The rational, conscious Maerad was still there, but she was a tiny, lonely figure in the midst of an impending storm; the wind moved in jumps and startles, or suddenly ceased altogether, and an eerie light illuminated everything around her with an almost unbearable clarity. Or then it seemed that it darkened without warning, and sudden, unpredictable lightnings shivered through her being. Through all the bewildering transformations, she felt an increasing premonition of doom. The one thing that stopped her from feeling that she was going mad was Cadvan's closeness. She didn't think at all anymore about whether he loved her, or how much she loved him. She needed him, and he was there, and that was all that mattered.
The dead still flickered before her, but they were fewer and more fleeting, and almost everyone she saw was afraid or sad or in pain. The lamentation she had sensed earlier had retreated, although she was still aware of it. A greater force seemed to be pushing the dead aside, a presence she could not quite locate or identify, and they fled before it, poor desolate shadows, like dry leaves before a rising wind. Whatever it was, Maerad was quite sure of its intent: it was hunting her, and it wanted to destroy her, to swallow her up in its unending darkness.
She kept her eyes squeezed shut; if she opened them she felt nauseated, as if she were falling from a great height. Things weren't much better with her eyes closed, but she concentrated on the rough wool of Cadvan's cloak, which scraped her cheek as she pressed her face against it. She could feel his heartbeat and the warmth of his body through the cloth. It was like a glowing hearth in a cold and terrifying world.
The night was wholly black: heavy clouds concealed the moon. Cadvan led them as swiftly as he dared. Although he had often ridden through this valley, he also feared that he might miss the Usk Bridge in the darkness, and he did not wish to stay near the river a moment longer than was necessary. A light but steady rain began, soaking them through. The raindrops shone silver in the magelight, dropping like cold pearls from their sodden cloaks into the shadows at their feet.
Cadvan was deeply worried about Maerad. Her light body trembled against him, with cold or something else, and she had not said a word since she had mounted Darsor. She clutched him so tightly it was difficult to ride. He tried to touch her mind, but Maerad was far distant, in some place he did not comprehend, and when he tried to reach toward her, his spirit shriveled before an overpowering sorrow that made him draw tactfully back, uncertain and full of sadness.
He no longer knew why they were riding through this dark night, or what they would find at the end of their journey. He felt despair creeping into his soul. He contemplated it with cold loathing, as if it were a cockroach that would not die no matter how many times he stamped on it, and turned away. His own personal despair did not matter anymore.
Hem also felt the distance from Maerad, and in his present anxiety it distressed him. He missed Irc, but even though Irc was too far away now for mindtouching, he was always aware of his slight presence, a dim but perceptible light in the wide and empty wilderness. Although Maerad rode less than two spans away from him, she seemed to him immeasurably farther away, lost in an impenetrable maze of shadows, and he knew that he couldn't help her. He rode as close as he could to Saliman and Hekibel, and while Cadvan and Maerad rode in silence, these three sometimes spoke softly together, making a fugitive human warmth in the cold night.
They reached the bridge over the Usk in the darkest hours of the night. None of them expected to find the bridge unguarded, and they approached it cautiously. Hem, Saliman, and Cadvan had woven the strongest shielding they could manage, though with a sense of hopelessness. They could conceal their own presences, and hide magelights from prying eyes, but the power that emanated from Maerad was another question altogether. If Hulls guarded the bridge, they did not have a chance of crossing it unnoticed.
They halted some distance from the road, studying the black arch of the bridge and the shadowy trees that huddled against the river, and the silence around them seemed to deepen, as if something were listening to their approach.
Maerad stirred behind Cadvan.
"There are Hulls," she said. Then she gasped, as if she were in sudden pain, and clutched Cadvan more tightly.
Maerad, what's wrong? said Cadvan urgently into her mind.
He thought that she wouldn't answer, but at last she did. They hurt, she said. They are all hurting. They'll never stop hurting...
Who? Cadvan turned his head, trying to look into her eyes, but she had hidden her face against his back. Who hurts?
