A Skin of a Dragon (The Guild of Gatekeepers Book 1)

by Frances Jones

  'George warned us Devere would have command of Cromwell’s men! Why ever did I let Eliza rest at the roadside?' I chastised myself.

  The sky had threatened rain all day and now it came howling down, soaking through my clothes to my skin and turning the ground beneath my feet to great soupy puddles of mud. I staggered onwards with my head bowed against the wind and driving rain, then stopped abruptly as the bang of a gunshot rent the air. I froze. I looked up to see a man with a rifle pointed towards me standing just a short distance away on the slope of the hill. From around the further slope, a band of half a dozen other men armed with guns, scythes and pitchforks appeared.

  ''Ere lads, I found me our sheep rustler!' the man called to his comrades.

  I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender and called out above the howl of the wind. 'Please, sir, I'm no sheep rustler. I'm looking for my friend....'

  'Gah! Save it for the magistrate,' the man replied gruffly as he strode forward and grabbed me by my collar, dragging me back towards the road where a cart waited. With every gun and blade aimed at me, I could do little more than cooperate as my captors jostled me into the cart then piled in after me.

  'Please, you're mistaken! I’m just a traveller passing through....' I protested as the cart rolled away.

  'Ye'll have yer say in the court house,' retorted the first man. His slit eyes blazed, and a vicious smile curled upon his lips as he pressed the barrel of his gun against my chest to silence me.

  I looked back at the hill sliding further and further into the distance as the cart rattled along. What little hope I had of finding Eliza was all but gone. Tears of frustration and despair welled in my eyes, and I drew my sleeve across my face as they mingled with the rain dripping down my face.

  The cart slowed as it approached a village made up of barely a dozen cottages and a tiny church. Before the last cottage in the village, the cart stopped, and rough hands hauled me out and dragged me down into the cellar.

  'Please!' I cried, as I was thrown down upon the dank floor. 'I'm no sheep rustler!’. The men made no reply but clapped a heavy shackle chained to the wall onto my wrist then slammed the door shut upon me. A heavy wooden bolt was pulled across on the outside, and their footsteps retreated.

  Chapter 35

  I sat in darkness, with nothing more than a slither of light showing through the crack in the door by which to see. Outside, the rain drummed down and trickled along a dug-out channel that ran past the cottage while a few hardy matrons passed to and fro, their faces moulded into permanent grimaces, as they went about their business. My thoughts turned to Eliza, and I sank into despair. It seemed impossible to believe I would ever find her now, and dark thoughts of what fate she may have met filled my mind.

  Hours passed as I waited anxiously for someone to come to me, but the rain seemed to have confined my captors to their homes. Afternoon was advancing to evening, and one by one lights began to appear in the windows of the cottages opposite.

  As the darkness outside deepened, I thought suddenly of my tinderbox. Mercifully, my captors hadn’t bothered to search me, satisfying themselves with confiscating my pack, and so the pistol and my knife and tinder box remained undisturbed, concealed by the bulk of my cloak.

  I stuffed my hands into my pockets and found to my relief the tinder box had escaped much of the drenching I had endured earlier. Striking a flame, I lit a strip of charcloth and held it aloft to examine the interior of the cellar. A few broken and rusted hooks and tool blades lay scattered upon the floor, along with a quantity of damp straw. By all appearances, the cellar was rarely used.

  In the corner of the floor, something white glimmered as the light from the flame glanced over it. I moved closer as far as the chain would allow then shrank back again in horror as I realised I looked upon a pile of bones. On top, a human skull had been placed, tendrils of long, grey hair still clinging to the crown. My stomach lurched with horror as the skull turned slowly towards me while the bones rose from the floor and reassembled themselves into the hideous form of a grinning skeleton. Muscles and sinews bound themselves to it until a thing resembling a flayed corpse, terrifying to behold, stood before me. The eyeless face looked this way and that as though searching for something it could not see.

