by Garth Nix
‘And we are no match for the rain of arrows that will inevitably fall on us if we stop,’ said Hundred grimly.
‘Our options are sorely limited,’ Egda declared. ‘There is, however, one we have not discussed. A more direct route to the bottom than any winding road.’
‘The Ghyll?’ Hundred’s expression turned to alarm. ‘Sire, that would be madness.’
‘Where madness blinds, inspiration may find.’ The old man gripped his friend’s shoulder. ‘It is our only chance.’
‘Who or what’s the Ghyll?’ Eleanor asked, made extremely nervous by Hundred’s reaction.
‘It lies through that notch yonder,’ said Hundred, pointing at a triangle segment cut out of the surrounding mountainsides, not far from where the guards waited. ‘Once, there were two waterfalls leading from this lake to the plains below. One was the Foss, which you have already seen. The other, by far the more dangerous, was the Ghyll.’
‘We can’t swim down a waterfall!’ exclaimed Odo, thinking of the horses as well as themselves.
‘That would indeed be impossible,’ Egda said, ‘if the Ghyll had not frozen solid, long ago. And it is not a single vertical fall, but a series of many low falls.’
Eleanor gaped at him, remembering her desire to skate down a glacier. ‘My father always says, “Be careful what you wish for”.’ Now I know why!’
‘It is madness,’ Hundred said again. ‘We will never survive.’
‘We can go around the yaks at the last minute,’ said Odo, calculating distances and times. ‘We’ll surprise them.’
‘That is only the first of our trials. The ice will smash us to pieces!’
‘Not if we ride the doors!’ exclaimed Eleanor. ‘Wilheard’s doors! We can use them as sleds. If we hang on tight and brake where we can—’
‘Madness,’ said Hundred for the third time, but her teeth were bared now. It was almost a smile. ‘Move quickly! We have mere moments to prepare.’
She looked after Egda while Eleanor prepared for Odo. His armour and pack were heavy, and so was the door she unshipped for him from the stack, but weight was no concern. She didn’t even notice it. Her heart was pounding, and the night seemed alight. Urgency kept her thoughts off what a frozen waterfall might look like, one even more violent than the Foss.
When she looked up with a cry of ‘Ready!’ she saw that the bear and gore yaks and guards were now frighteningly close. The animals’ eyes were smoke-filled from the sorcery of the craft-fire. Archers drew back their bows.
Odo wrenched the reins hard to his right, and the horses reared up in protest, throwing slivers of ice from their hooves. Then they found their purpose again, along with their purchase, and began to gallop for their lives. The wagon bounced and lurched, almost overturning, newly loosened doors falling off the back. Everyone held on for grim life, Odo cursing as he now tried to hold the terrified horses back.
The wagon lurched onto two wheels, nearly tipped, then steadied on a new course, heading past the snarling yaks and directly for the top of the Ghyll. Arrows flew, but all fell short or were chopped out of the air by Eleanor and Hundred. Two struck the beasts, who howled in rage as they skidded on the ice to follow their quarry.
‘Steady!’ urged Egda, crouching beside Odo and pointing his staff forward as though he could see the way ahead. ‘Steady!’
Shouts went up from the guards. A score or more emerged from the guardhouse waving swords and pikes, their spiked boots giving them ample purchase on the ice. If the Ghyll proved unpassable for any reason, Eleanor thought, they would have to fight humans as well as beasts in order to survive.
Her heart was in her throat as they reached the notch.
Odo put every tiny scrap of strength he possessed into hauling back on the reins, as Hundred slammed on the brake. The horses saw the drop too and turned violently, breaking their traces and running free. The wagon sped on, teetering on two wheels, bouncing and skidding as everyone on board screamed or shouted, including the swords, before finally hitting a ridge of ice and slowly toppling over.
‘Move!’ cried Hundred, tossing the door she would share with Egda from the top of the wagon. Eleanor obeyed, with packs and armour to follow. She ignored the roaring of the beasts and the shouting of the soldiers. She put everything out of her mind except for the plan, their one and only chance of survival, quickly lashing her pack to the door and testing the looped handholds she had made for herself and Odo.
