The Heir of Night (43 page)

“Soon,”
said the light-filled voice, fainter than an echo.

“As to that,” Malian replied, “it is as the Nine will, and not I.” She raised her right hand, palm turned outward in formal salute “Farewell, Hylcarian.”

And with only Kalan of the House of Blood to ride behind her, Malian of Night turned and rode away from the Keep of Winds, which had been her home and her inheritance. She did not look back again.

PART III
Jaransor

25

T
he wind was blowing again, no longer a full Wall storm but driving in gusts, bringing dust and grit from the jagged peaks that towered above the Gray Lands. It blew under the bivouac where the small band of fugitives lay hidden and shrilled around its perimeter. Malian shifted uneasily on the hard ground, feeling the stone beneath her hip and a pebble that was pushing into the small of her back. Rest eluded her, despite her weariness, and she envied Kalan who lay curled in exhausted sleep at her side.

They had been traveling by night and resting by day in an attempt to avoid detection, with Malian falling asleep as soon as her head touched the stony ground. Even the full daylight had not been able to keep her awake, but now her eyes refused to close and she could see Kyr, Lira, and Nhairin crouched close together by the entrance to the small bivouac, their voices an anxious thread beneath the wind.

It was the fourth day since they had fled the Keep of Winds, traveling through the narrow ways of the Wall while the storm raged above them. It had taken two full days to blow itself out, just as Haimyr had predicted, and they had reached the western rim of the Wall by the end of the second day. The evening light had been in their faces when
Kyr pointed beyond the rock-strewn foothills to the vast, flat emptiness that was the Gray Lands. “That is the way we must go,” he’d said. “We shall travel by night to avoid prying eyes, although it will make our progress slower.”

They had kept to this plan, making their way down through the foothills and only setting out across the Gray Lands once it was full night. The rocky plain was full of sudden dips and dry streambeds that kept their pace slow, but at first Malian had enjoyed the journey, the smooth stride of the horse and the breeze at her back that raised small dust devils across the plain. After hour on hour of silent riding, however, only stopping for short rests and to snatch a hurried mouthful of food, the ride became a matter of simple endurance. Only the paling of the eastern sky had finally signaled a halt, and their hiding place that first day out had been little more than a scrape in the surface of the plain. Even the horses had lain down to rest, while Kyr and Lira had stretched a tarpaulin, as gray and dreary as the land itself, from one side of the hollow to the other. They had all huddled beneath it, first to eat the dried rations from their saddlebags, and then to take turns sleeping. “For only a fool,” Kyr had said, “would fail to set a watch in these lands.”

This was their third cold camp, for Kyr would not allow a fire. And although he insisted that they wait until full dark before striking camp, Malian, who was used to a world of stone walls, still felt overwhelmed by the openness of the plain. It was full of unexpected noises, the voices of birds and insects, and the stealthy movement of animals by night; even the gray light filtering through the tent seemed strange after the brilliant illumination of the keep.

The voices near the entrance quietened and Nhairin moved back toward Malian. “Still awake?” the steward said. Her scarred face was drawn, her hair filmed with gray dust.

Malian raised herself on one elbow. “What’s happening?” she asked in a low tone, so as not to wake Kalan. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

The steward hesitated, then said reluctantly, “We’re not
sure. We think there’s something out there that shouldn’t be, but we don’t know who, or what. It could be a hold patrol, but we’re a long way off their usual routes.” She hesitated again. “Lira’s going to check it out.”

Malian looked past Nhairin to where the two guards still squatted on their heels by the entrance. Kyr looked grim, but Lira gave her a reassuring smile and a wink as she looped a water bottle onto her belt and checked her knives. “A horse would be too obvious by daylight, in this terrain,” she said, picking up her rider’s bow and pitching her voice just loud enough for Malian to hear. “I’ll scout this one on foot.”

“Be careful,” Kyr growled, and Lira gave him a quick nod and the ghost of a smile. “Of course,” she said, and slid out through the entrance.

Malian thought that she would never sleep then for worrying about Lira, out there alone on the hostile plain. She watched Nhairin settle down beside her and wondered how long they would have to wait before the guard returned. Kyr remained by the entrance, carefully whetting the blade of his sword; the sound was sinister beneath the gusting wind. Malian stared up at the tarpaulin, listening to the wind’s voice—and the next thing she knew the shadows were thick under the bivouac and she was blinking her eyes awake. Voices murmured by the entrance and she sat up quickly. Lira was back, dust coated from the plain, but she seemed unusually subdued and both Kyr and Nhairin looked bleak.

So, thought Malian, not good news. She saw that Kalan was awake and listening, too, although he had not yet moved. “What did you find?” she asked Lira.

Lira sighed. “There’s a large band of riders out there,” she replied, “and they’re definitely not Derai. Their harness is similar to that of the warriors we fought in the Old Keep, so they may be Darkswarm. But whoever they are, they’re on our trail—and it looks like a second group’s split off to get between us and the Border Mark.”

Nhairin muttered an imprecation. “How long have they been following us, do you think?” she asked.

Lira shrugged. “I’d say they’ve been searching for our trail since we left the Wall. Now that they’ve found it, they’ll be pushing hard to catch up. Fortunately for us, they don’t seem to like traveling by day much either.”

They were all silent for a moment and Malian got up and moved to the entrance. “Can’t we outrun them,” she asked, “since we have messenger horses?”

“They’re good horses,” Kyr said gruffly, “swift and enduring, but it’s too far to the Border Mark. And if we tried to gallop across terrain this rough, even by day, they’d end up with broken legs.”

