The Nethergrim (12 page)

“What’s happening?” Emma shivered on the ground.

“It’s coming back,” said Miles. “It’s coming closer.”

“Steady, both of you,” said Edmund. “It can’t get us in here.”

The thornbeast took a step forward. Thorns twisted and writhed up and down the length of its foreleg. The shadows fell away, and the contours of its face grew into horrid suggestions.

“Don’t look. It’s just trying to make us afraid.” Edmund glanced up at Katherine. “What’s it doing?”

She looked as frightened as he felt. “I don’t know.”

A twig snapped in the grass some distance away—and then another, a distinct crunch of leaves.

Emma choked. “That came from behind us!”

“It’s the monsters!” Miles wailed. “They’re back! We’re dead, we’re all dead!”

Edmund turned. Footsteps sounded, a dozen strong, picking their way through the brush on either side of the castle.

“That’s too many. Katherine, there’s too many!” Edmund shot a wild look around him. There was nowhere to run. The village bell clanged out again from far below. Help might come, but it would come too late.

Katherine scrabbled down through the rubble, coming dangerously close to the reaching tips of the thorns. “We’ve got to hold them in the breach. It’s our only chance. Miles—if they charge, come out into the entrance and brace the spear with both hands. Pick the first bolgug and let it run onto the point. Can you do that?”

“Y-yes.”

“I’ll be right beside you. You only need to hit it once. I’ll do the rest. Edmund—help out however you can. If they break and run, don’t follow.”

Edmund raised his knife. The blade shuddered back and forth from the shaking of his hands. The footsteps grew louder, passing along the side walls and making their way around toward the entrance.

The thornbeast drew closer, coming full in view. It fixed its empty eyes on Edmund. He found it hard to breathe. He felt Emma lean on him—he thought she was trying to hug him, but then she slid past and fell over.

“Please.” Emma curled tight on the ground. “Please, I want it to be quick.”

Miles sat down beside her. “My mama said I was too small when I was born.” He sounded calmer than he had all night. “They weren’t even sure if I would live. I always knew it, inside—I wasn’t supposed to get to grow up.”

“Miles, stand up. We have to fight.” Katherine somehow advanced, step after step toward the gates. Edmund took up the spear and followed. If there was one thing he was going to do before he died, it was stand beside her.

The rustling stopped. The thornbeast seemed to hesitate. It looked to one side.

A light burst the dark, a torch tumbling end over end across the entrance. It nearly went out on the descent, but it landed true. The thornbeast turned to regard something Edmund could not see. Its back began to smolder, giving off curls of smoke.

“Torches forward!” A familiar voice sounded from outside. “Stay together—all together, everyone. If you waver, it will kill us all. Forward!”

The surge of hope nearly knocked Edmund flat.

“Papa.” Katherine let her sword fall to her side. “Papa, we’re in the keep!”

More cries came: “Miles?” “Matilda—Tilly!” “Miles!” “Emma—Emma, where are you?”

“Father!” Miles leapt to his feet. “I’m here, Father!”

John Marshal stepped into view through the entrance. He raised a torch and advanced on the thornbeast. “Look over here. That’s right, over here. I am dangerous. I will burn you.”

The thornbeast heaved up its shoulders and pressed the flames deep within its body. It released, leaving a few scorched branches and a spent torch that tumbled to the ground. It reared up.

“Papa!” Katherine rushed to the breach. Edmund found himself coming with her, though he had no idea what injury a spear might do to a ten-foot heap of thorns.

“Follow John!” He heard his own father’s voice raised to a bark from the other side of the keep. “Curse you all, forward!”

Two files of torches appeared at either side of the ruined entrance. The thornbeast looked even worse in better light. It advanced on John Marshal, but found a dozen torches in its path. It turned the other way—Harman’s party wavered, but held. It drew back, sinking down the slope into shadow.

“Ha!” A lone figure broke from the crowd and stepped to the edge of the slope. “That’ll teach you!”

“Hurry, everyone! There is still danger!” John Marshal pointed inside with his sword. “Gilbert Wainwright, Harman Bale, go in and get the children—pick them up if they cannot walk. Move, I say! Nicky Bird, you twit—get away from those trees! It is not beaten!”

