A soft crack of a twig and a snort from the horse brought him to the surface with a start. He looked out into the darkness but saw nothing. Quietly nocking an arrow, he aimed out into the trees where he thought he had heard the sound. But the horse, ears pricked, was facing the other way. His father had always said to watch an animal’s ears for direction. Deciding to trust the horse, he turned around and looked back towards the fire and the four sleeping bodies.
On the far side of the camp something shimmered. It was like liquid darkness that oozed out from the grass. Some of the black edges revealed themselves as it stalked into the firelight on powerful coiled limbs. It was lower than a wolf, but longer, and much heavier. Aedan had only looked at drawings of panthers; he had never seen one in the flesh. He could barely see it now. But the outline that betrayed frightening speed and power was unmistakable. It was heading for his mother.
There was no time for careful aiming. He drew and loosed the arrow in one motion. It was a wild shot, plugging into the ground well short. The panther stopped, but did not turn away. It looked at him, then looked at his Nessa and crouched deeper, hindquarters bunching.
“No!” Aedan screamed, throwing his blanket aside and vaulting off the wagon. “Get away! Get away!”
He ran towards the fire and, instead of digging around for a burning branch, simply kicked at a section of red-hot coals. The fiery embers showered the huge snarling cat. And Harriet.
The panther was gone in a blink without making a sound. Harriet made many sounds and continued to make them for some time.
She called Aedan a lying, vengeful, mean-spirited, ungrateful, disrespectful, uncivilised, immature, irresponsible, untrustworthy delinquent. She bawled for the benefit of any creature that happened to be within half a mile.
“Where, Aedan? Where?” she shouted. “I don’t see any panther. Do you Borr? No. What do you take me for? A fool? Do you think I don’t see through your little schemes? I think it’s clear to everyone that Aedan has had enough time to ruin his character and it’s time I took him under my charge again, beginning with an admission of what he was trying to do here. And fitting punishment.”
She began to simmer down when Clauman found the prints, clear as writing.
“Who had the watch?” he asked. “Wasn’t it you, Harriet?”
“Yes. And there was no panther. The prints must have been from before we got here.”
“I would have seen them. And these prints are fresh. But what I want to know, now that I look at where the coals fell, is how they could have stung you unless you were in your bed.”
“I was not sleeping, if that’s what you imply. I was simply resting an injured leg.”
“And snoring,” Aedan mumbled.
She turned to him with eyes more threatening than the panther’s.
Nobody slept again. They built the fire high and waited for daylight. It was only after travelling a few more days that they began to rest. Then something got the chickens – crushed the cages and took all of them except Snore who flapped down into the campsite and sheltered among the people. They heard a bear the following night, but it did not approach.
After that the land grew less wild and things settled down. Nessa slowly regained control of her nerves, enough to allow her to resume lessons with Aedan. They took up their reading again. Aedan’s interest in the war histories now had a keen edge that he didn’t attempt to disguise. There was one book that he read three times – a biography of Thirna’s greatest General, Osric. Whenever he snagged on a difficult passage he would ask Nessa for an explanation. Though she revealed little enthusiasm for the descriptions of battles, even she was impressed by the character of the man.
“He reminds me of William,” she once said with a catch in her throat, “fearlessly loyal.”
“Except twice as big,” Aedan reminded her. “Remember the time the general picked up a coal stove and flung it through door when the rebels inside refused to open.”
“I’m sure it’s exaggeration,” Nessa said with a smile as she ruffled Aedan’s hair. But he didn’t believe her – wouldn’t believe her. In the company of these great men that strode through the worn pages, he was liberated. He wanted to believe in the impossible, the chance of a life that rose above what he had known. These men told him that it could be done, that even the strongest oppressor could be overthrown.
Sometimes in the evenings Aedan would move a little ways from the others and sit with his back to a tree, looking out at the great wall of mountains that stood silent and majestic in the moonlight. No one to bind them, nothing to press them down.
He felt the bruises that still marked his arms. Something was becoming clear – hoping to grow strong under his father’s rule would be like trying to grow a tree under a rock. But even if his father did not constantly crush him, Aedan needed to learn more than his father could teach. Men like Quin were not only strong; they were trained, well-studied, and cunning. He would need to be more so.
An idea sprang up like a bright yellow flame in dry tinder.
At Castath there would be an army – he would join it. He would learn to fight, and he would enrol for officers’ training where he could study the art of war, perhaps even under the great leaders like the generals Osric, Vellian or Eranath. He was old enough now to be an apprentice; even his father would understand that. He would have to be careful how he asked, though, and would need to pick the time well.
Over the next weeks Aedan worked hard to develop his hunting skills, bringing in birds, rabbits and occasionally a small deer. The meat was no mere luxury – their supplies were dangerously low. He always presented his kills to his father, always looking hopefully at eyes which seldom met his.
This was how it had happened before. It was Clauman’s sudden anger that moved him to break the relationship but it was lingering shame that kept him from mending it. It would be a long time before the freshly painted incident would fade, a long time before they would laugh again.
