The Gathering, page 30
part #1 of The Hundred Series
The Firebird blinked and her gaze softened, Yvonne’s throat closing up. She had been judged. And was still alive.
The Firebird rose over them and beat her wings, once, sending the lightning and power of the Hundred out around the mine. The walls of grey earth, so carefully and meticulously carved and crafted by slave labour, the path, the ladders, the mass of earth, all came surging towards the circle, flowing beneath their feet as though it was water, lifting them up, the earth continuing to flow inwards as the Firebird beat her wings again, lifted her head, beak wide as she shrieked her fury with a sound Yvonne was sure would be heard across all the lands.
They were picked up, tossed in the earthen sea, carried on the wild tide far from where they had started, the Firebird still there in the air above them, her great wings spreading to cover the whole of the mine, her focus downward, to where the blackened earth had been.
She raised her head again, screamed her power and triumph to the sky, and then faded as swiftly as she had arrived.
Leaving the Hundred scattered on the ground, covered in grey dust, staring at a vast, shallow, depression in the ground where the mine had been. A year or more of work. The labour of countless slaves. The corruption of the soil. All destroyed and buried.
The soil was still settling as Yvonne watched, ripples of the earth from the outer edges to the centre, dust slowly dying down.
Her ears were ringing with the after-effect of the Firebird. When she blinked, she could see the after-image of the Firebird behind her lids. And her skin felt scorched, as though she had stood far too close to a fire.
“You did it.”
The voice was faint, as though from a very great distance. She looked up, only then realising she was sitting on the ground, to find Lily next to her, face slack with amazement.
A familiar scent crossed her nose a moment before there was a nudge at her shoulder. Lothar was there, ears flicking forward and back as he looked at the space where the mine had been.
She stroked his nose, resting her head against his for a moment as she stared at the changed landscape, blinking several times to make sure it was real. It was.
The mine was gone.
There was no sign of the black.
And she felt hollow. As though every bit of energy and life she possessed had been scraped out and used.
“Here.” The voice was still faint. Lily was back, with a waterskin. It looked familiar. “I got it from your horse,” Lily told her. “He’s lovely.”
As she took a long, much-needed drink, Yvonne’s ears popped with a sharp pain that made her wince. She handed the waterskin back and struggled to her feet, limbs weak, leaning against Lothar for a moment.
The rest of the Hundred were settled on the ground around her, looking as dazed as she felt. Idal was crouched next to Annabelle, waterskin in his hand. Guise was on his feet. Of course he was. He was checking over his horse and, as she watched, he took a pair of waterskins and moved across to where Pieris and Dundac had ended up settled near each other.
“We got the wagons ready,” Lily told her.
“Good,” Yvonne said. “And thank you for the water.”
“Is it over?” Lily asked, voice softer. She was trying to look as though she didn’t care, as though it were not the most important question in her world just now. Yvonne was familiar with the look from Mariah.
“Yes. The man who paid the mercenaries is dead. The mine is gone. And we’re going to see you back home, if that’s what you want,” Yvonne told Lily, pitching her voice so that her words would carry more widely.
More promises to keep, the rightness of them settling into her chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Yvonne struggled to hold on to the sense of wonder and relief over the next days. She could still hear the echo of the Firebird’s scream now and then, and feel the fan of heat against her face from the down beat of the bird’s wings.
The mine might be gone, but there had been hundreds of youngsters in slavery, some of them too weak to stand. It had taken the rest of that day, far into the night, to get everyone organised to move, raiding the mercenaries’ sleeping quarters for blankets and finding a locked room stocked floor to ceiling with food. More food than the slaves had been getting.
And then there had been the laboratory to empty, Guise taking charge of that with Lily and the boy who had organised the wagons, slowly and carefully dismantling the equipment and packing everything away, making sure there was enough antidote for all the slaves for several days.
It had been first light before they had left the mine, moving slowly. Even with every wagon they could salvage, and as many horses as they could catch for the former slaves who could ride, and even with the wide, smooth road, it was slow going.
The seemingly unending supply of mercenaries’ food was finished within a few days, the youngsters starving after limited rations and hard labour. Better food, and rest, and some of them had energy back, glimmers of mischief appearing among a few. The ones who hadn’t been there as long. The longer-serving slaves were mostly still hollow-faced and hollow-eyed, not paying that much attention to everything around them, sleeping most of the days and nights. They did not cause any trouble, following the instructions they were given, silent and watchful.
Pieris and Mica had ridden ahead, as fast as their horses would take them, to their destination so that, when they finally arrived, with no food left and a dwindling supply of antidote, the way was ready for them.
The Stone Walls rose ahead, a phenomenon strange enough to draw the attention of even the most hollow-eyed child. As they came out of the forest and the wagons moved onto the wide, cobbled, road that led up to the gates, the chatter gradually died down, and all attention turned ahead.
The Stone Walls were higher than most buildings, and seemingly made from single sheets of stone. Yvonne knew that was an illusion, carefully crafted and maintained by the Sisters, to deter any ignorant travellers from thinking this was an easy place to get into. Even the gates appeared made of stone. Another illusion.
