Wildling (8 page)

Chapter Ten.

A week later as the afternoon sun was sinking Dorn collapsed onto the hard rock of the terrace and peered over the edge. He was exhausted.

Crossing the plain of shale hillocks and depressions by wandering the path of the river had been a clever path. But it had come with one unexpected drawback. One thing that the map hadn't shown them. They'd had to leave the river channel at some point, and unfortunately the river had cut its way lower and lower through the plain as it travelled. As a result they'd had to climb their way out of a river valley, crawling up slopes of loose rock to reach the plateau that led down to the forest plain.

It was only a climb of a league and a half or so, but it was steep and with their feet sinking into the loose stone with every step it had felt like ten. It had taken them most of the afternoon as well.

All of them were exhausted. The horses too he'd wager. And some of them were still recovering from the beatings Rodan had given them. Marian's gift as a healer had helped, but the beatings had been severe and the long hard journey through the rugged land had done them no favours. Even Dorn though fully healed, was a long way down on his normal vitality. Rodan's attack had very nearly killed him and recovery would take time.

So when they'd finally reached the plateau at the end of the shale lands and found firmer footing they'd decided to call it a day and set up camp. That had been hours before, and since then none of them had done much at all. Save that was to complain. Lorian was good at that. But finally Dorn had decided to shake some of the aches and pains out of his legs and had wandered up to the terraced edge of the plateau to look down at what awaited them. The forest. The last part of their journey.

“Shite!”

Dorn was surprised when he reached the edge of the terrace and looked out across the distant forest leading to the temple beyond. Not by the fact that there were others heading the same way. He'd expected that. But by how many there were. It was nearly evening, people were settling in for the night, and lighting their camp fires. It was a good time to spot them. He'd thought to see a few. He hadn't thought to see fifty or more.

“In a pig's ear!”

Though he hadn't heard him join him, Petran was beside him, seeing exactly the same thing he was, and by the sounds of things just as surprised.

“That's got to be sixty camp fires. And if each camp has seven people like us that's over four hundred people.” He whistled in awe.

“
More,” said Davith, joining them. “That's four hundred people just in the forest plain ahead of us. More will already be at the temple and more behind us. It could be over a thousand.”

He was right Dorn realised. They were still one, maybe two days travel from the temple, and what they could see in front of them was only the flat forest plain leading to it, not the temple itself. The chances were that many people were already there ahead of them. And equally others were still following them. The land behind them had been rough and filled with small hillocks and shallows. Without being able to find a true high point they hadn't been able to see who else was nearby. But some afternoons they had seen the smoke rising from distant camp fires.

“I can't see the temple,” Petran said. Neither could Dorn, but he wasn't surprised by that. A temple no matter how grand could surely not be seen in the middle of a forest at least a good day’s travel away. But was that even the most important part of what lay ahead? Because beyond the temple, perhaps as little as five or six more leagues north, lay the unknown land of Terris Lee. Unknown because no one had ever come back from it.

Many wondered who or what lived there. Possibly more monsters as in the wastes. Some claimed there were dragons. But maybe there was another race of people living there –  even the glowing people. It would explain where they'd come from and perhaps why they were sending them to Balen Rale. But it was only a guess. No one who had ever tried to find out who or what lived in Terris Lee had ever returned. People had made it through the Eteris mountains to the central wastes. And a few had survived to bring them terrible tales of the creatures that called them home. People had wandered to the southernmost tip of the dusky elves realm, and brought back tales. They had travelled to the islands to the east and the west of the world. But no one had ever returned from Terris Lee. There were no stories. That troubled him. It particularly worried him that they were so close to that land.

“What do you think?”

“
I think we add our fire to the rest and enjoy another night under the stars.”

Petran was right. It was the only thing they could do.

But still as they wandered back to the camp site Dorn couldn't help but think that he'd rather not finish their journey. With all those wildlings travelling to the ancient temple, sent there by four glowing naked people, it promised to be a strange event at best. But if the glowing people actually had deliberately sent them in to danger, it could be more than that.

And as he unfortunately remembered, they'd said that they were to be assessed. Judged. They hadn't told them how they'd be assessed. What they'd be judged on. And they absolutely hadn't told them what would happen to them if they were found wanting.

But there was still no choice.

Chapter Eleven.

Coming down the valley pass from the forest Dorn knew an overwhelming sense of relief. Whatever lay ahead of them, at least the journey was finally over. They'd made it, suffering nothing worse than an attack from one crazed wildcast, and hopefully what lay ahead would involve at least a few days’ rest. Rest, good food, maybe some ale if they had some, and a lot of sleep. Cats needed sleep and he hadn't had a lot of it since he'd left his home.

Ahead in the distance he could see the temple, and he was impressed.

