The Plains of Kallanash (27 page)

Gantor made a sudden strangled noise, and dashed out into the tunnel. Trimon rolled his eyes, but Walst and Hurst followed Gantor out.

“Directions!” Gantor said, waving his arms in excitement. “See, there’s all this writing at the top, lots of words, but then lower down it’s just numbers.”

“Right,” said Hurst, mystified. “We know all that.”

“Think about it! Suppose you’re walking through these tunnels, and unlike us, you can open all the gates, you can go wherever you like. What information would you need?”

“How to open the gates?”

“Yes, yes, of course, but what else? You come to a junction, say
– what would you like to know?”

“Where it goes!” Hurst cried, getting the point. “Directions!”

“Yes! And probably distances, as well. And these curved lines? I think they’re pointers. See how that one faces up the tunnel, but this one faces down it? So all this writing at the top just means – this way, twenty miles to somewhere, and thirty miles to somewhere else.”

“So you can’t actually read it?”

“Well no, but that part doesn’t matter. Not unless we ever need to go back up the tunnels in a different direction. I daresay…” Gantor stopped abruptly, and looked sideways at Hurst, chewing his lip.

“Go on,” Hurst said.

Gantor sighed. “I was only going to say,” he muttered, “that Mia could probably read it. She had quite a good grasp of some of these old scripts.”

“Well, when we find her, that will be useful,” Hurst said evenly. Gantor and Walst exchanged glances. “I know, I know, it won’t be easy to find her, I realise that. And I’m not totally stupid, you know, I understand it may just be a dream. Maybe she’s dead. Maybe they’re all dead. But I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing, shrivelling up like an autumn leaf. It’s better to be doing something, anything. Isn’t it?” Walst stared at his feet, and none of them said anything. “So, what about the numbers, then?”

“The numbers open the gate,” Gantor said. “There are five numbers. It’s a code or key of some sort. There are devices at the Ring that operate that way – you set little levers somehow in a pattern and it unlocks the door. But there are no little levers on the gate, nothing in the wall. I just don’t see anything that moves.”

“It must be hidden then,” said Trimon, emerging from the cave.

“Yes, but where?” Gantor said.

“Well, let’s think about this logically,” Hurst said. After the days and weeks of inactivity it was a relief to have a puzzle to focus on. “So, let’s suppose I’ve brought my cargo of
– well, people or goods, whatever, and dropped it off, and now I’m making my way back up the tunnels. Coming down was easy, just a single lever to open each gate, but now I’ve got to use this – code, key, thing. But it can’t be difficult, because I don’t want to spend ages at each gate fiddling. It’s got to be something very simple, something that doesn’t involve climbing or stretching or crawling on the ground.”

“Head height!” Gantor exclaimed.

“And it’s a lock of some sort, so something with matching bits on each half of the gate,” added Trimon.

“There are several of those,” Walst said, “and we’ve tried them all already.”

“Yes, but only one pair at the right height,” Trimon said. “It has to be these two.” He began to run his fingers over a solid patch of metal. “Nothing on this side… let’s try the – oh!” And with a click, a small door popped open.

“Fuck me!” said Walst.

There were five levers inside, and it was obvious what they had to do, but even so it took a good half hour of sliding them this way and that before there was a sudden thunk, the lock opened and the gates could be pushed open. Several times Gantor insisted they let the gates swing shut again, which reset all the levers and closed the cover over them, just so that he could reopen them, and then he made each of them try it until they could all do it easily. They turned to Hurst.

“Looks like we’re free,” Gantor said, surprise in his voice. “So
– where to?”

“There’s no point going back up the tunnel,” Hurst shrugged, “and down that way are hundreds, maybe thousands, of armed men, all raring for a fight. So let’s try the Godstower, and see what we find.”

He sent Walst through the gate first, and let it close again, to check that it could be re-opened from the other side. There was no lever, but the numbers were engraved on the wall and Walst easily opened the gate from the far side. Then they all put on armour, weapons and packs and filed through into the tower. Immediately they saw a difference. This tower had been partially demolished, and it was easy enough to scramble over the debris and down heaps of fallen masonry on the outside to the ground. The fallen stones were partially overgrown with grass and weeds, so whatever catastrophe had occurred was not a recent event.

