by Paul Stewart
She knew she must be inside one of the craghuts that she had seen many times, but never ventured into.
It was windowless. There was a closed door to her left that offered no way out, and a hole at the centre of the low flat ceiling above that might. Brownstain smoke was twisting up through it. There was a sturdy table, with a bench on either side. By the side wall was some kind of dip in the floor, shallow and curved, and she was lying in it.
And there was the man.
He was crouching down in near darkness at the far side of the room, turned half away and hunched over. Something was glugging. Flameglow flickered on his back, and on the side of his face. She smelled the leafcrush odour of fresh sweat, then caught a whiff of oil.
Wyrmeoil.
The man was filling a lantern, his breath coming in short jerks as he poured the wyrmeoil carefully from a large earthenware pot and into the small copper reserve. When he splashed some, he chided himself. The girl saw his jaw flex and his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed.
She eased herself round, screwing up her face as the blade of pain twisted at her shoulder once again. She leaned up on one elbow.
A pang of separation, acute and charged with longing, juddered through her body as she thought of Aseel. She wanted to be with him, not holed up in this craghut. He was out there somewhere, and if he had returned to the speckled stack already, then he would be looking for her …
Where was the craghut? And who was this man?
Was he kith? He sure looked like kith, with his heavy jacket and thick breeches, and the calflength boots of tanned skin. Wyrmeskin. And he smelled like kith, too – woodsmoke and damp, and a faint oily odour, which was the smell of the grease they rubbed into their boots.
Her lip curled, and a shudder passed through her slender body.
Kith had come, she recalled. Five of them. They had taken the wyrmeling. Two women, three men. One with broad shoulders and slit eyes; one with his head shaven, and one with a hook nose and gap teeth and foul breath, and the long greasy black hair that had dangled down over her as he’d crushed her beneath his stinking weight and run his filthy hands over her body …
The man in front of her was none of these. But he was kith, and that was enough.
She tilted her head round to one side. Her shoulder cramped and she had to stifle the yelps of pain that gathered in her throat.
Her gaze fell upon the knife. It was lying on a wooden board at the far end of the table. She could see it gleaming. She needed to get out. To escape. The knife would make that possible.
The glugging stopped and she heard a cork stopper being pushed back into the neck of the earthenware pot with a squeak, and a thud as the kith hammered down on it with the heel of his hand. She sat up. The knife was so close. If it wasn’t for her shoulder, she would already have retrieved it and had it in her hand.
There was a sharp scratching noise, and a flash of white light, and she saw a wooden match clamped between the kith’s forefinger and thumb as he reached out and held the flame to the wick. His fingers were long and slender. The mantle clattered softly when he lowered it, and the walls and ceiling of the rock chamber were abruptly bathed in honeyed light. He picked up the lantern from the bench, and turned.
The blade glinted. It might as well have been a thousand miles away now. Suddenly it was also too late for her to lay herself back down unnoticed …
‘You’ve woke up,’ the man said – except he wasn’t a man at all, she saw, but a boy.
He was gangly and wide-eyed, and had nothing in the way of beard or moustache save for a downy fuzz on his top lip that glistened in the light, and wiry hairs on his chin, so sparse it looked like you could count them off one by one. He smiled. She stared back impassively. It was a kithsmile, and not to be trusted.
The smile faltered, and the boy swallowed. ‘Y’all right there? How’s that shoulder of yours doing?’
The girl’s eyes flicked wider for an instant. This kith knew her shoulder was injured, and she wondered what else he knew.
‘You took a bad tumble,’ he said, nodding, and his brow furrowed. ‘Heaven alone knows how far you fell, but so far as Eli could determine, you suffered nothing worse than an arm that had jumped its socket. At the shoulder. Eli set it back into place,’ he added. ‘I helped.’
