The Widow and the King (60 page)

‘They don't feel it!’ a man cried. ‘Damn you, Orcrim, they don't feel it!’

‘Turn them!’ Orcrim's voice was shouting. ‘Find the eyes if you can!’

The other groups were striking now – striking at things she could guess at but could not see.

‘Turn them! Turn them!’

Whatever had attacked the first group must have dropped back out of reach a little way. The men were still looking down, weapons at the ready, as if it were about to come on again. Was it hurt? Was it wounded or just discouraged? She could not hope to know.

More yells, rising to a scream. The left-hand group was in trouble. One of them was half down. He was flailing at something that dragged at him from below, pulling him over the cliff. Two men had him by the shoulders and were trying to haul him back from the edge. Others were kneeling and hacking at the enemy – whether the same one or more than one Sophia could not see. More men were hurrying up to help.

Beyond them, at the extreme left-hand edge of the gap in the stones, something moved against the skyline.

For an instant she saw it – a hooded, crouching thing. It seemed to look towards the struggle at the cliff edge. Then it ducked down from the skyline and her eyes lost it for a moment. She saw it again as it leaped among the rocks. It covered yards in a single jump.

Her heart lurched. It was so quick!

‘There's one over!’ she shouted. ‘To the left! To the left!’ It jumped again, and this time she could hear the
thump
as it landed. It was coming for the pulling-teams. And another was moving on the skyline beyond it.

A fighter was running back down the slope. He must have seen the thing and was racing to intercept it. But as she watched, he tripped on the rough ground and fell. The thing paused for an instant, and then leaped on him.

‘Help him!’ she screamed, turning to the nearest armed man. ‘Help him.’

It was Ambrose. He dropped Stefan's rein, and ran.

‘No!’ cried Sophia.

‘Hob! Hob!’

Hob had disappeared. She looked wildly around and could not see him.

Ambrose ran, struggling to free his sword. He heard Sophia shouting. He saw the fallen man beating with his hands at the thing attacking him. He heard the man cry out again as the talons tore into his mail. His own sword came free. Then he was on it.

Clang!

His blade rebounded, ringing as if he had hit a boulder or a tree stump. The thing raised its head and reached for him. He jumped back, and stumbled.

It was about to spring again. He had seen it move like a boulder off a catapult. He lifted his blade between them to show it the hilt, where the pouch with the last white stone still hung. It crouched.

Now he attacked, striking for head and limb as Chawlin had shown him. Its hood fell as it flailed at the blade. He saw a toad-like face – a thin circlet of gold: eyes
that looked horribly as if they had once been a man's. It bellowed with pain and the sound shook his very guts. Something answered it from his left.

There were two of them!

He glanced away, then back at the crouching thing. If he let his sword drop it would spring and finish him. He could not fight two. He could not keep his one stone between himself and two attackers.

The thing leaped, away to his right, landing in a cloud of dust and pebbles. Now it was between him and the horse-lines, between him and help. And the other one was approaching from behind him.

He whirled and scrambled away, passing the fallen man who still writhed slowly on the ground. His second attacker rose from the stones, groping at him. He saw a long face, horned like a cow, eyes the size of goose-eggs, claws like hooks. He beat at it and it wavered. He tried to dodge around it, to put it between him and the leaping thing. It moved to block him. He scrambled the other way.

Keep moving! Keep moving!

The poolside swung into view. They were between him and his friends. For the moment he could face them both, and guard himself with the stone at his hilt. But he was getting further and further away from help. The wounded man was trying to rise, but could not. He could see Mother and Sophia, pointing his way and calling. The horses were milling. He saw Stefan shy, and recover …

The leaping thing crashed among the rocks to his right and he turned to face it. The horned thing loomed slowly on his left, moving on long limbs like a spider's legs. He saw that it, too, wore a circlet of gold.

Ando
, it said, shrilly, in a voice he remembered.

Ando
, the other said, as deep as a cavern.

They were crooning to him – maddening burbles, with ill-formed words that he could not understand. He swung the sword to his left to check the horned thing, and back at once to the leaper. It was the leaper he feared most.

Ando
, croaked the creatures, one deep, one shrill.
Andooh
. He must attack.

He couldn't do it!

The horned thing had sidled further to his left. Now he could no longer check them both.

A man came leaping over the boulders, sword in hand. It was Hob, and he had no helmet. His sword rang on the back of the horned thing, and beat at its face as it turned.

‘Ho, there!’ yelled Hob. ‘Tarceny! Help, Help!’

Again he swung into the attack, and the horned thing backed, groping at him. Talons slithered upon mail. Ambrose jumped to put his back to Hob, facing the other creature with the stone at his hilt. Somewhere men were shouting. They were coming.

‘Here, Tarceny! Help!’ cried Hob.

Ambrose heard a sharp ring of metal, and Hob's desperate curse. His sword must have broken. Ambrose could not turn round. He could not take his eyes off the crouching thing. But the crouching thing had lifted its head. It rolled its eyes at the coming wave of men. For a moment it hung like that. Then it seemed to shake itself, and leaped away along the slope. Ambrose whirled to face the horned thing but it, too, was slithering backwards.

‘Round them, get round them,’ came Orcrim's voice. ‘Herd them back over.’ The air was full of mail jingling
and the gasps of sweating men. Someone – it must be Endor – came up past Ambrose with his big mace raised. The horned thing was still retreating. Beyond it the crouching thing appeared on the lip of the pool, and dropped downwards, and was gone. The horned thing looked about it at the half-circle of armoured men, and swung its great eyes back to face Ambrose one last time.

Andooh
, it said.
Anson
.

On its long limbs it crawled up the slope.

‘At it!’ came Orcrim's voice. ‘Herd it over.’

