Motherstone (3 page)

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘There are tribes in the Hotlands. I have dealings with them. I will raise an army and march south.’

‘You can’t win.’

‘Do you think your Birds will stop me? Or your army of Freemen?’ Osro smiled and tapped the paper in his hand. ‘You forget my Weapon.’

‘What is it?’

‘The army will burn like a field of dry corn. And the Birds will flare in the sky like paper kites.’

‘It’s some sort of ray gun,’ Nick said.

‘Ah, the boy. He speaks. You will never see it, Nicholas Quinn. And you, Susan Ferris, I need you only until I reach my tribes. So,’ he turned to Steen, ‘take them away. I will work another hour. Then we will go.’

‘The river is rising, Master.’

‘Tell me when we are no longer safe.’ He dismissed them with a flick of his hand.

Outside, the rain had thinned to a drizzle. It filled the gorge like smoke. The river was bucking and surging. It beat on the cliff opposite and turned with a writhing twist fifty metres down and vanished round a bend as if something swallowed it. Logs and trees floated by and a drowned animal like a moose rammed into the cliff and turned over slowly with its stiff legs at the sky. The children watched until it went from sight.

‘The river turns west. It heads for the sea.’

‘When you get away, follow it,’ Susan said. She looked at him and tried to smile. She did not think he would get away.

‘I’ve got to tell Kenno and the Birdfolk about this Weapon.’

‘Yes.’ But she wondered if Osro had hypnotized her. She did not believe the ex-priest could be beaten.

The guards made ready to start. At last Osro came out of his shelter. Two men packed the blankets and tied them on their backs. Everything was ready.

‘Master,’ Steen said, ‘we will cross this shingle bank and turn up the hill away from the river. Then we can strike across the uplands to the Belt.’

‘Lead, then,’ Osro said. ‘But first, kill the boy.’

‘Yes, Master.’ Steen started towards Nick, where he stood with Susan in the back of the hollow. But a young woman sprang in front of him. ‘Steen, let me. Let me do it.’

‘No, me,’ cried another, pushing foward. She drew her knife and ran at Nick. Steen knocked her aside. He gave a shout of anger.

‘The Master spoke. He ordered me. Will you disobey?’ He stood in front of Nick and Susan, facing the guards, who leaned at them, almost panting in their eagerness. Steen held them off, and Osro watched, smiling, stroking his chin. Susan had a moment to think. The order for Nick’s death had come so suddenly it had frozen him. But she remembered his plan of getting alone with a guard. Steen turned at last and looked at Nick, and she flung herself at him, clutched his shirt. ‘No, please, I don’t want to see. Take him somewhere else. Please. Please.’ She felt tears running on her face, but she heard Osro laugh and heard his voice: ‘Do what she asks. We must keep her happy for a time. Take him back along the path.’

She saw Nick’s face, white, dark-eyed. He had time only for a glance at her before Steen gripped his collar and forced him away, but the nod he gave was a way of thanking her. Steen pushed him through the guards and dragged him along the shingle bank. They went behind a rock leaning over the river. A moment passed. Another.

‘He takes his time,’ said the girl called Greely.

‘He is too old,’ grumbled another.

The water roared and the shingle growled, but no sound came from behind the rock.

‘Master?’ Slarda said.

‘See,’ Osro nodded.

There was no need. Steen crawled from behind the rock, his faced raised, mottled red and white, and his eyes blind. He tried to stand, but fell and rolled on his back, clawing at the sky. His voice howled above the sound of the river.

Guards ran to help him. Others darted behind the rock.

‘The boy had stinkweed,’ Slarda cried. ‘He used it on Steen. He is gone.’

‘Find him.’

They were so busy with Steen and so headlong in their search along the path they did not see Nick. Susan saw him. He had gone the most unexpected way. She saw a tree come bucking down the river, its green head billowing like a sail, and there was Nick hidden in the branches, riding past not twenty metres away. He clung like a possum as the tree rolled. It slammed into the cliff opposite and the force of the water made it rear. It was as if the tree was growing again, lifting Nick with it. Then it plunged and was buried and the roots showed in the air, pink and brown. Still Nick clung in the branches. She saw his face flash white. Slarda saw it too. She had climbed on the rock to scan the path and saw Nick as she turned to cry to Osro. She gave a yell and unslung her crossbow. The others saw where she was looking. The tree had turned again and was racing away from the cliff towards the bend in the river. But Nick was exposed in the branches and could not move for fear of losing his hold. Slarda levered back the cord of her bow and slammed a bolt in the groove. Susan saw her grinning fiercely. The shot was forty metres, easy for her. Nick watched helplessly. Holding on with arms wide, he seemed to offer himself.

