The darknot, p.34
The Darknot, page 34
part #3 of Nethergrim Series
“How could you say that to Katherine?” Tom stopped short of grabbing Edmund by the shoulder, but he still raised his voice louder than usual. “How could you tell her to just march back up onto the walls? Her father only just died!”
“I’m saying it because it must be done!” Edmund took another bearing with his disk, then strode away, shouldering through a group of folk from Moorvale and Longsettle without returning their hails. “Those creatures outside with Seb must be defended, and after that, the whole city will need to be defended. There will be time for funerals later!”
A bellow that resounded from over the city walls doubled and redoubled through the alleys, freezing everyone around in their tracks. Tom shot a look northward, up at the walls. He spied the makeshift levy of men who had replaced the city watch all staring outward, as though something beyond the walls had drawn their full attention. Among them stood Wulfric, his azure surcoat rippling in the wind. Katherine appeared from the staircase below. It was too great a distance for Tom to read her face, but she moved with purpose—moments later, the men of Moorvale had drawn a volley and fired at something Tom could not see.
“If any one of those creatures dies, the Nethergrim reclaims the world.” Edmund rushed south, then west, then stopped. “We need them all, all alive, or we are lost—and everything John ever did, everything he ever worked to save will be gone, too. Is that reason enough to stop crying and act?”
Tom forced his sorrow down. “What do you need?”
Edmund looked down at the disk, then around him. “I need older streets, the oldest in the city.”
“This way, then.”
Tom led Edmund down toward the river, toward Tumble Bridge, the docks, the stink of fish and refuse. Even in the worst of their panic, the incoming refugees from Elverain and Moorvale had avoided the place, so rather oddly, it was the only part of the city that looked more or less as it had when Tom had first seen it. The only differences were the lack of folk on the streets, along with new boards hammered across the windows of the hovels, as though that might provide some defense against what was coming.
“Yes.” Edmund stared at the disk. “Yes, this is more like it. You might not believe this, but these streets were once the grandest in the city, many centuries ago.”
Tom glanced behind him, then around. “Edmund, I think we’re being followed.” He was nearly sure he could see shadows flitting between the alleys alongside, keeping pace with him. “We should have brought more folk with us.” Jumble let out a growl, his hackles up.
“Too late—can’t go back.” Edmund seemed to have gained a much better idea of where he was going. He steered Tom right, then left, then left again, veering down alleys so narrow that the broken-down and leaning houses above seemed nearly to meet. Even there, down in what felt like the city’s rotting bowels, the light—the Nethergrim’s light—shone hard and empty, casting a second shadow that Tom knew he was not seeing with his eyes. The sun, the real sun, the sun Tom had known all his life, seemed to be shrinking in the sky as it fell toward the west. From the distant city walls rose the sound of many men’s voices raised as one—a cheer? A cry of terror? Tom could not tell.
“Here, Tom. Over here.” Edmund led Tom into what once would have been a square. The hovels within were decayed to the point of falling onto one another. Even in the hard cold of Yule, they stank. It seemed almost as though Tom had to wade, at the end, through an impossible tangle of junk and refuse, but then Edmund stopped and kicked frozen mud from a simple flat stone set in the earth.
“This is it. The center of the glyph, the very center of the old city.” He placed the disk atop the stone. They were just the same size, and though years of weathering had erased almost everything on the stone, what remained looked like it was made to fit the disk. “Grab Jumble. Stand back.”
Tom took hold of Jumble and pulled him away behind a dung heap. “What’s about to happen?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Edmund went still, as he often did just before he started a spell. Tom wanted to say something, to tell Edmund that magic would not work inside the city; but before he could do so, the shadowed shuffling nearby resolved into a face—and then a smell which replused him more than all the city garbage in the world could ever do.
“Well, that was a merry little chase.” Gwarin the slaver stepped from the cover of the nearest hovel, dagger in hand. “Been told to look for your friend here, give him a nice welcome when he reached the city.”
