The Coming of Dragons

by A. J. Lake

  ‘We’re heading that way,’ the minstrel said, pointing. ‘Once over the river, it’s two days’ ride to Venta if we keep to the forest tracks.’

  Elspeth climbed stiffly on to the old mare. Every footfall sent a twinge through her muscles but at least she no longer felt in constant danger of falling off. Gritting her teeth, she followed the other two riders through the trees. After a while Edmund fell back to ride alongside her. He held his left arm as if it still pained him, but even so, he rode with an ease that Elspeth could only envy.

  ‘Grip the horse’s sides with your knees,’ he told her.

  ‘I’d rather walk,’ she confessed. ‘I’ll never want to sit down again after another day of this!’

  ‘It feels like that at first,’ he said. ‘But you’ll soon grow used to it, and that old mare is a steady beast. She’ll not let you fall.’ His expression changed, as if he had remembered something that worried him. ‘The path is narrow here,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll ride behind.’ As he fell back she caught an odd look on his face: concern? But why should he worry about her? He was the one who was hurt.

  They went down little-used tracks, the horses picking their way through last year’s thickets and stretching their heads up now and then to snatch a mouthful of new shoots from the branches. Elspeth was just beginning to feel easier in the saddle when Cluaran’s gelding pulled up suddenly, ears twitching and nostrils flaring. Her mare stopped too, whinnying in alarm. Cluaran dismounted and calmed his horse.

  ‘Has something scared them?’ Elspeth asked.

  ‘Some wild beast – perhaps a boar. There are many of them in the forest.’ Cluaran whispered into his horse’s ear until it quieted; then leaped on its back and set off as briskly as before. The mare, though, kept her ears back and continued to turn head nervously.

  Elspeth patted the rough brown neck and made what she hoped were soothing sounds. On a sudden thought, she called softly to Edmund.

  ‘Are there wild animals near? Can you use their eyes?’

  He cast a wary look over at Cluaran, who was riding some way in front. Then his face took on the inward look that Elspeth recognised from the night on the moor and the showman’s booth in Glastening.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘There are wild creatures of some sort. But they’re not watching us.’

  Elspeth looked at him with fascination; what must it be like to see through the eyes of an animal? She would have liked to ask him more, but stopped herself with a glance at the distant figure of the minstrel.

  ‘I hope we reach the river soon,’ was all she said.

  It was afternoon when they heard the sound of water through the trees.

  ‘We’ll ford the river here,’ Cluaran called to them.

  As they approached, the rain fell more heavily and a wind whipped up, spattering them with drops from the branches. Cluaran frowned when he saw the brown and swirling water.

  ‘We must try to cross,’ he said. ‘The nearest bridge is several leagues away at Oferstow. After the way you drew attention to yourselves at Glastening, I think we should avoid the haunts of men.’ He jumped down into the mud and signalled to Edmund to do the same. ‘I’ll try the depth first.’

  Edmund took the reins of both horses while Cluaran waded into the murky flow. He was waist-deep in moments, but moved steadily onwards. Suddenly he staggered and vanished beneath the surface. Elspeth gasped – but he reappeared a moment later, now in water to his chest. He turned and called to them, but his voice was lost in the rush of the water. His eyes stretched wide and he pointed urgently behind them, into the woods.

  Edmund spun round. Out of the trees came a low brown shape, then another; then four or five together. Blunt snouts. Small eyes lost in ruddy bristles. Pairs of curling tusks that gleamed in the dull light.

  The wild boars advanced towards them on stubby, purposeful legs. Edmund saw Elspeth raise her right hand, the gauntlet flashing silver on her fingers, but in the next instant the mare had bolted, carrying Elspeth off into the trees. The two geldings reared up, tearing their reins from Edmund’s grasp. They took off after their stablemate, just as the boars closed in on Edmund.

  Edmund had seen wild boar aplenty, and hunted them too, but he had never seen a beast as huge as the one that led this herd. It stood almost as tall as he was, its tusks flared out like scimitar blades. Edmund knew what they could do; on a hunt with a Sussex thane, he had seen a huntsman gored in the groin. The man had bled to death before he made it back to the thane’s longhouse.

