by Paul Stewart
‘I said, drop the knife.’ The words were quieter and more measured than before, but hard.
Micah squinted into the setting sun. There at the top of the slope, her slim body silhouetted against the pale sky, was Cara. Her legs were braced, and the primed spitbolt in her hands was pointing over Micah’s right shoulder at his assailant.
‘I’ll kill him.’ The voice was close by Micah’s ear.
Cara’s face registered no emotion, though Micah recognized a grim determination in her eyes. When he’d gone ahead to scout the trail, Micah had told her to follow at a distance, and keep him covered. This green-eyed kithgirl of his had done exactly that. She had handled herself well, just like she always did. And Micah was proud of her.
They had met in the settlement of Deephome two short months earlier in the depths of fullwinter. Bone-chilled and half-starved and nursing a broken heart, Micah had been in a bad way. Cara had looked after him. And he had fallen in love with her. She was gentle and loyal and caring – and surprisingly tough when she had to be.
‘You kill him and I’ll kill you,’ she said evenly. ‘And then I’ll kill your kid brother. Got another one of these loaded and braced at my side.’
Cara’s eyes flicked over to the fair-haired kith who stood frozen over the netted splaywyrme, which continued to snap and struggle at his feet. The youth had already seen the second spitbolt, and so had Micah’s assailant, for Micah felt the grip round his neck get tighter still. Cara’s finger whitened on the trigger.
‘For pity’s sake,’ the fair-haired youth blurted out. ‘Do as she says!’ He raised his hands towards Cara imploringly, his brow furrowed and eyes wide. ‘He was just looking out for me, is all. We surely meant you no harm—’
‘Hush up!’ the voice by Micah’s ear snarled fiercely, and at his back Micah felt a sharp jabbing pain as the tip of the blade pressed hard against his skin.
Then, abruptly, the pressure round his neck relaxed and he was shoved roughly in the back. He stumbled forward and landed heavily on his knees, grazing his hands. Behind him, he heard the knife landing on the rock, and the sound of it being kicked across the dust. He looked round.
His attacker stood glaring back at him.
He was about the same height as the fair-haired youth, but older and far more powerfully built, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He had dark hair hacked down close to the scalp, and blueblack stubble on his jaw that put the other’s wispy moustache to shame.
‘They don’t look much like brothers to me,’ Micah observed.
‘It’s their eyes,’ Cara said, striding down the slope, the spitbolt gripped in her hands.
Micah climbed to his feet. ‘Their eyes?’ he said.
‘They’re the same,’ said Cara. ‘Same shape. Same shade of green.’
Micah looked. ‘Happen you might be right,’ he said. He reached down and picked up the dark-haired one’s knife, then, spotting his hackdagger, crossed the gravel to retrieve it. ‘You two got names?’ he asked as Cara unhooked the spitbolt at her belt – his spitbolt – and handed it to him.
The weapon was too cumbersome when you were out scouting. But it sure felt reassuringly weighty in his hand now.
The two brothers shuffled towards one another. The fair-haired youth’s thin arms dangled at his side, his fingers plucking at the frayed cuffs of his sleeves. His older brother folded his arms. His fists were clenched. They were both bone-thin and dressed in tattered plains’ clothes that spoke to Micah of an arduous journey up here to the high country, recently made.
‘I’m Ethan, and this here is Cody,’ said the fair-haired youth. ‘We are indeed brothers. The young lady was right on that score . . .’ He glanced over at Cara. ‘We’re fresh to the weald and we’re not looking for no trouble. Leastways, not this early on in our new careers.’ He attempted a smile.
Beside him, his heavy-set brother continued to glare at Micah.
Micah smiled back. ‘We ain’t either,’ he said quietly. ‘Name’s Micah. And this is Cara.’ He frowned, then added, ‘When did you two last eat?’
‘A week since,’ said Ethan. He nodded back at the splaywyrme, now lying still inside the longnet. He shrugged, his arms before him, palms up. ‘I was hoping this wyrme might make us a good meal, but the damn thing sure is hard to despatch . . .’
‘Like I said, they can be,’ Micah said. ‘Unless you know the knack to it.’
