Daughters Of The Storm (32 page)

Ash put her arm around Rose's waist and headed around the curve of the town perimeter, then up the hill towards the road home. Then she stopped to watch Bluebell, in her light mail, pushing her helm down on her head. Alone. No dogs. Four men
came for her, down the same grassy slope. She couldn't win this one. Ash felt the foreshadow of death across her skin.

Bluebell stood, silent and tall, between the river and an oak tree. Her sword was drawn and her round shield was on her left arm, as they closed in on her. Ash's heart galloped. Rose clutched her hand.

‘There are four of them,' Rose said. ‘We must do something.'

But neither of them were trained in arms, and to go down there now would probably make matters worse. Ash could only sit and watch as the thrill of premonition was made solid. The pale morning sky watched the fates of kingdoms impassively, as it always did.

Ash's skin prickled. She
could
do something, couldn't she?

‘Go back over there, near the town wall,' Ash said, giving Rose a gentle push.

‘Where are you going?'

‘Nowhere. But I need to concentrate.'

Rose did as she was told and Ash moved a few feet up the rise so she had the best open view of the happenings below. Stilling her thundering pulse, she opened up her second sight.

Shadows and shimmers, escaping from her vision left and right. Elementals in the water, the tree, the rocks, the earth. She fixed her attention on one with her mind. ‘
Hear me
,' she said in her head. It stopped moving and glared at her across the distance, its chalky, cragged face set hard and cruel.

Ash licked her lips. She didn't know what to say next. A distant roar as Bluebell lifted her sword, the first two raiders running at her. And Ash realised she didn't have to say anything. Her eyes went to the elemental, then the gravelly ground beneath it. A thought, barely formed, left her mind and then the ground trembled. Small stones jumped. The other two raiders skidded over,
fell on top of each other. Bluebell had already finished off one of the others and was fending off the blows of the second. The fallen pair climbed to their feet, and Bluebell was pushed back towards the river, three men closing on her.

‘Into the river, Bluebell,' Ash whispered under her breath.

Bluebell's head snapped up, as though she had heard. She turned and clambered over the rocky bank, waded in up to her calves. The three raiders advanced.

Ash focussed her energy, her power, drawing it up from the ground and down from the sky. Little hands reached out of the water, shadows slithered over the rocks.

Then, a spout of water shot from the river between Bluebell and the raiders. Bluebell took a step back, alarmed. The rocks along the riverside shook in their places, and one large flat one, bigger than a man's head, jumped and slammed between the shoulders of a raider. He fell forwards. The waterspout opened up and dragged him under. Bluebell took advantage of the confusion, dealing a blow to another man. His severed arm fell into the water, which ran red with blood. Ash couldn't watch, closed her eyes. She was sickened, her body ached and yet ... her veins thrummed with something that felt dangerously like excitement. She had tasted the first thrill of her power.

When she opened her eyes again, the rocks were still, the water was red and two bodies floated downstream. Bluebell had another body under her arm, dragging it out of the river. She thrust the raider's body, limp as a doll, face down on the ground by the river and crouched next to it, searching it.

‘Wait there,' Ash said to Rose, hurrying down the grassy slope towards her sister.

Bluebell was wet, smeared with blood, and lifted off her helm to cast it aside. She pulled aside the raider's long, wet hair and revealed a raven tattoo on the back of his neck.

‘Explain this, Ash?' she said, panting.

‘You want me to touch it?'

Bluebell nodded, sitting back on her haunches.

Ash reached for the raven. She was already sick and aching from the magic, but found opening up again to it was easy. All her inner sight focussed down on the man's cold skin.

His father had tattooed this on him, in a stone house with a grass roof, north and west and over the sea.
Hakon is our king, now.
The Crow King, alive and hidden on a birdshit-stained island far from his twin brother, where he drew his followers to him: the hard, the bitter, the cruel. Third sons and murderers and failed farmers. Hakon stirred hate in their hearts, hate for Blicstowe and everyone in it, but especially for the woman who had brought him so low. He sent them out in bands, south, but not to raid: to assassinate Bluebell.

