“Aye. S’another round t’ bolster you. Take yer medicine afore, that's what I say.”
“Aye. Back t’ the Goose!”
“Good ol’ Goose.”
Cheering this idea, the men turned and staggered back down the street.
Smede sneered as he watched them go. Fools, all of them. Like every poor soul that lived in the city. From the regent on his throne down to the lowliest beggar in the gutters of Fishgate. All fools. None of them knew of the strings that trailed from their lives down into the darkness. Strings ready to be twitched. Or snapped in two.
Smede skulked along in the men’s wake. Behind him, unseen, crept the cat. The door of the Goose and Gold was flung open with a crash. Light and noise spilled out into the street. Smede froze, shrinking back against a wall. Something in him yearned toward the light and the warmth and the friendly cheer of that place, but then he scowled. He knew something even better. The group of men crowded through the door, which then slammed shut. The street was quiet again except for the rain and the wind moaning in the rooftops. Smede scurried past the inn. The house came awake at his approach. It knew him. Had known him for many years. The warding spells came to life, but they quieted at his whisper and coiled themselves back into sleep. The door eased open and closed behind him.
The little cat stopped on the threshold of the neighboring house. Its fur was plastered flat against its scrawny body by the rain. To all appearances, the cat should have been the most miserable cat in all of Hearne, particularly in view of all the wonderfully dry and warm cellars, basements, and attics that were accessible through drains, broken windows, and the kindness of people. But the cat’s eyes were bright with interest and it studied the house that Smede had entered. After a moment, it hurried away into the night.
Smede paused inside the entrance hall of the house to wring out his cloak. He sneezed and wiped his nose on his arm. Shadows, he was cold. But he’d show them, yes he would. He’d show them. He was an accountant. He remembered things. He remembered numbers and figures and letters. He wrote them down. And if he saw them, he could write them again. It might not be one of those things that was pleasant to remember. But sometimes a little unpleasantness was necessary.
Smede took a deep breath and hurried down the hall. And up the long stairs. So many stairs. He opened the door at the end of the long hall on the third story. There was only silence inside. The ancient spell was gone. Its voice was no more. The parchment that had sat on the table for so many hundreds of years was only dust now.
“But perhaps I can write you again,” Smede said out loud. “And then some fresh blood. That’ll do the trick.”
The table was covered with dust. He delved into one pocket and came up with a quill. A sharp, iron-nibbed quill. He brushed the dust off the table. He could almost see the words in his mind. There had not been many of them. But they had been perfect. The script had been an elegant scrawl. The writing of a learned man. Smede frowned, trying to concentrate. Surely he knew them. He had read them aloud countless times over the years.
“Darkness below,” he said. “Are my wits lost?”
And with that, the first word came to him.
Smede wrote it on the table. The next word appeared in his mind, and then the next. The iron nib bore down heavily and scored the wood. His writing was cramped and neat, not like the old elegant scrawl. But the words were the same. He wrote faster and faster. His eyes shone. The sentences formed on the table, one after the other. The old sounds of them formed in his mind. His lips shaped them silently. Four more words left. Three more. Only two more. He giggled out loud. The last word floated into his thoughts and he bent back to the table, his face triumphant. But then there was a sound behind him. It was a quiet sound, but even a quiet sound can be loud if heard in a silent house. Smede turned. There, within the doorway, stood a little cat. A gray cat with bright blue eyes. The cat did not move but regarded him steadily.
“Well now,” said Smede. “By the shadows above and below, I don’t know how you got in, but what a stroke of fortune. You’ll do nicely.”
He took a step forward to grab up the cat. But then he stopped, astonished. A second cat strolled into view and stood next to the little gray. They both stared at Smede.
“Upon my soul,” said Smede.
A third cat appeared. And then another. And another. In no time at all, the open hallway beyond the door was crowded with cats. They stood in silence and stared at Smede.
“Here now,” said Smede, clutching his pen and wishing he had a cudgel or a burning torch. “Shoo. Scat! Go on with you!”
