Episode One: The Black Island (Part One)
"You're not to go out fooling with those lizards today. Don't you know it's nearly winter?"
Bran's foster-mother barely looked up from the hearth as he trotted downstairs, heavy leather boots clumping. As if they were going to let that stop them! Bran nodded seriously until she turned away, then stole from the back of the house without a sound. His cloak pulled high around his cheeks, he dashed into the woods. He could already see Saewin waiting there for him.
"Alright!" called the other young man. He was nearly invisible in the bare trees, the head of his wolf-skin pulled up over his long sandy hair. Bran was infinitely jealous of the wolfskin. His foster-mother said it was too lower-class for him – but he'd trade this finely embroidered cloak and twenty-two years of expectations in a heartbeat. The sewn-shut eyes of Saewin's wolf seemed to wink at him.
"It is pretty damn cold," admitted Bran as they set off at a jog through the woods. The frosty air brought out the sweetness of the grass, and the grey sky shone like silver above. A flight of crows sprang up from a bare-branched oak, cawing harshly as they passed.
"Not for the dragons," said Saewin, vaulting over a fallen tree. They shared a grin.
A fast fifteen minute's walk led them to a dip in the hill. Bran led the way beneath a curtain of weeds, a jumble of boulders; and they pushed their way out into a hollow, the grey mirror of a tarn at its center.
Saewin's wolf tail rustled across the leaf-litter as they hopped over to the water. Out at the edge of the tarn, cold turf gave way to grey stones, wobbling under their feet. There was a fine mist in the air, drifting across the top of the hollow and soaking through their clothes. Saewin stamped his feet – wrapped in wool and cheap linen rather than waterproof boots like Bran's – and blew on his hands. Bran stooped and tossed a few pebbles on the water, idly watching the ripples. The fine branches of the trees overhead, extended like the bones of birds' wings, wavered in the pool. Suddenly there was a flash of red among the ripples, and Bran whipped his head up as two luminous green eyes appeared in the water. Sitting on the other side of the pool was a rust-red dragon, twice as tall as a man, with a magnificent crest of horns above its glowing eyes. It had its tongue out, panting, and steamed with heat in the cold air.
"Nice and quick, Emer," said Saewin approvingly. "Now come over here, would you? I'm not walking all the way around."
Emer stretched open her mouth in an enormous yawn, revealing rows of vicious looking teeth.
"I'm not playing games, you know," said Saewin. He hooked his thumbs into his belt – and keeled into the water with a splash.
"What the devil!" he panted, coming up thrashing in the icy tarn. Bran was doubled over laughing. Emer pranced about tossing her wings and tail, eyes closed with mirth. Saewin hauled himself half onto a nearby boulder, breathless with cold, and came nose-to-nose with a pale reptilian face. Amber eyes held his for a long instant. Then it tilted slowly to one side, looked at him carefully for a moment more – and then ran its steaming, stinking tongue up the side of his face.
"Yeuch!" cried Saewin, falling back into the tarn and splashing water frantically across his cheek.
"Good dragon, oh you good dragon, Arwel!" called Bran, and the white dragon broke its perfect stillness, bounding over and knocking him flat.
"You bastards," grumbled Saewin, dragging himself out of the water and divesting himself of the dripping wolfskin. He shook it out and tossed it across a rock, then looked down at his sodden tunic in disgust.
"Oh, come on, Saewin, let's go for an adventure!" pleaded Bran, escaping from the attentions of Emer and Arwel.
"Phah," said Saewin. "Give me your coat."
They retrieved the dragons' harnesses from the little store under the roots of a pine tree at the edge of the hollow. Arwel held obligingly still while Bran tugged the straps tight under his chest. Emer, of a less quiet disposition, made Saewin chase her with the leather saddle, the embroidery on Bran's cloak flashing behind him in the patchy sunlight. Bran grinned and clipped the safety line firmly to his belt.
Soon they were soaring up above the tops of the bare forest, climbing in a steady spiral, the sloping hill of the island grey and brown around them. The dragons' wings were stretched out to catch the blossoming breeze. The sun glittered off their thin reptilian skin, tracing the lines of their bones. They rose above the dip in the land, and Bran saw the wide grey sea spread to the west. There was a break in the clouds and pale sun poured through, splashing upon the vast cold waves below.
