“What are you doing here?” Tam came and sat beside her. When she looked down again, there was no sign of Lanngorm.
“Practising.”
“Good.”
“I went into my old home earlier. I met the laird. He’s a good man, I think.”
“You know you really shouldn’t be so quick to trust people.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “It was strange,” she said as she pulled at blades of grass. “Going back.”
“We can never go back. Not really,” said Tam. It seemed to Kaetha that his gaze stretched into her soul then and, for once, she felt the edge of his thoughts, the barest breath of a whisper. It was like a distant groan of pain, the red of a gaping wound. And then his walls blocked her from him again and he was the Tam she knew. Frustrating, distant, mysterious Tam, whose scars held a secret story, whose true name she didn’t know.
“I should be getting back.” She got up. “Tam?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s something I’d like you to do.”
Kaetha lay on her straw mattress, staring at the dark ceiling of the cave, waiting for time to pass. The fire burned low, the smell of rabbit stew still lingering in the air. Mairi had been sleeping soundly, thanks to another dose of cadalus, but now made a small distressed sound, stirring in her sleep. Kaetha crept over to her and pulled her blanket up to cover her better.
“She’ll be alright,” said Gwyn. “It will take time. But she’ll be alright.”
“Thank you,” said Kaetha. “For looking after her. It means a lot.” She returned to her bed. Even if she had wanted to sleep, she could not now. Guilt gnawed within her at the knowledge of what she was planning. She had to break her promise to Mairi. She was always going to break it. Surely she would forgive her if she managed to survive, returning with Aedan. But what if she didn’t? At least she knew that Gwyn would take care of Mairi. She might still feel anger at her aunt for keeping the truth about her mother from her for all those years and for making Morwena hide the truth too but she knew that if anyone could be relied on to protect someone she cared about, it was Gwyn.
Finally, she heard Gwyn’s heavy breathing and got up, silently lacing her boots and putting on her cloak. The cadalus still had its effect on Mairi and Donnan hadn’t stirred for some time and now his eyes flickered beneath their lids as though he were deep in dreams. She crept out into the night and waited until she sensed Tam’s presence beside her.
“We’re going?” said Tam.
“We’re going.”
“Not without me, you’re not.” Donnan emerged from the entrance. “You’re planning to rescue Aedan now, aren’t you?” he said. “Well, let’s go.”
“Donnan, you need to stay here,” said Kaetha.
“An extra pair of hands might be useful,” said Tam.
“See? Even he thinks I should come.”
Kaetha sighed.
“I see,” said Donnan, his voice flat. “You don’t want me.”
“Donnan—” she started to explain but then, for a moment, she sensed his thoughts. Crouching in the darkness, hiding whilst his mother screamed.
“You don’t trust me. You think that if things go bad I’ll—”
“No, Donnan.” She grasped his arms. “Believe me. I know how strong and brave you are. I just don’t want to put you at risk. I want to keep you safe.”
“Yet you’re willing to put yourself at risk?”
“I have an advantage which you don’t have. That’s just how it is.”
He shrugged free of her grip. “Fire won’t get you out of every situation, you know,” he said grumpily. “In fact, it will probably only draw danger to you.”
“I know. But I have more than just that Fire now. Much more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come,” she took his arm again. “I’ll explain as we walk. We’re wasting time here.”
“You’re letting me come with you?”
“I don’t think I can stop you. Just make sure you do whatever I say.”
“Nothing unusual there then.”
“Shut up,” she said, suppressing a laugh.
Kaetha knew the knack of unlocking the stable door from the outside. She’d done it since she was a child so that she could visit Lossie in the stables when she was meant to be studying or helping the servants. She put a long coil of rope over her shoulder and led Smoke, Gwyn’s old horse, out into the night.
As they walked through woods and over hills, she explained to Donnan about her discovery of the elemental stones.
“So you’ve got more power than Meraud now?” he asked.
