Song for a Scarlet Runner

by Julie Hunt

  The Siltman was there – or perhaps it was Hazel, the Great Aunt. It was someone vague and surrounded in mist. They raised an arm and the dogs were still. In the half-light the hounds looked like huge grey stones. I ran through them, heading for the Overhang. The mist dispersed, and with it the spell that was holding the dogs. Their howling filled my ears, and by the time I reached the Overhang they were almost on me. I threw myself into the night cave and looked for the opening in the roof, but it was gone. I was trapped like a rat in a hole.

  ‘Awake! Awake!’

  I sat up with a start. A boy was staring into my face.

  ‘Wake to the world and speak!’ he demanded. ‘Be you true or a piece broke off from Siltboy’s dream?’

  ‘What?’

  The boy was smaller than me. He had bleached white hair and blue eyes that were wide with fright. There was a scar on his face – three fine lines from his cheek to his chin. He wore a ragged shirt, a silver breastplate and a shiny little helmet. He had a cloth bag slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Speak!’ he repeated. ‘Be you friend or foe?’ He raised a silver spear above his head.

  ‘Friend,’ I said hurriedly.

  ‘Friend!’ He threw the spear at my feet, and it broke into three pieces. It was a corn stalk. ‘Siltboy has no friend – not now, not ever. Where from you come?’ he demanded.

  I was sitting on the sandy riverbank, where I had fallen asleep. The Siltman and his pack of dogs were gone. The tide was in and a sheet of silver water lay before me, stretching forever. I pointed across the river.

  ‘You lie in your tooth,’ he said. ‘No one can cross the Silver River.’ He stared at me as if he couldn’t believe I was real. Then he stepped forward and touched my hair. ‘Fire head!’ He drew back his hand as if he had been burnt. ‘I thought you was a ghost!’

  He pointed to my neck. ‘Thread,’ he said. ‘Give it up.’ He held out his hand, and when I took off the stranger’s thread and dropped it into his palm he smiled, showing a broken front tooth.

  ‘Do you hunger?’ he asked.

  When I looked at him blankly, he rubbed his stomach and pointed to his mouth. I nodded. I hadn’t eaten since Eadie had given me the bun in the alcove, and if I was to believe what the Siltman had said, that was over a year ago.

  The boy turned and looked along the edge of the river. He gave a long low whistle.

  The day was blustery; clouds blew across the sky. When I saw something moving along the water’s edge, I thought at first that it was the shadow of a cloud, then there was a splash and it was gone.

  ‘Come!’ the boy shouted.

  I could see ripples, fanning out into a V-shape. Something was swimming towards him. Perhaps there was a big fish under the surface.

  ‘Come!’ he yelled again.

  There was another splash and the surface of the water became smooth. A dark shape moved across the sand towards us. The sun went in and the shape disappeared. A chilly breeze sprang up out of nowhere. I watched the boy reach up and pat the air.

  ‘My hound,’ he said.

  He made long stroking movements with his hands that reminded me of the way the Siltman had run his hands over his dogs – only there was nothing there.

  ‘His name is Shadow.’

  ‘Shadow? Your dog is Shadow?’

  Siltboy gave me a strange look.

  ‘You see him better with eyes shut,’ he said. ‘Shut up your eyes and look.’

  I thought I’d better do as he said. I closed my eyes and saw a faint outline glowing behind my eyelids. It was the shape of a dog, dim at first, but as my eyes adjusted, it grew brighter.

  ‘Hands over eyes is best,’ the boy said.

  I cupped my palms over my eyes and gasped. The edges of the dog-shape were alive with white flames, and there were lights in the middle of him – hundreds of tiny flickering lights, like stars or fireflies.

  ‘A ghost hound!’ I cried. ‘He’s scary!’

  ‘No scare,’ said the boy. ‘Shadow is faithful hound and true. He is afraid of nothing and he will fight to the death.’

  ‘But he’s already dead,’ I breathed.

  ‘Never! Give me your hand. Touch him.’

  I stared wide-eyed at the boy as he pulled my hand forward. I couldn’t see the dog with my eyes open, but as my hand moved to the spot where he was, the air felt dense and my fingers tingled.

