Silvermay (17 page)

‘And the sailors who told them about it,' said Tamlyn, so promptly that I guessed he'd already thought of these things. ‘We'll have to find one of those sailors and make him take us there.'

‘Do you think it's true, Tamlyn? Can the sorcerers of Erebis Felan strip Lucien of his cursed powers?'

‘I have no evidence that I can hold in my hand, but I believe Haylan Redwing's story. I believe they took away his strength and his magic.'

‘Will you ask them to do the same to you?'

I've been thinking about it since before you asked me, since Arnou Dessar read us the story, in fact. Stripped of my powers, I would be no different from any commonfolk man.'

‘Is that such a bad thing?' I asked. ‘You wouldn't have to live with the deadened spirit that makes the Wyrdborn such miserable creatures, not just to others, but to themselves. You could feel happiness, Tamlyn, in the way I feel it, and all the others like me. You want that, don't you? It's what your mother was trying to give you, even though she struggled to imagine it.'

‘I know what I would become and I know what it would bring me, but it's what I would lose that holds me back.'

I didn't understand. ‘The jealousy, the constant suspicion of your own kind, even your own family, the squabbling, the hatred, that's what you'd lose.'

Tamlyn's eyes were focused on something that no one else could see, but he'd heard me, every word, and he was weighing them carefully. I suspected he'd been silently arguing with himself all the way from the diggings.

‘Silvermay,' he said finally, looking deeply into my eyes, ‘I keep thinking of Haylan Redwing and the way he died.'

‘Killed by his own son. You said it yourself.'

Tamlyn nodded and the look on his face was the saddest thing I've ever seen.

‘Haylan Redwing became powerless in the face of his own family,' he said, ‘just as I would become powerless against my own father.'

In Nan Tocha

A
rnou Dessar was bent over the trestle table that served as his workbench. Three days had passed since the Wyrdborn had led his companions away towards Ledaris yet he still couldn't push them from his mind long enough to concentrate on his work. That poor child. His life depended on the pledge of two determined young souls. What haunted his thoughts most cruelly was the fear that it would all be for nothing, that the blood-soaked scenes crafted so perfectly by the ancient sorcerers would one day become real.

‘Pray that you don't live to see it, old man,' he whispered.

He was once again trying to concentrate on his work when a miner emerging from the cave cried out in alarm. Arnou feared a rockfall, but there was no dust swirling out from the cave and, besides, the man was looking away from the entrance, towards the road leading into the camp.

Others began to shout. It was past noon and many of the workers were stretched out in the shady cool of the camp for their midday rest. Some were sitting up and it was they who had taken up the alarm. A few men leapt up and ran into the trees.

Arnou turned and quickly knew why they had run. Two enormous beasts approached, sniffing at the ground constantly as though scent alone was enough to guide them. They seemed excited by what they could smell and tried to break into a charge, but a man on horseback had them restrained by chains.

Norling appeared at Arnou's side, barely able to keep still as he spoke. ‘Only a Wyrdborn could control such monsters. We should get away while we can.'

‘Those beasts would hunt us down in no time,' he said. ‘If this man wants to kill us, we're already dead.'

But Norling was no longer beside him. Arnou glanced around in time to catch a last glimpse of his assistant's back as he disappeared into the forest. Arnou was the only person left in the camp, but what he'd just
said was true enough. Besides, he wasn't as young as Norling, nor the miners, and to set off after them now was futile. Instead, he advanced a few paces until he was free of the lean-to and there he waited, strangely calm and resigned to what might come.

He could see now that the beasts were dogs, or they had started out that way, at least. ‘Wyrdborn magic,' he muttered when he recognised the man who led them. Coyle had sent his son Hallig to steal the child.

Hallig let the dogs get so close to Arnou that their spittle flecked his face and tunic. The sight, the sound, the feel of them so close brought utter terror; Arnou felt fear prickle through every inch of his body, just as Hallig had planned. The urge to back away seemed overwhelming, but he wouldn't give Coyle's son the satisfaction. Instead, he saw a way to deflect his own fear.

‘Your horse seems afraid of these puppies, Lord Hallig,' he said.

Hallig had hardly expected such a greeting and looked down at his mount before he could stop himself. He'd been outwitted for a moment perhaps, but he wasted no time trying to seize the ascendancy once more. After all, he held these monsters' chains.

‘This horse is the bravest I've ever ridden into battle, Master Dessar. He has a courageous heart, like mine,
and doesn't much care who he tramples. But yes, you're right. He's run with these creatures for days now and still he's afraid.' Hallig leaned forward in the saddle. ‘Does that tell you something?'

‘That I should be afraid of them also.'

