The Tree of Story (7 page)

Finn turned away angrily and the pain in his shoulder blazed up with such sudden fury he had to stifle a cry. The fever iron’s effect was already wearing off, and he caught himself wishing for it to come back. He still couldn’t let go of the pouch in his hand. Someone else might need this
gaal
, he told himself. He had to keep it for the others, not for himself.

“It wouldn’t have happened like that,” he breathed. “My people only kill when we have to, to defend ourselves. We’re not beasts.”

“Of course not,” Grath said with a shrug. “We are.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You believe it.”

Finn was silent.

“All my life I was taught that your kind hated us and wished us dead,” Grath said. “I never saw anything that proved otherwise. The cunning ones, we called your kind. You were always smaller and weaker than us, but just a little quicker, a little cleverer with tools and plans. We lost everything we had to you, the elders said. They said it was because the true lord of this realm, the one you call the Night King, had been defeated and banished long ago by you and your allies, the Ancient Powers. So we took him as our lord, our god, and fought his battles for him, waiting and hoping for the day he would come again and lead us to victory.”

“Malabron only wants power for himself,” Finn said. His head was pounding, making it difficult to form his thoughts into words. And his wounded arm was burning and throbbing worse than ever now. “He’ll destroy everything to get it, even those who serve him.”

“And yet my people still die shouting his name,” Grath said. “But I no longer serve the Night King.” He gave a dry laugh. “Maybe that means I am no longer mordog.”

“How did it happen?” Finn asked. “How did you become an enemy of your own people?”

“When I was still very young, there was a healer in my village who began to preach a strange new idea: that we did not have to make war on your folk, the cunning ones. That we could learn to live in peace with you if we renounced the Deliverer, who was no god but only a weaver of lies. My people thought the healer mad and drove him from the village. For years I wondered what had happened to him. Finally, when I was grown, I went looking for him. I needed to see the healer for myself.”

“Why?”

“Because he was my father.”

“Did you find him?”

Grath nodded.

“He was living in a cave in the hills like an animal. He knew who I was before I said a word. He had known I would seek him out one day. I told him what had happened in our village since he’d been driven out. His own family—my mother and my sister and I—shunned and spat on by everyone. Living like dogs on the few scraps the others tossed away. And now that I was old enough I had sought him out for one reason. To kill him.”

Finn stared at the mordog. “Did you?”

“I raised my blade and he just sat there, not moving, not looking at me. Then he said, ‘If it’s my time to die, at least I will not die a slave.’ And I put down my sword. I asked him why he had spoken against the Deliverer. Why he had slandered our god. He looked at me then, and he said that if I wanted an answer, I would have to stay with him. I stayed with him a long time and he taught me many things. He showed me the truth—that I
was
a slave. That we mordog served a master none of us had ever seen, who cared nothing
for us. Our purpose was only to hate and to kill. To be the monster that others feared.”

Grath lifted his blade and examined the notched edge.

“It was a very hard thing to do, he told me, to walk away from your own story. But it was the only way to freedom. So I took the path he showed me. I walked away. A few of my people followed me. The rest turned against us.”

He looked up at Finn with a bitter smile.

“I walked away, but I didn’t get far, did I? I’m still fighting someone else’s battles.”

A Stormrider approached carrying a water bucket with a ladle hooked to its side. At the sight of the water Finn remembered how thirsty he was. He reached for the ladle, but had to use his left hand because he could no longer lift his sword arm. He drank and the water left a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth. There was
gaal
in the water, too, he realized. A trace of it, anyhow, and he felt a craving for more. He wanted to feel that icy fire surge through him again. To see everything with that sharp, cold clarity.

Finn thought then of Freya Ragnarsdaughter. He had met her on his journey with Will Lightfoot. Before, he had thought the Skaldings were little better than savages, but he’d soon found out how wrong he was. He remembered the soft, warm touch of Freya’s hand in his as they danced, her bright blue eyes. Her city was far from the Bourne, a journey of many days through dangerous wilds. At least, he thought, she would be far from Fable when the fetch host arrived there. But if Malabron wasn’t stopped, Freya’s city would eventually fall, also. There would be no more music and dancing in Skald.

