by Kim Wilkins
They were both panting when they crested the ridge and looked down across the island. More rocks and grass, a few hardy trees bent nearly sideways by the wind, and a distant escarpment dotted with caves. Below it, what looked like a lake fed by the sea. Marshy land, riven with wet furrows, led off from it towards a passage between rocky bluffs, which were pale grey, shot through with red-brown. Bluebell wondered what mineral this was. She had not seen these colours in Thyrsland.
‘Do giants live in caves?’ Frida asked.
Bluebell shrugged. ‘Our knowledge of giants is evenly matched. We both know they are big. That’s all.’
‘How big?’
‘I hope they are twenty feet tall.’
‘Could something – somebody twenty feet tall fit in those caves?’
‘Perhaps they are only nineteen-and-a-half feet tall.’ Bluebell began to pick her way down the other side of the ridge. Small stones slid from under her feet, and she half-climbed, half-skated to the bottom. Frida came down after her, much lighter on her feet.
They walked on, as the sun rose behind. The marshes glittered. Bluebell led them around the lake on the southern side, because it was impossible to tell how damp and deep the marshland might be. The tough grass scratched at their trouser legs, and Bluebell began to regret not bringing Hyld. She would have loved the long grass to run in and the salty marsh to swim in.
At length, they came to the escarpment. Some of the caves were high, impossible to ascend to. But the lowest was easiest to access by a gentle slope with rocks almost even enough to be stairs. In fact … Bluebell considered them. Were they stairs? If they had been placed here, then by whom? Her heart quickened a little.
‘Do these look like a natural formation to you?’ Bluebell asked Frida.
Frida considered, then said, ‘It’s hard to tell. Everything here seems to have fallen into patterns. Even the lake … it’s almost perfectly round.’
Bluebell looked over her shoulder and noticed that Frida was right.
‘Let us go and see what is up there,’ Bluebell said. ‘Perhaps we are closer to answers than we think.’
Bluebell put her hand on the pommel of her sword and headed up. The stairs – if that was what they were – ended on a narrow ledge at the lip of the cave. She leaned against the cave’s threshold and looked in, waiting for her eyes to adjust. So far she could only see rocks and a collection of large pale stones.
Frida joined her. They took two steps inside.
Then Frida said, ‘Are they?’
Bluebell had seen many dead things in her life, but she had not expected to see a pile of skulls where she thought there were only stones. The shock jolted her, and a tickle of cold ran up her spine.
‘Only skulls?’ she said. ‘No spines and ribs and other bones?’
‘Perhaps they are further inside.’ Frida gestured ahead, and Bluebell could see now there was a black gap in the darkness. A doorway to another chamber of the cave.
‘We are not going in there. Not without the others,’ Bluebell said, backing out, her whole body tensed against the possibility that whatever killed these people and stacked their skulls might be listening to them from within the cave, and planning to emerge.
Outside in the light again, she and Frida clambered down the stairs and away from the cave. They found themselves at the edge of the lake. Frida sat on a large rock and Bluebell stood beside her, both of them with their eyes on the escarpment.
‘I wonder if every cave is full of bones,’ Frida said.
‘Who do those skulls belong to?’
‘There were the second sons. In the old story.’
‘Eight of them, not two dozen. Unless they had three heads each. And that was fifty years ago. Surely there’d be nothing left of them by now.’
‘It depends upon the soil and the weather. Some bones last for hundreds of years. That’s what my father said, and nobody knows soil and weather like a farmer.’
Maybe Frida was right. Maybe they had found the second sons, and maybe there had been more than the stories told. At least one of them had survived, though, to stack those skulls so neatly, to remove the other bones elsewhere. Or maybe other adventurers, like Bluebell, had come looking for giants and this had been their fate. The giants were so woven into the history of Thyrsland, especially Blicstowe, that Bluebell hadn’t even entertained the idea that they might be hostile. Neutral, she was prepared for. Friendly and helpful, she hoped for. But hostile …
Frida had turned and was looking curiously at the edge of the lake.
‘What is it?’ Bluebell asked.
