Noman (6 page)

"Our father is no longer here to choose." Alva was struggling to contain his fury. "It must be me."

"Where does it say that the older man is always the better? I know of no such law."

"Then," said Alva, his eyes flashing, "perhaps we had better decide this the Orlan way."

"I'm ready," said Sabin.

"You mean to fight each other?" asked Caressa.

Alva stared angrily round the watching Orlans.

"I'll fight any man who stands in my way!" he said.

"If it's the best fighter you want," said Caressa, "why not open the contest to all comers?" She too turned to the Orlan captains. "One of these may win."

"Let them try," growled Alva.

"We can't have everyone fighting everyone," exclaimed Sabin.

"How has this decision been made before?" said Caressa. "What's the Orlan way?"

"The Great Jahan always names his successor before he dies. That way the Orlan nation remains united."

Caressa pulled out the silver-handled whip and held it up before them.

"Then hear me now," she said. "Amroth Jahan did name his successor. He named a woman and a stranger. You can fight each other and go on fighting until the biggest brute among you is left standing on the corpses of your own people. Or you can say, better a woman if she has true claim. Better a stranger if she unites the Orlan nation."

A silence followed this speech. Alva looked round and saw that his brother and his fellow Orlans were looking at one another, each waiting for the first to give a lead.

"What!" he cried, his voice charged with contempt. "You'd grovel to a girl?" He drew his sword. "Not I!"

Caressa held up the silver-handled whip. She took two steps forward to stand before Alva, whip outreached. Alva stared, and then he smiled, believing that she offered him his rightful inheritance in fear of his rage. He sheathed his sword and raised his right hand to take the whip. As he did so, Caressa's left hand flashed and her blade sliced down and across in a long shallow cut, leaving a stripe of blood across Alva's chest.

He cried out in pain and bent over, clutching at his wound.

"I am the Jahan of Jahans!" Caressa cried. "I will be obeyed!"

Sabin was the first to kneel. Then one by one the others followed. Alva, wounded more in pride than in body, saw their homage, and spat out at Sabin.

"You shame our father!"

"I honor his last wish," said Sabin.

"You always were a weakling!"

With that, Alva turned and stalked proudly away.

"Rise, my friends," said Caressa. "The Orlan nation is on the march again."

Sabin rose.

"We have no army any more," he said. "What are we now but bands of robbers on horseback?"

"Robbers on horseback who once were warriors," said Caressa. "Let the Jahan of Jahans ride out to the sound of trumpets and drums, and they'll know they're Orlans again!"

They all felt it then, as they heard her fierce and passionate words: somehow, inexplicably, this stranger, this woman, was a true leader. More extraordinary still, she was their leader.

"I didn't ask to be the Jahan," she said. "But give me brave hearts and fast horses, and I'll give you the world!"

T
HE TOLL-KEEPER WAS SITTING ON A CHAIR RAISED HIGH
above the road. He wore a broad-brimmed straw hat to shade his eyes from the sun. Beneath him stood the heavy timber barrier he had erected, with its single narrow gate; and on the other side of the barrier, visible through the cracks between the timbers, prowled his pack of attack dogs. The toll he charged was entirely for his own benefit and, strictly speaking, was a form of banditry; but he had been controlling this remote hill pass for so long now that he had come to think of himself as officially appointed and of the money as his fairly earned wage.

He saw the young traveller making his way up the road to the pass and noted that he was moving fast, but he thought nothing of it. Then, when he was closer, he began to pay him more attention. There were other travellers on the road, carrying packs on their backs or driving laden bullocks before them—the usual trickle of traders willing to pay his price for the direct road over the pass. But this young one was different. He was lean and hard, his face burned by the sun and scoured by the wind. He went barefoot and wore simple gray clothing, like a beggar priest; but he had the far stare of a hunter.

Seeker came striding at speed up the stony track, overtaking other travellers without a word or a glance. He saw the toll-keeper draw a loop of rope tight in his hands. He heard the creak of the bolt in the dog-cage door as the rope tightened. He heard the whining and yelping of the dogs as they broke into flurries of fighting among themselves.

