The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age)

by A. J. Lake

  At first, there was nothing. The white waste stretched away in all directions, level and bare. The sun, now risen above the mountains, dazzled his eyes, and he turned away from it to scan the distant forest. Was that a speck of light against the dark trees? He blinked and stared again. Yes: the snow in that direction rose into a hummock, with a scuffed-looking area halfway down, and in the middle of it a bright streak moved, as if waving to him …

  His feet slipped and sank in the powdery snow as he started to run. He fell a dozen times, sinking to his waist in one particularly deep drift. But before he was halfway there he saw it clearly. It was the crystal sword, blazing as it caught the low light, and – praise the gods – Elspeth was struggling out of the snow behind it, using the point of the blade to steady herself.

  She saw him as he approached, and started towards him, stumbling as much as he did. When they reached each other she caught him in a clumsy, one-armed hug.

  ‘I thought you must be dead!’ she whispered. Her face was wet against his; whether with tears or snow he could not tell.

  ‘I was afraid you were! What are we doing here, Elspeth? Why would the dragon take us to a place like this?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m afraid that the sword …’ She trailed off unhappily. ‘I think something here wants the sword, and sent the dragon to get it. If it hadn’t dropped us …’

  ‘How did it drop us? You used the sword … ?’

  ‘No!’ Elspeth insisted. ‘I didn’t do anything – it was Cathbar.’ Her eyes widened and she started up, away from him. ‘Edmund, we have to find him!’

  ‘Cathbar! But how …?’

  ‘I think he tied himself to the dragon’s tail before it took us.’ Elspeth’s voice was unsteady. ‘He stood on its back, and fought it … and it burned him, and he fell …’

  She had started to shake. Edmund squeezed her arm, trying to keep the anxiety from his own face. ‘The fall didn’t kill us – he’ll be alive somewhere,’ he said, more confidently than he felt. ‘We’ll find him.’

  Elspeth nodded, visibly controlling herself. ‘At least we have light to search by,’ she said. ‘But the snow’s so deep …’

  ‘We don’t have to look for him!’ Edmund cut in. ‘Well, not like that!’

  A few short weeks ago he had been ashamed of his gift – so recently, and painfully, discovered. The Ripente, the seers through others’ eyes, were too often viewed as spies and traitors. But without the gift, neither of them would be alive now. Almost with eagerness, he sank down cross-legged in the snow, closed his eyes, and cast out his sight.

  Nothing close. Nothing at all in the waste of snow to his left, or the mountains behind him. To his relief, there was not even a flicker of the dragon’s awareness. He moved to the forest, finding small scurrying creatures; birds; something hunting – he tensed for a moment, but the beast was not large, maybe a fox. It had found something much bigger than itself, and was hesitating, not certain whether to go closer: the thing might be meat, but if it was still alive … Through the fox’s eyes Edmund could see only an indistinct shape in the gloom beneath the trees. Then the thing moved: the fox leapt back in alarm and ran away. But not before Edmund had seen a foot, wearing a stout leather boot.

  ‘I’ve found him,’ he said. ‘This way.’

  Their progress towards the trees was agonisingly slow at first. Their feet sank deep into the snow, and Edmund started to shiver uncontrollably. His blue cloak, given to him by the grateful king at Venta Bulgarum, had been meant for display, not warmth. He tried to put the cold aside and think only of Cathbar. The man was not dead (not yet, whispered a treacherous little voice). The man’s eyelids flickered at times: if he concentrated, Edmund could see indistinct flashes of grey and white, and feel the life behind them. It was dangerous even to look, he knew. Use the sight of one about to die, he’d been warned, and you lose your own sight, for ever. But he kept slipping back, as if he could keep Cathbar alive by the force of his own will. ‘He’s unconscious,’ was all he would tell Elspeth. ‘We need to reach him quickly.’

  The two of them spoke little after that, concentrating on keeping their footing. As they neared the forest the snow grew mercifully thinner and Edmund quickened his pace, driven as much by the cold as by his concern for Cathbar. The trees looked like a haven from the bleak expanse of snow – but it was no warmer beneath them, only darker. Elspeth’s sword had faded, and they walked through a black-green gloom, punctuated with thin shafts of light and filled with the scent of pine needles. The world had shrunk to rows of rough trunks, carpeted with snow wherever the sky was visible above the branches. One opening, unusually large, let in slanting rays of sun. Two bushy branches dangled brokenly down – and beneath them was Cathbar.

