‘Harprag. I’d know ’is work anywhere,’ he chortled, draping the chain around his neck, adding it to the collection of heavy jewellery on his broad chest. ‘So the Myunan’s come callin’, ’as he? Whaddaya think o’ that, Pappy? That a fine piece o’ ornamentation, or what?’
‘Don’t trust them Myunans,’ coughed his father, who was sitting in another chair to his right, a sour-smelling pipe between the last of his teeth. ‘Yer eyes don’t tell ya nuthin’ about them.’
Ludditch III nodded sagely, but wished that his pappy would agree with him just for once. His father was no longer the great chieftain he had once been. The bone-rot had got him good, his elbows, wrists, knees and ankles so swollen and painful that he could no longer walk on his own, reduced to looking out over his land from the porch of the house at the top of their hill. He still tried to play the twangoe, but his arthritic fingers could barely pluck the four concentric rings of strings on the wooden bowl. It was sad to watch, and worse to listen to. It broke Ludditch’s heart to see his pappy like this.
Ludditch now, he was a different matter, he was in his prime. Powerful arms and shoulders carried arms with bunches of corded muscle; his slightly hunched back was still strong. There were no signs yet of the bone-rot that plagued all the Reisenick clans. His flat, wide skull and bulging features came from his father, as did his wily cunning. He had all but taken over the running of the clan from Learup Senior and he was determined to make his patronage of the land one that would be talked about around the supper tables for centuries. The Noranians, for instance, had been making eyes at his territory for years and he wasn’t having that. They were already at Absaleth by all accounts. They might get away with pushing the Myunans about, but they would get a lesson in manners if they tried marching into Ainslidge Woods. The Reisenicks would die before giving up their lands to the northerners.
‘Learup?’ a voice interrupted his thoughts.
‘Yup?’ he and his father said in unison. Ludditch Junior scowled. He was supposed to be in charge now. He added: ‘What is it?’
Spiroe, one of the Cruddip boys, stood at the foot of the steps, hat in hand. His knees were bent backwards in that Cruddip way and his words cut up by teeth that were too large for his small mouth. The sinewy woodsman was a mite green-skinned for a Reisenick, but Ludditch was sure the rumours about Spiroe’s grandmother and the Traxen were just malicious gossip. Spiroe was pure-bred.
‘There’s a priest on the border, wants ta see ya.’
‘A priest ya say? What about?’ Ludditch Senior asked gruffly, much to the annoyance of his eldest.
‘Won’t say,’ Spiroe replied. ‘Kalayal Harsq’s his name. Ornery type, only wants to speak to the chieftain.’
He was careful to direct his remarks to both Ludditches. Senior still demanded respect, but Junior was head of the clan now and everyone who knew what was good for them knew it.
‘Bring ’im up,’ Junior jutted his goateed chin out. ‘Let’s see what the boy has to say.’
Two trucks had drawn up on the road at the foot of Ludditch Hill. The eshtran was led up the steep steps to the house. Harsq took a breath of purified air from his canister as he took in his surroundings. Among the cobrush trees, a single-storey house made of tanned animal hides overlooked the misty valley. Small crude windows glowed with a warm light. On the porch sat two more Reisenicks, one a clenched-up skeleton of a man clutching a twangoe, the other a tall, powerful-looking young man in rawhide jerkin and trousers, with a marrowshanks pelt draped over his wide shoulders. Harsq immediately saw that the clan’s power rested with the younger man and after a cursory greeting to the father, addressed the rest of his remarks to the son.
‘My compliments to you and your clan, sirs. I am a humble pilgrim on a holy mission to cleanse this land of a wicked bane. I would like to a make a proposition to you, one that would benefit both our causes in the fullness of time.’
‘What’s this bane?’ Ludditch III asked. ‘And why have you come on our land to find it?’
‘I’m talking about a malevolent ghost, sir. A shade of pure evil that will rest at nothing until it has returned to the seat of its power.’
‘And where might that seat be?’
‘Absaleth, the cursed mountain,’ Harsq clenched his raised fists. ‘Cursed no more, since I drove the ghost from its depths, but that spirit has a will like I’ve never seen. It has found new ground in which to root its evil and it will not relinquish its grip until I deal it a final blow.’
Ludditch’s eyes widened.
‘You did an exorcism on Absaleth? And it worked?’
‘I freed it from its curse. But I was merely an instrument of Brask’s will.’
Junior caught a sharp look from his father. If this was true, it could only mean that the priest did not understand what he had done. Or what he meant to do still.