Harman and Gilbert rushed into the courtyard. The rest of the men milled about in the entrance. Some carried spears of widely varying lengths and states of repair, others held longbows with arrows at the string and a few had nothing but their torches held aloft against the night.

John stepped into the gap. “Grip your spears, turn and face the trees! Keep those torches up—they are the only things keeping us alive!” The men jumped and spun about, pointing their weapons out into the gloom.

Harman shot a look around at the dead fire, the scattered weapons and the bodies of the bolgugs. He gripped Edmund by the shoulders. “Where’s your brother?”

Edmund felt his legs begin to buckle. “They took him, Father.”

“It’s all right, son. I’ve got you.” Harman grabbed him around the middle and heaved him up. He stumbled back over the rubble, nearly tripping on the rough, uneven stones. Martin Upfield reached out to help them down. The ground in front of the keep had been raked bare to dirt.

“John, I see it.” Jordan Dyer kept an arrow at full draw. “A dozen yards down, off north. It’s moving away.”

“Just what’s going on here?” Edmund’s father got his footing on the ground. “Where did those blue things come from?”

“Make a circle,” said John. “Keep those torches high—spread them out, make sure there are some in every quarter. Fire is the only thing it fears. There is no time to question. Do it now.”

The farmers and tradesmen of the village did their best to obey. They pushed Katherine and Edmund in with the children and surrounded them in rough ranks. Edmund found Tom there, shivering pale beneath the moon.

“Tom!” Katherine hugged him, then held him out to look him up and down. “Oh, I was afraid you’d died—here, help me with Edmund.”

Tom put an arm under Edmund to bear him up. Edmund turned to accuse him, to hiss “Where were you?” in his ear, but the words died when he got a good look at the cuts running up under the sleeves of his ratty shirt and the scratch that ran from his eye to his jaw.

John Marshal stepped out before the men. “Point your weapons outward and watch your quarter. Keep your eyes to your direction, and if you see something, the first thing you do is shout a warning. Do you all understand?”

“Aye, John,” said Henry Twintree. “We hear you.”

“We will take stock of things when we’re down safe in the village.” John turned on his heel. “Now, march!”

They descended the hill with spears and torches held out on all sides. John Marshal sped them to a jog once they reached the West Road, almost too fast for Edmund, even with his friends to help. Dark cottages passed by, fallow fields and livestock pacing back and forth at the rails of their pens. The stone roof of the hall rose to view, its watchlight ablaze, then the mill, the inn and the houses of the village.

A cry went up as they reached the square. Men clustered in council beneath the broken statue of the knight. Mothers held their children close, braced on the steps of their houses as though a slammed front door could ward off all evils. John’s party broke ranks and dispersed into the crowd—their neighbors demanded and exclaimed, milled and embraced in the glow of the watchlight, their long shadows shifting and moving across one another. The bell atop the manor rang out loud and long. Voices rose to a clamor as every man who had been up to the hill started the same breathless story as his fellows.

Tom let Edmund down against the base of the statue. Katherine set her sword to the earth, then curled over her knees.

Edmund leaned back and looked up at Tom. “We should find a place to talk.”

A wizened hand grabbed Tom from behind and spun him around. Tom went rigid, then dropped his head. “Master.”

“Did I give you leave to go back up that hillside?” Athelstan clenched a fist in Tom’s face. “Did I, boy?”

“Hey!” Katherine sprang up to come between them, but Athelstan’s icy croak cut across her words: “You hold your tongue. I will stand no more of you. It was I who took this boy in as an orphan, I who bought and paid for him, and he is my chattel—mine! He is my property, do you hear? The sons and daughters of free men should have no business with him. You may go jump on a spear for all I care, but when this one dies, it will be at the stilts of my plow!”

Katherine balled her fists, but Tom met her gaze and shook his head. The crowd parted to allow Athelstan to shove him away toward the road—only to find John Marshal standing in their path.

Athelstan wagged his stick at John. “Move aside!”

John’s face was cut stone. He raised his sword. Athelstan flinched and backed away.

John turned his blade and dropped it into its sheath. He stepped close and spoke private words in Athelstan’s ear. The old man grunted and shook his head. John held out a hand. Silver glinted as it clinked into Athelstan’s palm.

Athelstan stared down at the coins. He closed a fist around them and pointed a finger at Tom. “One night.” He stalked away.

