The Nethergrim Page 20

  “This must be how Tristan felt.” Edmund shot fearful glances left and right, expecting the glow of yellow eyes behind every tumbledown byre.

  “Stop, everyone.” Tom leapt from Berry’s back, nearly tripping from the stirrups. He scrabbled into the weeds beside the road. Jumble followed him off into the dark.

  Edmund hissed in fright. “What is it?” He tried to nudge Rosie over to look, but she cowered, ears flat along her head. Indigo shoved past, carrying Katherine to the large dark object next to Tom at the roadside. There rose a smell that made everyone retch.

  “It’s stiff.” Tom rolled it onto its back—a bolgug. “Dead for a day or so.”

  Edmund kept his sleeve across his mouth. “What killed it?”

  “A sword.” Tom let its arm drop. “From above.”

  “From above?”

  “From horseback.” Katherine turned Indigo forward again. “If I remember the story, there was an inn somewhere. It’s likely the only shelter left.”

  Tom scrabbled up and they pressed on, past weeded-over cow paths that would once have served as cross lanes, up toward a clump of huts bald of thatching and falling to bits under the shadow of a burned-out village hall.

  “That one.” Edmund pointed. “It’s got a wooden roof, and I think that’s a stable around back.”

  “Everyone down.” Katherine brought them to a halt. “Tom, take the horses.”

  Edmund slid out of his saddle behind her. He drew Geoffrey’s knife—the skin arched and prickled up his arms.

  Katherine beckoned him over to the doorway. “Smell that?”

  Edmund nodded—sick and sweet. More rot, more dead things.

  Katherine pulled off her glove with her teeth, then took her sword in a fighting grip. “Ready? Here we go, then.” She kicked the door—it came off its cracked leather hinges and fell inward. She went through with her shield up and her sword over its edge. Edmund followed at her back—and trod on something soft.

  “What is that?” Katherine’s voice rose and quavered from the dark. “Is it—?”

  Edmund forced himself to kneel over the corpse. “No—another bolgug.” He leaned out the door to catch a breath of good air. “Tom? Get a torch lit.”

  They fumbled farther in, feeling out against a haphazard row of trestle tables. “Seems like a tavern—can’t see a thing.” Edmund got a mouthful of cobweb. “Augh!” He spluttered and bent, hoping with all he had that he had not swallowed a spider.

  “If anything wanted to ambush us in here, I suppose it would have by now.” Katherine moved off across the room. “I found the hearth.”

  “I put the horses out back.” Tom bent low to get under the sagging lintel. He stood up inside with a torch sputtering in his hand.

  Katherine let out a cry.

  Edmund turned, his stomach sinking. Katherine knelt over a sword lying on the hard-packed earth of the floor—plain and martial with a wide iron guard and a hilt wrapped in hide.

  “Oh, no.” Katherine picked it up—a piece in both hands. The blade had snapped a few inches past the guard. Edmund did not need to be told whose it was.

  “That doesn’t mean he’s dead.” He crouched at her side. “It doesn’t.” He caught sight of something small and blood-specked next to Katherine’s foot and sucked in a breath. She read his face and looked down before he had decided how to tell her.

  Katherine screamed and jumped away from the severed finger on the floor, a man’s finger cut off at the first knuckle. Edmund bent low and looked around. He found no others, but amongst the stains of bluish black on the floor were some that were rusty red.

  “Katherine.” Tom grabbed her shoulder. “Katherine, look at me! The bolgug in the doorway was bludgeoned. Do you understand what that means?”

  Katherine looked up at Tom.

  “Your father survived—he got out.” Tom paced around the floor. “He didn’t bleed much in here. He got out right after he was wounded—he probably killed that bolgug on the way.”

  “But—why didn’t he come home?” Katherine sat back on her haunches. “He was hurt.”

  “He wasn’t finished,” said Edmund. “Whatever he came up here to do, he was still going to do it.”

  Katherine heaved herself up onto a bench, still shaking. Edmund looked to Tom. “We stay here.”

