The Scourge of Muirwood (5 page)

In the Stews, everything was for sale and everything sought for a price. Someone offered her gold crowns for her hair. Another wanted to pay for a kiss. No one would direct them to Lambeth for free, forcing them to venture into an alley and use the Cruciger orb for direction. The oppressiveness of the Stews hung so heavy that even the orb was sluggish in its response. The Medium was stifled. There was no feeling it, as there were no Abbeys south of the river.

“This is where some venture who do not want to be found,” Kieran said, his face tight with revulsion. “The Blight is already here. You can feel it. Come on, then. It is daylight yet and this sort of town gets worse after dark. You may trust my word on that, girl. I have been acquainted with the night for many years.”

“You have been here?” Lia asked, stuffing the orb back in its pouch.

He shook his head. “Few mastons would dare it.” She saw his eyes narrow back at the mouth of the alley. “We were followed.”

Seizing her arm, he pulled her back the way they had originally come, towards the mouth of the alley instead of deeper. There were four men approaching, their eyes dark with hunger and mischief.

Lia’s hand throbbed. Her body became sick with the thought of fighting. Her leg was throbbing from the hard walking that day. “The other way is open, why are we approaching them?”

“Are you really that simple? Their job is to frighten us deeper into the alley where even more are waiting. Better odds with four than twenty.”

“Oh,” Lia said, ashamed that she was not thinking like a hunter. The men approached and she could see the apprehension on their face. One of them gave her a look that made her stomach sour.

“Are you lost?” one of them said, holding out his hand disarmingly. Lia noticed the dagger in his other hand, a small little dirk.

Kieran walked straight towards them, pulling her close to him. “My sister is ill,” he said, his voice suddenly trembling with fear. “Let us pass. We have no money save for the healer.”

“She does look ill,” the man replied, his grin widening. “I know a place where she might lay down.” The others chuckled.

“No…no…it will be well. We are looking for the Guildhall. Do you know where it is?”

“The Guildhall? You are on the wrong side of the river, sir. If you would like it, I could…”

Kieran stepped in and smashed the heel of his hand into the man’s nose. Lia saw the spurt of blood, the shocking stream of crimson, and then the second man was down on the cobbles as well. She saw the gladius in Kieran’s hand. He whirled around and cracked a man’s skull with the hilt, dropping him.

Lia felt her body lurch as the final man grabbed at the pouch holding the orb and tried to slit the tether with his knife. All around her, things whirled and before she could think, she reacted. She caught the wrist holding the knife and pulled him towards her, jamming the edge of her hand into his throat. His eyes bulged as he spluttered and choked. Twisting his wrist, she pulled harder and swung him around and into the side of a building, head-first. He collapsed in a heap.

Kieran sheathed his gladius, nodded to her approvingly and motioned her to follow. They entered the street as the four men twitched and moaned.

“You told them the Guidhall because you wanted their friends to chase us somewhere else,” she said.

He gave her a wry smile. “And just moments ago, I was beginning to think you were totally useless. You have the makings of an Evnissyen in you. Tell me more about this girl we are hunting down. Other than she is Lord Price’s sister. Is she a maston? Can she cross the Apse Veil?”

“No, but she studies to be one.”

“Is she the kind of girl who will help us save her or hinder us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can she handle a blade?”

“I have never seen her.”

“A scholar then. How boring. Have you given any thought as to how we will rescue her? Or were you leaving that detail to me to consider?”

Lia grit her teeth. “No one is making you do this, Kieran.”

He sighed. “You are not defenseless, I will give you that. But you are young and inexperienced. I was trained for the city. You were trained for the woods. They are both wild and savage but in different ways. What I am asking, Lia, is what we will do when we find the Lambeth? Were you planning to knock on the porter door and ask for her?”

“The Medium will tell me,” Lia answered. “It always does.”

“Really? You can actually feel it in the Stews? I have not felt its spark since we left the Claredon this morning. This is a sick and diseased place. It will succumb to the Blight in a moment, if it already has not. You think the Medium will direct us to her?”

Lia craned her neck and felt a throb in her heart. For the last several moments, her eyes had rested on a girl ahead of them, carrying a basket against her hip, wearing a shawl to cover her hair, though some of the locks escaped and she recognized the color.

“It already is,” Lia said and started to walk faster. The girl walked and dodged through the street ahead of them. Lia recognized the stride, the muscles on her arms. But as they approached, the girl turned sharply to an alley, hunched over, and retched into the gutter. She was sick. No one took notice of her, except Lia.

“What is it?” Kieran asked, seeing her stare. “The girl? That is Forshee’s sister?”

Lia shook her head, watching as the girl wiped some spittle on the shawl. She hefted the basket of laundry again. Lia had a glimpse of her face.

“No,” Lia whispered. “Her name is Reome Lavender. I know her from Muirwood.” The insight struck her as it always did, just a little whisper of knowledge. Just as it had pointed her out in the crowd. Without seeing her face, Lia knew. “She is with child. Dieyre’s child,” she whispered.

The swamp filling the lowlands of Muirwood was known as the Bearden Muir, but neither Prince Alluwyn nor Martin Evnissyen knew it by its local name. For them, it was a wet and sick land, so different from the lush valleys of Pry-Ree thick with fat sheep and jackrabbit and thrush. No, the swamps reminded them more of the mountains, the ancient mountains called the Myniths where ancient beasts roamed and tortured travelers with their worst fears. The Bearden Muir was full of sinkholes and bogs, clouds of gnats and crooked oaks crowning the bumps of land protruding from the swamp.

The two men on horseback rode into a clearing on the slope of a hillside that wound down to a little hamlet fixed near the sea. The wind whipped at their cloaks and large blots of rain spattered the ground. The Prince looked down at the orb, which had stopped spinning.