‘And you think the mountain’s soul’s moved out here?’ Ludditch pressed the eshtran.
‘I have no doubt,’ Harsq nodded. ‘Somehow it evaded me and has now infected this land. I can feel its presence in this forest. And that is why I need your help. It could have run to ground anywhere. I can’t find it in this wilderness, but you can. And I can make it worth your while to do so.’
Ludditch snorted, suppressing a laugh. The priest had no idea what he was saying. If his claims were genuine, then it would be a dream come true for the Reisenick clans. The fact that they might get paid into the bargain was sugar on the pie.
‘What you offerin’?’ he asked, eyeing the priest’s fancy clothes.
‘A down-payment of five hundred drokes.’ The eshtran folded his arms. ‘And another five hundred when you find it.’
‘Any man who’ll pay a thousand drokes to catch a ghost’ll pay two thousand,’ Ludditch stuck his chin out and took his pipe from his pocket.
‘This thing will haunt your land as it has haunted Absaleth … one thousand two hundred.’
‘Seems to me that this is personal.’ Ludditch took a pinch of tobacco from a pouch and tamped it down into the bowl of the pipe. ‘If we needed your services, we’d ask for ’em. One thousand seven fifty.’
‘One thousand five hundred.’ The eshtran raised his bid.
‘I see desperation in your eyes, Mr Harsq. And desperate men pay. One thousand seven hundred.’
The eshtran’s lip curled.
‘All right, one thousand seven hundred. May Brask have mercy on your soul. Seven hundred in advance, one thousand on delivery.’
Ludditch nodded, took the stem in his mouth, struck a match against the wooden post of the porch and cupped the other hand around the bowl of the pipe as he lit the tobacco. He shook the match out and tossed it in the darkness.
‘And what are we lookin’ for, just out of interest?’
‘I’m not sure, but there will be signs of its presence that can be read by the enlightened eye. Wherever it has taken refuge, there will be an unholy, unnatural aura. I will have to see it with my own eyes to identify it, but tell your people to bring me word of anything they find in the forest that is strange or out of the ordinary.’
‘Forest is full of strange things – not least some of our people.’
Harsq gave him a dry look.
‘Then bring me news of anything that doesn’t belong.’
Ludditch sucked on the stem of his pipe and blew a smoke ring.
* * * *
Nayalla frowned as she tried to recall the details of the legend she had seen narrated on the scrolls in Emos’s workshop.
‘Long before the Myunans walked this land, there was another race which lived here, a race of alchemists, called the Tuderem, I think. They came here many centuries ago and found a country that was rich and fertile, but suffering from some kind of curse. They somehow used their ability to change elements to release the land of its bane and made their home here. But the peace did not last. They had been here for decades, living in prosperity and contentment, when the Barian hordes came to the area. They laid waste to the alchemists’ towns and villages, killing and torturing thousands.
‘This was in the time of Gorskin Rax, the Brain Eater, when the Barian Empire was at its peak. It covered everywhere south of Guthoque and west of the esh. The Tuderem who survived the slaughter were facing an existence in cruel slavery, like so many other races that had fallen to the Barians. They had wandered ever eastwards to stay clear of the hordes, but now there was nowhere to run. North of what is now the Reisenick territory lay the Gluegrove Swamps, a death-trap to anyone who did not know the paths, and beyond that marshland, the Barians ruled. All the plains to the south and east, and the mountains in the west, were also under their heel; the alchemists had nowhere to go.
‘Except for Absaleth. In their day, there was a cave entrance at the foot of Absaleth; it led into a network of caverns and it was the last Tuderem outpost. Faced with slavery or death at the hands of the Barians, they decided to take one last desperate step … and sealed themselves into the caves. They blocked up the entrance, using their sciences to form a seal even the Barians could not break through, and that was the last that was ever heard from them.’
‘By the gods,’ Noogan breathed. ‘Is that true?’
‘I had always thought it was a legend,’ Nayalla said. ‘There are so many about Absaleth. It has always inspired stories. But Myunan writing is different from yours. We use pictograms. In Myunian, this is the symbol for Tuderem.’
She drew a simple figure in the dust with her finger. It had a large head, short legs and a pair of hands at the end of each arm.
‘Begs the question …’ Paternasse put in. ‘If your story’s true, did they ever get out?’
‘If they did,’ Nayalla looked at him. ‘It’s a part of the legend that I haven’t heard.’