Saewin gestured, and the two dragons swung around in a smooth bank, heading out towards the sea. Leading out towards the horizon were the little islands they had all grown up with, spray-tossed rocks for the most part, a jagged line of teeth. Bran and Saewin had explored them all long ago, and after a quarter-hour's flight, when they reached them, they swung around to the south. Suddenly Emer, now some distance off to Arwel's right, began to wing swiftly upwards towards the low cloud. Saewin flashed Bran a grin as Arwel tore after them.
"Cheating won't help you beat us!" yelled Bran through the rushing wind, and saw Saewin laugh.
The two dragons sped upwards, wrapping around each other in a tightening spiral. Bran clenched his fingers around the straps and dug his heels into Arwel's sides as they nosed up towards vertical.
"C'mon, Arwel, c'mon!"
The dragon's pale wings swept around him, buffeting him with warm, fishy air. Propping his chin against Arwel's shoulder, Bran saw Emer's red belly barely a wing-length away, beginning to fall behind.
"Hah!" he shouted, knowing Saewin wouldn't be able to hear him. Then they plunged into the cloud.
For a long few moments, they were wrapped in cold and damp, the clammy greyness pressing around them. Bran instantly regretted lending Saewin his waterproof coat. Then, as suddenly as they had entered it, they burst out of the cloud into the sun-drenched white mountains above. This was always Bran's favourite part of flying. The early winter sun blazed above them as they soared through a silent world of blue and brilliant white. Arwel's vertical path curved over upside down, his great ivory wings extending, and they shot around to the side, between two towering cliffs of cloud. Bran hooked his toes under the stirrups and clung on, feeling the sickening pull of gravity.
"Wahooo!" he yelled in elation, the wind snapping through his hair.
A red streak burst out of the clouds down below: Emer, Saewin crouching on her back. The pair soared up towards Bran and Arwel, showing no sign of turning aside. When they were so close that Bran could see Saewin's teeth bared in a wicked grin, his blond ponytail streaming behind, he called, "Evasive action, Arwel!" and tugged on the dragon's left shoulder. Arwel rolled to the side as Emer and Saewin shot past in a blaze of scarlet. For a second Bran had to close his eyes as the white dragon spun in a vortex, then, as he felt his fingers giving way, Arwel opened his wings with a crack and they banked down to the clouds below. Bran twisted around to look up behind him. There was Saewin, holding tight to Emer's saddle as she swung back towards them, perhaps two wingspans above. Seeing Bran watching, Saewin shifted his grip and waved nonchalantly, clinging to Emer's vertical back by his knees and one hand. Then he gripped the straps tight and, leaning forward, spurred the red dragon into a fierce dive. Bran saw the racing glint in Emer's eye, and crouched low over Arwel's back with a grin as they sped into a dive of their own.
The four of them raced and joked for a little while, holding their course south-west, until Saewin lead them back down below the clouds. Another few seconds of chill wetness, and they plunged back into the real world below. The clouds had closed in and the sea was slate grey. Bran, pushing himself up a little to peer over Arwel's shoulder, shivered. The sun had gone while they were fooling around upstairs, and a cold wind whistled through the gaps in his jerkin.
The dragons gradually slowed their breakneck pace as a dark smudge appeared on the horizon, steadily growing larger. When they began to make out black cliffs, with little tufts of white the thrashing waves at their base, Saewin pulled Emer up to glide by Arwel's wing tip, close enough to talk.
"You think that's it?" he shouted.
"Dunno," Bran called back, feeling a shiver of excitement and fear in his chest all the same. "It's worth checking it out though! Are you sure that's not one we've done before?"
Saewin didn't justify this slur with an answer, and instead, with a rude gesture, swung Emer down in an inverted bank. They levelled out with a roll halfway between Bran's height and the gray ocean. Bran shrugged and sent Arwel swooping down after them. Saewin was the best navigator he'd ever seen, able to hold times and speeds and distances in his head in a way that simply baffled Bran. Himself, he'd get lost in the fields around the village, where he'd played since he was five.
Soon they were drawing near to the island. It was a little larger than the barren rocklets closer to home, but not by much. Below, massive waves pounded against the shore. They looked much bigger than they had from above, thought Bran with trepidation as the two dragons flapped gently over the beach.
