Grub and Garric went to the lip of the rooftop to examine the way ahead. ‘I suppose we go back, then,’ said Fen, before they’d even got there. Aren wondered at the nervous haste in her voice.
Grub ignored her. ‘Grub can see a window. Take us back inside, past room with broken floor.’ He pointed one thick finger downwards. ‘Look. Ledge there, follows wall, passes below window. Grub can climb up to window, drop rope. You all climb after.’
Fen and Aren came up alongside and looked over. ‘That’s not a ledge!’ Fen cried. ‘It’s barely big enough to stand on!’
That was an exaggeration. It was an ornamental shelf, still marked with fragments of scrollwork along its edge, and it would have been wide enough to walk along comfortably if it had been lying on the ground. But this high up, it seemed awfully narrow.
Keel joined Garric as he studied the ledge. ‘I’ll not go back, Garric,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll take my chances with the water. And I know you were never one for turning back, either.’
‘No,’ said Garric. ‘No, I never was.’ He straightened. ‘The Skarl is right. We’ll climb.’
Aren watched Fen’s face turn ashen. He looked away before she could notice him.
The ledge was only a dozen feet below the level of the roof and could be reached by climbing down the guttering. Grub went first, a rope coiled over his shoulder. He stepped onto the ledge and loped along it, heedless of the drop. When he got to the spot beneath the window, he climbed up again, scaling the wall with steady confidence until he disappeared through the window.
‘By the depths, do all Skarls climb so well?’ Keel asked.
Garric was watching the window, his face thoughtful. ‘Aye, he made that look easy, didn’t he?’
‘Bet you’re glad you didn’t leave us behind after all,’ Cade piped up. ‘Not so much baggage now, are we?’
‘Shut your mouth, boy.’
A rope sailed through the window, uncurling in the air to slap against the ledge. A moment later, Grub’s head poked out and he beckoned to them.
‘Come on, then!’
One by one they followed him onto the ledge. Vika went first, and Ruck was handed down to her. At the other side, the hound was tied into a blanket sling and hauled up with some difficulty, and a lot of snarling and bumping. Keel went after, then Osman. They moved nervously, pressing close to the wall, rain-soaked and awkward with their packs and weapons hampering them. Aren watched as they inched along, fearing to see them fall at any moment. But they didn’t fall, and when they reached the rope they climbed it with ease, their muscles lent strength by Vika’s empowering brew.
‘I’ll go next,’ said Cade. ‘Waiting’s worse.’
Aren was twice as tense watching Cade go, even though they’d climbed rocks and cliffs all their lives. Cade took a moment to steady himself on the ledge, then side-footed carefully along until he reached the rope.
‘Ain’t as bad as it looks!’ he called back to Aren. He took hold of the rope and climbed up to the others.
Garric went next, and he showed no fear; but when he was halfway along, a small section of the ledge broke off beneath his boot. Fen gasped as he threw his weight forwards and crashed up against the wall, gripping it tight. His dangling foot found a place on the ledge again and he continued on, slower than before. It was only when he reached the rope that Aren let out the breath he’d been holding.
‘Have a care! The ledge is weak!’ Garric shouted back to them. Then he climbed up in his turn.
Fen blanched even whiter at that and looked like she was going to be ill. ‘You go,’ she told Aren.
‘No, you go next,’ he told her. For he saw her fear, and he knew she might not set foot on that ledge at all if there was no one there to make her.
‘I’ll come after you,’ she said, too casual.
‘No, you won’t,’ he said. ‘You’ll go back and try to find another way round. You’ll get lost, and the sun will go down, and you’ll die.’
She looked like a trapped animal. If she could have, she might have run. He’d stayed till last to make sure she didn’t.
‘I’ll be right behind you,’ he told her, and his tone left no room for argument. Either she had to admit she was frightened out of her wits, or take the plunge. In the end, the ledge was the least terrible option.
Aren offered a hand. ‘I’ll lower you down to the ledge.’
‘You will not,’ she snapped, giving him a hot glare. ‘I’ll climb down on my own.’
