The Nethergrim Read online

  Tom let out a hissing moan that sank into a sob. He felt Oswin’s fingers move to tie the knot.

  A growl rose to a snarl, and then a black-and-white shape slashed across the byre. Jumble leapt at the men, and this time sank his teeth deep into Oswin’s arm. Oswin let out a yelp and staggered away from the post, waving his arms all about to try to shake off his attacker. He stumbled back amongst the sheep, startling them and sending them in a panicked surge for the open door.

  “Back!” Athelstan struck at Jumble’s muzzle, opening the cut he had made with his whip. Jumble cried out, dropped his tail and backed away. Oswin made a similar noise, clutching at his bleeding arm.

  Athelstan jabbed a finger into Oswin’s belly. “Get those sheep back in here, you twit, and kill that dog!”

  “No!” Tom twisted around to look, to beg—and froze, hardly daring to twitch. The ropes that bound his hands had begun to give under his weight. He groped upward with his fingers—the top of the knot fell loose in his hands. Oswin had left it half done.

  Oswin picked up a shovel from the corner and swung it like an axe. Jumble fought back with all his might, but was overmatched. After a few swings and dodges he retreated through the doorway with Oswin in pursuit.

  Tom worked his thumb under the knot and pulled it open, then held his hands over the loosened ends of rope. He bowed his head against the post and drew in a long, slow breath.

  “Now, boy.” Athelstan came up close again. He let the coils of his whip trace down Tom’s naked back—it was impossible to mistake the hungry quaver in his voice. “This time I swear to you that you will learn your lesson at last.”

  “I already have, Master.”

  Tom spun from the post and struck his master hard on the jaw, sending him sprawling back across the byre.

  He raced outside to find Jumble at bay, cornered against the wall of the master’s house with Oswin rearing up above him, shovel raised for one last crushing strike. He had never truly known rage before.

  “Oswin!” His shout distracted his target for just long enough. He charged and leapt, throwing all his weight into a flying tackle. He slammed Oswin into the wall, seized the shovel and flung it far across the yard. There was no need to tell Jumble to follow. They streaked out onto the road together, leaping the footbridge before Athelstan could come out to start the hue and cry.

  • • •

  The hearth fire in the tavern spat and groaned. Edmund curled forward to shift the logs and sat back again.

  “Have you slept?” Katherine sat beside him, still dressed, slumped in the other of the tavern’s two proper chairs with her sword laid sheathed along her legs and her booted feet crossed at the ankles. She hardly moved, save for two fingers that tapped without rhythm on the hilt of the sword.

  “No.” Edmund crossed his arms, but he could not stop shivering. Every now and again his mind would grip on to something—a man serves the Nethergrim, a living man, a wizard—but then his thoughts would dislodge once again into the melting rush.

  Katherine set down her sword and drew up a blanket on her shoulders. “They stopped the bleeding. He’s got a chance. A good chance.”

  Edmund worked his hands together. He could not keep the question down. “Did you love your mother?”

  Katherine stared at him. “Of course I did.”

  “Did you get to tell her, before— Were you there, at the end?”

  Katherine turned to the fire. The roaring flicker danced in her eyes and tossed her shadow about the walls in looming triples. “I remember her just as I saw her last. Her hair, her eyes, her mouth. She tried to take my hand, but she was cold and sweaty, so I pulled away. ‘I’ll see you again, very soon,’ she said, ‘and when I do, all the world will be brighter.’ Then they closed the door, she tried to give birth to my brother, and she died.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Edmund. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  Katherine leaned over on her arm. “And whenever I hope, whenever I despair, there she is.”

  Edmund churned his hands in his hair. “What sort of world is this?”

  Katherine opened her mouth to answer him—and closed it again. The flames found a seam of wet wood, seized upon it and brought it whining to ashes.

  There came a frantic knocking at the door. Edmund crossed the room, pulled up the bar and opened it. Tom stood on the step, half naked and half broken, the cut on his forehead leaking blood into his eye.

  “Tom!” Katherine threw off her blanket and rushed to the door. “Tom, what’s happened?” She put her hands on his shoulders. “What has he done to you?”