At the top of the cliffs, a solid mass of pines ran right to the sheer drop, their tangled roots hanging out into space. They cruised around it for a moment or two before Bran spotted a clear space where a rockfall had cleared out the trees not long before. It was a squeeze, trying to get both dragons down on the uneven, log-strewn ground, but they kept their wings held tight to their sides until the young men could jump down.
"Look at this place," said Saewin, shaking his head. The dragons furled their wings and snarled at each other, their claws skittering against bark and needles, vying for space. "It's like no-one's been here before."
"How could anyone?" Bran pointed out. He pushed his way a couple of steps into the trees. Their branches were spiky, and he shoved against boughs thick with needles. "Ouch! I mean, the only way up those cliffs is by dragon, and I don't see where they would have landed. We were lucky to find a place."
"Which makes this a perfect candidate for the Black Island," said Saewin with satisfaction. He elbowed his way past Emer to stand next to Bran, leaning against the tough bark of a pine.
"Are you sure about this?" asked Bran nervously. Their search for the fabled haunted island had been an exciting focus to their adventures, but every time it looked like they'd found it, Bran's common sense kicked in. Haunted islands where all well and good when you were boasting about your exploits around a fire, but when one was actually on one it was quite different.
"Oh, hush, you sissy," said Saewin, putting his hand on Bran's head to boost himself onto a low branch. Bran pushed him off irritably, brushing at his hair, as Saewin clambered over the branch and dropped down onto the pine needles on the other side. "This looks like as good a track as any," he said, turning back to grin at Bran, who could barely see him through the tree.
"There isn't any track at all!"
"Well, we're going to make one," said Saewin, pulling the edges of Bran's cloak over his hands. "We'll have to leave the dragons, of course, but I'm sure we'll be able to find our way back. Come on!" And with that he pushed his way off into the trees.
Bran threw up his hands in irritation, but as Saewin's furious rustling began to die down, he scrambled up onto the low branch, resigned to following him. He couldn't very well leave Saewin to run off on his own, after all – who knew what sort of mischief he'd get himself into.
"You two will be alright here?" he called unhappily to the dragons. Arwel took a pause from gnawing at Emer's tail to chirp reassuringly at him, then broke off to snarl at Emer as she snapped at him.
"Great," said Bran, without conviction, and hopped down into the forest.
He soon caught up to Saewin, who had become stuck navigating a particularly tangled thicket. The two of them pressed upwards. The grey sky, or what little they saw of it over the treetops, seemed to press down as they battered their way through the forest. After a while, it began to rain; beneath the canopy, all that reached the friends were tiny specks, fine as mist.
They came upon the top very suddenly: one moment, Bran was wearily shoving at yet another spiky green bough; the next, he was staggering forward onto flat turf. Saewin, taking a turn walking behind, fell after him with a thud.
"Ooh," he said, when he managed to roll himself over and look up at Bran, who was rooted to the spot.
"Can we go back now?" said Bran in a strangled voice. In the breathless, frustrating climb he'd quite forgotten to be afraid, but now – with heavy clouds beginning to roil in the circle of sky over their heads – his heart was in his mouth.
At the peak of the hill there was a little circle of grass, rough and weathered, and bounded on all sides by the forbidding pines. And at the centre of the circle were three massive stones, two upright and the other laid crosswise across them, as if forming a gigantic door. The thin rain hissed down around them, turning the air opaque and running in rivulets between the grass.
"Been listening to fairy-tales, Bran?" mocked Saewin, pushing himself to his feet. Bran flushed. "Besides, we came all this way. Be a shame not to check it out."
Striding past Bran, Saewin picked his way up the sodden turf towards the arch. Bran, despite his whirling feelings of fear and irritation, noticed that his friend's legs were trembling a little, belying his confident words.
"This was his stupid bloody idea," he snarled under his breath, and squelched after Saewin.
Up close, the stone arch was grimmer and greyer. The sides of the stones, taller than a dragon's wingspan, were jagged and pitted, and pale lichen grew on them in slimy tufts. They seemed to radiate cold. Bran's fingers found the hilt of his knife on his belt and gripped it tight.