  To his relief, Edmund saw that the man’s eyes were open, and he was breathing. He lay awkwardly, half-propped against a broad trunk and surrounded by the branches that he had brought down in his fall. As they approached he stiffened, tried to rise and slumped back, his eyes unfocused.

  Elspeth ran to him. ‘He’s badly burned, Edmund. Help me!’

  She was already scooping handfuls of snow from the ground and laying them on Cathbar’s face and shoulder. Edmund saw that the skin of the man’s face was an angry red; his clothes blackened all down the right side. ‘What should I do?’ he asked, feeling suddenly stupid and helpless.

  ‘Find some more snow – clean snow. I’ve seen tar burns on my father’s ship; they’re like this. You have to cool them!’

  They worked steadily, laying on fresh snow as each handful melted, and the burned skin gradually lost its feverish heat, though it looked no better. When the slanting sunlight fell directly on his face, Cathbar groaned and opened his eyes.

  ‘You found me, then,’ he croaked. ‘Good work. Burned up, am I?’

  ‘It’ll heal,’ Elspeth told him. But her voice sounded uncertain, and looking at the man’s ravaged face, Edmund wondered if she believed it.

  ‘Cathbar,’ he burst out, ‘why did you follow us? We owe you more than we can ever repay, but this …’

  ‘You owe me nothing, lad,’ retorted Cathbar. They had to bend close to hear him, but his voice already had some of its old briskness. ‘I was doing my duty, nothing more.’ He looked around the little clearing, and shivered violently. ‘Keeping you alive, and myself too,’ he said. ‘And if we’re to keep alive much longer, I’d say we should be thinking about a fire, and maybe some shelter. Seems to me, we’re in the Snowlands, and that’s a bad place to be outside after dark.’

  Elspeth nodded, and she and Edmund ran to gather sticks for a fire – but Edmund was suddenly uneasy. A bad place to be outside after dark. He remembered the wariness he had sensed in the fox’s mind. Were there other hunters in this forest, larger than a fox? He said nothing, but began, cautiously, to feel around him for eyes.

  As they began to lay a fire, Cathbar told Elspeth about a campaign he had been on in the Far North, and about some of the customs of the Snowlanders he had met. He was sitting up now, and seemed a little better: his voice was gaining strength, and Elspeth listened with the interest of the keen traveller. But Edmund was still casting his sight around, his wariness growing. There was something … Oh yes.

  He was slinking low to the ground, senses wound up to a needle-point of alertness, the distant scent of meat sharpening the hunger in his belly. And on all sides were his companions, sleek and grey, younger and stronger than him, but not so fierce … not quite so hungry…

  Edmund snapped himself back. ‘We need to move,’ he said urgently. ‘Get out of the trees. There are creatures stalking us.’

  Cathbar cursed and tried to haul himself up, subsiding with a groan. Edmund and Elspeth together managed to get him to his feet and he leant heavily on Edmund, breathing hard, his burns livid against the sudden pallor of his face.

  ‘Just give me a moment to catch my breath,’ he muttered. Still holding on to Edmund’s arm, he took a step, winced and stood still until his bre
athing subsided before trying another. The next step seemed easier.

  ‘I’ll do well enough now,’ he told them. ‘My sword’s over there, if you’ll fetch it for me. And take the wood; we’ll have need of it later.’

  Elspeth led the way back out of the forest, following their footprints in the patches of snow and the shafts of sunlight, slanting now and growing paler. Cathbar and Edmund followed haltingly. Edmund wished they could go faster, but the captain’s weight dragged at him: the man made no sound of complaint, but he was sweating despite the cold and his face was still pale. Edmund cast his sight back as often as he felt he could risk it, feeling his way over the uneven ground. The creatures behind them were spreading out, hoping to surround them before they left the trees. He felt their confidence as they tracked their slow, blundering prey: they were not even really hurrying. Only the hungriest one, the old male whose eyes he had borrowed first, was creeping closer than the rest, eager to get in early at the kill…

  Edmund stumbled painfully on a root, his eyes snapping back to his own surroundings; he had been trying to break into a run, dragging Cathbar with him.