Tom looked upon the slaver. The light of two suns, one true, one false, fell on him—and Tom knew.
“You’ve been causing me some trouble.” The oil in the slaver’s beard no longer held it in as neat a point. “Cost me years, taking my goods away.”
“They’re not goods,” said Tom. “They’re children.”
The slaver curled his lip into a smile. “I’ve lost my men, too, tracking John Marshal back and forth across the city. He dropped my best blades—but I got him good. He won’t get far.”
“You failed,” said Tom. “The king is safe with us again.”
Edmund knelt and placed his hand on the disk. If he knew that the slaver was there, he did not show it. His hands moved, fingers working rapidly along the disk.
“No matter.” The slaver advanced, sword in hand. “If I get this boy here, I’ve been promised enough gold to set me up like a lord. I’ll be a slave-monger no more—no, the folk who step and fetch for me will be my own servants.”
Tom came forth from the shadows, Jumble at his side. He drew his sword.
The slaver curled his lip. “Don’t try it, boy. You’ve got no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“Oh yes, I do,” said Tom. “Father.”
The slaver’s eyes went wide in surprise, suspicion, then recognition. He brought up his blade a little late, but he was too wily to be thrown off for long.
Tom wished he had let Katherine train him with the sword. He ducked and wove, slashing madly at the slaver to the rising chant of Edmund’s spell. He reached, he slashed—he overbalanced, tipping himself into the dung. He snaked this way and that, his sword out of reach, then felt the stamp of boot upon his leg. Jumble tried to stand over him and got kicked, yelping, aside.
“My son, eh?” The slaver leaned in, blade before him. “Afraid this will be a short reunion.”
The blade raised—then it turned, driving in toward the slaver’s own chest. It was only after it had been driven home, after the slaver had stared past Tom in surprise before pitching over, that Tom understood that Edmund had been chanting out another spell.
“No time.” Edmund picked up Tom from the ground and pulled him back from his twitching, dying father. “No time to think. No time for anything. Run. Run back to the gates. The five creatures with Seb must be allowed back in. Do you understand?”
Tom seized Jumble, checked him over for injuries, then looked at Edmund. “How did you save me? Magic can’t happen here.”
A rumbling sounded from deep beneath the earth—then another and another. The refuse-littered ground bulged, twisted and burst. Before Tom’s eyes, a cube of mortared stone rose to the surface. Its walls crumbled, leaving only a roof supported by four columns at the corners—and revealing the chariot within, along with the gang of frightened children blinking in the sudden light.
Sibby stumbled forward, then recoiled from the sight of Gwarin, the slaver. “He’s dead.” She clutched the littlest boy. “He’s dead!”
The littlest boy ripped from Sibby’s arms. He came forward and aimed a kick at the slaver’s body.
“Tom!” Edmund grabbed him. “You’ve got to go now! Tell Katherine she has to get the five creatures inside. I will stay and guard the chariot.”
Tom stared at the stone structure. “How did this happen?”
“The spell is broken,” said Edmund. “Magic is possible here now. The creatures can come in, come here to the harness. Tom, hurry—now! If I can make magic in the city, so can Vithric.”
That was all Tom needed. He turned to bolt, leaving Edmund and Sibby to gather the children. He had been told, in his life, that he was a good sprinter—in fact, Katherine had once told him that she had never seen anyone who could match him. To that raw talent, he could now add his knowledge of the streets, for as much as the place gave him shivers, its winding form was less of a mystery than it once had been. He had call to draw on both speed and wit, for he very nearly ran smack into Lord Wolland, Lord Balamar and the other nobles of his party, moving in armor in a determined-looking gang toward the north gate. He outdistanced them with ease, losing them in a crowd of people who fell back from them in sullen anger, looking ready to attack them if they could only think of how. He found his way back to the wide run of Market Street, flew past the guildhall and started shouting long before he reached the foot of the gatehouse.
“The gates! Open the gates!” He found space in each heaving breath for the shout of just a few words. “Katherine, Tristan, it’s Tom! Open the gates! Let Seb and the creatures in!”
