A Skillful Warrior (SoulNecklace Stories Book 2) Read online

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She shrugged. ‘I do not know. Except to say yes, there is something, and I am taking us towards it.’

  I felt drowsy in this summer heat. If N’tombe knew where she was going, I was happy to follow. Clouds built and blew apart, constantly changing in the sky. Bees hummed, larks trilled. A hawk called, loud and free. My eyes closed. I drifted in the open silence of the moorland.

  ‘Still asleep?’ A man-sized shadow, a drop of cool water on my head. Will stood above me, a water bladder in his hand. A drop of water trembled at its lip.

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘We found water,’ Jed said to N’tombe.

  Will grinned at me. ‘While you slept the day away, we’ve been busy.’ He carried a low basket, hastily built of reeds.

  ‘Fish! You caught fish! Oh Will, aren’t you clever!’ Scrambling up, I pushed my hair back behind my ears. It was long and scraggly and felt oily to the touch. If they had found fish, they must have found a river. I could have a bath. Well, not exactly a bath, for there would be no maid to heat the water, and no tub in which to bathe. But still, I could have a swim or a wash or something.

  ‘Herbs to go with it, too.’ Jed threw an untidy clump of leaves at my feet.

  Uncertainly, I picked them up. ‘Wonderful.’ Was Jed expecting me to eat these leaves raw, like a horse?

  Will grinned. ‘I’ll cook them, Princess,’

  ‘Could you show me what to do?’

  ‘Aye,’ he sounded surprised. ‘Nothing to it, really. The fish are cleaned already.’

  ‘I’ll get a fire going.’ That at least I could manage. ‘Do we have any wood?’

  ‘Ah.’ Will had stuffed the inelegant bouquet into the belly of the fish. Four shiny-scaled, delicious looking trout. ‘No.’ He began wrapping the fish in large, flat leaves.

  ‘Aren’t those plants poisonous?’

  ‘Hope not.’ He grinned at me. ‘Ah Dana, don’t worry. It’s only wild cabbage.’

  I tried to ignore Jed’s laughter. ‘They look wonderful.’

  Jed nodded his head southwards. ‘If you’re looking for wood, there’s a stand of willows over there.’

  ‘Jed, will we camp here tonight? After we have eaten?’

  Will and Jed looked at N’tombe. It was almost comical the way they asked her permission. Everyone’s tutor. N’tombe shrugged and smiled, and so the matter was settled.

  Jed bowed. ‘Seeing as you find it so comfortable and all, Princess. And there being fish nearby and no sign of pursuit.’

  ‘Well,’ I said brightly, ‘I’ll just go and get some wood, then.’

  ‘I’ll come.’ N’tombe got to her feet.

  ‘No need,’ I said. ‘Help Jed with the horses.’

  N’tombe screwed up her mouth. ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Oh come, lady,’ said Jed, half mocking. ‘Is the mighty magic worker afraid of a little horse?’

  ‘Not little to me,’ she muttered, and she was right, for she stood no higher than my chestnut’s shoulder.

  I walked towards the willowbrake. The dry heather crunched underfoot and the afternoon sun felt comfortably warm on my back. I felt almost happy. It must be the sleep. After all, I’d had little enough rest since arriving on the mainland, so I was probably overdue for a good nap. I wasn’t being lazy. No. I had just been very tired.

  It felt good to be out on the moor under the westering sun. My legs must have gotten used to this outdoor life, because I didn’t ache so much. And my dreams were my own once again. Perhaps I was over the worst. God, I stunk! I needed a bath.

  Green tufts of willow-tops were partly hidden by a fold of the moor. Willows meant water. I ran towards the trees, hoping. And yes, now I saw it - a small pond, fringed by the trees, and a stream. I could have a quick bath before heading back with the wood. It would only take a second. No one need know.

  Feeling like a beetle shedding its skin, I removed my clothes, set my knives down on the bank. My hose were so matted they could almost stand up by themselves. Should I take off the bracelet? At the thought my wrist felt squeezed, as if in a carpenter’s vice, as the beads tightened about my wrist. No. I would leave it on then.

