Tamlyn (18 page)

I
knew one reason why the darkness ahead remained uninhabited — the bats. Their screeching grew a little louder with each step closer, and soon we began to smell something too — it was, faintly unpleasant to begin with, then became a more powerful stink that attacked my eyes as much as my nose.

With tears brimming over onto my cheeks, I walked on another hundred paces before I felt the first crunch under my shoe. A second and then a third step brought the same sensation.

‘What's that?' I whispered to Ryall.

Tamlyn and Geran had the lights and they were a little distance ahead of us. It was vital I kept an eye on those flames to avoid becoming lost, but with the stench rising from below and the crunching becoming
more noticeable with each step, I turned my eyes to the ground. That was when I saw it.

‘Ryall, the ground is moving.'

‘Can't be. It's impossible.'

‘I can see the movement — in tiny waves.'

‘Doesn't feel that way,' he said. ‘Bit slippery, but the rock's solid underfoot. I can't work out the crunching, though. It's like autumn leaves.'

But there were no trees down here, so where could leaves come from? Was it the bones of dead bats we were walking on, I wondered. Another shiver pulsed through me.

At least the live bats were out of sight in the darkness and high enough for me to convince myself they would leave us alone. Their squeaking and squabbling made it difficult to think straight, though, and that might have been why I made my mistake. I stopped.

No sooner had my feet remained in one spot for a few seconds than my boots were overrun. I didn't feel it through the leather, but as soon as the tickling touch began around my ankles, I jumped. Tiny creatures were crawling inside the legs of my pants. I stamped my feet hard and slapped at them with my hands. A scream grew in my throat, a scream that had to fly free so that my fear and disgust could escape with it. I didn't
care who heard it, or what warning it might give to ears a long way ahead … my throat tightened, my mouth opened and … A hand clamped over my mouth at the last moment.

‘Calm down, Silvermay. They're just cockroaches,' said Ryall into my ear.

‘Just cockroaches!' I mumbled between his fingers.

‘Do what I did. Tuck the legs of your pants into your boots,' he said, and ducked down to help me, both of us slapping at the loathsome creatures with our bare hands.

Even with the job done, I could feel them running up the outside of my pants. What if I'd still been wearing a dress! They would have crawled up my legs, past my knees, my thighs, onto my body and higher still, running under my bodice until every inch of my skin … ‘Urgh,' I said, but at least the urge to scream had become just a low growl in my throat.

‘Keep moving,' said Ryall. ‘That way you'll crush them before they can crawl onto your feet.'

‘Why are there so many?'

‘They feed on the bat droppings, I suppose. That's the muddiness we can feel covering the stone.'

Why did I ask? And since the bats were above us, that meant their foul mess could splatter on my shoulders at any moment. Or worse, my hair! Suddenly,
it felt as though a luminous target was painted on my head, inviting every bat in the mines to take aim.

‘Urgh,' I said again. Wasn't there a dragon down here we could fight instead?

I pulled myself together and followed the flames Tamlyn and Geran were using to guide us, praying that the bats hadn't spread their mess through every last inch of these mines and this slippery, crunching, crawling, eye-burning torment would soon come to an end.

The light thrown upwards by the torches had been swallowed by the vast darkness above ever since we'd entered the bats' rookery. Without warning, that same light was reflected from stone only ten feet above our heads. The low ceiling had no appeal for bats, it seemed. None hung above us; and since there were no bats, there were no droppings and no cockroaches to feed on the droppings. We didn't have to walk much further before the sound of the bats diminished, too, making it possible to speak in a normal voice. ‘The stone here isn't as good,' said Tamlyn, holding his light close to inspect it.

While he and Geran checked our surroundings, I scraped the filth from my boots.

‘We've come through,' said Ryall. ‘And anything you can survive once, you can survive twice.'

Especially if on our return we were carrying what we'd come for, I thought. I pictured myself shielding Lucien from the crawling insects and droppings from above. Somehow, protecting another from the things that you fear makes it easier to face those fears yourself.

Suddenly, Tamlyn tossed his rushlight to the ground and stomped on the flames until they died. I gasped, frightened by his action. Then he reached for the torch in Geran's hand.

She pulled it out of his reach. ‘What are you doing? We'll be in utter darkness.'

‘Anything else will give us away. We're close to where my father brought me as a boy, I think. If I'm right, the reflection of our torches on the stone will alert Lucien's guards long before we can reach them.'

‘But how will we find our way forward?' asked Ryall.

