‘You’re a fool to fight with such a weapon and a bigger fool to tell me so,’ said Coyle.
‘Perhaps, but it’s the tip of my sword that should interest you. Do you see it is silver rather than steel? It is forged from the ring you thought a servant had stolen, because even your suspicious mind couldn’t imagine what use your wife might have for it. Well, here it is, Father, on the point of the sword that will kill you as surely as you murdered Ezeldi.’
Now I saw fear in Coyle’s face, the first time it had ever darkened his features, I was sure. He looked old, diminished, and his haggard eyes did not move from Tamlyn’s sword.
‘Hallig! Leave the others. Come here to me,’ he shouted.
I heard footsteps, running, and a shriek across the vast space: ‘No, don’t leave me here!’
It was Rosa, and moments later I saw why: with Hallig had come Geran, to stand at Tamlyn’s side. Single combat had become two against two.
‘Fight,’ said a tiny voice.
I had almost forgotten Lucien. He had certainly forgotten me. He was enjoying the struggle, as he’d been taught to do by his heartless father. And with his command for the battle to recommence, he had brought himself to Coyle’s attention.
Coyle was only ten paces away. If he was willing to risk it, he could snatch up Lucien before Tamlyn could stop him and dart away through the great columns of stone, back to his cellar and into the house above. Lucien would be lost to me. But only if Coyle dared to lay himself open to Tamlyn’s deadly sword.
Then I realised there was another way, and he saw it just as I did.
‘Lucien,’ he called. ‘Come to me.’
‘No,’ I shouted, making Lucien turn his head. ‘Come to me, my darling.’
I dropped to one knee, arms outstretched for him to run into their warmth if that was what he chose. It was a risk: he had rejected that same warmth only minutes before. But it was all I had to offer him and to pretend otherwise would be an empty trick.
Coyle raised his sword, showing it to Lucien, as though it was a prize for the taking.
To my horror, it was towards the sword that Lucien took his first step. He took another, then stopped and turned to face me. He was torn between us, there was no doubt. The shimmering metal had attracted him to begin with, yet somewhere inside him a childish voice must have cried no. His head swivelled again to take in Coyle.
‘You are my son,’ the fiend called, and this drew Lucien another step closer.
I couldn’t claim to be Lucien’s mother. I had only the truth to give him.
‘Come to me, Lucien, and I will make you happy in a way the Wyrdborn never are.’
When Lucien turned away from his father, Coyle lost patience. ‘Quiet, girl, let the boy come to me!’ he roared, and while his words still echoed from every wall and pillar, he picked up a rock the size of a man and sent it hurtling towards me.
Was it the quick wits my father had given me or simply instinct that sent me diving headlong to the left? Even then, the rock brushed my foot in midair, but at least I wasn’t crushed against the pillar behind me as Coyle had intended.
I crawled away on my hands and knees, out of his line of sight, and as I moved, I heard a terrible crack tear through the air. Fragments fell around us, dust and tiny stones like before, and then the pillar that had taken the full force of Coyle’s missile gave way, breaking into massive chunks that smashed against one another as they collapsed. They toppled sideways into other columns around them and rocks began breaking loose everywhere now, huge boulders that shook the ground like a giant’s fists. Amid the turmoil I heard Rosa’s scream — or was it my own?
Lucien! He was vulnerable, alone. I looked up and there he was, running in fright beside a row of pillars that took him away from Tamlyn, away from me. Worse still, Coyle had gone after him. He would surely get to him first.
We had to stop Coyle from scooping up my little boy and escaping with him back into his stronghold. That was all that mattered.
I pushed myself up on my arms, bringing my legs underneath me to stand upright. One leg moved, but not the other. I tugged once, twice, but it was no use. When I looked behind me, I saw that my ankle was jammed between two fallen rocks that must have rolled together after they had hit the ground. That was why I’d cried out.
I pulled hard to free my foot and felt pain spread through the rest of me. I was stuck fast.
