Talus and the Frozen King (23 page)

Bran considered the bodies surrounding him. The wounded would recover. As for the dead ... Was there really any more he could do here? Cursing, he set off after Alayin. Was he to spend all his time on Creyak rushing from one place to the next, always on the tail of death and never quite catching it?

It was all Bran could do to keep up with his quarry. Alayin was fast and her ivory-draped form slipped elusively from one patch of mist to another. The path she took was a tight descending spiral, craggy and treacherous. Bran pulled his arms close to his body to avoid flaying them on the sharp rock walls. His feet skipped and slid on the broken winter ground.

At last the rock peeled back, leaving him adrift in the fog. The sharp clatter of shingle and the muffled roar of the sea told him was back on the beach. He raised his hands, the good and the bad, and groped blindly forward.

'Alayin?' he called. 'Talus?'

Movement to his left. He veered that way. Something hulked in the fog, too vague to be properly seen. Then it melted away.

'Where are you?'

He continued to advance, treading cautiously. His mouth was filled with the damp salt taste of the fog. The shingle clawed at his feet.

A shape loomed in front of him. Was it a man? When he touched it, he found it was just a boulder. He circled it, skimming its surface with his hands. It was reassuring to have found something solid.

His fingers found a rope. He traced its line around the boulder. It was the same rope he and Talus had used to help bring Farrum's boat ashore. Which meant the boat was nearby.

He followed the rope, good hand over bad. Any moment now he would see the boat. But the rope ran out, and the boat wasn't there.

Bran lifted the end of the rope and peered at it. It had been cut through. The cut was cleaner than any that could have been made with an ordinary stone knife.

Bran made his way in a fumbling half-crouch towards the sound of the waves. The rush of the sea grew louder and suddenly he was ankle-deep in water. He backtracked. How could he have missed something as big as Farrum's boat?

He looked down. He was standing in a gigantic rut in the shingle. He was in the right place.

But the boat had gone.

A slumped form lay at the far end of the rut. Bran hurried towards it, fear rising in him. Fear turned to revulsion as he saw it was a man—or most of one. The corpse's severed head lay an arm's length from its gaping neck, its blood-spattered face staring straight up into the invisible sky. One of Farrum's boatmen; even through the gore, the scars on its cheeks were clearly visible.

Bran heard the crunch of footsteps just in time to turn his head, but not to ward off the blow that came down on it. He glimpsed a tall, swaying shadow before his vision was driven away by a flash of dazzling light.

After that came blackness.

A white face floated over Bran. Red hair made a halo around it. Somewhere, firelight flickered. The face drifted in and out of focus. Its mouth opened and it seemed to Bran that words came out, although he heard nothing.

'Keyli?' he said.

The blackness returned.

The face was still there when he woke a second, but very dim. He was terrified it might be the spirit of his dead wife, yet part of him wanted it to be so. The face came close and he tried to lift himself towards it, but gentle hands pressed him back down.

'Don't try to move.'

The voice was a woman's. As if the words were magic, all Bran's senses filled up at once. He could hear the faint rush of the sea, taste the salt in the air, feel the hard resistance of rock against his back.

'Keyli?' He knew it wasn't her. Even with its covering of cracked white paint he knew the face belonged to Lethriel. 'Where am I?'

The face retreated a little as Lethriel sat back. 'Thank the spirits,' she said. 'I thought for a moment you weren't breathing. We're in a cave, just up from the shore. I dragged you here. Don't ask me how I did it—you're heavy. But the tide was coming in, and I was scared they'd find us.

How's your head?'

Bran looked around. A few paces away, a driftwood fire burned. Glossy rock walls rose behind it. One wall bore an ancient painting of a hunting scene: men and deer and a giant tusked beast that could only be a mammut. The picture danced with a life of its own.

'How's your head?' Lethriel repeated.

Bran raised his good hand to the back of his skull. Where it touched, it ignited a fire. 'Hurts.

How ...?' The words eluded him. He tried again. 'Who ...?' Lethriel frowned. 'It was Cabarrath.'

'Cab ... why did he ...?'

'I don't know. I got there just as he hit you with the haft of his axe. He saw me and ... just ran off into the fog.'

