Across the Face of the World (22 page)

The leader struck first, a blow that even Mahnum did not see coming. The flash of steel took both sword and hand, severing them from the arm of the shrieking youth. It was as good as over, and Mahnum wanted to turn away but could not. He had seen this at the Favonian village, and the memories flooded back into his consciousness like bile into his gorge as the second Bhrudwan struck at the luckless rider who had merely been using the Westway. Now blows rained fast, swords biting into flesh, blows designed to wound but not to kill, and still the fear-frozen youth did not move to defend himself, hopeless though it would have been.

Finally they hacked him to the ground where he lay twitching, making small sounds that cut at Mahnum like swords. Finish it! Finish it! Don't leave him to suffer! As the Trader watched, the four evil faces turned to him as one, their smiles communi¬cating an unmistakable message. This demonstration is for you! Tell us what we want!

What could he do? He didn't have answers to satisfy them.

Mahnum gazed sadly on the twitching form of the young rider. They hadn't asked him for answers, and soon they would no longer ask Mahnum and Indrett.

Dispassionately the Bhrudwans watched the rider's life ebb away, as though judging the last possible moment to deliver the final blow. Enjoying the pain, feeding on it. Finally, at a nod from the leader, one of the younger warriors took a knife and plunged it into the youth's back.

A few more twitches, then stillness. It was over.

The Company found themselves travelling more slowly during their second day out from Mjolkbridge. The road took a tortuous path through the forest, and care was needed to avoid tree roots that had grown across the rutted soil. Above them a thin line of blue sky mimicked the turns of the Westway, and all else was forest. Deep, dark, sombre, silent. As the Company rode they were enveloped by the muted gloom of the woods. One or two of them nodded towards sleep.

The Westway occasionally emerged from the woods to over¬look the Mjolkelva, so the Company gained intermittent respite from the oppression of the trees. As they rode towards its source they saw the river in its youth: it was now a collection of braided ribbons lying in a wide gravel bed, fringed with broom, birch and willow, hemmed in by the feet of mountains whose heights were hidden in cloud. The road was now perceptibly uphill, running along a narrow terrace between the river on their left and the Fells on their right. Swift, cold streams crossed their path. A thin rind of transparent ice clung to their banks and thickened over any backwaters or pools. The Company marked the vanishing of the sun below the horizon, even though they had not seen it for hours, by an intensification of the forest gloom and a sharp drop in the temperature.

As they made their final dash to Windrise, a cold wind sprang up to meet them. It set the forest creaking and groaning, the branches clashing overhead in a sort of slow dance, in which the trees grappled drunkenly with each other like old men too far in their cups. A broad shingle fan came down from the right, and the road made a long, slow ascent across its width.

The line of trees on either side gave the travellers the feeling of riding through a roofless hallway. At the end of the hallway they could see the outline of a flat-topped mountain, fringed in delicate pink cloud, but as they rode towards it, the mountain shrank until it disap¬peared altogether.

'Where did the mountain go?' Stella asked the old farmer, who shrugged his shoulders tiredly in reply.

Wira rode up beside them. 'That's the Capstone; Windrise is at its foot. It didn't really disappear. We're climbing quite steeply here, and it has dropped below the level of the road.

This is called the Hall of the Disappearing Mountain. Not far now!' He grinned cheerfully, then let his horse drop back behind them. As much as she wanted to, Stella resisted the temptation to turn and talk some more.

A minute or two later he pulled in beside them again. 'This is the Torrelstrommen fan,' he said to Kurr, but his eyes were on Stella. 'Windrise sits at the joining place of the Torrelstrommen and the Mjolkelva. In a moment we will see it!' Sure enough, as though at his bidding, they came over the midpoint of the shingle fan, the forest drew back, and in the gloaming of evening they beheld the twinkling lights of a village. Wira rode ahead to join his brother and did not look back. He didn't need to; he could feel her admiring eyes on him.

It was quite dark when the Company finally rode into Windrise. The stars were out but the moon was not yet up, and shutters on the windows selfishly kept the light indoors, away from the dark streets. Farr rode next to the Haufuth, saying nothing, a grimace fixed on his face which might have curdled milk. The Loulea headman thought twice about asking the Mjolkbridge man about lodgings for the night, turning to his brother instead.

