Shadowfell (5 page)

Acting on this, I have placed responsibility for Stag Troop in the capable hands of my second-in-command, Rohan Death-Blade. I will operate alone for the foreseeable future. I will report direct to you whenever circumstances make it possible to send a secure despatch. The task I undertake may require me to travel widely through the autumn, and at times I will be beyond reach. Rest assured, my lord King, that I will return to court by the end of the season, or as soon as possible thereafter. I hope to bring with me an unusual weapon for your armoury, my lord, a weapon that should please you very well indeed.

(signed) Owen Swift-Sword, Stag Troop Leader

CHAPTER THREE

S
EVEN DAYS
walking, seven nights sleeping in the forest, and I crested a hill in late afternoon to catch my first glimpse of Silverwater, its broad expanse glittering in the sunlight some miles ahead. I moved from the still darkness of the pines into beech forest and found a camping spot by a rocky outcrop among the trees. A small stream gurgled its way down the hill. There was one great oak standing among the beeches, a dark-leaved, broad-armed goddess of a tree. I found a flat rock, set down my bag and spread the cloak beside it. I lowered myself to a sitting position and, wincing with pain, eased off my shoes.

My feet were afire with blisters. These had been good shoes once, given to me by a girl whose family had sheltered us in a remote village up north. These shoes had carried me many miles, up hill and down, across streams, through bogs, over fields and along steep fells. They had been with me through spring rain and summer heat, autumn chill and winter snow. They had been patched and mended, relined and strengthened. They were too small now, and this season’s hard journeying had tested them to breaking point.

I wandered, barefoot, beside the stream and came back with a handful of fern roots and a scattering of acorns. I could not make a proper poultice, for my small bag carried only essentials. My supply of powders and salves had run out many moons ago and I had lacked the time and resources to replace it. Perhaps that was just as well. Few healers practised their craft openly in Keldec’s Alban. The line between herbalism and magic went too close for comfort.

I made a fire, my new knife striking a ready spark from my old flint. Wary of attracting unwanted notice, I kept the blaze small. When the fire was burning well I went foraging, returning with wild onions which I made into a soup. Some of Flint’s way-bread was still in my bag, saved for the times when I could not provide for myself.

As I stirred my brew I felt eyes on me, watching from the high branches of the oak, from the shadows between the beech trunks, from the bouncing waters of the little stream. I sensed the presence of observers hidden in every chink and crevice of the great rocks that sheltered me. Close. Closer than I had ever felt them before.

It was said the Good Folk had gone into hiding, fearful of Keldec’s long reach. Rumour had it that they had fled Alban altogether, choosing to dwell on the misty islands of the far west or in the cold, empty north. Neither theory was true, or I would not be aware of them now, all around me in this clearing. The little hairs on my neck stood up; my spine tingled with the strangeness of it.

‘Best if you don’t come near me,’ I murmured, trying not to look directly at any of them as I sat drinking my onion brew. ‘You and I, we’re trouble for each other. I want nothing to do with you.’ It sounded harsh and discourteous. And I did not even know if they would understand me; I had never spoken to them directly before. Now it seemed necessary to warn them.

A pointed silence followed, in which I could almost feel their disapproval. In my mind, my grandmother spoke:
Always share what you have, Neryn. Look after the Good Folk and they will do you no harm. If you hear people complaining that someone stole the eggs from right under the hens, or drank the cow dry before milking time, it will be because someone forgot that rule
.

Well, there were a few mouthfuls of the brew left. With some regret, I moved to set down the little pan at one side of the clearing, wedging it with stones so it would not spill. It looked a meagre offering, the amber liquid barely covering the bottom of the pot. And there were many of them; I need not look straight at them to know that. Sighing, I took the cloth-wrapped way-bread from my bag, broke off a piece, and laid it beside the brew. ‘I’m a friend,’ I said, my voice just above a whisper. ‘I offer you a share of my meal, such as it is. But I don’t want companions on the journey. Stay in your safe place. There were Enforcers at Darkwater. The Cull’s begun.’ I wondered if any place was safe.

