The Bone Quill

by Barrowman, John

  Solon forced himself to move. Brother Cornelius was depending on him to return.

  Solon had taken two more steps forward when something heavy and wet hit his hand. Lunging sideways, Solon saw the bloodied carcass of a sheep. In a moment of sickening awareness, he realized that the sheep had saved his life.

  Solon shivered at the sight of the massive jaw marks visible on the flayed animal’s neck. In a moment of grim humour, he realized that when he returned to the monastery, he would no longer need to ask the Abbot how Skinner’s Bog got its name.

  SEVENTEEN

  Solon was almost ready to give up and return without the precious berries from the rowan tree. He was cold and scared and tired. Because of the lid of darkness on the bog, he could no longer tell how long he had been tramping through this muck. Every step sucked in his legs deeper than before.

  The chewing, slobbering noises were everywhere in the dark.

  At long last he reached the grassy mound at the centre – and the rowan tree. Solon pushed his matted hair off his face to get a clearer look at his prize. Caught in a ribbon of the palest starlight, the tree looked dressed for a royal ball, its berries glowing like millions of tiny red lanterns. The tree reminded Solon of the ones that Brother Renard had used to illustrate initials in his manuscripts.

  But it was the boy curled beneath the tree that took Solon’s breath away.

  He stumbled on to the grassy mound before the Grendel decided to feed again. The peryton might have sacrificed the sheep to the Grendel, but Solon didn’t think the trick would work a second time. He had to hurry. As soon as he stepped on to the grassy mound, the weight of the darkness lifted from Solon’s shoulders, and the terrible gnawing noises of the Grendel quieted.

  Solon supposed from the boy’s size that he was about his own age: fifteen or so. Wrapped in a blue wool cloak with only his fur boots showing, the boy was tucked tight against the trunk of the rowan. Sleeping, Solon guessed. Darting forward, he rolled the boy on to his back – and gasped again.

  It was a girl. A Viking girl no less, by her ruddy complexion, her long, white-blonde hair and the detailing on her cloak pin. She was lying in an awkward position. Solon thought she looked broken.

  The girl wasn’t asleep. She was wounded. A wide gash above her elbow was oozing a soupy pus from the frayed edges of its cloth wrapping. The wrapping was soaked in what, at first glance, looked like blood.

  Other than his sisters, Solon had had no contact with girls. This one obviously knew about the rowan tree’s powers, because it wasn’t blood on the cloth – it was a poultice made from rowan berries, the crushed fruit pressing on to her raw wound.

  How had she got here? Had she been left behind by the invaders? That was nonsense, thought Solon. Viking bands didn’t travel with women, never mind girls of fifteen. Perhaps she was a Viking slave? Or perhaps she was a trick of the swamp, a fairy spirit who would stop Solon from taking berries from the tree.

  He quickly filled his pouch with as much of the rowan fruit as he could.

  Then the girl cried softly. Solon flinched at the memories that he could suddenly see in her mind: the screaming of the monks, the crying of village children, the killer gleam in the Vikings’ eyes. Solon saw the cobbles of the Abbey running red with blood – a blow with an axe from one of the Auchinmurn villagers and the white-hot agony of the wound the moment it had occurred. He leaned to one side and retched at the pain.

  Wiping his mouth, Solon hesitated, unsure of what he should do next.

  The girl moaned again. She looked half-dead. Solon decided that, friend or foe, she needed his help.

  Lifting his water pouch from over his shoulder, Solon gently dribbled the liquid on to her pale lips. His hands were shaking, and most of the water sloshed on to her face.

  Her eyes popped open. If it hadn’t been for the glint of the knife’s hilt and Solon’s quick reflexes, he would have lost an ear.

  ‘Trying to drown me?’ she asked, coughing out the words in a language that Solon recognized as Norse. Keeping the knife under Solon’s chin, she struggled to use her injured arm to lift herself up against the tree. What little colour she had in her cheeks immediately drained away.

  If you stop threatening me, you stupid girl, I might be able to help you, Solon thought irritably.

  I don’t need your help, you stupid boy!

