`Next,' yelled the one-legged man to Swift. Swift slithered across to crunch in beside a wide-eyed Chad.
`You'll need another pair of hands to help row the boat while the little one unties the rope, or you'll float away,' yelled the one-legged man.
With a grimace at the swimming rats, Celeste handed Lyla her cape, sword and bag. `I'll do it. If I fall I can swim underwater.'
The man grunted. `You won't want to, Missy. This is where they throw the bodies of those who've been hanged. Anchored to the bottom by rocks they are. When the river is clear you can see them swaying.'
Celeste was half way across the crutches when one of them broke. She gasped and her first thought was sinking down amongst the swaying bodies and the drowning rats...
Chad grabbed her arm and dragged her onto the plank. She squashed in between him and Swift as the splintered crutch fell into the river. The one-legged man snatched back his good crutch.
It was obvious the rowboat hadn't been used in years. Under its benches sloshed a puddle of sludge, two broken oars, a torn tarpaulin and two rusty bailing tins.
`Don't put your weight on the bottom,' the one-legged man advised.
Celeste and Chad held the boat steady while Swift cast off and then quickly lowered himself to a bench. Using the broken oars, Celeste and Chad swung the boat towards the one-legged man who handed down their weapons, bags and Nutty, and then lowered Lem and Lyla.
`This is for you,' he told Lyla, holding out a satchel. `It be your uniform. I ask only one thing. If you reach Ulaan Town, will you look for Dulcinella Roliat and her daughter Kendra. And when you find them, tell them that I, Verv Roliat, be alive in Belem.'
`I will,' promised Lyla.
Verv Roliat wriggled back along the jetty as the baying of the bloodhounds came closer `Best hide under the tarpaulin and let the boat float under the bridge,' he called. `People will think it's come loose. Just remember one thing, once you leave Belem you're in Acirfa, Kingdom of the High Enchanter, and no one can help you there. Good travelling.'
`I love goodbyes like that,' Lem muttered.
By the time they reached where the two branches of the Shambala River joined around Belem Island, the boat was taking in water.
Lem and Lyla threw off the tarpaulin and began bailing, but as quickly as they threw the water overboard it seeped back in. Soon, all but Celeste who was guiding the boat with a broken oar, were bailing with their hands.
They bailed all night, taking turns to rest their aching arms, to eat a Belem bun, and to count to five thousand before it was someone else's turn. By sunrise they'd left the Wind Horse Riders' hills behind and had entered a steep-walled gorge.
`This is the gorge in my dream,' said Lyla. `It takes us to the bridge and the Raider's camp. We'll have to find somewhere to land and hide soon.'
They bailed and searched for a landing place but the gorge's walls rose vertically out of the river. There wasn't even a rock to swim to if the boat sank.
They rounded yet another bend when Swift noticed the swinging bridge high over head. Lyla pointed to a tiny pebble beach.
Luckily Chad also saw the Raider standing knee deep in the river looking away from them at something behind a rocky outcrop.
Everyone ducked under the tarpaulin, except Lem who used the oar as a rudder and fought the current to reach a beach on the near side of the rocks. As the boat's prow hit the beach, the children scrambled out and upended it so that its bleached bottom looked like the surrounding rocks. Then they crawled into the gorse bushes behind the beach and collapsed with fatigue.
Within minutes, and with no thought of the Raiders being so close, they fell into an exhausted sleep with only Nutty on guard.
Lyla woke from a dream that had nothing to do with flying. She had been in a dark place with an ugly, hairy-faced creature with a hunched back, short legs and extended arms. The creature was sobbing and she was writing a question in San Jaagiin's Gaabi Desert sand when she woke up with Swift's leg across her stomach and Nutty licking her ear.
She was trying to make sense of the dream, mainly why she hadn't flown in it, when she heard voices and the braying of mules. She crawled out of the bushes and crept across the beach to the rocky outcrop.
Behind them was a larger beach with a path leading up to the swinging bridge. Trudging up and down the path were two lines of women leading mules. The women wore ankle chains and the mules carried water casks on each side of their bony backs.
