The Caller (36 page)

‘Can I believe my ears?’ Brydian’s voice; it was under better control than Flint’s. ‘You’re countermanding the king’s direct orders?’

A sudden clamour drowned the rest of Brydian’s speech. And I was at the gate. The guard on duty – a man whose twisted ankle I had tended to not long ago – came over to speak to me. While I explained my business to him, I risked a quick look over my shoulder. The injured being had risen to his feet; a stream of fluid was issuing from his wound. He took two staggering steps, then fell to lie motionless, face down. A deep, sobbing sigh arose from all the Good Folk, a recognition not only of this loss, I thought, but of wrong heaped upon wrong.

I caught a glimpse of Flint’s face. The tight guard he kept on his expression was gone; he was incandescent with rage. ‘The orders that led to this,’ he said, and now his voice was cold and clear, ‘are orders I can no longer follow.’

‘I don’t think I will be long,’ I said to the guard. My voice shook like a willow in an autumn gale.

‘Sure you’re all right to go on your own?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘We’ll be looking out for you.’ He glanced over toward the scene in the practice area, his face grim, but made no comment. He opened the gate, and I went out.

I crossed the encampment, forded the river and made my way up into the woods almost without noticing. My mind was full of what had just happened. Flint had ordered Brydian and Esten off the field. He’d said he would no longer obey the king’s orders. He had just condemned himself to death.

Up on the hill, under the shelter of trees now resplendent in their summer finery, I sat down on a stone and allowed myself to shed tears: tears for Flint, tears for that fallen being and all the others, and a few tears of sheer panic. But not for long; I had to call Sage, and for that I wanted to be further away from the fortress and that scene of carnage. Besides, it would not help anyone if I was late back. Whatever happened to Flint’s part of the mission, and surely that must be at an end now, I had my own part to play and I must keep to it.

I found the stream and followed it westward, making sure I gathered all the herbs Toleg had asked for. I was nearly far enough from the path to try calling Sage. As I cut a last supply of woodruff I heard a dry little cough behind me, and whirled to see a familiar figure there, her beady eyes fixed on me, her hair a wild green-grey fuzz around her wise face. There was no need to call; Sage was here.

I dropped my basket, scattering the herbs, and knelt to embrace her. ‘Sage! I’ve missed you!’

‘Aye, lassie, aye.’ She patted my arm. ‘Dry those tears now, we dinna have much time. There are weighty matters to consider.’

‘Flint – I have to tell you about Flint!’ The words burst out of me. ‘He’s done something terrible, something that means he will be – when I left, he was – he spoke out against the king’s orders, he –’

‘Take a deep breath, Neryn. Sit down here. Aye, that’s it, lassie. Now then.’

She was not alone. From under the trees others of her clan came forward: delicate Silver; the wizened elder, Blackthorn; Gentle, the little healer in her blue cloak. No sign of Red Cap.

Sage guessed who I was looking for. ‘Red Cap is safe,’ she said. ‘I bid the wee fellow go to ground until this is all over. He took his bairnie and went off into the deep parts of the forest.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. Sage, Flint has put himself in terrible danger –’

‘One step at a time. Take it slowly.’

I made myself breathe steadily. I tried to assemble my story in a way that made sense, though I thought maybe my heart was breaking. ‘Sage, Silver, everyone – you know there is another Caller at Summerfort?’

‘We know it.’ Silver managed to speak in a tone like little chiming bells, and still sound dour. She was a lovely creature, all flowing hair and graceful floating garments, but she had been slowest of all Sage’s clan to accept me. ‘We feel it; we see it.’

‘Whisper, who was with me before – a Northie – he was caught up in it. Swept along by Esten’s call in the south, even though I was close by. And now he’s in there with that band of captive Good Folk, and Flint and his troop were supposed to prepare an army for the king, your kind and humankind, just the same as we are trying to do, only –’

‘Slow down, lassie,’ Sage said. ‘We know of the captive Southies, aye. Their camp’s plain enough to see from up here. And we feel the call of that other fellow, but not so strong that we canna hold out against it. If we were closer, or if he reached out straight to us, it might be different. We willna put that to the test before we must.’

