Bloodstone

by Gillian Philip

  The creature backed onto its haunches with a screaming whinny as it pawed the earth. Even that didn’t faze Rory, who smiled, reaching out to snatch at the whipping mane. Shutting his eyes, waiting to die, Jed turned his back on the horse to shield Rory.

  The hoof-blow never fell. Launching itself skywards, the horse leaped over their heads as Jed ducked beneath its belly. Then it was gone, racing across the drenched moorland, vanishing into the drizzle.

  Sucking in deep breaths, Jed shivered with bitter cold and fear. But at least he was shivering. The sneaking warmth was gone and his limbs were all energy and pain, moveable again. He’d lost all sense of direction now, but there was nothing for it. He hooked Rory onto his hip and trudged on.

  Adrenalin might have given him a boost, but that dark malevolence hadn’t left with the horse. Jed’s spine tingled. He didn’t want to look round. He’d nearly died of fright when the horse came out of nowhere, but what remained was a lot worse.

  The blood in his veins was thickening, his heart chilling and slowing. Horror was drawing closer; he couldn’t put a name to it, and he thought it would be all right if only he could. But it wasn’t possible. All he could think was what he’d thought before: that he should stop right here, deny it its fun.

  He wouldn’t go on. It could have him. He pulled Rory’s face into his neck, feeling tremors of fear in the small body. Jed wished the baby wasn’t here. It couldn’t be helped. Nothing could.

  He waited.

  The wind stopped just as Jed did, but the murky air stirred with something else. The something was circling now, waiting too, hoping for a little more fight maybe. Nausea lifted his stomach towards his ribcage and he seized the collar of Rory’s fleece in his teeth, biting down. It didn’t matter. Deadening terror fogged his brain.

  Something formed on the edge of his vision: blurred, but taking shape as it came out of the mist. Something like a man, or at least skin over human bones. Yellowish skin as cold and smooth as paper, as if all it could sweat was its suffocating fog of evil.

  The thing was so hard to see, half-dissolving in the gloom. Jed screwed up his eyes, breathing hard, desperate to see it and desperate not to. He could make out that it was barefoot and bare-chested, that it wore trousers that hung on it as if on a skeleton, and a long flapping trenchcoat. It spat as it walked on, and the heather singed and withered where the spittle landed.

  He’d seen this thing before. He didn’t know how or where but it didn’t matter, because he was dead now. He could see just one part of it clearly: the gaping empty smile that opened in its cadaverous face, promising nothing but darkness and pain and horror.

  He was afraid, so afraid. But he couldn’t run, couldn’t save Rory. He didn’t mind what it did to him so long as it left Rory alone, but it wasn’t going to; he knew it in his bones. He was going to watch Rory die and then he was going to die too.

  ‘Jed...’

  A bark-dry voice, desiccated as a long-lost corpse. It smiled at him, and then it drew a curved blade out of its belt.

  We saw the man on the grey horse before we saw anything else, because the hoofbeats thundered out of nowhere. Sionnach and I were riding hard, but the other horse was coming from the opposite direction and it was a lot closer to the Lammyr and the boy trapped squirming beneath its foot. The Lammyr wasn’t paying attention; it held a small child by the throat as it tapped a blade thoughtfully against its cheek.

  I gave a howl of rage, but I was too far away. I could do nothing; all the man on the horse could do was ride the Lammyr down, and that’s what he did, knocking it flying, so that it lost its grip on the infant. As it flew from the Lammyr’s clutches one sinewy old arm caught the child, clutched it, cuddled it swiftly inside a filthy leather coat.

  Springing to its feet, Slinkbone squealed with thwarted fury. It lunged for Jed, but the boy had already scrambled to his feet and was running, too scared and desperate even to scream. Sionnach got to him first, leaning down to seize him by the waist and haul him onto his own horse.

  Slinkbone’s curses stung my ears like a whip, but he’d dropped his blade and he wasn’t so fast with the second one as he was with his mouth. The blue roan was on top of him as I caught the glint of it, but my sword was in my hand already, and I was angry enough to dodge and still be accurate. The Lammyr’s neck was easier to slice than a willowherb stem, and its head spun away, farther and faster than I’d intended. I wheeled the roan, ducking reflexively as the thing collided with a boulder and exploded into fragments. Sparks of pale liquid flame erupted past me, but the roan was running hard, and none of it touched him. I drew him to a halt, panting, grinning at Sionnach, and then at Gocaman.

