Haven Magic (42 page)

As he laid there, almost dozing off again, he became aware of a sound. It was a wet, lapping sound—very quiet. It was not unlike that of a pet cat drinking from a saucer of cream.

He rose to one elbow slowly, quietly, and looked about. The fire had burned low, but still cast good light. The red coals reflected heat from the tower’s walls. Telyn was on the other side of the fire, asleep. Brand frowned at this. It should have been her turn at watch, unless she had fallen asleep and had never awakened him for his turn. But that was unlike her, she was not the slothful type and seemed to rarely sleep in any case.

His eyes widened as he saw the thing bent down before her. It resembled one of the Kindred, but was smaller. It definitely wasn’t a goblin or a Wee Folk, being heavier-built than that. In one hand it carried what looked like a small mace. In its free hand was an object of some kind, which it was dipping down toward Telyn’s arms.

With a roar Brand heaved himself erect and lunged for the creature, stepping right through the dying fire as he did so. The fire flared up as he passed through its heat briefly. Sparks and smoke shot up around his boots, and he was glad all in an instant that he had not removed them to sleep more comfortably.

The thing turned and snarled at him. It was a manling of sorts, but with far less human features than Tomkin. It’s face was charcoal, its eyes a sickly yellow. It raised its small mace in challenge and struck at his knees. Surprise and pain flashed through Brand; the creature was much stronger than it looked. Then he fell, and the thing was on him. He grappled with it, trying to keep it from his face. Growling like a feral dog it snapped and swung his mace at him. There was no time to free the axe, so Brand dug his thumbs into the corded muscle that served it for a neck.

There was a deafening crash and his vision left him for a second. The creature had brained him with its mace. He clung to consciousness and strove to shake off the blow. He squeezed harder, while it sought to bite his hands and tear with its claws.

Brand felt it gouge his hands. He rolled the thing into the fire, still holding it at arms length. It made a keening sound and struggled free of his grasp. A shower of sparks and looming flame gave Brand a good look at its face. It seemed mad, animal, even demonic. Telyn’s blood flecked its dark lips. Once free, it climbed the walls of the tower like a squirrel and crouched there, glowering down.

Watching it, Brand checked Telyn’s wounds. He saw with great relief that she was not dead. Her chest still rose and fell. Blood spilled over her cut wrist. The creature had been dipping its cap into her blood and drinking it. Besides the blood running from her wrist, which he quickly stanched with a tourniquet, there was a sticky spot on the side of her head. It was clear that she had been knocked senseless.

Brand made ready to draw forth his axe should the creature show any signs of attacking again. He tossed its small mace into the fire and added more wood as well. The creature had also left its cap behind, the only scrap of clothing that it appeared to wear. The cap was thick and wet with Telyn’s fresh blood. Brand was disgusted to think that the creature had dipped its cap into her blood to drink. Brand tossed the cap into the flames to burn with the mace. Something in the shadows above him hissed in hatred.

The rest of the night passed uncomfortably and sleeplessly. Brand watched the tower walls all night in nervous anticipation, but the redcap did not return. By dawn Telyn was conscious and Brand no longer cared for the ruins.

Chapter Eighteen

The Dark Bard

“A merry good mornin’ to thee!” cried Tomkin, coming through a breach in the stone walls. The first pink light of dawn was at his back. He grinned at them.

Telyn and Brand jumped at his greeting. They still watched the tower walls with bleary-eyed suspicion. “Thanks for the warning,” said Brand bitterly. “The red cap nearly killed Telyn.”

“Oh, did it now?” said the manling with mock concern. “Ah, and I see thou hast learned the reason for its curious name.”

Telyn tugged at her crude bandage, reworking it in the brightening light of day. She had very little fresh cloth left as they had spent so long in the marshes now and the muck seemed to penetrate everything.

After they made no reply, the manling continued on, “Tomkin’s never seen a redcap up close, but there are many legends of them. Believe it or not, thy luck was good last night that thine eyes can see the morning today.”

