Ganne


Part 30 - The Fading Land.


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An invisible predator was stalking the remains of Guara's War-Party.  It's
name was fear.

The eight women who had survived the return of the Ganne Dragon were
gathered in the remains of an abandoned logging camp.  Each was dealing
with the trauma in their own way.

Oblivious to the pouring rain, Marleena was squatting in the mud at the
centre of the compound.  She was rocking back and forth in a daze,
cradling her burned hands against her chest.  Seiko had wrapped them in
makeshift bandages made from a torn shirt.  The once white linen was
stained red with Marleena's blood.  The young Far Speaker was whimpering
wretchedly, consumed with her own misery.

Nearby, Culbeth was standing still as a statue.  Her eyes were tight shut.
Her face was contorted with effort as she sought for self-control through
the exercise of control over that for which she had an affinity.  Five
horses trotted smartly around her in a wide circle as though they were
being shown off to potential buyers in a show ring.  It was taking every
scrap of Culbeth's power over living creatures to hold the terrified
horses inside the compound.

Sehko and Zamaleen stood looking on, clutching ropes and waiting for a
chance to secure the horses; but any attempt to approach the frightened
creatures set them to plunging and rearing.  They had been driven to the
edge of insanity by their ordeal.  It would take only some sudden sound or
movement to break Culbeth's tenuous hold, and send them stampeding away
into the encircling forest.  Then Guara's decimated War-Party would be in
real difficulties.  It was at least twenty miles to the abandoned town of
Starnford.

Four bodies were laid out in the mud by the wall of a tumble-down wooden
shed.  The feathered end of an iron shaft still protruded from the ruins
of Beruth's face.  Next to her lay an elderly Ganne, her clothes all but
burned away, the flesh underneath charred and raw.  The other two, who
before the arousing of the Ganne Dragon had been middle aged, now looked
withered with advanced age, but otherwise seemed unhurt.  It was as if all
the juices of life had been sucked out of their flesh.  No one had thought
to cover the corpses.

The difficult and futile task of organising and executing the removal of
the bodies a quarter mile to this logging camp had been Sehko's way of
dealing with the trauma.

Guara was sheltering from the rain in the doorway of the dilapidated
saw-mill watching the women struggling with their fear.  At her side stood
Angela, a horse blanket over her slender shoulders.  Seemingly no worse
for having been smashed on the head with a rock, she was gazing at
Marleena, an expression of extreme malice on her face.

Of the two remaining Ganne, the one named Lydia stood near marleena.  She
looked lost and indecisive.  Every few moments, she would start to go to
comfort Marleena, then change her mind.  Next the Ganne would take a step
in the direction of where the three women were trying to secure the
horses.  Then some forest sound would make her start, freezing her in
place again, while her eyes, bright with fear, searched the clouds over
head.

Across the compound, in the edge of the pines, the last remaining Ganne
stood looking back and forth as though seeking some elusive sound.  The
woman's name was Bethrynia.  Her white, shoulder length hair shone in the
gloom.  As Guara watched, the woman went down on her knees in the mud and
began to grope around on the ground.  She lifted up a pine cone and
examined it carefully.

Guara laid a hand on Angela's shoulder.  "Stay here, Angela, and stay out
of sight," she commanded.  The Viper made no sign that she had heard.  She
just kept watching Marleena rocking back and forth in the rain.

Guara stepped out into the downpour, crossing quickly to where Bethrynia
was clambering to her feet, gently cupping the pine cone.  The woman's
actions were more than just puzzling, there was an intensity bordering on
madness suggested in her actions which alerted Guara to danger.

As Guara came up behind Bethrynia, the woman was caressing the opened
scales of the pine cone with a finger tip.  Her fear and bewilderment was
an almost palpable thing.

"What is it?" Guara asked.

Bethrynia started violently.  Her hand clenched the pine cone.  It
collapsed in upon itself as though made of clay.  The shaken woman's eyes
went to the sky.  In a near panic, she searched the lowering clouds.
After a moment of wild staring around, she made a visible effort to relax,
and turned to face her Queen.

"It's the forest," she said.  "It's the trees; it's the land; it's
everything..."

"What about them?"

"They're fading." She opened her hand; and a grey slurry, all that
remained of the de-natured pine cone, oozed through her fingers to drip
upon the soaked earth.  "Look here!" She offered the mess to Guara, who
frowned at it in puzzlement.  Bethrynia flung out her other arm to
indicate the looming pines.  "Look there!  It's all fading.  Can't you see
it?  The whole world is fading away."

Haunted black eyes looked over Guara's shoulder to where Angela stood
framed by the door way of the saw-mill.  "The monster's sucking all the
Ganne out of the world.  It's sucking the soul out of everything.  It's
got to be stopped.  You' must stop it.  You must find a way to put the
monster down somehow; or it will suck us all dry."

Guara ignored the inchoate hysteria bubbling up in the woman's voice, and
looked past her to the trees.  She could see nothing wrong.  "What do you
mean?" she asked sharply, putting every ounce of command she possessed
into her tone.

Bethrynia pointed at the trees again, her bony finger stabbing at the
trunks.  "Look!" she cried.  "The world is fading.  Can't you see it, all
the life is fading from the world."

Guara was no adept Earth Speaker like Bethrynia; but when she applied
herself and exercised the Ganne, she could detect a subtle vagueness in
the condition of the forest.  It was as though the fabric of the world was
thinning.  All the colour of life was seeping away, leaving a dead
greyness.  Though Guara was not clear on what exactly this phenomenon
meant, she felt certain it boded no good for the Ganne.  It was imperative
that they should get to Starnford as quickly as possible.  Guara had a
very bad feeling that it was the only thing which might save the world
from this ghastly fate.

She turned back to the others.  "Secure those horses...  Now!" she
commanded.  "We have to get moving...  Right now!"


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