The Wicked Day (14 page)

Isn’t it much colder up there?

The hawk sniffed.
At my age, one is not bothered by such trifles.

I’d like to try flying again.

You shall do no such thing. Not here, not now.

Of course not
, said Jute hastily.
Not with these old carters gawking. Maybe in the evening? If we get to wherever we’re going and it’s not too late? I’d like to fly. I’m sure I’ve almost got the hang of it.

No
, said the hawk.
Most assuredly not.
You should not be alarmed, but I think something hunts along our path. It isn’t close, so do not look so frightened. Rather, consider it solemnly, for caution should guide your actions. As I have told you before, the use of power draws attention like a lantern in a dark night. You would burn like a great light if you truly flew. Like a star. We could not weather such attention. There is something odd about this land we travel through that does not comfort me greatly.

All right, all right.

CHAPTER SIX

ESCAPE ACROSS THE ICE

The road wound through the afternoon. The sun emerged from behind the clouds for brief intervals of blinding light that glittered off the snow and transformed the world into a blur of brilliance. However, most of the day was as dark and as cold as a winter evening. Despite the weather, old Birt was in a good mood, chuckling to himself through the smoke streaming from his pipe. Jute suspected his cheerfulness was due to the fact that Doyl’s team of oxen was proving considerably slower than the mules in breaking through the fresh snow on the road.

“Will we get to wherever it is we’re going before nightfall?” asked Jute.

“Hager’s Crossing? Surely, laddie, surely, despite these clubfooted, sway-backed cows leading the way. Afore sundown, or my name’s not Birt. The Hartshorn keeps a good table and you’ll be soon tipping back an ale there, never fear.”

The sun broke through the clouds as it began to drop beyond the edges of the mountains in the east. It was as if a cold red eye surveyed them between the two lids of clouds and mountain range. One last slow blink closed in finality on the day and then Birt called out.

“Hager’s!”

He followed up his exclamation with a great deal of muttering about cows and those who see fit to cart about behind cows, all of it uncomplimentary, but only Jute heard him.

The road bumped down an icy incline toward a village. Hager’s Crossing was a proper village, in Jute’s estimation. It looked large enough to be interesting in terms of things to buy (or steal) and see and do. There were a great many buildings, all dipped in shadow on their eastern side and painted red on the opposite, with their roofs and chimneys and western walls gilded with the remaining rays of frozen sunlight. Past the town, a river curved through the snowy fields. Woodsmoke scented the air, and after such a cold day, that was a comforting smell indeed. The Hartshorn Inn was on the banks of the river, but to get to it, they had to wind their way through the town, down streets deep in muddy slush and between houses huddled against the descending night. The wagons rolled to a stop in the inn’s yard. The mules and oxen blew out great breaths of steam, satisfied and already smelling the hay in the barn.

“A warm bed for the night,” said Jute.

“Eh, what’s that?” said old Birt. “No inn beds for us, laddie. It’ll be the wagons and sleeping with both eyes open. Don’t trust a soul, that’s my motto. But you can pop in for a bite to eat first. Go on with you. Doyl an’ me’ll see to the beasts.”

The inn was crowded with people and warmed by the fire crackling on the hearth. It seemed quieter than most other inns Jute had been in, but it smelled of ale and roasting meat and, for one moment, Jute imagined he was back in Hearne. Surely if he stepped outside, he would find himself on those familiar cobblestone streets. Lena and the other children would dash by with an outraged merchant in pursuit. Perhaps he had just stepped into the Goose and Gold. But then he blinked and he was standing where he was, far from Hearne and far from home.

Hearne was never your home
, said the hawk inside his mind. The bird’s voice was surprisingly gentle.
Don’t fret, fledgling. You’ll find it one day.

“Move it,” said Declan. “We’re attracting enough attention as it is.”

And they were. People turned to watch them thread their way through the room as they tried to find an empty table. The stares were not unfriendly, but neither were they friendly. Declan and Jute sat down at the end of a long table occupied by a group of men leaning over their tankards, talking in low voices and occasionally calling for more ale. Jute squeezed into a chair. There was barely enough room between the edge of the table and wall. Behind him, a window exuded the night’s chill.

