“How long ago did he pass through here?” I asked.
“He did not,” said Tryst. “The dark one you speak of came into the forest, slaying at leisure. His men attached thread to the trees. Then they left.”
A trap. A simple trap. To draw pursuers in. To be slaughtered by the katts while Voss took a leisurely ride up the mountain.
He is cunning, said the Fain, coming back to my mind.
And Hilde, too. In league with him, surely. “Did you fight Voss?”
Tryst shook his head. His fur, I noticed, had thickened up again around his neck. “He has the wits of Premen and the magicks of a unicorn. Nothing but a dragon could defeat him.”
But the dragon was weak. I put the thought aside. “Will you lead me through the forest?”
Tryst looked uncertainly at some of the others.
“I must reach the dragon ahead of Voss.”
A few whiskers twitched. “Can you tame it?” asked Tryst.
“I must try,” I said. “Or the girl will die and Voss will spread his evil over Skoga and Taan.”
Tryst and three more went into a huddle. After a short round of intense chatter, during which one of the katts pulled away with a petulant hiss, Tryst turned back to me and said, “We will guide you to the Skogan Stones, which stand in plain view of Kasgerden’s peak. The stones are not far, but the way to them is steep.”
You must rest, said the Fain.
The soft patter of water drummed the forest floor. I looked up at the sky. A patch of marshy rain clouds were drifting south. The skogkatts were slinking back into the trees, already searching for warmth and cover. I was exhausted and wanted to be out of the rain as well. I said to Tryst, “I need time to sleep.”
He licked a paw and said, “Katts sleep often, but not for long. Shelter where you can. Be ready when we come for you.”
“Why were you arguing?” I looked at the katt that had walked off in anger.
But Tryst just repeated his last command. “Be ready when we come.” And with a flourish of his bushy tail he was gone.
I found a place where the canopy of branches was thickest. I slept for what seemed like the second it took to lay my head on my satchel and yawn. I dreamed of Brunne. Over and again I witnessed the moment just before the fish bone was drawn across his throat and his voice was still able to croak about time. What wisdom had he not been able to speak? How did it connect to the dragon with the parchment? His final words swept through my mind. Keep Galen in your sight. And then Galen pushed his fearsome head into my dreams. His jaw unlatched and I raised my arms to welcome his fire. Everything I knew about myself was burned. But out of my ashes rose a new form. I was Agawin, the boy. And then I was …
… woken by bark chippings tickling my cheek. Spluttering like an idiot, I leaped to my feet, brandishing my knife at empty space. One of the katts was clinging upside down to the tree I’d been under. He spread a set of claws and idly licked them. Nyeh, he went, in a belittling tone. The katt looked a little pleased with himself.
Tryst was sitting on a root nearby, his thick tail wrapped across his stout front paws. The rain had stopped, but the ends of his fur were glistening still. His bright green eyes were wide and alert. “I bring news of Voss.”
I rubbed the tiredness away and asked what he knew.
“The eagles have seen him, halfway up the mountain.”
“You commingle with eagles?” It occurred to me then that I had heard no sound of birdsong in the forest. Winged creatures were too afraid to roost here, perhaps?
“During winterfold we leave them mice,” said Tryst. “It pleases them — and keeps them out of the forest.”
“They hunt you?”
“They try.” He wrinkled his nose. “Voss is making no attempt to hide his presence.”
“But Galen will see him.”
“He already has. He sent two eagles to challenge Voss. Voss captured them and roasted them over a fire. Kasgerden weeps with their scent.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What kind of man would dare taunt a dragon?”
One that is confident of victory, said the Fain.
Tryst stood up and groomed his fur. “Galen has yet to retaliate. It’s not clear why he waits; the eagles refuse to say. But no dragon would turn away from this threat.” He looked me in the eye. “You, however, still can. Go back, Agawin. We will lead you to safety. You cannot hinder Voss. And you have no hope of defeating him.”
“I defeated you,” I said as more katts drifted into the clearing. Tryst raised his head proudly. I added at once, “Sometimes even the finest warriors meet with unfavorable luck. Voss has a weakness. Why else would he take an innocent girl and drug the men of three tribes so they could not follow him?”