The amount of magic required to maintain the illusion of the walls and gates was staggering, but many of the Sisters, those who made their life here and chose to remain, were powerful sorceresses, powerful enough to rival the Hunar, with a few extremely competent witches amongst them. They had more than enough power to maintain the walls, and their borders.
Even though Pieris and Mica had gone before them, Sillman asked Yvonne to go first. Of all Hunar, Elinor had the closest ties to the Sisters and, of all living Hunar, Yvonne knew them best.
Even without Pieris and Mica, Yvonne knew that the Sisters would have been prepared. She had tried to tell the rest of the Hundred, but Sillman had wanted the reassurance of an in-person message. Not wanting the frightening responsibility of the youngsters longer than he had to, Yvonne thought. She did not blame him. She had two youngsters within her care, and that was more than enough for any one person. As troublesome as they could be, she wanted to get back to her children. She just hoped the house would be in one piece when she did get back.
As Yvonne rode ahead, Lothar’s ears pricking forward and his strides picking up as he recognised the walls ahead, the great gates split in the middle and swung open, smoothly and silently. The Sisters had seen them.
Yvonne could not remember the last time she had seen both gates open. The land that was revealed looked like paradise. Fertile, rolling farmland stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted here and there with cottages and barns which, she knew, held livestock and animal feed.
Foolish and boastful Kings and princes might like to say that the Stone Walls was just an elaborate garden, but Yvonne was quite sure that none of them had actually seen the extent of the land that the Sisters occupied. It was bigger than many of the kingdoms whose leaders mocked the Sisters. And the Sisters had chosen their home well. The lands nestled among a jagged ring of impenetrable mountains. Many had tried to scale the mountain peaks, never to be seen again. The Stone Walls, and their gates, were the only entrance and exit.
There was a delegation approaching the gates from the inside. A few wagons, drawn by sturdy, patient ponies, and a large gathering. Men and women both. The Sisters did not discriminate.
“Yvonne!” One of the women in the lead group raised a hand, smile evident from this distance.
Yvonne brought Lothar to a halt a few paces away and slid off, allowing the woman, and a few of the other Sisters, to give her brief, hard hugs. Like the recent meeting with the rest of the Hundred, each face brought back bittersweet memories. The last time she had seen most of them had been at Elinor’s funeral, none of them bothering to hide their tears.
“It is so good to see you again,” Adira added, brushing away a tear of her own.
Yvonne’s throat tightened, remembering the last time she had seen Adira before the funeral. Early morning in Elinor’s kitchen, the two older women sitting at the table in their nightclothes, giggling like teenagers, hair loose, their feet tangled under the table, Yvonne pretending not to hear the whispers between them as she made a morning meal, the room full of love and laughter.
Adira shook her head a little, perhaps shaking off memories of her own, smile chasing away the sadness, white teeth startling contrast to her bronzed skin. “Thank you for all the gifts you have sent us.”
Yvonne found an unexpected laugh inside her and let it loose. Only the Sisters would see additional residents in their valley as gifts.
“And you have more for us, I see,” another Sister said.
“Yes. Did Pieris and Mica tell you?”
“We had heard the rumours of the missing,” Adira said, all joy faded. “Terrible.” She put a hand on Yvonne’s shoulder, pressing lightly. “But you found them.”
“Too late for many,” Yvonne said, remembering the mass graves. “And for Rebecca’s brother. There were graves at the mine.”
“Ah. Poor child,” Adira closed her eyes for a moment, lips moving in a silent blessing for the dead. “She has a good heart, that one, and will have a home here as long as she needs. We will tell her,” Adira added.
“I had hoped for a better answer for her,” Yvonne said.
“She is expecting the news,” Adira answered, shaking her head slightly, then tilted her head to the wagons. “And we have enough here to keep her busy.”
“They have been badly used,” Yvonne told her. “We ran out of food yesterday, and, as Pieris and Mica will have told you, they were poisoned. There’s not much antidote left.”
“Do you know what it is? The poison?” It was one of the older members of the group who spoke, a woman who had been here every time Yvonne had visited.
“I don’t, but Guise might. He’s been working on it.”
“Ah. The infamous Guidrishinnal. I have long wanted to meet him,” Adira said. “Is he as handsome as Elinor reported?”
Yvonne felt her spine stiffen slightly, conscious of Guise not that far away, and perhaps within hearing distance for sharp goblin ears. And her mind echoed with Guise’s proper first name. She had the oddest feeling she had said it herself, and quite recently, unable to remember. The only blank space she had was the dungeons at Coll Castle. For the briefest moment, she had a vivid memory of her heart in her throat, body rigid with fear, and then the impression was gone, leaving her unsettled and no closer to knowing how to answer Adira.
“Handsome? What’s the point in that? Never thought I would see that idle layabout actually working,” the older Sister said, cutting across whatever Yvonne might have said. The sharp words imperfectly disguised the affection she clearly felt for Guise. Yvonne did not know why she was surprised.
