The Tree of Story (41 page)

Will felt Rowen’s grip on his arm tighten, and it was as if the thought passed between them without words: Shade was still alive. He was alive, and still fighting. Still resisting the power of the Shadow Realm.
He’s hunting them
, Will thought with a terrible exultation.
He’s hunting and killing the harrowers
. And more than that, he realized, the harrowers thought Shade was under Rowen’s command.

“Let my grandfather go, and Will as well, and I will bring the wolf to heel.”

“Rowen, no,” Will said. “I’m not leaving you.”

“We will let them depart unharmed,” Dama said, ignoring Will’s outburst. “The old man and the boy will have safe passage to what is left of the Uneaten Lands. But it is not enough. You, child of the Stewards, must remain. You must submit to the One and no longer use your power against us.”

Rowen did not answer right away. Will felt her fingers dig into his arm, and then they let go and he knew what she
was going to reply. He wanted to cry out, to stop her from answering, but his own voice was choked in his throat.

“I will stay and submit to you,” she said. “But if you break your word the wolf will hunt you down and tear out your throat.”

Dama snarled. She turned to the rim of the hollow, where the other harrowers waited, and raised a hand. Dirge and Gibbet, who had hold of Pendrake’s arms, released him. The old man stirred. Slowly he raised his head and gazed around dully as if waking from sleep. Then he caught sight of Rowen and his eyes opened wide. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was too faint and the hollow’s rim too far for them to hear what he was saying. Rowen raised her hand in a gesture of farewell. Pendrake seemed to understand now what was happening. He started forward, but Dirge reached out a bony arm and held him back.

“Take him,” Dama called.

“Wait,” Rowen said, and she held out the Loremaster’s staff with its broken waylight. “Please give him this.”

Dama took the staff from her. She gave it a quick sneering glance, as if she could not fathom the worth of such a pitiful thing. Then she raised her arm and threw the staff end over end across the hollow. It landed with a soft thump in the grass below the harrowers. Dirge scrambled down to retrieve it and handed it roughly to the Loremaster. Then she looked back at Dama as if awaiting further instructions. The winged woman nodded her head, and the harrowers turned and hurried away with Pendrake, as if they could not wait to escape from this place.

“They will take him to the edge of your realm,” Dama said. “No harm will come to him.”

“He’s going,” Rowen breathed, the tears sliding down her face. “He’ll make it home.”

Dama moved more swiftly than Will would have thought possible. She lunged and her talons sank into Rowen’s neck, then she sprang away, rising on a powerful beat of her wings as Will slashed at her in vain with his sword.

“Leave or stay, boy,” Dama cried as she soared toward the rim of the hollow. “It no longer matters.”

Rowen staggered and Will caught her. He lowered her to the soft, cool grass. “What did she do to you?” he said, his voice breaking.

Rowen gripped his hand. “You must go, Will,” she said. Her eyelids had begun to droop and her breath was coming in shallow gasps. “Find Grandfather and go with him.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Sputter is … keeping the harrowers out. Making this place a refuge. But it won’t last. They’ll get through. You must go.”

Will glanced back at the spot where the harrowers had appeared. The green wall had closed up again and there was no sign of Dama.

“I’m not leaving you,” he said once more.

She grasped his hand and placed something in it.

“Take this,” she said, and he saw that she had given him the ball of golden thread.

“Rowen …”

“I forgot it. When you get back to Fable, give the thread to Grandfather. He’ll need it.”

“But your grandmother gave this to you. There must be some way for you to use it, before—”

“Grandfather can save Fable with this, I’m sure of it. Take it to him, Will, and go now. Promise me you won’t stay here after I’m …”

“Rowen, please don’t.”

“Promise me.”

Her eyes implored him and he nodded. “I promise.”

She closed her eyes. Her head fell back. Will spoke her name again, but she did not answer.

22

T
HE IRON CARRIAGE SAT
at the end of the Course while more Nightbane poured into the valley and swarmed around it like a dark tide around a great black stone. There were no other heralds, and yet no assault began. Some of the commanders began to urge an attack of their own, to drive into the ranks of the enemy while they were still assembling. The Duke decided against such a move. The enemy numbered at least ten thousand and there might be many more concealed in the woods, waiting to surround them if they charged straight down the field.

And so nothing moved on the Course, and there was silence as the two forces waited and watched.

At midday a company of three hundred or more riders came up from the south, dark-skinned men in gleaming silver armour. Their leader, who wore a mask of gold, dismounted
and sought council with the Duke in his pavilion. The allied troops waited, wondering who these new arrivals were and where they were from. It wasn’t long before the news passed through the camp that King Shakya of the Sunlands had brought his finest warriors to join the defence. The young king wore a mask, it was said, to hide the disfiguring marks of leprosy on his face.

In the early afternoon, a dark cloud appeared in the sky to the north. It was thought at first to be drifting smoke, perhaps from the burning of Annen Bawn, but quickly it became clear that the black cloud was moving against the wind and directly toward Fable. Those with the keenest eyesight soon gave the warning that there were huge winged creatures within the smoke, and in a short time everyone could see that they were right. There were seven shapes within the cloud, and they flew with great flaps of their huge, translucent wings in a loose formation toward the city. The closer they came, the stranger they appeared. They were massive, swollen creatures, like immense black bags, with little in the way of limbs or tails. They had tiny eyes on the sides of their great heads and gaping mouths that belched black smoke and glowed red even in daylight.

