The Traitor's Heir (21 page)

Eamon stared at him.

“Then it'll have to come through me, sir!” Mathaiah growled, hand dropping to draw the sword he did not have. Eamon was surprised by the show of loyalty.

“Where is it, then?” Giles demanded. He had a real sword to lay his hand to and watched with growing suspicion.

“There,” Eamon answered suddenly, and pointed.

On the ridge beyond the tree line a faint glow could be seen, as of torches. Whinnying horses could be heard under the soft patter of the rain. The sight that followed stilled their hearts.

Suddenly shadows slipped among the trees and the snarl of wolf-like dogs echoed down the dells. Tall figures followed on horseback.

“Who are they?” Aeryn shrank against Hughan's side.

“Hands,” Giles growled.

The silence grew grim. Eamon looked out at the shadows again. The men in the darkness moved towards the abandoned village, turning their eyes this way and that. More than once Eamon felt their gazes match his; his heart leapt into his throat.

“Can they see us?” Mathaiah breathed.

“This place was hidden by a grace stronger than their power,” Hughan answered. Though his face showed pale in the moonlight it was not the pallor of fear. “They can neither see us nor hear us, and they would not even if every man here held a torch and sang to the fullness of his heart.” Hughan glanced back at his people, huddled and trembling in the hall.

“Giles,” he said, “move the women and children into the council chamber. They will feel safer there. Augment the door guards.”

Giles obeyed him. After laying a last, comforting touch to Aeryn's shoulder, Hughan went to his people, speaking soft words to them and leading some of them by the hand to the great chamber doors. Giles, soon joined in his endeavour by other counsellors and generals, sent men to bolster the guards at each of the hall's doorways. The sound of moving feet joined that of the rain.

As they emerged from the trees the figures outside grew more distinct. A group of five riders, four bearing torches and one without, assembled in the village square, their horses casting looming shadows. Four dogs prowled about the horses' feet, barking eagerly. Their masters bore bows. Eamon anxiously watched the riders surveying what they had found.

One gestured to the village and, at the seeming command, his companions dismounted to begin exploring it. Torches held high, they went to the nearest house and smashed the door down. The torchless rider – who bore a curved blade – raised a dark-clad hand high and a great orb of red light formed above it. With a gesture the Hand sent the light up, where it spread until the whole settlement was lit with a ghastly red glow. The houses spread twisting shadows across the earth.

Whatever or whomever they sought, the Hands did not mean to be disappointed.

Suddenly, Aeryn drew a sharp breath. “Look!” She seized Eamon's arm in terror. “Look there!”

Eamon's stomach filled with lead as he saw what she saw. Crouched, shaking with fear and cold in the undergrowth, was a woman. The red light made her clear to those in the hall though not to the riders. Her hands were drawn over her head as she forced herself low to the ground.

“Ma Mendel,” Aeryn breathed.

The more he looked at her the more Eamon could see his guardian's shape in the shadowed form. He bit his lip. She was defenceless. She might escape the riders – she was certainly well hidden, or at least had been until the orb went up – but if the hounds caught her scent…

“Sir?”

Mathaiah's voice pierced his thought. The cadet was awaiting his orders.

“We can't go out there…” Eamon muttered to himself.

“… but we can't leave her,” Mathaiah concluded.

“We can't,” Eamon agreed.

Aeryn glanced at him fearfully. “You have to wait until Hughan… you can't –”

Outside the hounds bayed and rushed into a house behind the searchers. In that moment, the torchless Hand turned a darkened face towards the ruins.

Eamon glanced behind; neither Hughan nor any of his generals were anywhere to be seen.

“There's no time to wait,” he told her. “Have you a dagger?”

“Yes –”

Eamon snatched it from her belt and tucked it into his boot.

“Orders, sir?” Mathaiah asked.

“Join the door guards here, Mr Grahaven,” Eamon replied. “Nobody passes the threshold, going in or out, unless the King commands otherwise, or I return.”

