The Coming of Dragons: No. 1 (Darkest Age)

by A. J. Lake

  ‘Quick,’ Elspeth hissed. ‘This way!’ She dived under the awning of an ale booth with Edmund on her heels. They watched the horses’ legs clatter by, then dived under the next stall, and the next.

  One of the horsemen yelled, ‘The one with a wound on his chin can be spitted, but the other’s to be kept alive!’

  Elspeth shuddered. A faint, familiar pressure started in her right hand. Not now! she willed it fiercely. Don’t give us away!

  There was a crash as a booth was overturned behind them; cries of alarm as its torch caught the awning of the next-door stall. There was a gust of black smoke and people reeled away, shielding their eyes and mouths. Elspeth seized the chance to dash across the space to the next row of stalls. The blood pounded in her ears. Behind she could hear Edmund’s laboured breathing.

  Now they were on the edge of the square, peering into the shadows beyond the market lights. Nothing stirred in the blackness of the streets, but one wrong move and the horsemen would be upon them.

  Then something moved in the darkness. ‘He’s here!’ Edmund cried, running into the gloom.

  A man was leading three horses towards them, not the sleek mounts of the Guardians but market horses, saddled and bridled.

  It was Cluaran.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘You needn’t think we’ve escaped,’ Cluaran warned. ‘The Guardians don’t give up their quarry that easily.’

  The minstrel’s voice was like ice as he helped Elspeth to mount. His tongue clicked crossly when he heard Edmund’s gasp of pain. Then he led them in silence, moving stealthily to the town gate. But once through the gate and out of earshot, he urged them into a gallop, as fast as their stocky little beasts could manage. Soon they were leaving the road and heading across open grassland.

  Edmund’s arm had begun to throb, but the pain mattered little compared to the relief of breaking free. He held the reins one-handed, sitting lightly in the battered leather saddle. All around the stars glowed brighter as his eyes grew used to the darkness.

  Elspeth rode at his side. She clung awkwardly to the mare, her face grimly set, hands clutching the mane. The minstrel, though, rode as one born to it.

  Edmund urged his horse alongside Cluaran’s. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The Tor,’ Cluaran snapped. ‘We can lose the Guardians in the maze.’ He spurred his horse faster, but Edmund reined his in to keep pace with Elspeth. He listened for signs of pursuit, but heard nothing beyond the dull thud of their own horses’ hoofs. Edmund closed his eyes, sending his mind’s sight back as far as he could towards Glastening.

  There. He could see the head of a horse thundering over the ground, a fine beast, taller and sleeker than his own wretched nag. Other horses raced beside with dark-cloaked figures crouched over the reins. Soon they would gain on them, there was nowhere to hide …

  Edmund wrenched his thoughts back and dug his heels into the flanks of his flagging beast.

  Ahead of them, and blotting out the stars, loomed the hump-backed blackness of a tall hill. Lines scored the mound from side to side. As his pony’s hoofs were muffled by a patch of long grass, Edmund heard hoof beats drumming on the road behind. The Guardians were closing on them.

  Cluaran yanked at his horse’s reins and turned on to a new track that headed sharply uphill. The track veered to the left and vanished between sheer walls of packed earth. Cluaran kept going, even though his horse laid back its ears and baulked at entering the narrow space. Elspeth’s mare kept her nose close to the tail of Cluaran’s horse and trotted after it, but Edmund, hanging back, had to spur his mount before the pony followed its companions.

  The walls were higher than their horses’ heads and formed a narrow, roofless tunnel. Their hoof beats echoed like muffled drums, and Edmund forced himself to let his horse pick its way slowly over the earthen floor. The track curved steadily to the right, and he realised they must be inside the maze, winding their way up the sides of the Tor.

  They had not ridden far when Cluaran halted his mount and said quietly, ‘Stay close behind me. This is not a place to enter lightly – not a place for horses at all; but needs must.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Elspeth hissed, but the minstrel ignored her and led the way into the dark opening.

