Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (21 page)

Glas! He was alive!

“No! Stop!”

The man turned. Through the drifting smoke of the farmhouse funeral pyre, his eyes locked with Sabrann’s. The sword pointed straight at her, and then back at Glas.

“
Dias
! The gods above have helped me,” he shouted. “I’ve been looking for you! Do you want this little, crippled nothing? Come and get him!”

Glas’s frightened eyes met hers. The long, iron sword wavered, shifting between Glas’s body and Sabrann. She moved one step closer.

Glas was alive.
Must stop him ... Save Glas. I must stop him.

The man’s reddened eyes darted back and forth. Around his neck, he wore a boar’s tusk. His face was splattered with blood. His blunted nose looked like a pig’s snout.

She watched him with eyes scorched and blackened, like the burnt fields all around them. This pig of an assassin was a wild animal. In the next moment, his sword would fall.

Assassin!
You killed them all!
Her eyes never left the man’s face and, without thinking, her hand rested on the hilt of the hunting knife on her belt. She knew how to kill wild animals. She moved closer, barely breathing.

When the assassin looked down at Glas, she eased the knife from the scabbard and gripped the bone handle, finding the right place for her fingers, her whole being focused on the man in front of her. The assassin.

Her eyes burned with the images of flaming bodies.

Time moved in slow motion. The man’s arm raised high, ready to drop.

Her grip on the knife tightened.

Assassin,—I won’t let you have him!

She threw the knife. With perfect aim from practice and hundreds of hunting throws, it flew straight to the heart of the killer. It was quick and deep and unexpected. The body jerked once, his eyes caught open in death, wide with surprise, and fell back over Glas. The body twitched convulsively, and then lay still. A single stream of blood, bright and scarlet, trickled over his chest.

Sabrann’s hand shook; her knees trembled.

“Glas,” she wailed. No answer. She drew a deep, shuddering breath and then sidled up to the body, not yet sure the creature was dead. The eyes stared unseeing at the sky. A few drops of blood came from the snubbed nose, then ceased.

Then a muffled voice called her name. She shoved the body away, and Glas rolled out from under his would-be killer.

“Glas,
mo caraid
, you are alive. What has happened here?”

“I don’t know. Culain woke me, pushed me out the back opening in the farmhouse, and told me to come here to his smithy hut. He said by all the gods of the earth and sky and the waters, I was not to come out until he came and got me. I kept waiting and waiting. I heard awful sounds, Sabrann, and Culain didn’t come. He never came.”

“They’re all dead,” she said in a voice like death itself. Her head reeled with the thought as she gripped Glas’s hand.

His eyes met hers. Desolate. And she saw that he knew; that he had heard everything.

She couldn’t speak. Her mind was blank, seared by the fire. Struck dumb, they clung to each other, kneeling on the fire-scorched earth of their home. Then distant voices drifted in.

“Oh, no! We can’t stay here, Glas. We have to go. They’re after me!”

“But why?” he asked. She shook her head, not knowing.

“We must run and hide.” Her voice was scoured and raw. She placed her arms around his shoulders and held him tight. She would not give him up to anyone. He had been part of her life since she was five, and she loved him like kin.

He struggled to stand. A year younger than Sabrann, he was smaller and shorter. The back of his head was misshapen and one leg withered, bent oddly from his reluctant birth. Maigrid said he had not wanted to leave the mother world and be born. He had to be pulled out, the life cord still wrapped around his neck and his skin as blue as the sky. Maigrid named him Golvan, after the brisk little sparrow, “so he could fly away when he needed to.” He was so small she thought it would be soon. Instead, he grew stronger and stronger, but never less twisted. Everyone started calling him Glas—it meant blue—for his blue birth skin. Now, it seemed like his true name.

The voices! They were closer now.

“Quick! I’ll help you,” she said, for there was no way he could even walk fast. His arms and chest were strong, but his twisted leg stopped him from running.

She looked down with revulsion at the first man she had ever killed and saw her knife. She couldn’t leave it. Cathbad had given it to her and blessed it with powerful carvings on the bone hilt. She yanked it out. It was hers! Thank the gods she had put it on this morning.

Taller and stronger than Glas, she clasped him tightly and, with one of his arms around her waist holding onto her belt, they set off in a crazy, hobbled run toward the only place she could think of that was far enough from the farm and had places to hide in.

Danger was coming and looking for her. Until she could think of what to do next, they would go to the river.

No sounds came from the direction of the farm as they stumbled through rough fields. Sabrann held Glas tight, listening for any sound that might mean danger. In her thoughts, she saw it all again; the horror of the scene at the farm, the nightmare vision of the massacre, the flaming bodies. The scrap of blue wool.

No, no! Run.
They must get away. Whoever had killed Maigrid—her family!—was after her. She
heard
them say so! Perhaps she should hide Glas somewhere. They would keep after her, and he would be safe. But safe for what? Who would take care of him with his withered leg and his misshapen head? He would be cast out by any clan he approached. Deformed babies were usually allowed to die—placed outside and left for the gods to take back. And he wasn’t good at talking. He never talked much except to her; they always knew each other’s thoughts.

