by A. J. Lake
She took one step towards it, and halted. She must tell them she was going, if she could. She called down the flow of the water, not knowing if she could make them hear.
‘Elspeth! Run upstream! I’ll fetch help.’
Then she stepped through the opening.
They had thrown themselves headlong into the water: Edmund was wet to his hair. Just downstream of him, Elspeth was still on her hands and knees. He splashed over to her and took her arm to pull her up. The face she turned to him was ashen.
‘He’s Loki!’ she gasped. ‘All this time, when we walked together...’
‘We have to move,’ Edmund said, dragging at her hand.
‘He slept beside me . . .’ Elspeth moaned, but she ran with him.
The roaring of the fire kept pace with them. On the bank, flames leapt at the edge of Edmund’s vision, and he could hear the crackling as the fire spread to the bushes at the water’s edge. Smoke poured over their heads. They bent low as they ran, but Edmund’s throat was soon rasping and his chest tightened painfully. Beside him he could hear Elspeth wheezing. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, forcing his way through the muddy water that swirled about his knees. His mind filled with what he had seen in that single backward glance: the child standing beneath the trees, his body billowing like smoke; then suddenly, impossibly tall. His hair had turned to flames, his eyes had glowed and his face flickered as if his whole body were filled with fire. And the branches which brushed his head had instantly begun to smoulder.
The flames were closer now, leaping higher than the bushes they consumed. Behind them, Edmund thought he could hear crashing, as if something huge were pushing over trees to get to them. ‘Faster!’ he muttered, but the water dragged at him, and his feet slipped on unseen stones.
Elspeth was ahead of him now; she grabbed his arm as he stumbled. ‘Listen!’ she panted.
Had she heard the sounds of pursuit as well? Edmund did not dare glance behind him again. But his friend was looking upstream; and he saw a sudden flash of hope on her face. ‘I think it’s Eolande,’ she said.
Edmund blinked through the smoke-haze and peered as far along the stream as he could. It vanished into the trees ahead – but there, surely, was the distant froth of the waterfall, and above it, a tiny grey figure. Then a hot wind hit them, bringing more smoke, and the figure was hidden.
‘Get down!’ Elspeth screamed. She shoved him in the small of his back and he staggered forward, landing on all fours with his face an inch from the water. But the smoke was lighter here, and he could breathe again.
They crawled forward side by side, forcing their way against the current. The water became clearer, and the shock of its cold against Edmund’s skin was reviving at first. When he looked up he could see the waterfall ahead of him, closer already . . . but the flames were closer, too. They burned right up to the water’s edge; nearly as tall as he was, and racing ahead though there was nothing growing here for them to feed on.
The riverbed was growing steeper and narrower. Edmund’s left shoulder scraped against the bank, and he and Elspeth were wedged together as his jerkin caught on a rock. He pushed Elspeth in front of him and tore the wet cloth loose.
The water was no longer cold on his skin. And when he next looked up the fire burned on both sides of the stream, right up to the water’s edge.
Ahead of him he heard Elspeth shout in triumph – and then she was standing against the waterfall, bathed in its spray, while flames leapt higher than her head on either side. The water’s clamour mingled with the roaring of the fire to drown out what she said, but she pointed upwards. The shrine was just above her, its grey stones bare and empty. The fire had not touched it – but there was no one there to help them.
‘We can climb up!’ Edmund heard her shout as he scrambled up to join her. ‘Come and help me!’ Now he saw where she was pointing. The fall was not a sheer drop but a steep slope over uneven rocks, with a rubble of boulders at the base. About halfway up a couple of projections stuck out, the water cascading around them. If Elspeth could stand upright on the rocks at the base she might clamber to the lower spur, and then if she could hold on against the water’s force...
There was a laugh behind them, low and clear as a bell, ringing effortlessly through the noise of fire and fall. Edmund could not help it: he turned, drawn to the sound, and felt Elspeth doing the same.
