‘Come now, children. Help your brother. And then we’ll be going.’
‘Where can we go, Danyal?’ asked Krylla.
‘North. The general Egel is in the north, they say, with a great army. We’ll go there.’
‘I don’t like soldiers,’ said Miriel.
‘Help your brother. Quickly, now!’
Danyal turned away from them, shielding them from her tears. Vile, vile world! Three months back, when the war had begun, word had reached the village that the Hounds of Chaos were marching on Drenan. The men had laughed at the news, confident of speedy victory.
Not so the women, who instinctively knew that any army revelling in the title Hounds of Chaos would be bitter foes. But how bitter few had realised. Subjugation Danyal could understand -what woman could not? But the Hounds brought more than this; they brought wholesale death and terror, torture, mutilation and horror beyond belief.
Source priests were hunted down and slain, their order outlawed by the new masters. And yet the Source priests offered no resistance to any government, preaching only peace, harmony and respect for authority. What threat did they pose?
Farming communities were burnt out and destroyed. So who would gather the crops in the Fall?
Rape, pillage and murder without end. It was incomprehensibly savage and beyond Danyal’s ability to understand. Three times now she had been raped. Once by six soldiers – that they had not killed her was testimony to her skills as an actress, for she had feigned enjoyment and on each occasion they had let her leave, bruised and humiliated but always smiling. Some instinct had told her that today would be different and when the riders first appeared she had gathered the children and fled to the bushes.
The riders were not seeking rape, only plunder and wanton destruction.
Twenty armed men who stopped to butcher a group of refugees.
‘The fire is out, Danyal,’ called the boy Culas. Danyal climbed into the cart, sorting out blankets and provisions left by the raiders as being too humble for booty. With lengths of hide she tied three blankets into rucksacks for the children, then gathered up leather canteens of water which she hung over her shoulder.
‘We must go,’ she said, and led the trio off towards the north.
They had not moved far when the sound of horses’ hooves came drumming to their ears and Danyal panicked, for they were on open ground. The two girls began to cry, but young Culas produced a long-bladed dagger from a sheath hidden in his blanket roll.
‘Give me that!’ yelled Danyal, snatching the blade and hurling it far away from the road while Culas watched in horror. ‘It will avail us nothing. Listen to me. Whatever they do to me, you just sit quietly. You understand? Do not shout or scream. You promise?’
Two riders rounded the bend in the road. The first was a dark-haired warrior of a type she was coming to know too well; his face was hard, his eyes harder. The second was a surprise, for he was slender and ascetic, fine-boned and seemingly gentle of countenance. Danyal tossed her long red hair over her shoulder and smoothed the folds of her green tunic as they approached, forcing a smile of welcome to her lips.
‘You were with the refugees?’ asked the warrior.
‘No. We just passed that way.’
The young one with the gentle face stepped carefully from the saddle, wincing as if in pain. He approached Danyal and held out his hands.
‘You need not lie to us, sister, we are not of that ilk. I am sorry for your pain.’
‘You are a priest?’
‘Yes.’ He turned to the children. ‘Come to me, come to Dardalion,’ he said, kneeling and opening his arms. Amazingly they responded, the little girls first. His slender arms touched all three. ‘You are safe for a little while,’ he said. ‘I bring you no more than that.’
‘They killed grandmother,’ said the boy.
‘I know, Culas. But you and Krylla and Miriel are still alive. You have run a long way. And now we will help you. We will take you to Gan Egel in the north.’
His voice was soft and persuasive, the sentences short, simple and easily understood. Danyal stood by, transfixed at the power he exerted over them. And she did not doubt him, but her eyes were drawn to the dark-haired warrior who still sat his mount.