The Song of Andiene

CHAPTER 9



Ilbran had half-forgotten his own danger, as he knelt in the dusty roadway. So compelling had been the grizane’s need, to pass the message and the burden on. For a moment longer he stared at the ragged gray robes, the arrow feathered with purple and red. Then he raised his head and saw the archers, a pair of them on horseback, far down the dusty road and seeming in no hurry to come closer.

They fear the grizane, he thought, but as he turned and ran, they gained courage and galloped after him. While they rode, they could not aim well, the only thing that might save him.

No time to waste in useless grief. Saliswood trees grew along the river, but they were too far away. If he ran straight, the archers would ride him down long before he had reached their shelter. He swerved from the road and plunged into the thick blaggorn straw, burrowing into it. Even sitting high on horseback, they might lose him in the tall-stalked field.

The broken blaggorn stems would leave a trail that anyone on foot could follow, but once inside the field, he found a maze of animal trails. He ran half-crouched along the little paths beaten in the tall grass. They twisted and turned, but he followed the ones that led downhill. When he paused once to glance back, peering between the long grass stems, the horsemen were quartering and casting about like hounds on an unclear trail. He heard a horn blowing, calling others to the hunt.

He was close to the trees now. They gave no cover, but the tall thin trunks were set too thick for a horse to pass. If his pursuers had been wiser, they would have begun their hunt there, and gradually driven him back to the road, the open places.

But the kingsmen were still behind him. Ilbran sprang to his feet and dashed toward the trees. He heard the shouting behind him, the swish and thump as arrows struck the ground—in front of him. He had badly misjudged the distance, to show himself so close within their range.

He did not look back; it would only slow him down. He crouched and ran, dodging through the slender trees. A blow on his back, a sudden hot pain, an arrow trembled in his shoulder, tearing at his flesh as he pushed his way between the trees. He reached up and snapped off the feathered shaft, without breaking stride. The arrowhead twisted in the wound; now he would leave a blood-trail that they could follow. No time for a bandage, no time for thinking. A steep cliff, but not high, ran down to the wide streambed. He plunged down it.

The saliswood grew more thick and brushy in the stream bottom. The branches plucked even at the stub of the arrow shaft, as he forced his way through the trees. But he had outdistanced the hunters. Time to run wise, now.

On the far side of the stream, the brushy hills began to rise up. Though Ilbran had never seen such a land, he knew that it was fugitive country, outlaw land.

The brush was tall enough to hide him, but it grew sparsely on the dry hills. He could choose any of a myriad of trails. Slowing a little in his flight, he tugged off his tunic and bound it around his shoulder to stop the blood. Now he would leave no marks on the stony ground.

The hill was steep. The bushes were sweet and fragrant as he clung to them, using them to drag himself uphill. They were not useful plants, like the ones of the plains, where every grass, herb, and shrub is a servant to man. But they hid him from his enemies.

At last he reached the crest of the hill, the brush so thin that he had to crawl close to the ground. He looked down the far slope, and then he despaired, for men wearing the armor and bright colors of Nahil’s men had spread out and were beating the brush, working up the hill toward him.

Thirst tightened his throat as though a hand had clenched on it. The desire to surrender rose in him. For a mad moment, it seemed better and easier than being hunted like an animal across these hot dry hills.

Images of torture and death rose up in his mind for the first time in many days. No! He would not throw away the grizane’s gift so easily. He would run and hide for as long as he was able, and when he was caught, though he had no weapons, he would fight with his hands until they were forced to kill him.

On the other side, the soldiers were still far down the hill, searching slowly, but no doubt confidently. Ilbran glanced around him. The snare had not yet tightened. He ran half-crouching, a little below the ridge line so that he would not be outlined against the sky. Ahead was a great tumble of rocks, promising some chance of a place to hide.

These stones were not the great megaliths of the plains, monuments that warned away the fearful and the wise. They were merely an outcropping on the hillside, as neutral to mankind as is the earth itself. He reached their shadows without showing himself, but at first glance, they seemed to have offered a treacherous hope. Only a few caves, blind shallow openings. The soldiers could drag him out like a toothless courser.

