The Last Of The Wilds

To my Nana, Ivy Dauncey,

who loves to tell stories

Many thanks:

First to “The Two Pauls” and Fran Bryson, who read the roughest of all rough drafts. Also to Jennifer Fallon, Russell Kirkpatrick, Glenda Larke, Fiona McLennan, Ella McCay, Tessa Kum for their feedback. To all my readers, especially all my readers on Voyager Online. And, finally, to Diana Gill and the Eos team, and to Matt Stawicki for the fabulous cover illustrations.

Reivan detected the change before any of the others. At first it was instinctive, a feeling more than a knowing; then she noticed that the air smelled duller and that there was a grittiness to it. Looking at the rough walls of the tunnel, she saw deposits of a powdery substance. It coated one side of every bump and groove, as if it had been blown there from a wind originating in the darkness ahead.

A shiver ran down her spine at the thought of what that might mean, yet she said nothing. She might be wrong, and everyone was still deeply shocked by their defeat. All were struggling to accept the deaths of friends, family and comrades, their bodies left behind, buried in the fertile soil of the enemy. They didn’t need something else to worry about.

Even if they hadn’t been all scurrying home in the lowest of spirits, she would not have spoken. The men of her team were easily offended. They, like her, nursed a secret resentment that they had not been born with enough Skill to become a Servant of the Gods. So they clung to the only sources of superiority they had.

They were smarter than average folk. They were Thinkers. Distinguished from the merely educated by their ability to calculate, invent, philosophize and reason. This made them fiercely competitive. Long ago they had formed an internal hierarchy. Older had precedence over younger. Men had credence over women.

It was ridiculous, of course. Reivan had observed that minds tended to become as inflexible and slow with age as the bodies they rested in. Just because there were more men than women among the Thinkers didn’t mean men were any smarter. Reivan relished proving the latter… but now was definitely not the time for that.

And I might be wrong.

The smell of dust was stronger now.

Gods, I hope I’m wrong.

Abruptly she remembered the Voices’ ability to read minds. She glanced over her shoulder and felt a moment’s disorientation. She had expected to see Kuar. Instead a tall, elegant woman walked behind the Thinkers. Imenja, Second Voice of the Gods. Reivan felt a pang of sadness as she remembered why this woman now led the army.

Kuar was dead, killed by the heathen Circlians.

Imenja looked at Reivan, then beckoned. Reivan’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t spoken to any of the Voices before, despite being part of the team of Thinkers that had mapped the route through the mountains. Grauer, the team leader, had made the task of reporting to the Voices his own.

She stopped. A glance at the men before her told her they hadn’t noticed the summons, or that she was falling behind. Certainly not Grauer, whose attention was on the maps. When Imenja reached her, Reivan began walking again, remaining one step behind the Voice.

“How may I serve you, holy one?”

Imenja was still frowning, though her gaze remained on the Thinkers. “What is it you fear?” she asked in a low voice.

Reivan bit her lip. “It is probably underground madness, the dark upsetting my mind,” she said hastily. “But… the air was never this dusty on our previous journey. Nor was there this much on the walls. The pattern of it suggests rapid air movement from somewhere ahead. I can think of a few causes… ”

“You fear there has been a collapse,” Imenja stated.

Reivan nodded. “Yes. And further instability.”

“Natural or unnatural?”

Imenja’s question, and what it suggested, caused Reivan to pause in shock and dread.

“I don’t know. Who would do that? And why?”

Imenja scowled. “I have already received reports that the Sennons are causing trouble for our people now that the news of our defeat has reached them. Or it might be the local villagers seeking revenge.”

Reivan looked away. A memory rose of vorns, mouths dripping with blood after a final “hunting” trip the night before they’d entered the mines. The good will of local villages hadn’t been a priority to the army—not when victory was so sure.

We weren’t supposed to come back this way, either. We were supposed to drive the heathens out of Northern Ithania and claim it for the gods, and return to our homes via the pass.

Imenja sighed. “Return to your team, but say nothing. We will deal with obstacles when we come to them.”

Reivan obeyed, returning to her place at the back of the Thinkers. Conscious of Imenja’s ability to read her mind, she kept alert for further signs of disturbance. It did not take long before she found them.

It was amusing to watch her fellow Thinkers slowly realize the significance of the steadily increasing amount of rubble in the passage. The first blockage they encountered was a small section of roof that had collapsed. It hadn’t filled the passage, and it was only a matter of climbing over the mess to continue on.

Then these obstacles became more frequent and difficult to pass. Imenja used magic to carefully move a boulder here and shift a mound of dirt there. No one suggested a cause for the disturbances. All stayed prudently silent.

The passage reached one of the large natural caverns so common in the mines. Reivan stared into the void. Where there ought to be only darkness there were pale shapes faintly illuminated by the Thinkers’ lamps.

Imenja stepped forward. As she entered the cavern her magical light rose higher and brightened, illuminating a wall of rock. The Thinkers stared up at it in dismay. Here, too, the roof had collapsed, but this time there was no way over or around the blockage. Rubble filled the cavern.

Reivan gazed at the pile of rocks. Some of the boulders were enormous. To be caught under a fall like that… she doubted there’d be time to comprehend what had happened. Crack. Squish.

Better than a stab in the guts and a long, agonizing death
, she thought.
Though I can’t help feeling a sudden death cheats you of something. Death is an experience of life. You only get one death. I would like to be aware it was happening, even if that did mean enduring pain and fear
.

A noise from Grauer caught her attention.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” he exclaimed, his voice echoing in the shortened cave. “We checked everything. This cave was stable.”

