Trial of Fire (10 page)

‘You’re not staying here. I won’t let you.’

‘I’m the Jaibir, Robert.’ Jenn tried not to hiss, but she felt so stretched: first Robert taking Andrew, then the attack on Maitland and the Malachi trying to steal Andrew from her, killing men to stop them, getting injured in the process, then … Bella and Lawrence being murdered by those—

And now this. The destruction of the Enclave.
She
had done this, and she should be the one to face up to this responsibility. Wasn’t that what being Jaibir was all about?

‘I
have
to stay, don’t you see? I should be the last to leave. I did this to them. They need me now, especially when you take the Key away. Please, Robert. Don’t fight me on this.’

He stared at her a moment, then let her go. He straightened up, a muscle in his jaw jumping where he was clenching it so tight. With a sigh, he closed
his eyes and shook his head. When he looked at her again, that sharp-edged determination was back, leaving room for nothing else. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re coming with me. You’ll stay by me until I say otherwise.’

‘But—’

He leaned close once more. ‘If you stay, I stay. If I stay, the Key stays and Nash comes to find us now, when we are least ready to face him. The choice is yours, but you should know, I don’t care whose Ally you are.’

He turned away then and gave the order to ride. As those around them pulled away, Jenn stared at Robert with an open mouth. He shrugged. ‘What are you always telling me about blaming myself? Well? Are we staying or leaving?’

‘Damn you, Robert,’ she grunted before turning to her horse. But there was less heat in her voice than there could have been; she owed him too much truth to deny his. She swung up into the saddle and watched him do the same.

And then he smiled. A small smile, just for her, and much of the darkness inside her lifted then. ‘Let’s get moving.’

It was only when he turned his horse for the gate that she saw the bag strapped around his shoulders: an old, well-oiled leather bag with a large, rounded shape nestled inside, carefully wrapped in something soft.

Of course, he had to carry the Key/Calyx like that. He had to remain in the closest possible contact, or else his fragile control over it would break and Nash would find them again. No matter how far they travelled, Nash would be able to follow and track them, and in the end, destroy them.

She barely heard Robert’s call to ride, but her horse, well-trained and obedient, turned and followed him anyway. Only when she neared the gate did the world tip back again and she knew this was time to say goodbye.

As the group filed through the gate, she waited until they were all gone, then she turned once more, tears falling down her cheeks. Almost every Salti in the Enclave was there in the field before her, come to say farewell to the Key, and the Jaibir who was taking it from them.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, though they could not hear her, nor understand why this had all happened. ‘I promise …’

But there was nothing more to say, no vow to make, nothing left to give that could make this disaster any better. All she could do was to remove herself from Nash’s path.

As she turned her horse into the gate tunnel and looked on the Goleth and the Enclave for the last time, she felt the cold, hard hand of Prophecy push her into the darkness.

*

After five hours, the straps began to dig into Robert’s shoulders and the old
pain in his side began to ache. The Key sat in the bag on his back, padded by plenty of cloth, but it burned his skin anyway. He’d noticed that the moment Finnlay had placed the bag on his shoulders; Finn had checked his skin, but the flesh was untouched: the burning was in his mind only.

He had no choice but to stay this close to the Key, nor could he let anyone else close. Until this morning, nobody had touched the Key in more than five hundred years, since it had been placed in the great cavern the day the Enclave had been founded. A mask was used to cover a stationary person or object; in carrying the Key, he was pushing the limits of what a mask could do. The only way he could ensure it continued working was to keep it this close, as though it were his own aura he were masking.

The weather warmed a little as they came down from the mountains. For the most part, they rode in silence, though the children talked amongst themselves; Robert could hear the underlying fear in their voices, but there was nothing he could do to erase it. He didn’t need to urge greater speed; they all knew how desperate this flight was, how hopeless if they didn’t get out of Nash’s path.

It had been a long time since he’d travelled with such a large group. Apart from Jenn and Andrew, there was Finnlay and Fiona and their three daughters, Helen, Bronwyn and Anna. Robert barely knew his nieces, but this trip, if nothing else, gave him the opportunity to learn how to talk to them.

