The Reluctant Mage Page 26

  The two beasts were scarcely touched.

  Half-unseated, mostly blinded with sweat, pain shrieking though his right arm, Ewen wheeled talon-raked Granite sideways and shook his head, trying to see. But the horse tripped over its own hooves and stumbled and it was enough to throw him clear out of the saddle. Granite panicked, shying away. He hit the bloodied ground hard—and dropped Tavin’s sword.

  A yowling roar. Beast hooves pounding. Winded and flailing, fumbling for Blood-drinker, Ewen looked up and saw curved horns, scarlet eyes, talons sharper than knives.

  I’m going to die.

  “Ewen!” Ivyn shouted. “Ewen, you fool, watch out!”

  Snatching up Blood-drinker, he threw himself to the left and saw Ivyn ride his black gelding right over a beast.

  The horse went down, forelegs breaking. The beast went down with it, talons sunk into Ivyn’s thigh. Ivyn let out a choked cry of agony. Pinned beneath horse and beast he raised his sword-arm, the blade flashing, then plunged his weapon deep into dark blue scaly hide. The beast fought back, ripping at him, at his horse, yowling and screeching and fighting not to die.

  Ewen staggered to his feet. Ivyn. But he couldn’t help his cousin, and there was another beast. Turning, he saw it, splattered with blood, snuffling towards Bryn and Noyce.

  No. No. Not them too.

  He charged the beast, screaming. Felt the dreadful shock up his right arm as Blood-drinker sliced through heavy beast hide. Heard himself grunt as beast talons slashed his back. His body was on fire, and the pain spurred him into rage. He was his sword. He was Blood-drinker.

  He hacked the beast down.

  Heaving for air, running hot with sweat and blood, he stared at the butchered thing at his feet. And then, a feeble sound behind him. He turned.

  Ivyn.

  The beast pinned with his fractious cousin under the dying black gelding was still alive. He thrust Blood-drinker between its ribs, searching for its heart. The beast thrashed. The blade broke. Uncaring, he dropped to his knees and stared at Ivyn, speechless.

  Ivyn stared back, breathed out, and died.

  Silence in the woodland. A slowly sinking sun. Ewen looked around at his dead men, at the dead horses, at the dead beasts with their horns and hides and almost-human eyes.

  Beasts? In my kingdom? Oh, spirit. The world is lost.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Well,” said Charis. “I think we might be in trouble.”

  With a sigh, Deenie looked at what remained of their supplies. Six strips of dried beef, four paper packets of nuts and one and a half of dry biscuits, so stale now that even a miserly sprinkling of water couldn’t turn them edible. And it had to be miserly, because only two full ’skins remained. They’d tried fishing, but that had proven unfortunate. Eating their catch raw made them so sick they thought they’d die.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” said Charis, gloomy.

  Deenie nodded. “Sadly, I think you might be.”

  The skiff sat becalmed on gently rolling water, days and days beyond Dragonteeth Reef. On one side of them the ocean stretched unchanging towards the horizon. On the other loomed the mysterious coastline, a brooding shadow. A constant menace. A blue sky sat above them, cloudless—for the moment. That tended to change swiftly, so they could never rest entirely easy.

  And now they had yet another reason to fret.

  “Deenie…” Charis shoved salt-sticky hair out of her red-rimmed eyes. “I know you don’t want to, I know the thought makes you ill, but is there a choice now?”

  No, no. Please, no. “We could wait one more day.”

  “Yes, we could,” said Charis, close to snappish. “We could halve again what we’re eating and drinking and wait two more days. Or three, even. But will three more days see us sailed past what’s left of the blighted lands?”

  She wanted to say yes so much her teeth ached. “Well, I’m not—maybe—” But she couldn’t lie. Not to Charis. “No.”

  “Then we don’t have a choice, do we?” Cross-legged on the skiff’s floorboards, Charis slapped her knee. “We have to make landfall and take our chances.”