  Edmund looked wildly around for a stick, anything to fend them off.

  ‘Don’t try fighting them!’ Cluaran’s cry reached him faintly across the water. ‘Run! Climb a tree!’

  The king boar charged. Edmund darted for the trees and leaped for a straggly alder, hauling himself up by the thin branches just as the boar struck the trunk.

  The whole tree shook. Edmund scrabbled for a firmer footing on the wet branches, yelling out as he wrenched his wounded arm. Below him, the boars surrounded the tree, a dozen of them with their eyes gleaming like coals, tusks glinting like some devilish warrior force.

  Edmund heard a blood-curdling yell; saw Cluaran running through the trees at full cry. Faster than light, he hurled an armful of stones at the boars. The smaller beasts fled, but the king boar stayed until one of the stones struck it on his forehead, between its eyes. It staggered back, its trotters gouging long scars in the muddy ground, before wheeling around and running into the forest after its herd. With a strangled sigh, Edmund slid down the tree and landed at Cluaran’s feet.

  Cluaran hauled him up, ignoring his yelp of pain as he grabbed Edmund’s wounded arm. ‘I’ve never seen the like of it,’ he muttered. ‘A boar that large defies all reason, unless –’ He stopped. ‘Still, we have more troubles than combating some giant swine. The Guardians will be on our trail by now. And here we are without our horses, my pack and the girl lost.’ He frowned. ‘Fool of a girl! She has the sword and yet she lets her own horse run off with her as if she were no more than a saddlebag.’

  Edmund flared. Doubtless he was grateful to Cluaran for scaring off the boar, but for this rag-tag minstrel to insult the girl who had saved them from the Guardians back at the Tor! It was outrageous. Why did he treat them like fools?

  ‘I can find her!’ he cried. ‘Right now!’

  Cluaran stood stock-still, his look caught between mockery and something else, something thoughtful and questioning.

  Edmund glared at him. He’d show this scornful man just what he could do, who he really was. He leaned against the tree and closed his eyes, casting his mind out to find Elspeth, or her horse, or some woodland creature that was watching them now.

  Suddenly he was with them – twelve beasts galloping fast. The world was leached of colour, but wider than he had ever seen it; the forest stretching out on both sides as if blinkers had been taken from his sight. He could see the rippling flanks of his herdmates: the tree trunks streaming away, the grasses crushed beneath their feet. His gaze was focused on the legs of a bolting horse. Then on a figure standing on a path. Elspeth! Why was she off her horse? Had she fallen? There was something else too – a tiny blur at Elspeth’s feet –

  Edmund pulled himself back with a jolt and opened his eyes. With horror he knew he’d been looking through the king boar’s eyes.

  ‘Quick!’ he cried to Cluaran. ‘This way!’

  It was no good. Elspeth couldn’t hold on much longer.

  When the mare had bolted from the river bank, she had carried Elspeth back into the forest, swerving round trees, plunging through bushes. Low-slung branches had whipped Elspeth’s face and she had flung herself against the horse’s neck, clinging to the mane for dear life.

  On and on. The forest turned to a green blur. Elspeth felt she had been riding for ever. I’ve lost the others, she thought.

  At last the mare began to slow but, just when Elspeth thought she was regaining control, the horse dug in her hoofs and stopped dead. With a cry, E
lspeth shot forward, grabbing up the reins as she slid over the horse’s neck. She missed the thorn patch and landed in a clump of bracken. The mare danced away, and almost at once, Elspeth flew to her feet, clinging to the reins. What was wrong with this horse?

  ‘It’s all right, girl. Hush, slow down now.’

  The mare quietened and Elspeth brushed herself down. Something caught her eye on the forest path, barely the length of a man away from her. A flash of red-brown, too bright to be a fox. She took another step and gasped with surprise.

  It was a child! Perhaps four or five summers old, too young to be all on her own in the forest. Was there someone with her? Elspeth looked around, listening hard. No one came. She watched the red-haired child crouched at the side of the path, carefully gathering fragments of broken eggshell into the lap of her skirt. She was humming to herself, and a wing of hair had fallen forward over her cheek, hiding her face.

