Soulvine 03 A Bright and Terrible Sword (14 page)

I gazed into the night. The larger moor cur had crept towards the pool under the spring. So far the dogs, both asleep by the fire, had not scented it. I could barely make out its silver fur as it moved, and then drank.

Climbing up a well instead of falling down into it …

Staring at the moor cur, I concentrated my will, just as I did when crossing over. Charlotte had not said that pain was necessary for this, but in case it was, I bit down on my tongue.
A well, a well
… I pictured myself wedged inside a stone well such as Maggie and I had had at Applebridge, about a metre from the top, my back braced against the curved side of the well and my good hand extended to hold myself in place. I could almost feel the stone at my spine, smell the water below, see the gleam of sky above me. Climb, climb by inching my body upward—

Nothing happened. I did not cross over to the Country of the Dead, and I did not inhabit the moor cur. I stayed beside the fire, and nothing had changed. I was still headed to Galtryf and whatever terrible fate Leo had planned for me there.

Several nights later, lying under the wagon on that barren and wild moor, I dreamed for the first time of my son.

But it was Princess Stephanie that I actually saw. The little princess, who would be seven years old in a few weeks, appeared in a wavering landscape I could not identify. It might have been a garden, or a wood, or even a courtyard. Although the surroundings flickered and flowed, Stephanie seemed almost shockingly solid, as if I could reach out and touch her. The lessons she was receiving from Mother Chilton must be refining her talent. Her forehead crinkled.

‘Roger, your baby got born.’ More creasing of the forehead. ‘And another, too. I don’t understand … oh, be careful, that one is such a bad thing!’

‘Your Grace,’ I tried to say, and the effort woke me. I lay under the wagon. Rain pattered lightly on the wood above. One of the dogs passed by on silent patrol. Kelif and Rawnie both snored. And the sweat of pure panic soaked my already chilled clothes.

Another
? Another was born? Did that mean that Maggie had had twins? Or that another child had been born somewhere else? But Stephanie had called it a ‘bad thing’, and I didn’t think she would refer to a baby as a ‘thing’. Most little girls loved babies. So what had Stephanie meant?

Then, all at once and as quickly as they had come, my fears left me, lost in awe.
My son had been born
. I was a father. And Maggie … was Maggie all right? Why hadn’t Stephanie said? Women died all the time in childbirth; my own mother had. Why hadn’t Stephanie reassured me about Maggie? But a dream was not a letter, carefully composed and full of news – it was a vision. I knew that. Visions cannot be controlled. But why hadn’t—

I had a son.

Was Maggie all right?

What ‘bad thing’ was also born?

When we reached Galtryf and Leo subjected me to ‘what awaits you’, my child would lose his father. Just as I had. I would never see my son.

Was he a
hisaf
? I remembered the
hisaf
baby I had seen flickering in and out of the Country of the Dead, unable to control his infant talent. Was my son already doing that? He was the child of a
hisaf
, after all. What would Maggie, who knew nothing of what I had wrought in the Country of the Dead, make of her babe’s appearing and disappearing? And Maggie lived with her nasty sister. Would the sister take the baby for a witch? What then?

Maggie—

My son—

‘Stop twitching,’ Rawnie said crossly. ‘You woke me up with all that shifting and moaning! What’s wrong with you, Roger?’

Everything.

And the next morning, even more.

The attack began at dawn. A light rain fell from clouds that had blown in from the west. The clouds paled without colour or sun, and the moor was grey and misty. I had not slept since my dream, and the view from under the wagon looked eerily like the fog in the Country of the Dead. Its chill tranquillity broke when the dogs began to bark frantically.

‘What the by damn!’ Leo shouted. Someone else began to curse. The dogs raced off through the mist until all I saw was two dark blurs. Then another blur leaped to join them.

Two blurs, three.

‘Rawnie! Into the wagon!’ Charlotte screamed.

‘What – oh!’ the girl cried. ‘The dogs are fighting!’

A single shot sounded, frighteningly close. It was
followed by a volley of firing from the camp. I couldn’t see anything except the dogs, all at once clear as the fight broke off, the animals circled each other closer to the wagon, and then leaped at each other’s throats again.