‘Of course they got out!’ Dalegin exclaimed, his voice a little too high and a little too loud in the stone room. ‘What kind of lunatics would seal themselves up forever?’
‘You’re right, Dal,’ Paternasse reassured him, concerned about the hint of hysteria in the younger man’s voice. ‘They were smart. They’d have made sure there was a way out.’
Dalegin stood up and waved his torch around. The light caught the branched shapes around the edge of the room.
‘They had trees! How did they grow trees in a cave?’
They all turned their lights on the trees. Mirkrin was the only one who did not approach them, one look at them told him they were artificial and he preferred to stay in the open space in the centre of the room. There were no doorways in this room. He held up his light to peer further up the stairwell.
Paternasse touched a bough on one of the trees and the decrepit limb dropped off, shattering into powder as it hit the floor.
‘It’s wood,’ he said. ‘But it’s not a tree. It has no grain. It’s uncanny though. It doesn’t look like it was carved.’
‘It was moulded,’ Nayalla told him. ‘Cast and put together as if it were metal. It’s beautifully done. Even a Myunan transmorpher couldn’t manage this – create wood that has no grain. Some of them still have what look like leaves on them. These have been transmuted, made in one material and then changed into another.’
‘They made trees.’ Noogan shook his head in wonder. ‘It’s like they knew they were never going to see them again.’
‘Well, we are,’ Mirkrin’s voice said, tightly. ‘There’s nothing for us on this floor. Let’s keep moving.’
‘Bloody right,’ Dalegin joined him at the foot of the shaft. ‘Who gives a damn about some old fossils? They’re dead, and I don’t mean to join ’em.’
The ceiling was lower in this room, and Nayalla was able to reach the rim of the next floor by putting her foot in Mirkrin’s cupped hands and hoisting herself up. She found more columns, tied the rope to the base of one and dropped it over the edge. While the others climbed up, she took a look around. It was another round room, but this one had doorways leading off it. Six doorways, all with stone doors, all standing open. She held her light up into the shaft above them. There were at least three more floors.
Paternasse was the last to come up the rope. As he lifted his elbows up onto the edge of the floor, a shudder ran through the room and then grew in intensity. The room echoed with a deep rumble. Paternasse lost his grip on the edge and dangled precariously from the one hand that clutched the rope. He got his other hand on it, but the shaking was bouncing him around and he slid downwards. Noogan dived forwards, grabbing hold of the old man’s wrist. Dalegin and Nayalla caught hold of Noogan and between them, they hauled Paternasse up. The room was shaking violently and Mirkrin was crouching on the ground, holding onto one of the rusted columns, his face tense with fear. A section of wall fell away to reveal bare rock behind and cracks appeared across the ceiling.
‘Get in the doorways!’ Paternasse roared over the chaotic noise.
They rushed for the reinforced frames of the doorways, Nayalla pulling Mirkrin’s arms from the column and dragging him with her. More chunks of stone fell from the wall and dust burst from some of the fissures appearing across the ceiling. The air filled with the stone powder, choking them and getting in their eyes. The shaking died down and they moved cautiously out from the doorways, coughing and wiping the dust from their faces. Nayalla stayed close to Mirkrin. She could feel him trembling, holding tight to the doorpost. Her knees were shivering too, from the adrenaline, but she knew that the tremor had terrified her husband, even more than the rest of them. He was reliving the time he spent crushed beneath the rock of the mine tunnel. She coughed and put her arm around him.
‘It’s over – come on, it’s over.’
He prised his fingers from the stone and opened his eyes.
‘Never knew I had such affection for architecture,’ he sniffed self-consciously.
He stood up straighter, ashamed of his fear, but the miners were busy studying the damage to the room.
‘Haven’t seen anything like this in the other rooms,’ Paternasse was saying. ‘Apart from things that have fallen apart from rot and rust, the place has had no structural damage at all. And now this. I think these quakes are a new thing, something the mountain hasn’t seen before.’
‘We don’t get earthquakes in this area,’ Nayalla told him. ‘I don’t know what these are, but they only started after the exorcism.’
Paternasse nodded gravely. He put his hand on the wall, his eyes raised to the ceiling above them. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the damage being done in the rock above them. Stress fractures would be weakening the structure of the stone, causing it to settle under its own weight. This would cause pressure below, pressure that the rock would try to release in any way it could. The caves were an inherent weakness in the mountain and all this space offered a means of releasing the pressure through the walls and ceilings. If weakened enough, the rock could keep collapsing in on itself until it had settled as far down as it could go.
