The Moon Coin (The Moon Realm Series)

by Richard Due

  “He left the clutch? Where did he go?” Quib asked in wonder.

  “I tracked him. It wasn’t hard. He kept as straight a line as he could, down from the moors and toward the fens. He was moving fast, all things considered. He was on the old high roads, where the water is shallowest.”

  “Into the fens? You mean to say he was—”

  “Headed for Perianth? I think that’s certain. When I first sighted him, he was already waist-deep. I don’t know how he kept to the middle of the road, but he did. Ten feet to his left or right and he’d’ve been in the deep. It was like he didn’t even know he was in the fens.” Marred ran a dirty hand through his greasy hair. “When we got close, we fanned out as best we could. The water was up to our chests—well, all but Andros—and too black for us to see how well the edges of the road were holding up. But it turned out we didn’t have to mind that so much.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Quib, his eyelids crinkling to slits.

  “He was out of his head—raving mad.”

  “Wha—You sayin’ he di’n’t know you was there?”

  “Quib,” said Marred, “he wasn’t playing any games. . . . He didn’t even catch sight of us until we were right on him.”

  Quib’s mouth swung open. “Di’n’t notice you? Tavin? And it was no trick?”

  “We took him—easy-like. He’s wounded, too.” Marred motioned to Tavin’s leg. “The left one. An ugly cut of some kind. I’m not sure what from, but it’s not healing as well as I’d expect, given that it’s Tavin and all.”

  Quib bent down to take a look. The rope binding was caked with mud and powdered with road dirt, but the area just below Tavin’s knee was matted with dried blood.

  Lily was just beginning to worry that she’d lost track of Dubb when he strode through a crumbling arch, leading an old and mangy-looking horse by its bridle. He’d donned a dark riding cloak and was pulling on an old pair of leather gauntlets with the aid of his teeth.

  “Quib, Marred, help me lash him behind the saddle, and don’t worry about being gentle.”

  Quib grasped Tavin’s legs, and Marred and Dubb each took a shoulder. Tavin twisted and tried to kick, but they lashed him down quickly. Dubb then burdened the poor beast with his own weight. Taking firm grip of the reins, he held out his other hand for Lily, who simply stared at it.

  “Come now. There is no time to waste.”

  Lily eyed the poor old horse. It was already struggling, and it pained her to think of adding any more weight to its load. She glanced at Quib and Arric, who had just arrived.

  “I can get you home,” said Dubb.

  Quib squatted, holding out his clasped hands like a stirrup. “You won’t get a better offer than that,” he said. “Your parents must be worryin’ something awful about you, eh?”

  Home! thought Lily. How long have I been away?

  It had been well over a day now. What would her parents be thinking? They must be nearly out of their minds.

  With a small apology to the horse, Lily placed her foot into Quib’s hands and accepted Dubb’s gloved hand. With very little effort, Dubb hoisted her into the saddle before him.

  Quib took hold of the horse’s bridle. “Dubb,” he said, sounding very serious, “this horse won’t take the kind of riding you just gave ol’ Andros there. You’ll never make it back to Bairne on this bag of bones.”

  Dubb adjusted his cloak. “Don’t worry,” he said to Quib, “we aren’t going all the way to Bairne tonight.”

  “Then where are you going?” asked Quib, now sounding more concerned.

  Marred swung a dirty oilskin pack from his shoulder. “Provisions,” he said. Lily helped him lash the pack to the front of the saddle, between her and the nag’s dirt-matted mane.

  Dubb gave a tug on the reins, but Quib held tight to the bridle.

  From her position in front, Lily couldn’t see Dubb’s face, but she thought she noticed Marred catch his eye, holding Dubb’s gaze for a moment before giving a small nod.

  “Dubb hasn’t got time for this, Quib,” said Marred, who suddenly yanked Quib’s hands from the bridle.

  Quib stepped back, startled.

  “Yes, of course. You must go,” he smiled grimly. “When you’re safe, send us at least three more wagons—soon as you can!”