She took a quick glance across her shoulder and saw Guise’s face light in a smile. Sharp goblin ears indeed.
“We don’t have room for so many in the houses at the moment. We’re making as much room as we can, but we’ll take them to the barns first,” Adira said, squaring her shoulders. “I hope that staying together for a while will help them adjust. Will they want to go home, do you think?”
It was a question which had troubled Yvonne over the past few days, too. A few of the youngsters had ventured the question. Most had stayed silent, whether through exhaustion or something else, she did not know.
“Most of them, yes, I think so. Some have asked already. We know that most of their parents are worried.”
Yvonne did not need to say the rest of it. That, for some of them, there would be no worthwhile home to go back to, and the parents would have been relieved, more than anything else, that their children were missing. Or annoyed because they had lost their free labour. For a lot of the children, as with a lot of the people that Yvonne had sent behind the Stone Walls over the years, life with the Sisters was far preferable to the one that they had left behind. And if they did not want to stay behind the Stone Walls, the Sisters would not hold them but send them on their way, more often than not with a few coins in their pockets.
The wagons had arrived, along with the horses, animals lifting their heads slightly, nostrils flaring, as they caught the scent of green growing things beyond the gates. Yvonne moved to one side to let them pass and to let the Sisters, and those they had brought with them, make greetings. The group was larger than she had thought at first. There was a pair of Sisters for every wagon and a few more besides to take charge of the riders. They were used to greeting newcomers, and it was not long before even the most hollow-eyed child was showing better signs of life.
While the Sisters made the children welcome, and comfortable, and shared some snacks that they had brought with them, all carefully outside the walls, the elderly Sister took Guise to one side with the wagon that held the laboratory equipment and dwindling supply of antidote. The pair had their heads together for a long while, going through the wagon’s contents and the ledgers that they had found.
Enough antidote for at least two days more, Guise had thought that morning, even if he still did not know how to cure the poison. Making the antidote should be relatively easy, he had said, and she could see from the Sister’s reaction that she agreed, even as she shook her head. Giving poison to children to force them to work was despicable, even among the horrors that the Sisters dealt with on a daily basis.
At length, the pair were done talking, and all the former slaves were looking ahead with curiosity. Only when they were comfortable, did the sisters move the horses and wagons forward.
Adira stayed behind, just outside the walls.
“We will look after them for as long as they need to be here,” she told Yvonne, unnecessarily. “Are you going to Hogsmarthen?”
“I think so. I need a bath, at any rate,” Yvonne said, wrinkling her nose. She received a brief hug from the Sister again.
“You are better than you were, last time I saw you,” Adira said. She and Elinor had shared a direct way of speaking that many people found rude. The Sister smiled, sadness in her face again. “But you are still too hidden. You have so much to give the world.”
“I am quite content. And kept busy enough,” Yvonne answered. It was the same answer she gave every time Adira, or Elinor, pressed her.
“Give my love to the children. Peace be with you.”
“And with you,” Yvonne answered.
Adira turned to follow the last wagon in.
One of the youngsters from the last wagon turned his head as they passed the Hundred, and Guise.
“You not coming with us?”
“Not this time,” Yvonne answered.
“The Hundred have their tasks out in the world. You will be safe here,” Sillman added.
Moments later, the great gates shut with a dull thud that echoed through Yvonne, making her wish, as she did every time, that she could go back within the walls. There was no time, though.
The gates closing left the group facing a seemingly impenetrable sheet of stone that stretched almost as far as they could see to either side, the only clue that there might be an entrance the cobbled road that led straight up to the wall.
“Did someone mention a bath?” Annabelle asked, nose wrinkling.
“An excellent idea. Come on, we should be able to make Hogsmarthen by nightfall,” Dundac said.
Yvonne watched as the rest of the Hundred rode ahead. She followed more slowly, aware of Guise nearby.
“You have been behind the Stone Walls,” Guise said. It was not a question and for a moment she did not answer, caught up in memory. Injured and terrified, with two wide-eyed, near-feral wulfkin toddlers in tow, she had somehow found her way here. And the Sisters had opened the gate for her, as they did for every wounded or lost soul that asked for admittance.
Within the Stone Walls she had found some badly-needed healing and, more than that, she had found Elinor, whose loss still echoed through her. The Hunar had seen something in the younger Yvonne that made her take her on as an apprentice, even with two orphan wulfkin in tow.
“Two seasons,” she answered him at length, voice rough. “After the fire.” She did not need to tell him which fire.
“It looks like a beautiful place,” he said.
She found another unexpected laugh and let this one loose, too.
“You should ask the Sisters for a tour. They would be delighted to have you within their walls,” she told him.
He laughed in turn, shaking his head.
The Sisters did not take in visitors, as such. If you went within the walls, you were expected to stay there for at least a season, and do whatever work you could whether tending the animals, working the fields or preparing meals. It was the price of the Sisters’ aid. A fair one, Yvonne had always thought. But, she could not imagine Guise willingly stepping out of the world for an entire season. She remembered the map he had created. Behind the walls, he would miss gathering all those secrets.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