Ah. A barn
. The hawk’s voice ghosted through Jute’s mind.
I think I’ll find myself a roost in the barn.
After a moment, the boy heard him snort in disapproval.
I shan’t be sleeping now. Owls. Empty-headed feather dusters!

“Evenin’ to you. Supper?”

A fat old woman in a dirty apron plonked down two tankards of hot ale in front of them. Declan took a swallow of ale and nodded appreciatively.

“Aye, and what do you—?” But before he could finish his sentence, the old woman had bustled away. She returned soon enough with a platter.

“That’ll be two silver bits for the pair of you.”

“Two silver—?” said Jute, but he shut his mouth when Declan kicked him under the table.

“Here you are, mistress.” Declan handed over the coins.

“Two silver bits?” said Jute, once the old woman had gone. “That’s thievery. I could eat for a week in Hearne on less than one silver.”

“I’m not about to squabble with an old woman about money. Strangers seem to attract attention around here, so keep your head down and eat.” And with that, Declan took his own advice and turned his attention to the platter.

The dinner would have proved unsatisfactory to Jute in most other circumstances, but he was hungry enough to finish two bowls of onion soup (which made him hiccup so much that Declan again kicked him under the table) and several slices of gristly beef.

Jute wiped his nose on his sleeve and took a furtive look around the room. As far as he could tell, no one was paying them any attention. The mood in the inn, however, struck him as odd. It was not like the boisterous inns of Hearne he was accustomed to—the Goose and Gold, or the Queen’s Head where one of the potboys had a fancy for Lena and snuck them pasties and apple turnovers and other wonderful things. This inn was too quiet. Too subdued. The back of his neck prickled uncomfortably.

“Something’s not right,” said Jute.

“What’s that?” said Declan quietly.

Jute! Stay out of sight!
Declan too!
The hawk’s voice quivered in his mind.

What is it?
asked Jute, sinking down in his chair. Declan stared at him.

We’re working on it
, said the hawk grimly, and then his voice went silent before Jute could ask him any more questions, such as: who was the “we” he referred to, what were they working on, and why?

The door of the inn flew open. Jute glimpsed three men standing in the door, cloaked and hooded, their shoulders dusted with snow. Something unpleasant slid along the edge of his thoughts, a questing, inquisitive touch of cold. The room went silent. Which was immediately broken by shrieks coming from somewhere. The kitchen. The strange presence at the edge of his mind abruptly disappeared. Everyone jumped to their feet. The three men at the door hurried across the room. Armor gleamed beneath their cloaks. The shrieks sounded again, louder, more frantic. The old woman burst from the kitchen door, followed by several scullery girls.

“Help! Murder!” yowled the old woman. “Blood an’ doom! Doom!” The scullery girls shrieked. “Doom!”

The three men vanished into the kitchen.

“Now’s our chance,” said Declan.

He wasn’t the only one thinking this. Several others were edging their way toward the door. The room rang with the clamor of voices and excited talk. A knot of patrons surrounded the old woman, who was still howling at the top of her lungs. One of the scullery girls fainted and fell to the floor with a thud. Jute and Declan sidled to the door.

Right as Jute stepped across the threshold, he glanced back into the room. He should not have. He knew he should not have, but he could not help himself. The fire blazed up on the hearth, roaring in an instant from sullen coals to crackling flame. Firelight flickered into every corner of the room, illuminating the edges of faces and tankards. Shadows deepened behind tables and chairs. The old woman was now waving her arms about to accompany whatever tale she was telling, and the knot of men clustered about her grew. But at the kitchen door, a face shone palely, turning just as Jute did. One of the three men in cloak and armor. His eyes locked onto Jute. Something sparked in them. Recognition.

“That’s torn it,” said Jute, and he darted out the door and into the night. Snowflakes whipped down from a moonless, starless sky. The wind whistled across the roofs, blowing up swirls of snow and stinging ice. Horses stamped impatiently in the street. Declan grabbed Jute’s arm and pulled him into the shadows along the wall.

