Dark Mist Rising (11 page)

Crack!

Tom was gone.

I leaped up, fury replacing my fear. ‘Tom!'

Crack!

‘Tom, you son of a whoremaster!'

No answer. It was another ten minutes before he came crashing through the brush holding up a brace of dead partridges, his face all a-glow, the gun hanging limply from his other hand. ‘Look, Peter! Breakfast! I did it!'

‘You idiot!' I was on him before he knew what to expect, hitting him about his face and great shoulders with my one good hand, shouting that he was a halfwit, a birdbrain, a clod of senseless dirt—

He pushed me away with a single shove, his face hurt and uncomprehending. ‘What? Look – breakfast! I killed them for us!'

‘You fired that
gun
!'

‘It ain't hard. I figured it out easy. You simply—'

‘
Tom
.' I willed myself to calm. I – who had kept my temper under Hartah's beatings, Queen Caroline's schem-ing, Cecilia's moods – had just lost it, and with it, control over myself. We could not afford that.

‘Tom, the
gun
made a huge noise. If the savages are anywhere within miles, they heard it. Now they know where we are.'

‘Oh, piss pots. I cut the rope bridge.'

‘That was two days ago! They could have found another way across the ravine.'

He turned sulky. ‘I saw no sign of them in the woods. And I thought you'd be pleased by my partridges.'

How had he survived till age sixteen? I began to have sympathy with the father who had used him so harshly. Tom would try the patience of a statue. And yet he gazed at me so reproachfully – so crushed that I was not thrilled with the partridges he had shot for breakfast.

I sighed. ‘Just don't fire the gun again. All right?'

‘All right. But I still think the savages are far away. And I daresay you ain't never tasted a partridge as good as this one will be! Four to one odds on it!'

He was right. There is no sauce like hunger. The plump partridges, roasted over a hickory fire, seasoned with wild onions and washed down with cold water from a mountain stream, were the best breakfast I had ever eaten. ‘I told you so!' Tom crowed, belched, and froze, his eyes going wide.

I turned to look over my shoulder. Two savages stood at the edge of the clearing,
guns
pointed at us.

Tom scrambled wildly for his stolen
gun
, and I slammed my boot down upon it. He had no chance of shooting before they did. They would kill him. They were going to kill me, but the Young Chieftain had no grudge against Tom Jenkins. Maybe I could—

‘
Aleyk ta nodree!'

‘Hent!'

‘You sons of thieving bastards!' Tom screamed. ‘Don't you dare—'

‘Tom! Don't!' I yelled – futilely. Tom had jumped to his feet and drawn his knife. He charged forward. There was at least twenty feet between us and the strangers. Casually one savage sighted along the smooth metal tube of his
gun
. In another moment he would fire. I cried out again, something wordless and despairing.

A grey shape crashed into the savage and he went down, the
gun
firing harmlessly into the air.

The second savage let out a shout and spun in a quarter-circle, pointing his weapon away from me and onto the grey shape. By that time the dog had the first man on the ground. Tom sprinted across the remaining ten feet of ground and grabbed the second savage.

When Shadow had killed the four soldiers in the cottage in Almsbury, I had been gone to the Country of the Dead. I had not seen it. Now it seemed that every second was not only slowed but also exquisitely detailed, like the miniatures painted by court artists. I saw everything, and everything etched itself into my brain: the dog covering the fallen soldier and bending over him, graceful as a lover, to find his throat. The blood spurting in a strong jet, even as the soldier's eyes rolled in his skull and his body shook in agony. The other savage grappling with Tom. The clash of strong male bodies, the soldier older, but Tom larger and with his knife already drawn, as the savage had not. They fell to the ground so close to the other pair that the dog, now shaking his dead savage like a terrier with a rat, sent sprays of blood flying onto Tom. I saw the glint of sunlight on Tom's raised knife and the more brilliant flash as the knife descended, and all at once that blended in my mind with the flash I had once seen in the Country of the Dead, as something bright and terrible rent the sky in the second I crossed back over with my stolen army of the Dead. Bright and terrible – here, and there.

