Across the Face of the World (69 page)

As they drew near to the small hill upon which Inch Chanter was built, at least a score of people swirled around the cart as the music reached out and pulled them in. But now the storm was upon them, and a huge clap of thunder interrupted the singer. The music continued bravely for another minute, but another, louder thunderclap sent them scurrying towards the open gate of the town. A third rumble rolled across the plain, following closely behind a searing lightning bolt, and Phemanderac gave up playing. 'I can't compete with this!' he shouted.

A strong wind began to blow, ruffling hair and bending the willows by the stream that surrounded the town. Another crack of thunder shook the earth beneath them, then rumbled on for what seemed like a minute or more. Large raindrops fell, a few at first, rapidly escalating into a downpour. By the time the carts were safely inside the gate, everyone aboard was soaked to the skin.

Out on the plains Mahnum marshalled the escapees, trying with valiant words to keep their spirits up. But they were unarmed, and the Widuz were now only a few hundred yards behind them.

'See!' one man cried, turning and pointing wildly. 'The Widuz come for us! They bring a storm with them to seal our doom!'

'Don't be foolish! It's just a spring storm!' Mahnum shouted, but his voice was lost in a clap of thunder so loud that the ground heaved under them. 'Press on! We've come this far!'

But even to his mind, practical and unencumbered by super¬stition, the appearance of the vast dark cloud rearing up behind their pursuers seemed a harbinger of doom, a manifestation of wrath and vengeance. The Widuz had seen it too, and it filled them with brazen courage, so that their wild shouts were borne to the ragged group of escapees on a rising wind. Around him the escaped captives slowed, exhausted, robbed of their energy by fear.

Then the full force of the storm was upon them, with lightning ripping the sky apart and thunder boiling all about them. Sheets of rain were unleashed upon them, replaced in an instant by hail¬stones that forced pursued and pursuer alike to seek protection under their cloaks. The chase was forgotten in the midst of this furious assault from the skies, from clouds that seemed to swirl just above them. A lone tree almost exactly between the two groups exploded as a bolt of lightning smote the earth, and terror filled all those on the plain.

The hail turned to rain, then back to hail - huge stones this time - and suddenly a kind of madness descended upon them all. Mahnum's cries of frustration went unheeded as, with thought for nothing but their own safety, both groups scat¬tered over the fields, seeking drains, ditches, or any kind of shelter.

THE GATES OF INSTRUERE

THE NEXT FEW WEEKS forever remained a haze to Leith. Vaguely he recalled scenes of pastoral beauty, crisp, frosty mornings and balmy spring afternoons, but the necessity to press on before he had in any way recovered his strength robbed Leith of the opportunity to enjoy them. So he retreated within himself, saying little to Phemanderac, choosing instead to walk the misty paths of his mind, turning over his conversations with Stella time and again, wondering what sort of impression he had made on her. For it was towards her his thoughts had turned: had he merely imagined her favour that night on the ice? Had she simply extended a condescending kindness, a regal queen distributing largesse to a pauper at the roadside, or did she mean something deeper? Her smile was the one clear image his weary mind carried.

Clean and fresh it was, like a Treikan morning after rain in the night, with wildly dancing eyes like the sun flashing in puddles on the Paludis Road, full of life and the promise of youth, and his heart ached with longing at the thought of her.

Of his parents he thought little. He had scant memories of that part of his journey, and could not remember sighting his mother or his father by the bridge in the hour of their triumph over the Bhrudwans, though surely he must have seen them, must have said something to them.

Strangely, the clearest image that remained after the months of their journey was the disturbing sight of Hal, enfolded by black wings, muttering incantations as he bent over the prone body of the sleeping Hermit.

Leith and Phemanderac travelled southward through the country of Old Deer, a land once the border between Treika and Widuz. Of recent times the Treikans had pushed the border further west in their search for the famed and increasingly rare antlered stag, and the newly acquired land became known as New Deer. It had been through New Deer that Leith and Phemanderac had come on their way out of Widuz, and they had encountered the Treikan hunting party on the hazy boundary between New and Old Deer. New Deer was still largely forest, though the Treikans were burning the trees at a great rate, and evidence of their depre¬dations could be seen almost every day on the journey south to the coast. Old Deer was now pasture, apart from a few isolated copses, a land of soft greens and gentle browns. The smell of freshly tilled earth had replaced the dankness of the forest, and no one hunted there any more.

