They made good time with the travois. Cahan wondered about the trion who pulled him along. So much odd about them; that they did not know about floatvine was something he would have thought impossible for any but the most privileged of Crua society. It was something the youngest child knew from the moment they could walk, floatvine and bladderweed were toys every child played with. Most could balance a weight with floatvine by sight before they were old enough to work in the fields or tend crownheads. It grew everywhere, not just in the forest, but its seeds clung to buildings and it grew so quickly it must be cleared lest it overrun them.
Stranger than that was the trion’s lack of fear of Harnwood. They were wary, aye. Had spoken about not wanting to cross into it. But they seemed oblivious to the real dangers of it. They had been scared of Segur only because they felt something followed them. Most people were wary about entering even the relatively harmless Woodedge, but Venn grunted and pulled and barged their way through Harnwood without even looking about them. On occasion Cahan gave directions, to the right or left, so they strayed away from bushes he knew had vicious or poisonous vines. Or he told them to stop and wait when he saw the shadows of larger creatures moving through the canopy, wild maws, and on one occasion the streamlined shape of a spearmaw hunting them.
The people of Crua only wished to use the forest for themselves and that meant they were not welcome and on some level they knew it. They lived on the edges and looked over their shoulders at it, sure that the ancient and powerful Woodhewn Nobles, the boughry, that lived within it were waiting for them, to devour them. Cahan doubted they had the power. The old gods had been dying for a long time, and in many ways the followers of Tarl-an-Gig were only finishing what the followers of Chyi had started.
But if it was not the boughry that frightened them then it would be swarden, or orits, or Forestals, or rootlings, or skinfetch or one of so many possible horrors. In the minds of most the forest creatures were mixed up with Osere, the dark creatures that had once been the masters of the people before Iftal sacrificed itself.
But Venn pushed their way through the thick growth of Harnwood as if they were part of it, not afraid at all. And though Cahan would have loved to believe this was true he was sure it was simply ignorance, that they did not know enough to be afraid.
The cries of the forest quietened and the low buzz of the marant came again. It passed over, once more bringing that unpleasant queasy feeling. Venn slowed, staring into the air, trying to see through the thick canopy.
“Do not stop or worry,” said Cahan, “as long as you can hear it they are not coming. And the canopy is too thick for them to see us.” Venn turned, looking over their shoulder at him, so young, skin smooth and unmarked beneath the shining wood of their helmet and scant make-up. “They may well give up, Venn, few wish to come into the forest.” The trion’s eyes were wide.
“They will come,” they said, and they sounded both sure and resigned, “they will never rest until they have taken me back.”
He wanted to tell them not to worry, that it was him they looked for. He had shown what he was in the wood, and if that woman lived she would have told them. He did not, his life had been spent running from his past. If the trion did not want to question him then all the better.
“Float on,” Cahan said, “we must make the best time we can.” He wondered what made them think they were important enough to send a whole squad of soldiers after them. Though, truthfully, all Rai thought they were important.
The buzzing of the marant stopped.
“It is down,” said Venn, and they leaned into the harness, pushing on harder through the brush, filled with a sudden and painful desperation.
“Wait,” said Cahan. “Too much noise, it makes us easy to follow.”
“This place is nothing but noise,” said Venn, still pushing on at speed. “It never ceases to make noise. It hurts my ears, it buzzes in my veins. I can feel the trees growing.” They pushed on harder, as if they could escape from the sound and life of the wood.
“Venn,” Cahan turned on the travois and reached out, “stop.” He grabbed their shoulder. “What you describe is the cowl, you feel all that through the cowl. As do I. And if we are chased by Rai who are strong enough to feel the forest, then we create a disturbance by pushing through so quickly. We must go slow, we must go careful.” Venn stumbled to a stop, breathing hard in the cold air, clouds around their mouth.
“My cowl is as good as dead within me.”
“I do not think so,” said the forester.