‘You don't look it.'

‘Oh, I'm terrified, my lord. It's just that I'm too stupid to show it.'

Hallig laughed, even though Arnou had got the better of him again. ‘You know why I've come. A woman arrived here not long ago with her baby. I know this is true so don't try my patience over the matter.'

‘Why would I deny it? Yes, the young mother is here.'

‘Where is she?'

‘Among the trees over there,' said Arnou, pointing to his right. ‘I'll take you to her.'

Hallig couldn't hide his surprise, then quickly covered it with suspicion. ‘Lead on, then,' he growled, tugging on the chains to pull back the dogs so that Arnou could walk away without his ear becoming a morsel for them.

He took Hallig to Nerigold's grave; the mound of earth and the marker with its simple name was enough explanation.

‘A great tragedy,' Arnou said. ‘She loved her child very much.'

‘I'm not interested in such nonsense,' said Hallig. ‘Anyway, how can I know it's true? There might be no body down there at all. I can have the dogs dig down to see, you know, and if you're lying, you'll suffer.' He nodded towards the beasts, which he'd tethered to the thickest tree he could find. ‘They're always hungry.'

‘If you must be sure, then go ahead,' replied Arnou. ‘I ask only that you respect poor Nerigold's body.'

Hallig watched him silently for a time. ‘There's no fear in you, scholar, and the girl was sickly, by all accounts. You're telling the truth this time, but don't think you can fool me. It's not the mother I want, anyway, it's her baby. Where is he? There was a serving girl with Nerigold. Has she taken the baby?'

‘To care for him, yes, since the poor thing has no mother any more.'

‘And my brother Tamlyn — he's with them.'

‘If you already know these things, then you don't need me,' said Arnou.

Hallig took two lightning paces towards Arnou and cuffed him across the face with the back of his hand. As Wyrdborn attacks go it was mild, but Arnou still dropped to his knees clutching at his cheek.

‘Mind your insolence,' snarled Hallig in a good impersonation of his dogs. ‘Were there any others?'

‘No one else,' said Arnou, rising unsteadily to his
feet. This was the first lie he had told Hallig. Everything else had simply confirmed what the brute already knew, or else would quickly discover if he caught one of the miners.

‘They're not hiding here still or my little hounds would have broken off their leashes by now to get at them. So where have they gone?'

‘That way,' said Arnou calmly, pointing to the road that led northward.

‘Of course they've gone that way,' said Hallig, anger never far from his tone. ‘If they'd gone south I would have caught them on the road, wouldn't I? I want to know where they're heading.'

Arnou shrugged. ‘They didn't say.'

Hallig fell silent again while he regarded Arnou with brooding eyes.

Arnou had been forced into his second lie, this one more vital than the first. He tried to keep the fear from his face, because fear was the currency of the Wyrdborn. They measured it as carefully as gold for the precious things it bought them.

‘You're lying.'

‘Why would I lie? They mean nothing to me.'

‘Now you are being foolish, Master Dessar. Of course they mean something to you. You sketched the dead girl's face from an ancient portrait in that cave
of yours, didn't you, and then she turned up here in the flesh. You know very well what that little baby will become.'

‘Yes, all right, they interested me,' said Arnou, cursing himself for such a mistake. ‘But it's true when I tell you I don't know where they are going. They were secretive about their plans.'

Hallig unhooked the chains from around the tree and let the dogs strain menacingly towards him. ‘I don't believe you. You know their destination and you're going to tell me.'

As he spoke, he released the chains for an instant. It was enough to let one of the dogs lunge forward. Before Arnou could back away, it caught his arm in its jaws. He heard a bone crack before he felt it and the sound made the pain more intense. He screamed in agony.

Hallig wrenched the chain brutally to drag the giant dog away before it could inflict any more damage. Arnou's knees buckled and he collapsed at the base of a tree, his good hand clamped to his injured forearm. Blood seeped between his fingers.

Hallig held the frenzied dogs back, but even with his strength it was a struggle.

‘Where is Tamlyn taking the baby?' he demanded. ‘Tell me, or I'll let these monsters loose on you.' Then he
grinned. ‘There's no point being brave, anyway. Do you see how these dogs have no eyes? They know Tamlyn's scent, though, and they'll track him to the gates of hell if that's where he's gone. I will find him, no matter what you do with your miserable life.'

Arnou's mouth was too tightly grimaced to form words. The pain was terrible, and the sight of the dogs fighting their master to get at him was worse.

Still, he shook his head. No matter what Hallig threatened, no matter how hideous his death in the jaws of those dogs, he would not betray the baby, and especially not the girl who carried him as if he were her own. Strange that he should think of Silvermay ahead of Tamlyn, but if there was one among them who would save that boy from his fate, he sensed it was her.