“By Cheshu, a village,” Martin muttered. “At long last. Is that Muirwood? I do not see the Abbey. Is it hidden in the woods?”

“It is not,” the Prince replied, his shoulders sagging with exhaustion. Lightning streaked across the sky and the ripples of thunder made the horses nervous.

“
A village is a village.
We can find a bed and a meal at least.” Martin rubbed his hands together with enthusiasm. “I would like as not to eat a jackdaw raw right now, feathers and all. If we hurry, we may find a place to rest before the night falls.”

The Prince shook his head, staring down at the valley floor. “We will not rest here. We ride southeast all night for Muirwood.”

“Muirwood is to the south? Why did we wander so far west?”

The Prince lifted his finger and pointed to the valley. The rain came in heavy sheets around them. The storm whipped at their faces. “That is where our enemy will fall. This field before us. Do you see that hill yonder? There he will die.” He chuckled through the howling wind. “I can see him, Martin. I can see him quivering with fear, shrinking from the battlefield. He is clutching my flag, Martin. It is a misty morning. He holds
my
standard when he dies.”

The Evnissyen nudged his horse closer, staring into the black rain and clenched his teeth with the discomfort of being soaked and saddle sore and robbed of a night’s lodging. “Why does he hold your standard, my lord? How did he get it?”

“He will get it after I am dead. As he has done with others before me, he will hoist my banner as a threat to his enemies. But hoisting it will kill him. That is where he will fall. From an arrow loosed from that slope. Do you see it? Where the ground pitches beneath that giant oak?”

“That
is
a large oak, my lord. Not questioning your lordship’s eyesight.”

“It should not be there.”

“What?”

“That oak should not be there. There needs to be a little cave for her to sleep. A shelter from those who pursue her.” He paused, staring at the giant oak. He wiped the rain from his face. Martin knew he could speak enigmatically at times, but this was different. He was talking about the future as if he were living there instead of the present. He shook his head, a stern expression on his mouth. “That oak should not be there.”

Martin leaned forward in the saddle, feeling impatient. “Shall I tell it to move then, my lord? If it offends you, I can go down to the village and fetch an axe.”
And a meal
, he thought blackly.

“Close your eyes. You must not witness the maston sign.”

This also had happened before. Martin despised the maston secrets. Not even the Evnissyen dared penetrate an Abbey to learn them. The Prince forbade it. Martin clutched the saddle horn, shivering from the hair as it dribbled down his leather hood. He closed his eyes, grimacing.

Suddenly everything went white and a blast of thunder nearly shook him off his horse. The animals screamed with fear and bucked frantically. The noise was so loud, Martin could barely hear the shrieking stallions. He twisted around on the saddle after calming his beast and the oak was afire, blazing despite the surge of rain.

“I said I would fetch an axe!” Martin roared, staring at the Prince, who stroked his stallion’s mane and whispered to it soothingly. The animal was preternaturally calm.

“An axe would not do,” the Prince replied. “The rains will wear away the earth at the roots, leaving a little cave. It will be ready when she needs it.”

“Who?”

“The girl in my vision.”

“Do you know who she is? Is this the girl who was drowned by the kishion?”

“It is the same, though he did not kill her. She managed to kill him.”

Martin looked at the Prince, who had a strange expression on his face. An expression of pride. “Who is this girl, my lord? Who is this ghost you hunt?”

“She is not one of the Unborn, Martin. It is the future that I see. There is one more place we most stop before Muirwood. The Medium bids me east again. But before you join me, ride over to the burning tree. You will find branches that have been preserved thick with acorns. Collect the acorns and bring them to me. All of them. Gather as many as you can.”

“I am collecting acorns now?” Martin said, exasperated. “Acorns?!”

“You will see, Martin. Gather them then join me in the valley beyond. There is something else I must do first and you cannot see it.”

* * *

Of all the tasks Martin had been given to perform during his duties as the Prince’s advisor and protector, gathering acorns near a forsaken swamp marked one of the most humiliating. The tree was thick with them, as he had been told. There were hundreds to gather, and Martin wondered at the reason. During one of his sea voyages, he recalled some wisdom he had learned from a sea-captain that enabled him to lead other men. The wisdom was that when men are employed in labor, they were contented. On the days they worked they were good-natured and cheerful, and, with having done a good day's work, they spent the evenings with mirth. But on idle days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their pork, the bread, the cider, and in continual ill-humor. That sea-captain, Martin recalled, had a rule to keep his men constantly at work. When his second once told him that they had done every thing, and there was nothing further to employ them about, the sea-captain ordered them to scour the anchor. Martin himself was known to employ that device with the Evnissyen, choosing to keep their minds and bodies active with too many orders rather than not enough.

When he finished filling his saddle bag with acorns, he mounted and followed the Prince’s trail back over the ridge of the hill and into the muck-ridden sludge of the moors. The storm raged in the sky, the constant vivid lightning making it easy to spot the trail in the dark. The wind howled around him, as if warning him away from what lay ahead. He grit his teeth, plodding into the eye of the storm. The stallion faltered with the strain of mud at its hooves. A burned smell drifted in the air.

Picking the fallen acorns was like scouring the anchor. He was certain of it. Could a man really see into the future? How was it possible since it had not happened yet? Or was the future like a river, bound by rocky banks and flowing from the high ground to the low ground? Knowing the pitch of the land, knowing the bounds, one might guess where a boat would end up at any time along the course. Was that it?

Another white blast of lightning scarred the sky, forcing Martin to shield his eyes. But in the light, in that moment of total glory and vividness, he had seen something. Martin shook his head, trying to steer his stallion towards what he had seen. It was the Prince, standing in the middle of the moors, his horse nearby and neighing. That was not what Martin remembered. It was the boulder hovering in the sky.