  EIGHTEEN

  The Abbey

  Present Day

  As he charged into the sitting room, Simon knew immediately that the twins had animated themselves into a painting. Luminous flecks of white, ochre and blue floated in the air near the easel like hundreds of fireflies.

  Simon spotted Zach’s laptop sitting on the couch. Setting his palm on it, he felt the warmth from its battery and the surge of his son’s conflicted emotions while he’d been working on the computer.

  At least he tried to stop them, thought Simon.

  ‘Those weans are nowhere to be found,’ said Jeannie, following Simon into the sitting room. Taking off the reflective orange safety vest that she wore when she was near the water’s edge, she added, ‘I even checked the boathouse. Not a sign of them.’

  ‘They’ve not been gone long. Zach’s laptop’s still warm,’ said Simon. ‘And I’m afraid I know where they are.’

  He nodded towards the painting perched on the easel. Jeannie’s hand went up to her mouth. ‘No! They would’nae dare.’

  ‘No doubt about it, that painting’s been animated,’ said Simon. ‘I should’ve known better than to leave them alone. Matt’s been champing at the bit to get out of here for days.’

  ‘Aye,’ Jeannie sighed, ‘he’s been taking it hard that he and Em can’t go tearing around the country to search for their mother.’

  Simon picked up a copy of Em’s drawing of the peryton. ‘Em’s been doing some good work, hasn’t she? This sketch feels alive. Look at the depth in the beast’s wings.’ He set the drawing down again absently. ‘Wherever they are, Zach’s with them.’

  ‘Well, he would be, wouldn’t he,’ said Jeannie, a knowing smile loosening the worry in her expression for a moment. ‘Especially if Em went along, too. He never lets the lass out of his sight for long.’

  ‘They’ve gone into a painting.’ Renard Calder, the twin’s grandfather and one of the most powerful Guardians in the world, had entered the sitting room and instantly recoiled as if touched by an electric shock. Like Simon, Renard could see and feel the fireflies of colour and light, the residual energy of the twins’ animation.

  ‘Monet’s Thames below Westminster,’ said Simon, nodding as if at a question Renard had not asked.

  ‘Ah, one of Monet’s first London paintings,’ said Renard, recovering. ‘Claude himself gave it to my great-grandfather in return for a room near the Thames with lots of English sunlight.’

  ‘Was there ever such a thing?’ enquired Jeannie. ‘English sunlight, I mean.’

  ‘I’m not surprised they picked this one,’ said Simon. ‘Matt’s been more homesick than usual these past few days.’

  ‘Poor lad, he misses London terribly,’ said Jeannie, folding her safety vest over the back of a chair before dropping into it.

  ‘Well, he won’t be seeing the real city again for quite some time,’ said Renard. ‘It’s still too dangerous. The Council of Guardians will bind the children for sure once they’re sixteen if they keep animating into paintings. It breaks every rule in the book.’

  Jeannie looked terrified at the thought of the twins being bound.

  Simon watched the brilliant shards of colour twinkling like stars above Monet’s painting. A flash of foreboding blackened his thoughts. He couldn’t smother his dread that something big and bad was coming into their lives.

  The shards of light and colour surrounding the Monet suddenly began inflating to the size of balloons, almost blinding the three adults with their brilliance. For a brief moment, Simon saw a cresting wave. Worse than that, he could hear Em sobbing.

  Jeannie cried out. Renard struggle
d off the couch. As quickly as the energy from the animation had expanded, the colourful orbs shrank back to a million slivers of confetti.

  ‘After a burst of animation like that,’ said Renard sharply, ‘I’d have expected the children to have fallen out of the painting.’

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ burst out Simon. The children’s fear was still twisting behind his temples. ‘The strength of this animation doesn’t make sense. What can possibly be that bad inside such a tranquil Impressionist painting, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Whatever’s happening, I’m sure they will find a way out of it,’ said Renard as reassuringly as he could. ‘We’ve underestimated the twins’ powers before.’

  Much as I underestimated their father’s. The words hung unspoken in the air.

