by Karen MacRae
Amusement at the sailor’s slow death by suffocation or dehydration kept spirits up until the woman stopped at a fork in the path where Language reported the right path took them through the bog whereas the left took them around it. “She says the only way to get to Mistress Petrie’s quickly is to take the right fork, but it’s very dangerous.”
“How long to go around?” asked Mystrim.
“If no one slows us down, it’s an hour across the bog. It’s two and a half hours around.”
“We can’t afford the time,” Elona said. “We know they’re here on the island, Mystrim. They may already be on their way to Petrie’s, assuming they haven’t already been.”
Mystrim nodded. “We take the right fork,” he told Language.
“She says we have to go in single file and she has to show us what not to stand on. She doesn’t want anyone blaming her or her daughter for one of us drowning.”
“Drowning?” Pyteor asked weakly.
Elona ignored him and called the men forward. Language translated the different instructions as the woman pointed out hazards. They were not to step on water unless they could see grey under it. Dark green was a death sentence as were tall reeds. Short reeds were best avoided, but a better choice than dark green and tall reeds as the mat of roots under them was thicker and might hold their weight although it might not. Clumps of pale green were safe. Generally. Ordinary grass was normally all right, but beware dark, wet patches. Rocky sections were their only friend. They were solid. Mostly.
“You have got to be kidding,” complained Pyteor.
“Just step where the person in front has,” Elona barked, determined to take the quickest route to their destination. She glared at the Concealer. He was beginning to be more of a hindrance than an asset. If he didn’t prove himself soon, she’d take a great deal of pleasure slitting the man’s throat whether or not Nystrieth approved. She remembered her master’s warning never to play games again, but she reckoned she could spin a tale and persuade Mystrim to back her up. “Be careful, Concealer. One of these negative comments is going to press me too hard and I’ll take out your tongue.”
Pyteor closed his mouth and gulped.
“Or maybe your heart. One’s as easy as the other.”
“I’m sorry, Reader. I’ll try harder,” Pyteor said quietly, his eyes down in what he hoped Elona would see as respect. Inwardly, he was thinking how easy it would be to leave the woman exposed next time he was supposed to hide them all. Nystrieth would know though, he realised sadly. He couldn’t hide anything from the Emperor and God.
The early stage of the bog was reasonably straightforward and everyone relaxed, reckoning the woman was playing with them. Soon, however, the rocky path narrowed and stuttered, becoming more green and saturated than grey. Nijel was the first to step where he shouldn’t. His feet went straight through a thin matting of grass and roots and he found himself propped up only by his elbows.
“Help!” he cried.
Everyone stopped dead then fell about laughing at the ridiculous sight. Pyteor took hold of the back of the Healer’s jacket and pulled him out backwards, making sure to keep his own feet on rocky ground.
“It was pale green and Mystrim’s horse stepped right on it!” Nijel complained, embarrassed at the thought of the others thinking he hadn’t understood the warnings. “She lied!”
Language spoke briefly with the crofter. “She says she told us pale green is only generally safe.”
“She didn’t lie, Healer. I would see it,” added the Reader.
Nijel was itching to stab the crofter, his aura flaming bright scarlet, but Elona frowned him down. “Get yourself under control, Healer. We need her. For now.”
“This had better be worth it,” grumbled the teenager. Even Elona silently agreed.
CHAPTER 25
T he group were soaking, filthy and exhausted by the time they’d got back onto mostly solid ground. They’d all come a cropper at one stage or other and they’d had to use the horses as ferries to get the non-swimmers through a particularly deep pool of water, but they’d only lost one sailor. He’d disappeared without so much as a whimper. The mat of short reed roots had reformed over his head leaving only bubbles to give away where he’d gone down. Horrified looks and a muttering of “Light save us” were his only epitaphs.