She flicked back her long hair with her fingers and looked round the craghut. There was no one else there that she could see. When her gaze fell back on the boy, he swallowed again. He swallowed a lot, she observed, that jutting Adam’s apple of his jerking up, then down. It looked like he did it when he was nervous, or made to feel uncertain of himself, and she was gratified that she could instil such feelings in him. It was an advantage.
If she could just get hold of the knife …
‘Eli’s a cragclimber,’ he said, talking again. ‘Him and me’s partners, leastways, that’s the way I figure it, though Eli’s not one for open declaration.’
He talked more than he swallowed, and possibly for the same reasons, the words tumbling out in a rapid jittered gush. It was difficult for her to keep up. She hadn’t had a conversation for so long, longer than she could remember – and she missed it not one little bit. Aseel and she had no need of words to understand one another. The arch of his body, the tilt of his neck, the length of a stare from his pale ambercolour eyes was more eloquent than any of the guttural sounds that spewed from the mouth of this kith. And Aseel understood her just as well.
He would know what she was thinking now. He would have noticed the knife.
‘We found you at the bottom of a stack,’ the boy was saying.
This kith could never understand her, no matter how many words he used.
‘A speckled stack, it was. You were lying on a ledge down near the base, but like I say, we couldn’t tell how far you’d fell …’ He paused, his brow creased and the corners of his mouth turning down. ‘You got bruises,’ he said. ‘There’s a bad one on your cheek …’
Her hand shot to her face, and she probed gingerly at the skin, grimacing as her fingers found the injury.
‘So you can understand me,’ she heard him say quietly. ‘I was beginning to wonder, on account of you not speaking and all …’
Her gaze flicked back to his face, and she gave him the trace of a nod. The smile came back to the boy’s face, brightening it up like sunshine.
He was thick-necked, she observed, long-limbed and broad-shouldered. His fair hair was cropped short and stood in spikes, like candle wicks; his cheekbones were wide and prominent. He shambled awkwardly where he stood, his boots scuffing the stone floor.
The girl raised a hand and raked the fingers down through her thick hair, teasing at the tangles, her head cocked slightly to one side.
He was, she allowed, pleasant looking. His features were open, unthreatening, and his ready smile disarmed her. There was no trace of the scorn, or revulsion, or dark intent that the sneering faces of those kith up on the speckled stack had betrayed. And his voice, which babbled on incessantly, was oddly soothing.
Yet he was kith, for all that. She would kill him.
She watched his smiling blue eyes narrow and cloud over. ‘Would you like some water?’ he asked, and nodded as if answering his own question. ‘Let me get you some water.’
He turned and his boots thudded on the stone floor as he crossed the craghut and stooped over a backpack leaning against the far wall. The girl heard a stopper popping and water trickle. His back was towards her.
With her gaze fixed on his broad back as it tilted to one side, she clamped her left hand to her right shoulder, and climbed smoothly to her feet. She stepped from the sleeping groove. The peatmoss and valley bracken crackled and sighed, but the boy didn’t notice. She darted to the table, seized the knife and slipped it up her sleeve, before darting back to the bed.
The boy turned back, a metal cup clasped in his hand.
He swallowed, and approached her.
‘Here,’ he said. He held out a tin cup. ‘Here’s your water.’
The girl raised the cup to her lips and sipped, peering up at him from beneath lowered lids. He was much taller than her and, though thin, he looked strong, this kith.
‘I can get you something to eat as well if you’re hungry.’ The boy was still filling the silence with words. ‘There’s some smoked fish and stuff. Eli’s just off fetching us some extra wood.’
The girl felt the knife pressing into the soft skin of her inner arm. She knew she’d get only the one chance to use it.
‘Eli is what you might call my mentor,’ the boy was telling her. ‘See, I’m fresh to the weald, and I am grateful to Eli for taking it upon himself to teach me its ways.’ He sighed. ‘Though I sure ain’t finding it easy. ’Course, there’s some I’ve encountered whose ways I don’t care for. Wyrmekith. Bad wyrmekith. Wyrmekith that trap and snare and kill …’ He shook his head. ‘But not Eli. That’s not his way. Eli does not hold with trapping wyrmes, or making them suffer. “Kin got that one right”, that’s what Eli reckons …’ He hesitated. ‘You’re kin, ain’t ya?’
