The linnet of the Guard strides quickly to the center of the chamber. “A soldier, sir — a mere pallin, from Sentek Arnem’s command. He claims that he has an urgent report, which the sentek himself ordered him to bring.”
“Did you so command?” Baster-kin calls to Arnem.
“Ban-chindo,” the sentek mumbles; then, as calmly as he can manage, he replies, “Yes, my lord, I did. The pallin has been watching the area of the Wood in which we earlier observed activity.”
“Well — see what he wants,” Baster-kin says, and resumes his hushed conversation with the Layzin, a heated exchange that is evidently doing nothing for the Merchant Lord’s infamous disposition.
In truth, Arnem would rather stay where he is, and use the moment to privately demand that Yantek Korsar explain his extraordinary behavior and statements; but all Korsar seems willing to offer is an additional order:
“You heard him, Sixt — go see what troubles your pallin.”
Left without alternatives, Arnem tries to make his concern plain on his face, and puts his fist to his chest in salute to his commander; but Korsar only smiles again, that infuriating expression that is almost wholly hidden by his beard, and so Arnem must stride to the arched doorway in as bad a humor as he can remember experiencing. He moves roughly past the men of the Guard, and drags the winded Pallin Ban-chindo out into the transept of the Temple.
“I trust this is urgent indeed, Ban-chindo,” he says. “What have you seen — more movement?”
“No, Sentek Arnem,” the young man replies: “Yet another fire!”
The word drives all other worries from Arnem’s mind, for an instant. “Fire? What do you mean, Pallin? Be specific, damn it all!”
“I am trying, Sentek,” Ban-chindo says, only now getting the heaving of his broad chest under control. “But it has been a long run!”
“You wait until you have four or five Bane fighters anxious to take your head,” Arnem scolds. “You’ll remember running the Celestial Way as an amusing bit of exercise — now, explain.”
“We thought it the light of more torches, at first,” replies Ban-chindo, doing his best to be soldierly and detached. “But it is much deeper in the Wood, and far larger. Flames as high as any tree! Linnet Niksar ordered me to tell you that he thinks it a signal beacon, or evidence of a large encampment.”
Arnem takes a few moments with this news, pacing the transept. “And Linnet Niksar’s opinion can be trusted …” he murmurs. “But that’s all you bring?”
“Well, Sentek, you did say that if we observed anything else—”
“Yes, yes. Fine. Well done, Pallin. Now, back you go. Tell Linnet Niksar that I want the khotor of the Talons ready to march by dawn. The full khotor, mind you, with cavalry ready to ride — both profilic and freilic† units. Understood?”
Once again, Ban-chindo slaps his spear to his side as he stands to attention and smiles. “Yes, Sentek! And may I—”
“You may do nothing else,” Arnem replies, knowing that the young man simply wants to express gratitude for the trust his commander has placed in him, but also knowing that there is no time. “Go, go! And keep your mind on those Bane gutting blades!”
Setting off at a run once more, and lowering his spear in the manner instilled by countless hours of drill — so that it hangs level to the ground at his side, ready either to form part of a bristling front line or to be thrown from farther back in the khotor’s formation — Pallin Ban-chindo is soon out the brass doors of the Temple. Arnem, however, is in no such hurry. He knows that all he will hear inside the Sacristy are more bizarre statements and angry recriminations; and, for a moment, he indulges the childish belief that if he does not enter, none of it will happen …
But the moment is fleeting; and he soon hears the linnet of the Guard calling out, to say that the Layzin and Baster-kin await his return.
1:{viii:}
The Bane foragers, journeying homeward,
encounter horror compounded by Outrage
Keera cannot say how long she has been running; but when she realizes that her brother and Heldo-Bah have finally sated their appetite for argument, she supposes that it must have been a considerable time. Heldo-Bah still leads, having chosen the most direct, if not the safest, route home to Okot: along the Cat’s Paw. They turn into the deeper Wood only when the river does, and then will move south by east, atop the more shielded (and thus more dangerous) stretch of the river. Finally, they will say farewell to the waterway, and prepare to follow an ancient trail due south. Like a handful of similar routes in other parts of the Wood, this trail was marked by the earliest exiles with ancient Moon worshipper symbols,† carved glyphs upon rocks that no longer hold meaning for anyone outside the Bane, and for precious few members of that tribe. But the symbols’ loss of significance has not diminished their quality of encouragement: for Bane returning from missions, the markings remain welcome indications that they will soon be among the smaller settlements that surround Okot, and, not long thereafter, amid the bustle of the central Bane community itself.
The final, writhing turn of the Cat’s Paw to the east has long been infamous for its series of especially violent waterfalls, the noisiest cascades in an already loquacious and often lethal river. Generations ago, Bane foragers, in a moment of typically grim humor, named these falls the Ayerzess-werten,‡ in acknowledgment of all those in their tribe who, dashing too carelessly through the Wood, had slipped and plummeted to their deaths in the narrow, well-hidden gorge. Keera’s party are too expert to be tricked by any of the Ayerzess-werten’s ploys, although they pay them healthy respect: when Heldo-Bah reaches the deceptively beautiful spot where flat granite and gneiss†† formations jut out over the tiers of falling water, he carefully creeps to the slippery, moss-covered edge of the most dangerous precipice, then returns to mark the limit of safe ground for his companions with a rag of rough white wool that he ties to the lowest limb of a nearby silver birch. This important task completed, Heldo-Bah begins to look for the faded marks of the trail that will make up the final stage of the foragers’ race to discover what vexes their people so severely that they have sounded the Voice of the Moon no less than seven times.
When Keera reaches the Ayerzess-werten, she looks up through the break in the Wood’s leafy ceiling above the falls, at the position of the Moon and stars.§ She realizes that Heldo-Bah has set a far better pace than she had supposed: the tribulations of the heart, like those of the body, can make a lowly fool of that seeming master we call Time. Keera speculates that she and her companions should reach Okot by dawn — and yet, for the tracker who is above all a wife and mother, there is only additional dread in this seemingly reassuring consideration: For if Heldo-Bah were as certain as he claims to be that no great evil has befallen Okot, he would hardly have been likely to set and sustain such a rigorous pace over the most dangerous stretches of the Cat’s Paw — particularly after having stuffed his belly with beef.
Despite her mounting anxiety, Keera herself soon halts the party’s progress: for, carried on a gust of wind from the southeast is the scent of humans — filthy humans, to judge by what is more stench than scent. No foragers would travel so carelessly, nor would any other Bane familiar with Davon Wood; and so, without a word, Keera reluctantly stops just short of the area marked by Heldo-Bah’s warning rag, and signals to Veloc. Veloc, recognizing in his sister’s expression that strangers are approaching, calls as quietly as he can after Heldo-Bah, who has wandered some fifty paces from the river in search of the southern trail. But in the region of the Ayerzess-werten, fifty paces might as well be five hundred: Veloc’s voice, even were he to bellow, would scarce rise above the sound of the waters. And so, with expert movements, he produces a leather sling from inside his tunic and reaches down, picking up the first acorn-sized stone he can locate. He flings the stone in Heldo-Bah’s direction, intending, he tells his sister, to strike a tree in front of his friend. But Veloc misses his mark (or does he?) and the stone catches Heldo-Bah on the rump, drawing from him a single sharp cry of pain, and then, to judge by the contortions of his face, more variations on his formidable store of angry oaths. Heldo-Bah is yet close enough to the Ayerzess-werten for his voice, like Veloc’s, to be swallowed up by the din of the river; and so his tirade poses scant danger of revealing the foragers’ presence. He returns to his comrades, still mumbling curses as he prepares for a new battle of name-calling.