“She’s had more time to practise using the Water stone than I’ve had with these three. But time is something we simply don’t have. I’ll just have to use them as best I can to rescue Pa.”
“And you could use them to overpower Meraud and take the Water stone too. Then they could all be safe from the likes of her,” said Tam.
“I’m here for Pa,” said Kaetha. “That’s all I can think about right now. Besides, we’ve no idea where Meraud is.”
“And what if Meraud gets her hands on all four? It doesn’t sound like it’s worth the risk,” said Donnan.
Tam said nothing but, to Kaetha, his silence was as heavy as rock, his thoughts as impenetrable as ever.
No moonlight reached between the hills and she heard Donnan trip a couple of times, swearing under his breath. She was struggling to see her way too and kept on scratching her ankles on spiky thistles. Glancing at Tam, she realised why he didn’t have the same problem. His eyes glinted yellowish green in the darkness, like a cat’s eyes.
“You lead the way to the loch, Tam. And try to find a way that avoids thistles.”
As they followed Tam, her earlier words to Donnan echoed in her mind and she imagined how he must have felt upon hearing them.
“Donnan?” she said, unable to see him.
“Aye?” His elbow brushed against hers.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
When they got to the river, she tied Smoke to a bush and fed her a handful of hay she’d brought, grateful that Tam had had the foresight to bring a blanket from the stables which he spread out over the horse’s back.
She patted Smoke’s neck. “Good lass.”
“Why aren’t we riding her to Ciadrath?” asked Donnan.
“Tam’s acquired us a quieter way.”
“I took a boat from the loch,” said Tam.
“You stole it, you mean,” said Donnan.
Tam shrugged and led them to the rowing boat which was pulled up onto the bank. “You can take it back when we’re done with it, if it bothers you that much.”
Donnan ignored him. “But what do we need Smoke for then?”
“If we manage to get Pa, we can row him back here. But if he’s too weak to walk far, he’ll need Smoke.”
Moonlight revealed what looked like a charcoal image of a hammer and chisel scratched on the inside of the boat. Kaetha remembered with a smirk that the Clatcher family used that mark. The slim trace of guilt she’d felt for taking the boat vanished.
Tam made to take the oars but Donnan reached them first and started rowing downriver.
“There’s something about this place that sends a shiver up my spine,” said Donnan. “Like we’re being watched.”
Kaetha didn’t tell Donnan that they probably were. “You should make the most of this, it’s the safe bit.”
“And so you actually do have a plan for the not so safe bit?” he asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” she said. “We just need a little luck.”
“Oh, if that’s all, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” said Donnan, a little too cheerfully.
Moonlight flecked the black river like a scattering of silver coins and gave a vague sense of shape to the dark masses of hills and woods around them. The boat rocked unsteadily.
“Go carefully,” she said though, even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t anything to do with Donnan’s
handling of the boat. She sat beside him, taking the oars in her hands too, feeling them jerking and tugging, seemingly of their own accord. They had to fight hard to stop the boat from spinning.
Tam lurched forward, applying his weight to the oars too. “You have to do something, Kaetha,” he said.
“Please, Lanngorm,” she said to the Fuathan as irritated thoughts of disturbed rest and thoughtless trespassers snaked through her mind. “I know this is your river and we promise to respect the waters and everything in it. But please let us pass. Let us pass. If we’re successful, I have silver I’ll give you. If we’re not, that means we’re either imprisoned or dead and will never be bothering you again. I know what Fuathans in the old stories were capable of. Look into the future if you can. See that I speak the truth.” After one final jolt, the oars were released and the boat’s rocking eased.
“What was that?” asked Donnan.
“An old friend,” she replied, catching her breath.
“With friends like that, I can see why you left,” he said.
They moved swiftly now, unhindered by Lanngorm, though it was hard to tell how far they still had to go. Eventually, Kaetha saw a stretch of black ahead which cut across the shimmering moonlight on the water.
