The Singing by Alison Croggon

  The horses had cooled down in the slow trot up the stream, and were no longer winded; but their coats were streaked white with sweat and their cheeks flecked with foam. They had rid­den hard: looking at them now, Hem thought it was a miracle that they had not broken down.

  It suddenly seemed very quiet. The tiny noises of the wood—the whispering of leaves, the scurrying of a small animal—gradually rose about them and Hem was sharply aware of the smell of the damp earth, rich with rotting leaves, beneath his feet. With a start, he realized that he had no idea where Irc was, and sent out an urgent summoning. To his unbounded relief, Irc answered at once.

  Where are you? said Irc plaintively. I'm looking and looking...

  We're under the trees, said Hem. We had some trouble.

  Irc gave the crow's equivalent of a contemptuous snort. And you told me to stay out of trouble, he said.

  We might still be in trouble. Can you see any horsemen where you are?

  I saw a man in the woods a little while ago. He is not where you are. I saw no others. I will fly and look and then I will find you.

  Hem sent out his hearing. There were hoofbeats, a horse trotting, maybe two, a little distance away.

  "I think, for the moment, that we have thrown them off our trail," said Saliman, after a long silence. "For the moment. But I have no idea where we are."

  Hekibel had been leaning against Usha, stroking her neck. At this, she looked up. "Dear faithful beasts, these two," she said. "They were not made to run like that."

  "No," said Saliman. "And yet they ran like the Ernani's rac­ing steeds."

  "I thought we were done for." Hekibel shuddered. "Those horrible, horrible men .. . and oh, poor Fenek ..." She laid her face against Usha's damp withers, and Hem knew that she didn't want him or Saliman to see her cry. "It's true, you know, that he's been my dog for years, since I was a girl," she said in a muffled voice. "He didn't deserve that. He was just trying to protect me."

  "He was a good dog," said Hem awkwardly. He was think­ing of how he would feel if anything like that happened to Irc.

  "It was just so—sudden." She looked up, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "He's only a dog, I know, but I loved him.

  Now everyone I traveled with is dead. Except Usha and Minna."

  There was a bleak silence.

  "How did he kill him like that?" asked Hekibel. "Was that man a Hull?"

  "He was a Bard," said Saliman, in a hard voice. "Though I think such as he do not deserve the title. In any case, he is a Bard no longer."

  "Did you kill him?" asked Hem. "I thought you just..."

  "He is dead, yes," said Saliman. "I dealt him the justice he was about to deal us. If I were a better Bard, I should not have done it. But I am not a better Bard." There was a dangerous glit­ter in Saliman's eyes, which made Hem drop the subject. Hem had seldom seen this side of him, and it frightened him. Saliman's anger was slow, but when it awakened, it was merciless.

  "Well, what should we do now?" asked Hem.

  "To be honest, Hem, I am not sure I can go any farther for a while. I am not as recovered from my illness as I would like, and that magery drained me, not to mention that wild cross-country gallop. I would give much to know where those sol­diers are. They will be tracking us, for certain."

  "Irc said he would look for them," said Hem.

  "Did he, now?" Saliman smiled, his teeth flashing white in the gloom under the trees, and the old Saliman was back again. "I was wondering what had happened to our feathered friend. I would never say this to Irc, because he would not let me forget it, but he is the best scout I have ever had."

  Irc reappeared shortly afterward as they were making a rough camp. Angling in beneath the oaks and perching himself on a branch, he watched Hem brushing the dried sweat out of Usha's coat and reported that he had tracked the horseman, who was leaving the woods.

  Only one? asked Hem.

  I saw no other, answered Irc. And I'm hungry. He cocked his head, fixing Hem with his eye. Where's the dog? Did he run away?

  He was killed by a soldier, said Hem shortly. He feared that Irc might say something rude, since he had always squabbled with Fenek, but instead Irc went very quiet.

  J am sad, said the crow at last. He was good, for a dog.

  "Only one horseman?" repeated Saliman later, as they shared some food. They had wrapped themselves in blankets as well as cloaks, as it was cold in the shade and they dared not light a fire.

  "Yes," said Hem. "He said he saw no other."

  "That troubles me," said Saliman. "They will not give up the hunt for us lightly. And I am tired enough to sleep a dozen nights." He sighed. "For the moment, we are safest here. Tomorrow, I think, we should try to get out of Desor. Do you still feel the path, Hem?"

  Hem nodded. "At least we're on the right side of the Fesse now," he said. "And Irc told me something else too. The Black Army is past the floodplains and in the Desor Fesse. We would definitely have run into them if we had gone back along the road. Irc said they are as many as ants in an anthill." Hem swal­lowed. "And he said they left a trail of corpses behind them."

  "Who would they be fighting, in the mud?" asked Hekibel, looking up, her eyes large.

  "I think the Black Army was not fighting," said Saliman. His voice was very low. "I expect that those corpses are their own. It must have been a cruel march indeed." He was silent for a long time. "Most of those soldiers are slaves," he said. "Sharma's war is not their choice: they had none. I pity them as I do not pity that Bard."

