‘I could try,’ he whispered, then shook his head. ‘No, I must try. But how?’
She got up, shaking out her skirts. ‘Sit and rest awhile, and I’ll check on Jack and make us some supper. You must be hungry, your Highness’.
‘Please, call me Robin’.
‘All right … Robin’.
He heard the blush in her voice. That amazed him and gave him hope. If he could hear a blush, surely he could use his other senses to find what he had always used his eyes for.
CHAPTER 24
Corpse Candles
MOLLY HUNCHED BY THE FIRE, STIRRING HER SOUP. SHE WAS shaking with cold, her shawl now a sodden, bloodstained ball discarded on the shingle.
Jack lay nearby. His hands and face and throat all showed deep lacerations that still oozed blood. He was hot, and the wounds she had not been able to bandage were weeping and inflamed. The corpse of the dog still lay beside him, its blood staining the grey shingle black.
Peregrine sat next to Molly, his face turning from side to side as he strained to make sense of the eerie night noises of the marsh. An intense red rash spread over his face, and his eyes were puffy and swollen almost shut. Molly suspected a plant like marsh spurge was the source of the poison, for she had once seen a boy come up with a similar rash all over his hands after plucking the weed. Her spirit quailed inside her.
She raised her face to look at the frosty-white stars, spread across the dark sky. The night was clear and Molly thought she had never seen so many stars. The moonlight glimmered on the still water, and the flames of the fire leapt towards the sky like strange beasts from a fairytale. Sparks whirled.
What would it be like to be struck blind? Molly’s heart twisted with pity for the poor prince. Imagine never being able to see the stars again. Imagine never seeing again the sun shining through new leaves, never seeing again the first marsh-marigolds springing out of the shrivelled brown of frost-bitten grasses, never seeing again the Isle of Eels floating in a blue mist. She pressed her hands together and hoped and wished with all her might that it was only a temporary blindness, and that Prince Peregrine would see again.
Robin.
She blushed again and began to ladle the thin soup into two horn cups. She brought them to him and knelt before him so she could press one into his hands.
‘Be careful, it’s hot,’ she whispered.
‘It smells good,’ he answered, trying to smile, then wincing as the movement hurt his face.
She told him about the boy who had hurt his hands plucking marsh spurge. ‘He was fine in a day or two. Maybe your eyes will be too’.
‘Maybe’. He nodded. ‘I can’t wait, though. I can hear Jack is getting weaker, he barely makes a sound anymore. As soon as we’ve eaten, I’ll try to find the spear. What does it matter if it is dark, I can’t see anyway’. His voice was bitter.
‘I can see quite well. The stars are bright and the moon is shining. If you tell me what to look for, maybe I can guide you’.
‘All right’. Prince Peregrine lifted his horn cup to his lips and drank. Molly drank too. The hot, savoury liquid gave her strength. She was tired, but did not see how she could possibly sleep with the life slowly ebbing out of Jack and the corpse of the dog lying so still on the sands. Of all the things that Grizelda had done, Molly thought she hated the starkin girl most for the way she had so casually sacrificed her hound to save herself.
Peregrine finished in a few mouthfuls and sighed, as if wishing for more. ‘Molly, I thought I saw a hazel tree growing next to one of the ruined cottages. Did you see it?’
‘I think so,’ she replied.
‘Can you see well enough to cut me a forked branch from it?’
‘I’ll try’. Molly got out her knife and, crutch under her armpit, limped slowly across the shingle to the ruins of the village. She had to use her crutch to help her find rocks and holes and other hazards. She dreaded falling and wrenching her hip. She would be no help to the prince at all if she fell.
The pale buds of the hazel tree floated in the darkness like tiny glowworms, and relief rushed through her. She felt along the branches until she found one with a fork in it and cut it carefully. Limping, for her hip hurt badly, she made her way back to the fire and put the forked branch into Peregrine’s hand.
‘Hazel is one of the sacred woods,’ he said. ‘I have read it can be used for divination and for finding water. Let’s try it and see what happens’.
Peregrine held the two prongs of the hazel branch in his hands and bent his head over it. In a low, weary voice, he said:
By the truth, let me find what is lost
The spear that in the bog was tossed
And ever since cannot be found
To my will let it be bound.
