Scarred Man (31 page)

Myrrhini awoke alone in the dark. The night was warm and a light breeze stirred the trees. Her stomach growled in hunger and her head was strangely light. For a moment, she lay still, wondering where she was, then the truth crashed in on her. She was somewhere in Midacea.

‘Maida?' she said softly, but only the rustling of the leaves answered. She sat up, pulling one of the blankets around her. ‘Maida?' she repeated. Her eyes quickly became accustomed to the soft light of Yatil and she saw that she was alone here in this small stand of low trees. Above her, a rude shelter hung limply, barely stirring in the breeze. She shivered and cursed softly.

‘Ice and wind!' she hissed. ‘You've left me here, haven't you?' Myrrhini stood up and walked to the edge of the thicket, looking around. The sea of grass waved and hissed, but she saw nothing else moving. Maida and her shapeshifter were long gone.

The strange ability that had somehow brought her here had faded, superseded by hunger,
loneliness and fear. The loneliness was like an old friend, the fear a comfortable cloak, but the hunger was an unwelcome visitor. She needed food and drink, and would find little here.

‘Time to walk again,' she muttered. It seemed that since fleeing the Place, she had done a lot of walking alone. ‘At least this time I won't freeze.' She pulled the blanket down from the trees and left. With her first step, she stood hard on a broken branch which stabbed into her, drawing both blood and a cry of pain. ‘But last time I had boots.' She limped out from under the shelter of the thicket and headed east, carrying one blanket with the other wrapped around her.

With every step, dust rose and swirled, and it seemed that every blade of the tall grass was edged like a small jagged sword. The blanket she had wrapped around her dragged on the ground, meaning she was constantly holding it, adjusting it and trying to keep it from falling off entirely.

The dust that rose mixed with the tiny floating fragments of the grass to create a cloud that moved with her, carrying an attendant swarm of tiny opportunistic bugs who constantly attempted to land on her lips or the corners of her eyes. With one hand holding her blanket on, and the other carrying the second blanket, she found herself quickly crying aloud in frustration. It was about then that the biting insects arrived.

The bites on her shoulders and face were bad enough, but the insects quickly discovered the sheltered area under the blanket and started to bite all over her body. The bites started out irritating,
but they rapidly built into a wash of pain. Each step brought a stab of pain from the uneven ground and more bites.

Myrrhini walked as long as she could before the dust, the cutting grass and the insects drove her to her knees. She dropped to the ground and pulled the blanket over her, trying to shelter herself from the bugs. It worked for a while, but the air under the blanket rapidly heated and she found herself gasping for air.

It was almost a relief when she heard the thunder of hooves approaching from the west. She toyed with the idea of hunkering down and hoping to escape notice amid the waist-high grass, but when something bit her on a particularly sensitive spot, she stood up. The horsemen saw her almost immediately and wheeled around to gallop straight at her. She was ready for them and when the lead rider reached down from his saddle to scoop her up, she dropped beneath his arms. He lost balance slightly, which she capitalised upon by grabbing his wrist and wrenching hard. He fell with a startled cry and landed heavily at her feet.

He reacted quickly and rolled, preparing to draw his sword, but she was ready and kicked the weapon from his grasp before it was fully drawn.

‘Is that any way to treat a lady, Itxtli?' she asked.

The achulti stepped back and regarded her with an unsurprised look.

‘Your pardon, Lady,' he said. ‘Normally I would fight anyone who dragged me out of my saddle, but in this case, I will make an exception.' He bowed, a little exaggeratedly, and stooped to retrieve his
sword. ‘I assume you wish to rejoin us?' he said when his weapon was safely sheathed.

‘Yes.'

Itxtli looked up at the men who had now circled them, all with amused looks on their faces. All except Huitzilin, who glowered at Myrrhini with undisguised contempt.

No, not at me — at Itxtli
, Myrrhini realised.
Contempt? What is that for?

‘Get the Lady a horse,' Itxtli said. He looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. ‘And see if we have any clothes that might be more suitable.'

