The stench of blood and death accosted his nose, and Dolana’s warning pounded through him. Its urgency demanded action to save the First Chosen. He tried to push himself up, but a passing Rider thrust its lance through him. Only Earthpower was at his command now, and Talsy’s peril spurred him on. If the First Chosen died, fate would change again and the race of Truemen would be doomed. Chanter invoked Dolana, fighting the chill that weakened his will. Using the Earthpower to locate Talsy, he helped her the only way he could.
Talsy yelped as the ground in front of her bulged. It tore open, and a sheet of grey bedrock some three feet wide and twenty feet long thrust up with a dull grinding of stone and soil. Rising with astonishing speed, it formed a barrier ten feet high that shimmered with the unmistakeable glint of Mujar power. It curved around the back of the hut, cutting off the approach of several Hashon Jahar. Just beyond the shack, it divided into two parallel walls that rose like the backs of slim whales, creating a narrow avenue that shot towards the forest. The rising rock thrust aside the Black Riders as if they were toys, knocking steeds down as it parted.
Talsy sobbed, “Chanter!”
Kieran sheathed his sword and slung her over his shoulder, ignoring her curses and pounding fists on his back. The walls rose ahead of them, guarding their path as he sprinted for the forest. The Black Riders attacked, as if expecting the stone to give way, and, indeed, the areas they targeted shimmered and warped. The walls remained solid, however, forcing them to swing their mounts away before they crashed into them. The Black Riders fell behind, the camp their main target.
Chanter hung onto the Earthpower, digging his fingers into the dirt to aid his concentration. Not only did he strive to control the Dolana that overfilled him, but also to fend off the Black Riders’ attacks on the walls he had raised to guard Talsy’s escape. Their command of Dolana warred with his, but even in his weakened state they could not win. No being of this world, not even the combined willpower of the Hashon Jahar, could defy the will of a Mujar.
The air thickened with screams and dust as the steeds’ hooves smashed down shacks, crushed their occupants or forced them to flee into the gauntlet of swords and lances. Chanter gritted his teeth, clinging to the whipping silver river of power that lashed him with freezing numbness. He opened his eyes to glimpse the Hashon Jahar’s twisted faces, his lips drawn back in a defiant grin. A Rider swung close and bent to look down at him, radiating hatred. It swung a long, spear-like a club, and darkness swallowed Chanter.
Talsy cried out as the walls collapsed, vanishing back into the ground as swiftly as they had arisen. She renewed her struggles, but Kieran hung on and increased his pace, his breath rasping.
Reaching the trees, he staggered into their shade and fell to his knees. The moment Talsy’s feet touched the ground, she tried to wrench free, but he clung to her legs, sending her sprawling. Evidently he lacked the strength to fight her or the breath to argue, for he hauled himself on top of her and pinned her down.
Talsy shouted, “Get off me, you great oaf! Chanter needs help! Let me go!”
Kieran foiled her struggles with frightening ease. His armour dug into her, bruised her when she squirmed and made her more furious. Realising that her situation was hopeless, and she was only hurting herself, she lay still and fumed for the few minutes it took Kieran to recover his breath. Then he rose to his feet and pulled her up, holding her away when she tried to kick him. His brows knotted and he pushed her back against a tree hard enough to make her wince.
“Now you can quit acting like a little bitch and settle down,” he said. “I haven’t time for your stupid tantrums. Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Let go of me!” she bellowed.
“With pleasure, but you’re not running back to try to save the Mujar, got it? He doesn’t need saving, but you do.”
“They might torture him!”
“Then let them,” he said. “They can’t kill him.”
“He must be stuck to the ground. If I free him -”
“Oh, you think they’re going to let you, do you?” He gazed at the distant camp, now a seething mass of black. “You haven’t got a hope in hell.”
Talsy frowned at him. “What do you care what happens to me, anyway?”
“Are you going to behave yourself?”
She nodded, and he released her. She rubbed her wrists and stared at the encampment.
He asked, “Do you want to know why I saved you?”
Talsy was surprised that he was willing to answer her question, and curious. “Why?”
“Because of this.” He touched her brow. “You have the mark of the Mujar. Did you know?”
