Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (61 page)

Slowly, Sten enlarged on his tale. The arrow meant for his heart had caught him in the shoulder instead, and the moment it landed he had thrown himself into the water before another followed it. He swam for the coast beyond the harbour, where Eilsweyr and the other warrior, Agga, had happened upon him. “We watched as your ship was set aflame,” said the latter, sadly. “There was nothing we could do.”

Sten’s wounds had been tended to, as they kept watch on the fortress. When the Legion procession had left for the capital, taking their prisoners with them, the trio followed closely behind. Each night, when the Legion troops camped, they did what they could to disrupt their march. First, Klukka had been loosed on the commander’s horse, then the following evening Eilsweyr had struck down the first sentry and thrown his body from the ridge, which distracted the soldiers so that Agga could sneak into the camp and steal the ox.

“I thought I saw something that night,” Captain Brandt mused. “Whatever happened to the poor beast?”

“It made a fine stew,” Eilsweyr replied, grinning.

The soldiers had been lost as soon as the mists had descended and not cleared. The Mistborn were true to their name; they lived almost their entire lives in the relentless fog that apparently covered the Shadowlands for most of the year. Caspian doubted if any fighting force in the world could match them in such a land. Their progress slowed, the Legion found themselves being gradually picked off each night, until eventually the remainder deserted rather than face their comrades’ fate.

Caspian had reached the end of his third bowl of stew. At last, his stomach felt satisfied. “So, what happens now?” he asked.

“We will return to the tribe and report what has happened,” Agga said. “You would be welcome to join us, my friends, but I think you have business elsewhere.”

“That we do.” Captain Brandt put down his own bowl. His hand groped towards his breast, but then dropped. His coat and the pipe that had always sat within the same pocket were both lost, taken by their captors. “Our path remains the same, though this time we’ll walk it as free men.”

Caspian frowned. “You mean we’re still to go to Ehrenburg? What for?”

The captain stared into the mist with a faraway look. “Revenge, lad,” he said sadly.

CHAPTER 25

A
crisp, cool breeze blew across the cave mouth. Cole stood at the opening, shivering as he peered out into the bright sunlight beyond. Another gust rose up, tugging at the end of his cloak. He wrapped it tighter around himself, still thankful that he had been wearing it when he and Raven were plucked from the balcony of Frosthold.

That was his sole comfort, however. His spare clothes, blankets, the remains of their food... in their panicked flight from the Archon’s colossal manservant, even his sword had been left behind.

Despite the chill, Cole smiled wryly. How quickly circumstances could change one’s priorities! Less than a day earlier, he had been fearing for his life, contemplating whether to jump from the top of a mountain or face being cut down by an invincible foe. Yet now, here he stood, begrudging the loss of a few crumbs of hard, stale bread and a spare pair of gloves. He did miss his sword, though.
I have the feeling we’ll need it.
Idly, he wondered how Bear would react to his losing the gift so carelessly.

Cole leaned forward from the cave, his eyes roving across the rocky mountain ridge beyond, but it was no good. The peak that contained the dusty, abandoned halls of Frosthold was hidden from view. Quite possibly, he was facing the wrong way entirely. He had lost his bearings during their escape, after which the strange bird-like creatures had deposited them inside the cave. They were still within the Dragon’s Back range of mountains, he knew, but which direction they had flown in he could not say.

Grudgingly, Cole turned away and trudged back into the cave. Inside, it was a large open space, but not especially deep. The ceiling was also low; he was just able to stand up without bashing his head against the rock. “What do they want with us, do you think?”

Raven sat leaning against one wall, her knees drawn up to her chin. At her shoulders, her cloak was torn, just as his was. The claws of the creatures that had taken them were sharp. She laughed bitterly at the question. “That depends. How hungry do they look?”

Cole blanched. It was only half a jest, he knew. When they’d first arrived at the cave, his eyes had been drawn to the bones that littered the floor. He’d been slightly relieved to find that, judging by the skulls, all seemed to belong to animals. Goats and sheep, predominantly, he believed... though he was far from an expert. Not that such a revelation was any comfort to Grume, whom no amount of cajoling had been able to coax out from his pouch.

“Should we try to escape?”

Raven shrugged. “And go where? When we were brought in I saw steep cliffs on each side. Besides,” she added, “if we’re prisoners then this is the strangest cell I’ve ever seen.”