  'I smell magic,' it said. The sound was like the scraping of tree branches against the glass of a window pane. 'I feel it like a throbbing heartbeat, I smell it upon the air. Who is it that stands before me and what power do you hold?’

  The sound of the voice sent a thrill of fear through me with every word it spoke, and my throat tightened. ‘I’m a prisoner here,’ I stammered.

  ‘Aah, the mistress of this house has gathered up your bones to conjure your restless spirit as she did to me,’ said the skeleton. ‘Were you a witch in life, as was I?’

  ‘I... I’m not dead,’ I whispered.

  ‘Not dead? Then you are no prisoner. I yearn to sink back into the grave, but I am bound to this place. Leave while you still have breath in your body.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I replied, terrified and bewildered. ‘The door is locked, and I am chained.’

  The corpse laughed a hideous cackle. ‘The dead care nothing for locks and chains. I will offer you a pact: answer my riddle, and I will free you, but mind! If you cannot answer, I will pass into your body to free myself of this prison.’

  My palms sweated, and my throat tightened with horror. I dared not decline, and in a far corner of my mind where hope hadn’t quite deserted me, I saw an opportunity for escape, however faint it might be. I swallowed hard and forced myself to speak. ‘How do I know you will honour your side of the pact if I answer correctly?’ I asked.

  The corpse cackled. ‘By the Sphinx of Thebes, you have my word. May my spirit be confined to the deepest pits of Hell if I am not true to my word.’

  ‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘Speak your riddle.’

  ‘Eternal yet the end of all things. Passes unseen but is known by all. Unites the pauper, prince and priest.’

  ‘Death,’ I replied without hesitating.

  Chapter 36

  Long afterwards, I marvelled at my sudden epiphany, though at that moment I felt nothing but sheer relief as the corpse shrieked in dismay and the cellar door blasted open with a gust that howled outside and shook the cottage to its very foundations. The shackle about my wrist sprung open and the bones clattered to the ground. Outside, night had fallen. There wasn’t a soul to be seen.

  My heart thudded, and a cold sweat broke across the back of my neck as I crept out into the night. My legs trembled, and I half expected to hear gun shots and the tramp of feet chasing after me, but there wasn’t a sound above the breeze rustling in the trees. With the last cottage behind me, I broke into a run. The sight of Eliza carried off on horseback and the sound of her screams filled my mind, urging me onwards mile after mile. As the moon slid round the sky, I kept running and staggered instead when I could run no longer. More than once I stumbled upon loose stones and pot holes and fell to the ground, but each time I pulled myself up. I could not rest even if I wanted to. The image of Eliza filled my vision as though burned into my eyelids each time I shut my eyes.

  Morning came and brought with it a fresh onslaught of rain that poured down in drenching sheets onto the bare hills and empty fields. My head throbbed but I stumbled on, though my legs could scarcely carry me, and my breath came only in shallow gasps. At last, with my legs buckling beneath me, I could go no further. I dragged myself into a dense clump of grass at the roadside and lay upon my back, my eyes to the ashen sky. With my last reserve of energy, I pulled my cloak over me before I sank into oblivion.

  When I woke, morning was spent, and behind the clinging fog that had descended, afternoon was wearing on. I jumped to my feet to find my cloak and clothes were soaked through. The road was deserted, but I was torn between keeping to it or taking to the surrounding countryside. I could be no more than five miles from the village, and my escape must have been discovered by now. I feared
pursuit, but the surrounding land was wooded and near-impossible to cross with speed. I had already lost precious hours, and it seemed likely I would hear anything approaching from ahead or behind long before it saw me while the fog held. I decided I would risk the road.

  I walked for a few miles without hearing any sound of pursuit or meeting another traveller, though I proceeded warily and paused often to listen for the clip of hooves or the rattle of cart wheels. By late afternoon, the fog had all but vanished and the rain had returned.

