The Diamond of Darkhold - 4 (20 page)

She waved at the sheep, who were huddled together in one big clump, and she stroked the side of Happy the horse, who swung his head around to look at her sadly. “Goodbye,” she whispered, and she started up the slope, heading northeast, back toward Ember.

As she walked, she made a plan. There was that rock like a shoulder heaving out of the ground, she recalled. It was ten minutes’ walk or so from the entrance to Ember, and it was near the stream. If she headed for that rock, then she could follow the stream and be sure she was going the right way home.

Wind blew her hair sideways, and she reached back to braid it as she walked, tying the end with a thread she pulled from the raveling hem of her shirt. Rest and food had given her energy, and she wanted to be going
fast.
She burned with impatience. But the long wet grass and soft ground slowed her steps, and she couldn’t see very well in the dim light. She was sure it was just as early as it had been when she and Doon had started out from Sparks, maybe even earlier. She should get home, if nothing went wrong, before the end of the day. It wasn’t soon enough; it meant a whole day and night of captivity for Doon. But it was the very best she could do. So she strode across the hillside as quickly as she could, munching on one of the carrots, with her damp pant legs slapping against her skin. The sun will be up soon, she told herself. Then I can go faster.

That same morning, just at sunrise in the village of Sparks, Kenny, Lizzie, and Torren met by the field at the far north end of town. The nighttime rain had stopped, and the first red rays of the sun shot over the mountain’s rim, lighting the eastern side of each dry stalk of grass and clod of dirt in the field, and each fence post at the field’s edge. It was cold, but no one minded. They had bundled up well, and they were excited by their mission: to rescue Lina and Doon and to have an adventure of their own.

It was a Saturday, so they didn’t need excuses for skipping school, only for their families. Torren had told Mrs. Murdo and Doctor Hester that he had to go and talk to Doon about a very important matter, which was more or less true, and that he’d be back pretty soon. Lizzie and Kenny had both simply said they were going for a walk, and their parents let them go without questions.

The three of them went around the end of the field and started up the hill. Each wore a small backpack, in which they’d brought bottles of water and hunks of bread and dried fruit in case Lina and Doon were starving. Lizzie had also brought two extra scarves in case they were cold. Kenny, who had lain awake thinking about this venture most of the night, had stuffed his pockets with some scraps of cloth torn from an old red shirt. He planned to drop one of these every now and then as they walked and anchor it to the ground with a stone or a stick driven through it so that when they came back, they could follow the scraps and not get lost. He was a little worried about getting lost.

Lizzie had washed her hair the night before and then brushed it for a long time. Today, instead of braiding it, she had let it flow loose over her shoulders, which she knew made her look more beautiful. She had also rubbed her arms and neck with dried lavender, which made her smell good. She did these things because somewhere in the back of her mind was the notion that Doon, who always seemed to be doing something important, something other people admired him for, might want a girl companion who was a little more fascinating than Lina. If Doon was going to be a hero, he needed someone special by his side. Lizzie had always thought of herself as rather special. Even her illness hadn’t diminished her good looks; in fact, she thought the thinness of her face and the hollows around her eyes made her look more interesting.

“I hope nothing terrible has happened to them,” she said, panting slightly as they approached the crest of the hill. “What if they have frostbite? What if one of them has broken a leg or something?” She imagined Doon, limping on his mangled leg, putting his arm around her shoulders for support. No, first she would need to tie up the broken bone somehow with the extra scarf she’d brought.
I’m so grateful,
Doon would say.
It’s a miracle that you were here.

At the top of the hill, they stopped to get their breath and to look around. Behind them was their village. Wisps of smoke rose from chimneys, and a few people, breathing clouds of steam, hurried across yards or trudged down streets. The sun was just beginning to hit the east sides of the rooftops. A few windows flashed golden in the strong early light. From here, Sparks looked like a calm and contented village, not one harrowed by sickness and hunger.

“Pretty soon things will get better,” said Kenny.