He stamped on the floor to encourage the cats, but this had no effect. They continued staring at him. It was disconcerting. Smede tried another method. He bent down and stretched out his hand to the little gray cat.
“Here, kitty,” he said. “Here, kitty-kitty. Nice kitty.”
The cat hissed.
Smede snatched his hand back.
The cat snarled, revealing sharp teeth. The two cats on either side of it snarled as well. Other cats began snarling. Their eyes shone in the shadows.
“Nice kitty,” said Smede, beginning to tremble.
The cats leapt forward as one.
Outside, it was still raining. Across the street, muffled merriment could be heard from inside the Goose and Gold. Smoke drifted up from the inn’s chimney, gilded here and there by stray moonlight and riddled with rain. The moon, drifting overhead on her bed of clouds, peered down through the darkness.
Some time later, if a passerby had glanced to one side as he walked down Stalu Street, he might have noticed a strange thing. But there were no passersby, so what happened next was seen by no one except the moon and several foraging rats, who ran off as fast they could in the opposite direction.
A little gray cat with brilliant blue eyes appeared in the open window at the ground floor of the old, three-story house just down the street from the Goose and Gold Inn. There seemed to be blood on the cat’s muzzle. It jumped down to the ground. Another cat appeared in the window and followed it. And then another and another. A whole stream of cats jumped out of the window and vanished away into the night. The little gray cat remained standing in the alley below the window until all the rest of the cats had disappeared. Then, the cat strolled away, tail held high. The rain washed away the blood from the cat’s muzzle. By the time it reached the end of the street, the cat was decidedly wet. Wet, but clean as well.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
ON THE TRAIL OF GIVERNY FARROW
They made camp that evening, long after the sun had set and the moon had risen to survey the dark plain with her mournful eye. Declan was all for pushing on into the night, but the hawk would have none of it.
“Jute’s about to fall asleep on his feet,” said the hawk. “We’ll make camp here. This spot is as good as any other on this blasted plain.”
Declan reluctantly agreed, and the hawk, attempting to be fair despite being in a foul mood, pointed out that even a Farrow would have difficulty keeping to a trail in the dead of night.
“Might I add,” said the ghost, “that I’m feeling tired myself. These old bones aren’t what they used to be.”
“Ghosts don’t get tired,” said Declan.
“It’s a choice,” said the ghost primly.
They ate a cold supper of stale bread and sausage. Then, wrapped in their cloaks, they lay down in the blowing grasses. The last thing Jute heard before he fell asleep was the ghost muttering about books and ogres.
The next day dawned with a chill, leaden light. The sun rose like a silver disk that had more in common with the night and the moon than daylight.
“Bah,” said the hawk. “This is no sky for flying. Even a butterfly would fall to earth today.” But despite these words, the hawk took to the air in slow strokes of his wings, as if he had to feel his way up through the currents and winds onto the safety of higher ground.
Halfway through the morning they found the bodies. The hawk fell out of the sk
y and Jute could hear the wind whistling through his wings. He settled onto the boy’s shoulder and stared ahead.
“What is it?” said Jute.
The hawk would not answer, but Jute could feel the bird’s claws trembling as they gripped his shoulder. Declan called out from far ahead. Jute ran to him and found himself looking down a slope. He caught his breath. On the plain below them lay dark shapes. The bodies of men and horses and beasts. And what looked like enormous dogs.
“Wolves,” said Declan. “Mountain wolves.”
“Nonsense,” said the ghost. “This is a plain. Do you see any mountains nearby?”
“Stay behind me, Jute,” said Declan. “Don’t step where I haven’t stepped.”
The ground was trampled, the grass torn, revealing the earth in dark brown gashes. Everywhere there were dark stains of blood. Flies buzzed in the grass and on the silent shapes of the dead.
