‘Goodbye, Master Brief,’ said Lavin Sinistral calmly, without a hint of what was coming. ‘It was interesting but hardly a pleasure to meet you. The times are changing, and you and your kind are now the past.’
With that, and before Pike or the other stavermen could respond, he primed his crossbow, raised it and pulled the trigger in a swift double action which released two bolts straight at Brief’s heart from point-blank range.
Master Brief was as good as dead.
Yet it didn’t happen.
There came a sudden icy mist to the air and everything slowed down – the metal bolts from the Quentor’s crossbow, which started so fast, lost speed until the rotation of their lethal heads was plainly visible.
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the mist was gone and what had taken its place was the flank of a white horse sliding between the Fyrd and Brief, the bolts from the crossbow shattering into a thousand shards of light as they hit the great steed, twisting and turning and spiralling away in all directions, their sound like the tinkling of glass shaken in a void of time.
The White Horse reared. Its rider was a woman, ancient in one aspect, youthful in another, and hanging from her neck was a disc of gold. The Peace-Weaver they told themselves in awe and wonder, for well known as she was in legend and song, in woven tapestry and painted image, it was given to few ever to see her. Even Brief, who knew Imbolc of old, felt the same wonder and surprise.
The White Horse turned away, its rider with it, her hair streaming, her robes shimmering with light and a spectrum of colour flowing behind her. This fell to earth as a sudden chilling torrent of hail, the like of which they had never seen before – huge lumps and shards of ice filled with a strange light which faded where it fell.
In that endless-seeming moment each side retreated from further conflict, the Fyrd fleeing into the darkness of the distant fields, unwilling to risk their lives against adversaries with such an ally as the Peace-Weaver herself. Then she was gone over their heads as an arc of light that got ever thinner, reaching away through the storm of wind and rain, through the clouds beyond and right over the moon.
In the stillness that followed, with the danger of the Fyrd now gone, Pike, Brief and the others moved nearer to Katherine and Jack.
‘Why has he retreated?’ Pike murmured to Brief.
‘Because he found something far more important here tonight than a mere boy,’ said Brief soberly. ‘He has had confirmation that both these children are protected by the Peace-Weaver herself, and therefore more valuable alive. But be certain of this, Pike, that Quentor will be back one day to claim them if he can. He is a pure-blood Sinistral and they never give up.’
21
TREACHERY
But a force was present that night of which even the wise Brief and the other hydden were not aware, or the Fyrd leader either. For what stalked among them, as vast and magnificent in its own dark way as any White Horse or Peace-Weaver or mortal purity of soul, was mortal ambition, driver of destiny and turner of souls to right and to wrong, to good and to bad.
It was there among them and it wore a smiling face.
Like a seed waiting for the nurturing of clear water and warm sun, ambition needs only opportunity to step forward and grasp the moment. It sniffs out opportunity as crows do carrion, and such was the impulse that now flowed through the blood and sinews of the Fyrd leader’s young assistant, Igor Brunte.
He was not actually a Fyrd by birth, but by creation. He was – as he looked – Polish or, as the Fyrd liked to call his kind, a Polack. When the Fyrd took dominance over the hydden of Warsaw, he himself was only five, just old enough never to forget or forgive what happened to the city of his birth.
His father had been killed outright, his mother and elder sister ravished, his older brothers burnt alive along with other children. It was a fate that Brunte himself would have suffered had not one of these siblings pushed him forcibly through a metal grille nobody else was small enough to fit through before the fire reached them.
His elder brother had said just three words to him, which he never forgot and which he ever after would act upon: Survive, remember, avenge.
Brunte learned the arts of survival through his years of a brutal itinerant childhood that took him all across Europe and eventually to the very heartland of the Fyrd along the Rhine.
There he could study his enemy at close hand, by joining their army, fighting their wars, and studying their ways.
Remember his instructions? He could never forget nor forgive.
Avenge? He did so whenever he could, in small ways and large, but from simply wanting to cause trouble and hurt to a few, he now felt a need to kill them all, especially the Sinistral – every last one, wherever they lived, whatever their rank.
Even those in Brum, connected with the German branch so loosely that there was doubt of there being any real blood connection at all, he had plans to eliminate
That night these youthful but long-held intentions found new fuel. Brunte had also spied the vast, shining light of the White Horse and its rider, and in that brief moment he saw an opportunity so great that his life was changed for ever. He had spotted what the Quentor-elect had seen, and Brief and Pike as well: the pendant disc that hung from the Peace-Weaver’s neck. Its gems had all gone. He knew the legends as others did, and the prophecies too.
She is near her end he told himself at once, which means that her death will happen in my lifetime, perhaps while I am still young. Therefore I must ready myself to take hold of that pendant, which one day will fall from her neck . . . It will give me power over all.
That was only the first of Brunte’s immediate thoughts. Having now caught the sweet scent of opportunity, he decided to take it. But he knew that it was no good seeing what might be if he was not there to take advantage of it. The path to power is littered with the bodies of those who did not know how best to tread it.
So it was that as he and his more senior colleagues retreated from the bridge, Brunte glanced sideways at the Quentor and like the survivor that he was knew at once what he was thinking: something similar to himself.