Ambrose watched it go. Painfully, it seemed, the ancient thing crawled over the lip of the pool like a vast insect creeping into a crevice. Then there was nothing but the band of men leaning over the edge, staring after it as it disappeared from their sight. The creatures had retreated.

A sharp, heavy blow landed on his ear. Hob had cuffed him.

‘Next time you are in a fight, stay among your fellows! And if you can't do that, remember to call for help.’

‘Sorry,’ Ambrose mumbled.

‘Just remember it. Help – it's a good word. Now give a hand here.’

He strode toward the wounded man. Others were already standing over him. Aun was there. They were unlacing the helm. It came free. The face under it was pale and heavy with pain. It took Ambrose a moment to recognize him.

‘Caw,’ one of the men was saying. ‘Caw, can you hear us?’

‘Yes, damn you,’ Caw said, thickly.

‘Can you stand?’

‘Don't – want to try …’

The mail had been torn like cloth from one shoulder. It was dark and wet. Blood had no colour in this place.

‘Let's get our former mistress up,’ said Orcrim's voice among the men. ‘We need to bring him into the light. Better have the horses, too, and we'll all rest together.’

‘Do you think they'll come back?’

‘How do I know? If they were called off, then yes, they'll be back. If they just lost their stomach to fight, that may be another matter.’

Ambrose looked across the barren rocks. The horses in the line seemed to be quieter now. Mother was there, looking his way. Had she seen him in his fight? Of course she had. She and Sophia had called Hob to help him. There was Sophia, still standing at the head of her pullingteam, as if expecting to start work again as soon as the men got back. On the lip of the crest, Hob's rig stood like a low scaffold against the sky. There were men patrolling up there, watching the pool below them. From the way they stood and moved, Ambrose knew that the enemy had disappeared below the surface.

Ando, Anson.

He was shaking.

‘There's a man down there,’ someone said.

‘Where?’

‘There – he was watching. Then he ducked out of sight.’

He was pointing at an outcrop of boulders, a little way across and down the slope. Two or three of the Company started to walk over to it.

‘Don't go too far …’ Orcrim said.

There was a movement among the rocks. A man appeared from where he had been crouching and took to his heels across the slope. The leading fighter – it was Aun – shouted, and ran after him. Behind him, Endor hesitated. Then he was running, too.

‘Aun!’ Ambrose cried. ‘Aun, stop!’

‘Ho, there!’ bellowed Orcrim. ‘Stop. It'll be a trap! Stop!’

The men did not look back. Already they could not hear.

‘It's Raymonde!’ said Ambrose. ‘Aun will kill him. He mustn't do it!’

‘They'll have to look out for themselves,’ said Orcrim. ‘You stay here … Hey!’

But Ambrose was already moving. He heard Orcrim call again, and curse, but the sound died quickly in the air that hummed with the pain of the world.

His feet skittered on loose rock. He could see the runner ahead of him – Endor, that must be. He could not see Aun. He must hope that Endor still could. If they became lost in this place …

Next time, stay among your fellows! And already he was on his own again. But he could see the men ahead of him, jinking among the rocks. And he thought someone had followed him. He could hear the shadow of an armoured foot on the stones behind him. He did not look around.

The ground dropped at his feet. He plunged downwards, into the cleft-valley out of which they had climbed to reach the pool. He could not see where the men had
gone, but as the slope grew steeper he angled to his left, along the hill. Ahead of him – he could not tell how far – the shape of a woman sat, weeping with her back to the world. And Ambrose leaped the rocks of her dreams, pursuing the unseen man who hunted his own child.

Let them eat their sons!
‘Damn you!’ he shouted at her.

‘This should be a garden!’

But that vast grief would not stir for his voice. And another son was about to die.

e had lost sight of the men. Where had they gone? Behind a rock – into a dip? He must find them quickly, or be lost himself.

He was not lost. He knew this place, even though his feet had never run or slid or skidded on these brown stones before. The low ridge he was following was like the echo of a voice he had known all his life. He remembered it.

He reached the end of the rise. The ground sloped away before him. There was nowhere for a man to hide. But there was a thinness to the air – movement, a memory of colour. He plunged forward, ducking his head as though jumping through a waterfall, and stumbled into the light.

He was out of the Cup. He had escaped from the brown stones. He was on a ridgetop path he knew, in the living world. The air was cool. The mountain-shapes were wreathed with mists. Far to his right the massif of Beyah rose, and her high snowfields gilded with the falling sun. He stood before the low gate-towers of the house that had been his home.

There were voices and movement beyond the
gate-mouth. The men, hunters and hunted, must have gone in. He hesitated.

The Heron Man was close. He could feel it. Where? An image swam in his mind of the door of the scholars' hall at Develin. Beyond it, the rows of benches, and the hooded enemy waiting to begin his last lesson.

Open the door?

The door hung ajar. Somewhere beyond it a man's voice cried out.

Hob appeared, with a curse and a clatter on the path beside him. He stared about at the mountain evening, understanding that for the first time in hours he was in the living world again.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Thought I'd lost you. What is this place?’

‘It's a lot of things. Come on. They've gone in.’

With Hob at his shoulder Ambrose plunged into the gate-tunnel. It was empty. So was the courtyard beyond, scattered with the droppings of goats that must have wandered wild on the hillsides all winter. The doors to the storerooms were open. Darkness lurked in them, but nothing moved there.

Sounds broke from the inner courtyard. An oath. Armoured feet on stone.

‘Come on!’ cried Ambrose.

‘Careful,’ said Hob.

They strode through the archway and into the last court of the world.

The air rasped with steel.

Two men were fighting between the fountain and the throne. One was Aun, in mail and helm, swinging
the bastard-sword of Aclete two-handed against his enemy's guard. The other was the Wolf: Raymonde, Aun's own son.