“Fabian,” Stetland said. “I believe you've met Sir John Bretel, head of the king's guard and a formidable knight.”
“Our paths have crossed,” the old wizard said, shaking the head guard's hand.
“And this is Marcus Delorous.”
“I was told you were bringing two soldiers with you, not one.”
Marcus looked to the ground and appeared forlorn.
“We lost him on the approach to Drewton Hills. Archers. We fell into their trap.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Volk's men are wily folk. We must keep our guard. Now, tell me how you got here so fast?”
“What do you mean?” Stetland said.
“You're just an hour's ride from the Great Road. I'm supposed to meet Eaglen there. I didn’t expect to see you, at least not until much later. I was hoping you might have taken care of the wizard bearer business in High Hunsley. But I guess if you had you wouldn't be here.”
Stetland exchanged glances with the others
“You mean we're at the easterly point of Ellerker Rise?” Sir John said.
“That's right. Did you travel through the night?”
“We were on Killingwoldgraves just an hour ago,” Gladden said.
“That's impossible,” Fabian said. “From there, it would take you . . . . well, four or five hours at least, and that's at a gallop.”
“There's something amiss here,” Stetland said. “We got lost. And now we’re here.”
I don’t like the sound of this one bit. “Where did you become lost?”
“As we began to ride through the woods,” Stetland said. “It was as if the forest was sending us round in circles. And then the boy went missing.”
“The boy?” Fabian said. This story gets more intriguing by the second.
“We rescued a boy, along the way. He went to take a leak over there” – Stetland nodded to a place where his horse stood nosing around in the snow for grass it would never find – “while we discussed how we'd become lost. Then, he was gone.”
“How long ago was this?”
“About fifteen minutes ago,” Stetland looked to the others for confirmation.
“Twenty at the most,” Gladden said.
“Stetland,” Fabian said, “do you think this might have something to do with—”
“Fabian,” Marcus said, pointing. “Your pocket.”
Fabian looked down at his robe. He was alarmed to see wisps of smoke rising from his pocket. He slipped his hand inside and found something hot. He lifted it out, but it was too hot to hold. He passed it between his hands several times and then dropped it.
It’s my witch stone, he thought, as it melted the snow around it on the ground.
“What is it?” Sir John said. “And what’s it doing?”
“I was about to say: do you think this has something to do with witches?” Fabian said. “Now I'm certain it does. This, my friends, is a witch stone. And it appears to have woken up.”
“What does it do?” Marcus asked.
“I'm not entirely sure,” Fabian said. “But you being lost in the woods was no accident. I believe witchcraft is at play here.”
They gathered around the stone, which, having melted the snow around it, was sitting in a pool of water. The water bubbled like the contents of a pan simmering on an open fire.
“What's happening?” Sir John said.
“I think we'll soon meet our witch,” Fabian said. And the boy, I hope.
From the larger of the stone's two holes, a small spiral appeared, like a whirlwind. Fabian bent to take a closer look, but when it increased in size he took a step backwards.
“I don't like this,” Marcus said, edging away.
“Do you think it's Emily Grouse?” Gladden said.
“Emily Grouse?” Fabian scoffed. The young wizard has gone mad. “She's been dead two hundred years or more.”
“The boy we were looking for, he’s a seer. He saw Emily with his mind's eye.”
Fabian was deeply concerned by this. The Grouse family were powerful, but he knew their line was severed a long, long time ago. Emelda, the last of them, was burned alive with her daughters over a hundred years past. But some say her screams can still be heard in the dead of night drifting across Drewton Hill's bleak moors.
Quiggly scurried over to Fabian and climbed up the wizard's leg as if it were a tree. He flung his arms around his master's neck and began to shake.
The whirlwind-like spiral continued to grow skyward. It was nearly as tall as the old wizard himself. The forest had become windy too. Fabian’s robe and long white hair blew as if they were hands reaching for the swirling mass. So too did a scattering of curled, brown leaves left over from the autumn past. The horses had seen enough; spooked, they darted into the woods.