  ‘Classy teamwork,’ I said, and threw up.

  ‘Ach, you should be used to them by now,’ said Sionnach cheerfully, slapping my back.

  I wiped my mouth, then pretended to spit at him so that he had to dodge. ‘You ever get a bit of one on you, smartarse?’

  ‘You really want to know? Aye, I have. And I’m glad you weren’t around to take the piss out of me.’ He winked. ‘Didn’t get on your horse, did it?’

  ‘Nah.’ I checked the roan’s shoulder and quarters again, just to be sure. ‘If the sodding thing hadn’t exploded, I could have kept that head. For a curse.’

  Sionnach’s face darkened as he scowled at me. ‘Don’t even joke.’

  ‘Arse that you are, Murlainn.’ Even Gocaman gave me a disapproving look. ‘And I hope you cleaned your sword in wild running water. You know what will happen if you—’

  ‘Do I look like an amateur? I used the burn.’ No sense of humour, old Goc. Just because he was about five hundred years older than the rest of us, he still treated us like teenagers.

  Jed was silent in front of Sionnach but his quick frightened eyes hunted the moorland. He probably thought he should fight now, but clearly he wasn’t capable of it. Anyway, even if we had killed him, it would be a hundred times better than waiting in the sodden twilight for something vile while the blood turned black and cold in his veins. I hoped he was grateful.

  We went at a fast flying pace. The horses were all of the same kind, and their hooves barely touched down, and despite everything he’d been through, Jed was nearly dozing against Sionnach when we finally slackened to a walk. He’d stopped shivering at last, and his little brother was asleep in Gocaman’s arms, mouth curled up at the corners. Having good dreams, then: astonishing. Gocaman had removed his glasses, and his eyes were wintry. Occasionally he would glance down at the baby, and then his expression would cloud with bewilderment.

  ‘Not much point us looking for Finn now,’ I grumbled. ‘Baby on board again.’

  Sionnach was riding close to me now, and in front of him Jed was starting to look a little more alive. He kept stealing surreptitious frightened glances at Gocaman, ten paces ahead and crooning to the baby.

  ‘You okay?’ I don’t know why I bothered. Every time I asked, he lied.

  This time he didn’t even answer the question. ‘I thought he was Laszlo?’ he said in a voice like dust.

  Ahead of us Gocaman halted and turned in disbelief.

  ‘Laszlo?’ He spat it out like a mouthful of poison.

  ‘Hell’s teeth, Cuilean. What made you think that?’

  Gocaman was still glaring back at him, letting his horse choose the way now.

  ‘I found his gun. In the water near his hut.’

  ‘Oh, so it had to be his. Your train of thought got derailed at Newtonmore, Cuilean. You’d better apologise to Gocaman. He’s very thin-skinned.’

  ‘You are a lying toad, Murlainn,’ sighed Gocaman, then removed his leather hat, shook pooled rain off it, and jammed it back on his head. ‘But still. Laszlo.’ He humphed and shook his head.

  Jed had gone a startling shade of red. ‘I thought you killed Mack...’

  Exasperated, Gocaman turned and rode back to him. ‘Laszlo killed Mack! Did the Lammyr make you lose your mind?’ A hand in a fingerless glove gripped Jed’s chin and turned h
is face, searching his eyes. ‘No, you’re sane. A little stupid but sane. All I do is guard the watergate.’

  ‘Not that you’ve been brilliant at that lately,’ I muttered.

  Gocaman shot me a killing look. ‘I was distracted. It was the Lammyr Slinkbone.’

  Jed rolled his eyes, almost meeting mine. ‘I was being chased by about fifty cops and half the social services. You must be easily distracted.’

  I snorted, and Gocaman barked, ‘Easily? Slinkbone fought me barehanded! I should have known it was a feint, but I didn’t, not till I felt the breach in the watergate. And then it slipped away from me like an eel, and it laughed as it went. And since you are still alive to ask: how did you come through the watergate?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’

  Gocaman’s throat rumbled. ‘Was it you that sneaked through after Leonora a month ago?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Jed.

