She became aware again a few minutes later, once more with a body lying across her face. She pushed with everything she had, and the man rolled off, his face coming into view. It was Lynch. His right eye was gone and a gash reached down to his chin, severing his lips. She initially thought he was dead, but then saw he was sputtering droplets of blood. She initially thought he was dead, but he was sputtering droplets of blood.
Screams, shouts and sounds of weapon impacts still filled the air, but as she sat up, it became apparent that Lynch’s men had been reinforced by people from the village. Old men, women and boys were brawling all around her farm buildings, armed with the most unlikely of things. Even the overseer could be seen wielding a pitchfork against a huge foul-looking Creature of the Devising. Rowan would have laughed at the sight, feeling a little swell of pride in the man, if she were not hellbent on finding her children. She once more snatched up the cudgel and made for the lodge and this time she made it, as the fighting had moved off towards the barn.
The lodge was empty save for the cradle. Bracing herself against the door frame, her heart near stopped at the sight of her baby daughter, Bracken, quiet within it. She hurled herself across the room, crying out in relief. Only when her hands wrapped around the baby did the tears start.
Rowan found herself laughing and weeping all at once – the baby had slept through it all so far. But where was her mother? Where were the boys?
Rowan clutched the baby to her chest and paused, not knowing whether to hide the baby or go out and fight, unsure as to which was the more dangerous course and, in all honesty, whether she should be trying to stay safe or help the villagers. The altercation in this very room with Lara the previous night came to mind and her resolve hardened.
Rowan carried the baby across the room and tucked her underneath Declan’s bunk. She ran to the door and barred it, then climbed out of the window and pushed the shutters closed behind her.
‘CALLUM!’ she shouted at the top of her lungs. ‘DECLAN!’
She skirted the lodge and ran towards the continuing fight over by the corral, her feet falling between bodies and once, sickeningly, onto an old man’s skull. It crunched beneath her. She fell to her knees and vomited.
So this was rebellion? Suddenly Rowan felt very foolish indeed, but then she saw her mother lying in the dirt across the yard, staring dead-eyed back at her. Rowan could not move; she just stared back into those lifeless eyes, on the brink of a scream that would never come. She strove to dismiss her grief, knowing that above all else, she must find the boys. Rowan found her feet and ran on, roaring and raising the cudgel above her head.
She took a manlike thing by surprise and felled it with a single blow, driven by ferocity beyond even her own expectations.
‘Mother!’
She whirled at the shout, relieved to see Callum charging towards her. He was drenched in blood, crying so hard that his eyes were red-rimmed. He was carrying an equally bloody cutlass. Rowan, in that moment, thought she had never seen a sight so horrific as her baby at war. He looked so like his father that it took her breath away.
I wish you were here, Morrick. Why aren’t you here?
‘Where’s Declan?’ she screamed, clasping Callum to her chest. He fought her off, pushing her away.
‘I haven’t seen him. Let go!’ he screeched. Unthinking, she had seized his hair and was repeatedly screaming the question at him.
Garrick ran towards them from the south fence of the ranch, shouting. Despite his age, he was carrying a huge broadsword and carrying it well.
‘The rest of them are coming up from the village,’ he shouted. He panted as he drew close.
‘We need to get into the forest,’ said a familiar voice. Rowan turned and saw Lynch, held up by two of his people, his face a mess of gore and his words slurred.
‘Run?’ said Rowan.
‘Survive,’ said Lynch.
Wilson wiped blood from his cutlass.
‘About it then, lads. You heard the captain. To the forest!’
It only took a few seconds for what remained of Lynch’s crew to respond. They gathered up the walking wounded, some of their crewmates borne across shoulders on sheer adrenaline.
Rowan grabbed Acorna as she shuffled by, her lower arm dripping blood slightly faster than the gash in her head. She was weaving as she went and a young boy steadied her.
‘What about the people in the village? What about the wounded?’
Acorna’s eyes were afire when they locked with Rowan’s.
‘This is what you wanted girl. Those who fall behind… ’
The old woman abandoned her.
Rowan grabbed Callum by the shoulders.
‘Get your sister from under Declan’s bunk. Go!’
She darted this way and that, searching amongst the bodies trying to find Declan.
‘Has anybody seen my son?’ she called, but those who remained were so busy trying to escape that few heeded her and less replied.
‘Callum went into the lodge!’ said Garrick as he led the last of the villagers on. ‘Come on, Rowan. There’s no time.’
‘Declan!’ Rowan screamed in reply. ‘Declan!’
She continued to search, growing ever more desperate. She could hear more Creatures of the Devising coming up from the south.
‘I’m here.’ His voice was quiet, strained and beyond fear. Rowan spun on her heels and grasped her youngest to her. She called for Callum to hurry.
By the time Callum had fetched the baby, Rowan felt her heart was near to bursting. She looked to the north and saw her people had cleared the north wall and were well on their way to the forest. To the south, she could hear the drums of the remainder of the Devised contingent coming from the village. Drums and screams.
Lara, she thought. She hadn’t seen her during the fight or lying on the ground.