So what could he do? How would he eat? He couldn’t hunt. His leg stopped him from catching all but the smallest prey. He would starve. No. He was better off with her. She could hunt to feed him and, most of all, protect him.

Sabrann’s stomach churned at what she had done. To kill was an act that needed the gods sanction. She had seen many animals sacrificed to the gods, and once, even a captured warrior brought to Mai Dun for the ritual act of beheading, to keep the clans safe. In times of war, killing was necessary.

But I have never killed a person.
Her throat grew tight at the thought. Killing for food, yes. That was different. You said prayers and sacred words first, and then asked the animal or bird spirit to give its life. Even so, she never liked the hunt. She felt the spirit minds of the animals she sought to kill and knew their panic as they were hunted down and again at the moment of death. Many times she left the kill to someone else. At Mai Dun she trained herself to use the knife and sling, and even the small hunting axe with great skill, so her reluctance would not be so apparent and give yet another reason for the cruel jibes of the other children.

Glas’s legs tired fast. Sabrann tried to carry him, but he was almost her height. She stumbled and fell from the weight.

“Go on without me,” he pleaded, as they started again. “I can hide in one of the tall trees by the river. I’ll be safe. No one will see me up so high. I’ll wait until one of the fishermen comes by, and he will help me.”

“No.” she said flatly. “You come with me.” Her voice trembled with fatigue, but was resolute. For though she did not know why the assassins sought her, she knew one horrifying truth: it was because of her that almost everyone she loved in life was killed. Except Glas. From now on, she would take care of him.

Never, ever, will I leave you behind
, mo cairaid
, she thought. We will find our safety together, or not at all, but I think I know a way. If we can just get to the river, we can cross at the low water crossing and hide in Belerion.

Dodging branches, crawling through brush, running when they could, they moved slowly south of the farm. Finally, they came to a wooded place near the stream where they used to gather the pieces of stone that Culain made into knucklebone-shaped ingots. After their other work was finished, everyone on the farms came here to dig. Here, sifting and digging, Sabrann learned to search for the black pieces of stone that Culain called tin.

Maigrid always called it by its other name—Taranis seed, for the god who ruled the sky. She said his bolts of lightning made the soil pregnant and grew the earth into these pieces of stone, the strange children of the god. They sent the ingots to Mai Dun. All the traders wanted it; they had to have it, to mix with copper to make bronze. And everyone made things of bronze. Culain knew how to make bronze. He had made the special amulet that hung from her neck. A sliver of wood from the Matrones statue lay inside, secure and potent protection. She grasped it quickly and brought it to her lips.
Help us!

The stream was only a fine trickle now at the end of the summer. When the first heavy rains came in the springtime, it flooded out of the high peat and granite moorlands, past ancient, oak trees until a torrent of water carved its way through the thin, sandy soil, beating the rocks and soil to reveal its treasure—throwing the raw tin up on the stream’s banks.
Culain!
Gone.

The woods, still leafed in green and brown, held patches of deep shade that concealed them as they moved, hiding behind each tree. They saw no one. Sabrann heard no sounds of pursuit, only the sound of water as it murmured over rocks and ran toward the deep river.

The clear water glinted silver in the sunlight. Thirsty, they cupped their hands and gulped water, standing in the cool stream. Smooth stones and pebbles covered the bottom and winked up through the ripples.

“Look, Sabrann!” Glas reached into the water and picked up a rough black pebble; it was a small piece of raw tin. He was crying.

She could not stop her own tears as she took it, wordlessly, and put it in her belt pouch. Culain was gone; they would never again see the people they loved. Her whole body ached from the strain of carrying Glas. What were they to do? Alone and hunted, somehow they must make their way back to Mai Dun. Cathbad would help them.

Sabrann looked all around. Her fire-singed hair flew in her face, and she brushed it back with blistered hands. The smell of burnt hair filled her nose. She must choose their path. She stared at the trees. Nothing moved there. She followed the stream with her eyes and looked west toward Belerion. Their only path to safety lay deep in its high moors. Then they could make their way back to Mai Dun. She took Glas’s hand in hers and tried to sound brave.

“At least we know where this stream goes. The river is not far. Just over there ...” she pointed, “... beyond this last meadow.”

They were both exhausted. She wanted to lie down and never get up. The sun felt warm on her face as she looked up at the pale blue sky, crowded with high, puffed clouds. The fierce scream of a hawk broke the silence.
Kree-ee—Kree-ee.
Her eyes darted and tracked it high above, coasting on the wind. It floated on the air like a feather. A wild, answering call welled up in her throat; she wanted to scream like the hawk and call to it. She wanted to fly away.

Beware
, some warning voice cautioned. The fire-singed fuzz of hair on her arms rose, each hair alive and bristling. Her skin felt taunt across her cheek bones. It was quiet now, but not safe. Glas’s tear-stained and trusting face looked at her expectantly. She could not forget; he belonged to her now.

It was time to go.