by killing enough Collosnon soldiers to persuade the enemy to leave them alone. Defeat would be disastrous. The few humans living in Estar had never been much of a threat to the forest of the Penvash Peninsula, but Khmar's hordes could strip away the entire forest as they sought timber for firewood, houses and shipbuilding.
Melski living elsewhere in the continent of Argan, in isolated places such as the Rausch Vally in the high country east of Trest, sometimes were unsophisticated primitives, slow to see their danger until it was almost too late. But the inhabitants of Penvash had learnt the hard lessons of history from their ancestors. A hundred years previously, invaders had come from Sung, in the Ravlish Lands. They had crossed the mountain pass from Larbster Bay to Lake Armansis; even after four generations, the Melski were still bitter about that invasion. Now, remembering stories their grandfathers had told their fathers, they were preparing themselves for a new and possibly more terrible struggle.
When the fugitives met the patrol, Hor-hor-hurulg-murg conferred with its members, and caught up on the news. Shortly before the Collosnon army attacked Lorford, he had accompanied a flotilla of rafts taking a Galish trading convoy to Lake Armansis. He had left before the journey was completed, returning to the vicinity of Lorford with a patrol, which was how he came to be captured.
Now, he learnt that the Galish convoy had reached Lake Armansis, only to find that a southbound convoy had arrived there by way of Larbster Bay and the Razorwind Pass. The two convoys were camped by the lake while the southbound contingent debated whether to turn around and accompany their fellow traders to the Ravlish Lands.
'Soon we'll go north,' said Hor-hor-hurulg-murg, reporting to the women. 'Then you can join one of the convoys. For now, we wait. We've sent more patrols south. We want the latest news to take to the Galish.’
So they waited.
Yen Olass and Resbit made a small hut by staking the branches of a tree down to the ground, weaving in willow then slapping on mud and clay. They shared the Melski diet of fish, fish and fish; they gathered watercress and went bird-nesting. The Melski ate no red meat, and refused to kill the forest animals, but allowed Yen Olass to borrow a bow. Venturing into the forest, not knowing whether she was the hunter or the hunted – the presence of the Melski was no guarantee against soldiers – she sought out and killed a small deer. If well-fed, she might have thought it cute; hungry, the notion never occurred to her. Yen Olass and Resbit ate their fill, then hung up the rest to ripen, knowing that this would improve its flavour. When the Melski objected to the presence of dead meat, they moved it further away.
While they waited, Yen Olass tried to persuade Resbit to join a Galish convoy. That was surely safer than venturing over the mountains on their own. But Resbit still refused to consider a journey to Larbster Bay.
'We should stay by Lake Armansis,' said Resbit. 'With the Melski. They'd take us in. Hadn't you thought of that?’
'That's a ridiculous idea,' said Yen Olass.
Of course, it had once been her own idea. But a little time in the forest had swiftly changed her mind. The forest was wet, gloomy, oppressive, cold, alien and threatening, full of trees which hated her. She was made to live free in the open spaces, not to moulder away in the wilds of Penvash with the wooden giants nightly elbowing their way into her nightmares.
They argued about it while they waited for the Melski scouting parties to return with the latest news. But when the patrols came in, what they brought was not news but people. They had picked up a small party in Looming Forest: Draven, Haveros, the Princess Quenerain, a sea captain from the Harvest Plains by the name of Menjamin Naraham Occam, a soldier by the name of Saquarius who was a deserter from the Collosnon army, a young woman from Estar by the name of Jalamex, and two boy children of twelve or thirteen who identified themselves as Shant and Mation, both of Estar.
Haveros told the story.
After being released by Draven, Haveros and the Princess Quenerain had fled to the east on stolen horses (and here Haveros did not mind admitting that he was a horse thief every bit as good as his emperor) in the company of some other prisoners. They had been pursued by hard-riding cavalry. As the pursuit closed in, they had been forced to abandon their horses and flee north into Looming Forest.
