Exile

III

Wren could guess why the Free were here: there was battle and chaos loose in these parts.

She was not clear on all the whys and hows of it, but a people called the Huluk Kur were on the march. She had overheard someone in a resthouse saying they had been driven from their own lands by the Empire of Orphans. Whatever the reason, they were raging through the north along the border of the Hommetic Kingdom. Trying to come south. Trying to seize new lands to make their own. Above all, according to the gruff captain who had taken the last of Wren’s coin before he would let her aboard this very barge, trying to get across the Hervent.

Which was exactly what Wren was trying to do, except that where the Huluk Kur meant to come south, she meant to go north. Into wild lands she was not even sure were really part of the Kingdom, precisely the places the Huluk Kur were wrecking and ruining. She was trying to get closer to the trouble everyone else was fleeing. Everyone apart from the Free, no doubt. She doubted whatever they were up to involved trying to get out of the path of trouble.

Her fellow passengers whispered about the Free as night came on and the barge slipped easily down the current. How could they not when legends were among them?

‘King’s levy went north of the river to try to stop the Huluk Kur, I heard,’ an old and thin man murmured to his wife. ‘Got chewed up and spat out. They say the Huluks floated a thousand corpses down the river the next day. Half of the levy still alive ran off south. Plenty more just plain wouldn’t fight.’

‘’S’true,’ another man – eavesdropping like Wren – interjected. ‘I saw them scuttle back down the Wardle Road.’

‘So, the King’s paid the Free to come up here and put some spine into things,’ the first went on. ‘Word is these ones here’ – he flicked his chin towards the silent figures by the prow – ‘already threw down the Wardle Bridge. Just the three of them.’

The part about the bridge’s fall, at least, Wren knew to be true. She had meant to cross it to carry her lonely search into the north. Word of its destruction had forced her onto this barge, drifting downriver towards Hamming Ferry. There were supposed to be boatmen there who might take her to the distant northern bank of the Hervent. Not that she had any coin left to pay for such a service, of course. But that, as her mother would say, was a bridge for another day.

‘The Free’ll cover the hills with Huluk Kur dead,’ the old man continued, not hiding his pleasure at the thought. ‘You could wager your life on it.’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ his wife grunted. ‘Mara Red at the wayhouse said there’s ten thousand of them out there.’

The woman gazed into the night, northwards towards the snow-dusted peaks and ridges standing silent beneath the moon.

‘That’s a lot of savages to get in the way of, if they’re really set on going somewhere,’ she mused. ‘She said they’re eating folks.’

‘Mara’s an empty-head,’ her husband snorted. ‘They ain’t eating anybody. They’re slaving them and killing them. Ain’t that enough?’

Wren watched the three mercenaries thoughtfully. They were little more than shadows in the gloom. The archer sat with his back to the gunwale, only the occasional glint of reflected lamplight in his eyes betraying his watchfulness. The other two – the Clevers – were lying beyond him. They had not stirred for a long time.

A rumble of her stomach reminded her that she had not eaten since boarding the barge. She had not seen any of the Free eat either. She had seen no sign that they even had any food with them. Her own stock of supplies for the journey was meagre, but she might spare a little if it won her favour or information.

‘You look like you might be short on food.’

The archer – Hamdan, the Clever had called him when he came up out of the river – regarded the bread in Wren’s hand. Then he looked up into her eyes.

‘We had plenty, but most of it was on a horse that got loose.’

‘Got shot full of arrows and threw itself into the river, you mean,’ the male Clever observed. Wren had thought him asleep, and even now he did not move or open his eyes.

‘There was a lot going on, Kerig. I thought it might be more important to keep you alive than the horses.’ Hamdan smiled at Wren and shrugged one shoulder. ‘Didn’t have time to consider the choice as fully as I might have liked.’

He reached out and took the bread from Wren, nodding in thanks.

‘What were you doing in the river?’ Wren asked.

Hamdan raised his eyebrows, and she could not quite tell whether he was perturbed by her temerity or merely surprised by it. Kerig, the Clever, just lay there.

‘Is she talking to me?’ he grunted without cracking an eyelid so much as a hair’s breadth.

‘She is,’ Hamdan confirmed, taking a bite from the bread. He sounded vaguely amused now. ‘She did feed us. You could trade a word or two for it if you want.’

Kerig sighed and sat up. His movements were stiff and laboured. He took the bread from Hamdan’s hand just as the archer was about to have another mouthful.

‘She’d have gone away by now if you hadn’t been so friendly,’ he said. ‘You talk too much.’

Kerig looked at Wren for the first time as he chewed. He was a handsome man, she thought. His use of the entelechs had not aged or marred him too much. Not outwardly at least.

‘There’s people waiting for us at Homneck and we need to get there quickly,’ he said. ‘Since our horses came to grief at the Wardle Bridge,’ – he cast a sideways glance towards Hamdan – ‘and it seems there’s no more to be had in this forsaken quarter, our only way to get back to our fellows is this.’

He waved the bread at the deck beneath him.

‘Too slow though,’ he went on, ‘so I… you’d not really understand. I opened the river, near as makes no difference. I sped our passage so all the rest of you get the fastest, easiest barge ride you could ever wish for.’

Wren nodded. She understood more than he imagined. He was probably a Vernal Clever, most capable when shaping the entelech of that name. Flowing water was a partial expression of the Vernal, so if he was strong and skilled he might control even a huge river like the Hervent. Depending upon how much of himself he was willing to surrender in exchange for that control.

Kerig made to settle back and pretend more sleep.

‘You broke the Wardle Bridge?’ Wren asked. ‘I’d heard it was big, that bridge.’

Kerig paused for a moment, halfway down to his repose on the deck, and then turned back to her with pointed effort.

‘It was big. And we did break it. Me and Ena Marr there.’ He nodded towards the slumbering form beside them; the woman Wren had guessed, when she first saw her, must be another Clever.

‘So much use of the entelechs’d break most people, wouldn’t it?’ Wren asked, and knew at once she had stepped that one unwise pace beyond the invisible border that separated the Free from everyone else. She saw in their faces – both Kerig’s and Hamdan’s – that she had become a trespasser.

‘And how would you know I’m not half broken?’ Kerig muttered. ‘Maybe that’s why I need to sleep. Now.’

With that he lowered himself down and rolled onto his side so that his back was to Wren. She retreated, silently scolding herself.

‘Thank you for the bread,’ Hamdan said behind her, and she glanced back as she went. Kerig had raised himself up again on one elbow. He and the archer were both watching Wren intently as she walked away.

Foolish woman, she thought. So excited to see others of her own kind – others who had not submitted to the School, who chose their own path – that she had acted like a needy girl. Forgot years of caution and care.

She looked out over the river as she settled herself down. The moon had slipped behind cloud. The high ground to the north was an indistinct mass of dark shapes looming over the Hervent. Somewhere out there, in the wild lands, was the exile. Lame Ammenor. The man who, Wren had come to believe, was her last and best chance at understanding what she was, and what she might be. Her last chance at finding a life she could bear to live. She had left everything she had known behind to get this far. She had killed people. Now was not the moment for distraction. Nothing mattered but getting beyond this river and finding the exile.