OrbSoul (Book 6) (21 page)

   He was on his belly, his misty breath warm on her cheek. Issul could not move.

   'Not even he knows what I have just told you,' Moscul confided, nodding his head away towards where Grey Venger sat. 'But don't think to try and tell him, for I can stop you before you've uttered two words.'

   Shaking, Issul eased herself back to a sitting position. Her bones were jelly; she was still too shocked to respond. She was vaguely aware of the look of delight on Moscul's face.

   '
Oh, and there is something else,' he added. 'Did you have magical protection?'

   She looked at him quizzically.

   'Something was following us,' Moscul explained. 'A small globe, almost invisible. I think it was watching us. Watching you.'

   The seeking-eye! He had spotted it. Her spirit plummeted yet further.

   'It follows us no more,' Moscul continued. 'Perhaps your allies make the mistake of believing I am little more than a child. Well, now they know it is a mistake. And they no longer know where you are, Aunt Issul.' He stood before her with his hands upon his hips. 'Now, we must be moving again. We are going to travel on through the night. With luck we can be at the Reach within two days. You don't mind travelling by grullag again, do you?'

   Issul's wrists and ankles were bound once more and she was slung across the broad, hirsute back of another massive grullag. With the dusk beginning to settle upon the forest, and the falling snow becoming slowly
more dense underfoot, they set off along a trackless way into the northeast.

   Trussed and helpless, it was one of the worst journeys of Issul's life. The grullags maintained a steady, loping pace. Grey Venger and Moscul rode respectively on a horse and pony at times; at others they dismounted and jogged beside their mounts to get the blood flowing in their veins and ward off the intense cold. For Issul there was no such relief. The night grew colder and colder, she was jolted ceaselessly on the grullag's back, and though the foul-smelling creature's flesh warmed her
front where her body made contact with it, her back was chilled through and through and her limbs grew brittle and numb with the cold.

   And in her mind Moscul's words continued to spin, illuminating so brutally the false path which had beguiled them all.

   At one point, deep in the night, there was a disturbance of some kind. Ahead, somewhere in the dark, Issul heard shouts and the growls and snarls of grullags, the shrill neighing of horses. Barely conscious, she strained to raise her head and peer over the shoulder of the grullag, but could see nothing. The party did not modify its pace, though it altered course, veering sharply to the north. She saw several grullags peel off from the main group and head in the direction of the disturbance. The sounds faded behind her, and the faint flicker of hope that they had ignited in her breast faded also.

   They maintained their northerly course for another hour or so,
then shifted towards a more easterly heading again. Issul lapsed in and out of consciousness as the grullag lurched on through the endless dark. She could no longer feel her fingers and toes. She opened her eyes to see the snow-illumined ground hurtling sickeningly beneath her and feel her body tossed ceaselessly, here, there . . . She closed them forcefully again, unable to bear any more, only to re-enter the nightmare of her own darkness.

   At last the grullags stopped. The snow no longer fell. It lay about an inch deep, blown into small drifts here and there under the trees. They were on an area of high, craggy ground strewn with pines and dramatic formations of rock. The sky showed the faintest grey wash low in the eastern sky.

   Issul was laid upon the ground beneath a rock overhang, where she remained motionless. She had no idea of where they were. She grew aware that her wrists and ankles were being untied. A short time later Moscul appeared beside her, holding a wooden bowl filled with thin soup of some kind.

   'You must drink it, Aunt Issul. It is hot and will give you strength.'

  
Strength for what?

   She was so weak as to be almost beyond caring, and could not find the effort to speak. Her body ached and throbbed, every muscle, every cell, seeming to rebel, but she summoned the strength to sit up. She took the
bowl from Moscul, supporting it with the heels of her hands, for her fingers were unable to grip. She took small sips. The soup tasted of very little - there were tatters of meat floating in a greasy liquid - but it was hot and she took it gratefully, shivering as it began to warm her innards.

   'You should come to the fire,' said Moscul.

   A fire had been kindled beneath another overhang a few yards away. Grey Venger sat hunched in its light, tending a large pot of soup. A few grullags prowled nearby, but they avoided the fire, seeming generally impervious to the cold.

   When her bowl was empty Issul tried to stand, but her legs were too cold to support her. She crawled to the fireside on knees and elbows. Grey Venger eyed her with customary hatred, but Moscul re-filled her bowl and placed it beside her.

   Gradually, as she drank the soup, and the heat of the flames penetrated through to her bones, Issul felt some small measure of strength returning. She flexed and worked her fingers and toes, encouraging the blood to flow there once more. The warmth lulled her. Now she wanted only to sleep.

   'You should exercise a little,' said Moscul. 'We will be moving again soon. We can’t rest long.'

   Both he and Grey Venger were haggard and plainly very tired, but his desire to waste no time was undiminished. Through her tiredness and pain Issul acknowledged the wisdom of his advice. She forced herself to her feet - laboriously, for her body still felt that it was not entirely hers; she ached all over, and her muscles were bruised and strained. She began tentatively to hobble around the fire, swinging her arms stiffly, rotating her shoulder joints, kicking and shaking out the tension in her legs. She was aware of both Grey Venger's and Moscul's eyes upon her, but refused to grant them the satisfaction of meeting their gaze.

   Slowly the life eased back into her. But, she asked herself again, for what? Soon she would be bound and thrown once more like baggage across a grullag's shoulder, to be transported through the endless frozen forest as before. Any good work she might do now would be undone in moments. She could not bear the thought of even another hour of such travel. She was on the verge of weeping. All was lost.
The loss of all hope. She wanted to die.

