The Riddle - Alison Croggon [77]
Darsor threw up his head, and then plunged forward in a full gallop. Imi followed at his flank, as if the horses, too, sought to shake off the horror they had glimpsed in the desolate hamlet behind them.
For the rest of the day, they rode through Edinur, through town and hamlet and past lone farmhouses. Some places were as devastated as the first they had seen, while others seemed untouched. But over everything was a pall: they frequently saw harvests lying blighted in the fields, already gray with a fungus growth that meant the corn or wheat would never be gathered and eaten, and they passed orchards in which the leaves were withered and the trees bore none of the fruit that should have been ripening there, ready to be gathered in. Everywhere were signs of coming famine, and in every town there were many beggars, turning sightless eyes toward them in a plea for alms.
As they pressed deeper into Edinur, they began to pass entire families who were heading for the towns, perhaps Aldern, with all their possessions piled on wagons drawn by horses or bullocks. Children sat at the back, their feet dangling, looking emptily toward their former homes, or shrilly bickering. The men and women stared hungrily ahead, as if they already despaired of the hope that had brought them onto the road, the hope that somewhere there might be a home for them that would be less cruel than the one they had left. Equally as often they saw single travelers, on horseback or on foot, loaded down by heavy packs. Sometimes they were barefoot, and their feet were bleeding.
These were hard sights to bear, and Maerad and Cadvan spoke less and less as the day wore on, tacitly agreeing to get out of Edinur altogether before they made camp that night. As dusk deepened, they reached the junction where the Bard Road from Ileadh met the North Road and turned toward the Valverras.
Maerad remembered this stretch of the road, which cut through copses of beech and larch trees before it ran up a high ridge. Now, as day was retreating, they saw no one else on the road; this was a relief, as those they had met had been so desperate. On the other side of the ridge fell a wide valley of bare turf, with the Aldern River threading through its center. The North Road plunged down the steep slope, leaped over the river on an arched stone bridge, and then turned sharply west, running alongside the river to skirt the Valverras Waste, a wide expanse of tumbled hills and bogs topped with granite tumuli.
However dour the landscape before them, Maerad felt a vast relief as they left Edinur behind. They cantered down the valley and crossed the Edinur Bridge, turning west along the North Road. They trotted on while the full moon rose, swollen and yellow, until they found a grove of old willows in which they would be hidden. As she tiredly dismounted and unsaddled Imi, leaving her to graze while Cadvan prepared a meal, Maerad felt so depressed she could hardly speak. The memory of her foredream of Turbansk rose inside her, and she couldn’t push away its horror, nor the trembling in her heart when she thought of Hem. She had not told Cadvan of her dream, because she couldn’t bear to give it voice. This is our future, she thought blackly, this ruined world, in which everything we love is poisoned or slaughtered.
Cadvan glanced at her across the fire. “It is hard, seeing people in such straits, and being unable to help,” he said as he stirred a hot porridge of oats and dried meat.
Maerad paused. “It reminds me of Gilman’s Cot,” she said. “Those faces. I thought I had left that behind. But it seems to be everywhere.”
They ate their dinner in silence. When they had cleaned up, Maerad stared moodily up at the sky. The moon was an ominous orange glare between dark bars of cloud. There were no stars tonight. Her body was chill and would not warm no matter how close she sat to the fire. Her period had begun that day, but she felt more drained than