Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (29 page)

“You fit right in, lah,” he said. “I think you might have a bit of the Shade temperament yourself.”

The hounds needed no direction. They knew the terrain well. The air stung Nell’s face as the hounds began to run and the sled skimmed along the ground between the fearsome icy peaks.

“I was part of the anti-fur club at school,” Nell said to Charlie. “I wrote all these letters to newspapers about how wearing fur should be illegal. I’ve been thinking about becoming a vegetarian. And now look at me, eating eyeballs and dressed in Yrgtha skin!”

“Context is everything,” said Charlie. “You cannay make choices like that out here, unless you want to freeze or starve.”

“Neither, thanks. Lah, but I’m nay sure I wouldnay end up choosing starvation over a diet of eyeballs. That was horrific.”

“I dinnay even want to think about it,” said Charlie feelingly.

Nell laughed, and without really thinking she slipped her arm through his and leaned against him. She saw his surprised expression from the corner of her eye and felt suddenly embarrassed, but decided not to move. It was more comfortable and stable than trying to hold herself upright on the fast-moving sled.

So they sat leaning into each other cozily, Yrgtha fur pulled up over their hands, chatting occasionally and watching the mountains wheel by for close to an hour. Charlie glanced at Nell a few times as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself. Her nose and cheeks were bright pink from the cold and her eyes shone. The wind whipped her hair around her face. Charlie reached over and brushed a tangle out of her eyes. She blinked at him. He didn’t know what to say then, so he said what was on his mind: “What you said when we were in the Realm of the Faeries…” he began. “Just before we were caught, you said…do you remember what you said?”

He could see that she did. Her cheeks paled a little and she looked down at her hands. “Let’s nay talk about it,” she said. “It’s all in the past, lah.”

“I think we
should
talk about it,” said Charlie.

She shook her head, hiding her face from him with her hair. “I know what you’re going to say, Charlie. It doesnay matter. You dinnay need to say it.”

“Of course I do.” He put one arm firmly around her shoulders and with his other hand he pushed the hair out of her face and tilted her head up towards him so that she was looking right in his eyes. He held her chin gently between his fingers and thumb so she could not turn her face away again. “You brought Ander to Tian Xia to save my life, Nell. I havenay forgotten that. It’s a funny feeling, to owe somebody your life. It’s hard to know what to say to a person. And you risked your life for me again, aye, going to the Realm of the Faeries. It almost ended in both of us being killed. I’m grateful for all of it, lah. More than I could possibly say.”

“You’d have done the same, aye,” said Nell. It was a bit dizzying looking into his face, just inches from hers, while the snowy mountains whizzed past them and the wind howled around them.

“I would,” he said. “No question. I would. But Ander dying was nay your fault. Nary a bit. There was nothing you could have done.”

Her eyes filled up with tears that fell and quickly froze on her cheeks.

“He was there because of
me
,” she said, so quietly he could barely hear her over the wind. “He wanted to leave as soon as you got out of the Cave, aye, but I insisted on this big adventure. I thought we could help somehow, but we didnay do a bit of good. Eliza took care of everything and all I did was get Ander killed.”

“He was a grown man, Nell,” said Charlie. “You may think you have some kind of power over people, but he didnay have to agree to anything you said, or take on Nia that way. Life is a precarious thing for a human. People die all the time. It’s sad and it’s terrible but that’s the way of things. He was a brave man, he made his own choices, and he got killed in a dangerous situation. Nay your fault.”

“His mother moved in with my parents,” Nell said, and then she couldn’t speak anymore. Tears kept pouring down her face. Charlie tried to wipe them away.

“Do you want to know why I didnay come see you when we got back to Di Shang?” he said.

“No.” It came out a little sob.

“Because I showed you my true form, that first time we were in the Realm of the Faeries. I showed you, and I…I thought I made it prize obvious how I felt about you. Do you know what I mean?”

