A Curse of Ash and Embers

by Jo Spurrier

  She blinked at him like a cat. ‘Don’t know. Don’t care. You have your answer. Leave.’

  ‘Or what?’ he snarled up at her. ‘Your illusions and phantasms are nothing to me, woman. I will have satisfaction, from your hands or from your hide.’ One gloved hand dived beneath his cloak and pulled out a wooden rod as long as my arm. A third of its length was studded with crystals that glittered with light, even in the gloom beneath the trees. It was like a mace, but with spikes of black glass instead of steel. He raised it high, training the tip of it upon my mistress, and said a word, a word that sounded dark and jagged and as sharp as crushed glass.

  A bolt of lightning leaped from the end of the rod with a crack of thunder. I ducked my head, clapping my hands over my ears, but not before I saw my mistress vanish — vanish before the bolt of light even reached her.

  With a muttered curse, the man dropped the horse’s reins. He eyed off the front door where I had waited so long in the dark the night before, and then turned on his heel and marched around to the back of the house.

  Hands shaking, I scrambled up and hurried to circle around the other way, trying to remember what lay around that side of the cottage, where I could find cover.

  Behind me, Kian hesitated. ‘Would serve him right if someone took his blessed horse,’ I heard him mutter, but then he followed me, crouching low and moving fast.

  The back door slammed as I rounded the house, and the rider bellowed with rage. I couldn’t see a thing, though — the walled garden stood between me and them. Still crouched, I ran to the wall and pressed myself against it, creeping along to peer around the corner.

  Aleida had come out to meet him. It was the real Aleida now, I thought — but then I’d thought the last one was real, too. And she still didn’t look as she had when I’d left her — her hair was sleek and smooth, her skin a hearty hue.

  The rider came charging around the house and met her with his crystal-spiked club upraised. He swung it at her, a wide blow, and she raised an arm to catch it. I shrank back at the sight, imagining all those gleaming points gouging into soft flesh, but the club bounced off, leaving her unscathed as though she were wearing invisible armour. I heard a crack, though, and a handful of gleaming shards rained down onto the grass as the crystals shattered from the impact.

  With a snarled curse he rushed her, catching her by the throat and spinning her around to slam her back against the cottage’s stone wall.

  I dug my fingers into the rough stone, warring with myself. I wanted to do something, to help her somehow, but how? There was nothing I could do against the rider. Even without magic, he was still more than twice my size.

  ‘Blackbone, are you?’ the rider snarled into Aleida’s face. ‘Killed your own mother? How did a stupid young chit like you throw down Gyssha Blackbone? You’re nothing, understand? You’re dirt on my shoe.’ One-handed, still holding her by the neck, he lifted her until her feet dangled a foot off the ground and slammed her against the stone again. ‘I came here for the dryad, and I’m going to have her one way or another.’

  I couldn’t look away from Aleida’s face. It was red, starting to turn purple, her hands gripping the rider’s huge, gloved fingers. And yet there was nothing frantic in her expression. If it had been me up there I’d have been kicking him with all I could muster, hoping for a lucky strike, but her feet were still, and her eyes . . . I wasn’t close enough to see, not really, but it seemed to me that her eyes were elsewhere, on something behind the rider’s hooded head.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve done with the creature and I don’t care,’ the rider snarled. ‘You have three days to get her to me, or I’ll—’

  He stopped abruptly as a shadow fell over him. A huge shape had appeared behind him, moving on oddly silent feet. I couldn’t see much of it from my sheltered spot — just something dark and hulking.

  The rider was still frozen when the creature swiped at him with an enormous paw. At the last moment, moving faster than I ever thought a man could move, he dropped Aleida and ducked, throwing himself to the side so the swipe passed through empty air.

  The creature gave a bellow of strangled rage, a sound that made my belly clench, and I threw myself to the ground.

