Across the Face of the World (14 page)

The big man sat opposite Stella, while Kurr drew up a chair to his immediate right and Merin occu¬pied the one to his left. Hal shifted closer to the girl, with Leith a short distance away, so that the seats now formed two lines; one of adults, one of teenagers. The village headman pulled his chair slightly forward and manoeuvred his bulk until he sat on its edge.

'Listen, Stella,' he said kindly, 'you've seen something you weren't supposed to see. Now that wasn't your fault; we should have made sure that no one could disturb us. For that I take the blame.' He looked at Kurr. 'And now you know why we have hidden Leith and Hal. We considered that they were in danger if the village knew they had survived. Well, we've talked it over and our views have not changed. There could be a risk not only to Leith and Hal, but also to the entire village, if outsiders heard about this. We can't take the chance that these raiders might return. Soon the boys will leave here and go somewhere else to live, at least until their parents are found. In the meantime, no one else must find out that they are still alive. That secret must remain amongst the six of us here. Do you understand?'

Stella nodded.

Kurr leaned forward and fixed a stern eye on the girl.

'Do you promise to keep secret everything you have seen and heard here, telling no one, not even your friends, not even your parents?'

'I promise,' she said, but even Leith saw the flash of excitement in her eyes. She might mean it now, thought Leith, but how long could she hold out against the temptation? The Haufuth exchanged glances with the farmer.

It was sharp-eyed Merin who spoke, in that low, intense voice that compelled everyone who ridiculed her husband to take her very seriously. 'Young lady, you are not fooling anyone. The first chance you get, you will tell your story to anyone who will listen.' She continued, overriding the girl's protests, 'First your family, then your friends, then it doesn't matter who else. Not an ounce of consideration for the concerns of others. Tell me, have you even been listening?'

The girl dropped her head in the face of this attack.

'It's no use. We can't risk it,' Kurr said. 'We have no middle course. Either we take the whole village into our confidence, and trust that the story spreads no further, or we ensure that this girl has no chance to betray us.'

Leith jerked his head up. Ensure it? How? What was the old man contemplating? He looked at Stella, and saw that she had begun to cry. Anger against the farmer rose within him. He wanted to reach out to Stella, but even as he thought it, he realised that he would never dare.

As he watched, Hal put an arm on her shaking shoulder.

The Haufuth spoke. 'Who will take her? And how far out of our way can we afford to go? We have to tell the village.'

'I don't agree,' said his wife firmly. 'Take her with you.'

The headman began to protest but Kurr cut in: 'Merin is right. It is the safest way. Now that we have gone this far with our decep¬tion, we must go all the way.'

'But Stella's parents! What will we tell them?'

Kurr stared at the big man with eyes like flint. 'Nothing. We will only be away a few weeks at the most. Leave a note or some¬thing. But we must make a start now, tonight, before anyone else discovers our secret.'

Hal spoke: 'There has been much falsehood already. We should deceive the village no longer.

I am sure that once they know how serious things are, they could be trusted to keep quiet.'

'But this is just what we are talking about! Here we have a villager who cannot be trusted, and you counsel us to allow not only her, but also others like her, to spread this strange tale abroad? No, Hal, your advice is too risky. The girl comes with us, at least far enough away from this village to remove the danger of her tongue. Should the riders return, or should any of their sympa¬thisers get wind of the truth, they would not hesitate to put the village to the question. Like the Favonian village.'

'What do you mean, take me with you? Where are we going?' Stella asked desperately. 'I won't tell anyone about this! Can't you trust me?'

The Haufuth sighed. 'It's not a matter of trust. Even with the best will in the world, you will probably let something slip. We need to go after Mahnum and Indrett - tonight - and we haven't got time to explain things to the village. Now stop worrying about yourself and try to do what is best for Loulea!'

'We have a lot to do in the next few hours,' Kurr interrupted, as Stella was about to reply.

'Most important of all, we need to decide where we are going. Do any of you have a guess as to where these brigands might have gone?'

'Down the North Road to Oln, then the Coast Road towards Rammr, no doubt.'

