The Burning Shadow (15 page)

A
kastos dragged Hylas to the forge and held his fist over the fire. “Swear that you'll never tell anyone my true name.”

“I swear!” gasped Hylas.

“Say it. Tell your oath to the fire.”

“I swear I'll never tell anyone your true name!”

Akastos plunged Hylas' fist into the water pail, then sat on a stool and forced him to his knees, bringing them face-to-face. Hylas knew better than to struggle; the grip on his shoulder could crush his bones like eggshell. He didn't know if he was frightened or relieved to be at Akastos' mercy again. This man had left him as bait for the Angry Ones; but at times he'd shown flashes of kindness.

Akastos pulled off his mask and fixed him with a penetrating stare. His hair was shorter, his sharp beard no longer crusted with salt; but his unsettling light-gray eyes were just as impossible to read.

“What are you doing here?” he barked.

Hylas gulped. “I'm a slave. I ran away.”

“No tricks, boy, you're on a knife edge. Again. What are you doing here?”

“It's
true
!”

Akastos snorted. “Last summer you turned up on the Island of the Fin People. You said the Crows were after you, they were killing Outsiders, you didn't know why. You
said
you were a goatherd—and yet you knew about the dagger of Koronos. And now you just
happen
to cross my path again?”

“I was trying to get home. They caught me and sent me here.”

“Why didn't they just kill you?”

“They don't know it's me—I mean, that I'm the Outsider.”

“So you're asking me to believe that you've fetched up here on Thalakrea at the same time as the House of Koronos—
and they
don't know
?”

Hylas nodded. “Don't give me away. They'll kill me.”

Abruptly, Akastos released him and went to the forge. Firelight streaked his features with shadow and flame.

Hylas risked a glance at the door.

“I wouldn't,” said Akastos, reading his thoughts. “You'd never get past the furnaces, and from the cliffs there's only one way down; it's quick, but you wouldn't survive.”

Resuming his stool, he rested his powerful forearms on his knees. Then he spoke to Hylas in a low voice that made the rest of the smithy disappear. “What do you know about the dagger? Leave nothing out.”

Hylas took a breath. “A dying man gave it to me in a tomb. He said he'd stolen it and to keep it hidden.”

The smith went very still. “What was he like?”

“Young. Keftian. Rich, I think. Did you know him?”

Not an eyelash stirred, but Hylas sensed the rapid flow of thought. “So,” said Akastos. “You had the dagger in your hands.”

“Then Kratos got it back. We fought. He drowned. The Crows took it.”

Akastos raised his eyebrows. “Kratos is dead? At last, some good news. But why are the Crows still after you?”

“There was an Oracle, it said
If an Outsider wields the blade, the House of Koronos burns
. They think I'm the one. But I don't
care
about any of that, I just want to find my sister.”

Akastos took that in silence. “This has to be a trap,” he said. “They must know you're here.”

“They don't, I swear! At least—Telamon knows, but he—”

“Telamon?”

“The boy who brought me here, he's Thestor's son. We used to be friends—when I didn't know he was a Crow.”

Akastos reached for a wineskin on a hook, half filled an earthenware beaker, and topped it up with water from the pail. Hylas watched thirstily as he drank.

“Thestor of Lykonia,” said Akastos, wiping his mouth on his wrist. “That boy is his son?”

Hylas nodded. “He says he'll help me escape.”

“And you trust him.”

Hylas didn't reply.

Akastos turned the beaker in his long fingers. “So what am I going to do with you, Flea? I can think of one sure way of saving myself a lot of trouble.”

“But you won't,” Hylas said quickly. “You won't kill me.”

“What makes you say that?”

It was a struggle to control his breathing. “You made me swear never to tell your name. If you were going to kill me, you wouldn't have bothered.”

The lines at the sides of Akastos' mouth deepened, as if he would have smiled if he hadn't lost the habit.

Suddenly, Hylas remembered the mute slaves by the thorn tree. “P-please,” he stammered, “don't cut out my tongue!”