Saewin, in front, drew right up to the nearest stone, then glanced back at Bran, bravado and his usual reckless humour overlaying the doubt in his eyes. Slowly he put out his hand, until his palm was hovering just above the rough surface of the rock.
"Don't do it," warned Bran, and Saewin grinned, gritted his teeth, and thrust his hand forward.
Nothing happened. Bran, his knife now somehow in his hand, saw Saewin wobble between disappointment and profound relief.
"The heck kind of haunted island is this?" said Saewin, stepping quickly away from the stone. "There's nothing here. Do you suppose this even is the Black Island?"
"Let's leave now and say it is," suggested Bran.
"Sod that," said Saewin. "I'm at least having a proper look around first. Come on – or are you still being a sissy?"
"I'm not a sissy," said Bran automatically, frowning in irritation.
"Then prove it," taunted Saewin, waggling his eyebrows, and moved off around the stone.
Bran growled to himself, but took a better grip on his knife and followed, keeping a good dragon-length between himself and the stones. The thick iron was reassuring in his palm.
"Saewin, can't you stay where I can see you?" he called. It came out more like a whine, and he shut his mouth in embarrassment.
"Ooh, Bran's scared," said Saewin. Bran caught a glimpse of his own coat as Saewin moved around the other side of the stone. "Come and catch me!" Saewin darted across the gap in the middle of the arch, jumping behind the second stone and out of Bran's line of sight.
"Saewin!" shouted Bran, perforce running after him. The other side of the stone was bare and Saewin-less when he reached it. Bran bit his lip. Suddenly a cold pressure jabbed the middle of his back, and he screamed. From the peals of laughter, he knew even as he whirled around what had happened.
"Bastard," he said, giving Saewin a punch in the ribs with the hilt of his knife. "I could have cut your throat by accident."
"Oh, man, you scream like a girl," was all Saewin said.
"I'll make you scream like a girl if you do that again," snapped Bran, jabbing the knife downwards meaningfully.
"Come and get me then," mocked Saewin, and spreading his arms, he stepped backwards under the arch.
"No!" said Bran almost without thinking, flinging out his free hand after Saewin.
"What, you too scared?" said Saewin. He stretched out his fingertips to brush the stone on either side of him, and stamped on the ground, kicking up little drops of rain. "Come on, Bran. Come and get me."
Bran, with a jolt of terror, felt the cold air suddenly become crackly and thin, and the wind begin to swirl around them, building in pressure. He stumbled backwards almost unthinkingly, unable to drag his eyes from Saewin's pale face under the arch.
"Knew it!" crowed Saewin, apparently not noticing the fractures in the air. He jumped up and down a few times, spraying water in the air. "Poor liddle Bran is fwightened of a patch of grass!"
The dark clouds in the sky suddenly drew together above them, with a speed that shocked Bran, as alert and on edge as he was. The wind howled, an alien shrieking cry, and the ocean of trees around them thrashed their hissing boughs in reply. Bran, staggering, saw Saewin's face turn upwards for a second, fear suddenly stamped in his eyes – and then with an almighty crash, the air in front of him blazed with light and heat, and he was thrown backwards. Brilliant white fire seared his vision, and he flung up his arm in front of his face, the knife flying off somewhere onto the wet grass. For an instant he could only lie there gasping, half blinded, his heart beating a crescendo against his terrified ribs. Then, as the radiance faded, he pushed himself onto his elbow and raised his head, with no idea of what he might find.
There on the crest of the hill where the arch had stood, the top stone was cracked in half, lying fallen between the other two in a circle of scorched turf. Tiny fires still flickered at its edges, being eaten up by the rain, which was now beginning to plummet in earnest, battering against Bran's head and shoulders. Shards of shattered rock were scattered all around the blackened circle, smoking. One the size of Bran's arm had pierced the earth not a handspan from his face. The stones and scorched ground rippled with the evil glow of the fire, billowing smoke and steam into the roiling clouds above. The blackness of the forest closed in all around.
Saewin had disappeared.
For a moment after he woke up, Saewin had no idea where he was. He slowly pulled himself upright, sitting crosslegged on something hard and dusty and sloping – his head cracked against rock as he straightened. Then he remembered the stone arch – Bran's petrified face – the flash of lightning – and a sickening fear settled in the pit of his stomach. Was the island haunted after all? He'd half-believed it, when they'd first began to search for it: how fun, it had seemed; ghosts and sprites and curses – but now, in the deep, seeping chill under the earth, those things seemed much more real and much more deadly.
