A Treasure of Bone & Promises

harm through action or inaction, you'll get more of the pain. If you disobey me, the same. Do you ken me, little brave one?"

  She nodded, weakly. And she hated him all the stronger and more fierce.

  "Good." His face was gone. "Now, up. You need a horse for a long ride and I think I have one in mind. Nasty thing. Bites and stamps, but the flea-mottled nag be good enough for you. Come now, to the stables."

  The stables were a rickety collection of horse stalls lashed together in the largest of the outbuildings that clung like scabs to the old witching-man's longhouse. The air within stank of horse urine and stale straw.

  This was where Mannagarm kept the horses of the travellers he'd killed. There were half a dozen horses ranging from elegant riding greys to squat, hairy-hocked mountain animals. Mannagarm was not picky in who he choose to kill and rob on the road. At the end of the stalls stood a larger, darker shadow—a horse that looked bigger and stronger than most bullocks. It was this horse that Mannagarm walked over to. He gave it a dismissive sniff and scowled. "Nasty thin-boned thing. Don't know why I keep it. Tries to take a finger off every time I go near it. Now—where's that stableboy? Boy! Boy! Where are you? I'll whip your ears I will." He wandered out a back way.

  Caewen tentatively trod among the piles of horse-dung and rotten grey straw to get a better look at the horse that Mannagarm had decided to make her ride. It was a massive, frighteningly big animal, and she wondered why Mannagarm would want to give away such a beast. It's pelt was a dapple grey-black and it was so sleek and thickly muscled that she wondered if it were some manner of knightly mount.

  Without warning, it turned to look at her. She tripped backwards and pushed herself flat into the plank wall. The horse had a skullish sort of cast to its face. It eyes held a dull glow of red. And then it smiled. It smiled at her and showed sharp white teeth of the sort no horse should have. They were teeth that would make a bear think twice.

  "What in all of Clay-o-the-Green are you?"

  "I am Dapplegrim," said the horse.

  A talking horse. A talking demoniac horse. It only made sense she supposed. Mannagarm would give her a beastly thing to watch her. Would it eat her if she tried to get away?

  "Oh don't look like that," said the horse. He spoke with a masculine voice and although the stall was hiding the lower end of him, she guessed he must be male. It looked the other way, out the door where Mannagarm had gone. "Relax," snapped the horse. "Be calm. He doesn't know, so play it calmly, right? And then we'll both get out of here."

  "What?"

  "Are you an imbecile? That feculant toad of a magician murdered my master and took me as right of property, by the laws that are so old they are not writ but are heard in the winds among leaves, in the cascade among rocks. But he doesn't know, does he? My last master had some skill with charms and he put a small illusion on me. Just enough to stop other folk seeing me for what I am."

  She didn't move any closer. "Why can I see then?"

  "Because I want you to. You're my new master now and I want you to know what you're bound to. Mannagarm's gone and given me to you. He's gone and given me away. I knew he would. My kind are bound by old laws of ownership."

  "Like a slave?"

  The creature didn't answer at once, but remained still, silent, staring. "I suppose. Yes. Like a slave. Though the binding works both ways... demons and spirits can be bound by magics of keeping and owning... but the ownership works the other way too. You own me. I own you."

  That last bit made her shiver. "You're a demon? A demon. A talking demon horse. Why do you look mostly like a horse then?"

  "No, no, no. I'm only half a demon. My father was a forest-thing that lived in the woods and he must have come out one night and had fun with my mother in horse-shape. Or so I suppose. My mother was just an ordinary mare. You can't imagine how strange it is to be born and try to talk to your mother and find she just ignores you and eats grass. Made me question my sanity."

  "Oh, well, that's a coincidence because I'm questioning my sanity right now." She rubbed at her forehead and felt that oily sheen of the ash there. Maybe the sorcerer's spell had touched her badly in the head somehow?

  "Be quiet. The foul toad returns."

  Mannagarm appeared at the door. He shot a suspicious look at Caewen, and she tried to look calm. She even smiled, which made him more suspicious if anything. Behind him trod a rag-clothed, wretchedly thin boy. Caewen realised with a shock that she knew him. It was Ely, the trapper's son. He was only a couple years younger than Caewen and yet he looked barely older than ten years. Starvation and cold had left him wrecked and stunted. Dirt smudged his face and his hair was a rancid thicket of knotted unwashed curls. She tried to catch his eye but he acted as if she weren't there, going about the business of opening the stall, fetching riding gear and tack, and saddling Dapplegrim with dreamlike movements.