“Yes. How do you know what it is?”
“They carry it themselves. You didn’t know that, did you?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I only saw it because the men who took Dancer to the Pit chose to humiliate him first. Of course, you can’t humiliate a Mujar, but they didn’t know that. They shaved his head, and that mark was on the back of his scalp.”
“Dancer?”
He smiled. “That was his true name. He gave it to me.”
“You mustn’t tell anyone.”
“About the mark? Why not?”
“Chanter said so.”
Kieran turned to contemplate the overrun camp, apparently losing interest in the conversation. Talsy was oddly annoyed that the Mujar mark had prompted his rescue. Fighting the urge to rush back to the camp and try to find Chanter, she paced about, the thought of what he might be suffering making her stomach churn and her heart ache. Visions of him beaten and bloody, tormented by the Hashon Jahar, filled her mind.
Realising that she was working herself into a fever of useless anxiety, she sought a distraction, and the only one available was the obnoxious Kieran. His sole talent seemed to be fighting, so she asked, “Where did you learn to fight like you do?”
“My father taught me. He was a soldier for most of his life, and a good one. He sired me in his later years, a bargain child, and taught me all he knew from an early age; he was afraid he would not live to teach me later.”
“He’s dead now?”
Kieran nodded. “I buried him two winters ago.”
Talsy walked closer to the forest’s edge to try to see what had happened to Chanter. Kieran gripped her arm and towed her deeper into the wood, ignoring her protests. In the dappled green dimness, he pushed her down and knelt beside her.
“I don’t know what that mark means, but I’m not taking any chances with you. I have a feeling you’re important, somehow.”
Talsy opened her mouth to tell him, then shut it, remembering Chanter’s forbidding. Kieran nodded, as if understanding. He sat back, drew his sword and ran a finger along the blade, wiping off thick black liquid. He sniffed it, rubbing it between finger and thumb.
“Oil.”
“Earth blood,” she corrected him.
“That’s what Mujar call it. Truemen call it oil. They sometimes use it for a lubricant instead of animal grease.”
“They must be creatures of the earth, to have oil for blood and control Dolana,” she mused. “Yet they had Trueman faces.”
“They’re monsters.”
Hot tears stung her eyes as she pondered Chanter’s plight, and she turned away to hide them while Kieran wiped his blade clean with dead leaves.
Chapter Sixteen
Chanter groaned as consciousness returned on a wave of pain. Someone had kicked him, making the spear shaft grate against his bones and tug at his insides. Red froth bubbled from the wound, and he coughed up more, pain shooting through him. He opened his eyes. The camp was a tangled mess of wood and cloth splattered with blood. Twisted bodies lay amongst the wreckage, their glazed eyes staring from gaping faces.
Once again, he lay on a killing field that the gathering mist of souls hung over. A fleeting glimpse of a ragged grey figure told him that his presence had summoned Marrana here to gather the chosen’s’ souls, as she had on the icy mountain slopes so long ago. Her duty
was almost done, the mist dispersing as she strode away, an ethereal figure clad in tattered robes.
The Hashon Jahar had dismounted, and their steeds lay down or stood with hanging heads. Many Riders wandered about, others stood staring into space, and some sat beside their mounts. Now that the killing frenzy had left them, their faces had reverted to blank masks with sightless eyes.
Unlike Mujar, whose powerful life force made them immortal, the Hashon Jahar were undying because they were not alive, and only one being commanded the dead: Marrana. A strange power granted them the semblance of life, and they worked together as if ruled by one mind. The screaming soul faces they wore when they slaughtered belonged to their prior victims, condemned to witness the horror of their kind’s destruction.
Chanter wondered if he could escape, since the Hashon Jahar took no interest in him. He gripped the spear head and tried to pull it out, but only moved it a few inches before he flopped back, Dolana sapping his strength. A Rider wandered over to stare down at him with granite eyes. Chanter lay still, hoping it would lose interest. Instead, the Rider’s interest seemed to spread to others nearby, and they gathered around him. One placed a boot against Chanter’s shoulder and forced him onto his back. The spear shaft tore his flesh before it broke, and he groaned.
