‘No sense in us all gettin’ killed is what I’m sayin’.’
Ned took Oak’s side in this. ‘You done well, Waylen, leading us in. But Oak’s right. We need the whinneys calm and ready. This is our fight: Oak’s brother, my boy. If we burn on this hill, someone needs go back and tell it.’
Waylen spat on the ground again. ‘I say we’re better as three.’
‘And I say not,’ Ned Whitehair challenged.
And that was an end to it.
Oak pulled a sheaf of arrows from his saddle. ‘How high do you think I can aim?’
Ned smiled and slapped his shoulder. ‘If any man can prick one, your long arm will.’
With that, the two men crossed the stream and quickly began to breast the hill, picking up a winding, sideways path. For the first time in many a day, Ned was pleased to be climbing again without fear of what was flying overhead. But in his heart he knew he must always be alert. If they strayed too close to the darkeyes’ lair, they would face an unpleasant greeting. He remembered the horror on the faces of the Kaal when the darkeye had landed in the midst of the settlement. Skalers, despite their fearful size, were as handsome in their way as any flower in the field; but darkeyes, they were loathsome creatures, drawn from a deep well of evil, to be sure.
‘Ned!’ Oak suddenly pointed to the sky. A skaler, the one they’d seen earlier, was circling.
Ned instinctively dropped to a crouch. ‘It’s seen us and it’s wonderin’,’ he whispered. He watched those incredible eyes changing size. He could almost read the curiosity in them.
The beast glided by without making a sound.
Oak snared a breath. ‘Did you see it? Did you see its colour? Green, like the one that burned my brother.’ He pulled the bow off his back.
Ned stayed his arm. ‘Not here. We must be closer to the cave. Come on.’
He took the lead, running uphill at a sensible pace, avoiding as much loose stone as he could. Before long they were flat against the lip of the mound that Waylen had pointed out by the stream. Green hills flowed to the distant horizon. But not far over the rise the ground cut away like a yawning mouth. And barely a stone’s throw down was the cave where the darkeyes supposedly slept.
Ned rolled onto his back, panting. In the sky, the skaler had cut its distance by half. ‘Get ready,’ he whispered. He patted Oak’s arm, then scrambled upright and stood on the ridge.
‘Skaler!’ he shouted, and cursed his stupidity right away. With Oak’s arrows at hand, they could have provoked the beast in silence. But all Ned had done was alerted anything with half an ear to the presence of men. He glanced at the cave. No sign of movement. What if Oak was right and the darkeyes were gone? What if the skalers had killed them already? What if this was nothing but dangerous folly?
The skaler sailed over, its green tail glinting in the lazy sun.
Without warning, Oak released an arrow. It whistled off the bowstring, quivering to its target. To Ned’s surprise it struck and held, waggling freely in the nick between two of the beast’s huge toes. The skaler squealed. Its claws flashed out. The arrow fell to the hillside in silence.
‘Sweet mercy, what now?’ Oak Longarm said. Neither man had expected to hurt the skaler, merely to annoy it.
‘The cave,’ said Ned. He extended a hand to help Oak up, all the while keeping his eye on the beast. The skaler’s forward momentum had kept them out of range till now. But it was turning smoothly, setting itself low. It was going to attack.
‘The cave?’ hissed Oak.
‘We have no choice,’ barked Ned.
He hauled Oak onto the ridge. The beast was still some distance away, but Ned had not forgotten how fast they moved. Sure enough it was on them in a blink, so close he could feel the rumble of its roar and breathe the choking stench of its power.
‘Down!’ he yelled.
They ducked and went sprawling in one movement, helped in their fall by the pressure of heat. A ceiling of flame raged over Ned’s body as he tumbled haphazardly toward the cave. He heard Oak cry out and saw him sliding, beating down a small fire at his shoulder. His robe was burned, the flesh underneath it eaten through to the jointed bones. The bow lay broken behind him. Arrows were scattered all over the ground.
‘Oak, to me!’ Ned screamed.