Hallig was a Wyrdborn. His patience was easily exhausted, and what he had said to Arnou Dessar was the truth, after all. He didn't have to know where Tamlyn was taking the baby in order to find them. The dogs would do that for him.

He let go of the chains.

 

Tamlyn rowed strongly for the rest of the day until, near a place called South Bend, we went ashore at last.

‘From here, we're on foot,' he said.

I groaned, more loudly than I'd intended.

On the following day, the walking was relentless from the moment the sun came up. Tamlyn seemed in a hurry and kept us going right through until evening. In all our travels since leaving Haywode, I was never happier to hear him call a halt for the night.

While building the fire Tamlyn stood up suddenly and gazed into the darkness in the direction we'd come.

‘What is it?' I asked. He'd moved so abruptly I couldn't help a moment of panic.

He held up his hand as someone does when he needs silence close by in order to hear faint sounds far away. I knew not to bother listening for them myself. This was one thing I'd certainly learned about the Wyrdborn: they didn't take in the world quite the way commonfolk did. They might be blind to things that we saw plainly, but they also sensed events without ears or eyes or the need to touch.

‘What is it?' I whispered again.

‘I'm not sure,' he said with a frown. ‘Something familiar but not something I want to meet again.' He must have heard the odd note in his own voice because he turned to me and shrugged. ‘But that could describe almost anything in my life.'

Was he just trying to reassure me?

‘This thing, whatever it is, is it close?'

‘How can I know when I'm not sure what it is?'

After we had eaten, my exhaustion quickly brought a sleep so deep my dreaming mind resented the sounds that drew me upwards towards being awake once more. Could it be morning already? Even with my eyes closed, I could tell there was no light in the sky.
Be quiet,
I begged,
let me drift down into delicious sleep again
. No luck. Like so many dreams, this one brought sounds and feelings that seemed all too real. I gave up and opened my eyes.

Firelight traced the outline of a dog so big it could only have escaped from a nightmare. Its snout sniffed at my legs and my stomach. I didn't dare move or make a sound no matter how much I wanted to scream. Frozen in utter panic, I found myself looking straight up into the creature's face as it completed its inspection.

It should have met my eyes. But it didn't, because it had no eyes. Its eyelids sagged loosely as though there was nothing in the sockets beneath. Tears seeped from those empty sockets, or I thought they were tears until a drop splashed onto my cheek and I realised it was watery blood. The heat of it on my skin repulsed me even more.

The dog sniffed me from heel to hair, and though it lingered in places with a menacing growl, as though parts of me deserved a snap of its jaws, once it was finished, it seemed to lose interest. It turned its sightless eyes away and, with a threatening bark that jolted my entire body, it bounded off.

I sat up to watch it go and saw that it had a companion, which seemed to have been more successful in its search. Both dogs launched themselves at something in the darkness. To my horror I realised, they were attacking Tamlyn!

He threw one dog back with a swing of his arm but not before the beast had bitten him below the elbow. The second dog was forced back the same way, but had barely stopped rolling when the first was into the fray again, snarling wickedly and trying to grab hold of Tamlyn's shirt. If the dogs knocked him onto his back, he would die horribly.

I turned to gather up Lucien from where I'd laid him after his last feed from the goat. He was gone. I stood up too quickly and stumbled a step from giddiness. Where was he?

My eyes caught movement among the trees fifty paces away. I swung round quickly in time to pick out a figure running deeper into the forest, its back to me. When the figure turned his head briefly to see if he was being chased, I glimpsed Ryall's petrified face. His arms were pumping at his sides like a racer at the spring festival, which meant he didn't have Lucien.

I soon discovered who did. A man stepped out from behind a nearby tree where he'd been watching the dogs attack Tamlyn. Enough light reflected from the dying fire
to show me his mouth and eyes contorted into a mockery of the smile I knew well by now. I'd never seen this man before but I recognised the hint of Tamlyn in his face. His stance and the breadth of his shoulders were familiar, too.
This must be Coyle
, I decided.

I looked at Lucien in the man's arms and ached to have him back in my own. Tamlyn couldn't help me reclaim him. Nor Ryall. There was only me.

I rushed at the man, grabbing for Lucien, but before I could get even a hand on him, the Wyrdborn's arm rose, almost languidly, to intercept me. The impact was worse than when an overhanging branch had dislodged me from my father's horse at full gallop. That incident had left me winded and on the ground, from where I'd had to endure the guffaws of all who'd seen it. This time, I was sure every bone in my body had broken in two.