Shadowfell (8 page)

I knew the tune as I knew my own heartbeat. Everyone did. But nobody sang the song of truth aloud, not any more. The king had forbidden it. I’d heard of a woman who was put to death after someone overheard her humming the melody as she worked in her kitchen. It hadn’t always been so. In older times folk had sung the song proudly at village festivals, at gatherings of clans, at burial rites of elder or warrior or infant taken in harsh season. The men and women of Alban had worn this tune as close as their own skins. Its beloved measures had been lodged deep in every heart.

The fragile sound faltered, as if the whistler could not quite remember how the tune went. It seemed to me that if this was forgotten, this precious last fragment of what had once made us strong, we were all doomed. Softly, I began to sing: ‘
I am a child of Alban’s earth . . .’

In an instant they were still, their shadowy eyes fixed on me, and the song swelled and rose and grew to thunder as twenty, fifty, a hundred ghostly voices took up the strain. My voice became a clarion call, borne on that warrior chorus. The words our king had forbidden, the words I loved with all my heart, burst from me with the force of a flame catching dry timber:

‘I am a child of Alban’s earth

Her ancient bones brought me to birth

Her crags and islands built me strong

My heart beats to her deep wild song.

I am the wife with bairn on knee

I am the fisherman at sea

I am the piper on the strand

I am the warrior, sword in hand.

White Lady shield me with your fire

Lord of the North my heart inspire

Hag of the Isles my secrets keep

Master of Shadows guard my sleep.

I am the mountain, I am the sky

I am the song that will not die

I am the heather, I am the sea

My spirit is forever free.’

The song came to an end, and silence fell. The air was full of anticipation.

‘What would you have me do?’ I asked the ghostly army, for it was clear the song alone was not enough, or they surely would have faded away with its echoes.

‘Fight . . .’ The word came like a great sigh. ‘Fiiiight . . .’

In their ghostly eyes I saw a flame burning, as if the passion they had shown in their last bloody encounter had not been extinguished by their years of lonely exile here in the place of their fall. But fight? Me?

‘I am no warrior,’ I said. ‘Look at me. I’m a . . . a vagrant, a nobody.’ I dropped my gaze, suddenly unable to meet their eyes. Their need was powerful in them; perhaps only that held them in the realm of the living. Was it possible that I was the only person ever to stop and listen? Could I be the only one who had heard their cry for justice?

‘I can’t . . . I don’t know what I can do,’ I whispered. How could I fight? The greatest warrior in all Alban could not stand against the might of Keldec. And that, without a doubt, was the fight they meant. ‘I want to help,’ I said, risking a glance up at them. ‘But I am powerless.’

Oh, gods, their faces, on which the blaze of hope kindled by the song was already starting to fade; their eyes, already losing the brightness of their awakening . . . How could I bear this? I sank to a crouch, lifting my hands to cover my face, for their sadness was like a knife straight to the heart and I could not look at them.

I did not complete the gesture. For there, in a crevice between the rocks at my feet, I saw a tiny plant growing. Three fronded shoots of soft green cradled a single flower no bigger than my thumbnail, a five-petalled bloom, white as first snow, fragile and perfect. So unlikely a survivor. So delicate, to stand against the scourging wind, the biting cold, the drenching rain. It was surely the only living thing in this place of death and sorrow. Apart from me.

I rose to my feet and drew a ragged breath. ‘I’ll try,’ I said.

A ripple passed through the spectral crew. As I spoke they stood taller, their pallid faces lighting with a fragile hope.

‘I can’t fight with sword and spear as my brother did, but I’ll stand up for justice. I don’t know how, but I promise I’ll find a way.’

As if a silent message had passed between them, each member of the ghostly army made the same gesture: a clenched fist placed over the heart. Through the falling rain their voices came to me as one. ‘Weapons
sharp. Backs straight. Hearts high.’

Then in an instant they were gone, dissipated to nothing as, somewhere behind the clouds, the sun edged over the horizon. I was alone on the bank of Hiddenwater, shivering in my wet clothing.

I drew a deep, unsteady breath and made myself walk on. The grey water beside me rippled and stirred uneasily. My heart was thumping and my palms were clammy. In my mind the warrior voices sang on, lifted in a chorus of hope and faith, grand, powerful, indomitable. Yet here was I, an ordinary girl whose life was all fear, flight and concealment. What had possessed me to stand up and accept a challenge I surely could not meet? The battle I had agreed to fight was for Alban’s freedom. That meant a new king and a new rule. The thought made me tremble. It was huge, monstrous, terrifying. The strongest fighter, the most powerful mage, could not stand up against Keldec. His might was absolute. The Cull accounted not only for the canny but also for anyone heard to question the king’s rule. Those chieftains not cowed into obedience could expect the sort of treatment Dunchan of Silverwater had suffered. The populace was beaten down into submission. The iron fist of the Enforcers was everywhere. And if their unthinking brutality proved insufficient punishment, Keldec had one more weapon in his armoury: magic. For though it was forbidden for ordinary folk to use canny skills, those skills were a tool in the king’s hand, and he used them cruelly indeed.

This was the man I had just sworn to fight, a man whose power was a hundred times greater than mine. I was fifteen and all alone in the world. I was tired, hungry and cold, and there was a long way to go. If Shadowfell was where Farral had thought it was. If it was what he had believed it was: a place where folk dared to speak the truth, a place where they could plan a future free from tyranny. I prayed that Shadowfell was more than a wild dream born out of a desperate hope that someone, some day, would be strong enough to stand up for what was right.