By the time the road veered to the east once again and entered a swampy, dune-scattered country, Leith was footsore beyond belief. The soles of his walking boots, picked up in the Adunlok armoury, had worn unbearably thin, and offered his feet no protec¬tion from the stones of the road. 'The Paludis Road,' Phemanderac had told him cheerfully. 'A bit light on people, but then you've probably had enough people for a while. The shortest road from Inch Chanter to Instruere, they told me, so here we are.' He appeared not to notice Leith's discomfort, and the youth was certainly not going to tell him. He needed something to help him remain angry at the world.

The Paludis was a marshland formed as water from the north became trapped in the lowlands behind a series of old dune ridges. Too wet and disease-ridden to farm, the Treikans had given it up a long time ago, seeking new lands to the west, preferring the Widuz to the mosquitoes.

After a few days on the Paludis Road, Leith understood why. they seemed worse even than the black biters of the northern spring. It reminded him of something the Haufuth had said.

Had it been on their journey? 'There's always a fly in the ointment,' he had grumbled. 'This is how I know there is no Most High God: for every spring there's a mosquito, in every field there are stones. What sort of cruel god would tease his people by making life so demanding that there was no time to enjoy the world he made for them?' The words had stuck in Leith's mind. For every Stella there's a Druin, for every Leith there's a Hal.

1 wonder what answer Hal would give? Leith didn't want to know, didn't want any more correction from anyone. I don't want to he changed, he thought. I want to be judged right even if I stay exactly as I am.

As spring gave way to summer, bloom replacing blossom as blossom had replaced bud, the Company left Laverock and Treika behind and began the slow climb over the flanks of the Remparer Mountains, the barrier between western and central Faltha. The Westway regressed from paved road to narrow path, and the hordes of people living their lives on and alongside it were reduced to a trickle of hardier souls eking out a livelihood on the thin soils of the uplands. Here in ages past feudal lords had ruled over tiny kingdoms, the largest domain barely stretching out of eyesight. The depredations of bandits had reduced this fair borderland to ruin, and the wind played in empty courtyards while treeroot and ivy slowly peeled stone from stone as once-proud castles melted imperceptibly into the grass. The infamous Robbers of the Ramparts were nowhere to be seen, seeking richer pickings further north perhaps, leaving an old, tired land struggling for breath.

As Kurt took the last steps of a long, slow climb, he reflected that a few short months ago the exertion would have left him breathless. He could feel the years falling from him, though surely the burdens he carried would have weighed him down no matter how fit he had been.

But nothing could weigh down the heart that beheld such beauty, he thought, as the path began its descent. Almost directly below, at the bottom of a winding path, the town of Inverell snuggled against grassy hills. A valley of woods and fields stretched away on their right to the sea at the edge of their clear-air vision. Kurr im¬agined he could see farmers in their fields, people on the streets, smoke coming from the chimneys of the tiny houses. And even though he knew it was a trick of the mountain air, he fancied he could reach down and pick up the houses like toys between thumb and forefinger.

To their left lay a different kind of beauty, not unmixed with dread, for there marched the Remparer Mountains, the Ramparts of Faltha, also called Manu Irion, the Man-Eaters. Greater than the Jawbone Mountains far to the west, second in Faltha only to the mighty but remote Aldhras on the Bhrudwan border, the Man-Eaters had long been a trap for the unwary. Two thousand years after the First Men settled the land, there were still only two roads through them, the gentle Westway to the south and the terrible Whitefang Pass far to the north.