Then it was over, and Tom staggered to his feet, bloody and triumphant. ‘Hey! Oh, by damn, did you
see
that? Peter, are you all right? We got 'em, didn't we, Shadow? Hey, Shadow, good dog!'

I said numbly, ‘That's not Shadow.'

Tom didn't hear me. He was patting the dog, play-cuffing him. Was examining the dead savages. Was admiring his own prowess. ‘Hey, look, they better not cross
us
, let me swear to you! We're too much for them, ain't we, Shadow? By damn, Peter! I daresay your cousin George couldn't have done much better! Could he, Shadow? Good dog, what a brave killer—'

‘That's not Shadow.'

This time Tom heard. He stopped burbling, looked puzzled and gazed down at the dog.

‘Sure it is. What ails you, Peter?'

I walked forward and stood beside Tom. The dog looked up at me and wagged his tail. Blood still stained his muzzle. I don't know how I knew this was not Shadow. This dog had the same short grey fur, small tail and great snout, green eyes. But just as a man knows which of two twin sisters he has married, despite how alike they may seem to others, I knew this was not Shadow.

Tom knelt. ‘Shake paw, boy.'

The dog kept his gaze on me and did nothing.

Tom straightened. ‘You're right, Peter, it ain't Shadow. This one don't know how to shake paw. Well, here's a strange coil! Two dogs that look so much alike, and both saved your life! A strange coil! Hey, now we have two more
guns
, and maybe the bastards had money, or food!'

Strange coils did not much bother Tom Jenkins. Whereas they froze my blood and haunted my dreams.

Tom, not at all squeamish, went through the corpses' pockets and packs. I crouched before the dog and said softly, inanely, ‘What are you?'

The dog did not answer, of course. Whatever else it was, or wherever else it had come from, it was a indubitably a dog. It licked my hand and wagged its tail, and bounded over to Tom when he found on one of the bodies a hunk of roasted rabbit wrapped in a clean cloth.

I straightened. ‘Tom, there could be more savages around. We need to go. Now.'

‘Yes ... just one more minute to get ... By damn! Silvers!'

He held out his huge hand. On it rested six or seven silvers of The Queendom, stamped still with Queen Caroline's picture. Her lovely profile rested upon his grimy palm, delicate silvery lines upon smears of drying blood.

‘I did. Stupid beasts.'

‘Then why name him Shep?'

Tom shrugged. ‘Why not? He's a good ol' dog, ain't you, boy? Good boy! Let's fight!' He rolled on the ground, the dog jumped enthusiastically on top of him, and they mock-fought for several minutes, both rising up muddy and satisfied. I watched, feeling like someone's indulgent grandfather.

I had been fond of Shadow, but this dog made me uneasy. Not his manner, which was just as affectionate and devoted as Shadow's had been – the same wagging tail, the same licking tongue, the same willingness to hunt and bring back game for Tom to cook. Shep had no collar – but what were the chances of two otherwise identical dogs adopting me within a month's time? But there was no use explaining this to Tom.

‘Tom, think. What are the chances of two identical dogs adopting us within one month's time?'

‘I don't know. What?'

‘I don't know exactly either, but—'

‘Then why ask me? By damn, I wish we had a pair of dice! Can you play sichbo?'

‘No.' More lies. Sichbo had been played at court. I had played it once with Cecilia, for a forfeit I had not understood at the time.

‘I could teach you. But we have no dice. I know – I'll whittle some!'

In the last few days, with The Queendom far behind us, we'd reverted to travelling by day and sleeping at night. That evening Tom sat at the campfire and laboriously carved a section of a branch into two lumpy cubes. On each face he gouged notches.

‘Now, see, Peter, you cast one die first, and if six comes facing up—'

‘Tom, I don't want to play sichbo.'