‘By feel,' said Tamlyn.

‘What if one of us gets separated from the rest? We won't be able to call out in case that alerts Coyle's men.'

Tamlyn hadn't thought about this, but he didn't seem concerned. ‘Stay close to me and you won't get lost.'

‘We can do better than that,' said Geran. She still hadn't relinquished the light to Tamlyn. As our faces all turned towards her, she said, ‘Tamlyn, you'll need both hands to find the way ahead, but the rest of us can
link ours to be sure we stay together.' She held out her free hand towards me. ‘Take hold, Silvermay.' When I had done so, she said to Ryall, ‘Take Silvermay's other hand.' Only then did she move, with first me and then Ryall following like a snake's tail behind her, to Tamlyn. She tossed her light on the ground in front of him and took a firm grip on his belt. ‘We're ready.'

Tamlyn stamped on the flames. Once they'd died, a blackness like I have never known fell about us.

Progress was very slow, but not as difficult as I had thought it would be. Tamlyn was no fool: he used the columns that held up the ceiling to take us in a straight line, even though we could not see an inch in front of our eyes. Where he met a solid wall, he followed it, and in this way I was sure we turned a sharp corner to the right. My nose became itchy with the dust that floated unseen in the dry air, but I didn't dare release my grip on either Geran or Ryall to scratch it.

Amid darkness so complete, even the weakest light cannot hide. It travels a long way, too, when reflected off something hard and smooth, like stone. Tamlyn had warned us not to make a sound, but when the first faint bloom of light reached our eyes, I surely wasn't the only one who wanted to exclaim. There was light ahead, no doubt about it: not daylight, but the mellow amber of flames.

We dropped our hands because there was no need to stay linked any longer.

Tamlyn dared break his own rule. ‘I can hear a voice,' he said in a whisper so tiny it almost made me laugh.

With so many hard surfaces, sound carried a long way and I could soon make out the voice as well — not the low rumble of Coyle and his men, as I'd expected, but a woman, speaking with little care about being heard. We looked at one another in surprise.

We were still some way off and the light was weak, but it was enough for us to see that the mine opened out into another large space, both to the left and right and above us, too. Columns of stone supported the roof as before, but these were thicker and further apart. My father had once described a temple he'd visited and his description came to me now — high pillars, a soaring space that took your breath away with its grandeur.

We moved cautiously into the space, working our way forward slowly, this time using the pillars to stay out of sight rather than as a guide. At the centre of the vast space, we were surprised to find a barrier in our way made of wooden planks lashed to pillars. It was too high even for Tamlyn to see over, but turned out to be not much of a barrier at all because it extended just a few pillars to the left and a few more to the right.
We went round it and discovered that it was actually one side of a square — a large pen, in fact, with a gate secured by a heavy bolt. By the time we had walked along two sides, our noses were wrinkling at the stink that wafted from inside. There were tiny squeaks and squeals, too — it was plain that rats weren't put off by the stench as much as we were.

Oil lamps had been hung from the columns here, too, just as we had seen in the City of Lost Souls, but the strongest light came from beyond the pen. By shifting between the pillars to just the right spot, we could see that the vast space ended in a solid wall, where more stone had been cut out to create an alcove that stretched back seven or eight paces. A fire blazed in the centre of the alcove, reflecting yellow light against the walls and out into the darkness. A man lounged there, looking utterly bored, and from the dance of shadows we guessed there were two more just out of sight.

Was Lucien with them? I couldn't see him and there was no tiny shadow cast against the wall. This might simply be an outpost of the guards Coyle had put in place.

We were watching to see if more figures appeared when the woman's voice we had heard earlier spoke again.

‘How long do I have to stay here?' she shouted. ‘My own babies need me.'

‘She's not very happy, by the sound of things,' whispered Geran.

There was no reply from the men, which only seemed to encourage the woman.

‘My husband can't look after them. He's a slovenly wretch at the best of times. He'll let them wallow like pigs in their own mess. And they'll be half-starved, too, the poor little things. Please let me go to them.'

‘Oh, stop your complaining,' said another voice, certainly a man, but not Coyle Strongbow. His voice I would never forget.

‘You could let me go for an hour or two, just to check on them. I'll come back, I promise.'

The two men laughed.

‘A fine promise that would be, I'm sure,' said one of them; at my guess, a different voice from the first. ‘You can ask Lord Coyle himself next time he comes.'

He and his companion thought this an even better joke and their laughter echoed through the great emptiness around us.