Balen Rale was a ruin, exactly as all the stories said, and yet it was still somehow magnificent. Far grander than he had expected. It was a green lichen covered temple as large as a castle that had stood for thousands of years and was set in the middle of a grassy clearing that spanned half a league and with a central spire that looked over it all. The top of that spire he thought had to stand five hundred feet above the ground, taller than any he'd ever seen, and yet it was so narrow that it looked as though even a small wind should break it in two. Still, he knew that it wouldn't break. It had stood like that for thousands of years simply because it was too strong to either bend or break no matter how hard the wind blew.

However the ancients had built it – and he knew it wasn't with simple stone and mortar – they had built it to last.

And he knew one thing more about it. The spire had an internal staircase. He knew that because at the very top of the spire there was a small platform. A place where people could stand and look out over the entire valley. How else could that be unless there were stairs inside to climb?

But there was more that impressed him in the valley than just the temple itself. There was the camp site.

Actually it wasn't a camp. It was a small town under canvas. Easily a thousand tents had been set up in the valley surrounding the temple and by the looks of things more were being erected. That shocked him. A thousand tents meant that at least a thousand wildlings had answered the call. It could even be as many as three or four thousand of his people. The tents weren't small. Three or four thousand wildlings in one place – he wasn't sure that that had ever happened before. And all of them he guessed had arrived in only the last couple or three weeks since they had been sent for. How many more were coming? How many more wildlings were there?

There was another area set up beside the tents which surprised him. For some reason there were wagons there. Brightly coloured, covered wayfarer wagons. Hundreds of them. And all of them surrounded by people with white gold hair. Wayfarers.

It seemed wrong, and not just because they were wayfarers but because of the number. That stunned him. Granted he had no idea how many wayfarers there were in the world, travelling the trails between the realms, but he'd never thought that it could be so many. After all, you only saw a wagon here and there and it was nearly always on its own. He'd also never imagined that the wayfarers were a particularly magical people.

If he'd thought about it at all he would have assumed that they would be the same as everyone else with only one or two per hundred people with the gift. But there were at least three hundred wagons down there, which meant that there were likely a thousand wayfarers, and even if two in every hundred wayfarers had the gift, that meant that there were at least fifty thousand of them. That was far more than he would have thought possible. It was also assuming that there weren't more on the way.

Dorn stood for a while at the top of the valley studying the camp, unconcerned when the others went ahead of him. The journey was over and they had no need of his help any longer as he had no need of theirs. Besides, as they had drawn closer to the temple and the valley their party had merged with others and a good fifty people had reached the mouth of the valley together and were now making their way down it, heading towards the temple. He wasn't even sure where the others were.

All of them were walking. Despite the fact that most of them had horses, they were walking. He wasn't sure why save that it felt right. Respectful. This was a peaceful place. A place for humility. Not a place that people rode boldly to as if they owned it.

In time, and when he had taken in as much as he could of the vista laid out in front of him, Dorn joined the long slow moving line of wildlings heading to the temple and walked with them down the valley, excited. But that was not because of what awaited them. Somehow he couldn't imagine that it was either that wonderful or that terrible. This didn't look like either of those things. If anything it looked more relaxed than that. Maybe even boring. A place where nothing ever happened. His excitement was only because he knew that ahead lay the best hope he had had in years of finding his family.

Somewhere among the hundreds of camp sites and thousands of people on the clearing surrounding the ancient temple there might be someone who knew of them. Someone who had lived perhaps in the same town or city as them. Or even, though he could scarcely bring himself to imagine it, his family themselves might actually be here. They were wildlings after all. He didn't know why the glowing people had sent for them, and truthfully he didn't much care what they wanted. Given the hardships he would rather not have made the journey at all. But just then he knew that none of that mattered. He knew that the journey had been worth it.

At the foot of the path leading into the valley he could see people with quill and ink waiting for them, and he wondered what they were doing. It seemed that they were taking names for some reason. It had caused the line to slow. But as to why they needed the information he didn't know. Nor did he know why the people taking details were all wayfarers. But beside them were other wayfarers handing out loaves of bread and bottles of jam and that seemed good enough to him. After weeks of hunted meat and whatever they could forage, a loaf of bread with some sweet jam and maybe a mug of hot tea would be very welcome. A few details for a loaf of bread seemed a good trade.

To one side of the people taking names he saw the glowing woman who had given him his order to come here, standing there, a strange smile on her face. Satisfaction maybe. Curiosity perhaps. He couldn't really be sure. What he was sure of was that even in the daylight she glowed. But at least she was wearing clothes. Some sort of long white dress that looked slightly indecent to his eye given the way that it hugged her figure. But he didn't care about her or what she wore just then.