Only Balor, watching with the Duke’s retinue, knew what they were.

“Motherworms,” he told those gathered around him.

“Not many of them whatever they are,” the masked king observed. “The archers and musketeers should drive them off soon enough.”

“They’re more of a threat than you know,” Balor said. He asked the Duke for permission to warn the city, and when it was given he rode back in great haste to the gates of Fable.

“You will need more hands to carry buckets,” he told the sergeant in charge of the Errantry’s fire brigade. “Our troopers won’t be enough. The people have their own brigades.”

“No one is allowed out of their houses, Balor,” the sergeant protested. “The acting marshal’s orders.”

“There won’t be any houses left standing if we don’t act,” Balor roared.

The sergeant hesitated, then sent three of his men to knock on doors and spread the word. Balor went with them.

When the dragons reached Fable, they did not descend but wheeled high over the city in wide, slow circles. Jodo Flyte’s bowmen stationed, near the walls, were kept from shooting at the dragons for fear that their falling arrows would strike people within the city. The musketeers of Sarras fired a volley and the sounds of their guns cracked sharply through the air, but the cloud of shot they loosed appeared to have no effect on the circling dragons.

Then with a roar the motherworms opened their vast mouths and from them came what were seen to be small creatures of fire that moved with their own life and will. These lesser firedrakes fell on the wooded heights of Appleyard Hill, and on the roofs of houses in the town below, where they darted and leaped and burst into larger flame. Soon there were fires burning all over Fable, and still the motherworms circled and vomited their burning offspring onto the city. The Errantry’s fire brigade had already been prepared, and thanks to their swift action most of the fires near the walls were swiftly doused. But the people who had been called out of their homes were only just beginning to organize their own brigades when the motherworms attacked. A few fires deeper in the city continued to burn, and spread.

Now the motherworms wheeled away from Fable and belched forth more of their offspring, and these fell, crackling and hissing, upon the army outside the walls. The blazing snakelike forms whipped and tore through the ranks, and men
shrieked and dove out of their way. Some whose hair or garments caught on fire ran for the stream in the hope of putting out the flames, while others struck at the dragons with their swords and spears. When a spear point or blade struck one of the firedrakes, the creature burst apart with a spray of smaller flames that seemed still to move with life and purpose. Men who wore capes or tunics over their armour tore them off and used them to cover and then stamp out the flames.

The musketeers fired another volley, this one directed at the motherworm that had descended the farthest. The thick hail of shot succeeded this time: it tore through one of the dragon’s wings. The monster let out an ear-splitting shriek and heeled, its torn wing crumpled into itself, then it plummeted through the air, keeping enough command of its fall to turn itself toward Fable at the last moment. It crashed onto the battlements not far from the gate, and a blazing cloud of its spawn exploded upward and fell upon the city.

Then another cry of warning went up. As the dragons brought disorder and fear to the allies, the Nightbane had seized this chance and charged up the field without the warning of chants or drums. A great mass of them strode up the Course toward the stream. Soon they would be across it.

The Duke’s herald blew a rallying call on his horn and the allies hurried to re-form their tattered lines. Those who had run to the stream to douse the flames and who could still stand raced back to join their comrades, but some were injured too badly and could only crawl up the bank and cry out for help. The front lines of the allied force, made up mostly of the Duke’s knights and King Shakya’s mounted warriors, marched to the stream bank and formed a wall bristling with swords and spears. A few men ventured out in the face of the advancing enemy and carried the burned and wounded men out of the stream bed. The Duke himself rode out from the
knoll with King Shakya to take command of the two cavalry units waiting on either side of the valley.

The vanguard of the Nightbane host was an armoured wedge of hulking creatures wearing hideous beast masks and carrying heavy iron clubs. They reached the stream, poured down the far bank like a black flood and began to cross. They were slowed down as a result, but their lines were not broken as the Duke had hoped. All too soon they were clambering up the near bank, their progress barely impeded by the stakes, and then the armies met.

A great clamour of metal ringing on metal filled the air. The wall of the allies held, sending the front ranks of the Nightbane sprawling into the stream bed. More quickly took their place, trampling their own fallen comrades and charging up the bank. The pointed wedge of the assault had shattered, but now a broad, ragged wave of the enemy flooded across the stream.

The Duke had reached his mounted knights concealed among the trees, and sat his horse at the head of the line. The enemy’s column stretched across the Course like a great worm. The moment had come to shear into the ranks and break them apart. The Duke’s herald brought him a long-handled silver mace, and he held it on high so that on the other side of the valley King Shakya could see its light winking from the shade of the trees like a star in the dusk. When that star swooped down, the charge would begin.

Then a chill wind rose and the sky darkened. A churning mass of cloud was rising over the Course.

The Duke did not bring the mace down.

A cold mist began to creep over the fields and through the trees around the city. The Nightbane army faltered and its armoured beasts bellowed in agitation.