Everything is burning, said Maerad. And the river is red; it's a river of blood ...
Her voice seemed to be coming from farther and farther away, and Cadvan reached with his mindtouch to bring her back. But she slipped from his grasp, as if she were falling, and then he knew she was beyond his call. She clasped him as if she were in danger of being torn away by some invisible torrent.
Usk, Cadvan thought. The river of tears. It had been so named when the Nameless One had laid waste to the fair land of Imbral, slaughtering the Dhyllin people without mercy. The Hutmoors was a hard place to be in the best of times; when he and Maerad had last crossed them, it was haunted with an old and irrevocable grief. Now, he guessed, Maerad was feeling this ancient slaughter as if it were happening now, as if it had never stopped happening in all the thousands of years since the beginning of the Great Silence, as if time itself were so deeply scarred that the cries would never cease. He shuddered, and then wrenched his attention to the present. He did not doubt that Hulls guarded the bridge if Maerad said so; but he felt no trace of them at all.
He glanced across at Saliman, who caught his thought. Hulls? said Saliman into his mind. J cannot feel them ...
Maerad says they are at the bridge, all the same. But I fear that she'll be unable to help us this time.
Saliman nodded. The Bards checked their shields; they thought the Hulls could not but be aware of them by now, and they were alert for an attack at any time. Cadvan took the black-stone out from underneath his jerkin, and clasped it hard in his palm, feeling the strange numbness that it spread through his arm. Swiftly and deftly he wove its power into their shield, to deflect any sorcery, and then turned to his companions.
"Shall we cross the bridge?" he said aloud.
They nodded, Hekibel slightly after the others. In the pale light of the magelights, her face was drained of all color. Her mouth was set, her face determined, and it seemed to Hem, glancing across, that she was battling down a terrible fear. A sudden rush of admiration filled his heart: of all of them, he thought, Hekibel was the most defenseless, and the most brave.
"Be wary," said Cadvan. "The main thing is to get across as quickly as possible."
They urged the horses to a trot, and soon reached the Bard Road. The sharp sound of the hooves on the stone seemed too loud, and Hem felt very exposed as they trotted briskly toward the bridge, the magelights floating in front of the horses like eerie guides. He could feel nausea rising in his belly as they approached the river, but he pushed it down. It didn't feel like Hulls; in fact, he couldn't sense the presence of Hulls anywhere. Perhaps Maerad was mistaken ...
He knew as soon as they stepped onto the bridge that she had not been mistaken at all. A Hull stepped out of thin air at the far end of the bridge, and at the same time he felt a chill behind him, and knew that their way back was blocked by another. They were ambushed. If it hadn't been for Maerad's warning, they would have been taken completely by surprise. As it was, the blasts of sorcery that both Hulls hurled toward them were absorbed by their shields, and Hem merely felt a momentary deafness as he drew his shortsword from his scabbard, realizing as he did so that he had no idea how to fight on horseback, and that probably if he tried he would cause more damage to Keru than to anyone else.
He glanced involuntarily toward Maerad, expecting her to lay waste to the Hulls as she had in the Hollow Lands; but Maerad was staring down into the river with a look of utter horror. She swayed on Darsor, looking as if
she were about to faint, and she seemed wholly unaware that they were under attack. Then Keru shied, almost throwing Hem off, and he realized that with his sword drawn on horseback he was more a liability than anything else. Holding the blade out of the way, he swung around on his stomach and slid off Keru, clutching the reins in his hands and whispering to her, trying to calm her down as he attempted to see what was happening.