  I stepped into the pond. At first the clear water felt cold, oh so cold, and the banks were muddy and squished against my feet. After a time, I grew used to the chill. My feet stirred the sandy silt of the pond, clouding the water. Not too cold. Quite nice, really. I stepped forward slowly, feeling my way amidst tree roots and ferns. Then – nothing!

  The muddy shelf beneath my feet gave way and I plunged into the pond, falling into the grey water like a startled duck. Well, and now I was wet. I dipped my head under the water, rinsed my hair. No soap of course, but the water would rinse some of the sweat and smell from my body. I rubbed hopefully at my hair, trying to force the water through it, loosen the grease.

  I floated on my back, stared up at the sky. Did the blue go on forever? Or at some point, did it fade to black and the stars appear? Above me, two hawks danced together in a ballroom of sky. They called to each other with defiant, wild voices. Lying on the dark water, suspended between land and air, I reached towards the birds.

  As I lifted my thoughts skywards it seemed that all about me disappeared; this small pool, the willows that crowded its edge. Even the great moor, all heather and tumbled stone and empty wilderness, seemed to blur and vanish.

  The world spun and stretched and changed.

  I hung in mid-air in the body of a hawk, watching the ground below. The near became distant, things far away grew close at hand. I felt like a giant. Everything on the ground was so small, so trivial.

  The hawk stretched its wings, soaring with the breeze. To the animal the air was full: small birds to hunt, larger ones from which to hide. To be such a bird was to taste freedom; no fences, no borders to hold one in.

  The beads about my wrist burned but I had no humanity anymore; only my talons and my feathers and the wind in my wings. The hawk screamed, loud and fierce.

  To the north-east I saw the dark smudge of the forest and the curve of a river. It was the river we’d traveled along, coming up the valley towards the moorlands. A thin line of brown earth and well-trodden grasses marked our passage. The hawk swooped lower. His keen eyes marked the tracks of small animals running through the grasses. My wing-tips twitched as I made to pounce.

  Grey-cloaked men stepped across the stones. Startled, the hawk soared upwards. The men were spying out the road and the moorland and the forest’s edge. Scouts! Soon, they would call others towards us.

  The hawk screamed. Flames glimmered at the edge of sight. All animals fear wildfire; even this bird on the wing. But the smell of smoke was distant and the animal calmed. Where was this fire set? The hawk circled, looking for flames.

  Far away lay the blue of empty sea. On a sandy beach a bonfire glimmered. Beside the flames a dark mass seethed. Men, horses, tents: the enemy. This light must be its signal pyre; calling in the scouts, it was preparing to move.

  The dragon stirs, whispered a voice, faint in the open sky. Ware its fire.

  The hawk folded his wings, plunged towards the ground. Startled, my mind slipped from the bird’s and I spun downwards, falling like a seed towards my body.

  Ouch! The jolt of returning to heavy flesh stung. I sank below the water, into a tangle of weeds and drifting bubbles. Thrashing out, I felt for firm ground. Just as my lungs felt ready to burst, I saw a tunnel of light — the sky, above me. I flailed arms and legs and rose, coughing.

  Nearby, a man’s voice called my name. ‘Dana! Dana!’

  Will! And I was naked! I dropped below the water line. God, this pond was cold. What had I been thinking of? I swam back to the muddy bank, and tried to clamber out, but the sides of the pond gave way. I floundered back into the water.

  ‘Dana?’

  ‘Here!’

  His face, summer-brown against the green willows, appeared and I sank quickly below the water.

  ‘Here,�
� I called again, teeth chattering.

  ‘Dana! What are you doing?’

  ‘Bathing.’

  ‘Drowning, more like.’ He shook his head. ‘Are you coming out?’

  ‘I can’t. I’m stuck.’

  He reached a hand towards me. ‘You want help?’

  I shook my head ‘Only if you shut your eyes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing on,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Sorry, can’t hear you?’

  ‘Because - I’m not wearing anything.’

  ‘Oh.’ He considered me with interest.

  I sighed. ‘Shut your eyes, Will.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Coming the water’s edge, he stretched his hand further. ‘Come on, Dana.’

  ‘Do you promise not to look?’

  ‘Promise,’ he said, mock serious.

  ‘Let’s see your fingers.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They might be crossed.’

  ‘Dana! Don’t you trust me?’