‘Brunte must die, and my colleague too,’ is what’s in his mind Brunte told himself. He knows that we saw what he did, and fears it will thwart his own ambition.
Igor Brunte did not hesitate once he had worked out what action to take. He never had, and he never would.
‘My lord,’ he said, the moment their retreat had taken them back into shadows, ‘a word in your ear if you please . . .’
He glanced meaningfully at the other Fyrd, as if mutely accusing him of those same dark thoughts of which he himself was guilty. The Quentor understood at once and fell into the trap.
‘Yes?’ he said softly, inviting him close.
Brunte had his back to the other Fyrd, blocking his view. In his left hand he now held the longer of his knives.
‘I have something here for you, my lord,’ he said softly, plunging the knife into his leader’s side so that its point went straight to his heart.
The Fyrd leader did no more than let out a little gasp of surprise, before falling sideways to the ground.
Brunte turned at once to the other one.
Shocked, speechless, and surprised – all emotions Brunte noted with cold interest – the second Fyrd’s training deserted him, the more so because of Brunte’s strangely hypnotic smile. He succeeded in uttering only a single word: ‘No!’
‘Oh yes, my friend, you too. For the secret of this night I share with no one.’
This time he used both his knives together, each cruelly: one upward into the eye, the other downward to the gut. Then, letting go of them, he shoved his calloused fist hard into the stricken Fyrd’s open mouth, reducing his dying scream to a mere grunting sob.
The job done, Brunte retrieved his knives and turned away into the night. Without further delay, he set forth to Brum, fabricating a tale of murderous attack and thinking of ways he might himself in time assume senior office of some kind
and ready himself for greater power still.
22
HEALING
Imbolc’s intervention had saved Brief’s life and left them free to do what they could for Jack. He lay awkwardly and still, the blackened flesh of his burnt back bare to the night, while his face, caught by the flickering light of the still-burning car, bore the pallor of death.
Brief examined him.
‘Well, he’s still alive, that much we can say. But unless I can treat these burns . . .’
He bent closer, hardly daring to touch Jack’s clothes, which had melted into his skin.
‘I don’t think I have ever seen anything so brave as what this boy did,’ murmured Brief, ‘which rather confirms that he is what we think he is – a giant-born. In fact the giant-born. But . . .’ He sat back on his haunches and dug inside his robe to remove a flat pouch secured on a woven cord around his waist. ‘It’s a long time since I treated wounds of this severity. I fear that unless I can first cool these burns I will only do worse damage if I try to apply a salve, even one as sovereign as I have here.’
He looked up at Pike, despair written on his face. ‘I’m not sure what to do, but if he’s to have any hope then we need to use something cold, very cold – and quickly.’
Stort loomed up suddenly from the shadow of the embankment, covered in mud and grime. He carried a black bin-bag, heavy and dripping, in his hands.
‘Some of the hail which fell just now,’ he announced. ‘Master Brief, I have a feeling this might help the boy’s burns if you can apply it.’
Brief took the load thankfully and knelt down beside Jack.
‘So he’s putting to one side his doubts about tradition and taboos concerning hydden and human!’ Stort whispered to Pike.
‘If he hadn’t I most certainly would have done what I could myself,’ replied the staverman.
‘Yes, I am,’ muttered Brief irritably. ‘Now could you kindly stop chattering and Master Stort, please find me some more ice.’
‘I will try,’ said Stort. ‘Meanwhile, Mister Pike, I think the human lady lying on the far verge may need some of this hail as well, so perhaps you could set your stavermen to collecting some.’
He dug into one of his pockets and produced a roll of bin-bags. ‘Please tell them that I will wish to have any they do not use returned to me. It was no easy matter getting hold of this lot.’ Despite his otherworldliness, Bedwyn Stort had a streak of practicality about him, odd though his methods sometimes were.
Pike stared across the road, past the wreckage of the car, to the opposite verge where the dark form of Clare Shore lay exactly where she had been thrown.
He sent two of the stavermen across to examine her, while Stort and some others busily gathered more hail. Katherine, wide-eyed, stared after them, but made no attempt to move from Jack’s side, as if, for the moment at least, he needed her presence most.
Brief applied the bin-bags of ice and water as Stort brought them to him, successfully easing Jack onto his side, and grunting with satisfaction when he heard the boy’s breathing grow deeper and more regular.
Then Jack began to shiver, his body and legs shaking more and more violently.
Brief took off his own robe and laid it over him, covering the makeshift ice packs as well, then he dug into his pouch and produced a small vial of liquid from which he shook some drops into Jack’s half-open mouth.
He coughed faintly, and for a moment he even tried to move.
But it was Katherine who did the moving. She got up, went closer to him and knelt down, her head so close to Brief’s that they were touching.
‘It’s all right, Jack,’ she whispered, and impulsively reached out a hand to his cheek. His own right hand moved in the dark, reaching for hers.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, as much to reassure herself as him.
Stort said to Brief, ‘The boy might need this.’ It was the leather backpack he had been carrying with him earlier.
