The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle (13 page)

25

They gagged Ned and tied him to a post overnight, so he might not call Ren or move to flee. Mell was not permitted to see him.

At the break of dawn, Varl woke him with a bucket of watered filth. He gripped Ned’s chin with the gag still in place, enjoying the fear he could see in Ned’s eyes. ‘Were it me,’ he said, ‘it would be you, not Ren, on that rock this morrow. You are no friend to any Kaal now.’ And he spat on Ned’s face with even more venom than he’d used for the skaler. Ned heard the creature skrike somewhere and rolled his eyes toward the sound.

‘Aye,’ said Varl. ‘All night the creature called to your boy, and he likeways to it. It’s taken him, Ned, chewed on him bad.’ He ran a hand down a forearm crowded with scars. ‘All this, not flesh no more. Skaler, he is. Gone wild to the beasts.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Fevered.’

Ned’s eyes shrank in disbelief.

Varl nodded. ‘Aye, I tell it true. When I blood the boy, I’ll be killing the juice o’ the skalers in him.’ He stepped up close, making Ned recoil from his stinking breath. ‘And the spirits of Oak Longarm and Waylen Treader will look upon the green that flows from the cut and smile on my blade and know they are
even
.’

And he punched Ned hard, taking his wind. Ned groaned and wrestled with the ties that bound him. He would have given all the wealth he owned to break free and punch Varl’s fat, red nose. But the ties were strong and Ned knew he had lost. A tear ran silver from his grieving eye.

Varl took him again by the chin. ‘I am bound by Targen to kill you alike if you choose to make bother. Will you make bother, Ned? Shall I spear you now with this strange black treasure an’ save you the long walk to the rock?’ He held up the darkeye horn.

In the background, the wearling skriked again.

Ned cursed it silently and said nay with his eyes; nay, he would not make bother. He grunted, wanting to speak.

Varl thought for a moment, then loosened the gag.

Ned coughed away the dry, rank taste in his mouth and seized his chance to breathe cold, sweet air. ‘Tell me true. Has Mell seen the arm? Has she seen this change in Ren?’

‘Listen hard,’ Varl snorted. ‘You may hear her weeping – as Oak and Waylen’s women weep for them.’

‘They rode with me freely,’ Ned protested. ‘I did no more than—’

Varl stopped him with a brutal slap across the mouth. ‘Slight them again and I will cut your tongue till it’s twice as skinny as a spiker leaf.’

A bloodied tooth worked free of Ned’s gum. He spat it onto the ground and said, ‘Will you take me to Ren?’

‘You’ll see him soon enough.’

‘What have you done to him, Varl?’

But Rednose would not say. He pushed the horn into his belt and turned to go.

‘Wait!’ Ned cried, making several mutts bark.

Varl did him the grace of pausing.

‘You swear Ren is bit?’

‘Aye,’ Varl said. ‘Green of arm and babbling like he were born of fire.’

Green of arm? Ned grappled with despair. If this were true and the boy was poisoned, he was as hopeless as Wind with her shattered leg. And so Ned gathered up his grief and said, ‘Let it be me.’

Varl half looked back. ‘What blether is this?’

‘I should be the one to end it,’ said Ned. ‘Let me be true to the Fathers and the tribe. Let me bear the blade against Ren.’

Varl turned, kicking at a mutt that had drifted too close. ‘You ain’t got the gristle.’

Ned spat another bead of blood from his mouth. ‘You think I want him changed so wrong? It’s my right to take back what I seeded. I say to you plain, I stand by the ruling. I will give the skaler back to the beasts and show them the blood of my son, and be done.’

Varl filled his swollen nose with air. He was a pitiless man who cared little for the lives of those around him – but he did understand the need for honour. ‘I will think on it,’ he said, and walked away.

‘Think on it soon!’ Ned shouted through his pain. And he glanced up to the sky and whispered, ‘Or I tell you true, we are all dead.’

26

They came for Ned shortly. Two to cut him free, two more to drag him to the midst of the settlement where Varl and the rest of the men were waiting. Mell broke free of her guards and threw herself at Ned, pleading with him not to allow them to take Ren to sacrifice. But Ned, by now convinced of his destiny, spoke openly and loud for all to hear. He said that Targen had ruled with wisdom and that he, Ned Whitehair, father of Ren, would settle the spirits of Oak and Waylen by his own strong hand.