That seemed to anger Akastos. “Why would you think I'd do that? Those slaves out there, they were born mute, I just took them out of the mines.”

“Sorry,” said Hylas. He eyed the beaker. “Can I have a drink?”

Again Akastos snorted. “Go ahead.”

Hylas gulped three beakers of wine and water, then asked if he could have an anchovy.

Akastos shrugged.

“Aren't you even a bit glad to see me?” mumbled Hylas as he wolfed the lot.

“Why? You're bad luck, Flea, I told you that last summer.”

“You also said that we're alike. We're both survivors.”

“So? Does that make you think you know me?”

“No, but—”

“What do you think you know about me, Flea?”

Hylas swallowed the last of the cheese and decided it would be safest to hold nothing back. “You were a sailor. Maybe a warrior too, because you're so strong. You're cleverer than anyone I've ever met, and you've been on the run from the Crows for longer than I've been alive. Also you're on the run from”—he dropped his voice—“the Angry Ones. Which means you must have done something terrible, but I don't know what.”

The fire crackled and spat. Hylas feared he'd gone too far.

Akastos scratched his beard and sighed. “Why did you have to cross my path again, Flea?”

“Wh-why?” said Hylas. “What are you going to do?”

Akastos rose to his feet and prowled the smithy. Then he barked a laugh. “What a sense of humor the gods have!”

“What do you mean?”

“Surely you can see that the best way for me to make use of you is to take you to Kreon?”

“But—you can't!”

“If I give him the Outsider, it'll gain his trust and get me inside his stronghold.”

“But the Oracle! I could help you
defeat
them! That's what you want, isn't it? That's why you're here?”

“Oracles are tricky things, Flea, I never rely on them. This one
could
mean the gods have a use for you; or you might just be some goatherd out of your depth. There's no way of knowing which.”

“But—if you hide me from the Crows and I do turn out to be the one in the Oracle, you'll have a better chance of beating them!”

“True. But if I hide you, they'll also have a better chance of finding you, and making you tell them my real name.”

“I swore I'd never do that!”

“Ah but Flea. Anyone can be broken if you know how.”

Something in his voice told Hylas that Akastos knew how.

“I thought you liked me,” Hylas said bleakly.

“That's got nothing to do with it,” snapped Akastos. “The point is—” He broke off and stared at the doorway.

“What is it?” mouthed Hylas.

Akastos signed him to silence.

A sound outside: furtive. Listening.

Stealthily, Akastos approached the doorway, taking care not to cast a shadow that might alert whoever was out there. With the speed of a snake he sprang, dragging in a struggling bundle.

“Don't hurt her!” cried Hylas.

Akastos dropped the bundle and sucked a bitten hand.

Havoc shot behind Hylas and snarled.

“D
on't hurt her!” repeated Hylas. He scooped Havoc into his arms and felt her shaking with fright, her heart hammering against his chest.

Akastos loomed over them with his knife in his hand. “What does this mean?” he said harshly.

“Please! She's only a cub!”

He was startled to see that Akastos' forehead was beaded with sweat. “A
lion,
” muttered the smith. Then to Hylas, “Is this a trick? Making me think it's an omen?”

“No! I found her on the Mountain. Kreon killed her parents, she can't fend for herself!”

Akastos gave him a hard look. “Have you never heard of the Lion of Mycenae?”

Hylas shook his head.

“It's what people used to call the High Chieftain. I had a farm, not far from Mycenae. And now here's this cub. That's some kind of sign.”

“But—it's not her fault!”

Slowly, Akastos sheathed his knife. “Get it out of here,” he said thickly.

Hylas thought fast. “I could hide her behind the smithy. I could take her food—”

“Do it.”

Hylas hesitated. He hardly dared remind Akastos of what he'd been saying before Havoc had appeared, but he had to know. “You won't—you won't give me to Kreon, will you?”

Akastos rubbed a hand over his face. “Just get that creature out of here.”

The big dark-maned human glared at them as the boy staggered from the den with the lion cub in his forepaws.