Marcus shouted after them with his hands on his head. “Our horses.”
“I think we have more serious concerns,” Fabian said. He had to raise his voice over the noise of the growing wind. “Grab onto something.”
The whirlwind swelled further, growing taller and wider. It sucked in the leaves, which swirled round and round it and then disappeared altogether. Twigs and other pieces of forest litter were sucked in too. Fabian wrapped his arms around a tree trunk. The branches above swayed violently in the wind. Quiggly squawked loudly in the wizard’s right ear.
“Hold on tight, old chap,” Fabian said to his squaggle.
Across the clearing, Stetland had also wrapped his arms around a tree, Marcus, having dropped his wooden shield, was grasping a low-hanging branch, and Sir John was sitting behind a fallen trunk.
The wind whipped up snow from the forest floor, forming a thick blizzard. Fabian felt a pull on his legs. It's sucking me in, he thought. He hugged the tree tighter as his legs left the floor. It's so powerful. He had never felt wind so strong. Winters in the mountains to the north, where he spent most of his time, could be severe – it was not uncommon to be caught in a tree-felling blizzard – but this storm felt like it had hands that were pulling at him.
From somewhere in the mist of white, Sir John cried out.
He's gone, Fabian thought. Into the whirlwind.
The old wizard was losing his grip too. I'll be next, he thought. He dug his fingernails into the bark and shouted into the mist as snow blasted his face with what felt like a thousand tiny needle heads. As his fingernails lost the fight, Quiggly tightened his grip around the wizard's neck. Then Fabian was flying through the air, like a captain-less ship on a stormy sea. Sticks and logs and stones and all manner of heavy objects flew past his head. He thought himself lucky not to be hit. When he began to spin, head over feet, his stomach threatened to spill the porridge he'd eaten for breakfast. He was inside the whirlwind proper now, he knew, and was being sucked into its depths. The noise was deafening; he would have covered his ears if he'd been able to coordinate his hands. The noise soon stopped, however, leaving calm in its wake. Seconds later, he began to fall. It was as if someone had taken the ground from beneath his feet at a great height. He wasn't falling through a white blizzard, though. Instead, he was falling from a sky of the deepest blue. Seconds later, he landed on lush, green grass.
“Fabian?” came Stetland's voice. “Are you all right?”
Quiggly crawled out of the old wizard's robe and cooed.
“I don't think I've broken anything,” Fabian said. “What in God's name happened?”
“I don't know,” Stetland said. “But we're somewhere else.”
Stetland offered Fabian his hand. The old wizard took it and got to his feet.
Gladden, Sir John and Marcus were standing a little ahead. Beyond them was a cottage with stone walls and a thatched roof from which a chimney rose, billowing white smoke. What startled Fabian the most was the garden around the house, with its mass of flowers in bloom. It's a summer's day!
“Don't take another step,” Fabian warned the others. “That's a witch's cottage.”
He glanced around, feeling exposed and vulnerable.
“Th
e boy's in there,” Stetland said. “I know it.”
“We have to be careful,” Fabian said, “and stick together. Don’t let her get inside your head.”
They walked down the path, single file. Quiggly scurried up Fabian's legs and wrapped his long arms around the wizard's neck. Bees buzzed around the garden in summer merriment. Fabian found the scent of the flowers overpowering and wanted to sneeze, but he managed to stifle it. When he reached the cottage door, he stopped and turned to face the others.
“Shall we walk straight in?” Stetland said.
“No,” Fabian said. “We'll knock.”
The door, which looked like it was made of solid oak, was painted a gentle blue and domed at the top. Fabian rapped on it three times and then waited.
No one answered.
Stetland removed his furs, revealing a simple chainmail vest beneath. “It's too hot, I'm sweating. My sword will fall from my grip if I don't cool off.”
Marcus and Gladden had done the same. Only Sir John remained in his winter attire.
“You should take off your furs, Sir John,” Stetland advised. “If you get too hot you could pass out. I've never known it this hot, ever.”