When they reached the river the women hitched up their faded skirts and, using large brass jugs, filled up the casks. The Raiders sitting on the beach hardly noticed them.
Lyla crawled back to the others and dug out the last two jewels from the casket lid. She then packed San Jaagiin's letter, Edith's seeds and spell, Verv's uniform, her dagger, the Gaabi Desert sand and a Belem bun in her bag.
She slid Celeste's cape out from under her head and turned to crawl away but then stopped. They hadn't made a plan about where they would meet afterwards. The gorse patch was too close to the Raiders. The boat couldn't go up river and, if she woke them to talk about it, Lem would argue that it was too soon for her to go on alone. So where could they meet and how could she leave them a message? Then she had it.
She wiped the ground beside Swift, shook out some Gaabi Desert sand and wrote the question, `Where will I meet my brothers and cousins after I find the talisman?'
When the answer appeared, she signed her name under it, placed a ring of stones around the words so that the others would see them. She picked up the bag with the messenger's uniform and crawled out onto the beach again. She tied the two capes around her waist like a skirt, fluffed her curls to appear more feminine, then crept around the outcrop and stood beside the path.
The women ignored her so, not knowing what else to do, she just followed one of them. Half-way up the path and just after they'd passed a Raider guard post, the woman turned on her with a snarl, `What are you up to? Where is your mule?'
`It went lame so the Raiders said I was to help someone else.'
`That'll be the day,' grunted the woman. `What be your name? And where be you from?'
`My name is Spear and I'm from Belem.'
`I be Steff Waadan from Wartstoe Village and I don't believe a word of it.'
At the top of the cliff Lyla asked Steff if she knew Dulcinella and Kendra Roliat from Wartstoe Village.'
`Aye I know her. She be working as a cook in Ulaan Town. What be she to you?'
`I know her husband. He lost a leg in the war.'
`Least he be breathing. Mine be dead. Help me push this lump of Bulgogi dinner over this bridge or we'll both end up in trouble.'
Lyla helped push the reluctant mule over the rope and plank bridge and past two more guard posts, then she followed Steff and the mule through Ulaan camp until they reached a large water tank. `These tanks hold the water for the Eastern Battalion's horses. The Northern and Southern battalions have their own tanks and the Western Battalion has fresh water from a spring. But you'd know that if you be a water collector, which you ain't. So why be you here? You with no chain around your ankles and no hunger on your face?'
`I'm looking for Dulcinella.'
Steff's eyes narrowed. `And when you find her you'll be helping her escape, I suppose?'
Lyla panicked. `Please don't tell anyone.'
The woman's eyes narrowed into slits. `Who would I tell? General Tulga, who fed my husband to his Bulgogi? The Raiders who treat us like slaves? No, I'll not be telling anyone, Missy. But if you have something to eat in your bag I'd be grateful.'
Lyla handed her the Belem bun.
The woman smiled as she licked the last crumb from her lips. `That be a true Belem bun for which I will pay you with this brass jug. No. Don't refuse. I have two so I won't miss it. Ulaan Town is straight ahead. If you are stopped by a guard wave the jug at him and tell him you're a water collector sent to work for Dulcinella. But shuffle as if you have chains or someone will suspect you.'
&nbs
p; So, shuffling along and holding her jug for all to see, Lyla looked so much like a tired water collector that she passed unchallenged through the camps' four checkpoints. She passed the many rows of felt gerts, campfires, horse stables, Goch enclosures, and barred pits from which came the flapping of wings, and finally arrived at Ulaan Town gates.
`Where are you going?' demanded a guard, not even bothering to look at her or check her bag.
Waving the brass jug she told him that she'd been sent to help Dulcinella make Belem buns. The guard let out a belly laugh. `My favourites. In you go. Dulcinella's cookhouse is straight ahead.'
It was too easy, she decided as she walked through the gate into a makeshift town of crooked streets, wooden shanties, lean-to shops, lamp-lit counters, and hastily-built taverns with small dogs running on treadmills to turn the meat spits.
Too easy, she thought again as she passed a row of candle-lit stalls selling looted silverware and clothing. No one noticed her but she knew if Lem had been with her, he would have been warning her to take extra care.