'But are you sure?'

The Haufuth shook his head. There was much he was not sure about.

'No mind,' continued the farmer. 'We'll find out soon enough. Let's get all the equipment together. What you don't have here I can probably find at my house, including clothes for the girl. She is about the same size . . .' his voice tailed off.

Stella brushed the tears away from her face as she began to think, really think. Maybe she could shout or scream and attract the attention of a passer-by. Or she could make a run at the door and perhaps get it unbolted before anyone could stop her. But do 1 want to go home? she asked herself, thinking hard. If I go home now, there will be another scene. She could hear her parents scolding her again, trying to convince her that announcing her betrothal to Druin would be anything other than a total disaster. That ill-mannered, thick-headed brute! She shuddered at the memory of his coarse attentions. Perhaps a few weeks away from the village would be a good idea. She really did not want one more day of Druin's hateful company.

Later that evening the group regathered, minus Stella who was talking with Merin in another room, and Hal who had gone to the kitchen to prepare food. Six piles on the floor in the middle of the room, one for each traveller and one pile of general equip¬ment, signified almost everything they were to leave with. It was, of course, quite the wrong time of year for any serious travelling, so they needed to be equipped for adverse weather conditions, even though their journey was to be southwards in the main. However, success depended on their pursuing and catching horsemen who had three days' head start, so equipment had to be kept to a minimum. They would avail themselves of the hospi¬tality of others and live off the land itself where necessary.

Now they were almost ready to leave, but Leith still had no idea of where they were going, or how they would catch so fear¬some a quarry. As if in answer to his unspoken question, the Haufuth sat down with the farmer and began to discuss their journey.

'Are you sure your friend at Watch Hill will know?' asked the big man.

'Bound to. Nothing gets past his gaze. Hayne should be back within the hour.'

'Know what?' interrupted Leith boldly.

Two faces turned towards him, one gentler than the other.

'Yes, of course,' the Haufuth said, 'I should have said some¬thing. A while ago Kurr dispatched Hayne to ride over to a friend of his who lives on the hill overlooking Vapnatak.

From there he can see both the North Road and the Westway. Kurr assures me that this man will have noticed any horsemen in the last week, and when Hayne returns we shall know for sure which direction they have taken.'

'But is there any doubt?' Leith replied. 'The Westway leads into the interior, and no one would travel that road at this time of year.'

'I'm sure you are right,' answered the farmer, 'but it is always best to be certain. There is another reason for contacting Kroptur. He is a Watcher - indeed, he holds command of the North March

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and has horses faster than mine. These he will put to good use, sending messages to others further along the road who can report on any strange horsemen who have passed their way. We may be some distance behind them, but as long as they keep to the roads

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as they must, at this time of year - we should be able to track them. Our only concern, of course, is what they might have done in the meantime.'

Leith turned away. What might they have done in the meantime! He was determined not to think about it.

The world smeared past Mahnum's eyes. His head was on fire; his body ached past knowledge. The stones of the road, the snow-shrouded fields and the occasional bush flashed past, distracting him as he tried to remember what had happened. Things had still not shaken themselves into focus when his head slammed against the rump of the horse and the sickening pain forced him to screw both eyes tightly shut. Focus, focus, he told himself. He tried to fight his way back past the bouncing and jerking of the horse, back through the pain, past the lights flashing in his head. He forced his good eye open; the lights danced still, and he fought back the nausea as everything lurched violently around him.

Think! He remembered the beating, when the four men had tied him to a tree and taken turns punching and kicking him, while Indrett wept quietly in the background. Thump, thump, thump, the sound of blows crashing in on him, part of his mind somehow detached from the pain and the fear, the blows sounding like the pounding of an axe on a block of wood. How could some¬thing like that sound so impersonal? Then he had been cut loose, and had fallen to the ground in a pool of warm, sticky liquid -his own blood. No, that was not where the pain came from. Think! He had tried to pull himself up, but had been kicked back to the ground.