She started to walk them north, but realised to her horror that they would almost certainly be overtaken in the open. Instead, she made for the gate and hurried her sons eastward towards the river, hoping that the signs of flight to the north would hold greater attraction than just a few tracks east.
She panted as she ran, her hands pushing on the backs of her boys, trying to drive them on so they could reach the river and hopefully cross it before wheeling north and heading into the forest.
But then she heard hoarse shouts and shrieks on their tail and, looking back over her shoulder, she saw the vanguard bearing down on her. Only a few doglike beasts had come after them, but, Rowan thought, one or two would be enough to slaughter her kin.
Morrick, she thought. She wanted him so desperately then and hoped beyond hope that he would burst out from behind a boulder, battle-worn but healthy, wielding his great axe. But Morrick wasn’t hiding nearby. He hadn’t deserted and found his way home to protect his family. He had gone off like a whipped dog, just like the rest of them.
‘Please,’ she breathed as she ran, and the tears began to flow.
‘Run, boys. Run!’
It was dark by the time they reached the river and only the moonlight glinting on the water told her they had arrived. She did not stop to think, she pushed the boys in where it was deepest amidst the rapids, Callum still clutching his sister. She dived in after them and went under.
Rowan was so out of breath, that she immediately and instinctively breathed deep of the water. She came up spluttering and coughing, grasping this way and that to secure her children to her.
Morrick, she thought, but then for the first time, Morrick be damned. We’re alone.
They clung together, Callum holding the baby overhead while Rowan and Declan kicked furiously, trying to keep him afloat. Time after time, one of them would go under and all the time, the baby screamed and cried. Rowan feared for the time when the crying would stop, but there was little time to think. She held her breath when she needed, she breathed deep when she could. She cast her gaze about, looking for some root to clasp to haul them ashore. It had surely only been minutes when the f
our of them were swept into the very same bowl, carved out by the river into a deep pool, where Rowan had been washing when she had first seen the horse.
The current pushed them up against the bank where it was too steep to climb, and Rowan knew it was the end – their strength would soon give out and unable to fight against the current, one by one her sons and daughter would slip beneath the water.
Then she heard the animals coming up the river bank from the south where their encampment was located. Bracken cried on and Rowan knew that the sound would attract their enemies.
Rowan reached out and took her daughter, forcing Bracken’s mouth against her bosom, trying to stifle the sound but not the breath. She could hear Devised moving closer and, in despair, Rowan bit down so hard on her lower lip that her teeth went straight through.
Blood dripped into the water. Bracken cried ever louder.
She pushed her daughter below the surface of the water. Callum yelped, but Rowan gritted her teeth and drove her face towards him so aggressively, intent on her business, that the boy fell silent.
The snarls of the dog creatures drew nearer. Rowan shook, her head down, one arm wrapped around Declan, Callum’s arm wrapped around her own waist. She could not see the baby, but could feel her body going limp in her arms. She pulled Bracken close to her in an embrace as she drowned her.
All was silent and the creatures passed them by, but still her family was forced up against the bank. Rowan felt nothing, numbing herself against all thought and feeling.
Suddenly the current seemed to abate. She looked up and before them was the white stallion, standing immovable in the water.
Declan cried out and then again, ‘Mother!’
She felt her sons pulling away from her and as a cloud moved aside from the moon, she could see shimmering figures standing tall in the water as though it was far shallower than she knew it to be. They had taken hold of her sons.
‘No! NO!’ she screamed, but then she saw the water people bear her sons away and help them up onto the white horse.
Another drew up in front of her, blue marble eyes hanging suspended in a head formed from the whipping, circular motions in the foam. She felt hands raise her arms and the body of her daughter above the surface. Rowan looked down for the first time upon Bracken’s dead features, her little eyes looking up at the moon. Rowan screamed into the night, not caring about beasts, her sons or anything else at all except her forsaken, sacrificed child who had died so that some of her offspring might live. The figure held her tight in an embrace that Rowan was incapable of escaping. She too was held high in the water and the Naiads pushed her up onto the white stallion’s back. She righted herself atop it and the one who had helped her bowed its head. Rowan was near insensible and did not respond. She closed her eyes tight again as she cried and so, when the Naiad darted for her, she did not see it coming. The next she knew, her daughter had been plucked from her arms. Rowan’s eyes shot open and she grasped for Bracken’s corpse, but already the Naiad was mid-stream amidst the rapids, seeming to wade unperturbed by the current.
Then, turning to face Rowan once more and still cradling the baby, it sank into the waters. Rowan screamed and tried to dismount, but her legs were stuck fast to the side of the horse. Another Naiad motioned with its hand and the stallion reared up before galloping upstream towards the forest. Rowan closed her eyes and wrapped her arms tight around Declan and Callum.
She was not aware of the passage of time during that wild ride. The stallion galloped for the forest, glowing white in the moonlight as it carried its tormented, unwilling riders, passed the spot where they had jumped in, way beyond the homestead and into the complete darkness of the trees.
Rowan could no longer think on her daughter. No longer think of the future. She held tight to her sons and cursed her husband for a coward, blaming him for all that had befallen them as though it had all been part of his devising.