'There are two inns to choose from,' Wira replied. 'The Aspen Grange is quiet, and the beer is properly aged. But the Briar and Thistle is more popular. Do you have a preference?'

Farr growled something indistinct.

The Haufuth frowned at the older brother for a moment, but he might as well have been frowning at the night sky for all the acknowledgement he got. 'I know neither place: I have never been here before. Kurr,' he called, turning in the saddle to face the older man, 'do you know this village?'

'I haven't been here for twenty years. There was only one inn in my day, the old Windrise Manor. Didn't something happen to it?'

'Burned down,' Farr replied roughly. 'Sparks from a forest fire got into the thatch. Took everyone with it.' There was no escaping the hint of satisfaction in his voice.

Wira spoke. 'Why don't we try the Briar and Thistle? It may be in Windrise, but at least it has some life! Good company and a great warm fire. Take my advice!' He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

'That settles it!' the Haufuth said. 'As much as I would like merriment, what we need now is rest and privacy, with the fewer questions about our journey the better. The Aspen Grange it is!'

Wira turned to the big man. 'Do we not require news of the horsemen?' he reminded them. 'I, at least, should spend some

time at the hearth of the Briar and Thistle, asking a few subtle questions.'

'Go ahead,' the Haufuth decided, 'but be careful!'

Farr scowled darkly after his brother as he vanished into the night.

The grand-sounding Aspen Grange was a small, slightly seedy one-roomed bar, with a scarcely larger sitting-room and six tiny rooms out the back; but the beer served there was wet, the fire threw out a great heat and the mattresses promised to be soft, so the trav¬ellers minded but little. The younger members of the Company turned in early, while Kurr and the Haufuth waited up with Farr for Wira. One or two locals filtered into the tavern, eyed the strangers suspiciously over their mugs of warm ale, talked together for a while and then left.

'Unfriendly place,' Kurr remarked.

'Don't know how the publican makes a living,' the Haufuth replied. 'Perhaps he takes advantage of the summer traffic on the Westway.'

'Too far back from the road for that. Most people would miss it. Besides, the other inn is much nearer the village gate, so it stands to reason that it would attract the travellers.'

'If there are any.' The Haufuth shook his head. 'This doesn't feel like a village many people would want to visit.'

Kurr nodded in agreement, then took another deep draught from his mug. 'At least the ale's good.'

The Haufuth turned to Farr, who supped his beer like it was poison. 'I didn't get the straight of it, but from what your Haufuth said there's been trouble between Mjolkbridge and Windrise.

What do you know about it?'

The young man laid his beer aside, sat back on his stool and folded his arms. 'I'll tell you what I know about it,' he said delib¬erately, in a voice designed to carry. 'People here are arrogant, ill-tempered half-breeds. You can feel it, right enough. Well, I can put a name to it. Losian.'

'Not a word to use lightly,' the Haufuth said quickly, glancing around the room to see if anyone had heard Farr's insult. The barman had his back to them, cleaning mugs at the other end of the bar, and gave no indication that he was listening to the conver¬sation.

'No, but accurate all the same,' came the retort. 'You know nothing of the history of this valley. Nothing! We've been at odds with the Windrisians for as long as we can remember, and some¬times it comes to fighting, as it did in my grandfather's day. Call themselves true Falthans, they do, but they trade with the hidden kingdom and with the beasts of the vidda.

Nothing good can come of that. I'm not a religious man, but I cannot abide the thought of trafficking with half-men. Save your dealings for descendants of the First Men, and keep yourself pure.'

'Half-men?' The Haufuth was puzzled. 'Hidden kingdom? I've not heard of such things.'

'I just told you about that, if you'd listened.'

Kurr stirred angrily, but the Haufuth restrained him with a hand on his arm. 'So help us, then.

What's this about half-men?'

But Farr was not to be sidetracked. 'Windrise is surrounded by barbarian lands. You'd think that with the road to Mjolkbridge being their only link to civilisation, they'd be a little friendlier, instead of burning our farms and trying to take our lands.'

'The half-men?' Kurr tried to keep the anger out of his voice.