Ilbran circled the stones, moving eastward. Here on the south side, one had split and opened up a chimney far higher than his head. He looked at it with sudden hope. At the top, was there any place where he could lie and hide? He would have no second chance. The hunters would be upon him.

He set his back to one face of the cleft, braced his feet against the other, and began his climb, turned half to one side so that his arrow-pierced shoulder would not press against the rock.

An age later, it seemed, he neared the top. Every muscle in his legs ached and trembled, ready to give way and let him fall to the bottom. The flesh of his back was rubbed raw. With his last strength, he grasped the edge of the rock and drew himself up to the top.

On one side of the cleft, the rock fell away in knife-edge sharpness, but on the other side, one rock rested against another and made a nest, a little hollow for him to lie in.

In it, wind-blown soil had collected, and grass had grown and died. Ilbran lay on his belly, his raw skinned back turned to the sun. He had left no trail on the stony ground, but his back had left a blood-trail on the rock walls for any eyes to see. He heard voices below, as the searchers reached the crest of the hill.

“Might be hiding in a place like this,” said one.

“Nah, we left him in the saliswood. Might be two leagues downstream by now.”

“What about the other one you killed?” said a third voice. “The bounty on him … Ha ha! You were going to buy our drinks for a month with it!”

“I tell you, I killed him,” the first one said. “Right through the chest, and I never took my eyes off of him. Some more of their filthy magic.”

Their voices became fainter, as they moved farther away. Ilbran lay where he had fallen. The work he had done all his life had called for strength, but not for great endurance. He had pushed his body to efforts he scarcely knew were possible.

As the day went on, the sun grew brighter. Though aftersummer had passed, no one would willingly lie in the midday sun. The patch of dry grass shielded him from the full heat of the rock, but his thirst tormented him, and there was fever rising in him to match the fevered sun.

The soldiers’ voices were loud as thunder as they beat back and forth across the hillside. The thatched roof flamed and the storm could not quench it. The executioner lit his torch. The pitiless eyes of the crowd surrounded him. Dragonsbreath seared him. He was blinded with the fierce light, and he would walk blind for all eternity, for the grizane had kept his sight and it had died with him.

But the fire was not so fierce, and that was worth the price, worth any price. He closed his eyes and huddled himself to the sweet-smelling earth. When he opened his eyes at last, the stars were shining.

His shoulder throbbed and burned. He unbandaged it carefully, hoping that the arrow had not lodged against the bone. He had snapped the shaft of the arrow too short, but he was able to grip it and force it through his shoulder, though he almost fainted from the pain.

It bled more fiercely than ever, then, and Ilbran bandaged the wound again with his shirt. The starweb was half-formed, bright enough for easy travel. Though Ilbran’s back had dried and numbed, the first inches of the descent woke it to burning fire. Before he was halfway down, his legs gave way, and he fell, to lie limp and half-stunned on the cool and fragrant earth.

When he roused himself at last, he saw the watchfires gleaming, down the slope. That way was not safe.

He crept along the line of the hill, then followed a dry wash downward. Water … he needed water … he could hear the stream falling over the rocks.

He thought his heart would stop with the cold shock of it. It burned his face and hands like fire. Still, he floundered out into midstream, into the cold running water that purifies all things. He dipped his hands and face under it, and sucked up great throatfuls like a thirsty animal. He lay in a deep pool, and let the water wash away the dirt and poison from his back.

At last, Ilbran crawled out onto the bank, still weak and dizzy, chilled and trembling with cold. What was he to do, if he could shake the hounds from his trail? Carvalon? What would he find there? His friend was dead. What use would they have for a meaningless message, scraps of an old man’s dying delirium? He could not think clearly, but he had to travel in some direction. North and east would be as good as any other way.

The starweb lit his path well, though the shadows were dark and strange. He walked on stony paths, wide outcroppings of rocks that covered whole hillsides. No sign that the hunters had come this far.

But as he walked, he began to stumble over nothing at all; a rock turned under his foot and threw him to the ground, making the hot blood spring out from under the bandage. When he dragged himself up, he stood for only a moment before he fell again. That time he did not rise.

Then the little ones came, a caress of soft fur along his bare skin, a comforting warmth huddled by his side. Their fur was pale in the starlight. Their eyes were huge and dark.