  ‘I can see the snow ahead,’ Elspeth called back to them.

  Edmund felt the sweat break out on his face. But it was true: the trunks were thinning out ahead of them, and through the trees he could see sunlight, an expanse of snow, and in the distance, jagged grey mountains. Elspeth was almost there already.

  Behind them, faintly at first, the wolves began to howl.

  Chapter Three

  I was already an old man: how could I save the world? I make ploughs now, and cooking pots – not swords, I said. Let me stay with my wife and son: they’ll have long enough without me. The Fay do not age, it’s said, and my wife seemed no older to me than when she had left her people, though our boy was near eighteen. His light heart, and his mother’s beauty, were all my joy. Was I to leave them? For the sword must be taken to the cold lands, my visitors told me. Without it, all would be lost.

  Cluaran closed the door swiftly behind him. He had little time before the summoning, and no wish to be disturbed.

  He raised his lantern and looked around the chamber with grim satisfaction. In the flickering yellow light it seemed larger than it was, extending into darkness at the back where the walls gave way to the bare rock of the hillside. The great iron frame with its straps of leather still stood there, but Orgrim, the man who had used it on his victims, lay now in prison, mad and blinded. Cluaran was not given to shuddering, but he turned his head and would not look at the thing again.

  It was an evil place, Orgrim’s hidden chamber under the hill. The king had declared it forbidden territory, but Cluaran was not of this kingdom; he went where he pleased. He turned to the shelf of books, scanning the spines in the light of the lantern. When he was last here, he had taken Orgrim’s spell books, evidence for the king of his chief minister’s treachery. But there was one other book here, one that Orgrim should never have seen; that no one else would see, now.

  There it was: a thin cloth-bound volume, its cover stained the dull red of old blood. Cluaran opened the first page to look at the familiar words again. They rang in his mind in a voice long unheard, a voice he would never hear again however long he journeyed.

  He snapped the book shut and stowed it deep in his pack. Now, at least, he had all he needed for the journey ahead.

  The great hall of King Beotrich was full of old men in red. It was only two days since the King’s Rede had been recalled, and Cluaran pictured the flurry across the kingdom as the faded robes were hastily recalled from the bottoms of chests, or from their four years’ duty as blankets. The sons and brothers of the Redesmen executed by Orgrim had yet to return from exile, and old Aagard, by rights their leader, would still be journeying to the town from the far west – but still, the Rede had been restored.

  Cluaran felt every eye on him as he entered the hall. He was the only beardless man present; to all appearances the youngest man in the room by far. He was certainly the drabbest, with his slight build and plain brown tunic, but the voices stilled as he made his bow to the throne, and the king looked deeply relieved to see him.

  ‘Master Cluaran, you’re welcome here,’ Beotrich said quietly. Turning to the assembled thanes, he raised his voice: ‘I here open the King’s Rede, and I call on it for counsel.’ The formal words sounded awkward, as well they might, Cluaran thought, after four years of neglect and misrule. But Beotrich went on more strongly, his eyes steady as he recalled his past folly.

  ‘I declare before the Rede that I have been misled and deceived by the false counsellor Orgrim. The traitor is in prison, and those who were falsely accused by him are pardoned. I myself will pay the blood-price to the families of those who died, and their lands will be restored to their kin. But we now face a grave threat.’ He gazed around the room, his anxiety evident on his face. ‘The two children who revealed Orgrim’s treachery to me have been taken, carried off by a monster, and my loyal captain Cathbar along with them: an evil reward for such faithfulness.’ He was silent a moment, and when he went on his face was grim. ‘I have no doubt that the creature was sent by Orgrim or whatever demon he serves, and designed to bring war on our kingdom. For the boy, Edmund, was the son of King Heored of Sussex.’

  A murmur of shock and dismay swept the hall. ‘But, my lord – it was none of your doing!’ protested one greybeard. ‘The boy was your honoured guest.’

