Twenty paces to the bridge. Mist was forming above the river; before me the pathway darkened. My feet slipped on the pebbles. I fought for balance, my heart thumping. Not far ahead, the pathway broadened. One end of the great log rested on this natural shelf; the other lay on the rocky hillock across the river. Below the bridge, far, far below, coursed the Rush.
‘You!’ The voice was right behind me, no more than ten paces away. ‘Hold still or I’ll put an arrow in your heart!’
CHAPTER SIX
‘Run, Neryn!’
Suddenly Sorrel was beside me, though where he had come from I did not know. Every twig on his body stuck out, as if he were a hedgehog raising its prickles in defence.
‘Quick!’ Sage’s voice; I would recognise it anywhere. Half-turning, I saw her little form, green-cloaked, and her fist brandishing a miniature staff as she took up a stance beside Sorrel. ‘Move, girl! Get over that bridge and don’t look back.’
I ran. Five paces, ten paces, and I was at the bridge. Three stone steps led to the great log. As I climbed them an eldritch light flashed behind me, and a man let fly a string of startled oaths. A moment later a bowstring twanged. There was a grunt of pain. I turned my head.
‘Neryn, don’t look back!’
Sage’s command was not to be ignored. I moved out onto the log, while behind me light flickered, weapons clashed, men shouted and cursed. I was about six paces out along the bridge when there was a metallic clanking noise, followed by an uncanny drawn-out screech of pain. Sorrel. Oh gods, Sorrel. I looked back.
They were on the ledge. One man had Sorrel in his grip, held by something around the little creature’s neck. A chain. An iron chain. Sorrel was writhing in pain, his leafy hands clawing at the metal. His screams pierced through me. I took an instinctive step toward him, then halted.
Sage had stationed herself at the end of the bridge, staff in hands, a stalwart small figure keeping the warriors at bay. A stream of fire issued from the tip of her weapon, and while she stood there, the two warriors could neither step onto the bridge nor stop me with an arrow. She was protecting me, winning me safe passage across. While she guarded my way, she could not help her friend. Cold iron is the true enemy of the Good Folk. It burns them as no fire can do.
With tears blinding my eyes, I turned my back and fled over the bridge. I did not look down. My feet moved by instinct alone. I ran as I had never run before, the terrible screaming filling my mind. I ran until I was almost at the end of the bridge. Then I could run no more, for a huge dark figure was on the log before me, blocking my path, an apparition of shadows and mist, elusive, shifting. From deep within that smoky mass a pair of inimical eyes glared out, sizing me up.
The being spoke. ‘Wha dares set foot on Brollachan Brig?’
My voice was the squeak of a fieldmouse in the wildcat’s path. ‘Neryn. I am a friend, and I wish you no harm. Please let me pass.’
‘Whaur’s ma fee?’ The body swirled and swayed, and I felt myself swaying with it, this way, that way over the chasm.
There is always something you can give. Bread. Cheese. Clothing. A flint. None seemed likely. A kiss? A promise? Both seemed perilous. Should I offer to solve a riddle? No, that way lay disaster. My heart hammered. My throat went dry.
‘WHAUR’S MA FEE?’ Within those shadows I could make out a massive form, lantern-jawed, with fists the size of platters. It was clad in a tattered black garment, and in place of sword or dagger, its broad studded belt held an assortment of sharpened bones. Its mouth gaped open, revealing rows of pointed teeth.
How about the truth? I’m tired, I’m cold, I think two friends just died so that I could cross your bridge. Did the brollachan, if that was what it was, have any compassion? I looked into its eyes and in my mind I heard Sage’s voice, clear and strong. Don’t bear Sorrel’s hurt on your own shoulders, lassie. We’re all children of Alban.
‘Tell me the fee and I’ll pay it if I can.’ I straightened my shoulders, trying not to wobble too far to one side or the other. The wood was slippery under my feet.
‘Aye, weel, that depends. Ye could dance a jig, mebbe.’ The brollachan began a dance of its own, swinging its massive fists, kicking out with its heavy feet. In a moment it would sweep me bodily off the bridge. Behind us, at the far end, the light from Sage’s staff had gone out and all was silence.
