‘You said not to break the circle,’ Aren told her, his jaw tight as he glared at Garric. ‘Under any circumstances.’
Vika crumpled with a howl of despair, throwing herself down on her face. Then, slowly, her howl became a malicious croon, and then broke into cackles. Ruck barked at her from the corner where she hid.
Garric turned his head and gave Aren a cool stare down the length of his sword. Aren stepped back, his cheeks flushing, and allowed Cade to draw him away. He was horrified by how close he’d come to being duped, and he loathed Garric for being right.
Vika threw her head back and leered, blood and spittle drooling from her lower lip. ‘You have chosen your champion well!’ she said, addressing the voice they couldn’t hear. ‘I accept your bargain, druidess! In exchange for one of you, I will let the others go free.’ She thrust out a finger. ‘Him!’
‘Grub?’ asked Grub, pointing towards himself. He was still half-hidden behind the bookcase.
‘Give him to me, and the rest of you will leave Skavengard alive.’
Garric turned that passionless, calculating gaze onto Grub. Aren opened his mouth to protest on the Skarl’s behalf, but shame kept him silent. He’d humiliated himself once already. He’d see what Garric said first. Let the Hollow Man throw Grub to the wolf, let the others see what kind of man he was. Only then would he step in and stop it, if he could.
Grub drew his knife, his teeth bared. ‘Try it. Grub not planning to see the Bone God yet,’ he said.
‘Garric …’ Osman said, a warning in his voice.
Garric held up a hand to silence him. ‘Vika offered you that bargain?’ he asked the beast in the circle.
‘Yes! The life of a worthless criminal in exchange for safe passage! Either he dies, or you all do.’
Garric thought that over for a few moments longer, but when he spoke, it sounded like his decision had never been in doubt. ‘You lie, demon. She’d never make such a bargain.’
‘Who are you to speak for her?’ she cried. ‘What do you know?’
‘I am her champion,’ said Garric. ‘And I know enough not to trust you.’
Her face twisted angrily. ‘Skarls have no love for anyone but their own kind! He’d betray you in a heartbeat!’
‘Aye, perhaps,’ said Garric. ‘But there’s been too much betrayal in this land already. I won’t add to it.’
Aren stared at Garric in surprise. It was no bluff; Aren would have seen through that. He was entirely unintimidated. He was speaking with a creature of the Abyss and he wasn’t afraid. It was a kind of bravery he’d never witnessed before.
‘Now I have a deal for you, demon,’ said Garric. ‘Take your parlour tricks and sorry deceptions, and fly back to whatever hole you lurk in. You will have none of us, this night or any other.’
Vika snarled; the beast roared and crashed against the doors. Together, they screamed as it was thrown back.
‘You’re a prisoner here!’ Garric barked. ‘Trapped inside these walls, hiding from the sun. Caught by man’s magic! Why should I fear you?’
Aren jumped in alarm as the doors were pounded again, screeching as their hinges bent. Vika shrieked, clawing at her cheeks with her nails, hard enough to draw bloody scratches. What’s he doing? Does he want that thing to break in?
‘We are leaving Skavengard!’ Now Garric’s voice had risen to a shout. ‘And you cannot stop us! You will remain here alone, and forlorn, bubbling in your own damned misery until the end of time!’
The beast roared again, a howl of anger and anguish loud enough to make them cringe. It smashed against the doors with such force that they almost fell inwards. Vika lunged at Garric with a scream, her painted face a rictus of hate, nails clawing at his eyes.
As she crossed the circle of wards, there was a sound like the cracking of bones, and Aren felt a blow that seemed to come from inside his skull. The others felt it, too, flinching and staggering from the invisible force. Vika went instantly limp and collapsed against Garric; he stumbled backwards and barely held her. Then they heard a squeal from beyond the doors, the thrashing, slopping sound of the beast flailing away up the stairs, and it was gone.
Aren blinked, his head throbbing. Vika stirred in Garric’s arms and opened her eyes. He steadied her while she found her balance. Her eyes were clear, and somehow Aren knew she was herself again.
He beat it, thought Aren, awed. He faced it down and beat it. I’ve never seen anything like it.
‘Is it gone?’ Garric asked Vika.