But the skaler had already turned and there was no ridge this time to hinder its aim. It opened its jaws with a deadly click and Oak Longarm went to the Fathers in a curling flare of orange light. Ned saw his outline briefly, a dancing ghost in the heart of the flame. And then there was nothing but the smell of seared earth and the terror of Ned knowing he was going to be next. His only hope was the cave and a different form of evil. He ran for it, his head full of rage and torment.
Where were they? his mind was screaming.
Where in the name of the Fathers were the darkeyes?
22
In his time, Ned had thought more than once about dying, but he had never imagined it might be like this: trapped far from home in a hole in a hill, waiting for a fire-breathing terror to trace his scent and melt his bones. Survival was a stubborn friend to all men, but as Ned crept along the wall of the cave, feeling his way deeper into the darkness, there seemed little chance it would side with him today.
Unless this place had hidden depths, he was certain now the darkeyes were gone. He tried not to dwell on that wretched thought. Oak Longarm had met with a horrifying end – and all that Ned had gained from it was the hollow discovery that there was no way of fighting the skalers. He cursed his stupidity and his pride. Targen the Old had been wise in his rulings. A life of peace was better than a death spent yearning for vengeance. Now Ned was primed to learn that lesson, in the most brutal way imaginable.
The skaler entered with a bad-tempered snort, extinguishing most of the light. Ned tensed as the beast shuffled forward, loading the air with its lumbering sweat. There was very little room for its giant frame, but how much room did the creature need when its fire was more flexible than any limb? A short, hot flame punctured the darkness. It licked around the cave walls and billowed into nothing. It easily missed Ned, who had pressed himself into a protective nook, but it did briefly light the way ahead. In that instant, Ned made a startling discovery. He’d been wrong about the darkeyes.
They were here.
Two of them, hanging from the roof of the cave. They reminded Ned of the strange black flappers that batted around the settlement at night, but these were larger, three times the height of a man. The skaler had seen them too. Its eyes were now radiating light into the gloom – enough to illuminate the darkeyes’ shape. Ned braced himself, expecting a bigger gush of flame. But the beast seemed more confused than threatened. It pushed right forward, its long snout passing Ned’s hiding place. From the back of its throat came a number of colourful rumbles and clicks, as though it might be trying to communicate. The darkeyes did not stir, but something was moving within the cave, a presence not even Ned was aware of till Waylen leapt onto the skaler’s neck, and crying vengeance loud enough to wake the dead, plunged an arrow deep into its eye.
It was a lucky strike. Waylen might have tried ten times to maim the skaler and on nine of those times he might have failed. But his arrowhead had found one of the spongy gaps between the surfaces that formed the jewel of the eye. Squealing, the creature threw back its head, slamming its foe against the ceiling of the cave. Waylen fell with a dead thud, right at Ned’s feet. Ned shook in silent revulsion. Oak’s end had at least been final and quick. Now here lay Waylen, panting for life, his body broken, his insides mashed.
The skaler was also in trouble. It had pulled right back, banging its head both ways against the wall. The up and down thrash of its colossal tail rocked the whole cave with every brutal thump. It was trying to get out but was stuck near the opening, impeded by a rock its rage had brought down.
And still the darkeyes hadn’t moved.
Ned’s mind boiled with choices. If he ran while the beast was ailing, he might squeeze past it and escape to the whinneys. But where was the honour in running? Two men were dead (or near enough; Waylen’s breathing was reduced to a thread). Their spirits would haunt him for ever if he did not try to win this fight. But whatever he did must be quick and decisive. The skaler had his scent. How long before it came for him again, or more of its kind rallied to its calls?
He risked a look. The beast had ceased to thrash and was in some kind of giddy fall. It was sure to be even more dangerous wounded, but there was no better time to strike. Ned prayed to the Fathers to show him how. They answered with a glint of light. Waylen’s knife. It had found a small squint of daylight and bounced it back to Ned’s grateful eye. He dropped down and snatched the blade up. It was heavy in his hand and wet with blood. A farming tool with a long curved edge. Waylen had come for a fight, all right. For friends, now dead, Ned told himself. He clasped the hilt firmly and stepped out of hiding.