  Shivering, Deenie wriggled round on the rower’s bench and stared across the slow, shallow up-and-down waves. Just the thought of travelling the lands beyond Barl’s Mountains made her feel ill. Even with the skiff this far out—which was as far away as they could safely sail, any further and they’d lose all protection the coast afforded—the blight sickened her. It crept over the shifting ocean like a poisonous fog. Awake or asleep, she couldn’t escape its foul taste. Since opening herself to the twisted magics in the reef it seemed she’d become utterly defenceless.

  I had to let the reef in, I had no choice. But I think I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.

  “I’m sorry, Deenie, truly,” said Charis. “It’s just I’m not keen on the notion of starving to death.”

  “It won’t be safe there, you know.”

  Charis snorted at that. “It’s not safe here. Or haven’t you noticed?”

  Yes, but I’d rather face a hundred storms or go back to sail the whirlpools than set one foot on blighted land.

  “Charis, we can make landfall, we’ll find an inlet or a bay to pull into, but that doesn’t mean we’ll find anything to eat,” she pointed out. “And even if we do, what we find could well be tainted. Or worse. I know you can’t feel anything, but I can and—”

  “And it doesn’t matter! We still have to try!” From the look on Charis’s face, she wanted to slap more than her knee. “Deenie, we talked about this before ever we left Lur. We knew from the start we’d have to forage wild food while we’re hunting for Rafel.”

  She frowned at the brooding coast. The almost-healed reef cuts on her fingers were itching. “I don’t want to forage in the blighted lands, Charis.”

  “And if we’d not taken so long to fight our way to Dragonteeth Reef and beyond it, and if we’d not lost nearly three days with no wind, and another day after that storm beyond the reef, we wouldn’t need to,” Charis retorted. “But all that happened, Deenie, so we do.”

  Never had she been so close to hating her best friend. She thought Charis was close to hating her back.

  We’re exhausted. We’re hungry. And worse than that, we’re terrified.

  She looked at the flat and hanging sail, its belly as empty as her own. “We’ll have to row.”

  “Then we’ll row,” said Charis. “I swear, Deenie, if I have to jump over the side and push this skiff to land, I will. I want firm ground beneath my feet. I want to drink fresh water and eat something that doesn’t threaten to break every tooth in my mouth!”

  “Jump over the side?” Somehow, she managed to smile. “Charis Orrick, you can’t swim.”

  Charis threw up her hands. “The mood I’m in, Deenie, that trifling fact won’t stop me!”

  No, clearly it wouldn’t. Charis had reached her over-stretched limit. “Then best you pack away what little food we’ve got left,” she said. “For if the blighted lands disappoint us, and I think it’s likely they will, then what we have will have to last us a while yet.”

  So Charis put the dried beef and the nuts and the stale biscuits and the waterskins back in their sack and stowed them safely under the skiff’s sheet of canvas. Then they unshipped the oars and started pulling for land.

  The closer they came to the coastline the worse she felt. By the time a quick glance over their shoulders showed them the shore close enough to make out details, her insides were knotted like old fishing nets and she could hardly see for the sick sweat in her eyes and the pain pounding behind them.

  “Deenie?” said Charis, anxious. She was breathing hard too, but only because rowing on an empty stomach was miserable hard work. When they started this journey she’d been prettily plump. Now she was lean, like a Restharven fisherman. “Deenie, say something.”

  “Stop rowing a moment,” she gasped. “So we can see what’s what.”

  With a sob of relief Charis raised her oar and hel
d it out of the water. Deenie, holding hers, tried to work out where they were and gave up.

  “Take mine too. I want to have a proper look.”

  After all these days of learning, whether she wanted to or not, Charis was quite a tidy sailor. She shifted along the bench, took hold of the second oar then let both dip into the water so she could keep the skiff trim.

  “Well? What do you see?” she said, after a few impatient moments. “Is there somewhere we can pull into shore?”

  “Could be,” Deenie muttered. On her knees in the bow, fingers bloodless on the skiff’s sides, it was taking all her strength to beat back the roiling waves of blight. “There’s a beach. It’s small, and I think mostly stones.”

  “Who cares about stones? We’ve got boots.”

  “Yes, but—” Squinting, Deenie shaded her eyes with one hand. “Beyond the beach all I can see is lots of rocks and boulders.”

