The Witch of Glenaster (22 page)

The day was weary when I
returned. Smoke was rising from the chimney of the Great Hall, with its dark,
sloping roof, and heavy doors inlaid with bronze, which adjoined the South Tower;
and men were coming and going, their faces full of worry. As I entered the
lobby, Magnus sat swinging his legs on the edge of a high window-seat, the
sunset making an aureole of his yellow hair, and forcing him to squint at the
room like a fierce old man. The sight made me smile.

He scowled at this, and carried
on kicking his legs. I walked past him, and saw Caleb
Greysash
,
one of Richard’s men, leaning against a doorway, and munching on a barley cake,
eyeing me cautiously. I knew the doorway led to the Great Hall; it was a side
entrance Richard and his men often used. Caleb offered me some of the barley
cake, and when I shook my head, and moved nearer the door, said:

“Can’t go in there now, miss.
There’s a folkmoot. All the elders are there, and your friend, Thomas Taper.
Been an attack at the south gate. Can’t go in there now.” And he shook his
head, for emphasis, his narrow, dirty face half-hidden beneath a curtain of
greasy hair, as he gnawed at the cake, for all the world like an overgrown
rodent.

I regarded him a moment,
wondering what to do; I wanted to know what was going on behind that door. On
an impulse, I quickly ducked beneath his arm, before his wits had time to
travel from his brain; he tried to grab me, but I was already through the door,
and into the gloom of the passageway beyond, before he was able to stop me. I
ran the few yards to the Hall, my daps squeaking softly on the dusty floor,
until I gained the entrance, squeezing through a gap where the door had been
left slightly ajar; and, once there, I was able to sequester myself into a dark
corner, behind a large chair that reeked of sweat and polish, and observe
without being seen.

The Hall was long and broad,
with a high roof set with thatch; a vast fireplace filled half of one wall. In
the middle of the room there were mead-benches, for Richard’s warriors; and the
walls were hung with tapestries of dark embroidery, that swam in and out of
focus in the torchlight. Richard, Thomas, Lukas and several others were
gathered about a table at the far end, studying piles of maps and charts spread
unevenly before them, or otherwise stood apart in quiet counsel. The room felt
stifled and uneasy, and from where I was hiding, I could see Caleb
Greysash
enter, and look about him uncertainly, a heavy
squint to his eye, and I realized that it was not only the relative darkness,
but also that he must be near-sighted, for he banged against a table, and the
scraping it made on the floor alerted some of the men, and he was apologetic
and embarrassed when they saw him.

“Sorry,” he said, “sorry.
Thought I’d lost something…”

And, casting a last look over
the room, he bowed awkwardly, and left.

I was in an uncomfortable
crouch, and tried to lean back against the wall, to let it take some of my
weight. This didn’t work terribly well; but there wasn’t enough room to sit,
and the hard stone floor would have made kneeling a torture. I kept my eyes on
the men near the table, stealing glances now and again at the door, to make
sure I could not be seen. I was close enough to catch the gist of their
conversation, if not every word.

The renewed attack on the
Southern Acres was, it seemed, even more serious than the first: a great host
of wolves and men - including, so they said, some from the
Moonland
,
and from far Sorrow - had laid siege with spear and bow, almost forcing a
breach in the Wall, and requiring the guard to call for reinforcements. The
attackers had been beaten back, for now; but Richard said he feared it was only
the prelude to a greater onslaught, and he had sent word that his people were
to ready themselves to leave their homes, and hide in the woods, where there
were many secure and secret places known only to them, should the Cities be
overrun.

Thomas asked how many men were
now guarding the Southern Acres, and Richard told him there were a good two
hundred of his best warriors at the gate, and a further hundred stationed
nearby. And he had increased the forces at the other gates, and readied all men
able to bear arms for battle.

“Still,” he said, “I would
count it a failure of my leadership if the Witch’s forces were to gain the Wall
and strike in any number into the heart of these lands. No enemy has achieved
that since the Lonely Wars, when the fire-drakes came…”

Thomas sought to reassure him
then, and told him he would stay a while longer, perhaps for a few more days,
and help defend the Cities, if need be.

“But I must be gone before the
week is out,” he said. “There is no more time to lose. Soon it will be too cold
to travel further north, and the Ice Bridge of
Sennow
will be impassable.”

Richard nodded, and bit
silently at his lip a while. Then he said:

“I do not understand why they
came at us from the south. I always thought any such attack would be from the
north
,
or from the west. But the lands between the Meer and the Wall have always been
free of
drooj
; they have always gone
around
the river on their way south, and travelled through the Western
Borderlands, and the Crying Mountains. A longer way round, but a much safer
one, for them. I worry they have found a way to cross running water, or
otherwise to break the spells that thread the
Nailinch
Crossing, and the other bridges on the Meer. If so, it would be a poor outcome
for us.”

