The Tree of Story (3 page)

“A long and dangerous road to take on the strength of an old man’s dream,” Balor said.

“We love our Duke,” Flyte said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “He came to Tintamarre many years ago from a land across the sea, where he had fought in what he believed would be the war to end all wars. He was wounded near to death and he found healing, but those who healed him foretold that there was yet one more great battle left for him to fight. And so he set off to find it. His wandering steps brought him to Tintamarre. In those days cruel robber barons had carved up our land for themselves, but the Duke gathered those of us who resisted and restored our hope. He made true knights of us and led us to victory. And that is why we have travelled all this way, Balor Gruff, on the strength of an old man’s dream.”

“Well, I thank you for it,” Balor said. “Though you
should know there’s a worse threat on its way than bands of Nightbane. But I can’t say any more until I’ve spoken to my own commander.”

The crossbowman leaned back slowly on his bale of gear. “Well, then, I won’t keep you from delivering your message a moment longer. I hope we’ll meet again, Balor Gruff of the Errantry, when this is all over.”

“So do I, Jodo Flyte. Perhaps if we both survive this, you will write a ballad about it and I will sing it.”

“I look forward to that.”

They left Flyte tuning his lute and kept on up the rising road to the gates. As they were about the cross the bridge over the stream that encircled the city, a voice hailed Rowen. She turned to see, hurrying toward her, a burly man with a shaggy red beard. She did not recognize him at first, but then she saw he wore the pleated leather armour of a Skalding and she remembered him.

“You’re Freya’s friend,” the man said when he reached them. “I am Eymund Spearbreaker.”

“I remember you,” Rowen said. “Is Freya with you?”

Freya Ragnarsdaughter had never been far from Rowen’s thoughts on the journey from Blue Hill. Her father was an old friend of Rowen’s grandfather. Freya and a party of her fellow Skaldings had arrived in Fable some days ago, bringing a warning from Whitewing Stonegrinder of the battle ahead. The Skaldings had stayed on in Fable, vowing to help the Loremaster defend his home.

Eymund glanced back at the walls of Fable with a scowl. “We were escorted out of the city under guard last night,” he said bitterly. “No one told us why, but we aren’t welcome in Fable anymore. Freya didn’t come with us. She never returned from Appleyard after she went there to ask that we be allowed to remain in the city. We’ve been waiting here
for word of her ever since. The Errantry doesn’t seem to mind having us camped out here between them and their enemies, but no one will tell us anything about Freya. I was hoping, young miss, that you might know something.”

Rowen recalled her last sight of Freya, when she’d been led away to be questioned by Captain Thorne. The captain was just being cautious, Rowen reasoned. He would have let Freya go as soon as it was obvious she was no threat. So why hadn’t she rejoined her people?

Brax
, she thought then.
He’s done this. Because the Skaldings are friends of Grandfather
.

“The last time I saw Freya was at Appleyard yesterday evening,” Rowen said. “I don’t know anything more than that, but I’ll find out where she is if I can. And if there’s some reason she can’t join you, I’ll send word.”

Eymund bowed stiffly.

“You have my thanks,” he said. “We’re not leaving here until she returns to us. We were ready to help defend Fable when we first arrived, but now this is about Freya. If there’s to be a battle, we’ll do our part to keep your city standing, for her sake.”

Before Rowen could answer, Yates stepped forward.

“I don’t know where your friend is,” he said to Eymund, “but I’m here to fight for this city, too. My name is Brannon Yates. I would join your company, if you’ll have me.”

“Brannon, what is this?” Balor exclaimed.

Eymund regarded Yates warily. He seemed to be appraising the knight’s pale, hollow-eyed face and not much liking what he saw.

“Isn’t this your home?” Eymund said at last. “Why would you stay out here with strangers?”

“I no longer count myself a knight of the Errantry,” Yates said to Balor. “I have no right to enter this city in the company
of one. I must earn that right. Then I can show my face at Appleyard and in my mother’s house.”

“You don’t have to do this, Brannon,” Balor protested.