‘The other Caller, Esten – he seems to hate what he does, but he can’t stop himself. He craves power. And he’s under the control of the queen’s councillor.’

‘Aye, we’ve seen what the fellow can do. His call is crushing. Shrivels up hope. Sets despair in the bones.’

‘Just as I went out from the fortress, I saw one of the Southies die. Flint was blaming Esten and the man who controls him, Brydian. And he – Flint – said he wouldn’t obey the king’s orders anymore. He was so angry, I think the words just came out. They’ll kill him, Sage.’ My chest ached; I felt as if I had a knife in my heart.

‘Why now?’ Blackthorn asked, turning his dark eyes on me. ‘After keeping up his pretence so long?’

Sage answered, her voice very quiet. ‘He was ready to walk away from court before the winter. I told him he should stay. Then, of course, his comrades came and took him back. Maybe I should have bid him follow his heart. Even the strongest man has his breaking point.’

I swallowed my tears. We had little time, and I must get some answers from them. ‘I had a chance to watch what Flint and his troop were doing before the king came to Summerfort. From a secret lookout. That day the Caller was not present and Flint’s troop was working with the captive Southies quite amicably, going through practice bouts – I’ve heard they are preparing for some kind of display at midsummer. Doesn’t it say in the lore that humankind and Good Folk can’t work for a shared purpose without a Caller to lead them? That’s the reason I have done all my training – so I can rally this combined force at the Gathering. But Flint was getting them to work together without a Caller – at the time, Esten was sick. No Caller and no iron. And one of the other Enforcers spoke of it too, how when these folk first arrived it was chaos, and how Flint somehow managed to make that chaos into order.’

‘There was no sign of the Caller,’ said Silver, ‘when Flint went out to the camp to meet with the Southies, night by night, earlier in the season.’

‘He did that?’

‘He did; we saw it.’

‘So it is possible for our kind and yours to work for a shared purpose without a Caller. How can the lore be wrong?’

‘It isna wrong, Neryn,’ said Sage. ‘There’s no grand purpose here, only a practical bargain. Your man let a goodly few of the Southies go early on, after those meetings in the camp. The smaller ones. The weaker ones. My guess is, the rest of them offered their cooperation in return for that.’

‘And now it’s all gone wrong. Since the king and queen came, we’ve been seeing far more folk injured. And it can only get worse. After this, it’ll be back to controlling the Southies with iron and with Esten’s call.’

‘As I understand it,’ Silver said, ‘at midsummer we’ll be battling these Southies. Why would you be wanting anyone to do a good job of training them? It’s to our advantage, and that of your human rebels, surely, if things do fall into disarray down there.’

I swallowed an angry retort. ‘I see the sense in that. But – it’s cruel. It’s wrong. Folk are dying, suffering for no good purpose. Besides, I don’t think this is as simple as it sounds. I doubt the king really wants no more than a sort of mock battle, which is what everyone says they are preparing for. And Flint . . . He must have had a plan, but I can’t ask him what it was. I haven’t even been able to talk to the man who came here with me, the one who’s pretending to be my husband.’

‘I’m sorry Flint’s in trouble.’ Sage gave a crooked smile. ‘I ken how sorely that must hurt you. But you must set his needs aside. You know that, deep down; it’s what Tali would tell you. Midsummer is close, you’re in Summerfort for a reason, and you must let nothing get in the way of that. Look for this Caller’s weak point. Learn what he can and cannot do. And when the time comes, make quite sure you are the stronger.’

I was cold all through. The terrible dream came back to me, Flint and me on opposite sides of a barred door, our hands palm to palm, and Flint saying
I can’t see you
.

‘It may cheer you to know that Tali and her folk are moving down the valley now, in twos and threes,’ Sage said. ‘It’s been planned so they can all be in the area by midsummer without attracting attention. If they can get anyone else inside Summerfort they will. Tali’s concerned about you. She got a message from your folk in the south; she knows you’re already here. She’s wondering where you’ll be when it all happens, and whether you can stay safe long enough to do what you must do.’

