He rose in his stirrups and cast a fierce stare over the gathered men. He meant what he said. Only Kalry looked away. Lanor finished his inspection, satisfied. “If anyone lacks a weapon,” he concluded, “speak to Nulty.”
Most of the men laughed as they moved off. The party, now numbering about fifty, thundered through the gates that Beagan swung open while staring with wide eyes. They left the town and began devouring the miles to Badgerfields. The mist had risen slightly, so Lanor chose to keep to the main road where he could set a bold pace.
Aedan rode at the back with Kalry and Nulty. In spite of the painful thumping of the crossbow, his thoughts were elsewhere, turning on possibilities as he tried to imagine various situations. The hasty meal had done him much good and he felt stronger, yet there was an uncomfortable nagging at the back of his thoughts.
What if he was wrong? Could he be wrong? Nulty had obviously repeated the tale to the sheriff with a lot more certainty than was due mere suspicions. The little man had taken a big risk trusting Aedan’s conclusion. So had Kalry. Even Thomas and Dara would be headed for trouble if it all turned out to be empty imaginings. Was he too young to interfere with such matters? Should he rather have just silenced his “disrespectful” thoughts?
Looking at the large party of men roused from their homes, galloping towards Badgerfields all because of his suspicion, made him realise just how far he had taken his ideas this time, how high up onto his roof he had climbed.
And how long the fall.
Gradually, one or two of the horses less accustomed to such sustained exertion dropped behind. Only a few miles remained. Night began to fade and a dull grey morning drifted in on a brisk wind.
They rounded the last bend. Badgerfields came into view.
Aedan tried to control his runaway breathing and gripped the pommel to stop his hands shaking. The sheriff motioned for silence. They approached the farmyard through the gate which had not been shut.
Nothing stirred.
By this time there would usually have been much activity. First light was more than light enough for farm work. But now everything was silent. The farmyard was completely deserted.
With Lanor taking the lead, the group walked their horses towards the main house. Some of the men loosened their weapons; a few held spears at the ready. They had advanced only a little way when they saw movement at the manor house and everyone drew to a halt.
Dresbourn and Lieutenant Quin stepped out into the courtyard and approached.
Aedan felt his heart slip into his shoes.
“Dresbourn!” said the sheriff. “We expected to find you in a more desperate plight.”
“I have no immediate complaint besides the threat of slavers. But we were amply warned and have taken due precaution as you can see.” He motioned to the house from which people began to emerge.
Though the sight should have relieved him, all that Aedan could feel now was an empty humiliation and a surge of dread. He knew what was coming.
“We were certain that you had been betrayed by your messenger, and that last night you would all have been rounded up. But it appears we were wrong.”
Dresbourn’s eyes narrowed. “How, pray, did you come to such a conclusion?”
“Why, young Aedan, Clauman’s son, and your daughter arrived in town a little after midnight. We assumed you had sent them.”
Dresbourn’s face changed colour and when he next spoke his voice was edged with steel. “Are they among you now?”
The two children were ushered to the front where they dismounted.
“Kalry,” Dresbourn said, his voice shaking with anger, “stable your pony and get into the house. I’ll deal with you later.” As she moved away, he turned to Aedan and lifted his voice so that it carried well beyond the two of them. “Was disgracing me and insulting my guest last night insufficient amusement for you?” His voice rose. “Did you need to bring the whole town to my doorstep to embarrass us further? Where is your imagined treachery, Aedan?” he roared. “Answer me!”
Aedan tried to say something but no sound escaped his throat.
“Is anyone else involved in this?”
A noise drew their attention from the timber-shed roof where a sooty-faced Thomas stood and clambered to the ground. He approached with his eyes fixed on his shoes, dragging a blanket.
“Who else?”
“D – Dara is in the treehouse,” Aedan stammered.
“What! You put a nine-year-old girl out in a treehouse during a slaver threat!” Dresbourn was shouting for the entire farmyard to hear.
“I didn’t really send her, she –”
“Silence! You have done more than enough talking.” He turned to the swelling crowd, “Someone go and find her.” When he turned back to Aedan, whatever restraint he had been exercising broke. “You insolent cur!” he shouted, mouth twisted with rage as he raised his hand and strode forward.
But something changed in Aedan’s face. There was a flash of recognition and then his features went slack with vacant terror. He uttered an almost animal moan and sank to the ground, cringing, arms clutched over his head, body shaking as a dark stain spread through his trousers.
“What is this! A coward? There’s enough talk of your hair-brained adventures, but you can’t even stand up and take a beating. You little fraud. Revealed at last for all to see!”
The crowd began to murmur. It was an unexpected sight – a boy widely known for his pluck now cowering and whimpering in his own mess like a beaten dog. This was not the way for a boy of the Mistyvales to behave when disciplined. Men frowned, women talked, Emroy smiled. A young coward had been stripped of his disguise.
The only person there who would have guessed the truth of what was really happening in Aedan’s traumatized thoughts was in the stable, out of sight. Only Kalry had glimpsed the damage and decay taking place under the tough layer of bark; only she would have known that this was not fear of her father, not cowardice, but a brokenness that ran far deeper.
