Motherstone (17 page)

‘Soon, I hope. He’s had two days.’

‘We can’t wait long. We must reach the Motherstone before the armies meet.’

‘I know.’

Jimmy came up the beach. ‘Did you see anything, Susie?’

‘It’s all jungle. There were buildings there once but they’ve gone. I suppose the city will be overgrown.’

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy said, ‘an’ lousy with rebel priests and runaway dogs and Gawd knows what.’

‘We’ll be all right with Thief. And Ben and Bess. You’d better go further off, Jimmy. Aenlocht doesn’t like it.’ As usual when anyone came near Soona, the Hotlander boy had bared his teeth and clawed his fingers.

‘Keep yer shirt on, sonny, I’m yer mate,’ Jimmy said. He moved a few steps off and said to Soona, ‘Yer better play ’im a lullaby. If ’e has a go at me ole Ben’ll squash ’im.’

‘Don’t be angry,’ Soona said. ‘He knows only what we must do. It grieves him for he thinks he is a traitor to his tribe.’

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy said, ‘me ’eart bleeds fer ’im. I suppose you three know what yer up to?’

‘We know,’ Susan said.

‘Yeah, well – we’ll string along fer company, me an’ Ben. I guess it’s all written down somewhere in a book.’

‘Woven in a tapestry,’ Susan smiled.

Dawn approached, and the Varg came dripping from the sea. ‘What we have to do,’ Susan said, ‘is go into the city. We have to find Otis Claw’s palace. It’s fallen into ruins, but we have to find a way down to his throne-hall.’

‘Won’t be easy. She’s all caved in.’

‘Once we’re there, you’ll have to leave us. We have a thing to do – and no one should see.’

‘Don’t speak of it,’ Dawn said. ‘It is a human thing and not for Woodlanders.’

‘But you guess it?’

‘The hint was there in what Freeman Wells said of Humankind.’

‘When Nick comes, don’t tell him.’

‘He will guess too.’

They made a small fire and cooked their food. Bess had caught salmon and they baked them in the coals. Ben brought one for Thief. He ate it, growling with distaste.

The sun had gone down and the western sky was red when Silverwing landed on the beach. ‘They’re coming. Get food ready.’

Jimmy put more fish in the embers. Sundercloud flew in, and a moment later Yellowclaw and Snowflier came round the cliff with Nick in the sling, hanging his legs through holes, ready for landing. They put him down at the end of the beach. He came to the fire, stretching himself.

‘I’m starved. Do I smell fish?’

He ate, while Susan and Soona and Aenlocht watched.

‘Now, tell us.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘Did you see my father?’ Soona asked.

‘Yes. He’s well. Limpy too. They send their love. They’re – in some trouble. An argument with Widd. He’s in charge of the army. But I think they’ll be all right,’ he ended lamely.

‘They’re in danger, Nick. Don’t keep it from me.’

‘Yes, they are. Widd wants to get rid of them. But if they can last a little bit longer …’

‘What about the Weapon? Did you warn them?’ Susan asked.

‘I warned Widd. And Stilgo. They wouldn’t listen. Nor would Osro. No one listened.’

‘So – they’ll fight?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

Nick looked at Yellowclaw.

‘In three days,’ the Birdman said.

Watcher of Furthermost had come from the sea. Susan looked at him. ‘We can land you by the city tomorrow night,’ the seal said. ‘But you will need a day to find the palace. After that, I do not know.’

‘Well be cuttin’ it pretty fine,’ Jimmy said.

Later in the night, Nick and Susan walked along the beach and climbed across a low part of the island to see the land. Thief padded uneasily between them. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. The jungle on the shore was black as tar. A fire twinkled down towards the river.

‘Hunters, I guess.’

‘Or renegade priests. They can’t hurt us.’

‘They might slow us down.’

‘We’ll get there, Nick. All I hope is Soona and Aenlocht will be strong enough.’

‘And you.’

‘Yes, me.’ Her hand rose to the thong about her neck.

‘What have you got? Something from Freeman Wells?’

‘Yes.’

‘New Halves?’

She nodded.

‘Are you going to turn them into Halfmen again?’

‘No, not that. Don’t ask me, Nick.’

He was silent. He thought about what Freeman Wells had said – the headlong rush of Humankind, the swamp beast locked in the mind, the Halves out of balance – and things began to fall into place. ‘I think I can guess.’

‘Dawn said you would.’