  They had to go in single file. The sides of the maze closed in on them, the path barely wide enough for the little market ponies. Edmund felt a jolt of panic; like being buried alive, he thought, despite the narrow track of stars above. His feet kept brushing against the walls. Ahead of him, the tail of Elspeth’s horse swished uneasily, but on and upwards they rode, the path always curving to the right until they seemed to be travelling in perfect circles.

  ‘Elspeth?’ he whispered.

  But when she turned to him, her face a pale blur in the gloom, Cluaran hissed, ‘Quiet!’

  Another slow circuit of the hill, and Edmund sensed a vibration around him, first from the walls, then from the ground itself. His horse’s ears flicked back. The Guardians had entered the maze. Ahead, Cluaran quickened his pace.

  The vibrations grew to a steady rumble. Edmund could tell the men were gaining on them. He urged his horse faster along the dark and winding passage. On and on, with only the strip of star-flecked sky above to show they had not vanished far underground. Just when he thought he could bear no more, they rode under a stone arch and out in the fresh air, out under the wide black sky where he could breathe. He gulped down the cold night air.

  ‘We’re at the top,’ Cluaran whispered. Ahead of them was a denser blackness against sky; too smooth and square to be hillside. Cluaran held up his hand for them to wait, then started forward as a half-moon rose above them and lit up the darkness.

  They had emerged amid the ruins of an old temple. Its columns lay tumbled about on the stone floor, but on the furthest side a portico of slender marble pillars held up a carved stone slab against a sheer rock face. The hill fell away into blackness on either side, but as Cluaran led them through the fallen columns, Edmund saw a slab of thicker darkness between the standing pillars. Was it a doorway into the earth?

  At their backs, the sound of hoofs rolled like thunder.

  ‘Go!’ Cluaran hissed, pointing through the pillars to the doorway. ‘Now!’

  Edmund fumbled with the reins, trying to coax his horse forward. It was wary, shying at shadows. When he dug in his heels, the beast lunged forward, almost unseating him.

  ‘Hurry!’ Cluaran cried.

  Elspeth’s horse pressed up behind, and at last Edmund was through the door. The stone portal seemed to glow with unearthly light, and for a moment Edmund did not know if he was seeing it with his mind or his eyes. The strange white gleam revealed that he was inside a stone chamber that fell away steeply to a dark tunnel. On every side of the chamber, the walls were carved from floor to roof with intricate lines and scratches. A web of runes? A shiver shot down Edmund’s spine. What hand had left these marks in this gods-less place?

  He turned to make sure Elspeth had followed, and saw the horsemen burst out from the tunnel beyond the temple ruins. Edmund froze as he heard the furious yells, saw moonlight glinting on drawn swords. Cluaran wheeled his horse around, yelling in a language Edmund did not know. In a single movement, the minstrel had his bow in hand, an arrow primed, but he did not fire.

  Elspeth turned her horse and spurred it through the fallen columns, a white glow shooting from her right hand.

  ‘Elspeth – no!’ Edmund cried. She could not fight so many! But the light stabbed his eyes, brighter than ever before, and he was forced to close them, wincing. When he opened them again, Elspeth had reined her horse to a standstill between Cluaran and their pursuers. In her hand, the sword blazed like caught lightning.

  The Guardians halted in confusion, their horses shying away from the glare. But Elspeth made no move to attack them. Instead she raised the crystal sword and aimed a blow at one of the pillars supporting the entrance to the cave.

  The blade sheared the stone in two. Slowly, s
lowly, the portico tipped forward, taking the pillar top with it. Elspeth’s horse leaped away from the tumbling stone. Elspeth and Cluaran charged into the chamber, barging Edmund out of the way. Over his shoulder he glimpsed the horror-struck face of a Guardian, his horse rearing in terror, as the great mass of stone crashed to the ground, sealing the doorway behind them.

  Now they were in blackness, except for the fading glow of the crystal sword. The musty fug of damp earth and horse sweat filled Edmund’s nostrils. The beasts pressed together in the narrow cavern, nervous and fretful.

  Elspeth leaned against the neck of her mare, stroking the horse with her left hand and holding the sword away from her.

  ‘Will she be all right?’ she whispered to Edmund.

  He nodded. ‘She’s just frightened,’ he said. He could not keep his eyes from the sword, fading now, yet filling the cavern with an icy light. The blade had blurred to transparency and he could see the rock wall behind.

