Shadowland (12 page)

‘What?’ said Meryn. ‘What did I say?’

They pulled pieces from the loaf of hard bread that
Meryn produced from his pack, and then trailed off, munching silently as they
searched for the southern road, leaving the archer looking bewildered.

Although the rain had stopped, the mist was getting
thicker. The well-trodden path was easy enough to follow, even if it offered
little hint of their surroundings. It was a strange feeling, walking through a
world of white. Usher kept close to Meryn with Cal and Clarise trailing along close behind.
Dark shapes loomed through the dripping whiteness. Each strange apparition
first appeared like a monster set to pounce, before revealing itself as no more
than a tree or bush. By midday, the mist still hadn’t lifted. It continued to
cover them in its cold embrace, chilling them and fraying tired nerves even
further as it became harder and harder to keep to the path.

A pheasant exploded into flight close by, shattering
the silence of the forest and scaring them out of their wits with its warning
screech. However, it wasn’t a pheasant that made the noise that followed, and
it scared them even more.

‘What was that?’ hissed Usher. They stopped where
they were, searching through the white cloak of their surroundings.

‘I’m not sure... what did you hear?’ whispered
Meryn. He pulled out a knife and moved it from one side to the other, ready for
combat as his eyes searched the mist for whatever the threat might be.

Usher didn’t answer. He stood; head to one side,
straining his hearing to confirm or deny what he thought might be there.

Meryn nudged him urgently. ‘Talk to me.’ But Usher
didn’t have time to answer as a sharp crack came from close in front of them.
It sounded like a small branch breaking under something heavy… like a foot.

Meryn tugged on Usher’s sleeve and, drawing Clarise
and Cal after
him, quickly backed away from whatever was coming down the path towards them.

‘I heard someone cough… or thought I did,’ whispered
Usher, after they had retreated a few paces. ‘Maybe it was a deer? They
sometimes… ’

‘
Shhhh
,’ warned Meryn.
Still backing further, he passed the knife to Usher and carefully drew his
sword from its sheath. As they reached the side of a large tree, Meryn saw what
he had been looking for and was about to lead them down a small animal track
when the sound of running feet came pounding towards them. Without warning, two
Picts burst from the mist, swords swinging, and blue-painted faces registering
a sudden shock at seeing them.

‘Run!’ yelled Meryn, as he thrust out his sword. The
blade took the first Pict in the stomach, his face creasing in an agony of
surprise as he fell. Clarise began screaming. Pulling her behind him, Meryn
drew his sword and slashed across at the other attacker, who was yelling
something in the strange Pict tongue. ‘Meet at the end of the path,’ urged
Meryn, ‘on the southern road. I’ll take Clarise, you two get out of here, go!’
Blocking a savage cut, he threw his sack at the Pict to distract him, and
stabbed out with the sword, plunging it into the warrior’s throat, abruptly
cutting off his undulating cry. ‘Go!’ Without further discussion, the archer
turned and dragged the now hysterical Clarise down into the trees.

For a moment, Usher and Cal stood alone, staring
down at the two Picts as they gurgled and thrashed through their death throes.
The sound of angry voices got closer. With a quick glance at Cal, Usher pushed past after Meryn.

The nervous cry of horses and shouting followed them
as the dead Picts were discovered. Then, as they crashed blindly through the
undergrowth,
came the sounds of pursuit
. It was tricky in the mist
and they slipped and fell over bushes, branches, and unseen obstacles in their
attempts to follow Meryn, it was impossible to see where they were going. The
mist still covered everything, revealing only shapes and shades of light and
shadows. Usher could hear his heart beating loud in his ears and felt panic
rising as he frantically sought some route of escape or sign of Meryn. Then a
large hawthorn bush loomed up out of the mist and he ran straight into it. He
struggled, badly scratching his face and arms. S
tifling a cry of pain, he untangled himself, went down onto his hands
and knees and crawled further into the bush.
Cal
followed, ignoring the thorns as best he could. Once hidden at the centre, they
collapsed, panting. Usher tried to bring his breathing under control as he
strained his ears for any indication that they might have been seen.

