The Burning Shadow (9 page)

H
ylas chucked another stone at the buzzard. “Go away!” he croaked. He couldn't risk it telling the Crows where he was.

In the distance, Kreon's stronghold glared down at him. Did they think he'd been killed down in the pit? Or had they found his trail and were coming after their runaway slave?

The cave-in and the snatchers were an evil blur. He'd emerged from the tunnel to find himself on the Neck, so close to the guards' camp he could hear them breathe. He remembered waiting till dark, then creeping up a gully and collapsing.

After that, nothing till dawn.

Had Zan and the others gotten out alive? And what had happened to Pirra? He'd been leaving signs for her as he went, but how would she ever escape from Kreon's stronghold?

From the Neck, he'd stumbled across a blistering plain of thornscrub and poisonous oleander. Instead of earth, there was brittle black rock: It looked as if it had once bubbled like mud, until a god had turned it to stone.

The Sun was punishingly fierce, even though he'd used his knee-bindings for footcloths and to cover his head. He was thirsty, but when he came upon a spring, he was startled to find that the water was
hot
, and so salty he spat it out. His spirit quailed. Thalakrea didn't want him.
Here's water, but you can't drink
.

The Mountain loomed over him. Its lower slopes were green with thickets of prickly broom, and above them rose naked black cliffs. Smoke seeped endlessly from the weird, lopped-off summit. Hylas thought of fire spirits and the terrible Goddess who lived inside. But behind him in the distance, Kreon's stronghold still glared down at him. He
had
to get into those thickets. Silently, he begged the Lady of Fire to let him.

Soon afterward, he killed a lizard with a rock. It was barely a mouthful, but he took it as a sign that She'd granted him leave. He tucked the lizard skin in his kilt—he'd find a use for it later—and felt a bit better. Come on, Hylas. The gods help those who help themselves.

As he walked, he sensed eyes on him, and glimpsed a flash of lion-colored fur. It was a relief when it turned out to be a tussock of grass.

At last he reached the thickets, and Kreon's stronghold disappeared from view. In places, the broom grew as tall as trees, with gnarled roots and gullies where he could hide. Again he fancied he was being watched. Again it was nothing.

He came to some straggly pines and the bones of a lioness, picked clean by scavengers. This was good. Lions need prey, there must be
something
here to eat.

He followed a trail up a shoulder of the Mountain, hoping it led to another spring. It didn't. He was now
above
the thicket, on a windswept ridge.

A lonely wild pear tree clung to life amid great drifts of black obsidian pebbles. Scattered among them were marble hammerstones. It looked as if people had been coming here for years, to hack the obsidian from the ridge and make their weapons. Hylas found this encouraging. Now it was his turn.

Back in Lykonia, he'd made weapons of flint. Obsidian was sharper and more brittle, shattering into vicious slivers; but it broke cleanly, and soon he'd shaped an axehead the length of his hand. As he worked, he sensed the ghosts of those long-dead weapon-makers watching with approval. Maybe they'd been Outsiders like him, used to living in the wild.

For a shaft, he hacked a branch off the pear tree—muttering a hasty apology to its spirit—then gouged a slot in one end and jammed in the axehead. A clump of fireweed near the thicket would do for twine. Slitting the stems with his thumbnail, he chucked the pith and twisted what was left into cord, which he wound securely around the axehead.

There. Sunlight glinted on the axe's vicious black edges, and his spirits rose. It was good to have a weapon again. Now he was a hunter, not a slave.

He still had the lizard skin, so he decided to make a slingshot. With a shard of obsidian, he trimmed the hide to an oblong, then scraped it clean to make a pouch for holding a stone. He cut slits in either end, then threaded through another length of fireweed twine, tying a knot at one end for a handy grip, and a loop at the other, to slip over his thumb.

The slingshot made him feel even more like himself: He couldn't remember a time when he
hadn't
known how to use one.

The Sun was getting low. To the west, he spotted another ridge jutting from the Mountain, this one covered in trees. Leaving a few more signs for Pirra, he started down toward it. He passed a clump of rue and rubbed some on his limbs, to mask his scent and keep off the flies; he didn't want them settling on his skin, then carrying his smell to the prey.

It was cooler under the pines and the air smelled fresh and sweet. He munched goosefoot leaves and crunchy little bulbs of tassel hyacinths. He saw the shiny pellets of wild goat, and a patch of flattened grass where a hare had rested.

He found another hot spring, ringed by vivid orange mud. The water wasn't as hot as the last spring, and it tasted all right. He drank greedily, and strength coursed through him. Maybe Thalakrea wasn't out to get him. Maybe he just had to learn its ways.

The hare lolloped out of the brambles twenty paces away.

Hylas froze.

The hare was young and foolish. It sat up with its back to him and its paws on its belly.

Not daring to breathe, Hylas swung his slingshot and let fly.

He couldn't risk a fire in case the Crows saw the smoke, so he ate the hare raw, drinking the blood and gobbling the sweet slithery liver. He chewed the knobbly little heart and as much meat as he could, but it was the first he'd had in moons, and he soon felt sick.