John took Tom by the arm and led him back to Katherine. He pressed another coin into her hand. “Take out a room at the inn. Get some food and rest. I will find you there.”

He pulled Katherine close and kissed her forehead, then gripped Edmund’s shoulder. “I am very proud of all of you.”

Katherine led them away through the throng, arm in arm toward the inn. Edmund could not remember ever feeling joy at the sight of the sheltered wooden steps, but his heart skipped up high as they drew near.

Then it sank into his feet. Geoffrey.

His father stood in the doorway, speaking slow and quiet. His mother held her apron to her face.

“It’s done with now. No one’s going back out there tonight.” Harman reached out for his wife, then saw Edmund coming with his friends. He turned away and stepped inside. Sarra quivered on the step. She let her apron drop and blinked up at the stars.

“I tried,” said Katherine. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t fast enough.”

Edmund came up on the step. “Mum.” He did not know what to do or say next.

“My son.” His mother seized him close, but her tears were for grief. “Oh, my son. My son.”

Chapter
12

E
dmund slumped at the table in the corner of the tavern, head down on his crossed arms. He felt as though he must be spinning, turning round and round on the tabletop, but knew that he could not be, that he was lying still. Tom sat beside him, and Katherine across, their long legs touching at the knees. Two bowls of mutton stew lay between them, Katherine’s nearly full and Tom’s nearly empty. The hearth fire blazed with the brief light of kindling, already dying down by shades.

“Our daughter is in those woods!” Jarvis Miller stood at furious odds with Henry Twintree by the door. He pointed at Edmund’s father. “So is his son—you cannot tell me that we are to do nothing!”

Henry Twintree threw his arms wide. “And what would you have us do, Jarvis—charge about through the forest in the thick of night with that
thing
out there, and who knows how many bolgugs besides?”

“Oh, it’s all fine for you, isn’t it? Your son is home safe and sound!” Alice Miller’s voice broke up worse with every word. “You’d sing a different tune if it was your child out there, your own child gone and you don’t even know—”

Edmund plugged his ears. He stared up hard at the ceiling, then over at the fire. Writhen thorns moved through every shadow in the room. He turned to the wall, but he could not stay that way—too dark, too alone.

“I saw your light,” said Tom. “It lit up the whole sky.”

“It just about killed me, too.” Edmund tried to pick at his bowl of stew, but it tasted dull and flat.

“Is that why you’re tired?” said Katherine. “Do spells hurt the wizard?”

Edmund propped himself on his arms. “There’s not really any such thing as a spell the way most folk think about it, one that you can just say over and over. If there was, then wizards would already rule everything, wouldn’t they? If you could make a spell that kills someone from far away, what’s to stop you from doing it again and again, killing anyone who opposes you until you’re the king of all the earth?”

“Oh,” said Katherine. “I’d never thought of it like that.”

“Every spell is something special, fit for the moment when it’s done.” Edmund pushed his bowl across to Tom. “It’s not just the words you say, but the way they make you feel, the meaning and the rhythm, the connection you make with them. It’s not just the things you think, but how the place and time you’re in can change them.”

Tom picked up the bowl and started slurping. “That sounds hard.”

“It is hard. It’s like making up a song on the spot—I could teach you how one note sounds against another, but if you don’t have the music inside you, then you won’t know what sort of song might be best right when you sing it. It depends on where you are, what you’re feeling, and even who’s listening.” Edmund paused to yawn into his hands. “A good spell keeps a balance. There’s a famous old wizard who wrote that nothing can truly be created or destroyed, just changed and moved around. That means a spell works best if the wizard finds a way to pay for the change he wants to make with another change. You might cast a spell that keeps a town safe from harm, but the cost is that no one can feel happy there.”

“There doesn’t seem much use in that,” said Katherine. “Why be safe and unhappy?”

“That’s just the way it works,” said Edmund. “If you can’t think of a way to balance out the good and the bad, though, then the cost will fall on you. That’s what I did tonight—it’s called drawing through the center. You can try to force the spell, but to do it you have to give of yourself. Sometimes it just hurts, or makes you tired, but it can even turn back on you like a curse.”

“Well, however you did it, it was brilliant,” said Katherine. “Those bolgugs were blind as bats.”

