Sisters of the Fire Read online

  Skalmir put down his axe. The rhythm of his heart sped a little. ‘Rowan?’ he called, tramping back to where he had left her.

  The flat rock was empty but for her discarded shoes. ‘Rowan!’ he called, blundering back to the path. ‘Rowan, where are you?’

  ‘Over here, Snowy!’ Her little voice seemed impossibly distant. He slogged through bracken towards it, up a steep rocky incline – how had she managed this herself, barefoot? – and into a dense section of wood where two trees had tangled together and grown bent and impenetrable. Through branches, he saw Rowan. She wasn’t alone.

  ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘Where are you taking her?’

  ‘It’s fine, Snowy,’ Rowan replied, a giggle in her voice. He was around the other side of the twisted tree now and could see she was flanked by two strangers: a slight man and a meaty woman, both with pale copper hair. Both were shirtless, their upper bodies covered in swirling blue tattoos.

  ‘Step away from her!’ Skalmir commanded, striding towards them, his voice booming so loud in the forest that it was followed by a flurry of bird wings.

  ‘Snowy, don’t be cross with them. They’re taking me to see the singing tree. They know where it is.’

  But Skalmir snatched Rowan away and held her tightly against him. ‘This forest belongs to Wengest, king of Netelchester,’ he told them. ‘Poachers are punishable by imprisonment and heavy fines.’

  ‘We aren’t poachers,’ the woman said, in a soft, sibilant voice. A circular tattoo covered her cheek. ‘We are woodlanders.’

  Even as she said this, Skalmir noted that they had no hunting equipment, just the knives at their waistbands.

  ‘Don’t be angry with them, Snowy,’ Rowan said. ‘I asked them to take me to the singing tree. They’re the only other people I’ve met who can hear it. I thought I’d be there and back before you knew I was gone. They say it’s not far from here …’

  ‘A hidden path,’ said the man. ‘We would have brought her back.’

  ‘We mean her no harm,’ the woman concurred. ‘We would not harm one so precious.’

  Skalmir was never quick to anger, but his own guilt and shock at Rowan’s disappearance made him raw, and something about the woman’s choice of words fired him up. ‘She is not yours to judge as precious or otherwise,’ he spat. ‘Leave the Howling Wood and don’t come back. If I see you again … you will regret it.’ Skalmir limped to the end of his threat, anger ebbing away. He had killed many animals over the years, but had never shed the blood of a man and didn’t truly believe he could.

  ‘The Howling Wood is not your king’s,’ the woman said, her voice heated. ‘It never has been.’

  The man touched her shoulder and beckoned her away. The woman stood her ground a while, glaring, then turned and followed him deeper into the woods.

  When they were gone, Rowan turned to him angrily. ‘You were mean to them.’

  ‘You cannot go with people you don’t know, Rowan. I’m baffled. You are a princess. You know better.’

  ‘But the singing tree –’

  ‘Enough of the singing tree. There is no singing tree. They might have been pretending to know of it to lure you away.’ His anger bubbled up again.

  ‘Then how could they hum the exact tune it sings?’

  ‘You’re imagining it. They’re Ærfolc. Not to be trusted.’

  ‘Bluebell says the Ærfolc aren’t –’

  ‘Enough!’ he roared. ‘I care nothing for what anyone else has said to you. I am your protector. My word goes. And we are going home. I should never have brought you out here.’

  Rowan burst into tears but followed close behind Skalmir as he went to fetch his tools.

  Three nights later, they came. The weather had turned rainy again, and unseasonably cool. The long twilight had extinguished and Rowan had been asleep for hours. Skalmir sat by the hearth sharpening arrow heads. Strike and Stranger dozed nearby, Strike’s little legs twitching in a dream. The fire popped softly. Water dripped off the gables.

  Skalmir heard movement outside, and at first he thought it might be a wild boar, so he fetched his bow and arrow before he opened the door.

  Six of them stood there, the Ærfolc. What had they called themselves? The woodlanders? It was dark, the only light falling out of his threshold, from the fire and the tallow candles in the sconces. The woodlanders were very still, and said nothing. One of the men, he noted, stood at the head of the group. He had a long tangled beard and wore a headdress of blackberry thorns that had been fashioned into antlers, and in the dim light Skalmir thought he could see that the swirling tattoos covered his face as well as his chest and arms.

  ‘What do you want?’ Skalmir demanded.