Martha and Arlie had insisted on joining them too; Martha had declared that Robert would be a fool to travel without a skilled and trained Healer, and with Robert tied to the Key and Finnlay unable to Seek without risk of Nash finding them, then her own Seeking skills would be required to assist Fiona. Robert could hardly disagree – nor did he dare, when Martha was in that mood.

Of course, Arlie and Martha had brought their two children with them: Damaris, a promising Seeker who, at sixteen, was the eldest, and Joey, a bright twelve-year-old who looked much like his tall, gangly father; it was a joy to watch them together.

Maren Stratton was a warrior, and her husband, Ronald, was a fearsome archer. Their son, Guy – also skilled with the bow – was Andrew’s best friend.

Robert’s old friend, Murdoch, had joined them, his good sense and swordsmanship both welcome on this trip. Murdoch’s two nephews, Edain and Braden, both star pupils in Finnlay’s combat school, had offered their skills too; Robert accepted. He needed all the help he could get.

And lastly, the oldest member of the group, his mother, Lady Margaret. She had made no entreaties; she’d said nothing at all. She had simply
packed up her things to go with the baggage train, collected a few items in a saddle-bag and followed Finnlay as if nothing in the world would stop her.

Robert hadn’t tried. She was sixty-two, and not in the very best of health, but she was strong, and full of a determination he could only admire. And besides, he wanted her there. She sat proudly on her horse, grey hair wrapped in a red wool scarf, quietly answering questions from the children. From time to time she took in the view, revelling in her first taste of freedom in far too long.

Eighteen of them in all: too many to travel quickly, but with a little luck, that might not be necessary. If he’d been a priest, he would have prayed; as it was, he could only hope.

Eighteen souls, and he could honestly say he didn’t really know any of them, except perhaps Jenn.

Perhaps.

*

They followed the track down from the mountains, a path well-travelled over the years. Though it was officially spring now, there were still clumps of snow here and there, hidden in the corners between rocks, and in places where the sun could not reach. The worst of the bleak grey stone was gone now, and already there were small bushes readying buds for the new season. With each turn in the path, the view of the valleys below grew wider, a thick, rich green patched here and there with tilled fields and barren trees.

Now this he did know: this country, the land he had spent so many years defending, this he knew so well now.

With a sigh, Robert shifted the straps on his shoulders once again, trying for another spot that wasn’t already abused. The new position worked for a moment, but then the now-familiar burning resumed.

‘When we stop,’ Finnlay trotted up alongside him and gestured at the bag, ‘we should rig up something so it can sit on the saddle in front of you.’

Robert shook his head. ‘I need to be able to move if necessary. I can’t if it doesn’t move with me.’

Finnlay looked at the group on the trail before them, then back at Robert. ‘Are we going to Bleakstone?’

‘Didn’t I say?’ Robert replied, hearing the evasion in his own voice.

‘So we’re heading somewhere else. I see,’ Finnlay replied softly. ‘Why not Bleakstone?’

They turned a corner in the path and the first valley opened before them, a vista full of awakening life. But this path had only ever taken him in one direction, no matter its twists and turns or the number of times he’d lost his way. As the valley spread out in front of him, so did Fate.

‘I don’t have time, Finn,’ Robert replied, his voice a whisper, even
though the words felt like shouting. ‘I can’t keep this mask going indefinitely, and I won’t make it as far as Bleakstone. Not without finding another solution.’ He stopped then, the words drying up as though he’d had no control over them. He turned to find his brother’s eyes on him, dark and understanding. Was this what it looked like on the outside?

For a moment he thought Finnlay might argue, but he turned his attention back to the trail, his tone completely different. ‘I see that things between you and Jenn have … improved.’

Robert looked at him sharply; Finnlay’s expression was both innocent and smug at the same time. He smiled himself. ‘How did you know?’

With a shrug, Finnlay grinned. ‘You’re my brother. She might as well be my sister. You think I wouldn’t know?’

