Returner's Wealth Read online

  Micah swung the canteen again, but Cleave was alert now. He caught it by the strap and wrenched Micah toward him. The blade flashed. Micah let go the canteen, and jumped to the side as Cleave stumbled backwards, and the slashing blade sliced the air harmlessly, inches from his chest.

  With Cleave wrong-footed, Micah lunged at him, his jaws clenched and blue eyes blazing. His left fist landed hard in Cleave’s belly. Cleave grunted and bent double, and Micah’s right fist cracked solid against his chin as it came down. The knife dropped from Cleave’s hand and skuttered across the canyon floor. Micah hit him again, once, twice, three times, the blows thumping into his chest and head. Cleave staggered backwards, tripped and fell heavily to the ground.

  Micah checked his attack. He stood before the man, legs braced and fists clenched ready, just in case Cleave was not as defeated as he appeared to be.

  ‘You all done?’ he said, and the gruffness to his voice sounded unfamiliar to him.

  The wyve collector looked up. There was blood trickling from one side of his mouth, and his left eye was already beginning to close, the eyelids top and bottom taking on the appearance of two redripe plums. He clutched at his stomach, his face grimace-twisted with pain.

  ‘Enough …’ he panted. ‘Y’beat me fair and square, boy.’ Another spasm racked his features. ‘Happen you might’ve snapped a rib or two …’

  Micah’s eyes widened. His fists unclenched.

  Head down and eyes lowered, Cleave reached out a hand towards him. It flapped weakly. Micah hesitated. Cleave groaned, and Micah gripped the hand and pulled the wyve collector to his feet …

  The impact of Cleave’s bony forehead cracking against the top of his nose stunned and blinded Micah. Cleave’s knee jerked up and slammed into his groin, and his knotted hands shoved him hard in the chest and sent him toppling backwards. He fell heavily to the ground, striking his head on the canyon wall behind him. His head filled with stars, and there was a ringing in his ears.

  Moments later, Micah became aware of something tugging at his boot. He opened his eyes slitwide. Cleave was crouched forward, his knife gripped between green teeth, frowning with concentration as he pulled at Micah’s boot. It came free with a jolt, and Cleave set to work on the second boot, the heel gripped in both hands, yanking hard.

  Fool! Micah chided himself angrily. To fall for a coward’s head-butt.

  The boot came free. Cleave pulled the knife from between his teeth and, before Micah could react, dropped down heavily onto his chest, his sharp knees bruising Micah’s ribs and forcing the air from his lungs. He slashed upwards with the knife, cutting through Micah’s jacket and shirt in one fluid movement, and placed the sharp edge of the blade to Micah’s exposed neck.

  ‘I was of a mind to let you live, boy. Till you antagonized me so,’ he growled. The cold metal slid slowly across the skin at the base of Micah’s throat, and Cleave sneered at Micah’s terror. ‘Now you have only yourself to blame for what’s coming to you …’

  Cleave’s leering face registered a momentary look of startled surprise, before he was whisked away backwards with a violent lurch, and the weight on Micah’s chest was abruptly lifted.

  Micah pulled himself up onto his elbows. A tall man with dark eyes and a shaved head, beaded with rain, had the back of Cleave’s collar bunched up in a large hard fist. Cleave screeched with rage, and swivelling round, brought his arm down, the point of the knife aiming for his assailant’s eye.

  But the man was too quick and too strong. He seized Cleave by the forearm, which he brought down sharply as he raised his leg, and there was a splintering crack as he snapped the bone over his knee. Then the man pulled his own knife from his belt and plunged it deep into Cleave’s chest. Blood welled up in an instant, dark and thick and pumping down Cleave’s front. He staggered backwards for a moment, one arm clutching at the wound, the other dangling limp at his side, and Micah saw the spark of life in those deepset eyes disappear as he keeled forward and fell face down in the mud of the canyon floor.

  The man looked at him, a dark eyebrow raised. He re-sheathed his knife, then raised a hand and scratched his head.

  ‘Odd way to greet a stranger,’ he mused calmly, his voice gravel-dry but not unkindly. He tapped at the dead body with the toe of his boot. ‘A little friendly conversation might have helped the situation proceed in a more civilized manner. Still.’ He shrugged, then turned to Micah, a pleasant look upon his face. ‘What’s your story, son?’