  ‘To see the little queen,’ the horned man said. ‘I have been told she is real and she lives in this house.’

  ‘The child sleeps and you will stay far away from her, on pain of death.’

  To Skalmir’s surprise, the man chuckled. ‘It is she who comes to us.’

  A woman spoke. ‘We see her in the sky.’

  Skalmir shook his head. ‘Go away. Consider this your last warning.’

  He went inside and closed the door, paced the house while the dogs watched, curious. When he checked again half an hour later, they were gone.

  They’d called her the little queen. Rowan’s hiding place had been found out. Would Wengest take her away from him? But he couldn’t keep news of this danger from Wengest. Skalmir was trained only in basic combat and hadn’t practised it in years; Rowan needed protection armed with more than a hunter’s bow.

  We see her in the sky.

  What did that mean? Ærfolc were noted for being odd, otherworldly, even capricious. They weren’t to be trusted; everyone knew that.

  Skalmir slipped into Rowan’s room and sat on the floor next to her bed. She breathed quietly, lying very still on her back. How he loved her in that moment; the child of his heart if not of his body. But it wasn’t forever, it had never been forever. He folded his arms on the end of her bed and put his head down. Tomorrow, the moment the sun was up, he and Rowan would ride to town to send a message to her father.

  Sister Julian was well again by the end of the week, and Skalmir worked two very long days on the hedges to make up for lost time, no matter that it rained intermittently the whole time. Julian was under strict orders to stay inside with the doors bolted, and not to open them to anyone. Rowan, much chastened by her encounter in the woods, promised Skalmir solemnly not to leave the house unless he was with her.

  Arriving home on the second night, cold and soaked, he saw two white horses grazing in the long grass along the front path. Their saddles wore Wengest’s insignia, so he picked up his pace.

  He burst into the house to see them there: Wengest and a very tall warrior with a scar across his neck. Rowan was sitting, perfectly straight, reading scripture aloud while Julian looked on proudly.

  ‘Ah, here’s the man himself!’ Wengest said, interrupting Rowan, who put the rolled sheets of vellum aside and maintained her posture with little more than a nod and a smile for Skalmir.

  ‘My lord, you do us great honour.’

  Wengest stood and came to grasp Skalmir’s hand. He was dressed richly, in gold and emerald green, his beard waxed to gleaming, looking every inch the king. ‘Look at my Rowan,’ he said to Skalmir. ‘Look how she grows and how clever and poised she is. You and Sister Julian are doing a fine job. A fine job indeed.’

  Strike tried to jump into Rowan’s lap, but Rowan cautioned him back down onto the floor.

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ Skalmir said. ‘We have good raw material to work with.’

  Sister Julian rose. ‘If it’s well with you, my lords, I will make my way home.’

  ‘Let Lang accompany you,’ Wengest said, tapping the tall warrior’s chest with his knuckles.

  ‘I will be fine,’ she said.

  ‘But I insist. Rowan, would you like to go riding with Lang on his horse?’

  Rowan shook her head, but s
omething about the expression her father gave her made her change her mind swiftly. ‘Of course, Papa.’ She looked up at the big warrior and smiled nervously.

  ‘Ride slow, bring her back safe,’ Wengest said to Lang.

  In a flurry of gathering cloaks and scarves and shoes they were gone, leaving Wengest and Skalmir alone. Skalmir wanted nothing more than to change into dry clothes and rest a while, but Wengest was his king and he indicated they should sit together on the bench by the hearth, so he did, dripping slowly on the floor.

  ‘Your message said you had fears for my daughter’s safety?’

  ‘She met some Ærfolc in the woods. Then they traced her back to here.’

  ‘They intend her harm?’

  ‘I don’t know. They said not. And they didn’t seem hostile, they seemed … curious.’

  ‘Curious?’

  Skalmir took a deep breath. ‘I will understand if you want to take her from here, but I hope you’d consider letting me continue as her guardian, I –’

  Wengest waved his index finger. ‘I’m not moving her. She’s well hidden here. These people, these Ærfolc, shouldn’t be on my land. It is they who will move.’

  The Howling Wood is not your king’s. It never has been.

  ‘My lord, I would do anything to secure Rowan’s happiness and health, but I have only basic training in arms.’

  ‘That’s what Lang is for. He will stay. He will hunt them down and make them … go.’ Wengest gave a tight smile. ‘And he will make sure Rowan is safe.’

  ‘Stay? Here?’

