The Starkin Crown (10 page)

Grizelda hesitated on the bank. ‘It'll be cold … my boots will be ruined …'

‘Suit yourself,' Jack said as his horse plunged past her, sending up a spray of glittering droplets that drenched her to the skin.

‘Lady Grizelda, if you don't come now we will leave you,' Lord Murray called back. ‘My responsibility is to get his Highness to safety!'

‘Come on,' Peregrine called.

Grizelda kicked her mare forward. She cried out in shock as she was plunged up to her waist in the freezing water, but she did not immerse herself as the others had done, making her mare carry her weight so her upper body remained dry. Oskar swam after, his head held high.

Two enormous hounds burst out of the ravine, baying loudly. They were far larger than Oskar, with bloodshot eyes and drooping eyelids and flabby red lips that hung away from teeth as sharp as icicles. They looked strong enough to tear a man apart in seconds. Behind them rode a man dressed all in grey, with hair and beard the colour of dust.

Peregrine had only time to snatch a quick impression, for the man was raising a longbow even as he spurred his horse into the pool. The string twanged, the arrow sang straight for Peregrine's heart. He kicked Sable forward, feeling strangely as if time and space had turned to honey. Stones slid and rattled. Lord Murray flung himself forward, his face distorted, his mouth stretching, ugly as a scream. Peregrine could not hear him. Everything seemed very far away. Sable
reared, and the pommel caught him in the chest. He heard the thud as the arrow meant for him pierced the thick leather of Lord Murray's coat. The bodyguard groaned and fell from his horse, which galloped away with a wildly rolling eye. Lord Murray lurched to one knee.

‘Go! Go!' he mouthed. ‘I'll hold him back. Go!'

Lord Murray drew his sword, leaning on it for a moment, fresh red blood leaking down his leather coat, the arrow deeply embedded in his chest. He rose to his feet with a great effort as the grey man on the grey horse thundered through the pool towards him, the two bloodhounds swimming close behind. Peregrine looked back at his bodyguard, tears burning his eyes, even as he let Sable gallop forward through the freezing water. Jack and Grizelda were close behind, the white owl hooting ahead. Peregrine bent over the reins, hearing with unnatural clarity every blow and clang and grunt of the duel behind him.

The pool fell away behind them, ice-cold spray dousing them from head to foot. The forest blurred past. Peregrine's head swam. He held out a hand. ‘Jack,' he whispered. He felt the lightning in his head surge up, bringing a green taste, euphoria, dread, darkness. Then there was only the sensation of falling.

‘What is wrong with him?' Grizelda whispered.

‘Nothing!' Then, ‘It's the falling sickness, my lady'. Jack's voice was sombre.

Peregrine could hear their voices, but they sounded far away. His head ached, his mouth tasted awful, and there was a faint tinny ringing in his ears. He felt he had to anchor himself
to the earth, as if his body was so insubstantial it would blow away in a puff of breath.

Jack saw his hands groping out. He said with a gasp of relief, ‘He wakes! Pass me the medicine'.

Someone rifled through his pack. Peregrine realised he was lying on the ground. It felt like ice below him, seeping through his wet clothes. Jack must have unbuckled his harness and lifted him to the ground. He wondered how long he had been unconscious. He felt as if he had been beaten with iron-studded clubs and kicked with hobnailed boots. Peregrine groaned and tried to open his eyes. Snow drifted down through black branches, swirling in eddies that made his vision swim. He shut his eyes again.

‘What's in it? It smells awful,' Grizelda asked.

‘I don't know. The healers make it. I know it has mistletoe in it, for Queen Rozalina cuts that herself for him. And skullcap and valerian too, I think, for I can't count the times I've been sent to gather them from the garden'.

Peregrine heard the gurgle of liquid, then he was lifted and a cup held to his lips. An all too familiar smell assaulted his nostrils. He turned his head away. Jack said hoarsely, ‘You know you must drink it, sir, please?'

Peregrine obeyed. For a moment he gagged. Then his muscles began to relax. Jack laid him back down in the snow. Peregrine became aware of being very, very cold. His wet clothes were white with frost, his fingers so stiff he could not bend them. Each breath hurt.