‘I can see why it can’t be just you. It has to be humans from O. They’ve got to agree. And do it themselves.’

‘They know. They’ve agreed.’

They went back to the embers of the fire. Soona and Aenlocht were lying in their blankets close to the cliff. Even in sleep their hands were joined. Nick did not feel jealous any longer.

A fine rain was falling in the morning, but it cleared as the Seafolk drove the barge out round the reef. The sea had an easy swell. The crossing would be made in good time. Yellowclaw and Silverwing circled overhead. Snowflier and Sundercloud had gone to scout the river mouth. They came back in mid-morning and reported no sign of life, but further up in the jungle were deserted villages and a camp where a fire still smoked.

‘As long as them Pollies are spottin’ we’re O.K.,’ Jimmy said.

The river mouth was blocked by a bar, but the Seafolk ran the barge through a channel at one end and found deep water close to the jungle. All four Birdfolk were in the air, and Ben and Bess had swum ashore and kept pace with the boat, one fifty metres inland, one on the shore. Thief stood on the deck-house roof, scanning the jungle with his yellow eyes.

They came round a bend in the river and found a clearing where crops had grown and a village stood. The houses and the grain fields were burned. Carrion birds rose squawking into the air. At a small jetty a sunken river boat thrust her prow out of the water.

Dawn said, ‘Bess has found an old woman in the jungle. She has children with her.’ The Seafolk took the barge close to the jetty and Dawn jumped ashore and ran through the sacked village into the trees. After a short while she came back. ‘The men were taken for Widd’s army. Then a band of outlaws came – bandits and priests – and burned the village, took all the food. They killed the old people and carried off the women and children as slaves. That was yesterday. This woman managed to hide in the jungle with her grandchildren.’

‘Do they have food?’

‘Enough. They are frightened of wild dogs.’

‘Tell them to board themselves in a house. Tell them – one day, soon, the women and the men will come back.’

‘Is that true?’

‘I think so. People will drift to places they know. Do you think so, Soona?’

‘Perhaps,’ said the girl. Her eyes were distant. She did not know.

Dawn went back to the jungle and the barge pulled away from the jetty. Soon Yellowclaw lifted the Woodlander girl aboard. The voyage went on, through midday into afternoon. The channel zigzagged from bank to bank. Swamps steamed in the sun, the mudbanks glimmered, creepers and tree-roots invaded the river. Insects swarmed and bit – but Dawn went into the jungle again and made a paste of leaves and gum that kept them off. They passed another village, with nothing alive in it but carrion birds, and once heard a pack of dogs hunting in a swamp. And once someone unseen loosed an arrow at Silverwing, but she was too high for it to strike. After that, Thief prowled in the jungle with the Varg.

Night was coming on when they saw the ruined buildings of the city. Broken walls crept down to the river, sank in mud. They leaned on trees as though grown tired. Fallen roofs lay webbed in creepers. Roots thrust up through pavements and seemed to peer about like burrowing creatures inspecting an upper world. A dozen rotten posts stood in the river. Susan wondered if they were part of the jetty where she had landed a hundred turns ago.

The barge went on. Soon they came to a stone wharf running back to walls rising from the river, three storeys high. Here and there a glass pane glimmered in a window, but most of the wall had fallen out and rooms showed, plundered long ago.

‘Here,’ Watcher cried from the river. ‘Further up it gets too shallow. Tie the barge on the ring in the stone.’

Nick found an old rusty ring and secured the barge. Thief came leaping through the building, ran down the wharf, and made sure his trio of charges were safe. Ben and Bess loped up, and were joined on the wharf by the Birdfolk.

‘The city is overgrown,’ Silverwing said. ‘There’s a building here and there above the trees, but most are fallen and the streets are blocked.’

‘What about the palace?’

‘We saw no palace.’

‘But a mountain of broken stone,’ Yellowclaw said. ‘Black. Overgrown with creepers. There was a giant gate swinging on a hinge.’

‘That must be it. There must have been an earthquake,’ Susan said.

‘An Oquake,’ Nick put in. ‘Do they have them here?’

‘Big ones,’ Jimmy said. ‘That palace must’a’ come down like a dunny in a storm.’

‘We saw people,’ Silverwing said. ‘They haunt the streets, one here, one there. They live like rats in the rubble.’

‘How long to get to the palace?’ Susan asked.

‘A day. You must cut your way through. We would carry you but we cannot carry the Varg, and you must be guarded.’