“Well, I do not want it,” said the trion. Then they pulled off the harness, getting stuck in it and cursing the Osere below as they struggled out. “Why even run if they can find us?” Panic in the trion’s eyes. “Why even run?” They said again as they escaped the harness and slumped into the leaf litter. Cahan slipped from the travois with a grunt. Without his weight it started to rise and he grabbed it. His staff ran down one side as a support and he pulled it loose, letting the rest of the travois collapse into a mass of dying vine and vegetation which he let go. They must travel on foot now and he would need the staff. Tears ran down the trion’s face. “I do not want this thing in me,” they said, pulling at the wooden armour that covered their forearm. As it moved Cahan saw the arm below, scarred by a blade. They stared at their arm then turned to him, looking hopeful. “What did you do to that woman?” Their eyes searched Cahan’s face for some sign of the hope they lacked.
“I destroyed her cowl,” he said. They stared at him, then grabbed his arm.
“Do it to me. Free me. They will not want me then.” Cahan took their hand from his arm; the hope the trion had, it was something almost physical, a force. Cahan felt it rise and then he felt it die.
“You do not know what you ask,” he said. The trion looked him up and down. “The cowl is part of you. You can deny it, and you can bury it,” he said. “But to remove it completely is to remove something of you. That woman, she will die, they always do.”
“But you can do it,” they said.
“I will not.”
“Then you are like everyone else,” the trion’s voice thick with scorn, “you see me as some experiment to play with and…” Cahan grabbed their arm, his hand, far larger and rougher than theirs, closing around the smooth wood of their armour.
“I know nothing about you,” he hissed, “nothing.” Behind him he heard Segur let out a low growl. He pulled the trion close. “All I know is that you let a woman live who you should have killed, and now I am hunted through the forest because of it. If you wish even a chance of escape you will do as I tell you and stop complaining.”
“They do not care about you,” they said, “they come for me.”
“Why would you think that?” As Cahan spoke he was thinking that maybe they were right. Would the woman have had time to get to Harn-Larger? Especially hurt as she would be without her cowl. He did not think so. But if they had expected the trion to return, and they really were important. Maybe a search party so soon made more sense. Even then, it was strangely quick. “Who are you, Venn, to think yourself so important?” The trion stared at them. Looked away, into the forest then back again.
“I am the first trion in a generation to take on the cowl,” they said. “And I am the child of Kirven Ban-Ruhn, High Leoric of all Harn.” Cahan realised he was not breathing. The trion was right. They were coming for them. Not him. They may not even know he was here. He could slip away, leave the trion and escape.
“Are you going to leave me?” They sounded desolate. Lost. Cahan knew he should. He was hurt, weak, in no state to protect either of them. But he still had the memory of that toy crownhead, could almost feel it in his hand the way he could almost feel pain radiating from the child before him. The guilt burned.
“Listen to me, Venn,” he said quietly. “It is called a cowl for a reason. Like a thief may wear a cowl to hide, we can use ours to blend into the forest.”
“I cannot use it, I have not woken it. And I will not kill to do so.”
“Then I will do it.” Venn stared at him, wide-eyed.
“I thought you would leave me.” Cahan shook his head. Even though he knew leaving the trion was probably the most sensible option. “They will really not be able to see us?”
“No, that requires more delicacy than I have. What you saw in the forest was the first time I have used my cowl in many years.” He licked dry lips. “I had hoped never to use it again.”
“Why?” the question quick and sharp. The answer just as bladed.
“What are we? Lovers that you think to know my whole life?” The trion blushed at that. “My past is not your business, and the less you know of me the better for us both.” He took a deep breath. “The forest around us, Venn, it is life,” he said, “you must know that?” They shook their head. “You told me you felt it.”
“For my whole life the forest has only ever been a line on the horizon.” Again, Cahan wondered how they could know so little. “Everything here is new to me. I do not know what is normal.”
“Well, we are life, Venn, and if we do not act against the forest, and make the life of it too aware we are here we can blend into it.” The trion blinked. “These Rai that come with the marant, they will hunt us by feel. By the disturbance we make, if they have the strength.”
“I did not know a cowl user could do that,” said Venn.
“Most cannot. And if we are lucky those who chase us will not be skilled enough to try. Now, I need quiet, let me commune.” They sat back and he closed his eyes, let himself relax. The cowl beneath his skin shivered as, for the second time in as many days, they became closer than he had allowed in many years.
You need me.
A whisper, then another and another and they were joined by another and another and a feeling of togetherness so pure and shining that he could not believe he had fought this for so long. This needed no power, this was simply letting the world around bleed into him, rather than pushing himself into it.