  My blood ran so cold, the roan stopped beneath me. Swiftly I got my breath back and rode on. Safely at Jed’s back and unseen, Sionnach raised his eyebrows at me.

  ‘No?’ Gocaman frowned. ‘Well, two came after her.’

  ‘Aye, we followed her yesterday?’ Jed hesitated, no doubt remembering he’d lost a night somewhere. ‘Okay, two days ago, maybe. But not last month. That was somebody else, pal.’

  ‘Ah, I see!’ Gocaman’s voice brightened. ‘You don’t know much, Cuilean, do you? Well, time can flow differently here. It’s capricious.’

  ‘What?’ The colour drained from Jed’s face.

  And, I suspect, from mine.

  Gocaman said airily, ‘Oh, the time always evens out. Like water! That’s what I thought when they built that great canal through to Ness and the west. The levels changing, up, down, but always you end up at the sea.’ He nodded to himself, pleased. ‘That’s how the time is. Different on either side of the lock, see, but it always finds its level in the end.’

  Jed was barely listening to him, and his expression was desolate. ‘The time. The time’s different.’

  ‘Yes. And even though I came after you straight away, I had to call for my horse and ride like the devil. Even then I barely reached you. The Lammyr wanted you through on this side very badly, or its mistress did. She won’t be too pleased that Slinkbone pissed away its advantage and got its head cut off.’ He laughed. ‘Ah, a Lammyr is its own worst enemy. If it hadn’t played cat-and-mouse, none of us would have caught up. Not before it had the last and best of its fun with you.’

  Jed shivered, but despite his white face and drained eyes I didn’t think he was imagining what the Lammyr might have done. I stayed quiet, hoping rather pathetically that he’d forget I was there. I expected him to turn on me any moment now, but surprisingly, that didn’t occur to him. He seemed paralysed by shock.

  Gocaman tucked his coat tighter around the baby. ‘Anyway, why do you think I would have heard the pursuit of you? There was none. Two at the gate in a police car, and too afraid to set foot in the Fairy Wood.’

  ‘They were all over the place. They were everywhere!’

  ‘No, Cuilean, they were nowhere.’ Gocaman tipped his hat brim back. ‘I think perhaps most of it was in your mind.’

  Jed opened his mouth, but shut it again when he couldn’t speak.

  ‘Don’t be offended,’ murmured Sionnach to the boy. ‘If it was all in your mind, that’s only because someone put it there.’

  Jed looked over his shoulder at Sionnach, but as if he couldn’t remember who the man was, or how he’d got here with him. I should have looked in his mind, but the fact is I was too afraid to. I didn’t want to know.

  I kept my mouth shut. Not before time.

  The land was wilder and steeper now, but we had left behind the worst of the weather, the darkness drifting sluggishly eastward. The bones of the mountains showed through, white rock scraped sheer by ancient ice. As the hours passed the rock faces closed in, the passes deepening, and the hills faded to massive blocks of emptiness against a navy blue, star-speckled sky.

  Gocaman had fallen back to ride between us, and I’d grown so used to the silence I almost jumped when his low voice broke it.

  ‘Ah, boy,’ he murmured, ‘there are humans who touch a Lammyr’s desiccated heart. They fall in something like love. Skinshanks had a protégé, and he tired of him, and the protégé is dead, and that is all that happened with Mack. And he tired of Mack only because he found Nils Laszlo more interesting.’ He gave a high laugh. ‘And you thought I was Laszlo! I wouldn’t be coming near you if I was.’

  Jed scowled, but his curiosity was a tangible, sparking thing. ‘You gonnae tell me what that’s about?’

  ‘Just that he – ah! Murlainn, there.’ Gocaman nodded towards a gash in the hills, a smudge of scrubby woodland made visible by starlight.

  I stiffened. We’d found them; I knew they hadn’t found Finn, but that wasn’t what made my flesh crawl with cold dread. I should warn Conal now. I should tell him what must have happened, what made the boy Jed dark and cold with hatred.

  I couldn’t. I could barely contemplate it myself.

  Not till we were much closer did I smell the damp smoke of a well-concealed fire; and then there was movement in the trees, and low voices, the stamp and snort of horses. The blue roan raised its head, gills flapping, and whinnied softly. Before we’d gone another five paces, the black shadow of Conal’s horse emerged from the trees like a wraith.