“Soldiers,” he said. “But we need to get past them to the barn. My sword. Our packs.”

“One of ‘em saw me inside. I think he was looking for us. We need to go!”

Declan sighed. “Right. After me, then.”

Past the inn, the street ended at the river in a hodgepodge of rickety sheds and a dock that leaned out from the bank on pilings standing frozen in the ice. They ran between the sheds, the snow crunching underfoot. A voice called out from somewhere behind them. It was a curiously flat sound, dispassionate, disinterested, yet intent.

“They’ll follow our footprints in the snow,” said Jute. He looked down in dismay at the prints he was making.

“Exactly. Quick. Out onto the ice!”

They ran down the bank, slipping and sliding down the slope until Jute could no longer keep his footing and tumbled end over end to land in a heap on the ice.

“Aha,” said Declan in satisfaction. “Give me a hand here.”

“What?”

“Here!”

Drawn up on the bank and sheltered beneath the dock was a rowboat turned upside down.

“I don’t understand,” said Jute, but Declan interrupted him.

“No time now. I’ll explain later.”

They wrestled the rowboat over and slid it out onto the ice. There were two oars tied up on hooks beneath the gunwales. They pushed and pulled until the boat was a good ways across the river, skidding it across the ice perhaps a hundred yards. The wind whipped along the surface of the ice and drove the snow before it in flurries of stinging flakes. Jute felt his hands going numb.

“Get in.”

“What?” said Jute.

A shout rang out from the riverbank behind them.

“Get in the boat.”

Jute scrambled in and peered over the boat railing at the dark figures of the soldiers slipping and sliding down the bank. Several of the soldiers skidded and fell as soon as they reached the ice, but there was little consolation in that, as the men were now much closer.

“Declan? Is there something I’m missing here?”

“Wait. Just wait.” Declan stepped into the boat and the entire craft settled over on one side, teetering on its keel. “Untie that oar there.”

“They don’t look friendly.”

“No, they don’t. I think they’re planning on taking us prisoner or perhaps killing us. Your teeth are chattering.”

“What if they are? It’s freezing out here!”

The hawk swooped down out of the swirling snow to land on the boat’s gunwale. “What are you doing?” he said. “Are you both idiots? Sculling along the ice? There’s death and dark magic getting closer by the second, not to mention quite a few swords. A thing not quite a man is in that company. Run, you fools!”

“Patience, master hawk,” said Declan, looking at the soldiers drawing near. There were a good dozen of them, cloaked against the cold but in armor that jingled and rang as they ran. Jute could hear the sound of it in the clash of their mailed boots on the ice and in the rasp of gauntleted fist as swords sang free from their sheaths.

“Patience?” said the hawk, but then Declan spoke, whispering the same word over and over, his voice louder and louder and faster and faster until the night and the frozen river and the blowing snow seemed to ring with the sound of it. It was a hard word, an edged sound, a brisk, sharp thing that hurt the ears just to hear it. Jute snatched his hands away from the gunwale, for the wood railing had grown hot. The air was strangely warm.

“Stop!” said the hawk, but it was too late. The word was out.

The ice around them shattered. Lines zigzagged away in every direction, slabs of ice collapsing into water to reveal the dark depths below. The boat settled into the water. The soldiers had almost reached them by then and, after the first horrifying moment, Jute shut his eyes, for he could not bear to watch. The strange thing about it was that he expected yells and screams as the men went through the ice, but the men were oddly silent as they fought to hang onto something, anything—chunks of ice floating by, scrabbling and clawing at each other as if a body encased in heavy armor would prove to float—but they all plunged down into the sudden water. Jute looked up to see the last man balancing on an ice floe bobbing in the current. It was the same man who had seen him in the inn. Even through the darkness, Jute could see the man’s eyes as if they gleamed with a faint light. His face was expressionless. And then the ice floe collapsed and the man vanished into the water.