The Coming of Dragons: No. 1 (Darkest Age) (12 page)

Edmund waited till the meaty hands had stopped moving. When he did not speak at once, the man raised his arms in a wide gesture.

‘Take your time,’ he said pleasantly, but Edmund could feel the malice beneath.

‘The ball is not there.’

For a moment the two of them stared at each other, then the man broke into a hearty laugh.

‘And how could that be, young sir? As all these good people can tell you, I haven’t raised a cup from the table. No, I’ve carried out my side of the wager quite fairly!’ His voice was jovial, but his gaze was stony. ‘Choose a cup.’

Edmund groped with his mind for the little wooden sphere. There it was: low down, rolling in the grass. He turned to the watching crowd, who had started to mutter, siding with the showman.

‘Look under the cups!’ he said. ‘You’ll see he’s lying. There’s a hole in the table.’

Elspeth started forward, but before she could reach the table a stout, angry-faced woman whom Edmund recognised as one of the stall’s earlier customers pushed her out of the way.

‘Let me see those!’ the woman bellowed, and before the showman could stop her she had knocked over all three cups. ‘All empty!’ she announced. ‘I’ll have my money back, thank you!’

As the man began to argue with her another townsman grabbed at the cloth hanging around the stall, ripping it away. The missing ball was clearly visible on the ground beneath the table. The people surged forward, yelling, and the showman took to his heels.

Elspeth grabbed Edmund’s arm. ‘We must leave,
now
,’ she said, pulling him across the square.

‘Yes, but not that way,’ he told her. ‘Let’s hide in the church.’

But when they reached the church, the doors were shut. Edmund cursed and ran around the building, Elspeth close behind. He headed for the abbot’s stables, and the empty stall where they had spent the night.

‘We can wait here till sunset. It’s not far off now,’ he told Elspeth.

She nodded, her face unhappy. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you to try the game. Now everyone will remember us.’

‘We were both stupid,’ he said bitterly. ‘I wanted the money, and I wanted to show I could beat him. But it was more than that.’ In spite of himself, he felt a prickling of excitement at the memory. ‘I
knew
, Elspeth. I knew where that ball would be, each time. This isn’t the power Aagard said I had; it’s something more. The ball doesn’t have eyes! Nor a mind to read. This is beyond Ripente power. I have to find out what I can do with it.’

‘Well, now,’ said a familiar voice. ‘There’s some might say you done enough already.’

Elspeth spun round. The cup-and-ball man was standing in the stable yard behind them, his face mottled with fury.

‘You lost me a tidy sum today,’ he snarled. ‘Not to mention giving away the tricks of the trade. So we’ll start with you giving me that silver bird of yours.’ He lunged towards Edmund.

Elspeth sprang forward, the sword scorching beneath her skin. But she stopped just in time. Sunlight glinted off a short, squat blade.

The man was holding a dagger to Edmund’s throat.

I
won’t
die like this
, Edmund thought.
Not for such foolishness
. Shame burned in his chest and the fear vanished. He drove his foot hard into his assailant’s shin. The man cursed and staggered, but kept one hand gripping Edmund’s neck. Edmund slammed his elbow into folds of soft flesh, then felt a rush of savage satisfaction as the man grunted and pulled back. His grip slackened enough for Edmund to twist his head away, painfully shaving his chin as he tried to dodge the blade of the dagger.

Still gasping from the elbow jab, the showman grabbed Edmund in both arms like a bear. Edmund kicked out again and again, and managed to sink his teeth into a fleshy forearm. It stank of rancid fat, but the man flinched.

Edmund writhed like an eel, feeling his cloak tear. He ripped himself free and darted clear, leaving a square of cloth in his attacker’s hand.

The man laughed softly. ‘Lads, lads!’ His voice was hoarse, his gaze still fixed on Edmund. ‘There’s no need to get yourselves hurt! Throw me the brooch, and the wager is settled.’

‘Never,’ said Edmund. ‘You’ve not kept your side of the deal, so why should I keep mine?’

The showman’s lip curled back. ‘Because I am armed, and you are not?’ he suggested with a sneer, taking a step towards him.

Edmund backed to the stable doors. He could hear horses shifting uneasily inside. When he felt the door’s iron bolts jab in his spine, he stopped. The showman reached him in two strides and lashed out again, and this time the blade seared into Edmund’s arm.

