Fern looked at him in horror. The salt we carry was intended to pay tolls and make purchases for the Tribe in the market of Makar. Every grain was bought with our men's blood.'
Though the sun was hidden behind the stormy ceiling of the sky, they could feel the day was waning when they came to a river; a fierce white roar of water whose further bank seemed impossible to reach. They stared at the torrent, allowing their eyes to follow it upstream, and saw halfway up the cliff wall the tall and narrow funnel of a ravine from which the river was tumbling.
Wearily they began the trek down its bank, but this was so littered with sharp rocks they were forced further and further away from the water. At last Ranegale declared he would go no further and slumped to the ground.
He looked round at them with his single eye. 'How can we hope to find a ford when we can't even get close to the river?'
He pointed westwards to where they could all still see the mouth of the abyss. 'Look how far we've come. At this rate it'll take us a moon to reach the Valleys.'
'Do you really believe this kind of talk is helping anyone?' said Ravan.
Cloud put his hand on the youth's shoulder to calm him. 'Ranegale has a plan.' He turned to him. 'You do have a plan, don't you?'
Ranegale looked down the rock-strewn slope that plunged into an ocean of fronds fading away into the stormy margins of the sky.
'No, no,' stuttered Ravan as every face went ashen.
Next morning, though rainless, they felt the weight of the black sky as they struggled down from the boulder-strewn foot of the cliffs. The ground began softening into a treacle that sucked at their feet. Fronds began choking their path. Dense stands of scouring-rush rose as islands. The mud oozed brackish pools that bubbled up decay.
The sky clattered and shook, then released a downpour. Dank and miserable, they pressed on into the thickening thickets and, though the ferns wove themselves into a roof above their heads, they provided no shelter at all.
They chose a mud mound to camp on. It was too wet to make a fire. Hunched, they chewed djada, peering anxiously at the leaf wall they could almost reach out to touch and which shivered and trembled as if something were coming through it. It barely screened the rasp and trill of hidden creatures or the more distant wails and trumpetings. Once, some faraway high pinnacles of leaves shook in succession, showing where some monster was pushing through. With the rest, Carnelian pulled down fern fronds to hide his body and snatched what little sleep he could.
Morning found them pushing deeper into the swamp, winding their way along ridges, hacking their way through stems and creepers, catching glimpses of loathsome striped bodies sliding sinuous among the trunks. Every pool was certain to conceal horrors. Every stretch of mud had been printed by huge clawed feet and the drag of undulating tails. They struggled, sinking into this soft world. The ferns grew monstrous, meshing their leaves above them until they could no longer see the sky and wandered lost among their trunks in a twilight where everything was a noisome, mouldering paste.
After two days of this they came into a region where the air stank of putrefaction. They could find no way around it. Uneasy, they pushed further into the gloom under the treeferns expecting some scene of carnage, but all they found were lurid red blooms, petalled with tongues whose throats exhaled a rotting breath. Flies swarming these carrion lilies clogged Carnelian's nostrils and eyes. Whenever he opened his mouth they crowded in, forcing him to swallow those he could not spit out. The pillars of this sombre world were hung with pitcher plants, their mottled bellies plump with such a gluttony of insects and birds that some had burst open, disgorging the half- digested mess all over the bone-carpeted ground.
Night approaching, they made camp. They managed to get a smoulder going; the smoke at least drove away the flies. Here, Osidian came suddenly awake with a gulping gasp.
'He seeks me out!'
The cry, in Quya, made the raiders jump up staring. Carnelian peered into a thin face lit by immense eyes.
'Who seeks you out?' he asked gently.
The Black God,' Osidian whispered. His eyes closed as his body convulsed in its pupae of mouldy blankets. The pale lips released a hiss. 'Our Father of Darkness.'
Carnelian waited for more; tried talking in both Quya and Vulgate but received no response. He became aware that the Plainsmen had gathered round.
The fever's broken,' said Fern.
Carnelian saw the fear lurking in the tunnels of his eyes. It was in all their eyes.
Hesitantly, Fern and Ravan helped him prise open the bindings cocooning Osidian to the pole while Krow looked on. The body they revealed had wasted to bones and skin. Carnelian remembered how glorious Osidian had been, how strong, when they swam in the dazzling lagoons of the Yden. He leaned close to whisper love names into his ear and, by this means, he roused him from sleep.
Pain and puzzlement played over Osidian's face. 'Where…?'
Carnelian could think of no easy answer. Osidian's emaciation was so overwhelming Carnelian became obsessed with feeding him. He chewed djada and squeezed it in softened pellets into Osidian's mouth. To avoid seeing his stare of horror, Carnelian cradled him. He slept close. Sometimes, waking in absolute blackness, he would find Osidian's lips with his fingers and give him water to drink.
It was near dawn that Carnelian felt the tremor in the ground. He believed it to be thunder until he realized he was hearing it only with his body. The earth was shaking with a slow rhythm, as if some giant were walking by. The undergrowth rustled and sighed as something squeezed through it. Osidian must have heard it too, for Carnelian felt him stirring. He slipped his arms over the rack of Osidian's ribs and hugged him still. Holding on to him, Carnelian could feel Osidian's heart racing and knew he was listening. The presence circled them. Carnelian only released Osidian when he felt it move away.
In the morning twilight, Carnelian woke from a terrible, grinding nightmare to find Osidian deathly still. Carnelian touched him, then shook him, but Osidian would not wake.
'We'll have to bind him up again,' said Fern. 'It was stupid to imagine he'd have the strength to walk.'
Carnelian thought his friend had a haunted look. Many of the youths were peering among the trunks as if they were expecting to see something in the gloom.
He leaned close to Fern. 'Did you hear it?'
Fern bent over Osidian, making no sign he had even heard the question. He looked up. 'Are you just going to watch?'
Carnelian helped him lay Osidian's long bony body along the pole. They secured him, then hoisted him and followed after the others.
As the weary struggle of the day wore its way to night, Osidian woke again. He stared into the darkness pleading, negotiating with something that was not there. The pure consonants of his Quya were obscured by the protests of the Plainsmen.
'He draws the demon to us,' said Loskai.
'It's a ravener,' said Cloud.
'Without fire to drive it away, that's terrifying enough,' said Ranegale. His eye fell on Osidian, whom Carnelian was trying unsuccessfully to quieten. 'We should've killed him.'
Carnelian sensed most of them agreed with Ranegale. Osidian's voice continued its rambling. In the end, Carnelian only managed to silence him by plugging his mouth with djada.
The raiders struggled to gather leaves and twigs to make a fire but everything was too damp. As the last light faded, they gave up trying, huddled together and tried to sleep.
Rising at first light, Carnelian could not help seeing how haggard everyone looked. The presence had visited them again, but if in truth or only in their nightmares, he could not tell. Fern helped him lug Osidian on the next stage of their journey. Feeling eyes on him, Carnelian kept turning. At first he thought it must be one of the Plainsmen and put it down to their fearful fascination with Osidian's ravings, but every eye was busy finding a way for their feet. The sensation persisted and in the pit of his stomach the feeling grew that whatever was looking at him was not human.
