The Golden Apple (10 page)

Kayla screamed, and Rane spun, knife up, heart thundering.

It
was
a cat. A cat large enough to reach his hip. Not a panther or a lion, it looked like a house cat, a hundred times the size. And it had Kayla on the ground, a paw resting on her chest.

* * *

The way it had sprung, the size of its paws, Kayla expected to be in pain, but the cat had pushed her down almost gently, its claws retracted.

The golden eyes staring at her lifted up to Rane. It spat at him, hissing, and the fur on its back rose up. It ended with a yowl in the back of its throat that went on and on. She thought it would leap at Rane and attack at any moment.

“Shh.” The word came instinctively from her. “Shh.”

The terrible grumble stopped, and the cat looked back at her, curious.

Kayla pushed at its paw and it released her, sitting back as she stood. She reached out a hand, and scratched it under its chin.

The purr, when it came, was almost deafening.

“You’re just lonely, aren’t you, puss?”

Rane took a step closer, and when the cat did not react, sheathed his knife. “Don’t encourage it.”

Kayla frowned. “I thought I was saving us from being ripped to shreds.”

He raised a brow. “You saved it from me. Now we have the problem of what to do with it.”

She looked at him, the way he stood, easy and sure, and realized he was serious. He had no doubt he would have killed the cat. For some reason, that confidence, that bone-deep certainty, made her shiver.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t hurt it.” She rubbed its flank. “It isn’t to blame for what it’s become.”

She watched Rane move uncomfortably, and was suddenly aware of the same discomfort. She looked around for the bags she’d let fall, her mind turning to the path ahead, and cursed the enchantment.

“It feels stronger, doesn’t it?” Rane was looking at her with a strange expression.

“Do you think we’ve gone wrong? Missed a path?”

He shook his head. “I think we’re close. Close enough any little delay is punished.”

Kayla gave the cat a last pat. “Sorry, puss, we have to go.” She bent to pick up her saddlebag, and went flying with a cry as a head butted her back.

“Kitty wants to play.” Rane’s voice held laughter, and Kayla realized she’d never heard that lift in his voice before.

It was nice.

She picked herself up and brushed leaves and small twigs off her shirt and trousers.

The cat dipped her head and butted Kayla again. Even seeing it coming, she had to brace her legs to keep on her feet.

“We have to go.” The laughter in Rane’s voice had been replaced by desperation, and Kayla nodded. She was as on edge as he sounded, her nerves strung so tight, so quickly, she almost imagined Eric might be nearby, trying to control them.

She slung the bags over her shoulder, and Rane stepped aside for her to precede him.

Relief came with the first few steps down the path, and the imaginary goblin at her throat eased its hold.

There was a yowl of protest, and the cat moved, walking parallel to their path, winding through the trees. Kayla called to it, and it responded with a chirp. Its head whipped to the right and it pricked its ears, stopped dead. Then it sped away from them to the east.

Having a giant, playful cat with them would have made stealing the gem impossible, but Kayla was sorry to see it go.

She thought of what Eric had said, that she was a witch, and grinned. If he was somehow right, what a familiar that kitty would make.

Chapter Fourteen

R
ane smelled the wood-smoke nearly ten minutes before the path spat them out behind a dilapidated shed. Kayla stopped short, turning to look at him over her shoulder, her eyes wide. Questioning.

“I don’t think this is it.” He felt no ease of the relentless pressure of the enchantment.

He moved cautiously around the side of the shed, and a kick of surprise stopped him in his tracks. It was a small village.

The little cottages crowded along a strip of hard-packed earth, creating a rustic village square, protected on three sides. The houses were rough, wood and thatch, but the shutters were well-fitted and summer daisies and roses flourished in front of steep-pitched porches.

They were standing in a field, a large village green, holding a small herd of black-and-white cows. One of them had claw marks down its flank, and Rane thought immediately of Kayla’s kitty.

A road, narrow but well-kept, snaked off to their left into the forest, in the direction of Therston.

He became aware of the silence, loud as a roar in his ears. The swish of the wind in the trees and the erratic bird song only accentuated the lack of human sound. In a village.

There was something very wrong here.

He jerked when Kayla touched his elbow. She pointed, and he noticed a figure standing just within a doorway, deep in shadow.

A door banged, and Rane swung in the direction of the sound. A man stepped out on a porch, breathing heavily, and Rane had the sense he had been working behind the house, perhaps cutting wood in the forest. He had been summoned to deal with trouble and he’d run every step of the way.

He had his axe in his hand, still edged with the green-brown skin of the tree he’d been chopping. He was a huge man, well-built and tall, but he held the axe as if prepared to do battle against monsters, not two travellers.

“Good day.” Rane lifted a hand in greeting and started along the fence running beside the storage shed, towards the square.

“No further.”

He stopped, and Kayla ran into his back, muttered something under her breath.

“We mean no harm. If you would prefer, we’ll continue on now.”

The man lowered his axe. “Where are you from?”

“Gaynor.” Kayla called out.

“Gaynor?” The axe sank a little lower. “What news from there?”

“The crops are good, the kingdom is peaceful.” Kayla spoke what might as well have been the Gaynor motto.

“Aye? Can’t say I’ve ever heard anything different about Gaynor. Although I’d have thought even it would have been affected by the current troubles.”

“Troubles?” Rane took another step forward.

The axe came up. “How’d you get from the border of Gaynor to here without some consequences, eh? No one has stepped out onto our green from that path in the last half-year. No one human, that is.”

“We’ve come across our share of horrors these last three days.” Rane let his arms fall to his sides, palms out.

