The Broken Raven

by Joseph Elliott

  The man doesn’t even struggle. He’s been stabbed real bad. The splash when he hits the water sounds like it’s swallowin him up.

  “Now someone find the keys for this chain,” ses the king. “I’m lost without my eyes.”

  The others are laughing at me, I’m sure of it. It makes me swing the ax even harder. Or maybe they’re not laughing; maybe it’s pity. I swing the ax again. The impact makes my arms judder and my teeth sting.

  Since we came back, the number of people in each duty has been imbalanced because of all the clan members who were killed when the deamhain first attacked, but the decision was made almost immediately that the duties would be respected. It’s one of the few things Maistreas Eilionoir and Catriona have agreed upon. “When you are initiated into a duty, you commit to it for life. In these unstable times, it is exactly the sort of stability we need” was Maistreas Eilionoir’s point. It doesn’t make sense to me. We need more Hawks to patrol the wall and more Moths to guard the gates, and the Reapers are practically redundant, since there’s nothing for them to harvest. I haven’t mentioned it, though, since I appear to be the exception; there’s been no talk of me resuming my duty as an Angler. Perhaps Maistreas Eilionoir has kept quiet about it as a way of rewarding me for the role I played in rescuing everyone. As a result, I’m in a strange sort of limbo, where I’m invited to meetings, but I’m not an elder, I help out in the kitchens, but I’m not a Stewer, and I spend a lot of time with the Wasps, even though I’ll never be one. I don’t really know what I am.

  It also means that when there’s a job that requires extra people, I’m the first person to be asked.

  Hence cutting down trees.

  There was a time when I thought being an Angler was the job I was least suited for in the world, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe it’s cutting down trees.

  After this morning’s meeting, runners were sent to warn the other Skye clans about the sgàilean, like Maistreas Eilionoir suggested, and the Scavengers were sent out to collect as much firewood as possible. The plan is to make numerous fires around the entire enclave, including ones in every bothan, because no one wants to spend another night standing in a freezing loch. It’s a short-term solution, though; we can’t keep fires burning forever. And what if the sgàilean find a way to put them out? It’s not safe for us here anymore.

  I lean the ax against my leg and shake out my aching arms. Sweat is pouring down my back despite the cold. The Scavengers around me have all perfected the technique and make it look so easy. I lift the ax above my shoulder and focus on the pathetic dent in the tree I’ve been chipping away at. I tighten my grip on the handle and swing with all the strength I can muster. Just before it hits, I shut my eyes. The impact doesn’t come. I miss the spot I was aiming for, spin in a full circle, and the ax ends up lodged in a completely different trunk.

  I attempt to yank it out, but it’s stuck tight. I give up and slump onto the ground, filled with an overwhelming desire to do nothing at all.

  “Need a hand?” says one of the Scavs, a hulking boy not much older than I am. I quickly stand back up. He reaches behind me and pulls the ax from the tree with minimal effort.

  “Thanks,” I say. He doesn’t give the ax back to me.

  “There’s lots of fallen branches a bit farther in. Why don’t you pick up a load of those? That’d be just as useful.”

  I’m on the verge of protesting, torn between struggling on with a task I’m clearly no good at and the humiliating demotion to picking up twigs. I don’t want to chop down trees, but I want to be able to chop down trees. Who’d have thought I’d find it easier to cut off a person’s hand than cut down a tree? That particular memory — of the deamhan I struck when the fight first broke out in the mountain — unwraps in my brain like a poisoned flower. A sour taste rushes into my throat. I look at the ax, which the Scav is still holding.

  “Fine,” I say, turning my back on him.

  I keep my eyes down as I go about my work. Every now and then there’s a yell of “Falling!” and everyone stops to watch as a defeated tree creaks to the forest floor.

  Once I have as much wood in my arms as I can carry, I make my way back to the enclave, struggling not to drop pieces as I go. Despite my best efforts, a twig falls out here and a branch slides off there so that by the time I reach the gate, my load is pretty pathetic. Why did I even bother?