  ‘Feel the strands of him?’ he asked.

  There was something beneath my fingers, something tangly – string or rope. It slipped through my fingers.

  ‘Hair of dog!’ the boy cried. ‘Give him pat.’

  I did as he said and gasped as the ghost hair parted and my hand went straight through. The boy laughed.

  ‘Shut up the eyes again.’

  I closed my eyes, and now there were thousands of tiny flickering lights within the dog’s edges. They were swarming like insects.

  ‘See! He likes you!’

  The sun came out and I jumped back. Something was moving on the ground beside me.

  ‘Shadow wags his tail,’ the boy cried. ‘Hold this.’

  He handed me the bag, then he turned and ran into the water, diving under. When he came up his helmet had gone soft. He peeled it off and threw it away.

  ‘Not metal-made,’ he yelled. ‘Fish skin.’

  He gave a loud whistle. I couldn’t see the dog, but I saw its shadow running to meet him. It must have been the same one that I’d seen yesterday when I’d counted the Siltman’s hounds.

  The boy dived under again and when he surfaced he had a fish in his mouth. He put both hands in front of him as if he was holding onto something, then he rose out of the water and moved towards me, with his legs apart and his feet not touching the ground. I blinked and stared. He looked like he was riding the air!

  ‘Gob it,’ he said, handing me the fish.

  I had never eaten raw fish before, but I was hungry, and it seemed best to obey him. He watched me eat, biting chunks of fish meat and swallowing them down.

  ‘Friend,’ he said, holding out his hand for me to shake. I was surprised at the strength of his grip.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, although I thought I already knew.

  ‘Siltboy,’ he answered. ‘I am his.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Siltman’s. I am the Siltman’s boy.’

  ‘You are now, but you weren’t always.’

  ‘Truth,’ he said. ‘Siltboy was the son of Pike. He knows the battleways.’ He reached into his bag and pulled out a slingshot. ‘How many years have you got?’ he asked.

  I supposed he meant how old was I. ‘Nine.’

  ‘I’ve got nine hundred.’

  ‘Nine hundred! But you’re not even grown up!’

  Siltboy drew himself up to his full height, which brought him just under my chin. ‘Siltboy is grown,’ he said. ‘He is strong in the legions and brave in the heart. In the old days he would have been a giant.’

  He scratched a scab on his leg. ‘What for have you come?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Stolen. Like you,’ I said. ‘I am part of a bad bargain.’

  ‘Stolen!’ he cried. ‘Where is the thief? Siltboy will get him.’ He picked up the broken pieces of his spear, ready for battle.

  ‘It’s not a him, it’s a her. A marsh auntie. Her name is Eadie. She let me be taken by the Siltman.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Not here. She’s back in Hub.’

  Siltboy looked confused. ‘Hub?’ he asked. ‘I never did hear of Hub.’

  ‘It’s the place where the worlds meet. From Hub, you can go anywhere.’

  He shook his head for a moment, then he shrugged and smiled.

  ‘I have a fort,’ he said. ‘Do you want to see it?’

  I nodded. Siltboy might have been nine hundred years old, but really he was just a little boy. ‘Yes, Siltboy. Show me your fort.’

  He reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of leather. At first I thought it was a belt. It had a rusty
buckle and there were iron studs in it. ‘Collar,’ he said. ‘For hanging on.’ He reached up and put the collar on the invisible dog. ‘We ride,’ he said.

  Siltboy threw his leg into the air. When he was sitting upright, he pulled me after him. ‘Hold me straps,’ he said, putting my hands on the sides of his breastplate, where I felt two pieces of webbing tying it in place.

  He reached forward and grabbed the collar, then he whistled and the ghost hound surged forward so fast that I almost lost my grip. We moved swiftly across the wet sand at the river’s edge. When Siltboy leaned to one side, we veered away from the water and over the riverbank.

  Riding the ghost hound was like riding the wind. He wasn’t moving across the ground, he was floating above it, and when I looked down I saw it flashing past beneath me. It made me feel sick, so I looked up instead. There were sand dunes ahead, and beyond them open country stretched before us as far as the eye could see – grasslands, low wooded hills and, very far away, dark plains with mountains behind them.

