Sisters of the Fire

by Kim Wilkins

  It fell the last few feet, thudded to the ground.

  Now the tree wasn’t singing. It was howling.

  ‘They will come!’ called Rowan, but it couldn’t be Rowan. She was too old. Was this a nightmare? Who was this girl she was rescuing?

  Rose’s hands stung and she wiped the blood on her skirt. ‘Why are you –?’

  ‘We have no time,’ Skalmir said. ‘Can you get us free?’

  ‘How?’ Rose looked around wildly for a latch, a lock, anything. The bars were iron, and they were fitted tightly into the wooden base. What tools could she use, especially now her own hands were torn and bloody?

  Then she remembered the blinding powder. ‘Stand back,’ she said, reaching for it. ‘Right in the furthest corner. Snowy, protect her.’

  One small handful had been enough to blast a scorched patch in the ground. Perhaps the whole pouch would blast a hole in the cage.

  Skalmir pushed Rowan into the corner of the cage, turning his back to Rose and holding his arms over the child’s head.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Rose said, as an ill wind whirled around the tree and made the branches scream and howl.

  She threw the pouch into the closest corner of the cage, and then raised her arm over her eyes. An enormous crack sounded through the forest, sending the tree into a frenzy. A smell of sulfur filled the air. When she lowered her arm, she saw that the bars in the corner were curled up. There wasn’t room for them to get out.

  Not Skalmir, in any case. Rowan was already on her stomach, sliding under the bent bars.

  ‘What about Snowy?’ Rose asked.

  Heavy, fast footfalls approaching.

  ‘They are coming!’ Rowan screamed.

  ‘Go without me!’ Skalmir said.

  ‘But –’

  ‘I would happily die for her, Rose, if you stay alive for her.’

  ‘This way, Mama,’ Rowan said, already streaking past Rose on her way back through the woods. ‘Hurry!’

  There wasn’t time to make sense of anything. Rose turned and ran, following her daughter – if it was her daughter, why was she so long of limb? – back to the crossing.

  Over rocks and branches. Running feet were after them. Rose was sure they were heading in a different direction from where she had come.

  ‘Quick, Mama, we are almost there.’

  Rose banished all questions from her mind. For now, escape, get Rowan somewhere safe. Up ahead, a looming grey shape in the dark – a dolmen. Rowan skidded to her knees next to it, pulled Rose down next to her. Rose could hear her daughter’s panting breaths as she whispered something.

  And they crossed. Now Rose was blinking against early morning light in a different part of the Howling Wood. Rowan looked up at her, grinning, and in that smile Rose saw her: the child she had lost so many years ago.

  Rose pulled Rowan into a fierce embrace, smelling her hair, running her fingers over her soft skin, drinking her. ‘At last, at last, I have you,’ she said.

  ‘Mama, you’re squashing me,’ Rowan laughed.

  Rose let her go and they sat back on the leaves and cold earth and stared at each other.

  ‘You are exactly the same as the picture in my memory,’ Rowan said.

  ‘You are so changed.’ Rose’s eyes took the changes in, and she realised that the same incoherent shift of time in the Howling Wood had aged Rowan four or five years. ‘You’re a young woman.’

  Rowan reached out and touched Rose’s cheek, ran her fingers over her temple. ‘My mother,’ she said.

  Rose heard a sound in the forest and snapped around in alarm, but Rowan said, ‘Don’t worry. It was just a deer.’

  ‘Will Rathcruick follow us?’

  ‘He might try, but he won’t find us. We will stay ahead of him. Dardru was the crossing keeper in the tribe, and she’s inside me.’

  ‘Who’s Dardru?’

  ‘Rathcruick’s daughter. It doesn’t matter. I’m free of him now, but we must save Snowy.’

  ‘Not us. We’re not going back in there.’ Reality crunched down on her. ‘I have to get you back to your father …’

  ‘Which one?’ Rowan said, and a little flint of ice touched her voice.

  ‘Wengest, of course.’

  ‘Mama, Snowy is my father. He has raised me for as long as I can remember. Wengest was a man who came to see me from time to time.’ She sighed, leaning back on her palms. ‘And Rathcruick wants to be my father, and no doubt Heath wants to be my father. Yes, Rathcruick told me about him. But I don’t love them, not any of them. I love Snowy.’

