The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age) (6 page)

‘Edmund!’ Elspeth’s voice disturbed him. ‘Can’t you find out what they’re doing? We have to get on!’

Edmund bristled. ‘They’re not planning to attack us – not this moment, anyway,’ he said stiffly. ‘But they’re very close. I think they’re following us.’

They moved onwards, slowly and cautiously now. Fritha fell back to walk beside Edmund. ‘
Thu hefir andar-auga
?’ she asked him. ‘You have far-seeing?’ When he nodded, she opened her blue eyes very wide. ‘I never met one before,’ she told him, with a new respect in her voice.

Edmund watched Fritha pick up her pace to take the lead again. He hoped she would not come to mistrust him because of his gift, as so many people did at home. Her opinion mattered to him, though he could not say why.

The line of trees led them in a sweeping curve towards the north-east. As the last of the light was fading, turning the snow fields to a vast, vague greyness and the trees to a solid black mass, Fritha stopped.

‘We are nearly at the end of the woods,’ she told them. ‘We can go back into the trees to sleep – if it’s safe, Edmund?’

Edmund cautiously sent his sight back to the wolves. They were still behind them, watching – but there was no sense of ferocity; no hunger. So what was it he could sense behind those yellow eyes? Something like interest – if they had been human, he might have said, concern.

Could the wolves be
guarding
them?

I will not speak much of the voyage. Storms followed us as if the Evil One had sent them to stop us, and my wife near pined away from the loss of her green trees and heathland. Only Starling kept up his spirits, and ours with them. And so we arrived, on a day of lowering clouds, at a land where it seemed nothing grew but ice, and rocks, and black pines.

Cluaran peered impatiently into the mist. There was no time to waste and the little craft was so slow! The sea crossing had been brisk enough: the sleek lines for which he had chosen the boat let her cut through the water smoothly when there was wind for the sail. But as soon as land loomed on the horizon, the wind had dropped almost to nothing; all the helmsman’s skill could hardly move them. Cluaran had taken his turn at the oars with the other men at first as if his wiry strength could move the boat faster. But when the fog came down, the boat master had made him leave off. The sailors
were looking askance at him, and the man nearest him had shifted as if to avoid touching him. Even before this bad luck they had mistrusted the passenger who had dragged them so far from their accustomed trading routes, no matter if he did pay in gold. Now, surrounded by white emptiness, they had begun to mutter of sorcery and the evil eye.

So Cluaran sat moodily in the stern, willing the land to come closer. He even thought of speaking to the wind, though he knew well that he only had a shadow of the true skill for it. But the ones who had power here would guide the boat, if they wished to see him. Though if they did, Cluaran knew, it would not be for anything good.

A sudden flare showed in the whiteness over the prow as the helmsman struck sparks from his fire-stone. He set light to a wad of cloth wound around an arrow and fired it into the fog. The little arc of flame showed bravely for a moment, then faded to nothing. But as the men began to groan the helmsman fitted a second burning arrow and fired again. There was no sound, but this time the arrow hit something. The little flare stopped in mid-air, hovering at mast-height, as the master changed course and the sailors cheered and slapped each other on the back in relief. Cluaran’s relief was the equal of theirs, though he kept his face carefully neutral. Whatever the dangers ahead, he would be moving towards his goal again.

The fog began to clear, revealing tall black cliffs blotched with lichen – the spent arrow hung from a crevice – and the port beyond them. It was a tiny fishing village, little more
than half-a-dozen huts facing on to an ice-covered beach and backed by dense forest. The sailors, their sullenness forgotten, pulled on the oars and the boat was soon entering the harbour – if you could give that name to three feet of wall built against a rock, Cluaran thought. It was set with a few ropes tied to hooks, and led to a low spur of the cliff, as grey with ice as the beach.

Cluaran checked that all was safely stowed in his pack, the book carefully wrapped in his oilskin. He stood up, balancing easily on the swaying boards, and leapt out as the helmsman brought the boat alongside the wall. The stone was slick with ice, but he had judged the jump well.

‘No need to tie her, boat master!’ he called. ‘I’ll say farewell, and you can catch the tide.’