  Dubb drew the sides of his cloak around Lily’s shoulders. “Here,” he said, “tie the ends of my cloak around the pack in front of you. It will keep off the worst of the road dust.”

  Lily tied the cloak in place, shielding her from chin to foot. As the poor horse stumbled out of camp, the last thing she saw was Quib, Marred, and Arric helping a pained Andros to his feet.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Unannounced Guests

  Thick clouds blanketed the sky, obscuring the moons and stars. Dubb guided the horse down Perch’s steep slope, into the bleak, rolling landscape. Soon the ruins behind them were swallowed up by layers of mist and darkness.

  “Where is this place?” said Lily softly, but Dubb said nothing.

  “Is all of Dain this desolate?”

  Still nothing.

  “Why did Tavin try to kill me?”

  Lily felt Dubb shift uncomfortably in the saddle.

  “It wasn’t Tavin who tried to kill you,” he answered after a time. “That was Curse’s doing.”

  “Curse?”

  “Yes, the voice you heard talking through the sword. The attempt on your life was its doing—you have to believe that. Tavin would never have tried to hurt you.”

  “Does Curse take him over like that often?”

  “No. Never like—I mean, this was a first. I blame myself. I should have anticipated this. We should have headed back to Bairne weeks ago.”

  “Why is Perianth surrounded by fens? Why has Castle Fendragon been abandoned?”

  Dubb took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Wrengfoul . . . he managed all of this, he and his foul minions. It was the year 2436, in the early spring. We were just a few years older than you are now.”

  Lily’s heart raced. She knew the power of numbers. Numbers can tell you things, Ebb was fond of saying, but only if you’re listening. Nimlinn had said Wrengfoul attacked Dain seventeen years before. That meant the present year in the Moon Realm was 2453. And if Dubb had been a few years older than she was now, he was in his early thirties. Lily was surprised. Dubb looked as old as Ebb, even though he was fifteen years his junior. Could a hard life age a man that much?

  “Dain was nearly two and half millennia into an age of rebirth,” continued Dubb. “Darwyth was dead, just as it’s always been, but it seemed farther removed from us in those days. You’d hear the name Wrengfoul, but more often than not in a sad ballad, a story, or after someone stubbed a toe. In those days, the roads between the townships and coastal city of Warsh were well traveled. Dragons were sighted only rarely. And though they were just as dangerous as today, they kept mostly to the mountains.

  “The city Perianth was a beautiful sight that daybreak. I know because I was there to see it, as were Tavin, Andros, Quib, Marred, and many others you’ve met. No one suspected a thing. We had no warning. The system of windmills and locks was one of the four wonders of the world then. Tinker-designed, they said, and Dain-built thousands of years before the start of the new calendar.”

  “You mean before the year zero.”

  “Correct. I knew the mills had been built to keep out the sea, but I didn’t understand to what extent. I suspect few did. Even in the rainiest of seasons, the low roads never flooded. The fields and pastures were productive. Farms stretched outward in all directions from Perianth.

  “Then he came back to us . . . Wrengfoul. I say ‘back’ because legend has it that before the new calendar began, there was an Age of Waste, a dark age much like t
he one we’re in now. Ember could tell you more. In addition to her lunamancy studies, she is an accomplished collector of tales, constantly piecing together what’s left of Dain’s far-flung tapestry.”

  Lily thought back. In most of the bedtime tales, the magical city Perianth covered the slopes and top of a towering lone hill, and Castle Fendragon sat within its center like a crown jewel. The lowlands that surrounded Perianth were divided: first by the high roads—all of which led to Perianth—and then by the low roads, which crisscrossed and serviced the farms and communities. But she remembered tales where the fens were being drained, too. Ebb had called them old, but not ancient.