“No thanks to you!” shouted Brand. “You could have stayed on, helped us guard against the beast, but no, you could think only of yourself.”

Tomkin looked honestly surprised. He hopped forward and perched upon a tumbled stone block that was big enough for a Wee Folk dance floor. “What of it? Kinfolk of mine would expect no more, so why should thee?”

“What good is a companion that knows of danger yet skips out with barely a warning at the first sign of trouble?” asked Brand, seeing that the creature really didn’t understand and seemed curious about his reasoning. “A group, a team, works together for the benefit of all.”

“Why? This is one of the things most puzzling about thy breed. Such an arrangement might work well for sheep, but what could possibly keep thinking beings from abandoning one another in the face of any real threat to the—herd?” asked Tomkin, eyes glimmering in amusement.

Brand frowned at the reference to people as thoughtless sheep, but tried to ignore it. “It is as you say, our Folk stick together. We are social and trustworthy by nature, and despise treachery as among the worst of crimes.”

“Fascinating!” exclaimed Tomkin. “So the natural act of any thinking creature is considered a wrongful thing.”

“In a sense, yes,” admitted Brand. “For the good of the group, each individual suffers something. It is like an unspoken bargain between us all.”

Tomkin nodded. “This explains somewhat why thy Folk could maintain the Pact. Ever it has seemed a mystery to the Faerie.”

Brand nodded. This time he was surprised. He had not considered Tomkin a thinking creature. He had seemed more animal than anything else before, but now seemed to be intrigued by the philosophies of humans as much as any of the Faerie he had encountered. Brand was beginning to wonder if the Faerie were as curious about and mystified by humanity as humans were by them.

“Since we seem to be trading questions again, Tomkin has one,” said Tomkin offhandedly.

Brand glanced at him, and then nodded.

Tomkin crept closer, crossing his stone block perch to the very limits and leaning over the edge toward them. “Did thee, by chance, wield the Eye of Ambros again last night?”

“No,” replied Brand.

Tomkin studied him for a moment then retreated again, frowning. Brand wondered why he looked dissatisfied. Could it be that he had set them up, wanting Brand to be forced to wield the axe again? It seemed far-fetched, but Brand stored the thought for the future. Tomkin, if there ever was a doubt, couldn’t be trusted beyond his own self-preservation.

After a meager breakfast of waterleeks from the river and safe mushrooms from the marsh, Telyn declared herself fit to travel. She still looked a bit pale in Brand’s critical eye, but he supposed it was better to move on than to stay in the ruins. They broke camp and followed the mounds that were the fallen western walls of the ruins. As they marched upriver, their backs crawled with the scrutiny of unseen baleful, eyes. Brand felt sure that the redcap watched them from some dim crevice among the tumbled stone blocks.

The walls went on for a great distance, and Brand began to wonder at the size of the place. It seemed bigger than all Riverton! “I believe all the people of the Haven could reside within these walls, if this one we march along is matched in length by the others.”

“‘Tis true, thy breed is far less common now than in olden times,” agreed Tomkin.

“We are mice rattling about in the bones of dead giant,” said Telyn.

For a time they trudged in silence, the only sounds were those of their boots scuffling on mossy stone and dead leaves. But then something else drifted on the wind to their ears.

“What’s that sound?” asked Telyn.

“‘Tis music!” declared Tomkin, springing up with sudden energy. “It took thee long enough to pick it out!”

“Yes, I think it
is
music,” said Telyn. She stopped marching and turned toward the river.

“I still hear nothing,” said Brand, straining. He was not in the least surprised to learn that his ears couldn’t match Telyn’s. He’d known that since childhood.

Then part of the natural sounds of the world around him shifted. It seemed that the wind’s random sounds melted in to the chatter of the water passing over rocks and the creaking of the swaying trees. Slowly the music grew until it became clear to him—a dark melody of somber beauty. It spoke of death and decay and the rebirth from the dark soil of new green shoots. Vaguely, he knew that this couldn’t be the work of men or merlings. None had the craft it took to make music that was so entrancing.