With a creak of armour, a second Rider knelt and pulled the Mujar’s arm away from his torso, holding it down. Another thrust its spear through Chanter’s hand, making him grimace and groan again. The pain dulled his senses and, combined with Dolana’s enervating drain, made him helpless. He understood what it must be like in a Pit, surrounded by earth blood, so heavy and weak that lifting a hand would be a supreme effort. The Hashon Jahar repeated the procedure with his other hand, then his legs. As if four spears were not enough, they thrust another through his belly and a sixth through his throat. Apparently satisfied he was as near to dead as they could make him, they ambled away.
Kieran looked up, then jumped to his feet and dragged Talsy to hers. The drumming of hooves came faintly on the wind. He loped to a gnarled tree with many low branches and scrambled onto one, then hauled her up after him and pushed her ahead. Talsy climbed as quickly as she could, gasping as her hands slipped on the rough bark, the branches too thick to grip properly. Kieran held onto her jacket, pushing and pulling her up the tree. When he was satisfied that they were high enough, he thrust her into a fork and squeezed in beside her.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Go and sit somewhere else; you smell.”
He shot her a hard glance. “Shut up.”
“I will -”
He clamped a hand over her mouth, and her struggles at this indignity almost dislodged them.
Kieran held her tighter and growled, “Stop it!”
The hoof beats drew nearer, loud in the forest’s stillness, and she subsided, trying to prise his hand away finger by finger. Four Black Riders came into view below, walking, their heads turning to scan the forest with blank eyes. They seemed drawn to the tree in which she and Kieran hid, and Talsy sent a silent prayer to the Kuran. The Hashon Jahar halted their steeds below, and she was certain they could somehow sense them. Kieran eased his grip a little, allowing her to stare downwards, terror gripping her heart. The Riders sat perfectly still, as if waiting for a sign.
A faint green haze crept between her and the Riders, drawing a veil around the tree in which they sheltered. The scent of wood and rich soil wafted up from it, and tiny sparkles glittered like dust motes. The forest Kuran answered her prayer, sending gentle fingers of herself to dim the Black Riders’ senses. They waited for what seemed like an eternity, then the Hashon Jahar walked away.
Talsy relaxed with a sigh, pulling Kieran’s hand away. He returned her glare, not bothered, it seemed, by her anger. She turned her back on him and tried to ignore him, which was difficult since they were crammed into the fork. As soon as the green haze dispersed, she tried to move away.
Kieran held her back. “Wait.”
“It’s safe,” she said. “The Kuran has withdrawn her power.”
He glanced down. “There’s no hurry. We’re still safer up here.”
“I need some fresh air.”
“You’ve spent too long with a Mujar, girl. You don’t smell so good yourself.”
Talsy gasped at his effrontery, wrenched free and moved to another branch. “Just because we share the same tree doesn’t mean we have to sit on top of each other.”
“Except that I might have to stop your flapping mouth again.”
“You’re the most disgusting, boorish, moronic bully I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”
“Apart from you, you mean,” he shot back.
Talsy seethed, unable to think of a rejoinder. Kieran seemed to be endowed with an above average intelligence, for a man.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “I have spent too long with a Mujar. I’ve forgotten just how unpleasant a Trueman can be.”
“Ah, well, compared with a Mujar we’re all flawed. Haven’t you realised it yet? Mujar are perfect in every way. That’s why Truemen hate them. They make us look like a bunch of bull-headed savages. They epitomise all that’s pure and good, and are quite subservient, which you must enjoy.”
Talsy wished she could kick him, but her perch was too precarious. “I prefer Chanter’s company to yours any day.”
Kieran sighed and shook his head. “He’ll break your heart, without meaning to, of course. Loving a Mujar is like loving the wind. No one can hold onto something that wild.”
“I don’t want to hold onto him.”
“He won’t stay -”
“He will!” She scowled. “He’ll never leave me. He told me so himself, and Mujar don’t lie.”
“I was going to say, he won’t stay with you at night.”
“Only because of the Dolana, but there are ways around that.”
Kieran shifted, leaning closer. “Not just because of the Dolana; because they don’t sleep. They run free at night in animal form.”
