Returner's Wealth Page 4

  A deep mournful roar churned the brittle air and echoed around the lake. The monumental lakewyrme was staring directly at Micah. Barbels that dangled from the corners of its mouth trembled and dripped. Its huge flat beak quivered. Its lidded eyes narrowed to dark slits.

  Naked and defenceless, Micah stared back at it, open-mouthed.

  The creature slowly raised and lowered its head. Then, with a deep sigh, it slipped beneath the water, like a blade cutting through silk. Chevron ripples lined the surface for a moment, then they too were gone.

  Scrambling over the rock, Micah was about to gather up his things when there was a colossal explosion of movement beneath the water, and a torrent of bubbles rose to the surface. With a roaring rushing sound, the lakewyrme broke through the water and launched itself high into the air, its back arched and twisting.

  The sunlight gleamed on its burnished scales as it reached the top of its prodigious leap and came down again. Its head dipped and its body hit the water with an almighty crash, its broad tail thrashing down after it. And as the creature dived, it seemed as if half the lake was displaced. A gushing geyser of water exploded back into the air and showered down onto the lakeshore.

  Micah was doused.

  When the downpour subsided, he pushed his wet hair back and surveyed the water. As suddenly as it had appeared, so the great lakewyrme had disappeared again. The turbulence receded and the water grew calm. Then a flip-flop agitation caught his eye, and Micah looked down to see a fat lakefish thrashing about on the rock at his feet.

  Another lay some way off, with a third flopping about beside it. And, as Micah looked round, he saw that the shore was littered with dozens of others, writhing and squirming on the silt. A broad grin spread across his face, creasing the corners of his blue-grey eyes.

  The fire fizzed and spluttered beneath the upturned pot, damp and half-quenched and smoking badly. But Micah didn’t mind. The great lakewyrme had bestowed upon him a special favour. He bent down, picked up a lakefish.

  Tonight, he thought, turning the plump succulent fish over in his hands, he was going to dine like a lord.

  He didn’t notice the shadow flickering across the lake, a shadow cast by a great whitewyrme, high in the early evening sky. A great whitewyrme and its rider.

  Ten

  Eli Halfwinter looked up, his eyes narrowed behind heavy lids, his stubbled jaw silver in the flickering light. Shifting the heavy pack on his shoulders, he surveyed the rockstrewn slope before him, and the line of the horizon, slate-grey on polished black, beyond.

  Nightfall had eased the suffocating heat. The shrubpocked rocks and scree slopes had cooled, while overhead, the black sky fizzed and crackled with tendrilled sprays of lightning.

  The cragclimber withdrew the knot of gulchroot he was chewing and surveyed the pulped end, his brow furrowed, before clamping his teeth back down on it.

  Just then, the darting filaments of lightning overhead coalesced into a sheet of brilliance that lit up the sky and illuminated the barren rockscape around him. And there, black against the white sky, was the drystone roundel of a craghut.

  Spitting out the pungent gulchroot, the crag-climber gave a throaty chuckle as he straightened up and strode towards the stone shelter. He would sleep well that night.

  He approached the craghut, noting with satisfaction that there was no smoke coming from the hearth-hole at the centre of the stone roof, nor light seeping through the cracks in the walls. He had no desire for company.

  Stooping down, he stepped through the doorway and inside. The air smelled hot and smoked, like charred parchment, and, he fancied, was laced with the faint tang of liquor. There were the remains of an old fire in the hearth, crumbs on the stoneslab table and several filthy-looking blankets in a heap by the far wall. He swung the pack from his shoulders and set it down before him, then unstrapped his bedroll and laid it out in one of the sleeping-hollows. He unhooked his lamp and, lifting the mantle and striking a match in one fluid motion, put the flame to the wick.

  The craghut was transformed into a brooding upturned pot of grey shadows and yellow glow. Sootblackened rocks encircled the hearth-hole in the roof, through which lightning could still be seen, shattering the black sky at irregular intervals.

  He sat himself down on the edge of his bedroll, dragged his pack towards him and wrapped his legs about it. Then he unbuckled the straps, loosened the ties and pulled it open.