Grath’s harsh voice broke into his thoughts. The mordog was standing again, looking out over the valley.

“Your brother walked away from his home, too,” he said.

“And you travelled all this way to bring him back. That I don’t understand.”

“That wasn’t why I set out in the first place,” Finn said. “But yes, I want him to return home to Fable.”

“To face judgment?”

“He has to,” Finn said. This was not something he wished to speak of, and his head was spinning now. He needed all his concentration just to stay upright, and his injured arm was a dead weight without feeling. There was no longer any pain and there should have been. He knew vaguely that he had to do something about this.

“Because he killed someone,” Grath said.

“Yes,” Finn said, struggling to remember what they were talking about. “A young man. A boy, really, who tried to stop Corr’s men from stealing Errantry horses. Corr struck him down and rode away. So yes, that’s the reason I’ve been searching for him all these years. He must answer for what he’s done.”

“So you’d turn your brother in for
one
killing?”

“I swore an oath that I would.”

Grath shook his head. “You cunning ones are not so smart after all, are you?” he said. “You know he’ll never go back there with you. Why should he? He’s the Sky Lord. He didn’t become that by sparing those who got in his way.”

“He’s still my brother. He’s still Corr Madoc of the Bourne. He’ll do what’s right.”

“That’s what he
is
doing, boy,” Grath said, and he shook his head and turned away. Finn was about to reply angrily when a hand fell on his shoulder.

It was Doctor Alazar.

“Finn,” the doctor said. “I’m glad to see you.” His face was streaked with sweat and the front of his tunic was dark with blood. There were even tiny flecks of red on the lenses of his
spectacles. He looked exhausted, and Finn remembered that Alazar had been in the infirmary all this time, working with the dwarf healers to keep Corr’s wounded Stormriders alive.

“You, too, Doctor,” Finn said warmly. Alazar had accompanied him from Fable on the journey to help Will Lightfoot find Shade. Once Corr had agreed to let Will go, Finn had wanted the doctor, as well, to return to Fable, but Alazar had seen the terrible state of the Stormriders’ infirmary. He had chosen to stay and help, even though he detested what Corr had done to his own men by giving them the fever iron.

“Have you seen Corr?” Finn asked. “Is he all right?”

The doctor frowned.

“A motherworm crashed right into the observation platform,” he said. “Most of the Stormriders there were killed. Corr was burned, but we got to him in time, Finn. He’ll be all right. He sent me to find you. He wants to see you in his command chamber. He wouldn’t go to the infirmary, of course. That damned
gaal
. It makes these fools believe they’re immortal.”

“Thank you for helping him, Doctor,” Finn said. “Are you coming back with me?”

“I’ve got work here,” the healer said, looking around at the blood-stained Stormriders still standing guard at the breach.

Finn nodded. He was about to hurry away, but there were black spots bobbing in front of his eyes now and his legs wouldn’t obey him. He stumbled and felt the doctor’s arm catch him.

“Finn?” Alazar said. “What is it?”

Finn brushed at the black spots in front of him. They wouldn’t go away. And now something was roaring in his ears.

“Look at your shoulder,” Alazar cried. He’d lifted a torn flap of Finn’s blood-soaked wool tunic. “Great sun, why didn’t you come find me?”

Finn knew there was an answer to that question, but he
couldn’t call it to mind. The black spots were filling his vision, there was nothing else to see—and then he was falling like a cold, hollow thing into the dark.

He woke up in a soft bed in a long, vaulted stone chamber. The room was lit by candles in sconces on the walls. His sword arm was bound tightly with bandages and held in a sling. It felt stiff and the pain had come back, although now it was only a dull throb. And there was something else. Yes, the cold fire was in his veins again. Not as strong as before, but it was there. Someone had given him more of the
gaal
.

He lifted his head and Doctor Alazar appeared beside him, setting a clay jug and goblet on a small table beside his bed.

“Welcome back,” the doctor said with a frown of concern. “How do you feel?”

Finn rose unsteadily on his good elbow and with effort managed to move himself into a sitting position, propping his back against the bed’s rough headboard. The chamber, which he guessed was the infirmary, was lined with beds like his, though they were all empty.

“Better?” Alazar asked.