The master was as keen as any of his men to leave this desolate place, but he must have felt some lingering sense of responsibility to his free-handed passenger. ‘There’s no one to meet you, master?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘I’m well known in the village,’ Cluaran lied. ‘They’ll give me hospitality.’

The sailors cheered as the boat was turned around. Some of them, forgetting all about the evil eye, turned to wave at him as the gathering breeze caught the sail and sent them back to the safety of the trade route.

Cluaran made his way along the rocky causeway, his booted feet slipping with every step. He had lost maybe half a day in the calm; night fell quickly this far to the north, and he had far to
go before dark. At the cliff face a flight of steps, hacked out of the rock, led down to the beach, and in his haste he stumbled on the last one, staggering for a pace or two on the icy pebbles before he recovered himself. In that unbalanced instant, a man stepped from an angle of the cliff and laid a knife to his throat.

‘You should not have come,’ said a quick, light voice in his ear.

Cluaran relaxed slightly. ‘Ari. Well met to you too.’

The blade did not move. ‘You know they have not forgiven you.’

‘And I have never stopped loving her,’ Cluaran said softly. The man did not move, and after a moment Cluaran reached up to lower the blade with his hand. He turned to look at Ari’s face: pale as a candle, with eyes as green and cold as water seen through the ice. ‘You haven’t changed,’ he said.

Ari’s face was expressionless. ‘No. But you have.’

Cluaran started to walk up the beach. ‘Are you here to capture me, or help me? You know why I have come: the sword has returned, and its bearer is taken. For all I know, it’s already at
Eigg Loki
.’

‘No – not yet,’ Ari told him, with more animation than he had shown before. ‘There are still some of us who remember the old danger: we keep a watch on the mountain, and on any who go there. The dragon was seen in the sky three days ago: first flying towards the sea, then returning with captives in its claws. It let them fall in the snow fields – but we found no bodies, and two sets of prints leading into the trees. The
children are alive, and safe for now. But there are eyes on them. They may be walking into the very danger we fear.’

Cluaran had unconsciously quickened his stride. ‘We must find them, then!’ The other man was silent, and Cluaran turned to him impatiently. ‘You’ll come with me?’

‘Yes …’ Ari still hesitated. ‘But first
you
must come with
me
. They want to see you.’

‘At such a time!’ Cluaran exploded.

Ari’s face did not change, but he took Cluaran’s arm with a slender hand. ‘At any time,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s a debt that must be paid. And then I’ll help you.’

Cluaran bit back his protest. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said with bad grace. ‘But we leave now, and walk all night, understand? It’s a good three leagues further than I’d planned, and a vile crossing over ice and stone for most of it. I’d meant to keep to the trees, at least.’

Ari seemed surprised. ‘But there’s no need to go on foot!’

They had left the beach as he spoke, and were walking up a snow-covered track past the first of the huts. No one stirred inside, but behind the building, tied to a post, were two horses, stamping restlessly in the cold.

Even in his anxiety, Cluaran smiled. ‘I’m in your debt, Master Ari,’ he said. ‘If I must run to meet trouble, what better way than on four legs?’

In another place, deep under the rock, the dragon brooded.

It had never failed before: never been wounded; never
loosed its prey. Now one of its eyes was darkened, and its foreleg stiffened as it healed, lying at the wrong angle. Every time it moved, it gave a low rumble of pain and fury.

The mind behind its eyes had been angry, nearly angry enough to kill. The dragon felt again the volcano erupting in its head, screaming its rage, spewing molten fire over the whole world until nothing was left, nothing but charred stone and white ash … and then that fury had passed, and a cooler voice had whispered that the prey were not lost: they were still down there in the open, both of them, still moving. And if they could not be carried to the place, why, maybe they could be herded there.