“Sir.” Mathaiah's assent was brusque and wholehearted. The cadet grabbed a sword from one of the collections of arms nearby and took his post by the door. The guards already there could only stare at the young man who joined them. None of them made a move to stop Eamon as he looked once more into the grim night.

“Eamon,” Aeryn tried again, “they're Hands. What if they try to –?”

“Pray that they don't.” He took her hand from his arm, held it for a moment, then ducked out of the door.

C
HAPTER
IX

T
he weight of the dagger was the only comfort he bore out of the hall. His senses were surreally heightened – the chill air biting him sharply, the crumple of grass beneath his feet as loud in his ears as clashing steel. The orb of red light was molten on his living flesh.

Across the village the search party still moved from house to house. The torchless rider followed at some distance. He could not see the Hands' faces: cavernous hoods obscured them. Something about the torchless Hand utterly disquieted him.

He slid through the stony hedges towards the trees. If he could make it there he might be able to work his way to Ma Mendel unseen, though it would be tortuous. Of course he could not be concealed completely, and since his foes were Hands that would not be nearly good enough.

As he went, the hedges and hillocks grew few and far between. He dropped down behind one to assess his situation. There was only one way to go: he would have to risk a flight across the open.

He looked left and right. Behind him lay the ruins, seeming at once ghastly and noble beneath the glare of the red light. Eamon saw the hall's great window but through it not lights or people – only scattered stones, wild grasses, and trunks. He would not have suspected the collapsed structure as the hiding place of snakes, but thought it only a matter of time before the Hands tested it.

If the Hands moved towards the hall, the situation was going to be more urgent than Ma Mendel's life. The Hidden Hall might be invisible but its doors were not impassable. The thought of Mathaiah, or any of Hughan's guards, having to hold against even one Hand chilled him. But what could he do now?

He glanced out at the Hands. They moved near the well, their backs turned to him. The wolfish dogs followed close by the heels of the searchers. Teeth, swords, and bows glistened in the grim light.

He drew himself into a crouching position. It was not that far between his hiding place and the treeline and yet it seemed a hundred miles. His heart was pounding but his blood seemed frozen in his veins.

Suddenly he tensed the whole strength of his limbs together, leapt up and sprinted wildly across the gap. The wind roared in his ears but the distance between him and the trees seemed to grow larger rather than smaller. The orb cast his shadow in front of him, mocking his running.

Then there was bark at his fingertips and roots at his feet. He threw himself behind the tree and dropped beside its earth-bound limbs. He held himself against the cold wood and listened to his lungs plunging for breath. Eyes clenched, waiting for dogs or torches to discover him, his thoughts turned to the man he had hunted in Edesfield just nine days ago…

For what felt his whole lifetime, he waited.

“Not here,” called a voice.

He dared to breathe. Had he passed unseen?

He edged his head around the trunk and looked out again. Keeping his front pressed to the tree he slid about it and looked out on his other side. Not fifty paces away from where he hid, Ma Mendel lay in the bushes. Her hands were over her head and she lay perfectly still, barely breathing.

Eamon stared at her intently, willing her to look up and see him. He needed her to know that he was there before he went to her; a scream would be the end of them both.

Still he stared and still she did not move.

Eamon anxiously bit his lip and decided to risk a whisper. Almost silently he spoke her name between the angled trees. Still she stayed.

He crept back into the denser shelter of the trees and passed slowly, circuitously, from trunk to trunk, making always for her hiding place. Time seemed not to move as his limbs, aching with the strain of silence, performed his will.

At last he reached her, coming up on her other side from the trees. The Hands were looking far away and Eamon firmed his resolve to act.

He dropped swiftly down by Ma Mendel and covered her mouth with his hand. She trembled but did not scream; she did not even draw the breath for it.

He whispered her name again, giving her his own. Relief flooded her frightened eyes.

Eamon laid a finger to his lips. He took her hand then drew the dagger, pressing the hilt between her fingers. Ma Mendel glanced at the blade, but by the time she had looked back to him to search his intention he had moved back into the trees.