  “I’ve run away.”

  “I’ll kill him.” Katherine balled up her fists. “I will kill him!”

  “Quiet.” Edmund joined her at the door. “How far behind you are they?”

  “I’m not here for me.” Tom stepped aside. Behind him on the street stood a saddled horse with a long glum face, chestnut save for three white stockings. Katherine made a noise like she had been punched.

  “I found him by the footbridge on the Dorham road,” said Tom. “He was trying to get home.”

  Edmund slid past onto the step. It did not take a great horseman to see that John Marshal’s stallion had been running all day.

  “Papa.” Katherine put her hands to her face. “Oh, no, no.”

  Edmund started moving before he knew what he had decided. He dove down to his hiding spot and dug out the last scrap of parchment he still owned. He seized his quill and inkhorn and brought the parchment back upstairs to the light of the fire. He set it on the table and started scribbling: Dear Father—

  Tom looked down at the parchment, then up at Edmund. “What are you doing?”

  Edmund reached for Katherine’s sword and held it out by the scabbard. “I want you both to understand that I don’t really know where I’m going—but I’m going. I’m going into the Girth to try to save Geoffrey, and the other kids, and John Marshal, if I can. It might be stupid, it might get me killed, but I am going, and you can come with me if you like.”

  Katherine stared at him, then seemed to come awake. She took the sword.

  “Go to the kitchen and grab what you can find, but keep it quiet.” Edmund padded up the rickety stairs to his bedroom. He fumbled over to the trunk and pulled out a thick woolen tunic his mother had made for him the winter before. He slung his quiver onto his back and grabbed his longbow from the corner. He turned at the door, remembering his knife—then changed his mind and brought Geoffrey’s.

  He slipped back down to the tavern. “Got enough?”

  “All we can carry.” Katherine turned a pot of water over on the fire, then picked up her pack from the corner of the room. She pawed through it, dumping out belts, sets of hose and the blue dress she had worn to the fair, then started stuffing it with hasty bundles of food.

  “Edmund?” His mother’s voice came weak and weary down the stairs. “Edmund, what is going on down there?”

  “Nothing, Mum.” Edmund held the door open for his friends, then whispered as he shut it: “Goodbye.”

  • • •

  The shadow of the statue in the moorvale square stretched out long and faint down the road. The moon that cast it was a cat’s-eye edging over a bank of high cloud, miserly with its light, cautious and sly. Another row of clouds crowded the opposite horizon, and between them, a funnel of air led up their raked walls to the great and lonely theater of the stars.

  Edmund shoved the woolen tunic into Tom’s hands. He grabbed the reins of the horse. “What’s his name?”

  “Berry,” said Katherine.

  “Tom can ride him.” Edmund led Berry around to the door of the stables. He found Jumble waiting there, cut and bleeding across his muzzle but still wagging his tail.

  “He’s coming, too,” said Tom. “He’s got nowhere else to go.”

  Indigo stamped a hoof and snorted from the first stall past the door. Edmund had to duck under his head to pass by. He felt his way along in the dark to the stall at t
he end—Rosie’s stall, a horse the color of dead blood, bought cheap at market by his father the year before to serve as the family riding mare.

  Tom stood slack and shivering in the faint cut of moonlight by the door. “Where are we going?”

  “Put that shirt on.” Katherine grabbed her saddle and threw it over Indigo’s broad back. “We’ll get you clear of the village and then we’ll work things out.” Tom put his head through the neck of Edmund’s shirt and shrugged it on. It fit well across the shoulders but was far too short in the arms.

  “We should take the long way out of Elverain.” Edmund pulled Rosie’s dusty saddle off the rail. “Down the Longsettle road and over the cutoff by Woody End, then up the banks of the Swift. That might take us straight there.”

  “Papa took the West Road.” Katherine reached down to fasten the girth under Indigo. “If he’s trying to come back on foot, I don’t want to miss him.”

  Edmund rummaged in the dark for Rosie’s tack. “If we go that way, Tom’s master might hear us going by and come after us.”