“I'm fine,” Sir John said. Yet Fabian could see beads of sweat forming on the knight's brow.
How strange, Fabian thought.
Stetland unsheathed his sword. It glinted in the sunshine. Sir John and Marcus did the same. Gladden readied his staff.
“Shall we try the door?” Fabian said, already reaching for the knob. I doubt it will open, though.
Stetland nodded.
Fabian gripped the doorknob and turned it, but as he had thought, the door wouldn't budge.
“Locked?” Stetland said.
“More likely a spell,” Fabian said. “She'd have known we were coming. Witches know everything.”
“Can you cast a spell of your own,” Sir John said, “to make the door open?”
Fabian ran his fingers through his long, wiry beard. “No. This type of spell is not easily undone. We'll have to try something else.” Something not magic. She'll counter everything I do.
“Like what?” Marcus said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.
Fabian stepped towards the window and cupped his hands against the thick glass.
“What do you see?” Gladden said at his shoulder.
“Nothing. There's a spell on the window, too, I expect, preventing us from seeing in.”
“Listen,” Stetland said, cocking his head.
Fabian listened, but heard only the drone of nectar-laden bees gliding from flower to flower.
“I hear it too,” Marcus said.
Damn my old ears, Fabian thought. But when he stepped closer to the cottage door, he heard it. It sounded like a boy shouting.
“It's him,” Stetland said. “It's Christian.”
The Dark Rider began to beat his fist upon the door. “Open up,” he shouted, over and over.
Fabian touched Stetland's shoulder. “Stetland, you’re wasting your time.”
The Dark Rider stopped his beating.
“What's the boy shouting?” Gladden said.
“It sounds like he's shouting for help,” Stetland said.
Fabian stepped away from the cottage and then looked to its thatched roof and the chimney billowing smoke. There must be a way in. “Quiggly, I have job for you.” He pulled the squaggle's thin arms from around his neck. Quiggly leapt to the ground. Fabian squatted next to the creature. “Do you see that chimney up there?” Fabian pointed; the squaggle turned his head to look. “I want you to hold your breath and scurry down it. Be careful when you get to the bottom, though, as there'll be a cauldron of boiling water there.”
“Does he understand you?” Sir John said.
“Of course he does,” Fabian snapped. “He's probably more intelligent than you.”
Marcus sniggered.
“Once you’re inside,” Fabian continued to tell the squaggle, “you need to go to the door. Despite the spell, it will open from the inside. Have you got that?”
Without further pause, the squaggle climbed the cottage wall like a spider and scurried up the thatched roof. He stopped once, to look back, before disappearing down the smoking chimney, feet first.
They gathered by the door.
Time passed slowly. To Fabian, seconds felt like minutes, and minutes like hours.
“When he opens the door,” Fabian said. “We must be quick. Don't give her chance to cast another spell, or worse, get in your head.”
A moment later, the doorknob turned and the door swung inwards.
I should have told them how beautiful she might be, Fabian thought as he dashed into the cottage. Men can be blinded by beauty and a moment's hesitation is all she needs.
Emily Grouse, wearing a white dress, one sleek leg exposed, blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, was leaning into an open cage, making grabs at a boy crouched, cowering in the corner.
Fabian pointed his staff and began to channel energy through it. I'll blast her away, he thought. The end of his staff shone bright, then white fire poured from it like a raging river towards the witch. Emily turned and held up her hand, palm first. The river of white fire stopped inches from her hand, forming an undulating ball of light. Damn you, Emily.
As Stetland stepped forward, sword raised, Emily raised her other hand and danced her fingers. The Dark Rider stopped, his sword held aloft, as if he were a stone statue. Sir John, Marcus, and Gladden, were also stilled. She's got them in her spell, Fabian thought. They hesitated, as I thought they might. But Fabian hadn't time to dwell on it. Emily was forcing the ball of white fire towards him. It was taking all of Fabian's strength to fight its advance. How has she become so powerful?
The ball moved ever closer.
