The Blood Curse (47 page)

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE

I
NNIS FLEW UP
the leeward side of the ridge. The pinprick of firelight that marked their tiny camp jumped out at her through the dark trees. A snowy-white owl hooted and flew to meet her. Petrus. No one sat at the fire. The tent flaps were closed. The prince and Justen were asleep.

Innis glided down and landed beside the fire, where a blanket had been spread on the snow. Petrus landed, too. “Well?” he asked.

“I found some Fithians with a wagon, but I don’t know if they’re the same ones Serril saw.” She crouched close to the fire. “There are two assassins, and a boy... and two prisoners. A man and a woman.”

“Prisoners?” Petrus frowned. “Fithians don’t usually take prisoners.”

“I know. And I feel like I’ve seen them before. I feel like I should recognize them.”

Petrus crouched, too, and held his hands towards the fire. “What do they look like?”

“She’s young. Younger than me, I think. With fair hair. And he’s dark. Black hair, brown skin. Looks like he could be a soldier.” She had a sudden flash of memory. A man with black hair and brown skin, wearing a scarlet tunic and burnished gold breastplate, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “Oh...”

“What?”

Innis closed her eyes and let the memory replay itself. The palace gardens. The golden-haired princess. The armsman standing stern and watchful behind her.

“What?”

She opened her eyes. “It’s the prince’s sister. Brigitta. And her armsman.”

Petrus stared at her, open-mouthed, and then shook his head. “No.”

“Yes!” She stood, turned to the tent, and halted.

Petrus rose, too. He touched her arm lightly, warningly. “If we tell him...”

“They’re hostages, aren’t they?”

“Nothing else they can be. Innis... if he starts thinking about them and not the anchor stone...”

She met his eyes. “We can’t tell him. Can we?”

He shook his head.

Wind gusted through the trees. Innis became aware of how cold she was. She shivered, and rubbed her arms.

“How close are they?” Petrus asked.

“Close. They’ll reach the anchor stone tomorrow.”

Petrus grimaced.

Innis shivered again, rubbed her arms again. “Go to sleep,” she told Petrus. “I’ll wake Justen when I’m ready to swap.”

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIX

B
RITTA GRIPPED THE
oar.
Use it like a rudder
, Jaumé had said, as if it was easy, but it wasn’t easy. It was more than a mile before she dared to raise her gaze from the oar and the black, dangerous river and look at Karel. The armsman sat slumped in the prow. She thought his eyes were shut. Unconscious?

The oar tugged. Britta jerked her attention back to the river. The water was opaque, ink-black, reflecting the moon.

It could have been tranquil—gliding soundlessly on a dark, moonlit river between ghostly white riverbanks—but she was almost afraid to breathe. An inch-thick wooden hull was all that protected them from the Ivek Curse.

She risked another glance forward. Karel hadn’t moved. On the western riverbank was a hulking square shape: a farmhouse. They were almost level with the building when she realized it had a jetty, thrusting into the river.

Britta frantically manipulated the oar, trying to make the boat move to the left. Panic squeezed her throat. They were going to hit the end of the jetty—

The jetty drifted past, so close she could have reached out and touched it.

Britta let out a breath. Her heart was galloping in her chest. She stared up at the squat, square shape on the riverbank. It must be the last farmhouse they’d passed, the one that had smelled of burning. And in a mile or two, would be another farmhouse, with another jetty.

She stared intently ahead, watching for the next farmhouse, the next jetty, trying to keep as close to the middle of the river as she could. The four waterskins were still slung awkwardly across her chest and the tinderbox pressed uncomfortably into her hip bone, but she didn’t dare try to remove any of them. The oar and the river required absolute concentration. If the rowboat hit the bank, or a jetty, or a rock, if they tipped over...

Britta gripped the oar more tightly. She shivered. Her hands were cold, her face cold, her feet cold—

With sudden horror, she realized that her feet were wet as well as cold. She peered at the bottom of the boat. Was that water, reflecting moonlight back up at her?

Yes.

Her panic thundered back.

“Karel!” she cried. “The boat’s leaking!” But he didn’t hear her, didn’t react.

Britta looked wildly for somewhere to land, but the riverbanks sliding past were high and overhanging. “Karel!
Wake up!
”

He didn’t stir, didn’t answer.

Her eyes made out a dark shape on the riverbank. Squat and square. The next farmhouse.

How far ahead was it? Quarter of a mile? Half a mile?

Britta clutched the oar desperately, guiding the boat, feeling cold water slowly creep up her ankles. The farmhouse grew larger, taller. She saw the jetty, low and dark, jutting out into the river.

Britta aimed for the jetty. The rowboat was low in the water, sluggish. The jetty came closer, closer. At the last moment she saw she was going to drift past half a yard out.

Britta made a desperate lunge with the oar—digging deep into the dangerous water, hauling the boat to the right—and dropped the oar and grabbed one of the piles. The boat swung heavily round, wallowing like a pregnant cow in mud. A ladder hung down. Britta snatched for the lowest rung.

The rowboat came to a halt.

Britta groped in the boat for the rope. It was sodden. Sodden with cursed water. She threaded it carefully around the bottom rung, turned her head away so no drops could flick in her face, and pulled.

