When Vrax plunged the knife into her chest, she didn’t make a sound.
Tobias released Alexander and he fell to his knees as another tree began to groan nearby. He bit his fist, shaking, unable to contain his grief, and watched despairingly as Agatha’s eyes stared blankly up at the treetops they could no longer see.
Vrax pushed himself to his feet and wiped his hands.
‘Don’t look so glum. Anyone would think you had a heart,’ he said. Then he turned and called to his men, who emerged from Agatha’s house laden with potions, coins and other trinkets. ‘Spread out. Head south. They won’t have gotten far,’ he said to them, before he bent down and wrenched the knife from Agatha’s chest. ‘Tobias! Come! We’re leaving!’ he called as he walked back to his white horse.
*
Tobias finished leafing through the last of Agatha’s books and walked around the living room once more. The table had been overturned, the chairs scattered, the fire snuffed out. It certainly appeared to have been a hasty escape.
He went back upstairs and began ripping into the mattresses and pulling wardrobes and cupboards away from the walls, searching for secret hiding holes. As he dragged a cupboard across the floor in the smallest bedroom, a piece of old, musty parchment floated out from behind it and landed by his feet. He picked it up and examined it. The young man in the picture was kneeling over a grave in the woods. His face was streaked with tears. In his hands he held a smooth, round stone. When Tobias looked closer, he saw that, in the left corner, barely distinguishable from the lines of the trees, was the shoulder and arm of a cloaked woman. In the right corner read the letters E.R. He placed the picture face down on the remnants of the bed and walked back down the stairs.
As he crossed the living room to the door, he became gradually aware of a sharp clanking sound coming from outside. He hesitated and then left the house. Outside, he saw Alexander on his feet with a shovel in hand. He was digging relentlessly, directing all of his aggression at the grave, grunting as he thrust the shovel into the earth. He took no notice of Tobias.
‘It’ll be dark soon. You won’t finish in time,’ Tobias said, feeling a hint of pity for his older brother.
Alexander stopped digging. His brow was wet with sweat. Tobias nodded to the rocks that lined the path outside Agatha’s house.
Alexander began collecting armfuls of rocks and carrying them to Agatha’s body; he stacked them around and over her.
Tobias watched silently. And then his eyes drifted to the old grave. The mound of dirt was crumbling back into the hollow in the wind. It was as if he’d been struck by his father’s stinging whip. The idea came into his head so suddenly, he had to stop himself from gasping. He went back into the house discreetly, though he suspected Alexander wouldn’t have noticed if he’d set the whole place alight in front of him, and began his final search.
19. MERLIN’S OLD MAGIC
Fabian scraped his fingernails along his jaw. It was late, he was tired, and he loathed being kept waiting. What was taking so long? He rose from his chair and began to pace up and down restlessly.
‘Where is he?’ he hissed at the nervous servant girl in the corner of the bedchamber. ‘Useless. You’re all useless,’ he said, striding past her to the door and flinging it open.
‘Alexander!’ he shouted, his voice echoing down the corridor. A cluster of servants at the other end scattered and hid themselves away.
The boy he had sent in search of his son rounded the corner then. He was alone, approaching cautiously with his hands knotted together.
‘He’s not in the castle, my Lord,’ the boy said when he reached him. ‘A farmhand saw him enter the Dark Forest this morning.’
Fabian slapped the boy. ‘Go,’ he said, his hand smarting.
‘What’s the matter?’ came a sultry voice, as the boy scurried away. Fabian turned to see Risella emerging from her chamber, her long, silk robe trailing on the floor. She was a beautiful woman, in a strange, intriguing way. Her eyes, black as night, danced devilishly as she stared at him. Looking into her eyes was like staring into two endless pits, plunging into a terrible darkness filled with untold horrors. But, though he should have felt afraid, it always excited him. She was a dangerous enchantress. As she moved slowly towards him, her hair, black and sleek, rippled like water over her shoulders down to her breasts, which were barely concealed by the nightgown.
