Heartland

by Lucy Hounsom

  Kyndra

  Kyndra awoke with a prickle of gooseflesh. The hairs on her arms stood on end, as if they were capable of sensing a presence her eyes could not. It was still dark, though a patch of lighter sky in the east told her dawn was not far off. She blinked and held herself taut, listening. The humped forms of her companions were huddled in sleep. A taller shadow sat nearby: Medavle. His white robes gleamed dully.

  She moved to stand and a hand clamped over her mouth. Kyndra jerked and gasped a breath through her nose, trying to twist free. The skin against her lips was dry and rough. And now she could feel the body at her back, unyielding and unnaturally hot. When her sleep-addled mind finally caught up, she remembered the stranger from yesterday. A quick glance from the corner of her eye showed her his empty blankets.

  He let her turn her head to look at him. He was crouched close behind, very still, his odd yellow eyes glowing slightly in the dark and she recalled Nediah saying he wasn’t human. Kyndra struggled more violently and his hold on her tightened. ‘Quiet,’ he hissed.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘They are close,’ the stranger said. ‘I can hear them.’

  ‘Who?’ she breathed, but he didn’t reply. They waited in the dark, tense and silent, and finally a voice drifted out of the gloom.

  ‘Kala,’ it said, soft and sibilant. Kyndra felt the stranger stiffen. ‘Kala, come with us.’

  Medavle leapt up, eyes scanning the darkness and, at the same time, the young man let Kyndra go. ‘Too late,’ he said. ‘They’ve found me.’ He stood, two slim sticks sliding into his hands and she scrambled to her feet as well.

  ‘Kyndra?’

  Nediah sat up and Kait shook Irilin awake. ‘What?’ the young woman said. Then she spotted the stranger, noting his stance and the odd sticks he held readied like weapons. ‘What’s going on?’

  Four figures stepped calmly into their camp. They were wrapped head to toe in bandages, ragged ends blowing free in the wind. They brought to mind the Svartan custom Kyndra had heard tell of wherein the dead were wound with linen and lavender before being laid in the ground. The comparison only made the newcomers more sinister. Eyes glinted out at her between the grey wrappings.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  One of the figures spared her a glance. ‘We have no business with you,’ it said. ‘We are here for the Kala.’ She couldn’t place the voice as male or female.

  ‘Kala?’ Kyndra repeated, frowning.

  ‘You were difficult to track, Kala, but it is time to stop run ning,’ the second figure said, ignoring her. It was speaking to the young man, who gripped his sticks more tightly.

  ‘I have no intention of going with you,’ he said. ‘And you will find me stronger than your companions did.’ Indeed, he was straight-backed, his knees slightly bent as if poised to move on a moment’s notice. Standing, he was a little shorter than Nediah and stockier, with broad shoulders. His tattooed arms were muscled like a fighter’s. He wore a ragged shirt, the sleeves rolled back to expose his arms, and a long tunic that fell to cover trousers tucked into soft leather boots.

  ‘We have no wish to harm the Kala,’ the first figure said in its snake-like whisper. ‘But you are not yourself, Master. Once we reach Khronosta, you will forget this life. You will remember your people.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ the stranger said and he lifted his sticks higher. ‘I am not your leader. I don’t believe in reincarnation or prophecy. We only have one life.’

  ‘This is true of all men save Khronos,’ the third figure said. ‘He alone mastered the cycle of ages. He died so that he could be reborn. Now you will pass on your learning to us, to the people who have held your faith, who look for your coming. Long years have passed since you left us. You will find we have grown wise.’

  The young man shook his head. ‘You aren’t listening. I told you—’

  The figures blurred. Kyndra couldn’t think of any other word to describe it. One moment they were standing in front of her, the next they were either side of the stranger, who swept out his sticks as if he’d anticipated the attack. One stick hit ribs, the other missed and the young man jumped back before those bandaged hands could close on him.

  ‘Khronostians,’ Medavle said, watching them with something akin to hunger on his face.

  The stranger moved well, but not as fluidly or as swiftly as the people trying to capture him. He stepped from one stance to the next, keeping the sticks always in play, but his opponents ducked and dodged, as if they knew where each blow would land before it did. It seemed they were serious about not harming him; they kept their weapons sheathed.

