Dragonsbane (Book 3) (15 page)

Chapter 14

Wildmen

Days dragged across Kael’s eyes like the swipe of a hand against a frosty window. The hours were smeared and blurred. He only remembered pieces of them — the grayish outline of things beyond the frost. The higher up the mountains they climbed, the more his memory blurred.

He was afraid to see too clearly, afraid to look too closely. They walked the path of the mountains’ scar through one blackened village after the next, and he knew what was coming. Somewhere along this road there would be ruins he recognized, trails he remembered. There would be bones he knew the names of.

With each passing day, they crept closer to the middle of the mountains. It would be only a matter of time before they came to Tinnark.

“Do you hear that?” Baird stopped suddenly, jerking Kael by the straps. He cupped a knobby hand against his ear and smiled widely when a chirping sound came from the woods. “A little redbird! Let us follow for a bit.”

Before Kael could stop him, Baird had wandered into the thicket — whistling and waving his hands about. He stumbled between the trees, bouncing off their unforgiving flesh like a drunkard through a crowd. He even apologized to a few.

“Oh, for mercy’s sake,” Kael muttered as he watched the beggar-bard nearly tumble over a rock. He didn’t have the energy to go chasing after Baird. He’d hoped Kyleigh would do it — it was her turn, after all. But when went to say as much, he saw that she’d disappeared.

She’d melted into the woods with the same silent disregard as air through the trees. There wasn’t so much as a print or a snapped twig to signal which way she’d gone. Kael sighed heavily.

She’d been doing that an awful lot, lately.

“Come back, little bird!”

Kael turned just in time to see Baird yelp and tumble out of sight. Judging by the number of crashing bounces he heard, the beggar-bard rolled quite a long ways down.

“Don’t worry about me, young man. I’m all right!” Baird called from the bottom of the slope.

With a heavy sigh, Kael went after him. He knew this slope: it was a hill covered in shoal that would lead to a small spring. Roland had showed it to him once while they were out trapping.

Kael slid down carefully and found Baird crumpled at its bottom. He laid spraddled against the trunk of a tree, his bandaged face turned skyward. “I don’t hear him anymore. Drat and blast it — I think he got away.”

“It’s probably for the best,” Kael said as he helped him up. “I don’t know what you planned to …”

Hairs stood tall down his neck, as if a cold breath had blown across him. His limbs froze and his fingers tightened around Baird’s arm as he felt the weight of eyes upon him. They were two black pits sunk into a furry brow. Watching hungrily.

Even though he tried to force himself to be calm, Kael could practically feel the fear wafting off his skin. He heard the wet snorting sound of an animal breathing in and turned around slowly.

There was a brown lump in the corner of his left eye. It stood beside the spring. He tried not to breathe as he turned, and tried not to gasp when his eyes focused and he found himself staring into the face of a monstrous bear.

Water dampened its muzzle and dripped out between its thick, grasping lips. On all fours, it was nearly a man’s height. The wet nose twitched and it took rumbling, gasping breaths — as if the bear
tasted
his fear as well as smelled it. 

“What was that sound?” Baird said loudly. “A woodsman’s saw, perhaps? Are we finally near a village?”

The bear’s mouth draped open as it turned its monstrous head in the direction of Baird’s prattling — a head nearly the size of Kael’s chest.

“We could use some fresh supplies. There’s nothing quite like a …” Baird’s head tilted to the side and he breathed in. “Hmm, wet fur. But it hasn’t rained in days. What could —?”

“Bear,” Kael said between his teeth. He stared at those tiny black eyes, small portals sunk into an enormous head. Bears were stupid brutes: slow to start, but fierce once they picked up speed. There was still a chance it might turn away and lumber back into the woods.

But it was a small chance.

“Yes? I’m right here.”

“No,
bear
,” Kael hissed. “It’s a bear.” An awakening heat surged over his skin as the bear rose on its hind legs. The animal in him knew what was coming. He knew there was no point in being afraid. The bear was going to attack.