Finally, after what seemed like an unending ride, the stallion slowed and wheeled out of the river and into the trees. It wove its unseen path in the dark, and the riders cried out as branches scratched at their skin until Rowan heard voices ahead of them.
‘Something’s coming!’ said a low, deep voice.
‘Take it down,’ said another.
A slicing, wet sound filled Rowan’s ears and she cried out as she was thrown forward and off the stallion, landing on her sons as they sprawled in the grass. The stallion melted away into water upon the grass, though none saw it go, and the family would later marvel at the creature’s disappearance.
‘It’s Callum!’ called her son. ‘Callum, Declan and Rowan.’
His voice was desperate and she hoped beyond hope these were not Devised who had waylaid them even as she sobbed, helpless in the long grass.
‘Rowan, ma’am?’ It was Lynch’s voice above her. She clawed out for him, finding his leg.
She clambered up him, wrapping her arms around his chest and sobbing uncontrollably into his shirt, seeing only her baby daughter disappearing into the ice-cold waters of the Whiteflow.
Lynch shrugged off his helper and steadied himself well enough to support her, one hand gently stroking the nape of her neck.
Rebellion had come to the Hinterland.
Chapter Nine
Lachlan, the Lord of the Isles, was gone.
Some commanders view their troops as toy soldiers. Some commanders know each of their people by name. Some officers will send their men to die without a second thought, whilst others will send them, but will be racked with guilt for months, even years afterwards. Queen Cathryn, descended of old from the rulers of Tayne, did not consider herself a commander at all. Her people were commodities, but not in such a way that they did not matter to her. After all, gold was a commodity, as was salt, and only a fool would throw those away; after all, they had intrinsic value.
Only a bigger fool would name each grain of salt or recognise an individual gold coin. So it was with Cathryn and her soldiers. She valued them, but she did not come to know them. A few days after the Folly had been sealed, as she passed the oak doors to the throne room, she paid no particular attention to the identity of the men who wore her colours guarding the door.
A gaggle of stern-faced soldiers, advisors and administrators were huddled around the dais. A few of them dared to meet her eye as she traversed the hall and mounted the steps.
‘Where is he?’
Her volume was low, her voice was calm, but those who looked into Queen Cathryn’s eyes saw a steely determination barring the escape of a wild fury. Those who did not look were more than aware of what they would have seen, had they dared.
The queen had been defied and by her husband. She had allowed Lachlan appear to be her equal only out of clemency for his own dignity, yet he was full aware she was the true power, and this was how he repaid her?
‘What news of the Lord of the Isles?’ she asked again.
Several of them exchanged looks, as if asking who should go first. Their voices rose in a clamour, but a particular voice defied the rest and persisted.
‘I have an account of the Lord of the Isles’ movements, Your Majesty,’ said a short woman clad in leather armour which bore the crest of Long Isle. Cathryn thumped down into her throne, crossed her legs under her long dress and waved a hand imperiously.
‘Deliver your report…’ she paused, realising that though the woman was familiar, she did not remember her name. ‘Remind me of your name?’
She did not intend to snap, but the frustration was in her voice none the less. The woman was unflappable and charged into her report.
‘Mary of the Long Isle. Captain of your husband’s household guard, Your Majesty.’
She did not wait to be acknowledged, though Cathryn did nod as she recognised the name.
‘Lord Lachlan dismissed his personal guard shortly before sunset. I have no reports of his activities until much later in the night when the Lord of the Isles, cloaked and bearing a pack, attended by his brother
Hadwyn and Lord Belman, began to pass south through the various gates all the way to the harbour. He was either recognised or displayed his seal to ensure co-operation.’
Cathryn began to repeatedly stab downward on the arm of her throne with the outstretched nail of her forefinger. She glared at Mary’s feet as the woman went on with some minor details, and then held up her hand.
‘Enough. My thanks. So my husband has taken a boat?’
The Folly’s castellan stood forward from the crowd and bowed his head.
‘The Sea-Gate never rose, Your Majesty, but the watchmen on the south wall report that a schooner that rode at anchor some way out to sea at dusk was gone when the sun came up.’
‘You believe he went to sea, Lord Castellan?’ said Cathryn, ceasing her assault on the arm of her throne and looking the man in the eye. Here was yet another whose name escaped her despite spending her entire life in the Folly.
Lord Castellan Oisin shook his head.
‘It is a possibility and perhaps the most likely possibility. There remains the hope that the Lord of the Isles is somewhere in the Folly,’ he said.
Unsaid was the presumption that Lachlan was off on an errand of his own choosing. The queen’s aide, Ailsa, had been awakened by Lachlan’s personal guard when finally they had grown concerned that Lachlan had not returned. The initial search had been on the basis that the Lord of the Isles was simply taking the air, and after the searches were fruitless, that perhaps some harm, accidental or deliberate, had befallen him. Then tongues had begun to wag and reports of his movements had flooded in to the various watch commanders around the Arduan Peninsula. The inescapable conclusion all had reached was that Lachlan had taken off without consulting the queen or leaving word of his intentions.
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