Bloodstone (22 page)

‘All right, son. Calm down, now. There’s nowhere for you to go. We want to help.’

He couldn’t see the man in the murk, but the words felt like a lie and that put steel in his spine. He backed, searching the trees with a narrowed gaze, and one foot
sank up to the ankle in freezing water. Rory whimpered and clutched him tighter.

‘Come on, laddie. Give up. It’s not worth it.’

He backed further, almost against his will, but he couldn’t bear to give in to them, not yet. Up at the gate there were more urgent shouts, the crunch of tyres and the
slam of car doors.
So many
.

He was up to his waist without even thinking about it, then to his chest. Feathers and fans of ice had formed on the water’s surface and the cold snatched his breath
away. Though Rory was in the water too, he was very quiet, grip tighter than ever, breathing ragged. Christ, thought Jed with rising panicked fury: if he had a gun he’d shoot the
bast...

... bastards.

He put numb fingers to the pistol in his belt.

It wasn’t useless here. There were rounds in the magazine: Seth had shown him. He’d shown him how to cock the gun. Seth had shown him how to loose the safety catch
and squeeze the trigger.

And he hadn’t even realised.

‘Ed,’ whispered Rory. He pressed his cheek to Jed’s and blew a raspberry at his ear.

Jed shook himself. Madness. He could no more shoot somebody than get through this loch. The stupid gun was probably ruined by the water anyway. He buried his face in
Rory’s neck and clutched him tightly.

That was when a figure broke out of the trees and stumbled to a halt in the weeds. Steel-coloured eyes behind thick glasses widened as the tramp stared at him in
shock.

Jed could only stare back, wondering what death would feel like. Then he thought he knew, because something like waterweed snaked up, snagging his legs and waist.

The world receded in a rush of terrible blackness, and he was yanked beneath the surface into a cold and deafening void.

If Laszlo didn’t kill the girl, I was going to do it for him.

Finn was more frightening in her absence than she’d ever been in the flesh. Sionnach and Torc and I were wasting our time persuading Conal she was gone, and there was no point looking
further; it took Eili to knock some sense into him, and then she got an earful for her trouble. But after hours of combing the woods he did, at last, acknowledge it was useless.

‘Laszlo’s got her,’ I said. ‘Must have.’

‘Thanks for that statement of the bleeding obvious,’ he gritted.

‘You’re welcome. Now let’s get to the dun. We can’t help her any other way and we’ve wasted enough time.’

‘It’s gonna be hard work getting back to the dun,’ pointed out Torc. ‘They’ve had plenty of time to get extra patrols out and they know where we are.’

‘I can’t go, not yet. I can’t leave her.’

‘You haven’t got a choice,’ said Eili crisply. ‘Sorry. At least the boy’s gone; that’s one less complication.’

‘What does she want with Finn? Finn can’t hurt Kate. Can’t help her.’

‘Took her to spite you?’ suggested Eili.

And since that was the honest truth, he couldn’t argue. It was the wrong thing to say, though, in so many ways. He was too silent, scratching manically at the scars on his arm though they
must have stopped itching centuries ago.

‘We’ve wasted too much time,’ he said at last.

‘Just what I—’

‘No. I mean we’ve wasted too much time in these woods. The dun’s two days’ ride away; to hell with that. We need to get her back before Laszlo gets her to Kate’s
caverns; if we can’t do that we’ll think of something later. Once she’s in there, the entire fecking clan won’t be able to get her out.’

‘Cù Chaorach, that’s—’

‘Eili, don’t say the next word,’ he spat. ‘I’m not leaving her. Kate wants me to come and get her; if I don’t, she’ll hang her.’

‘We could at least call for reinforcements. Even at this distance Torc can call Sulaire...’

‘Yeah? Has he tried lately?’

Torc reddened as we stared glumly at him. He didn’t even have to reply.

‘See?’ said Conal bitterly. ‘I don’t know how Kate’s doing it, but she is. We’re cut off. Get used to it.’ He grabbed a handful of the black’s
mane. ‘Now I’m going to get my goddaughter. Anyone coming?’

I hated that we were split again, but it would have been stupid not to maximize our chances. Eili insisted on riding at Conal’s side, and Torc went with them; I was happy
to be in the quiet company of Sionnach, who anyway was the best tracker.

‘So help me, I wish I’d killed Laszlo when I had the chance,’ I said.

Sionnach laughed dryly. ‘You’ll get another. If your brother doesn’t get to him first.’

I wished I felt so optimistic. Gods, how I’d hated having Laszlo in my crosshairs, with trigger-squeezing forbidden by some bureaucrat in a distant office, someone who understood the
politics better than I did, but had never watched the man at work. I kicked myself daily for that. I kicked myself almost as hard as I had when I tracked his movements again, when I finally thought
I’d run him to earth and found only his seventy-eight hostages from that last village.

Well, not them, not as such. The remains of them, hacked to pulp and jumbled in their mass grave.

I shook my head free of the memory yet again. ‘By the way,’ I added, ‘don’t underestimate him. He’s better with a blade than he ought to be.’

