It never will be you, Mother, said Lord Ursus. His voice was great and terrible in the darkness. She always will leave you behind. There is no hope for you. There is no light. His voice, bloodstained and cruel, became seductive. Will you believe me at last, Mother? Do you see that I have been right all along? Our Lady’s servants have fine words, but nothing more.
The boy Ambrosius freed me from the trap, said Boulderbash uncertainly. He was kind to me.
He is dead, said Lord Ursus. His daughter does not measure up to him, and she never will. You are lost in darkness forever. Embrace it, Mother. Oh, Mother, I have missed your company for so long.
You tortured me, said Boulderbash—and then she broke. The golden cub has tortured me worse. You gave me hope, Clovermead, and you took it away. Son, I will join you. She roared with a terrible anger. I will be revenged on you, little cub. You have abandoned me for the last time. Her growl filled the mines, and it was more terrible than anything Clovermead had ever heard. Even Ursus’ growl seemed small compared to it.
No, said Clovermead. Don’t turn on Our Lady because of me. Please, don’t.
Welcome, Mother, Lord Ursus roared with delight. I will have Snuff take off your eye-patches. Now you can see in my service.
I have missed you, too, Son, said Boulderbash. She growled with a terrible hunger. Run, changeling. I am coming for you.
I’m sorry, said Clovermead, but Boulderbash only laughed with scorn. And howled. Then Clovermead did run toward the breeze before her, away from that scream that promised exquisite revenge. She ran with the most terrible fear in her as Boulderbash’s roar filled the tunnel.
Mullein stirred on her back and muttered words in Tansyard, motioned with her hands. A thin cloud gathered around them, just enough to obscure their bodies as they fled out of the mines. There were bear-priests to either side of them, each with drawn scimitars, but they looked over and around the fleeing slaves, never at them. Sorrel and Clovermead waited at the tunnel entrance while the slaves came hobbling out. The horns blew again inside the mine, Boulderbash roared, and the guarding bear-priests looked curiously into the tunnel-mouth. The last of the slaves slipped by as the guards started to walk into the mines, shouting queries within. Then Sorrel and Clovermead were racing to the head of the line, to lead the slaves once more.
The ugly buildings of Barleymill were dark shadows before them. Far away there were trumpets and lights, but before them the way was dark. Clovermead smelled the breeze—yes, she remembered the way to the tunnel under the wall. “This way,” she whispered urgently, and Sorrel and the slaves came after her. The city air was foul, but a fresh wind blew in the scent of grass from the Steppes. They left the charnel mines behind them. They went slowly: The slaves were weakened by long years underground. Tottering, one hundred slaves and more made their way through the dark town.
Long minutes passed, and they were coming close to the tunnel under the town walls. I think we’ll make our way out of here after all, Clovermead thought hopefully. Thank you, Lady. Then a trumpet sounded once more, and this time it was in the city, not in the mines. The harsh scream of a silver-bear followed it, then another. Or perhaps not, thought Clovermead bleakly. But then they were by the tunnel.
“We’ll send the slaves through first,” she said to Sorrel. “The Yellowjackets will be waiting for them on the other side. We’ll watch this side and bring up the rear guard.”
“Agreed,” said Sorrel. He put his mother down on the stones of the street, and asked her a question in Tansyard. She mumbled a broken answer. “She’s too weak to go through by herself.”
“I help her,” said Mullein. She roused herself, and half-fell down from Clovermead. “I take mother through.”
“You don’t look like you can take yourself through,” said Clovermead.
“I enough strong,” said Mullein. She stumbled over to her mother. “Come, Mother,” she said tenderly. “I take pain.” She touched Roan, and it was as if life itself jerked through the Tansyard woman. The color came back to her cheeks, and the sparkle to her eye. The bandages on her hands and feet ceased to bleed.
Wounds gaped in Mullein’s hands. The crisscross on her cheeks glowed brighter than ever. She trembled, but made herself stand. “You first, Mother,” she said. Mullein waited while Roan fumbled her way on hands and feet into the tunnel. When she had disappeared, Mullein followed after her. Then there was a stream of slaves slipping into the tunnel while Sorrel and Clovermead stood guard, with drawn swords.