  Micah climbed to his feet shakily. Blood stained the mud he stood in. Bile rose up at the back of his throat.

  ‘He … he attacked me,’ he said. His voice was cracked. ‘Tried to rob me of my stuff.’

  The man nodded, and his amiable expression puckered with concern. ‘Shook you up, eh, son?’

  Micah nodded, blinking rain and tears from his eyes. He was cold and shivery. His fair hair was dark with mud and wetness, and he shuffled awkwardly from foot to bare foot, his fingers flexing and bony shoulders dipping from side to side. The man bent down, picked up the tooled boots, and Micah watched him as he turned them over in his large powerful hands.

  He had a broad even-featured face; strong, possibly even brutal, if it hadn’t been for his smile and the amiable gleam in his dark eyes. His jaw was blue-black with stubble, and his tapering nose turned up slightly at the end, which seemed to add a youthful, almost boyish, look to his otherwise rugged features.

  Micah had seen at once that he was wearing the long overcoat of a seasoned wealdwalker, festooned with carefully maintained equipment. His rucksack, casually slipped from his shoulder in readiness for the fight, lay at his feet. It was as well-packed and tightly strapped as Eli’s.

  The man looked up. ‘Quality workmanship,’ he commented, and held the boots out. ‘Put ’em back on, son, then we can see to your assailant.’

  Micah took them and, leaning back against the rock, pulled the boots onto his feet, one after the other. He leaned down, tugged the bindings and knotted them securely. When he looked up, the man was crouched down next to Cleave’s body, rifling through his pockets. He pulled the familiar hackdagger out first, followed by the copper and brass spyglass, then glanced back over his shoulder at Micah.

  ‘These yours?’

  ‘They are, sir,’ Micah replied, impressed despite himself at Cleave’s evident ability to strip him of his valuables with such speed and precision. He took possession of the proffered objects. He returned the knife to his belt; he put the chain over his head and let the spyglass dangle at his front.

  ‘Anything else?’

  Micah patted his pockets. ‘My bollcotton tin,’ he said.

  The man reached into Cleave’s pocket and rummaged about inside.

  ‘Is this it?’ he said a moment later, and returned the tin to Micah. He winked. ‘What say we take a look at what else he’s got?’

  Micah nodded, picked up his hat and pulled it back down on his head, then watched dumbly as the man upended the backpack and tipped out its contents. Three more spyglasses and half a dozen knives tumbled out, together with a few grubby undergarments, some meagre provisions and, from the bottom of the rucksack, carefully wrapped and preserved, a frayed huskdry corn dolly of woven straw.

  With a sudden pang of sadness, Micah recognized the straw figure as one made at harvest time on the plains, and exchanged by sweethearts beneath a golden harvest moon. This hard-faced brutal wyve collector lying dead in the mud, must have once been a ploughhand, just like him; young, hopeful and in love …

  ‘Looks like you weren’t the first person he waylaid,’ the man said, glancing round at Micah. He snorted. ‘But I reckon you’ll be the last … Anything you can use, son?’

  ‘I’ll take this,’ said Micah, picking up the corn doll and wrapping it carefully.

  The man frowned. ‘What’s that there?’

  He wasn’t looking at the corn doll, but inst
ead at Micah’s chest, and Micah looked down to find his leather jacket and calico shirt had been sliced open by Cleave’s knife. The man climbed to his feet and stepped forward. His eyes narrowed as he looked closely at the nubbed red scar at Micah’s chest.

  ‘That’s a mighty impressive wound for a recent departer,’ he observed quietly. ‘How did you come by it, son?’

  ‘Wyrmekin, I was told,’ Micah replied, ‘though I don’t remember much about it.’

  The man nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’d say that whoever did the telling got it right,’ he said. ‘What do you remember?’

  Micah shrugged. ‘Something came at me out of the mist. I didn’t see it, nor hear it – not till it was upon me.’

  The man nodded. ‘Sounds like kin all right,’ he said. ‘And where exactly was this?’

