The Caller (19 page)

Flint put a finger to his lips. ‘No more,’ he said. Then nodded, as if to say,
friend
.

Hound and Bull troops had ridden south as soon as the spring thaw allowed it. With them had travelled the queen’s councillor Brydian and the Caller, Esten, along with a party of court officials. Details of their mission had not been made widely known, and after their departure Winterfort had filled with wild speculation about the possibilities. Esten’s summoning of the three fey beings and the queen’s experimentation with them had fired the court’s imagination. Theories on the ensuing expedition ranged from a mass cull of the Good Folk to the raising of an uncanny army. Varda had put a stop to the talk by issuing an edict that anyone caught discussing the matter would be whipped. But everyone had a theory about the mission to the south, and another about what the party might bring home when it returned.

What Flint knew, he shared with no-one. The king had told him in confidence, and what he had learned terrified him. The mission was the next step in Keldec’s quest to build an army no enemy could resist. The men of Hound and Bull troops had gone south to gather not only fit young men to swell Keldec’s fighting forces, but a body of uncanny folk who would be brought to Winterfort and trained up to stand alongside the human contingent, using their magic as a weapon. Since Esten, the young Caller, was himself from the south, that region was to be visited first. Esten would use his gift to call the uncanny folk in, control them on the way back to Winterfort, then ensure they continued to comply with the king’s orders.

It was a plan riddled with flaws, the product of a mind crazed with the desire for power. Keldec believed this force would give him almost limitless might. He was confident that it would allow him to prevail against the most recalcitrant chieftain. The pretender in the north would be annihilated, he’d said, meaning Lannan Long-Arm, whose continuing absence from the annual Gathering had been duly noted and interpreted. More than that: the king would use his new army to cross the borders of Alban and conquer the territories that lay beyond. He would be the greatest ruler not only in the entire history of Alban, but in all the lands of the north.

It had been impossible for Flint to talk to Keldec honestly about his grand venture. Any attempt to point out its weaknesses would not only have offended the king, it might have revealed that his loyal Owen knew more than anyone might expect about Callers and the Good Folk. He must not endanger Neryn. He must not draw attention in any way to the rebels’ plans for midsummer, or to the links already established between humankind and Alban’s uncanny inhabitants. So, while a bright-eyed Keldec enthused about his plans for the future, his most trusted confidant listened quietly and limited his contributions to the occasional, ‘Yes, my lord King.’

All the while his mind conjured up possibilities, and every one of them was disastrous. What lay most heavily in his thoughts was that the army Keldec hoped to create, the peerless fighting force made up of human and fey warriors working side by side, was essentially no different from the force Regan’s rebels planned to bring to Summerfort for the Gathering. The fact that one army would fight for power and dominance and the other for freedom and justice seemed almost immaterial; their clash would set a dark stain on the soil of Alban, a blight that would linger for generations. That was not what Regan had planned. It was not what they had worked for, all these years.

But then, was there any such thing as a clean fight? The best one could hope for was that the opponents might be evenly matched, and that in the end honour and compassion would prevail. He remembered the two from Seal Troop who had fought to the death at the last Gathering, as punishment for trivial infringements of the king’s rules. It had gone on a long time; too long. One comrade had fallen at last. The king had refused the winner a knife with which to despatch his vanquished opponent; he’d had to do it with his bare hands. Later, away from the eyes of the crowd, away from everyone, the victor had hanged himself. Keldec’s need for total control had lost him not one but two peerless fighters that day. It was then, Flint thought, that he’d begun to see a new look in some of the men’s eyes.

He wondered what the Caller thought of the job he was expected to do. At court, the queen and Brydian had kept Esten on a tight rein; nobody had spoken to him beyond a greeting. The lad looked ordinary enough. Indeed, Flint wondered if he would be able to summon the great army Keldec wanted. Bringing those three small folk in to be incarcerated and tortured was one thing; this was a far grander endeavour.

He felt a mad urge to speak plainly to the king and queen, pointing out that the scheme was cruel, misguided, overweening. Spelling out the truth to them: that under Keldec’s rule, Alban had already been ruined, and that if this venture went ahead, it might never recover. He had to check himself, often, as the desire to speak out warred with his long-practised self-control. At such times he reminded himself that he had sent a message. Against the odds, the little woman of the Good Folk might have passed it on to Sage, so it was possible Tali and the others had received it. Neryn might have been warned. There might be something she could do to avert disaster. By now she must be close to completing her training. Of course, the little woman might have gone to ground, keeping his message to herself. There’d been no reason for her to do him any favours. He was a king’s man. His people had shown her the face of human cruelty at its very worst.

You should step back
, he had told Rohan, wishing his friend might somehow be protected, stay safe. But there was no stepping back; whatever was coming, it would engulf them all.