It took him a little while to gather the courage to move, but his neck was horribly cramped and a shard of rock was stabbing his spine. Crawling forward, his hands blindly waving in the air ahead, Saewin inched along the rock. His whole body ached. His head throbbed. He supposed the cool and the dark were saving him from a serious headache, but he'd trade a good deal of pain for a sight of the sky, or to hear Bran's familiar voice. He wondered with a jolt what had happened to Bran – he hadn't been struck by the lightning, had he?
Forgetting for a moment to check where he was going, Saewin pitched forward all of a sudden as the sandy rock ahead suddenly vanished. He felt a stab of horror – what if he fell down a chasm, or got trapped head-first in a crevice? But instead he skinned his elbows on dirt, just knee-height below.
"Dammit, I wish there was light here," he cried quietly. The noise buzzed oddly in his ears. He realized they were still ringing from the lightning strike.
Slithering down into the dip, he propped his back against the earth and took a breath. Just crawling a few steps had sapped his energy; more from anxiety than the ache in his muscles.
"How am I going to get out of here?" Saewin said to himself. The talking seemed to help quiet his pounding heart, even though it still sounded odd. Maybe the thick-packed dirt weighing down on all sides helped to deaden the sound. The thought of being buried alive brought a sob to his throat, quickly choked back. He wasn't going to cry, or even sniffle. Chances are Bran would show up to rescue him as soon as he started blubbing, and then he'd never here the end of it. Definitely, Saewin thought, as soon as he started to cry, Bran would be there. Maybe he should cry.
He sat for a moment, dry-eyed and shivering as the heavy chill began to creep through his clothes. Then he pulled himself together and began inspecting his assets.
So. Saewin's best skill was how he could navigate anywhere – that's what they all liked him for back home. But there was no sun or stars or breeze down here – nor was there any direction to go. He didn't have anywhere to start from, either – for all he knew, he could have fallen a long distance one way or another. What else did he know how to do? Nothing useful. He could track and shoot and swim, but digging his way out of a tomb of rock had never been something they'd taught the village kids. He could bait a line and gut a fish – no, useless – he could build a fire – he could build a fire! And if he was lucky, he'd put his flint and tinder pouch on his belt that morning.
He was lucky. Ripping a strip off his shirt – vandalizing Bran's nice cloak was tempting, but probably unwise – he scrabbled in the dark for his flints and knocked a few sparks onto the cloth. It took him a few tries, but after several frustrating, fearful minutes, fire blossomed on the ground in front of him.
Saewin was afraid that the fire would illuminate something terrible – a grinning skeleton, a hobgoblin, something worse – but instead the first shape he could make out in the flickering orange light was a box. A thick box, made of oak planks and bound with iron – like the boxes that were sometimes on the trade ships that came past the island when the wind was fair. Inching over to the box, Saewin laid a hand on its side. It was cold and slightly damp, but that was just the natural dampness of the earth. He waited a moment, but nothing shrieked or scratched or tried to eat him. He stood up slowly, then stretched his hand above his head when it didn't hit anything. His palm pressed against solid rock when his elbow was nearly straight.
Comforted by this – probably nothing was lurking above him, then – Saewin turned right around, conscious that the light was dying quickly. There were a lot more boxes, and more – barrels and bundles and sacks of heaven knew what. Saewin's little circle of light didn't go far, and shadows flocked between all these strange shapes. There were stacks of things in every direction – oh, no, that was a wall – and there too – the fire at Saewin's feet turned dull red as it began to die, but he figured that he was in the corner of a fairly large cave, completely full of Things. What kind of haunted secret island was this?
Kicking hopefully at the nearest box, Saewin found it too well made for firewood, and resigned himself to tearing another strip from his shirt. He was fully aware that he couldn't go on like that forever, and that sooner or later he'd run out of things to burn. In the new light, he turned around to see where he'd come from, and his heart dropped into his stomach. Behind him, the solid rock of the ceiling was crumpled and cracked like an eggshell: heavy chunks of rock tumbled against each other in a jumble of dirt and dust and pebbles the size of Saewin's fist. He'd obviously fallen just clear of it. A few splinters and some scraps of cloth, caught under the debris, made him shiver. It would have been nasty had those been bones and blood.