They caught sight of a fairly substantial farmhouse and outbuildings a little under two hours after Elona had made her threat against the child. The place was obviously more successful than the cottages they’d seen at a distance. Money had been spent slabbing the yard with acres of stone and planting a garden of flowers to climb the house’s pristine, whitewashed walls. Smoke billowed from one of two chimneys. Elona allowed herself to hope this owner had decent peristone beads.
“How many live there?” the Reader asked Language.
“She says usually six. The owner, her son and daughter-in-law plus three farmhands. The grandchildren have all left home.”
“Who’ll be in the house?”
“Only the widow and maybe the daughter-in-law. The rest will be out working the fields and tending the animals.”
“Tell our guide to pretend we’re family visiting from the mainland and we stupidly got lost in the bog,” Elona told the sailor. “Make sure you impress upon her just how bad it’ll be for her and her daughter if she doesn’t put on a convincing act or if she tries to warn anyone. Pyteor, I want you, Nijel and the two behind you hidden from view. Stay a little back. Get involved only if things go sour. I want into that farmhouse without any delay.”
The first building they came across turned out to be the stables. Elona ordered a detour and they’d all soon selected one of the strange-looking beasts they seemed to breed on Shae. Pyteor redid his Concealment and Language walked the kidnapped crofter arm in arm up to the big black door, Elona and Mystrim waiting nearby with smiles plastered on their faces as they prepared to act their way into the house. The old woman who came to the door took one look at them and closed it in their faces.
Elona sighed. “Mystrim, toss me the brat and go play with its mother. Loudly. Language, give him five minutes then tell the old battle-axe to open up or the child’s next.”
Language waited patiently as Mystrim smacked the woman around the head and punched her in the belly before throwing her to the ground. He pinned her there and ripped open her bodice. He took his time painfully kneading the sobbing woman’s breasts then set about her face again. The translator shouted at the house, but there was no sign of life.
Mystrim shivered with excitement as he felt the woman’s nose break and she screamed for mercy, wriggling frantically beneath him to try to get away. He held her hands above her head and bent to kiss her, his weight painfully pressing her against the stone ground. “The girl’s next, mama dear, unless you kiss me back next time,” he whispered in her ear before biting it hard enough to draw blood. He tasted hot iron in his mouth and wanted more. He was moments away from dragging his dagger over the woman’s skin when the old woman finally opened the door, a knife in each hand and a fierce look on her face.
“Hold, Mystrim. Hold!” Elona shouted. The weather mage looked over with a glazed expression. “The anticipation will make it all the more worthwhile,” she promised.
“The current tirade is a load of insults,” Language explained. “She’s game though, eh? Must be eighty if she’s a day. Oh, hang on, she says we’re wasting our time, she gave her beads to the King’s men. She has none left and, even if she did, she’d rather die than give them to anyone who would treat a good woman in such a way.”
“When did this happen, Language?” Elona asked calmly although her blood was boiling at the old woman’s news.
“She says yesterday.”
“Tell her to stop stalling. I want complete answers or I set the man loose again on her neighbour. When and who?”
“A fine-looking redhead and four others about three hours before sunset.”
“Braxton,” snarled Elona.
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br /> Mystrim wasn’t paying a great deal of attention. He stroked and twisted the woman’s flesh as he waited impatiently for an appropriate time to begin again proper. He noticed the smoke coming from the chimney was a strange red colour, but his mind was preoccupied so he didn’t realise its significance. Elona saw Mystrim’s eyes drawn to the sky and followed his gaze.
“What’s with the smoke?” she asked suspiciously.
The old woman refused to answer.
“Damn it, it’s some sort of warning,” cursed Elona. “Mystrim, back to work. Bloodily. Language, find out exactly where they went next. Tell her the man will stop if she tells us the truth. The rest of you, eyes peeled, weapons ready.”
“They headed for the hills. There’s a trail over there.”
“Where’s it lead?”
“All over the island.”
