The Burning Shadow (11 page)

“I'll attend him whenever he likes,” Hekabi said firmly, “but I won't stay here. I must be free to come and go.”

Ilarkos inclined his head with new respect. “As you wish.”

When he'd gone, Hekabi wiped the sweat from her face. “What did I say when I was in the trance? Tell me exactly.”

Pirra hesitated. “You said the Outsider lives.”

Hekabi frowned. “The Outsider . . . But who
is
that? And why does he frighten Kreon?”

Again Pirra hesitated. She moved closer to Hekabi. “There was an Oracle,” she whispered. “It said,
If an Outsider wields the blade, the House of Koronos burns.
I'm pretty sure they've kept it secret. All their warriors know is that Outsiders must be killed.”

Hekabi's eyes gleamed. “That boy you spoke to at the pools. It's him, isn't it? The Outsider. Don't deny it, I can see it in your eyes.”

Pirra licked her lips. “You said he's alive. You said you saw him crawl out of the earth. That must mean he survived the cave-in.”

“Go to him. I'll tell them I need you to gather herbs. Find him. Warn him that they know.
Find him,
” she repeated. “If he's an enemy of Kreon, then he's my friend! Now go!”

T
he lion cub shoved her head under the boy's forepaw and gave an impatient mew. He went on sleeping, so she climbed on his belly and flexed her claws—and he woke with a yelp.

Yawning and growling, he crawled to the hot wet. Earlier, he'd fished out the hare's paws and tail and flung them into the bushes for her to find. Now she watched curiously as he drank, not lapping like a lion, but scooping the wet in his long thin forepaws.

After this, he grabbed a stick and dug under a plant. She pushed in to sniff, but he wouldn't let her. Then he pulled out a root and ate it. The cub was impressed.

She'd been wondering why he didn't lick her clean, but now she realized that his tongue was too smooth: useless for giving one's fur a nice rasping lick. His teeth weren't much good either, and his claws were hopeless, he couldn't even pull them in and out. He had no tail, so he couldn't lash it when he was angry, and without a tail-tuft, he couldn't signal in long grass. Oddest of all, he had neither whiskers nor fur, except for a shaggy little mane that didn't go all around his face. This worried the cub. How did he keep warm?

He was sitting on the ground, talking to her. She liked his voice, it was calm and strong, so she stood on her hind legs, put her forepaws on his shoulders, and licked his nose. He yelped, but she sensed this was his way of laughing, so she licked harder. Now they were rolling about, play-fighting. The lion cub felt better than she had since her mother was killed.

After this, the boy splashed her to wash her clean, which she didn't mind, then took hold of her bad paw—which she did. He yanked the prickle out of her pad. She shot under a bush and hissed. That
hurt
.

Shaken, she watched him chewing leaves and mixing them with mud. Now what was he up to?

Talking softly, he crawled toward her and again reached for her bad paw. She snarled, but to her astonishment, he grabbed it and smeared the pad with the leafy-smelling mud. She was so startled that she forgot about biting and licked it off. The boy smeared on some more. She licked that off too. They played this game for a while until he got cross and chewed some different leaves, which tasted so awful that she left them alone.

After that she had a nap, and when she woke up, her paw was better.

Later, the boy rose to his full, tree-like height and spoke to her. The cub was instantly alert. He was going hunting, and he wanted her to go with him.

Feeling important, she trotted behind this tall furless creature who'd taken the place of her pride. He wasn't a lion, but his mane was the color of a lion's mane, and his strange narrow eyes were lion-colored too.

The cub felt in her fur that although he was not lion, there was lion in his spirit.

The day before, Hylas had trapped two partridges, and this morning a lucky shot killed a small deer.

Havoc pushed in to investigate. “No,” he told her firmly.

The lion cub gazed up at him imploringly.

He snorted. “After what you did to that hare?”

With the deer over one shoulder, he started back for camp, Havoc trotting behind him.

After lots of food and sleep—much of it sprawled on top of him—she'd recovered with astonishing speed. Her belly was plump, her fur fluffy and soft. Best of all, she was learning to trust him. She would bound toward him with eager little grunts—
ng ng ng
—then flop onto her back and waggle her big spotty paws, asking to be scratched.

It was wonderful to have someone to talk to and look after. In some ways, she reminded him of his dog, Scram. She was insatiably curious, always scrambling into his lap to be part of what he was doing; always wanting attention. But she had a lion's unnerving ability to vanish in long grass, and unlike a dog, she didn't wag her tail when she was pleased, she lashed it when she was annoyed. What annoyed her most was being ignored. She
hated
that.

She was still limping a bit, so at camp he made another poultice of bitter wormwood and smeared it on her pad and on the cut on her nose. Then he tossed her the deer's guts to keep her quiet.

While she was happily getting filthy again, he butchered the carcass with his new obsidian knife. He would dry some meat and bury the rest in hot mud by the spring; no need to risk a fire with so much heat in the ground. Then he'd wash the hide, rub it with mashed brain, and sling it over a branch; it might be big enough to make a waterskin and a kilt.