I have missed this.
He forced the feeling away, compartmentalised it as he had been taught to through years of discipline. The cowl wanted closeness, it was a tool for it to use. But he was the master of it, he was the one in control. The cowl must be subservient to his will. The susurrus of its whispers died away. He took a deep breath, imposed his will and felt himself disassociate from his body. He saw the forest as if from above, but it was not green and noisy and colourful. He saw it in monochrome silence, a grey haze against a cold, white ground. Down and down towards the haze. Drifting. He let himself fall. The nearer he approached the more he saw the forest as something else, no longer a haze.
A net.
A web.
A hundred thousand interconnected lines of life. Some moved, some did not. Some were thick and old and some were thin and new. Some were wrong, in a way he had never experienced before and he avoided them. Drifting. Down and down until he found the nexii, the junctures, the meetings, the concentrations of life. In among them a gap. Him and Venn. Around them the constantly changing and twisting net of life. Aware of, and avoiding, these foreign bodies. He pulled his awareness further out to look for the Rai, they were not hard to find. Thin lines withdrawing around hazy grey circles, as if life could not bear to be near them. The blank areas noticeably larger than around Venn and him.
Eight. Spread out in a crescent. Coming their way. Hard to get a sense of distance. He could not tell if they were far away or a step away. A feeling of wrongness. Like these Rai were abhorred by the life that gave their cowls power. Was that what he had felt before? They moved forward and the life of the forest did not so much retreat as fade away, as if they drank it up as they passed. As if they were death moving.
He had never seen the like before. It worried him.
Cahan forced his consciousness away from its place above the forest and back amidst it, surrounded by his own web of thinning life. Whether cowled or not, there was something about the people that stood out as different from the other life. Not the way gasmaws and crownheads were different, unalike but still simple. The people were darker, stranger and not as connected to the ever-moving web of life of the forest. Unwelcome in this place. He let out his breath, sensing the web, calming it, cajoling it. Pulling it around himself and Venn. He imagined his body as a doll made of twigs and attached the web of life at his shoulders like a cloak, drawing it around them. Then he withdrew, taking a moment to look from higher again, seeing the Rai had paused in their pursuit before he slipped back into the world.
“It is done,” he said.
“I don’t feel any different,” said Venn.
“You will not, now, be quiet and stay close to me.” He turned fully around and began to creep forward.
“But that is where we have come from,” said Venn.
“Yes.”
“That is where the Rai are,” they said more forcefully. “We would be fools to go back that way.”
“It would seem so,” Cahan whispered. “But if you think it they are also likely to think it.” He heard the voice of the Trainer of War in the back of his mind, “do what your enemy least expects”. Winced at the thought of hard hands, cruel whip. The trion shook their head.
“They will see us.” Venn stood. “We should carry on the way we were going.” Cahan grabbed their arm, pulled them close and hissed into their ear.
“Listen to me, child, I was taken from my family when I was far younger than you, by cruel people who saw me only as a means to an end. They trained me to fight, to use my cowl. They made me study tactics for hours on end. What do you know of such things?” They opened their mouth, began to stammer some objection but he carried on. “Nothing. That is what you know.” The trion blinked at him.
“But…”
“But nothing,” hissed Cahan. “They may value you, child, and punish you when they take you back. But I wager they will take you back. Me, they will kill. And if they know what I did to the woman they will make it slow.” The trion looked shocked, as if none of this had occurred to them. “The Rai come at us in a crescent,” said Cahan, more softly, more gently, “they intend to herd us. They will push us out of the forest to somewhere we cannot hide. No doubt someone waits for us to break from Woodedge. By going towards them we confound them, we are doing what is not expected. If we do it well we may even make it to their marant and we can steal it, leave them stranded here.” Venn stared at him and he tried to smile. “Do you understand?” They turned their head away from him and he let go of them, wondering why he wasted his time with a child. “Well, I am going back towards their marant, you go where you will.” He turned − better for him if the trion went another way − then he almost stumbled on a root in his weakness. Venn was there, putting his arm over their shoulder to support him.
“Very well,” they said. The forester nodded. Leaned his weight on them and his staff.
