CHAPTER TWELVE

The Hillands

From then on they slept in shepherds’ huts, under rocks, and often, if they could not find a suitable spot, under the stars. As the days passed it grew colder, the paths turned to overgrown tracks, and the ground bogged with damp. There were more fields and fewer people. Then came more stretches of green scrubland and fewer fields.

Summer turned into autumn and the trees yellowed. In Sago, the rainy season would just be beginning and Beauty found its absence distressing. Instead, the leaves about her dried to red, orange, and amber, becoming crisp before falling and crunching beneath Comrade’s hooves. Fogs billowed in the mornings and gusts of cold wind blew, chilling Beauty. They entered dark forests that smelled spicy and made her sneeze, and they passed gushing streams, then rivers, then lakes.

Owaine’s smile widened the farther north they traveled. He had spent too long wallowing in the hot stickiness of Sago and now he longed for his hills with a passion. In the evenings, as he made a fire to cook the little meat they brought on their journey from passing villages and hamlets, he would speak of nothing else but his Hill folk.

“They has been in the realm the longest, so it has always been said. The first race made by the gods when Magic weren’t contained.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s written in our scripture.”

They had been on the road so long that Beauty could not remember when her life had not begun at dawn, with hours of hard riding ahead, and ended on a bedroll with the darkness all around her, dreaming of strange things like colors in the sky and a man with a scar over one eye. In fear of the Magic Cleansing, they did not speak to anyone except when buying food, and even then it was Owaine who dealt with such matters. But both were craving the company of others.

“This be the last town,” said Owaine one cold morning.

“We are almost there?”

The town was typical of the places they had recently passed, with its wide, cobbled square lined with stores and a maze of houses spreading in opposite directions.

“No,” laughed Owaine. “It’s two days ride till we reach the edge of the Hillands and then farther to the Hill villages.”

Beauty’s shoulders sagged.

“Hill folk come here to trade horses in the summer.”

Beauty was beginning to grow tired of hearing about the Hillanders and she had not even met them yet.

“How much farther do you think we can go before nightfall?”

“We should be close enough to see the hills properly tomorrow. But while we’re here, I’ll send word to my family. I’d like them to ready a house for us.” He paused and grinned. “They’ll be so surprised to hear I’m back. We left Sago in such a rush that I weren’t able to warn them I were returning.”

Beauty minded the horses in the square while Owaine went to the local messengers, and for the first time she thought of the new land that she would call home. She realized she did not like the idea of Owaine having a family—she did not want to be forgotten again.

The first time she saw the hills, they emerged from the mist like ships. It was noon and Beauty’s bones ached with chill as a light drizzle began to fall. Owaine said that they were lucky they would reach their destination before the harsh Hilland winter, but she could not imagine it being any colder. She never thought that she would long for the dry, hot Sago summers.

Dark shadows loomed from the silver haze and the ground jerked sharply upward. Faint outlines towered over the horizon like bruises in the sky, and the air tasted moist and dense. Comrade snorted at the sudden incline and Beauty leaned forward in the saddle to help him climb.

The mist swirled, leaking into the hood of her cloak and biting the back of her neck. Her clothes felt damp and heavy and she could barely see Sable and Owaine in front of her. The ground rose forever upward and the path turned rocky. Suddenly, she heard a shrill neigh that echoed all around them.

Both Sable and Comrade answered and Beauty peered into the milky mist, but she could see nothing.

“That were a wild stallion,” said Owaine. “I used to chase them as a lad.”

They continued upward, the horses’ flanks dark with sweat and rain. Beauty’s legs throbbed from leaning forward in the saddle, her head was dizzy, and she was out of breath. She clung to Comrade’s mane and closed her eyes, trusting him to carry her onward.

Suddenly, he halted and she felt a hand gently pat her back.

“The altitude is getting me too, Beauty,” said Owaine, panting. “It’ll give yur headache and sickness for a while, but yur’ll get used to it in the end.”

Beauty sat up, her head spinning.

The mist was gone and before her were miles and miles of hills and valleys. The hills were tall, stout, and green. Some dipped below where they stood and some stretched higher, their peaks clouded in white fog. There were bundles of forests and sheets of lakes and wave upon wave of hills.

“How long before I feel better?” Beauty murmured.

“A few days at least.”

Owaine glanced at the horses.

“We’ll need to take it a bit slower for the animals.”

Comrade’s sides were heaving and Sable was snorting into the cool air.

“My hills,” he muttered, taking deep, moist breaths.

They moved on, picking their way down the other side of the hill and heading for a deep valley that would lead them toward Owaine’s home. They traveled through the Hillands for two more days, passing no one along the way.

“Are there not other villages around?” asked Beauty on the second day, as they stopped to drink from a surging river.

“Yes, but they ain’t on this main track.”

Beauty scooped a palm full of water into her mouth. She felt a long way from the grand dining table of Rose Herm now.

“But could we not stop at a village?”

They had run out of meat and only had a small piece of cheese and a hunk of stale bread left.

“Hill folk don’t . . . mix. We have our villages and we stay in them.”

Beauty gulped down the chilling, clear water that made her teeth sting.

