The Dark Citadel (The Green Woman) (23 page)

The bushes
were
wrenched aside, and out strode a young woman with long brown hair and
clothed entirely in animal skins. She was tall and strong looking, even though
one arm was withered and useless, and one foot seemed disproportionately large,
giving her a pronounced limp. Her face was disfigured with a deep red mark that
ran from her hairline down her left cheek. It covered her left eye, giving the
impression that it glared red-rimmed out of an angry wound. The pups growled,
but the woman took no notice.

“For a hunter, you have not much wood craft,” she
said.

“It’s the first time I tried,” Deborah said
defensively, backing away from the alarming-looking woman.
     

“And the bow is your friend’s.”

Deborah said nothing. She guessed the woman must be
one of Jonah’s desert wanderers, so perhaps she was a friend. Her father’s
words, to trust nobody, came back to her, and she scrutinised the disfigured
face, trying to decide if it was only the birthmark that made it look evil.

As if she read her thoughts, the woman said, “You
should not judge on appearances alone. Not always, in any case. I know what you
are looking for, and I can help you find it.”

The woman’s eyes were the colour of melted snow,
and Deborah felt the chill that glittered in their depths seep through the
pupils of her own eyes, freezing her thoughts one by one and locking them in an
ice-bound cavern. The woman’s lips twisted into a smile that was more of a
sneer, and Deborah felt even her dearest thoughts skittering from her grasp
like smooth pebbles across the surface of a frozen lake. A darkness seemed to
fill the woman’s eyes, a sinister presence that was not contained, but crept
out furtively, slipping like wolf shadows into Deborah’s mind and filling it
full of evil thoughts that were not her own.

The pups whined and wriggled on their bellies, a
dozen pairs of eyes narrowed to yellow slits, and fixed the woman in an
unblinking stare. Deborah frowned and turned back to look at the still sleeping
Jonah. Jonah too knew what she was looking for, but the land beyond the river
was as unfamiliar to him as it was to her.

The woman grinned, and dark, ugly thoughts wriggled
into Deborah’s consciousness. A veil fell across her eyes, and as she looked at
Jonah, the boy she had let into her most secret places, he became just a
sleeping boy. And why was he still sleeping? Was he so worn out by the double
march of the previous day? Deborah felt a flush of pride in herself, getting up
at first light to hunt game. She could find the way just as easily as Jonah.
Easier—she had the Memory to help her. Look at the bridge!

The woman had settled down at the edge of the
screen of bushes and was watching her with a smile on her lips that betrayed
just a flicker of irony. She had heard Deborah’s thoughts as clearly as if she
had shouted them aloud,

“You are a very talented young woman. Call me Eve.
Trust me.”

Deborah shook her head in a desperate attempt to
regain control of her will, but the woman’s cold eyes held her in their grip.
One dragging step after another, Deborah moved closer, and with a sob of frustrated
rage, sat down before the strange woman and listened.

Eve spoke in a low, unmodulated voice about the
wonders beyond the mountain, the blue of the sky, the tang of the streams cold
and clear as crystal, the winged horses, the song birds, the tall trees, and
the soft, lush grass. Deborah found herself caught helplessly in the mesh of
words and the strange eyes like splinters of ice that filled her entire vision.

“The Queen sent me to meet you. She knows you are
on your way, but you need a guide.”

“Jonah—”

“The dog boy.” Eve snorted scornfully. “The dog boy
knows how to scavenge like a jackal in the desert, but he knows nothing of the
ways of the forest or the mountain. And,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “he
does not know the path to the Garden.”

Deborah opened her mouth to speak then closed it,
unable to summon up any thoughts of her own. The woman smiled hungrily, and
Deborah’s desire to defend Jonah squirmed and shrank. In its place, her desire
to find her mother grew and swelled, fed by Eve’s insinuations.