He took her point. There was no door preventing their leaving the cave, nor bars. There weren’t even any guards that he could see, though he knew from previous experiments that if he tried to leave he would soon be surrounded by a throng of flapping, squawking creatures that would only disperse when he moved back inside. It was clear they wanted them to stay, but the Aevir, as Raven called them, had not attempted to use force.

It left Cole feeling a bit useless and rather confused. “I just wish I knew what they wanted with us,” he said, with a heartfelt sigh. “They must have brought us here for a reason.”

“Who knows why mindless animals do anything?”

“Are they animals, though?” Cole asked. The Aevir had the look of large birds, much bigger even than the great eagles he’d read about in the Crag’s library. There were differences, however. He’d noticed several claw-like appendages at the end of each creature’s wing, jointed so that they could serve a similar purpose to human fingers. There also seemed to be a light of intelligence in their eyes that he hadn’t seen in other birds. If not for the feathers that covered their heads and bodies, they would not look entirely unlike the dragons of legend, albeit far smaller. “They can’t talk, not that we’ve seen anyway, but there seems to be a purpose behind their actions.”

Raven snorted. “Most like they saw the sun glinting off my sword or the giant’s arm, came to investigate and took the opportunity to snatch their next meal off that balcony.”

Cole felt that his companion was wrong about that, he was certain. The longer they spent in the cave, the certainty grew. “Then why bring us here, but not our foe?”

“Probably because he was a lot heavier than us, especially with that arm of his.”

That much could have been true, Cole reflected. But he was quite sure that one of the skulls he had found belonged to a cow. Judging by their size, big as they were, it would take two or more of the creatures working together to carry out such a feat. That was just further evidence, as far as he was concerned, that they were not mere beasts.
If they could bring cattle here, they could have brought him
, he decided. “You said that about Grume, you and Harri,” he told her. “You called him vermin, but he’s not, is he?”

Raven eyed the pouch around his waist. “I’m not sure the case against has yet been proven,” she said sourly.

“Look,” Cole protested, “I know he isn’t a brave fighter like you, but-”

“Vermin, is I?” muttered a voice from within the pouch, in offended tones. The boggit’s hairy face emerged, for the first time since they entered the cave. “And as for the other, see ‘ow brave you is when one of these fevvered brutes could swallow you up ‘ole and not even ‘ave ter chew.”

“You’d do better to worry about us,” Raven replied, with a wicked glint in her eye. “If they don’t feed us soon we might have to take matters into our own hands.” She licked her lips theatrically.

With a yelp, the boggit disappeared from sight once again within the pouch. “You shouldn’t tease him,” Cole chided her.

Raven shrugged. “Another day here like this, and it might not be teasing.”

As it turned out, they did not need to wait for long. A few minutes later there was a sound outside the cave of fluttering wings, and a soft thump as something landed. Cole and Raven both stood and went to the cave mouth to investigate. Standing there, blinking in the sunlight, was one of their bird-like captors. It was smaller than some Cole had seen, including those that brought them here. Its head moved in curious twitches as it regarded them with a pair of wide, dark eyes. “Boy!” The creature’s voice was a dry croak, but the word was still recognisable. “Mother see you now.”

Cole glanced at Raven, who was frowning. His own mouth hung open in surprise. “You can talk,” he said.

The Aevir’s feathered head twitched to one side and then the other. “Some,” it croaked. Then it ruffled its feathers and pecked at one wing with a sharp-looking beak. “Mother teach,” it continued after a few moments. “You come now. Both.”

The creature moved off in a strange hopping gait. The ground outside the cave was flat, but on either side of them was a sheer wall. They appeared to be at the bottom of a narrow ravine on the upper slopes of a mountain, above which sprouted several tall rock pinnacles. Cole could see large, dark shapes gliding in slow circles around these.

Seeing no alternative available to them, Cole shrugged and followed the creature, Raven trailing a few feet behind him.

He ran to catch up with it. “What is your name?” he asked.

A cacophony of bird-like croaks and caws greeted his question, and the creature seemed amused by his confused reaction. “Hard for boy-man to say,” it said. “In your tongue, I am Glides-on-Summer-Breeze.”

“That’s a... very nice name,” Cole replied gallantly. The creature said nothing further as it continued to hop along the pass, but he thought that it appeared pleased. As they walked, Cole glanced up at the rock walls and spires that towered above them. The surface of each were pitted with regular holes. In a few of those lower down, he could see other feathered forms hunched within, watching their progress. “Who is it that you’re taking us to see?” he asked. “Who is this Mother?”

“Wise one,” the creature croaked, without breaking its pace. “Leader. Very old.”