My little fire warmed me as I chopped fern roots and soaked them in water, then mixed them with acorn flesh I had crushed between stones. I would fill a cloth with the resultant pulp and put my feet in it for a while before I tried to sleep. It couldn’t hurt, and perhaps it would help. Maybe, further on, I would find birch trees from whose bark I could make a lining for my shoes. I eyed them, seeing the holes, the places where sole had parted from upper, the frayed cords that no longer tied up.

As I worked, I saw from the corner of my eye that the pot of onion brew was already being investigated. Small hands were turning Flint’s way-bread over and over; a furred being in a red cap took a sharp-toothed bite from a corner – snap! A skinny creature with fingers like long twigs snatched the treasure away with a hiss.

‘Share,’ Long Fingers said. ‘
Ssshaaaare
.’

‘Break it up, then, break it up!’ urged Red Cap, and a chorus of voices chimed in. They would get a crumb each, at most. A creature with a tube-shaped snout leaned over to suck the brew direct from the pot, and another gave it a smack on the head.

My makeshift poultice was ready. I sat down with Flint’s cloak over my shoulders and the fire warming my face, and wrapped the cloth around my feet. It was awkward, the lack of a binding component making the thing too ready to slip at the slightest movement. I kept perfectly still, wondering what would happen when my meagre offering was gone. Would they be angry and turn on me? Would they vanish without another word? Every part of me was on edge with anticipation, but for what I did not know. Their presence, so close, felt both wondrous and perilous. I had seen their kind as shadows passing in the woods or eyes in the night. Seeing them was my gift and my curse. I had heard their eldritch voices. But they had never come so close before. The squabbling division of the unexpected bounty went on awhile, and then silence fell, a silence so sudden and profound that, against my better judgement, I turned my head to look directly at them.

They sat in a neat circle, as if holding a council, but every one of them was facing me. I felt the weight of all those eyes: little beady eyes; large lustrous eyes; narrow eyes; long-lashed, lovely eyes; eyes of every shape and colour I could imagine. The smallest was no larger than a hedgehog, and indeed somewhat resembled one. The tallest, standing, might come up to my waist. One or two were still nibbling on fragments of way-bread. Their gaze was neither friendly nor unfriendly, but deeply Other.

The silence was full of expectation. Plainly, I was expected to make a speech of some kind. With my feet wrapped up, I felt at something of a disadvantage.

‘Greetings.’ My voice had a nervous wobble in it. It was one thing to see Good Folk more or less wherever you went, but quite another to be surrounded by them and attempting a conversation. ‘I’m afraid I can’t get up, I have blisters. Thank you for letting me shelter here with you. I regret that I didn’t have something better to share.’

‘The brew was sufficient,’ said a little woman in a leaf-coloured cloak, dabbing her lips with a spotted kerchief. ‘Besides, such gifts are not offered for the purpose of nourishment or our kind would all have perished from hunger long ago. They’re given as a sign of trust, and accepted in the same spirit.’ She gave her companions a withering look. ‘Though there’s one or two let their appetites take the place of their common sense.’

‘Your friends were welcome to my food. But I will need to forage soon enough. What I have won’t last long.’

‘Aye, you’ll be hungry tomorrow,’ said the little woman. ‘Closer to the loch there’s nettles to be found. And you’ll see some wee toadstools at the feet of the great oaks. Take care which you pick or you’ll set your guts in a twisty tangle.’

‘There’s fine fish to be had,’ put in Red Cap, revealing that although he looked somewhat like a pine marten, he spoke much as I did. The voice was undoubtedly male, but I noticed the creature bore a sling on his back, and from it peered tiny bright eyes. ‘Along Silverwater, past the big man’s house, a fall known as Maiden’s Tears tumbles down toward the loch. Above it lies a pool where they rise by moonlight to be taken. Their flesh will keep you strong. We will show you.’

A chorus of protest rang out in many voices, high and low, rough and sweet, sending my flesh into goose bumps with their strangeness. ‘No!’ ‘No show, no show!’ ‘Fool, Red Cap, fool! What are you thinking, to trust such as her?’

‘Never mind,’ I said, a shiver of foreboding running through me. ‘I’ll be going on alone.’