  ‘He has equpiment to camp, right out the front. Close enough to make her feel safe, not so close as to intrude on her lessons. You will be expected to feed him, as you feed yourself, from what you catch and what you grow here.’

  Skalmir realised knots in his back were unravelling; he had been hunched with anticipation since the encounter with the Ærfolc. ‘My lord, we are so grateful.’

  Wengest sighed, pulled himself to his feet and began to pace slowly. ‘I want her to have an easy childhood. I didn’t want guardsmen around. I wonder what these Ærfolc are thinking.’

  ‘They called her the little queen,’ Skalmir admitted.

  ‘Rowan won’t be a queen,’ Wengest said. ‘Not unless she marries another king. We are trimartyrs in Netelchester, remember; women can’t rule.’

  Skalmir thought of Bluebell, and it made the corner of his mouth twitch in a smile that Wengest didn’t see.

  Wengest went to the door and stood there, looking out towards the road. ‘She grows up away from me,’ he said softly. ‘I would have had her near me, if I could.’

  Skalmir had only an incomplete understanding of why Rowan had to spend her childhood away from court, and knew better than to question Wengest. ‘She speaks of you often,’ he lied.

  Wengest turned, barely able to hide his smile. ‘She does?’

  ‘Most fondly, my lord. Most fondly.’

  Wengest turned back to the door. ‘I think of her fondly, too. And her mother, sometimes.’ He shook his head. ‘Well. That’s in the past. I am marrying again.’

  Skalmir was unsurprised. All of Netelchester had been speculating on when Wengest might try for a male heir.

  ‘I’m very pleased for you, my lord.’

  ‘My new wife is a silly young thing. One can’t always marry for love. There’s a little too much grey in my beard to be so idealistic.’ He thumped the threshold twice, as though to emphasise the point. ‘As soon as Rowan’s back with Lang, I’ll return to Nether Weald. I’ve had a lovely day with my daughter, but affairs of state wait for no king.’ He turned and seemed to look at Skalmir closely for the first time. ‘Good grief, man, you’re sodden. Go and change into something dry.’

  With relief, Skalmir left the room.

  The big soldier, Lang, slept inside by the hearth the first night, but spent the second day setting up a tent by their front path. Skalmir was reassured by his presence, while Rowan was puzzled by it.

  ‘Why is that soldier staying?’ she asked as she idly watched through the shutter while he hung an oilskin over his camp.

  ‘To make sure you are safe.’

  She turned to Skalmir and bit her lip. ‘Is this my fault? For talking to the woodlanders? They wouldn’t hurt me, you know. They liked me.’

  He moved over to her and rubbed her shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault, no.’

  ‘I hope he won’t hurt them,’ she said wistfully.

  Skalmir didn’t answer. He wanted them gone from the Howling Wood, but it was better not to think about what that might involve. All he knew was that he slept easier once Lang was there.

  It was a fine morning, unremarkable in any other way. Skalmir woke before Rowan, ground some wheat, and cooked some breadcakes in a pan for their breakfast. She came out of her room, rubbing her eyes, still in the warm dress she wore to bed. Strands of her fine dark hair had escaped her plait and she sat by the fire and brushed her hair loose then rebound it while he cooked. He made a plate for her, one for himself, and one for Lang.

  ‘Let me take it to him,’ Rowan said. She was growing fond of Lang; she eventually grew fond of everyone. She had about her such a personal charm that people found themselves wanting to do things for her. In the few weeks that Lang had been with them, he’d carved her poppets, and helped her put a baby bird back in a tree, and got down on all fours to let her ride on his back like a pony.

  Skalmir handed her the plate. He felt the breeze on his back as she opened the door.

  Rowan screamed.

  Skalmir turned, dropping his plate, was across the room in two strides to reach for her. She turned, burying her face in his side.

  Lang lay across their front path, dead, an arrow protruding from each of his eyes.

  Eight

  North Hall was remote, reputedly Blackstan’s favourite hunting location. He was known throughout Thyrsland as the Bear King of Lyteldyke, because he had killed so many bears on his expeditions. Bluebell remembered many years ago, when her father had married that traitorous ninny Gudrun, Blackstan had sent a huge bear’s claw preserved in wax as a wedding gift. It was mounted on the wall in the king’s state room and Bluebell couldn’t stand being near it, with its greasy, faintly rotten smell. When Gudrun was sent back to Tweoning – after enchanting Æthlric and almost costing his life – Bluebell had the claw packaged up and sent with her.