  “I’d never imagined such a day, Lily. We were so young. Far away, on the coast, foul serpents slithered from the sea, destroying the great windmills and locks, and the sea roared through. I still don’t know how he amassed such a large force so close to us without our getting wind of it. It was as if they came out of thin air, storming across the high roads from all directions. We met dread-knights that day, armed with their poisoned blades. There were thousands of them. And the blackmages.” Dubb paused. “It’s said a hundred of them roamed the fields of battle that day . . . a hundred.” Lily could hear the awe in his voice. “There were plenty of scaramann to go around, pestilent bugs that they are. More than one could count. They covered the earth like a raging black sea, devouring everything in their path.”

  Lily, thinking of what she had seen in the Valley of the Rinn, shivered.

  “Ah, but you’ve seen them, haven’t you?”

  She felt Dubb shift in the saddle and imagined he might be looking to the sky.

  “I wonder how Barreth has fared this day? Not well, I would think.”

  “Greydor will save them,” said Lily in a soft voice.

  “I hope you’re right, Lily. No one deserves that fate, not even the cats. When you were on Barreth, did you hear tell of any dwythbane?”

  “No. What are they?”

  “They’re like blackmages, but worse, wielding sword as easily as spell.

  “What do they look like?”

  “A dwythbane’s clothes look like something dug up from wet earth, but they wear like iron. His skin blisters and peels, like thin tree bark. Feathery tendrils and matted roots hang down before his eyes.” Lily recalled the images of the misshapen creatures she’d seen in the Tomb of the Fallen. “When he speaks, his white tongue slithers and flicks around weathered teeth that look like something you’d find in a graveyard, not a living mouth. Rootlets grow on his hands, giving him a grip that can crumble stone.

  “The dwythbane rarely leave Darwyth these days, and we believe they are few in number. At Wrengfoul’s bidding, they harvest living creatures from Dain and our moons. Using dark magic, they alter the creatures’ bodies and blacken their souls, twisting them until they are ready to join his horrible army.”

  “Like the scaramann?” said Lily.

  “Exactly.”

  “What about the dragons?” Lily asked, now wondering whether or not the shrewd and resourceful dragons of her childhood had ever existed. “Were they mad when you were a boy?”

  “When were they ever otherwise?” said Dubb wistfully.

  Lily was certain important information could be mined from her old bedtime tales, but she doubted Dubb would take them seriously enough to give them a fair listen.

  “So where are we going now?” she asked. “And why wouldn’t you tell Quib?” she added, even before he could answer.

  They rode in silence for a long time, and Lily had just about decided the conversation was over when Dubb spoke up.

  “We’re going to the homestead of a very powerful healer. We must see what can be done for Tavin’s mind. Our horse can get real food there, and proper care. Then we’ll travel to Bairne, where you can meet Ember.”

  Uncle Ebb had told many tales of Perianth, but Bairne was a name she didn’t recognize.

  “What is Bairne?”

  “Bairne is where we cower, packed like two hatchling dragons in the same egg. It lies at the end of these moors, where the mountains begin. I suppose the location was chosen for protection, and for the rich valley that cuts into the mountains there. The old outer walls are all but gone, leaving the workers easy prey to the likes of dragons.”

  “Will Tavin come with us to Bairne?”

  “Yes. And he’ll improve with each step we take from these wastes. When he’s back among the press of people, he’ll be safe. And you’ll be safe, too.”

  Lily wanted to believe Dubb, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d been fooled, how he’d left her with Tavin in the first place.

  “In fact, Tavin should improve greatly as soon as we reach the lands the healers inhabit. They’re scattered thinly, but they have a collective effect . . . over the land.”

  “If they live outside the city, why aren’t they eaten by the dragons?”

  “They live outside the city because they are not trusted by the Crown. And the dragons act as if they don’t see them.”

  “Why aren’t they trusted?”

  “In the aftermath of Wrengfoul’s devastation, a rumor began that a healer, a very important healer, helped heal a dying blackmage.”

  “And did he?”

  Dubb shifted in his saddle. “Well . . . he did not deny it.”