  ‘Beyond the mountain range yonder,’ Micah told him. ‘Four days distance or thereabouts. There’s a craghut on a jutting mound of rock, and some way below it’ – he shuddered – ‘was where I got this.’ He pulled the jacket together at his neck. ‘Beneath a rockstack.’

  ‘Rockstack?’ said the man.

  ‘Tall and sheer, and angled at the middle like an elbow. And speckled,’ Micah added.

  ‘Speckled.’

  ‘Hard black rock, it’s made of,’ said Micah, ‘and speckled with lumps of grey-white …’

  ‘A speckled stack,’ the man mused.

  Just then, there was the sound of heavy tramping boots, and the pair of them turned to see two men come marching round the end of the canyon. Both were dressed in long leather capes that grazed the muddy ground, and carrying bulky well-strapped backpacks. They noticed the body lying on the ground; they looked at Micah, and the one on the right – the more heavyset of the two – reached inside his cape. ‘’S all right, Esau,’ the man told him. He turned to Micah. ‘This here’s …’ He paused and his dark eyes widened. He chuckled. ‘In all the excitement, I done forgot to ask you your name, son.’ He held out his hand. ‘Mine’s Solomon. Solomon Tallow.’ He swept his arm round towards the others. ‘And these here are my colleagues, Esau and Jesse.’

  Micah seized the outstretched hand and shook it firmly. ‘I’m Micah.’

  ‘Micah,’ Solomon repeated, and turned back to the others. ‘Micah here fell foul to a no-good trailthief.’ He grinned, and Micah noted the two rows of even white teeth. ‘Taught him a lesson he won’t need learning twice.’

  The three men chuckled. Jesse stepped forward and shook Micah’s hand, followed by Esau. They were big and powerfully built, with youthful faces begrimed and bewhiskered by long weeks on the trail. Their ready smiles and easy friendliness filled Micah with a warm feeling, and he realized how much he’d missed the company of others. Solomon turned to him.

  ‘You could join us, if you had a mind to,’ he said. ‘’S all right with you boys, ain’t it?’ he added, turning to the others, who nodded their assent. ‘The wyrmeweald’s a dangerous place for lone travellers,’ he told Micah, and his white teeth flashed, ‘as you’ve already discovered for yourself. Far better to travel with company. Trusted company …’

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ said Esau, nodding sagely.

  ‘I’m assuming you are travelling alone,’ said Solomon.

  Micah frowned as he caught sight of Eli’s canteen lying in the mud next to his gourd and waterflask.

  ‘I … I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well, either you are or you ain’t,’ said Solomon, smiling broadly to his companions.

  Micah picked up the canteen, gourd and waterflask and began filling them.

  ‘This cragclimber,’ he said, as Solomon and his companions watched him. ‘He saved my life back there when I got hurt, and we sort of fell in together on the same trail … ’

  ‘And now I just saved your life, Micah, and have offered to share my trail with you,’ said Solomon. He stroked the dark stubble on his chin. ‘Seems to me you’ve got a choice to make.’

  Micah nodded.

  He could go back to the scrimshaw den, give Eli his canteen, retrieve his backpack and leave to join Solomon Tallow and his companions. They were seasoned wyrmekith by the look of them, well-equipped and provisioned. Perhaps he could pick up a thing or two from them; learn their trade, become a seasoned wyrme­kith himself. A trapper. A hunter …

  A killer of wyrmes.

  Jura the wyrmekin’s words that he’d overheard, spoken to Eli Halfwinter in that strange cavern behind the waterfall, came back to him. You should teach him, Eli Halfwinter. If you do not, then someone else will, only they will not teach him what he should know. Only bad things …

  Micah returned Solomon’s smile. ‘Thank you for saving my life,’ he said, as he stoppered the full canteen, ‘but if you’ll excuse me, I need to get this back to Eli Halfwinter.’

  Twenty-Four

  The wyrmeling wriggled up through the narrow fissure, its foreclaws scrabbling at the pitted rock and hindlegs kicking at nothing. It emerged panting from the crevice onto the flat rock at the top of the speckled stack.

  It was cold and windy, but not wet, the broad expanse of sky streaked pink and orange to one side; indigo-dark and shot with the pinpoint twinkle of stars to the other. The wyrmeling raised its snout and sniffed at the turbulent air, its eyes glowing flame-yellow and bright.