They chittered to one another, softly, and more and more of them came, warming him in the cold night as he lay only half-aware. He had never known of wild ones as fearless and gentle as these.

With the coming of the dawn, the night wind shifted, and a stench blew from the north. It woke Ilbran from his doze. He looked down at the ones that had warmed him, little ones, half as long as a man’s forearm. Their silken fur was pale and golden. Sick of heart, he knew the place he was in, and he knew these gentle creatures for what they were—golderlings. He had slept on the very outskirts of the city of the dead.

His father and mother lay somewhere in that city, and so did a king and all his children but one. The golderlings had no fear of mankind, neither would the wide-winged golden vultures that descended from the sky even now, to feast.

Golden is the color of death. Even the corpse-carriers, that polluted race, wore their saffron-bordered robes. Movement in the distance caught his eyes. A pair of them came, bearing another dweller for the city of the dead. When we die they lay us on the rocks, and let the wild beasts have their will with us. Thus is the earth purified.

The saffron-robed ones plodded closer, their heads bowed low. Ilbran tried to lie motionless. With his torn and bloody back, the marks of torture still on his body, he might look to an indifferent eye as though the golderlings and vultures had already begun their work. In truth, he almost feared the vultures more than men. He imagined that he heard the beat of their wings above him, that he felt the coolness of those fanning wings.

The corpse-carriers came nearer. They talked, and he marveled that their talk was like all men’s talk. The city gossip told him nothing new, neither did their jokes, their boasting. One wagered his companion that one vulture would rise before another one did. They stood still for some time, watching.

The fur of the golderlings was soft against Ilbran’s skin, but their claws were sharp as they climbed onto his back. His muscles twitched against his will, as he imagined their sharp teeth tearing into his flesh. Instead, their soft tongues licked his back, washing it where it was torn. Their teeth caught at his shoulder bandage, drawing it back from the swollen arrow wound. No corpse would bleed, but they lapped the blood as it welled up, before the idle watchers had a chance to see it, and they nuzzled underneath his chest to lick the ragged hole where he had drawn out the arrowhead.

Ilbran knew that he was dizzy with fever. He would be no match for the two men that still gossiped and wagered. He lay still and listened, letting the little ones do what they would. At last, the one who had proposed the bet laughed and cursed, and handed over his money. Ilbran could hear the clink of coins, and their footsteps lighter as they walked away.

When he opened his eyes, he could see where they had laid the dead one. The vultures descended, landing heavily, and skipping along the rocks like children playing. The golderlings came and surrounded him. He had been a young man, clad like Ilbran, wearing only a pair of ragged trousers. Only a narrow dark line between his ribs, to show how he had met his death. Ilbran closed his eyes. When he opened them, in spite of himself, he saw a golderling tugging a ring from the dead man’s hand. The corpse-carriers had been true to their trust. They had left the dead man his one bit of finery. The golderling tucked the ring securely into its cheek, and skittered away.

And here came more of the saffron-robed ones, treading heavily under their burden. Ilbran lay still, unable to move even if he had wished to.

The sun was not so molten hot this day. About noon, the wind died down, then turned and blew from the east, a blessed relief to smell the fragrance of grass and leaves again.

The corpse-carriers came and went around Ilbran. He lay quiet till nightfall. When they were gone, he rose up, pushing aside the golderlings that cuddled close to him. If there was still fever in him, its flames had died down, for he could think more clearly than he had for a night and a day; he could walk firmly and not stumble.

In front of him, the white of ribs and breastbone caught his eye. Another one they had brought this day, wearing a gold chain around his neck, the golderlings swarming and tearing at his flesh, while one gripped the chain in his teeth, tugging it off over the silver hair.

The rich ones, they weigh them down with gold, and think it will pay their passage. And this is where it goes, to a little creature with an eye for brightness.



This city of the dead stretched for miles. He would not—could not—travel through it. So, the north was barred to him. When Ilbran turned east, the campfires of the kingsmen starred the hillside again. Westward led only back to the city and death.

All ways were cut off to west and east and north. Southward, Ilbran had seen the dark-green shadow on the horizon. All ways were cut off except the paths that led into the forest.