“Uh-huh,” said Lizzie, who was imagining how it would be to come into town with Doon holding her arm and everyone seeing that she had saved him.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Torren. This was one of the few chances he’d had to be
away
from where he lived, and he wanted to make the most of it. Roamers didn’t stand around looking back at the place they’d just left. They moved on.

Ahead stretched one line of hills after another, each ridge higher than the last, rolling toward the mountains in the distance. It was a vast and empty landscape, and when they contemplated it, each of the three travelers felt a shiver of doubt.

“Which way do we go?” Kenny asked Lizzie.

Lizzie wasn’t sure, but she didn’t want to say so. “It’s sort of that way,” she said, waving a hand out to the right. “After a while, you get to a stream, and then you just follow that.”

“See those trees?” said Kenny. “The ones that look like a hand?” He pointed to a clump of oaks that grew in a sort of mitten shape near the top of a hill about three ridges away. “Let’s aim for there. We can see a lot from that high, and I think it looks close enough so we can get home before dark.”

So they set out, downhill this time, across fields of wet grass. Lizzie scanned the landscape for anything that looked familiar, but nothing did. At the same time,
everything
did, because it all looked the same. She was pretty sure they were going the right way, but still she was glad that Kenny set down his red rag markers every now and then, just in case.

All three of them slipped or stumbled sometimes, because they were not looking at the ground they walked on but were scanning the slopes all around, searching for any sign of Lina and Doon. But even after an hour of walking, when the sun had fully risen and their feet were already starting to hurt from rubbing against their shoes, they saw no sign of anything moving anywhere in the landscape except, far off in the distance, some birds with motionless wings floating in circles in the sky.

CHAPTER 20
_______________

The Battle at the Rock

Once he had rewrapped the diamond and put it back in his pack, Doon’s first thought was of Lina. She couldn’t have traveled during the night. There was a chance she might still be nearby, might just now be starting her journey to Sparks. How could he find out? He would have to get up high and look out over the hills to the west.

Even in the near-dark, it wasn’t hard. He scrambled up the mountainside, finding roots and jutting rocks for handholds and footholds, until he came to a place flat enough to stand on. He turned around. The folds of the hills lay before him, receding into darkness. Was she out there? He filled his lungs with air and shouted. “Lina! Lina! Hello, hello, hello-o-o-o!” Would she hear him? Was she so far away that his voice might seem nothing more than the wind or the cry of an animal?

He waited, hearing no answer. Weariness overcame him; he might as well rest here a moment, he thought, before starting home. He sat down on the ledge with his back against the rock. His eyes closed—and when they opened again, the sky was lighter, though the sun was still behind the mountain.

He stood up and called again. “Lina! Are you out there? Lina! Hello-o-o-o-o!” And then he realized there was something else he could do. He slung his pack off, reached into it, and pulled out his generator. In a moment, his light was shining.

Doon’s shouts flew out through the cold morning air and across the fields. Lina didn’t hear the first one—she was still too far away. But she heard the second one. Though it came from a distance, she knew it was a human voice. Her heart jumped. Was it Doon? She had been walking now for half an hour and was within sight of the shoulder-shaped rock. She raced toward it, stumbling over clumps of wet grass. “Doon!” she called. “Is it you? Call again, call again!”

The voice rang out. “Hello, hello, hello-o-o-o!”

The Ember mountain loomed huge and dark against the sky, but toward its base she saw a dot of light—a bright, steady light that could only be one thing. “I’m here!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “I’m coming!” But had he heard her? Could they find each other? With the wind at her back, she made her way to the great rock and climbed up its sloping side to the top. Here she shouted again and waved her arms. “Doon! Do-o-o-o-o-n! This way!” He’s out of the city! she thought. We’re all right now. We’ll find each other and go home together.

She saw his light move, fade, and go out. He must have heard her, then. He’d put the light away and was coming. Lina waited on the rock. Little by little, the sky grew brighter at the edge of the mountain, though the mountain’s shadow still darkened the fields. Every few minutes she called out, and she heard Doon’s answering call grow closer. There was another sound, too. What was it? A sound of rustling, a sound of breathing. And then suddenly, right below her, a growl. She looked down to see three long, lithe, shadowy shapes in the grass. Animals. Their tails twitched; their heads were like spear points aimed in her direction.