‘The place is weak, without its soul,’ he muttered. ‘We need to get out from under it. This whole mountain could come down around our ears.’
With no idea which door to take, they replenished the powder on their torches and split up, each trying a different way. Three of the doorways soon turned out to be dead ends, leading into smaller rooms. One went through to another well, a waist-high rectangular wall containing a black pool of water. Two others led to corridors that ended in closed doors, their silvery white metal curiously free of corrosion. Noogan and Dalegin attacked one and then the other with their pickaxes, but the metal was barely scratched.
‘Try some wedges lads,’ Paternasse said as they battled with the second door.
The gap between the jamb and the door was too thin, but a few blows of a pickaxe made enough of a hole to get a wedge in. Dalegin drove the wedge in harder with a lump-hammer, but the door did not budge. Nor could he get the wedge out. They tried hammering in two more, but with the same results.
Paternasse stepped forward and ran his finger down the door, sticking the tip of it in his mouth and swilling the taste around.
‘It’s metal, but not a type I know.’ The old miner hawked and spat. ‘Harder, denser too, strong like steel, but it’s not steel. I can taste rutile or ilmenite. These doors are barricades, made to keep something in … or something out. They’ll take some shiftin’.’
‘We have to break through,’ Dalegin snarled. ‘We have to.’
‘It’ll take days to get through this door.’ Paternasse shook his head. ‘Even then, I’m not sure we could do it. Let’s see what else is around.’
‘I’m starvin’,’ Noogan said abruptly and as soon as he said it, they all realised how hungry they were. And cold too. The search for a way out had distracted them from their bodies’ demands, but the events of the day were catching up on them.
They sat down where they were, propping up their torches, and took out all the food they were carrying. The miners had their packed lunches, pasties and biscuit and some apples; the Myunans had bread, cheese and a spicy pork paste. They all looked glumly at the collection of food.
‘We could stretch this out for a day, maybe two,’ Mirkrin said. ‘But that’s it. And we need to check the water in that well – my canteen’s almost empty.’
It was true for all of them. They had all been sipping at their water since the first cave-in, but their thirst was growing and their water supply dwindling. Thirst would kill them long before hunger broke them down, but the water in the well could deal out death even faster if it were contaminated.
Nayalla clutched her empty belly. She should have been making dinner for her family around now; she thought anxiously of her children, and one look at her husband told her he was sharing her concerns. With all that had happened, she had had little time to worry about them. She felt a rising dread at the thought that they might have fallen foul of the Noranians, or the skacks. Mirkrin squeezed her hand and shook his head. There was nothing they could do for them now but hope.
‘There are no cave openings on Absaleth,’ Nayalla told them. ‘The nearest caves that I know of are up north. This place may connect up to them somewhere. We should try to head in that direction if we can.’
Mirkrin took his compass out, but the needle spun lazily, failing to point in any one direction.
‘Too much iron,’ Paternasse told him. ‘That’ll be no good down here. I think I can keep us pointed the right way, but that’s assuming we can find a route that’ll take us out.’
They pooled the food, and Paternasse rationed it out, keeping two thirds of it for later. The paltry pieces of sandwich were downed in seconds, and then they all felt even more miserable than before. Nothing was worse than feeding a hunger with too little food.
‘What was that?’ Nayalla said suddenly.
They all froze, listening intently. There was a skittering sound and then a wet, gulping noise. All five of them jumped to their feet and rushed back up the corridor. Casting their lights around, they spread out. Paternasse and Dalegin crept into the room with the well. They could see nothing moving. They were about to leave and continue their search, when Dalegin tugged Paternasse’s sleeve.
‘Jussek, look!’
There, within the well’s stone walls, ripples disturbed the inky waters of the pool.
* * * *
The mist had grown so thick over the road that Jube had slowed the lead wagon down to a crawl. Taya and Lorkrin were fast asleep on top of some sacks near the front of the flatbed and Draegar was dozing in his usual sleeping position, curled up into an armoured dome that offered both shelter and protection.
‘Can’t see a thing out there,’ Jube muttered. ‘It’s like looking into the esh.’
Emos nodded. He was weary but couldn’t sleep, his mind haunted by thoughts of Nayalla and Mirkrin. He put down the wood chisel that he was shaping into an amorphing tool for Lorkrin and shook his head in exhaustion.
‘We need to pull over for a while,’ Jube called back to him. ‘Let the engines cool down and refuel. I probably need to top up the oil too.’