  ‘This is the Siltman’s country,’ Siltboy called over his shoulder.

  We reached a high point and Siltboy gave a sharp whistle. Shadow stopped so quickly that I fell forward and we both went tumbling headfirst onto the ground. Siltboy’s breastplate clanged as he hit a rock.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  He jumped up immediately. ‘Always,’ he said. ‘Nothing breaks.’

  Now that I was on solid ground I struggled to get my breath.

  We were on top of a hill and below us was a little lagoon with a single tree growing near it.

  ‘You thirst?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Come.’

  Siltboy took my hand and pulled me down the slope. The shadow of the dog moved beside us, rippling over the ground. When we reached the water I knelt down to have a drink.

  ‘Wait,’ Siltboy cried. ‘I have vessel, drinking horn.’

  He climbed up the tree and disappeared among the leaves. When he returned he was carrying the longest cow horn I had ever seen. He filled it with water and held it for me while I drank. The end of it was edged with silver, which must have made it even heavier.

  ‘You’re strong for your size, Siltboy.’

  ‘True.’

  He drank after me, then he poured the rest of the water onto the shadow of his ghost hound.

  ‘My dog don’t need to drink but I give him some anyways,’ he explained. He put the horn back in the tree and we climbed back onto his hound and were moving again, Siltboy leaning forward and holding the collar and me holding Siltboy.

  The land was vast. Some of it reminded me of the country out near the Boulders at the Overhang – rocky outcrops on dry ground. I could see something moving across the plains in the distance: a flock of black goats, or perhaps a herd of cattle. They were the same colour as the earth, and too far away to see clearly.

  ‘Aurochs,’ Siltboy told me. ‘Horned ones. They is fierce.’

  We stopped, and he wrapped his bag around his arm and held his fist up to the sky.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeak, yeak!’ he cried, and I heard the same sound from far above. I looked up and saw an eagle circling.

  ‘My battlebird,’ Siltboy said. ‘She wants your name.’

  ‘You talk to creatures?’

  He nodded. ‘Siltman taught me.’

  The bird wheeled low and landed on his arm in a rush of glossy feathers. Its eyes were gold and its hooked beak was the colour of iron. It was like a bird from one of Eadie’s stories – a bird with a huge wingspan and the strength of a horse – the sort of bird that could carry you away.

  ‘I tell her you is stolen,’ Siltboy said. ‘What name will I give?’

  ‘Peat.’

  ‘Yeak, yeak.’ Siltboy spoke to the bird. She lowered her great head, then she took off as suddenly as she had arrived, heading out over the hills towards a headland where I could see a tower – or it might have been a chimney.

  ‘Is that the fort, Siltboy?’

  ‘My home,’ he said.

  The fort was a ruin. It stood on a cliff overlooking the sea and all that was left of it were some crumbling walls, a blackened slab of stone that might once have been a hearth, and the remains of a chimney. Siltboy’s battlebird was perched there, but when we arrived she took off and flew towards the horizon. Siltboy pulled me to the ground and sat down on a rock that had probably once been the cornerstone of the large building. I sat down beside him and watched the shadow of his hound disappear into the shade of the chimney.

  ‘Tell your tale and tell it true,’ Siltboy said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘State yourself. Where from you come? What bargain? Who is your tribe? Say your story.’

  ‘I don’t have a tribe,’ I said. I thought of Marlie and Wim and the cattle, and I realised I would never see them again. Tears brimmed in my eyes.

  ‘Are you keening?’ he asked.

  I supposed he meant was I crying.

  ‘Yes. I’m lost. I want to go home.’ To say that made me really start crying, because I had no home. The Overhang was far behind me, and so was everything else. ‘What will happen to me?’ I sobbed.

  ‘Naught,’ he said. ‘You are in the Ever.’ Siltboy stood up and went to the hearthstone. ‘Take heart,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you my hoard.’

  He pulled the big stone aside, revealing a hole beneath.

  ‘Look under them sacks,’ he said.

  I peered into the hole and saw a couple of old bags. Siltboy pushed them aside. There were shells underneath – shells and round stones that he probably used for his slingshot. He picked one up and handed it to me. It was shot through with silver.

