a powerful man,’ he amended, ‘but an oppressor. His methods were unnecessarily cruel. Lycorash was a tragedy.’

  At the name, a memory came to Kyndra of standing in a burned-out husk of a city, a city whose majestic towers had once represented the hope of the Resistance, the rebels who had opposed the empire. The Sartyan Fist had offered them surrender and – after long negotiations – the people of Lycorash accepted. The gates opened, the Sartyans rode in and set to slaughtering every man, woman and child. These were Kierik’s memories – if she closed her eyes, it was almost as if she were there. She looked at Medavle. As one of the ageless Yadin, he had seen first-hand how much of a monster Davaratch had been.

  ‘And Baristogan,’ Medavle said. ‘Only a twisted mind could dream up something so repugnant.’ He turned to the others. ‘Davaratch contrived to send a group of children, orphaned by the very war he’d started, to the city gates. Of course the people of Baristogan took them in. But the children had been deliberately exposed to plague and it spread death through the city. All the Sartyans had to do was fire a few flaming arrows over the wall. They conquered Baristogan without even entering the city.’

  Kyndra watched the horror of Medavle’s story creep over the faces of her companions. She had a memory of Baristogan too, but it was foggy; she was beginning to feel a bit dizzy from the incense. She watched as the old woman shook her head. ‘History has proven the Sartyans fair rulers,’ she said, scowling. ‘You are merely repeating rebel propaganda.’

  ‘I was there,’ Medavle growled. ‘I saw the bodies, heard the screams. I smelled the fires that Sartya lit to hide its treachery. History is written by the victors.’

  The old woman stared at Medavle, wide-eyed, and the Yadin seemed to realize he had said too much. The incense was becoming overpowering.

  ‘Forgive me,’ the old woman said then. ‘One must be careful what one says. Sartyan spies are everywhere.’

  ‘So the empire still rules.’ Kyndra felt a leaden weight settle on her chest. Had anything changed at all in five hundred years?

  ‘Sartya cannot be as powerful as it once was,’ Medavle said before the old woman could answer. ‘What about the ambertrix?’

  ‘The army has use of it,’ the elder said, her leathery face creased and sombre. ‘And the Heartland. But we are far away. Ambertrix cannot be spared for us.’

  Nediah placed a hand to his head. ‘I need some air.’

  Kyndra agreed. Her knees felt like jelly when she stood up. She swayed, the hut sliding sideways in her vision. Surprised, she grabbed at a shelf and pulled the whole thing over with a crash. ‘Sorry,’ she heard herself mumbling. Nausea struck her a physical blow and a part of her, the part that could reach out to the stars, knew something was very wrong.

  Nediah and Kait were sprawled on the mats. ‘You,’ Kait snarled, trying to crawl towards the old woman. ‘What have you done to me?’

  Medavle had his flute in his hand. He gestured and silver chains bound the old woman. She gave a shriek and toppled to the floor. ‘Too late,’ she choked out at him. Beyond the door came the tramp of booted feet on dirt. Irilin, Kyndra thought muzzily. She tried to reach out to the stars, but the dark door was too far away and her head was full of the wretched incense.

  ‘It is our duty,’ she heard the old woman say, ‘to report all strangers to the local garrison.’ Her eyes narrowed, flicked to the flute in Medavle’s hand. ‘Especially rebel sympathizers such as you.’

  Kyndra had a last glimpse of the Yadin as he ripped aside the curtain. A woman screamed. She thought she saw torches outside, the flare of flame on breastplates, but it was all a whirl of colour and she was slipping away.

  It was dark.

  A moment later, she realized h
er eyes were closed. They opened reluctantly, eyelashes stuck gummily together. She blinked until her vision cleared and she saw night. A fire burned nearby, its flames sending shadows careening wildly over a campsite. Awareness of her body came gradually. Her arms and legs tingled with pins and needles; they were tied. Shock drove away the fug in her head, but it still ached terribly.

  Kyndra tried to remember. A hut. An old woman. An overpowering smell … it was still in her clothes. The incense had drugged her, drugged them all except Medavle. Memory came rushing back. The red valley, the wraiths, Shika, the village, the talk of Sartya. Where was she? Where were the others?

  Her heartbeat thumped against hard-packed dirt. She lay on her front, head turned to one side. There was dust in her mouth; her tongue felt dry and hot and Kyndra thought longingly of water.

  She flicked her eyes from side to side, trying to see as much of her surroundings as possible without moving and drawing attention to herself. She seemed to be in a corner of the camp, something hard – a rock? – at her back. With a sigh of relief, she spotted her companions nearby, each trussed up like slaughtered livestock. Except for Medavle. She wondered whether she’d ever see the Yadin again. The way he looked at her … she wouldn’t be surprised if he took this chance to leave for good.

  Nediah had a fan of blood across his forehead, but other than that, he seemed all right – at least he was breathing normally. Irilin and Kait lay on their sides, facing away, so she couldn’t see whether they were injured too. When she glanced back at Nediah, his eyes were open. She gave him a small nod and he looked relieved. They lay a few metres apart – too far to exchange whispers over the noise of the camp. So Kyndra turned her attention to their captors, watching the activity through slitted eyes.

  There was no doubt. Kyndra recognized the distinctive red plate from Kierik’s memories: Sartyans, about fifty of them. A double guard was posted at the corner of the camp she could see, while the rest of the soldiers sat around cleaning armour, or moving busily from task to task while they waited for the spitted meat to cook.