Raven Flight Page 15

  Relief to be on dry land at last did not overwhelm my caution. “What about …?” I murmured, indicating the men with a jerk of the head.

  “It’s safe here,” Flint said.

  I could not believe this. Nowhere in all Alban was safe, save Shadowfell. Where the king did not have eyes and ears, there were always ordinary folk ready to betray their neighbors. “But—”

  “It’s safe, Neryn.” Flint helped me out of the boat and onto the pebbles. I waited while he and Tali hauled the craft up and secured the rope around a stone slab. As we’d reached shore, the birds had risen in a cloud, then winged away across the island. A solitary gull watched us from the rocks nearby. “These folk know me.”

  We slung on our packs, grasped our staves, walked up the beach. My knees were wobbly; I could not balance. If anything, I felt sicker than I had on the boat. And now here was one of the old men, rising without haste, walking over to take my elbow and guide me to the bench.

  “Sit ye doon awhile, lassie, ye’re the hue o’ fresh cheese. No’ a sailor, are ye?”

  And while I muttered a thank-you, the other old man said to Flint, “I hardly knew ye, laddie. The winters sit hard on ye.” He examined Flint, his blue eyes bright and farseeing in a face seamed by age and weather. “How lang will ye be bidin’ in these pairts?”

  “A day or two, old friend, no more. I’ve come only to see Neryn and her guard here safely across.” Flint nodded toward Tali, who was standing somewhat apart, scanning the terrain around us as if Enforcers might appear at any moment despite Flint’s promises of safety. “I’ll be needing a lift back to Pentishead.”

  “Oh, aye.” The tone was measured. I thought it would take a lot to disturb the natural calm of these two islanders. They seemed like men who had seen many storms come and go, and who had the measure of most folk. But not Flint, I thought. Plainly they knew him. They knew him well. They spoke to him as if he belonged here; he addressed them with the respect due to familiar elders. But if he had once been one of them, surely he was no longer. A king’s man. An Enforcer. Worse than that, an Enthraller. Could it be these folk knew nothing of his other life?

  “One o’ the lads will ferry ye tae the mainland, when ’tis time,” the old man said.

  “Twa days,” commented the other ancient. “ ’Tisna lang. There’s folk will be wantin’ to see ye. Three winters, that’s a guid while tae be awa’.”

  Flint made no response to this, but came to crouch down beside me. He took my hands in his. “Where do we go now, Neryn?”

  “Take the narrow pathway to the west, over Lanely Muir,” I said, quoting Hawkbit. “When we get to the end, we wait.”

  “The lassie doesna seem fit for a lang walk,” observed one of the old men. “ ’Tis quite a way.”

  “I’m perfectly fit.” I rose to my feet. The ground tilted; I fixed my eyes on a point straight ahead and managed not to fall. “If the boat will be safe here, we should move on.” As I spoke, the solitary gull took flight, following the narrow pathway that led from the sheltered bay up the hill before us. This was a place of stone and rough grass; nothing grew higher than my knees.

  “Your wee boatie will meet wi’ nae harm.”

  The old men watched us go. Halfway up the hill I looked over my shoulder. The two of them were back on their bench, gazing out across the water, where a single fishing vessel moved on the swell, a mere speck in the immensity of the sea. Looking back eastward, I saw the humps of the bigger isles, part veiled in sea mist, but I could not see the mainland. It was a strange feeling to be thus cut off from the rest of Alban. Something inside me longed to stay here, to ride out the storm in safe harbor as so many of the Good Folk had chosen to do when Keldec’s rule plunged our peaceful realm into darkness. To leave cruelty and hardship, wars and struggles, for other people to deal with.

  “All right, Neryn?” Tali was climbing the track with her usual ease, seemingly not in the least tired by the trip.

  “Fine.”

  The gull flew above us, moving in slow circles to keep pace. An ordinary bird in every respect, complete with webbed feet. But nothing was ordinary here. For now, as my legs reacquainted themselves with solid ground and the queasy feeling subsided, I began to sense the strength of Ronan’s Isle, an old, old strength. Magic breathed from every stone. The air was alive with it. The sea that circled the isle whispered tales of wonder. There were Good Folk here, no doubt at all of that.

