Silvermay (8 page)

H
eroes are men who win battles with nothing more than courage and the swords in their hands. That's what I remember from childhood stories. Now and then, a woman, or even a girl, is the brave one who fights off enemies or leads her people to safety in the face of heart-stopping danger. A heroine whose spirit and deeds make her stand out like a proud flame for all the rest to admire.

On this journey, I learned there is another kind of heroine: one who never touches a sword, nor leads the way; one who doesn't shine among others, yet shows more courage in her heart than any story could ever tell. Nerigold's strength was ebbing with every mile we travelled and she knew it better than Tamlyn and I did. An illness had hold of her; it had defeated my mother's potions and now she was wasting away to skin and bone. Each day, it was a struggle just to stay on the horse and
not give in to her weary muscles when they demanded rest. Undaunted, though, Nerigold stood beside the horse each morning, her hands reaching up for the pommel, and called to Tamlyn, ‘Help me into the saddle,' as if she were looking forward to an hour's canter along shaded lanes.

One morning, at least, we were given a good omen for our journey. Before we'd travelled more than a mile, the ground levelled out in front of us as far as we could see, ending at a stand of tall pines in the distance.

‘I wish the way could be this easy all the time,' said Nerigold.

It wasn't quite true that our view ended with the trees. Beyond them, rising in the far distance, was our first sight of Nan Tocha's mountains, the highest dusted with snow even though it was only early in the autumn. I knew from what Birdie had told me that, come winter, all the peaks would be covered in white and much of the land around them as well.

I hitched Lucien up over my shoulder and walked on, enjoying the flat ground. ‘We'll worry about the mountains when we get there, won't we, Smiler?' I said.

Tamlyn was ahead of us, leading Nerigold's horse by a halter. When the mare stopped unexpectedly, I almost walked into her haunches.

‘What's the matter?' I asked.

Tamlyn stared past my shoulder. He remained silent for a moment then made a face. ‘Nothing,' he muttered, starting up again.

But when we were only a hundred yards from the pine wood, he turned again. ‘There's someone behind us,' he said, and immediately urged us forward as fast as we could manage.

Halfway to the trees, I dared a glance over my shoulder and caught sight of the figures myself: not one, but four or five on horseback. They would run us down in no time.

‘What will we do?' I cried to Tamlyn. ‘We can't hide among these trees. It's too open.'

‘Hurry,' he shouted, which seemed foolish to me. They'd seen us already, and it didn't much matter whether they caught us among the pine trees or once we emerged on the other side. Nevertheless, I struggled to keep up with Tamlyn who led the horse while Nerigold held on for dear life. The constant shaking up and down made Lucien cry, but we somehow made it as far as the trees and charged on, clear to the other side.

And that's where we stopped, because there
was
no other side. Oh, the trees came to an end right enough, but so did the ground leaving Tamlyn and me to stare down into a wide ravine. The river that had gouged it out of this high plain was still hard at work hundreds of feet below.

‘The Great River; we must be near its headwaters,' he said, as though we were there to explore the territory around us.

What did it matter which river it was? I tore my eyes from one danger to watch for the other coming towards us. The men would reach us in a matter of minutes.

‘What are we going to do?' I asked as Tamlyn helped Nerigold down from the saddle.

Tamlyn's answer was to draw my father's sword from the scabbard hanging from the horse's flank.

‘But there are five of them,' I warned. They were close enough to count now.

He ignored me. I realised he would take on all five and die before my eyes. Then it would be my turn, most likely. They might not even spare the baby.

I passed Lucien to his mother so I could fight, too.

‘No, Silvermay,' cried Tamlyn. ‘Lucien must stay with you.'

‘But my bow! I can kill one of them at least.'

‘There's no time to explain,' he called again. ‘Do as I say.'

That wasn't the way to speak to Birdie Hawker's daughter. All he did was rouse my stubborn streak. Unhooking the bow from the saddle I slipped the string over my head until the bow came to rest diagonally across my back. The quiver of arrows went over the
other shoulder, and I was able to take little Smiler in my arms again.

