The Crow (42 page)

Hared was nervous about their number – even with the charms, five people were much easier to track and harder to hide than one – and he had to balance their need for swiftness with the equal necessity of caution. The fires of guard camps burned in the distance, a dim and baleful red. Hared skirted these as widely as possible. He was practiced, Hem realized, at traversing these lands, and found even in those flat plains lower ground and sheltered spaces where they had a better chance of traveling unseen. They passed several burned villages, but did not go through them, for which Hem was grateful; even at a distance he could smell the death in them.

The constant anxiety made the journey exhausting. Hem's skin was slicked with an icy film of sweat, so he shivered even under the layers he was wearing. After the conversation of the previous day, he felt more nervous than he had the first time. But something else bothered him: since his strange encounter with the Elidhu in Nal-Ak-Burat, he felt as if another sense had opened in his mind. He couldn't give it a name, but it was an awareness that ran through his entire body, as if he were attuned to the earth itself, as if he were part of it, or it was part of him.

He felt that the earth burned with violation, as if it were poisoned; an increasing sense of wrongness seeped up from the soles of his feet, afflicting him with a constant, faint nausea. It was particularly strong in places where plants had been killed – in the gorge he had retched as they passed through the skeletal trees – but it never completely went away.

The farther they walked, the more the huge, surrounding silence bothered him. Even the animals seemed to have abandoned this forsaken land. Ire took little flights from his shoulder, and came back to whisper what he had seen or heard: he told of strange things Hem didn't understand, of clouds weeping blood, of a fear or a shadow that drove even the birds away.

They reached another underground haven later that night, much smaller than the last. Inside was a man with terrible burns. Despite their weariness, greater than could be accounted for by their journey, Hem and Saliman did what they could to relieve his agony; but both of them saw at once that he had no chance. He had been caught in the liquid fire of the dogsoldiers, and most of his skin was burned away. He died in the night.

His companion, a slight woman from Baladh with startling gray eyes shrouded with sorrow, told them his birth name as she closed his eyelids. "He was called Lanik," she said. "He was a good man."

Hem repeated Lanik's name, and bowed his head, feeling the futility of the gesture. He had not been able to save him, and all he could do for him now was to repeat his name. What was the use of that? What else could he do?

The woman thanked them for their help, and offered to share her meager food. It would have offended her to refuse, so they did not; but the travelers brought out their own food as well to ensure that she would not be left without supplies. Her trembling thanks made Hem feel much worse; he thought he might have preferred it if she had shouted at them for their failure to save her friend.

So they went, always by night, flitting furtively from haven to haven, until Hem began to wonder if he would ever see daylight again. Hared's skill kept them hidden from the Black Army guards, although they had a couple of close shaves. Once they almost tripped over a cunningly hidden vigilance, and only Soron's quick reaction and counterspell prevented their discovery; once the luck of a sudden rain shower saved them from the deadly vapor of a maul that rose without warning from the grasslands.

They had traveled in this way for several nights through increasingly heavy weather when they reached a hiding place Hared called, with grim humor, The Pit. They were now reaching the edges of Nazar, and could see in the distance the gray hills of the Glandugir at the borders of Den Raven. The Pit, two days' journey from the Glandugir Hills, was the closest haven to Den Raven that yet remained undiscovered; five others nearer had been attacked and destroyed.

The haven was aptly named. The gorges that hid most of the Bards' caves petered out toward Den Raven, and The Pit was little more than a stone-lined hole dug straight down into the ground, protected by a complicated weave of concealment charms and a wardlock, which could only be opened by a Bard who possessed both the necessary spell and an iron key. It seemed to take a long time for Hared to find and open the haven, while the others shivered in the rain, fearfully keeping watch.