  ‘Hello there!’ Elspeth called.

  The child started and dropped a piece of eggshell. Before Elspeth could say anything else, the mare shied and yanked the reins out of her hands.

  Whirling around, Elspeth stared in dismay as the king boar plunged out of the trees and charged along the path with its head down and strings of saliva streaming from its tusks.

  Without a second thought, she stepped into the boar’s path, and shot out her arm: Come!

  With a hiss of sliced air, the crystal sword burst from her hand. Behind her, she heard the child gasp with surprise as the grove flooded with light.

  ‘Stay back!’ Elspeth screamed over her shoulder. Only a few more paces and the boar would be upon them.

  Its herdmates had veered into the trees, squealing, when the light of the sword dazzled their eyes, but the king boar hardly broke its stride.

  ‘God help me!’ Elspeth cried, lunging forward.

  The trees beside her rustled and she braced herself for another charging boar, knowing she could never fight off two of them.

  Instead, Cluaran and Elspeth leaped on to the path between her and the king boar. Cluaran loosed arrows, one, two, three, so close together Elspeth could not see his hand reach back to the quiver between each one. Edmund held a log in his hands, flailing it so that it knocked into tree trunks and sent twigs and leaves showering down around him.

  The king boar faltered as Cluaran’s arrows struck home, lodging in its massive shoulders, and swerved sideways to dodge Edmund’s club. On it came, towards Elspeth and the child.

  Help me! she prayed.

  And a voice like fire and ice together answered, I am here. Do not be afraid.

  Steadying her right hand with her left, Elspeth brought the sword down towards the boar, feeling the air slice beneath the shining blade. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the jarring impact of blade on flesh and bone – but felt nothing. She opened her eyes again. At the last instant, the king boar had veered away and bolted into the trees, leaving only a trail of quivering leaves to show where it had once been.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Edmund demanded, running over to Elspeth.

  She nodded, too breathless to speak. She had called the sword, and it had answered her. And this time she had been prepared to use it. She would have killed the boar to save the child. She swung round and saw Cluaran scoop the girl into his arms. The child was speechless with shock, her blue eyes wide and scared.

  ‘She must have come from Oferstow,’ he said. His voice sounded oddly expressionless, and his gaze darted to Elspeth’s right hand, where the sword was flickering like a snuffed candle.

  Then Cluaran sighed and said quietly, ‘Like it or not, it seems we are bound for Oferstow after all.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Edmund held out his hands to the blacksmith’s fire and smiled. He caught Elspeth’s eye.

  ‘Cluaran has a strange idea of misfortune!’ he whispered.

  She grinned back. It was wonderful to be warm and dry again, to have good food and the promise of a dry bed for the night.

  Cluaran had made it clear that they must move on at first light. He was perched on a wheel hub on the far side of the forge hearth – set to spring for the door any moment. But Edmund decided he was just being Cluaran, unhappy at the press of too many friendly people. For all that he earned his living entertaining the guests of great halls across the land, it was clear the minstrel was happy with no company but his own, and trusted nothing but what his own eyes saw.

  Fifteen or so villagers had arrived on the forest path soon after the king boar had fled. They came beating the trees, grimfaced and calling, searching for the lost child. A broad-beamed woman with fox-coloured hair had snatched the child from Cluaran’s arms as if she suspected him of child-stealing, but Elspeth and Edmund were quick to tell them about the wild boars – leaving out only how Edmund had tracked the herd through the forest, and how Elspeth had managed to scare the king boar away. To their relief, the little girl said nothing about the blade of light that had sprung from Elspeth’s hand. In fact, she said nothing at all, merely burying her face in her mother’s arm and hunching her shoulders against the horrors that dwelled in the forest.

  The boy’s mother, the red-haired Mistress Kedwyn, had bade the lads, Elis and Edmund, to come straight away to her village house, while the menfolk, armed with bows, went with Cluaran to find the lost horses. There was blood trickling down Elspeth’s face from a cut where a branch had hit her, and with Edmund’s wounds, it won them a heroes’ welcome.

