The Circle of Stone (Darkest Age) (2 page)

Fritha led them swiftly, and Edmund wondered how she could find her way in this charred wilderness. Her haste infected
him, and he quickened his pace, fearing every moment to come upon Grufweld’s hut and find it in flames.

He became aware that the reddish glow around them had grown brighter, and the heat more intense. Then, from ahead, he heard the crackle of burning, louder than before – and Fritha gasped and stopped.

She was standing at the edge of a clearing that was ringed with the blazing skeletons of wood, and charred stumps. Ash and smoke hung in the air in a thick pall, pouring from the trees whose trunks still burned. Inside the clearing the ground was black and featureless, bare of everything but ash.

Fritha had turned, white-faced. ‘We must go on, quickly,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘Look!’

At the far end of the clearing, maybe a hundred paces away, was a wide gap in the forest. The trees were not as badly burned here but they had fallen to right and left, leaving a broad channel like the wake of a man walking through tall grass. In his mind’s eye Edmund saw Loki, grown to giant size as he had been when they last saw the demon, standing in the midst of this devastation and laughing before setting off to leave a trail that his enemies would follow. He ran to Fritha’s side, and her horrified face told him that the trail led towards her home.

It was agreed between them without words that they could not go through the dreadful clearing: the horses shied back if they approached it, and not one of them wanted to set foot
on that blackened ground. Fritha led them in a wide circle around it, squeezing the horses between the trunks that still stood; skirting the ones that still blazed. She moved at a run, barely looking back to check that the others could follow. Both Edmund and Elspeth were breathless by the time they reached the beginning of Loki’s trail. The smell of burning was less here, and the light of the flames was behind them. But the ground was ripped and broken, and lined on both sides with twisted roots as thick as a man’s leg where the trees had been torn up and thrown aside.

Fritha took a deep breath, before stepping on to the unnatural path. ‘
Komm!
’ she called, and began to run down the wide track.

The slash in the forest canopy above their heads revealed a sky that was beginning to lighten.

‘It’s near morning,’ Cathbar said. ‘Or as much morning as we’re going to get. If his power is less by daylight, maybe we’ve come in good time.’

‘I wouldn’t rely on that,’ said Cluaran.

Fritha had stopped ahead of them and held up a hand. She waited until they came up to her before speaking. ‘My home is near here. We must
lymskast
. . . go soft.’

The swathe of torn trees ended only a hundred paces further on. The trunks closed in ahead of them again – but through them, Edmund could see weak grey light. They were at the edge of Grufweld’s clearing. His heart started to thump.

‘Stay close,’ Cathbar hissed – but Fritha was already rushing forward, out of the trees. Edmund and Elspeth followed close behind.

Fritha’s home was just as he had seen it last. Edmund let out a breath he had not realised he was holding as relief washed over him.

The snugly built hut with its wolf-hides nailed over the door, the drying-shed behind and the neatly stacked woodpile all spoke of peace and order. Even the fiery glow from the kiln where Grufweld burned his charcoal looked warm and reassuring. Edmund felt Elspeth’s grip on his arm relaxing. As the other three came out of the trees behind them, Fritha gave a cry of joy and started forward.

The hides over the hut’s door swung abruptly aside, and Grufweld appeared in the opening. The huge, bearded man’s face looked tired and worn, but he held out his arms in welcome to Fritha.

‘Come inside, quickly!’ he called. ‘There’s danger out here!’ Edmund and Elspeth followed Fritha towards the hut, and the welcoming glow of firelight within.

A roar of fury interrupted him. From behind the charcoal-kiln a figure rose, black and shapeless, waving a fiery rod. It lumbered towards them, howling unintelligible words. Cathbar yelled and ran at it, drawing his sword.

‘Stop!’

Fritha, a dozen paces from the door of her home, had stopped dead, turning to face the apparition.

‘
Fethr?
’ she stammered.

The black figure put its hand to its head. He had been draped in thick furs, Edmund saw now – and he gasped as the man threw back his hood.

Facing Fritha across the clearing, brandishing a charred stick like a weapon, was another Grufweld, the mirror of the man in the doorway – and with the self-same horror in his face.

‘It’s a trick!’ cried the first man. But Fritha was standing still, midway between the two, looking from one to the other in bewilderment.