All this would take time, and he needed to go after Pirra. But he wouldn't be much use to her if he died of thirst on the way.

Around dusk, he cracked open the mud and ate the juicy, tender meat. Havoc was awake, gazing up at the deerskin on its branch. Hylas could see her plotting to climb the tree, so to distract her, he wove a rough wicker ball out of fireweed. “Look, Havoc! Fetch!”

She didn't know about fetching, but she adored the ball. They had an amazing game of toss and catch around camp and in and out of the spring; then Havoc was suddenly tired, and flopped down and fell asleep.

Hylas sat chewing a deer rib, while she lay against him, her tail twitching in her dreams. Strange. A few days ago, he hadn't known she existed. Now it felt as if they'd always been together.

Havoc trotted ahead, then turned and looked back at Hylas.
Keep up
. She seemed surprisingly at ease on the Mountain, and had found this goat trail winding up its shoulder.

Hylas trudged after her. The noonday Sun beat down on him, and he was laden with the waterskin, a bundle of meat, and Havoc's beloved wicker ball, which she'd refused to leave behind.

A glance over his shoulder revealed that they'd climbed higher than he'd thought. The forest and the thickets, the obsidian ridge and the wild pear tree, lay far below.

He'd decided not to risk retracing his tracks to the Neck, so he was climbing this spur, to spy out the land from there. He might spot some way of avoiding the mines—although as yet he had no idea how he was going to rescue Pirra.

He hated to think of her shut up in Kreon's stronghold. If Kreon found out who she was, he would use her for his own ends. Hylas' mind skittered away from what those might be.

He'd climbed too far. He was on a slope of coarse black sand dotted with clumps of brittle red grass. No cover except for a rocky outcrop, and above that, charcoal cliffs rising to the summit. Smoke wafted down. He caught its rotten-egg stink.

As he neared the outcrop, the stink grew suddenly worse and the earth turned hot underfoot. He stopped.

Two paces ahead, smoke spurted angrily from a crack in the ground. It was about the size of his fist, and around it the black sand was spattered with astonishing crystals of deep, throbbing yellow. Like the droppings of some fiery creature, they formed a spiky crust around the crack—from which jetted that stinking smoke and a fierce, continuous, bubbling
hisss
.

Something Zan had said came back to him.
Fire spirits live in cracks in the ground, all spiky and hot.

Hylas felt a blast of heat: as if some unseen spirit had swept past him out of its lair. He backed away. But to his astonishment, Havoc padded toward the crack, quite unafraid.

“Havoc, come down,” he called sharply. He didn't dare raise his voice, or go and fetch her. There is a veil that separates the world of men from that of immortals, and he knew he was far too close.

“
Havoc!
” he said again.

Suddenly the wind shifted and he was engulfed in choking hot smoke. The stink was a kick in the throat. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe.

“Havoc!” he gasped, blundering down the slope.

She came bounding toward him, then turned her head, as if to follow something he couldn't see.

“What is it?” he panted.

In her tawny eyes, he glimpsed little flickers of flame—although on the Mountainside, he could see no fire. Then she sneezed and rubbed her forehead against his calf.

“We've come too high,” he muttered. “We've got to go back.”

That fire spirit had been warning him. This was a place for immortals, not for men.

The lion cub watched the fire spirit pass within a tail-flick of the boy—but to her surprise, he didn't see it.

Around him on the Mountainside, more fire spirits were flickering in and out of their lairs. Some were big and crackly, others silent and small. The boy didn't seem to see
any
of them.

The lion cub wondered what to do. She'd brought him here because she'd sensed that he wanted to climb the Mountain, but now she worried that he would get bitten.

Sure enough, he was just about to tread in the lair of a small fire spirit.

The lion cub raced down and threw herself against his leg.
Not that way!

The fire spirit spat, and the boy yelped and hopped away.

After this, the lion cub stayed close and did her best to steer him out of danger.

A large fire spirit drifted in front of her, and she smoothed back her ears respectfully. The fire spirit crackled past her and shimmered into its den.

Completely unaware, the boy stumbled to some rocks and stopped to pour some wet on his burned hind leg. Feeling quite grown-up, the lion cub followed.

She realized now that although he was supposed to look after her, in some ways,
she
had to look after
him
.

Hylas finished washing his burned ankle, and smeared on a gobbet of deer fat. Havoc glanced back at the fire spirits' lairs, then padded down to lie beside him, stretched on her belly with her forelegs straight in front and her golden head held high.

“Can you actually
see
fire spirits?” he asked her quietly.

She turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes were clear tawny, marked with darker amber, like the rings in a tree. He could no longer see the tiny leaping flames.

“Can you?” he said again.

She gave a huge yawn that ended in a whine, then rubbed her forehead against his thigh.

For the first time since he'd found her, he wondered what power had brought them together. When she'd wrecked his camp, she'd eaten the offerings he'd set out. If a wild creature does that, it means they've been sent by an immortal.