Across the Face of the World (55 page)

The descendants of the First Men thought no more of the Widuz, assuming they had not survived. They were reminded of their exis¬tence, to their cost, when they tried to force a road through Clovenhill in order to connect far-flung Firanes with the rest of Faltha. Hundreds of Falthans died before they learned to leave the Widuz alone. The road-builders found the Widuz ruthless and intractable, expert hunters and setters of devious traps. Eventually the Falthans gave up trying to force a road along the coast and, at great expense and over many years, constructed instead the Westway to the north of Widuz. From that time only those Treikans, Plonyans and Fodhram who lived along their borders had to reckon with the Widuz.

During the second week of the journey south, Leith lived an animal existence. Hunger, weariness and lack of sleep drove all thoughts of Bhrudwo and the Company from his mind.

The prisoners fought amongst themselves for the scraps of food tossed them at the end of each day's march, with the stronger taking food from the weak. Leith, who had been exhausted by the months of travel on foot through the northern wastes, was one of the first to weaken, and seldom had the energy to eat. His overriding thought was to lie down and surrender to the darkness, but the merciless rope pulled him on and on. And somehow the days passed.

The climate, which had warmed as they marched south, began to cool again with a gradual rise in elevation as the path they followed wriggled up the spine of Clovenhill. One morning they emerged from the deep woods out into the open, the sunlight blinding captives and captors alike. The grassy slopes upon which they stumbled were at the very crest of the great hill, where huge limestone bluffs protruded from the grass like rotted teeth set loosely in a giant's mouth. Here and there gorse bushes sat in small hollows. The pallid sky seemed to sit low over the place, brooding on a land so ancient that the time when the Widuz had dominion over northern Faltha was a recent memory.

Eventually they reached the summit, and Leith stood seemingly on the very top of the world.

On every side the grass fell away to the eaves of the dark forest far below. All around were the contorted shapes of bare rock, exposed by the earth as though flesh had melted away from bone. There was no sign of life, no habi¬tations, no animals or birds, just the bright green grass and the bones of old hills under a wan sun.

Leith felt the familiar tug on the rope as the prisoners ahead of him rose, answering the goads of the Widuz with a shuffling walk. From the bald crown of Clovenhill they descended along a spur and down into a tree-lined valley to the right. A small stream gurgled beside them, an incongruously cheerful sound. Momentarily his mind cleared of despair as he remembered the fallen Bhrudwans and his parents' rescue, and was glad. He could still feel the memory of the sword in his hand, and he wished that he still had it.

Presently they came to a crossroads marked by four huge standing stones, one beside each of the paths. Here their guards stopped and, disregarding their prisoners for a moment, walked into the middle of the crossroads, stood in a circle and touched raised palms in the centre.

'Cepan aith!' they shouted together. 'Andja il robben!' Once more they raised their arms and touched palms. A moment later the strange ceremony was over.

Another league and their journey came to an end. Ahead the stream seemed to run straight into a sheer wall, a wall with small holes in it at regular intervals - Not holes, windows, Leith realised as they approached. Beside him to the right the stream grew noisier as it flowed more steeply downhill. The path wound downward and limestone ridges stood taller on either side, unbroken by any gap. Finally the prisoners stood on a natural rock ledge which jutted out into nothingness, as the stream beside them flowed joyfully into a black abyss, a dark, circular wound in the earth perhaps a hundred yards across. Leith felt his feet tingle with the fear of the depths below, and he tried to edge away from the brink.

'Adunlok!' one of their captors cried. 'Adunlok!'

Then their guards made them all disrobe, and the prisoners stood, thin, pale and frightened, on the ledge while their clothes were gathered up. With a contemptuous flick, one of their captors threw the pile of rags over the edge. Leith listened for a sound, but heard nothing. 'Adunlok!'

their guards cried again, grim of face, then led the captives up a narrow winding path to a doorway in the rock. One by one, the prisoners filed in, bare feet on cold white stone, and the huge stone door was rolled closed behind them.

PHEMANDERAC

LEITH AWOKE FROM A deep sleep to find himself in a dark, narrow room, not dissimilar to his bedroom back in Loulea. He imagined he could hear his brother shuffling around in the darkness. His bed was harder than he remembered it, and what was this sacking instead of his blanket?