She was too frightened to struggle. Her pads hurt and she was hungry. On the Mountain, the girl had killed a lizard for her, but on the plain they'd lost each other, and for a desperate time the cub had been alone.

At last she'd caught the boy's scent, but he was with the bad humans, so she'd stayed hidden. She'd followed him to this dreadful noisy place where humans attacked the earth as if it had done something wrong, and the earth growled back—although they didn't seem to hear. The lion cub hated it, but she had to stay close to the boy.

Now he carried her to some boulders behind the den. They smelled of dust and beetles. No lions. Fearfully, she padded to the edge. Far below, a vast glittery creature with a wrinkled gray pelt pawed at rocks with a low, unceasing roar. The cub flattened her ears and shot back to the boulders.

Speaking softly, the boy pushed her into a little hollow behind a bush. It smelled friendly. The cub felt a bit safer. The boy ran off and returned with some fish. While she was eating, he ran off again. Wearily, she heaved herself up to follow.

Something yanked her back. With an indignant yowl, she tried to pull free. The same thing happened. The cub was astonished.
Something was wound around her neck
. It was attached to the bush, that was why she couldn't get away. It wouldn't take long to gnaw through. But suddenly, she was too tired.

As her head drooped onto her paws, she thought of the dark-maned human. She wasn't sure what to feel about him. She sensed that he was always alert, like a hunting lion, and that his heart was a tangle of good and bad.

What frightened her most was that under his human scent, she'd caught a whiff of something else: the black, biting smell of the terrible spirits who haunted her very worst sleeps.

The molten bronze trembled like a pool of liquid Sun.

Hylas labored at the bellows. Akastos twisted a withe around the crucible and lifted it clear of the embers. Hylas dropped the bellows, and grabbed a stick with a flat piece of slate mounted on the end. Akastos poured a dazzling stream of fire into the mold, while Hylas held the slate's edge just above the lip of the crucible to keep back any specks of charcoal floating on the bronze. Blazing white flames splashed over the mold, and Hylas glimpsed the throbbing red form within. Akastos wiped his forehead. Another axe was born.

Hylas had been at the smithy for three days. Telamon hadn't been back, and there'd been no sign of Pirra. Hylas hoped she was all right, because there was nothing he could do to help.

Havoc had chewed through three tethers, but hadn't touched the fourth, which he'd smeared with scat. By day, the threat of buzzards and the din from the smithy kept her in her hiding place. At night she grew restless, and Hylas worried that she'd throttle herself, so he'd persuaded Akastos—who remained wary of her—to allow her in the smithy,
provided
she gave no trouble. Hylas kept her occupied with scraps of sacking and another wicker ball, which she loved just as much as the old one.

Akastos drove Hylas hard, making him tend the fire and burnish the newborn weapons; but he fed him well, and he taught him things. He said the most precious metal was silver, and the rarest was iron, which fell from the stars—but the most desired was gold. It came from rivers, and you found it by washing sand over sheepskins, so that the grains snagged in the wool and turned the fleece gold.

At other times, Akastos questioned Hylas closely. How long had he had the dagger? What could he remember of the cave-in, and Periphas? Then Hylas wondered if the smith was merely keeping him safe for some secret purpose of his own.

Hylas hoped he was wrong. Akastos was ruthless, but Hylas liked him and wanted his approval. If he'd had a father, he would have wanted him to resemble the smith.

“Wake up, Flea,” growled Akastos. “Fire's dying down.”

Hylas re-applied himself to the bellows. Their clay nozzle poked through a hole in a stone slab that shielded him from the embers, but he was still streaming sweat.

A hiss of steam as Akastos cooled the mold in the trough, then up-ended it and tapped the bottom with the butt of his hammer, to release the axe head. The new bronze was a beautiful, shiny dark-gold.

“Why
do
people make bronze?” said Hylas. “I mean, why not just use copper?”

Akastos' lip curled. “You're always asking questions, Flea. Bronze is harder than copper, and it takes a sharper edge.”

