The Emerald Crown

by L J Chappell

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, again and again, as he struggled to pull them on, to fit his arms through the sleeves. He knew that he was holding the others up. There were still only a few lights in the houses around them, but he could already hear birds singing. Dawn was surely not long away.

  Eventually the girl stepped back and looked at him. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now, can you walk?’

  ‘I can walk, yes. But I don’t have much strength.’

  ‘Well, we have to get away from here and out of the city. Even Bane can’t carry you all the way, so you’re going to have to manage.’

  ‘I will,’ he assured her.

  ‘Let’s cover that head of yours first,’ Kiergard Slorn said, lifting a dark shawl up from his shoulders and pulling it forward.

  When the mage looked down at himself, he realised that they had dressed him as an old woman. He had picked up a painful limp in his left leg which he hadn’t known about until now, until he needed to walk. He presumed that would have made him even less recognisable, even to anyone who might have known him.

  They set off through the city together, heading east.

  2

  The land had started to rise even before they left the town and, half a mile beyond the gate, the road was higher than the ramshackle city wall. The mage turned back and studied the jumble of stone and wooden buildings, a cloud of early morning chimney smoke hanging above them, and the harbour and the black sea beyond. None of it was familiar.

  The sky was mostly clear – a few pale grey and purple clouds drifted in front of the moons from time to time, but there was still enough light to see clearly by.

  ‘Come on,’ Kiergard Slorn prompted him. ‘Just a little further.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘Come on,’ Slorn repeated. The others had slowed slightly but they hadn’t stopped to wait, and now he had fallen behind a little. He hobbled after them. Thankfully, the pain in his leg had eased off as he walked and his limp was no longer so pronounced.

  Ahead of them, a line of fierce mountains stretched across the land as far as he could see: they were close enough and steep enough that he had to tilt his head slightly back to see the summits. The edges were sharp and angular and the entire range was white with snow: there were occasional black streaks where he guessed the slopes and edges were too steep for snow to lie. He could see a faint glow above one stretch of the peaks, far to their right – the sun was rising and it would soon be daylight.

  The slope of the land was uneven as it climbed away from the shore, so the road twisted and turned, climbed and dipped as it followed a more gradual and manageable route. It took them less than twenty minutes before they were out of sight of the town.

  ‘Just over the next rise,’ Kiergard Slorn encouraged, nodding ahead.

  Surely they couldn’t be stopping so close to the city?

  The mage needed an opportunity to recover, to build his strength again: he wasn’t sure how much longer he could carry on walking. The muscles in his legs were aching from the climb, far worse than if they’d been walking on flat ground. But it couldn’t be wise to stop near the road just as daylight was breaking, less than a half hour’s walk from the city gate.

  There was an old ramshackle barn just ahead, and Slorn waved to it as they approached. A hooded man waved back from the doorway and then stepped briefly back inside. When he emerged again, he was leading a small pack of eight ponies with saddlebags. It seemed that Slorn had meant that they only had to walk a little further, not that they were stopping: from here, they would ride.

  ‘You made good time,’ the man with the ponies greeted them. He was short, muscular.

  ‘There were no problems,’ Bane said.

  ‘And this is the mage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Ethryk,’ he introduced himself. ‘I get to look after the animals.’

  ‘He’s lost his memory,’ Garran explained. ‘So he doesn’t remember his name.’

  ‘Do you know how to ride?’ Ethryk asked him.

  ‘I suppose I do, but I don’t remember.’

  ‘Well, this bunch are pretty placid and we won’t be travelling very fast, so it won’t take much skill. Just try not to fall off.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Small rope stirrups hung from each side of the saddle. The mage put his left foot in one and then swung himself up into the saddle in one easy move. It seemed that he had ridden before, and his body remembered even if his mind didn’t. Either that or he had simply copied the others and it hadn’t been as difficult as he had imagined.

  ‘Good,’ Ethryk checked his tack and passed him the reins. ‘You shouldn’t need these,’ he added.

  ‘Let’s get moving,’ Kiergard interrupted. ‘We can talk as we ride.’

  They set off briskly, far faster than they had been going. Even on the road, the ponies were much more sure-footed.

  ‘There is food, water and some ale in the saddlebags,’ Ethryk told him: they were riding alongside each other. ‘Some warmer clothing as well, spread through everyone’s bags, though I see the others have dressed you already.’ He chuckled.

  ‘I think that was to make me less conspicuous.’

  ‘And it works, at least until you talk. Your voice doesn’t really match your aged, derelict and feminine appearance.’

  Each pony carried two saddlebags: simple canvas sacks with drawstrings that held them closed. Over the following hours, as he became more confident and able to look around as he rode, the mage was able to inspect them. He found an animal hide waterbag and a pottery bottle, which he presumed held the “ale” that Ethryk had mentioned. There was some bread, a hunk of cheese, pieces of cooked meat, a mix of fresh vegetables and a copious supply of lightweight baked wafers.