At first he couldn't see Maerad at all; she was no longer on Darsor. Then he spotted her crouched by the low wall that ran along the bridge. Saliman and Cadvan had swung around so that each of them faced one of the Hulls, and both Bards blazed with magery, their faces grim, their eyes hard and deadly. Cadvan held aloft a black medallion that drew Hem's fascinated attention: he didn't know what it was, but it made him uneasy to see it in Cadvan's hands. Even as he watched, a bolt of light arced over his head, and the bridge was briefly illuminated in a harsh white light that threw livid shadows across their faces. Hem didn't know whether the light had come from Saliman or Cadvan, and he couldn't even tell its direction. The metallic smell of sorcery filled the air, and he gagged and drew back against the wall of the bridge, trying to hold on to Keru, who was now panicking, rearing back from him, her eyes rolling, her ears flat against her head. Hekibel was struggling with Usha nearby, attempting to stop her from bolting.
There was another blast of sorcery, although again it didn't hit them. Their shields were holding firm, but Hem realized that there was something else in play. It seemed to him that the sorcery of the Hulls was not missing them so much as being held in suspension around them. He felt the hair lift on his scalp, as if lightning were about to strike, and ducked instinctively. Another blast of magery flashed across the bridge; at least, he thought it was magery, as it blazed with White Fire but left a taste of burned metal on the air. Cadvan had used the blackstone to turn the Hulls' sorcery against them.
There was a brief, blood-chilling scream that at once curdled into silence. Hem stared ahead into the darkness, and then glanced swiftly behind him, at the near end of the bridge. The cold, loathly presence of the Hulls had completely vanished. Where the nearest Hull had been standing he could see a small, dark heap. Hem's gorge rose, and he turned his eyes away; he knew that it was a pile of fleshless bones.
He breathed out, and the tension drained from his body, leaving him light-headed. The night was clean now. The river ran noisily beneath them, and the rain fell on the wet road, and aside from the stamping and snorting of the horses and their own breathing, they could hear no other sound. He felt that little time had passed since they had stepped onto the bridge: the confrontation had been over quickly.
"I think there are no more," said Cadvan. He dismounted and comforted the horses, but he did not sheathe his sword. "They were lowly guards, no more—by no means powerful sorcerers. It shows that this bridge is considered important enough for the captain to have posted Hulls rather than ordinary soldiers. I would like to know, all the same, how they hid themselves; it makes me uneasy. It could be that even now a messenger runs to its master, to report this battle."
"Aye, that is very possible," said Saliman. He looked around, sniffing the night air. "Maerad, can you sense any Hulls?"
Maerad jumped at this direct address. She wrenched her gaze from the river and met Saliman's eyes, and he flinched at what he saw. Her face was drawn with horror and grief, and her eyes seemed to reflect an abyss of such darkness that he could not guess its depth.
Hem started toward her, wanting to comfort her, but she shook her head, as if forbidding him, and swallowed. When she spoke, her voice was harsh.
"There are no Hulls here," she said. "Only death. Death everywhere." She covered her eyes again with her hands. "I don't want to see anymore. I can't bear it..."
Cadvan put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him, her body shuddering. "I don't want to see," she repeated. "Please, help me, I can't bear it anymore."
Cadvan and Saliman exchanged glances. They clearly didn't know what to do. But Hekibel dismounted and came toward Maerad, unknotting a red silk scarf she wore around her throat. She held it up. "Will this do?" she asked.
Maerad swallowed and nodded, and gently Hekibel tied the scarf around Maerad's eyes. The red silk looked like blood. The sight of his sister blindfolded in this way stabbed Hem to the heart with pity and a sad fury. He didn't understand what was happening to her, but he thought he had never seen anyone in such pain.
They left the scene of the battle as swiftly as they could, following the Bard Road, which ran westward, for speed. It stopped raining, and the sky began to clear; after a while the moon came out, letting fall its cold light on the stone road. They were numb with cold and tiredness and their damp cloaks chafed their skins, but they dared not stop to make a fire to warm themselves.
The Bard Road turned north about a league from the bridge, and here they left it behind and climbed the west side of the valley. When they reached the top of the ridge, a punishing wind hit them with bruising force. It seemed to pierce them to their marrow with a cold that deadened the heart.
The travelers paused briefly, looking glumly over the bare moors that glimmered before them under the moonlight.