'Why didn't he ...?'

'Finish the job? I don't know. Maybe he didn't mean to hit you. Maybe he thought you were someone else.'

Bran rubbed his head. The thoughts inside it settled a little. 'Fethan said that Cabarrath ran after Farrum and the others.'

'He obviously caught up with one of them. You saw the body?'

The sight of the headless corpse was something Bran wasn't going to forget in a hurry.

'Cabarrath wasn't in time to stop them moving the boat.'

'Either that or they left him behind.' Tears were threatening at the corners of Lethriel's eyes.

'Bran, you don't think he ... you don't think Cabarrath is ...?'

'I don't know what to think any more. Whatever Cabarrath was up to, we'll find out soon enough?'

'I suppose so.'

The firelight dimmed, sending a chill through the cave. A knot of wood cracked and the flames rose again, brighter than before. On the rock wall, the hunted animals seemed to be running.

'What about you, Lethriel? What were you up to?'

'I was trying to find Talus when I heard the commotion at the pit. I heard Tharn giving out his orders. By the time I got there, everyone had gone. I saw the bodies. I found tracks leading to the beach and followed them. If I hadn't found you when I did ...'

'Wait a moment. Go back. You got to the pit after we'd all left. What exactly did you see there?'

Lethriel's throat worked as she swallowed. 'Sigathon. He was covered in blood. Dead. And Fethan lying at the edge of the pit. I don't know about him. Two of Farrum's men.'

'Is that all?'

'Isn't it enough?'

'What about Mishina?'

'The shaman wasn't there.'

Bran tried to sit up again. Pain stabbed into the back of his neck and he slumped back, groaning.

'I told you to lie still,' said Lethriel.

'Where have you been all this time? I haven't seen you since ...' When had that been? Bran tried to remember.

A hint of a smile cracked the white paint at the corners of Lethriel's mouth. 'After the fight on the beach, Talus asked me to do something,' she said.

Now Bran remembered their hushed conversation. 'Did he send you to the cairn?'

'No. To the king's house. He told me to search for something there. I waited until everyone was in the arena so I could be sure I wouldn't be disturbed. Then I started hunting—under the bed covers, in the food pits, anywhere I could think of.'

'What were you looking for? Did you find it?'

Lethriel held up her left hand. It was closed into a fist. She opened it to reveal what Bran thought at first was a clump of white hair. He brushed his fingers through it. It was too coarse to be human.

'Talus gave me this. He plucked it from Alayin's hood just before the fight began between Tharn and Farrum.' She held up her right hand. In it was a braid of identical hair. 'I found this in Arak's bed.'

Bran's thoughts battled through the pain in his head. 'Arak wants her. Maybe he even loves her. Is that right? Is Arak the lover she came here to see?'

Lethriel shook her head. 'Perhaps in his mind. When Alayin and Cabarrath were together, all the brothers used to tease Arak. They said he was last in line, that he'd have to take his turn. I don't know if they realised how much he adored her, but I could see it. Women see these things.'

'When did Talus tell you this?'

'He didn't. I worked it out for myself. When I told Talus what I was thinking, he agreed with me.'

'Seems I'm always the last to know. But I still don't see how all this fits together.'

'Nor me. But this fur wasn't all I found. There were other things: a wooden trinket Cabarrath used to treasure, an old moccasin I know belonged to Tharn. Arak liked to collect all sorts of things.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. I don't think Talus was telling me everything.'

'He wouldn't. Come on, we've got to ...' Bran tried once more to sit up. Yet another bolt of pain sent him crashing back to the floor. He rolled sideways and let a thin drool of vomit leave his lips.

'We'll go,' said Lethriel. 'But only when you're ready. We're safe here for now.'

'Safe from what?'

'Everything. Bran, Tharn's preparing for war.'

Bran closed his eyes, tried to force the pain away. Something touched his brow: Lethriel's hand.

'Tell me about her, Bran.'

'About who?' Bran didn't open his eyes. The darkness was soothing.

'About Keyli. About the woman you loved.'

'It's not a story to tell. I've never told it to anyone.'

'Maybe that's your problem.'