‘Lucien!’ I shouted. I couldn’t go after him. Couldn’t dodge the rocks that continued to fall. One landed only a foot from my head. I was a sitting duck! I writhed left and right, hoping a different angle might release my foot. No use.
‘Help me,’ I cried when a fresh shower of stones fell across my trapped leg.
Tamlyn heard me call, he saw the rocks that held me fast, and then he was gone, gleaming sword in hand, after Coyle.
The entire roof of the cavern seemed ready to fall and I had no way to escape to a safer part of the mine. I would be crushed to a bloody pulp unless I could get my leg free, but the harder I fought the more firmly I became wedged. Dust and falling debris choked the lamps that remained and soon I couldn’t even see my trapped leg. It was as though my tomb had been sealed over and all that remained was for me to die.
The rocks squeezed harder around my foot, as though extra weight had been added. I cried out in pain and wondered how long I would last before a boulder plunged through the darkness to finish me off. Suddenly the pain lessened to hardly more than a throb and I found I could move at last. Somehow I’d been released.
Before I could take advantage of my freedom, I felt myself lifted off the ground, first my shoulders and then my legs. I was being carried. Moments later, I was on the ground again and someone was pushing me.
‘Move in as far as you can go,’ said a voice.
‘Ryall!’
‘Hurry,’ he shouted in my ear.
Still unable to see, I tried to sit up, only to bang my head hard on something directly above. It could only be more rock.
‘Squeeze up, damn it,’ said Ryall.
I did as he demanded, and from the grunts and groans coming from close by, I guessed there was another body pressing into this odd space.
‘Tamlyn?’ I asked.
‘He’s gone after Coyle,’ said Geran.
She had barely spoken these words when the world around us turned to thunder. The shock of the roof collapsing threw us against one another and assaulted our ears. A crash directly above made us jump, but the rock that protected us held out against it and, as quickly as it had begun, the rumbling ceased.
I could see again, enough to confirm that I was crammed into a tiny pocket between fallen rock with Ryall almost in my lap and Geran in his. Light came through gaps in the rock around us, and even though it penetrated in only tiny shafts, it was strangely powerful.
‘Do you think it’s over?’ asked Ryall. ‘My back is going to be permanently bent if we don’t move soon.’
Geran pushed against a boulder that was blocking our exit, but barely managed to budge it. ‘If I can get a decent go at it …’ she started.
Suddenly the rock rolled away, not because of her efforts, but because it had been tugged free from the other side.
‘Tamlyn!’ she called.
His face appeared, staring in at us. ‘You’re alive,’ he said.
‘Thanks to Ryall,’ said Geran as she squeezed herself through the opening Tamlyn had made. ‘He spotted this tiny sanctuary.’
Ryall climbed out, with me last of all. My foot was painful to stand on, but there didn’t seem to be any real damage. A little tentative walking would see it as good as new.
I looked at Tamlyn. I should have thrown myself into his arms, but he was holding back and so was I. We both remembered a moment not so long ago when I had called for help. What else could I do, when the rocks had hold of my leg? He had heard me, had turned his face towards me, and then he had gone after his father, determined to have his revenge. No, I didn’t fall into Tamlyn’s arms.
I looked behind me at what Geran had called our sanctuary and saw that a broken section from a column had come to rest at an angle, one end held up against a pillar nearby. The space underneath it had saved us.
‘How did you get my foot free from the boulders?’ I asked.
‘That was Geran’s doing,’ said Ryall. ‘She pulled one aside while I lifted your leg.’
And together they had carried me to safety, when it would have been easy to dive straight into the sanctuary and let me fend for myself.
‘Thank you,’ I breathed. ‘Thank you both.’
I looked for Lucien, but there was no sign of him.
‘The last I saw of the little boy, he was running after Hallig,’ said Geran. ‘That coward abandoned his father and retreated the way they had come.’
‘And Coyle?’ I asked.
‘He escaped, too,’ said Tamlyn. ‘The falling rock …’ He fell silent, no doubt remembering again how he had left me helpless to go after his father.