‘Oh, but it's the greatest fun! Let me show you!'

‘No.' I seldom gave him a direct refusal, but I could not bear to cast dice with him. All I could see was Cecilia in her green gown, her beautiful hair loose on her shoulders, her green eyes glowing with feverish excitement that was almost hysteria. ‘
Roger! I shall wager
with you! For a silver coin with Her Grace's image stamped
upon it! Come!
'

‘I didn't take you for such a spoil-joy,' Tom said sulkily.

‘I'll play with you tomorrow night,' I said.

‘Oh, all right.' He rolled over on his belly and instantly fell asleep.

By tomorrow night I would be gone.

For now I knew where we were. Our rough track had joined another, equally rough but with landmarks I recognized. I had come this way before, more than once. Soulvine Moor lay a day's strenuous journey to the south. Tom obviously did not know that. Although a splendid tracker, he had never been far from his village of Almsbury, and the geography of the world was as unknown to him as it had once been to me. I dared not enter Soulvine itself, but at the border I could stay in the Unclaimed Lands in body, and enter the Moor only in the Country of the Dead. That way I could search safely for my mother. More safely, anyway.

But I could not do so and also keep company with Tom. What would he do if I stayed too long in my tranced state? Drag me to some rough cabin, shouting for a healer? Decide I was dead and bury me? Try to revive me by dumping so much water on my head that I drowned?

Worst of all, he might actually recognize my trance for what it was. Country folk were usually more willing to believe in the old ways, the old powers. No one at court, save Queen Caroline, had believed that I could cross over. But the country people Hartah had cheated through me at summer faires too often knew that the gift was real. However, many of them also believed it was witchcraft, and what would Tom Jenkins do if he decided I was a witch? I didn't believe that he would betray me deliberately, but there was no wall between his brain and his mouth. Always he babbled the first thing that came into his head. The less he knew about me, the less he could tell ... anyone.

So I had made a plan. The next evening, I put it in motion.

Never trust plans.

The cabin, always ramshackle, was now deserted. In the strong afternoon sunlight the door hung crazily, half off its rope hinges. A hole gaped in the roof. The straw pallets swarmed with lice and spiders, and not even rats could find any food to tempt them to nest-build.

‘Nobody lives here,' Tom said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

‘No, not now,' I said. But they had lived here, two and a half years ago. Jee had run away from here, leaving a father much more brutal than Tom's. Here I had left Maggie, furious and tearful, in order to venture alone onto Soulvine Moor. And here, or rather in its coun-terpart in the Country of the Dead, I had lain with Cecilia in my arms, she dead and tranquil, unknowing that I held her. Behind the cabin, the little waterfall beside the pine grove where we had lain still tumbled over rocks into its shallow cold pool.

‘Peter?' Tom said. ‘What is it?' And then, with perception unusual for him, ‘Have you been here before?'

‘Yes,' I said, forcing myself back to the present. ‘And the water is good to drink. We should fill the bag.'

‘All right. Shep didn't hunt today – bad dog! Bad dog! But I can try to, although maybe I should ... I think I smell wild onion.'

‘We don't need it,' I said absently, my mind still on the past. ‘The dried meat you took from the dead savage is already seasoned well.'

He stopped and turned to look at me. ‘How do you know that?'

I stared at him.

‘That the savages' meat is well seasoned already,' he repeated, his forehead wrinkling. ‘Have you eaten it before?'

‘No, of course not. George told me.'

Tom nodded, willing as always to accept my mythical adventurer cousin as the best authority on anything. Lies – I could not open my mouth without adding to my store of lies, which now loomed over me large as any mountain. And now I must add more.

‘Tom, it's George I want to talk to you about.'

‘George?' He looked around, the limp water bag dangling from one huge hand, as if he expected to see George stride out from the trees.

‘Yes. George. Remember I told you that George killed savage soldiers, and that's why they are looking for me – to tell them where he is?'