  * * *

  Hem took the first watch. He sat on his blanket to soften the hard ground, and listened to the secret night noises of the for­est, the gentle breathing of his companions, the stirring of the horses as they shifted in their sleep. Before him was a black­ness of trees: at first he could see nothing, but his eyes gradu­ally adjusted, and the darkness shifted into subtle shades of light and dark and movement. It was a still night, filled with a deep quiet: the trees barely rustled. The sky was clear again, and the stars shone white in a black, moonless sky

  He was very tired, and before the moon rose he caught him­self dropping off to sleep. Angry with himself, he slapped his arms and forced open his eyelids, stubbornly staring out into the night with burning eyes. Gradually the sky lightened as a cres­cent moon rose, small and high and bright as burnished silver.

  Sleep kept sweeping through his body like an irresistible wave. He rubbed his eyes and pinched himself. He couldn't be this tired. He had often kept watch after long and exhausting days, and his body was used to it. It wasn't as if he felt safe; even though he and Saliman had, with a little difficulty, made both a glimveil and a shield to conceal their presence and any trace of magery, his nerves thrummed with tension. Yet his eye­lids were as heavy as stone, and his eyeballs felt as if they had been rolled in hot sand.

  It surely wouldn't hurt to shut his eyes, just for a little while, to ease them—he struggled against the voice that whis­pered in his head—it can't do any harm, it would be bliss, just to shut my eyes, just for a moment...

  Hem picked up his water bottle and tipped its contents over his head. The water was freezing, and he gasped with the shock of it, but it woke him up. He shook his wet hair like a dog. Some sense prickled him with sudden awareness, and he looked around alertly, like a deer that had scented a hunter.

  He could see nothing and hear nothing, but someone was close. Very close. He couldn't tell how he knew: there was no smell of magery or sorcery, and the ground beneath the trees was still and silent. But some deep awareness told Hem that something was creeping closer and closer to the trees where they were hiding.

  A vivid memory rose in his mind of the agonizing games he had played in Nal-Ak-Burat, when Hared had been training him and Zelika for their spying mission near Den Raven. Hared had made them stand in a room that was absolutely dark, and attempt to catch each other. In those games, Hem had thought his heartbeat was as loud as a hammer, and his blood sounded like a river rushing through
the darkness. Now it was the same. He couldn't hear the night noises of the wood anymore, nor the hooting of owls, nor the distant bubble of the stream. All he could hear was his own blood pulsing in his ears.

  He sat absolutely still, in an agony of listening, and as he did, he felt the desire for sleep swarming again through his body, like the murmur of hives in summer, like the lapping waves on a lake golden with the light of evening. Now the voice, soft and dark as sun-warmed honey, was whispering of the dim shades that curled in the eaves of the palaces of sleep and kissed the slumberer with their gentle blessings.

  Hem's eyelids grew heavier again, and he began to nod; but his will kicked him into wakefulness again. It is a spell, said another voice inside him, a stubborn voice that he knew was his own. It's a spell, and someone is making it. Someone who knows you're here.

  As soon as he understood this, the desire for sleep left him. The charm would no longer work on him, although Hem still heard its seductive voice whispering in his ear. This was not sorcery. This was the magery of Bards. A Bard of Desor—a Bard like the one Saliman had killed earlier that day, a Bard who had betrayed the deep fealty of the Light—was creeping closer, but Hem could neither see nor hear any sign of movement. Very slowly, making no sound at all, Hem grasped the shortsword in his hand and loosened it in his sheath, positioning it so he could leap up and draw it in one movement.

  If this person walked into the shield he and Saliman had made, its magery would make them visible, no matter what enchantment now hid them from his eyes. Hem's heart shook at the thought that this Bard must have somehow sensed past all their own concealments. Whoever it was knew where they were. Hem didn't know how that was possible: he had long experience now of making shields, shadowmazes, glimveils, all manner of Bardic hides, and he knew they were proof even against the vision of Hulls. So how had this Bard known where they were?

  Nothing happened. Hem realized that he was sitting in a cold sweat, and began to wonder if his imagination, rattled by the events of the day, was playing tricks on him, showing him the shape of his fears in shadows and moonlight. But still he didn't relax: at the deepest levels of his awareness, he was sure something was there. The moon rose higher, and a faint silver limned the trees and the grass. And still nothing stirred in the empty night.

  And then a booted foot came down silently on the leaves an arm's length in front of him, carefully placed to make no sound, and at once a man emerged into visibility through the shimmer­ing edges of the glimveil. He froze in midstep, taken completely by surprise, as Hem leaped to his feet and drew his sword, holding it steadily at the man's throat.

  It was the tall, fair soldier they had seen at the gate. Hem lifted the sword so that its tip rested against the man's throat, and he saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. Very slowly, the Bard raised his hands palms outward, to show that they were empty. For a long moment, he and Hem stared into each other's eyes.

  "Samandalame," said the man in the Speech. "I have been seeking you."

  "I know you have," answered Hem, in the same tongue. "And now you have found us. But do not think you will leave this place alive."