‘Shoot!’ Leo screamed. But no one could get a clear shot. Three dogs attacked the Brotherhood’s two, snarling and rolling over each other. Blood spouted in foaming jets onto the moss and bracken. And all five grey dogs looked alike – which ones carried Macon and Dick? There was no way to tell. A snarl from forty-two bared teeth, a howl of anguished pain, a tearing of flesh …

One dog fell and did not rise. Impossible to tell which.

‘Shoot them all!’ Leo cried. ‘Damn it, fire!’

No one did, at least not at the dogs. Shots rang from the mist, some from above us. Charlotte, having shoved Rawnie into the wagon, pulled her out again and pushed her back underneath; the shots seemed a greater threat than the surviving dogs. I grabbed at Rawnie with my one good hand and tried to crawl on top of her to protect her. The short chain between my wrist and Kelif’s prevented me. More
guns
fired.

I cried to Kelif, ‘Help!’ He did not move. I shoved at him, and my hand came away covered with blood.

Gathering both Rawnie and Charlotte into my good arm, I crossed over.

Darkness—

Cold—

Dirt choking my mouth—

Worms in my eyes—

Earth imprisoning my fleshless arms and legs—

Only this time the women came with me, as well as the dead weight that was Kelif, and the crossing seemed longer, harder. I could not breathe, could not move … Then we were over.

‘Don’t shoot!’ someone cried. ‘It’s Roger!’

We stood at the base of the hill, here without obscuring mist. The next moment two of Leo’s men appeared nearby, and a second later, Leo. They, too, had crossed over to escape the
guns
coming from the mist, the
guns
so hard to see through the morning mist on the moor. The escape did not work.

Crack! Crack
! Shots sounded, deafening, an obscenity in that calm landscape. They came from the tor atop the hill. Two of the
hisafs
fell. It was an ambush.

Leo vanished. Another
hisaf
appeared, looked wildly around, and swung his gun towards me. I crossed back over, dragging the other three with me, and we were back under the wagon in the land of the living.

Men appeared, disappeared, fired the
guns
stolen from savages.
Crack!
Charlotte cowered beside me, both of us covering Rawnie. Kelif’s blood soaked into our clothing and the ground. I couldn’t tell who was winning. The dogs continued to fight, but now I couldn’t see them and I didn’t know how many were left alive. Was there less snarling, fewer howls of pain? Were men rushing down from the tor on this side, having made the laborious climb up the other slope during the night?

Everything depended on how many
hisafs
fought on each side. Charlotte said there were not many in total. And now, from the bodies I could glimpse on the ground, there were fewer.
Hisafs
could die, both here and in the Country of the Dead. If this was truly a rescue and it succeeded—

Under the wagon, in the blood and dirt and noise, my heart began a wild thumping of hope.

Crack
!

And then abruptly it was over. Quiet, except for Rawnie’s sobbing. A pair of boots appeared beside the wagon. The man bent, in a moment I would see his face and then I would know which side—

Shouting from the opposite direction, another crack of a gun, and the man toppled forward, falling face up, his eyes gone wide with shock. He was not one of Leo’s, and now he was dead.

The gunfire resumed, filling the air: from behind the other wagon, from the tor, from the moor. People ran towards us, so many pairs of feet that I groaned. Abruptly, for the second time, the
guns
ceased.

Charlotte cried, ‘What is it? Who won?’

I said, everything in me gone numb and cold, ‘Leo did. With help.’

Warriors from Soulvine Moor had arrived, running flat out across the moor. The
hisafs
trying to rescue us had crossed over from the Country of the Dead to the equivalent positions on the tor, but they had been outnumbered. The Soulviner warriors had
guns
, too. Not all of them, and some had been shot before the
hisafs
on the tor had given up and crossed over to escape death, retreating to the Country of the Dead where the Soulviners could not follow and our rescuing
hisafs
had the advantage of numbers. Whatever numbers were left alive.

Had the Soulvine warriors not arrived, their rescue would have succeeded. Had this been my father, coming for me half a year later than promised? And if so, did his body now lie among those broken and bleeding in the morning mist?

