Bloodstone (24 page)

Gocaman had fallen back to ride between us, and I’d grown so used to the silence I almost jumped when his low voice broke it.

‘Ah, boy,’ he murmured, ‘there are humans who touch a Lammyr’s desiccated heart. They fall in something like love. Skinshanks had a protégé, and he tired of
him, and the protégé is dead, and that is all that happened with Mack. And he tired of Mack only because he found Nils Laszlo more interesting.’ He gave a high laugh. ‘And
you thought I was Laszlo! I wouldn’t be coming near you if I was.’

Jed scowled, but his curiosity was a tangible, sparking thing. ‘You gonnae tell me what that’s about?’

‘Just that he – ah! Murlainn, there.’ Gocaman nodded towards a gash in the hills, a smudge of scrubby woodland made visible by starlight.

I stiffened. We’d found them; I knew they hadn’t found Finn, but that wasn’t what made my flesh crawl with cold dread. I should warn Conal now. I should tell him what must have
happened, what made the boy Jed dark and cold with hatred.

I couldn’t. I could barely contemplate it myself.

Not till we were much closer did I smell the damp smoke of a well-concealed fire; and then there was movement in the trees, and low voices, the stamp and snort of horses. The blue roan raised
its head, gills flapping, and whinnied softly. Before we’d gone another five paces, the black shadow of Conal’s horse emerged from the trees like a wraith.

Jed was squeezing his fists so tightly the knuckles were bone white. I still didn’t want to go near his mind, coward that I was, but it’s not as if I had to. A
black-hot hatred was swelling inside him, swamping his muscles and blood, so relentless it was leaking from every pore of his skin. Being near him almost made me queasy, like being spattered in
Lammyr blood.

We rode into the scrubby trees, ducking branches, the black horse nipping affectionately at the blue roan’s withers. Conal took shape in the darkness, eyeing us with a certain wariness.
Eili was at his shoulder, one blade out of its scabbard.

‘Cù Chaorach,’ called Gocaman softly. ‘We’ve brought your wolf-pup.’

As the horses halted, Gocaman unfolded Rory from his coat, and Sionnach put an arm round Jed’s waist and lowered him.

Jed let himself slide down. But his feet barely touched the ground before he launched himself forward, slamming into Conal, locking his fingers round his throat. They crashed to the ground
together.

‘You never told me! You never told me!’

Conal’s eyes were dilated almost black, his eyelight contracted to a pinprick. Breath rasped against his throat. ‘Jed,’ he croaked.

‘Liar! Killer! You let me stay too long!’

Conal’s fingers were tugging at the boy’s, but I knew he was desperate not to hurt him, that if he hadn’t held back he could have snapped his fingers and flung him off like a
puppy. The weakness of it seemed to encourage Jed, and enrage him too. Tears started in his eyes as he crushed his hands tighter round Conal’s neck, dug his fingers as hard as he could into
flesh. Eili lunged for him with a bare blade, but was flung back by a psychic blow that could only have come from my idiot-face noble-twat brother. She floundered to her feet in soft leaf-mould as
Jed screeched with rage.

‘Fight me! Fight me, you filthy
murderer
!’

The tiniest shake of Conal’s head was all I saw, and I knew what I’d really known from the start: Conal wasn’t going to fight him. The little thug was actually in with a chance
of killing my brother.

It had lasted mere seconds, and I had my mind back. I seized the boy from behind, lacing my fingers round his, prising them away from my brother’s throat, not caring if I hurt him. As the
last finger finally snapped clear, he gave a howl of frustrated rage and fell back. I wrapped my arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides, holding him still, afraid to let go. Conal propped
himself up, rasping hard breaths, rubbing the weals on his neck.

Torc and Sionnach seemed in shock; Eili, staggering forward, was simply enraged, while Gocaman, the baby in his arms, looked on with a detached curiosity.

I growled in his ear. ‘Calm down, Cuilean.’

‘You let me stay!’ Jed snarled through his teeth. He couldn’t look at Conal. ‘
He
knew I had to go back. But he didn’t take me. He didn’t come. He
stayed out killing people till it was TOO LATE.’

I could have ripped the silence with my fingernails.

‘Shut up,’ I snapped. ‘That’s how it is. It could have happened however quickly you went back.’ Still holding him with one arm, I gripped his face between my
fingers and turned it so that Jed could do nothing but meet my eyes. ‘Whatever
it
is.’

‘Let him go.’ Conal’s voice was hard in his throat. ‘He might as well kill me.’

‘Whatever it is,’ I repeated, still desperately searching Jed’s eyes, the fear rising in my throat.

My grip on Jed’s jaw was so hard he couldn’t look away, but gods, he could slap away my questioning mind with his burning rage. I could see nothing in his mind and he knew it.

~ You’ll know when I choose to tell you, you bloody warlock.

Only Jed heard my hiss of shock.

Testing his resistance, finding none, I let him go. Eili took a menacing step forward as if daring Jed to touch Conal again. Gocaman shifted the infant into the arms of Torc, who looked at the
baby, shrugged, and began to rock him with the gentle confidence of an expert.

‘It’s been a month!’ Silent tears coursed down Jed’s face, running into his mouth, leaking through his gritted teeth. ‘My mum’s dead.’

Now the words were out; now it was real; now I could no longer hope or pretend. In that moment our minds collided again. The stench of vomit edged into my nostrils and there was an image in my
head, a brown eye meeting mine, unblinking, dry as dust. With a sharp breath, I wrenched my brain clear of his.

‘Jed.’ Conal reached out a hand to him, but he slapped it away.

