The Ragged Man - By Tom Lloyd Page 0,140

his hands, asking to be carried, the big soldier lifted him with the greatest of care and started back towards the ruined Fearen House, the library where Ruhen had been playing earlier.

Before he was out of earshot he heard someone break the silence.

‘So, Lord Styrax; now that we are suitably chastised, what assurances can you offer us?’ Certinse asked.

Ruhen smiled.

Venn stopped and looked up at the thin shafts of light pushing through the leaves. All around him the Harlequins stopped, their attention solely on the black-clad figure leading them. He ignored them. Breathless anticipation ran through his people whenever he paused or began to speak. Flies danced and swirled and winked in and out of sight as they passed through the dappled light.

‘Oracle?’ came a low voice on his left: Paen, the priestess with eyes of deepest amber, his first follower. ‘Do you sense something?’ Like many of the priests among them she had bleached her robe to a dull white - black remained a colour they would not wear, though now it was out of deference to Venn rather than Lord Death.

Venn turned to her. ‘Only that evening is near,’ he replied at last. ‘We should camp for the night.’

‘I will have Kobel post sentries.’

Venn looked over at the ageing Harlequin, who stood waiting for his command. The old man had been one of the last to come around. His resolve was stronger than most, but in the end Jackdaw’s magic had found some spark of ambition within him and now he was Venn’s general, commander of his followers, the eighty Harlequin warriors and trained youths.

‘Do so,’ Venn ordered, ‘then see if we have any of that ice-wine left. We’ve covered a good distance today.’

Aside from the blades there were only two dozen others in the party, the priests and clan members who had begged to accompany their oracle on his search to find the child. They were making good time through the Great Forest east of Farlan territory, particularly since they had not yet had to take any diversions to avoid Elven encampments. They had few luxuries with them, but ice-wine was drunk in thimble-sized cups, so it was no great burden to carry.

‘Oracle,’ called a returning scout, and Venn went forward to meet the young man, resisting the urge to break into a run for the sheer pleasure of having his strength restored to him.

The youth was no more than sixteen summers of age, too young to have passed the tests yet, but he carried the blades like the others and even now he would be the match of any Elf or soldier he might encounter.

‘You have found a camp?’ Venn asked.

The young man skidded to a stop ‘A camp, of sorts,’ he said, and took a deep breath.

‘Only sorts?’

‘I — Capan thought you would want to see for yourself, Oracle.’

Venn ignored the youth’s discomfort in suggesting what he should do and gestured for him to lead the way. The camp proved only to be a few hundred yards away, but even before he reached it Venn knew what was waiting for him.

‘A perfume on the wind,’ Rojak sighed at the back of Venn’s mind, ‘the scent of change.’

Venn knew what scents delighted the dead minstrel, he’d smelled enough of them in Scree. What he could detect on the wind here certainly fitted, and the sour smell of decay grew stronger as he approached. By the time he reached Capan he was guessing at dozens of bodies, rotting fast in the warmth of a spring day.

He looked up, taking a moment to pick out the high platforms that were usually built in the huge trees of the forest as both refuge and sentinel-post, then turned to the scouts.

The stoic Capan was the only one of the four not to have covered his mouth; he seemed barely to have noticed the stink. He moved only when Venn was close enough to bow to. The Harlequins used their bodies expressively, since they spent most of their time wearing white masks, but Capan gave nothing away through gesture, or through intonation.

‘Oracle, it is like nothing I have seen before.’ He turned and led Venn to the entrance to the camp, where a half-fallen tree was resting on a hump in the ground. Venn almost gagged on the smell as soon as he ducked his head under the thick tree-trunk, but he recovered himself to follow Capan in. A natural hollow in the ground had been dug out to extend it,

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