‘This plant. It’s growing before my eyes.’
Bluebell approached, peering over Frida’s shoulder. A tendril of weed of some kind was indeed growing out of the water, an inch every five seconds, as though searching in the air for something.
‘Frida, get back,’ Bluebell said, at precisely the same moment the tendril shot out fully, revealing itself to be a thin, muscular tentacle, and wrapped around Frida’s feet.
Frida yelped. Bluebell went for her sword, but too late. With a splash, Frida disappeared into the water.
Without a moment of hesitation, Bluebell withdrew the knife from her boot and dived in.
Murky. Light moving through weed. Something large, an underwater structure, caught her eye. Bluebell swam down. A square hut made loosely of driftwood and seaweed, barnacled and blooming with algae. Here, too, Bluebell got her first good look at what had captured her thane.
It was human shaped … mostly. Shoulders, torso, neck. But its head was long and misshapen, its eyes bulbous, slitted nostrils and a lipless mouth. Instead of legs, it had a muscular tail, like a porpoise or seal. Instead of arms, it had two sets of curling tentacles, from which Frida fought desperately to be free, as the creature tried to drag her into the seaweed house.
Bluebell lashed out with the knife, gashing the tentacles that held Frida. Blood smoked into the water. Another of the tendrils snapped out and tried to seize Bluebell’s knife. Its strength surprised her, and the knife’s handle began to slip from her grasp. Wildly, the muscles in her forearm bunching, she dragged the knife towards the creature’s head, stabbing it in its face. The tentacles all contracted, the knife went spinning to the bottom of the lake, and Frida shot upwards. Bluebell was a heartbeat behind her. Both surfaced, gasping.
Bluebell felt a tentacle around her foot and kicked away desperately. She took another huge breath, then was yanked under. Other tendrils curled up, seeking to immobilise her limbs. Bluebell drew her sword and held it above her head, out of reach of the creature, feeling the tentacles snake around her waist and chest, squeezing on her ribs as though to drive the air out of her lungs. Frida was there, pulling at the tentacles, trying to brace her feet against the creature’s tail but being flicked off. Then Frida felt at her waist for a knife, but the creature grasped one of her hands.
It had both of them now, dragging them towards its hut, and nobody else knew where they were.
Bluebell needed to get behind the creature, which was trying to roll her up in its tentacles. She fought hard, managed to get her other hand free and raised it to grasp the point of her sword. Sharp. Blood.
She held the sword by both ends, then pushed it down through the water.
The creature jerked her this way and that, shaking the weapon in her hands. Frida had found her knife, and slashed out at the coil around Bluebell. The creature withdrew enough of its tendrils for Bluebell to shift her weight, propel herself around behind it.
The creature tried to haul her back. Her lungs were bursting and she had less than a moment before she was once again wrapped in its fatal embrace.
She braced her knees against the creature’s back, forced her sword down in front of its throat. Then, one hand on each end again, she heaved it back through the heavy water. Frida had swum to the surface for another breath. The blade connected with the creature’s skin, and Bluebell began to saw. The water bubbled black with blood. Frida returned and cut
against Bluebell’s bonds with her knife. The creature began to lose its grip. Bluebell struggled and kicked against it; Frida tugged at the tentacles.
Then Bluebell felt herself come free, and she swiftly gathered her sword and swam up through the dank, bloody water, Frida at her heels. She broke the surface. The air that rushed into her lungs tore her throat. Gasping, soaked, smeared with blood, she pulled herself up on the rock. Frida landed beside her a moment later, and lay on her back panting. The wind ran over them, making Bluebell’s wet skin rise in gooseflesh.
Bluebell struggled to sit up. Her ribs ached violently. ‘We’d better move,’ she said. ‘We don’t know if it had a family in its seaweed house.’
They rose, leaning on each other in breathless exhaustion, and made their way back to the camp.
Ash and Sal were late returning. They had found nothing. The profile of the land along the shoreline was low: only a few shallow caves. Mostly gritty sand, large, flat, rock formations, then the grassy verge. They walked too far; Sal was determined to find something. As always, Ash was impressed by the loyalty and awe Bluebell inspired in her hearthband. But it was eventually Ash who had to remind Sal that Bluebell would rather they were back on time, even if empty-handed.