Tell me where to find the spear
Let me know when I am near’.
Then he rose to his feet. ‘I felt it twitch! Come, Molly, let’s see where it leads us’.
As Molly laid down her crutch and picked up the shovel, propping it under her arm, Peregrine knelt for a moment beside Jack’s body, feeling for the pulse in his wrist and telling him, in a low murmur, to hang on. ‘I’ll be back soon with the spear, and then we’ll heal you,’ he promised. He then stood and turned, looking blindly for Molly. She was there in an instant, laying her hand on his thin shoulder.
‘I’ll guide you,’ she said. ‘Careful, the dog is just there, poor thing. Come around. Now, which way? To the west?’
Step by slow, stumbling step, the lame girl guided the blind boy into the marshes. On either side stretched bogs and quagmires, black and menacing under the silver radiance of the round moon. Molly listened to the frogs, smelt the wind, felt the quake of ground beneath her feet and, barely able to take a breath, found him a path.
‘It’s close,’ he whispered after a long while. ‘It’s very close’.
The hazel branch was jerking in his hands, leading them closer and closer to a deep blackness where no grasses shivered in the cold wind, where no frogs sang their peculiar song.
‘It’s here!’ he cried, and Molly clutched him close as he would have stepped out into the very heart of the bog.
‘Stand back,’ she warned. She tiptoed past him, testing the surface of the mud with her boot, then grasped a handful of bulrushes and leant forward, trying to dig one-handed. Some of the bulrushes broke and Molly lurched forward, only just managing to save herself by grasping another handful.
Will-o’-the-wisps danced before her eyes. At the Isle of Eels they were called corpse candles and were a premonition of disaster. Resolutely Molly turned her face away from the eerie ghost-blue lights and took the shovel from under her arm. She began to scrape at the mud. It smelt like a grave.
Hours passed. Molly was filthy and exhausted. Gnats whined about her head, biting her mercilessly. Peregrine strained forward beside her, balanced precariously on the edge of the inky blackness. Impatiently he directed her, and she did her best to obey him, throwing down handfuls of bulrushes as they broke to give her a slowly sinking platform on which to stand.
The darkness began to seep away. Pink flushed along the horizon. A bird called, and then another. Molly took a long, sobbing breath and brushed back tendrils of hair with her mud-dripping arm.
Suddenly her shovel clunked against something. Molly flung herself on her knees and began to scrabble. Heedless of the shifting ground, Peregrine dropped down and dug too, throwing gobbets of mud behind him.
‘I have it!’ he cried. He came upright, gripping a long dark thing in his hand.
Commonsense told Molly it was just an old branch. Yet it was so slim and straight. Foolish hope told her it was the spear of the Storm King.
They were both waist-deep in the bog, sinking fast. Molly leant upon the shovel with all her weight, hauling herself upright, and then, clinging to bulrushes and heath bushes, dragged herself out of the bog. ‘Grab my shovel,’ she told Peregrine and pushed the end into his chest. He seized it and, with the last of her strength, she d
ragged him free. They fell together into the reeds, then lay there for a moment, too exhausted to move.
Molly kept still, Peregrine’s slight body lying against her, his heaving chest against hers. She looked up at tiny rosy clouds floating in the arc of pale sky, and smiled. After a moment Peregrine sat up, pushing his hair away from his face. The rash had subsided, but his eyes were still puffy and half-closed. He held out the long, slim thing to her.
‘I cannot see. Is it the spear?’
Molly sat up and took it from him. It was light and well balanced in her hands. At one end was a sharp point. At the other, the wood flared into wings, like the fletching of Peregrine’s arrows. She carefully rubbed it in her skirt. It was made of a twisted length of silvery-pale wood, with strange shapes inscribed all along its length.
A smile burst onto her face.
‘It’s the spear,’ she said. ‘We’ve found the spear!’
Slowly Molly and Peregrine trudged back to the camp, both so weary it was hard to put one foot in front of the other. They were both filthy, every inch of their skin smeared with mud.
‘I can see a little,’ Peregrine said. ‘Just shapes and shadows. Do you think my sight is coming back?’