‘Plainly it’s hydden-made,’ observed Stort. ‘Confirmation if we needed it of what the boy’s origins really are.’
Moments later there came a quiet whistle from the far side of road, and one of the stavermen attending to Clare Shore raised his hand.
‘It’s Mum,’ said Katherine to Jack, as if instinctively understanding that he must know why she was now leaving him.
Only one of the stavermen stayed with Jack, while the others crossed the road to approach Clare.
‘Not a sign of life,’ Brief informed them heavily, ‘not even a tremor. But she’s an adult human, so I don’t know if . . .’
They all stared at her, in awe.
To them she was a giant, their feet smaller than her hands, her twisted limbs massive compared to their own.
‘I can find no burns to speak of, nor any real injury,’ Brief told Pike, ‘but there is no sign of a pulse, assuming humans have them too. Since they bleed, as we do, I assume they must. I can only think she’s sustained some terrible internal injury we cannot see.’
Pike stared at her, never having seen a female human at such close range. She looked monstrous.
‘Did you apply that same balm that brought the boy round?’ asked Pike.
Brief nodded bleakly. ‘But no result.’
‘And the girl?’ said Pike quietly, nodding towards Katherine, who knelt beside her mother, staring into her face.
‘Hasn’t even touched her or tried to say anything. I think perhaps she realizes her mother is—’
‘Master Brief!’
It was Stort and he was pointing towards the area of the night sky towards which the Peace-Weaver had ridden. It was not dark but like a vast open wound, a violent cut of a knife across the Universe which burned with cosmic fire.
As they stared in astonishment the fire burned bright and shone its light briefly where Katherine knelt by her mother.
Clare Shore stirred and moaned. Then, opening her eyes, she reached out to her daughter, seeming not to see the rest of them at all.
She couldn’t sit up, or speak, in fact could hardly even move.
Clare was quite evidently very badly hurt.
But she was most definitely alive.
The strange light in the sky, which after all might have been no more than swirling low clouds catching in some way the burning wreck of the car, for a moment shone brighter still.
‘We see the Fires of the Universe,’ whispered Brief in awe, speaking for them all, ‘as the Mirror turns . . . and with its light shining on that girl and her mother we glimpse something of the Shield Maiden!’
Brief fell silent as if in prayer, before adding in a different voice, ‘They’ll be all right now. Our work, gentlemen, is done.’
Then, one by one, the hydden backed away and left the human mother and daughter by themselves.
Instead they crossed the road and went back to Jack.
‘He seems more comfortable,’ announced the staverman who had stayed with him.
‘Well, then,’ said Brief, ‘there’s no more that we can do here. But we’ll watch over them all until help arrives.’
Less than ten minutes later, the storm having considerably abated, they heard the sound of a vehicle. It came slowly towards them in the same direction Richard Shore had originally approached from.
Brief removed his cloak from Jack, and they all retreated behind the parapet of the railway bridge above.
Below them the lone car slowed to a halt just before reaching the smouldering wreck. A man got out, looked about him in shock, retreated inside his vehicle and emerged again to make a call on his mobile. He then climbed up the verge to where Jack lay, took off his jacket and spread it over him.
Only then did he notice Katherine and her mother.
Very slowly, cautiously, he went over to them, and knelt down by them.
He made a second call on his mobile.
Twenty minutes later the first ambulance arrived, its headlights and blue flashing lights finally revealing the scene in all its true horror of inj
ury and death and destruction.
The police turned up next, and then a second ambulance.
The three of them were placed in separate ambulances, the girl remaining with her mother.
The body of Richard Shore was removed last of all.
Meanwhile, unseen up on the railway bridge, the hydden watched these developments to the very last.
Pike looked grim and resolute, and Stort looked saddened, while Master Brief, feeling all those emotions, raised his stave to the sky and whispered prayers for the living and a prayer for the dead; and finally a prayer for the hydden themselves, summoning them all to him before he spoke further.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘we who have been witnesses to the events of this night will be its guardians. We shall not speak of what we have seen, and we swear to watch over these three surviving humans whose paths have crossed ours during the turning of the Mirror-of-All which has shown itself this night. The boy, the girl, the woman and ourselves remain as witnesses; the man who died here goes on ahead.’
‘And the Fyrd,’ interrupted Stort, ‘they are part of it, too.’
‘Indeed they are,’ acknowledged Brief. ‘They are witnesses caught like us in the wyrd of things.’
With that they shook each other’s hands in solemn acknowledgement of their sense of shared responsibility, before turning away to begin the journey back to Brum.
Except it seemed that they had forgotten something.
‘Master Brief . . . ?’
For the second time that night Bedwyn Stort slipped away and down the embankment. Pike followed him, the others watched.
‘It’s here somewhere,’ said Stort, searching through the shadowed undergrowth furtively lest humans near the crash scene saw him.
‘What is?’ asked Pike, hand firmly on his stave in case the Fyrd reappeared.
‘This!’ said Stort.
He reached into the grass and moments later was holding something in the air.
‘It’s the giant-born’s portersac. One day he’ll need it again.’
He climbed back up the embankment and joined the others.