Doon had heard Lina’s answer to his call and with huge relief had made his way down the mountainside and started toward her. He put away his generator and strode as fast as he could out into the fields. He thought she must be near the big humped rock that thrust up from the ground near where the stream made a bend. For a while, they called back and forth. He guided himself by her voice, and soon he could see her, still small in the distance, standing on top of the rock and waving.

His spirit rose. He forgot for the moment how tired he was and hurried on, almost running. Behind him, the sky grew lighter. Lina wasn’t calling anymore, probably because she could tell that he knew where she was. He went down the slope of a hill, losing sight of the rock for a moment, and veered slightly to the right and then up again, until the big rock looked hardly more than a five-minute walk away.

That was when he heard the scream. And with the scream came another sound—a sudden frenzy of barking. He stopped, baffled. Dogs? Why would there be—Then he remembered. Wolves were like dogs, Kenny had said. Wolves would bark.

His heart jolted, and he dashed forward. Another scream rang out, and Doon gave a shout in answer, too breathless and panicked to form words. He ran, stumbling, until he was close enough to see what was happening: Lina on top of the rock, and below her the wolves, stretching their long faces upward, growling and snapping their jaws.

Doon’s knees went loose, but he willed himself to stay standing. He knew Lina had seen him. She was gazing at him with horrified eyes, too frozen with fear to call out. He was on a slight rise, perhaps fifty feet from the base of the rock, behind the wolves and a little above them. Their growling was terrible. It came from deep in their throats, a sound charged with threat and power. As he watched, one wolf darted forward from the rest. It rose on its hind legs, and suddenly it was immensely tall, its front feet reaching up the slope of the rock only a yard or so from Lina’s shoes. Could wolves climb? Could they jump the distance up to Lina? Would they, at any moment, circle the rock and climb up the slope behind her?

Somehow he must scare these creatures away. He had no weapon but his own voice. He gathered his strength and gave a tremendous shout, packed with all his fear and horror. The wolves heard him and looked in his direction. Now he could see their faces clearly—the long, narrow mouths jagged with teeth, the slanting yellow eyes. He shouted again, and this time called, “Lina! Scream at them! Make noise! Throw rocks!” The word “noise” jogged his memory, and he reached down and yanked up a blade of grass. In a second, he had what Kenny called a wolf-scaring whistle. He blew, making a long ragged shriek. The wolves glowered at him, but they did not retreat.

Lina yelled, and the wolves turned back toward her. Without taking her eyes from them, she bent her knees and clawed at the rock beneath her, scratched away a handful of loose stones, and flung them down. For a moment, the wolves fell back, but only for a moment. Then all three animals leapt upward again, snarling and yelping, and Doon forgot his own safety and ran forward, yelling out terrible noises, flinging his arms about wildly. He stumbled, his foot twisted, and he felt a quick pain but ran on, hardly noticing. If only he had a weapon! Even a stick! But he had nothing, nothing, and Lina was in peril, and he was getting so close that any moment he would be among the wolves himself. If he could only somehow frighten them, scatter them—

He stopped short. His pack thumped against his back, and he ripped it off and reached in and pulled out the diamond. In one quick motion, he tore aside its yellow wrap. There was a split second when a needle of grief pierced him. Then he flung the diamond with all his might into the midst of the wolves.

But the diamond missed the wolves and struck the rock. It shattered into a million pieces, an explosion of glass splinters. The wolves yelped, ducked their heads, and staggered backward. Once again Doon yelled, and so did Lina, kicking down more stones. The wolves backed away, giving quick, violent shakes to their heads, still growling. Doon saw that their gray coats were thin and patchy. The stripes of their ribs showed on their sides, and on their faces and shoulders was the faintest sparkling where the light caught bits of the shattered diamond.