‘She thought I was dead!’ yelled Jed. ‘She thought I’d been abducted or murdered or drowned in a ditch or something. She thought it was her fault! You see? You play your
stupid time games and muck around with your stupid Veil and you see what happens? She thought I was
dead
.’ He clawed at his skull. ‘She was off her head anyway and you knew it.
You sent her so far off it she forgot to stay alive.’ He clenched his teeth against the tide of grief.

The others stared as if it was Jed who was mad. All except Conal, who couldn’t look at him at all. I had to do something, and now, because I should have seen this coming. I should have
seen it coming for so long, and in so many ways. I gripped Jed’s arm.

‘Listen to me, Cuilean. This was always going to happen to your mother.’

Jed ground his teeth, trying to pull away. ‘What would you know, shitface?’

‘It’s you that doesn’t know.’ I kept my voice free of kindness; if it had been me, I couldn’t have stood it. ‘You have no idea. You’re seventeen years
old. Barely whelped.’

‘Seth.’ Conal’s voice was too tired to be a threat. ‘
Nach ist thu
. Be quiet now.’

‘Keep out of it, big man. I was younger than him when I watched our father die on Alasdair Kilrevin’s sword. Did I throw a tantrum? I kept my mouth shut and my head down because if I
hadn’t I’d be dead too.’

‘Murlainn.’ There was a warning in Eili’s voice, and sudden pity. ‘Leave the boy alone.’

‘You don’t know anything,’ Jed spat at me.

‘Oh come off it. It’s been pretty much uppermost in your mind. In case you didn’t know.’ A good enough excuse, I reckoned.

‘Take no notice, Cuilean.’ Sionnach glared at me. ‘It’s centuries since he was your age, not that you’d know it sometimes.’ Quietly he added, ‘Leave
him, Murlainn.’

‘She was an addict. Wasn’t she? They’d have taken you off her in the end. At least she got to die a mother.’

‘I hate you, MacGregor. You and your smug brother.’

‘Yeah. You know I’m right, though.’

‘My mum didn’t die of drugs. She died of you lot.’ Jed trembled with grief. ‘And me.’

Torc clambered to his feet and put Rory into Jed’s arms, then paused and gave Jed one of his rib-cracker hugs.

‘Your mother didn’t die of anyone but Skinshanks,’ I said.

‘What—’

‘The dealer. That thing always enjoyed its work. Certainly enjoyed your mother.’

‘You get out of my head!’ he screamed.

It hardly seemed the moment to tell him I had no need to be in it.

‘Okay.’

‘Magic tricks. You think it’s clever?’

‘Not magic,’ broke in Eili. ‘Magic is for witches. We use our brains.’

‘We need to use them more,’ muttered Conal.

‘You need some sleep, Cù Chaorach.’ Eili gave him a smile, but he didn’t return it.

‘You and your stupid Veil,’ Jed spat. ‘You know what? This is a
ghetto
. There’s a real world out there where real people live.’

‘And die in pools of vomit,’ I pointed out.

Jed turned on me a look so filled with malice that I took a step backward. Gripping Rory tight against him, he turned on his heel and strode off into the trees.

‘Leave him. I said
leave him
!’ Conal’s bark was angry and clear enough for Jed to hear, then the woods thickened and closed in
around him and all was silence.

He stumbled on until the glow of the fire faded altogether. To his right he could hear the gurgle of a burn as he scrambled uphill, and in his angry haste he was dislodging
rocks underfoot. He didn’t want to fall, not with Rory in his arms. Slowing, trying to control his harsh breathing, he edged away from the water. The darkness was absolute under the canopy of
branches, but he clambered on up till he felt the ground level out.

He wanted to be far from them, as far as he could go. He hated the sight of the lot of them; they didn’t care. He might vanish as easily and completely as Finn had, but
Conal hadn’t even enough remorse to send someone after him. Not that he wanted to be followed. No.

Hitching Rory up, Jed came to an uncertain halt. In the utter blackness he tuned in reluctantly to the sounds of the night, sounds that grew louder the longer he stood.
Rustling. Cracking twigs.

Proper physical fear began to chill him.

Oh, God. Eventually he’d have to go back to them, if they didn’t slink into the night and leave him and Rory to whatever fate caught up with them. He
wouldn’t put it past them, given that Seth didn’t give a damn, and Conal couldn’t even face him.

In the darkness below him a shadow was moving among shadows, a sound was detaching itself from the other night sounds. He froze, staring. Whatever it was, he’d rather
see it. But though his stomach churned, the deadening instinctive terror wasn’t there. It might be someone to hate and fear, but it wasn’t a Lammyr.

Part of the darkness paled to a grey distinct shape. Yellow eyes glowed ghostly, but there was no aggression in that languid approach. Conal’s wolf materialised from
shadow, padded up to him and licked his hand.

‘Liath.’ His voice trembled.

Her pale coat seemed to attract any light that was going, so that the wood didn’t seem so dark any more. Exhaustion overwhelmed him and he sat down suddenly, the
tiredness a weight on the back of his neck. Liath lay down too, her big body curling around his, and Rory’s hand moved convulsively in his sleep, clutching a handful of her fur.

Jed lay unmoving, listening to heartbeats and night sounds while the wolf’s warmth seeped into them, and let himself wallow in pity for Rory, for his mother, for
himself. Softly growling, Liath washed his cheeks with her tongue. Jed nestled Rory between his body and her soft belly, putting his arm around the sleeping child and reaching for the
wolf.

She could eat them in the morning as far as he cared. That was how grateful he was for her bulk and her warmth, her beating heart against his palm, and simply her company. His
fingers laced into her fur, clutching as tightly as Rory’s, till he fell into a dreamless sleep.