Hastily, he thanked the hare for letting itself be eaten, and sprinkled dust on its nose to help its spirit hop off and find a new body. He set its forepaws on a boulder as an offering for the Lady of the Wild Things, its hind paws for the Lady of Fire, and stuck its tail in a bush for the long-dead stoneworkers on the ridge; they were the closest he'd ever gotten to having Ancestors of his own.

He slung what was left of the carcass over a branch, to tackle tomorrow. Right now, he barely had enough strength to wash his hands.

The hot water stung, but it felt good. Maybe it was a magic spring. On impulse, he slid all the way in.

In his whole life, Hylas had only ever bathed in cold lakes and streams, and being in
hot
water felt incredibly strange. But he could feel it healing his cuts and soothing his knotted muscles; washing away the grime of the pit and the last traces of Flea the slave. When he climbed out, he was Hylas the Outsider. He was
free
.

He was also dizzy with fatigue. He cut an armful of ferns, dragged them under a rocky overhang, and curled up.

Tomorrow he would make needles from the hare's bones and thread from its sinews, then sew a waterskin and a kilt from its hide. After that, he'd work out how to rescue Pirra . . .

A knife, he thought hazily. You forgot to make a knife.

An image of the dagger of Koronos floated into his mind. He saw its lethal bronze blade in all its savage beauty, and his fingers tightened to grasp its hilt. He'd only possessed it for a few days last summer, but it had made him feel stronger and less alone. He wished it were with him now.

Gradually, his thoughts loosened. He was dimly aware of the song of the night crickets and bubbling of the spring . . .

Was that something larger making its way through the ferns?

Not big enough to be dangerous. Probably a badger or a fox.

The ferns rocked him to sleep on a cool green-scented Sea.

T
he lion cub didn't know what to make of the human.

He was different from the ones who'd killed her mother and father. He was half-grown, and he had no dogs and no terrible flapping hide.
And
he'd scared off the buzzard.

This made the cub wonder if he might be the one who was supposed to look after her. She'd thought it would be a lion; but somehow, this human felt right.

All through the Light, she'd padded after him: past the hot wet and into the thickets, past the bones that had been her mother, up the ridge and down to the forest. They'd wandered for
ages,
and her bad paw hurt a lot. Why did he walk when it was glarey and hot, then sleep through the beautiful cool Dark?

Now he was whiffling in the ferns, so she crept out from under the bushes.

She was encouraged to find that he'd left his kill for her, and even playfully hidden some of the bits. The paws and tail were too furry to eat, so she had a wonderful game of toss-and-catch before drowning them in the hot wet. Then she attacked the carcass, which he'd slung over a branch. In one huge leap she caught it in her jaws, then pretended it was trying to get away, and pounced. Like a full-grown lioness hauling her kill, she dragged it about between her front legs. When she got bored, she ate as much as she could, and clawed the rest to shreds.

After this, she climbed on a log and lay with her legs on either side, to have a nap. At last she was sure about the human. He was definitely the one.

Hylas knows he is dreaming, and he doesn't want it to end. He's with Issi on Mount Lykas, playing bears and wolves. She's the wolf and he's the bear, and as usual she's cheating, wielding her slingshot with deadly accuracy and pelting him with chestnuts.

“Wolves don't use slingshots!” he shouts.

“Neither do bears!” she yells when he pelts her back.

Now Pirra is with them too, and she and Issi are ganging up on him, chasing him through the bracken with wild wolf howls as they hurl pebbles and sticks. He's laughing so hard he can barely run. Then he has an idea, and doubles back to sneak up on
them
.

He bursts out with a roar, and now
they're
running away, squealing and sputtering with laughter. He glimpses a flash of fair hair, that's Issi up ahead. He pushes through the undergrowth, he's gaining on her—

Hylas woke up.

Moonlight slanted through the pines. He heard the night crickets and the bubbling spring. Dejection crashed over him. It had felt so real.

Was Issi trying to dream to him? Was Pirra? Or was it one of those false visions the gods send to make fun of a mortal?

Sometimes, down the pit, he had imagined what it would be like if he and Pirra ever got back to Mount Lykas and found Issi. At first, Issi would be wary of Pirra, but they'd soon become friends. And Pirra would like the mountains, and he would show her all his favorite places . . .

Scowling, Hylas turned onto his side. Issi was far away, and Pirra was trapped in Kreon's stronghold. He didn't know what to do. If he managed to escape Thalakrea and went after Issi, then Pirra would never get free. If he went back to rescue Pirra, he might lose his chance of finding Issi.

In the forest, an owl uttered a wavering
oo-hoo
. Much closer, something heavy fell with a thud.

Hylas was instantly alert. Reaching for his axe, he crept out into the moonlight.

His camp had been wrecked. Every part of the hare's remains—even the offerings—had been savaged. What hadn't been eaten had been shredded, flung about and trampled into the mud.

A scavenger would have eaten what they could, then hidden the rest. This devastation must be an attack by some bad spirit . . .