  The Moth keeping guard watches me approach. He’s Clann-na-Bruthaich, an older man with long wisps of white hair that the wind spreads across his face like grass under water.

  “You dropped a few,” he says, pointing behind me. He means it as a joke, but it hits a nerve. I walk past him without saying anything.

  As soon as I’m inside, a young boy runs up to me.

  “I was sent to find you,” he says, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  “Me?” I ask. “Why?”

  “Catriona wants to speak to you. Come with me.”

  He scampers off, stopping every few yards to check that I’m still following. Why does Catriona want to see me? It must be about burning down the meeting tree. The boy leads me to a small bothan with a tatty thatch roof.

  “Is she inside?” I ask.

  He nods, digging his buckteeth into his bottom lip, then sprints off on flat feet.

  I’m still carrying the bundle of branches, more of which fell during the jog across the enclave. I ditch the remaining few on the ground and knock on the bothan door. No one answers. I knock again and strain my ears for a response. It’s hard to hear through the stone walls and thick wooden door, especially with the wind wheezing all over the place like it is. I knock for a third time, then clunk the latch and open the door. It’s dark inside, so it takes me a moment to register who all the staring eyes belong to. Catriona is the first to come into focus, standing near the center of the room with her hands on the back of a chair. Leaning against the far wall are a man and a woman. I’ve never seen the woman before; she’s slim, with a long, oval face and prominent eyes. The man is Donal, the Wasp who showed me how to make an Angler boat in the days after Agatha accidentally set one of them on fire. He smiles at me through his dense red beard, and I give him a little mouth twitch in return. The final person in the room is Maistreas Eilionoir. She’s sitting in the opposite corner, so hidden in shadow that I almost didn’t see her. She blows into the steaming mug in her hands.

  “Come in,” says Catriona, and indicates that I should sit down on the chair in front of her.

  I walk over to the chair with slow steps. “I really am sorry . . .” I say, “about the meeting tree . . . I didn’t mean to — ”

  “This isn’t about the meeting tree,” Catriona says, cutting me off.

  “We’ve been thinking more about this ‘Badhbh’ of yours,” says Maistreas Eilionoir. “We may have been too hasty earlier, when we dismissed the possibility of him still being alive.” She looks pointedly at Catriona.

  “You’ll be chasing ghosts,” Catriona says to me, “but if you’re that desperate to go . . .”

  “Oh?” I say. “No, I didn’t mean — ”

  “I believe you are already acquainted with Donal?” says Maistreas Eilionoir. “He’s an exceptional Wasp, incredibly resourceful in every way. And this is Violet from Clann-na-Bruthaich. She’s the best tracker they have.” The woman nods at me with a kind smile. “I’m sure you will make a fine team.”

  My head is shaking fast, a repeated tremor.

  “Yes,” says Maistreas Eilionoir. “You will be joining them. We want you to go back to Scotia.”

  They can’t be serious. The last time I was there I nearly died, many times. It’s where the wildwolves live, and who knows what other terrors. It’s where I watched as Lileas was —

  No. I can’t.

  “I understand that it will be difficult for you,” Maistreas Eilionoir continues, “but you are the only person to have been to Scotia before. Other than Agatha, of course, but she is preoccupied with a different task. You were the one who read this Badhb
h’s diary. If he is alive, he may be the only person who can stop the sgàilean, and you are our best hope of finding him.”

  “But Scotia is huge and his plans were so vague . . . He wrote all that forty years ago; he could be anywhere by now. If he’s even still alive, like you say.”

  “I know success may seem unlikely,” says Maistreas Eilionoir, “but you’ve seen what the sgàilean are capable of. We must find a way to return them to the necklace, and the only person we know who is capable of such a feat is the Badhbh. So we have to try. You have to try.”

  It’s hopeless; there’s no way I’ll be able to find him. I wouldn’t even know where to start. The only clues as to his whereabouts were in his diary, but I don’t even have that anymore; before leaving for Norveg, I left it with Cray.