  The barb about Heath landed squarely in Rose’s heart. Guilt and shame. ‘But you and I are just a woman and a child, and we can’t rescue him,’ Rose said, pushing her own feelings aside for now. ‘Wengest can send armed men in, raid Rathcruick’s camp.’

  Rowan’s eyes misted over. Rose remembered that look from her littlest years, a twitch of the eyebrows, a pink flush around her poreless temples. She looked uncertain. Young.

  Rose reached out and touched the awful tattoo on her face. ‘Heath says Rathcruick has a black heart.’

  ‘He is full of anger. Everything has been taken from the Ærfolc. They are pushed to the margins of the land. In Rathcruick’s case, right into the folds of magic that still inhabits the woodlands.’ Rowan spread her hands. ‘I am meant to be their queen.’

  A wind whipped up and raced through the woods, sending up a swirl of leaves and setting the branches swinging. Rose shivered, then said to her daughter, ‘No. You don’t have to be anything but a child. I am taking charge now, and that means I am returning you to Wengest, who has done his duty as your father since your birth. You are a princess of Netelchester, and if you tell him you need somebody to go to Rathcruick’s camp and free Snowy, then he will do it. I know this to be true.’

  Rowan nodded. ‘Perhaps you are right, Mama. And we ought to get your hands seen to; they are a terrible mess.’

  Rose looked down at the rope burns across her palms. She couldn’t visit Wengest. She had to pretend she’d had nothing to do with Rowan’s rescue. There would be time to explain all this to Rowan. For now, Rose let the knowledge of their inevitable parting ache inside her like a bruise.

  Rowan scrambled to her feet and began to walk. ‘We need to confuse Rathcruick so we must find another crossing. This way.’

  Rose stood and followed her.

  ‘There are crossings all over Thyrsland,’ Rowan called over her shoulder. ‘Usually remote places, but there is one in the Howling Wood, the real Howling Wood outside Nether Weald. We can get horses in the village and ride to Folcenham together. I have so much to tell you!’

  Rose hurried to keep up, but became aware they were approaching where she had camped last night – this morning? ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘My pack and Snowy’s weapons are here.’

  Rowan skidded to a stop and came back around, as Rose flicked the blanket away and gingerly picked up her pack in her injured hands. Rowan reached for the bow and quiver, slung them both on her back, then they were on their way again to the little standing stone in the wood. Rowan put one foot on it, grabbed Rose’s hand and –

  It was early morning, dewy. The air was fresh and … different somehow.

  ‘We are home,’ Rowan said.

  ‘Home?’

  ‘Back in Thyrsland. You can feel it. Time is moving normally. The press on my heart is gone.’

  Yes, she was right. That was what felt different. All that time in the hidden part of the woods, Rose hadn’t realised that they made her feel different. As though all the particles that made up her body had been buzzing too fast. Now she felt normal again. She took a deep breath of morning air.

  Rowan took her hand carefully. Turned it over and looked at the wounds. ‘I know who can tend to these,’ she said. ‘Sister Julian. She’s not far away. Let us go.’

  By midmorning they were on their way on a borrowed palfrey. Rose’s hands were smeared in salve and bandaged, and they had proper cooked meals in their bellies. The
sky was clear, and Rose settled back into Thyrsland time – plodding, welcome, non-magic time – slowly, her daughter on a padded seat buckled onto the saddle behind her, arms around Rose’s middle. They talked and talked. Rose told Rowan about Yldra, about her half-brother Linden, about Heath, about what had happened and why they could never be seen together, not just for their own safety but for the peace of Thyrsland. Rowan took it all in with soft murmurs of agreement and understanding, and then she talked about life with Snowy, about hunting in the woods, and darker themes such as the ghost of Rathcruick’s daughter lurking inside her.

  ‘I have my own magic,’ Rowan told her as they passed over a hill and looked out over green fields baking under a summer sun traversing the sky at a natural pace. ‘Her magic is rough. I don’t want it.’

  ‘Perhaps I should have taken you to Yldra,’ Rose said. ‘She could have –’

  ‘Nothing is more important now than rescuing Snowy. Dardru can wait. She has no power outside of the hidden wood.’