“Here!” she said. “I can see the bridge. We’ve reached Ciadrath. Pull in to the left Donnan – that is, your right.”
“That may be the only time you’ve admitted that I’m right,” Donnan said. She could hear that he was smiling.
“And even then, you get it wrong, you eejit.”
The boat bumped against the bank beside a tangle of vegetation a short distance from the bridge. Kaetha hopped out, grabbing the rope and pulling it taut while the others got out and, together, they dragged it up onto the bank, covering it as best they could beneath the thick mass of leafy stems.
“There are still some fires burning in the city,” said Tam, looking across the river to the walled settlement on the gentle hill rising from the southern bank. “I hope no one comes this way tonight.”
“There’s no reason for anyone to be here at this hour,” said Kaetha with more confidence than she felt.
“Except for gaol-breaking,” said Donnan.
“Except for that,” she agreed.
Two rows of torches could be seen about half way up the steep hill rising from their side of the river, like strings of golden beads. They indicated the crescent shaped wall defences with their carved arrow slits which guarded the citadel from the south and the west. She knew from MacWallace’s tapestry that there was a third crescent on the northern side of the hill. She wondered how many archers were posted on duty tonight.
“Our best chance is to approach from as far east as we can, as close as possible to the sea,” she said.
They skirted patches of gorse and scrambled over mossy rocks along the riverside, heading towards Orach Bay. Kaetha stumbled as she tried to find a sure footing, but continued edging along between the now sheer slope and the widening mouth of the river. The smell of salt was strong in the air now and the wind carried the spray of the churning sea, spattering her face and dampening her cloak.
“We should be out of sight of the defences now,” she said when they reached a point which blurred the boundaries of hillside and cliff face, river and sea. Rock loomed above them, a formidable wall, above which glinted a tiny light from the highest part of the citadel, the top of the king’s tower.
“I think there’s a reason this part’s not defended,” said Donnan. “There’s no way up.”
“Not yet,” said Kaetha. She placed her hands against the cold, rough rock and already felt a trembling from the Earth stone on her forearm, as if it were waking up in response to her need of it.
“You can do this, Kaetha,” said Tam.
She felt Donnan’s hand on her shoulder.
“Do what, Kit?” he said.
Kaetha released a slow breath, remembering how she could manipulate the shape of the copper on the bands around her arm with no trouble and how she could carve into the stone of her mother’s grave. I will find him, Ma. I will find him. The Earth stone pressed coldly into her skin and her arms shook.
“Feel the power of the Earth stone, Kaetha,” said Tam. “Its strength is your own. Let it flow through you. The deep-rooted strength of an oak. The might of a bear. The force of an avalanche.”
She strained harder, silencing her doubts, her fear of failure, her whole body trembling now as she pushed her palms up against the rock, muscles tensed and teeth gritted as pain flared through her limbs.
She could feel the shape of the rock, even at the top of the cliff, somehow she knew its form, its notches, crevices, jagged edges, each tiny ledge where birds would perch, the cycles of light and dark that had passed over its surface, more numerous than the stars looking down upon it.
A tremor ran through the ground beneath her feet and she dug into the rock, her fingertips stinging where nails broke, exposing tender flesh. She felt deeper into the rock. She knew its darkness, darker than night, cold and hard. She felt the seasons it held, the years, the eons it had dwelt hidden from sight. Vibrations hummed through her fingers like the wings of bees in flight, piercing through the stone until, with a crack, her power cut through like lightning up the hillside, steps forming with a growling, crumbling, scraping of shifting earth and rock. Air and moonlight fell upon newly exposed rock.
“Enough,” she said, her limbs hanging limply at her sides as she panted for breath. Her legs wobbled, giving way beneath her.
“Even a Baukan would be tired after doing that,” said Tam as he took her arm.
“A Baukan who still had the use of his powers,” muttered Donnan, putting his arm around Kaetha. “I can’t believe you just did that, Kit.”
