The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) (30 page)

They moved on quickly, for they would have to retrace part of their way to make Ivrigar before nightfall. Murtach had learned of a great wolf pack that seemed to roam west of the Skriaig and had been seen by a few desperate hunters seeking deer beyond Ralarth’s borders. It was as great as an army, they said, and Rime Giants walked with it like shepherds. It was heading east. And there were grypesh also—the rat-boars who haunted the forests at night and stole into the streets when the moon was dark. They had carried off children. And where had the Hearthwares been then? And where had been Lionan’s fighting men, the retainers who were bound to protect Suardal as the Hearthwares were? No one had seen them for days. And the gates of Rim-Suardal were closed.

They rode on. One village had slain three men from the north who had tried to steal food, and they hung like scarecrows on a crude gibbet. Murtach ordered them cut down, white with anger. Hearthwares were the law in the land. He told those responsible their hamlet would burn if it happened again. They listened to him in stony silence—a dozen half-starved men with their womenfolk clustered behind them, infants whimpering at their skirts. The column gave them what food they had left, and rode on.

The farther west they went, the worse it became. They passed two prosperous-looking farmsteads that had been abandoned completely. One of them had the carcasses of wolves and grypesh, leathery and stinking, littering its yard. The mood of the party grew sombre. Even Ratagan seemed to have forgotten how to smile, and the sternness of the Myrcans deepened.

They turned south at last and began heading towards Ratagan’s home as their shadows lengthened and the second day of the patrol drew to a close. None of them had any particular wish to be abroad after dark. It began to rain, a steady stream that blew in from the east and beat against the stony flanks of the western hills. The Hearthwares shifted uncomfortably as the water ran down inside their armour, and fumbled oilskin cloaks from their saddle bows. The Myrcans let it run down their faces unheeded.

Then Tagan, the tracker, stopped and stood in his stirrups, his head up and his eyes narrowed. Murtach joined him. The two wolves stood by his horse with their ears pricked, and suddenly they began growling deep in their throats. Tagan pointed into the darkening hills, and Riven followed his finger. There was movement there amid the tumbled rocks that the dusk was making into a maze of shadow.

A thin sound beside him, and Ratagan had unsheathed his axe from its case at his pommel. The rain dripped from it. It ran down his forehead and into the deepset eyes below, trickling into his beard.

‘I believe we have company, my friend,’ he said softly.

Down the line, swords hissed out of oiled scabbards. A mule began to bray in alarm and a Myrcan struck it at once with his staff until it fell silent, blood oozing from its nose.

‘Grypesh!’ Murtach exclaimed quietly. They were moving in a dark tide along the contours of the hills. Riven could not make out individual animals, only the shape of the pack.

‘How many?’ he asked.

‘Three, four score,’ Isay said from behind him. There was a dreadful eagerness in his voice. Riven tried to dredge up images of their foes from his books, but the reality of the rain, the darkness, and the approaching pack left him no time to think.

Murtach spun his horse around like a centaur. ‘There are too many,’ he said. ‘We must ride—ride for Ivrigar. Luib, free the mules. Leave them. Tagan, lead on!’

And they sped forward with the squeals of the pack to their right as they were sighted, the clods and stones scattering from their horses’ hoofs, into a full, tearing gallop in the twilight. The rain beat at their eyes and the lurch of the uneven ground rollercoasted beneath them, jostling them in their saddles despite the grip of their tired knees. Riven felt a thrill of fear in his stomach, like liquid ice poured into the bottom of his lungs; and then it was all he could do to steer his terrified horse in Murtach’s wake, and stay aboard as it swerved past rocks and bushes, and leapt hollows with the thunder of the other horses like a storm in his ears, and the rain a freezing hail in his face that blinded him.

Behind them, they heard the death screams of the abandoned mules, and their steeds accelerated even more whilst the grey ghosts of Murtach’s wolves darted beside them at an impossible speed. They clattered downhill as though they were chasing an enemy. But the enemy was behind them. They could hear the squealing roars of their pursuers over the tumult of their mounts’ hoofs. The horses were terrified, the foam flying from their muzzles and their eyes circled with white. But they were nearly spent also.