‘Not as good as Conal,’ said Sionnach.

‘Loyal of you,’ I said bitchily, ‘but I wouldn’t bet on it. Being a homicidal maniac doesn’t disqualify you from the Olympics. He took a gold.’

Sionnach reined in his horse very abruptly, sniffing the air.

‘What?’ I half-drew my sword.

He shook his head. ‘Not close. But something’s around that wasn’t there before.’

‘Oh, gods. Don’t tell me.’

‘Fine.’ He gave me a rueful grin.
~ I won’t say a word.
Something breached the watergate again.

The strange sensation was breathing. That was it; and it was only strange because he hadn’t expected to be doing it. Jed’s fingers scrabbled on
slick weed and wet stones as he raised himself to a kneeling position and vomited into the shallow water. It wasn’t water he was throwing up, he noticed. It was his last meal and exhaustion
and terror, and once his stomach had finished heaving he felt a lot better.

Rory
. He staggered to his feet.

Thank God. Rory was on the beach, laughing his bright blond head off as he flung handfuls of gritty sand at the water. Bending half-double, Jed waited for the spasms in his
gut to fade. The sky was dark grey and menacing, but Rory’s lank hair gleamed like sunlit barley. The child – if it was Rory – didn’t even seem so scrawny, as if he had
plumped up nicely in the water. Suspicion rippled through Jed’s innards.

Rory peered up, puzzled. Then a broad grin showed familiar baby teeth and he clambered upright and waddled towards his brother. ‘Ed!’ he shouted.

Jed fell on his knees to hug him. Oh, his backside was soaking and he stank of piss. Poor brat: it was Rory all right. Swiftly he changed the disintegrating nappy; God knew
what he was going to do next time. Jed tugged the wet jeans back up over his bottom and stood up.

Feeling the first spatters of rain on his arms, he smiled at the infant. ‘We have to go, angel.’

Curtains of rain swept across the skyline, blurring the horizon and shrouding the ruined castle on its spit of land. For half a minute Jed could see it, then it was gone. The
weather was closing in, and not just rainclouds. With them there was something else, something he could feel in his stomach and bones.

Hazarding a guess at the direction he climbed up off the beach and set out through the heather, Rory on his hip, but even the child’s bright mood couldn’t outlast
the rain that started to lash them within a hundred metres of the beach. In seconds Jed was soaked through, and Rory cuddled into him, water running off his head and down Jed’s neck. He
started to whimper.

‘Hush,’ Jed murmured automatically, though he didn’t exactly see why the boy should, since he felt like whimpering himself. He was alone and friendless and
sorry for himself, and now he was almost sure he was going the wrong way. Still, no point turning back now. Tightening his grip on Rory, he ploughed on.

Within minutes the horizon vanished altogether, as if a giant thumb had smudged it off a watercolour landscape, and then time ceased to make sense at all. All Jed knew was the
squelch of his feet in his shoes and the subdued hiss of the rain. Boredom, exhaustion and drenching cold were his life: he was completely disoriented and had no idea how many miles he’d
covered. An hour, two hours passed, and then he gave up looking at his watch, because its face was misted over by the rain.

He might as well press on: it was better than retracing his steps, and anyway, if he stopped he knew he might never start walking again. His calves ached from struggling
through the heather, but he was shivering violently.

Because of Rory he couldn’t even wipe his eyes clear; water sluiced down his face and the constant blinking had a hypnotic effect. Out of sheer spite the wind had risen
and was lashing the rain straight into him. What he really wanted to do was lie down in the heather and rest. He wanted it so badly he was on the point of doing it, despite the horrible sensation
that crept over him as the day darkened.

He was being stalked. He couldn’t see it but he could feel it. It was something in no particular hurry, something that was happy to wait and mock his efforts.
Hostile Intent
, he thought, remembering Pooh Bear and the Woozles, the last bedtime story he’d read Rory from a stolen book. He wanted to giggle. He wanted to cry. He wanted to go
home.

Oh, it didn’t matter any more. It occurred to him that whatever the Hostile Thing was, he’d hate to prolong its fun at his expense. He might as well stop and sit
down with Rory on the bristly heather and wait. He didn’t even feel so cold any more.

Just as his feet faltered, he heard something familiar. At first it was only a fragment of his imagination, then it was a rhythmic pounding beneath his feet. He should run, he
knew, but running belonged to another time and place: a place where running had seemed to matter more.

It lunged out of the dense rain right in front of him: a snarling monster. In one heart-stopping moment he realised it was only a horse, nostrils flared, its glaring eye as
black as a shark’s. Only a horse: oh yes, he remembered the horses. He stopped, almost grateful, and clutched Rory as it cantered a languid circle around them. As it slowed again to a flying
arrogant trot, its circle tightening like a noose, he had to turn to keep it in view. Rory watched it too, not remotely bothered, and Jed even heard the gurgle of his laughter as the horse’s
white head snaked out to snuff at him, nostrils flared.