“I don’t recognize this armor,” said Declan. He spoke softly, as if he thought his voice would wake the dead from their sleep. “Few fight with spears like these. The soldiers of Harth sometimes do, but these faces aren’t from the desert land.”
“There are more men and horses dead than wolves, aren’t there?” said Jute. He did not like the look of the wolves. They were nearly half the size of a full-grown horse, and their jaws looked large enough to engulf his head in one bite.
“I wish I’d been here.” Declan shook his head. “I’ll bless and curse these wolves all my days, for their fangs did my job. They killed well. But the dead men here are only soldiers and there’s surely more to this evil than them.”
“Aye,” said the hawk. “There’s much more to this place than dead men and wolves. The earth is full of sorrow here. Something very odd happened here. I think—” But the hawk abruptly shut his beak and would not finish whatever it was that he was about to say. Jute marveled at the hawk’s eyes. He was not sure, but it seemed as if there was fear in them.
“I can’t track sorrow, master hawk,” said Declan. He paced the ground slowly, his head down. “But I can track most anything else. Several men on horseback fled this place. Three at most. Three horses running weary. They’d been running long before the wolves attacked them. And here, look here. This is peculiar. The wolves weren’t alone. They had companions. This one horse, whose tracks I noted before and, I think, a young man or a woman. I’m not certain which. Whoever it was didn’t weigh much, for the prints are light and already the grass is springing back up. But this is strange. See here?”
“I find nothing strange about any of this except for one thing,” said the ghost. “Where are the ghosts? I died from choking on a bit of beef, or was it because of a spell gone wrong? I can't remember. At any rate, I ended up a ghost drifting about the Stone Tower for hundreds of years. It’s not fair.”
“You see?” Declan knelt down in the grass. “That one person stood here and fought for some time, for the bodies of the soldiers lie thickly around. They tried to overwhelm him but they couldn’t prevail. And here. . .”
His voice trailed away into silence.
“What is it?” said the hawk.
“Here he fell,” said Declan slowly. “But his body is gone. Perhaps he was only wounded, or perhaps the wolves bore him away? That makes no sense.” His voice sharpened. “I’ve found her!”
To Jute’s eye, Declan had found nothing. The grass was trampled and bloodstained. Bodies lay like trees felled by a storm and around them were scattered their shattered branches: swords and spears and arrows. It was a horrible confusion, and he could see none of the tracks apparent to Declan. Jute picked up an arrow and frowned at it.
“How do you know you’ve found her?” said Jute. “How can you tell from this? One footprint’s just as good as another.”
“Footprints are as different as faces,” said Declan. “This one’s small and narrow and barely indents the grass. A girl’s foot of slight weight, carrying no weapons or armor. The stride is about what I’d expect of someone roughly your height. Giverny would be not much older than you this year.”
“I once knew a girl named Giverny,” said the ghost.
Jute suspected the ghost said this more to have something to say, rather than because it was true. But, with ghosts, saying something is halfway to believing the thing to be true, and the ghost embarked on a story about a girl named Giverny whose father had a peach orchard in Vomaro.
“This can only end badly,” said the hawk.
“Nonsense,” said the ghost. “I haven’t gotten to the best parts yet. If you must know the end before we get there, she married the third son of a minor lord and lived happily ever after. They had five children.”
“Quiet! I wasn’t talking to you, you wisp of vapid vapor!”
“You needn’t be so rude,” said the ghost. And with that, it vanished.
“Aha,” said the hawk. “The pest is gone. An unanticipated but happy circumstance. At least there’s one bright spot in this wretched day.”
“I haven’t gone far,” came the ghost’s voice. “I’m merely taking a nap in Jute’s knapsack. Ha ha! Do you get it? I have an excellent sense of humor. By the way, this knapsack smells of cheese and something else that’s whiffy in a thought-provoking way. Dried fish?”
“Look at this!” said Jute.