Through a mist of pain, he heard Elspeth shout – and the world exploded in white light.

Edmund threw up his unhurt arm against the dazzle. He heard the man’s oath, the clang of metal, the whinnies of frightened horses.

When he could look through the glare, the showman was standing stock-still, staring at the hilt of his dagger. The blade had been sheared clean off. Beside him stood Elspeth, the crystal sword flaring in her silver-clad hand, filling the yard with pulsing light.

The man moved first. Still holding the useless hilt like a weapon, he took a step sideways, his red face the colour of clay.

‘It’s witchcraft you use, is it?’ he snarled, his voice unsteady. ‘I’ll have the Guardians on to you!’

Elspeth said nothing, just stepped forward and brought the sword up over her head, ready to strike again.

The man’s nerve broke. With a howl of terror, he threw down the knife hilt and ran from the yard.

For a long moment Elspeth stood with the sword raised over her head. Then she let out a long breath and let her arm fall.

The sword had come when she called it – and there had been a
rightness
to its appearance, as if the sword had answered her. Power had surged through her, a bolt of fire, with a shard of ice at its heart.
Nothing can hurt you
, it had promised,
nothing
…

‘Your sword can cut through metal!’ she heard Edmund exclaim.

Elspeth said nothing, just stared at her hand. The sword was beginning to fade, and her skin was visible through the silver gauntlet.

She shivered. The day had turned cold. The sun had dipped behind the stable buildings and the yard lay in deep shadow. In the gloom, Edmund’s face loomed palely beneath the sweat-streaked walnut juice. His blue eyes held her like the bluest rock pools. Then Elspeth noticed the bloody gash along his chin, and saw the awkward way he held his arm as he picked up his torn cloak.

‘You’re hurt!’ she cried. ‘Let’s go to the abbot’s house. There will be a healer among the monks.’

‘No time,’ he snapped, and she could tell it took an effort for him to speak. ‘We have to meet Cluaran. That man will have told the Guardians about us by now.’

Elspeth felt the weight of the sword vanish, the mesh of the gauntlet dissolve into her skin. ‘We said we’d wait for Cluaran
in the market,’ she reminded him. ‘We’ll just have to hope he comes soon.’

Edmund nodded, his face strained. Praying he wouldn’t faint, and draw even more attention upon them, Elspeth led the way back into the main square.

The stallholders still there were lighting torches, fixing them to poles beside their booths. Elspeth looked around anxiously, hoping against hope to spot Cluaran in the crowd. But the minstrel was nowhere to be seen.

‘I think one of the stalls had medicines for sale,’ she said. ‘We could trade something.’ But when she saw Edmund’s face, she knew it was no good. He could not show his bleeding chin around the stalls for fear of attracting too many questions.

Edmund clearly had the same thought. He pulled up his hood. ‘We can’t risk showing ourselves,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should stay by the church.’

‘But that’s where they’ll look for us first!’ said Elspeth. ‘We’ll be safer in the crowd.’ She caught Edmund’s hand and dragged him into the throng, keeping her head bowed. Where was Cluaran? Had the minstrel got wind of the upset and taken off to save his own skin?

Torches now flickered and flared at every booth and stall. At opposite ends of the square, a fiddler and a bagpipe player sent out conflicting melodies, and in between, the queue at a pudding-woman’s stall was being entertained by a boy juggling clubs.

Suddenly Edmund tugged her arm.

‘What is it?’

He nodded towards the juggler. On the far side of the crowd, directly opposite them, was the cup-and-ball man. He was talking earnestly to a dark-dressed man with a sword hanging at his belt.

‘Run!’ Edmund hissed. Elspeth swung round to follow him into the crowd, but it was too late. The showman had spotted them.

‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘There! Over there!’

Elspeth sped after Edmund. He was heading for the church, instinctively seeking sanctuary with the God that was not his own.

But as they drew nearer, the great doors swung open, and instead of candlelight and monks’ chanting, out spilled three armed horsemen, with more behind. The horses’ hoofs clattered on the stone flags and torchlight danced on the shields’ silver bosses.

The Guardians!

‘Back to the market!’ Edmund cried, spinning round.

They dived back among the stalls. Elspeth squirmed between fat bellies and bony elbows; earned foul curses and a slapped ear as she struggled to keep track of Edmund for, wounded though he was, he pressed ahead like a rabbit bolting through a warren.

