second gate and, once through this, Carnelian found they had entered another fern swathe, not as wide as the first, at the heart of which lay the hill with its cedars. His gaze was fixed on those giants as he approached. Their wide-spreading branches each held a flat roof of needled leaves; the whole mass shifting in the breeze made a creaking that seemed almost speech.
At the margin of the hill lay a final ditch deeper and wider than the previous two. Immense cedars grew on either bank, their roots so densely reinforcing the ditch its walls seemed made of wood. The further rampart rose to a parapet of skulls from which horns curved the length of scythes. Krow led them over a bridge towards the rampart. Between two sentinel cedars a more substantial gate barred their way, before which stood the ghostly figure of a man.
They can't have returned yet,' whispered Ravan.
Krow regarded him with a fixed, pale expression. This late in the year?'
Ravan shrugged and looked unhappy.
'What manner of creature is that?' Osidian demanded, pointing at the ghost.
'A huskman, Master,' answered Ravan. Though he turned towards Osidian, he made sure to keep one eye firmly on the ghostly man. The youth saw Osidian wanted more. 'For his sins against the Twostone he's been denied skyburial. They set him here as a sentinel to protect their koppie while they were away in the mountains.'
'Why is this considered a punishment?' asked Osidian.
Fern glanced round. 'His soul's trapped in his sun-dried corpse like a flame in a lantern.'
Carnelian looked at the mummy with unease. 'For ever?'
'Until those he sinned against consider he's suffered enough.'
'Or until he fails in his duty…' said Ravan.
Krow, who had been examining the huskman, gave the youth a look that silenced him. 'Help me.'
As Ravan's face grew pale, Krow frowned. Though we're not Elders, he'll recognize I'm Twostone.'
Ravan looked unconvinced as together they advanced upon the mummy. When they drew close, Krow began mumbling some charm. Gingerly they reached out and touched the mummy. Ravan shuddered visibly, as if he had felt the huskman move. Then, carefully, they lifted it and carried it to one side, leaning it upon its face against the tree. As they backed away, Fern pushed against the wicker of the gate. When it did not open, he shook it.
He turned to Krow. 'It is secured on the other side.'
The youth was soon scaling the thickly woven gate. He struggled for a moment to climb over its spiky top before dropping down on the other side. Soon the gate was swinging open. Careful not to touch the huskman, the other Plainsmen filed past into the gloom beyond. Carnelian could not help peering at the mummy as he passed it. A man shrivelled like a fruit. Feeling it might turn to look at him, Carnelian hurried on.
Through the gate, he found himself within the cedar grove. The towering trees not only cooled the air but sweetened it with their resinous perfume. The rafters of their branches and their spiny leaves made a ceiling delicately pierced by the sky's blue. A yielding carpet of russet needles muffled his footfalls as he began to follow the others up the hill. Shade spread off between the column trunks. Clearings shone like courtyards, in many of which Carnelian could see ashen hearths ringed with stones. Here and there boulders crouched all scabbed with moss.
Krow sprang away ignoring Fern's call that he should wait for them and was soon lost. As they climbed after him, Carnelian caught glimpses of the twin crags crowning the hill. When they reached them, he saw their flanks rising blue-grey splashed with lichen roundels. He craned his head back to see the jagged summits.
'Fan out and look for any sign they've been here,' said Fern.
Carnelian dropped his gaze to find the youths already slipping off among the trees. 'Can we help?' Carnelian asked. Fern frowned and shook his head. 'You'd better stay here.'
He looked over at Ravan. 'Stay with them.' With that, he was loping off down the hill and had soon disappeared.
'What do you think might have happened?' Carnelian asked Ravan.
Peering among the trees nervously, the youth shrugged.
Carnelian could see between the branches the plain of the Earthsky laid out as a shimmering sea. The twin shadows of the crags were spilling down over the forest and out onto the plain. The sweet air could not lull his feeling of foreboding. His gaze strayed down to a nearby cedar, among whose roots some shards were nestling. He went to pick up a piece. By its curvature, the crude earthenware had come from a large jar. He could tell from the different hues that several vessels had been shattered. Something stirring above him made him start. Looking up, he saw that the shoulders of the branches were hung about with bags and bundles, many of which had been torn open. Wrapped around one bough he saw what appeared to be a rope-ladder dangling crookedly, its rungs here and there torn or missing. Looking at it more closely, he discovered that the stumps still hanging in the twine were the ends of wizened roots. Stowed in the angles of the branches were more bundles in disarray.
Voices behind him made him turn. Seeing it was Fern returned, he ran back.
'Isn't it possible the Twostone are simply delayed in their return from migration?' Osidian was asking him.
Fern shook his head. 'No tribe would dare cross the Earthsky once the raveners have returned.'
Carnelian was about to tell Fern of the signs of looting he had found when a cry shrilled, so thin with panic it might almost have been the calling of a bird. Fern careered down the hill in the direction of the sound. Carnelian's urge to run after him made his heart race. Standing in the shade of an immense branch with Ravan, Osidian looked fearfully pale.
'Had you not better run after him?' he said.
There was a menacing coolness in his tone which Carnelian was in no mood to engage with. He looked down the hill and saw Fern dappling in shadows as he sped under the trees.
'Yes, I want to, but will you not come?'
'Masters do not run.'
Carnelian heard the shrilling cry again, uttered some excuse and sprang down the hill. Osidian's disapproval only served to spur him to greater speed. Resined air blew in his face as he rushed through the flickering shades. Hurtling round a rock, he saw Fern with one of the youths, whose tears showed how dirty his face was. He was sobbing words. Fern's grimace showed he could not understand.
'Show me,' he bellowed. The youth gaped at him, stunned, so that Fern had to shove him into motion. The youth ran off as if a ravener were after him. Carnelian and Fern gave chase.
The youth took them through another gate in the skull wall in the mouth of which another huskman lay, discarded. They crossed the two inner ditches and were tiring when they approached the outer ring of magnolias. Reaching the gate that led out onto the plain, the youth came to a halt. He stood transfixed, staring. Carnelian saw in the glare that the plain seemed to have been ploughed up.
'You had better stay here,' Fern said to the youth, before, setting his face into a grim mask, he walked out across the bridge. A premonition made Carnelian hesitate, but then, cursing, he left the shade and followed his friend.
Drag-cradles and saddle-chairs were scattered everywhere under a smashed littering of bones. Stained brown, crushed for their marrow, skulls cracked open for their meat: the inedible remains of people and aquar.
Carnelian heard footsteps. Glancing round, he saw the youth had trailed after them. His eyes were weeping like wounds, his lips glistening with mucus as he gaped at the carnage.
'You,' roared Fern, 'go back to the koppie, find Loskai and send him down here.' He made sure the youth was moving away before he turned back.
'A battle?' Carnelian asked, as his eyes flickered over the corpses.
Fern rounded on him. 'Can't you see this was a massacre?'
Carnelian lifted his hands. 'I didn't mean…' 'No,' said Fern and wandered a little deeper into the carnage.
Carnelian followed. 'Who could've done this?'
Fern shook his head slowly. The shock had frozen his mouth open. As they walked in among the dead, they had to pull their ubas over their faces as a filter against the charnel stench. Carnelian concentrated on putting his feet down without treading on splintered bone. A skull tumbled alongside a twisted drag-cradle still had grey wisps
