Hakon looked away, his face hot. “I didn’t believe any of it, anyway.”
When Kari woke, Brochael made him eat. “Are they back yet, ravenmaster?” Skapti asked.
Kari nodded, swallowing. “We have to follow them.”
“Follow them? Where?” Brochael demanded.
“I don’t know. They’ve asked me to release them. Some sort of spell holds them here.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then we’ll never leave the wood, Brochael. None of us.”
Jessa rubbed her chilled wrists. She caught Skapti’s eye and he shrugged. “That’s one tale you can believe, Hakon.”
They mounted up, and Hakon heaved his sword out of the ground. At once Jessa felt unprotected, watched. They rode down the path that Skapti had found the night before. Around them the wood rustled, creaking with movement. All through the morning the realization grew in them that a crowd of invisible presences surrounded them; behind the creak of saddle leather they began to hear the swish of feet through bracken and crisp drifts of leaves.
Soon Jessa grew wary of looking back; she had begun to see movements in the trees, to glimpse tall shapes that kept pace with them, and noticing Hakon’s white, fixed look, she guessed he had seen them too. None of them spoke now; Kari rode ahead, the ravens flapping over him, Brochael saying nothing, but watching anxiously.
At midmorning they came to a hollow and rode down it in single file, the hooves crumbling the rich loam. At the bottom Kari paused, looking into the trees at the left of the path.
“In there.”
The plantation was dark, thickly overgrown. A curious smell came from it, musty—a smell of old, rotting things. Gently he eased his horse off the path, ducking under low branches. As the others followed, Brochael muttered, “Weapons ready. All of you.”
Behind them, all around them, the wood seethed with its silent army, crowding between the trees. Down Kari rode, almost lost ahead among the leaves, and then Jessa saw sunlight flicker on his hair, and she rode out after him into a great swath of open land choked with brambles and bracken.
They all stopped, looking ahead.
Before them was the mouth of a cave, huge, like the entrance to the underworld.
Jessa knew this was the place. It stank of death; flies buzzed in its windless silence. Among the bracken were heaps of rusted weapons, helms and shields, rotting into the soft soil. As the riders moved forward they felt as if the horses were treading among bones and snagged cloth and moss, sinking in deep. Disgusted, Jessa looked back. Among the trees she could see them now, the wraith army, long-haired and gaunt, their faces cold and remote.
At the cave mouth the travelers dismounted. Brochael peered into the dark. “In there?”
“Yes.” Kari slipped past him, and the others followed, leaving the horses outside.
The cave was damp, dripping with water. Ferns sprouted from rock crevices, and other blanched, unhealthy growths dripped liquid from their cold fronds. The shuffle of footsteps rang in the roof.
“How far in?” Hakon wondered.
“I don’t know!” Jessa grinned at him. “Worried?”
He pulled a face. “All this witchery terrifies me. You know that.”
She nodded, thinking that not many people would have said it. But Hakon never pretended.
He slipped and she grabbed his elbow. “Don’t collapse on me.”
“It’s getting darker.”
It was. As they left the entrance behind, the dimness in front of them seemed thicker. Jessa stared into it, her nerves tight. Something was there, something dark, appalling.
Kari made some light. He lifted his hand and a glowing ring grew in the air, crackling with blue flames.
Hakon caught her arm. In the rune light they saw a tree. A huge, dead ash tree. It was enormous; it towered above them into the roof of the cave, and far up in its bleached bare branches hung helmets and shields and the skulls of horses, turning and creaking slowly in the stillness. At the base of the tree a ring of swords had been rammed into the ground, between the spread roots.
As Kari stepped toward it, Jessa began to feel afraid of it; its branches were twisted and strangely askew, as if it had had more than tree life, as if it had moved. Pulling out of Hakon’s grip, she jumped from rock to rock and landed just behind Kari.
“Wait!” Jessa cried.
Kari turned.
“Don’t go any nearer! I don’t trust it.”
Behind her Skapti said, “She’s right. This is an evil place. Only the gods know what went on here. And Gudrun.”
“You recognize it, then.”
They all did. The white snake was carved on the tree, into the heartwood, its lithe body winding around and around the dead, smooth bark, and the moss would not grow on it, as if the oozings of its skin poisoned them.
Kari took one step closer.
The crack rang in the roof; he and Jessa flung themselves aside, the branch crashing beside them, scattering sand and bark. Raising her head, she knew she was covered in dust; pain throbbed in her side where she’d bruised it against a rock.
Hakon hauled her up roughly.
“Be careful!” she whispered.
Kari stood up too, the echoes of the fall dying in the roof.
They looked at the huge branch, split with age, tinder-dry.
Brochael turned to Kari. “What do you want to do?”
“Burn it.” His voice was bleak and cold and he looked at them unhappily. “This is the source of the spell. Burn it and they’ll all be free.”
Brochael unsheathed his knife. “At least there’s plenty of kindling....” He stopped as Kari laid a hand on his arm. Glancing at the boy’s face, he said, “I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.”
“Nothing will burn it except rune fire.” He glanced back. “Take the horses farther away.”
Hakon went back and caught the bridles, dragging the horses to a safer distance.
Kari stood near the tree, tiny in its shadow. High in the branches his two ravens perched and hopped among the twisting shields. At his call they swooped down to him.
He stood still. A draft of air ruffled his hair and the collar of his dark coat. Then, suddenly, he stepped back.
The tree shivered, as if a wind had passed through it. Then Jessa saw a flicker of red spark along the dry bark. Smoke formed a haze; the almost invisible flame roared along the lowest branches, and suddenly the tree was ablaze, an inferno of hot, blackening wood, spitting sparks high into the cave roof. And the snake, writhing among it, came twisting and slithering down, unwinding itself as if it would escape, blackening and opening into a roaring hole of heat. She caught hold of Kari and drew him away; then they both turned and ran for the cave mouth, stumbling among drifts of smoke and the stench of burning. Coughing, her face smarting and her eyes sore, Jessa looked into the forest.
The wraith army waited.
“It’s over,” Kari said to them.
For a moment they stood there, watching the smoke stream from the cave. Then the ghost with the broken face nodded. “Our thanks, sorcerer. And a word of advice. The rainbow is not safe to walk on. Not for you.”
Kari glanced at the others. He knew they had not heard.
“And this warning is only for me?”
“Only for you.”
The wraith army turned. Silently they walked away.
Eleven
Boards shall be found of a beauty to wonder at,
Boards of gold in the grass long after,
The chess boards they owned in olden days.
All afternoon as they rode on, a mighty column of black smoke rose behind them, dissipating over the wood. Hours later, from higher ground, they looked back and could still see it, drifting east, the trees around them flexing and hissing in the rising gale.
“Why did she do it?” Jessa said thoughtfully.
“Spite.” Brochael was watching the sky. “The same as with Signi. I don’t like the look of this wind. We’ll have rain. Maybe snow.”