‘But it’s nothing. Not really. Not with the Key—’

‘Of course.’ Finn said. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Yes,’ Robert agreed softly, unable to deny how good it felt that things had … improved. Even with all the doubt in their lives, in this minute there was between them this bond of belonging. Now that it was there, and acknowledged by them both, he couldn’t imagine how he had lived so long without it.

Finnlay pulled in front to negotiate a narrow part in the path. Robert smiled to himself: as much as he knew the country, so his brother knew him.

And he knew Jenn. Even as the thought formed, he peered downhill to find her waiting for him, watching him, her upturned face catching the late light, glowing a little. Were they together? Or would the Key keep them apart and if so, how far apart? Would their love stand the tests awaiting them, or would it turn out that what they had was little more than an incomplete Bonding and a Prophecy that wouldn’t leave them alone?

Finally he drew up to her and she smiled at him, letting him know. ‘How goes it? Is the Key behaving itself?’

‘You can’t tell?’

‘To be honest, I haven’t dared open the link. I don’t want to distract it from the mask.’

‘Good point.’

She rode alongside him in silence for a moment, then, without a word, she reached out and took his hand. Even through his gloves, he could feel her warmth. The path didn’t allow contact for very long, but it was enough. By the time she let go, his questions were silenced.

He would have the answers soon enough.

The thunder of hooves on the hard road was a constant in Kenrick’s days and nights. His impatience kept time, marking each minute until he could arrive at his destination, until he could find out what had happened, if his cousin Andrew had been killed – and whether Nash was about to betray him.

He barely stopped for rest. Instead, he’d driven his men on, telling them to sleep in the saddle, change horses at each tavern along the way, take food where they could. He’d seen the looks from the people as he passed: enough of them had recognised their king to be afraid of what his journey might mean; none had had the courage to ask.

He didn’t care. All he knew was that the leader of the Malachi who worked with Nash, Baron Luc DeMassey, was dead. DeMassey’s people had taken his body from Marsay back to their home – wherever that was. But the Baron had been killed in a fight at Maitland, which was where Andrew lived. And the reports Kenrick had received said that Andrew had also died in the fight.

Had Nash sent DeMassey here to protect Andrew, or to kill him – if to protect him, against whom? Andrew was more harmless than a butterfly, a boy to whom a malicious thought was inconceivable. He was no threat to Kenrick’s throne, no threat to anyone, so why would Nash want him dead – why would anyone?

His soldiers slowed as they approached the crossroads. A busy tavern sat on one corner, a shrine to Mineah on the other. The shrine was decorated with what had to be the first flowers of spring, as though the peasants couldn’t wait to pay the goddess homage.

This time he didn’t stop. He was still too far away to allow distraction. In front of him rode Forb’ez, a man known for his consummate skill as a warrior, a man his father had trusted like no other. And yet, this man, who had spent his adult life protecting Kenrick’s father had, in Selar’s most desperate hour, deserted him.

Why?

Selar had trusted Forb’ez; Kenrick would not be a fool and make the same mistake his father had made, so he used what Seeking powers he’d developed to make sure he wasn’t riding into a trap.

Of course, if his powers were
really
developed, he could be so much more confident of his own safety.

Once past the crossroads, the forest closed in. The thoughts continued to circle in Kenrick’s head: Andrew dead? He was just a harmless, gentle, trusting boy; the only person who had ever shown Kenrick a moment’s worth of genuine kindness. He couldn’t be dead. Because if he was, then—

‘Sire! There!’

Kenrick looked up at the shout, following the pointing arm to the right, where the forest thinned a little—

‘By the blood!’ Kenrick kicked his horse and turned into the forest. There, for all the world to see, were scorch marks on the ground, obvious evidence of an arcane battle. Three trees had burned to blackened stumps and another had fallen before being incinerated. Grass and bracken were shrivelled and burned, and all around was the acrid stench of burnt wood.

As he jumped to the ground his men spread out, forming a protective circle around him, but Kenrick knew there was no danger. He could feel it somehow. Whatever had happened here was two weeks old: there was no heat in the ashes, only marks from where it had rained. But there were other scars on the ground, dark patches and grass pressed flat where bodies had lain. Some person, long gone now, had removed and buried them.