Finn tried to speak but his throat was parched. “Could use some water,” he managed to croak.

The doctor lifted the goblet. “Here.”

Finn greedily gulped down the cold, refreshing water. When he was finished, he looked around the room. “Where are the other wounded? I thought this place would be filled up after the battle.”

“It was. You’ve been here an entire day and then some, Finn. We patched up those we could. Not all of them made it.”

Finn heard the exhaustion in Alazar’s voice. He had not known the doctor well before they set out from Fable with Will Lightfoot and had thought him dour, even a little odd
the way he was forever writing in his journal and collecting plants and stones and other curiosities. Yet since they’d come to the fortress, he’d worked tirelessly to save the wounded Stormriders, even though he condemned their all-consuming war and their enslavement to the
gaal
.

“Where is Corr?” Finn asked. “You said he was burned—”

“Corr is fine. It would seem nothing can kill the man. He came to see you often. You’d lost a lot of blood and your arm was in a bad way. I thought I would have to take it off, Finn.”

“Take … my arm?” Finn said. A chill slid through him.

“Despite all I did the wound began to mortify. Your entire upper arm was swollen and turning black. I’ve never seen it happen so quickly. I didn’t see any choice but to take off the arm. Then Corr came. He brought his own dwarf healers and they gave you … well, something that’s keeping the rot in check. I don’t know if your arm will ever heal, but for now it isn’t getting any worse.”

The doctor looked quickly away.

“What did they give me?” Finn asked, though he already knew.

“I argued with him, but Corr insisted,” Alazar said. “It was a restorative laced with
gaal
. More than I’ve ever seen any of the Stormriders have. And the poultice on your arm is of the same concoction. I’m sorry, Finn. It was either that or the arm.”

Finn lay back. He could feel the liquid fire rushing through his veins, felt his heart hammering as if he were running up a steep hill. Yet there was something cold at the heart of the fire. A kind of icy rage, pure and savage, that would stay hidden until he chose to unleash it.

“What happens now?” he asked almost indifferently, as though they were talking about someone else.

“You will have to keep taking the gaal,” Alazar said. “Otherwise the rot will almost certainly return and it will spread quickly. And then I’ll have to remove your arm, if it isn’t too late already for that. I’m sorry.”

For a moment Finn felt something, a hollow sadness that cut through the cold fire inside him. Then it was gone.

“It’s not your fault, Doctor,” he said. “You did the right thing.”

Alazar studied him in silence and then pulled out a small leather pouch from the pocket of his tunic. It was a twin to the one Grath carried on his belt.

“Take only a few grains each day,” the doctor said. “That should be enough. It will have to be. Only a few grains, Finn. More than that and … well, not all the Stormriders who died in the siege were killed by the enemy. I found some without any wounds. I believe they took too much of the
gaal
and it burned them up from the inside.”

Finn nodded. He accepted the pouch from the doctor and closed his hand tightly around it.

“Where is Corr?” he asked.

“I couldn’t say. He was here not long ago, sitting at your bedside, but Nonn called him away suddenly. He’s probably in his command chamber, making plans for the assault.”

“The Nightbane have come back?”

“I mean he’s planning his own assault. Corr has been repairing his skyships while you’ve been here. Apparently he and his Stormriders have decided they haven’t had enough punishment. They’re going to attack the city.”

“Adamant? That’s madness.”

Finn threw back the blanket and began to climb stiffly out of the bed. His arm hung in its bindings like a dead thing. He was wearing only his shirt and breeches, and he looked around for the rest of his gear.

“Wait a moment,” Alazar said. “You’ve just woken up, Finn. You’re in no condition to—”

“I’m not staying here, Doctor,” Finn said. “There’s no point anymore. I have my medicine. It’s all I’m going to need now.”

Finn found Corr not in his command chamber but on the burned and blackened observation platform, standing at a chart table with another of his lieutenants, a man named Kern. Instead of his usual cloak and mail Corr was wearing a dark, dully gleaming plate armour Finn had never seen before. His neck and part of his jaw was bandaged. Nonn, the ancient-looking leader of Corr’s dwarf allies, stood nearby, looking out over the valley with several of his people gathered around him. They were speaking among themselves in low voices and now and then darting glances at Corr.