“Keep your voice down,” Imenja snapped.

He jumped, and dropped his eyes. “Forgive me, holy one.”

“Find us another way out of here.”

“Yes, holy one.”

With a few glances at the Thinkers he favored, he gathered a small circle of men about him. They murmured for a small time, then parted to allow him to stride forward confidently.

“Allow me to lead you, holy one,” he said humbly.

Imenja nodded to the other Thinkers, indicating that they should join him. The passage became crowded as the army doubled back on itself. The air became noticeably stale, despite the efforts of Servants to draw fresh air down vents and cracks in the mountain above. Servants, soldiers and slaves alike kept a worried silence.

The passing of time was hard to estimate underground. The months Reivan had spent here helping her fellow Thinkers map the mines, natural cave systems and mountain trails had given her a knack of guessing the time. Nearly an hour had passed before Grauer reached the side tunnel he wanted. He all but dove down the new route, rushing in his anxiety to prove himself.

“This way,” he said, his gaze moving from the map to his surroundings over and over. “Down here.” The Thinkers hurried after him as he turned a corner. “And then a good long walk along—”

There was a pause, then an echoing scream faded rapidly into the distance. The Thinkers hurried around the corner and stopped, blocking the passage. Reivan peered between two shoulders and saw a jagged hole in the floor.

“What has happened?”

The Thinkers stepped back to allow Imenja through.

“Be careful, holy one,” one said quietly. Her expression softened slightly and she gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment before walking slowly forward.

She must know already what happened to Grauer
, Reivan realized.
She would have read his thoughts as he fell
.

Imenja crouched and touched the lip of the hole. She broke off a piece of the edge, then rose.

“Clay,” she said, holding it out to the Thinkers. “Molded by hands and strengthened by straw. We have a saboteur. A trap-layer.”

“The White have broken their agreement!” one of the Thinkers hissed. “They do not mean to let us go home.”

“This is a trap!” another exclaimed. “They lied about the traps in the pass so we’d take this route! If they kill us here nobody will know they betrayed us!”

“I doubt this is their doing,” Imenja replied, her gaze moving beyond the walls of rock surrounding them. She frowned and shook her head. “This clay is dry. Whoever did this left days ago. I hear nothing but the thoughts of distant gowt-herders. Choose another leader. We will continue, but carefully.”

The Thinkers hesitated and exchanged uncertain looks. Imenja looked from one to the other, her expression changing to anger.

“Why didn’t you make copies?”

The maps
. Reivan looked away, fighting down a rising frustration.
They went with Grauer. How typical of him to not trust others with copies
.

What will we do now?
She felt a moment’s apprehension, but it quickly faded. Most of the larger tunnels in the mines led toward the main entrance. It hadn’t been the original miners’ intentions to create a maze, after all. The smaller tunnels, which had followed veins of minerals, and the natural cave systems were less predictable, but so long as the army kept out of them it would eventually find its way out.

One of the team stepped forward. “We should be able to navigate by memory; we all spent considerable time here last year.”

Imenja nodded. “Then concentrate on remembering. I will call a few Servants forward to check for traps.”

Though the Thinkers all nodded graciously, Reivan saw signs of indignation in their manner. They weren’t stupid or proud enough to refuse sorcerous help and she supposed they had also realized the Servants would share the blame if anything worse happened. Even so, the two Servants who stepped forward were ignored.

Hitte volunteered to lead and none of the others contested him. The hole was inspected and found to be a wide crack in the floor, ceiling and walls, but narrow enough to leap over. A litter was brought forward to use as a bridge, its burden strapped to the backs of already overladen slaves. The Thinkers crossed and the army followed.

Reivan guessed she was not the only one to find this slow pace frustrating. They were so close to the end of their journey through the mountains. The mines on the Hanian side were smaller and had brought them up to an otherwise inaccessible valley used by gowt-herders. A longer journey through large natural caves had avoided the necessity of climbing over a steep ridge. From there they had travelled for a day along narrow mountain trails. When passing this section on the way to battle they had travelled at night so the enemy’s flying spies would not discover them.

Now they had only to find their way through these mines on the Sennonian side of the mountains and…

What? Our troubles are over?
Reivan sighed.
Who knows what awaits us in Sennon. Will the emperor send an army to finish us off? Will he have to? We have few supplies left, and there’s the Sennon desert to cross yet
.

She had never felt so far from home.

For a while she lost herself in early memories: of sitting in her father’s forge shop, of helping her brothers build things. Skipping the brief time of hurt and betrayal after being given to the Servants, she remembered the relish with which she had learned to read and write, and how she had read all of the books in the monastery library before she was ten. She had fixed everything from plumbing to robes, invented a machine for scraping leather and a recipe for drimma conserve that earned the Sanctuary more money than all other monastery produce put together.

Reivan’s foot caught on something and she almost lost her balance. She looked up and was surprised to see that the ground ahead was uneven. Hitte had taken them into the natural tunnels. She looked at the new leader of the Thinkers, noting the careful confidence of his movements.

I hope he knows what he’s doing. He seems to know what he’s doing. Oh, for the Voices’ ability to read minds.

She remembered Imenja and felt a flush of guilt. Instead of staying alert and useful she had lapsed into reverie. From now on she would pay attention.

Unlike the tunnels higher up in the mountains, which were straight and wide, these were narrow and twisted. They turned not just left and right, but rose up and down, often sharply. The air was growing ever more moist and heavy. Several times Imenja called for a stop so that Servants had time to draw fresher air down into these depths.