And so, just like that, Bran told Lethriel about the events of two years before, about the night and about the storm. About how Keyli had taken the boat out on to the deadly sea. About the sudden arrival of Talus and how, in retrieving the rope, the bard too had fallen prey to the waves.

'I still don't know why she was out there,' he said, lost in the blackness behind his eyelids.

The storm raged there just as it did in his dreams. 'I suppose I never will.'

'What happened after Talus fell in the water?' said Lethriel. 'You said you had hold of the rope. Weren't you able to bring her in?'

'I tried. I pulled on the rope as hard as I could, hand over hand. Both my hands were good back then. I could see Keyli coming closer. Even the sea wasn't strong enough to keep her from me.

But then ... then the stars started raining down.'

'The stars?'

'They were moving. The stars were moving, shooting from one horizon to the other. Long lines of white light. I'd seen them move like that before. I'd never imagined they could come all the way down to the ground.

'They started falling far out to sea. Streaks of fire coming straight down out of the sky.

Wherever they hit the water there was a great splash, and a cloud of steam. The sea boiled. The fire lit up the night. There was light everywhere. Thunder too, and lightning. I've never been more terrified. But it was beautiful as well, somehow.

'The stars started falling closer to the shore. Keyli was very near to me now. I could hear her calling. Her voice was nearly drowned by the storm, but I could hear her. I pulled with all my strength. Talus was still in the water, scrambling to get a foothold on the rocks, but he kept slipping on the weeds and the waves kept dragging him back down.'

Bright shapes moved in the darkness behind Bran's closed eyes. He saw it all: the tiny boat and the monstrous ocean and the blazing sky, memory and dream uniting to make the past real once more. It was like splinters in his vision, jagged and agonising.

'I kept pulling. The palms of my hands were red and raw. I couldn't feel my fingers, they were so cold. I was soaked from head to toe. I pulled until the boat was almost close enough to touch. Keyli's hand was stretching towards me. I kept hold of the rope with my right hand, reached out with my left.

'I heard a hissing, screaming sound. Keyli heard it too: I could see it in her eyes. We both looked up into the sky together. It was as if the sun itself was falling on us. I felt something punch me down on to the rock, like a fist of air. It threw Keyli backwards into the boat. Her face was lit up by the fire. Then it hit the water—the falling star. The main part of it landed a rope's length away, but pieces of it must have broken off. They cut into the waves, hot and white, whistling as they came.

They threw up plumes of water that rose as high as an oak tree. One of them went straight through the bottom of the boat. I think it went straight through Keyli too. The boat folded up and the waves collapsed over it and it was gone, she was gone, just like that. She was gone. In the same breath, another piece of the star touched my left hand, the one I'd been using to reach out for Keyli. The star only brushed it, but it was enough to burn all the skin away. I didn't even feel it, didn't realise until later how bad the injury was. All I could think of was to keep pulling on the rope. But when I finally brought it ashore there was nothing on the end of it. It was burned through.'

Bran stopped. The images behind his eyes were fading. The darkness was coming back. The pain from the splinter, incredibly, was easing.

'And then?'

Bran opened his eyes. Lethriel's face was there, drenched in firelight. The drip-drip of the water in the cave echoed around her.

'I tossed the rope aside. I scanned the waves for signs of the boat, signs of Keyli, but she was gone. The stars had stopped falling—except for a very few, far out to sea. The storm was over.'

'And Talus?'

'I saw his hand. It was the only part of him left above the water. If I hadn't seen it I think I'd have just waded out into the sea and kept walking until the waves closed over my head. Without Keyli, what reason did I have to live? Instead I grabbed Talus's hand and pulled him ashore and beat his chest to pump the water out of him. I thought he was dead, but eventually he sat up. We clambered back up the shore together, helped each other to safety. Then we just lay back and watched the dawn light come through the last of the clouds. It was a beautiful dawn. I never went home again.'

Lethriel bent and kissed Bran once on the lips. It was like being touched by a lightning bolt.

'I'm so sorry,' she said. She caressed his ruined left hand. 'I think that, in another life, I must have loved you, Bran, because my heart is breaking for you, and for what you've suffered and lost.