The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age) (16 page)

The wolves had separated and were milling about her now, tongues lolling; their snarls giving way to panting. They seemed to be ignoring Elspeth, for the moment. But she had seen what those yellow teeth could do to a dragon’s skin.
Moving slowly, trying to ignore her bruised limbs, she pulled herself up into a crouch, holding the sword at the ready.

A low, sweet whistle sounded behind her, and the wolves, as one beast, turned their heads to the sound. Eolande was walking towards her from the tunnel’s entrance. The woman held herself stiffly, as if she had been bruised by the fall, and her grey dress was ripped at the hem, but there was no mark on her skin, and her expression was as calm as ever.

‘They will not hurt you,’ she told Elspeth. The wolves bounded towards her, surrounding her in a sea of white fur, and she stroked their heads and murmured to them as if they were hounds. ‘Two of them died to save us,’ she said, and her voice held real sorrow. ‘But they will be avenged. Come.’ She gestured towards the tunnel’s entrance as Elspeth climbed to her feet. ‘It’s not safe here.’

She turned and led the way back down the tunnel, the wolves padding at her heels like lapdogs. Elspeth followed at a little distance, her mind racing. Edmund had spoken of strange wolves in the forest, on the journey from Fritha’s home to the ice fields: creatures that followed them without threatening; just watching them. Were these the same wolves – and had they been following her all this time?

There was sunlight ahead. They were back at the opening of the rift, where the wolves had first attacked Torment. The uneven rock floor gave way to a jumble of huge boulders, stretching out to one side as far as they could see, and as far down as the snow fields below them. To the other side the ice
rose in fantastically shaped ridges, tall as trees. The rocks immediately below them were scorched, and stained with blood. One dead wolf lay there, its fur white against the grey rock. Eolande stooped to lay her hand on its head and murmur something, her eyes sorrowful. Then she whistled again, clear and piercing, and threw one arm outwards. The surviving wolves streamed off in the direction of her pointed hand, leaping easily between the jagged boulders. Eolande watched them go for a moment, then turned to Elspeth, gesturing her to follow.

‘Wait,’ Elspeth said. Were they to go on without a word of explanation? ‘Why did those wolves save us? Did you call them? And where are you taking me?’

‘I am taking you to Loki’s cave,’ Eolande replied. Her voice was sharp, and she stood poised at the edge of a boulder as if impatient of the slightest delay. ‘So was the dragon – but if you had met Loki in his claws, you would not have survived.’ She reached out a hand to draw Elspeth towards her. ‘Come with me, before he returns!’

Go
, the sword said in Elspeth’s head. Her whole arm jarred at Eolande’s touch – as it had done when the woman grasped her arm on the mountain, before the dragon took them – but she nodded, and let the woman lead her towards the ice ridges, back to the edge of the glacier. She could feel the sword’s voice murmuring uneasily – something was not right here. But the urgency was as great as ever, the voice told her, and the danger too.
Into the mountain – go!

It was not so much a walk, Elspeth thought, as a battle with rocks and ice. They clambered over rough boulders and squeezed between the ones too tall to climb, their feet sliding on ice underfoot. Elspeth’s hands were soon covered with cuts and grazes. She fell once, throwing out her left hand to save herself, and gashed her arm on a knife-edged snag in the rock. Eolande pressed on, hardly looking back, but Elspeth went more cautiously after that: whatever happened, she must not damage her right arm.

After a while they found themselves walking between walls of ice, towering over their heads. The ground grew smoother underfoot as the path rose, and Elspeth found herself sliding uncontrollably with every step.

‘We are close,’ Eolande told her, turning as Elspeth stumbled and clutched at the ice wall. The expression on the dark woman’s face startled Elspeth: for a single instant she saw a blaze of urgency there that rivalled her own. Then Eolande turned abruptly and strode forward again, so rapidly that Elspeth almost had to run to catch up. How did she keep her balance? Elspeth tried to follow in her footsteps, and found that the going was easier: Eolande seemed to see all the places where the ice was rougher, or where near-invisible stones broke the surface. Either the woman had very good eyesight, or she had been here often.

