by Kim Wilkins
‘Your worth is easy to measure,’ Finol said in a deep, resonant voice. ‘We will test you.’
‘Test me?’
‘Three tests between now and the moon’s next waxing,’ Nepsed or Cammoc said.
‘Come tomorrow at dawn for the first,’ Gagel said. ‘Armed and ready. Don’t bring the dog. We don’t want her to get hurt.’
Bluebell glanced down at Hyld. ‘How will I find this place again?’
‘Gagel and I will be waiting for you upstairs,’ Finol said.
‘Can you not come to Thyrsland tomorrow, and I’ll do the tests later?’
Withowind stood, towering above Bluebell. Her eyes were pale grey, like the moon. ‘We are the last of our kind,’ she said. ‘You ask of us a great sacrifice. We must be sure.’
Frustration burned against her ribs, but Bluebell agreed with a small, defeated nod.
‘Gagel, take her up,’ Wermod said.
Gagel sprang to his feet and said, ‘This way.’ He took her back through the entry chamber and up the stairs, releasing her into the evening dark. ‘We will see you in the morning,’ he said.
‘Good night,’ she replied. ‘Sleep well.’
‘Finol and I will not sleep at all,’ he said. ‘We must prepare your challenge.’
‘Can you tell me anything more –’
But Gagel was already shaking his head. ‘Tomorrow at dawn. I will be waiting right here.’ He bent to stroke Hyld’s head with his big hand. ‘Goodnight, doggy.’ Then he stood and gave Bluebell a gentle shove. ‘Go on.’
Bluebell accepted she would have to play by their rules, at least in the short term. She commanded Hyld to stay close, and began to pick her way back to camp in the dark.
In the early hours of the morning, a storm blew in off the sea. Ash, who had slept threadily, woke at the first dull crack of thunder. She listened as the soldiers rose to check the cover on the firewood, and as the wind picked up to a squall, its cold wildness peppered the tents with rain and salt water. The heavy animal hide flapped above her and the little ring of fire between her blankets and Bluebell’s danced and spit. Ash closed her eyes and tried to sleep, keenly aware that they were out here in the sea on a tiny island. Exposed.
Through it all, Bluebell didn’t stir. She had returned from her meeting with the giants full of anxious energy. Apparently at sunrise she was facing some kind of test, but nobody was allowed to accompany her. She had spent the evening sharpening her blades, alternating between telling Ash the giants were ‘tricky fuckers’ she didn’t trust, and how magnificent they were.
Gradually the storm abated, leaving the steady drip, drip of water trickling in through a loose seam in the tent. Still Ash could not sleep. An hour passed, two. Her thoughts began to flutter and dim; she let herself descend.
‘Ash.’
Ash sat up. She had heard her name spoken, clear and loud. But there was nobody in the tent except herself and sleeping Bluebell. Had she imagined it? It still echoed in her ears. She strained her listening in the dark. Outside, the first cries of seagulls. Morning was not far away. Ash pushed back her blanket and rose, poked her head outside the tent and looked around. The world was still dark and damp. The cold smell of rain and salt. A man and a woman sat on night watch but neither spoke, and they were too far away to have called her name. The voice had sounded as though it were directly beside her ear.
She pulled on her shoes and slipped out. She rounded the tent: still nobody who might have called her name. But she found herself looking towards the west, towards the house where she had found the dead woman. Deep in her belly, she felt a pull. A tug on a fine thread.
Her power was fully restored and she feared little. In fact, she felt almost invincible, but something about this calling had loosed in her a shiver of dread. Ash began to walk. The sky grew pale behind her and she hurried her steps. She had to be back in time to send Bluebell off. When she drew closer to the house, she could see it was enclosed by a grainy mist. Ash turned and looked behind her. No mist anywhere else, on hill nor hollow. She stopped then, unsure whether she should continue.
The mist did not hang, it moved almost as if it were pulsing, rolling outwards then back inwards. Ash picked up her steps again, walked deliberately towards it. The first touch of the mist was cold, and a smell like metal hung in the air. Again she stopped. This was no natural mist. A sense of excitement or dread crept over her, and she turned west and peered into the darkness.