Ahead, Murtach shouted and slowed. In a wide bowl there was the night glimmer of a stream which was churned to flashing silver as they thrashed through it, the spray soaking them to their thighs. And beyond it was the great black bulk of a building, rearing up against the night sky with lights flickering yellow and bright in its blankness.

They milled together and dismounted, the two Myrcans immediately running to the rear to intercept the pursuit. Riven saw something like a black tide sweep out of the stream, and then there was the green glow of eyes everywhere in the chaotic darkness, and the Myrcan staves were whistling and cracking down to break bones and shatter skulls. The air filled with a crescendo of screams in which the horses joined. Riven hung on to his mount’s bridle grimly whilst it bucked and reared in a desperate effort to get away. Warm slobber hit him in the face. He heard Murtach shouting, someone banging on timber frantically. Armoured figures drew their swords and shouted incoherently, joining the fight to the rear. He saw Ratagan’s axe flash like a star and bury itself in a hairy snout, splintering black blood.

Grypesh. They were like something out of a nightmare. They had the heads of rats; rats five feet long. But from the sides of their mouths projected the glistening tusks of boars, and they were crowned with great, bristling manes of stiff hair that ran down to the base of their spines. Their feet were clawed, but the legs were squat and powerful, the bodies ending in a hairless snake of tail. They squealed and roared alternately. Riven saw a Hearthware go down as one charged and sent him flying. He was immediately engulfed by three of its fellows. His ironclad limbs flailed in a scrum of fur and claws and wet teeth. But then Luib had stepped in, braining the beasts left, right and centre, hauling the stricken man back.

There was a rumble, and then torchlight spilled out over them as the gates of Ivrigar were opened. They laboured inside, trailing their horses by the reins, half of them fighting a ferocious rear guard battle whilst the grypesh massed within the gate and strove to win through to the courtyard beyond.

The rain grew heavier, slicking the ground. Riven drew his sword. The horses were free in the courtyard now, cantering about in terror whilst Ivrigar’s people tried to control them. Others were fighting to shut the gate, pushing against the sheer weight of the beasts in the gateway.

They’re trying to get to me.

The thought came to him in an instant as he stood, hesitating over whether to join the fight. The grypesh were clawing over their own dead to get through the gate whilst swords and staves and Ratagan’s axe took a fearful toll. But why?

And then Ratagan went down with a grypesh at his throat, and Riven forgot about hesitating. He waded in with his sword swinging, and felt the jar down his arm as it almost decapitated an animal. He swung again and again, and felt the slow, red pain in his shoulder and ribs grow with each swing. The world flickered in his sight. He helped Ratagan away, the big man leaning on him for support and cursing his lameness.

And then it was over. The gates boomed shut, and the last grypesh in the yard was slain. The rain covered Riven’s face, trickling off the armoured Hearthwares in streams. They were gasping like sprinters. Outside they could hear the rest of the pack throwing themselves against the timber of the gate and the outer wall. There was desperation and hate in their squeals. Riven felt sick.

‘Well met, my friend,’ Ratagan croaked. ‘We are for ever saving each other’s neck, you and I.’ He halted, striving to get his breath. ‘A fine tradition. Long may it—may it continue.’ And his grin was a flash of teeth in the torchlight and the flame-kindled rain.

‘Ratagan. My lord.’

A woman’s voice in the crowd of warriors and attendants, and a slight figure appeared, hooded against the rain, the Ivrigar people making way for her. She threw the hood back, revealing gold hair that shone in the rain.

‘Come inside. You are hurt, and I must welcome you back to your home.’

Ratagan’s grin faded.