CHAPTER 20
Christian crouched at the back of the cage. The door was open, but he was too scared to move. An old wizard was standing by the door, white fire flowing from the end of his staff. Emily was somehow stopping the flow and turning it into a ball too bright to look at. Stetland, Sir John, Gladden, and Marcus, were motionless, like statues. The witch has done something to them, Christian knew.
Emily Grouse, her hand held up as if she were saying “stop”, was forcing the ball of white fire towards the old wizard. Is he Fabian? Christian thought he looked old enough to be the Great Wizard.
He also knew he had to do something to help. If Emily wins this battle she will kill my friends. But he was scared to move. A clammy sweat wetted his forehead and a deep fear unsettled the pit of his stomach. Worse still, the responsibility that rested upon him had crippled his legs – he couldn't move.
The ball hung in the air, fed by white fire from the old wizard's staff. It had stopped moving, Christian noticed, but when the witch held up her right hand to join her left, the ball began to edge closer to the old wizard. And my friends are still like statues.
The cage door was open. Christian considered lunging forwards to push the witch in her back. But he didn't want to touch her as he thought something might happen to him if he did. Perhaps my hands will fall off at the wrists, or maybe I'll simply burst into flames. Even if none of those things happened, he didn't want to rest his hands upon her white dress and feel what was hidden beneath. He thought she looked beautiful, the type of woman most grown men would long to touch, but he was scared he would feel the outline of a skeleton beneath her dress or the same loose rotting flesh he'd seen hanging from the skulls of the living dead on Killingwoldgraves.
That's right, came a voice in his head, don't even think about touching me. There are snakes underneath my dress, great two-headed ones with fangs the size of dragons’ teeth.
Christian recoiled from the voice. He tried to block it out, to build a wall around it in his head, but he knew she was still there, reading his thoughts.
Perhaps I can use my gift to speak to Stetland, he thought.
Don't try that either, came Emily's voice. It was like she was speaking
directly into his ear.
Christian ignored the witch. Instead, he closed his seeing eyes and opened the one in his mind. He searched for the Dark Rider, just as he had when lying in bed in Tarquin Gains's cottage, with his back red and raw from lashings and the noise of Patricia Gains's cries ringing in his ears
Stop it, Christian, just stop it, came Emily's voice. You don't want to upset me, for when I've finished with the old wizard I'm coming for you. Your death can be quick and painless or slow and torturous. The choice is yours.
He ignored her and continued to focus. It was then he saw the vision again. Stetland being stabbed by a wielded blade against the backdrop of a castle wall. As important as he knew this vision was, he pushed it aside and searched for the Dark Rider. It didn't take him long. He thought this was because he'd been in Stetland's mind before.
Stetland's thoughts were tormented, Christian found. The Dark Rider seemed to be stuck in a perpetual nightmare. The same scene was repeating itself over and over. It was as if Christian was actually there. A woman was lying on a bale of hay. She was beautiful, dark skinned, with long, black locks of hair. Is she sleeping? Christian thought. She was dressed like a princess, but the dress she wore was ripped, exposing her left breast. Christian didn't want to look at her nakedness, but something caught his eye. On that exposed breast was a bite mark. He could see the bloodied indentations the teeth had left there. The woman's dress was hitched up high on her thigh. The inside of her legs were red and bruised, he noticed. Stetland was tormented by this nightmare – Christian could feel the Dark Rider's pain like a lead weight in his chest. Perhaps the woman is dead and not asleep at all. He nearly pulled himself from Stetland's mind then. The misery is too real. But he forced himself to probe deeper. Not only did he want to free the Dark Rider from the spell the witch had put upon him, he also wanted to wake him from the tormented nightmare.
Once he was deep in Stetland's mind, he called out: Stetland. Wake up.
Nothing happened. Nothing changed.
Again, he called: Stetland. You must wake. It's Emily Grouse.
Something did change then. There was movement in the Dark Rider's mind, like a pulse.
Battle for Elt: The Taking of the Wizard Bearer Page 18