‘What do you want?’ he said impatiently.
Risella drew back, feigning offence, and then smiled darkly. ‘I came to see what was the matter. You seem…tense,’ she said, stroking his arm affectionately. ‘Can I be of service?’ she whispered, leaning in, her breath hot in his ear.
‘You should keep better track of your husband,’ Fabian said, shrugging her off. ‘I wish to speak with him and he is nowhere to be found. Probably rooting some wench in the forest!’
‘Don’t be vulgar. What could be so urgent at this hour? Come to bed,’ she said, pulling him by the hand towards her chamber.
Fabian resisted. ‘No.’
He needed to speak with his son. He had been feeling strange all afternoon. Something was bothering him, but he didn’t know what it was. Alexander would know. He could trust Alexander.
Age had not been kind to Fabian. His mind was failing him. He forgot orders he had given, expenditures he had approved, the names of his generals. He had even begun to wonder if he had not already spoken to Alexander about whatever it was that troubled him. As his memory deteriorated, he grew more insular and suspicious. They were all testing him, trying to catch him out - Belfor, Vrax, Tobias, his men, the servants – waiting for any sign of weakness. His army was ready, the men as healthy as they would ever be. This was the perfect time, now all the hard work had been done, for someone to strike him down and take the glory.
And then there was the question of the girl. She kept him awake at night. He could not rest until he knew for certain what had become of her. He hoped that, somewhere out there, her bones were rotting in a ditch. Or, if she lived, that no one yet realised who she was, and that he would find her in time to slit her throat himself.
‘My Lord! My Lord! Come quickly. There’s something you must see! Down by the forest!’
Fabian turned in surprise to see a young servant running towards him, arms flailing, the whites of his eyes whiter than his milky skin. Before Fabian had a chance to blink, the boy was running back the way he had come.
‘Stay here,’ he said to Risella, pushing her into the doorway of her chamber.
Outside, a crowd had formed down by the border.
‘What’s happening?’ Fabian shouted, but no one stopped to answer him as they swarmed towards the forest. He lifted the folds of his cloak and began to run down the hill with them.
Belfor saw him coming and parted the crowd. When Fabian reached him at the forest’s edge, he gripped his fat cousin’s shoulder tightly. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What is it?’
Belfor turned and signalled to one of his soldiers, who was standing in the forest. The man raised his hand and an ice-blue orb materialised and floated above his palm.
Fabian had to grip Belfor even tighter to stop his legs from buckling. He looked at the orb with tears in his eyes. The crowd watched in awestruck silence. Fabian sucked in his breath and stood up straight, shaking his greasy mane from his shoulders. Then he looked at Belfor and nodded.
‘Assemble the army!’ Belfor shouted.
*
Lucian collapsed into bed, his back aching. It had been a long day overseeing the construction of the permanent army settlement in the lands beyond Merlin’s Way. He resented helping with the effort, being stuck outside in the cold, battered by the fierce winds, associating with builders and stonemasons. But the admiration his presence evoked from townsfolk and soldiers alike did bolster his spirits somewhat.
Master Hagworth would be eating his words. He had proved the schoolmaster wrong. He was leading from the front, was he not? The people loved him, did they not? Even when the fool
Mirthworth had dropped a stone slab from the top of a tower and damaged the new stable roof, he had stayed his hand, smiled, told him it was no matter, despite the fact it had set the entire effort back days, perhaps weeks. How he had wanted to punish Mirthworth for his incompetence, to push him from the tower. He had exercised restraint, as he had done every day for twelve excruciating years. But, as each day crept by, it took a little more of his patience with it.
He listened to the fire as it crackled in the hearth and began to fall softly to sleep. Suddenly, the bed jolted and the chest on the far wall shook. Lucian sat up and looked around blearily. Everything was still, everything in its place. Perhaps he had dreamt it, he thought, as he let his head sink back onto his pillow. As he closed his eyes, the castle bells began to ring. He sat bolt upright. The chamber door flew open and Thomas burst into the room.