An interesting argument, the Fain replied.
“Take me to the stones,” I said to Tryst.
The katt stared at me as if I had a wish to be dead. But he did not question my bravery further. “Six of us will escort you. We cannot pass beyond the edge of the forest. Once the way through the trees becomes clear, you must face Voss and the dragon alone.”
I nodded and picked up my satchel. A hole had been gnawed in the bottom. Out of it tumbled an apple core. “Mice,” said Tryst. I heard the katts snicker. I sighed and picked up my bow. I feared for the cheese I had brought, but hopefully the tiny thieves had left me some meat.
Making the slightest of chattering sounds, Tryst flipped his tail and sprang into the forest. I followed him directly, though it wasn’t easy. He was nimble and often bathed in shadow. I saw the other katts, too, but only in snatches, so well did their fur blend in with the trees. A small squeak now and then, followed by a fierce territorial growl, would alert me to the fact that one of them had caught a careless rodent. Always, they were ruled by the need to hunt.
Before long, I felt the Fain working my muscles to assist me up the gradients Tryst had warned about. For most of the climb my feet were able to gain good purchase and I kept to the katt’s unerring pace. But as we approached the limits of the forest the plain brown bracken thinned like the hair on an old man’s head and Kasgerden began to show itself, mainly in patches of loose gray shale that slid or broke away from my grasping hands. With little earth for their roots, the trees petered out. The light grew stronger. The ground, firmer. As we approached the final pine, several katts scampered up into its branches. Only Tryst came to the very edge.
He sat and dipped his head forward. The mountain-side had become quite shallow, an escarpment of shale and rough earth and grass. Well beyond it were the harsh gray slabs of rock that soared up into the mountain proper. I saw a look of deep longing enter Tryst’s eyes, as if he would like to go bounding up there. “Why can’t you leave the trees?”
“Look at the stones,” he said.
Among the shale were a number of large, weathered stones. They were not, as I’d imagined, tall fingers of granite, but a jumble of strange, misshapen boulders scattered over a widespread arc. “What happened here?”
Tryst was about to reply when we both heard the clip of hooves. I dived for cover, behind the same tree Tryst had quickly climbed. He laid himself flat on the branch above me. I reached for my bow and primed it.
Two men, said the Fain, sensing their auma.
Voss?
No.
Grella?
Just men.
“What’s in it for us?” I heard one of them say. Dull. Disillusioned. Not too bright. I saw the first horse come into view. It was finding it hard to stay steady on its feet. The rider cursed and slid out of the saddle. He looked of Horste stock. Wild-haired and bearded. The color was a match for his dark brown jerkin. His pants were ripped. There were holes in his boots. He broke wind as he walked toward the stones. “What’s in it for us is a nasty end if we don’t follow Voss’s orders,” said the other. He was thinner than the first man. Rangy. Mean. Hair that draped in lanky spikes around his bony, milk-skinned face. He had a lean, crooked nose. A mole on his chin. Sunken eyes, always
on the lookout for danger. As they swept in my direction, I turned sideways behind the tree. The Fain slowed my heartbeat to keep me quiet.
The first man said, “I’m bored of looking for paths for the horses. I need something to kill.”
The other man spoke in a soft mumble. “Well, there’s a great big scaly brute up top just waiting to feed on a goof like yer.”
“The old feller in the krofft, he was easy,” bragged the man. “Ready for a dragon now, I am.”
“You were seen, Egil.”
“Nah,” he said. “In and out like a shadow, I was.”
“I’m telling you, I saw a kid run out.”
My arrow hand began to shake.
“So what?” Egil said. He unbuttoned his pants. “The men was all drugged. We ain’t gonna be followed.”
“Get back on your horse,” his companion said suddenly.
He’s reading an auma wave, the Fain commingled. I cannot tell if it’s yours or Tryst’s.
I looked up. Tryst had bared his fangs.
“I need to pee,” said the man on the ground. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
“Hold it in,” the other said, tightening his rein. “There’s something hiding in the trees.”