`Stop! I know you!'
She swung around and saw an arm covered in silver material, waving from a barred window. `Chii?' she whispered.
Chii pressed his handsome face up against the bars. `It is. And glad I am to see you alive. But what are you doing in this terrible place?'
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one could hear before telling him she was looking for General Tulga. `How is it that you came to be locked up here in Ulaan town?' she asked.
Chii grinned hopelessly. `After the volcano erupted the High Enchanter demanded triple tax, which the Whale Islanders couldn't pay, so the Raiders took twenty of us prisoner. We are to carve a statue of General Tulga. It is to be covered in silver and will be the biggest statue in the known world. Each day we climb the stairs to Baatar where the general poses for us outside his Grand Gert. But he is never happy with our work, so each day one of us is left behind to entertain his troops by fighting one of his wild animals. Now we are only ten and in ten days' time we will be none.'
Lyla wanted to say something comforting, something that would take the sadness from Chii's voice, but she couldn't think of anything, so she asked if he had seen a chained eagle in Baatar.
`Yes, the general keeps such a bird attached by one leg to his left wrist, and with its wings chained to its sides. So it can't escape any more than we can.'
`But if you could escape, if I could somehow help you, how would you get away from Ulaan Town?'
`The Tsar Peninsula is girt by sea on three sides. I would dive off the cliffs into the waves.'
Lyla was imagining diving off the peninsula when Chii asked if she still had the whale tooth necklace he'd given her. She was about to say that she wore it all the time, when a rough voice coming from the other side of the building, demanded to know who Chii was talking to. With barely a second to spare Lyla slid around one corner of the building as an axe-swinging Raider came around the other.
`I am talking to my friend the golden-edged moon,' Chii told him. `It is truly beautiful. I wish it much luck for I love it greatly.'
`You Whale Islanders are a strange lot,' grunted the guard.
Blushing at Chii's message Lyla set off for Dulcinella's cookhouse. She found it easily as there was no mistaking the cooking smells pouring through its open door. Poking her head around the doorpost, she called, `Is Dulcinella Roliat there?'
`The food is not ready yet,' called a woman surrounded by a cloud of meat-smelling steam.
`I have a message from her husband.'
A red-faced woman with a long brown braid swinging behind her, exploded through the steam. In one hand she held a carving knife and in the other an onion. `What trick is this? My Verv was killed at the battle of Niat!'
Lyla backed away from the knife. `He lost a leg but he's alive in Belem.'
The woman sank onto a stool. `Verv, not dead?'
`No, and I promised him that if I found you I would tell you. In return I need somewhere to sleep and some information about-'
The woman's loud sobs stopped her.
It took Dulcinella some time to recover, in between telling more than a dozen food fetchers that the food wasn't ready. And then when it was ready, and with Lyla's help, she began serving bowls of stew to a line of Raiders waiting outside.
After the stew ran out, and the pots were scoured and Lyla fed, Dulcinella told her that she could sleep in the loft, but that first Lyla must tell her why she was going to Baatar. `No one goes there willingly. Not even the general's special Yellow Raiders. Everyone is afraid of Baatar.'
`I have a message for Master Wan-rast, General Tulga's bird trainer, from San Jaagiin the bird man of Belem,' replied Lyla.
Twisting the end of her braid, Dulcinella studied the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl. `Didn't San Jaagiin the bird man know that only Raiders are allowed to enter Baatar?'
`Verv made me a Raider's messenger uniform so I will look like a Raider messenger.'
Round and round went the braid. `Didn't Verv know that all messengers are male?'
`I look like a boy with my hair tied back.'
Dulcinella dropped her braid and began absent-mindedly stroking her throat. `What other reason have you for putting yourself in danger? I will not help you, nor put myself and daughter in danger unless I know the truth.'
Seeing the determination on Dulcinella's face, Lyla told her about Quattro's kidnapping and how she was looking for her.
Dulcinella stroked her throat quite vigorously, her fingers following a vivid line that at first glance looked like a red neck thread but on closer inspection was a scar.
