The Shadow of Malabron (35 page)

“And he never came back?”

“No. That was ten years ago. I was a boy, full of anger and fear. I ran away from home, just like you. I came to Fable with nothing and lived on the streets, stealing for my supper. I’d see knights-errant ride past in their bright armour and I’d curse them under my breath and steal some more, just to prove I could get away with it right under their noses.”

“I didn’t know,” Will said, greatly surprised. “How did you ever become one of them?”

“One winter I fell ill, and Master Pendrake found me and took me in. At the time, I had no idea why he’d bothered. I didn’t see anything in me that was worth saving. In fact, I stole from him. A beautiful chess set that he’d made. The pieces were carved like great figures of Story. Heroes, villains. None of it meant anything to me. I took the chess set and ran. I was going to sell it in the market.”

“So what happened?”

“Master Pendrake found me again. He had one of the chess pieces with him. A knight. I’d dropped it when I fled. All he said was
You’ll get a better price if you have the complete set
.”

Will smiled, and then he thought about the motorbike. He heard his father’s voice in his head:
You should’ve taken the helmet
. That’s probably what he would say when Will got home. If he got home. Suddenly Will wanted more than anything to hear him say it.

“A few days later I brought the chess set back to him,” Finn went on. “And then he gave me something else, the book I carry with me wherever I go.”

“Is that why you joined the Errantry? Because of the book?”

A rare smile lit Finn’s face.

“I joined because I thought they would teach me how to be brave.”

“Did they?”

“They taught me something far more useful. They taught me how to be afraid, and still keep on.”

Will’s gazed across the lake to the dim outline of the far shore.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

“You’re doing it, Will,” Finn said. “And you’re not alone.”

Will nodded but said nothing. He found it hard to believe that this serious young man had once been a thief. Despite his coldness, Finn had inspired trust in Will from the beginning, but the story he’d just heard had not changed that. In fact Will realized he now trusted Finn all the more. And for the first time, he felt he could understand him. In a tangle of mixed emotions the thought came that if he never found his way home, perhaps he too might join the Errantry some day, and learn from Finn how to fight, and master his fear.

From somewhere in the darkness rose low, eerie calls that echoed across the lake. The others were instantly on their feet and alert.

“Nightbane! There must be several bands,” Finn whispered. “They’re calling to each other from a distance, like a pack of…” He broke off and glanced at Shade. “They must know we’re here.”

“I do not believe so,” Moth said. “Morrigan says they are still far off, and upwind. No, I think there must be someone or something else in the valley that has set them off in pursuit. Still, if they are on the move, we had better be as well.”

Swiftly they gathered their gear, and set out as the sky lightened and the sun rose behind them. Their progress along the narrowing Whitewing was difficult, as the shore was tangled with thick bushes. The mountain slopes around them grew steeper and closer.

As the morning passed Pendrake led them up through a forest of fragrant spruce and pine. The ground was mostly bare of undergrowth, and was criss-crossed with tiers of snaky roots that they could use at times like steps. Beside them the river’s course narrowed, and soon the water was rushing through a deep canyon. When they rested briefly Will peered over the edge. He saw white water churning and seething far below.

At midday they left the cool, sweet-smelling forest behind and climbed into fierce sunlight. Pendrake urged them on even higher, to a steep slope of broken shale, where they halted at last. Anyone who approached would have to do so over loose, clattering rocks. Pendrake let them stay here only long enough to refresh themselves. Carrying on up the slope, they finally reached the summit, and stood upon a narrow ridge of broken stone.

There, across a dizzying gulf of space, was the Whitewing Glacier. Its snow-mantled upper reaches gleamed a dazzling white in the sunshine, while the bare ice further down was rent by great crevasses that held a pale blue light.

The valley came to an end here, in a vast bowl of stone that reminded Will of some mighty amphitheatre fallen into ruin. The sides of the bowl were formed by a curving mountain wall over which the glacier spilled, tumbling down to the valley floor, where the newborn river meandered out in glittering braids from the edge of the ice. Besides the river valley, the only other outlet from the bowl was to the southwest, a narrow ravine between the southern flank of the wall and the three snow-mantled peaks known as the Sisters.

“That way lies the Pass of the Needle’s Eye,” Pendrake said. “It leads over the spine of the Shining Mountains to the western ranges, and the Great Rampart.”

As Will’s eyes roamed over the dizzying expanse, they caught a bright glint, midway down the long slope of the glacier. High upon a horn of iron-grey rock that jutted out like an island from the ice rose the white spires and battlements of a fortress. They gleamed wetly as though they had been carved of ice instead of stone.

“That is Aran Tir,” Moth said, when Will had pointed out what he had seen. “It was used by my people as a refuge against the armies of the Night King, but it was not built by the Shee. I have never seen it with my own eyes. It was abandoned long ago.”

“They say Aran Tir was shaped by the Stewards,” Pendrake said. “In a time that was already ancient when the Fair Folk built Eleel-upon-the-Sea. On my last journey through these mountains, many years ago now, I found a stone stair that climbs the cliff wall above the northern edge of the glacier. The steps were partly blocked by fallen debris, but they took me to a spot where I could safely cross the ice to the base of Aran Tir. I say we still make for the pass, but by a more roundabout route that will take us nearer to the glacier. If our enemies close in on us before we reach the pass, then we will have a chance to reach the stair.”

“Where are these steps?” Finn asked, shading his eyes with a hand. “There’s nothing but sheer rock as far as I can see.”