‘On the day, it’s quite likely I’ll be expected to stay in the infirmary to tend to anyone who is hurt. But I’ll find a way to get out.’

‘You’ll need a good vantage point, where you can watch it unfold and keep control of everything. But protected, so they dinna put an arrow through your heart the moment they see what you’re doing.’

I said nothing. Now that I was talking to them, now that I knew Tali and the rebels were on the way, midsummer felt far too close. I could not afford to be afraid; but after what I had seen in the practice yard, I was full of doubt.

‘You can do it, lassie,’ said Gentle. ‘We hae faith in you. Dinna lose faith in yourself.’

Their words of confidence suggested they did not know my training was yet incomplete. It was a delicate point; I no longer had time to go anywhere else before midsummer, and my work here gave me the perfect reason to be present at the Gathering. But without the wisdom of all four Guardians, I fell short of a fully trained Caller.

‘I have to tell you,’ I said, ‘that I have not visited the Master of Shadows yet, and he is the only one who may have a charm to protect you against cold iron.’

‘But you saw the White Lady?’ Gentle’s voice was full of awe. ‘You spoke to her?’

I nodded, not wanting to tell them how diminished the Lady had been, or how tenuous her existence was even now. ‘I did. But when I saw the captive Southies on the march, I made the decision to come straight here. So I did not seek out the Master. Only . . .’

‘Only he’s here already?’ Sage sounded grim. ‘We heard some rumours.’

‘I saw him at the inn in Brightwater. I don’t understand how he could let his folk be captured like that. How can he stand by while they are hurt and manipulated? What is he doing?’

‘Playin’ games,’ said Blackthorn. ‘That’s his favourite pastime. The Master thrives on trickery. This’ll be more than it seems, mark my words.’

‘I discovered that Esten had met him and perhaps even had some training. If the Master supports him at the Gathering, I have little hope of overriding his call. I thought that the Master would support me as the other Guardians have.’

‘Mebbe he will,’ said Blackthorn. ‘Mebbe the game’s trickier than we imagine. He might have decided it needed to be harder for you. Harder for all of us, so we’d learn something that stuck.’

‘But that’s – that’s just wrong!’

Sage gave me one of her shrewd looks. ‘Then you must make it right,’ she said. ‘Now, time’s passing. Do you have what you came for?’

I crouched down to gather up my scattered harvest. ‘Can you let your people know,’ I said, ‘that I still have no solution to the problem of cold iron? When the time comes, I will try to call only those strong enough to survive the battle. But I can make no promises.’

‘Aye, we ken that,’ Sage said. ‘The battle willna be won without losses. A body would be a fool to think different.’

‘I’d best go.’ I did not want to see the aftermath of that scene in the yard. I dreaded learning what had happened to Flint. At the same time, I was desperate to know. And Scia would be needing me.

‘Farewell, Neryn,’ said Sage. ‘They’re bad times, but it isna long till midsummer, and we have faith in you. Hold the flame high, lassie, and keep on forward.’

The others bid me farewell in their turn; even Silver gave me grave kisses on either cheek. Then they faded back into the forest and I was alone once more.

The encampment beside the river was ringed with Enforcers bearing iron weapons. There were sad sounds coming from within that cordon, sounds that filled me with fury – at the king and queen, at Brydian, at Esten, most of all at myself. Why in the name of the gods had I insisted on coming here early? I’d let my self-appointed mission divert me from the last part of my training; I’d rushed to court hoping to undo some of the wrong Esten had inflicted. But I hadn’t done anything for the captives. I had failed to find an opportunity to talk to them. Today I had walked right by as they lay wounded in the practice yard, and now I was walking by again. Yes, it was the right choice for the cause. But it felt deeply wrong.

Nobody stopped me as I skirted the camp and headed for the gates. There was no-one in the practice yard except the guards at the entry. The earth in the centre was gouged and scraped; a great dark stain marked the place where the fiery being had fallen. The guards told me I’d find the infirmary busy. Things were not looking good for Owen Swift-Sword; the word was he’d been summoned to appear before King Keldec.