“I have been unjust,” Sorrel said abruptly. He took a step toward Clovermead in the darkness, and his fingers touched her palms ravaged by the shards of a hundred shackles. “It is as you said. I have been so angry with you, and cherishing my rage, and I do see now that there was petulance at the root of it, because I whistled for you like a dog, then cursed you for a cur when you would not obey me. You have been angry with me for my treatment of you only once, and I deserved your anger a hundred times. Clovermead, I am sorry.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come with you in the Moors. Every choice was the wrong choice.” Clovermead clutched her palms around his fingers, though it drove a metal splinter deeper into her flesh. “I’d do the same thing again, Sorrel. I’m sorry. I’ve always wanted your good opinion, and maybe I don’t deserve it.”
“Perhaps I do not deserve yours,” said Sorrel quietly. Somewhere bears were screaming and trumpets were blaring, but Clovermead wasn’t paying attention to them. “It is not just that I have been unreasonable in my demands upon you. I understand, finally, what Saraband said to me. That I was a soldier, and that it was good for me to be a soldier, but that she had a different road to travel. You are a politician, sometimes, like your mother, and I am not. I will never think as you do, and I do not think I can ever abandon the person I see before me for the many far away. I am afraid you will again make me angry with you by the choices you make.” He took a deep breath. “But not for more than a second. I will remember you are also the Clovermead who tore down that gate and took down my mother from the cross. And I think I see that you always have been that Clovermead, in the Harrow Moors as much as in Barleymill. I did not see your heart these last weeks—would not see your heart—but it is clear before me now, and I will never again let unhappy passion cloud that vision. I will take you as you are. I do not want to walk a separate path from yours. We may hurt each other again—people do that. But let us be friends again.” Tears glittered in his eyes. “I do not deserve your friendship, but I ask it of you.”
“I feel the same way,” said Clovermead. She was crying too—and then the last of the slaves was slipping into the tunnel, and there was another blast of the horn. “I wish we had more time to talk. You go now. I’ll come last.” Sorrel began to protest—but the horn blew again, nearer than ever. He scrambled into the tunnel.
We are coming closer, said Lucifer Snuff in her mind. He was full of glee. Where are you, girlie? Tell your old friend Lucifer. I’m so happy to find you in Barleymill! I never dreamed you’d take a jaunt this way. I can’t wait to see you.
Try to find me! said Clovermead defiantly. Sorrel was only in to his elbows; the rest of him stuck out on the street.
I know you’re in the city, said Snuff. Not by the gates, we have those guarded. You must have some other way through the walls—how else could you get in? Don’t worry, girlie, we’ll find you soon enough. His laughter echoed in Clovermead’s mind.
Clovermead looked anxiously back at the nearby buildings. She saw torches coming close, bobbing through the town streets.
She sees torches, Snuff, said Boulderbash.
Don’t tell him, Boulderbash! cried Clovermead in horror.
You have abandoned me once too often, said Boulderbash. There was implacable anger in her voice. Lucifer, she is standing by the city wall, next to a long, low building made of bricks.
She’s by the old granary, boys, cried Lucifer. You and you, go after her! Half a dozen torches suddenly shifted direction, and came at a run toward Clovermead.
The rest of you come with me. We’ll ride down any slaves who escape beyond walls. Several dozen more torches streamed toward the town gates.
Clovermead looked frantically at the tunnel, and Sorrel’s feet shot out of sight. Clovermead dove down and followed hard after him. “Hurry!” she moaned at his boots ahead of her. How long was it to the other side of the wall? She couldn’t remember. She scrambled in the darkness for one minute, two minutes. Far behind her, she could hear pattering feet coming close to the tunnel’s entrance at last. Soon the bear-priests would start after her.
She came out to the other side. There was Sorrel on Brown Barley, and they had put Roan and Mullein on Auroche. The rest of the slaves were huddled in a mass on the bare ground, while the Yellowjackets guarded them in the fraying cloud of darkness.
“A few bear-priests will be coming through the tunnel in a few minutes,” said Clovermead. “A lot more will be coming out the main gates, and I think they’ll be on horseback. Sorrel, tell the slaves.” He called out a few words in Tansyard, and pointed northward to the hills. The slaves jogged in that direction as quickly as they could, while the Yellowjackets formed a screen around them. Sergeant Algere rode up and down the line formed by his handful of soldiers, clapping their backs, giving orders, and whispering encouraging words. He looked down at the mass of Tansyards, he looked up at Clovermead, and he almost smiled. He shrugged, made the sign of the crescent, then turned to follow the fleeing slaves.