  ‘Treasure.’

  He reached deep into the hole and pulled out an ancient buckle. Half of it was broken off, but it was still the biggest buckle I had ever seen. It must have come from an enormous belt. He rubbed it on his shirt and it gleamed in the sunlight.

  ‘Gold,’ he said. ‘It were Pike’s.’

  I realised then that Siltboy had lost his people just like I had.

  ‘Do you remember your father?’ I asked.

  ‘I do. Pike learnt me the battleways.’

  ‘Is the Siltman your father now?’

  ‘No. Siltman is master. He learnt me the language of creatures.’

  ‘What about your mother?’ I asked him. ‘What did she teach you?’

  Siltboy fell silent and stared into his treasure-hole.

  ‘Siltboy misses the mother,’ he said softly, then he sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Now two of us is keening.’ He sighed and dragged the stone back over the hole. ‘When I found you on the shore you had the fright on you and I caught it. Now my hut is made of misery.’

  ‘What hut? What are you talking about?’

  ‘My bone hut, my blood house, wherein beats my heart.’

  Siltboy tapped his chest. He had a strange way of speaking and I could barely understand what he meant.

  ‘I’m sorry, Siltboy. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’

  He sighed again and took my hand. ‘Tell your tale,’ he said.

  SIFTING SILT

  Siltboy lay down on the grass beside the old hearth and looked at the sky as I told him my story.

  ‘My family was Marlie and Wim and the cows we milked to make cheese. My mother died of a hole in her heart.’

  ‘Speared?’ Siltboy sat up. ‘Who did the deed? I will revenge him.’

  ‘No one, Siltboy. She was born with it.’

  He sighed and lay back down.

  ‘Wim was my mother’s sister, and Marlie was my sister.’ I was telling the story as if it had happened long ago. ‘Marlie and I lived at the Overhang all by ourselves.’

  ‘Overhang was your fort?’ Siltboy asked.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it was. The other people lived in a settlement four days’ walk away. We weren’t allowed to go there. There was a headman, a boss man, who was in charge
of everything.’

  ‘Chief,’ Siltboy said.

  ‘His name was Alban Bane and he hated me.’

  ‘Enemy chief.’ Siltboy nodded to himself.

  ‘One day, when I was out with the cattle, I met a stranger – a good man from far away. He wanted to go to the settlement and I told him the way. But he had the catching sickness, and when it spread, Alban Bane blamed me. He wanted to punish me, and he came for me at night with a mob of people. They had burning torches, Siltboy.’

  I remembered how I had crouched on the roof of the Overhang, listening to Alban Bane giving instructions, and how the cattle had run off in terror.

  ‘Siege,’ Siltboy said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I had to escape. Marlie gave me her lucky cow charm, and I climbed the escarpment. All night I climbed. I felt like I was climbing up into the sky.’

  ‘Scarpment?’

  ‘It’s like a cliff face, Siltboy – a wall of rock. It was behind the Overhang. I nearly fell, but the sleek saved me. He was a wild little creature with pointy ears and a red tail. He bit me, but he helped me, too. Then he stole my cow charm and made me get lost in the marshes . . .’

  I started crying again. Siltboy waited for me to continue.

  ‘And that’s where I met Eadie, the marsh auntie. I got caught in her snare. She wore a huge coat covered in pockets, and every pocket was full of herbs, and she had a pouch with special things in it to open and close her stories. She had stories about everything. She told me the story of you.’

  ‘Me? Siltboy?’

  ‘Yes. Your father was a giant warrior called Pike, and Shadow was the pup of one of the Siltman’s dogs.’

  Siltboy listened wide-eyed, and when I got to the part where Scabbard came to the fort, he raised his hand for me to stop. His face was white and the air seemed very still.

  ‘Steady, Shadow,’ he said.

  A tremor ran through the ground beneath us and I heard a sound so low and deep it was as if the earth was growling. A loose stone fell from one of the walls.

  Siltboy went and sat in the shade of the chimney. He patted the air. ‘Go on with the tale,’ he said.

  I told him the rest of the story about Pike, and when I finished Siltboy shook his head in bewilderment.