“I know she dinnae look like much,” chuckled his guide, as if reading his thoughts. “But once we reach the foothills, auld Betsy will prove her worth, ye wait and see.”
Cole was still sceptical, but kept his doubts to himself. His own knowledge of riding on horseback stretched back little further than three hours and so he reluctantly deferred to the older man’s experience.
The going was slow, slower even that the cautious pace he had set when sitting in the saddle for the first time that evening. Sturdy she might be – and Cole had seen little evidence of that thus far – but not even his guide could describe Betsy the mule as fleet of foot.
Cole tried to keep his patience as they meandered along the eastern road, and more than once had to bite his tongue at their ponderous progress. It seemed a painfully long time until the inn was out of sight behind them, and he began to grow anxious again that a group of the Archon’s riders would gallop out of the darkness at any moment.
If his guide felt any of Cole’s anxiety, he concealed it well. When he wasn’t regaling Cole with one of the many bawdy songs in his apparently bottomless repertoire, he cackled his way through tedious reminiscences of his exploits across the region of northern Callador known as The Weald. And, on the few occasions he wasn’t doing either, he was staggering into the treeline to relieve himself. “Just wait until ye’re as auld as Dirk,” he retorted indignantly when Cole complained about one such stop. “One mug of beer and ye’ll be up and down all night like a hoor’s knickers.”
Cole was extremely doubtful his enthusiastic guide had consumed only the one flagon, unless that one had happened to be the size of a washtub.
After an hour of this, he longed to dig his heels into his mare’s flanks and race along the road as he had before. He’d have bet coin that the old man could keep pace with him once he saw his fee receding into the distance.
He was preparing to do just that, when his guide announced that they were making camp for the night. Cole’s protests about their lack of progress fell on deaf ears.
Now, as he lay awake, listening to the infuriating man’s snores rumbling around the clearing, Cole still simmered with impatience and frustration. He decided that, come what may and regardless of the older man’s grumblings, he would set the pace from now on.
The sky was painted with bands of pink and orange as the sun began its slow ascent above the horizon, and Cole bounded to his feet. He began to clatter around the fire, gathering together his possessions as noisily as he could. Disturbed by the din, his guide broke wind and opened his eyes simultaneously. Despite his foul mood Cole couldn’t help but laugh.
“Gah! Ye’re banging is like to wake the dead,” the older man complained, rubbing his face mournfully.
“I doubt there’s any left to wake after your snoring all night,” Cole shot back.
“Snoor? I dinnae snoor, laddie,” said his guide with a crooked-toothed leer. “Mebbe it was thunder ye was hearing, from yonder hills.”
Cole looked into the distance, and in the light of the day he indeed saw rolling green peaks rising up from the woods. Beyond these was a misty blue outline, reaching up to the clouds. Mountains. “Is that where we’re going?” he asked.
“Aye. We’ll be turning awa’ from the road today. From here it goes east, straight as an arrer till Whitecliff. Our path lies south and east.”
They breakfasted on the bread Freyja had baked the day before and the cold remnants of roasted hare. It was meagre fare, but Cole had choked down worse at the Crag on plenty of occasions and ate it gladly.
True to his word, once they were packed and mounted, his guide led them off through the trees, leaving the road behind. Just before they passed beneath the canopy of leaves, which were golden and beginning to fall with the passing of autumn, Cole thought he caught a movement at the edge of his vision. He turned sharply in his saddle and scanned the trees behind, but saw nothing. However, he felt the weight of eyes upon him. All was still, but the dawn air seemed colder than it had moments before.
There was a crash from the trees in front, and Cole tore his eyes away. A short distance ahead of him came muttered curses. He spurred his horse on towards the sound.
When he came across his guide, he had to stifle a laugh. Despite Dirk’s claims about the sure-footedness of his steed, Betsy had managed to find a rabbit-hole and stumble. His guide was sitting in a muddled heap on the forest floor, half-buried in a mound of fallen leaves. “Ach, stop ye’re sniggering and help me up,” he growled. Cole did as he was bid.
