Shadowfell (36 page)

Now! Quick!
I tried to find the place within me that was strong and powerful. I closed my eyes and called as I had up on the fell, when I had asked the Good Folk to hide me from Flint.
Help! Help us!

A curse from Fingal. I opened my eyes to see Tali down again, an Enforcer standing over her with club raised to strike.
Help! I need your help!
Nothing from the rocks; nothing from the shadows between the rocks. No uncanny warrior, no old man full of tricks, no Good Folk big or small. Yet I knew they were there; I had seen them. What was I doing wrong?

‘We’re finished,’ said Fingal.

A shriek from Tali. A twist, a turn, and she was on her feet, leaping out of range a moment before the Enforcer’s club came down. Flint’s sword was a bright streak of light as he swung it two-handed, severing her opponent’s head. A roar of outrage from one of the new Enforcers. They had seen what happened. Now there would be only one target before their eyes: the comrade who had done the unthinkable and turned against his own.

‘Stand strong,’ breathed Fingal. ‘Give them your best.’

The formation was moving steadily forward, its progress barely slowed by a couple of rebels who attempted single-handed strikes on its flanks. I must act before the six were within range of Flint and Tali. Something was stopping the Good Folk from helping me, something was getting in the way . . . Oh, gods, why hadn’t I thought of the obvious answer? Cold iron. This place was full of it. But not all uncanny folk were weakened by its presence – that had been proven in the defile. And what were those great blockish beings I had seen in the rock walls, if not stanie men?

‘Let me out,’ I said to Fingal. ‘Quick.’

To his credit, he asked no questions, but scrambled out of our bolthole and stood guard – one man with a knife in the midst of a raging battle – while I climbed out after him. I fixed my gaze on a point in the stone wall, above and slightly ahead of the slowly advancing formation of men, and sought desperately for the right words.

Fingal sprang in front of me, cursing, his weapon ready to strike. We’d been seen. An Enforcer with a knife in each hand was heading straight for us. My heart hammered. A rhyme. It had to be a rhyme.

Fingal stabbed forward with his knife and danced about, making himself a target. The Enforcer had drawn first blood: Fingal’s tunic bore a dark stain on the sleeve. It had not slowed him. Still he ducked, swung, parried, his breath coming in gasps.

‘Son of a dog!’ yelled the Enforcer, forcing Fingal back with a series of slashing movements, using both his knives. I backed too, almost falling as my skirt caught on the low bushes screening the overhang. ‘Die in your blood, filthy traitor!’

In my mind, a little Flint was alone on the shore, sweeping his stone warriors away with a brutal stroke of the arm. The verse: I had it. Quick, before the Enforcers moved past the spot. I reached for the being that stood in the stones above them, an ancient, slow creature that had probably seen a dozen such battles, a thousand such deaths as these.

‘Stanie Mon, Stanie Mon, stand up ta”, I chanted in a shaking voice. ‘Stanie Mon, Stanie Mon, doon ye fa”.

With a cracking, a splitting, a violent, thunderous crashing, the stanie mon fell. The men standing in its path had no chance. One moment they were there, frozen to immobility by the immense sound above them, the next they were gone, crushed beneath the great chunks of stone. Clouds of dust sprayed out across the open area, coating rebel and Enforcer alike. It rolled over us, rushing into my nose and eyes, making me cough and choke. There was a sudden sharp movement right by me, and a gasp, and a man fell to the ground lifeless. Fingal had seized his opportunity.

‘Great gods,’ he spluttered now, putting a hand to his eyes. ‘What was
that
?’

Momentarily the battlefield was quiet, save for a breathy, sobbing sound from somewhere out in the swirling cloud. It was the sound of a man in terrible pain. The dust settled to reveal a great rough gash in the rock wall opposite us, and the pieces of the stanie mon lying as they had fallen, massive head, giant body, huge outstretched limbs. Around him, an army of grey ghosts still fought a dozen desperate small battles. There was Tali, coated in dust, and Flint by her, peeling the mask from his face. Thank the gods, they had not been crushed.

‘Black Crow’s curse!’ exclaimed Fingal. ‘You did it, didn’t you? With your little rhyme, you brought that whole thing down. You’ve won it for us. By all the gods, I don’t believe it.’

