The Shadow at the Gate (64 page)

Has this whole land been sleeping as have I?

Her eyes flashed in anger and Swallowfoot quickened his gallop.

The sceadu stalking across the ballroom floor in Hearne was a dreadful evil. The house in the city huddling silently with its memories of sleep and death had rent her heart with its malevolence. But the memory of the thing in the eyrie had entirely different implications.

My strength is not equal to the task.

The plain flowed past them. Swallowfoot galloped faster and faster. The sun mounted higher in the sky. Levoreth whispered to the horse, and the earth and the sky became one, both blurring past like the wind, and the wind itself could not keep up with them. But as they rode across the plain, she heard a strange sound, faint at first, but clearer with every step Swallowfoot took. The earth shivered with it. Levoreth cried out and the horse trembled beneath her.

Mistress of Mistresses!
Swallowfoot’s eye swiveled white in panic at her.
What walks upon your earth?

South! We must ride south! Harlech must wait!

Swallowfoot turned his face to the south. The sun was at their side and their shadows raced along with them. She flung her thought wide and found the wolves in the hills to the north. Their minds were full of blood and bones and the taste of flesh. She felt the old wolf raise his head from over the broken body of a deer.

We have not eaten our fill, Mistress. Not yet.

Come!

He did not question her again. The wolf pack rose as one from their kill and rushed across the hills, far off but nearing her, nearing and running toward the plain.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

THE DEATH OF THE FARROWS

“You’ve got a good hand with these colts, lass.”

Giverny’s father smiled up at her. She grinned in delight at his words. The horse beneath her caught her mood and danced a few steps.

“He seems to read my thoughts, Pa,” she said. “I don’t even have to nudge him, and he’ll stop dead for me. Swerve, step back—see?”

“All right,” Cullan said, laughing. He stepped out of the way as the colt whirled around in place. “Peace, little one, peace.” The horse stilled itself and pushed its nose against his hand.

“Now how’d you do that?”

“I’ve been speaking their language for a long time now, Giverny. Longer’n three of your lives, but I reckon you’ll be speaking it better ‘n me when you’re my age. I’d stake my life on that.”

“Well, I’d stake my life on that being breakfast I smell. C’mon, Pa.”

The Farrows were camped in a hollow on the Scarpe Plain. The plain stretched flat and green and windblown in every direction. The view was deceptive, however, for the Scarpe was a rolling plain full of little valleys and dells and gentle rises. It swarmed with wildlife, and through it all were many springs and seasonal streams. The Farrow wagons were circled about one such spring. The hollow was deep enough to shelter them from the wind and, when they stood down at the bottom by the spring, also deep enough to cut off the view of the surrounding plains.

Several cook-fires crackled in the encampment. Some women were hard at work over their laundry beside the spring. A dead buck hung by its hind legs from the top of a wagon wheel. Three dead rabbits dripped blood from a step. Two men knelt around another deer, their skinning knives busy. The morning hunt had already returned.

“Not bad, then?” said Cullan.

“Not bad,” said one of the hunters. He shrugged. “Coulda been better. Somethin’s got the animals spooked. Mebbe a storm coming.”

“Mebbe.”

Rumer Farrow straightened up from over the flames and smiled at her husband and daughter.

“There’s porridge and honey,” she said.

Up on the ridge above the hollow, the colt they had left behind raised its head. Its ears pricked forward and it stared south. The wind was blowing from the north, however, and the colt could not smell anything except porridge and honey and other horses and Farrows, of course—all the smells that meant home to the young horse. After a while, it resumed cropping the grass.

“We’re running short on honey,” said Rumer.

“There’s a farmer up near Lastane,” said her husband. “Keeps his bees in an apple orchard.”

“Hearne’s surely a day closer.”

Giverny made a face.

“Let’s not go there.”

“Why not?” said her mother.

“It’s too big.” Giverny shivered. “The walls are too high. I don’t know. I don’t like it.”