Nessa was quick to praise Aedan’s hunting which she said was remarkable for someone of his age. Though he appreciated her compliments, they only made his father’s silence louder. At times like this, he mulled over the words Thomas and Dara had brought him, the words his father had spoken, and he wondered if he would ever hear such words himself.
Harriet, however, was not so backward in making her feelings known. She shook her head with exaggerated disapproval every time she saw Aedan return to camp, dirty, scratched and flushed with returning health; though she ate her share of the meat without difficulty. In spite of her constant dissatisfaction that hung like a low grumbling cloud, the storm did not burst again. Perhaps it was that they were no longer under her roof. Whatever the explanation, Aedan was thoroughly happy with the change.
But there was one storm that he longed to see again. Every day he looked towards the mountains, hoping to glimpse those cloud formations, the spectacle that had recently become legend. A few storms did cross their way, but only the usual wet and angry kind.
He did, however, see several more of the giant trees. Unlike the first, though, almost all of them were dead.
After a few more weeks of travel, they started coming across homesteads. The track became a road, and for the first time in months, they were found in the company of other people. The landscape had changed. Gone were the tumbling hills and valleys of their northern home where grass and forest grew as thick as wool. Southern Thirna looked to be an area of great open spaces.
As they reached the top of a gentle rise, the wide Castath basin rolled out beneath them. Colossal plains covered in fine grass reached away into a hazy distance. Standing like sentinels over the low-lying bowls of land were hills clothed in dark green trees and topped with rocky faces. Between them, farmers ploughed and sheep grazed, the animals speckling the fields with tiny puffs of white. The sky, however, held not a single cloud, and the warm afternoon breeze drifted up to them carrying the distant lowing of cattle and the murmur of water. A lazy silver river sn
aked across the plain, and a few miles ahead, on its banks, were the walls of the great southern city, Castath.
This was the first inhabited city Aedan had seen. Where Kultûhm had awed him with its towering walls and a sense of fearful power, Castath bewildered him by sheer sprawling size. He had never even imagined the possibility of so many houses. They gathered with increasing density along the roads nearer to the city walls. He could only wonder how they would be packed against each other within. Travellers poured towards and from the city gates like ants.
On the south side of the river, much of the land was covered in a large forest, and that gave him some comfort. Beyond it, to the west, was an unusual range of mountains that stood straight up from the ground like a knife pressed into the earth along its length. He had read about the Pellamines. They were not high, but even from here the sheer face was impressive.
After questioning several travellers, Borr and Harriet decided to look for work in one of the many inns that lay outside the city. Clauman kept a tight silence and said only that he would head into the city itself. Borr offered to pay double for the horse, because without it his wagon would have remained at the fortress. Clauman would accept only the regular price. When Harriet insisted, Clauman became firm, almost harsh, as if he had been offended.
The women embraced and promised to make contact as soon as they were settled. The men, apparently seeing no need to break from tradition, exchanged a silent handshake.
Aedan had chosen to walk much of the recent journey to build his strength, but the walking now was unlike any he had yet done. Traffic began to fill the roads, and he learned quickly that the road itself belonged to those on hoof or wheel, while those on foot kept well to the side.
He had heard stories of Castath, but because it was said to be smaller than the northern stronghold, Tullenroe, he had naturally assumed it to be small, a kind of overgrown village. There was nothing village-like about what he now approached. The number of people was overwhelming, dizzying. But what surprised him more than the number was the diversity.
Nobles glided past in varnished carriages drawn by horses that were groomed to dazzling perfection, while filthy ragged children shouted and ran abreast, holding out their hands until the driver’s whip chased them off. A farmer in a dirty woollen tunic trundled along, pushing a cart of turnips and cabbages and singing a light ditty. Then he flung the handles down and thrust his arms in the air to call down pestilence after being splashed by the chaise of a wealthy silk merchant. The merchant’s clothes proclaimed him a man of great class while his shouted reply revealed him a man of none. An open wagon humming with flies and drawn by mangy oxen sloshed past, headed towards a dump near the river. The smell of the wagon struck like a hammer. Aedan pulled a face as he guessed what it contained. A little further along was a stall filled with sweetmeats, and beyond that a gallows where raven-pecked criminals performed their parting service to the city by delivering a warning to all.
The heavily defended gates of the city grew sterner as the distance shrank. Soldiers of the guard were everywhere. Above the gates, the battlements were lined with more soldiers, all fully armed and threatening in their bold uniforms of yellow and red. Aedan was glancing from side to side and he noticed more than one guard looking at him. More guards stood at the gates. Their faces spoke no pleasant welcome and their eyes drilled through the stream of people that flowed in. Some they stopped and questioned. Of these, they sent a few back in the direction they had come from with harsh words and sometimes blows. This was nothing like the oversized cattle-gate at the Mistyvales where Beagan exchanged cheery greetings and quiet jokes that brought loud laughter.
Aedan felt his pulse racing. The overwhelming crush of people. The closeness of the air. The approaching hostility – he could not even pretend to belong here. The soldiers would stop them …
The soldiers did stop them.
The senior guard looked from Aedan to Nessa to Clauman.
