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  Their journey had brought them to the foothills of the mountain crags they’d been heading towards all day. They started to climb. The smudge of cragtops was far above their heads, obscured by dark cloud and the approaching night. The higher they went, the more uneven the ground became. Tumps and hummocks dotted the rock, with freshsprung creeks weaving their way between them. They kept on. The darkness grew and, as it did so, the drumming of the rain on Micah’s hat and shoulders seemed more insistent than ever.

  Eli turned. ‘Over there,’ he said.

  They approached a wedged slab of rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. It offered shelter.

  ‘This should do us,’ said Eli. He looked round, his eyes coming to rest on a stunted thornbush that clung to a crack in the rock. ‘This should do us just fine.’

  Without being told, Micah set rocks for a fire, cut down the thornbush with his hackdagger and turned it to a heap of kindling; then, using his bollcotton and flintstones, soon had a fire lit. Next, he took his gourd and waterflask, together with Eli’s canteen, to the edge of the overhanging rock, where thin strings of water were falling. He held out the containers, one at a time, and waited for them to fill with rainwater.

  He returned to find Eli knelt down on the ground before the fire. The dead wyrme lay before him on the flat rock. Steam was rising up off the cragclimber’s wet clothes and the flames glinted on the blade of his skinning knife. As he approached, Eli looked up. He held up the wyrme.

  ‘Take it,’ he said.

  Micah hesitated.

  ‘Go on,’ said Eli. ‘I’ll tell you what to do.’

  Micah seized the wyrme by the neck and squatted down beside the cragclimber. Eli handed him the knife.

  ‘Use this,’ he said. ‘It’s a mite sharper than that hackdagger of yours.’

  Micah did as he was told. He gripped the handle as tightly as his shaking fingers would allow.

  ‘Pierce the skin, just beneath its chin,’ Eli told him. ‘That’s it. Now draw the blade carefully down the creature’s underbelly …’

  As Micah cut through the skin, the wyrme’s stomach opened up like a sloppy grin.

  ‘That’s the way, lad,’ said Eli. He reached forward, pushed his hand inside the wyrme and tugged at its inner organs. ‘Intestines,’ he said, and slung them into the fire. ‘Liver.’ It followed the intestines into the flames, where they hissed and spat and gave off odours, both sweet and foul. ‘Wyrme liver’s poisonous,’ he remarked as he thrust his hand back inside the dark cavity, ‘whereas the kidneys make fine eating …’ He laid the two glistening brown organs down on the rock. ‘As does the heart. Ain’t nothing quite like the heart of a wyrme.’ He looked up again, and caught Micah’s wide-eyed stare. ‘Pass me my canteen.’

  Micah set it before him and hunkered down to observe how Eli sluiced out the inside of the wyrme. Then he took back his knife and, with Micah gripping the creature’s hindlegs firmly, he set to work slicing off the tattered skin.

  ‘Pelt’s useless in this condition,’ he was saying. ‘Otherwise I’d have strung it up and skinned it proper. Besides,’ he added, ‘greywyrmepelts are not highly prized – though we might be able to get something for the wingbones.’

  Micah nodded, his brow furrowed.

  Bit by bit, the scraps of scaled skin fed the fire. When it was all removed, Eli set to work on the body, cutting and slashing with swift dextrous flicks of the blade. He sliced off the legs at the joints, divided the back and quartered the breast, till there were ten pieces of meat lying before him, each of a similar size. Carefully, Eli laid out the meat, together with the two kidneys, and finally the heart, upon the rocks that encircled the fire, so that the flames lapped at them.

  Micah leaned back, his hands flat on the rock behind him, the heat of the fire slowly drying out his clothes. Beyond the warm dry shelter of the overhead rock, the downpour continued, and the flickering flames, which flashed and flared as the fat dripped, made the raindrops look like taut wires. As Eli turned the pieces of meat, the air became mouthwatering. He skewered one with his knife.

  ‘Looks about done to me,’ he ventured.

  Micah drew his hackdagger and did the same, then pulled off a strip of the slightly charred meat with his teeth. His face broke into a smile. It was sweet and succulent. He had a second piece, then a third. Beside him, Eli did the same, wiping the grease from his mouth on his sleeve, and belching when he was done.