‘We would expect no less.’ The being who spoke looked something like a human girl of about my own age, but she stood no taller than a young child and was as delicately formed as a wildflower. Her gown flowed around her, drifting gossamer. Her hair was a shimmering fall of silver light. Her eyes were large, lustrous and wholly inimical. ‘I know what is in your mind, Red Cap, and I know who put it there.’ She shot a glare at the little woman in the green cape, who gazed steadily back at her, unperturbed. The silver girl turned to me. ‘Traveller, do not expect our aid. No matter what gifts you may set out for us, the time is long gone when the Good Folk involved themselves in the petty struggles of humankind. Your troubles are of your own making.’

Fragile as she looked, her voice was strong as oak wood and chill as a stream under winter ice. It was pointless to protest that I had not expected any help, indeed had not dreamed they would come so close. It was useless to explain that I’d never have accepted an offer to have them accompany me, since that would have put them at the same risk I faced every day. She believed me some kind of enemy. Well, I was human and Keldec was human, so perhaps her animosity made sense. It hurt, all the same. In my mind was that sweet, magical day in Grandmother’s garden, and the two little folk with their basket of berries.

‘You’ll be moving on in the morning, then.’ It was one of the others that spoke, a creature in a dark glossy cape made all of feathers. Its tone was flat, but its sharp eyes examined me keenly. Its features held something of a man’s and something of a crow’s; they were disconcerting, and I tried not to stare.

‘I will, yes.’

‘A warning. Red Cap spoke of a fall, Maiden’s Tears. The fish are good, aye. But if you go that way, ’ware the urisk. He will call for help, you ken. Bitterly. Endlessly. Take no heed of that, for if you speak to him, he will follow you on your journey. He will dog your footsteps. He will never let go. A creature such as that is eaten up by loneliness.’

‘Thank you for the warning.’ Perhaps I would forego the fish.

Long Fingers had moved out of the circle to investigate my decrepit foot gear. ‘Shoes,’ he observed. ‘Broken.’

‘Leave them!’ The silver girl spoke sharply and the creature shrank back. ‘Enough of this. Leave the shoes and leave the girl. She’s nobody. A wanderer, a vagrant. This was a misguided venture from the first.’

‘You make your judgement quickly, Silver.’ Though she spoke quietly, something in the voice of the green-cloaked woman stilled them all. It was as if she had made them draw a long breath together.

‘One look is enough.’ Silver – aptly named – had frost in her voice. ‘One word. If matters were as you believe, we would know. We would see it. It would be apparent in an instant. This girl can’t even mend her own shoes. How could she – ?’

Suddenly I felt my weariness like a weight on my shoulders, and with it a flicker of anger. ‘I can mend them. All I need is some birch bark.’

Someone hooted with laughter, as if such a notion were utterly ridiculous.

‘I said I’ll mend them!’ My voice was as brittle as a dry twig. ‘Thank you for your company and your good advice about fish and the urisk and so on. It’s obvious my presence is causing some dispute amongst you, so you’d best leave me to get on with things by myself. I’ll bid you goodnight.’ Let them take their debate about what I was or wasn’t somewhere else. It was plain enough that my company was unwelcome to them.

There was a general twittering and whispering, but I caught no words in it. In the growing dark, the circle of eyes took on an eerie glint, as if they carried their own light within.

At length the little woman in the green cloak spoke. ‘You’re not afraid on your own?’ she asked.

‘Of course I’m afraid.’ Sitting, I could look her straight in the eye. She seemed formidable, her small size doing nothing to diminish the strength and shrewdness of her gaze. Her nose was a sharp beak, her hair a cloud of grey-green fuzz through which her pointed ears protruded. I felt as if she was looking right inside me, into my secret thoughts, and that turned my heart cold. ‘It’s culling time,’ I added, ‘and the Enforcers are around every bend in the road, behind every wall, listening for every careless word. I shouldn’t be talking to you. I should be pretending not to see you.’

There was a brief silence, then Red Cap observed, ‘You set out supper for us.’

‘My grandmother taught me to share,’ I said, tears pricking my eyes. ‘It was a good lesson. She said that even if you think you have nothing at all, there is always something you can give to another. She taught me early to respect your kind.’

If the Good Folk felt any warmth toward me after this, it did not show on their faces. Indeed, most of them were looking at Silver, as if waiting for her lead. Only the green-cloaked woman had her gaze on me.