Gradually his mind came back into focus. He recalled the weeks of walking, and his memory wandered along the Westway: through Mjolkbridge, into the Great North Woods, up the Torrelstrommen valley, into the heart of the wilderness, a slow tramp over the moors, down the Thraell, beside the Kljufa, past the Maelstrom, a pause at Bandits' Cave - his thoughts began to move more swiftly - then along the Southern Run, with snowfall and snowmelt and the passage of the rapids, through Vindstrop House and back along the Westway and the horror of facing the Bhrudwans. A pause on the sinister slopes of Steffi, an ambush, a sprint across the river into the face of fear, a triumphant grey figure and the raising of a sword .. .

and then nothing.

Nothing except a body that ached as if it had been trampled by an aurochs.

Leith sat bolt upright, casting the pungent sacking aside. The memories of the last two weeks settled on him like snowladen clouds. His capture, the forced march, the cruelty. And now a pris¬oner in the fortress of an enemy he did not know, hundreds of miles from his family. The deep weariness and hunger that had been demanding his attention since he awoke were suddenly augmented by a desperate hollowness akin to shock, paralysing in its intensity.

'So, you're awake,' said a heavily accented voice from the other end of the room. 'Good!

Perhaps you can explain some of the things you said in your sleep.'

'Who's there?' Leith said, snatching at the sacking to cover himself. He could see no one else in the room; perhaps the speaker was hidden in the shadows. Or this might be his jailer, come to make an end of him. The youth remembered his father's tale of cruelties on the island of Andratan, and his insides cringed with fear.

'A fellow prisoner,' came the reply in a deep, sonorous tone. 'They have us two to a cell. Here, have some food. This is yesterday's meal: it is no longer warm, but perhaps it will taste better cold.'

Leith heard someone coming towards him and gradually, out of the darkness, he could make out the tall form of a young man offering him a plate.

The man looked at it for a moment. 'Perhaps not,' he said.

Leith stretched out his hand and took the plate. The food was a fearsome gruel, foul and unappetising, but in his hunger he swal¬lowed it quickly.

The man sat down on the end of Leith's slatted bed. Maybe twenty-five, thirty years of age, Leith thought, slender, almost gaunt-looking, with hollow cheeks, a bulbous nose and a high fore¬head framed by lank dark hair. Not handsome at all.

'I've waited more than a day for you to wake up.'

'A whole day!' Leith exclaimed. 'I slept for a whole day?'

'You obviously needed it. Though I'd be surprised if the rest has done you any good, with all the struggling, the talking and the shouting in your sleep. What were your dreams about?

What do you know about the Bhrudwans?'

'You still haven't told me who you are,' Leith countered warily.

'My name is Phemanderac, though names don't matter much in here,' the tall young man said.

'Like you, I'm a captive of the Widuz.'

'The Widuz?' Leith echoed. What did Kurr say about them? And why would they want me as a prisoner? 'Where are we?'

'This place is called Adunlok, high keep of the Widuz. We are a hundred leagues north of Tolmen.'

Leith shrugged his shoulders. The names meant nothing to him; he should have paid more attention to Kurr's maps. Not that the knowledge would do him much good now.

'I guessed you were not from this region,' Phemanderac said. 'What is your name, and where do you come from? I've not heard an accent like yours on my travels.'

'My name is Leith Mahnumsen, and I live ...' He fumbled to a stop. Be careful, I know nothing about this man. But he knew his thoughts for foolishness. The man was a fellow prisoner, not a threat. 'I live a long way away,' he finished lamely.

'As do I,' the thin man replied, sighing. 'As do I. It seems we have two things in common, you and I. We both come from far away, and we've both ended up here, held captive in this prison.'

'How were you captured?' Leith asked.

'Foolishness, utter foolishness. You'd think that after two years travelling I would have known better. But no. The elders warned me of the dangers. I asked villagers down on the Treikan plains whether it was safe to cross the mountains, and they said the land was uninhabited.

After I'd played for them, too! I guess they don't like strangers, or at least harpists. So, none the wiser, I followed a game trail into the mountains, and fairly soon I became the game, hunted by the Widuz. A dozen of them with swords took me prisoner and brought me here.'

'Travelling? Why are you travelling?'