“Join us if you wish,” Eymund said. “We won’t say no to another sword … if you can wield one.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Yates said, then he turned back to the wildman. “I realize you have a duty to inform the Errantry that I’m here, Balor. If they send someone to arrest me, so be it. But I ask you, say nothing to my mother and sister. Don’t let them find out I’m home until after the battle.”

“I’ll leave that to you, Brannon,” Balor said, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You’ll be seeing them yourself soon enough.”

Yates nodded, but there was no conviction in his eyes. He turned away then with Eymund, and Balor and the others kept on up the road.

They crossed the bridge over the stream and arrived at the gates, which they were not surprised to find shut and guarded. The number of sentries had been doubled and more were pacing the battlements above. One of the two sentries who stepped forward to bar their way was a grey-bearded older man who recognized the wildman.

“You’re back, Balor,” he said with a startled look.

“As you see,” Balor snapped. “I have much to tell the Marshal. And urgently, I might add. So if you don’t mind, Jasper Haws, we’ll be on our way.”

“Of course, Balor,” the sentry said quickly. “But these others … This is the girl, Master Pendrake’s granddaughter, isn’t it? We have orders, Balor, from Master Brax that if the girl was found, she was to be kept under guard until he comes to get her.”

“Orders from Brax,” Balor muttered, and Rowen feared he was close to erupting in rage. “Well, be that as it may,
you’re not keeping her, Haws. I’m the one who tracked her down and no one else is getting the credit for it, understand? I’m taking her to Master Brax myself.”

He glanced at Rowen then, and to her surprise and delight he winked at her. She knew she had to play her part, so she did her best to appear frightened of the wildman.

The sentry seemed about to protest, then he nodded.

“Very well,” he said. “But what about these other two?” He gestured to Will and Shade.

“Haws, surely even you have heard of the Pathfinder, Will Lightfoot.”

The younger sentry stepped forward eagerly.

“I have,” he said. “And Shade, the wolf.”

To Will’s discomfort the sentry stared at him with something like wonder. Then the young man’s gaze fell on Shade, and Will saw his eyes widen with fear.

“If it wasn’t for Shade, we wouldn’t have made it home,” Will said quickly. “He saved us.”

“And Will here has his own important news for the Marshal,” Balor added. “So if you don’t mind …”

Despite the uneasy looks both sentries were giving Shade, they stepped aside at last and let Balor’s party pass through the gatehouse. The wildman led the others up into the crowded main street of the city. As they hurried along, they took advantage of the noise and bustle to move close together and talk.

“They have
orders
from Master Brax,” Balor growled. “We’ve only been gone a few days and … 
hrrnh
, now I’ve heard everything. Nobody gives orders around here except the Marshal and Captain Thorne, and even Thorne doesn’t sneeze without Lord Caliburn’s say-so. This Brax moves quickly, doesn’t he?”

Rowen could only nod, her thoughts troubled. The mage
Ammon Brax had travelled to Fable claiming he wished to see his former teacher Nicholas Pendrake once again, but it soon became clear he was hoping to ferret out the Loremaster’s secrets. After Rowen’s grandfather was captured by the thrawl, Brax had convinced the Marshal that Rowen should be taken to Appleyard for her own safety, and then he had moved into the toyshop, her grandfather’s own house and the home in which she had grown up.

Something close to panic gripped Rowen at the thought. The mage had been alone in the toyshop for well over a day now, ever since she’d fled Appleyard with the dragon to find Will. In that time Brax had surely been busy searching through her grandfather’s things, and her greatest fear was that the mage had already discovered the raincabinet, the secret entrance into the Weaving that had been hidden in the toyshop for many years. What’s more, Brax had clearly been busy strengthening his position and influence in Fable. And that would make what she had to do even more difficult.

“Do you have to take us to Appleyard now,” she said to Balor, “as you told the sentries?”

The wildman regarded her with his usual glowering expression, which both she and Will had learned could as easily turn to laughter as it could anger.

“I don’t understand all this loremasterish stuff,” he said, “but it’s obvious even to me that you need to get back to the toyshop right quick. And now that I’ve met you, Rowen of Blue Hill, I know better than to stand in your way. You do what you have to, lass.”