Sick at heart, I crawled off Rawnie. I couldn’t crawl out from beneath the wagon while still chained to Kelif, and Charlotte seemed too paralysed with fright to move. But Rawnie cried, ‘Let me up! My mouse!’ and slithered out from between us. She straightened up beside the wagon and gasped.

I knew what she was seeing. I had seen it before.

Leo still shouted orders. ‘Get him out of there and
chained to somebody else – they’re still over there!’

Still over there
. The rescuers still held the Country of the Dead. I could grab Charlotte and Rawnie again, drag Kelif with me, cross over to safety with the
hisafs
who had come for us. I seized Charlotte. Rawnie, however, had climbed onto the wagon – I could hear her above me – and Charlotte must have guessed what I intended.

‘No, Roger! Not without Rawnie!’ She struggled free of me.

Should I leave them here? I could escape by myself, think of a way to come back for them later once I had the other
hisafs
as allies—

Then all choice was taken away from me. Leo crouched by the wagon and hit me on the head with the butt of his
gun
. Blinding light tore through my head, and then all went black.

11

When I woke, the wagon was moving. Never had my head hurt so much. The pain became even more agonizing when I opened my eyes to the sun. I groaned and closed them again. It didn’t help. Spears shot through my head, and when the wagon lurched suddenly, I nearly cried out.

‘I thought you were dead,’ Rawnie said conversationally.

I didn’t answer. But slowly, by tiny and wrenching movements, I opened my eyes. Something was wrong with my vision; there were two of her, wavering in and out of existence as if she were a
hisaf
.

‘Your head is turning purple,’ Rawnie said, leaning closer to inspect me. ‘Leo hit you really hard.’

Of course he had. Knocking me out was the only way to keep me from crossing over. The wagon lurched again, and this time I cried out.

‘Poor Roger,’ Rawnie said, although more with interest than compassion. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Yes.’ Speech was the only thing that didn’t hurt. ‘Where’s your mother?’

‘Walking behind the wagon. She got tired of riding so she’s talking to Leo. Do you know you’re chained to John now? Kelif got killed.’

I turned my head slightly; it was torture. A very blurry John sat next to me, staring at nothing, his face slack and mouth open. I had the same impression I’d had when he dug Straik’s grave: that John was, if not feeble-witted,
then at best very stupid. But he was big and he was armed. I would not be able to escape him by crossing over, even if I had been able to summon the necessary will. The pain I already had.

Rawnie put her face close to mine and whispered, ‘We almost won the battle. But only almost.’

I said, ‘Where are we now?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Somewhere on this moor. It all looks alike.’

She was wrong. I made myself sit up, biting my lip to keep from crying out at the pain. As before, my chain was just long enough to permit me to rise to my knees and peer over the side of the wagon. John did not try to stop me.

Everything looked blurry, but I was able to discern Charlotte trudging alongside Leo. She looked weary but not grieving. So my father had not been among the defeated rescuers. Once again he had not even tried to come through for me.

The monotonous peat moor was giving way to a landscape of greater variety. We were surrounded by tors, higher and more numerous than before, with swift streams running down them. More boulders and great outcroppings of rock. But I also saw clumps of trees, although they looked neither tall nor healthy. A roe deer broke from one grove and streaked across the heather. Still, I knew what Rawnie meant. There were no villages, nor even isolated farmhouses, probably because the soil here was as poor as on the peat moor. In that, the moor was unvarying.

A band of Soulvine warriors walked beside the wagon. Looking at them, I felt a deep shudder shake my entire body. These were the people who had taken Cecilia and—

I couldn’t think of that, I would go mad.

The warriors included both men and women, all young, all fit. A few carried
guns
; all had spears and knives. At Hygryll I had seen them dressed in ceremonial white robes, but now they wore rough leggings and tunics of animal hide. They all had green eyes. My stomach churned at the sight of them.

‘Rawnie, did any of the dogs—’

‘They all got killed, ours and theirs. I don’t care – they weren’t nice dogs. Other pets are better.’ Shielded from John’s sight by my body, she opened her hand and finally showed me her mouse. The small rodent, brown with a long pink tail, looked resigned, or perhaps only hungry. If Charlotte had been in the wagon Rawnie would not have dared take the creature from her pack.

‘How many of Leo’s men survived?’