‘The alehouse husband alerted them,' Ash said. ‘Hakon is alive and he has gold on your head, Bluebell. The Crow King's followers won't rest until you're dead.'

Bluebell sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Fuckers.' She picked up her sword and touched Ash's shoulder. ‘I want you two to head for the woods. I'm going to get our horses and my dogs. And I'm going to pay a visit to the alehouse husband. It's best you don't see.'

Ash nodded.

‘And tonight,' Bluebell said with a slight narrowing of her pale eyes, ‘we will talk about what happened.'

‘I don't know what happened. Not really,' Ash said.

Bluebell stood, nodded once and strode off.

Bluebell sat on a rock, sharpening her sword. The rhythm of the simple task soothed her. Today she had seen many strange things
and she needed to speak to Ash about it. But Ash looked tired and shaken.

They had travelled a long way today, mostly through gloomy yew woods, picking their way over fallen branches on the road: it seemed few people came along this route to and from Bradsey. Except, of course, the raiders who were paying good coin for information on her whereabouts. Assassins. She wasn't afraid of them, but Bluebell missed her hearthband. Even jumpy Ricbert and mouth-breathing Gytha. Mostly Sighere. People who could wield a blade. They'd emerged from the woods into cleared, stone-scattered land. Nobody could farm here, so Bluebell didn't understand why the trees had been felled. But there was a steep incline, a rocky overhang, and a perfect place to sleep. Enough shelter to be safe, and a clear view of what was coming from the woods. Bluebell had built the fire and Ash soaked it in fire oil and lit it. The warm glow chased away the shadows under the overhang, but it could do little about the shadows that gathered around Ash in Bluebell's mind.

She watched as Ash gently cleaned Rose's wound.

‘Is it feeling any better?' Ash asked.

‘The stitches sting and my skull still aches.'

‘It was quite a blow,' Bluebell said, passing the whetstone back and forth over the blade.

Ash touched Rose's cheek. ‘There, Rosie. All clean. I'll leave the bandage off it now. Some air might make it heal faster.'

Rose looked up, touched the wound gingerly.

Ash leaned away, but Rose caught her hand. ‘Ash, can you tell me if Rowan's well?'

Bluebell glanced over. ‘I don't know that we should be asking her to use her second sight for —'

‘Hush, Bluebell,' Rose said. ‘I know you ask her to use it often.'

‘Rowan is fine,' Ash said, quickly. ‘I have no feeling otherwise.'

Bluebell sheathed her sword and shifted closer, so she sat with Ash and Rose on the spread-out blanket. Her eyes returned to Ash's face. ‘And can you tell me if Ash is well?' Bluebell asked.

Ash smiled weakly. ‘Yes, I am healthy as a horse,' she said.

‘But you did something today that frightened you,' Bluebell said. ‘Perhaps you can tell me what happened.'

Ash took a deep breath. Her slight shoulders heaved upwards, as though warding off a blow. ‘It seems I have some power over nature.'

Rose looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Can you show her?' Bluebell asked.

Ash shook her head. ‘I won't do it if I don't have to. It hurts me. It bruises me from the inside.'

Bluebell's heart clenched. Ash's voice seemed so thin, so frightened.

Bluebell turned to Rose. ‘When the raiders were closing on me, Ash saved me. She made the rocks and water move.' She rubbed her chin with the back of her hand, fighting off the small shiver of uncanniness. ‘I swear for a moment I thought I saw watery hands and fingers.'

‘How is this possible?' Rose asked.

Ash shrugged. ‘I have ... abilities growing within me. I barely understand them. But today, I was desperate and I called on the elements ...' She lapsed into silence, staring at her hands.

