Bloodstone (11 page)

Sionnach’s grey picked its delicate way through a black wasteland. What had once been a farm was a desolation. I drew my sword, but there wasn’t any point.

Where beasts should have huddled in a field, steam rising off their hides in the cold air, smoke rose instead from butchered corpses. Whoever had done it wasn’t interested in stealing the
cattle, so we knew what we’d find before we got to the steading yard.

Timber smouldered underfoot, the smell of charring catching the back of our throats. Burnt wood, burnt stone, burnt meat; and not only beef. A roof beam and its last precarious slates creaked,
then collapsed. Behind us Torc was silent, except for his ragged breathing.

Sionnach drew his horse to a halt before a heap of smoking logs. It backed and snorted, bared its canines. The smell of burning meat was stronger now, and beneath it a deadlier stench. The logs
had limbs. Or the stumpy remains of them.

I slid off Sionnach’s horse, crouched over the pyre and poked at the remains of fabric. I’d smelt burnt human more than once; it never got any sweeter. Once it was in your nostrils,
you couldn’t ever get the stink out.

I stood up, sheathed my blade, waited for the sting of a hundred memories to fade.

‘This is Reid?’ I asked.

‘And his family.’ Torc brushed his arm once, hard, across his face.

Sionnach said nothing. He was absolutely still on his horse, reins in one hand, staring at the steading, the only building left half-standing, and only because the fire hadn’t caught so
well.

‘There’s someone alive,’ he said, and his tone was deadly.

Torc nodded as I glanced at him. His colossal horse made barely a sound as he swung its head and rode it round to the back of the barn. Sionnach stayed on guard at the front, both swords
drawn.

The collapsed steading walls were scaleable, but not easily; if the skulker tried to escape sideways we’d catch him, no problem. Once again I drew my sword, and trod carefully across
charred rubble into the half-roofed ruins.

‘Come out or I’ll cut you out,’ I called pleasantly.

The fear, the staccato aggression: it felt so familiar, my spine rippled with apprehension.

It couldn’t be...

A movement in the remnants of shadow. He must have known he was rumbled. A deep and audible breath of courage, and then the boy staggered up abruptly, fists clenched, skin filthy, teeth bared in
nothing like a smile.

No.
He was the last person I’d expected or wanted. It couldn’t be, but it was.

Jed was coiled like a snake, every muscle taut for a fight. I’d have liked to tell him to for gods’ sake at least unclench his teeth, because in that state he couldn’t fight a
lapdog for more than two minutes. But something in his eyes stopped me: a diamond ferocity.

I should get him back to his mother. Lammyr or no Lammyr, she’d be fine with him.

For a few seconds he stared at me. There was a high edge of panic in his voice. ‘Where am I?’

‘That’s original.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Keep your feckin’ voice down.’

He gave me a look of such hatred I almost flinched. Almost. But I couldn’t afford that.

Jed looked from me to Sionnach and behind him to Torc. From Torc to me. And on me his gaze stayed.

‘I know you,’ he said.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I lied. ‘Oh yeah. I saw you at Tornashee with the idiot Finn. Where is she?’

‘No, that’s not – who are – where —’

‘Where are you? Nowhere you know. Where’s Finn?’

Sionnach shot me a frown, half confusion and half disapproval. ‘Finn?’

‘Finn’s gone,’ Jed blurted.

I took two steps towards him and grabbed him by the collar. ‘She’s gone? Where?’

He flinched, but the loathing didn’t leave his eyes. ‘A horse. There was a horse. It was tame and we were tired and she got on it and —’

‘She what?’

‘Are you frigging deaf? She got on it! She rode off! She feckin’ left me here!’

Oh, gods. No matter what I thought of Finn, she wouldn’t do that. Friends, for her, were too hard to come by. ‘What colour was the horse?’

‘Feckin’
weird.
It was blue.’

We shouldn’t have caught up with the roan as fast as we did, though I called it with a savage insistence and Sionnach knew better than to distract me. All the same, the
fool on its back must have fought like a demon all the way for it not to have reached the Dubh Loch by now.

Wind pummelling my face and cold singeing my lips; ah, I could almost enjoy the wild ride if I wasn’t imagining what Conal would have to say about my horse eating his goddaughter. Torc had
stayed at the farm with the boy; I was glad I didn’t have to be part of that conversation, but I still wasn’t enchanted by this job.

When we first caught sight of her she was a blur on the crystalline air close to the horizon, but that definitely wasn’t as fast as the roan could run. As we drew closer, I saw Finn
clearly: a thin figure crouched on the roan’s back, all tangled black hair, and terror mixed up with a raging dark resentment. She was unmistakeable: I knew that hair. I knew that temper. No
wonder the roan was having problems.

I banged my head between Sionnach’s shoulder blades in lieu of the nearest wall, but he was still all concerned with catching up. And thanks to the girl on its back we were, finally,
abreast of it, both horses racing across the moor as the Dubh Loch’s shining shore grew closer, and broader, and brighter: so close now I could hear the song of its waves.

