In front of him, the yellow and green flecks of Larion sorcery danced in the air above the portal. It was time. His stomach clenched into a knot at the thought of it, but it was time. Nerak would kill them – Reia too – if he knew Pikan had been pregnant, and they couldn’t take that risk. But he would be back for her. That morning he had taken her out into the meadow beside the house, sat in the dewy grass, and wept. She had grabbed a lock of his hair in her tiny fist and cooed at him in her own esoteric language. It was there that Kantu’s heart had finally broken, among the British wildflowers Pikan loved so much. How could so many colours grow in one place together?
He had promised Reia he would be back, soon, even if he had to kill Nerak himself.
Now, with Pikan wailing, Kantu called the spell a third time – unnecessary, but he needed something to do while Pikan said goodbye – and that would take time they didn’t have. He was packed and ready, his notes rolled into scrolls. The portal was open and behind him – he couldn’t look back – Pikan was crying, ‘I can’t leave her here! She’s too small. She needs me. Please, please don’t make me do this.’
There was nothing he could do to ease her pain. Kantu tossed their bag and his scrolls into the air above the portal. Both disappeared instantly. ‘Come,’ he said, firmly, trying not to sob himself, ‘it’s time.’ He turned, still not looking at the baby; he knew if he looked at her, he would take her back, whatever the consequences. ‘We’ll be back for her.’ He took Pikan by the shoulders, wrapped his arms around her and chanted the spell, avoiding her kicks.
He carried her to the far portal and she wept, ‘I can’t leave her! Don’t make me leave her! Reia! I love you, Reia! I’ll be back for you. Mama will be back!’ Pikan was raving, reaching for the baby, who cried and screamed in the arms of the silent surrogate mother who would raise her until the Larion couple’s return.
With a final glance at the cold, ash-filled fireplace, Kantu, carrying Pikan, stepped through the Fold and back into Eldarn.
Hoyt pulled at his horse’s reins and the animal dutifully followed along. They had spent most of the day moving north through the forest of ghosts. Although he had been thankfully free of memories or visions from his own past, overhearing his friends as they relived anguish and pain had pushed him nearly to the screaming point himself. During a short midday-aven pause, Hoyt had tied a length of cloth over his ears in an effort to filter out Hannah’s pleas, Churn’s screams and Alen’s curious chanting, but it hadn’t helped.
Two avens later, as the sun faded in the west, Hoyt decided to skip the evening meal and continue walking their party north, even if it took all night to get clear of the enchanted woods. He had seen other people during the day: disheartened figures, some wandering around, talking to themselves or ghosts of themselves, their parents, lovers, whomever. Others were sitting, jabbering at nothing while some lay silent, emaciated, dehydrated and dying in the wilderness. There were corpses, rotting and foetid; a wayward step had cost him his breakfast as his foot plunged through the chest cavity of a woman who had died beside a brambly stand of evergreen brush. She had been so covered with leaves that he hadn’t seen her there.
Several times Hoyt had tried to corral one of the other wanderers, but there had been no hope: none responded to his touch. They were all too far into madness to recognise or even care that someone might be attempting to lead them to safety. After a few aborted efforts, he had given up entirely.
It had been slow going, with each of his friends determined at one time or another to kneel or even lie down as they wrestled their demons. They had drunk greedily as Hoyt offered them water, and Churn had eaten a few bits of dried meat, though neither Alen nor Hannah would take any food. They had soiled their leggings at least once during the day.
Now they trudged behind him like walking dead, their wrists looped securely through the reins, responding when he tugged on their arms or clucked their horses along. None of them appeared to have emerged from their daze, even momentarily, all day. He stepped over a rotting log and as he turned to make certain each of his travelling companions could manage, Hoyt considered how many days they would be able to survive in the forest – only another day or two, he thought. Much longer than that, he would have to find some way to get them to eat. Keeping them hydrated was challenge enough, but feeding them while they screamed, begged or chanted verged on impossible.
The noise really was the worst part: Hoyt didn’t mind that they had shat themselves or that they didn’t eat; he could bear walking all day with no one to chat to, but the incessant repetition of whatever the forest of ghosts had found in their past was really driving him mad. Not even Alen’s spell had done much good, though he was sure he has been saying it correctly. During the middlenight aven, he finally broke and shouted at them, ‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, for the love of all the gods of the Northern Forest!’
The only response came from Hoyt’s horse: startled at the sudden outburst, it nickered and pawed at the ground with one hoof.
‘What? Oh, you think it’s funny?’ he asked the tired mount. ‘Of course, you do. You don’t mind six avens of mindless babble, and Churn – for rutting sake, Churn, who I have never heard speak – has not stopped screaming since morning.’ Hoyt took a huge gulp from one of the wineskins and nibbled at a bit of stale bread. ‘You’d think he would have lost his voice for good after screaming all day.’
Now even his horse ignored him. Hoyt spat a few curses at the Pragan night and pushed on through the trees. The Eldarni moons gave a little light, but Hoyt began to grow tired, and worried that one of them – or worse, one of the horses – might miss a step and turn an ankle or take a tumble. He shivered as an eerie moan drifted from somewhere off to his left: the sound of a lost soul wandering in the darkness.
‘All right. One more hill, and then we’ll rest for a while,’ he said, giving a parting glance towards the voice, and tugged his horse’s reins. ‘Let’s go.’
When they crested the next rise, the light from the twin moons and a hundred thousand Eldarni stars illuminated a massive clearing, dotted here and there with boulders and a few scrubby pines growing low to the ground. To the east, the rise and fall of the foothills hardened into a craggy cliff face jutting up in the first of what he guessed was row upon row of eastern peaks. To the west, he could see mountains rising in the distance.
Before them, the ground fell away; less than a hundred paces north, the world ended in a chasm that fractured the very foundations of the earth. Hoyt had no idea how deep it was, or how steeply it sloped, but he would take no chances. First he would lash his friends to a sturdy tree, then build a small fire and to take what rest he could before facing the next stage of their journey.
He dropped his reins and patted his horse on the neck. ‘Good job today.’
‘Hoyt?’ someone called.
‘Rutting whores!’ he screeched, nearly tumbling down the slope.
‘Hoyt?’ The voice came again and for the first time since he stepped into the clearing, the Pragan realised his friends had fallen silent.
He scrambled to his feet and called, ‘Yes. Who is that?’
‘It’s me, Alen – I’m pretty tired. Can we take a break here?’ He was already spreading his cloak on the ground, apparently oblivious to the fact that he had walked all day without sitting, that he had eaten nothing since the pre-dawn aven and had relieved himself as he walked.
‘Uh, yes, that’s what I was checking,’ Hoyt said. ‘This is a good spot. You sleep. I’ll make a fire.’