The Coming of Dragons: No. 1 (Darkest Age) (16 page)

For an instant only it stood, then it charged straight at Edmund.

He heard Elspeth screaming as if she were a long way away. He dropped to one knee, fumbling to arm his bow. The great beast seemed to come towards him with dreamlike slowness, its breath steaming in the damp air, its eyes gleaming like cracks in a furnace.

Steady, steady
. Edmund pulled back the string and loosed his arrow.

It hit the boar in the shoulder, gouging a wound the length of a man’s hand in the bristly flesh. The beast swerved and charged past Edmund, knocking him flying, heading instead for the archer closest to him. The man had no arrow ready. With a yell, he dropped his bow and dashed for the trees.

For an instant Elspeth’s running figure flashed white against the tree trunks, held frozen as if in a shard of ice. Then she was pelting after the boar, the crystal sword blazing in her hand.

‘Cluaran!’ Edmund yelled, but Elspeth was already vanishing from sight among the trees. Edmund followed her for a few steps, then stopped, casting after her with his mind’s eye.

Once more he was in a world drained of colour, the forest opening up on each side. He saw the village man’s fleeing legs as he scrambled up a tree; felt the rush of rage; winced as the trunk rushed to hit him in the face. He had found not Elspeth, but the king boar. Now Edmund tried to make his body run too, while his mind travelled on with the boar’s eyes. He had to reach Elspeth before she caught up with the boar.

Then white light sliced through the trees behind him, and he knew he had found her.

He felt the boar’s fear as it whirled around to face the shining white light. This was not an enemy it understood, but it would fight to the death. Behind the light stood a small, furious human figure. The sword rose into the air and the boar rushed forwards to meet it.

Now!
Edmund thought.
Now! Let her strike a blow at Orgrim!

He jerked forward as the death-blow struck his neck. He fell on his face, gasping. Rough hands seized him and yanked him upright. Ahead of him he could see the giant boar slumped to the ground with a gaping wound in its neck. Elspeth was bent over the beast, panting as the sword faded in her hand.

Someone spun Edmund round.

Cluaran.

‘Do you not know the limits of your gift, you fool?’

‘What kind of a Ripente are you?’ Cluaran cried.

Elspeth had never seen him so furious. When there was no reply, Cluaran grabbed Edmund and shook him. Edmund stared dumbly back.

‘You borrowed the eyes of a creature about to die!’ Cluaran hissed. Behind them, the rescued archer was climbing shakily down from his tree. Elspeth thrust her right hand behind her back before he saw the blade of light, feeling the weight of the sword slowly leaving her.

Cluaran lowered his voice and gripped Edmund hard by the shoulders. ‘The boar’s death would have blinded you, boy – taken your sight for ever! Has no one taught you these things?’

Edmund’s face was bloodless under the walnut dye. Cluaran glared at him a moment longer and released his shoulders with an explosive sigh.

‘No, I see you’re as ignorant as you look. It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long.’ He turned abruptly to Elspeth and
the Oferstow man. ‘If you can walk, we should fetch the others,’ he called. ‘They’ll want to see this for themselves.’

The archer looked down at the dead boar and then at Elspeth, wide-eyed. ‘A true monster,’ he said. ‘And you killed him, lad.’

‘’Twas a lucky blow, sir,’ Elspeth mumbled, ducking her head and running after Cluaran and Edmund. She wanted time to think. Her heart was pounding like a drum. Triumph. Awe. Terror. They beat a tattoo against her ribs. She flexed her hand as the gauntlet’s silver links dissolved once more into her flesh. She had used the sword to kill. She had summoned it and the sword had answered her.
This is what I was made for
, it seemed to say.

The archer caught up with her. ‘Such a blow!’ he marvelled. ‘That’s a good sword you have!’ Twas not forged in these parts, I’ll warrant.’ He broke off and frowned. ‘Where is it? You’ve not left it with the carcass, have you?’

Elspeth stopped. She could not tell the truth about the sword, yet she felt unwilling to lie.

‘It’s not really mine,’ she said evasively.

A sharp, throbbing pulse shot through her arm.
I am yours for ever, Elspeth
, said the voice.

Word that one of the minstrel’s boys had killed the king boar spread like fire, and when the great beast was brought into the village slung from poles, cheers went up for all three of the visitors. Elspeth caught Cluaran’s eye and knew they had
drawn more attention to them than was safe, even without any sign of the Guardians. As the villagers gathered to roast two of the boar carcasses over a bonfire, she went looking for Edmund and found him sitting on the ground by the smithy, staring morosely into the distance.