  I didn’t, not really, but what choice did I have? So he put out his hand, his eyes gentlemanly shut, and I clambered out of the mud. Stupidly, I hadn’t reckoned on the strength of Will’s arms. I kept forgetting just how much he’d grown, his power and speed.

  He pulled me towards him, hugging me tight and my body clung to his, a wet limpet to his dry warmth. ‘You didn’t say I couldn’t feel,’ he muttered, and ran his hand down my waist, across my thighs.

  I felt my body burn. Pressed close against him. Whispered his name. ‘Will!’ I hardly recognised my own voice. Soft, ragged with surprised. And something more. I wanted something more. Lifting my face to his, I pulled him towards me.

  ‘Dana!’ he growled low against my throat and kissed me, hard on the lips. My body clung to his, sticking to him like a burr.

  ‘Will, Dana!’ N’tombe’s voice, not loud but oh so commanding. We jumped apart as though stung.

  ‘I’ll, I’ll, just get my clothes,’ I said and Will nodded. Only later did I realize he’d broken his promise and opened his eyes.

  ‘Well,’ N’tombe stood on the other side of the pond. Her arms were full of branches. ‘You have been busy.’

  ‘I’m just getting wood,’ Will grabbed a stick as evidence. When he stood up, his face was flushed.

  I scrambled into my clothes, not even caring that they stank. Will blundered away from me as if I was poison. I picked up my knives and thrust them back into their scabbards.

  ‘Wait!’ I called. He didn’t turn.

  Was I so unattractive? Angrily, I stared at his retreating back. What was with him? Maybe I should throw the knife at him. Then he’d notice me.

  ‘Where did you go, lady?’ asked N’tombe.

  ‘I wanted to wash,’ I said. ‘I’m sick of being dirty.’

  ‘I don’t mean what you did,’ she said. ‘I asked where you went.’

  I thought of the hawk and the sky and the feeling of soaring free, through the air. Then with a shock, not unlike the shock of falling, I remembered: the scouts. The fire. The army, preparing to move. I tied my wet hair back and ran from the willow brake towards our camp.

  ‘Scouts!’ I called ‘I saw them. And the army.’

  ‘You what?’ Jed sat beside the open turf, placing twigs on a small pyre Will must have remembered the firewood.

  ‘I saw the army. They had lit a beacon. I saw their scouts too.’

  ‘Scouts? Where?’

  ‘In the forest’s edge. Jed, they must have seen us when we passed.’

  He frowned. ‘I won’t even ask how you could see that far. Don’t really want to know.’ He struck a spark from his tinder, held it to the twigs. A tiny flame licked its edges, moving slowly, oh so slowly. Hard to believe that this little fire could turn into that great bonfire I’d seen blazing by a distant seashore.

  ‘Why didn’t they attack? If they saw us and all?’

  Will placed other sticks on the flames, feeding them carefully the way we’d learnt to do. Too much wood, the fire would be smothered. Too little, it would starve. As Jed put more tinder on the fire, the flames leapt up, burning orange-bright against the gathering twilight sky.

  Will shook his head. ‘Of course they wouldn’t fight. They would know they were no match for us. No, they’ll mark our passage and let the magicians and the warriors do the fighting.’

  ‘Magicians?’

  He looked surprised at my question. ‘Probably.’

  I looked across the small fire at N’tombe. Magicians! We’d fought one before, only one, and he had been a most formidable opponent. How could we survive a group of them? She stared back at me, eyes reflecting the firelight. The beads at my wrist seemed to burn. When the time comes, you may worry, they whispered. But not before.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I whispered. ‘Shouldn’t we be running?’

  The flames crackled, warmed my face. Jed added more branches and the flames leapt, flaring. Across this empty moorland, this fire would be as bright as a beacon.

  He glanced at me. ‘It will die back soon, Princess. And galloping horses across a moor at night is an invitation for trouble. No, we’ll rest up here overnight, eat well, leave early. We’ll make better time.’

  Jed was right. One step into a rabbit hole would put us all at risk. Still. Behind us an army massed.

  Will put an arm about my shoulders. My body did not respond to his touch as before, but still it was comforting to feel his warmth, the closeness of his arms. I rested my head on his chest, listening to his heart.