The rope wasn’t attached to the stern, as she’d thought, but the prow. She had a moment of panic, when the rowboat swung into the current, stern first, and she almost fell in, but she didn’t let go of the rope, and the boat stopped, and she realized she had to be in the prow if she was to tie it. Britta clambered cautiously through the calf-deep water in the rowboat, holding onto the rope. She stumbled over Karel’s stave, over Jaumé’s sword, and flung them both up onto the jetty. The blankets wound around her ankles like wet snakes, trying to trip her.

In the prow, she crouched alongside Karel, and hauled on the rope, and the bow of the rowboat came up snugly to the ladder. She tied a hasty knot. Karel still hadn’t moved.

“Karel!” She shook his shoulder, slapped his face. “Armsman,
wake up
.”

Karel jerked back to semi-consciousness.

“You have to climb the ladder,” Britta told him, making it an order. She took his good hand and placed it on the lowest rung. “Climb it! Now!”

She heaved and pushed and got him halfway up the ladder, and then scrambled up herself and grabbed the back of his shirt and
hauled
.

Karel staggered onto the jetty and fell to hands and knees. The sound he made was agonized.

“No! The snow’s cursed! Don’t touch it!” And she hauled on him again, and got him to his feet and slung his arm over her shoulder. “Come on. Twenty yards. You can do it, armsman!”

She almost fell over Karel’s stave, but managed to keep her balance. She left it where it lay; the armsman was barely conscious. He didn’t seem to know where he was or what was happening. He moved like a sleepwalker, shambling and lurching. At the end of the jetty, where the riverbank started, he stumbled and fell to his knees. A sound came from his throat, almost a scream, high-pitched and breathless.

“Karel!” Britta grabbed him and stopped him pitching forward into the snow.

His breath was gasping, sobbing. He was crying with pain, she realized, an agonized, choking sound, as if he couldn’t breathe.

“Karel.” She knelt and put her arms around him, held him close. “Ten more yards, Karel. Please. I need you to walk.
Please
.”

If he didn’t walk, she couldn’t carry him, couldn’t drag him. He’d die out here, in the snow.

“Please, Karel.” She was crying, tears sliding down her face. “Please, I need you to
walk
.”

She got to her feet, bent and put his left arm over her shoulders, and said, “Armsman,
walk
,” and hauled him upright. “Ten more yards! Karel, ten more yards!”

The ten yards took a slow, excruciating eternity, but finally they reached the door. The farmhouse loomed over them, tall and dark and safe.

Britta fumbled for the door handle, found a heavy iron ring, twisted it.

The door didn’t open, but if she was right, this was the farmhouse where Vught had found the pork and sausages. The main door would be unbarred.

She slipped Karel’s arm from her shoulder and tried to lean him against the wall.

“Stay standing. That’s an order! Do you hear me, armsman? Stay
standing.
” She wasn’t sure whether Karel understood or not.

Britta ran around to the front of the farmhouse with desperate haste, slipping and sliding.
Hurry. Hurry
. She searched for the handle, found another iron ring, twisted it, leaned hard on the door. For a terrible moment she thought the door was barred, and then it swung grudgingly open.

Britta shoved inside, pelted across the moonlit yard, found the far door, heaved back the crossbar, and swung the door open. “Karel!”

He was still standing, leaning against the wall, panting with pain, his head hanging.

Britta guided him inside. The yard and the farmhouse were a confusing jumble of shadows and moonlight... and then her eyes made sense of the shapes in the dark. Stables to the left, barn at the back, living quarters to the right. “This way.”

She got him through a door—their boots clumped on a wooden floor—and leaned him against the wall, unslung the waterskins, fumbled for the tinderbox, and struck the flint. Light flared for a moment, showing her a room with a table and stools and shelves and two doors. She struck the flint again—and saw a candlestick on the table.
Thank you, All-Mother
.

Britta lit the candle hastily and pushed open the nearest door. It led to a scullery and kitchen. She tried the other door, and found a bedroom.

“In here, Karel.” She slung his arm over her shoulder again. “Come on.”

They almost didn’t make it. Karel staggered and lurched and half-collapsed—her knees buckled—and she got both her arms around his waist and heaved him onto the bed. “No! Don’t go to sleep. Clothes off. I need to get you dry!”

He was almost as bad as he’d been three days ago, drifting in and out of consciousness. Britta stripped off his clothes and found a blanket in the chest at the foot of the bed and dried him with it. His legs were wet from the knee down, the backs of his thighs, his buttocks, one arm to the elbow. Karel’s nudity was no more awkward than if she was drying her young half-brothers after a bath. He was too weak, too helpless, for her to feel embarrassed. She examined his injuries. His arm seemed all right, but the wound on his thigh had torn open and was leaking blood. The skin looked swollen and felt hot to touch.

His thigh was hot, but the rest of him was cold, shivering. Britta wrapped him in another blanket and piled furs over him. Wolf skins, thick and warm. Then, she took the candle and barred the door to the road and the door to the jetty. Now they were safe. At least until morning.

Back in the bedroom, she stripped off her clothes, dried herself, bundled another blanket around her, and burrowed under the furs with Karel. He didn’t wake, didn’t even stir. His breathing was shallow and painful.

Britta found his hand and went to sleep holding it.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN

B
ENNICK RETCHED OFF
and on for another hour, before falling into a fitful sleep. Jaumé didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. Not with Vught lying on the other side of the yard. His imagination told him that if he closed his eyes for even one minute, Vught would clamber to his feet and come after him.

Jaumé cleaned the blood off his knife and sat gripping it, ready for Vught.