“That’s enough, Dresbourn.” Nulty had managed to work his way through the riders and stepped in front of the fuming nobleman. “If there is fault here then I am as much to blame. What he did, he did in good conscience to aid you not to harm you. Surely you can see that.”
Dresbourn ignored him as if he weren’t there. “Sheriff Lanor, I do apologise and I assure you that this delinquent will be punished most severely. His reins have clearly been too loose. His behaviour has put our whole town at risk.”
“I can see it was no fault of yours,” the sheriff replied. “But what of this threat? I have never known you to house the entire labour force in your house after similar warnings.”
“That was at my bidding,” the lieutenant said, stepping forward. “I am Lieutenant Quin from the Midland Council of Guards. I had it on very good authority that this farmstead was under direct and immediate risk. It was my first priority to secure the farm and arrange defences. I had planned to be in the village today when I will gladly discuss the matter further with you.”
“I look forward to it,” said Lanor. “Dresbourn, I apologise for the intrusion.” With that he gave the signal. The group of riders wheeled and left the farmyard.
Dresbourn lowered his gaze to where Aedan crouched in the mud. “Get my horse into its stable,” he said, hovering over each word, “and remove yourself from my land. You will not speak to my daughter again. If I ever find you back here you will regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Dresbourn,” Nulty said, “can I just mention that –”
Dresbourn turned his back on them and walked away. “See that this ridiculous man leaves before he injures someone,” he said as he passed William.
Aedan’s hands were shaking so much he couldn’t undo the straps. He fetched the bucket to give himself more height, not caring anymore who saw. Still, he yanked and twisted to no effect, and finally gave up. Putting his head against the pony’s flank, he let the sobs take him. What did it matter who saw? He flinched as he fel
t a hand on his shoulder, but it was gentle, and he turned to see Kalry’s tear-lined face.
“Let me help you,” she said. She unclipped the straps and soon had the tack neatly stored.
Aedan choked back his misery and stood in silence.
“I’m sorry, Aedan,” she said. “It’s not fair. You were trying to save everyone and you get this …”
Aedan couldn’t speak. He dropped his eyes, unable to look at her.
“We’ll find a way to fix it,” she said. “I’ll talk to my father when he is in a better mood.”
But Aedan knew there was no fixing what had been done to him this morning. He had kept the nightmare locked away, and at Badgerfields he had been able to live free of its horror. But now it had found him. Now it would haunt him here too, even if he were allowed back. And he would not be allowed back.
“Kalry!” her father’s summons boomed across the courtyard. She took Aedan’s hand in both of her own. “We’ll fix it,” she said again, and ran back to the house.
Aedan stared through the doorway. The courtyard was clear. Everyone had returned to the house. Never had this place seemed so empty to him. He lived with his parents, but this was his home. Had been his home. The welcome was over. He trudged between the buildings with an ache that threatened to tear him asunder.
It was like pushing his way through a dead dream.
Numb.
The walking took forever. The feelings of irrational nightmarish fear and shame drained away, leaving him empty, hollow, and tired. So tired.
The scene played over and over, the words etching themselves into his memories. Coward. Fraud. He would never be rid of them. But what did it matter anymore? What did he care? There was no return from this. Finding a trough of water, he rinsed himself. It would go poorly if his father were to find out.
But matters were not about to improve. As he rounded the last building, Emroy appeared from the other side, walking in the same direction, away from the manor house.
“What are you doing here?” Aedan asked in a frail voice, tensing, trying to hide the catch in his throat.
“I live this way, remember.”
“But everyone else is still inside.”
“I have no interest in taking any more orders. It’s well enough for you commoners to be bossed around, but I won’t stand for that treatment any longer.” He swung his cane at the long grass. “The lieutenant said he wanted good visibility before anyone left. This is good enough for me. I told him so and walked out. Say, that was quite a show you put on. Fancy raising a whole town to fight off non-existent bandits, or did you tell them it was a dragon?”
Aedan put his head down and walked.
Emroy’s laugh oozed smugness. “It was really interesting to see you crumple in the mud like that. You should have heard the people talking about it, especially about how you wet yourself. We expected more. Well they did. I always knew.”
Aedan had no fight in him. He kept silent.
They had covered about half a mile when they heard the first screams.
Nulty hung back from the others. After being shoved and shooed from the farm, it was no surprise that he wanted to keep to himself.
The road cut a gentle curve through the deep hillside grass. It was so quiet, so peaceful. But Nulty huffed and pulled his whiskers and finally began to speak his thoughts to the dappled mare.
“There was more at work there than the fear of a beating, Pebble. Something is damaged in that boy, and something is unsettled in me. Am I embarrassed? No, that’s not it. Perhaps angry with Dresbourn? That’s not it either. No, it was something else. It’s something about the lieutenant, that look he gave Aedan at the end. It was such a strange look. What do you think, Pebble? Am I imagining monsters?”
