Part 16 (1/2)

The one with the bow squinted down the length of his arrow, then eased the pressure on the string as he lowered the weapon.

”Why, it's just a boy,” he said. His voice was hoa.r.s.e and rumbled with menace. He lowered the scarf from his face, revealing a mouth distorted by a vertical scar that cut across his lips. His companion threw back the hood from his head. Most of his nose had been cut off. All that was left was a mess of scarred cartilage with two holes in the center.

”Boy or not, that's a fine horse he's riding,” he said. ”He has no business with such an animal. He probably stole it himself, so there's no sin in relieving him of what wasn't his to begin with.”

He reached for Scylla's reins, but David pulled the horse back a step.

”I didn't steal her,” he said softly.

”What?” said the thief. ”What did you say, boy? We'll have none of your lip, or you won't live long enough to regret the day you met us.”

He brandished his sword at David. It was primitive and crudely made, and David could see the marks of the whetstone upon its blade. Scylla neighed and stepped farther away from the threat.

”I said,” David repeated, ”that I didn't steal her, and she's not going anywhere with you. Now get away from us.”

”Why, you little-”

The swordsman s.n.a.t.c.hed at Scylla's reins once again, but this time David raised her up on her hind legs, then urged her onward and down. One of her hooves struck the swordsman on the forehead, and there was a hollow, cracking sound as the man fell dead to the ground. His fellow bandit was so shocked that he failed to respond quickly enough. He was still trying to lift his bow when David spurred Scylla, his own sword now drawn and extended. He slashed at the archer, and the very tip of his sword caught the man's throat, slicing through the rags to the flesh beneath. The bandit stumbled, and his bow fell. He raised his hand to his neck and tried to speak, but only a wet, gurgling sound emerged. Blood fountained through his fingers and scattered itself upon the snow. The front of his clothing was already drenched with red as he dropped to his knees beside his dead companion, the flow starting to ease as his heart began to fail.

David turned Scylla so that she was facing the dying man.

”I warned you!” shouted David. He was crying now, crying for Roland and his mother and his father, crying even for Georgie and Rose, for all of the things that he had lost, both those that could be named and those that could only be felt. ”I asked you to leave us alone, but you wouldn't. Now look at what it's brought you. You idiots! You stupid, stupid men!”

The bowman's mouth opened and closed, and his lips formed words, but no sounds came out. His eyes were fixed on the boy. David saw them narrow, as if the bowman could not quite understand what was being said or what was happening to him as he knelt in the snow, his blood pooling around him.

Then, slowly, they grew wide and calm as death gave him an explanation.

David climbed down from Scylla's back and checked her legs to make sure that she had not injured herself during the confrontation. She seemed unhurt. There was blood on David's sword. He thought of wiping it clean upon the ragged clothing of one of the dead men, but he did not want to touch the bodies. Neither did he want to clean it on his own clothes, for then their blood would be on him. He opened his pack and found a piece of old muslin in which Fletcher had wrapped some cheese and used the material to get rid of the blood. He tossed the bloodied cloth onto the snow before kicking the bodies of the dead men into the ditch by the side of the road. He was too weary to try to hide them better. Suddenly, he felt a rumbling in his stomach. There was a sour taste in his mouth, and his skin was slick with sweat. He stumbled away from the bodies and vomited behind a rock, retching over and over until all that he had left to bring up was foul gas.

He had killed two men. He hadn't meant to, not really, but now they were dead because of him. The killings of the Loups and wolves at the canyon, even what he had done to the huntress in her cottage and the enchantress in her tower, had not affected him in this way. He had caused the deaths of the others, true, but now he had killed at least one of these men by tearing through his flesh with the point of a sword. Scylla's hooves had accounted for the other, but David had been in the saddle when it happened and had raised her up and urged her on. He hadn't even had to think about what he was doing; it had just come naturally to him, and it was that capacity for harm that frightened him more than anything else.

