The Bone Quill (8 page)

Solon inched forward. When he reached the opening in the thorn bushes, he placed his hand on the peryton’s flank with his heart pounding in his own ears. Creature and boy walked together into the narrow gap, the darkness a weight on Solon’s head and shoulders.

T
he
landscape changed in an instant, the ground softening and the air thickening. When Solon felt the dry undergrowth shift to swamp under his feet, he noticed that the peryton was no longer next to him. The creature had stopped at the perimeter of the bog, holding its head high and keeping a blanket of light on the desolate landscape.

Stepping out of the twisted brambles, Solon suddenly plunged to his knees into the putrid muck of Skinner’s Bog. His leggings caked with thick black silt, Solon felt himself being pulled into complete darkness. He could no longer see the peryton, or its light. Terrified, he turned around. More darkness.

Panic and bile bubbled in his gut. Then he saw the light, and sensed the peryton’s steadfastness. It was helping him, projecting its strength to him.

Solon touched the leather pouch fastened round his waist and took two more steps forward. He had to keep his bearings. If he could make it to the centre of the bog and find the rowan tree, Brother Cornelius would be able to heal those who were still suffering.

That way
, he thought, shifting a little to his left.

But then he stopped. To go in that direction would take him away from the centre.

It was so dark that Solon couldn’t tell any more which way was forward. The peryton calmed the young novice, suffusing him with a fresh wave of understanding. Now Solon knew that he had to move to his right.

Each lunging step he took drained Solon’s will to continue. But the peryton’s light filled his mind and buoyed him to take the next step, and the next. The darkness had become so heavy that the boy was hunching over as he walked.

A gust of fetid air and a long, low howl suddenly blasted Solon on to his back. He could feel himself sinking, his arms and legs being sucked into the bog. Hauling himself out of the muck, he focused on the horrible howling. It was impossible to fix the direction it was coming from.

His breath caught in his throat as a shadow rose out of the darkness in front of him. Not a bear, but close in shape and size, with red-hot slits for eyes. The creature was oozing from every part of its body, dark essence dripping to the bog like tar. And the
smell
. It was as if someone had desecrated a grave.

Solon wanted to run, but his feet were stuck. He wanted to yell, but his voice was frozen in his throat.

There was the sound of a splash at the edge of the bog. The Grendel turned its burning eyes away from Solon, the sound distracting its attention. The boy trembled as the monster’s feral howling changed to a snapping of jaws: slobbering, slurping, chewing. The howling began again, but from deeper in the bog now.

Solon forced himself to move. Brother Cornelius was depending on him to return.

Solon had taken two more steps forward when something heavy and wet hit his hand. Lunging sideways, Solon saw the bloodied carcass of a sheep. In a moment of sickening awareness, he realized that the sheep had saved his life.

Solon shivered at the sight of the massive jaw marks visible on the flayed animal’s neck. In a moment of grim humour, he realized that when he returned to the monastery, he would no longer need to ask the Abbot how Skinner’s Bog got its name.

S
olon
was almost ready to give up and return without the precious berries from the rowan tree. He was cold and scared and tired. Because of the lid of darkness on the bog, he could no longer tell how long he had been tramping through this muck. Every step sucked in his legs deeper than before.

The chewing, slobbering noises were everywhere in the dark.

At long last he reached the grassy mound at the centre – and the rowan tree. Solon pushed his matted hair off his face to get a clearer look at his prize. Caught in a ribbon of the palest starlight, the tree looked dressed for a royal ball, its berries glowing like millions of tiny red lanterns. The tree reminded Solon of the ones that Brother Renard had used to illustrate initials in his manuscripts.

But it was the boy curled beneath the tree that took Solon’s breath away.

He stumbled on to the grassy mound before the Grendel decided to feed again. The peryton might have sacrificed the sheep to the Grendel, but Solon didn’t think the trick would work a second time. He had to hurry. As soon as he stepped on to the grassy mound, the weight of the darkness lifted from Solon’s shoulders, and the terrible gnawing noises of the Grendel quieted.

Solon supposed from the boy’s size that he was about his own age: fifteen or so. Wrapped in a blue wool cloak with only his fur boots showing, the boy was tucked tight against the trunk of the rowan. Sleeping, Solon guessed. Darting forward, he rolled the boy on to his back – and gasped again.

It was a girl. A Viking girl no less, by her ruddy complexion, her long, white-blonde hair and the detailing on her cloak pin. She was lying in an awkward position. Solon thought she looked broken.

The girl wasn’t asleep. She was wounded. A wide gash above her elbow was oozing a soupy pus from the frayed edges of its cloth wrapping. The wrapping was soaked in what, at first glance, looked like blood.

