The Witch of Glenaster (17 page)

“Ah! Bliss…”

Samuel Hollis splashed water on
his face like an eager dog, showering the rest of us with icy droplets, which made
Magnus and I laugh, which only encouraged him. His brother did not see the
funny side.

“I’m trying to write, brother,”
said Joseph, scratching at a small, close-bound notebook with a stub of pencil,
and raising his eyes for a moment at Samuel, who abruptly stopped his
splashing, though he gave us a wink as he did so. The pond shimmered quietly in
the late sun of evening, half its surface imprisoned under a thin layer of ice,
on which a flock of geese croaked and fought, back and forth, swinging their wings
like fists. Around us, small copses and scattered woodland punctuated a wide,
open valley of grassland and bog, drifting away to the horizon, the trees
singing in the still autumn air.

We had been travelling for many
days, and were nearly three weeks north of
Ampar
; its
great towers and narrow streets seemed another life away. We had passed through
Fernshire
, the hills of Thyme threading shadows upon
us as we rolled by. The first night we had stopped at an inn on the outskirts
of Leigh, a little village of stone houses, clustered about a small river. It
reminded me greatly of home, and I hugged my brother when I saw it.

From there we followed the
sweep of the Lennox, that tumbles down from the Crying Mountains to the west,
and when we crossed it at Hatcher’s Post we joined the Salt Road, that once had
thronged with traffic back and forth between the North and the Capital, but now
was hardly more than a narrow track, potholed and overgrown. Fear, fear of the
Witch, had driven many people south, and there were plenty of abandoned
cottages in which to shelter. And so our nights were cold but dry, and the
stars wheeled brightly above our heads, and God must have kept a keen watch on
us in those early days, for we encountered no threat. And soon the fields of
Fernshire
gave way to the tree-gifted land of Fairburn,
with its rich oaks and bowing beeches marking our route, many now stripped of
their leaves, and some whose leaves would never return: twisted ghosts of
trees, whose limbs writhed against the indifferent sky.

Yellowhammers roosted in them
at each day’s end, and we were glad to see them, for we knew there were no such
birds where the Witch lived, and she would never hear their song. And for the
first time, despite everything, despite all the horror and death she had
visited upon us, I found I pitied the Witch of
Glenaster
.

Samuel dried himself off after
his wash, and Fyn made a fire, as we settled in for the night. A little way up
the hill, Lukas Broad kept the watch, still as a stone against the fading sun.
We were in a low dip of land, tucked away from the road at the corner of the
valley; but still we had no walls to defend us, for we had not seen any
buildings for several miles, and the evening was fast coming on. So for the
first time since leaving the city, we had to spend the night out of doors.

Lukas lit a cigar, and the glow
cast a low shadow across his face, with its thick grey beard, and hair swept
untidily over his collar. He coughed occasionally, but apart from the regular
movement of his arm, as he lifted the cigar to his lips, he might be a statue.
Of all Thomas’s companions, he seemed to me the strangest: slightly older than
the rest, but quite hale – he had beaten Samuel in an arm-wrestling contest
early in our journey, and seemed to have a way of slapping the other men on the
back that almost sent them flying – he was always watchful, his narrow eyes
occasionally alighting on Magnus or myself, and then moving on without a word.
He spent long hours in close counsel with Thomas and Griffin, and hardly spoke
to the rest of us. Nevertheless, his presence reassured, rather than
frightened, me, for I sensed he was a man who would strike fear into many, but
only, I reckoned, with good cause.

The others varied, in
temperament and character, though all were more or less friendly towards my
brother and I: Samuel and Joseph most of all, of course, and though Joseph
seemed quieter than his brother, he was no less warm, and their cheerfulness
did not seem to relent, even in the darkest moments; Griffin was
straightforward, somewhat bluff, and did not waste words where none were
wanted; and then there was Fyn, who, like the Hollis brothers, was younger, and
quicker to smile than the older men: he taught me some fighting skills, showing
me how to anticipate an opponent, how to use a dagger, how to use a man’s
weight against him. Thomas frowned at this, but he did not try to prevent it.
It was a little knowledge, but it was to prove its usefulness.