  He removed a folded wyrmepelt and laid it across his knees. His face creased into a satisfied smile as he held up the pelt. The smooth metallic patina glowed like quicksilver.

  Laying it to one side, Eli Halfwinter rummaged in his backpack. He pulled an earthenware pot from the pack, removed the cork stopper and peered inside.

  The scentsac of a mistwyrme, smooth and round, its membrane intact, floated in thick yellow oil. A heady fragrance, musk-dark and spicerich, filled the air. The cragclimber breathed deep and smiled again.

  All at once, a straining groan and exaggerated yawns erupted from the far side of the craghut. The man looked up, surprise turning to anger. He’d been careless. He stoppered the jar grimly and wrapped it in the wyrmepelt. Opposite him, the heap of blankets shifted. He stowed the pelt inside his pack and closed it.

  ‘Is it company I have on this dark stormcrossed night?’ a croaky voice enquired.

  The cragclimber climbed to his feet, raised his lamp and strode across the hut, the yellow light swaying to and fro over the trampled earth. From the depths of the blankets he’d overlooked, a figure sat bolt upright and squinted into the light.

  He was bone-thin and unshaven. His shaggy beard and tangled hair formed a matted clump, like a giant seedhead. His eyes were round and dark and open so wide that a circle of eyewhite surrounded each iris. All at once, a broad smile split his face.

  ‘So,’ he cried, ‘a fellow traveller!’

  His voice was harsh with brightness. He scrambled to his feet, letting the blankets drop to reveal a frayed shirt and tattered wyrmeskin breeks, covered in scrawled signs and symbols. At his neck were several strings of tiny wyrmeteeth threaded on leather thongs. He thrust out a grimy hand.

  ‘Ichabod, the truth-seeker,’ he said. ‘Stone prophet and visionary.’

  The cragclimber winced, both at the piercing nature of the man’s voice and the tenor of his words. He had no truck with fanatics. He lowered the lamp, but kept his guard up. He seized the man’s thin hand and squeezed it for an instant, then let it go, surprised by how hot it felt.

  ‘Eli Halfwinter,’ he said. A gruffness had crept into his more familiar drawl. He cleared his throat. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance … stone prophet.’

  The two men fell silent. The dry lightning storm was all but above them now. A ferocious wind had got up and was whipping round the craghut while the thunderclaps rattled the stones. Crackling across the sky like burning tinder, the flashes of sheet lightning filled the drystone hut below with a spectral silver blue.

  Eli shuddered.

  Ichabod laughed, his eyes wild. ‘The voices of the ancestors, friend Eli,’ he proclaimed. ‘I hear them calling down to me.’ He threw back his head, his arms wide apart and jerking at his side as he gazed up through the hearth-hole above. ‘We are all lost children in this unforgiving land … There is no hope unless we see the light!’

  He looked round, and Eli found his gaze being held by Ichabod’s intense stare. The stone prophet jittered forward and grinned. Every movement he made was twitchy and fitful, like some strange, jerky dance, and Eli found himself exaggerating his own naturally measured pace in response.

  ‘But I am forgetting my manners, friend Eli,’ Ichabod announced. ‘A wild night such as this requires a remedy, does it not?’

  Eli watched the ragged creature skip round on his leathery heels and scamper back to the heap of blankets, where he untangled a shabby wyrmeskin longjacket from their folds. H
e thrust his hands into the sleeves, then again into the pockets. His brittle grin flexed broader than ever when he turned back, a leather flask twirling in his fingers.

  ‘Green spirit, finest in all the wyrmeweald,’ he proclaimed.

  Eli placed his hands on his hips and shook his head, a lopsided grin stretching his tanned skin. It explained the odour his nose had first detected on entering the craghut. ‘Forgive me, Ichabod, but I was unaware that preachermen drank intoxicating liquors.’

  Ichabod cocked his head to one side and stared at the flask, intense concentration furrowing his brow. He ran a bony finger over its pitted surface, then looked up at Eli, smiling as he pulled the cork.

  ‘It soothes my nerves,’ he said. ‘And quietens the voices on nights such as this!’