“Like?”

“Like a woman who was a statue by day, and a sorceress by night.” Rane glanced at Kayla. “And a strange ball of light that made windows into other places. And a monster made of two men and the dead forest leaves.”

“And a cat whose head came to my waist.” Kayla stepped forward, to stand beside him.

“That would be Sooty.”

“Sooty?” Kayla cocked her head.

“My daughter’s cat. Or was. Can’t say she’s Sooty any more.”

“I think she’s probably still Sooty. Just bigger.”

“I’m surprised you saw her and lived to tell the tale.”

Rane could tell the woodsman was intrigued by their normal appearance. But the axe stayed raised. He thought of what he’d seen himself in the Great Forest and wondered that the man hadn’t tried to kill them on sight, without stopping to question them.

“She just wanted to play.” Kayla grinned. “And she likes being scratched under her chin.”

At last, the axe lowered. “You’re the luckiest pair I ever met, I’ll give you that. Since the troubles began, we only see monsters this deep in. Most of us are planning to move.”

Rane took his words to be an acceptance of them, and he started forward, easy and relaxed. “Do you know these parts well?”

The woodsman nodded, then snapped his head towards the path from Therston. Rane heard it, too, the sound of galloping, and put his hand on the hilt of his knife.

Behind them on the green, the cows began to low, deep, hair-raising bellows of fear.

A rider burst from the trees, cape flung back and flapping as his horse thundered towards them. He rode as if something was after him, and Rane saw, with a lightning strike of horror, something was.

A troll, stoop-shouldered and huge, lumbered after him; long nose and long hair sprouting from a massive head on a too-thin neck. In one hand it held a club.

The rider was coming at them so fast, Rane thought he was going to speed past them, back into the forest on the other side of the green, and leave them to face the troll alone. But just as he drew level, he reined his mount in, turning it with an elegant move that spoke of perfect accord between rider and horse.

Rane took a precious second to glance across as the rider freed his sword from its scabbard, and his eyes widened. He knew that sword.

There was no time to think about that, though. Instead, he drew his knife and focused back on the monster coming at them. The woodsman had joined them, and Rane realized the four of them had formed a loose defensive line.

Except Kayla had nothing to defend herself with. She didn’t even have a stick.

The troll was making a sound, a sort of growl, as he saw his quarry run to ground, and three other tasty morsels besides. One reach of his long arms and Kayla would be gone.

There was nothing to do but attack. To reach the troll before it reached them.

“Get back.” Rane didn’t look to see if Kayla obeyed him. He ran forward and realized with surprise he was shouting—a long, continuous battle cry. The moonstone was in his left hand, and he closed his fist around it. Lifted his right hand, knife blade glimmering, lengthening, and leapt.

The blade slid into troll-flesh like it was soft butter. Rane slammed it in up to the hilt and pulled down, opening the troll’s abdomen from lung to gut. Then he jumped back, out of the way, as the massive troll toppled.

It twitched, a feral stench rising from it, and he leapt back further, but it didn’t move again.

Rane dropped the moonstone into his pack, and stood, breathing heavily, listening to the blood drip from his knife to the hard ground of the path.

The woodsman came up behind him and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Think I understand now how you got so lucky, coming through the forest.”

“Oh, Mr. De’Villier is quite at home in the forest.” A cool voice, a voice he knew, made him turn.

The horseman slid off his mount, sword still in hand, a smile on his face.

He would recognize that face anywhere.

“You know this man?” The woodsman looked between them.

“I do.” At last, the man slid the sword back into its scabbard. “I’m his best customer.”

* * *

The troll lay as still and lifeless now as it had been vital and powerful before.

Kayla refused to sink to the ground, but that was what she wanted to do. Her whole body shook, tiny tremors she fought to control, and she clenched her fists to stop her hands betraying her to the others.

Rane stood braced, as if he expected the troll to rise up again at any moment, although his concentration was no longer on the troll, but on the strange horseman in flamboyant clothing, with a face that seemed neither young nor old.

What Rane had done—she couldn’t stop seeing him run straight at the troll and then vanish as he leap up at it, knife raised high, over and over in her mind. She wondered if he wasn’t somehow changed by the wild magic in a way he didn’t realize. He had been so fearless. So sure. So focused.

Just as he’d been when he’d ridden up the glass mountain for the golden apple.

Kayla blinked, forced herself to concentrate on the conversation.

“Customer?” the woodsman was asking.

“De’Villier here sold me my sword. And a few other things.”

“Jisuel.” Rane inclined his head in the most minimal of nods.

The man Rane called Jisuel laughed, throwing back his head so his fine blond hair waved and curled down the back of his purple velvet cape. Kayla’s eyes narrowed. There was something there, behind the laugh. Something she could almost grasp…

Suddenly she was caught in Jisuel’s gaze, brown and green, the color itself a message of some kind. She struggled to break free, to tear away from that stare, knowing something was wrong, wrong…

“Well, well.”

She was released, and perversely, brought her eyes straight back up, held Jisuel’s gaze again. She did not like feeling small and helpless. The troll had done it to her with its size and strength, Jisuel had done it with the force of his personality.

“I didn’t know you worked with a partner, De’Villier. I thought your brother was your only companion.” Jisuel’s smile was considering and speculative.

Rane said nothing, standing exactly where he had since he’d brought the troll down.

“Bit deeper within the Forest than usual, aren’t you? I thought you only worked the western border.” Jisuel behaved as if Rane had responded to his earlier comment. Calm and relaxed, he could have been chatting to them over a mug of cider.