‘The spell is broken!’ he cried, breathless and wild-eyed. ‘The Dark Forest… The spell is broken!’
Lucian jumped out of bed. The stone floor felt ice-cold underfoot as he rushed across his chamber to dress. His hands were shaking.
‘Get down there. Tell the men we march now!’
20. THE PASSAGE
‘Can you see anything?’ asked Enola, as she and William stepped tentatively through the darkness. They had been silent for so long, she had forgotten the sound of her own voice. It seemed foreign to her now.
‘Shh!’
The tunnel was wide and cavernous and seemed to go on forever. Enola had only a vague impression of her hand as she ran it along the rough wall; hardened by the ages and the unnatural cold, it felt more like stone than earth. She could just pick out William in the darkness, though he was becoming less clear as he trudged on ahead over the uneven ground and began to wade through another filthy pool of water that filled a deep crater. Enola followed and drips splashed onto her head from above as she crossed the pool. She shivered and clamped a hand onto her head, which was becoming numb with cold, as she clambered out.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ she pressed.
‘SHH!’
‘Say that to me again and—’
‘What?’ William said, turning abruptly. ‘What will you do?’
Enola stopped in her tracks, trying desperately to think of something terrible with which to threaten him. But, with a stab of regret, she realised that, in their rush to escape, she hadn’t brought her knife.
‘If you don’t shut up,’ William continued, ‘I’ll take you back there and hand you over to them.’
Enola pursed her lips. If she’d had her knife, she’d have put it through his eye for speaking to her like that. She almost smiled as she imagined it.
‘They’ll kill you as well,’ she said when William began to walk on. He stopped again and turned. But, just as he opened his mouth to speak, the distant sound of sloshing water echoed through the tunnel. Enola’s skin prickled and the cold feeling on the top of her head seeped down through her body. ‘They’re coming.’ She breathed the words, her heart racing, and saw her own cold fear reflected in William’s eyes. William grabbed her hand and, with a forceful tug, they were running. The distant splashing became frantic.
They ran and ran, deeper into the tunnel. But, no matter how fast they went, the footsteps grew louder, echoing all around them. Enola’s lungs burned. Behind her, she could hear the ragged breaths of their pursuers. They were close.
A hand shot out and pulled at the back of her dress. She stumbled, falling to the cold, wet ground. But William didn’t stop; he dragged her along like a hunter with a dead animal, until the skin on her legs began to scrape away and she shrieked, twisting out of his grasp.
The moment he let go, two hands seized her.
‘No!’ she shouted, as a man hauled her to her feet, wrapped his arms around her waist in a crushing grasp and began to move back down the tunnel towards Agatha’s house. Arms trapped against her sides, Enola kicked and thrashed and screamed. The sound reverberated deafeningly against the walls. ‘I’ll gut you!’ she cried in a wild, rasping voice. ‘I’ll gut you, I will!’
The man started to laugh. But when William spoke, his laughter died.
‘Who are you?’ William said, his form taking shape in the gloom as he came closer. The man stopped and his grip on Enola tightened. There was no one else with him. He was alone. ‘What did you do to her? To Agatha?’ William said, his voice quavering.
‘Move on, boy, if you want to live,’ said Tobias.
‘What did you do!’ William shouted.
Enola stopped struggling and stared at William as he began to breathe rapidly, his chest heaving.
‘The old hag feeds the crows,’ said Tobias.
William roared with fury and ran at him. Tobias let go of Enola and drew his dagger. Enola spun around as the blade sliced through the air towards William’s throat. She lunged for it, arms outstretched, eyes fixed on the flashing silver, and a blinding light burst from her hands. Tobias cried out and there was a dull thud as he dropped to the ground. Blood gushed from his nose and ears and, as Enola stood over him, she could see that his eyes had rolled to the back of his head. She stared at the white slits and kicked his foot. He didn’t stir.
‘He’s dead,’ she said, crouching low and feeling around for his knife in the gloom.
William sat back against the tunnel wall with his head in his hands. ‘They killed her.’