‘I hope so,’ she answered.
‘Let’s hurry. I’m worried about Jack’.
Blitz was calling frantically, flapping his wings, his bells clashing angrily. Peregrine whistled to him reassuringly. ‘It’s all right, boy. I’m coming, I’m coming. Just let me check Jack first’.
His squire had not moved, but still lay by the ashes of the fire, wrapped in his cloak. Molly gently folded back the grey cloth and felt her stomach twist at the sight of the wet red rag at his throat. Her petticoat was completely drenched with blood. Awkwardly she knelt beside him, feeling for a pulse in his wrist. Dread chilled her.
‘How is he?’ Peregrine asked anxiously.
‘I don’t know … I can’t tell … Oh, Robin, I think he’s dead!’
Peregrine fell to his knees beside her, groping out with his hands. ‘No, no, he can’t be!’
‘I can’t feel his heart beating’. Tears scalded her eyes.
Peregrine laid his ear against Jack’s still chest. ‘I can hear it! It’s slow, but I can hear it’.
‘Are you sure?’
‘No!’ he wept, burying his face against Jack’s bloodstained clothes. ‘No, I’m not sure. Is it just the sound of my own blood beating in my ears? I can’t tell. Jack! Jack!’
Molly looked around wildly, panting, unable to catch her breath for the sick dread that filled her. She saw the silver goblet Grizelda had dropped lying in the shale. She seized it and wiped it clean on her dress, then held it above Jack’s mouth. A faint mist appeared on the silver surface, then faded away, then reappeared.
‘He’s a-breathing! It’s all right, Robin, he’s a-breathing’.
Peregrine lay for a moment longer, his face hidden against Jack’s chest, then he sat up. ‘The spear. I don’t know how to use it. What do I do? Do I just touch him with it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered wildly. ‘How am I meant to know? You’re the wildkin prince!’
Peregrine felt out with his hands till he found the spear, which he had dropped nearby. He laid it against Jack’s cheek. ‘Is he better?’
Molly looked hopefully, but there was no change in Jack at all. Bitter disappointment filled her. She shook her head, then, realising Peregrine could not see her, whispered, ‘No’.
Peregrine heaved a breath. He sat back on his heels, the spear clutched so tightly in his hands his knuckles were white. ‘We have to take him to the oak tree. I’ll rouse Lord Grim and make him tell us how to use the spear. After all, the Storm King healed both Lord Grim and his son. He must know how it was done’.
‘How are we to get him up there?’ Molly stared at him in dismay, remembering how hard it had been for her to make the climb on her own yesterday. Now she was utterly exhausted, and the pain in her hip was sharp. Peregrine was as worn out as she, and blind and in pain. How could they possibly manage?
‘We’ll make a litter,’ Peregrine said. ‘He’s already lying on his cloak. We’ll slide sticks through the seams of his cloak and carry him. You’ll have to go in the front, as I can’t see the path’.
For a moment Molly sat, unable to make a move, the enormity of the task weighing on her like chains. But then she breathed in deeply, struggled to her feet and went in search of two long sticks. Luckily the bundle of firewood Jack had brought the night before still lay scattered on the ground. She was able to find two long sticks, fairly straight, and bring them back to where Jack lay.
Meanwhile, Peregrine groped his way towards where his falcon was tethered, cheeping anxiously and flapping his wings. Working by touch alone, he unhooded the bird and then unknotted his jesses so Blitz could fly. The falcon launched straight up into the air, screeching in joy.
Picking up the edge of Jack’s cloak, Molly found the end of the seam and unpicked the threads with the point of her knife and slowly inserted one of the sticks. To her surprise it slid in easily all the way to the end, not snagging on any knots or twigs or getting stuck, and out the other end of the seam. The other stick slipped in as easily, and suddenly Jack lay on a litter.
‘Well, that was easier than I expected,’ she said.
Peregrine gave a strained smile. ‘It’s the Erlrune’s magic, helping us. She wove these cloaks, you know, and her magic is powerful. I think we would have died of cold in the forest if it had not been for her cloaks, and no doubt we would have been seen when we were riding through Zavaria’.