‘
No-ooo!
’ Mell screamed and was dragged away, promising murder on Ned, and worse.

They brought Ren out on an open cart. He was lying on his side, alive but fuddled. His hands were bound in front of him. Ned shuddered when he saw the state of the arm. Varl had spoken true. The boy’s flesh was covered in fine green scales that glittered freely in the morning sun. There were bloodstains down his robe, which looked to have come from the blow he’d taken, though Ned suspected they had beaten him too. They had gagged him also, but the cloth was slipping. To his horror, Ned could hear the boy whining, making the sounds the skalers made. A guard punched him hard and tightened the gag. Ned’s gaze drifted to the skaler in its cage. That too had been silenced again. It lay squeezed into a corner, a green froth spilling from the angle of its jaw, tail half twined round one of the bars.

Varl strode up, his sword at his side. He nodded at the cage. Ned reluctantly picked it up, holding it well away from his face. The skaler was surprisingly light.

‘Aye, be wary it don’t bite,’ said Varl. He snapped his teeth. The men laughed, but their nerves made the mockery hollow.

Ned liked being taunted as little as anyone, but he saw the wisdom in carrying the cage by its flat wooden base, rather than showing his fingers to the creature. ‘I would speak with my son a moment,’ he said, a request that Varl straightway denied.

‘Your son speaks only with skalers,’ he jeered. He mounted his whinney, which tried not to sag beneath his weight. ‘Walk,’ he ordered, and kicked Ned hard between the shoulders to move him.

By the time they had reached the Whispering Forest, the skaler had woken. It immediately wailed and looked for Ren. Ned had a swift reminder of its strength when its tail whipped the cage, forcing him to drop it. The cage tumbled down a grassy knoll and came to rest in a hopper’s hollow. The men roared with laughter to see the beast upside down and kicking. Varl was less impressed. He ordered Ned to retrieve the cage and told another man to find a skin to cover it. For a short while after, the creature was quiet. Then from its dark pen began to come a sound.

Tada
, it cried. Over and over. A wail so heavy with woe that it could have drawn the sap from the heart of the trees.

In the cart, Ren stirred. He gestured for water.

Ned looked to Varl for pity.

Varl stroked his beard. ‘All right, ungag him. Give the boy water. I need to dampen a tree, anyway. I’ve enough piss in me to drown a mutt.’ The men’s laughter shook the forest again. One by one they slid off their whinneys and found places to stand and lift their robes.

Ned used the break to move nearer to Ren. A guard put out a weak hand to stop him, but Ned pushed right on by, saying, ‘What harm can there be in speaking to the boy? His time is short. Tend mercifully to him.’

So they hauled Ren into a sitting position, took away his gag and wet his tongue.

Ned said quietly, ‘Boy, harken to your father now. You are fevered by skalers, and I must be your remedy.’

Ren’s head lolled into his blood-stained chest. ‘
Garrffred
,’ he said in a slur.

Ned looked at the man who was holding Ren. The man shrugged. Like Ned, he could find no meaning for the boy’s strange babble. He pulled Ren up by the hair.

‘
Galan aug scieth
,’ Ren hissed.

The guard backed off, muttering that the boy had been taken by a devil.

‘Ren, what are these words?’ asked Ned.

‘His,’ Ren breathed, making soothing sounds that Pupp would understand.

The cage shook in Ned’s hands as the skaler grew restless.
Tada
, it wailed.
Tada
.
Tada
.

‘His?’ said Ned. He thought back on Varl’s jibe at the start of the journey.
Your son speaks only with skalers
. Could it be true that Ren had their words? Ned asked directly, ‘You speak with the beast?’

‘Some,’ Ren said, and quickly produced more sounds of dragontongue. The skaler responded with a similar noise and began to jab at the covering skin.

‘What does the creature say?’ asked Ned.

Ren rolled his eyes. ‘It calls me Father, for I am all it has.’

‘Let’s be on,’ barked Varl, reapproaching his whinney.

‘And what say you in return?’ gulped Ned.