“And here’s something a Baukan can’t do,” she said, using her Fire magic to draw energy from the howling wind and swirling sea. In moments, she straightened up, revived. “There. Better now. Well? Up we go then.”
But the sound of dripping water from behind stopped her before she reached the cliff. Her heart rose to her throat as she saw, rising up from the mouth of the river, the shadowy figure of Lanngorm. She appeared to be standing on the water’s surface, taller than a warhorse, moonlight edging the tops of her scaly arms and the edges of her mane of river weeds and kelp which swirled through the air, growing longer. Her expression was unreadable in the darkness but Kaetha felt the malice she exuded as if an icy cloak had been draped around her.
Cold fingers snaked around her neck, squeezing firm, but before she could reach for them, Lanngorm’s river weed rope snatched hold of her wrists and ankles.
“I saw it in the water,” Lanngorm hissed.
“Saw what?” Kaetha croaked. Donnan tried to free her from her bonds but a thick blade of kelp-like rope whipped at him, sending him flying. He seemed winded but he staggered back to his feet.
“You have powers you should not have. It would anger the Daughter of the Stars should she hear of it, should she see the destruction those powers will cause. I have seen it. I will not let it happen.”
THIRTY FOUR
The Dungeons
Water was up to her knees and Lanngorm was dragging her deeper, even though Donnan and Tam had their arms around her, attempting to pull her back.
“Let go. Both of you, let go!” she yelled. “I mean it!” However, they only let go when her skin grew too hot for them to touch. Her Fire magic erupted, singing across the surface of her skin. Lanngorm hissed, releasing her, drawing back singed ribbons of river weeds and trailing the smell of smoke through the air.
“I only mean to use the powers for good,” said Kaetha, “but I will do what I must to protect myself and those I love.” She sent a blast of flame which had Lanngorm diving into the water. “Right. Let’s go.”
She led them up the cliff face. Several times, the wind crashed so hard against her that she had to hug close to the rock and wait for it to die down. Her arms ached and her hands were raw when sh
e finally reached the top.
“We’ve avoided the lower defences,” she whispered. “Just this mound to climb and I think we’ll be in the section between the two great walls. The forge, barracks and stables will be on our left and the inner wall on our right, complete with watchmen above and dry moat below, with pikes set in it if Alistair’s tapestry was accurate.”
“Pikes. That’s comforting,” muttered Donnan.
“Just don’t fall in,” she said. “We’re looking for a tunnel in the hillside, like a narrow cave I should think. Steps lead down to a locked gate.”
“A locked gate,” Donnan repeated. “And that doesn’t strike you as a problem?”
“I’ve just built steps up a cliff face. Of course a locked door’s not going to be a problem.” She took the rope she’d been carrying, knotted one end of it and pushed it into a boulder. The rock appeared to swallow the knotted bundle whole. She tugged the length of rope firmly, satisfied that it wasn’t budging. “Good,” she said, flinging the length of it so that it hung beside her carved steps. “That should make climbing down safer.”
As they ascended the mound, she froze at the sound of scraping metal. A fire was burning in the forge, a strip of amber light cutting through the shutters. No guard. No drawn sword. Just a blacksmith at his work, she told herself, hoping that few others were up so late. Clouds rolled by, uncovering the face of the moon. Silver light sliced along the spikes in the dry moat and, glancing up to the parapet above the gatehouse on their right, she caught a blink of silver. A helmet. She pulled up Donnan’s hood.
She led them across the hillside, scanning the ground for signs of a tunnel. It felt like she was walking through MacWallace’s tapestry. Just where she expected, she reached a mound and, skirting around it, saw a hole in the side of it, like a gaping mouth, only distinguishable for the blackness within it that was even darker than the night outside.
Grabbing Donnan and Tam, she steered them down to the steps.
“Who’s there?” came the voice of a young man behind them. A jolt snapped through her.
Boots brushed against grass. The figure came closer. “Who’s there?” he repeated and, this time, Kaetha was struck by the familiarity of his voice.
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