‘We could do with some hot food and drink, too,’ Emos assented. ‘I’ll take a turn driving when we get going again. I won’t sleep tonight.’
Jube found a flat stretch of grass under the trees and pulled the truck off the road. Khassiel brought the second wagon to a halt behind them, cutting the engine and jumping from the cab to stretch her stiff limbs.
The sudden silence woke up the sleepers. Taya and Lorkrin blinked and looked groggily over the side of the flatbed. Draegar uncurled and sat up.
‘What’s all the rubbish on the road?’ Lorkrin asked.
There were pieces of clothing, tin cans and other bits and pieces strewn down the road.
‘Looks like your side of the room after your friends have been over,’ Taya murmured.
‘At least my friends keep the mess on my side of the room.’
‘Let’s get a fire going,’ Jube said. ‘That’s a damp mist. It’ll put a chill on you if you let it. Fetch me a pot down, Taya, lass. I’ve a hankerin’ for some tea.’
‘I’ll get some wood,’ Lorkrin piped up, jumping over the side of the wagon.
‘No, you won’t!’ Emos said sternly. ‘I’m not having you wandering off into these woods in a fog. I’ll go. You and Taya stay here.’
Lorkrin folded his arms, looking out into the trees with a sour expression.
‘We’re not babies, y’know,’ he sniffed.
‘I’ll do it,’ Cullum grunted, grabbing a lantern. ‘I need to stretch my legs anyway.’
He had fallen asleep with one leg tucked under the other and was now pacing about woodenly, trying to rub the pins and needles from his unresponsive limb. He picked up his weapon, a battle-hammer with a flat head on one side and a sharp spike on the other, and made his way off into the woods.
‘You work on their tools,’ Draegar told his friend. ‘We’ll get the firewood.’
He lit a candle and followed Cullum into the grey darkness. Emos shrugged and sat down to finish the finer work on the tools he had started. Jube picked up kindling from under the trees nearby and got a small blaze going. Cullum came back with an armful of wood and Jube soon had the food heating over the fire. The Noranian headed back into the trees to get more and that was when they felt the ground start to shake.
The carefully stacked wood of the fire collapsed; the pots clattered to the rhythm of the trembling ground and the wagons bounced on their suspension. Taya and Lorkrin deliberately stood up and tried keeping their balance, but tumbled to the ground, giggling. They stopped abruptly when they saw Emos’s anxious face and they remembered where their parents were and what this tremor would mean for them. Even as this thought occurred to them, the earthquake quickly faded into stillness. Somewhere out of sight of them in the forest, there was a sharp crack and they heard Cullum bellow. Khassiel seized her crossbow and another lantern and charged into the woods. Emos leapt to his feet.
‘Stay here!’ he barked at the two children. Then he bounded into the fog after the soldier.
Jube got up and followed their uncle. The two Myunans stood sullenly, looking into the trees.
‘Make a sound and we’ll make mince of yuh,’ a voice whispered abruptly behind them.
They turned to see two men holding broad-bladed knives at the ready. Out of the mist came more Reisenicks. Some dropped down from the trees, others materialised out of the fog. All of them wore the distinctive clothes of rawhide and fur, all with long knives or blowpipes held ready. There was the sound of clicking joints as they moved and the exaggerated features of their faces were stony and hostile.
‘Oh, right,’ Lorkrin snorted. ‘This is what we get for doing what we’re told!’
The leader held up his knife, then raised a finger to his lips. Lorkrin stood up, using his body to hide Taya as she quickly gathered the tools their uncle had been working on and stuffed them into her backpack. She stood up beside him, anxiously eyeing the clansmen’s sharp blades.
‘Does this mean Mr Ludditch didn’t like the pendant?’ she asked.
* * * *
Cullum had a thin wooden stake through his left leg, just above the ankle. He had triggered a trap intended for a much smaller animal, set by the trunk of a tree. He lay with both hands clutching his leg, roaring defiance at the offending spike for its assault.
Khassiel reached him first, with Emos close behind.
‘By the gods!’ Khassiel scoffed. ‘I thought you were being disembowelled, or something, Cullum. Stop being such a baby.’
‘Lie still,’ Emos ordered the Forward-Batterer. ‘It’s gone clean through. I don’t think it’s hit anything important.’
‘It hit my bloody leg! Is that not important enough?’
‘You walked right into a skunkrin spike. Weren’t you trained to avoid booby traps?’
‘I was watching out for man-sized traps. Nobody said anything about any damned skunkrin spikes.’