“The regent’s reason enough to avoid the place, even though he pays good gold for horses. Other than that, the man’s a scoundrel, an’ that ain’t a bad reason for keeping clear of Hearne.” Cullan shrugged. “Still, there’s more to Hearne than Nimman Botrell.”

“But the honey’s better in Lastane.”

Her father laughed.

“Aye, better ‘n cheaper.”

He stiffened and stood up.

“Cullan?”

“Hush,” he said.

Something was wrong. He could feel it. All around him, life proceeded as normal. Down by the spring, the women were chattering and laughing over their laundry. He could hear the rumble of talk from the hunters, who had moved on to skinning the second deer. Somewhere in the camp, in one of the wagons, a mother was singing to a sick child. Further along, other children were playing hide and seek, darting under the wagons. Their voices sounded like the twitter of birds. Up on the slopes above the spring, the clan’s herd of horses cropped the grass. Cullan frowned, eyeing them thoughtfully.

“Pa, what is it?” said Giverny.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Mebbe it’s nothing. The horses ain’t bothered.”

But right when he said those words, the herd of horses raised their heads as if one, staring across the hollow toward the south. Cullan swore under his breath. The horses swung around and surged up the slope, galloping to the top of the rise and streaming over the skyline.

“Weapons!” shouted Cullan. His sword appeared in his hand. Giverny hadn’t even seen him draw it. She hadn’t even noticed he was wearing it.

“The horses!” someone yelled. “The horses!”

“Later!” Cullan grabbed a burning firebrand in his other hand. “Weapons!”

Someone screamed. Figures seemed to rise up out of the ground, out of the long morning shadows. Metal rang on metal. Several attackers darted forward, angling at Giverny and her mother crouched before the fire. Cullan’s sword blurred in the sunlight. The men reeled back. Still, others came. The Farrow clan fought grimly and they fought well. They were skilled swordsmen, every one of them. But even great skill cannot stand for long before a more numerous foe, and the Farrow clan was small in number and caught unaware. Flames billowed up from a wagon. Storm clouds loomed, racing across the sky from the east, driven by a faraway wind. The sun could not rise fast enough to keep up with the coming storm. And the Farrow clan died, one by one.

“Well met, Cullan Farrow.”

A tall, gaunt figure emerged from the smoke and burning timbers of the wagons. Swords curved from each hand. The blades were thin and oddly insubstantial, as if forged of some material that had more in common with water or flame or shadow than iron. The man smiled, and his mouth shone with sharp, terrible teeth in his narrow face. Teeth that surely were not human, were of something entirely else.

“Well met, indeed. Over blades and blood.” The thing smiled again. “This morning almost makes my heart glad, if such a thing were possible.”

“Mine’ll be glad with my sword in your heart!” said Cullan.

“I have not come for you, Farrow. I have come for your daughter. Give her to me and perhaps I’ll permit your sorry life to hurry on for another day’s death.”

“I’ll die first.”

Cullan hurled the firebrand in the creature’s face. His sword blurred through the air, but his arm was too slow, despite his skill, despite his famed speed. The creature drifted to one side, almost lazily and with the dreadful smile still on his face. The two swords rose and fell, and Cullan fell with them. Rumer cried out. Silence filled the hollow, unbroken except for the harsh scrape of Rumer’s breath and the crackle of the flames. Giverny made no sound at all, but stood frozen as if turned to stone.

“Woman,” said the thing, turning toward Rumer. “You have old blood in you. Old, cursed blood. Older than you know. But your daughter is older still. She bears the mark of the earth. Do you know this? Do you know who she might become one day?”

“Leave her,” said Rumer hoarsely. “Leave her. Take me instead.”

“I’ll take you both, but you in death.”

Rumer reached out her hand, but it could not be said whether she sought to stop what was promised or to grasp it. The swords rose and fell and again there was only silence except for the crackle of the flames.