The main path must have been close because they
could hear horses snorting and stomping, and harnesses rattling. There were
voices, although the boys couldn’t make out what they were saying. On the other
side came the sounds of men calling to each other as they moved through the
trees, beating the bushes, angrily searching for them.

‘We’ve lost Meryn and Clarise,’ whispered Usher. He
wiped the sheen of mist from his face. ‘We have to get around the Picts and
back onto the path, then catch up with Meryn and Clarise later on. If we run
into the forest
the wrong way, we could be lost for days.’

‘I hope Clarise is all right,’ murmured Cal. ‘I wish we were all
together still. Come on. Let’s get out of here while we still can.’

‘Slowly and quietly as possible,’ cautioned Usher,
as he followed on after his friend.

****

Meryn
stopped, hardly daring to move a muscle or even draw breath as he felt the
sharp edge of a blade press against his throat. If the Pict had wanted to kill
him, he would have done so with a quick savage cut. He waited, felt his hair
grabbed, and then his head was jerked back exposing his throat even further.
His eyes watered with pain and frustration and he cursed himself for not paying
enough attention to where they were going. He’d been too absorbed with hurrying
the sobbing Clarise away from the path. The sudden bloodshed had shocked her
and she had been doing her best to hold back, insisting he wait for the boys to
catch up.
Believing the threat was behind
them, he
tugged
her along, concentrating on keeping her moving rather than watching their surroundings,
when the knife whipped around a tree and the Pict had drawn him into this
painful embrace.

‘You are a breath away from death,’ hissed a heavily
accented voice. ‘Drop your weapon and do not call out.’ Realising he had little
option but to comply, Meryn dropped his sword and shrugged the bow from his
shoulder, allowing Clarise’s fingers to slip from his grasp as he did so. If
she hadn’t noticed the Pict yet, he could still hope she might run back the way
they had come in search of her brother.

She did take a few steps, but then realised he
wasn’t following and turned back. When she saw the knife and the blue face,
leering at her over Meryn’s shoulder, she gave a small cry and then a second
Pict emerged from the mist and clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling the
scream before it could leave her throat.

Clarise struggled as a foul-tasting cloth gag was
jammed into her mouth, but it did no good. Forcing her facedown onto the ground
beside Meryn, a Pict knelt with his knee in her back to stop her moving, and
then tied her arms back with tough hide. Meryn glanced across at her as the
hide bit painfully into her flesh bringing tears but she knew there was nothing
he could do. Once they were satisfied, the Picts dragged them to their feet and
guided them out towards the path. They stumbled on as the voices echoed through
the trees around them and the search continued.

When they reached a small group of horses, they were
pushed roughly down beside a tree. A brief argument flared up between the Picts
then one remained to guard over them, while the other ran back into the mist to
help with the ongoing hunt.

Meryn glanced to Clarise and she saw the terrible
sadness and frustration in his eyes. There was nothing either could do but wait
and hope that the boys had fared better than they had.

****

It
was late in the morning when the mist finally began to lift. Bright shafts of
sunlight, striking through the treetops, banished the confusion of the forest
floor. They had managed to find the path while the mist had still covered
everything, and the sounds of the search were growing fainter in the distance.
As the morning wore on and they remained alone, they slowed their flight to a
plodding walk.

‘Maybe we should go back?’ muttered Cal, glancing around.
‘They can’t be ahead of us; we would have caught up with them by now. They have
to be back there somewhere. Maybe the Picts caught them… I’m worried about
Clarise.’

Usher shook his head. ‘Meryn told us to meet at the
far end of the path. Maybe they went by a different route and that’s why we
haven’t seen them. We don’t want to go back and get captured only to find out
they got away!’ Usher slapped his friend on the back. ‘Come on, Meryn knows
what he’s doing. They’re probably waiting for us with a cooking fire already
lit and wondering where we are.’