'How else can a young man learn?'

'How else can a young man die!' Leith shot back. 'I would have stayed home if I'd been given the choice. Why would someone take their life into their hands when they could be safe at home?'

'Were you safe at home?' Phemanderac stared at him intently.

'Of course! Loulea is a place of peace ...' His voice tailed off as the image of grey-cloaked warriors wrestling with his family in the darkness of his own house came crashing into his mind. 'Maybe not,' he finished lamely.

'I feel something,' Leith's thin-faced companion pronounced unexpectedly, still staring.

'Something about you, Leith. There's a bond - we have something in common. I don't know what it is. It'll come to me.' He shrugged his bony shoulders.

Feel something? What? Am I trapped here with a madman? Leith's mind raced feverishly, and he stood up slowly to try the stone door.

'Tried it. Many times. Always locked.' Phemanderac smiled. 'You'll try it anyway.'

Leith knew it would be locked, but he had to check. . . the irrational hope that perhaps the guards had forgotten to secure the door, the lure of freedom . .. the door was locked. He stumbled, and a great weight of fatigue settled on him like a dark mantle.

'What do we do now?' he asked faintly.

'In your case, get some rest. Sleep.' Abruptly the thin man's voice seemed to be coming from far away. 'Sleep. You're no use to anyone until you've rested. Then we'll see ...'

The Warden of Withwestwa Wood did not need to harry his men to pursue the Widuz. In fact, Axehaft had found it was all he could do to restrain them from marching night and day, without sleep or food, so desperate were they to engage their quarry. Prudently, the Warden had held his men back, partly to preserve their strength, and partly because too many of them sought revenge for the deaths of friends and loved ones - and a man driven by revenge is a man not in control of his judgement, he reminded himself. A man vulnerable to ambush.

Axehaft did not want any of his men killed unnecessarily.

The Widuz are driving their captives at a furious pace, he had reflected as early as the third afternoon. From all the signs, they were no closer to their quarry than when they left Fodhram terri¬tory two nights earlier. What cruelty were they using? he wondered. My men are resting but seldom, and I hear murmurings of discontent among them already. They expected to have overtaken their enemy by this time. Little do they know the Widuz'- Axehaft knew the Widuz.

He had been just a lad when the last Widuz raids had decimated Fernthicket, the place of his birth. He shook his head. I do not want my warriors to learn about the Widuz in the same fashion 1 did.

Axehaft sought out Mahnum, and found him pleasant and informative. He inquired how Mahnum had gained knowledge of Widuz, and learned that the Firanese man had indeed been a Trader, one who made his living by finding markets for goods and then risking money, and often his life, getting the goods to the market - all as a cover for an even more dangerous game, spying for his king. But Widuz? Surely they did not trade with the Falthan world? No, Mahnum laughed; he had posed as a Widuz from the north and had done profitable business in Tolmen, a coastal city many hundreds of miles to the south. In the course of his jour¬neys, Mahnum said, he had learned much of interest about this fierce race, and had grown to appreciate their ways.

Axehaft had been taken aback by this, but remembered that Mahnum had not suffered at their hands. So he listened politely as he was told about their habits and customs, about their sophis¬ticated society and beliefs. 'They were not ignorant savages,' Mahnum had assured him dispassionately, as though his own child was not in their cruel hands. 'They know about conditions in the outside world, but they are fiercely proud and do not forget grudges, and so will not readily entertain outsiders, even in the more liberal areas south of the Sagon River. In the north super¬stition still rules people's lives, and it may be that the hunting party has come north to take captives in appeasement to some local deity.'

As much as he did not want to admit it, the Warden gradu¬ally came to the conclusion that Mahnum was right; the Widuz raiding party had taken prisoners for sacrifice. It was the possi¬bility he feared more than any other. The Fodhram knew what happened to prisoners taken in such circumstances. Should they not overtake the hunting party, their captives would undoubtedly be killed. But what had brought the fearsome Widuz north?

Perhaps it had been the great snowstorm, the storm that had trapped the Company on the Southern Run and forced them to shoot the Mossbank Cadence. It was a similar storm that had trig¬gered the raid on Fernthicket all those years ago. He sighed and shook his head, trying to clear it of unwanted memories. Perhaps it is time to give my warriors their heads.