Cold horror took hold of Edmund.
I was looking for a burning giant
, he thought,
and all the time he was here – Loki, in the form of Fritha’s father. But which one?

Elspeth’s face was white and she was staring at her right hand, as if willing the sword to appear. Cluaran, Cathbar and Ari had all drawn their weapons and were looking vainly between the two Grufwelds. One of these men was their mortal enemy – but which?

From behind him he heard Cluaran’s voice, low and choked: ‘Your skill, Edmund – use it, for pity’s sake!’

Edmund forced his eyes shut. Even that tiny movement seemed an effort. In the welcome darkness, he felt outwards . . . and touched something huge: a wall of thick black smoke, pushing back at him. Waves of dizziness washed over him; he swayed, and felt Elspeth gripping his shoulders. ‘Try again!’ she whispered. ‘Please.’

Swiftly, he sent his mind the other way. The poisonous smoke was all around him, filling his sight . . . but he found a chink in it. There was Fritha’s face, pale with terror. And there, behind the sight, was an answering terror in the man whose eyes Edmund had borrowed: the fear that he would lose his daughter, as he had lost her mother.

Edmund realised he had fallen to his knees. His body would not let him rise, but he opened his eyes and brought his hand up to point. The man in the doorway spread his arms, calling pleadingly to Fritha. The fur-clad man only stared.

‘Him!’ Edmund shouted, pointing at the man in the black furs. ‘Fritha – that one is your father!’

Fritha was already running away from the hut, towards the man by the kiln. He dropped his stick and ran to embrace her. At that moment, Edmund found he could move again. He scrambled up and pelted across the snow to Fritha and her father. Elspeth followed with Cluaran, Ari and Cathbar.

‘Stay behind us!’ Cathbar ordered. He barged into Edmund, pushing him and Elspeth towards the scant shelter of the kiln, and wheeled to face their enemy.

But Loki had gone.

There was no Grufweld standing in the doorway. There was no door. The hut was a charred heap on the ground; the snow beneath their feet was not snow but feathery grey ash. Even the kiln was a smoking ruin.

Above their heads, a shape of fire was gathering, like a great bird with a trailing tail, impossibly huge against the featureless
grey sky. The tail hung down, a single tendril of flame, caressing the ashes of Grufweld’s home. Then it whipped into the air. For an instant the thing turned its head to look at them – and it was gone, faster than an arrow-flight. A single clap of thunder shook the ruined trees around the clearing.

There was nothing left of it but a smoke-trail, like a scar across the sky . . . and the echo of mocking laughter.

Elspeth dreamed.

She was a small child, running fearlessly through the darkness of the caves and out on to the ice fields. Her sisters kept ahead of her, their black hair streaming in the summer wind. Try as she might, she could not keep up with them. They pounced on her from behind a rock, and the three of them rolled, laughing, in the snow.

She saw another time: her mother telling her to gather cloudberries. There was a feeling of dread in her – she did not know why: she had done this many times before – but the coldness grew as she wandered further and further, in search of the best patches. She filled her basket with the red-gold berries and walked home – but home was not there any more. It was all black; the air was hot, and her mother and sisters had vanished. Bewildered, not yet crying, she ran to the cave-mouth, now full of bitter-smelling smoke. A wave of heat pushed her back, and she recoiled, coughing in the suddenly thick air.

A tall man was standing there as she ran back across the ice. He was very pale, with white hair and eyes the colour of water, not like anyone she had ever seen, but she stopped when he called to her. His accent was unfamiliar, hard to understand.

– You had better come with me, he said. What is your name?

– Ioneth, she replied.

Elspeth woke with a start. She was lying wrapped in rough, scratchy fur, with bodies pressed close to her on each side, and the ground hard and uneven underneath her. They had slept close together for warmth, she remembered. Grufweld had made a small fire from the remains of his charcoal – Elspeth could feel its embers warming her feet – but none of them had had the heart to gather branches for a larger blaze. The bitter smell of smoke was still in her nostrils, and the sky that she could see between the trees was as grey as ash. But the pines themselves were straight and unburned: Loki had not walked here.

The smoke-smell brought back images from her dream – Ioneth’s dream.
Were those your first family, the ones that Loki killed? And who was the man who rescued you?
He had looked a little like Ari, she thought. The voice inside her head did not reply, but Elspeth thought she could feel a faint stirring of memory and regret.