“How did you come to Sago, then?”

The muscles around Owaine’s jaw clenched.

“That were unusual,” was all he said, and they mounted the horses and moved on.

Beauty saw her first waterfall later that day. She heard its swishing crash before she saw it spouting from a boulder high above them. It splashed against rocks, tumbled down in a thread of blue glitter, then gushed into a pool at the bottom, spraying her with flecks of foamy white as she passed.

She giggled, brushing the lather from her cheek, and felt sad when the waterfall’s rumble faded to silence as they moved on. Seeing her forlorn look, Owaine assured her that waterfalls were plentiful in the hills.

Later that afternoon they came upon the village of Imwane.

“What is that?” she asked, noticing a golden structure ahead.

They were scaling a broad, steep hill, and peeking over the edge of its crest, Beauty could see a golden wall. This was the highest that they had climbed yet and the horses were puffing and snorting.

“That’s Imwane’s temple,” said Owaine, the joy bursting from his voice. “That’s my temple.”

As they reached the peak of the hill, Owaine reined Sable in and pressed his thumb and index finger together, lifting his arm and holding his hand up to the sky. Beauty had always known that Owaine went to the temples in Sago, but she had never understood why.

“All Imwane Hill folk go to this temple,” he explained, seeing her expression. “In Sago they are mostly forgotten, and that’s why the preachers there build them bells that ring across the city to try to remind the peoples. Ain’t no bells needed in the Hillands—we go to the temples for as long as we remembers. My great-grandfather helped build this one when the last fell down in a storm.”

Beauty looked at the golden barn with its peeling paint. It would be another new thing for her to get used to.

“Why is it here alone?” she asked. “Where is the village?”

Owaine nodded at a deep valley below them.

“All our temples are as close to the gods as we can make them. We build them from the biggest, strongest trees.”

“Like those?”

Beauty pointed across the gulf to a dark, tangled forest that smothered the opposite hill in a carpet of dark green all the way to its peak.

“That’s the mountain. We don’t go there.”

The valley below them was deep and lush. Pale, square cottages with flaxen thatched roofs climbed its sides and huddled in a pack at the base. Animals were left to roam the hillside freely and the land looked wild and untouched.

“Do yur like it?” asked Owaine, trying unsuccessfully to keep the hopefulness from his voice.

“Yes,” said Beauty, but her eyes slid to the forest—she could not help but feel its heavy presence.

“Why do you not go to the forest?” she asked, as Comrade and Sable picked their way down the hillside.

She thought that she noticed Owaine’s shoulders stiffen.

“No one ever goes there. I have heard strange things.”

“But—”

“Yur will love Imwane, Beauty. I know yur will.”

She nodded and fell silent, hoping that he was right.

They were only halfway down the track when someone spotted them. A man with gray, unruly hair who had been leaning against a rock sat up as he caught sight of them. He was wearing a crushed leather hat and a jerkin.

“Owaine!” he cried. “Owaine, is that yur?”

The sheep that he had been tending scattered at his shout.

Owaine jumped down from Sable and ran to his side. They embraced and slapped each other heartily on the back.

“Cousin!” Owaine laughed. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I saw yur face.”

“Too long! We thought we’d lost yur to them cities. Isole didn’t believe it when yur message came—none of us could have guessed after all this time.”

“There’s trouble in Pervorocco and we fled the city, but I’m more than happy to return to my hills.”

“We’ve heard of no peril here. You are always safe in these hills, Owaine. But just listen to that city twang of yurs! Yur have been away too long!”

Owaine turned back to where Beauty sat on Comrade, her head bowed shyly.

“Papa!” a screech echoed through the valley.

In the cottages below, a crowd was gathering, led by a tall figure who began to run toward them.

“Papa!” she cried.

Beauty was the only one who saw the shock on Owaine’s face upon seeing his daughter, who was now a young woman.

“Isole?”

She charged him, persistent despite the awkwardness portrayed in her brown eyes. Like Owaine, she was stocky with rough, olive skin and straggly brown hair, which was stuffed under a white headdress.

Behind her, men, women, and children rushed up the hill to greet their returned friend. Beauty noticed that the women of the village were all wearing tall, lace headdress and the men donned crushed leather hats and jerkins.

“Papa! I can’t believe yur home!”

Isole wrapped her arms around Owaine’s neck, and he carefully patted her shoulder.

“We’ve a house ready, all like yur asked,” she went on, reluctant to release her father. “It ain’t the best of houses, but it was what we could do at short notice.”

“Thank yur, my child,” said Owaine. “I’ll be happy to see it, but first I should like yur to meet a sister. This is Beauty.”

Heads turned her way and Beauty pushed her hood back from her face. She was roughened and scrawny from living on the road for so long, but she was silvery nonetheless. There were gasps and mutterings and cries of surprise.

“A sister?” whispered Isole, her hands falling by her sides.

“Yes, she were entrusted to me, and she’s now my child.”

There was an awed silence and the villagers pressed their thumbs and index fingers together in turn.

“What is it?” whispered Isole, and Beauty understood that things would not be any different here than back in Sago.