He wiped his mouth clean with snow, then remounted Scylla and urged her forward, leaving behind him the deed, if not the memory of it. As he rode, thick flakes began to descend, settling on his clothing and on Scylla's head and back. There was no wind. The snow fell straight and slow, adding another layer to the drifts and covering roads, trees, bushes, and bodies, the living and the dead as one beneath its veil. The corpses of the thieves were soon shrouded in white, and there they would have remained, unmourned and undiscovered, until the coming of spring, had not a wet muzzle traced their scent and revealed their remains. The wolf gave a low howl, and the forest came alive as the pack descended, tearing flesh and gnawing bones, the weak left to fight for sc.r.a.ps while the strong and fast filled their bellies. Yet there were too many now to be fed on so meager a meal. The pack had swollen so that it was many thousands strong: white wolves from the far north, who blended into the winter landscape so perfectly that only the darkness of their eyes and the redness of their jaws gave them away; black wolves from the east, said by old wives to be the spirits of witches and demons in the form of beasts; gray wolves from the forests to the west, bigger and slower than the others, who kept to their own and did not trust the others; and, finally, the Loups, who dressed like men and hungered like wolves and wanted to rule like kings. They stayed apart from the larger pack, watching from the edge of the forest as their primitive brethren snapped and fought over the entrails of the dead bandits. A female approached them from the road. In her jaws she held a sc.r.a.p of muslin, marked with drying blood. The taste of the blood had made her mouth water, and it was all that she could do not to chew it and swallow it as she walked. Now she dropped it at the feet of her leader and stepped back obediently. Leroi lifted the rag to his nose and sniffed it. The smell of the dead men's blood was strong and sharp, but he could still detect the boy's scent beneath it.

Leroi had last smelled the boy in the courtyard of the fortress, led there by his scouts. They had refused to climb the stairs of the tower, disturbed by what they sensed within, but Leroi had ascended, more as a display of courage for his followers than out of any great desire to discover what lay above. With its enchantments vanquished, the tower was now merely an empty sh.e.l.l at the heart of an old fortress. All that remained of its former self was a stone chamber at the very top, littered with the remains of dead men and a scattering of dust that had once been something less than human. At its center was the raised stone dais, with the bodies of Roland and Raphael lying upon it. Leroi recognized Roland's scent, and knew that the boy's protector was now dead. He had been tempted to tear apart the bodies of the two knights, to desecrate their resting place, but he knew that this was what an animal would do, and he was no longer an animal. He left the bodies as they were and, although he would never have admitted it to his lieutenants, he was happy to depart the chamber and the tower. There were things that he did not understand there, and they made him uneasy.

Now he stood with the bloodied rag in his claws and felt a degree of admiration for the boy whom he was hunting. How quickly you have grown, thought Leroi. Not so long ago you were a frightened child, and now you triumph where armed knights fail. You take the lives of men and wipe your blade clean to make it ready for the next killing. It is almost a pity that you have to die.

Leroi was growing more like a man and less like a wolf with each day that pa.s.sed, or so he told himself. He still had wiry hair upon his body, and his ears were pointed and his teeth sharp, but his muzzle was now little more than a swelling around his mouth, and the bones of his face were re-forming to make him look more human and less lupine. He rarely walked on all fours, except when the necessity for speed arose or when excitement at the detection of the boy's scent had briefly overwhelmed him. That was one of the benefits of having so many to call upon: while the horse's odor was strong, much stronger than that of the boy or that of the man, the recent snowfalls had meant that it was frequently lost to them, but by using large numbers of scouts, the scent was quickly found again each time. They had tracked him to the village, and Leroi had been tempted to attack it with the full strength of his pack, but they had picked up the spoor of the horse and the man heading east, and they knew then that the pair were no longer with the villagers. Some of his Loups had still counseled an a.s.sault on the village, for the pack was hungry, but Leroi knew that it would only waste valuable time. It suited him also to keep the appet.i.te of the pack sharp, for hunger would increase their savagery when it came time to attack the king's castle. He recalled the man standing upon the village's defenses, defying Leroi even as those around him cowered. Leroi had admired the gesture, just as he admired many aspects of men's natures. This was one of the reasons was why he was so comfortable with his own transformation, but it would not prevent him from returning to the village and making an example of the man who had tried to face him down.