Aren stepped back, raising his hands. ‘Whatever you want.’
She looked over the side of the roof, her breathing fast. She swallowed to wet a dry throat.
‘You won’t fall,’ he said, his voice calm. ‘The ledge is wide enough, and it’s only water at the bottom.’
‘I don’t need your help,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Stop talking.’
She climbed gingerly over the side, and Aren went to the lip of the roof to watch her descend. It was slow going, even for such a short way. Every new handhold and foothold took a gathering of courage, a jerky lunge, a few moments of recovery. But she got one foot on the ledge, then the other, and clung to the wall as if magnetised.
‘Freckles! What taking so long? You be here by sunset?’ Grub called from the window.
Aren closed his eyes in exasperation and Fen muttered something foul, but her anger got her moving again. Inch by agonising inch, she shuffled out along the rainswept ledge, her cheek to the stone.
Now it was Aren’s turn, and when it came to it, he felt little of the calm he’d shown to Fen. As he climbed out over the edge, his mind was filled with visions of a fall: the slip, the tumble, the wind rushing past his ears as he screamed. It’s only water at the bottom, he’d told her; but it was far enough that the impact might break an arm or a rib, leaving him unable to swim, flailing helplessly as he was dragged under by his sodden clothes. Or perhaps he’d survive and swim away uninjured, with a choice between taking on Skavengard again – alone – or returning to the gate to face the dreadknights. And if they weren’t waiting there to kill him, then the mountains were: he’d likely freeze or starve before he found help.
So don’t fall, he told himself. Just don’t fall.
He stepped onto the ledge and shuffled along after Fen. His hands were wet and cold from the rain and the wind pulled at his pack, trying to turn him away from the wall. The stone felt unsteady beneath his boots, as if trying to break beneath his weight. He told himself it was his imagination.
If he took tiny steps, he wouldn’t trip. And if he didn’t trip, he wouldn’t tumble. The ledge was wide, he told himself. Wide enough.
If it held.
Ahead of him, Fen had stopped moving. She’d reached the point where the ledge had broken under Garric. It was a gap scarcely wider than Aren’s forearm was long, but it brought her to a halt. He shuffled up alongside and found her panting with fright.
‘You just have to step over it, Fen,’ he said gently. ‘It’s not far.’
She shook her head mutely.
‘You can do it,’ he told her. ‘And since you can’t stay here, you really have to.’ Then a thought occurred to him. ‘Remember the night we met? You ran across a rope bridge then. A rickety old rope bridge, across a chasm, in a storm.’
‘There were dreadknights behind us then,’ she said. ‘It was different. Ropes to hold on to.’
‘It wasn’t different,’ he said. ‘You could do it then, you can do it now. You need me to put on a scary helmet and wave a sword to get you on your way?’
She snorted half a laugh, surprised by the joke. Then a gust of wind threw rain against them, and she closed her eyes and whimpered and pressed herself closer to the wall.
‘Fen,’ said Aren. ‘Look at me.’
She met his eyes, and for the first time Aren noticed hers were green.
‘I’m going to take hold of your pack,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t tip back. You step over the gap.’
‘No!’ she said
, as if the very idea alarmed her. Then she relaxed a fraction. ‘No, I’ll do it myself. Just … stay there.’
Aren nodded. She steeled herself and stepped over the gap so hastily and clumsily that she almost overbalanced and had to grab on to the wall again.
‘That’s it,’ said Aren. ‘Worst is over.’
She shuffled on, towards the rope. Aren stepped over the gap with care. As he did, he caught a glimpse of the drop to the water below and his stomach turned.
‘Come on, Aren!’ Cade called down from the window. ‘This ain’t nothing to Shuck’s Cliff over the Wreake!’
The memory brought a little smile to Aren’s face. A sunny day, two boys daring each other to foolish risks. A terrifying climb and the triumph at the top. To fall from Shuck’s Cliff would have been lethal, but they were boys, and death happened to other people. It didn’t happen then. It wouldn’t happen now.