  NINETEEN

  Skinner’s Bog

  Auchinmurn Isle

  Middle Ages

  Solon was dumbfounded to hear the Viking girl’s voice sniping in his head. An unfortunate reaction that served to reinforce the girl’s impression of his stupidity.

  His skin was tingling, his pulse quickening, and his throat felt as if he was swallowing sawdust. In a nervous rush, he returned to jamming his pouch with rowan berries, even stuffing a few sprigs into the pockets of his leather tunic like a madman.

  What is your name?

  ‘Solon,’ he replied out loud, cautiously.

  Since arriving at the monastery, the only other person Solon had been able to hear clearly in his head was Brother Renard. He had always assumed that this was on account of Brother Renard’s abilities and the relationship they had as master and novice.

  ‘Solon,’ she said, nodding.

  The exertion of pulling up against the tree had opened the wound on her arm again. Solon reached out to help, but she pushed him away and, with more difficulty, stood up. She was too unsteady on her feet. Solon caught her before she fell against the sharp branches of the tree or, worse, face first into the muck of Skinner’s Bog.

  ‘And your name?’ he asked, quickly releasing her from his arms. Would she be able to understand his question?

  ‘I am called Carik Grimsdóttir,’ she replied. She sensed Solon’s puzzlement. ‘My mother taught me your language. She once lived on this land.’

  ‘Was your mother captured? Taken during a raid?’

  Solon was about to speak again when she put her fingers to her lips to silence him. The darkness over the bog was thickening, the smell of rotting flesh once more rising from the muck.

  ‘The creature is returning. I can hear it,’ she said.

  ‘Was it the creature who injured you?’

  She nodded. Solon could hear only his and Carik’s breathing. They stood in silence for a moment.

  ‘We need to leave this bog,’ said Solon, taking a step out into the knee-deep muck. ‘The monks have great powers. They will be able to heal you.’

  ‘But I am your enemy,’ she said, surprised.

  Solon looked at the beautiful girl staring back at him. ‘You’re not my enemy.’

  Without warning, Carik lunged at Solon, pulling him back and out of the bog. Solon flinched as he heard the horrible sucking sounds, the same noises he had heard earlier in the dark. The Grendel was almost upon them. Its low growls carried in a cold wind that cut across the grassy mound, bending the branches of the rowan tree to the ground. The blackness had become a heavy canopy.

  We are trapped, Solon. How could one beast surround us?

  That’s the nature of the Grendel, answered Solon, so naturally that he surprised himself. It is made of the blackness that’s only found beyond death.

  A guzzling noise shattered the darkness in front of them. The Grendel, the mud-monster, the spirit-stalker, rose up out of the bog in a swirling tornado of foul mud and flaming red eyes.

  Its body was made up of layers of wet clay, as if it had been formed on a potter’s wheel deep under the bog, and it had no front or hind legs – only a shapeless form trailing behind it, devouring vegetation and sucking up everything in its wake.

  The Grendel’s head rose higher and higher out of the bog, expanding until it was more massive than the ground on which Solon and Carik were cowering.

  Carik unsheathed her dagger, flipped her cape behind her shoulders, raised her head and prepared to battle the beast. Solon knew she must be terrified and in awful pain, yet he could feel an unswerving calm emanating from her. Carik’s strength fed his imagination.

  Tearing a piece of bark from the rowan tree, Solon grabbed Carik’s hand, squashing a handful of berries into her fist. He used his own knife to sharpen the end of a stick. Dipping the point of the stick into the viscous red juice cupped in Carik’s hand, Solon closed his eyes and let his imagination draw.

  Closer and closer, the Grendel’s massive jaws ground through the crushing blackness.

  TWENTY

  Although Solon had never left the Western Isles of Scotland, he had travelled far and had seen many wonderful things through the monastery’s books. And one of those wonders was a Roman general’s manuscript, describing and illustrating the weapons of a castle siege.

  Solon let his fingers fly across the bark, trying to replicate the weapon he had in his mind. When he finished the drawing, his heart sank. Nothing had happened. He was too young and untrained to animate yet on his own. The terrible stench from the monster was suffocating, its jaws opening and closing as if already tasting its prey.

