Chapter Twelve - The Blacksmith's Boy

(Part II)

‘Grrrn.’

Cal stumbled in the stones, sliding a few paces down the slope. The rocks bit at his boots, and he began to topple forward, but his shoulder thumped into a tree trunk, jarring him to a stop. He hugged it to his chest, panting hard, and stood there for a few moments, surrounded by the silence of the forest. His brow ached from frowning, and his eyes stung with salty tears. But he never slipped. Not ever.

He pulled himself upright on the trunk, shivering. It was cold without his cloak, he noticed now. Cold with winter. There was an ominous dark to the evening sky, clouded with thick banks of shadow, and a distant rumble hummed against the mountainside. A storm was coming, and it would be dark before he made it back to the forge. He cursed under his breath, and set off again through the trees, feet skipping over the stones. The Blacksmith would be…

Hang the Blacksmith. He had stopped him from going to the Old Man. Stopped him from warning him. The cave was still smoking. There had been time. He could have stopped it. Instead, the cave was empty, full of ash, and the Old Man was in the ground. What was left of him. His half-riddled words. His ancient stories. His knowing. Of that, there was nothing. Whispers in the wind. Perhaps it had been nothing, all along.

Cal exhaled. His word was hard as stone, now. The ache of waiting was gone. Only the word was left.

He gritted his teeth, shaking his head. The Blacksmith was only protecting him. What could he have done, that a Greycloak couldn’t? The man was old, but he knew these hills almost better than Cal did. There wouldn’t have been anything he could have done. He’d have burned with him.

Thunder cracked, closer this time, and Cal was scowling. He could have warned him. Before. There had been time. He could have fled. The clouds overhead had taken on a faint purplish hue, drinking the last light of the day. The darkness was deepening, and he was still far from home. But the anger was hot in his chest, and his tears were spent.

Asking after that Greycloak fellow.

The Blacksmith had stopped him, but he didn’t light the fire. He had not killed him. The Innkeep’s words echoed in his ears, vibrating like a distant bell. Strangers had come asking. Strangers from the lowlands. And the cave had burned.

His breath was thick and hot in his breast. Cold air raw against his spent throat. The salt of his tears cracked on his cheeks, and his empty belly was a lead ball in his gut. The narrow pines rushed past him like blades, blurring into a patchwork of slashed shadows, and his feet beat against the silence, crunching in the shale and loam. There’d be time for thinking, later. Time for figuring out what to do next. Once he was warm beside a fire, and the storm was spent.

He blinked. He squinted into the gathering dark. Something was moving. Moving in the shifting trees. Off across the slope to the north. Nothing much, mind, but any moving up this far from the village was unusual. The hunters said that wolves roamed this high in the hills, sometimes. The hungry kind, the kind that find no food on the lower slopes, that come wild-eyed and desperate to the rock and shale. Not that Cal had ever seen one, but he slowed his pace all the same, suddenly very aware of the sound of his footsteps. His breath. He stared off along the slope, tracing the swaying trees. Nothing else stirred. Nothing but him. His mind was playing tricks. He took another step…

… and stopped dead again. There it was. Away to his right. North. He couldn’tt have imagined it, this time. Something darker than the trees. He turned slowly, blinking at the creeping gloom. The silence clawed at his ears, and his breath rattled in his raw lungs. Nothing but the rumble of the clouds. Nothing but…

Footsteps. And not his own. There were shadows moving through the trees, coming closer. Shadows in black. His breath caught in his throat, and a shiver ran up his spine. One. Two. He tried to count them all, and failed. Not wolves. Something else. Something that didn’t belong.

He was already running again, all thoughts of the Blacksmith and the Old Man’s grave gone in a flash. He knew the way. It didn’t matter who the shadows were. What they were. No one could catch him in the hills. Not even shadows. His boots skimmed over the stones, cold forgotten. The wind rushed past his face, and the clouds cracked and beat against the blackened sky. The storm was almost on him. He could feel the shadows moving, closer, hear the footsteps thudding in the heavy quiet of the air. They were on both sides of him now, darting between the trees, silently clawing at his heels. They. Who were they? He wasn’t going to wait to find out.

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He looked ahead. The telltale line of his path arched north and west across the slope, a soft string of pale stones in the dark. His eyes flicked towards the shadows, spilling like clouds through the trees behind him. A stone's throw, two, maybe less. But close, now. Close enough to see them. Black shapes, swarming over the stones. Clawing at the dark. His head ached, and his eyes blurred. He couldn’t see their faces, but it didn’t matter. They meant no good. There was something cold in his empty gut, dragging it into his heels. Time to move.