  As I approached a bend in the road, I stopped abruptly and darted into the trees at the roadside. A short distance ahead, a man and boy upon horseback appeared to be waiting for someone or something. They looked further up the road in the direction they had come and spoke together in low voices, too quiet for me to hear what they said.

  I hesitated. Instinctively, my thoughts turned to my captors and then to Eliza's assailants. I couldn't see the man’s and boy's faces clearly, but they didn't look familiar. It was possible they were nothing more than travellers. At the sound of an approaching cart, they straightened in their saddles and leaned forward to see past the trees that obscured their view. A moment later, a brightly painted wagon, led by a horse and driven by a man in a wide-brimmed hat, rounded a bend in the road. They were gypsies. The man and boy called out to the driver, and then more wagons appeared, some accompanied by men on horseback leading ponies beside them.

  I listened as the wagons halted and the man and boy greeted their kindred. The new arrivals spoke urgently in their own language and seemed anxious to move on. I wondered at that and thought at once of Eliza. Perhaps they knew something of her. Clinging to that thought, I stepped back onto the road and into the gypsies' view. At once, they stopped talking and eyed me suspiciously.

  'Pardon me, sirs,' I said, stopping a little distance from them. 'Have you passed a band of five men on horseback since yesterday noon? They had a girl with them- slight and fair-haired.'

  'My family passed them on the road yesterday evening,' replied the boy, gesturing to the new arrivals. 'They had a girl of that description with them. Do you know who they are?'

  I hesitated a moment, unsure how much to reveal. 'No,' I replied, 'but the girl is my companion. They kidnapped her from the roadside. I must find them.'

  'You cannot hope to catch them on foot,' said the boy, 'and you have little hope of rescuing your friend anyway. They are the Penberthys; the most fearsome family of bandits in Cornwall. They kidnap girls to keep as slaves or take as their wives. They will not free her even if you catch up with them.'

  'But I may be able to trade with them,' I said, my hopes rising upon learning that the men had nothing to do with Devere. 'Would you accept this pistol in exchange for that pony?' I held up the flintlock, with the barrel pointing towards me, and gestured to one of the ponies that had no rider.

  The boy immediately declined without consulting with his elders. 'We will not sell our horses to non-gypsies,' he replied.

  As he spoke, an old woman wrapped in a cloak, who had been watching me closely during the entire exchange, reached down to the boy from her seat beside one of the drivers. Her bright eyes twinkled as she spoke to him in their own language, and she nodded towards me. I shifted uncomfortably, wondering what was being said.

  ‘My great grandmother says there is magic about,’ said the boy at last when the old woman had finished speaking. ‘She says we must help you. Keep your gun. I know where the Penberthy hide-out is. I'll warrant that is where they are going. I will take you there if you wish. 'Tis not far, and my family will not be travelling further today.'

  I accepted his offer gratefully and climbed into the saddle behind him. The old woman said nothing more, but I felt her eyes upon me. As we set off at a gallop, I glanced behind to see if she was still watching me. Her expression was difficult to read; I couldn't be sure whether it was one of pity or fear, but something in her eyes made me shudder, like standing before my own grave. I shivered and looked away.

  'I am Tom,' I said to the boy, distracting myself with conversation.

  'Call me Smith,' said the boy.

  'Don't you have a Christian name?' I asked.

  The boy laughed. 'Yes, but we do not speak our names to strangers.'

  'Why?' I asked.

  'You could work a spell against me if you knew it,' the boy replied.

  I made no reply. Little did he know just what it was I carried in the pocket of my jerkin.

  The rain lashed down around us and sloshed around the horse's legs. I bowed my head against the wind and clung tight to the saddle, watching the rainwater flow in a torrent down the gully at the roadside. The land flashed by as we rode, though I paid it little attention and hoped only for the rain to stop.

  Raising my head against the ceaseless assault of the wind, I looked about and realised that the road was now climbing. Dusk had passed, and evening was drawing in. The boy halted and pointed ahead and away to the left. 'Those ruins are their hideout,' he said.