  Beotrich shook his head impatiently. ‘For a few hours! And before that he was my prisoner. Heored is a hasty man – what will he think when he learns I had his son arrested? Or that he was dragged to his death from my own hall?’

  ‘He’s not dead.’

  Cluaran’s voice was as sharp as he could make it. These wittering fools! ‘The one who sent the dragon wants his captives alive,’ he said, in the shocked hush that followed. ‘And, my lord, you have mistaken the danger you face. By the time Heored returns from his campaign, he and you, and every kingdom in this land, will be threatened by worse than dragons. And you must band together from this moment on, or die.’

  The hall erupted into cries of outrage, scorn, even laughter. But Cluaran had spent half a lifetime dealing with unruly crowds. His voice slipped through the uproar like a knife blade.

  ‘The crystal sword has returned! Many of you have seen it, and the Rede, of all people, know what that means. It was bound to return only at the time of greatest need: when the Chained One was about to break his chains. It is our only hope of protection against him – and now it’s the source of our greatest danger.’

  There was quiet now. Many of his hearers had gone pale. The old man who had spoken before ventured: ‘But Orgrim is in prison. If the sword was freed by his meddling –’

  ‘It was not,’ Cluaran told him. ‘He failed even to open the chest which held it. No, Orgrim was a distant and weak servant of our enemy. He has others, and stronger. How else do you think the dragon was unleashed again, with Orgrim crippled and blind?’ Now that he had their attention he spoke lower, making the old men by the door lean forward to catch his words. ‘The dragon has flown north to the Snowlands, where the Chained One lies. It is there that he was imprisoned, in the depths beneath his mountain – but he has learnt to reach beyond his prison, to bend others to his will again. It was he, or his servants, who sent the dragon – to bring him the girl, Elspeth, because she bears the sword. Oh, he wants Edmund for himself too; he thinks all Ripente belong to him, because their power is so much akin to his own. But the sword … the sword is the only thing on earth that can free him. If the girl is in his hands, we are lost.’

  Now there was true silence, thick and heavy, while Cluaran looked a challenge at the king and every other man avoided his eye. At length Beotrich spoke.

  ‘I’ll give you an army,’ he said. ‘A hundred men. If you know where the dragon is taking the children, then follow it, and free them.’

  There was murmuring among the Rede; one man called out: ‘Would you leave t
he kingdom undefended?’ and others muttered agreement. But Cluaran was already on his feet.

  ‘No need for the men,’ he cried, almost light-hearted now that he had carried his point. ‘Give me a letter of passage, a swift horse, and money for a boat. I’ll be faster alone – and if I’m too late, a thousand men would make no difference.’

  As the king shouted orders, Cluaran beckoned to the Redesman who had twice spoken before. ‘Godric, you can help me if you will.’ He turned and strode to the door, while the old man was still stumbling to his feet.

  Outside, evening had fallen, and the square was lit by smoking torches to each side of the hall’s great door. Cluaran shrugged off his pack and slipped into the shadows to one side. He waited to be sure Godric came out alone before stepping forward, and the old man, blinking about him in the dimness, started as Cluaran said his name.

  ‘Godric, I know you as an honest man, and a friend of Aagard. You know he’s returning?’

  Godric’s eyes brightened. ‘It’ll be a glad day when I see him again, master minstrel – for me and for all Wessex. He’ll set things to rights.’

  ‘I mean to help him do so,’ Cluaran said. He reached into the pack and drew out a cloth-wrapped bundle. ‘In here are Orgrim’s spell books. I need not tell you how powerful they are … or how dangerous.’ Indeed, the old man’s face had turned white at the words, and he hesitated to touch the parcel.

  ‘They must be kept under lock and key and no one but Aagard must see them,’ Cluaran went on. ‘No one. He will know how to use them wisely.’

  Godric took the bundle gingerly, as if it were a live creature that might bite him. With sudden resolution, he thrust it into the breast of his robe. ‘I’m honoured by your trust, Master Cluaran,’ he said. ‘You’re right: Aagard is wise enough to use such things – and I’m wise enough not to. No one will see them but him.’ He took Cluaran’s hand for a moment, then turned and hobbled off into the shadows.