The Pit was the grimmest place Hem had experienced: it lacked even the rough coziness of the previous havens he had seen. It smelled of stale air and mold and damp, and was as cold as a tomb. The haven was empty: no one stayed here long, unless they were forced to. The only positive thing about it, Hem thought gloomily, was that it had good supplies of food, which took up roughly half the cave space. There were no means of cooking – a stove here was forbidden. Cold, miserable, and tired, Hem pulled out a moldy pallet of straw and sat down, throwing thin blankets from the stores over his shoulders.

The following day their party was to split. Saliman and Soron were to strike north on a quest that Saliman would not speak of, but that Hem suspected lay within Den Raven itself. Hem had privately thought Soron, the Bard whose heart lay with the art of eating, was too soft for such a mission, but the past few nights had disabused him of such an easy judgment. There were depths and strengths in Soron he had not suspected, and he could see why Saliman might choose such a companion.

Soron smiled tiredly at him across the narrow space, and Hem tried to smile back.

"Not quite Nal-Ak-Burat, eh, Hem?" said Soron. "The ventilation leaves something to be desired."

"And the heating," Hem said fervently.

Soron reached inside his pack. "Medhyl is the thing, I think," he said. He took a swig from his flask and passed it to Hem. The liquor coursed down Hem's throat, leaving a trail of heat behind it. He passed it on, and each of the travelers drank some. Hem stopped shivering, but his depression lingered.

"I thought the south was supposed to be warm," he said.

"It's almost winter," said Zelika crossly. She was damp and cold, and not in the best of moods. "What makes you think that winter comes only to Annar? I should be sitting on cushions by my grandmother's hearth, with servants bringing me hot drinks. That's what everyone here does in winter."

"Everyone with servants, you mean," said Hem, with a sudden stab of malice. "Anyway, you don't have servants anymore; they're probably dead, and your house is a heap of ashes. You're as poor as me."

Zelika gasped as if he had slapped her. "Only stupid urchins say things like that," she said. "Stupid ignorant boys like you who don't know anything."

"It's not me who's ignorant..." Hem began hotly, but Zelika had turned her back on him. Hem faltered into an embarrassed silence, suddenly aware that Hared, Saliman, and Soron were watching him narrowly.

He took a deep breath and realized that he regretted what he had said. Zelika's occasional pulling of rank was very irritating, and she was sometimes callously ignorant of how most people lived, but that was no reason to so brutally remind her of everything she had lost. He remembered that Saliman had asked him to be strong. Squabbling with Zelika probably wasn't what he had meant.

"I'm sorry, Zelika," he said. "I'm really sorry. It's just... it's just..."

Zelika did not turn around, but after a while she spoke in a muffled voice, which told Hem she had been crying.

"I know. I'm sorry too. Just don't be so nasty. Things are bad enough."

An exhausted silence fell over the whole group, and they all glumly watched Ire attempting to break open a bundle of dried strips of meat, without trying to stop him.

"This place is sick," Hem said vehemently, at last. "You can feel it in the bones of the earth."

"Aye." Saliman glanced at him soberly. "You say rightly, Hem. The very stones are ill. You sense the touch of the Nameless One, his ill will to all living things. It reaches deep into the earth."

Hem looked down at his hands. "I wish that things were different," he said.

"Aye, that we all do." Hared, who had been silently gathering together some dried fruits, bread, and smoked meat for their meal, turned and gave Hem the wolfish smile that never quite reached his eyes. "But they are not. They are as they are, Hem, and the only way things will get any better is through what we do." He waved his hands at Ire, who had given up on the meat strips and was now eyeing a date. "Keep that bird under control, Hem. I don't want his beak in our supper."

"But what difference can we make?" Hem absently picked up Ire, who pecked his hand in token protest. Tonight he felt numbed and helpless in the face of all the suffering he had witnessed. He thought of Boran, who liked nothing better than to sit in the marketplace, drinking bitter coffee out of his little silver cups and gossiping with his friends. He should not be dead, a man so generously alive, and yet he was. The little girl from Baladh with the terrible burns. Lanik in the small haven a few days ago, in an agony only death could alleviate. Mark, whom the Hulls had wanted him to murder on that terrible night so long ago. His father, whom he could not remember. Cadvan. Countless others, whose names he did not know, who had cried out and whom Hem had tried to help, and could not.