Katherine saw him from above. She believed him—she shouted the order. No one seemed willing to gainsay her; by the time Tom had reached the heavy wooden gates, they had already swung wide to let her out on Indigo, followed by Wulfric, Harry and a host of desperately charging men. Tom stopped at the doors, heaving for breath.
“Who is that?” Lord Tristan held his heavy hands to the rings. “Tom? Stand with me, I need a pair of eyes.”
Tom felt at his side—he had left his sword back by the chariot. He peered out at the land just beyond the walls. The sight turned his legs to jelly. All the old stories of the fury of the Nethergrim in days long past had to him just been stories, things in which he had believed without understanding. He came to understanding then, came to know what Edmund had meant when he said that all the world hung in the balance. Everyone there, every man on the walls from noble knight to village bowman—they all saw, they all knew.
“Be ready!” Tom shouted upward at the gatehouse. “Mama, it’s Tom! Be ready to drop the gates again!”
The wizard called Seb rode upon the horse of Metal, arms out wide, a rippling wave of earth throwing the tide of bolgugs back behind him. Indigo bucked and kicked, Katherine wove and slashed—then Tom lost sight of her amidst the unearthly fray.
“Here they come!” Tom reached for Tristan’s shoulder, pulling him aside from the charging hurtle of the dog of Fire. The folk within the city who had come to stare in horrified fascination scattered this way and that at the sight of it, many of them crying out that all was lost, that the enemy was within the walls and doom had come. Next through came the foaming bear of Water, then a sweep of wind announced the great falcon of Air. Seb and Katherine charged through, side by side, Harry gripping Katherine’s waist and crouched on Indigo’s rump behind her. Last of all came the great beast of Life, her every step a crack of thunder.
Theldry needed no signal. The portcullis came down behind the last of the beasts—then shuddered at the impact of a horde of bolgugs. Murder holes opened in the gatehouse, and the city men dropped flaming oil on the creatures of the Nethergrim, burning them squealing to cinders. Lord Tristan heaved and shut the doors, then drew the bar across it.
“My son.” Lord Wolland approached from the midst of the city, striding ahead of Lord Balamar and the other nobles. “Where is Wulfric? Where is my son?”
“He fell in battle.” Katherine helped Harry dismount. “I am sorry. His valor may have saved us all.”
But, no—no. Too late. Tom felt hot fluid on him, rushing down across his back. He turned in shock, hearing then the rumbling, hopeless groan. The beast of Life had been pierced in her chest, deep enough that her heartblood was coming out in torrents. She swayed—everyone scattered—she made a desperate, crawling movement, as though she meant to go deeper into the city, maybe to the chariot. Then she fell with a boom that sounded like the end of everything.
Katherine fell to her knees. “We failed.” She put her face in her hands. “Oh, Papa. We failed.”
Tom strode forward. “Give me your sword.” He held out his hand to Katherine. “Give me your sword!”
Katherine looked up at him, shaking and hopeless. She let her sword slip from her hand. Tom took it up.
He passed by the huge, staring eye of the great beast of Life. He touched a hand to the heavy fur. “If you can still feel pain, I am sorry.” He found the place and plunged in the blade.
Chapter 37
Days of war are not as are days of peace. In days of peace, the shock of a loved one’s death might throw someone down for weeks, might run a family to tears night after night, might throw a pall of hopeless gray over days of plowing, of harrowing and sowing, of the carding of wool and the bringing forth of lambs. In days of war each body topples on another, and all that those who have yet to fall can think is how to live to see another dawn. In time, perhaps, there might be tears, there might be time to sit in the garden and wonder, to ache and to miss. There might be time to see the world without the dead, to see it going past and wonder whether this was how everyone gradually steps out of the stream of life, tied ever more to what was and is no longer. In war, though, at the very test of things, there is no time at all.