‘We should be celebrating,’ she murmured, sitting down to him.

‘How does Cluaran know so much about my power?’ Edmund burst out, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘I almost lost my sight for ever when you killed the boar. I was starting to think I could control it – even use it to help people. And now it seems I don’t understand it at all.’

Elspeth took his arm. ‘You
have
helped Oferstow,’ she said. ‘Look at all this!’ She gestured towards the bonfire, the people dancing in the light of the flames, and he brightened a little. ‘Cluaran has travelled everywhere and knows everything, it seems,’ Elspeth said lightly. ‘But it’s
you
who is Ripente, not he.’ She clambered to her feet, holding out a hand to him. ‘We’ll have to leave soon,’ she told him. ‘We should say goodbye.’

Bergred and Kedwyn tried to persuade them to stay for the feast, but Cluaran politely refused. ‘We still have a way to go,’ he said, ‘and we’re in some haste.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘If the Guardians come here asking about us, you’d be wise not to say you gave us hospitality.’

‘They won’t hear of you at all,’ Bergred promised. ‘Not from us.’

Bergred exchanged three sturdy young geldings for their spavined horses and they left before the sun had started to dip towards the horizon. The villagers gave them other gifts: hooded cloaks lined with wool, and enough food and drink to last them as far as Venta Bulgarum.

They stayed away from the road for the first day and into the second, camping for the night in a glade of trees beside a stream where they could wash and water the horses. Cluaran seemed to know the route well, and Elspeth wondered how many times he travelled these ways. The invisible paths they followed didn’t pass near any settlements where he could earn food and shelter, so it seemed an unlikely route for one who lived as a minstrel.

Late on the second day, he led them out of the trees on to a rocky hillside. From there they looked out on well-tended fields, and beyond these Elspeth could see the brown curve of the road.

‘There’s a crossroads just past that turn,’ the minstrel told them. ‘The road runs straight east to Venta, half a league’s distance and patrolled all the way.’ He pointed to a patch of paler green among the trees below. ‘The horses can rest there,’ he said, ‘and you’ll stay to watch them. I’m going on foot from here.’

‘You expect us to stay here?’ Elspeth demanded.

‘You’re going openly on the road?’ asked Edmund.

Cluaran did not answer either of them. Instead, he turned his mount and trotted a short distance along the hillside. As
Elspeth and Edmund followed, more of the road came into view below them. Elspeth saw where it crossed another, smaller track. The minstrel gestured down towards the crossroads, to a tall wooden structure with something dangling from it.

It was a gibbet. Elspeth swallowed hard as she saw what looked like a bundle of rags swinging gently from the rope. There were executions at home in Dubris, of course, but her father had not been a man to take his child to a hanging. Elspeth crossed herself and murmured a prayer for the hanged man’s soul. Beside her, Edmund was very still.

‘That’s why I’m taking the road,’ Cluaran said over his shoulder. ‘The Guardians make sure there are plenty of hangings here as warnings to folk tempted to stray from the patrolled paths. Any traveller who does not keep to the road is likely to be taken and hanged as a thief – particularly if he’s armed.’

‘Is there something terrible in the woods, away from the paths?’ Elspeth asked, feeling a tremor of fear.

Cluaran looked at her strangely. ‘No. But it suits the Guardians to keep the townspeople afraid. And the corpses of strangers make useful threats.’

They rode downhill in silence. The little patch of green that they had seen from above was little more than a clearing in the forest, an untended stretch of tall grass and scraggly weeds.

‘This is the last common ground before Venta,’ Cluaran
told them. ‘Stay near the trees, and if you hear riders, leave the horses and hide.’ He dismounted with a leap. ‘If anyone else comes by, tell them you’re minding your master’s beasts to save him stable charges.’ He smiled thinly. ‘The townsfolk will believe that.’

‘Why do you have to go to Venta, anyway?’ Elspeth challenged. The minstrel walked on as if he had not heard her. ‘And why can’t we come with you?’ she shouted after him. ‘We can take care of ourselves!’