‘Fingal!’ someone shouted from over by the rocks, and as Fingal strode away in response – perhaps he thought I could defend myself by magic – I saw that not all the rebels had escaped the fall. Tali and Flint were still standing, but by the heavy slab that made up the stanie mon’s right arm, a young fighter lay trapped. His leg was pinned beneath the great block of stone. Even if all the men here tried to lift at once, I knew they could not shift that slab so much as an inch.

Fingal had gone to crouch by the fallen man, touching his brow, his neck, giving calm instructions to one or two others. As for the fight, the rebels had rallied and were swiftly accounting for the last of their opponents. The battle seemed all but over.
You’ve won it for us
, Fingal had said. Rebels victorious. King’s men routed. But this was no victory. Beneath those rocks lay six dead men, and I had killed them. That they’d been Enforcers made no difference at all. A moment ago they’d been standing there fit and well, and now they were crushed and broken. This was the worst deed of my life.

Bile welled in my throat; my heart beat a furious rhythm of denial. If this was what it meant to be a Caller, I didn’t want it. How could I ever risk this happening again? Forget Shadowfell. I would move on alone, I would find somewhere to live all by myself, as I had once told Flint I intended to do. I was not fit for the company of man or beast.

The sounds of battle were dying down. Since I was no longer under guard, I moved, making myself walk over to the fallen rocks and witness the result of my blunder. I watched quietly as someone brought Fingal a bundle, which when unrolled proved to be full of healer’s supplies – knives and other implements, rolled cloths, stoppered jars and little linen bags of herbs. An intense discussion was taking place not far off, to do with rocks and levers and ropes.

Regan strode over to us. He had a long jagged cut across his brow, and his handsome face was shiny with sweat. Blood was trickling down into his eyes. The front of his tunic was stained red. ‘I told you to stay under cover,’ he said, looking from Fingal to me. ‘You could both have been crushed.’ He squatted down by the trapped man. ‘Garven,’ he murmured. ‘You fought bravely, lad. Lie quiet now, we’ll get you out.’ He rose to his feet, and a look passed between him and Fingal. ‘Give him something for the pain,’ Regan said, ‘and then we’ll talk about what comes next.’

Fingal was already measuring something from a little vial into a cup, adding what might be mead, stirring it with a bone spoon. ‘She did it,’ he said, glancing up at Regan. ‘Neryn. She said a verse and the rocks fell down. She made it happen.’

Regan’s attention was suddenly all on me, the blue eyes narrowed. ‘Is this true?’

‘It’s true.’ I wondered how I was going to tell him that I never intended to use my uncanny gift again. For the expression on his face told me he saw its possibilities and thought them good. It told me he saw me for what I could be: a weapon, and a powerful one at that. I found that I could not say what I knew I should, for the look in his eyes was all hope, and hope was in short supply in Alban.

‘Tell me what you did,’ Regan said. ‘What kind of gift is this, that you have the very rocks at your command? We heard from Flint that he might have found a Caller, but none of us was quite sure what that meant, only that it was a gift of great potential. I see that much is true. The battle was all but lost. You intervened and it was won. We owe you a great debt. If you stay with us, if you aid our cause, victory may be closer than we ever imagined. What you did . . . how did you make it happen?’

It was hard to find words. Was this a win or a loss? A remarkable exercise of magical power or a disastrous attempt to do something I barely understood? Perhaps it was both. I only knew it made no difference whether I killed ally or enemy; he was still just as dead.

‘Fingal spoke of a rhyme,’ Regan said. ‘What kind of rhyme? A spell, an incantation? Is this a charm like those sung by mind-menders?’

Gods, I wished to be somewhere far away, all alone, and for my deed to be undone. Yet if that were so, Regan and his comrades would be dead. I cleared my throat. All across the open area the rebels were finishing the day’s dark business. Knives moved with swift purpose across throats; swords stabbed efficiently downward. There would be no prisoners taken in such a conflict. Rebels were stripping the dead Enforcers of anything useful: warm garments, weaponry, boots. Their own dead they carried to one side of the area. Here the fallen were laid down gently and covered each with a cloak. Four at least; grievous losses for such a small band.

There was Flint, kneeling by the form of a dead Enforcer. He was very still, his face ashen pale. What was he doing? Someone moved across, blocking my view, and I saw him no more.

‘Tell me, Neryn,’ Regan said, his eyes never leaving my face. ‘This gift of yours is remarkable. It’s critically important to us. A rhyme. Surely not just that.’