Everything became suddenly very still for Nell. Her sobs died within her. The wind and the mountains and the panting of the hounds were blanketed by a deep hush, a deep quiet in her mind. She didn’t feel like she was going to fall off anymore. She stuck her tongue out and licked the icy tears off her upper lip.

“Tell me,” she said. Thank goodness he was back to looking like himself, she thought. Thank goodness that false, bright Faery face was gone, and his dark eyes and his funny eyebrows and his about-to-turn-into-laughter-smile were all back. She thought about her notes scattered somewhere in the snow in the foothills or maybe in the witches’ forest, and faraway Austermon, and Eliza battling the Thanatosi, shy little Eliza who had come to Holburg years ago and who was so different now and yet so much the same. All these thoughts seemed to exist at once in her mind, hanging still, present and waiting, and she outside them.

“I’ve been in love with you since the first time we met, aye,” he said.

She gave a hiccupping little laugh. “We were
twelve
,” she said, but she was barely listening to her own voice. What they said now didn’t really matter. She was waiting for something else, a particular moment.

“I wasnay so young,” he said. “But I mean it. I didnay recognize it, nay really, until later, but still. I think everybody who meets you prolly feels the same way. Like life is simply less colourful without you. I thought you knew…but then after I showed you my true form you were a bit strange, like you wished I hadnay done it. You were wearing the ring Jalo gave you, and then there was that boy Julian. I thought if you wanted to see me you would say so. But you never did. Eliza never said that you asked about me or you wanted to see me or anything. The way she talked, it sounded like you never mentioned me. She thought it was strange too, I could tell.”

“That’s why you never visited?” She felt a great weight lift, and began laughing. “Charlie! You’re far too subtle for a girl like me! You should have
told
me how you felt.”

“Lah, I’ve told you now,” he said, laughing too. “But it’s hard making a declaration of love to one of your best friends. I didnay know if you felt the same way. I still dinnay know, come to think of it.”

“Dinnay be an idiot,” she said. “Of course you know.” This was the moment she had been waiting for. She leaned towards him, but he looked up so suddenly that she ended up kissing him clumsily on the chin. A vast shadow passed over them. The Verr mon Noorden were leaping from the sleds, hurling spears up at the sky. Nell looked up too and saw a giant winged creature glittering in the sunlight. A blade of green fire burst from it, sending the warriors leaping out of range. It was a dragon, massive and rust-red.

The covering was pulled off a sled near the back to reveal a huge catapult armed with spiked iron balls. One of these was flung upwards with deadly aim. The dragon dodged narrowly, responding with another burst of fire that set the catapult in flames.

“Charlie, that dragon!” said Nell. “Is it nay…?”

“One of Swarn’s!” Charlie finished, scrambling off the sled. Nell leaped after him, waving her arms joyfully.

“We’re here! We’re here! Tell them to stop, Charlie!”

Charlie shouted out in their language and the Verr mon Noorden paused. The dragon descended, landing right in front of Nell on the snowy mountainside and fixing her in its huge golden gaze.

“It’s you!” she exclaimed, running forward to put her hands on its face. She recognized the dragon that she had saved from the dead marsh a year and a half ago, nearly full-grown now. The Verr mon Noorden looked on in amazement.

“Our journey is finished,” Charlie told them. “Bryn-Arr is grateful.”

“We await the return of the warrior,” said the Chief.

“He will not return,” said Charlie. “His day is done.”