‘I've done my duty, haven't I?' the woman demanded. ‘I'm not the only woman in Vonne who could do this. When will he let me go back to my own children?'

The reply was callous. ‘You should pray he wants your services for a long time yet, because there's no
telling what he'll do once you're no use to him any more.'

At this, the cavern filled with the woman's desolate weeping. Both men left the alcove then, as though they wanted to escape the pain caused by their own cruelty. We all pulled back behind the pillar, just to be safe.

‘Neither of them is Wyrdborn,' said Geran.

‘And Coyle isn't with them,' said Tamlyn.

As we sheltered behind the pillar, each in our own thoughts, a different cry slipped out between the woman's sobs and the deeper voices of the men. It was a child's voice, calling for attention, for something to eat perhaps. We all heard it and instantly strained for more.

The woman must have given up her self-pity because soon we made out the murmurs of comfort a mother offers her baby.

‘Lucien,' I said, putting all our thoughts into one whispered word.

Great news, surely, yet Tamlyn's face darkened.

‘There's something strange here. Lucien is the greatest prize my father will ever possess. Why has he left only two commonfolk on guard?'

‘You can ask him next time you see him,' whispered Ryall. ‘For now, let's grab Lucien and get back into the daylight.'

T
he first task wasn't going to be difficult, was it? Tamlyn could stroll into the alcove and knock the two guards senseless with a single blow while the rest of us watched from behind the pillar. We took no chances, though. He and Geran drew their swords and took a moment to decide who would attack from the right and who from the left.

‘Silvermay, you and Ryall stay behind us,' Tamlyn said. ‘Once we have the guards at our mercy, go straight for …'

The final words of his instructions were lost beneath a low growl that rumbled through the pillars and bounced off the far walls, until it seemed to be coming at us from every direction. It was a dog's growl,
but from no ordinary dog. Immediately, I knew what creature had made that sound.

Geran had already begun to lead us from behind the pillar, so when the growl made her turn back suddenly, we fell over one another like clowns in a travelling circus. Once we had recovered and were standing with our backs against the pillar, we each searched the half-dark, to left, to right and behind, for a glimpse of the monster.

It was Tamlyn who confirmed the worst. ‘It's one of my dogs.'

We had barely escaped our last encounter with the beasts. Coyle had used his magic to make them grow to a size dogs weren't meant to reach, and they had been blinded by the same hand. Now they took their revenge against anyone who came within reach of their snapping jaws. If this one found us, the fighting would be terrible.

The first growl was answered by a second and I realised both dogs were present. I couldn't help myself: I poked my head round the pillar long enough to catch sight of their massive bodies silhouetted against the yellow light of the alcove. That brief glimpse told me something else, too.

‘They have chains around their necks,' I reported to Tamlyn.

‘To keep them from killing the guards,' he murmured.

‘And to keep them in place so that no one can get to Lucien,' said Ryall, who had dared his own quick look. ‘At least we know why there aren't more guards.'

The dogs became more agitated. The sound of a chain snapping taut told us that one, at least, was straining to come our way.

‘He's picked up my scent,' said Tamlyn and, as he spoke, the second beast began to bark and tug at its chain. ‘This will only get worse the longer we stand here.'

‘We can't just run off,' I said. ‘Lucien is so close.'

‘Of course not, but the more frenzied the dogs become, the more those guards will suspect someone has found them. We have to attack now.'

‘But the dogs!'

‘I'll take care of the dogs,' he said, raising his new sword until the tip hovered in front of his face. ‘They'll pick me out from the rest of you, anyway.'

‘That's what I mean,' I said anxiously. ‘Wyrdborn magic won't protect you.'

He stared at me blankly, as though he didn't understand.

‘They're your dogs,' I said. ‘They can kill you!'

‘Stop fussing, Silvermay. Coyle has made a foolish mistake, you'll see.' And after dismissing me so lightly,
he turned to the others. ‘Once I draw the dogs to one side, Geran, you see how well those two guards acquit themselves. I doubt they'll be any match for a Felan. Come on, there's no more time for talking.'

He charged out from behind the pillar and immediately veered to the left. Geran led us more cautiously to the right, where we stopped short of where the dogs could reach us on their chains. Not that they were interested in us; it was Tamlyn they went after, just as his father's vicious tricks had trained them to. Two dogs, one man. I couldn't look and yet I couldn't tear my eyes away.