Bluebell considered Ash in the firelight. Her long dark hair was neatly plaited off her small oval face. She remembered Ash as a child, her bonny sweetness. She never made demands, had tantrums, or said hurtful things out of spite. Her face had barely changed since childhood, but the sunniness was missing from her eyes. ‘You look unhappy,' she said simply.

Ash nodded. ‘I am unhappy.'

‘Many wouldn't be, with such ability at their disposal.'

‘I am not in control of it,' Ash said. ‘I don't know when the sight will come and when it won't. If I try to focus it, it bends me as I bend it. I'm frightened by it.'

Bluebell pushed her feet hard into the ground.
It bends me as I bend it.
What kind of power did her sister possess? For a cold instant, Ash seemed unfamiliar, a chill stranger who belonged to the shadows. But then the feeling passed.

‘Don't be frightened,' Rose said. ‘When the Great Mother made you, she made you this way. Nothing that comes from her is wrong; it only seems so until it is understood.'

‘But who can help me understand? The Thriddastowe elders disapprove. Even Byrta was afraid and unsympathetic.'

‘Perhaps Yldra can help you understand,' Bluebell said. ‘It is probably from her you draw this talent.'

Ash dropped her eyes to the fire. ‘I would give anything for good advice,' she said.

‘I can only give you a sister's advice,' Rose said, ‘and that is to worry less. It will be fine. You will see.'

Ash nodded, but her eyes darted away.

Bluebell shifted her position, her gaze going to the edge of the woods, a mile in the distance. Ash, you know we are being followed, don't you?'

Ash nodded. ‘Yes. We've been followed since we left Sceotley.'

‘It isn't raiders. I've listened to the hoof-falls. Somebody light, somebody alone.'

‘I haven't been able to focus my mind on it, Bluebell. Whether it's because I'm tired or because ... the somebody doesn't want me to focus my mind.'

‘Do you think it's human?'

Ash spread her palms. ‘I can't tell. It is horsed, so probably human.'

Rose's eyes were wide. ‘Are we safe?'

‘I can't tell,' Ash said again. ‘I'm sorry.'

Bluebell returned to sharpening her sword. ‘You are safe as long as I still draw breath,' she said, knowing that, among the undermagicians, sharp steel was not necessarily a ward against danger.

Rowan had finally cried herself inside out and was sleeping in a heap in the middle of the bed. Ivy didn't dare move her, in case she woke again and cried some more. She was sick of the sound of the child sobbing. If she was ever forced to bear children, she would farm them out to somebody with much more patience than she had. What irrational little beasts they were, so selfish and one-eyed.

Ivy lurked near the door to their room at the inn. The first day of travel had gone well: no rain, not too many hills and valleys to negotiate. Sighere had said barely a dozen words to her and most of the time she simply pretended he wasn't there. Rowan had cried the whole way, of course, but as Ivy had no sympathy, the pain was only on her ears, not in her heart.

She ventured out to the landing and peered over the railing. From here, she could see the entranceway to the inn. Men coming and going. She could hear their voices from the alehouse. They laughed and shouted, they talked in low voices, they argued. Men. Dozens and dozens of them. And here she was, stuck in a room with the baby. She imagined herself descending the stairs with her shining fair curls catching the lamplight, her white bosom
swelling invitingly from the low front on her gown. How their heads would turn.

Ivy retreated back into her room. It was dimly lit by greasy candles in metal sconces, and smelled of old sweat and damp wool. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be around William Dartwood and ... no, she didn't. Already, she had grown beyond wanting William Dartwood. Her infatuation with Heath had finished off her desire for anyone back home. But she couldn't have Heath. The thought made her angry and sad all at once. She'd never much liked any of her sisters, apart from Willow. Ash, she supposed, was kind enough. But Iron-tits was an arrogant thug, and Rose ... well, Rose had Heath. That was reason enough to hate her.

But Ivy would get over Heath. Somehow. It would help if she could get downstairs and flirt with some other men.