The pack had lost some ground when the boy and the man left the road, for Leroi had a.s.sumed that they would continue directly to the castle of the king, and half a day had been wasted before he realized his mistake. It was then only David's good fortune that had caused the pack to miss him as he left the Fortress of Thorns, for the wolves had been wary of the forest, uncertain of the hidden things that lived within the trees, and had skirted its deepest depths in their approach to the fortress. Once Leroi was sure that n.o.body remained alive inside, he sent a dozen scouts to follow David's trail through the forest while the main pack headed east toward the king's castle using a longer but safer route. When the pack was reunited with the scouts, only three remained alive. Seven had been killed by the creatures that lived within the trees. The other two-and this interested Leroi greatly-had been found with their throats cut and their snouts hacked off.

”The crooked one is protecting the boy,” one of Leroi's most trusted lieutenants had growled upon hearing the news. He, too, was becoming more like a man, although in him the transformation was slower and less p.r.o.nounced.

”He thinks that he has found a new king,” replied Leroi. ”But we are here to bring an end to the rule of the human kings. The boy will never claim the throne.”

He barked an order, and his Loups began to gather the pack, snarling and biting at those who did not respond quickly enough. Their time was near. The castle was less than a day's march away, and once they reached it there would be meat enough for all and the b.l.o.o.d.y rule of the new king Leroi would begin.

Leroi might have been becoming something more than an animal and less than a man, but deep, deep inside he would always remain a wolf.

XXVII.

Of the Castle, and the King's Greeting

THE DAY Pa.s.sED, a poor, sluggish thing that departed almost gratefully as night took its place. David's spirits were low, and his back and legs ached from hours in the saddle. Still, he had managed to adjust the stirrups so that his feet fitted comfortably in them, and he had learned how to hold the reins properly from watching Roland, so he now looked more at ease on Scylla than ever before, even if the horse remained too big for him. The snow had dwindled to a few flurries, and soon would cease entirely. The land seemed to luxuriate in its silence and its whiteness, knowing that the snow had rendered it more beautiful than before.

They came to a bend in the road. Ahead of them, the far horizon was lit by a soft, yellow glow, and David knew that they were close to the king's castle. He felt a sudden surge of energy and urged Scylla on, even though they were both weary and hungry. Scylla broke into a trot, as though already smelling hay and fresh water and a warm barn in which to rest, but almost as quickly David reined her in again and listened carefully. He had heard something, like the sound of the wind, except that the night was still. Scylla seemed to sense it too, for she whinnied and pawed at the ground. David patted her flank, trying to calm her even as he felt himself grow tense.

”Hush, Scylla,” he whispered.

The noise came again, clearer now. It was the howling of a wolf. There was no way of telling how near it was, for the snow m.u.f.fled all sound, but it was close enough to be heard, and that was too close for David's liking. There was movement from the forest to his right, and he drew his sword, already imagining white teeth and a pink tongue and snapping jaws. Instead, the Crooked Man emerged. He had a slim, curved blade in his hand. David pointed his own sword at the approaching figure and stared down its length, the tip focused on the Crooked Man's throat.

”Put down your sword,” said the Crooked Man. ”You have nothing to fear from me.”

But David kept his sword exactly where it was. He was pleased to see that his arm did not tremble. The Crooked Man, by contrast, took no pleasure in David's courage.

”Very well, then,” he said. ”As you wish. The wolves are coming. I don't know how long I can hold them off, but it should give you enough time to reach the castle. Stay on the road, and don't be tempted by shortcuts.”

More howls came, closer now.

”Why are you helping me?” asked David.

”I've been helping you all along,” replied the Crooked Man. ”You were just too willful to understand. I have shadowed your path and saved your life, all so you could reach the castle. Now go to the king. He is expecting you. Go!”