“Stay quiet, Venn, and stay low. When I stop, you stop.” They nodded and moved forward. At first Cahan was bent over, his body complained and when his weakness threatened to overcome him he crawled. All the while he could feel the Rai getting nearer. He could not tell exactly where they were. They were a presence in the forest before him, but they filled him with apprehension.
They stopped for a moment’s rest, and Cahan looked around as he had that feeling of being watched again. Behind them in the forest were the two reborn. The visorless one staring at him. He could use them, here, now. But if he did, what then? He was beholden to them, and admitting he was something he had been running from for decades. No. He had a plan. Get back, take the marant. It was not impossible. He looked at the reborn. Then very slowly shook his head. With a single nod they vanished into the wood.
As the Rai came closer Cahan began to regret his decision. He felt something he had felt only once before, many years ago. A loathing, as if he had walked into a charnel pit where bodies were thrown to rot down to bone. The nearer these Rai came the quieter the forest became. The creatures that lived here did not want to be noticed by these Rai either.
Cahan reached out and put a hand on Venn’s arm.
“Stay.” Venn nodded. They crouched in the brush.
As if they had heard him the noises of the forest stopped. A long gargling hiss came from the brush ahead of them, the sound of something diseased. His mouth filled with a vile taste, like some infection in his tongue and teeth had spilled into his mouth. Cahan grabbed the foot of Venn, and they turned to him, face almost green with biliousness.
“They have come for me,” their face a mask, caught somewhere between terror and misery. Cahan wondered if he had a similar look. He felt these creatures, their presence squirming in his gut. Worse, he knew it now. Hetton, shock troops. He had only ever seen the Cowl-Rai’s Hetton from a distance. They were their elite soldiers, something unique to them the way the reborn had been unique to a long-ago Cowl-Rai. The Hetton were terrible, broken. He had come across them at a small town in Mantus named Vohar-Over-Rise. The place had maintained its loyalty to Chyi and the existing Cowl-Rai. Vohar’s Leoric had refused to send its young to war under the blue flag, or pay tribute to the monks of Tarl-an-Gig.
He had learned of the town from a farmer when he had asked what the smoking ruins he had passed through were. The man had pointed out the camp of the Hetton to him, gaily coloured tents in a small hollow. From it came laughter and in among the laughter came the screams of those the Hetton had kept for either punishment or their own amusement.
The nearer he went to their camp the sicker he felt.
He had left them to it and moved on.
With the palm of his hand, Cahan signalled Venn to lie flat. They would have to stay right there, in the little dell among the trees and keep their nerve while these Hetton passed. So they lay in the leaf litter while the taste of rot in Cahan’s mouth got worse and the strange gargling hissing noise moved around them. Cahan did not immediately realise what the noise was. At first he thought the Hetton travelled with some creature. But as they neared he realised it was the Hetton speaking to one another. The more he listened the more he could discern words within the hissing. Broken words, full of menace and desire. As if the appetites of the Hetton were given physical form through their language.
“Where?”
In a gargling hiss.
“Where?”
One word drawn out into something that made his mouth water as if his guts were rejecting the food in his stomach.
“Where?”
Through the thick undergrowth of ferns he saw a movement. A shadow. One of the Hetton. It moved forward, clad in armour much like that of Venn. Darkwood helmet, bracket fungus shoulder guards, the rest of the armour made from the expensive woods of cloudtrees. But where Venn’s armour was vital, still living in the way the wood of the cloudtree can when cared for, the armour of the Hetton was dull and cracked. It was like the oils and sap that gave the wood its sheen had been siphoned away. In places it looked splintered as if it had been left out in great heat; in other places it was swollen, as if it had been left to soak in water. The Hetton stepped forward, and even that was wrong, it moved strangely, giving the impression its arms and legs were not connected correctly at the joints. Venn lay by him, breathing heavily. Cahan turned to them, to find they had their head buried in the loam. The trion raised their head and looked at him.
“Why—” they began, but he clamped his hand over their mouth. Looked back at the Hetton. It had stopped moving and turned towards them. Its face strange, as twisted as any rootling’s, but lacking the softness. The skin had lost any colour it once had and was dry, flaky, the eyes all whites and its nose gone. It reminded him of nothing more than a cooked fish head. For a moment he thought it had no mouth, then it opened a slit in its face, showing a set of thin, sharp teeth. It made the noise.