  They approached a junction in the road, a waymark standing sentinel at its fork. Rose looked up. On one arrow was the symbol for Folcenham: the great hall carved with Wengest’s insignia. This was the road home for Rowan, the road to separation for Rose.

  But Rowan must have been looking at the other arrow. A picture of a ship.

  ‘Sæcaster,’ Rowan said, in a dreamy voice.

  ‘Yes, where your Aunt Ivy lives.’

  ‘Bluebell is heading there. I can feel her on the move. It’s closer and she will help Snowy.’

  ‘But your father – ’

  ‘My father doesn’t love Snowy as Bluebell does. My father cannot send a guardsmen or even a troop of guardsmen who are Bluebell’s equal. We must go to Sæcaster. We must find Bluebell.’

  Rose turned in her saddle to look at Rowan. She had become agitated, two pink spots appearing on her cheeks.

  ‘Please, Mama. Every moment we waste is a moment Snowy is in danger.’

  Rose picked up the reins, eyes forwards. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘We head for Sæcaster.’

  Twenty-seven

  Ivy woke to shouting. Footfalls thundering past. Dark under her shutter. She sat up, the dream she’d been having falling away. A meadow, running with the boys, no weight upon her mind. Now her heart was thudding, her knees like water as she tried to stand in the dark, steadying herself. Robe on, door open.

  She stepped out to a whirl of noise and motion, men running.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she croaked, though she knew what was happening.

  Crispin was there a moment later, catching her under the elbow. ‘My lady,’ he said.

  Firelight. The glow of firelight from the docks. She began to hurry towards it, to see, although she didn’t want to see.

  But Crispin caught her. ‘Go back to your bed.’

  ‘They’re here aren’t they?’

  ‘I will take care of everything.’

  ‘Have we heard from my father? Is he sending his army?’

  ‘We have heard nothing yet, my lady.’ He glanced around, ensuring nobody was watching, then leaned in close and hissed into her ear. ‘Ivy. You are safer inside. With your boys.’

  ‘I feel so –’

  ‘How you feel is not of issue. Raiders are setting fire to merchant ships. It’s only a small group, but they are likely to be ahead of something much worse. If your feelings are all you have to offer, then take them inside the bower where they belong, and let me get on with the business of war.’

  She turned her eyes to his, saw he was angry and flinched.

  He thrust her away. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Hold your children. Let me be in charge. It’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I – thank you, Crispin. Thank you.’

  Then he was gone.

  Eadric was at the door, looking out at her with frightened eyes. ‘Mama? What happening?’

  She took a deep breath, controlling her tears and her tremors. ‘Inside, my darling,’ she said, scooping him up and holding him close. ‘There’s a fire but Crispin will put it out.’

  ‘Is it a big fire?’ he asked, his little face stricken.

  ‘It’s a – let’s get you back to bed.’ She kissed his plump cheek, nearly crumpled to her knees. Steadied herself once more. ‘All will be well. You’ll see.’

  Ivy got the child back to bed then opened the door to the stone staircase and went up to the lookout on the second floor. From here, she could see the fishermen and dock workers and merchants and their wives and children pouring towards the walls, shouting and crying, being let into the city square. Down at the docks, twenty or so raiders, dressed in wolfskins, brandished torches and axes. Though made small by distance, the wolfskin raiders still caused terror in her blood. Everyone knew they were full of reckless fury, eyes rolling, heedless of pain. She watched as two of Crispin’s men leapt on one. Even with shields, even, outnumbering their enemy, one of them died taking down the raider, who struggled to his feet only to be cut down again.

  Ivy closed her eyes, but the patterns of firelight still shifted against her eyelids. She couldn’t make the horror go away.

  Bluebell and Ash caught up with their father and his army twenty miles outside Withing. From up on the rise, Bluebell could see her father’s red and gold banner flying from the crest of his tent in the bright morning light. All around it were other small white shelters staked into the ground, men and women busy cooking or grooming horses or sharpening weapons or simply talking to each other, taking a last relaxed moment before the fighting began. Bluebell estimated this was only half the army, about seven hundred warriors. She huffed and reined her horse in. Ash stopped beside her on Wraith.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ash asked.

