“There’s your goats,” Sorgrad pointed out as our path across the hill showed us more of the grassland below.
It was a scene of considerable activity. A massive wheellike structure had been built from the ubiquitous grey stones, one gap in the rim admitting a protesting herd of what looked like every goat on the island. Men drove the beasts between walls too high for leaping into the hollow centre, where the axle for this supposed wheel would have fitted. Other islanders were somehow identifying goats and shoving them into wedge-shaped pens formed by the walls that made the spokes.
“What are they doing?” I wondered. Ryshad handed me the spyglass he’d been using and I saw men wrestling the unruly beasts to a standstill for women deftly threading orange, black and green threads through holes clipped in their floppy ears
“Suckling kid for dinner?” ’Gren suggested hopefully.
“Let’s get past without anyone asking us our business,” said Ryshad.
I don’t think anyone would have asked, had we walked along the shelving shoreline accompanied by a travelling masquerade complete with flutes and drums. For one thing, I doubt they’d have heard us over the ear-splitting din of outraged bleating and curses provoked by a billy goat’s horns or some nanny’s razor-sharp hooves. It was a relief to leave the commotion behind as we approached the settlement at the far end of the stretch of tillable land.
“That’ll be the grave circle, I take it.” Shiv nodded at an enclosure considerably larger than the one we’d seen ravaged. Hereabouts the rock evidently split into handy slabs because this was made from a double ring of rectangular stones fitted precisely edge to edge, a barrier needing no ditch beyond the merest scrape. Two reddish-yellow monoliths framed the single entry to the solid circle and inside more stood in pairs and singletons with no readily apparent pattern.
“I’ve not seen stone of that colour before,” Ryshad frowned.
“Where are you three going to hide up?” Sorgrad shaded his eyes with a hand.
“You’re going in, just the pair of you?” Shiv looked to Ryshad for confirmation.
He nodded. “That was the plan before. No need to change it as far as I can see.”
That satisfied Sorgrad and we all studied the prospect before us. Long, low houses were dotted between the grave circle and a formidable keep rising four square and four storeys high within a solid wall. Beyond, a long range of buildings boasted upper floors and chimneys as well as stone slates to their roofs rather than the bundles of coarse vegetation thatching the smaller houses. More of those were scattered on the far side of the keep and its storehouses, the settlement ending in a line of open-sided goat shelters. Beyond, a surprisingly substantial causeway dammed a paltry stream to create a wide pond.
“Barely big enough to spit across.” That was ’Gren’s usual Ensaimin idiom for the more wretched villages we’d visited over the years.
“Only if you caught the wind right.” But I had to admit it wasn’t very impressive.
“Catching the wind wouldn’t be a problem.” The notion prompted a shiver from ’Gren and he was right. The whole settlement was exposed to whatever weather came sweeping up the channel, which was doubtless why nets fringed with substantial stone weights weighed down the thatch of the lesser houses.
Ryshad on the other hand approved of the place. “Even if this isn’t the only landing on this stretch of shore, that pond blocks anyone coming over that headland.”
“No one’s going to sneak up on Olret,” Sorgrad agreed. “Not with such a reach of open land between the houses and any ground that offers cover.”
“If we hang around here, we’ll be spotted,” warned Shiv.
There certainly were plenty of people about but, fortunately, most looked too busy to be glancing our way. Between the keep and the sea was a broad open area where men walked barrels to and from large troughs surrounded by women. Lads carried bushel baskets brimming with the unmistakable silver of fish from long sheds on stone jetties that reached out into the water, tethered boats bobbing at their far ends. The sun was back, striking sparkles from the water, and turning greedy seabirds wheeling overhead a brilliant white.
The birds squawked and jinked to dodge small children throwing stones to keep them off racks of drying stockfish. Earlier catches were stacked like cordwood and weighted with the handily flat rocks.
Ryshad was making a stealthy survey. “Ask to be taken to whoever’s in charge,” he told Sorgrad as he snapped his spyglass closed. “We’ll wait over there.” He indicated a spread of dark green patches of some crop being raised between the closest house and the grave circle. The plants looked sparse and thirsty but offered more cover than anything else we could see.
Sorgrad nodded and the pair of them trotted off straight for the keep. The three of us skirted the grave circle, using its solid walls to shield us from view as best we could.
“Will they be all right?” Shiv wondered as we lost sight of the brothers.
Ryshad didn’t answer so it was left to me to reassure him. “Sorgrad’s gone into enemy camps before now. Halice often trusts him to negotiate safe conducts or exchanges of wounded, ransom prisoners for food. Believe me, when he sets his mind to it, he can convince anyone of anything.”
“It’s not Sorgrad I’m worried about.” Ryshad’s tone was concerned rather than caustic. “What if these people use Artifice to check he’s telling the truth?”
“We’ve come to look for an ally against Ilkehan,” Shiv pointed out. “That’s the truth.”
“What about ’Gren?” persisted Ryshad.
“Whatever Sorgrad tells him is what he’ll choose to believe.” I tucked myself behind a clump of unappetising-looking plants which proved to be growing within yet another stone wall, barely knee high this time and filled with something truly foul smelling.
“Dast’s teeth, what is that stink?” Ryshad and Shiv joined me, crouching more awkwardly with their greater height.
“Seaweed.” Shiv stifled a cough and peered over the little wall. “And gravel, half a year’s table scraps and what looks like a dead goat.”
I shuffled round until I could lie on my belly and get a decent view of the keep past the plants. Roughly clad Elietimm in dun and brown milled around the buildings, more gold heads together than I’d seen anywhere but in the most distant mountains. ’Gren and Sorgrad were nowhere to be seen.
I was about to heave a sigh before the stench on the other side of the meagre wall stopped me and I settled for sucking at my sore lip. Ryshad sat with his back to the reeking plants, keeping a watch inland and Shiv crouched beyond him to watch the way we’d come.
I made a silent wager with myself and won it when the lanky mage finally complained. “I’m getting cursed cramped.”
“Stand up!”
But it wasn’t Ryshad speaking. Whatever else charms culled from that ancient songbook might offer, Forest myth and Mountain saga remained stubbornly silent on whatever gave the Elietimm their disconcerting ability to step out of thin air. Down on the ground, we were in no position to defy the elderly Ice Islander who glowered at us, not when he had a handful of younger men behind him, armed with vicious maces of wood and iron. All were dressed in a steely grey livery of leather decorated with copper studs. We got to our feet with as much dignity as we could muster.
“We await our friends,” I said in careful Mountain speech.
A thin smile cracked the older man’s weathered face. “You are to join them.”
I translated and Ryshad swept a polite hand to indicate that our new acquaintance should precede us. He did so and his henchmen followed us, maces sloped casually over their shoulders but faces stern.