  ‘Move!’ yelled Carik, shoving Solon against the rowan tree, as a blinding flash of light burst from the bark. On the spot where Solon had been drawing, a colossal catapult – a trebuchet with a bucket as big as a wagon – appeared between them. Light sparked from its wooden wheels and a woven red canopy covered it. Solon’s heart leaped with pride and wonder to see what he had created.

  Above them, the mud-monster widened its mouth, releasing a gust of fetid air that dropped Carik and Solon to their knees in disgust.

  ‘HROOOO!’

  The Grendel’s eyes caught Solon in their sight, the monster’s gaze burning his skin. It slid forward, muck oozing from its clay-like shell. Any moment now, its jaws would sink down over Solon and swallow him whole.

  Release the handles, Carik!

  Carik threw herself against the double wooden handles of the trebuchet. They popped and wheezed like oversized bellows, released the spring and catapulted lethal quicksilver directly on top of the Grendel.

  The burning mercury seeped through the Grendel’s scaly layers, scorching through the filth to the centre of the beast. The Grendel seemed to melt, screaming and dissolving into the depths of Skinner’s Bog.

  Solon and Carik stood under the rowan tree and stared at each other. Carik’s expression was a mingling of awe and fear.

  ‘You are one who draws? An Animare?’

  Carik pronounced it in such a way that Solon thought it sounded even more magical.

  He nodded.

  ‘I thought so when I first saw you.’

  Avoiding Carik’s eyes, Solon secured his pouch more tightly round his waist, making sure it still held the rowan berries. A faint glow was pulsing in the distance beyond the bog. He hoped it was the peryton.

  Solon’s apprenticeship had not prepared him for this kind of situation. He put out his hand. ‘We should go,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I don’t know what forces brought the Grendel out to hunt, but I don’t want to stay here and find out.’

  She laughed, ignored his hand and set off across the bog by herself, being careful to avoid the place where the Grendel had sunk from view. Solon followed.

  Slogging through the thick mud was difficult enough for the uninjured young monk. For Carik, with her shoulder wound bleeding again and pain slowing her, it was close to impossible. At the far edge of the bog, Solon pulled Carik from the treacherous muck. This time she offered him very little resistance.

  The gleam from the peryton grew stronger, guiding them. As they hobbled towards the soft light, the mud in the bog behind them began to bubble angrily. A mo
nstrous cloud of foul air skirted across the surface of the bog and trailed after them.

  ‘Time to run!’ Solon advised breathlessly. ‘If you can!’

  They scrambled through the gap in the briars as fast as they could. The peryton was on its haunches and ready for them. Carik gasped at the sight of such a magnificent beast, but was too weak and in too much pain to say a word. She collapsed at its feet.

  The peryton dropped as close to the ground as it could, and Solon reached under Carik and gently lifted her on to its back. Then he climbed on behind her, making sure she was as comfortable as possible. Carik’s head flopped forward on to the peryton’s neck, as the creature bounded gracefully along the rocky hillside and soared into the air.

  Carik suddenly shifted, tipping off to the side. Frantically, Solon steadied her, gripping her even more tightly, doing his best to ignore the softness of the pale skin on her neck, as the peryton pitched into a gentle turn towards the monastery.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Abbey

  Present Day

  Matt and Em fell out of Monet’s painting in a rush of foul air and a torpedo of dense grey light, hitting the cluttered art table full on and collapsing it under their weight with a thunderous crash. Less than a second behind them, Zach hurtled out on top of the twins, his elbow jabbing Matt hard in the eye.

  ‘Ow!’ yelled Matt, shoving Zach on to the floor.

  Shut up! You’ll wake everyone, Em telepathed to both boys.

  The sitting room was pitch black, the heavy curtains drawn across all the windows. 11:19 was flashing on the Blu-ray. They’d been gone for roughly two hours.

  Em crawled over to Zach, who was on his stomach on the floor, catching his breath. His heart was racing, and every nerve in his body was wired.