‘For tonight,’ said Vika. She spat to clear her mouth. ‘But it will be back.’
‘Those doors will not withstand another assault,’ said Keel.
‘Then all is lost,’ said Osman. ‘We are no closer to escape than we were yesterday.’
‘No,’ said Vika. ‘For as the beast saw into my mind, so I saw into the beast’s. And it showed me more than it wanted to.’ She took her staff from Garric and drew herself up to her full height with a red grin. ‘I know the way out.’
42
The hour before dawn found Aren huddled in his blanket, his eyes shadowed in the moonlight. Despite the horror they’d witnessed, exhaustion had taken the others, who hadn’t slept the previous night. They lay bundled in their cloaks, silver in the gloom. Cade snored next to him. Keel cried out softly and pawed at some unseen thing in front of his face. Vika lay on her front, one hand twitching and blood still on her lips, looking like the fallen wounded.
Garric slept on his side with his cloak over his head. Aren watched his shoulder rise and fall with each breath and wondered who he really was, this grizzled old warrior his father called the Hollow Man. Worn out and scared, his feelings had become confused. Garric was his father’s enemy, that much was true; but Aren admired him, damn it, he admired him for how he’d dealt with the beast. He was grim and sullen and foul-tempered, but he’d rescued Aren at terrible cost to fulfil a promise made to someone he loathed. Other men might have ducked that obligation, but not him. That spoke of honour, more honour than most had. Not only that, but he’d fought at Salt Fork, and he planned to steal the Ember Blade from the Krodans.
Garric was brave, then. Toweringly, fiercely brave. A man that could goad a servant of the Outsiders into attacking him across a circle of wards in order to drive it out of Vika’s body. It was harder to hate him, knowing that.
But then he remembered the bruise on Cade’s face, the scornful dismissal in his eyes after Aren was almost tricked into breaking the circle. He remembered how Garric had laid the blame for his companions’ deaths at his feet, the disgust and scorn he’d greeted Aren with at every turn, and his admiration turned to anger and humiliation again. Why would he care for the approval of such a man?
And still I don’t know who my father really was. Or who Garric was to him.
Well, Aren was sick and weak no longer, and he wasn’t afraid of Garric any more. If Garric planned to offload him at the first town they came to, then that was fine with Aren. But before that day came, he’d have his answers. He swore it to himself. As soon as they were out of Skavengard, he’d demand them.
His eyes skipped to Fen, who lay with her face half-concealed by her hood. They lingered on her mouth, her lips slightly parted, her breath sighing between. The sight of her asleep made him feel protective, though she was obviously better able to take care of herself than he was. The contradiction didn’t bother him. It made him feel good to imagine she needed him.
Don’t get close to them, he reminded himself. It’ll only hurt the worse when you leave them behind.
And yet he watched her sleep anyway, for a long time there in the twilight.
Ruck stirred as morning was approaching and barked to wake her mistress. Vika struggled to her feet and then flopped down on her arse, looking bewildered. She moved her jaw from side to side, snorted and began to mumble gibberish to herself.
While the others roused themselves, Vika went between them, offering each a sip from a phial. She walked in an ungainly lope and chewe
d the inside of her cheek. Her gaze skated about like a woman deranged.
‘Just a sip. Keep you walking, hah! We won’t stop. Won’t rest. Eat on the move.’ One side of her face twitched. ‘Leave Skavengard by sunset, or we’ll all be dead.’
The others exchanged doubtful glances. This new behaviour unsettled them. Tangling with the beast had bruised her sanity and battered her body, though how badly and how deep remained to be seen.
‘Well, how long can it take, now that Vika knows the route?’ Aren said. The concoction had energised him; he felt a surge of irrepressible optimism. ‘Skavengard is not so large that it can’t be crossed in a day, and we’re halfway there already.’ He met Vika’s gaze firmly. ‘This place will not be our end.’
Osman let out a laugh. ‘Ha! Friend, you have a lion’s heart!’
‘Grub wrestled a lion once,’ said Grub, but was generally ignored.
‘Let’s all take a little of this lad’s courage,’ Osman carried on, as if Grub hadn’t spoken. ‘Vika has given us a chance! Onward, then!’
