Robin Hobb - The Complete Farseer Trilogy - Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest

I knew.

All the threads that run back and forth between folk, that twine from mother to child, from man to woman, all the kinships they extend to family and neighbour, to pets and stock, even to the fish of the sea and bird of the sky – all, all were gone.

All my life, without knowing it, I had depended on those threads of feelings to let me know when other live things were about. Dogs, horses, even chickens had them, as well as humans. And so I would look up at the door before Burrich entered it, or know there was one more new-born puppy in the stall, nearly buried under the straw. So I would wake when Chade opened the staircase. Because I could feel people. And that sense was the one that always alerted me first, that let me know to use my eyes and ears and nose as well, to see what they were about.

But these folk gave off no feelings at all.

Imagine water with no weight or wetness. That is how those folk were to me. Stripped of what made them not only human, but alive. To me, it was as if I watched stones rise up from the earth and quarrel and mutter at one another. A little girl found a pot of jam and stuck her fist in it and pulled out a handful to lick. A grown man turned from the scorched pile of fabric he had been rummaging through and crossed to her. He seized the pot and shoved the child aside, heedless of her angry shouts.

No one moved to interfere.

I leaned forward and seized Chade’s reins as he moved to dismount. I shouted wordlessly at Sooty, and tired as she was, the fear in my voice energized her. She leaped forward, and my jerk on the reins brought Chade’s bay with us. Chade was nearly unseated, but he clung to the saddle, and I took us out of the dead town as fast as we could go. I heard shouts behind us, colder than the howling of wolves, cold as storm wind down a chimney, but we were mounted and I was terrified. I didn’t pull in or let Chade have his own reins back until the houses were well behind us. The road bent, and beside a small copse of trees, I pulled in at last. I don’t think I even heard Chade’s angry demands for an explanation until then.

He didn’t get a very coherent one. I leaned forward on Sooty’s neck and hugged her. I could feel her weariness, and the trembling of my own body. Dimly I felt that she shared my uneasiness. I thought of the empty folk back in Forge and nudged Sooty with my knees. She stepped out wearily and Chade kept pace, demanding to know what was wrong. My mouth was dry and my voice shook. I didn’t look at him as I panted out my fear and a garbled explanation of what I had felt.

When I was silent, our horses continued to pace down the packed earth road. At length I got up my courage and looked at Chade. He was regarding me as if I had sprouted antlers. Once aware of this new sense, I couldn’t ignore it. I sensed his scepticism. But I also felt Chade distance himself from me, just a little pulling-back, a little shielding of self from someone who had suddenly become a bit of a stranger. It hurt all the more because he had not pulled back that way from the folk in Forge. And they were a hundred times stranger than I was.

‘They were like marionettes,’ I told Chade. ‘Like wooden things come to life and acting out some evil play. And if they had seen us, they would not have hesitated to kill us for our horses or our cloaks, or a piece of bread. They …’ I searched for words. ‘They aren’t even animals any more. There’s nothing coming out of them. Nothing. They’re like little separate things. Like a row of books, or rocks or …’

‘Boy,’ Chade said, between gentleness and annoyance, ‘you’ve got to get yourself in hand. It’s been a long night of travel for us, and you’re tired. Too long without a sleep, and the mind starts to play tricks, with waking dreams and …’

‘No.’ I was desperate to convince him. ‘It’s not that. It’s not going without sleep.’

‘We’ll go back there,’ he said reasonably. The morning breeze swirled his dark cloak around him, in a way so ordinary that I felt my heart would break. How could there be folk like those in that village, and a simple morning breeze in the same world? And Chade, speaking in so calm and ordinary a voice? ‘Those folk are just ordinary folk, boy, but they’ve gone through a very bad time, and so they’re acting oddly. I knew a girl who saw her father killed by a bear. She was like that, just staring and grunting, hardly even moving to care for herself, for more than a month. Those folk will recover, when they go back to their ordinary lives.’

‘Someone’s ahead!’ I warned him. I had heard nothing, seen nothing, felt only that tug at the cobweb of sense I’d discovered. But as we looked ahead down the road, we saw that we were approaching the tail-end of a rag-tag procession of people. Some led laden beasts, others pushed or dragged carts of bedraggled possessions. They looked over their shoulders at us on our horses as if we were demons risen from the earth to pursue them.

‘The Pocked Man!’ cried a man close to the end of the line, and he lifted a hand to point at us. His face was drawn with weariness and white with fear. His voice cracked on the words. ‘It’s the legends come to life,’ he warned the others who halted fearfully to stare back at us. ‘Heartless ghosts walk embodied through our village ruins, and the black-cloaked pocked man brings his disease upon us. We have lived too soft, and the old gods punish us. Our fat lives will be the death of us all.’

‘Oh, damn it all. I didn’t mean to be seen like this,’ Chade breathed. I watched his pale hands gather his reins, turning his bay. ‘Follow me, boy.’ He did not look toward the man who still pointed a quavering finger at us. He moved slowly, almost languorously, as he guided his horse off the road and up a tussocky hillside. It was the same unchallenging way of moving that Burrich had when confronting a wary horse or dog. His tired horse left the smooth trail reluctantly. Chade was headed up into a stand of birches on the hilltop. I stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Follow me, boy,’ he directed me over his shoulder when I hesitated. ‘Do you want to be stoned in the road? It’s not a pleasant experience.’

I moved carefully, swinging Sooty aside from the road as if I were totally unaware of the panicky folk ahead of us. They hovered there, between anger and fear. The feel of it was a black-red smear on the day’s freshness. I saw a woman stoop, saw a man turn aside from his barrow.

‘They’re coming!’ I warned Chade, even as they raced toward us. Some gripped stones, and others green staffs freshly taken from the forest. All had the bedraggled look of townsfolk forced to live in the open. Here were the rest of Forge’s villagers, those not taken hostage by the Raiders. All of that I realized in the instant between digging in my heels and Sooty’s weary plunge forward. Our horses were spent; their efforts at speed were grudging, despite the hail of rocks that thudded to the earth in our wake. Had the townsfolk been rested, or less fearful, they would have easily caught us. But I think they were relieved to see us flee. Their minds were more fixed on what walked the streets of their village than in fleeing strangers, no matter how ominous.

They stood in the road and shouted and waved their sticks until we were among the trees. Chade had taken the lead and I didn’t question him as he took us on a parallel path that would keep us out of the sight of the folk leaving Forge. The horses had settled back into a grudging plod. I was grateful for the rolling hills and scattered trees that hid us from any pursuit. When I saw a stream glinting, I gestured to it without a word. Silently we watered the horses, and shook out for them some grain from Chade’s supplies. I loosened harness, and wiped their draggled coats with handfuls of grass. For ourselves, there was cold streamwater and coarse travel-bread. I saw to the horses as best as I could. Chade seemed full of his own thoughts, and for a long time I respected their intensity. But finally I could contain my curiosity no longer and I asked the question.