Abruptly, the music stopped. All of them blinked in surprise. There before them, at the water’s edge, shrouded in white mists, stood a tall figure on a horse of dappled gray. It was the dark man that Brand had seen days before on the cliffs above the river. It was Herla’s lieutenant, the bard of the Wild Hunt.

“The dark bard,” whispered Telyn aloud.

“Pleased to meet you all,” replied Voynod. His voice was courtly and rang with even tones in their ears.

Brand looked around to see if others of the Wild Hunt were possibly approaching, but saw nothing. In fact, he saw nothing of Tomkin, either. Evidently, the Wee One’s sense of self-preservation had taken precedence once again.

“I wish a word with you, if I might,” said Voynod.

“We are on a journey, sir, and must be off,” said Brand. He shouldered his pack and began to make his way along the fallen walls. After a moment’s hesitation, Telyn followed him.

Voynod walked his horse along the shoreline of the river, pacing them. Brand wondered if he knocked the bard from his mount if he would truly turn to dust as Gudrin’s story had foretold.

“I wish to discuss the axe,” said the bard after an uncomfortable silence.

“Do you speak for your master?” asked Brand.

“I do.”

“What message do you have from him?”

“My master wishes to know if you account yourself the Bearer of Ambros…or the
Wielder
of Ambros.”

Brand hesitated only a moment before replying. “Gudrin was the Bearer of Ambros. I am the Wielder of Ambros.” Upon his back, the axe seemed to shift slightly, and even lighten itself somehow. Yes, definitely—Brand felt lighter on his feet. He wondered if it was changing its own weight or perhaps giving his legs more strength. As his legs still ached from the night spent on the tower’s stone floor, he suspected the former.

“You realize that you are but a boy of the Haven?”

“Yes,” admitted Brand.

“You’ve had virtually no training at arms, nor have you had much time to attune yourself to the Jewel. Declaring yourself a Champion seems a trifle—shall we say—overreaching.”

Brand shrugged. “How is it that you know so much of me?” he asked, attempting to apply the lessons he had learned from Tomkin. The trick of conversing with these beings was to gather more information than you gave.

“A sprinkle of silver, a sprinkle of fear. A few muffled screams in the night. Such information is easy to obtain.”

Brand felt a chill. For the thousandth time in the last week he wondered what events now transpired back home in Riverton and across the Haven. What evil deeds had Herla and his huntsmen performed in pursuing him and his companions?

“Do you wish to discuss the formation of a new Pact?” asked Brand on impulse.

Voynod laughed. “Surely you jest. My master has worked for centuries to end the last one!”

“Yes, but a new Pact with different terms may be more to his liking,” said Brand.

Brand was startled by a quiet voice that erupted seemingly at his feet.

“Now who speaks of treachery, river-boy?” muttered Tomkin, who had appeared again beside him. He moved in Brand’s larger shadow, just inside the ruined walls so that Voynod couldn’t see him.

“Ha! What’s that?” cried Voynod from the shoreline. “Did my ears detect a squeaking? Yes, long we have thought that you have had help from our least trustworthy of allies.”

“It seems you have many untrustworthy allies,” said Brand, thinking of Old Hob.

“Alas! ‘Tis true. So many of the Faerie are fearful of darklings, shades that were once human. They suspect that we have as much humanity in us as we do Faerie. And perhaps they are right.”

Brand thought that he himself was more akin to the Faerie than to cursed Dead such as the Wild Huntsmen, but he held his tongue.

“But to answer your question: no. My master does not wish to reforge a new Pact with the Haven at this time. What I am here to ask for is the surrender of the axe. In return, my master has offered to allow you and your companions to return to the Haven unmolested.”

Brand snorted. He felt the axe shift on his back. It grew tense like a dog bristling for a fight. “What of the Haven’s borders? Will they be respected as before by the Huntsmen?”

“Alas, we cannot promise that,” said the bard, putting the sound of real feeling into his words. “After all, we must feed.”