She put the dream aside: they must take up Loki’s trail as soon as they could, and Cluaran and Ari were already up and
feeding the horses. She sat up, waking Edmund and Fritha on each side of her.

‘Still no sun,’ Edmund muttered as he opened his eyes. The lowering sky lay like a weight on all of them, and there was little talk as they packed up their furs and skewered the cold remains of last night’s roasted rabbit for their breakfast. They were heading south, following the direction in which Loki had vanished the morning before. They trudged all day through the trees, pursued by the greyness and the ashen smell, but without finding any other sign of Loki. Ari was their guide now: the caves where the Ice people made their home were to the south. He moved with an urgency that Elspeth could well understand, having seen what had happened to Grufweld’s home, though the pale man was as quiet as ever.

Fritha and Grufweld came with them; the hut had been burned so completely that there was nothing left for them in the forest. Grufweld told how he had returned from his trading trip to the smell of burning, and the sight of his home in flames. The next moment the flames had vanished, and all had seemed as it was when he left it, but Grufweld knew what he had seen – and knew, too, the stories of Loki and what the demon-god could do. He had spent the night in the trees at the far side of the clearing, sheltered by his cart and the one wolf-pelt he had not sold, hoping that his daughter and her companions would return to him. He and Fritha stayed close together now, and Elspeth could not look at them without a stab of guilt:
They’ve lost everything because of me!
She was the
one who had unleashed Loki. She found herself walking faster. But Fritha and her father had not lost
everything
, she reminded herself: they still had each other. For a moment Elspeth remembered her father, drowned such a short time ago, and the greyness of the air seemed to thicken around her till she could see nothing else.

‘Don’t go so fast!’

Edmund came puffing up beside her. ‘You can’t keep up this pace!’ His voice was half-admiring, half-accusing, but his face was bright with relief, and Elspeth realised that he had been worried about her.

‘Cathbar says you should be watching your strength for a while, after . . .’ His words trailed away, and Elspeth avoided his gaze. Neither of them wanted to remember the fight in Loki’s cave. Her failure. ‘You could ride,’ Edmund suggested instead, pointing ahead to where Cluaran was leading one of the horses, with Eolande sitting impassively on its back. The other horse was behind them, harnessed to Grufweld’s handcart, which held their scant supplies.

Elspeth shook her head. Edmund was right: even the short burst of speed had tired her, and her breath was coming faster. But she was no horsewoman, and she was not going to add to the load on the cart. ‘I’m well,’ she told him. ‘I just wish we could get out of these trees.’

‘Ari said it shouldn’t be long now. We should reach the Ice people by midday.’ Edmund looked up at the sky between the dark branches. ‘Not that we’ll be able to tell.’

But the trees began to thin soon after, and gave way to a plain of snow edged with white-capped hills. Ari quickened his pace still more, veering east towards the hills with the confident tread of a man going home. The snow was crusted over with ice, and he, Fritha and Grufweld moved over the plain as smoothly as if it were grass. Elspeth had learned from her last journey over the ice fields to walk softly, sliding her fur boots so that they did not break the surface, but she and Edmund still stumbled from time to time, sinking calf-deep in powdery snow. The horses and the high-wheeled cart left deep tracks, and soon all Elspeth’s attention was taken up with staying on her feet and avoiding the ruts. The tiredness was becoming an ache in her bones, but she would not give in to it.

They had crossed maybe half the distance to the hills when Ari’s steps faltered. A faint smudge of darker grey had appeared in the air ahead, insubstantial at first but slowly growing clearer against the snowcaps.

Smoke.

Elspeth saw Ari’s shoulders jerk. ‘Cluaran,’ he said, his voice harsh, and muttered something that Elspeth could not hear.

Cluaran was at the pale man’s side in a moment. By the time Elspeth and the others ran up, the minstrel had turned back to unhitch the horse from Grufweld’s cart.

‘Ari will ride ahead,’ he announced. ‘Go,’ he said to Ari, leading the horse over to him. ‘We’ll follow as quickly as we can.’
The voices came first. Elspeth had expected to hear screams, or keening, but there was just a man’s voice calling something inaudible, and a couple of quiet replies. As they reached the foothills, low outcrops of rock pushing through the snow, there was a child’s thin wail, swiftly hushed. The sounds would have been reassuringly ordinary but for the thickening haze in the air, and the horribly familiar stink of ash.