The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle (12 page)

22

In his time, Ned had thought more than once about dying, but he had never imagined it might be like this: trapped far from home in a hole in a hill, waiting for a fire-breathing terror to trace his scent and melt his bones. Survival was a stubborn friend to all men, but as Ned crept along the wall of the cave, feeling his way deeper into the darkness, there seemed little chance it would side with him today.

Unless this place had hidden depths, he was certain now the darkeyes were gone. He tried not to dwell on that wretched thought. Oak Longarm had met with a horrifying end – and all that Ned had gained from it was the hollow discovery that there was no way of fighting the skalers. He cursed his stupidity and his pride. Targen the Old had been wise in his rulings. A life of peace was better than a death spent yearning for vengeance. Now Ned was primed to learn that lesson, in the most brutal way imaginable.

The skaler entered with a bad-tempered snort, extinguishing most of the light. Ned tensed as the beast shuffled forward, loading the air with its lumbering sweat. There was very little room for its giant frame, but how much room did the creature need when its fire was more flexible than any limb? A short, hot flame punctured the darkness. It licked around the cave walls and billowed into nothing. It easily missed Ned, who had pressed himself into a protective nook, but it did briefly light the way ahead. In that instant, Ned made a startling discovery. He’d been wrong about the darkeyes.

They
were
here.

Two of them, hanging from the roof of the cave. They reminded Ned of the strange black flappers that batted around the settlement at night, but these were larger, three times the height of a man. The skaler had seen them too. Its eyes were now radiating light into the gloom – enough to illuminate the darkeyes’ shape. Ned braced himself, expecting a bigger gush of flame. But the beast seemed more confused than threatened. It pushed right forward, its long snout passing Ned’s hiding place. From the back of its throat came a number of colourful rumbles and clicks, as though it might be trying to communicate. The darkeyes did not stir, but something was moving within the cave, a presence not even Ned was aware of till Waylen leapt onto the skaler’s neck, and crying vengeance loud enough to wake the dead, plunged an arrow deep into its eye.

It was a lucky strike. Waylen might have tried ten times to maim the skaler and on nine of those times he might have failed. But his arrowhead had found one of the spongy gaps between the surfaces that formed the jewel of the eye. Squealing, the creature threw back its head, slamming its foe against the ceiling of the cave. Waylen fell with a dead thud, right at Ned’s feet. Ned shook in silent revulsion. Oak’s end had at least been final and quick. Now here lay Waylen, panting for life, his body broken, his insides mashed.

The skaler was also in trouble. It had pulled right back, banging its head both ways against the wall. The up and down thrash of its colossal tail rocked the whole cave with every brutal thump. It was trying to get out but was stuck near the opening, impeded by a rock its rage had brought down.

And still the darkeyes hadn’t moved.

Ned’s mind boiled with choices. If he ran while the beast was ailing, he might squeeze past it and escape to the whinneys. But where was the honour in running? Two men were dead (or near enough; Waylen’s breathing was reduced to a thread). Their spirits would haunt him for ever if he did not try to win this fight. But whatever he did must be quick and decisive. The skaler had his scent. How long before it came for him again, or more of its kind rallied to its calls?

He risked a look. The beast had ceased to thrash and was in some kind of giddy fall. It was sure to be even more dangerous wounded, but there was no better time to strike. Ned prayed to the Fathers to show him how. They answered with a glint of light. Waylen’s knife. It had found a small squint of daylight and bounced it back to Ned’s grateful eye. He dropped down and snatched the blade up. It was heavy in his hand and wet with blood. A farming tool with a long curved edge. Waylen had come for a fight, all right.
For friends, now dead
, Ned told himself. He clasped the hilt firmly and stepped out of hiding.

The skaler detected the move right away. It gurgled once, then opened its jaws and filled the cave with a roar that strained every seam of rock.

Ned clamped his ears and was forced to fall back, physically sickened by the weight of air pushing through his body. An ocean of noise raged in his head. It was all he could do to stay level and awake. Panting hard, he spat out some vomit and cut two pieces from the arm of his robe to fold up small and plug into his ears. He fastened one in, surprised he was still alive to do this. Why had the skaler used voice, not fire? Could it be it wanted the darkeyes intact? Why, when the two were mortal enemies? Ned looked at them again. Even now, they were static. Were they dead, he wondered, or locked in a frozen sleep like the animals that wintered when the deep snows came? A spike of frustration rose in him then. And for no other reason than his lack of understanding, he found a loose rock and threw it at the place where the darkeyes were hanging.

