Warriors of Ethandun (23 page)

‘Dan!'

Dan was a weakling. At the sound of that name he felt himself shrink down to the meagre proportions of a mere man. He was suddenly cold, standing half naked and barefoot outside the limits of Cippenham. He gathered up his torn clothes and his abandoned sword and stumbled across the rough ground towards the track where Taliesin waited.

Taliesin did not speak as Dan struggled back into his clothes.

‘Was that really necessary?' he said drily.

Dan did not trust himself to answer. His long-legged stride soon left Taliesin far behind. It did not matter what Taliesin thought – his good opinion was worthless: all that mattered was catching up with Ursula, seeing her again.

They were very fortunate not to have been followed and Dan knew it, and for a time their luck held. Dan found Aethelnoth and Ursula on the road without any trouble: they were barely half a mile ahead of him.

‘Ursula!'

She turned her face to Dan at the sound of his voice and smiled, but her blue eyes had turned a green so dark that they looked black, the colour of the deepest ocean. She would not let him speak to her mind.

‘Are you OK? You got past the guard all right?'

‘She spoke to the guard in the devil's tongue. I do not know what she said.' Aethelnoth was riding Ursula's
mount. He was shivering against the cold and obviously angry, though Dan didn't quite understand why.

Dan reached for Ursula's hand, which was hot and dry. It gave him a small shock, a thrill of static when he touched it, and she withdrew it swiftly. Her eyes had trouble focusing, seeing through and beyond him in a way he found chilling.

‘It's the magic, Dan,' Ursula mumbled. ‘I'm fighting it. Hard.'

She did not stay to talk but carried on walking barefoot through the mud like some zombie from a horror film. She would not ride. Dan struggled to keep up with her. He was losing her again. If she knew he walked beside her, she gave no real sign. She was battling demons but she shut him out. She should have let him help. Why did she not let him help? It all felt wrong. Ursula felt wrong and he felt wrong, as if he was in the wrong body. He was too small and too light, a shrunken, weakened creature: not himself at all.

Taliesin did not seem able to help Ursula either. She recognised him, or seemed to, mumbling something that sounded like his name. Dan asked Taliesin what was wrong with her, but he just looked grave and shook his head. It was not the response Dan wanted. Dan had hoped for better from the old bard, though at least he had found them food and borrowed clothes from those who were still loyal to Aelfred.

Aethelnoth led them on a circuitous route back to Athelney that kept them well away from friend and foe alike. He did not trust his companions and if he was
grateful for Dan's rescue of him at Cippenham, he did not mention it.

When they rested on the second day of travelling, and Aethelnoth had gone in search of water, Dan took Taliesin to one side.

‘I've been thinking,' he began.

‘You surprise me, Daniel. I thought you might have forgotten how.' Taliesin spoke in the old tongue of the Combrogi, as a reminder of all that they'd shared. He clearly thought it safer to insult Dan that way. Dan felt a surge of annoyance, but kept it under control.

‘I think that you should send us home now. I don't know why you wanted us here in the first place, but it doesn't matter. Ursula is in no state to help anyone. I want to get her home so she can be seen by a proper doctor.'

‘Familiar with the ailments associated with magical power are they, your doctors?' Taliesin asked in a mocking tone of voice.

Dan stayed calm with difficulty. ‘Taliesin, you brought me here under false pretences. You lied. You said that the crystal ball you gave me would bring us to Macsen's land. This wouldn't have happened to Ursula in Macsen's land. If she is strange now, it is your fault. You must raise the Veil and let us go home.'

‘And what about your oath to Aelfred?'

‘I will be helping him by going home. Do you think he'll want me on his side if I turn into a bear? You saw what happened at the farm. Even the people I saved thought I was some kind of devil. He won't want me and he won't want Ursula. He thought I was going to fetch a
warrior. She's in no state to play a warrior's part.'

Taliesin stroked his white beard thoughtfully.

‘I don't think it will work, Dan. Oaths bind and as I've said Ursula is too full of the magic of this world. My guess is that the magic will keep her here. It belongs here.'