‘We need fire,' he said.

‘Too dangerous. That hunter is still out there somewhere. Keep your cloak wrapped tight about you, it seems to help'.

‘Lord Murray?'

‘I'm so sorry'. Jack's voice was clogged with grief.

Peregrine struggled to sit up. ‘Lord Murray? Lord Murray is dead?' The thought filled him with horror and sorrow and fear. Lord Murray had been his bodyguard all of his life. Lord Murray had played pig's-bladder-ball with Peregrine, taught him to fight with dagger and sword, and had stayed up with him when Blitz was a fledgling, helping him feed the baby falcon all through the night. It seemed impossible that someone so tall and strong and indomitable could be dead.

Tears suddenly overwhelmed him.

‘Why does he weep?' Grizelda demanded. ‘What is wrong with him?'

‘A man has died in his service,' Jack said harshly. ‘Would you have him laugh?'

‘No, of course not! But Lord Murray died valiantly. It was his duty. And while his Highness weeps, we are in danger'.

‘Sir,' Jack whispered. ‘I hate to say it but she's right. We must go on. I've done my best to hide our trail. We rode through water as far as we could, and then, when we came ashore, I made sure we rode on the rocks awhile so as not to leave hoof prints. But he'll be following us, we must ride on. Can you rise?'

‘Of course,' Peregrine said. In trying to rise, he fell again. ‘Help me up. I'll be fine. Help me, Jack'.

His squire heaved him to his feet and lifted him across to where Sable stood, ears twitching uneasily. Jack hoisted him into the saddle and buckled the harness about him. Long years of training asserted themselves. Peregrine sat straight, his heels down, his hands lifted. With a screech and a whirr of wings, Blitz exploded from the trees, landing on his saddle perch, scolding Peregrine for his neglect. Once again tears overwhelmed him. He whispered his bird's name.

Just at the edge of his hearing he heard Grizelda whisper, ‘He's weeping again. What ails him?'

‘It leaves him worn and sad,' Jack said defensively, then more sharply, ‘Look to your own horse and dog, my lady. Let's ride!'

They rode for the rest of the long day, Peregrine aware of very little beyond the jolting of the saddle, the blur of the white and black forest, the thudding of his head. If it had not been for the harness about his waist, he would have fallen from the saddle. Peregrine hated that. He hated the harness, and he hated the brief storm of lightning in his brain that always shamed him and made of him a child again. Sometimes it came often, when he was tired or ill, or when battle came close to him with all its heart-wrenching, blood-jolting terror. Sometimes there were long months of peace, when even his parents stopped worrying over him and people began to forget. Peregrine thought his mother felt it the worst. She was a healer. She could stop blood with a touch of a finger, she could heal grazes with a stroke of her hand, she could knit bones and steady heartbeats and soothe tortured gasping lungs, yet she could not save her own son from the sickness that stalked him.

Peregrine did not know what he did when the lightning storm came upon him. He often felt it approaching, a strangely golden, lucent glow that flooded his inner landscape with extraordinary warmth and beauty, like a field of buttercups at sunset under a stormy sky. Even as he shrank away and thought,
Oh no! It comes
, part of him welcomed it because the world, for a moment, was so bright and beautiful: a harp sang tremolo; he smelt something like rain on roses; he felt brave and splendid and lovely, as if he could cut the air with a sweep of his hand, lead legions to the stars. Then came
the stench of refuse, dark spots swarming into his eyes, the sensation of falling, worse than utter failure.

Afterwards Peregrine was exhausted, like a child after a storm of crying. Often he slept for hours and could not eat. He could not sleep today, though, he could only cling to his pommel and try to stay upright, as the miles jounced away under his horse's hooves.

Twilight fell on them. Peregrine swayed and would have fallen from his saddle if not for the harness. Jack gently unbuckled him and lifted him down. Peregrine staggered and dropped to his knees under a tree. He ached all over, and the cold was like a vice trapping his legs. Jack wrapped him in his cloak. It was soft and warm and smelt of home. Peregrine nestled his cheek into it and fell again into darkness.

P
EREGRINE WOKE WEARY AND SORE THE NEXT MORNING
, but returned to himself. He sat up and looked around.