  Cluaran spurred his horse alongside Elspeth’s. He was staring at the sword as if he would look at it for ever. He put out a hand, but before he could touch the blade, he let it drop and turned his horse away, towards the tunnel at the back of the cave. His face was expressionless, but Edmund was sure the minstrel knew exactly what the sword was, just as Aagard had done.

  ‘Follow close,’ Cluaran told them. ‘Elspeth between. Her mare is slower. Do not lose sight of me. You two should not be here, and the dwellers under the hill can be unforgiving.’ Then he plunged into the tunnel, Elspeth following, and the darkness dropped like a sack over Edmund’s head.

  The horses’ hoofs made almost no noise in the soft earth tunnel. Edmund found himself straining to catch the smallest sound. Sometimes he thought he could hear low-pitched voices chanting, and once the clang of iron on stone, but always so faint and distant that he could not be sure if it was only his imagination. He could tell that the path was descending, but he had lost all sense of direction, and of time too. Whenever a sudden draught of air indicated the presence of a side passage, Cluaran would urge his horse faster, hissing an order over his shoulder to stay close behind. Edmund wondered what was to be found down those side tunnels. Better not to know, he told himself uneasily.

  After a while – he could not tell how long – he sensed a lessening of pressure in the air around him, and began to smell fresh earth again. There was a small lifting of the darkness too; he realised he could see the dim shape of the horse in front of him.

  ‘We wait here,’ Cluaran said, reining his horse to a halt. ‘Make no sound.’

  They waited, unmoving, for what seemed like an age. Edmund strained his ears, but could hear nothing beyond the horses’ breathing. The grey light increased till he could see the smooth stone wall beside him. There were more carvings on it – some kind of symbols: people, birds, insects? Edmund leaned towards the wall for a closer look – but then the minstrel stirred.

  ‘The Guardians are in the lowest level of the maze,’ he said quietly. ‘They’ll head back to the opening and wait there for us to come out. We must go softly.’

  As Cluaran led them forward, Edmund felt a fresh breeze on his face, and moments later he blinked in the milky light of early dawn. They were on the furthest side of the hill now, perhaps several leagues away from the maze entrance. All the same, Cluaran bid them be quiet, saying there was little cover ahead, and they must go slowly so as not to excite attention.

  Tussocky grassland stretched all around them and Edmund’s fingers twitched on the reins with the urge to gallop. At any moment, their pursuers might tire of waiting at the maze entrance, and extend their search round the foot of the hill. If they came, there was nowhere here to hide.

  But no riders appeared, and they plodded on until at last they reached a shadowy line of trees and plunged thankfully among the dark trunks.

  ‘Go as fast as you can!’ Cluaran cried. Edmund saw Elspeth grab at the rough mane as her mare broke into a gallop. With a surge of relief he spurred his own horse beside her, keeping one eye on Elspeth to make sure she didn’t fall off.

  Cluaran seemed to find paths through the trees that Edmund could not see. They never stopped and hardly stumbled, though he could feel his horse was tiring. He, too, felt light-headed with weariness. His arm and chin still throbbed, but the pain was dimmed by knowing they had escaped Glastening with their lives.

  At last Cluaran led them out of the trees, into a misty drizzle under a lightening sky. He signalled to Edmund and Elspeth to dismount, and they led the steaming horses up a steep, wooded incline to a rocky overhang. At the back was a small cave where most of the rain did not reach.

  Elspeth was stumbling with tiredness, and her face was taut and pale beneath her cropped hair. They tethered the horses and half-walked, half-fell into the cave, where they sat slumped together, their backs against the rough stone.

  ‘You rode well,’ Edmund murmured, his eyes closing.

  ‘Least I didn’t fall off,’ Elspeth mumbled. Then all he heard was her even breathing before he too fell asleep.

  Edmund dreamed he was back home in Noviomagus. He was five years old. His father was away. But Aelfred was at court with Edmund and Branwen. It was the autumn before he had left for Gaul to buy six black horses. Edmund’s uncle was a grown man by now, perhaps twenty, but that did not stop him running wild with Edmund by the lake. They had just been playing Edmund’s favourite game – duelling with wooden swords till they scared the flock of stately white geese into fits of honking outrage.