"It is not given to us to know what difference we can make, and perhaps we can make no difference at all. But that is no reason not to make the attempt," said Saliman quietly. "The Light shines more brightly in the darkness."

"Hard words, my friend," said Soron. "For all that they seem gentle."

"Not so hard, when you consider the alternative." Saliman looked up, meeting Hem's eyes, and his glance was clear and dark. "No act is without meaning. Even if the darkness swallows us utterly, I will brook no despair."

"Despair!" said Zelika bitterly, turning around. "What else is there? I don't have any hope; I don't think we have a chance. But I'm not going to lie down and die quietly – no matter how many mauls and dogsoldiers and Hulls there are. And even if they end up killing me, I'll die cursing them."

Her bottom lip was pushed out pugnaciously, and her eyes flashed; and with a leap of his heart Hem realized, for the first time since he had seen Zelika come out of the bathing room in Saliman's house in Turbansk, how pretty she was. He flushed and looked away, afraid he had betrayed himself, but Zelika was frowning at the floor and did not notice.

Saliman smiled. "Spoken like a true Baladhian," he said, his voice warm and amused. "Though that's not quite what I meant."

They ate their cold meal, and then bedded down to sleep on damp pallets. There was only just room for the five of them to lie on the floor.

Despite his deep tiredness, Hem lay awake for a while listening to the steady breathing of his companions. Saliman had not spoken of their imminent parting, although Hem knew that the knowledge of it lay unsaid behind all his words that night. The thought of their separation weighed more heavily on Hem than anything else. It was as bad as having to leave Maerad; worse, because he knew more now than he did then, and could deceive himself less. It was, he thought, very likely he would never see Saliman again.

Saliman and Soron rose to leave soon after they had broken their fast. They made their farewells swiftly, wishing each other good fortune. Hem hung back, made shy by the intensity of his emotion, and Saliman farewelled him last of all. He took Hem's face between his hands and kissed his forehead; as once before, his kiss lit a golden flower in the chill that numbed Hem's soul, and the boy looked into Saliman's face with a wild, despairing gratitude.

"Go well, Hem," said Saliman in the Speech, standing back and regarding him gravely. "May the Light shine on your path."

"And on yours," said Hem, feeling a stiff formality paralyzing his body. He took a breath, wanting to say more. Hem found there were no words: he wanted to say too much, and so could say nothing. With a sudden clumsy rush of love he embraced the Bard, clutching him hard, breathing in the spicy smell of his skin. With surprise, he realized he was almost as tall as Saliman.

Saliman returned the embrace, holding him close, and then gently disengaged himself. He stroked Hem's cheek lightly with the back of his fingers.

"Come, Hem! Courage, my heart." He smiled, and for a moment his expression held no trace of sadness. Hem stared at him hungrily, wanting to fix in his memory his last sight of this man he loved so much. "All is not yet lost, and hope is not dead. I say to you, Hem, we will meet hereafter, through all these shadows."

Hem nodded, unable to speak for fear he would start sobbing and wouldn't be able to stop; and Saliman and Soron turned swiftly and climbed the iron ladder out of The Pit, vanishing strangely in the shadows as the charms embedded in the entrance began to weave themselves around their forms.

The others were to wait until Saliman and Soron were well clear of the area before they would leave on their own mission. Hem sat on the ground, covering his face with the hood of his cloak. Zelika and Hared busied themselves, making sure the haven was left as tidy as they had found it, and double-checking their own supplies. Ire pecked around Hem's feet, searching for stray crumbs of food, but did not try to speak to him. Even he knew that Hem wanted to be left alone.

When it was time, Hem hefted his pack onto his back and followed Zelika and Hared up the ladder and out onto the plains.

XVII

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LANDUGIR
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