The Wicked Day (40 page)

“Back!” shouted the duke. “Fall back!”

The line fell back in a rush, the archers running on ahead through the cornstalks. The shadowhound leapt forward and another man died, wildly swinging his sword at the beast only to have his blade encounter darkness and vapor. The teeth stayed sharp and real enough to tear out his throat. Jute ran after the archers, overtaking them as they turned to draw and shoot. The wind shivered with the hissing of the shafts. He could hear the ghost gibbering hysterically in the folds of his cloak. He reached the edge of the cornfield. His feet were heavy with mud. He wiped the rain from his eyes. An old oak tree towered up on the slope above them. The ground around the tree was dense with brambleberry vines, thick with withered leaves and rotting fruit. But there was no sign of a tunnel.

Where is it?
snapped the hawk in his mind.
Find it or these men die! We must not lose the duke!

Jute did not answer. He sprinted forward. The brambleberry vines caught at his pants, ripping and tearing. Where was the tunnel? It had been right here. He was sure of it. He remembered coming up out of the darkness into the sunlight, the smell of the earth, of dust and the silence left behind. It had been right here, right at the foot of the old oak. He remembered the branches now. They twisted and bent their way up into the sky. Just like these. Behind him, voices called out. He could hear Rane’s hoarse shout. Arrows split the air in sharp hissing snaps like the crack of a whip. Iron crashed against iron. A hideous growl shivered through the wind, and the wind fled before it. The earth collapsed beneath him. He fell, scrabbling at the mud, and caught himself on an oak root and felt skin strip away on his palms.
Here!
He screamed inside his mind.

“Here!” he shouted. “Here! It’s here!” He lost his grip on the root and slipped, tumbling down stone steps.

“He found it!” shrieked the ghost.

“To the oak tree!”

The duke of Harlech turned, his bloody sword in his hand. Lightning crashed somewhere further down the valley, driving the clouds apart. For a brief moment, the moon looked down with her pale light. She shone on the black armor of the attackers. Polished helms and hauberks, axes and swords rising and falling. The cornfield lay trampled in mud and blood. The men of Harlech retreated, fighting grimly as their line shrank with each desperate passing second. Rane fought in a blur of motion, a sword in each hand, his arms drenched in blood and his teeth bared in a fixed snarl. The shadowhound surged up from the ground. The thing came from nowhere, almost as if one instant it was mud and crushed cornstalks, the next instant a huge blot of darkness, fangs and staring eyes. An archer went down with his throat ripped out and streaming red shadows.

“To the oak tree!”

The thin line of Harlech wavered and then collapsed in on itself as the men tried to run back to the oak tree but still maintain some semblance of defense. Two more died in quick succession, one at the shadowhound’s fangs and one under the swords of the attackers. Jute was almost trampled as the men dove through the opening below the tree. He scrambled away, deeper into the passage, dust in his eyes and dirt on his hands. A furious clatter of swords surged back and forth just outside the entrance. More men forced their way in. Jute could hear the voice of the duke shouting above the din.

Three archers ran toward Jute and then turned to kneel, their bows drawn and ready. Several more joined them. Part of the tunnel roof near the entrance collapsed in a sudden billow of dust and damp. More and more men crowded in, stumbling past the archers into the darkness beyond. The old duke appeared, with Rane behind him, both facing backwards. There was a lull in the clash of swords and then silence, broken only by the harsh and strained breathing of men, desperate to suck air into their lungs.

“Rats in a hole,” said a voice from just outside the tunnel. There was a dreadful casualness to the voice, a dry amusement. “Hiding in the darkness. How delightful.”

The voice was more than familiar. Jute knew it all too well. The thin figure in the darkness of the Silentman’s dungeon. The being on the tower of Ancalon.

“The sceadu,” whispered Jute.

The men around him waited in the darkness, tensed, listening to the voice. The air smelled of fear. A faint light illumined the mouth of the tunnel, a few rays of starlight brave enough to fall through the sky, past the clouds and rain, past the branches of the oak tree, past the sceadu and his hound standing there. It was not much light at all, just enough to soften the darkness and suggest the dim lines of the stone steps climbing up toward the sky.