But when she glanced down the Ghyll, she faltered.
A narrow, jagged ravine led down the side of the mountain. Sandwiched between those lethal stone walls was a dragon’s tongue of pure white, curving and twisting into savage bends and turns, surrounded on every side by knife-sharp edges and bone-smashing boulders, any one of which might kill her.
Odo joined her to carry the door to the very edge of the frozen waterfall. The first part of it was an almost vertical drop of a dozen paces or more, before it levelled out for a while and then went into a series of frighteningly steep curves.
But the bear and the gore yaks were almost upon them. There was no time to waste.
‘Care to join me, Sir Eleanor?’
‘I believe I will, Sir Odo.’
The two knights lay full-length on their door, swords hovering overhead, and gripped the rope handles.
‘Three, two, one – go!’ they cried together.
They pushed off, Hundred and Egda hot on their heels. Then all was ice and speed and falling – and screaming, definitely screaming – as they raced for death or the bottom of the Ghyll, whichever came first.
Prince Kendryk hardly ever slept these days. Finishing the mural, and finishing it quickly, was all that mattered. He could tell from the gloating in his grandmother’s voice that time was running out.
When he did sleep, he dreamed of the earth shaking and splitting open, and huge gouts of flame blazing forth, as though the very world was ending.
He was in the middle of one of these dreams when a rough hand shook him awake. He was confused for a long moment. Was the ground shaking, or was he? Had he finished the mural at last and brought his plan to completion, or was it all unfinished and the outcome still unknown? Sometimes he wished he could simply let it go, and maybe if the outcome for Tofte wouldn’t be so awful, he would have. Personal gain wasn’t what he craved, and never had been.
‘Look at him, sleeping on the floor like some common drab,’ the regent muttered. ‘Wake up, Grandson! I have better things to do than attend to madmen in belfries.’
Kendryk sat up, rubbing his eyes. The person shaking him was Lord Deor, the Chief Regulator. Kendryk flinched away from his rough touch, and Lord Deor stepped back, executing the merest sketch of a bow as he went. The scabbard of his heavy sword dragged along the ground with a harsh scraping sound.
‘He is awake, Your Highness.’
‘About time.’ She took Lord Deor’s place at Kendryk’s feet, not deigning to stoop. She towered over him like the throne she coveted, a tall structure of wood and gold that made anyone sitting in it look simultaneously very small and extremely self-important.
‘I have news of your great-uncle,’ she said without preamble. ‘The former king. You must brace yourself.’
Kendryk placed his outspread hands on the stone floor. ‘I am as braced as I will ever be, Grandmother.’
‘He is dead,’ she said. ‘I received word this morning. There can be no doubt.’
The news, though half expected, was still shocking. Kendryk’s eyes flooded with tears, and he sensed the world crowding in around him like the walls of a prison. Was he truly alone now? Did he have no one to turn to but himself?
Dragon, dragon, heed our call …
He looked up, past his grandmother, to the mural. It was so nearly finished. He had hoped for more time, but now, perhaps, there was none.
‘I see that you are as shocked as I was,’ Odelyn said without any trace of shock at all. Egda’s sister, the regent, the architect of everything that had bef
allen Tofte in recent months, had no lost love for her brother. ‘Knowing that it would be your wish, I have declared a state funeral for three days from now. The kingdom will pause in his honour and bid a final farewell to a great king.’
The slight emphasis on great was all for Kendryk.
‘Yes,’ he said through his grief. ‘That is a good decision.’
‘I thought you would be pleased, although …’ She took three steps in a half circle, coming around so he sat between her and a wide-smiling Lord Deor. ‘… I do hate to tread on my brother’s memory. My coronation is of course scheduled for two days from now. I considered a delay, but why, when the nation is in need of succour? What better time for a new beginning?’
Coldness spread from Kendryk’s heart through the rest of his body.
‘You think you have won.’
‘I have, Grandson. Did you really think you would ever wear the crown? You are not fit to be king, and you know it.’