The path through the trees wound on and on,
seemingly without an end, and they were becoming aware of just how big the
Weald really was. There was no sign of pursuit, but also no trace of Meryn and
Clarise. Twice they came to crossroads where paths led off in other directions,
but on each occasion, they saw no other travellers and trudged wearily on.

The sounds of the forest accompanied them. Birds
sang, squirrels chattered, and larger animals like boar and deer, occasionally
passed, noisily but unseen through the undergrowth, causing the boys to quicken
their pace, in fear it was the Picts about to jump out at them.

Day turned to evening and the light began to fade.
Reluctantly, they resigned themselves to spending another night in the forest.
They turned from the path and searched for a place to make camp.

They used what light remained to construct a shelter
in case it rained again, but, although dry and more comfortable than the
previous night, and travel-weary as they were, they still endured a night of
troubled sleep, their dreams filled with strange images and fears for Meryn and
Clarise. When the first light of dawn found its way into the forest, both boys
were already awake and although cold and stiff, were ready to move on.

The morning went by in an uneventful blur of
exhaustion, neither of them having much to say. It was early afternoon when
they finally left the forest and emerged into a meadow filled with bleating
sheep.

‘They’re not here!’ Cal cried, throwing down his pack in
frustration. ‘This is it! The end of the path and they’re not here!’ At the
sound of his raised voice, a dozen rooks took flight from a dead tree as it
stood sentinel beside the path and screamed obscenities while circling
overhead. Their cries echoed round the meadow, causing several sheep to move
hurriedly away before raising their heads inquisitively, their jaws still
chewing methodically as they contemplated the new arrivals.

‘There must be a village close to here, maybe
they’ll be there.’ Usher gazed across the meadow where the path crossed through
the long grass before disappearing into a hedgerow. In the far distance, smoke
was rising from an unseen fire, hopefully a sign of habitation.

Cal
gave a deep sigh and
nodded. ‘What if something happened to Clarise? I should be looking after her. We
shouldn’t have left her.’ With little choice, they set out across the meadow
into the warmth of the late afternoon.

At least it was pleasant to be out of the forest, to
feel the warm sun on their backs once more, and despite their worries for
Clarise, they began to relax, it didn’t last long. They were about half way
across the meadow when a galloping horse burst from the trees behind them and
reined in, scaring the rooks back into flight in a cacophony of irritation.
Usher recognised the rider immediately. The last time they had seen him he had
led a party of Picts to burn their village. The moment he saw them, his face
split into an evil smile, and then he kicked his horse back into a gallop with
a yell and came thundering towards them.

‘Run!’ screamed Usher, but Cal was already running.

Fear and panic drove fatigue from their legs and sent
them sprinting towards the hedgerow with the rhythmic drumming of the horse’s
hooves and the manic screaming of the rider loud in their ears.

Usher was first to reach the apparent safety of the
hedge, and slipped through a gap only to hear Cal let out a scream behind him. Spinning
round, he saw the rider had leaped from his horse, knocked Cal
to the ground, and was now triumphantly dragging a stunned Cal to his feet.

The warrior was a big man with black hair, and a
black beard. He was armoured in black leather with a sword hanging at his side
and wearing a helmet of the same colour. In fact, everything about him was
black, from his clothes, right through to the aura of evil that surrounded him.

‘Get up, boy, or I’ll cut your throat and watch you
die slowly here and now; either way I get to bring you in. What the... !’ Maybe
he thought Usher had run on or that he simply wasn’t a threat, but he wasn’t
prepared to defend himself as Usher charged in to help his friend, screaming
out his fear and hatred.

Slashing his sword in a way that would have made
Meryn shake his head at the total lack of any technique, Usher attacked, and as
he attacked, he screamed. ‘Get away from him!
 
Get away!’ He slashed left then right, forcing the Saxon to drop Cal and fall backwards,
narrowly escaping the swing of Usher’s blade as he did so. Unfortunately, with
one quick roll, the Saxon was back on his feet and blocking the next blow with
a resounding clang that sent a shudder up Usher’s arm and it was all he could
do to keep hold of the sword.