“Come, lady.” The thing seemed to incline its head to Giverny, as if out of respect. Behind it, other dark figures stood waiting. Giverny said nothing. She did not move. Her face was white.

“Come.”

Soon the hollow was empty except for the guttering flames, the blackened beams of wagons, and the motionless shapes strewn about the ground. Here, a child lay huddled in death by his mother. There, an older couple slumped together in their last embrace. The bodies of the hunters sprawled among the corpses of their rabbits and deer. The spring ran dark with blood. Far to the north, the herd of horses galloped across the plain, their eyes staring white and their mouths flecked with foam. Thunder muttered in the east.

CHAPTER FIFTY

MICE AND SAILBOATS

They sailed north, with a west wind against their beam. Ronan kept the coast in sight on the horizon’s edge. The further they traveled north, the wilder and more rugged the coast became. Oddly enough, Jute discovered that even at such a distance, he could clearly see the details of the shore. The rocky faces of the cliffs, the stunted bushes growing in impossible stubbornness, the spray and billow of foam as the waves surged against the stony shore below—all of this he could see with clarity. Behind them, surging along with their sails angled low against the sky, came the three other boats. They were too far away to communicate with, but there was no doubt they were determined to follow them to whatever landing Ronan sought.

“We must make land before nightfall,” said Ronan. “We have no food or water, and I don’t want to be at sea tonight, for the wind’s picking up. I think a storm’s coming.”

“Aye,” said the hawk. “And it’ll blow until morning.”

“It’s more’n two days sailing to Averlay,” said Ablendan. “Once you near the islands, the sea can be as wicked as an ogre with an empty larder. But there’s a little harbor this side of Averlay. It’s the only one between Averlay and the Stone Tower. The town of Ortran. I’ve been through there before, and they’re good folk. Fishers mostly.”

“That sounds like what we’re looking for,” said Ronan. “Can you recognize it from this far out?”

“I doubt I’d see it if we were a hundred yards offshore. The cliff juts out and conceals the harbor from the sea. There is, however, a ridge of rocks that reaches up from the sea beyond the cliff. They’re visible at low tide, but at high tide they’re only white water. This coast is a graveyard.”

“True,” said one of the ghosts, who thought he was being helpful. “There’re old bones beneath the water here, buried in the sand, remembered only by the fishes. Perhaps we’ll join them if you don’t keep a sharp eye out? That is, you’ll join them. I’m already dead.”

“If we see the inlet, we’ll see it,” said Ronan, scowling at the ghost. “If not, then we’ll have to chance finding a beach under the cliffs.”

Without a word, the hawk launched free from the boat and flapped off toward the coast. Soon, he was skimming over the waves and then mounting higher and higher up into the sky until he blurred into the blue and was gone.

The boys had recovered their spirits by this time, despite Ablendan’s melancholy. They chattered about things that Jute knew nothing about. Classes, books, night excursions to the moor to hunt for frogs (as these frogs could be put to excellent use with a spell that caused them to inflate until they popped with a splendid noise), and the carter’s niece who sometimes accompanied Cyrnel on her trips to the Stone Tower. Jute wanted to be part of their talk. But in addition to knowing nothing of their world, he found himself silenced by the respectful glances they aimed at him whenever they thought he was not looking. Whenever he tried to join their conversation, they fell quiet and attended to him with such respect that he could only stutter into silence. After a while, Jute gave up and made his way back to the stern of the boat, where Ronan sat at the tiller.

“That hawk of yours seen anything yet?” said Ronan.

“No,” said Jute gloomily. “I don’t think so. He hasn’t spoken.”

Ronan squinted up at the top of the mast. Sunlight reflected off the taut sail, as white and as blinding as the light shining on the sea. He smiled.

“I can’t remember how many times I’ve ridden the coast from Hearne to Harlech, looking out at the sea but not seeing it. Things look much different from out here.”