`Entertaining General Tulga is dangerous. Few live to talk about it. I am one who did,' she said, and smiled sadly. `My folk songs didn't please him. Now I can't sing at all.'
Lyla stared at the scar. `Did he do that?'
Dulcinella nodded. `So, if this Quattro has not been fed to a Bulgogi, what will you do when you find her?'
`We will dive from the Peninsula into the sea.'
`You will drown or be smashed on the rocks.'
Dulcinella caught hold of Lyla's hair and pulled her closer. `I don't believe you. I think you are a Raider spy. I think you lied about my Verv.'
Lyla's eyes flashed indignantly. `I did not lie and I am not a spy. I just can't tell you why I have to reach Baatar because it's too dangerous for you to know.'
Dulcinella let her go. `Whatever your reason, you won't reach Baatar whether you wear Verv's messenger uniform or not. General Tulga is protected by thousands of Raiders.
`Also the High Enchanter has put three spells on Baatar to protect his son. One is the Blue Mist that guards the staircase and horse road. The second is the whispering grass that grows on Table Mountain, it warns General Tulga of intruders. And the third is a cape that when worn can turn the general into a wolf, eagle or bear, so that he can capture anyone who tries to assassinate him. So there is no way.'
Dulcinella stopped speaking and looked thoughtful,
`Although, I did once hear of a large bear that wandered into the Western Battalion's camp. There being no bears on Tsar Peninsula everyone presumed it climbed down the spring cleft from the top of Table Mountain.'
Lyla moved closer. `What is the spring cleft and is it far from here?'
`About half an hour's jog. It is a giant crevice in the cliff wall formed by a once great waterfall, that is now but a trickle. You would have to reach it before middle night, because that is when the Bulgogi are released to clean the town of dead dogs, mules, Goch or humans. A Bulgogi will eat anything, alive or dead, and I hear that they drink from the spring cleft.'
Lyla straightened her tired shoulders. `The spring cleft it is then, but I first must change into Verv's uniform and read something.'
`Use the loft.'
After discarding the two capes, Lyla tied back her hair, put on the messenger's trousers, jacket and cap, and hid the jewels, the Gaabi Desert sand and Edith's packet of peppermint root in
side her jacket. She slid her dagger into her trouser belt and climbed back down the ladder to the kitchen, where she unrolled Edith's parchment and began reading it aloud.
`Place parchment in a bowl before a singer whose voice makes walls cry, and capture her tears. These will turn the parchment into a powder, one pinch of which will melt stone or metal. Store in a leather pouch.'
`How intriguing,' said Dulcinella.
`A singer who makes walls cry. Is that you Dulcinella?'
Dulcinella shook her head. `No. Only Cristalzee can make walls cry. When General Tulga tired of her sad Whale Islander songs he gave her to the Ulaan Tavern keeper in return for a gert full of beer. Not that the tavern keeper had a choice.'
`Does Crystalzee still sing?'
`Yes, for the profit of the tavern keeper but only after he places a bowl of seawater in front of her.'
Lyla's shoulders sagged. `Where will I get a bowl of seawater?'
`The tavern keeper keeps a cask of it behind his bar for those who pay to hear Crystalzee sing. Many do. Her songs remind them of their wives and children and the ruined homes they left behind before they became Raiders.'
Lyla rolled up the parchment and stood up. `Can we go to the tavern now?'
Dulcinella looked nervous. `I'll show you the tavern but I will not go inside. If you are caught I don't want anyone to know I helped you. Do you have four coins?'
`I have no coins but I have this.' Lyla held out a pink garnet the size of her little fingernail. `Will you exchange this for four coins, a soup bowl, two leather pouches and one favour?'
Dulcinella could not take her eyes off the garnet that she knew, if given to the right guard, would buy freedom for herself and her daughter. She emptied her pockets and handed Lyla four coins.
The tavern's beer hall was full of brown-uniformed Raiders betting on the cockfight that was going on in the stables.
Dulcinella pointed through the diamond-glass window to a fragile-looking woman lying on a couch pushed into a corner. One glance at her silvery-blonde hair and elfin face and Lyla knew she had found the mother of Clarissa the stilt-girl.
Legend of the Three Moons Page 17