There’s only one way to find out, he thought but did not say.
‘I will accept your congratulations at a later date,’ she said. ‘You are grief-stricken at the news of your great-uncle’s fate. We must remember that the last Old Dragon lived longer than anyone expected, and console ourselves with the knowledge that the kingdom will be well cared for in his wake.’
Kendryk could take no more of her gloating. He had but one question for her, and then she could be gone.
‘Will there be a viewing?’ he asked.
Her lips tightened under that proud, jutting nose.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I wish to pay my respects.’
‘There will be a coffin, but no viewing. The body is too … damaged.’
‘You have seen it with your own eyes?’
‘I have not,’ she admitted, ‘but there can be no doubt. No doubt at all. I have it on the word of no less than three Instruments and one Adjustor. The old man is dead at long last … so thoroughly dead that not even his most loyal supporter could doubt it.’
He had heard her slight hesitation, and wondered at it.
‘How can anyone be more thoroughly dead than just … dead?’ he asked.
Lord Deor’s smile slipped off his face like blood off a burnished shield.
‘There has been an abundance of royal deaths,’ the regent said. ‘I am informed that Egda died defending a nowhere place called Lenburh in the jaws of a bilewolf. I am also informed that he died in a town called Ablerhyll after a terrible accident. I am further informed that he died at Kyles Frost while foolishly attempting to sled down the Ghyll. He can’t have died in all three places – but he is sure to have died in one of them. Lord Deor is looking into it. I expect he’ll have it resolved before the memorial. Won’t you, Lord Deor?’
The Chief Regulator bowed, shooting Kendryk a murderous look. His right hand never strayed from the hilt of his sword.
‘We will leave you to your grief, Grandson,’ the regent told him. ‘Rest assured that your troubles will soon be over. The crown that would sit so heavily on your tortured brow will soon sit on mine, and you may spend all your days daubing paint on walls, knowing the kingdom is well cared for. Who would not be satisfied with such an arrangement?’
She gestured dismissively at the mural, its sweeping lines and jagged points, and he was left with no illusions as to his fate. Yes, he might live beyond the coronation itself, but how long until he was found at the foot of a ladder with his neck broken? Or subtly poisoned by something slipped into one of his paints?
Not that there would be any point painting once Odelyn was crowned king of Tofte. If he didn’t finish the mural before then, all his efforts would have been for naught.
The regent and the Chief Regulator swept out of the tower room without so much as a glance behind them. They saw no threat in him, and that was exactly as it should be.
Two days. Time hadn’t quite run out yet. There was still a chance.
Looking up into the shadows high above, he sought the black, flitting shapes he knew would be there. One, the smallest, swooped down to catch his outstretched arm.
‘Do you have a message, Tip?’ he whispered.
The tiny bat shook his head and looked up at him with sorrowful eyes.
‘All right, then, little friend. You’d better tell me what happened.’
The last thing Eleanor remembered was the sound of ice crunching against wood and being battered back and forth like a ball in a barrel, with Odo at her side and Runnel and Biter swooping in to try to lever their makeshift sled away from the most obvious dangers of the icy slope. That memory of the terrifying ice slide seemed to stretch on and on, but finally there had been an obstacle that could not be dodged, a sudden flight into the air, Odo shouting, the swords screaming – and then a blow to her head that flung her into darkness. It echoed as though it meant to go on forever.
Waking was much worse.
Eleanor sat upright and clutched desperately at her face. Something – a furred hand? – was pressed tightly over her mouth and nose. She was suffocating!
Her fingers found purchase, pulled, and suddenly light and air returned. For a moment, all she could do was gasp in breaths. She barely saw the dappled light of the clearing in which she found herself, or the splintered ruin of the doors that lay around her, or the tumbled disorder of packs and armour.
The first thing she truly noted was Odo, who lay struggling on his back next to her. There was a giant moth over his face. It was as large as a dinner plate, a match for the one that had been attached to her.
‘Ugh!’
