Icefall (40 page)

‘Oh, God, Hannah, I don't know any more. I used to be sure. Maybe I was seeing things.' She opened her eyes and tried to smile. ‘But if it was real, I'll see you over there, okay?'

They'd given me a cold damp rag, that was all, but I turned her face towards me and tried as best as I could to wipe away the blood and filth. I wished I could stop her shaking, but when I'd done what I could we put our arms round each other and sat like that for a while. I don't know how long. Until I heard distant footsteps in the corridor, and I pulled gently away from her.

‘Thanks, Hannah. Listen, I'll be fine. I promise I won't lose it.'

‘I know you won't.'

We stood up together and held hands until we heard them shoot the bolt back on the door.

*   *   *

The sunlight seemed intolerably bright after the darkness of Kate's caverns. I put my arm over my eyes to shield them, but still they stung. The first shape I could make out was the biggest: the blue roan, hobbled and chained between two terrified horses, its jaws strapped shut, its flanks heaving with fury. Hot jets of breath shot from its scarlet nostrils.

‘She's hoping to sacrifice him.'

It was Sionnach's sceptical voice close by me, but glad as I was to hear it, it broke my heart to see him when my vision cleared. He was shackled and guarded, and he was the only one who seemed destined for execution with us. The rest of our surviving clann stood in Kate's ranks, their faces sullen and beaten. She hadn't trusted them enough to arm them yet, and they were scattered and separated among fighters who glanced at them with barely-concealed scorn. Kate's captains stood a little apart, talking quietly.

I knew some of the captains. I recognised Gealach from Finn's description, a woman with scarlet hair. I'd seen Cluaran before, the brute-faced shaven-headed one with the gold torque. Iolaire had always said he was a decent guy. Iolaire maybe didn't think so any more, because he slouched behind them, guarded and manacled. He'd taken a good thrashing, but he didn't look as if he minded. His eyes were dull and dead, as if he didn't care what they did to him, but the faster the better.

As we passed, Cluaran glanced up, then frowned and stepped across our path. I glared at him, and pressed protectively closer to Finn, but he spoke a curt word to the guards and they pulled me back. Cluaran grasped Finn's chin and tilted it to look into her eyes. She didn't flinch.

Cluaran did.

I heard an intake of breath. For the first time Iolaire seemed conscious of what was happening around him. He stared first at Finn, then turned savagely brilliant eyes on Cluaran.

Cluaran took a step back, as if he couldn't help it. Then, angry, he snapped, ‘Not my doing, Iolaire. But she's a rebel. You're all rebels. You made your choice, Iolaire; all of you did.'

‘I don't know you, Cluaran. I never knew you.' Iolaire looked at Finn again, the ghost of a smile on his lips. ‘Hey, Finn. Soon.'

‘Not soon enough for some of you.'

Kate's voice resounded, as clear and sweet as ever, and the fighters hustled back to allow her through. Behind her stood Rory. He met my eyes, but his were entirely cold. He wasn't manacled or anything. He stood unspeaking behind Kate, flanked by a man and a woman fighter. I tried to catch his eye again, but now he wouldn't look at me.

‘Kate.' Cluaran kissed her hand, drew it to his forehead, then withdrew with his fighters and Iolaire. I guessed the gallows in the dun courtyard was for him, and I hoped they'd hang him fast. I hoped Cluaran would have the decency to haul on his legs, or something. Break his neck.

I couldn't really believe these were actual thoughts going through my head. I wanted to scream, but no way was I doing it.

Kate gave a great sigh, and clapped her hands with satisfaction. ‘We're all done. We're through with these rebels.'

‘So soon?' murmured Goggles, and ran his finger hard down Finn's spine. ‘You know, they've neither of them asked for us to go to the other, yet.'

Finn twisted to gaze at him. There it was again in her eyes. That dark un-Sithe light I didn't like. I can't imagine he liked it either.

‘I know, Raib, and that's disappointing. But I'm afraid it's time we got down to some proper work. I promise you it won't be an anticlimax.' Kate's golden eyes were sparky with anticipation.

Two fighters were leading out horses, and one of them held out a hand for Kate's foot as she slipped elegantly onto the back of a white mare. She pointed to a bay gelding and said to Rory, ‘Mount.'

