The Harvest Tide Project (20 page)

‘Damn you and your kind,’ Draegar snarled, rising to his feet. ‘As if the Noranians were not capable of enough destruction, you give them a weapon that could create a
disaster
. Only the gods know what kind of insanity Rak Ek Namen plans. But if he can somehow make Noran stronger by killing thousands, then he will find a way to do it. Tell me why I wouldn’t be making the land a safer place by killing you right now!’

Groach was hauled to his feet and found himself lifted bodily against the trunk of the willow by his throat. Hilspeth jumped up and swung helplessly off Draegar’s huge arm.

‘Let him go!’ she screamed. ‘Let him go, you animal!’

‘Thggh … haggh … by … notsch,’ the botanist rasped.

Draegar suddenly let go, and Groach slumped to the ground. Hilspeth still hung from the map-maker’s arm.

‘What?’ Draegar hissed.

‘I told them where to find my notes.’ Groach rubbed his throat tenderly. ‘They probably have them by now. It’s all in my notes – everything I know about the Harvest Tide.’

With a curse, Draegar thumped the trunk of the tree with one hand and shook Hilspeth off the other. Taya stood up, fearfully looking from Draegar to Groach and back again. Uncle Emos’s farm was on the coast of Braskhia. She knew people out there, decent ordinary folk. Why would the Prime Ministrate want to kill them? What was it for?

‘What have you done?’ she asked, queasily.

‘I don’t know,’ Groach answered. ‘But I have to find out. I have to go back to Noran.’

‘But they’re still after you.’ Hilspeth took his hand. ‘We can’t let you go back.’

‘I have to go,’ he repeated.

‘Then at least let us come with you. We can’t let you go on your own.’

‘The children are going back to their uncle’s,’ Draegar said. ‘And I need you to make sure they get there, Hilspeth.’

‘What?’ She frowned.

‘This is a serious matter. Taya and Lorkrin must get home safely, but many more lives are at stake. I am going with this meddling gardener to Noran. I must find out what they intend to do with this weapon of theirs and he is my means of finding out. I need you to see the children home.’

‘Forget it,’ she snapped. ‘I’m staying with Shessil.’

‘Hilspeth,’ Draegar reasoned in a softer voice. ‘We cannot involve them, and I can keep Shessil safer than you could. It makes sense and you know it. If we leave the two little scamps on their own, they will follow us. And apart from all that, two men travelling will attract less attention than all five of us. Please, look after Lorkrin and Taya.’

Hilspeth hesitated, glancing at Taya, who was standing up and looking disappointed.

‘All right, but you take good care of Shessil. This may all be his doing, but he’s a good man. Don’t you harm a hair on his head, or I’ll make you sorry you were born.’

‘Agreed,’ the Parsinor said with a nod.

They all stood staring at one another, not saying a word. They stayed that way until Lorkrin burst through the foliage of the willow and skidded to a stop. He looked around warily.

‘Why have you all gone so quiet?’ he whispered.

15 L
YING
L
OW AT THE
L
USH
O
ASIS

From where the column of vehicles had stopped to look at a fake raspidam footprint, Emos had tracked some soldiers to the clearing by the esh where they had caught up with Lorkrin and Taya. There was a new set of tracks, and Emos deduced that his niece and nephew had managed to rescue the man from the house in Hortenz, the botanist. At the same time, he had discovered Draegar’s footprints and could tell by the Parsinor’s footwork among the Noranians’ boot marks that he had tackled some of the soldiers and won. The marks in the ground had been spoiled by the rain, but it told him enough. Lorkrin had fallen into the esh. Draegar and the botanist had followed and somehow got him out.

Draegar’s prints were deeper when they left – he was
carrying
something … and Lorkrin was not walking with them. Taya was limping, but seemed to be all right. The woman with the strange collection of smells was with them too. Having given up his search from the air, knowing Draegar would keep them under cover, the Myunan was tracking them by following the trail of scent, crushed grass and broken twigs. Along the way, he discovered another, fresher
set of tracks on top of those that he was following. Noranian trackers were after them now.

Whoever this gardener or botanist was, he was important to the Noranians, and Emos was becoming more and more convinced that he possessed something the Noranians were desperate to have. He came across the mill where the
fugitives
had slept, and noted the sludge of rotten crumble cones. He was relieved to find that Lorkrin was walking once more.