  At last, Micah looked up to see that only one piece remained. Eli handed it to him.

  ‘The heart,’ he said. ‘The best part. I saved it for you.’

  Micah took it, trying to look pleased. The cooked organ was pale grey and crumbly. He broke off a morsel and pushed into his mouth. The texture was dense and claggy, and it had a strong rusty flavour. He swallowed it, helped by a mouthful of water.

  ‘The heart of the wyrme,’ Eli said. ‘The taste takes some getting used to, but it is a powerful thing – full of nourishment. It’ll ease the aches and pains of today’s journey and tomorrow you’ll wake up refreshed.’

  Eli looked at Micah and smiled, then pulled a stubby length of gulchroot from his top pocket and began chewing.

  ‘You done good today, lad. Real good. It was a hard tramp. Them rainflood gulches are sore perilous to man and beast alike. As our supper bore witness,’ he added, his eyes twinkling. He pulled the root from his mouth. ‘You made us a good fire, you fetched water unbidden, and I appreciate that thoughtfulness, Micah.’

  Micah’s cheeks reddened. He picked up a couple of stray twigs lying beside his feet and tossed them into the flames.

  ‘And you picked up the rudiments of wyrme gutting with neither squeam nor relish, which is as it should be. I should have listened to Jura. She charged me with your learning, and she was right to.’

  ‘She was?’ Micah said.

  Eli nodded. He returned the plug of gulchroot to his mouth, then frowned thoughtfully. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed. ‘You asked me a while back how Jura and I first met …’

  ‘I know … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry—’ Micah began, but Eli raised a hand to still him.

  ‘Happen the two of us are acquainted well enough for you to hear the tale after all.’

  Twenty

  ‘Jura was a piteous sight when I first clapped eyes upon her, Micah,’ Eli told him.

  ‘It was in a scrimshaw den to the west of here, beyond the grey peaks, where the valley country starts – and, at that time, the very farthest we kith had ventured into the weald …

  ‘She was hogtied hand and foot, and beat up so bad it’d make you weep. Yet even through all the blood and the bruises, her startling beauty was plain for all to see.

  ‘I was a young trapper back then, new to the high country and trying my luck fishing the falls for eelwyrme and blackwing. I relished the challenge of it, pitting myself against nature in such fashion, though I’d be a liar if I told you I had much success. Which is why I had a notion to hook up with a gang and go after larger quarry. That’s why I’d ventured into the den that night. And then I saw her …’

  Eli stuck out a boot and nudged a log back into the fire with his heel.

  ‘She was being held captive by a kith named Absolom Shale, an evil cuss with a black-braided beard and a belly-band studded with throwing knives. He’d strung her up for all to admire, and was boasting to anyone who’d listen – and I’m ashamed to confess that there were a fair few kith who did – that he’d slain the great wyrme she’d ridden, and that this wyrmekin now rightly belonged to him. I reckon he had it in mind to make a slave of her.’ He shook his head. ‘Or worse …

  ‘He had this great cumbersome sidewinder propped up at his feet, primed and loaded with a triple-barbed bolt, and it was with this fearsome weapon he claimed to have done the deed. Not that I believed him. Not for a moment. See, lad, wyrmekin ain’t like us kith
folks here in the weald. They’re special. Chosen. They live with the wyrmes they ride in a unique communion, and the mysteries of their kinship is something we kith can only guess at.

  ‘For instance, you saw that suit Jura wears?’

  Micah nodded.

  ‘All kin wear such attire. Soulskin, they call it. It is the slough of their wyrmes, shed at the time of their kinning, and worn by them ever after. Powerful strong it is, beyond all reckoning. Why, I’ve seen soulskin deflect a spitbolt from ten yards and leave no impression on the wearer. Proof against the harshest of weather, to hear Jura speak of it. And for as long as I’ve known her, I ain’t never seen her wearing anything but.’ Eli smiled ruefully.

  ‘And then there’s that shard of a lance she carries – that’s what was left of her kinlance after Absolom Shale took her. All wyrmekin are armed with kinlances. For the most part, they’re fashioned from the black spruce that grow deep in the valley country. Or sometimes from methusalah pine, lone trees only found at the top of the highest, hardest to reach crags.