 

They rode hard for the rest of the day, stopping only briefly to water the horses. The sun was scorching hot, high in the pale blue sky. Myrrhini did not see a cloud until nearly sunset when a large storm cloud appeared on the horizon. It moved fast, coming in from the sea to the west. By the time night fell, it was nearly above them and the air smelt different.

One of the Agents noticed her sniffing the air and pulled his horse in beside hers as they continued pushing even as the night darkened.

‘Sssa,' he said. ‘You smell it, too.'

‘What am I smelling?'

‘The storm.' He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the massive pile of dark clouds. ‘By the look of that it will be a hard night.'

They stopped soon after, in the lee of a rocky outcrop, just as the first heavy drops started to fall. Rather than set tents, they sheltered under a jutting ledge, huddling close as the temperature plummeted, with the horses forming a protective
semicircle around them. Dried rations were passed around, together with waterskins, while they waited for the storm to hit.

The first flash of lightning was blinding, cutting the sky like a knife, sending the countryside into harsh relief. In the moment of illumination, Myrrhini saw concern on the faces of the Agents surrounding her. In the blackness immediately following the flash came the startlingly loud crack of thunder.

‘Ice and wind, that's close!' an Agent muttered.

As if the lightning were a signal, the rain started to fall in astonishing quantities. Myrrhini, living deep in a thick forest, and accustomed to northern storms which were steady falls that could last for days, gradually settling into snow, had never seen a storm like this, on an open plain. Not even in her long, painful trek across the vast northern tundra had she seen anything that came close to this naked ferocity.

The rain fell so hard it roared. The lightning flashed more often than she thought possible, bringing so much thunder the sound rumbled across the grassland in almost constant percussion. Combined with the pounding rain, Myrrhini felt oddly isolated, even packed in with all the Agents pressing in against her. Communication was impossible and no one even tried.

Beneath her bare feet, the ground had turned to black, clinging mud that oozed between her toes and seemed to creep up her legs. The Agents closest to her shifted and fidgeted, uneasy in the violence of the storm, and frequently stood on her feet with their boots. In the noise they could not hear her cries of pain.

The storm passed by some time after Yatil had set and just before Grada had fully cleared the horizon. The fact that she saw both moons was the best indication of the clearing of the skies and the slow fading of the storm's ferocity. When it ended, the night was cold and she was soaked to the skin despite the shelter of the overhanging rocks. The ground was mired in black mud and the wind swung around to come from the east, bringing the icy chill of the distant mountains. Myrrhini was as miserable as she could remember being.

A low murmur spread through the Agents and they started to move. Myrrhini assumed an order had been given to leave. Once again, heavy boots crushed her bare toes, driving them deeper into the clinging black mud, and once again, her cries of pain were lost in the general noise. She limped and staggered her way through the mud to where her horse waited impatiently. A handful of food and a waterskin were thrust into her hand. The Agent was gone before she could thank him.

They rode through the grasses as the mud dried and the humidity built with the rising sun. By the time it reached its zenith, the ground was once more dusty and most of the humidity had burned off, leaving Myrrhini gasping in the heat. She had kept her blanket and draped it over her head to keep the direct sun off her skin, but the heat underneath it was worse. By the time the sun was dipping towards the horizon, Myrrhini was swaying in her saddle with exhaustion.

‘I hate Midacea,' she muttered when they halted for the day.

An Agent, whose name she knew but could not recall, laughed at her words. ‘Lady, Midaceans hate Midacea. Why do you think there are so many Midaceans scattered throughout the world?'

‘I thought C'sobra was bad,' Myrrhini said.

‘Sssa, it is, but Midacea, this far south of the river, is worse.' The Agent helped Myrrhini out of her saddle and steadied her on her feet. ‘There's truth in the old saying,' he added.

‘What old saying?'

‘You don't know it?'

‘Obviously not.'

‘Where have you been all your life?'

‘North.'

‘A long way north, obviously.'

‘All the way.'

‘Ah,' the Agent said. He had not yet released her hand, but as he spoke he did so, a strange expression on his face.

‘“Out of the forest, out of Midacea.” It means getting away from a place as quickly as possible. People usually just say “out of Midacea” when they mean they are leaving soon.'