  ‘The leader of that herd killed my husband two years agone,’ Kedwyn told them, her eyes clouding with pain at the memory. She set the girl on a folded blanket by her hearth while she fetched a pot of salve. Then she dressed Elspeth’s cut brow, and cleaned and tended Edmund’s wounds. Edmund flinched when she smeared the salve on to his broken skin.

  ‘It burned like fury,’ he told Elspeth afterwards. ‘But my arm feels better already.’

  The girl stared at the flames, and then at Elspeth’s hand. Edmund glanced at Elspeth; she looked uneasy at what the child might say. The girl opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again with a tiny shake of her head. Edmund let out a long breath; with the luck of the gods, she would think she had been dazzled by a flash of sunshine. Everything had happened so fast, it was hard even for him to recall the moment of attack.

  The horses were found, and Cluaran came into Kedwyn’s hut, bringing with him the smell of the forest: earth and damp leaves and a lingering scent of boar. He was followed by Bergred the blacksmith, who clicked his tongue at the state of the horses.

  ‘They’re done in,’ he said, ‘and that mare’s all but lamed! You’d not have gone much further on these three.’ He insisted that they took their supper at his home, which was larger than Kedwyn’s. ‘There’s not a family here that hasn’t had someone killed or hurt by those evil boar. And now you two lads have driven the brutes off! There’s many will want to shake your hands for that.’

  So much for not drawing attention to ourselves, Edmund thought.

  They drank barley-mutton broth from wooden bowls, sitting around Bergred’s hearth with his two sons. Later, other villagers drifted in. The talk turned again to the boars’ attacks on the villagers, and Edmund listened in growing horror as Bergred recounted the tales.

  ‘They stalk us like devils,’ he said. ‘We dare not enter the forest for firewood with less than six of us. They seem to know. Lie in wait. That king boar, he leads them.’ He counted out the death list on the fingers of his powerful hands: a simpleton boy found dead and partly eaten in the middle of winter; a farmer who lost his hand when a pack of the brutes attacked his three-year-old son, and later died of gangrene; Bergred’s own eldest son, gored two winters before; a babe snatched from its basket set in the field’s shade at harvest time …

  The sad catalogue ran on as Mistress Kedwyn came in with a jug of ale. ‘They took two souls that day. Maesgarad’s baby first, and when Bergred and Toby gave chase, Toby too was taken. Swift as the wind, young Toby was …’ />
  ‘And I as slow as winter,’ Bergred said heavily. ‘He was dead when I got there. Gored through the belly. But I saw that great black beast standing high as my waist, and I tell you I saw malice in his eye, like I’d been looking into the eyes of a black-hearted man. Vengeance, that’s what he wants. Vengeance and death.’

  ‘But why?’ Edmund whispered. ‘Why do these boar behave like this?’

  For a time no one spoke – and that made it plain they knew the answer. At last, as if by silent agreement, Bergred began.

  ‘There is no reason not to tell you. You’ve had your share of them.’

  They came as a punishment, the blacksmith told them. There were some who said they were supernatural beasts conjured by sorcery. There were others who claimed the Guardians had simply rounded them up and driven them here to Oferstow forest.

  At the mention of the Guardians everyone in the room had looked anxiously at the door. But it stayed closed – and the fact that Cluaran alone had not flinched made Edmund more easy.

  ‘Are you saying the Guardians brought the boars?’ Elspeth questioned, puzzled.

  Bergred nodded. Two years ago, he’d been called out in a filthy storm to help an old man whose mule cart had stuck in the mud by the bridge. The axle had split, and Bergred had taken the man and his goods into the byre while he mended it. The old man had been in a stew of worry, begging Bergred to help him hide the cart’s load under the hay. Bergred had thought the man cracked; why would anyone want to hide firewood and sacks of oatmeal in an honest village? But that wasn’t it. Concealed within the load was the strangest-looking chest, bound with hasps of iron, and a lock with no place for a key. The old man made the blacksmith swear to secrecy; to tell no one of its presence while he was in the village.

  Elspeth felt her hand tingle, and she clenched her fingers tight into her palm. She had seen that chest for herself – had opened the sealed lock and reached inside to pick up a silver gauntlet that even now burned beneath her skin.