They set off at a jog as soon as dawn broke. The druidess led them, shambling rapidly ahead, her staff clicking on the flagstones. There was something wild and disordered in the way she moved, all rolling hips and jutting elbows, like an ineptly handled marionette. Her chin scabbed with dried blood and her hair a greasy tangle, she gabbled and cackled quietly in Stonespeak, in conversation with herself. Occasionally she stopped at a junction while the two voices debated, back and forth. Ruck ran tight circles around her, or gnawed restlessly at a spot on her leg which was becoming raw and bloody.
They didn’t retrace their steps but struck out on a new path. Aren felt a strong and immediate sense that this was a bad decision, that they were heading the wrong way, perhaps even back towards the first island. When he mentioned it to Cade, Cade said he thought exactly the same. In fact, he was sure of it.
‘Ain’t that strange? I don’t even know which way is up in this place, but I’m certain this direction’s wrong.’
‘It is strange,’ Aren said. ‘Why do we both feel that?’
Because someone or something wants us to feel that way.
Cade had the same idea at the same time. They exchanged a look, then Cade glanced at Vika, up ahead.
‘Might be she knows what she’s doing after all,’ he said.
They couldn’t suppress the feeling of wrongness, but they could stop themselves acting on it. They shut their mouths and hurried on.
‘The beast knows these halls well,’ Vika told them. ‘For a thousand years it has roamed here, hah! From its memory, I took a map!’ She tapped the side of her head with one crooked finger. ‘Now it’s in here.’ She sucked her teeth and looked uncertain. ‘Mostly, anyway … Sometimes …’
She trailed off and her eyes went distant.
‘So you have a route out?’ Osman prompted.
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘To the last bridge, anyway. The beast’s never been beyond that. Something there stops it, something bright as the sun.’ She squinted as if dazzled, then dashed away the memory. ‘Fah! This way!’
Later, they passed through a room with an enormous circular pit in the centre. Stairs spiralled down the edge of the pit, leading to a flooded cave far below. Here Vika stopped and drew her knife.
‘I need a volunteer,’ she announced.
‘Reckon you can count me out already,’ said Cade, eyeing the blade in her hand.
‘Perhaps if you told us what we’d be volunteering for?’ Osman suggested.
‘Ah. Hmm.’ She chewed her cheek again. ‘To bleed you, that’s what I want. Can’t use mine. Too fouled with poison. That’s why it didn’t look too hard for Polla, mmm? Smelled her, didn’t like the smell. Even servants of the Abyss can be choosy!’ She cackled. ‘It’s our blood it smells,’ she said, suddenly weary, like a schoolmistress teaching dunces.
‘And you want to give our blood to it?’ Osman was as worried as he was confused.
‘Splash some here, splash splash. Leave it in a bowl like milk for the cat. Smells stronger on the outside, eh? Beast will come find it first.’ Her eye twitched in what might have been a wink. ‘We go different way. Slow it down a bit. Elsewise, beast come straight for us at sunset … snap!’ She lunged towards Garric, fingers and thumb making a crocodile mouth, and snapped it shut in front of his face. He didn’t flinch.
‘Take some of mine,’ he pulled back his sleeve.
‘Just a splash!’ Vika chuckled, raising her knife.
It soon became clear that Vika’s route wasn’t as direct as they’d imagined, nor was her memory as sound as they’d hoped. They diverted and detoured. Occasionally Vika threw up her hands and admitted she’d led them astray, and they were forced to backtrack. The first time, it was an easily forgivable error. By the third, doubts were creeping back in, and Aren saw the others exchanging glances. Were they being played for fools by a demon and a madwoman? Was that why this path felt so wrong?
Aren began to fear they’d lose their faith in the druidess entirely and take the direction they felt was right. It would seem sensible, but it would doom them all. It was Skavengard’s will that swayed them – and that was his proof they were on the right path.
He hurried up alongside Vika. ‘Can you make a small detour?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Take us outside. Just for a few moments.’
Vika squinted at him strangely.
‘We can lay some more blood there,’ Aren suggested. ‘Another trick to throw the beast off our trail.’
She consulted with herself in Stonespeak, then abruptly switched direction.