  At the very bottom of one bag he found a hat and a pair of gloves, and there were a couple of wide scarves in the other. He put the gloves on – his hands were beginning to hurt with the cold – but ignored the rest. He also decided not to ask about the other clothing – he was warm enough for now, and the simple idea of stripping off any layers to change made him shiver. Although the sun was starting to shine directly on them, it wasn’t strong and he didn’t fancy losing any of the body heat which he’d built up over the past few hours. Unfortunately, he was beginning to notice that his old clothes, underneath the broad skirts, already smelled quite foul. Hopefully they were heading towards somewhere warm – somewhere he could clean himself and change.

  He was surprised by how hungry he was, tearing off mouthfuls of the bread, the cooked meat and the cheese and washing them down with water. It was so good to drink fresh water … well, maybe not completely fresh but certainly clean and, he hoped, with nothing else added to it.

  ‘Steady,’ Ethryk advised. ‘You should pace yourself. You have the rest of the day to get through that.’

  So he eased off, and ate more slowly. Ethryk was right – his chest was already painful from having eaten too much too quickly, and he realised his jaw was sore from chewing. He decided to leave the ale, at least for now, and closed the saddlebags again.

  An hour earlier, the land around them had been completely quiet – as they rode through the small towns on their way, only a few lights had been visible in some of the windows. But now that the sun was above the mountain peaks, the settlements were busier. They could hear noises from the houses and see people moving about – if there was an obvious way to skirt any town, they were now taking it.

  Kiergard Slorn had been riding second, behind Garran. After a while, he dropped back to take Ethryk’s place.

  ‘You must have questions,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Do you know me, or know someone who knows me? Or do you at least know who I am?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no I don’t.’

  ‘Then why did you rescue me?’

  ‘I heard about you. A mage who has been captured and held in a prison cell is a very unusual thing, so I wanted to meet you. And I thought you m
ight be useful.’

  There was something hard and intelligent about Slorn: he didn’t give much away, and despite the ease of his conversation, every line was considered before he said it. His tone suggested that he wasn’t ready to talk about his reasons or what he meant by “useful” in any more detail. Not yet, at any rate.

  ‘Why couldn’t we have ridden the ponies from the town? That would have been far quicker, and easier.’

  ‘Yes, but if anyone had seen us in Lanvik then the Guard would be looking for a party on ponies. We would have been much easier to follow, much easier to identify and much easier to find: this way – as a party of seven, with ponies – we are probably different from what they are looking for.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Up, into the mountains.’ He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then added: ‘The locals call them the Black Dragon’s Teeth, and they run the whole length of the island. Apparently they are completely impassable during winter.’

  ‘Then why are we going that way?’

  ‘A word like “impassable” is just an opinion,’ Kiergard Slorn said. They rode on a little further in silence, before he advised: ‘Get your strength back if you can. There’ll be a lot more walking later.’ Then he returned to the front of their little column.

  The closest roads to Lanvik, the ones that linked it to the towns and villages of the immediate hinterland, had seen enough traffic to clear the snow and the ice. In stretches, these roads were made from irregular stone slabs, but mostly they comprised a carriageway of stone chips laid between straight edging. The further and the higher they travelled from the coast, the more poorly constructed and maintained the route became, and the greater the coverage of ice and snow. Three hours after leaving Lanvik, even the villages were behind them. Now, there were only small clusters of ten or fifteen houses together and most signs of habitation were single farms or cottages. The tracks that threaded between these were icy and narrow, no longer wide enough for a cart.

  There were hardly any people outside to see them – a few figures on ridges, in fields or in the courtyards of buildings set well back from the path. Some waved a greeting, and Ethryk or Slorn at the front sometimes waved back. From time to time they passed children, carrying sticks and escorting groups of livestock. The children didn’t wave or smile at them, but just stared as they passed.

  As the see-saw rhythm of riding continued for hour after hour, it soon became obvious that the mage had eaten too quickly on top of the original, very dubious, contents of his stomach. And he had drunk too much of the cold fresh water. He felt everything inside sloshing from side to side as his body rose and fell and after a while he became sure that he was going to vomit.

  He raised one hand and was about to call to the others that he needed to stop, but as soon as he opened his mouth he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He leaned to one side, which made the surprised pony pull in the opposite direction, and then he threw up all down the side of the animal.

  ‘Oh Gods, that’s revolting,’ the girl who had helped rescue him said. She had been riding just behind him, and sometimes alongside when there was room.

  He still didn’t know her name.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t apologise to me, apologise to the pony.’

  ‘Sorry, pony.’

  He wiped the vomit from his mouth, and rinsed his mouth out with water from the saddlebags. There was some on his arm as well, and he washed it off with the last of his water.

  ‘Do we have any water to clean the pony?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re not stopping for that,’ Garran told him. ‘And we’ll use snow to clean the pony, rather than wasting any of the drinking water. Have you run out?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

  ‘There’s a spare bag at the back.’