  Katherine slid her sword through the loops by the pommel. “He can follow us right up into the Girth if he likes.”

  Indigo lowered his head to let Katherine slip the bridle on. He stamped a hoof, impatient to leave. Jumble barked in reply.

  “Then what?” Tom bent to quiet Jumble with a pat behind the ears. “Do we know where to look?”

  “We have some guesses.” Edmund fussed with Rosie’s girth—every time he thought he got it straight, he found that he had twisted it on the other side. “We’re looking for a high mountain valley with ruins in it, at a place where two rivers meet. There’s more I can tell you on the road.” Rosie turned her head and shrank from the bridle. She was easily three times Indigo’s age, and looked much less eager at the prospect of a sudden departure in the middle of the night.

  Katherine poked her head into the stall. “Edmund, are you ready?”

  “Er—almost.”

  “Ride with it like that and you’ll be riding under her soon enough.” Katherine stepped in and bent to fix the mess he had made of Rosie’s tack. “Come on, girl. Come.” She clicked her tongue and coaxed Rosie from her stall. Indigo came out on his own. He ducked under the door and led them out to the road, then stopped, facing up into the square. He cocked an eye at Katherine and stamped. Jumble walked out in front and looked back at them, waiting with his odd-colored ears pricked up.

  “Indigo says the West Road, too. That decides it.” Katherine leapt into the saddle. Edmund dragged himself up onto Rosie’s back on the second try. Tom had no more skill than Edmund did, but was so tall that his ungainly jump could hardly fail.

  Clouds came in to claim the moon, leaving the village deep in darkness. Edmund looked to each of his friends, then up at the shuttered window of his parents’ bedroom. There was nothing to be said. Indigo started at an eager walk, and the other horses fell into step—up the Longsettle road to the square, then around the old statue of the knight, and away.

  Chapter

  21

  Katherine let Indigo pick their pace up the rising crests of the foothills. Neither Rosie nor Berry looked happy to keep up, but neither would they let themselves be left behind. Jumble seemed to find their progress rather too slow, for he raced up ahead, turned and scampered back to them again and again, traveling two miles for every one trod by the horses.

  Trees drew in, oak and elm around the tiny hamlet of Thicket. The grange smelled of hay and threshing, the woodlot of hewed hardwood. Edmund expected a challenge, at least a call from Thicket manor, but all lay mute around them. No one stirred in the houses, no one came out to ask who passed in the dark.

  “We’re really going.” It was Tom who said it.

  They rode on through the Widows, past the rotted cottages and thrown fields and by the place where stood the battle marker and lay the long graves. The clouds had blown wide and left the moon alone in the sky. The dead commons of the old abandoned village lay to the left, straggled grass chased in silver light. Curled weeds and hardwoods ran the opposite edge of the road. Edmund drew out Geoffrey’s long knife and looped it in his belt. Every shadowed stand of trees might hold an ambush. His heart beat for the thrill and the fear.

  He drew level with Tom. “Have you ever been up here?”

  “Never. What’s that stone thing?”

  “That’s the cairn. This is the Widows—folk used to call it Byhill.” Edmund swept a hand. “This is as far down as the Nethergrim came—last time.”

  “Oh—the Battle of the Potter’s Field. That was here?”

  Katherine pointed. “Just over there, behind the oaks.”

  “I like the song they made about it, even if it’s sad.” Tom looked out across the graves. “It’s different, though, when you see it as a place.”

  The black line of the West Road rose on the foothills, driving its course up turns in the land as though its builders had thought it easier to move earth than to change direction. Oak gave way to pine, elm to spruce, crowding in around the bramble-choked tofts of cottages collapsing with the years beneath the twisting weeds. The last of the fields on either side of the road had been left unplowed for so long that it was hard to tell if they had ever been farmed.

  “That’s it,” said Edmund. “We’re clear of Elverain.”

  Tom breathed out. “I’ve run away.” He looked behind him.

  Katherine dropped back to ride abreast. “I’m glad you came.”

  “So am I.” Edmund said it, and then felt how much he meant it. “You know, I should have thought—we could have brought him a weapon.”