“She will live?” Katherine stepped forth from one of the towers that flanked the gates, then over the mound of boards and stones piled up as a barricade. The stars had twisted and fallen into unfamiliar shapes. The wind whipped screaming through the streets. She felt the bite of cold, but at the same time did not feel it.
“It’s a he.” Tom stood with the infant beast of Life, the one he had cut forth from its dead mother’s womb, scraping frozen bits of birth fluid from its fluffy coat. Three times had the creatures of the Nethergrim hurled themselves against the walls of Rushmeet, walls no longer stiffened by the spell that had once kept them out. Three times had they been thrown back, but each time at a greater cost and by a narrower margin. There had been precious few chances to arrange the dead: Horsa Blackcalf, whose fiddle would never sing again; Gilbert Wainwright, leaving behind his wife and infant son; little Harbert from Roughy, who had survived being dragged to the lair of the Nethergrim that autumn only to be killed today, a few months later, carrying water to the men along the walls. The Duke of Westry had proven himself better than Tristan’s words, dying in an assault to retake the northwestern tower from a storm of fleshy, sticky, wall-climbing creatures for which Katherine had no name. No one cried for the brave dead laid out in rows at the foot of the walls. With such cold, there was no fear that they would rot before a moment could be found to bury them. Katherine’s father had been moved to lie among them, waiting for the chance to be carried to his grave, should there be anyone left to wield the shovel.
Katherine felt at the bruise on her side where a bolgug’s spear would have killed her had she not been wearing the armor she had found. She took Tom’s offered waterskin and drank without thinking of anything but thirst. For all the valor she had seen that day from knight and common man, she had no illusions—the city still stood because of Edmund and Seb. There was nothing arrow or sword could do to creatures made of stone or living flame. Without the two wizards to throw them back, such creatures would long before have undermined the walls and set the houses within ablaze. Edmund and Seb stood side by side next to the five creatures of the magical Signs, leaning on each other—one fair, one dark, but both of them somehow looking equally pale.
“Where is Vithric?” she said. “Everyone says that he’s the greatest wizard of this age. The binding spell on the city is broken. He is free to do what he pleases—if you two can do what I have seen today, then what can he do?”
“Anything he wants, more or less.” Edmund’s voice came out cracked and weak. “More than me and Seb put together, that’s for sure.”
“Perhaps he waits.” Seb sounded somewhat stronger, but he was full grown and fully trained. “Powerful as he is, he is yet a mortal man. There are many ways for him to get what he wants. He awaits the appearance of the best and safest.”
Edmund shuffled aside to admit Thulina Drake and Lord Tristan into their circle. “All Vithric has to do is kill one of the six creatures or destroy the chariot or kill me—early, that is—and he has won.”
“Edmund, must this be?” Katherine felt another squeeze in her insides. “Must it be you?”
“Who else?” Edmund shot sidelong looks left and right, though, in the torchlight Katherine could see no one but her friends and allies. “Vithric could easily be listening to us right now. There’s almost no limit to what he can do while Yuletide lasts.”
“Then what are we to do in return?” Katherine looked to Tristan, to Thulina, to all the living folk she had thought would always know what best to do next. “If Vithric might know what we are doing and can do almost anything to stop us, how can we possibly defeat him?”
Lord Tristan stepped forth to answer. “We must keep trying for as long as we can.” Though Katherine could have guessed his words before he spoke them, she still felt the better for hearing them said. “We are not yet beaten, thus we must continue in the attempt.”
“We cannot let those who died for us die in vain.” The boy king had stayed at Katherine’s side—as though he were in her charge, almost acting like her squire. He seemed to be speaking to no one else among their number but Edmund. “Nor those soon to die.”
Edmund looked about to the widening circle—no one even so much as blinked at the arrival of Lord Wolland among their number. “The sixth creature,” he said, “the creature of Earth, must still be found and retrieved at midnight, at the beginning of the sixth day. If that can be done, if the team can be assembled and harnessed, then tomorrow we might bring the sun back to life and some of us might then see it rise the morning after.”