Once, the dragon would not have done this. Once, it lived only for the sky and the chase: the swoop on the squeaking prey; the joy of skewering and rending; the rich taste of blood. But since the voices had entered its head, those days were past. Its mind was not capable of regret, but for an instant it formed a picture of plummeting down on the prey that had turned on it, biting into bits the shining spike that had hurt its leg and eye, and feasting …

It gave a long roar of remembered pleasure, the flame playing over the rock wall. Then, in obedience to the voices, it heaved itself up to the cave mouth, growling with pain, spread its great wings and leapt into the evening sky. Over the snow plain it soared in wide circles, one foreleg trailing, searching by scent, by the hunter’s instinct and its one good eye, for the tiny creatures that it must not kill … not yet.

The fishermen at the harbour feared strangers and would give us no hospitality, but we had sent word ahead to a name that the Fay visitors left me – Erlingr. We sheltered that night in a cave, and were met there by Erlingr’s men next morning.

They were pale as the ice, and kept back from our fire as if it would melt them. With them was a woman, barely more than a girl. She was pale in the face as they were, but her hair and eyes were black as coal. She looked on us with eagerness, as if we brought something she had long hoped to see. And my boy Starling looked at her in the same way.

They were close enough to the edge of the forest to catch slim fingers of the early morning sun. Each one touched Elspeth with new warmth, and she looked up at the pale blue sky between the trees with a rush of exhilaration. The excitement had been growing in her ever since they had set off at first light this morning: the others had grumbled about their
damp blankets and stiff limbs, but Elspeth had hardly noticed them. She was on the right path; she knew it. She felt the weight of the invisible sword in her hand; she could conjure it so vividly in her mind that as she swung it, her eyes caught glints of sunlight as if reflected from the blade. And at the edge of hearing she could hear its voice –
her
voice, as familiar now to Elspeth as her own – murmuring that she must go on; go quickly. The sense of urgency was always with her, though she was still not sure what she would find in the mountains. Could there really be spirits in the rocks, as Fritha feared?

Elspeth shivered: a few days ago she had thought dragons were fables. She knew better now. The monster that had carried her off had flown towards
Eigg Loki
: would she have to fight it there? And what of Loki, the demon-god of Cluaran’s story – and Grufweld’s? Was he waiting for her in the depths of the mountain? Or was it just some evil influence, that called up dragons and sent men mad?

The cool voice in her head gave no answer. She whispered only,
Whatever dangers you face, I face with you
.

The voices of Elspeth’s companions broke into her thoughts. Fritha was telling Edmund and Cathbar about her homeland: the darkness in the dead of winter when she and her father kept fires lit outside the hut night and day to scare off the wolves; the lakes in the shadow of the mountains where the fishermen camped until their catches were big enough to take back to the villages … and the mountains
themselves, where no one ventured for fear of the beings that lived there.

Elspeth could understand the older girl fairly well, having heard the Dansk tongue often from the blond, bearded sailors who had traded with her father on voyages to Hibernia. Cathbar seemed to speak the language like a native, but Edmund was clearly having difficulties. Every sentence or so, he would stop Fritha to ask for explanations, then carefully translate her words with an English phrase which she, as carefully, repeated back to him. Through all her preoccupation, Elspeth could not keep back a smile to see them so earnest together. Edmund seemed taken with the Northern girl, she thought: his eyes were bright as he listened to her, and his pale face had more colour than Elspeth had seen since they came to this icy land. It warmed her to see Edmund’s animation, but she could not share in the talk for now. Her mind was too full of the journey, and the thought of what might lie at the end of it.

They emerged from the last of the trees into a world of whiteness, lit with pink and gold by the low sun. Through the dazzle Elspeth could just make out the grey mass of the mountains to the north and east, their flanks white with freshly fallen snow. In every other direction the land stretched blue-white and level as far as the eye could see. She heard Edmund and Cathbar behind her, exclaiming in wonder. But Elspeth had eyes only for the mountains, and the golden light that lay on the snow like a path towards them:
the way I must go
.

She had started eagerly forward when Fritha pushed in front of her. ‘
Stothva-sik her!
’ the older girl cried. ‘Don’t go too fast here! There is danger – the ice is close here, and beneath it is water … and the creatures that live in the water.’

‘Fish, you mean?’ Cathbar said hopefully. ‘We’ll need more food soon.’

‘Worse things than fish,’ Fritha told him. Her face was anxious. ‘You must follow where I walk now – and tread carefully.’