And with that, the Crooked Man bounded away from David, skirting the edge of the forest, his blade making a whistling sound as he sliced at the air, already killing wolves in his mind. David watched him until he was out of sight, then, with no other choice but to do as he was advised, he urged Scylla toward the light ahead. The Crooked Man watched him go from a hollow at the base of an old oak. It had been so much more difficult than he had antic.i.p.ated, but the boy would soon be where he was supposed to be, and the Crooked Man would be one step closer to his reward.

”Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,” he sang. He licked his lips. ”Georgie pudding, and Georgie pie.” He giggled, then covered his mouth to stifle the laugh. He was not alone. Harsh breathing came from close by, and a plume of breath formed in the darkness. The Crooked Man curled up into a ball, only his knife hand remaining outstretched, half buried beneath the snow.

And as the wolf scout pa.s.sed by, he slit it from throat to tail, and its entrails steamed in the chill night air.

The road twisted and turned, narrowing as David drew nearer to his destination. Sheer faces of rock rose up on either side of him, creating a canyon through which the pounding of Scylla's hooves echoed, for the snow had not fallen as thickly here, the ground sheltered by the walls above. Then David was clear of the canyon, and before him stretched a valley with a river running through it. By its banks, about a mile or so distant, stood a great castle with high, thick walls and many towers and buildings. Lights glowed in its windows, and fires were lit upon its battlements. David could see soldiers on guard. As he watched, the portcullis was raised and a group of twelve hors.e.m.e.n emerged. They crossed the drawbridge and turned in David's direction, riding fast. Still fearful of the wolves, David rode down to meet them. As soon as they saw him, the hors.e.m.e.n urged their horses on until they reached him and surrounded him, the men at the rear turning to face the canyon, spears at the ready in case any threat should emerge from that direction.

”We have been waiting for you,” announced one of the men. He was older than the others, and he bore the scars of old battles upon his face. Gray-brown hair curled from beneath his helmet, and he wore a silver breastplate studded with bronze under his dark cloak. ”We are to bring you to the safety of the king's chambers. Come now.”

David rode with them, hemmed in on all sides by armed riders so that he felt at once both protected and a prisoner. They arrived at the drawbridge without incident and pa.s.sed into the castle, the portcullis instantly lowering behind them. Servants came and helped David to dismount. They wrapped him in a cloak of soft, black fur and gave him a hot, sweet drink in a silver cup to warm him. One of them took Scylla by the reins. David was about to stop him when the leader of the hors.e.m.e.n intervened.

”They will take good care of your horse, and she will be stabled close to where you sleep. I am Duncan, Captain of the King's Guard. Have no fear. You are safe with us, an honored guest of the king.”

He asked David to follow him. David did so, staying behind him as they left the outer courtyard and moved deeper into the castle. There were more people here than he had seen in his entire travels so far, and he was an object of interest to all of them. Serving girls stopped and whispered about him behind their hands. Old men bowed slightly as he pa.s.sed, and small boys looked at him with something like awe.

”They have heard a great deal about you,” said Duncan.

”How?” asked David.

But all Duncan would say was that the king had his ways.

Down stone corridors they went, past spitting torches and luxuriously furnished chambers. Now the servants were replaced by courtiers, serious men with gold around their necks and papers in their hands. They stared at David with a mixture of expressions: happiness, worry, suspicion, even fear. Finally, Duncan and David arrived at a pair of great doors, carved with images of dragons and doves. Soldiers stood guard at either side, each armed with a long pike. As David and Duncan approached, the soldiers opened the doors for them, revealing a large room lined with marble pillars, its floors covered with beautifully woven carpets. Tapestries hung from the walls, giving the chamber a feeling of warmth. They depicted battles and weddings, funerals and coronations. There were more courtiers here, and more soldiers, forming two lines between which David and Duncan pa.s.sed, until they found themselves at the foot of a throne raised upon three stone steps. On the throne sat an old, old man. A gold crown lay on his brow, inset with red jewels, but it seemed to weigh heavily on him, and the skin was red and raw where the metal touched his forehead. His eyes were half closed, and his breathing was very shallow.