I had to keep my promise. I had to fight, and the first step in the battle was finding Shadowfell. Those ghostly warriors had believed in me. They had shown their faith in me. I must have faith in myself and keep going. Sing the song. Keep weapons sharp, back straight, heart high. One person might not stand against Keldec and his Enforcers. But if enough of us did so, there would be an army.

CHAPTER FOUR

N
IGHTFALL FOUND
me close to Deepwater, longest in the chain of lochs. The oak forest that cloaked the banks would offer shelter and concealment for the next few days’ walking at least. At the far end of Deepwater lay the king’s summer fortress. I must pass close by that place to reach the track to the north. Dwell too much on that and I might lose my hard-won courage.

I risked a fire, for my clothing was wet and I could not stop the trembling that ran through my body. There were places in these woods where rock or tree canopy had kept fallen timber reasonably dry, though striking a spark was a challenge. My hands were shaking from cold. I took off Flint’s cloak – gods, how would I have managed without it? – and hung it over a rock near the fire, where it steamed alongside my tunic and shirt. I put on the garment Flint had left. It had been rolled up in my bag and was a little less damp than my own things.

I had tried to forage along the way, but my efforts had supplied no more than a handful of wizened berries and a scant bunch of herbs. I boiled up the leaves to make a rudimentary soup, which I drank slowly, savouring the warmth of each mouthful. When I was done, I set the little pot down with some of the mixture still in it, and beside it I arranged the last three berries on a fallen leaf. I did not think I had imagined the stealthy tread of small feet behind me today, especially once I had entered the forest.

I wrapped the damp cloak around me and settled to rest. Already the oaks were shedding their summer mantles, and I slept half-buried in a rustling blanket of leaves. Soon the forest would no longer provide safe concealment. I was wood wise; I had learned the skills I needed while Father and I were on the run. What I had not been taught by Grandmother about foraging and making shelter, I had worked out for myself as Father and I criss-crossed the highlands, always keeping one step ahead of trouble. We stayed no longer than a night or two in any single place, fearing our presence might bring unwelcome attention on those who sheltered us. We never talked about why the Enforcers might be interested in us. Often enough they came close to us, covertly, thinking we would not know them in their plain dark clothing, without their silver brooches and their jingling harness. But we knew: their ill deeds hung over them like a bad smell. We used what skills we had to vanish into the forest; we let Alban conceal us.

Once or twice folk had whispered that the king’s men were asking after a traveller in the north, a fellow with a good hand for stanies, wandering with a daughter who was somewhere between girl and woman. Had anyone seen this pair? If they did, they were to report it straight away to the nearest Enforcer. Lie about it and the punishment would be grievous indeed. Nonetheless, some folk had been brave enough to warn us. Not of recent times.

I walked for one day, two days, three. I developed a cough that would not clear. Each night in the forest the spasms kept me awake longer and hurt more. Each morning as I awoke to another day of chill and damp, I found it harder to catch my breath. There were herbs that might have eased the symptoms, but they did not seem to grow here, and even if I had been able to find them, I could only have made the simplest of infusions.

Hope is easy enough to find on a sunny day, when a person’s clothing is dry and her belly is full and the prospect of a good night’s rest lies ahead. It is much harder to keep that flame alight when autumn closes in and the rain falls in sheets, drenching every tree and bush and turning the ground to a treacherous quagmire. It is still more difficult when the wind gets up, chilling the air and sending every creature scurrying for what meagre shelter it can find.

Staring into my little fire one night, I acknowledged that I would soon be in serious trouble. I was dizzy with hunger. My chest ached. I always felt cold, even though I spent all day on the move, climbing rock walls, making precarious crossings over gushing streams, darting into cover if I saw any sign of human activity. For even here, up in the woods, there were tracks used by local cottagers, places where pigs were driven out to forage for nuts and roots, signs that folk had been burning charcoal or gathering firewood. The closer I came to Summerfort, the harder it would be to stay unseen.

I reached a place where the track dipped down to run along a lower part of the hill, a stone’s throw from the broader way that followed the loch shore. This was a hard-packed earthen road suited to carts and riders, and it was busy. Among those who passed along it were groups of Enforcers, most of them heading eastward. They were riding to Summerfort, I guessed. Perhaps they would report the progress of the Cull to King Keldec, if he was still in residence there. He would be proud of them.

It made me sick to see them ride by. I kept well clear of the road and moved as quietly as I could. One wrong step, one cracking twig or sliding foot, and I would be in custody in the blink of an eye, forced to answer hard questions about what I was doing out here on my own.

Four days, five days, and still no sight of Summerfort. The leaves fell all around me; the branches above me grew bare and stark. This was taking too long. What if I could not reach the pass before the winter snow came? But I couldn’t press on today. Riders had been going by since early morning. If I came too close, my coughing would give me away. I found a hollow barely big enough to accommodate a fox and crouched there in the hope that the way would clear and let me move on. As I waited, the sky opened, releasing a downpour that dwarfed the previous rain. I huddled under Flint’s cloak, watching the road, where the deluge had slowed but not halted the stream of riders travelling eastward. Water dripped from the foliage to pool around me. My bones ached with cold.

There was no making fire. I had neither heart nor strength to look for food. I could not remember how it felt to have a full belly. It seemed to me I would never be dry and warm again. I cursed Father for dying; I cursed him for believing he could change our world with a wager.