“The stories will be told forever,” the Chief promised. Charlie clasped his hand. Then he and Nell climbed onto the dragon’s back. It leaped into the air and bore them on powerful wings over the mountains to the cliffs of Batt.

~~~

“Is she
still
holding them off?” whined Malferio, peering over Kyreth’s shoulder into the Vindensphere.

“You did not know she was so powerful,” said Kyreth smugly.

“She’s not especially
powerful
,” said Malferio. “She’s just lucky. They would have torn her to pieces if that witch hadn’t given her the fire spell, and all she’s really doing is doubling their numbers every hour or so. Her barriers are getting worse and worse. And
by the way
, I can’t
believe
she’s unleashed Amarantha on the worlds! You must be so proud. She locks Nia up in the Hall of the Ancients and then sets free the next worst thing. She’s very inconsistent.”

“I have read of Amarantha,” said Kyreth, smiling. “But Eliza would have found another way if she had not had the fire spell. What is luck but the forces of the worlds aligning with your purposes? Is that not a kind of power too? Why should she be luckier than you?”

“I don’t believe in that stuff,” muttered Malferio, slinking back to his divan and curling up. He’d had enough of watching the battle. He picked up his empty pipe and looked hopefully at Kyreth.

“She is making use of her ravens,” noted Kyreth. “They lift the fallen Thanatosi and take them out of reach of their fellows so they cannot multiply as quickly. Still, she is relying heavily on the walls of fire and their numbers are increasing. They are pushing her back, if slowly. It has been a full day and a night now and she has kept them from pursuing her friends. Of course, her friends will have frozen to death or been eaten by an Yrgtha or slaughtered by the Verr mon Noorden by now in any case.”

“Yes, let’s have a look at them, that sounds fun,” said Malferio, brightening somewhat.

“But no…they must still be alive. If the Shade were dead, the Thanatosi would turn back. How can they have survived? He cannot change.”

“Still alive? That’s boring.”

“Watch – she is very good with the dagger. Now she is disarming them but not killing them. The Warrior Witch has taught her well. Ah! She has something else, another weapon, do you see? She used it yesterday, though sparingly.”

“I can’t see from over here.”

“I recognize it. She used it on the Mancers, too. The Warrior Witch uses such a tool to paralyze her enemies. Ah, that is clever, very clever, but she does not have enough poisoned darts to paralyze very many of them, I think.”

“Amarantha free!” muttered Malferio to himself. “Well, there is something for Emyr to worry about. Yes, he’ll soon find that being King isn’t all fun and games. The Master of the Vaults is a very powerful and clever Faery, you know. I can’t think how your little Sorceress got past him. Those vaults are enchanted by…well, I don’t know by what exactly but something very powerful indeed.”

“By Amarantha’s Magic,” said Kyreth softly. “Yes, she has done what Selva failed to do. She may yet succeed in her quest. But she is so like Nia, in the end. Her mother was willful, but Rea understood right and wrong. Rea understood duty. Oh, she could be unreasonable and her marriage was folly, but she took her duty seriously, the good of the worlds. This one…she cares only for a few and will let the rest rot. She will unleash a dangerous witch and burn the witch-trees by the hundreds if it serves her purpose. She will die for those she loves, which is noble, but she will lie and steal and kill for them too.”

“And you were so keen on an heir. She sounds like she’d be a lovely mother.”

“She will produce an heir at the end of this,” said Kyreth darkly. “But after that…”

“Oh, I see. What a ruthless son-of-a-troll you are! I understand why the Mancers have thrived.”

“She is so weary. She has not slept. And yet she is as quick as they who need no sleep. Oh, but she will tire and fall before they do. She cannot hold them off much longer.”

“What about the Faeries? Are they still surrounding the forest?”

Kyreth cupped his hands around the Vindensphere and the scene within pulled away, as if they were seeing it through the eyes of a hawk circling high overhead.

“See for yourself,” said Kyreth, but Malferio did not stir.

Faeries with glinting swords stood in formation all around the forest, waiting. They could not enter the witches’ forest or work their Magic there.

“I do not know how she will get past the Faeries,” murmured Kyreth. “She may need my help. She is being pushed further and further back, towards the edges of the forest.”

“How can you help her?” scoffed Malferio.

“I think I shall not need to. The Emmisariae will arrive soon,” said Kyreth. “They will not let her die.”