Sorrel drew his sword. “Accompany them, Clovermead. This time I will bring up the rear guard.”
“We’ll fight together,” said Clovermead. She laughed. “Did you think you were going to get rid of me now?”
“I suppose not, hellion.” He smiled and shrugged, and they turned to face the distant gates. “What precisely are we going to do?”
In the distance Boulderbash roared.
Chapter Fifteen
Avalanches
Clovermead looked around at the desolate landscape. Piles of rubble and ash loomed up in the darkness. Behind them the Yellowjackets and the slaves were retreating up into the narrow opening of Yarrow’s Way. There were only three paths from Barleymill into the valley, each of them running between piles of slag. Great boulders perched precariously on the summits of the piles.
“I can go and knock down some rocks,” said Clovermead. “Those things look like they’ll avalanche if you look at them funny, and that would cut off the paths. Can you delay the bear-priests until I get the boulders down?”
“All by myself?” Sorrel rolled his eyes. “One of the things I love about you is the way you ask me something that is patently impossible with such a thoughtful, serious look. ‘She is mad,’ I tell myself, and then somehow I end up doing what you have asked.”
“What else can we do?” asked Clovermead. “There’s just the two of us.”
“I wish I came up with more ideas,” said Sorrel. “I am positive that some of them would be less dangerous.” He reached down and gripped Clovermead’s hand in his, then released her. “Do hurry. I cannot keep the bear-priests away for long.” Then he was galloping away toward the main gate of Barleymill.
“I’ll be quick,” said Clovermead, and then she was scrambling up the nearest ash hill. The surface was soft, and pebbles fell as she climbed. The stones were greasy with the stain of quicksilver. Her hands and feet, already abraded, itched worse as they rubbed the rough ore.
Clovermead came to the top and she looked back at the Barleymill gates. Sorrel was pounding toward the town gates in the darkness, howling as he came to the torches of the gates, with his sword drawn. The gates were just opening, and Sorrel stabbed the first bear-priest through the chest before the surprised man could draw his own scimitar. The bear-priest fell back with a scream, and his body slammed into the bear-priest behind him, and knocked him off his horse. The riderless horse stumbled and fell onto the ground between the opening gates, and his limbs entangled in the swinging metal. The bear-priests behind cried out in frustration, and swung down from their horses to clear the gates while Sorrel rode into the darkness again, crying out his triumph.
Silver-bears screamed behind the gates. They were anxious to be hunting.
Clovermead transformed, grew, let fur and muscles, claws and fangs, come to her. Her paws still ached, and the iron slivers went deep into her tender flesh. She stood up on two legs, and leaned and pushed against the nearest boulder. It was a rough cube, perhaps twelve feet across on each side. It groaned and creaked under the pressure of her paws, dug mulishly into its bed—and sprang out! Grumbling, rolling, biting up pebbles behind it, it rolled down toward the valley below. Half of the loose slope came with it, from sand and pebbles to rocks half the size of the boulder. Clovermead stumbled to a boulder almost as large as the first one and sent it plummeting after the first one. Now even more of the slope crashed down, and Clovermead was caught in the slippage. She struggled to keep her balance as she half-fell, half-ran down the slope of collapsing ash. A rock the size of her fist banged hard into her shoulder; she roared in pain, but had no time to focus on the bruise. Then she was down at the bottom of the gulch. Fifty feet of it was covered with rubble ten feet high, and no horse could ride over it. Clovermead growled with satisfaction, turned human, and began to scramble up the next slope.
Sorrel was conducting a desperate fighting retreat between two ash hills on the far side of the Barleymill gates. Fooled, the bear-priests and silver-bears came after him, and ignored the slaves’ actual route of retreat. The silver-bears came so fast that Sorrel had to gallop pell-mell in the darkness. Clovermead prayed that Brown Barley wouldn’t trip and fall. The silver-bears’ screams were more eager than ever as they inched closer to Sorrel. A bear-priest fired an arrow into the darkness—and it hit Sorrel! Clovermead felt her heart turn to ice, but it had just grazed his arm and she could breathe again.