No one watched Susan. She moved behind Osro and picked up a stone the size of a cricket ball. She was no good at throwing but knew that Nick was dead if she missed and the knowledge swelled Slarda’s face like a balloon, brought it close. It was as if she had simply to reach out and push the stone. Osro saw too late what she was doing. He lunged at her and knocked her down and put his foot on her. But the stone was gone. It curved in the air, slow as a football. Susan saw Slarda sight her bow. And that was all. A cry. The twang of a bowstring. Then a glimpse, a last one: the green tree sailing on the river, and Nick riding high, going from sight, going to safety.

Osro ground her with his foot. Slarda stood over her with bleeding face. ‘Let me kill her, Master.’

‘No. Take one other. Hunt the boy. See him dead.’

‘Master,’ someone said, ‘he has taken Steen’s knife.’

‘It does not matter,’ Slarda said, ‘I have my bow.’

‘And later, when I have no use for this,’ Osro kicked Susan, ‘she is yours.’

Slarda’s eyes shone. She gave a short quick bow, called harshly to Greely, and they were gone.

‘Now, Susan Ferris. Stand and walk,’ Osro said.

She obeyed. She walked between two guards along the shingle and climbed a track leading into hills, away from the river. Osro led. Two men came last, carrying Steen in a litter made of blankets. They went on through the drizzling rain, through the afternoon into night. She felt as if she was going deeper and deeper into a nightmare and the only thing that kept her in touch with the normal world was the thought of Nick riding to freedom on a tree.

She ate. She drank. She lay down to sleep; and did not know whether she dreamed Slarda standing in the dawn with Osro, and her voice saying, ‘It is done. The boy is dead.’

He saw Slarda reel from the impact of the stone and the bolt from her crossbow flash across the river and rebound from the cliff. Susan was down, under Osro’s foot, and he screamed at the man to let her go. Then the tree bucked and almost threw him. It swung round the bend in the river and he saw water beating on rocks ahead. The tree gathered speed. He yelled with fear and burrowed into the branches. The roots struck the rapids as though crashing into a wall. The blow ripped one of his hands from the branch. The tree made a half turn, slamming into a boulder, lurching away. But a weight of water pressing on his back kept Nick in place. He got his hold again and rose on his legs to ride the tree. He must be part of it. He must bend with the branches.

The gorge went on and on like a chute. Hidden rocks made dragon-backs, whale-backs, rearing horses, in the water. The tree rode some and slouched through others. Nick moved his grip and jumped from side to side to keep his weight even. Water broke on him and punched and stretched him. He did not think he could hold on much longer.

The gorge opened out and hills sloped up on the left and right, covered with bush. Trees leaned into the water and broke it into eddies and back-currents. Nick tried to steer at the left-hand bank – away from the side where guards would be coming with their crossbows – but the tree would not answer. It kept in the middle, turning over with a corkscrew motion. The hills began to close in. Another gorge, another chute, was coming. Its narrow hungry mouth was full of spray.

Nick rode through. He was beaten with water, half-drowned. The branches of the tree were stripped of leaves and the bark on the trunk was shredded. Then another stretch opened up, between low hills. The water seemed to gallop along, rising and falling. A rock standing up from the surface turned the tree left. It sped near the bank, roots first, running easily with its foliage gone. Nick sat in the branches like a helmsman and watched for a chance to jump ashore.

Then a third gorge showed its mouth, round a bend. It was blacker, deeper, and breathed out spray like smoke from a forest fire. It seemed to draw Nick in as though it were a mouth sucking in breath. It boiled and rumbled. Great twisting melon-shapes and tongue-shapes grew in it. Cables writhed and lashed, slugs of water bounced into the air, and into it the river slid as smooth as oil running from a spout.

