Chapter XXIV
Confrontations
So up strides Jock and stands before the Other, so bold that he rocked from his heels to his toes and back again. “Oh, ho,” says he, and he holds up the bag of red pebbles that he’d gathered. “So all that rests on this beach is yours? Well, I say that what I’ve gathered is mine, and he who wants what is mine will not get it without me taking a piece of his flesh in exchange.” And Jack showed the Other his every tooth, from white in the front to black in the back, and his fist too doubled up like a tree knot. “I’ll slam you,” he says, “and I’ll rip your ears from the sides of your head.” And it’s certain that he would have that very moment, save that Others have no more ears than a toad, as any child knows.
But all the same, the Other knew he would not take the sack of red pebbles without a fight. So all in a moment, he shimmered and shook. He reeked of dead fish no longer then, but gave off the scent of every flower that blooms in high summer. He shivered his skin so he sparkled and to Jack’s eyes there was suddenly a maiden standing there, naked as a new leaf and licking her lips as if she tasted honey there.
I think that for a time I slept dreamlessly. Certainly I was weary enough. Far too much had happened to me, far too swiftly. Sleep was as much a respite from thought as it was rest. Yet after a time, dreams claimed me and tumbled me. I climbed the steps to Verity’s tower. He was sitting at the window, Skilling. My heart leapt joyfully at first sight of him, but when he turned to me, his face was grieved. “You did not teach my son, Fitz. I’ll have to take your daughter for that.” Both Nettle and Dutiful were stones on a game cloth, and with a single sweep of his hand, he exchanged their positions. “It’s your move,” he said. But before I could do anything, Jinna came to brush all the stones from the cloth into her hand. “I’ll make a charm of these,” she promised me. “One to protect all of the Six Duchies.”
“Put it away,” I begged her, for I was the wolf and the charm was one against predators. It sickened and cowed me just to behold it. It was potent, far more potent than any of the other charms she had shown me. It was magic stripped to its most basic form, all human sentiment abraded from it. It was magic of an older time and place, magic that cared nothing for people. It was as implacable as the Skill. It was sharp as knives and burning as poison. “Put it away!”
He couldn’t hear me. He had never been able to hear me. The Scentless One wore it around his throat, and he had opened his collar wide to bare it. It was all I could do to force myself to stand still and guard his back. Even behind him, I could feel its harsh radiance. I could smell blood, his and my own. I still felt the warm slow seep of my blood down my flank, and my strength dripping away with it.
A man with a whining dog stood guard over us, scowling. Behind him, a fire burned, and Piebalds slept around it. Beyond them was the open mouth of the shelter, and an edge of dawn in the sky. It seemed horribly far away. Our guard’s face was contorted, not just with anger but with fear and frustration. He longed to hurt us, but dared come no closer. It was not a dream. It was the Wit and I was with Nighteyes and he lived. The surge of joy I felt amused him but only for an instant. Your witnessing this will not make it easier for either of us. You should have stayed away from this. “Cover that damned thing!” the guard growled at him. “Make me!” the Scentless One suggested. I heard the Fool’s lilting reply with the wolf’s ears. The whip-snap of his old mockery capered in his words. Some part of him relished this defiance. His sword was gone, taken from him when they had been captured, but he sat defiantly straight, throat bared to show a charm that burned with cold magic. He had placed himself between the wolf and those who would torment him.
Nighteyes showed me a chamber, walls of stone, floor of earth. A cave, perhaps. He and the Fool were in a corner of it. Blood had sheeted down the side of the Fool’s tawny face. Dried, it had cracked so that he looked like a badly glazed pot. Nighteyes and the Fool were prisoners, violently taken but kept alive, the Fool because he might know where the Prince had gone and how, and the wolf because of his link to me.
They puzzled that out, that we are linked?
I’m afraid it was obvious to all.
From out of the shadows, the cat appeared. She stalked stiffly toward us. Her whiskers vibrated and her intent stare fixed on Nighteyes. When the guard’s dog turned to look at her, she spat and slashed at him. He leapt back with a yipe and the guard’s scowl deepened, but both he and his dog gave ground to her. She prowled back and forth, padding stiff-legged and casting sidelong glances up at the Fool while rumbling a threat in her throat. Her tail floated behind her.
The charm holds her at bay?
Yes. But not for long, I fear. The wolf’s next thought surprised me. The cat is a miserable creature, honeycombed with the woman as a sick deer is riddled with parasites. She stalks about with a human looking out of her eyes. She does not even move like a true cat anymore.
The cat halted suddenly and opened her mouth wide as if taking our scent. Then she suddenly spun about and trotted purposefully away.
You should not have come. She senses you are with me. She has gone to find the big man. He is bonded to a horse. The charm does not bother prey, nor those who bond with them.
The wolf’s thought rang with contempt for grass-eaters, but there was an element of dread behind it. I pondered it. The Fool’s charm was a charm against predators; it was logical it would not bother the man bonded to the warhorse.
Before I could follow that thought further, the cat returned with the man behind her. She sat down at his side, insufferably pleased with herself, and fixed us with a very uncatlike stare. The big man stared too, not at the defiant Fool, but past him at my wolf.
“There you are. We’ve been waiting for you,” he said slowly.
Nighteyes would not meet his gaze, but the big man’s words fell on his ears and came to me. “I have your friends, you treacherous coward. Will you betray them as you’ve betrayed your Old Blood? I know you’re somewhere with the Prince. I don’t know how you vanished, nor do I care. I say only this to you. Bring him back, or they die slowly.”
The Fool stood up between the man and my wolf. I knew he spoke to me when he said, “Don’t listen. Stay away. Keep him safe.”
I could not see past the Fool, but the shadow of the big man loomed suddenly larger. “Your hedge-witch charm means nothing to me, Lord Golden.”
Then the Fool’s flying body crashed suddenly into my battered wolf, and my Wit-bond to him vanished.
I jolted awake. I leapt to my feet, but all I saw was the graying of dawn and the empty beach. I heard only the cries of seabirds wheeling overhead. In my sleep, I had drawn my body up into a ball for warmth, but now I shook with something that was not cold. Sweat sheathed me and I was breathing hard. Sleep had fled completely. I stared out over the sea, my dream still vivid in my mind. I did not doubt the reality of it. I took a long, shuddering breath. The tide was rising again, but had not quite peaked. I sought in vain for some sign of a Skill-pillar thrusting up from the waves. I would have to wait until afternoon, when the water would be at full ebb. I dared not wonder what would happen to the Fool and Nighteyes in the intervening hours. If luck sided with me, the retreating waves would bare the pillar that had brought us here, and I would go back to them. The Prince would have to manage here on his own until I could return for him.
If the retreating water did not reveal the pillar I refused to consider what that might mean. Instead, I focused on the problems I could solve right now. Find food and eat it. Keep up my strength. And break the woman’s hold on the Prince. I turned to the still-sleeping boy and nudged him firmly with my foot. “Get up!” I grated at him.