 
She
found herself staring at the imperious stranger. The face, despite the
birthmark, was strong and decisive, and she held her head proudly. Her eyes,
filled with ice splinters, probed into Deborah’s head, picking over and
commanding her thoughts. It had not taken Eve long to find the pride and
arrogance Deborah thought she had shrugged off since meeting Jonah, like a
snake shedding its skin. Struggling vainly to keep out the invasion, Deborah
felt her resistance ebbing away.

“How can I be sure my mother really sent you?”

“You can’t.” Eve laughed. “But how can you be sure
your precious dog boy is to be trusted?”

“Of course he is!” It was Deborah’s turn to laugh.
She was sure of that much at least. “Jonah saved my life.”

“So he could hand you over to the Morrigu.”

The colour drained from Deborah’s face. This was a
new attack, and she didn’t know how to defend herself against it. She did not
know the name, but the sound of it sent shivers down her spine. The woman
pointed to a speck high in the milky whiteness of the sky.

“There she is, the bringer of death and
destruction, the right arm of Abaddon. You have heard of Abaddon, surely? The
demon king, god of the desert chaos, the Destroyer?”

Deborah nodded, confused. “But what’s he got to do
with Jonah?”

Again Eve snorted. “How do you think the dog boy
survived in the desert? Because he made a pact with Abaddon. And Abaddon wants
to be paid.”

“I don’t believe you!” Deborah shouted, putting her
hands over her ears. But the whispering voices insinuated themselves into her
head and told all kinds of evil lies about Jonah. They called him desert jackal
and said he was worth less than the dust of Providence she tipped out of her
shoes. They hissed that her mother would be ashamed for her.

Jonah!
Wake up!
she cried out. But her distress made no sound—the words never left
her heart.

The pups crouched waiting, bellies to the ground,
ears lying flat against their skulls. They growled and snapped, but dared not
approach. Eve tapped Deborah on the arm and bared her teeth in a smile in which
there was no warmth.

“You are a good, trusting girl. But you have been
deceived. Believe me.”

Deborah cast frightened glances at the sky. Fear
was all she felt now, fear for Jonah, fear for herself. The speck was larger
now, wheeling in great circles, looking for something.

“Come.” Eve rose and held out her hand. “Before she
sees you.”

Deborah fought against the muddling of her
thoughts. “First I want to hear what Jonah has to say—”

“It’s too late for talking.” Eve took her firmly by
the hand. Deborah made a feeble attempt to shake herself loose, but the woman’s
grip tightened. “Come into the trees. You will see I am speaking the truth when
the Morrigu descends and asks the dog boy for her prey.”

Deborah’s feet dragged against her will, and she
gazed back over her shoulder, her eyes fixed on Jonah. He was stretching. In a
minute or two he would be awake. With the fragment of her mind that still
belonged to her, Deborah knew Eve was lying. She wanted to run to Jonah and
wake him, to bury her face in the hollow of his neck, and let him rock her in
the warm strength of his arms. She wanted him to tell the woman to go away.
Together they could face up to her, but not Deborah alone. Alone Deborah
floundered about in a sticky morass of hopes and lies and loves.

The steely grip did not slacken, and Deborah’s feet
shuffled inexorably in the woman’s wake to the shelter of the trees. She opened
her mouth to call out, but again no sound came.

“I will teach you how to hunt on our journey.”

Deborah glanced at the woman’s withered arm and
looked dubious.

“The bow is for cowards,” Eve said, and held up a
long blade that flashed in the light. “The knife is for those who know how to
use stealth, and for those with steady nerves and a steady hand.”

Without warning, she spun on her heels, and before
Deborah realised what was happening, the knife had flown from her hand into the
throat of a pup as it leapt snarling with hatred in its eyes. Deborah put her
hands to her mouth as a cry of horror escaped. She tried to move, she really
did, but though her eyes followed the last convulsions of the small body, her
feet remained rooted to the spot, her hands to her face, wet with tears.