As they approached the camp, Ash could see the soldiers arming themselves. Bluebell had put on her byrnie. Something had happened.
Ash hurried over, noticing Bluebell’s left hand was tightly wrapped in a bandage. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You’re staying here,’ Bluebell said, jamming on her helm. ‘I’m taking everyone back over the ridge to explore the caves.’
‘Caves? What happened to your hand?’
Frida joined them. ‘My lord, we are ready.’
‘Sal, get your mail on,’ Bluebell said.
‘Bluebell?’ Ash asked.
Bluebell turned to her, face grim under the helm. ‘A water creature tried to kill Frida and me. I don’t know what else is out there or lurking in the caves. Stay here. Get in the tent and stay put.’ Bluebell pointed at the tent with a peremptory finger. There would be no arguing.
Ash slipped inside the tent and sat on the animal skins where she and Bluebell would sleep. She heard them leave, weapons and armour rattling, Hyld barking happily, and then all she could hear was the sea.
It took only a few minutes to become bored. She pulled aside the entrance flap and looked out. Clouds were rolling in from the north, and the sea had turned grey. Ash smiled. It was beginning. She had felt it on the walk with Sal, and now she was alone she could feel it even more keenly: the tide of magic that had withdrawn from her was about to turn. She hoped it did not rush back in too forcefully, lest it make her sick and overwhelmed as she had so often been in the early days. But her senses crackled with it, just as the air crackled with salt.
Ash sat in the entrance to the tent for a long time, gazing at the restless sea and revelling on the feeling of promise. She had not realised how tense her body had become, hoping and hoping for her magic to return. Now, though, all the bones and sinews in her back were loosening.
Perhaps if she tried to reach out for the tide with her mind …
Ash closed her eyes, opened up her senses. A prickle on the edge of her perception. North. West. She opened her eyes, looked over her shoulder, could see nothing but the tent and rocks. She climbed out of the tent and stood, gaze going to the ridge behind the camp. The one Bluebell and her band had headed over. But they had gone further south.
The prickle again. She was being drawn.
But no. She wasn’t to leave the tent.
She sat down again, put her arms around her knees and looked at the sea. Tried to ignore the pull. Her senses had never once led her into danger. On the contrary, they had many times led her out of it.
Ash stood again and faced in the direction of the prickling pull. If Bluebell didn’t find giants, she would be relying on Ash to have her magic restored. Perhaps that was why she was being drawn. She had been drawn all the way to the Brenci Isles after all.
Making up her mind, Ash began to walk north-west, squashing the tiny prickle of apprehension. Down across sandy grasslands and then up a rocky path – yes, it was a path; somebody had clearly dug it and lined it evenly with stones – and then over a grassy ridge. Her legs grew tired from managing uneven ground. Below, sitting among an overgrown garden, was a house.
Ash picked her way down to the edge of the garden warily, looked back the way she had come, then returned her attention to the house. Built of stone with a roof of sod. Small and low against the sea winds. The garden had not been tended. Weeds and tough grass grew up between the blackberry hedges, which birds had picked clean then shat out in purple and blue all over the stone fence.
‘Hello?’ she called, and received no reply.
She took one uncertain step onto the path, then made up her mind and kept moving. The door to the house was closed, but unlocked. Ash pushed it in, called, ‘Hello,’ again. The smell of damp, old smoke, food long gone rotten and disintegrated. Nobody lived here any more.
She stood in the single room under the low roof and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. A hearth, a bed, a dresser. One by one she investigated them. Pots hung over the hearth. Blankets were folded on the bed. The dresser was neatly stacked: a comb and a bronze mirror, a shuttle and a spinning staff, a basket of wool and a writing tray with spilled ink dried across it. And clothes. Ash curiously lifted the first item of clothing she found and shook it out.
A dress. This was a woman’s house. But what woman?