Tossing what scraps he could gather on his little fire, Saewin took out his knife and began prying at the sides of his box. There was no digging out the way he came in – he was afraid even to breathe on the rubble, in case it came down more. The panic of being crushed spiked in Saewin's throat, and he jammed his knife in harder, forcing himself to think of something else. Maybe there'd be buried treasure?
The box was sturdy and well-made, but a few minutes sawing and jimmying at the thick iron nails, and Saewin could pry free a few of the planks at the side. He stacked them carefully over his little fire, which was becoming a happy blaze. He went to stick his hand inside the box, but his courage failed him and instead he poked in his knife, touch by proxy. No spiders or ancient curses poured out – and when Saewin drew out his blade, it tugged with it a piece of fine cloth. His knife had made a hole in it. Sitting on the box, Saewin leaned down and drew it through his fingers. He had never felt silk before, but – after the day's grime and crawling around and hacking at things – it felt like heaven against his hands.
"Wow," said Saewin softly. In the orange firelight, who could tell what colour it was, but it had a beautiful sheen. Eagerly he stood up and, heaving the box into his arms, he shook it to see what else would come out. The rest of the piece of fabric slithered through and fell to the floor in a heap. A couple of others followed them, and he kicked them quickly away from the fire. Then he sat back down on the box – a lot lighter now – and put his chin in his hands, struck by sudden despair again. He'd found some kind of a treasure after all – but he still had no idea how to get out. Maybe Bran will work out a way, he thought wistfully. But Saewin knew that that was unlikely. If he's even still alive.
The air was beginning to feel hot and stuffy, and to stick in his throat. The smoke from the fire was gathering thick overhead. Saewin realized that, without noticing it, he'd begun to gasp for breath. Maybe that fire wasn't such a good idea after all. He was suddenly tired, and his head hurt. Feeling utterly depressed and utterly alone, Saewin allowed himself to slither off the box and sink down on the bolts of cloth strewn across the dusty floor. The crackling brightness of the fire singed his eyes. It was beginning to suffocate again, the remains of its fuel dark charred scraps. Saewin turned his head to look up at the roof – towards the sky – lost again in shadows. He felt a couple of tears wind down his cheek, but could not muster the energy to wipe them away.
Just as his eyes were beginning to fall closed, there was a scruffling, scratching sound, getting louder and louder. That'll be the hobgoblins, coming for me at last, was Saewin's weary thought. Then a pebble struck him in the face. And then another one, and a shower of dirt – then a big rock fell on his shoulder.
"Ouch!" yelped Saewin, jolted into starting up. His head spun and he fell back to the ground, shoulder stinging fiercely. And then suddenly, as he turned his face fearfully upwards, a great hole burst open in the roof, and a gust of cold, fresh, sweet air burst through. Along with a shower of freezing rain that battered against Saewin, a pair of enormous yellow eyes appeared in the opening.
"Saewin?" called Bran croakily, once he had gotten his voice back. There were still flickers of fire around the edge of the destruction, beginning to hiss as they died in the rain. Veils of smoke billowed out towards him as the wind changed, wreathing him in white.
For a few moments, Bran could only stand there, stunned by the devastation. The stone arch was completely gone, lying in a tumbled heap of rock. He could feel the heat radiating from it. He knew he should feel – something – grief, fear, anger – denial: but his mind would not take it in. He couldn't move. The wind plucked at his clothes, mud-spattered and stained with ash, sending the hem of his tunic fluttering behind him towards the woods.
There was a gap in the trees in front of him. The arch had obscured it before, but now he could see – a little cleft in their dark tangle, and through it the sea. Waves, waves, salt spray – a growing storm; a whirling, slate grey mass, to the horizon. But on the horizon … Bran saw with a suddenness that made him wonder if it had been there all along – a light across the water. Pure white, a sickly white amid the somber darkness. Somewhere on the edge of the ocean, somewhere far off to the south. A light.