They looked out over a landscape of flame. The riverbanks were burning on both sides as far as Edmund could see. Further downstream the two lines of fire met behind them: it seemed the water had been consumed entirely. To their left the blaze had caught the nearest trees, which burned like torches. To their right there was a sea of fire stretching into the distance, covered with oily black smoke. A few taller, more stubborn trees still blazed above the wavering clouds.
And Wulf, for whom they had searched so hard, no longer existed – had never existed.
A figure emerged from a clump of fiery trees. It seemed wrapped in black cloud and as tall as the trees themselves: their sparking tops made a halo around its head. The fire parted before the giant shape as it approached, leaving a path of cinders.
It took two steps – and something changed in its scale. It was no longer a giant in the distance, but a tall man standing before them, black-cloaked and fiercely beautiful, his face and hands glowing like flame.
Loki.
‘Well, Elsbet.’ Wulf’s lilting accent still sounded in his voice, and when he laughed, Edmund saw an echo of the child’s face. ‘Will you free me now?’
Elspeth moaned and covered her face with her hands. The demon’s body rippled again, the cloudy stuff of his cloak floating out and collapsing in on itself. When it cleared, the child Wulf was standing there, his arms outstretched.
‘They treated me so ill!’ he whimpered. ‘Both of them: the minstrel and his father. They chained me. They bound me to a rock. You can put right the wrong they did, Elsbet!’
‘Leave me alone!’ Elspeth screamed.
Edmund pushed her behind him and pulled out his knife. ‘Come any closer and I’ll add to that scar of yours!’ he yelled. Behind him he heard Elspeth scrambling away.
Wulf gazed at him for a moment – and then he was Loki again, fire-lit and grinning. ‘She’ll come to me in the end,’ he said, and his beautiful voice had nothing of the child in it now. He turned on his heel and the flames leapt up to hide him as he walked away.
Edmund turned to Elspeth. She had climbed on to the boulders at the foot of the waterfall, but she had stopped, gazing around her in horror. The flames towered on either side of the pool they stood in, high as the top of the waterfall. Water still bubbled from the gap in the rocks, but above it more fire danced, cutting off their view of the shrine. Behind them the river had vanished; the banks had collapsed, and the two fires had met and merged. They were surrounded by walls of flame.
‘It’s all illusion!’ Elspeth cried suddenly. She stood on tiptoes on the highest boulder, reaching up to grab the projecting spur. ‘Help me up!’
Edmund hesitated. The water around his knees felt hot, and steam was rising from the surface. ‘But if it isn’t?’
‘It’s not real fire!’ Elspeth insisted. ‘He did this to us before, Edmund. Remember, in the cave beneath the mountain? We thought we would be consumed in flame, but there was nothing there. He can’t catch us like this!’ Without waiting for his help she leapt, caught the lower spur and hauled herself up, thrusting her arms through the flames to pull herself on to the ledge.
And screamed.
For a dreadful instant she hung there, still screaming; then she dropped. Her arms and hands were blazing as she fell back into the pool. Edmund flinched from the heat as he tried to catch her – and then the two of them were sprawled in the steaming water, the flames on her skin mercifully extinguished.
Elspeth was on her knees, sobbing with pain, holding both arms out into the water. They were burned dark-red, and her right hand was bent into a claw. W
alls of flame encompassed them on every side, moving closer as the water dwindled. Already the air around them was so hot that each breath scorched Edmund’s throat.
There was a clap of thunder. Edmund looked up, bewildered, as clouds raced to cover the tiny patch of sky which was all they could see above the leaping flames. The thunder bellowed again – and then there were drops of water on his skin, blessedly cold. The drops thickened to rain, and then to a downpour heavier than the waterfall. It pounded on their heads as he and Elspeth looked at each other, wide-eyed. Edmund realised he was shaking with relief as he knelt beside her in the churning water, taking deep breaths of the cool, wet air.
There was sizzling and steam all around them as the fires went out. The rain began to slacken, and Edmund heard familiar voices. Cluaran was leaning over the edge of the rocks above the waterfall, with Eolande behind him. Cathbar was running towards them from the far bank, sparks scattering around his feet. He stopped in horror at the sight of Elspeth’s arms, then splashed into the water to lift her with surprising gentleness. She cried out as he raised her, and breathed in gasps as he carried her up the ash-strewn slope.