Between the two passes towered the Skyvault Range, a tangle of rock and ice that suffered no path. The morning sun backlit peak after peak, a giant army marching away into the distance, reminding Kurr of the deadlier army that might already be poised at Faltha's gates. At the head of the white-tipped throng stood Drum Mountain, Druim Corrie as the mountain-dwellers called it, looming over the small town just as the Destroyer might soon loom over every town in Faltha. With these morose thoughts for company, the old farmer hurried his charges down the narrow path as a cold wind blew in from the southwest.

That night the Company found lodging at a pleasant enough inn, claiming the very last beds.

As usual they kept to themselves, trying to avoid the inevitable questions. There was no way they could disguise the fact that they brought a prisoner along with them, and those who gained a closer look could tell that the man held captive was of a different race. Their story for anyone bold enough to inquire (and in every town there was always someone) was that there was a reward in Instruere for this robber, and they were taking him to face justice.

Kurr took time in every town to ask a few questions of his own, and tonight at the Wayfarers Inn he asked them again. Had other travellers from the west passed this way recently? A sandy-haired lad of about fifteen, though he looked at least two years younger, and a tall, dark-haired man about forty years of age; had anyone seen them? Tonight the answer was the same as always.

No, there had been no such travellers. With the frequency and dependability of the journey by ship, few people made long jour¬neys on the Westway any more. The only travellers were locals and a few Treikans making the risky journey to Deuverre. Kurr sighed, and wondered whether they should have taken Farr's advice and sought ship themselves at Lavana, a week's walk south of Laverock at the mouth of the Lavera River. We might have been in lnstruere by now - at the latest within a week. But, he reminded himself, we might have missed Leith and Mahnum. If they are still alive .. .

The Paludis behind them, Leith and Phemanderac began to make much better time. Hard calluses had formed on Leith's feet, and his calves had become inured to pain. His companion strode tire¬lessly in front of him with a mile-eating gait, and it was easy to imagine that this man had indeed travelled across the world. Such experience proved invaluable. Penniless in a strange land, they could not avail themselves of the ships that lay waiting at Lavana docks.

Neither could they stay in formal lodgings in the cities and towns they passed through, but Phemanderac was adept at winning them a bed of soft straw in a barn, or occasionally even a mattress in a farmhouse. They certainly never wanted for food. The lean philosopher had learned how to live from charity without ever giving offence, more often than not playing his harp to earn their supper.

The gentle coast road took them across the Tarradale Broads, known of old as Rhinn na Torridon, and up a wooded valley to a small town nestled under a steep-sided mountain. That evening the inn was full - the first time in months, they were told - but the night was warm after a day of cool breezes at their backs, and the two companions found shelter under a high hedge a mile or so south of the town gates.

'How much further?' Leith asked Phemanderac as they prepared to leave in the pink dawn of a misty morning. 'I would really like a rest. I've forgotten what it's like to stay in one place.'

'We are closer now to lnstruere than we are to Inch Chanter.

In perhaps two weeks we will cross the Longbridge and be safe behind her stout walls, where maybe you can find rest.'

Leith made to reply, but Phemanderac had already shaken out his long legs and applied them to the task of striding on to the Westway. Shaking his head, the youth stretched the kinks out of his back and hurried to follow.

Deuverre was a low-lying, densely populated land, with few of the familiar trees or plants Leith knew from the north. It seemed that nothing there was left to nature, people contriving instead to make some use of every inch of ground. Here folk were wealthier and farmed their own lands, unlike Treika where most of the land was owned by a few lords. Rather than farms clinging to the land, as they did in the highlands of the Remparers, or being interspersed with forest and mountain, as in Leith's homeland, here they dom¬inated the landscape. Towns were larger and more frequent, but people were busier and less hospitable, and as a consequence Phemanderac was less successful in obtaining charity from them.

'Because they are wealthy,' he grumbled. 'The more they have, the more they protect it.'

'If I had been travelling alone, I would have starved to death by now.' Leith rubbed his stomach expressively. His hunger had done nothing to improve his temper, soured by weeks of foot-slogging.

Phemanderac laughed. 'They would let you work for your supper. Of course, it would then have taken you six months to reach Instruere.'

'I don't like it here.' To Leith, the people of Deuverre seemed less open than those of the north.