The Circle of Stone (Darkest Age) Read online

  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.

  Chapter Two

  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,’ h
e 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.

  They were approaching the hill in a drawn-out straggle. Eolande would not walk, so Cluaran had hitched her horse to the cart, and the beast now plodded at the back of the group, led by Cathbar. Cluaran strode out in front, as if anxious to make what speed he could. But the minstrel stopped when he rounded the final outcrop. He was standing quite still as Elspeth and Edmund joined him and saw the blackened ground.

  The plume of smoke had been hidden by the side of the hill, but now it loomed taller than the hill itself, dark-grey and choking. It rose from a pit in the rock whose sides looked like black glass – and all around, feathery ash lay like drifted snow. Behind the pit, the side of the hill seemed to have cracked open: there was a rubble of charred boulders, some twice the height of a man, and beyond them, a black and empty space.

  ‘What has he done?’ Cluaran whispered, and rushed forward into the darkness. Elspeth followed him, with Edmund close behind.

  The ground underfoot was level, like a passageway. Elspeth groped for the wall as the rock closed in around them, and felt the smoothness of masonry under her fingers. After a moment, her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. ‘Oh no,’ Edmund muttered beside her, but Elspeth could only gaze in awe and dismay.

  Before them was a giant chamber, filled with tiers of seats that sloped down to a central space. To one side, faint light came in through a great rent in the wall, rubble-edged and showing a sliver of pale sky. It lit the circular floor, smooth and flat but now charred black – and the wreckage of a carved stone chair, charred like the ground and the seats around it; split into two halves.

  ‘The judgement hall,’ Cluaran muttered. ‘I never thought to see it like this.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said a cracked voice from the shadows. Elspeth spun to see a tall old man, white-haired and even paler than Ari, with brows like two crags. When he spoke again his voice was flat with exhaustion. ‘You failed, then, story-teller; or failed us. I see you have found your children, but what is that to us? Now our children are dead.’

  ‘Not all of them, I think,’ Cluaran said quietly. ‘Erlingr . . . I grieve for this . . . for you. It’s as you say: we were betrayed, and we failed. Now, if you wish, I’ll go – but I would help you, if you’ll allow it. I have medicines and supplies, and there are willing hands among my companions to help you rebuild.’

  ‘Do as you will,’ the old man said. He walked heavily over to one of the stone benches and sank down on it, dropping his head into his hands. ‘I was wrong, it seems, and I have paid for it – I, and all my people. The monster has taken his revenge on us, as you said he would.’ He raised his head, his pale eyes almost lost under the overhanging brows. ‘The survivors – most of them – will be in the water-caves. Go to them if you will. I have no help to give them now, no comfort.’

  ‘But it’s now that they need you most!’ Cluaran cried. ‘Come with me – let them see that you are still alive and strong. That will be the best help they can have: to know that Erlingr still leads them!’

  But the old man bowed his head and would not move or speak again. After a while Cluaran turned and left the chamber, gesturing to Elspeth and Edmund to follow him. Erlingr did not look up to see them go.

  ‘Who is he?’ Edmund asked in a low voice, as they came out again into the grey daylight.

  ‘Their leader – once,’ Cluaran said shortly. He sighed. ‘I fear that Ari must take that responsibility now.’

  The rest of the party had reached the hill. Grufweld and Fritha were leaning exhaustedly on the cart, gazing in horror at the destruction before them, while Cathbar tried to calm the horse, whose nostrils flared at the new smell of burning. Only Eolande, on its back, showed no trace of emotion or tiredness.

  ‘We’ll leave the cart here,’ Cluaran told them. ‘But bring any medicines or salves.’ He looked up at Eolande. ‘Will you lend us your skill, Mother?’ But she stared at him blankly until he turned from her, shaking his head.

  Fritha ran to collect her pack, and Cluaran led them around the foot of the hill, skirting the black pit as widely as they could. The hillside was scarred and blackened in both directions as far as they could see, with the same glassy, black surfaces where the rock had melted. They passed another fall of boulders, and Fritha gave a muffled exclamation, pointing down at one of the rocks. She bent to look more closely – and recoiled, her face white. Following her gaze, Elspeth saw a man’s bare foot.

  ‘Leave him!’ Cluaran ordered. ‘He’s dead. There will be others we can help.’

  Elspeth followed him, feeling suddenly cold. She had not heard any more voices, she realised: not so much as a whisper. What had happened to Ari’s people? Were there really any left? And where was Ari?