The Noranians were closing in on them. The odd group had stopped amid the signs of destruction of a Gabbit
village
, devastation that could only mean a visit by soldiers. He came across a party of Gabbits further along the trail, out scavenging for materials to build their new settlement. They chattered mournfully when they saw Emos, eager to tell their tale of woe. He stopped to make some conversation and find out what he could. They had not seen his niece and nephew, but soldiers had been mobilised all over the region to search for them, and particularly for the man they had
kidnapped
from a Noranian convoy. The Prime Ministrate
himself
had ordered their arrest. After sitting down with them to a simple meal of bread and mushroom soup, Emos thanked them and left to continue his search with a growing sense of unease.

At a wide stream, Draegar had led the others in and along it and Emos lost the trail. He could see the Noranians had too. But he had noticed what they had not. The group had been picking berries to eat as they went and he searched up and down the stream’s course until he found a freshly picked blackberry bush. From there he was able to take up their trail again. They were making their way south. Draegar
would probably head for Brodfan, where the Noranians were not popular.

Passing a grove of nocha trees, he saw a swarm of people, nearly fifty of them, working under the canopy of the branches. They were gathering crumble cones and heaping them into sacks. Noranian Groupmasters were watching over them as they loaded the sacks into the back of a wagon. Emos kept out of sight, observing this unusual harvest. Crumble cones were not normally the kind of thing people collected. When the truck was full, it was driven off and another took its place. The labourers kept working.

Emos stopped again when he reached a weeping willow. They had rested here. Lorkrin had gone to get water, and Draegar had argued with the gardener, holding him against the trunk of the tree. He walked on and it was growing dark when he came on the hedge where their trails parted.
Draegar
and the other man had turned north, the others south.

Emos sat down to think. What was the Parsinor doing? What could possibly make him leave the children? It
disturbed
the Myunan – it would have taken something serious for Draegar to shirk what he saw as his responsibility … It would take a matter of life and death. Had he learned something about the Noranians’ plans for war?

Emos was faced with the choice of turning after the
Parsinor
and the gardener and getting some answers, or
continuing
the search for Lorkrin and Taya. He sat down to rest and leaned back wearily against the trunk of the tree. Rak Ek Namen was famous for his cunning. His forces had never lost a battle under his leadership; it was said he never started a war he could not win. It would not be enough that Braskhia and the Kartharic Peaks went to war – Namen had
to be sure that he would end up crushing both countries. And he was putting all his efforts into gardening and the esh. Emos shook his head and hauled himself to his feet. It was too much of a puzzle. His first concern was finding Taya and Lorkrin.

Knowing he would have to give up following the trail when it got dark, he got up and started south after his niece and nephew. They were making for Brodfan, and he was close now. A look back across the fields stopped him dead. Just this side of the woods, someone had lit a lantern. Three lanterns. Those were not farmers; the Noranians had found the trail again.

Moving quickly, he removed what signs he could of the tracks. Then reshaping his own feet to imitate each of the different types of footprint in turn, he left a false trail leading away from the road, away from Brodfan. Let the Noranians ponder that for a while. Wrapping up his tools, he slung his bag onto his back and set out south again.

Hilspeth, Taya and Lorkrin had left Draegar and Groach near the road, and had been walking south since sunset. The two Myunans had been arguing with the scentonomist ever since.

‘But we could help,’ Lorkrin was protesting. ‘We can sneak into places they can’t get to … we can disguise
ourselves
and hide better than they can.’

‘I’m not arguing with you any more. I’m taking you back to your uncle’s and that’s the end of it,’ Hilspeth said firmly.

‘You want to go too; you can’t fool us,’ Taya told her. ‘You’re worried about Shessil.’

‘I said I wasn’t going to argue any more and I mean it. Now, pipe down.’

‘You’re just scared of Draegar. He’s not as mean as he seems to be, you know,’ said Taya. ‘Well, he is pretty mean. But he’s got a nice side.’

‘On the far side of the nasty bit,’ added Lorkrin.

‘Sort of hidden behind it …’ continued Taya.

‘Well hidden,’ Lorkrin finished.

‘I’m not scared of Draegar. This is just not the kind of thing children should be involved in.’

‘We’re already involved!’ Taya pleaded.