‘I know,’ said Enola, and she found that she wasn’t as glad about Agatha’s death as she thought she would be. She could never go back there now. Everything she owned was now lost, ripe for someone else’s taking – and the blue stone with it.
She sat across from William in silence, listening to the drips as they fell from the tunnel roof and splashed into the puddles. Agatha had told them not to stop until they reached a boat. And, for the first time in her life, Enola felt a strong desire to heed the old woman’s advice.
‘We should go. There could be more of them,’ she said, getting to her feet.
William wiped his eyes and stood. He put an arm in front of Enola as she made to move off. ‘Knife,’ he said wearily.
Enola tightened her grasp on the handle. ‘No,’ she said.
He wrenched it from her hand so quickly she barely knew it was happening. Then he walked on.
‘Give it back!’ she shouted, running after him half-heartedly, for she knew he never would.
‘How did you do that, back there?’ William asked, when Tobias was long behind them.
‘Give me the knife and I’ll tell you,’ said Enola. Her hands were still tingling and she felt strange, weaker somehow, unsettled. She hadn’t intended to do it, she didn’t know how she had done it; but she wouldn’t tell him that.
There had been a time when she had used magic freely. She remembered it well. She was good at it. She enjoyed it; loosening torches from their brackets on the castle walls; setting fire to the bedsheets; destroying ugly mushrooms without even having to touch them. But that had come to an end in the Dark Forest. All the power she ever had, snuffed out like a candle. Until now. She thought again of the fire in Agatha’s hearth, sparked to life by her hand alone, thought of the grey, crumbling bark on the trees in the forest, and of the tree that had fallen across the path, quite dead. And she began to wonder…
‘Why did you do it?’ William asked.
‘What?’ she said distractedly.
‘Why did you tell her your name?’ He was talking about the girl. The girl she had seen him kissing. Dead now.
‘She saw me,’ Enola said.
‘Because you wanted her to see you! Why couldn’t you just leave us alone? Who were we harming?’ William snapped. When she didn’t answer, he strode on at a quicker pace. But Enola stopped still. She had been so lost in her thoughts, she had followed him straight past the tunnel that branched off to the left of the main path, walking as if in a dream.
‘Wait!’ she hissed. ‘Wait!’
‘Shh!’
‘Stop! How do you know we’re goin
g the right way?’ she said, retracing her steps until she was standing by the entrance to the second passage.
William stopped. ‘What?’
‘How do you know we should be taking this path instead of that one?’ she said, pointing to the left. ‘Why do you know and I don’t? What did Agatha tell you?’
Agatha had always left her out. She would mutter things to William and Alexander and then fall silent when Enola came into the room. It was as if the old crone wanted her to know she was being excluded from something. It was infuriating. The memory made Enola feel suddenly glad that she was dead.
‘What are you talking about?’ William said.
‘How do you know if we’re going the right way?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How do—’
‘This is the only way!’ he snapped, looking around wildly. ‘Is this another game?’
‘No, look here! Come!’ she said, beckoning him. He didn’t move.
‘Enola, whatever you’re doing, we don’t have time for it.’
‘Look!’ she exclaimed. ‘Can’t you see? Don’t you have eyes?’
‘I see you pointing at the wall,’ he said.
Enola’s stomach knotted up. She glanced at the left passage and then looked again at William with mounting unease. And, as she did, she saw a flickering movement in the corner of her eye. She turned her head and then backed away quickly, pressing herself against the tunnel wall. Drifting through the darkness, silvery white and translucent, was the form of a woman.
‘There’s someone here.’
‘Stop it, Enola,’ William said, marching towards her furiously and looking where she looked.
‘It’s not a game,’ she said, frozen with terror as the spectre came closer, closer, closer. ‘It’s coming!’
‘Shut up! Do you want to die?’
Enola screamed as the figure emerged from the passage onto their path. William jumped with fright and backed right through it.
The White Witch (The Serpent and The Sorcerer Trilogy Book 1) Page 19