I was shocked that he didn't argue. He just went to the bay, and hauled himself onto it. He picked up the reins in one hand.

Kate tutted. ‘What on earth is keeping your father?'

The sky above us was grey and bleak, with a blustering threat of rain, but I'd swear the breeze died the moment we heard footsteps. Brisk steps. And dragging ones. Gealach's unit divided to let the Wolf stride though, his eye bright with glee.

He stopped in a good central spot, where we could all see him. Loving it, the bastard. I tried not to look at him but I couldn't help it.

‘Alasdair,' called Kate affectionately. ‘Welcome. To you and your
favourite
prisoner.'

‘May I say,' said the Wolf, ‘he's good. He's very good. The things he called me! The filthy tongue on him! He even spat, till he ran out of spit.' He grinned at Finn. ‘But that was only the first day.'

He took a swaggering step to the side. Seth was hauled forward between guards, one gripping each arm, and he was walking, after a fashion. A murmur went round Kate's troops, and there was something strange about the sound, because it wasn't contempt: it was pity, and horror. The Wolf stared at the ranks and they were silenced.

Seth was stripped to the waist, but I could hardly stand to look at his arms and torso. Every visible bit of him was marked with a slash or a ragged rip or a brutal deep puncture, and the raised hideous ridge of recent healing, and why in God's name wasn't he dead? Bile rose in my throat, tears in my eyes. I could just see his left hand, hanging limp in its manacle. It had been sliced between each finger, almost to the wrist. Then it had been put back together.

The Wolf grabbed his filthy tangled hair and yanked his head back. Seth blinked, slowly and painfully. One of his eyes was gone; there was only a red angry hollow.

‘Well,' said the Wolf, shrugging. ‘He did it to me.'

‘Fair enough, Alasdair.' In the awful silence, Kate turned to gaze at her clann and ours. ‘And you'll be doing it to the next person who expresses any sympathy.'

Alasdair grinned.

Someone in the ranks was weeping, very quietly. Orach, I think. The guards released Seth's arms, and he took one step, but his leg wouldn't take the weight and he collapsed to the hard ground.

For an instant I couldn't move, but Finn could. She broke away from her guards and tore across to him, leaving them speechless and prisonerless. Then, since I'd promised to stay by her, I ran too, getting away from my guard by sheer surprise. And of course Sionnach came after me, so I got further than I should have because they had to restrain him first. I was only a few yards from Seth and Finn when they grabbed me and held me. No-one on earth could have caught Finn.

She flung herself to her knees beside him, leaning her body protectively across his. Then she whipped round like an animal, and gave the men who'd come after her a supernaturally vicious snarl.

Cuthag got the brunt of it. I saw his eyes darken with terror, just for an instant. Then he recovered, and both guards seized first Finn and then Seth, dragging them to their feet.

She yanked away and forced herself close to him, her face against his neck, but her eyes stayed open and fixed on the guards. Seth leaned his bloody face against her hair with an expression like bliss.

‘Kill us now,' he mumbled. ‘Not long, lover. Not long.'

‘I know.' She clenched her teeth and whispered, ‘Let me in.'

I could see Seth's face. His single eye was open, but the pupil stayed resolutely dull. ‘No.'

‘Let me in,' she said more fiercely. ‘Let me in so you can walk.'

‘No…'

Kate took an involuntary breath. I watched her. I saw her perplexed frown. But Finn paid her no attention at all.

‘Love,' Finn told Seth, softly but clearly. ‘You can't stop me. And nor can she.'

I knew he couldn't fight her. I knew it even before I saw a single tear roll from his single grey eye.

He turned reflexively away, so that her face swung towards me. As her pupils lit up her eyes jerked wide, and her mouth opened in a soundless gasp. For an instant I thought her knees would buckle and she'd fall, and I started towards her again, but as the guard jerked me back she recovered. She turned her face to the Wolf. She held his eye directly, and the two of them were immobile for long seconds.

It was the Wolf that blinked.

There was shock on Kate's face, and incomprehension. Then she snapped, ‘It doesn't matter. Not any more.' She yanked her horse's reins.

I didn't know how Finn had done it. I didn't even know what she'd done. But
Thwarted!
I thought, and if I hadn't wanted so badly to cry, I'd have laughed.