  The rider rolled away and the beast went after him, stomping with one enormous foot. The monster was huge — at full height I guessed it would stand taller than the cottage roof, but it was hunched and stooped with a rounded back and head set low on its shoulders. Its spine was a bristling ridge, its chest deep and powerful, its forelimbs long and its hind legs squat and study. Its head was like that of a bull, with massive horns, black and gleaming, and with a wet snort it swung the wicked spikes after the rider and launched forward with a kick of its muscular legs.

  One horn caught the rider full in the chest and drove him into the ground. I braced myself for his scream as the beast crushed and gored him, but there was just an eerie quiet, and the sound of tearing cloth. And the thudding of my heart, like a drumbeat in my ears.

  What was going on? Had the beast killed him before he could cry out? Fingers clutching the rough stone of the wall, I leaned out as far as I dared.

  Aleida was still slumped against the wall, unmoving. The beast kneeled over the body of the rider, stabbing its horns into the mound of black fabric again and again. I held my breath, hoping with all I could muster that it wouldn’t turn on my mistress next. A regular bull could kill a man without breaking a sweat, and this thing was easily four times the size of any bull I’d ever seen.

  At last, the creature’s rage was sated, and with a snort it heaved itself up. For all its head was like that of a bull, its forelegs were anything but — they bent the wrong way, as though it had an elbow in place of a knee, and the feet at the end of them were three stubby toes, each one tipped with a hoof. It stamped these hooves into the corpse for good measure, rising up on its haunches with each blow, and each time it landed it sent up a little puff of . . . something. Something like dust.

  Finally, the beast dropped its huge head to sniff once more at the corpse, and then it turned away from the cottage, and began to amble down the green.

  I stayed frozen in place. Several long minutes passed as I watched the scene: Aleida motionless, the rider’s body just a crushed pile of black cloth, with everything else still. The only sound was the thudding of my heart.

  At last, I managed to unpeel my fingers from the stone. I looked around, but there was no sign of Kian. I bit my lip in confusion, but then tried to dismiss the matter — he’d probably taken off when it looked like there was going to be a fight. I had to forgive him for that — in his place I’d likely have done the same thing — but I was sorry I hadn’t had a chance to thank him for helping me reach the cottage so quickly.

  Now, though, I wasn’t sure it had done any good.

  Slowly, I crept forward, keeping close to the wall. If the beast came back, I reasoned, I’d jump over the wall and take my chances with the plants inside. But I couldn’t hear the creature at all, and when I crept to the other end of the walled garden to peer down the field after it, I saw it a few hundred yards away moving slowly.

  It’s gone, I told myself. It’s gone, and the rider is too. Then, with a deep breath, I hurried to my mistress’s side.

  Aleida stirred as I crouched by her side, her eyes fluttering open and one hand gingerly feeling her throat. There were bruises already blooming around her neck. Her skin was back to that sallow hue, I noticed, and her hair had somehow grown tangled again.

  ‘Are you all right, miss?’ I said, trying to help her up.

  ‘Me?’ she said, her voice rasping painfully in her throat. ‘Oh, fine. Never better.’ She was trying to sit up, and gasped in sudden pain as I slipped an arm around her back.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault, kid,’ she said, swallowing hard. She leaned back against the wall with a hand pressed to her side.

  I looked her over, lips pressed tight together. ‘You’ve g
ot broken ribs, haven’t you? My brother had that once, he got kicked by a horse.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I think so. It wasn’t that sad sack, though.’ She nodded towards the corpse. ‘It was Gyssha.’

  I glanced at the body, wondering in the back of my mind how on earth I’d clean up the body of a dead . . . whatever he was. But then I did a double-take — I’d expected a mauled, mangled body, torn flesh and yellow bone. Instead, what I saw was a crushed pile of torn sackcloth and . . . chaff? Yes, it was definitely chaff, blowing gently in the breeze. ‘What?’ I said. His wand, or whatever it was, was there too, but the gleaming black stones had turned dull and chalky, and were already crumbling away.

  ‘Construct,’ Aleida said. ‘He wouldn’t come here in person, not for first contact, anyway.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what that means.’

