The Spellbinder (Tom & Laura Series) (21 page)

Chapter 25
   
The
Path

When Fred reached the hut it was in darkness. There was nothing more than a latch on the door, but when he tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. He peered at the door in the moonlight and it seemed to him that the door was welded seamlessly to the frame. The gaps between the timbers had also disappeared and its surface was a smooth as glass.

The sky was clear and a million stars shone. He shivered and blew into his hands to warm them. Though it seemed completely wrong to have to do it, he began to bang on the doors and yell as loudly as he could.

Tom stirred in his sleep. Someone was shooting at him and he crouched on the ground. A boy yelled at him to run.
 
Then he was awake, or almost so. He cracked an eye open and heard Fred yelling. The gunfire had changed to the dull thud of flesh pounding on wood.

“I’m coming,” he shouted and the banging stopped. No one else was awake. He staggered in the general direction of the door and stumbled into someone’s legs. The straw they slept on impeded his progress. When he pulled at the door handle nothing happened.

“Let me in.” Fred said plaintive.

“Bind,” Tom muttered absently as he was still more asleep than awake. It was pinned to the door he remembered. Laura had bound the door and window shutters before they slept, thereby reducing the draft to something livable. He tore the bind in two and it burst into flames. With a bit of quick thinking he used a piece to light the lamp on the table and then stamped on the pieces before they set the hut ablaze.

“Wha..?” Dawn said as she put an arm over her eyes to stop the light blinding her.

“It’s me,” Fred said unnecessarily as he burst into the hut.

Tom shut the door quickly to try and preserve the heat. Fred shivered and poked at the bodies on the floor with his foot. There was a large amount of unladylike language from the women as he woke them up.

“
Nan
sent us. Esme, yer need t’ go and get a long rope.”

Esme didn’t ask any questions, but gathered her shawl about her and left the hut.

The embers of the fire still glowed when Tom stirred at them with a poker. He dropped twigs onto the embers and soon had the fire blazing again. Fred huddled close to the flames and told his tale.

When he described what had happened to
Leon
, Laura cried out at the horror of it and Tom clenched his fists.
How could any man do such a thing?
When Fred got to the murder of the Spellbinders it seemed to Tom that hanging the Captain would be too swift a punishment. Laura listened, wide-eyed and pale. She could so easily have been among the victims.

“What can we do?” Tom asked. It seemed to him that they could do nothing against so many trained men and their terror weapon.

“Mick wants tha t’ go down t’ cave ‘t rescue smugglers if tha can, but t’ get ‘im a rifle at t’ least.”

“We don’t know where the tunnel entrance is,” Laura pointed out.

“That’s guarded. Tha’s got t’ go t’ cliff way.”

The door burst open and massive man walked in. He was almost a giant and had enormous muscles. He carried a large coil of rope. Esme followed behind him.

“This is Joe,” Esme said, “He helped me fetch t’ rope.” Joe looked at the floor and mumbled something incomprehensible.
 
He shuffled his feet like a child.

Laura noticed he wore a blacksmith’s apron. “Are you the blacksmith who makes metal run with binds?”

“Aye, Miss. Not that me powers are aught t’ yers.”

Laura smiled at him. “I’d never have thought of doing that. You are so clever.” Joe looked more uncomfortable and tugged at his cap.

“We need to get ready,” Tom said. He was feeling far from confident and tried not to show it. He had had too little sleep and now had to climb down a cliff in what seemed a suicidal mission. What was worse was that he couldn’t find his cloak.

“Snood told me how to write an incomplete bind. I should prepare one,” Laura pondered. “What would be best, Tom? I can only do one.”

“Tha can do many,” Joe blurted out. Laura stared at him, a puzzled look on her face.

“I can?
 
But surely I’d get confused if I wrote several? I don’t see how…”

 
“In t’ smithy, I can’t make t’ binds last long, so I writes several, nearly done like. An a’ trigger ‘em one after t’other. Like this, Miss.”

He pulled paper and ink from his apron, something that made Tom smile. Tom was convinced that given a choice of food or materials to bind, even a starving Spellbinder would reject offer of food.

Joe wrote several incomplete binds to melt the candlestick, and then wrote the completing word one after the other on the pieces of paper. The paper flared almost instantly, but he wrote as fast as they flared and the candlestick melted and flowed. When the last bind flared the wax froze solid.

Laura nodded, she understood what he had done with the paper and it wasn’t the same as what she had done in Snood’s study. This wasn’t leaving the spell incomplete; it was more like not switching its power on. When he wrote the final word, energy could flow.

The others watched in fascination as Laura crafted a number of incomplete binds, which she carefully split about her pockets and person.

“I’ll carry t’ rope to the cliff for yer,” Joe offered. “Yer’ll need me strength t’ get yer over t’ cliff.”

They had to go now. It would be dawn within two hours and it was already getting light. It was essential they started their descent before anybody looking from Hobsgate could see them. Tom and Laura said goodbye to Dawn and Esme. Both women hugged and kissed Tom to his discomfort.

“Look for mi, Dad, please…,” Esme whispered in Tom’s ear. Yer can’t miss him. He’s got red hair.”

The walk back to Hobsgate seemed to take a long time. Tom was sure they must be lost. Joe and Fred walked without making a sound while Laura and Tom kept stumbling into rabbit holes and briars. However, it was Fred who gave up first.