‘Please,’ I gasped, ducking a sweep of the creature’s arm, ‘I’m not very good at dancing, as you can see. Is there some other way I can pay – cooking supper, or . . . or answering a question, or . . . singing a song?’
‘A sang, ye say?’ The brollachan was suddenly still. I snatched a breath, my chest aching. Foolish suggestion. My whole body was trembling. I had hardly enough breath left to squeeze out a couple of pathetic notes. ‘And what sang might that be?’
I grasped for anything I could remember about brollachans. They lived alone. They were morose in temperament and quick to anger. Mostly, they lived in the far north. This one had strayed a long way from home.
‘A song that will give you heart,’ I said. ‘A song to lift your spirits.’
‘There’s nobbut ane sang pleases me.’
‘And what song is that?’ Perhaps I could do this after all. If I could keep my balance long enough. I made the mistake of glancing down and caught a glimpse of the river, a narrow ribbon far below. I teetered, stretching out my arms.
‘Ah –’ The brollachan raised its hands, palms up, in a gesture curiously human. Its knobby fingers were anything but human, tipped as they were with long yellow nails. ‘’Tis an auld, auld thing. A wee scribbet like you wouldna ken the tune.’
‘Try me,’ I said.
‘No’ sae fast. A lassie doesna cross Brollachan Brig sae easy.’
‘What would you have me do?’ My head felt strange, as if I were about to faint.
‘A game o’ catch. Here!’
Before I could draw breath, something left the creature’s hand to come hurtling toward me. I caught it. A ball. A furry ball that squirmed in my hands, uncurling part way to show four neat paws, a triangular nose, a pair of gleaming eyes.
‘Dinna drop him,’ said the brollachan. ‘Your turn to throw, dinna dawdle!’
I threw. The little creature sailed through the air, and I prayed I had not tossed it to its death. A pair of huge hands emerged from the misty strangeness of the brollachan’s body and caught it. In an instant it was in flight again, higher this time, so I had to go on tiptoe and stretch up my arms to grab it. It squealed and bit me, and I nearly dropped it. My body was drenched in the cold sweat of sheer terror. I would not plead for mercy. If the brollachan wanted a game, I would give him one. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured, then hurled the creature back at him as hard as I could.
‘Guid toss!’ He sent it back to me at ankle level and moving fast. I bent, grabbed it, and lost my balance. Time seemed to slow, letting me feel the moment I knew I had tipped over too far to recover: my churning stomach: the black spots dancing before my eyes: the knowledge that my life had been pointless, every wretched, sorrowful moment of it . . .
A hand fastened around my ankle, and I was dangling head down above the void, swinging from side to side, with my cloak and bag hanging below me and the little creature still clutched in my hands. My heart was in my throat. The river shone up at me, as if to say, Next time, Neryn.
‘Oops,’ said the brollachan, hauling me back onto the bridge and flipping me upright. ‘We canna hae that. Not before ye sing the sang. Come ower, then. Ye’ve a guid hand wi’ the pookie, though ye could do wi’ a better grip on your wee slippers.’
It backed along the bridge and I moved forward. The light was fading fast. As we neared the rocky hillock at the far end, the brollachan began to shed its garment of mist and strangeness, becoming more solid in form. By the time I stepped off the bridge, every part of me shaking, the being before me was discernible as a man-shaped entity, though this would be a man rough-hewn, and bigger than the tallest, broadest warrior I had ever seen.
It towered over me.
I set down the creature we had used as a ball. It was something akin to a cat, but its tail was as thin as a rat’s and hairless, its ears were huge and its eyes were round and strange. It sat up and began to wash its face with a paw, apparently none the worse for wear.
‘Ye’re ower,’ the brollachan said. ‘I’ll hae the sang now.’
Accompanied by the rushing of the river and the cries of birds overhead as they winged for shelter, my voice rose, fragile and shaky.
‘I am a child of Alban’s earth . . .’
‘Ahhh,’ sighed the brollachan. I’d guessed right. The old forbidden song was indeed the one it had wanted. It stood still as stone while I pressed on through one verse, two verses, three, praying that I could stay on my feet until the end. My head was feeling quite odd.
