The Last Guardian

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nu-Khasisatra could see something was seriously wrong with the wagon convoy long before he reached it. The sun was up and yet there was little movement from amongst the twenty-six wagons. A dead body lay close to the convoy, and Nu could see other corpses laid side by side some thirty paces away.

He stopped and decided to pass them by, but a voice called out to him from the long grass beside the track and Nu turned to see a young woman lying in a gulley; she was cradling a babe in her arms. Her words were unintelligible, the language coarse and unknown to Nu. Her face was pinched and drawn, and red, open sores scarred her cheeks and throat. For a moment Nu drew back in horror, then he looked into her eyes and saw the fear and the pain. He took his Stone and moved to her side. She was terribly thin and as Nu laid his hand on her shoulder he could feel the sharpness of her bones beneath the grey woollen dress she wore. As he touched her, the whispered words she spoke became instantly clear to him. 'Help me. For the sake of God, help me!' He touched the Stone to her brow and the sores vanished instantly, as did the hollow dark rings below her large blue eyes. 'My babe,' she said, lifting the tiny bundle towards Nu.

'I can do nothing,' he told her sadly, staring at the corpse. A terrible moaning cry came from the woman and she hugged the child to her. Nu stood and helped her to her feet, leading her back to the wagons. Some twenty paces ahead on the road a man was lying on his back, dead eyes staring up at the sky. They passed him by. As they entered the camp, an elderly woman with iron-grey hair ran towards him. 'Get back!' she shouted. There is plague here.'

'I know,' he told her. 'I… I am a healer.'

'There's nothing more to be done,' said the woman. Then she noticed the girl. 'Ella? Dear God, Ella. You are well?'

'He couldn't save my baby,' whispered Ella. 'He was too late for my little Mary.'

'What is your name, friend?' asked the woman, taking his arm.

'Nu-Khasisatra.'

'Well, Meneer New, there are more than seventy people bad sick here, and only four of us that are holding the plague at bay. I pray to God you are a healer.'

Nu looked around him. Death was everywhere. Some bodies lay uncovered, flies settling on the still weeping sores, while others had blankets casually tossed over them. Several paces to his right he saw a child's arm protruding from a large section of sackcloth. Moans and cries came from the wagons and here and there helpers — themselves stricken — staggered from victim to victim, giving aid where they could, helping the sick to drink a little water. Nu swallowed hard as the elderly woman touched his arm. 'Come,' she said. He looked down at her hand and saw the ugly red blotches that stained her lower arm. Taking his Stone, he reached out and stroked her hair. 'God's Love,' he told her. The sores disappeared.

She stared down at her arms, feeling the rush of strength as if she had just awoken from a deep refreshing sleep. 'Thank you,' she whispered. 'God's blessing on you. But come quickly, for there are others in sore need.'

She led him to a wagon where a woman and four children lay under sweat-soaked blankets. Nu laid the Stone on each of them, and the fever passed. From wagon to wagon he moved, healing the sick and watching as the black veins in the Stone swelled. As dusk came, he had healed more than thirty of the company. The elderly woman, whose name was Martha, busied herself preparing food for the survivors and Nu was left to himself. Under the moonlight he studied the Stone. There was more black than gold now and, under cover of darkness, he slipped away into the night.

He had no choice, he told himself. If ever he was to see Pashad and the children again, he had to leave some power in the Stone. But with each step he took, his heart became heavier.

At last he sat down under the bright moonlight and prayed. 'What would you have me do?' he asked. 'What are these people to me? You are the giver of life, the bringer of death. It was you who brought this plague to them. Why can you not take it away?' There was no answer, but he recalled his boyhood days in the temple under the great teacher Rizzhak.

He could see the old man's hooded eyes and his hawk nose, the white straggly beard. And he remembered the story Rizzhak had told of Heaven and Hell:

'I prayed to the Lord of All Things to let me see both Paradise and the Torment of Belial. And in my vision I saw a door. I opened it and there, in a great room, was a sumptuous feast placed on a great table. But all the guests were wailing, for the spoons in their hands had long, long handles and, though they could reach the food the spoons were too long for them to place it in their mouths. And they were cursing God and starving. I closed the door and asked to see Paradise.

Yet it was the same door that stayed before me. I opened it and inside was an identical feast, and all the guests had the same long-handled spoons. But they were feeding each other and praising God in the thousand names known only to the angels.'

Nu stared up at the moon and thought of Pashad. He sighed and stood.

Back at the wagons he moved amongst the sick, healing them all. He laboured long into the night, and at the dawn he stared down at the Stone in his hand. It was black now, with not a trace of gold.

Martha came and sat beside him, giving him a cup in which was a dark, bitter drink.

'I've heard of them,' she said, 'but I never saw one before. It was a Daniel Stone. Is it used up?'

'Yes,' said Nu, dropping it to the ground in front of the fire.