The other pups crept forward, growling and yapping
in their puppyish voices, lips curled back savagely and fur bushed out in fury.
They spread out in a circle around Deborah and Eve, held at bay by the ice
splinters in the woman’s eyes.

Snarling and snapping, the circle tightened, and
the most enraged of the pups snatched at Eve’s skirt, ripping the deerskin
until she kicked it in the side with such force that the ribs caved in. The pup
cried piteously then choked on the blood that boiled up from the punctured lung
and spilled out onto the green grass. Eve’s lips were also curled back, and her
teeth were strong and gleaming white.

* * * *

The noise woke Jonah who cast about wildly, looking for Deborah and the
pups. He leapt to his feet facing the direction of the clamour, but before he
could launch himself into the fray, the black shape in the sky was upon him
with a raucous croak.

Jonah put his hands above his head to protect
himself, but the giant crow’s claws fastened onto his arms, tearing into the
flesh. His gasp of pain and shock was drowned by the wild yelping of the pups
as they threw themselves furiously at the great bird. Ignoring the irritation,
the crow jabbed her beak dagger-like into the flesh of Jonah’s neck. He
screamed as the beak jabbed again at the other side of his head, ripping
through his ear, but the pain cleared the sleep from his wits.

“Princess!”

Jonah’s warning broke against the barrier of the
spell, unable to penetrate Deborah’s thoughts. Eve’s frozen gaze still held her
fast; her hands hung limply at her side, the bow, forgotten, over her shoulder.
Her legs could not move.

“Princess!” Jonah screamed again, his eyes darting,
looking for but not finding her. “Run! Run for the trees!”

Jonah,
she whispered, in
a voice no louder than the beating of her heart.

The Morrigu turned her head sharply, and a sharp
black eye scanned the edge of the clearing. The eye looked at Deborah where she
stood motionless on the edge of the clearing, but slid across rippling veils of
illusion and saw only the glimmer of something that might or might not have
been.

“The girl? Come out! There is nowhere in this world
you can hide from me.” The crow’s voice rasped like the creaking hinges of the
gates of Hell. She turned her head and peered with the other eye. “Listen,
girl, for you are there. I feel the heat of your blood. Listen and do not move.
Your illusion will not work long against me.”

The ragged black wings opened as wide as the
breadth of the river, and the claws released Jonah’s arm. The crow turned her
head from side to side, searching for movement. Jonah too looked, but Deborah
was nowhere in sight.

“Princess!”

The crow hopped into the air and panic seized him.

“Run! Deborah, please, run!” he yelled and with
blood pouring down his face and neck gripped the Morrigu’s legs. The pups
yelped and whined, as if begging him to let go.

Something in the way he spoke her name, calling her
Deborah, as if for the last time, woke her out of her trance. Eve’s grip on her
thoughts shattered, and the fumes of enchantment cleared from her brain.

“No, Jonah! Let go!”

As the enchantment faded, Jonah saw her and
redoubled his efforts to pull down the great bird. The crow flapped and turned
her head in the direction of the voice.

Deborah fumbled for her bow. This time she really
was going to show Jonah she could help. She was going to fight for him as he
had fought so many demons to save her. This time Deborah was going to save
Jonah, because she loved him with all her heart, and nothing could prevail
against her love.

But before she could reach for an arrow, fingers,
strong as a steel trap locked round her arm. She turned furiously, struggling
to free herself, but the angry words died in her throat, and what escaped was a
gasp of fear. Instead of Eve’s disfigured face, Deborah found herself gazing
into the cold eyes of a pale-haired warrior.

“Run, Deborah!” Jonah called for the last time, the
laughter in his eyes turned forever to love and sadness and regret as he
strained to capture a last image of his princess before the battle crow
hammered her beak through his skull.

Sobbing with
grief
and horror, Deborah struggled with the blond, bare-chested warrior, but
she might as well have been wrestling with a tree. “Let me go or I’ll kill
you,” she shrieked. “Let me go, he’s hurt!”