Then he set off running. Before the thought had even entered his mind – before he could think at all – his feet were thudding over the pine needles and twigs under the trees, down the rough track they'd battered through before. Every step jarred his whole body, shuddering up his ribs, his spine. He crashed head-first into a branch. Needles whipped against his face, into his nose and mouth – he shoved them away and tore on. He didn't know where he was going; or even what he was afraid of, but he ran, on and on, until he couldn't breathe. The slope of the ground, slippery with mud and the loose layer of needles, made it hard to stop. It was a headlong plunge, uncontrollable.
Underneath the dead, gasping, overpowering desire to keep running, Bran began to feel panic – what if he couldn't stop? Where was the cliff – where were the dragons?
Then he ran into a tree. Its solid trunk stopped him dead, holding him upright for a moment before he slid to the ground, sprawling on his back. His nose blazed with pain. The rest of his face felt numb. He lay there breathless for a moment, feeling the damp of the ground seep through his clothes. Rain began to fall through the branches on his hair, and he turned his face to the sky. Above the trees he could see the grey clouds, crying.
Bran let his head fall back onto the needles. After a moment he realized he was crying too. Tears ran into his ears and pooled in the hollows of his eyes. They mingled with the rain, running off him, and bleeding into the earth. A sob shook his body, startling him; he sniffed, gasped; sobbed again. His throat was thick. He could barely breathe.
A few minutes of wretched crying, and he pulled himself onto his side, and then to sitting upright, his legs tucked beneath him, his feet on the bole of the tree. Rivulets of rainwater trickled into his boots. He scrubbed his hand across his eyes and under his nose, and then pushed himself to his feet. They slipped in the mud, and he steadied himself against a branch. It scraped his palm. He didn't care. He stood for a moment, leaning against it, letting the feelings flood through his body. They came and went as quickly as the lightning – fear, nausea, shame, pain, an agonizing stab of guilt. And they drained away, leaving him with nothing but awful, aching tiredness, tiredness in his bones. He pressed his head against the branch, feeling the bark sting his face; the rain run down beneath his collar. How had it been only this morning, that they'd fooled around by the tarn? It felt like a year ago. But Saewin's wolfskin would still be drying on the rocks back there. His footsteps would still be in the mud.
Lacking anything better to do, Bran pulled himself up and plodded on, downhill, his head downcast. The strange cowardice that had seized him up on the hilltop seemed to have washed away, faded down to a quiver beneath his ribs.
He found the dragons again purely by accident; by stumbling into their little clearing, not looking where he was going. He tripped over a warm red branch and would have fallen had it not swooped up to catch him around the middle.
"Oh," said Bran quite tonelessly, extricating himself from Emer's tail. The dragons looked at him curiously, both their heads tilted on exactly the same angle. Bran sat down heavily, his legs suddenly turned to water. Arwel's solid bulk appeared behind him, ivory wings drooping around him like blankets. The white dragon crooned worriedly, and licked his face. It stung, but Bran didn't push him away.
Emer made a noise half-way between a snort and a mew, and Bran glanced up at her, gently lifting Arwel's wing away. She was standing half-upright, her forepaw raised, narrow snout straining towards the hilltop.
"It's not my fault," he whispered. The scales on Arwel's wings glistened like tiny pearls in the storm-light.
Suddenly, like a banner unfurling, Emer's coiled form sprang into the air. She soared up away from the cliff, a red streak against the clouds. Arwel huffed as they were buffeted by her wings' draught.
"Come on," said Bran hoarsely, pulling himself out from under Arwel's grip. The white dragon gave a whistle of protest. "No, she's right," said Bran. He hauled himself onto Arwel's back, though the dragon tried to brush him back to the ground. "We – we have to at least look. We have to look, Arwel."
He clung to Arwel's back, shivering, as they flapped reluctantly after Emer, who was barely visible circling over the crest of the hill. Bran turned his face away from the south, burying it in Arwel's shoulder. Saewin wouldn't be afraid of a light, snarled part of him. But the other part said sadly, And look what happened.