  It made her sick inside. Her throat tightened and her fingers clenched around the hilt of the sword she now wore at her belt. Just the tightening of her fingers made the invisible mark on her brow squirm with pain. She wondered if she could bare the torment long enough to slaughter the self-important old man, who himself was standing and smiling thinly to himself and watching the whole business.

  "She has the sword and the unguent. And a steed, such as this ugly nag might be. That's as much as I can do." He glanced at her then. "Be sure to blow the pipe when the creature is dead."

  She nodded. "If it is a long way, how long should I wait for you."

  His laughter was as dry and thin as the papery bark of silver birches. "I'll be with you soon enough, young lass. Soon enough. You'll not wait long for me." Turning his attention back to Ely, his spell-slaved stablehand, he said, "Now, be quick. Lead the horse outside. I'm not touching the thing. Always snapping at me." He frowned at it.

  The sorcerer was seemingly utterly unaware that the huge grey horse gave him a sharp-toothed smile as it was led past.

  Caewen followed the horse and boy out into the morning light, grey and sullen.

  "Not an auspicious day for a quest," said Mannagarm, following her. "Grey skies and squally weather promising. Well and well. Better you than me. Ride north, go through the mountains and look for the city of Wisht-Folk. Off you go then."

  She gave him a look that could have peeled the skin off a rock. But without pausing, she went to the huge, strange horse and stepped up into the stirrup. Ely was standing there, face cast down at the dirt.

  "I'll return," she whispered at him. She even thought she saw him shift his weight a little, as if he were trying to look up without being caught doing so.

  "I will," she said, with more steel, more for her own sake.

  Not really knowing how to ride didn't matter. The horse turned its face about and said, calmly, "Neigh," at Mannagarm, then took off at a slow canter down the hilltop path. When they were out of earshot he said, "Asth shoon as we're outb ob sightb I neeb you to tage thish stubid bitb outb ob my mougth."

  "Alright," said Caewen, unsure what else to say.

  "Thanbs."

  -oOo-

  "Arh," said Dapplegrim as soon as Caewen cut the leather chords and pulled out the bit. She had been a bit wary of doing so—his mouth was full of teeth like ivory daggers after all—but he flexed his jaw and lips and said, "Thank you. You've no idea how uncomfortable it is having one of those things in your mouth when your jaw is full of teeth for cutting and slicing." They were standing on a rocky outcrop of a hill that gave them a view back down the valley where the village dozed under its early morning pall of fresh cookfires. It would be about this moment that her brother and parents would discover she was missing. The spell that Mannagarm sent had made her wake in a half-asleep sort of way, open the door to the root-cellar and sneak out in the pre-dawn dark.

  "Do you think we could circle around and kill him?"

  Dapplegrim looked at the view below. "Maybe, but he has all manner of wards and I don't know which of them are watchful and which are not."

  Even
as Caewen turned back to face the way they had come, the thin little wild goat track up the grassless slopes, she felt the pain stir in her brow. She closed her eyes and winced.

  "He put a charm on you?" said Dapplegrim.

  "Yes."

  "It's to make you do what he wants, yes?"

  "It is."

  "Hm. We could just wait it out. Old Mannagarm isn't a very great magician. He'd like you to think any spells he weaves last forever and ever, but they don't. They'll fade quick enough."

  "How long then?"

  Dapplegrim shook his head. The dull red light in his eyes grew more intense. "Don't know. Some magicians can bind spells that last long after they are dead. Just look at the illusion my old master put on me. He's dead and the spell still works, and will do for a time. His bones are buried not far from the witch-man's house and I suspect the illusion will fade once we are far gone from the mortal remains of my old keeper. Mannagarm's magic? A day? A week? A month? No longer than a month. Does it hurt to stay still?"

  Caewen had to consider this. There was a growing pressure, very gradual, but noticeable and nagging. "Yes."

  "Then we can't linger here too long. The intent of the spell is to make you go north and do his bidding. Standing about is breaking the intent, and it'll hurt you badly in time."

  "So we walk north like good vassals and kill the goule or thing or whatever it is and blow a note on the pipe and then we are done?"