She saw rocks and crags. But then she saw another image overlaid on them: deep green hedges, a mighty hall built of white stone. The image flickered over her mind’s eye, even as her true gaze saw only the barren island. She tried to concentrate, bringing the image of the white building more fully to her mind, but it slipped away. If she stayed a while, if she brought all her power to bear, she knew she would see the white hall again. But the dark was rolling off the island and she had to get back to Bluebell. With a wrench, she turned and ran back to the camp.
Twenty-three
Bluebell had no idea what to expect at her first test, so she had to prepare for anything. Ash watched as the steward helped her into her mail byrnie. Her weapons had been sharpened, and she bristled with extras. Her sword of course, but also knives in each boot, a mace hanging heavily off her hip, the bogle axe on the back of her belt, and then her shield and a spear in her hands. The steward placed her helm over her hair and pushed it down. The familiar smell of oiled iron and leather. He buckled the chin strap and stood back.
‘Leave us now,’ Bluebell said to the steward. ‘I would talk to my sister alone.’
He nodded and slipped out of the tent.
Ash rose and came to stand with her. ‘You look very fierce. Perhaps you’ll simply scare your enemies to death.’
‘I wonder what horror they have waiting for me.’
‘You are strong – stronger than we even knew.’ Here Ash smiled. ‘Giant blood.’
‘I do not know what they intend, though. If I had to fight one of them, or more … Ash, if I don’t return –’
‘Of course you’ll return.’
‘But if I don’t,’ Bluebell pressed on, ‘you are to take everyone back to Blicstowe and you and Sighere must lay siege to the city.’
‘We will. And we will win it back in your memory.’
Bluebell smiled tightly. ‘And you will find Snowy alive and you will tell him I died a glorious death and he is to shed no tears.’
‘Yes, I will tell him that.’
‘And tell him I had giant blood.’
Ash laughed. ‘Very well. But stop worrying. You will be back, and you will take Blicstowe, and Snowy will be alive, and all will be well.’ Ash reached up and took Bluebell’s shoulders, turning her purposefully towards the exit. ‘Go and take your test. I will see you when you return triumphant.’
Bluebell was buoyed by Ash’s words. She did not allow herself to consider any other options. She strode out of the tent to the cheers of her thanes and followers, and headed out towards the ring of pools. Managing the rocky terrain fully armoured and over-armed was difficult, but she told herself only a coward would complain and she wasn’t a coward. She went over some of her favourite battles in her head. The time she had killed a dragon. The time she had sent the axe flying from the centre of a skirmish into Hakon’s face on the other side of the battlefield. The time she and her dogs had held off six raiders long enough for Sighere and Lofric to evacuate a small village under siege. All of these things she had already achieved, and she had lived.
A few scars, certainly.
Gagel and Finol were waiting for her, as they had promised. Today they were dressed in byrnies, each with a red sash. Was she to fight them? She didn’t want to fight them.
‘Good morning, Bluebell,’ Finol said.
‘You are armed.’
Finol looked down at her byrnie as though she hadn’t realised she was wearing it. ‘Oh, this? No. Gagel and I are the best soldiers in the group. That is why we are dressed for war, b
ut we are not fighting today. We are taking you for your first test, which is a test of strength.’
A test of strength. Bluebell relaxed a little. She was strong.
Gagel invited her towards the entrance. ‘Go on,’ he said.
They followed her down, their heavy footsteps echoing in the dark. Then they pushed through to the chamber where she had met the giants, but today it was quiet and cold. The carved seats and alcoves were empty, the fire extinguished.
Gagel opened one of the doors and beckoned her in. ‘A little further.’
Bluebell found herself in a long passageway. Rather than the gloss and gleam of the other chamber, these walls were rough and rocky. Torches made pools of dim light along the way, and uneven gravel crunched under her feet. Soon enough, they passed through another door and the passageway opened into a low-roofed cave. Dim firelight. In the centre, a pile of bones.