  “So they banished him? For that?”

  “Oh, no, Lily, no—they killed him for that. After that, things only got worse for the healers.”

  “And so they kicked all of them out?”

  “No. Quite the opposite. A healer named Keegan Hoarfrost led them out. They took refuge in territory that no one would willingly travel—at least, not without dire need. They did things to the trees, hid themselves among them. Somehow, they changed the land where they settled—that, or the land changed around them. Out here, they’ve made themselves safe.”

  After what seemed like hours of riding, they came to a more densely wooded area with towering trees. Dubb steered the poor horse onto an even worse road where tree branches occasionally brushed against their faces. The horse stumbled more, over what Lily guessed were gnarled roots.

  Gradually, though, the clumping of the old horse’s hooves grew softer, and the sounds of night insects and frogs grew louder. Owls called to each other in the distance, and occasionally one took flight, disturbed by the trespassers.

  Then, not far off the path, a light appeared, illuminating a pool of water and what looked like a mound.

  “Dubb,” whispered Lily, “what is that?”

  “Shhhh!” hissed Dubb.

  And the light winked out.

  It was a long time before Lily saw another light, farther off this time. Awhile after that, more lights appeared. Some illuminated small open fields, while others revealed clumps of trees. This time Lily stayed quiet.

  Some time later, she spotted something moving: something very short, but walking on two legs. Then it was gone, disappearing into the taller grass.

  A sound startled Lily, as though a finger were tapping on the outside of Dubb’s riding cloak. Lily drew her feet up as far as she could. When the sound resumed, she could tell it was coming from in front of her. At first she imagined a small bird, pecking at the outside of the cloak. But what if it wasn’t a bird? What if it had little hairy arms and legs and had crawled up the horse from the road? What if it had sharp teeth? What if there were more than one of them?

  Lily reached out and touched the pack that Marred had handed Dubb. Her fingers slipped over its smooth, oily surface. The tapping came again, only more forcefully this time. Now she was certain. Something was clinging to the outside of the riding cloak, maybe after some food in Marred’s pack. She gave the pack a quick shove and listened. The tapping stopped.

  Dubb shook Lily’s shoulder and leaned down to speak in he
r ear.

  “Are you awake?” he said softly.

  “Yes!” hissed Lily. “Like I would be asleep! Are you mental?”

  “Good. We’re on Keegan’s ground, nearing his homestead. Tavin has finally gone slack and is, I hope, sleeping.”

  Lily had almost forgotten about Tavin, who was lashed to the back of the saddle. Hearing Dubb use Tavin’s name brought back the memory of his face when he had called her a “useless maggot.” Lily’s stomach clenched at the thought of Tavin being cut free from his ropes.

  The horse stopped.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Dubb quickly, just before a dozen lights flared up.

  They had halted between two great tree trunks. Lily saw animals all about them. Most were sleeping, but a few turned their heads, squinting. A young girl holding two lanterns walked out of a nearby barn. She held one of the lanterns high, lighting her young face. She didn’t look happy, and the closer she got, the angrier she became.

  “Get off! Get off that horse!” she scolded, with a very forceful manner for one so young.

  Lily hurriedly untied the riding cloak, and Dubb helped her down.

  “He’s expecting you,” said the girl. Getting a good look at the poor horse, she gave Dubb an even darker look. “Two of you,” she sneered. Dubb dismounted, and the young girl saw Tavin. “Three of you!” she shrieked. “And packs!”

  Dubb unlashed the pack that Marred had given him and handed it to Lily. It was much heavier than she expected, and it took both arms and most of her strength to carry it. Dubb waved his hand. With a swishing sound the ropes binding Tavin to the horse parted. Only when Dubb stowed the short blade did Lily catch a glimpse of flickering steel. He eased Tavin off the horse and onto his shoulders.

  “Come on,” he grunted.

  “You’ll need a lantern,” said the girl.

  Dubb tried to free a hand, but bending down was difficult.