The rest of the morning passed without further incident. There was an agreeably autumnal feel to the forest that Cole found pleasant. The canopy above their heads was a tapestry of green, gold and auburn. Occasionally a leaf would fall from its branch and drift lazily to the ground. Bright sunlight shone through the boughs and bathed everything around them in a warm glow. Once, a squirrel, its pelt a deep russet, ran across their path and scrabbled up a tree trunk, chittering irritably at them from the safety of a high branch until they were out of sight.
After her earlier mishap, Betsy did indeed prove to be suited for the task, and she ably picked her way through any and all obstacles in their path. For a while, Cole attempted to guide his mare along the same path, but eventually he gave up and dismounted, leading her instead by the reins. Fortunately, Betsy’s progress through the wood was even more ponderous than along the road, and he had no trouble keeping pace.
The sun was almost directly above them when they emerged from the trees into another clearing, and his guide swung down from his saddle. Nearby was a fallen log and he sat down on it with a thump, beckoning for Cole to follow.
Grateful for the chance to rest his feet, Cole did so. It was a pleasant spot to take a break. The sun warmed him without being too hot, while the log on which they sat was in a spot of dappled shade. Aside from the slightly sour musk of his companion, the air was fresh and filled with the sound of birdsong. Absently, he noticed Dirk scanning the trees opposite, shifting restlessly in his seat, and wondered at his behaviour. It’s unlike him to worry that we’ve been seen, he thought.
Cole shrugged and was reaching into his pack to retrieve the stump of bread he had left over from the morning, when he heard the whinny of a nearby horse. He froze. A moment later, it seemed as if his fears of being pursued had been realised, as three men stepped out from behind trees around the clearing. To add to his confusion, all three wore the same face.
As they stalked closer, moving with the oily, practised ease of predators, the spell broke. “Dirk, get behind me,” Cole said urgently. He reached behind his back for the hilt of the dagger Captain Brandt had given him only the day before.
“I’m sorry, laddie.” His guide’s greasy tone gave the lie to his words.
There was a metallic scrape of a weapon being drawn. Cole turned to see the older man gripping an evil-looking blade. He held it out in front of him, the tip pointing at Cole’s throat as he stood.
“Dirk, listen,” Cole said, holding out his hand in a calming gesture. “Whatever you’re planning to do, I’m sure that if we just sit down and talk about it...”
“Ach, so now he wants to talk when he catches sighta my three wains.” The older man poked the tip of his sword meaningfully towards the pouch at Cole’s waist. “P’raps now ye’ll tell me jus’ how much coin ye have.”
Cole turned his head from side to side, desperately trying to find an escape route, but the four men circled menacingly around him like a pack of wolves waiting to jump in for the kill. Like the older man, they had their swords drawn. Something his former guide had said suddenly registered. “Your sons,” he said.
“Aye,” said his guide. “Me big strong boys. Born within a minute of each other, and hardly left their da’s side for a minute since.” Somewhat ridiculously, given the current situation, he radiated pride. “A’course,” he added. “Sometimes their da has to go huntin’.”
Cole knew he wasn’t referring to the hare. “If it’s money
you’re after, I’m sure we can make a deal,” he began.
“Aye, coin is allus welcome, but me boys need a bit a sport as well,” said the older man with a cadaverous leer.
Cole jerked the dagger out from his belt and brandished it threateningly. If he was to die, then he aimed to take at least one of them with him.
Dirk cackled and lunged towards Cole, who ducked to one side. Before he could jab his own blade at the older man’s exposed flank, there was a high whistling noise and his foe’s hand exploded in a spray of blood. The sword fell to the ground and the old man followed a heartbeat later, shrieking obscenities. Cole caught a glimpse of feathers protruding from Dirk’s bloodied wrist. A quarrel!
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. He sensed movement behind him as the three sons converged, and leapt desperately forward. The shadows below the trees in front of him seemed to come alive. A black figure flew out and shot past him in the opposite direction, a blade glinting in each hand.