The day after I saw the dark army, we moved on toward Callan Stanes. Without a map, without a guide, with our hope in tatters, we made our way down the hill, across the broken and blackened wilderness left by the strange troop’s passing, and into the forested area beyond. We spoke little. The shock of losing Whisper and the overwhelming blow of what I had seen had robbed us of easy words.

The task of tending to Piper steadied Silva, and as I watched her feeding him or settling him in the pouch, her face soft and her hands gentle, I realised what it was he had been trying so hard to convey to me with his desperate gestures; what had caused Whisper’s headaches and confusion. Torn two ways.
Called
two ways. Piper knew me. He had been drawn out of the ruined cairn by my call; he had shared the road with me and knew me well. But he had also heard that other call, the one powerful enough to bring out a great crowd of Good Folk and coerce them in one direction, flanked by Enforcers. Powerful enough, at closer quarters, to draw in even Whisper, so good, so wise, so strong in magic. Very likely, Piper’s being still with us, safe from that other Caller’s power, was due not so much to me as to the fact that Piper was part of the White Lady. Tiny and frail-looking as he was, in this test he had proven stronger than Whisper.

After she heard my story, Silva asked me only one question: had her brother been among the men marching? I told her I did not know; had not seen. I thought it more likely Ean would be gathered up in the throng as it moved north, but I did not tell her that. Her white face told me she had worked it out for herself.

We reached a farm that must be the one Ean had spoken of, for it was the only dwelling anywhere near the ring of standing stones, which we’d glimpsed from a rise as we approached the area. The farm was guarded; a young man with a pitchfork and a young woman with a staff met us on the track some distance short of the house, barring our way. I showed the thistle embroidered on my cloak; Silva did the same. The guards did not move, but one whistled, and another man walked down from the house. His eyes widened when he saw Silva.

‘You got a brother? One who looks a lot like you?’

Silva nodded.

‘Works for a fellow called Regan,’ I said.

The man looked me up and down; turned his attention back to Silva. ‘Is Ean with you?’

Tears spilled from Silva’s eyes; she reached up a hand to scrub them away.

‘We have news of him,’ I said. ‘We’ve shown the thistle. Let us in and we’ll give you the full story.’

‘And you are?’

I felt my lips curl in a grim smile. ‘Another one who works for Regan.’

The man nodded. He was broad-shouldered, stocky, strong-looking. Perhaps twenty, perhaps older. Flame-red hair cut short; penetrating green eyes. There was a look of Regan about him.

‘This is news you’ll want to hear,’ I said. ‘Most of it’s not good. I hope you’ll trust us enough to let us tell it.’

At that moment Piper decided to add his voice to the conversation, offering a series of shrill squeaks from the depths of Silva’s pouch. The guards, startled, raised their weapons; the red-haired man took a step back.

‘Shh!’ hissed Silva, peering into the pouch. ‘Stop it!’

‘What in the name of all that’s holy is that?’ the red-haired man asked.

Piper popped his head up over the edge of the linen, all staring eyes and wild cobweb hair. The woman muttered an oath.

‘We’re tired,’ I said, realising just how exhausted I really was. ‘Silva and the little one here need rest, and I could do with a brew and somewhere to sit down. We’re on our own; we’ve made sure nobody’s following.’

The guards lowered their weapons. The red-haired man folded back the collar of his shirt to show the thistle sewn there, crude but immediately recognisable. ‘I’ll take them in,’ he said to the guards. ‘Come, this way.’

Within the farmhouse and its outbuildings was an orderly community. Their leader, red-haired Foras, had built up the numbers slowly. They knew about Shadowfell; they knew that Regan had died in the course of the rebellion, and that we continued our fight in his name. They knew, in broad terms, what was planned for midsummer. And they knew we had a spy at court, though not his identity.

Their work was not quite like that of the Shadowfell rebels, for Foras’s team was not a fighting troop. Their principal work was gathering information and carrying sensitive messages, often for Gormal, chieftain of Glenfalloch. I understood this. The chieftains who supported the rebellion could not afford any slip-ups, for the first murmur to the king that a certain leader might be breeding dissent would bring the Enforcers down on the traitor immediately.

If I had not seen that army on the march, if I had not known there must be another Caller, I might have been less open with Foras. But everything had changed. Whisper was gone; the old plan was in tatters. I had barely enough time to find the Master of Shadows, undergo further training and get to Summerfort for the Gathering as it was. The looming disaster of a second Caller, the horror of that captive army could not be set aside while I did so.

I knew what Tali’s solution would be. She’d say the king’s Caller must be eliminated. Whoever performed that act would pay for it with his life. The rebel code was harsh; it had to be, or they could not have survived for so long. If Tali ordered an assassination, Flint would carry it out. Of that I had no doubt. But it felt wrong to me, deeply wrong, and not only because Flint was dear to my heart. I could not think about that other Caller without seeing myself in his shoes, my gift twisted and warped by the king’s will, my good intentions forced askew and used to make the innocent suffer. Perhaps that Caller was not evil in himself. Perhaps he was only another victim of Keldec’s tyranny.