Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [139]
It was difficult to avoid the detritus from decades of excavations, and the roads interlinking such places were little more than well-trodden paths. There was a continuing problem with wolves scavenging in the scraps of food and Dartun was amazed that people would choose to live here, but he supposed that the mines at least provided a livelihood of sorts.
Their group had passed around the outskirts of several such settlements, but there was now no one here to be seen. It wasn’t what Dartun expected. Was this due to the Freeze? Was it now so cold here that the inhabitants had been forced to evacuate? It was unlikely, he thought. The richer or more desperate residents would have sought shelter in the Sanctuary City, definitely, but there were bound to be a few hardened types—rumel even, with their more resilient skins—that could survive a harsher environment. There were still deer around, so the farming communities should at least still survive being here. But where the people were was a mystery.
“Dartun.” Verain trudged toward him through the thick snow, her arms elegantly extended to each side as she navigated cautiously.
Her eyes shone with excitement. “We’ve found two hunters from the Aes tribe just up the way.” She gestured toward the shoreline. “I think they can give news of why this island is deserted, although so far we can’t quite understand one another.”
Dartun took her gloved hands in his. “Thank you for telling me.” He reached for the communication relic, held it beneath his cloak.
She smiled. She may have begun to feel a faint pity for his eccentricities.
Slipping now and then, Verain led him down a bank of snow, and he was forced to clutch thick clumps of ulex for stability. He could see Todi and Tuung still in conversation with the two tribesmen. The natives were dressed in furs. They both carried bows and hunting knives. Their faces were broad and tanned from a life in the sun and snow.
“Greetings, warriors,” Dartun addressed them in Sula, the common language of the Aes. “The weather has turned for the worse, has it not?”
“You speak our language, magician,” the taller man said. They had to be brothers. Dartun could barely tell them apart, but for the high cheekbones of the shorter man. “That is surprising.”
“I’ve used my long life sensibly,” Dartun replied. “So, what news is there on this island?”
The tall tribesman regarded the other, while the shorter one nodded imperceptibly, indicating it was him who was the thinker of the two. An icy wind whipped by them suddenly, and both warriors tilted their heads slightly as if to listen for the sounds of the wild.
They’re dressed to hunt—or be hunted… Which?
“Creatures now stalk this island, magician. They are not natural to any animal group we know of.”
Dartun wondered for a moment if any of his undead could have escaped and strayed this far north, without being directed by his sect. But surely that was impossible. “Creatures?” he queried.
“That is why we’ve traveled here. Because our people have sent us to keep watch over things, according to the directions of shell readings.”
“Watch over what exactly? Is this why there’s no one around?”
The tribesman nodded. “No one is around because of the creatures. They have snatched the people out of the cities and villages.”
“What creatures?” Dartun demanded, growing impatient with the limited vocabulary of Sula.
“I am not sure if they have a name,” the hunter responded. “They are like creatures of the sea, yet they walk on the land. They are like nothing I can precisely describe.”
Bipedal? “They walk upright?” Dartun marched two fingers across the palm of his other hand. “On two legs? But they come from the sea?”
“Yes, they walk like you and I do, but they have a shell like a lobster—or a crab perhaps