'Let go of me!' she shouted.
'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 pinned to the ground, if I free him -'
'Oh, you think they're going to let you, do you?' He turned his head to stare at the distant camp, now a seething mass of black. 'You haven't got a hope in hell.'
Talsy glared up at him. 'What do you care what happens to me, anyway?'
'Are you going to behave yourself?'
She nodded, rubbing her wrists when he released her. He eyed her as she turned to stare at the distant camp.
'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 at her surprised expression. '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 gaze at the overrun camp, apparently losing interest in the conversation. Talsy was oddly annoyed that his rescue had been prompted by the Mujar mark. 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. Sitting back, he 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,' Talsy 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. A red froth bubbled from the wound, and he coughed up more, pain shooting through him. He opened his eyes to gaze around at the destruction. Nothing remained of the camp but 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 amongst the dead on a killing field as the gathering mist of souls hung over the ground. 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 upright, ethereal figure clad in tattered robes.
The Hashon Jahar had dismounted, and their steeds lay on the ground 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 black masks with sightless eyes.
Unlike Mujar, whose life force was so powerful it made them immortal, the Hashon Jahar were undying because they were not alive, and only one being commanded the dead. Marrana. A strange power animated them, granting them the semblance of life. They seemed to have little awareness of individuality, and worked together as if one mind ruled them all. 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. Gripping the spear head, he tried to pull it out, but only moved it a few inches before he flopped back, Dolana sapping his strength. A Rider noticed his movement and 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 wandered over to stand around the Mujar. One placed a boot against Chanter's shoulder and pushed him back against the ground. The spear shaft tore his flesh before it broke, and he groaned as he was forced onto his back.
With a creak of armour, a second Rider knelt and pulled the Mujar's arm away from his torso, holding it down. Another raised its spear and thrust it through Chanter's hand, pinning it to the ground. The Mujar groaned. 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 that he was as near to dead as they could make him, they wandered away.
Kieran looked up, then jumped to his feet and dragged Talsy to hers. The drumming of hooves came faintly on the wind, and she glanced around in alarm. He loped to a gnarled tree with many low branches and climbed it, reaching down to haul her up after him, then push 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 hung onto her jacket when she slipped, 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 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 grated, 'Stop it!'
The hoof beats drew nearer, loud in the forest's stillness, and she subsided, trying to pry his hand away