Just as she caught up with him, there were cries of panic from behind, indignant yells and the jingle of spurs as the Guardians urged their horses through the crowd.

‘Quick,’ Elspeth hissed. ‘This way!’ She dived under the awning of an ale booth with Edmund on her heels. They watched the horses’ legs clatter by, then dived under the next stall, and the next.

One of the horsemen yelled, ‘The one with a wound on his chin can be spitted, but the other’s to be kept alive!’

Elspeth shuddered. A faint, familiar pressure started in her right hand.
Not now!
she willed it fiercely.
Don’t give us away!

There was a crash as a booth was overturned behind them; cries of alarm as its torch caught the awning of the next-door stall. There was a gust of black smoke and people reeled away, shielding their eyes and mouths. Elspeth seized the chance to dash across the space to the next row of stalls. The blood pounded in her ears. Behind she could hear Edmund’s laboured breathing.

Now they were on the edge of the square, peering into the shadows beyond the market lights. Nothing stirred in the blackness of the streets, but one wrong move and the horsemen would be upon them.

Then something moved in the darkness. ‘He’s here!’ Edmund cried, running into the gloom.

A man was leading three horses towards them, not the sleek mounts of the Guardians but market horses, saddled and bridled.

It was Cluaran.

‘You needn’t think we’ve escaped,’ Cluaran warned. ‘The Guardians don’t give up their quarry that easily.’

The minstrel’s voice was like ice as he helped Elspeth to mount. His tongue clicked crossly when he heard Edmund’s gasp of pain. Then he led them in silence, moving stealthily to the town gate. But once through the gate and out of earshot, he urged them into a gallop, as fast as their stocky little beasts could manage. Soon they were leaving the road and heading across open grassland.

Edmund’s arm had begun to throb, but the pain mattered little compared to the relief of breaking free. He held the reins one-handed, sitting lightly in the battered leather saddle. All around the stars glowed brighter as his eyes grew used to the darkness.

Elspeth rode at his side. She clung awkwardly to the mare, her face grimly set, hands clutching the mane. The minstrel, though, rode as one born to it.

Edmund urged his horse alongside Cluaran’s. ‘Where are we going?’

‘The Tor,’ Cluaran snapped. ‘We can lose the Guardians in the maze.’ He spurred his horse faster, but Edmund reined his in to keep pace with Elspeth. He listened for signs of pursuit, but heard nothing beyond the dull thud of their own horses’ hoofs. Edmund closed his eyes, sending his mind’s sight back as far as he could towards Glastening.

There
. He could see the head of a horse thundering over the ground, a fine beast, taller and sleeker than his own wretched nag. Other horses raced beside with dark-cloaked figures crouched over the reins. Soon they would gain on them, there was nowhere to hide …

Edmund wrenched his thoughts back and dug his heels into the flanks of his flagging beast.

Ahead of them, and blotting out the stars, loomed the hump-backed blackness of a tall hill. Lines scored the mound from side to side. As his pony’s hoofs were muffled by a patch of long grass, Edmund heard hoof beats drumming on the road behind. The Guardians were closing on them.

Cluaran yanked at his horse’s reins and turned on to a new track that headed sharply uphill. The track veered to the left and vanished between sheer walls of packed earth. Cluaran kept going, even though his horse laid back its ears and baulked at entering the narrow space. Elspeth’s mare kept her nose close to the tail of Cluaran’s horse and trotted after it, but Edmund, hanging back, had to spur his mount before the pony followed its companions.

The walls were higher than their horses’ heads and formed
a narrow, roofless tunnel. Their hoof beats echoed like muffled drums, and Edmund forced himself to let his horse pick its way slowly over the earthen floor. The track curved steadily to the right, and he realised they must be inside the maze, winding their way up the sides of the Tor.

They had not ridden far when Cluaran halted his mount and said quietly, ‘Stay close behind me. This is not a place to enter lightly – not a place for horses at all; but needs must.’

‘Where are we?’ Elspeth hissed, but the minstrel ignored her and led the way into the dark opening.

They had to go in single file. The sides of the maze closed in on them, the path barely wide enough for the little market ponies. Edmund felt a jolt of panic;
like being buried alive
, he thought, despite the narrow track of stars above. His feet kept brushing against the walls. Ahead of him, the tail of Elspeth’s horse swished uneasily, but on and upwards they rode, the path always curving to the right until they seemed to be travelling in perfect circles.