   From the depths of her cold and despair she grew aware of something, a memory stirring, a voice telling her,
'when it seems that the entire world and the gods themselves are against you, when all you see is darkness and all you feel is pain and confusion, then you must reach within. Deeply and trustingly, for there you will find a light; it only waits to be found.'

   She remembered.

   Fragments.

   Orbelon:
'Seek your inner light. Once found it will never be extinguished. It will illuminate your way, no matter the darkness; it will be your guide . . . Sometimes to find it your need must overcome all else. You must know that it is the one thing you seek, and you will be tested. Your sincerity and intent will be put to the trial. But if you are truly determined, you will never look back again . . . So look, look again for that light which only waits to be found. Never give up!'

   But the words came from another time, another existence. Orbelon was not here now to bolster her. Triune's seeking-eye no longer watched over her. Leth, the children, Shenwolf, Orbelon . . . they did not know where she was. She was alone.

   Her eyes stung with tears she refused to let flow.
There is no light.

   Orbelon's voice again:
'when all you see is darkness and all you feel is pain and confusion, then you must reach within.'

   She shook her head.
There is no light.

  
'Reach within. Deeply and trustingly. It only waits to be found.'

   There is nothing to be found. I am alone.

   'You found it before. It waits there still.'

   There is no light. I am alone!

  
'It is always there, but you can choose not to seek it. You can choose to abandon it.'

   Issul sank to
her knees on the hard ground.
I cannot go on!

  
'Don't give up! Issul! Never give up!'

   She raised her head. Orbelon's voice was angry now, lashing her.
'Child, have I misjudged you?'

   She was jolted by the memory of the occasions when he had rebuked her before.
Twice. At Orbia, when she doubted herself, fearing even to try to travel with him to Enchantment, fearing the unknown and seeing only insurmountable obstacles before her. And later in the forest, when she had fled the first grullag attack, when she had believed herself betrayed by Shenwolf. . . On both occasions Issul had lost all belief in herself. She had believed herself beaten, incapable of going on. But somehow, with Orbelon pushing and chiding her, making her see that at that moment her greatest enemy was herself, she had found the strength to carry on.

  
But Orbelon, you are not here now.

  'Child, I am here, always. I am within you, as you are within me, as our worlds are held and balanced, one within the other. And I need you.'

   Issul let out a long breath.

  
'Do not abandon me, Issul.'

*

   She stood. A ghostly dawn light had begun to filter through the trees, revealing gloomy crags and forest in ragged outline. Issul arched her spine; her body was still a mass of separate pains. Again she was drenched with despair at the thought of being forced to travel on. She looked around her, considering the possibility of making a break for it, and abandoning it in almost the same instant. A pair of grullags
squatted a few paces away, picking ticks from each other's fur. Others rested a little further off. And she was in too much pain to run.

   'You wouldn't get twenty yards, Aunt Issul,' said Moscul, grinning. He rose from the fireside, as did Grey Venger, and approached her, cord in his hands.
'Time to move on.'

   Issul turned, fighting back furious tears, and put her hands behind her.

ii

   The trail was narrow and the snow had made it treacherous in places. They descended from the crag in single file, though some grullags, nimble and sure-footed for their size, paced them on the steep, uneven ground to either side. Grey Venger and Moscul led their mounts. A layer of ground fog lingered in the dimness beneath the trees as the dawn light grew more certain.

   A little way beyond the base of the slope the track led into a dry gulch flanked on either side by bluffs rising to seventy feet and more. Soon, after winding their way into this, Issul heard, from somewhere ahead of her position, a loud, enraged bellow. The grullag carrying her jerked and went into a semi-crouch. There was another bellow from closer by, then more, coming from behind. Suddenly all was pandemonium.

   Issul heard Moscul's voice, raised and shrill, screaming at the grullags in a bestial tongue. She could not make out what was happening. Something thudded very close to her. Her grullag gave a roar and swung suddenly about. Its erratic motion dizzied her, forcing her to close her eyes as she felt she was going to be torn, spinning, from its grip.

   Now there were hissing sounds, something cutting the air, and the blood-curdling roars and shrieks of the grullags. Issul's grullag lurched wildly. Opening her eyes for a moment she looked down and glimpsed a blue-fletched arrow sticking from the ground nearby.

  
Blue-fletched!

   She hardly dared
believe.

   Now she heard the sound of men's voices raised in the hubbub of grullag roars - several men, not only Grey Venger. The grullag that held her was leaping for the cover of the nearby bluff. There was a yell from close by. She forced her head up, and saw a swordsman running at the grullag, followed by another. The grullag, forced to defend itself, released its hold on her and she fell
heavily to the frozen ground. Jarred, she rolled over, unable to do more, and lifted her head. Three swordsmen had set about the grullag. They wore light mail shirts and steel helmets; their tabards bore the colours and arms of Orbia.

   The surge of hope that she had hardly dared acknowledge when she spied the blue-fletched arrow leapt again in her. Troops of Orbia were everywhere. Some stood or knelt upon rocks to either side, pouring arrow after arrow into the grullags. Others, closer to her, wielded swords and were fighting to form a protective cordon around her.
Yet more pounded down on horseback from the rear, putting themselves amongst the enemy with mace, and sword.

   Someone knelt beside her. She felt a knife-blade sawing at the bonds that held her wrists. 'Keep your head down, Highness!'

   Her wrists freed she spun around on the ground. The soldier, an officer, cut free her ankles.