Khassiel raised her crossbow. Someone else was coming. Draegar crashed through the brush. He stopped and sighed when he saw what had happened.
‘I thought somebody was in danger,’ he chided the injured man. ‘Is that little thing what all the noise was about?’
‘That little thing is my leg …’
‘You’re lucky,’ Emos told him. ‘They don’t poison these kinds of traps.’
‘Lucky, my arse! Lucky would be stepping on a bag of gold. There’s a bloody spike through my leg.’
Jube trotted up.
‘What’s all the fuss?’ he asked.
‘Cullum’s pricked ’imself,’ Khassiel cocked her head in the direction of her comrade.
‘That’s right!’ the Forward-Batterer fumed. ‘Have a laugh at a man’s misfortune! I won’t be able to walk on this …’
‘It’s not a trivial wound,’ Emos agreed. ‘Let’s get you back to the fire where we can have a proper look at it.’
He drew his knife and cut the spine free of the branch that held it, then he and Jube helped Cullum hop back towards the road. They found the pots of food boiling over, the camp deserted. Emos jumped onto the back of the lead truck to look around. There was no sign of the children.
‘Reisenicks,’ Draegar growled, reading the tracks on the ground. ‘A hunting party.’
‘Get in the cabs!’ Emos told them. ‘Now, everyone in the cabs!’
A dart struck Cullum in the arm.
‘Hey!’ he yelped, and slumped against Jube, knocked out cold.
The miner dragged him to the cab of the lead truck and hauled him in. More darts struck the windscreen. Khassiel jumped into the other cab, quickly followed by Emos.
Draegar, who would struggle to fit in the cab of a wagon anyway, grabbed a crank handle from the side of Jube’s truck, and Jube threw the starter switch as the Parsinor twisted the engine into life. Darts zipped through the air, bouncing off his armour and sticking uselessly in his tough hide. It would take a lot of darts to bring down a Parsinor. He fitted the handle into the socket on the front of Khassiel’s truck. As he cranked the second motor up, he looked through the glass into Emos’s eyes.
‘Get out of here!’ he bellowed to his friend. ‘I’ll find them! You know I will! Now go!’
Stones started to smack off the sides of the trucks, one finding the windscreen of Jube’s truck, smashing a white cobweb of cracks across the pane.
‘Go!’ Draegar roared. Then he turned around and plunged into the forest.
They had no choice. Outnumbered and under attack from an enemy they could not see, the rescue party were forced to gun the engines of their vehicles and flee. Driving recklessly through the thick fog, they soon outran their attackers, but Emos could not take his eyes off the back window. Somewhere back there were his niece and nephew, and he had deserted them. The Reisenicks had turned on the group. He did not know why, but the rescue party’s chances of escaping them and getting out of Ainslidge Woods were slim, if there were any chance at all. He knew Draegar was right. He had to carry on and reach the caves or Nayalla, Mirkrin and the trapped miners had no hope. But even though he had absolute trust in his friend, his heart was wrenched at his own failure to help the children.
* * * *
Taya closed her eyes as she was flung through the air. The Reisenicks were following a path through the cobrush jungle, but in many places the track ran up fallen tree trunks or over ravines and rather than wait for their bound captives to stumble across the obstacles, the Reisenicks carried them along, tossing them over any break in the path. Strong, bony hands caught her as she flailed over to the other side of the stream and their tight grip made her cry out. Lorkrin came flying over behind her. The Reisenicks moved quickly, accustomed to the difficult terrain and seeming to know their way through the woods even in the misty darkness.
She was scared. The clansmen were putting more and more distance between them and the road, and soon after they had headed into the forest, another one had shown up behind them to announce that the rest of her ‘gang’ had got away. Got away? Where could they be going? They were supposed to be coming after her and her brother. Where were they getting away to?
Lorkrin had attempted to bite through the hard cords that bound his wrists, but a Reisenick just laughed and slapped him across the head. He looked closer at his bonds in the gloom and gagged. The ‘cords’ were nothing of the kind; his wrists were bound by a long, thin spidersnake. Invertebrate constrictors, these creatures would wrap themselves around their prey and sink their fangs into it. This one had not bitten him and he realised the Reisenicks had pulled its fangs, but the reflex to constrict made it a perfect means of binding Myunans. He had tried slunching, to slip his hands out, but the spidersnake constricted with his flesh; the Reisenicks had dealt with shape-shifters before. He was forced to creft his flesh to stop the creature from squeezing his wrists down to nothing. They were now half their normal thickness and hurt more than ever.