“Go on without mi, I’m done.” The boy sat down and put his back against a tree.

Joe carried the coiled rope over one shoulder. Without giving the boy a chance to object he lifted and slung him over the other shoulder and started walking again.

“It’ll be better now I’m balanced.”

They stayed as far away from Hobsgate as they could until they had no choice but to cross the grass to get to the edge of the cliffs. It was already getting dangerously light and they crouched down to get as much concealment as they could.

Fred crawled along the edge of the cliff giving Laura palpitations because he kept vanishing from view and she was sure he had fallen over. He told them he had to find a carved mark on the rock face that would tell him where the path began.

When he found what he was looking for, Fred risked raising his head and waving for the others to join him. They crawled over to him, even Joe, who looked as though he had never crawled anywhere in his life.

To Tom, this part of the headland looked just like any other and he hoped Mick’s information was accurate. Joe fastened one end of his rope around Tom’s waist and started uncoiling the rest.

Fred was a mine of worrying information he was anxious to impart.

“Over tha’ go an’ feel for t’ ledge. There used t’ be a rope t’ hang onto but it’ll have rotted away.
 
T’ iron rings should be there. Grab t’ rings and edge your sen down t’ cliff t’ right. Find t’ steps and go down ‘em till tha’ feels safe.”

“Got it,” Tom said through chattering teeth. “Slide over the edge of the cliff until I find a ledge. Grab onto an iron ring. Climb down the steps. Then what?” He couldn’t believe he was asking.

Joe grinned. “Undo t’ rope. Gi’ a tug an’ I’ll send Laura after yer. Then yer’ll be on yer own.”

‘I had to ask,’
Tom thought in a daze.

What Joe didn’t add was
‘hurry up about it because it’s getting light’
, but Tom could hear it in his voice. Pretty soon they would be visible to the house and if they had snipers on the tower they would be sitting ducks.

It is one thing to plan to go to the edge of a cliff and slide over it, using the wet grass as support, and then it is quite another thing to find the courage to do it. Even with the comfort of the rope around his waist Tom didn’t find it easy. It was only the fear of being shot that spurred him on.

As he lowered his body over the edge the grass he held onto came loose and he started falling. The waves crashed on the rocks below and for a second he thought he was about to join them. Then Joe took his weight and a crushing force caught him around the waist and swung him towards the granite face. He hit the stone with some force. Clinging desperately to rough stone he began to slide as his fingers slipped. He was beginning to panic when his toes found the ledge. Its width was less than the length of his shoes and he swayed precariously only kept upright by the rope.

There was roaring in his ears which might have been the wind, the waves or his blood. He groped the cliff wildly before finding the comfort of an iron ring. It was slick with dew, but Tom gripped it tightly. It took him a few moments to compose his thoughts before he started inching his way along the ledge.

Tom had no idea how Joe knew how to let the rope out by the right amount as he moved. He couldn’t find any more iron rings so he kept inching further along the ledge until his foot encountered nothing but air. He knew this had to be the first of the steps, but he couldn’t bring himself to look. Holding onto the side of the cliff like a human spider he lowered his leg until he found the step. It was wider than the ledge and that helped a little.

He risked a look down and the world spun. Only the rope saved him from falling.

Somehow he made his way down the steps. Each step down was wider than the last. The rope hung well away from the cliff because there was a significant overhang. Holding onto the rope made it more likely he would fall rather than less, as its weight pulled him outwards.

Tom stopped by an iron ring embedded into the cliff and sat on a step. He undid the rope around his waist and pulled on it twice. The rope was pulled away and he waited for Laura to follow him.

The winds blew hard against the cliff and it was difficult for Tom to see anything because of it. He was far enough down for spray to reach up to him from the sea, forced up high by the wind. Tom was soaked to the skin by the time he saw Laura inching towards him. He grabbed her as soon as he could reach her. She was so startled by his grip that they nearly fell. He guided her hands to the ring, which she held onto as if her life depended on it.

Tom untied the rope around Laura and with cold and stiff hands tied the end of it through the ring. He only just finished when the rest of the rope swished down to swing violently back and forth. They were on their own now.

On the roof of
Hobbs
Tower
one of the snipers nudged the other and pointed to the cliffs. A man and a boy were out near the edge. The man appeared to throw something over the cliff.
 
The first sniper aimed his rifle carefully at the man as he and the boy made their way back to the forest. The other man nudged him and shook his head.

“Not worth the effort, they’re going away.”

“If you say so.”

The men resumed their watch as the man and boy disappeared into the woods.

“Do we have to go?” Laura asked. She had taken a good hard look down at the crashing waves before gripping the ring even tighter than before.

“We can’t stay here.”

Laura reluctantly nodded her agreement. If they stayed where they were they would freeze to death. When they started down, the hanging rope proved as much a hindrance as it was a help as it swung wildly in the wind and threatened to knock them off, but it was important to them psychologically and neither would have abandoned it. When they found other iron rings further down they tied it the rope to them in turn. This not only reduced its motion, but turned it into a handrail if they needed to go back up.

As they descended the steps became treacherous. Green slime lined puddles of seawater were present on the steps and they had to be careful where they walked. The steps were wider, but the way they were carved hid them from anyone looking from the sea. It must have taken the smugglers years to carve them. As they got closer to the sea they saw that the steps continued underwater.