‘We better get some shuteye an’ start early,’ Jimmy said. ‘Susie, you an’ yer mates sleep on the barge. Me an’ Ben’ll doss down in the building so no one can come sneakin’ up.’

They ate their food and lay down to rest. Susan and Soona were in the deck-house, with Aenlocht and Thief across the door, one on each side. Dawn and Bess made their beds in the bow, and Nick on the rear deck. The Birdfolk stood sleeping on the wharf.

Once in the night Ben roared in the building, and men fled yelling through the city. And later Nick was wakened by Thief padding by. He heard the soft splash of oars in the dark, and a creaking of rowlocks. But then came a thrashing in the water. The Seafolk had surfaced under the boats and overturned them. Thief added his scream to the din. After that there were no more alarms.

In the dawn the grey mist over the city turned white. Yellowclaw and Silverwing came back from scouting. ‘It will lift, but for the first hour we cannot see. The Varg and the Bloodcat must keep you safe. Sundercloud has flown north to the armies. We must know how close they have come to each other.’

‘When will he be back?’

‘This time tomorrow. What do the Seafolk plan?’

‘We will take the barge to mid-river so no one plunders it,’ Watcher said. ‘If Susan needs us we will be here.’

Jimmy had made a fire in the building and heated food. They ate breakfast sheltered by the walls. ‘Listen,’ Jimmy said. Out in the jungle dogs were baying, an eerie sound, especially in this building where creepers climbed through windows and threads of mist drifted down stairs that led to nowhere.

‘Will they attack?’

‘Not if they know what’s good for ’em.’

Thief had slipped away. Presently a dog yelped, only once, and not long after Thief was back. He had eaten.

They shouldered their gear. Jimmy put the fire out. ‘We gotter keep to wide streets if there’s any. Me an’ Ben go first. The rest in the middle. Bess can watch the back. I reckon Thief had better scout around.’

Susan made images for Thief and he snarled agreement. Then Jimmy led them through the ruined building into the city. There had been a yard, a turning place for drays, heavily cobbled, and much of it was clear of growth. But trees in close ranks stood all about. Their heads were in mist. The sun was a fuzzy ball, slanting bars of light through the vapour. Jimmy crossed the yard and forced his way between two mounds of rubble into a street. Creepers leaned from walls. He chopped them with his axe, and Ben tore them, and they went on slowly through the ruins, with gaping doors on either side.

‘A handy place fer an ambush,’ Jimmy said.

But Thief, peering through doors, leaping on walls, kept up a screaming, and Nick could not imagine anyone coming close. Aenlocht too began to roam about, though keeping Soona in sight. His wounds were almost healed and his agility matched the cat’s. The jungle was not his element, but his sharpened sight, his reflexes, seemed to operate as though in the desert. Once he leaped sideways and plucked a hissing spear from the air, and hurled it back where it came from, over the trees.

‘They’re tryin’ long shots,’ Jimmy said. But Thief was away after the spear, and nothing more came from that direction.

The mist dissolved. Silverwing floated overhead, with Yellowclaw and Snowflier making sweeps. The lurkers in the ruins would see them too and realize that now they had no chance of lying in wait. They must attack openly or wait for dark.

When the sun was overhead Jimmy stopped. The place had been a city square and like the yard by the wharf was not overgrown. It was paved with tiles a metre square and some were inlaid with images of Otis Claw. His giant statue lay on its back in the middle with an upraised arm broken off at the wrist. His face seemed noble, and that was a lie. So was the inscription on the pedestal:
His fame will live until the end of time.
Jimmy sat on his chest. He sharpened his axe on Claw’s cheekbone. Nick took wood from a smashed ox-cart lying nearby and made a fire. It was more for comfort than warmth. A fire in this desolate place was a friendly thing. He rolled a spoked wheel on to it and made it blaze high.

‘I don’t think I came this way,’ Susan said. ‘But I came through a square like this.’ She remembered a cart hauled by slaves, and Halfmen and women thrusting up their bowls for greasy stew.

Silverwing landed. ‘You must go north and east. The black mound is there. But the streets are narrow and the jungle lies thickly over them. We have seen only single dogs, and people in twos and threes. But Yellowclaw thinks they’re gathering behind you. They’re waiting to see what you will do.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Ruin-dwellers. People who hunt and scavenge here for food. Untouched by the history of the last hundred turns. The city was a dark place to outsiders.’