Erak's Ransom

Chapter 23

In days to come, Halt would berate himself savagely for the problem that Will was about to face, and for the danger it placed his young friend in. He should have known, he told himself. He should have realised.

When Halt thought about it, with the crystal clarity that comes of hindsight, he realised that he had spent years living in a castle named Redmont – or Red Mountain. It was so called because the rock that comprised its massive walls lent the castle a reddish tinge in the afternoon light. The rock was ironstone, and it contained a high percentage of iron ore.

Halt knew that Will would be travelling through an area named the Red Hills. In his own mind, he told himself he should have made the connection: ironstone, Redmont, iron ore and Red Hills.

The hills were, in fact, the site of massive deposits of iron – so rich that at times the ore itself was visible in large veins on the surface. The red coloration was the result of rust forming. The problem for Will was that as he rode among these huge iron deposits – and some of the hills were almost completely composed of iron ore – his magnetic Northseeker needle would deviate from the earth's magnetic field as it was attracted to the metal all around him.

Selethen knew of the iron, of course. Most of the iron and steel the Arridi used was quarried from this area – principally because it was so easy to access, requiring no deep shafts or complicated equipment. But the Arridi knew nothing of the secret of the Northseekers and the three Rangers had been careful to keep them hidden. So Selethen had no way of knowing that Will's navigation would be severely affected by the iron as his needle deviated first one way, then the other.

Between them, the two men had the knowledge that might have kept Will safe. But neither of them realised, so neither of them said anything.

It might have become apparent to Will if he simply rode with his eyes glued to the Northseeker. If that had been the case, he might well have noticed that from time to time the needle swung and deviated wildly. But that wasn't how he was trained to navigate cross country. After all, one can't ride through potentially dangerous territory staring down at a magnetic needle.

Instead, Will would rein in and hold the Northseeker at eye level until the needle settled to its final position. Then he would turn the graduated ring round the rim of the Northseeker until the needle coincided with the N mark. Then, peering through the aperture sight on the side, he would line his eye with the NE marking, all the while keeping the Northseeker facing the N marking. Looking through the aperture site, he would search from a prominent landmark maybe five or ten kilometres away, then ride north-east towards it. As he reached that landmark, he would repeat the process, finding another landmark that lay to the north-east of his position and riding towards that.

The fact that each time he went through this process, he was in fact deviating further and further to the east of his desired course was never apparent to him.

Had he been in Araluen, he might have sensed the sun's position wasn't quite right and become aware that there was a problem. But he was lulled by the knowledge that, this far south, the sun would appear to be in a different position. He trusted the Northseeker, as he had been taught to do.

And the further he rode, the further off course he became.

Once he had passed through the Red Hills, the problem was solved and the needle returned to a true North position. But by then the damage had been done and he was miles from where he thought he was.

He'd rested during the middle hours of the day, as Selethen had taught them. There was no shade to be found, with the sun almost directly overhead and very few trees larger than a shrub anywhere in sight. He pitched his small one-man tent to create a haven of shade and crawled into it, leaving the ends open to allow air to pass through. Not that there was much movement in the desert air at midday.

Arrow, unfortunately, had to put up with the direct heat of the sun. But the horse was bred to it.

Sitting cross-legged under the cramped shelter, Will spread out Selethen's chart and studied it for perhaps the tenth time that day.

He marked his starting position then, with his forefinger, traced a line to the north-east, through the Red Hills and onto the barren, sunbaked plain where he now found himself. Estimating the distance he had covered, he selected a point on the map.

'I should be… here,' he said. He frowned, looking back along the north-east track. If that were the case, he should have seen a prominent landmark late in the morning – a large flat-topped hill close by to the east of his track.

But there had been no sign of it. He thought that he had sighted such a hill an hour previously, but it had been a dim, shimmering sight in the overheated distance. And it had lain well to the west of his track.

Could he have gone so far off course? He shook his head. He had been meticulous in taking his bearings and selecting the landmarks that he rode towards. He could accept that he might be several hundred metres off course. Even half a kilometre. But in all his navigation training exercises he had never made such a large error.

