The Circle of Stone (Darkest Age) (18 page)

The ground began to rise as they tracked the river to its source, and the trees around them were smaller and more widely spaced. Soon the water was bubbling over broken stones. Then they were climbing beside a small waterfall. As they reached the top of the rise Cluaran exclaimed in triumph.

It was a rocky outcrop, flat-topped and ringed with hawthorn bushes instead of trees. Standing on the bare rock was a small ring of stones, smooth and round, and within
them a larger, flatter stone with some kind of design scratched on it, worn almost away with age.

‘This will do well,’ Cluaran said.

Eolande was still tense and silent, but she came up to examine the stone, running a light hand over it. ‘The Water Maiden?’ she asked, and Cluaran nodded.

‘I think so.’

They camped nearby, on the thin grass beside the ring of stones. As the others laid out their bedrolls, Elspeth went to inspect the design on the flat stone. The lines were so faint they might have been accidental scratches, but when she stood where Eolande had been, she could see an image in them: a long-haired woman, who was pouring water from a pitcher.

Wulf came running over, looking at the stone with interest. Cluaran looked up from his pack. ‘Come back over here,’ he said sharply. ‘There is still much to do before nightfall.’

Elspeth exchanged a puzzled glance with Edmund. They would only be staying here one night; what more was there to do beyond setting out bedrolls? But she left the stone and took Wulf by the hand to lead him over to the half-built camp. Wulf dragged his feet, glancing over his shoulder at the scarred stone.

‘When will you meet your friends?’ Edmund asked Cluaran.

The minstrel did not look up. ‘Tonight, if they are willing,’ he said.

It was evening now: the circle of sky above their little rise had turned the colour of slate, and the light was reddening
through the trees to the west. A chilly breeze had sprung up, and Cathbar grumbled as he pulled his cloak more tightly around him.

‘It’ll be draughty when the night winds blow,’ he complained. ‘Still, no doubt we’re safer from the wild beasts up here. Any wolves about, Edmund?’

Edmund stiffened. ‘I won’t be using the gift again,’ he said.

‘Not using it!’ Elspeth exclaimed. ‘Why?’

‘Because I gave my word,’ Edmund replied. ‘I promised my father to act like a king.’

‘And that means never using your skill?’ Elspeth was incredulous.

‘Yes! The Ripente serve kings – they don’t rule.’

That was your father’s belief, not yours. And he was wrong!
But she looked at Edmund’s unhappy face and held her tongue.

‘It’s men we have to fear, not beasts,’ Cluaran said. ‘And the ones who threaten us most will not come here. This is a shrine: a very old one,’ he explained. ‘There are hundreds of years of faith here: even Loki could not turn this place to his own worship all at once.’ He stood up. ‘It’s time for me to go. I’ll return tomorrow before sunset. Wait for me here, and if you have to leave this spot while I’m gone, stay close to the river.’

Cathbar stood too, and offered to go down into the trees and hunt for some supper.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Edmund said, and Elspeth offered to take Wulf to collect firewood. As she followed Wulf back into the
trees, she heard Cluaran speaking to Eolande in tones she had not heard from him before: almost pleading.

‘There are many there who still miss you: they would welcome you back.’

‘No,’ Eolande said. ‘I don’t belong there any more.’

‘Where do you belong, if not there?’

‘I don’t know.’ Eolande’s voice faded behind her, but Elspeth could hear the sadness in it. ‘Maybe nowhere.’

Wulf seemed eager to run deep into the forest, but Elspeth stopped him, collecting their sticks as close by as she could. When they returned, Eolande was leaning against one of the round stones and gazing blankly at the ancient image in the centre of the ring.

Cathbar and Edmund returned late, with a single small bird. ‘All the animals seem to be elsewhere tonight,’ Cathbar said lightly, but he did not look at Edmund, and Elspeth wondered if he blamed her friend for refusing to use his gift to help with the hunting. Edmund said nothing at all.

They lay down around the small fire. To Elspeth’s surprise, Eolande offered to keep watch, saying she could not sleep. She sat straight-backed beside the shrine, and Elspeth’s last memory before she slept was of the Fay woman’s dark eyes looking at her intently.
Or as if there’s something about me she fears
. She was wondering what it could be when sleep overtook her.

