The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [183]
It looked like a ruin of years rather than moons. How had it degenerated so quickly? I blinked, for when I stared hard, I seemed to see the ghostly shape of Obernewtyn as it had been.
Tears blurred my vision, and the wind froze them before they could fall. It was bitter cold on the hillside, but I scarcely felt the chill. To have traveled so long and far only to find Obernewtyn destroyed was beyond a nightmare.
“Come,” Gahltha sent.
I stared at him incredulously.
He asked doubtfully, “Do you not want to go to the barud? I am sworn to take you wherever you will.”
I shook my head, disturbed by his lack of emotion. Perhaps he had changed less than I realized and welcomed the downfall of any funaga institution. I looked back at the wreckage and wondered whether any had escaped the firestorm. What a tragic irony that the lie that had protected us for so long had come so horribly true.
Stumbling forward, I prayed I would find some clue as to where everyone had gone. The ground was sodden from the melting snow, and fresh flakes fell soft as ashes on the dark, wet earth.
Abruptly, I stopped and stared, squinting against the cold wind blustering across the valley. I thought I had seen a smudge of smoke.
It had come from somewhere on the far side of the valley, near the pass to the highlands. My heart beat faster as I made out a number of dark shapes that might be buildings. It seemed to me I was looking at a small settlement.
Gahltha offered to carry me, though he seemed puzzled at my instruction not to pass too close to Obernewtyn. It occurred to me that equines might not know that a poisonous residue was left behind by a firestorm.
Some obscure instinct of caution stopped me riding directly into the camp. I asked Gahltha to take us into a clump of trees a short distance away. With the mountains behind and on one side and the ruins of Obernewtyn on the other, we were safe from detection.
Peering through the greenery, I could see several roughly constructed stone-and-thatch huts, set in a circle and surrounded by a wall of stripling branches. Even at a distance, it was clearly a poor settlement, and an air of hopeless dilapidation hung over it.
Two men emerged from one of the hovels. I bit my lip. Soldierguards!
They could only have come through the pass. That meant the thaw had already opened the way. At least the Council would have no more cause to doubt Rushton’s word … if he had survived the firestorm. A strange feeling of despair filled me at the realization that he might be dead.
I felt Gahltha’s restive movements and looked at him. “Perhaps we should go to Obernewtyn to find out what has passed here,” he suggested.
I shook my head impatiently. “What good will that do? Besides, it would be dangerous to go there now. I want to get a better look at that camp. The soldierguards can’t have built those huts. I want to know who did. We’ll go back the way we came and right around to the other side.”
Before I could mount, Gahltha sent a warning that someone approached.
To my horror, it was three soldierguards. Fortunately, they stopped in a clearing several spans from where we were hidden. Grumbling about the cold, they sat on logs, rubbing their hands and faces.
“I tell you, I am weary of this hellish place,” said one man resentfully. “ ‘Get wood,’ the captain orders, but what is the use of it? Quick as the fire warms you, the wind chills you to the bone.”
“That fellow Rushton does nowt seem to feel th’ cold,” said a big burly man with a highland accent, and I was glad to hear Rushton’s name despite the circumstances. “It whistles through th’ holes in his clothes, an’ he nary shows a shiver. His blood must be as cold as th’ snow.”
“There is a madness in him,” said the first. “No sane man could wish to stay up here, yet the fool claims he will rebuild Obernewtyn once the taint is faded.”
The big man nodded. “I heard he was offered a billet in th’ lowlands but chose to come back here.”
“He is proud enough to want his inheritance rebuilt,” said the first speaker, rising and stamping his feet. “But what does any