by Tim Hall
“No!” she screamed. “I can’t do it on my own!”
Plip.
Plip.
She stopped screaming. She listened to the dripping. She tried to resume the count, saying it out loud. But it was no good, she had lost her place.
She began again from the beginning—“One. Two”—but this would not do. The caverns were falling. Cracking and crumbling above. The prisoners moaning as they began to plummet.
Plip.
Plip.
Marian screamed. She ran and collided with the wall and she ran again and fell, tasting blood. The caverns rumbling turning lurching, the sky itself pouring in to bury them all.
Plip.
Plip.
Marian screamed and kept running, feeling the rock burying her, grinding into her skull, blood running into her eyes and the caves thundering down with a deafening roar.
Her final thought, as the world fell, was of Robin, swinging from a high rope, the sun bright on the water. The sound of his laugh. Then this too gave way to blackness and she knew she had been buried here with the wretches and the rats and that this was the end for them all.
Day and night Robin paced, feeling caged in by the Sheriff’s troops. He could hear them all along the forest edge, in their encampments, laughing and dicing and going on with their lives.
Weeks passed this way. He drifted and slouched, dragging his useless strength with him. He threw his weight down and slept fitfully, his restrained power choking him—a chained bear. He attacked lone patrols in spiteful fury and afterward loathed himself for it.
And then came the worst moment of all—the night he realized he could no longer hear Marian in his thoughts. Did that mean she was dead? Or was he just forgetting the sound of her voice and the kind of things she would say? Was their past life another part of the world he was locked out of forever?
Finally his desperation raged. He ran seething to seek the vixen-girl and he said, “Show me!” And she gasped and took his hand.
* * *
He followed the girl of the forest. She danced ahead of him, breathless, ran back to him, tugged at him to go faster, ran on again, laughing. She became a robin and hopped from branch to branch, leading him on with her song. She was a falcon, speeding ahead. She skipped back to him on human feet.
She led him to the far eastern edge of the forest, and to a hillock, thickly tangled with root and thorn. At least Robin thought it was a hillock, until he felt with his fingers two carved slabs of stone, with a space to crawl between. It was a burial mound, not unlike Beowulf’s Barrow near Wodenhurst.
“Three gifts we offered, asked him to choose. He sent us away, he chose to be rude. Now he’s frustrated, pleads with soft voice. He’ll take what is given, no longer a choice.”
In his imagining she was kneeling, stroking her hair between her palms. He could feel her watching him. Smiling. He paused at the entrance to the burial chamber. What was he going to find inside?
Three gifts I have, buried beneath. Which would you take: the shadow, the blood, the teeth?
He could smell on the air a storm approaching. Should he go and find shelter, turn his back on all this? No, this was the only way, he had no choice. He thought of how vulnerable he had felt outside the forest—he needed to build his strength, one last time.
He became aware that Cernunnos was moving nearby, his footsteps unsteady. Since his injury the old man had been more reclusive than ever, wandering deep in the wildwood, talking to himself. Now he limped closer, and his voice crackled between the leaves. “What price this gift?”
“Why shouldn’t she help me, if you won’t?” Robin said.
“Your anger is wildfire—never sated. It will consume everything in its path.”
“You said yourself the Sheriff was hunting your brother. Should I leave the pieces for him?”
The vixen-girl gasped at that, and squealed. A rustling noise, where she sprang toward Cernunnos. Bellowing followed, and hissing and shrieks.
Robin told himself to ignore them both. Whatever old feud they were fighting, he would not be a part of it. He needed the vixen-girl’s help, this one last time, but then he would go his own way. The quicker this was over the quicker he could begin.
He went to his hands and knees and crawled into the barrow. The air turned cold. A damp, rotten smell. He clawed his way through cobwebs, thick as spinning wool. He felt his way past holes in the floor that dropped away either side. The passageway narrowed and kept narrowing until Robin was squeezing himself forward. He thought about getting stuck in here. He thought about going back.