Cole found himself wondering about the lifespan of these creatures. Eagles could live for several decades, he knew from studying tomes within the Crag’s library. But generally the bigger the animal, the longer they lived. “How old is she?”

There was a long pause, and he wondered whether the creature had heard him. He was about the repeat the question, when his guide suddenly croaked, “She remember dawn of world, boy-man. Very old.”

Raven had evidently overheard this exchange. “How is that possible?” she asked. “That’s tens of thousands of years. I know of nothing that can live for so long.”

The creature turned to regard her with dark eyes. “Know everything, do you?” It was hard to tell with its rasping voice, but Cole was certain he detected a tone of sarcasm in its words. “You ask her, see for self.”

It turned away and began moving towards the end of the ravine again. Cole glanced at Raven. She was frowning at the creature’s back, and placed a hand on the hilt of a sword. To Cole’s mind, the fact Raven had been allowed to keep her weapons at all was another sign that they weren’t being kept as prisoners. He shook his head. Raven’s eyes rolled, yet nevertheless her hand fell away and they hurried after the creature.

Eventually, they reached the end of the ravine. The rock walls on either side came together in a wide circle, at the base of which was a large pool of water. Just like the lake they had crossed in the Ice Fens, its surface was utterly still, reflecting the clear blue sky above almost perfectly. Their guide stopped near its edge, ignoring them. Cole sensed movement in the walls and spires above them, and looking up he could see hundreds of avian faces peering out from their strange burrows. The air seemed charged, as if something important was about to occur. Cole could feel the expectancy.

Then, from one of the spires above, a larger silhouette came into view and dropped towards them. When it was perhaps a hundred feet above their heads, Cole saw that two Aevir were approaching, holding some sort of contrivance between them in their talons.

When they landed a few moments later, Cole saw that it was a sling of some kind, fashioned from sticks and branches, the inside padded with feathers. Sitting on this makeshift mattress was the oldest living creature Cole had ever seen. Like the others of its kind it resembled a large bird, but was smaller than the rest; shrivelled with great age. It was almost completely bald, its feathers having long before dropped out to reveal grey-pink skin. Instead, it was covered with a blanket made from animal hide. A pair of pale, rheumy eyes glanced briefly in their direction, but there was no recognition or reaction there. The creature was blind, he realised.
How old is she?
Cole wondered. That the creature their guide had called Mother had lived for many years he did not doubt, but surely she could not be as ancient as claimed. He agreed with Raven: it seemed impossible to believe.

A great hush settled over the ravine, as all the croaks and caws that had filled the air until then ceased. The ancient Aevir turned towards the pool, apparently sensing its presence even without sight. On shaking legs, it slowly stepped from the sling. When it reached the edge of the water, the blanket fell to the ground.

In a flash of insight, Cole realised what was about to happen. He took a step forward, intending to stop it, but his path was quickly blocked by the two large birds that had carried the sling to the ground. Without turning towards the commotion, the ancient creature stepped into the still waters. It paused briefly, then continued, walking into the pool until the water reached its wrinkled neck. Moments later it was gone, and soon the surface of the pool was once again still, giving no outward sign of what had just occurred.

Cole felt angry. “How could you let her do that?” he demanded. “That isn’t right. She was supposed to talk to us.”

Glides-on-Summer-Breeze hopped closer to where he stood. “Patience, boy-man,” it croaked.

He watched in confusion as their guide spread its wings wide and launched into the air. Its wings flapped fast, carrying it higher and higher until its silhouette was a little more than a speck in the blue sky above. Cole shaded his eyes against the sun, and gasped as the creature suddenly drew in its wings and plummeted back towards them. A few seconds later there was a splash as the creature plunged into the pool at great speed. Waves lapped at the rocky bank, and only a few bubbles remained on the water’s surface.

“Are they all going to drown themselves?” Cole asked, bewildered by what they had just witnessed.

“I don’t care what you say,” Raven snarled, her hand dropping once again to the hilt of her weapon. “The first bird that starts dragging us towards the water loses a beak.”

But none of the remaining creatures so much as glanced in their direction. A hundred pairs of eyes, more even, were glued to the pool. It seemed to Cole as if the entire mountaintop was holding its breath. A few moments later, a feathered body emerged from the water and hopped, dripping, onto the bank. It regarded them silently, before ruffling its feathers to shake them dry. “Greetings again, Dreamwalker.” The harsh, croaking edge was gone from the creature’s voice.

Cole blinked. “Glides? You sound different.”