  Jed was squeezing his fists so tightly the knuckles were bone white. I still didn’t want to go near his mind, coward that I was, but it’s not as if I had to. A black-hot hatred was swelling inside him, swamping his muscles and blood, so relentless it was leaking from every pore of his skin. Being near him almost made me queasy, like being spattered in Lammyr blood.

  We rode into the scrubby trees, ducking branches, the black horse nipping affectionately at the blue roan’s withers. Conal took shape in the darkness, eyeing us with a certain wariness. Eili was at his shoulder, one blade out of its scabbard.

  ‘Cù Chaorach,’ called Gocaman softly. ‘We’ve brought your wolf-pup.’

  As the horses halted, Gocaman unfolded Rory from his coat, and Sionnach put an arm round Jed’s waist and lowered him.

  Jed let himself slide down. But his feet barely touched the ground before he launched himself forward, slamming into Conal, locking his fingers round his throat. They crashed to the ground together.

  ‘You never told me! You never told me!’

  Conal’s eyes were dilated almost black, his eyelight contracted to a pinprick. Breath rasped against his throat. ‘Jed,’ he croaked.

  ‘Liar! Killer! You let me stay too long!’

  Conal’s fingers were tugging at the boy’s, but I knew he was desperate not to hurt him, that if he hadn’t held back he could have snapped his fingers and flung him off like a puppy. The weakness of it seemed to encourage Jed, and enrage him too. Tears started in his eyes as he crushed his hands tighter round Conal’s neck, dug his fingers as hard as he could into flesh. Eili lunged for him with a bare blade, but was flung back by a psychic blow that could only have come from my idiot-face noble-twat brother. She floundered to her feet in soft leaf-mould as Jed screeched with rage.

  ‘Fight me! Fight me, you filthy murderer!’

  The tiniest shake of Conal’s head was all I saw, and I knew what I’d really known from the start: Conal wasn’t going to fight him. The little thug was actually in with a chance of killing my brother.

  It had lasted mere seconds, and I had my mind back. I seized the boy from behind, lacing my fingers round his, prising them away from my brother’s throat, not caring if I hurt him. As the last finger finally snapped clear, he gave a howl of frustrated rage and fell back. I wrapped my arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides, holding him still, afraid to let go. Conal propped himself up, rasping hard breaths, rubbing the weals on his neck.

  Torc and Sionnach seemed in shock; Eili, staggering forward, was simply enraged, while Gocaman, the baby in his arms, loo
ked on with a detached curiosity.

  I growled in his ear. ‘Calm down, Cuilean.’

  ‘You let me stay!’ Jed snarled through his teeth. He couldn’t look at Conal. ‘He knew I had to go back. But he didn’t take me. He didn’t come. He stayed out killing people till it was TOO LATE.’

  I could have ripped the silence with my fingernails.

  ‘Shut up,’ I snapped. ‘That’s how it is. It could have happened however quickly you went back.’ Still holding him with one arm, I gripped his face between my fingers and turned it so that Jed could do nothing but meet my eyes. ‘Whatever it is.’

  ‘Let him go.’ Conal’s voice was hard in his throat. ‘He might as well kill me.’

  ‘Whatever it is,’ I repeated, still desperately searching Jed’s eyes, the fear rising in my throat.

  My grip on Jed’s jaw was so hard he couldn’t look away, but gods, he could slap away my questioning mind with his burning rage. I could see nothing in his mind and he knew it.

  ~ You’ll know when I choose to tell you, you bloody warlock.

  Only Jed heard my hiss of shock.

  Testing his resistance, finding none, I let him go. Eili took a menacing step forward as if daring Jed to touch Conal again. Gocaman shifted the infant into the arms of Torc, who looked at the baby, shrugged, and began to rock him with the gentle confidence of an expert.

  ‘It’s been a month!’ Silent tears coursed down Jed’s face, running into his mouth, leaking through his gritted teeth. ‘My mum’s dead.’

  Now the words were out; now it was real; now I could no longer hope or pretend. In that moment our minds collided again. The stench of vomit edged into my nostrils and there was an image in my head, a brown eye meeting mine, unblinking, dry as dust. With a sharp breath, I wrenched my brain clear of his.