Elona saw the dissembling in the woman’s aura and drew her dagger. Apparently beating and abusing her neighbour was an insufficient threat. She took the brat’s hair in her hand and pulled back its head to expose its throat then gently ran the blade’s edge across the velvety white skin leaving a thin trail of blood. “Precisely where,” she growled over the child’s screams, “or I do it again properly.”
“The Craft Hall, she says. On the crest of the hills.”
Before the Reader could insist on directions, a stone pierced Language’s temple and he fell to the ground, blood pouring from the wound. The old woman was on him with her knives before he had the chance to get up. The first went directly into the man’s heart; the second sliced straight across his throat. The widow stood over the sailor’s dead body and screamed her defiance at the enemy just as Elona felt something crack a couple of her ribs with a thud. At the same time, Mystrim screamed in shock and pain as what felt like a mallet smashed his cheekbone.
“Where’s it coming from?” Elona shouted behind her.
“Can’t see anything!” Pyteor called back.
“Two directions at least,” shouted Nijel, ducking down over his horse’s neck. Flying stones didn’t much care if you were invisible.
When a second stone slammed into her back, Elona threw the child at the old woman and fiercely kicked her horse’s flanks. Mystrim stuffed his bloody blade back in his belt as he scuttled back to his own mount. The six made a run for the hills, bent low over their horses’ backs, their arms protecting their heads.
They slowed when they were out of range. “Why are we running?” asked Mystrim, angry at his aching face, but even more furious at having to abandon the first fun he’d had in more than a week.
“We don’t have time for a siege and we have what we need,” Elona replied.
Mystrim sulked. Maybe she had what she needed, but he sure as light didn’t. “Maybe she lied?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just question my gift, weather mage,” Elona said with a stare that suggested he’d be dead if he pushed his luck. “They’ll have stopped for the night so we’re about four hours behind. We stop for nothing; do you hear me?”
The weather mage reluctantly emptied his mind of soft, bleeding flesh and nodded his agreement. Work had to come before pleasure.
Elona’s mind was firmly on their prey. “We need to slow them down. Can you make this drizzle worse ahead of us? Reduce their visibility as much as possible?”
“If I increase the pressure in the…”
“I don’t need a lecture, weather mage, just do it.”
“I was only going to explain that making the rain harder and keeping it ahead of us will wear me out in a few hours.”
“And?”
“What if we come across them? I won’t be any good in a fight.”
Elona sneered. “When are you ever?” She felt the air around her freeze and forced a smile on her face. “Sorry, Mystrim. I’m a little irritable about Braxton beating us to the beads. We mustn’t wear you out unnecessarily. Do whatever you think best.”
Pyteor gaped at the Reader’s completely uncharacteristic behaviour. He wished with all his heart he had a gift that could make her grovel. He looked at Mystrim with new eyes, but the weather mage was oblivious. He knew Elona’s apology was fake but loved the fact he’d scared her into making it. It gave him a lovely warm feeling as he sent his gift into the atmosphere.
Sixteen miles up the trail, the clouds overhead darkened and torrential rain began to bounce off the rocks.
“Is this normal?” Seleste shouted to Euan over the racket.
“Aye, we get weather like this sometimes; the clouds get stuck on the hills. There’s a decent wind so it should pass soon, though. There’s a cave ahead we can shelter in, if you like.”
“It might be Mystrim so there’s no point stopping,” yelled Finn. “We keep on.”
The horses were unhappy but plodded on through the murk. The lack of light had slowed them down to a little over half pace, but their almost cloven hooves made light work of the gigantic boulders the hills seemed to be made of even with the rivulets of water that washed over them.
Euan called them to a halt after two miserable miles. “We need to turn,” he shouted, pointing to what looked like one of many small rockfalls on the left side of the trail. “The path ahead collapsed a few years ago. There’s no way across. You’ll need to climb over. I’ll wait and send the horses over after you.”