Bluebell needed to know about this. If someone lived on the island who might help them, they needed to find her. Ash let herself out into the weak sunshine again, and made her way around the house to the long grass behind it. She pulled up short when she saw a body on the ground; just bones in a brown dress now.
Her heart grew sad. The woman had brought herself outside and lain down, on her back, hands folded across her chest. Had she looked at the sky as she died? Alone so far from anywhere?
But then Ash noticed that underneath the woman’s folded hands was a clay sculpture. Carefully, she removed it.
The sculpture was of two people, one large and one small. The large one had her arms around the smaller. Embracing her? Or suffocating her? Ash’s heart beat a little harder. She peered closely at the figures, and finally found two fingerprints fired into the clay. She placed her own fingertip against one. Let out a little sigh of surprise. It was half the size.
She glanced down at the woman again. She hadn’t laid herself out here at all. She had been moved and arranged, with the sculpture between her hands. By somebody large.
Ash stood and looked around her. Beyond the garden, rocks jutted out of grassy ground. A hundred yards away, a ridge rose and she couldn’t see beyond it. Were they over there, the giants?
She thought of the size of the fingerprint, the image of the large figure perhaps crushing the smaller. No, it was safer to return to the beach, to come back with Bluebell. She tucked the clay figure into the front of her dress and hurried back to the camp.
Fourteen caves.
Fourteen.
And not a sign of giants. Admittedly, nor were there any more skulls or sea monsters. But Bluebell was in a foul mood as they made their way back to the camp in the late afternoon. This was a mistake. A huge mistake. She should be home in Ælmesse brokering deals with Wengest, making promises to Tolan. Clawing Blicstowe back one inch at a time. But no, on a whim, on a half-remembered rhyme and a map drawn by a seven-year-old, she had come here.
As they approached the camp she saw Ash standing at the shoreline, barefoot up to her ankles in seawater. Bluebell’s last hope was that Ash’s powers returned to her here. If Bluebell couldn’t recover her city with blunt force, perhaps she could with magic trickery. It was the method Willow and Rathcruick had used to take Blicstowe from her after all.
Fucking magicians.
Ash must have heard them coming. She turned, smiled at Blue
bell and withdrew from her dress an object Bluebell didn’t recognise. Ash turned her back on the ocean and ran towards her.
‘I thought I told you to stay in the tent,’ Bluebell said.
‘Look what I found,’ Ash said at the same time.
Bluebell took the object from her curiously, while Ash quickly explained where she had found it.
‘But look,’ Ash said, turning it over and pointing to two clear fingerprints baked into the clay. Very large fingerprints.
It took a moment to understand, but then a shiver moved over Bluebell’s body. ‘Is this meant to be a giant holding a … normal person?’
‘I think so, yes,’ Ash said. ‘But is he holding her, or killing her?’
That gave Bluebell pause. The smaller person’s arms were not visible. Its body was fully encompassed by the giant’s.
Bluebell turned and shouted, ‘Do not take your armour off.’
‘You’re going now?’ Ash asked. ‘Bluebell, it will be dark soon.’
‘We’ll investigate the house. Tomorrow further afield.’
‘Ought you not wait until morning?’
‘No, Ash,’ Bluebell said, thinking of the refugees spilling out of the town. Thinking of Snowy. ‘I haven’t time to be patient.’
Seventeen
For ten days, Skalmir had survived his new nightmare.
Moments or hours after his fall, he had blinked into fragmented and noisy awareness in a room full of groans and smells of blood and salve. At first the pain across his ribs and skull had been so immense that he hadn’t been able to make sense of anything. Slowly it had dawned: the raiders had found him, believed him one of them, and brought him inside the city guard’s barracks on the western edge of the town square, where they had set up an infirmary.
His body struggled to heal against the awful injuries. The old healer, whose name had been used often enough that Skalmir learned it was Thorkel, kept him still and quiet. Never suspecting who he was. Why would he? Skalmir was born north of the border and looked it, but had been raised by Thyrslanders. Which meant he knew none of the raiders’ language. The first time Thorkel had spoken to him directly, Skalmir had frozen, wordless.