He took a breath, flexed his freezing hands and got moving again.
A slow agony of time went by, marked by the sound of thumping hearts and scraping boots. Fen reached the rope first, but when Aren arrived alongside her, she was still looking up at the window where Garric and Keel waited.
‘Go on,’ said Aren. ‘Nearly there.’
Fen ran her hands over the wall in front of her, tested it with her fingertips. The years had roughened it till there were deep trenches in the mortar. ‘Think I’ll climb,’ she said.
‘Take the rope,’ said Aren. ‘It’s easier.’
She gave a small shake of her head. ‘Grub climbed the wall,’ she said.
‘Of course he climbed it: he’s half spider. But it’s simpler to take the—’
‘I want to climb!’ she snapped. She found a handhold, dug the toe of her boot in a crack between the stones and lifted herself off the ledge and up.
‘What are you doing, Fen? Take the rope!’ Garric called. She ignored him, as she ignored the rope dangling next to her.
Aren followed her progress upwards, perplexed. He’d thought she was simply terrified of heights, but it was something more complicated than that. She was afraid to fall, but more afraid to take the rope she could climb to safety.
What happened to you? he thought.
There was a loud crack, a jolt through his legs, and the ledge broke off beneath his feet. He fell backwards with a cry, the void yawning to receive him, iron-hard water waiting below.
Instinct took over. His flailing hand found the rope and clamped on.
He swung out along the wall, tipping and turning wildly, hanging on with all his strength. Only his desperate grip kept him from the fall. He banged against the stone but hardly felt the pain; it gave him the chance to slap his other hand onto the rope. He held tight as he was dragged along the wall on the backswing, tearing his coat at shoulder and elbow, until he finally scraped to a stop.
‘Aren!’
It was Garric, his voice deep, damaged, commanding. The sound of it brought him back from panic. It might have been the first time the Hollow Man had called him by name since the moment they met. Above him and to the right, Fen still clung to the wall; above her, Garric and Cade stared down at him from the window, Cade afraid, Garric stony.
‘Aren,’ Garric said again, now he had his attention. ‘I’ve not brought you this far to see you die now. Climb the bloody rope.’
Aren let out a shuddering breath, dug his toes into the wall and stabilised himself. He still felt strong, thanks to Vika’s brew. There was no danger of his muscles betraying him. He had the rope. He wouldn’t fall.
But there was Fen, flat against the wall, her ponytail a wet draggle. The rope hung near her shoulder, within easy reach, but she was paralysed. And though he wanted a solid floor under his feet more than anything in the world right now, he wouldn’t climb past and leave her there.
‘Fen!’ he called.
She didn’t reply.
‘Fen, you have to take the rope.’
Her throat moved as she swallowed. The slightest shift in her gaze showed she’d heard him.
‘Fen. Think of all that’s ahead of you. Think of all the things you’ll do. On the other side of this, there’s a lifetime waiting. You just have to beat this moment. A little bit more, that’s all. It’ll be over before you know it. Take the rope.’
A flicker of her eyelids. Slowly, she moved her arm. Took another handhold on the wall. Pulled herself up. Found another, and another. She climbed, spurning the rope, spurning Garric’s hand reaching down from the window. She climbed to the sill, and they stood back as she pulled herself over and disappeared inside.
Cade stuck his head out again. ‘Joha’s sake, Aren! Are you gonna climb the damned rope?’
Aren climbed to the window, where Garric and Cade helped him in. Standing there dripping among them, he could have cried with relief. Instead his eyes found Fen, who was adjusting her bow and her pack.
‘I knew you could do it,’ he said.
She gave him a look of pure hate and spat on the floor.
‘There’s gratitude!’ said Cade, baffled. Aren was stung, but did his best not to show it.
‘Grub think he deserve a little gratitude, too,’ Grub said sulkily.
‘Well, you have mine,’ said Osman. He put a hand on Grub’s shoulder – Grub jumped at his touch – and addressed the others. ‘Skarl or not, this man’s shown his worth, I say. We would have been lost without Grub.’
