Clash of Iron (41 page)

As they crossed the moor, Spring was very near to tears. She resolved to be stonier, like a northerner, and tramped on behind Dug.

Her qualms at killing the Murkan dissolved a good deal when they saw the wicker woman that he’d been guarding.

“Badger’s bollock bristles,” whispered Dug.

They were lying on their stomachs at the top of a slope, looking down from the east on to the rock pavement and its giant man-made figure. It looked bigger than she remembered, but maybe that was because it was stuffed with people. All up and down the wicker structure human feet and hands were poking out and waggling around. Only the head was free of sprouting arms.

Around the wicker giant’s base were sheaves of kindling. On the far side of the figure, but massing towards it, were maybe two hundred people – Murkan soldiers, men and women dressed in various takes on finery, and a shower of people in wicker hats who had to be druids. Had the situation been less serious, she would have laughed at them.

In the centre of them all was the towering bulk of Pomax. She’d made no effort for the festival, still wearing the same dirty tartan jerkin and leather flange skirt. Spring felt a tingle of admiration. There was something impressive about a queen who didn’t feel the need for shiny clothes and the other regalia of rule. Lowa was like that, too. In different circumstances, Spring imagined that Pomax and Lowa would probably have been friends. She wondered if they’d been getting on during Lowa’s incarceration.

Beyond the Murkan guard and rulers, the sun was nearly at the horizon, shining in her and Dug’s eyes and lighting up their position annoyingly. If they tried to get any closer, they’d be spotted immediately.

“Which bit is she in?” whispered Dug.

“She’s in the head.”

“How do you know? Is your magic coming in?”

“No, the guy on the road told us she was in the head, remember?”

“Oh, aye.”

But her magic was coming in. Suddenly she knew that magic was with her. It was the same calm confidence she’d had in the arena. The plan was clear.

Short of running at the wicker woman and bashing it down with his hammer, Dug did not have the first clue what they should do. The sun was nearly at the horizon.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

“Yes.” Spring’s voice was odd. Suddenly grown up. She said nothing more, just smiled at the wicker woman.

“Going to tell me?”

“Wait.”

“OK…” The sun was very low now. “I hope you’re sure … Do you know whether they light the fire when the sun touches the horizon, or when it disappears?”

Spring didn’t answer. The sun touched the horizon, and two druids in wicker hats strode forwards with torches and lit the firewood around the bottom of the wicker woman. Soaked in pitch, it whooshed into flame.

Blood-chilling screams came from the burning figure. There weren’t many good screams, but Dug reckoned screams of people burning to death were about the worst. Cheers rang out from Grummog and his crew, and an echoing roar rose up from the crowds that they couldn’t see below the cliffs. He looked at Spring. She was smiling like someone playing liar dice who knew they’d thrown a winner. Whatever it was she had planned, he thought, looking at the flames licking up the wicker figure, they’d better get on with it.

The screams startled Lowa. Despite it all, she’d fallen asleep. She jerked her hands as the pain returned, which hurt them all the more. She clenched her jaw. Tears filled her eyes then ran down her face. She laid her ruined hands in her lap and waited.

The screams took on a higher, more urgent pitch. Changing from fear to pain, Lowa guessed, as the flames enveloped the people in the legs. She could feel the heat herself now. It wasn’t unpleasant. Perhaps, she thought, she could go to sleep again, quickly burn to death without noticing, and wake up in the Otherworld. Of course, there wasn’t an Otherworld, it was just a story for children and other fools. But she’d seen Spring’s magic, and if there was magic maybe there were gods and an Otherworld? She’d been wrong about everything else recently. Maybe she’d be drinking with her sister, Aithne, again? Maybe her mother would be there? She’d been about Lowa’s age when she’d been killed. How old would she be in the Otherworld? Maybe there were no ages there? Maybe people didn’t look like people, and you became thoughts and emotions without the hindrance of a physical shell? She smiled. She’d find out soon enough.

She closed her eyes. The screams and the crackle and pop of the burning wood crescendoed.

“I’m going in.” Dug stood.

“Wait.” Spring got up next to him and touched his arm. “Give me your rope.”

“But they’re dying…” The screams grew ever louder.

“We’re here to rescue Lowa. Rope, please.”