All of them had served with
Colonel Marcus Strange out of High Meadow, many miles to the west, and all had
seen action of one sort or another, in faraway wars which sounded both romantic
and terrifying. It was difficult to determine their exact relationship, for
they treated each other more or less as equals, yet all, subtly but noticeably,
seemed to defer to Thomas, and frequently to call him Captain, and I wondered
at his quiet authority, and how it had come about. Something told me it had
been hard-earned, and was not simply the result of given rank.

They managed to keep their
exact purpose hidden, though it seemed increasingly likely to me that it
involved the Witch in some way; all the more so as great treasure, and perhaps
the throne itself, had been promised to those who killed her. I knew, though,
that the emperor had other enemies in the wild lands of the north, and they did
not look like men preparing to go to their deaths. Still, I watched and
listened, and tried to glean from them what clues I could.

When Samuel had finished
washing, he walked over to join Fyn, who was stood with his back to a tree,
gazing ahead, to the north. Behind him, half-hidden in the woods, were the
waggon and horses, tethered, and munching noisily on grain that Griffin had
laid down for them.

Samuel followed Fyn’s gaze.

“Salem Forest,” he said.

Fyn nodded. A long line of dull
green could just be discerned, on higher ground, at the edge of the horizon.

“We should be there by noon
tomorrow; early afternoon at the latest,” said Fyn, and he spat some tobacco on
to the ground. I saw Magnus make a face, and laughed. Fyn gave me a look.

“Are we expecting trouble?”
asked Samuel, quietly, and his tone suggested the question was rhetorical. Fyn
chewed his tobacco.

“We might be lucky. If the
Watchers are all gathered near Fierce, as everyone seems to think, then they
may have abandoned the Forest.” And he paused, sighing slightly. “But I do not
think we will be lucky.”

And he turned aside, and picked
up his bag, and went to help Griffin with the horses.

That night was undisturbed and
quiet, until about the third hour after midnight, when I was awoken by a gentle
shaking, and looked up to see Magnus, staring eagerly into my face.

“Listen,” he said.

I pushed myself up on my elbow.
After a supper of sweet, warm trout – caught by Samuel earlier in the day, and
baked in a pit by his brother – we had gone to bed, ranged around the fire,
Lukas and Fyn taking first watch, and Thomas, as he always did, sleeping
nearest to Magnus and
I
. Now, with the night deep and slow,
and the fire died to embers, I could understand what my brother wanted me to
listen to.

I could see four of the men,
one of whom looked like Thomas, standing on the edge of the hollow, looking
out. Turning, I saw Samuel and Fyn, the one crouched near my head, his hand on
his sword, the other a little farther off, standing behind a fir tree and
watching the men on the ridge intently.

What they were listening to –
what we were all listening to – was the sound of people dying.

They were definitely people, of
that I was sure: though the words were too distant to make out, we could not
fail to recognize the sound of men and women in distress and pain. And, though
it was impossible to be sure, it sounded like they were begging for their
lives.

Then I heard their murderers.

It was a faint shiver at first,
as the wind carried the sound back and forth; but soon it became clearer: an
empty, soulless echo, that had thought, and cunning, but no mercy.

I could not help but be
reminded of that night in the
Moonland
, when we had
hidden in Cornelius’s house, high up on the mountain, and heard that laughter,
that voice I had fervently wished never to hear again. And here it was once
more, though far away this time; and I held Magnus tight, and saw that Fyn and
Samuel were uneasy, their faces, even in the darkness, bearing the mark of men
who fear more than anything a foe they do not know how to kill.

Eventually the sounds drifted
away, and I suppose I must have fallen back to sleep; but in the morning I
noticed the others had fatigue etched into the lines below their eyes, and I
supposed they had slept but little. And as I washed and dressed, and ate what
breakfast I could, for I had small hunger that morning, I saw that everyone was
there: Griffin with the horses; Thomas and Lukas poring over a map they had
laid against the side of the waggon; Fyn gathering up the blankets and putting
out the fire; Joseph reading a book to Magnus. But someone was missing. Where
was Samuel?

We found him, after only a
short search, lying in a clearing a few yards away, face down, as a man dead.
And Joseph admonished himself for neglecting his brother, and could not
understand how he could have just wandered off without telling anyone, when
Lukas put a hand to Samuel’s shoulder, and said:

“He’s still alive.”