The fires on the hilltop were dead by the time they had circled down and landed. Emer, stalking the forest's edge, had her wings drawn back and was hissing. Bran could feel Arwel trembling beneath him. If even the dragons disliked the stones …
"Come on," said Bran again, as he slipped to the ground over Arwel's shoulder. He turned his face to the north, feeling a prickling in the back of his scalp, and strode resolutely across the blackened grass towards the wreck. It crunched beneath his boots. He trod the soot into the rain-soaked ground, trying to focus on how it scraped under his heels. "Dig," said Bran. "Here." He jabbed downwards – his knife was in his hand again, and how had that happened? Arwel gave him a long look, the pupils in his amber eyes just slits. Emer, lashing her tail in the sodden pine needles, huffed and slithered up the hill. When her nose touched the burnt circle she whined.
"You – useless – just dig!" cried Bran in frustration. He bit his knuckles, shocked himself. But Emer, with a reproachful glare, began to claw at the turf before the stones. Dark sods showered down the slope. The muscles under her crimson skin rippled. Bran took a couple of steps staggering back, finding himself once again close to tears. He pressed the hilt of his knife, cool metal, into his palm. Arwel was beside him. The white dragon levered up the fallen stone, ash trickling between his claws, as Emer heaved away the dirt. Suddenly they both snuffled, leaned forward – Arwel, transferring the jagged block of stone to his hind foot, plunged nose downwards, scrabbling furiously. Then the earth fell away, and Bran leaning forward saw, amid swathes of gold and purple and turquoise, Saewin's pale face staring up at him.
"The heck kind of haunted island is this?" said Bran. He let a bolt of scarlet silk dribble through his palms.
"That's what I said," said Saewin. He kicked a box, and it clattered beneath the hole in the ceiling. Rain hissed against it, and Arwel – his shoulders still hunched in paranoia – spun around, hissing.
"Oh, knock it off," called Bran to the pacing dragon. He pulled some cloth around his shoulders, twirling to see how it felt. The terror and grief he'd felt not ten minutes ago had disappeared – he felt like laughing at it now. Emer, too, seemed to be having fun: she was crashing around further down the cave, her long tail sweeping over piles of barrels and bales without regard.
"I think I've figured it out, though," Saewin told him. His was still pale, and his hands were yet to stop shaking, but he was walking, and moving, and breathing, and Bran felt filled with happiness.
"Yeah?" he said. The silk slithered off his shoulders.
"I reckon this is a smuggler's hideout," said Saewin. "Or something. They let everyone think the place is cursed – set up a stone arch to freak everyone out – maybe spread some rumours, wreck a couple ships nearby – and boom, no-one comes near. Pretty shrewd, really."
"But the Black Island's been a story for ages – a hundred years at least," Bran pointed out. He caught Arwel's nose as it swept past and held it to his chest, stroking his forehead.
"So?" said Saewin. "There's a lot of stuff here. Maybe it's a pirate hoard instead!" He leant backwards against a barrel as tall as himself, knocking excitedly on its side. "Back when I was jumping about under the arch before – when you were being a sisssy – " they exchanged stuck-out tongues – " well – it felt all hollow, and springy. I reckon there was a trapdoor under there, before it got all squished."
"Alright then, tell me this – how did the pirates or whatever get all their loot up here in the first place?" Bran pointed out reasonably. Arwel snorted into his armpit, and Bran let him go. The dragon sat back on his haunches, his eyes looking more normal. He blew a raspberry, showering Bran with spit, and Bran flopped against his shoulder, relieved.
Saewin was biting his lip. "Nah, you got me there," he sighed. "Maybe there used to be a path –"
At that moment, there was a crash and a shriek from the other end of the cave, and all eyes whipped around, Arwel letting out a stuttering snarl. Emer glanced back at them, comically startled. Her explorations, over-exuberant, had smashed a trapdoor hidden in the cave's rugged floor, and the shattered shards of wood lay all around Emer's feet like broken eggshell. Saewin dashed over, Bran dragging a reluctant Arwel behind. The four of them peered over the rim, into the darkness. They could just make out a rough tunnel; some stairs cut into the rock and a pile of torches laid waiting by a wooden ladder.
Bran and Saewin looked sideways at each other.
"No way," said Bran with feeling.
"Oh, so way," said Saewin. He jumped down, landing with a puff of dust. "This is such a good idea."
Emer and Arwel locked eyes, and as one looked down at Bran. For a moment he forgot all about the fear and the superstitions, the lightning strike and the light across the water – and grinned down at Saewin.
"You're such a moron," he said, and jumped down too.