  Tom shrugged his bony shoulders. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

  “We’ll want to get far from settled country before we rest.” Katherine reached out to touch Berry’s neck. “How is he bearing up?”

  “He’s tired,” said Tom. “He must have come a long way before I found him.”

  Katherine’s features contracted in worry. “Papa.” She twitched in her heels—Indigo needed little prompting to speed them to a trot again.

  The clouds slid from the distant peaks of the Girth, opening the deeps of night. Jumble gave up his gambols and kept pace at Tom’s side. Edmund fell back into his thoughts. Ahead lay his brother, somewhere amongst the black and jagged teeth of the mountains. Behind lay his father, in agony or already dead. His breath steamed out into a chill that deepened as he rose.

  “Maybe we should try to plan things out.” Tom drew level with his friends. “In those stories you like to tell, the heroes always seem to have some sort of plan.”

  Katherine sat up straight in her saddle. “We should. I’m forgetting everything Papa ever told me.”

  “We are on a perilous journey, after all,” said Edmund. “What do you think your father would do in our place?”

  “He’d say to keep a watch as we go.” Katherine steered Indigo off to one side. “I’ll take left and upward. Tom takes right, and Edmund, look and listen behind us as much as you can. And from now on ride with your longbow strung. A pack of bolgugs aren’t going to sit by and wait for you to get ready.”

  “Yes, my captain.” Edmund turned a smirk on Tom.

  Katherine drew up the bind on her scabbard, putting her sword within easy reach. “We should make Upenough before dawn. From what I’ve heard, it’s thirty miles on past Thicket, give or take.”

  “Oh.” Tom peered up ahead. “I didn’t know there were more villages up this way.”

  “There aren’t anymore.” Edmund craned around to watch behind him down the road. “Upenough marked the farthest border of the kingdom before the Nethergrim came. You’ve heard the story—it’s where Tristan and Vithric first met.”

  “I always get the stories mixed together,” said Tom. “I can never remember what happened where or when.”

  Katherine gave Rosie’s head a gentle push to keep her from wheeling right around. “You don’t need to sit backward, Edmund. Just look and listen over your shoulder.”


  “Oh—right.” Edmund turned forward again, and after a reluctant moment so did Rosie. “After that we start searching for a valley where two rivers meet. There should be ruins there, too—some sort of grand fortress. Did your father ever tell you of a place like that?”

  Katherine paced along in silence for a while. “I don’t remember—from what he told me, there are dozens of ruins up here.”

  “Maybe if we look, we can figure out the same things Vithric did.”

  Her smile came weak, but it came. “If anyone ever could, Edmund, it’s you.”

  “With the help of my bold companions, of course.” Edmund turned to include Tom—and found him staring up ahead with his brows dropped low. Jumble bristled and let out a throaty growl.

  “He smells something,” said Tom. “So do I. A death smell.”

  Katherine drew her sword. Edmund did the same with Geoffrey’s knife, then put it away again—what good was a knife from horseback? He gripped his reins. “What do we do?”

  “Forward, slow.” Katherine reached around to pull her shield off her back. “Watch every side, and don’t say a word unless you need to. If I make a move, follow it.”

  Indigo blew out a snort, stepping high with his head arched forward. Edmund dug his heels into Rosie’s flanks to keep pace. They followed the road up out of the trees and onto a ridge of barren ground, every breath taken sharp between their teeth.

  Katherine nudged Indigo in between the other horses and half a length in front. Moonlight glinted off the boss of her shield. They rose through a meadow to find a new fold of mountainside, cut by a pass of a length that could not be guessed at in the dark. The farther they climbed, the farther away the peaks seemed to get.

  “It’s ahead.” Katherine turned with the road, and as Edmund followed, the shapes of houses stuck out in shadow against the sky. The village of Upenough clung dead to a ridge over the last remove of useful land up the pass into the mountains, no more than a ragged run of hovels left to fall apart in silence. The air hung thin beneath a sky dusted wide with stars. The land around them lay so still that the careful walking tread of the horses came back in dull echoes.