  XVI

  THE HOUSE OF MARAJAN

  T

  HE man met Hem's gaze without flinching, and some­thing in Hem faltered, and he almost lowered the sword. "I am unarmed," said the man. "I mean you no harm."

  "That's hard to believe."

  "I'm sure it is. But it is, nevertheless, true."

  "A Bard needs no weapons to be dangerous," said Hem. He nudged the sword a little higher under the man's chin, so its tip pressed into the soft skin of his throat, and the Bard blinked, and swallowed again.

  "Don't kill me," he said, his voice suddenly harsh, and Hem knew he was afraid. "That would be foolish, and you would regret it later. Wake Saliman of Turbansk. Tell him Grigar of Desor is here and wishes to speak with him."

  Hem started at the mention of Saliman's name, and paused in dreadful doubt. "You know Saliman?" he said.

  "I have no weapons," Grigar repeated. "I will let you bind me in whatever way you see fit, if it makes you feel safer. I understand why you do not trust me. But think: if I meant you any malign purpose, and if I knew where you were, would I come this way, alone, at night, to find you?"

  Hem looked into Grigar's eyes and could see no sign that he was lying; but he was still full of mistrust. There was no rea­son to believe that he wasn't trying to deceive him, especially as he had been attempting to lull Hem with a sleep charm. If this man could see through glimveils and shields, why should a binding charm hold him? Hem couldn't remember the binding charm, anyway; he had never used it.

  Without taking his eyes off Grigar, he mindtouched Saliman, calling him out of his sleep. Saliman was instantly awake.

  What is it? he asked.

  Bring your sword, said Hem. A man called Grigar wants to speak to you. A Bard.

  Hem felt the astonishment in Saliman's mind. Grigar? he said. Are you certain?

  That's what he said, said Hem.

  Saliman was at Hem's shoulder in an instant. He made a small magelight that floated close to Grigar's face.

  "Samandalame, Saliman," said the Bard. "It is long since we met. Perhaps your young friend could stop tickling my throat with his sword point."

  There was a long, tense silence, and Hem sensed a connec­tion between the two Bards, as if a ray of intense light joined their eyes, although he saw no such light. Then both Bards seemed to relax, and Saliman turned to Hem.

  "Put down your sword, Hem," he said. "I can vouch for Grigar as a friend."

  "He's one of the guards at the gate. He was chasing us. And he found us despite the glimveils and he tried to bind me in sleep." Hem hissed indignantly. All of them were still speaking in low voices. "How do you know he's a friend? He'll probably kill us as soon we turn our backs."

  "Put it down." Now it was an order, and slowly and reluc­tantly Hem lowered his sword.

  How can we trust him? he said into Saliman's mind.

  I have all but scried him, Saliman answered. And be sure, I was not gentle. If there were any trace of deceit, I should have known it. He is as he seems.

  Hem kept the sword ready in his hand, watching Grigar with deep suspicion, as the Bard rubbed his neck.

  "I thank you," said Grigar. "That was a mort uncomfort­able. You have an apt apprentice, Saliman. I don't know how he knew I was there. I put such a strong sleep charm around this place that beasts must be snoring for miles, and yet he did not sleep. And he came for me like a wolf the instant I stepped through your shield."

  Saliman smiled and, as Hem watched openmouthed, stepped forward and embraced Grigar. "I am deeply sorry for the hostile welcome," he said. "But perhaps you can excuse us for being a little wary."

  "Of course I excuse you," said Grigar. "In this place, the deepest vigilance is not enough. All the same, I feared that I would be slain by the Light rather than by my enemies, which would have pleased the Nameless One more than anyone else. Your young friend has a deadly look."

  "My young friend, for all his tender years, has walked darker paths than either you or I," said Saliman. Grigar looked curiously at Hem, and Hem met his eyes steadily. Now that he was less afraid, he saw Grigar's face was subtly changed from that of the bluff soldier he had seen at the gate earlier that day. He now looked more intelligent, more alert. More like a Bard.

  They drew in under the deeper shade of the oaks, and Hem saw that Hekibel still slept. He thought to wake her, and changed his mind: she looked very peaceful. Saliman checked their glimveil and shield, and then his magelight brightened, so that Hem, Saliman, and Grigar could see one another clearly.

  Saliman cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should make some introductions," he said. "Hem, this is Grigar of Desor, formerly of the First Circle, and a true Bard of the Light. And a long-lost friend of mine. I thought you were dead, my friend."

  "Not dead, although that was put about," said Grigar.

  "Merely . . . asleep
, you might say. I have been, to most eyes, a humble goatherd in the outskirts of the Fesse for a few years now. I gave over my Barding when the First Circle became something that I did not want any part of. In this Fesse, to be poor is to be invisible. It has allowed me to ... observe things." He paused. "I was never more astonished than when I saw your face today, Saliman. I might ask what you are doing here."

  "Trying to get elsewhere," said Saliman wryly. "And almost not succeeding. Am I right in thinking that you led our pursuers astray? I was mighty puzzled that we seemed to lose them so quickly."