Palimpsest

The Coldmarch is the spine of the continent. It begins in the ice north of the Halver Sea and runs unbroken for two thousand miles to the Cindor Sea in the south, where the last of its peaks stand half-submerged as islands. No man has crossed it from end to end. No man has wanted to.

The passes through it are few and each is held: Shearwing in the south by the Cindorian Crown, Drennock in the middle by a confederation of mountain villages whose loyalties no map has ever drawn accurately, and the northern passes by no one at all, because the northern passes do not lead anywhere a man would wish to arrive. The range is the reason the east and the west are two worlds, and the passes are the reason they are not entirely separate.

— On the Geography of the Known Lands, Cartographers' Guild, second edition.

Chapter 33 Smell of Soot and Blood

Only a day had passed since they'd left Crestwick when the trees, thickening and thinning around them by turns, at last began to give way to more open country. The pines that had pressed closer and closer since they'd left Marialis were finally yielding to lower trees and brush. Kaelin had noticed that they had been bearing slightly southeast since the village, but being sure of it was one of the skills she didn't have. The greatest hint was that the line of mountains spanning the horizon stayed slightly off their left. She had heard these mountains spoken of, but seeing them with her own eyes for the first time was something else entirely. The merchants' stories, she thought, looking back, didn't begin to convey how vast and how forbidding they were.

"The Coldmarch Ridge," Veylith said from just behind her, holding the reins. "But everyone just calls it the Coldmarch." At first the closeness of her and the physical contact had made Kaelin tense, but she had begun to get used to it — to the point where she sometimes even forgot Veylith was there.

"Not hard to see why," Kaelin answered, looking at the snowy peaks. "If they keep snow on their tops even in summer."

"They look forbidding, but the snow melts all summer and feeds dozens of springs that carry water to the forests and the wildlife around the range. Without the snow up there, half this country would be parched in summer. There are no shortage of frightening stories about the mountains, but the people who live around them and work the land know that. The name doesn't actually come from the snow on the peaks, though."

"What is it from, then?"

"The mountains start in the frozen north and run almost without a break all the way down to the Cindor Sea in the south, like an army on the march."

"The march of the cold," Kaelin put in. "When I was little my mother used to tell me a story about giants that came down from the frozen north and turned to stone and became the mountains."

"The name comes from that legend. Nobody knows when it was first told, and it's plainly only a tale. And yet people still go on believing it." She paused for a beat and sighed. "It has always struck me as curious — and stupid — that people invent stories about the things they don't understand and then believe their own inventions. Believing the mountains came from up there only because we can't go up there ourselves through the snow and the cold — isn't that ridiculous?"

"Do you think they care?" Kaelin answered, fast enough that Veylith was caught off-guard. "People would rather feel safe than know. Knowing that whatever is in the north can't reach us here is much easier than trying to find out what's actually up there."

"I suppose you're right. Most of the time, thinking clearly amounts to admitting that you don't know, and people are always afraid of what they don't know."

Kaelin smiled, a little pleased with herself, but the smile gave way at once to a worried look. "When you say frightening stories — ?"

Veylith only smiled at that without answering, and went on riding for a while. Then, at a point where the trees had thinned out further, she said, suddenly, "Give me your hands."

"What?"

"I want you to take the reins," Veylith whispered.

"But I don't know how to — " Kaelin began to fumble — she had never ridden a horse in her life.

"I know," Veylith said, and pressed the reins into her hands the moment she reluctantly lifted them. Kaelin clutched the reins in panic and pulled them back toward her for an instant. The horse slowed slightly, and Veylith said, "Easy. If you panic, the horse panics. The horse has to trust you."

"But I don't know what to do."

"When I touch her with my heels she'll pick the pace up again. You just keep the reins steady, that's all." She tapped the horse and they came back up to their previous pace. Behind them, on their own horse, Vaelra and Tivver had been watching with almost the same sly smile for a while.

"Wow," Kaelin said, getting excited, and surprised to find that she was starting to enjoy it.

Veylith, who had been holding her around the waist with one hand, lifted her other hand and pointed ahead beside Kaelin's head. "Up ahead there's a wider gap between two of those peaks. Can you see it?"