  He took a long hard swig. As the liquor hit the back of his throat, his face screwed up and his feet performed a brief jig. Then, in a flap and flurry of movement, he spun round in a full circle and handed the flask to Eli with a flourish.

  ‘Join me, friend Eli.’

  A smile passed slowly over Eli Halfwinter’s face as he took the flask and sniffed at the open top.

  ‘Smells smooth,’ he said.

  ‘Smooth as soulskin,’ Ichabod confirmed, nodding encouragingly.

  ‘Course, I’m not that used to strong liquor,’ said Eli. ‘Not no more. Tends to go straight to my head.’ He smiled that lopsided smile again. ‘But it smells good.’

  Raising the flask high, he took a long draught. He breathed in and smacked his lips. He took a second slug, and a third, then staggered backwards, liquor sloshing from the neck of the flask as he did so.

  ‘Steady there, friend Eli,’ said Ichabod, his face pinched with exaggerated concern.

  Eli smiled, and sat down heavily on his bedroll. More of the pungent liquid splashed down his front. Mumbling something indistinct, his eyes closed and his head slumped forward on his breastbone.

  Ichabod knelt down in front of the old crag climber and watched him closely for a few moments. Then he took the flask gently from his grasp and restoppered it.

  ‘Told you it was good stuff,’ said Ichabod. He pushed the flask into his pocket. ‘Now let us see what manner of merchandise you’ve been trading in …’

  He swivelled round on his knees and began tugging at the leather buckles on the sleeping man’s pack with filthy cracked fingernails. Eli Halfwinter opened his eyes and spat out the unswallowed liquor he’d been holding in his mouth. He reached out.

  ‘That’s enough, preacherman.’

  His voice was soft and purring, yet the grip he had on the stone prophet’s wrist made Ichabod squeak with pain. The stone prophet turned his head away, only to feel the tip of a sharp blade press against the side of his neck.

  ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t,’ he screeched, straining to pull back.

  ‘You move, and I’ll slit your throat,’ said Eli calmly.

  ‘I didn’t mean no harm, friend Eli,’ Ichabod protested, his voice shrill and indignant. ‘I … I was just looking, is all. Just wondered what a fellow traveller might be carrying with him … Perhaps we could barter. Trade.’ He wriggled and squirmed. ‘You know. Share what we both have …’

  ‘Share,’ Eli repeated, and snorted. ‘What do you take me for? Some greenhorn plainsman new to the crags and wet behind the ears? You’ll have to do better than a liquor-cosh to take me down, preacherman!’

  ‘Please!’ squealed the stone prophet. ‘Have mercy!’

  Eli clamped a hand round Ichabod’s jaw and pressed the blade more firmly against the straining, sinew-taut neck. He could smell the fear oozing from the stone prophet’s pores.

  All at once, the craghut was shaken by a tumultuous thunderclap, so loud and violent that Eli twitched involuntarily. Ichabod let out a small cry. High up above the hearth-hole, the blood-red sky turned white and shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

  A single lightning bolt crackled and hissed as it doglegged out of the sky. It blistered the air and scorched the wind as it zigzagged down the craghut chimney like a bony finger. It touched the upturned face of the stone prophet at the very centre of his forehead.

  Eli Halfwinter was thrown aside.

  For an instant, the lightning bolt dangled down the chimney like a sparkling fishline. Hooked at its end, fringed with light from the tips of his bare toes to the seedhead splendour of his wild hair, was the preacherman. His eyes were wild and staring, his taut mouth drooled, while his bony body performed a tortured jerking dance.

  Then the lightning bolt snapped. Eli waited for Ichabod to fall.

  But he didn’t. He remained standing. Then, as Eli Halfwinter watched, the stone prophet turned and hurtled out into the raging storm, stumbling and smoking and shrieking at the skies.

  Eleven

  Micah’s boots slammed into something hard. He fell heavily to the ground, ending up winded and wrist-jarred. He glanced back to see what had tripped him, and a small cry escaped from his lips.

  ‘Sacred Maker,’ he breathed.

  It was a dead body, lying supine in the shadows of one of the highstacks. The carrionwyrmes hadn’t got to it yet. The corpse still had its eyes.

