The Shadow of Malabron (27 page)

“It is a creature of darkness,” the man said, and there were murmurs of agreement from the others.

Ragnar shot a stern look at his companions, then turned to Pendrake.

“You must understand, such beasts haunt our oldest nightmares. We may have left our homeland ages ago, but we brought our tales with us.”

Will had been listening to this exchange with anger growing in him, and now he could not contain himself.

“Shade is my friend,” he said hotly, stepping forward. “He saved our lives in the bog. He fought for the Stewards against the Night King.”

“Will—” Pendrake began warningly.

“If you don’t trust Master Pendrake’s word,” Will went on, not heeding the toymaker, “then why are you letting any of us into the city?”

Harke’s good eye went wide. He studied Will for a moment, then something like a grin creased his weathered face.

“A good question,” he said at last. “There is no one’s word I trust more than Nicholas Pendrake’s. And you will all enter Skald with me.”

He turned to his companions with a look that silenced the murmuring.

“By the black dog you will.”

T
HE BLACKSMITH LED THEM
across the translucent, many-coloured bridge to the gates of the city. Will noticed that he walked with a limp, and sometimes grunted from pain or effort. The gates were shut, but after Harke showed his face by the lantern’s light to some unseen watcher and called out a strange singsong password, a rope ladder dropped down the stonework in front of them.

“The doors are barricaded every night,” he said. “Not that it does much good. There are things dwelling in Skald now that can slither through wood and stone like it was broken netting.”

“I’ve never climbed one of these before,” Shade said, eyeing the ladder askance. Harke started at the unexpected voice.

“I forgot about your werewolf,” he mumbled, then put his fingers to his lips and whistled. After a brief delay a large wicker basket was lowered down beside the ladder on a rope sling. Shade gave this contraption a disdainful glance and then, muttering “
werewolf”
under his breath, he began awkwardly but determinedly to climb the rope ladder. Harke gaped at this astonishing sight, then he and the others followed Shade up the ladder. The basket was hauled up empty beside them.

At the top of the wall they were met by several men with pikes and bows, with whom Harke spoke in low tones. He did not introduce Pendrake or the others, but led them on along the battlement until they reached a flight of steps.

As they descended, a cold wet flurry of sleet began to fall. At the bottom of the stairs Harke hurried the companions into the shelter of a long, low-roofed wooden building beside the wall, which Will guessed was a guardhouse. There were several men inside, gathered round a small fire burning in a metal drum. They sprang up when Harke and the others entered, but after a word from the blacksmith they sat back down again. He led the companions into a second room where another, smaller fire of coals was fitfully burning. There was a table here and several benches and chairs, as well as bare shelves that looked as though they might once have been used for stocking provisions.

“We have little to offer guests these days,” he said with a rueful shrug. “And what we have is meagre fare. Most of the outlying farms have been deserted. Our lakes have been spoiled with the filth of the Nightbane and there are no fish.”

When they were all seated, one of the men from the other room brought in tea in metal mugs. Will and the others accepted the hot drink gratefully, and sipped it while the sleet pattered on the windows.

“Even the weather is unnatural these days,” Harke muttered. He stirred restlessly, then got up and went out. By the time he returned, shaking the water from his hair, his guests had finished their drinks.

“Seems to be a quiet night out there,” he said. “I’ll take you up the street to the smithy. Though it’s more like an armed camp than a smithy these days. Still, it’s as safe as anywhere in Skald, and besides, Ulla and the children will be glad to see you.”

“What has happened here, Ragnar?” the toymaker asked.

“You know about the League of Four,” the blacksmith growled.

“They had come to Skald not long before my last stay here,” Pendrake said. “I had my misgivings back then, but other business took me away, and I heard nothing more about them.”

“Well, there is no cursed League any more,” Harke growled, “and the back of our hand to them. When those four so-called mages first came to Skald, they promised to protect the city and bring prosperity. We were so desperate after the last few mordog raids that we believed them, and we welcomed them in.”

Will glanced at Rowen, who was staring at the blacksmith, her tea forgotten. Harke saw her look and nodded.

“You’ve heard of them, I see, child.”

“This is my granddaughter, Rowen,” Pendrake said.

Harke bowed his head.

“Honoured to meet you,” he said. “Though I wish for your sake it was anywhere but here.”

“Do the mordog still prowl this country?” Finn asked.

“They didn’t, after the mages came. The League delivered on its promises at first, I’ll grant them that. Nightbane were not seen in these parts for a long time, and there was peace, and crops grew well, and folk were happy. But the cost was higher than we had reckoned. Much higher.”

“From what I can already see,” Pendrake said, “I would say the League practised their art poorly, or with wicked purpose.”

“Both,” Harke muttered. “Maybe they had good intentions, at first. But after a time they thought only of their own power, and how to make it grow. Some said they even began to traffic with ambassadors of the Dark Powers. What is certain is that their conjuring brought shadows, not light, and the safety of the city was forgotten. Finally we went to them, a delegation of the townsfolk, and demanded answers, but they would not see us. Instead they barricaded themselves in the keep with their eldritch arts. Then one night, while the city slept, the werefire first blazed out, and it has never stopped burning. And worse, it has acted like a beacon to all the evil for miles around. Foul things have crept here from the bog and every other festering hole they hide in. We were overrun before we knew what was happening.”

“Didn’t the mages try to stop the fire?” Rowen asked.

“Ah, the brave League,” the blacksmith sneered. “They’ve slithered off and left us to our fate. I suppose it’s what we deserve for letting them in to begin with.”