But why should Eolande be so eager to take her to Loki? Elspeth wondered what else her guide had not told her. Were there dangers that she was concealing?

No matter
, came the sword’s voice.
Go on!

And Elspeth pushed herself to go faster, keeping pace with Eolande. Her legs were trembling with effort and tiredness when the woman finally led her around a curve in the ice wall to meet a wall of rock. Overhead, ice met rock to cut off the blue sky. Eolande stopped, looking Elspeth full in the face.

‘We can rest here for a while,’ she said. ‘I will answer your questions before I take you further. For the truth is, Elspeth, it is I who owe you gratitude, for coming here and for bringing Ioneth.’

She smiled – and Elspeth was suddenly filled with uneasiness.
Don’t stop!
cried the sword’s voice.
Don’t let her explain! She must take us to Loki at once!
They were close to him now: Elspeth could feel it, like a dark undertow drawing her in.

No
, Elspeth told the voice in her head.
I must know what this woman wants before I follow her
. The sword’s pull was an almost physical force, but she set her back against the stone wall and listened to Eolande.

‘First, I should tell you what I concealed from you before,’ the woman said. ‘I am one of the Fay. It is my own magic that protects me here – and will protect you too, if you go into Loki’s cave.’

Elspeth’s skin prickled. She had shivered when Eolande had first mentioned the Fay in her chamber under the ice: the uncanny people, who never allowed themselves to be seen by mortal men and women, though there were stories of them stealing away children. She had thought they were mere fables
once – but then, she had thought the same about dragons and spirits.

‘I thought the Fay lived in another world,’ she said. ‘The stories say they can’t survive away from their own lands. How could you stay here?’

‘It is hard,’ Eolande said, and for the first time her face looked tired. ‘The rest of my people returned to their woods and moors when Loki was bound again. I stayed because I had to. I visit the woods when I can; and the creatures of the wood, the white wolves, help me. I help them find food and protection, and in return they act as my eyes and ears. It was I who called them to save us from the dragon: if we had reached Loki still pinioned in those claws, you could not have fought him.’

‘You sent the wolves to watch us, didn’t you?’ Elspeth said slowly. ‘When we were still in the forest.’

Eolande nodded.

‘Why?’ Elspeth persisted. ‘Why did you want to protect us?’

‘Because I had long been looking for you – or hoping for you, at least.’ Eolande’s voice was suddenly unsteady. ‘When … when Brokk disappeared, the sword vanished with him: we found nothing but the silver gauntlet. But he had told me what to do if this should happen. We were to lock the gauntlet in a wooden chest that he had made and keep it safe. There was a charm hewn into the wood that if Loki should ever regain his power, the sword would return. When Loki began
to reach out and find himself servants, we sent the chest to my homeland for safe keeping. But still his power grew. And last year, he opened that cleft in the rock, so the dragon could fly in to him.’

She took Elspeth by the shoulders, staring intently into her face. ‘Then the wolves told me that the dragon had brought a girl bearing a sword of light – that she had escaped, and was wandering in the forest. Can you doubt that I gave them orders to watch over you and keep you from harm; to bring you here if they could? But you came here on your own.’ Her eyes were bright now. ‘Ioneth had told you already what you had to do.’

They’re so sure of me!
Elspeth thought, not knowing if she was glad or angry or just afraid to see Eolande’s confidence in her.
She’s so certain that the sword … Ioneth … has made me do everything!

But hasn’t she? How much of this journey was my own choice?

To change the subject, she said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us this when you found us beneath the ice?’

Eolande looked abashed. ‘Because the man with you, Cathbar, looked at me with such suspicion. I know the men of your country, Elspeth: they seldom trust strangers, and they are afraid of magic. I thought that if he knew I was of another race – that I was Fay – he would persuade you to have nothing to do with me. And I could not allow that to happen!’

‘No … I see that,’ Elspeth murmured. In her mind’s eye,
she was seeing the blaze of the sword as it told her to block the path into the mountain, leaving Cathbar to the men who wanted to murder them all:
We cannot allow them to follow!
She felt a rush of relief that her friends were no longer with her: at least they could not be sacrificed to Ioneth’s mission. She wondered briefly if the sword would sacrifice her, if it came to it. And she felt again the dark current, pulling her towards the heart of the mountain.