  “Rocks?” said Charis, alarmed. “What about grass or woodland? What about fresh water? What about people? Is there any sign of people?”

  She shook her head. “None.”

  “Oh.” Charis sounded crushed. “Then maybe we’ve picked the wrong place. Maybe there’s somewhere better further along.”

  Deenie returned to the bench and took back her oar. “And if we do row further along and don’t find anything? Charis, for all we know this is the only place to get onto dry land for days. It looks bad from here, but could be we’ll find signs of life beyond the rocks.”

  “And could be we won’t,” said Charis. “Deenie—”

  Sink it, she was the most contrary woman. “Charis, you’re the one insisting we have to set foot on blighted land. You’re the one says we can’t afford to wait. So if we can’t wait then we have to try our luck now, don’t we? You can ride your horse or lead it. You can’t do both.”

  “Fine,” Charis sighed. “We’ll set ashore on the rocky beach and cross our fingers for a miracle.”

  “Good.” Deenie dropped her oar into the water. “Now let’s keep rowing. It’s past noon already and no matter what you say or how prettily you plead I’ll not stay on blighted land after dark.”

  Huffing, Charis dropped her oar too. “I don’t know why you’re fratched at me. I’m not the one who turned the beach rocky.”

  “I know you’re not,” she said, contrite. “Don’t mind me. It’s my belly griping. I’m as hungry as you are.”

  Working smoothly together, not having to think about it any more, they rowed the skiff for the small, stony beach. The tide was on the turn, starting to run out.

  “Is that good?” said Charis, as they eased the skiff towards the gently sloping shelf of water-tumbled stones.

  Deenie shrugged. “I don’t know that it’s bad. At least we can get the skiff up high, away from the water’s edge. Since there’s nowhere to moor it that’s the only way to stop it floating back out to sea.”

  “And when does the tide rise again?”

  “To be sure, we shouldn’t stay any later than dusk.” And hopefully we’ll stay a far shorter time than that. “Come on. We’ll need to pull it the rest of the way.”

  They splashed into the shallows and wrestled the skiff as far up the stony beach as they could manage. The bright blue water was cold, goosebumping their skin. The air smelled briny and old. Stale. In her blood, in her bones, Deenie felt the blight seething.

  Don’t think on it. Don’t. Pretend you’re somewhere nice.

  With the skiff as secure as they could make it, she pulled out the hessian sack full of emptied waterskins. Finding food was important, but replenishing their water supply was vital.

  “Let’s get on then,” she said, the sack balanced over one shoulder, trying not to take her pain out on Charis. Trying to sound cheerful, and hopeful, and in no distress.

  Not fooled, Charis brushed gentle fingers down her arm. “I’m sorry. I wish I could make it better for you.”

  Dear Charis. “So do I, but you can’t. Don’t fratch on it. None of this is your fault.”

  “Well, no,” said Charis. “But—” And then she let out a startled squeak. “Deenie! My legs won’t work!”

  Without the skiff to drag, and with a moment to stand still and catch her breath after, the oddness of being on solid ground again after days and days on the ocean had caught the city girl unprepared.

  “Yes, they will,” Deenie said, amused even though the blight was seething. “Just keep walking. They’ll remember what to do.”

  But it was more like a stagger, for both of them, as they picked their way to the ground beyond the beach.

  “It’s so quiet,” said Charis, stopping to stare at the surrounding emptiness. Grey rock and brown rock, slicked wet in patches, dull dry in others. Cracks and little crevices, but no scuttling crabs or shy whelkies or rock pools sweet with anemones. “There aren’t even any sea birds. And that’s a pity, for where there are birds, there are eggs.” She moaned. “I could eat a boiled egg.”

  Stopped beside her, Deenie grimaced. “Not a boiled seagull’s egg, you couldn’t. Rafel played that trick on me once, when we were spratlings. The first time Da and Mama took us down to the coast. I told you that story, remember? And you laughed and laughed ’cause I was sick the whole day after.”

  “I remember,” Charis said, after a long pause. “And I scolded him for it, but he just laughed at me.”

  Rafel.

  They rarely talked of him. There was nothing to say.

  Deenie pushed her matted hair out of her eyes. “Mama did more than scold. She swatted him, good and proper.”