A foolhardy plan had taken shape in his mind. There was no way to divert the Hands from the ruins – which they would surely search soon – other than to try it. He knew that everyone in the hall could see him and knew how what he had to do would look to them. He only hoped that he would outlive his folly long enough to tell them what he had intended.

He passed through the trailing forest eaves, heart beating in his breast more loudly than he had ever heard or felt it before. When he was a safe distance from Ma Mendel, he let his stealthy manner fall from him like a cloak to the ground. The Hands' backs were to him. Rising to his full height he strode boldly into the open under the terrible light of the orb.

In his mind, hundreds of voices in the Hidden Hall drew horrified breath. The red light deadened his skin so that he wore a living uniform.

The hounds caught his scent. Baying, snarling, and howling they turned with one motion and bounded at him. It took every fibre of every nerve in his body to keep himself walking steadily on towards their slavering jaws.

The torchless rider moved with the dogs. As his chill gaze passed over him Eamon raised his voice. “Call them off!” he yelled. “You will find nothing here, my lord!”

At some unspoken command the hounds slowed and began to circle him. Their eyes flashed red in the orb-light. Not far behind the beasts came the Hands.

“Who are you?” one demanded.

Eamon raised his palm. The orb-light showed the mark of the Master's eagle in his flesh.

“I am Lieutenant Eamon Goodman, sworn to the Master,” he answered. “To his glory!” The words were thick on his tongue.

“Ah, Lieutenant Goodman.” The Hand who had cast the orb smiled at him. There was a disquieting courtesy to his voice that seemed an odd match to his face. “You are the very man whom we are searching for. We received reports of snakes attacking a holk on the river, and rumours that the Serpent himself was among them. Such reports bear investigating. It was your holk, was it not? And you were transporting a prisoner of some value to the Master.”

Eamon swallowed. The other Hands returned with their torches. They watched him. None spoke. All seemed to be at the command of the torchless, and apparently genteel, Hand. Hardly knowing what else to do, he bowed low once more.

“My lords,” he began, “it is as you say. My holk was taken and my crew killed. I am one of only two men who were left alive. We were captured by snakes and have been forcibly held for several days. When they found that they had no further use for us they abandoned my companion and myself here to die.”

“You have not the look of a man tortured,” the Hand answered him, pleasantly enough. “Or perhaps you bear it well?”

Eamon wished he had let Giles give him a thorough beating. “They fed my companion with delusional poisons that confused mind and body, my lord,” he answered. “I was permitted neither to eat nor sleep.”

“Ah,” the Hand soothed sympathetically.

“The snakes were camped here but moved on this morning, towards the south.” He gestured south, towards the hall. He tried not to pale as he lowered his hand. “They took my prisoner with them.”

“And did these snakes go with the Serpent?”

“I… I do not know, my lord,” Eamon replied. “I thought that I had seen him. But now I do not know whether he was not a spectre in my dulled mind.”

“You escaped, Mr Goodman?”

“I was left for dead.”

“And your fellow?” The Hand was persistently courteous.

“We were separated. Since I regained some strength I have spent much of this day seeking him, my lord. He is the only one who can verify my story of how the holk was taken,” he added, allowing a fierce growl to fill his voice. “I would not lose my post in Dunthruik through vicious rumour.” He dared to stare straight into the Hand's eyes, glistening bright green beneath the hood.

“You need not fear for your post, or for rumour, lieutenant,” the Hand answered. “We ourselves shall be your escort to Dunthruik.”

Eamon forced a smile. “Nothing would please me more, my lords,” he answered. “If, however, I might be so bold, I would ask that you permit me one more day to search these woods for my young companion. I will gladly ride with you at nightfall tomorrow.”

The Hand watched him. Eamon feared that at any moment the dogs might be set on him or – worse – that the voice in his mind would appear. He feared that it might reveal his frenetically formed lies for what they were.

The motionless eyes before him seemed to be holding some inner discourse. In silent agony Eamon awaited the pronouncement of his fate.

At last the rider spoke. “Very well, Mr Goodman.”