He smiled to himself, realizing how he must sound to these two greenhorns. The voice of experience. He bent down and flipped the splaywyrme onto its back with the tip of his boot, then, with his hackdagger, swiftly slit the creature’s neck. The wyrme convulsed for a couple of moments, then lay still. When Micah spoke again, there was a certain drawl to his words.
‘Got to do it quick, y’understand, and with a sharp blade, so the creature doesn’t suffer any more than it needs to. Respect wyrmekind and use what they have to offer to the full and you’ll prosper in the weald.’ He paused. ‘A friend taught me that.’
He dragged the dead wyrme out of the net by its hindlegs and held it up.
‘Either of you boys know how to skin a wyrme?’
Ethan nodded vigorously. ‘I reckon I can handle it,’ he said. ‘I used to skin jackrabbits and squirrels back on the farm.’
‘Well, get down to it,’ Micah said, ‘while we get a fire going.’
He glanced over his shoulder. The circling carrionwyrmes had come in to land a little way off and stood peering back at them, their yellow eyes glinting with hunger and stubby barbels quivering at the corners of their fang-fringed mouths.
‘There’s brushwood down there a piece,’ he said, pointing back the way he and Cara had come. ‘Want to help us gather it, Cody?’
Cody was looking at Cara.
‘Cody?’ said Micah. ‘The brushwood?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Cody grunted.
An hour later, as the sun set and the carrionwyrmes skittered and snarled in the distance, the four of them sat crosslegged around a small fire, feasting on the splaywyrme meat and tossing the picked bones into the flames. Micah noted the relish in the two brothers’ eyes as they chewed and swallowed.
‘You sure it’s only been a week since you last ate?’ he asked. ‘I swear them carrionwyrmes couldn’t have done a better job than you two at stripping the bones.’
Cody shrugged, and Ethan laughed good-naturedly. ‘Might as well make the most of it,’ he said. ‘Don’t know when we might eat again.’
The younger brother was open and friendly, quick to laugh and eager to talk. The older was silent and brooding, and had hardly spoken the whole time they’d been sitting there.
‘We’ll manage,’ he told Ethan gruffly. ‘Somehow . . .’
Micah and Cara exchanged looks in the flickering firelight.
‘So how long have you been in the weald?’ Cara asked.
‘It’s been nigh on two moons now,’ Ethan said, throwing a leg bone that he’d picked clean into the fire. ‘There was still snow upon the ground when we got up here. Ain’t that right, Cody?’
Cody grunted, but added nothing.
‘I swear I ain’t never been so cold in my life,’ Ethan went on. ‘It was springtime down on the plains, and we thought it would be the same up here,’ he explained. ‘We were soon disabused of that notion.’
Micah nodded grimly. He knew all about the bite of fullwinter.
‘And what do you plan to do, now you’re up here?’ Cara persisted.
No one spoke. There was the sound of windsough. Carrionwyrme chatter. The cracking of the fire.
Micah drew his legs up and hugged them tight to his chest. He looked across at the brothers. Their clothes were threadbare, their boots near worn out, and as for their kit – it was nothing more than an old saddlebag and a couple of rolled blankets for a pack, and the net the splaywyrme had been caught in. Th
e two of them had been lucky so far, that much was clear, but the chances of them surviving much longer were slim at best.
Ethan looked at Cody, who shrugged again.
‘Travel on, I guess,’ said Ethan. ‘Further into the weald. Seek our fame and fortune,’ he added with a desperate grin. ‘Ain’t that right, Cody?’
Cody sighed. ‘Bit of fortune would be welcome enough,’ he conceded. ‘I ain’t bothered about the fame.’
The two brothers suddenly looked forlorn and grim in the firelight.
Micah unclasped his hands and reached out for a greenwood stick that lay beside the fire. He poked the embers absentmindedly, sending clouds of orange sparks billowing up into the air. He glanced at Cara, who seemed to have read his thoughts with those blue-green eyes of hers. She nodded encouragingly at him, and Micah saw Cody read her look in turn.
Cody’s face coloured and he stared down at his battered boots.
‘If you had a mind to,’ said Micah at length, looking at Ethan, ‘happen the four of us could always travel together.’