  They had eight ponies for the seven of them, presumably in case there was some problem. Thawn was riding at the back, and the extra animal was tied to her saddle: it trotted along behind her, laden with extra supplies. Garran fell back, and fetched a full waterbag: ‘After this one, you refill with snow and wait until it melts,’ he warned.

  The track gradually became more and more difficult, steeper and steeper, and more like a climb. From time to time one of the pony’s hooves would slip and skid a few inches on the ice before being quickly recovered and replaced on a better spot.

  The girl was still riding close by. ‘I don’t know your name,’ he said.

  ‘Magda,’ she told him. ‘Do you know your name, yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you remember anything?’

  ‘I don’t know why. Maybe something happened to me, or maybe I’ve always been like this – not able to remember things.’

  ‘If there’s a reason, I suppose you can’t remember what it is,’ she laughed. ‘But you know how to talk, how to eat and drink, how to do everything.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know who I am or anything about me. I don’t know if I’m a mage or not. I don’t know who my family are or my friends, and I don’t know if they’re looking for me or where I could find them. I don’t know how I got here, how I ended up in prison. In fact, I don’t even know where “here” is.’

  ‘Well, “here” is the tiny kingdom of Urthgard, a small and insignificant place on the northern edge of the world. And we are travelling to Tremark, another small and insignificant place on the opposite shore of the same island.’

  ‘That helps,’ he said.

  ‘The town that we rescued you from is called Lanvik, the chief town and main port of Urthgard, where you were imprisoned on charges of murder. Whether those charges are true or not, only you know – but, of course, you can’t remember.’

  ‘Doesn’t it worry you? That I might be a killer?’

  ‘I have killed as well. All of us have. Does that worry you?’

  It did worry him a little: he remembered the bodies they had passed as they left the prison. So he changed the subject and asked, ‘Will we stop?’

  ‘Why would we stop?

  ‘To relax, to stretch, to eat and drink?’

  ‘No, we won’t stop. There’s little enough daylight as it is, and we will use all of it for travelling.’

  Up ahead, the track widened slightly and Ethryk took the opportunity to bunch them closer together. ‘This is about as far as the ponies will go,’ he told them. ‘They are tired, and the path is becoming worse and worse.’

  ‘We could already be travelling faster on foot,’ Bane said, ‘so we would make better progress without them.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kiergard Slorn agreed, ‘but the further they carry us, the more effort we have saved, and the stronger we will be for the next stretch. Let’s keep them a little longer.’

  They rode on, but it was only another twenty minutes before they dismounted from the ponies, and stretched stiffly.

  ‘Take anything you need from the bags,’ Slorn said, ‘but only what you can easily carry.’ He looked at the rescued mage. ‘If you want to change any of your clothing, then now is the time.’

  The mage was wearing three or four loose layers on top of his old clothes, and all of these were probably keeping him as warm as anything else might. He supposed that he could have changed his old clothes underneath for something cleaner and in better condition, but if he stripped off and changed here then it might take hours to get warm again. Besides, he wanted to keep his old clothes: they were his only link to his earlier life. Perhaps they might prompt him to remember something.

  He shook his head, and asked: ‘Won’t we take anything with us? Supplies? Or food?’

  ‘No. Anything we take will need carried, and from here we proceed on foot. We must travel as quickly as we can before it becomes too dark, and that means being agile and light. We can’t afford to be laden down with heavy things.’

  As Ethryk tied the ponies together in a long line, the others rifled through the saddlebags. Mostly they only took waterb
ags, preferring to carry less. Everyone ate something more.

  ‘Be careful,’ Kiergard Slorn said.

  ‘I will be,’ Ethryk replied, hoisting himself back on the lead pony and turning it to face back down the track. ‘I’ll join you as quickly as I can.’

  ‘Godspeed.’

  ‘Godspeed.’

  For a few seconds, the others watched him ride away for a few seconds, and then they turned and carried on up the track. Before long, there were places where they had to use their hands to pull themselves up: Ethryk had been right – the ponies would only have slowed them.

  They were past the settlements now, past any dwellings, past the groups of domesticated animals huddled against the cold. Since long before Ethryk had gone back with the ponies, the only other creatures visible were the black birds that circled overhead, occasionally shrieking.

  Despite that, it seemed that they weren’t completely alone …

  His three rescuers and the man Garran were walking ahead, with only Thawn behind. Those four tested the ground and cleared a path as they went, but the mage could see that they weren’t striking a completely new route in the undisturbed snow. They were following an existing trail – a path made by several people. However impassable these mountains supposedly were, someone had come this way recently: since the last snowfall. Perhaps they would catch them up, or perhaps they would find their bodies further ahead: another group who believed that “impassable” was just an opinion.

  Now that they were travelling on foot, they stopped to rest from time to time, and he had a chance to talk to the others. Or to complain.

  ‘I don’t believe you rescued me just so I could freeze to death here, instead of in a prison cell,’ he told Kiergard Slorn.

  ‘Even if that was true, surely this way is better. Don’t you agree? It’s better to die free – out here, battling against the elements – rather than to be executed for murder? I believe that was their intention, if we had not rescued you.’