‘Bring them up to the cliffs.' Angrily the Wolf jerked his head, and the guards tugged us forward. ‘And take his shackles off. I don't want to have to carry him.'

Without the shackles and with Finn in his head, Seth could manage a stumbling walk. Finn was close against him, her arm supporting him. It wasn't a long walk, thank God, though the wind grew stronger near the top, flattening the salt grass. Seth wavered as it hit him, then ducked his head and lurched grimly on.

I hesitated, afraid, because the hoofbeats were there again.

I could hear the murmurous crash of waves far below, and I could hear the sad whisper of the wind in stunted oaks and piled timber, but none of that could drown out the sound of countless running horses. A bit jangled; breath snorted through flared nostrils; hooves thudded on peat. Still, the horses I could see were calm and quiet. It wasn't them. The blue roan they'd dragged to the clifftop already, and it had taken four of them plus the terrified horses; now it stood with its hooves splayed and its head low, its mouth foaming blood beneath its muzzle, its flanks heaving. It was silent, but for its furious breathing. The noise wasn't coming from the blue roan.

I think Finn could hear what I could hear, but she was taking no notice. She was white and strained with half Seth's pain, but the mercury fire in her eyes wasn't strained. They slanted once towards the Wolf. I saw him tug his collar, rub his neck, and he glanced angrily back at her to meet a look of diabolical hatred. His tiny smile was contemptuous, but he looked away swiftly. She'd beaten him, I realised, however she died. She wasn't afraid of him, not any more.

Despite his quirking little smile, I'm pretty sure he was afraid of her.

Rory turned his head, as if listening to the hoofbeats, but then he stared straight ahead again, expressionless. He held the reins in one hand, ignoring the mounted fighters on either side of him, who were glancing nervously at the moor. I'd seen that frightening look on Rory before, but it seemed to have etched itself permanently onto his hardened features. There was nothing I could say to him, I knew it, even if Kate wasn't blocking us from one another.

Sionnach lurched forward, fast enough to surprise his guards and come briefly abreast of me.

~
Speak to him. TRY.

I did. Nothing I could say, but I tried. Gently, I reached out to his mind with mine.

~
Rory.

He looked over his shoulder, right at me.

I took a breath of surprise. Maybe Kate hadn't made the effort, after all. She had a piece of my hair, and she had Rory's. She should have been able to separate us and it seemed unlikely that she wouldn't. I frowned, perplexed, because it seemed that Kate couldn't keep our minds apart, any more than she could split Finn from Seth. I don't know why that made me shiver, but it wasn't with fear.

Rory smiled back at me, mirthlessly.

~
Hear the horses, Hannah?

Kate glared at him, but he took no notice.

~
We're all going to die,
he told me. A slight smile touched his mouth. ~
I'm sorry.

I just smiled back. What else? Nothing to do. Nothing to say. Nothing to forgive.

 

Rory

‘You'll have to be patient,' he said.

Kate eyed him as he jumped down from the bay gelding.

‘Really?' Her tone was rimmed with ice, but she seemed just a little wary. It was clear, he thought cheerfully, that nothing was going quite as she'd expected.

‘Really.' Rory gave her a thin smile. He walked onto the jutting headland, faced out to sea, and lifted his hand to touch something unseen. He stroked it, first with his fingertips, then even more gently with the back of his hand. Then he turned on his heel, and walked back to his place by Kate.

‘The Veil,' he said crisply. ‘It's very strong here.'

Kate's lips were a thin compressed line. She stared pointedly over her shoulder at the heaped brushwood and the stake twenty metres away, prominent on the edge of the bluff. Rory followed her gaze.

‘How ironic, Rory dear.' Kate remorseless smile seemed a little forced. ‘That it should be so tough in this very place.'

‘Isn't it?' Rory smiled too, but his was much more genuine.

‘You'll manage, though, won't you? When the kelpie bleeds out, that'll help.' Her eyes narrowed. ‘Kelpie blood is a powerful thing.'

How could someone so beautiful, Rory thought clearly and loudly, look so bloody ugly?

Kate turned to Cluaran, and he dismounted and came forward, shooting Rory a glance that was almost guilty. So he should, thought Rory. He'd spared the man's life, or made Iolaire spare it, and look where it had got him.