Kael ripped an arrow from his quiver, locked it onto the pink, gaping hole of the bear’s mouth, and fired. The arrow struck true — and at the exact same moment, its great furry chest exploded.

There was a muffled crunching sound as something erupted from the bear’s ribs. It groaned around the arrow, its beady eyes rolled back. Kael felt the tremble in the ground as its body collapsed. A gory object tumbled from the gaping hole in the bear’s chest and rolled to a stop at Kael’s feet.

It was a large, jagged rock. How in Kingdom’s name had a
rock
burst through the bear? He was in the middle of wondering how it was even possible when an inhuman cry cut over his thoughts.

“You’ve spoiled it!” 

A woman stomped from the brush. She wore a rough tunic made of animal skins that covered her almost to the knees, and kept her fiery red hair cropped above her shoulders. Thick boots wrapped around her shins, the buckles carved from bone.

Black paint covered the woman’s face in a vicious pattern. It made her eyes stand out and her teeth seem sharp. The paint swirled down her bare arms, but Kael could still see the lines of muscle carved into them. 

In one of her clenched fists she carried a very serious-looking axe. It was a strange weapon with a bone shaft. Kael had to look twice to be sure, but he was fairly certain the axe’s blade was made of solid gold.

Then he saw the red ripples coursing down its surface, and he blanched. “Is that —?”

“I had him!” the woman cried. The heels of her boots clomped loudly against the rocks as she marched to the bear’s corpse. She ripped the arrow from its mouth and glared. “One of the wooden birds …” She thrust its bloody point at Kael’s chest. “Do you fight for the Man of Wolves?”

Kael had no idea what she was talking about. “I —”

“Answer me!”

“I’m trying!” he snapped.   

“So much yelling!” Baird moaned. His knobby hands slapped against his ears. “First the bear, now Fate’s sent a harpy from the treetops to torture us!”

The woman turned the arrow’s point on Baird. “What’s wrong with him?”

“It would take too long to list it all,” Kael said. He studied the woman for a moment. Her furs, her hair, the swirls of paint on her face — it was like something out of a story.

Wait a moment. She
was
from a story.

“You’re one of the summit people, aren’t you? One of the wildmen.”

Amos had told him stories of the wildmen. They were a clan of whisperers who lived at the top of the Unforgivable Mountains. One of the Kings had sent them into the Valley long ago to rid the land of monsters. The wildmen had chased the monsters up the mountains to the very top, where legend had it they’d been locked in a final battle ever since.

“They’re dangerous men,” Amos had warned. “You remember that if you ever meet one.”

He’d always wanted to meet a wildman, but he’d never had the chance: they hardly ever left the summit. “What are you doing this far down?”

“That’s none of your concern.” The wildwoman’s lips were stained a bluish black. They bent into a smirk
as her eyes scraped the length of him. “Look at you — with your thin clothes and soft skin.”

“It
is
rather soft,” Baird agreed. “Like the crest of new-fallen snow.”

Kael didn’t think it was
that
soft. He was about to say as much when the woman interrupted him.

“You aren’t from the Man of Wolves, that much is clear.” She waved the arrow at his head. “You’re some mutt from downmountain — a strange mutt with strange weapons. Why are you climbing
up
when everybody else is running down?”

“We have business in the mountains,” he said vaguely.

The wildwoman narrowed her eyes. “What business?”

“We’ve come to flay the hide off a spoiled Thane-child in desperate need of a beating.” Kyleigh materialized from the woods and stood cross-armed between them. “Hello, Gwen.”

The wildwoman’s mouth fell open. “Impossible.”

Baird gasped so loudly that it made Kael jump. “Thane? Did I hear mention of a Thane?” He slung his filthy pack off his shoulders and began digging through it with gusto. “Oh Fate, what fortune! I have a letter here for a
Thane
Evan.”

Kael had to wonder who in their right mind would ever trust Baird with a letter. “What sort of —?”