"Yes," Kaelin said, though it was clear that handling the reins and looking at the horizon at the same time were, at first, at odds.

"There's a road that runs between those two mountains and out to the other side — Shearwing Pass. That's where we're heading. So you need to bring the horse's heading round toward it."

"So if I pull a little here — " Kaelin said, almost to herself, and managed to nudge the horse's head a little. When she realised she'd done it she was startled by how pleased with herself she was.

"That easy," Veylith said, encouraging her further, and put her other hand on Kaelin's waist as well. "Now I can sleep a little."

Kaelin laughed on the out-breath. "Why do you hide this side of yourself?"

"What?"

"Are you afraid we're going to take you less seriously?"

"Do… you think I'm funny?"

"Well, of course. I'd been assuming you were pretending not to be on purpose. It hadn't even occurred to me that you might not realise."

"Nobody's ever told me I was funny before."

"I don't know about your past, but it would be hard to hear that from anyone around you right now. Was Tivver, the master of nonsense, going to tell you? Or his apprentice? Darian, who walks around like a holy man? Or Ravah, who's laughed maybe four times in her life?"

"Fair point."

"You need to give yourself a little more credit, or — " Kaelin broke off, because Veylith had reached past her and taken hold of the hands holding the reins. She had even begun to turn the horse's head to the left.

"Boss!" Ravah called from up ahead at almost the same moment.

"I see it," Veylith called back in a sharp tone. Then, picking up speed slightly, they came up beside the others. When Kaelin finally lifted her eyes in the direction they had turned she saw a thin column of smoke rising into the sky.

"Another camp?" she asked, after handing the reins back to Veylith.

"I don't know. But whatever it is, it isn't good."

"Why?" Kaelin asked. The tension in Veylith's voice was making her tense as well.

"Because someone's screaming."

"I don't hear anything."

"You will," Veylith said. She kicked the horse into a faster pace in that direction and moved to the front. Kaelin was tightening up the closer they got, but having Veylith right behind her still made her feel safe.

After a few minutes of riding hard toward the smoke, Kaelin and the others at last heard the voice of a woman calling for help. The voice was the cry of someone exhausted to the last of her strength, broken up, growing fainter toward the end.

When they crested a small rise the camp finally came into view. A few cargo wagons and four or five tents set up around them spread across a clearing in the trees — all of them on fire. Everything had been smashed and scattered, every visible thing torn open and ransacked. The tents were nearly burnt down with whatever was inside them; the wooden wagons were still smouldering. As they came closer the bitter, throat-catching smoke became more sickening. But beneath the smell of smoke there was the smell of blood. When they finally rode in among the wagons they saw the bodies on the ground. They couldn't ride any further because of the fire, so they pulled up beside one of the still-burning wagons. Veylith was off the horse at once. Ravah after her.

"Barbarian raid?" Ravah said, beginning to look around.

"Looks like they burnt the place down and rode off." They had both begun to look for the source of the voice they'd heard.

"Help! Somebody — anybody — please!"

The moment they heard the woman's voice they turned toward the wagon on the far side. Kaelin and Vaelra swung off their horses at the same time and ran toward it. Behind the wagon, in among broken-open crates, they saw a wounded blonde woman lying on the ground. As they came up to her she saw them coming and an expression of pained relief came over her face.

"Finally," she said, voice on the edge of tears. "Please help me," she went on, almost begging, with what little voice she had left.

"It's all right. We'll help you," Veylith said, and crouched at once beside her. Kaelin came up and crouched beside her too. They both saw at once that the woman was badly hurt and that there were bruises and cuts all over her body. When they saw how torn her clothes were they understood that what had been done here was not only violence, and looked at each other with the same expression. Then Veylith called, "Darian!" — to bring him over.

"Right here," he called, running to them; he was already moving in their direction. He crouched at once beside them and laid his hands on the woman's stomach and began to heal her. The woman, almost at once, took an easier breath, as if the pain had eased.

Veylith took advantage of the pause and stood and looked over at Ravah, who was moving among the tents. There was a look on her face as if she had asked her something and was waiting for an answer. Ravah looked at her and shook her head, no. Then she went on picking among the wreckage. Veylith crouched again beside the woman.

