Read Online Beyond the Burning Lands by John Christopher - Free Book Online Page B

and he had already admitted that the land of the Wilsh could not match ours in beasts.
    The thaw had continued. Snow still lay in a few sheltered patches but for the most part the grass was fast growing and hawthorn bushes beginning to be green. In places shepherds had brought out their flocks. A boy near the limit of Winchester territory left his sheep on the hillside and raced down to stand on a piece of broken stone wall and watch our passing. He stared after us for a long time; until the curve of the hill came between us. I guessed he would go back to his beasts with a heart heavy with longing, and my own felt lighter for the assurance that we were on our way—that strange and wonderful things lay ahead, and gloom and sorrow and misery fell farther behind with every step our horses trod.
    It was some fifty miles from Winchester to the edge of the Burning Lands as a bird flies. But our way, of course, was less direct and Greene was in no hurry. He was a tall man, alert in bearing, given to noisy mirth in drink but with a cool mind in action. He put wax on his mustache and had a trick of rolling the ends into small tight spears. As he said, we should need their best from our horses later so there was no sense in flogging them at the start. And they had been in the city stables all winter and needed to get used to the fields.
    We spent the first night in Andover lands, at a village where they looked at us with fear and suspicion until Greene produced silver for our lodging. After that they swarmed about us and poured ale. We took a pot each for politeness’ sake but though they pressed us would have no more. We were on service and under discipline, as Greene told them. Though even the heavy ale-drinkers among the men found this small hardship: the ale was thin, ill-tasting stuff. The food was not much better and the straw thick with fleas. We woke before first light, the men scratching and cursing.
    From there we rode across the hills and came down in the afternoon to Marlborough, which lies as Salisbury does in a valley, but a deeper one. The town stood under Oxford sovereignty but was so far distant—more than thirty miles of hilly country—that it could almost be said to be independent. They acknowledged Oxford’s Prince but their own Captain General lived in princely style and they paid only a token tax.
    They struck me as dour, unfriendly people. The commoners watched our passage through their streets in silence, whereas in Winchester the sight of any troop of horse would have raised a cheer. The soldiers were as sullen and Stokes, the Captain General, was a glowering, taciturn man. He listened with evident disapproval to Greene’s account of our mission. Even if the thing were possible, which he doubted, he saw no sense in it.
    That night when they feasted us they unbent somewhat, but not much. Their eyes watched us and each other. I thought I understood them better then, because though the Great Hall was hung with lamps they were scarcely wanted: so bright was the glow that came in at the windows. The hills rose above the town and above the hills the sky was red, a heavy crimson from which now and then spouted gouts of orange flame. Seeing this I realized that darkness, which they never truly knew, could be a comforting and friendly thing. They lived their lives under this ominous light and it was small wonder they were soured by it. And there were ugly sounds as well—distant foreboding rumblings as the earth growled in pain.
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    North of Marlborough there were no roads and the going was hard. We were climbing, too, at times so steeply that we had to dismount and lead our horses. We reached a crest at last and saw what lay before us.
    The volcanoes spanned the horizon in a jagged line from the northeast to the southwest. Some burned and some lay quiet. Before and between them was a landscape of desolation and horror, where rivers of smoking liquid rock