  The one-sided battle continued as Kyndra stood immobile, unsure what to do. All of them were strangers – it seemed prudent to let them fight it out amongst themselves. But then a Khronostian knocked one of the young man’s sticks out of his hand. Wide-eyed, he watched it clatter on the ground, rolling out of reach. The bandaged figures seized their chance. In the next moment, the man’s hands were behind his back and he was struggling fiercely. Kyndra spotted sweat on his brow and heard his laboured breathing. For someone who had lain near death only hours before, it was remarkable he had stayed on his feet this long.

  ‘Let me go,’ he gasped. ‘What have you done with Ma?’

  The Khronostians shared a glance. ‘There was no sign of Sul,’ one said, ‘but Chaka lived long enough to tell us about the actions of the traitor, Mariana.’

  Kyndra watched a vicious smile curl the stranger’s lips. ‘She deserved death,’ he said. ‘Why couldn’t you have left us alone?’

  Although the Khronostians’ faces were hidden, their bandaged hands visibly tightened around the young man’s arms.

  ‘Stop,’ Kyndra said and all five turned to look at her. ‘This man has said he doesn’t want to go with you.’ She swallowed. ‘He’s made it quite clear.’

  ‘Stay out of this.’

  ‘You are Khronostian?’ Medavle asked. ‘We’ve heard a lot about you. Will you give us your names?’

  ‘Why should we reveal ourselves to you?’ the second Khronostian said, still holding tight to the young man. ‘Our only concern is the Kala.’

  ‘By all means, take your Kala,’ Medavle said. ‘But we’ve come a long way to forge alliances—’

  ‘Whoever you are, your alliances mean nothing.’

  ‘We come from Rairam,’ the Yadin persisted. ‘You know of the lost continent?’

  ‘We have seen the sun rising in the distant east,’ one said.

  Medavle clearly took it as confirmation. ‘Then you understand we’re not friends of Sartya.’

  ‘If that is so, stand aside and let us bear the Kala away.’

  The Yadin’s conciliatory tone began to wear thin. ‘We can help each other,’ he said. ‘I am Medavle of the Yadin. Do you know of my people?’

  Kyndra watched the bandaged figures exchange another glance. Something passed between them. ‘We thought your kind destroyed,’ one said finally. ‘How come you live when all others do not?’

  For a moment Medavle’s shoulders seemed to carry the weight of everything he had seen and done in more than five centuries of life. The little Kyndra knew of him was like the tip of an iceberg; not for the first time, she wondered what lay beneath his still, cold surface. The Yadin sighed and straightened. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said. ‘If we could come to trust one another, I’d be glad to tell it.’

  His words gave them pause, but then one said, ‘Our duty is clear. We will take the Kala back to his people.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ the stranger spat and he began to struggle anew against the bandaged hands. ‘I’m no one. I don’t have any power.’

  Kyndra took a long look at the man the Khronostians named Kala. His face was the colour of smoke on the wind, hard and unyielding. It was a face that had seen more of life’s cruelty than she ever had. And yet she couldn’t shift the sense that she was looking at someone who was more than he seemed.

  He’s not human.
>
  ‘Maybe you should go with them,’ she heard herself say. Her voice sounded hollow in her ears.

  ‘Did I ask for your opinion?’ the young man snarled at her. ‘Did I ask for your help?’

  Despite the retort, Kyndra saw fear in his face for the first time and she made up her mind. ‘We can’t let them take him,’ she said. ‘Nediah, Kait, are you with me?’

  She felt the heat against her back as the Wielders drew on the power of the rising sun.

  ‘No,’ Medavle said sharply, but the Khronostians merely laughed.

  ‘You expect us to cower from a power so constrained by the laws of time?’ the first asked. ‘A power so weak it is reliant on the common turning of day and night?’

  ‘You won’t sound so confident when I burn out your tongue,’ Kait said, flexing her fingers. Her threat seemed only to fuel their contempt and before Medavle could stop her, she threw two fireballs at the Khronostian’s head.

  The world froze.

  Kyndra blinked.