“They may be seeking to cut us
off,” said Thomas, and he struck a match against the table top, and lit a cigar
with it. “If they harry us to the south, it will be harder for us to send word
to the lands below Salem, and thus to
Ampar
. Your
isolation, my friend, has always been a weakness as much as it is a strength.”

Richard nodded.

“I know it. But still, I feel,
we are safer here than many others outside this country. I will not see these
lands unpeopled. We have fought too hard to build a home here.”

Thomas smiled, and coughed out
a lungful of smoke.

“I would not expect you to say
anything else, my friend,” said he. “I would wonder where the Richard I have
come to know and love was gone.” And at this the other man laughed.

I did not realize how tired I
was, for my eyelids suddenly caught me unawares, and slammed themselves shut
over my eyes, and I dozed like that for a while, uncomfortable as I was, so
that when I opened them again it was night outside, and the men were now mostly
sitting around the table, talking in a nervous and quick rhythm, their speech
that of those for whom slow words are a luxury.

As I was shifting position once
more – the cramped confines of my hiding place had made my right leg go numb,
and I was in need of food and a pee – I saw Matthew
Longfield
come into the room, his face flushed with anxiety, and a breathless tremor to
his voice.

“There has been another
attack,” he said. “At the – at the south gate. There has been a great fire. The
gatekeepers have been struggling to put it out. They say half the wall between
the Southern Acres and the Seeing Tower is aflame, and there are enemy troops
and beasts of
Glenaster
pouring through. James of the
Houses is leading a company of men down there now. I have given the order to
evacuate the villages nearest the southern part of the wall. They are calling
for you, my lord, and for Thomas Taper and all the captains of the Cities.”

By the time he was halfway
through his message, the men were already on their feet and arming themselves;
by the time he had finished, most of them were out of the door. I watched as
they hurried from the room, their footsteps echoing down the passageway behind
them, as if they were already ghosts. Then I rose stiffly from where I had been
hiding, looked for a moment at the table, with its maps, and candles, and
half-eaten plates of food, and sneaked away, like a thief.

Outside, in the lobby, all was
confusion.

A large man who I had not seen
before was barking orders to a group of young soldiers who looked hardly more than
children, and there was no sign of Thomas and the others. I headed for the
stairs, and as I reached the next level I encountered Matthew
Longfield
, gazing out of the window at a darkening sky that
was already starting to flicker a dull orange.

He wheeled when he saw me, and
seemed not to recognize me at first; but then he said:

“Ah, Esther. Captain Taper has
been looking for you. And your brother. Do you know where he is? I have been
sent to help round up the children. It may not be safe here for very much
longer. Where is your brother?”

I looked stupidly at him for a
moment, then said:

“I don’t know. I – I left him.
I thought he was all right. He was downstairs.”

But the young man had already
bounded away, saying only, “Wait here,”, as he left me alone on the landing,
the dim roar of the approaching battle settling on my ears like the crackle of
distant drums.

It rumbled on like that for a
while, while I stood alone in the silence of the lodge; and for a few minutes
it seemed almost calming, the steady boom of noise washing against the walls of
the tower, and reminding me of a very different night, many years and several
lifetimes ago, when I was tucked warmly in my bed, my father stroking my hair
and reassuring me that all was well, as they set off fireworks on the hillside
to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve. And suddenly I wished him here, now, more
fervently than I had wished for anything; to see his sad, heavy face once more,
and feel his big hands delicately brushing the hair from my eyes. I wept then,
and felt like the loneliest person in the world. The tears stuttered from my
eyes and clung to my lashes, and I thought I would be struck dead by my grief,
so crushing did it feel. But as I was wiping my face with a handkerchief - my
only handkerchief, thin and worn now, the same handkerchief I had had in my
pocket when we had started out from home, so many weeks before - I caught
something just at the edge of my vision which made me start. There, in the
darkness of the stairwell, only ten or so steps above me, and standing out
faint but clear in the gloom, was a pair of eyes, dark red in colour, and
hovering, apparently disembodied, in the air, about five feet or so from the
ground. I shook my head, thinking it must be a trick of the light, or my own
muddled mind creating things that were not there. But when I looked again, the
floating eyes remained, and were still, unquestionably and quite terrifyingly,
staring into my own.

I tried to pull myself away,
but my head seemed fixed as if by a great weight, and I wanted to scream, or
vomit, or both. But the eyes went on gazing; and, slowly, inexorably, as if
carried by an unseen body, they started to glide down the stairs towards me.

I tried to scream, but could
only manage a whimper so small and pathetic it would hardly have roused a
dormouse; and I became aware that I was paralyzed, not only in my upper body
but in my legs also, so that I felt suddenly helpless, and betrayed by my own
limbs. My mouth slackened, and saliva trickled down the creases of my chin, and
I suppose I must have looked a wretched thing, standing on the stairs like
that, the air around me now as silent as a threat, and the noises of the battle
gone, or disappearing, so muffled as to be meaningless. And still the eyes,
reproaching and watchful, came on.