Ethan’s face lit up with relief and expectation, and he was about to speak when a cough from his brother stilled him. Ethan turned to Cody, his eyes filled with hope. Cody kept his gaze fixed to the dusty ground before him, his brow creased like he was thinking things through. Ethan looked at Micah and Cara, then back at his brother.
Finally Cody looked up. He nodded. ‘Happen we could,’ he said.
Four
The cave was round and black like a yawning mouth. It was set into the mountainside above a fall of scree and moss-covered rubble, and seemed to be the only shelter from the wind that was cutting through the shallow gulley. Micah looked away. He slipped the backpack from his shoulders and pointed to the base of the screeslope.
‘Reckon this is as good a place as any to rest up,’ he said, and scanned the darkening sky. ‘Besides, the light’s going and I don’t want to lose our trail.’
Cara nodded. The weald was wild, daunting, especially by night. But she felt safe with Micah.
Keeping to the north-west, he had followed a trail that Eli had taught him. He’d pointed out to her the landmarks that he was tracking. Some, like the speckled stacks and boulder ridge, were obvious enough. Most of them, however, Cara would not have spotted if Micah hadn’t shown her.
The dust skillet. Bear mount. Strutting rooster rock. Hangman’s crag . . . Now they were heading for the stickle falls – where Eli would be waiting for them.
Cara smiled to herself. It was as if, in urging them to set off on their own for a few days, the cragclimber had been setting them a test. And despite her initial trepidation, Cara felt that they had done well. Though what Eli would make of their new travelling companions, Maker only knew . . .
She let her pack fall to the ground and crouched down next to Micah, who was sitting in the lee of a boulder, half-sheltered from the icy wind. The two brothers, Cody and Ethan, approached heavy-footed through the dusk.
‘There’s a cave up yonder,’ said Ethan, pulling his collar up. ‘I for one would not mind sheltering from this wind. It is painful bitter.’ He shivered expansively.
Micah shook his head. ‘Caves need careful scouting,’ he said. ‘Ain’t no telling what or who might be lurking in them. Most times it’s best to leave ’em be.’
Cody hefted the pack from his shoulders and slumped down next to Cara and Micah, but Ethan remained standing, glancing up at the black mouth of the cave and shivering.
‘Get what sleep you can,’ said Micah, as Cara scooched up beneath the folds of his bedding blanket. ‘We’ll head off at first light.’
Despite the caustic wind, with its last taint of fullwinter, fatigue and the warmth of Cara’s body pressed close to him lulled Micah into dreamless sleep. High overhead, the slice of moon came and went. Gnarled trees bent over stiffly as the cold wind gusted, subsided, then gusted again. Dryleaf scrub whispered. Rocks softly whined . . .
The scream broke through the lulling nighthush like something being shattered. Micah sat bolt upright. Cara’s eyes snapped open.
It was almost dawn. Thin silver-threaded strands of cloud were scudding across the dark sky, but there was a glow on the horizon. Cody was already up and on his feet.
‘It’s Ethan,’ he said urgently, and nodded down at the empty space beside him where his brother’s bedroll had been.
There was another scream, followed by a coarse hissing sound.
Cody started up the scree towards the cave. Micah jumped to his feet, grabbed his spitbolt and scrambled after him as fast as the shifting rocks would allow.
‘Cara, bring the torch,’ he called over his shoulder as he reached the cave entrance.
Cody had already disappeared into the darkness. Micah went in after him. The pitted walls at the mouth of the cave suddenly flickered with golden light. Cara was behind him, a flaming dip-torch gripped in her hands. She raised the torch higher and followed Micah inside.
The cave was large, its narrow entrance opening out into a cavern forested with stalactites and flow columns that glistened and shimmered in the torchlight. Micah spotted Cody first. He was frozen in an attitude of terror, his back against a limestone outcrop and eyes unblinking. Micah followed his gaze.
Ethan was curled up in a defensive ball on a bed of moss at the centre of the cave. Clustered round him were dark brown pebbles that Micah recognized as wyves. Wyrme eggs. Above, clinging to the ceiling with outstretched claw-tipped wings, was a mottled stormwyrme, the size of a plains eagle, its muscular neck curled back and its nostrils flared. The flameoil sac at the base of its throat pulsated.