Now Chonjara had a thousand troops in the forest, hunting them. There was no doubt that his men, thwarted by the failure of the assault on Castle Vaunting, were glad to have the chance of a hunt which promised a kill. One Melski patrol was already believed to have been wiped out by the invaders.
After a brief council of war, the Melski decided the humans should go north to join the Galish convoys, which would doubtless leave immediately for Larbster Bay rather than stay to face a thousand marauding soldiers. Hor- hor-hurulg-murg and three other Melski would take the humans to Lake Armansis, then go deeper into Penvash to alert the Melski nation (which was, in Melski terms, not exactly a nation but 'our arc of the circle', a phrase which Hor-hor-hurulg-murg did not translate, for it would have meant nothing to humans who stood outside the Cycle).
The other Melski would harass the enemy, pick off stragglers and try to kill or kidnap Chonjara. To find him, they would interrogate prisoners. Yen Olass taught the Melski one word of Ordhar: 'glot', meaning 'where'. In Ordhar, 'Glot Chonjara?' was a grammatically correct sentence meaning 'Where is Chonjara?'; for the rest, the Melski would have to rely on sign language and pointed directions.
Haveros estimated that it would take eight days to cover the eighty leagues to Lake Armansis, their pace being dictated by their weakest member, the Princess Quenerain, who was suffering badly from blisters. Chonjara's men would gain on them during those eight days, and might even catch them. They set off as soon as possible and moved as fast as possible.
The only person who was not eager to get to Lake Armansis was Resbit. She almost seemed to think it would be better if Chonjara's soldiers caught them. She was, Yen Olass realized, truly terrified of making the journey over the Razorwind Pass to Larbster Bay.
'But why?' said Yen Olass, when they talked about it during a rest break.
'Because it's so far!' said Resbit, close to tears.
'It's not far at all,' said Yen Olass, thinking Resbit must have a very shaky grasp of their local geography.
'It's right out of Estar.’
'We're out of Estar now,' said Yen Olass. 'We're in Penvash.’
'We're still by the river,' said Resbit.
'It's always hard to leave a place,' said Yen Olass. 'I know. I've left many.’
And she thought of some of the places she had lived in, and the partings she had said.
'But I've never left Lorford in my life!' said Resbit.
'But you must have been to Trest,' said Yen Olass. 'Or north, or south, or down to the sea.’
'No, never,' said Resbit, starting to cry. 'No, never the sea. The sea eats people.’
And Yen Olass, holding her and comforting her, started to realize what very different lives they had led.
'I'm sorry,' said Resbit, sniffing. 'I shoud be brave.’
'You'll be brave once we eat well,' said Yen Olass. 'Nobody was ever brave on an empty stomach.’
She was sorry to see Resbit so badly upset. On the other hand, she was glad that the Melski had decided all the humans were to join the convoy, because that meant Resbit would be forced to go with her.
Each night, they were exhausted at the end of their march, and each night the Princess Quenerain, her feet steadily disintegrating, was close to collapse. Yet she did not complain: Yen Olass admired her for that. Each night, the princess slept in the arms of Haveros, her very dreams numb with exhaustion. Yen Olass curled up with Resbit, and Draven with Jalamex, to whom he seemed to have laid claim. The others slept as best they could; all of them usually woke before dawn, when the night was coldest.
On the morning of the fourth day, they found the swollen body of a man trapped in the roots of a tree by the riverside. From his clothing, he appeared to be Galish. Yen Olass, who had no fear of dead bodies – at least not by daylight – examined the corpse and tried to estimate how long it had been in the water. Quenerain came down to have a look, then turned away, feeling sick. The man had been hacked to death by a sword or an axe.
'Come away, Suggy,' said Haveros, drawing her away.
Hearing that pet name, Yen Olass remembered the princess whimpering with excitement in a room in Gendormargensis. It all came back to her. 'Suggy, you're so wet down here. So hot and wet.' 'That's because my little teni is crying for joy, Son-son.' Remembering, Yen Olass had to bite her hand to keep herself from laughing; if she remembered those scenes on her deathbed, she would die laughing.