  ‘The great wyrmes select the straightest branches for their chosen kin. They season and temper them on the tree with their fiery breath, or so it’s said, before cutting them down. Then they strip the bark and sharpen the wood with their claws, and coat the point in a venom from their fangs that causes slowdeath in those the lance wounds. Kith has no cure for it. Only another kinlance, heated whitehot in wyrmebreath, can draw the poison out and cauterize the wound …’

  Eli looked up. ‘A mighty painful business, as you learned to your cost, lad.’ He stared deep into the glow at the heart of the fire. ‘A great wyrme and its kin are just about the deadliest combination there is in all the weald. Ain’t the wyrmekith been born that can match them, and to my mind, there was no way a petty thug like Absolom Shale could have pulled off such a feat without some skulduggery or other …

  ‘So I called Absolom Shale a liar to his face, and he rose to the bait, going for that big old sidewinder at his feet. But my spitbolt was lighter and swifter, and I shot him through the eye before he had the chance to aim, let alone fire. The scrim den erupted in uproar, and in the confusion that followed, I was able to get Jura away.

  ‘Like I said, I’d been trying my luck as a falls fisher at that time, and I knew just the spot where the two of us could hole up while the rumpus calmed down. So I took her to that cave behind the waterfall in the green haven, away from the trails most kith tread. I nursed her back to health there, and her beauty and spirit took such a firm hold upon my heart that they ain’t never let go, not from that day to this. Of course, she was grateful to me for my kindness and returned my affection …’ He sighed. ‘As far as she was able …

  ‘You see, Micah, she’s wyrmekin, and there’ll always be a part of her that a kith like me can never reach. Though I ain’t never stopped trying …

  ‘It was during this time in the cave that I learned the truth of what had befallen her and Asra. They had encountered Absolom Shale in the valley country they were protecting. Apparently, he was out hunting lakewyrme with that monstrous sidewinder of his. She’d disarmed him easily enough, and had him pleading for his miserable life at the point of her kinlance.

  ‘But then … though she regretted it ever afterwards … and against Asra’s will … she let Absolom Shale go. Jura always maintained she lacked that instinct to kill that makes wyrmekin so formidable. Perhaps that’s what makes her so fine a healer,’ he mused. ‘Anyway, she spared his life on the condition that he quit the high country and return to the plains. For ever. It was a promise he did not keep.

  ‘Instead, he ventured into the caverns deep beneath the mountains. He did a deal down there with a moonshiner, one of the keld …’

  Eli saw the puzzled frown that crossed Micah’s brow.

  ‘Keld’s them that have taken to dark places, the better to hide their evil-doings,’ he told him. ‘They’re monstrous and depraved. Yet they’re cunning. Clever. They’re skilled at extracting the riches of them dark places – precious metals, priceless gemstones – and they use such riches to lure kith underground, like manderwyrmes to a sweet-bait trap.’ He shuddered. ‘But it’s a fearful price the keld exact, down in them evil subterranean places, with their stunted wyrmes and all …’

  He frowned. ‘Why, but Micah, you’ve gone mighty pale. Here, lad, take a swig of this liquor,’ he said, pulling his flask from his belt and handing it out.

  ‘N … no, I’m fine,’ said Micah.

  Eli shrugged and took a swig himself, then tossed another log onto the fire and poked at it till the flames crackled and sparks flew.

  ‘Anyways, whatever Absolom Shale traded – and I shudder to think what it might have been – he came away with a flagon of the poisonous oil that keld use to stunt their wyrmes. They call it quench. And Shale used this quench to poison the waters of Asra’s home tarn. When wyrme and kin got sick, he moved in and wreaked his revenge, bringing Asra down, capturing Jura …’

  Eli’s voice faltered. ‘Jura never spoke of what she suffered at Absolom Shale’s hands before I rescued her, but she swore that she would never allow kith to take her alive a second time …

  ‘She wept bitter tears for Asra, convinced that he was dead. But then one night, a few weeks later, Asra found her. Don’t ask me how he did it. Even now, I can scarce credit it myself, but then great wyrmes are truly the most extraordinary creatures that ever inhabited this world – strange, powerful and with an intelligence that far outstrips that of our kind …

  ‘He was grievously wounded and feversick from the quench, but somehow he had managed to drag himself down into the green haven and through the waterfall into the cave. He crawled to the back of the cave and laid himself down.’ Eli looked up, and wiped a sleeve across his brow. ‘Where he has remained to this very day.