They travelled into the night, the Myunans sore and uncomfortable from being carried over the bony shoulders of the clansmen. As they got further into the forest, the Reisenicks started to chat among themselves. Some of it aimed deliberately at terrifying their captives.
‘We gonna have us some Myunan roast tonight, boys!’
‘What the hell are you boy, some kind o’ savage? Myunans gotta be stewed!’
The one carrying Taya pinched her arm and she swore at him.
‘This one’s got spirit, but not much eatin’ on ’er.’
‘Nah, Myunans is stringy, but they got no bones to speak of! Plenty of eatin’ on her, just got to stew ’er for a day, add some onions, some earthfruit, bit o’ ginger … Our mama got the best recipe in the clans for Myunan.’
Taya clenched her eyes shut. She was not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She had heard that Reisenicks ate other races, but Uncle Emos had assured her that it wasn’t true.
Sensing light on her eyelids, Taya opened them to see that the hunting party had arrived at a Reisenick village. She had never seen one before and it was something to behold.
The smells of old fur, spices and boiling fat filled her nostrils. All of the structures were built of wood frames covered in animal hides, all with drawings marked out on them, depicting hunting scenes, battles, marriages and important deaths.
The place seemed to be asleep, although lanterns burned on posts along the main road through the village. Everywhere, metal and wooden wind chimes tinkled, crafted into arcane shapes to ward off evil spirits. Freshly skinned hides hung out to dry. The bones too were put to use, for each doorway had its totem of skull and bones to keep the malevolent ghosts of the forest at bay.
Lorkrin shivered. It was not a place that welcomed strangers. The gleam of painted metal further down the street caught his eye and there he saw two wagons parked up next to a large building. One of the wagons was the Braskhiam generator truck. He clicked his tongue at Taya and pointed with his head. She twisted around to look over her bearer’s shoulder. A dark look passed over her face. This could not bode well for them.
They were carried up the muddy street to the meetinghouse and brought inside. The smells of old leather and animal fur were stronger inside. The place was a large rectangular hall, with an open central area in which a fire blazed. Lorkrin and Taya had not realised how cold they were until they felt its blazing heat. The damp night and the fear had taken a toll on them.
‘What you got there?’ came a voice, and their eyes turned towards the top of the hall. Sitting in a hefty, carved wooden chair was a big Reisenick with piercing eyes. The children immediately recognised one of the brass chains that hung on his chest. It was Ludditch.
Beside him, on a smaller chair, sat the Braskhiam eshtran, Harsq. The two children were hauled in front of the two men.
‘What in the blazes …?’ Ludditch looked up at his clansmen. ‘These two are Myunans. Where’d you get ’em?’
‘Fell off the back of a truck,’ one of them replied, to the sniggers of the others. ‘Nearly got a whole lot more, but they got away. The boys is after ’em now.’
‘A truck?’ Ludditch snarled. ‘Like the one Emos Harprag was in?’
There were blank looks from the clansmen. Taya nodded and Lorkrin scowled.
‘I said go out and find anythin’ that didn’t belong!’ the chieftain exclaimed. ‘Harprag paid ’is tribute, ya fools. Now you’ve gone and taken his cubs? You’re supposed to be on the lookout for … for unseemly things. Forces of evil and the like. I mean, holy meat, Cleet, if’n you had two times more brains you’d be twice as stupid.’
‘I didn’t know about any Myunans!’ Cleet retorted, the skin around his mass of freckles turning a deathly pale. He hunched his big shoulders and looked down at his feet. ‘I was just doin’ like I was asked.’
Ludditch ground his teeth to control his temper. Cleet was a close cousin, and so loyal as to be embarrassing. Too stupid to be scared of anything, he would fight wild dogs in a pit for his own entertainment. But the boy couldn’t think worth a damn.
‘The tribute system keeps the peace, Cleet. Harprag on ’is own is a menace, but you mess with a Myunan’s cubs and you mess with their whole tribe. And the Noranians have already got ’em riled. You ever fought a war against Myunans, Cleet?’
‘You know I haven’t, Learup. But my pappy …’
‘Yer old pappy was killed by Myunans, Cleet. But unlike you he was born with a cupful o’ sense, and he knew what you don’t, that fightin’ Myunans is like fightin’ ghosts. Now put these cubs back where you got ’em.’
‘But the trucks’ve gone, Learup. We don’t know where. It could take time to find ’em.’