Tamlyn was no foolhardy hero, though. He'd taken a moment to see how long each dog's chain was and cleverly moved to where one of them couldn't quite reach him. The other could, though, and received a slash of the sword when it lunged forward. The creature leapt back in pain and surprise. Tamlyn was armed now, unlike the battle in the forest when Hallig had set the dogs loose on us. Then he had fought with his bare hands, against both at the same time. This time, the odds favoured my love and he knew it better than I did.

‘Silvermay,' Ryall called.

When I turned away from the fighting, I found that he was already ten paces ahead of me and Geran many more than that. She was sprinting between the
pillars and, as I watched, hurdled a chain pulled taut by the dogs.

Two men waited for her in the alcove, swords in their hands, their eyes on the solitary figure that charged towards them so recklessly. They couldn't know she was a woman, but it was plain to see she wasn't the most powerful of men, either, and that was enough to let complacency show on their faces. Two against one here, too, for Ryall and I were too far back to be much help in the first clash of steel.
We'll see off this young fool
, they must have been thinking.

What a shock it was for them when the first swipe of Geran's sword sent the weapon spinning uselessly from one guard's hand. Moments later, his entire body cannoned into the rock wall like a sack of old rags, shoved aside by a simple nudge of her shoulder.

The second guard wasn't smiling when she came for him. ‘Mercy,' he cried, dropping his sword.

With the point of her blade at his throat, she backed him up against the wall where his companion lay groaning, and called to Ryall, who was just arriving at her back, ‘Find something to tie them up with.'

The perfect job for Ryall.

I left him to his task and started on my own. Inside the alcove now, I skirted quickly around the fire and there was Lucien, standing with his back to the wall,
a forefinger hooked over his bottom lip, a startled gleam in his eye. Beside him cowered the woman who had been only a voice to me until then. Petrified, she pressed her back into the rock as though she hoped it would swallow her up.

‘Don't kill me, I have children who depend on me,' she pleaded.

‘I'm not here for you,' I told her, a little unkindly, perhaps, but she hadn't done anything to protect Lucien and how did she know we hadn't come to kill him?

I turned all my attention on Lucien, kneeling in front of him. It had been only weeks since I'd seen him, yet dark magic had made him grow enough for a year. By rights, he should still have been a baby lying on his back with his arms and legs kicking and here he was standing as tall as a two year old. He wasn't too big to hold in my arms, though, and that's where he ended up moments later.

‘I've got you back from Coyle at last,' I said into his little ear. ‘Has that monster been cruel to you?'

He felt strangely stiff despite the affection I lavished on him, and when I pulled away a little to look into his face, he seemed uninterested in this cuddle I had been looking forward to for so long.

‘Lucien, it's me, your Maymay. Don't you remember my name? You saved me when the harbour
was swirling with mist and you stood up in the boat calling to me.'

It was like talking to a statue. If I'd cut his skin with a knife, he would have bled, but there was no more response from him than from cold, hard stone. I knew that little boys didn't always like to be hugged, or perhaps it was the shock that was making him like this. I let him go, but kept his hand in mine so there was the warmth of contact between us.

‘You do remember me, don't you? I'm not your mother, but I might as well be. Maymay, that's me. Come on, say my name and give me a smile.'

At last, something touched a memory within him.

‘Silvermay,' he said clearly. ‘You are Silvermay.'

No baby talk, no experimenting with the sounds on his tongue. He had spoken as though he'd mastered my name long ago. But there was no smile to go with this remarkable trick.

He pointed to the open mouth of the alcove. ‘Dogs fighting.'

I had been so engrossed in our reunion that I had forgotten the battle that still raged among the half-dark outside. Now that Lucien had drawn my attention to it, the frenzied roar of animals in pain was too much to ignore.

‘I want to see,' he said calmly.

‘No, the fighting is not for you and me.'

He ignored me and ran off on his stout little legs, drawing me reluctantly after him. Unlike Lucien, I was afraid of the gruesome scene that awaited.

And gruesome it was, although it wasn't Tamlyn's blood that painted the ground. One dog lay dying beside a pillar, its only movement the twitching of a hind leg. It might well have been the creature that sniffed and drooled over me while I slept in the forest months ago, the creature that would have bitten me in two if I'd so much as moved. Yet, for all its savagery, I pitied the beast in its death throes. It had begun life as a playful pup and became a monster only on the whim of an evil man. The disgust I felt towards Coyle Strongbow doubled in one powerful lurch.

Tamlyn held his sword with the fine balance he had crafted into its steel. When the remaining dog lunged at him, he wielded it in a punishing blow that sent the beast reeling with a whimper not expected from a creature of its size.