  Further along the ridge the stink of smoke lessened and the rocks became only soot-blackened. Elspeth found to her relief that they were no longer walking on ash, though the snow had vanished.

  Cluaran stopped, listened and whistled. ‘The stream is still flowing,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  Soon Elspeth could hear the faint splash of water – and then, the stamping of hooves on rock. Around the next outcrop, a thin trickle ran into a shallow basin in the stone, and beside it, Ari’s horse was tethered to a bush.

  Cathbar tied up their own horse and helped Eolande to dismount. ‘Is there anyone alive here, apart from us?’ he asked, grim-faced.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Cluaran.

  The sound of water grew louder as he led them to what seemed at first to be a shallow cleft in the rock. A darker area at the back revealed itself as a tunnel – but before they could enter it, two men appeared, brandishing spears. One of them was Ari.

  He relaxed when he saw them, though his face was drawn with grief and shock. ‘These are my friends,’ he told the other man, who went back into the tunnel, shouting something. Ari turned without another word and led them inside.

  The tunnel opened into a series of caves. Water dripped from the walls of two of them and pooled on the floor of the third – and every dry spot was crowded with pale-eyed, white-haired people. There must be a hundred of them, Elspeth thought: men, women and children; some standing, blank-eyed; others weeping softly, or crying out in pain. It’s my fault, she thought wildly. I unleashed him! She wanted to turn and run.

  ‘Some of these are brent – hurt with the fire,’ Fritha said, behind her. ‘I have medicine for that.’ She fumbled with her pack to produce a sealed pot, and hesitated, looking wide-eyed at the Ice people. ‘Do you think it will work for them,’ she whispered, ‘as it does for us?’

  Edmund came forward. ‘I’m sure of it,’ he said to Fritha. ‘Elspeth and I will help you.’

  Elspeth was glad to have work to occupy her. She tried not to look around the crowded caves, but busied herself with practical tasks along with Edmund: fetching clean water, improvising bandages and splints, and setting up beds for the younger children in the driest areas.

  Fritha also seemed overwhelmed at first: Elspeth guessed that she had never been among so many people before. But as the fair-haired girl tended a child with a badly burned arm, hearing his cries subside and listening to the thanks of his mother, she seemed to forget her nervousness. She moved around the caves, speaking to the Ice people to find those whose burns and cuts were the wors
t, and making her small pots of salve last longer than Elspeth could have believed.

  They stayed among Ari’s people for the rest of the day. There was always more to do: as the worst injured were tended and given beds, Grufweld and Cathbar fetched more of their supplies from the cart and scouted with some of the men for other safe caves. Elspeth, moving in a haze of weariness, heard Cluaran talking urgently to his mother, who had stayed at the edge of the outer cave.

  ‘You could help! I know your skill in these things. At least help me to find the right herbs.’

  Eolande went slowly outside, followed by her son and Ari. The pale man stopped in the cave door, and turned to speak to Elspeth and Fritha.

  ‘We’ll make more burn-salve for you. Thank you for all you’re doing.’

  Fritha gave him a nod of acknowledgement, but Elspeth could accept no gratitude, not when she knew this was all her fault. When one of the women smiled at her in thanks for a cup of water, she felt her eyes filling with tears and had to turn away.

  Many of the children they tended were orphaned. When Loki had dropped from the sky the day before, the Ice people told her, he had torn open the hill that housed the judgement hall and sent fires raging through the caves on each side, destroying whole families in their homes, and burying countless others in the rubble. When the men ran out to fight him, the wooden spears had burned in their hands, and the men had followed, their bodies turning to ash. Out of a community of three hundred, maybe one third was left.

  My fault. The words rang in her ears, and she thought she could feel Ioneth stirring in pain.

  ‘Please tell me,’ she asked one of the women, ‘when Loki . . . when the monster left you, how did he go? And which way?’

  The woman looked at her incredulously. ‘It just went! It turned into a big ball of fire and went back to hel-viti – to hell. Where else would it go?’

  ‘It flew to the south,’ put in a soft-voiced girl. Her eyes were very large in her thin face and she cradled her bandaged arm as she spoke. ‘To the sea.’ There was a small chorus of agreement. Some of the children had watched from the mouth of the water caves as the demon became a fireball and soared away. They had watched it out of sight, hoping it would never return.