“Argh!”

He spun at the cry and saw that Gwen was charging for Kyleigh. She had the golden axe — the axe he was fairly certain was made of dragonsbane — raised over her head. Kael didn’t have a chance to think: he sent an arrow hurtling for Gwen’s face.

She turned as the arrow flew. Her eyes narrowed onto its head. Kael saw the shaft tremble in mid-flight, saw it streaking for the gap between her eyes. She moved ever so slightly, jerking back so that the fletching nearly brushed her forehead as it whipped by and thudded into the tree behind her.

“A good shot,” she said while he gaped. “Mind if I try?”

“Move, Kael!”

He heard Kyleigh shout, saw her eyes widen and at the same time, saw Gwen’s arm sling backwards. But he didn’t understand why. What could the wildwoman do with a single arrow?

He got his answer quickly.

Gwen hurled the arrow like a spear, and it flew every bit as forcefully as if it’d been loosed from a string. Had he not been so shocked, he might’ve been able to dodge — but as it was, he turned just in time to catch the arrow on the fleshy top of his thigh.

Pain shocked him. He fell back on his rump. His fingers snapped open as he tried to catch himself. He was vaguely aware of the sound of his bow clattering onto the ground.

The arrow stuck through the tender skin on the top of his leg, having missed the thick vein in the middle by inches. His flesh puckered around the shaft and blood leaked out in a steady trickle. Black spots burst across his vision, threatening to pull him under.

When he managed to blink them back, he saw that Kyleigh and Gwen were tangled upon the ground. Blood trickled from a split on Gwen’s lip. She had Kyleigh pinned on her back, one arm above her head. The golden axe dug against the pale skin of her throat.

“Kyleigh!” He rolled back, gasping as a fresh wave of pain pushed down upon his skull. His bow was nearly in arm’s reach. He dragged himself forward by his elbow. He reached for it; his fingers brushed its weathered surface …

A thick boot came down on top of his hand. It held him pinned, but didn’t crush down. When Kael squinted up, he met the curious eyes of a boy.

The boy was no older than ten, painted and dressed in furs. A patch of red hair cut down the middle of his head like a badger’s stripe — the rest was shaved clean.

The golden sword he had wedged in his belt was badly chipped. It was clearly a man’s sword: it likely would’ve scraped the ground, had the tip not been broken off. One of the boy’s arms was wrapped tightly against his chest in a makeshift sling.

He hardly glanced at Kael’s bleeding leg before he nodded to Kyleigh and Gwen. “Trust me — you don’t want to get in the middle of that. They’ve flattened the hills with their battling.”

Before Kael could even begin to grasp it, Baird emerged from the depths of his pack. “Ah! A
ha
! I’ve got it!” He waved a yellowed scroll in a triumphant arc over his head. “Nearly twenty years late, but here at last. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, young man.” His bandaged face swung to the trees at Kael’s left. “But I wasn’t sure I could trust you — and a courier must protect his mission at all costs! Now, if someone will lead me to Thane Evan, I’ll happily deliver his letter.”

Nobody paid him any attention. Gwen was bent low over Kyleigh — growling some highly unpleasant things into her ear. The boy kept Kael’s hand pinned under his boot as he watched them struggle. He grinned when Kyleigh wrenched Gwen’s head aside by her fiery hair.

Even if he hadn’t had an arrow hanging out of his leg, Kael likely wouldn’t have cared enough to listen. He believed that Baird had a letter for the wildmen about as much as he believed in fire-breathing frogs.

But that didn’t put a stopper in the beggar-bard’s prattling. “Yes, the words might’ve faded a bit, but the message should still ring true. Now if you’ll just take me to Thane Evan, I’ll —”

“Thane Evan is dead,” Gwen snapped.

The clearing fell silent immediately. Baird’s arm froze above his head. There was a light crunching sound as the boy lifted his boot. Kael realized just how loudly he’d been gasping for breath.