  It didn’t freeze, exactly, but it slowed. Everything was cast in grey, the rocks, stunted trees, the sands of the desert. The cerulean sky with its fresh morning sun had dulled to ashes. The only colour remained as a blueish tinge around the bodies of her companions, the young man and the Khronostians – who were looking at her, wide-eyed through their bandages.

  Kait’s fireballs hung in the air, creeping forward like snails, leaving sleek golden trails behind them. Her face was caught in a snarl of concentration, an expression slowly easing its way to anticipation. It was the strangest thing Kyndra had ever seen. And it took her a moment longer to realize that she was unaffected by it.

  The same realization must have disrupted their focus, for time suddenly sped up and the Khronostians had half a second to hurl themselves and the young man aside. The fireballs roared over their heads and exploded harmlessly.

  ‘You stand outside time,’ one of the Khronostians said to Kyndra. The tumble had loosened the wrappings about its face and, as the figure climbed to its feet, they fell away to reveal a woman … or at least what Kyndra thought was a woman, for the Khronostian’s skin hung in papery folds over one cheek, as if hundreds of years old. The other cheek was smooth and young, the skin the colour of new parchment, and the eyes were different again: one narrow, clouded with age, the other a bright green.

  Irilin’s gasp was audible. It was a dreadful sight, this grotesque jigsaw of a face.

  ‘How?’ Kyndra found herself asking. ‘How did you come to look like that?’

  The woman tried to hook the bandages back into place, but only succeeded in covering one cheek. When she spoke, her voice was harsh. ‘We are dualakat. It is the price we willingly pay for our power.’

  One of the Khronostians hauled the young man to his feet and Kyndra saw the stranger wincing. ‘Don’t, Aru,’ the Khronostian said. ‘They are not deserving of your words.’

  ‘I wish to know what she is,’ Aru replied, looking at Kyndra.

  ‘What she is?’ the stranger repeated, his dark face creased in a frown.

  ‘She is Starborn,’ Medavle said, stepping forward to stand at Kyndra’s shoulder. The Khronostians drew in hissing breaths and the young man gazed at her with a mixture of horror and dread. Kyndra made herself look away from him, but her heart was pounding. Would it always be like this, she wondered? Would people judge her before they even got to know her?

  ‘You are responsible for the lost continent’s return,’ the woman called Aru said and Kyndra nodded, not trusting to her voice. The young man was a stranger; why did she care what he thought?

  She took a step forward. ‘Let him go,’ she said, ‘and I won’t harm you.’ There seemed something very wrong about letting the Khronostians take him away.

  The greyscale world returned without warning. This time, Kyndra saw how the Khronostians were doing it. There was a web of energy about each of them, which they fed with strands of light from their fingers, so that it grew ever more complex.

  Although her companions were moving at half their normal speed, she found she could walk easily through the greyness. She seized the throats of the Khronostians who held the young man; their eyes went round and both their webs broke, fraying as colour rushed back into the space around them.

  Kyndra threw them with the strength of Tyr. They landed badly some feet away and one cried out. Forgetting the young man, who was swiftly snatching his sticks off the ground, the Khronostian woman rushed to her companions, dropping to her knees. The one remaining backed away from Kyndra. It turned its bandaged face towards the other Khronostians and then called out, ‘We will return, Kala, with the full force of the dualakat. You cannot hide behind the Starborn forever.’

  The landscape seemed to bend around them, distorting the air. When it sprang back into shape, all four had vanished. Blood flecked the rock where the Khronostians she’d thrown had fallen.

  Kyndra stared at the glowing tattoo on her palm and her shock was such that it ripped the star from her grasp. She couldn’t even remember deciding to use Tyr. Struck with the horror of that thought, she watched her tattoo darken and didn’t see the blow coming until it was too late.

  Fortunately, Nediah did; Kyndra felt a shower of sparks and the young man’s banded weapon glanced off the shield that protected her skull to smash her shoulder instead. Pain exploded and she staggered back. The young man made to run, but an invisible force knocked him down and golden chains bound his wrists and ankles. He let out a stream of curses.

  Kyndra put a hand on her shoulder and uttered a few choice words herself. ‘I should have let them take you,’ she said.