I reached ‘I am the mountain, I am the sky’ before I faltered. I was bone weary. I simply could not remember the words. My mind was full of Sage and Sorrel, almost certainly lying dead on the other side of the bridge. Perhaps Red Cap had been killed before they even reached me. What about the baby? Perhaps Mara, who had made a choice to take me in, and poor innocent Garret were even now being interrogated by the Enforcers. I deserved to be thrown down into the river for the hurt I seemed to cause folk whenever they tried to help me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I’m too tired and sad to sing the last verse.’
There was a long, long silence, and then the creature raised its lumpy hand and beckoned. ‘Come ye doon under the hill, then. Sit awhile by ma wee fire, and ye can sing it when you’re ready.’
I hesitated. ‘Are you telling me I’m safe? You won’t throw me in the river?’
‘Likely I willna. Meantimes, best we get oot o’ this chill.’
I allowed myself one glance back across the bridge, but on the other side all was shadow. I sent up a silent prayer for friends taken before their time. Then I turned away, following the brollachan between the dim rocks and into a twisting tunnel that wound its way toward the heart of the hill. The light was low. My companion was a darker patch amongst the shadows, its shuffling footsteps moving on ahead. I was beyond finding this strange. For some time now, I had felt as if I were in a waking dream. Only my aching chest and the tears in my eyes told me it was all too real.
I had expected a dank cavern, a bolthole full of spiders and gloom. But the brollachan’s lair proved to be spacious and comfortable, as caves went, and the wee fire it had mentioned was a cheerful blaze, the smoke venting up through a chink in the cavern’s roof.
‘Sit ye doon, then.’ The brollachan set the pookie on a pile of old blankets, and I sank down gratefully beside the little creature. I watched as the brollachan fetched a blackened kettle, which it set on a stone at one side of the fire. The pookie had its eyes fixed on the big creature as it fossicked in a corner, then returned with a meaty mutton bone. This it laid in the coals. There were bones all over the cave, piled in heaps, hanging on the walls, forming a decorative pattern around the central hearth. ‘I’m fond o’ banes,’ the brollachan commented, noticing me looking.
‘I see that.’ My voice was unsteady.
‘Ye thinkin’ I might eat ye up for supper?’
‘That did cross my mind, yes. I seem to remember that, in the tales, brollachans sometimes do that.’
‘Ye canna see yersel’, wee one. There’s hardly a scrap o’ meat on ye. Nae worth the trouble.’
I opened my mouth to say something, but the cough overtook me and I struggled for breath.
‘Ye’re no’ weel,’ observed my companion when the spasm was over. ‘Best ye dinna sing mair, for fear it’ll be the death o’ ye. But the sang needs finishin’, a’ the same.’ It sang the last verse with surprising sweetness, the deep notes of its voice ringing around the cavern. The pookie did not care for it; it curled into a ball again, tail tucked over folded ears.
‘That was beautiful,’ I said when the song was finished.
‘Aye, ’tis a grand auld sang. I like best the third versie, that about the Big Ones, the Lord o’ the North and them.’
‘The Big Ones? You mean the Guardians?’ They were in the ancient tales, figures from a distant past, like powerful, benevolent spirits.
‘Aye, the Four Guardians.’ The brollachan regarded its fingers, as if to be sure of the number. ‘Alban’s heart. Alban’s hope. Dinna forget the sang, and dinna forget the Big Ones. Wi’oot them, this land would be nobbut a big heap o’ rocks.’ Its tone suggested the White Lady and the others were alive and well and living just over the hill.
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ I said with some caution. ‘Those are very old stories, the ones about the Guardians. Are they a symbol of Alban as it was? Or Alban as it should be?’
The brollachan made a noncommittal noise, which I took to mean maybe yes, maybe no. The pookie had uncurled and now came to settle by me, not quite touching. Its eyes were on the mutton, which was sizzling on the fire. The kettle was steaming.
‘Ye’ll tak’ a bittie supper?’ the brollachan enquired.
‘Gladly. I have some food to share.’ My pack had survived my near plunge from Brollachan Brig. I fished out Mara’s bread and cheese and set them out on their cloth wrapping.
‘The pookie’s partial tae cheese.’ Indeed, the catlike creature had transferred its interest to my provisions the moment they were uncovered. It was already hunkered down by the cloth, nibbling steadily. The brollachan took the mutton bone out of the fire, heedless of the heat, and split it neatly with its bare hands, offering me half. Fat dripped onto the cavern floor, making my mouth water. It was a long time since I had eaten meat.