Ren swayed and looked his father in the eye. ‘I say I love it – as a father should.’

‘Whitehair!’ snapped Varl. ‘Be done dreaming! I said we are onward. My hand grows eager to slay something.’

One of the men clapped a hand on Ned’s shoulder.

‘No,’ said Ned. He brushed the man off.

Rednose paused and dropped his reins.

By now, Ned’s mind was wild with a notion, a notion so strange he could barely believe he would hear himself say it, but say it he did: ‘Harken to me. All of you. This errand is false. Targen is wrong. We need Ren alive. He alone can save us.’

Varl’s hand moved slowly to the grip of his sword. ‘Have a care, Ned. Your words move perilous close to the edge.’

‘Take me instead if you must,’ Ned shouted, making sure he had the ears of every man. ‘But the boy must live. He speaks their tongue.’

Varl drew the blade and held it level at the pulse of Ned’s throat. ‘He makes an interesting noise, it’s true. As will you when I take off your head.’

‘I beg you, think on this!’ Ned cried. He turned his back on Varl to face more of the men. ‘If we can talk to the skalers, we can know their will. We can—’

And that was where his plea was ended, on the pitiless tip of Varl Rednose’s sword. It entered Ned’s back and pushed out through his front like a milky tongue, bearing nought but the slightest streak of blood.

‘No-oo!’ Ren screamed, setting Pupp off too.

Ned gasped and dropped the cage. The covering skin fell clear. The skaler flapped and kicked as though all hell was about to rain down.

Varl withdrew his blade, the force of it pulling Ned back against him. ‘I told you Ned, no bother,’ he whispered.

Ned’s mouth bubbled with blood. Despite the pain, he reached back quickly and found Varl’s belt. In a moment, the darkeye horn was in his grasp and he had stabbed Varl hard in the groin with it. Varl howled and dropped his sword. Ned fell against the cart and slashed Ren’s ties, placing the horn in his son’s small hands. ‘Whatever you would do, do it now,’ he said. And he touched the boy’s soft white hair and fell, dead.

By now, the men had recovered their wits and the nearest were beginning to close on Ren. He took the first one down with a burst of fire. The man screamed and fell back, his robe jumping with flames. The others, seeing this, stayed their distance. Some cried out in fear of magicks. Despite his weakened state, Ren tumbled off the cart and staggered to the cage, springing the clasp which held it locked.

‘Fly!’ he shouted, shaking Pupp out, an act that almost cost him his life. For Varl was injured but certainly not dead. As the drake flapped awkwardly towards the trees, Varl picked up his sword and came there, swinging.

Ren rolled aside as the blade crashed down, its scarred edge splintering the spoke of a wheel. He raised the horn and aimed it true, but Grystina was there in his head and she was saying,
Too many. Flee. Flee!
She was right. Men were coming from all sides now. Some had loaded their bows, awaiting Varl’s order to fire.

How?
Ren said.
How shall I flee?
But the answer was with him as soon as he asked. Closing his eyes, he i:maged himself on an open hillside, as light as a wind blowing through tall grass. And instantly he was gone, moving through the barriers of time and space as if he had done no more than push a hand below the surface of a lake.

When he found his wits again he was clear of the forest and out of danger – on his knees in a nearby meadow, within touching distance of the scorch line.

‘Pupp,’ he whispered, anxious lest the wearling be lost or recaptured. ‘Pupp!’ he screamed, and immediately started back toward the forest. But Grystina changed his mind again.

Seek them
, she said.
Gariffred will hide
.

Them?
said Ren.

The Wearle
, said she.

Ren looked giddily toward the mountains. In the sky he could see a blue dragon soaring. It looked like the one he’d hidden from three days earlier. Back then, he had needed to avoid its gaze; now he must call the beast to help. So he ran for the scorch line in open sight. Shortly, across it, he found himself stopped by not one, but two huge dragons. The blue one rose and blew fire above his head; the other released a roar so loud that Ren’s head went numb and blood ran from his ears. Yet somehow he managed to open his mouth and speak the word Pupp had used repeatedly to him, a word he knew they would understand.

Tada
, he said. Before he fell, exhausted, to the ground at their feet.