The glow that spread over Edmund only made him feel worse when he remembered—Geoffrey, kicking and struggling, disappearing into the dark.

“We can’t just sit and do nothing.” He turned on the bench he shared with Tom. Almost everyone he knew stood, sat, or leaned in every available space in the tavern, all of them afraid, none of them looking like they knew what to do. Mothers held their children on their laps and on the tops of the tables before them. The old folk hunched by the fire, their craggy faces cast up red in shadow.

Tom spooned up Edmund’s stew in great hungry gulps. Katherine reached across the table and took hold of his bony wrist. She pushed back his sleeve to examine the cuts that ran up past his elbow.

“What happened to you, anyway?” said Edmund. “It took you ages to get back to us.”

Tom raised the bowl to his lips and drained it to the dregs. “I’m not much good with stories.”

“Please, Tom, tell us.” Katherine let go of his arm. “What happened?”

Tom set the bowl on the table. “I was coming down the hill as fast as I could.” He looked at his scabbed and bloodied hands. “It was dark—I tripped and fell down the slope, but fell tumbling. I guess that got me to the bottom faster than I could have run.”

Edmund sucked a breath through his teeth. “That explains the bruises.”

“Some of them. I ended up in the brush by Swanborne stream, so I pushed through, trying to make for the path to the village. I remember feeling the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and then a badger came out of cover and rushed by the other way. There were no birds—it was so quiet.” Tom shook his head. “I should have stopped. There was a smell, like brambles in winter, and then it was right in front of me.”

Edmund blinked. “It?”

“You saw it. It was all thorns apart from the eyes.”

“What happened?” said Katherine. “Did it hurt you?”

Tom raised his arm to reveal a set of jagged rips down the side of his tunic. “Almost.”

Fearful memories swam in his eyes. “It doesn’t breathe. All I could hear were thorns scraping on the branches behind me. I ran and dodged, I tried every trick I could think of, but I couldn’t shake it off.”

“You couldn’t have been that far from the village,” said Edmund. “Why didn’t you call for help?”

“I couldn’t afford to waste the breath. It pushed me back the way I came, up the switchbacks to the top of the hill. Every time I tried to break away and turn for home, it cut me off. After a while I figured out that it wasn’t even going full speed—it was just herding me up the hill, letting me run ahead so long as I ran where it wanted me to go. I was getting tired, but it wasn’t—I knew I couldn’t go on much longer, so I stopped trying to turn against it and went straight down the hillside. I put everything I had left into it. I felt like my heart was going to come right out of my chest. I ran to the edge of Swanborne gorge, and I jumped.”

Edmund gaped. “You jumped the Swanborne?”

“It hurt. I thought I’d broken my leg when I landed, but it was just twisted. I saw the thorn-thing come to the edge, then turn back into the trees, going uphill. I guessed that it must be going after you, so as soon as I got my breath, I ran straight down the banks and onto the village green.” Tom nodded to Katherine. “Your cousin Martin heard me shouting from the road. He started calling people together. Some folk wanted to wait for Lord Aelfric, but your father lit a torch and—well, you know the rest.”

Katherine placed her bowl of stew in front of Tom. “You were very brave.”

“Why? All I did was run for my life.”

“Quiet. Eat the stew.”

Tom did not need to be told twice. Edmund looked out across the crowd of his neighbors clumped in fearful, whispering knots throughout the tavern. “You know, you’d think someone would have thanked us by now.”

“They’re too scared to think of it,” said Katherine.

Jarvis shouted at Henry, calling him a coward. They sprang at each other—tables fell over, folk swarmed out of the way, and if the front door of the tavern had not opened between them, they might have come to blows.

“I am not your lord.” John Marshal stepped in amid a blast of cold night air, one thumb hooked in his belt, fingers cradled around the hilt of his sword. “I am not your leader. I am just a man of this village, but I have knowledge that might aid us. If you will have me, I will organize a watch and see that we are as well defended as can be tonight.”

“Anyone against that?” Edmund’s father looked around the room. “Thought not. We’re all yours, John.”

“Then by your leave, and in your name, I summon the levy of Moorvale,” said John. “Those of you who serve in it, take up your weapons and assemble in the square. Bring torches if you have them. Let us move quickly and secure the bounds.”

“Wait—all of you, wait!” Jarvis Miller jumped up on the step. “What about my daughter? We cannot leave her out there!”