  “You should wrap up your weapons now,” I told my companions. “I feel uncanny presences here. The Hag may be close.”

  In fact, Flint was carrying no visible weaponry, though I doubted he would go anywhere completely unarmed. Tali took out the cloak she had put in her bag, slipped her knives from their sheaths, wrapped them in the garment, and stowed them without a word.

  We climbed the hill, and found ourselves on the edge of a broad, treeless area that must surely be the Lanely Muir the Northies had mentioned. There was indeed not a soul to be seen here, only some tough-looking sheep with wool in long, twisted locks, grazing with new lambs by their sides. To the south, at a distance, a cluster of low stone dwellings huddled behind protective walls, and between them and us stood stacks of peat drying in the wind. I could see the dark gouges in the earth where folk had been digging, and here and there a patch of water shining amid the brown. Above the moorland the spring sky was alive with birds.

  The gull led us, now winging ahead, now alighting on a stone or a stretch of tumbledown wall to wait while we caught up. We made our way across the island to the west, where the rising land of the moor gave way, with shocking abruptness, to sheer cliffs. There had been cliffs on the Northies’ map, but nothing could have prepared me for this. The height was immense—surely we had not climbed so far? The cliff edge was split with crevices, its uneven surface treacherous. Here and there sections had broken away to stand alone, craggy giants with the ocean washing white around their feet far, far below us. Each solitary stack was crowned with a colony of nesting gannets, and in the nooks and crannies of the precipice more birds roosted. The noise of their voices filled the air, a constant screaming. Birds dived to the sea below and rose with fish in their beaks. Others circled above, perhaps seeking their own young among a myriad of squawking, jostling creatures.

  “What now?” Tali had eased off her pack and was looking along the cliffs, one way, then the other.

  “We wait. Perhaps not right here.” I recalled the tiny Twayblade seated on the very edge of the cliff, dangling his feet over the mind-numbing drop. “We might sit over there by the wall.”

  The drystone wall had probably been erected to keep the livestock from coming to grief. It seemed whoever had built it had run out of energy quite soon, as the wall stretched only a short distance along the cliff top. We sat, our backs to the stones, our faces to the endless sea. The gull flew off with a squawk.

  “Couldn’t we explore along the cliff top?” asked Tali. “Maybe look for some sign of her? I don’t know where a Hag would live, but you mentioned a cave. She’s hardly going to come strolling along looking for us.”

  “We wait because that’s what we were told to do. We don’t go exploring. We might blunder in somewhere we’re not welcome and cause offense. I’m here seeking a big favor. I need to approach it in the right spirit.” It occurred to me that when I’d met the Master of Shadows, he had indeed come strolling along looking for me, if in a somewhat roundabout way. I had not sought him out; he had approached me.

  Silence, then. Flint was beside me, his legs stretched out, his hand right beside mine. I found myself wishing, unreasonably, that Tali were somewhere else.

  “Tell me more about this change in the Good Folk,”

  Flint said eventually. “I thought your friend Sage was unusual in her support for the cause. But it seems the tide has turned far sooner than anyone expected.”

  We broke the news to him that Lannan Long-Arm had set a time limit on his support. We explained the council at Shadowfell, and the Good Folk’
s belief that a season of change was upon all of us.

  “Sage and Red Cap left Shadowfell to spread word of the rebellion to their own kind in the west,” I said. “The Good Folk of the north, those who live under Shadowfell, were going on a similar mission. And there was talk of using birds, or fey folk who can fly, to carry the message. I was wondering if word had traveled ahead of us. Now that we’ve found you, I’m sure of it.”

  “Birds. Extraordinary. But, then, you have a habit of making the extraordinary happen.”

  Tali told him about Regan and the others: where they had gone, what they hoped to achieve before next winter closed the paths. Flint listened in silence. Of his own business he told us nothing. The sun moved into the west; the shadows began to lengthen. Flint took off his cloak and put it around my shoulders. Tali was restless, getting up, walking a few paces, sitting down again.