Nothing could survive. Nick must take whatever chance he had, take it now. He climbed out of the branches, ran three steps along the trunk, and threw himself at the bank ten metres away. He hit the water as though running into a wall. It bounced him off and turned him over and over. Then it swallowed him. He clawed for the surface, and had a glimpse of the reeling sky, a lungful of air, then was down again. A boulder struck a club-blow on his back. He flung his arms at it but found no grip, and was tumbled into the hollow, the boiling pot, on its down-river side. Something came to join him. He thought it was alive and gave a cry. But it was the tree, pushing him with roots splayed like fingers. It freed him from the hollow but pushed him at the gorge, then turned away. He swam with fierce over-arm strokes, but felt he was falling down the river as though down a cliff. Bushes flashed by, out of reach. A smooth rock wall curved into the gorge and he slid on it as though on ice. He hooked his fingers, trying for a hold, but they ran like glass marbles on a floor.

The tree went from sight, tipping its head as though in farewell. A sound of fracturing came from the gorge. Nick grabbed again – his last chance. A bush with red flowers leaned at the water, growing from a crack in the stone. Red in this dark place was unnatural. It flashed on his eye, he lunged at it and caught his fist in a web of roots. Then he hung, body flat, hand locked in the bush. He tried to turn himself to give his other hand a better chance, but the water pulled too strongly, sucking at his legs as though trying to swallow. So he bent his elbow, drawing himself back. It took all his strength, he knew he would not manage it again. He flung his free hand over his head, clutching blindly. Something met his fingers, strong as wire. He dug, he clutched; and had two hands locked in the roots of the bush. He could lift his body. He raised himself as though on an exercise bar, forcing his head among branches. Then he freed one hand and made another grab, and had a branch as thick as the handle of a bat. He pulled again and climbed into the bush and crouched like a monkey, looking round.

There was little to see: river, hills, stone, spray. He had so strong a sense of being nowhere that dizziness overcame him and almost made him tumble into the water. Out there was emptiness, and here a tiny world a metre square, with Nick Quinn squatting in it. He gripped branches in his hands and held on tight. To make himself more real he raised his head and howled his name, but the sound was snatched away by the thunder in the gorge. Then something brushed his cheek. He drew back his head and looked at it: a red flower. That kept him sane. The bush had saved him. It was as if it had grown here just for this. He held on. It was all he had.

Later he found Steen’s knife in its sheath, belted round his waist, and thinking back, was able to put people in his world. Steen, Osro, Slarda. Susan Ferris. Where was she? What were they doing to her now? He remembered his last sight of her, lying on the shingle bank, under Osro’s foot. Soon, when they had no use for her, they would kill her. He could not think of anything to do. But he pulled out Steen’s knife and looked at it, and remembered how the man had let him go to draw the blade. That had been his chance. He had jumped at him, the Shy flower in his palm, and struck him open-handed on the mouth. The flower was bruised and wilted, more grey than blue, but its magic was not lost. As his hand rolled wetly on Steen’s mouth he felt the perfume sac burst and saw the pupils of Steen’s eyes dilate. The scent of Shy wrapped round them like a blanket. It strengthened Nick, but knocked Steen to his knees. His head fell between his shoulders. He tried to raise it, tried to reach out and clasp Nick’s ankle, but his muscles would not obey. He made choking sounds. Nick stepped at him and knocked him over with a heel kick. He unbuckled the belt that held the knife, tied it round his own waist. He took the man’s food pouch and belted it on. Steen watched, with wide dark eyes. It was as if he had been hit with a solar plexus punch and kept his consciousness but could do nothing. He was like an insect turned on its back, moving his limbs in jerky circles. ‘Listen,’ Nick said softly, ‘I’m going for the Birdfolk. We’ll come back. If you hurt Susan you’re dead. The lot of you.’ It felt good saying that, and seeing the man lie there like a baby. He turned and ran and, as if the Shy had given him extra sense, had a plan at once. He ran fifty metres up the path, watching the river, saw several logs float by – then had what he wanted. He ran into the water and swam across the current, timing it, and pulled himself into the tree. Going back past the rock, he saw Steen crawling for help, and wanted to shout insults at him.

Nick grinned. He had done it perfectly. He’d got away. And got away from the rapids. Now he had to get out of this.

He put the knife in the sheath and took out a strip of meat. It was softened and bleached by water, like old bait, but he chewed and swallowed hungrily. Then he looked up to see where he must go. The bush was at the bottom of a cleft which widened into a chimney as it went up. He could not see what happened at the top. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps he was trapped here until he died. He put the thought aside and crept through the branches and wedged himself in the crack. It was too narrow for easy climbing, but he found small roughnesses and inched his way up, back to one wall, face to the other. Then the chimney widened and he was able to lever and brace himself, going star-shaped, with palms flat and ankles bent at an angle.