‘I’ll help you,’ she said. Her mouth was dry, and the words came out more softly than she had intended. But Eolande heard her.

‘The entrance is here,’ she said, walking only a few steps further and gesturing to the rock wall. The outcrop of stone against which Elspeth had been leaning masked a narrow opening, so well hidden that she had to peer behind the stone slab to see the gap between it and the mountain wall.

‘The cleft in the mountain, where the dragon flew, leads straight to Loki’s prison,’ Eolande told her. ‘This tunnel is a longer way, but will take us there more safely – at least the dragon cannot follow us here. And you go in of your own free will; not as a captive.’

She stood by the narrow entrance. It was pitch-dark inside, and for a moment Elspeth had the feeling that the darkness was seeping out around her.

‘We cannot take Loki by surprise,’ Eolande said. ‘He will know we are coming, and he’ll throw up defences against us. Don’t be afraid, Elspeth: it will all be illusion, however real it
feels. He has no power against the sword, not unless you let him touch you. So keep back until you can strike cleanly. Are you ready?’

No
, Elspeth thought. ‘I think so,’ she said.

She called the sword to her hand, feeling a thrill of fear as it blazed out.
Ioneth
, she said,
this is what you wanted. Don’t fail me
.

I will not fail again!
cried the voice in her head, fierce as fire.

Elspeth reached her sword arm through the crack in the rock, and forced her body after it, into the darkness.

It took the skill of all the peoples together – the Stone and Ice people, the Fay – to return the dragons to the ice. One by one, they hovered over the peak, their breath foaming around them; then their wings folded back and they plummeted into the mountain. As each one crashed, a glittering cloud of shards shot up, hiding them from view – and when it cleared, there was only the glacier.

– But Loki is still unbound, the Fay said.

And, as if in reply, the mountain groaned, and a livid light shone from every crack and cave, as if its whole stony heart were aflame.

The sun had risen to nearly overhead, and for the first time since setting out on the journey Edmund found he was sweating inside his heavy fur cloak. Fritha had led them to a track that climbed upwards in a wide curve, with a stony ridge running alongside it to their left; Fritha often ran a hand along it
as they walked, as if for reassurance. The snow fields were far below them now: when Edmund looked down he saw only a jagged confusion of ice and grey rock, rising to the next peak in the range. Behind that peak, rising sharp and clear in the hard light, the sky was a deeper blue than he had ever seen – but ahead of them there was no sky, just the grey-white surface of the ice and the ridge that loomed over them.

The surface was becoming smoother as they climbed, and Edmund’s feet, which had grown accustomed to the rough ice further down the mountain, were starting to slip again. A couple of times Cathbar had had to give him a steadying hand – he looked over at the captain, trudging stolidly beside him, with a mixture of gratitude and shame. Neither Cathbar nor Fritha seemed to tire at all. Edmund’s legs were beginning to shake with weariness, but he told himself sternly to ignore it: there was no time for tiredness. Elspeth was still in danger – maybe already in Torment’s cave – and they were still on the mountainside far above her. They had to be able to fly down!

And what if you can’t raise this dragon?
a hard little voice asked inside his head. He pushed that aside, too.
I’ll find it and raise it
, he told himself fiercely.
It will work. It must
.

‘We’re here,’ Fritha announced.

She and Cathbar had drawn a little ahead of him. The ridge which had guided them this far had flattened out, and the two of them stood on an outcrop large enough to form a plateau on the mountainside. As Edmund hurried to join them he
noticed that a dozen paces off to each side, the ice fell away sharply, the drop marked by two knife-edged creases of blue shadow. The plateau was like a lonely island in a sea of air.

Fritha and Cathbar were looking expectantly at him.
My turn now
, he thought, trying to ignore the sudden knotting in his stomach. ‘Where is the dragon’s cave?’ he asked Fritha – and instantly saw dismay in her face.

‘No one knows!’ she faltered. ‘I told you, no one has seen them; not in the memory of the oldest teller. All the tales and songs say they returned to the ice here, but no one has ever found a cave. Can you not call from here, to see if one will answer?’