“I fear this is not the kind of news you wish to hear,” Karrodall said, “but I think you will be obliged to turn north. The lands to the west of here are curtailed by the mountains, and to the south by the ocean—and the prime tracts have all been claimed and registered. It isn’t much better if you head north into New Kail, I admit, but I have heard that there are one or two quiet little valleys still untouched on the other side of the Barrier range.”
“I’ve seen those valleys,” a plump man called Otler put in. “The only way you can stand upright is by growing one leg longer than the other.”
The remark occasioned some laughter, and Bartan waited until it had subsided. “I have just flown over some excellent farming land to the east of the river. I realise, of course, that we are too late to claim it—but why are the farms not being worked?”
“It’ll never be too late to claim that cursed place,” Otler muttered, staring down into his drink.
Bartan was immediately intrigued. “What do you…?”
“Pay him no heed,” Karrodall said quickly. “It was the ale talking.”
Otler sat up straight, with an offended expression on his round face. “I’m not drunk! Are you suggesting that I’m drunk? I’m not drunk!”
“He’s drunk,” Karrodall assured Bartan.
“Nevertheless, I’d like to know what he meant.” Bartan knew he was displeasing the reeve by pursuing the point, but Otler’s strange comment was reverberating in his mind. “This is a matter of considerable importance to me.”
“You might as well tell what he wants to know, Majin,” another man said. “He’ll be able to find out for himself.”
Karrodall sighed and shot Oiler a venomous glance, and when he spoke his voice had lost its former briskness. “The land to which you refer is known to us as the Haunt. And while it is true that all claims to it have been allowed to lapse, that information is of no value to you. Your people will never settle there.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you think we call it the Haunt? It is a place of evil, my friend. All who go there are… troubled.”
“By ghosts? By wraiths?” Bartan made no attempt to hide his incredulity and joy. “Are you saying that there are only hobgoblins to dispute the ownership of that land?”
Karrodall’s face was solemn, the eyes intent. “I’m saying that you would be ill-advised to try settling there.”
“Thank you for the advice.” Bartan drained his ale, set the jar down with a flourish and stood up. “And thank you for the hospitality, gentlemen—I will repay it soon.”
He left the table and went out into the aftday sunshine, eager to get aloft and return to the expedition with his good news.
Chapter 3
The skyship was being borne eastwards on the lightest of breezes, but the ground over which it was drifting was uneven and covered with scrub, which meant that the mounted soldiers had some difficulty in keeping pace with their alien quarry.
Colonel Mandle Gartasian, riding at the head of the column, kept his gaze firmly fixed on the ship and for the most part trusted his bluehorn to find its way around obstacles. The sight of the vast balloon and its room-sized gondola was activating bleak memories, causing a degree of pain he had not experienced since his first years on Overland, and yet he was unable to look elsewhere.
He was a tall man, with the powerful build typical of the Kolcorronian military caste, and showed few signs of his fifty years. Apart from a dusting of grey in his cropped black hair and a deepening of the lines on his square face, he looked much as he had done at the time of the hasty evacuation of Ro-Atabri. He had been an idealistic young lieutenant then, and had unhesitatingly taken his place on one of the first military ships to depart the doomed city. Thousands of times since that day he had cursed the naive trust in his senior officers which had led him to take off ahead of his wife and infant son.
Ronoda and the boy had been assigned places on a civilian ship, and he had left them in the belief that the army was in full control of the situation, that the embarkation schedules would be maintained, and that the separation would last just for the duration of the flight. Only when his binoculars revealed the growing chaos far below had he felt the first pangs of fear, and by then it had been much too late…
“Look, sir!” The words came from Lieutenant Keero, who was riding at Gartasian’s side. “I think they’re preparing to land!”
Gartasian nodded. “I believe you’re right. Now, remember to keep your men from crowding in on the ship after it touches down. Nobody is to go closer than two hundred paces, even if the ship appears to have landing difficulties. We don’t know what the crew’s intentions are—and they may have powerful weaponry.”
“I understand, sir. I can hardly believe this is happening. Can they really have flown all the way from Land?” Keero was infringing field discipline by making inessential remarks, but it was explained by the excitement on his pink-cheeked face. Gartasian, normally strict on such points, decided the lapse was excusable in the unique circumstances.
“There can be no doubt that they have come from the Old World,” he said. “The first question we have to ask is… why? Why after all these years? And who? Are we dealing with a small group who managed to survive the ptertha attacks, and finally succeeded in making an escape? Or…?” Gartasian left the question unspoken. The idea that the pterthacosis plague might have abated—sparing enough of the population to rebuild an organised society—was too far-fetched for words. It certainly was not the kind of fanciful speculation to be voiced before a junior officer, especially as concealed within it were the seeds of a far wilder notion. Was there the remotest possibility that Ronoda and Hallie were still alive? And had all his years of guilt and remorse been a self-indulgent waste? With sufficient vision, enterprise and courage could he have instigated a return flight to Land?
The torrent of questions, a distillation of fantastic wish-fulfilment dreams, was the last thing Gartasian needed if he were to function well as the commander of a military operation. He gave himself a mental shake and forced his mind to concentrate on the palpable realities of the situation. It had been more than a minute since he had heard the hollow, echoing roar of the skyship’s burner as it discharged hot gas into the balloon—an indication that the crew had selected a suitable landing site. The gondola was now a mere twenty feet above the ground, and at its sides he could see the silhouettes of several men who appeared to be working with rail-mounted cannon. He was beginning to wonder if two hundred paces was a good enough margin of safety for his own force when the cannon fired in a downwards direction. Four harpoon-like anchors speared into the ground, each trailing a line, and at once crewmen began hauling the lines in, thereby drawing the gondola into a controlled touchdown. The balloon above it remained inflated, swaying ponderously.
’’ We have learned one thing,” Gartasian said to his lieutenant. “Our visitors never had any intention of staying for long—otherwise they would have vented their balloon.”
His only answer was a hurried salute as Keero wheeled away with a sergeant beside him to deploy the soldiers in a circle around the skyship. Gartasian took a pair of binoculars out of his saddle pouch and trained them on the gondola.
He could see the heads of the four crewmen as they went about the work of securing the ship, but something else in the magnified image attracted his attention. The gondola was of basically the same design as those used in the Migration, and yet had no anti-ptertha cannon on the sides. In spite of the weight penalty imposed by such weapons, they had been deemed necessary for the passage through Land’s lower atmosphere, and Gartasian found their absence intriguing. Could it really be a sign that the ptertha—the airborne globes whose poison had all but annihilated Kolcorron—had ceased their onslaught on humanity? Gartasian’s heart lurched as he again considered the possibilities. A civilisation which embraced two worlds… a mass return to Land for those who were discontent on Overland… miraculous reunions with loved ones who were believed to be long-dead…