“Where?”
He was sure, in that moment and without question, that it knew they were there, that it was calling to its kin. Venn looked at him, eyes wide. Cahan expected to see terror there but it was not what he saw, more acceptance, as if they had always known this would happen. The Hetton took a step towards them. Opened its slit of a mouth again.
“Where?”
Another step towards them. Cahan reached down to his side. Once, long ago there would have been a weapon there. Now he found only the warm fur of Segur. He moved his hand, finding the garaur’s head. “Where?” gargled the Hetton again.
Cahan breathed, the air coming out staggered rather than smooth and realised it was fear, pure fear, the like of which he had not felt in a long time. Even the cowl was quiet, something in it knew that they did not have the power to take on this thing, not now, no matter what he tried.
Take a breath. Think.
Segur growled again. He glanced down, the garaur’s mouth open as it panted, its eyes slits. He tapped the garaur twice on the head. With a growl Segur shot out of the thicket where they were hiding and between the feet of the Hetton. In one swift move the creature drew its sword and slammed it into the ground, missing Segur – who was quick as wind when it chose to be – by a whisker. The Hetton turned its head, following the garaur’s path into the brush. Then it clicked to itself: one, two, three, four times and turned away, moved on. Venn began to lift themselves but Cahan grabbed them, held them still, slowly shaking his head. He understood their wish to be away from the Hetton, but it was too soon to move. Never had he felt something as wrong so keenly as when the Hetton approached. Worse here than at Vohar-Over-Rise. Stronger.
He felt the need to get away from it, but he fought it. They waited, lying in the earth between the leafy plants, crawling and flying things moving against Cahan’s skin and the foul taste in his mouth slowly fading. When it was gone completely he nodded to Venn and they began their slow crawl away from the Hetton. Now, tuned into the forest through his cowl, he could feel the marant in the distance, a huge, warm and comfortingly natural thing. He wondered how it coped with something as unnatural as the Hetton upon its back.
“What were they?” whispered Venn.
“Hetton.”
“They were not people.”
“They probably were, once,” he said. “Having a cowl removed changes a person, but it can go the other way. That is what I have heard said of the Hetton. They are those who the cowl has subsumed. They become something powerful but animal. Single-minded, pitiless, loyal only to whichever thing it is they recognise as strong.”
“You are strong,” said Venn. “I saw it in the clearing. You could control them.” He shook his head.
“I have not fed my cowl in a long time, even then I did it quick. I think it is the ability to inflict pain that something like the Hetton would respect.” A shudder ran through him. “And I do not want to be of them, to share myself with such things.”
“Can you fight them?” said Venn as they began to crawl away from the Hetton.
“Maybe once I could have fought one, two at most. But I will tell you a truth,” he said to them. “I have learned that the more unnatural a creature is, the harder it is to kill.”
“You could fight them, though, if you had to?” said Venn.
“There are eight of them at least, trion,” he said. “So, no, I could not fight them.” They stared at him, some light in their eye dying away, the way the day was always destined to die. “Come,” he said, “we must make it to their marant. That is our only chance for escape.”
They crawled on through the wood, pushing their way through the undergrowth and with every movement Cahan felt his strength ebbing. Often they had to stop and let the slow seep of power from the ground give him a little help. All the while he could feel Venn’s desire to push on, how they were on the edge of panic. Above the light moved across the sky, relentless in its regularity, and the canopy began to darken. They had been crawling through the undergrowth for hours. When they paused again he let himself drop into a fugue, pushed his mind out of his aching body and let the grey web of life subsume him. It was harder this time, his mind as tired as his body, and what he found gave him no cause to rest. The eight Hetton had turned around and were coming back towards them. He dropped out of the fugue. Despair must have shown on his face.
“What?” said Venn. “What is it?”
“The Hetton have turned back, they must have realised we slipped past them somehow.” They grabbed him, delicate hand on his forearm.
“What do we do?” Fear on their face, stark.
“The marant,” he said. “We must hurry.” He took a deep breath, pushed himself up onto all fours once more. “Come,” he said, and they moved on, through the low bushes and around the soaring trees.
They heard the marant first, its breath wheezing in and out of its massive lungs, and at the point he thought his strength would give out he saw the break in the trees where it had landed. Hope, the possibility of escape, gave him the strength to push on.
