Across the Face of the World (56 page)

Four days now and still no sighting of them.

So he had quickened the pace and shortened the period of rest, but still they seemed to gain no ground. 'Have these men grown wings and flown away with our people?' his men asked.

Some, unskilled in tracking, voiced concerns that perhaps the Widuz had disposed of their prisoners and thereby increased their speed, but Axehaft assured them that the signs still spoke of a large group of bound captives - perhaps as many as thirty - being force-marched against their will. And late in the afternoon of the seventh day since the Westway even the most doubtful of the Fodhram received sad proof of the ruthlessness of the Widuz.

'This is my brother's son,' said a man mournfully as they gath¬ered around the body of a boy lying against a tree. It had taken some time to drive the carrion-eaters away, to find that the boy had probably died that very day; in spite of the attentions of the foul birds of prey, he was relatively unmarked. 'He obviously couldn't keep up,' the man concluded bitterly. 'Why? Why would they do this? We leave them alone, and do not interfere when they hunt close to our lands. Why should they treat the defence¬less this way?' None of the party supplied the man with an answer.

'At least this means we are not far behind!' said another.

'Aye,' agreed a third. 'We will catch them soon.'

'We must,' their Warden agreed, wiping his eyes. 'Come now, my friends. Put forth all your strength. We must overtake the Widuz before they reach their forest hold.'

So they had raced on into the darkening forest, stopping to sleep only when no light remained to aid them. For the next week they rose before the sun, walking through the day until they could barely see the path before them, yet made no ground on their quarry. And in their heartache and frustration, none of them realised that the reason they could not catch the Widuz was that their foe knew the path well enough to travel at night.

'M'Bilou!'

Leith woke suddenly from a deep sleep as the echoing sound subsided.

'M'Bilou!' came the cry again, from somewhere on the outside of the small barred window.

'M'Bilou! Ou Bregou!'

'What is that?' Leith asked. 'What is happening?' He got up, wrapped the sacking modestly around his nakedness, and went over to the window.

Phemanderac looked up momentarily from his bed at the other end of the cell. 'I've seen it too many times before,' he said simply, and rolled over again.

'M'Bilou!'

Leith pressed his face to the bars and looked down. For a moment he blinked against the sun's harsh light, but then the scene came into focus. Down below was the huge hole he had seen when he had first arrived. It seemed that the window from which he looked was set in the side of the cliff that fell away into the abyss. The solid rock ended in blackness signalling unguessable depths.

'M'Bilou!'

The cry had come from somewhere below and to the right, and Leith craned forward, fighting against his fear of heights. There on the right was the platform from which his clothes had been thrown - and, carved into the cliff on either side of this platform, was a narrow path in fashion like the Roofed Road in the Lower Clough of the Kljufa River. On this path people stood, facing inwards towards the blackness. They were naked.

'M'Bilou! Ou Bregou!'

Leith could not see the person making the noise, as it came from below him, out of his line of sight. Then, to his right, where the path came into view, he saw movement: it was one of the Fodhram captives, a young man about Leith's own age, his hands tied behind his back. His eyes were closed and his face wore a blank expression. Behind him stood a figure wearing a red mask and a grey cloak. The figure raised its arms and the cloak's long sleeves fell to the elbows.

'M'Bilou!' it shouted. Then the arms came down and pushed the Fodhram forward, off the path and into the abyss. The young man made no effort to avoid the fall. For a moment Leith saw the body, spinning end over end as it fell, then the black throat swallowed it.

Leith blinked, unable to believe what he had just witnessed.

The figure moved behind the next captive, a girl who had been three places in front of Leith on their long journey south. She had cried when her brother had been discarded on the march to this awful place. Leith could now see that two guards accompanied the masked figure, who raised his bare arms to the sky. Leith pulled away from the window. . 'M'Bilou.''

The youth from Firanes sat on his bed in numb disbelief. He began to shake uncontrollably.

'They drug them first, you know,' Phemanderac said quietly.

For a long time Leith could not speak. Every shout from outside caused him to shudder.

Finally he said: 'Why are they doing this?'

'This is Helig Holth, the Holy Mouth,' Phemanderac said by way of reply. 'The Widuz believe this is the mouth of Mother Earth, their most powerful god. They are feeding their god because they think she is hungry.'