Dug pulled off his pack, pulled the rope out and handed it to Spring. She tied one end to an arrow, ran closer to the wicker woman, stood on the untied end of rope, drew the longbow full – something that very few grown men could do – and shot her arrow into its head.

“Here.” She handed Dug the end of the rope. “In thirty heartbeats, pull the wicker woman over. Take this as well.” She handed him her bow. “And string Lowa’s bow, too, while I’m gone.” Then she went.

Dug looked all around. Spring had vanished, not just buggered off quickly or nipped behind something, but actually disappeared into the air. He looked behind himself again. Nope, she really wasn’t there.

He strung Lowa’s bow, picked up the rope and saw that the cliff-top spectators had spotted him. A large, bare-armed woman was sprinting towards him, shouting at others to follow her. She had something coiled in one hand.

How many heartbeats had it been? He had no idea. Maybe twenty? Possibly thirty. The Murkans were closing fast. He took the rope in both hands and pulled.

“Hi.”

Lowa opened her eyes. Spring was squatting in front of her, there in the head of the wicker woman. The girl glowed with pure beauty, as she had when her magic had saved Lowa from Chamanca. Had she been drowned as Pomax had said? Was Spring here to guide Lowa into the next life?

“Otherworld or rescue?” Lowa asked.

“Rescue.”

“Good. But my hands?”

Lowa lifted her useless fingers. Spring took them in her own hands and blew on them. With a rolling rattle of snaps and cracks, her fingers lengthened, shortened, straightened and clicked back into place. She wiggled them. They felt tender still, but healed. She felt for the wound in her wrist. It had gone, as had the injuries to her shoulder, back and chest. She smiled. She felt tired, drugged even, but, more than that, she felt healed.

There was a lurch, and the wicker woman jerked a pace off vertical.

“He’s gone early!” said Spring.

“Who?”

“Dug.”

“Dug’s here?” Lowa heard herself asking, like a girl who’s just found out that her main crush has arrived unexpectedly at a dance.

Spring unsheathed her sword, stood up and cut into the cage’s bars. The wicker woman lurched again.

Dug heaved. He’d thought it would be impossible to pull the wicker woman over and it wasn’t far off that, but it was coming. He’d hoped that Spring might have given him the sort of strength she’d given him against Tadman; she had just disappeared, after all, so was clearly full of magic, but he didn’t seem to be any stronger than usual. It was going to be a close-run thing whether the Murkans got to him first. The big woman was coming fast as a charging hunting dog, and many more were close behind.

The wicker woman dropped a pace and a cloud of sparks exploded from its base, but it was still upright. The real woman was almost on him, sword raised. She really was a big one. It must be Pomax, the queen of the Murkans, he thought – Spring had told him about the woman besting Lowa and throwing her off a cliff. Anyone who beat Lowa was probably a better fighter than him. Standing with a rope in two hands wasn’t the cleverest way to meet her attack.

Badgershit! Did he give up pulling on the rope and save himself? But Lowa was in the wicker woman, in the head, and the flames were licking up the torso. Probably, on the inside, they were already in the head.

Pomax was a pace away. Badger’s tits, he thought. He heaved. Pomax’s sword came down. He jinked to one side and tucked his chin into his chest. The sword clanged hard on the top of his helmet. He heaved and the rope came another half a pace. Pomax swung her sword round in a decapitation arc. Dug closed his eyes and hauled.

The rope went slack and he stumbled backwards. Pomax’s sword swing cut hairs from his beard. Had Spring’s arrow pinged free or had he pulled the wicker woman over? He regained his footing. She was coming at him again, swinging down at his shoulder. Behind her, the wicker woman was falling.

He launched himself backwards to dodge the blow, picking up his hammer as he hit the ground, and rolled. He came up on his feet as the wicker woman crashed to the ground ten paces away in an eruption of sparks. Burning figures ran and crawled from it. Was one of them Lowa? And where was Spring?

He looked about for them frantically but realised that he’d forgotten about Pomax when there was a loud snap and his arms were pinned to his sides. Pomax’s whip. He strained, but it was no good. He was trapped. His hammer was still in his hand, but the only things he could do with it were hit himself on the shins or drop it on his own foot.

Pomax walked towards him, gathering in her whip as she came. What could he do? He tried falling to the ground, but she held him up. Badger’s bollocks, she was strong.

She lifted the sword to chop at his neck.