She was too shocked to even wonder who the warrior
was or where he came from. Her eyes were full of Jonah. “Let me go!”

“Be still,” the man snarled. “Can’t you see it’s
too late? Your little friend is dead.”

The Morrigu flapped her wings to shake off the
weight of Jonah’s body, but his shirt was caught on her claws. The pups, mad
now with sorrow, surged in a body towards the black bird, leaping and twisting
as high as their strength allowed. Each fell back as the great black wings
lifted the crow out of reach. But only just.

The battle crow cocked her head first one way, then
the other, unable to resist the pleasure of carnage. The razor beak opened wide
and snapped a leaping pup in half.

“No!” Deborah screamed. “Not Silver!”

The pack responded in a frenzy of foaming jaws and
the desolate, furious snarling of loss and hatred.

The Morrigu flapped over their heads, stabbing at
the maddened pups while the eerie sound of low growling and snarling filled the
encircling woods, and the green shadows beneath the trees flickered with the
blinking of yellow eyes. The shadows took form and leapt from cover, skimming
the ground, a blur of soft grey fur and white fangs. Leaping over the pups, the
great grey wolves launched themselves high in the air from their powerful
haunches, iron jaws clamping fast on the wings and body of the battle crow.

The fabric of Jonah’s shirt ripped, and his body
fell into the mêlée. The Morrigu cried, her beak swinging from side to side,
her steel-like claws slashing about her in a frenzy of blood and fur. She was
loath to leave the carnage, but the wolves were too many. She had been caught
too low to the ground, and they hung on her wing feathers to prevent her
gaining height. Hampered by the dead weight of the wolves, she could no longer
stab and tear. Murder reluctantly gave way to retreat in the blood red
convolutions of her mind.

With a croak of disgust and a last thrash of her
wings to dislodge the clinging jaws, she lifted her ragged body over the trees
and away to another battlefield. Her hunger for blood and death still
raged—the girl, the search, Abaddon himself could all wait a while until
it was sated.

* * * *

The pups were silent, licking their wounds or simply sitting, blinking,
their sides heaving. The wolves crouched, watching over the corpses, watching
Deborah. The warrior’s grip slackened, and Deborah shook herself free. She ran
the first steps towards Jonah’s body, then stopped, unwilling to bring to an
end the last seconds of hope.

 
“Jonah,” she whispered in a tiny voice, and reached out to
touch his mutilated face. Her tears fell into his blood-soaked hair, and, with
trembling fingers, she combed the thick locks to hide the gaping wound. His
skin was warm.

“Jonah?” She stroked his cheek, and his head
settled in the grass. The slight movement parted his lips.

“Jonah!” Her heart gave a lurch, with a joy so
painful she sobbed aloud. But the parted lips were silent, not the faintest
hint of warm breath escaped. Hope died, and she laid her head on his still
chest and sobbed.

She thought of nothing: her mind was dead. She
never wanted to open her eyes again, just wanted oblivion, to sleep, never to
wake. But she couldn’t, not here, alone in a strange place with an unknown
strongman at her back and the hostile eyes of a wolf pack fixed upon her. She
screamed aloud, her eyes full of swimming, stinging tears, “Jonah, come back!
Don’t leave me!”

She stroked his face. “You looked so peaceful when
you were sleeping,” she whispered, as if he could hear, not wanting the
stranger to catch the words of tenderness. “It was the first time I’d seen you
sleeping. The first time we’d been so close, the first time…” She swallowed
hard to get rid of the knot in her throat. “Why couldn’t I just have stayed by
your side, watching you sleeping, until you woke?”

More tears came, and her shoulders shook with
sobbing. The pups did not move. They did not growl, but their eyes narrowed to
yellow slits and glittered with hostility. Deborah hid her face in her hands,
unable to bear the unmistakable look of reproach in the pups’ eyes. The one
they all loved unreservedly had been taken from them.