  ‘I would have brought more. Perhaps I should send to Merkhinton for Sighere and my hearthband.’

  Ash surveyed the camp. ‘It will be enough.’

  ‘How do you know? Undermagic?’ Bluebell had tried unsuccessfully to convince Ash to see the future, to tell her how the conflict at Sæcaster would end. But Ash simply said that seeing the future was difficult and unrealiable, that it caused her discomfort, that she was formed for other things.

  ‘No, not undermagic,’ Ash said. ‘Logic. We outnumber the raiders, our army will be better equipped, and we have you.’

  ‘I still would have brought more,’ Bluebell said, eyes returning to the camp. ‘Father will be glad to see you.’

  ‘He has other things on his mind,’ Ash said. ‘He’ll be gladder to see you.’

  They took the road down into the valley. The fields were overgrown with weeds, and the churning of many feet and heavily laden horses had made mud of the ground. Some of the warriors saw her and began to cheer, though they looked suspiciously at the thin, hooded woman who rode beside her on the pale horse. By the time they approached Æthlric’s tent, he had already heard they were coming and was standing ready to greet them. He was richly dressed in mail and a deep blue cloak, his thick silver hair warmed to gold by the morning sun. A small group of stewards and groomsmen descended on them as they dismounted, then cleared away with their horses, leaving Bluebell and Ash standing in front of Æthlric.

  Æthlric regarded Ash with sad eyes, reaching out his arms to her. ‘What has happened to you?’ he said, and Ash went to him and was folded into his arms. Æthlric held her, but his eyes were on Bluebell. ‘I was not expecting to see you.’

  It sounded almost as though she was unwelcome. No, she was imagining it. ‘We’ve ridden hard,’ Bluebell said. ‘We left most of our belongings back in Godwebb so we could travel lightly. I will need armour before we head to Sæcaster.’

  ‘Everything you need is here,’ he said. He gently pushed Ash away from him, held her an arm’s length away and considered her face. ‘My child, I haven’t seen you in many years.’

  She nodded, and Bluebell saw she was crying.

  ‘Why didn’t you leave her in Godwebb?’ Æthlric asked Bluebell.

  ‘She’s an
undermagician. She will make us an excellent war counsellor.’

  ‘She doesn’t look well enough for anything, Bluebell. Ash, you will stay here with the stewards and cooks when we march to Sæcaster.’

  ‘But she –’

  ‘Look at her, Bluebell,’ Æthlric said.

  Bluebell looked at her, and saw what Æthlric meant. Ash’s skin was almost as translucent as her horse, her eyes shadowed. In her eagerness to see Ash once more part of the family, helping with defence against the raiders, she had forgotten how tired and sick her sister was. It would take months for her to be well again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Bluebell muttered to her.

  ‘There is a bed in my tent,’ Æthlric said to Ash. ‘Go and rest. I’ll have food brought to you.’

  ‘Thank you, Father,’ she said, then touched Bluebell’s hand once lightly and slipped into the tent.

  When she was gone, Æthlric said to Bluebell, ‘Walk with me.’

  ‘My lord.’ She fell into step beside him, noticing he walked with a barely perceptible limp. She didn’t mention it, waiting to see if he would offer an explanation himself. The noise and activity of the camp buzzed on around them. Flies rose from the mud and hung about Bluebell’s hair. She swatted them away irritably.

  ‘There are seven ships,’ Æthlric said. ‘I sent a scout off at first light to see if they’ve made it to Sæcaster yet.’

  Bluebell sidestepped a pair of sleeping dogs, thought about Thrymm and wished she was there; she loved the taste of raider blood. ‘Perhaps they don’t have Sæcaster in their eyes. Perhaps they are intending to sail further south to Brimhythe.’

  He was already shaking his head. ‘It is widely known Sæcaster is unstable. Guthmer is dead. Ivy burned all the chapels and took charge.’

  ‘She burned the chapels?’ Bluebell didn’t know whether to be amused or horrified.

  ‘And took charge,’ Æthlric repeated. ‘Our Ivy. In charge of one of the largest ports in Thyrsland.’