‘All right, then,' Tamlyn conceded. ‘But the baby must stay with you. Now, look away,' he said. When I hesitated at such a strange order, he lost patience and shouted, ‘Look at the men as they come. Don't look behind you.'

Why?
I wanted to shout at him, but he'd moved out of my sight. What was he going to do that I wasn't allowed to see?

‘Do what he asks,' Nerigold said in a voice that struggled to stay calm. And in case I was thinking of flouting Tamlyn's command a second time, she took a surprisingly strong grip on my arm.

Moments later, I heard the low whoosh of steel slicing through the air and the ring of the impact against wood, yet the sound was deeper and more forceful than I'd ever known. Instinct made me want to look, but Nerigold held me tighter than ever. The sound was repeated soon after. The steel could only be Father's sword, but what was Tamlyn doing with it?

The answer came quickly. A deafening crack filled the tiny forest and immediately after came the rip and tear I recognised as a tree about to fall.

This time Nerigold couldn't hold me. I spun around with Smiler in my arms, in time to see a massive
pine at the ravine's edge begin to topple away from us. Although the riders were charging ever closer behind me, I had to watch the tree fall. The sight was simply too grand to tear my eyes away: a giant tipping over before my gaze.

The massive trunk didn't plunge into the ravine as I'd expected. When it fell level with the ground, a crash louder than I'd ever dreamed possible filled my ears. Little Lucien jumped in fright, almost spilling out of my arms.

Across the ravine, the top of the tree had thumped into the dirt, crushing the topmost branches to splinters and pulp and making the thicker end on our side rear upwards in response. But then it settled to the ground again, amid clouds of dust that rose onto the breeze. When the ear-splitting sounds died away, what I saw before us wasn't a fallen tree but a bridge waiting to carry us to the other side.

‘Come here to me, quickly,' Tamlyn called to us.

To reach him, Nerigold, Lucien and I passed close to the stump left by the fallen pine. It showed two clean planes where it had been cut, the rest torn off savagely when the trunk began to topple.

I paused astounded. ‘How did … it must be six feet across. It would take two men all day to …'

I stopped my babbling because Tamlyn was already helping Nerigold onto the fallen tree. After handing
Lucien up to his mother, it was my turn to scramble onto the rough bark. As soon as I was on the bridge, Tamlyn moved to the end of the trunk and levered himself up with the strength of his arms and a single spring from his legs. His feet had just cleared the curved edge of the cleanly cut log when a sword thudded into the wood.

In the rush, I hadn't looked to see how close the men were. Now, they were upon us, five of them surrounding the end of the log. We were high above them, and I had seen enough fighting to know this gave us an advantage, but against five …

Every instinct told me to unhook the bow from my shoulder, but Tamlyn had forbidden me once already. I'd done what he asked and we were still alive. So far. I took Lucien back into my arms, since he had insisted on that, too. If we were to cross this most unusual bridge, it was my job to carry him.

Suddenly I became aware of the silence and the men standing stone still below us. Even with the advantage our high position gave us, it only needed one or two of them to distract Tamlyn while the others swarmed onto the tree. Instead, they stood staring at us, like men facing a phantom.

Then I saw it. They weren't looking at me, or Nerigold. All five had their eyes on the man who stood ready to fight them off. And they were rigid with shock.

‘Lord Tamlyn,' one of them called finally. ‘
You
are the girl's husband?' His voice suggested this was the last thing in the world he could imagine. ‘Your father said nothing of this.'

The others stirred. There was fear in their faces, surprising to see when five men faced only one.

‘They know you,' I said. ‘Tamlyn, what's going on?'

The sound of my voice roused him. He looked quickly over his shoulder and seemed startled to see us. ‘Go,' he shouted harshly. ‘Get Nerigold and the baby to the other side.'

He didn't need to say more. He would hold them off, but mother and son were for me to worry about.

I stepped past Nerigold and, when she stayed looking at Tamlyn and the men who would soon attack him, I took her hand and led her along the trunk to the branches. These had spent all their years pointing at the horizon; now some pointed to the sky, some straight downwards, and the rest at odd angles. As we reached them, I saw them only as obstacles we had to squeeze past. But as we moved out beyond the lip of the ravine and found ourselves staring all the way down to the river below, I changed my mind. Now the branches were handles to keep us from falling.