The toll-keeper called out to him as he approached the gate.

"You pass, you pay."

Seeker did not pause, and he did not pay.

"Stop right there," cried the toll-keeper, "or I loose the dogs!"

Seeker looked up and raised one hand. The toll-keeper gasped and sagged in his chair. His broad-brimmed hat fell first; and after it, his body tipped and toppled to the ground. Seeker then made a single impatient sweep of his arms and the high barrier burst before him, as if hit by a hurricane. The flying fragments of timber fell on the cages, smashing the frames, and the dogs broke free. Crazed with terror, trained to attack and kill, the howling pack flew at Seeker. He raised one hand and fixed them with his hard clear gaze, and they fell before him, one after another, as if he had punched them.

The toll-keeper, limping to his feet, looked round at his smashed barrier and his writhing dogs.

"Who are you?" he said.

But Seeker did not stop. He strode on to the nearby summit of the pass. There he stood still for a few moments, gazing intently at the long road that wound down on the far side into the sunbaked plain. Far away a horse-drawn wagon was moving fast over the dusty road towards the distant forest. In the open wagon, just visible from the pass, lay two white-canopied litters.

Now the other travellers on the road were coming up to the pass. The nearest of them had witnessed the stranger's astonishing power, and they hurried after him, reaching out to him, trying to touch him.

"Let us come with you," they called to him. "Protect us. Save us."

They saw the attack dogs crawling to him on their bellies, whining. Some travellers in their excitement and awe fell to their knees.

"Who are you?" they cried. "You must be a god!"

He turned when he heard that, and his brown eyes were filled with sadness.

"I'm not a god," he said. "My name is Seeker. And I can't help you."

With that, he continued on his way. As they watched him go they saw him break into a long loping run that covered the ground at great speed. In a short time he was beyond reach of their cries, descending the hill road to the plains.

Those who had heard him speak passed on to the others what they had learned.

"His name's Seeker. He's not a god. He can't help us."

"Then he must be an evil spirit."

The toll-keeper picked up his hat and rammed it back onto his head and said, "He's worse than an evil spirit. He's a monster. He's come to destroy us all."

"A destroyer!" They looked at one another with wide eyes. "He must be the Assassin!"

High in the branches of a beech tree, deep in the forest, Echo Kittle sat in a swing seat twisting this way and that in the dappled light, listening to Orvin Chipe propose marriage.

"I don't believe there's anyone else you like better than me," Orvin said. His voice sounded squeaky and hurt, which made her feel annoyed. "And we've known each other all our lives. And you're the only one for me. So there it is."

For some reason all she could think about was how long his neck was and how his throat wobbled when he talked.

"I'm not the only one, Orvin," she said.

"Yes, you are. I don't want anyone but you."

"That's just stupid. If I died you'd marry someone else."

"I'd marry them, maybe," said Orvin doggedly, "but I wouldn't want them. And anyway, you're not dead."

"Well, I can't marry you."

She knew she should say that she was sorry, and say nice things about him to soften the rejection, but she just couldn't. She didn't see that it was such a compliment to ask someone to marry you who didn't want to be asked. It just showed how stupid he was.

"I think I have a right to know your reasons."

"Why?" Now she was angry. Her voice rose. "What gives you the right? Saying you want to marry me doesn't give you any rights over me."

"I'm not just saying it," said poor Orvin, bowing his head. "I'm feeling it. I can't help it. You're so beautiful."

"That's not my fault."

"But listen, Echo." He looked up at her, so lost, so puzzled. "You have to marry someone."

"I don't have to."

"Then how will you go on?"

"I'll just go on being me."

At this there came a crashing among the nearby branches and Echo's mother appeared out of the leaves, pink in the face, her mouth agape with horror.

"Echo Kittle! What are you saying?"

"Mother! Have you been spying on me?"