He could hear something now. The slithering of tails? He thought he had disturbed a nest of snakes. Something brushed against his neck. A wet thing touched his leg.
Too late to turn back. He pushed forward. The smell of powdered bones, and of gold and brass. There are ancient treasures buried deep in here. And what else?
The scraping slithering growing louder.
He wriggled out of the narrow space and into a larger passageway. He stood and moved forward, something brittle crunching underfoot. The passage was descending: He felt his way down ten, fifteen, twenty steps. At the bottom a round chamber.
Here the slithering slouching was loudest.
Hssst. Hssssssst.
It was here.
Or rather, it was not here. In his mind’s eye this dreadful thing was not a presence at all, but an absence. A black so abysmal it is a hole in the world. An amorphous non-shape.
Hssst. Hssssssst.
And he could hear now this noise was not a slithering or a hissing or a scraping. Instead it was the sound of all sound disappearing—a void so profound even silence was swallowed into it.
He desperately wanted to go back to the surface and leave this thing down here in the dark. But he thought of the fortified church and how helpless he had felt when he left the wildwood. He thought of the Sheriff, and his army of men. He needed what the vixen-girl was offering. She has already led you to power. You need this one thing more, to finish what you’ve started.
He closed his hand around the jade amulet at his chest, feeling its coolness, its realness.
He stepped forward, reached out and grabbed at the shadow of the wolf.
He took hold of it.
Energy fizzed through his body. A chaos of emotion: elation and sadness and fury and fear. He relived the wrath he had felt looking at Marian in that cage. He tasted afresh her kissing him and the thunderhead charge when their bodies met. He felt the warmth of his childhood bed, his father stroking his hair, his mother singing a song of sleep. He felt all this and more—all in the same instant. He laughed again with Rowly and Irish and Bones. He heard the screams of each one of the men he had killed. He let out a wail of his own, but no sound reached his ears, the shadow-void devouring it. He dropped to his knees.
In his hand the shadow of the wolf writhed and whipped and bucked. It thrashed and flailed, the way the Wargwolf had as it sank to the mud. It curled in on itself, fitting the palm of Robin’s hand. It shot out and circled the entire chamber. It twined around Robin’s arm and pulsed. It swirled slower, slower. It began to settle.
Robin was able to get to his feet. He staggered to the back of the chamber. Up the steps, along the passageway, into the crawlspace. He wriggled and crawled onward and upward, desperate to reach the surface.
He smelled fresh air. He burst into the open, gasping for breath. He lay there on the earth for a long time, just breathing, a cold wind whipping across him, the sky crackling with distant thunder.
Slowly he stood. Cernunnos and his sister were gone. He felt the shadow of the wolf twining around his arm. It unwound to the ground and it writhed. It snaked back into his palm and pooled there, as heavy as fury, as light as laughter, burning like ice. It simmered in his hand and it curled tighter, a coiled whip, waiting to strike.
The Sheriff sat deathly still, expressionless. Yet his fury was there, plain to see, lurking just beneath the surface. His eyes were intense
, unblinking, staring at the figure slouched at the foot of the dais.
Will Scarlett had come late to the Throne Room; he had to push a path through the crowd.
“It’s Harcour Finks,” he heard one ranger whisper.
“Came back alone, on foot, raving …”
“Found him at dawn, slumped at the city gates …”
Will was not surprised the hall was packed. In recent months few soldiers had returned alive from Winter Forest; when one of them did a ripple of unease and intrigue spread through the castle. Everyone wanted to hear, firsthand, what this survivor had seen. Was it true, what they said about The Shadow of Death, The Killing Mist, Wolf’s Head? Will had heard all these names used, and many more besides. And with every name came a different story. The outlaw could fly from branch to branch, some people said. He wasn’t a person at all, but a shape-shifting demon of the forest. He was just a peasant boy, according to others—a boy who had fought the fabled Wargwolf, and won, and stolen its strength. Or he was an elemental, who could hear the growing of the grass and the tearing of a spider’s web.