He laid the spear next to Jack, in the hope it would help him, and then felt his way down to the end of the litter, taking both sticks in his hands. ‘All right, heave!’
To Molly’s surprise, Jack did not weigh nearly as much as she expected. ‘The cloak again?’ she asked.
Peregrine shrugged and smiled, a quick flash of his old cheeky grin. ‘If only I’d known I’d have used it for a sack instead of hauling my pack all through the marshes. It nearly broke my back!’
‘Let’s put the packs on the litter too,’ Molly said. ‘We’ll want something to eat’.
‘Good idea,’ Peregrine said. ‘Here, let me lay my bow and quiver beside Jack. My mother gave them to me, I’d hate to leave them behind’.
When the litter was laden, they once again heaved it up and began to carry it along the steep, slippery path to the height of Grimsfell, Blitz flying overhead. Even with the weight eased by the magic of the cloak, it was a hard scramble. Both Molly and Peregrine stumbled many times so that their knees were bloodied and grazed and their arms and faces scratched by the time they reached the top. Black spots danced before Molly’s eyes and her hip hurt so much it was all she could do not to sob aloud with every step she took. Peregrine was in as bad a state as she was, for he was constantly bashing into rocks or stumbling into brambles, and their last meal was many hours behind them.
At last they reached the top of the hill and collapsed in the shade of the oak tree. Blitz came to rest above them, head bent to watch them curiously. Molly was so hot and thirsty she would even have drunk a cup of marsh water.
Jack moaned, a faint sound that caused them to sit up and look anxiously towards him. He must have been jerked painfully all through that difficult climb, and Molly adjusted the blood-soaked pad over his throat and wished she had another petticoat.
Peregrine pushed himself to his feet and groped for the spear. ‘Molly, will you show me where the rock is?’
She took his hand and led him to the base of the rock. Her heart began to slam in loud, uneven bangs. Peregrine steadied himself on the rock then raised the spear and rapped it sharply on the stone, once, twice, thrice.
Gradually a low rumbling rose from deep in the hill. The ground trembled. Birds took to the air, Blitz among them. A few dry brown leaves scattered from the oak tree. Then a crack appeared in the rock. It split in half and, with a terrifying roar, gaped wide open. A
gust of stale earth blew out. A tall, bent figure loomed over them.
‘Who dares wake me?’ a deep voice snarled.
CHAPTER 25
Lord Grim
‘I DO. I AM PRINCE PEREGRINE, DIRECT DESCENDANT OF THE Storm King, and son of King Merrik and Queen Liliana who freed you from the starkin tower so long ago’.
Peregrine spoke proudly, his head tilted back, his hands clenched by his side. Molly stood as close to him as she dared, offering him what little support she could.
Lord Grim was twice as tall as her, and wrapped in a long dark cloak that smelt of mildew. His hands were bony and black, his back hunched. Deep scars ringed his wrists, a legacy of the bells that had once bound him. A hood was drawn over his face, shielding him from the light of day, but his eyes glittered with a strange unearthly light.
Unexpectedly, a hollow laugh shook him. ‘You look like a mud-troll’.
‘We had to retrieve the spear of thunder from the bog,’ Peregrine replied with dignity.
The glittering eyes moved to Molly. ‘And who is this?’
Peregrine waited a moment, as if expecting Molly to speak on her own behalf, but she was too awestruck and afraid, so he answered for her. ‘Lady Molly, daughter of Percival Smith, Lord of the Marshes’.
Lord Grim frowned. ‘I thought Ardian was ruled by Count Malcolm ziv Zardian’.
‘It was. But then my da and the fen-men rose up against him, a-booting him out,’ Molly said, her voice rather high.
One thin black brow rose at the sound of her accent. ‘I see. So what do you want of me, Prince Peregrine of the Stormlinn?’
Peregrine took a deep breath. ‘I want to raise high the spear of thunder and smite the throne of stars asunder! Your wife promised the Storm King that, if he saved the life of you and your son, you would rise for his descendants in the hour of our greatest need. Well, we need you now! My parents are held captive, the crown is in the hands of a vicious tyrant, our castle is ransacked, our people are kept in slavery. And I need you to help me learn to use the power of the spear. As you can see, my squire is dying. I need to save him!’