The girl took another sip of water, then lowered the cup. She stared back at him.
Just the one chance, she reminded herself. She would have to be clever.
‘I’m Micah, by the way,’ he told her, and frowned. ‘I guess you have a name too.’
She nodded, smiled. ‘I have a name,’ she said, and the unfamiliar husky voice sounded strange to her ears. She cleared her throat, placed the cup down and rose to her feet, lithe and unhurried, her hand behind her back. ‘Thrace.’
‘Thrace,’ Micah repeated. ‘That is a strong and beautiful name,’ he declared solemnly. ‘Thrace.’
The girl flinched. She didn’t know whether it was strong or beautiful; it was her name. She’d forgotten how it sounded on someone else’s lips. Her hand gripped the haft of the knife and she forced herself to keep smiling as she came close to the kith, her other hand smoothing down the crumpled soulskin at her hips, then reaching out towards him.
All at once, there was a grinding of wood on stone, and both of them turned to see the door of the craghut swing open. Micah grinned.
‘Eli!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re back.’ He nodded to the wyrmekin. ‘This here is—’
‘Step away from her, Micah,’ Eli interrupted grimly.
‘But—’
Eli’s face hardened. He dropped the armful of wood at his feet. ‘Now, Micah.’
Micah frowned, but did as he was told. The cragclimber strode forwards, his pale eyes metalcold. He reached out with his hand, palm up.
‘Hand it over,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘And don’t try nothing smart.’
The girl stared back at him defiantly. This second kith was tall and rangy, with taut muscles that were like knotted wood. He looked tough and hard. She would not stand a chance against such a man. Of course, if Aseel was here; if she had her lance gripped in her hands …
Eyes blazing, she brought her arm slowly around from behind her back and opened her clenched fist. The knife clattered to the stone floor.
Micah stared down at his hackdagger, his scalp prickling, then back at the wyrmekin’s beautiful face. Her dark eyes did not blink, and were unreadable. He swallowed hard.
‘This here is Thrace,’ he said.
Thirty-Four
The boy, Micah, was looking across the room at her from the table.
Thrace set the empty bowl aside, licking the fishoil from her fingers, and flinched at the pain that gripped her shoulder. She was seated on the floor in the corner of the craghut, her knees drawn up to her chest.
The boy swallowed the mouthful of smoked fish and rootmash he’d been chewing, then looked down at the table. But he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off her for more than a moment, for he looked up again almost immediately.
‘You had enough?’ he enquired.
She looked back at him. There was mistrust in his eyes.
The food and drink had done her good, bringing a shine to her dark eyes and a blush of colour to her cheeks. She’d intended to kill him, and he was in no doubt of it, for she saw him check for the knife at his belt. It was where it should be.
Thrace could feel his gaze still upon her. Her shoulder hurt and she grimaced.
The cragclimber tutted softly. He was seated on the bench next to the boy.
‘Seems to me you’re gonna need that shoulder of yours seen to,’ he observed. ‘I could get you to someone who might be able to fix it up, had you such an interest.’
Thrace turned to him. His pale-blue eyes looked disquieted.
‘Fact is,’ Eli went on, laying down his spoon, ‘an injury like that, if you’re not careful, you could end up losing the use of your arm.’
The words made her stomach cramp and her head whirl. Her eyes welled up till the two faces before her blurred.
‘It’s a wyrmekin of Eli’s acquaintance,’ the boy said quietly. His eyes scanned her face. ‘Jura. She can work miracles – though it could hurt some …’
Thrace looked at the boy, then at the cragclimber. She’d heard tales of kin being taken by kith and sold on as slaves. Aseel would have known whether or not they were lying; whether there wasn’t something underhand at play. But Aseel was not there with her and she had to make her own judgement.