  And there was another pain, another bramble patch to stumble through. She had to bite her lip to hold back the tears.

  “It’ll get easier, Deenie,” Charis whispered. “It will.”

  “So it’s easy for you now, is it? With Uncle Pellen dead?”

  Charis frowned at the ocean. “It’ll never be easy. But the pain softens. With time.”

  Or else you just get used to feeling it. Like the blight. But Charis was trying to help, so she nodded. “Doubtless that’s true.” She looked ahead across the rocky ground. “Come on. Dusk’ll be on us before we know it.”

  They started walking again. Soon after, Charis gave a little shiver. “I think you were right, Deenie. This place feels wrong. There’s not so much as a hint that anyone’s been here in years. It feels—it feels—dead.”

  It feels worse than dead, Charis. But she didn’t say that aloud. “Prob’ly this was never a place many people came to visit. What’s to see? Rocks and stones and a nasty little beach.”

  “More than that, I hope,” said Charis, glumly. “We can’t eat rocks and stones.”

  Which was true, and a worry. Lapsing into uneasy silence they pushed on across the harsh terrain, picking their way through boulders strewn careless like a spratling’s marbles. The sky stayed cloudless, the air cool. Their wet boots and legs dried slowly and their salt-soaked clothing chafed. Oh, for a hot bath and soft soap. For a mattress and a pillow. For a belly not shrunk small and growling with hunger.

  And to walk through a land not blasted with blight.

  “Look!” said Charis, pointing. “Are those trees? I think they’re trees!”

  There was woodland ahead of them. Not lush, not exuberant, only green-brown grass and twisted saplings and older trees bent with age and lightning strike. A fringe of life on the edge of the barren landscape.

  Charis laughed. “That’s a good sign. Could be our luck’s turning, Deenie.”

  Their luck hadn’t been too bad so far. They weren’t drowned or sunk or whipped up in a waterspout. They weren’t dragged to the ocean’s depths by a whirlpool. They hadn’t smashed to pieces on the reef. Except—

  What if that was all our luck used up? What if things go from bad to worse from here?

  But that was another thing she couldn’t say aloud. So much she couldn’t say. So much she had to keep from Charis.

  And in her blood the blight seethed and seethed.

>   There were birds in the woodland, plain brown things that clattered skywards in alarm at the sight of two weary, salt-stained girls.

  “Maybe they’ve got eggs,” said Charis, ever hopeful.

  Deenie shook her head. “If they have they can keep them. I don’t fancy climbing any of these trees.”

  “No,” said Charis, and heaved a regretful sigh. “They are horribly spindly.” Glancing at the twig-littered ground she gave a delighted squeal, then hunkered into a crouch. “Rabbit droppings. And they’re fresh.”

  “Maybe they are,” she said, uneasy, “but I don’t see any rabbits. Do you?”

  “They’re around here somewhere,” said Charis. “I can feel them. Their warrens must be close by. They must be practically underfoot.”

  And they were, as good as. Even through the blight, thinking on them, she could feel their tiny rabbit lives.

  Charis noticed. “Ha! You do feel them, don’t you? Good. Then that’s supper solved. There’s plenty of dry wood to be found, I’m sure, so we can get a fire going. Oh, Deenie!” She pressed a hand to her middle. “A hot meal at last. I so want a hot meal. I never want to eat dried beef or nuts or hard-tack biscuits again, ever.”

  And neither did she, only… “Charis, to cook rabbits first we have to catch rabbits. And to catch them we have to see them. Feeling them isn’t seeing them.”

  Pouting, Charis stared at the droppings. And then, slowly, she looked up. “Deenie…”

  She knew that look. She’d come to mistrust that look. Despite her aching bones, she straightened out of her slump. “What?”

  With a little grunt of effort, because she was very tired, they both were, Charis stood. “You told me once how Rafel called fish in Dragon’s Eye Pond. When he was a boy. And your mother used to call wild rabbits sometimes, Rafel told me that.”

  “Yes,” she said, wary. “So?”

  “So we can call some rabbits, can’t we?”

  “Call them and kill them, you mean?”