  The creature was no longer rib-thin and fresh-hatch weak. Ten days in the furnace heat of the crevice had given it time to grow. Its snout had lengthened, lost its snubbed and stumped appearance, and was now slender and ridged and tapered to a whisker-fringed nub. Its long sinuous neck had become strong enough to support its head without dipping and swaying, while taut muscles flexed and rippled beneath its silver-white skin as it trotted across the rock on strong legs, the thin arrowhead tail swishing powerfully behind it.

  The wind grew stronger. It plucked at its scales and ruffled the still tightly furled wings at its back. At the edge of the speckled stack, the wyrmeling halted and stretched its neck out over the howling void.

  Below, the rugged brown slopes spread off towards the craglined horizon in all directions. In the sky, the stars went out, one by one, as the indigo faded, and all at once, with a dazzling flash, spoked sunlight topped the distant mountaintops and spread across the horizon.

  It fell on the tall bent speckled stack, and on the small creature crouched at its top.

  The wyrmeling braced itself as the wind blew into its face. Dark clouds were rolling in. With a small grunt of effort, the wyrmeling tensed the powerful muscles at its shoulders, sending rippling shudders through its sinuous body. It arched its back, and its tightly furled wings began to unfold, white and gampish. They extended far beyond its body, the scalloped edges quivering as its pounding heart sent blood pumping through the delicate network of veins.

  Its shoulders tensed and the wings braced. Its foreclaws gripped the edge of the rock. Its eyes grew wide.

  Then, as the sun rose, red and gelatinous, a heavy gust of wind swept the wyrmeling off its feet and sent it tumbling back across the flat top of the rockstack and off the edge at the far side. It tumbled down, screeching and squawking in a flurry of wings, claws and a desperate flailing of its whiplash tail, until another sudden gust took it again.

  The wind plumped its outstretched wings from beneath, and it soared upwards, scoring a line across the blue and grey. Then the wind eased for a second, and it flapped its wings down, then up, then down again, holding them steady and adjusting to the gusts and squalls it detected with its barbelled snout.

  It dived down, neck dipped and ruddered by its tail. It skimmed the lower peaks, then soared back upwards, clamping its wings to its side and speeding like an arrow for a moment, before slowing back down on raised windcatch wings. It side-slipped and rolled, it glided and wheeled, then flew back high into the sky once more, and circled round the speckled stack.

  And, as its long shadow lapped the rock
stack below, it swooped down lower, its powerfully beating wings silhouette-black, and a jet of white flame blazing before it.

  Twenty-Five

  Eli hadn’t uttered a single word all day.

  After hours of hard climbing, they’d come at last to a high ridge that wound its way along a range of jagged mountain peaks, heading north. Eli reached behind him as he crested the mount, and pulled his walking staff from the straps at the back of his rucksack – and Micah did the same. A rhythmic clacking started up, the two sticks shifting in and out of time with one another.

  The landscape opened up. There were crags and peaks on either side of them, dark with wet and blurred by falling rain. With his head down, Eli didn’t seem to notice, but Micah studied the looming forms. To his eyes, the crags seemed indistinguishable one from the other, with none possessing the distinctive features that might help him memorize them as signposts, or even tell them apart.

  ‘Twelve,’ he announced a while later.

  Eli paused and turned. ‘Twelve?’

  ‘Them crags,’ said Micah, pointing. ‘We’ve passed twelve of them, eight to the east of us and four to the west. Before we changed direction …’

  Eli nodded, smiled. ‘You’re learning,’ he said, turning away and striding on.

  Micah followed happily, as grateful for the scrap of praise as a farmyard dog tossed an oxbone.

  They headed down a ravine to the west, which was lowforested with small scrubby thornbushes, the prickly branches grazing and scraping at their shins as they picked their way between them. Eli stopped and prodded about in the undergrowth just ahead with his walking staff, before continuing. Soon after, he stopped and prodded the bushes in front of him again. When he stopped a third time, Micah couldn’t help himself.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he said.

  Eli replied without looking round, and Micah had to strain to hear the words above the driving rain and windhiss of the thornbushes. ‘We’re not the first to have trod this trail,’ he said, probing at a dense thicket with his stick. ‘A trapper’s been through here …’