All he cared about was that the moment he gave his name to the man with the pen and stepped into the valley, his journey would be done, his orders carried out. Then he could rest. Eat something. And then he could finally start asking about his family.

Dorn waited patiently in the long line, eager to have his task completed and then maybe find a place to rest. He guessed he wasn't alone in that. Many of the others had come from even more distant parts to reach this valley and were surely weary. And many more were probably still on the road growing more tired by the day. He was just glad he wasn't one of them.

In time he neared the scribes, and he listened as the others gave their details. Not that there was much asked of them. Just their names, homes and gifts. Simple things that surely couldn't be that important. In the southern human realms the gifts would have been dangerous things to admit to having, but not here. Not among other wildlings.

And then it was his turn.

“Dorn Clearwater of Lampton Heights. Living in an abandoned fort outside of Little Rock. And I'm a shifter.” He gave the man his details before he even asked for them, and then turned to the other man looking for his loaf of bread and pot of jam.

“
Stop!”

The woman called out to them and everything stopped suddenly. Everyone turned to stare at her. Dorn too. And he stared all the more when he realised that she was staring at him. That she was walking toward him. It was then that his blood froze in his veins. He didn't know what was happening but he knew it was bad. The chill look in her eyes told him that.

“You have killed!” She said it not as a charge or an accusation but as proclamation of his guilt, already knowing the truth. And as much as he would have wanted to deny the words he couldn't.

“
Yes.” He bowed his head to her in acknowledgement, and not just because she was apparently his judge. He did so because it was true and the knowledge did not sit well with him. Not when he had seen Rodan burn. That was a nightmare for him. All his life he had seen others burn. His people. And he had hated it with everything he had. Now he was responsible for that happening to another. That did not sit well with him at all. And his prayers to Zylor had gone unanswered. He had not found any peace in what had happened.

“
There is more.” She said it as if the first wasn't bad enough. As if there could be more crimes even more terrible. He couldn't think of any so he kept silent with his head bowed before her.

“
The one you killed was one of ours!” People all around gasped. Shocked by the crime he was being found guilty of. And why wouldn't they? Things had become worse. He couldn't have imagined how until just then, but they had. The woman was angry. And there was still only one thing he could say.

“
Yes.” It was in the end true.

“
And you think to enter the valley of Balen Rale?” She sounded appalled, as if he had chosen to come here and not been commanded to by her. But he knew there was no point in mentioning it.

“
And you as well!” She turned around and in the space of a heartbeat Petran was standing beside him. He had gone uncommonly pale. Dorn knew he could not allow him to suffer his fate, whatever it might be. “You too are kin slayer!”

“
No Lady. Petran acted only in self-defence and in the defence of others. I was the one to strike first. The crime is mine alone.”

“
That's -.”

“
Silence!” The lady stopped Petran from speaking before he could say whatever he was going to say and he just stood there trying to choke the words out and failing. That was probably for the best Dorn knew. For Petran at least though probably not for him. Not when the glowing woman turned back to stare straight at him.

“
You are kin slayer. Do you deny the truth?”

“
No Lady.” Of course he couldn't. And he was certain she wasn't going to listen to his excuses.

“
You have struck down one of our own without warning or reason.”

“
I have struck down one of ours without warning.” He admitted what he had to and agreed with her as best he could. But he knew it was a mistake to challenge her charge even by as little as he did.

“
Do you think to play games of words with me boy?” She was angry, even more angry than before, and he knew that his life was hanging in the balance.

“
No Lady.”

“
Then you admit the crime.”

“
Yes Lady.” In the end what choice did he have? Though he would have wanted to defend himself there was no defence possible. Not when she held all the power and had no intention of listening to him.

“
Then I Sylfene of the Light name you Dorn Kin slayer. And in the name of our people I shun you. You shall live alone and you shall die alone. None of ours shall acknowledge you. None of the blessings of our people shall be yours. You have no family and no friends among us. You have no place. Do you understand?” She raised her voice at the last in warning.

“
Yes Lady.”

“
Then leave. Go where you will but do not return.”

It was a dismissal, and Dorn supposed he should be happy for that. Relieved that it wasn't far worse. But he wasn't. It was a painful, humiliating walk heading back up the valley, past all the accusing eyes of those who were still waiting to enter. But he could stand that. It was hard knowing that whatever rewards awaited them at the temple would not be his. But he could stand that too. He had never really cared about them.

What hurt was the understanding that he had just lost his chance to find his family. And not just this chance, but any chance. If they were here or not, they were of the wildlings, and he was no longer one. He was an outcast among outcasts. Even if they lived and heard of him, they could not seek him out. They could not speak to him. And if he found them the same would still be true.

It was not a steep slope walking out of the valley. But it felt as though he was climbing a mountain.