Cluaran leant down to pull Edmund over the waterfall. Black soot disfigured the rock before the shrine, and all around the ring of stones the ground was charred and blackened – but the circle within the stones was untouched.
‘You should never have left this place,’ Cluaran said to Edmund as they helped to lay Elspeth down against the central stone. She moaned, and the minstrel gazed in dismay at her arms. ‘Did you meet him?’
Edmund nodded dumbly. Cluaran had gone pale, and his face worked as if in fury, or dread. But he said nothing more. After a moment he shook his head and turned away.
‘But don’t you see?’ Edmund called after him. ‘All that searching, and Loki was with us all the time. And he promised to come back.’ He looked down at his dearest friend in the world, who had her eyes shut, the lashes sooty against her white skin. He knew the demon would keep his promise, because they had the one thing he needed to be free.
Elspeth.
Chapter Seventeen
Pain eddied and swirled in Elspeth’s hands, engulfing her arms before it spread through her body like a neap tide, higher and higher, drowning everything, choking her . . . Her ears were filled with screaming. She could hear Cathbar trying to quiet her, but he sounded so far away, and didn’t he realise that it was Ioneth screaming, not her?
Hush, she tried to tell her. We’re safe now: he’s gone.
‘Is there nothing we can do?’ It was Edmund’s voice, distraught as she had seldom heard him. ‘She’s in such pain...’
‘This tonic should help.’ That was Eolande again. ‘But she must be calm enough to take it.’
What did they mean? Elspeth tried to tell them that she was quite calm enough to take medicine – that it was Ioneth they must help. But no words came out, even though her mouth was moving. She was the one screaming after all. With an effort she made herself breathe out, close her throat to the terrible shrieks of pain. Somewhere deep inside her, Ioneth quietened too.
‘There,’ Eolande said. ‘Raise her a little.’
She felt herself being lifted very carefully. Then a cup was at her lips and something warm and bitter-tasting in her mouth. Her throat was burned dry and cracked, but she managed to swallow.
After a few mouthfuls the pain was further away, and Elspeth thought she might be able to breathe without a scream coming out. She opened her eyes. Edmund was cradling her head against his shoulder and staring down at her in alarm. Eolande knelt beside him, offering the cup with the last dregs of the medicine.
‘Where’s Loki?’ she tried to ask. But the words would not come; not yet.
Edmund laid her back down and she strained to listen as the voices of the others swam in and out of her hearing.
‘She cannot be moved!’ Eolande insisted. ‘It will be days before she can walk any distance.’
‘Then we’ll stay here,’ said Edmund. ‘The shrine will protect us, won’t it?’
‘Not enough,’ Cluaran said. ‘Loki could ring it with flame, and we could not stop him. It took all my power, and Eolande’s, to raise that storm, and we barely contained the fire. Sooner or later, he would find a way in.’ He gazed down at Elspeth and his eyes were dark with grief. ‘Loki has tried to play with her like a cat with a mouse, and he has failed. He will not try so gentle a way again. If she will not cut his last bond, then he will kill her. Elspeth is his only hope and his greatest enemy. He will have that sword – by whatever means.’
‘But if just two of us stay here,’ Eolande said. ‘I can weave a protection around us – keep her safe until she’s healed.’
‘For days?’ Cluaran demanded. ‘And then how would you reach us? No – I have a better idea.’ He dropped his voice, and for a while Elspeth heard only murmuring, and an exclamation of protest from Eolande. She strained to listen, but the sounds of their talk began to fade, and she knew she was slipping back into darkness.
‘Elspeth!’ It was a sharp whisper, right by her ear. Cluaran was looking down at her, his face not quite in focus. ‘Loki will come after you again, and soon, while you’re still weak. Do you understand?’
Elspeth nodded.
‘I know of a safe place,’ Cluaran went on. ‘He will not be able to touch you there – but I can’t take everyone; only you. Will you come with me?’
Elspeth opened her eyes wide, trying to convey her dismay. ‘Edmund . . . who will keep him safe?’