It was a short-lived hope.
The marant, vast and black and gently buzzing to itself, dominated the clearing. By it stood two more Hetton, and with them were two Rai. Their armour glowing with battle signs and honour paint, showing where they had fought and advertising the acts of bravery attributed to them. The smaller of the two had crownhead horns set into the wood of their helmet.
“Galderin!” said Venn, panic gilding their voice with bright, high tones. They grabbed his arm. “What do we do now?” Cahan did not know. Even if he could somehow get the guards away from the beast, marant were slow to rise, and noisy.
But if they did not act then the rest of the Hetton would return. Cahan searched his mind, going back through their journey, through his life, what he knew of Rai, what little he knew of Hetton. Looking for something, anything, that could help.
The reborn. It was all he could do and yet he could not form the words in his mind. He wanted another way. There must be another way.
One of the Rai, the one without the horns, turned towards the forest, said something and pointed. Cahan turned to Venn, pulled them further back into the undergrowth.
“Venn…” he began but stopped. The trion was looking at him, or more looking into him, and had the strangest expression on their face. As if the life were draining from them.
“They will kill you if they catch you, when they realise what you did,” said the trion. Their voice so soft, so gentle. “Clanless, with a cowl.” They blinked as if what that meant was only now becoming clear. “They will kill you so slowly.” Cahan nodded.
“Aye, they will.”
“I said I would not kill,” they stared at him, “I meant it.” They began to stand and Cahan grabbed them. Hands either side of their helmet.
“Move and they will see you,” he said.
They reached up and took his hands away from their helmet.
“They will not kill me,” they said. “They will only take me back.”
“To what.” Cahan found himself barely able to talk. “Take you back to what?” They shrugged.
“To a room in a spire. One that I cannot leave. But I will live,” they shrugged. “You will live. I will tell them you died.”
“Venn, there is another—”
“No,” they said. “There is not.”
They turned, scurrying away into the undergrowth and left him there, feeling desolate. The feel of a child’s toy in his hand. Cahan lay between bushes. Watching. Venn appeared from the undergrowth; they had gone all the way around to the opposite side of the clearing.
“Galderin,” they shouted, staggering forward out of the bush.
The two Rai and the Hetton turned towards them. The Hetton stared, milky eyes on the trion. They let out a hiss. One of the Rai said something and they bowed their heads.
“Venn,” said the taller of the Rai, “your mother sent us, she was worried. One of the men in the cages…”
“He killed them,” said Venn.
“How?” said the other Rai. Venn shrugged.
“I was knocked out when he got loose,” said Venn. “I awoke his prisoner. He was badly hurt, dying. It was not hard to get away.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead, I think,” said Venn, and they stumbled towards the marant. “That way,” they pointed the way they had come. Away from him.
“We are glad you have returned,” said the Rai with the horns. “You should have given yourself up to the Hetton. They would have protected you.”
“They scared me,” said Venn. Cahan heard no reply. He saw the Rai nod.
“Must we bind you?” said the taller one. “I would rather not take you back to your mother in ropes. It will shame her.”
“You do not need to bind me,” they said. He did not think he had ever heard anyone sound so defeated. Neither had he ever felt so small. He did not think he would ever have done such a thing as this child did here. The horned Rai turned to her partner − Galderin? − and whistled. The Hetton around them climbed onto the marant, as did the first Rai, then Venn. He remained hiding in the undergrowth, like the coward he was. Those on the marant made themselves secure for flight and he heard Venn quietly sobbing. His mouth filled with that same filthy taste as when the Hetton had passed him in the forest, and then those that had been searching the wood returned. Cahan counted only seven back. One must have fallen foul of the forest. It would not like creatures so unnatural.
The Hetton did not seem to care that they had lost one of their own. They climbed onto the marant and the Rai with the horns leaned into the goads on its forequarters. With a squeal of pain and a deepening hum, the marant lifted into the air, leaving Cahan with only guilt for company.
Watching the marant fly away until it was only a dot in the sky before he felt safe to move.
But he was not safe. Not at all.
“Here,” the hissing voice. The sense of foulness. He turned. The last Hetton. Sword coming down. He did not even have the strength to cry out.
Darkness.