  “Until dawn. We’ll need to set a watch.” Tom slid the torch into a sconce on the wall. “I’ll go fix the door.” He grabbed the dead bolgug by the feet and dragged it outside.

  • • •

  The fire threw flickers on the steep-angled ceiling—faint ones, muted mottles cast by embers whose failing heat did little to ward off the draft from the door. Edmund rolled onto one side, then the other.

  “Can’t sleep?” Tom sat up in his bedding, faced out from the fire with one long arm stretched over his knee. Whipping scars crossed his naked back—some old, healed to white, others red and new.

  “I guess not.” Edmund propped himself on his elbows. Chill swept into the space between his chest and the bedroll beneath. They had encamped as close to the hearth as they could get. Katherine curled away on Tom’s other side, sleeping on a pillow of her hair. She had put her bedroll down last, crushing Edmund’s hopes that he might feel the warmth of her breath. Instead he got Jumble’s breath—the dog had wormed himself in between him and Tom, and seemed to be having a dream where he was chasing something, for his paws paddled and scratched through the bedding. A dusty old hat lay discarded on the tavern floor—a shank of bone, an upended mug. Their shadows fell long behind them.

  “It’s strange to sleep in a different place.” Tom reached to the nearest table. He felt around in his sack and pulled down a crust of bread. “I’m not used to it.”

  Edmund sat up. He nudged the unburnt edge of a log onto the embers. It did not catch.

  “And no one’s been back here?” Tom kept his voice to a murmur. “Not in all these years?”

  “Not that I know about, not since the Nethergrim came. See these chairs?” Edmund nudged the closest one. “I’ll bet Tristan and Vithric sat right here the night they met. The folk who made it with them down to Elverain never came back—never felt safe enough, I suppose. It looks like some of them left right in the middle of supper.”

  Tom gathered a handful of kindling that had fallen half burnt off the fire. He poked them one by one onto the flames. “I wish I had a brother like you.”

  Edmund looked at Tom. He did not know how to reply, so he rummaged through his bags and drew out an apple. “These are from the Twintrees. Always the best.”

  “If Katherine’s father went on, he went on without a horse.” Tom took the apple and bit in. “If we go the same way he did, we might catch up.”

  “I hope so.” Edmund found himself repeating the words under his breath. He reached out and stroked Jumble’s belly.

  “He likes that,” said Tom.

  “Do you?” Edmund scratched some more. “Hey, boy?” Jumble opened his eyes and lolled his tongue.

  Tom finished his apple—flesh and ends. He dropped the seeds on the fire. “My master rented John Marshal’s east field when I was five, for the price of one day’s work from me every month. I counted out the weeks by the days that Master would send me over—I’d wait for them, dream about them. I’d gather chaff and John would thank me for it. I’d chop firewood and Katherine would come by with a mug of water. No one cursed me. No one hit me. Before they sent me home, they would feed me supper. It’s the only time I ever ate at a table.”

  The fire died back. Tom fell into red shadow. “I can’t bear to think he’s dead.”

  Katherine turned in her sleep. Edmund forced himself to look away before Tom caught him staring. “I forgot to tell you on the way. The Nethergrim might still be alive.”

  “I’d guessed that much.”

  Edmund felt his fears loom up around him in the dark. “We don’t know where we’re going.”

  “I believe in you,” said Tom. “You’re the smartest person I know.
”

  It almost made Edmund feel better. “You should get some sleep. I’ll take a turn watching.”

  Tom lay back in the bedding. “I’ll try.”

  Chapter

  22

  The last stars twinkled high and west over the Girth, giving way with each passing moment to the widening of dawn. Edmund turned at the side of the inn, and stopped. The whole of his world lay beneath him, lit to cold burning by the sunrise. The Dorwood stretched in endless, deathless green across the north; the West Road wound through the foothills and down through a patchwork of pasture and field. Past that, the sun sat red upon the moors, flooding the world in new light. The sight took his breath away—but the wind dug deep beneath his collar. He hurried around behind the inn and shouldered back the door of the stable.

  “Breakfast.” He held out the wooden bowl.

  Katherine unbent from the stall farthest down with the currycomb in her hand. Her breath steamed out white in the cold. “You cooked?”