‘Are you all right?' I asked Nerigold, when we reached halfway.

I was terrified that her grip might weaken at a crucial moment, or she could become dizzy as she'd done more often in these last days.

Nerigold nodded, reluctant to waste even a single breath on words. Or perhaps she was listening, as I was, to the clash of steel that echoed around the ravine. With so many pine branches behind us now, we couldn't see the fighting and just as well. Our job was to reach the other side. My job was to make sure all three of us did.

Nerigold was exhausted. At each obstacle, she grasped the branch, waited while she took deep breaths, and only when she was ready did she tip herself off balance, her grip on the branch all that saved her from falling. I made her go ahead of me and stayed as close as I could, bracing my feet to hold me on the tree trunk in case I had to use one hand to grab her.

My other hand was holding Lucien tight to my chest. And then, before any of my paltry precautions could be of use, she slipped. It happened so quickly there was no time to lunge forward to catch her hand or her dress, even a hank of her hair to haul her back. With a sharp scream she was gone.

The horror was too much for me and I closed my eyes and screamed as well, a long, loud scream that would mask the sound of her frail body striking the river's surface below.

When my breath gave out, I stayed there, eyes tightly shut and clutching Lucien, who was so suddenly without a mother. Then …

‘Silvermay.'

A voice. What was happening?

It came again. ‘Silvermay.' It was Nerigold's voice. I opened my eyes. She hadn't reappeared on the trunk in front of me, but it was definitely her.

‘Down here,' she called.

I dared look and there she was, lying on her side with her head turned up towards me, as stunned to see me as I was to see her. She'd fallen, but only as far as the ground that supported the top end of the pine tree. We'd reached the other side of the ravine only two paces before she fell. Two paces, but that was enough.

Using the branches on the curved side of the trunk as a ladder, I climbed down to join her. She was already sitting up.

‘No bones broken, I think,' she said, and to prove it she put out her arms for Lucien.

 

We had crossed the ravine safely, but Tamlyn was still on the other side. The savage strike of steel against steel unnerved us. The men seemed to be taking on Tamlyn one at a time, for only a single opponent had fought his way onto the trunk, putting himself on equal footing.
The flash of sunlight along his blade frightened me. One slip by Tamlyn and that steel would gouge deeply into his flesh. As soon as he faltered, the others would rush in like wolves, scrambling onto the log to finish him. It was too awful to think about.

I took Lucien back into one arm and used the other to support Nerigold as she struggled away from the tree that had let us escape. We stopped a little back from the ravine and turned to watch the battle. I saw that, slowly, Tamlyn was getting the better of his opponent. Twice he came close to forcing the other man off the trunk. Then, victory. A savage slash from Tamlyn's sword caught the other's a perfect blow on the flat of the blade and, with a snap that could be heard on the mountain tops, I was sure, it broke in two. The tip flew to the side and it was all the desperate man could do to use the shortened stump still in his hand to deflect more of Tamlyn's savage attack until he'd fallen back to earth.

In going after him for one final swipe, Tamlyn caught his boot on the curled edge of some dead bark and, before he could regain his balance, he also fell from the log. He landed on his feet, but the brief pause had allowed the man he'd already defeated to grab a sword from one of his companions and he took up the fight again.

Driven away from the trunk, Tamlyn couldn't stop the other four from clambering onto the makeshift
bridge. Before I'd realised what was happening, they were swinging through the branches as Nerigold and I had done, only at ten times the speed.

‘We should have been on the move all this time,' I cursed.

We began to run, with me pulling Nerigold behind me. I turned my head to see how far the men had come and noticed movement at the far end of the trunk as well. Tamlyn had pushed his opponent aside long enough to jump onto the bridge. He was hurrying after the pursuers, one man chasing four, with the fifth not done yet, either. Tamlyn had enemies in his face and at his back. Who could survive against such odds?