Dark gray clouds loomed over the valley to the west of the road, clouds so dark that the early afternoon felt more like twilight. The road, while not paved, was of a firm clay and just wide enough for two wagons to pass side by side. The valley itself was split by a narrow river. To the east of the river, below the road, was an ancient-looking conifer forest, although the trees displayed a coloration that held as much black and purple as green.
Beyond the river to the west were small ponds fringed with yellowish reeds and linked by patches of sickly greens and orangish-browns. From amid the browns protruded leafless pole-like trees. Secca could see not a single dwelling in the entire valley, which stretched a good fifteen deks from northeast to southwest, and more than ten in breadth.
A light mist drifted across the riders heading along the ridge road to the southwest. Secca and Alcaren rode near the front of the column, behind a small vanguard of four lancers, and in front of Richina and Palian. With the mist came a sickly bitter odor from the valley, not quite like burned meat, nor like swamps, nor like rotten fruit, but reminding Secca of all three.
“Not a pleasant place,” she said quietly.
“No,” Alcaren admitted. “These are the Great Dismal Swamps of the north. They say that once the entire valley was like the western side.”
“What caused them?” Richina’s voice drifted up from behind Secca and Alcaren.
“The Spell-Fire Wars,” Alcaren replied. “There are many valleys like this throughout Ranuak.”
“From sorcery?” Richina’s voice carried a tone of disbelief.
“From sorcery,” Alcaren affirmed. “You have seen a battlefield blasted black by Lady Secca, have you not? Do you think she or the Lady Anna were the first to harness such power?” He glanced at Secca.
“We have blackened the land in a few places,” Secca admitted. “But nothing I have done would turn a valley into something like this—even after scores of generations. Nor did Lady Anna create any destruction such as this.”
“I would hope not, lady.” Alcaren’s voice was calm. “Yet this was the price for the freedom of both Wei and Ranuak from the Mynyan lords. These valleys once held hamlets and towns, and the sorcery of the Mynyans turned them into spell-blasted holes that filled with water and became poisoned bogs and swamps. The Sand Hills are where the ancient Matriarchs turned the once-fertile borderlands of Mynya into desert heaped with sand. When the spring storms shift the dunes, folk still find hamlets where lie the bodies of those poor folk buried under the sand in those long-ago days.”
“Are you sure that the dunes date back that far?” asked Richina. “I thought the Evult used sorcery to move the Sand Hills to block the Sand Pass.”
“He moved the Sand Hills.” Alcaren turned in his saddle. “He did not create them. The first Matriarchs did that through their sorcery.”
Had sorcery done all that? Secca glanced to the dark and misshapen trees, and then to the sickly greens of the bogs and swamps. After a moment, she considered the contents of the notebooks locked behind iron at Loiseau…and shivered.
Alcaren did not remark upon her reaction, but continued to ride beside her. Secca looked ahead, where the road followed the ridge line toward the southwest…and Encora.