Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series (63 page)

Jakri, lying just
beyond Sket, suddenly went rigid and Tika, her mind loose and
unfocused, watched him distantly. She allowed a tiny part of her
thought to touch his mind and flinched involuntarily. There seemed
to be a maelstrom of activity going on through the net of power
which, in her near trance like state, was quite clear to her. She
withdrew slightly and saw the chaos flashing in his mind was not
actually touching the part that was Jakri’s core. He was acting
almost as a mirror, reflecting what was happening around and
through him.

Tika withdrew further,
floating over the hill low to the ground towards Orla’s camp. She
felt tension tightening all around her, forcing her drifting mind
to slow its progress. It was like wading through deep mud and she
slowed more with each breath. Tika’s mind slid sideways and she
felt her way round a roughly circular barrier. By the time she was
back at her starting point, she was worried. The barrier was
impenetrable to her probing mind but she was unable also to judge
its real size.

She let her mind drift
back to her body. She was amazed to realise the sun was halfway
down the western sky. Tika raised her head cautiously and saw that
Jakri, Ren and Maressa all appeared to be asleep. Gan, Navan and
Sket were watching her, differing degrees of concern on each face.
She managed a smile, her face feeling tight. She guessed her skin
was sore from the sun beating down on her for most of this
day.

Ren opened his eyes a
short while later and winced, putting a hand to his reddened face.
Maressa woke as the earliest stars appeared but Jakri lay unmoving
until night was well advanced. The Dragons were flexing cramped
muscles when Tika at last sat up.

‘Can we fly on, Brin?’
she asked. ‘If we could get even slightly ahead, it might be an
advantage.’

Gan nodded. ‘They may
only be watching for people to follow and it does seem clear they
don’t expect us to move at night.’

Jakri groaned. ‘There
was a tremendous anger – did you feel it? But he didn’t locate
us.’

‘Are you sure about
that?’ Gan asked sharply.

Jakri rubbed his
forehead while Maressa mixed willow bark powder in a bowl of cold
water.

‘I tried to cast an
illusory spell. Such spells are commonly used in Wendla, usually
for entertainments at grand House celebrations. For fun you
understand. I tried to sandwich us between an illusion of this turf
and the real ground we lie on.’ He gulped the drink Maressa pushed
into his hand, grimacing at the bitter taste.

‘Somewhat to my
surprise, it seemed to work.’

‘What about you Ren,
what did you sense?’

Ren stroked Khosa’s
back as she perched on his knees facing him. ‘I didn’t realise what
Jakri was doing of course. I had a feeling of suffocation – which
Jakri’s illusion would account for I guess. But there was an
appalling malevolence.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t describe it
other than that it was questing, casting, as though for a scent, a
trace of us. He went a long way down our back trail – I hope he has
done no further damage in the City.’

Tika filed away Ren’s
remarks and turned to Maressa.

‘I felt similarly
enclosed at first but Jakri’s action explains that now. I tried to
go high above them and to begin with I could see nothing. But as
Ren said, the creature searched south. I don’t know if he was just
careless or he is far less controlled, or is just plain weaker than
we thought.’

The air mage clasped
her drawn up legs, her chin on her knees. ‘He seemed to pour
himself south and he left Orla’s camp quite exposed. There are
about thirty tribesmen with her. She seemed the same as when we met
her, but there is something very wrong about the
tribesmen.’

‘Wrong?’ Tika
pressed.

Maressa shrugged. ‘They
were sitting all exactly the same, and the horses also. Like
statues.’

Everyone stared at her,
their minds filled with the statues in the Great Dome. Living
beings made into statues by Valesh and her brother.

‘I think they were held
temporarily like that, so he didn’t have to bother what they might
be up to.’

‘But Orla wasn’t so
held?’

Maressa thought for a
moment. ‘No. She was walking around, looking at the men, looking
mostly to the north.’

Tika stood up, Akomi in
her arms.

‘Let’s move on then.
Even though he was searching southwards, something was blocking me
from getting close enough to the core of his being. I can do
nothing from a distance.’

She climbed onto Farn’s
back, Sket behind her. ‘We will land further from them next time
Brin,’ she mind spoke the crimson Dragon. ‘I think we will have to
approach on foot.’

Brin didn’t reply as he
rose in front of Farn, but Tika was aware of his unease.

Orla felt more at
peace, more relaxed than ever in her long life. The man who had
invaded her dreams was with her all the time now. She wandered idly
around the group of tribesmen, giving them as little attention as
she would give to furniture. She thought of him as the Man. She
could not think of a name fit for him and he had so far not told
her what name he gave himself. Orla knew he was annoyed over
something but as long as he was not displeased with her, she paid
little attention to his mood.

One of the tribesmen
got to his feet and stood rigidly to attention. Orla smiled. The
man turned to face her, smiling back. The smallest fraction of the
Survivor’s mind told her he was a tribesman, but her body told her
he was the Man. The Man’s eyes were warm with affection as he
reached to hold her against him. Orla’s gaze settled on a rampart
of higher hills some leagues to the north, and the tribesman
released her, sitting cross legged and blank eyed on the ground
again.

‘My son will be born in
those hills,’ the Man whispered, and Orla blushed, her hand resting
on her already thickened waist.

It seemed an
inevitability that she should bear him a child. Thoughts of her own
sterility, her vast age, were insignificant: the Man told her she
would bear his son and so she was pregnant. The fact that her body
was changing so rapidly did not alarm her. She was cushioned
against everything by the warmth and love with which the Man
surrounded her.

He roused her from
sleep that night and she went meekly to one of the horses a
tribesman held for her. They rode fast under a star crowded sky,
and on until the sun was halfway to noon. Two horses collapsed.
Orla glanced over her shoulder and saw men sitting beside the
downed beasts but then they were quickly out of sight. They halted
for the rest of the day beside a tiny streamlet that appeared
briefly then soaked away into the ground after only a few paces on
the surface. Orla sensed the Man was concerned and ventured a
cautious query.