'Don't you care?' snapped Leith, enraged by Phemanderac's seemingly phlegmatic attitude to the horror outside their window.

'Of course I care. But there is nothing I can do from in here. Mother Earth is not the only hungry god in the world. I have seen many evil things on my travels. Have you been to Bhrudwo?'

Leith shook his head in reply.

From behind the door of their cell came the sound of booted feet on solid stone. Someone was coming! Fear snapped tight like an iron band around Leith's chest. The footsteps stopped outside the door. He was paralysed with panic. Perhaps this is why the Fodhram did not resist, he found himself thinking.

The door opened, and two plates of food and a jug were thrust into the cell. Then the door slammed shut and the footsteps moved away. Neither prisoner moved.

'They seem to have forgotten about me,' Phemanderac said eventually, 'yet they keep feeding me. Perhaps you should consider yourself lucky to be my cellmate.'

But Leith did not answer. He could hear nothing but the recur¬ring cries: 'M'Bilou!' Long after they stopped echoing around Helig Holth, they continued to echo through his frightened mind, reviving fears long forgotten.

He remembered the time he had climbed the thousand-year pine the week after the big storm.

The top fifty feet were so fright¬ening, with the damaged tree shaking at his every movement, but he had kept going. And what about the time when, as an eight-year-old, he had been separated from his parents on the western side of Bream Hill, and had wandered to the very edge of the sea cliffs? Leith could still remember how scared he had felt when he leaned on an old railing and it had given way. Only a desperate clutching at the railing had saved him from plummeting into the sea, so very far below. His father had found him a hundred yards from the cliff, sobbing with fear.

But it's not only the fear of dying, of the pain, of the terror, Leith thought. I don't want to come to an end. I want to continue forever! 1 want to achieve something worthwhile, win some renown, prove my worth to those who have mocked me! I want to be with my family -

with Hal, with my mother, with my father whose face 1 still can't remember - his hand flashed to his breast pocket, where he had kept the birch bark carving. But it had gone, his father had it now ... no, they had found it again, up on Breidhan Moor .. . yes, it was gone, along with his clothes, into the black mouth outside his cell window. His father had gone, fallen, pushed by a man in an evil mask, a man who would be coming for him. .. His mind spiralled down into fears too deep even for thought, and he drew his knees up to his chest and began to cry.

* * *

The Fodhram war party had finally come out of the dismal forest and into the welcome sunlight. They pressed on to the very top of the highest hill and scanned the horizon in all directions, but could see no sign of their quarry. While the trail had been easy to follow in the detritus of the forest path, even the most experi¬enced tracker could find no sign of Widuz passage in the short -bladed grass that covered the crown of this ominous hill.

There had been signs that as long ago as the previous week the Fodhram party had been close behind their quarry, perhaps as close as a few hours if the scouts had it right. But somewhere in the oppressive forest darkness they had taken a wrong turn. The trail had grown cold.

Anger had faded into an energy-sapping despair as the days dragged on.

Now what? thought the Warden as he shielded his eyes from the westering sun. They are nowhere to be seen: we may have to do circuits in the forest to pick up the trail again. We were so close, he thought bitterly.

'Warden, someone has set a fire ahead of us. Do you see it?' the man beside him asked, pointing into the setting sun.

'No, you have better eyes than me. What do you see?'

'Down in the forest, perhaps three leagues away, I see a thin column of smoke.'

At that moment one of his men came running up to the hilltop. 'I have found the path at the forest edge,' he said breathlessly, 'and a group has passed over it recently.'

'Point to it,' the weary Warden said. The man pointed in much the same direction as had the man who saw the smoke.

'Time for revenge!' cried someone behind him. Axehaft did not turn to see who had made the comment; he knew that the man spoke for many in the group. Whatever gives you strength, he thought.

But what have we come to? he asked himself as they scrambled down the hill. I have heard no laughter since we left Withwestwa Wood, and a Fodhram without laughter is like a riverbed without water or a tree without leaves. Has the cruelty of the Widuz dried us up? Are we withered like them, seeking to heal ourselves by hurting others?

He tried to dismiss these thoughts, but they grew within him, a deep disquiet forming in his mind. He was not ready to fight. But, ready or not, a fight lay just a few hours ahead.