The skaler detected the move right away. It gurgled once, then opened its jaws and filled the cave with a roar that strained every seam of rock.
Ned clamped his ears and was forced to fall back, physically sickened by the weight of air pushing through his body. An ocean of noise raged in his head. It was all he could do to stay level and awake. Panting hard, he spat out some vomit and cut two pieces from the arm of his robe to fold up small and plug into his ears. He fastened one in, surprised he was still alive to do this. Why had the skaler used voice, not fire? Could it be it wanted the darkeyes intact? Why, when the two were mortal enemies? Ned looked at them again. Even now, they were static. Were they dead, he wondered, or locked in a frozen sleep like the animals that wintered when the deep snows came? A spike of frustration rose in him then. And for no other reason than his lack of understanding, he found a loose rock and threw it at the place where the darkeyes were hanging.
There. Let the monsters wake.
Even with his ears half stoppered he expected to hear a faint clatter or thump. But the rock just seemed to disappear, as if the creatures had sucked it in. A moment passed, then something extraordinary happened. A wing cracked off the nearest body, turning to dust as it hit the cave floor. A spark of pale pink light appeared and lengthened into a vertical line. Ned’s heart thumped against his ribs. His rock had made a hole in what was nothing but a husk. But he’d woken something, of that he was certain. Something very different from the darkeye he’d arrowed in the settlement that time.
Run. There was nothing else for it. He plugged his other ear and jumped out of hiding. ‘Kaal!’ he screamed, the knife in both hands. He readied himself for a ruthless swing. One good blow before he died. One blow to avenge courageous friends and swell his terrified heart with pride.
But it did not come to that. The skaler was down already, a fire-filled tear rolling out of an eye that bled green around the shaft of Waylen’s arrow. It was the most sickening and yet the most wondrous sight Ned had ever seen. He glanced behind him. The light from the darkeye had billowed out into a ghostly spirit. What use was a blade against that? Quickly, Ned sliced a horn off the skaler’s head, then threw the knife behind him and ran. Using the dead beast’s head as a step, he tumbled along its curving back and out into the daylight.
The whinneys were calm and ready, tethered to a rain-soaked bush. Ned freed the mounts of Oak and Waylen, slapped them and sent them galloping wild. Then he mounted Wind and rode her as her name suggested, away from that eerie cave of death.
On the slope to the river where the three friends had camped, one of Wind’s feet found a hole in the ground and brought her down. Ned was thrown headlong into the water. When he turned he saw Wind lying helpless on the bank. Her leg was broken, useless.
‘NO!’ he screamed, and beat his fists into the water.
And the skies, already heavy with cloud, poured their rain on Ned’s fair head, as though his torment was not yet great enough, or his eyes not sufficiently wet with sorrow.
23
Killing a whinney so maimed by injury was a terrible burden, but it had to be done. One strike to Wind’s skull and she slept. The rest Ned did with the skaler horn. As the flow of warm air calmed in her nostrils, he blessed her spirit and asked the Fathers to tend her well, until it was his time to cross over into death and he could meet his faithful ride again.
He knelt and stroked her beautiful mane, singing her a song of the open field. And when it became too much for him to bear, he lifted the skaler horn again and thought to plunge it into his heart. How his despondent spirit yearned to feel the point of that worthless prize, but he could not force his hand to do it. If he died here, the tribe would die too. When the skalers discovered the body in the cave, a broken arrow lodged in its eye, their wrath was sure to come down on the Kaal.
Sickened, Ned threw the horn away. He wept for his friends and his beautiful whinney. His life was now worthless, but it must go on. He deserved whatever judgment awaited him, but it would be nothing compared to the murder and ruin the beasts would inflict if they flew against the men. Saving the tribe was all that mattered. It was the only shred of honour he had left.
So he picked himself up and began to run, moving at a pace he thought he could sustain. He ran and ran, through twilight and darkness, finally reaching the outskirts of the settlement just before dawn. Exhausted, he dropped to a shallow in the river and cupped his hands in the cold, clear water, drawing it up to his mouth and face. No skalers. No burning shelters. Still time for the Kaal to escape. He drank again, re-wetting his face, stretching the lids of his weary eyes as if he might wash away the horrors they had witnessed. Mell, he whispered to his weary reflection, I love you, forgive me if they judge me harshly. On that prayer he made ready to stand, but heard a twig break and held his position. In the half-light he saw the figure of a boy, dipping a vessel into the river.