Will weaved closer and finally got a good look at Harcour Finks. The soldier had lost his cloak and his armor. He was shrunken and bowed. He could barely stand—it seemed to Will he was held upright only by the Sheriff’s stare.
“Just two of us left …,” Harcour was muttering. “I … I must have lain down to rest … When I woke … Graize Brooks was … left his boots even … called and called … had to carry on, alone …”
Will elbowed his way closer and got a clearer view. Flanking the Sheriff’s throne were Horor Conrad and Kluth Rogue, two captains of the Guard. And Jadder Payne, the torturer, was there, tall and skeletal in the background, half masked in shadow.
The Sheriff still hadn’t blinked. He stared at Harcour Finks and the ranger babbled. “Kept walking, thorns like daggers, the bogs and the mist. But then there it was, the forest edge! I was free! Haven’t eaten for … how long? Exhausted. But knew I had to get back here, knew I had to—”
“Why?” The Sheriff spoke so softly it was barely a sound, yet that single word sent a hush through the Throne Room.
“Wh … why?” Harcour said. “Why … did he let us go? I don’t know. He said something about … he said—”
“No,” the Sheriff said, even quieter. “Why did you come back here?”
Harcour Finks stared up at him, his mouth wide. The hall was almost silent: only the sound of breathing; rangers shuffling their feet.
Finally Harcour said: “I … we … saw it. No, I mean, not saw, you can’t see it. But it spoke, and we listened. He talked about you, and about a girl, and I knew I had to get back here, to warn … to tell … to …” The ranger trailed off, looked about to drop, but remained suspended there, as if hanging from a noose.
“You were sent to the wildwood with a task,” the Sheriff said. “You were told to find this phantom outlaw. To bring me his body, living or dead. Instead, you return here … like this. You bring back only your infection.” The Sheriff raised his head, but he continued to talk in the same quiet tone. “Mark my words, all of you. This canker—fear—I will not allow it to take root within these walls. This man here, look on him …”
He lifted a finger. Harcour Finks began to shake.
“This man is riddled with it. Fear has entered his bones, and his marrow. It has wormed inside his heart. Jadder Payne. Take this man to your chambers. Find his fear, all of it. Cut it out.”
“I … But … We couldn’t … I thought … Back here … I … No!” Harcour Finks gabbled as two burly guards hauled him away. Jadder Payne walked wordlessly from the dais and followed.
The Sheriff looked up and raised his voice. “Let it be understood. Those who speak of fear, those who would spread this contagion, I will give them physic and see they are cured.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped at his forehead and then at the ruined side of his face. He said: “Where is the other one?”
The crowd parted and Edric Krul came forward, showing his teeth. Two more guards formed his escort but they didn’t manhandle him. Will was not surprised: ungodly stories had been circulating about Edric Krul since his return from the wildwood; mostly the other rangers kept as far from him as they could.
As Edric moved forward his skull reflected the flickering torchlight. It was said he forced a bladesmith to forge the metal plate directly onto his scalp, closing over a wound that had refused to heal. His right arm too was a hellish mesh of flesh and metal.
In any case, thought Will, he won’t be around to unnerve the other men very long. Only one question remains: Will it be a swift hanging or something more prolonged?
Edric stopped at the foot of the dais. There was an audible intake of breath when it was the ranger, not the Sheriff, who spoke first.
“I need knives and nets,” Edric said. “Twenty of each. And twelve barrels of poison seed. I’ll use men of my own choosing. I’ll have none of these innocents. I want the pick of the dungeons. There I will find men and minds prepared.”
The Sheriff tipped his head. “You run from the outlaw. You return here with demands?”
Edric Krul stood onto the first step of the dais. He raised his claw. “I return with a promise. My suffering was the price, and it bought me potent knowledge. You, of all people, will understand. I have looked into the workings of this world. The outlaw has two weaknesses, and I have learned them both. He uses the forest as his eyes. Such petty insights, in fact, are the least of it.”