Cole span around and wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming. A man dressed in dark leather armour, the bottom half of his face hidden behind a mask, was duelling two of the brothers at once. The third knelt over the writhing body of their father.
The black-clad stranger’s blades were shorter than a longsword, and it seemed to Cole that they had minds of their own, dancing independently in a dizzying blur.
After watching in shock for a moment, Cole realised that duelling was the wrong word. It implied contact being made between opposing blades, and that was not what seemed to be taking place. What the stranger was doing, somehow, was deftly avoiding every strike the lumbering brothers attempted to make. Wherever they swung their swords, the stranger ducked, span or leapt out of the way long before it arrived.
Cole remembered attending a lecture some years before at the Crag, where one of the Brothers was describing a new theory about the nature of light. Most of it went over Cole’s head entirely, but one image had stayed with him. Light travelled at a speed that, with sufficient tools, could be measured, the Brother explained. “Imagine that your arm is infinitely long,” he said. “You reach for the sun in the sky, but every time you think you have it, it evades your grasp. By the time the light from the sun has reached you, it has already moved across the sky.”
Watching the stranger fight was like that, Cole realised. Whenever one of the brothers aimed a blow at where their opponent had been, he had already moved. They may as well have been fighting a shadow.
The stranger’s blows, however, while fewer, found their mark with surgical precision. He wasn’t even attempting to deflect blows – he didn’t need to – instead his own blades flicked out towards one of the brothers like a striking snake. One was already bleeding profusely from a long, deep cut in his thigh. His trousers were stained dark and sopping wet to the knee. The stranger’s sword flicked out again, high this time. A jet of dark blood spurted from his foe’s throat. The stranger planted a boot on the brother’s chest and sent him sprawling into the grass. He didn’t rise again.
The second brother let out a howl of anguish and swung furiously at the stranger. As he dodged out of the way, the brother, quicker than his sibling, kicked out a vicious leg and tripped him. The stranger rolled as he landed, and jumped back to his feet. The last brother by now had left their father’s side and grabbed the stranger from behind. He held the black-clad man’s arms fast, pinned to his sides. For the first time, Cole noticed how small the stranger was compared to the burly triplets; he stood at least a head shorter and was much slighter in frame.
“Ye’ll pay for what ye did to Ulryk and father,” said the second brother, advancing on the stranger with his sword in his hand.
Rather than struggle, the stranger kicked the heels of his boots together, and a finger-length blade flicked out of the toes of one. As the brother reached him, he kicked a leg high in the air towards his face, slamming the blade under the man’s jaw. Just then, Cole, who had grabbed a thick fallen branch from the ground and snuck up behind the last brother, bashed the makeshift club across the back of his skull.
The two brothers fell to the ground within a second of one another; one senseless and the other gurgling in pain, a jagged metal shard protruding from his throat. The blade secreted in the stranger’s boot had apparently snapped off after finding its target.
Less than a minute had passed since Cole had drawn his dagger, which was still unused. Only now did it occur to him that in the heat of the moment he had used a less deadly weapon to attack his foe. His heart pounded in his chest, as much from the excitement of the battle as exertion. But, if the stranger had been winded, it didn’t show. Ignoring Cole, he strode to the old man, who still lay on his side, moaning wretchedly. “Where is it?” the black-clad man demanded. Although muffled somewhat by the mask, his voice was much higher than a man’s. A boy? Cole wondered, astonished.
The old man spat an indistinct reply. Cole could not hear his words, but whatever they were, they displeased the stranger. He grabbed Cole’s former guide by the collar and dragged him towards the prone figures of his two sons that still lived. The shaft of the crossbow quarrel was still lodged in the older man’s wrist, Cole could see. The wound had stained the arm of his shirt red to the elbow and would likely be agony. However, it did not look fatal.
“Where is it?” The stranger repeated his question, more urgently this time.
“Go plough yersel’, whoreson,” growled the older man.