I do not know quite what I
would have done had I not then been stung awake by a sudden jolt to my arm, and
turned to see Thomas Taper’s face looking into mine.

“Esther?” he said, and he
sounded afraid. “We have to go.”

We emerged into chaos.

Great clouds of black smoke
were coursing into the air, and thickening it with dust and fume; and I could
see, away to the south, less than a league away, orange flame and flashing
blizzards of white light, which lit up the sky, and carved great holes in the
night.

Men were guiding those who
could not defend themselves – the young, the elderly, the sick – towards
shelter, deep in the woods, and I was glad to see some of the women insist on
standing and fighting, rather than be ushered to safety, though such behaviour
was not entirely appreciated. “What sort of a warrior do you think you’d make?”
demanded one soldier, of a tall, wiry woman with a proud sweep of curls hanging
down to her shoulders, and I wanted to spit in his face on her behalf.

“You have to go with them,
Esther,” said Thomas, above the noise. “Matthew
Longfield
is helping the women and children get away. I will take you to him.”

I found myself shaking my head,
and pulling away from him. He pulled me back, angry.

“This is no time to be wilful!
Do as I say!”

I shook my head again, and
fought to free myself once more. Quickly, he grabbed me by the arm, and I was
terrified, fearing for a moment he was going to strike me. But he did not; and
when he spoke again his tone was
more sad
than
anything, all his anger gone.

“Esther, listen to me. The
people here: they can protect you. This is where our paths divide; you cannot
come with me any further. Your brother needs you.”

“My brother?” I shouted. “My
brother does not need me. No one needs me! I am my own keeper. I will do as I
will. You are going to
Glenaster
, I know, to kill the
Witch: take me with you! Please. I have no home anymore, I have nothing to
return to. My brother will be all right. I have put him in enough danger as it
is. Please…” I was crying now, and the shame only increased my anger. “You
cannot let me stay here,” I said, and struggled again, but it was a feeble
gesture this time; I was defeated. Thomas held me, and I kept my back to him,
too stubborn to turn around.

As we stood there, about to
take our leave of one another for the last time, I felt a great gust of warm
air against my cheek, and experienced a feeling I had had before, long weeks
past, when my brother and I had stood and gazed over the ruins of our home.

We turned, to see the
fire-drake hovering in the air above the trees, lighting them up like a small
sun, big as a house and glittering like sparks, its great eye always watching; deep,
impassive, without sorrow or pity.

People around us were staring,
transfixed despite the danger, entranced by the beauty of this thing that was
about to destroy them. In my mind I could see the flames shooting forth,
covering everything, filling my vision until finally they came licking at my
flesh, stripping it in seconds from my bones, too quick for me to scream,
leaving my body a charred ruin.

But this did not happen. It
seemed to be waiting for something, or someone, for it went on hovering there,
its wings beating a hot breeze across the glade, its belly rippling and fat in
the moonlight.

Suddenly, there was a cry, away
to our right, and the drake turned to see what it was; and a man, about fifty,
middle-aged and chubby, his face full of fear, and his arms waving madly, came
stumbling out of the wood. Amazingly, he did not seem to see the dragon,
floating in the air above him, but simply gestured to us like a marionette: big
eyes, jerky movements, and limbs that seemed to have a life of their own.

“They’re coming!” was all he
said, over and over. “Run! Oh, God, run!”

And then he saw it.

Stopping, his large, bald head
leaned back as far as it could as he looked at the drake, and the drake looked
at him. They regarded one another for a moment, man and beast, and there was a
strange, sickening quiet. Then the animal’s eyes narrowed, it coughed slightly,
and then burned the man to a cinder.

That broke the spell: now
people were running in all directions, screaming, crying,
shouting
at each other to get out of the way. One woman cried, “My daughter, my
daughter!”, and then disappeared; a man wrestled a boy for a small pouch,
though whatever it contained cannot have been worth anyone’s life; two guards
tried to keep control, as all around them men, women and children streamed into
the woods, desperate for safety.

The drake emptied its throat
then, and a great wall of flame ripped across the clearing, cutting off the
path to shelter; and I was on the wrong side of it. One man rushed past, almost
knocking me down, and all around me now there was a sea of faces, and the same
terrible look on all of them.

I felt myself shaking with the
effort not to cry, not to give in, when I felt a hand at my back, and Thomas
Taper was there.

“This way, Esther,” he
whispered, but for a moment I did not hear him, gazing only at nothing.
“Esther!” he repeated, in a hiss. “Come with me. We will die if we stay here.”

And I turned, slowly, and took
his hand, and we ran away, into the dark, into the north.