Fighting dizziness, she crouched over him and tore at the creature with both hands. It was surprisingly strong, with long legs that hung on tightly to his ears and hair, and curling antennae that batted at her eyes. Finally, she ripped it away, and it fluttered angrily off into the trees.
‘What was that thing?’ Odo wheezed in revulsion, catching his breath. He looked around. ‘Where are we?’
‘Giant moth,’ she said. ‘And I have no idea.’
But they were alive – and the immediate priority was finding Egda and Hundred. Eleanor staggered uneasily to her feet, red blotches still dotting her vision. There! Another ruined door, and Hundred grappling with her own smothering moth. Nearby lay Egda, his gold blindfold off and face tightly wrapped up in grey-and-brown wings. He wasn’t moving.
‘Gah!’ Hundred freed herself the moment Eleanor reached their liege. They took one wing each and pulled with all their might. The moth tore in half and came away with a ghastly ripping sound. Egda fell back on the mossy ground, eyes half open, insensible even to Hundred’s firm slap across his cheeks.
‘He can’t be dead,’ Odo said. ‘He can’t be!’
‘He isn’t,’ said Hundred, resting her head against the old man’s chest. ‘But his heart is slowing down. We must restore its rhythm – somehow.’
‘I saw my father do this once.’ Eleanor frantically cast her mind back, clutching at details that eluded her. ‘Old Osgar … at the fair … one punch to the chest …’
‘A slap to the sternum might well do it,’ said Hundred, beginning to look frantic as the seconds passed and still Egda did not stir. ‘With the heel of the hand, if it were powerful enough. But it could also kill—’
‘We have to try,’ whispered Eleanor.
They all looked at each other. No one wanted to be the one who killed the king, even if it was in an attempt to save him.
‘Let me through,’ said Odo after what seemed like minutes, but was only seconds. He bent down, raised his right hand, and brought it down hard where Eleanor indicated.
Egda flopped like an eel, coughed three times, and opened his sightless eyes.
‘My liege,’ said Hundred, her voice betraying such relief that Eleanor had never imagined she could possess.
‘I dreamed,’ he said in a ragged voice, ‘of sliding down the refuse chute at Winterset … and landing in a mountain of old pillows … feathers rose up to choke me …’
‘We survived!’
‘Indeed,’ she said, patting the hand gripping her. ‘We would not have, but for the quick thinking of these two young knights.’
Eleanor caught Odo’s eye. Knights, not knightlings.
‘But are we safe?’ Egda went on. ‘Were we followed? We must move quickly, ere we are discovered—’
‘We will, my liege. First, we must ascertain where we are. A forest of some kind … probably the upper reaches of the Groanwood. There were smother-moths.’
Egda rubbed his throat and sat up. ‘The work of our enemy?’
‘Most likely happenstance, or else worse would have come by now.’
‘It may yet be on its way.’
Odo looked around him, at the close-packed trunks and the shadows beyond. There could be anything out there.
Feeling suddenly vulnerable, he reached for Biter but found his scabbard empty. So was Eleanor’s.
‘The swords,’ he said. ‘Biter and Runnel – where are they?’
Hundred checked her side. The curved blade that usually hung there was present.
‘Inspect the wreckage!’
The three of them scrambled through the broken doors, but found nothing but Egda’s staff.
‘This is most mysterious,’ said Hundred.
‘They wouldn’t just leave,’ said Eleanor. ‘Would they?’
A twig crunched in the undergrowth. They spun to face it. Odo reached down to pick up a branch and hefted it in one hand, wishing he was at least wearing his armour. Eleanor did the same.
‘Who’s there?’ she called. ‘Come out where we can see you!’
An enormous hooded figure parted the bracken – a man easily a foot taller than Odo. He raised his hands to tug back the hood, revealing a scalp that was utterly bare of hair; deep, hooded eyes; and a face pockmarked with scars, like burns made by fiery sparks.
Craft-fire, thought Eleanor in alarm. Perhaps the moths hadn’t been natural after all.
‘To me!’ cried Hundred, and Eleanor and Odo moved at the same instant, putting themselves in front of Egda. Without swords, without even knives, they would defend their liege to the death.