Dorsal wasn’t paying us any attention. She crouched low across the horse’s neck, straining to bite at her hands. Instinct, I thought: born instinct. The horse threw her off balance
and her head jolted crazily but when she leaned forward and snapped her teeth again, she caught the base of a finger and bit, tearing at the skin.

We were so close I could nearly touch her, and spattered blood from her hand hit my face like rain.

Oh, great. The smell of blood was going to make this
so
much easier.

‘Don’t do it!’ yelled Sionnach.

~
So help me, you brute, you are in SO MUCH TROUBLE –

Through her raggedly billowing hair she flicked a look at us, but she took as much notice of Sionnach as the horse did of me. Her jaws worked savagely at her forefinger.

‘Stop!’ bellowed Sionnach.

She spat blood and skin, looking more frustrated than afraid. ‘I’d love to!’ she screamed.

‘He ISN’T TALKING TO YOU,’ I yelled, and then, ‘YOU
DISOBEDIENT BAG OF WOLFMEAT
.’

I’ll be honest, that wasn’t aimed entirely at the roan. But I was furious.

As Sionnach nudged us closer still I reached out an arm and grabbed the girl by the waist, buffeted by her rage and confusion. She thought I was trying to pull her off, and she fought me as well
as the horse: livid at my interference, obviously willing to lose her fingers but not both arms. She’d never have all three trapped fingers off in time, but give her credit, she was trying.
She gnawed savagely at her own flesh.

‘For gods’ SAKE.’ I let go of her, got my balance on Sionnach’s horse and made the leap to my own, with a lot less grace than I’d have liked.

As Sionnach veered his grey away, I reached round the struggling girl to grab the roan’s mane, but now I was astride it, it was already slowing. A fast canter eased to a playful bouncy
trot, and then it stood stock still, flinging her forward to bang her face against its arched neck. It angled its head back for a last look. There was mischievous disappointment in the black eyes
as her fingers slipped smoothly loose from its mane.

If Conal had heard the language that came out of her, she’d have been grounded for a week. I sat there with my arms folded and waited till she’d finished, because I knew instinct and
adrenalin would have only a limited life. Sure enough her cool dissolved as soon as she ran out of curses, and she started to shake.

I swung her by the waist down from the horse and into Sionnach’s arms, and because he always was more human than me, he held onto her till the shaking stopped.

Only that long, though. Releasing her, he seized her bleeding hand and turned it one way and the other. His own horse rolled its eyes and stamped at the scent of blood. ‘Don’t you
know any better?’

‘No,’ she said, and stared at her mangled finger, the rip of her own bite. She’d got to the bone. She gave a tiny involuntary whimper of pain, but then pressed her lips
together and shut her eyes tight. Her face had whitened and she swayed a little, but shook off Sionnach’s reassuring hand.

He glared at the roan. ‘As for you....’

‘I’ll deal with it.’ I said quickly, and slapped its muzzle quite hard. ‘Naughty, naughty. Come when you’re called.’

It snorted and gave a derisive toss of its black mane.

‘Never grown up,’ muttered Sionnach, unspecifically.

Yet again I didn’t pursue it, because Finn had turned slowly to face me. The look on her face was part horror, part shock, and a large and recognisable part disgust. I didn’t know
what to say, so for once in my life I had the sense to keep my mouth shut.

‘Well,’ she said at last, and her voice trembled only a little. ‘Isn’t there a
lot
you bastards haven’t told me.’

Night had fallen completely by the time we were anywhere near the original rendezvous. We rode in an awkward silence, in the light of a blurred three-quarters moon. Finn and
Jed, riding behind Sionnach and Torc respectively, could hardly chat, and I had no intention of explaining anything to Finn. It wasn’t my job; it wasn’t my fault; and it would have
killed my mood – which despite everything was lighter than in ages. Branndair was back; the wolf had flung himself at me so hard, the pair of us had ended up in the mud. I had my horse back
too; I was riding him through moorland and hills and wooded gullies and moon-frosted trees. Already I didn’t want to go back to the otherworld.

There’s no countering the strength of belonging; there’s no fighting it. It’s a memory in your bones and it sucks at the marrow of them. You can fight it for as long as you
like – and the gods know I did, and for a lot longer than that – but there’s no beating it. You can only keep your face above the water, trying to breathe, while belonging drags
on your scalp.

I’d been starting to drown. I knew that now.

I was grinning as I dismounted and led the roan and Branndair into the copse of rowans between two hills. Me grinning was not a sight beloved of everyone, so I wasn’t too surprised when
the flat of a blade tilted my chin up. Its quivering edge tickled my throat.

‘What’s so funny, Murlainn?’

‘Eili.’ I put a finger between the blade and my jugular and eased it away. ‘It’s nice to see you too.’

‘Well, you can’t expect me to recognise you. It’s been that long.’

‘Ha ha. Where’s Conal?’

Sionnach had come to my side, silently, and with a reproachful sidelong glance at me, he took his sister’s hand and pressed it to his forehead. Formalities over, she hugged him, then
extended the same hand to me. Absolutely impassive.

Bloody hell. I greeted her properly, but with a very bad grace.