‘I think I know where their heads are,’ Bluebell said.
‘You must have wondered where their bodies got to,’ Finol said in an amused tone.
Bluebell turned to Gagel and Finol and spread her hands. ‘What do you want me to do with them? Put them back together?’
‘It’s a test of strength,’ Gagel said. ‘We already told you that.’
‘A test of strength,’ Finol echoed. ‘That is all.’
‘But what do …’ As she started her sentence she glanced over her shoulder and realised the bones were moving. Quickly, she turned, spear at the ready. She heard a clunk and realised Gagel and Finol had left her, closing the door behind them.
Slowly, with a clatter and a scrape, a figure emerged from the pile. A headless skeleton, crunching over the top of the other bones and making its way towards her. Bluebell threw the spear but it whistled through the space between two ribs and bounced off the wall behind. The skeleton gathered speed, bearing down on her. She crouched and lifted her shield. The skeleton ran into it, exploded back into bones and went still.
Bluebell stood, a tiny part of her brain wondering if that was it.
Of course it wasn’t.
The skeleton re-formed and behind it, so did another. Both of them ran towards her, and she hefted the mace in her right hand, bashed one with the mace and one with her shield. They fell apart. But then, with that horrible rasp and scrape, they re-formed. So did two more.
She understood now. Every time she destroyed one, it came back to life with a friend. She turned and ran to the furthest alcove of the cave to give herself space to think it through.
But they came after, the four of them. Headless bodies jerking along on fleshless feet. She dodged their grasp, went round the back of them. They chased her, suddenly revealing alarming speed and agility. She felt the scrape of something in her hair – a bony hand? – and was pulled over. At once, all four were on top of her, clawed hands reaching for her throat, poking at her eyes, pulling at her weapons. She tasted blood in her mouth. No option but to defend herself.
She brought her shield up and heaved it towards them. Two smashed to pieces, their bones scattering in all directions. She struggled to her feet and lifted the mace and tried to threaten them away. ‘Get back!’ she shouted, aware that the most recently scattered bones were vibrating on the floor, pulling towards each other, clicking together.
The skeletons did not get back as she commanded, perhaps because they had no ears to hear with. The thought made Bluebell smirk grimly. She ran again, determined not to create any more. Six now. She’d counted twenty-four skulls in the cave by the swamp, so she knew it could be much, much worse.
But with seven people running around the cave – one with a head, six without – it was becoming crowded. Once again, she returned to the alcove and wedged herself behind a rock about three feet high. Here she crouched, shield up, and tried to think. Their bony hands grabbed at the shield, but the approach to the alcove was narrow and only two could get their grip on it. They yanked at it and she held, eyes closed, mind whirring.
Was there some way to stop them forming? Some secret trick? Some puzzle she couldn’t solve? Her heart pounded from exertion, the rush of her blood so loud in her ears it made it hard to think. These things weren’t hard to blow to pieces, but they were not killable. But if she didn’t knock them down, they would have her. A tap on her helmet. She looked up to see one had climbed on the rock and was reaching for her from above. She punched upwards with the mace and it skittered away in pieces, to re-form somewhere in the grim firelight. In its wake, another came over the rock. As it did, somehow a third took the edge of her shield and she had to tighten her grasp. A tug of war commenced, while the skeleton above her thumped at her helm, making her ears ring.
She saw herself as if from outside, cowering behind a rock, and her pride bit greater than her good sense. She leapt to her feet, barrelling away the creatures that held her shield, and lashed out with her mace at the one on top of the rock. Bones flew.