We ate in silence a while. Despite my hunger, I could manage only a few mouthfuls of the rich food. I knew that if I had any more I would be sick. I sat quietly while the brollachan demolished its own meat, my leftovers, the small amount of cheese the pookie had left and half the bread.
‘Neryn,’ the brollachan said eventually. ‘That’s your name, ye said?’
‘It is. I will not ask for yours.’
‘Ye could guess, if ye like.’
‘Is there a penalty if I can’t guess right?’ Let this not be another trial, not when I had begun to feel safe at last.
‘Ach, no, lassie, ’tis for amusement only. The nights get ower lang doon here, wi’ only the pookie tae keep me company. I’ll gie ye a clue. ’Tis a name for a lonely fellow. A deep-down, solitary sort o’ name.’
‘How many guesses do I get?’
‘Three. In the auld tales, it’s all threes.’
Sage. My heart clenched tight, remembering. ‘If I guess it in three,’ I said, ‘will you do something for me?’
The brollachan stared at me, taken aback.
‘A favour. It shouldn’t be too hard.’
‘Guess first, and then I’ll answer ye.’
‘Deep,’ I suggested.
‘A fine guess,’ the brollachan said, ‘but no, that’s no’ the name.’
I thought of caves, of strength, of the old song ringing from the stones. ‘Echo,’ I said.
‘Ach, that’s grand!’ said my companion, a broad grin revealing his many sharp teeth. ‘I like it weel. But no, that’s no’ the name.’
‘Hollow,’ I said.
There was a little silence. ‘Ye got it,’ the brollachan said. ‘’Tis a good name for a body on his ainsome.’
‘Thank you for letting me know it, Hollow.’ Had it been a lucky guess, or had the natural magic of this place put the right name into my mind? ‘Have you been living here long?’
‘Lang enow. Came here wi’ ma wifie, but she’s gone. Gone to dust.’
There was nothing to say. His loneliness filled the cavern; the warm firelight did nothing to dispel the shadow of it.
‘There’s the pookie, o’ course. Keeps my feet warm o’ a winter night. But that’s no’ the same. No’ the same at a”.
For a little, the only sounds in the cavern were the crackling of the fire and the faint
thrum of the pookie purring. Then Hollow stirred himself from his reverie.
‘What was it ye were wantin’ done, lassie?’
‘Will you go back over the bridge and see if my friends are still there? Two of the Good Folk were with me and I’m very much afraid they are both dead. They held back the men who were chasing me. They bid me go on. I don’t like to think of them lying out there all alone and –’
Hollow had lifted his hand. ‘What’s that ye say? Men chasin’ ye? A wee lassie? Why would they do that? Ye should hae callit oot tae me. I would hae made short work o’ them.’
‘I wish I’d known that. All I’d been told was that there was an uncanny presence at the bridge. Hollow, will you do it?’
‘Ye didna gie me an answer, Neryn. Why would men be after ye? Did ye dae some ill?’
I shivered. ‘I couldn’t stop my friends from following me and getting killed. That’s ill enough. As for why the king’s men are pursuing me, I have half an answer, but if I tell you, it could put you in danger.’
Hollow’s wide mouth opened in a toothy grin. ‘Even a king’s man canna best a brollachan. Come on, gie me this half-answer and I’ll cross ower the brig and see what’s what for ye.’
I had to trust him with part of the truth, at least. He had sung the song; he had saved me from falling; despite his perilous games, he seemed a friend. Briefly, I explained my canny gift, and how for years I had seen the Good Folk as I travelled but had done no more than leave offerings for them. ‘But this journey has been different,’ I said. ‘Since my father died, I’ve spoken to several of your folk – not brollachans and the like, but smaller beings. Some were hostile, but three of them became my friends and they protected me at the bridge. They held off the attackers until I could get across. I had warned them not to follow me.’
‘Why would ye dae that, if ye needed them?’
‘If I’m caught, anyone who is with me is likely to be caught too. They’d be punished for helping me evade capture, or for any reason the Enforcers took it into their heads to invent.’