T
HERE WAS NO
light in the room save that of the fire. It was a large fire, the mantle above it the height of Riven’s shoulders, and it was as long as a bed. The flames licked up round thigh-thick logs and made the iron firedogs into burning icons. The fire filled the room with a tawny, saffron light and poured pools of impenetrable shadow in the far corners. Its light revealed a high-ceilinged room barred with black rafters, a flagged floor, and a long, heavy table set with unlit candles and piled with clothing and weapons of one sort or another. Before the fire, Ratagan and Riven sat on two high-backed wooden settles. The big man had a full flagon tilting in his fist and a tense cast to his face. They had both changed into dry clothes. Ratagan cocked his head to listen to the race of the wind outside that creaked the rafters.

A door opened, and Isay entered with a tray of platters of food. The woman followed him. There was a scrape as she brought a taper forth from a tin box and leaned towards the fire to light it. Ratagan took it from her wordlessly and held it in the flames till it had caught. She smiled at him, but he buried his nose in his beer.

The candles were lit and the room brightened, suddenly becoming bare as the high walls leapt into view.

‘What news?’ Ratagan asked the firedogs.

‘The beasts have drawn off,’ the woman said. She had a high voice, and there was something of a shake in it. ‘Murtach and the others are going round some of the outlying tenants now, to ensure they came to no harm.’

‘It was a fine fight,’ Isay said, and his eyes were shining in the candlelight.

Ratagan grunted. ‘Would have been finer still had the invalids but been allowed to stay in it. I’ll have words with Murtach when he returns.’

‘It was a running fight, at the last,’ Isay said. ‘Your leg—and the Teller’s weakness—would not have let you stay with it.’

‘The Myrcan speaks truly, Ratagan,’ the woman said. She set a hand on one huge shoulder. ‘Must you always be straining at the leash to bloody your blade?’ She was small, slim, with the pale-gold hair plaited behind her head, and steady blue eyes. Aelin. Ratagan’s wife.

‘It is one of the few things in which I excel,’ Ratagan said. ‘Another is drinking.’ He emptied his flagon, and after a minute’s hesitation she took it over to the table to refill it.

Riven shifted uneasily. Aelin had brought them inside and the battle had restarted, Murtach attacking the grypesh still outside. But now it was over, and Isay had rejoined them, along with a trio of wounded Hearthwares who were being tended in the hall below with their armour stripped off beside them. And Murtach was out with the others, harrying the defeated pack on foot and doing the rounds of the surrounding farms.

And since then, Ratagan had hardly said a civil word to his wife, though she looked at him almost imploringly at times, and Riven had seen him gaze at her when her head was turned, brow creased in pain. It was a side of Ratagan that he had never guessed at. Riven was not sure he wanted to know the reason. He had had enough experience of strangers probing his own hurts without wanting to pry into those of others.

Aelin brought them food on wooden platters. It was good, wholesome fare: rye bread and cheese, apples and meat. But the apples were wrinkled from long storage, and the meat had been salted to preserve it.

‘How are things?’ Ratagan asked her quietly, slicing into his cheese.

She joined him on the settle. ‘Fair enough, for the times. We have had losses, but not so many as some. The patrols pass here as regularly as always. We have had a few of Lionan’s men here once or twice, some wounded. It is worse in the north, they say. Something will have to be done.’ She flicked a quick look at Riven, taking in his scarred forehead and the Teller badge on his breast, its thread shining in the firelight.

‘There are rumours of people in the mountains...’

‘What people?’ Ratagan asked sharply.

‘The Hidden Folk. Some say it is they who are bringing about these times that are upon us. Lionan’s men said that the Dales needed to be purged and united. They said there was evil walking the hills in many guises—that there are witches in the high places, and warlocks who seek the fellowship of men.’ Again, she looked at Riven.

Abruptly, Ratagan threw the chunk of bread he had been gnawing into the fire. ‘Horseshit!’ He hobbled upright and put his back to it. ‘These are Lionan’s people who say this, and Lionan consorts with Bragad now. These tales are to suit the aims of Garrafad and Carnach. Times are bad enough without men running up old horror tales of the Hidden Folk in the mountains.’

‘Then what is doing it?’ she asked, her face tilted up to him and her throat a fine line in the firelight.

‘I...’ he faltered. ‘I don’t know. No one does. Not even Guillamon.’