One by one they reached ground level and stood looking around them. The light was dazzling after the gloom of the tunnel and it took a while for their eyes to adjust. There was nothing much to see. They were standing on open plain, head high in waving grasses. Away in the far distance was an odd misshapen tower. As they stood, gazing around them and wondering which way to go, a voice rang out behind them.

“Hey! You there! What the fuck are you doing out here? You should be inside, you stupid fuckers! Come on, quick, sun’s up, get yourselves out of sight!”

They turned to see a man on a horse not far away, waving at them in some agitation.

“Is he talking to us?” murmured Walst.

“I think he is,” Hurst said. “Better do what the man says, don’t you think?”

Before the others could say a word, he began to lope across the ground towards the horse.

Mia had not thought at all about the consequences of her assignment. One barbarian was much the same as another in her eyes, and enforced sex was likely to be just as unpleasant a chore with the Warlord as it would be at Supplies, although perhaps less arduous.

But she was not afraid. Sex was sex, after all, and she knew all the usual variations from Hurst and Jonnor, and a great many less usual ones, too, from her reading. Also, from the endless discussions on the subject in the kitchen she had learned that there were rules here, even for the disorderly men at Supplies. Any man who hurt a woman, or forced her to carry out any of the less pleasant variants against her will, would be flogged for a first offence and castrated for a second. It reassured her, a little. Even Bulraney in his rage had not dared to hurt her.

She soon found, however, that being the Warlord’s woman, as she supposed she now was, earned her a degree of respect. The kitchen workers’ eyes were round when they learned where she was going, and for once they had nothing to say.

Kellen took her to Runa, with the terse command to find her some riding clothes. Mia’s spirits lifted at once. Riding! That would be a welcome change from living underground like a mole. They were not very good quality clothes, and far too big for her, but she didn’t mind. It was a pleasure to get out of the impractical gown and into comfortable trousers.

“Should I bring my things?” she asked, when she emerged from her room after changing. Kellan took one look at her rough gowns and shook his head.

“There’ll be better stuff there.”

“Where is there, exactly?” she asked.

“Warlord’s House,” he answered, but it was Runa who added, “It’s out near the Sixth Section. Quite a way.”

Mia would never have believed how good it would be to have the wind on her skin again, to feel the warmth of the sun, to see clouds scudding across the open sky. When she emerged from the caverns which had been her home for three weeks, she stood for a moment, eyes closed, savouring the sensations she hadn’t realised she had missed.

Now that she was above ground, she could see the whole of Third Section. The Commander’s House was a strange building viewed from outside, a collection of reddish six-sided towers joined together, all of different heights, as if a child had built it without quite grasping the concept of symmetry. A little further away was the Section House, a single storey rectangular building of dull brown stone, with a low square tower on one side. Dotted about the compound were stables and stores, a smithy and what looked like a brewing house, a row of stuffed sacks hanging, presumably for archery practice, and around the perimeter a high wall with men patrolling along the top and a flag at each corner snapping in the wind.

The Warlord was accompanied by six men, with two extra pack-horses. He had commandeered a horse for Mia from Bulraney, to the Commander’s obvious but suppressed annoyance. They were all mounting up when Mia arrived, and they sat astride their horses watching her.

“You can ride, I take it?” the Warlord said.

“Of course,” she replied.

No one offered to help her, but she nimbly jumped up and settled herself in the saddle, although it was higher than she was used to, being a Skirmisher style. She wondered briefly where they came by such a thing, but then remembered that these people fought against men using just such saddles, and no doubt they had captured a few horses over the years.

She adjusted her cloak neatly, and sat waiting. She thought she saw approval in the eyes of one or two of the Warlord’s escort, but he himself was expressionless. With a nod to the still fuming Bulraney, he led his troop across the compound towards the far gate, and Mia tucked in at the back of the group. The gate creaked open and they passed through onto the open plain. It felt like a kind of freedom.

