‘Remember: Be better. Do better. And if you betray me, I’ll get you, I swear.’ I grit my teeth. ‘You’ll wish it had killed you.’
‘I won’t let you down.’
‘If you do, I’ll turn you into a frog.’
37
As we step into the maw of the barrow, the storm clouds swallow the remaining daylight, so quickly it’s like a candle blown out. I blink rapidly, hoping to get my eyes to adjust. Someone grabs my hand and even though I know it’s Orin I have to bite down on a squeal.
‘I’m used to the lack of light, let me help,’ he says, and leads me down the spiralling path, around the curtain walls one by one. Soon enough I can see the glow from the first chamber below, but I keep hold of his hand and he of mine, and I think we take comfort while we can.
When we step into the large open space, it appears nothing’s changed. The same piles of disarticulated wish-hounds waiting for night-proper and their master’s command. No sign of the huntsman, nor Faolan nor the baby, but somewhere, deep in the earth, lower and lower, is the echo of crying, a squalling child.
‘Where does it sleep? The shadow half.’
‘In the lowest chamber. There’s another between us and it. I think, from the sound, the child’s there.’
Despite the darkness of the snowstorm threatening, we’vestill got daytime on our side; the huntsman will be resting until night falls. We can bring Ari and Matthias up into the fresh air, find Faolan and the baby. It might be two trips rather than one, but I pray we’ve time. Ari’s shoulder will need attention; with luck that can wait, with luck she’ll remain sleeping for the journey home. We’ve got enough horses this time, to safely take two adults and three children away, while I wait for night proper to fall.
For the huntsman to resume whatever solidity he can – for there to be something I can fire one of my arrows tipped with the ward-mix into. Whatever lies below is bones and some skin – according to Orin who, unable to resist the push of his curiosity, had crept in there early in his association with the huntsman.
In all my reading, there were many tales of folk who tried to kill gods for whatever reason, but very few who actually succeeded, and a frustratingly sparse amount of detail on the how-to side of things. However, I know the ward-mix has kept him at bay, I know what it did to the wolflings, and the names of two herbs continually cropped up in those tales of the murders of gods: hemlock and hellebore. Black hellebore to be specific. Hellebore – or winter rose or oracle flower – is also meant to be felicitous, and one should plant it in one’s garden for luck, which I do.
So, my arrows have been dipped in ward-mix with nightshade and hellebore added. But I need the huntsman to be in a more solid – and therefore dangerous – shape before I can do what must be done. Or try to. Orin suggested that a knife to the ribs might be more effective, but I suggested to Orinthat requires closer quarters than I’m comfortable with, hence: bow and arrow.
When we reach the centre of the chamber, I stop, let the lad’s hand go. I take off the bow and quiver, place them on one of the small squat tables that litter the room – easier to carry children without those hanging about me. ‘Find your father and the baby. I’ll get Ari and Matthias. I need you all out of here and away as soon as possible.’
‘What about the snowstorm?’
‘Better to be out in that than in here when night falls,’ I say. I don’t say,Unless I fail and you become prey.I give him a push towards the doorway to where the corridor continues to spiral down, and watch until he’s out of sight, then I turn towards the chamber where the two children lie in unnatural slumber. When they’re up and out of here, then I’ll descend to the lowest level, to do what I must.
Except.
Except when I step through the doorway all my plans fall apart.
The shadow half sits on the throne of stone and bone, appearing whole and very big indeed. Ari and Matthias remain on the stone biers, still sleeping. There’s no sign of the baby, which I take to be the only good sign – or I hope it is. To one side of the throne slumps Faolan, thoroughly beaten and bleeding; a rope around his neck is tied to an iron ring in the floor as if he’s some sort of animal. Both eyes are shut, breathing laboured.
How long’s he been here? When did I see him last? The day Rhea gave birth? And then… when I went to the stablesthat morning to acquire horses for Fenna’s escape – the first one, the unsuccessful one, the one occasioning my death – it was so early, but surely the forge would have been lit by then in preparation for the day’s use? I didn’t think much on it at the time, had other matters on my mind, just as I did when I once again went to the stable for horses and a more successful escape. Or was he gone the night before, the night when Anselm was trampled to death? Faolan gone and the shadow half taking free rein against those who displeased him? Two days? Three? Almost four because I drowned and was resurrected, conversed with the green woman before returning to the cottage…
‘Mehrab.’ The huntsman speaks, and I realise it’s the first time I’ve heard its voice. The first time, really, I’ve conceived of it as having one despite knowing it had spoken to Orin. Now it’s a reality. The voice is… it’s like being hit by the first sleet of winter. It’s being caught in a lightless abyss. It’s the stench of old death, old blood, old shit if sound had a smell. Entirely, deeply unpleasant. And for the longest moment, I believe there is no sound other than this one, that there will never be anything but this forever, enough to make me cut my own throat because I’ve left the bow and arrow in the central chamber and if I try to run, this thing will run me down.
Then I remind myself that this creature is allhunt. All pursuit, all predation, all chase and death. That everything is its prey, and its arsenal is a broad church. Making creatures give up hope makes them easier to pursue, easier to catch. I remind myself that I’ve cheated death once or twice (or perhaps Lady Death didn’t really want me; a ruling is yet to be made) and Itake heart: I’m not done yet. ‘Hello. Do you have a name?’
‘I’ve gone by many. You might call me by any of them. But you should useMy Lord.’
‘Well, that’s not going to happen.’ I resist the urge to run and instead move further into the room. The fire has been stoked and I can feel sweat springing quickly beneath my clothing, running down my spine. I stand between the biers, calmly checking the children’s pulses. Still breathing. ‘But then, I don’t think you’ve had your own name for a very long time.’
‘What do youthinkyou know, witch?’ the huntsman sneers. His head moves as he watches me shift from one child to the other and now that I’m nearer I can make out the part of his face that’s more smoke than anything. I wonder how much effort the illusion takes.
‘Ithinkthat you had many, yes. Once. When you were whole. But none since. Only titles: bogeyman, goblin, thief, monster. Half-man.’ A growl, animalistic, claws from his mouth and the black smoke of him shifts and curls, shows how thinly he’s spread it to appear entire. Holes open, exposing the seat behind him. A lot of effort to hold himself together, then – especially when wrong-footed. Provoked. I am nothing if not provocative. ‘How are you awake when the sun still shines?’
It sniggers. ‘It’s called Night’s Barrow for a reason. No light reaches down here, we are removed from that cycle. Mostly I sleep when the sun soars because…’ He seems to think better of telling me.
‘…because you need your beauty sleep?’Because keeping yourself together takes so much effort. You can ride the night only if you sleep during the day.
‘You would do well to keep a civil tongue in your head – if you wish to keep it.’
‘I’m not some child or maiden to scare so easily, and certainly not by some hermit crab of a thing, stealing husks and homes, scavenging the lives of children.’