He looked back to the path. There, he knew his way, but they were too close. Instead, he turned west, looking straight down the slope. The village would not be far, that way. He fancied he could see the lights blinking through the trees. But it was too steep. Far too steep.

He looked back over his shoulder again. The shadows were coming closer, footsteps pounding like drums, faceless and dark. Whoever they were, they’d followed him. They had been there. Must have been watching the Old Man’s cave. Waiting for someone to come looking for him. Waiting to finish the job. Cal cursed silently. Careless.

The thunder cracked, overhead now, and lightning forked across the roiling sky with a flash. Faceless figures leered back at him in the dark, frozen like ice, and tore his eyes away, heart pounding in his chest. Don’t think. No time. He looked back down the slope. It was too steep. But there was no other way.

So he took one last deep breath, and started forward, plunging headlong down the bank. The dark rushed past him in blurring streaks, purple light bleeding through the clouds. He could barely see the way, staggering, stumbling, sliding, half-blind and weary to the bone, breath clawing at his throat. The shadows were at his back, surging over the rocks like a black tide. His heart beat to the rhythm of their footsteps, pounding in his chest. He forced himself not to look back. Lightning flashed. A tree loomed suddenly out of the searing white before him, and he fell clumsily around it, catching his shoulder with a jolt as he staggered past. Wind screeched through the silence of the trees, and rain speared down out of the broken sky, filling the air with sound. But he could still hear the footsteps. Close now. Almost at his heels, snatching at him. The slope was slick with water, and the wind bit at his frigid skin. Still they came on. Closer. His head ached, and his lungs were hot as forge-fire.

Then the air cracked, split, boomed, and the hillside shook as lightning slashed white fire across the sky. One of the trees beside him exploded in a hail of sparks, and he whirled away, skidding madly across the loam. The shadows fell away for a moment, and he stumbled on, weary and numb, frenzied heart driving him onward. Downward. Faster, faster. He blinked rain from his eyes, squinting. They were there, just ahead of him. The lights of the village, blinking back at him through the thinning trees. Just a few more steps…

Something hard caught his boot, and he tipped forward, suddenly off balance. A moment froze on his lips, and the trees were still, full of motionless shadows.

Then he was falling, tumbling head over heel, down, up, down, up, wild as wind. His world spun, and stones bit at his arms, his legs. His face. The shadows were almost on him. Faceless shapes spun past him as he fell, black as night, frozen and sightless. His head was bursting. His skin was on fire. Thunder crashed above the trees, and his world turned white. He closed his eyes, throwing out his arms to stop himself.

And took nothing but air. The scratching claws of the trees vanished. A moment, suspended, floating. The storm was far away. There was light in his eyes. Flickering…

His world lurched to a sudden, angry halt. The soaked earth crunched, and he went limp, shoulders crashing into his chest. Pain erupted down his spine, and a gargled breath caught in his wretched throat, choking the air from his lungs. The sound of thunder filled his ears again, and the wind slashed at him like a whip. He groaned, trying to untangle his legs, blinking at the water in his eyes, stinging, blurring. The lights of the village winked back at him, lanterns swinging wildly in the wind. He had made it. But the trees behind him were thrashing in the gale, and there were shadows moving through the boughs. Closer. They were coming. Coming for him.

He rolled onto his front, spasming like a beached fish. Lines of pain scored every inch of his arms and legs, and his shirt was ragged as willow leaves. He gritted his teeth, somehow getting his hands beneath him. He had to move. He heaved, almost screamed as his chest left the dirt. Spit turned sour, eyes blurred.

But then he was up. He was up, and he was moving, shambling grotesquely across the open ground. Towards the lights. They would help him. Footsteps. He could hear them. Footsteps on the stones. The storm roared overhead, thundering, stabbing, flashing fire across the sky. He stumbled, lurching like a cripple, back a rod of fire. The lights swayed, the wind howled, and the footsteps beat like drums at his back. He was working the latch, fingers scrabbling at the wood, breath ragged, heart pounding…

Then the door fell away, and he spilled helplessly into the light beyond. He slumped to his knees, staring wildly into the blinding gleam, and the villagers stared back at him dumbly, slack-jawed, mugs slipping from their fingers.

‘Makers be good.’ someone murmured.

The floor rose up to meet him, and his eyes went slack.