Part 14 (1/2)

There was a concerted move stalled only by Thraun, who was determined to finish every last crumb of bread.

'What's he planning to do, hibernate?' said Ilkar. 'Don't bring too much. We're in one boat. It's got oars, a sail and forward decking for stowing gear. I'll introduce you to the guide when we're on our way. Until then, keep quiet. He's already nervous about taking strangers upriver.'

'Strangers?'

'Yes, Hirad. If you're not elven on Calaius, you're a stranger. Remember that. Especially inland.'

They walked down to the river jetties in almost total silence, the thick mist giving the streets an eerie feel. Ysundeneth was very quiet. It shouldn't have been, not even this early, but word of the illness would have spread fast and people weren't anxious to open their doors and face the uncertainty of the day ahead.

The sun was barely beginning to penetrate the chill of the mist. Hirad s.h.i.+vered, wis.h.i.+ng for his heavy leather or furs, but on Ilkar's advice he, like all of them, had bought new clothes in the markets yesterday. Light leather armour and boots, lightweight cloaks and s.h.i.+rts. Everything dark brown, black or green, the colours of the forest.

'It must be a drab place,' Hirad had said.

Ilkar had laughed. 'You have never seen anything like it.'

Hirad determined to remember that. He'd better be impressed.

Ilkar took them through twisting paved streets with houses and buildings close in on either side. Above the mist, seabirds called and answered. The jetties were a couple of miles inland from the docks and above the estuary. They were built for shallow-draught river-boats, and as they approached Hirad could see dozens of the boats tied up or hauled onto the muddy sh.o.r.e of the River Ix, which was named after the elven G.o.d of mana, or so Ilkar said.

He could smell the water. It was not altogether unpleasant, and although brown and its flow soporific in its sluggishness, it had none of the fetid stagnancy he a.s.sociated with city rivers back on Balaia. The elves, it seemed, didn't use theirs as dumps or sewers.

The wooden jetty echoed under the tramp of their feet, the odd timber creaking as they pa.s.sed, water lapping against the piles driven into the river bed. Ilkar strode confidently over the damp and slippery surface, stopping in front of a quartet of identical craft each some thirty feet long with a single mast in the middle, sail furled horizontally against it. An elf was stretched out across a seat at the stern of one of the vessels, smoke curling from a pipe in his mouth. It reminded Hirad that he hadn't seen Denser smoking his pipe in ages. Perhaps Erienne had cured him of the habit.

Ilkar hailed the elf and he sat up and waved them all on board, keeping his eyes down, not wis.h.i.+ng contact with the Balaians invading his boat. He was old for an elf, his hair long and greying, his face full of sharp lines and heavy wrinkles. He had huge hands and powerful shoulders and possessed little of the natural grace of so many of his kind. He and Ilkar held a brief conversation in a dialect Hirad couldn't understand before he untied the stern rope and pushed them into the flow with an oar, where there was a breeze getting up, clearing the mist.

'Get the sail up, would you someone?' asked Ilkar, taking up station at the tiller with their guide, Ren, close to him. 'Kayloor thinks there'll be enough wind to take us up against the current but if we could have oars ready, it might help if things get slack.'

'No problem,' said The Unknown, bending down and untying the oar beneath the bulwark. 'You relax.'

'Someone's got to relay what he's saying,' said Ilkar, a smile on his face.

'Right.' The Unknown sat down, Aeb taking up the position beside him. Thraun looked on in some confusion but The Unknown just waved him to a seat and he seemed to understand. Denser and Erienne sat in the prow looking out, still saying nothing. It left Hirad and Darrick to raise the sail, which filled enough to push them gently out into the current.

'Now it starts,' said Ilkar. 'Keep your eyes on the banks and don't trail your hands in the water.'

'Fish got sharp teeth, have they?' said Hirad.

'Oh it's not the fish that should be worrying you, Hirad. There's far worse than mere fish in here,' said Ilkar.

'You're so rea.s.suring.'