“Name and business?” he said in a strange, flattened accent.
“Halbert son of Cian,” Clauman replied. “Tired of the north. Hoping to start over. Our wagon was lost on the way.”
Aedan and Nessa had both glanced up at the use of false names and an untrue story, but the guard failed to notice their expressions.
“Northern accent, northern ignorance,” he said. “Castath won’t be an easy landing for the likes of you.” His face softened as he glanced at Nessa’s frightened eyes. “Go to South Lane by Miller’s Court. Cleanest lodging you’ll get for copper. If you can pay with silver, there’s some fine places in the north-east quarter.”
Clauman thanked him and they turned to leave.
Aedan had been so lost in dread, struggling with wild fears of being sent away or being jailed for the breach of some strange law, that the sudden relief was like the lifting of a physical weight. He felt an immediate liking for this senior guard with the greying hair and grandfatherly authority. He wanted to reach out and establish a form of kinship, especially as he intended to be a soldier himself.
“May I ask your name?” he said.
The guard smiled. “In twenty years, there’s nobody ever asked me that. You must be small-town folk.” He smiled at the adults and dropped to a knee before Aedan. “Cameron is my name. What’s yours?”
“Aedan.”
“A good name, a brave name which looks to fit you well. I hope you are able to settle down here, Aedan. As our south-side mayor likes to say, may the winds of bounty reward your labour.”
“Thank you,” Aedan said, attempting to shake Cameron’s hand.
“Ah,” said Cameron, stopping him. “In the south we greet men by grasping the forearm, like this.” He gripped Aedan behind his wrist and gave a firm squeeze. “Else you’ll be getting some strange looks. You can take a woman’s hand, but the men won’t like it. Remember that.”
“I will. Thank you again.”
Cameron smiled, nodded to all three of them, and returned to his post.
Aedan felt his heart swell. His face glowed.
Nessa smiled.
Clauman glared. As they walked away, he pinched his son’s ear and muttered, “Next time you speak past me to a soldier I’ll nail your tongue to the wall.”
“But … but I only meant to be friendly.”
“You meant to be noticed, and that is something that could destroy us here.”
Aedan was not sure what his father meant. Surely Dresbourn would not attempt to find them here. But it was clear that now was not the time for questions.
As they walked through the gates, they passed a building on their left that had soldiers all around it – obviously a small guard barracks. Aedan assumed the main barracks and military headquarters would be further in, probably near the keep.
He followed his parents into a broad cobbled street marked as King’s Lane, which appeared to serve as the central artery for the city. The road was lined with stalls and booths of every description – cutlers, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, fishmongers and many more. Scattered here and there were stands where farmers displayed the produce of their soil. All around, chickens clucked from their cages, girls trilled as they moved through the crowd with trays of delicacies, buyers haggled, and children shouted and jostled, pursuing their games. The town crier, backed by a trio of jolly musicians, cast his voice over the din with the day’s news including royal decrees, notorious criminals’ sentences, and the weather prophets’ lies.
Though much of the arrangement was haphazard, it became clear as they continued that the buildings were growing larger and the clientele better-dressed – feathers, capes, furs, and rare cloth of blue and purple. Eventually they came to the emporium of the ill-mannered silk merchant.
Aedan saw his mother looking across the road with a hint of nostalgia at the office of a scrivener. He remembered that her father had owned three such enterprises and had taught her the skills that she had since passed on to him.
Clauman stopped to ask an elderly man of r
espectable appearance for directions. The man frowned at the mention of Miller’s Court. He pointed across the road without a word, turned, and walked away.
They pursued the road indicated, stopping and asking for directions several more times. Streets became narrower, and dirtier. Here people moved more quickly. Few lingered where the shadows fell heavily and the smells rose thick as soup – a soup gone horribly wrong.
It was in one of these alleyways that Clauman asked a group of older, very seedy boys for directions. Their cocksure disrespect was barely concealed behind a thin coating of servility. They would be trouble. Aedan could sense it. One came up and started to explain. Two others approached and tousled behind the first boy, knocking him onto Clauman. Aedan caught just a glimpse of a hand slipping from his father’s pocket, grasping the little pouch of coins that Borr had counted out. He was about to yell to his father when he noticed everyone had stopped moving. The first boy was frozen where he stood and his hand slowly found its way back to the pocket, returning the pouch. It was then that Aedan saw the dagger that his father held under the boy’s chin. He must have had it ready before asking assistance. Clauman whispered something and the boy nodded as much as the dagger would allow.
“We have a guide,” Clauman said, allowing his prisoner to step away.
“This way, sir,” the boy said, as he walked past his companions, shaking his head at them.
Aedan’s desire to be out of this tightening, hostile place was growing to a panic. He shrank from the glares of the boys, now undisguised, as he hurried between them. The only thing that kept him from running was the narrowness of the alley that was clogged ahead of him.
Miller’s Court might once have had space for a court, but it was hardly possible to imagine a more densely populated spot of land. Houses pushed up like weeds competing for any shaft of light. South Lane breathed a little more, being opposite the southern wall of the city.
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 15