Cluaran’s face was very still. ‘Edmund will be safe as soon as you are gone,’ he said. ‘Loki has no interest in him.’
‘We’ll meet again when you’re healed.’ Eolande was bending over her now. ‘We’ll wait at the coast for you; then take ship for Wessex. There is a place there where . . . where we might be safe together.’
Their faces were beginning to blur again. Elspeth tried to move – and felt the pain at the edges of her consciousness, ready to rush in and overwhelm her. Ioneth had started to sob again, and it was hard to hear what the others were saying.
‘Yes,’ she croaked.
‘Then it’s done.’ Eolande’s voice faded. ‘Sleep now . . .’
‘You’ll take her where?’ Edmund demanded. He had not abandoned his men to have Elspeth snatched out of his sight, not when Loki had revealed the extent of his power.
‘To our people’s country,’ Cluaran said. ‘Mine and Eolande’s. Elspeth will be hidden there; she’ll have the time she needs to heal.’
‘But how will they receive her?’ Eolande’s voice was anxious. ‘You know how little they love strangers.’
‘We have no other choice,’ Cluaran said. ‘The sword must be saved, if we can save it.’
‘You mean, Elspeth must be saved!’ Edmund broke in, glaring at him.
The minstrel returned his stare levelly. ‘And Elspeth too, of course,’ he said.
There was little preparation to do. They filled their water flasks, and Cluaran shared his food between the others, saying that the Fay would provide for him.
‘You must go straight to the coast and take ship to Wessex,’ he said. ‘We’ve no need to chase Loki from now on. He’ll come to us. All we can do is choose the battleground. Eolande will lead the two of you, and Elspeth and I will follow.’
Cathbar and Eolande waited at the edge of the stone ring while Edmund bent over Elspeth to say goodbye. She seemed on the edge of sleep: her eyes were half-closed, and her breathing had slowed. She murmured something as Edmund spoke to her, but did not open her eyes.
‘I’ll meet you again, Elspeth,’ he vowed. ‘Go with Cluaran, and be healed.’
Then he followed Eolande and Cathbar down the ridge into the ruined trees. He looked back just once: Cluaran stood within the circle, his hand raised in farewell, while Elspeth lay unmoving at his feet.
They headed west, back towards the road, putting the river behind them. Edmund breathed more easily when they were among green leaves ag
ain – but the stink of burning followed them for a long time.
‘I’ll be glad when we’re out of these trees,’ Cathbar muttered to Edmund as they pushed through a thicket. ‘We’ll get on properly when there’s a good road under our feet.’
Edmund nodded, but in truth he hardly cared how fast they went, nor where. He had left Elspeth behind – every step took him further from her, and he could not convince himself that he was doing the right thing.
It seemed an age before they reached the road again. The low sun showed the track stretching behind and before them, its surface rutted with wheels and men’s feet, though there was not a soul nor a dwelling in sight. Cathbar strode forward to take the lead. As he had predicted, they made good progress: Edmund reckoned they had covered well over a league, leaving the forest far behind them, before night fell.
‘We must be near the southern edge of the kingdom,’ Cathbar said. ‘We’ll be in the Saxons’ lands in a day or less, and after that, the Frankish kingdom – we can take ship for home from there.’
They slept in the shelter of a hedge at the roadside, and woke to a mild, grey morning – and the road full of travellers. Old men and women weighed down by bundles and families with handcarts and small children passed them as they rolled their blankets and ate a hasty breakfast, and were passed in their turn as Cathbar set the pace for their day’s journeying. About mid-morning they overtook a large group, leading goats on strings and a donkey-cart loaded with chests, stools and blankets. Like the others, they shuffled forward with eyes bent to the ground, and would not answer when Cathbar hailed them.
There were no settlements near the road here. Edmund guessed that many of these people had been walking all night. The roadside was dotted with the remains of shrines to different gods, but no one stopped to honour them. All had been overthrown, the little statues cast down and broken, or daubed with the grinning features of the Burning Man. Edmund thought he recognised some of the broken images from his mother’s shrines at home, and after the first few, he tried not to look at them.