‘I've never heard that one. Where did it come from?'

The Agent was about to answer when he stiffened abruptly, staring over Myrrhini's shoulder. She spun around to see Itxtli approaching purposefully.

‘Dismissed, Agent,' the achulti said. The Agent walked away quickly and went about his tasks of setting camp for the night.

‘That was not friendly,' Myrrhini chided.

‘Neither is Tochtli,' Itxtli said, watching the other Agent.

‘He was nice to me.'

‘Everyone makes mistakes,' Itxtli said shortly.

Myrrhini was unsure whether he was suggesting she had read the Agent's friendliness incorrectly, or he was saying Tochtli's friendliness was a mistake. Either way, she was stung by his words and went to walk away.

‘You can't get out of Midacea that easily,' Itxtli said.

Myrrhini stopped. ‘What?' she said.

‘You were asking about the old saying. It comes from when the Midaceans tried to turn their forests into pastureland. They went on a massive land-clearing exercise, cutting down and burning their forests, turning them into this.' He gestured at the vast grasslands around them. ‘They found, after it all, that their rainforests were growing on poor soil, and once all the leaf litter blew away, they were left with nothing to grow their crops on. The grass is all that grows here now, and not even the cows will eat it. Midaceans fled their homeland in their droves to escape the famines that followed.'

‘Why famines?'

Itxtli gave a bitter laugh. ‘Their only real export was the timber from the forests, which they burned to create a farmland they hoped would rival the Lac'un pastures. When the smoke cleared, they had nothing. “Out of the forest, out of Midacea.”'

‘That's so sad.'

‘So stupid.'

‘Not stupid, just unwise.'

‘Stupid to trade what you have in the hope of getting something without guarantees.'

Myrrhini wondered what Itxtli would make of her decision to trade her life as the Eye of Varuun for the safety and peace offered alongside the Scarred Man she had Seen. Probably stupid, but she had survived the attack on the Place and made her way this far south despite everything.

Itxtli looked away at a shout, followed by the sounds of an altercation. He sighed and gave an apologetic shrug.

‘The men are getting restless — we have been away from home for a long time. When I have sorted this out I will send someone to help you with a tent.' He gave a brief nod and left.

Myrrhini watched him stalk towards where the Agents were milling about. The other achulti, Huitzilin, was in the middle of it all, trying to bring order, but without much success. There was something about the two achultis that jarred. They were the same rank, but the Agents treated them very differently, and their treatment of her varied considerably. And her treatment was nothing like the rough handling Maida had endured. Thinking of Maida, Myrrhini sighed, wondering where she was, and why she had left her. Surely they were heading in the same direction — would it not have been better to travel together?

 

They travelled across the plains with the insects, the dust, the heat, for longer than she bothered to count, the days blurring into dreary, uncomfortable sameness, until one afternoon as the sun set,
sending golden shafts of light across the waving grasses, Itxtli gave an unexpected whoop. Myrrhini looked up from her consideration of the black dirt beneath her horse in surprise.

Ahead was a low wall. Barely rising above the level of the ubiquitous grass, it stretched north to south across the plain as far as the eye could see. Myrrhini could not see any guards or any sort of gate — it was just an unremarkable low stone wall. She urged her horse closer to Huitzilin.

‘What's the wall for?' she asked.

Huitzilin stared at her with undisguised shock. ‘You can see it?'

‘Obviously.'

The achulti snarled, an angry, frustrated sound. ‘So that red-headed slag was not who she claimed to be.'

‘How so?' Myrrhini said.

‘Only those of Mertian blood can see the wall. If you can, you must be the one the Queen is seeking.'

Myrrhini frowned, troubled by the illogic in the achulti's comments, but he had never impressed her with his intelligence. She was about to say something when a low growl made her start. There was barely enough time for her to scream before the big spurre leapt up from where she had been hiding in the grass, her claws extended, her mouth agape. Myrrhini's scream was cut off by the massive bulk of the cat driving her off her horse and sending her tumbling heavily to the ground. Her horse squealed and bolted.