  ‘Construct. Like a big doll, kind of. It’s like a vehicle for his mind, lets him come here without risking his own hide.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘So he’ll be back, then?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you hear? Three days.’

  ‘Oh good. Something to look forward to.’ I looked down at my feet. ‘Miss, I . . . I’m sorry, I should have told you. I saw him, on the way up here, he passed us on the road. They passed us, I mean. There were three of them altogether.’ I remembered how two of the figures had waited on the road, perfectly still, while the third came to speak to Brian.

  ‘Three, is it? Good to know. And Lord and Lady, Dee, don’t look down at your feet like you’ve committed some grievous sin. Unless you had some reason to think he was coming here.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I didn’t. It’s just — with everything that’s happening lately, I’m not sure I believe in coincidences anymore.’

  She didn’t say anything, and when I glanced her way I found her studying my face. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Well. One down, two to go. Of course, he might have something else up his sleeve, that one usually does.’

  ‘That one? You know him? But you said—’

  ‘Do you believe everything you hear?’ she said.

  I scowled and ignored the jab, glancing instead over at the remains of the rider. ‘Is it dangerous?’

  ‘Could be. There should be something at the heart of it, or inside the head.’ She tried to stand, one hand on the wall for support, but as soon as she gained her feet she staggered, nearly falling again. I rushed to steady her. ‘Wait! Let me do it. Really, I should get you inside, first. Are you truly not hurt?’

  She scoffed as I slipped around to her uninjured side and pulled her arm across my shoulders, but then I felt her wince as she leaned into me to stand, and she was trembling like a new foal. ‘Lord and Lady, you’re icy cold. Best you come sit by the fire, I’ll sort all this out if you just tell me what to look for.’ I steered her to the door without waiting for a reply. I’d best fix her something to eat, and a hot drink too. That took my thoughts back to my pack and the goat I’d left tethered to the bushes, and inwardly, I sighed. I’d have to go back to them, and quickly.

  But as I helped my mistress stumble through the door, I started shivering too. ‘Good grief, it’s like an icebox in here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. I guided her towards her bed, where she slumped onto the mattress and then hissed with pain. Squirming, she reached under her cloak and pulled out the grotesque, club-like wand I saw her wield on the ghost in the night. As she set it aside and lay back again, closing her eyes, I just stared at it, and then scowled.

  ‘You had that with you all along, and you didn’t pull it on him?’

  Her eyes opened. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘But . . . you let him clobber you?’

  Eyes closed again. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But—’ I bit the words off before I could say any more. It wasn’t my place to question her.

  I turned to the fireplace, only to find the ashes and coals as cold as the grave. ‘Oh, what?’ I said, and then clenched my teeth to keep from saying anything more. This is a witch’s cottage, I reminded myself. Strange things happening is the normal state of affairs around here, I should think. Might as well get used to it. In my efforts at cleaning this morning, I’d already assembled a little pile of kindling and split wood, and I grabbed flint and steel from the mantelpiece and set about lighting the fire again. ‘I’ll just get this lit, and then I’ll go fetch my basket and the goat, all right? I was going to make you something hot to drink, but with the fire out it’ll take a bit longer.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said from the box bed, her voice muffled by the blanket. When I’d been helping her over to the cracked cabinet, I’d noticed the cloth was every bit as worn and threadbare as mine, and on that thought I scooped up my blanket and laid it over her as well. ‘You shoulda taken the money, kid.’

  I ignored the comment. ‘What’s a dryad?’

  She squirmed to free one hand, and pointed towards the corner where the battered silver cage sat. ‘It’s what she had in there. Forest nymph.’

  ‘You let her go?’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t know she planned to sell her. Not that it makes any difference.’ She was still shivering, even with the two blankets.

  ‘What about the beast? Did you call it down?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Do you control all of them?’ I asked, thinking about the Sanfords’ chickens and their destroyed henhouse.

  She shook her head. ‘No, just the one. So far. Lord and Lady, kid, you ask a lot of questions.’