‘Wicked ones follow us
my dearest beloved,’ he replied. ‘There is nothing for you to worry
about. Concentrate your mind only on my son.’

‘He will be beautiful,’
Orla sighed. ‘As wonderful as his father.’

‘He grows well,’ the
Man agreed lovingly.

‘He grows faster than I
would have thought possible.’

There was the faintest
touch of doubt in Orla’s words. The Man enfolded her with
affection.

‘But he must, mother of
my triumph. This world has need of him for its very
survival!’

Orla was suffused with
pride. A child of hers to be of such importance! And she knew the
Man was right. By the time they’d left the desert she was aware of
the child, conscious within her. She had been shocked and afraid
and also very sick at the waves of fury and hatred that had poured
into her body and mind from the small cluster of cells multiplying
so fast in her body. She had fallen deeply asleep, her body still
shuddering with dry heaves. She woke immediately tense at the
prospect of another day as awful as yesterday, but she felt well,
comfortable and at peace. Orla asked the Man why she had been so
ill and he held her and soothed her.

‘The boy did not
understand that you are his mother. He fretted to be released from
his confinement. I have explained to him and calmed him. He knows
now that he must wait a while longer to be born and held in his
dear mother’s arms.’

In the days since, Orla
had felt well, calm and content. She wore one of the tribesmen’s
cloaks now, her belly was swollen to what she would have thought
was full term. But she wasn’t worried. She had given herself to the
Man: he would look after her. He seemed much pleased with her and
often now he would stroke her distended stomach and smooth his
strong hands down her back. They rode on into the hills which
proved steeper and higher than when observed from far across the
plains.

The horses were sure
footed even though their hooves occasionally dislodged stones which
flew over the edge of the trail. Orla vaguely wondered how the
desert men knew their way but decided the Man had probably given
them precise directions. Camping one night, deep in the crowded
hills, Orla asked the Man about those who pursued them. He laughed,
a warm rich sound that thrilled Orla to her bones.

‘They met a line of
fire my dearest. They were surely burnt to cinders. I have felt no
trace of them since, so they need not be of concern to you
now.’

‘Oh they didn’t concern
me,’ Orla answered. ‘I know nothing could harm me when you are
here.’

They rode for two more
days, deeper and deeper into the hills, until Orla admitted she
didn’t believe she could ride much further. Her body was so grossly
swollen, riding a horse was becoming impossible. The Man was a
trifle displeased and Orla hastily said she would try again
tomorrow.

‘It is only one more
day,’ the Man told her. ‘A place where you and my son can rest and
wait for his birth.’

Orla’s hand was on the
great mound of her front, feeling a foot or a hand pushing
restlessly up against her.

‘I fear to wait much
longer,’ she said. ‘Already he is grown so large birthing him may
be difficult.’

For the first time she
felt a twinge of alarm. Could she deliver herself out here in this
wilderness, with no pain relief, no instruments, no one to help
her?

‘I will help you,
beloved. My son will cone forth fit and healthy. Do not
worry.’

As Orla drifted into
sleep, that tiny part of her mind which was struggling to maintain
its existence, pointed out exactly what the Man had said. He had
told her the boy would be fit and healthy: what about her? Could
she really believe she could survive this ordeal, as ordeal she
knew it would surely be? The next day was bad enough. The weather
grew cloudy, the wind stronger and colder, and rain gusted into
their faces on and off through the whole day.

Orla’s discomfort was
intense although two empty eyed tribesmen helped her: one riding
behind to hold her sideways on the horse, another beside them to
make sure the animal moved steadily. Orla was half fainting by the
time she was carried in to a low deep cave, the horses clattering
and snorting behind her. A bed was made of blankets and cloaks well
out of any draughts and a fire blazed cheerfully between her and
the cave mouth. The tribesmen sat near the horses but Orla was
beyond noticing their gaunt skeletal appearances.

She had been conscious
only of her pregnancy, had been totally unaware that she had not
eaten since she’d left the desert, existing only on sips of water
through all these days. Neither did she notice the fire burned
without fuel, the flames writhing and leaping just above the rock
of the cave floor. By now Orla was feverish, her mind fidgeting
from thought to thought.

‘What is our son’s name
to be?’ she suddenly asked aloud.

‘His name is Karlesh.’
The Man’s voice swelled with pride.

‘I don’t know that
name.’ Orla sounded petulant. ‘I would have liked to name
him.’

She didn’t see the
ferocious sneer that crossed her beloved’s face as pain stabbed
down her back and legs. She moaned and the Man seemed to be even
closer to her.

‘It is time,’ he said
the scowl replaced by a look of delighted excitement. ‘He will soon
be in the world.’

Orla struggled through
that night, trying to find a position which would give some relief
to the pains tearing through her almost constantly. The tribesmen
sat unnoticing near the mouth of the cave while Orla turned and
twisted. She felt agony rip through her groin and screamed. She
raised herself to lean her shoulders against the rough stone wall
and tried to see over the enormous lump of her belly. She put her
hand down, moaning with pain, and brought it away bright with
blood. She twisted herself, her breath sobbing in great gasps, to
try to see what was happening.

Sweat poured from her
and she bit through her lower lip. The skin was torn along her
groin towards her left hip and the flesh gaped, assisted by a small
hand which appeared to have black talons at the tips of its
fingers. Orla felt blood, hot and thick, pumping between her legs
and her brain cleared to an icy clarity. She was dying but she
would not let this monster survive. Orla writhed as her skin was
wrenched apart. She gathered her little remaining strength and
reached down again.