  In the next instant they were gathering blackberries. Edmund was running down an avenue of tall yellowing elms to the next bramble patch, his uncle pounding behind him. His hands and face were already sticky with purple juice, and the bowl he carried shook as he ran, spilling some of the fruit.

  ‘Slow down, little Whitewing!’ called Aelfred. It was his pet name for Edmund, taken from the white geese on the lake. Aelfred was brown-haired and dark-eyed like his sister, Branwen, and had always teased Edmund about his light colouring. ‘Walk out in the snow and we’ll lose you!’ he would say. Now, as he caught up, he tutted at the purple stains around Edmund’s mouth. ‘We’ll have to wash you before we go in – we’ll never hide those from your mother!’

  The bramble bushes were all around Edmund now. He held on to the bowl as his uncle lifted him up to reach the fat berries at the top. Spikes caught at his clothes and stabbed his arms. Ignoring them, he reached out for a shiny black berry – and recoiled. Looking down at him from among the grey-green leaves of an overhanging hawthorn branch was an eye; a bird’s eye, gleaming round and black. The bird raised its head. It was a giant raven, rising above the bushes as it spread its wings. It cried once, harshly. Then, without warning, it came at him, beak outstretched.

  His uncle’s supporting arms vanished. Edmund tumbled backwards, arms thrown over his face against the stabbing beak and raking talons. He hit the ground hard and backed frantically away – but the attack did not come. Blinking, he saw the great bird flapping slowly away from him. It was dark. And the ground beneath him was not grass but stone.

  He was in a large room, dimly lit and filled with strange objects he did not recognise: great machines of wood and iron. Their shapes were unfamiliar, but something about them filled Edmund with dread.

  Suddenly one of them moved. He started back in panic, then realised that there was someone there. It was Elspeth, standing pressed up against an iron bar. No – not standing. She was chained to it; her feet did not touch the ground. And she was struggling, crying out soundlessly, her face contorted in pain.

  A hooded figure was approaching her from the shadows. It held out something in its hand – the glint of candlelight on a sharpened blade? Edmund lunged towards them both, his mouth open to scream – and found that he could not move. It was as if he was caught in brambles again. Something held him fast on all sides, although he couldn’t see what it was. He fought to free himself, but he could not help her. Sick with helplessness he watched as the shadow dre
w closer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elspeth started awake. It was Edmund who had woken her – he had cried out. She looked at him, but he was still sleeping. Elspeth groaned as she stretched. Every bone ached and the muscles in her legs screamed when she bent her knees. The cave floor was damp and there was a steady drizzle driving under the rocky roof just a few feet away. Outside the day was dull and grey, making it impossible to tell how late in the day they had slept.

  She watched Edmund, wondering whether to wake him. His hands plucked the air and now and then he moaned. He seemed thinner than when Elspeth had first met him on the Spearwa, and older too, as if the last few days had worn him down. His face glowed white through the walnut stain, and the cut on his chin looked sore and swollen.

  Then the memories of their last night’s escape came flooding back. Elspeth sat up, looking around for Cluaran. He was not there. She had seen how he had looked at the sword. He had known what it was, and for a heartbeat she had seen his face blaze with excitement. But he had not mentioned the sword on the long ride to the cave, not asked her whence it came, nor how she had known it would slice through the pillars of stone and cut off the Guardians from their pursuit.

  Edmund stirred, and she saw he was awake, staring at her. He looked upset, his blue eyes filled with distress.

  ‘Elspeth!’ he murmured.

  ‘I’m here,’ she said.

  She saw Edmund shake his head as if to clear it. But before she could ask him about his dream, Cluaran came into the cave, his cloak beaded with moisture and his hair plastered to his head.

  ‘Spring weather,’ he grunted, nodding towards the rain that was falling steadily behind him. ‘But rain or not, we must leave at once. The Guardians do not give up the chase so easily.’ He went over to inspect the wound on Edmund’s arm. ‘You’ll have a scar,’ he told him, ‘but it’s healing cleanly. Can you ride?’