He reached a bend in the road. Beyond this point he would be unable to see the farm gate which had already grown tiny with distance. He stopped, hesitated, and then appeared to make his mind up, dismounting and settling down on a rock while Lanor and his men walked their tired horses round the bend and out of sight.
The two boys spun around and stared at the manor house. The screams rose. Morning had not yet broken through and the air was still hung with frail mist so that only hints of movement could be seen. They ran back along the path until the shapes became clearer. There appeared to be far more people than they had left behind at the house, as if the townsmen had returned. But the people were not fighting a fire or securing animals; they looked as though they were struggling with each other while a growing number fell to the ground. And suddenly Aedan realised what he was looking at.
“No!” he whispered.
Emroy let out a wordless whimper and dropped, trembling into the grass. “Get down, Aedan! They’ll see you and come after us too.”
Aedan’s thoughts were a jumbled confusion of fears and disbelief. It was actually happening. Earlier, when thinking about the possibility of slavers and what he could do about it, it had been easy to clear his head and arrange his thoughts. As he stared, he felt tricked by his senses. This was either not quite real or it was too real.
“Aedan! Get down, you idiot!”
Emroy’s voice was close and unmistakably real. Aedan’s fuzzy thoughts, still sluggish from the earlier emotional battering, were beginning to clear.
He dropped. The grass, thick and long, hid him completely, but he knew he had been too slow. A glance confirmed this. Someone was running towards them.
There were hundreds of places to hide on the farm – tall pastures, hidden gullies, tangles of bush, dense forest, interlinking barns and lofts. Aedan tried to think. If this had been one of the war games they had played so often, he would already have made half-a-dozen plans and selected the best. But here he crouched, shivering like a cornered rabbit.
Then he remembered the man approaching them. The distance would be closing. He turned to look and in so doing jabbed his neck with the crossbow. The crossbow! He still had it.
He tore it off his back, shoved his foot in the stirrup and began to pull the string back to the catch. He felt as if his arms would be wrenched from their sockets though he could only pull it half way. He heard the sound of footfall. Time was up – he would have to bluff. Slipping a bolt into the groove he stood and pointed the bow at the man. Only thirty feet separated them, but Aedan hoped the darkness of the morning would hide the fact that the bow was not bent.
The man stopped and shouted in a language Aedan had never heard, then took a step forward. He was tall, rangy and sunburned, and his features were exaggerated by a thick, oily beard platted into something resembling black seaweed. His strong hands were not empty. One held loops of cord and the other gripped a light club.
None of Dresbourn’s haughty looks had ever made Aedan feel as he did under this man’s glare. The lack of respect for the two boys’ humanity was absolute, the capacity for cruelty limitless. Aedan shuddered. He almost dropped the crossbow and fled, but then he realised that his bluff was working. After a few more foreign words, the man turned and ran back to the manor house, shouting at the top of his voice.
“He’ll be back,” Emroy wailed.
Aedan’s mind was starting to orientate itself in this strange reality. He was beginning to feel the touch of details that so often formed the building blocks of his strategies. Position, enemy intention, misdirection, surprise, reinforcements … He had been taught such details and used them in threats that were imagined and games that were real. Could he not put together a plan for a real threat? With a shuddering effort he hauled himself from the water of his internal floundering, and stood.
He looked at Emroy – quaking, whimpering. Instinct told him to abandon someone so clearly unfit for anything, but that was thinking like a rabbit again. With only one, there would be no chance of coordinating anything.
“Follow me,” Aedan said. He slung the crossbow over his shoulder, turned off the path and pushed through the long grass. It was so heavy with dew that he was drenched after a few yards. He turned to check t
hat Emroy was following. The older boy’s face was slack with terror, but he was moving. They climbed a small ridge and skidded down the far side, directly above a cattle pen. Aedan looked back. The tell-tale path of disturbed dew was as obvious as a paved road. He remembered something he had once used in a war game played with Thomas and some of the other boys.
“Run to the back of the tool shed. Wait for me there,” Aedan called as he scrambled down the bank towards the pen.
“Where are you going?” Emroy asked, clearly unwilling to be left alone.
“I need to set a false trail. Go!”
Emroy hurried away through the grass, leaving a clear trail behind him.
Once Aedan had the gate open, one or two flicks of the whip sent the cows on their way and scattered them through the pasture. There were enough trails now to confuse anyone. Aedan sprinted after several of the cows that were heading towards Emroy. They took fright and sped from him at loping gallops, carving a spiderweb of dewy tracks in the grass. There would be no immediate suspicion cast on Emroy’s trail now.
Aedan could no longer see over the ridge, but he was sure the slavers would be approaching it at speed. He ran as fast as the heavy waist-high grass and waterlogged trousers would allow. When he reached the buildings, he spotted Emroy crouching against a woodpile between two logs, each with a long axe buried in it, chips of wood scattered around. It didn’t take much imagination to see the axes put to another purpose.
“They will search here,” Aedan said, gasping for breath. “We need to circle round to the forest on the other side of the manor house.”
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 6