Other than his sisters, Solon had had no contact with girls. This one obviously knew about the rowan tree’s powers, because it wasn’t blood on the cloth – it was a poultice made from rowan berries, the crushed fruit pressing on to her raw wound.

How had she got here? Had she been left behind by the invaders?
That was nonsense
, thought Solon. Viking bands didn’t travel with women, never mind girls of fifteen. Perhaps she was a Viking slave? Or perhaps she was a trick of the swamp, a fairy spirit who would stop Solon from taking berries from the tree.

He quickly filled his pouch with as much of the rowan fruit as he could.

Then the girl cried softly. Solon flinched at the memories that he could suddenly see in her mind: the screaming of the monks, the crying of village children, the killer gleam in the Vikings’ eyes. Solon saw the cobbles of the Abbey running red with blood – a blow with an axe from one of the Auchinmurn villagers and the white-hot agony of the wound the moment it had occurred. He leaned to one side and retched at the pain.

Wiping his mouth, Solon hesitated, unsure of what he should do next.

The girl moaned again. She looked half-dead. Solon decided that, friend or foe, she needed his help.

Lifting his water pouch from over his shoulder, Solon gently dribbled the liquid on to her pale lips. His hands were shaking, and most of the water sloshed on to her face.

Her eyes popped open. If it hadn’t been for the glint of the knife’s hilt and Solon’s quick reflexes, he would have lost an ear.

‘Trying to drown me?’ she asked, coughing out the words in a language that Solon recognized as Norse. Keeping the knife under Solon’s chin, she struggled to use her injured arm to lift herself up against the tree. What little colour she had in her cheeks immediately drained away.

If you stop threatening me, you stupid girl, I might be able to help you,
Solon thought irritably.

I don’t need your help, you stupid boy!

The Abbey

Present Day

A
s
he charged into the sitting room, Simon knew immediately that the twins had animated themselves into a painting. Luminous flecks of white, ochre and blue floated in the air near the easel like hundreds of fireflies.

Simon spotted Zach’s laptop sitting on the couch. Setting his palm on it, he felt the warmth from its battery and the surge of his son’s conflicted emotions while he’d been working on the computer.

At least he tried to stop them
, thought Simon.

‘Those weans are nowhere to be found,’ said Jeannie, following Simon into the sitting room. Taking off the reflective orange safety vest that she wore when she was near the water’s edge, she added, ‘I even checked the boathouse. Not a sign of them.’

‘They’ve not been gone long. Zach’s laptop’s still warm,’ said Simon. ‘And I’m afraid I know where they are.’

He nodded towards the painting perched on the easel. Jeannie’s hand went up to her mouth. ‘No! They would’nae dare.’

‘No doubt about it, that painting’s been animated,’ said Simon. ‘I should’ve known better than to leave them alone. Matt’s been champing at the bit to get out of here for days.’

‘Aye,’ Jeannie sighed, ‘he’s been taking it hard that he and Em can’t go tearing around the country to search for their mother.’

Simon picked up a copy of Em’s drawing of the peryton. ‘Em’s been doing some good work, hasn’t she? This sketch feels alive. Look at the depth in the beast’s wings.’ He set the drawing down again absently. ‘Wherever they are, Zach’s with them.’

‘Well, he would be, wouldn’t he,’ said Jeannie, a knowing smile loosening the worry in her expression for a moment. ‘Especially if Em went along, too. He never lets the lass out of his sight for long.’

‘They’ve gone into a painting.’ Renard Calder, the twin’s grandfather and one of the most powerful Guardians in the world, had entered the sitting room and instantly recoiled as if touched by an electric shock. Like Simon, Renard could see and feel the fireflies of colour and light, the residual energy of the twins’ animation.

‘Monet’s
Thames below Westminster
,’ said Simon, nodding as if at a question Renard had not asked.

‘Ah, one of Monet’s first London paintings,’ said Renard, recovering. ‘Claude himself gave it to my great-grandfather in return for a room near the Thames with lots of English sunlight.’

‘Was there ever such a thing?’ enquired Jeannie. ‘English sunlight, I mean.’

‘I’m not surprised they picked this one,’ said Simon. ‘Matt’s been more homesick than usual these past few days.’

‘Poor lad, he misses London terribly,’ said Jeannie, folding her safety vest over the back of a chair before dropping into it.

‘Well, he won’t be seeing the real city again for quite some time,’ said Renard. ‘It’s still too dangerous. The Council of Guardians will bind the children for sure once they’re sixteen if they keep animating into paintings. It breaks every rule in the book.’