Then the question had come again, repeated by one after another of their captors, always the same unanswerable question. Where is the Right Hand? Where is the Right Hand? He had tried to answer, but could think of nothing convincing to say. Then the four Bhrudwans had dragged Indrett to the tree and tied her there - Oh Most High, that was the source of the pain!

Please, please, let her go! 1 could tell even the Voice of Andratan nothing about the Right Hand! Please! He had cried out again and again, his cries louder than hers as they had brutally beaten her, fists and sticks and the flat of a sword. And finally the red haze had taken him, and he had not seen the end of it.

He twisted and stretched, trying to catch a glimpse of Indrett, but could see nothing of her.

His hands were tied behind his back and he lay face down, lashed to the back of a black Bhrudwan horse. As he struggled, pain roared mercilessly in his brain. It hurt to lift his head, it hurt to do anything, it hurt when he did nothing. What had they done to her? Did she hurt like this? Was she still alive?

He tried to imagine his tough girl from the south lying cold and dead in some ditch, her pretty face bloodied and pale, her sparkling eyes unseeing, but he couldn't. She must be alive. He gritted his teeth. She must be alive! Then he thought of his boys, remembering their cries and then the silence and the fire, and he realised with faltering heart that they were certainly dead.

And soon, perhaps very soon, he would be wishing he could join them. He knew these Bhrudwans. Why, oh why, did 1 lead them straight to the ones 1 love the most!

He tried again to lift himself high enough to see the others, but he was too tightly bound. He could hear their voices ahead of him, shouting to each other above the rushing of the wind, the sounds of efficient cruelty. His struggles finally attracted their attention, and a voice just in front of him hissed words he could not under¬stand, a warning to keep still. But he would not give up; he had to see Indrett, had to know she was alive. The voice came again, the warning unmistakable even if the words were in a foreign tongue.

He sensed rather than saw the blow coming, but could not duck. For an instant the helpless terror choked him again, then some¬thing crashed into the back of his head and the redness exploded within. His head slumped against the rump of the horse; his body went limp, and moved only with the movement of the mount beneath him.

Satisfied, the Bhrudwan warrior slung his staff back across his shoulders.

Finally the Company of five travellers were ready for their journey. Hayne had returned and Kurr had gone outside to speak with him. The news was puzzling. Kroptur had indeed seen four horsemen, early on the morning after Midwinter, riding eastwards along the Westway.

As much as it didn't make sense, this was the road that the Company would be forced to take in their pursuit of the brig¬ands.

The Westway! That road would lead them into the cold conti¬nental interior, away from the towns and villages of coastal Firanes.

The Westway was once the main route between Firanes and the rest of Faltha, having been built in the days of the First Men as the link between the fabled northern city of Astora - the capital of Firanes until it was taken by the sea over a thousand years ago, so the stories said -

and Instruere. Travellers and trade now went south to Rammr, the main city of Firanes, and then by ship to the ports of the Wodhaitic Sea.

The Westway was a tortuous road even in summer, and during winter was not used save in the most extreme necessity. People travelled short distances along those parts of the road that ran between settlements, but for months at a stretch the road saw no horseman or foot-bound traveller. In some places it was paved, but for the most part the Westway was a rutted track or forest path, now in the grip of the cruel northern winter.

'At least we know where they've headed,' the Haufuth grum¬bled. 'One thing about it, we won't lose them in that country. They'll stick to the road, and so will we.'

'But how will we catch them?' asked Leith.

'Their horses won't be much use to them on Breidhan Moor, not this time of year. They'll have to walk, same as us.' The village headman shook his head bemusedly. 'I don't understand it!

Had they ridden to the south they could have been well on their way to Rammr by now, and be taking ship to Instruere, or Lavana at least.'

'There are any number of reasons why someone might take the Westway,' responded Kurr.

'Think. Would such people be granted ship's passage without question, especially when they had unwilling companions? The Most High grant that Firanese have not yet fallen so far. The Westway is the most direct route to The Gap, and they have to go through The Gap to get back to Bhrudwo. Why should they go south?'