Neither of them looked deceitful so far as she could determine. And though the boy’s blue eyes, that seemed so drawn to her, gave nothing away, the cragclimber’s words sounded sincere. Yet they were wyrmekith, both of them. That fact remained. They’d ministered to her injuries; they’d fed her and eased her thirst with honeywater. But they were kith …
She shook her head.
‘As you please,’ said Eli gruffly. ‘The offer’s there, but it makes no odds to me. I’m not your keeper.’ He climbed to his feet, then nodded towards the door. ‘You’re free to do whatever you choose.’
Thrace took a deep breath. Her shoulder jarred as she pulled herself to her feet, and when she went to take a step, her head spun and the walls of the craghut seemed to turn and smudge. She stumbled forward, reaching out to balance herself, and the shoulder jarred again, so badly that her legs crumpled and she sat back down heavily on the floor. She pressed a hand tenderly to the throbbing pain. Even through the soulskin, she could feel how hot her shoulder had become.
‘We could be there before nightfall,’ the cragclimber said, glancing up through the hole in the roof. The first glimmer of the new day was flushed across the sky. ‘Assuming you’re up to walking that long,’ he added.
Thrace nodded, and before her, the two kith faces blurred again. There was nothing for it but to accept.
As the sun rose, she set off with them, the walking staff that Eli had whittled her gripped in the hand of her good arm, her right arm, and clacking on the rock as she used it to steady herself. The boy was on one side of her, the cragclimber on the other. She was discomforted by their close presence. The sound of their breathing curdled in her ears; their smell all but made her gag.
Yet when they reached the top of the rockstrewn slope, and the colour abruptly drained from the landscape, and her head swam and the end of the walking staff slid across the rock, she was grateful for the hands that reached out and grabbed her and stopped her crashing to the ground in a dead faint. And when she felt well enough to continue, revived by cold water, a spoonful of the honey that Eli kept in his rucksack, and a while spent sitting with her head between her knees, she was grateful again for the arms that supported her.
The boy kept looking round at her, the muscles in his jaw tensing and untensing. There was concern behind the mistrust, and she wasn’t sure what made her quake beneath his gaze.
‘We can stop any time you like,’ he told her. ‘You get too weary, or giddy, or yo
u want to stop for something more to drink, then you just tell me.’
Thrace rubbed at her left hand, which was feeling numb, and felt her cheeks flush red and hot in the face of his kindness.
It was dusk by the time they reached the edge of the yawning ravine.
‘This is the place,’ said Micah, looking at Thrace.
The wyrmekin stared ahead. She knew the green haven, of course. It was one of two dozen or so that she and Aseel would fly over. Many times they had dived down into this very one – at sun-up and sundown – and skewered the plump damsel flies that danced in the rainbow spray of the waterfall. This would be the first time she had ventured into the ravine on foot, and she peered down warily. Rain had started falling mid afternoon and, though it had eased off, the soft grey sheets of rainfall misted her view, and she heard the distant waterfall pouring from the rock-cleft far to her left before she saw it.
The boy must have noticed where she was looking. ‘That’s where Jura lives,’ he told her. ‘She’s kin, like you.’
Thrace stared at the smudge of falling water. She’d been so close to it, so many times, without ever suspecting that there might be wyrmekin living there. There was Riga and Arram at the black pinnacles, Zaia and Aluciel who roamed the saltflats far to the west, and there were others she knew of in the yellow peaks beyond, but whose names she had never learned. But Jura. Why had she never seen this Jura and her whitewyrme here in the green haven, so close to the highstacks she and Aseel watched over?
She looked back at the boy, Micah, and he looked at her. She leaned heavily on his arm.
Micah felt the warmth of the girl’s body close beside him. When the descending trail became too narrow to walk three abreast, Eli strode ahead while Micah remained at the girl’s side. He walked on the outside of her, one hand on his hackdagger, the other gripping her good arm firmly. He stole glances at her as often as he dared, then some more.