There. Let the monsters
wake
.

Even with his ears half stoppered he expected to hear a faint clatter or thump. But the rock just seemed to disappear, as if the creatures had sucked it in. A moment passed, then something extraordinary happened. A wing cracked off the nearest body, turning to dust as it hit the cave floor. A spark of pale pink light appeared and lengthened into a vertical line. Ned’s heart thumped against his ribs. His rock had made a hole in what was nothing but a husk. But he’d woken something, of that he was certain. Something very different from the darkeye he’d arrowed in the settlement that time.

Run. There was nothing else for it. He plugged his other ear and jumped out of hiding. ‘Kaal!’ he screamed, the knife in both hands. He readied himself for a ruthless swing. One good blow before he died. One blow to avenge courageous friends and swell his terrified heart with pride.

But it did not come to that. The skaler was down already, a fire-filled tear rolling out of an eye that bled green around the shaft of Waylen’s arrow. It was the most sickening and yet the most wondrous sight Ned had ever seen. He glanced behind him. The light from the darkeye had billowed out into a ghostly spirit. What use was a blade against that? Quickly, Ned sliced a horn off the skaler’s head, then threw the knife behind him and ran. Using the dead beast’s head as a step, he tumbled along its curving back and out into the daylight.

The whinneys were calm and ready, tethered to a rain-soaked bush. Ned freed the mounts of Oak and Waylen, slapped them and sent them galloping wild. Then he mounted Wind and rode her as her name suggested, away from that eerie cave of death.

On the slope to the river where the three friends had camped, one of Wind’s feet found a hole in the ground and brought her down. Ned was thrown headlong into the water. When he turned he saw Wind lying helpless on the bank. Her leg was broken, useless.

‘NO!’ he screamed, and beat his fists into the water.

And the skies, already heavy with cloud, poured their rain on Ned’s fair head, as though his torment was not yet great enough, or his eyes not sufficiently wet with sorrow.

23

Killing a whinney so maimed by injury was a terrible burden, but it had to be done. One strike to Wind’s skull and she slept. The rest Ned did with the skaler horn. As the flow of warm air calmed in her nostrils, he blessed her spirit and asked the Fathers to tend her well, until it was his time to cross over into death and he could meet his faithful ride again.

He knelt and stroked her beautiful mane, singing her a song of the open field. And when it became too much for him to bear, he lifted the skaler horn again and thought to plunge it into his heart. How his despondent spirit yearned to feel the point of that worthless prize, but he could not force his hand to do it. If he died here, the tribe would die too. When the skalers discovered the body in the cave, a broken arrow lodged in its eye, their wrath was sure to come down on the Kaal.

Sickened, Ned threw the horn away. He wept for his friends and his beautiful whinney. His life was now worthless, but it must go on. He deserved whatever judgment awaited him, but it would be nothing compared to the murder and ruin the beasts would inflict if they flew against the men. Saving the tribe was all that mattered. It was the only shred of honour he had left.

So he picked himself up and began to run, moving at a pace he thought he could sustain. He ran and ran, through twilight and darkness, finally reaching the outskirts of the settlement just before dawn. Exhausted, he dropped to a shallow in the river and cupped his hands in the cold, clear water, drawing it up to his mouth and face. No skalers. No burning shelters. Still time for the Kaal to escape. He drank again, re-wetting his face, stretching the lids of his weary eyes as if he might wash away the horrors they had witnessed.
Mell
, he whispered to his weary reflection,
I love you, forgive me if they judge me harshly
. On that prayer he made ready to stand, but heard a twig break and held his position. In the half-light he saw the figure of a boy, dipping a vessel into the river.

‘Ren?’ Ned croaked.

The boy jumped. The vessel clanged against a rock.

‘Ren Whitehair?’ Ned said, wiping his mouth.

‘F-father?’ came the reply.

Ned was at him in a matter of strides. He gripped the boy powerfully by the shoulders, squeezing to be sure it was flesh he held and not some lurking spirit. ‘Where you bin?’ he panted, a rough, bewildered snarl in his voice. He moved his hands to clamp Ren’s face.

Ren said, ‘Pa, you’re hurtin’.’

