Wintercraft (3 page)
‘Did you see any of them out there?’ asked Kate.
‘No, but they’re not exactly going to walk up and spark up a conversation, are they? Hey! What are you doing?’
Artemis had grabbed hold of Edgar’s arm and was marching him and Kate over to the cellar door. The three of them squeezed on to the cellar steps and Artemis locked them in. A flame flickered in the darkness as he lit a match from his pocket and fed it to an oil lamp that swelled with light, revealing an underground room packed with shelves, books and dozens of storage boxes.
‘Down to the bottom,’ he said.
Kate and Edgar followed him down into the middle of the cellar and stood there listening to thud after thud as the birds slammed into the windows above.
‘Those birds are here as a test,’ he said, in as loud a whisper as he could manage. ‘We can’t let them in. We can’t even look at them. Do you understand?’
‘A test for what?’ asked Kate.
‘You wanted to know what else my friends told me? They told me about this. This exact same thing has happened many times in the south over the last few years. Hordings were witnessed in six towns in just six days right before the wardens went quiet. It seems the High Council aren’t happy collecting just anyone any more. They want a specific kind of person. I think they’re looking for the Skilled.’ Artemis was trying his best to put on a brave face but his hands were shaking and his fear was infectious.
Kate gently lifted the blackbird’s body out of her pocket. She only knew a little about the Skilled, from rumours mostly. They were people with abilities that most ordinary people did not possess. No one knew exactly what they could do, but most of them were healers, or seers who believed they could see into the future or communicate with the dead. Many of them lived in hiding and, by the time anyone realised they had met one of the Skilled, they would already be gone, never to be heard from again.
‘Those birds will have been bred for this,’ said Artemis. ‘The wardens have used the same technique for years. Whenever they want to find the Skilled, they poison hundreds of blackbirds and set them loose. The birds die, the wardens make their move, and when a Skilled eventually comes into contact with one, the bird is healed. No one knows how. All the wardens have to do is find one of their birds alive and hunt close by for the person who healed it. Most of the Skilled are wise to the trap, but there are always some who don’t yet know that they have the ability. Those are the ones in real danger.’
Kate felt a small stirring in her hands. Had she imagined it? Had the bird moved?
‘If there are wardens here, there will be very little left of this town by nightfall,’ said Artemis. ‘The hording is only the beginning. I’m sorry, Kate. I should have taken you away from here sooner.’
Kate looked down at her hands. The bird’s leg had definitely twitched. ‘I think we have a bigger problem than that,’ she said, staring in disbelief as the dead blackbird suddenly blinked, fluttered one wing and struggled drunkenly to its feet. Once up, it teetered a little and then flapped into the air to land expertly on one of the shelves.
‘That bird …’ said Edgar. ‘It was just stunned, right?’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Artemis. ‘Its neck was broken.’
‘It couldn’t have been. How could it fly up there with a broken neck?’
Artemis’s lamp was shaking now. ‘Kate,’ he said. ‘You’re the right age. And they say when it happens, it happens suddenly. Often under stress.’
‘No,’ said Kate, staring at her hands as if they were no longer a part of her. ‘It … it couldn’t have been me.’
‘Did Kate do something to that bird?’ Edgar looked around stupidly, as if everyone had gone crazy except him. ‘It looks pretty perky to me.’
Artemis lowered the lamp, making his eye sockets look deep and dark in the shadows. ‘This changes everything,’ he said. ‘I think … I think she just brought it back to life.’
2
The Collector
Outside, the market square was in chaos and high above it, a tall, dark figure stood alone upon a rooftop, his wide shoulders silhouetted against the sky.
Silas Dane was the last man any town wanted to see. He stood there in silence, watching events unfolding exactly as he had planned. His clothes were deliberately dark and plain, but that was where any ordinariness ended with him. Silas had the presence of ten men. Power and threat exuded from him as clearly as fear leaked from the people down below, and his eyes shone with faint light, their irises bleached grey: the washed-out empty grey of death.
Even in their madness the birds stayed clear of him, sensing the unnatural essence that made him what he was: neither fully dead nor completely alive, but unimaginably dangerous. Only one bird stayed close, one that had been with Silas since before his second life had begun: his own black crow, perched upon his shoulder, ignoring the mass of feathers and death swooping down around them.
Silas rested a scarred hand against a chimneystack and cast his eyes around the market square. The wardens were not far away. From his viewing point he could see three of their black robes lurking nearby, daggers already drawn, blades shining in the rising sunlight. Those three were only the beginning. He had over a hundred more men stationed around the town, all waiting to make their move.