The flat-topped hill that he thought he'd seen must have been five or six kilometres to the west of where he was now. He tapped the map thoughtfully. Of course, he told himself, there might well be more than one flat-topped hill in the desert. In fact, there certainly would be. Perhaps the one Selethen had marked had been worn down by wind and weather until its shape wasn't quite so well defined. He folded the map and put it away. That must be it, he told himself. He must have simply missed it. There were other landmarks he'd see the following day – a balancing rock and a line of steep cliffs, pockmarked with eaves. He'd just have to keep a keener eye out for them.

He sat through the next few hours of stultifying heat. How the horse stood it, out in the open, he had no idea. In fact, Arrow, trained for the conditions, had found a scrap of shade beside a low-lying bush. He lay down on his side with a complaining, grunting sound. He placed his head, with its sensitive skin around eyes, muzzle and mouth, in the deepest part of the meagre screen offered by the branches.

The sun passed its zenith and began to descend towards the western rim of the desert. Will crawled wearily out of the tent. He couldn't be said to have rested and he felt completely wrung out by the heat. He'd taken his two water skins into the tent with him. Had he left them out in the direct sun, the water would have heated until it was too hot to touch. And more of it would have evaporated away through the skins, which could never be made completely watertight.

There was a folding leather bucket tied to his saddle pack and he untied it now, snapping it open. Arrow heard the noise and struggled to roll to his feet, shaking himself to clear the cloying sand from his coat. He walked patiently to where Will was carefully pouring water from one of the skins into the bucket. Will was impressed to see that the horse made no attempt to drink before he raised the water to its mouth.

As Arrow began slurping noisily at the water, Will found himself licking his own lips in anticipation. His mouth and tongue were thick and gummy and he was longing to drink himself. But he'd been trained to look after his horse first and he waited till Arrow finished drinking before raising the water skin to his own lips. He took a long draught, held it in his mouth, swirled it round, then let it trickle slowly down his throat. The water was hot and had a bitter, leathery taste from the water skin. But it was like nectar, he thought. He allowed the last of the mouthful to trickle down his throat, thought about taking another drink, resisted the thought and forced the stopper home.

He was impressed by the fact that Arrow had drunk what was in the bucket and moved a few paces away. Any other horse, even Tug, would have nosed around for more. Arridi training again, he thought. As he took a sack of grain from his saddle bags and poured some into the bucket, he wondered what Tug was doing, where he was and if he was safe. He set the receptacle down for Arrow and listened to the grinding of the horse's jaws as he ate.

Will had a few dates and a piece of flat bread. It was stale now and quite hard but he ate it anyway. He wasn't in the slightest bit hungry, a fact he put down to the oven-like heat of the day. But he knew he had to eat something.

He took another quick sip at the water. Arrow's head came up at the sound of the stopper being removed from the neck. Will thought he sensed a feeling of reproach in those big, liquid eyes.

'You're used to this. I'm not,' he told the horse. Arrow seemed unimpressed by his excuse. He put his nose back down into the bucket, his big tongue searching for any leftover grains in the bottom.

Will looked at the sun and estimated that he'd have another hour or so before he'd have to start making camp. Already, his shadow was a ridiculous, elongated shape that stretched out behind him, undulating over the broken ground. He knew that Selethen would start and finish his day's march in darkness. The Arridi wasn't reliant upon seeing landmarks in the distance through the aperture sight of a Northseeker so he didn't need light to travel.

Will needed to be able to see – both the landmarks that he steered by and the features marked on the map. He thought again about that flat-topped hill and felt a worm of doubt worrying away inside him. He couldn't have missed it, could he?

He saddled Arrow, packed up his tent, blanket and the rest of his gear and tied it on behind the saddle.

'We'll ride for another hour,' he told Arrow. The horse was neither pleased or displeased by the news and stood patiently while Will swung up into the saddle. Once there, he took out the Northseeker, aligned it and peered through the sight. A sand and salt pillar, some three metres high with crystals glistening in the low angle sun, gave him a convenient reference point. He clicked his tongue and urged Arrow into a walk.