  I followed his gaze and saw the remains of what once may have been a hill fort but was now little more than three tumbled walls.

  'Beware,' said the boy. 'There will be many more of them, if not the entire clan. This is as far as I can take you. I hope you find your friend. Good luck.'

  I climbed down from the horse and thanked him many times then watched as he vanished into the shadows of the road. The darkness pressed closer, and I shivered as the night air chilled my already drenched skin. In the failing light, shadowy figures could be seen moving about on the hill against the darkening sky. Tongues of flame leapt up as a fire was lit, and peels of raucous laughter echoed around the hills.

  I pulled my hood low over my face and wrapped my cloak around myself tightly as I began the steep ascent. To a passerby I would have appeared as little more than a spectral patch of grey moving slowly up the hill.

  Chapter 37

  The ruined fort was barely a quarter of a mile from the road across grassland dotted with oaks and hazel thickets. Slowly, I crept towards the firelight. The rain had all but stopped, and the wind had eased. Overhead, a pale slice of moon glowed through strands of cloud, lighting a path towards the hill.

  As I drew closer, I could make out individual figures clustered around the fire and distinguish some of the voices. There appeared to be around ten people all told, both men and women. The horses stood within the walls cropping the grass, but they had been left untethered.

  As I reached the brow of the hill, I edged nearer to the walls where the stone had fallen away, leaving gaps to peep through. The five men on horseback and two others I had not seen before lounged around the fire or in one of the corners where a bit of roof had managed to cling on, and where hay and blankets were laid as a rude attempt at a bed. They sang and passed a bottle of rum amongst themselves, wiping their mouths on their sleeves when they had finished.

  The similarity in their appearance left little doubt that they were all from the same family, for whether by chance or design, they had acquired the most frightening appearance which was only enhanced by their unusually great height. Their eyes were as black as coal, and the hair on both their heads and faces was thick, wiry and unkempt, with evidently little attempt at grooming having been made. The overall impression was one of a group of wild men, made all the more terrifying by the arsenal of weapons they kept about them. The rifles they carried earlier were laid aside, but in their belts, each man carried a long knife. My simple pistol would be no match.

  My heart was in my mouth as I crept a little further round the wall to get a better view of the camp, with no cover but the general darkness around me. In the firelight, I could see Eliza bound hand and foot in another corner. Her face was pale and tear-stained, but her expression was one of grim defiance. She sat quietly, aloof to the howls of laughter and uncouth conversation of her captors. Beside her, two women were seated. They were almost as terrifying as the men, broad, grizzled and toothless and swigging rum from the bottle with as mu
ch vigour as their male relatives.

  'She's some fine-looking lass,' remarked the older of the two women. 'Let's hope she cooks as good as she looks.'

  'She's naught but skin and bones,' said the younger woman acidly.

  'Well she ain't your worry, Bess, so thee ought keep such opinions quietly,' retorted one of the younger men.

  'Zackley,' chimed in the older woman. 'Don't thee worry, Abel Penberthy, she'll make 'ee a fine wife.'

  I reeled in horror as I realised they were talking about Eliza.

  'Ay, as fine a wife as any runt could make,' retorted the younger woman sarcastically.

  In the blink of an eye, Abel's knife left his hand and came whistling through the air, striking the wall just inches from the younger woman's ear. Her face flushed and then turned white with rage. Grasping the rum bottle in her fist, she strode over to Abel and smashed it over his head as the entire clan erupted into a furious brawl. The din was enough to wake the dead, and for a moment Eliza was left alone, unwatched and, for the moment, forgotten about.

  'Eliza,' I whispered as loud as I dared.

  Eliza turned her head slightly, just enough to acknowledge my voice.

  'I'm by the gap in the wall. Come now.’

  With her hands and feet bound, Eliza shuffled as best she could towards the gap, keeping her eyes on the brawl that could subside at any point. She had just reached the point where the stonework fell away and was about to slip behind the wall when Abel glimpsed her and cried out.