Sisters of the Fire Read online

  The sea. That was all she knew. On arrival back in Blicstowe that morning, she had dismissed her hearthband, gone to her bowerhouse – musty from being closed up so long – and laid her long body down on her bed. With her eyes closed, she reached out for Ash with her mind. Bluebell knew that she was a blunt object, with none of her sister’s subtle and mystical nuance, but Ash had heard her before. Ash, always with part of her heart turned towards her family, may still be listening for her.

  Bluebell had experienced a rush of sound, then all had closed down in less than a moment. But it was enough. She had heard the sea. Ash was near the sea.

  Unfortunately, Thyrsland was an island. The sea was everywhere.

  The door opened and Æthlric entered. He had been on king’s business in town all day, and wore his mail and sash, a gold circlet on his head.

  ‘Hello, Bluebell. I thought I heard you ride into town,’ he said, removing his crown and placing it on a shelf beside a collection of gold cups. ‘Have you been waiting for me long?’

  ‘Long enough,’ she said.

  ‘All your mother’s patience went to your sisters,’ he replied with a smile. ‘Where is Sighere?’

  ‘I’ve sent my hearthband north under his command, to help Wulfgar organise his guard and keep an eye out for Hakon’s men.’

  Æthlric sat opposite her, the sun flaring in his long wavy hair. ‘I thought you’d be hunting Hakon yourself.’

  She smiled tightly. ‘I need Ash,’ she said simply. ‘You told me you’d been tracking her. Have you had any luck?’

  ‘We believe she’s in Ælmesse,’ he said. ‘She was last seen just a few weeks ago, in the company of a half-blind man dressed in black. I can show you on a map.’

  So she was still with Unweder.

  ‘Will you bring her back to me?’ he asked.

  ‘If she’ll come.’

  ‘Then why go after her? You could drive her further away.’

  ‘That’s why I’m leaving my hearthband behind. I’ll go quietly and softly. Don’t laugh, I can be quiet and soft you know.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘Father, a sword has been forged by Hakon. It has troll magic welded into its steel, and it is designed to kill me. All I know is one of my sisters has it.’

  ‘And you believe this?’

  ‘I’d be foolish not to take the threat seriously.’

  ‘You think Ash has it?’

  ‘If she doesn’t, she will at least be able to see who does. And perhaps even what they intend.’

  Æthlric stood and rounded the table, coming to kneel next to Blubell. He took her hand, and she noticed how rough and swollen his knuckles had become with age. ‘Must you travel alone? I don’t want to lose you as well. I don’t want to lose you above all. Not only will my army have nobody strong to lead them, but I will be a lonely old man.’

  He smiled weakly at his joke, even though Bluebell knew it was not entirely a joke. She remembered bullying Gudrun and felt a pang of guilt.

  ‘Promise me, no more than a month,’ he said. ‘If you can’t find her, come home.’

  ‘I promise you. I’ll be back before holy month.’

  ‘I don’t like this Hakon being back from the dead. Ill-favoured and slippery as a fish. His brother, King Gisli, is bad enough, but at least I know where he is, what he stands for. Take all care, my daughter. Ælmesse is nothing without you.’

  ‘Ælmesse has you,’ she said, squeezing his fingers.

  ‘I am old. I am our kingdom’s past. You are its future. Take all care.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘And I will find my sister.’

  Ash walked for miles and miles, fearful that Unweder was behind her. Wherever she went, she willed her tracks to be hidden behind her: long grass strands stood again unbroken, footprints in mud filled out, crushed leaves crumbled to unreadable dust and were blown away with the high winds. She slept outside under glittering constellations and bright hurtling stars; and when the rain came she sheltered in dank sea caves, waking up to find small gifts of food and trinkets. Hot day after hot day passed, the west of Thyrsland in the grip of sticky warmth that drove her to remove all but her shirt, and carry the rest of her clothes in her pack. Her forearms grew tanned from the sun and the stinging cut across her scabbed over wrist. The cliffs grew taller and the shoreline narrower until she was forced to climb – hand over hand, grappling with rocks and roots – up to the grassy cliff face. She stood a while, heart pounding from the climb. From here, she looked out in both directions across the restless sea. The way she had come was fading into misted distance; the way ahead was lofty grey cliffs and white seagulls and hazy sea spray. About a mile away, she could see rock formations, one almost resembling the giants’ ruins behind her father’s hall in Blicstowe. But this was made by nature, the tumbling procession of rocks far less carefully placed, the sharp ridges and valleys formed of the same pale grey rock. Ash began to walk along the edge of the cliff. The bracken and gorse were thick and from time to time she passed wild goats, standing in the sun at impossible angles on the steep cliff slopes, staring at her with their strange square pupils.