The blacksmith lapsed into a string of muttered words Will did not catch.

“What of the keep?” Pendrake asked. “It had the strongest walls in the city. Is it no longer used as a refuge?”

“The keep is a refuge all right, but not for Skaldings,” Harke said bitterly. “Even in the daylight, that place is best left alone. It was the home of the League, and few have dared set foot in it since. It seems to be the source of the werefire, and something evil dwells there now. A demon, some say.”

“Do
you
say that?” Finn asked.

“I say little about things I haven’t seen for myself,” Harke said. “A large party of us went there one night to drive this thing out or kill it. We discovered that over the years the League had transformed the keep, turned it into a treacherous maze. The thing that dwells there had no trouble staying one step ahead of us. Since then no one goes near the wretched place. We hear the creature almost every night. The sounds it makes can chill the very blood in your veins.”

He wrapped his cloak more tightly round himself and said nothing more. No one else spoke. In the silence Will noticed that the sleet had stopped. Finally Harke stirred, and after a few words with his fellow watchers he led the way from the guardhouse, across a deserted square, and up the winding curve of a narrow street. The city was uncannily silent. Most of the windows in the houses they passed were shuttered and lightless.

Harke went along at a swift pace, and then halted abruptly at an alcove in a wall. Will could just barely make out the shape of a door in the shadows. Harke took a large iron key from his belt, unlocked the door, and opened it. He gestured for the others to enter before him. They did, and found themselves in a walled court. On their left stood a long, low-roofed building that Will guessed was the smithy itself. A wavering reddish light came from its wide doorway, and Will could hear the sound of a hammer ringing from within. On the right was a small, rickety-looking house of stone and timber, three or perhaps four storeys high.

“We have guests, Freya,” the blacksmith called to someone in the smithy. Will saw a figure silhouetted by the glow of the forge, a figure that turned and came at a jog out into the courtyard. It was a young woman with plaited white-blonde hair and a streak of soot across her brow. Her face was ruddy and glistened with sweat. In her hands was an iron hammer.

The young woman was far more pleasant to look at than the blacksmith, Will thought, but still there was no doubt she was Harke’s daughter.

“You’re back early, Father,” she said, glancing warily at the strangers. “Will you come and look at the work?”

“Damp the fire, Freya,” Harke said. “That’ll be all for tonight. Is your mother within?”

“Yes, she’s with Thorri.”

The girl studied the toymaker’s face for a long moment and then broke into a smile. To Will’s astonishment she ran up to the old man and hugged him.

“Father Nicholas,” she cried, burying her face in his shoulder. “It
is
you.”

“Freya,” Pendrake said with a laugh. “You’ve grown, my child.”

“Father said you would come back some day,” Freya said, stepping back with a wide smile.

“You were hoping I’d bring toys, like last time?”

Now it was the young woman’s turn to laugh.

“No, just yourself,” she said. “I’ll see you inside when I’m finished here.”

She gave the rest of Pendrake’s party another quick, curious look, then returned to the smithy. Harke led his guests to the house. As they climbed the steps, the door opened and a woman appeared, the warm light from within at her back. Her hair was less threaded with silver than Harke’s, but Will could see where Freya’s good looks had come from. The woman surveyed Will and his friends with a keen eye, and then, like her husband and daughter, her face beamed with happy surprise when she recognized the toymaker. She hurried forward to embrace him.

“We thought you had forgotten us, Nicholas,” she said in a trembling voice.

“Never, Ulla,” Pendrake said. “I have been kept busy.”

He turned to Rowen. The toymaker introduced her to Harke’s wife.

“A lovely girl,” Ulla said, and embraced Rowen, who stammered a polite reply.

“And this is Will Lightfoot, and his friend Shade,” Pendrake went on. “And Finn Madoc of the Errantry.”

Now that she had welcomed the toymaker, Ulla seemed not to notice or care what a strange company the five of them made. Without hesitation she invited them into the house, and led them to the kitchen. A boy of three or four was playing on the floor with several wooden toys that had once been brightly painted but had lost most of their colour. He looked up at the strangers with startled, haunted eyes. The same look, Will thought with a pang of sadness, that he had seen in Jess’s eyes after their mother died. Then the boy saw Ulla and as if nothing had happened he returned to his play.

“Good to see those toys still getting use,” Pendrake said with a smile.

“Children still play,” Harke said with a nod. “Despite the dark. We can be thankful for that.”

The room had a stout brick oven and a domed ceiling, and was bright with a multitude of metal pots and pans that Will guessed had likely been made by Harke and his daughter. It was a cosy, welcoming room, but a sword hung within easy reach by the door.

Ulla ushered them into the kitchen and invited them to sit on benches round the table. She served them broth and hard bread, with a few thin slices of cheese. She glanced at Shade, who was sitting at Will’s feet.

“I’m afraid I don’t even have a soup bone, for…” she began apologetically.

“I do not need to eat,” Shade said, and both Ulla and Freya stared at him in amazement. After that, Ulla seemed unwilling to ask too many questions, but made up for the awkwardness by talking about the way things were in Skald now.

“When the werefire first broke out, Ragnar and I wanted to leave,” she said. “For Freya and Thorri. We even began packing, but in the end we stayed. We thought of all those who gave their lives for this city over the years. They never despaired, and neither will we.”

“We didn’t know about this in Fable,” Finn said. “When riders of the Errantry came to Skald, they were…”

He hesitated.

“Made unwelcome,” Harke said. “The mages didn’t want any knights of the Guild interfering with their plans. And fools like me decided it wasn’t any of our business, and did nothing.”