  “There was a hearth, and dry wood, so why not?” Edmund picked his way over broken tools, bits of wood and piles of hay dropped all about on the hard dirt floor. He found Rosie saddled and brushed, her saddlebags slung under the cantle.

  “Oh, it’s warm.” Katherine cupped the bowl in her hands. Curls of wind found their way through the many cracks in the walls—they moaned in haunted harmony and set the flame of her lantern to wavering.

  Edmund rummaged back through the stall for Rosie’s bridle. “Brrr—drafty in here.”

  “It’s draftier outside. I’m enjoying this while I can.” Katherine spooned up the porridge. “This is delicious! How did you do it?”

  “It helps that you brought my mother’s whole store of herbs with you.” Edmund dug a finger under Rosie’s halter, but she did not want to leave.

  “Oh—did I?” Katherine spoke with her mouth full. “It was dark.”

  There came a kick from the door of the next stall. “My lord calls for his carrot.” Katherine reached into her bags. “Here, one for Rosie.”

  Edmund broke his carrot in half and held the pieces in his palm. Rosie twitched up her ears. He stepped back—she stepped out, looking at the carrot, then the door.

  “I was just thinking when you came in.” Katherine jingled the harness in her stall. “Tristan must have stabled Juniper right here, all those years back.”

  Edmund looked about him. He had never imagined the stables from that story as a grand place, but neither had he expected them to be quite so shabby. He felt a whiskered muzzle at his hand—Rosie nearly got her carrot for free.

  “Papa always said that in the days that followed, Juniper did as much to save the folk of this village as anyone,” said Katherine. “They say he trampled down dozens of bolgugs, that he charged at foul creatures when men lost their nerve—the second-finest horse ever born.”

  “Second?”

  Katherine stepped out into the passage. “Second.” Indigo walked after her, crunching on his carrot.

  Edmund kept the carrot in his hands just out of Rosie’s reach, using it to lead her outside. The stable door opened west onto a view of the peaks, their caps of snow going pink with the dawn. “How far is that?”

  Katherine looked. “It’s hard to say—I’m not used to land like this. Forty miles, maybe.”

  “Ugh.” Edmund rubbed at his legs. “I’m still sore from yesterday.”

  They found Tom standing on a broken-down cart, looking east over the long descent behind them, back toward their home. He held Berry loose by the reins, letting him pick at the meager grass by the roadside.

  Edmund opened his palm—Rosie dove for the carrot. “Saying goodbye?”

  “Making sure no one’s following us.” Tom turned and swung his leg from the cart—he looked like a stork, but he got himself up into the saddle without trouble.

  “Did you have some of this porridge?” Katherine dug out another spoonful from the bowl.

  “It was very good.” Tom turned Berry around to face the rising road. “I liked the thyme and the parsley.”

  “Edmund’s got his mother’s touch.” Katherine looked around her, then set the empty bowl on the cart. Jumble took that as his cue to swoop in for the dregs.

  “We’ll have to keep our eyes open for any place the road might split.” Edmund put a foot in the stirrup and sized up the leap into the saddle. “Or a river, any one of them might—hold still, Rosie. Rosie! Hold still!”

  Rosie rolled a look at him and pinned her ears back. Edmund hopped on one foot, following her shuffle to the side. “Stop that!” He put a hand on her withers to try to hold her in place. “She always does this.”

  “You can use the cart, Edmund.” Katherine got Indigo’s bridle on. “Tom did.”

  “No, no. I know how.” Edmund tensed his back leg. This time he would get it right, out in the daylight where Katherine could see it. He lowered down and sprang for the saddle.

  Rosie shifted in the middle of his leap, leaving Edmund to waggle his leg in the air and crash back to the ground. “Ow!” He yanked his foot from the stirrup. “You stupid old affer!” Rosie dropped her head and danced away.

  Katherine reached down to help him up. “Don’t worry, it takes time to learn.” It could not have felt worse if she had laughed and kicked him. Her touch meant nothing if she thought him a runt, good for making porridge, a weedy little boy who was just like his mother.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” Edmund crossed his arms. “She just hates me.”