  As she drew closer to the rock formations, she noticed the bracken on the slopes was brown, as though winter had come already.

  Ash stopped. No. It was black. As if it had been burned.

  Now her heart was thudding again. Part of her wanted to run away, never find the dragon, live her life in a cave somewhere until her mind dissolved and she didn’t ache so intensely for those she loved. But then she steeled herself. Her fate. In her hands.

  She quickened her step, looking down on the blackened slope from the clifftop. About ten yards below her, the back half of a goat, charred and bloody, lay rotting in the sunshine among the burned bracken. Ash kneeled, crept as close to the cliff edge as she dared, and saw deep claw marks in the goat’s rump.

  Then a shadow moved over the sun.

  Ash glanced up, saw the wings, heard its shriek. She scrambled – half on her feet, half on her knees – to the shelter of a rock. The dragon plummeted past her, wings half-folded, towards the shoreline. It hadn’t seen Ash.

  She peered out from behind the rock, inched towards the cliff edge again. The dragon skimmed over the water, rich red wings spread and dazzling with sunlight. Ash’s breath caught in her throat. The most beautiful thing she had ever seen, with its craggy head, its tough membraneous wings, its rosy colours shot through with gold and blue. It dived, claws plunging under water, coming up with a wriggling porpoise, which it flung onto the stony shore. Then it landed beside its prey, bent its head, and began to eat.

  Ash stood, her heart thundering. If she destroyed it now, she would take back her fate. She raised her tanned wrists, saw them shaking, and reached out for the tide. No time for being gentle. She pulled the water in hard, frothing white thundering over rocks and stones and swamping the dragon, who realised too late and spread its wings only to have them crushed. It tumbled over and over, disappearing under the grey sea.

  Ash held it, held the sea over its head. The pain was splitting her in two, but she held and held and held and –

  With a vast crash that echoed all around the cliffs, the dragon shot out of the water, spiralling and screeching and perfectly unharmed, spewing angry fire. Ash backed away, looked for an escape.

  The beast flapped its mighty wings and came for her, shooting up the cliff like a deadly arrow of fire. Ash dropped her pack and ran for the rock formation, hoping to find a cave. The heat was on her heels. She saw a crevice and dashed into it, wedging herself as far between the rocks as she dared, and the dragon flayed the rocks with flames while Ash tried to hold up some kind of elemental barrier with her exhausted mind. Her skin turned red from the waves of heat surrounding her and blooms of black spread across the rocks towards her, but they didn’t reach her.

  Finally, after what seemed like minutes but were probably only seconds, the fire stopped and Ash heard the great wings flapping away to the south. It rounded a large, hump-backed rock out to
sea, and dived away from sight.

  She collapsed to the ground, arms over her head, teeth chattering and legs shaking. It hadn’t killed her but nor had she killed it. And yet kill it she must, if she was ever to be free to return home.

  Rose was awake before the hunter, and she lay for a while on the other side of the cold fireplace looking at him. This man had been Rowan’s only parent for four years, longer than Rose herself had looked after the girl. The way he spoke about Rowan made it clear that he loved her deeply, and the stories he had related showed Rowan loved him too. She was at once fascinated by him and filled with raging jealousy. All those years that should have been hers were his instead, and she could never take them back.

  Yet, she was so grateful to him. For being kind to Rowan, for giving her love and making her safe. For protecting her as long as he could, and for coming after her when that protection had failed.