They woke hungry and chilled. After last night’s unsuccessful hunt, their food rations were running low, and after their
sparse breakfast of dried meat Cathbar set off to try again. He did not ask Edmund to come with him.

Elspeth sat with Edmund, looking out through the trees. They had made up their packs and scattered the ashes of the fire, and now there seemed nothing to do but wait. She could not remember when she had last been so idle.

‘I wonder how Cluaran visits his people,’ she said.

Edmund considered. ‘I think there’s a secret entrance to their kingdom somewhere. But it’s best not to try to find it – from all I’ve heard, they’re prickly people.’

Elspeth nodded. ‘Do you think they’ll really be willing to help us?’

‘Eolande’s helping us,’ Edmund reminded, looking over to where the Fay woman still sat by the shrine. As if she had heard her name spoken, Eolande looked up.

‘Where is the boy?’ she asked, her voice uneasy. ‘We should stay close together.’

‘Wulf? He’s by the river,’ Elspeth reassured her, getting up to check. She stopped at the edge of the little outcrop, just above the spring. The water bubbled out near her feet and spilled into the stream below, surrounded on both sides by bushes, and further away by beech and linden trees. Wulf was nowhere to be seen.

‘I don’t know why you chase after him like this!’ Edmund complained as they trudged through the forest. ‘He’s been nothing but trouble since he joined us.’

‘Wulf doesn’t see danger the same way we do,’ she said.

‘I think he’s used to foraging for himself,’ Edmund said. ‘The people he was with before plainly took no care of him.’

‘But they were his family!’

‘Perhaps not.’ Edmund’s face was thoughtful. ‘He said they were traders. We know they had a cart, and goods to sell. Could they not have afforded proper shoes for their own son, living on the road, in such cold weather?’

Elspeth thought of Wulf: his mischievous smile and boundless energy. But Edmund was right: when they first met him he had been a scrawny, shivering waif, with pitifully thin clothes and rags around his feet. ‘You think he might have been a slave?’ she said.

Edmund nodded. ‘Some traders keep them. And it would explain why Wulf never talks about his family.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Elspeth admitted.
Perhaps he never even knew his family!
she thought, with a stab of pity for the outcast child.

‘I think we’ve found him,’ Edmund said. In the soft ground by the water’s edge was a small footprint. Next moment, Elspeth heard a skittering from the bushes nearby and saw the boy’s face peering at her through the leaves.

‘Wulf!’ she cried. ‘Why must you keep running off?’

‘But I found berries, Elsbet! Come and see!

‘They can’t be eatable, Wulf,’ Edmund said. ‘It’s still spring.’

‘Come and see!’ the boy insisted. Elspeth and Edmund exchanged a glance, and followed him.

Wulf led them away from the river. ‘We can’t go far, mind,’ Elspeth warned him.

Wulf nodded. He moved his head stiffly, Elspeth thought, and as he turned back to his path she was sure he winced. ‘Is something hurting you, Wulf?’ she asked. The boy did not answer, but his hand went up to his neck.

Elspeth stopped. ‘Let me see,’ she ordered.

The sides of Wulf’s neck were chafed raw. The thin little chain he wore had become twisted and it was cutting into his skin.

‘I’m sorry, Wulf,’ she began. ‘I know you love this chain...’

‘No!’ the boy said. ‘I hate it.’

‘But didn’t your father give it to you?’

‘The father put it on me, yes,’ Wulf said. His face clouded. ‘He was bad to me, Elsbet. So was his son. The real son.’

Elspeth let out a long breath. It looked like Edmund had been right. Wulf was a slave, and a poorly treated one.

‘They shackled him!’ Edmund exclaimed, behind her.

‘We’ll get it off him now!’ Elspeth said fiercely. The chain looked flimsy; with a thin blade, they could surely snap a link.

‘Here.’ Edmund was already at Wulf’s side, drawing his knife. ‘Hold still, Wulf.’

But Wulf ducked his head and backed away, wailing. ‘No!’ he insisted. ‘Let Elsbet do it!’

Edmund shrugged and handed the knife to Elspeth. As she took it, she felt the same sense of wrongness that had run through her with the sword Cathbar had given her.
But this
isn’t a sword
, she told herself – and an almost forgotten shock ran down her arm, from shoulder to fingertips.

Ioneth?

Was there a stir of response? She felt a thrill of joy: if Ioneth was returning to her . . . But she must focus on the task now.
Help me, if you’re here!