‘Ren?’ Ned croaked.
The boy jumped. The vessel clanged against a rock.
‘Ren Whitehair?’ Ned said, wiping his mouth.
‘F-father?’ came the reply.
Ned was at him in a matter of strides. He gripped the boy powerfully by the shoulders, squeezing to be sure it was flesh he held and not some lurking spirit. ‘Where you bin?’ he panted, a rough, bewildered snarl in his voice. He moved his hands to clamp Ren’s face.
Ren said, ‘Pa, you’re hurtin’.’
But Ned held fast, walking Ren backwards as he spoke. ‘I bin looking for you, boy, these two days past. Looking. Over the line. For you. Oak and Waylen, they rode out with me. And now they are dead men. Wind gone too. All a’cause of you, boy. All a’cause of you.’ He pushed Ren over, onto his back. And from a place within the foliage that grew beside the river came a sound that would haunt Ned the rest of his days and steal any sleep still due to him.
Graaarrrk!
He turned swiftly, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. ‘Sweet mercy, what was that?’
Ren rolled to the place where he’d set Pupp down. He clasped the dragon to him, folding its wings. ‘Hold yer anger, Pa. Don’t fall mad on me. Swear.’
‘Heart’s fire, boy, what have you found?’
Ren stood up with Pupp in his arms. ‘It’s young. Ain’t no worry to no one.’ Slowly, he raised Pupp into the light.
Ned backed away, the juice of his insides rising.
‘It were gonna die,’ said Ren. ‘I was there, watchin’, when the mountain waked. I see’d its mother killed by rocks. I ran with it a’cause—’
‘Fool,’ Ned said, hearing Ren’s words but not heeding them. ‘Foolish, foolish, foolish boy.’ He was laughing and weeping all in one. ‘Now we have both brought fire upon the tribe. Now we are dead in more ways than you could dream. Why, boy? What devil made you walk among the beasts?’
‘I would save them
from the darkeyes,’ Ren said boldly.
Ned beat his hands flat to his head. ‘There are no darkeyes, boy. If you had seen…’ But what had he seen? What exactly had he freed in the cave? The threat of fire from the skalers was one thing. What now if the tribe was haunted by spirits released from the shell of a demon? ‘We must kill it,’ he muttered, meaning the pupp. ‘Hold it in water. Drown its fire.’
‘No,’ said Ren, guarding Pupp’s head.
‘And afterward bury it,’ Ned chattered to himself. ‘Aye, bury it. Seal it deep in the ground so the beasts will have no scent of it.’
‘Father, come no closer,’ Ren warned. He stepped back, raising the darkeye horn, struggling to keep the little one quiet.
‘What’s this?’ said Ned, the lines around his eyes making plain his bewilderment. He matched steps with Ren as the boy stepped back. ‘Would you seek to wound me now?’
Ren jabbed the horn. ‘When I hold this, I have the skalers’ temper. I can make fire in my hand, like them.’
Ned allowed himself a moment of mirth. ‘Boy, I have seen a man vanish in flames. There is nought that you or this fiend you coddle could do to harm me worse.’
‘I can,’ said Ren, his hand shaking. He could feel Grystina rising again. It was only the thought that this was his father standing before him that was keeping the dragon inside him tethered. ‘I am bound to the mother by an oath, deep hidden.’
‘Oath?’ said Ned. ‘You look harsh at your father yet swear a bond to skalers?’
On this tender balance of words, Pine Onetooth interrupted them.
‘There!’ she called from among the trees.
And as Ren chanced to look, his father burst forward and gripped the arm that held the horn. It went spinning out of Ren’s grasp. They wrestled a moment, with Pupp between them. Squealing fearfully, the dragon wiggled and thrust out a wing, slicing Ned’s throat just below the ear.