It was early morning and Jack and Grizelda still slept, wrapped in their cloaks, in the shelter of a massive log. Beneath them were soft brown needles; above them drooped a tumble of dry ferns and brambles that gave them some shelter from the cold. He got stiffly to his feet and ducked under the brambles.

He was standing in a long, narrow forest glade. Snow lay thickly along the floor of the glade and mantled the top of the fallen tree trunk. A few stray flakes drifted down from clouds as low and menacing as a bully's brow. Sable stood nearby with the other horses, head hanging, one of his hind legs relaxed. Snow lay over their backs like white caparisons. The hound raised his head at the sight of Peregrine, growling softly. Oskar had obviously been hunting, for a well-gnawed rabbit carcass lay between his paws.

Peregrine heard a familiar whirr of wings and held out his
arm for Blitz, who landed heavily, claws digging through the thick buff of his jacket.

‘Good morning, Blitz,' he whispered. ‘Have you eaten? Do you want me to try to get some of that rabbit away from the dog?'

Blitz gave a low chitter in response and Peregrine said, ‘Well, I can try, but to be honest I don't think I have a chance'.

Peregrine bent and stretched out one hand but the dog's growls intensified, and he withdrew his hand. ‘You'll just have to hunt for yourself,' he told the bird.

He looked round the clearing for Stiga. The owl sat in an oak tree nearby, her eyes shut, her head sunk down. Peregrine whispered her name and the enormous golden eyes at once opened, focusing on him.

‘Stiga, where are we?' he asked. ‘I can't see one single landmark I know. There's not a mountain in sight. Are we lost?'

The golden eyes stared at him unblinkingly.

‘Stiga, please, come down and talk to me'. When the owl did not move, Peregrine crossed his arms, tapped his foot, and said, ‘I'm waiting'.

The owl sighed, ruffled her feathers, then flew down to the ground. As her claws touched the ground, she transformed into a tiny, white-haired old woman with a heart-shaped face and a shabby shawl tied over a ragged brown dress. Peregrine always found it amazing that Stiga somehow carried her clothes with her during her transformation. It was as if they were as much a part of her as an owl's feathers. He had certainly never seen her dressed any other way, even at festival time.

‘Where are we, Stiga? Are we lost?'

She gazed up at him, obviously puzzled.

‘Aren't we moving south instead of north? Look where the sun is'.

‘It is time to find the spear, you said you did not fear,' she answered in her strange cryptic way.

He stared at her, an odd tingling sensation spreading throughout his body. It was trepidation and anticipation together.

‘You are leading me to find the spear of thunder?' he asked slowly, and she bobbed her head.

‘You know where it is?' he demanded in excitement.

She cocked her head to one side, then spread her hands and shrugged.

‘Stiga, this is important! I need you to answer me. Do you know where the Storm King's spear is?'

‘He threw it into the blue. I see from the tree'. Her words, as always, had the hooting rhythm of an owl.

‘You saw … who? Prince Zander? You saw him throw the spear into the bog? What did you do, fly after them?' At each question she bobbed her head, and Peregrine's excitement grew.

‘Can you show me where?'

She shook her head.

His spirits deflated. ‘You can't? Why not? Can't you remember?'

‘Long long time ago. Road gone, trees grow'.

He grasped at a word. ‘Road?'

She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. ‘The soldiers strode along a road, to Stormfell, rang death's knell'.

Peregrine pondered for a moment. He remembered being told, at some point during an extremely boring geography lesson, that the starkin soldiers were great road builders, constructing straight, flat thoroughfares wherever they went, to enable the fast, efficient movement of troops, messengers and supplies. He knew that Prince Zander had somehow
travelled all the way to Stormlinn Castle, where he had betrayed all the laws of hospitality by massacring everyone in the castle—everyone but Princess Shoshanna whom he had dragged back to the royal palace at Zarissa. By all accounts, Prince Zander had been fat and lazy and rather too fond of brandywine. It seemed entirely possible that his troop of soldiers had built a road for him to travel on, particularly since the starkin had only just begun to breed the huge white sisika birds the lords rode upon.