Cluaran turned to look at her. ‘You’d bring the Guardians down on our heads within a quarter-day,’ he snapped. ‘There is something I must find in Venta, and I’ll not have you distracting me with your near escapes. You know full well that you have what Orgrim wants more than anything else.’ He nodded at Elspeth’s hand, but she was so stunned by his direct reference to the sword that she did not reply. ‘Wait here until I come for you,’ he said, and he vanished among the trees.

Elspeth started after him. The wood here was only a few yards deep. She came out of the trees to see the minstrel striding over scrubby grassland to the road. He did not seem to be hurrying, but Elspeth could not catch up with him. She stared after him crossly.

A hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her back into the shelter of the trees. ‘What are you doing?’ Edmund demanded. ‘Didn’t you hear what he said?’

‘I don’t care,’ Elspeth said. ‘He’s no right to leave us behind like … like baggage! What is this thing that he has to find?
Why can’t he tell us? Doesn’t he trust us?’ She kicked angrily at a stone, sending it spinning across the brittle turf. ‘Not that I trust him either, for that matter! Always sloping off at night, acting like we’re no better able to take care of ourselves than babes. It’s not fair!’

‘Let him be,’ Edmund said. ‘You’re right, Elspeth. He treats us like servants, or naughty children. We can take our horses and go east without him, around the town. But don’t follow him. It could be dangerous.’ His voice grew harder, more urgent, and Elspeth looked at him in astonishment. He seemed to hesitate, then went on in a rush. ‘I had a dream two nights ago. I didn’t know where I was – but someone had hold of you, someone evil, and he was hurting you. I’m afraid that if we go into Venta, it will come true.’ He went on, not meeting her gaze: ‘I know it sounds foolish. But I said nothing when I had a vision of the soldiers attacking Medwel, and it turned out to be much more than a dream. I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you.’

‘I don’t think you’re foolish,’ Elspeth said carefully. She didn’t doubt Edmund – or, at least, she didn’t doubt that he genuinely believed she was in danger – but she still burned with curiosity to know what Cluaran was doing, and that more than any fear for her own safety made her desperate to go into town. ‘But how do you know the bad thing won’t happen if we stay here?’ she went on persuasively.

‘I suppose you could be right,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll go in together – as long as we’re careful.’

‘I’ll creep like a mouse,’ she promised, and ran back through the trees to check the horses were tethered.

When they first emerged from the trees they felt horribly exposed. But as they started to follow the road towards the town, they felt more at ease. At the crossroads Elspeth quickened her pace. The gibbet with its grisly load creaked above them and she could not resist a glance upwards, wondering what the poor man had done to draw down the wrath of the Guardians … or was it a woman? It was no longer possible to tell.

‘What will we tell the guards, if we meet any?’ Edmund asked her quietly.

‘What Cluaran told us,’ she replied. ‘We’re servants, left behind by our master. Too poor for anyone to bother with.’

The walls of Venta Bulgarum were made of huge wooden stakes, sharpened to points. The massive gate was closed and barred with iron, and the men standing with spears by the wooden guardhouse were as unwelcoming as the gate they guarded.

‘Halt!’ one of them snapped as Elspeth and Edmund approached. ‘What’s your business?’

‘Our master left us to take care of his horses,’ Elspeth explained, putting a whine into her voice. ‘But he gave us no food, and we’re hungry!’

The man gave a bark of laughter. ‘He should have known
better than to trust a pair of idle young louts!’ he snorted. ‘And you think you’ll get a meal by following him, not a whipping? Your master’s horses are worth more to him than you are, I’ll wager!’

He opened a small wicket in the fortified gate and let them through. ‘If you want to get yourselves beaten, I’ll not stop you,’ he said as they hastened inside. ‘But you’d better find him before curfew.’

The houses came right up to the walls of the town, the road branching between them. The outermost buildings were small and poor, with wattle-and-daub walls, crammed together and linked by a spider’s web of paths. Elspeth and Edmund took the road that seemed widest and straightest, and soon came among larger houses, with vegetable patches and fire pits outside. Elspeth could hear chickens clucking from outhouses, and she saw an old woman milking a goat, but there were few people about. Cooking smells filled the air, and she could hear voices from several of the window slits. She guessed most of the town were at supper. Beside her Edmund was looking around warily, but now that she was here Elspeth felt an overflowing confidence, as if nothing could hurt her. It was the way she had felt when she had used the crystal sword at Glastening, and at Oferstow, when it had flashed into brilliance almost before she had called it, had seemed to
answer
her …