‘Come for me again,' Tamlyn called to it.

It tried, but came up short. Frustrated, it snarled and barked and fought to get at him. I saw then what Tamlyn had meant in the moments before the attack. Coyle's mistake was the chains that held the dogs in place, allowing them to advance only so far. Tamlyn
suffered no such restriction. Staying cleverly out of reach of the dog's jaws, he was able to move stealthily to inflict a wound and then retreat.

Frenzied and ferocious the dog might have been, but it had heard its brother's death throes and, as much as a wild animal can work out such things, it must have known it would die, too. Yet it didn't surrender, didn't roll onto its back as a beaten dog does when the will has gone out of it. It continued to gnash and claw at Tamlyn with bloodied jaws and paws even while its face was frantic with fear.

How many moments passed while I took in this horror? Even one was more than I wanted to foul my eyes and already Lucien had been watching longer than me. I stooped to cup my hand over his eyes, but he pushed it away, eager to see the final death blow. He glanced up at me, his arm stretched towards the violence, pointing, and his face filled with a smile. Since I had asked him to do just that earlier, you might think I was pleased to see it. But I was as far from pleased as darkness is from daylight. This wasn't the smile that had melted my heart when Nerigold first brought him to Haywode. Instead, it was an expression I knew well, much as I'd wished I could cut it out of my memory. What filled the face of my precious Lucien as Tamlyn toyed with the second dog was the warped and callous smile of a Wyrdborn.

‘What has he done to you?' I murmured. I had taken too long to come for him. Those weeks in Haywode while Ryall recovered from his injuries, while Tamlyn made his mighty sword — I shouldn't have dallied. As soon as Miston came with his news, I should have acted; I should have gone with him when he returned to Vonne and found my own way to rescue Lucien. Now, I was too late. The Wyrdborn nature inside him had broken free.

The fighting grew louder as the surviving dog became more desperate.

‘Enough! Finish it,' cried Geran.

Tamlyn ignored her. ‘Again,' he taunted the beast. ‘Fill the mines with your roaring.'

I saw a blade flash through the yellow light — Geran's as she joined the battle. The dog somehow sensed her approach and, rather than lunging at her, backed away in a clear sign that it was beaten, despite its snarling. Tamlyn responded immediately, stepping close to the cowering dog. In a thrust that he could have delivered long before, he found the beast's heart. A final terrible yelp and then the animal lay dead, bringing an equally terrible silence.

Tamlyn stood over the body, his face filled with the glee of triumph — a hateful triumph in my eyes. There was more than relief in his face, more even than
the glow of victory; there was a pleasure in the fighting itself, and in that I found a match for the inhuman joy Lucien had shown in watching him.

Geran said nothing, but her distaste for the prolonged battle was there to see in her eyes. Was it a response that only women shared? Ryall saw only a brave victory: he went straight to Tamlyn's side, congratulated him, then led him to the fire where a kettle of water would help to wash the blood away. Lucien waddled off on his short little legs to join them, as boisterous in victory as any man.

My own gaze fell on the woman who'd remained all this time with her back against the wall of the alcove. ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?' I asked.

Her name was Rosa, but she was wary of me and reluctant to say any more until I exchanged my frown for a smile that didn't match my mood. She sat up more comfortably then and, since Lucien was more interested in Tamlyn, I took my place beside her.

‘I've lived in Vonne all my life,' she explained. ‘Never been in trouble with the guardians, not once, and then, without any cause at all, those two men carried me off while my poor children watched. Only the men weren't guardians at all, as I soon found out. Instead of taking me to Chatiny's dungeons, they
dragged me down a laneway and then some steps into a world I'd only ever heard of. Horrible …'

‘The City of Lost Souls,' I said.

She nodded. ‘That was frightening enough, but then they brought me here where the great Wyrdborn was waiting.'

‘Coyle?'

‘Yes, Lord Coyle himself. The child was here already, and Coyle told me to feed him, keep him clean and healthy. I begged to go back to my own children, but he wouldn't listen. The boy was all that mattered.'

‘Lucien. His name is Lucien.'

‘Is it? Lord Coyle didn't tell me his name. He's a strange child — eats more than three children his age. And there's something unusual about that, too — his age, I mean. He's growing so fast. There are other things I've noticed. He …' She searched for words to describe what she'd seen and found only one that could do the job. ‘He is a Wyrdborn, like Coyle. I did what I could, was kind to him as if he was one of my own, but there is no love in him.'