“The stairs were carved with concealment in mind,” Pendrake answered. “I only found them because the Kantar speaks of them.” He pointed out a waterfall spilling down the rock face just to the right of the ice. Where the cataract touched the valley floor, he explained, was the place they had to reach.

“That is the surest way to Aran Tir. It may be we can use the citadel as it was once used by your folk, Moth. As a refuge.”

“We won’t last long on a rock in the middle of ice,” muttered Finn.

“Yet it may give us enough time to think of some other means of escape,” Pendrake said. “As things stand, I do not see any other choice.”

“What if we reach Aran Tir and find Nightbane waiting for us?” Will said.

“Such creatures would likely stay away from Aran Tir because it was crafted by the power of the Stewards,” Pendrake replied, “and still retains something of their presence. And because of the ice itself. It creaks and shudders like a living thing.”

“I remember it rumoured among my people that the river of ice is alive,” said Moth. “That it will not suffer Nightbane to tread upon it.”

“I have seen such things,” Shade said. “Where the Stewards walked, the trees and the stones spoke. When we went to war, the earth itself rose against our enemies.”

“If you know how to recruit your former allies, Shade, please don’t hesitate,” the loremaster said.

“I do not, Master Pendrake.”

“Then we’ll have to do the best we can. Let us hurry now.”

The companions set out along the ridge until it became too narrow and steep to climb. At this point they turned and began to descend the western flank of the ridge, into the great bowl itself. Their route took them down a long slope of scree that was tricky to walk on, until they found a goat path and followed it. Below them lay a barren plain of mud and boulders crossed by immense, snaking ridges of heaped stones that Pendrake said had been deposited there as the ice receded over the ages. The few evergreen trees that managed to grow in this inhospitable landscape were stunted, their spindly limbs all growing on one side, away from the knife-sharp wind that streamed down from the ice. From time to time the travellers heard a distant crack and rumble, and looked up to see that a chunk of the upper glacier had given way and was tumbling down into the valley in a cloud of snow, the echoes rolling back and forth across the valley like distant thunder. Morrigan circled far above them, keeping watch.

“Ice once filled this entire valley,” Pendrake said. “Much of it melted during the Broken Years, when even the sun left its path and grew swollen in the sky.”

They kept along the gradually descending path, until the glacier’s wide melt-water tarn lay directly below them, its waters a bright blue-green. In the tarn floated chunks of ice that had fallen from the glacier, weirdly shaped by sun and wind and drifting in the water like aimless spectres. The midday heat had also released many slender cataracts of white water that spilled down the face of the rock wall, the roar of their fall muted by distance to a faint rumble in the air.

Morrigan gave a cry and swooped down past them. They followed the path of her flight and saw many dark, man-like figures toiling across the valley floor.

“Nightbane!” Moth cried.

“We must forget the stair and make straight for the ice,” Pendrake shouted. “It’s our only chance now.”

Morrigan gave another, even more piercing cry. She was circling a boulder-strewn area beside the tarn. Will shielded his eyes with his hand and saw two smaller figures darting in and out of the concealment of the boulders. They were wearing heavy cloaks and fur caps that concealed their features, but Will knew at once who they were.

“R
OWEN AND FREYA ARE DOWN THERE,”
Will shouted.

“No,” Pendrake said in a choked whisper. He leant heavily on his staff as if the will and strength that had brought him this far had suddenly deserted him. Then he gave a cry and plunged down the slope. The others quickly followed, Shade soon bounding past the toymaker.

By now Rowen and Freya had seen them and were racing towards the slope. Several hundred yards behind them a horde of Nightbane had crested the last of the stone ridges and was descending in leaps and bounds towards the tarn. Despite his fear and the slippery slope beneath him, Will couldn’t take his eyes from what he was seeing.

Some of the Nightbane were like tall and powerfully built men. They wore blood-red plates of armour and bristled with weapons. The mordog, Will guessed. They were larger than he had imagined. Among them were other creatures, smaller but far stranger. They were thin and bony, and moved with an insect-like scuttling of their limbs.

In a few moments Will’s party had reached Rowen and Freya. Pendrake clasped his granddaughter in his arms. Freya was limping, and her right leg was bound with a bloody cloth.

“After you left Skald, our lookouts reported a horde of Nightbane heading west along the Whitewing,” Freya panted as they gathered round her.

“I had to warn you,” Rowen gasped. “I’m sorry…”

“They picked up our trail last night,” Freya said. “There’s at least five score of them. I tried to stop her, Father Nicholas—”

“No time now,” the toymaker said. “Run for the waterfall, all of you, and don’t look back.”

He took the lead. Shade ran beside Will and Rowen, and behind them came Finn with Freya, and finally Moth. Morrigan flew on ahead, her wings rippling like ragged black pennants as she beat against the streaming wind.

As he raced on Will heard the scuff of feet on rock and the dull clatter of armour, growing louder and louder. It was all he could do not to turn round, expecting at any moment to feel a heavy claw clutch his shoulder.

A hoarse shout came from Moth. Although Will thought he was almost out of strength he ran faster, leaping over larger stones and miraculously keeping his footing on the uneven ground. The plain began to rise steeply as they neared the rock wall. Will struggled up this last slope, his boots sinking in the soft gravel, his eyes fixed only on the ground before him. Shade stayed beside him, and when Will began to slip and stumble he gripped the shaggy ruff at the back of the wolf’s neck. As they toiled on together, Will heard the swish of a blade behind him and a scream, but he did not turn his head. He clambered on, his breath coming in gasps, and when he next dared to look up, he saw that the rock wall now loomed over them. Pendrake had reached the waterfall and was already vanishing into its billowing cloud of spray, with Rowen close behind him.