'It's simple, old man. Up above the Mjolkelva gorge, perhaps three days' walk upriver from here, the land opens out into a wide valley, so wide that in the centre the mountains cannot be seen, where the air is warm and things grow that will not grow anywhere else in Firanes. At least, that's what they say; I've never been there, and I never want to. There the Scymrians live, losian to a man, misfits who rejected the Way of Fire. Everyone knows that to have any kind of contact with losian sullies the soul. Yet Windrise makes much profit from trading with the hidden kingdom of Scymria.'

'So what's wrong with that?' Kurr interjected, angry at the 'old man' jibe.

'No self-respecting Falthan should have anything to do with the losian? Farr snapped. 'No matter how well made their goods, or how lissome their females. Oh yes, the men of Windrise have done more than trade. Hardly a pure-breed amongst them now. Tainted, they are; sullied with the blood of half-breeds. They are now half-breeds themselves!'

The Haufuth glanced over his shoulder. The barman had turned to face them, and his granite-set face indicated that he was not happy with the direction of their talk.

'Can't you keep your voice down?' Kurr snapped. 'Do you want to continue the feud between Mjolkbridge and Windrise single-handed? Young idiot,' he finished. Farr turned to stare at him, his face not at all repentant. The two men looked ready to trade blows.

'You still haven't told us what started the troubles in Mjolkelva valley,' the Haufuth said in little more than a whisper. 'Surely you didn't go to war with Windrise just because they have dealings with strangers?'

'What would you soft coastlanders understand about—'

With a bang, the inn door opened and Wira burst excitedly into the room. 'There's someone outside you must talk to,' the younger Mjolkbridge man said urgently. 'Come quickly!'

The Haufuth put down his pint and struggled after the other two. Out in the cold breath of a mountain night stood a shortish, unshaven man, a parcel under one arm. He looked the strangers over shrewdly from beneath bushy eyebrows.

'Lookin' for news of strange horsemen, are you?' he rasped, spit¬ting as he spoke. 'I can tell 'e a thing or two about strange horsemen!' and he spat again.

Kurr stared at the man with distaste. 'On with it, then! What do you know?'

The man pretended to look hurt, then turned one of his pockets inside out with a knowing gesture. The Haufuth sighed, then pulled some coins from his wallet. The unshaven man made a great show of counting them. 'That all?'

'All until you tell us something of some use, at any rate! Now, what do you know?'

'The local gravedigger, that's me,' announced the slovenly man. 'Yesterday a man was found on the west road, a few miles up yon Torrel valley,' and he pointed away into the darkness.

'Dead he was, cut with swords an' knifed in the back. Never seen a body more ready for my services.' The man spat prodigiously into a puddle, and gave a short barking laugh like the slamming of a coffin lid. 'He was wearin' strange clothes, like them coastlanders wear, like you is wearin'. One of the locals brought him down. Afore I buried him, I took 'is clothes - or what's left of 'em - and kept 'em. This young feller here was talkin' in yonder inn, and his storymakin' has remembered me of them, so I gone and got them. 'Ere they are.' He produced the parcel from under his arm with all the drama of a conjuror.

Kurr reached out for the parcel, but the man pulled it away. 'If you want these clothes, you're goin' to have t' pay for 'em,' he stated.

'How much?' the farmer asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice.

The man looked at the coins in his hand. 'Don't want no fretas,' he said. 'I want ten pending.'

He looked slyly at the strangers and their nice neat clothes. He had seen their horses. They could afford ten pending.

The Haufuth was about to agree, albeit reluctantly, when Wira interrupted. 'Ten pending?' he replied, sounding incredulous. 'We haven't got that much between us. I told you that at the Briar and Thistle. Besides, we have all the clothes we need. Good night, sir!' Turning on his heel, he beckoned the others to follow him.

The uncouth man squirmed for a moment. He had seen that the fat man was ready to pay the money, but had also heard the determination in the youngster's voice. 'All right,' he said at length. 'Five pending.'

'Three.'

'Three?' It was the unshaven man's turn to look outraged. 'I went to all the trouble of tellin'

you about them clothes, and going home to fetch 'em, and you want to rob me? Four.'

'Four it is,' replied Wira, wearying of the debate. 'Wait there; we have to fetch the money.'

'What was that about?' the Haufuth asked Wira when they were inside the inn.