They were not far from the outer walls, and soon they emerged through a doorway onto the upper tier of a semicircular amphitheatre. Stone benches surrounded a stage which projected out high over the lake. The sky was grey with cloud rolling in from the west and the valley walls were close and forbidding, but from here it was possible to see the edge of the third island, bulging to their left. After spending most of the morning in the bewildering thoroughfares of the interior, it was a surprise to get a sense of where they were again.
‘We’re most of the way across the island already!’ Aren said, almost as soon as they emerged. ‘Skavengard can try to stop us, but it can’t stop Vika!’
Osman was cheered by that. ‘He’s right! At this rate, we’ll soon be there!’ Grub grinned, and Fen stood up a little straighter. Only Garric gazed at him narrowly.
He knows what I’m doing, Aren thought. They’re loyal to him, they admire his strength. But he doesn’t know a thing about people. People need to believe.
He looked up at the bright smear of cloud-hidden sun and fear touched his heart. Despite his words of encouragement, it was later than he’d imagined.
Vika ambled up to him and held out her knife. ‘Did what you said,’ she muttered. ‘Blood, please.’
The rain began soon after, and it came down hard. The empty quiet of Skavengard was filled with a steady hiss and the corridors became dim as twilight. Water dripped through cracks, spattered down stone gutters and blew in through windows to speckle the sills and floors.
Midday came and went, and they didn’t stop. Vika’s brew kept fatigue at bay, though they’d travelled for many hours. Fen doled out their rations and said they’d go hungry if they dallied here much longer. There were grim smiles at that. If they had to spend another night in Skavengard, hunger would be the least of their worries.
Keel didn’t smile with the others. His eyes were nearly healed now, but his face was drawn and haunted, and he said little.
Presently they came upon a chamber where the roof had collapsed and smashed through the floor, so that the doorway opened to a sheer drop through the cavernous hall below onto a bed of rubble and timber. The outer wall had fallen away and grey sheets of rain blew in, setting the stone glistening.
‘Well,’ said Cade, surveying the hole, ‘we ain’t getting past that.’
Grub leaned out, hawked and spat. A blob of phleg
m pendulumed from his lip, stretched and snapped. He watched it fall with close interest, then straightened up and sniffed, as if he’d proved something to himself and was well satisfied.
‘What? What exactly did you learn just then?’ Cade asked, irritated by his theatrics.
Grub didn’t deign to answer, but swept off up the corridor instead.
‘Not supposed to be like this,’ Vika mumbled to herself. ‘Must’ve happened recently, yes. Hmm. That’s why the beast doesn’t know it.’
‘Let’s go around, then,’ said Garric. When Vika made no reply, he said: ‘You know the way around, don’t you?’
Vika frowned. ‘Some of it … Hazy … Fading like a dream, I think …’
‘I’d take that as a no,’ Cade advised morosely.
‘I have rope,’ Osman suggested. ‘We could lower ourselves down to the rubble? The exits may be blocked but we could climb up the other side?’
‘There’s an overhanging ledge on the far side,’ Fen pointed out. ‘Nobody could get up that.’
‘Then let’s backtrack.’ Osman was fighting to stay optimistic.
‘We’ll get lost!’ snapped Keel. ‘This accursed place will turn us about till we don’t know where we are!’ He rounded angrily on Vika. ‘You said you knew the way!’
‘I do,’ said Vika. She pointed across the chasm. ‘It’s that way.’
‘Grub has an idea.’ The Skarl was leaning out of an arched window at the end of the corridor. He looked over his shoulder and grinned at them. ‘Who likes to climb?’
43
Grub’s idea was for them to take a precarious route along the outer wall of Skavengard, where dozens of dwellings and galleries blistered out over the lake. He led them down a weathered stone gutter pipe to the flat roof of a jutting building, then over a jumble of other roofs, some sloped and treacherous, some busy with statuary. To their right, far below, waited the weed-patched waters, restless with raindrops.
At first, the way was easy enough. Going from roof to roof carried little threat of falling, except where they were slanted and slippery, and the gaps between them were close enough to step across. But soon the roofs came to an end, with no windows to let them back inside, and the only buildings were far above. Before them was a bare expanse of brick, with nothing beneath but the cliffs and a long drop to the lake.
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