  "Maybe, yes. But killing the creature may not be so easy. I know more about the Wisht-Folk than Mannagarm does it seems. They have magic coursing in their blood. They carry a cloud of illusion with them, charged full of power, and they can draw on it to work spells no mortal magician could ever do alone and without some manner of familiar or assistance."

  "So why would powerful workers of magic need help to kill some creature that's bothering them?" said Caewen.

  "Exactly. Either there is more to this than seems or the 'creature' is some manner of demonic or wraithly being out of the earliest dawn age of the world. Nothing less than an old power of the earth could make a lord or lady of the Wisht afraid."

  "Strange, then."

  "Very strange." She touched her fingers to her brow. The ashes were cleaned off now, but the pain still twinged there. "Maybe we should be moving. The pain is growing."

  "Alright. Climb up then." Dapplegrim looked at her.

  "Back onto the saddle. Is that alright with you. It's just, it seems sort of strange to be riding someone I'm talking to."

  "I'm half horse too, remember. I really don't mind it and we'll go much faster this way."

  She did climb up and settled herself into the saddle.

  "Oh, if I see a rabbit or two I might ask you to climb down," said Dapplegrim as they began.

  "Why?"

  He sighed. "I'm half a horse, so I can live on hay and oats but I don't thrive on it. I haven't had flesh in years. A nice bit of rabbit would do me well."

  "I see." Caewen was wondering just what sort of creature she was bound to now. "You don't eat people do you?"

  He twisted his neck so that one of his black eyes with the red light within fixed her. "Only the bad ones." He laughed, and it was a light lilt of laughter, though Caewen couldn't honestly tell if the strange horse-thing was joking or not.

  -oOo-

  They followed ridges along the foothills all that day, then down into steep-flanked gullies, through chill, burbling brooks and up the mossy banks again. Occasional stands of black pines stood in their way, and Dapplegrim wove through the shadowy pinewoods looking left and right as if he thought they were being followed.

  When Caewen asked him about it, he said, "Walking shadows like the gloom," but did not elaborate.

  By evening they were close enough to the mountains of the north to feel the oppressive weight of them bearing down like piles of icy monumental clouds. Between two peaks there was a blue-white shadow where a deep rift cleft them.

  When they decided to stop to rest, Dapplegrim nodded towards the rift. "That's the old pass north and there should be a road there. Back when there were kingdoms in these hills trade used to flow that way. We'll find the road sometime tomorrow I guess, though I don't know what's left of it."

  Caewen meantime was trying to make fire with a flint and steel she'd found along with some food and a rough woollen blanket in a saddlebag. It was, she presumed, one of Mannagarm's bags prepared for his wanderings when he went hunting for travellers, for it had several hessian sacks stuffed into the bottom of it. Bags for stolen loot, she guessed. When the dry bracken she had piled into a small heap finally caught a spark and curled into a glow of white embers and fire-red ashes she quickly added wood shavings and built the fire until she had a ruddy glow before her. "The mark isn't hurting me," she said, idly.

  "The magic probably knows you need to rest, so it's not poking you and prodding you. We'll see how you feel in the morning."

  "And if the spell fades we'll turn around and go right back and kill that bastard."

  "Agreed," said Dapplegrim, though he sounded unconvinced.

  Caewen stirred water into flour to make herself some damper for the fire. She cut some pieces of flesh off the hank of wild goat that Dapplegrim had dropped beside the fire. He's disappeared for half an hour or so when they made camp, bringing back the chewed up remains of a goat. Caewen took a cut of it and left the rest for the horse-thing to gnaw on, crunching up bones and everything. His mouth was spattered with blood by the time he was done and Caewen wondered if that was the origin of his name and not the dapples on his hide.

  As she made up her own dinner she ventured to say, "You keep mentioning your old master. Who was he?"

  "A powerful magician, but a kindly one. Not like that toad, Mannagarm. He tricked us with false friendship on the road. He went at my old master with a knife from behind. Stabbed him and slit his throat before I could do anything."

  "What was his name?"

  He laughed. "You've a lot to learn. Never ask for a magician's name. A name can be used to summon back the souls of the dead, or put a binding on a person, or torment a spirit. I'll call him my old master, and that is good enough."

  She pulled the sticky damper out of the wooden bowl she was using and wrapped it around a green stick. "But I'm no magician. What does it matter?"