Indeed, he seemed little more
than stunned; and when he came around apparently had no memory of why or how he
had got there.

“I was standing by Magnus and
Esther, guarding them, as Thomas had asked,” he said, between gulps of water,
his eyes bulging slightly. “And then I was… here, with Lukas standing over me.”
And he looked up at us, and blinked.

“A sorry sight for anyone early
in the morning,” joked Fyn, and Griffin cheerfully scolded Samuel for getting
drunk and falling over in the woods. Only Thomas did not share in the laughter,
and when I looked at him his face was grave.

We left our camp under the
sharp November sunlight - Thomas and the others making sure everything was left
as we had found it - and then we headed out again, across the valley floor, and
on towards Salem Forest, which rumbled gradually nearer under the waggon’s
wheels.

Samuel seemed, at first, none
the worse for blacking out in the wood; and we all supposed he had just fallen
over in the dark. At least, that is what we
told
each other: in truth, I
think we all harboured doubts, and these were only increased by a slight, but
noticeable, change in his behaviour - normally so placid, he became
increasingly restless, and would occasionally grab at his face, an involuntary
spasm which would be accompanied by hurried, softly spoken words, that seemed
to form out of nowhere, and make no sense. And when we stopped he would often
gaze out into space; and when we moved on again his head would settle always in
one direction: away to the north-west, beyond the Crying Mountains and the
Lessening Lands, beyond where any living man had ever gone. To the Unknown
Regions: to
Glenaster
.

We reached the edge of the
Forest just after noon, as Fyn had promised, and ate a brief meal before
continuing. We even had a little cider, saved from Griffin’s stores in
Ampar
, to toast the miracle that we had made it this far.

“In three days, my friends, we
will cross the Meer, and enter the Green Cities,” said Thomas, raising his cup,
“and Richard of the Towers will give us a heroes’ welcome!” Some laughter, and
cheering. “Until then, we walk a wild path, and trust only in God, and each
other.” And he took a long draught, and the others did the same; and they
poured some for me, who liked it more than I should, and also for Magnus, who
did not.

And so we entered the Forest of
Salem, where the shadows are long, and the day is no more than a memory for the
unwary traveller.

The dark conifers grew thick on
either side of us, denying the light to the ground below, and making the track
beneath our feet – here hardly more than a broad path – a spongy carpet of
needles. Nothing lived in the forest. No bird. No animal. Just the occasional
whisper of wind against the high branches, and the low, insistent promise of
the dark.

“The emperor has threatened to
chop it down,” said Joseph, as we trundled slowly along, in virtual silence
except for the creak of the waggon’s wheels and the stuttering whinny of the
horses. “But they say there is a curse on this forest, and any hand that raises
an axe to it is damned thereafter. Many years ago, a gang of foresters from out
of
Berryland
, far to the east, came here to cut the
trees, looking for timber they could sell, and perhaps a thank you from the
emperor. But only one of them ever returned, and he was soon sick with the
fever, and died that winter. People asked him what he had seen, but he was
struck dumb, and only pointed to his forehead…” He made a sign against his
brow.

“The Third Eye…!” said Magnus,
open-mouthed.

“Yes,” said Joseph, “the
Witch’s mark. But you are too young to know of such things, Master Lanark, and,
in truth, I do not know if I wish to speak more of them here.” And so we
continued on silently for a while.

We stopped after a few hours,
in a small clearing, Griffin, Lukas and Thomas consulting their maps, Joseph
entertaining us with tales of the battles he had fought (“Men the size of
giants! Marching like boulders across the earth. Never been so terrified. But I
did not run…”), and Fyn watching behind, the way we had come. As for Samuel, he
would smile and nod at his brother’s stories, but seemed more and more aloof,
and I could see the others were troubled by his behaviour. At least once I saw
them whisper to each other, watching him from a distance, and later that day,
after we had moved further into the forest, and stopped for the night beside
the road, I saw Joseph arguing with Griffin and Thomas, a little way off; and
though their voices were unclear, I heard Joseph say, “But he’s my brother!”,
and saw him storm angrily away, and disappear for a while into the trees. None
of us slept easy that night, and I noticed they did not let Samuel keep the
watch alone after that.