Boulderbash bounded out of the gates of Barleymill. Lucifer Snuff rode on her back, but this time he had no bit and no reins, no eye-patches to blind her. She rode free of control, but listened to Snuff as he whispered instructions to her. They were a terrible centaur, with strength, intelligence, and malice combined in their fused figure. Boulderbash snuffled at the darkness—and raced toward Clovermead. Snuff yelled, and the silver-bears and bear-priests turned away from Sorrel to follow Boulderbash.
“Lady’s wimple,” Clovermead cursed. “By her knotted belt!” She was up the second slope by now, and she pushed at more boulders with frantic haste. There were no boulders bigger than six feet across here, and none produced so satisfying an avalanche as the last one had. She had to push four, five, six, before the whole scree collapsed in a slow but powerful wave. Clovermead came down in a surge of dust, a constant undertow that threatened to suck her beneath the flow of ash and rock. Clovermead’s arms and legs grew sore as she struggled not to slip, and then the second path was blocked. The ash was only six feet deep here, but it covered a hundred feet of the path with a morass almost as treacherous as quicksand. Just one path left, thought Clovermead. She toiled up the third slope, and her lungs and ribs were aching and weary.
Sorrel galloped toward her, struggling to catch up with Boulderbash. He raced the silver-bears and bear-priests that had turned to follow Snuff, struggled to overtake them, and squeezed such speed from Brown Barley that she outpaced the fastest Phoenixian any bear-priest rode. Even the silver-bears fell behind her. Bear-priests sent crossbow bolts whipping through the night toward Sorrel. Sorrel crouched low over Brown Barley as bolts ripped open the clothes on his back and sliced through his hair.
Clovermead was at the top of the third hill, and here was the obvious boulder to create a great avalanche, a monster twenty feet across and made of squat, hard granite that would scoop out a hill full of ash as it rolled. It’s so big, thought Clovermead. And I’m so tired. Lady, help me. She set herself up against it, and began to push once more.
The iron shards pushed even deeper into her paws, and she howled. The boulder creaked, but so did
her spine and her ribs, and the bones in her arms and legs. I’m strong, Clovermead told herself desparately. There isn’t a human on earth who could even move this stone. This is why I have the bear-strength, the bear-shape. It’s so I can do something impossible, and stop the bear-priests and keep the slaves free. You made me strong, Lady. Make me strong enough to move this stone. She pushed harder and the stone creaked some more—and then creaked again as it fell back into its resting place.
Sorrel had passed the silver-bears and caught up with Snuff. The two of them were coming up fast to the valley before her. Snuff swung out with his scimitar, and Boulderbash clawed at Brown Barley even as she charged ahead. Sorrel swerved—and a crossbow bolt chunked through his calf. Clovermead heard him scream, saw him sway on Brown Barley’s back. The tip had come through the front of his trouser-leg. The ash hills shone their poisonous light, and Clovermead could see blood spurting down his leg. Sorrel screamed again, but still he made himself ride, still he struck at Snuff. He grazed Snuff’s elbow.
No! Clovermead howled. Then all words dissolved from her roars, and she pushed at the boulder with all the strength of terrible grief. This time the boulder moved when she pushed. It ground rocks beneath it to powder, the boulder groaned as low and terrible as an earthquake, and it began to roll downhill. It moved slowly and ponderously at first, but then it gained speed. The whole hill followed it, and this time Clovermead simply let the rocks carry her down. She rode the collapsing slope toward the oncoming silver-bears and bear-priests. They were all there in the valley, Sorrel and Snuff and Boulderbash, the four snarling silver-bears, and the first score of bear-priests. The wall of rocks came down toward them, and Clovermead could see Snuff turn toward the slope with amazement in his eyes and yell at Boulderbash to run faster. Sorrel grinned with delight as he saw the avalanche, and he squeezed Brown Barley with his knees. She, too, raced toward the land beyond the avalanche. Behind them the silver-bears and the bear-priests turned back, but they were too late. The rocks came crashing down on bears and bear-priests, on Snuff and Boulderbash, on Sorrel and Clovermead.
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