"Certainly not! Watching over you, yes, and why not? Am I to stand by and see my only daughter disgrace us all? Of course you should marry Orvin Chipe! Who else are you to marry? It's been understood between the Kittles and the Chipes for years. And as for not marrying anyone, well, that's just a jar of moonbeams. You want a family, don't you? You want a home. Then, you must have a husband."

Echo stopped swinging to and fro in her seat. She was trembling very slightly and didn't want her mother to see it. She glanced at Orvin and saw that he was nodding in agreement with her mother.

"Look at me, Echo!" said her mother sharply. "Tell me this is all no more than a fit of nonsense."

"I don't know what it is, Mother."

"Then let's have no more of this
can't
and
don't-have-to.
What's Orvin to make of all that? He doesn't want a
don't-have-to
wife. Nor does any other self-respecting young man."

"No, I expect they don't."

"Which means you'll end up with nobody."

"Yes, I expect I will."

"Echo!" Her mother was now bewildered as well as angry. "Do you want to throw away your whole life?"

Echo gave no answer. How could she tell her mother that to her, marriage to Orvin Chipe would be throwing away her whole life? Her mother would never understand. The great forest called the Glimmen was her mother's whole world, and the Glimmeners the only people in her world. But Echo had travelled far from the Glimmen and had met many different kinds of people, and down on the ground between the trees grazed her beloved Caspian, Kell, ready to carry her far away once more, if only she knew where.

There has to be more.

"Echo!" Her mother stamped her foot, making the supporting branches shake. "Orvin is waiting for your answer."

"I've given Orvin my answer," said Echo quietly.

Before Mrs. Kittle could speak again there came the sound of running feet from the ground below, and they saw a strange little procession hurry down one of the forest paths. Two men were running along bearing a litter between them. The litter was covered by a white canopy and was the kind used to transport the dead. Behind the men and the litter came another two men, also running, carrying a second litter.

The Glimmeners had fallen silent at the first sound, trained from earliest childhood to go still when groundlings passed through the forest. They waited until the footfalls faded into the distance. Echo's mother was just drawing breath to deliver another angry speech to her daughter when they heard a distant cry.

"Echo Kittle! Help me!"

Echo knew that voice.

Seeker stood staring at the horses and wagon abandoned in the forest road. The canopied litters were gone. He had no idea which way the ones he was hunting had taken, except that they had disappeared into the Glimmen. He called again.

"Echo Kittle!"

Getting no answer, he took the nearest path and raced off in pursuit. He came soon to a fork in the path, and another, and another. All round him rose tall trees, their heavy foliage cutting out the sunlight and shutting off his view ahead. Whichever way he turned, he saw only the great gray tree trunks and the tangle of wiry undergrowth, with here and there a patch of bright sunlight or the passing flash of a bird. Every path looked the same, and the deeper into the forest he ran, the narrower the paths became. He forced himself onwards, driven by the conviction that at last he was close to the quarry he had hunted for so long. Somewhere in the shadows of the trees, they were fleeing from him, on foot now, slower than him. He could run them down, if only he knew which way to run.

He searched the trees for clues, but they all looked the same to him, and they all stood in his way. He came to yet another fork in the path and stopped, panting softly. He no longer knew north from south, left from right. Maddeningly, enragingly, he was lost. To come so close and to let them go again! He let out a cry of fury. The trees were in his way, the trees fenced him in, the trees suffocated him. He raised both his arms and, in his frustration, released a blast of power, together with a howling cry.

All round him the trees fell. Some snapped where they stood, some tore their roots from the ground, some were crushed beneath the fall of bigger trees. Within moments the deep shade was rent apart to reveal the dazzle of the summer sky.

Seeker stood motionless in the sudden sunlight, shocked at what he had done. Then out of a tree that was still standing dropped the lithe form of Echo Kittle.

"Seeker!" she cried. "No more! Please!"

He stared at her like a fool.

"Don't hurt the trees!"

He blinked and passed one hand across his brow. The sunlit air was still heavy with dust from the fall of the trees,
and the smaller branches could be heard crackling under the weight of the toppled trunks as they settled.

"No more," said Echo with tears in her eyes.

He didn't know what to say.