Free The Heretic Land by Tim Lebbon

depressing.
    Resting one hand on his knife handle, he raised the other, palm out. The Skythians paused, one woman scurrying forward to within a few steps. She raised her head and sniffed at the air.
    ‘I’m Venden Ugane, no threat to you,’ Venden said. ‘You know me. You’ve seen me before.’ He tapped his cart, trying to jog the Skythe woman’s memory.
    She sniffed some more, edging a step closer. ‘Venden,’ she rasped. She looked at the thing in the bed of the cart, her eyes going wide. They were bloodshot and weeping. She scampered back and cried something else, her voice a high whistle that seemed to contain little sense, and the few Skythians with her drew back as well, a sigh passing amongst them. It was not quite fear, and Venden had seen it before.
    ‘It’s nothing to be afraid of,’ he said, still holding out one hand. He watched the way they moved, hunkered down on splayed limbs like dogs waiting to leap. Fear seemed to lower them. Evolution was a debatable theory, and for the most devout of the Ald – Alderia’s ruling sect and unelected government – it was a blasphemy, because it denied the creation of things by the seven Alderian gods of the Fade. But most intelligent people, whatever their depth of belief in the Fade, accepted evolution as part of what made things the way they were. In these Skythians, Venden could see distinct evidence of devolution. And that made him sad, because it was man-made.
    He sat down close to the fire to eat. They would not join him, but he knew that they would hang back in the darkness to watch. He would leave them some food when he left in the morning.
    * * *
    Dawn brought a lightsheen of rain that painted rainbows on the eastern skies. Venden remembered a story the Fade priests told children about Shore, the Fade goddess of the air, who cavorted with the sun and moon and sighed rainbows of delight when Venthia, the god of water, cast his seed through her. It had been an innocent tale of gods and dancing for the children, but its connotations had become more apparent the older Venden became. Rainbows were the ecstatic emissions of the gods. As he stood beside the dying fire, he looked at the colours and smiled. They were beautiful, but they were factors of light and water, little more. Venden did not understand the science of rainbows, but that did not mean he had to ascribe them godliness.
    There was no sign of the Skythians, but he knew they were still watching. They watched him on every journey. He broke camp and went to pick up the cart’s reins, and then noticed a strange thing. The light rain did not seem to touch the pale object. It lay upon dampened boards, but its surface seemed dry. He placed his palm on the smooth body, ran a finger along one of the short, thin limbs, and it was untouched.
    He frowned. Perhaps the water soaked in so quickly that the thing could not feel wet. But as with the rainbows, his lack of understanding did not drive him to the gods. Its mystery was not divine.
    When he moved on, the Skythians emerged from their hiding places and took the food he had left for them. They followed him for a while, as he knew they would. They mumbled and muttered amongst themselves, and in their language he could hear nothing of the wondrous Skythe tongue he had studied in those books and parchments. So much had been lost.
    The rain persisted, but the soaking did not dampen his spirits. The Skythians soon disappeared, and he was alone once more, pullingthe cart with the reins over each shoulder. By midday he was close to where he had made his camp, in the fertile land at the junction of two mountain ridges where the river found its source. The flow here was more a series of trickling streams, the land between them boggy, and Venden followed a route he had taken many times before. It involved a steep climb, but then a level, mostly dry path across the mountainside to the sheltered area he called home. Here was the rocky overhang beneath which he lived.