The wyrme was poised to engulf the cowering youth in a jet of flame. Only the proximity of its precious eggs was preventing it from turning Ethan into a human torch.
‘Don’t move,’ Micah said.
‘I ain’t fixing to,’ Ethan whimpered. ‘Found me a soft bed, only to wake and find that looming over me . . .’ He stifled a sob.
The stormwyrme swivelled its head and glared at Micah. Its jaws opened and the sac at its throat swelled. There were no eggs protecting Micah, Cody and Cara.
Micah raised the spitbolt and fired.
The stormwyrme recoiled with a hissing screech and tumbled from the cave ceiling, Micah’s bolt embedded in one yellow eye. Its lifeless body fell limp and heavy upon Ethan below.
‘Help,’ he moaned. ‘Get it off me.’
Cody leaped forward and tore the dead wyrme off his brother.
Ethan looked up at him, his eyes wide with fear. ‘I thought I was a goner, Cody. I thought—’
The blow from Cody’s clenched fist struck Ethan’s jaw with a sharp crack. His head went back, his mouth opened and he stared at his brother.
Cody stared back furiously. ‘You stupid damn fool . . .’ he began, then fell on him, hugging him, his arms wrapped tightly round Ethan’s quaking body. He rested his chin on his shoulder and rubbed a hand over his brother’s tousled head. ‘You gotta stay close, Ethan, or else how can I look out for you . . . ?’
‘Come on,’ said Micah softly, resting a hand on Cody and Ethan’s shoulders. ‘Gather up them wyves while I see to the wyrme.’ He fixed Ethan with a look. ‘And if you won’t heed my advice, then at least listen to your brother, greenhorn.’
Micah picked up the mottled stormwyrme by the wing and strode out of the cave. Gathering up the eggs, four in number, Cody followed. He didn’t look at his brother.
Ethan climbed slowly to his feet, picking bits of the mossy nest off his bed blanket. He swallowed hard, a sob catching at the back of his throat.
‘They’re right,’ he murmured. ‘I’m nothing but a stupid greenhorn, and this here wyrmeweald’s going to be the death of me . . .’
‘Hush now, Ethan,’ came a soft voice. It was Cara. She reached across to him, took a hold of his hand. ‘Everyone makes mistakes,’
she said. ‘It’s what we learn from them that counts.’
Five
The sun had risen to its zenith when the line of jagged mountaintops came into view. They jutted up from the fine mist that hung in the valley below, and looked like a line of sharp teeth set in milky gums.
Micah glanced at Cara, who had kept pace with him on the steep trail, then looked back at Ethan and Cody. The pair of them were struggling to keep up.
‘That’s the stickle falls up yonder,’ he called to them.
Ethan paused and wiped the sweat from his forehead on his sleeve. His face was bright red, which made his fair hair appear fairer than it was, and there was uncertainty in his eyes.
‘How can you tell, Micah?’ he asked, trying but failing not to pant. He frowned, scratched his scalp. ‘It don’t look too different to any number of other jagged mountaintops we’ve passed.’
‘If he says them there’s the stickle falls,’ said Cody, pausing in turn, ‘then I for one take him at his word.’
The older brother not only carried what passed for their kit – the old saddlebag and rolled blanket – but also both their watergourds, which were slung from his broad shoulders. In contrast to Ethan’s chatter, he had not said a word since daybreak when they’d set out on the trail. Now the day was at its hottest, with the air above the rocks shimmering in the midday sun.
‘You two all right?’ asked Cara
Ethan grinned back at her. Despite the heat and the exertion of the climb, he was still determinedly cheerful.
‘Ain’t the mountain been Maker-fashioned that Cody and I could not scale,’ he said. ‘Eh, Cody?’
Cody looked up and surveyed the surrounding rockscape. His eyes narrowed against the dazzle of the sun. They were high up, and the ridges and canyons lay round about them like folds of sacking.
‘Happen not,’ he drawled. ‘Though a bit of down would not come amiss.’
Micah nodded along the line of glittering spikes of rock. ‘We crest that ridge up ahead,’ he said, ‘and it’s downhill from thereon in.’