‘Don't guess,' Dan said coldly. His hand had sought the comfort of Bright Killer while Taliesin had been making his excuses. The man wanted them for his own purposes, to use them for some plan that Dan didn't yet understand. Dan wouldn't stand for it. He'd had enough of the old bard; he'd had enough of this world. He didn't like feeling ill at ease in his own human skin and he knew that the feeling was getting worse. He needed to go home, do his GCSEs, find a way to put all the violence behind him.

‘What will you do if I say no, Dan? Will you rip my head off too?'

‘There's no point in having a go at me about that either,' Dan said. He tried not to let his anger leak into his voice; he didn't want to sound like a petulant schoolboy. He probably didn't succeed. ‘Look, none of this would have happened if you hadn't brought me here. It is your fault. There is something wrong with the world, with the way the magic works. I want you to get us home.'

Dan's hand was clenched into a fist and even he could see that there was something wrong with the way it looked: it was too large and beginning to thicken and stiffen into an animal's paw. He felt the increasingly familiar fury; as it built he could sense his outrage making him grow, making him heavy, making him strong and wild and free.

No. He forced himself to be calm. It was like starting to sprint and having to slam on the brakes. The effort left him feeling weak and breathless. He wanted to let go. He wanted to let the bear win, but he knew that this was not the time to turn. Now was the time for reason, the time to persuade Taliesin to let him go home. He knew that he was losing his unequal battle with the bear. Each time he lost his temper the bear took over more quickly. He retained enough of his sense of self to know that Taliesin was not wrong: he was becoming the beast. He had to go home before it took over entirely.

Taliesin didn't say anything but watched his struggle with a grave expression. Damn him. He could have helped. He had the magic, but as usual he did not have the will to be useful. That was typical of the man … Dan made himself take a deep breath. He tried to think of something calming. He thought of Ursula, but that didn't help. Ursula was lost because of Taliesin's interference. She would have been happy at home but for Taliesin's hospital visit. The man was nothing but trouble … No. Calm.

‘Please, Taliesin … try.' Dan's voice was a little gruff but it was still human.

‘Very well,' Taliesin sighed. ‘Bring Ursula. I think I know a good spot near here. You'd better leave Braveheart. The stink of your world is not fit for dogs.'

Ursula did not look up as Dan approached. He was glad; he could not bear to look into her too-dark eyes. When he touched her on her shoulder and told her to go with
him, she got up obediently. Ursula never did as she was told. It was as if she wasn't really there, as if she was just the husk of Ursula and the girl he loved was gone.

Dan held out his hand and this strange version of Ursula took it. It burned him, but he held on anyway. There was none of Ursula's strength in that hot hand and he felt a lump form in his throat. What was happening to her? He was too choked to be angry.

‘Taliesin is going to get us home,' he said, trying not to speak to her as if she was a small, lost child.

Ursula nodded. ‘Home,' she said. ‘Ursula has a home. We are going to Ursula's home.' Had she lost her mind?

‘Home is where your mother lives – remember? We go to school there? That's how we know each other – from school.'

When she looked at him with fathomless eyes, he could see no sign of the girl he knew in there.

‘Ursula?' He could not keep that panic from his voice. What if she was gone for ever?

‘Dan? My friend, Dan. Ursula. Dan.' She kept repeating the words like some mantra, muttering them under her breath, and he felt himself grow cold with fear for her.

‘That's right. You're Ursula and I am Dan, your friend. I think it would be good if we both went home.'

Taliesin was already kneeling on the damp grass in the middle of a small clearing. Dan waited by the trees and watched him for a moment. He didn't entirely trust him. Taliesin took his seax and sliced his arm. The gash was about six centimetres long on the inside of his forearm, just missing the artery. Dan could smell the blood which
welled up out of the wound and dripped on the ground. Taliesin was intoning something in a language unknown to Dan. It was a kind of prayer. Dan watched as yellow tendrils of mist, like smoke from a cigarette, began to coil around Taliesin's feet. He stepped back and the mist thickened into an eerie yellow smog. It smelled spicily of magic. Ursula let out a low moan.