The stranger dropped him to the floor and took two quick steps towards the brother who lay unconscious. The other squirmed on the ground, one hand numbly fingering the wound beneath his jaw that pumped sticky blood all over his chest. Even to Cole’s inexpert eyes it did not seem as though he would live much longer. Without ceremony, the stranger lifted his blade and slashed it almost perfunctorily across the unconscious man’s throat. His feet jerked feebly in the dirt as his lifeblood drained away, and then were still.
Cole felt his gorge rise and turned away, losing his breakfast into the grass.
The older man screamed shrilly and crawled towards the body. He hunched over the still form, sobbing into his arms.
“Where is it?” the stranger asked a third time.
The older man raised a trembling hand, and pointed off towards the far edge of the clearing. It seemed to Cole as if it was the same direction from where he had heard the sound of horses.
The stranger nodded, then lashed out a boot and sent the old man squealing onto his back. Cole saw Dirk’s good hand reach into his boot, and come out clutching a knife. As the old man landed in the dirt he flung it towards the stranger, who batted it easily aside. He laid the tip of his blade against Dirk’s throat.
“Wait,” said Cole hurriedly. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but he’s told you where it is. You’ve killed his sons... look at him, he has nothing left.”
It was true, his former guide’s face was streaked with tears and his mouth trembled. The thrown dagger had been little more than a final act of defiance. He was clearly beaten. “Please,” he begged, his voice thick.
The stranger ignored him. With the tip of one blade, he slashed the top buttons from Dirk’s shirt, revealing a grubby, scrawny chest. Upon this, hanging from a thin cord was a small leather pouch. “Take it off,” the stranger commanded.
His hands still trembling, the older man hastened to do as he was bid. He lifted the cord over his head, and threw the pouch at the stranger’s feet. “I hope ye choke on it,” he spat.
The stranger stooped to retrieve the pouch, then upturned it onto his palm. Cole watched as a tiny gold locket fell out, glinting in the sunlight. The stranger stood a moment, staring at it, before placing it inside a pocket. With his back still to Cole, the stranger half-turned his head. “You would spare this man?”
Cole glanced down at his guide. The man’s red-rimmed eyes looked up at him imploringly. “I would,” he answered.
“Even though he and these others would have robbed you, cut your th
roat and left you for the crows?”
Cole swallowed. “Even then,” he said, after a pause. “If I did not, how would I know I am any better than they?”
The stranger nodded thoughtfully. His hooded head turned back to the old man still lying on his back. “Go,” he said.
Disbelief etched onto his face, Dirk slowly raised himself to his feet, warily eyeing the blade the stranger still held. As he turned to flee, the stranger spoke again. “Nothing happens in The Weald without my hearing of it,” he said. “If I ever learn that you have returned to your old ways, I will find you. Do you understand?”
The old man’s eyes glittered with menace, yet he nodded. “Aye.” A moment later he was gone, lurching into the trees in the direction Cole had heard the noise of horses coming from earlier.
He stood and watched, unsure what to do with himself, as the black-clad stranger marched off in the opposite direction, without so much as a backwards glance at him or the three bodies lying in the clearing. For want of anything else to do, Cole jogged after him.
A short distance from the clearing, a black horse was tied to a low branch by its reins. The stranger cleaned his red-streaked blades on the grass, then placed them within a pair of leather scabbards fastened to his saddle. Cole noticed other weapons hanging beside them; a longsword, several knives and a shortbow. Lying near Cole’s feet was a small crossbow. He picked it up and proffered it.
The stranger regarded at it coolly for a moment, and then snatched it from Cole’s hands. “My thanks,” he said gruffly, slipping it into a leather holster upon the saddle. He then retrieved a long black woollen cloak and pulled it around his shoulders. Satisfied, he swung up into the saddle and removed his mask and hood.
Cole gasped. The stranger was not a man, nor even a boy as he had assumed. Sitting atop the black horse was a woman, still in her youth. Her hair was black, darker even than the shadows beneath the trees, and had been hacked artlessly short. Eyes as blue as winter’s heart stared down at him. Eyes he had seen before.
Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) Page 10