  A strange feeling jolts my stomach. Cray took the diary to show it to the other Bó Riders, so he should still have it. If I return to Scotia, maybe I’ll get to see him again. That would be one positive, at least. I’ve thought about him quite a lot since we got back, about how safe I felt when I was with him. I’ve missed him, and the other Bó Riders too.

  It’s the thought of seeing them again, and no other, that causes me to open my mouth and ask, “When would we have to leave?”

  “Right away,” says Catriona. “You’ll want to reach land before it gets dark. A boat is being loaded up with supplies as we speak.”

  I’m not given much choice. I’m bustled out of the bothan and Donal is ruffling my hair and Maistreas Eilionoir is telling me again that she knows I will do what’s best for the clan. Catriona and Violet follow close behind.

  I don’t protest. I let them lead me through the enclave, out the gate, and around the perimeter wall. I feel numb. Sailing to Scotia is the last thing I want to do, but nothing feels right here either. Perhaps going back will help lift the darkness that’s been clinging to me ever since we returned.

  We follow the curve of the wall, and the sea peers back at us. Clann-na-Bruthaich’s enclave is a short distance from the water. A solitary boat rests on the beach, which we heave into the surf at Catriona’s instruction. As we’re checking through the supplies, the same bucktoothed messenger boy from earlier runs up to us. “I can’t find either of them,” he says. He’s talking about Agatha and Aileen. My only request was that I could say goodbye to them before I left. “No one’s seen them all day.”

  A niggling worry worms into my brain. They were both at the loch this morning, so their disappearance can’t have anything to do with the sgàilean. They should both be in the enclave. Aileen is supposed to be fishing in the loch, and Agatha is almost always patrolling the wall.

  My right hand drifts toward my left wrist, and I give the bracelet there a gentle squeeze. The strips of metal are hard and cold.

  “You haven’t got time to wait for them,” says Catriona. “Get in the boat.”

  I clamp my mouth closed to stop myself from saying something I’ll regret. I was planning on apologizing to Aileen for the way I spoke to her in the tree last night. With all that’s happened, we haven’t talked properly since. It doesn’t look like I’m going to have the chance now. I want her to know that, despite how I’ve been behaving recently, I still care about her more than anything in the world.

  Before getting into the boat, I look across the water and see Scotia: a haunting mass in the distance. My legs start to shudder, a violent tremble that spreads up into my chest and down my arms. I try to resist it, but my body refuses.

  Maistreas Eilionoir turns me toward her and embraces me in a tight hug. The shaking slows and, while I’m enfolded in her arms, she whispers something in my ear. “Pardon?” I say, unsure I heard her right. She doesn’t repeat it. She breaks away and, holding me at arm’s length, gives both my shoulders a squeeze. I think she said the same words she whispered in the mountain room on the morning after the battle with the deamhain: You truly are the bravest of us all. It gives me the courage I need to step into the boat.

  My history on water is not great. Three out of the last four boats I’ve traveled in have ended up destroyed: the first was set on fire by Agatha, another was damaged by rocks and sank off the shore of Scotia, and the third shattered when we crashed into the Norvegian coastline. At least the journey today won’t be as far as the other ones were, and Donal looks like he’s strong enough to row for four.

  There are no long, drawn-out goodbyes. Violet says nothing at all. Donal gives a few cheerful waves, and that’s it. We’re on the sea, and I’m at the mercy of the water once again.

  Scotia creeps up on us far too quickly. All of the horrors I’d heard about the mainland did not prepare me for the reality of it. It was much worse, in every way, and very soon I’m going to be back there.

  The chimes on the wall of our enclave make clatter noise. The Raasay people should be hitting the First twice at the top which is meaning they can see people but do not know who it is, but they are not. They are hitting all of them. They do not know how to do it properly.

  My heart is bum bum bum bum booming because the chiefs of Raasay are inside and they are bad ones. I hate them the most in all the world. If the shadow things get them I don’t even care. More people come on the wall when they hear the chimes. They are looking down at us, too.

  “Hold up your hands to show you’re not armed,” Aileen says to me. “And let me do the talking.”

  I do what she says the holding up my hands.