“I smell a familar old scent here,” said the sceadu. “The hawk's boy. I’ve had you between my teeth before, Jute. Twice now, and here is the third. Is the wind in your hand yet? Do you know the strictures of your power? Does your blood remember the starlight and from whence he who walked before you came? Or are you still just a foolish, cowardly boy? Perhaps I shall send my dog down to make your acquaintance. He has a firm grip with which to shake your hand. No, here’s a better idea for you. A better death for you and these Harlech scum.” The sceadu paused and then spoke again, his voice deepening. “By the hand of darkness. By the dream of darkness—”

The skin on the back of Jute’s neck crawled.

“Who is this that speaks?” said the duke of Harlech. “He seems to know you from some previous, unfortunate encounter.”

“Quick!” hissed Jute. “Go! Further into the tunnel as fast as you can. He’s summoning up something from the Dark. I don’t know what exactly, but we don’t want to stay to find out.”

The duke did not waste any time, but snapped out an order. Someone struck flint on tinder and they hurried off down the tunnel, led by a flickering light. Dust stirred beneath their boots. Stone and earth closed in around them. The darkness retreated before the advance of their tiny light, but then followed just as quickly on their heels. And behind them, no matter how far they went with each passing step, the voice of the sceadu whispered and grew, following them just as surely as if he walked behind them.

“By the hand of death. By the dream of death. By the hunger of death I call you.”

The voice ceased and there came a strange noise. A noise of things dragging wetly through the mud, of bones shifting in the earth, a clacking of teeth, and the sound of steel rattling. And then footsteps. Many footsteps, shuffling, shambling down stone steps, down into the tunnel, down into the dark and after them. The sound of the footsteps quickened.

“Hurry,” said Jute, his voice shaking.

No one needed his encouragement. The men were running now, the single flame bobbing and flickering in the hand of the man holding it. Rane came at the end of the line. He looked over his shoulder and what he saw made him stop in his tracks.

“What?” he gasped. “What’s this?”

“Run!” shouted Jute. “Run, you hear me?” And he himself ran, but he did not run further down the tunnel. Instead, he ran back to Rane. “Run, blast you!”

Rane turned and fled. In the near blackness of the passageway behind them, Jute saw what Rane had seen. Points of light came closer. Cold blue light shone from eyes. It gleamed from broken teeth and shattered bones. It gilded battered armor and swords sticky with blood. The dead. The dead of Harlech who had given their lives fighting in the cornfield, fighting below the oak tree so that their friends and brothers might live. They came with ghastly faces, dragging broken limbs, dangling shattered arms, but they came, quicker and quicker. Their dead eyes were fixed on their living brothers-in-arms.

“Jute,” said the ghost. “I’ve nothing against dead people, but these are the wrong kind. Do something. Please!”

“Wind,” said Jute desperately, “are you there?”

There was no answer, except for the dreadful scraping sound of the footsteps of the dead. They were closer now, much closer. They reached for Jute with broken hands. Hunger shone in their eyes. Something beyond them in the darkness chuckled. Or maybe it was only in Jute’s mind. He shouted in fury.

Shouted.

The wind came alive. From nowhere. From his own self. From within his mind. Blowing and howling out of him as if it had been waiting there all along, just on the other side of his eyes. The tunnel was full of the sky. It was full of the cold, sweet scent of the air below the stars. The wind shouted in Jute’s voice. Stone shattered. Earth fell in huge and thunderous collapse. The dead were gone, swallowed up. And the wind swirled, turned, blew Jute back down the tunnel in an enormous gleeful blast. His body flipped end over end, but the wind sheltered him from the stone walls. Dimly, he heard the alarmed shouts of the men of Harlech. Weapons flying through the air, smashing against stone walls. Bodies flying. The wind laughing inside his mind.

Stop!

Why?
said the wind.
Fun. I’m having fun.