  “Gifts,” I said, realizing I had forgotten this important aspect of dealing with the Good Folk. “We should make an offering to show goodwill.”

  “You think the Hag’s going to come out for a scrap of bread or a strip of dried meat?” Tali sounded unconvinced. “That’s about all we have to offer.”

  “Could we make a fire? Perhaps find some herbs and cook some kind of soup?” A hag, I thought, might have few teeth left; I imagined her dipping the bread in the warm soup to soften it. It would be a comforting meal in the chill of the sea wind.

  My warrior companions tackled the task with the same calm efficiency they’d applied to sailing the boat. Tali went off and helped herself to a supply of peat, which she carried back in her cloak. I hoped there might be some way we could repay the islanders; in a place that had so little, everything would be precious. A second trip yielded the withered remains of a bush that had succumbed to the winter weather, and Tali soon had a campfire burning on the landward side of the low wall. Meanwhile, I went out onto the moorland in search of herbs, returning with a better harvest than I had expected, for sage and thyme both grew here, sending their roots deep between the rocks, and by a lochan where long-legged birds waded, I found a supply of early cresses.

  By the time I got back, Flint had water boiling in the small cook pot he carried everywhere, and various ingredients ready to add: a handful of oats, the dried meat shaved into slivers, some wizened mushrooms that had seen better days, shreds of vegetable matter that might have been carrot or turnip.

  “I thought it best to wait for your approval,” he said, looking up with one of his rare smiles.

  “That looks good to me. You carry vegetables in your pack these days?”

  “I brought a few things from Pentishead.”

  A sharp memory came: Flint feeding me as I lay grievously sick. Flint so patient and kind, at a time when I’d believed him my enemy. How much had changed since then. And how little time we had. Only two days. Let there be time alone. Let there be time for me to talk to him properly, to touch, to tell him … So much to be said, and none of it possible with Tali present, Tali who was always quick to remind me that soft feelings were chinks in a warrior’s armor. I felt, already, that she was watching us.

  “At the very least, the three of us will get a good supper,” I said.

  Tali came to crouch by the fire and warm her hands. “I hope the plan isn’t to sleep out here on the cliff top if nobody comes.”

  I said nothing. If nobody came, there was no plan. We would spend some time on the island, I supposed, and I would try to find some Good Folk here and ask if they knew where the Hag was to be found. I could call them to help me if I must. But I would not call a Guardian. That would truly be overreaching myself.

  “Someone will come,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “If it’s not until tomorrow, we can sleep in the shelter of this wall.”

  Tali’s expression told me what she thought of that suggestion. The wind was blowing hard now, stirring up the ocean all around the island. Out to the west I could see a small, cliff-bound isle I remembered from the Northies’ map. Today it wore a collar of white. I imagined wild breakers lashing the rocks. Not even seals would go in there.

  “Does that island have a name?” I asked Flint.

  “Far Isle. Populated mostly by seals.”

  “It looks too steep even for them.”

  Flint seemed about to speak, then apparently thought better of it. Instead, he took up a stick and gave the broth a stir. I leaned across and dropped in the herbs I had been shredding. The mixture smelled good.

  “I’d have liked some fish,” Tali said. “Tomorrow, maybe.” She glanced at Flint. “Won’t you be needing the boat?”

  Flint made no reply. It occurred to me that Tali’s delicate question had nothing to do with his getting back to the mainland. She was talking about his mission in the isles, whatever it was. A mission for the king. He would hardly be going about that with the assistance of the local fishermen. He had friends on Ronan’s Isle, or so it seemed. What if he had been sent here to kill someone?

  Flint sat silent, gazing at the glowing peat, the flickering flames, the mixture simmering in the pot. It was plain he had no intention of offering us any information.

  Time passed. The broth smelled ready to eat, and I realized I was hungry. The sun was low, setting a gold light on Tali’s strong features. Flint remained wrapped in his thoughts.

  Suddenly Tali’s gaze sharpened. She rose slowly to her feet, putting up a hand to shade her eyes. “What in the name of the gods is that?” she said.