  Chapter Five

  Pursuit

  Galloping over dew-drenched moorland in the grey light of dawn, bending low over the horse’s neck — what a way to wake! My chestnut felt as fresh as the morn, stretching eagerly at the bit.

  Last night I had dreamt of dragons; their wings unfurling against the sleep-darkness. A man shouted, his voice a mix of agony and fear. My chest burned. I felt encased in shadows. They pressed against me, and I struggled against them, as a captive struggles against his chains.

  ‘And are you enjoying this dream?’ asked the woman. Standing beside me, she seemed to glow.

  Of course I was not enjoying it — who enjoys a nightmare?

  ‘Well, this is your dream, after all. So make it go away.’

  She was right. This was my dream. I pushed at the fear, at the dragon and the shadows. I sidestepped the terror by opening a door in the surrounding darkness, passing through it as quietly as breath. Behind me the dragon roared.

  ‘My dreams are my own,’ I said and tumbled into dreamless sleep.

  When I woke, Jed and N’tombe were crouched over the fire, feeding it with sticks and talking quietly. Although I could not hear what they were saying, just the sound of their voices made me feel safe.

  Now, I crouched low over the horse’s neck, pushing him forward. The heather, a sea of low-bushed purple, seemed empty of all save the creatures of the wild. Skylarks, awkward with sleep, spiraled into the grey dawn sky. A creeping fox flashed dirty orange.

  My chestnut stumbled. I sat higher on her back, relaxed my legs, and she slowed. The other horses slowed too. N’tombe bent, reaching for her stirrups. She hated traveling fast.

  ‘It’s not a pleasure ride, lady,’ Jed snapped. ‘Come, we need to be away.’

  She sighed.

  Will gazed about like a mouse fresh from the burrow. ‘This place looks familiar.’

  ‘You’ve been here before?’

  He was silent for a moment, looking at the heath. ‘Aye, maybe. Seems I’ve been this way as a lad. With the courier.’ His shoulders seemed to sag. ‘Didn’t pay much attention to the world at the time., though.’

  Will had come to the Kingdom as a twelve-year old orphan. His parents had died from a plague, but his Aunt, forewarned by Will’s mother, had sent him a token, a small wooden carving shaped like a button or a tiny seed. Tokens gave their rightful owners entry to the Kingdom. Will had journeyed to the Kingdom on the back of a courier’s horse. Poor Will.
Thrust out alone into the wide world. At least I had my friends with me; at least my family were alive.

  This was a wild land, this place of moor and mountain. Ahead of us, to the west, the wold rolled towards the sky. North, mountains loomed; rounded peaks, crowned with patches of white summer snow. And behind us, to the east?

  The saddle leather creaked as I twisted, trying to turn my head on my neck, my neck on my back. My spine cracked, my muscles protested at the movement. Maybe I was getting old. I was sixteen, after all.

  There was nothing remarkable behind us, just our tracks in the heather; bent and broken stems and the musty scent of crushed leaves. The moor remembered our passing. At the horizon, far behind us now, lay a line of green - the willow-brake where we’d camped last night, where Will had held me hard against him.

  ‘Do you miss your parents?’ Will asked, his voice low, as if to keep the others from hearing.

  I sighed. Of course I missed them. Well, I missed my father. There was some relief in being removed from Mother’s company. ‘A little. It’s not like being homesick. It’s just like ... I know they’re not there.’ I rubbed my eyes. Thinking of my family made me realize how far away they were. An incalculable distance — how could one measure the distance between worlds?

  ‘We should move,’ said Jed.

  Will grinned at me. ‘Race you!’

  I remembered again the warmth of his hands on my thighs. Enjoy the day, the fine weather, the fact we were together. Don’t think of the enemy behind.

  Leaning forward on the horses as their stride lengthened, we sped, faster than thought, as the wind roared in our ears. No time for speech; there was only the panting of our breath and the brightening light of the morning.

  Only later did I remember our tracks in the heather. The sun was high. We had stopped to rest the horses and to take a bite to eat.

  Will looked concerned. ‘Were they very clear?’

  I pushed my hair off my sweating forehead. ‘Clear enough.’ The bent and broken heather would be like a road-sign to a tracker.

  N’tombe fanned her face with her hat-brim. Her skin with sweat, and her eyes were tired. ‘You should have said.’