When evening came, however, Keashil brought out her harp and they all drew close around the fire. Drinamuz and the other men laughed and drank with Menish’s company, though they preferred warmed ale to ambroth. Their women, who otherwise stayed around their own fire a short distance away, served them hot bowls of mein with dried meat stirred into it. But there was a sense of loss among these displaced Relanese. They spoke of Atonir as a city of lost grandeur and fallen greatness, though they approved of the Emperor. For them, even though many of them had been born since the invasion, there could never be anything like the good, old days again.
The caravan was travelling north, carrying Relanese goods into Anthor, and, being merchants, they drew out the wares they carried. There were swords and shields, rhinoceros hides to be made into battle jerkins, and silver bracelets for the Anthorian women, the only ornament they would wear.
Menish looked through the hides. Several were very good, thick and tough but still pliable. They had been well cured. He bought two of them, one for Drinagish and one for Hrangil. Hrangil’s present jerkin was worn and cut, Drinagish was still using the one he was given two years ago and he had grown since then. While he was buying presents Menish could not forget Althak who had saved his life so recently during the fight with the pirates. But hides would not do. Althak wore a metal breastplate not a fighting jerkin. The curved swords Drinamuz hoped to sell to the Anthorians would also not suit him. But Menish noticed a jewelled belt among the traders’ goods. It was a garish thing studded with gold knobs and sparkling with red enamel. It might have been Relanese but it looked Vorthenki. He bought it and Althak was delighted.
They left the caravan next morning. Their horses could travel much faster than the walking pace of the camels and they had no desire to slow their pace. Azkun was sad to leave them. They reminded him of the deer he had seen in the forest when he had run from the death of the pig. It seemed long ago now. Unlike the Anthorians these people’s answer to violence was to run from it. He did not have a chance to tell them about the dragons.
The day was cold until the sun rose. They were now skirting the edge of the wide plains of Anthor where the nights were cold and the days hot. It was a land of open spaces where they could see for miles and miles and the sky was vast and blue over their heads.
Twice that day they saw distant herds moving across the plains and once they saw a thal, a group of tents pitched in the lee of a low rise. They were almost too distant to recognise and Azkun could only make out that they were round and white. He supposed they were similar to the tents the merchants had pitched the night before.
In the afternoon a chill wind rose from the east which made them clutch their cloaks around them tightly.
As dusk approached they found a hollow in the ground which was sheltered by a rocky outcrop from the worst of the wind. A copse of trees, one of the few they had seen on the empty plains, stood not far away and Althak suggested it might be warmer under the trees. Hrangil snapped at him and Menish said nothing so they made a small fire in the hollow and ate. It was very cold. A frost stole across the plains. They wrapped themselves in their blankets and made themselves as comfortable as they could on the rocky ground.
It must have been several hours later that Azkun awoke, for the moon had risen high in the sky. It was full tonight and it shone with an ice-cold light. To Azkun it seemed larger than usual. The moonlight that filled the night was intense, almost dazzling to him, but it was no more than moonlight.
He sat up, expecting the whole plain to be alive with white light. It was not, of course. The white frost had dusted the ground, glistening fairy-like in the moonlight and a thin mist drifted in the hollows, confusing his vision in the dimness.
But there was more. Something in the air that tasted like menace, or a promise. Like a distant melody that haunted him from afar. It was so like music that he glanced to where Keashil lay. But Althak’s harp lay silently beside her filled with moonlight.
Movement caught the corner of his eye at the same moment he realised that Tenari was not beside him. He could see her, or a figure that must be her, gliding silently over the frost towards the group of trees.
A chill that was more than just the frost ate into his bones. He pulled his blankets around him tightly and shivered. It did not occur to him to follow her at first but as she disappeared among the trees that strange feeling grew stronger.
Silently he rose, still clutching his blanket around him, and followed. Her path was clearly marked out on the frosty ground. Frozen grass crunched under his feet and the cold could be felt through his boots.
The strangeness grew into an exquisite pain that was not pain as he approached the trees. They loomed darkly ahead of him, and among them the moonlight was reflected off something.
Under the trees it was warmer, as Althak had said it would be. What had Hrangil said about this place? He could not remember. The frost had not come here but it was still very cold. He pushed his way through a brake of undergrowth, following Tenari’s clear path of turned leaves and broken twigs.
Beyond the undergrowth he found himself in an open space where the trees crowded darkly against the sky. A ring of pale stones, each as tall as a Vorthenki, gleamed whitely in the moonlight and in the centre of the ring stood Tenari gazing at him dumbly.
Other than her blank gaze she gave him no acknowledgement. The strangeness in the air intensified here; the very stones were haunted by it. He stepped towards her, wanting to speak but hesitating, as if his voice might break some deep magic.
Magic was almost tangible. It swam in the moonlight and lurked in the shadows. The ring of stones was alive with it.
With a sudden clarity of vision Azkun realised that the stones were indeed alive. On each stone was carved an eye, and each eye was looking at him with silent inscrutability. He could feel their minds, or the moonlit shadows of their minds, as they surveyed him with an awful depth of vision, as if they looked into his very soul.
He felt suffocated by their gaze. They seemed to be dissecting him. When he tried to cry out no sound came from his throat. His limbs were lead weights. He tried to run, grabbing at Tenari’s arm to pull her with him but his legs buckled, pitching him forward. His head struck something and darkness blotted out the moonlight.
He awoke just before sunrise stiff with cold and sore from lying on the hard ground. His blankets had rolled off him in the night. No one else was awake yet so he rose as quietly as he could and walked away from the hollow to stretch his legs. His dream bothered him. Not far away the copse of trees hunched like a crouched animal. He wondered if he should go and see if there was a ring of stones, but he was too uneasy at the thought. It was just a dream, Hrangil had said something about the copse yesterday and he had built it into a nightmare. His head had no injury from his fall. Tenari still lay in the hollow. It was just a dream.
But he found footprints in the frost that matched his own leading to the copse. None returned and Tenari’s footprints were nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 21: Meyathal
The dream haunted him for the next two days as they travelled through the mountains that separated the plains of Relanor from the pastures and deserts of Anthor. The icy wind left them as they entered the relative shelter of the mountains but a thin, misty drizzle rolled in from the east.
The days were spent hugging wet cloaks around themselves, the nights in sodden blankets around frugal fires of wet wood. Olcish developed a cough and Keashil looked pale and weak. Althak made the lad a brew of herbs he found on a hillside, but the cough only grew worse. Menish’s leg began to pain him again but he said nothing. Home was not far away and there he would find relief, not before.