Kaelin was kneeling beside her with a hand on her cheek, watching her closely. "Can you tell us what happened?" she asked in a gentle voice. The woman looked at her and for a while caught her breath without saying anything.

"We had only just set up camp. We were going to make stew on the central fire. But then — " she paused and swallowed. "Riders came from everywhere all at once. They came at anyone they saw with their swords, tore the tents apart. They killed the men first. And then to the women — " She couldn't finish, and broke into sobs she could no longer hold back. Kaelin shushed her and pulled the woman's head against her chest. She kept her eyes on Veylith and Darian. Both of them had that expression that sits between helplessness and rage. "They set the whole place on fire," the woman went on, telling what she could with what voice she still had. "I — I couldn't do anything." And she broke into sobs again. Kaelin tried to calm her. "You don't have to talk. Don't tire yourself."

"We can't stay here long," Veylith said, looking at Darian.

"I think she's in good enough shape to move," Darian replies. "Her wounds are healing quickly."

Veylith turned to him and to Vaelra, who was standing right behind him. "You two take her — you're the lightest. Load your gear onto our horse." Then she got up and turned the other way, adding, "Quickly."

Kaelin and Darian helped the woman to her feet. Kaelin slipped the thin cloak from her own shoulders onto the woman's, drawing it over her torn clothes. "May I ask your name?"

The woman looked into her eyes with gratitude and said, "Aelisara." Then she added, "But everyone calls me Elis."

"Pleased to meet you, Elis," Kaelin said, and steadied her by the shoulders. "You're going to be all right. I promise." And she handed her over to Darian and Vaelra. Vaelra slipped her own arm under the woman's as well, saying, "Take your time, darling." As the two of them led her toward the horses, Kaelin made her way to Veylith. In the meantime she had, for the first time, a chance to look more carefully around the camp.

Three or four paces away a man lay on the ground, one arm flung out as if he had been reaching for something. Half of his clothing was soaked through with blood that had begun to dry near the fire. A few steps further off, away from the flames, a young woman with fair hair lay face-down in the grass, her dress pulled up to her waist. Kaelin turned her head away from the scratches on the woman's legs and looked in another direction. But at the entrance of one of the almost-burnt tents she saw much smaller legs sticking out into the open. Pain and horror closed her eyes for an instant. The fear left behind by bodies that had not yet gone cold around her ran through her bones for a moment.

She had seen many people die in Marialis. She had even killed Tarr'en herself. But none of it had filled her with this kind of horror. There a war had been going on, and people had been doing what they had to do to survive. But this — what had been done here had no explanation and no excuse. Among the smell of soot and blood and the heat of the fire on her face, she kept her eyes closed for a moment, trying to gather herself. Then a hand finally touched her arm.

"Are you all right?" Veylith asked, looking at her closely. Kaelin started and opened her eyes, but seeing her she settled again. She nodded once, yes, without saying anything. Veylith squeezed her arm gently and let go. She turned and looked back at the camp.

"Are there a lot of barbarian raids around here?" Kaelin asked after several seconds of breathing deeply.

"I know there are sometimes," Veylith answered. "But this close to the mountains it doesn't make sense. There are streams nearby, and farms, and small villages all around them. Barbarians don't strike this close to settlements."

"A mistake by inexperienced ones? Desperation?" Kaelin offered, trying to make Veylith feel better, but really doing it for herself. It didn't have much effect on either of them.

Veylith shook her head, no. "Something is wrong here." Then she stepped further into the camp. Coming closer to one of the looted wagons, she saw a purse left on the ground and lorins scattered around it. Then she swept her eyes over the whole camp more carefully. This time, it was as though she were looking for something.

"What?" Kaelin asked, following at her shoulder.

Veylith, as if something had occurred to her, lifted her head and started scanning around without answering. Finally she caught the glint of something appearing and disappearing among the trees in the distance. "Shit." Then she leaned to Kaelin and gripped her arm and whispered, "Quickly — go to the horses, get on ours, and get the others moving fast. Don't wait for me. Don't look back. Ride for the mountains."

"What — what for?"

"Because we're standing in the middle of a trap."