Stop. No, I mean, thank you. But you must stop. . .

Why? We can break things. We can throw stones up into the sky. Topple mountains, let the blue sky down into their roots. Blow the ocean into a fury. Shout at the stars.
The wind paused, and when it spoke again, there was something almost sly about its voice.
I know the way to Daghoron. We can blow around its walls and even he will not touch you and me!

No. You must stop now.

But this is not your place. Deep down under the dreadful earth. The heavy earth. The sky is yours. The sky!

This was true. Painfully true. Jute felt it all the way down into his bones. Sweat sprang out on his forehead. He needed to get out. Get out from under the crushing weight of stone and earth. Up into the sky. He needed the sky like a man in the desert needed a cup of water. He clenched his fist. But not now. Not now.

Not now
, he said in his mind.
I’ll return to the sky, but not now. Please, you must quiet yourself. For my sake.

And the wind fell silent. Jute lay in complete darkness, stone under his face, under his hands. The air was full of dust. He could taste it in his mouth. He became aware of the quiet sounds around him of others shifting, staggering to their feet, a few groans of pain. He sat up.

“A light,” said the duke of Harlech from nearby in the dark. “Someone strike a light.”

Flint rasped on tinder and light bloomed bright: a small light cupped in a man’s hand, but so bright that it was a shock. Faces scraped and bloody, grimed in dust, stared at Jute.

“If you ever do that again,” said Rane, “give us a bit of warning, eh?” But then he grinned, so it was all right.

“Everyone accounted for?” said the duke, surveying the little group. “Eight men lost. Grief, but that’s a heavy toll to keep our lives. Harlech is not so wealthy with people.” He sighed and shook his head. “We must make it worthwhile. Come, Jute, you say this passage leads back under the city? Let us hurry. I must admit, though, this way does not hearten me. If we can gain entrance to the city so easily, why should not others do the same?”

“Well,” said Jute. “It isn’t such an easy way.”

“Good news and bad news in the same breath. This has been an interesting day, and I daresay it isn’t over yet.”

“No, it isn’t. There are dangers down here, I won’t deny that. But, as far as I know, they’re only wards. The passage leads to the university ruins. The closer we get, the more wards we’ll find. Old wards woven from before the time of the wizards’ war. But I know many of them; I’ve been in the ruins and I’ve been through this tunnel. We’ll be safe enough.”

“Wards,” said the duke with some distaste. “Bits of bone and string and old words. We don’t bother with such things in Harlech. There are other ways to protect one’s land. You were traveling in the other direction, weren’t you?”

“What?”

“I mean, you’ve been through this tunnel before but only coming from the city, yes?”

“Er, yes.”

“Ah,” said the duke. “Still, I think we’re better off down here than up there.”

As the duke’s words died away into the silence, a thought slowly sank through Jute’s mind. The back of his neck prickled uncomfortably. Many wards were directional. They were triggered according to what direction the offending sound or movement or presence came from. That meant that a door, for example, might be benign when opened from one side. Opening it from the other side, however, could be a different story.

The fact that they were all looking at him didn’t make matters any better. They were looking at him as if he, Jute, were going to lead them all to safety. As if he, Jute, had all the answers. As if getting through this tunnel would be a simple stroll led by their fearless leader, namely, Jute. A bunch of battle-hardened men deferring to a boy. Well, he wasn’t a boy anymore, was he? But he certainly wasn’t a man yet, either.

“Stone and shadow,” muttered Jute to himself.

They found an old splintered timber on the ground, a casualty, no doubt, of the wind’s enthusiasm. Proper torches were made of the wood and soon the tunnel was well lit. Jute walked back to the caved-in rubble at the end of the tunnel and stood there a while.

“Hear anything?” said Rane.

“No.” Jute shook his head. “It’s silent, as far as I can tell. I was worried they might try digging through, but I think there’s more than just stone and earth here. The wind left something of itself as well. Some sort of binding. It’s still raining up there, though, and the river is bursting its banks. But I don’t hear those things. I can feel them in my mind, I suppose.”