“Thank you, Balor,” Rowen said, “but won’t you get in trouble for letting us go?”

“I’m thinking I should go with you. It sounds to me like you could use a hand with this mage. I’m sure that Shade and I could persuade him to leave.”

“No, Balor, you must go to Appleyard and warn the Errantry about the fetches,” Rowen said. “That’s more important. And while you’re there, maybe you can find out what happened to Freya. No, if Brax already has the Marshal on his side, we can’t just force him to leave or scare him out of the toyshop. Shade could do that easily, but it wouldn’t keep Brax away for long. If we throw him out, he’ll just be more convinced we’re keeping something from him.”

“Then we have to find some way to get him to leave Fable for good,” Will said.

Rowen frowned and glanced down at Riddle, who padded along close to her. The cat had not left her side since she’d said goodbye to her grandmother in the Weaving. And now a new thought struck her, an idea so foolish and dangerous and
perfect
that it stopped her in her tracks.

“There is a way,” she breathed, as if speaking to herself. “Yes, it could work. The mage would have to leave if Grandfather came back.”

“What’s that?” Balor said with a frown. In the noise of the street he hadn’t caught Rowen’s murmured words. But Will had.

“You’re right,” Will said. “That would change everything. If the Loremaster returned …”

The wildman scowled.

“But that’s the whole problem—” he began to protest, then he saw that Rowen and Will were both looking at Riddle, and his jaw seemed to become unhinged. On the journey from Blue Hill he had been told a little of Riddle’s history and what he was capable of. “You mean, this … the cat … he could …”

“He can,” Rowen said firmly, though the truth was that where Riddle was concerned, she was never entirely certain of anything. The cat gazed up at her, its inscrutable eyes
giving no hint that it understood what she was planning.

“Balor, no one must know about this,” she went on. “If people think Grandfather has come back, they’ll want to see him. They’ll have questions. We have to be careful. We don’t know who Brax already has on his side.”

The wildman plucked at his bushy beard.

“It’s risky,” he said at last. “And I don’t like all this secrecy. It’s not the Errantry way. But very well, Rowen of Blue Hill, not a word out of me.”

The wildman turned to Will then and placed a huge hand on his shoulder.

“I know you’re planning to go with Rowen, lad, while she searches for Master Pendrake. From the sounds of it that’s going to take you someplace
bad
, and well, I don’t approve. As my apprentice, you’re bound to obey my orders without question.”

Will stared up at the wildman in stunned silence. With all that had happened over the past few days he had nearly forgotten that he had joined the Errantry and become Balor’s knight-apprentice. He had taken an oath before the Marshal to serve and protect the Bourne, but if Balor ordered him to stay in Fable, he would be abandoning Rowen and Shade when they most needed him. There was no way he could do that. He needed to break his oath to the Errantry.

He was opening his mouth to tell Balor as much when the wildman waved him to silence.

“You have to obey my orders, Will Lightfoot,” he said, “and I’m ordering you to stay with Rowen. Help her do what she must and be safe. Get her and yourself and Shade home. I wouldn’t expect anything less of an apprentice of mine.”

Will swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll try, Balor,” he said.

“This whole business is a few hundred miles over my head,” the wildman went on, his voice even lower and
rougher than usual. “But there’s one thing I do understand, and it’s that the three of you need to stay together.”

“Thank you, Balor,” Rowen said, and she darted forward and wrapped her arms around the wildman. He looked startled for a moment, then cleared his throat and patted her carefully on the back.

“You will find your grandfather, my dear—I’m certain of it,” he said huskily, then he turned to Shade.

“I haven’t known you long, wolf, and I’m not about to give
you
any orders. Just look after them, you hear? That’s all I ask.”

“I will do my best, Balor Gruff,” Shade said.

“Balor,” Will said, finding it hard to speak with the lump that had risen in his throat, “you be careful, too.”

“We’ll see each other again, my friends,” the wildman said, “mark my words, and when we do, we’ll have a galloping great story to tell by the fire at the Golden Goose.”

In the wildman’s eyes Will thought he caught a glimmer that might have been tears, but Balor quickly turned away and headed up the rising street to Appleyard.

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