'Just realistic,' said Ilkar. 'This isn't like anything any of you have ever experienced. Don't treat it like Balaia or even Herendeneth or you'll come unstuck.'

' ”Coming unstuck” meaning?'

'Dead, usually,' said Ren.

'Great place,' said Hirad. 'How surprising you left.'

'But it is great, Hirad,' said Ilkar. 'Just dangerous for strangers.'

Hirad shared a glance with Darrick, who raised his eyebrows.

'All right, General?' asked the barbarian.

'Never better,' replied Darrick.

A booming bellow echoed across the river from the opposite bank. Through the clearing mist, a flock of birds scattered into the sky, their calls piercing and shrill. Hirad jumped. The boat rocked. In the stern Ren and Ilkar were laughing.

'G.o.ds, but I'm going to enjoy this,' said the mage.

The sail snapped and filled as the breeze stiffened in the centre of the channel. Choosing to keep his thoughts to himself, Hirad looked away into the depths of the rainforest.

Chapter 14.

Selik, forty Black Wings and their mage prisoner galloped into Understone after a hard three-day ride through yet more devastated countryside, abandoned farms and desolate villages. Their horses were exhausted, riders saddle-sore and Selik himself was experiencing severe pain in his face and across the dead parts of his chest. It was something he'd never understood. The nerves had been frozen by the b.i.t.c.h's spell so why could it hurt so much? Phantom pain, he'd been told. He preferred to believe it signalled some regeneration of his damaged body but in six years his condition hadn't improved.

Understone had never recovered from its central role in the last Wesmen wars. A small garrison town, it had been run-down when the war began and the battles it saw had left it burned and battered. It was now barely a sh.e.l.l. And to think what it had been when first built: the great defence against Wesmen invasion through Understone Pa.s.s.

The Black Wings rode down its rebuilt but again abandoned main street, past boarded-up houses down to the small stockaded garrison itself, reining in by the open front gates. Less than four hundred yards away, the black mouth that was the pa.s.s yawned large. Under the control of the Wesmen once again, the pa.s.s was the only pa.s.sable land route east to west across the Blackthorne Mountains.

Selik turned his attention to the guard who hurried out to meet them. He was a raw recruit wearing old shabby leather and chain armour and carrying a rusting pike. His helmet wobbled on his head and his white, pinched and hungry face held frightened eyes.

'State your business,' he said, his voice wavering.

Selik dismounted and walked over to the guard, his arms spread to indicate peaceful intent.

'Please don't be nervous. We mean our defenders no harm,' he drawled through the ache in his face and mouth. 'We merely seek a place to billet for the night before riding on south tomorrow morning.'

The guard's eyes narrowed a little. 'Why south?'

'We're on a humanitarian mission,' said Selik. 'Perhaps I should speak to your commanding officer.'

'I will see if he's available,' said the guard, the tremor diminis.h.i.+ng in his voice. 'May I take your name?'

'Of course. I am Captain Selik and these are the Black Wings.'

The guard took a step backwards. 'I'll go and get the Commander. '

Selik shook his head and turned to his men.

'Dismount. Go and find yourselves places to sleep. I'll organise feed for the horses and make sure the garrison have nothing to fear from us, if you know what I mean. We'll talk later. Be ready for my orders.'

He watched them disperse, one of his lieutenants taking his horse for him. His gaze fell on the Julatsan mage, his puffed face and bound hands, as he was pulled from his mount. The elf leant against his horse while the strength returned to his legs. Selik was forming a grudging respect for him. Despite threats, frequent beatings, smashed fingers and toes, the mage hadn't even told them his name.

Selik would normally have broken a mage by now, frightened him or her into doing his bidding. But this elf had enormous mental strength. It couldn't go on, of course. Selik had a message he wanted delivered. He didn't want to wait until he returned from Blackthorne to despatch it and, right now, one thing he was certain of was that this mage would not obey him. Turning to watch the garrison commander walk towards him, the scared guard at his shoulder, he pondered what he might do.