  Micah crouched down, reached forward with cramped fingers and eased the eyelids shut. The touch of the moist skin made him shudder, and as he sat back on his haunches, he brushed his hands together as if to wipe away the unpleasant feeling.

  Micah craned his neck backwards and squinted up. He was at the base of a speckled stack of dark rock, hard and crystalline, pockmarked with lumps of gypsum, each one the size of his fist.

  The body was dressed in heavy clothes. A wide neckback hood, grey skin boots, padded leggings and a capacious jacket, its pockets bulging with snares and wires, and a skinning knife with a carved handle and serrated blade.

  He noticed a faint dark stain down the front of the dead man’s jacket. He reached forward with trembling fingers, unbuttoned the bone toggles and pulled it open.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  A huge patch of blood was spread out over the shirt beneath; dry and brown at the edges, but still bright red and glistening at the centre. It emanated from a dark wound in the middle of the chest, inflicted by something thin and hard, like a lance or a pike.

  Micah glanced up. There was a second corpse.

  It was above him, draped backwards over a jutting spur of rock. One arm was reaching out, its hand extended in a mockery of supplication, while its head lolled upside down, staring blindly down at him. The thin-lipped mouth was fixed in a silent scream.

  Like the body on the ground, there was a deep wound in the chest, but it was the ornate spyglass, banded with copper and brass, dangling from a chain around the man’s neck, that caught Micah’s attention.

  He climbed to his feet and reached up. His hand closed round the spyglass. He flicked the chain free. The body jerked and the dead man’s sightless eyes seemed to bore into his. He was slipping the chain of the spyglass over his head when the blow struck …

  It hit him colossal hard in the chest, sending him toppling backwards. He came down heavily and lay there winded for a moment. Then, despite the bewildering pain that racked his body, he rolled himself over and scanned the gathering darkness, his eyes wide with panic.

  He drew his hackdagger.

  Dusk had fallen, and a mist had descended, clammy and brimstone sour. With a grunt of pain, he climbed awkwardly to his feet, his chest throbbing like the devil. He reached up and touched a hand gingerly to the source of the pain. His fingertips discovered a hole in his leather jacket, and something viscous and sticky.

  It was blood; his blood.

  Just then, a wild jarring screech echoed round the rock stacks. In a flurry of movement and a rush of stale air, a giant angular shape appeared before him out of the mist. There was a blur of slashing talons, and blazing eyes bored into
his for an instant as flames scorched his skin and singed his hair.

  With the flat of his hand pressed hard against the wound, he ran. The air was still, and he could hear nothing but the sound of his own footfalls.

  Then it was back, whatever it was. The air swept past him in a swirling rush, tugging his cloak and plucking at his hat, and he felt something slash at the pack on his back.

  He glanced behind him. A vicious-looking lance jabbed at his head. He ducked, and felt it glance off the side of his shoulder.

  He stumbled through the labyrinthine chasms of rock, stooped and cowering. His hand was sticky with blood that oozed through his fingers. He dodged tumble­rocks and boulders, and stumbled through sanddrifts, his head swimming and his legs weak.

  Drops of blood splashed onto the rock. His breathing faltered and lurched.

  He kept running. He kept running until the towering peaks were far behind him. He kept running until he was sure that whatever it was pursuing him had given up the chase; until the clammy night mist had swallowed him up. Then he kept running some more.

  But he was tiring, his legs heavy and threatening to buckle with every step he took. He swallowed, then gasped for air, and the pain in his chest intensified like a blade twisting in his flesh. He collapsed, then pulled himself to his feet once more. He stumbled on.

  And then he saw it, just up ahead, a yellow light in the thick air, as though the rocks themselves were ablaze. He hesitated, then staggered towards it.

  A thin trickle of blood spattered the rocks as he passed. It gathered in small puddles every time he paused, and marked a line across the threshold of the doorway as he tumbled inside.

  He fell to his knees, and clasped both hands to the copiously bleeding wound, battling to catch his breath as great waves of pain and nausea broke over him. His head spun in a blur of flickering light and shadow as, with a soft and empty whimper, Micah fell forwards into nothingness.