'I have it now,' Phemanderac told Leith triumphantly.

'Have what?' Leith asked in reply. 'What do you have?' Already he was becoming used to the thin man's way of conversing.

'I thought about it while you were asleep. It's just struck me.'

'What has?' Patience was not normally one of Leith's virtues, and tiredness had undermined the little patience he possessed.

'Where did you say you were from?'

'I didn't, did I? I don't think I told you.'

'I'm sure you did. Never mind; where do you come from?'

'Far to the west of here,' Leith replied carelessly, and at once he realised that his words had inflamed his cellmate's interest.

'Far to the west?' The thin man rolled the words around on his tongue, as if savouring their meaning, then he snapped his fingers with an extraordinarily loud crack. 'I knew it, I knew it.

Yes, I am sure of it now. I know what it is you and I have in common. You can help me with my quest, I can feel it.' Phemanderac smiled. 'What kingdom do you live in?'

'In a country called Firanes.'

The thin man's smile broadened even further, if that were possible, and he nodded vigorously.

His throat worked as he said: 'Firanes? The Cape of Fire?' His eyes were bright orbs, his face febrile with excitement, as if he had been struck with madness.

Leith nodded uneasily. 'That's what Firanes means.'

'Then listen to this:

'Darkness spreads from coast to coast, Blown by Bhrudwo's basest boast. Falthans fall on bended knee And heaven hears their heartfelt plea.

'Hand stretched out against the dark, He gave to them the Jugom Ark. Bhrudwo scourged by iron rod Wielded by the Hand of God.

'Hand of God is now concealed, Soon to stand in strength revealed. The final fate, our hopes aspire To lowly vale on Cape of Fire.

'It is a small part of the Arminia Skreud, a saying of one of my countrymen. What do you make of it?'

'Say that last line again,' Leith prompted. His head felt giddy, possibly from the hunger and tiredness.

'"To lowly vale on Cape of Fire",' Phemanderac repeated duti¬fully.

'What does it all mean?' Leith wanted to know.

'It is a foretelling, a prophecy if you like. It tells how Bhrudwo will launch an attack against Faltha, and how the Hand of God will come to the aid of all Falthans.'

'Why do you tell me this saying? What does the Hand of God have to do with Firanes?'

'I was hoping you might be able to tell me!' said Phemanderac, leaning forward. 'Meeting someone from Firanes cannot be a coinci¬dence.'

'Why not? I had to be from somewhere.'

'Not when I have travelled across the world, the first from my country to do so, in search of the Cape of Fire and the lowly vale. We believe the time for the fulfilment of the Arminia Skreud is at hand, and I have come to search for the Hand of God.'

Leith could contain himself no longer.

'Would it help if I told you my home village is named Loulea?'

Leith watched as realisation bloomed on Phemanderac's face. 'That's what I thought you said earlier on!' He nodded his head in satisfaction. 'The old fool Pyrinius was right! He's argued for years that "lowly vale" might be a proper name. You see,' he said to Leith, who didn't see,

'it makes sense if there is a place called Lowly. The Most High has not let me down yet!'

'You mean that you have come from the other side of the world to find Loulea?'

Phemanderac nodded.

'Why? There's nothing special in Loulea!'

'Nothing special? Listen to the saying: The Hand of God is now concealed- If the saying is true, that's exactly what I would expect you to say.'

'Wait a moment!' said Leith sceptically. 'Doesn't the saying go on to say something about

"soon to be revealed"? If there had been something special in Loulea, that would have proved your argu¬ment as well. You couldn't lose!'

Phemanderac laughed. 'Spoken like a true philosopher!' he said. 'Now, tell me, how did your village acquire such a humble name? Why would villagers live in a town called Lowly?'

Now it was Leith's turn to laugh, his predicament all but forgotten in the enthusiasm shown by his companion. 'I'd never thought of it that way!' he exclaimed. 'Actually, the town's name comes from the wide valley it is set in, a sort of low lea, if you know what I mean. Nothing to do with humility at all. Indeed, we're quite proud of our village. Since Astora fell into the sea, Loulea is the last town on the Westway, and some say Falthwaite End, just out of the village, was the furthest north and west the First Men ever ventured.'