  ‘As for Jura, she has a talent for healing. She distils cures and creates potions for those few – kin, and some kith like me – that she trusts enough to know her whereabouts. She cares for Asra, and welcomes any wyrmes that choose to roost in her cave.’ He nodded gravely. ‘And it is my sincere belief, Micah, that she won’t never leave that cave, not so long as there is breath in that great wyrme’s body, for when wyrme and kin have joined in kinship, there ain’t nothing that can break it.’

  Eli reached forward and took the liquor flask. He raised it to his lips and took a swig.

  ‘And that, Micah – that is the story of how Jura and I first met.’ He smiled. ‘Now get some sleep, lad. We’ve got a hard trail ahead of us.’

  Twenty-One

  They stopped at the edge of an overhang of black rock and looked down. It had been raining hard since they’d set off that morning, yet not even the rippling sheets of rain could obscure the magnificence of the landscape that lay before them. The high country was studded with floodlakes that gleamed like opals, while the surrounding mountains looked to be threaded with silver as cascades of rainspill coursed down their sides.

  ‘The scrimshaw den’s down there a ways,’ Eli said. ‘Behind that tall stack. The one shaped like a rooster.’

  Micah squinted, but was none too sure which stack the cragclimber meant. He reached for the brass and copper spyglass hanging on a chain round his neck and raised it to his eye. He focused on the low crags in the distance, one by one.

  ‘Rooster?’ he said.

  When Micah lowered the spyglass, Eli had already set off, and was striding down the scree-strewn slope at the steady pace Micah had got to know so well. With a weary sigh, he let go of the spyglass and set off after the cragclimber. The sun was low in the sky by the time they reached the valley floor and the light faded as they made their way between clusters of crouched boulders until a tall rockstack rose up before them.

  ‘The rooster rock,’ Eli announced. He raised a hand. ‘There’s its long neck and crested head, its beak jabbing to south. It’s just about as rooster-like as a rock can be,
I’d say.’ He turned to Micah, who was frowning, perplexed. ‘When you’ve walked the wyrmeweald as long as I have, boy,’ he said, ‘you too will see all manner of likenesses in the rocks, and learn to navigate your way by such.’

  Micah nodded. ‘And the scrimshaw den?’

  ‘For that,’ Eli said, ‘we need to step between the rooster’s legs.’

  He took Micah by the arm and led him through the great stone arch below the rooster rock, into the narrow canyon on the other side. At the far end was the entrance to a cave.

  ‘Stick with me when we get inside,’ said Eli.

  ‘I shall,’ said Micah, reaching up and removing his hat.

  Eli frowned. ‘The scrimshaw den ain’t no prayer-house or temple, Micah,’ he observed.

  ‘I know it,’ said Micah. He had taken off his hat and was concentrating on removing one of the sharp three-pronged birdhooks attached to the hatband without cutting his fingers. When it came free, he dropped it into his pocket and started on its neighbour.

  Eli watched, intrigued, as Micah’s fingers teased and worried at the hook. ‘What you doing, boy?’

  Micah looked up. ‘Any filchthief’ll get more than he bargained for should he try dipping into my pockets.’

  Eli nodded slowly. ‘Give me a couple of them things,’ he said, and when Micah had unhooked two more, he dropped them into his own jacket pockets.

  They entered the low-ceilinged cavern and through a haze of aromatic oil-lamp smoke, Micah saw that the scrimshaw den was filled with people. At least two dozen by his quick reckoning. They were crouched down in pairs and small clusters, and the cavern was filled with the low thrum of their confidential conversations.

  ‘A raincloak! For this wyrmepelt?’ he heard an outraged voice protest. ‘I’d want more into the bargain for it to stick … ’

  A squat wyrmekith with a broad nose and slits for eyes was shaking his head so hard the cluster of fishing-weights attached to his lobstertail cap jangled. Hanging by the neck from his bunched fist was the eviscerated body of a green fisherwyrme, its once magnificent purple crest limp as damp cloth.