Bluebell climbed on top of the rock under the low ceiling, heart thumping, and watched as the bones found each other again. And more. The rules had changed. Now all the bones were jittering and skittering towards each other in the flickering light. Now more headless creatures were forming. On the other side of the cave, near the door, she could see a rocky outcrop at about her head height, and above it the ceiling seemed not so low. The skeletons swarmed in her path to it, the scratching and clattering filling the air. Bluebell took a deep breath and jumped down from her perch, seeking the higher ground. They came at her hard, pulling on her byrnie and her hair, slashing out with bony claws. One caught her chin. Left and right she struck out, clouting them with shield and mace, struggling to stay on her feet as they pulled her down and down. A group of them – five, six? – grabbed her shield and her feet began to slip as they yanked it. She could not end up on the ground. It would be the end of her. With a mighty heave she wrenched them towards her, still clutching her shield, and then flung them away – shield and all – a huge shout of exertion escaping her throat. Bones flew, slammed against cave walls. Dragging others behind her, on her byrnie and trouser hems, she made her way across to the outcrop, stumbling and staggering. Here she turned and planted her feet, determined to scatter as many as she could before climbing up. Swinging the mace, she collected them on all sides. Smashing them apart, her arm and shoulders muscles burning. The air in the cave grew thick and stale with heat and dust. Sweat sheeted off her skin, from her back and under her breasts. When she had cleared a small circle around herself, she threw her mace up onto the outcrop to wait for her and grasped the rocky edges. Jagged stone punched into her soft palms. Bluebell pulled herself upwards, but the skeletons had other ideas, seizing her waist and legs. She kicked out, managed to dislodge a few, but always there were more willing to replace them. Once again, she returned to the ground, slamming into them with her body this time, sending them skittering. Reducing their numbers enough to grasp the rocky edge once more, pull herself up, kicking and bucking against their insistent fingers. She had her upper body on the outcrop now, had the mace back in her hands. Then one leg on the rocky shelf while the other dangled, three skeletons hanging from it. She jabbed at them with the end of the mace, heard the clack of bones hitting the ground, and pulled up her other leg.
Lying flat on her front, breath hard in her lungs, muscles aching. The trickle of blood from her chin. The heat inside her armour.
Bluebell flipped over and looked above her. She could not smell fresh air or see a glimmer of daylight, which she had fervently hoped for.
Something pulled her hair. A skeleton, trying to yank itself up, had caught a strand in its bony knuckle. It was not even an intentional pull, but something about this tiny, needling pain, even among all the pain of battle and exertion, awoke sharp fury in her. She sat up and reached for the thing’s hand, yanked it up beside her and reached for her mace. Howling with rage and at close range, she smashed its hand until it was nothing but dust. Then the other hand. Then shoved it back off the outcrop.
Bluebel
l panted, feeling mildly embarrassed. She watched the bone dust, certain it would pull itself back into shape. It was difficult to see up here in the dark, with only the faintest reflected firelight, but it seemed the dust shivered and stopped, shivered and stopped. Then stayed still.
A test of strength. That is all.
That is all. Not a secret magic trick. Just strength. She had worn herself out keeping them at bay, trying to outwit them, but not destroyed a single one. She had fought them hard, but perhaps not hard enough.
But what kind of force, what kind of effort would it take to reduce all two dozen of them to dust? Bluebell groaned at the size of the task, letting her eyes flutter closed.
Then hardened herself. She didn’t have to destroy every bone in their bodies, only the ones that allowed them to attack her. Their hands? No, the one she had released could still poke at her with its wrist bones. Their feet? No, if they could find her without heads they could walk without feet.
Their spines. Without spines, their ribs had nowhere to fix themselves, they could not hold their shape. They could not stay upright.
Bluebell crouched at the edge of the rocky outcrop and reached down, grasped a skeleton by the piece of spine that jutted out of the top of its shoulders. She yanked it up onto the shelf and sat across it. Its legs and arms tried to imprison her, its hands scraped and scratched at her byrnie and helm. It seemed to be jointed in all directions. But she held it fast, using the mace to hammer at the first bone ring of its spine, then the second, and so on. Pounding them to dust. Her wrists ached. Some of the larger ones through the creature’s mid back took forever to destroy. Hope drove her on: if she could disable this one, she could defeat all of them. It would only take time and strength.
Sweat dripped off her nose and onto the bony creature in front of her as it slowly fell apart, unable to hold its shape. Perhaps she did not need to smash it all the way to the bottom of the spine, but she went through the whole process anyway, not wanting to risk the thing returning.