'It saved many lives, Meneer New. And I thank you for it.'

Nu said nothing.

He was thinking of Pashad…

Beth McAdam was thoughtful and silent as she steered the wagon south over the rolling grasslands towards the Wall. The children were sitting on the tailboard squabbling, but the noise passed her by. Shannow was making good progress, but still confined to his room at the Traveller's Rest, and the Parson had been a frequent caller at their campsite in Tent Town. Now there was Edric Scayse, tall and confident, courteous and gallant. He had taken her to dinner twice, and amused her with stories of his upbringing in the far north.

'They have cities there now, and elected leaders,' he had told her. 'Some of the areas have formed treaties with neighbouring groups and there was talk last year of a Confederation.'

'They won't get together,' said Beth. 'People don't. They'll row over everything and fight over nothing.'

'Don't be too sure, Beth. Mankind cannot grow without organisation. Take the Barta coin — that's universally accepted now, no matter which community you enter. Old Jacob Barta, who first stamped the coins, had a dream of one nation. Now it looks as if it has a chance. Just imagine what it would be like if laws were as readily accepted as Barta coin?'

'Wars will just get bigger,' she said with certainty. 'It's the way of things.'

'We need leaders, Beth — strong men to draw us all together. There's so much we don't know about the past, that could help us with the future… so much.'

The lead oxen stumbled, jerking Beth back to the present and she hauled on the reins, giving the beast time to recover its footing. She was attracted to Scayse, drawn by his strength, but there was something about him that left her with a vague sense of unease. Like the Parson, he had a dangerous, uncertain quality. With Shannow, the danger was all on the surface — what you saw was what you got. How much easier life would have been had she found Josiah Broome attractive. But the man was such a blinkered fool.

'I dread to think of people who look up to men like Jon Shannow,' he had told her one morning, as they waited for the first customers of the day. 'Loathsome man! A killer and a war-maker of the worst kind. People like him wreck communities, destroy any sense of civilised behaviour. He is a cancer in our midst and should be ordered to leave.'

'When has he stolen anything?' she countered, holding the anger from her voice. 'When has he been disrespectful? When? When has he killed a man without first being threatened with death himself?'

'How can you ask such a thing? Did you not see on the night poor Fenner died? When he stood before the crowd, and that man asked him if he thought he could take on all of them? Shannow shot him down without warning; the man did not even have a gun in his hand.'

'You'll never understand, Meneer Broome. I am surprised you have lived this long. If Shannow had let the moment pass, they would all have turned on him and he would have been shot to pieces. As it was, he held them, he took the initiative… unlike poor Fenner. I spoke to Shannow about him. Did you know Fenner went to Shannow for advice? The Jerusalem Man told him to give Webber an order and not engage in any conversation; he said that as soon as Webber is allowed to debate you will lose the moment. Fenner understood this, Meneer Broome. But he was betrayed, by you and all those with you. Now he is dead.'

'How dare you accuse me of betrayal? I went there with Fenner; I did my part.'

'Your part?' she hissed. 'You got him killed and crawled away like a gutless snake.'

'There was nothing we could do. Nothing anyone could do.'

'Shannow did it. Alone. So don't criticise him to my face. The man's worth ten of you.'

'Get out! You don't work here any more. Out, I say!'

With her job lost, Beth saw Scayse who agreed to let her move on to the land immediately. He even offered men to help her with building her home, but she refused him.

Now she was almost there. The oxen were tired as they laboured up the last rise before the land she had leased, and she was ready to allow them a breather at the top of the hill. But when they reached it, Beth looked down into the vale and saw five men shaping felled trees into logs. Close by was a roped-off area which had been stamped out to form the dirt floor of a cabin. Bern's fury rose and she drew her pistol and stepped down from the wagon, walking back to where her horse was tethered at the rear. Telling the children to stay where they were, she rode down where the men were working. As she approached, one of them put down his hatchet and strolled across to her, doffing his leather hat and grinning.

'Mornin', Frey. Nice day for it, what with the sun and the breeze.'

The pistol came up and the man's smile vanished. 'What the Hell are you doing on my land?' she asked him, cocking the pistol.

'Hold up, lady,' he said, lifting his hands. 'Meneer Scayse asked us to give you a hand with the footings — felling the trees and suchlike. We've also taken water bearings to see how the land lies.'

'I asked for no help,' she told him, the pistol steady in her hands.

'I don't know nothin' about that. We ride for Meneer Scayse. He says jump, we don't say why -

we just jump.'

Beth uncocked the pistol and returned it to her scabbard. 'Why did you choose this spot for the cabin?'

'Well,' he said, the smile returning, 'it's got a good range of open ground to front and rear, there's water close by and the front windows will catch the evening sun.'

'You chose well. What is your name?'

'They call me Bull, though my name is rightly Ishmael Kovac.'

'Bull it is,' she told him. 'You carry on. Ill fetch the wagon.'