He had been wandering about, trying to find a sword small and light enough for him to carry. He was envious of Declan’s sword and thought it high time he had one of his own. After all, they might find themselves in a fight for their lives or some other dreadful situation. It wouldn’t do to be unprepared. The others came around and looked at what Jute had found. A dagger lay on the ground. It was a plain thing, with a sharp and serviceable blade. In the hilt, however, was a stone. A dull, cracked stone. Jute knelt down beside the dagger. The hawk alighted on the ground beside him.
“The stone,” said Jute. “Look at that stone. It looks exactly like the one in the knife I stole. There’s blood on the blade. Do you think. . . ?” His voice trailed off into silence
“I think,” said the hawk, his voice oddly shaky, “that this is just a worthless old blade now.”
“Come, we should be on our way,” said Declan, frowning, looking at both of them and wondering.
They set off. Both Jute and the hawk were silent for a long time. Declan ranged far ahead of them. The wind blew the scent of grass and rain into their faces and Jute breathed deep. It was good to be away from the dead bodies. He quickened his pace to catch up with Declan, but the man had stopped about a hundred yards in front of them. When Jute came to him, he was staring down at the ground.
“This,” he said, “I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?” said the hawk. “This is a bad day, doubly bad. That’s what I understand. Worse than you could ever imagine.” And the bird’s claws tensed again on Jute’s shoulder, clutching in agitation.
“She’s not alone.”
“What?” said the hawk.
“Giverny. My sister. She’s not alone.”
“What do you mean? Who’s with her?”
“A wolf. They’re walking side by side.”
They all thought about this in silence for a moment, though the ghost made noises in Jute’s knapsack as if it were clearing its throat in preparation for a long speech. But perhaps the ghost then thought better of this, for it said nothing.
“A wolf with the girl,” said the hawk. “A wolf? Now, why would that be? Why on earth?” The bird abruptly shut his beak with a click.
“What would she be doing with a wolf?” said Declan in bewilderment.
“Wolves are strange beasts,” said the ghost. “There’s no telling for their tastes. I once heard a tale of a crofter family who lived high in the foothills of the Morn Mountains. Bandits murdered them all save a child of not even one year of age. The tale said that wolves found the child and raised him as their own.”
“I doubt this is a similar circumstance.”
“There’s no way to kn
ow for sure,” said the hawk, rousing from silence. “But we’re wasting time. The wolf isn’t harming your sister, no? They’re walking together. No need to bother wondering why for now. If we’re going to find your sister, then let’s do it, and do it quickly.”
Declan needed no more encouragement than this and did not question the hawk about his sudden enthusiasm, other than giving him one startled glance. He walked along at a loping stride that forced Jute to run along behind him.
I don’t understand, said Jute inside his mind to the hawk. One moment you’re growling about going to Harlech and the next moment you say we must hurry south to find this girl.
Precisely, said the hawk. Find the girl and then hurry off to Harlech as fast as we can.
Does this have something to do with that dagger I found?
Perhaps. The hawk’s voice was reluctant.
Jute stopped walking. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean,” said the hawk out loud, “is that you need to hurry and catch up with Declan. You’re far behind as it is.”
“Not until you tell me.”
“Tell you what?” said the ghost, popping out of Jute’s knapsack. “Whatever it is, I need to know.”
“What’s going on?” called Declan. He strode back to them. “Are you arguing about flying again? I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time for that later. Come on. I don’t want to lose a minute of daylight.”
“We’re not arguing about flying,” said Jute. “Hawk won’t explain about your sister and the dagger I found. He knows something and he won’t tell.”
“Very rude of him,” said the ghost.
“It’s not that I won’t explain,” said the hawk stiffly. “I’m just, well, I’m still thinking about it. I’m considering. It’s not always best to blurt out everything that crosses one’s mind. Like some people I know.” Here, the bird shot a dirty look at the ghost.
“At least I’m honest,” said the ghost.
“If it has something to do with my sister,” said Declan, “then I have a right to know.”
“She’s not just your sister anymore,” snapped the hawk.
The Shadow at the Gate Page 51