“Is that why the Crows—”

“Yes.” He lowered his voice. “The Crows made their dagger of bronze so that they could gain its endurance and strength.” He studied the axe. “Bronze never grows old. It heals like flesh, and draws lightning from the sky. Which is why,” he added drily, “it's a good idea not to raise your weapon in a storm.”

He seemed to be in a forthcoming mood, so Hylas risked the question he'd been longing to ask. “How did you learn to be a smith?”

“On my father's farm,” Akastos said curtly. With his hammer, he struck the axe. He went on striking, as if to obliterate his thoughts. Hylas knew not to ask any more.

Akastos made hammering look easy, but once, he'd let Hylas try. The hammer was so heavy he could barely lift it one-handed, and his blow had bounced off with a clang. “Harder, Flea, you won't hurt it! Bronze is a survivor, like you and me. The harder you hit it, the tougher it gets.”

By now, the axe was battle-hard. Akastos turned to the crucible, where more bronze was heating, and they began again. And when they'd amassed a pile of axes, spearheads, arrowheads, and knives, that would be another day done.

Hylas had swiftly realized that by pretending to be a smith, Akastos had created the perfect disguise. The mute slaves kept others from the smithy and warned him when to don his mask; and as he ruled the ridge, he could order the ash from the forge and the slag from the furnaces hauled away each day, without anyone guessing that this was to avoid attracting the Angry Ones.

But
why
had he come to Thalakrea? And what terrible crime had he committed, that he was haunted by the spirits of vengeance?

Dusk fell and the furnaces went quiet—although at the smithy, Hylas and Akastos would take turns through the night to feed the fire and mutter the ancient spell against the Angry Ones.

It was Hylas' turn to stay awake. On a pallet by the wall, Akastos slept more restlessly than usual; he'd caught his thumb with his hammer, and the nail was turning black.

Hylas sat by the forge with Havoc at his feet. She seemed subdued, and lay quietly shredding a scrap of sacking with her claws.

Hylas nodded with fatigue as he mumbled the charm. The smithy was full of shadows. He thought of the haunted gully last summer, where the Angry Ones had nearly driven him mad with terror. They were drawn to burned things. And the Crows daubed ash on their cheeks . . . Could it be that they
worshipped
them?

His head sank onto his chest. The spell blurred to a meaningless jumble.

From the rafters, something dropped to the floor and came lurching toward him—

He jerked awake.

On his pallet, Akastos stirred and muttered in his sleep.

Havoc stood tensely, her ears pricked.

“What is it?” whispered Hylas.

She turned her head, and her golden eyes threw back the firelight.

Despite the heat, he went cold. Something
had
thudded onto the roof.

Shakily, he took a burning brand and swept the smithy. Shadows fled the light. Nothing else. And yet his skin crawled and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

With pounding heart, he stepped outside. For once, Havoc didn't push past him, but stayed in the smithy.

The roof loomed against the stars. Hylas remembered that tomorrow was the dark of the Moon, when the Angry Ones would be at their most powerful.

Something black hitched itself off the thatch and flew away.

With a cry, Hylas recoiled—and backed into Akastos.

“It's not them,” said the smith.

“Y-you're sure?”

“Oh, I'd know it, Flea.”

Hylas breathed out. “How long till they find you?”

“Who knows?” He touched the thong at his wrist. “I bear the smith's sealstone; it'll help throw them off for a while.”

“What happened to the real Dameas?”

Akastos hesitated. “Let's just say he gave it to me.”

Back in the smithy, Hylas fed Havoc a rind of goat's cheese and sat hugging his knees to stop them trembling.

Akastos woke the fire in the forge and made it blaze. In the leaping light, Hylas saw the scars on his shoulders and chest. Not for the first time, he wondered if they were battle scars. He'd noticed that the smith's right arm was slightly more muscled than the left. Was that from wielding a hammer, or a sword?

“Why are the Angry Ones after you?” he said quietly. “Who did you kill?”