New sounds came to our ears — human voices, from above. I looked up and there was the blue of the sky and a face, far off and startled. While I stared, another appeared, tentatively, it seemed, then another, all peering over the lip of a hole that let in warm air and daylight.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘Do you remember the story Miston told from his childhood?’ Geran asked. ‘These columns were holding up the ground above us. We’re lucky a house hasn’t fallen in on top of us. Those people are looking down through a hole in the road.’
‘No wonder they look surprised,’ said Ryall.
The faces above us disappeared to be replaced by others, the number increasing gradually until there were twenty people muttering and pointing. Then a gap appeared between them and a rope was flung down to us. Just as well, because the rockfall had blocked all other ways of escape
‘Lucien,’ I said again. ‘Can’t we go after him?’ I had already taken a few steps when Geran put her hand on my arm.
‘He’s gone with his brother, to join their father, no doubt,’ she reminded me. ‘So young, but he has a taste for blood, there’s no doubt.’
No, I wanted to say. It wasn’t like that. He hadn’t run to Coyle in the way I’d seen little boys chasing their fathers around the village green in Haywode.
He was still gone, though, when only minutes before I had held him in my arms, and the ache of such loss weighed heavily on me.
By now Rosa had emerged from the alcove where she had sheltered from the falling rock and already tied the rope around her waist. Eyes closed against her fear, she let herself be slowly hauled up to the street. One by one, we followed. By the time we reached the top, Rosa was gone, back to her children, no doubt.
When I emerged into the early morning, I discovered we weren’t in a street, as Geran had guessed, but in the very square where she had performed her magic tricks. We couldn’t afford to linger; Coyle might be watching from the house.
Tamlyn was the last to come up, and he made no effort to hide his face. What point was there in secrecy now?
Tamlyn led us away into the streets of Vonne, making sure that we weren’t followed. Eventually, we reached Miston’s house, where he was about to sit down to breakfast.
‘The boy,’ he said, when he opened the door to us. ‘Did you find the boy?’
‘Yes,’ said Geran, as though he had been speaking directly to her. ‘We found him, we had him in our hands, but we couldn’t keep him. We have failed, Master Dessar. The boy ran off to be with his father.’
20
In the Streets of Vonne
His name was Aben Cornwell, but he used it so rarely these days that even he had almost forgotten it. Instead, he was known as ‘Chamberlain’, for the position he had held for many years in the household of Lord Coyle Strongbow. For that reason, those who knew him were careful to stay on his good side and, as often as not, they bowed their heads a little as they said his name. It was one of the things he liked about his job. Fortunately, though, not everyone in Vonne recognised his dark beard and calculating eyes, and this was proving useful today when he needed unguarded answers from trusting souls.
As Chamberlain walked the streets of Vonne, there was only one topic of conversation among its people. Have you heard? The strangest thing in all of my lifetime — the work of the devil down below. The townsfolk were surprised, frightened and superstitious — hardly surprising when a hole had suddenly appeared in one of the city’s squares, revealing a great chasm beneath.
For Chamberlain, the day had begun in uproar even before the collapse of the cobblestones outside Coyle’s house. Just as the sun was struggling to rise above the rooftops, his master had come charging down the stairwell from his bedchamber bellowing his son’s name. ‘Hallig, Hallig, get a sword in your hand. There is barking below!’
Chamberlain had not heard the barking until then, but now he put his ear to the floor and picked out the sounds. He knew the terrible dogs once owned by young Lord Tamlyn had been taken into the cellar beneath the house for a reason he hadn’t been told. He hadn’t heard a growl from them since, and if it wasn’t for the meat delivered to the door of the cellar each day he would have forgotten about them. What was odd about this new disturbance was how distant the barking seemed. With dogs of that size directly below, their barking should be echoing through every room in the house.