There was a blur to his left. A nude blonde woman flew past his shoulder, feet first, and whacked into Pomax’s chest.

The kick would have killed most people. It knocked Pomax two paces back. She smiled, seemingly uninjured, dropped the whip and pointed her sword at her new adversary. “I’ve got to beat you again, have I?”

Lowa was unarmed, maybe a third of Pomax’s weight, and naked.

Dug strained at the whip, but it held fast. He looked around. The burning wicker woman had fallen on the Murkans immediately behind Pomax, and the rest were having to skirt round it. For now they only had to beat Pomax. But she was enough, and Dug couldn’t help.

The Murkan queen danced forwards, light-footed and speedy, sword flashing everywhere. Lowa dodged, ducked, flashed out her left fist and punched Pomax hard on the nose. The much bigger woman swung blindly with the sword. Lowa dropped under it easily and slammed in one, two, three, four stomach punches, then drove her arm like a spear into Pomax’s windpipe, crushing it.

Pomax clutched at her neck and tottered on the spot. Lowa leapt, spun and whacked the sole of her foot into the side of her adversary’s head. Pomax eyes flew wide and she fell back.

Dug felt someone behind him. It was Spring, freeing him from the whip.

“My bow?” asked Lowa.

Dug was so happy to see her that he just stood, smiling, until a slingstone whacked into his arm and brought him back into the real world. He ran over to where he’d left her bow. Another slingstone whizzed past his head and he heard the thrumming twang of Spring’s longbow. He handed Lowa her own bow. Spring was already slotting another arrow, one slingman down.

As Spring carried on, Lowa plucked an arrow from her quiver, nocked, drew and shot. Two more Murkans went down. Dug looked from one to the other and beamed.

“Did you bring a quiver for me?” Lowa asked.

“We hadn’t planned on a battle,” Dug said, gathering his rope. “Come on.” So far she’d asked for her bow and her arrows. He wondered when she was going to remember to ask for clothes. He was in no hurry to remind her.

They headed east, back to the waterfall, Spring and a naked Lowa keeping the Murkan pursuers at bay with well-placed shots.

As they crested the hill, Dug looked over his shoulder. The Murkans were following hesitantly, nobody keen to be the next to take an arrow. Among them, he saw the large figure of Pomax climb to her feet and shake her head. Tough girl that, he thought.

T
hey rode south, hard, swapping horses regularly. After a few miles they turned west and employed the old walk-along-a-stream evasion trick.

The gentle rising sun sharpened the edges of the soft night, and Dug could see by Lowa’s lolling head that she was in danger of falling asleep and tumbling from her mount. Spring had said something about Lowa taking a little time to recover from her injuries. Dug hadn’t seen any wounds on her, but she certainly hadn’t been her usual self. He wasn’t much more awake himself.

“We’ll stop up ahead,” he said, his voice loud in the damp morning.

“Why?” Lowa sounded as tired as she looked. But she still looked amazing, thought Dug, despite being dressed in clothes far too large for her, stripped from the guard that Spring had mouth-shot at the top of the waterfall.

“Because you look worn out. If you fall off your horse and knock your brains out on a tree stump, nobody will ever believe that we rescued you.”

“Hmmmm,” she replied.

He was pretty sure they’d shaken any pursuit, but they did the stream trick again once more before finding a deserted forester’s hut deep in the trees.

“It’s used in autumn only,” said Spring, “for chestnut gathering, by the spikey husks around it.”

“Right,” said Dug, yawning. “You two get some rest. I’ll take first watch.”

“No you won’t,” said Spring. “I feel like I’ve just woken after a thousand sleeps. Must be the magic. You two sleep, I’ll guard. I’ll sing if anybody comes.”

Dug ducked into the hut after Lowa. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the only furniture in the hut was one broad wooden bed with neither bedding nor blanket. Lowa lay on the bed. Dug crouched on the floor to sweep clean a man-sized area with his hand.

“Come on, Dug,” said Lowa, “the bed’s more than big enough.”

He lay next to her. She turned away from him. He turned in the same direction and put his hand on her arm. She didn’t flinch, but her breathing quickened and deepened. He let his hand fall so his arm was around her. Her scent was flowers, musk and dried earth, exactly as it had been that day they’d met and slept in the clearing. Here they were again, in the same situation, fleeing from pursuers and sleeping while Spring kept watch. Surely that was a sign that they could start anew?