  “Move slower around her.” Katherine caught the reins and looped them back over Rosie’s head. “Speak soft as you come near, and always keep a hand on her side when you move past her rump.”

  “You don’t do any of that with Indigo.”

  “Rosie’s not Indigo.”

  “She’s afraid of you,” said Tom as he walked Berry nearby. “She’s had a hard life. When you get angry, she thinks you’re going to hit her.”

  Edmund felt heartily sick of Tom and his bumpkin wisdom. “Oh, how do you know that? We only bought her last year!”

  “It’s in her walk,” said Tom. “It’s in her face. She flinches when men raise their voices. Whoever owned her before your father treated her very hard.”

  Edmund looked back at Rosie. “Oh. Well—I didn’t mean to hurt her.” Rosie regarded him in tense suspicion, then let him run his hand along her broken-down withers. After a while she turned to push her nose into his palm, something he could not remember her ever doing before.

  “I’ll make a horseman of you yet.” Katherine knelt with her fingers laced. “Step in.”

  Edmund could not think of how to refuse. He put a foot in Katherine’s hands and let her raise him onto Rosie’s back.

  Katherine made the leap into Indigo’s saddle look so easy that a child could do it—even though Indigo was three hands taller than Rosie. She started them off at a walk, through what would once have passed for the center of the village. Rosie made up her mind to follow close at Indigo’s flank, while Tom let Berry amble behind. They passed the burned-out husk of the village hall in silence, then ascended into the arms of the pass.

  “I can see why they called this place Upenough.” Katherine glanced back over her shoulder. “Look at that!”

  Her voice echoed back, once and again—and again. Edmund turned to look just as they crested the rise. He caught one last glimpse of his home—he thought of his father, made a silent wish—then Rosie paced on for another stride and it was gone.

  The valley they entered dropped before them for a hundred yards, then rose on a southwest curve—a long scar up the side of the Girth with walls of spruce and fir folded into slopes that split and ran and split again as they descended to meet the road. Trees thinned to copses and then stands, dotted out to lone adventurers and then gave way to open green that ran to gray and then to white. Edmund breathed in air sharp with chill and the resin of trees, empty of all else save the scents of rock and dry dirt.

  “If it weren�
��t for the road, I’d think we were the only people ever to have come here,” said Katherine. “The only people in the world.”

  The sun rose at their backs, glinting with sudden fire off the far snow on the summits. Sweat broke along the shoulders of the horses. Pine and spruce crowded in along the road, hanging their branches so that the riders had to duck from time to time to avoid a face full of needles. The action of their roots had conspired with the work of long years to shift the ground beneath, laying bare the broken edges of tight-laid stonework under grass and earth. The top of the pass came into view far above, a bare saddlebow of rocky ground between a pair of white peaks.

  Tom drew in a long breath through his nose. “I could live up here.”

  They found their guard of spruce trees falling back as they climbed, defeated by the chill and the height. The road ran lonely through a whispering sweep of bristle grass. The sun passed its zenith and began its fall.

  “We should have seen him by now.” Edmund waited until Katherine had gotten a few lengths ahead before he whispered it to Tom, but the wind chose that moment to fall off to nothing.

  Katherine shot them a glance over her shoulder. She pressed the pace, craning up at every rise and then slumping down again, lower each time.

  They ate in the saddle, unwilling to rest while their horses could still carry on. Even Indigo started to tire—he breathed loud and hard, his head swaying down with every stride. Edmund could not find a way to sit that could ward off the worsening sores from his saddle. After a while it was all he could think about, that and the cold.

  “What is it?” said Tom.

  “It’s my legs.” Edmund reached down to rub a hand on the inside of his thighs. “It’s—everything. Everything hurts.” He would say no more of it with Katherine so near, but he wondered to himself why riding horses was not the exclusive domain of women.

  “No.” Tom pointed ahead. “What is that?”

  Edmund looked up. Katherine had stopped a few lengths up the road. Some distance past her—it looked close, but was as likely as not still a mile off—was something made of stone, something taller than a house.