Ludditch gritted his teeth and scratched the thick wrinkles on the back of his neck.
‘All right, we keep ’em for now. Untie ’em!’ He glared down at the two children. ‘You’re alive ’cause it’ll keep the peace. Behave yourselves and you’ll get back to your pappy …’
‘He’s our uncle,’ Taya corrected him.
‘… You’ll get back to your uncle in one piece. Understand?’
‘Yes,’ the two children chirped in unison, as knives cut the spidersnakes from their wrists.
* * * *
The reflections of the five faces stared back out of the well’s dark water, expressions of fear and curiosity etched upon them.
‘You definitely didn’t touch the water?’ Nayalla asked again.
‘For the third time, no!’ Paternasse insisted. ‘We didn’t even breathe on it.’
‘Could be a current,’ Noogan suggested.
‘Those were footsteps we heard,’ Dalegin said tightly. ‘Currents don’t have feet and they don’t come out of wells and wander around.’
‘There’s something else in here with us,’ Noogan whispered. ‘Maybe there are still some ghosts left down here.’
‘Makes you wonder what happened to the folks who made the place,’ Dalegin added.
Nayalla tried an experiment, dipping her torch into the water. It kept burning, the light dulled but still glowing. Then she took a pinch of the burning powder and rubbed it on her forehead. It stuck there, an improvised headlamp that would give her enough light to see by.
‘I could go in and have a look,’ she said, leaning over the rim.
‘No.’ Mirkrin shook his head. ‘We don’t know what’s in there.’
‘I’ll get in,’ Noogan said. ‘Just to have a look under the water.’
‘If anyone’s going, it’s me,’ Nayalla said. ‘Now keep your eyes peeled.’
Before anyone could argue, she slid over the side and into the water.
‘Damn it!’ Mirkrin clutched the stone rim so hard his knuckles went white.
He should have gone before she had a chance, but his fear held him back. The tiny black space terrified him and seeing his wife down there brought a cold sweat to his skin. He could see her pushing her way down the wall, working against her own buoyancy, looking to one side and then the other. She was far below the level of the floor when she stopped moving, her face looking towards her feet. Then suddenly she twisted up and kicked for the surface. She kicked, but did not move. Mirkrin leaned closer in. He could see her expression, panic as she struggled for the surface. Nayalla was being pulled down into the depths of the well. He turned, frantically searching for something to use to reach for her. There was nothing long enough. With a roar of desperation, he dived into the water.
He kicked downwards, reaching out for his wife, but she was dragged away from him, deep into the blackness. He could see the flame on her brow after he lost sight of her and he swam hard to catch up, his own terror forgotten in the fear for his wife. The pressure built up on his ears and he held his nose to clear it. Then he felt it; he was moving faster, caught in a current. It was strong, pulling him down faster and faster. There would be no way back to the surface. The light on his wife’s forehead disappeared ahead of him, but suddenly, as if it had gone around a corner. The pressure of the water squeezed his chest and his lungs burned. He kept pushing out air to relieve the bursting feeling that he had to inhale. The water was crushing him with its weight, the walls closing in on him in the dark. Panic screamed at him to open his mouth and breathe. He could feel the walls either side now; they were closer, the current throwing him against one side and then the other. Twice, he brushed past side openings, but the current flowed in from them, driving him on. The walls narrowed until he was slunching to fit through the increasingly constricted channel. He was in complete darkness now, trapped in the water’s grip. His lungs were going to burst. He had to open his mouth. He had to breathe, he had to open … Light ahead. He could see light. Holding his nose closed, he pushed some breath out and willed himself with all his might to hold the water out until he reached the light. His head spun. He saw pinpoints of light flash in front of his eyes and he started to pass out. If he passed out he was lost. He would drown as his unconscious body breathed in water. The light came towards him, closer … closer … closer … It seemed that it would never reach him. His vision blurred and he shook his head to try and clear it. He felt himself slowing down, rising out of the current’s grasp. Then he saw ripples above him. The surface. He clawed up towards it.
His head broke the water with a gasp and he sucked in air. A few more coughing breaths later, he saw Nayalla floating motionless in front of him. She stirred, but her movements were weak and caused her head to sink beneath the surface. He swam to her and lifted her chin clear of the water. Mirkrin looked around. They were in a different kind of chamber; the pool was much larger than the mouth of the well and at floor level. He dragged his wife out and she vomited up water and coughed as she flopped down on the floor. They both lay there, shivering for some time.