At the corner of his vision, he caught movement. There, behind that log.

The lion cub wasn't much good at hiding. Its bottom stuck out, but because it couldn't see Hylas, it seemed to think that
he
couldn't see
it
.

“Shoo!” shouted Hylas, waving his axe. “Go on, shoo!”

For a heartbeat, the lion cub stared at him with big moon-silvered eyes: caught red-pawed in the ruin of his camp. Then it turned tail and fled.

The lion cub didn't understand what was happening. The human was barking and waving his forepaws. He seemed
angry
.

Or was it a game?

It didn't appear to be; he was chasing her with a stick.

Bewildered, she sped for the safety of the thickets.

As she left the trees, she glanced back to see if he was still chasing.

She stumbled. Suddenly there was no more ground beneath her paws and she was falling into the dark.

Hylas burrowed into the ferns and willed himself to sleep.

No use. Those faint, despairing yowls wouldn't let him.

“Oh, shut
up,
” he muttered.

More yowls. That lion cub sounded desperate.

Then it stopped, and that was worse.

With a snarl, Hylas sat up.

As the sky turned gray, he tracked the lion cub through the forest. It occurred to him that where there was a cub, there would also be a lioness—but then he remembered the skeleton he'd found the day before. That must have been its mother; Kreon had probably killed her, as he'd killed its father.

It turned out that the cub hadn't gotten far, it had fallen down an old mine shaft a few paces into the thicket. A buzzard was perched on the edge, peering down at it. Hylas shooed the bird away.

The lion cub saw him and gave a plaintive mew. It was small, filthy, and shaking with terror.

“Well what d'you want me to do?” he said crossly. “You should've looked where you were going!”

The cub stopped mewing and stared up at him with great round golden eyes.

Hylas threw down his axe, found a fallen sapling, and shoved it down the hole. “There. Now climb out and leave me in peace!”

The cub wobbled onto the sapling and fell off. It tried again. And again. Hylas blew out. Lions aren't the best climbers, and this cub was the worst he'd seen. It didn't help that it seemed to be lame in one forepaw.

It had wrought havoc with his kill, but he couldn't leave it in there to starve, and the shaft wasn't deep. Muttering, he shinned down the sapling.

The hole was cramped, and stank of lion scat. The cub backed into a corner and hissed. Hylas grabbed it by the scruff, plonked it on the sapling, and gave its furry bottom a shove. “Go on, up you go!”

The cub lashed out, raking him with needle-sharp claws. Then it fell off again.

“You stupid beast, I'm trying to
help
you!” Picking it up, he slung it around his shoulders and gripped its paws on his chest, as if he was carrying a goat. The cub struggled and scratched. He flung it from him.

“Well it's not my fault you fell in!” he shouted. “D'you think I
want
to be down this stinking hole?”

The cub cowered under the sapling. It was snarling and lashing its tail, but its flanks were heaving and it was trembling.

Hylas rubbed a hand over his face. “All right,” he said quietly. “I know it wasn't your fault. I mean, it
was
your fault, but you were just hungry.”

The cub stopped lashing its tail and swiveled its ears to listen.

It was about knee height, maybe three or four moons old. Like all lion cubs, its paws were too big for the rest of it, and the fur on its belly, legs, and haunches was paler, with fuzzy dark spots. Its pads weren't black, like a full-grown lion's, but a tender light brown. The tip of its nose wasn't black either, it was a freckly pink, and just above was a long, bloody scratch. And lion cubs should be plump. This one was so thin Hylas could see its ribs.

“All right,” he said again. Squatting on his haunches, he started talking in a low, soothing voice: Speaking nonsense, but letting the cub hear from his tone that he meant no harm.

After a long wait, the cub edged closer and sniffed his toes. He kept talking.

It tried to take his heel in its jaws. He flinched. It drew back. He kept talking.

The Sun rose and the song of the crickets changed. Hylas kept talking.

A little later, the cub approached and sniffed his knee. When he didn't move, it rubbed its cheek against his shin. It licked his hand. Its tongue was surprisingly rough, but he stayed still, letting it become comfortable with his taste and smell.

At last, the cub rested its head on his knee. Gently, he stroked behind its furry ear. It slitted its eyes and began to purr. Slowly, he gathered it up in his arms. It squirmed and scratched his chest a bit, but he could tell it didn't mean to hurt him, it just hadn't learned to sheathe its claws.

Awkwardly, with the cub in his arms, he climbed out of the hole. “There,” he panted, setting the cub on the ground. “Now you really are on your own. I can't look after you, I've got to go and find Pirra.”

As he started back for camp, the cub limped at his heels.

He shooed it away. It darted into the thicket. But as he entered the trees, it reappeared.

Hylas stopped and stared down at the small bedraggled cub, and something shifted painfully in his chest. It was all on its own, and too small to hunt for itself.

“Oh all right,” he said.

The lion cub reached his shelter before he did. It sniffed the ferns where he'd lain, turned around twice, then flumped down and fell asleep.