‘Who are you calling children?’ Lorkrin scowled. ‘I’m
thirteen
and a half.’

Hilspeth shook her head and walked on. It was a dark, overcast night, and they could barely see the road in the gloom. Everything below the horizon was a solid black mass. They were having to follow the dim light reflecting off the puddles on each side of the road to prevent themselves from walking into hedges and ditches. Hilspeth was making her two charges walk ahead of her, and still they were
difficult
to see. She was convinced they were becoming darker themselves as if they were trying to disappear into the night.

The lanterns on the front of a vehicle appeared over the crest of a hill not far ahead, and the noise of its spluttering engine reached their ears.

‘Quick, hide!’ she cried, and they plunged into the hedges. The wagon bore down on them and Hilspeth could see it was a tractor, its iron wheels grinding the surface of the road, and pistons protruding from the massive engine to drive the six wheels. It was loud and slow. As it passed, the torches cast a yellow light over the area, and Hilspeth looked to see
if Taya and Lorkrin were visible. They were nowhere to be seen. When it was far enough away, she came out of hiding and called to them. There was no answer. She searched around, wishing she dared use the light of the tinderbox, but it was useless. Instead she stood still and listened. There wasn’t a sound. The Myunans were concealed in the
shadows
of the bushes and were not coming out.

‘Fine, if that’s the way you want to play it,’ she said out loud. ‘I can wait. I know you can hide, but if you move, I’ll hear you. So, we’ll just wait until daylight, waste all that time … maybe even get caught, so that you two can make believe that you are going to Noran.’

She sat down and listened to the dark. She was not so sure she would be able to find them even in daylight. That was a Myunan’s talent. If they didn’t want to be found, they wouldn’t be. How did you search for a person who could change their colour, even their shape at will? And they could do this every time she took her eyes off them. Even if she caught them this time, they would have plenty of other opportunities to escape her along the way. They were telling her they would go to Noran without her if they couldn’t go with her. Hilspeth blew air through her gritted teeth with a hissing sound.

‘All right, we’ll go after them,’ she sighed.

‘That’s more like it,’ she heard Taya say, as she stood up right beside the scentonomist, the young Myunan’s skin colour perfectly matched to the pattern of the long grass.

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ Hilspeth groaned.

But at least she would be there to help if … no, when they ran into trouble.

Groach and Draegar had followed the road for most of the night and now, ahead of them, were the lights of a village. Groach expected the Parsinor to veer off the road and take to the fields as they had done twice already that night, but instead Draegar strode straight down the roadway towards the village.

‘There is a storyhouse here where we can get food and stay out of the Noranians’ way for the day,’ the Parsinor told him. ‘They are no friends of the soldiers and will hide us if needs be.’

‘Thank the gods,’ Groach moaned. His feet were killing him and he was exhausted.

They approached a slightly tilting building that looked as if it had seen one storm too many. A sign hanging above the door read ‘
The Lush Oasis
’. Tiles were missing from the steep roof, the ragged remains of birds’ nests hung from the eaves and most of the plaster had crumbled from its sandstone walls. The green-painted frames of the windows and doors did not seem to fit properly, and tied to railings in the yard on one side were all manner of mounts, from horses to
donkeys
, oxen to elmadons, tremadites to grunchegs. Three wagons and a tractor were parked on the weed-ridden gravel on the other side of the building.

‘Men come here at all hours of the day and night,’ Draegar said as they studied the storyhouse. ‘Not every trade works during the day. This is a rough place. Don’t get into any arguments and don’t get in anyone’s way. Places like this attract some evil types, but they won’t ask questions and that’s what counts for us now.’

They walked up to the door and Draegar pushed it open. Some faces in the large group of men turned their way, but most ignored them. The room was not very big, packed with benches and tables made of rough-hewn wood. The walls and ceilings were stained a greasy, brownish yellow from years of smoke, and the thick beams holding up the ceiling were hung with tankards, jugs, ladles and other serving implements. The heads of every kind of animal worth
hunting
stood out on plaques along the walls. There were tails, furs, skulls and bones, even the whole skeleton of a large animal Groach did not recognise adorning the stained
plaster
and smoke-darkened beams. Over the odour of pipes and drink, there was a faint, but pervasive stink of old embalming fluid.