  I frowned at that, and clamped my mouth shut as I surveyed the room and its chill. It would take a long time to warm this place up, even if I piled all the wood we had on the fire. The box bed was not all that close to the flames, either. Aleida was weak from being cold and half-starved, the last thing I needed was for her to get a fever on top of her injuries, what with the black rider vowing to return.

  I pursed my lips, looking at the box bed. It was usually the maids who slept in a bed like that, in the kitchen where they’d be close to their work. From what little I knew of Gyssha Blackbone, it didn’t sound to me like she’d be sleeping in a servant’s bed. And from what I gathered of Aleida, she wouldn’t have crawled into her dead mistress’s bed after coming home from that fight. She’d have climbed into her old familiar bed, the one she’d had when she lived here, years ago.

  I added a few more sticks to the flames, and left the room.

  I went back to the hallway where Aleida had let me in the night before. There, behind the planks and fallen rocks and books from the torn-down shelves, lay another door.

  I fetched the lantern from the kitchen, and eased the door open to peer inside.

  The first thing I saw was the glint of gold. Gilded candle-stands stood either side of the bed, gleaming in the lamplight. The bed itself was small, little more than a low, narrow cot, but it bore a coverlet of thick, soft fur, carelessly cast aside as though the bed’s last inhabitant had risen in a hurry. The walls were covered with tapestries in rich colours, glinting with gold and silver thread — the only place I’d ever seen colours like those were in the storybook Lem had bought for Lucette and the other kids, the one I wasn’t supposed to touch. The largest belonged in one of those storybooks — it was a picture of a garden, and a woman in an old-fashioned dress offering a golden apple to a unicorn with its horn picked out in silver. There were gold and silver platters too, huge ones that hung on the wall like a collection of rising moons, and around the edges of the room were chests and caskets, all carved or inlaid with coloured woods and mother-of-pearl. They were stacked up like children’s blocks, but the ones on top — oh Lord and Lady.

  They were full of gold and silver. Not just coins, but jewels as well, and ornaments and statues, wrought in metal or carved from stone. Plates and goblets and candlesticks and anything else you care to name.

  I realised I was staring, mouth hanging open like an idiot, and reminded myself what I had come here for. I swept the fur coverlet off the bed, and th
en the sheets as well. Under them was a feather bed and then a plain mattress of blue ticking. I gathered up mattress, feathers and coverlet and hauled them all back to the kitchen.

  Aleida lifted her head when I came back into the room. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I should have told you that was there last night.’

  ‘It’s not for me, it’s for you,’ I said, settling the mattress beside the fire. I was beginning to understand why the fireplace was so huge. ‘You’re going to catch your death of cold like this; half-starved, no fire, that blessed ghost waking you up every hour of the night. I bet you’ve had no more sleep than a mother with a new babe.’

  I came to fetch her out of the bed, and at first she raised a hand to ward me back. ‘No, Dee, I just . . .’ then she paused, looking thoughtful. ‘Actually, no, that is a good idea.’ She struggled up, leaving the blankets behind, and tottered over to the new bed, leaning heavily against me.

  I built up the fire, set a pot of water to heat, and then set off to retrieve the goat and our supplies. I was a bit worried about our nanny, actually, afraid that something might have happened to her. It was a shabby way to treat a creature that depended on me for its food, water and all its care. I was also more than a little concerned about the dark rider lurking out there, and the beast that had destroyed his construct, but I couldn’t hole up in the cottage and starve along with my mistress.

  I hadn’t gone far in retracing my steps, however, when I came across the nanny and my basket, the first tethered safely away from the second, only a hundred yards or so from the cottage. The nanny looked up at me with soft brown eyes over a mouthful of some tasty greenery, and gave a gentle bleat.

  ‘Kian,’ I breathed. He must have gone back to fetch them closer for me. I couldn’t imagine who else would have brought them here, and I hoped he didn’t think I scorned him for heading off like that. He had no dog in the fight, after all, and I was nothing but grateful. I heaved the pack-basket onto my back and gathered up the lead-rope. ‘Come on then, nanny. I daresay you could use a drink of water.’