  He sighed in his sleep, shifted, then opened his eyes.

  ‘Can you see?’ she asked him.

  ‘I can, though my eyes are sore.’ He rubbed them vigorously.

  Morning light made them unsure of each other. He had an intensity to his gaze that was unsettling, and he kept stealing glances at her as they ate and prepared themselves for the walk ahead.

  ‘You are so much like Rowan,’ he said at last. ‘And nothing like Bluebell.’

  ‘You know Bluebell?’ she asked.

  ‘I have met her once or twice, yes. My adoptive father was one of Wengest’s thanes.’

  At Wengest’s name, her face flushed: anger and embarrassment. No doubt Skalmir would have an opinion based on Wengest’s version of events.

  ‘Well. I don’t think there is anyone quite like Bluebell,’ she said. ‘But I am glad to know my daughter is like me.’

  ‘Not just in appearance,’ he continued. ‘In mannerisms. The way you hold your mouth when you are concentrating is identical.’

  ‘Really?’ The thought pleased her; she couldn’t hide her smile.

  ‘Really.’ Then he laughed at himself. ‘You have to excuse me, my lady, I don’t mean to sound as though I have been examining you too closely or strangely.’

  ‘No, no. I am pleased to know such things. You can tell them to me any time.’

  They continued rolling up blankets and sorting their packs, then Skalmir covered the fire and gestured to the east. ‘I hunt mostly in the west corner,’ he said. ‘If Rathcruick and his company have moved in, it would be the furthest from there.’

  ‘Lead the way.’

  They began to walk, Rose just behind Skalmir’s shoulder. The forest was full of sounds – cracks and pops and squeaks and bird calls – and each one startled her, but nothing seemed to worry Skalmir. She took her lead from his broad, quiet shoulders. The terrain was easy at first, growing rougher as the morning wore on and they had to climb over a rocky ridge and cross the stream she had crossed yesterday. They sat on the other side after, letting their legs dry, and ate some bread and dried rabbit meat.

  ‘Do you think we are getting anywhere?’ she asked him, after drinking from the stream and pulling her shoes back on.

  He shook a pebble out of one shoe and carefully examined the other. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve been tracking their path all day. Two adults, one child. They haven’t bothered to hide their route, but I don’t know if that’s because they are foolish or because they are luring us into some trap.’

  Rose caught her breath.

  ‘Don’t worry, Rose. I am a hunter. I don’t fall into traps.’ He pulled on his shoes and picked up his pack again. ‘We are about to take a different course. Their tracks were leading towards the old stone barrow in the north-east of the Howling Wood. Ærfolc love their old barrows, so I assume Rathcruick has set up camp there. I know a way we can come around by following the stream on this side for a couple of hours. If they are expecting us, they will be expecting us from the other direction. If they are not expecting us … all the better.’

  Rose took comfort in his knowledge, in his height and skill. She imagined herself wandering in the wood for days, finding nothing. Skalmir made it sound as though they would find Rowan today, though Heath had warned her that Rathcruick might not be willing to part with her easily.

  Well, she had still more blinding powder; Yldra had insisted on it. Thinking of Yldra made her think of Linden, and she sighed heavily as she made ready to move again.

  ‘What is wrong, Rose?’ Skalmir asked.

  ‘I’m missing those I love,’ she said.

  ‘Me too.’

  She didn’t ask for further detail and offered none herself. Once more, they began their trek through the Howling Wood. Strange electricity traversed Rose’s body: the thrill of knowing she would see Rowan soon; the terror of coming face-to-face with Rathcruick. Time seemed to crawl, her feet began to ache.

  The trees thinned ahead. Skalmir turned to her, put a finger to his lip, then grasped her hand and pulled her close against him.

  ‘Be perfectly quiet,’ he said, his breath warm against her cheek.

  She nodded. He withdrew his bow, nocked an arrow, and they crept forwards.

  Rose caught a glimpse of the spotted stone barrow at the end of a narrow way between a procession of lindens, so riotously decked in green leaves that their branches seemed to heave. She hunched down behind Skalmir, expecting at any moment an arrow to come whizzing towards them, or a rough hand to grab her around the neck, but no such thing happened.