"The Hutmoors," said Cadvan. "I had hoped, last time I crossed this desolation, that I would never have cause to return."
Saliman stared over the waste, an unreadable expression on his face. "I think that I have never seen anything more forlorn," he said at last.
"The Nameless One hated the Dhyllin with a special hatred," answered Cadvan. "And this is what that hatred meant." He paused. "I have no idea what direction we should go. Perhaps it would be best to keep close to the river."
"No," said Hem, unexpectedly. "It's north from here, that way." He pointed over the moors.
Saliman glanced at Hem in surprise, but made no comment.
"North it is, then," said Cadvan. He gathered up his reins. "I don't know about you, but I am nearly dead from weariness. I think we cannot ride much farther tonight."
Away from the river and its stunted willows, there was no shelter from the wind at all. At least, thought Hekibel, grateful for even the smallest of mercies, it wasn't raining. The place was haunted—she was sure that she heard voices sobbing on the wind, and she saw fleeting forms at the edge of her sight that vanished when she turned to look. She drew closer to Saliman; even in this desolate night, he seemed to radiate a comforting light. Hem also saw the hauntings, but they didn't trouble him as much as the earthsickness that was growing in him the deeper they moved into the Hutmoors. The very ground was maimed. He felt it in his body: it was a pain that ran through his bones and flowered in his stomach like nausea. He tried to push it aside; it had been worse, after all, in the Glandugir Hills, and he had survived that...
They stopped not long afterward, huddling for shelter against one of the low, stony ridges that rumpled the surface of these bleak moors. They were too exhausted and too wary of pursuit to make a fire. Despite the cold and his nausea, Hem was so tired that he fell asleep almost at once, and wandered in dreams down the same long road where he had followed Saliman in his sickness, a road that gleamed faintly in an endless darkness. He was searching for someone, but he couldn't remember who it was, only that it was very important that he find her, and at the same time he knew she was lost forever. He woke with a start in a pale dawn and realized that he had been searching for his mother. He didn't remember anything about her except a fragrance like summer peaches, a memory of dark hair falling across his face, the cradling warmth of arms.
He sighed and looked around at his companions, his heart heavy with foreboding. All of them looked bruised with weariness. Maerad had sat staring blindly northward as the others slept: under her blindfold, which she refused to take off, her face was hollow and drawn, and there was a high flush on her cheekbones. She spoke no word, but Hem saw that the enchantment that flickered through her skin was becoming stronger. But it no longer seemed warm like firelight or the sunshine of summer;
the light that shimmered within her seemed to be colder, a blue fire that made him think of ice.
They made a cheerless breakfast. Maerad again refused food; she had eaten nothing for days. Her thinness was becoming alarming. Hem tried to persuade her to eat, even putting food into her hands. When he pressed her, she smiled and gave the food back to him, closing his fingers over it, and Hem knew there was no point in arguing any further. The only thing that was keeping her alive, thought Hem, was medhyl. Cadvan had brought a good supply from Innail, and aside from water, it was all she would take.
"So, Hem," said Saliman, as they prepared the weary horses to ride again. "You think you know where to go?"
Hem nodded. "That way," he said.
Saliman studied him. "You're quite sure?" he said, almost smiling at Hem's lack of doubt.
"It's the earth sense," Hem said. "This place is waking it up. I feel as if I'm going to be sick all the time, like I did in the
Glandugir Hills, but there's also this—pull. Sort of like when Maerad called me. It's getting stronger the closer we get." "Is it far?"
"No. It's close, I think. Perhaps we might reach it by nightfall."
"I hope you're right." Saliman passed his hand over his face, and in that gesture Hem perceived the full extent of the exhaustion that his friend had hidden for days. He wasn't fully recovered from the White Sickness, and he had ridden leagues over hard country, through fear and danger, when he really should have been in bed. Only his will was keeping him going, and his will was made of iron. Hem realized that Saliman was very close to the end of his strength. With a rush of love, he reached out and clasped his hand.