A pup whimpered in pain and licked a ragged tear in
its flank. The whimpering continued, spreading to the other pups, and for the
first time Deborah saw them for what they were—babies, orphaned for a
second time, and she was to blame.

Her sides shook in a spasm of silent sobbing, the
tears squeezing out of tight closed eyes and running down her cheeks. She clung
to Jonah’s hands, and laid her head on his chest over his heart. The sobbing
took over, became her grief, supplanting all her thoughts, wringing her dry.
She ceased to think at all. Gradually, Jonah’s hands grew cold, his face
beneath the tan pale and still.

When the tears had drained all her strength and all
she wanted to do was sleep, Deborah remembered Eve. She looked around, a
murderous light in her eyes, but she could see only Eve’s warrior friend. He
was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, watching her with an amused expression on
his face. Deborah’s grief found a target and began to transform into fury.

“Where did she go, that woman, that liar?”

Ignoring the anger in Deborah’s voice, the man gave
an extravagant bow, his plaits sweeping the ground. “But she is still here!
Loki, shape-shifter, Prince of Lies and Arch-deceiver, at your service.”

“She…You killed Jonah! You said he called up the
crow!”

“So, I exaggerated.” Loki laughed.

“You crept inside my head, twisting my thoughts.
You tried to make me believe Jonah was a traitor, that my mother…that I…that he
wasn’t worthy—”

“Oh, come on! I didn’t have to try very hard.”

Deborah shook her head, her eyes filling with
tears. “I never believed, not really. But I couldn’t move. You paralysed my
will, you black devil! Oh, Jonah, why did you have to be so brave?”

Laying her head down again on Jonah’s lifeless
chest, Deborah wrapped her arms around him and found she still had tears to
weep.

The pups were silent, but the wolves raised their
muzzles to the sky and howled. The eerie, unearthly sound rolled around the
hollow, a sound of utter desolation and grief. It rolled through the sinuous
passages of Deborah’s ear and found an empty chamber in her head. The lament of
the wolves would never leave her now. Jonah’s sacrifice had become a part of
her. When it stopped, the silence flooded back, deeper and emptier than it had
ever been before.

Without a sound the wolves turned and melted back
into the woods of the lower slopes. The pups rose, still whimpering.

“Wait!” Deborah sprang to her feet. “Don’t go!
Don’t you leave me too,” she called after them. But with ears and tails drooping
in misery, and many a backward look, the pups left the body of their old
companion and followed their cousins.

Deborah wiped her eyes and stared at the empty
shell that had been Jonah. The new, vibrant emotions that had made her believe
she could take on a hundred demon kings and beat them to a pulp were dry now
and bitter and dead. Like dust and ashes they blew away, leaving her with a
future as arid and harsh as the desert. She was empty, dried up like a dead
thorn bush. Nothing mattered any more—the empty years ahead, the coming
weeks and days, even the next minute may just as well never happen. Without
Jonah to share the future with her, Deborah didn’t want it.

 
She
heard footsteps approaching and spun round.

“Haven’t you gone yet?” she asked, her voice full
of loathing. “You’ve got what you wanted. Jonah’s dead. Now just leave me
alone.”

“On the contrary, your brave little friend got
himself killed for nothing. Nobody asked him to throw himself at the Morrigu.
Do you think I would have let her have you? Why do you think she looked
straight at you, yet couldn’t see you?”

Deborah felt icy cold all over. “What do you mean?”

Loki laughed. “But surely, my dear, it’s obvious. I
hid my prize from the feathered fiend because it was you she wanted, not some root-grubbing
little desert jackal.”

Deborah backed away. “Get away from me, you
murderer. I’m not your prize, and I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Loki burst out laughing. “You don’t understand
anything, do you? My former demonic master suspected you might have escaped
from the city, so he sent us, your humble servant and the Morrigu, to search
for you. But I found you first, and I have had the pleasure of depriving the
great prince Abaddon of his prey.”