  They had been on the road a day and a half before they approached the foothills below North Hall. From here, the road was narrow, steep and gravelly, so they left the packhorses behind to graze on the grassy slopes and took the warhorses up. As they approached the top of the road, Thrymm began to sniff the air and whine softly. Rooks circled above them.

  Bluebell inhaled deeply, and caught the first whiff of the sweet-rotten scent of corrupted flesh.

  ‘I can smell death,’ Sighere said at the same moment.

  Bluebell nodded. She knew then that Blackstan was dead, probably along with his family. She steeled herself for what she would see.

  The fields opened out in front of them, grassy fields where horses roamed peacefully. North Hall sat on a rise two hundred yards north. But in the middle of one of the fields, there was a pile of bodies. They had been set on fire, but had only half burned, hence the smell. Bluebell only glanced at it, but she saw the long fair plait of Blackstan’s wife in among the blackened limbs.

  She indicated her hearthband should stop so she could think it through, make sense of what had happened. Had the stronghold fallen?

  Lofric rode to the front. ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘The standard. Look.’

  Bluebell peered towards North Hall again. He was right. Blackstan’s flag, the bear on a gold background, was not flying over the hall. Instead, there was the sign of the raven.

  ‘Then Hakon has done this,’ she said. Was he back in his brother, the Ice King’s, favour? Her first instinct was to ride to Merkhinton to secure the stronghold there, but her heart surged with excitement at the idea of fac
ing her old foe. ‘Do you think the bastard’s still inside?’

  ‘They have killed the residents and fly their standard over the hall,’ Sighere said.

  ‘The hall is small and raiders travel light. Hakon will have perhaps twenty men in there. We have eleven.’ But they were good men. Raiders tended to be reckless rather than skilled; they always left themselves open. She dismounted and urged her hearthband to do the same.

  ‘We’ll approach quietly,’ she told them, ‘and take back North Hall for Wulfgar, who will be the new king of Lyteldyke if, as I fear, the Bear King is among those bodies.’ She could imagine it all too well: Blackstan and his family enjoying their remote break from kingly duties, a minimal retinue, feeling safe from raiders given their proximity to the standing guard at Merkhinton. She even wondered if Blackstan allowed himself the fiction that he, killer of bears, could protect his family if bandits had come.

  ‘Fight back-to-back if you can,’ she continued. ‘Raiders think nothing of burying an axe between your shoulder blades.’

  She surveyed the area. ‘We’ll stay close to that hedge to the west,’ she said, turning to face them. ‘And if you see Hakon, slay him first. You’ll recognise him by his face – he’s missing half of it. I took it off him with an axe.’ She smiled, and there was general laughter and excitement, and the rush of blood to their faces that told her they were as hungry for battle as she was.

  ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘they are strong, but we are stronger and smarter. Come with me.’

  There was a chorus of ‘my lord’ and they were away, hurrying past the funeral pyre and hugging the high hawthorne hedge. Their mail clinked softly and they bristled with spears and axes and swords.

  Twenty yards from the hall, all plans were discarded as the front door opened and one of Hakon’s men emerged. He saw them, shouted, and then Gytha’s spear went whistling past Bluebell’s ear on its way to the man’s heart, silencing him mid-warning.

  ‘Forward!’ Bluebell shouted, and they all began to run, just as raiders started to pour out of the hall. There were more than she’d expected, but they were taken by surprise. Most had no armour on, and their unawareness made them vulnerable. The skirmish was upon them all, and the quiet moments of before, where hearts beat surely, vanished. Limbs and shouts and blood, and the fire in her insides that made Bluebell feel as though the pit of her stomach glowed bright hot. It gave her power and strength beyond the imagining of ordinary men. The movements she made with her arms and shoulders should be tearing her muscles and tissues to pieces, and yet with the battle fire upon her she was able to do anything. Here, a man rushed upon her while his companion tried to spear her in the side. In one movement, her sword, the Widowsmith, had broken the spear and opened up the shoulder of the first man, making him fall to his knees so she could deliver the killing blow to his head; then a twist back and she knocked the spear-wielder over with her shield and Thrymm tore out his throat. Then a hot voice behind had her spinning and ducking in one swift movement, slashing him across both thighs so he fell and Gytha could finish him with a spear through his back, which found his heart with practised precision. Her other men fought back-to-back as she’d instructed and one by one, the raiders fell.