They rode at a steady canter with the sun slowly sinking on their left. The Warlord rode in front, then two men leading the pack horses, then Mia, and the other four positioned themselves behind her, presumably to give chase if she made a bid for freedom. She was not minded to. All around her was empty wilderness, nothing but grassland, odd patches of scrubby woodland and unexpected swamps. Behind her, Bulraney’s towers slowly shrank, and a much smaller construction, like a collapsed Godstower, not far to the west of it, but no other buildings loomed on the horizon, although they were following a clear track. She was not about to set off alone with night coming on.

She had never been in true wilderness before, but this, she assumed, was what the entire plains had been like at one time. There had been people here for millennia, first nomadic people following the large herds of kishorn which gathered in the autumn months, and later the Petty Kings with their violent feuds and peasants scratching a living from the poor soil. Then the Word of the Gods had arrived, and brought order and civilisation and good drainage and peaceful ploughed fields. But here on the plains there was no civilisation, only the barbarians with their scattered settlements.

It was not empty of life, though. In the distance, in almost every direction, could be seen clusters of grazing animals – kishorn, horned canasts, deer of various sizes. Large plains rodents stood on any tussock watching for predators, vanishing into their burrows or mounds as the riders approached. Raptors circled overhead, and smaller birds flew up with outraged shrieks almost from under the horses’ hooves.

As dusk fell, they made camp. It was clearly a pre-arranged spot, for there was a stone-lined fire-pit, with neat heaps of dried animal droppings beside it
– kishorn, she guessed, from the size. Two of the men took bows into trees not far away, and emerged later with a couple of hares and a small deer, which they neatly skinned and butchered and spitted for roasting over the fire. There was bread and some kind of dried fruit, which Mia couldn’t recognise, and a thick gruel.

After the meal, she felt a pressing need and began to walk towards the woodland. Almost immediately, two men appeared in front of her, bows primed.

“I need to relieve myself,” she said. “Do you want to watch?”

They stood aside. As she walked on, they followed behind her, but she was amused to see that they politely turned their backs when she pulled her trousers down.

When she got back to the camp, seven small shelters had been erected, no more than a few sticks covered with hide. The Warlord was waiting for her beside one of them.

“I’m afraid you have to share with me,” he said, lifting the flap and raising a sardonic eyebrow. She hesitated, and her heart thumped in sudden panic. For all her fine words in Bulraney’s tower, she was going to have to lie down with this man. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not minded for any screeching tonight.”

She crawled into the shelter, but then to her surprise he let go of the flap again and disappeared into the night. She found two thick mats laid out, each with a couple of blankets, and she had her cloak as well, and now she was glad she was not wearing her riding coat, which would have been far less comfortable to sleep in.