“I said, get away from me.” Deborah’s voice was low
and menacing as she slipped the bow from her shoulder and reached for an
arrow.
 

“But I haven’t finished with you yet. Abaddon wants
you, the Serpent Witch wants you, but I have you. No, I don’t think I will let
you go just yet.” As he spoke, Loki was unwinding from around his waist a coil
of fine, silken rope.

Deborah nocked the arrow with inexpert fingers.
“You gave Jonah to that black bird, and I will kill you for that.”

Loki laughed with genuine amusement. “How many
deaths has it taken to awaken your spirit, warrior maiden?”

The taunt was too much for Deborah. The truth of it
and the remorse she felt, the self-loathing and the sorrow broke something
inside her. The anger boiled over, and she tossed aside the bow, reaching for a
more powerful weapon. Glaring fixedly at Loki, she took a step towards him.

The laughter left his face as he saw something in
the depths of her eyes. “No!”

Deborah almost grinned at the fear in his face.

“No!”

Her lips curled back in a snarl, and she screamed
her hatred. The power inside her guts uncoiled like a released spring, but the
warrior was no longer there. Dry leaves scattered, and the lithe red shape of a
fox shot into the undergrowth. Loki was escaping. Deborah let out her hatred
and her fury in another scream, and the clump of bushes exploded in a blaze of
white flame. She staggered forward, shielding her eyes but there was nothing to
be seen in the green wood smoke and the dying fire.

For a while she raged, let fury blind her. Then the
pain rushed back like a black wave. Jonah was dead. With a sob she let her arms
drop limply to her side, all thought of murder forgotten. She turned back to
the place where his body lay. There was one last thing she could do for him,
and it would take all of her love to do it.

She bent over the body and hooked her hands under
the armpits.

“I’m sorry, Jonah,” she whispered. “I can’t get you
there any other way. It’s not far.” She dragged him towards the hollow tree,
her tears falling freely, and as gently as possible settled him inside the dead
trunk. One by one she gathered up the stiffening bodies of the pups and laid
them at his side. She couldn’t remember all their names, only Silver, the
smallest and gentlest of all and Jonah’s favourite. She stroked the matted fur
of each one, and told them how brave and loyal they had been. It was an hour
before she could bring herself to leave. After one last caress to say goodbye
to the pups, she bent and kissed Jonah’s cold lips.

“Goodbye, love,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I should
have tried harder. Remember me, wherever you are.”

She wiped her eyes and gazed at Jonah’s face, calm
and serene in death, the ugly wound half-hidden in his thick hair. His eyes
were closed, but she didn’t need to look into them to let him free. She would
let him go, as she had let Samariel go. It was the last thing.

The power uncoiled again, but gently this time,
like a sleek, soft-furred animal, supple as a big cat. Her thoughts were full
of Jonah—fury, vengeance, hatred were swept aside in an upwelling of love
and sorrow. Cat-like, her power stretched and rubbed its head against her
cheek.

“Goodbye, Jonah.”

The big cat reached out a velvet paw and stroked
the dead tree with white flame.

“Goodbye.”

The flames wrapped around the tree in a close
embrace, lapping about Jonah’s face. A plume of white smoke rose from the
parted lips, and Deborah knew it was done.

The world was nothing but blackest night, run
through with a river of fire and the sound of dry wood exploding in the heat.
When the thundering began, Deborah took no notice. It was only right the sky
should rage in protest at what had happened in the forest. But the thunder grew
louder, dragging her back to the world that was not being consumed in flame.
The sound resolved itself into the pounding of horses’ hooves, how many horses
Deborah couldn’t tell.

The flames whispered a name.
Sleipnir
. Clenching her fists she turned in the direction of the
noise, not caring who or what Sleipnir was, prepared to vent her rage on
whatever appeared. A second later she gave a gasp of astonishment as a huge
eight-legged horse, grey as twilight, galloped into the clearing and stopped,
snorting and pawing the earth with his eight hooves.