  It was a cloud—a swift-moving cloud approaching over the sea, from the lonely cliffs of Far Isle. Birds. A great throng of birds, a flight to dwarf the flock that had heralded our arrival on this shore. And below them in the water, sleek and elegant as a swan, came a boat.

  “I thought you said that place was only inhabited by seals,” I murmured as the hairs on the back of my neck prickled with awareness of the uncanny.

  But Flint said not a word.

  WE STOOD NEAR THE CLIFF TOP WATCHING AS the craft approached. It came in a gliding motion, passing over the turbulent waters as if on a tranquil loch: a long, low vessel with a high prow, its sail of a shimmering pale fabric that surely should have been torn to shreds by the sharp westerly wind. The great cloud of birds cast a shadow on the sea, and yet where the boat cleaved the water, there was no shadow, but pale light.

  “A woman,” Tali said, narrowing her eyes against the sun. “Dressed in a hooded cape. A big man with her. Or is it a creature?”

  “Is she old? Young?”

  “I can’t tell,” said Tali. “Her hair is long. Could be white, could be fair. She’s sitting very straight. Broad shoulders. Looks tall.” After a moment she added, “The boat seems to be sailing itself.”

  The air around us throbbed with magic, a dangerous magic the likes of which I had not sensed since the Master of Shadows revealed himself to me in Odd’s Hole.

  “It’s the Hag,” I said. “I can feel her power.” I was both elated and sick with terror.

  Flint stood close beside me. He still hadn’t spoken. Now, as the uncanny boat came nearer, he put his arm around my shoulders, heedless of what Tali might think. I closed my eyes. My fear eased; my heart quieted. I felt the warmth of his touch in my whole body. Store this up, I told myself. Keep this feeling for when he’s gone. I rested my head against Flint’s shoulder; he whispered something I did not catch.

  “Turn, turn,” muttered Tali urgently. I opened my eyes and realized I had been in a kind of dream. The boat was very close to land now and showed no sign of slowing. “Black Crow’s curse, what is she doing?”

  The cloud of birds was almost upon us; the boat went out of sight, somewhere down at the base of the cliffs.

  “She’ll be smashed to pieces,” Tali said in flat disbelief. “There can’t be a landing place down there.”

  The birds passed over us, not squawking and crying, but silent. They circled, then landed, a sea of white along the cliff top and all around us. On the wall close by I spotted a gull wearing little boo
ts.

  “We must do something—fetch help—” Tali moved perilously close to the cliff’s edge, craning her neck.

  I looked at the uncanny bird. It turned its head to one side and stared back.

  “We should wait,” I said. “That was no ordinary boat and no ordinary sailor.” When I’d seen the Guardians in that vision, in Odd’s Hole, the Hag had said, Be fluid as water. “If it’s the Hag, her strength is water magic. Maybe she doesn’t need a landing place.”

  “How can we just wait? What if …” Tali fell silent as Flint and I moved back to the fire and sat down, side by side. After a little she came over and stood beside us, arms folded. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “If we could have saved someone and did nothing …”

  “If an ordinary fishing boat went in under there, the crew would be dead before you could fetch help,” said Flint. “Or are you suggesting we descend the cliff on a very long rope?”

  “That’s just it,” said Tali. “Even if they do land, how will they get up?”

  “Smells good,” someone said. All three of us started in surprise; the person had come from nowhere. She was standing behind Tali now, long silver hair flowing down over her shoulders, rivulets of water running from her robe to pool on the rocks around us. We rose to our feet.

  The woman was certainly tall. She could look down on both Tali and Flint. Her stance was proud. Hers was a strong face, the nose jutting, the cheekbones prominent, the jaw firm. Her eyes … They were odd indeed, elongated in shape, and of many colors: deep green, seal gray, the blue of a summer sky, and the blue of the sea under winter clouds, all at once. Her mouth was wide and thin-lipped, her expression calm. A hag? I would not have called her that. Perhaps she was old, but she seemed more … ageless. Her skin was not the wrinkled parchment my grandmother’s had been at the end, but pale and unblemished.