The last of the dying birds plunged into one of the market stalls and Silas watched the traders step out of their hiding places, each one nervously checking the sky for more birds. He sighed, wishing for once to face some kind of challenge … some form of resistance. Then the streets fell quiet, as if the entire town was holding its breath, and an unexpected sound carried to him on the wind. A flapping sound, like two strips of leather being clapped together. He looked up, his eyes darting straight to the roof of the little bookshop he had been told to watch more closely than the rest, and then he saw it.
His muscles tensed. There, rising from the bookshop’s chimney, was a black fluttering shape, trailing soot behind it as it awkwardly took flight.
Bird or bat? He had to be sure.
Bird or bat?
The flying creature turned in the air, rode upon an updraught and soared across the market square, over the heads of the traders and right past Silas, so close that he could have snatched it out of the air if he had tried.
‘Bird,’ he said with a cruel smile.
The wardens were looking to him, waiting for instructions. Silas raised a hand and signalled the order they were all waiting for. The order to move in.
‘The chimney!’ cried Artemis. ‘Grab the bird. Quick!’
Edgar lunged forward but Artemis was already ahead of him, climbing up the shelves like a ladder. The blackbird watched them warily. Artemis made a wild grab for it, but he was too slow. The bird took flight, headed straight for the old cellar fire and fluttered up the chimney, searching for the sky. Edgar ducked in after it, waving his arms around blindly in the dark. When he re-emerged his face and hair were thick with soot, but his hands were empty.
Artemis stared at him. ‘If a warden sees that bird they’ll find us in a second,’ he said.
Edgar sneezed and wiped his nose along a filthy sleeve. ‘Best start running then,’ he said. ‘Better that than be trapped down here. Right, Kate?’
Kate didn’t know what to think.
‘I’m not giving either of you a choice,’ said Artemis, swinging the lamp as he headed towards the back of the cellar. ‘We have to hide. The wardens can’t take what they can’t see.’
Artemis heaved aside two boxes of old books that were stacked in the corner furthest from the door and he held the light up to the wall, revealing a tiny door sunk into the stone just wide enough for a person to crawl into. He scraped his fingers around the dusty edges and searched his pockets for the key. Kate knew that place. She had hidden behind that little door before and she never wanted to go near it again.
‘I - I can’t,’ she said.
Something clicked and creaked above them.
Slow footsteps crossed the shop floor.
‘Come on, Kate.’ Edgar held out his hand and Artemis blew out the lamp, unsticking the old door as quickly as he could.
Kate knew she had no choice. She crept forward through a cloud of dust knocked down from the floorboards above, and crawled into the secret hiding place. An old blanket was bunched on the floor, giving a soft place for her knees to rest, but the little hollow behind the wall was a lot smaller than she remembered. She shuffled forward a few knee-steps and scrabbled around, making room for Edgar to squeeze in behind her.
‘Move up,’ he whispered.
‘There’s no more room.’
‘What about Artemis?’
But Artemis had already tucked the dead lamp inside the door. ‘Whatever happens, you two stay in here until they are gone,’ he said. ‘After that, I want you both to leave Morvane and don’t look back. Do you understand?’
‘But!’
‘It’ll be all right, Kate. Do you remember how to get out?’
Kate nodded nervously.
‘Good. When it is safe, go. Don’t worry about me. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise.’
Kate could not see Artemis’s face when he closed the door, but she heard the scratchy sound of a key turning in the lock and suddenly she was afraid. The tiny room felt a lot smaller, its walls pressing closer around her body as she knelt in the dark. She was touching the wall in front of her, reassuring herself that there was still plenty of air to breathe, when a quiet whimpering sound started beside her.
‘Edgar? What’s wrong?’
‘We’re locked in,’ said Edgar, sounding even more terrified than Kate felt. ‘I don’t like this. We have to get out. We have to. Artemis!’
Edgar thumped his fist against the door and Kate grabbed his hands, forcing her own fear aside as she tried to calm him down. ‘It’s OK,’ she whispered. ‘Listen to me. You have to be quiet. If they hear us—’
‘I can’t breathe. Kate … I can’t …’
‘Shh. Yes, you can.’ She held his hand and pressed it against her chest. ‘You feel that? I’m breathing. You’re breathing. We’re going to be all right.’
Edgar fell quiet and small scraping noises bumped against the door as Artemis quickly stacked boxes against it. Then Kate heard the sound of metal rattling against stone and a cold key fell into her hands. The eyeholes! Her fingers reached up to feel out the thin spaces in the wall. How could she have forgotten the eyeholes?
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