There had been no explanation, of course. Coyle and Hallig had descended quickly into the cellar and for a time there had been nothing to hear at all. Then came the rumble of violence beneath the house, followed by the sudden shock and shiver of an earthquake. Only fear of his master had stopped him from fleeing the building altogether when part of the square near the house collapsed into a gaping chasm.
It was just as well he had remained, for, soon after, first Hallig emerged from the cellar and then Coyle himself, his clothing coated in dust, and choking on more that had invaded his throat. Strangely, a third figure had appeared: a boy no more than two years old. The dust that caked his face and hair showed he had come from deep under the ground also, yet Chamberlain hadn’t seen him before and not a word had been spoken about him among the servants.
The strangest thing of all was how Coyle rejoiced at the sight of him. The Wyrdborn never showed joy; their smiles were reserved for the misfortune of others. Observing carefully, Chamberlain realised it was not joy but triumph he saw in his master’s face that morning — triumph and a sense of relief, as though he had been rescued from some kind of calamity.
Coyle had scooped the boy into his arms and hurried up the stairs to the austere room where he spent his days receiving visitors and making plans at an enormous table. It was to this room that Chamberlain had been called some hours later.
‘I want you to track down the troublemakers who were watching my house from the square,’ Coyle said.
‘The girl in the yellow dress?’
‘Yes, the one you so carelessly allowed to escape.’
Chamberlain had known better than to apologise. He’d stood perfectly to attention, knowing there would be more orders yet. In the corner of the room, sat the boy he’d seen earlier, watching with dull eyes and a dirty finger in his mouth. Tears had cut a muddy river down his cheeks, but hadn’t earned him any sympathy from Coyle. What had the boy been doing underground in the first place — that was what Chamberlain hadn’t been able to work out. And why was Coyle interested in a mere baby?
‘The girl’s name is Silvermay,’ his master had continued. ‘There will be others with her, quite a little band. One is the boy you spoke of, with the unusual device on his arm. Find out where they are hiding, but don’t let them know they have been discovered.’
‘It will take time, master. I will have to ask in the streets and the marketplace.’
‘Find them, and by sundown.’
Chamberlain had bowed. There was only one thing the Wyrdborn despised more than the apology of a servant and that was to have their orders questioned.
‘Go now, and on the way tell one of the serving girls to come here. I want this boy cleaned up and watched over while I’m with the king. The fool wants to know what happened outside my gate this morning. Before much longer, he’ll be the one at my beck and call.’
Chamberlain had done as commanded and was now roaming the streets, his face warmed by an unnatural friendliness. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he called in a jovial voice to a man who stood over large baskets of pears and apricots.
‘And to you, my friend,’ said the fruit seller. ‘What can I get you? A pound of apricots? Best in the city.’
‘That depends on whether you can help me,’ Chamberlain said. ‘I’m looking for a boy, a tall lad of sixteen or seventeen with a false hand.’
‘False hand!’ said the fruit seller. ‘What do you mean by that? A trick, some kind of device for a thief?’
‘No, not at all. The boy is not in trouble and I mean him no harm. He has a mechanical arm, I hear, and I wish to examine it.’
The fruit seller shook his head. ‘A mystery to me, I’m afraid. Are you sure you won’t …’
But Chamberlain had moved on. He had thought it likely that people would remember the boy rather than the girl because of that strange arm. He hadn’t seen it himself, but two of the servants had reported the same thing — a youth with a claw of steel instead of a hand who seemed to be watching Coyle’s house.
Further along the street, he tried again among a gaggle of men and women who had gathered to gossip, but only blank stares and shakes of the head greeted his question about a boy with a mechanical arm.
‘What about a girl, then? The same age, long hair, slim?’
This time they laughed. ‘That describes half the girls in Vonne,’ said one woman who found his question particularly funny.
Chamberlain wanted to slap her insolent face, but that would not get the answers he needed. He pictured the girl he had chased down lanes and in and out of kitchens. ‘She is a pretty thing, with freckles on her nose and cheeks. About this tall.’ He held his palm level with his shoulder.
Tamlyn Page 20