  He looked at her oddly then, opening one eye and closing the other, and swapping his gaze. "Ah, but you could be. You've the art inside you, if you find a way to unravel it."

  "And how would I do that?" she asked, cautiously.

  Dapplegrim sat down, folding his legs underneath him the way a horse does. "Not something I know anything about." He snorted out a breath of air. "Wizards and witches and sorcerers all talk about secrets and power and anma, but most of it is borrowed I think. That Mannagarm for instance, he takes most of his power from the shadow-thing. The fetch. Very powerful magicians sometimes have half a dozen or a dozen or more such spirits. Himinglaeva of the Snows has fourteen spirits of the ice and storm, so the stories go. The the old tales Wythern the Myriad mastered countless of the minor colour and light spirits called hues or tints—or so the legends tell. But Mannagarm, all he has is one shadow-spirit, a shay."

  "What does the fetch get out of it?"

  "Tssch, tsh, tsch... protection..." hissed a voice from the shadows of the woods. The slinking, elegant shape of the shadow-thing crept into the leaping fringes of darkness where the fire's light just barely touched.

  "Aha!" Dapplegrim jumped up. He bared his teeth and made a snarling noise that was entirely demonic and not even a little but horselike. "I knew it. He sent you to spy."

  The creature curled up and gave them a languid stare before it said, "He did, but not everything Mannagarm tells me to do is done in quite the way he thinks it is, tssch, tssh, tsch. He never knew about you, for instance, tssssch, as he never asked about you. I'm not much in great liking of him you know, but matters are matters, and he caught me with a spell a long many years ago. So matters are matt
ers are matters. Tsssch."

  "So what now?" asked Caewen.

  "I'll sneak back by shadow and dark dapple and under-murk of trees, quite avoiding the nasty sun, tsssh, tsssch, and I'll tell him the truth. You are on your way north undertaking his commanded quest."

  "And you'll tell him we'll kill him at the first opportunity?" said Caewen.

  "Only if he asks, tassh, tsch, but he won't ask. It's not in his nature. He's suspcious and afraid, but he's afraid of them that he thinks has power over him. Bigger and more fearsome magickers. You are below his fearfulness, young lady Caewen." It turned to look at Dapplegrim now. "And you! You! He never even knew he had a creature more powerful than all the petty demons of the night-woods locked up in his stalls. All those years. Tssch. Tsh. Tsss. Imagine what he'd have done with you, if he'd known."

  "But you never told him," said Dapplegrim.

  "Never ever did." It's face twisted into a little smirk of shadows. "Never ever. Tsssh. Tsch."

  "Well you've seen all you need to see," snapped Dapplegrim. "Be off with you now and go back to your master and tell him whatever you want."

  Without a word, the fetch got to its feet, stretched itself and dashed into the night. It was nothing more than a movement among the wind-tossed shadows of the ground, and then it was gone entirely.

  "I do not trust that thing," said Dapplegrim.

  "But it's true that it never told Mannagarm about you..."

  "Only because it hates Mannagarm more than it loves the protection of a magician."

  "What did it mean by that?"

  Dapplegrim sat again. "Arh. Small demons are born out of the natural stuff of the world but they don't last very long. They are fragile. They fall apart. Some, like fire demons live only as long as a fire burns. Some will keep themselves together for a few days or months. If a demon can get itself a master it'll be bound together by magic and protected. And if it can get another master after that it'll become bigger and stronger and more real... the largest, most terrifying demons of the earth started as small servants. In time, they gain enough togetherness of flesh to be their own masters. That is what a spirit would hope for."

  "But not you. You're already flesh and blood."

  "And I am half-mortal and I'll die of old age eventually. I'm a rare thing. Chance breedings don't give rise to my sort very often at all. I'm stuck between the mortal flesh and the spirit, and there can't be more than a dozen creatures like me that have ever lived upon the Clay-o-the-Green."

  "And I'm bound to you." She looked at the vaguely skull-like face. "Lucky me," she said as she prodded the damper to check if it was cooked yet. "How lucky for me."

  -oOo-

  Late the next morning they found the road that twisted north and south towards the rent in the mountains. It had been laid with cobbles a long time ago, but now was rank with green grass and grey toadstools. The leaves fallen in last autumn's storms were still