John shook his head. “I am sorry, Jarvis—Alice, Harman. We have little hope of finding your children tonight, and should we stray into the forest, we risk more loss than we have already seen.”

“You cannot tell me you’re going to just leave my little girl out there! You cannot—”

“I have seen a thornbeast rip a dozen armed men to shreds!” John stared Jarvis down, then softened again. “I will lead a party to search the woods as soon as I judge it safe enough. Now come, all the levy. Everyone else remain here—you will be much easier to guard if you stay together.”

Katherine jumped up to cross the room ahead of the levy men. Edmund tried to follow—Tom grabbed him and helped him over to the door.

“I can come too, Papa.” Katherine buckled her uncle’s sword at her waist. “I feel much better now.”

“No, child, you’ve done enough. You too, Edmund. Rest here, and we will try to make some sense of all this in the morning.”

“But, Papa—”

“I said no.” John Marshal left with the men.

Edmund’s father remained by the door after the last of the levy passed outside. He cast a long look around at the huddled groups of mothers, children, travelers and old folk left behind. He rounded on Edmund. “Where’s your mother?”

“Upstairs.”

“Well, you watch that nothing gets taken. Perfect chance for it.”

“Yes, Father.”

Harman narrowed his eyes at Tom. He jabbed a finger at the bowl of stew in his hands. “Did you pay for that?”

“John Marshal did, Father.” Edmund said it like a sigh. Tom sidled back into the shadows.

“So.” Edmund’s father looked him up and down. “What was your brother doing on top of a hill in the middle of the night? Any guesses?”

Edmund looked at his feet. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“The two of you share a room.” Harman dropped his voice, though not so low as to stop half the tavern from hearing. “If he’s been sneaking out at night, why didn’t you tell us about it?”

Edmund bit his lip hard.

“I’ll tell you why—because you didn’t know, because you’ve been doing the same thing.” His father loomed in close. “Slipping out to read your books again, were you? I guess we must have missed a few.”

Edmund faced up to him. “I didn’t know you cared what happened to Geoffrey. I thought you wanted to just shove him out onto the road if he caused you any more trouble.”

A spasm passed across Harman’s face, remorse chasing anger so quickly, they could hardly be told apart. He shook a finger at Edmund. “You listen to me. Your brother looks up to you. He wants to be like you—even I can see that. He went to play in the woods because you do, and now look what’s happened.”

He turned his back and stalked out.

Edmund shut his fists. He could feel the eyes of his neighbors on him from every side. His father slammed the door.

“He didn’t mean that.” Tom took his arm and led him back to their table. “He’s just afraid, that’s all.”

Edmund let bitter silence answer for him. He set his jaw against his fist and nursed a mug of goat’s milk someone had left on the table. A dim tumble of voices filtered in through the door, then shouted orders, then the dwindling tramp of boots marching off down road and lane. Katherine made rounds of the room, checking on everyone, making sure no one was hurt, that no one needed help. Tom stood and steered her by the shoulder to an empty chair. She sat in it, then buried her face in her hands.

Robert Windlee shook his wispy white head. “When the old die, I can bear it, we’ve lived out our spans, but when it’s a child, just a child—” He clenched fingers gnarled to oak roots by a long life of labor. “It’s a curse to see such times in old age, when you’re past helping it.”

Mercy Wainwright’s baby started fussing, then wailing, and then other children joined in a piercing chorus from every corner of the tavern. Alice Miller rocked over herself, hunched and shuddering, not even seeming to notice the comfort others tried to give her. Emma Russet lay curled atop a table, wrapped in the blankets from Edmund’s own bed, her bandaged foot sticking out at an awkward angle.

Edmund turned his mug round and round, working at the hole in his thoughts. Why did he want to look at the far corner table? There was no one there.

“You’re thinking something.” Tom sat in beside him. “I can always tell.”

“I’m trying to make myself think.” Edmund pressed at his temples. “Not much is happening, though.”

“Do you want me to go away?”

“No—here, I’m not thirsty.” Edmund held out the mug. Tom took it, and drank down the milk in one gulp.

Edmund drummed his fingers on the rough wood. “The feeling comes, over and over, that there’s something I need to remember.” He sighed. “But everything’s spinning. Nothing makes sense.”