“Besides,” said Lira, “as soon as we forsake stealth and run for it, the dust alone will tell our pursuers exactly where we are.”

Nhairin’s frown was heavy as she looked from Lira’s dusty face to Kyr. “What other options do we have?”

Kyr cracked his knuckles, one by one, until Malian felt like shaking him. “If we keep on going as we are,” he said, “they’ll catch us pretty quickly, now that they’ve found our trail. So we need to try and outwit them, if we can, do the thing they won’t expect. I say we turn west and head for Jaransor.”

The wind gusted hard into their silence, blowing grit through the bivouac entrance. “The Jaransor hills.” Nhairin’s voice sounded odd, flattened. “That is an ill-omened place.”

“It’s what the captain would do,” Kyr responded, “the thing no one would expect.”

“I don’t think anyone would expect Jaransor,” Nhairin answered, still on the same odd note. Her eyes were shadowed as they met Malian’s and the line of her lips had thinned.

Kyr looked at her curiously. “What do you know of Jaransor?” he asked.

Nhairin shrugged. “Only what anyone does. Those hills have long been forbidden, off-limits, because too many of our people have foundered there. And the old records say that Jaransor is hostile to both the Derai and the Swarm.
They claim that it is one of the ancient places of this world, possessed by a power that sleeps but lightly and is dangerous if woken. They also say,” she added, “that Jaransor is ghost-ridden and drives people mad.”

Kyr looked at her from beneath his brows. “People say that the Old Keep is infested with ghosts as well, full of their old hatreds. But we didn’t see any when we went in there, did we Lira?”

The other guard shook her head but said nothing, apparently content to let Kyr and Nhairin resolve the matter between them. Malian looked at Kyr. “I haven’t heard of Jaransor or these tales,” she said. “Is it as dangerous as Nhairin says?”

“Ay,” he replied, “it’s dangerous. But I am hold born, as you know; raised in Westwind, which is the closest of Night’s holds to Jaransor. Westwind folk still go into the Jaransor hills, despite the ban, and return to tell the tale. The real question is, can we escape our pursuers if we carry on as we are? And the answer to that is no.”

There was another brief silence while they absorbed this. “So what happens when we get to Jaransor?” Kalan said eventually, sitting up. “Can we still reach the Border Mark by that route, or will we have to find another way south?”

Kyr drew a map in the dust and they all crowded close to look. “The main Jaransor ridge, here, will bring us back down to the Border Mark, if we can shake our pursuers for long enough. Jaransor has never been friendly to the Darkswarm and its minions, so I am hoping that going into the hills will buy us the time we need.”

“And if not?” Kalan asked. “What lies the other way?”

“Eventually,” said Kyr, sketching more lines in the dirt, “the main ridge splits into two. One spine angles back toward the Wall until it finally peters out in the northern reaches of the plain. The other arm carries on, league on weary league, until eventually you come to the Winter Country, or so they say. West of Jaransor there is just wilderness. I have never heard what, if anything, lies beyond that.”

“So,” Malian said carefully, “you are saying that we have a choice between possible danger if we enter Jaransor, and certain danger if we don’t?”

“Oh, we’ll definitely be in danger if we go into Jaransor,” said Kyr grimly. “But at least it should give us an even chance of eluding our pursuers, whereas out here on the plain …” He finished his sentence with an expressive shrug.

“I still don’t like it,” muttered Nhairin.

“You’d like it even less if we were dead,” observed Lira, getting to her feet while Kyr brushed the map away. “And believe me, we will be if we stay here.”

They rode out as soon as darkness fell and turned their horses west, toward Jaransor. Kyr pushed them hard, setting a faster pace and allowing fewer stops. He rode slightly ahead of their small company, while Lira was rearguard and frequently dropped behind, checking their back trail. Malian and Kalan rode close together, sometimes knee and knee, sometimes one horse behind the other, but they did not speak. An air of palpable tension hung over them all, but although Malian listened for the sounds of pursuit, all she heard was the wind and the steady thud of the horses’ hooves on earth and stone. The night stretched out, cold and black and seemingly endless, while she rose and fell in the saddle, fell and rose until it was all she could do to remain upright.

This time they did not stop with the dawn but carried on toward the range of hills that rose up before them, rough and wild in the gray light. The ridges were far lower than the Wall of Night, but still very rugged, with stony outcrops along their tops. “We’ll have more shelter once we’re in amongst the hills,” Kyr said. “We can stop, then, and find a safe place to rest.” So they pressed on again and eventually came to a wide river that comprised several braided channels flowing between shingle banks. The water was a pale blue-green in color and looked cold.

“The river Telimbras,” said Kyr. “It marks the boundary
between the Gray Lands and Jaransor. In Westwind Hold,” he added, his expression impassive, “we call it the River of No Return.”

Malian glanced quickly at Nhairin and saw that the steward’s face was set, although she made no reply to Kyr’s remark. Kalan grinned. “Well,” he said cheerfully, “this is the river for us, then, since going back is not an option.”

That surprised a laugh out of Lira and a reluctant grin from Kyr. Even Nhairin’s countenance eased a little. They clattered and splashed their way across the riverbed, throwing up clouds of glittering spray as they rode through the deeper channels, and then climbed steadily, following narrow trails up rocky ridges and across steep slopes. The focus of Malian’s world closed in again: to the black neck of her horse, to staying in the saddle, and to gritting her teeth and keeping going.