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  She turned her back on him and walked painfully over to the others. ‘What do we do with him?’ Kait asked. She nudged Nediah, who was looking at the stranger with dislike. ‘And after you went to all that trouble to heal him.’

  ‘Did I ask you to?’ the young man interjected from behind. Kyndra could hear him struggling vainly against whatever binding Kait had used.

  ‘You would be dead if not for Nediah,’ the woman told him. ‘Ungrateful bastard.’

  ‘Here,’ Nediah said, beckoning to Kyndra. He placed a hand on her shoulder and almost immediately the pain eased. ‘Cracked the bone,’ the Wielder murmured with a surprised glance at the stranger’s innocuous-looking sticks. Kyndra felt a hot shock in the wound and then Nediah took his hand away and she rolled the shoulder experimentally. It clicked in protest before settling down.

  ‘Thanks, Nediah.’

  The Wielder smiled at her. ‘Healing you is a breeze.’

  For the first time, it seemed, the young man looked at the faint scar on his arm that yesterday had been a festering gash and Kyndra heard him mutter something.

  ‘I think that’s the best you’re going to get,’ Kait told Nediah drily.

  Forcing down the trepidation she felt on facing the stranger, Kyndra returned to stand over him. ‘What’s your name?’

  For a moment she was convinced he wouldn’t answer, but then he said, ‘You might as well call me Char. Everyone else does.’

  She frowned. ‘Why would they call you that?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ The indignity of his forced sprawl on the ground was obviously getting to him.

  ‘Let him up,’ she said to Kait.

  The woman raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure?’

  ‘There’s more than enough of us to handle him.’

  The young man said nothing as he climbed to his feet, except to glare at them venomously.

  ‘What makes those Khronostians think you’re their leader?’ Kyndra asked him. ‘Why is this Kala so important?’

  ‘Why should you care?’

  ‘Because saving you has likely made us their enemy,’ Medavle said with a hard glance at Kyndra. She hadn’t seen him so animated since the morning he’d confronted Kierik and Anohin. She frowned. Why was he so concerned about Khronosta?

  ‘We couldn’t just let them take him away,’ she
said.

  Char rubbed a dusty hand over his forehead. ‘I don’t know why they think as they do,’ he said, but a flicker in his face told Kyndra he was hiding something. ‘The Kala is supposedly their leader Khronos reincarnated.’

  Kyndra raised an eyebrow. ‘Please don’t say you actually are.’

  He gave her a contemptuous look.

  ‘The Khronostians seemed quite convinced,’ she said.

  ‘They’re mad. You saw what they hide under all those bandages.’

  Kyndra sighed. It was barely morning and she was already tired. ‘Where did you come from? We found you on the edge of the desert. Some dog-things dragged you there, but they ran off when they saw us.’

  For the first time, Char looked uncertain. ‘Dog-things? You mean mysha? That’s impossible. Mysha are carnivores – they hunt humans.’

  But you’re not human. Kyndra swallowed her first response. ‘Well, maybe they weren’t hungry.’

  ‘I remember … I remember the pack looking down at me in the moonlight. Then nothing before I woke up here.’ Char clenched his fists. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Who’s Ma?’ Kyndra asked and then wished she hadn’t; his look was a snarl.

  ‘Don’t you speak of her,’ he spat.

  She held up her hands. ‘All right.’

  ‘It’s not the first time you’ve encountered these Khronostians,’ Medavle said. His hand rested on the flute that hung at his waist. ‘What can you tell us about them?’

  ‘They control time. You saw, didn’t you?’

  The Yadin shook his head. ‘I don’t know what I saw. I’ve never encountered anything like it.’

  ‘That Khronostian said you restored the lost continent,’ Char said then, his yellow eyes travelling from face to face. ‘Is it true?’

  When Kyndra nodded, he seemed to take it in his stride and again she thought how differently Acre and Rairam regarded each other. She remembered Magda saying that Rairam had never been a myth, that its disappearance was an accepted part of Acrean history. That attitude put the powers in Acre at a distinct advantage, she thought uneasily. Unlike Rairam, no one here needed convincing that there was another land beyond their borders. Or that it was full of a power they would call magic.