Egil turned his bearded face toward us. “Katts? So what? Let them look. They ain’t gonna test the sibyl’s curse, are they?”
Curse?
Agawin, you must remain steady, said the Fain.
“This is probably one, right here,” said Egil. He jumped, two-footed, onto a stone and aimed a stream of urine at it.
The first drops had barely splattered the rocks when the branch above me twanged and Tryst broke cover. Mercifully, Egil knew nothing of his fate — perhaps a deserved flash of pain as the skogkatt’s jaws closed around his hand (the one aiming the pee) and the formidable teeth bit through whatever flesh they could find. By then, the other man had pulled a knife and whipped it with venom toward the katt. It struck Tryst cleanly in the middle of the ribs, but bounced off with a booming clang. It clattered down the hillside and came to rest not far from my hiding place. Egil’s horse bolted. The knife thrower cursed. I looked on in horror. Egil, and the katt that had ended his life, had both turned to stone.
You must be decisive now, said the Fain.
I could have shot an arrow through the knife thrower’s heart as he slipped off his horse to investigate. I could have avenged Tryst there and then. But I was not a killer. There was a better way, I thought. I stepped out of the trees while his back was turned. “Move, and you’re next.”
His body froze.
“There are five more katts in the trees and I can easily put an arrow through the back of your head.”
“The boy,” he said, as if he wanted to congratulate his powers of intuition. His shoulders relaxed. I allowed him to turn.
“Where’s Grella?”
He saw the glint of the arrowhead, the sweat in my fingers. His tongue swept nervously across his lips. “Whatever you plan to do you should do it soon, boy. Voss isn’t far away. He’ll crush you like a fly if he sees you’re armed.”
“Grella,” I repeated.
“Bound,” he said, grinning.
I aimed for the triangle of flesh below his chin.
“Unhurt,” he added, raising his hands. “The girl’s an irritation. Never stops talking.”
“Take me to her.”
“And what good would that do yer?” He looked up at Kasgerden’s peak and laughed. “You and your katt band won’t be jumping Voss. Even the dragon’s scared of coming down for him.”
He took a step forward.
I sucked in through my teeth, making sure he heard the bowstring stretch.
The hands came up again. He smiled, thinly. “Those things are dangerous, boy. It’s not the wound they make, it’s the infection they cause. Ever watched a man rot from an arrow wound? Trust me, it ain’t pleasant. Put the bow down, eh?”
I aimed between his eyes.
He wisely stood back. “All right. I’ll do a deal with yer. What’s your name, kid?”
Do not tell him, said the Fain.
“I’m Eirik,” said the man, putting his hands on his chest.
“Hands by your side,” I growled.
“All right,” he tutted. “No need to get twitchy.” He put his hands out and showed me his palms. They were rough and dirty. A killer’s hands. “Between you and me, I don’t like Voss. The way he lords it over hardworking men like us. What’s that about? What gives him the right? He was nothing before he broke the unicorn.”
“How did that happen?”
“A pact with the sibyl.”
So they were together.
“Some sort of sorcery. In exchange for a kid.”
Kid? A child? Hilde wanted a child?
“The details” — he shrugged — “escape me. Look —”
He put a foot forward. I drew my fist back until the feathers of the arrow were scraping my cheek. “One more step and you’re dead!”
“All right. Sheesh. Just hear me out.” He was irritated now, but his gaze was never far from the point of the arrow. “I’ve got an idea. Something that might do for both of us, yeah?”
Do not trust him, said the Fain.
But I was young — and foolish. I jutted my chin.
“I know a way to set a trap for Voss. If it works, he burns. I get some fraas, maybe a scale or two as well. And you, cave boy, get to be a legend. I’ll show yer.”
I let him kneel — slowly. He found a patch of loose earth and scrubbed its surface with the palm of his hand. With one finger, he drew a rough image of the mountain. “Forest,” he said, poking dots for the trees. “Voss.” He made a V not far from the forest. “The dragon’s here, in a cave on the far side of the mountain.” He tapped the peak.
“How do you know?”
He pulled a strand of hair across his mouth and chewed it. “Voss captured two eagles. He squeezed it out of them before we roasted the meat off their bones.”