Finn went first. He made short work of the twenty-five-foot slope despite the rain, finding plenty of hand holds whenever the gradient became too steep for all fours. Malik and then Seleste went next. Anna tried to follow in their footsteps, but some of the holds were too far for her to reach and her left arm was complaining each time it had to take some of her weight. Euan looked on anxiously as his new partner struggled on the rocks. He started up the slope when she called out in pain but stopped when he realised he couldn’t let go of the horses’ reins.
“I can’t leave the horses,” he shouted over the downpour. “They’ll dash for cover.”
Finn was over the side and down the slope to Anna in seconds. “Follow me, all right?”
“I can’t take much weight on my left arm. I hurt it on the ship.”
Finn nodded, stuffing his left hand in his pocket. He gave Anna a reassuring smile. “Then we do it without,” he said matter-of-factly. Anna and the spy climbed side by side, Finn going ahead and back down regularly to find holds suitable for her tiny, one-armed frame. He gave her a huge hug when she finally made it to the small plateau at the top. “Well done, King’s Shaper. We forget just how little you are at times. Such a big gift in such a wee package.”
Anna smiled her thanks. “I’m sorry I’m a wimp. Even Captain Laracy couldn’t get more muscle on me.”
“What’s this about your arm?” Seleste asked.
“I broke it when I went on deck during the storm. I Healed it blind and it set badly. I haven’t really had a chance to fix it properly. I’ll need someone to break it for me then hold it in the right position while I Heal it.”
“You what?” asked Malik, shocked.
“It’s the only way.”
“Can you wait?” asked Finn.
Anna nodded. “It’s fine unless I strain it.”
“Cherry, Seleste, help Anna down the other side. It’s an easier climb, Anna. You should be fine. I’ll wait for you all to be out of the way and let Euan know to send the horses.”
Anna wondered if she should tell Finn that the strange connection between Euan and her meant they almost didn’t have to speak to know the other’s mind. She could tell exactly what Euan was thinking right now. She smiled. He wanted to give her a cuddle.
The horses made short work of the climb, leaping up the rockfall just like big goats and, a few minutes later, the team had regrouped on the other side of the rockfall. A narrow passageway led ahead. It was edged on either side by towering, vertical cliff faces and offered zero cover from the rain or from anything else that might be dropped from above.
“Everyone finding this as uncomfortable as me?” asked Sel
este.
“Definitely,” said Malik, also looking up. “We’re dead if anyone knows we’re in here.”
“Impossible, don’t worry,” Euan reassured them. “It’s a two day climb to get up there and that’s only if you’re an expert, you’re properly equipped, and you don’t carry stupid things to weigh you down like crossbows or bows and arrows.”
“I can’t imagine Mystrim will find this easily. The entrance looked just like the rest of the trail,” said Malik.
No one had noticed Finn’s handkerchief drop to the ground when he pulled his left hand out of his pocket to hug Anna. It blew over the edge and settled between two rocks. The rain flattened it in seconds.
CHAPTER 26
F inn looked at the crossroads and shook his head. “We’re not turning right?” he asked Euan.
“The first turn on the left takes you down to Deas, but it also doubles back under this trail and up the hill if you know the turn. There’s a narrow ledge to get around where we re-join the first trail, but it’s still the quickest option. A lot of the trails near the top can lead a stranger in the wrong direction, almost like they were made that way, but o’papa swears they’re natural. I’m sure it’s possible to change trails with Stone Craft, though. We’ve just forgotten how.”
The five friends turned their horses down what looked more like a river than a path, Euan in the lead. The rainwater rushed past the horses’ knees. Anna could sense Euan’s unease. She nudged her horse closer to his and leant over to him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Can you swim with that bad arm?”
“It’s probably the one physical thing I’m good at. Mama and I used to go to Smithy Bay every summer.” She laughed. “I think I could float in a puddle.”
Euan grinned. “I’m the opposite. Mama had us all in the water within weeks of birth, but I spent most of the first nine years at the bottom of the lake. Papa was forever having to fish me out. Took me a long time to get the hang of staying on top of the water.”