Wulf tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes as she touched the point of the blade to one of the links, trying to avoid his raw skin. The jolt shot down her arm again, painfully this time, but she ignored it.

‘Be brave, Wulf!’ she told him. ‘You’ll be free in a moment.’

‘Yes,’ the boy whispered.

His rough shirt was in the way of her hand, and she waited while Edmund fumbled at the fastenings and pulled it open.

‘I wonder if his owners did this to him as well?’ he muttered.

Elspeth looked down at the boy’s chest. A scar ran from shoulder to navel, deep red against the white skin. Something about it seemed familiar . . . and then the pain came to her again, so fierce that she almost dropped the knife. A scene flashed before her eyes: fire and stone; a chained figure, and the white light as she struck with the crystal sword. And then Loki: the chain still around his neck; his chest slashed with red.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No. I did this myself.’

She snatched her hand back and thrust the knife behind her, away from the chain. The little figure before her stood like a statue – and for a moment she could not make herself
move. ‘Edmund,’ she said, as clearly as she could, ‘take the knife and run. Get back to the shrine.’

‘But what...’

‘Just run!’ she cried, her eyes still fixed on the boy’s face. It was without expression, but the narrowed eyes had turned the colour of candle flame.

Elspeth turned and ran with Edmund. She did not dare to look back, but Edmund cast a glance over his shoulder as they pounded through the trees.

‘Elspeth . . . Wulf . . . he’s changing. He’s growing taller!’

‘Get to the river!’ Elspeth sobbed. Her legs would not move fast enough.

No thunderous footsteps came after them. Instead they heard a rush of air, and a crackling that grew louder and fiercer as they ran. They were almost at the river when smoke billowed over them, and a terrible heat knocked them to the ground.

Eolande had known that something like this would happen.

When she heard the distant cries, and saw the smoke billowing above the trees further down the river, her first response was guilt. She should not have kept the children here. Now they might all die: the strange, empty-hearted little boy; the young king, with all his promise . . . and Elspeth.

She used a skill she knew to cast her sight down the river. Two of them were in the water: Elspeth and Edmund. She drew a quick breath of relief. The flames were creeping towards them, but they would not consume them – not yet.

So she could still help them. And after all, she would have to return.

She walked into the stone ring, summoned her sense of the place and drew the doorway in the air. It came to her touch as if she had made the journey only yesterday: three lines of faint light, the air between them shimmering like the skin on water.

She took one step towards it, and halted. She must tell them she was going, if she could. She called down the flow of the water, not knowing if she could make them hear.

‘Elspeth! Run upstream! I’ll fetch help.’

Then she stepped through the opening.

They had thrown themselves headlong into the water: Edmund was wet to his hair. Just downstream of him, Elspeth was still on her hands and knees. He splashed over to her and took her arm to pull her up. The face she turned to him was ashen.

‘He’s Loki!’ she gasped. ‘All this time, when we walked together...’

‘We have to move,’ Edmund said, dragging at her hand.

‘He slept beside me . . .’ Elspeth moaned, but she ran with him.

The roaring of the fire kept pace with them. On the bank, flames leapt at the edge of Edmund’s vision, and he could hear the crackling as the fire spread to the bushes at the water’s edge. Smoke poured over their heads. They bent low as they ran, but Edmund’s throat was soon rasping and his chest tightened painfully. Beside him he could hear Elspeth wheezing. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, forcing his way through the muddy water that swirled about his knees. His mind filled with what he had seen in that single backward glance: the child standing beneath the trees, his body billowing like smoke; then suddenly, impossibly tall.
His hair had turned to flames, his eyes had glowed and his face flickered as if his whole body were filled with fire. And the branches which brushed his head had instantly begun to smoulder.

The flames were closer now, leaping higher than the bushes they consumed. Behind them, Edmund thought he could hear crashing, as if something huge were pushing over trees to get to them. ‘Faster!’ he muttered, but the water dragged at him, and his feet slipped on unseen stones.

Elspeth was ahead of him now; she grabbed his arm as he stumbled. ‘Listen!’ she panted.

Had she heard the sounds of pursuit as well? Edmund did not dare glance behind him again. But his friend was looking upstream; and he saw a sudden flash of hope on her face. ‘I think it’s Eolande,’ she said.