There—in the distance: Keera can see the trees thin, and then, away past that point, the last of the downward grade that ends in the rapid drop of the high cliffs that form the northern edge of Okot. In mere moments, they should be upon — nay: They are upon them already! Hidden, in the ghostly light that is the Wood at dawn: huts. Bane huts. Deserted. And no sign of the fires that should be burning, now, with great-bellied cook-pots atop them, heating the morning gruel with boiled wood-fruits — wild apples, pears, and plums — that, sometimes fortified by a few thin strips of boar’s back cooked on a skillet of flat iron — constitutes nearly every Bane’s first meal. But here, among these twenty or so thatched huts … nothing. Not even the light of fat-lamps within …
For the first time, Keera slows, and comes to a halt. As her lungs work hard, she stares about in bewilderment, fearing — not fearing, hoping—that she has lost the trail, and stumbled upon some old settlement that has fallen into disuse: the sort of place in which Heldo-Bah spent much of his early manhood. But the markings are just where they should be, prominently cut into large rocks and ancient trees. Now as ever, Keera is on the trail she intended to follow, and she and her companions are in one of the northern settlements that surmount the cliffs ahead: they are, in fact, among the community of Bane healers and their families, who carry on their noble work inside the caves that pock the faces of those same cliffs, the barely accessible retreats called the Lenthess-steyn.† It is possible, of course, that the healers are in those caves even now, if the Outrager Welferek spoke the truth, and did not concoct a callous lie to spare himself torment at the hands of Heldo-Bah; and yet—
If the healers are in the Lenthess-steyn, then where are their families? Where are the signs of daily life? Where are their children?
Heldo-Bah and Veloc draw up next to Keera, each man more winded than their leader, and both, like her, staring about in consternation.
“Where—?” Veloc draws in one enormous breath, in order to speak the question that all are asking themselves: “The healers — their wives, their husbands—?” (For women are among the most skilled of the Bane healers.) “Have they been attacked?”
“I’ve warned them!” Heldo-Bah declares in a gasping roar, putting his hands to his knees and bending over, the better to take in air. “How many times have I warned them? Move the healers, I’ve said, they are atop the cliffs, too far north, they will be the first to go, should the Tall find us, but who listens to a criminal—yaeeyah!” The gap-toothed forager squeals in pain as Veloc swats an open hand across the exposed back of his head. Heldo-Bah thinks to retaliate, but a look at Veloc, who nods quickly at the still-silent Keera, reminds him that the only order of business, now, is to discover what can have happened here.
Anxious to redeem himself for his thoughtlessness, Heldo-Bah approaches a hut. “Well, we’re not going to learn anything if we don’t look …”
Keera spins about when she hears this. “Heldo-Bah!” she calls, displaying something as close to panic as she ever has. “Do not enter — if the Death has taken the healers, it will take you too!”
Heldo-Bah knows not to enter, at this moment, into an argument with Keera over whether he is really foolish enough to enter a plague hut; and so he limits his reply to, “Believe me, Keera, I have no intention of going inside!” Heldo-Bah draws to a stop; and then advances on his toes. “These huts have not been attacked,” he calls, spying slapdash crescent Moons that have been painted on each structure’s door. “They’ve been abandoned — abandoned and sealed, Keera!” The door to the hut he approaches is shut tight, and across every window opening thick planks have been fixed. Any gaps around the door and between the window openings and the boards have been filled with a thick paste, white streaked with purple: almost a mortar, which has not yet had time to fully dry.
“Stay well back!” Keera commands, now facing each hut in turn, noticing the same purple-streaked white paste about every opening, and retreating as if from some deadly enemy. “Quicklime and meadow bells — it is plague of the bowels, then,” she says. “They will have removed all of the families to—”
A new voice interrupts. “Ho! Foragers! What are you doing here?”
The three foragers close ranks to watch as a Bane soldier emerges from the dawn mist east of the healers’ huts. He wears the standard protection of the Bane army: a hauberk, extending from elbow to neck to knee, and composed of iron scales stitched onto deerskin. It is armor far more ambitious in design than it is effective in battle,† during which the comparatively broad spacing of the large scales caused by the limitations of Bane metalworking too often allows both spear and sword points to penetrate gaps, while the size of the scales makes movement difficult. Like Welferek, the soldier carries a short-sword in the Broken mold, save that his is an obvious Bane imitation, its steel being of a visibly inferior quality. The same is true of the single-piece helmet that covers his head and nose: the brass fitted to the edges of the iron sections cannot hide the inferior grade of the iron itself.‡ What he lacks in quality weapons, however, the young man makes up in self-possession: the Bane army is a relatively new creation, less than a dozen years old, and the men who fill its ranks hide their inexperience and inferior arms with all the courage they can muster, although they disdain the arrogant pride of the Outragers, for whom they have as little liking or use as do the foragers.
“Entry to this settlement has been forbidden by the Groba,” the soldier says firmly. But, as he comes closer, he notes the hefty sack that each of the newcomers carries. “Ah,” the soldier noises with a nod. “Foragers.” The lad is still raw enough to feel that he must not allow his lack of experience to show, especially at this crucial hour; and so he buries it beneath a tone of haughtiness. “But I perceive that you are only just returning. You answer the call of the Horn?”
“Oh, admirable,” Heldo-Bah answers, spitting onto the ground near the soldier’s boots. “You must already have achieved high rank, with that kind of quick thinking—” Veloc delivers a sharp elbow in his friend’s side for this, which allows Keera to ask:
“Where have they been taken? The families that lived here — surely the plague cannot have taken them all.”
But the soldier’s eyes are on the most notorious member of the party: “You’re Heldo-Bah, aren’t you? I recognize you.”
“Tragically, I can’t return the compliment,” Heldo-Bah replies.
“It’s no compliment, friend, believe me,” the soldier says, with a sour laugh. He half-turns, and assumes a more respectful tone. “And that would make you Keera, the tracker?”
“Please,” Keera says, uninterested in reputations or conversation. “What’s happened to them? And what—”
Suddenly, she turns fully about on the toes of one foot, stopping when she faces just north of east. She puts the infallible nose the air once again, and having sniffed, her face goes pale, as she turns back to the soldier. “Fire,” she says, in almost a whisper. “They are burning huts!”
The soldier nods at the huts around them. “And they’ll be burning these, soon enough. Sealing them has not confined it.”
“But what do they burn now?” Veloc asks impatiently.
“The northeastern settlement; it was taken first—”
“No!” Keera cries, loosening the straps of her bag, dropping it, and dashing in the direction of the smoke on the wind. “That is my home!” Veloc follows quickly, as Heldo-Bah picks up Keera’s sack and throws it on his back beside his own. He looks at the soldier, shaking his head and spitting again.