  The procession of trees ended, the clearing opened out in front of them with the stone barrow standing at the centre of it. And nothing else.

  Skalmir lowered his bow, frowning.

  ‘Have they set traps?’ Rose asked.

  ‘I’ll see,’ he said. ‘Wait here.’

  He moved into the clearing, carefully brushing leaf fall aside with his feet. He circled the edge, moving in and out of the trees and wild vines that surrounded them. This space was man-made, too perfectly circular with the linden procession too perfectly straight to have been anything but planned.

  Skalmir came back to her and shrugged. ‘They aren’t here.’

  ‘Any tracks?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Rose walked down to the barrow. Ancient Ærfolc burial sites like this dotted Thyrsland. This one was long and narrow, with two enormous menhirs at the entrance, crossed with a heavy stone lintel. She went inside. It smelled dank and muddy.

  Skalmir came in behind her. ‘These places make my skin crawl,’ he said. He crouched, touched the ground. ‘Footprints.’

  ‘Mine?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Hers. Rowan’s. She’s been in here.’

  ‘Alone?’ The thought made Rowan’s heart clench. She crouched too, touched the same place as Skalmir. Their fingers brushed.

  ‘It seems so,’ he said.

  They looked at each other. The sunlight, filtered through thick trees and falling through a stone opening, was grim and grey. But then, warmth infused his cheek and caught in his yellow hair.

  A puzzled expression came over his face at the same moment. ‘What just happened?’ he asked.

  She turned her face towards the entrance to the barrow. Her heart stammered. She stood and raced out.

  ‘Snowy!’ she cried, but he was directly behind her. The clearing was gone, the linden procession was gone. They were in a crowded wood and it was sunset, the amber sunlight shining horizontally through the trees, making long spindly shadows.

  ‘Where are we?’ he gasped.

  Rose turned in a slow circle, took in the entirely different place and time. ‘Lost,’ she said. ‘We are lost.’

  Sixteen

  In Ælmesse, her father’s kingdom, the land she would one day rule, Bluebell was known by all. On the first night of her journey, at a large inn fifteen miles from Blicstowe where the long summer sunshine streamed in through windows thrown open to the breeze, mutters had started the moment she opened the door. Some had come over to touch
the hem of her cloak, ask her business, express their love for her or their suspicion of kings and politics. She realised she would have to travel far less conspicuously. Despite the summer heat, she left the next morning in her heavy riding cloak, the hood pulled up over her head and throwing her face into shadows. On the second night, her hood still drawn forwards, she sat close to an unlit wall in a dingy inn that smelled of mice droppings, and managed to eat and drink without attracting a single pair of eyes. Then she rode out of town a few miles in the dusk and set up camp off the road, pulling an oilskin over herself against a light drizzle.

  On the third day, she parted company with the main road, taking Torr out over damp grass. Ash had last been seen coming down off the moors and heading towards the remote south-western coastal regions by a small retinue belonging to one of Æthlric’s old thanes, a man Bluebell had always known as Uncle Elder. The retinue had been out searching for an ageing mare who had wandered and at first Elder had not recognised the face of the ‘thin woman’ who passed with the man in black. It was much later that her face triggered the glow of recognition in his memory, and he had sent a message to Æthlric the next morning. Ash and her companion were miles from the main road, sticking to the unpaved, overgrown tracks of the dead, the lost, the lawless, and the exiled. These were the low roads Bluebell had to follow to find her sister.

  Bluebell oriented herself by the sun, and rode Torr off into the south-west. It was strange travelling alone. Without her hearthband and the pack horses, she was forced to travel lightly. She wore her thinnest mail under the riding cloak, and had just one change of clothes to make more room for her oilskin, blankets, dried food, and water containers. She travelled without helm and spear and axe. Just her sword and a knife at her waistband, her shield on Torr’s flank, with her family’s royal insignia – the three-toed dragon – turned away from the eyes of passersby.