The healthy side of the Sheriff’s mouth twisted. “So then, enlighten us. How do you intend to capture the menace?”
Edric Krul leered around the room. He moved up two more steps and dropped his voice to a whisper. “There are unfledged children here. They would not even understand these truths, to hear them spoken.”
The Sheriff said nothing, only stared. Edric Krul grinned at him and swiveled his eyes at the other rangers and licked his teeth.
“Very well,” the Sheriff said. “Come to me in private. We will see what your wisdom is worth.”
Edric Krul turned and left the Throne Room, leering. The other rangers muttered darkly but parted to let him through.
Without turning his head, the Sheriff said: “Chief Rider.”
Will straightened. The few rangers in front of him gave way. Will walked forward.
“I am keen to return to our usual duties,” the Sheriff said. “Prepare your men. Ten in total should suffice. I intend to inspect our working parties. We shall begin on the Sabbath, with Crowcote.”
Kluth Rogue spoke at the Sheriff’s side. “Have you been shown the charts, sire? Crowcote is on the edge of the Winter Forest. Two garrisons have not yet reported back. Would it be more prudent to—”
“You too, Captain? Has the canker of fear infected you too?”
Kluth Rogue lowered his head and took a step back.
“Chief Rider,” the Sheriff said. “We have been distracted too long. Your men.”
Will nodded and left the hall.
* * *
An hour later, his duties completed, Will headed across the Great Ward. He passed the Inner Keep, and the arsenal, with its roaring of furnaces and clank-clank of hammers and rasping of saws. He reached the dungeons and went down a flight of steps, and another, into the gloom. He stood at the first set of iron-clad doors and thumped three times with the hilt of his sword. Eventually bolts rattled and a hatch clacked open. The jailer’s face appeared.
“I’m here to see the girl,” Will said. “Marian Delbosque.”
Grust the jailer made huffing noises through his gums.
“Little lady no more,” he said. “Little lady crazed. Broke head on wall.” His gums worked again, slurping. “Little lady tough. But hole break them all. Little lady fall to pieces. All done. Huff huff.”
The hatch cracked shut and the bolts slid back into place. Will laid a palm against the dungeon door and pressed his forehead to the back of his hand. This is your doing, he thought. Will
Scarlett, child-killer.
He thumped the heavy door and he kept thumping until his fist was raw. No. This is his fault. Another life consumed by his mad obsession. This has to end, now.
He turned and went up the steps, blinking into the light.
* * *
He checked all their usual haunts. The drinking dens were full of soldiers, whispering among themselves, or drinking stolidly in silence, but Ironside and Borston Black were not among them.
He came at last to the Sign of the Feathered Fox, at the southern edge of the city. He descended the steps into the common room, musty-smelling and dank, a single lamp on the counter the only illumination.
They were there, in the darkest corner, Borston Black stretched across a bench, his boots pulled off, Ironside resting his big frame against a mold-stained wall. Neither of them were wearing their crimson cloaks, but they were known as members of the Sheriff’s Guard so no other drinkers sat close. In fact, there were only two other people in the tavern, sitting separately against a far wall, their hoods raised, their heads lowered.
“It’s Black’s fault,” Ironside said, seeing Will peering around the room. “I told him if he didn’t bathe this year, we wouldn’t make any friends.”
“What’s up with you, Chief?” Borston Black said. “You look even gloomier than usual.”
Will leaned on the table. “Listen, it’s starting. It’s time to make our move.”
Ironside’s flagon went down hard. Borston Black swung his feet to the floor.
“Just the three of us?” Borston said. “What have you been drinking? Can I have some?”
“We’ve been given a chance,” Will said. “This Robin Hood. Whoever … whatever he is. If even half of what we’ve heard is true—”
“Taking sides with the outlaw?” Ironside said.
“I don’t see we have a choice,” Will said. “Is there a single ranger, beyond the three of us, who you’d trust? And we can’t go on as we are. We’ve been doing as children do, squeezing our eyes shut, pretending it’s not there. Time to look this horror full in the face.”