‘That’s so,’ said Keel. ‘You have my thanks, too.’
‘Aye, and mine,’ said Garric, grudgingly.
Grub beamed, eager as a praised puppy. ‘No need for thanks! Grub happy to help!’
‘We should go,’ said Vika. ‘The days burn fast in Skavengard.’ She pointed confidently with the tip of her staff. ‘That way.’
44
By late afternoon they’d reached the bridge between the second island and the third. They barely slowed as they crossed it, but Cade gave a whoop of joy as they stepped off the other side, and a ripple of relieved laughter passed through the group. It began to feel as though they’d broken the back of Skavengard. However it tried to turn them, Vika was equal to it. All they had to do was have faith.
They began to talk of cool, clear mountain streams and making camp beneath the stars, as if the Ostenbergs were a gentle meadow instead of a barren and treacherous wasteland. Even Keel cracked a joke or two, and that lifted them all. He’d been a different person since he laid eyes on the beast, and this was the first sign of the man they knew before. His recovery, small as it was, diminished the threat of sunset.
But though they went swift and sure across the third island, darkness was catching them fast; and Skavengard wasn’t done with them yet.
‘We are close,’ said Vika as she led them through an abandoned shrine. Faded murals depicted Azra the Despoiler, Vaspis the Malcontent and Prinn the Ragged Mummer. They represented strength, cunning, art, but also war, discontent and deceit. Aren wondered which the worshippers had prayed for.
‘Not close enough yet,’ said Garric.
‘We have been delayed and the hour has run away from us,’ Vika said, ‘but we will be there before nightfall if the way holds true.’
‘Then let us hope it does,’ said Osman, glancing out of a window.
The rain had stopped, leaving the castle dank and dripping. The sun glared red between the ceiling of cloud and the mountain tops, bathing them in eerie light. It would be a near thing, to reach the bridge in time, but they were already going as fast as Vika could manage, and they could hardly leave her behind.
They emerged from the shrine into a tall, narrow chamber with three galleries running round its walls, decorated with grotesques. It might once have been a magnificent library, but there were no shelves now, nor books, only cool white walls and echoes. As they entered, a whisper of displaced air made Aren look up, and to his surprise he saw something falling. Falling fast towards him.
Suddenly he was shoved aside, and he went skidding and rolling along the flagstones as somethin
g smashed on the spot where he’d been standing. He raised himself on his elbows, shocked, and the shattered snarling face of a gargoyle glared at him. It had toppled from the gallery overhead.
It was Garric that had pushed him. Garric who’d saved his life again.
Garric drew his blade, eyes searching the galleries as he backed into the room to get a better view. The others took their cue from him, pulling out blades and bows.
‘That was no accident,’ he growled. ‘Show yourself!’
Aren let Cade pull him to his feet, scanning the gloomy heights of the chamber as he rose. Were there people moving about up there? It was hard to tell.
The doors at either end of the chamber slammed shut.
‘Who’s there?’ Garric demanded.
Grub tugged on the door they’d just come through, to no avail. ‘Grub doesn’t see a lock,’ he said. ‘But door stay shut.’
Now there was definite movement in the galleries overhead, but somehow whoever was up there remained elusive in the dim light. Cade tugged hard at Aren’s sleeve.
‘What is it?’ he hissed in irritation, still trying to catch sight of the figures in the galleries. Then he saw the look on Cade’s face and realised it was serious.
Cade pointed to one side of the library, where sunlight slanted through a row of tall, narrow arches to fall against the wall. Their shadows were cast there in stark black against the smooth white stone. Their shadows, and other shadows besides.
‘They’re here,’ said Cade in a terrified whisper.
Aren was sorry he’d ever doubted his friend now. The shadows were just as he’d described, slender courtly people in strange robes. But these people were not dancing or gossiping or sipping drinks. They rose into sight at either end of the hall as if they’d been crouched in wait just below the range of the light. They had long, thin knives in their hands, and as they flowed silently towards the intruders’ silhouettes, there was murder in their movements.
The Ember Blade Page 36