“How do you know so much about Mujar?”
Kieran looked pensive, as if considering how much to tell her about his past. “I grew up with one. He taught me many things about Mujar. My father loved Dancer like a brother, but still he would not stay. It broke my father’s heart when they took him to the Pit.”
A pang of pity went through her, but her anger still simmered. “Well, all this has nothing to do with my relationship with Chanter.”
Talsy started to climb down, but he pulled her back, pushed her into the fork and held her there. She fumed, knowing the futility of fighting him, and they sat crammed together until the afternoon. When he decided it was safe to climb down, she made a beeline for the edge of the woods to check on the Hashon Jahar. He gripped her wrist and towed her deeper into the forest.
“They’re still there,” he said. “We’ll look tomorrow.”
Chanter gazed at the stars, so cold and beautiful in the night sky. The Hashon Jahar would leave him imprisoned by Dolana, and, if no one helped him, rain would heal his flesh around the spears, trapping him until his lifetime ended. Dolana’s warning had stopped, allowing him the peace to seek a dreamless sleep, and he hoped Talsy was safe rather than dead.
Chanter became aware of movement in the shadows around him. Inky figures walked across the moon-silvered soil, and horses heaved themselves to their feet with a jingle of harness. The Hashon Jahar were on the move again. They mounted their tireless steeds and formed up into rows and columns. Chanter knew where they were going. They answered the same silent call as he did, guided by the gods to the gathering. The steady clop of hooves passed him, row upon orderly row of animated statues of stone and earth blood. Chanter wondered if his purpose, granted by choosing the girl, was done.
From their hoof beats, he knew the column of Black Riders wound through the rocks and onto the beach. He envisioned the moonlight glinting on their armour and the silken hides of lifeless horses. They would enter the sea, and the waves would close over them as th
ey rode down the sandy seabed, forging through the water, their passage marked by a swathe of phosphorescence. They would move with great torpidity through the dark ocean depths. Weeks or months from now, however, they would emerge onto the shores of the western continent to conclude their work on this world.
Talsy woke stiff and cold, and threw off Kieran’s cloak with a grunt of annoyance. She had not asked for comforts from the surly warrior, nor did she want any. The dawn chill prickled her skin with goose bumps as she rose and stretched. Kieran regarded her with the idle, disinterested gaze of a man watching gold fish in a bowl. Irritated by his unwanted help and unwelcome surveillance, she snorted and strode back towards the camp. Kieran stood up and followed.
At the edge of the forest, her heart leapt. The Black Riders had vanished as if they had never been. She ran across the dew-wet fields towards the camp, her spirits lifted by the prospect of finding Chanter and releasing him from whatever predicament he was in. Before she entered the settlement, the battlefield stench hit her, churning her empty stomach. She slowed, averting her eyes from the torn bodies, most battered beyond recognition.
Talsy searched the debris with flinching eyes, while Kieran lifted broken walls to peer beneath them and pulled aside ragged cloths that covered mangled remains. His lack of reaction, other than a slight paling of his lips, told her that he was hardened to such sights. Talsy gave a cry of horror when she found Chanter, and ran to kneel beside him, her throat tight. She pulled out the spear that pierced his throat and lifted his dusty head onto her lap, stroking the tangled hair from his bloody face. He smiled at her, then grimaced as Kieran pulled a spear from his hand.
“Be gentle!” she admonished.
He paused. “It’s hard to be gentle when pulling spears from a man’s body.”
The coldness of Chanter’s flesh shocked her, and she chafed his free hand to try to warm it. When Kieran had removed the other spears, he squatted beside the Mujar and considered the broken shaft protruding from his chest. After some contemplation, he lifted Chanter and pulled the spear out of his back, since the shattered shaft made it impossible to pull through. The spear head came free with a grating of metal on bone and a gush of fresh blood. Talsy looked away as her stomach made a determined effort to hurl stinging bile into her mouth. Kieran scooped up the Mujar and strode down the beach. Talsy followed, her brow wrinkled with worry. Kieran lowered Chanter into the sea, holding on when he convulsed with the agony of healing.