From what Tryst had said there was truth in this. And the fact that I hadn’t heard Galen for a while suggested he was hiding. A dragon, hiding. It made my stomach turn. I let the Fain calm me.
Eirik drew a circle above the mountain. “The dragon will expect an attack at full moon. Voss ain’t gonna disappoint the beast, but only a goof like Egil would take on a full-sized breather, face to. So Voss is planning a little surprise.” He looked into my face and smiled. “He’s gonna go through the mountain, not up it. The dragon won’t know until it’s too late.”
A few paces away, Eirik’s horse snorted. We both momentarily glanced toward it. I saw Eirik tense, as if he sensed a chance to leap at me, but my aim was soon keeping him in check again. “How?” I said, grinding my teeth. “Kasgerden is solid. There are no tunnels through it.”
Voss could imagineer a way, said the Fain.
“Imagineer” was a word I had never heard before, but Eirik was quick to support the idea. “He’s got a unicorn horn,” he said a little scornfully. “With the sibyl’s help, he works all kinds of stuff.”
And he’d got this far. I had to believe this evil might work. “Tell me your plan.”
He moved his hand away from the drawing, but only to drum his fingers on the ground. “Even with magicks, it’s gonna take time for Voss to tunnel through. And he’s bound to leave a guard at the entrance hole. I’m the one he trusts to watch his back. When he’s deep inside the hill, we call the dragon.”
“How?”
“Make a fire. The eagles will see it and come to investigate. They’ll see the tunnel and warn the dragon. The rest is easy. The breather comes over, flames the cave, and Voss goes up in smoke. Job done.”
“But Grella will die.”
He shook his head. “Voss told me himself that he won’t risk taking her close to the dragon. I think he’s taken a fancy to her. Wants her for a bride, I reckon.”
“Bride?” My right arm weakened. Some slack crept into the bow.
“Oh, please,” said Eirik, spreading his hands. “All this for a crush on a pretty Taan girl? Well, trust me, if you love the wench, I’m your best hope of getting her back.”
I weighed it up again. I either had to kill Eirik now or assist him. The Fain favored me putting an arrow through his heart, but curiosity — and goodness — stayed my hand. “What would I have to do?”
“You’re a cave boy. You know how to gather wood, don’t yer? You set the fire. That’s all there is to it. When the blaze is lit, you signal the eagles.”
“They’ll kill me after what you did to the others.”
“Nah, you’re an innocent. A kid in a robe.”
“And what about you? Where will you be?”
He tapped one side of the picture. “There’s some scrub just here. Should keep me covered, even from an eagle’s beady eye.”
“You’re going to hide?”
“’Course I’m gonna hide,” he snorted. “If the birds see me, they’ll think it’s a trick.” He gestured to the drawing with his right hand. “It’s a good plan, boy. Look it over again. Think about it. Take your time.”
Foolishly, I did. I took my eye off him just for a moment, and in that moment he went to the ground with his opposite hand. By the time I’d seen him reach behind a stone he had the knife he had thrown at Tryst in his grasp. I panicked and released the arrow. It went straight through Eirik’s wrist, the shaft lodging in his arm with the point sticking out. He howled and spilled the knife.
Fire again, said the Fain.
But even with their help there wasn’t time. Eirik came at me in a wild frenzy. He bundled into me and carried me back down the slope. The bow snapped as we fell to the ground. By then he had a firm hand on my throat. His yellow eyes bulged with rage. Saliva dripped from his gritted teeth. My only hope was Rune’s knife. My fingers flickered gamely for the hilt, but Eirik’s body was too heavy to allow me to draw it. My will began to fade. My chest began to thicken. As my tongue swelled up and my head began to swim, I thought I felt the Fain desert me again. It was over. I was just seconds from death.
Then a surprising savior appeared.
I saw the dull shape of a horse behind Eirik, a blur of movement as its front hooves flashed. There was a thud. Eirik glugged. His eyes glazed over. His grip upon me loosened and he slumped to one side. I blinked, thinking I would see Eirik’s horse.