But Ned held fast, walking Ren backwards as he spoke. ‘I bin looking for you, boy, these two days past. Looking. Over the line. For you. Oak and Waylen, they rode out with me. And now they are dead men. Wind gone too. All a’cause of you, boy. All a’cause of
you
.’ He pushed Ren over, onto his back. And from a place within the foliage that grew beside the river came a sound that would haunt Ned the rest of his days and steal any sleep still due to him.

Graaarrrk!

He turned swiftly, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. ‘Sweet mercy, what was that?’

Ren rolled to the place where he’d set Pupp down. He clasped the dragon to him, folding its wings. ‘Hold yer anger, Pa. Don’t fall mad on me. Swear.’

‘Heart’s fire, boy, what have you found?’

Ren stood up with Pupp in his arms. ‘It’s young. Ain’t no worry to no one.’ Slowly, he raised Pupp into the light.

Ned backed away, the juice of his insides rising.

‘It were gonna die,’ said Ren. ‘I was there, watchin’, when the mountain waked. I see’d its mother killed by rocks. I ran with it a’cause—’

‘Fool,’ Ned said, hearing Ren’s words but not heeding them. ‘Foolish, foolish, foolish boy.’ He was laughing and weeping all in one. ‘Now we have both brought fire upon the tribe. Now we are dead in more ways than you could dream. Why, boy? What devil made you walk among the beasts?’

‘I would save them from the darkeyes,’ Ren said boldly.

Ned beat his hands flat to his head. ‘There are no
darkeyes
, boy. If you had seen…’ But what
had
he seen? What exactly had he freed in the cave? The threat of fire from the skalers was one thing. What now if the tribe was haunted by spirits released from the shell of a demon? ‘We must kill it,’ he muttered, meaning the pupp. ‘Hold it in water. Drown its fire.’

‘No,’ said Ren, guarding Pupp’s head.

‘And afterward bury it,’ Ned chattered to himself. ‘Aye, bury it. Seal it deep in the ground so the beasts will have no scent of it.’

‘Father, come no closer,’ Ren warned. He stepped back, raising the darkeye horn, struggling to keep the little one quiet.

‘What’s this?’ said Ned, the lines around his eyes making plain his bewilderment. He matched steps with Ren as the boy stepped back. ‘Would you seek to wound me now?’

Ren jabbed the horn. ‘When I hold this, I have the skalers’ temper. I can make fire in my hand, like them.’

Ned allowed himself a moment of mirth. ‘Boy, I have seen a man vanish in flames. There is nought that you or this fiend you coddle could do to harm me worse.’

‘I can,’ said Ren, his hand shaking. He could feel Grystina rising again. It was only the thought that this was his father standing before him that was keeping the dragon inside him tethered. ‘I am bound to the mother by an oath, deep hidden.’

‘Oath?’ said Ned. ‘You look harsh at your father yet swear a bond to
skalers
?’

On this tender balance of words, Pine Onetooth interrupted them.

‘There!’ she called from among the trees.

And as Ren chanced to look, his father burst forward and gripped the arm that held the horn. It went spinning out of Ren’s grasp. They wrestled a moment, with Pupp between them. Squealing fearfully, the dragon wiggled and thrust out a wing, slicing Ned’s throat just below the ear.

Ned called out in dire pain. He staggered back, stemming the blood with his hand. Ren turned to run, with Pupp in his arms, but walked into the swipe of a wooden club. A second club jarred the back of Ned’s head and broke the world up into tiny stars. The last thing he remembered before he hit the ground was the rustle of feet and the voice of Varl Rednose saying in a swagger, ‘You done well, girl. This night be yours. Take them. Bag the beast.’

24

Even in these troubled times of darkeyes and skalers, rarely could a man expect to set his gaze on the face of Targen the Old. The leader of the Kaal never left his shelter and would only communicate through his dreyas, the two aged women who attended to his needs and sat beside him during his journeys with the Fathers. It was said that Targen had more years on him than most of the trees in the Whispering Forest. It showed in the many lines of his face, more wrinkled than spiker bark and said to be home to the same kind of nibblers. As Ned was led in and made to kneel, he thought he saw a nibbler scuttle over Targen’s rumpled cheek and crawl into the shell of one gnarled brown ear, though it could have been a faint adjustment of expression as the old man framed a look of displeasure.