Garven had had his dose and was quiet now. Four or five rebels were grouped around him, one offering a water skin, a second supporting his head, the others speaking softly. Fingal got up and came over to us, his face grim. ‘There’s no way we can lift those rocks,’ he said to Regan, ‘though the men want to try with ropes. I’ll have to take off Garven’s leg. But he’s trapped high. I don’t like his chances.’

‘Black Crow save us,’ muttered Regan.

‘He’s trapped because I didn’t know what I was doing,’ I made myself say. ‘If I had full mastery of my gift, I might have been able to control the stanie mon’s fall more precisely. I didn’t realise how perilous a Caller’s ability was until today, and I’m more sorry than I can say.’

‘We’re fighting a war,’ Regan said. ‘We have wins and losses. Some of us are injured, some of us die. We can’t think of this in any other way or we’d be unable to go forward. But for you I would have lost my entire battle group today, and likely I’d be lying in my own blood alongside them. What did you call it, a stanie mon? Isn’t that a creature from a children’s game?’

‘Regan?’ Fingal was waiting for some kind of command, some acknowledgement from his leader.

‘If it’s the only way to get him out, then take the leg. We’d best let the fellows try the ropes first, though anyone can see those stones are too heavy to move.’

With a curt nod, Fingal headed back toward the trapped man. It would be a grim choice. I knew enough from helping Grandmother in her healing work to realise how unlikely it was that anyone would survive such an injury, let alone survive with a leg that could bear any weight. Garven had been a fighter. He would fight no more.

Tali had come up behind Regan; she was as tall as he. She had taken off the cloth that covered her lower face, revealing a decisive jaw, a neat, straight nose and a full, curving mouth. She was younger than I’d thought, perhaps only a year or two my senior. She had a tattoo around her neck that was the same as Fingal’s, a pattern like flying birds, perhaps crows. ‘They’re saying you did this,’ she said, and the gaze she turned on me matched the bitterness of her tone. ‘A charm. Magic. It’s a pity your magic makes no distinction between theirs and ours. We were told a Caller would be a priceless asset. If this is a demonstration of your gift, it makes you more trouble than you’re worth.’

‘Enough, Tali,’ Regan said. ‘Neryn, is this really as simple as it seems? You speak a rhyme and the being obeys your command?’

‘It’s not just that.’ I struggled to find the right words. For as long as I could remember, I’d been keeping my canny gift secret. I’d scarcely let myself breathe a word about the Good Folk, or the power of cold iron, or the special knacks and tricks that some human folk possessed. Even with Flint I had been guarded. Speaking of such things openly felt as perilous as leaping from a cliff top into empty air. ‘I mean, with a stanie mon it is mainly just the verse, and the magic doesn’t work unless the rhyme is in the correct form. But only a Caller can summon uncanny folk in this way, or so I believe. And there is a . . . there’s another part to it, but I can’t describe it to you. I have no words for it.’

It was a sensation I had felt only on those occasions when I’d been conscious of calling directly to the Good Folk. I had reached down, reached in, touched something deep and old . . . ‘It’s a feeling,’ I said. ‘Ancient and powerful. Stronger in some places than others. It’s being connected with earth and water, wind and flame. Understanding what exists within those things. It links me with the uncanny folk of Alban, no matter what form they take. I see them when other people can’t. If I call, they will come.’ I hesitated. ‘It’s said that a Caller can be far more than this, but only with special training.’

‘A stanie mon.’ Tali’s voice dripped scorn. ‘Could you not have bid this stanie mon spread itself only over our enemy? Could you not have given a little thought to what you were doing?’

‘You think I’m happy that I hurt one of your comrades?’ I snapped, unable to hold back my anger. ‘I did what I did because Fingal asked me if I could help. It did look as if you might be losing the battle. And although you may not think much of me, I believed Regan’s Rebels were worth saving. I’ve wanted to join you since my brother was killed fighting the Enforcers three years ago. I had to act quickly just now. I did the only thing I could think of that might turn the tide for you. But I’m new to using my gift. I haven’t learned how to harness it. What happened . . . As I said before, I deeply regret it.’ And when neither Tali nor Regan said anything, I added, ‘A stanie mon only responds to the simplest verses, the kind children make up. You can’t ask such a being to do anything complicated. I bade him fall, and he fell.’