  “No farther!” shouts a man from the wall. It is hard to see his face but I think it is a scowl one. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “We are Clann-a-Tuath,” I shout. “This is our enclave and you sh-shouldn’t be here.”

  Aileen looks at me and shakes her head. She doesn’t want me to do the talking but it was my plan to come here, not hers.

  “Turn around and walk away,” says the Raasay man on the wall.

  “We’re here to warn you,” says Aileen, but I shout louder.

  “I want to see Lileas’s parents! They are called Hector and E-Edme. I need to — speak with them.”

  “Leave now or we will be forced to fire.”

  “But the shadow things are coming to get you!” I say. “You need to — listen to us.” It is not raining here which means the shadow things can come even sooner.

  “We do not listen to our enemy,” says the man.

  “Then you are — stupid!”

  “Agatha!” says Aileen.

  An arrow fires then. It lands in the ground close to me and I yelp and step away from it.

  “That was a warning,” says the man. “The next one will not hit the ground.” That means it won’t hit the ground because it will hit me instead.

  “We’ve walked all the way from the south,” says Aileen. “We may be your enemy, but we value the lives of your children. If you don’t open your gates and listen to what we have to say, come nightfall you will all be dead.”

  The people on the wall are talking to each other. I cannot hear them. They are too far away and too quiet. One of them whistles and then the gate opens. They are letting us in, I think. It means we can put our hands down now which is good because my arms are big aches. I do not like it that the people listened to Aileen and not to me. It makes me not like her more.

  Inside it is strange because it is our enclave and everything is the same but also some things are different. Some of the bothans are not there anymore and there are smaller ones. Also the people are all wrong. They are Raasay people and not Clann-a-Tuath people. There are six of them near to us. I know it is six because I counted them. I think they are the ones from the wall. One of them is a woman with a long nose who comes to us. She doesn’t say anything. She takes Aileen’s bag without asking first which is snatching. She throws it to a man. Then she touches Aileen all over her body. When she is finished she comes to do the same thing to me.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say. I do not want her to touch me. I move my arm away from her.

  “It’s okay, Agatha. She’s ju
st checking you don’t have any weapons,” says Aileen.

  “But I don’t have any — weapons,” I say.

  “I know that, but she doesn’t,” says Aileen.

  “She should believe me when I say it,” I say.

  “Just let her do it, okay?” says Aileen.

  I do not want her to do it. She does it anyway and is rough. She doesn’t find any weapons because I don’t have any which is what I said.

  “I told you I didn’t — have any,” I say to her. “You should have believed me when I said it.”

  “What’s wrong with your face?” she asks me, and she stares which is rude.

  “Nothing’s wrong with my — face,” I say. “I am very pretty. Much prettier than y-you.” She doesn’t say anything to that because she knows it is true.

  The man empties all of the things from Aileen’s bag onto the mud. They are dirty now so that is mean. He moves some of them with his foot. Then he looks up and is looking at us and says, “What was it you wanted to tell us?”

  “I want to say it!” I say before Aileen can. She shrugs a little one at me. “You need to make a big one. A fire. A — a qu-quick — I have to tell it to Hector and Edme. Soon it will be — soon it will be night and if you d-don’t have the fire the shadow things will — g-get you.”

  “What do you mean ‘shadow things’?” says the woman.

  Doesn’t she know? Oh I remember Lileas didn’t know about the shadow things either. They do not know about them on the Raasay Island.

  “They are dark entities made through blood magic,” says Aileen. I let her say it this time. “They’ve been released on the island. There’s every chance they’re all around us right now, waiting. As soon as the sun goes down they will attack, unless you are prepared. That’s why you need the fire: its light will offer you protection.”

  “That may well be the most ridiculous lie I have ever heard,” says a new man. He came over when Aileen was talking. Now I can see him more properly and I know who he is. He is one of the chiefs of Raasay. I remember what he looked like. He was on the wall when the deamhain were taking my clan away. It is him who opened our gates and let the deamhain in. I am all hot inside with the angry. I am better at stopping the angry when it comes because Maistreas Eilionoir taught me but I do not want to stop it now.