Ned’s head was throbbing, in more than one place. A poultice pasted to the wound at his neck had dried overnight and tugged the edges of the cut together. The pain clawed at the bones of his jaw whenever he tried to open his mouth. One eye was drawing down a veil upon the world. And as if to make his tally of misfortune complete, Varl Rednose had gifted him a swollen ear, the last of the blows to send him into darkness.

Now it was light and the reckoning had begun. Ned hung his head, tormented by the memories clawing at his mind: Ren. The river. The graarking skaler. Oak had judged it right. If only Ned had followed his advice and waited another day for the boy. Now there was tragedy at every turn, and more to come when the skalers arrived. He looked around the shelter. Ren was not there, only Targen and his grisly women, sitting on a pile of animal skins. Between them, in one of the wooden cages used for carrying catches from hunting, was the skaler.

It was lying on its side, twitching now and then. Ned flinched as its claws gripped a bar of the cage and squeezed the wood until it cracked. What strength, he wondered, must an adult have if one so small could splinter a length of wood in its sleep? One of the dreyas bent forward, her grey hair crackling as she stirred the contents of a black pot bedded in the ashes of a fire. Yellow wisps were rising out of it, stinging the air with a grievous scent. The dreya picked up a stick. It was bulbous with rags at the thickest end and heavy with the stains of the potion she was cooking. She stirred the stick into the shallows of the pot and wafted it close to the skaler’s snout. The creature’s body jerked, then slackened. The dreya sat back with her hands in her lap. She stared at Ned as though his breaths could be numbered by the gaps in her teeth. Ned disliked these women intensely. They were nothing like his Mell, who dressed in simple working robes and warmed his heart with her floating smile. The dreyas never smiled. They wore robes the colour of river mud, sewn with single caarker feathers. In their hair they hung bones that clattered when they spoke. It was said their magicks could turn men to stone. What magicks, Ned wondered, were they planning for him?

‘Where is my son?’ he asked, needing to support his jaw against the pain.

The second dreya leant close to Targen. She repeated the question as if Ned had spoken a foreign tongue.

Targen opened his toothless mouth. He whispered a faint reply back to the dreya. The words whistled off his breath like arrows.

‘He says the tribe is light,’ said the dreya. ‘He hears death singing among the men. You will speak on this.’

Ned lowered his head. He grimaced and felt the poultice crack. A tear made a pale line down his cheek. ‘I rode with Oak Longarm and Waylen Treader. We journeyed by our own consent. We followed the moon in search of the darkeyes, so we might raise them against the skalers. Both these men now lie at peace, slain by a skaler which itself rests dead in the darkeyes’ cave, an arrow deep in its blood-drained eye. My soul weeps for brave friends missed, but it will weep a world more if we do not flee the settlement. Do not doubt this: the skalers will come. I say to Targen, the Old, the Wise, do what you will with me, but leave here now and save yourselves.’

The dreya shared these words with Targen and listened, patiently, for his reply.

‘He says you must settle the spirits of these men.’

Ned nodded, the tips of his white hair dancing. ‘What would he bid me do?’

Targen whispered to the dreya again. She said, ‘You will lead the men of the Kaal to the flat rock. You, Whitehair, will carry the skaler.’

A look of surprise set over Ned’s face. The flat rock was an old sacrificial stone. It lay some fifty strides wrong of the scorch line and had not been used since Ned was a boy. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You would blood the creature – on skaler ground?’

The dreya consulted Targen again. ‘When the skalers come, you will kneel by the stone and return the creature to its kind, unharmed, but a sacrifice will be made.’

‘Of what?’ said Ned, growing anxious.

The yellow smoke drifted across the shelter. Two bones rattled in the dreya’s hair.

‘Your son, Whitehair.’

‘Ren?’ Ned gasped, despite the pain. He looked at Targen. The lines of the old man’s face did not lie. ‘No,’ Ned said. He rose up, struggling to keep his balance. ‘If you seek a life, take mine. The boy fell prey to a madness, yes, but I will not give him up in place of this beast.’

‘Stay where you stand,’ a harsh voice said. Varl Rednose. Again. ‘Move and I’ll finish what the creature started.’

Ned felt the edge of a sword on his neck.

Two more men swept into the shelter.

‘Get him out,’ said Varl.

And they dragged Ned away, still in pain, still protesting.

Varl knelt before Targen and bent his head. ‘At first light, it will be done,’ he said. Then he nodded at the dreyas and picked up the cage, spitting on the wearling as he carried it into the night.