She made up a bed as best she could and lay down, listening to the strange night sounds of insects and birds, rattles and chirrups and scratchings, once or twice frogs croaking, and far off the howl of something bigger. But there were also male voices talking low around the fire, and that was strangely reassuring. Later, she half woke, realising that this man, the man who now owned her, who could treat her as his wife, was lying inches away from her, snoring softly. She didn’t even know his name.

~~~

The next morning produced another substantial meal
– more gruel, the remains of the deer, bread and a handful of tiny red berries, sweet and juicy. Again she was followed into the bushes when she relieved herself. They broke camp without a word being spoken. These were men who knew each other well, she realised, men who had played out the same role many times, who trusted each other and knew exactly what was expected of each of them.

This time the Warlord waved her forwards to ride alongside him, although he said very little except once to point out grass of an unusually vivid green which concealed a swamp, and later to indicate the towers of the Fourth Section ahead. But they were not planning to stop there, it seemed.

At noon, they took a long rest, allowing the horses to graze. Two men stood watch, while the other four lay down and promptly went to sleep. Mia was reminded of Hurst, who had told her that Skirmishers always did that – resting whenever the opportunity presented itself, but only sleeping lightly, ready to be immediately alert. It seemed that barbarians had the same practice.

Mia had taken her food a little way away from the men, as much to give them the freedom from her presence as for her own need for solitude. But the Warlord came to stand beside her. For some time he simply stood, saying nothing, and she kept silence too, feeling that the onus was on him to speak first, if he wished to speak at all. She felt she had nothing to say to him.

But then he crossed his legs and sat down beside her, in one fluid movement.

“You like riding, I think,” he said.

“I do. I like being outside after so many weeks underground.”

“You were quite ill, I believe. You are completely better now?”

“I am well now.” And because that sounded a little ungracious, she added, “Thank you.” She chided herself for her rudeness. Just because she was amongst barbarians didn’t mean she had to be a savage herself.

He was silent then for some time, but she couldn’t tell whether it was a comfortable silence or not. She couldn’t read him at all. His face gave nothing away. But then, surprisingly, he became chatty.

“You know, you shouldn’t be angry with Bulraney. He’s very bitter.”

“Bitter?”

“He was the only child of a wool merchant, a very good business, as he tells the tale, and he would have had it all. He had already learned his trade, started working under his father, he was building it up, doing well. Then one night he and some friends got into a fight down at the local alehouse. Well, you’ve seen him, he’s a big man, he killed two of them without even noticing, crippled a third. Wasn’t really his fault. That’s his version, of course. But the Voices came to try him, found him guilty and here he is. He’s very bitter about that. But he picked himself up, determined to do well here, became a warrior – a pretty terrifying one, actually. Well, he scares me when the mood is on him. So you can see why he got upset when you complained about being here.”

“You mean
– he was
sent
here? Because he killed someone?”

“Yes. Didn’t you realise? Every last one of us is here because we did something wrong. What did you think, that we all chose to come here?”

“I just assumed – that you lived here. That you’re the Vahsi. That you were born here. But that’s impossible, isn’t it?” she said in a small voice.

“Yes. No babies here. And no Vahsi. We were all born in the Karningplain, we got sent here because we transgressed in some way.”

“I didn’t,” she said quietly.

“Well, you offended someone enough for them to want to get rid of you,” he said tartly.

There was a great deal here for Mia to think about. She wondered what the Warlord had done to get himself exiled here. She realised now that his accent was different from the others, somewhat more educated, not quite so rough, although it still grated on her ears.

They rode on northwards past the Fourth Section, identical to Third, where the men on the walls waved to them. Occasionally they passed groups of riders going south, sometimes only two or three, but often twenty or more, with pack-horses. There were wagons, too, laden with sacks or barrels, always heading south. They waved to the Warlord as they passed, and he acknowledged them in return, but he didn’t stop, riding onwards for hours at a time.

She was glad she was accustomed to riding; otherwise she would have been very saddle-sore. They were going to the Sixth Section, or somewhere near it, so she guessed another two days of riding. And after that? She hoped she wouldn’t be underground again, that was as much as she could aspire to. Beyond that, she chose not to think. She calmed her mind, using her meditation methods, determined to enjoy the moment and not let fear of the future mar her pleasure in the ride. What would happen would happen, there was no escaping her fate. Not yet, anyway.

In the afternoon of the second day, they came to the Fifth Section and she noticed that the flag had five circles on it. A simple identification system - three circles at the Third Section, four at Fourth, and five at Fifth. Most of these men would be illiterate, since they were all criminals, presumably from the Lowers
– farmers and herdsmen and rough craftsmen and wagon drivers and the like, she supposed. She tried to remember if she had seen any books or papers in Bulraney’s room; she thought not.

Two men came out from the compound at Fifth Section to meet them, and the Warlord and two of his men rode off to talk to someone. The remaining four stayed mounted, quietly waiting, so Mia did the same. A man brought a flask out for them, offering it to the men first and then, nervously, eyes averted, to Mia. When she drank she discovered it was a weak sort of ale, not water. It was refreshing, and she thanked him politely. He gazed at her for a moment, then lowered his eyes again and scuttled off.

The second night was much like the first, and again Mia was untouched. She wondered if he was waiting until they reached his base before taking what he undoubtedly presumed was his. Perhaps he thought a screaming woman would be embarrassing out here, where his men could hear everything. She shivered and put the thought out of her head.