As the sun sank lower, the land features to his west became more backlit and indistinct. He thought he saw the line of cliffs – although they seemed a little low to describe them as such. They were more of a raised bank, he thought. And it was impossible to see if they were pockmarked with caves, as the chart indicated. The facing bank was backlit by the lowering sun. It was deep in shadow by now and he couldn't make out detail like that. Still, he thought, they could be the cliffs marked on the chart. And they could be pockmarked with caves. He told himself they were. They had to be.

But again he felt that worm of doubt worrying away inside him.

The giant red ball of the sun was close to the horizon when he decided it was time to stop. He had to gather firewood and he needed light for that. He hobbled Arrow and walked to an outcrop of low, dry bushes, drawing his saxe knife with his right hand. His bow was in his left and he used it to reach out and shake the bush violently, as he had seen Selethen's men doing. Sand cobras lurked in the shade under such bushes, he knew, and he intended to scare any out before putting his hand into a potential death trap.

But there were none and he gathered a sufficient supply of firewood. The bush's branches were full of oil and they would burn with a bright, dry heat for a considerable time before being consumed.

He built the fire but didn't light it. Then, with that immediate task taken care off, he unsaddled Arrow and piled his gear to one side. He glanced at the sky and looked at the tent beside his saddle and bedroll.

'No need for it,' he said finally.

He spread out his bedroll and blanket and sat on them, wincing as one of the desert's multitude of stones dug into his rump. His tastebuds ached for a cup of coffee but he didn't have the water to spare. He contented himself with another swig from the water skin and a handful of dates. Seeing Arrow's reproachful look, he rose, groaning as his knees took the strain, and moved to feed and water the horse.

The sun finally disappeared and the day's heat began to leach out of the desert. By midnight, it would be close to freezing, he knew. He checked Arrow's hobbles, then returned to his bedroll. He was exhausted. The heat of the day had been a palpable force and it seemed to have beaten against his body, leaving him feeling battered and worn out. The darkness grew and the stars began to blaze out above him.

As more and more of them blinked on, he lay back, an arm behind his head, to study them. Normally he found the stars a welcoming, friendly sight. But not tonight. Tonight his thoughts were with Tug, lost somewhere in this pitiless desert. And with Halt and the others, far away to the south-west. He thought sadly about the cheerful conversation by the camp fire, and cups of thick, sweet coffee. He licked his lips.

Even the stars were no comfort to him. They were strangers. Cold and pitiless and uninterested in him and his plight. The familiar constellations of the northern latitudes were missing here. When he inched around, he could see one or two of them, low on the northern horizon.

But these foreign desert stars gave him no comfort at all.

Arrow stirred and, in the distance, Will heard a low, grunting cough. He knew that was the sound that a lion made. He would have expected a majestic, earth-shattering roar. But this asthmatic coughing grunt was the reality. He looked at the horse. Arrow stood straight, ears pricked, eyes showing a lot of white.

'Better light a fire,' Will said reluctantly. He stood painfully, moved to the fire and went to work with flint and steel. Within a few minutes he had a small, bright fire burning. He led Arrow a little closer to it. The horse moved awkwardly in its hobbles but Will couldn't risk removing them and losing him.

'Settle down,' he told him. Within a few minutes, Arrow had. His head drooped again, his ears relaxed.

Will stretched out and pulled the blanket up around his chin. Accustomed to sleeping when the opportunity arose, he dropped off almost at once.

The moon had risen when Arrow's startled whinny jerked him awake. For a second or two there was an awful sense of disorientation while he wondered where he was. Then he remembered and came to his feet, his bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, eyes searching the thick darkness around them.

He heard the coughing grunt again and it seemed that it could be a little closer. He stirred the fire, added a few more branches and sat down, his back against his saddle, the bow across his knees.

He hitched the blanket up around his shoulders and settled himself, resigned to the fact that he would have to keep guard sitting up and dozing fitfully, while every muscle and bone in his body ached for him to stretch out and relax.

'No rest for the wicked,' he said. He sensed it was going to be a long, cold, uncomfortable night.