Aurum jabbed the corpse with the toe of his ranga. 'We are at least sixty days by road from Osrakum. This thing was already here.'
'Not if it came here on the leftway,' said Jaspar.
Suth shook his head. That would be difficult without the complicity of the Wise. Besides, she would not risk being so easily incriminated. The traffic records for the leftways are meticulously kept.'
'Either way,' said Aurum, 'it is probable that in a few days Ykoriana will learn that she has failed. Desperation will make her doubly dangerous. We must reduce the time she has to spin another web. We must use the leftway.'
'On the leftway we will be exposed,' said Vennel.
Thanks to you, my Lord, we are exposed wherever we go,' grated Suth.
'What of your wound, Lord Suth?' asked Jaspar.
Carnelian disliked the way Vennel's eyes turned to feast on his father.
Suth smiled. 'A scratch.'
Carnelian remembered how much blood there had been. He looked away, over the canvas wall and saw above the gate a paler edge of sky. 'Behold, the morning,' he said, with wonder. He had believed the night would never end.
The clanging of stone bells could be heard all across the field. Beneath the city wall everyone stood waiting, looking towards the still-closed gates. Carnelian and the other Masters were formed up within the cordon of the Marula. He was anxious that his aquar as it shifted should not step on the flattened tents. Beneath the canvas the corpses of the assassins lay side by side with the Marula they had killed. Though it was their custom, Aurum had not allowed the Marula to burn their dead. They glanced furtively at the canvas, stroking the salt bracelets they had stripped from the corpses. One of them sat stiffer than the others. Carnelian kept noticing the red corners of his eyes and knew the man was looking at him. When the black face angled towards him, gaunt with fear, Carnelian recognized it as belonging to the Maruli who had seen him unmasked the night before. There was no way he could reassure the man that he was safe, but Carnelian was determined to keep their secret. There was already enough blood on his hands.
A grinding grumble drew his eyes away to where a crack was widening down the centre of the gate. The faces on the doors swung inwards to look at each other. The crowd murmur rose in pitch. Everything began to shuffle forward. A slow rhythm of huimur bells, axles and wheel trundle answered the steady ringing from the towers. Fully opened, the gates released a river of travellers coming out from the city. The two flows sheared against each other with a continuous protest. Consternation spread outwards from their meeting. Something fearful. The uproar hissed towards the Masters like flames across a parched fernland. Carnelian snatched the single, chilling word 'plague' again and again from the chatter.
Aurum barked an order and the Marula dismounted round them to form a ring of spear points. It looked to Carnelian a frail defence. Still, when he looked for Tain, he was relieved to see him with the baggage inside the ring.
Carnelian watched Aurum's hunch lean down to one of the Marula. As the old Master sat back his action seemed to jerk the man up into his saddle-chair. The Maruli strode his aquar off into the crowd. For a moment he was consumed by it, his head bobbing in the boil. Then he came back and spoke to Aurum, pointing his arm towards the gate.
Aurum turned to shout something at the other Masters. Carnelian strained to hear.
‘… mere rumour carried here from… south. If plague exists… far away… might… burn itself out before… reach it. We go on.'
Vennel straightened up. ‘Should we not consider remaining in Nothnaralan?' His high voice carried more clearly than the old Master's. 'We could wait it out. Surely it would be foolish to ignore the peril.'
'We shall go on,' shouted Aurum. 'If it is your wish… remain here.'
Carnelian saw his father and Jaspar lift their hands in agreement.
Aurum nodded, then commanded the Marula to remount. Their saddle-chairs rocked as they clambered up. Aurum's hand punched more commands into the air. The Marula reversed their lances and began to bludgeon a path with the hafts. Their aquar cleaved into the flow like boats. Carnelian could see the animals' distress. Their heads flicked from side to side, plume fans quivering open and closed. The Marula jerked tight their reins and continued hacking into the crowd. Carnelian's chair jolted as he rode after his father into their wake. One hand struggled with the reins while the other clenched the chair.
The crowd surged in waves against him. He grew tired. When he looked up, the gate seemed further away. The tide was against them. More and more people were pouring out from the gateway into the field. Their stench maddened him. More impacts shook him to anger.
This is unbearable!'
For a moment Carnelian fancied it was his own voice crying out, but his teeth were clenched, his lips pressed closed.
'Digging a ditch in water.'
His father's voice rang clear above the turmoil. Carnelian saw his shrouded mass unfolding to betray his height. His huge hand appeared, like a spotted dove, floating, alighting on his head. Then, with a sudden motion, it pulled the hood back. The bandaged head was revealed and the mask that was a piece of sun. Carnelian was transfixed. His father's golden face was the serene centre of the storm. Carnelian's gaze followed its lunging forward. He watched his father's saddle-chair collide with one of the Marula, watched him grab the man's salt- bangled arm. The Maruli turned, lifting his lance in menace, stared wide-eyed at the mask, then down at the white Master's hand that held him. Suth shouted something before he let go. The Maruli bowed so low his head disappeared between his thighs. When he came up he was bellowing and holding his arm out as if he were cooling it from the Master's touch. The other Marula craned round, saw the Master's terrible mirror face, slitted their eyes and brayed battle cries as they turned their lance blades on the crowd.
'We are revealed Lords of the Hidden Land,' boomed Aurum as he too pushed back his hood. The crowd slid distorted across his mask as he scanned it. Take care, this riot might conceal our enemies.'
Jaspar gave a fierce cry and straightened in his chair as he revealed himself. Vennel unbent more slowly. Carnelian watched his hand waver but then the Master followed the others. Reluctant to give up his hold on the chair, Carnelian was last of all. He glanced uneasily at the throng but realized it was futile to search it for assassins.
The Marula's aquar were striding forward. The crowd was giving way grudgingly, snarling. Faces were turning to look, then a chorus of voices struck up. 'Masters! Masters!'
The word spread panic more rapidly than had the rumour of plague. Swathes of people were collapsing to their knees. The Marula trampled ahead regardless, scything their lance blades before them. Carnelian watched the crowd, in flight, yawn a corridor all the way to the gate. The Masters rushed down it and he was drawn after them. On either side the gates flung up their walls of wood. He glimpsed the bronze sneers of the faces high above. The space between the gates swirled with people. He was clattering up a ramp into a screaming, echoing canyon. A continuous mass of beasts and men was slipping by. His aquar loped on, dodging between wagons. A mudbrick wall coursed past on his right. Women flattened against it open-mouthed. Buttresses pulsed past. Shrilling children dashed from his path.
Ahead the road forked round a tower. It loomed up as he rode into its shadow. He could make out windows, a parapet. There was a rush of noise. At the edge of his vision the Masters and the Marula were rearing back. Plumes flared as Carnelian's own aquar juddered to a stop. As he toppled to one side he yanked the reins in panic. The world swept before his eyes.
Toll, toll,' coarse voices cried in Vulgate above the roar.
Carnelian's aquar struck something. There was a clatter of many things hitting the ground. His world steadied. He saw a tinker's angry face. The woman behind him went bloodless. Her look leapt to the other faces looking up. People began bending, grovelling, moaning.
Carnelian's hand strayed up to his mask. After so long hiding he had felt naked when they looked at him. Over their heads, he could see the toll-gatherers. Their high conical caps bore the city's cypher of the ladder and the sea. For a moment their faces showed fierce defiance but then the moaning spread to them. Their mouths fell open as they let out the sound of fear. Slimed teeth. Mouths gaping so wide they squeezed tears from the slitted eyes above them. Their billhooks toppled like scythed reeds.