‘It's OK,' Dan said reassuringly in English and led her forward. She did not resist exactly, but Dan could sense her reluctance. She dragged her feet and he had to pull her towards the mist. Its pungent and unnatural scent bothered him; it caught in his throat and made it difficult to smell anything else.

Taliesin turned at the sound of his heavy tread.

‘I have raised the Veil,' he said.

‘I can see that,' Dan answered shortly. ‘What do we do now?'

Ursula was pulling away from his hand, shaking her head. She was still muttering. Dan wanted to slap her. This was not the way Ursula behaved! Ursula was bold and brave. She didn't gibber like some idiot.

‘What have you done to her?' Dan's voice had deepened into a growl. Whatever was going on it was Taliesin's fault – it had to be. Dan wanted his Ursula back, not this weird impostor beside him.

It was clear that she did not want to go through the Veil. He picked her up bodily. It was easier than it should have been. He had grown, so that they were near enough the same size, but it ought not to have been so easy to lift her. She was a muscular, well-built girl, strong as any man
he'd met, but she felt light and insubstantial as he slung her across his shoulder. She cried out but she did not fight him. He wanted his feisty Ursula back. He lumbered purposefully towards the Veil. His sword belt pinched his flesh and got in the way, but he did not pause to loosen it. Taliesin stood in his path, telling him something that he did not hear; he did not care. All that mattered was getting back through the Veil.

He stepped forward and the mist retreated from him, withdrew itself as if it were a living thing. He took a second step forward and this time it was even more obvious. Where the mist touched his skin it dissolved and disappeared. He kept on walking, but there was no mist to enter.

‘What is going on?' he shouted, but even to his own ears his response sounded thick and hard to understand. He put Ursula down gently on the ground. She was screaming as if she was in pain and it was hurting his sensitive ears.

‘Stop!' Taliesin's voice must have had some magic resonance this time, some power of its own, because he did stop. ‘If you walk into the Veil now, you will never see Ursula again. You will never be Dan again. Look at yourself!'

This time he had not even noticed the transition. He was a beast again and had not known it. He took a step forward and, without his burden, without Ursula, the Veil did not evaporate as it touched him. He could have gone on.

‘Dan!' Ursula's voice had none of its usual raucous
power, but at least she sounded like herself, as if the shock of whatever had just happened had made her aware of him again. ‘Please don't go. Don't leave me here!'

This last came out as a kind of wail of despair. Of course he couldn't leave her. He did not know what he had been thinking. Something bad was happening to her and he had been about to abandon her to its ravages. Dan pulled back away from the roiling mist. Taliesin dropped his hands and it whirled away into nothingness, like water down the plughole, until it was as if it had never been.

‘Do you believe me now?' Taliesin asked. ‘Ursula cannot leave and you should not leave until you have overcome your demons and fulfilled your oath. You leave this place as an oath-breaker and you will never be free of the beast inside you.'

The beast inside Dan had gone for the moment, leaving him feeling weak and strangely abandoned. He sat down next to Ursula and grabbed her hand. It still burned, but less fiercely.

‘Are you OK?' he asked.

‘Not really,' she said in a choked voice, but at least she sounded angry. ‘You were about to abandon me.'

‘No,' Dan said. ‘But I was angry that you were being so …'

‘Useless?'

‘No. Well, yes.'

Ursula turned her head away from him, but she moved too slowly to prevent him from seeing her tears. ‘You don't understand, Dan. The magic is filling me up, overwhelming me so that I can barely hold on to the threads
of myself. I have to fight all the time not to use it, not to give into it. It's like trying to contain the sea in a thimble, Dan. I have to fight to remember who I am every second or I'll get swept away.' She wiped her face with the palm of her hand. ‘I can't go home, can I? I'm so sorry I dragged you here.'

Dan was sorry too, but was not so thoughtless as to say so.

‘What oath have you given this time?' she said. Her eyes were still the colour of the deepest ocean, but she was at least focusing on him and, though her speech was slow, as if she were drugged or drunk, she still sounded like Ursula.

‘Did you learn about King Aelfred in junior school?'